#easterling and beyond ocs

[herenortherenearnorfar]

For @tolkienocweek have a messy charcoal sketch of my girl Cytise! A Second Age noblewoman coping with Sauron’s period of expansionism with jewelry and storytelling.

[lamemaster]

The Regrets That Linger

Maglor X Easterling OC

Warning: Angst Bomb

Summary: “Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and right-doing, there is a field. I'll meet you there.

When the soul lies down in that grass the world is too full to talk about.” -Rumi

The air was cold. It was always cold in Hirming. I clutched the blanket that I had intended to get for Maitimo. Now I just had to make it back to his room. Just open the door, walk out, and help my brother.

I focused my attention on the blanket. Its color was the darkest green in a peacock’s feather. It was knit carefully with precise stitches. A small undeserved token of comfort that reminded me so much of home back in Aman.

Maitimo’s door loomed in my view. Sighing I opened the door to be welcomed by a poorly lit room. Despite belonging to the Lord of Hirming the room was barely furnished. It held a desk that loitered with a mess of documents that needed my brother’s attention. The opposite corner of the room was occupied by the closet that was carved by Curvo.

And lastly was the giant bed made specifically to cater to Maitimo, who loomed over everyone. The giant bed that now engulfed the wraith-like figure of my brother.

“Hanno” I forced my feet towards the bed to cover the shivering figure on it. Maitimo’s eyes followed my voice but there was no other movement leave for that. His entire body shook with tremors so fierce that those could be felt through the bed.

I tucked the blanket to ease his suffering. “Hanno” My brother seemed unaware of everything. Fingon’s death had done this to him. My cousin’s death had left him so vulnerable and on the cusp of fading.

“Please look at me Maedhros.” I switched his epessë with the Sindarin name. Ever since his rescue mirrors had become his foe and our mother’s name for him a curse.

“I-I did it!” Whispers of self-blame continued from my brother’s mouth. Ever since the failure of the alliance Maitimo blamed himself. He tortured his fea for Fingon’s demise. This is led to where we are right now.

“No hanno. None of this was your fault.” My arguments went unheard by the panicking ellon. “Here have some of this tea hanno.” I slid a hand under his shoulders, avoiding his hair, to allow him some of the healing droughts.

Maitimo sipped some tea in the midst of his breakdown. Much to my relief, it was enough to calm him down and offer some sleep.

With the panic now subsiding Maitimo held my hand as he murmured unintelligible phrases in the haze of sleep. His hair was a mess after laying down for a week. I wove my fingers in the tangles to soothe his fitful dreams.

Unintentionally I started humming the lullaby my brother had so lovingly sung to me in our childhood. I prayed to Illuvatar, his Ainur, the Valar, and anyone willing to listen to a kinslayer. I prayed all night for the sake of my withering brother.

I knew it was selfish to force Maitimo to stay, to demand him to continue living after being through the worst of fates. Yet, I couldn’t imagine being alive without him next to me. From my very first second of existence I had known him and to be without him on this ruthless land felt like a fate worse than ever-lasting misery.

In the company of my sleeping brother my traitorous mind wandered to her. It had been my fault. Her people had joined the enemy without blinking an eye. I should hate her as an elf, as a Noldo, and as Maitimo’s brother.

I should hate her but I couldn’t.

------------

“It is said that the intensity of henna’s color tells how much one’s future spouse will love them.” the edain woman who stood two heads below me proudly presented her hands to me.

“Then it seems like yours will love you to the end of times, my lady.” A slight redness gathered on the apples of her cheeks. A feature found only in second children, a feature that seemed too endearing. I found it impossible to not trace the intricately drawn patterns on her hands.

As I stared into the kohl-lined eyes that held untainted innocence. “And what about the kohl? Does it carry another tale of your people?” The woman next to me giggled tucking a wayward strand of her braid “My lord, not everything we do carries a romantic background. Kohl is just a protection against infections.”

