This story is exceedingly good. There were so many things I loved about it that I doubt I can list them all here, but I'll try to catch a few:
- Feanor's journey of understanding from the proud, oath-bound lord he is at the beginning, to the regretful, oath-renouncing father at the end. His conversations with Sauron were particularly enlightening, if creepy.
- The wild, dangerous life Maedhros, Maglor, their (few) people, and the Peredhel would have had after the Havens. So many writers give them some kind of peaceful existence back in Hithlum (or the equivalent), but what you did in this story fits much better with the Silmarillion's description of this time period.
- Caranthir's utter usefulness. I'd never thought about him, much, but, wow!
- The dwarves. Perfect writing there.
- Your treatment of Elros and Elrond was superb. I particularly appreciated your emphasis on them as children of war; unlike so many authors, you did not make them bitter or angry at Earendil and Elwing for making heart-breaking decisions in horrible situations. Also, their relationship with Maedhros and Maglor was just the right mixture of wariness (at least in the beginning and the end) and the love we knew grew between them. The discussions regarding Earendil's silmaril were a great addition, one I have not seen addressed much in fanfiction. We know Maglor regarded it as a symbol of hope, but it was great to see how its existence contributed to Elros and Elrond leaving the sons of Feanor during the War of Wrath.
- On that note, the War of Wrath was amazing. I loved how you showed (at least from the periphery) Elros becoming the leader of men that would one day lead to him choosing their kindred and them choosing him as king.
- Maglor's strength. This was very good. So many people write him as weak, in one way or another. Not so! As you pointed out so astutely, he was, in some ways, the strongest son of Feanor. We can't forget that, in Middle-Earth, music is the absolute strongest thing there is. His very status as minstrel would lead us to an understanding of his strength, if his survival to--and past!--the end did not already adequately convince.
- Finally, I can't say enough about your treatment of Feanor's Oath. Its twisting by the Enemy to become something almost tangible, the evil deeds and conception of evil deeds it leads Maedhros and Maglor to by the end--stellar. And their acknowledgement of their culpability in the evil they have done--even as possibly worse than orcs!--made your story both so much better and so much more tragic. Their eyes were open to their path, but still they chose to walk it.
Thank you for writing this amazing gap-filler! All that's left now, I suppose, is to hope the Feanorians find peace, whether in Mandos' halls or (for Maglor) someday on returning to Valinor.
Thank you so much. This story took a lot of thought and development, and it's a real delight to hear that so many of the ideas that I used to make it have resonated with you.
I was stumped for a long time about how to make Elrond leave. It seemed to me that once I had written the 'love grew between' part, Elrond would not be the kind of person to leave someone he had grown to love in such a situation, and I could not see Maedhros and Maglor forcing him to do so, as is often told: why would they? Even at the most unkind reading, Elrond is both a bargaining chip, a useful herald to speak to the rest of the world who might not otherwise want to hear from them, and very likely he's pretty impressive as a fighter too.
But with the third Silmaril in the mix, suddenly it all made sense. If Maglor loved Elrond, as canon says he did, he would surely try to warn him if that became an issue, as surely it would.
If you'd like to explore more about what the twins did after Elrond left, I wrote a separate story about that: 'Faithless Is He That Says Farewell When the Road Darkens' : https://archiveofourown.org/works/12099708
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Sophia_the_Scribe on Chapter 23 Wed 16 Jan 2019 02:10PM UTC
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bunn on Chapter 23 Wed 16 Jan 2019 11:24PM UTC
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