The House of Fëanor : Little Pity by bunn  

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It’s Always Ourselves That We Find in the Sea.

(for this chapter it may be useful if I remind you that Elrond is descended from the House of Bëor on both sides: via his great-grandfather Beren son of Barahir, but also via his grandfather Tuor, son of Rian, daughter of Belegund.) 

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Gulls were calling about the tall tower of Koromas that towered above the pine-trees, riding the Tol Eressëa wind on strong grey wings. 

“Phew!” Frodo said, sitting down on the step at the bottom of the tower rather abruptly, and getting out his pipe.  “A steep climb, that!”

“The view’s well worth the climb, though,” Bilbo said.  He got his pipe lit, and proudly puffed a smoke ring out west, towards the Bay of Eldamar, surging with waves in the September sunlight, towards the white-tipped mountains of the Pelóri and the pass of the Calacirya. He waved the pipe-stem. “I can see all the way to Tirion!” 

The white spire of the Mindon Eldaliéva was twinkling in the far distance between the grey mountain-walls.   High above it, too far for hobbits to see,  Maglor’s eyes could just pick out the great wings of the Eagles of Manwë, as they wheeled around the high peaks, and soared across the Calacirya. 

Maglor no longer lived in the house of his foster-son Elrond.  He had listened to the plaintive urgings of his people who lived in Tirion, and had taken a house in the Fëanorian Quarter of the city where he could be their voice to the King, and where old friends, brothers and cousins could more easily visit and be visited.  Conveniently, there was room for a growing collection of musical instruments of all kinds there too. He would never play quite the music that had rung through the shining streets of Tirion by the light of Trees of Gold and Silver, but there were still songs to be sung there, even after so long. 

But Celebrían, in her usual whirl of kindly thoughts and words, had decided that he must keep a room in her house too, at least for visiting.   Today, he had returned to the isle of Tol Eressëa, after several months absence, for a celebration. He intended to stay for a while. 

“Happy twenty-fifty-first birthday, Bilbo,” Frodo said, and produced his own smoke-ring, rather like a very small contented dragon, Maglor thought.    

“And a happy seventeenty-third birthday to you too!” Bilbo replied with a grin. “Both of us well past the Old Took now, and vanished into the lands beyond the West Wind.  It’s a pity they’ll never know about it, back in the Shire.  It would do them good.  Shake them up a bit.”

“The Shire did get a good shaking.  Not a happy one,” Frodo pointed out.  “And from what Sam says, it has changed a good deal since, too. It’s not as inward-looking as it was.”  He laughed.  “You’re a legend there anyway, even without vanishing behind the West Wind, Sam says.  You’re Mad Baggins, he who vanishes in a bang and a flash, and reappears with bags of gold and jewels!  Mad Baggins the barrel-rider, who can call down fire from the heavens, who dances with Elves beneath the stars, and is pursued by angry dragons that never catch him!”   

“A proud legacy!” Bilbo said.  “The name of Baggins will never be the same again.  No doubt the Sackville-Bagginses are spinning merrily in their graves at the thought.”

Elrohir had wandered away from the smoke, over to the top of the cliff face to the east of the tower.  He was looking out between the tops of the trees towards the horizon. He stiffened, and his head went up.  

“I can see a ship,” he said.

“Not one of the Teleri fleet?” Frodo asked, and scrambled to his feet. Maglor followed him to look out too.  

“No.  Too small. Wrong shape. Wrong direction.”

“I can’t see it,” Bilbo said, frustrated, peering on tip-toes. “It’s too far away.”

“It has green sails,” Elrohir said.  He took a deep breath.  “And it looks in form like one of the ships of the Anduin.”

“Legolas!” Frodo exclaimed. 

“Oh dear,” Bilbo said. 

It should have been good news, that Frodo and Sam would see again their companion with whom they had travelled so far in Middle-earth.  But Maglor knew it meant more than that to each of his three companions, for Legolas son of Thranduil would not have left Middle-earth unless Aragorn the King had died.   

“I thought I would know,” Elrohir said, in a hurt, wondering voice.  “I thought even here beyond the Sea, I would know when Estel chose to die.”

There was nothing that could possibly be said to that, so Maglor tentatively put a comforting arm around his shoulder, since Bilbo, who had known Elrohir and Aragorn and Arwen too, in Rivendell, was not tall enough to offer such comfort.  Elrohir did not seem to mind, and leant against him for a moment. 

Then he rubbed a hand down his face and straightened up.  “Like losing a younger brother,” he said. “Not that I expected to see him again, but...  I suppose we had better go down and tell my father.”

“Quicker to speak to him mind to mind,” Maglor suggested.  “It will take us a while to walk down to Avallónë again, and by that time, the ship may be close enough to see from the shore anyway.”