It felt so easy to smile. Call of Silmarils felt a distant hum when the woman next to me enthusiastically chatted about the most trivial things.

Next to me, the edain wore heavy clothes that engulfed her small frame. From what I heard from some men, people from the East found the West to be extremely cold. In fact, it was clear from the child-like fascination in my companion's eyes just by looking at the piling snow.

“Listening to merchant’s tales I had often wondered if snow felt like the fluffiest flower of cotton that grew in nearby farms.” Much to my amusement, the woman next to me held a handful of snow “And how did you find it to be? Does it stand up to the stories?” I asked the woman whose fingers were now reddening.

Feeling the snow in her hand her nose scrunched as she said “Hmm rather than the softest cotton of our fields I'd say that it feels more like the ever-changing fine sand of our deserts.” I pried her freezing hands off the snow she clutched in her trembling fist.

She muttered thanks putting on the mittens I handed her “Yet, it is quite the opposite.” She flexed frozen fingers. Taking her covered hands I tucked them into my cloak.

---------------

A letter. In a shabby envelope that barely held on to its ends. The handwriting inside it is shabby and unusual. The curve of letters so distinct from that of my kin. It was her, the writing that was worse than that of an elfling. The faint scent that surrounded her lingered on the tattered pages.

To The Lord Who Sings,

I hope you find this letter. I have heard that the summer of Hirming brings the most beautiful scenery to life. The snow melts to reveal the crisp grass and the barren trees bare blooms found nowhere else.

In the past few days, I have found myself learning the language of your people. I struggle with the effortless strokes of the letters that I saw you make so easily. However, since you are reading this I have managed to write something coherent at the least.

I expect nothing in return for this letter. I do not seek a reply or any form of assurance. I am aware that the betrayal of my kin leaves no ground for me to ask that. Yet, I find myself writing this letter in the wake of a sunset. I fear that I left you plagued with bitterness, restless in your own agony. I am afraid that I have added to your burdens instead of lessening them.

I do not ask for your forgiveness for the crimes of my people are irredeemable. I simply want to let you know I never intended to forsake you. How could I ever think of that?

However, the passage of time cannot be reversed. My regrets cannot help but from countless scenarios of if onlys that mean nothing.

So, comfort your heart, my lord. Do not let the resentment strain your views of Hirming.

May the darkest shade of henna grace your hands.

Yours Eternally,

----------------

In the ice-cold cells of a dark prison sat a woman. Her bony fingers were bloody from writing endlessly. The floors are covered with letters addressed to a lord who sings, who plays, who smiles, and broods. Letters that make no sense because of her terrible writing from shaking hands. Piles of unsent letters that carry blood stains from untreated wounds and scraped fingers.

She writes as the breath leaves her body.

“Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and right-doing, there is a field. I'll meet you there.

When the soul lies down in that grass the world is too full to talk about.”

[vezely-a]

I never do these but got sentimental. Six years ago today I started roleplaying Vezely, a character concocted many years prior as was this blog. Since then, this platform has been my creative outlet, my stress relief, my enjoyment through many big changes in my life. It never got me down (minus the absences of cherished partners) and I always found time in my hectic schedule to write, knowing I would feel the better for it. I am a one consistent blog, one character, plotted thread, no au, collaborative worldbuilding role-player, and because of that I’ve established partners whose characters became so integral to my character’s story and to me as well. Many of you have been here just as long and have seen the Tolkien fandom ride the waves of expansion in popularity and depletion. For those that endured as I, thank you! For those that gave my Easterling trash elf a chance, thank you! 

