Silence So Loud - by Vladazhael
The ceaseless carnage had stilled Maglor's hands; his harp strings sat silent and waiting. It struck him hard – the futility of creating music in times such as this. What more was there to sing about, when all was choked in blood and gore?
An ode to a slaughter.
He could still remember the old songs – everything he had written, nearly everything anyone else had written – yet they all rang cold and distant to his ears. Guilt beyond measure made for poor acoustics. It would have driven him mad, had he any heart left to care.
Why he still tried, why anyone ever looked to him anymore to express something beautiful, he could not fathom, but they did – around the fires at night, when the hate of the world pressed ever more stiflingly on their dwindling party. It was hate they had more than earned, but that made it no less a burden; even their righteousness could not render it weightless. Likely his comrades, desperate as he, looked to him to ease it. Would that he still possessed a soul to bare for them.
He should have thrown the useless instrument away years ago – into hungry Sirion, perhaps, or off the side of some unnamed mountain. The land would reclaim it, in time, and make more use of it than he could. But still it was with him, stowed safely away, its silent presence infinitely louder than some ignominious end in the wild. Again, he could not say why. Sentimentalism was beyond him now; hope for a future, a peaceful one where music would have its place again, as lost as if it had never been. And yet the harp remained, dragged along on this quest and robbed of purpose.
An ode to madness.
Then the children came.
Twins, like his youngest brothers, who had long since been lost to the Oath – they reminded him too much of a past too far gone. That he was bound to keep them safe, there was no question. But their youthful hope, exuberant even after all their tragedies, brought him as much pain as joy, for he could not share it. Hope had left him, and rightfully so. He could only endeavor to keep their hope alive.
He tried, early on, to make music for them; the old harp, as worn as he, flirted with purpose once more. It carried old melodies well enough for the wilderness, though he tested neither it nor himself with anything new. And how generous the ears of children! They asked for his songs, when finally they grew bold enough to speak to him. Without the heart to deny them, he obliged, and they listened, fascinated, then slept, satisfied. It was more peace than he could grant himself.
His talent was wasted on children's rhymes, Maedhros insisted, as if it were a compliment. As if he had anything more to give. His brother should have known better.
But then they both should have known a lot of things.
When the Silmarils resurfaced and beckoned again, Maglor fell silent once more. Nothing melodic could flow through him with the knowledge of what he would have to do to regain the jewels. The dread of it was poison to inspiration. But Maedhros spoke rightly, if harshly - there was no way to avoid the Oath; they had promised too well. And so they set out, to their quest and what doom may come.
Maglor knew enough to leave the harp behind this time. Elros and Elrond would find it waiting for them.
An ode to hope.
oOoOo
Title borrowed, quite inadvertently, from “For Whom the Bell Tolls” by Metallica.