It is vitally important that you know that after Beleriand Sees Some Shit in the Annamire 'verse, and the living sons of Feanor cross the mountains to create a new home, Eol is the Professional Negative Nancy.
Like by then he is borderline deified by the Feanorian host. He returned a Silmaril, he SOMEHOW RESCUED AN ENTIRE ARMY, and then in Elves v. Morgoth round 3 he takes out one of Morgoth's eyes. Maedhros marks him with the Star of Feanor, one on the back of either hand (one for the Silmaril one for Fingon's rescue) and they would do anything for this grumpy little freak.
And Eol is just- himself. He follows across the mountains because uhhh relations between he and Thingol Are Pretty Bad and he like. Wanders into the woods and disappears.
But whenever they're planning something big the High King of the Noldor always sends out a message and Eol shows up again from wherever he was to sit in and go 'that is a bad fucking idea and here is why'
In a light-blocking tent in the encampment of the armies of Fingon the High King of the Noldor, Lomion- Prince of Gondolin and Lord of the House of the Mole- is watching a dark elf sleep.
His charge’s eyes are closed, an indicator of how serious his condition is. The healers have assured the prince that whether he returns to the land of the living or slips the bonds of his body to Mandos is out of their hands. Rest and time are what will tell.
They have plenty of that, now. The cost had been high but the Enemy is routed- gone? Not as gone as Prince Maedhros might like, but driven forth in terror and rage.
There could have been more death. Should have been more death. Lomion’s uncle Turgon could stand as High King of the Noldor now, if not for the elf prone on the bed.
An elf who is- breathing in, slow and heavy. Waking up for the first time in a ten day since he plummeted from the sky shedding feathers and blood.
Eyes open. Dark eyes, no white to them, only orbs of raptor gold in black pools. Like Lomion’s own eyes, sapphires in a dark lake.
“You cannot be here,” the elf murmurs.
“Why not?” Lomion asks, instead of summoning the guard outside or sending for the King as he was ordered.
“You should be there, with her. In that white city..listening to the horns and the fountains..” the eyes close briefly, then open again. “Not here.”
“I am here. So are you.”
“…Turgon came, then. Fingon was not sure..” another slow blink, a noise of pain. “does he look like a startled bird?”
Lomion blinks. “What?”
“S’what your mother always said..that her brother..had a look like..an affronted raven..” a soft chuckle, then, “did she find her needles? Made sure..to pack them. Always forgetting her embroidery things..”
Then he drifts away again, leaving Lomion to stare at him as the day wends down to a gentle night. Eol dreams, and the son he bequeathed his name watches him do so, and outside the sky is a riotous carpet of stars.
In any 'verse of your choosing - what do you think would happen if Eol met Tuor in a non-Gondolin setting?
"Tuor did go forth into the wilds, and came in time to a stand of dark trees which seemed to swallow him; and this was Nan Elmoth, the Stardusk, where Eol called Annamire held against his kinsman Thingol who was wroth over the return of the Silmaril..."
The forest is dark.
So- dark.
No light filters down through the thick canopy and the litter is deep and soft. There are animals here but Tuor cannot see them, and hears them only briefly. How long has he been here? Hours? Days?
"Well."
He freezes.
"This is passing strange. A Man walks my woods where none have walked before and he walks like an elf of Mithrim, but his sword whispers of Easterlings and his helm of dwarven fire."
"I am Tuor," he says to the dark all around him, standing firm but not reaching for a weapon, not yet. "Tuor, son of Huor and Rian, of the House of Hador."
"...I know that name."
There is a subtle shift, a whisper. Above Tuor the canopy suddenly lights, the white leaves of a few of the trees- those with black bark- shining softly green. There is a glow to the moss and the vines that hang and a shine too in some of the clover.
It is enough to let Tuor see the speaker.
He is an elf, surprisingly short and with wide eyes that have no white in them- only black pools in which float golden orbs. His hair is the color of a stormcloud, pulled back and wrapped in a dark blue shawl with black embroidery. Black too are his leathers and boots but his skin is pale and what little Tuor can see- his neck, his hands- is marked in tattoos in red and black and blue.
On the backs of both of his hands, glowing faintly silver in the dim green glow, are seven pointed stars.
"Annamire," Tuor whispers, for who else could this be?
The elf chuckles. "Yes, that is a name some call me. Others call me Eol." He tilts his head. He tilts it very far. "You have walked out of a dark place. And now you walk to a very bright one."
"I do?" Tuor asks carefully.