So many cherished partners have left, some returned or are new, but these are just a few of the many people who I am grateful for during these years and who are (mostly) still here. (And I’m going to keep these short rather than write an essay which I could for everyone. :)

@peredhellen: I can wholeheartedly say that Vez’s character development is thanks to you and your unmatched rendition of Elladan. Hard to believe we started roleplaying in December of that first year and in this verse (and three others) we organically created the perfect though mismatched, unorthodox, problematic pairing in the Tolkien universe. What great drama! I am eternally grateful for your support and positivity all these years and esp. those where I struggled to write often. Thank you for indulging me in all those plotting conversations which continue to this day (these two never get old!). And you inspired me with your beautiful writing since the start. I feel very lucky to have met you! 

@dunadaneth: FEMALE OC POWER. Maybe our first interactions were crack and we have not been legit threading or chatting with each other for as long, but I cannot imagine my experience here without you and Créa. How I have loved watching her character develop over the years and getting to know you better during them! Thank you also for just supporting Vez doing her thing, it means a lot.

@tharanduil: Five years was too long to start rping with you, but even before, I cannot imagine my dash without your impeccable Elvenking. I said it before, but you truly developed a layered complexity to him beyond anything the films or Tolkien could muster. Thank you for being such a gem of support in this community and such a chill person as well. I’m having a blast writing with you, finally!

@burkhanlig: You were an inspiration to me from day one on this blog. There were and are so few on this platform providing any love to the forgotten lands and people of Tolkien’s Legendarium. You introduced me to MERP and my mind exploded. And you were the first rper I followed when this blog was just a inspo dump and from you, I figured out wtf Tumblr rp was. And Margöz, what an impeccable oc. Thank you for all of it and seriously, miss you!

@alassofesteldin: Thank you for giving me personal guidance and acceptance of my oc when I first started here so long ago. Your characters and world building remain a BIG inspiration to me and I’m so grateful to have your presence on my dash in any shape or form, with your new oc (who is such a cutie, ngl) and of course, your wonderfully curated personal. 

@warhornofgondor: Did you know that you were one of the first people I rp’d with? Thank you for giving my female oc a chance back then and since, for blessing my dash with your endearing Boromir. (ngl, Vez still approves of your Dark Boromir).

@maladum: You have been on my dash for so long, and while we have not rp’d much (cause granted, 3rd Age rp with Sauron who doesn’t talk much to inferiors is HARD), I cannot imagine my experience here without you. Keep bringing the dark cause this community needs it.

@cllgood: You remain a cherished person on my dash regardless of whether or not I know the world your character is in. And I cannot help but look back fondly at those (silly ol’) dwarves you wrote so impeccably. I miss writing with you, but I’m so glad to still be in your circle.

@multimentium: I cherish your presence on my dash and miss you when you are gone. I am so grateful for all the Tolkien characters you brought to life here. And where would Vez be without Papa Manwë? 

[herenortherenearnorfar]

Also for @tolkienocweek Senara, Magiwen, and Gúlnar, Ulfang’s surviving daughters-in-law and granddaughter, from A Traitor’s Issue

[herenortherenearnorfar]

I heard it was @tolkienocweek​ so please consider Maha, an Easterling girl with an employer who she deeply resents. 

[herenortherenearnorfar]

Instead of working on any of my other projects I’ve been creating a new group of girls (a girlgroup, you might say). Here is a little chunk that probably won’t end up in the final project. If you can guess what new brand of mistreated Silm humans they’re a take on you earn a kiss on the head! 

“Not only did they condescend us, they killed Felagund! They tried to kill Erchamion! What honor does their High King have if he’d ally with kinslayers?” Senara’s posthoc justifications are growing wilder as she continues, as if she’s barely convinced of her own reasoning.

It must be very lonely to be left to be one of the last conspirators left alive after your choices have collapsed on you. Gúlnar realizes that. She’s not going to go picking apart every flaw in her doomed family’s logic. Nor will she pretend she could have made a perfect choice if asked to choose between inhuman lords and ghastly powers. But she has to at least mention one small detail.

“Gorthaur killed Finrod Felagund,” she reminds Senara. “And would have killed Beren besides. Now we’re in his master’s house begging for help.”

