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Chapter Text

Prophecy and legend tell us that the End will cause the release of Curufinwë Fëanáro from the halls of Mandos. Perhaps a better word than release would be escape, and perhaps a more apt concept than causation would be correlation. Either way, the two events are related, and this is how the rebellion begins.

Or perhaps not.

Perhaps instead, the rebellion begins when Maglor, Fëanor’s son, commits suicide, ages upon ages after his last brother does the same.

Perhaps not.

Perhaps, it starts when Ulmo, gentle Ulmo and terrible Ulmo, who loves Eru’s Children like they are his own, decides he shall prevent another elf from throwing themselves to their death in his waters. Perhaps, it starts when he gathers Maglor, Fëanor’s last son, in his arms, and bears him away from the shores where there is no life, only black ash and skeletal steel and radiation so strong it would have killed elf or man.

Yet perhaps this is the beginning of the End, not the beginning of the rebellion.

Perhaps, the rebellion began with Fingon, son of Fingolfin, who is alone. Perhaps it began with Finrod, son of Finarfin, who is kind. Perhaps it began with Finduilas, daughter of Orodreth, who said, ‘never again’, or Gil-galad, her brother, who said, ‘no more’. Perhaps it began when Legolas, son of Thranduil, brought Gimli, son of Gloín, to blessed shores. Perhaps it began when Galadriel, last survivor of the first rebellion, granted him permission to do so. Perhaps it began with Amdirdis, wife of Caranthir, who is unrepentant. Perhaps it began with all of them. Perhaps, the last rebellion never ended. Perhaps, the Noldor and their friends were never at peace.

Perhaps the Noldor have nothing to do with the start of it.

Perhaps it started with Lúthien of Doriath, who faced down two of the Valar, and won twice. Perhaps it started with Beleg of Doriath, who upon awakening on the far shores was reported to curse the Valar for their inaction and cruelty. Or perhaps it began with his Queens, Melian, who has always been a rebel, and Nimloth, whose children were not free to choose, and Elwing, who understands growth and trauma Námo never could. Perhaps it began with Elrond, of the Noldor and not, who has always been loving and good and lost everything anyways. Perhaps it began with Túrin, who is not yet there, but he will be. Perhaps it began with the innocent of Númenór. There were innocents in Númenór. Even the wicked had children, and there were those among the elves who remembered their deaths. Perhaps it began with those who refused Oromë’s summons in the years before the sun.

Perhaps it began with Eru, who created ainur and elves and men, and allowed them to be flawed.

Perhaps the cause is irrelevant. Either way, the rebellion has begun. Now all must weather the storm, elf, man, and ainu.

Chapter Text

“Don’t scream,” a voice said, in Fingolfin’s ear. He opened his mouth to do just that, and found a hand stuffed in it. He bit down, hard.

“Let him go, idiot,” said Anairë. She seemed remarkably unperturbed by the intruder in their bed chamber. Fingolfin could feel her sitting up in bed, pushing her back against the headboard.

“Me or him,” said the voice, pained.

Anairë’s tone was long suffering. “Whichever of you is the idiot, Curufinwë.”

Fëanor took his hand out of his brother’s mouth, carefully, and pulled a small glowing rock out of his pocket with the other. In the light, his features were cast into harsh relief. Fingolfin did not know how he had failed to recognise his brother. Even in the darkness, there was no mistaking him. Now, even less so.

“Is that-”

Fëanor put his hand back over Fingolfin’s mouth. “Questions later. Anairë, we need to go, now. Things have changed.”

Anairë asked no questions. Instead, she leapt out of bed and pulled on a pair of trousers and a short tunic. After a moment’s hesitation, she reached into the very bottom of her underwear drawer, and pulled out a shortsword. Fëanor set what surely must have been a silmaril down on the bed.

“Dare I assume everyone else is taken care of?”

Fëanor’s grin was wolfish. “Let us say it is convenient I have seven sons, and leave it at that. Ñolo, if I let you up, will you scream?”

Fingolfin shook his head, and Fëanor pulled his hand away, picking up the silmaril again. Anairë tossed him clothes, and he dressed. So many questions swirled in his mind, but he let them go. It was not trust of Fëanor that drove him. Fëanor was supposed to be dead. Instead, it was trust of Anairë, who he loved more than breath. She would mean him no harm, and she trusted Fëanor even less than he. If she thought this was important enough to risk trusting Fëanor, armed with a silmaril, then it must have been important indeed.

Once he was dressed, Fëanor tossed him a pack, and began helping Anairë roll clothes up small to shove into hers. She seemed to be taking everything, dresses, pants, jewellery. There was a pause when Fëanor lifted her crown, but a second later, he placed this too in her pack, and leant in to whisper something in her ear.

“You will not,” Anairë replied, and Fingolfin heard embarrassment clear in her tone. He considered throwing something at his brother.

“Get your own wife,” he muttered instead, and then regretted it instantly at the stricken look on Fëanor’s face. Anairë covered her mouth with her hand.

“Curufinwë, no. Please tell me it is not what I think.”

Fëanor bowed his head, and said nothing. It could only have meant that something truly terrible was happening. Bile rose in Fingolfin’s throat. Nerdanel was a good person, despite her dubious choice in husbands. If someone had hurt her, then the situation was far more severe than Fingolfin had realized.

Almost two months earlier, Galadriel had had a vision. Destruction among mortals, the Dagor Dagorath come. The Vanyar had denied it, while the Valar remained silent. Fëanor’s presence proved her right, and yet there must have been more to it. Anairë knew what was going on, obviously. If she thought leaving was the best course of action, Fingolfin was going to have to trust her. To trust Fëanor.

Fingolfin packed quickly, taking clothes, jewellery, his own crown, and, on the off chance they would be gone a long while, the small family portrait they kept on the bedside table. The second he was done, Fëanor covered the silmaril, plunging the room back into darkness, and allowed Anairë to lead them out. She knew the palace better than anyone, even Fingolfin himself, so perhaps it was not entirely a surprise that in darkness, he became confused by the strange route she was taking, most of all where it ended, in an empty storeroom below ground.

“What?” Fingolfin asked. Anairë and Fëanor both shushed him.

Fëanor pulled out the silmaril, laid it on the ground. This was, Fingolfin realized, the storeroom that had been abandoned because water had been pooling here, a thin coating on every surface. Anairë should have mended this by now, but perhaps war efforts had distracted her. As Fëanor looked at his jewel hopefully, it began pooling faster and faster, the water swam around their ankles, soaking shoes and socks.

“What is Ulmo’s, returns to Ulmo,” Fëanor said formally, and then, as water rose faster and faster, “I do recommend plugging your nose.”

Anairë did so. Fingolfin did not, and regretted it a second later when he found himself drowning, falling, water rushing everywhere. He thought he would die surely as anything, until he found Fëanor had grabbed his hand, tightly, and Anairë the other. He opened his eyes to try and look at them, feeling the sting of salt. Anairë had her eyes closed, and her nose pinched shut with her other hand. Fëanor’s eyes were open, and seemed to almost glow like Telperion in the darkness. When Fingolfin met his eyes, he gave what was probably supposed to be a reassuring smile.

They hit the ground a second later, and only Fëanor’s strength kept Fingolfin from falling over with the impact. The ground in question was a tiled mosaic in white, blue and green. The walls around them were coral, though marble columns supported the ceiling. Every surface was veined with gold in a strange pattern that must have some eldritch meaning Fingolfin could not discern. They were underwater still, and not. Glowing algae and Fëanorian lamps provided light, casting strange shadows around the room. Celebrimbor, who was standing at a desk in the corner, looked up.

“Are we first?” Fëanor asked, scooping his silmaril off the ground and pocketing it. Celebrimbor pulled out a pocket watch.

“No, but almost everyone has gone out again already.” He picked up some sort of slate with writing etched on it, and passed it to Fëanor. Turning to Anairë, he added, “you will find my father and our other guests in the entrance hall.”

Fëanor looked down to the slate, and, after a moment, seemed to narrow in on a particular item. “If it is not too much trouble, I will go out again, and leave these two in your care. Anairë, thank you for your discretion.”

Anairë gave him a sad smile. “Always, Curufinwë. I am sorry, that it was not enough. I will do all I can. That I promise.”

Celebrimbor left the desk, pushing his hair out of his face. Strangely, it did not seem wet. “Follow me. Grandfather, I wish you all the luck in Arda.” He passed over a stylus. “Mark off whoever you’ve gone after, would you?”

Fëanor gave him a slight bow, and watched as Anairë and Fingolfin followed Celebrimbor out of the room. It seemed to Fingolfin that they must have been in the home of Ulmo, and indeed the belief was confirmed when they came out into the Entrance Hall, and Fingolfin saw before him those that were assembled there. Ulmo himself was not there, but Ossë floated at Curufin’s side, in the form of a large octopus. They were on a sort of dias, which did not suit Curufin in the slightest.

At Curufin’s other side sat Celumë, Maglor’s wife and Anairë’s secretary. At the sight of them she stood, and, coming to Anairë, flung her arms around her. The rest of the crowd seemed to have assembled sitting on the floor. Elrond, Celebrían and Gil-galad were at the center of the crowd, with their two sons and the Sindarin Prince Legolas. Close by sat Queen Nimloth and Lalwen. Turgon, Elenwë and their younger two children sat with Aredhel, a stranger, and another Maia, dressed as a follower of Nienna. There were several more people there, but Fingolfin knew none of them by name. At least two were members of Turgon’s household, and one a member of his own.

“Will someone please explain to me what is happening?” Fingolfin burst out, instantly regretting it when the room silenced. Curufin, he realized, looked uncharacteristically morose.

One of the elves, who had been seated cross legged on the floor, stood. “My name is Maeglin,” he said, something not quite a smile on his face. He looked so much like Aredhel, now that Fingolfin knew he was her son. “Welcome to the rebellion.”

Anairë waved cheerily at him. Aredhel groaned. “I didn’t raise you this melodramatic.”

The introductions after that were not nearly so impressive. He got the names of the members of household, but they mostly washed over him as he stared at his grandson- his only grandson, who he had never seen before. None of them, kin nor strangers, would explain to Fingolfin what was happening.

“The Dagor Dagorath,” Maeglin elaborated, with a shrug.

“Nerdanel’s been kidnapped,” Turgon told them.

Curufin stared into the middle distance and didn’t say anything at all.

Celumë was more helpful. She had made a habit of assisting Anairë for several centuries, and this was no different. While her employer spoke to her daughter, son, and grandson, Celumë waved Fingolfin over to where she had returned to Curufin’s side.

“I take it you found Maglor, then?”

Celumë wasn’t the sort of person to blush, but she did look away from his eyes. “I knew where he was. I just couldn’t tell you, obviously.”

“But you told Anairë?”

There was a tiny blush. “Anairë told me. She- well, the two of you should be speaking about that. Do you trust me?”

Unbelievably, he did. Celumë had died in his service, defending Beleriand on the front lines. Then she had come back and helped his wife run the government for thousands of years. She was part of the family. She was also one of the bravest people Fingolfin had ever met.

“Yes.”

That earned him a smile. “This is the right thing to do. Not just because I love Maglor, but because Námo is doing the wrong thing, and if we don’t try to stop him, I don’t know who will. We should have told you. I know that. But can you tell me honestly that if I had come and said that Námo was trying to murder my husband and throw his family into the void, you would have been able to stay calm?”

When she put it like that, certainly not. “But who will rule the Noldor now?” Nimloth was here too. “Or the Sindar?”

“Idril, Finduilas and Elwing. Well, technically probably Findis and Argon, but Finduilas and Idril know the truth of things, and are both far more aware of the inner workings of the Noldorin government. They chose to stay. Argon will probably run the military.”

But that meant- “Argon is being left behind?”

Celumë suddenly seemed to be elsewhere, listening to someone who wasn’t there. Maglor must have been speaking to her with his mind. She stood, coming close to Fingolfin’s personal space, begged his pardon, and left. Curufin looked after her, but didn’t move.

“What happened to you?” Fingolfin asked.

“Liltallë isn’t coming,” Curufin snapped, “now get out of my face.”

Ossë wrapped one sucker-covered arm around his shoulders. Curufin tried to shrug it off, but when the maia didn’t move, he sighed, and allowed the touch.

Fingolfin left them alone, and went back to Anairë. She was sitting between Turgon and Maeglin, looking rather pleased. When Fingolfin came, she stood, and pulled him off into a corner.

“So,” Fingolfin said, “you were unsurprised to see my very dead brother in our bedroom in the middle of the night?”

“Not unsurprised,” she deflected, and looked away. Then something in her seemed to give, and she said, “I knew they were back. I was helping from the beginning, because Fingon asked me to. But I feared you might do something rash if I told you what was really going on.”

Fingolfin could not find it in his heart to be angry. Instead, he was sad, and tired. “And what really is going on?”

“Námo has decided that not all Eru’s children deserve to be admitted to Arda Remade, no matter who wins the war.” She twisted at her wedding ring, and Fingolfin thought for one mad second she might pull it off. “I won’t allow that. Even if our children were permitted- and Aredhel might not be- the people they love certainly wouldn’t be.”

She said nothing more after that, but her ring stayed where it had always been.

The next groups trickled in in ones and twos and threes. Fingolfin did not pay them any mind until Aegnor, who should have been dead, arrived, with his brothers and their respective spouses. Amarië went almost immediately to Elenwë, while Edhellos held back for a while, surveying the room. Then she approached Fingolfin and Anairë. She took Fingolfin’s hand in one of her own.

“My Lady?”

She offered him a small smile. “Whatever happens in this war, my king, the trust and loyalty of the Noldor is still yours.”

It did not seem that way. Anairë must have read this thought on his face, for she exhaled a small breath. “Aracáno, you must know that we did not tell you to protect you. If we did not trust your goodness, you would not be here. No matter how much power you have. No matter how we love you.”

Argon was not there. Because, no matter how much they loved him, someone in their family did not trust in his goodness. “Our son, Anairë.”

Her face fell, and Fingolfin knew she had been trying not to think of him. “We agreed upon that, in the end.”

“How?”

“I have a duty,” Anairë told him. “Not just to protect my children, but to allow them their choices. Can you tell me honestly that Argon would have ever chosen any course of action that placed him and Fëanor on the same side of a battlefield? Him and Curufin? If he chose to betray us, I would have let him, and they would have killed Aredhel, and Fingon, and Maeglin, and Turgon.”

It was a strange world, where Turgon was a rebel. “Turgon-”

He had come upon them as they spoke of him, and greeted his mother with half a hug. Serious as ever, he did not seem especially perturbed by the situation at hand. “You look more surprised than Fingon did.” The joke was dry, as Turgon’s always were. Then his expression became grieved. In a quiet voice, he added, “I love Argon. You know I do. But I can’t let Námo do this. It isn’t right.” He shot a look toward Aredhel and Maeglin. “I’ve failed them already. I can’t let Argon’s fears allow them to be hurt more.”

“And Idril?” It was a legitimate concern. Maeglin has wronged her greatly, once.

Turgon maintained his calm. “We discussed it. Idril has some reservations, without question, but she has other things the Valar have done that make her far angrier than I will ever know. Tuor cannot safely leave Valinor, and Eärendil as much a prisoner as Nerdanel is, so Idril chose to stay.”

Fingolfin could probably have counted on two hands the number of times he had ever spoken to Eärendil in private. The child was a servant of Varda, but not by choice. Fingolfin thought Idril would rather have seen him dead than without agency. Eärendil had always wanted to be mortal, to be free from this world. He deserved better than being trapped in one duty for thousands of years. If it had been one of Fingolfin’s children- what Varda had done was unforgivable.

For the first time, he felt a sense of purpose in this new rebellion.

Fëanor and all his other sons, and his grandson also, crowded in at that moment, trailing various accessories behind them. Celumë was back at Maglor’s side, while Amdirdis clung to Caranthir in an uncharacteristic display of vulnerability. Finarfin and Eärwen, Fingon, Galadriel, Celeborn and Melian of Doriath, and a somewhat unwilling Mahtan and Sanisse rounded out the crowd, along with Orodreth, his wife, and several more figures Fingolfin did not find familiar.

Fingon was holding hands with Maedhros, who did not look well for someone who should have been healed. He seemed half unhoused spirit, and half elf. His right hand was still gone, and he clearly leaned on Fingon for support. The crowd all watched him with varying levels and types of concern. He met none of their eyes, though something must have passed between him and Elrond, who offered a friendly wave.

Fëanor cleared his throat. “Ossë, by your leave.”

The octopus gave him a sarcastic half salute, and launched itself up through the water-air out of the building entirely. Curufin raised a hand as he watched the maia leave.

“Shall we begin then with the events that took place two months ago?” He asked the room at large, “or is there any event preceding that as must be added to the story?”

Two months ago, Galadriel had had her vision of the Dagor Dagorath.

Celebrían raised her hand. “There is the prophecy. It is relevant, if all here do not already know it.”

“Does everyone know at least some version of the prophecy of the Dagor Dagorath?”

Everyone did. They knew of the breaking of Morgoth’s chains, of how he would destroy the sun and the moon, of how men- at least some- would return from beyond, and how Fëanor would be freed to remake the world with the silmarils as new light. Or something. Tellings varied wildly.

Prince Legolas cleared his throat. He was not a confident speaker in council meetings, so his speaking was a strange thing. “The Valar never anticipated that we people with such enmity could have grown to trust each other, to love each other, but we did. Despite everything. Finduilas and Beleg aren’t here, but born of their love for Túrin, they came together, with nothing else in common. So many people did. If Galadriel hadn’t helped Gimli and I, I would never have met Finrod, or represented my people to the Tirion council, or been a part of any of this. There are so many wrongs the Valar have done over the years.” He gestured around. “They abandoned those who would not come to Valinor. They did not stand against Morgoth. Their aid against Sauron was token at best- sorry Mithrandir- and they were not good to those of us who loved mortals and were not so notable as Lúthien and Lady Idril. And there are so many more things. They never understood that all of us who suffered by their malice or ignorance could have grown to empathize with each other. We did.”

Nimloth took the attention in the room as easily as breathing. “I was angry with the Valar also, Morgoth least of all. We-” here she gestured between herself and Melian- “lost everything to them. Lúthien made her choice, aye. We admit the justice in that. But Dior was not offered a choice at all, and Thingol was caged long ages beyond what he deserved. It was only by their mercy that I did not lose my daughter as well as my sons. That was not justice. They were not yet old enough to run.”

She spat the word mercy like it was poison. Elrond Peredhel continued for her, rising up to sit on his knees. “The Sindar and the majority of the Noldor came together on their own. Through Nimloth and Lalwen. Through Finduilas and Beleg. I bridged the gap between the Sindar and the Fëanorians, for my blood may be Lúthien’s, yet Maglor and Maedhros are as fathers to me, and have always been. With the anger I carry, for all of my parents, I unite my family. Lady Celumë helped me to understand that. But, really, I think the story does start most logically with Maglor. If you’re up to it.”

“Sixty-three days, eight hours, and thirty-two minutes ago,” Maglor said, his voice a whisper. His father placed a strong hand on his shoulder. “The last mortal man in Arda died. I was there. I could not save him. Three hours after that, when I saw the silmaril rise in the night sky with nobody save myself, Eärendil, Varda and Eru to see, I knew the time had come. I climbed as high a cliff as I could find, and threw myself off. I was supposed to die. I lived. Ulmo-”

He started to cry, deep, heaving sobs. Fëanor pulled him close. Celegorm took over, with a look at his brother, “Ulmo brought him here. He had seen what his kin did to Maglor, and he knew that the Dagor Dagorath was come. Námo felt that in pursuit of a truly unmarred world, after the battle, the Valar should be looking to remove marred people. That meant he wanted Maglor. Ulmo hid him, while Aulë, who also recognized the immorality of the plan, arranged to free us.”

“In the early hours of the morning, seven days ago, my father and I, using tools from Aulë secreted into Mandos by Olórin here, arranged an escape. We took ourselves, Maeglin, Aegnor and Tauriel, and we ran, with not even clothes on our backs. We tried to free others, but Grandfather Finwë would not go without Thingol and Thingol does not trust us. I, for one, am glad we brought the people we did.” It was not in Curufin’s nature to regret. A red-haired Silvan, who must have been Tauriel, gave him a sly smile.

Caranthir’s voice was rough, but loud. “Ulmo brought us here, and, knowing that it is time, returned my father’s silmaril to his hand. We were notionally supposed to remain; though we were not caged, our contact with the outside world was limited. I do not think that kept it a secret from most.”

There was a wave of headshaking around the room. Amdirdis seized her husband’s hand, and pressed a kiss to his knuckles. She had survived Beleriand by the skin of her teeth, and had not seen Caranthir since his death. Fingolfin could not even imagine being without Anairë for so many years.

Fëanor sighed heavily, and pulled away from Maglor. “That may have been our undoing, in the end. Though we still have no reason to believe Námo knows where we are, he came for Nerdanel two hours ago.”

“I saw the whole thing,” Galadriel murmured.

“There was already a plan, for who would come and who would stay. It was supposed to be coordinated in advance.” Celebrimbor seemed more confident than when Fingolfin had known him. “Since that did not work, we declared a state of emergency and came to everyone as soon as we could.”

It could have been Fingon who had insisted on bringing them as two of the first people, Fingolfin knew, or Aredhel, Turgon, or even Celegorm and Maedhros on their friends’ behalves. But something told him it was not. Instead, he felt his eyes drawn to Fëanor. Fëanor, who had always gotten him into the worst sort of trouble. Fëanor looked away.

“We did not get everyone,” said Caranthir, “but we did try. We did. Believe that. But not everyone was safe to retrieve, or would have come with us, and Varda could only be deceived for so long. If we forgot someone- I do not know now what we will do, but there is no going back. I know that. For any of you. If you did not know what you signed up for- I am sorry but know that this fight is worth it.”

“Worth it?” Mahtan rumbled. “Grandson, do you know what you have done?”

Maedhros took a single, unsteady step forward. All eyes were instantly on his form. “The world is ending, Grandfather. Believe me, I know exactly what that means. Believe Ulmo and Aulë, if you will not believe us. When Arda is remade, Námo intends to sing us out of the song, we troublesome children. He and his allies intend to smooth what they see as flaws in the pattern of Arda. Us. Perhaps the Noldor as a whole. The troubled children of Aulë as well, perhaps. The effects could be staggering.”

“Could they even do that?” Eärwen wondered.

Fingolfin found himself answering. “Morgoth made modifications to the song in its infancy. Why not?”

There was a long, contemplative silence before Celebrían said, “so, now what?”

Celebrimbor checked his watch again. “We took a vote, and the results were, with one abstention and one ‘nay’, that we should break for the night, show you to your rooms, and reconvene in the mourning. If any has an objection, make it now, or, better, go get some sleep and object in the morning!”

There was a scattered burst of laughter. Fingolfin did not think that any would be sleeping, but the joke was good enough, in such dire circumstances, for a few.

Ulmo was not short on rooms, and people were divided up and shown away with almost concerning alacrity. Fingolfin found himself waiting, and indeed, soon only members of the family and spouses remained. Anairë had shown herself off to speak with Elenwë and Amdirdis, leaving Fingolfin waiting awkwardly alone. Turgon and Finrod were huddled together, speaking in hushed tones, while Fingon, Maeglin and Aredhel had all disappeared with their respective Fëanorions. They returned, eventually, by which point Arafinwë had given himself over as a sort of silent company. He seemed to almost be in shock, which made him not especially comforting at all.

Fingon and Maedhros returned first, still attached at the hip. Maedhros seemed more solid, a little, though he still did not seem well. His right hand, concerningly, had rematerialized. They approached, cautiously. Maedhros bowed, loose hair falling over his face. Despite his obvious illness, his very presence seemed to please Fingon. Fingolfin’s eldest looked the happiest he had in years.

“Atar,” Fingon greeted, awkwardly.

“You have some explaining to do,” Fingolfin told his son, amending, quickly, “oh, do get up, Maedhros. I did not like your bowing in private in Beleriand, and I do not like it any more now. You can help with the explaining.”

They both had the decency to look ashamed. “It is all my fault,” Maedhros offered.

Fingolfin resisted the urge to roll his eyes. “Having met the both of you, I rather doubt that. In my experience, Fingon is more than capable of walking himself into trouble.”

“And usually,” Fëanor added, coming up behind his eldest, “it is all my fault anyhow. Hello again, Ñolo.”

Fingolfin nodded at the bane of his existence. “Anyhow, Fingon, I would like your version of events, and I would like to know whether I have you or Aredhel to blame for dragging Turgon into this madness.”

“You are not curious as to who is at fault for dragging you into it?” Fingon asked. Fingolfin responded only by giving Fëanor a significant look. “Well, yes, I suppose. And you might as well blame Turgon for himself. He has never been one to accept anything less than righteous justice.”

This seemed a bit of a stretch to Fingolfin, and he said as much.

“Well, be that as it may, my version of events is that I had long and publicly opposed what the Valar were doing by using Mandos as a form of prison for elves, and also that I love Maedhros with every fibre of my being, so when I was asked to come help Maglor, I was always going to say yes. That’s all.”

Fëanor reached out, and put a hand on Maedhros’s shoulder.

“If you two would take charge, for a moment, I would like to speak to Aracáno alone.”

It was always disconcerting when Fëanor used his mother name. It meant trouble was brewing, without fail, every time. He drew Fingolfin away from the crowds, and down a long hallway. Against his better judgement, Fingolfin followed. Finally, he stopped in a portico. They were completely alone.

“I ought to hate you,” Fingolfin offered, as a conversation starter.

“Yes,” Fëanor agreed, “you should.”

That was unexpected, and Fingolfin said as much.

“Is it really? My life would be much easier if you hated me. Then there would be no grey to it all. You and I, enemies. But that was not to be, I think. There will always be grey. I hated you. I did. I left you behind. But you came anyways. And then you did your best to look after my children. And I can’t hate anyone who gave so much of themselves to look after my family.”

“Fëanor-”

“You died for my stupid war, Ñolo. You put yourself between Morgoth and my sons, and you didn’t bow or break. For that, I owe you a debt like no other.” Fëanor reached into his pocket, and withdrew the silmaril. “This wouldn’t pay it, even if I could give it to you.”

This was awkward. He had never thought that Fëanor would actually thank him for that. Anyways, it had not been merely for them. Some of his own children had still lived in Beleriand at the time. His grandchildren. He would have died under Morgoth’s foot no matter what Fëanor and his sons have done.

“I don’t need that. I never wanted anything from you.”

“Yes, when has angelic Ñolofinwë ever sought anything from the likes of me.” His voice was harsh, all of a sudden.

Fingolfin could have responded harshly in kind, but felt no drive to do so. “I’m sorry about Nerdanel. Did you have a chance to see her, at least?”

“No,” Fëanor murmured. “She didn’t even know anything. They took her, and she was totally innocent. They have her, and my parents- our parents, unless someone thought to warn Indis. And Findis and your Argon, not that they would have joined us anyways, but-”

Fingolfin felt his hand drift unconsciously to where it would have rested on the hilt of his sword, once. “Just because they would not have fought with us, does not mean they deserved to be abandoned either. We will find a way to get them back. All of them.”

A small smile touched Fëanor’s lips. “You think so?”

“I do.” He considered reaching out to touch his arm, and then decided not to. “Is Maedhros alright? He seems…” He trailed off, gesturing vaguely.

Fëanor shook his head. “Being trapped in Mandos reminded him of Thangorodrim. He couldn’t heal his fëa there. And then he insisted on being the last one out. Námo almost had him, and I-”

This time, he did reach out to put a hand on Fëanor’s arm. “He’s stronger than he looks. He always has been. And Fingon won’t leave him. They’re… you must see it, now.”

“I see it,” Fëanor agreed, and leaned into the touch. That surprised Fingolfin, but he didn’t move his hand. “I’m glad. For the Peredhel too. Maedhros needs to let someone else carry this with him. He spent so long having to look after others. It wasn’t fair, I should have-”

The things they two should have done, with the benefit of hindsight, could have filled a thousand ballads and ten thousand novels. “We can’t unmake the past. All we can do is look after them now. All of them.”

Fëanor reached up, and took his hand. “I will do the best I can to protect our children. I promise you that.”

Fingolfin brought their hands down as if they were sealing a bargain. “I promise you the same.” Then he released Fëanor’s hand, and said, “we should go now, and be with them in the time we have. It may not be as long as we should like. With you free, Morgoth could be breaking through that door at any second, and I will not let that monster walk free, no matter what ills Námo has done by us.”

Fëanor turned, and walked away.

Chapter Text

Ulmo was everywhere and nowhere, as he usually was. He reached out across the sea, understanding. Perceiving. Knowing. He didn’t see or hear. He had no ears or eyes, in this form. He was the water, and he knew. He heard the mortals screaming, felt the seas boiling, the drought, the end of all things, and the absence of new knowledge. And then he knew one last body was falling towards him, and he reached out, and caught it. Ulmo hadn’t caught someone since Elwing, and when he reached out now, it was with his own arms, maybe for the first time.

He did it because he knew who was falling. He knew the voice that sung his goodbye, and as Ulmo reached out, he slowed his fall, and cradled him to his bosom, and took him home.

The elf slept, sick and fading. Ulmo put him to bed, and summoned his advisers. Of all the maiar in the seas, rivers and oceans of the world, there were two who regularly gave him council in all things. They held his total faith, and he loved them.

Uinen and Ossë came when called. The husband took the form of an octopus, and watched the sleeping elf carefully. He waved one of his legs in front of his face, to check that the elf was truly unconscious. The wife took upon herself the form of a stingray, and watched the proceedings carefully.

“Fëanor’s son,” she observed, as her husband touched a strand of hair.

“Stop that Ossë,” Ulmo ordered, because, really.

Ossë crossed four arms in front of him. “So, why do you need us here?”

“I need to know what you think I should do with him.”

Uinen flapped slowly, displacing the water around her. “He sings sweetly. I feel it, sometimes. You shouldn’t hurt him.”

“Obviously we aren’t going to hurt him, Uinen,” Ossë told her, as though he didn’t hurt people regularly. “The question is, can we return him to Valinor? Legally, I mean. Is he pardoned? Or do we have to put him back? It’s so empty there. I was making a storm, and I saw the weapons flying. Terrible things, Ulmo. Terrible things. If we put him back there…”

Ulmo nodded. If they both agreed, it was likely right. “He’s been punished enough. I-”

He broke off as he felt Manwë’s summons.

Ossë and Uinen both looked up. “I’ll look after him until you get back,” Uinen promised, and shifted her form into that of a mortal woman, robed in seaweed.

“Thank you, Uinen. Ossë.” Ulmo transported himself to Taniquetil, and found that he was last of the valar to arrive. Unusually, they were all there, rather than merely the Aratar, or those who selected to be Manwë’s councillors on a more regular basis.

“You’re late.” Nessa told him. She stood by her sibling’s side, in the form of a Vanya, robed in white. Oromë, for their part, was in the form of a large white cat, tail curled over their paws. They said nothing.

“I was speaking to Ossë and Uinen about what happened,” Ulmo told the room at large. “I take it you all felt it too.”

Námo and his siblings nodded, as did Aulë, Varda, and their spouses. Vána began to cry. Everyone else shook their heads, save Vairë. She said, “no, but I wove it. The men destroyed each other. Utterly. They poisoned the water, the soil, and the air.”

Ulmo had known, but her words made it more real, somehow. “So, this is the end, then. We must go tell the Quendi that the war comes. They fought Melkor once, and will again. I know it to be true.”

Námo and Yavanna exchanged a look. “Ulmo,” Varda said, patiently, “I don’t know if that’s a good idea. They fought him, yes, but they betrayed us.”

“They betrayed you,” Ulmo corrected, “I have never known the elves who worked with me to be disloyal.”

“They betrayed us.” Aulë’s word on the matter was final. His eyes were red from crying. Ulmo could see that even under his thick eyebrows. “You know it to be true.”

Perhaps, it was true. But the ocean was vast, and unknowable. Of all his kind, Ulmo understood best what it was to not know yourself, as the Children did.

“We did not summon you to debate this matter,” said Námo. He brought doom to elves, and order to the valar. They turned to look at him. “The decision is mine, by our father’s right. I say, we cannot trust them to fight by us, and more. I see that when we sing again, the survivors will sing together- Melkor and his allies, or us and ours. Whatever the outcome, I do not believe that those highest traitors should be allowed to sing with us.”

Ulmo felt a horrible dread coursing through him. He kept the waters of his surface placid. They could not know what lay beneath. “Who, exactly?”

“Fëanor’s house and their followers,” Vána said, instantly. “The Traitor of Gondolin.”

“They are not the only ones who rest in my walls,” Námo pointed out. “I have also Elu Thingol and Finwë. We might at least try them again for their breaches of the natural order.”

“Why stop at your walls?” Yavanna demanded. “They are killers, the Noldor. It is in their very blood. We all saw it. If the flaw is in the sons, then surely in must be in the mother.”

“No!” Vairë snapped. Her form dissolved and knitted itself back together. “You will none of you lay a hand on Míriel.”

“Peace,” Vána soothed.

Varda said, “I am sure Yavanna did not mean her, Vairë. But Nerdanel? The Traitor’s mother? They are each unrepentant. Why, Nolofinwiel still insists upon the boy’s innocence.”

Ulmo could not believe what he perceived. “You would cast Eru’s children into nothingness? For the crimes of others?”

Námo held up the ends of his robes as an elf might have held up their hands. “We are meant to build a flawless world, Ulmo. How can we do it with these flaws? But, again, we are getting off track. All I wanted to know was whether anyone had seen Maglor Fëanorion. He was still on the far shore, and should be dead, of the poison in the air and water, but I cannot seem to find him in my realms. Either he has been taken into the darkness for his broken oath, or he is hiding.”

Ulmo kept his surface as flat as a mirror. “I have not perceived him since before the event.” The valar were not supposed to lie. Some of them could not; they could only deflect or obfuscate the truth. But Ulmo could lie, and he did.

Manwë turned to Nessa and Oromë. “You know what to do.”

Nessa placed a hand on Oromë’s head, and they both vanished.

Ulmo said, “Aulë, Yavanna, you both agree with this? Even after having your own children, you would kill Eru’s?”

Aulë looked away. Ulmo hoped he felt shamed. Yavanna snapped, “they killed our children. Their corruption destroyed all we made. We know that Melkor made some of the firstborn other than what they were intended in such a way that he removed them from their very being. What if his early contact with the secondborn did the same? What if they are corrupted in their very being? Our charge is to make this new world perfect, as Námo says. I cannot build perfect forests with tree killers.”

Ulmo flexed his form in a way that showed his sympathy. “I’m sorry for your loss. If either of you want to talk about it, you know where to find me. Aulë, I would be interested to know your thoughts upon the issue of the Fëanorions in more detail. You have unique insight into the matter.”

He knew that he had to get the Lord of Stone alone, to know the truth of his views. He had so few potential allies, it seemed, that not one could be wasted.

The meeting seemingly dissolved from there, and so Ulmo did the same. He returned home to find Ossë and Uinen conversing in whispers. When they saw him, they both turned.

