Nor Bid the Stars Farewell

[starspray]

Fandom: Tolkien
Rating: G
Characters: Sam Gamgee, Maglor, Aragorn, some kittens and puppies
Warnings: n/a
Summary: Sam meets Maglor, first in Rivendell and later in Minas Tirith.
Note: This fic is a gapfiller set between the last two chapters of Clear Pebbles of the Rain.

AO3 / SWG

 

Sam had been so sure that he’d picked the right turning, but instead of the corridor outside of Frodo’s room, he found himself outside on a wide veranda, with several tables scattered across it, and benches nestled among potted plants and the climbing vines that twined around the stone balustrades, most of them slowly turning brown and losing their leaves with the onset of autumn. A wide set of shallow steps led down to a pale gravel path that opened up around a fountain before splitting off in many directions through shrubbery and flower beds.

There was a surprising number of flowers still blooming, so late in the year, as though summer was reluctant to release its hold on Elrond’s valley. The air had a slight bite to it, but it was not unpleasant in the sunshine, for overhead the sky was cloudless and very blue. On any other occasion Sam would have been delighted by the sight of such lovely gardens, but now he just sighed, and tried to think back to where he had made the wrong turning.

He became aware then of tiny mewing noises, and someone laughing quietly. He turned to find a pair of kittens, one white with black socks and the other black with white-tipped ears, chasing a piece of string around as an elf dragged it across the flagstones. He sat cross-legged on the ground, rather than on the bench beside him; he was dark-haired and fair, though he had faint lines around his eyes that Sam had not seen in other elves, and a scar on his face that spoke of some long ago pain, and streaks of white in his hair, as though he had aged more like a hobbit than an elf. But when he looked up his eyes were bright, and his smile was easy. “Good afternoon!” he said. “You must be Master Samwise. Are you lost?”

“I beg your pardon!” Sam said, hurriedly bowing. “I seem to have gotten turned around somewhere.”

“You want to return to your master’s rooms.” The elf stowed his string away and picked up the squirming kittens; one he settled in the crook of his arm, and the other he set on his shoulder. “I can take you there; it’s quicker going around through the gardens.”

“Oh, thank you! I don’t mean to cause any trouble—”

“Not at all!” The elf smiled at him again. “I remember when I first came to Rivendell; it can be quite confusing until you get used to it.”

“When you first came?” Sam repeated. “Oh, but I thought…” He supposed he thought that the elves who lived in a place had always lived there; all the ones he had met so far seemed so settled, as though they had roots sunk into the earth as deep as any of the trees in the valley. That was silly, of course—Elves weren’t trees—but the impression remained.

“I have not lived here very long at all as Elves count the years, though it would seem a very long time to you,” said the elf.

“Where did you live before?” Sam asked. “Begging your pardon, if you don’t mind me asking.”

“I don’t mind, but I’m afraid I can’t give you any real answer. I lived nowhere at all—I was a wanderer for a very long time.”

“Oh. Like the Wandering Company, Gildor and his folk?” Sam had to trot to keep up with the elf’s long strides; when he noticed he slowed.

“Like and unlike,” said the elf. He glanced ahead of them and his smile brightened. “Mae govannen, Estel!”

“Strider!” Sam exclaimed, as Strider rose from the bench on which he’d been sitting, blowing smoke rings with his long legs stretched out before him. Sam had not seen him in several days, being busy with Frodo; he looked quite different, dressed in fine clothes like the Elves wore, rather than his travel-worn coat and muddy boots.

“Strider?” repeated the elf, laughing. “Is this the latest name you’ve chosen for yourself, Estel? I much preferred Thorongil.”

Strider smiled. “It’s good to see you too, Maglor,” he said, clasping his hand. “Hullo, Sam. Are you getting to know the place a bit?”

“Rather less than I’d like,” said Sam.

“I’m showing him the way back to Frodo’s room,” said Maglor. “Ouch, stop that, Haldanar.” He lifted the kitten off his shoulder as it tried to climb up onto his head. It mewed and squirmed in his hand.

Strider laughed, and Sam was struck by how much younger he seemed when he was merry. He reached out to take the kitten. “Haldanar, is it? And what is his sister’s name?”

“Haldisil, of course,” said Maglor.

To Sam Strider said, “You’ll never see Maglor without at least one cat in his arms, or following behind.”

“I’ve a cousin like that,” said Sam. “Never less than six cats about her house. It’s all the catnip she grows in her garden.”

Maglor laughed again. “I’m afraid I have no such excuse. But here! Just ahead through that door you will find the corridor leading to your master’s room. See, there is his bedroom window.”

“Oh! Thank you very much, Master Maglor. Good afternoon, Strider!” Sam hurried to the door, and as it swung shut behind him he heard both Strider and Maglor laughing again. It was a very nice sound; Maglor’s voice was rich and musical, and Strider’s laughter sounded like it belonged to someone else entirely—certainly not to the stranger they had met in Bree. It felt ridiculous now to have ever distrusted him.