Senara blinks disdainfully. “You cannot blame a wolf for killing a man shoved into its den. That’s its nature. The blame falls on those who pushed the man in.” Celegorm and Curufin then. She can’t speak to the latter’s personality but Gúlnar has always found Lord Celegorm to be a snappish and uncouth guest (though at least he is kind to his horses). He talked over people as if they weren’t there, bandied insults openly then smiled with his teeth.

“So you allied with wolves over murderers?” Gúlnar asks. She doesn’t mean to judge. She just wants to understand how so many people ended up dead. A widow has a right to know something of her husband’s death.

This time Senara does deflate, all the prickly desperation going out of her until she’s curled around her daughter, chin tucked over Magiwen’s tousled head. “We hoped we might get lucky with the evil we didn’t yet know.”

[herenortherenearnorfar]

Maha

Twice stolen child grown up.

[herenortherenearnorfar]

I’m waiting on a proofread on my long fic but here’s some bonus Maha content!

“To raise you is a gift,” your nana tells you in the secret language. The language that is shared between just you, your parents, and the trees. (There are two languages for you three and your garden, they just use the first one more.) “You are a treasure we have been entrusted with and we were grateful from the first moment we saw you.”

A little older you learn what she meant. You were a gift, you were given. A servant with no other family died and the king handed her baby off to the inhuman creatures who resided with him, to raise as their own.

“Are you glad my mother died?” you ask at six.

Your atha looks horrified. “No! How could we be glad?”

“Because you got me.” It seems an easy enough equation. Her death was their gain. They like kids a lot, they’re always delighted when they get to help a baby, but parents keep them away from their children. If they let parents die they might have even more children to take care of.

“Every child deserves a family,” he says gravely, kneeling in the dark red dirt of the garden. “Their own family. You were deprived of one and we were allowed to step in to help, but there’s nothing to be happy about. That parting was a sorrow.”

“So you didn’t want me?” That servant woman, dead of a concussion when you were just three months old, is a story to you. A specter who gave you your small hands and round eyes. Her imagined death stings less than the concept that the two most important people in your life wouldn’t have always fought for you. That there’s a world where you’re a servant’s daughter and they’re the tall, gleaming eyed guests all children are warned away from, and they don’t hold you tight and tell you secret stories of their forest homelands.

“We didn’t know how dearly we loved you until you were in our arms,” atha reassures you, “Then once you were there it was like we couldn’t have known life without you.”

Your parents always know exactly what to say.

One day the three of you will leave this land, the place where you were born. Your nana and atha have stayed here a long time, dwelling among humans instead of their own kin. They couldn’t find their kin, when they went looking. Some of the places they used to live had changed or disappeared over the centuries and others had been abandoned, there was no trace of the people of their youth.

So they tarried a while with the king. But it’s been a century and they want to go home. They tell you stories, in their language, about a wet green wood full of tall folk just like them. Nighttime people, fading people. In their language, edhwellen, cwendi kind, elves.

There’s a king there too, named Oropher, and a lovely court, though your parents never frequented it much. Were older than it and above its turnings.

(Your parents are older than lots of things. Once your mother said she remembered a time before the sun.)

Instead they kept to the trees, and made their home among the wild things. They were healers and menders of broken things, just like have been for your whole life, and they lived in a pretty house inside a big tree.

“Bigger around than a tower, taller than the sky, Maha,” your atha says.

They left a son there too. Grown up and busy with his own adventures, he’s a guard in the court of that far western king. They miss him dearly, you can tell, and are quick to tell you about how much he would love know that he has a little sister.

They plan to go home some day but when you’re four they must have some sort of conversation behind your back because they start insisting that they will, if you want, stay. “This is your home, you can live here if you want. We do not mean to leave immediately, you can grow up and make your own choices.”

But you want to go. They’ve convinced you already with their tales of traveling and fairy kings and loving big brothers. (None of the children here play with you. You’re either an upjumped servant’s daughter or ward of two frighteningly high ranked royal intimates, and always the child of unpredictable magical forces.)