“Maglor is fading,” Ossë told him, bluntly. “He needs healers. Neither of us have the skill. Should we contact Estë?”

Ulmo would have loved to be able to trust her. But right now he couldn’t. He couldn’t trust anyone. So, he filled his friends in on what had been discussed in council.

“So, what do you think? I will defend him, whatever they say, but I will not ask you to damn yourselves with me. You can leave, now.”

Uinen and Ossë looked at each other. Ossë said, “I have been a traitor before, for worse reasons. I have believed that the Sons of Fëanor deserved a second chance for a very long time. I stand by that.”

He reached a leg out to Uinen. She took it in her hand. “I believe in second chances too.”

Ulmo reached out, and enveloped them both in something like a hug. “Thank you.”

Uinen smiled. “It is about time we reminded our kinsmen on the surface. The sea does not obey. Although it may be buffeted by winds or break upon the shore, in time, it takes all things.”

It was a mistake to think Uinen was the maiar of the merciful sea. She was the sea at rest. Waiting. She was the calm before the storm. But the storm always came, in the end, and she loved him.

Ossë said, “they never understood what he was like. What it was like. They could close their eyes and ignore it. We never could. I think they forget, sometimes, that it was by our grace that Fëanor made it to Beleriand.”

Ulmo could have stopped the stolen ships, at the cries of the Teleri. Uinen could have stilled the seas under them; Ossë could have killed them all. But they hadn’t. They had allowed the Noldor to live, and they would do so again. No matter what.

Ossë turned away from the hug, and touched the Fëanorion’s forehead. His form shifted to that of an elf. “He has a fever. We need to find a healer quickly, or the whole argument will be rendered irrelevant.”

Ulmo could feel the fëa fluttering weakly. No healer could arrive in time to heal this. He reached into himself, and pulled out the stone. Uinen raised an eyebrow at him.

“Are you sure?”

“I am. It was a gift, after all. I can give it back, if I want. The light will call to him, keep him with us. It is in the nature of elves to seek it, and his more than most.” As tenderly as he could, Ulmo pried Maglor’s hand open, and pressed the silmaril into it, upon the spot where it had burned ages before. Perhaps because Ulmo was giving it freely, or because thousands upon thousands of years had passed, it did not burn. Maglor shifted uneasily, as if knowing that something monumental had occurred.

Ossë nodded. “That makes some sense. So, do either of you know a healer we can trust? It should be an elf, I think. The other maiar- I am sure some of them are trustworthy, but they do not have the compassion of elves, with a few exceptions.” He looked to his wife, and smiled.

Uinen smiled back. “I know. I also know an elf who might help us. Maybe more than one. You say they want to sing the Sons of Fëanor out- well, we should find people who want to stop that.”

Ulmo sensed a pressure at the end of the sea. “Lord Aulë wants to talk. Uinen, find a healer. Ossë- try not to drown anyone while we’re out.”

It was an old, tired joke, but Ossë still gave him a rueful smile. “There’s nobody left to drown.”

Ulmo took himself to the edge of the water, in the form of a whirlpool. Aulë stood on the shore, a massive statue of a dwarf made of sandstone.

“You wanted to talk?”

He bowed his head, massive braids shifting and grating together. “I did. It- none of the others live in this world, the way we two do. Nienna and Estë may love the children well, but neither of them have been part of it, touched this world, and lost.”

Aulë had lost two of his maiar to Melkor’s corruption. Unlike Ulmo, he hadn’t gotten them back. His paternal love for Curumo and Mairon was different than what Ulmo shared with Uinen and Ossë, but it was not lesser. That grief was terrible and real.

“What about your wife?” Ulmo wondered.

“It is in her nature to ask for the world to be wild, unclaimed. She sees the children as anathema to the very idea. And she is hurt, right now. All her work came to nothing, in the end. When the wound is less fresh, I suspect it will pain her less.”

“And you don’t feel the same hurt?” Ulmo’s waters churned in nervousness.

Aulë seemed to think about it. “No. I grieve, but no. Sometimes, one’s creations fail, or are destroyed. The glory is in the act of creating. Just because it no longer exists, does not mean that it did not happen.”

“So, you do not rage at the Noldor?”

“Rage? No. Regret? More than you can know.” Aulë’s expression twisted into something sinister.

Ulmo extended a hand from the form. “Come, speak to me a while longer.”

“The tablemounts?” Aulë asked. It was one of the natural boundaries of their two territories, where their powers met with Melkor’s in unique fashions. Now that he was gone, they administered them on their own. They had no control over the eruptions, but could at least sense their arrival. None were impending.

“Yes.”

They transported themselves there in an instant. This time, Ulmo was a giant squid, while Aulë’s dwarf was formed from basalt.

“I will not allow them to sing the Noldor out,” Ulmo said, before Aulë could speak. “Whatever it takes. I will sing them in myself, if I have to. I will-”

“I think Námo plans to throw them into the void. They cannot be retrieved as they are from there. You cannot let him find Kanafinwë. You must find him first.”

Maglor would stay out of Námo’s grasp if Ulmo had to hold his Fëa down and shove it back into his body. “Let me worry about that. What about the others?”

“Let me worry about that.” There was something dangerous, in Aulë’s eyes. “My children remembered the kindness of Celebrimbor, the loyalty of Maedhros and Caranthir. In their slumber, I remember for them.”

“Well, if you decide to… take action, remember that the only place in this world life exists untouched by air or starlight is my domain.”

Aulë’s massive head bowed. “I will remember. And, you, remember, you do not have to face the world alone.”

Then he was gone, and Ulmo returned home to find Uinen, Ossë, and Elrond Peredhel in an awkward circle around Maglor’s bed.

“How is Aulë?” Ossë asked.

“Helpful. Uinen, this is your healer?” She nodded. She was wearing Círdan’s form, but seeing him, she switched to the upper body of an elf-maid and the lower body of a seahorse.

“Elrond Peredhel, Ulmo.”

Peredhel’s face was an absolute mask. “Thank you for welcoming me into your home, my Lord. Now, if I could have some privacy with my patient, that would be very much appreciated.”

Ulmo observed Uinen. She and Ossë had both been known to… borrow Círdan’s form as a disguise to use among elves, and this incident seemed no different than the others, save for the unreactive stare on Peredhel’s face.

“Did you actually let him think you were Círdan?” She looked away. “Uinen! I thought you said you trusted him.”

“I do,” said Uinen.

Peredhel, unbothered, asked, “could my lords and lady please take this somewhere else?”

Ulmo herded his renegade maiar out of the room before they could cause any more emotional distress.

Once they were alone, Ossë turned to him and asked plainly, “is Aulë with us, or against us?”

“With us. For better or for worse.”

Uinen breathed a sigh of relief. “Good. One Vala is a rebellion. Two is a real fight.”

The three of them spent the rest of the day multitasking. Ossë battered the now-abandoned coasts with storms to disguise any evidence that Maglor had ever been there. Uinen appeared to some Telerin sailors, as usual. Ulmo maintained the tides. Simultaneously, they all composed a list of which valar were likely to side with whom in the debate.

Manwë? Ulmo thought, as he stirred the circumpolar currents.

He has been inclined to leniency in the past, Ossë told them, and slammed another tidal wave into the burnt remains of the city. The skeletal forms of trees tore free from the earth. A tall building, already gutted, swayed disconcertingly.

But Varda is not, nor has she ever been. Manwë admitted she was right before, in the end. Uinen splashed a young Telerin elleth, a blessing of sorts. It was a miniature version of what her husband did on the opposite side of the ocean, but rendered all the more endearing by its smallness.

Ulmo rode the sinking, frigid waters down to the furthest depths. I can see this tearing many marriages apart. Yavanna and Aulë, of course, but Vairë, I think, will not be swayed from her defence of Míriel Þerindë. I do not presume to know what Oromë believes, but they were friends with the Noldor, once, and the firstborn are their children as much as mine. Vána, on the other hand, has felt the death of spring now. Vengeance has taken root in her heart.

Ossë redoubled his efforts, tearing apart buildings with massive fists of swirling water. Steel crashed down upon the dead city. I am glad we three are not so different, in this respect. I cannot imagine being married to someone who does not understand that people sometimes make mistakes.

Sometimes, Ossë and Uinen would say such things. Would count Ulmo as theirs, without even thinking of it. Even now, after so many millennia, it sent a thrill so his very being. They are mine. I am theirs.

Yes you are, Uinen contributed, fiercely. You are ours, our vala.

Speaking of, Ossë added, we need to discuss the fact that you believed we would abandon you. I think we both agree, we will not abandon you, for Manwë or Melkor or Námo.

Ossë-

I know I left you once. I know. But we were not us, then. We were not this. My heart wanted it, but what pain in asking? It tore me apart inside. I was wrong. Even if rebellion is not innately wrong- I still do not believe it is- I did it for selfish reasons, and I hurt the people I love, and who love me in turn. I never want to hurt you again.

Neither do I. You are no lesser partner in this, Ulmo. Your fellows may not recognize it, but we do, and the three of us are the only ones who get a saying in this. Námo can-

She broke off into an extremely graphic description of what, exactly Námo could do with all of his laws. Ulmo, beginning to push the tides out against Middle Earth, rumbled in amusement.

I love you both, he told them. I do.

And so, reassured in their convictions, they returned home that evening to find Peredhel slumped over in a chair, exhausted. Because he had maiarin blood, it was not so hard for Uinen to reach out and gift him a little of her own strength. He shifted restlessly.

“He’ll live,” Peredhel said, and yawned. “But you should not leave him alone. Elves are social by nature. Properly, I would like to have one of his brothers here, but failing that, a friend or a cousin would do. Or his wife or mother. Well, actually, ideally I would take him home, but the very fact of my being brought here tells me that is not an option.”

Ossë sighed, and shifted into his favourite elven form, an armoured warrior, bearing a trident. Then, realizing how threatening this seemed, he banished the arms and armour, replacing them with a fisherman’s garb. “Námo intends to cast the treacherous Noldor out of the world. As of today, the valar are at war. With Melkor, soon, and with each other, now, though Námo does not know it yet.”

A terrible choice faced them, but Ulmo already knew the answer. “We cannot warn anyone. If we do, it may tip Námo off to whatever Aulë has planned. The longer he believes we will all comply, the longer we have to prepare, to sway valar and maiar to our sides.”

Peredhel disagreed. “You need to warn people. When Námo learns he’s been betrayed, he will strike against you. The Noldor need to be ready. Why, up there, people do not even know that something terrible has happened on the far shores. I need to tell them.”

Perhaps. “Not all of them. Some will already be under surveillance. Fëanor’s branch of the family, certainly. Their wives and mothers as well. If they act strangely, Varda or Manwë will notice.”

“They may very well be. But I am not, or we would be caught already. So, let me inform my family, covertly, spread the word. Find someone to bring here.”

Ulmo measured the time in tides, but could translate for others in a pinch. “Very well. You have until… noon tomorrow. At that time, tell whoever it is to take a swim in the cove where the House of Finwë used to go in the summers. Any of Maglor’s kin should know the place. I’ll bring them here.”

Peredhel got shakily to his feet, and, giving his patient’s hand a squeeze goodbye, let Uinen take him home.

Ossë settled into the chair Peredhel had vacated, and said, “I’ll watch him, for tonight.”

Ulmo formed lips, and kissed him with gratitude.

The ‘covert’ person Peredhel decided to send him the next day was pro-Fëanorion agitator and general busybody Findekáno Nolofinwion.

“What part of discreet did the half-elf not understand?” Ossë demanded, when they realized who it was. “Námo will notice his absence in a heartbeat, will trace it back to us, and-”

Nolofinwion, unmoved by this fierce display, cut him off. “No, he will not. If he notices me missing, which he will not, because it is Tuesday and I am never in court on Tuesdays, he will discover the only people I have spoken to today are my assisstant and my sister, and, if he were uncannily intelligent, he might discover that my sister often goes on early morning runs, and so does Celebrían Nerissë, and this morning, they happened to select the same route, a not so uncommon occurrence, and Celebrían, not looking where she was going, tripped and bumped into Aredhel, leaving her with a note addressed to me in her back pocket, which she did not find until she got home.”

Well, if Peredhel thought he had it under control. “Can I trust you, Findekáno?”

Nolofinwion folded his arms behind his back, all confidence. He had a military bearing, even after years of peace, and muscles coiled tight under his dark skin. “A world without Fëanor’s sons is a world I don’t want to see. Whatever needs to be done, I’ll do it. Now, please, take me to him. And it’s Fingon, for the record.”

When he saw Maglor, Fingon stopped and stared. It took Ulmo far too long to realize that it was the silmaril that he was watching.

“I gave it to him,” Ulmo advised. “To help him stay with us.”

That was what he needed to hear, to go through the door and sit on the edge of the bed. Peredhel’s words had made it seem as though Maglor’s injuries, in hröa and fëa, were severe enough that they would take weeks or months to remedy. But when Fingon reached up and stroked Maglor’s hair tenderly, his free hand, the one that wasn’t holding the silmaril, came up and grabbed Fingon’s. Fingon shrieked, and they both stared at each other for a long moment.

Maglor, perhaps realizing he was under water, began to gasp for air. He let go of the silmaril, which Ulmo caught and brought back into himself before it could hit the ground. Fingon seized both of his hands.

“Maglor. It’s alright. You’re safe.”

“I’m dead,” Maglor told him. “I’m dead, you’re dead.”

Fingon pressed one hand to his heart, and the other to Maglor’s. “No, we aren’t.”

Maglor pushed him away, sending Fingon stumbling backwards off the bed. “You don’t understand. Everyone is dead. I saw it. I saw them die, and I killed myself.”

Fingon sat on the floor, a look of true shock on his face. He hadn’t known that. Ulmo was fairly certain even Elrond hadn’t known that.

“No, you didn’t,” Ulmo told him, focusing as hard as he could, made himself take on a form in the vein of Uinen’s seahorse-elf. It only sort-of worked. He found himself scaled, hands webbed and hairless. But it would do. “You fell. I caught you.”

“I fell on purpose!”

“And I caught you, and brought you here. On purpose. Your punishment is over, Maglor. You’re safe.”

“Maglor,” the elf said, softly. “Maglor. Men have-had this cliché where immortals in stories forget their original names in time. I never did. But I remember. I haven’t said it in a long time. Maglor. Makalaurë. Kanafinwë. Later, when mortals traveled more from culture to culture, I went by variants on that name, but never by the name itself.”

“’Laurë,” Fingon added, gently.

“Maedhros used to call me that.”

Fingon gave him a sad smile. “Yes, he did.”

Ulmo, unable to hold the form much longer than he already had, left them to it.

Chapter Text

They tried to go back to sleep, after Maglor had woken them and brought them to Ulmo. Celebrían did, for an hour or so, burying her face in the back of Elrond’s neck and holding him close as if she were afraid he might slip away in the night. Elrond, for his part, did not sleep, precisely, but he did fall into a soothing pattern of drifting thoughts. Gil-galad did not sleep at all. He lay by Elrond’s side for an hour, while Celebrían fell asleep. Then he stood, and, folding his arms above his head, pressed his forehead against a wall.

Are you alright? Elrond thought at him.

Gil-galad shook his head. He was worried for Finduilas. Elrond could not begin to imagine the fear of having his sister choosing to be in a position where she, an immortal, might be killed permanently. Or perhaps he was one of only a few people in Arda who could understand.

There was nothing Elrond could say that would make it better. So instead, he closed his eyes, and let himself relax into Celebrían’s arms. She made a soft noise in her sleep and nuzzled closer.

I’m taking a walk, Gil told him, and, opening the door quietly, slipped out into the corridor. Elrond hoped he would find comfort with one of their friends.

Although he had no sister to lose acting as a spy in the upcoming battle, there were people remaining above who Elrond valued and cared for. His mother, first and foremost. Their relationship was not that which biology might have supposed, but Elrond did love her, in his way. There was a niggling suspicion in the back of his mind that she was staying in danger for him. She would never have been told of Maglor’s safety if not for their relationship. And now she might die for it. Eärendil was still in Valinor, too, but they had not gained the closeness Elrond and Elwing had come to share. Elrond barely knew him at all. What’s more, he would have been in terrible danger from Morgoth no matter what Elrond had done. Elrond was tired of people being called into terrible danger on his account.

There were others in danger too. Nerdanel, who he had met twice and who was his grandmother as much as Idril or Nimloth. Idril herself, and Tuor, who would die if he left Valinor. Gwindor and Gelmir, with Finduilas; Mablung and Beleg, with Elwing. Foolish Argon and proud Findis, who knew nothing and would be suspected anyhow. Thranduil, who was arrogant, but had always loved his son, and who would have been torn apart had he known of the obliteration of his world by mortal war and arrogance. None of them deserved to die. All of them might. Those who, by choice or by circumstance, remained tied to Námo.

Gil-galad returned an hour later, and slid into bed beside Elrond. Although Ulmo’s powers made it as though nothing felt wet, Gil’s skin was miserably cold, and his feet against Elrond’s were like ice. Elrond kicked him gently in the shin.

“Sorry,” Gil whispered, and redoubled his efforts to put his cold feet between Elrond’s legs.

Celebrían pulled her face out of Elrond’s hair and said, “come into the middle if you’re so cold, Gil.”

He less slid between them and more piled on top, legs and arms all over and his face in Celebrían’s breast.

“I’m afraid,” Celebrían told them, when it became clear nobody was sleeping. “I wasn’t there in Beleriand. I have no idea what this is going to be like. I couldn’t survive Middle Earth. How can I survive this?”

“I couldn’t survive Middle Earth either,” Gil-galad told her softly, pushing back to look at her, and then leaning in to press a soft kiss on her lips. “I won’t bother to tell you that you’re strong, ‘Brian. You know that. I will tell you that nobody is prepared for this. Not you, or me, or Fingolfin, or Fëanor or Manwë himself. This is like nothing that has ever happened in all of Arda.”

Celebrían leaned up to kiss him again. “Thank you, Ereinion.”

Elrond had needed to hear it, too. “I love you both, no matter what.” Then, sobering, he added, “if something happens to me, and the two of you survive, stay together, please.”

They both turned to him. Gil managed to speak first. His voice was rough with pre-emptive grief. “If you die, Ronnie, then I can promise you nothing we say now will have the strength to bind us. Celebrían- I love you, but if any of us were gone forever- I wish it would be me. I know you can live without me. The children-”

“Shut up!” Celebrían hissed. “Both of you. None of us is dying, or, if we lose, all of us will fight until we die. Gil- those choices don’t exist, and if we did, neither of us would ever choose to lose you. Elrond- I promise to keep living if you die. I promise to look after the children. I promise to love Gil, because I couldn’t stop loving him any more than I could stop loving you. But we can’t promise our relationship would stay the same without you. You couldn’t promise us the same, either. A piece of us would always be gone.”

There was nothing Elrond could say to that. They lay together until a knock came at the door. Gil, who was the only one the three who slept clothed, went to open it.

“Hello Ereinion.” That was Galadriel. Celebrían sat up, and went unclothed to stand beside Gil-galad. Elrond pulled the blankets up over himself.

“Is it time for the meeting?” Celebrían asked.

“No,” she told them, “not for an hour or so. I came to see if you were awake because I wanted to speak with Elrond. I’ve had a vision, and I need his advice.”

Typical. Elrond stumbled around, pulling on a pair of pants and an undershirt. He opened the door, and allowed Galadriel inside. She took a seat in the armchair, while Gil and Elrond perched on the edge of the bed and Celebrían unpacked her bag, looking for clean clothes.

Galadriel tapped her fingers against her knee. She was clearly already dressed in preparation for the morning’s council, wearing traditional white robes and a coronet. Whether she’d brought them or pilfered them from Ulmo’s wardrobe, Elrond didn’t bother asking. In the tinted, underwater lighting, her fair skin, far more pale than her daughter’s, looked uncanny.

“I saw Eärendil fall.” It was a mark of their long friendship that she never called him Elrond’s father. “He looked dead. I didn’t see the silmaril.”

“Did it feel certain or merely possible?” Celebrían asked.

Galadriel shook her head. “Nothing is ever certain. But it felt rather more preordained than some of my visions.”

Elrond thought he understood what she meant. “There’s nothing you can do to save him. He’s too far gone.”

Galadriel looked carefully at him. “They did this to him. How can we excuse letting him die?”

“We can’t,” Gil-galad said. Of the four of them, he had spent by far the most time with Eärendil. “There is no excuse, and we have to do it anyways. If we went to him, Varda would kill us. Eärendil would not want anyone to be trapped the way he is trapped.”

He was right, but it still stung. “We’ll do what we can. I wish I knew more to help you, but I haven’t seen anything since Maglor returned. I think being so close to the end disrupts my sight.”

“Celumë said the same. As Námo has always. It concerns me that I have been able to see this, now.”

It was a concern. But Námo was not the only Vala who had power over the mortal spirit. “Could it be a gift from Irmo?”

“That thought only concerns me more.”

She left them to dress for council. Aside from their wedding rings, Celebrían had brought only the necklace Gil-galad had given her for their thousandth anniversary, and Gil-galad had brought a crown. Elrond’s only other jewellery was the bracelet Maedhros had given him for his mortal coming of age. It was one of the only things he had never lost through all his ages in Arda. By classical Noldorin standards, as Fëanor and his sons would remember, they would all be woefully underdressed. Although Maglor and Maedhros would never have judged him, Elrond felt a hint of embarrassment. For so long, he had longed for this family. Now he would come before them in shame.

No you won’t, Celebrían corrected. She draped her diamond necklace around his neck, hands coming under his hair to fasten it in place.

They had been married so long that it was no surprise she knew his anxieties well. Gil-galad, coming up in front of him, lifted his crown and laid it carefully on Elrond’s brow.

“This is too much,” Elrond protested.

Gil-galad shook his head. “It’s entirely deserved. You are a king, by your actions as much as your blood. You are Fëanor’s grandson. You deserve to come before him and be seen as what you are.”

Celebrían pressed a kiss to the back of her neck. “One more thing.”

She went to her bag, and pulled out a jewelled broach. Elrond knew it immediately by the blue on the bird’s wing. Arwen’s.

“I didn’t realize you had brought this.”

Celebrían sighed. “I packed it before Maglor even came. I thought things were bound to go ill sooner than we had planned. There are so few things we have left of her.”

All things faded in time, even in Valinor. But not their grief. Celebrían pinned it proudly to his formal robes.

“I don’t-”

“For remembrance,” Celebrían told him, stepping back to admire her work. “Arwen loved mortals. She always saw good in them. She would not want them to be cast out for their flaws any more than you want it for your fathers and their kin.”

“For Arwen then.”

For Arwen. For Maedhros and Maglor. For Gil-galad and Celebrían. For Elladan and Elrohir.

“You can do this,” Gil-galad assured, “I know you can.”

The council was a much-reduced representation of the Ulmo’s hundred-odd guests. Even Celebrían decided not to come in, slipping away with her father at the door. I will go speak with our sons, she thought at her husbands, and meet those others who have come here to aid us.

Those who were at the meeting already seemed to have no understanding of what their positions ought to be. They were crowded around Ulmo’s dining room table, sitting very close. Fëanor, Fingolfin and Anairë were all squeezed at one end of the table, each more uncomfortable than the last. At the other end, Uinen, Melian and Nimloth made a powerful trio. Between Fëanor and Uinen, backs to the wall: Maedhros, Maglor, an uncomfortable-looking Legolas, Finarfin, Eärwen, and Voronwë. Between Anairë and Nimloth: Turgon, Celumë, Galadriel, Amdirdis, Mahtan, and Lalwen. What representatives of elvenkind. There were still a few chairs in the corner, so Gil-galad and Elrond each retrieved one. Elrond squeezed in between Maglor and Legolas, who seemed relieved at the sight of him. Gil-galad found space between Celumë and Galadriel, and reached his leg under the table to tap at Elrond’s calves.

“If everyone important is here,” Fëanor uttered through gritted teeth, “may we begin now?” Elrond wondered how long he had been waiting for the start of the meeting.

“I don’t see why not,” Amdirdis said cheerfully. Elrond didn’t want to think about what had happened in the night to leave the blunt elleth so uncommonly pleased with the world around her.

Fëanor surveyed his kingdom. The silmaril shone, perched somewhere upon the arms of his and Fingolfin’s chairs.

“I’ve met several of you once or less,” Fëanor noted.

“Introductions then,” Celumë decreed. She raised her hand. “Celumë of Tirion, Secretary to the High Queen.”

And so they went around the table, with names and origins and titles. At last they got close to Elrond himself.

“Prince Legolas of the Greenwood,” the youngest of them introduced with a nod at Fëanor. “I’m Sindarin, Lord- Prince- King-”

Fëanor rubbed between his eyes. “We’re going to war together, Legolas of the Greenwood. I have a name and you can use it.”

Legolas seemed to accept this dodge, or perhaps did not notice they had yet to be informed of which of the six prior holders in the room was the High King of the Noldor. It could also have been Fingon, of course, but his absence made this unlikely.

“Fëanor, my people are Silvan- uhh, Moriquendi.”

“You’re Tauriel’s friend.”

Fëanor leaned threateningly forward. Maedhros shot him a concerned look. “I am,” said Legolas, unflinching in the Eye of Fëanor as he had been in that of Sauron.

“Good,” Fëanor decided, and looked to Elrond.

What to say? “I’m Elrond Peredhel, my lord. Maedhros and Maglor’s ward.”

Gil-galad sighed, and leaned forward. “Elrond Peredhel, Lord of Rivendell, Lord of Himring, Emeritus Herald of the High King of the Noldor in Middle Earth. My consort. Heir of Doriath, Heir of Gondolin. Wielder of Vilya. Heir of Lúthien. He has probably been King of the Sindar and High King of the Ñoldor in Middle Earth, and both of these at the same time for several thousand years.”

Fëanor examined him closely. “You’re well dressed, for someone who fled last night in fear of your life.”

“The courtesy of my spouses, Fëanor.” Although he and Celebrían had never been allowed to wed Gil-galad, the title was more than deserved.

“Your spouses?” Fëanor’s voice was ice.

“Enough,” Maglor scolded him, suddenly. “What Elrond, Gil-galad and Celebrían do in their time is their business.”

Elrond hadn’t even told him about their relationship. He’d only found them all together when he came to save Elrond. There hadn’t been time to talk. That would come later, Elrond knew. Maglor’s hand came up to touch his shoulder.

Maglor introduced himself to change the topic, and let the introductions continue over the last few, more notable, members of their group. None of the high kings introduced themselves as such, leaving the holder of the title a mystery. Charitably, Elrond thought Fëanor was more nervous than he was malicious. His wife had been captured, after all, and his children, still wounded and weary from the first war, were being plunged into another. If their positions were reversed, Elrond would have been beside himself with worry.

Celumë stood, as introductions were finished. “We should begin by assigning positions of key importance. This is a war. Not every decision can be made by committee.”

In other words: the Noldor needed a king. Fëanor and Fingolfin looked at each other. Gil-galad looked as his hands, as though doing so would prevent the rest of the room from remembering that he was the most successful wartime High King of the Noldor ever.

Eventually, Fëanor sighed, and grasped his brother by the shoulder. “You have all the experience, you give the commands. Let it never be said that Fëanor does not know the value of skill.”

Finarfin gave an audible sigh of relief. His brothers turned to look at him. “Unless you want it,” Fingolfin offered.

“No,” Finarfin assured him, obviously trying to avoid the kingship. Elrond had to suppress a smile. He felt much the same.

This did not seem to deter Fingolfin any. He looked around the room. “So many here have been kings. I would not take this title at a time like this purely of my own will. Does any other have a better claim? Could any other serve our people better?”

He seemed to have no more want for the title than his younger brother, but Fingolfin had, as long as Elrond had known him, always been strictly duteous. It was under his guidance that the Ñoldor had allowed so many of their number to return from death. Under his leadership that Fëanorian followers like Celumë had been welcomed back into the fold. He was well liked, neither a coward nor a fool. Elrond, of blood to so many kings, thought Fingolfin was as fine as any.

“I could not,” Turgon said first. He was proud, but he loved his father well. “Fingon could not either.”

Everyone looked at Maedhros, as if he might object to this statement. Absentmindedly massaging his right wrist with his left hand, Maedhros looked up at them. It concerned Elrond greatly that his fëa was still not strong enough to assert the existence of this hand at all times.

“I would have thought my position was clear already. Fingolfin has the better claim, and more. He is a fair and just ruler. All my experience proves this. I would follow him proudly.” Maedhros spoke these words not to Fingolfin, but to his entire audience, and particularly, it seemed to Elrond, to his own father. A remarkably compelling speaker, Maedhros was hard to deny. Many of the audience nodded along.

“Let us not forget Anairë,” Amdirdis added. “As just a ruler as her husband.”

She blushed. Lalwen added, “Anairë is one of the finest elleths I have ever had the pleasure to know.”

Eärwen, as a foreign national, could never have been a Queen of the Noldor as much as Anairë was. Indis had often had the same problem, and had been unfavourably compared to Míriel in many treatises on government as a result. Although the two of them had allowed for great closeness between the Noldor and their neighbours, neither had been able to be an independent ruler, respected and loved by their people as Anairë was.

With this support from his siblings, sons and nephew, the room turned to Gil-galad. He was a long ruler, had commanded in war and peace, and was better loved by Sindarin and Silvan elves than Fingolfin had ever been. He also had none of the blood of Alqualondë on his hands.

“I can’t,” Gil told them, quietly. He looked at Elrond with an apology in his eyes. “I gave away the respect of the old guard for other things, as Prince Fëanor most eloquently pointed out earlier.” Ouch. “Many elves would refuse to follow me unless I gave this up, and I will not. Any aid I can offer to the High King is his, of course, but my life is my own.”

This should have spoken for Elrond also, and yet Fëanor and Fingolfin turned as one to look at him. Between them, the silmaril shone brightly. “If I had wanted the crown, I would have taken it in Middle Earth.” He stared at the brothers until they accepted that he was quite serious in his refusal.

Fingolfin, assured of his leadership position, finally took control of the room. “In non-emergency matters, I suggest we run this council as we would normally. All in favour, by show of hands?” All were in favour. “Excellent. Now, for emergency matters, I’ll govern the Noldor, of course, but Queen Nimloth will have authority over the Doriathrim. Does that seem reasonable?”

All nodded. Those who were neither were divided fairly evenly, by who they had served in the first age, with the Silvans and Teleri being attached to Nimloth to even the numbers. This left only the Vanyar, who were assigned to Fingolfin by his mother’s line. This settled that, and they moved on.

Uinen raised her hand, and Fingolfin gave her the floor. “The gates against Morgoth appear to be holding, for now. Námo gives it three years, but he overestimates his own power. Varda’s estimate is closer to three months. Either way, it isn’t time to sort our differences with them before he arrives.”

Elrond wished he had studied the prophecies of the Dagor Dagorath for longer and in more depth. He raised his hand, and took his turn. “When he’s free, will his allies return to him immediately, or will it take him time to reconstitute and seduce them?”

Uinen sighed. “We don’t know. The short answer is that it probably depends on the ally. In long, those who were always Melkor’s friends, even before his fall, will be loyal. As will those he made as they are. Dragons. Balrogs. Orcs. Sauron and Curunír could in theory reject him, but the fact of the matter is they are not likely to. That will be a battle for Aulë to fight.”

Aulë had never won it before. “So it’s a three way war, then, most likely. Perhaps even a three way battle.”

Fingolfin sighed. “That will be terrible, but it is also for the best. We could not win fighting one army after the other. If Morgoth and Námo and Varda eliminate each other, then we might have a chance.”

“It’s not that easy,” Melian reminded them. “The reality is that neither us nor Námo and his allies can defeat Melkor on his own, let alone surrounded by all his greatest servants.”

In other words, Morgoth would kill their kin and then come for them. “A three-way battle may be our only option,” Maedhros said softly, without waiting for his turn. “We need to ensure that each party weakens themselves exactly enough to be defeated by us, no more and no less. If we burn ourselves out fighting one side or the other, or let them burn themselves out fighting us, the third party will wipe everyone off the map.”

Turgon took a turn. “That’s well within our power. If we manage to remain hidden until Morgoth frees himself, then he will have no reason to know there is a division to exploit at all. He will attack Manwë, Varda and Námo will defend him, and we can step in to the fight. Three-way battle.”

Turgon knew a thing or two about hiding and waiting for other people to fight his battles.

“May I?” Gil-galad asked. Fingolfin nodded. “All due respect, Turgon, but how can we just sit here and wait? We don’t have enough people to fight Manwë, let alone Melkor. Even if Elwing and Finduilas managed to bring the Noldor and the Doriathrim, then we would still be pitifully outnumbered by Olwë, Ingwë and Denethor. We need to find a way to talk to the free cities, to the other Moriquendi lords and ladies. To everyday people.”

“Would it be possible to leave without being caught?” Fingolfin asked Uinen.

The maia tapped her fingernails on the table. “I would have to consult Aulë, but I think so. In daytime, and only for short periods while Manwë and Arien were distracted. But not impossible. We would have to be very careful not to allow people to be caught. It would be difficult and dangerous work.”

“I would do it,” Maglor said, suddenly. They all turned to him. “I wouldn’t ask it if anyone else, but I would want to try.”

“So would I,” Nimloth added. She gave Maglor a half-smile.

Gil-galad looked guiltily at Elrond. “And I. It is as much a risk as that we are asking of Finduilas and Idril, of Elwing and Beleg and all the rest.”

Elrond could not fault him for that. “I would do it too. People deserve to know, and to choose their own paths.”

Fingolfin seized control of the room back from his rowdy allies and kin. “Volunteer missions, subject to Ulmo’s approval. All in favour, by show of hands?”

It was a majority. They agreed to allow the military positions assigned at Fingolfin’s original council, with the removal of everyone who wasn’t there and the addition of Maedhros, Maglor and Fëanor to the chain of command. Elrond had argued- rather compellingly, he felt- to have Maglor take his position as commander of the Noldorin cavalry, but had been quite summarily defeated. The only concession he had achieved was that Celumë would represent his interests on the battlefield, being the far superior rider. It was the most significant shift in structure save that Fëanor was also tasked with arming their forces and recruiting people to aid him with the task.

“Celebrimbor, Curufin and I can forge swords and arrowheads, but not if we intend to arm half of elvenkind,” Fëanor informed them. “I would appreciate if everyone with some level of forgery skill could complete some sort of assessment or competency testing.”

They debated for a while the nature of this testing, and strategies for outfitting the archers amongst them. Then, Fingolfin called an hour’s recess. Elrond, who had been too nervous to bother eating before the meeting, could feel his stomach gnawing at itself. A vestige of his mortal heritage perhaps. True elven bodies rarely showed such weakness.

As the council showed themselves out, Fëanor and his sons lingered. Gil-galad did the same until Elrond waved him away. This was a battle he needed to fight on his own.

Soon, the only other people in the room were Fëanor, Maglor, Maedhros, Celumë and Uinen. Celumë came around the table to press a kiss on her husband’s cheek before, in a freakish mirror of Elrond and Gil-galad, he waved her out. Like father, like son.

