A/N: The title is taken from the line in The Silmarillion on the fate of Maglor: "...and thereafter he wandered ever upon the shores, singing in pain and regret beside the waves."
On the usage of 'Makalaure' as Maglor's given name: all the sons of Fëanor – apart from Curufin – liked their mother-names better than their father- names and took them as the names they wished to be known by (Shibboleth of Fëanor).
I wrote this while I was doing my GCSE Shakespeare coursework, and something of it seems to have rubbed off. Kudos to anyone who spots the Macbeth reference. :)
Some Quenya names used, and explained in the Notes at the end.
Beside the Waves
I sit upon the sand, eyes closed, listening to the sound of the sea caressing pebbles. It is night. That matters not. All has been dark to me for many Ages now.
It is beautiful here. When the wind whips the waves into a foam-tipped frenzy, turning the beach into a whirlwind of dancing sand; and when the waters are kissed golden-red by a fast-sinking sun. It is even beautiful when the dark sea crashes against tortured, wind-carved cliffs and the air is drenched with stinging sea-spray.
I loved the sea when I was younger. Though I wandered far in the Blessed Realm I would always return to the sea, where the waves washed upon sands of pale gold and jewels. I would often sit for hours, gazing out over the seascape. It was so peaceful there, so different from the bustle of Tirion, with only the harsh, lonely cries of gulls soaring through the silver sky. I would pick out simple tunes on my harp, creating music not for any reason beyond the fact that it simply needed to be. Such a place warranted music, and music it had: the song of the ocean, which is beloved of the Elves and beyond words in the infinite depth and emotions that it weaves into that one haunting tune; ever-changing, and yet constant. I would join my music to the song of the sea, knowing that it was far greater than anything that a child of Ilúvatar could fashion, and yet happy to have heard it and been part of it.
The most beautiful thing here is the openness. The sky stretches forever in both directions, in league upon league of wild, unbounded air, and the sea is a giant, heaving, bewitching expanse of blue-grey. When they meet and meld, out there beyond the edge of even immortal sight - that is the true meaning of endlessness.
It almost makes me feel that I am free.
I shiver slightly. The night is cold, though I cannot feel it. Early stars glint frostily in the sky, the sea a rolling pool of black ink below them.
Woe unto world's end. Forever.
Few realise the full meaning of that word. Often vows are taken, pledges made, of love forever, hatred forever, remembrance forever. But such people, in their innocence, do not know; and may Ilúvatar bless them that they never shall.
I wander along the shoreline, just above where the waves break. They come streaming up the beach and lap at my feet. My boots are soon soaked though with seawater.
There was starlight on the sea that first, endless night, illuminating the terrible work of our swords, casting dreadful shadows on the faces of the dead and the dying, shimmering sickeningly on the thick, red pooling blood. It taunted me with the awful truth that we could pervert even the pure light of Varda with this unnatural desire for death. For long after I shunned the starlight. It broke my heart to think that a thing so beautiful and beloved to me, that I held so sacred, so blessed, reminded me only of that which I had sought so hard to forget. But here I have learned that it cannot be escaped; for look down, away from the sky, and there is only the sea, reflecting it back again in a never-ending circle.
Suddenly, I feel so alone, so lonely, so forgotten, with everyone and everything that I have known so far away, that I begin to sing sadly, my voice rising above the murmur of the ocean and the whisper of the wind, piercing the velvet cloak of the night.
I sing, hesitantly at first, of a land far over the sea and a great green hill, crowned with a fair city of white marble. I sing of the people who lived there; a proud people, but wise and skilled, who mined deep in the ground and discovered jewels, the stars of the earth. Then my song turns to other matters; to another green hill where two trees flowered and blossomed, one spilling silver into the sky, the other gilding all with gold, and when their lights mingled, the joy was that of a thousand trumpets. But then darkness grows in my song, and it begins to falter and fade. A shadow falls upon this holy land, and then death, like a sudden bolt of terrible lightning. And before I can stop myself, I find that I am singing of things that should not be put into song.
