For heraldofgilgalad on tumblr. This fic also features Tauriel from the Hobbit movies, but I didn't want to mark it as a crossover.
The Color Red
Maglor hated the color red.
Any other colors he could manage: blue or green or black or brown. Those were ordinary, commonplace colors—the blue of the ocean, the green of plants, the black of the night sky, the brown of dirt. But there was nothing ordinary about red. Red only brought memories, memories that he would rather forget.
Maglor had wandered for thousands of years. There was no place for him to rest. Beleriand was a wreck, sunk into the sea. He had left that land as soon as he could, wandering east, until the east became the west in the aftermath of the War of Wrath. He had visited lands afar, north and south, east and west, hot and cold. He cut his hair like a man, covering his head with a hood to hide his ears. He was too tall to be mistaken for a man, but he did not wish to be noticed more than necessary.
He hated autumn, and always left an area for warmer skies as soon as the seasons began to turn. Autumn was the one time when the color red was abundant. The leaves turned yellow and gold and brown, which were beautiful in their own way, but it was the red he could not handle.
Maglor lived in a perpetual summer. He grew to love the sun, the heat of the afternoon, the gradual coolness of the evening. He never needed to light a fire, to see the cursed red flames, to see the burning leaves of autumn. He loved the summers of the eastern lands the most, hot and dry and wonderfully distracting.
Springs were cool and wet in the north, and Maglor traveled there rather than face the coming of autumn in the south. When it rained, he sought out villages and warm blankets. The food and the company also helped sway him toward civilization.
Maglor did not often converse with others. He kept to himself, wandering all of Middle-earth in an eternal punishment for his misdeeds during the First Age. At night, he dreamt of evil tidings, of battle and fire, of watching his kin be cut down and slain, of him doing the slaying himself, but most of all, of the white fire of the silmarils, shining their unholy light on the faces of those unfortunate enough to possess them. He dreamt of his father, obsessed and driven, forcing his sons into war and exile and damnation. His dreams were filled with the red of fire, the red of blood, the red of his brothers' hair, the red of Fëanor's rage. He could still feel the sting of the silmaril as he had once clutched it, the memory of that touch seared into his palm forever. Not even the memory of the ocean salt stinging his burning hands as he relinquished his empty prize to the sea could calm the anguish in his heart or stop the salt of his tears.
When he did speak with the inhabitants of the lands he passed through, the conversations were brief and never revealed his true identity. When people asked for his name, he gave a false one, different every time. He sang sometimes, though less often as the years went by. He could entertain a village easily, earning money for his talents, enough to pay for his board at the local inn, but he preferred to camp by himself out in the open, beneath the stars.
One year, he lingered too long in Eriador, staying until it was very nearly autumn. The autumns of the area were prone to storms, and when it rained, Maglor was forced to take refuge in various towns. On one such occasion, he fled to the closest village as soon as clouds began to gather overhead. This is why he ought not to leave the protection of summer. He didn't inquire of the name of the place. The towns of men did not impress him, and this one was especially small and unremarkable.
Maglor found himself at a loss for coins with which to pay for his stay, and regretfully, he stood outside a shabby inn, rain gently falling on his hooded head. He drew his cloak closer about him, deciding that he would have to sing. He turned back and walked back into the inn, which also served as the village tavern. He had no harp or lute to accompany him, but his voice was beautiful even a capella.
The inn's proprietor grunted at him as he entered. "What're you doin' here?" he demanded. "Found any coin on you? I ain't lending rooms for free."
Maglor shrugged. "Alright. I just thought your customers might enjoy a little song."
The innkeeper narrowed his eyes, but jerked his head toward a podium on the opposite end of the room. "Fine. Sing yer heart out."
Maglor cast off his cloak, shaking his head so his neck-length hair covered his conspicuously elven ears. The people who sat enjoying themselves in the tavern all turned to watch him as he approached the podium, clearly expecting a show.
He straightened, letting his lungs fill with air, then opened his mouth in song.
The song was an old one. He had composed it in the First Age, to commemorate the anniversary of his father's death. He remembered vividly singing it first in the courts of his brother Maedhros in Beleriand. His brother had watched with rapt attention, enjoying the song as he always did, supportive of Maglor's talent and skill. When he had finished, Maedhros had clapped louder than anyone else in the hall, tears leaking from his eyes. Whether it was from sadness at the thought of their father's passing or awe at Maglor's ability, he never knew. At the time, he had been filled with pride and the rush of energy he always gained during a performance.
