Someone: *casually mentions Tolkien*
Me:
thraaaaaaaanduuuuuuuuiiiiiiiiil asked:
♥ - for my muse to use bad pick up lines on your muse (whilst possibly drunk) (for a modern au maybe? though if you can think of a good way to do it as a middle earth plot that works too :p)
minstrelmaglor answered:
He’d gotten so far, only to fail now. Past the border patrols of Mirkwood, past the palace guards, past every line of defense the Woodland Realm had to offer. In the days after the Battle of Unnumbered Tears, Maglor and his brothers had taken shelter with the Laiquendi, and from them learned the woodland ways of stealth. They’d served him well, up to this point.
Most would call it foolish, braving the wrath of the Sindar and Nandor for so small a thing as what he sought. A little velvet pouch, dropped at his campsite by accident–and by accident, picked up by a passing Silvan Elf, and taken into the Greenwood. The contents of the pouch were little: a plain golden ring, a plain silver ring, and a little sapphire pendant on a silver chain.
But to Maglor, they were much more. Those were his betrothal and wedding rings, and the wedding gift he received from his mother-in-law. Even though he had long since fallen out of love with his wife, Aiwë had always been his best friend, and he still cared for her deeply. More than that, the humble jewelry was of Valinor. They were irreplacable pieces of a home that had been forever lost to him.
In order to evade the palace guards, Maglor had ducked into a wine cellar–only to find that the guardhouse was just across the hall. He could hear them through the door, laughing and throwing dice. There was no way out–and Maglor began to despair.
Thankfully, there were several casks of Dorwinion wine locked in with him to assuage his despair.
Such a drink! The son of Feanor had not been this drunk since the First Age, in his days at Himring, when Dwarves, Men, and Elves would each bring their own manor of liquor and throw raccous parties to stave off the bleakness. He remembered getting into trouble with that; too much alcohol tended to make him rather amorous. But it was hard to focus on that just now, when he felt so warm and tingly! His face was becoming a bit numb, but that only made him want to laugh–and sing. And sing he did, pacing up and down the cellar, a sweetly-crooning, inebriated siren.
He forgot to be afraid of capture; afraid of the idea that the Sindar might recognize him as a Kinslayer, as a Feanorian, and put him to death; afraid of the rumors of Mirkwood’s wrathful King. He didn’t recognize the King when he entered, either–he wouldn’t have recognized his own hand in front of his face. Granted, Maglor looked nothing like a former King himself–he was a vagabond in tattered clothes, brown hair dirty and lopped off just below the ears, his form and face gaunt from malnourishment, pale and shadow-eyed from the sickness of his long grief.
“My, well…aren’t you wondrous-fair,” he purred, smiling lopsidedly at Thranduil. Maglor somehow made a saunter look like a stagger as he approached the King, eyes hooding. “What’s a lovely place like you doing in a thing like this?”
“Valinor?” he snapped. Well that…both did and did not make sense. On the one hand, his own craftspeople had claimed that the items were of far super quality to anything they had ever seen, in terms of both materials and craftsmanship. The gold and silver rings shone like no others in his collection, even those that were freshly cleaned. The sapphires in the pendant showed absolutely no flaws. Such perfection was effectively impossible to find in the works of Middle-Earth’s artists. Those few items that may have stacked up had been lost long ago, in Doriath or…elsewhere. Thranduil was prepared to believe that items so splendid had come from Valinor.
But on the other hand, he could think back to his days as a child in Doriath, and to the splendors of Thingol’s realm. He remembered following older Elves around and peppering them with questions about where things came from. Not a single item that he could recall had supposedly come from Valinor – well, none of those he had seen and asked about anyway. For an item to have come from Valinor meant that this Elf had either somehow acquired them from someone else…or there was more to him than met the eye.
“First you claim these things to be your wedding jewels and now you tell me they are of Valinor. How did one such as yourself,” he paused for a moment and pointedly swept his gaze up and down his prisoner’s form, “come by such jewels? Do you mean to imply that you yourself are from Valinor? That would make you astonishingly old even by the standards of Arda…and it would make your lineage…suspicious.”
