Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Chapter 1: The Wanderer

Autumn had once again descended upon the lands of Middle-earth. The forests blazed crimson, as if the gods themselves had brushed them with a fiery stroke. The air was thick with the scent of damp earth, smoke, and fading life; in the mornings, mist lay upon the ground like a silver veil. Leaves, torn from their branches, swirled in a silent, endless dance, as though remembering ancient songs—those that once echoed when elves still walked these paths, and every step of theirs awoke the magic sleeping in the world. The wind carried the rustle of leaves and the distant aroma of fires, and all around breathed farewell—long and unending.

But now, no one sang. No one, except one.

Maglor, son of Fëanor, wandered through nameless woods, and he himself now bore neither name nor home. His boots left no trace on the damp ground—as though the earth itself had long ceased to notice him, unwilling to remember. His cloak, once deep blue, had faded to the color of shadow; his hair, once bright, now hung in tangled strands down his shoulders. At his belt hung an empty, time-worn pouch, and his hand still rested, by old habit, where once his harp had been. His fingers, slender and graceful like those of a musician, looked like broken twigs.

He walked slowly, as if wishing to hold autumn in place, step by step, fearing that with the last fallen leaf, he too would vanish. The forest around him felt eternal, yet every breath within it was heavy with weariness—like his own. Every sigh of wind brought memories: of the fires of the Noldor, of his brothers’ laughter, of his father’s eyes before madness claimed them. In those shadows their voices lived—not in his ears, but somewhere deep within him, like the faint crackle of a dying flame. They called, though he did not know if they called him back—or merely reminded him that all was over.

He no longer sang. Once, his voice could move hearts; now the words crumbled on his tongue, and melodies slipped away like smoke. Music had left him, as light once had. Silence was his only companion. And yet, this evening, as the sun sank and the sky turned heavy with copper and sorrow, he heard something different.

A motif—thin, fragile, almost ungraspable—wove through the rustle of leaves, like a string plucked by chance wind. He stopped, and the forest seemed to freeze with him. He held his breath. It was his song. Or rather, a fragment of it. But he would have known it even after a thousand years of silence. That melody had been born within his chest, when Maedhros still laughed, and the sea had not yet become his exile but his road.

Someone was singing it now.

He left the barely visible path carpeted in leaves and walked toward the sound. Branches clawed at his cloak; droplets clung to spiderwebs and slid down his sleeves. He did not feel the scratches. His heart, long forgotten how to beat with anticipation, quickened. It was as if the very earth whispered: go. And he went—toward the place where the breath of wind turned into song.

Soon, through the trees, he saw lights.

A small village appeared before him—barely a dozen thatched cottages, encircled by an old, blackened palisade. Smoke rose from chimneys, carrying the scent of pine and roasting meat. On the square burned a great fire, sparks soaring upward like fireflies, and its glow shimmered on the wet stones as if the earth itself had caught flame. People were decorating their doors with rowan branches and dried herbs; the air smelled of juniper and warm bread. Pumpkins with hollow eyes stood on windowsills, lit from within, their carved grins flickering in the firelight.

Children’s laughter rang through the air. They ran around the bonfire, waving sticks with ribbons, their faces hidden behind masks—foxes, ravens, skulls. In these simple shapes of bark and cloth was something ancient, primal—as old as the night itself. Some of the adults also wore masks, though their eyes—tired, kind—gleamed softly in the glow.

Maglor knew this night. Samhain. The night when the veil between worlds grows thin, when the dead find their way home. The night when memory awakens. When even the forgotten may be heard again.

He lingered at the edge of the village, unseen. The mortals did not notice him—or perhaps pretended not to. Sometimes he thought they felt him, like a sudden chill, but turned away, afraid to acknowledge what stood beyond the light. Wrapped in his cloak, he became a shadow among shadows, watching as sparks rose and laughter mingled with the wind.

And then—again—the song.

A girl of about ten sat upon a stone, playing a small wooden flute. She swayed her feet and smiled, her tune thin and trembling, yet clear as starlight. The words were long lost; only the melody remained—simple, human, and alive. But Maglor knew every note. He had sung it once, upon a lonely shore beneath a pale moon, when he still believed in forgiveness.