"You do." The head tilts the other way. Like an owl, the outlaw thinks, considering the angles it might use to sweep down upon an unsuspecting mouse. "I can see it, and perhaps tell you which way it might wend, in the end."
"You would do that for me?" Tuor asks. "Lead me?"
Eol shakes his head. "I cannot lead you, son of Huor," he says with clear regret, "but I can set you on the path, as I have set many others before you. Come. It isn't far, and your coming though unknown to me must not have been unplanned in truth."
Eol gestures and Tuor can see in the distance, and is startled that he did not notice before, the soft yellow glow of a Hall. He can almost hear the crackle of the fire and the lifted voices of elves in song.
"Follow me, and do not stray," Eol says, "for Nan Elmoth has let you in, but there is no promise of her letting you out."
He walks towards the light and Tuor can do naught but follow, as his father did once before.
things that should not have been forgotten (were lost)
"You know I think your Da was a bit shit, actually."
Carnistir- Caranthir- blinks up at Eol the Moriquendi, or as they seem to be calling him now Annamire. The Dark Elf had been nominally placed with the quartermaster and had been quietly polishing armor and sharpening swords, which kept him from the greater discussions of the High King and the various Lords of Elves and Men who were planning the military campaign.
So how he'd wound up in the bursar's tent is lost on Caranthir entirely.
It's long after dark and Caranthir and Eol are the only two in the tent, the other accountants and logisticians long gone for the evening.
"And why do you feel the need to tell me this, or presume I care?" Caranthir replies. He finds it easy to speak to Eol, unlike the rest of his brothers. Maybe he's spent too much time with the khazad, because Eol talks much like they do- straight and to the point.
"Eh. You were closest." Eol crouches on a low chair like a bird, head tilting this way and that. Caranthir has found that the more one looks at him, the more one sees that is alien to the form of elves as they know. Is it his age? Where he was born? Is something in Eol inherently twisted, a different twisting than what made orcs but enough that the Light turns from him?
"Why do you look like that?"
"Like what?"
Caranthir gestures. "Like that. Weird."
"It's only weird because the weird ones stayed behind."
Caranthir blinks.
"Never saw your grandda do that thing with his fingers, did you?" Eol asks.
Caranthir is struck by a sudden memory- Finwe in the garden, reaching for a rose, fingers slithering between the thorns and closing tighter than they should have, like he had an extra joint on each.
"Ahhh," Eol says. "I see you did."
Caranthir sighs. "My grandfather's fingers were long."
"They had extra joints. Never saw anyone who could hold a tool like Finwe. Your grandmother may she be a rock in Bannoth's shoe until the end of all songs, had teeth that could crack stone. I understand Rumil was your tutor. Did he still wear those shoes? The ones that let his claws air?"
Caranthir swallows. "He wore large boots. Larger than he needed."
"No doubt Finwe had long sleeves and Therinde only ever took small bites," Eol says with a bitter little smile. "And under all that Light and singing not a one of you was born interesting. Well. Maybe your oldest brother, he's very tall, but to me you all look tall so that's not saying much."
"So all of you?" Caranthir asks. "All of you were born- different?"
"A good many of us, aye." Eol replies. "What we had shaped us. Finwe with his fine little tools, making everything more complex. Therinde holding her spindle in place, holding the leather up to measure."
"And you?"
"Looking ahead and behind," Eol says, "and deep into the dark."
Caranthir looks down at his book of sums. He thinks of Rumil and how he had always seemed slightly unsteady.
He thinks of his father, and how he had burned.
"Do you think-" he begins, then stops. "Surely you heard how King Noldoran died?"
"Which one?" Eol asks ruthlessly. "Caus' the first one went and got himself got by the Rider, undoing YEARS of my hard work, and the next one got himself burned to death and- oh."
Eol's head turns- and turns- and soon he is looking at Caranthir from an angle that on any other elf would turn them into a corpse.
"You think he was weird, too." Eol says. "The burning."
Caranthir forces himself to keep looking at Eol, though the very sight of the twist in his neck has made gooseflesh rise on the feanorian's arms. "My father did not even leave a corpse, so great was his wrath. His birth drained my grandmother's spirit away."
Eol shrugs and his head slowly lifts back to a normal position. "S'possible. Couldn't tell you for sure, since we never met. Not that it would have been a pleasant meeting, I reckon."
Caranthir is sure of that. Maedhros has the grace to see through Eol's blunt rudeness and lack of noble position, observing the keen mind and centuries of knowledge and experience they sorely need. Feanor...would not have.
"Can you do it on command?" Eol asks abruptly.
"Can I what?" Caranthir blinks.
