[Maglor's locket chimes in the dead of the night; or in other words, after enough hours have passed for Fëanor to acquaint himself with the castle and fail to find any of those whome he was looking for ...and to realize that not only could people be pulled over form many places, but also that their arrival might not be voluntary, no matter their strength.
Which is the cause of him now systematically going through the names of those of whose presence in this world he would like to know, and whom he would not mind to know of his own presence at this point. Nerdanel, Finwë, Miriel, and then his sons in order of their age.
This is the first time that the locket picks up. So Makalaurë is here. Involuntarily, Fëanor will presume, for why would any of them leave Middle Earth where they are needed? There is no hesitation in choosing a visual connection, and Maglor will be treated to the sight of his father in the finest Unseelie colours, even his hairdo speaking of a lack of materials from back home to dress himself. The locket rests on his hand and allows a view of the background large enough to betray that he is in his rooms - he would have preferred the forges, but here there is more privacy to be had.
For a moment there is silence, but then he does speak. His words are almost tentative - forward, commanding, but still the faint hesitance of one trying something for the first time remaining behind it. ] Makalaurë. [A lot carries with the simple utterance of his name, the syllables filled to the brim, everything interwoven too intricately to extract clear notions.]
[ It hurts to have his heart back. Now that he is aware of what he was missing, he wonders how he could have missed it. It is far, far heavier than he remembers it being, and it hurts, pounding almost irregularly. He keeps a brave face for the others, but House has been glaring in the way that suggests he will soon loose his patience and demand Maglor gets some aid or a drink (possibly both).
Every emotion he had forgotten has returned threefold it seems, every ghost clamouring for his attention. Some times he can barely think.
Javik must have such a headache filtering me out he thinks ruefully.
At night he is sleepless, spending the nights wandering the halls. Outside of the sterility of the station the stars give scant relief, but it is preferable to being indoors. He is curled up beneath a tree, trying to settle the ache both physical and emotional in his chest when the locket pings.
He almost ignores it - it is most likely to be Celegorm or Elrond, and he does not know if he can face either right now (Did he truly say that to them? Was he truly so cruel? Ah, but he has always been cruel, hasn't he? Heart or no, right from the beginning, he was always the one who could set aside his heart to act, did he not leave Maedhros there alone and forbid his brothers to act? )
In the end though, he picks it up, and is stunned into silence by who he sees on the other end. ]
Atarinya? [ The greeting is all he can choke out, no, surely this cannot be so, he is dreaming again, why would his father be here.
He is pale and wan, his Light of being flickering fitfully, eyes wide in shock and disbelief (and the pain is there, the pain is always, always there). ]
[The joy of seeing his son (through a locket, a tiny picture on gemstone or glass or yet another material, he cannot tell yet - but still so much more truly seeing him than just looking at thread interwoven with thread, unmoving and stiff, or in memory) washes over him, yet its waves are tempered quickly and powerfully, like the lady Uinen would restrain her husband, by what he sees. Makalaurë looks terribly ill, pale and wan and full of pain, and it is an old ghost of his childhood that touches Fêanáro's mind upon beholding those familiar features weighed down, diminished, with such an expression. The ghost of a person, a still body in Lórien, beautiful and unmoving, towards whom his own father would turn yet who would never turn back towards either of them. It has been healed, a bit, by meeting her now as a man grown, even if not truly in person, but the shadow is awoken anew on his son's face.]
What happened to you? [Other questions should be more pressing - where are you, let me come to see you; yet they all wane in the light of those tired and hurting eyes.]
[ He closes his eyes desperately for a moment, for surely, surely his mind would not trick him this way - Father's ghost has whispered in his ear before, the echo of memory like all his others, but never has he had to face him in seeming reality. When he opens them again Feanor is still there, and the question and tone registers long before he processes what this means.