Of course. Of course the Elvenking would think to ask further. Of course he would sense Maglor’s omissions, and dig for the truth. He hadn’t gained the reputation he had for nothing.
Maglor’s hands slipped up into the opposite sleeves. He clung on to his elbows, folding his arms into his chest, holding himself. Shame clouded his face, shame so deep that it threatened to send him shaking. In that moment, he looked old–impossibly old, older than even an Elf should appear. Old and anxious and tired.
When he spoke, his voice was nothing like the strong, succulent croon that Thranduil had heard singing in the wine cellar. His voice was small, thin, and frightened.
“I am…” He swallowed hard. “…I am of Valinor. I was born in the years of the Trees. I am, in fact, one of the Noldorin Exiles. I…that is another reason I was afraid…of coming to this realm.” His voice shook as it dropped to a whisper. “You have every reason to want me dead.”
His silence hung pregnant in the air. He had more to say, though he feared to open his mouth again. He feared Thranduil’s judgement for what he’d already said; more words would just damn him more.
“Those jewels…do you see what I mean, now, when I say they are of a life I lost? After the War of Wrath, the Noldor were pardoned, and allowed to return to Valinor, but…I cannot. I cannot bear the thought of sailing. Those jewels…they’re all that’s left of a home to which I can never return.”
Thranduil narrowed his eyes, running through a mental checklist of Elves he knew or had heard of who could possibly match the description this one had just given. There were so few. All, as far as he could remember, were supposed to be long gone. Sure, the whereabouts of Feanor’s second son, Maglor, were mysterious. Nobody knew for sure whether or not he had died.
But this was ridiculous. To even be thinking about the sons of Feanor…the whole line was long gone.
But then there was that whole ‘you have every reason to want me dead’ thing. Thranduil really didn’t want any fellow Elves dead. Sure he wasn’t a huge fan of the Noldor, but he had never quite held with his father’s more zealous feelings. Admittedly enough he hadn’t been super open with those views, so he supposed it made sense for others not to know…but…why would this Elf be so sure Thranduil would want him dead?
“I will return your jewels,” he finally said. “But before I do, you will answer one last question…
What is your name?”
Immediately, the Elf burst into tears.
“Please.” He’d pulled his hands from the sleeves of the robes and dropped his face into them, muffling his tired sobs into the scars. “Please, don’t make me say it. I hate how it was Sindarinized. It’s so ugly and clumsy…and now, now, the terrible weight of history hangs on it, and…!” He sniffed, then wiped his eyes in the crook of his elbow.
“My mother called me Makalaurë, which I have always preferred. My father called me Kanafinwë, and my brothers called me Kano for short. But please, don’t make me say the name by which history remembers me. Not here. Not now. Not…in front of you.”
He eyed the Elf. Makalaure? Kanafinwe? Those names were familiar somehow. The Finwe bit in particular was ringing bells. But surely this had nothing to do with THAT Finwe, right?
Denial was comfortable, at least.
He raised a hand and instantly, one of his aides was at his side. Without taking his eyes off of his guest, he said, “You will bring his jewels to him. I promised to return them and I will keep my promise. You,” he said, briefly shifting his gaze to the guards, “will return him to his chambers in the servants’ quarters. And he will be guarded around the clock. We will…reassess the situation should he choose to reveal more information.”
Thranduil turned to go back to his throne, paused, and glanced back over his shoulder. “And under NO CIRCUMSTANCES is he to be allowed more than a glass of wine at a time.”
Maglor looked up at the king, and with every proclamation, his eyes slowly grew wider. The light began to return to his eyes as hope filled them; his tears almost glittered like stars. He…was getting his wedding jewels back? …He was getting his wedding jewels back! He had succeeded!
But…Thranduil was keeping a round-the-clock watch on his room…he was a prisoner.