As I do so the sea rises about me, to my knees, the waves rolling fiercely, trying to pull me underneath, choking me on salt-water so that my song is silenced. The spray is sharp against my face, forcing me to close my eyes. I stumble backwards, blindly, to save myself from being swept off my feet and down into the depths, and collapse hard onto the sand.
I sit still and watch the waves hurling themselves against each other in their anger - in an awesome display of power and hate.
I have seen this before, that night when we first drew our swords and slew the mariners of Alqualondë. As we attacked the last time, staining the quays with the blood of innocents, and quickly manning the swan-ships, hoisting sails and securing ropes with hands stained red with gore, the sea began to writhe like a pit of serpents. When we rowed out of the harbour, waves as high as cliffs rose to dash against the sides of the ships, sullying the pure white of the wood, tainting it with the colour of the surf that was tipped red with the blood of those we had murdered and pushed overboard.
I had clung on to the side of the ship, unable to see for the blinding spray, able only to hear the roaring of waves and the desperate shouts of my father, smelling only blood and salt, feeling sick with shame and fear. I saw him then, in the waves: the master of the Seas, his great eyes blazing with anger, and she beside him, his Lady, her grief as deep and dreadful as the sea itself, her mournful lament woven with the sound of the waters.
Eventually the sea grows still. I gaze up at the stars, and begin to murmur, in a wraith-like echo of a song, the conclusion of the song that the sea silenced.
Icílielme i lóme, Telcontuva mi huine, Hehtuvalme Valinóre, Icílielme i lóme.
The sea sends out one long wave, which curls over onto itself, forcing itself to break. It washes nearly to my feet, as if in warning. - I did not wish for it to be so. I did not wish to murder and burn, to spread so much hate.
I dream. At night I dream of the dead, their bloodied tear-stained faces pressing about me, suffocating me, accusing me, asking me 'why?' 'Why, why, why,' 'til I am crazed and witless, and I, who was accounted among the greatest poets of Arda, cannot even speak, cannot even force the words through my gasping throat to tell them what I do not know myself
I think of all those I have slain: the Teleri, confused at our sudden brutality, screaming at us, naming us mad, bewitched, as we slaughtered them; the Moriquendi of Doriath, weeping, begging us not to; the folk of Sirion, grim and accepting, knowing what would happen, yet still cursing us for it; even Uldor, his face twisted with hate as he gloatingly revelled in his betrayal; the guards in the tent, when we drew our swords that last time and murdered them coldly, and I felt nothing. I think of why I slew them, needlessly, blindly, cruelly; and how beautiful, how savagely hideously beautiful I thought it all was.
How I thought such a thing was worth making songs of. At first.
I wake later from tormented dreams to see that Tilion has risen and is shining pale in the sky. The sea is higher up the beach now, stroking the weed-covered rocks with tendrils of foam. Everything is calm and I feel more at peace than I have for long ages.
Suddenly I see a light, far out in the distance. A bright light, white and brilliant, shimmering like liquid fire on the wave-crests.
All other thoughts are lost to me as I blindly, madly, charge into the water, pushing in vain against the waves that scornfully drag me back, towards the shore. I curse them and strike them, but they give way to my hands, as if mocking me. It is cold, icy cold, and I choke on the salt, wading out, driving myself forward 'til the light is before me. I eagerly thrust my hand down, past the clinging weeds, to claim it. At last! It is fulfilled; the Curse is foiled! I have paid in years for the folly of a moment, but now it has come back to me! The Silmaril! It is not lost! I have it! Oh, by all that I have ever held sacred! At last!
I laugh, a mad, wild laugh, searching desperately with my fingers, feeling for the stone in which the fate of Arda is trapped... but it is not there. The light wavers, splinters, flees from my grasping hands, and I realise my mistake and cry aloud in pain and anguish, and let the waves carry me back to the shore where I lie, as if dead, among the driftwood, staring at the moon as he treads his path through the sky.