Father is worried. He wants a report. Old, old instincts wake. I have to answer him. ]
I... I am well enough. [ partial truth. Physically, this is true, apart from the tearing pain of a newly woken heart that rages with a thousand emotions to see a face thought lost forever ] I only. It has been a very long time, atarinya. [ Long enough to break me ] What do you want to know?
[ He even manages to steady his voice to calm by the last question ]
[Everything, would be the most fitting answer; it will not do to not have it be complete. Yet that may be a task to big, for he cannot know how long his son has been here (very long, said by one of their kin, must be terribly long indeed) nor what truly has been happening back in Middle Earth, and so he settles with what he perceives as the most pressing, before all questions about this world and their place in it. A demand to speak the whole truth, for "well enough" visibly is not an appropriate descriptor of Makalaurë's state.]
You look terribly ill. How long have you been, and why?
[His words are harsh, commanding, but they are so out of concern. What if his son...]
[ Whatever his emotions concerning his father (and there are many, and range from blackest fury through to desperate love), that voice and tone have always garnered obedience, and so it is now. Maglor's answer is calm, and almost impersonal, only the faintest tremor betraying him. He does not even think to lie. ]
It has been... Perhaps a week? Yes, a week, perhaps a bit more. I am being slowly re-accustomed to the burden of regret after putting it aside. It is nothing, atarinya - I will be well. [ Probably. Eventually. In time. Perhaps. ]
[Regret. It has never been something that has carried him through larger parts of his life, not until that first true night of his life, when he first knew that he had not been there - not been where he would have been needed more than anything, not been there to prevent from happening what could not be undone. Not before that fateful moment at the shores of Middle Earth when they searched in vain for Ambarussa's twin.
Regret, lasting regret, is no stranger to him anymore, though anger easily finds its way into thoughts of his father's death. Ambarto... It is a pain still growing.
Yet such thoughts are not on his mind, a quick picking through his second son's words yielding a much more curious, and troublesome, question. Anger puts aside regret, as does taking action. It is not that what concerns him.]
How long lasted that which causes your illness before you set it aside?
[ How long he asks, and Maglor falters. How long has it been, since he slept without nightmares, since he could open his eyes and say that the world was still beautiful? ]
Not... not since you left us, Atarinya. [ Not since Maedhros was taken and he made the decision not to treat with Morgoth. Not since Doriath, and Sirion. Not since the agonising burn of the Silmaril ]
[Two thousand years. That is... many, many times the years that have passed Fëanáro's own lifetime, many times the years that should have passed back home since they were parted. For his son to have lived here that long (for it still has not occurred to the father that he might not be taken from the same time as the son)... Yet at the same time, if it is true that he has remained unchanged all those years, there at least lies no immediate danger in his illness.
Not unless-] Has it worsened as of late? [He will consider the implication of the starting date which Makalaurë gave him another day.]
[Not that he would know of. Maitimo... maybe, and he still does not understand, has had no chance to get more information on the handing over of the crown to Aracáno than that it happened. The tapestries never tell of the why. The same is why he can say little about his eldest son's capture by Morgoth, and how Makalaurë reacted to it. But one thing he can directly address.
And there is a pause before he speaks again, his voice carefully devoid of emotion as he for the first time (and most likely last time in long) voices regret; admits a guilt that he cannot take off his heart, and that he does not wish his son to bear in his stead, should it be one of the things weighing him down (he does not know if it is. But Makalaurë, for all that Fëanáro thinks him capable and reliable, had always been the sweetest towards the twins, and one of those closest to them). A regret that has steadily grown and solidified since that day at the shores of Middle Earth, and especially since he came to the halls, for nothing else was there to capture his mind.]
And not can you have failed your brothers more than I failed Ambarto.
[ That reminder draws a snarl (a snarl, from sweet Makalaure, who spent most of the trip across in the boats nearly catatonic from grief), and then it breaks, and Maglor's composure with it ]
I remember.