“How are you?” Maglor asked him, gently.

“Alright.” He turned fully to face Fëanor. “It’s an honour to meet you properly.”

Fëanor was staring at him with a calculating look again. “What did you do with Celebrimbor’s ring?”

“I gave it to my mother. She has more need of it than I do, right now.”

That had been a tearless goodbye. Any gesture might have revealed Elwing’s true intentions. He would not have done it had the rings not been designed with going unnoticed in mind. Inside, Elrond had not known what to feel. It was a great comfort to him that their relationship was as much a source of confusion for Elwing as it was for him.

Fëanor looked at Maedhros. “He’s a strange one, Nelyo.”

“Yes,” Maedhros agreed with a smile, “but I believe ‘Laurë introduced us to that rather apt saying about men in glass houses throwing stones.”

Elrond thought he could pick up the gist of that saying. With one last look as if he was examining a piece of meat, Fëanor asked, “and which of your… lovers gave you that bracelet.”

Again, Maglor came to his defence instantly. “That was-”

Elrond need to speak for himself. “It was a coming of age gift from my parents, Prince Fëanor.”

“That’s funny,” Fëanor said, and the judgemental look on his face finally lifted. “It was a coming of age gift from my father, too.”

He was a strange figure, but not an unkind one. Elrond shot a hard look at Maedhros, who smiled innocently. Despite the fact his rebirth had not gone so well as the others, he still seemed well. This ability to be quietly amused was a new facet of his character, one Elrond was more than enjoying.

“You never told me that,” said Elrond, looking up at his foster father.

Maedhros’s innocent smile faded. “You didn’t need the burden of that. You needed a piece of your heritage that wasn’t going to weigh on you like the rest did.”

He was right, of course. But this also meant Elrond had been keeping one of the most ancient and valuable artifacts in elvendom in a dresser drawer for years. His children had played dress-up with it. He had brought it now only out of love for Maedhros himself. Elros, for their coming of age, had received a dwarven sword. Fine craftsmanship, surely, and well used by all his line, but the blades of Gondolin and Eregion were just as fine if not more so. With this bracelet, Maedhros had given him so much more. In some ways, he felt hollow, but also so loved, as if he might weep. Thoughout his life, small gestures had reminded him how loved he had been as a boy. Maedhros’s will making him Lord of Himring and last scion of Fëanor’s house, the constant returns of Elros’s blade into his life. Even when they had not been there, their legacy always had been, and not half so evil as it was imagined to be.

Fëanor clapped a hand on Elrond’s shoulder, breaking him out of the spiral of his thoughts. “Welcome to the family.” With a glance towards Maglor and then back at Elrond, he added, “thank you. Very much.”

And then he was gone, and Elrond could breathe again. Maglor wrapped an arm around his shoulders. Maedhros said, “come, Elrond. You look dead on your feet. And more, I believe you have a husband and a wife to introduce to me.”

Gil-galad and Celebrían were waiting outside for him. Gil-galad was eating already, while Celebrían held a bowl of noodles out to Elrond. “Ossë made a lot of lunch,” she explained. Elrond slipped out from Maglor’s grip to take the gift from her.

“Thank you,” he murmured.

“You’re welcome.” Putting on her courtly face, Celebrían turned to Maglor and Maedhros. “It’s a pleasure to see you again, my lords.”

“Same,” said Maglor. Maedhros nodded along with his odd words. Years of speaking other tongues seemed to have given him some odd verbal affectations. Sometimes he translated sayings literally. Elrond liked to imagine that if they survived, in a thousand years, Maglor’s odd way of talking might spread.

“You haven’t eaten anything,” Elrond noted. He did not wish to be rid of them, but this meeting would be best conducted on full stomachs.

“We had a big breakfast,” Maedhros assured him. “There is a small sitting room near here. We should go have this conversation in private.”

The halls of Ulmo’s home were far better lit than they had been the first time Elrond had come there. Someone had fixed the age-old Fëanorian lanterns, giving the whole space an uncanny glow. There was more life to the place now, too. On their way, they brushed past Tauriel and Legolas, whispering to each other in one alcove, and Nimloth and Lalwen being rather more proactive in another. If they had less than a year left before the end, it was good that, as friends and lovers, people had each other to rely on.

When they came to the small sitting room, Maedhros and Maglor each took an armchair, allowing Elrond to crowd together with his spouses on a sofa.

“Whatever your father thinks,” Elrond told them, “this isn’t that.”

Maedhros, whose right hand had rematerialized during their walk, used it to pinch at his brow. “This is the thing in all the world about which he is most a fool. It probably didn’t help that Celebrían wasn’t there with you. He probably assumed that you were taking advantage of the two of them, like his own father did.”

It was better for Fëanor to have been unconsciously protective of Celebrían than merely judgemental. Elrond understood the urge to protect Celebrían.

“He isn’t,” Celebrían told them. “If anything, it’s the opposite. I was the one who wanted Gil-galad first.”

Now that was not true. Elrond had first wanted his friend before Celebrían had been born. But she was the one who had possessed the confidence to speak openly of her wants, once they were all together in Valinor. For that, Elrond and Gil both would ever owe her a debt.

Maedhros leaned forward to look at Elrond. “As long as they make you happy, and you are all honest with each other, you will find no judgement from me. Love is hard. It need not be made any harder.”

Love was hard. It was loss and regret and fear for those you loved. It was also the easiest thing in the world. Being without them would have been far harder.

“Now,” Maglor said in an obviously jokingly threatening tone, “Fingon and Celumë- and Tauriel- have told us what they know of you. But I find I would rather hear it from the three of you. Who are you, Ereinion? Nerissë?”

Celebrían folded her hands in her lap and began their story. Later, after the next session of their council, they would sit over dinner with Elladan and Elrohir, and Elrond’s sons would finally be able to meet their grandfathers.

Chapter Text

Once Ulmo was gone, Fingon picked himself up off the floor, and gave Maglor an appraising look. Elrond’s note was right. He looked terrible. His long dark hair, straight and not curly like Fingon’s, hung limply around his head. His eyes, sunken into his face, watched Fingon closely.

“Why are you here?” Maglor asked. There was still something of the fighting spirit in him. Fingon wondered if that was all that had kept him going, these long years.

“Your son sent me.”

Maglor’s brows drew together as if conferring on the matter. “I don’t remember any children.”

“Elrond,” Fingon advised. He hoped he had not misidentified the significance of their connection. In Elrond’s concern and in Maedhros’s will, he thought he had caught the scent of genuine familial affection.

“Elrond,” Maglor echoed, quietly. “He’s Eärendil’s son, isn’t he? Arwen’s father? Elros’s brother?”

If Maglor named all Elrond’s relations, they’d be at it all night. “Yes, and someone who cares for you a great deal. He asked me to come, and even if he hadn’t, well, do you think Maedhros would have wanted me to do anything different?”

“How can you care what Maedhros would want, after what we did?”

Fingon fought back the protective anger that swelled in him. It roared and struggled, but he locked it in the cage where it belonged. “I will always care what Maedhros wants. Always. I have waited for him for years beyond memory, and I will not stop loving him, no matter what it is that you seem to think. He is everything for me, and always will be.”

“You aren’t angry?”

It crashed through the bars, tearing them free. “Of course I’m angry! I’m fucking furious, Maglor. I’ve never been so angry about anything. He chose death! And then Námo, spineless coward that he is, caged him like an animal! I want to rip that fucking mountain to the ground, and then I want to pick Maedhros up by the scruff of his neck and shake him until he understands how furious I am, and then kiss him until we both forget our own names.”

Maglor laughed, suddenly. The sound tore from him painfully, like his throat had forgotten how to let it pass. “Sorry, sorry. I know that was meant to be terribly romantic, but I just couldn’t keep a straight face. I forgot. What this was like, I just, I forgot.”

“Can I hug you?”

Maglor drew back into himself. “I would rather you didn’t, if that’s alright with you.”

Maglor had been a tactile person, before. In fact, of the house of Finwë, only Finrod had been more liberal with his physical affections. And he still was, casual touching almost rendered a language by the way he used it to communicate. To see Maglor’s own version of that tongue rendered mute cut Fingon to the bone in ways he hadn’t been expecting. His anger flared again. The valar had done this to him. Not Morgoth, but his kin. They had done this. Fingon choked the sensation down, for the greater good.

“Of course. I’ll just, um, sit here, if that is alright with you?”

“Go ahead,” Maglor said magnanimously.

Fingon stayed with his wayward cousin until Ulmo came to fetch him. They didn’t talk much; Maglor slept on and off. That didn’t matter. They important thing was that they were together, and Maglor had another elf to remind him that he was alive, and needed to stay that way. Fingon stayed calm for him, and fairly positive. When they did speak, he chattered mindlessly about Finrod and Amarië’s wedding, the children they’d finally had. Turgon’s younger two daughters. Maglor listened, and didn’t speak much. It was another strange role reversal. Fingon was going to have to stop thinking of those two as the same person. They were so different. It was more than the difference between Maedhros and Maitimo, he thought. But then, so much more time had passed. Who would Maedhros be, now? Would he still love Fingon?

“Penny for your thoughts?” Maglor said.

“What’s a ‘penny?’” The word felt odd in his mouth.

“A small unit of currency. What I meant was, you look like you’re deep in thought. Would you like to say what about?”

He didn’t want to say; it would only hurt Maglor. But then, treating him like a child wouldn’t help either. Maedhros would have hated that.

“I would give you three guesses, but I’d judge you harshly if you took two.”

“Maedhros.”

“Who else?”

Maglor pushed himself up on his elbows. “He loved you, you know that, don’t you? Even to the end. He always hoped that when he died, he’d get to see you again.”

And if that didn’t make Fingon feel immeasurably guilty, nothing ever would. “They didn’t let us. Your brothers were allowed some guests, but not me or mine.”

“You and Aredhel must have been furious.”

“Oh, we were. But we weren’t the only ones. My father may have hated Fëanor and been hated in turn, but he hated the injustice of the thing much more. And that wasn’t all. Námo refused to let us see Maeglin either.”

“Motherfucker,” Maglor said.

“What?”

He waved a hand. “A curse. Never you mind the direct translation.”

He was saved from asking by Ulmo, who materialized in the center of the room. He was the sort of terrible, awful creature of the depths that was all teeth and iridescent, impossible light. There was a Telerin word for it, but he’d forgotten what. Fingon, who had faced down dragonfire and the very worst of Angband, suppressed a shiver. Of all the valar, Ulmo was one of the most naturally terrifying. And yet he was also far more kind. Námo, who was meant to be a guardian of Eru’s children, did not have Ulmo’s empathy. Perhaps, Fingon reflected, a horrible mistake had been made when assigning the Valar their tasks.

Knowing it was time to go, Fingon reached out and offered Maglor his hand. Maglor squeezed it as tight as he could, which wasn’t very.

“I’ll come back-” he began.

Ulmo shook his head. “You shouldn’t. You could be seen, and if you’re absent too often, it’ll be suspicious.”

Of the two of them, Maedhros had always been the one with the plans. That didn’t mean Fingon didn’t know what he had to do. “Then find a less suspicious way for me to arrive than by going to the beach every day.”

Ulmo considered this. “Is there a place in your home that you could make leak? A basement, maybe?”

Fingon didn’t have a basement, but- “there’s a store-room in the palace that’s beside an underground spring. We’ve been wondering about whether it’ll flood for years. I could help it along.”

“Do, and go there in three days, and I’ll bring you back. Any sooner, and your absence will be noted. I suggest finding a friend you can send down there in the next couple of days.”

“How will you know it’s us?”

Ulmo crooked something like his head and said, “I’ll know.”

Fingon took this at face value, until they were out of Maglor’s presence and Ulmo sprouted an arm and pressed the silmaril into his hand.

“What?”

He crooked his head. “Whoever wants to come can carry it, and I’ll know they’re with you. And the power of the thing will make bringing you much easier.”

“Isn’t it Varda’s power, though? Can’t she see us?”

“Varda may have blessed them, but the power is that of the trees- of Yavanna, though she cannot touch it now that they are gone- and Fëanor’s own. That was always what scared Varda about them. It is what scares all our kin, even Melkor. That Eru’s other children might have such power that we cannot control. Fëanor, alone, is no threat, but what if there were a dozen with his power? What if there were six and thirty silmarils? No individual Vala save Melkor could have challenged that. No, the only person you need to worry about is Fëanor, and, given what you’re doing with it, I can’t think he’ll mind.”

He probably wouldn’t mind, as long as it was for Maglor. There was nothing Fëanor cared more about than his family, despite certain lapses in judgement. It scared Fingon, that Ulmo perceived Fëanor as so skilled as Fingon himself once had. But it made some sense. Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than a cornered animal, and if Námo, if Varda, if Manwë himself, feared the strength that Fëanor might be able to muster, then they would be as harsh as they could. They would, say, cage him and his sons. It was the most natural thing in the world, and the most terrible.

“As you say, Lord Ulmo.”

The Vala added conversationally, “I don’t think you elves really understood how far outside the bounds of normalcy Fëanor was. What he could have done with more time, more patience- it’s best not to think about it.”

Fingon paused. “What makes you think about it now?”

“I believe that my father creates us with freedom to do as we like, but he still creates us. Fëanor will be out of Mandos soon, one way or the other. I wonder what inspired him to create someone like Fëanor; I wonder what the purpose was.”

Fingon had given the subject some thought, over the years. There were few subjects relating to that family that he hadn’t. “I think the more important question is why Fëanor in particular, not why someone. Why did Eru choose the child of the only sick lady in Valinor, and give him the power to burn it all down?”

“Why did He make Melkor so powerful?” Fingon wondered if he should take offence at the comparison on Fëanor’s behalf. “And anyhow, what makes you think it wasn’t the other way around?”

Crooking his head at Ulmo and hoping the Vala would read the confusion in his posture, Fingon said, “I don’t understand.”

“Míriel wasn’t sick until after Fëanor was born. Maybe that’s the cost of bringing someone like him into the world. Maybe that’s why not all elves are so powerful.”

“They used to say that in Tirion. The only time I ever saw Maitimo slap someone was because she said that his father had killed Míriel by draining her strength.”

Ulmo made a vaguely sorrowful gesture. “I didn’t mean it like that.”

“I know.”

The extended family had always mocked Findis for spending all her time on theoretical theology, but now, Fingon wished he’d spent more time on it. Who knew that such high concept things would prove to be so practical.

“I’ll send you back to the beach,” Ulmo said, “and remember. Whoever you send to the beach must only say my name, but when you come from the cellar, you will need the silmaril. If you want to bring multiple people for some reason, just, I don’t know, both touch it, Hold hands or put it on the floor and draw a circle around everyone you want to send in chalk or something. If it’s near water, I’ll be listening.”

Fingon nodded in acknowledgement, tucking the silmaril into an inside pocket of his jacket, and let the water carry him away.

It was such a burden to decide who to send in his place. Aredhel, of course, already knew, but her absence was likely to be noted by the valar, and she would not have been much comfort for Maglor. As for Elrond, Fingon’s reaching out to him would be terribly obvious. So, Fingon was forced to make a choice that he had never wanted. Who did he trust? Turgon was almost immediately dismissed. Fingon loved him, but Turgon had too much hate for the Fëanorions to be trusted with this. Finrod would have been a good choice, but he was away. Argon, Fingon loved, but could not say he trusted. For better and for worse, Argon had not seen the moral complexity of Beleriand. This lack of exposure often made him behave unkindly.

Fingon made his choice the next afternoon, as he was sneaking around the cellar trying to create a leak, but couldn’t in good faith say he was happy with it. He made sure his clothes were dry and his meddling was not obvious, and went upstairs.

“Ammë?” Queen Anairë of the Noldor looked up from her embroidery.

“Fingon? I had not expected a visit from you today. Please, come in. Take a seat. Should I ring for tea?”

Act normal, Fingon. Act normal. “That would be nice. I was- I don’t know, I’ve been feeling a little reflective lately, and I thought it was best to get out of the house.”

She set down her embroidery entirely, and gave him a careful look. “Oh, Fingon. Is this about Maitimo again?”

It always was, wasn’t it? “Maedhros, Ammë. He prefers- preferred- Maedhros.”

She nodded. “I’m sorry. Maedhros. So, what troubles you?”

Think, Fingon. The best lies are made of truth. “I went down to the beach, you know, where we used to go swimming as children? I haven’t been there since, I don’t think, and I could see him so clearly. I miss him so much.”

“Oh my dear one,” Anairë whispered, and pulled him into a hug. This was just the opportunity Fingon had been waiting for. He pressed a note into her hand. He thought that Manwë could hear, not see, and Varda could only see by starlight, so passing a note indoors should still have been relatively safe.

She pulled back in confusion, and was silent when Fingon pressed a finger to his lips and said, “thank you. I really needed that today.” He mimed opening a note, and watched as she read it. “Do you think I could just stay here quietly? I didn’t really want to talk, I just didn’t want to be alone.”

The note, scribbled on a piece of paper borrowed from his father’s secretary, read:

Don’t react, or speak aloud. Manwë may be listening. The Dagor Dagorath is beginning, Námo is plotting to destroy any of the Quendi who’ve been troublesome, and at least half of the Valar agree with him. Ulmo disagrees, and has rescued Maglor from him. Maglor is very sick, and needs people to come visit with him, and keep his fëar away from Mandos. Aredhel, Elrond (and wife), me and you are the only people who know. Please, please don’t tell Atar, just- go to the beach where we used to go as children, and say Ulmo’s name, and he’ll bring you to visit for a while. You know Nerdanel would do the same for any of us.

Anairë looked up and said calmly, “anything you need, Fingon. If not talking right now will help you, I can do that. Just let me say- I love you very much, and so does your father.”

Fingon couldn’t help but look guiltily at his hands. “I know, it’s only that he hated Fëanor so much, and I think if I tell him I’m still sad about Maedhros, he won’t understand.”

Fingon loved his mother so much; Anairë responded only with a wink. They shared companionable silence. Her hands worked at her embroidery, long dark fingers making extraordinary art with their motions. She was no Míriel, but her skill had once been regarded as some of the greatest in Tirion. She had the magic of a true queen, and wove it into her work. This piece, for example, had begun as a charm for confidence, but as Fingon watched, she changed the pattern, working in signs for general luck and luck in love. Flowers and animals that had gained these meanings, perfectly formed lines. As Fingon left her, she tucked the charm into his breast pocket, and the gesture was as much a blessing as the piece itself was.

That evening, Fingon had an unexpected visitor of his own. When he arrived home, Turgon was waiting for him. He looked terrible, hair disheveled, and eyes wild as Oromë. Fingon stared at him for a long moment, trying to figure out if what had happened was the obvious thing, and if so, who had told him. Aredhel, probably, but how could she trust him with something like this?

“Galadriel’s had a vision,” he said thickly, as Fingon stood there like a moron. “She saw the Dagor Dagorath beginning, and she says something terrible is happening.”

That could not possibly have been true. Fingon revised his estimation of the true power of Finwian gossip, and silently congratulated Galadriel for her brilliance. This would give everyone an excuse to be acting strangely. “And how has that brought you here?”

Turgon gave him a significant look. His bitter tone did not match his expression at all. “I thought you might be happy to hear it.”

“I’m not a servant of Morgoth,” Fingon snapped. He crossed the room to his desk, and pulled out a notebook and a fountain pen.

Turgon sighed. “I know,” he said, and took both items.

As Turgon wrote, Fingon said, “I wish there’d been another way to see Maedhros again. I would not have wanted my joy to be predicated on so much sorrow.”

“We always wish there was another way,” Turgon said. He passed the notebook to Fingon.

Osanwë, idiot, it read, in full.

Fingon didn’t use psychic connections to anyone unless he could help it. Most of the Beleriand returned refused to. Their traumas were private to them, and perhaps to a spouse. Though the skill had been useful in wartime and on the battlefield, there was little practical use for it in Valinor. Fingon hadn’t sustained a connection with anyone for more than a couple of seconds since the Nirnaeth- Maedhros being the last, of course.

“Do we have to talk about this right now?”

Turgon actually grinned. His tone remained high and harsh. “No, you can feel free to ignore your problems. I’ll be here when you’re ready.”

He sat back, and waited. It took Fingon almost a minute to remember the skill that had once been second-nature to him. It was like breathing deeply, opening your lungs and letting air fill your chest completely. Fingon inhaled, and opened his mind to Turgon.

Who told you? He asked, once he was secure in their connection.

Aredhel- who else?

It was a surprise to Fingon that she had made the choice without consulting him. Forgive me, but I wasn’t sure we should trust you with this.

Turgon gave him a genuinely hurt look. I may not like Fëanor’s sons, but I would never want you and Aredhel to be hurt like I know this would hurt you. And Aredhel seemed to think Maeglin will be cast out too, if they are killing the most ill-loved of all elvenkind. He was my responsibility, Fingon. As close to a son as I’ve ever had. I should have protected him. I loved him.

Turgon had three daughters who he loved very deeply, but no sons. Turno-

Whatever you need, I’m here. Galadriel too. She thinks that if we act like we know about the Dagor Dagorath but not about Maglor or the conspiracy, we’ll have more excuses for this whole thing.

I love you so much, Fingon thought at him, as hard as he could. Turgon looked down at his hands. Affection had always made him a little uncomfortable.

I just want everyone to be alright. I want you and Aredhel to be happy, and I want Maeglin to be safe. I let you be hurt, before. I was afraid. I’m tired of being afraid.

Aloud, Fingon said, “I’m not happy to hear about the Dagor Dagorath. Truly. Morgoth is an enemy to all of us. The family will all have to support each other through it. I’m grateful if that means I get your support, but it also means that you deserve mine.”

Turgon responded in kind, “I don’t think I need your support, Fingon, unless it comes in the form of clearing your head of Fëanor and his sons. They will be free soon, and we cannot trust that they will be on our side.”

Fingon allowed the lie to hit him as if it were Turgon’s real feeling. “They opposed Morgoth with their dying breaths, each of them.”

Turgon reached out, and squeezed his hand. Coming from Turgon, it was practically a kiss. “No, Fingon, they opposed elvendom with their dying breaths. It will be a sad day for all of us, when they are free.”

He stormed out, without another word. Fingon put his hand up to his chest, and wondered which of the valar he could trust enough to thank them for Turgon’s strange affinity for acting.

Chapter Text

Beleg scanned the assembled elves and valar, and did not let his fear show. Elwing, to his right and a half-step in front of him, was regal in her pose. Her fear did not show either. The least of the Queens of Doriath, but the last, now. Her death might fall upon her soon, dependent on Manwë’s decision. Or, rather, on Mandos’s.

“Is everyone here?” The King of the Valar asked his executioner.

Mandos scanned the assembled elves. Summons had come for the monarchs and ruling families of almost every major elven group had come as soon as more than half of them had disappeared. The exception, of course, were the Avari, who never came to these sorts of things and maintained a great independence from the old guard. Beleg and Mablung were there as Elwing’s escorts, though they had not been called themselves. What they would do if Mandos decided on death as a sentence, Beleg did not know. Or perhaps he did. He cast a look to Finduilas and Gwindor, side by side at the back of the Noldorin contingent. If Mandos decided to try and execute these people, Beleg would die first.

“No,” Mandos decided. He turned only in the neck so his hood would face towards the Noldorin contingent. “Where is Queen Indis?” He was a terrible figure, where he sat on his throne. More bone than flesh and more robe than bone, he seemed as much a wraith as he did a god. He and Manwë were the only two of the valar who’d brought maiar with them, and only Mandos’s maiar seemed a real threat. They were wraiths, just as he was, but they held Fëanor’s wife as a prisoner between them.

Pious Findis, at the front of their group, clutched her hand to her breast. Despite her lifelong faith in the valar, she was afraid. “I do not know, Lord Námo.”

“Has she turned traitor also?”

“No,” Vairë snapped, turning to her husband. The ancient, baked-clay woman was knitting, but she lay the needles down in her lap as she spoke. “When she heard of her sons’ disappearances, she came to me, seeking my personal protection. I have offered it.”

This was news. Even Findis, daughter to the lady in question, seemed shocked.

“Is that permissible?” Vána asked Manwë. The Ever-young looked sickly. Beleg had seen her once at a festival, decked in flowers as a noldë in jewels. Her crown had been a hundred peonies, and her eyes had been bright and laughing. Now her crown was metal; her robes, though floral in patterned, were naught more than cloth. She seemed to him as a mother, grieving the loss of a child. This emptiness was how Melian had seemed, when Lúthien had first died.

“Permissible or not,” Vairë told them, “I have done it.” She picked her knitting back up, and the clack of needles underlay the conversation thereafter.

“Are we missing anyone else?” Manwë asked. Unlike Vána, the terrible trauma of their time seemed not to have affected him. His silver and white robes were as blinding as ever. A crown of Mithril as tall as a dwarf perched atop his massive head. In this form, he was twice the height of a mortal man, but the crown still seemed excessive to Beleg. Perhaps Thingol had left an ill taste in his mouth where jewels were concerned.

Mandos seemed to make a decision then. “Anyone who has not answered the summons today will be considered one of Fëanor’s band, in defiance of the valar.”

His pronouncement was law. Neither Manwë or Varda raised a hand to stop him.

“This is an interrogation,” Varda told them, quite bluntly. “The traitors are, in large part, your colleagues, friends, and family. At least one of you knew their plan, and, ergo, knows where they are and how they are hiding from us.”

Oromë snorted at her. “This is the greatest conspiracy ever organized against us, and you think it is being run by the sort of fool who would disclose their location to someone who could tell it to us.”

They were quite right, of course. None of those who had been intended to remain had been told specifics of the conspiracy. They did not know which Vala secretly favoured them, or where their friends were. But that did not mean mistakes had not been made. Beleg had no means of knowing whether every individual who remained had done so voluntarily. Perhaps, in the hurry, someone had been forgotten. He hoped not.

Taking control back from the disruptive hunter, Varda continued. “You who remain are the last of Eru’s loyal children. It is incumbent on you to tell us, out of love for our shared father, everything you know.”

Lady Nerdanel, a prisoner who stood before Mandos flanked by two tall, black robed maiar and chained at her hands, spat defiantly on the floor. “If you had any love for ‘our shared father’, you would not be such brazen hypocrites.”

Beleg could not ignore her courage. Nor that of Lady Liltallë, who spoke up even as one of the maiar shoved Lady Nerdanel to her knees. The proud Princess of the Noldor fell to the ground hard, unable to fight against two powerful beings. Her lawdaughter cried out, “I will tell you everything I know! I saw Curufinwë Atarinkë, and he was afraid that you were going to murder his mother to punish him. We know you to be Melkor’s kindred!”

She had not even come to Beleriand with her husband, and now here she was, speaking against the valar in their very home. The Noldor were nothing if not loyal.

“Silence,” Mandos ordered. “So, you admit to conspiring with your husband?” He raised a single hand, and from the folds of his robes, Beleg caught the flash of white bone, exposed beneath parchment-thin skin on all four fingers.

Liltallë did not flinch. “Conspiracy? No. I admit to seeing him, being invited to conspire, and refusing.”

“Why?” Oromë interrupted again. It seemed Beleg’s patron was in a strange mood that morning. “You clearly hate us. Why not go with him?”

She folded her arms over her chest. “Because someone who loves Nerdanel needed to be here as witness. She stayed with me in the worst moment of my life, and now I will stay for her. To look you cowards in the eyes and tell you that Eru never would have wanted you to tyrannize his children. To tell you that you are moral monsters. If you are going to kill those who were not intended to receive that gift, let me die first. I will take the blackness and the cold over a world where capricious gods can punish an innocent.”

Mandos’s fist closed. “Seize her.”

One of the maiar holding Nerdanel stepped forward, drawing a blade of black metal from the air. Everything suddenly became very cold. Elwing raised her hand as if preparing to call a weapon out of the air herself. Then she stumbled into Beleg. The ground rippled under them, and a hole in the very earth swallowed Liltallë whole. Mandos and his maiar recoiled in shock. The earth sealed itself up, tiles dancing back into the abstract mosaic as if nothing had ever happened.

“I offer my personal protection to Liltallë, a craftswoman in good standing.” Aulë’s massive stone form twisted towards Mandos. “She is afraid and angry, Námo. As any in her position would be. This is not treason.”

“He’s right,” Nienna whispered, which seemed to put an end to it, for now. The dark-robed maiar carried Nerdanel away. Manwë moved on.

“King Ingwë, tell us: who has your court lost?”

Ingwë was regal, and gaudy, and utterly unaware of all that went on beneath his ever-skyward gaze. “No one, my lord and king. The Vanyar remain true to you in this and all things.”

Manwë nodded solemnly. “And you, King Denethor?”

This was not the standard order. “Prince Legolas of the Greenwood, for all he was Sindarin, often counted as a member of my court. He and some of his friends are gone.”

“Lord Círdan?”

“My distant kinsman Voronwë, your majesty.”

“King Olwë?”

Olwë bowed his head. “In my court? Few and none of import. In my kin, many. My daughter and her children are gone, Lord Manwë.”

It was not Manwë who responded. “Ingwë, Círdan, you and your kin are dismissed. Go, and prepare for the Dagor Dagorath in earnest, now. Eönwë will advise you further.” The herald stepped forward from his master’s side, preparing to escort his charges away. “Denethor, at this time, I place my trust in you. Confer upon King Oropher that if you or anyone in your court sees his grandson, it would be best for him and for you if you were to apprehend him. He is not safe in his present company. Olwë- remain here.”

Having made these dismissals, Varda sat back in her seat, and allowed her husband control again. He did not take it; instead, Mandos began to assert himself.

“Who now claims rulership over the Noldor and the Sindar?”

Elwing stepped away from Beleg and Mablung. Behind her back, her hands were clasped so tightly the knuckles were white. “With your leave, Lord Námo, I ask that I and my husband be granted rule over Doriath, and over any who were abandoned by later rulers.”

“And what do you have to say about the traitors in your court?”

Elwing bowed her head. “The displeasure of Queen Nimloth with the valar was well known, my lord, as was the corruption of my son by Maglor and Maedhros. The sons of Fëanor and their followers killed my brothers and father. I blame none other than those who were truly responsible, and I believe justice should be wrought. Queen Melian abandoned the valar in her founding of Doriath. It does not surprise me that she would abandon her masters in such a time of strife.”

Every word she said was true, and every sentiment of it a lie.

“And why are you loyal, Lady Elwing?”

She met Manwë’s bright eyes, head tilting up and black hair flowing down her back. Many elleths wore their hair short, these days, but not Elwing. “I am loyal because I have great love in my heart, Manwë Súlimo. I am loyal because I have made mistakes, and it has shown me who my true friends are.” She looked to Ulmo, who had not spoken during the proceedings. “I only ask mercy for my son and his sons, oh Kings and Queens of Arda. A child cannot defend himself from the twisted corruption of those who raise him.”

Slowly and deliberately, she knelt on the stone floor. “Please,” she whispered, and shed a graceful tear. It was a masterful performance. Nienna glided over, and wiped her tear away. She brought it to her own mouth, and tasted it. Suffering was Nienna’s contribution to the song, after all. Though she soothed pain, it was also at the core of her very being.

“This is still a council,” Manwë said, with a sharp look between his wife and Mandos. “What do you all think?”

“Innocent,” Oromë said boldly, crossing their arms over their chest. “When last the Sons of Fëanor stole away her children, we offered protection, and our doing so brought Melkor low. I see no reason to change now.”

Melkor had been brought low by the restless efforts of thousands of elves, seeking aid and fighting to the death in opposition to him at every turn. How proud this Vala was, to see this as their own work. Beleg had fought at the Nirnaeth. He knew what sort of price had been paid in opposition to Morgoth.

Nessa, standing at Oromë’s side, nodded. “Innocent, I hope.”

“I have stood for Elwing before,” Ulmo told his assembled kin. “I would again, given the chance. I believe in her capacity for good.”

“I believe Elwing is innocent of betraying us,” Aulë concurred.

Yavanna sighed, and raised one wooden hand to her husband’s shoulder. “The women of Doriath have been friends to me and mine. For the old magic, I say, innocent. You would do no harm to life, would you Queen Elwing?”

Entirely truthful now, she shook her head. “I would do no harm to life and its order, as comes upon us all. My mortal blood has taught me more about the cycles of the forests that govern me and mine than I could ever have known without it. I believe in it. I would do no harm to life.” She dared a glance at Vána. “Nor to spring.”

It was known the Lady had lost much of her innocence in this. Beleg saw the fact himself. As if shocked to be called upon, Vána flinched back. Then she shook her head to clear it. “I cannot trust her,” Vána said, “neither can I find any reason to punish her.”

“Leave your vote to my discretion as judge,” Námo offered. “I would not have you make a choice you might later regret.”

“Very well.” Vána’s voice was quiet, and Beleg found he hated her meekness in the face of such genuine evil.

“Guilty,” Námo said, but he was still too outnumbered for it to matter. Vairë and Manwë abstained, and Varda cast the only other vote for guilty.

“I thank you,” Elwing said, when they were done. Eyes dry, she stood. “By your leave, my Kings and Queens, I ask to resume my position as Queen of the Sindar. Indeed, I ask to take the positions of Nimloth my mother and Melian my grandmother. My people yet have need of me, and even if my kin have abandoned them, I will not.”

“Let your conscience guide you as you protect them,” Varda ordered. “Know that if you commit treason now, it will be against them as well as us, and justice will be served.”

Elwing bowed to her, and stepped back in line with Beleg and Mablung. Beleg could feel her trembling and took her hand in his to keep her steady. Though he had not noticed it looking at her, he could feel a jewelled ring catching against his skin. The invisibility of the item told him what it was. A ring of power. It must have taken Elrond a terrible amount of debate to convince his mother to take the gift. Rightly or wrongly, Elwing feared nothing more than her own inability to resist the temptations of power. This was why Elwing had felt she could defend Liltallë against a maiar, if need be. If it had given her confidence in her gifts, then Beleg was grateful. He only hoped she never had to use it.

Both elves and valar turned to the Noldor. They were more numerous than any other delegation. This was probably because they were more treasonous than any other delegation. Findis was their head, dressed in traditional robes with a golden coronet on her golden brow. She looked more Vanyarin than Noldorin. Behind her, Idril wore tights and a tunic. Tuor, at her side, was dressed similarly. He was the only person in the Noldorin delegation who was armed in any way, with a tiny knife for cutting ropes at his hip. Beleg imagined that if worst came to worst, that knife would find its way into Tuor’s heart. He was the only person there for whom death meant freedom, but, as Túrin’s kinsman, there was a possibility it might not be eternal. Least of their delegation was Argon, at Tuor’s other side. He was known to the Noldor as a great warrior, but he had not the self-possession of Findis, nor the experience and courage of Idril and Tuor.