He stood motionless. Time seemed to stretch around him. Before his eyes, the sea returned—cold and endless, glowing under the stars; the waves crashed against the rocks, their rhythm blending with her tune. Tears could not rise—immortals do not weep. They remember. And memory burns hotter than fire.

The world seemed to whisper to him. Or perhaps it mocked him. His long-cherished silence collapsed beneath this fragile child’s song. And within that melody was something so alive, so innocent, that he could not turn away.

He sat upon the roots of an old oak, rough and moss-covered, his cloak wrapped tight around him like a shroud. The firelight flickered over his face, and for a moment he seemed neither living nor dead—only an echo of the past. And for the first time in centuries, he whispered to himself the opening line—softly, trembling, as if afraid to wake himself:

“At the edge of the sunset, where the waves sing low—
A word may die, but the song shall grow...”

The wind caught his words and carried them toward the fire. The flames quivered, as though stirred by ancient breath, and sparks lifted into the sky like stars loosed from their place.

At that moment, one of the children—wearing a pumpkin mask—stopped and turned. Through the carved eyes flickered orange light—living, or not, he could not tell. Time seemed to stop. All sounds—the laughter, the crackle of fire, the whisper of wind—faded, leaving only that gaze.

His blood, long cold, began to boil. Not from fear—but from recognition. In that look was something he had not seen for millennia: response. As though the song itself, forgotten and betrayed, had called him back into the world of the living.

He did not move. He only closed his eyes. And in the darkness, he heard someone—perhaps the wind, perhaps memory itself—repeat his words, faintly, like an echo:

—“The song lives on…”

And Maglor knew then that the night of Samhain was not yet over.
And perhaps, for him—at long last—it had just begun.

Chapter Text

Chapter 2: The Song of the Fire

The flame of the bonfire floated in the autumn air, scattering sparks like golden seeds of stars. It rose, trembled, and fell, reflecting in bright eyes, in smooth pebbles around the circle, in droplets of dew on the grass. The smoke did not rise — it crept between the trees, curling into rings and tendrils, as if the forest itself wished to breathe it in, soak it into bark, into leaves, into moss, and never let go.

The air was cool, but not cold — the warm skin of the earth still held the memory of the day's sun. The leaves on the trees seemed fragile, like glass: yellow, blood-red, dull orange. They swirled as they fell, like memories carried away by the wind. The air smelled of baked apples, spiced smoke, withering ferns, damp wood — and something else. Older. Ancient.

The faces of the village children flickered in the firelight, hidden behind masks. Some wore the face of a raven, others of a wolf, some had carved simple wooden visages with hollow eyes and harsh lines. They sat close to each other, almost shoulder to shoulder, yet each seemed to inhabit their own world. Some stared at the fire with feigned fear, playing at bravery; others whispered old tales passed down from grandmothers to grandchildren — of whispering shadows, of spirits wandering the paths, of the time when an elf came for a man's soul, not for gold, not for power — but for a song.

Maglor stood in the shadows, leaning his back against the trunk of an old oak. The bark beneath his fingers was rough, warm. He barely breathed. His gaze — sharp as a blade — was fixed on the center of the circle: the fire, the children, the adults. All within him was cautious silence. Like a beast hearing a distant call — not knowing whether it is a summons home... or into a trap.

One of the adults — an old man with an ashen beard and weary eyes, his face lined like an ancient map — held a mug of cider and gestured with his free hand as he spoke. His voice was rough but warm, like smoke-dried oak:

“…and when the elf heard his words spoken without heart, he wept. But it was too late. The song was gone, like the wind. Like a leaf that never returns to the branch. And so he cursed the village. Since then, each year on the night of Samhain, he sings it again — so they remember… so they do not forget.”

He fell silent. The fire cracked — a dry branch flared, illuminating faces. Everyone froze.

And then, into that silence, a voice rose. A child’s voice. Thin. Uncertain. But clear — like ice over a spring brook.

“At the edge of sunset, where the waves sing…”

Something broke inside Maglor. A string that should never have sounded again.

That line… it wasn’t just memory. It was a mark. An imprint of the soul, pressed into sound. He had written it himself. On a cliffside. Trembling. The sand beneath his feet was wet, the wind struck his face, the sky black. He had sung into emptiness — and cast the Silmaril into it. He had thought no one would ever hear that song. No one… but the sea.

