I headcanon the Teleri have a yearly festival dedicated to the hatching of sea turtles. I will share longer thoughts later but in the meantime, here's a board <3
Mary Oliver poetry prompts pt 2 number 30 for Maedhros and Fingon please. I really like the way you write their friendship.
Thank you for the prompt! <33 This turned into a bit from the meanwhile the world goes on 'verse, not long after Go On Aching Still. Also it got a bit longer than the other ficlets so it's going under a cut.
30. What I want to say is that the past is the past, and the present is what your life is, and you are capable of choosing what that will be.
Fingon crossed his arms. “You really want to do this now?”
“I’d rather not do it at all.” Maedhros sat under a willow tree, just out of sight of his mother’s house. A small river flowed along beside it; Fingon had many happy childhood memories of this river, and of Maedhros’ grandparents house with the plum orchard beside it. The ancestors of this willow tree had been quiet witnesses to many hours of laughter and idle conversation, to youthful daydreams and the occasional argument. It did not surprise him to find Maedhros out there now, leaning back against the tree with a sketchbook on his knee, and a pencil in his hand; he had snapped the book shut as soon as Fingon had stepped through the willow fronds. His hair was loose and tangled on his shoulders, and he looked as though he hadn’t slept in the three months since he had returned from Mandos.
Finrod had warned Fingon—that Maedhros was still deeply unhappy, that Mandos had hardly helped him at all, that he would do his very best to send Fingon away and reject all offers of comfort or friendship. Fortunately for them both, Fingon had never met an obstacle he did not want to overcome. He sat down and crossed his legs. “Fine,” he said, “but there’s no point to the back-and-forth, you know, because we both know how it’s going to end.”
“Fingon—”
“First of all, you should know that I’ve never blamed you for the Nirnaeth. I knew even then that if you did not come when you were supposed to it was because something had happened—and I was right. My death was not your fault, and I will not have you continue to punish yourself for it even now, when we are both returned to life.”
Maedhros’ jaw was set in that particularly Fëanorian way. “Fingon,” he began again.
“What came after—that was terrible. Of course it was—I barely recognize the Maedhros of the latter part of the First Age—but it was nearly six thousand years ago now. I have had quite a lot of time to reconcile myself to all manner of things—”
“Findekáno—”
“I would rather choose to be happy to have my best friend back than to stew in the miseries of the past, which can’t be changed. All we have is the present, and with neither oaths nor wars to loom over us, we can both shape our futures as we wish. You can try to send me away all you like, but it won’t work, because I can tell you don’t really want that.”
Maedhros sighed, and slumped back against the tree. He dropped his pencil to his lap and rubbed his hand over his face. “It doesn’t feel like six thousand years,” he said finally.
“Time is odd in Mandos,” said Fingon. “Russo, why did you not let them help you?”
“I didn’t want help. I just—it was quiet, there. If I could have just stayed…”
“Finrod thinks it was doing you more harm than good,” Fingon said quietly. Maedhros didn’t answer. Fingon sighed. He’d said his piece—whether Maedhros believed him or not didn’t much matter, because he had no intention of staying away. “What have you been drawing?”
“Nothing in particular.” Maedhros made no move to open the sketchbook. “My mother just thinks I need to be doing something.”
“She’s right.” Fingon stretched out his legs and leaned over to bump his shoulder against Maedhros’. “I missed you,” he said.
Maedhros sighed, and surrendered to the inevitable. “I missed you too,” he said, very quietly.
Mary Oliver poetry prompts 2, #11: Now that I’m free to be myself, who am I? + Maglor
Thanks for the prompt!! 💖
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For a long time the despair seemed inescapable, the grief impenetrable, the weight of it all so heavy that he couldn’t do anything but lie on the ground and weep under the stars.
Eventually, though, his tears ran dry and his hand started to heal, and clear thought returned to him. With it came questions.
He had never been alone before. Always there had been something for him to do, some duty, some task or responsibility. He had been a prince, and a performer, and a warrior. He had been a son and a brother, a cousin, a guardian. Maglor realized he did not know who he was without any of those things, or if he could be anyone without them—who was he now, alone and almost nameless—for there was no one there to call him by any name, good or bad.
For a long time he sat on the stony shore and watched the waves roll in and out, glinting in the sunshine and the starlight, the tides ebbing and flowing, leaving behind the detritus of Beleriand, alongside the crabs and shellfish and things. “What do I do now?” he asked a seagull. It did not answer, too busy prying open a mollusk.
The wind picked up, whistling through the jagged rocks and kicking up spray and foam, and he felt it call to him. Always he had desired to follow the winds, to seek wide open spaces, or new places that no one else had yet seen. For so long he had been constrained—by duty, by the Oath, by fear—but now…what was there left to hold him back?