Oh atto, but I did. I could not save Turko, or Moryo, or Curvo, I could not save Ambarussa. Did you know Moryo's last words were to beg me to save his brothers? He did not know Curvo was already dead. Turko was alive long enough to ask me to sing him to Mandos, and Ambarussa I saw cut down in front of me. And oh, atto, I could not save Nyelo, never ever. I lost him twice you know, and once Findekano brought him back, but then I lost him too, and the second time Nyelo left me I couldn't reach him at all. And I failed you atto, right at the end, you and your precious jewels!
[ Who does he hate more, Maglor wonders. Himself, for taking the oath, his father for the way he has never been able to refuse him?
He laughs and the sound is almost hysterical - there is not a shred of joy in it ]
We reclaimed them, you know, Maedhros and I. [ he does not notice that he switched names, his eyes burn bright, but the light is fey and wild ] At the end, when Morgoth was overthrown, we came to the camp of the Valar like thieves in the night, and stole the Silmarils away. They caught us, but Eonwe let us go! He looked on us with pity, and we soon learnt why!
We could not touch them atarinya! For our deeds we were so unclean that they burnt us, oh that flame! And Maedhros could not bear it any longer, though I begged and pleaded for him to heed me! He threw himself into the fire atarinya, and left me alone! And I threw your precious silmaril away, and so failed you at the last and I. don't. care!
[Fëanáro seems completely on top of the situation now, and even to those who know him intimately it clear that he feels that to be the case at least. His conversation with Tyelkormo was very enlightening, in a lot of ways.
Without a mention of what they spoke of only a short while ago, he levels a precise, demanding stare at the locket. No deflections now; he has specific questions and demands that he wants answers to, and he won't allow for anything else. There seems to lie no use in letting it meander, not with the state that Makalaurë is in.]
[ Before the Feanor turned off the feed, he would have heard Maglor weeping, and he looks, if anything, even worse than he did before, eyes red-rimmed, voice hoarse from weeping. But whatever his state, that voice and tone have always commanded obedience, and it does so again now. ]
The station. [ Flat and dull, almost lifeless ] At the borders between Seelie and Unseelie lands. I left the castle some four weeks back.
Edited (GRAH HTML) Date: 2014-06-01 10:59 am (UTC)
[It's a flat out order, and he will allow no words to the contrary. Meeting halfway would bring them together faster, yet bear the danger of missing the other, and he cannot trust Maglor to make his way back to the castle safely in the state that he seems to be in, the road is too dangerous for one who seems not ready to put all their will into remaining alive.]
Are you alone, and if that is not so, who is with you?
[ Almost, a spark of rebellion flares in his eyes I am no child to be ordered! but it dies only too swiftly and Maglor only nods once in acquiescence. ]
I came with friends, and they are here even now. Most will not return to the castle.
[ And perhaps it says much about his mood and thoughts of the Drabwurld, that he chose as companions those who distrust the castle and its queen, and chose for a location one as far away from it as he could and yet remain within unseelie lands. ]
[He must have someone to watch over his son and relay word of him that has no bias in Makalaurë himself; and while he would prefer that person to be of kin (he has found a rift in understanding between himself and the secondborn too great for proper understanding of what he fears his son's situation is, and they seem to be the majority among those from other worlds - and he can only assume that those that Maglor travels with are taken from other worlds as well) he will take anyone, as long as they seem reliable. But to contact them, he needs their names.]
[ A long pause, Maglor eyeing his father quietly - here, here, is the politician that he became, all emotion locked away behind utter indifference, because to feel is to break ]
Because. [ he says eventually ] We do not trust her, the Unseelie Queen. Because we are weary of fighting, especially another's war. [ We, he says, not They ] Because I saw how easily she led Celegorm, and felt the brush of her power against me.
[ He does not give their names - and that as well, speaks much of his regard for them as opposed to the Queen. He is protecting them ]
[He nods, briefly. It is not something that he feels it safe to comment on, not in a castle where he does not yet know where ears might hear, not through seeing stones such as these that might be overseen by another.