But the child continued.

Another voice joined. Then a girl. Then more. Their voices intertwined — first unsteadily, as if searching for one another. Then steadily. The melody was distorted in places, faded — but in it was something unbreakable. A memory that held its core. He felt it with his heart. With his blood. It echoed with his past. His guilt. His brother.

He stepped forward. As if the fire itself called to him. He didn’t notice the leaves beneath his feet making no sound — the forest had swallowed it. The wind had gone still, as if the trees held their breath. The smoke above the fire didn’t rise — it twisted into spirals, like the tongue of a spell, like runes on ancient stones.

The girl in the raven mask sang especially clearly. Her voice cut the air — pure, taut, like a violin played by another's hand. There was power in it. Not a child’s power. Not human. And Maglor knew. The song flowed through her. Her lips moved, but the words came from somewhere deeper.

On her chest — a pendant. A stone, dark and smooth like river-pebble, but within it pulsed a soft glow. The color of dawn before a storm. Or the light of a distant star about to fade. Maglor knew that light. He had seen it before. In another world. In other eyes.

He stopped. The very fabric of the world tightened. The air grew dense, like water you couldn’t breathe. He felt something approach — not in footsteps, but in pulses of memory. In the brush of the unseen. And the song pouring now — it was not meant to be heard. Not here. Not like this.

“This song doesn’t belong here…” he whispered. “Not now. Not in this world.”

But deeper within — a terrible, ringing suspicion: what if the world itself had called it back? What if it wasn’t the children singing — but the song choosing them?

And then, the children sang the final verse.

The last line. He had never written it. Or… had forgotten? It was his. It was him. But he did not know it. It felt like someone had looked into his soul and woven words from a pain he hadn’t yet endured.

“When the earth sighs through blood, and dreams begin to sing anew… a gate shall open — in song, in sleep…”

The last note hung in the air. And — the world stilled.

Then — a sound. Not a roar. Not thunder. A tear. As if the air had been split by unseen claws. A creak, like ripping cloth, and a whisper, like a tree grieving.

The bonfire flared. Not just brighter — upward. A pillar of flame slashed the sky. Shadows recoiled. The light wasn’t fire — it was a surge of memory, turned inside out.

And in that flame, a figure appeared.

A tall shape. Broad shoulders, like a warrior. Hair like a river of night. A face veiled in shadow — but Maglor knew it better than his own.

Maedhros.

But not alive. Not dead. Not spirit. An image. Ash. Memory, risen from its knees. He was not looking at people — but through them. Into hearts. Into time. Into guilt.

In his eyes — ink-black darkness. But in it — the reflection of the moon. Pale, curved like a blade.

Screams. Panic. Children ran to their parents. The old man stumbled — the mug fell from his hand, struck the ground and turned to dust, as if it had aged a thousand years in a second. The fire howled, but it was no longer flame — it was music. It keened like wind in a canyon, like waves at a funeral shore. It called.

And Maglor stepped forward. Alone. As always.

He sang.

The voice tore from his chest — a cry, a prayer, a spell. He sang as if ripping himself out of the depths. He sang to hold the line, to stop what should not be. To keep the song from crossing — from then into now.

But the world had already cracked.

There, beyond the light — a shore. Grey. Cold. Timeless. Windless. Where only the dead sing. He saw it. He knew it.

And the wind from beyond — not autumn, not earthly — carried words. In Quenya. Forgotten by all. Except him.

“Aiqualindë úvë canta…”
“And the quiet song already sings…”

And it broke free.
The song.
Into freedom.

Chapter Text

Chapter Text

Chapter 4: Where Silence Sings

The fire was dying. The world returned.

The air became dense again, familiar—tangible, like a cloak you wrap around yourself in the chill of dawn. The blinding white light had vanished, as had the tension that makes the blood freeze and the fingers tremble. Only the embers of the fire remained, cooling slowly and glowing faintly, like the eyes of sleeping spirits, weary of existence. And the light autumn wind—dry, sharp, smelling faintly of old leaves—whispered in the high branches, rustled the grass, brushed against his cheeks.

