OK, I think I'll post some of my Elurín fic thing. It's not beta'd and probably won't make any sense to anyone but me, but I am writing it cos it makes me happy, and that seems like the best reason to write anything!

Loopy!Mags progresses, as does a kinky little fic involving Maglor and Uli's OMC Artaher, which I wrote cos those two are just too hot together. I write. It happens. Slowly.

Title: Interlude
Author: Enismirdal   enismirdal@caths.co.uk
Rating: PG
Pairing: Elurín/Eluréd/Fingon implied only
Disclaimer: I nicked the Elves from Tolkien, but he’d probably not recognise them if he saw them now! Still, I write for love, not to disrespect him!
Summary: This will probably not make sense to anyone who isn’t familiar with the humongous monster of an RP Uli and I have been running for a full year now over IM. This is the story of what happened to Elurín after he flipped and walked out.

***

Chapter 1: A Cottage in the Wood

“Stop this silliness and pull yourself together,” Elurín told himself, and stood up. Sitting under a tree whimpering might be a good way to feel sorry for oneself, but come nightfall, it would not provide him with either dinner or warmth.

Winter was still a few weeks away, and although the air was cold and perpetually damp, at least he would not wake tomorrow with several inches of snow covering him. He had a warm cloak, a bedroll bundled up very small on his back and a tinder box. Out here once again, in the wild just as he had grown up, that tinder box seemed like an impossible luxury. He had thought twice about picking it up as he left, unsure if it was in some way ‘cheating’, but decided that it would ease Fingon and Eluréd’s worries at least a tiny bit.

The circumstances prompting his rather dramatic – at least by his standards – exit from his husbands’ keep had been unusual to say the least. After seventy odd years of perfect, adoring marriage, the last thing any of them had expected was the return of Fingon’s wife. And not just Egelwen, who would probably have been bad enough on her own, but a young daughter to complicate things.

Elurín had not trusted the elleth from the moment he had first spoken with her. How Fingon was able to stand her, he could never work out. She was manipulative, self-absorbed, and seemingly unable to consider anyone’s interests but her own. Upon finding out that Fingon was now happily married and very well settled with a family of his own, and clearly had no intention of “taking her back”, she managed to pressure him into an absurd arrangement where she lived on the grounds of the keep in her own private cottage, yet did not allow Fingon or any of his new family any access to their daughter.

It was no life for the poor girl, Elurín thought. He had spoken to little Gwennan a few times and was struck by how naturally friendly and sociable she seemed. Such a child needed to grow up with a group of friends, not alone and sheltered. And then there was the fact that with each passing day that Egelwen remained here, Fingon grew more depressed, withdrawn and miserable. He was already recovering from some severe recent injuries and the additional stress was not at all good for him.

Why, therefore, did Elurín walk out, precisely at the time when Fingon needed him most badly?

We all have a breaking point, he mused silently to himself as he started to trudge slowly through the dripping trees. His had come when he saw his husband hurting again and again and nothing he could do could change it – when, had Fingon chosen to act rather than passively accept the manipulation out of a sense of guilt and failure, there was no need for it to be like that. If he had not left when he did, Elurín was quite certain he would have killed Egelwen without a second thought. As it was, he has given her the most thorough tongue-lashing he had ever given anyone, frightening poor Gwennan to the point of tears – something which he still regretted. She was a sweet girl; she deserved better.

So here he was, alone, miles away from the luxuries to which he had grown accustomed, and far enough away from Egelwen to avoid doing anything stupid.

The space and freedom helped to clear his head; for several hours after picking himself up, he travelled. First he walked, slowly and deliberately, then as the tree cover thinned, his feet moved faster and he ran, feeling like falcon released from its jesses, relishing the infinite space and lack of constraints. For all his millennia of life, there was still a small part of him that clung to childhood and the innocent ability to take delight in such simple things.

It was so easy to fall back into the old ways – hunting, travelling, making fires in the evening, bathing in the icy water of sheltered lakes, or most likely in a few handfuls of water warmed over the fire once the weather grew worse. He was not heading anywhere in particular, his direction mostly chosen by whim each morning, and a vague wish to see as much of the landscape as possible. The east and south were already familiar to him from previous trips away, but the northwest was unfamiliar and he followed the call of curiosity.