"The red thing. With your face."
In response Caranthir blushes in anger and Eol shakes his head. "No not like that. When you're thinking about it."
"I don't know, I've never tried, why would I try?" Caranthir demands.
Eol smiles and there's something eerie about it. It's in how wide his mouth seems.
"Another thing your grandma was good at," Eol says, "was dying garments. She made the prettiest red. I dream about it, sometimes. She did one of my favorite hair shawls. Do you know how she did it?"
"Why would I know that?"
"She would bleed in still water, and sing her most secret songs. Never a madder or elderberry that could match Therinde's red."
Caranthir thinks of his grandfather's red over robes. Of the red roses in the garden. Of the rubies in the throne at Formenos.
"You think my red is like my father's fire," Caranthir says. "You think it's like your eyes or grandfather's fingers."
"Could be." Eol says. "Could not be."
"What good is being able to flush on command?" Caranthir demands.
"A flush is blood, isn't it?" Eol says. "Lots to be done with blood if you're brave. I misspoke earlier."
"Oh? And how did you do that?" Caranthir asks, deciding he is done with this conversation and done with the Moriquendi.
"Sure, your Da was a bit shit," Eol acknowledges, "what with antagonizing everyone and then dying. But you lot don't know anything. Nobody told you. So nobody told him. And fathers are supposed to tell their sons things, so Finwe was more shit."
Caranthir feels an immediate surge of anger. "My grandfather was a great and noble king!"
"Your grandfather once went face first in a lake full of lily pads because he thought he saw a snake in the road and jumped sky high screaming like a bluejay," Eol retorts. Caranthir growls and stands. "My brothers may accept your ill tongue and crassness but I will not," he hisses. "get thee from my sight, dark elf."
"Ah hold your swan boat I'm going." Eol flaps a hand and hops off the chair. "Do all you lot good to remember a king's just an elf."
"I fail to see how we can forget," Caranthir says tightly. No wonder Curufin hates him so much.
Eol looks over his shoulder at Caranthir, head turning so that he is almost fully facing the other elf despite the rest of his body still pointing towards the tent exit. This time Caranthir cannot suppress his shiver.
"Forgetting's what got all you into this mess in the first place," Eol says, sounding ancient and haunted. "and remembering might cost you more than you want to pay, Lord of Thargelion."
Then he's gone from the tent and Caranthir can at last breathe again. The dark haired elf sits down and tries to finish his sums, but the numbers swim and he gives up in disgust. There has to be a wine bottle around this valar-foresaken campsite that will put him under for the evening. If he can't find it, Curufin can.
Caranthir closes his log, locks up his papers, and departs into the night, trying to ignore how cold the wind seems to be blowing.
Me: I am thinking of a certain music to set the theme when Eol breaks through the lines of Morgoth and spirits a whole ass army away while spiritually eating the wolves of Angband what is it
Me: ahhh yes Joe Hisaishi’s perfectly reasonable and not at all ominous and terrifying Demon God a Totally Normal track from Princess Mononoke.
The little avari looks up from where he had been gazing out across the camp. "you're far from your minders, your majesty," he says, but Fingon is growing used to his casual rudeness and replies, "I can slip them when I wish. Will you answer my question?"
"It's the wrong question," he says. "You say 'did', as though I ever stopped."
"Do you love her, then?" Fingon asks, coming up beside Eol. It's a clear night, a good omen. The stars are winking brightly.
"I do," Eol says. "for all that may be worth to great folk like you."
Fingon's brow furrows. "A curious way to put it."
Eol shrugs. "You will note I am wifeless. And sonless, as it happens."
Fingon's eyes go wide. "You had- have- a son?!"
"I do. We did. Only recently passed his majority. He went with his mother to Gondolin."
"And you did not go with them."
"I was not invited. They laid the plans in secret, or so they thought." Eol snorts. "My realm may be half-sentient and all attitude, but she likes me better than most. I knew before they'd even begun the planning."
"Yet you did not stop them." Fingon says. "Curufin.."
"Has said some things, I'm sure," Eol says. "and perhaps there is a kernel of truth in them. If he tells you I denied her the right to see them, I did."
"May I ask why?" Fingon says coolly.
"You're not asking, you're ordering," Eol says, "which is why you folk have so much trouble communicating with anyone who didn't come with you on a boat or an ice float. Still." He sighs. "Upon a map Nan Elmoth does not seem like much. A smudge of darkness some three day ride from the Girdle of Melian and the border of Doriath. Yet she is bracketed on either side by Feanorians and has the most direct road in and out of the realm."