Maglor stood in the same place. His silhouette was slender and still, like the dried stem of wormwood. The wind played faintly with his hair, tugged at his cloak, but he did not move. Everything around seemed the same—the night forest, the dimming sky, the fading fire. Yet he knew something had changed. Imperceptibly. Quietly. Almost without a trace. As if an unseen hand had shifted one note in an ancient melody—and everything began to sound different.

And he, too, had changed.

The shadows were gone. But they had not left emptiness behind, nor dissolved into vengeance or curse, nor brought screams. They left silence. Deep, lucid silence, like the surface of a cold lake at dawn. It was a strange, almost unreal feeling—as though, after an eternity without air, he had finally drawn a full breath. No pain burned in his chest. No guilt rang like metal. There was space now. Free. Clear. Alive.

He sank to the ground. Not collapsing, not bowing like one defeated—but sitting as travelers do at the end of a long road: exhaling, feeling the tension slide off his shoulders, the body remembering its own weight. His fingers touched the damp grass, and cool dew soaked into his skin. The earth was soft, faintly prickly. The forest breathed around him—slowly, evenly, alive.

Though the night still wrapped the valley, it was no ordinary night.

It was the night of Samhain—ancient as the breath of Arda itself, the time when the boundaries between worlds grow thin as spider silk stretched between branches. When the past can touch the present, when the dead find their way home, and the living remember how to listen.

“You’re still here,” said a small voice, quiet and clear, like a drop falling into still water.

Maglor lifted his eyes.

Before him stood the same girl. The light of the embers lit her face from below, carving shadows and depth into her features. The raven mask had slipped to the back of her head, dark hair tangled around her neck, and her cheeks glowed with the chill and excitement of the night. Her eyes—green and bright, flecked with gold like young spring leaves in the sun—watched him not with fear, but with steady curiosity. In her hands she held a small flute, carved from pale wood—smooth, engraved with tiny fading runes, worn away by years and touch.

“I thought you’d vanish like the other shadows,” she said, uncertainly but without fear. Her voice was light, slightly hoarse, as though she had been crying—or silent—for a long time.

“I’m not a shadow,” he answered softly, the words forming as if with effort, “though… for a long time, I was.”

The girl sat down across from him, folding her legs, hugging her knees. She did it naturally, the way only children can—gracefully, easily, not caring about the chill of the ground. She laid the flute across her lap, tracing its edges with her fingers. Her hands were small, thin, with scrapes on the knuckles and dirt under her nails—but she held the instrument gently, almost reverently.

“Was that your song?”

He nodded, not looking away. His face remained calm, but something flickered in his eyes—like water trembling at the bottom of a deep well when a pebble is dropped into it.

“And all this…” she gestured broadly toward the dying fire and the clearing shrouded in smoke, “…it happened because of it?”

“Not only because of it,” he said. “Because of words. Because of memory. Because of Samhain.”

She thought for a moment, biting her lip. Then she nodded—shortly, but with the quiet assurance of one who has understood more than was spoken.

“I heard voices,” she said. “Whispers. They sounded like… a song someone forgot, but it’s still alive somewhere. They weren’t scary. Just… sad.”

Maglor lowered his gaze. His shoulders trembled slightly.

“They were my brothers,” he said almost in a whisper.

“They’re gone now?”

He nodded again, slowly—as if confirming it to himself.

“And you… will you stay?”

The wind moved through the branches again, and the tired leaves began to fall—slow, golden, light as breath. One drifted down onto the girl’s knees, but she didn’t brush it away.

He didn’t answer at once. He watched the sparks fade, the glow of the fire die into ash, and darkness come—not frightening, but warm, like a blanket being drawn close.

“I don’t know where to go anymore,” he said. “I’ve walked so long that the road became my home. And now… I don’t know who I am if I’m not walking.”

The girl nodded—seriously, quietly, far beyond her years. As though she had known this answer all along, or had been waiting for it.

“Then stay till morning,” she said simply. “Mama says you shouldn’t let a traveler go right after meeting Samhain. He might disappear—like smoke. Or like a dream.”

He looked at her. There was no pretense in her face, no pleading. Only trust. He smiled. The smile came easily, unexpectedly. It didn’t hurt. It didn’t ache. It felt like a breath drawn after a long, long winter.

“I’ll stay,” he said.

