Оригинал фанфика "Раковина" (Seashell) от Noldoris

[mlmaos]

Seashell.

Author: Noldoris

Silmarillion

G - English - General/Drama


Disclaimer: J R R Tolkien and his estate own these characters and their (real)
stories. Borrowing them sans permission is fun, but I do not intend to be
prosecuted for it. So please, sirs, know ye the truth etc.


Seashell.



It was with difficulty that he quelled his mounting horror to speak. “Maglor.”

His voice sounded faint in his own ears, like a whisper against the crashing of
the sea. “Maglor,” he heard himself say again.

Maglor continued to stare ahead. He spoke to him once more, louder and a little
anxious, but loath somehow to touch him. Then a soft uncertain sound, that may
have been ‘what?’ or ‘who?’, or something else altogether, slipped from the
elf’s lips.

“It’s me, Elros,” he called back, relieved.

The elf raised his dark head above his tattered garments. His blind eyes did not
turn from the sea, but he smiled. It was the simple, empty smile of a child.

“Elros?” he called brightly. The young man’s heart rose, for the voice was the
voice of Maglor, undiminished in beauty and strength, steadfast when all other
light had seemingly fled from eye and mind.

Hearing his name so spoken stirred strange feelings in him. He was surprised at
the rising of a faded memory of his mother, calling for him through the old
house in Sirion. It was a searching, motherly tone, coming to him in echoes, a
voice he could not put a face to. “I’ve been looking for you everywhere,” he
said feelingly to Maglor.

The elf blinked, still smiling delightedly. “Elros? Is that you?”

“Yes, Ata, it is I. I came to see you.”

“You came to see - me. Good, good. I cannot see you, though - I have lost my
sight. The light was too bright, you know. Is it still so?”

“Still what?” asked Elros aghast, distracted by the sorry figure he had sought
so hard and long on the rocky shores. He could hardly recognise him.

“Is it still too bright? You must shade your eyes, you know, yonya. Young ones
like you must be careful. Like Elrond. Elrond is always careful. He is wiser
than even I, is he not? I always said so to Maitimo - when he would listen to
me.” He stopped, his brow furrowed, descending into a half-hearted humming. Then
he said sadly, “Do not quarrel with your brother, Elros. It is not a happy
thing.”

“No, Ata, I will not.” Elros said, and felt an immediate guilt at the tightness
in his voice.

“Do you promise me?” Maglor pressed on, suddenly stern. It was strange, an
abrupt change in his mood. He did not seem mad anymore. “I promise”, said Elros
earnestly. “Elrond and I will never fight. Trust you me? Now listen. I have news
– hearken here, my Maglor!”

Maglor had subsided, although something in the empty eyes shone briefly. His
child’s grin crept back on his face. “Good, good.” he chuckled, picking at his
sleeve. “Good, good.” He began to hum again, seeming to have lost all notion of
his son’s presence. Elros frowned. He moved a firm hand to grasp the pale
fingers, to see if he could hold Maglor’s attention by doing so, but was checked
by a sudden escalation in the mindless humming, which became something quite
different. It rose in tone and timbre.

And then, without warning, it soared in wordless magnificence to the farthest
reaches of heaven. It wheeled up, like a mighty storm breaking its bounds. It
brimmed over and then overflowed, high and sweet, with a surprising, staggering
joy. Elros was thrown off balance. Disoriented, he remembered the tales this
very man, once sane and clear-eyed, had told him - of the music of the spheres,
bright stars that hummed as they moved along their course, of the Song that
created the world in its joy of being sung. It could not have been much
different from this, he thought, the song of the greatest of bards, sufficient
unto himself. Perhaps a new star was being born this very moment.

He sat mutely at Maglor’s side as the song went on, for a long while. When it
ended, its echoes mingled in his head along with the now-faraway cries of the
gulls and the lapping of the ocean. Something that had not happened since he had
declared his fate to the Valar happened now; he felt helpless with awe.

Maglor had fallen silent. He appeared to have resumed his unblinking vigil of
the Western Sea.

“I’m leaving, Ata,” Elros said at last, in a rush. He could not find better
words, and choked on them almost before they were out.

Maglor replied slowly, as though he had had difficulty understanding. “So you
are,” he said. “Of course. Of course. You must go. It is a place of great beauty
and peace. Yes, beautiful. Of course. Well... ”. And he drifted off
incomprehensibly again.

“I am not going to Aman,” said Elros gently. “Listen. I have a tale to tell
you.”

