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For Back To Middle-Earth Month 2025 Championship Finale!

Lindir inspired by the picture prompt and the restful retreat of @not-glorfindel-stop-asking onto the beach! (Yes he got sunburnt.)

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Lit By Flickering Lanterns

Rating: Gen

Fandom: Tolkien’s Silmarillion

Characters: Gaurandir (OC), Círdan

WARNINGS: none

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Gaurandir has made many decisions, of late. He doesn't regret any of them, but sometimes he gets… overwhelmed. And also lost. A stranger's help might be just what he needs.

Written for Back to Middle Earth Month 2025 @spring-into-arda

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The Uncertainty of Second Chances

Rating: Gen

Fandom: Tolkien’s Silmarillion

Characters: Denethor of Ossiriand

WARNINGS: none

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Denethor of Ossiriand reflects on his return to life.

Written for Back to Middle Earth Month 2025 @spring-into-arda

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Prompt Round-Up!

Don't worry if you missed any of these, late submissions are always welcome! Our AO3 collection remains open even though March is over, and you can also tag us here on tumblr to share your creations with us.

Optional weekly theme - Rivalry, Competition, Victory

March 25 – Experimental Tuesday! Record a podfic | Create art that uses 2+ different media | Try out a new genre

March 26 ‒ Shot | Song | Creation

March 27 – Meta Thursday! Share your meta/headcanons about a culture in Tolkien’s world.

March 28 ‒  Dunk | Hide & Seek | Water

March 29 – Theft | Emotions | Journeys

March 30 – Community Sunday! Tell us about your favourite part of Tolkien | Tell your favourite fan creators what you enjoy about their work | Say thank you to somebody who has made your fandom experience better in the last year

March 31 – Triumph | Hunt | Travel

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Confrontation

Rating: T/pg-13

Fandom: Tolkien’s Silmarillion

Characters: Maeglin, Rog

WARNINGS: Referenced torture & enslavement, referenced branding

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Maeglin and Rog are both working at Mahtan's forges. Maeglin confronts Rog about why he hasn't said anything about the Fall of Gondolin.

Written for Back to Middle Earth Month 2025 @spring-into-arda

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B2MEM - Victory (More Hunger Games AU)

@spring-into-arda (252 words)

The official oddsmakers had finished their calculations. They were running in a constant ticker tape across the bottom of the screen.

Maglor could have turned the screen off. It wasn’t mandatory viewing.

But he was trying to convince himself that the horrific odds they had given for Elrond’s victory were fueling him with enough spite to keep him going.

“Really, darling,” the current potential sponsor was saying from the other end of the phone, “you know I’m your biggest fan. But surely you can’t think either of yours have a real chance this year. Two twelve year olds . . . the odds were not in your favor this time around.”

Two twelve year olds.

He pressed that information very firmly to the back of his mind.

He had learned all too well the limits of the victories he could hope to secure. He could only hope for one, here. One vitally necessary victory.

He could hate himself for the rest after.

“And they both look like such gentle souls,” the voice on the other end of the phone sighed mournfully.

“Elrond does, doesn’t he?” 

He was very careful to make sure he sounded amused as he said this.

I know something you don’t know.

What he knew, of course, was that Elrond was, if anything, even more gentle a soul than he looked.

“Oh?” she said, instantly hooked by the hint. 

But he would happily imply otherwise for as long as he could if it meant a single bit more toward bringing him home.

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B2MEM - "Victory"

@spring-into-arda (227 words)

Sometimes, when he had worn out the long laments, he would amuse himself by trying to change the endings to the songs. 

It would not change anything, of course. No matter how often he dreamed of it, no matter how many times he awoke on the sand and thought it amiss, thought surely this must all be some nightmare and he was back in Tirion, surely - there was no changing the Great Song by changing the way he had tried to sing of it. 

He could not sing them to victory. Not now.