“You do it,” Elrohir said.  So Maglor reached out with his mind to Elrond, just within reach a mile or so below, and very politely and formally, showed him what they had seen, and received grave and equally formal thanks in reply. 

. . . . . .

By the time they had made their way back down into Avallónë, the hobbits and Elrohir were exchanging stories about their old friend Aragorn, and about Legolas, too, who, it seemed Elrohir had known from long ago visits to Mirkwood in the days when it had been Greenwood the Great, before the shadow had fallen there.   

By the time they had made their way up the long grassy path to the house of Elrond and Celebrían, they were managing to smile at memories of friends in Middle-earth.  

Elrond came out to meet them looking as calm and composed as ever, and if Maglor had not known him for a very long time, he would have thought him quite untroubled. 

“I’ve sent a messenger for Galadriel and Celeborn,” he said. “Shall we meet them at the harbour?”

They called Sam from the kitchen, where he and Celebrían had been deeply engrossed in icing a large birthday cake together, and set off.

. . . . . . 

The green-sailed ship turned cautiously into the wind and hove to, well outside the harbour wall. It seemed that nobody on board was familiar with the harbour at Avallónë. 

 A low, swift rowing gig put out to meet it, filled with joyful Falmari who hailed the ship enthusiastically.  On the sharp blue bow of the gig, huge white gannets with fierce blue eyes sat,  and from time to time with a casual flick of a wing, took off, diving in and out of the clear green water ahead.

One of the Falmari called out, a clear call with no discernable words, although it had a music to it. Then she threw up a rope.  A great white-winged gannet burst from the waves and caught the rope as it flew, carrying it safely to the people on the ship.  Once it was secured, they began to tow it with great care into the harbour-mouth.  

The sailors on the ship were Elves clad in green and brown, most of them rather short in stature compared with the Falmari, and considerably shorter than the Noldor on the quayside. They stared up at the tall carved-stone houses of Avallónë wide-eyed. 

Elrond called out a courteous greeting to them in a dialect that Maglor had not heard before, but which clearly had Nandorin roots to it.  These must, presumably be Wood-elves.  The tallest of them, serious-faced and bright-eyed,  who raised a hand to Elrond in greeting, must be Legolas, the grandson of Oropher of Doriath.  

Galadriel and Celeborn, who had joined the people waiting on the harbour-side, were smiling in greeting.  Oropher’s dislike of Celeborn was widely known, but that feud did not extend to Oropher’s grandson. 

Legolas would very likely have no objection to meeting a son of Fëanor either.  Though if he did, no doubt he would get over it: Celeborn had, more or less. 

The Falmari brought the ship in and tied it up.   Legolas went to the bow, where someone was sitting out of the way of the mast — sleeping, apparently, as Legolas leant down to shake his shoulder.  

A short sturdy white-bearded figure started and got up rather stiffly, and Maglor felt an incredulous grin creep onto his face, for this was a new thing in all the land of Aman, something that never had been seen here before in all the long years of his life. One of Aulë’s Children had come into the West.

“Gimli!” Frodo called out in delight.  “You came!”  

Gimli son of Glóin was taller than those of his people that Maglor had known in Middle-earth, and very finely dressed, with cunningly-wrought beads woven into his white hair and beard. Among the Wood-elves in their simple greens and browns, he shone like a fine gem in a plain wooden box.  

He was clearly a very old dwarf, by the measure of his people, but still hale and strong.  He looked up at Galadriel standing above the ship on the quayside, and bowed low.  Rather to Maglor’s surprise, Galadriel answered with a deep, full curtsey. 

“Welcome, Gimli!” she said.  “It has been long since we spoke in Minas Tirith of the way into the West.  I am glad to see you have come at last!” 

“How could I not?” he said, and made his way up the ladder that the Falmari had set upon the deck. He seemed to have no difficulty with the steps, though Legolas followed him close behind, watching lest the old dwarf should stumble as he climbed. 

Gimli reached the top, turned, and with an amused look down at Legolas behind him, extended a hand to help him up the last step. Legolas smiled, took it, and let Gimli pull him up, though it was clear he was in no need of assistance.  He looked at least as strong and lithe as any of the Falmari mariners. 

Gimli bowed to Galadriel again smiling.  “Legolas lost his heart to the Western Sea long ago.  Who knows what trouble he might get into in this strange land? I could hardly allow him to go off without me!  Not when I had been invited by the very Morning Star of the Elves to join him on his voyage.”

Such a regal invitation must have been issued long before Galadriel had returned to Aman, supposedly as a humble penitent, Maglor thought to himself with a private grin. She and Maglor on the same ship, the only one left of the the rebel princes who had led the Noldor to Middle-earth. He and Galadriel, who had alike been required to sue for pardon, after Morgoth’s fall.  It was almost as if the Valar could not see how great a distance lay between them.  