Then Beleg finally allowed himself to look upon Finduilas and Gwindor. She was so beautiful to him, even now. Her golden hair was braided over her right shoulder, and she wore face paints as a sort of mask against the world. She seemed calm, although Beleg knew she was afraid. Gwindor, at her side, was equally beautiful in a different fashion. His dark curls were trimmed short, and there was not a hint of paint on his equally dark skin. Although he wore a mask as much as Finduilas did, it was one constructed of careful ambivalence rather than projected calm. Notionally, there was no one Gwindor loved who had been a traitor. He needed to seem as though he had no stake in this game but that his wife had.

Falling in love with these strangers had been something Beleg had never anticipated. Indeed, he and Gwindor had once been the victims of tied fates, by Túrin and by the Nirnaeth, but they had not been friends nor lovers. It was the courage of Finduilas that had brought them together. She had not been afraid to have loved Túrin, and had sought him out. At first, she had wanted knowledge, and later comfort. In vulnerability, Beleg had shown her his greatest tragedies and fear, and Finduilas had not been afraid. Slowly and surely, four lovers brought together by one loss had become greater than the sum of their parts.

As Findis parlayed with Námo, pleading her genuine innocence with wise words and well-placed grovelling, Beleg could not help but have his mind turn to Túrin. Elwing’s hand was sweaty in his, uncommonly so for an elf, and Beleg thought about the mortal form, made more brilliant in its impermanence. Eru had made two kinds of children- not counting the valar and maiar- and had made them both different and the same. They had two arms and legs, hair on their heads and not on every part of their form. They were close enough that they could reproduce, and their children could reproduce in turn- Elwing herself was evidence of that, bearing children before ever choosing a side. Beleg thought of Beren, who he had known before Túrin was born, though not half so intimately.

“We weren’t lovers,” Beleg had told Finduilas, in the first of their talks. He had known Lúthien as well, and could not have imagined comparing the depth of his own feeling to hers for Beren.

Finduilas had sipped her tea, elegant hands gripping elegant porcelain. “No, but he loved you. And I think you loved him. That’s all we can have, sometimes.”

Beleg had protested then, out of instinct if nothing else. Now, he wondered how he could ever been so foolish as to deny the fact. As Finduilas often said, the best thing they could do for Túrin was to remember him honestly. He had been arrogant and incautious. A fool and a madman. And Beleg had loved him.

“The Dagor Dagorath has great personal significance for me,” Finduilas told the valar. Her hands were folded in front of her and her bright eyes seemed focused on Varda. “Túrin, who was once my lover, is featured heavily in the prophecies of Lord Námo. Melkor-called-Morgoth destroyed my home and my people, and it was the corruption he placed in this world that destroyed Túrin. I will support Túrin and all elvenkind in opposition to our one enemy. The greatest of our enemies. I wish nothing more than to be there when Túrin is reborn, and to help him bring down those who wronged us. I know my lord husband feels the same.”

“And your brother?” Varda questioned.

“Adopted brother.” Beleg knew how it hurt Finduilas to deny her love for Gil-galad. He was, of all her kin, the one who had supported her most constantly for all her life. In her recovery from trauma, in her love life, and in her choice to risk everything for this battle. “He is known to have an affair with Elrond Peredhel, Lady Varda. I must assume that the Peredhel introduced to him the corruption of a Fëanorian upbringing.”

“Do not speak of my son that way!” Elwing snapped. Beleg switched his grip from her hand to her arm, restraining her.

“Lady Elwing!” Manwë scolded. She shut her mouth. It was a clever ploy, to reveal that these things affected her deeply, but not in such a way as to seem too invested in the rebel’s cause.

“You call it an affair,” noted Mandos, “and yet is it not true that you are engaged in similar acts?”

Finduilas looked to Beleg then, and to Mablung, an apology already in her eyes. “Nobody I am having sex with is a traitor, Lord Námo. Nor do any of us have the prior commitment of children. We would not tarnish sacred institutions with our lust as my brother has.”

It was such a diminishing of everything they were. An affair. Not even a love affair. Merely sex. Despite the apology, Beleg watched Mablung flinch.

Mandos, at least, seemed satisfied by the response. “And what will you do if you see your brother again, Lady Finduilas?”

“I will plead with him to turn himself in.”

“You will not contact us immediately?”

As Elwing had done, Finduilas showed some internal conflict to distract from the truth. “My brother deserves a chance to do the right thing, Lord Námo. I would not have him cast out merely because another was deluded.”

“And if I were to tell you your brother will be cast out even if he submits, now?”

If Mandos were to decree all the traitors would die regardless, then the war would only end with him or them dead. Despite his treachery, Beleg had no desire to kill one of Eru’s children. It struck him ill. But for Finduilas? How could he ever choose what to do? He imagined a bow in his hand, an arrow burying itself in the folds of Mandos’s hood. Nienna weeping over the body of her brother and-

Elwing reached down and pinched the top of his thigh hard, before one of the valar could sense his destructive thought spiral. Beleg’s leg jerked in an involuntary reaction, but only Oromë seemed to notice, a crook of the head and mis-matched eyes landing on Beleg. They said nothing.

“Then I would mourn my adopted brother, Lord Námo, and rage at those who took him away from me. If it had not been for Morgoth’s servants, I would have been there to guide him throughout his life, so he would not make such ill choices. I would grieve that which he could have been.”

Beleg could not even begin to imagine her grief. As much as any two people he had ever met, Finduilas and Gil-galad loved each other. It was a true measure of her anger, of her sense of duty and her love for Beleg, Mablung, Gwindor and Túrin, that she was here when he was not. After her rebirth, Finduilas had not been close to their parents. Gil-galad, at his rebirth, had been the same. Orodreth was not a bad person, but he could not understand his strange children, each with immeasurable love in their hearts. Without Gil-galad, Gwindor would have never confessed his love for Túrin to Finduilas. Without Gil-galad, none of them would have found the strength to love each other openly at all. What bravery, in he, and Elrond, and Celebrían. Their unapologetic love had opened the doors for all sorts of things in elvendom. Now, Finduilas, Beleg, Mablung, and Gwindor would risk everything for them in turn.

“If we let you walk free, what would you do?” Varda asked of her.

Finduilas turned to face the Queen, sunlight catching her hair at such an angle that it seemed to paint her form gold. “I would assume leadership of the House of Finarfin, oh Lady of Starlight. The Noldor need all their houses, now more so than ever. I would suggest that Queen Findis rule over us, with support from Prince Argon as head of the House of Fingolfin and myself as the head of the House of Finarfin. Perhaps Lady Idril might take Princess Lalwen’s role as the independent power of the Noldor.”

It was well done. Manwë looked to his wife, and seemed to make a decision. They both turned to Námo. “Let it be known,” he decreed, “the rulership of the Noldor shall be thus: High Queen Findis, Lady of Tirion, ruler of all the Noldor. Prince Argon, of the House of Argon. Princess Idril, Prince Tuor, and Lord Eärendil of the House of Idril. Princess Finduilas and Prince Gwindor, of the House of Finduilas. No other has any claim to any title among them, from this day, until the last day of Arda.”

The deed was done, then. From this day forward, the houses of Fëanor, Fingolfin, and Finarfin would be no more. Their leaders, if revealed, would perish. It was impossible to tell which of the new rulers seemed most sickened by the prospect of their triumph.

Chapter Text

Recognizing Fingon had been easy. He had looked just as Maglor remembered him last, frazzled but hopeful, waiting for a great victory that had never come. The only difference was that the coming battle was not one of elves, but of Eru Himself.

Anairë, on the other hand, was so different that it was not until she opened her mouth that Maglor recognized her. Her hair was in what Maglor would have best described as an afro, while she wore a garment most closely resembling a jumpsuit with a big pair of hoop earrings; he wondered, oddly, if elves had ever invented disco. If they had, Anairë must have possessed a great interest in it.

“Hello Maglor,” she said, her voice bending softly around the Sindarin words. That was different, too.

“Hello aunty,” Maglor returned, the Sindarin term returning to him just at the last second before he was forced to slip into English or Spanish.

“It’s good to see you,” she assured him, a professional smile upon her lips.

Maglor couldn’t help but raise an eyebrow at her. “Last time I saw you, we were seducing your husband and children away from the safety of Valinor, and we got all of them killed.”

Anairë sighed, and took a seat. Her bearing was as queenly as it had ever been, but there was an ease to it that was unfamiliar, a confidence in herself. She sat like a person who had been born to rule, rather than one who had married into a position where she never could have expected this burden.

“Your mother and I argue about this a great deal, but not in the configuration you might expect. She blames Fëanáro completely, for everything we lost. I can’t bear to do that. If I say it was his fault, then my children died for nothing. I refuse to accept that. Nolofinwë lost his father just as much as Fëanáro did. He had just as much right to seek vengeance.”

“Seeking vengeance was foolish,” Maglor snapped, pushing himself up to a seated position. With Fingon, the day before, every emotion had felt muted, meaningless. For a lack of a better metaphor, it had been like being underwater. Now, with Anairë, he found it easier to let go. She didn’t give him the same pitiful look Fingon did, and she didn’t love Maedhros. It was hard to yell at Fingon knowing how much Maedhros would have wanted to be with him. And besides, following the tracks worn by these old grievances was easier than thinking about the newer, fresher pain.

Anairë raised an eyebrow at him. “Maybe, but it wasn’t a kind of foolishness that required Fëanarian seduction to happen.”

“Tell that to Fingon.”

Anairë laughed, deep in her chest. “If your argument rests on there being something selfish, something… manipulative between those two, then you must have forgotten a great deal indeed.”

The worst part was that she was right. That argument held no water at all. Maglor stayed silent, and watched as Anairë drew her embroidery from her bag, and got to work. It seemed to be a sort of floral pattern, highly intricate vines twirling together, although it was only just beginning. He could not for the life of him remember what they meant.

“Everyone makes mistakes,” Anairë told him, and flipped her embroidery over to show a spot where the threads had become tangled. “But none of you deserved the punishment you got for them, and the people who loved you certainly don’t. Being the one who waits is terrible. We both know that, you even more so than I. How long before you stopped believing that someday, the valar would decide your sentence fulfilled?”

Maglor couldn’t tell her that he’d believed it until he’d heard the emergency broadcasts and realized that he was going to outlive the very concept of humanity. He’d believed, even when he’d integrated himself into so many societies. Even as he’d traveled the globe. Even living as man, he had always believed that one day they would come and bring him home. He had only lost his belief as he held Carlos- stupid Carlos, just a child, a terrible student and a worse guitarist- and tried to heal him as he’d coughed up blood. Maglor dug his fingernails into the scars on his palm, and tried to forget.

She continued. “I know this is unbearable- believe me, I know- but you’re going to need to hang on. It’s the only thing you can do. If you die now, they’ll figure out it was Ulmo, and they’ll increase the security on your brothers. They’ll never get out.”

It was a terrible thing to ask of him. “I can’t just decide to be okay.”

“I’m not asking you to be okay. I’m asking you to fight, and to seek out people who will help you learn to live with not being okay for a while.”

“Who am I supposed to seek out while I’m being kept here?”

Anairë pulled a stone tablet and a stylus from her bag. Writing on paper would no doubt have been difficult underwater, but Maglor missed having a ballpoint pen on him at all times, the ability to jot things down on a receipt or the back of his hand.

“Whoever you want, I’ll copy out and share messages from you, then throw the tablets back to Ulmo. Fingon couldn’t- he’ll be under much closer scrutiny than I will- but as queen in this time of crisis, I can go see almost anyone under fairly genuine premises, or have someone else do so for me.”

The truth was, there wasn’t anyone in Valinor who Maglor would want to burden with this either, but Anairë was giving him the same look Fingon used to get when Maedhros wasn’t looking after himself, and it was terribly difficult to say no to that look. “Who do you suggest?”

She cracked a smile. “Celumë might be a good start.”

“No.”

The smile faded. “It’s only a matter of time before she gets brought into this, Maglor, one way or another. If you don’t tell her, Námo will.”

“If she knows nothing, she’ll be safe.”

“She can’t know nothing, Maglor. You think she can’t feel you, right now? I assure you, she can, she’s just doing a very good job of hiding it. You need to tell her the truth, so she can be ready to protect herself when the time comes.”

Maglor clenched his hands in an effort to stop their shaking. “She has to be safe. I can’t bring her into this.”

Anairë laid a hand on top of his, stilling it. “She’s always been in it, Maglor. Even if she wasn’t married to you, she’s been acting as my assistant for about three thousand years, same as she did before you met. By virtue of being a politically conscious noldë, by virtue of being friends with Edhellos, by virtue of being a ceremonial guardian of Turgon’s youngest, she is in this. If you think Celumë would leave her friends to face the everlasting darkness alone, even if you had never wed, you do not know her at all.”

She was right; Maglor needed her to stop talking. “Fine. I’ll write a note. Just- can we talk about something else?”

“What?”

He searched frantically. “When did you change your hair? You used to always wear it braided and terribly long.”

Anairë reached up almost unconsciously to check what her hair actually looked like. “I cut it when Ñolofinwë left, and stopped braiding it around the same time. Half of Tirion thought I’d gone mad. It was just… he was the one who did my hair, and I could have done it myself, or had someone else do it, but it didn’t feel right. And then by the time he came back, I was used to it. I hadn’t realized how heavy my head felt until I cut it all. I swear it made my very soul feel lighter.”

Running a hand through his own hair, Maglor paused. Someone had untangled it while he was asleep, though he couldn’t think who. Ossë, possibly. The maia was quite fidgety and had very few boundaries. Oddly, Maglor found himself rather comfortable with the idea. Ossë reminded him a little of Curufin.

“Do you think I could cut it?”

Long hair on males had been out of fashion for some time among the mortals, but Maglor had never been able to cut it short for fear of someone seeing his ears, and he hated that middle-length that was just long enough to hide his ears but too short to do anything with. It made his chin look pointy.

Anairë pulled a pair of scissors from her bag and said, “how short?”

“Why do you have those?”

She shrugged. “Well, carrying a knife would have been suspicious.”

Maglor couldn’t fault her logic.

“It’s a nice change,” Ossë said from the doorway, some hours after Anairë had left. He was wearing the top half of an elven form- shirtless- with octopus legs. He looked, Maglor decided, like Ursula in a porn parody of The Little Mermaid. That he was speaking quite fluent English didn’t help matters.

“Thanks,” replied Maglor, because it was polite. His hair was shorter than he’d ever seen on an elf, and about as short as Anairë could make look nice without a razor. It would grow back if it didn’t work, he supposed. For now, though, the change made his whole body feel lighter. It made him feel like someone new, not the person who all these things had happened to. Whether that was a healthy approach, well, it was better for his health than being dead.

Ossë shifted his weight awkwardly. “I was wondering if you wanted to come to dinner?”

Maglor didn’t even want to think about whatever these three eldritch abominations had for dinner. “You eat dinner?”

“Not usually,” he admitted, “and not because of the food, but eating together is a social practice as well as a practical one. And I like cooking.” One of his tentacles drifted up to scratch awkwardly behind his ear.

“You do?” Maglor asked, wondering if any of the meals that had been appearing for him during his stay here had been produced by Ossë himself.

“It’s relaxing.”

“What are you making?”

Ossë shrugged. “What do you like? Ulmo only really eats because he knows I like it, and Uinen’s tastes are eclectic.”

“Where did you learn to cook?” Maglor asked, wondering if he should be asking for Telerite or Noldorin recipes, and if he could remember the names of either.

“Japan, originally.” Maybe that explained the octopus legs. Or worse, maybe Ossë’s thing about octopi explained some really weird porn. “But if it has a coast, I’ve probably eaten and studied there.”

Maglor considered this. It comforted him, in an odd way. The humans were gone, but not everything they’d made would die with them. Maglor would remember their music, Ulmo would remember their cooking- he wondered, abruptly, if there were other maiar who had learned and studied other parts of mortal culture, who could one day help preserve it. For the first time since the beginning of the end, he felt a curl of hope for the future settle in his chest.

“Does your wife have mortal hobbies too?”

Ossë seemed to look a little into the middle distance, then he shook himself and said, “why don’t you ask her at dinner?”

Maglor shrugged, hoping he seemed agreeable. “Italian?”

Ossë scratched his chin. “Do you eat shellfish?”

“Sure.”

Ossë cracked his knuckles, and scuttled- well, not precisely scuttled- off. The sound his suckers made on the stone floor was going to stick with Maglor for a long time, and not in a good way.

He pulled himself out of bed once the maia was gone, and swayed unsteadily for a second before the water coalesced around him, keeping him steady on his feet. It was a while after this before Maglor found the confidence to walk. Even as he crossed the room, the water seemed to support him. Opening the closet revealed a wide selection of clothes from which Maglor selected a smoking jacket and the appropriate accompaniment for such. The selection contained everything from a graphic tee- a phoenix, Maglor thought it might have been Harry Potter related- to a toga and a ballgown. The smoking jacket seemed the closest thing to middle ground between those two points.

He hadn’t left this room, before. It hadn’t seemed necessary. He had been lying there, waiting to die. But for tonight, he couldn’t do that. He had to go eat Ossë’s cooking. An unexpected amusement bubbled in his chest. He couldn’t get up to save the world, or his family. But Ossë’s cooking? Well, he couldn’t let the maia think it was unappreciated, could he?

The underwater palace was lit, Maglor noted, as he passed from his rooms into the main body, by Fëanarian lanterns. They were clearly old, some having stopped working entirely. On impulse, Maglor reached up, grabbing the bulb of one of the broken ones, and flipped it over.

It said exactly what he had expected. His father’s maker’s mark, the original one. Ulmo must have placed an order when the lanterns had been a new idea. It was remarkable that any of them still worked. His father’s skill truly was unparalleled.

“Are you alright?” Uinen must have come up behind him while he was looking. Maglor managed not to jump.

“I’m fine.” Spanish felt better on his tongue than Sindarin had. He placed the bulb back. “I could probably fix these, if you want. I mean, I’m not Curufin, but all of us spent a lot of time in the forge as children. If I spend some time on it, I can probably remember how. It might be interesting to look at them with a modern- human I mean- scientific understanding.”

In a fit of whimsy, a couple decades earlier, Maglor had forged some credentials and gotten himself an undergraduate degree. He wondered what the people there would have made of his father’s fits of magic-infused genius. Mortal media had always been full of mad geniuses, so they might actually have appreciated it.

Uinen grinned. “That would be wonderful. We three don’t really… see, but if we’re going to have more mortal guests, it will be good for them.”

We three. It was a palace as large as Versailles. “Is it just you and Ossë and Ulmo who live here, then?”

Uinen shrugged ambivalently. “Most aquatic maiar are incorporeal. We three are too, often. But when we want to be together, off work, this is where the three of us are. Other maiar have places of their own.”

“Do you have to be here? Because you and Ossë are his lieutenants?”

In her mortal-ish form, Uinen’s emotions were legible. She looked down at her hands, and Maglor saw shame and disappointment.

“No, that’s not quite it.”

She looked so sad that Maglor said, aggressively, “is he forcing you to do something you don’t want?” He didn’t have a plan for what to do if Ulmo was, except maybe to die and rat him out to Námo. Yes, that might work.

Uinen met his eyes, quite shocked. “No. Never.”

“What is it then?” Maglor asked.

“Come to dinner, and maybe we’ll tell you.” She was teasing him, he realized dimly. It was almost reassuring.

“Would you like to show me to the dining room?”

Uinen’s form shifted, not the body, but the clothes, until she was wearing a pretty gold silk dress cut in a western style. She offered Maglor her arm, and he took it, running the slick material, which felt not at all wet, beneath his fingers.

“Can I ask you something personal?” She asked, as she led him along. Her tone was gentle, but not pitying.

“Everyone wants to,” Maglor replied. “It’s better than when they tell me something personal as if they already know it’s true.”

Uinen nodded solemnly. “I know that feeling.”

If any other maia had said it, Maglor would have laughed in their face, but Uinen was different. She had lost her husband to Morgoth’s manipulations, in a time when such corruption had been unthinkable. None of her peers could ever have understood. He imagined her having to sit through the terrible ‘I understand what you’re going through’ conversations with dozens of maiar and valar who knew nothing at all.

“So, ask your question.”

“Is it your family you’re grieving for, or the men?”

She’d hit on exactly what Anairë and Fingon had missed. He loved his kin, but this all-consuming depression was not for them.

“The men.”

In the centuries since their deaths, Maglor had come to terms with losing his father, and his brothers. It hurt, but in the periods where he lived among mortals, he had moved on. Losing them, not just individual men but the entire species, had devastated him utterly. An unthinkable, incalculable loss. Everything, memory and knowledge and humour ripped away in less time than it took to fry an egg.

Uinen nodded. “I can understand that. They were wonderful, weren’t they.”

“You think so?”

“I know so,” she said, confidently, “they made such beautiful music, and they never let anything stop them.” Maglor should try and write some of their music down, adapt it to elven instruments. He wondered how the Beatles would play in Tirion.

Maglor, as devil’s advocate, said, “they had terrible violence in them, too.”

“I am the Sea at Rest, Maglor. I have terrible violence in me.” She crossed her arms defensively over her chest.

“And I, of course, have the same. But I am a monster. Why are they not the same?”

“Can you look me in the eye and say they were? Always?”

And Maglor knew that he couldn’t. “No. No, not always. Sometimes, yes. Terrible, terrible monsters. Worse than anything Morgoth and Sauron and all their minions could have devised. But not so simple. There was such ability in them, to love, to be selfless, to be kind in small ways. I think that was why the cruelty was always such a shock. They had the capacity to be better than what they were.”

Uinen leant over and hugged him tight. It was a strange embrace. Her arms seemed to somehow wrap around his very soul, and though she had been shorter than him, he found himself tucked into her chest, cradled upon her bosom. It took him a second to notice the strangest part of all; she had no heartbeat.

“It’s the great gift of mortals,” Uinen told him, “they can be other than what they are, day-to-day, year-to-year. It’s hard for us in a way that it never will be for you or them.”

It matched Maglor’s observations; mortals had such capacity to change their natures, to recognize their flaws and fight them. It was a beautiful thing. Elves had change in them, but it was slow and difficult. Save for Ossë, Maglor could remember no true redemption among the ainur.

“Do you think it’ll get better?” Maglor asked her. He rather thought Uinen would be honest with him.

Uinen’s form never stilled. She was the sea, at the heart of her, and the sea never truly stilled. “I think it’ll get worse, for now. I think the fighting will make it worse. But some day? Yes. I think it’ll be better than this.”

It was as much as Maglor could have asked for. More than that, even; it rang true.

“Come on,” Uinen added, “come to dinner.” She led him there, and it was alright.

Over dinner, all of the ainur wore forms like the children of Eru. Or, in Ulmo’s case, as close as he could get. Ossë had gone completely mortal, and he ate and laughed and joked like he’d been pulled out of some bar not twenty minutes earlier. His form had natural-seeming acne scars that betrayed years of practice at looking convincingly human. Ulmo managed an elvish head, while the lower body became scaled and grey until it coiled into a tail around the base of his chair. They discussed the best mortal cities they’d ever visited, and almost getting caught being inhuman, and Uinen’s mortal passion- surfing. The food was hot, and good, and Maglor almost burnt his tongue more than once on the pasta course. The salt and shellfish and tomatoes were a wonder on his tongue, an elegy to the species that had combined them.

They were done eating when Maglor finally worked up the nerve to ask, “why are the three of you together? Here, I mean.”

Ulmo lost track of his corporeal form and remanifested as a coral reef with a human head sticking out the top. Ossë leaned forward menacingly, water swirling around him like a threat. His teeth sharpened to points. Uinen sighed, and calmed them both. “Fools. He means no harm. In fact, I don’t think he even means the question you thought.”

Ossë gave her a bitter look, but stilled the waters. “A hundred thousand solar years of secrecy, and you want to tell this one? Now?”

She shrugged. “I can’t see why not. He asked earlier.”

Ulmo made the decision for all of them, “we three are lovers. What else is there to say?”

Uinen’s hand found Ossë’s on the table, and squeezed tight until his shark’s teeth retracted. Now that Maglor knew, he could see it clearly. They made a kind of sense together, these three. The stories always spoke of Uinen and Ossë, but he had never seen the two of them without Ulmo. Maybe that was because Ulmo was a great Vala, everywhere there was water, but it made more sense knowing that it was because he loved them. How could anyone forgive someone the way Ulmo had forgiven Ossë, if he didn’t love him?

“That’s good,” Maglor told them, sincerely. Years of exposure to mortals had numbed him to the myriad configurations in which love could form. Then he considered further, “why don’t you want anyone to know?”

All three grew dark. “Manwë,” Ossë snapped, “feels that there are rules to these things. That valar and their maiar should be as master and servant, not as equals. At best as parent and child or student and teacher, though we are all the same age and carry the same wisdom in our hearts. Not as lovers and friends. Certainly, they should not love in a wild and multifaceted way as we do. He and Námo punished Melian and Thingol for less. I am already a pariah among many of my kin. I will not- ever- allow that to be transmitted to Ulmo.”

Maglor surprised himself with the wave of anger that swept through him as well. “That isn’t fair. Why should you be expected to hold yourselves up as paragons? Surely if Eru had intended such a thing, it would have been built in to the system.”

Uinen gave him a knowing look. Ossë muttered, “one would think. But Námo also wants to throw you into the void, and Manwë is allowing it to be a serious topic for discussion, so I would not say their decision-making skills are… driven by empathy.”

It was true enough. “Well, they won’t hear about it from me.”

Ulmo smiled with his teeth. “And they won’t hear about you from us, either.”

It was a strange feeling to feel protected. Maglor wondered when the last time someone had protected him was. Maedhros, probably. It shocked him how much he’d missed it, and shocked him again, as tears began to fall against his will, when Uinen and Ossë moved at the same time, pulling him close holding him steady while he wept.

Chapter Text

She thought, often, of what she would tell Kíli about this if she ever had the chance. She thought it would be hard to explain to him that she now spent all her time with some of the most reviled elves in recorded history. On the other hand, it might have been easier to reconcile him to them than to the Silvan and Sindarin elves who had once made up the entirety of her friend group.

“This is Celebrimbor,” Tauriel thought she might say, probably with a hand gesture at the elf in question. “He brought me back to life with no hope of reward, and has been a friend to your ancestors for longer than your people cared to remember.”

Celebrimbor was the only person in whom she confided these thoughts. Legolas, though he shared this thing they all had lost, was too close to Tauriel’s own grief. It stung more than she had words for that he had rejected her dwarven love, and then found one of his own. This was not to say she did not care deeply for him; she did, but the guilt on his face only made her loss feel more present. Celebrimbor had never had the chance to know Kíli, but, unlike Amrod, her other rescuer, he could understand the magnitude of her grief.

It was for all three of them that Tauriel had come to know the value of this fight. All four, really. For Kíli, who was Aulë’s child and might be lost in Mandos’s Arda. For Celebrimbor, whose decency and empathy shocked her. For Legolas, who genuinely believed in the good of what they were doing, and for Amrod, who was afraid for the safety of those he loved just as she was for her own. She valued the fight, and began to participate.

In death, Tauriel had stagnated. Time had lost all meaning. When she was shoved into the darkest parts of Mandos and left to rot, it had been a shock to learn that it was more than a few centuries since her death. In one sense, this paralysis had been a blessing. It had numbed her pain. But it had also stopped her from choosing to heal. Now, with her hröa returned to her, she would choose healing, in the same stroke as she chose to fight.

Although she had never set foot in Valinor, Tauriel was quick to volunteer for their covert missions into the blessed land. For one thing, of all the escapees, she was the only one whose loved ones had not been questioned by the valar. It was possible, she told Legolas, that Mandos had not even noticed her absence. More importantly, though, she had an advantage that none of those who now resided with Ulmo did: she was full-blooded Avarin.

Most Avari had been reluctant to return to life in Valinor. For some, doing so was a betrayal of their very being. But Námo had pushed strenuously for it, and in the end, all their people had loved the world more than they hated being subject to the valar. According to Edhellos, who was one of the only part-Vanyar allowed to work with them in trade negotiations, the far eastern provinces of Valinor had been transformed into a variety of ecosystems as suited their inhabitants. Together, the Avarin tribes occupied more land with as many people as the Sindar, the Teleri and the Vanyar combined, even with many of their number being counted as Silvan elves. They were isolationist and unpredictable, but they were not slaves to the valar. For this reason, Tauriel, who now owed her life and freedom to Amrod and Celebrimbor, would seek them out.

“You ought not go alone,” Legolas told her, very seriously. “It is a terrible danger.”

He could not have come. He had sailed to Valinor of his own free will, and the old-blood Avari would never have respected that. But he was not wrong that Tauriel needed a companion, and her options among their treacherous crew were sorely limited. Maglor was the obvious choice, but he spoke not a word of any Avarin tongue. There was also the problem that he saw his time in Middle Earth partly as a punishment, much as the Avari felt about their stay in Valinor. Tauriel needed someone who loved Middle Earth, had never willingly left it, and could learn an Avarin tongue. Her options dwindled quickly, and soon she was left contemplating Legolas again.

The first of their missions, to independent cities and Tol Eressëa, all went without a hitch. Ulmo reported back that Námo was half mad with anger, but since Oromë kept losing the trail, on land or water, he had no mode of recourse. The trick was not to remain in any place too long, or else Oromë or Nessa would surely arrive while they were still there. In the interest of preventing both arriving at once, they sent multiple groups out at a time, to distract and confuse the valar.

Those who most frequently led these groups, Nimloth, Gil-galad, Voronwë and Amdirdis, often has meetings to plan their future. It was at one such meeting where they summoned Tauriel.

“You have yet to find a partner to take to the Avari?” Voronwë asked. In two weeks, he had gone from a nervous and silent participant to an active rebel. Tauriel found she rather liked him. In point of fact, she liked many of these rebels. They were not cowards. They did not let the world pass them by. They sought its beauty and fought to hang on.

“I do,” Tauriel admitted. “I speak a West Avarin dialect- my mother taught me- and I need my candidate, in addition to being someone my people will respect, to be someone who can competently learn the tongue in the next few weeks.”

Amdirdis tapped her fingers on the table. “And Edhellos cannot do it? She has traded with them I know, and must have ways to communicate.”

Edhellos spoke to her Avarin acquaintances through a translator. They only liked her because she was a wild woman who had happily died in Beleriand, and because she asked very little of them. With a request of this magnitude, something greater was required. Edhellos might come, but someone else was needed to demonstrate respect.

Tauriel explained this.

“Well there’s an obvious candidate, isn’t there?” They all turned to stare at Voronwë. “We have one of the premier linguists in elvendom here. He died in Beleriand, and thought Valinor a prison as much as the Avari do.”

It was so obvious. Tauriel considered burying her head in her hands.

“Will he agree to it?” Nimloth asked.

Amdirdis shrugged. “He’s a cocky bastard. Always has been. If he can do it and we can’t, I don’t see him refusing.”

She was right, of course. Which was how Tauriel and Fëanor had come to be standing on the edge of a massive forest, deposited by a very friendly maia of Aulë.

It could take us days to find anything in here, thought the Prince of the Noldor. Fëanor’s mind was a carefully-tuned instrument, and in exchange for her language lessons, Fëanor had offered lessons in various psychic arts. Tauriel had no affinity for it, but her communication was serviceable. On this instance, they would be relying on Manwë being distracted by other sounds- no less than six other groups- but there was no point in taking risks before they had to.

We don’t need to find anything. They will find us. Tauriel consciously made herself think in West Avarin. To speak the tongue of her childhood, her mind needed to be in it fully.

Together, they set off into the trees. It was not a tame forest, and the brush was thick. There would be a fire here, soon, if the valar allowed nature to progress as it ought. She was not sure if they would. Trees would die, but later, other trees would live. It was the nature of things, much as it was hated. This cyclical beauty was why so many of Tauriel’s kin had wanted not to be reborn. They had wanted other elves to live. That they had to be reborn was, perhaps, proof that Eru’s greater gift was given to man. Kíli, she thought, I wish my life did not have to sunder our fates.

“Do not move,” the archer perched above them said in thickly accented Sindarin. Fëanor jumped. Obviously, he had not spent enough time with tree-dwellers.

“And here I thought kin still welcomed kin,” Tauriel replied, in their shared tongue. Or at least, she hoped he shared her tongue. If he was from one of the other tribes, this might not end well. But Edhellos had said most of the western Avari dwelled in these woods, regardless of tribe. Surely many of their old feuds must have ended, by now.

“Kin still welcome kin,” he responded in the same language, “but you are a stranger here, and so is he.”

She pretended that she was Thranduil, so haughty that everyone would simply have to respect her. “And yet I am of Nurwë’s line, thus we must be kin, less you deny your own people.”

Every Avari alleged kinship to Nurwë. It was something like alleging kinship to Eru. True only metaphorically or spiritually.

“Child of Nurwë? And yet you come unannounced and are not robed in grey. How did you come?”

And this was the trick. “The same way all true Avari do. I am here because I must be, not because I wish to be on these shores. Yet there is beauty still in the stars, and in the fashioning of Arda, and I will take that over captivity, since I cannot have that which I wish.”

The archer aimed right for her eye. “I do not believe that answers my question, cousin.”

The ‘cousin’ at least assured that he saw her as one of the Avari. When he shot her, technically, he could thereby be tried for murder. Excellent. Dear Kíli, I died trying to be diplomatic, which is more than you can say for yourself.

Let me try something, Fëanor thought, and the archer quickly turned to aim at him as he reached into his pocket and pulled out the silmaril.

Even now, the beauty of the thing awed and angered her. It was so like the temptations and corruptions that had been placed upon dwarves, so like Sauron, yet the purity of that light made her understand why Fëanor’s ancestors had left Cuivenian to seek it. The archer seemed to feel the same confusion. His aim wavered.

“You know who I am,” Fëanor said quietly. “I am not of your kin. But I know that of all Eru’s children, the Avari love freedom best. I have been denied that freedom. My children and kin have been denied it. You and your kin deserve to know the truth of what has happened these last months, not merely what the Valar deigned to tell you. I would not ask you to fight for me. I am no king of yours or anyone’s. But I would have all the choices you make be informed by the truth of the situation. The Vanyar have called the Noldor criminals for no crime greater than seeking the freedom our parents’ choices took from us. That which we did later, we did for worse reasons, but it was this first crime for which our cursed punishment began. I think Nurwë’s kin can understand that better than anyone.”

His accent was strange, but his voice fell into the lyrical patterns of the language like a natural, and he plucked the words from the air like ripe cherries. The archer was quiet for a long while, but his aim found a new target on the ground at their feet. Suddenly, a lithe form was tumbling from the trees to stand before Fëanor and Tauriel.

He was shorter and darker than Tauriel, his hair almost a chestnut colour that was odd for elves, and tied back in defence to his duties. Decision seemingly made, he gave her a cheery smile.

“How did you come to find yourself in such odd company, cousin?”

It was a terribly long story, and a terribly short one. “I had been dead of a broken heart. Then Námo closed his doors and trapped all who remained. He and his kin freed me in place of some of their own.”

He nodded seriously. “My name is Artesh. What’s yours?”

This was one of the questions they were not to answer. “I fear listening maiar, Artesh.”

He grinned. “You have no need to do so here. One of the conditions of our coming to settle here was that Manwë would leave us well alone. For the rest- well, why do you think we have a guard? It is certainly not for wayward Noldor and their Sylvan friends.”

