Summary: The Oath of the Feanorians shows Maglor nightmares of what might have befallen, had events played out but a little different. Five drabbles in the 'five things that...' meme style.
Warnings: Occurences of violence, torture, character death (of children) in non-canonical nightmare scenarios. Asterisked cuts contain abovementioned material.

Thank you, Lyra, for the MEFA Nomination!



One

In Araman, Arafinwe turned, and he followed, to the old house and the great kitchen, the white walls and low double windows of the kitchen into the orchard. But this time the dust lay thick like sand on the table and the well-used seats of the chairs, and the darkness crept in from between bare trees. Across the garden hedge and gate, lights were setting in an eerie blood-red sky, and the silhouettes of withered Telperion and Laurelin stared at him, from distant, high-up Ezellohar, across a barren land. He ---

--- woke in cold sweat; his brothers still dreamt.



Two*

He turned the red lock over in his hand again. They could have cut it off after Nelyo's death, could have --- but the alcohol dragged him into sleep, and it was he who readied the host, thrust up a gloved right hand, and sped away into the dark with his men blindly following. It was him who struggled and wheezed against flame and bond and darkness, was him lashed and beaten and broken until his skin turned leathery and his eyes cat-yellow, and he hated his reflection, and slammed his fist ---

--- into the mirror. Sleepwalking abruptly ended.



Three*

The coming flood could not wash the stains away, left slivers of red down the beach where two dark-haired children huddled in death, twins with anguish still written over their faces. They had doomed children to death again, and he stood choked on blood and tears as the ships from Balar arrived. The rescuers needed no chains to bind him, and the verdict was expected, "... death to you as you have rendered here if none of the wronged Falathrim plead for your life," and upon their silence, Gil-galad's sword ---

--- dissolved into thin air and Elrond's voice. "Father?"



Four

He watched the last ship glide from the harbour and vanish into the westering sun. The waves continued to lap at the shore. When night darkened, the three small watchers followed their homeward road. He let the steady rush of water lull him asleep, the gangplank under his feet and the rocking of the ship. In the distance a green land rose - home - but a grey rain curtain rolled out and obscured the warm sunlight. The sea raged, climbed, and the ship toppled ---

--- and he woke to the tide surging in the first storm of autumn.



Five

The Age of Men gleams in white stone, then glass and steel and neon lights. Cars crowd the roadways, and the old highways of the Eldar have vanished. It has become hard to sleep these days, the sea a mass of poison. But exhaustion overtakes him time and again, and he flees into the Elvish way of dreams, but even that is preoccupied with mortals; he trails into the night, unbodied and faded, and finds their minds closed to belief and song. The minstrel's cries go unheard ---

--- he thinks, distraught upon waking one early morning, that may occur.