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.

Two Numenoreans talking about bread. That's all it is.

In which Celebrían encounters a satsuma plum, the piercing insight of Finrod Felagund, and the two decide to paint each other’s skin. Or, Celebrían and Finrod do trauma recovery in their own unique way.

She had considered, for a brief while, volunteering to take her mother’s place. To run and hide the two of them away on the coast, well away from the dangers of the north. But her brother deserved better than that. If he could not have both parents, then he should at least have one, and not just an older sister who knew nothing of raising children. And besides, her father needed her here. She was still his heir apparent. The first resort and line of defense. It was her who had the training and the knowledge to lead their people if anything should happen to their lord, and the lineage to reinforce her claim. But something deep in her chest, sitting somewhere behind her still-beating heart, went sharp at the thought. If she did take her father’s place, she feared it would not be for long.
Sighing, she lifted her baby brother up and kissed his forehead. His skin was still soft, the way that infants’ was. This might be the last time she would ever see him.
What a burden to place on the shoulders of a child who was only just seeing his first winter

Curufin lets Finrod say goodbye.

How high a price, not only for words but for blood on holy shores? For smoke on the horizon? For trust and love unyielding, tossed aside in the hours of one dark night? And what, then, the price for unearned forgiveness? For offering the other cheek, for offering to slay kin all over, again, again, again in his name?
“Would you have come with me, if I had asked?” The truth is, Fingon is not sure of the answer. The truth is, he had asked himself, nights on end, what the answer to that question would be. Had asked himself where they had gone so wrong, that he no longer knew.
“Would you have asked, if you were sure of the answer?”
Fingon rescues Maedhros. He and Finrod grapple with the aftermath.

Maedhros watches him for long moments, his eyes cold in the dim light of morning. “If I wanted to talk to you, I would ask, not use my brother to trick you.”
The implication lands like a blow, precise and devastating. Finrod takes another step closer, then stops himself, fists clenching at his sides. Maedhros has ever been like this, to him—every single word eliciting a reaction; making him fly, bringing him low, tearing him open. What a terrible thing to still find it true, so many years and betrayals later.
Once, Fingon and Maedhros had been Finrod's lovers, the past participle of it carrying the sentence. As it turns out, not everything agrees to be relegated so neatly.

Aegnor cut him off, eyes blazing in self-defense as he slipped into the half-forbidden tongue of their mother’s people. “I did not know that you knew each other when—”
“That does not matter!” Finrod said, also dropping Sindarin in favor of Telerin. It was easier to argue in the language of their childhood rather than diplomacy. Besides, it afforded them some privacy. “It shouldn’t matter whether she knew me or not! You should not have done this!”
or: Aegnor panics, makes a decision, and goes to his oldest brother for validation. It does not end well.

A sound came, then, that was not sleet or wind or the heavy breathing of one who slept. It was footsteps, crunching in the ice outside. They stopped for a moment, and the tent flap opened, granting entrance to both Ingoldo and a cold gust of air. His face was red with cold.
“How did it go?” he asked in a low voice as Ingoldo turned to secure the flap once more.
“As well as can be expected.”

Maedhros stands at the battlements of Himring and faces Thangorodrim.

Fëanor watches from the Halls.

Pengolodh interviews a kinslayer.

Drabbles written for the Great Beleriand Bake-Off Plus! Instadrabbling.

Drabbles written at the Insta-drabbling session at the SWG Discord on 21 December (Winter Solstice in the northern nemisphere), for expanded prompt sets based on the Bake-off Challenge.

In the wake of the fall of Númenor, the penal colony at Andrast is liberated by Sauron's forces. One of the Historians' College of Númenor bears witness.

After the slaying of Brodda, the stronger among the rebels who aided Turin are driven to take up a life as fugitives in the mountains of Dor-lomin in the middle of a grim winter. Asgon is their leader or one of their leaders.

In the wake of the Final Battle of the Last Alliance, Erestor struggles to keep moving and to reach out to friends and family.

The events of Redhorn pass cleave a distance between Celebrían and Elrond neither have felt before. That one terrible event sends shockwaves down the long years that come after.

Elured and Elurin watch their world burn.

When Maedhros returns from Mandos, re-connecting does not prove easy. Nerdanel is determined to care for her son and finds that she must confront grief along the way.
In my dreams my sons wander at length, lost in pathless woods, ancient, sunless and foreboding. In the waking world, Maedhros breathes and moves before me, but is rarely truly there. I see the dream-wraith Maedhros superimposed over my living son, and am sure he never found a path out of that desolate place. The whispers in my dreams insist he never will.
Written for Scribbles and Drabbles 2025 Prompt #53: Night Watch by Zhie, to whom credit belongs for the artwork below (which can also found here).
Many thanks to Elronds_Library and timelessutterances for beta reading, and Double_Sharp for the conversations on equatorial climate.

Amid the devastation of Nírnaeth Arnoediad Fingon reaches out to Maedhros with one last command: 'you must not follow me', and Maedhros remembers the last sweet hours they spent together before the battle.
"Promise me something, beloved.”
This, the only time he allows fear to break through before the battle, catches my attention. I extend my neck to see creases of care in the corners of his mouth. “Mm? What is it?”
“Promise me you will find your place in the world to come, beyond tomorrow,” he lowers his voice to a whisper, “whether I am by your side or not.”
Written for Scribbles & Drabbles 2025 Art Prompt #51: And his banners they trod into the mire of his blood by Fiamma Galathon. You can find the artwork here.

Mairon reunites with Melkor at Lammoth.

“What if,” said Manwë, regarding Maedhros with star-bright eyes, blue as sapphires and piercing as blades, “you were sent from these Halls for a purpose, son of Fëanáro?”
“I suppose, my lord,” Maedhros said slowly, “that would depend upon the purpose.”
Maedhros is sent back to Middle-earth, in the company of the Maia Olórin.

Two brief scenes featuring Galadriel, one in Valinor in the time of the Trees, one early in the Second Age.

Sheer terror helps an orc escape Morgoth, but their troubles are not over. AU.