“Is that true?” Edhellos and Uinen had said no such thing.

“Yes,” Artesh said earnestly. “But I will understand if you cannot trust in my words. Let me take you to my commander. Xe will be very interested in what you have to say.”

Xe? Fëanor thought at her.

A singular pronoun that is neither male nor female. In western dialects of Avarin it would be conjugated the same as he or she, and also would be the correct pronoun for the Vala Oromë, who I believe is ‘they’ in other elven tongues?

“Excellent,” Fëanor said aloud. It was impossible to tell who he was responding to.

Artesh led them through the woods. He and Tauriel went mostly by trees, avoiding the thick brush of the forest floor. Fëanor, raised in Tirion, did not have the aptitude, but as the brush grew thicker still, Tauriel helped him in walking from branch to branch. Concentrating intently on his movements, Fëanor did not say much. Instead, Artesh and Tauriel spoke. He was older than her, having been born in the second age in Rhûn, and had died in a flooding river at the start of the third. Tauriel told him of her parents, and their flight to the Greenwood, and their deaths.

“They always intended to return home, when I was older. To introduce me to my kin and make my home there once there was a lull in fighting. But after they died, Thranduil offered to take me into the palace and have me tutored alongside his own son. Legolas needed more friends, and I needed to learn numbers and languages and how to fight.” We were refugees, just like the dwarves of Erebor. Thranduil wasn’t a monster to everyone like he was to you.

“And how do you fight?”

What a question. “With a bow, ideally. With blades if needs must. With my hands and feet, if otherwise unarmed.”

“What sort of blades?” Some Avari could be peculiar about forged weapons. Tauriel hoped Artesh was not one of these.

“I wield nothing I could not forge myself, although my versions are less competent. My mother taught me that it was the way of our kin to always make our own first weapons, so we could defend ourselves without being forced to rely on anyone.” Dear Kíli, I never spoke to you of the feeling of steel folding under my tools. You didn’t know this about me. It was an uncommon thing we shared.

This answer seemed to earn his approval. “My family never practiced that custom, but I know many who did.”

What a snob. “So, does that satisfy your curiosity as to whether I’m Avarin enough for you? Or do you need the lineage and clans of my parents and all their ancestors?”

Artesh, wish a running start, leapt the gap between two trees, spun around the trunk of the other, and looked back towards Tauriel and Fëanor. “You’re here, and you brought someone with actual power to treat with us. That’s more than anyone who wasn’t Avarin would ever have bothered to do. Come on, we’re almost there.”

Tauriel couldn’t help Fëanor across this broad a gap. He looked to her. “Go on then. Show me how it’s done.”

This new body wasn’t as experienced as her old one. Its muscles were fresh and had not yet become taut from years of running and pulling herself from branch to branch, but her fëa remembered what it should be. Crouching low, she ran to the very end of this branch, and leapt as high as she could. For a second she felt suspended in the air, like a maia, and then her body remembered what it was supposed to be. She flew forward, caught a higher branch in her hands, and swung up on top of it. Artesh, smiling up at her, clapped politely. Even Fëanor looked genuinely impressed.

“You know,” he said, “we used to have competitions for this sort of thing in Tirion. I think you would have done very well.”

Then, silmaril clutched tight in one hand, he jumped. There was no running start. He should not have made it, but it was as if the world contorted around him. He landed cleanly right in front of Artesh, and bowed cockily.

Bastard. “You were saying, Artesh?” Tauriel ask, before either of them could start a fight.

He rolled his eyes. “This way.”

They went on. Perhaps five minutes later, they came to a town, concealed in the trees. The houses conformed to the patterns of the woods, joined together by ropes and branches where necessary. Most people were out at this time of day, but a select few remained. Those who were working as builders or maintainers. Skilled artisans. A fletcher with one leg watched them carefully from her perch, even higher above them. She waved to Artesh, and he smiled sweetly. It was clearly a small tribe, or not the whole of one. She guessed the population at a hundred or less.

At the center of town, they clambered down to the roots. Governance always took place on the ground. Leadership was a risk, and so by leaving the safety of the highest branches, leaders showed their genuine commitment. Tauriel, as a girl, had been raised on stories of brave leaders who leapt to the ground and the terrible dangers they faced there.

There were four councillors awaiting there. One wore signs associated with birth and motherhood, another with fatherhood and teaching. The third was a warrior, and the fourth a craftsman. The warrior was the one who addressed them first. Xe was pale skinned, but xir hair was thick, curly, and dark as night.

“Artesh. I see you haven’t heard the news. Good, that means you were actually paying attention at your post.” An odd greeting, and certainly an overtly familiar one. “These strangers will be the Triarchy’s problem now.”

Now that was news. Tauriel bit her tongue so as not to swear.

I’m confused, Fëanor told her.

She’d never considered the need to tell him this. It was never practical. The Triarchy is the legendary and probably apocryphal leadership of the Avari. It’s believed that although the Minyar followed Oromë away, we maintained representation for all three of the original tribes. In a time of true suffering, a triarchy is allegedly convened to protect all elves. But they can’t convene one. They’d need heirs of Imin, Tata and Enel, and they haven’t got an heir of Imin.

An heir?

Well, heir is a loose word. Someone of sufficient status with the right sort of blood would do, regardless of whether they were a direct descendant. I’m technically an Heir of Nurwë, remember. ‘Someone from the house or line of’ might be a better translation.

“They convened a triarchy?” Tauriel wondered aloud.

The council looked at her. “Yes,” the father said. “Not anywhere near here, but they have. A Daughter of Imin came, and told one of the old councils the severity of the impending war. She is an ancient one, too, from before the separation of the tribes. She and two of our own, of Tata and Enel, have been drawing forces to their sides for weeks. The word only reached us now, but it is said they number more than fifty thousand and growing.”

It was more Avari than Tauriel had ever known to gather under one government. If all those thirty thousand were war-ready, as most Avari were raised to be, then it was a greater force than all of the Vanyar would likely be able to muster. The Noldor could have, as could the Sindarin-Silvan forces, easily, but the fact that the number was rising was extraordinary. Even Fëanor swallowed a gasp.

“Who are they?” Fëanor asked. “Where did they come from?” The council seemed to notice him properly at last. The mother examined him cautiously, and then made a sign to banish evil spirits. Tauriel thought it impolite to translate this gesture.

“They are of no clan now,” the mother told him, “in being Triarchs, they are Tata, Enel and Imin, until such a time as their reigns end.”

Fëanor swore quite loudly. Everyone stared at him. “They’re titles! How could we have forgotten? Were there ever elves named Imin, Enel and Tata, or is it a mistake? We have forgotten so much of our ancient past. It was so discouraged to speak of it here. My parents certainly never did. But that explains so much. Why did they never return? Because they never existed.”

He was so genuinely excited that it was hard not to be a little endeared. The craftsman smiled quite openly at him. Finally realizing that everyone was watching, he subsided a little.

“The children of Nurwë have much wisdom my own kin lack.”

The father nodded. “And yet perhaps you understand what we have better than much of your kind, Son-of-Finwë.”

They knew who he was, then. It was not so hard as all that, with the light of the silmaril still in hand. Tauriel took control of the narrative. “He does. Look to the dedication he has given to learning our tongue. Look to the fact he has come himself to speak to you. Has Ingwë ever shown such devotion? Fëanáro died for the freedom of his kin, and for it was chained. If not for him, I would have been chained, a punishment for ill timing and loving a mortal.”

The council looked to each other. It was the mother who spoke. “We will think on your words and bring them to the Triarchs. But now you must leave. It is only courtesy that keeps the eyes of the valar from this place. I think that now more than ever, their courtesy is not to be trusted.”

Fëanor was not one to give up. “We will go, but let me speak my piece first.” He waited for a nod of permission. “The valar would have you believe there are two sides in this war. There are not. There are three. Námo- Mandos- leads one. Morgoth leads another. The third has no one leader. Like the Avari, we recognize the weakness of this approach. But the closest things we have are Fingolfin my brother, and Nimloth of Doriath. They too know the value of freedom. I can say with confidence that they are each two of the most empathetic, honest leaders I have ever known. We cannot win this war alone. If the Avari, of all tribes and nations, would stand with us, they would be standing for freedom. From the oppression of the valar and the terrors of Morgoth. A freedom to reshape the world into a home for all of us. A freedom not just for themselves, but for all elves. For men and dwarves. I come to you now with a plea for aid, and a gift of opportunity.”

And then, Fëanor, proud and terrible Fëanor, knelt before these small-town councilmembers. To Tauriel’s shock, he thought, I learned long ago that my pride is not worth my sons. If these people can protect my children, then I will happily kneel.

The silence was long and terrible Then Artesh spoke. “I will go,” he said, looking to Tauriel. “If your army will have me, I will go.”

He shot an apologetic look to his commander. Xe sighed, rubbing the bridge of xir nose with a look of resignation. “Take your bow, Artesh, and show the value of Avarin skill. If the triarchy allows it, I, for one, will come and fight with you. It is not right for us to sit here and allow others to fight our battles for us. It is more like the Vanyar than it is like us.”

And so, when Fëanor and Tauriel slipped off into the woods to find a tree, Artesh came with them. They both pretended not to notice the fact that he was crying. Speaking only for herself, Tauriel could understand the fear and grief of leaving your family, of going into battle- real battle, not border skirmishes where everyone tried to avoid becoming kinslayers- for the first time. She suspected that Fëanor could too, although he would never admit it to either of them.

Despite their best intentions, they three never again walked among the Avari. Three days after this first visit, Ulmo returned with the news that a compromise had been reached to close the loophole in security that the Avari represented. Vairë had volunteered to walk among them. Like her husband, her sight was much disturbed by the impending ending, and she supposedly wished for companionship, robbed of her task. Tauriel thought it more likely that she had some sort of information on their visit, and was trying to prevent it from happening again without endangering the Avari.

Their excursions to the other elven groups continued as normal. Tauriel, Artesh and Fëanor became the core of many such parties. Together with a rotating cast of three or four more, they travelled across Valinor.

The day everything went wrong, they had a more high profile accompaniment than usual. The reason for this was simple: they were in Formenos. Thus, their group consisted of Celegorm, Aredhel, Queen Nimloth, and Talathes, another recruit who was originally from Formenos. The primary distraction team, in Tol Eressëa, was led by Caranthir and Amdirdis, and expected good results.

The seven of them split up. Fëanor, Tauriel, Aredhel and Artesh went in one group. Celegorm, Nimloth, and Talathes were the other. They had only a little time, but still they went from door to door, careful not to stray too far, speaking to people in the streets. They began with good luck. An ancient elleth carrying a tray of bread revealed that she had worked in the kitchens when Fëanor had lived here, and remembered his elder sons rather fondly. Her own children, she explained, had gone off in the war and now lived in Tirion. They both had followed Maedhros, and remembered him as fondly as their mother did. A good boy, she repeatedly called the dreaded kinslayer, and always so thoughtful. She was an easy sell, as was her husband.

A street down, Celegorm, Nimloth, and Talathes were having similar luck. They found a potter who had once ridden with Maglor, a Sindarin who had defected to follow Aegnor, and a skilled spearswoman from Gondolin.

Between the two groups, they had seven recruits when the horns sounded. It was the wild call of a hunt, imbued with such primal magic that Tauriel almost immediately began to run. The wiser part of her brain stopped her until Aredhel cried, “Oromë!”

Fëanor pulled the silmaril out, and, clutching it in his hand, took off at a sprint towards their escape path. They all fled after him. Tauriel pulled up the rear, allowing their recruits to move ahead of her. Celegorm, a street on the other side of their meeting point, was doing the same for his recruits. And then he stopped. Behind them, Oromë rounded the corner. Hounds the size of horses scratched at the ground and whimpered for a command. Horses the size of elephants followed after them. Astride the greatest seat of all, sat the Vala themselves. Celegorm turned to face them. For a second, the whole world seemed to freeze, and though Tauriel still ran, heart pounding in her chest, her eyes were drawn only to this great conflict. Celegorm was unarmed. Even if he had been, there was no threat he could have posed to a being that controlled his greatest weapon with magic.

The groups collided, and Nimloth was issuing orders, “Fëanor! Silmaril! Now!”

The elf in question stared, frozen, at his son. His mouth opened and closed, The Vala, who took the form of a lithe, fair elf made in unbelievable proportions, raised a single hand. It was callused as an archer’s. The intentionality of the imperfections gave them a terrible beauty. Before they could issue a command, Celegorm started to walk towards them. Hand shaking, Fëanor set the silmaril down on the ground. He had been working for weeks to combine it with Ulmo’s power in safer ways to travel. Pulling a cobblestone loose with his hands, Artesh filled a tiny space with water. They submerged the silmaril in it.

At this point, Fëanor should have wrapped his hand around it, and taken them away, but he did not. Instead he moved to stand up. Celegorm, a block away, finally reached Oromë. The Vala nocked an arrow. Fëanor looked to Tauriel. “Take it,” he said. This was so uncharacteristic that she stared blankly at him.

The spell might work for her. Maybe. But the silmarils were Fëanor’s. He was more powerful than he knew. More powerful than she could ever have hoped to match. He turned back towards his son, and the others joined hands, Nimloth grabbing Tauriel’s shoulder to secure her place. Fëanor’s body tensed as if preparing to sprint.

Tauriel tackled him from behind, and forced his hand into the water. “Now!” She screamed, hoping Ulmo could hear her. They began to dissolve, and Tauriel, looking up, caught one last glimpse of Celegorm, staring down an arrow aimed directly at his heart. There was a single twang of a bow string, Fëanor shouted unintelligibly, and then they were all gone.

On the floor of Ulmo’s home, Tauriel suddenly found herself flat on her back. Fëanor’s hands were on her throat, and his eyes were wild. His fingers dug in like talons, and she found that she couldn’t breathe. Her hands scratched instinctively at his wrists, but he was too strong.

Aredhel pulled her uncle off in a choke hold, and shoved him to the ground. Tauriel breathed deeply, trying to fill her lungs with the imaginary air. Aredhel was weeping loudly, tears streaming down her face, but she still looked at Fëanor with judgement.

“My son,” Fëanor whispered, voice breaking.

Aredhel walked over to the gold and coral wall, and pressed her face against its fine patterns.

“He chose,” said Nimloth. “That’s the problem with children. Their choices have to be their own.”

Nimloth, whose sons had not been given a choice, felt this more keenly than most. Tauriel sprawled over the ground. Celegorm was caught. They would interrogate and torture him. It was all over. She knew, dimly, that she was probably in shock. Her body felt numb. Dear Kíli, I could have been killed today, but a notorious murderer saved my life. I suspect it will not last for long.

“It’s not fair,” Fëanor accused, speaking to no one in particular.

The cost of their failure was too high. Aredhel slapped the wall. Fëanor curled in on himself. Nimloth, who had been murdered by Celegorm once, long ago, said, “he made a sacrifice. It’s up to us to see that it wasn’t for nothing.” Her words were kind, but more hopeful than any of them felt. All Tauriel’s work had come to nothing. She felt sick to her stomach, and worse at the furious expression Fëanor made when she met his eyes. Gathering herself, she walked away, to find a private place to cry.

Chapter Text

Maedhros floated in darkness, and wondered if it would consume him utterly soon. What would that feel like? Anything would be better than this.

Another wave of fire shot through him. He twisted, trying to tear it out of himself, to dig claws into his chest and pull it away. It hurt, but he almost had it. One talon scratched the surface of the stone, and then hands grabbed his and pulled them away.

Nelyo. You need to focus on my voice. You’re panicking. We’re in Mandos. You’re in control here. Nothing will hurt you here. Focus on me.

It was dark. So dark. Too dark. And it hurt so much. Why did it hurt so much?

Nelyo, you’re tearing a hole in your fëa. You need to focus on my voice. Let me heal it.

Where was he? Where was his body? What had Morgoth done now? How had he done this? Were these even Maedhros’s hands, or were they Sauron’s, digging into his skin, laughing, laughing, reaching away for- He needed to get them off, get them out. He dug the nails of one hand into the flesh of the other.

He’s not listening.

Go get a maia, Celegorm.

As if they would help.

Shut up, Curvo.

He wasn’t going to let Morgoth win this time. Perhaps he could escape if he just… he raised the hands that were not his own towards his throat.

Perhaps I can be of assistance.

You aren’t one of the usual jailers.

No, I’m not.

You don’t look like one of Námo’s servants at all, come to that.

I’m not that either.

Maedhros reached out cautiously, to investigate this new trap and felt an oddly bright mind reaching out to his in turn. It was light, and warm, not like a fire, but like a summer’s day. This was new. He did not think Morgoth had this capacity for pretending to be that which he was not. Thus, it was certainly Sauron.

Who are you?

My name is Olórin Mithrandir. I’m Nienna’s friend. Can you help me with something?

What? A quiet voice in the back of Maedhros’s head pointed out to him that Nienna never came to visit here, but he didn’t understand what that meant.

I’m working on a visualization project. I need you to help me build a garden. Can you do that?

A garden?

I’m thinking a small garden, quiet. It’s late in summer, and the strawberries are bright red. Can you add something?

If it’s late in the summer, the flowers will be dying.

Individual flowers will be dying, because they’re turning into seeds. If you leave them, new life will come from them. Or you could always deadhead. Gardens need careful maintenance, I’ve been told. This thought was conveyed with a genuine mix of fondness and grief that was unknown to Sauron. For the first time, Maedhros began to believe that he was somewhere else.

I don’t know much about gardening. Why do you know so much anyways, ‘Nienna’s friend’?

I knew some good gardeners, but I’m no expert either. That’s why I need your help. There’s a herb garden right at the side of the house. Your turn.

Fine. There’s a tomato plant.

Big tomatoes or little ones?

Big ones, and ripe.

Good. I can hear bees buzzing, moving from plant to plant. I think there might be a hive nearby.

I can hear a maia doing a weird exercise about building a garden.

The maia sent him a burst of amusement. It’s not terrible for dealing with panic, especially when you’re incorporeal. Having no body makes it a little difficult to concentrate on the here and now through physical stimulus. In the future, if you’re feeling pain or distress, you could try it for yourself. Or for me, if I’m corporeal, I do it with things that really are there. It helps when things feel overwhelming.

And you’d know? As if any maiar could know.

I do know. Friend of Nienna, remember?

None of Nienna’s people ever helped me.

We weren’t allowed. I’m sorry. And Maedhros could tell that he was. But I’m here now, to help.

You changed Námo’s mind? Maedhros knew where he was, now. His mind was as clear as it ever could be, in this place. Some days were better than others.

Not exactly. Now, we don’t have much time. Are you alright if we let your kinsmen in on this conversation?

They can’t already hear us? Nothing much was private, in Mandos. There were things he knew, and things about his life that none of them had ever wanted shared. The same went for all of those who had been trapped in the bowels of Mandos. Even now that they had the run of the place, with the main doors sealed, they stayed so closed for comfort as to lose privacy.

The maia sent him another wave of amusement. I have a few tricks.

Let them in.

There was a clamour all at once. Together the lot of them thought: Maedhros-areyoualright-thiswasabadone-didhehelp-iftheresanythingIcandoletmeknow. Maedhros pushed his own mind forward and said, calm down.

This was ineffective. They kept thinking over each other until the maia snapped, do you want to get out of here or not?

Get out of here? Caranthir wondered. His memories flashed to the forefront, reminding them all why he was not trusting. This was followed by swift humiliation. Those betrayals should have been his and his alone.

This is a jail break. The Dagor Dagorath is happening. I’m helping you escape. You’ll need these.

There was a shimmering connection between him and Fëanor, for a second. It vanished just as quickly, but Fëanor’s awe lingered.

How did you get these?

It isn’t important. You can cut straight through this wall. Because of the intemporal nature of this space, the exit won’t feel the same to Mandos as to you. He won’t be able to follow to your exact location. There will be blank corporeal forms waiting for you. You’ll have to visualize yourself into them without help, and destroy any of the spares that you don’t use.

Celegorm interrupted. How many are there?

Twelve. Enough for you to bring some friends.

Maedhros counted. The eight of us are down here, and Maeglin. Is there anyone else?

The boundaries within Mandos have been changed, Olórin reminded them gently, you should find that the guards are now manning the main exit, rather than keeping you separate from the other… guests. Námo intends to punish any nonconforming and troublesome elves, not just you.

Atar, Fëanor mused.

Aegnor, Amras thought. If Námo’s views have hardened, his voluntary solace may have become… involuntary.

They heard the thoughts of those few who remained sometimes, on what qualified as a breeze here. Aegnor remained, and was genuinely miserable.

Invite whoever you like, but leave soon. Nienna can only distract her brother for so long.

He vanished, leaving the prisoners to their thoughts. Fëanor quickly took charge.

I’ll begin cutting the hole. Caranthir, fetch your grandfather. Celegorm, Maeglin. Amras, feel free to invite Aegnor. Now, think carefully. Is there anyone else?

Thingol? Curufin offered, smugly.

Shut up and help me, Celegorm snapped. Maedhros felt them getting further away. Amras and Caranthir left too, in other directions.

Amrod thought, I’ll look around, see if I run into anyone we’d like to bring.

We only have the one spot left, Celebrimbor noted, I’ll come with you.

And then it was only Maedhros and his father. Fëanor thought, the second you feel the wall open, I want you to run. Even if the others aren’t back. I need you to go. It was a genuine and intense want, for at least one more of his children to be free.

And that, Maedhros could not bear. No. I’m not leaving without them.

Maedh-

Absolutely not. Besides, if Námo senses anyone’s absence, it would be yours or mine. We have to be last.

Fëanor paused at his task, his mind stilling completely before the realization, you are afraid of what will happen to you when you leave.

There was no lying in the realm of souls. Yes.

You have been more than ready to leave this place for centuries. Fëanor came close to him, an intimate, comforting brush of his being. This captivity did you no good.

Both statements were true in Fëanor’s mind. Only the latter was true in Maedhros’s

I don’t think I will ever be ready to leave this place.

He felt the heat as his father’s anger, at Námo, and Morgoth, and Eru, and himself, flared dangerously. It was hard not to flinch back. Fëanor pulled away for him, as if afraid he would hurt Maedhros. He turned back to his work.

The silence stretched on until it was painful. Finally, Fëanor wondered, what will Fingon think if you decide not to return to him?

And that was absolutely unfair. Don’t you dare talk about him like that.

Then don’t be such an idiot. Frankly, it is a miracle that he has survived so long without you. As I remember it, he could barely yawn without you to do so first.

Stop that!

He’s right, Amrod informed, cheerily. Meet Tauriel. She’s coming with us.

It was just like Celebrimbor to have actually found a total stranger to trust with this incredible secret. Amrod! Celebrimbor!

The elleth’s spirit was carefully guarded. She was younger than all of them by a great deal, but there was a sorrow to her. After a while in Mandos, one came to know all the flavours of grief and regret. This was, he thought, a lost love. But there was an anger there, too, seething below the surface. A wolf hiding in the shadows.

I was active in Third Age efforts against Sauron, she informed them. I’m here because I loved a dwarf, and if any of you have a problem with that, then you can get off your high horses and find something better to be righteous about.

This, possibly, explained why Celebrimbor had found her such worthy company. Already, his mind held close to hers.

Fëanor considered. Are you going to betray us to Námo?

She was certain. No.

He relaxed. Then, welcome. Now, as I was saying, Maedhros, you can’t stay here. I won’t let you.

You can’t make me go.

Amrod flared with the same anger as their father had. No, he can’t, but I can. He can never win this argument because he needs to be free, to be with ammë and Maglor. But I don’t have any other commitments. If you stay, I stay.

Bastard. Amrod would do it, too. No matter how much he wanted free, loved their kin, he had a great stubbornness in him.

Before Amrod could retort, a beam of light cut through the air in front of them. The five of them turned to it. Fëanor clutched his tools close, and Maedhros found that, for once, he could see instead of feeling the others.

That’s it, Fëanor whispered. His ghostly form turned to Tauriel’s. He was the most solid of them all, Maedhros found. Compared to him, Tauriel was little more than a streak of red like blood hanging misted in the air. Tauriel, there are bodies out there waiting for us. Go.

She obeyed, and Maedhros lost sight of the outline of her. Celebrimbor, with a careful glance to his grandfather, followed without being ordered, a being shaped out of smoke. It was an incredible relief to see him go. Maedhros looked at Amrod.

You need to go next. He raised his astral hand- left- to prevent objections. I give you my word, I’ll come. But I can’t bear leaving anyone behind.

Maedhros-

I promise. Amrod seemed torn, between his unabashed loyalty, and his need for freedom. He strained desperately towards the light, and Maedhros would not keep him from it. Not for such a pointless quest.

I’ll make sure he goes, Fëanor reassured, and watched until Amrod was gone before adding, don’t make a liar of me, Maedhros.

Atar-

Fëanor’s form shifted in the light, absorbing it into himself and refracting it in swirling, dazzling forms across Maedhros’s vision. You are not healing here, Maedhros. It is not helping you, to be trapped here. Having a form again, being out there again- I will speak truthfully; I believe it will hurt. But that does not mean it will not be better. People who love you are there. We will support you, no matter how hard it is. I promise.

And, after so many years together, Maedhros believed that his father would. The others, too. But those who, in some ways, mattered the most to him? Fingon. Maglor. His mother. Their opinions were less certain.

If you think Nerdanel would want you to stay here for one second while she is forced to wait, you do not remember her very well. Fëanor pressed. Whatever my feelings, the same goes for Fingon. The way your brothers remember it, that boy adored you until the day he died.

Yes, and then he died. Because of me. And then I did horrible, horrible things. To the Sindar, and to the Noldor. To my own brothers-

Fëanor’s feelings were overwhelming and almost opaque to Maedhros in their magnitude. There was anger and regret and grief and protectiveness. He was spared from the torment only by the return of Amras and Aegnor. When they stepped out into the light, Fëanor pulled his emotions back under control, and watched them. Amras was solid and radiant, more like light through stained glass than the pale mist that Aegnor resembled. He watched the exit with a yearning, a need, that Maedhros felt and feared.

You’re coming? Maedhros asked his spectral kinsman.

Aegnor folded in on himself, drawing away. I don’t know. I don’t want to. Not for me, but- how can I leave my family to face this alone?

Amras touched him, gently, and Aegnor leaned into the contact. Maedhros wondered when they had become so close, in life, and how he had missed it. It seemed to be the one secret any of them had been allowed in death. Don’t do anything you don’t feel ready to do.

Together, Aegnor replied, reaching up to take his hand, and Amras obeyed. As they walked into the light, Fëanor seemed to smile.

It isn’t that I don’t want to go, Maedhros told him, it’s just that I’m afraid, to face what I’ve done.

I know.

And there’s nothing you can do to protect me from that.

Though he resented the fact, Fëanor repeated, I know.

They waited for the others in companionable silence. Curufin, Celegorm and Maeglin returned next. Sensing that his own son was gone, Curufin’s spirit fled with incomparable speed. Maeglin clambered out after him, Celegorm following close behind, a silent guardian to them both.

Caranthir should be back by now, worried Fëanor.

Stay here, Maedhros commanded, without regard for their respective stations, and went in search of his brother and grandfather.

As luck would have it, Caranthir was not far, moving in the opposite direction. Maedhros could feel his radiating grief and shame. What’s happened?

Finwë won’t come.

No. It was unthinkable. Why not?

He says that his leaving, even by unsanctioned paths, might hurt Míriel or Indis. Thingol was with him. I offered to invite Thingol, since I know he has been as much a ‘guest’ as we are, but he wasn’t interested in anything to do with us. I can’t imagine we have long before he alerts Námo.

They fled back to where their father waited, and Maedhros practically shoved Caranthir through before he could utter a word.

He isn’t coming, Maedhros informed. He took Fëanor’s shock in stride, but found it harder to accept the grief and regret that underpinned it. Námo is going to find out. You need to go.

You go first.

In their present state, Maedhros could not obscure the truth, I don’t trust you to choose our wellbeing over his.

Fëanor flinched away, radiating shame. What can I do to convince you otherwise?

You can go, and be with them.

He seemed as torn as Amrod had been. I don’t want to lose you again.

Once, long ago, Fëanor had sacrificed his sons to avenge his father. Now, though grief for Finwë was clear in him, it was far less than the fear and anxiety he felt over the possibility of losing Maedhros. Even in this place of terrible stagnation, something marvelous had happened.

You won’t lose me. I’m needed elsewhere. Just- remind everyone to destroy the extra body, and I’ll meet you there.

Fëanor went through, clutching Olórin’s tools tight. Maedhros closed his eyes to the enticing, terrible light, and gathered his being. This second captivity, so like the first, had broken him. Alone, he could freely admit that. He was not what he was. And yet, there was much to live for. His brothers loved him- five of them, at least. His father loved him. And though little could be certain, with Fingon and Maglor, with Nerdanel and Elrond, he owed it to each of them to give what he could.

The process of taking up a corporeal form again required nothing more than a sense of self, in theory. In practice, Nienna often helped, and had the House of Finwë not been composed entirely of stubborn fools, Maedhros was sure their mission would have failed already. And so, he thought of what he was. Maedhros. Maitimo Russandol. A hideous beauty. Terror of elves. Son of Fëanor. Kinslayer, kidnapper, murderer. Lover, brother, friend. Diplomat, warrior, traitor to elvendom. He moved towards the light, and felt the darkness stir behind him.

Námo. He grabbed at Maedhros, but, by ill chance or brilliant fortitude, his claws caught on the part of Maedhros’s being that was- well, it was a part of his soul. It was also, in this inbetween space of light-dark life-death, his right hand. Four sharp nails dug into soft flesh. He thought of himself in Himring, and watched the limb dissolve between the tight grasp of Námo’s eerie talons. He gave up Maitimo Russandol, and Maedhros fled like his life depended on it.

Taking the new body into himself, the old soul into himself, was painful and exhausting. Maedhros felt hair pulling itself out of his skull, skin tear and shaping, bones growing and the rest of his form stretching out to accommodate them. He screamed, but pain was not enough to stop him. I am Maedhros, he thought, pushing the idea into every corner of his being. I am Maedhros, defiant, he asserted. I am myself. I am unbroken. They can’t stop me.

The absence where he had left Maitimo behind ached and threatened to drag him down. Maedhros fought against it, pushing back the darkness. I live, he forced himself to believe it. I am alive.

Someone picked him up, and threw him unceremoniously over their shoulder.

“We need to go.” He heard the voice with his ears, and almost wept with relief. It had been so long since there had been some division between thought and saying. Since there had been privacy. It was beautiful.

“Go where?” This voice was unfamiliar, but Maedhros thought it might have suited Maeglin.

“With me,” another strange voice said, and whoever was holding him began to run.

Maedhros struggled to take control of his limbs, to force his eyes open. He fëa didn’t want to, but the temptation to see them, to look upon his kin, prevailed, and he forced himself to see that it was Curufin who was responsible for his undignified position. Though he wanted to object, he knew his limbs could not carry him.

They would not have had to for long. As Maedhros worked on controlling his jaw and tongue, to make words appear as they should, their party stopped, and Curufin sat him down in the middle of a stream. It was cold and Maedhros shivered without thinking about it. It was a pleasure to feel his body move instinctively.

A strange maiar, whose form seemed to shift between man and animal with every blink, waved awkwardly at him, and, reaching into his pocket, pulled free a silmaril.

The six sons each pulled away as if they had been struck, even Maedhros, winning the battle against oblivion for a split second, slid back. Fëanor leaned closer, and the maiar handed it to him. Then, he stepped out of the stream, and gestured expressively to Fëanor. He stuck the silmaril into the water, and everything dissolved.

For a horrible second, Maedhros thought he was dead again, in the rush of water that sent the twelve of them tumbling down, down, down, through impossible space. The panic, though horrid, lasted no more than a minute, and then they were crashing onto the floor of a palace.

Maedhros rolled over onto his back, and looked up. This room was magnificent and terrifying. Gold veins ran up the walls as if they were inside the arm of a giant. He breathed as hard he could, feeling the impossible air fill his lungs.

“Everlasting fuck!” Celegorm snapped, current of fear underlying his voice.

“Not in front of the children,” Fëanor scolded reflexively.

“Who are you calling children?” Amrod quipped. He sounded calm, easy. “Maedhros, can you talk?”

No, Maedhros thought, forcefully. His tongue seemed alright, but his jaw was another matter.

“He will need time,” said a female voice, which seemed to dominate and become the room as its wielder materialized in the midst of them.

Aegnor knelt beside Maedhros. “My Lady of Calm Waters.”

And indeed, it was Uinen, in the form of a mortal woman, who looked down at him thoughtfully. Her head was shaved, leaving nothing but shining copper skin in its wake, reflecting the lights of the Fëanarian lanterns around them. One callused hand reached out, and pressed itself to his forehead. Maedhros felt his strength surged, buoyed by hers. Carefully, he reached out his left hand, and moved the fingers one by one. He remembered them as his own, carrying food and water, wrapping around the hilt of a sword, the shoulder of a brother. He remembered them, twined with Fingon’s, when he had first woken after Thangorodrim. The limb was his.

He extended his hand to Uinen, and she grabbed it, and, with the hidden strength of a maia, set him on his feet.

“You are all of you guests here,” she informed them, still feeding Maedhros’s strength with her own. “When things die down some on the surface, in a couple days, we will bring healers and a maia of Nienna to help you settle. For now, we must be discreet. Some elves may also come visit you, should they have the covert means to do so. I will show you each to your rooms, but you are free to travel the palace as you wish. For your safety, I ask that you do not set foot outside without Ulmo, Ossë, or myself to guide you. We are far underwater.”

These rules made sense, and Celebrimbor said as much.

Still holding Maedhros’s hand, she led them down corridors, each lit brightly by ancient Fëanorian lanterns, and, eventually, into a distinctly more residential part of the palace. There, she appointed Aegnor to the first room, where, seeming to sag with relief, he went immediately to bed. Tauriel left them next, and then they turned into another corridor, and were met by the sound of voices. Uinen raised the hand that was not in Maedhros’s, and they all stopped.

“I had not realized we still had guests,” Uinen said. “Wait here.”

As soon as she said this, she looked at Maedhros. Seeming to realize that he would not be able to stand without the strength she was giving, even then, she tightened her grip, and they walked together to stand in front of a door that looked no different than the others.

Her knuckles rapped hard against the wood, and then she stood back, and waited.

There was a tense second of silence before Fingon opened the door. Whoever Maedhros had expected, it had not been that, and he certainly did not expect the choked gasp Fingon gave before leaping upon him, tackling him against the nearest wall, and giving him the kissing of his life. Smooth lips pressed hard against his own, in familiar motions. It only took Maedhros a heartbeat to remember how to reciprocate as enthusiastically as possible.

Freed from Uinen’s grasp, the weakness immediately returned to his form, but Maedhros found it suddenly easier to fight it off. He fisted one hand in dark curls, and, with his right arm, held Fingon close.