Now, the memory only filled him with sadness. Maedhros was as dead as their father, and had been for thousands of years. Maglor almost wished that he had followed his brother into the pit of fire he had cast himself into. This eternal, homeless wandering was almost worse than a fiery demise.
The memory from all those years ago, a fragment of happiness called up from the distant past, brought the right mood to Maglor's song. The words were in Sindarin, a language he highly doubted any of these humans would recognize, let alone understand, but he poured his heart into the music anyway. Pain was a universal language.
Maglor's voice soared into the upper notes of his range as the song swelled into its climax. He closed his eyes, imagining his father's soot-stained, bleeding face on his deathbed. What would Fëanor say if he could see him now? Doubtless he would be disappointed. Maglor had failed to retrieve and retain the silmarils and yet still lived. The rain pounded on the roof of the inn outdoors, reminding him of all his broken promises, the sky crying for all the blood he had shed in a fruitless attempt to fulfill a rebellious oath.
As Maglor neared the end of the song, he opened his eyes, taking the faces of his awe-struck audience. He allowed a smug smile to play at his lips as he crescendoed into the last few measures of his song. It felt good to sing again, and even better to be adored by his listeners.
One person in the audience seemed especially overwhelmed. She looked at him with wide green eyes, her mouth hanging open slightly in awe. She had a pale face and elven features, pointed ears peeking out behind a shock of red hair. Maglor's eyes took in her appearance in a single beat, but it caught him entirely off guard.
This woman was an elf, and though she did not look at all Noldorin, her hair was as red as his mother's. Maglor's voice caught on the penultimate note of his song, shock sucking the breath out of his lungs.
A rush of memories overwhelmed his senses. His mother's laughing face as she picked him up as a child in Valinor, before everything, when all was at peace and his father's greatest work was not yet started, her auburn hair flying into her face. Maedhros showing him first how to use a sword, his red hair tied up into a bun to keep it out from his face while he concentrated. His youngest brothers, the twins, on their first begetting day, listening with rapt attention as he sang them a clumsily crafted song especially for them. They had loved that song, and had always requested him to sing it for them, even into adulthood.
He remembered the red of the fires at Losgar, and the anguish at learning Amras had died, souring the sounds of the twins' song. He remembered the redness of the first sunrise, the burning brightness of the sun and its fire, now so dear to Maglor in his eternal summer. He remembered the rivers of blood shed by the host of the Noldor, both of orcs and their own kin. In his mind he saw Fëanor's bloodstained body bursting into flames upon his death, his body consumed by the fire of his spirit. Years sped by in his mind's eye, condensing into one vicious red blur.
When his vision cleared, he realized he had stopped singing. He could not have been distracted by the elleth's hair for very long, for his audience still sat breathless before him. Treating his momentary pause as a caesura, Malgor took a slight breath and concluded his song with one heartbreaking low note, quiet and firm, a different ending to the ancient tune.
The applause was immediate and earsplitting. Maglor was deaf to their approval, but smiled and bowed, catching every coin his audience tossed toward him. He made his way back to the innkeeper, who stared at him with wide eyes.
"You're one of them elven singers, aren't you?" the man asked.
Maglor only shrugged, giving him a smile. He offered him a few coins. "How much for a night's stay? Or at least until this storm blows out."
The innkeeper shook his head. "M'lord, that song pays for your stay more than enough."
Maglor shrugged and pocketed his coin. "Thank you."
A young girl appeared before him at the innkeeper's call, leading him to a room where he could spend the night. He thanked her and tossed her a coin, which she caught greedily. Before she left the room, she turned back to him, a question in her eyes.
"Are you really an elf lord, like they say?" she asked.
Maglor sighed. "I was, once. A very long time ago."
She gasped slightly, then fled giggling from his sight.
Maglor did not sleep. He was plagued by nightmares even on the best of days; after seeing the elleth's red hair so like his mother's, he did not trust his unconscious mind not to worsen his condition.