“Oh,” your nana says, looking at your atha over your head after you finish demanding your chance at the home they’ve always promised. “Maybe when you’re older then. Thirty—“ another look and she amends, “Twenty. Then we’ll go.”

Your parents make it clear to you from an early age not to bandy about your leaving plans with strangers. It’s easy enough to obey that order, you just don’t talk about it in human language.

When you’re eight you learn that the last time your parents were too loud about wanting to walk away the king panicked and gave them a baby— gave them you.

There are some things you’ll miss when you leave home forever. As you grow you start cataloguing them. You’ll miss the garden and all the plants there, who whisper to you and sing songs in the night. There are different plants in the west, nana and atha have told you, so you make sure to spend time with all your favorites while you can.

The herbs are your special friends, though they’re so quiet you can barely hear their little voices. Maybe that’s better when you need to rip them up to make medicine. You shower affection on the brahmi, the basil, the pennywort, and the pink lotuses in their marble pool.

You’ll miss the servants, especially the kitchen servants who are especially fond of you because your mother was one of them. A pot fell on her head when she was trying to fetch it from the wall, you’re told her death was quick but the guilt still clearly lingers enough for them to give you fruit and halva when you visit.

There’s the king too, who is always coming to talk to your parents. Even if he thought you were an anchor, he’s jolly and gentle and as desperate for your nana and atha’s attention as you are. They have been around since his grandfather’s reign, are as much a part of the kingdom as the hills and the palace. A good luck charm, the blessing of the nighttime people.

His wives are nice too, they give you dates— you are a child blessed with fruit— and sometimes let you hold their babies. Most people don’t do that, they’re too afraid that you might have become enough of a nighttime person to want to steal babies for your own. There are still stories about that, especially from villages near the rivers and the woods. Children will go missing and they’ll say the nighttime people took them.

Desperate for news of the family they left years ago (maybe before there was a sun) either your nana or your atha goes to investigate every one of those stories. They always come back disappointed— the edhwellen didn’t take the children— and they never quite want to tell you where the children went if they were stolen or given away.

You’ll miss the animals, the peacocks in the courtyards, the elephants sometimes brought to market to lift heavy goods or wear armor and make war, the tiger skins to show how brave and wealthy this land is. Atha says there are no tigers there, just bears.

The last thing about the palace that you’ll miss is the language. Of the three languages of your childhood, it’s the first and loudest. Everyone speaks the human language. For a while you don’t even realize that you might lose it, surely there are humans near the Greenwood? Then parents explain that just like there are many elf languages (they speak two) there are many human languages too. No one in the west speaks your mother tongue.

When you leave it will be lost to you forever. Except your parents, of course, but they don’t count, they’re practically a part of you at this age.

“Maybe I do want to come back,” you say thoughtful and five. “When I’m really old. A zillion years old. It would be sad to be old and not have all your languages with you.”

“We can come back,” nana promises.

At six you realize that humans die and that you’re human. Your parents are not.

“In our Greenwood,” you ask as your parents curl around you, lulling you to sleep. It’s always your Greenwood. “Will I be the only person who’ll get old?”

“I don’t know,” atha says, “there weren’t many humans there when we last lived there. That was a long time ago though.”

Nana strokes your hair. It’s baby short, not like their long, glossy black curls. They have prettier hair than anyone else in the palace. “Do you not want to be the only person who’ll get old?”

“I don’t know,” you mumble, uncertain with sleep. Really you don’t want to get old at all, but that discussion has already been had. Your parents are miracle workers in some regards but they can’t give you their immortality the way you were given to them. (“Though we would in a heartbeat,” nana swore, “if that was what you desired.”)

More hair stroking. “We’ll still love you, no matter how old you get.” That reassurance is enough, though you still have a few weeks nightmares about your parents getting a new baby to replace you when you’re an old lady.

