Hello! You have just been visited by the Crackship Fairy, as of now you will be given a crackship and you have to do good by them. Your crackship: Voronwë/Maglor
(This is much more of a gen take on their relationship than it is a shippy one, but my headcanon is that Voronwë is aro, so that’s just how it’s gonna be!)
~
It wasn’t often that Maglor came across another elf on these shores. They were rocky, dreary, generally abandoned; he liked to be alone, and this stretch of coastline was good for that. The few weary Secondborn who eked out a living here were suspicious enough to steer clear of him, and in return he did the same for them.
In ages past this land had been the border of Ossiriand, pressed up against the Blue Mountains. The mountains were still there, taller and grander than ever, but the seven rivers were sunk under the sea and the singing Laiquendi had long since fled for greener lands.
Mithlond was not too terribly far from these his favorite haunting grounds, but no matter how genial and polite Círdan was Maglor knew he was not welcome there: the Falathrim had not forgotten the ruin of Sirion. No, this was a place where he could wander alone, his mind free to catch forgotten melodies on the wind and his spirit unbound by any constraints of law or temptations of love.
And yet: here stood a simple dwelling, still clearly Noldorin in make, looking near as old as Maglor felt. He had wandered this beach a hundred times or more, and never before had he run across this little elfhome that appeared to have been here since Beleriand’s death throes had finally ceased and the lands he had bled and fought and suffered for settled under the vast ocean.
Entranced, Maglor approached the house, noting its angular shapes, the Tengwar over the door, shimmering with some faint enchantment. He shivered as his fëa brushed against it: he was not repulsed, per se, and yet he was not permitted to pass through the barrier.
“Who goes there?” demanded a voice too soft for its tone.
Maglor turned around, tensing instinctively and letting his hand wrap around the hilt of his dagger. The speaker was an elf, as he had thought, though they conversed in Westron, and though his eyes did not shine with Treelight, he had the stature and bearing of one of Maglor’s kin. Still, there was something a little off about him—the shell patterns on his clothing, perhaps, the shimmering blue of his blade, or the curve of his nose, which reminded Maglor strongly of a person he could not quite place. Perhaps he was of the Sindar as well as the Noldor.
“Peace,” he said slowly in Sindarin. “I mean you no harm. I was simply curious of your dwelling. I will leave you to your solitude.”
The ellon relaxed, though he did not sheath his sword. “Thank you,” he said in that soft voice. “But you have not answered my question. Who are you?” He glanced to Maglor’s cloak, tattered and torn and yet unmistakably blood-crimson. It was not the same one he had worn when he cast the Silmaril into the sea—that had long since unraveled into nothing but a painful memory—but thought Maglor no longer wore his father’s star openly, he would not abandon his Fëanárion pride, nor could he wash his hands of the blood upon them.
He could give the ellon a false name; he had done so to others in the past. But Maglor was so tired, of hiding, of running, of lying, and he did not have the heart to do so. He adjusted his grip on his dagger, knowing that if this ellon was part Sindar, there was every chance he would be met with long-sleeping anger reawoken.
And yet, still, he spoke his name.
“I am Kanafinwë Makalaurë Fëanárion,” he said, “though you may know me better as Maglor the singer; and you may wish my name had never had cause to be uttered here in the east. Certainly I wish that at times.”
“Oh.” For a moment the ellon’s resolve wavered, and then he grimaced, sighing, and sheathed his blade. “Well,” he began, switching to musical Quenya that made Maglor’s heart swell with a fondness long-forgotten, “by all I rights I ought to hate you, Fëanárion, and yet it is not often that I hear my father’s tongue spoken, especially not by a voice so lovely as yours.”
“Who was your father?” Makalaurë asked, dread coiling in his stomach. If this was another long-lost relative—
“Aranwë of Ondolindë,” said the nér, and a smile twitched at the corner of his lips. “I am Voronwë the mariner, once-friend of Tuor Ulmondil and Eärendil Morningstar.”
Voronwë—yes, he had heard that name before. A nér of Gondolin, a mariner, a friend to Eärendil and Tuor...and kinsman to Círdan, if he remembered correctly. Makalaurë shuddered, bowing his head.
“You were at Sirion,” he murmured. It was not a question.
“Not precisely,” Voronwë said. “Elwing, wife of my dear friend’s son, and her children—they were there. But I dwelt alone in a home not unlike this one, some miles away from the city, as I ever have since Tuor and Itarillë departed for the West.”
Makalaurë’s heart skipped a beat. “I—regret what was done,” he began, but Voronwë waved a hand.
“Come in,” he invited, walking past the protective enchantment around the perimeter of his little home and beckoning Makalaurë in. “That was an age long ago, and we have both suffered enough for our choices. I would speak with you, over supper, of those you called your sons—unlike with Eärendil, I did not have the pleasure of seeing them grow to adulthood, and I would hear from you what they are like.”
Makalaurë took a deep breath, then nodded. Voronwë’s offer of conversation, of a meal, of companionship was more than he deserved—but he spoke truly, that he was not the same nér who pillaged Sirion and kidnapped little children. And Makalaurë could never turn down an opportunity to sing the praises of his sons, no matter how little right he had to call them that.
So he walked inside, let Voronwë lay a gentle hand on his shoulder, and let go of some small portion of his sorrow.
