Fairytale
I feel like this might be another suggestion by MoonLord, hmmm...
Either way, have Fingon as Snow White (stealing his sister's epithet) and a subversion of a handful of fairytale tropes!
Characters: Fingon x Maedhros, Maglor, and the other punks
Words: 2 125
Warnings: diffuse sense of dread, a curse, fairytale elements...
Fingon had run for so long that he was now barely strong enough to keep walking—however, something dark and dangerous had taken over his kingdom and home, and he had thought it necessary to flee in search of assistance and council.
Of course, he felt considerably guilty about his younger siblings whom he had left at the mercy of whatever terrible power had encroached upon their realm, but he simply had not seen any other solution.
When he was ready to succumb to the paralysing weariness that had crept into his very bones and lie down, ultimately and irrevocably vanquished by the threateningly looming peril, he glimpsed a thin column of smoke in the distance.
Pushing through the ever-shifting, distinctly unnatural forest that seemed to watch his every tortured step, he strove towards that flimsy promise of sanctuary and salvation stubbornly; at last, he felt an echo of long-lost hope surge within him, and he was determined not to lose his way again.
After everything he had lived through, it was probably naïve to expect whoever had started the fire at the source of the hearteningly dense cloud of smoke to be a friend rather than a foe, but he could not let himself be discouraged now.
Everything had changed since his father, the King, had been overcome by a strange confusion that had fatally addled his mind and dampened his prodigious intellectual acuity as well as his physical strength.
As his son and heir, Fingon had to act—he couldn’t simply stand by as his land and people fell under the spell of the ruinous devastation that was assailing them with relentless fervour.
All but falling down a steep ravine, marbled with gnarled roots and poisonous plants, he finally found himself in front of a small cottage.
“Hello?” he called, casting caution to the wind, as he struggled to his feet slowly. He was tired and sore, his every muscle ached, and his heart clenched painfully at the thought of those he had deserted so callously.
Muted whispers resounded from behind the intricately carven door—the tone and speed of the unintelligible words told Fingon two things: first, there was more than one inhabitant, and second, they were just as surprised to have a visitor as he was to have stumbled upon such a beautiful building in the very heart of an enchanted wood.
Dread replaced the soothing sensation of relief that had assuaged Fingon’s many-layered suffering. Surely, he now considered, creatures who had to retreat so far from all vestiges of civilisation and company had something to hide.
Mayhap, they were monsters or worse who fed on exhausted travellers and lost wanderers—after all, if anyone got sucked into the compelling, merciless magic of the surrounding landscape as deeply as he had, it was highly improbable that they’d ever find their way out again.
Instinctively, his hand flew to his hip to draw the short dagger, dangling from his belt, that his father had given him for his name day a few years prior—he loved and cherished the weapon, and he trusted that he would be able to summon enough strength to take at least one or two of the unseen strangers along with him to the beyond if they were to attack him.
“You go,” someone hissed, and then a shutter was pushed open just a smidgen.
Fingon could make out a pair of flashing eyes, then another one, and another one, and his stomach dropped.
“He’s drawn a knife and all,” another voice, rough and impatient, resounded. “Maybe we should go out armed too?”
“You stay there! I shall go.” The finality in the melodious but stern voice made Fingon cock his head in visceral curiosity—his visions of horrifying ogres melted into images of alluring sirens, and he stepped back into the rapidly dwindling pool of fading light flooding the small clearing he had just crossed.
Shifting into a defensive stance, he raised his blade and waited.
When the door opened, he could not hold back the gasp of astonishment that burst from his throat like a sudden rain shower. No matter what vague ideas he had entertained in the torturous moments of ignorance, he would never have been able to foresee the blinding beauty of the being in front of him.
“You have travelled far; you must be weary.” Lifting lily-white hands, the man—for superficially, there was no indication of any kind of monstrosity or perversion—spoke in that self-same calm tone that had soothed and baffled Fingon previously. “My name is Maedhros.”
Fingon smiled graciously at that lie—he had been the King’s son for too long not to be intimately familiar with that minute shift in inflexion and stature that invariably betrayed a half-truth. He did not doubt that the name given was one that was used by the mysterious entity in front of him—shining like gilded marble in the warm evening light—but he was also certain that it was not the one he used for himself, inside his mind.
“Fingon,” he said, bowing low. If Maedhros was not willing to divulge his true identity and purpose, he did not see any reason to introduce himself with his official name and title either. “I must have gotten turned around somewhere.”
“Where did you want to go?” Gentle mockery lay in Maedhros’s voice now—he evidently was supremely aware of the pitfalls and elusive threats of his forest and had no qualms about letting Fingon know that he doubted the veracity of his words.
“Nowhere,” Fingon chuckled wryly. “I wanted to get away from…It doesn’t matter. You do not happen to know where I could find a sage or a witch perchance?”
Cocking his head slowly, Maedhros let his long hair cascade across his shoulder like a curtain of dancing fire as he pondered the question.
“No,” he finally admitted. “My brothers and I have lived in these woods, guarded by ruthless guardians of stone and bark, for many a sweltering summer and blistering winter, but we have yet to encounter someone fitting that description.”
His bright grey eyes gleamed with sympathy and something darker that reminded Fingon of bone-deep sadness. “I am afraid we cannot help you,” Maedhros went on, his feet already shuffling against the soft grass to turn back to the cottage. “You’ve found the wrong people if it is assistance and succour you seek.”
