toplvl | unpopular opinions

Very, very rarely. There's always something or other that my brothers simply must have my input on, mostly to tell them who is in the right at any given moment.

[One would think they wouldn't need him to sort out their disagreements any longer.]

It would be a shame if elves old enough and noble enough to have known the light of the trees would have to have communication skills and humility, it is true.

[She is very much not barely avoiding laughing, why do you ask.]

I would wish they'd start acting their age, I can't exactly mediate all of their conflicts for the rest of eternity.

[Just the thought is giving him a headache.]

[And that sobers her little bit of amusement at their expense immediately, for she doesn't wish it to be at his expense.]

If you will forgive me for saying so, Maedhros, it is your father's influence upon them and no fault of your own. You could not remove his influence from your brothers, only temper it in yourself. Not even with ten thousand years to try, because it has to be done by their will alone. On the list of things that Fëanor did wrong, raising his children to be like himself was certainly towards the top.

[Below kinslaying, for sure, or abandoning half his army he did the murdering to get across the sea... but still high.]

What child does not crave their father's approval?

I know, I wish it wasn't true but I know that's were most of their problems have their beginning. [It is one of the things he'll never forgive his father for. The way his father had raised his younger brothers. It hadn't been so bad during his and Maglor's childhoods, there had still been problems of course but nothing quite so extreme as in later years.] I wish it weren't so. But you are correct, you cannot help someone that does not want to be helped... and Curvo and Tyelko will not even hear the softest of criticisms toward our father. And loving them less than the works of his hands as well, I wonder if he'd have gone to such extremes if it were his sons he had lost and not the silmarils.

[That was something that had been at the back of his mind since his fathers last words to them. Not words of love or fatherly concern but a demand, to swear the oath again, to avenge him, to take back what was his. Had his father ever truly cared about them at all?]

A rare one. I certainly wanted it once, more than anything, but I learned that living my life for him would only lead to disappointment in the end.

[In truth, aside from the troubles that lead him back east in the first place and the crimes he had committed, Mithiel had come to assume that most of Maedhros, not just his hair, had come from his mother's side. Why, then, the others did not follow she could not say, nor would she care to guess aloud with him for an audience. But if the seed was so strong then why were the elder two more tempered than the rest?

She knew Maedhros now enough to know that she need not fear him unless she somehow came upon a Silmaril and could not give it up, and Maglor had never frightened her either but the others felt so much like fire and shadow whenever they set their gaze upon anything that displeased them even a little. Like they were the heat and the hammer of their father's forge, set to have their will or smite anyone who would stop them.]

I cannot understand your father. [Is what she settles on, sounding a little sad.] A child is such a blessing and your mother brought forth seven. That is so many. Yet instead of raising you all well it is as though he planted some of you crookedly, at angles that would forever warp the way they should grow. I cannot imagine not loving my children more than my work, or bending them to my will. Or tasking them with such a dangerous thing... [Dangerous and hateful, and all to save the work of his hands rather than the blood of his blood.] I wish, for your sake, I were a better liar and could say I think he would have. [But if that were true why would he risk them all for the jewels? Every last one of them had come out of Aman and left their mother and to some degree their sanity behind.

Reaching over she gently squeezed his wrist. She could not bring his father back to make him more loving or drop a boulder on him for being so awful, and so she hoped that the small knowledge that he at least had friends who cared for him would do something to ease his mind, even if only a little.]

I am sorry he did not do better. [Because she does not think for a single second that Fëanor didn't know better. He simply didn't seem to care about anything that was not his own design.]

[He'd like to think he was more his mothers son than his fathers, but he knew that there were a lot of traits he'd inherited from Fëanor as well. Pride not being the least of them, though he tended to keep a tighter rein on it these days. Likely it was his fault, at least a little bit, that their brothers viewed their father as someone to emulate. He'd tried too hard perhaps to shield them from his less pleasant sides.

His brothers often mistook fear for respect, Maedhros knew better though. Fear could make people obey you, aye, but if you wanted to inspire true loyalty in people you had to work harder at it than mere intimidation. Respect was earned not taken by brute force.]

It is a long time since I tried to understand the way his mind worked. [It only ever made him angry to try.] One would think so. I wish I would have given more thought to the parent I know loves me than trying to gain the love of a father which I no longer know wether or not he ever loved us at all. I don't know if he knew how, he lost his mother befre he ever knew her and grandfather was too wrapped up in his own grief to truly do a good jobb at raising him. To my father it was as if any disagreement you might have with him meant you did not love him at all. [He shakes his head.] I have always prefered unpleasant truths to comforting lies. It is the unceartanty, in truth, that bothers me the most about it. [He suspects the truth to be very unpleasant, but he'd much rather know it than fumble about in the dark without truly knowing.

He gives her a weak smile. He does appreciate the gesture.]

So am I. More for my brothers than for myself, many of them are still trying to prove themselves to him. I have long since realized there is nothing I can do that would have ever changed him or the way he felt towards me, whatever that was.

[She would not be so quick to give him grace, it was not as if every orphaned child turned out like that... but maybe she was just fostering a grudge against a man she would not even dare yell at if he had survived long enough for her to meet him.

So instead of saying any of that she just gently rubs a circle over his pulse, wishing she could somehow make it right and knowing she could not. Even if he met his end soon and returned to the Halls, Mandos would have to let him out before he could ever see his mother again and depending on a lot of things, he might not.]