Atha teaches you to write in Sindarin as best he knows how, while Nana complains that back in her day no one wrote anything down. No one teaches you to write in the language of your birth, you’re not sure your parents know how, but you sit in the younger queen’s courtyard while the four year old prince is with his tutor and pick it up by osmosis. The curly letters of this script are like the ones atha showed you, digging a stick into the ground. Different sorts of curl, different sorts of connection.

You write stories you remember in the dirt in the garden, digging down with you stick till the pale pink tile beneath the earth shines through. You label all the plants you know phonetically and delight in knowledge.

When you’re eight there are dignitaries from a visiting kingdom at court. You crowd with other titleless, jobless busybodies— noble children, bored wives, more privileged servants— and strain to see the visitors. The bring gifts, people in chains.

There are scandalized whispers from the grownups.

“A small token of our friendship,” says the unctuous ambassador, before beginning another litany of compliments for the king. “May we forever remain allies in the face of enemies.”

You learn later that this token of appreciation is considered in poor taste. It is acceptable to keep war prisoners and ask labor of them, but to drag them away from the place of their defeat, treat them as trade goods, deny their families the chance to ransom them? The king cannot, in good conscience, accept the alliance from your desperate neighbor.

You’re glad. Anyone willing to use people as gifts is not a good friend. Even your mother, who bore you and loved you for three months, though she was a debt servant was still a person.

You don’t ask why they’re so hungry for allies, so ready to trade anything. Maybe you should have but three months later they’re conquered by some big western kingdom, sprawling, hungry, bannered by a black hand on a white background, and it doesn’t matter anymore.

There are two languages of the nighttime people that your parents teach you. The first you learn very well. It’s called Sindarin and it’s spoken in your Greenwood. You like it, its bumps and grumbles. A language for old trees talking.

The other one is Windan. There are echoes of it in Sindarin, pale traces like seeing shared features in two cousins. When your parents struggle to find a word in one they’ll reach for the other, so the two blend together in your mind. Windan is the language of the night. Long ago a people who loved the stars more than anything else lived in the forests south of your home. Your parents lived there. And even further East, past mountains and wilds, is the place where all language began.

Nana and atha left to explore. Their hearts are wild, the rest of their kind scorned them for it. Even when they settled in a green wood where the stars are strange they still loved to wander, to make friends with dwarves and pale northern men.

They sing their night songs to the stars; you learn simply by listening, till you can sing along. This is ageless and it feels like it could last forever. Somewhere in the woods you hope the rest of the nighttime people are listening too.

Your mother was indentured by debt but none of that transfers to a baby. It’s the law, supported by custom, children are free, you checked.

There is a mass of armies stationed along your border. You’re nine and these petty human affairs don’t concern you much. This kingdom has always been a place for leaving. The queens are worried but the servants are not, and the servants seem eminently more sensible than the queens (though those bejeweled, bangled ladies are kind).

You are not worried until the king comes to your parents, terrified, and says, “They asked for you. In the letter, they asked for you.”

Together, your parents take him in, make him warm spiced tea, and ask him gentle questions. There’s a reason he loves them, it’s not just because they were the last thing he had of his grandfather when he was a little king.

Very nicely, they ask you to stay in the garden. “Sing to the stars for us, Maha,” they say. Silly since it’s barely twilight, the only star that’s out is the evening star (which nana says isn’t a star at all, it’s a person).

Instead on singing you eavesdrop, and hear nothing that makes any sense. There’s a big darkness, your parents say, which is obvious, it’s almost night time, and they’ve never felt anything like this before, only heard of it. There is a great darkness and they warn the king to be careful, because they are going to have to go. They offer to take the little princes, the baby princess. This evil does not respect the old laws of war, they caution.

“Go,” the king says, “Be safe. But a king cannot run where his people cannot follow.”

“That I can respect,” atha says sadly. “Live well. Do not fear to look this evil in the eye. I hear it has been struck down before.”