“What was- holy fuck!” Maedhros wouldn’t venture a guess as to what the latter words meant, but the tone rather gave Maglor’s shock away. Bleeding into amused Sindarin, he said, “well, I guess that resolves that.”

Fingon pulled their mouths apart, pressing their foreheads together. His amused huff of laughter was soft against Maedhros’s lips.

“I love you,” Maedhros told him, and found himself silenced by another kiss. Fingon’s hand found its way to his ass, and gave it a squeeze. “Not in front of my father, please.”

Fingon leaned away. “I’m sorry, what did you just say?”

Fëanor cleared his throat, and they both looked at him. At some point during their distraction, he’d pulled Maglor close, and even now, he stood with Maglor’s head tucked under his chin.

Fingon burst into laughter, shaking against him. Then, just as suddenly, he started crying. Maedhros disentangled his hand from Fingon’s hair, and reached up to cradle his face. “Shh. Shh. What is it, Finno?”

Fingon sobbed harder, and collapsed into Maedhros. He might have found the confidence to stand on his own, but he certainly couldn’t support the both of them. They toppled over, Fingon on top of Maedhros, who cradled him close as his sobs subsided into quiet shaking.

“I’m sorry,” Maedhros told him, and then, because it bore repeating, “I’m sorry for letting you get hurt, and for letting you down, and-”

Fingon clapped a hand over Maedhros’s mouth. His touch was firm, but not suffocating. Fingon never pressed so that Maedhros couldn’t get away if he felt uncomfortable. In this instance, he was happy to shut up and let Fingon compose his thoughts. Heaving for breath as he was, he still couldn’t manage to speak, but Maglor did it for him.

“We aren’t angry with you, Maedhros, and neither of us blame you for what happened. Just- don’t leave us again, alright?”

It was somewhat surreal to hear Maglor and Fingon, the two people he loved most in the world, speaking as one.

“As long as I can prevent it,” he promised them, because they both deserved that much from him.

“Good,” Fingon whispered, and slumped against him.

Uinen made a strange noise. It took Maedhros a second to realize that she was trying to hide her laughter. Taking a deep breath, she said, “take any rooms you want in this hallway or the next one. I can’t imagine you’re going to want to go to them for now.” She paused to look at Maedhros. “If you have any trouble with your form, I’ll be happy to help. It concerns me that you keep manifesting and dissolving your hand.”

Maedhros hadn’t even noticed. As she pointed to his right hand, it vanished again. Maedhros could still feel it, but it wasn’t there. And then suddenly, he couldn’t feel it either.

“That’s probably not good,” Celebrimbor observed.

“Oh really?” Maglor asked. “I thought it was a sign that things were all going fucking swimmingly.”

It was a weird sentence structure. Fëanor said as much, making Maglor shrug vaguely. Maedhros found himself wondering how he’d remembered their tongue at all after all these long years. Sitting alone, talking to himself, and praying to keep his memories intact? The thought of it broke Maedhros’s heart. He hoped Maglor had found other, better, people to love.

“I had to give something up to escape,” he told them, after a time. “If this is that, or a consequence of the fact that I took this new hröa while still unhealed, then I accept my fate. I am glad to be here as I am.”

The odd thing was, that after so many years of being miserable, unhealed, and unable to have privacy, now, exposed to the harsh truths of the wider world, he was more healed than he had ever been. This moment, though they were in such danger, was perhaps the happiest that he remembered.

He clasped Fingon to him, and laughed.

Chapter Text

Celegorm walked towards Oromë, armed only with the strength of their friendship. Nahir bit at him, teeth snapping in his face. The hounds surrounded him. Even for Oromë, they were massive. The horses were bigger yet again. Celegorm felt utterly insignificant. His death would not stop this force, but it would buy time. Enough to save Aredhel, and his father. Enough to pay Nimloth back for the blood debt between them.

“Oromë-”

The Vala shot him in the chest. He felt the arrow go in, and come out. Only Nahir’s teeth in his shirt prevented him from hitting the ground. The world went black just as Celegorm felt the rush of power that indicated the escape of his associates.

When Celegorm woke, he was somewhere different. This was not the most surprising thing. The most surprising thing was that he woke at all. He had felt the arrow pierce his skin, after all, tear through flesh and muscle, and then skin again. He had felt his fëa flicker, and his blood begin to spill, and-

He tried to place his hand on his chest, to feel where the arrow would have been, but something heavy had pinned his arm down. He panicked, trying to wrench away. The heavy thing huffed, and laid its head down on his chest instead. Arm freed, Celegorm touched where the arrow had struck, and found, to his not insignificant alarm, that there was no pain, though his shirt had been replaced by soft bandages. The dog- it was a dog- licked his hand.

“Huan?” Celegorm asked, weakly. Because, well, that was impossible, and yet-

Huan thumped his tail loudly. Celegorm scratched behind his ears, just the way he liked. maiar could not die, of course, but they could be scattered so finely that their spirits might never return. This had happened to most of Morgoth’s minions, and to those few maiar other than Melian who had ever stood against him. It was a relief to see this god-hound had found his way home. They were home. It was a pavilion made of trees and fabric stretch between them. The floor and bed were both covered in furs.

“You spoil that hound,” Oromë intoned, from where they leant up against one of the trees that made up the frame of this building. “You always have.”

“Shut up,” Celegorm told them, “you shot me. You don’t get an opinion.”

Oromë came and sat on the edge of the bed. “I saved your life. Do you know what Námo would have done if he found out I had not shot you? He would have shot me! And then you would have been dead and captured.”

They were far smaller than they had been at Formenos. Where they had taken on the appearance of a giant, they were now Celegorm’s height, or a little shorter. Muscular, with arms made for shooting and a runner’s legs. This particular form had a lithe quality to it also, almost cat-like. Celegorm pressed down a rush of arousal. The way Oromë’s dark eyes peered at him from under the shade of short-cropped dark hair was intensely erotic.

“Am I not already captured? Will I not die the second you turn me over to him?”

Oromë reached over, wrapping Celegorm’s hand in their calloused fingers. The touch was soft, almost a caress, and Celegorm yearned for it. But no. This was someone he could not trust. Someone he could not love. His first and greatest loyalty had to be to his family and friends. He had to dedicate himself to keeping the secret of their location for as long as possible. For whatever reasons, Oromë was offering him a short respite, but it would not last. It was a sort of mind game, as Morgoth and Sauron played with their own captives.

“You assume I would turn you over.”

Against his better judgement, Celegorm’s breath caught in his throat. His heart was full of hope. “Were you not intending to?”

A small smile appeared on Oromë’s face. “No.”

“Why not?”

Oromë raised Celegorm’s hand, very slowly, and pressed a kiss to his knuckles.

“That does not help at all,” Celegorm muttered. “Oromë, I need you to say what you mean.”

Oromë did not let go of his hand. “You were one of my best students, once, Celegorm. A true friend, after. Huan would not have accepted you as his master if you were otherwise. But for these reasons, your betrayal cut me more deeply than most. And so I rejected you and yours, and did not discuss it. Years passed. Others returned, but Námo said you should not, and I accepted that. Then, Nessa and I were tasked with going to the far shore, and hunting Kanafinwë. I cannot stress to you enough the impact of those sights upon my mind. There were such terrible things there. This killing was for irrational, selfish reasons. It was poisoning of those lands that are sacred to me and mine. Yavanna blames Eru’s children for that. Vána is inclined to agree. Yet that was not all I saw. As I tracked Kanafinwë’s location across their world, I found often places where people had died protecting each other. Parents, dead with their arms around their children. I found evidence of Kanafinwë’s own kindnesses. I went through records, where they were preserved, and found him caring for old mortals, and for young children. I found him going to war in the place of others. I found that if our aim in punishing Maglor had been to make a better Arda, this long had been done. I found a world made better by him. Then, and only then, did I consider what I was allowing on these shores. But Námo’s decision seemed already made. I am not powerful enough to fight him. The security of this place is a courtesy alone and I will not be able to protect you the way Aulë had protected your law-sister, or the way Vairë has used her husband’s love to protect your grandmother. I’m sorry.”

“Words, Oromë.” Celegorm needed to hear them say it. His heart wanted this too much to be sure he was reading the situation wrong.

“I think I might be a little bit in love with you. Maybe.”

Celegorm grabbed Oromë by their green tunic, and pulled them into a searing kiss. Oromë gasped, and then fisted their hands in Celegorm’s hair. Huan huffed at both of them, and shoved Oromë off the bed.

“Huan!” They both said, at the same time, and then started laughing. Celegorm found a weight lifted from his chest in the sound of Oromë’s chaotic laughter.

“You jackass,” Celegorm said, to the dog, “you absolute bastard. I know you understand what we’re saying. You got on with Lúthien just fine!”

Huan shoved him off the bed into Oromë’s arms. They caught him, deftly, and rolled on top of him. They kissed Celegorm again, and then trailed a line of kisses down his neck.

“I love you too, for the record,” Celegorm told them. “Have for years. Terribly embarrassing, really. I have it on very good authority that I love rather more quickly than is desirable.”

Oromë pulled back, “oh? Whose?”

“Aredhel’s, mostly. She is a critic of my love life even when she is not directly participating in it.”

“And when she is directly participating?”

Celegorm sighed. “If we are going to do this, there are some things we should talk about. I do not love once, as most elves do, and I experience attraction even if there is not romantic love. I am aware that this makes me… deviant.” It had become normalized some, he had come to understand. Maedhros and Maglor’s son lived openly with two people, and nobody seemed willing to say anything to him. Alternately, he was the heir of Doriath and Gondolin, and his wife was Galadriel’s daughter, so it was possible everyone was just too afraid to say anything about it.

Oromë met his eyes. “I am married, and I do still love my wife, but I love you too. She doesn’t know, and I certainly can’t tell her now, after everything. I don’t know how it would hurt her, and if she told anyone then you might be hurt too.”

Ah, Vána. Spring embodied, beautiful and awe inspiring. Celegorm had never known her well.

“Because I’m a fugitive from death.”

“Quite.” Oromë smiled at him flirtatiously.

“Would things be different if I wasn’t?” Celegorm found that he had no interest in being a mere affair. He loved Oromë too much for that. Aredhel would have said that he needed to have more self-respect than to give himself to someone who would not give of themselves.

“Well, you would be dead, so yes.” Funny, but not helpful.

Celegorm pushed them away. Oromë went with the push, but the look on their face was not a happy one. Sitting back on their feet, they unconsciously reached up to scratch at Huan’s ears.

“I won’t do this without Vána knowing.” It hurt his heart to say it. “Just because I am a whore does not mean that I will be your whore.”

I will not be Indis, he thought. I will not usurp anyone. I will be better than them.

“You are not a whore to me,” Oromë said, voice breaking under the weight of their words.

In death, Námo had forced his prisoners to remain in close quarters as bare fëar. In thousands of years, they had relied more and more upon each other to stay sane. So many of their secrets had been revealed. Celegorm had images of all his siblings- but Maglor- and his parents in the midst of sexual acts permanently embossed upon some corner of his mind. These, he tried very hard not to think about. His family tried harder still. Not a single one of them had mentioned all this sharing since. Some of them, his father especially, had taken to suppressing it and pretending to ask questions about things he already knew.

Celegorm could not suppress all of it. In his mind still, he carried his father’s grief and hatred over what Indis had done. But he also carried the times Caranthir and Amdirdis had taken Haleth to bed. He knew the deep and unconditional love Maedhros had for Elrond, and that it would not have been given to someone who would have treated the people he professed to love with anything other than respect and decency. Celegorm was not a whore, and he was also not the person who had condemned Beren and Finrod to die. Death had changed him, for better and for worse. His memories were changed. His heart was changed.

“I need to talk to Vána,” Celegorm said, keenly aware he was baring his neck before an executioner’s axe.

Oromë sighed. Their form seemed to droop with sadness, and they rested their hand on Huan’s head.

“If you do that, I can’t protect you.”

Their concern was a warmth in Celegorm’s chest. “Can you protect me when Námo wipes my family out because they didn’t have a single ally in the world?”

This was not strictly true, but Celegorm would take the axe before he revealed Ulmo, Nienna Aulë’s roles in their conspiracy.

“What do you mean to do?” It was damning that Oromë never offered to be an ally themselves.

“I mean to convince Vána to stand down. Not to fight with us. I’m not a maniac. Merely, when the time comes, to step aside.”

Oromë paused, considering. “If you do this,” they told Celegorm, “I need you to promise not to hurt her.” It was a terrible thing to ask. “Vána- she lost everything in this. I don’t want her to be hurt any more than she already is.”

It was an impossible thing to promise, but if Oromë had wanted anything less for the both of them, Celegorm would have been disappointed.

“How was she hurt?” If he was doing this, he needed to know everything he could.

“Everything she created was destroyed,” Oromë explained. “She lost herself.”

Celegorm had shared his death with creators. His father and Curufin, Celebrimbor and Maeglin. He had felt their pain at losing the beautiful things they’d made, at having their greatest works corrupted or put to evil purpose. It was an awful pain. For one with innocence in her innate nature like Vána, it would have been worse.

“I’m sorry.”

They sighed. “I don’t know if it’s possible to say anything without doing her more harm.”

In the end, it took Oromë almost a week to agree to and negotiate a meeting between Celegorm and Vána. What they did with this time, Celegorm didn’t ask. Instead, he fretted about his family, and wished he was skilled enough with Osanwë to reach out to them. They likely thought he was dead. Oromë reported that incursions had stopped being noted entirely, which suggested that they were all very afraid. Celegorm wished he could have assuaged their fears, but that would have required telling Oromë where they were, and Celegorm’s trust had not been fully earned by them.

He could not leave Oromë’s personal space, a section of forest that existed as much in Oromë’s mind as it did in the tangible world. Here, Celegorm spent his time training. He had died in the finest physical shape of his life, but though his spirit remembered skills, his body best remembered a younger, softer age. Here, he sprinted until his legs were wobbly. He fired shot after shot after shot, each perfect. He took up swords and daggers, and, reaching into his memories of Maedhros and Caranthir, taught himself to be more skilled with each of them. Food was delivered to him each day by an anti-social Maia who Oromë swore was trustworthy. Since he had not yet been betrayed, this evidence would have to do.

Then, something changed. Oromë’s manner, in their conversations, became brighter and more hopeful. They did not speak much of it, but Celegorm had some suspicions. Vána had likely agreed to some sort of concession.

It was three days after this that Oromë brought Vána home, and sat her and Celegorm across the table from each other. That they had already spoken was shown in the blankness on her face. She was as beautiful as her spouse, normally, but the depression that had fallen upon her spirit was evident. Bright robes of flowers had been replaced by true cloth, embroided in the same designs but without the genuine life. She had acquired a crown, and abandoned her more mortal appearance for one that was wraithlike in its thinness. Celegorm had expected to be afraid. Instead, he found himself concerned for her. There was a likeness to Caranthir that surprised him, and Celegorm had always felt protective over his little brothers.

“Tell me why I should not strike you dead where I stand?”

It was a fair question. Celegorm had put some of his time into thinking about that very thing. “You should let me live because killing me would hurt Oromë, and I love them.”

Vána leaned back in her seat. All the plants in Oromë’s home had begun to sprout new leaves, light green growth making itself known. Even in this state, her natural gifts made themselves known.

“You certainly seem willing to use them to benefit you.”

It was a cruel thing to say. Celegorm had no good come back, but the version of him made of other people’s memories did. “It isn’t using someone to be able to trust and rely on them because they love you.” Maedhros. “The foundation of any relationship is that trust and ability to rely on someone.” Caranthir.

Vána looked away from him. Her long brown hair fell across her face. It was greasy, unwashed. The Valar didn’t even need to wash. If there was something wrong, it was all on the inside. Someone should be helping her. Why weren’t the other Valar doing anything about this?

“Evidently,” said Vána, half to herself, “you have far more reason to trust Oromë than I do.”

“It isn’t about reason,” Celegorm told her. “Oromë let me die in Beleriand. They captured me and took me away from their family. My trust is a gift, of which I give freely. My choice.” Curufin.

Oromë, from where they leant up against a tree, sucked in a harsh breath. They had not discussed this, but Celegorm knew it was something that stood between them. The truth was that almost all the Valar had left most elves and men to die in Beleriand. But not all of them had taken those same people as lovers. Celegorm could never forget that. He could forgive it, though. That was his choice to make, as long as he was free to choose. Soon, they would have to speak of it. Celegorm would hope for an apology; that nobody other than Melian and Ulmo had ever made any effort, and Melian for a love of her own, was an atrocious fact. If Oromë did not give one, they would probably have a very long conversation on the fact.

Vána rubbed her thumb against her palm, and then switched hands to do the same thing again. Nervous energy radiated from her. “And why should I give you my trust, Son of Fëanáro? How can I ever trust any of Eru’s children, after what they did to my creation?”

There was no good answer to the first. It was the second on which Celegorm had long mediated, searching his many memories for the best truth. None of them individually had contained it, but sometimes, the whole was greater than the sum of its parts. “Because you’re spring.” She and Oromë both stared at him. Come on, Maedhros- these years of monologues had better be worth something. “You’ve never lived with men. Maybe you don’t even know what spring means to them. What it meant to all of us in Beleriand. But I do. Spring is more than a change in the weather. Spring is the renewal of hope. Spring is the assurance that no blight, no cold, can destroy life forever. Sometimes, right before the first shoots begin to show and the migrating birds return, it can seem as if life will never return to that blank, gray world. Men who never knew the Valar created ‘gods’ to beg for that hope. They knew that if spring ever failed them, they would die. If you can’t feel that hope right now, then I’m sorry, because you have no idea how many people you offered it to.”

Celegorm had felt it, that first spring after they’d had Maedhros back. Life had returned to the world, and for the first time in so long, he’d watched Maedhros walk steadily across their camp without leaning on Fingon. He had those same memories from other angles, now. The incomparable joy of being able to run green grass through his remaining fingers. And then there were other memories. Amrod and Amras had taken to some spring rituals, in their relative seclusion on the eastern border. They’d had much exposure to the traditions of the laiquendi, and had felt the communal return of spring as keenly. Caranthir, with his dwarves and men and women, had oft welcomed the return of spring with festivals and dancing and the giving of gifts. Curufin, who had spent so much time in the forge, was perpetually surprised by the return of spring. It was, to him, a wonder that appeared from nowhere and was incomparable.

Vána was watching him with something equally incomparable in her eyes. “You really think so?”

“Yes,” assured Celegorm. Then, by instincts he was sure were not his own, he reached out and took her hands in his. “You’re experiencing spring the way the rest of us do for the first time. It’s terrifying to wait, but this is only the last winter before life rises anew. It will fall to you to aid that.” The wise sentiments belonged to Maedhros, but the beautiful words were their father’s.

Her eyes darted down to where their hands met, and then up at Oromë. Her form rippled. In an instant, there was a steely resolve to her. Hair tied back and eyes hard, she reminded him a great deal of Nimloth, albeit darker than the white-haired queen. A single green sprout emerged defiantly from the part in her hair, the beginnings of a new floral wreath.

“I give my consent,” she said softly, words slipping unasked from her lips. “Oromë loves you, and whoever you are, you have not the ill character of the Celegorm I once knew. You are right that spring is of change, but always of life. For this reason, I ought not to have bowed to Námo. I was- I am- struggling, and afraid, and he has been taking advantage of that.”

Oromë crossed the clearing in three quick steps, and embraced her. No matter what they shared with Celegorm now, Vána still held much of their heart. Celegorm was surprised to discover that when Oromë drew her into a kiss, he felt none of the jealousy he had once felt over Aredhel and Eöl. Perhaps it was because Vána was, despite recent actions, ultimately good. She would never hurt Oromë in this way.

They spoke for a long time, hashing out boundaries and expectations. Vána and Oromë would maintain their relationship, Oromë and Celegorm would begin a romantic and sexual relationship, and Celegorm would work out what, if anything, Aredhel wanted. Then, in a twist Celegorm would never have been able to predict before it happened, they devoted a couple days to helping Vána work out some of her more complicated feelings about the death of her creations. Time was strange with two of the Valar, and Celegorm found himself easily caught, a fly in honey stuck in the moment. Any love made time feel a little strange, but here, with his partner and his new, dear friend, it was stranger still.

“I can’t stay here forever,” he was forced to say to them, once. “I wish I could, but my family still needs me. I need you to take me-”

Vána slapped a hand over his mouth so hard Celegorm’s neck snapped back and his head slammed against the tree he was leaning up against.

“I can’t lie,” she hissed desperately. “If you tell me where your family is hiding, and Námo asks me the same, the best I will be able to do is obfuscate, for a while. Whichever of our kin is helping you, protect their name with your life, even from us.”

In the delights of his passion, Celegorm had forgotten that the Valar had difficulty with lying. If she was never directly asked, Vána would never disclose her and Celegorm’s friendship. But if anyone asked in as many words, she would have no choice.

“How can I get home, then?” Sometime, between that first sight of Maglor and his last “see you later” to Curufin, it had become home. No matter the exquisite bliss he felt with these two, home was where he had his duty.

Oromë sighed, and reached their hand over to run long fingers down the line of Celegorm’s skull, to the beginning of his spine. “I can’t lie, either, but I can certainly obfuscate. The fact you were never discovered here ought to speak to my abilities. During the next meeting of the Valar, I’ll leave the boundaries to this place open. Take what you want, and walk or run out at a random time. This way, I can quite sincerely say that when I last saw you, you escaped without my knowing how.”

There would be a body of water close enough, Celegorm was sure. His own fingers caught Oromë’s, like a spider on their prey, and pressed them against his chest.

“Thank you both, for the gift you’ve given me.” Before either could speak, Celegorm rushed on. “If we lose, if I don’t make it, thank you for giving me this time. It’s more than I could ever have dreamed. Don’t risk yourselves in this battle for me. If it becomes clear Námo is going to win, please, don’t try to help us.”

It was treachery to his family, but he could not help himself. There was a thousand miles’ difference between facing death and asking the same of one you loved. It was why neither Curufin nor their father held any grudge against the wives they’d left behind. It was better to have someone you loved behind than to have them dead at your side. Celegorm had already lost Aredhel. He would not watch the same happen to Oromë. To Vána, who had been used by her friends and deserved better.

Despite this, however, it was a relief when Vána stopped his words. Her graceful hands, a little dirty from time spent gardening, came up again. A single finger rested upon his lips.

“That isn’t for you to ask of us, Tyelkormo.” She still used the old names, sometimes. Celegorm did not mind; he thought she did so out of affection. “We have our own wrongs, and hurts, and moral codes. Ask what you will of us, but never ask us to be selfish.”

If they would not be selfish, then he would. Celegorm had many favours he wished for, but the one he chose was out of love, and regret, and duty. “Very well. If by some miracle, I die and he lives, I ask you to look out for the wellfare of Maeglin Lómion.”

The two great beings seemed to become of one mind. Each, at the very came moment, came to touch Celegorm’s cheek. “The traitor of Gondolin?” Vána asked.

What a cruel thing to be called. “Yes. For the love I hold for his mother, but also because Melkor captured him, and made him his thrall. Nobody deserves to be punished with thousands of years of unbeing for the things they did while under such duress. Even Turgon believes it.” Even Idril was willing to work with him, against the Valar, but this was a fact Celegorm could not share.

They looked to each other again. “Celegorm.” Oromë’s voice was very quiet. “What is Mandos like, for an elf?” The hunter was clear in them, pupils shifting into those of a cat, ears stretching up and gaining the muscles to swivel around. Their voice was rendered deep and terrible. A shiver rippled across Celegorm’s body.

“It’s dark,” he told them, after a moment. “You can’t do anything new. Námo kept those of us who were his worst in special confinement, until the end. Then, when everyone was a prisoner, we were allowed free run of the place.” This had given them Tauriel and Aegnor, two gifts for whom Celegorm could only be grateful. Tauriel, in particular, was a sort of blessing. More than anyone else who did not share their blood, she seemed able to negotiate the peculiar bonds of the seven sons. “I was alright. I’m not a creator by nature, like Curufin or my father. And I have never been a prisoner elsewhere, like Maedhros or Maeglin. For them, it was an unimagineable torture.”

Celegorm had felt them both reliving their torments every day, in the halls. This torment was rendered far worse by the last fact. “He kept us so alone and so close that there was no privacy. Not in any immediate moment, but over time. If you lost control of your thoughts, even for a second, everyone would know. I’ve seen private moments of great joy that were never any business of mine. I’ve had my entire family witness the darkest thoughts I’ve ever had. I’ve had them watch me lose my virginity. It is a total loss of autonomy and of self. If you have no privacy in your thoughts, you begin to lose a self at all. You become all jumbled together.”

Maedhros, held down by cold chains as Sauron and Melkor did whatever they wanted to him. Caranthir, barely seventy and so full of self-hatred he didn’t want to live at all. Maeglin, selling his soul, thinking, I am just like my father, no one ever could have loved me anyways. Fëanor, barely thirty, hearing, “he killed his mother, you know.” “I heard she died because she could not love him.” These things were part of Celegorm, now, and he could not change it.

Oromë’s face was dark. Then, suddenly, they shifted into a huge black cat, and, with a frustrated huff, lay down across Celegorm’s legs. They weren’t heavier than Huan, so he didn’t mind much. Vána’s right hand came down to rest on their head, while the left drifted down the side of Celegorm’s face and neck to rest at his collar. It was her words that told him what was happening.

“Please.” She squeezed her eyes shut, and when they opened again, they were wet with tears. “Dear one, forgive us. We should have known, or asked.”

The rush of cold through Celegorm’s blood was immediate. “Are you telling me that one of your own kinsmen was torturing us for thousands of years, and you didn’t fucking know?”

She flinched under the force of his words. “I’m sorry.”

After Lúthien, Celegorm never wanted to watch a powerful, strong woman flinch under the force of his words ever again. He softened his tone. “Vána, what did you think was happening in Mandos?”

Oromë raised up their head and spoke, lips never moving. “I thought that you were being seen by Nienna. I thought someone would be there to help people who were traumatized. I thought you would be allowed to grow and change. How can you heal without creating?”

Creation was in all the Valar, nor just Aulë. Even Morgoth was a creator, to his very bones. As Vána’s recent trauma more than proved, the Valar suffered greatly at the loss of the ability to create.

“My oath ended. I am grateful for that,” assured Celegorm, but he could offer no stronger praise. “Nienna’s maiar were allowed to see most people, but punishment, as we were given, is the providence of her brother. They were sometimes allowed, but never when we needed them.” They should have been there, holding Maedhros and Maeglin together, at the very least.

Tendrils of thorns wrapped around Vána’s body. She looked down at Oromë. “I can’t leave here, sweet thing. If I see the Fëanturi again, I shall not be able to hold my tongue. Námo has betrayed his duty, and Nienna has at the very least failed in hers. What Irmo does, I know not. Nienna ought to have brought this forward years ago. Her silence did a terrible disservice to those she was sworn to protect.”

Her condemnation of Nienna was interesting. Since she’d aided them at the end, Celegorm had not thought to blame her at the beginning. It had never occurred to him that this represented a change in her position.

Oromë pressed their chin back against Celegorm’s thigh. It was a comforting weight. “If that is so, then I see no reason why you should not take Celegorm where he needs to go and stay there.” A steely resolve rose in their voice. “I will remain. A voice of reason is needed within this council.”

Now, like his father and Curufin, Celegorm would be forced to know that the keeper of his heart would lie in the balance of this war.

“Don’t die,” Celegorm asked, even if the words meant nothing at all.

It wasn’t fair that they’d had so little, but then, Arda never was. Oromë shifted back, and kissed him, and they took what time was left to them.

Chapter Text

Celumë took herself to work early, and barricaded the door to her office with a ‘Office Hours from 9AM-12PM and 1PM-4-PM’. These numbers were patently false, but she could use them to refuse to open the door outside those hours unless it was truly important. In a crisis like the one Lady Galadriel had begun with her visions, and the Valar had intensified with their summons, the entire palace would be swamped by terrified civilians, angry courtiers, and busybody diplomats. Celumë, who had been called to testify before Oromë and Nessa as to her husband’s whereabouts- unknown- had missed the first wave, but she knew that people were waiting for her. As the High Queen’s secretary, she had unique paths along the corridors of power.

It was a busybody diplomat who was her first visitor. Amdirdis, with the easy practiced manner Beleriand had given her, opened the door without knocking and locked it behind her. It had been a few decades since Celumë had last seen her, but she was not much changed. Her gold brocade overcoat clung flatteringly to her frame, and her short black hair was slicked all to one side with what must have been a substantial amount of gel. She had always been possessed of what most elves would have considered an unattractively curved body- though a mortal man would have been awed- but she lived with such total confidence that it was difficult not to fall at least a little in love with her. At least, until she opened her mouth.

“Do you think it’s true?” She asked, without preamble. Like her husband, she had no time for evading the subject at hand.

Celumë didn’t just ‘think’ it was true. She knew. She knew the thrum of pain and fear in her bond to Maglor, and she knew that he was closer than he had ever been. Not that she’d said as much to the Valar, mind. “I think Galadriel isn’t the kind of seer who makes mistakes. If she says the Dagor Dagorath is come, then it is come.”

Amdirdis nodded seriously. “And Maglor?”

And Maglor. “Lord Oromë summoned me for questioning, but I had not helpful information to give them.”

“The Valar needed to ask you where Maglor is?” Years of knowing Amdirdis told her that it was not meant in disdain, no matter what her tone sounded like. For one of the Noldor’s most successful diplomats, she had always been remarkably undiplomatic. But then again, their other most successful diplomats had probably been Finrod and Maedhros, so it really just went to show what could be accomplished by a bunch of very sincere people bumbling around.

“I won’t pretend to know what goes on in the minds of Eru’s eldest.” But I will pretend not to know what goes on in the mind of Fëanor’s secondborn.

She nodded again, and, after a moment, reached into her briefcase and pulled free a piece of waybread. “Here. You look like you need this more than I do. When was the last time you had a full meal?”

When she’d felt Maglor trying to die, she’d thrown up violently, feeling her throat closing and part of her fëa trying to tear itself away. He’d calmed down since, but her appetite had vanished almost entirely. Even on her trip to see Oromë and back, she’d barely eaten more than a few pieces of fruit. The fact that wherever Maglor was something terrible had happened to him chilled her to the core. Unlike Nerdanel and Liltallë, she had never sealed her bond to her murderous husband. In that regard, she and Amdirdis were alike, but Amdirdis had a stomach for violence and pain that Celumë never had. Amdirdis had felt Caranthir’s death. She had lived to feel him slay kin a second time, and returned from Beleriand to tell of it. What it said of her that she had never served the oath herself, Celumë had always been too afraid to ask.

“Did you make this?”

Amdirdis shook her head. “If I had, it wouldn’t be fit for consumption. Amarië said that if her law-sister had subjected me to the worst week this court has seen in years, it was the least she could do.”

Celumë accepted the gift, and took the smallest bite she could manage. After so many days struggling with food, having a full stomach made her nauseous again. She forced the sick feeling back.

“Celumë-” Amdirdis paused, a rare thing to see from one so confident. “When they come back, what are you going to do?”

Brazen, unafraid Amdirdis. Celumë, who had seen Oromë prepared to hunt her husband and bring him back dead, knew that there would be no happy endings for them. It was beautiful and terrible that Amdirdis still had such faith. Oh, how she envied it. “I’m going to do whatever the Valar ask of me.”

Amdirdis clenched a fist in anger. She closed her eyes, and when she forced her posture back to normal, Celumë realized there were tears in her black-brown eyes. “So will I.”

She unlocked the door, and left. To the slab of wood, Celumë said, “I’m sorry.”

It didn’t respond, and she took out the folder of work Anairë had left in the lock box for her the night before. As Secretary to the High Queen, she saw her far less often than people would have expected. Instead, most of their work was passed from one to the other by pages and assistants. They met once a week, and in emergency councils with the rest of the administration. No doubt, an emergency council would be convened some time today, but for now, Celumë began her work as usual.

A request for the High Queen to open a new school. Requests for funding to a dramatic society and a historical society. A- wait, what?

This was none of the usual types of forms. It was a piece of note paper, torn from a journal and sealed with the queen’s seal. It was addressed to Celumë in Anairë’s clear hand, but when she broke the seal, the words inside did not sound like her at all.

Celumë,

I’m alive, and safe. Don’t worry. Destroy this note. Námo has made the executive decision to eliminate troublesome elves from Arda Remade. Don’t cause trouble. Please. Keep yourself safe.

If you have to give me up to keep yourself safe, do so. I would rather that.

KM

Burnt paper scattered to the wind. If Námo was a danger, then so was Manwë. Celumë pulled the wax off, and shoved the paper into her mouth. The ink was disgusting, but she chewed and choked it down. It settled more easily in her stomach than the waybread had.

Maglor was alive, and, though he didn’t say as much, he still loved her. He was also still a self-sacrificing idiot, and she was doing to kill him, but that wasn’t a surprise.

Celumë took another bite of the waybread to cover the terrible taste, and went back to work. As the bell chimed nine, the first petitioner let themselves in. The six elves Celumë saw in that first hour all fit into one of two categories. Young Tirionites who had never seen war and were terrified, and Beleriand veterans who were wondering where they could sign up. The first, she comforted as best she could, and sent on their way. The second, she made a list of, and promised to contact them if she heard anything. That was not official policy, but she ignored it. Official policy had no preparations for this.

At the tenth bell, she was summoned to an emergency council. It was bigger than any other emergency council she had ever attended, and much more interesting. She took her usual seat at Anairë’s left hand, but everyone else sat in unexpected places. Remdes, Fingolfin’s secretary, was nowhere to be seen, while Finarfin sat at his brother’s side. Normally, it would have proceeded from there to Turgon, then Finrod. Now, Fingon had displaced his brother, while extra chairs had been dragged in for their other siblings. After them came Idril Celebrindal, and then the entire Golden House, Finrod, Angrod, Edhellos, Galadriel, Celeborn, Orodreth, Finduilas, Gil-galad, and Celebrían. None of them would normally have been at an emergency session. Most of them didn’t even come to the regular sessions. Those who were not members of the royal family came next, and represented as many of the elven peoples as had representatives in Tirion. Lord Elrond Peredhel came after his wife, followed by Prince Legolas, Prince Ingwion, who must have ridden with haste from Valmar, Queen Nimloth, Princess Elwing, King Olwë, King Denethor, and Lord Círdan. Lord Rog for Mahtan’s folk, as well as the ambassadors representing the City of Formenos, and the other city-states of Valinor came next until, at Celumë’s other side, Amdirdis took her place as the Ambassador for the Returned of Tol Eresseä. It was as great a gathering of the leaders of elvenkind as had been seen since Cúivenien. It was almost a pleasure to witness it.

Fingolfin called them to order with a soft noise. “We all know that this is an unorthodox situation. This meeting should be held in Valmar. As it is not, I yield the floor first to Prince Ingwion.”