The fire had nearly died when people began to come out of the huts. Shadows slipped along the paths, their shapes growing clearer in the dim light. At first they walked slowly, cautiously. Then bolder. Someone carried bread, wrapped in a cloth. Someone—a candle in a clay bowl. Someone came empty-handed, their palms folded over their chest, watching with wonder, but without fear.

They didn’t ask. He didn’t explain. Between them lay a silence filled with meaning. They looked at him as one looks at a long-awaited guest—without knowing they had been waiting.

They remembered. Not with the mind, but with the heart.

And that night, for the first time in long centuries, Maglor sang for others.

It was not an ancient ballad sung in a tongue no one remembered. Not an elegy for the fallen. Not a cry of the soul. It was a simple melody, almost childlike, without words. He began softly—as though testing whether his voice would hold. But it did. It was gentle, warm, filled with color and calm. With every note, something inside him unfurled—like wings stretching after a long sleep.

The melody filled him, flowed through him, and spilled into the night like light into morning mist. It wasn’t about pain, nor loss. It was about what endured. What remained. What lived.

And then, a miracle.

No one noticed when it began.

But above the village rose another song—not sung by any voice or instrument. It moved in the wind, in the leaves, in the breath of the earth, in the heartbeat, in the rustle of the forest canopy. The world itself was singing back—not as an echo, not as reflection, but in its own voice. It was not a call into the void, nor a lullaby for the dead.

It was a greeting.

You are alive. You are needed. You are here.

And Samhain—the night of the dead, the night of shadows and ghosts—became a night of return. A night when one could stay. Forgive. Remember. And belong to the world again.

Maglor looked up at the stars. They were the same—cold, endless, immutable.

But he was not.

Chapter Text

Chapter Text

Bonus Chapter: The Last Apprentice

Paris. The year 1471.

He walked through the morning streets as one would through a forest path — unhurried, quiet, almost unseen. The cobblestones breathed coolness through the soles of his shoes; the air was filled with fine dust, the scent of stale bread, fresh ash from hearths, and the distant ringing of monastery bells. In the alleys, chimney sweepers smoked their pipes, early merchants unfurled canvases heavy with foreign spices, and passersby wrapped themselves tighter in faded cloaks against the damp. Everything was foreign, yet not hostile. As if the city had seen too much already to bother asking questions. And he — was simply one among many. One of the invisible.

Maglor now bore the name Michel Laurent. It was simple, sonorous, warm — like a sip of wine by candlelight. No one asked where he came from, who he had been, or what his life was before. Paris hid men like him better than any forest could. There were too many orphans, hermits, pilgrims, merchants, and wanderers here — the city lulled them with its indifference, and in that indifference there was something close to mercy. And he — just a man, with kind, almost faded eyes, slender fingers that had long learned the weight of strings, and a lute on his back, leaving a dark mark across his old cloak.

He rented a small attic room in a three‑story house on the bend of Saint Geneviève Street. The roof groaned in the wind; the walls leaned slightly, and at night the floorboards sighed as if the house breathed with him. From his narrow window he could see the tip of the monastery tower and a weathercock in the shape of a rooster turning in the morning breeze. Each dawn he awoke to the chapel bell, drank hot goat’s milk with honey, and went to his lessons.

By day, he taught music — not always to those who wished to learn, but mostly to those who were sent. Children of merchants, widows, and notaries: noisy, stubborn, sometimes indifferent. What mattered to them was posture, accuracy, and confidence before their parents. They feared mistakes more than dissonance. They cared for success, not beauty; for approval, not sound. He did not argue. He patiently placed their fingers on the strings, repeated intervals again and again, sometimes playing along, slipping another melody into the exercise — almost by accident. And only a few of his pupils looked at him not with boredom, but with awe. To them, he gave a little more. To them alone — a fragment of himself.

At night, he composed. Not laments, not prayers, not loud cries for the distant shore, but simple, luminous madrigals, quiet psalms, pieces where there was more hope than sorrow. There were no names in them, but there was memory. These melodies found their way to those who listened differently — who sensed that beneath the layer of human melancholy sounded something older, deeper, like a river beneath the earth. He did not sign them. He merely passed them on through couriers. People knew them. And they waited for them.

