The voice of Kanafinwë Makalaurë carries over his brothers' as they swear the Oath. He means every word of it.
For his Father, for his Grandfather, he will pursue this Oath.
(They say that of his brothers, he is the one who possesses most of their mother's temperament. This is perhaps true. Perhaps next to all his fiery brothers the difference seems stark. Perhaps that is why people seem to forget that while he is most assuredly a son of Nerdanel, he is also a son of the Spirit of Fire and when he swears the Oath, he means every awful word.
He doesn't have much of a temper. He never has. But that doesn't mean he doesn't burn with the power and passion the rest of his family does.)
The trees are dead. Slain. Their only chance having that light again is with the silmarils, regardless of whether or not father hands them over to the Valar in the end.
Makalaurë does not swear this Oath lightly. (None of them do.) It is not a game. This is not for fun. This is something that needs to happen. And surely the road ahead will be dark, and in future days perhaps this Oath will be the thing to give them the strength to keep fighting.
He didn't quite understand that those days might come so quickly.
Alqualondë happens.
Makalaurë grits his teeth and moves onward. He is no Oathbreaker. He will keep his word, even in the face of unanticipated consequences.
Alqualondë is... unpleasant. He did not want this. Some of these people, he'd known them. Fellow bards. Minstrels. Singers. Some he'd even performed together with. He tries to shove their faces out of his mind. Wide eyes. (Shocked eyes. Betrayed eyes.)
But as they watch the shores of Valinor retreat into the distance, he forces himself not to regret it. It was, indeed, a horrible, heinous act. Something that should never be repeated. But... They need to reach Middle-Earth. Someone needs to avenge Grandfather. Someone needs to stop Moringotto. There are more important things at stake than just boats. More lives hang in the balance than just the Teleri of Alqualondë.
It's not much of a comfort.
He starts writing the noldolantë.
Ambarto dies. Father dies. Makalaurë's wife dies. Maitimo went out to meet Moringotto and never returned. Makalaurë doubts that his eldest brother yet lives.
That isn't to say that he doesn't hope. (Even if that hope is made mostly of denial.)
See, it's like this: Grandfather was never supposed to die. Father was never supposed to be King. Father was never supposed to die. Maitimo was never supposed to be King. And if Father was never supposed to be King and Maitimo was never supposed to be King, then Kanafinwë Makalaurë had no business in taking up the crown.
Still. He will do what must be done. His people need a leader and if that is to be his role, so be it. He's always been good at performances. He can pretend to be King.
Even when the task causes bile to rise in his throat.
Even when Tyelkormo and Carnistir and Curufinwë and Ambarussa rally against him because he had to put his foot down and tell them to stop organizing search parties.
He was never supposed to be King. He was never supposed to make choices like this. It tears at him every time he does.
It gets worse when Nolofinwë's banners are spotted on the horizon.
This new host of Noldor are, understandably, angry.
He would probably be angry, too. Though at the time the ship burning had happened, he'd mostly been in shock. It felt like he'd been wading through a perpetual state of shock since then, a scream building in his throat but never passing his lips.
Perhaps that underlying numb disbelief was what held his composure together as he told Nolofinwë and his people what had happened to Father and Ambarto and Maitimo and many others whose names were too many to mention.
Nolofinwë also kept his composure remarkably well, though Makalaurë couldn't tell what was keeping him together.
Makalaurë notices Cousin Arakáno was missing. As was Turukáno's ever-present wife.
(Makalaurë's own wife hadn't made it through the initial push into Beleriand. The scream building in his throat intensifies.)
Still. Nolofinwë is no actor. He'd been able to see that stoic mask slip in the way his uncle's jaw had tightened and his knuckles turned white and his eyes widened.
Makalaurë retires that night feeling like he's suffocating on that scream caught in his throat.
The next day, Findekáno came into the camp on the back of an eagle, Maitimo with him
Weeks later, after Makalaurë had given the crown back to Maitimo, who'd then given the crown over to Nolofinwë, he finally allows himself to take up his lyre and leave the camp
He travels a good long ways from there and finally let himself scream and cry and sing and burn himself out.
