#sere writes

[nycterisg]

The world is a stage and you give yourself to its theatrics. You learned young, and you learned from the best. Now, when the curtain falls, your audience rises, claps and cheers for your performance. Your soul still sings even as you shed your lavish costumes for simpler garments. 

You join your family and they’re ecstatic. You shake your grandfather’s hand firmly, and make sure to brush the corner of Findekano’s lips when he offers his praises. Artanis must be handled with care – too much warmth in your voice, too quick a flutter of your lashes and she might see through the cracks. You avoid her face entirely and hug her instead, affectionate but fleeting. You retreat your teeth and melt your uncle's coolness with the soft curve of your innocuous smile.

You slip a flower into the hair of a maiden passing by.

And then your father comes, engulfing you in the heat of his blind pride. “You were born for this,” he declares, and if your sweat runs cold, no one can tell, for you are basked in the light of his flame.

He kisses your cheeks and you smile at him too, but not too obligingly: draw a thin line across your lips – yes, just like this – so he knows he does not own you. There, you see? You were born for this.

[nycterisg]

Their camp isn’t too close to the sea, but not far enough to escape the sting of salt. Maglor thinks the damp might eat away at his bones, and he cannot breathe without remembering the scent of salt mixed with blood.

"The first time I saw the sea," he begins, speaking to his brother, watching him through the firelight between them. "I was with Fingon."

Maedhros spits a tiny bone into the coals, stretches his legs out beside the hearth and shuts his eyes tight. "You’re lying."

Maglor chuckles: it’s true, it’s typical of him to embellish the truth, and it’s not the first time Maedhros has accused him of weaving dark marvels out of trivial occurrences – but what else can he do? Maglor is a bard; he can only gild the past – learn something from it, if he can; and Maedhros has often made use of his gift with words, back when words could still make a difference. 

"Not a lie," Maglor answers. "It was that time. Mother and Anairë had decided to patch things up, you must remember. We were what, three? Four? Neither of us had ever seen the sea. She took us both to Alqualondë. First the harbor, then the beach."

"You lie," Maedhros says again, cracking his neck where the pain always finds him. "Your first time in Alqualondë was our uncle’s wedding. Our cousin wasn’t even born yet."

"I remember Fingon’s little outfit," he continues as if he hadn’t heard a word, "Hideous pink and green thing. I’ve no idea what Anairë was thinking. Anyway–" his voice softens, "I loved the sea. You know I did. I lay down right at the shoreline, waiting for the waves to crash over me. I laughed like a fool every time they did. And our cousin... He was already a wild thing. He ran, tripped, split his chin on a rock. Mother had to carry us back to Olwë’s palace to stitch him up."

Another bone spat into the fire like an arrow. Like this, with his throat bared to starlight, red lashes trembling at some flicker of memory, Maedhros is still beautiful. Fingon must have borne a scar on his chin, some small, pale truth to Maglor’s tale. He wonders if Maedhros ever brushed that mark, if he tore the story from Fingon’s lips; or if he regrets never asking.

"I loved the sea," Maglor says. "But I hated Fingon from that moment on."

[nycterisg]

Maglor suggested, ostensibly as an exercise to refine the use of Maedhros' one remaining hand – with the unspoken hope of mending more than his paltry handwriting – that he keep a diary. To write in it what. What you see. What you feel. Anything. Then, without the slightest conviction, he had added Something beautiful, even. 

What utter foolishness.

But Maedhros' handwriting was really that pitiful, and this could serve as one exercise among others. It was not meant to be serious. No one would ever read it. But Maedhros lost himself in syntax, in synonyms and then in antonyms, in the long syllables of adverbs, in the minutiae of style. Lures for the gullible. Extravagant drapes to cover his nudity. Maedhros had spent thirty long years (by the reckoning then in use) without clothes, naked as at his first cry, while he cried out at the top of his lungs (for what? Anything. Let it be the last: the last cruel whimper; mercy; everything; everything, everything, he would do–)

[nycterisg]

WIP Saturday ☀️

Thanks @bad-writer for the tag! I think I'll share a long snippet from my maemags sextragedy (as opposed to the sexcomedy wip that it is)/ Maglor Crying at the Discotheque wip.