Galadriel  must have been very sure that the Valar would agree to her request on Gimli’s behalf.  Not that Galadriel had ever been afraid of taking risks. 

“You’ve got here in the nick of time!” Sam told Legolas and Gimli.  “It’s Frodo and Bilbo’s birthday today, did you remember?” 

“How could we forget a feast of such importance!” Legolas laughed. “We had hoped that we might come in time, though it was hard to judge, since we did not know quite how far we might have to sail.”  

“The lady Celebrían and I have made a good big cake, ” Sam told them.

“A fine welcome indeed!” Gimli said.  “I might have known that even in this strange land of Elves in the west beyond West, you, Sam Gamgee, would have an eye to the food and beer.  I’ll admit that Elves sing sweet enough songs, but give me hobbits for a reliably well-stocked larder, every time.”

“Let us go up to my house,” Elrond said.  “How many people do you have with you, Legolas? Twenty-six?  You are all most welcome to stay with us until you have all decided where you wish to go.”

“Or with us,” Celeborn offered. “You will find a good few friends from Middle-earth here.” 

Legolas’s Wood-elves looked relieved to hear that. Elrond and Celeborn must seem comfortably familiar figures in this land that they had only heard of in distant tales.      

They made their way up through the tall white houses that lined the winding streets of Avallonë, while Frodo and Elrohir introduced Maglor to Gimli and Legolas.  

“The House of Fëanor?” Gimli said, considering him with interest, his eyes taking in the rayed star upon Maglor’s armrings. “Your star was on the Westgate of Moria.  Are you one of the Elves of Hollin, then?”

“Not I,” Maglor said. “My nephew, Celebrimbor.  I am sure he will be eager to meet you, when he hears that you have come here: he knew many of the House of Durin well, and counted them dear friends.  But I fear I never met any of them myself.  Our allies among the Dwarves were further west, in Nogrod and in Belegost - that would be Tumunzahar and Gabilgathol, in your tongue.  I have fought beside Azaghal of Belegost.  A great king and a mighty warrior who did great deeds before at last he fell. He would be a cousin of yours, I think?”

“Cousins!  Perhaps in a very distant way,” Gimli said, looking taken aback.  “But that was so long ago that Azaghal, his kin and all his deeds have passed into legend.  My people remember Celebrimbor of Hollin, but Azaghal... that is a name from a very distant age.”

“I agree Gimli, it’s disconcerting to discover that you’re talking to someone who remembers the oldest stories in person,” Frodo said. “Worse than talking to Elrond, even, when he suddenly mentions meeting someone you thought never really existed... You’ll find it happens here a lot.  You do get used to it eventually!  I must say though, Maglor, I try not to think about you seeing the Sun rise for the first time.  It makes my head ache.”

Legolas was speaking quietly with Elrond, and handing him a small packet of letters.  Elrond tucked the packet into his coat without looking at it. 

Gimli introduced the various Wood-elves, mostly people out of Mirkwood who had followed Legolas to live in Ithilien.  It was strange to be introduced to people who might once have been called Nandor or Laiquendi, by a dwarf, but it was clear they all knew Gimli well and considered him a friend.  Their expressions of subdued awe did not last long.  By the time they had come to the outskirts of the town, Legolas’s people were singing.  

But once Elrond had welcomed his new guests and Sam had served the birthday cake,  he went quietly away up into the orchard with Celebrían, and they did not come back for a long while.   

. . . . . 

Three days later, many of Elrond’s guests and household were sitting by the cliff looking out across the sea. Legolas was teaching Maglor a song he did not know, a wine-making song from the distant land of Dorwinion.  Gimli was telling the hobbits news from the Shire that he had heard from a cousin from the Blue Hills.   

Erestor, Celebrían and Elrond were playing a game of King’s Table, and Celebrían was winning.  Maglor suspected that Elrond was letting her win, but could not see the board quite well enough to be sure without standing up.  

“What is that?”  Celebrían said, pointing out south and west, to the blue waves south of the Long Meadows. “It looks like a little island in the surf.” 

“There’s no island there,” Bilbo said confidently. He stared across the cliff-top and blinked in surprise. “Or at least, there never used to be...” 

There was an island now, dark grey and rugged, just visible through the sea-mist that wreathed pale around it.  High above it, seabirds were shrieking and whirling in shrill alarm, for it was moving, like a mountain walking across the sea bed with the waves crashing around it.  There was a sharp smell in the air, as if a storm were coming. 

“That’s not an island,” Maglor said, uneasily.  “That is one of the Valar.  That is Aulë.”

“Is it?”  Elrond said, unconcerned. “Perhaps he has come to visit Gimli.” Of course, Elrond spoke with Ulmo: presumably visits from the Valar did not trouble him.  