"..you feared Curufin would attempt to overthrow you," Fingon says.
"I see you're one of the smart ones," Eol says. "He would not have attempted, he'd have managed it. As temperamental and magical as Nan Elmoth is, I cannot be everywhere at once and maintain only one hall, with no more than thirty wardens at any time and any visitor who can hold a weapon. Numbers would overcome enchantment eventually. It would go far quicker if he were to ransom my Lady and my child."
"He wouldn-" Fingon starts, then he stops.
"Definitely one of the smart ones," Eol says with an approving nod. "I knew Indis' craftiness hadn't died off entirely."
"Yet that denial alone would not have swayed her," Fingon argues. "My sister has a spine of iron."
"She does," Eol says with a small smile. "No. We had begun to argue over it, and over her wish to return to Gondolin and present Ma-" he stops. "...present Lomion to the court."
Eol looks up at Fingon. "I am no courtier. I make a poor one in Doriath and I'd make an even poorer one in Gondolin. Then there is the small matter of the burning."
"Yes, Maitimo mentioned. The light..?"
"Yes, and the sun and moon. It's in all your eyes, you know," Eol says frankly. "It shines there, and when you look directly at me I can feel it pricking like needles in every inch of skin exposed. I've been spared here by virtue of armor and being so short amongst all you lofty Lords."
"So me looking at you right now-?" Fingon lifts his eyes and Eol's chuckle this time is grim. "I could almost be getting used to it," he says. "It was how I knew your sister had arrived- I could feel her looking at me."
He removes a pipe from inside his jerkin and begins to stuff it. "So imagine, if you will, your tall and beautiful sister, arrayed all in white. Followed by her equally tall and noble son. Then along comes this."
He gestures at himself.
"If I wasn't laughed out of Gondolin she'd surely have been shamed, since our marriage vows weren't consecrated by your people anyway."
"Personal humiliation is a poor reason to deny a loved one their home," Fingon says.
"A home she could not leave?" Eol says. "By your other brother's rule none in Gondolin may pass beyond it, and only her argument allowed her departure the last time. A new relation, a potential heir and the return of the sister he may well think lost? She will not be allowed to leave a second time."
He sighs.
"And before you say the words, I know them. 'Aye, but did you not do the same? Keep her when she wanted to roam?' I did. Which is why I did not stop their plan, or allow my servants to stop it."
He lights the pipe, drags in an admirable lungful of sweet smelling smoke, and breathes it out his nose like a dragon with not a sign of the coughing or sputtering that Fingon has seen accompany such actions amongst the Men.
"I left things in places. Left certain cupboards unlocked, made sure there were overages in food. Made certain to pack her good embroidery needles, the ones she'd kept tucked in her hair wrap. I didn't want her to forget them."
"Then you do not believe she will return to you?"
Eol laughs and the laugh is wretched and touched with sorrow. "No, your Majesty, I do not. What does dark Nan Elmoth with her one dim hall have to give that the White City could not? I've no towers or noble houses, no sprawling fields of golden wheat or fountains that shine with crystal water. What wealth I have is in the things I make, the deals I strike. There is no bounty rich enough in my starlit woods to slake your sister's need for adventure, nor my son's need for recognition and power."
Fingon is quiet. He thinks of Irisse- brilliant, eager Irisse, always ready for the next hunt, the next ride, the next run to the horizon.
"I do not know if it works the same for avari as it does for us," he says hesitantly, "but. If she had dissolved your vows, would you..not..?"
Eol snorts. "Some of us are made of sterner stuff. Aye, I could lay down and give up my rhaw, fade away to starlight to seek the road beyond to wherever it may take me. Where does that leave Nan Elmoth? Where does that leave my idiot halfbrother, my poor niece and her mortal husband? No." He shakes his head. "No, it cannot be allowed. I have troubled the living world this long, I will keep doing it."
Another pull and exhale. "I suppose you will naysay then that I love her."
Fingon thinks carefully before he says, "No. Once I might have argued, but there are many different kinds of elves and lives and loves. I cannot know them all. Perhaps none can."
"Then you are wiser than your cousin," Eol says tightly.
"What is your son's name?" Fingon asks in a desperate bid to be free of this line of conversation.
"She named him Lomion." Eol says. "I understand it means 'Child of Twilight' in your tongue."
"Did you give him a name as well?" Fingon asks.
Eol is quiet for a long time. Fingon almost wonders if he needs to repeat himself before the little avari says, "It took me twelve years to decide."
"Twelve years?!" Fingon sputters.
