Character of the Month: Eönwë
This month's biography focuses on Eönwë, who started with a variety of identities but settled into the role of Manwë's herald, exemplifying the values of strong leadership and justice.

Even under the renewed Light of the Trees, after the Last Battle has been fought, Darkness has not fully passed from this world.

The last of the Elven ships are sailing and Maglor’s feet are restless. In the surreal version of reality his mind supplies there are ghosts to wrestle and hard truths to confront. In Tol Eressëa, Nerdanel swallows her own hurts in order to care for her son.
Written for TRSB 2026 Art #114: In Ammë's embrace once more as part of a collaboration with tomefaired based on their absolutely gorgeous cosplay, which can be found in the last chapter and here.

“Can you wait that long?” Findekáno asks.
“Yes,” snaps Maitimo , though in truth he is not so sure. His bladder is ridiculously full, swollen and aching, jostling around uncomfortably with every step he takes. It takes a concerted effort of will not to squirm around awkwardly or grab himself between the legs each time the urgency spikes. He glances at Findekáno. “Stop enjoying this so much.”
***
The Gardens of Lórien are one place in Aman Maitimo absolutely, unequivocally, cannot piss. He will have to find a creative solution to this predicament.

“Do you know what grows on the shores of the southern isles? A trading-merchant might bring many strange specimens to our lands, like nothing I have ever seen. In recent days, I have tasted a ripe fruit with firm flesh that parted beneath my tongue in a burst of liquid sweetness. So moist, so yielding, its juices dripped down my chin like fragrant honey. Have you ever known such succulence?”
Fingon’s wife has arranged a special surprise for the Lord of Himring.
Or: everyone’s cool with a little ethical nonmonogamy until someone throws a temporary sex change into the arrangement. Lord Maedhros loves Fingon with all his heart, that is known. But how will he react to Fingwen?

Fingon understood that hope was a choice. It was careful and deliberate, and it was hard, and the times when having hope seemed the most impossible were the times one had to choose it over and over again, every second of every day. This was the fundamental truth at the core of Fingon’s beliefs, the centre around which he understood the world and his place in it.
Very seldom did he waver in this conviction more than he did in the months following the Dagor Bragollach.
***
Fingon inherits the crown. Maedhros comes to Barad Eithel in the hour of his grief. Together, they figure out a way to move forward.

The Valar tell them that they cannot return to Beleriand and Elwing accepts this easily, for she has no reason to return. Sirion is destroyed, naught but ash and rubble and dried blood. The Fëanorians had kidnapped her sons and, she is sure, slain them before she and Eärendil even reached Valinor. There is nothing left for her there.
It takes four years for rumors to reach her ears that her sons likely still live.

On an evening of late summer, in the shining hour of the mingling, Prince Curufinwë Fëanáro strides into Taniquetil’s teeming festival halls with the new-wrought Silmarils blazing upon his brow. That night, fire consumes Findaráto’s dreams.
***
Finrod struggles under the weight of foresight.

Of course, she knew that in the Blessed Land, true harm was unlikely to come to him. The Valar watched over them all, and the lesser spirits were everywhere. It was a great hound of Oromë who had found him happily splashing in the creek, in fact. But anyone could drown in mere moments, even in Valinor. Her heart needed a break.
A story about Nerdanel, the total self-obliteration of motherhood, and what comes after.

Finwë received his crown from Manwë Súlimo himself, so he knows what it is to be betrayed.
Fëanor received his crown from Finwë, so he knows what it is to die.
Maedhros received his crown from Fëanor, so he knows what it is to burn.
Fingolfin received his crown from Maedhros, so he knows what it is to be broken.
Fingon received his crown from Fingolfin, so he knows what it is to despair.
Turgon received his crown from Fingon, so he knows what it is to stand firm.
Gil-galad received his crown from them all, and it’s too soon to know what he’ll do.
Gil-galad, burdened with the memories of all his predecessors, does his best.
Created for TRSB 2026, art 100 is a hand-drawn interlaced star of Fëanor with four of the named points broken (CW: drops of blood).
The fic written for it will be posted in the TRSB 2026 collection after 5 September 2026.

This tale follows Maedhros and his wife (OC) from their time in Aman to the end of the First Age; following a brutal attack in Valinor, intense familial strife is forever set in motion. Mostly follows Silmarillion timeline/canon with internal narrative twists. Character dives on all of the Sons of Fëanor, ongoing work with currently 17 chapters I will be posting soon (currently all cross posted to AO3) :)

"Move farther north," Caranthir says to her a month after the attack, gaze steady on her even as his hands continue briskly gutting fish. "There is plenty of land closer to my fortress, and my people can help protect yours if there is another attack."
Haleth looks up from her own fish, frowning a bit at the sight he makes. Even after a month, she hasn't grown used to the sight of this elvish prince so casually working with the rest of them. She opens her mouth to refuse, proud of her people and their independence, having no desire to be indebted to anyone, but the words catch in her throat as she meets his eyes. She thinks treacherously of his mouth against the inside of her wrist, and what comes out instead is, "How close to your keep are you trying to drag us? And what is the cost?"
Or: Caranthir asks and Haleth agrees. This does not mean they were prepared for what follows.