But my hands, oh, my hands, they are marred! They are red; red with wet, still-warm blood, running down my arms in rivulets of fire. I stumble to the waves, falling into them; the cool, cleansing waves that will rid me of this hell. I plunge my hands in, scrubbing ferociously at them until they are raw and red themselves.
"It is only blood!" I choke, clawing at the sand with my fingers. "Blood! I have washed my hands of it many times! After Alqualondë, after the Nirnaeth, after Doriath, after Sirion! It will wash away!"
And it did, as we sat upon the beach of Drengist, watching the flames lick higher, trying to avoid each other's gaze, angry at ourselves, angry at each other, and yet pitying, listening to Ambarussa's weeping and moans of despair, which all of us pretended that we couldn't hear.
But now it will not. And, to my horror, it does the very opposite, staining the sea red, a dark swirling red, out to the horizon; and it swells, spreading out into the sky, 'til the whole world is covered in crimson and the stars shine with the angry light of fire.
I sob, staring, helpless, and finally give in to the truth as the sky falls about me.
I jolt awake with a start, and sit, panting raggedly, while my eyes adjust to the half-light. I quickly look to my hands, but no blood now stains them. They are pale and white in the darkness, trembling slightly.
It was a dream. I think that all too often - is all this simply a dream which I will awake from in the end, and think back on it only to laugh and call it the wanderings of a demented mind?
The sea is calm now, stirred only by rippling wavelets that break with a splash on the sands. I crawl to the edge of the beach and sit in the moonlight, watching the rising and falling of the waves, far out in the distance.
Why do I stay here, singing in pain and regret beside the waves, with only the fishes to hear my laments and only the mocking cries of the gulls to answer them? Is it really that I expect the Silmaril to return to me? Nay, I know why it is that I remain. For over the sea, above this mortal world, lies the land of my birth, and these waters sigh upon its shores, though far away they are.
I weep, and as I do so my tears fall into the waves and become part of them, and again I feel horribly lonely; for my tears are but a drop in an ocean of sorrow and none are here to heed them. I smile bitterly.
'Tears unnumbered ye shall shed...'
"Why do you weep, Kinslayer?"
I look up, and she is there, standing waist high in the water. Her dress gleams like fishes' scales, her hair a mass of green weeds, tumbling down her back and into the waves, her whole body glitters in the ghostly moonlight. Her eyes are deep and mournful, forcing me to look at her.
I flinch, as if struck by a heavy blow. Her tone is so sympathetic, so understanding, with not a hint of condemnation or anger or even sorrow. I am ashamed, disgraced; I do not warrant such pity. I turn away, not wanting to meet her gaze; for in it shines the blessed light of Aman, the light that we shunned in our foolish haste, with heated words of revenge and pride, and damned to darkness. I, tainted as I am, do not deserve to look upon such a light again, so pure and fragile and beautiful.
"Please, Lady. Do not name me so."
I am shamed by this, too; for my voice betrays me, choking on the words, twisting my command into a desperate, miserable plea. I am the second son of he who shut his door in the face of the greatest being in Eä, and yet here I am begging for release from the soft sympathy of the lady of calm waters.
And yet this is not the greatest and most terrible of my many shames, as she cruelly, inevitably, reminds me. Now her words are graver, more solemn, the compassion slowly leaking from them.
"Why not, son of Fëanáro? For you are a Kinslayer, are you not?"
"Peace, Lady! No more!" I cry, angrily, a sob welling up inside me. For she speaks the truth, loath though I am to hear it. I sink to my knees, the soft sand giving way beneath me. I do not wish to look upon her any longer. She is too cold, too fair, like a distant marble statue of an ocean queen, and I am but a wretched mollusc, kneeling at her feet, desperately trying to creep back into my long-hardened shell, to remain isolated, secluded; alone as only I am worthy of being. But she has broken that shell, shattered it with her cruel kindliness, and I am laid bare before her.
