Pauses

Mellow Soulmate AU.  Six instances in which Maglor pauses.  This is one of those AUs where the Noldor return to Middle-earth in the Third Age (like Glorfindel).  Quenya names used.  Maglor is Makalaurë, Maedhros is Maitimo and Fëanor is Fëanáro.  Plus, there's an FOC in there, Maglor's wife Vardamírë (whose name is totally stolen from a Numenorean) and he had two children.  Only one of them is an OC.  Spans Years of the Trees, First, Second and Third Ages.  Mostly introspective.

Disclaimer: Tolkien owns all the characters (cept my OCs) and clearly I did not write Fëanor's Oath.  It came from the Lay of Beleriand.

Pairings: Maglor x Vardamírë (only a little romance LOL)

Characters: Maglor, Vardamírë, Fëanor, Elros, Elrond (Fëanorions, Manwë, Varda, Eonwë, Morgoth, Ilúvatar and unnamed children mentioned)

Warning: canon-compliant AU until the last part, OFC, mentions of violence, murder, war, death, etc... unhealthy obsession, self-imposed purgatory, ambiguous ending (is this list finished yet...)

Song: Krone

Words: 1,843
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pause (noun): a temporary stop; temporary inaction especially as caused by uncertainty: hesitation
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/pause

The first time he heard her sing, his feet had frozen midstride, suspended upon the air.  Three elves ran into him from behind before Makalaurë had the sense to step to the side of the street, his silver eyes searching.

And then he saw her.

Like a divine creature come to life, she stood in the doorway of one of the shops, sweeping away as she sang.  Around her, elves paused and listened for a few seconds before moving on.  Who could fail to stop and listen to that sweet voice trilling above the daily clamor of carts and boots upon the cobbled streets?  If Makalaurë could ever imagine what the voice of a vala might sound like, he imagined it would sound like hers.  Divine.  Indescribable.  Entrancing.

She was on the opposite side of the street, but when she looked up she somehow caught his eye, as if she'd known he was watching her.  Beautiful blue eyes behind a veil of silver hair widened as the pair beheld each other, and her soft melody ceased.

Makalaurë did not dare blink.

Her cheeks burst into the most glorious delicate rose tint, a dusting that spread over her cheeks and nose and left him floundering for thought.  And then she slowly smiled--one of those shy little smiles that made his heart beat faster beneath his ribs--and she began to sing again, her words lost in the movement and clutter of the busy streets of Tirion.

But not the haunting pitch.  She turned away, and Makalaurë did also, his feet carrying him away down the street, away from the rising tones that filled his very fëa with delight and gave him pleasant tingles down his spine all the way to his fingertips and toes.

His only.  His fated.  His One.

The next day, he was back again.

---

And then his world turned upside-down.

There was darkness and fire.  The world looked an alien place to his eyes.  Faces were stark and shadowed, eyes glowing like embers, filled with a strange sort of lust that chilled him to the bone.  And above him, his father stood, his voice echoing through their ears with power that reverberated through every cell, which held the attention in a helpless cage of fascination, drawing in, imprisoning within bars of charisma and passion.

Makalaurë would never--could never--forget the words spoken, for they defined his life evermore.

"Be he foe or friend, be he foul or clean
Brood of Morgoth or bright Vala,
Elda or Maia or Aftercomer,
Neither law, nor love, nor league of swords,
Dread nor danger, not Doom itself
Shall defend him from Fëanáro, and Fëanáro's kin,
Whoso hideth or hoardeth, or in hand taketh,
Finding keepeth or afar casteth
A Silmaril. This swear we all...
Death we will deal him ere Day's ending,
Woe unto world's end! Our word hear thou,
Eru Allfather! To the everlasting
Darkness doom us if our deed faileth...
On the holy mountain hear in witness
and our vow remember,
Manwë and Varda!"

And above his head, Fëanáro lifted his sword, and it flashed red as blood in the firelight.  One by one, so too did Makalaurë's brothers lift their blades, gleaming with vile promise, and in his kin he first beheld the lust for blood that would consume his life.

He was last to lift his sword.  Upon its hilt, his hand faltered.  Blue eyes and silver hair filled his gaze and a voice fit only for the ears of Ilúvatar sang sweetly to him.  Two elflings--dark-haired and barely grown--whispered against his shoulders, their eyes adoring.

But in the end, his father's gaze upon him hardened his heart, and Makalaurë held his sword aloft, jaw set firmly, and swore his Oath.

Later, he would come to wish that he had heeded the warning of his heart, but by then it was far too late.  For all of them.

---

Surprisingly, he did not hesitate to take his first life.  Or the second.  Or the third.

It was afterwards, after the screams and the fire in the streets and the limp, mutilated bodies that Makalaurë paused.  It was when he beheld his reflection, hands poised above the untouched waters upon which their new ships rested, that he found himself unable to move.

The prince did not recognize his face.  It was as if someone else stared back at him with tangled black hair and maddened silver eyes, as if it were someone else streaked in crimson and wearing torn clothing, someone else with a blood-crusted sword at their waist and scarlet-painted hands reflected in the water.  Was that... really him?

Long since had the bloodlust faded, but until now Makalaurë had driven reality from his mind.  He had killed them  They would never rise again.  They would not return home to their husbands or wives or children.  They were in the Halls now.

He had put them there.  He had slain them.  It was their blood upon his hands and in his hair and brushed across his cheeks and soaked into his tunic.