They troubled Maglor, but there was no point hiding from a Vala. If they wanted you, you would be found.  “He seems to be coming here.  We had best go down to meet him.”  

. . . . . . 

Aulë walked ashore onto the white beach below Celebrian’s house upon the cliff, the waves crashing fiercely about his vast feet. 

Aulë was not always so tall, Maglor remembered, from very long ago, when Aulë had been a friend of his father, and meetings with the Valar had been not unusual.  Presumably he had put on this unusually massive form in order to cross the water to the Isle of Exiles more conveniently.

He leant forward, like a landslide, and put out one huge arm.  Bilbo made an alarmed noise and jumped backwards. 

Fëanor stepped from Aulë’s  hand down onto the beach. 

“Well met!” he said generally to the assembled Elves and Hobbits. His keen eyes fixed on Gimli.  Then they went to Maglor, and his eyebrows went up expectantly.  Maglor stepped forward hurriedly to make introductions. 

“I am delighted to meet you,” Fëanor said to Gimli.  “I have long regretted that I met no Dwarves in Middle-earth.  My son Caranthir has told me a good deal of your people.” 

Gimli, who usually had fair words ready for almost any occasion, appeared dumbstruck.  He stared up at the vast looming figure of Aulë,and then back at Fëanor.

Fëanor looked up too, and frowned.  “You are rather too large to speak to at the moment, Aulë” he said critically. “Moderate your size, please!” 

There was a rumbling sound that might have been laughter, and then a vast tumbling movement, as if a mountain were somehow folding in on itself, and Aulë re-shaped himself, pulling himself inward into a size less mountainous, until he was no taller than Fëanor himself.  

As he did so, his feet sank deep into the white sand, and the sea flowed in towards him.  

Fëanor suggested “You might want to reconsider your density.”

Aulë’s starlike eyes gave him a look that was clearly amusement.  He shook himself, massively, and when the shaking had subsided, two bearded Dwarves of equal height stood upon the sand : Gimli son of Glóin, and opposite him, like a sculpture made of dark polished granite, Aulë, the Maker of the Dwarves.

Gimli came out of his moment of startled stillness, and bowed low, and beside him, half a beat behind, Legolas and the hobbits followed.  

“Gimli, son of Glóin at your service,” Gimli said, “though I hope I have been that all my life, Mahal.”  He said something more in Khuzdul, but Maglor could not pick out the words.  He had picked up a little of the language here and there, but the devotional register was not something that could be picked up in snatches from words overheard in passing.  

Aulë bowed, and replied in the same language. 

“I suppose we had better let them get the social niceties out of the way,” Fëanor said to Maglor. “Are you well?”

“I am perfectly well,” Maglor said.  “Since when did you ride around with one of the Valar as your steed?”  

“It seemed convenient,” Fëanor said.  “He came to talk to me.  We had an argument, and then we agreed that we would go to Tol Eressëa together, and that there was no need to wait for the ferry.”

“You had an argument. About...?”

“Plate tectonics.  But that doesn’t matter.  Am I allowed to embrace you?  Last time I tried, you were unhappy with me.”

“I don’t know,” Maglor said.  “Are you planning to start another war?  Have you thought about the implications of arguing with a Vala?” 

Fëanor shook his head and smiled. “I don’t think life in Middle-earth has done you good,” he said. “You have become very serious!”

Maglor stared at him for a moment, turned and walked away along the beach.  The sound of waves hushing along the shore filled his mind with a faint, complicated music that was comforting.  It blanked out other thoughts. 

He came back to himself some considerable time later, and found that he had walked several miles, far past the wide curve of the bay.  He rounded a dark spit of rock, and came to a small bay of clear green water enclosed by tall cliffs.  From the middle of the bay, a sealion with a shining golden coat watched him quizzically with huge dark eyes. 

This was no good.  Tol Eressëa was an island. It would take only a few days to walk entirely around it.  To take the ferry would mean coming back among Elves, but he could probably steal a small boat that could take him north to the long empty shores that led to Araman. 

He had, after all, some practice in theft. The key thing was not to do it with the owners looking on. 

He sat down on a rock and wished he had brought his harp.  But then, it wasn’t essential. Very few things were, once you threw your mind and soul into the sea.

. . . . . .

When the shadows under the cliffs had grown long and dark, Elrond came up, as he used to do every few years in Lindon, carefully making more noise than he needed to so that Maglor would not be surprised. 

“I don’t think the argument with Aulë was serious,” he said. “They seem to be getting on well enough now, Aulë and your father. Gimli and Legolas are telling them about Erebor and the Glittering Caves of Aglarond.”

“Oh.”

“You know, the Dwarves make an art of argument, but very rarely does it come to more than a scuffle”

“True.” 