"Lady, I wish only to forget."
"You cannot expect to gain forgiveness when you yourself cannot accept what has been."
Her eyes are cool now, reflecting the frosty starlight. Her voice is also cold, with not an allusion to the sympathy it had been laced with only moments before.
"Is that why you have come, Lady Uinen? Do the Valar wish to forgive me?"
I cannot keep a note of scorn from stealing into my voice.
She steps closer, wading with gentle grace through the water, until only her feet are covered.
"Nay. Besides, our forgiveness would be of little worth. It is you who must forgive yourself."
I close my ears to the truth and, childishly, pursue my questioning.
"Why have you come then? To mock me in my misery?"
She moves now, stepping clear of the waves; but even upon land she is imposing, and I find myself wishing that I could give way – but I do not dare. She stands before me, taller than I. All is quiet for a long time. The only sound is that of the sea, lapping at the beach.
"Who are you?" she asks.
"Canafinwë, son of Fëanáro," I mutter, speaking the words as if they were a curse.
A strange light flickers in her strange eyes. And she asks again.
"What are you?"
"A Kinslayer..." I whisper, the starlight splintering as tears fill my eyes.
"Are you naught else?"
"Nay."
"Are you not a minstrel? Are you not Makalaurë?"
"No longer. I do not deserve such a title; for even my songs are now twisted and dying. What good is gold forged of blood and pain?" I murmur, ashamed and angry.
I look up, and see something akin to pity shining in her eyes.
"You think that pain cannot be beautiful? Then you are mistaken, Canafinwë."
"Lady, you know naught of what I speak," I spit, glaring at her, a mad, wild light blazing in my eyes.
But the light in her eyes is far brighter, far greater. The sea surges up the beach and whirls about her in a tempest of foam and spray. Her voice is loud and piercing, echoing off the cliffs and out over the whole shoreline.
"You think I know naught of it? You saw me, Canafinwë Kinslayer, that night, in the waves, singing for the dead mariners, pouring my grief out into the ocean. You have heard the song of the sea. You know the sorrows that lie within it, and of its deep, brilliant beauty. And you say I know naught? Whatever sadness you have felt, know that mine is beyond that which you can imagine; for I am Ainu, and I feel deeply in whatever hurt is done to this world."
The sea calms, and when I look up again there is only her. She looks sad, unspeakably sad, and I feel pity stir in my heart for one who for so long I hated and feared.
"But the Silmaril is gone!" I cry. "Why cannot the Curse go with it?"
She smiles, and I see the pity returned.
"I cannot revoke the Curse; nor can any of the Ainur. You brought it upon yourself when you took the Oath; you deepened it when you drew your sword against the Teleri; and you sealed it when you scorned the words of Mandos and inflicted this exile upon yourself. But know this: everything done in this world is done so for a reason. Why is it that you, alone of all your kinsmen, remain? You have a gift, do you not?"
She is like a tutor, trying to coax an admission of greatness from a stubborn child who thinks of himself as worthless and beyond hope.
"Is it not a cruel jest then, that I remain here of all places, with only the sea and sand to hear my lamentations?" I mutter.
She laughs then, suddenly, and the sound of her laugh is like bubbling water and soft rain upon the waves; of things that I have long-forgotten.
"Sometimes that reason can be hard to see, but every action has its utmost foundations in the One, and his designs are far beyond the understanding of anything that dwells here in Eä. There is a purpose for you being here, though you may see it not."
But I am still bitter, and I brush aside her words with disdain.
"More like as not it is a punishment," I mutter, "for my sinful deeds: that I should roam forever, remembering my oath, and bitterly wishing with all left in me that I had never taken it: a pitiful wanderer of beaches, mocked by the harsh cries of gulls 'til the world ends and I can finally be free."
"And yet nothing was evil in the beginning, son of Fëanáro. You must accept that what has been has been, and know that you can do naught about it. But you must also know that nothing lasts forever," she says, looking at me with her solemn eyes, shining in the pale moonlight.