Of course it was a trap.
Maitimo has to survive. He must. But what price is too high to pay for survival?

But how could they ever think to sleep on a night such as this? Their hours together are already so short, and in these days of encroaching darkness they only grow shorter. Tonight Fingon’s bed is warm, and Fingon is also, and Maedhros is loath to close his eyes even long enough to blink.
***
Maedhros, Fingon, and their final night together before the Nirnaeth Arnoediad.

After wandering through the forests of Oromë, Maitimo and Makalaurë discover a quiet clearing, stopping to rest. With lyre in hand, the private audience begins— for this song, Makalaurë will only allow his brother to hear.

Concerned by his responses to the paraphernalia of healing, Fingon steals Maedhros from his room for an impromptu garden excursion. Maedhros battles with dark thoughts.

Erestor lay up against a tree, brown washed to black in the wet of the snow. The black disc of the new moon sailed across the dark sky. Erestor wished it were gone. He had no need to look into dark eyes any longer.
He was dying.
(AKA Erestor unwittingly travels back in time to the days between the Dagor Bragollach and the Nirnaeth Arnoediad, meets the sons of Feanor, Thingol and his ilk, many Laiquendi, many Dwarves, and Men besides, and THEN decides to solve the drowning of Beleriand himself. This has nothing to do with his personal problems. Nope. Not at all. Erestor is having regular feelings.)

In the aftermath of the third kinslaying and the death of Amrod and Amras, Maglor needs to reassure himself that Maedhros is still there with him.

Maedhros is left behind by his family after the Kinslaying at Alqualondë after falling beneath the waves. Fingon, in a chance return to Alqualondë, finds an unconscious Maedhros and brings him to camp. The two will discover anew what their love means for them after the lies that split them apart.

You see, I was so enamoured of this last thought as it seized me during the feast, and I could think of nothing only the Crown Prince and his Lord coming together at last in an urgent collision of desperate need for one another. Further, I had unquestionably overdone it on the wine, and so alas: a short story has been born. Entirely fictional of course; it came to me and I could not rest until I had written it down. Indeed I could not even sleep! Long was my labour as I bent over my desk until the early hours of the morning putting words to page. I have attached it to this correspondence for your enjoyment. Do let me know what you think.
Yours,
Ceirel
Armed only with pen, paper, and the delusional conviction that Lord Maedhros of Himring is in a secret relationship with the Crown Prince of the Noldor, the daughter of one of Maedhros' most trusted courtiers begins to explore the world of erotic fanfiction. Things quickly spiral out of control.

Feanor and Fingolfin, from their youth to their fall.
"I will do this gladly," Fingolfin said, whispering into Feanor's mouth, grasping for reasons and sense. "Gladly, if it will bring peace between us. If it will end the madness."
"The madness will not end," Feanor said. "There will never be peace."
Chapters 1-11 and 18 were originally posted on fanfiction.net in 2002 and slightly revised for this version. Chapters 12-17 were written in 2026.

Stories set in and around the universe of The Mirror Crack'd.

Trapped upon the bitter cliff, Maedhros dreams. Or hallucinates. Or endures the mental torments of the Dark Vala, Morgoth. Surely, one of those must be the case; for he cannot have been rescued from Thangorodrim's torturous peak. He cannot.
But then, why is Findekáno here?
Maedhros finds in many ways that those visions which do not end with his own blood and breaking are the worst of all: because they end instead in waking, and the inescapable knowledge that such things will never again be aught but dreams to him. That knowledge is a tighter shackle than the one that holds him to the cliff-face, and the pain of it around his heart is much sharper than that which throbs through his arm. An arm goes numb much faster than a heart, and there is a limit to how much pain a body can bear before the sensation of agony starts to crumble beneath the onslaught.
If there is a limit to how much pain a heart can hold, Maedhros has not yet found it.

Fëanor shrugged, studying the contents of his wine glass. “Something must be done about that house. It will fall down eventually.”
“It does not follow that it must be you that tears it down single-handedly. Are you sure you do not want help?”
“It’s not as though I have much else to do. I need to build something new there,” he said after a few moments. “To do that, I must first clear away the old and broken things.”
Decades out of Mandos, too many things in Fëanor's life remain broken. He can't do anything except wait for his sons to come to him, but he can do something about the old and crumbling house where they once lived.

Fëanáro dies, and the rest live, coated in his ashes.