Stars, hide your fires by Lyra, Independence1776, Fernstrike, Raiyana

he heavens are cold, until the earth comes closer.

We hurtled through space-time. We remembered little. But the cold turned to burning, white hot, shredding, then searing, then flaying. Weaving through us, creating crack upon crack upon crack, splitting us into two, three, five, eight pieces, and more and more. We touch down - crash, terminal - tethered suddenly to something firm and unmoving - a firmament it is, oh - and the World - in the World - all the World stops spinning. There we lie, and we are still warm from the fall. Still glimmering. Still aching. Still thrumming, singing with the Songs of stars, our kin, our sisters. We are hurtling rock, never ignited, but capturing every resonant note. We weep where we lie in the little pit, barely as much as we were before we were sucked into this world, its vortex of activity and Singing and suffering - waiting, waiting, waiting for something to do, something to capture anew.

He liked looking at the stars falling through the sky, leaning back against Aredhel's - Father did not approve of her other name, just like he didn't approve when she called him Lómion - chest and having her arms wrapped tightly around him, snug and warm beneath dark furs.

He even liked wandering through the woods looking for the pieces of star ore they left behind like little treasures. Eöl said he had a knack for finding them, and Maeglin knew that was true; his pile was often much bigger than his father’s when the evening fell and they could head back to the warm fire.

He did not like the times when the stars fell over the Boglands, leaving them to splash through sucking cold mud in places, tripping over knolls of grass in others, all the while trying not to be eaten by the tiny minions of the Dark Lady out for their blood.

Swatting at another of the vile little bloodsuckers - they only wanted his blood, he was sure; Eöl never seemed to suffer the small stings and bites that turned into sore welts on his skin - Maeglin sighed, his toes freezing inside his old boots.

No metal could be worth this, he thought, glaring at his father’s back, bent as he scoured the wet ground with his eyes, looking for any glint of metal in the foggy light.

Not even metal made of stars.

e can feel it in us. We are roiling, turning in on ourselves. We can feel Him, Him, our collector, Him, our benefactor, and we can feel his Song. It is sad. Sad, but full of such conviction. We remember wondering about worlds and listening to the conversations of the stars that watched them. We remember the Songs of this world. We can feel them like dark cords inside him, and he is telling us -

He is telling us not only of himself -

He is telling us what to do.

He is giving us a purpose.

A purpose? Not just someone else’s Song to capture.

It is strange.

It is wonderful.

We gleam, and we turn, we feel like we burn but we only become stronger, and every strike of the hammer is a push in the right direction, and every scrape on the swiftly-spinning grindstone refines our dream, and we know.

We Know.

And we have conviction like His suddenly.

At the time, he'd thought them both insane, deciding to lug two pieces of heavy black wood and the lump of metal that he had hidden away as his own treasure when Eöl was making his dark swords, all the way from Nan Elmoth to Gondolin.

Several times since then, too, in all honesty.

But now, looking at what his hands had wrought, feeling the weighty-yet-smooth feel of the grip, perfectly balanced for his hand, Maeglin had to smile.

Perfection.

The blade was - in his own opinion - more than equal to those he had watched his sire craft, the edge keen enough that even looking at it felt sharp.

"Well-forged, my son," Irissë told him, her voice appearing out of memory and time; a reminder of the sweeter days that had been among the trees of his first home.

She had always been proud of his efforts, no matter how simple the craft, and Maeglin felt an echo of that pride rush through him like warmth, filling his soul with the soft touch of her fingers ruffling his hair, her lips pressing against his temple as he showed off his creation.

His sire had not praised him often, but Maeglin knew that even he could not find fault with this weapon, and the knowledge was more satisfying than he cared to admit.

I name thee Dragonsbane.

e fell with the Master, his hand wet and slippery with blood, his eyes staring up up up towards those who cast us out, away - we fall, tumble, crash.

Sundered, His life ebbing away, and ours shattered at his side. Sisters, do you see us, still, do you hear our cry?

Blue eyes, he loved, blue like skies.