They all turned to him. Ingwion stood slowly, and surveyed the room. His golden hair was tied back in a low horsetail, and his ice-coloured eyes stared into each of them one by one. It was a testament to the strength of Eru’s children that none save Prince Legolas and Celumë herself flinched. But then, perhaps none of them hid a secret as close to their hearts as hers. No. She surveyed the room herself, carefully. At least one of these people, these kinsmen and strangers, had to know that Fëanor’s sons were in danger. One of them, besides her and Anairë, had to know that Maglor was returned. There was no way that Maglor’s half-aunt by marriage would be the first person he would tell. It had to be one of the others.

“High King Ingwë, under the guidance of Manwë Sulimo, King of the Valar, has decreed that there is no need to worry at this time. As the rulers of Valinor’s citizenry, it is our duty to keep peace and order. Lady Galadriel has seen a mortal war, but there is no need to be concerned. The Valar will protect us. The discussion today will not surround this theoretical conflict, but how to keep our people calm.”

Galadriel’s expression was murderous. As Ingwion sat, Fingolfin said, “Thank you, Prince of the Elves and the Vanyar, are there any others wishing to speak at this time?” He scanned the room. “Lady Galadriel?”

She stood, towering over them. It took Celumë a moment to realize that she was wearing heeled shoes in addition to her natural height. “If Prince Ingwion would call me a liar, then I would demand satisfaction from him as Princess of the Noldor and the Teleri. However, I will charitably assume that he is confused. I am not some mortal hedgewitch reading portents. I trained at the hand of Melian of Doriath, and it is Finwë’s blood that runs in my veins. I saw all mortals wiped out, and I saw Morgoth’s return in connection with this event.”

Ingwion looked as though he obviously wanted to respond, but Fingolfin ignored him. “Lord Elrond?”

Elrond got to his feet slowly and calmly. He was perhaps the most powerful person in the room, and despite the titles and pretense, they all knew it. Beyond Ingwion’s father and Fingolfin’s skill with a blade, greater than Círdan’s age, Elrond had gifts none of the rest of them could compete with. Not just maia blood, but the inheritance of Doriath and Gondolin. Of Formenos- thanks to Maedhros’s deeply contentious will- and of Lindon. He had orchestrated Sauron’s defeat. If he asked it of them, half of Valinor would gladly set to crafting swords, and the other half would wield them. Whether he understood this power, Celumë did not know.

“I have complete and utter faith in Galadriel’s sight,” he told them. “I cannot imagine any of us who fought against Sauron at her side feel differently.”

It was a rather unsubtle dig at Ingwion, who had led the host of the Valar away after the war, and at those who had gone with him. Amdirdis’s face was a neutral mask.

“Prince Legolas, you have the floor.”

Perhaps the least subtle, and certainly the youngest, of the nobility in the room, Prince Legolas wasted no time. “Regardless of my grandfather’s feelings regarding Noldor, we will not see our people left vulnerable to any strike by the enemy. We have seen enough of his violence. As an independent kingdom, we move to prepare for war.”

Amdirdis was nodding along when Fingolfin passed the floor to her. “Honorable counsellors, I draw your attention to the fact that Ingwion-” the lack of a title was a deliberate slight- “called us the rulers of Valinor’s citizenry. Whatever disregard the Vanyar may have for the notion, I will remind the Prince that the Free Cities and the Tol Eresseä Returned elect their representatives. If our people wish to prepare for this war, and take Princess Galadriel at her word, then it is our duty to best guide them on that course, not to lie to them to avert it.”

Without waiting for Fingolfin, Ingwion pushed himself to his feet. “Ambassador, your biases as a kinslayer and Fëanarian are more than clear. It serves your interests to have us acting as though the Dagor Dagorath is upon us.”

He had picked the wrong room to insult the wife of Caranthir. Fingon surged to his feet. “Prince Ingwion, though Galadriel is too kind to seek restitution for your words, not all her kinsmen are so gentle. What right have you to accuse us of bias when, by acting as though the war is not come, you preserve your own control over Valinor’s citizenry?”

It dissolved into complete chaos from there. Denethor stood to remind everyone that the Green Elves did not view the Vanyar as the default rulers of elvendom, Legolas quickly joining him. Turgon began calling his elder brother a Fëanarian partisan himself, Celebrían stood to defend her mother’s honour, and suddenly everyone save Celumë and Elrond were talking at once. You could never really tell what was going on in Peredhel’s head, so she didn’t think he was likely to stop them. Celumë stood, and climbed on top of her chair.

“Stop it!”

There was no instantaneous halt, but in twos and threes they took notice of her, and quieted where they stood. She remained on her chair until every one of them was silent before she said, “if any here is a Fëanarian partizan, it is me. I am here, and I am telling you that Oromë summoned me to their home, to question me about Maglor’s location. Not one Ainu has spoken to me of Maglor since the day I was returned to life. Not one. And now I find that they have misplaced him. Something is very, very wrong. I do not know what; I do not know why. All I know is that I am afraid, and the Valar are not telling us everything. Until they do, I suggest we prepare for the worst. Even if it is merely a mortal war of such magnitude that its resonance affected Lady Galadriel here, then it is something we must take to heart. Prince Ingwion, I offer you no offence, but you cannot know the terror that those of us who lived and died in Beleriand and Middle Earth without the guidance of the Valar have felt. We know that fear. Our people know that fear, and it would be unreasonable to ask us not to listen to them. The best way to keep the peace here will be to allow people to feel that they are capable of defending themselves.”

Maglor had told her not to cause trouble, but he did not get to decide that for her. He held her heart, but not her greatest duty. That belonged to her people. Their people. There were ellyn here that she had held as babies in the Gap. Her life was hers to give. She climbed off of her chair, smoothing her skirt, and sat back down.

Idril found her voice first. She was calm as her father, and cool. It was something of a surprise that her husband was nowhere to be found. It made Celumë a little suspicious, in fact. But what mischief could Tuor possibly be getting up to? Like as not, he was trying to keep the peace in Tirion. That was certainly where his law-sisters and law-mother were.

“I am no Fëanarian, but Secretary Celumë is right. If the Valar have lost Maglor, then I am afraid too. If the Dagor Dagorath is not come today, then it will some day. What do we have to lose by making some preparations.”

“Peace,” Ingwion said, “innocence.”

“If you think we have innocence,” Olwë retorted, quiet but devastating, “then you have forgotten what it means to accuse people of being kinslayers. Alqualondë will begin voluntary preparations for the Dagor Dagorath.”

Fingolfin seized control back. “We will vote on Ingwion’s proposition to ignore this ‘theoretical conflict.’ Those in favour of discussing the Dagor Dagorath as a serious possibility, say yea.”

Everyone except for Ingwion said, “yea.”

From there, the conversation moved on to logistics. Every time an element of these logistics was decided, Celumë wrote it down, but beyond that, her mind wandered. How many of them knew? She immediately discounted Amdirdis, who could not ever have been so calm if she knew Caranthir was the prisoner of someone who wanted him dead. If Maglor had already been captured, Celumë would have felt the same. The other ambassadors were all too young and unfamiliar to Maglor. Mahtan was a kinsman to Maglor, which meant Lord Rog was too, but if he knew, Nerdanel would have, and she would not have kept Amdirdis in the dark. Círdan was very closely affiliated with Ulmo, which made him an unlikely traitor to the Valar. Denethor had died before Maglor’s time. The Sindarin and Telerite contingent seemed unlikely to have been confided in, which brought her to Elrond Peredhel. He gave her pause.

The nature of Lord Elrond’s relationship to Maedhros and Maglor had always been unclear. The general consensus was that he had been held as a hostage against the value of a silmaril, along with his brother. But since the silmaril had been long instilled in the sky, this seemed a story of limited value. If they had been true hostages, they should have been executed the second Eärendil rose over the horizon. The stories also generally placed the blame for this plan on Maglor’s shoulders, which, to Celumë, seemed out of character. They had fostered children in the Gap, the orphans of Morgoth’s wrath, but to take them away from loving homes- that was unconscionable. Princess Elwing was not a likeable person. This did not mean that she was a poor parent- Liltallë was not likeable either, but she had been a quite competent mother- but it was bothersome. And then there was the matter of Maedhros’s will. The document was brief, and had been summarily ignored by Valinor’s lawkeepers, but Celumë had seen the words herself. ‘All my goods and titles I leave to be divided equally between Maglor Fëanorion, Elrond Eärendillion, and Elros Eärendillion.’ Would Maedhros have done that for someone he did not love? It was a great and terrible gift that technically made Elrond the most senior and only living heir to Fëanor’s house. It could have made him High King of the Noldor from two lines. Maedhros was brilliant. He would have known that, and chosen it.

Peredhel knows, Celumë decided, as she watched him turn to listen to his wife, I don’t know how he knows, but he knows.

If he was involved, that meant Celebrían and Gil-galad were as well. They three scandal makers always went hand in hand. Finduilas, who was distractedly shredding a piece of notepaper, and her father, who was watching her with some concern, she discounted for being honest and non-conspiratorial people. Galadriel and Celeborn she counted as certain culprits for the opposite reason. Angrod and Edhellos seemed unlikely, and Finrod would have told Celumë himself because he was kind like that. Idril and her father had taken an anti-Fëanorion stance, as was typical of their character, and Argon with them. Finarfin seemed as unlikely to be told as his lawdaughter did, which left only three. Fingolfin, Fingon, and Aredhel. If any two people in the room were involved in a Fëanorion conspiracy, it was as likely to be Fingon and Aredhel as it was to be Celumë and Amdirdis. In fact, had Liltallë been there, they would have completed the set of official and unofficial spouses. If anyone had been told, had snuck Maglor to safety at personal cost, it was them. They would have done it for Celegorm and Maedhros, without hesitation. Celumë decided to assume they were involved, or would be soon.

That left only Fingolfin, who Celumë could only see when he stood. Otherwise, he was hidden behind his wife. There was, perhaps, some symbolic resonance in that. If her hand was so involved in all this that she had been tasked with telling Celumë, it stood to reason that he would know. And yet, he acted so calmly. Fingolfin was not, by nature, a calm person. But he also loved his children well. If Fingon and Aredhel were involved for the sake of those they loved, might Fingolfin not be the same? It was certainly a possibility she could not discount.

In the end, the agreement reached was thus: the Vanyar would amass no army, Oropher, Denethor, and Queen Nimloth would merge their forces under Nimloth’s rule, the Teleri would prepare only a defensive force, and would seek their armaments from Mahtan’s folk. Each city state would manage their own defences, but the Noldor and the Sindar-Silvan forces would respond to distress calls and coordinate anyone looking to become members of a large force. Fingon, much to his chagrin, was appointed to oversee infantry operations and training, while Turgon was placed in charge of fortifications. The High Queen’s office would oversee funding, supply and personnel as they usually did. Fingolfin would personally fend off hordes of angry courtiers who had never been to Beleriand. Galadriel and Celeborn would assemble, equip, and train archers for the Noldor, and attempt to equip as many of their Sindarin and Silvan kin as they could.

A short recess allowed those who had not already been given positions to find them for themselves. Finrod, who had ridden in the night before and looked like he was falling asleep where he sat, went over to Turgon. Aredhel joined Galadriel and Celeborn, while Gil-galad went to Fingon. Elwing stood, and walked out of the room. She didn’t come back.

To Celumë, the missing part of their force was obvious: cavalry. Even outside of the Gap, she and Maglor had been the driving forces behind breeding and training Noldorin warhorses. Now, with Maglor dead, it would fall to her. But no sane person would put the wife of a Fëanorion in charge of an army. And that meant nobody would be assembling the cavalry at all.

As those who remained returned to their seats, and Fingolfin opened his mouth, Celumë made her decision.

“We need cavalry,” she told them.

“Yes,” Fingolfin agreed. “I imagine you know some people with the skills we need.”

“I do. Queen Nimloth not least among them. But for a Noldorin force… nobody I know could take the command, for reasons I hope are obvious.”

Nimloth nodded at the compliment. She was a fine rider. Edhellos had the passion for it too, but her gifts did not lay in the kind of battlefield command that would be needed to replace Maglor, and she would not be able to command the loyalty of Fëanarians. There was only one person in the room who might do so as well as Celumë and Amdirdis.

“Could you give us a list of names?” Anairë asked.

It was the opportunity Celumë had been waiting for. “I’ll give them to Lord Elrond, if he’ll come to my office after the meeting.” Everyone looked at Elrond, who stared wide-eyed at Celumë. All these years dancing around each other had culminated in this graceless moment as they crashed together like hapless birds.

“Secretary Celumë?”

She met his eyes. There was fear there, but determination too. “My husband is legally dead, Lord Elrond. That makes you Maedhros’s sole heir, and, accordingly, head of Fëanor’s house. The Riders of the Gap are yours to order as you will.”

“And if I ordered them to follow another?”

Fëanor’s folk were loyal beyond all else. If Elrond earned their loyalty, he could never truly give it away. Maedhros had tried. “Then choose well, Elrond Peredhel.”

She could feel all their eyes on her. For the first time in thousands of years, she trusted in Maedhros’s judgement. After a time, they looked back to Peredhel.

“In your office then?”

She acknowledged him with a nod, and looked back to her notes.

As the meeting progressed, her faith in Maedhros shook. He had been mad, towards the end of his life. Perhaps his trust of Elrond was motivated by a feeling of shame or regret. There was only one person living who would know, one way or the other.

Slowly, quietly, so as not to brush up against any other minds, she reached out to Maglor. Even caressing the edges of his mind made her want to tear her hair out and weep.

Should I trust Elrond Peredhel? She sent to him, and withdrew quickly.

Now that she had initiated contact, and he was closer to Valinor- though not in Valinor? Fascinating- she could feel his total confusion.

What? He thought in a shifting tongue that was not her own. She had to read the sentiment his mind imbued the words with to understand his meaning.

Peredhel. Should I trust him?

Celumë. He filled her name with love and regret, excitement and fear. If she had doubted that he still cared for her, this would have removed any trace of that doubt.

Wondering what he would feel in the word, she replied, Maglor.

The shot of relief hit her so hard she had to bite the inside of her lip to stop from smiling. He was glad to know how deeply she cared for him in return.

Trust Elrond, he told her, in Elrond’s name, there was such deep paternal love that it took her by surprise. No wonder Maedhros had wanted to leave the child everything. Rather than a calculation, it had been motivated by love.

Thank you, Kanya.

For the first time in the exchange, he seemed truly pleased. Not anything so all-encompassing as joyful or happy, but pleased. To hear the pet name, perhaps. For herself, Celumë had never liked them, but it had always seemed the sort of thing that suited Maglor.

The meeting wrapped up without anything much more being decided. Celumë spoke to Edhellos and Nimloth for a while, cancelling all of their plans to go riding together for the foreseeable future, and offered Galadriel some words of comfort. She was a seer, too, though not a powerful one or one with any control, and knew something of what it was to feel like nobody else could see something you obviously knew to be true.

Elrond met her at her office, trailing Celebrían and Gil-galad as his usual retinue. She would have liked to speak to him alone, but there was really no point. Everything she said to him would probably be relayed to the other two eventually. They were, by all accounts, very close.

“Secretary Celumë,” Elrond greeted her, as though they had not just spoken.

She decided to meet him where he was. “Lord Elrond. Lady Celebrían. Your majesty.”

Gil-galad waved a hand airily. “I’m only King Emeritus. Please, call me Gil-galad.”

He was golden, and very beautiful. They all were. Lady Celebrían had her mother’s look, slim and tall and very fair. If anything, her hair was lighter and more Sindarin than her mother’s, though not by much. Gil-galad was more Vanyarin by his hair, a darker colour that would have made a gold crown vanish into it. He wore it in a lovely wrap-around braid that accentuated his elegant neck. His other features were darker too, and so un-alike the other Arafinwians that they made the fact of his adoption obvious. Whatever the origin, the result was nothing short of radiant.

And then of course there was Elrond himself. He was Lúthien’s heir, and it showed. His physical features were not much out of the ordinary, more like his father in all save his mother’s colouring, but there was something else in him that made him beautiful. His was manner, serious, determined, yet also kind. That was nothing like either of his parents, closed-off Elwing and distant, broken Eärendil. No, Celumë reflected. His manner was all Maglor. It explained so much, and made her feel a surge of protectiveness for the both of them. Maglor, for having goodness in him despite everything, and Elrond, for the fact that in another world he might have been her son.

“Come on,” she said, and ushered all three of them inside.

Celebrían sat demurely with her cane on her lap. She didn’t rely on it to walk all the time, Celumë had observed, but that made it no less necessary on the occasions where she did need it. People in Valinor often stared at this, though not as much as they did over the fact she had two husbands. Elrond, after a silent staring contest with Gil-galad, sat beside her.

“They took some of my chairs for the fishmonger’s guild meeting two weeks ago,” Celumë explained, and sat down herself. “I haven’t been able to retrieve them in the chaos. This office is supposed to be able to accommodate the same number of people as Queen Anairë’s.”

It was the sort of idea that worked better theoretically than it did in practice.

Elrond, evidently, had no time for the social niceties. “Why me?”

“And here I thought I told you that in the meeting.”

Gil-galad put a hand on Elrond’s shoulder. “If this is some kind of ploy-”

“Ploy?” Celumë interrupted him. She had bowed to enough kings in her life, but Gil-galad was not one of them.

His tone softened. “I’ve seen enough people who think they can use Elrond to get what they want.”

Of course he had. Elrond had been King of Doriath before he could walk. That left a great deal of room for people to try and manipulate a young monarch into doing what they wanted. No wonder he hadn’t wanted to be king later in lifez.

“I understand,” she assured him, “but this is a gift, freely given. The Noldor need the cavalry, the cavalry needs the Gap, and the Gap needs someone to lead them. That person needs to be both inoffensive to all other elven groups, and of the right lineage and origin to keep the Noldor happy. I will go to these elves on your behalf. I will tell them that this is my wish; I will tell them that this is what their loyalty to Maedhros and Maglor demands of them.”

“You would invoke loyalty to Fëanor’s sons?” Celebrían wondered, tone neutral.

Celumë stood, and went to the cabinet at the back of her office. From it, she withdrew a bottle of Vanyarin whisky, and four crystal glasses. She filled a tumbler for each of them, and handed them around.

Elrond looked confused again. This time, Celumë answered before he asked. “I’m done with work for today, and if we’re going to talk about Maglor, then I’m not doing it sober.”

She drank before responding to Celebrían. “I know what they became. I do. But you must understand that when I knew them last, Fëanor’s sons were answering Morgoth by putting themselves between him and the rest of Beleriand. They had the total loyalty of their followers because they earned it.”

Gil-galad seemed skeptical, but Elrond was nodding along. She continued, “he regretted it later, of course, but you must remember that Maedhros chose to parley with Morgoth so none of us would die. Even after him giving up the crown, we remembered. While Thingol sat behind his wife’s walls, while Turgon and Finrod hid, we were there. Maedhros and Maglor never asked anyone to do anything they wouldn’t do themselves. They earned loyalty, and some of that was mine, too. I burned for Beleriand. If I ask them to follow you, many will. More will do so because Maedhros asked it of them.”

“It’s funny,” Elrond said, clearly meaning the opposite. “I only knew them after, but I think I caught glimpses of what you mean. That was why Maedhros sent the last of their followers away with Elros and me.”

Why had Celumë never spoken to him before? It was clear to her that he loved them. “Maedhros would never have left his titles, his people, to someone he didn’t trust. I have no doubt that you can succeed as a leader. You know something about what it is to stand your ground in the face of true evil. You know what it costs.”

Elrond bowed his head. “I do.”

Celebrían’s hand found his, and she squeezed it tight. Celumë had no personal knowledge of her, but everyone in Tirion had heard of the tragedy of Galadriel’s daughter. Then again, everyone in Tirion also knew that Elrond Peredhel had been kidnapped and trapped by Fëanor’s sons, so perhaps they knew little at all. If she had the power, Celumë would have taken the older cohort of judgemental Valinoreans, her own parents included, and shook them by their necks like a dog with a kill. This viciousness, perhaps, was the Fëanarian part of her. She pushed it away.

“If I do this, it won’t just be you,” she told him. “This is a job for more than one person. Lady Celebrían. Gil-galad. There will be duties for you also. You have each of you ruled before. You know what it will be, for your family.”

Celebrían inclined her head. “I do.”

Gil-galad said, “most people in Tirion wouldn’t include me in that.”

“Most people in Tirion are idiots. I do try not to hold it against them.”

He grinned. “How charitable of you.”

They worked out the details, and drank, over the course of the next hour. Even more than she had expected, Celumë found that she liked Elrond and his partners. Elrond had a wit that reminded her strongly of Maglor, but was mostly his own. Gil-galad was protective of them both, but once he relaxed, had a wheezing laugh and a wide smile. Celebrían had a ribald, mortal-ish streak that would have made Celegorm blush, and had Celumë laughing aloud. It was a pleasure to know each of them, and an honour to pass her duties on to them.

They invited her to dinner the next night, which she accepted, and sent them on their way with the completed list. Celumë had friends, in Edhellos and Nimloth, but those connections were based on ignoring Maglor, rather than embracing him. Because of her estrangement from Nerdanel, Liltallë, and Amdirdis, she didn’t know when the last time was that she’d spoken to someone openly about loving Fëanor’s sons. There were Aredhel and Fingon, of course, but they tried to be covert about the fact that their relationships were romantic, or at least sexual, and it was tiring to pretend that half of Tirion didn’t know about it.

He’s a sweet boy, she told Maglor.

He responded with some amusement, still a boy?

And of course he wasn’t. He was more than grown, but all the same, he has a goodness about him.

I’m proud.

She sensed that he hadn’t meant to send that to her, but all the same:

You should be.

Chapter Text

Broadly, there had been two possible outcomes when Nimloth had joined the rebellion. The second she’d been brought into Ulmo’s care, she’d identified these possible courses of action and had chosen between them. She could have stayed distant from the Noldor, who had once so greatly wronged her, or she could have forgiven them. Her heart had made the choice in favour of the second, despite Melian’s objections. Lalwen had guaranteed that outcome long ago, and moreover, Nimloth found that these troublesome, arrogant fools had more in common with her than her lawmother did. It was Lalwen who came to her now, in this tense, terrified, after.

They had stopped all missions the second Celegorm had been lost. Now, the five hundred rebels stayed within Ulmo’s walls, and waited to be revealed. The council still convened, by Nimloth and Fingolfin’s orders, but they had little to do. Fëanor, for his part, had vanished entirely. He locked himself in his room, and refused to come out. His grief, and that of his sons, was as great a dampener on their collective spirit as the fear Celegorm would be interrogated into revealing their secrets was. It was for this reason that Lalwen spoke up.

“I need a favour,” she said, three weeks after Celegorm’s loss. Though they slept together every night, their days were often spent apart. Such was the case that day. Lalwen was supposed to be training some of their younger recruits in specific combat styles for the more rare of Morgoth’s servants. Nimloth was supposed to be writing a speech telling her people why it was right for them to ally with the Noldor. Thus far, the tablet in front of her read, Celegorm- not so bad. Valar- behaved very badly. Dior. Melkor. Melian. It was all accurate, but not very compelling, as speeches went.

“What?” Nimloth asked, setting her stylus down atop the polished stone. Writing on paper was one of the things Ulmo had never solved about underwater life, and thus they’d resorted to more archaic methods.

Lalwen’s hands reached down to find a place on her shoulders. It was a pleasure to have the comfort of her touch. Nimloth leaned into it. After Dior, she’d spent many years grieving, but he was gone forever. It was Lalwen, who made her laugh and smile, that had allowed her to move on. Now, they would save their families together. Nimloth loved being part of a family. If she could name one regret of these last few centuries, it was that she and Lalwen did not have children. Although now, thinking of the danger they would have been subjected to, Nimloth supposed her desire was a selfish one.

“I need you to talk to my brother,” Lalwen said sweetly, fully aware of what she was asking. Her hands kneaded the tension of the day from Nimloth’s shoulders. “I can’t help him, now. But I think you can.”

There was good reason to think so. Nimloth knew what it was to lose a child. She knew what it was to lose a spouse. Though he had no reason to think so, Fëanor could trust Nimloth. She was part of his family, and would not betray him any more than she would her own blood- she did not conceive of her part in the rebellion as any sort of betrayal; it was in the service of her family, in vengeance for her family.

“As you wish,” Nimloth replied, and was rewarded with an upside-down kiss from her lover. On the other side of the room, one of her great-grandsons pretended to gag.

She rapped at Fëanor’s door with the back of her knuckles. Nobody answered. The fine wood, smoothed by tides and time, was kind under her hands. Without care for the delicacy of the craftsmanship, Nimloth turned her wrist and pounded away at it.

“Go away!” Called the voice within, childlike and petulant. Nimloth had had little opportunity to observe this stage in her own children, but she’d seen it in the children of others.

“Open the door,” she ordered, in her most regal tones, “or I shall do it for you, Curufinwë. Your son didn’t give his life so you could sit here and whine about it.”

This insult was what it took to force the door to spring open. Fëanor, within, radiated anger. The silmaril sat on his dressing table, but the master glowed just as brightly. Between them, the water grew warm, and, against Fëanor’s skin, churned. It was important to never forget that he had unparalleled gifts, and did not know how to use them.

“I am not whining,” he whined.

It was an unfair characterization of such a great magnitude of grief. Nimloth forced herself to think better of him. “No, you aren’t. But your mourning does not help your son. Now, let me in.”

He stepped out of her way, and Nimloth pushed inside the coffin-like room. All the lanterns on the walls seemed to have been short-circuited. It was the natural light of glowing algae and the unnatural light of the silmaril and its master that made up the difference. Writing-tablets covered every available surface. In his seclusion, it did not appear that Fëanor had been resting. Perhaps in deference to her rank, Fëanor removed the tablets from his one chair, and allowed her to sit.

“Have you forgiven Tauriel for saving you, yet?” Nimloth asked him.

The child had been rather distraught about Celegorm’s death. She’d saved Fëanor from trying to go after him. Saving all of their lives, but dooming Celegorm. Fëanor had been friends with her, but he’d attacked her over this. Now, she spent all her time with the non-Noldorin contingent, and avoided all the political meetings. Nimloth had been rather surprised to discover that she missed the young, brilliant troublemaker.

“There’s nothing to forgive.” Fëanor retrieved the silmaril, and set it closer to them. The light turned him into a creature of unreal magic. He was, in Nimloth’s mind, as close to the Valar as any of Eru’s children could be. And she had known Lúthien and married Dior. Sometimes, he scared her.

“Does Tauriel know that?”

He focused his gaze on the jewel, and didn’t answer the question. His hair was greasier than should have been possible underwater. Lalwen was much like him in looks, more so than their other siblings, and Nimloth could practically feel her heart being drawn to him. She should have hated Fëanor. He was arrogant and hubristic and weak. Nimloth’s heart, however, felt different. He’d lost people, and been afraid, and made mistakes. In the time she’d known him, Fëanor had adopted a young Avarin elleth, demonstrated a deep interest in and respect for Avarin culture, learned to respect Elrond and his lovers, and grieved over losing his child. There was nothing in that for Nimloth to hate. Not even Celegorm.

“I think you should tell her.” It was no business of hers, but Nimloth was a little bossy. “That child looks at you like you hung the stars, Fëanor. The least you could do is tell her you don’t blame her for what happened to Celegorm.”

Celegorm had killed Nimloth, once. Sometimes, on her worst nights, she could still feel the blade, a messy cut across her chest and a second blow to her neck ending it instantly. She ought to have hated him for that. Any sane person would have. And yet. She had watched what the silmaril had done to Thingol, and to Dior. She had seen the aftermath of what it had done to Elwing, who still did not trust her own heart. Even now, oaths broken and Dior dead, the presence of this other one made her uncomfortable. If none of these part-maiar she loved could resist the thing, how could she have asked it of him? And then he had gone and died for them. Nimloth had never even considered sacrificing her own life when Oromë had rounded that corner. Celegorm had.

“He isn’t dead yet,” confided Fëanor. That made it worse, somehow. “I would have felt it, if he was. Whatever they’re doing to him, it hasn’t killed him.” Her heart broke for him. “It’s only a matter of time. Tell me, Nimloth of Doriath- what does it feel like to have your child go beyond the bounds of this world?”

“Worse than anything you could possibly imagine.” It was not kind, but it was honest. “Sitting here won’t change that.” Neither would anything else, but… “You can still help save your other children. Maedhros has been representing you on the council, and it isn’t fair. He should be allowed to grieve for himself.”

It was impossible to count Elrond as kin and not gain a degree of affection for Maedhros. Fëanor sighed, deeply. “He’s better at it than I ever was.”

Apparently, they two were bosom friends, now. “Probably. But he certainly can’t make up for your absence in the forge. Arm us and guide us, Curufinwë. It won’t bring our children back, but it will help to protect the children we have left.”

Resting his head in his hands, Fëanor began to weep. Nimloth reached out, and, when he didn’t flinch away, she stroked her fingers over his hair. It was straighter than Lalwen’s, and very smooth. Even greasy and unwashed, he reminded her of Dior, who had been far to young for the burdens he had inherited. “It’s hard, and it never gets easier. My children have been gone for thousands of years, and I would still tear this world apart to get them back.”

Elrond had told her once, very sincerely, that he believed Maedhros and Maglor would have done anything they could to save Elured and Elurín. His own life, he said, was proof of that. Nimloth, at the time, had been almost angry. It was so much easier to blame them. Now, she had to confront the systems that had created the situation. She would have her revenge, paid in the blood of those who had allowed Morgoth to take power. Those who had abandoned the marred world just because it didn’t suit them. She told Fëanor as much.

“I’ve been told recently that vengeance is never a good motivation.”

Elrond, quite possibly. Or, she supposed, whichever parent he’d gotten it from. “Maybe not for yourself. But I think there’s miles of difference between vengeance for yourself, and that for your children.” If she could not protect her children, she could avenge them. “Wouldn’t you feel better, knowing that Morgoth and Oromë and every other two-bit lord had paid for their crimes?”

Fëanor folded his arms against his knees, and raised his head up. “Of course I would. But I thought it would have been wonderful if I could have punished Morgoth for killing my father, too.” He paused. “I’m grateful for your anger. It brought you here. But if anger is the only reason you are here, then you need to stop. You deserve better than that. So does my sister.”

They hadn’t spoken about this fact. “I’m here because I love her, too.”

“Good.” He stood, and, offering Nimloth her hand, pulled her to her feet. “You’re right. I need to be angry for Celegorm, now. This impotent grief does nothing for him. But you need to be here because you love your living daughter and grandson.”

He practically pushed her out the door. Nimloth stood there for a long time, breathing in the water. Fëanor was right, of course. That didn’t mean it didn’t hurt. Anger was all she had left of her children. No one really understood. Elrond and Melian had known this was coming. They had had far more time with their children. Elwing was the closest, but she wasn’t there, and it was not the sort of grief one could share with their only living child. Since she couldn’t burden Elrond either, it was Melian she went to.

Even now, Nimloth found it hard to think of Melian as anything other than the Queen. She was Melian. She was the Queen.

“Granddaughter,” Melian called to her. She was sitting under one of the warm currents that flowed through the palace. Her long hair drifted through it like ink pooling in clear water, and the hand she gestured to Nimloth with was perfectly formed in every way.

Nimloth explained what Fëanor had told her, but never saw her concern reflected on Melian’s face. Instead, she saw only banality. Melian had not come here from love, after all. Nimloth had only ever known her to love two people. One was dead and gone, the other was dead and with Námo. Melian was here because Thingol had been kept from her, and because Lúthien had been taken from her. To the general populace, the later decision was one of Námo’s only good ones. Even Nimloth could not fault it. She, too, had fallen for a mortal man. She knew what it was to feel your heart die. She only wished the decision had been offered to Dior and her children in reverse. Or, on her darker days, to her as well.

“What does Fëanor know?” Melian demanded. “His problem was that he took his revenge out on innocent Teleri.”

It was hard to disagree with Melian. “You’re only telling me what I want to hear.”

Melian reached out and stroked her cheek. “Nimloth, dear heart, Fëanor wants you to forget your anger because that would mean you forget your anger over what he did to you.”

It was a monstrous accusation. It might just be true. “He lost his son, Melian.”

“I lost my daughter,” she pointed out. “It’s no excuse.”

Losing her daughter was Melian’s excuse for abandoning every person in Doriath to die. Nimloth thought she was, perhaps, not an expert. It was never best to argue with Melian, so she didn’t. Privately, though, her heart was settled in Fëanor’s favour. His time in Mandos had given him more empathy than that which he was known for. More wisdom, too, she thought.

Time went on. Fëanor emerged from his room that night, and Nimloth caught him in the kitchen stealing himself dinner. Since she was doing much the same thing, they exchanged the fond smile of co-conspirators before heading their separate ways. The worst was not over, but this type of worst was. There would be a different kind later. Nimloth, who didn’t want to think about it, took her fresh fruit and went back to Lalwen’s waiting arms. She would find out whatever unpleasant type of grief or fear the world had in store tomorrow.

Fëanor came to council, for the first time in weeks. He seemed tired, but Maedhros and Caranthir stood strong at his sides. Ulmo, in a rare surprise, was hosting at Fingolfin’s side.

“No news of Celegorm,” he told them. It was how every meeting with one of the ainur began, these days. Nimloth forced herself to look at his eyes. Ulmo scared her, in a primal way that made her heart beat out of her chest. She knew it was irrational, but her body didn’t care. He was eldritch, a mass of incomprehensible power. Only months of exposure allowed her to look into his infinite eyes now.

“What did Námo discuss, then?” Elrond asked. Nimloth, who’d been wondering the same, was grateful she didn’t have to ask. A rare meeting of the Aratar, called earlier that day, had been a sure sign of trouble. Normally, other valar were allowed to attend at their own discretion. This time, none had been permitted. The second sign of trouble was Ulmo’s presence here. If the news was not about Celegorm, and it was too serious to be passed through one of his maiar, then it was ill news for all of them.

Ulmo’s power flashed, and sand began to swirl into shapes in the air. First, a calendar. “I believe we have discussed the fact that Námo’s estimates for how long he could hold Melkor were… dubiously high. It’s obvious, to me at least, that he’s figured out that fact. His tactics seem to have changed. He trusts us with less and less. When he and Varda called the Aratar today, it was plain that they suspected one of us from harbouring you all, since the information they gave us was meant to make its way to you. That means there’s a number of the Valar who’ve been excluded from suspicion. Unfortunately, none of them are actually our allies.”

“What did he want us to know?” Fingolfin encouraged.

“Ransom demands,” Ulmo told them, severe and devastating. He cut Fëanor off with a single hand. “Not Celegorm. They didn’t mention him, and I couldn’t ask. Thingol, Nerdanel and Finwë. Varda was opposed to extending the proposition to any of the ‘loyal’ kinsmen, but was open to extending it to Túrin, although what that’s supposed to accomplish, the world may never know. Oromë seemed a bit distracted when they mentioned it, but Námo latched on.”

Fëanor stood, and, ignoring Caranthir’s attempt to grab at his arm, walked out of the room. Nimloth made eye contact with Maedhros, who sighed. When he turned back to Ulmo, it was obvious he was leading his kin. “What does she want?”