“Your father asked me to tell you he was sorry.”

“Did he.”

“He wanted to go after you himself,” Elrond said. “I thought it might be better not.”

Surprised, Maglor twisted to look at him. “And he listened?”

“Do you see him here? He listened.”

“I wanted him back the way he was,” Maglor said. “Filled with joy and life, not terrifying and bitter and furious.  For so long, I wanted that. And he is.  He is just like that. But I’m not.  I am old and faded.”  He looked at Elrond.  “So are you.  Old, anyway.”

Elrond looked at him with clear untroubled grey eyes. “That’s the choice I made.”  

“I asked you if you regretted it, once. You said you didn’t. But you were very young then.”

“I still don’t regret it,” Elrond said. “Someone has to wait and watch.  From the fall of Thangorodrim, to one day, the old man writing in the Fëanorian letters, and making a mistake because the letters are so very old that even they are faded in the mind’s eye. And beyond. But my memory doesn’t go back so far as far as yours.  Stay and watch with me?”

“You have Galadriel for that.  And Círdan.  Anyway, we’re in the West.  We’re outside the songs of Middle-earth, now.” 

“You’re far too tough to be called faded. You’re a little ragged around the edges, that’s all. Stay anyway.”

“Since it’s you that asks, of course,” Maglor said, getting up. He gave Elrond an apologetic look.  “You should not have to run after me, when Arwen...”

“It made a welcome distraction,” Elrond told him.  He looked out at the bay, his fair calm face showing no obvious emotion.  The sealion was chasing the faint shadows of glittering fish through the clear green water. “Don’t write a lament for Arwen.”

Maglor shook his head. “I won’t.  Not unless you ask me to.”

“For half of me, it’s still too near for songs,” Elrond said.  “And the other half of me says, it should not be a lament.  Not for Arwen or for Aragorn.  Arwen chose for love, and she went on, like Lúthien.  I know that it was hard for her, at the ending, to be left alone in grief, but...”  he seemed to run out of words. 

“But death is not the end of the story, and should not overwhelm the rest,” Maglor supplied. 

“Something like that.”  Elrond did not look at him. “It sounds more convincing when you say it.” 

“I can make a song of triumph, one day, if you decide you want one. A convincing one.”

“Perhaps in a few years,” Elrond said.  “Grief loses its edge, with time.  For each of the Edain, it fades. Still there, for every one of them, each name, each face. But the edges become less sharp and bitter... Not that I need to tell you that.” 

“You have told me.  It’s not the same, for Elves.”

“No.  No, it isn’t. Or it wasn’t, in the end. ” The shadow of Everlasting Darkness lay behind their thought for a moment. But they had seen it off, at least for now.

“You have had enough of sorrow.” Maglor said. 

“Perhaps I have.”  Elrond straightened. “Though I think on the whole, the joy has been worth the grief. I’ll stop wallowing in it.  It doesn’t help.” 

“Now you tell me. I spent centuries wallowing in grief!” 

Elrond looked sideways at him and the edge of his mouth curled up. “You’re a singer and a poet. You’re supposed to do that sort of thing!” 

“Oh, and Master Elrond has never been known to indulge in writing songs or poetry,” Maglor said. “Strictly a worthy lore-master and a healer, buried in old books and scrolls written by other people. No songs, no unwise flames blazing against the Night... You can’t fool me with that calm wise face, you know.”

“I wasn’t trying to! There did come a time when Fëanorian fury against the way the world was made did not seem an answer.”

“Really.” Maglor said.  “And sending Sauron’s One Ring in the hands of Frodo Baggins to the fires of Mordor, with Elros’s heir, Thranduil’s son and one of the House of Durin together to look after him, was a calm and wise acceptance of the way the world was ordered, was it? Forgive me for my mistake!  It was only that it sounded to me as if you had decided to furiously fling events back into the hands of the Allfather. Exactly the kind of thing my father would do.”

“It was not!” Elrond said, now laughing openly. “He would have insisted on going himself.” 

“I’m surprised you didn’t!” 

“That was my next plan.  For Galadriel, Glorfindel, Círdan and I to try to do what Finrod and his Ten tried. Gil-galad was always very firm that there should always be another plan.”

“Sauron’s legions would have made mincemeat of you.” 

“Yes. Just enough strength to make him angry, not enough to hurt. I might even have been desperate enough to call on you, by then, Oath or no Oath.”

“Then Sauron would certainly have made mincemeat of us.”

 Elrond shrugged. “It would have made a fine song.  Sometimes that’s enough... I thought of calling on Ulmo, but I don’t think he would have come.”

“No?  He has seemed very willing to follow your suggestions recently.”

