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

After his release from the Halls of Mandos, Melkor seduces many of the Noldor with honeyed words and accusations against the Valar. The Two Trees are ruined and the Sun and Moon arise. One of these elves, Ardana the Astrologer, leads her people to return the skies to their original form, nothing but stars. But she must destroy the Sun and Moon to accomplish that from her holds in the south of Middle Earth.
This is a non-canon story that is inspired by an MERP RPG series that was a gift from my aunt. Most of the characters and settings were from the series and some quotes and songs are taken from Tolkien's writing. It also ties in with the Wars in Beleriand and two my other two stories, The Dark Mage of Rhudaur and The Thieves of Tharbad. The story is designed to span three ages.


In Dor-lómin, Tuor and Lady Aerin both dream of a golden-haired child. (Lalaith is doing her best, considering that she's a young child and also dead.)

The story of the first peredhel, fierce love, and how sometimes the laws of nature will let you think you defied them sucessfully before they catch up to you.

Maedhros has received an invitation to one of Elu Thingol's exclusive charity galas. She opts to take her sister as a plus-one. She'll probably regret that.

“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.

On the night after the coronation, the wind was cold. Fires still burned in the north; their light could be seen, flickering on the far reaches of the horizon, but they provided no warmth. A figure stood on the ramparts of the keep at Hithlum, where the ceremony had been held, more solemn than joyous. The wisdom of having so many of the rulers so near the great darkness to the north, given what had happened– what was happening– was questionable, at best. But their luck held. For now.
A conversation between two kings of the Noldor.

...everyone here seemed to think Daeron should return to them equally unchanged, the same merry minstrel he had been long ago before the Girdle had been breached. He was yet a minstrel, and he was often merry, but he had seen and done so much that so many here could never even imagine. He had come very close to death more than once, and yet survived. He did not care what others might think of him, really—except for a select few—but it would be tiresome to be always catching them off guard, and his love for one of the sons of Fëanor would catch many very much off guard, he knew.
Daeron settles back in among his own people, travels to Tirion--and meets Fëanor.

A short and very personal essay that is a mix of defense-of-genre-fiction and processing my relationship with my dad. Not intended to tell anyone else how to feel about the fiction they consume, just trying to sort myself out.

Two elderly hobbit-ladies find ways to get through the time of Saruman's rule over the Shire.

After his exile to Formenos, Feanor locks himself in the vault with the Silmarils. Makalaure goes to him.

Well, Fëanor frightened him. Fëanor frightened them all, still, in one way or another.
Fëanor's sons receive letters from him, and try to decide what to do.

Éowyn decides to join the Ride of the Rohirrim to Minas Tirith. A poem in alliterative verse.

The truth was, she should have been dead. The spear that was now leaning against the wall behind her should have killed her. The healers had told her that they had never seen someone survive such a wound, especially without the aid of elvish medicine, as she had been for the first days after the people of Brethil had found her.

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.

Everyone, including the Valar, are convinced that Fingon and Maedhros are romantically involved no matter how many times they explain that they very much are not. When will they get it through their thick skulls that there are other ways to love? Apparently not soon enough. When the Valar decide to involve Maedhros and Fingon in their meddling, it leads to some interesting circumstances.
A queerplatonic take on Maedhros and Fingon's relationship for Russingon Week, with some Gil-Galad parentage exploration for fun.

Moments of reflection with Maglor as he comes to terms with grief. A collection of drabbles and other short writings to accompany One in the Deep Waters.

Maglor finds himself alone with only sorrow and song for companions. But lamentation can neither undo the sorrows of which it tells, nor turn new hardships aside.

Maedhros finds that regret and pain do not end with death. But it does at last bring release from the oath and he can at last embark upon the long, hard road toward redemption.

He opened his eyes slowly, blinking against the lantern light. He stared at Elrohir with a strange look—horror and helpless fear mixed with longing and perhaps…recognition? But Elrohir did not recognize him, he was sure. And there was something else in his eyes too—a Light that Elrohir had seen before only in a handful of people, dimmed by pain and fear, but not extinguished. “It’s all right,” Elrohir said. “We’re going to take you away from this place.”
The Necromancer is driven from Mirkwood, and Elladan and Elrohir find someone altogether unexpected in the pits of Dol Guldur.

"The world is indeed full of peril, and in it there are many dark places; but still there is much that is fair, and though in all lands love is now mingled with grief, it grows perhaps the greater.”
-The Fellowship of the Ring, Book 2, Chapter 6 "Lothlórien"
A collection of drabbles exploring the beauty of mingled joy, hope and sorrow in Tolkien's world.

As the Sons of Fëanor set their feet on the path to the sack of Doriath, Caranthir reflects on the characters of himself and his brothers and contemplates where the responsibility lies for their predicament.

Níniel comforts Finduilas after a nightmare.

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.

The king's natural philosophers are an elite group of men of science in Armenelos. When one of them is discovered to be (apparently) a woman in disguise, he is expelled from their ranks. Unfortunately, his youth and beauty draw the interest of the king, and there is no one with the power to protect him, not even the High Priest himself, although to the philosopher's surprise, Tar-Mairon tries...
A possible origin story for the Mouth of Sauron.