Title: Nîdh (Honeycomb)
Fandom: The Silmarillion
Challenge: Hungry
Bingo prompt: Honey
Rating: G
Length: 1000+
Content notes: N/A
Author notes: Thanks go to Zana, Morgynleri & Icka for encouragement & sanity-checking.
Summary: You could choose who you would follow, but not who would follow you. How many times had he learned that lesson? Apparently not too many, not enough, for here it was again.



They had left him a honeycomb.

Restless, skin-hungry, feeling the bite of the burn on his hand, of the Oath in his mind, missing his brothers, the twins he had no right to claim as sons, yet feeling the faint presences of the scant and scattered handful of Fëanorian survivors who had found their way to this stretch of the Western edge of Middle-Earth as a scrape against his nerves, he had gone up into the hills, leaving cave and coast before sunrise, returning well after the sun had set again for the short summer night. He'd managed an hour or so of rest, bringing himself awake before carefully calm memory could turn to something other than restful.

And now this. Which had not been there last night. Starlight or shade he would not have missed seeing the pale cover and silvery wood. Would have smelled the spice-sweet-sunlight of the honey.

And they had left it without waking him. It had been there some little time, enough for dew to bead in bright drops on and around it.

Someone - he knew which someone, but if he didn't name them, it could stay not-acknowledged, right? - knew to a fair nicety what he would-could-might accept. (And Elrond most certainly was not this far north in Lindon.)

A honeycomb. In quite a handsome driftwood bowl. Which was a different someone’s careful work. He'd seen others like it, set out like offerings, art, usefulnesses: a cup by a spring that now ran clear, a plate at the roots of a storm-damaged tree showing new leaves and buds.

The symbolism — intended or not — was not lost on him.

The waxed nettle-cloth that covered the bowl, protecting the honey from wind-blown grit and importunate wildlife was yet another someone’s contribution. Were all of them in on it? All five or six or however many of them there were?

If there were six of them, that was enough to want … what it seemed they might want of him.

Enough people to want someone they could follow, someone to look to in joy and adversity, to make certain types of decisions, settle differences, heal and ward and listen, speak for them up the chain of linked and interlinked relationships and responsibilities, to bring decisions and judgements and information back down.

To speak and to be silent
To do and to let be

To make and to mend
To heal and to help
To strengthen and succor
To hold to hope in the face of horror
To bring light into darkness
To aid those in darkness who yet seek the light
(However dim, however faint and frail and flickering)

(Don't think about the rest of it. Don't.)

The smallest number for a Noldorin working-group was six (and that was a test-group, a proof of concept, a can we even work together group. Eight would be too many for that.

And any working-group needed a team-lead, someone to take point, make decisions, organize resources, talk to other groups if need be.

(Six was also the smallest number for a recognized unit in a Company. Which also needed a speaker, a person to lead. He wasn't thinking about that. he was not.)

And they had, apparently, chosen him. Will he, nil he. Or perhaps someone — she — Finanglith (Finderëlumbe, that was) had decided they had all been solitary in their various nightmares and injuries long enough, and it was time to change their approach, do something new. Do and not let be, at least in one thing. Not even rising to the definitive declaration of speech. She’d been … very able, during the long watch, surviving flame and tears and everything else.

Metalwork (of which Finanglith was a master) would have required words in answer, yea or nay. Stonework (of which Gonbelas had no little skill) likewise. A wooden bowl and waxed nettle-cloth imbued with virtue or simply crafted with intent to make, said nothing requiring answer in word or deed (though the effort required out here, with so little resource, gave more weight to simple and serviceable items. A weight of use, not necessarily of symbol.)

Honeycomb, though. Bee-gold, queen's-gift, healer's help and hunger's ease, whether of hroa or fëa, heart or hope (even it would ease the fire in his hand for a time, the judgement of the Silmaril, a burn that resisted all his arts.) Honey bade an answer, an action. To accept the gift was to acknowledge the giver. To acknowledge oneself as one worthy of gifts, even so simple a gift as sustenance, sweetness, making well.

He had been … he was, no matter what he had done or failed to do, said or failed to say, his father's son, a prince. Taught the skills of leadership, of responsibility, as all seven of them had been. One to whom people looked. And being so seen, so gifted, given-to, one made reply. You did the job.

… the people choose to follow, and I must needs then lead …

(Another song that did not bear thinking about. So he wouldn't. )

You could choose who you would follow, but not who would follow you. How many times had he learned that lesson? Apparently not too many, not enough, for here it was again.

And it was, after all, only honey, not steel or sapphire or sturdy granite. Driftwood and waxed nettle woven with a wish for hope, not purpose-grown and Worked to carry virtue as an art. Virtue had burned him (had burned them all, one way or another.) Only wax and wood and honey in its intricate, simple comb.

Will you taste the sweetness? Ease the burn? sing with the bees? You have already chosen life, chance, change and hope in staying here. Live.

Live and learn to heal. Not to forget, but to go on. He had, at the end, chosen not to follow Maedhros. And it seemed there was an on to go.

The sun was rising, the mountain shadow stretching long to the sea, the sky growing brighter. Far in the West the Star was setting, beyond any reach, yet its light still shone.

Deliberately, Maglor Fëanorion touched a finger to the honey, and savored the resultant drop, then he took the narrow strip of nettle cloth he discovered tucked in a fold of the cover, applied a little of the honey to it and began to wrap it, only slightly awkwardly, around his hand, humming.