And it is true. In the beginning I was but a harper, my eyes wide open to the world, wanting to make music to tell people of my joy at each rainbowed dewdrop, each green-veined leaf, each dandelion cloud. Back then there were no Silmarils, to marvel at and make songs in praise of; only the effortless, pure beauty of nature. My life was so simple then, before all the war and bloodshed. And it is simple now, as I sit beside the sea, watching starlight on the waves; for it was so in the beginning, as the fathers of the fathers of the Elves gazed upon the cold waters of Cuivenien - a rippling mirror to the stars of Varda, burning slowly in the darkness with their new-made light.
The stars' light is old now, tarnished by time, but it burns still in the heavens; and I sing gently, and as I do I realise that not only the gulls and the fishes hear my song; it is carried out on the sea wind, over the waves, to where mariners sail their ships, and they stay their oars and listen in wonder, for to them it seems that the very sea is speaking, and they name me a spirit of the sea, and praise me. It drifts along the waves, to the ports where the fishermen and traders stand upon the quaysides, and they hear it and tremble in awe and unease, for they do not know what tidings this song brings. Yet further it goes, many leagues down the coast, to where a child wanders by the surf, climbing over rock pools in search of crabs, and when she hears it she stops and faces the wind. She finds the song beautiful, though she does not understand the words, and in her surprise she finds herself weeping silently for the melded pain and hope that the song carries, though she does not know why.
I stop singing, and I am happy, incredibly happy; for this is what I wished my songs to do – to teach others of beauty, and show them the splendour of the world. I look to the Lady Uinen and she is smiling at me, her hand on the jewelled scallop shell that hangs about her neck.
"Thank you, Lady," I say, and can think of naught else to say.
She turns and walks back into the waves, and they gratefully receive her, pulling her further in. She beings to sing, then, of the sea; from the dark ocean depths where twisted creatures swim amid the murk and the weeds, to the surface where the gulls dive and the sunlight plays upon the water like liquid gold. Yet it is pain-filled, and of immeasurable sorrow; and beautiful, for in it are themes of music from the Beginning, when the fathers of the Elves were but a vision in a world which was not yet created.
Before she disappears, she looks back and holds out her hand.
"Farewell, Makalaurë."
And she is gone, melting into the waves, her song dissolving into the very water that laps about my feet.
I stand watching the sea for a long time. Tilion is setting before me; a grey light begins to spread behind me.
I smile, sadly; I am a Kinslayer and a son of Fëanáro, and I will never be rid of that; in after days they will name me Maglor, son of the greatest of the Noldor and yet he who brought about their downfall. I will be known as a slayer of kin, taker of a terrible oath; he who wandered ever after by the sea, singing in pain and regret beside the waves.
In the gathering light, I pick up my harp and I begin to sing. It is a song of sorrow and pain; but there is a new theme this time, hardly audible, but always there, running through the sweet music that falls from the strings of the harp like golden rain and silver dew. It is a soft theme, woven of remorse, and pain, and eternal dark; but hope too, shimmering like tiny beads of coloured glass, reflecting the light of the sun in a rainbowed myriad of colours.
For before swords were forged, lies woven or jewels wrought, I was but a simple minstrel who sang in the twilight. And I still am, and always will be. Forever.
As the moon sinks before me, Eärendil begins to tread the sky in his arcing, endless path; and the sun rises red in the east, staining all with a golden light. My music and that of the sea meld and as one they drift out to meet the dawn, as I am made Makalaurë once more.
Notes:
o Translation of the Quenya poem that Maglor sings:
"We have chosen the night, We will walk in shadow, We have forsaken Valinor, We have chosen the night"
(from Indille's great poem, Noldolante. Thanks for letting me use it in the fic, Indille! :) )
o Canafinwë – Maglor's father name
o Makalaurë – Maglor's mother name, taken to mean 'forging gold.' An allusion to his harping skills.