Character: Maglor

Content: gen, Second Age, aftermath of the Oath of Féanor, aftermath of severe depression, aftermath of mental illness, learning to live again, hopeful ending,

Warning: Possible triggers for depression and related mental illness, please tread with care if you might be affected by this.

Disclaimer: This is a work of transformative fiction based on JRR Tolkien's creation, done purely for enjoyment. No money is being made. I promise to give the characters back more or less as I found them.

Notes: This is somewhat experimental in style, also in being a joint text/photo story. For obvious reason, I can't post the images or links to them here, so I recommend to read it on the AO3, Faerie, or the SWG (profiles under the same name). The photos show seascapes at different times of the day, one with a gull flying. The story works well without the photos, but they'll enhance the overall atmosphere.

The first part, titled Water Music, was originally a vignette for a SWG challenge I did not complete. Following the inspiration of two B2MeM 2017 prompts as well as a visit to the Lofotes last summer, this part has now been rewritten and continued in the second part, both completed by photos I took on that journey.
The idea of Maglor coming out of whatever mental state he had been in after the events of the First Age and the Oath of Fëanor - the loss of his brothers, the deeds they have done under the oath and so on - has always intrigued me. I do not follow the fanon idea of Maglor being guilt-ridden and severely depressive for the rest of his life, or the largest part of it; but I do believe that there must have been a time when dealing with the immense loss he has suffered, and the likely immense guilt he carries, must have affected his mental state to a significant degree. Conveying this into tale is difficult, and I am trying here an approach that feels natural to me.
I'm trying to write this from the point of view of a person coming out of deep depression, and after having been lost in a deep mental turmoil. I'm not talking about some specific mental state or illness, but just wrote what felt natural to me for the character. I'm also basing this to a small degree on personal experience, as I suffered from a more or less severe depression for several years; and Maglor finding a way back into normal life on my own experience of doing the same. I have never been half as deep down as the Maglor in my story has been, though, or have been as badly affected as so many others living with depression.
These two vignettes only show Maglor's first steps in that direction; two more parts already exist as drafts, but might not be finished for a while.

Many thanks to curiouswombat for beta reading and for generally being awesome!

Elemental

by Ysilme

~oOo~

Sea - Memory

He was woken by the cries of gulls. Some mornings, it was gulls; some mornings, just the sea. He lay still, eyes closed, listening. Waves were rolling up the beach, gently moving the pebbles with a soft, swishing, sound. A familiar sound, like - music? He was not sure. He remembered music - but there was also so much he had forgotten, and sometimes, he could not tell if he remembered correctly. The waves evoked another memory, of somebody floating in the water, long hair streaming behind, unfathomable eyes the colour of the sea. Sounds, like the swishing pebbles, the waves, the wind. A voice, barely distinguishable from the sound of water, joining him in song. A voice he had known since he was small. He remembered listening to it on another beach and, later, on The Day of The Blood. But that memory would not come.

He opened his eyes, following the gull sailing across above him. It was early still, the sun sending her first rays over the horizon, and the air was fresh and cool. The sky was painted in colours both soft and so beautiful that it hurt, but he thought it was a good kind of pain, a pain that kindled something in him, some urge. But he could not remember what this was either. With a sigh, he sat up, wondering distinctly why he did not remember so many things. At least, by now, he did remember some.

Before, there had been just a grey fog. By and by, he became aware that there was fog, and then the fog went away, gradually, returning memories to him. Memories and sensations. Hunger, thirst, tiredness, cold, warmth. His sense of self, of being a person. The passing of time, day and night. He slept when it was dark, and walked when the day came, found water to drink and food to eat. Not much food, though; he found he could not bear to eat anything that had lived, and there was not much else. Moss, seeds, a few berries or mushrooms, but mostly seaweed and bark. He remembered roots and broke himself a stick to dig for them. He found and egg and ate it, but then he remembered that they were alive as well, and was sick.

He wondered why he would not eat living things, and then another memory came. Maglor. He was Maglor. He had not thought about his name, or any other, not since Before. It had not been important. Remembering who he was brought more memories, of pain and blood and guilt, and for a while, he went back into the fog because he could not bear it.

oOo

A sharp pain brought him back to the present. The gull was sitting at his feet, staring at him with a tilted head. When their eyes met, it jabbed at his foot, and Maglor jumped up with a curse. There was some blood at his toe, but it did not frighten him now, and while the gull took off with a loud complaint, he walked into the water to wash it away.

Then, on an almost forgotten impulse, he washed his face and hands, and, following the sudden urge to get clean all over, went in deeper until he could fully submerge. Only then did he realise that he should have taken off his clothing first, but it did not matter; anything would be an improvement to his current state. His clothes were mere rags, so bleached and torn that their original shape and colour had become indistinguishable. Peeling them off, he knelt in the surf, scrubbing the cloth with handfuls of sand, and then also used sand on his body until he felt raw, but clean. He tugged at his hair. It had grown out nearly to his knees, and was so knotted that the water had not even penetrated it fully. Twigs and small bits of whatever were stuck in it, and he bent over, repeating the sand and water procedure with his hair until it felt somewhat better. It would need to be cut off, though. He sighed.

After spreading his clothes on the sand to dry, Maglor went back into the surf. First he stood, watching how the slow rhythm of the advancing and receding waves washed away the sand around his feet. Then he sat down, and lay back, letting the water wash around and over him, until his breathing became one with the rhythm of the waves. He squinted up into the bright sunshine, watching the flight of the gulls above. A deep sense of peace came over him.

Life. This was life.

oOo

Later, he started off along the beach. He remembered now that he had done that every day since the fog on his memory had started to lift. Walking, watching, observing the sea and the sky, which were forever changing and yet somehow always the same. Finding food when hunger pained him, resting when he grew tired. Waiting for more memories to turn up. Waiting for familiar places to appear, although he had no knowledge where he was, and if there even still existed any places familiar to him. Maybe everything was gone under the sea. He remembered that, now, too, the great cataclysm when everything he knew was lost. He waited for things to start making sense again, for the fragments to come together, but so much still eluded him.

But he remembered the sound of the pebbles, swishing in the waves, from Before. A song rose inside him, strong and sad and beautiful. He sang.

oOoOo

Notes: Written for the B2MeM 2017 prompt: Gameboard, Green Path, 8: "Each night when I go to sleep, I die. And the next morning, when I wake up, I am reborn." Mahatma Gandhi