The Holy See was especially fond of such melodies. Monks copied them, cardinals approved them, choirs performed them at grand feasts. They were called inspirata — inspired from above. Some became the foundation of official hymns, sung at coronations, funerals, and processions. But none — not a single monk — knew that the score, delivered by messenger, was written by the hand of an elf once cursed by the Valar themselves. They did not know — and did not wish to know.

He no longer hid — but neither did he reveal himself. He sought no redemption, asked for no forgiveness. He simply lived. And that proved harder than singing.

At times, in the quietest hours, he dreamed of the sea — dark, restless, without end. He would wake trembling in the cold, reach for his lute, and begin to play something simple, almost childlike. The notes scattered the darkness.

He taught a boy — about nine years old, with a fringe forever falling over his eyes. His name was Laurent, like his teacher’s now. They never spoke of it. The boy was thoughtful, stubborn, a little slow, yet with an uncommon sensitivity to sound. He couldn’t manage a C major chord; his fingers slipped, the notes fell apart, and he frowned, offended by the instrument. But he did not give up. And when, at last, it worked — he smiled. Broadly, sincerely, as no one had smiled at Maglor for a very long time. The light in that smile felt like sunlight breaking through clouds.

“Seigneur Michel,” he said, “did you write that melody yourself? The one that starts sadly, but then… it’s as if the sun comes out?”

Maglor nodded.
The boy bit his lip, looked down, then up again.

“It sounds like a prayer,” he said simply. “But without words.”

Maglor smiled. He said nothing. He was afraid that if he spoke, too much would escape. The boy did not know, but he had spoken truth. His music was a prayer — not to the gods, but to memory.

Sometimes he composed not for men at all. He sang without words, without listeners, without purpose — simply sang. In the dim attic light, where moonbeams slipped through the cracks, where the beams creaked and the candle burned out on its own. He sang for his brother. For those he had lost. For himself. And sometimes, it seemed, someone heard.

In the markets of Florence and Rome, his scores were sold unsigned. Only a mark — a single string engraved in silver, like an old brand. Some said it was the symbol of a secret order; others, the sign of a heretic. His music, however, was everywhere — in schools, in cathedrals, even on the streets. It lived without him.

Once, he heard it himself. A street singer, in a worn gray cloak, stood beneath an archway, singing. Not loudly — softly, gently, as if speaking to a lover. Her harp was poorly tuned, her voice untrained, but there was sincerity in it. His song. His cadences. His pauses. Yet something in it had changed — warmer, brighter, as if she had found another meaning in his notes.

He approached, dropped a coin into her cap, and said quietly:

“You sing it truly. The song is yours now.”

The girl blinked, as if waking from a dream, looked at him — and blushed, not understanding what he meant. But he was already gone.

Not everyone was indifferent.
One man — a monk, tall, lean, with white hair and almost translucent eyes — once stopped him as Maglor carried a bundle of manuscripts into the chapel.

“Are you the one who writes them?” the monk asked, not accusingly, but with intent.

“No,” Maglor replied. “I remember them.”

“From where?”

“From the past.”

The monk asked no more. But after that, he often came. He would stand by the wall, silent, listening. And once, after the choir had finished Cantus Lux, he whispered without looking up:

“That was… not of this earth. I fear we are unworthy.”

Maglor looked at him for a long moment and, for the first time, answered truthfully:

“We are never worthy. Yet still — we hear.”

That spring, he moved again.
In Ravenna, he found a new home — a small apartment with a balcony overlooking the river. The water there was clear, flowing slowly, like life itself. In the mornings, he heard barking dogs, the laughter of children, the rattle of carts; at night, the bells on the mules’ necks and the chirping of cicadas. The city was different — warm, kind, as if it had never known his sorrow. No one there suspected that, at night, in their chapel, sang a voice that should not exist. The organ sounded as though it had been carved beneath the stars.

He stood on the balcony, breathing in the air scented with oranges, cypresses, and faint woodsmoke. And he thought:

The guilt is gone.
The music remains.
It is all that remains.

And for the first time in centuries, he felt no need to suffer. Even memory no longer weighed upon him. It had become light.

That night, he composed again.
And for the first time, he wrote his name upon the page — small letters, quiet, almost shy.

Maglor.

Not for anyone to recognize.
But to remind himself:

I was.

Finis. And it began.