Nana opens the door sharply, she has a very quiet step, and doesn’t even look disappointed to find you listening. “Come along,” she orders. “We have to leave tonight.”

You are nine and deep among the dry red hills. There are villages here, herders and farmers of plants that need little rain. Nana and atha have steered away from them. “We can’t bring trouble down where we were once welcomed,” they caution.

Luckily they are good at finding water, good at knowing what plants are good to eat. Even here, without the tree-talk to guide them, they understand their surroundings.

It’s hard to go from a palace to the woods, sleeping in the dirt and eating tubers instead of pomegranates. But every day your parents’ faces grow more grim. It’s as if they’ve seen great horrors every night in their dreams. You can’t complain, you can’t.

At night, on a hill where you can see the beginnings of the wet lowlands on the horizon, you are caught. It happens before you can wake up. One minute you’re asleep between your parents, the next you’re in the arms of a monster with a metal shell, being ripped away from safety and love.

You scream and scream until one of the soldiers in their shiny bronze breastplates hits you. Then you just cry, as quietly as you can.

No one lets you see your parents. A few of the soldiers, in the lacquered pangolin scale of your own kingdom, feed you. Above your head they whisper, “They really do steal children.”

Amid the humans are monsters, monsters you recognize from your childhood bedtime stories. Goblins, imps made to look like edhwellen, tricksy and bad where the nighttime people are true, loathing song and starlight and water. That would set off another round of screaming if you thought you could get away with it.

It’s impossible to ride in your clothes, a swoop of folded and pleated cloth. No one has ever thought you’d who’d need trousers. So one of the soldiers just scoops you up and carries you, like a sack of rice. It must help that you are small; your parents, so tall and strong, would be harder to carry.

There are heads above the gate of the city where you grew up. One of them wears a kingly turban, perhaps to identify it as it decays. It’s been days since you left the palace and in the hot sun the face is already a little bloated.

The soldiers give you to the palace guard, who know you, look at you with pity, put you in a nice little room and do not tell you anything. Neither do the kitchen servants, though they give you extra fruit.

Eventually you are brought out of your room by the king’s younger brother. He lives far away, visits as often as he can, and has only spoken to your parents a few times. The last time you saw him was at his wedding, just a two years ago. When you’re older you’ll realize how young he is, at nine he seems as much a grownup as anyone else.

“Where are my nana and atha?” you cry, used to getting what you want, used to being the spoilt elf-child. The new king’s face wrinkles up, then he realizes what you call your parents and his worried expression goes slack with sympathy.

He kneels down, as if to make himself less imposing in his finery. “Ah, child. I’m sorry, they’re dead.”

The only thing you feel is disbelief. Your parents are immortal.

You open your mouth again, to demand more answers, but he’s a king with places to be. He takes a small wooden chest from one of his guards and hands it to you. “Here, hold this and follow me.”

Terrified of more violence, more awful and unbelievable bad news, you obey. Trotting after them you peek inside the box to see the gleam of gold.

In the main room there’s a man in the king’s seat.

No, you amend. Not a man. Men don’t look like this. He’s like your parents refined. His hair gleams thrice as bright as your nana’s did, his eyes smoulder where theirs’ gently gleamed. There is a spectrum of devastating glory, from regular people, to the famed beauties and prettiest dancers, to nana and atha, to the monster in front of you.

He is speaking with a cringing man next to him. Without turning his head, he pauses his conversation.

“I take it you have found no evidence of what I seek?” he speaks your language effortlessly, though he doesn’t look like he came from your home. He looks like… he looks like a little bit of everything. The way nana and atha did. Like you can catch wisps of familiarity in his features but when you strain to catch it the sense of sameness is gone.

“No, my lord,” the poor king admits. “It is as was initially said, there’s nothing in the forests.”

“Well, if none of the Firstborn are here I have no reason to stay. What a disappointment.”