His name is Maglor now, and he holds the Gap.
It's open here. No towns or cities or fortresses dot the land, there is only open field.
The acoustics aren't bad. He and his people end up using singing as a way to communicate through long distances, to carry them through skirmishes, to frighten orcs.
Maglor is an excellent singer. He is powerful and precise and his technique is flawless. He knows precisely how much power to lend his voice in any given situation. He knows the exact way to twist his words and meaning and song so that images he wishes to show will paint themselves into existence.
In some ways, he has it all down to logic and fact. Exact formulas for each song on every instrument he owns. Not to say that their isn't an element of emotion to singing, because of course there is, but he is Noldor, and this is his craft, and so he will use skillful precision as he music in their air as one shapes gold into jewelry. He knows when to keep himself controlled and exactly how much of that control to release and when. He knows when control needs to disappear completely.
The singing has an added effect of being a great morale booster. Sometimes, he even tricks himself into thinking this isn't the worst place in the entire siege to be, strategy-wise, save perhaps Angband itself.
He thinks of his Father-Name and its meaning. "Strong-Voiced Finwë," it means. But it could also mean "Commanding Finwë." He hopes he can live up to both interpretations as he thunders across open fields with his cavalry.
Sometimes he wonders why Maitimo -- Maedhros, now -- chose him to hold the Gap.
Sometimes, as he stands with sword dripping black amongst the remains of an orc band who tried to get through, his soldiers singing victory around him, he knows exactly why.
He loses the Gap. They'd known it would come eventually. That doesn't mean it isn't a shock. People die. Lots of people.
Cousins Angrod and Aegnor, for one. Uncle Fingolfin, for another.
They call it the Battle of the Sudden Flame. That makes it sound like it was unexpected, but the truth is that they knew they couldn't hold this stalemate forever. They'd prepared best they could, but ultimately, they hadn't known when Morgoth would strike. And when he did strike it was indeed sudden and terrible and filled with flame.
Maglor is pushed back to Himring, but he and each of his surviving brothers continue to live.
And then, not so long after, comes Beren and Lúthien and Nargothrond and the Silmaril.
And then the Union of Maedhros. And then the Nirnaeth -- the Battle of Unnumbered Tears.
He slays Uldor for his betrayal. (At least this one isn't a kinslaying, his mind tells him. Even if this was a once-ally.) If there is one things Maglor cannot abide, it is traitors. Traitors are just a kind of oath-breaker, really. And Maglor has strong feelings about oaths
They lose another High King. Turgon is supposedly the replacement, but he retreats back to his hidden city and leaves the rest of the broken remains of the Noldor to fend for themselves.
They're hurt and after two such devastating losses, so quick in succession, with no reclaimed silmarils in sight...
They could really go for a win right about now.
At least, that's Celegorm's reasoning when he brings up Doriath.
They'd lost a brother before, but that had been different from this. Father has still been with them, then. And at the risk of sounding callous, it had been just the one.
But this is three. Three at once. Celegorm, Caranthir, Curufin.
He repeats their names over and over to himself, like an incantation that if he repeated enough, it would bring them back, somehow undo their deaths.
"Dior's sons, they were taken by Celegorm's servants." Maedros is saying. "We must find them."
We. We?
Maglor shakes his head, a numbness he hasn't felt this strongly since Maedhros' capture building in the back of his mind. "Where's Amras?"
He hasn't seen his youngest brother since before the Battle. He could be lying dead and broken somewhere, just like Celegorm and Caranthir and Curufin. Who cares about Dior's twins when they don't know where the remaining half of their own twins is?
"Amras is fine. He's in the healing tent --"
Maglor is off without waiting to hear the rest. He needs to see his youngest brother. He needs to know he's alive.
It's later, when Maedhros returns empty-handed, no Sindarin princes in sight, that Maglor feels a twinge of guilt.
It's likely that they freezed to death in this weather.
(Had he helped, could he maybe have saved them?)
(Would saving them somehow help clean some of the blood off his hands?)
(He is struck again by that feeling of this isn't what I wanted.)