No pressure tag for @irnina @gaydhros @endless-natterings @from-the-coffee-shop-in-edoras to use when the muses strike ^^

Maedhros threw his head back and the flames recoiled at the rasp of his laughter. “Nothing of the sort, brother. Arrogant and proud, that’s how Fingon called you.” “Me?!” “You have never known how to lose gracefully. The truth is, little brother, you have never been content with second place.”

I glared at him because it was only partly true. Being the second-born has its advantages, I might have retorted: you are allowed to err and more readily ignored – and if you are an artist, then everything is forgiven. But the same rules that allowed me a few more eccentricities and transgressions were the ones that made Maedhros so exceptional. A nuisance, I grant him that. Beleriand suited him, it fit him perfectly, because it allowed him to be no longer one thing, but many, very many – a kaleidoscope of adjectives I often tried to set into rhyme producing a curiously enticing cacophony. His limping beauty chipped away at the aura of artificial perfection that he had carried when I left my parents’ house at a young age to live as I pleased, hosted by my generous patrons for the mere honour of my sparkling company. I have always loved Maedhros, far more than the rest of our brothers, but in youth we were very different. He had been like one of our mother’s statues: beautiful, almost alive.  Now his soul had grown feverish, and you could see it dancing directly in his eyes while his insatiable hunger burned away any aspiration that did not align with his will. I admit that this too alarmed me, as it did many. And yet I had followed him; it is something that comes with being second: his strength guided mine as well.

[nycterisg]

Sunday WIP!

thank you @endless-natterings for the tag! I'll make the most of it as I'm shamefully back on track with all the tag games. I finally have something to share, so I'll take the opportunity to tag a few people back and say hi to others. (Hi hi! I've missed fandom so much. You're all such fantastic writers and I can't wait to make time to read everything you've created over these past months).

So, I gave up on my only reader-pleaser rule - namely: never writing in the dreaded yet beloved at least to me first person POV. But I just figured it worked better, and I wanted to stay in Maglor’s mind, plus this is my self-serving fic, so uh. First person POV it is. So I reworked the whole fic and actually managed to write a lot for my standards. Here’s a bit! ((The Thesis Statement)):

But this — this was what we had become. Kinslayers. Indifferent to how closely lives resembled our own; everything changes once that line is crossed, when kinship blurs and dissolves into nothingness. And that is why I could not stop — because Maedhros had been gone for hours, fleeing toward the child-queen’s residence in search of our Silmaril. He might have found it, he might be dead. I must keep searching, I told my captain, although I did not know what I meant. [...] “You led well today. As always. It was not easy. Our father would have been proud. As I am.” I mocked him. What use was his pride to me after I had lost my own? But he stepped over the hearth and beckoned me to do the same. “I see you, Brother. And I love you.” I met his gaze, hesitant. Brother. Of course. I was still that. He brushed aside the dark strands that had slipped loose from my braid, then I felt the firm pressure of his thin lips against my forehead, their warmth branding my skin while his nails dug into the back of my neck to hold me still.

No pressure tag, but enthusiastic wishes for a very merry Sunday for: @bad-writer @tobermoriansass @isilme-among-the-stars @sallysavestheday @gaydhros @from-the-coffee-shop-in-edoras and everyone who wants to join!

[nycterisg]

They say Maglor is vain -- Maglor who still has beauty left to preserve, Maglor who still dresses to the nines through their endless wanderings. But it’s Maedhros who carries the tokens: long-lived, beloved things from long-lived, beloved faces. Celegorm’s boots and Caranthir’s belt. The hairpin he took from Finrod -- a delicate trinket inlaid with tiny, precious stones clashing terribly with his worn and ragged clothes -- and crafted by Curufin himself. (And there must be something of their father too, and Fingon's -- the heaviest he carries though he’ll never admit it). He hasn’t stolen them. He only cares for them, keeps them safe, keeps them close (for the day he will set their owners free from their captivity, from their Void, into the Light, because that day will come, because Maedhros won't stop, he won't stop until--).

