"Mother, mother, tell me more about the city of Ondog…Ong…" the small child scrunched his little nose, disappointed in his failed attempts.
Aredhel laughed.
"On – do – lin – dë it is called in my language" she said, cupping his plump cheeks. She kissed the tip of his nose and adjusted some strands of hair that always fell on his face. He squirmed under her attention, feigning annoyance.
"Gondolin is how your father would call it, I believe." she murmured. She took his small hands in hers to keep him still. "What do you want to know again? I told you almost everything already!"
He shook his head, sure of himself: "Impossible! Mother, tell me about the houses!"
He loved to hear about them. His imagination could run free, conjuring up the images of the colourful banners; the beautiful weapons glinting in the morning sun and proud warriors with eyes alight like his mother's.
She hummed, pretending to think about what to say. He looked at her expectantly, his dark eyes wide with excitement. Her gentle smile grew into a grin:
"Lómion dear, did I ever tell you of lord Tururkano and the house of the King?"
He squealed in delight.
The new city had been everything that his mother had told him and nothing at all like he had imagined. Its brightness had hurt his eyes but its beauty was worth all the pain he could endure. He had hoped that his father would never set foot in it – everything he touched he left stained.
Ondolinde was the thing he shared only with his mother. It was their secret, their hidden corner. Their hopes, their dreams they had trusted to the city's gates for safekeeping. His father shouldn't have touched it.
Ondolinde. What were the other names, again? He thought he should well remember them. He had studied them, impressed them in his memory as if one day he would need them to save his life.
Yet now his memory eluded him and he couldn't think of anything else other than that single name. He let it roll over his tongue, he repeated it, breathed it, until it lost its meaning. There was no sound of tumbling water that could reach his ears. In the eerie silence of that cold dawn all he heard were the heavy bronze bells ringing in mourning.
He stared at his hands on his lap. He stared and stared until his eyes burned and filled with tears. He didn't blink. He couldn't, wouldn't. He clenched his jaw and his hands. His father – he grimaced at the word – would pay. He had heard his mother beg the king for mercy and Maeglin would have granted her that last wish. He really would have, had she not died because of him. Had he not killed her.
Oh the irony.
Maeglin may have been a lonely and sheltered child, but he was not blind. He knew what his father's character was and how he had treated his mother. He had spent all his life listening to him insulting her kin. Kinslayer, murderers they all were. Usurpers, warmongers, traitors, deceivers. But it hadn't been a lord of the Noldor that had kept her trapped in a dark cage. He had stained her too, his mother who had never looked so happy and thriving as when they were travelling – no, escaping to Gondolin.
He took a deep breath and stood up. He hoped the king would show no amount of mercy. He, Maeglin Lómion Son of Ar-Feiniel, would have none.
For the first prompt: adjusting/coping
Enjoy and let me know what you think!