New Challenge: Everyman
Create a fanwork about an ordinary character in the legendarium using a quote about an unnamed character as inspiration.

Turin, just after killing Beleg, sinks into despair.

As the bells began to ring alarms at another five black-sailed Corsair ships hoving into view, Ulloth’s mind and pen alighted upon the pelargoloth, her namesake, the common and beloved flower of the city’s balconies and courtyards, just opening its scarlet petals with the dawn of the the Second Siege of Pelargir.

Fingon y Fingolfin tienen una conversación a las vísperas de la Batalla de la Llama Súbita.

The tide played around the horizon, only beginning to consider its daily sweep up the beach to the toes of Alqualondë. Eärwen waved to the far-off breakers and slid down to the wet sand, then turned and lifted Anaïre down. Anaïre pecked her on the cheek in thanks, and they started up the beach to the strand and the woman lying there sobbing for breath.
She did look young, close-up. That is, she looked like an Elf who had just reached full maturity, except where she did not. Around the eyes she bore little crinkles like the seafarers did, on her heaving belly the lightning-marks of pregnancy, and two fascinating rivers of silver ran into the light-gulping blackness of her hair from the temples. And, of course, there were the feathers

The Silmaril falls slowly, so slowly, as if taking its time to caress the weightlessness of Ulmo’s waters. Does it seek relief also, Maglor wonders, to be free at last of all the hands that lusted after its blessed shine?
Maglor casts his Silmaril into the Sea.
[Also available as a podfic, recorded by Anerea]

The story of a girl who wanted a ring on her finger.

The arrow shoots straight, but in the brief arc of its flight, it flexes ever this way and that, undulating in the air as if straining against the bonds of its mark. And yet what mark it finds, it finds, and strays not from its fate, and so do you, Túrin, in all your struggles, bend ever toward your doom.
Thrice would Beleg find Túrin in the wild unbidden. Beleg/Túrin.

As the Bragollach rages, Andreth waits.

A Fëanorian hunter is seriously injured near the Nolofinwëan camp at Lake Mithrim. Though Fingolfin scarcely knew Fëanor's youngest sons, he at once recognises and is drawn to his nephew, whose presence offers him a semblance of closure to the irreparable relationship with his dead half-brother. After taking on the role of Amrod's healer himself, he discovers that their wounds, and their need for each other, run far deeper than he thought.

That it was returned, he did not question. He could look back now and see everything arranged in its full image, he could trace the careful dance they both wound through this past year; every word, every silence, every touch ringing through with that steady truth. How had he been so blind?
Springtime has come to Estolad. Finrod is struck with a realization he has been avoiding and faces the decisions that lie in its wake.

“Let us not perish here in the long darkness,” Balan said softly, crossing back to take one of the waiting wreaths and set it upon his own brow, “these creatures you chose to form. Remember us, here in our frailty.”
It is Yuletide. The Atani and Finrod celebrate throughout the night as they stay awake to greet the dawn after the Longest Night. Balan's people settle into Estolad, Atani traditions abound, and Finrod faces some memories.

A disabled young man is approached by a mysterious stranger. A triple drabble.
After capturing Finrod and his companions, Gorthaur attempts to discover their identities...

It was a custom done in scorn of death, Balan would tell Finrod later that night as they sat beside the fire in the hush of the midnight watch. He might come ever ravening among them, but they would scorn his maw. Even in their rotting they would lay claim to life.
Balan's people are on the road to Estolad. Finrod begins to suspect his own feelings, there is danger on the road, and we witness Atani burial rituals.

Finduilas had never thought she had been saved for a reason, until she found the woman in the river.

Maedhros and Maglor disagree about the education of the Peredhil.

In that moment he envied for the first time the mortality of Men. He coveted a death that came upon you softly, death that whispered and held out a hand and let you slip into his arms in sleep. Death that passed his fingers over your eyes and left a visage in peace. Balan’s death.
It's the Fen of Serech, more or less. An oath for an oath, blood for blood.

A fleeting moment in the last days of Celebrimbor's life, in the dungeons below Eregion. Even if it hurts to kill the one he loves, even if Celebrimbor has forever changed him, it is too late for Sauron to turn back.

Finwë and friends go West

Finrod felt the other’s panic strike his perception like a blow and was running even before Balan’s cry reached his ear. In a glance, his eyes took in the scene before him: the camp in sudden stillness, one of the Laiquendi staggering through the clearing, a limp body slung in his arms, Balan and Baran sprinting toward him.
It was Belen in his arms.
The Edain and the Laiquendi cross paths in the woods of Ossiriand and are faced with immediate conflict. Finrod and Estreth work to heal the damage, Balan (Bëor) tries to learn the communication of thought, and the Edain choose where their loyalty will abide.

It was danger only if the goal was avoidance, and Balan had no desire to escape. The urge to laugh returned and his heart dared Estreth’s cautions to be true so he might find himself ensnared forever, held motionless on this hilltop, a statue cradled within the other’s hands till the world’s ending. If his soul was consumed in the process, then let it be so. It was a fair price.
A few months after Finrod discovered the Edain near Thalos, he continues to dwell with them and form friendships. Balan (Bëor) attempts to learn multiple languages, some old folktales of the Edain come up in conversation, and Balan and Finrod discuss grief with a side of constellations. Balan has a crush.

“I convinced myself the situations were different. I built labyrinths within my reason to justify the pretense, and in their twisting ways I wandered blind till faced with her grief—the tribute paid in pain, as thou hast named it. Till then I could contend that I suffered so thou might be spared; I grieved so that thou might hold love in memory untarnished. That I learned at the feet of Doom to thus keep its step from thine own neck, and so should goodness come of it. Eru forgive me, I was wrong.”
After his conversation with Andreth forces him to face his own rationalizations and hypocrisies, Finrod realizes he needs to come clean to Aegnor and confesses to him both the consequences of his former advice, as well as his own secret grief that motivated it.

Maedhros' decision to cede his claim to the High Kingship drives a rift between him and the brother who held the crown for him through his captivity. Through their reconciliation, Maedhros grapples with shame over the feelings that Maglor's devotion awakens in him, before he at last accepts the balm for loss and failure that Maglor offers.

Melian's new Noldor charge has been disobedient. A loving queen must teach her a lesson.

The unexpected and mysterious return of Glorfindel, hero of Gondolin, to Middle-earth opens old wounds for Erestor. Can he overcome guilt and forge a new relationship with his old friend?
Written for 2023 My Slashy Valentine fic swap