But though Celegorm's words might have swayed him more than he would admit, even to himself, he does not trust the queen that brought them here, does loathe that her son has sworn himself to her. He may be less decided in his answers, but Maglor's words still ring true to him.]
But I am not her, and I am not your brother; and I desire to speak with your companions, if only briefly. [His voice is softer now, beckoning.] I worry for you, Makalaurë, and my heart will rest easier if I would know those whose company you share. [It is not a lie at all; not the full truth, maybe, but close enough to be honest.]
[ He hesitates a long moment before he nods, slowly ]
Daud. Ask to speak to Daud. [ That should be safe enough, he thinks - everyone who pays any attention to gossip knows that Daud demanded to be released from the Queen's service in their audience. The old soldier has little fear of the Queen, though plenty of respect for her power, and he is already so out of favour Maglor feels it cannot do any harm. Besides, the grizzled veteran has proven time and again to be the most level headed of their group. ]
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zvi
Some ungodly hour before the crack of dawn on the 2nd of June
Date: 2014-05-29 02:08 pm (UTC)Which is the cause of him now systematically going through the names of those of whose presence in this world he would like to know, and whom he would not mind to know of his own presence at this point. Nerdanel, Finwë, Miriel, and then his sons in order of their age.
This is the first time that the locket picks up. So Makalaurë is here. Involuntarily, Fëanor will presume, for why would any of them leave Middle Earth where they are needed? There is no hesitation in choosing a visual connection, and Maglor will be treated to the sight of his father in the finest Unseelie colours, even his hairdo speaking of a lack of materials from back home to dress himself. The locket rests on his hand and allows a view of the background large enough to betray that he is in his rooms - he would have preferred the forges, but here there is more privacy to be had.
For a moment there is silence, but then he does speak. His words are almost tentative - forward, commanding, but still the faint hesitance of one trying something for the first time remaining behind it. ] Makalaurë. [A lot carries with the simple utterance of his name, the syllables filled to the brim, everything interwoven too intricately to extract clear notions.]
\o/
Date: 2014-05-30 12:07 am (UTC)Every emotion he had forgotten has returned threefold it seems, every ghost clamouring for his attention. Some times he can barely think.
Javik must have such a headache filtering me out he thinks ruefully.
At night he is sleepless, spending the nights wandering the halls. Outside of the sterility of the station the stars give scant relief, but it is preferable to being indoors. He is curled up beneath a tree, trying to settle the ache both physical and emotional in his chest when the locket pings.
He almost ignores it - it is most likely to be Celegorm or Elrond, and he does not know if he can face either right now (Did he truly say that to them? Was he truly so cruel? Ah, but he has always been cruel, hasn't he? Heart or no, right from the beginning, he was always the one who could set aside his heart to act, did he not leave Maedhros there alone and forbid his brothers to act? )
In the end though, he picks it up, and is stunned into silence by who he sees on the other end. ]
Atarinya? [ The greeting is all he can choke out, no, surely this cannot be so, he is dreaming again, why would his father be here.
He is pale and wan, his Light of being flickering fitfully, eyes wide in shock and disbelief (and the pain is there, the pain is always, always there). ]
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Date: 2014-05-30 06:25 am (UTC)Makalaurë looks terribly ill, pale and wan and full of pain, and it is an old ghost of his childhood that touches Fêanáro's mind upon beholding those familiar features weighed down, diminished, with such an expression. The ghost of a person, a still body in Lórien, beautiful and unmoving, towards whom his own father would turn yet who would never turn back towards either of them. It has been healed, a bit, by meeting her now as a man grown, even if not truly in person, but the shadow is awoken anew on his son's face.]
What happened to you? [Other questions should be more pressing - where are you, let me come to see you; yet they all wane in the light of those tired and hurting eyes.]
