Title: Shadow Harp
Fandom: Silmarillion
Challenge: Duck
Other prompt: N/A
Rating: G
Length: 832
Content notes: N/A
Author notes: Thanks go to Morgynleri & Runa for encouragement & sanity-checking.
Summary: Fingon dreams a different kind of challenge



Fingon was the shortest of the Finwëans, and even he had to duck under the doorframe to enter the small round house. Once inside, the ceiling was only a little higher near the walls, rising to a central smoke-hole, cleverly capped to keep the wind and weather out. He stood, awkwardly hunched, wondering why he was there. A small, bright-eyed person peered up at him from a nest of furs and felted wool on a raised platform near the fire-pit in the center of the structure. Coals gleamed red in the dim light..

"And whos is this?" It was the voice of one assured of their place, comfortable with their power. Harmonics rang against Fingons guarded fëa, phantom harp strings vibrated under his fingertips. Carefully, he made no reply, nor allowed himself to react to the intangible weight of wood and wire that settled in his arms: the ghost of his own harp, carried across the Ice, to Thangorodrim, long ago turned to dust.

The one who had led him here (and where was here, what was he doing? Don't think of that. Stay in the moment, now and here) answered, sonorous and deep, the words nigh unintelligible, but the meaning clear, "One who knows both Song and strife, craft and killing, weal and woe. High enough, but not too high, instep or otherwise.

"Is it so?" The seated person looked at Fingon, light flashing from eyes deep and dark as a mountain tarn. "What say you for yourself? What say the aranirych?"

"They claim him one of them," murmured the official, and Fingon recalled the whuff of grassy breath in his face from a magnificent dapple-grey horse, head high on a proudly arched neck. He'd whuffed back of course, and if a horse could look pleased, that one certainly was.

But he hadn't yet answered the question asked of him. He opened his mouth, not at all sure what he was going to say. Not his preferred state, no matter how often he found himself in it, nor how generally well those occasions tured out. "I am acquainted with horses and harps, bows and braided rope, Ice and Fire, steel and stone. I have stood high and knelt low. I have taken life and given it. Races and riddles I may seek out, but not fights nor foes. Love and hope stoke the fires of my heart, love and curiosity tune the temper of my mind. Love and time, terror and home have not found my will or valor lacking"

Well. That was prouder than he likely would have said, though none of it was untrue. And given the slow, approving nod of the authority so richly seated, the style was apparently appropriate for the location. Whatever that was.

“Play for me then. Let us hear this skill,” demanded the chieftain, leaning back in his furs. “Your harp or the Wind, your choice."

That did not sound like a choice, it sounded like a challenge. Or possibly a threat. The wind had indeed risen, soughing and keening in the tall grasses, the low gorse and heather of the heath. Not a friendly sound, the harmonics more of the Ice than of northern Hithlum, Lothlann, even Araman or Lammoth. One foot on the raised platform, the other firm on the floor. He could not tell quite what was under his feet, but it was firm enough. He set the harp on his knee, thought a moment, and began to play.

It was not the same harp that he had carried, brought out of memory, thought the shape was the same, the strings tuned and spaced to his fingers. This instrument had resolved into aarp of ice and opal, pearl and silver, and as he played, his fingers grew colder and colder, and his toes also, until they burned with it, but his heart and breath burned hot. When, somehow unsurprisingly, the hall disolved around him, replaced by a whirlwind of mud and ash and shadow, of smothering and choking dust, he had ice and flame to answer it with, though he knew he would spend himself in the effort, win or lose.

He tried to draw breath to sing out, and began to cough, helpless to stop, and with a sound like a wind unwinding there was silence ringing in his ears.

Coughing, Fingon woke. Another dream. Another riddle where the answer could be Irmo or Morgoth. And, yes, another artifact. The harp of ice and opal shimmered in the moonlight, insubstantial but present, a cold gleam to the sounding-board with fire at its heart, silver sparks dancing on the tuning-pins. The wires flashed like oil on water, rainbow colors, and the pillar was a complex, clear crystal, veined in subtle colors, apparent even in the moonlight.

But this time he also had Maedhros' warm hand on his back, between his shoulder blades, easing his breath, and Maedhros' sturdy length close beside him.

Whatever this was, he was not alone in it.