He explained with infinite patience of his summons to the Valar, the choice he
had been presented with, his final decision, and that of Elrond’s. “You see, it
would be improvident of me to choose a way I do not wish. I hanker not after
everlasting life, nor yet the promise of Valinor. I cannot rest from travel. I
would walk, and sail, see all things, and know all things good and evil. And
when I die, Ata, it will be with a full heart, knowing I have spent in whole the
flame of the One; in sorrow, perhaps, but not despair, and never emptiness.
And…and I am sailing from these shores. The Valar in their glory – ”

“You are going to sea?” Maglor interrupted for the first time.

“Yes.” Elros smiled. “Yes, I am going to sea.” He laughed boyishly. “My
adventure, Ata! I am going to seek a new land; do you remember how I had told
you I would? The sailor is shipping off, at last!”

Maglor turned fully in his direction, as if seeking to imprint some trace of his
features on his darkened eyes. Then something seemed to occur to him.

“Sea?” he asked. “This sea?”

“Yes.”

His smile vanished. “You do know what lives there, don’t you?” he asked, his
voice lowered conspiratorially.

“What?” asked Elros, confused.

“Well, you are going to seek it, are you not? The light, of course! Our jewel.
Have the Valar not granted you it? One for Eдrendil, one for Elros, one for
Elrond. And whom else would it be for? They are all gone anyway, my brothers,
and I have no use for it. I never did. But be thankful they have all sailed
away, little one. They were mighty warriors, and so proud, Maitimo and Tyelkormo
and Atarinkл and Carnistir…”

Elros’ heart sank. Did he really believe they had all simply upped and left? He
cleared his throat. “Not jewels, Ata, land. Land! Think, they raised earth from
the sea and hallowed it for my kindred. We of the Atani have a true home now, as
the Quendi have had. We have been blessed by the Valar.”

“Atani?” Maglor whispered. Elros sighed, defeated. “Yes, Ata. I told you, I was
given a choice. And I chose to become a Man.”

Maglor’s face contorted. Elros thought he was angered at last. He felt his robe
being grabbed, and he was pulled in by a strong hand, until his face was just
level with that of his foster father.

“Thank Eru.” the elf rasped harshly. “Thank Eru. From elda to atan. You did the
right thing, Elros. I am glad, do you hear? Glad that you cast off the other
thing! It is terrible, Elros, so terrible, never free. Never free from grief and
madness. You would go mad. Poor Elrond. Poor Elrond.”

Elros felt a great destructive wave crash into him. Beside him, Maglor was
weeping silently, great tears spilling from his eyes. He was mortified at the
sight. A noble elda warrior, a prince of the Calaquendi, and it had come to
this. What remained with him save a fragile form, glazed like a white seashell
and just as easily crushed?

Like a seashell, he held only the voice of the waters.

An irrational vision came to him, unbidden. A spear pierced through the
emaciated body, and the grey-green ocean gushing forth from within. Elros
cringed. How morbid the eve had made him.

He heard a shuddering breath expelled from the other. A sudden, fierce love
welled up in him. “Come with me,” he begged urgently. “Please, Ata, will you
not? See here, it is I who need you. For my sake, not yours, do not stay away.
It would break my heart. I pray you – Ata Maglor, hear me!”

He shook his head mutely.

“Why not?” he demanded stubbornly. Maglor had taken to humming again. “Maglor!”
he said in his most commanding tone. The elf fell silent.

“Why can you not come with me?”

“Because I – I cannot cross the Sea. I would drown. You would drown. I am not
coming to Valinor!”

No amount of persuasion would convince him that he would not doom the voyage of
the Atani fleet to death, or that they were not, indeed, going to Valinor, that
they never would in all the lives of men. “Very well,” said Elros finally, weary
and close to tears. “If you would rob me of my father, do so. I, at least, shall
never forget you.”

He said this and left, without looking back, trembling with anger and shame.
Maglor continued to watch the shore, shimmering faintly in the starlight. He had
begun to hum.


**


Never did father and son meet again in this world, for Elros sailed to newfound
Nъmenor and came no more to the shores of Middle-earth. Maglor’s fate is unknown
among the Elves, for he did not go among them. Whether in a distant future,
someone of the children of Elros came seeking the singer again to make new an
old tie, we do not know. It is unwritten.




-----
Quenya translations.

elda: Sing. form of Eldar. Elf, basically.
atan: Man.
yonya: My son.

Quick note on the names bandied abоut: they are the mother-names of four of
Maglor’s brothers. Maitimo is Maedhros, Tyelkormo is Celegorm, Atarinkл is
Curufin and Carnistir is Caranthir. Quenya, all.