It was a breathtaking land. Forests far more ancient than a world created a mere seven decades ago had any right to boast towered over him in some places, giving way to lonely, windswept moorland in alternating patches of purple heath and yellow gorse. Rivers that almost seemed to laugh as their waters fell over loose stones offered fresh water and fish, if he felt like standing over the clear, shallow places with a spear to catch them. Food was not hard to come by, and he was almost able to forget about the turmoil he left behind.

He hesitated when footprints in muddy ground told him others were nearby. Gregarious as he was by nature, he was unsure if it was safe to let himself be seen by others. The countryside was not always a friendly place: in the past there had been reports of gangs of Men raiding and burning farms. The keep held more than one orphan whose parents had been lost to ambushes.

Eventually, he decided that a quick look around would do no harm and he followed the footprints quietly, careful not to leave any of his own alongside them. The clattering of a blacksmith’s hammer and a snorting horse told him within a few minutes that it was a proper village that he was approaching. A careful circle around the edge of the settlement identified the smithy, stables, sheep and pig pens, a basket-maker’s house, something that looked like a carpenter’s workshop and various other huts and probable craftsmen’s shops. It seemed to be a friendly and thriving place, probably not a place full of vagabonds and bandits.

He retreated back into the cover of trees and decided to pay the villagers a visit later, once he had hunted and could offer them some freshly killed game. It seemed like a far better way to become acquainted.

The area around was clearly well populated by rabbits, deer and various types of bird; he shot a couple of rabbits and skinned them, stringing them up for ease of carrying. As he did so, he noticed that the clearing in which he say had a small path leading away from it. He had plenty enough time to investigate, so he chose to indulge his curiosity and wandered off down it, noting that the nettles and bracken that infringed on the narrow track had been trampled. Recently used, then.

It meandered pasts stands of birch and ash, over a small brook and took him a couple of miles away from the village before the tree cover began to thin. It was then that he heard the voice. A cry reached his ears, bringing him instantly from introspective relaxation to alertness.

I'm going to be a pain and post the first bit of Loopy!Maglor :)

This is currently about 20 pages long and gradually growing - the muses are nice and are talking to me, and Maglor in my head is a sweet Elf. The issue at the moment stems from my ongoing and apparently permanent inability to write a good Fëanor, in spite of his insistance that he wanted a scene. Difficult Elf... He's so hard to balance - an Elf who did terrible things over and over, and yet loved his family and held such passion.

Title: Fey One {provisional}
Author: Enismirdal
Pairing: Maglor/Maedhros
Rating: PG13
Summary: {provisional} Even the oddest Elves can love and be loved.

***

The Fey One, they called him, and treated him as a slightly backward child at times. While his brothers’ childhoods were spent learning to ride and hunt, climbing trees and playfully wrestling with peers, Maglor had always preferred solitude, time to himself with pen and parchment, maybe a small flute or a lyre. He loved to create just as they did, but his skill was with the ephemeral elements of word and song rather than tangible metal.

Those his own age often chose to avoid him, finding his habit of speaking aloud what others were thinking but refraining from saying unnerving. They were wary of the way he would watch from a distance, absorbing all that went on without participating. Maglor missed the companionship at times, but his own mind was friend enough, providing him with playmates of his own - and, later, sweethearts. He soon learned that even the adults looked down on him for speaking to those playmates in front of others, insisting that it was not wholesome for him to hold conversations with those who were not real.

But they were real enough to him. He could picture them all: tall or short, dark-haired or golden, shy or outgoing. After being discouraged from addressing them openly, he took to conversing in his mind and, of course, they still answered.

Few of his peers ever accepted his oddities, but Maedhros was always tolerant. Teasing, as elder brothers invariably are, and sometimes downright infuriating, but Maglor knew in his heart that Maedhros loved his little brother no matter how fey or peculiar he may be. The quiet, undemanding company was there when he needed it, and he never lost sight of that kindness.

