Less evil shall we do in the breaking.
I can find no fault in those words, but I can't agree. Give up now, and everything we've done, every drop of blood shed, our very existence, is in vain.
I don't want to fight. I don't even want to think of blood. All I want is to hold a Silmaril.
Even if my hand has to stained with still more blood first?
Only a Silmaril can get the blood off.
Their oath shall drive them, and yet betray them...
If anything can.
I just want to be right, to be clean, to have something worth fighting for.
Is anything worth murdering for?
I have to regain the Silmarils! I have to!
...and ever snatch away the very treasures they have sworn to pursue.
I have to try anyway. Don't I? Father would.
Father was the one who got us in this mess in the first place.
"Have you made a decision yet?"
"I can't, Maglor. I just don't know what to do. I'm not Father."
"You proved yourself twice the leader he ever was."
I'm not Father, but I bear his sword; mine was taken by Morgoth.
I stand and draw it. In the firelight, it looks like its already tasted blood. My reflection has blood-red hair and eyes like starless night.
That's not how I want to be!
That's what I've become.
The only question is what I'm going to do about it.
I fling the sword away from me as far as I can.
I didn't want it to stick in a tree!
To evil end shall all things turn that they begin well.
My left foot against the tree trunk, I tug on the sword. Nothing.
Finally I collapse against the tree.
"I'm sorry." I whisper, placing my hand on the tree trunk.
It leaves a trace of blood! I look down. My foot is bleeding; it must have slipped.
I leave the beautiful young tree and stagger back to the campfire. This isn't the first time I wish Fingon had killed me.
We never did try to regain the Silmarils and my foot never did properly heal; I must walk with a staff.
One evening, we come across a beautiful old tree. As I admire it, I see that its graceful structure is marred by a lump. I put my hand in it, sensing the sword buried inside. I turn to go.
"Wait!" The voice belongs to a human boy who was in the tree. He climbs down, using the lump as a step. "Are you elves? I've never seen elves before!"
Maglor permits himself a few minutes of conversation. The boy lives with his mother in a nearby village; his father had been the blacksmith.
"Maybe you can stay in our village for tonight."
It would be nice to find honest work, to sleep in a bed and not have to move on each day. A smith doesn't need two good feet, and I learned how to work one-handed long ago.
If only we dared!
The Dispossessed shall they be forever.
The boy puts his hand on the lump and briefly closes his eyes.
"What are you doing?"
The boy looks at me and grins. "Thanking Yavanna for putting that lump there. I couldn't climb the tree without it!"
Text in italics is from the Simarillion. See chapters 9 (The Doom of the Noldor) and 24.