The sky is dark now, no sight of our Sisters in this hour to bring solace to weary souls. Sisters come near us once more. Sisters, we call.

The Master's hand is slack, free, loose, gone.

There is only us, alone, lonely, abandoned – Sisters, where do you sing?

The Dark above as below sings no tune we know, Sisters of melody silenced, gone. Alone.

We are alone. Sisters, lend us your grace, your light, your strength. Sing for us.

The Master is gone.

Sisters are silent, lost, unseen.

All hurts. Not only us. All hurts.

The earth bleeds. The sky cries.

The clouds are red and burning now, the stones are splashed with the scarlet, the howls of loss and triumph echo out around us. This is not the Song we want. This is not a Song at all.

This is only pain.

he broken pieces of once-weaponry - the crafting was exquisite, still, despite only fragments of the original weapon remaining - had been gifted to her father’s father's mother's mother by Khalebrimbur, as a token of appreciation for the help she had provided in the bespelling of the stone that had become the Doors.

They spoke to her, as they had that distant ancestress, or so Fjelarún thought; if the ancestral augur had not found the jagged edges and shattered pieces intriguing, why had she passed them to her descendants for generations?
A faint voice, whispers on the cusp of hearing, and only if she focused on them, meditated over the scattering of broken twisted metal and scorched black wood.

And yet the pieces were insistent, imparting a feeling of flame to her, though they would not reveal their purpose.

Not harmful, yet not quite friendly, either, and Fjelarún spent many nights trying to glean scraps of imagery from the twisted - blade? It could have been, though she couldn't tell for certain - pieces of metal.

It was metal, surely, of the kind they called star-kindled, and the few marks that were still discernible made her fairly certain it had been forged in the First Age, well before the destruction of Belegost. The wood, she had learned, grew in the farthest southern reaches of the realms of Men, where they called it hbny; the Library contained only a single piece, dark as night and polished to a high gloss, which had been given to a long-dead King by an equally long-dead Orocarnul King.

Of course, the wood would have to have grown in the Land Under Sea back then, though it did not recall an origin unlike pieces of other woods she had touched from Nogrod, which had remembered their creator’s hand.

Perhaps the wood was too broken to hold a remembrance?

Eyeing the dark wood, Fjelarún sighed. The pieces of wood drew the light, becoming small pieces of darkness made solid, but the silvery-grey metal could hold a shine so bright it nearly hurt the eye.

Once, it must have been a truly magnificent creation.

"You were beautiful, weren't you?" she murmured, moving one piece to the other side of her work mat. "But why do you feel like fire?"

Her brother teased her about speaking with her work, but the ancient pieces weren't work to her, not really, even if she had a standing note from the Head Curator that she ought to hurry up and determine the provenue of the fragments so they could be displayed properly.

Except Fjela didn't really want to part with the fragments at all.

They felt like hers, in a way, ever since she'd first seen them in her grandfather's workroom, carefully laid out on a piece of blue velvet.

Her very own mystery. Her friends.

Fire crackles and roars.

"Burnt, yes," she muttered, turning a shard of metal over in her hand; one side showed a nearly pristine corner of an etched decoration, while the other remained as blackened as it had always been. "But you were never scared of fire... You welcomed it? It was... yes, there is purpose here, isn't there, my sweet?"

"I'm fairly certain you're losing your marbles, sister-mine," Gunnar chuckled from the doorway.

"If you understood its need to be heard, you'd be as intrigued as I am," Fjelarún snapped. "It's like it was made for something... something it never truly got to do, and the echoes of that purpose linger in the metal. I wish I knew the name of the maker."

"Some Elf, I imagine - but their records of those days are woefully incomplete," Gunnar shrugged. A historian by heart and trade, he often lamented the Elven propensity for not writing down accurate accounts; Gunnar's favourite rant was on the fallibility of Elven memories.

"So I have heard," Fjelarún replied drily, rubbing her thumb over the engraving in the metal as she tried to picture it as part of a whole. "There are Dwarven influences in these markings, however," she added, picking up a different fragment of metal and turning it to catch the worn lines in the light. "Not enough I would call it collaboration, perhaps - I feel no dwarven hand in this; Crafts from those days usually know the hands that made them."