***

His childhood, therefore, was rather lonely, but he found his own contentment in this. Crowds, busy, chaotic and noisy, had never been to his liking anyway. With the time he spent in solitary study, he was able to excel in lessons. And it was often said of him that he saw more than most, a remark which it took him many years to come to understand. Perhaps he simply saw in a different way, beginning with the details rather than ending with them. Large structures springing from small beginnings - that was his thought.

Such was the case when he composed; he often started from a single note or chord, building around it, linking a few notes here to another there, eventually creating a whole song, rich and deep. The music tutor - soon abandoned when it became clear that he could learn more from Maglor than Maglor could from him - insisted that the young Elf’s technique could not possibly work, that the result would be disjointed and discordant. Yet Maglor saw only order in the method, as he constructed melody around chords, harmonies emerging from a scattering of notes. In his mind it brought the focus to where the music would be most profound for both performer and audience.

Much of his time was spent alone with his paper, pens and instruments as he grew older. Father, realising the only part of his passion that Maglor shared was the love of song, word and language, sought to encourage these interests as much as possible, freely providing Maglor with any instrument he desired and setting aside rooms with excellent acoustics for the young Noldo’s practice.

He devoted increasing amounts of his time to the pursuit of music. His first instrument, a flute, was a gift for his fifth birthday. It was a simple instrument in plain wood with six holes bored into it, small enough to be covered by his tiny, slender fingers. Its sweet, shrill sound was a delight to him but he outgrew it quickly, finding the spacing too close for his fingers within a few short years. The second flute was more elaborate, engraved with leaves and flowers along its length, and the sound was richer and mellower.

That was how Maglor’s flute collection started. Seeking different tones and qualities to the sound, he lost faith in the instrument makers and began to make his own. Wood worked well, but so did tubes of silver and once he made a gold flute just to prove it could be done. He even tried ceramics, though he often found himself disappointed. His father allowed him to arrange them all on brackets in a small room in the house, neatly lined up on the walls in chronological order. Of course, he kept lists as well. Three lists, in fact: one was stored in the Flute Room, as it soon became. Another resided, pinned to the wall, in Maglor’s own bedroom. The third, he folded up and hid under the floorboards in his bedroom, in case the other two should perhaps go missing. He needed to have a record, just as a precaution, and because it seemed like the organised thing to do.

His talent for making flutes was nearly as great as his talent for playing them. He took pleasure in finding ordinary pieces of wood and hollowing them out to make beautiful instruments, decorating the surface and drilling precisely-placed holes for his fingers. People sometimes brought him miscellaneous items, challenging him to make flutes from them. The crooked branch proved difficult; it took several attempts before he found the right places for the finger-holes and by the end there were numerous patches of resin from sealing up the mistakes.

The dried gourd was an interesting challenge and the sound was rather odd, but it worked. The length of copper piping from the water supply made him laugh out loud when the Elf - whom he barely knew - handed it to him. It had a bend at one end and, consequently and much to his amusement, made a different sound depending on which way up he played it. The snail shell, though, was his pride. It was a pretty shell, pink and yellow, with streaks of black, and he did not think Celegorm really believed he would be able to get a tune from such an item. He managed it, however. It took a few practice runs, experimenting on ordinary brown shells he found abandoned around the house’s extensive grounds, but in the end he knew exactly how and where to make the holes and just how to blow to gain sharp but perfectly pure sound from the tiny instrument. It was awarded pride of place among his collection of flutes, occupying a little shelf on the wall which Maglor dusted daily - even when he could not see any dust there. His instruments were his joy and as dear a friend to him as any Elf.

Long evenings he would spend with them and his pen and paper, oblivious to passing hours and lost in the distant, sheltered world spun from the shimmering threads of his compositions. After a while, he would see the woods and rivers, the blushing maidens and prim suitors, rolling hills and thunderous storms, that the music described. He would hear the harsh voices of arguing Elves, or the whispered words of lovers, and start to forget that they were not just the shades of his own imagination.