But sometimes he tried, anyway. Tried to sing the songs he would have sung if only things had gone a little bit differently. If only there were still others to sing with; if only they had won.

The problem was picturing exactly what that would look like.

If only they had lived - well enough; that was a victory, to imagine all the long drowned graves of the lost undug, to imagine their inhabitants dancing and laughing and singing still.

But then.

If they had won here, what would it have cost them there? If they had survived one permutation of Doom, what would it have bought them?

He tried the songs a hundred ways. A thousand.

He could never quite find a victory he could convince himself they ever had any chance of getting.

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B2MEM - "Competition" (Continued)

@spring-into-arda (366 words; set in the same universe as the last post)

“We need to talk about your strategy.”

It was dark outside the train, but the lights of the dinner car were as bright and warm as ever. They did nothing to hide the way that even though Maglor was as camera perfect as he was always careful to be when the Capitol was near, there was a frantic fire in his eyes.

Which was why Elrond had to fight the urge to flinch back into his seat when he said, “I’m not going to kill anyone.” 

(He managed it, though. Managed to fold his hands together like he was one of the adults who came and pretended not to argue with Maglor sometimes, calm and firm and together, and definitely not at all pressing his fingers together so tightly to keep them from shaking too much.)

“You are welcome to say that in your interview as much as you like,” Maglor said. “Some of the other tributes might actually believe you. You cannot afford for the Capitol to do so.”

He opened his mouth to protest this.

“Assuming,” Maglor said, “that there is anyone back in the District that you will care about them punishing.”

The answer to this was so obvious that it went without saying.

It did not help the shaking in his hands.

Maglor must have noticed because his next words were gentler. “We’ve had Victors get through their Games without any kills before. Victors who hid. Victors who focused on surviving their environment. Victors who ran. We have not had Victors who made a statement out of doing so. There’s a reason for that.”

He wanted, very much, to keep being mature about this. He could not quite help the slight shakiness that entered into his voice at his own response. “We haven’t had any Victors who were twelve, either.”

Maglor closed his eyes.

“You have survived so much already,” he said at long last. “You can survive this too. I can help you survive this too. I promise you, I will make sure you can survive this. But it will only work if you let me help you.”

Elrond was still very sure he could not kill anyone.

He nodded anyway.

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March 31 - Prompts

Triumph | Hunt | Travel

The optional weekly theme is: Rivalry, Competition, Victory

If you want to share your responses to these prompts with us, you can tag us here on tumblr, or put them into our AO3 collection.

Thanks for joining us for Back to Middle-Earth Month this year! We hope you had fun, and maybe we'll see you for Scribbles & Drabbles in Summer!

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B2MEM - "Competition"

@spring-into-arda (692 words; a long time ago I wrote a Hunger Games AU for the Silm; this takes place in a slightly different universe, but explores the same concept)

Maglor had won his Games by -

Well, it depended on which of the Games analysts you asked, naturally. He had seen them all, looping on reruns late at night as he paced, sleepless, through a living room with more chairs than he would ever need. Each of the analysts had their own theory on just what was most important about his Games, though which theory got the most screentime depended on just how happy the Capitol was with him at present.

He had won his Games by running away.

(True, of course. From the very first moment it was safe to run from the starting plate, to this moment, right now, when he was standing at the very last window on the very last car of the train rather than being anywhere remotely useful. He had long ago ceased trying to deny even to himself that it was what he had done, over and over again.)

He had won his Games by winning the crowd.

(If he had only kept his mouth shut. If he had run quietly, run alone, if he had never opened his mouth to sing . . . He had been dangerous. From a known family of rebels. If he had stayed quiet, he would probably be safely dead now. If he had won anyway, he would probably be safely obscure now.)

(But he never could just keep his mouth shut.)

He had won his Games by getting his competition to underestimate him.

(He thinks the president believes that one. He wishes he knew some way to convince him that no, he really did run. He really did mean it. All the flashes of anything else were just - remnants. Flashes of what his family had deserved for him to be.)