Maglor doubts he possesses anything worth clinging to; wonders instead which battered, broken piece of Maedhros he will be burdened with.

[nycterisg]

WIP Thursday!

Thank you so much to @mircallaruthven and @ecofutural for tagging me ^^ It's been a while since I made one of these eerrr these past few weeks have been pretty unproductive for me, my muses seem to have completely eluded me etc. But my old maemags wip has been nagging at me at the strangest times, and I've been tweaking and adding bits here and there. I think I might have finally figured out what wasn't working for me and I may end up changing the wip completely soon. I'm definitely feeling more hopeful about it now!

Here's a little snippet - and yeah, it's a *bit* nsft, but this wip is extremely self-indulgent, I have many thoughts about Unhinged Maglor™️ so. Here we go:

Maedhros bent, Maedhros on his knees; Maedhros vanquished, Maedhros surrendered. It is bitter, but the refrain coals sweetly in [Maglor's] his middle all the same. At night, beneath his coat, his fingers thrum against his chest, experimenting, toying with the thought and then drifting lower. He feels tired, weariness clinging to him, blurring the edges of his fantasy. He has to shove his cousin’s face from it, for guilt always gets the best of him at night; he must remind himself that Fingon may have cut his bounds, but it is Maglor who crafted his brother into something more. He has broken him and in the breaking remade him, and now Maedhros is someone Maglor is willing to bend to, to kneel before; to be vanquished by, to surrender to. As his pleasure crests, Maglor wonders: when does the tide begin?

I'm not sure who hasn't been tagged yet so let's try some no pressure tagging for: @endless-natterings @from-the-coffee-shop-in-edoras @bad-writer @starshadeemilyart

[nycterisg]

WIPWhatdayisthis

I just realized I had an unanswered WIP game sitting there and I figured I should finally do something about it. Truth is, I’ve been working hard on my thesis lately, which isn’t exactly thrilling content to share (or so I suppose). But I *have* started working on a Russingon again because I’ve missed them (yes, I know I already have plenty of other WIPs. No, that’s not going to stop me from working on yet another one).

So, I don’t have much to share right now, but the lovely @from-the-coffee-shop-in-edoras tagged me (weeeeeks ago opss), and I guess I should at least try to be a responsible human and respond. 

“I remember kissing you on a day like this,” he says to Maedhros. Fingon cannot recall the occasion. There is always some charming excuse for crowds of revelers to gather in the great squares, and there is always a quartet of harps ready to ensnare the apathy of the shyest souls with sparkling, carefree refrains. Nothing Maglor himself would ever write. Such music lacks that thread of unfamiliar melancholy that is unmistakably his. Sadness is an oddity in Valinor, and obsolete besides – an artifact of a distant past. Perhaps it is precisely the exotic vein in his songs that strikes so many minds prone to suggestion. “It’s the tension,” he once explained to Fingon. “Otherwise you have a flat line – beginning, ending, nothing that throbs in the middle. Who cares about a story if you already know how it ends?” Then he looked at him and held him fast in his gaze; Maglor has large, round eyes with a twinge of something ecstatic and terribly unsettling. “Flat, I’m telling you. The trick,” he went on, apparently deeming Fingon worthy of initiation into his precious, secret art, “is never to give everything. Not at once. Give them only enough to ache for more. Hold them there. And then – stop.” Fingon had blushed furiously.

No pressure tag for: @annarobots @queerofthedagger @antlered-vixen @nerdanelparmandil @lordgrimwing @bad-writer @idleleaves @i-am-a-lonely-visitor and @from-the-coffee-shop-in-edoras(yeah sorry dear ahaha) I’d love to read what you’re working on! (or feel free to save this for a more inspiring day <3)