Maglor’s head swam as the guards took his arms again and steered him away from the throne. He was a prisoner in a realm resembling Doriath of the last king with a direct bloodline to Doriath. Who still didn’t know his Sindarin name. He was lucky to not be relegated to the dungeons…he was lucky to not be dead.
Honestly, before getting stuck in Thranduil’s wine cellar, he hadn’t touched a drop in Ages. He had stopped after that one drunken night in Himring, when he’d awoken to find a strange woman in his bed. But now, as the Woodland Realm’s guards marched him back to the servants’ quarters, Maglor found himself wondering if it would be better to be drunk out of his mind again. Despite the promise of the return of his jewels, was so terrified he could scarcely will his knees to bend.
“Yes, wine does sound rather nice,” he muttered blearily to himself, but the guards, almost certainly, must have heard him.
thraaaaaaaanduuuuuuuuiiiiiiiiil asked:
♥ - for my muse to use bad pick up lines on your muse (whilst possibly drunk) (for a modern au maybe? though if you can think of a good way to do it as a middle earth plot that works too :p)
minstrelmaglor answered:
He’d gotten so far, only to fail now. Past the border patrols of Mirkwood, past the palace guards, past every line of defense the Woodland Realm had to offer. In the days after the Battle of Unnumbered Tears, Maglor and his brothers had taken shelter with the Laiquendi, and from them learned the woodland ways of stealth. They’d served him well, up to this point.
Most would call it foolish, braving the wrath of the Sindar and Nandor for so small a thing as what he sought. A little velvet pouch, dropped at his campsite by accident–and by accident, picked up by a passing Silvan Elf, and taken into the Greenwood. The contents of the pouch were little: a plain golden ring, a plain silver ring, and a little sapphire pendant on a silver chain.
But to Maglor, they were much more. Those were his betrothal and wedding rings, and the wedding gift he received from his mother-in-law. Even though he had long since fallen out of love with his wife, Aiwë had always been his best friend, and he still cared for her deeply. More than that, the humble jewelry was of Valinor. They were irreplacable pieces of a home that had been forever lost to him.
In order to evade the palace guards, Maglor had ducked into a wine cellar–only to find that the guardhouse was just across the hall. He could hear them through the door, laughing and throwing dice. There was no way out–and Maglor began to despair.
Thankfully, there were several casks of Dorwinion wine locked in with him to assuage his despair.
Such a drink! The son of Feanor had not been this drunk since the First Age, in his days at Himring, when Dwarves, Men, and Elves would each bring their own manor of liquor and throw raccous parties to stave off the bleakness. He remembered getting into trouble with that; too much alcohol tended to make him rather amorous. But it was hard to focus on that just now, when he felt so warm and tingly! His face was becoming a bit numb, but that only made him want to laugh–and sing. And sing he did, pacing up and down the cellar, a sweetly-crooning, inebriated siren.
He forgot to be afraid of capture; afraid of the idea that the Sindar might recognize him as a Kinslayer, as a Feanorian, and put him to death; afraid of the rumors of Mirkwood’s wrathful King. He didn’t recognize the King when he entered, either–he wouldn’t have recognized his own hand in front of his face. Granted, Maglor looked nothing like a former King himself–he was a vagabond in tattered clothes, brown hair dirty and lopped off just below the ears, his form and face gaunt from malnourishment, pale and shadow-eyed from the sickness of his long grief.
“My, well…aren’t you wondrous-fair,” he purred, smiling lopsidedly at Thranduil. Maglor somehow made a saunter look like a stagger as he approached the King, eyes hooding. “What’s a lovely place like you doing in a thing like this?”
“Valinor?” he snapped. Well that…both did and did not make sense. On the one hand, his own craftspeople had claimed that the items were of far super quality to anything they had ever seen, in terms of both materials and craftsmanship. The gold and silver rings shone like no others in his collection, even those that were freshly cleaned. The sapphires in the pendant showed absolutely no flaws. Such perfection was effectively impossible to find in the works of Middle-Earth’s artists. Those few items that may have stacked up had been lost long ago, in Doriath or…elsewhere. Thranduil was prepared to believe that items so splendid had come from Valinor.