"Aye. Twelve years. He was simply 'Eolion' to me for that time, or owlet, or little one. It drove your poor sister mad, but I wouldn't be budged. I had to be sure."
"Sure of what? Making the right choice?"
"Sure that it was time to give it away."
Eol looks up at Fingon. "Eol is not my name, your Majesty. It is an epesse, given in sorrow and ill feeling in a time long forgotten, that came to fit in a way I couldn't escape. I never made use of the name my mother gave me. So I thought it was time it pass to someone who might bear it well."
Another pull at the pipe, the embers lighting up the backs of Eol's eyes and making them shine that unnatural aqua. "So on his twelfth name day, I told him I had a name for him. That it was old but barely used, and would be made stronger with his growing."
He blows the smoke in a perfect stream to curl away and rise above the camp. "I named my son Maeglin, your majesty, as my mother whispered it to me in her more lucid moments. Sharp Glance, is the closest I might come to a translation. He sees as far as I do. He sees farther."
Eol taps out the pipe.
"....yet even that he left behind, wanting no shackles from a stunted little dark elf to hold him from the light of his mother's kingdom in the mountains."
Fingon barely breathes as Eol cleans the pipe out and continues, "So I am bereft of wife and son and name, bereft of holding once my brother ascertains where the Silmaril he demanded as bride price has gone, and if your cousins have their way once this battle is done I will be bereft of my head."
"They wouldn't!" Fingon protests. "You returned the Silmaril with no demands or pretense! For that alone Tyelkormo and Curufin must stay their hands."
"Perhaps," Eol says, "but I don't believe that and neither do you. Still. I've chosen where to plant my little flag and I've planted it. Your beloved's half mad but I've followed worse."
The dark elf nods. "Good evening, your majesty."
He walks away into the dark, leaving a confused and morose Fingon to watch as the campfires start to burn out.
Maedhros: this is Eol of Doriath. He returned the Silmaril to us.
Fingon: well met. Why...do you have a bucket of water..?
Eol: listen, pretty boy. Before she left me I was married to your sister and I heard ALL ABOUT how these meetings tend to go, and I'm not dying because of some half baked plan you two idiots cooked up while trying to get dressed after the fact.
Fingon: um. So the bucket..?
Eol: if it worked to keep Miriel and Finwe on watch duty when they thought they'd have time to get cute it'll work on you morons.
Fingon: is this how you deal with being involved in important military planning?
Eol: I am older than dirt, a wanted fugitive in Doriath and Curufin already wants me dead I have quite literally nothing to lose. TRY ME.
You all need to know that in the Annamire AU (dear god why am I like this) Eol’s name lore is different.
In the one short I’ve written thusfar (the minor errand short) Eol leaves the camp. In the greater AU I don’t think he gets very far and basically winds up stuck with the Feanorian forces during the Battle of Unnumbered Tears (which still doesn’t go GREAT but does go DIFFERENTLY and not as catastrophically because of his inclusion, he is my special boy, my blorbo, my meow meow, I can alter the fate of Beleriand with one moody avar if I want so there) and like ‘hey how’s your fighting’ comes up
And Eol is like ‘I don’t fight other elves can we just not’
Maedhros is like ‘nah bro we gotta see this at least once beside Curufin’s been shit talking you since he heard you were the one who brought the jewel back and between you and me we have a Brotherly Need to see him proven wrong you know how it goes’
So Eol does some practice bouts and wipes the floor with some of the best trained men that the Noldor have and then Curufin decides to put his money where his mouth is and Eol wipes the floor with him too
Which leads to him being moody and standoffish and it’s Maglor who is like ‘hey man uh you okay’
And Eol has to patiently explain to this elf that he is OLD, older than all of them, older than probably almost all the elves they have with them, and you call him all sorts of pretty names but he was just the Rider to me, and he came and he took us and he turned us into those things and I saw the best in the dark so I had to lead groups to try and find them, and fight them when we couldn’t save them.
He has to look Maglor in the face and explain that ‘Eol’ isn’t his given name. It’s an epesse that the other elves of Cuivenen gave because when they saw him coming they knew their loved ones weren’t coming home because he couldn’t find them, or worse had to kill them to halt an orc transformation or because they were orcs period.
So he doesn’t fight other elves if he can avoid it.
But he is very good at killing orcs.
(Jury’s out on whether it’s been so long Eol can only dimly recall or not recall at all his mother name, or whether his mother name was Maeglin, and when he gave that name away after twelve years of consideration it was rejected, and he feels some kind of way about that and never speaks it aloud again.)