You are quaking, desperate, beginning to think that maybe your parents aren’t invincible after all, and in the midst of that uncertain grief the new king pushes you forward. “My lord, I have their foster daughter! Take her, as a gift, for your kindness.”

The compression of flame doesn’t even look at you. “A human orphan. How generous. I’ll make arrangements for us to take our leave.”

Your parents will never hug you again. They will never whisper to you in a secret tongue, tell you the names of plants and their uses, show you how to soothe a graft on a tree or a recently set bone, tell you stories about the lake where the world began.

They’ll never see their house inside a big tree again.

They’ll never see their son and explain where they went, why they spent so many years away. There will never be a joyous reunion in a bright green wood with you squished small between your family.

They’ll never see you die, never get to mourn you. Once you wished so hard for that outcome and now it feels like the worst thing in the world.

In the aftermath, when you’re not sure where you are supposed to go or who you are supposed to go to, a man with a long grey beard and a dark robe comes up to you.

“Seldë,” he says seriously, which you don’t understand. Then he tries again, in accented Sindarin. “Little girl.”

You clutch the wooden chest, containing a small treasure of gold in jewelry, a last gift before you were given away again, tighter to your chest. “Yes?”

“Can you read and write?” he asks.

You nod.

“In what languages?” After you tell him he looks pleased. “Good, good girl. I’ll take you then. We need more clever hands.”

“Can’t I stay?” you plead. The treasure chest might buy you a bit of safety. You could work in the kitchens, or live in a house all alone with a garden. Maybe they’d let you bury your parents under trees.

The old man frowns. “Why would you? You have a gift, we can use you. Come now, I’ll get you settled.”

You are told you should be grateful. You’re lucky to be in the favor of one of the more permanent appointments in this small court. There’s a bed, food, long days spent hunched over copying without leaf or tree or sunlight. You learn to write in ink rather than dirt, develop a good hand, are told you ought to appreciate your master’s patience. But shouldn’t they be glad to have you?

Aren’t you a gift?

[herenortherenearnorfar]

Divine Marriages (And Divorces) by HerenorThereNearnorFar Fandoms:The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien, TOLKIEN J. R. R. - Works & Related Fandoms   Tags: Major Character Death, Celebrimbor | Telperinquar/Sauron | Mairon, Celebrimbor | Telperinquar & Sauron | Mairon, Celebrimbor | Telperinquar, Sauron | Mairon, Easterling(s), Second Age OCs, Some Mentions of Other Second Age Characters, Original Female Character(s), Major Character Death Is Only Hinted At, Suicidal Ideation, outsider pov, Is It A Relationship Or Is It Just A Horribly Intense Hostage Crisis?, This Teen Is Starved For Romance So Take Her Interpretation With A Grain of Salt, Celebrimbor/Sauron AU As A Vehicle For Second Age Human Worldbuilding, Religion, Cults of Personality, Colonialism Except An Evil Angel Is Doing It, Jewelry, Denial as a Method of Foiling Mindreaders Summary: "Cytise knows exactly what the elf is."

[herenortherenearnorfar]

Zikiti

A bold leader and fighter. Heavy lioness imagery. Despises what is unknown.

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Makada Megūt

A queen. Alone. Managing.

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Achaimene (Haxāmansh) of Kandakka

Lesser prince of a powerful kingdom, born in a politically inconvenient manner, sent away to serve another. Fond of poetry and horses. Attentive. Better at fighting than he’d like.

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Sintyche (Senit) Lelte

A girl. A princess. 

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Dôlbeen

This horrible old man is very good at his job, which is all the paperwork that evil (already very much a micromanager) can’t handle. 

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Ûrîbêth

A traders’ daughter and almost-mother, in what will be Gondor. Sun kissed.

[herenortherenearnorfar]

Cytise (Kidisd) Nūrohti

A southern dignitary, fond of pretty things and good conversation, a very long way from home and at the mercy of a higher power.