I wish I could meet your mother. That would make at least three of you I would probably get along with.

Proving themselves to a ghost will never be satisfactory.

[His father had been a complicated man in many ways. But he can't belive there was never any good in him, even if he had lost it along the way, his mother wouldn't have loved him if there hadn't been. He'd likely been more harmed by being the only orphan among a people who could not understand his loss than he was by simply losing his mother.

There was no making these sort of things right, there was only accepting things the way they were and learn to live with them. Maedhros suspects he'd not leave the halls once he enters them, not even if given the choice. He doesn't want to hurt his mother that way but the more years that pass the more his spirit feels like a pile of ashes.]

She would like you, I think. You are much alike eachother in some ways.

No, it will be an empty victory at best and a bitter disappointment at worst.

If I ever get to Aman, I will try to find her and tell her you once thought so. I do not think I could get a better recommendation. [She somehow doesn't expect to ever see him there, but then she hardly expects to see herself in Aman.]

Maybe when the world is reborn however many ages from now it will all come good. [How bitter life could taste when your friends became more complex than Yavannas's children. to have to wish for the end when the world was still young, all for the hopes of a better outcome the next time around the cycle.]

I would be grateful if you did, if ever you make your way there. And might you tell har also that I have never loved her less than my father and that I am sorry if my leaving made her feel like I did. She deserved better than she got from us. [No, likely not. He is so very tired of life and has been for longer than he could remember. That is the problem with having too much fire in your soul, he thinks, fire always need to be fed to keep it going and he had already given most of himself to those fires by now and soon there would be nothing left to give. Only ashes. He would not have the strenght to return once he'd died, he's not even sure he'd want to.]

Maybe. I'd like to think so, I'd like to believe all this sorrow was not without reason. I do not wish to believe Eru to be that cruel. [Perhaps then he could find the strenght again to walk among the living without life itself tearing at his spirit.]

[Oh, Maedhros. She turns to look at him then, promising herself that she will go to Aman someday even if she has no other reason to go. She leans up and presses a quick kiss to his hair near the top of his head before settling her head against his shoulder.] I promise. I will tell her all of that. And I will tell her everything else a mother would want to know about her children. I will not forget a single thing.

You will always have me as a friend, even when...

[Nope. She is going to stop talking now. She had too many centuries under her belt to be so easily upset, yet she was.]

[He gives her a look that is equal parts pained and grateful. There is not much he takes comfort in these days but he will not push her away and he takes what solace he can from both her words and actions.] Thank you, I know it is a great deal I am asking of you with this request but I will be forever grateful for it.

And likewise my friendship goes with you forever. There is no need to give voice to what we both know to be true, my friend. [He gives her a sad smile.]

[If he had decided to push her off his shoulder she would have likely just laid on the chair feeling sad instead, so she was glad he left her there. She was silent for a long time, more than mere minutes as she pulls herself back together enough that she can speak without her voice hitching or betraying her more than her silence or his ability to look upon her did.]

I would do much more difficult tasks for you without thinking. It is not so much.

Selfishly, I do not want to forget any of knowing you. Even our many sad talks. No one else save for the trees has treated me like I would not crumble under the weight of reality.

[He will not deny either of them whatever comfort they can give eachother, it would be unkind to her and ungrateful of him. Dying does not frighten him, at times it is something he longs for, but he does regret the pain he will bring those that, for whatever reason, care for him.]

You are a very kind soul, Mithiel.

It is not so selfish. I too will miss you, and I do not want to forget our time together, the joy or the sorrow. You are stronger than most people give you credit for, people often forget that such things come in many different forms.

Perhaps. Or just very soft-hearted. [Was there a difference? Maybe not in her case. She is not sure either is a good thing in the times they live in, but she could not change who she was anymore than she could make the rivers change their courses. She also knew she could not change his fate or hers, this unerring fondness she had for him had never been about that, but maybe it was about giving him a little more sunshine now and then. Like he was one of her trees who needed tending to thrive. As though having some company and some softer words that didn't expect much of him could begin to mend his soul while he was still here.]

Do you think we remember when we are with Mandos? We are supposed to heal there, I know, but sometimes I wonder how that works. I do not know anyone who has died. Only animals. [She knew of people who had died, in the broad sense of knowing, but they had been just distant names to her. It was like telling her a sparrow died, it was sad, but did not quite touch her in the same way as thinking about the (future, probable) death of a friend did.] Whatever good qualities I possess I got from my parents, or the trees... I wish you could meet them. Any of them.

[In another life, her parents would have loved him. She is sure of that. And her trees? Well, Melians, technically, they would love him too. Take him in under their branches and tell him the same sorts of stories she was told by them, if he was willing to listen. She wished so much that the Noldor had returned to them with glad tidings and not with such sorrow, it was not hard for her to imagine a better world in which they had and the innocence of her youth was not naivety but a shared, easy, joy that they all carried and could run free in nature or creating their favourite arts. All of them, him, his frightening brothers, and the less frightening ones too, Fingon, Fingolfin, everyone just one people free to learn from each other and exist together without all the politics and spilt blood.

Perhaps even his father would have been merely arrogant and not so much of a shadow.

Maybe when the world was made anew.]

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