(But it hadn’t been enough to save them, and it wouldn’t be enough to disturb the Capitol, so please, please, please, stop trying to break what’s already ground to dust - )

None of them ever really bring up that he had won his Games by slitting three throats. 

(Four? Three and a half? He can never decide if the last one counts. He could look it up, of course, but the Capitol does not get to decide this. He is not even sure if he gets to decide this.)

It wasn’t worth mentioning, he supposed. It wasn’t anywhere near a record kill count for a Victor; it wasn’t a particularly memorable way of committing the kills. He was a Victor. Of course he had killed. 

So had a lot of others in the arena, and it hadn’t saved them. It had to have been something else that made him different.

Luck. Or running. Or acting. Or winning the crowd.

He had told each tribute had to mentor something different. Whatever he thought would fit best for their strategy.

See, this will work for you. I know, because it worked for me. Don’t you want to be like me?

(He left that last part out since the answer any sane person would give was too obviously “No,” and the last thing the tributes needed in there was doubting whether or not they really wanted to win this.)

Only now . . .

Now it was Elrond, waiting back in the dining car and no doubt comforting the other tribute, the tribute Maglor couldn’t even let himself think of, because it was down to him to mentor them both, but it couldn’t be both of them.

It couldn’t be her.

And he had to decide, here and now, in a train car that in a few weeks would hold a minimum of one coffin, exactly what it was he had done, exactly what it was he could teach, that would keep it from being two.

Luck. Or running. Or acting. Or winning the crowd.

The glass of the window felt very cold against his hands.

They had felt cold twenty years ago when they were wrapped around steel and drawing blood.

He was not what his family had been.

But perhaps the Capitol really should have done a better job of remembering that when it had come down to it, he had stopped running and started slitting throats.

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B2MEM - "Hope" (Again)

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Elrond had come to Aman to heal. For the most part, people had respected this; he had been left alone in the new valley he had chosen with only his closest family and stubbornest followers surrounding him.

He had not expected the High King to be the first to interrupt that streak.

“Forgive me,” he said, as he poured the tea for the first unexpected guest he’d had since his arrival. “I should have come to present myself to you long before now.”

The king - his several times great uncle? His grandfather-in-law? - accepted the cup but only seemed more uncomfortable for it. He set it on the low wall beside his chair in the courtyard almost immediately. “Nothing of the sort. I have heard how exhausted you were. I should beg your forgiveness for intruding now, especially on a matter of politics.”

Elrond sipped his own tea. “Politics?” he asked politely.

Finarfin sighed. “You may have heard that the Valar have been considering the case of Feanaro for some time now.”

Elrond went still. “I had not.”

“It has been . . . a very long time since the case begun. I suppose it was old news to everyone by the time . . . regardless. They have reached a decision, of sorts. They have decided that since it is primarily the elves that were hurt by his decisions, not themselves, that the matter ought to be decided by the elves.”

“So you have been asked . . . ?”

“They have decided it should be determined democratically.”

Elrond was, distantly, very glad that he was currently a long way from Tirion.

“There are three main strands of thought at the moment,” Finarfin said after a long pause. “Feanaro’s followers, of course, are agitating for his release. Others are arguing that he should remain in the halls of the dead indefinitely.” For a moment, he looked impossibly weary. “I know what you have lost because of him, but I hoped I could convince you to stand publicly for the latter option. It would hold weight with many. If you would allow me to present my case - ”

His first response to this he bit back against his tongue. “Three strands of thought,” he said instead. “What is the third?”

Finarfin swallowed. “That we should take him at his word,” he said quietly, “and consign him to the Darkness.”

For just a moment, even the eternal sunshine of Aman seemed to dim.

“Five minutes of your time,” Finarfin pleaded quietly. “Let me present my argument.”