He was not always alone, though. Maedhros, already half-grown when Maglor was still an infant, quickly came to recognise his younger brother’s potential and delight in his skill and creativity. Accepting Maglor’s many eccentricities, he often sat in the corner as the younger Elf worked on his songs, refraining from comment but wearing an expression of deep thought on his finely sculpted features. Like all brothers, they argued and disagreed at times - and like all brothers, they knew that ultimately neither would ever willingly let the other down.

Faithful Maedhros. Maglor made mistakes growing up, applying his own peculiar brand of logic with the very best of intentions but often as not landing himself in situations which would have enraged Father, had Fëanor ever got wind of them. But he so seldom did, and on most occasions that was due to the work of Maedhros, covering up the evidence of Maglor’s well-meaning blunders and several times, in fact, taking the blame upon himself.

Part of an original fic that I sometimes look at... And did I ever say I HATE the HTML modifier on Xanga? Why can't they set HTML as default and let us code it all in nicely like that? If I copy-paste in while it's set to Rich Text, then switch on HTML for editing, I get all their messy and annoying code *groans*

***

Title: Angel Wings To Dust

Author: Enismirdal   enismirdal@caths.co.uk

Rating: G for this bit!

Pairing: Taivas/Lumi

Summary: Winter comes and Snow meets Sky.

A/N: Inspired by the two golden angels that stand on either side of the altar in St Nicholas’s church, Helsinki. Oh, and the song ‘Wish I Had an Angel’ by Nightwish.

***

The world drifted into a cold sleep as winter fast approached. A bitter chill came over countryside that had once been glowing with life and richly green but, with it, a new kind of beauty arrived.

A being had been appointed to oversee this transition. He was tall, slender as a young tree and as graceful as the falcons who could be seen circling on thermals far above. His colourless hair brushed his hips as he trod the cold paths; his skin, milky and translucent, formed a face that could have been shaped in marble, fine-boned with delicate, defined angles. White eyelashes framed large, pale eyes and he walked barefoot in spite of the cold, wearing a plain robe as pale as he was himself.

His name was Snow, and the task of bringing the beginnings of winter to these lands had been entrusted to him by his Lord.

***

Snow, or Lumi, as people called him here, surveyed his work with a quiet satisfaction. Delicate flakes were piled waist-deep over everything; dark pines wore cloaks of clean white for the winter. A hare, halting on a nearby hillock, pricked up its black-tipped ears, ever wary. Here was a masterpiece, a perfectly blank canvas, fresh and pure, ready for the Artist to begin his work.

Lumi stretched his wings which were, like his domain, a white so pure it was almost blue. The movement disturbed a few snowflakes that nestled in his hair, sending them tumbling complacently to join the others around his feet.

He lifted his voice in song, a dignified and joyous ode to the turning of the year and, at the same time, a peaceful lullaby to the sleeping lands. The coming months would be difficult for the birds, beasts, plants and insects who lived in this world, but it was for a purpose. Winter was a time to wipe the world clean, leaving more space and opportunities for fewer survivors. It was not Snow’s task to choose which beings lived and which froze under the cold blanket, or starved, scratching at hardened ice to uncover a few morsels of shrivelled lichen. Some of his peers, he knew, would roam the lands once their task was done; he never understood why they wished to do this. When he was finished, he would return always to his Lord’s house, resuming his place at his Lord’s feet, listening to the wisdom and joy that permeated everything there.

It was not his task to choose; but it was his task to clean the drawing paper, set the world to sleep until the time to grow came once again. This task he had accomplished well, and he was satisfied.

The wind howled from the North; clouds gathered overhead, angry, menacing and dark, blotting out the shy sun.

Another being travelled at the head of the fleet of clouds, wearing midnight blue trimmed with silver. His soft silvery hair streamed behind him as his great wings beat, eddies of air fluttering from their long feathers. His dark eyes held no emotion, yet his mouth was curved in a ecstatic smile. His name was Sky, or Taivas, as he was known in this place.

 ***

There's some more than this, but I think that'll do for now as a taster of what happens when Eni writes original! *chuckles*

I realised that now I'd gone het, I ought to retake the Purity Test. I'm actually rather proud of myself. Having done all the straight stuff, I now get one-up on Girly. Oooo.