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.

Fingolfin would like to say that it was an accident. And perhaps if it had started and ended with a kiss he could have lied to himself and said that. As it is, it’s rather hard to say it was an accident when it has gone well past a kiss.

The whispers that circulate through Tirion afterwards, throughout all of Aman, will be cruel. She had gotten overconfident, they say, she should have known that Finwë’s line was cursed. She should have been content with three children! The whispers never stop circulating but everyone learns very quickly that no matter how Prince Fëanáro had felt about Queen Indis to say such a thing within earshot of him was to earn his everlasting ire.
It goes like this —

Maedhros, eldest son of Feanor, is captured by Morgoth and chained to the cliffs of Thargorodrim by his order. There is no hope of rescue until his dearest friend appears. (one-shot)

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.

But Fëanor was not held guiltless, for he it was that had broken the peace of Valinor and drawn his sword upon his kinsman; and Mandos said to him: “Thou speakest of thraldom. If thraldom it be, thou canst not escape it; for Manwë is King of Arda, and not of Aman only. And this deed was unlawful, whether in Aman or not in Aman. Therefore this doom is now made: for twelve years thou shalt leave Tirion where this threat was uttered. In that time take counsel with thyself, and remember who and what thou art. But after that time this matter shall be set in peace and held redressed, if others will release thee.”
“Well that’s rather stupid,” Fingolfin says.

Fingolfin feels like part of him is still stuck in Beleriand, blood on his teeth and an all-consuming anger splintering out of control. Like he'll blink and once again see Morgoth's foot coming down. He wants. What does he want? He does not wish to be dead. He is, he supposes, grateful for this chance to fix things as much as they can be fixed. But he wants.
He wants for Fëanor to know him. Wants to work through all the ugly words and acts of violence that had divided them and come out the other side better for it. He cannot throw all the scathing anger in his chest at a brother who does not understand. Cannot scream at this Fëanor for burning the boats, for leaving them to the ice, for Elenwë, for Arakáno, for the countless others who had followed him and paid for it. And so what is he meant to do with the anger? He cannot swallow it all down forever and also salvage his relationship with Fëanor in this new song.
He wants, he thinks, watching a potter unmake a bowl that was marred, to un-sing himself as well.

Fingon leaves a note for his family before attempting to rescue Maedhros

Following Maedhros averting the burning of the ships, Fingon worries, Maedhros finds a new reason to live, and Fëanor begins to wonder if he has made some mistakes. And underneath it all is enough love that they're all hoping, maybe just this once, it won't end in tragedy.

In which Fingolfin is tired and everyone else is just along for the ride, even if they would really rather not be.

“No,” he says once more, cutting his father off. The pressure in his chest hurts. He wanted to rest but instead there’s a great, spiked ball of fury dragging itself up his throat. “If you burn those boats I will walk out there and burn with them. I’ll swear it to Eru if you don’t believe me. Damn myself to the darkness twice.” He had intended to burn anyways, may as well go out the way he’d meant to, let his death mean something this time. Let it be for something that matters.
There must be something truly terrible on his face because his father visibly falters.
“You would not,” his father says but his voice wavers slightly.

A selection of brief writings (mostly conforming to drabbles but some veer into dribble territory) from the SWG events on January 18-19, 2025.

The tale of how the sons of Fëanor were conceived and named, and how the daughters came into being in the other two houses.

Ye'll take the high road / and I’ll take the low road, / and I’ll be in Aman afore ye; / but you and I will never meet again / on the bonnie, bonnie banks of Ivrin.

At Ivrin, during the aftermath of the Mereth Aderthad.
A brief vignette.

Created for the 'Geography/Maps/Places' prompt on the "Tolkien meta" bingo board, this is a collection of maps marked with the various people groups showing how they arrived and moved about Beleriand. This collection focuses specifically on the time from the arrival of the Teleri, Vanyar, and Noldor before they went to Aman up to the distribution of the various kingdoms after the Flight of the Noldor, when they arrived in Middle-earth and settled there.

On the Helcaraxë, Fingolfin invokes his family's strength and courage rather than the Valar.

Ñolofin offers some brotherly advice as Arafin awaits the birth of his firstborn, and Arafin hopes the soon-to-be cousins will share a bond as well.

A quote from the Quenta Silmarillion, Chapter 13 for the Tolkien Reverse Summer Bang (artwork number 19 for TRSB 2024).

In which Legolas Greenleaf dreams he is in the First Age. Time is strangely haywire and there are a lot of Noldor royalty talking about ravens. More importantly nobody has offered him a drink.
Or: a medieval Welsh story adapted with Silmarillion characters (and Legolas)

Hithlum reckons with the departure of the future Gondolindrim.

In a book as full of death as the Quenta Silmarillion, grief and mourning are surprisingly absent. The characters who receive grief and mourning—and those who don't—appear to do so due to narrative bias. Grief and mourning (or a lack of them) serve to draw attention toward and away from objectionable actions committed by characters.

Minyelmë comes to Tirion to see Lalwen, arriving just in time to see things come to a head.

Maedhros takes up his father's crown, and then gives it away

Anaire stayed behind.

There came a time of winter, when night was dark and without moon; and the wide plain of Ard-galen stretched dim beneath the cold stars, from the hill-forts of the Noldor to the feet of Thangorodrim. The watchfires burned low, and the guards were few;
The Silmarillion - JRR Tolkien