But on the other hand, he could think back to his days as a child in Doriath, and to the splendors of Thingol’s realm. He remembered following older Elves around and peppering them with questions about where things came from. Not a single item that he could recall had supposedly come from Valinor – well, none of those he had seen and asked about anyway. For an item to have come from Valinor meant that this Elf had either somehow acquired them from someone else…or there was more to him than met the eye.
“First you claim these things to be your wedding jewels and now you tell me they are of Valinor. How did one such as yourself,” he paused for a moment and pointedly swept his gaze up and down his prisoner’s form, “come by such jewels? Do you mean to imply that you yourself are from Valinor? That would make you astonishingly old even by the standards of Arda…and it would make your lineage…suspicious.”
Of course. Of course the Elvenking would think to ask further. Of course he would sense Maglor’s omissions, and dig for the truth. He hadn’t gained the reputation he had for nothing.
Maglor’s hands slipped up into the opposite sleeves. He clung on to his elbows, folding his arms into his chest, holding himself. Shame clouded his face, shame so deep that it threatened to send him shaking. In that moment, he looked old–impossibly old, older than even an Elf should appear. Old and anxious and tired.
When he spoke, his voice was nothing like the strong, succulent croon that Thranduil had heard singing in the wine cellar. His voice was small, thin, and frightened.
“I am…” He swallowed hard. “…I am of Valinor. I was born in the years of the Trees. I am, in fact, one of the Noldorin Exiles. I…that is another reason I was afraid…of coming to this realm.” His voice shook as it dropped to a whisper. “You have every reason to want me dead.”
His silence hung pregnant in the air. He had more to say, though he feared to open his mouth again. He feared Thranduil’s judgement for what he’d already said; more words would just damn him more.
“Those jewels…do you see what I mean, now, when I say they are of a life I lost? After the War of Wrath, the Noldor were pardoned, and allowed to return to Valinor, but…I cannot. I cannot bear the thought of sailing. Those jewels…they’re all that’s left of a home to which I can never return.”
Thranduil narrowed his eyes, running through a mental checklist of Elves he knew or had heard of who could possibly match the description this one had just given. There were so few. All, as far as he could remember, were supposed to be long gone. Sure, the whereabouts of Feanor’s second son, Maglor, were mysterious. Nobody knew for sure whether or not he had died.
But this was ridiculous. To even be thinking about the sons of Feanor…the whole line was long gone.
But then there was that whole ‘you have every reason to want me dead’ thing. Thranduil really didn’t want any fellow Elves dead. Sure he wasn’t a huge fan of the Noldor, but he had never quite held with his father’s more zealous feelings. Admittedly enough he hadn’t been super open with those views, so he supposed it made sense for others not to know…but…why would this Elf be so sure Thranduil would want him dead?
“I will return your jewels,” he finally said. “But before I do, you will answer one last question…
What is your name?”
Immediately, the Elf burst into tears.
“Please.” He’d pulled his hands from the sleeves of the robes and dropped his face into them, muffling his tired sobs into the scars. “Please, don’t make me say it. I hate how it was Sindarinized. It’s so ugly and clumsy…and now, now, the terrible weight of history hangs on it, and…!” He sniffed, then wiped his eyes in the crook of his elbow.
“My mother called me Makalaurë, which I have always preferred. My father called me Kanafinwë, and my brothers called me Kano for short. But please, don’t make me say the name by which history remembers me. Not here. Not now. Not…in front of you.”
Russingon for @nixiegenesis, because you drew them for me! <3
When Maedhros can’t sleep he tries to keep still so as not to wake Fingon, and he watches the sun rise.
Pouty Makalaurë! He’s stuck at some boring social gathering and Nelyo is already giving him that look that means “smile, Káno, people are watching,” and he doesn’t even want to know who Curufinwë just insulted or what prank Tyelkormo has planned that is making him grin like that, he just wants to go home and compose this song before someone starts talking to him and the music fades away to nothing.
I feel you, Makalaurë.