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Date: 2014-05-30 07:16 am (UTC)Father is worried. He wants a report. Old, old instincts wake. I have to answer him. ]
I... I am well enough. [ partial truth. Physically, this is true, apart from the tearing pain of a newly woken heart that rages with a thousand emotions to see a face thought lost forever ] I only. It has been a very long time, atarinya. [ Long enough to break me ] What do you want to know?
[ He even manages to steady his voice to calm by the last question ]
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Date: 2014-05-30 07:35 am (UTC)You look terribly ill. How long have you been, and why?
[His words are harsh, commanding, but they are so out of concern. What if his son...]
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Date: 2014-05-30 07:54 am (UTC)It has been... Perhaps a week? Yes, a week, perhaps a bit more. I am being slowly re-accustomed to the burden of regret after putting it aside. It is nothing, atarinya - I will be well. [ Probably. Eventually. In time. Perhaps. ]
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Date: 2014-05-30 08:20 am (UTC)Regret, lasting regret, is no stranger to him anymore, though anger easily finds its way into thoughts of his father's death. Ambarto... It is a pain still growing.
Yet such thoughts are not on his mind, a quick picking through his second son's words yielding a much more curious, and troublesome, question. Anger puts aside regret, as does taking action. It is not that what concerns him.]
How long lasted that which causes your illness before you set it aside?
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Date: 2014-05-30 10:59 am (UTC)Not... not since you left us, Atarinya. [ Not since Maedhros was taken and he made the decision not to treat with Morgoth. Not since Doriath, and Sirion. Not since the agonising burn of the Silmaril ]
I... perhaps some two thousand years?
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Date: 2014-05-30 11:45 am (UTC)Not unless-] Has it worsened as of late? [He will consider the implication of the starting date which Makalaurë gave him another day.]
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Date: 2014-05-30 11:58 am (UTC)Only so much as it worsens each time I failed thee atarinya, or worse, failed my brothers. I could not save them atarinya. I did try.
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Date: 2014-05-30 12:21 pm (UTC)[Not that he would know of. Maitimo... maybe, and he still does not understand, has had no chance to get more information on the handing over of the crown to Aracáno than that it happened. The tapestries never tell of the why. The same is why he can say little about his eldest son's capture by Morgoth, and how Makalaurë reacted to it. But one thing he can directly address.
And there is a pause before he speaks again, his voice carefully devoid of emotion as he for the first time (and most likely last time in long) voices regret; admits a guilt that he cannot take off his heart, and that he does not wish his son to bear in his stead, should it be one of the things weighing him down (he does not know if it is. But Makalaurë, for all that Fëanáro thinks him capable and reliable, had always been the sweetest towards the twins, and one of those closest to them). A regret that has steadily grown and solidified since that day at the shores of Middle Earth, and especially since he came to the halls, for nothing else was there to capture his mind.]
And not can you have failed your brothers more than I failed Ambarto.
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Date: 2014-05-30 12:45 pm (UTC)I remember.
Oh atto, but I did. I could not save Turko, or Moryo, or Curvo, I could not save Ambarussa. Did you know Moryo's last words were to beg me to save his brothers? He did not know Curvo was already dead. Turko was alive long enough to ask me to sing him to Mandos, and Ambarussa I saw cut down in front of me. And oh, atto, I could not save Nyelo, never ever. I lost him twice you know, and once Findekano brought him back, but then I lost him too, and the second time Nyelo left me I couldn't reach him at all. And I failed you atto, right at the end, you and your precious jewels!
[ Who does he hate more, Maglor wonders. Himself, for taking the oath, his father for the way he has never been able to refuse him?
He laughs and the sound is almost hysterical - there is not a shred of joy in it ]
We reclaimed them, you know, Maedhros and I. [ he does not notice that he switched names, his eyes burn bright, but the light is fey and wild ] At the end, when Morgoth was overthrown, we came to the camp of the Valar like thieves in the night, and stole the Silmarils away. They caught us, but Eonwe let us go! He looked on us with pity, and we soon learnt why!