The weariness that even now had been his constant companion was firmly pushed back. “Allow me to save you the time,” he said. “I stand with the Feanorians on this. How stand the rest of the votes?”

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March 31 - Prompts

Triumph | Hunt | Travel

The optional weekly theme is: Rivalry, Competition, Victory

If you want to share your responses to these prompts with us, you can tag us here on tumblr, or put them into our AO3 collection.

Thanks for joining us for Back to Middle-Earth Month this year! We hope you had fun, and maybe we'll see you for Scribbles & Drabbles in Summer!

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B2MEM - "Hope"

@spring-into-arda (301 words; a continuation of my earlier AU where Finarfin arrives in Beleriand to find nothing but ruins)

There was someone outside the camp.

Finarfin should mention this to someone, probably, but he couldn’t prove it; there was no movement in the endless fields of high, stinging grass, no rustle in the dead limbs of the trees. No noise. No perceptible hint.

But there was an itch at the back of his mind that insisted someone was here.

Madness, probably. A manifestation of desperate hope after weeks of marching through Beleriand and finding nothing, nothing, nothing. Failing that, surely it was the Enemy, at last showing himself.

Surely.

But the itch at the back of his mind felt . . . not like the hunts he had never particularly enjoyed, but that he had gone on for his children’s sakes. It felt like the games they had played when they were small, and he would walk into his office and know they were there even before he had spotted a tiny foot peeking out from behind his desk.

The madness of hope.

Even if Artanis was still alive, was still free, surely she would approach the hosts her father was leading openly, not creep around the edges of his camp like a thief.

He shot one last look at the dead emptiness of the woods before nodding to the guards and letting himself back into the command tent. 

The flap fell behind him. The itch intensified.

He turned.

A gaunt figure was sitting at his desk. There was barely an ounce of flesh left on the figure waiting, in dead stillness, in the chair; just bruised and bloodied skin stretched across knife sharp bone. 

The only hint of life was in the eyes: dark and haunted with more horror than Arafinwe could even now imagine, but still burning with a hint of dread fire.

“Hello, uncle,” rasped Makalaure. “I’ve come to bargain.”

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B2MEM - "From the ashes"

@spring-into-arda (100 words)

The last time Feanaro had walked this world, it had still been new, though he hadn’t fully realized it at the time. It had felt old to him, in those last days; it had felt burnt out.

None of them had known then what that really felt like.

The world had grown old in his absence. Truly old. He could see it in the swollen sun, so different from how it had been described to him; he could feel it in the weariness of the wind.

The song was tired.

That was alright. The song was about to begin again.

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March 30 - Prompts

Community Sunday! Tell us about your favourite part of Tolkien | Tell your favourite fan creators what you enjoy about their work | Say thank you to somebody who has made your fandom experience better in the last year

As another Back to Middle-Earth Month comes to a close, take a moment today to say thank you to the people that make fandom special for you. Whatever it is they do, whether they create, comment, chat, collaborate or just are a welcome presence in your community.

And on that note, thank you to everyone who participated in this B2MEM! We've got one more prompt for you tomorrow, but we hope you enjoyed this March with us!

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”The other world, the one you have brought, is not a future I will take lightly or for granted, it is one I will fight for with all that is left within me. For that world is the one in which you and I will meet at last. There, you will receive this birthday present, and all the others for the dozens of birthdays to come. For in that world, my little revolutionary, you will outlive us all.”

Today’s @spring-into-arda offering features Arwen Undomiel, student activist and ghostliest of textual ghosts in my postcolonial Silmarillion AU, Prayers to Broken Stone + the things everyone else has said about her ✨

prompt: “from the ashes a fire shall be woken” which I have chosen to take quite literally this time | match 1, team idril | magic markers (this event has really pushed me on my “improvising under time pressure” skills i’ll tell you that) and superimposed on a digital background |

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@spring-into-arda Back to Middle Earth Month Basketball Championship Game 1: prompt “rivalry” ↳ Daeron and Maglor