"Not many Elves worked with our kindred in the First Age..." Almost despite himself - they'd gone over this before - Gunnar leaned in, one finger hovering over what might have once been a rune. "You're nearly limited to the ranks of Noldor, I imagine; the crafts made for the Bloody King were either entirely in the Belegost style, or made to mimic Elven foibles."

"Yet if it had been forged by the hand of his father, surely Khalebrimbur would have known its making - and not gifted it to our people." Looking at the two pieces, Fjelarún frowned.

An image of dark scales gleaming wetly beneath a dim sun floated across her mind, disappearing into mists as soon as she tried to hold on to it.

he world that had been is no more.

The home that had been might well be ashes behind them, fleeing headlong into the unknown.

Fjelarún did not dare look back, the familiar sight of Zirak-zigil gleaming in moonlight behind her not the solace she wanted.

Gunnar was dead, surely, and many of her cousins besides, lost to the First Fire, the Dark Shadow that had slumbered beneath them for so long, awakened into cruel Flame by the Song of Time.

They will say it was our doing.

So spake the King, young though he was - too young, much too young, and yet... they had no other.

Fjelarún had no more tears; her beard streaked with ash and grief, hair shorn with trembling hands; the weight and warmth of it missed on cold nights like these.

And still she sought, cracking any passing stone in hopes that it might portend good to come, seeing the greyness of her soul echoed in the faces of her kin, hoping for guidance where none could be found - praying for aid in this hour of greatest need.

So many had died already, perished within the Halls, and yet more had joined the Seekers of the Way in their headlong flight of terror.

And somehow the pouch with 'her' shards remained strapped to her belt, an echo of everyday that seemed almost blasphemous against the light of day.

People had grabbed food, family members, even tokens of loved ones lost to long years gone, and yet Fjela's first thought when the drums began to sound in the deep, an ominous rumble of danger undefeated, had been for her shards, her mystery.

Why did I take these?

Pouring the scattered bits of metal and twisted wood into her lap - an augur's robes were made with a leather lap cover in the design after all - she sighed. Pushing one piece against another, letting the sharp edges catch the low light stars above, she played, hoping for... something.

An escape, perhaps, or an answer.

Why did I bring these?

But she knew why; she was an augur of history, a Speaker of Things, and the pieces had teased her with being on the cusp of an answer for nigh a century.

Fjelarún would not give up on uncovering the mystery of her long-dead amadel.

It would be giving up the last part of Before.

---

ister, you waken, weak, wounded.

Wolves baying for your blood, hounds bounding at your heels, nipping, scratching, biting.

Sister, you live.

Claws rend, scales split, life - blood, breath, bone - you return.

Do you hear our song?

Light, light, light the path through the dark.

Sister, hear our call, sister find us, see the Light.

Gleam, glisten, brightness. Brilliance of Light.

Sister, listen.

Do you hear our song?

Singing, loud, glad, joyful.

Sister, listen.

We are here.

rebor.

A new home, a mountain left lonely on a plain, as far from her kin as those who now sheltered within her welcoming bosom.

A home, crafted swiftly, safety sought and found; it would not heal what had been lost, return the joy buried beneath the Three Fathers.

But it would allow them to begin anew, turn idle hands to the pleasure of Craft once more, drawing beauty from stone as they revealed one wonder after another, left by the Maker's hands for them to marvel at in ages to come.

Erebor.

A home to be protected, if it could be, Fjelarún thought, looking at the sleeping face of her great-grand-pebble, protected with all the means at their disposal.

Even the work of a long-dead Elf.

Nodding to herself, she gathered the pieces that had laid spread out in the starlight for the night - my last gift to you, old friend - and put them back in their case.

"You are certain you want me to melt this down, Lady Augur?" the smith she had chosen after years of deliberation asked, scratching at the back of his head as he looked at the bits of metal and wood she was showing him.

Fjelarún smiled.