“An exception for one person is not the same as saving an entire land and all its people.” Elrond said.  He looked out again at the sealion bobbing on the green water.  “Is it, grandfather?” he said. 

The sealion put its head on one side and narrowed its huge eyes for a moment.  Then it gave a lithe flip and came surging in toward the white shelving sand, where it pulled itself out of the water.  

As the water surged with it, its form changed.  The sleek golden coat became long wet golden hair and a long loosely-fitted tunic, and the lithe form broadened and stood up, becoming an enormously tall blue-eyed Man who from his looks could only be one of the House of Hador.  

He shook his head sending clear drops of water flying. “You know my mouth isn’t designed for talking when it’s that shape, Elrond!” he said. 

“Tuor, son of Huor, I take it,” Maglor said. “You look very much like your 

father of heroic memory.”  Tuor, presumably, was not eager to wreak vengeance for the Havens of Sirion where he had once been lord.  He had had ample opportunity before Elrond had arrived. 

“Yes,” Elrond said.  “My grandfather Tuor, my foster-father Maglor son of Fëanor.”

Tuor said, “I know.  I have been keeping watch. You said you were concerned someone might throw him into the sea.”

Maglor gave Elrond an enquiring look. “That was a long while ago,” Elrond explained.  “When first we came here. I wasn’t sure what to expect.” 

“No-one was.”  Maglor looked at Tuor. “I’m a little surprised that you would want to stop it though.  Or were you planning to join in?”

Tuor looked down at him for a long thoughtful moment.  “I think that if I wanted to throw you into the sea, I would not need assistance.”  Maglor was not so sure about that, but looking at Tuor’s formidable frame, he was glad it had not come up.   For that matter, he was glad that Tuor had not been at the Havens of Sirion when he and his brothers had come there.

“Tol Eressëa is at peace, and under the rule of law,” Tuor told him.  “I wouldn’t consider it for that reason, if there were no other! But it is you Elves who hang onto things forever. I was angry when I heard about the Havens, but that was long ago. You can’t be forever looking back.  But there was a chance that some fool might hold a grudge.  And I did go away and leave them all behind, after all.  Idril never would have done that, if it had not been for me. I hold no grievance against you, Maglor, son of Fëanor. I only thought I would try to mend what I could, even if it was far too late.”

 “That is what I have tried to do myself,” Maglor told him, pleased. “I thank you for the thought, though I’m glad that I did not need the help. And it seems it’s not too late after all...   I wondered why I had not met you.”

Tuor laughed, a great deep laugh.  “My wife prefers not to draw attention to me, I, the only Man in Aman.  Or not quite in Aman... I stay on the Lonely Isle, or on my ship Eärrámë when I am not with Ulmo. Poor Idril feared for a long time that Aman would not be good for me, or that Lord Námo would swoop on me and carry me off.”

“I thought Idril said very little about you! She did not mention you were a skinchanger.  I suppose... there is Elwing. Still, I thought that was Lúthien’s heritage, not Beren’s.”

“All peoples have their secrets.” Tuor said.  “Ulmo has been a good friend and a generous lord. Though since Elrond brought his hobbit friends with him, it seems that I am no longer the lone exception to all the rules.” 

“There is a Dwarf, too, now,” Elrond said. “Gimli son of Glóin has come to Tol Eressëa.”

“Has he? Ah, I miss all the news, in the ocean!  Now that is interesting,”  Tuor said, narrowing his eyes. “Why was a Dwarf permitted to come here?”

“Friendship.” Elrond said. “He is a friend of Legolas of the greenwood and Galadriel, too.  And Frodo and Sam, for that matter.  Aulë spoke for him.”

“Hm. As if there had been no other friendships broken, all these long years!” Tuor said, rather tactlessly, in Maglor’s opinion.  But perhaps Tuor did not know about Arwen.

“Yes,” Elrond said.  “But there is a change.  I see it, like ripples spreading from pebbles thrown into still water.”

“Is there!” Tuor said, a delighted smile spreading across his face. “Even here, where so much is held unchanged in memory.  The tide changes twice a day, but even the wind must change at last. I’m glad to hear it.  Only Elves could wish things to stay the same forever!”

“And not, by any means, all of us,” Maglor told him.  

“I’m glad we met you,” Elrond said to Tuor. “Maglor’s father is at my house, with Aulë.  You have met Maglor now at last.  Will you come back with us and meet Fëanor too?”

“Oh!” Tuor said and his blue eyes widened a little.  “Fëanor himself has returned from death?  And the Valar permitted this?  Truly there is a new wind stirring!” 

. . . . . .   

At the long white house of Elrond and Celebrían, set high upon the clifftop, they found Aulë, still no taller than a dwarf, with Gimli and the hobbits all sitting cross-legged upon the grass. Fëanor, Celebrían, Elrohir and Legolas were lounging next to them, and next to Elrohir, upright and self-possessed, sat Galadriel. 