Before long, there was a light tap on his door. Maglor quickly composed himself, assuming it was the girl from again. "Come in," he called.
To his shock, it was the elleth with the red hair. He looked away from her as soon as she entered the room, ignoring the visions of blood and flame that flashed in his mind at the brief sight of her hair.
"My lord," she said respectfully. Then her voice took on a more curious tone. "I am surprised to see another elf in these lands."
He said nothing, looking instead at his hands, examining the still-visible scars on his palms from the wrath of the silmarils.
"Your song was very beautiful," she continued. "The dialect of Sindarin is different from my own, but...I understood enough. I am sorry about your father."
"Do not be," Maglor rasped. "He has been dead for thousands of years, and he deserved his fate."
The elleth approached, sitting down beside him. "What is your name?"
Maglor paused. "...Uiron," he told her at last: Eternity. "What is yours?"
She snorted. "If your name is Uiron, then I'm Lúthien Tinúviel."
"That you are not," he admitted, caught in his lie. "She was far fairer than you...though no less insistent."
"It is true, then," the elleth said softly, ignoring the insult. "You are one of the ancient elf lords of the First Age. I thought Lady Galadriel was the only one left. You knew Tinúviel." She paused. "In your song, you mentioned Fëanor and your father in the same breath. Are you...?"
"Maglor Fëanorian," he whispered. "Yes. It is I." He lifted his head an inch, enough to see her wide green eyes, though his dark hair had fallen into his face, blocking the rest of his view. "You are no Noldo."
"I am Silvan," she said. "My name is Tauriel."
"How come you by your red hair, young one?" he asked. She had not revealed her age, but Maglor could sense her youth. Beneath that, though, was a deep, intense grief.
She shrugged. "My father, and his father before him. It is unusual, I know, but..." She trailed off. "You stared at me for a long time back in the tavern. And...Maglor. I am not well versed in ancient lore, but even Silvan elves such as myself know of the legends. Did my hair...remind you of your brothers?"
Maglor jerked his head in agreement. Tauriel gently reached out and touched his chin, lifting his head until he looked at her in all her red-haired beauty. He flinched. In his mind, he was braiding Maedhros's hair before the final theft of the silmarils; the last tender moment they would share together.
"I am sorry," she said, putting her hand back down by her side. "I know it is painful to be reminded of your loss." Her hand moved instinctively to her pocket, and she pulled out a small, round black stone with engravings on it in a language Maglor did not understand. She ran a thumb over it, sighing.
"You know." The words were not a question. He could see her grief hiding behind her eyes, and in the way she held the stone.
Now it was her turn to look down. "I lost my love. I have not wandered as long as you, my lord, but I know. I, too, have no home."
She turned aside, her hair falling into her face, and Maglor was weeping over the still, cold corpse of Amrod in Sirion, his hands stained with his brother's blood, still singing Ambarussa's song in a broken a voice.
"I have avoided the color red," he said quietly. "I wander ceaselessly, trying to stay in an eternal summer as the north and south switch seasons. I have stayed too long here—already the leaves begin to turn. But in all my wanderings, I have never met an elf with red hair."
"Lord Maglor, you may be cursed to wander, but you need not fear the color red," Tauriel said.
"I fear the memories it brings," Maglor whispered.
"You bring those memories upon yourself, singing songs in tiny taverns in unknown parts of the world," Tauriel pointed out. "The color red can't hurt anymore than a tune like that."
Maglor flinched. Tauriel put a hand on his shoulder.
"Stay here for the autumn, Maglor," she said.
Tauriel left the town herself the next day. Maglor doubted he would ever see the strange red-haired elleth again.
For some reason, he didn't feel like leaving the area right away. Though he did not stay in the tiny town after the storm rained itself out, he wandered through Eriador for several months more, through the autumn and into the winter. He sang more than he had in years—new songs and old, tales of both the recent and distant past. Autumn came, and its fires and blazing leaves with it, but Maglor did not shy away. The color red hurt still, but he was slowly getting more accustomed to it and noticed it less. He remembered Tauriel and the song of his father, and the memories of Maedhros, the twins, and his mother did not haunt his nightmares as they once had.
He sang a new song, of burning fires and the setting sun and the remarkable red-haired elves he had once known, and Maglor no longer feared the color red.