#elurid

Wip of Maedhros with Elured and Elurid as Ignorance and Want

But it got me thinking, what if his background was even more headache inducing. So, ladies and gentleman, my take: Erestor is Elurid &Elurin.

Hear me out- the twins were left to die in wood and, we know, Maedhros went after them. He went there to save them, but, to twins, he was their enemy. The person who burned their home. Who killed their parents. Who was probably coming to kill them or keep them hostage for getting Silmaril. So they hid away from him and Maedhros did not find them.

And for the rest, it was that. After all, how could two young princes survive the hardship of life outside their comfort of palace? At best, they would die out of hunger or harsh environment and at worst, the orcs would find them. They were right, too.

They survived for few days. But they were children. Princes, at that. They have bevy of servants and maids taking care of them. They were provided with the best of the best. Food. Clothing. Tutelage.

They were not accustomed to these hardships. To forage for their food. To survive alone in woods. To watch out for Morgoth's servants. And soon they were out of luck.

Tired. Hungry. Hopeless. They fell in the path of a hunting party. Summoning the last dregs of energy, they tried to run away. To sing them away. (Music is a weapon on itself, for elves.) But they were children. Their efforts were futile.

That day, the hunting party left two dead elfings in their wake.

Now, normally, when elves die, they go to Mandos and men to their own version of afterlife. An easy to understand system. But, with Luthien's descendants, it is a bit difficult to say, how much of them is Man or Elf. But that is for another times.

At times, some elven spirits reject the call of Mandos and wander the Arda. (It was written in one of the books. I think. Idk, what really happens after that.)With time, they start loosing their sense of self. They become ghosts or spirits with not memory.

Elurid and Elurin never went to either of the afterlives. Not because they rejected, but they never felt their calling. To either Mandos or wherever men go after death. So, in that forest, their spirit dwelled for a period of time. It was not for long.

Even without realizing, they started making an elven body for themselves. (Just as Maia of Lorien do it for reborn elves.) The way to fashion a body of Elda was within their grasp. In their mind, soul and song. A feeling of deja vu. As if death revealed a part of song that eluded them before. Made the chorus rise up their throat. Made their spirits walk. It felt as if they had known this forever, but now it is within their grasp. Perhaps, Melian took pity upon them and gave them this kernel of knowledge or it was something they just knew because of their heritage. Who knows.

So they, fashioned a body. With nature, with their song and their Fëa. They could not make a vessel out of nothing. They were not Vala. They may be of Mairan descent, but they were too young. To inexperienced. Thus they needed substitutes to turn into body parts. Sometimes, it took months to find a perfect substitute. To travels miles before they found the part that felt right. That called to their soul.

Discarded weapons from fallen Doriath for their bones. Water of pond deep in the earth became their blood. Webs of Ungoliant's brood made their hair.

They plucked the freshest of leaves to stitch themselves a skin and walked the shores of Balar for seashells to fashion nails and teeth.

They scavenged the dead stag's and deer's for muscles and bound them together with the roots given by ancient trees of Nan Emloth.

For eyes, they walked in the palace of the hidden Gondolin. They could give us this much, the twins reasoned. For vision, they weaved strands of sunlight around the gems.

The heart was difficult. They stumbled upon a dying elf warrior in red, they sat beside her and listened to her tale spoken between bubbling gasps. And asked if they could have her heart as she does not need it anymore? For your kindness, she said with her last breath.

For lungs they wove vines and flowers from the hidden gardens of Silvan Elves. They wrapped it around the heart and ribs. The vines stretched upward their throat, around and unknown musical instrument they found in Daeron's abandoned quarters.

They dived in deep sea to find hollow tubes for vessels, honeycomb for brain, and spools of mithril weaving inside and outside for nerves.

For intestines and blood vessels, they swam to the dark of ocean and took hollow tubes out of the body of deep sea creatures.

It took them years to travel, to find, to make a Hroa, sufficient enough for their spirit. They traveled and saw the world. They learned and grew up. But time was near and they felt it. Their sister was gone. And something big was coming.

But only one was ready. And they were too restless. The unhoused body called to their anchorless spirits. They thought how bad it could be? All their lives, they have shared everything. A womb, a childhood, days they spent looking through each other's eyes, happiness and agony and death. What does it matter, if they shared a body too? (So two fea inhabited a hroa.)

It was bad. They were too uncoordinated and unused of a body this big. They had forgotten how to be corporal. They stumbled upon legs as weak as a newborn fawn. Their eyes hurt from looking all around them. And their mind was a cacophony of senses and thoughts. But they did it. And they could learn to dwell together in a body too.

Soon they learned to coexist in a body. They learned its control. Get accustomed to their senses and to each other. They also learned that their body was far too different from elves they have observed. Oh, it looked like them and was just like them. But there were differences.

Their eyes looked a bit too much like stones from certain angles, one was a shade lighter than other and they glowed like elves from Aman. Their joints could rotate in a way that they were sure normally should not. Their blood ran too thin, like water. Their hair did not have the texture as same as others. Too thin strands and too light in weight. If they pressed their skin, they could trace the leaves. Their body was not as light as it ought to be. They decided to leave it be. The difference were minor and could be overlooked.

They thought where to go now, so they simply traveled in hopes to find a way. They wandered near human settlements, helping them and learning by watching them. They were good at it. They practiced what they had seen as spirit. The trees brought them the rumor of a war incoming.

So one day, they showed upon Cirdan's doorstep. For he was known to them. And introduced themselves as Erestor. They were not, could not be, heirs or remembrance anymore. Elurid thought it was a humorous name. And the rest was history.