Gimli and the hobbits were smoking pipes, and someone was shaping the smoke with word and thought into dancing figures of elves and dwarves and deer and tall cranes with outspread wings and crowns of feathers.   Maglor recognised his father’s touch, and someone else too, something which had a very distinctive air of Galadriel to it.  

As they came up, a very small, but very real-looking golden dragon popped into existence, and chased the fleeing smoke-dancers flaming over the edge of the cliff.   Legolas started in surprise as it ran past him and spread its wings.

“Show-off!” Fëanor exclaimed. He considered the dragon, which was now prancing joyfully along the cliff-top.  “I like the claws,” he admitted. “Very elegant.”

“Thank you,” Aulë said, in his voice that somehow always sounded as though there were flames crackling along the edges of it. “Less unplanned than your carefree dancers, I fear. It was made before.  I only moved the world a little so it would be here.”

“It’s lovely!” Celebrían exclaimed.  

“It is,” Elrond agreed.  

Celebrían looked around. “Tuor!” she cried delightedly and flung her arms around him. “This is Elrond’s grandfather,” she told them. “One of them, anyway. This is Fëanor, who is another of Elrond’s grandfathers, Tuor!  You probably know about him.  And Legolas, Gimli, and Sam, Frodo and Bilbo and my mother and...  Aulë. Do you know Aulë? Well, obviously you know him, I expect you know everyone. What I really mean is, have you been introduced?  You have now, anyway... He’s visiting.  Well, everyone is visiting!  It’s like Rivendell. Only we never had any of the Ainur visiting in Rivendell, apart from Mithrandir, and Radagast and Curunir too, I suppose, but let’s not think about him.   Do you want some wine?  Or beer?  The hobbits like beer best.”

“Thank you,Celebrían,” Tuor said. “I would prefer beer.” 

Bilbo had gone over to the little dragon, staring in fascination, and extended a hand. It hunched its back and raised its wings, hissing at him, pouring smoke from its nostrils.  Then, abruptly, it fell over on its side and paddled its feet in the air, wriggling, with something that looked very much like a smile on its  shining face. 

Fëanor narrowed his eyes.  “Its behaviour seems surprisingly autonomous,” he said.

Aulë looked, if it was possible for one of the Valar to look that way, a little embarrassed.  “It has a cat in it,” he admitted. “It was not my own idea!  It was the cat’s.  He dreamed that body.” 

“And so you made the body and gave him a little help climbing into it?” Fëanor enquired, looking very amused. 

“He is only a cat,” Aulë said. “If he takes joy in dreams of a body of polished bronze, hissing flame and soaring wings, what harm in giving him one?” 

Fëanor opened his mouth, then looked at Maglor and closed it again. 

“Long ago, you used to lecture your students fiercely on the unwisdom of creating animated forms, or catching any spirit in the solid,” Galadriel said to Aulë, with a smile that had a definite mischief to it. “Your views on the topic were forcefully expressed, I recall.”

“Yes.” Aulë said, and paused for thought, frowning. 

“Surely,” Gimli said, very respectfully, “one must consider a certain degree of...”

Maglor sighed.  “I will fetch some more beer,” he said.  “And wine, for me, at least.  Father, will you come and help me carry the jugs?” 

. . . . . . 

In the courtyard behind the house, a party was taking place.  A number of Elrond’s people and Legolas’s Wood-elves were dancing in a long joyful line to the music of pipes, all around the courtyard and up into the orchard.   

Maglor introduced his father to those who were not dancing, and took some joy in making Celebrían’s helper Fingaeril blush by introducing her personally and listing all her family and their deeds back to her great-great-grandfather who had followed Fëanor from Tirion. 

Then they went into the kitchen to find jugs of ale and wine, and he closed the door firmly to shut out both people and music.

Fëanor looked at him, and waited. 

“I am not who I was,” Maglor admitted, after a moment.  “I have killed, and killed... you would have been horrified. I often thought that.   No making, no joy to any of it, only death. I learned so many ways to kill, and achieved so little.  Every time we tried, it just made things worse.  Even when we got them back, we could not touch them, and then Maedhros...” he stopped himself.

“Yes, I know,” his father said. “Would it help to blame me?”

“You would have found some way to win.”

“But I didn’t. I died and fled the field, and left you to it.”

“There must have been a better way,” Maglor said. “There must have been a way out.  You might have found it.  They burned us.”

“It wasn’t a puzzle to be solved.  I do make mistakes, you know.”

“Yes,” Maglor said. “I have noticed.  Alqualondë was a large one.  And Losgar. Not to mention your appalling lack of caution in the face of Balrogs.”

“Yes.”

“You could not have known how desperately we would need help.” 

