Disclaimer: I am so, so, so very sorry, M. Tolkien. I promise to dig you a new grave if you've already rolled out of your current one.
A/N: Less and less and LESS time to write nowadays. Thanks for the feedback from everyone! I have come so far from the beginning of this fic, read so much more of my HoMEs and become so much more attuned to actual canon. While this fic is going to be trundling along it is "La la la, I can't hear you canon," line, I would still like to give big hugs to everyone who's pointed out things that ought not to be have happened (and many apologies for writing them anyway). Rest assured that Time will go on. (laugh)
-
The awe and inspiration that the questioning provoked lasted around three seconds. A scant few moments after the silence descended, the entire room stirred itself up once more.
'Am I right to assume,' Thranduil said rather pointedly, his flowers sending pollen everywhere. 'That you want us,' there he made a few wriggly motions with his fingers about the room, 'To give,' there he made more wriggly motions, which, in Erestor's opinion, made his all too pale fingers look like worms. 'The Silmarilli,' there his fingers were getting a definite workout. Maybe it had something to do with Thranduil's fatal attraction to anything that shone, especially that which were gold or white or translucent (read: hair, flowers, daisies, daffodils, mountains worth of Dwarf jewels, and, oh, just maybe the three most infamous jewels in all history). 'To the Feanorions?'
If Thranduil did that to his fingers any more, Erestor thought primly, they were going to fall off.
And Ren and Diana, for all their insight, were not too good at either discretion or subtly.
'Well, yes?'
Thranduil's Twitch, Glorfindel observed lazily, was nowhere near as good as Elrond's. Or maybe he was just biased, but it did so appear that Thranduil's eyebrows had a life of their own, going up and down and horizontal like that.
'Why would we give the Silmarilli to the Feanorions?'
Such strange inflection of words, too.
'Because,' Ecthelion drawled from his corner, 'they would not know what to do with them.'
From all appearances, Ecthelion and Glorfindel looked at ease. They sat, side by side, casual and apparently unperturbed. Yet, as Erestor could vouch for, there were little signs, little signs of troubled thought and consideration. They were easily the two of the eldest in the room, and by far the two with the most experience. What with dying and coming back and all that. They were, quite simply, trying to make the most out of what was admittedly a ridiculous situation. Though, Erestor thought ruefully as he switched on his Diplomatic Ear (or, in more layman terms, his mood in which he listens to no one and nothing) and observed through half-lidded eyes his friend's actions and reactions, the situation was so ridiculous it did not even come across as funny anymore.
It was, admittedly, not a simple situation, no. That was clearly evident from the fact that Thranduil was getting so worked up that his flowers were really beginning to fly everywhere.
'What have we to gain,' Glorfindel finally sighed after all the mindless quarrelling had irked him to the ends of his patience, 'From quarrelling over such a thing? We do not know how the Feanorions are to react if we do give them the Jewels. To be truthful, it is something that none of us have thought of thus far, and the more I think about it, the more sense it begins to make. The worst tragedies of Elvendom came across because one party or another stood in the way of Feanor and his sons.'
There was a moment there as the history books began to flip open their pages, sending metaphorical dust everywhere. Beren and Luthien, though oversung, were both excellent examples of how the Jewels could wreak havoc: destroy an entire realm, get your arm chopped off, get your lover to go, quite literally, to "hell" and back for you, etc, etc. The Havens of Sirion were nothing more than bits of driftwood after the Feanor gang arrived, as Elrond' family tree could easily prove. Those Jewels caused the elf-lord's mother to turn into a gull, his father to turn into a star and had, amongst other things, caused his brother and he no small amount of trauma. You try crawling around a forest and then encountering two sons of the person whom had completely ruined your life.
The book slammed shut, and somewhere in Valinor, Manwe sneezed.
Ecthelion, though still flippant and not really taking Thranduil into due consideration, was quick to take up his friend's point.
'If we were to give the Jewels across to their party, which clearly is expecting some form of resistance, the situation might resolve itself for us.'
'How?' Thranduil practically thundered. Ren and co. moved the Jewels a little farther away. 'By letting them self destruct?'
Sometimes, Erestor observed once more, genius came from really stupid things.
'Well,' Glorfindel muttered. 'Yes.'
Yes, Erestor concurred, and stupidity was everywhere.
-
Somewhere in Valinor...
-
Adar, adar, adar...
It echoed around in his head, a cacophony of voices that would not quiet themselves.
We trust you, we trust you, we trust you.
What did they mean? Why had they said such things?
Their aim was clear. Regain the Silmarilli. They had suffered through uncountable days, interminable ages for such a chance. They were to get it back, they had to get it back. It was life for them. They had done so many things, so, so many things to get them. They had always failed. This was their chance to try again.
You are our adar...
Were his own sons doubting him now? Why? It was such a simple thing. The Silmarilli were abound, that much was obvious. Why then had the Oath awoken them again, if not to let them seek out the Jewels once more? Why?
We trust you...
Feanor did not understand.
-
'Do we trust Adar, really?'
Maglor strummed his harp with agile fingers, some nameless tune flying across and dying, notes scattering about the air and into silence. Maedhros shrugged, fingering his new-born hands, running his fingers (such perfect fingers) one over another (such perfect fingers), unsure. His two hands seemed strange to him after surviving so long in his previous life with only one, and yet it seemed so right. They were there (such perfect hands), and they were functioning (such perfect hands) and they were his. Not his father's.
Though in Maedhros' face was an echo of his father's thought, he was not Feanor himself.
No. Not with such perfect hands.
The notes on the floor quivered, and Maglor was quick to send them to their grave once more.
'Do we trust Adar, Adar whom we know well, to do...'
The question hung in the air like the notes that filled in around it. Maedhros shrugged again, staring at his fingers, fingers, hands.
'Unstained hands...'