New Challenge: Allusive
Literature and art constantly refer back to each other using allusions, and this month's prompts are inspired by allusions to literature, myth, art, and history.

"Therefore there was built for [Elwing] a white tower northward upon the borders of the Sundering Seas..." - The Silmarillion, 'Of the Voyage of Eärendil and the War of Wrath'
Made for 2025's Tolkien Summer Reverse Bang!
The accompanying fic is here: Sad songs for us to bear by astrisq

“Come on.” Maedhros grabbed his hand and pulled him along down the path, both of them quickening their pace now, until the trees opened up into a wide meadow filled with flowers, bright yellow celandine and dandelions and sweet-scented pale chamomile mingling with cornflowers and irises. On the other side of it was a larger party than Maglor had ever seen in Lórien—five figures sitting in the grass. Huan barked again, and they all looked up. “It seems everyone has come to fetch us home,” Maedhros said, laughing, as all their brothers scrambled to their feet.
After years in Lórien, Maglor and Maedhros are ready to return to their family and to make something new with their lives--but to move forward, all of Fëanor's sons must decide how, or if, they can ever reconcile with their father.

The third kinslaying and its aftermath, from the perspective of Maedhros and Elwing: a shape poem.

Two years ago, in the Summer, Maglor and his brother took in twin elflings on what was the worst day of the children’s lives. Seventy-six years before that, the solstice had heralded their own living nightmare. As the days grow longer and warmer the four of them find ways to help each other reckon with the ghosts of the past.
Written for the Gates of Summer Challenge prompts: “… cast up exhausted on the shoals of August”, Nirnaeth Arnoediad and Loendë (midsummer).

Adaptation of the lyrics of a German song to the Legendarium: Zogen einst fünf wilde Schwäne. (With English translation).

As a very young child, Gil-galad arrived on Círdan's doorstep with no memories and nothing but a brief letter containing two things: a request to foster him, and a name, Ereinion. Silver-haired scion of kings, he always suspected his lineage was more vexed than anyone, Noldor or Sindar alike, was comfortable admitting, especially in those fragile last days before the War of Wrath.
Parents as well as kings must make difficult decisions. After the Third Kinslaying, Gil-galad learns this the hard way.
Title is a reference to Elizabeth I's Speech to the Troops at Tilbury.

They passed out of Lhûn and the wider coastline of Middle-earth opened up before his eyes. He had wandered those shores for centuries, and even now he felt the pull of that same wanderlust, and knew he would miss them for the rest of his life. Their wildness, the untamed waves, the rocky shores and the cliffs and the sandy beaches. The gulls, and the dunes, and the tide pools with their ever-changing denizens. Someone began to sing a song of farewell, and other voices took it up. He did not join them.
Maglor keeps a promise, and comes to Valinor, only to find the ghosts he thought he'd left behind are alive and waiting for him.

A collection of drabbles about women in Tolkien's Legendarium.

She sits alone in her room and pulls the silmaril out. Stares at it in the dark until the light makes her cry. Weighs the blood of her kin staining the Fëanorians hands against the yet unspilled blood of the people she’s been told are her responsibility. Holds the question she’s never been able to answer in her hands and makes herself think — what makes a monster? She knows what her advisors say. She knows what her people whisper. She knows their blood will run red regardless of which set of monsters end up finally coming for them.
or: Elwing is sixteen when she finally comprehends the brutality of the war ravaging Beleriand, when she realizes what it means to be told the people of Sirion are hers to protect. She is sixteen and helplessly in love and her advisor tells her that she is safe in Sirion and she cannot believe him. She comes up with a plan to fix it.

Just a few of my favourite podfics that I've found soothing for bedtime (or middle of the night, or any time really) listening.

Four true drabbles from the perspectives of Maglor, Eärendil, Elwing and Elrond, vaguely connected by the state of being six (years old).

This is a collection of true drabbles completed for the 'Four Words' drabble bingo card.

Eärendil found not Tuor nor Idril, nor came he ever on that journey to the shores of Valinor, defeated by shadows and enchantment, driven by repelling winds, until in longing for Elwing he turned homeward toward the coast of Beleriand. And his heart bade him haste, for a sudden fear had fallen on him out of dreams; and the winds that before had striven with might not now bear him back as swift as his desire.
The Silmarillion

Dior did not see the arrow until it pierced his own flesh, a hard thrust of a point entering his back and blossoming out of his heart. The pain of the wound, and the feeling of his body in uncertain panic around it, was almost secondary to his curiosity.
Now what?
Dior felt strangely detached, as if he had stepped out of his body. He watched himself fall over the body of the Golodh he’d slain. Dior had worn no helm nor armor that day – and he saw his hair fan out to cover them both. They died together in the dark cloak of it.
Dior’s eyes closed, and all was dark.
~
And then Dior opened his eyes.

The third kinslaying, as a musical.
Please do not take this too seriously. The writer certainly doesn't.

Elrond and Celebrían celebrate their anniversary with their family.

The majority of the Silmarillion was penned by a single Elf--an Elf who was so thoroughly written out as to appear only through the ways in which their perspective shaped the stories we see. This is their story, the historian's history, the Pennas Pengolodh.

Elwing carries the Silmaril to Vingilot.

In Tol Eressëa, Celebrían and Galadriel talk about Arwen. Written for the "It Comes in Threes" challenge, inspired by Maiden, Mother and Crone.

For the Tengwar prompt challenge.
All 36 prompts plus bonus chapter

Idril and Meleth (my OC) welcome Finduilas, Niënor, and other refugees into Havens after the Fall of Doriath, hoping they can start anew there. Finduilas's daughter is distraught about the situation. Also, how did Finduilas and Niënor make it to the Havens after the Fall of Doriath?

In Valinor and homesick for Imladris, Celebrían decides to build a new one.

Elwing weeps. Until there is no more weeping to be done.