Ruined

Disclaimer: Middle-earth and all its inhabitants belong to J.R.R. Tolkien and his estate, not me.

Rating: PG.

Summary: Maedhros on the fatal choice to take back the Silmarils. Madness. Possession. Loss.

Feedback: Yes please.

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We cannot set the world to rights…

It is broken, torn asunder, and we with it.

Darkness triumphant, living and breathing in every action of the Free Peoples, even when we believe we have vanquished it… The shadow enfolds us, stinking, caressing, deadly with its blandishments, its temptations…

Arda Sahta, they call it. Marred, marred … doomed, damned, beyond hope, beyond salvation…

Unknowing, unthinking, we creep round, less even than the lowest of beasts, forgetting that we once saw the light of the Two Trees … bright, bright, shining jewel-fire … brighter than these fools could ever know…

Once, brother mine, once we were princes, great princes, in a land which was completely our own. Not trespassers in the land of these Aftercomers … Not forced to bow and smile before this boy-king, this Gil-galad, this petty princeling, this nothing …What does he know of star-fire? Nothing, nothing, this usurper of our titles knows nothing.

Think you that it would have been thus long ago? Think you that you would have had to grovel to a pair of disdainful peredhel brats, who would not even deign to love your great minstrel's heart? Nay, you could have made them your sons, and they, these strange elflings set walking in a world which could never truly be theirs … they would have adored you, gone down on bended knee to worship before you … And what have they done now? Betrayers, betrayers, little sneaky thieves of my brother's great heart … little sneaky thieves of that affection which should have been reserved for the memory of Amrod and Amras…

Wrong, wrong, I say 'tis wrong…

Doomed, damned, damned, doomed…

Just as we are, dear Maglor…

So why should we not take back what is rightfully ours?

Ours … bought with our blood, our flesh, our tears and laughter, our sorrows which eclipse all, make all as naught…

What have they suffered, these Lords of the West? What price have they paid for what they now take with such feckless grace? What do they care for us who have lived and fought and died, who have lost, and lost again, and kept struggling onwards with only the memory of light to sustain us? What do they care for our blood which has stained the dark earth red … for our fallen kin, our father, our brothers, our cousins? Just chaff before the wind, just frail insects under the fell heel of Morgoth Bauglir…

Let not the Lords of the West take our weregild, our due reward, our rightful inheritance…

They have not striven. They have not fallen. They know not the darkness which sees all, encompasses all…

The Silmarilli are ours, I say, ours to do with as we will…

So very, very bright, such fire, such beauty … it must be that they will heal your wounded heart and my ruined arm… Surely, surely…

How dare they deprive us of this? Of what is ours? Have we not suffered enough? Bled enough? Cried bitter enough tears?

Do you not see, brother mine?

Do you not see what we must do?

FINIS

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