Flinching as his vague quest was summed up so simply by another, Fingon took a step towards the tall, handsome stranger and—in a moment of utter folly—took that long-fingered, cool hand into his own to keep him from retreating.
“Why are you here then? It is evident that you have divined my motives with disturbing ease, but you’ve also said that you and yours have been confined to this prison of isolation and regret for quite some time. Why don’t you leave?”
“Because we are cursed,” another voice resounded, and Fingon’s head snapped back to the cottage. In the impenetrable shadow of the gloomy hall beyond the open door, he could only barely make out the outline of another being—shorter but just as shapely as far as he could tell—and turned to Maedhros in alarm.
“How many of you are there?”
“Seven, me included,” Maedhros sighed and tried to withdraw his hand; when Fingon would not release it, he soon stopped struggling. “Do not let Maglor’s artful lamentations fool you—we have committed grievous misdeeds. It was to protect others from our reckless folly that we’ve been banished…”
His gaze was pleading now as he shifted as if to shield Fingon from the piercing eyes that flashed like gemstones in the darkness within the picturesque but vaguely unsettling home. “Save yourself…”
They had been banished, Fingon thought, but he had fled like a thief in the night, not even risking the hopeless, crazed fight against an unknown, menacing fate.
“Will you always stay here? Is there nothing you can do?” he asked instead. He and the man whose hand he was still cradling in his own broad palm were almost dancing now—Fingon tried to get a good view of the inside of the house while Maedhros seemed intent on denying him just that.
“There are stipulations,” someone called from behind, “but Nelyo refuses to let us even try to fulfil the conditions.”
Before Fingon could make the gorgeous ginger explain further, a shadow coalesced into the solid form of a man and floated towards them, an affable smile on his sensual, full lips.
“No matter how you feel about the terms,” the newcomer purred, and Fingon was struck dumb by how curiously full and rich his voice was, “this man is tired and hungry. Let him come in and rest—what harm could even we do him with a bowl of fresh stew? We are not monsters—at least, you are not—and we shall obey your words.”
A flash of pain and regret rippled across the pale, freckled face of his reluctant potential host while Fingon tried to suppress the desperate yearning that the flippant suggestion of warm food and a place to sit down in peace had awoken in his chest.
“Maglor, at your service,” the soft-faced siren spoke charmingly. “I promise that Curvo is a better cook than an entertainer, and yes, Moryo is always that morose—it’s not because he doesn’t like you.”
“Stop,” Maedhros groaned, but Maglor had already pulled Fingon away from him and towards the house. “Let me introduce you to the brood. You’ve already met Nelyo—he’s the oldest, and he was literally named for his beauty.”
Fingon had the strange sensation that he was being lulled by the potent spell of the charming words pouring from Maglor’s lips like sweet water, but—in his weakened state—he could not even resist the mellow, unceasing draw of the open door from whence a mouth-wateringly delicious smell now billowed into the quickly cooling air.
“Káno, I beg you,” Maedhros called. “He is…You don’t know what you’re doing…” He hastened after the retreating pair to wrench the clueless victim of the vindictive forest from his brother’s perfectly manicured claws.
Just beyond the threshold though, he was halted by two pairs of hands clamping down on his arms.
“Prince Findekáno,” one of the twins, the youngest and least fatalistically pessimistic of the brood, hissed.
“He could be the answer to our prayers!”
“No, he could not. Let him go!” Maedhros groaned, tearing himself free, and nearly lunged into the small kitchen to save Fingon from the terrible turn in his destiny that would inexorably occur as soon as he got himself entangled with these accursed exiles.
To his visible dismay, Fingon had been offered the best seat in the house and was already nursing a mug full of warm tea while eyeing a platter of cookies covetously—Maedhros knew that his brothers would have bitten one another for taking even a single crumb more than was allotted to any one of them, but they all seemed happy to let their unexpected guest eat his fill.
The scene—calm, domestic, deceivingly joyous—made Maedhros’s skin break out in goosebumps; he knew just how seductively charming all of them could be, and he was tragically aware of how lethal that magnetic charisma usually turned out to be for innocent bystanders.
“Fingon,” he called warningly. “Do not believe them—this is not safe!” He was condemning himself to a lifetime of solitude and misery, he knew, but he preferred to stew in his culpability until either his sorrow or his siblings ate him alive rather than add to the pile of ashes their indomitable fire had already amassed.
“No,” Fingon laughed and took another deep swig of his tea. “I don’t think I will—I think I’ve found exactly what I needed.” He knew not why he had said that, but—in his heart of hearts—he was sure that he had spoken true. Somehow, the unfathomable and quite possibly wicked magic of the forest had led him straight to this house, and he simply could not ignore such an intervention by superior powers.
“What are the terms?” he then asked quietly—the whole room seemed to petrify into a stasis of shock and solicitude.
“The usual,” Maedhros laughed mirthlessly. “True love, true selflessness, true sacrifice—basically, we have to overcome our wicked nature to help someone else without expecting or accepting any form of gratitude or payment. You do not know who we are, but…it’s as likely as to ask a pear tree to bear apples in winter.”
“Oh,” Fingon grinned sharply, “but I do know. We have been looking for you—where exactly is Fëanor now?”
Thank you so much for reading <3
-> Masterlist for November (by @cilil)