“No.”  

There was a long moment of quiet, while the pipes played gaily outside in the courtyard. 

“Fingolfin should not have goaded you, but you should have had more sense than to heed him,” Maglor said at last. 

“Your mother has been quite eloquent on that point,” Fëanor said. 

“You should have left Amrod and Amras with mother. And Curufin, and Celebrimbor.”

“Do you think they would have agreed to that?”

“I don’t know.  You should have anyway, except it would have weakened our defence appallingly, and it was weak enough already. ”

“If you say so,” Fëanor said with a cautious expression that looked very out of place on his face. 

“They should have come to aid us before you died,” Maglor said. “They should have, if they are better than we are.  Fingolfin, Fingon and Finrod came, despite the Ice. They could have helped them, if they had come sooner.   Elrond and Elros, Elwing‎, ‎Eluréd‎, ‎Elurín. All the people of Hithlum and Dorthonion and the March and Doriath.  Good old Azaghal and all his Dwarves. Poor Huor and Húrin!  The thralls of Angband. All punished for what we did at Alqualondë, and waiting on a Silmaril to call for aid. And they said you cared for nothing but your gems!”

“Makalaurë... Maglor. I am unsure what you want. Am I to be misled, mistaken or malign? Inspired, betrayed or simply foolish?”

“I don’t know.  Which are you?” Maglor said, and sat down, arms crossed tight across his chest. 

“My sadly battered pride is much flattered by the thought that you’d still call me inspired,” Fëanor said, folding lithely into a chair on the other side of Celebrían’s kitchen table. “But I have seven very able sons, and I refuse to salve my own pride by suggesting that they are fools, or that I could have done better.  I would prefer not to be thought malign. As for being betrayed, I never expected anyone to come rushing to my aid, the Valar least of all...  You know, there was a time when you would have thought it all worth it, for the songs.”

“There was a time,” Maglor said, with precision, “When I was a young idiot with eyes full of stars, who followed trustingly without asking important questions.”

“Well, yes.  That too.  But still, they are very good songs, Maglor.  They might not be worth the grief, but they are good songs.”    

“If ever we go to war again, I’m going to give you strategy lessons,” Maglor said. “With particular reference to not getting killed.  Elrond can help.”

“I expect it’s a skill that can be learned,” Fëanor said. “As long as you don’t expect me to have your talent at it.”

“Are you suggesting that I am craven?” Maglor asked pointedly. 

His father looked at him in horror. “No!” he said. 

“Because I am, and I was,” Maglor told him.  “This I have learned: there’s no virtue to being fearless. The Enemy wanted to torture us.  He wanted to lock us into endless war, pain and misery, without even the release of death.  Not being afraid of him was madness.  Refusing help or compromise was madness too.” 

“And that is lesson one, is it?” Fëanor said. He looked pale, and he was breathing a little quickly but he still had not lost his temper.  He sat there across the table, bright-eyed and quite definitely alive.  Maglor noticed again that his father was not wearing a sword, and did not seem to feel the lack of one.  He rubbed at the hilt of his own sword with his thumb, wondering if the pattern could really still be felt or if he was only calling it back from memory.  

“You sit there trying to make me angry,” Fëanor said, “and then you tell me you are craven.  You, who won two Silmarils : one by war and one by persuasion, the only one of my sons who lived.  Call yourself what names you wish: I am not going to argue with you.”

“No, you’ll only argue with the Valar!” Maglor said. 

“I argued with Aulë,” Fëanor said. “Long ago I was his student.  He is, I suppose, so far as any of the Valar can be anyone’s friend, my friend.” 

“He refused to consider letting you return from Mandos for years!” Maglor said. “Tears unnumbered they said, and Finrod was torn by the wolves.  Not even the echo of your lamentation shall pass over the mountains, they said, and death was Fingon’s reward. By weapon and by torment and by grief, they said, and in the iron hells our people slaved and suffered under the whips of the orcs and yet had little pity.  They knew what we were facing when we had no idea what torment meant.  He was part of that.   How could you forget that?”

“I haven’t forgotten. Those seem excellent reasons for arguing with him.  You are my son, and you are shouting at me.  And then there is Fingolfin!”

“He was,” Maglor said deliberately, “an excellent king, dearly beloved by all.”

“So I am told,” Fëanor said, meeting his eyes.  

Maglor put his face in his hands. 

Fëanor got up and walked around the table to put an arm around him.  Maglor gripped onto it with one hand. 

“Your enormous friend Tuor must have worked up quite a thirst by now,” Fëanor said, after a little while. “For that matter, you look as though you could use a drink yourself. I do have a reason for wishing to talk with Aulë. You might even admit it to be a good one, once you’ve heard all about it. Now, where is this wine you mentioned? ”