We could not touch them atarinya! For our deeds we were so unclean that they burnt us, oh that flame! And Maedhros could not bear it any longer, though I begged and pleaded for him to heed me! He threw himself into the fire atarinya, and left me alone! And I threw your precious silmaril away, and so failed you at the last and I. don't. care!
no subject
Date: 2014-05-30 02:27 pm (UTC)Andddd a while later :D
Date: 2014-06-01 10:11 am (UTC)Without a mention of what they spoke of only a short while ago, he levels a precise, demanding stare at the locket. No deflections now; he has specific questions and demands that he wants answers to, and he won't allow for anything else. There seems to lie no use in letting it meander, not with the state that Makalaurë is in.]
Where is it that you currently are?
Re: Andddd a while later :D
Date: 2014-06-01 10:58 am (UTC)The station. [ Flat and dull, almost lifeless ] At the borders between Seelie and Unseelie lands. I left the castle some four weeks back.
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Date: 2014-06-01 11:55 am (UTC)[It's a flat out order, and he will allow no words to the contrary. Meeting halfway would bring them together faster, yet bear the danger of missing the other, and he cannot trust Maglor to make his way back to the castle safely in the state that he seems to be in, the road is too dangerous for one who seems not ready to put all their will into remaining alive.]
Are you alone, and if that is not so, who is with you?
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Date: 2014-06-01 12:14 pm (UTC)I came with friends, and they are here even now. Most will not return to the castle.
[ And perhaps it says much about his mood and thoughts of the Drabwurld, that he chose as companions those who distrust the castle and its queen, and chose for a location one as far away from it as he could and yet remain within unseelie lands. ]
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Date: 2014-06-01 12:33 pm (UTC)[He must have someone to watch over his son and relay word of him that has no bias in Makalaurë himself; and while he would prefer that person to be of kin (he has found a rift in understanding between himself and the secondborn too great for proper understanding of what he fears his son's situation is, and they seem to be the majority among those from other worlds - and he can only assume that those that Maglor travels with are taken from other worlds as well) he will take anyone, as long as they seem reliable. But to contact them, he needs their names.]
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Date: 2014-06-01 12:45 pm (UTC)Because. [ he says eventually ] We do not trust her, the Unseelie Queen. Because we are weary of fighting, especially another's war. [ We, he says, not They ] Because I saw how easily she led Celegorm, and felt the brush of her power against me.
[ He does not give their names - and that as well, speaks much of his regard for them as opposed to the Queen. He is protecting them ]
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Date: 2014-06-01 01:03 pm (UTC)But though Celegorm's words might have swayed him more than he would admit, even to himself, he does not trust the queen that brought them here, does loathe that her son has sworn himself to her. He may be less decided in his answers, but Maglor's words still ring true to him.]
But I am not her, and I am not your brother; and I desire to speak with your companions, if only briefly. [His voice is softer now, beckoning.] I worry for you, Makalaurë, and my heart will rest easier if I would know those whose company you share. [It is not a lie at all; not the full truth, maybe, but close enough to be honest.]
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Date: 2014-06-01 01:14 pm (UTC)Daud. Ask to speak to Daud. [ That should be safe enough, he thinks - everyone who pays any attention to gossip knows that Daud demanded to be released from the Queen's service in their audience. The old soldier has little fear of the Queen, though plenty of respect for her power, and he is already so out of favour Maglor feels it cannot do any harm. Besides, the grizzled veteran has proven time and again to be the most level headed of their group. ]
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Date: 2014-06-01 01:39 pm (UTC)I will contact him. [And, on a last, and somewhat less personal note:]
How long did it take you to travel from here to this "station"?
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Date: 2014-06-01 01:49 pm (UTC)Some four weeks. But we were in no hurry, and not all of us were accomplished riders.
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Date: 2014-06-01 01:54 pm (UTC)I should assume that it can be done in three weeks, then, if one hurries. [And has good horses, but he knows that he'll have them.]
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Date: 2014-06-01 02:02 pm (UTC)(no subject)
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