He forgot all about Maglor and his kittens until Frodo was awake and recovering. He saw Maglor at the feast then that evening, seated near Lady Arwen; and in the Hall of Fire later, Sam dozed, but woke to a voice singing of Elbereth, and it was as though all the stars had come down into the room with them, luminous and breathtaking. He sat for a while, hardly breathing as he listened to the heartbreaking and mournful beauty of the song, and when it ended and the stars faded away from his eyes he saw the fire crackling cheerfully, and Maglor lifting his hands from the strings of a harp. He sat beside Master Elrond, and Strider was seated nearby too, with Lady Arwen, and all of them were smiling at one another. Sam glanced away hurriedly, feeling like an intruder, and discovered that Frodo and Bilbo had slipped away. He followed suit; Elvish singing was, as Bilbo had once said, certainly not a thing to miss, but Sam had other duties to consider—he thought, though, that he’d be dreaming of those stars for many a night.

 

Many long miles and months later, he peered out of the shadows of Gorgoroth at the clouds parting to reveal a single star like a diamond in the dark sky. Hope returned to him, and he recalled that song heard far away in Rivendell. When he crawled back to fall asleep beside Frodo, it was that music that filled his dreams, and when he woke later he felt new strength in him—just enough to keep going, to make to the end of that last leg of their journey. 

 

Later still, he met Maglor again in Minas Tirith when he came with the grand party from Rivendell and Lórien that brought Lady Arwen to marry Strider. On a sunny afternoon not long after the wedding, Sam found Maglor near the White Tree, sitting cross-legged on the ground just as he had been when they’d first met in Rivendell. His cats were not there, but he’d made friends with a litter of puppies. They romped around, nipping at his fingers and rolling onto their bellies for pets and rubs while their mother dozed in the warm sunshine nearby, one ear cocked up. She raised her head as Sam approached, but after a brief sniff at the air she lay down again with a sigh.

“Well met, Master Samwise,” said Maglor, looking up at him with a smile. He had seemed merry enough in Rivendell, but now it seemed as though some great weight had been lifted off of his shoulders. Of course, everyone was going around like that, a bit dazed and still not quite able to believe that it was all over, glancing eastward every so often as though expecting to see dark clouds over the mountains on the horizon. Sam kept looking, himself—and every time it was just clear skies. “Or should I say, Samwise the Stouthearted?”

Sam made a face, and Maglor laughed. “Just Sam, if you please, sir,” he said. “There’s no cause for all the bowing and honors and all that nonsense, not for me.”

“There is every cause,” Maglor said, “but I’ll call you Sam if you just call me Maglor, with no masters or sirs for me either—how does that sound?”

It sounded very strange, but Sam couldn’t think of a good argument against it. “All right,” he said, and sat down in the grass beside Maglor. One of the puppies immediately jumped up to start licking his face. “D’you remember that song you sang—that first night after my master woke up, in Rivendell?”

“I sang many songs that night,” said Maglor.

“This one was about stars, about Elbereth. It was like they’d all come down from the sky to listen to you singing.”

Maglor smiled. “That’s a beautiful thought,” he said. “I think I know the song. Was it this one?” He hummed a few bars.

“Yes, that’s the one. It stuck in my mind, that song, though I didn’t realize it until we were halfway to the mountain.” Sam tried to describe the sight of that single star above the cloud wrack, and how it had brought the memory of Maglor’s voice singing about the stars of Elbereth back into his mind. Of course he couldn’t put proper words to all the things he’d felt. Mister Frodo was better at that sort of thing. But Maglor listened quietly and intently, and Sam had the feeling that it didn’t really matter that he couldn’t find the right words—somehow Maglor understood him anyway.

When Sam finished, Maglor smiled at him, soft and sad. “I am sorry that you ever found yourself on such a journey, and in such dark and hopeless places,” he said, “but it seems that you were meant to, just as Frodo was meant to carry the Ring, and I am very glad to know that my songs helped you, even in a small way.”

“It did not feel small,” said Sam. “It was—well, it made me feel very small, but not in a bad way, if you understand me. It didn’t matter what happened to me in the end, or even to Mister Frodo. The stars were there all the time even when we couldn’t see them, and they’ll be there long after we’re gone, and not even Sauron could do anything about that.”

“No,” Maglor agreed, “he couldn’t. Even his own master could not alter the stars.” He scratched one of the puppies behind the ears, expression thoughtful.

“Well,” Sam said after a few moments, feeling his ears turning pink. “I just wanted to thank you, is all, Mast—I mean, Maglor.”

Maglor’s smile turned warm, his eyes crinkling with it. “You are so very welcome, Sam.”