It would have been better with a companion. In all his youthful daydreams of exploration, Maedhros at least had been by his side.
Still, Maglor got to his feet. The seagull took flight, its meal clutched in its beak. “What do I do now?” he asked the wind, and answered himself, “Well, I suppose I will wander where you lead me.”
For a long time he had thought he would never make music again—he had neither words nor melodies left. But as he walked his feet kept time with the waves, and he listened to their songs, and started to think—maybe. Someday.
The world he had known was broken and drowned, but there was a whole new one before him, waiting to be discovered.
This is the first piece written for Silmarillion Epistolary Week 2026, @silmarillionepistolary Day 1: Daily Life, Customs, Recipes
I have to admit, I wondered into the Hobbit, not the Silmarillion for day one. It was too much to resist. (Day two is into The Silm, I promise)
Hobbiton town Complaint Records (254 words)
All writing for this week will be found in the AO3 link above.
The following is an excerpt of Hobbiton town records of various complaints brought by residents.
Complainant: Bilbo Baggins
Complainee: Lobelia Sackville-Baggins
Complaint: Stole silver spoons when invited to tea
Resolved Y/N No
Resolution/explanation: Complainee insisted she bought them in an estate sale and the spoons are rightfully hers. Complaint on going.
Complainant: Farmer Maggot
Complainee: Peregrin "Pippin" Took
Complaint: Took more mushrooms than is good for a hungry young hobbit to steal
Resolved Y/N Y
Resolution/explanation Complainee apologised and returned the excessive amount of mushrooms.
*Note on this. Pippin also assisted Farmer Maggot in the restoration of his farm after the Scouring. Pippin’s response to this complaint is the reason Farmer Maggot has now nominated Pippin as Thain.
Complainant: Pimpernel Took
Complainee: Samwise Gamgee
Complaint: Complainee was lurking in the bushes and standing in an unnatural way.
Resolved Y/N Y
Resolution/explanation Complainee was pruning the bushes as part of his job as gardener
Complainant: Lobelia Sackville-Baggins
Complainee: Bilbo Baggins
Complaint: Refuses to let me in, despite offering help with his party.
Resolved Y/N N
Resolution/explanation: Bilbo still refuses and he placed a “No admittance” sign up in response.
*Note on this. Despite Bilbo's disappearance at siad party, complaint remains unresolved. Complainant has now taken up stated issue with Bilbo's heir, Frodo Baggins.
Complainant: Fredegar "Fatty" Bolger
Complainee: Peter Jackson
Complaint: Was left out of the movie being shot in Hobbiton and Bree.
Resolved Y/N N
Resolution/explanation: Complainee unavailable to give comments to defend themselves.
“And nobody, of course, is kind, or mean, for a simple reason.”
for Turgon and Maeglin?
Thank you very much! I love your writing!
Thank you for the prompt! <3
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The day after Aredhel was laid to rest, Maeglin came to Turgon. His eyes were reddened but dry, and he bowed low even though they were alone, in private. The reason became clear in a moment, when he asked permission to descend to the bottom of Caragdûr to build a cairn for Eöl. “Only a simple one,” he said, voice quiet, gaze somewhere around Turgon’s knees.
“Why?” Turgon asked, aghast at the thought of giving even that much honor to Aredhel’s murderer, before his mind caught up to his tongue and he remembered—
“He was my father,” Maeglin said, still quiet, expression now shuttered. He clasped his hands behind his back, posture stiff. “And—my mother loved him, once.”
“What do you need for it?” Turgon asked after a moment.
Maeglin bowed again. “Nothing but my own hands. Thank you, my lord.” He left before Turgon could say anything else.
A Comprehensive Map of Middle-earth and its Surrounding Lands
Original map credited to the Cartographers’ Guild of Rómenna, with “special thanks” to Falmalórë Círdilion of Pelargir.
Recreation, commentary, and Third Age map by Caleneth Leptafinya and Barahir of Ithilien.
CLICK and ZOOM IN on the maps to see the details!!
for @silmarillionepistolary week Day 2: Exploration, New Lands, MAPS!
For a detailed commentary on the maps and an exploration of all Middle-earth, click HERE!!
“Since you are my son and the days are grim I will not speak softly to you…”
latest completed commission, featuring Morwen shortly after her arrival in Doriath. a quick shoutout to @outofangband, for their posts on Morwen have had me rotating her in my brain forever and overall very much helped create an image of her that I really drew on for this, especially this post which I really loved, about her general dismissiveness of the elves, most specifically and delightedly, taking a ‘lol lmao’ attitude to Fingon and Turgon themselves.
"I knew the tides, I knew the ingredients of the wrack."