Amras is dead, red hair and blood indistinguishable in the leftover wreck that is Sirion.
Maglor's stomach roils.
He and Maedhros -- he and Maitimo -- they've failed. Failed their Oath. Failed their Father. And now, failed their youngest brother.
He thinks back to the day they swore the Oath, and then the day they swore it again. He thinks, I didn't want this. This wasn't supposed to happen. When we swore that Oath it was supposed to carry us to victory over Morgoth, not to... not to this.
He takes a step back and looks around. He had looked over this entire square as he'd been lead to his brother's body, but only now did he feel as though he could actually see it. (See the pink and red water running between cobblestone. Sees burned out homes. Sees a child's toy, forgotten and ash-stained crumpled up against an abandoned home. Tangles of hair of all colors, splayed and stained and --)
He closes his eyes, seeking solace behind their lids, a refuge away from carnage of their own making.
He sees Elwing plunging to her death instead.
"My Lord! We found these two just outside the city, near a waterfall. We believe them to be Elwing's sons."
Maglor turns to see.
The Captain approaching him is hauling two red-faced, screaming, crying, struggling twins.
Twins.
(He resolutely does not look over at Amras.)
He takes a deep breath and begins to sing a song of calming and of safety and of comfort.
The twins quiet, each looking up at him with wide grey eyes. Their struggling slows, though it does not cease.
"What shall we do with them, my Lord?"
His mind flashed to Eluréd and Elurín.
(Slay them. Abandon them in the woods.)
No. No.
Maglor has had enough of this. Enough of pointless bloodshed and the shackles of an ill-thought oath. There would be not a drop of blood spilled more than was absolutely necessary. From here on out. He wasn't sure he could take anything else.
He supposed that left them with another option of what to do with these two.
They could take care of them. (At least until their parents returned, for surely they would. Then they could... hold them for Ransom. Or something.)
"Put them down.
The Captain obeys.
Amazingly, the boys didn't run. Instead, they shrink towards Maglor, one glaring up at the Captain and the other looking in wide eyed horror at the carnage around them.
Maglor would have to fix that. Take them out of this place.
"Come." He beckons them. "I'll bring you somewhere safe."
Together, they leave.
The silmaril burns.
He thinks he might nearly deafen himself with his own cries of pain.
All he can think of his water. Cold, sweet water to stop the pain.
He flees to the sea and hurls the silmaril in. Ulmo can have that for all he cares.
He collapses into the waves, bathing his burned hand in water -- but it doesn't stop. It doesn't stop burning. (Maybe it's the saltwater. Why did he think saltwater was a good idea?)
He's crying, he thinks, but it's hard to tell between gasping breaths and the roar of the sea and the spray of sea.
He comes back to himself slowly.
Maedhros: dead, most likely.
Oath: only two thirds fulfilled.
The Twins: hopefully still safe with Gil-Galad. They will probably hate him by now because of what he's just done. (If they hadn't already, that is.)
What he's just done.
How many lives needed to be snuffed out to feed this wretched, blood-stained Oath?
How --
Why --
Why, oh, why does it burn?
Why is he not worthy to hold his father's greatest creations? (He knows why. He knows all too well.)
He forces himself to get up. He tries to rage and sing his wild torrent of pain and regret away. He tries to scream his voice hoarse.
It doesn't work.
He begins walking. His voice calms a little.
He wanders, stumbling along the beach, singing laments.
His voice never once breaks.
I wrote this mainly as a character study and little writing exercise.
Maglor is given the characterization of a primarily logical person in this. Of course, as in all things I write, Logical people can be emotional and emotional people can be logical. I tried to convey this with Maglor in this. He's a multi-faceted person, as indeed we all are.
I decided to interpret Noldorin music/musicians as being primarily focused on technique and precision. As opposed to whatever it's called when you just feel it in your heart or whatever. I don't believe these two are mutually exclusive, though.
Man, I hope that made sense.
I know sadly little about music and did approximately 0 research while writing this. Sorry.
Anyway. First fanfic. Yay. Thanks for reading my disaster. Hope you enjoyed. Have a beautiful day.