For a long time, he looked, until voices called his name and any chance of thoroughly cleaning away the proof of his shame and sin was passed.  And he couldn't help but wonder if he even deserved to be clean after this.  Did he have the right to wash away the blood?

Even if he did, would it really be gone?

---

Beleriand was a harsh land.  All too soon, Makalaurë found himself fighting, the blood of the enemy flowing black, and later the blood of his kin flowing red.  The world passed before his eyes like a nightmare, and time continued flowing.

For a long time, he did not hesitate.  He could not afford to.

---

But when he did, it was not after battle, but during.  It was at the sobbing and soft pleas of two helpless children huddled pathetically together in the corner of their room, unprotected, their terrified eyes round and bright as they beheld his gore-riddled figure.

It was not the first time he had seen children awaiting their bloody fate at the hands of his men--his own hands--but something about the picture shook him.  Perhaps his own brothers had been weighing heavily upon his heart, or perhaps he was just sick of war, sick of killing.  Perhaps he just wanted to rest, wanted to save something rather than destroy it, nurture and protect rather than slaughter.

Perhaps he wanted to go against their Curse.

For even as his sword rose to strike them down as one, aimed for their throats--and a swift ending it would be--his arm seemed to freeze, refused to carry through the swing.

They were looking into his eyes, begging and frightened.  And Makalaurë could not kill them.

His arm lowered, and with a frustrated growl he sheathed the naked blade and dragged a hand through his blood-streaked dark hair.  Below him, the little ones were shivering, their tiny hands entangled tightly as they watched him the same way one watched a wild animal that might attack at any moment.  When he turned towards them, his eyes blazing, reflected in theirs, they shrunk away as if he'd raised a hand to strike them.

Now, how was he going to explain this to Maitimo?

---

Sick.  He was so, so sick of everything.  Of the Oath.  Of killing.  Of watching his brothers and family and friends die.  Why could it not end?

Why did they have to go through with this?

The dark whispers plagued him incessantly.  But in the end, he could not convince Maitimo to abandon their foul Oath.

In the tent of Eonwë, they found the Silmarilli, glorious beyond belief.  Some part of Makalaurë, a deep and frightening part he knew was blood-inherited from his fey-eyed father, stirred and relished in the achieving of their goal and the possession of these jewels.  His hands reached out to embrace the perfect facets without thought.

Only when he felt the heat upon his hands did he pause.

If they took them, what then?  They would be hunted.  Where would they go?  They had no home now.  They could not return to Valinor.  They could not return to their camp.  There was no one in Beleriand who would welcome the Curse upon their doorstep.

They were stealing from the Herald of Manwë.

But all the logical reasoning, all the thoughts that stood between him and final damnation, all of them seemed to dissolve beneath the light of the Silmarilli, as if those treacherous thoughts were the early morning haze that evaporated beneath the first rays of Arien.

His fingers touched the surface, and they burned.

He did not hesitate at all when he threw the Silmaril into the ocean, into the arms of Ulmo beyond his reach or the reach of any other.  Only afterwards did he regret.

---

For how long he was alone upon those shores, he did not know.  What did years mean to an immortal being, alone and cursed?  Days and nights dragged on like millennia, yet when next he checked more than three thousand years had come and gone.

Rumors reached even his ears as he listened to the gulls and the ripples of the ocean and the wind whipping his hair.

Whispers of white ships sailing East.  Not West.

For three millennia, he had faithfully guarded the shores, his eyes squinting, waiting, watching for a glimmer in the dark depths with disgusting lust.  For three millennia, his voice had hoarsely recited his sins to the rhythm and displeasure of the sea and the ravaging storms.  For three millennia, he had been consumed by guilt and regret and self-hatred until it seemed that nothing of hope or joy could survive in his world.  Nothing less than he deserved.

But now the call... the hope in his chest... the possibility... was so tempting.

He wanted to go.  He had to know if she sailed to the East, or if she had forsaken him.  Even if it ended in the agony of separation, he had to know!

When he finally began to turn from the sea--from his vigil--for the final time, there was a pause, a moment that seemed frozen in time.  He took in the clear day, the gentle waves on the beach below the cliff, the scent of salt and mist filling his nose and clean, pure air filling his lungs and the dark depths below that embraced the Silmaril that he both loathed and lusted after.

He hesitated, because he deserved nothing less than to suffer eternally.  What right had he to cease his vigil?

In the end, though, the call was too strong.  Besides, what did one more black mark upon his filthy, stained fëa really matter?

He was a Kinslayer.  One more sin would hardly lengthen his personal list of atrocities.

And he did not regret this decision.
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Angstfest, but when isn't Maglor full to the brim with angst?  At least he's got the possibility of a happy ending, though.  I swear, three hours ago I had no idea what I was even going to write to this prompt, and this just came LOL.  Maybe I should wing it more often.

The song for this piece is Krone by Hiroyuki Sawano from Guilty Crown, because it reminded me of the ocean.  At this moment, though, I'm having trouble loading it because the internet here at college sucks.  In any case, listen :3.  Because it makes me happy.

Some art: The Oath of Feanor (look, Maedhros still has a right hand... strange), The harp no longer sings (brand spanking new but fits this prompt so perfectly), and In pain and regret (an old favorite) all by ~Gold-Seven on dA.  God, her Silmarillion artwork is to die for.

Cheers.