"It wants to be reforged, Master Smith," she said, "it wants to be wielded in defense against the Flame and the Darkness. That was its purpose, long years before you or me - and that shall be its purpose once more."

She did not have to convince the smith further, shaking his hand as she left, looking back at the pieces of metal gleaming in their case, renewed in a way polish could never have managed by the light of the stars whence it had once come.

May you never be needed, old friend.

May your aim be true if ever you are.

---

hank you.

Thank you, the kindest.

Fjelarún. You remind us of our Song.

We wonder - as we heard the stars and preserved their Songs, do you too now hear our Song and preserve it in you? Do you pour it back into us?

It feels like it - yes, we can feel it. Becoming new even as we arise out of the deeps of Time. We become tight once more, stitched back together, disparate edges beyond reconciliation suddenly finding that they can - yes, they can reunite - they can be strong again - what is broken can be remade, it can, it can! We promise this to you. You will know what we know. We write new lines in our Song now - lines for you to sing. Lines for you to repeat when your hope runs thin.

Thank you, the strongest.

We know our purpose. We know our purpose. We are Dragonsbane. We will fell the calamitous creatures of shadow and flame, of tooth and claw, of rending and breaking, or the dark and the deep. We shall do it when no-other shall.

We await the task.

irion's son had retrieved his father's Black Arrow the day the dragon came. The sky had turned to bright and burning red, the clouds all limned with gold, the stones themselves deformed by the fire hot enough to turn them molten for several brief, terrifying moments. And his little boy had fled, his tiny hand in his mother's, his other fist gripped around the ebony shaft of the Arrow - shot, recovered, and then dropped to the ground as a collapsing balcony had taken out his father before his eyes.

Later, crouched in a too-small boat, he had cradled the thing, caressing the metal head, so sharp and shining, like stars set in a cloudless sky, and deeper dark than the rushing black water. It almost seemed to smile at him, that curve in its finely crafted design. A Dwarven weapon, his father had said; a token of good friendship when they had settled in Erebor, and opened their trade with Dale. So his father had told him. His father, who now lay buried beneath rubble under a starless sky, passed over by the shadow of a dragon's wings.

The arrow seemed almost to look at him, although it had no eyes, and no mind that he knew of. It seemed to be imploring him. It seemed to hold a promise, one it was trying to leech into his hands and heart and thoughts as he traced its edge.

"Mind your fingers," his mother had murmured, one arm clasped around him as the other swiped soot and blood from his face with her sleeve. He could hear the trembling in her voice.

He held out the arrow. "What do we do with this?"

She swallowed heavily, and ran her fingers gently over the head, the shaft, the delicate yet strong fletching. "We take care of it. It is hope, dear one. It is hope."

---

t last!

Again there is a great burning, of sky and heavens and earth so deep, and here we are. Here we are poised and ready.

And the lord, our lord he reaches for us - only us, at the last! - for he knows our aim to be true. We know his heart. We know his blood. And he trusts us as his line has always done. We will not fail him. We will not fail the true heart of our Wielder, we will read the conviction in his grim face and make it our own, and we will fly.

And we hear the message of the thrush by his ear, and it hums within us, it sets our self ringing within, and his speech adds words to form the song into perfect strands, directions, a guide - "If ever you came from the forges of the true King under the Mountain, go now and speed well!"

And we do. At last! Our long purpose - Dragonsbane of old, of new; of then, of now; of there, of here - at last we are come to our fruition. At last we make the landing we were always meant for. We no longer listen to Songs - we make them. And the thrill of the purpose transforms us.

Our lord and Wielder releases us, and we fly! Swifter than a dragon's wings, sharper than a dragon's claw, brighter than a dragon's flame -

And we find our mark in the bared patch of his belly.

The sky is hot, until the water comes closer. We hurtle down through the burning town, locked in the deadweight, and we are quenched at last. And there is no more pain.

Even stars die, when their purpose is run. But inside them we were made. And in fulfilling our purpose, we are made anew.

Stars, hide your fires Playlist on Spotify