Or honestly ANY of those lines??? Celebrimbor / Annatar or Celebrimbor & Annatar
(I'm on ch 34 of A Hundred Miles Through the Desert and LOVING it ❤️
Thank you! 💖
And thank you for the prompt! I hope you weren't looking for anything cheerful. 🙃
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“We both know how this will end,” Annatar—Sauron—said, pacing around the room. Celebrimbor didn’t try to follow his progress. He stared at the ceiling instead, counting the beams he had placed there, remembering the felling and milling of the timber. The only other sounds in the room were the crackling of the fire and the slow drip of blood as it slid down his fingertips to fall, puddling on the floor. “You can stop this at any time, Tyelpë.”
Don’t call me that, he thought. That was a nickname for his friends, for his family, for people he—
Sauron stopped beside him, so that his face was the only thing Celebrimbor could see. It was the same face that he had come to know well, fair and flawless, though the satisfied smile was absent, and the eyes were dark and hard and empty as a starless night. “Tell me where they are,” he said. “Where are the Three? You must know I will have them eventually—why prolong all this suffering, Tyelpë? My strength increases by the day—it is as inevitable as the incoming tide. Where are the Three?”
Celebrimbor clenched his teeth against the fingers that dug into his arm, into an open wound, renewing the agonies that he had almost, in that brief reprieve, become numb to. When he could take a breath he laughed, in spite of everything—a horrible, wrecked sound that had Sauron frowning. “The thing about tides,” Celebrimbor rasped, “is—they come in—but—they also go—out.” He took another breath and turned his head, spitting blood onto the floor. “The Three are beyond your reach.” In the distance he heard bells ringing—silver bells, calling him home. “As am I.”
A double drabble written for LTC's Microfic May prompt set: Dreams, Red Dawn, Losgar, "As you wish."
As is the way of dreams, I know I have not stepped back onto Losgar’s beach. The wind that screams along the shoreline is none other than that of the mountain, swinging me as I hang, throwing my body roughly against the rockface.
I stalk away from the bay where rigging creaks like jangling iron and thread my way through a half-pitched camp. Common people raise tents, their hammers striking harshly like the thudding of my heart. It thunders with fear because I know, this time, that waves lull my unsuspecting brother to sleep, and hindsight has shown me where his death will lead.
The whole encampment moves in a synchrony of concentric circles: a great, surreal dance choreographed around one centre, one heart, and it has become rotten, eroded to madness by grief. Father stands before me, in the centre. I do not stand tall before him. I kneel. I plead. I mention no names. My tears fall, scorching as acid.
Father does not stand proud and unmoveable, refusing me, but crumbles and says, instead, “as you wish, Nelyafinwë.” Defeated, he yields before me, and somehow, this is worse: Fëanor undone. Dawn comes redder than flames in the night.
Tried to paint the maglor I designed. You can see his design here
oh man i fixed this thing almost ten times before i’m satisfied, i hope it looks ok-ish though x”D and if you still see something wrong with it DON’T TELL ME I DON’T WANT TO HEAR IT
music inspiration: Baba Yetu by Christopher Tin. 10 years ago today, it became the first piece of video game music to win a grammy PLS LISTEN TO IT
28 + Maedhros and Maglor for the Mary Oliver prompts please 🌸
thanks for the prompt! <33
28. And now you’ll be telling stories of my coming back; and they won’t be false, and they won’t be true, but they’ll be real.
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He could picture it so clearly in his mind—the ship appearing out of the distant mists, sailing into Eldamar and docking at Avallónë. The passengers disembarking, greeted by a crowd of loved ones. The tears, the laughter, the embraces. And perhaps coming last one more figure, face half-hidden behind a fall of dark hair.
It never happened that way. The ships came and they emptied—and though Maedhros watched and waited, for years, Maglor was never on board.
Wanting was not the same as hoping, and wishing was not foresight. Eventually, he stopped going. Eventually, the ships grew fewer, and years passed in between arrivals. Eventually, he stopped even listening for rumors.
Then the dawn mists brought a knock on his door. When Maedhros opened it, it was like time stopped, and he forgot how to breathe.
Maglor stood on his doorstep, clad in strange clothes, with a canvas bag slung over one shoulder and a bulky instrument case in his hand. His smile was crooked, his eyes uncertain. “Surprise?”
“Maglor…?” Maedhros started to reach out, but hesitated, half afraid to discover that this was some strange dream, or—
Maglor did not hesitate at all. He dropped his instrument and threw his arms around Maedhros. He was very real, solid and warm and smelling of sea salt and sweat.
“You’re late,” Maedhros choked out, and Maglor laughed through his own tears.
“I’m sorry,” he said into Maedhros’ shoulder. Then, “I missed you so much, Nelyo.”
turnnoffyourmind
origamiaround
pixelskylines
stormborns
gummygunk
titsay
areudirty