The image behind Ulmo swirled again into what seemed to be a pair of figures. “Unconditional surrender. The ringleaders. Or those they see as ringleaders. Finwë’s children, Nimloth and Melian, Fingon and Aredhel, Elrond and Galadriel.”

Nimloth had not enough love in her heart to surrender for Thingol. “What will she do to them, if we do not?” She asked, wondering what guilt would fall upon her shoulders.

Ulmo gave his best approximation of a baffled look. “That was the strange thing. She didn’t seem to know. I almost wonder…” he shook his head as if to clear it. “Everyone was strange today. Oromë showed up with love-bruises on their neck. A little odd, for a shapeshifter, and more about their and Vána’s sex life than I ever wanted to know. They’re probably the only happy couple in all the Valar, right now.”

All the Valar had been acting strangely for years. If they weren’t, none of this could have happened.

“He won’t have me,” Fëanor said, from behind Nimloth. She jumped. When had he come back into the room? “Námo and Varda aren’t stupid. They know what happened last time someone hurt my father. Harm to him is one of the few things they could do at this late stage to make this situation worse.”

“Nor me,” Nimloth jumped on the tail end of his words, adding, “they don’t get to use the fact that we have love against us.”

Fëanor returned to his seat. “I think,” He began, as the room turned to look at him, “that-”

Ulmo vanished from the room in a swirl of water. A loud, screaming noise began to reverberate. Celumë leapt to her feet in an instinctive motion, stopped to ask herself, “fire alarm?” And then ran full tilt from the room.

Celumë seemed like a competent and reasonable person. Nimloth ran after her, tearing past confused people in the hallway as Celumë led her into the open space of the great hall. Nothing was on fire, which was good, but Ossë was standing in the middle of the room, a sword pressed to Vána’s throat. Celegorm, or something that looked like Celegorm, was arguing with him forcefully. Celumë stopped in the doorway, and Nimloth threw herself to the side to avoid running full tilt into her. Fëanor was not so lucky. He and Celumë tumbled to the ground in the heap. It was not graceful, but did have the added bonus of distracting all three figures in the centre of the room.

“Stop it!” Celegorm snapped, recovering first. “Vána is helping; you don’t need to hurt her.” He grabbed Ossë’s arm, keeping the maia from returning to his threats. This intervention allowed them all to stop and think about what Celegorm’s continued life and freedom really meant.

This necessitated an immediate reconvening of the council, but not a very successful one. While Vána tried to prove her change of heart to Ulmo and Ossë, Celegorm’s brothers kept rushing in to see him. Even as Celegorm explained how she’d rescued him from Oromë, other advisers left as they realized it was all a waste of their time. Soon, it was only Fingolfin, Nimloth, Aredhel and Maeglin, and the entirety of the House of Fëanor who remained with the Ainur.

Nimloth knew she was intruding, but also knew that as a queen, it was her duty to remain and observe Ulmo’s judgement of Vána. Melian, who had not felt the same, was long gone. Nimloth stayed in her seat at the head of the table, as Fëanor’s family pushed chairs into a semicircle and cuddled together, some sitting one the floor against each other’s knees, pressed close for comfort. She intended to sit silently and say nothing. Therefore, it was a surprise when Fëanor waved her over.

“Nimloth was a great help to me,” he told Celegorm plainly, “when we believed you were dead.”

Celegorm, from where he sat beside Aredhel against Curufin’s knees, looked up at her. His eyes were clear of madness and the oath. “Thank you.”

Nimloth missed being able to hate these people, but part of her was glad of it. She couldn’t have her own family, but she could build this with Lalwen’s, whatever ‘this’ was. “Thank you, for facing Oromë like that. I’m glad you came out of it alright, in the end.”

Celegorm shot a fond look towards Vána. He seemed a bit lovestruck, Nimloth thought. Vána was objectively beautiful, in the same way Melian was, as Dior had been. Her burnished-gold hair was bright, even underwater and in the strange light of Fëanor’s lanterns. Her face was perfectly symmetrical, while her skin looked to be smooth as porcelain to touch. Everything about her carried the life of youth. Even as her eyes carefully scanned the room, they seemed innocent. It was almost uncanny.

“Do you trust everyone here?” Vána murmured, voice soft. Celegorm leant forward to rest a hand on her knee.

“Implicitly,” he said, although he cast looks at both Nimloth and Fingolfin.

“Implicity,” Fëanor affirmed, eyes entirely on Vána.

She told them everything, then. The truth. She said Oromë had saved Celegorm, and that they had cared for him, and how she had grown to have her own sort of love. It was, to Nimloth’s eyes, plain that this was not a sexual love. The way Vána spoke, it seemed as though a sexual love was never something she had even considered. The valar were each very different from each other, so it seemed not too surprising that some, like Oromë, would be deeply sexual, while others were not. It seemed a little ironic in a fertility goddess, but, well, Námo’s inability to listen seemed counterintuitive in a judge. Not all things had to be totally aligned with a purpose. Some things were as they were for no reason other than that they were.

As Nimloth listened, she found herself watching Fëanor. His eyes never left Celegorm, and she watched him react to his son listening to his own story. Fëanor was emotional, but Nimloth had yet to learn to read his tells. There was something ethereal about the way his body reacted to things. Not like Vána, or Dior. But there was a quiet radiance to him, like coals that could be stoked back to flame. His sons had a little of it, too, but they were sparks compared to him, just as Elrond was a glimmer compared to what Dior had been.

The only emotion she thought she could clearly read on Fëanor, in the end, was pride. He looked at Celegorm with pride. In one light, it was a strange thing to be proud of; Celegorm had slept his way out of one of the most serious problems ever faced by any elf. On the other hand, he’d been a good negotiator and shown sincere growth and empathy. If it were Elwing, Nimloth would have been proud, too.

It was only after the story that Tauriel arrived. Amrod let her in, a soft, welcoming touch on her arm standing as greeting. She stood there, and took the measure of them. Despite the grief and loneliness Nimloth knew she had suffered, these past weeks, she did not weep.

“I’m glad you’re here,” she informed Celegorm, voice carefully calm. He bowed his head in acknowledgement.

“Thank you,” he returned, and they both knew why he was saying it. Of all of them who had been there, she was the only one who loved Fëanor well enough to save him from himself. Fëanor, who, it was apparent, had not made it clear to Tauriel that she was absolved of blame, stood. His calloused craftsman’s fingers reached out to graze her shoulder. She leaned into the touch.

This moment of goodness and silent forgiveness almost made it bearable when, a second later, Ulmo stood forcefully, water solidifying around him as a sort of turtle-like armor.

“Melian’s gone,” he told them, voice deadly as a riptide, “we’ve been betrayed.”

There was nothing Nimloth could do except curse herself for marrying into such a terrible family.

Chapter Text

Elwing raised her hands and, with delicate care, let the magic of her inheritance flow through her. Idril, who knelt before her, bowed her head. It was not an altogether difficult spell, and Elwing had performed it on herself many times.

“Clear your mind,” she reminded Idril gently, and, pressing forward, began to place a second set of barriers deep in Idril’s subconscious.

Let her secrets be secret, and her mind remain her own, Elwing wrote there. Let her be free from compulsion, aware of the weaknesses of her own spirit, and resistant to intrusion.

The shields and webs she built would not stop a Vala, but they would stop another elf, and they would slow even an Ainu down. Better still, unless you were looking at them, they would not appear to be there. This, more than anything, was Elwing’s gift.

She withdrew her hands, and Idril stood, towering over her.

“Thank you, daughter,” she said, and leaned in to kiss Elwing on the forehead. Elwing curtsied away from the contact.

“Any time,” she offered, as sweet as she could manage. What she really meant was, anyone. Already, she had created such blocks among many of their allies, Lady Lalwen and her own mother not least amongst them. Her grandmother Melian should have been helping, but she feared that she was being monitored by Estë. Elwing was probably one of the only people in Valinor not of Vanyarin blood who was implicitly trusted to side against Fëanor’s sons. The assumption was a mistake.

Elwing had not been a good mother. She had married too young, even for a half-elf, and had children under significant pressure to preserve her father’s line. Eärendil had left her, and the walls of their haven had closed around her, a prison of her own making. Older advisors who supposed they were wiser- some even had been- had relieved her of what little freedom was left to her, leaving her a figurehead to wear the jewel that comforted them, and reminded them of when other kings had sat in her place. The silmaril had seemed the only thing that comforted her. The children only scared her. She saw them daily in her brothers’ places, and clutched the jewel closer. The one thing she had the freedom to order was the hiring of mortal nursemaids, and she did so, liberally. These women were better than her, and had more capacity for love. Increasingly, she had hated herself for her failure to love her children, to do any of the things her own mother had done for her. She wished her position and Eärendil’s were reversed. Surely, he would have been better. She deserved to die looking for an unfindable land, and he deserved what little safety remained in Sirion.

She had hated the Sons of Fëanor, then. On this point, the valar were not wrong. She had wished them dead, and had feared her own death at their hands. She had blamed them for the loss of her parents, of her brothers and her freedom. She blamed them for what she had become. But Elwing was no Námo, incapable of change and with one moment of empathy in a thousand years. In Valinor, after attempting to kill herself, she saw the similarities between her own position, trapped with only the silmaril, a thing she had chosen to keep over the safety of her own children, and theirs. She looked into the darkness, and found it was a mirror.

This had not been enough to change her opinion. They had taken her children, and those earlier years were defined as much by the fear of their loss as by the changes in her heart. There were three things Elwing could never have anticipated that finally cleansed her hatred. The first, chronologically, though not in importance, had been the suicide of Maedhros Fëanorion, and Námo’s well-publicized condemnation of this act as the only suicide of the firstborn. Elwing knew that was a lie. She knew that only Ulmo had stopped her from succeeding at doing the same, and wondered what Námo would have said of her if he had not. The remarkable unkindness with which Maedhros was treated by the Vanyar and others who followed the doctrine of the valar closely had made Elwing hate them as much as she had ever hated Maedhros himself.

The most important thing that changed her mind happened second. She received word from Elros. His mortality had been a blow to her heart, but then Idril had disobeyed the valar to see him. Eärendil having been under Varda’s constant supervision and Tuor having been unable to leave Valinor for fear of his own mortal blood, she was the only sailor among them with Ulmo’s favour, and she had returned with most surprising news: Not only did Elros forgive the sons of Fëanor their trespasses, but he professed to love them as his own kin. This had stung. Elwing had not imagined being replaced. And yet, it comforted her. Someone had loved her children well. Someone had taught them, and held them when they were afraid. Years later, Elrond’s arrival would reaffirm this belief. He had feared meeting her and Eärendil again, their judgement and their expectations. Elrond had been shocked to discover Elwing’s happiness for him, and she herself had been surprised by the happy, if not always intimate, relationship that formed between them.

After this, and after seeing Elrond’s distress at discovering Maedhros’s treatment by the valar, which more than rivaled her own, the third factor was little more than an affirmation. After the death of her father, Elwing’s mother had been first distraught, then lonely, and then, slowly, sought the comfort of people who understood what it was to lose someone in the way that she did. The first had been Lady Celumë, long ago of the Gap, who shared her passion for riding and horsemanship. The bond of their grief had drawn Elwing’s mother to the Noldor, and away from the Vanyar. In time, the Sindarin people as a whole had done the same, by virtue of the trauma and grief that bound them more closely to the Noldor. The Silvans, who had never had the Doriathrim animus against the Noldor, had already been in the process of making the same shift.

All of this had led to now, as Elwing prepared to risk her own life and safety in direct opposition of the valar. Those who knew what was happening counted the days to the Dagor Dagorath, and, more immediately, the days until the valar realized they had been had been betrayed by dozens of the highest-ranking elves in Valinor. When that day came, all those most obviously related to Fëanor and his sons would flee. So too would a carefully chosen team of trusted allies, as many people as possible. But others would be needed to stay. Someone had to lead those who could not fight. Someone had to fight the valar from within the system, to train the armies that would fight in the Dagor Dagorath, regardless of their feelings on Manwë and Námo. Even the most hateful of the old Vanyar did not deserve to feel the fear of Beleriand.

Elwing, trusted among elvenkind, would stay. For the Sindar, for her mother, and for Elrond. They would both be going away, Nimloth because her anger over the fact that Eluréd and Elurín had not been allowed the choice was well known, and Elrond for his love of Maedhros and Maglor. The contingent who stayed would be risking their lives, but Elwing found that, for the first time in her life, she was neither afraid nor full of self-loathing. What she was doing was right, and no matter the cost, she would do it. Others would be staying with her. Lady Finduilas and Lord Gwindor would be leading the house of Finarfin, for though Aegnor’s imprisonment in Mandos guaranteed the disloyalty of her ancestors, Finduilas herself had the alibi of Túrin to fall back on. Tuor, who could not leave, and Idril, who could profess genuine hatred of Maeglin, would remain of the house of Fingolfin. Prince Argon would also remain, but he was ignorant of all these events. Elwing would lead Doriath and inherit Rivendell, while King Thranduil would provide her with support against the more conservative elements among their kin. He was taking the risk for Prince Legolas, an active friend of Elrond’s sons, who would be going with them.

“Elwing?” Beleg had come up behind her, light on his feet even for an elf. She turned away from Idril to face him.

“What is it?”

He seemed to waver for a moment. “Your Lord Husband wishes to see you, Lady Elwing.”

Their marriage had been one of convenience and politics, and though Elwing loved him, for supporting her, for giving up his mortality to be there for her in a time when she was at her most vulnerable, they were no longer lovers. Elwing periodically courted others. Eärendil had been subsumed by his job as a star, and did not court anyone that Elwing knew of. His life was not a happy one, and she had only seen him once since the death of man. It had affected him deeply, but the valar had not released him from his duties to mourn.

“He may,” she decreed, and offered him a small smile. Beleg had been one of the first she had worked her magic upon, and was a dear friend. He returned the smile, and was on his way.

“I did not know they had released him,” Idril commented.

Elwing turned back to face her. Idril’s expression was immeasurably sad. She knew what the world had done to her son. Elwing rather thought that she would have killed Varda in punishment for forcing him to such eternal labour if such a thing were possible.

“Neither did I.” It would not do to give Idril false hope. “Likely, they have not.”

Her expression was passive. “I am sure the valar know best what my son’s capacities are.”

From Idril, this was tantamount to pulling off her glove and slapping Manwë across the face.

When Eärendil finally came upon them, he stopped short, seeing his mother and his wife standing as close as sisters.

“Lord Husband,” Elwing greeted him, and bowed demurely.

Eärendil recovered enough to return her bow. Where she was dressed to her station, in a finely decorated tunic and cloak, he was wearing worn sailing gear, stained with salt and sweat and the black blood of the monsters that crawled through the black spaces between stars. He stank, and Elwing had bite her cheek to avoid reacting.

Idril, without saying a word or heading her own fine clothes, crossed the clearing to embrace her son. He stumbled backwards, as if shocked by the contact. Elwing allowed them time. There was little enough of it left, and in time, all mothers and sons would have to say what might be a last goodbye. At least she knew that Elrond, with Maedhros and Maglor, was under the watchful eyes of some of the most intimidating warriors of all elven kind. Eärendil would be alone.

It was he who disentangled from the touch first. “I was sent to speak to my wife,” Eärendil told his mother, casting a look over her shoulder towards Elwing. Almost unconsciously, his hand drifted to where a pouch was hidden under his shirt. It was serious, then, if he had not left the jewel in his ship. Even now, all these millennia later, Elwing found herself supressing the urge to reach for it. It was an unhealthy crutch that would never go away.

“I am sure nothing you have to say to me cannot be said in front of Lady Idril.” Her mode of speech was performative. Varda, and perhaps her kin, were watching. “Your work is tiring. Come, sit. I will send for food and water and fresh clothes.”

Eärendil did not keep clothes here, in Elwing’s true home deep in the woods of central Valinor. He still pretended at living in that tower. As Idril led him up onto the porch and into a chair, Elwing went over to Beleg.

“I am sorry to send you running about like a messenger.” She kept her tone soft, out of Eärendil’s ears if not those of the Valar.

Beleg half-shrugged. “It does not bother me. Someone has to do it, and the others need to train and run drills in preparation for Morgoth’s return.” The use of Fëanor’s name for the dark Vala was a code between them, now. It reminded of the danger of him and his kin. “So, food, water, clothes.” His eyes darted to Eärendil. “A wash basin.”

Elwing nodded, and gave him a look of gratitude. “He doesn’t have clothing here. Perhaps-”

“He and Mablung look to be about the same height,” Beleg told her, “I am sure I can find something appropriate. If not, I can try something of mine or Gwindor’s. Although I have to tell you, I am fairly certain Finduilas’s clothes will not fit.”

Bless Beleg, for having so many people in his life from whom to steal clothes. “Thank you.”

Elwing was not a tactile person, and the fact that Beleg only reached out to touch her arm for a second proved that he had come to feel some of the affection for her that she felt for him.

Beleg had become one of her closest confidantes, as Elwing had joined her mother in power among the Doriathrim. They and Melian, the three queens of a kingless kingdom, had worked hard to assemble and govern the shattered remains of their people as a unit suited for Valinor. Unlike the advisors of her youth, who had sought power and manipulated Elwing as they needed, Beleg and Mablung had no such selfishness. They were the sort of people who had been willing to risk their lives on the borders of a supposedly safe land. She had trusted them with intimate secrets of her life, of her marriage and her motherhood. In return, she had learned much of their own loves, first, awkwardly, of Túrin, and then of Finduilas and then Gwindor, who they had learned to love equally and fairly. She would have envied them if she were not so glad on their behalf.

He nodded to Idril and Eärendil, and left. Elwing went back to her law-family, with a tinge of regret.

“What is your message?” Idril asked, kindly as she could.

Eärendil looked down at his filthy hands. “I was supposed to tell Elwing that there has been trouble in Mandos. It is nothing the valar cannot handle, but just in case, I am to stay in the sky with the silmaril. I know it is your possession by law, but I ask to keep it from you for now.”

His eyes desperately seemed to convey something else. Idril took his hand. “If there is disruption in Mandos, then we are sure that the valar will do what is best to ensure our safety and the safety of elvenkind.”

They two spoke, but Elwing went off the porch again, to offer them privacy and to get away from the stone. Even now, it called to her. An addiction she could not allow herself to ever submit to. She knelt in front of an oak that reached so high as to touch the stars themselves, and sought patterns on its bark. The living things that surrounded her in her woodlands home were a great comfort, and as if on command, she caught sight of a wild cat in the distance. Yellow eyes turned to her for a flash, and then the maia was gone.

Servants brought tea and food, both of which Idril pressed upon Eärendil in great quantities. Her eyes seemed almost misty. She knew that in this coming war, Eärendil would be forced to side against his own son. They had all made difficult choices, in rebelling against the valar, but Eärendil was given no choice at all. Elwing, who knew what it was to be without choice, could not have pitied him more.

“Elwing?” Idril called softly, forcing her attention back to them. “Do you know where Voronwë is assigned in the current plan for the Dagor Dagorath?”

They both knew the true answer: Voronwë would be with Fëanor, representing Círdan’s interests. It was no wonder Idril had forgotten the lie; Elwing had done much the same. “I have no conception of the thing. I admit that I have been much occupied by our own planning. My mother wishes me to take an active role.”

Idril nodded solemnly, but as she opened her mouth to speak, Eärendil interrupted.

“I’m not supposed to tell you, but the House of Fëanor has escaped from Mandos, with some allies. Maeglin is with them. You must stay safe.”

Idril did not have to fake her shock. She rose to her feet. “How?”

Eärendil shook his head. “The ainur didn’t tell me. I was not even supposed to know, but Lord Tilion- well, it does not matter. But you must arm yourselves and prepare. Please.”

The reality was, with Námo’s plan to cast out any defective elves, the both of them would probably have been safer in Maeglin’s company. Elwing, certainly, would have been. She was as defective as it was possible for an elf to be. Námo’s words against Maedhros were proof enough of that.

“I promise,” Idril said. Then, thinking, she revised. “I swear to you, by all that is good and right in this world, under the eyes of Varda and Manwë, that I will do whatever I can to keep myself, my people, and my family safe, within the bounds of what is ethical and reasonable.”

It was a gamble, and it was brilliant. The valar were listening, and with such an oath, their trust in Idril would likely grow.

Eärendil seemed to accept this. “You must not tell a soul, either of you. I should not have told you.” He had the look of a child that feared punishment.

“I will not,” Elwing promised him. “But you said they had ‘some allies’. Other than Maeglin, who else?”

Eärendil shook his head again. “I know only what Tilion let slip.” He stood abruptly. “I must go.”

He did not even hug his mother goodbye. As he fled, Elwing could see Idril fighting back tears, and wished that the world was other than what it was. Eärendil had not even wanted to live this long. Unlike Elwing, who had far more elves in her blood than men, Eärendil fell on the side of his father’s people. He had no desire to die, but his spirit, stretched thin by all the ages he should never have lived, was no longer right. Perhaps he could have come to be an elf, if not given this endless task. But he had been given it, and was nothing now but a shade. Despite that, he had still broken Varda’s confidence to try and keep them safe. It was the last traces of the husband Elwing loved.

When Beleg returned with clothes for Eärendil, he stopped in his tracks, and then, in keeping with the more gentle parts of his spirit, pulled Idril into a hug.

Elwing, for her part, wished only that she knew how many days it would be until their attempt at revenge. Her husband deserved better. Her sons deserved better. Her brothers and father deserved better. Maeglin and Fëanor and all their ilk deserved better. Maedhros deserved better. Elwing was going to ensure they received it.

Chapter Text

Some morbid member of the council had placed a large stone calender in the room where most meetings now took place. ‘Days After Varda Predicted Morgoth Would Escape’, it read, and had three days crossed off. Arafinwë couldn’t really fault its creator for their morbid attitude. It had been two weeks since Melian’s betrayal. They’d been cooped up for more than a month after Celegorm’s disappearance, and now, with Manwë and Ulmo in open warfare, things were more dire than ever. It was a miracle conflict hadn’t spread further. With Aulë and Vána openly on their side, and Oromë and Nienna secretly on their side, it had become a far more even fight, but the situation remained grim. If dark humour helped, then Arafinwë couldn’t fault it.

“I actually find it a little charming,” Fingolfin had confessed to him, when they were both early for council on they day it had appeared.

It was clear that he was not responsible for this thing, but his tacit approval was what allowed it to continue. If he were still king- a possibility nobody liked to consider- Arafinwë would have done the same thing.

When Fingolfin had returned, years ago now, Arafinwë had been desperate to give up the crown. He’d passed on the duty without any consideration for his brother’s feelings. If anything, he’d felt the suffering incumbent on the ruler to be a deserved one. There was great bitterness in his heart, first because Fingolfin had gone to Beleriand, and then because Fingolfin had gotten all his children back, while Aegnor languished in Mandos.

Even then, he had known that this feeling was an unkind one. He felt its wrongness more strongly now that the tables had turned. Aegnor was with him, now, while Argon was gone. Worse, he saw the ways in which his analysis of the situation had been wrong all along. The difference between Aredhel and Fingon- and even Turgon- before and after was a harsh one. With her son back, Aredhel had gained a liveliness that Arafinwë found irreconcilable with the person she had been a year earlier. It had never occurred to him that her more subdued self was a product of grief and trauma, rather than of maturity. He felt a fool. In Fingon and Turgon, the differences were just as pronounced. Fingon was possessed of an unconstrained joy alien to the exhausted, bitter prince who’d returned, while Turgon acted as if a great guilt had been lifted from his shoulders. Arafinwë, who had received three of his children tired but whole, wished he had offered more empathy to his brother.

Of the valar, only Varda and Námo were prepared to confront Ulmo, Vána and Aulë in total war. This was a problem for them, Vána noted, because the only valar whose powers were such that they could have fought these three together were Manwë and Morgoth. Varda was powerful enough, but her gifts were not directed at simple combat. Yavanna could have fought strongly, or Tulkas, but neither of them were so committed to the cause as to attack their own kin, and, in Yavanna’s case, her husband. Thus, Ulmo was periodically forced to batter invading maiar with hurricanes, but they did him no harm. Instead, the greatest effect had been that Fëanor now found it very difficult to hold Ulmo’s silmaril.

The fact that he had not stopped doing so was another problem entirely. Once, when Arafinwë was looking for Finrod, he overheard Fëanor and Elrond speaking in hushed tones. The subject at hand was clear.

“I’ve looked at Maglor’s scars,” Elrond informed, in a healer’s calm but devastating tone. “If you keep doing this, it could permanently impair your ability to do your work.”

“Maglor still plays,” Fëanor retorted, with his usual inability to listen to any expert other than himself.

Elrond’s frustrated sigh was audible even through the door of the infirmary. “Maglor held it for less than an hour total. Ever. The only reason she didn’t try and use this against you earlier is because she didn’t know you had it.”

There was a long silence. Arafinwë knew he should move away, but found himself paralyzed by the weight of their words.

“Do you think it burns me because I’m a bad person?”

Some sort of hand gesture or shift in posture must have been the response to this. Aloud, Elrond simply said, “it doesn’t burn me, perhaps because of my blood, perhaps because of my choices. It is your creation. If you don’t understand it, I suspect nobody ever will.” Another silence. “I can only hope that it is Varda’s actions causing this.”

This silence was the most devastating yet. “You’re not sure?”

“They’re yours,” Elrond reminded him. “Her blessing was for wrongdoers. You haven’t done anything particularly wrong since you returned. You certainly didn’t steal it. Even if you had, I have no conception of whether or not her work could burn you. The fëa has strong impulses to avoid hurting itself, after all.”

Arafinwë made himself walk away before he could breach Fëanor’s trust any further. He tried to forget what he’d heard, but it became difficult, as Fëanor began walking around with his palm bandaged. Where the bandages slipped away, he noted once in council, the skin was red and peeling.

In this little time they had left, Arafinwë elected to dedicate as much as he could to his family. He ate dinner with at least one of his children and Eärwen every night, ensured that he pursued various activities with one of his grandchildren whenever he could, and even spent some quality time with Celebrían’s sons.

“It’s really not that hard,” Elladan insisted. Then he yanked Arafinwë off his feet. There was a moment of unpleasant flight before he remembered himself, rolling instinctively over his shoulder to land standing. He spun around to face Elladan. His half-elf descendent gave a shrug.

“Is this actually going to help me fight orcs?” Arafinwë couldn’t help but wonder. Although he’d commanded the Army of Valinor, he had always been just that- a commander. He could only pray that would be the case again, now. If only he had anything left to pray to.

“Not directly,” Elladan admitted, “but as you can imagine, men spend a great deal of time thinking about how to fight each other. More than elves ever have, especially those of us in Valinor. I’m teaching you this because I find it useful to help me understand how natural forces are part of combat.”

He sounded oddly like Fëanor. “How so?”

Elladan placed Arafinwë’s hand back on his wrist. “I was able to throw you not because I’m innately stronger than you are, but because your stance was very… forward, and because I knelt down to use gravity in my motion. Sorry if my explanations seem a bit odd, but I’ve never actually discussed this in Quenya.”

He repeated the motion he’d used to throw Arafinwë again, more slowly. As he stepped backwards and twisted, he dipped one knee to the ground. “The other reason this worked,” Elladan continued, clearly in a teaching mood, “is that you didn’t have the instinct to let go once it became clear the balance was no longer in your favour. If you’d released before I’d managed to affect your stance, you would have had the advantage.”

Patiently, Elladan showed Arafinwë how to break a variety of grips on his wrist, one handed and two handed. Although no individual practice seemed like it would be useful- all were intended for one-on-one combat with an opponent of similar dimensions- he thought he understood why Elladan was teaching him this. There were rhythms and patterns to the way mortal men seemed to conceive of their combat. It was the sort of thing a hröa could learn to repeat, even under duress. As they moved on the throws, Arafinwë thought about the ability to use an orc’s weight against it, to create an advantage for himself. It was valuable, and not just as time to bond with his descendent.

Other groups filtered into the practice room. Two of their new recruits, both born and raised in Valinor, learned under Amrod’s watchful eye. Voronwë and another stranger used practice swords. Tauriel and the other Avarin elf- Arteth?- practiced a more elven form of hand-to-hand combat, relying on speed and lightness on their feet. Once, while Elladan mandated they take a break and stretch, he watched Tauriel run up Arteth and flip over, bringing her full weight down on his leg as he tried to kick her. It was effective, but showy. Orcs didn’t have much care for style. Not that he could judge too harshly- Tauriel had been on the front lines of the war against the shadow far longer than he had. More likely, she was just enjoying the opportunity to demonstrate the extent of her skills against a friend.

It was while Elladan was teaching him a mortal kick- knock their legs out from under them and then run away, basically- that he caught sight of Fëanor and Galadriel entering the practice room. She was dressed for the occasion, in loose-fitting pants and a thin shirt. He had obviously come straight from the forges, in a leather apron and all. In unspoken deference, a space cleared for them. People lined up against the walls to watch this strange spectacle. Even Elladan stopped, and, though he soon resumed the motions of what he was doing, both he and Arafinwë paid the task no mind.

Carefully, Fëanor unwrapped the bandages around his hand. Many people winced sympathetically, and more did so when he reached into the pocket of his apron and pulled forth the silmaril. There was a faint sizzling sound, and after a few minutes, Arafinwë swore he could smell flesh burning. Fëanor’s face was even white as bone.

“Ready?” At Fëanor’s jerky nod of affirmation, Galadriel raised her hand.

They both moved in the same second. As Fëanor shifted forwards, fist raised, the light of the silmaril made many look away. Galadriel, for her part, stepped deftly to the side, dodging the oncoming blow with the same uncanny speed. Fëanor swung sideways, and Galadriel caught the blow without ever so much as touching it. This time, Fëanor didn’t relent. Slowly, carefully, he forced his way through Galadriel’s magic. It was almost brutal to watch. Arafinwë couldn’t look away.

“He fell for it,” Elladan muttered, under his breath.

As Arafinwë opened his mouth to question the statement, Galadriel’s other fist shot up and caught Fëanor in the neck.

Breathless, Fëanor staggered backwards. The silmaril slipped from his fingertips and floated to the floor.

“Lesson one,” Galadriel said, “just because magic can hurt you, doesn’t mean it’s the only thing that can. It’s also not the only weapon in your arsenal.”

Fëanor nodded intently, and, extending his hand towards it, called the silmaril back into his grip. They settled back into fighting stances before Galadriel stopped.

“What are you all looking at?” She demanded, voice rising an octave as she took offence to their continued presence.

Even Arafinwë could recognize a cue to leave, and did so.

The crosses on the board were replaced with increasingly intricate caricatures of various members of their order. Celegorm was portrayed swooning dramatically in miniature. Tiny Turgon’s hawkish facial features and inquisitive eyes were exaggerated to the point of comedy. Today’s addition, Fëanor, featured an aura of fire in red dye and very bushy, angry eyebrows. Whoever was doing this had an eye for figure drawing, and no sense of self preservation.

“I’ll kill him,” Fëanor muttered, looking closely at it. Arafinwë decided it was for the best not to ask who. “Smug shit. ‘Give an inch and he’ll take a mile’.”

This last sounded like a Maglor-ism, so Arafinwë ignored it.

That council, they focused entirely on plans for those who would be sent to Tirion when the battle begun. If all went according to plan, it would be Arafinwë, with a handful of carefully selected allies. They were not selected on basis of merit or connections as much as they were to protect those in their group who were most vulnerable. Arafinwë, at Fëanor’s request, would take Celebrimbor under his wing. Eärwen, going to her father, would take Celebrían. If they died, they would be together only in their minds.

“I’m going to miss you,” Arafinwë confided in her that night. “It scares me that we’re going to have to face this alone.”

Pushing herself up on one arm, Eärwen reached over to cup his cheek in her palm. “We’re not alone, Aranya.”

It was a nickname he’d never liked. “I’m not king of anything, you know?”

She did, of course. She’d been by his side all along, the finest and most brilliant person he knew. Her lips were like silk against his, as familiar as the dimensions of his own form. “I know, Ara. Most of the best kings aren’t.”

He buried his face in her neck, and they fell asleep entangled as one.

The ceaseless thudding of a fist on their door woke them. Arafinwë knew without having to ask that it was the sign of the end. He tugged on pants to open the door. Instead of an armoured guard, he discovered Finrod, wearing his very best formal clothes.

“What’s happening?” Eärwen called blearily from bed. She could see through Arafinwë’s eyes who their persistent visitor was.

Finrod had the decency to look slightly ashamed. “I thought someone should come wake you. Fingon and Maedhros are getting married.”

It was hardly surprising news. “When?”

“Fifteen minutes?” Finrod hazarded with a shrug. “You might want to put on a shirt and meet the rest of us in the throne room.”

They dressed. Arafinwë had not brought formal robes, but they’d found their way to him anyways. Thus he dressed finely for a wedding, and Eärwen just as lovely by his side. She wore more Telerin formal wear, favouring loose pants or skirts over tight corsets. Today, she wore a flowing skirt patterned with doves and a billowy white shirt with long sleeves. Tiny currents in the water teased slightly at the fabrics, both like real wind and not.

“You’re the most beautiful person I’ve ever known,” he told her, as she pinned dead coral in her hair.

It felt like the end of something, although Arafinwë could not put his finger on why. Eärwen arranged the folds of his indigo robes around him. Then, taking his hand, they walked together to Ulmo’s throne room.

Three dozen or so chairs were arranged in a semicircle around the dias. They seemed to be of a variety of providences, some metal and others wood, some with soft fabric and others hard edges. The bounty of as many shipwrecks. Ulmo’s throne had been moved somewhere, and in its place stood the grooms, their parents, and Celumë. Amrod, wearing very mortal formalwear including a strange tall hat, greeted them at the entrance and showed them to their seats. Arafinwë watched the party on the dias. Fëanor, dressed in a mortal fashion as many of his sons were, looked almost improperly handsome. His clothes were tight to his frame, and his wounded hands were obscured by a pair of white gloves. Maedhros, who was speaking to him, was dressed in very traditional Noldorin wear. Never in all their time with Ulmo had he born such a strong resemblance to the child he had once been. Fingon, at his side, was far more modern, as was his mother, who wore her usual Telerin-inspired dress. Fingolfin, who had a hand on Anairë’s back, was watching Fëanor and Maedhros with a small but real smile on his lips.

Celumë was so clearly the outlier, of those on the dias. Standing a step behind Fëanor, she was garbed in what must have been a mortal fashion of a gown. It was a large, uncomfortable looking garment the colour of a low sunrise. The bodice looked too tight and the skirt too heavy, but that didn’t seem to be the cause of her discomfort. Arafinwë knew why she was there. Celumë had the distinct displeasure of being the closest female of Maedhros’s house in attendance. Old, Noldorin propriety. Nerdanel should have been there. Míriel should have been there. Sanisse was here with Ulmo, but not physically in this room. Neither she nor Mahtan had ever wanted to be rescued, and even if they had never undermined the rebellion, they certain did not forgive their murderous kin. Celumë’s presence on the dias was a reminder of all that they’d lost by being here.

Others trailed in; even Vána and Uinen watched from a corner. Maeglin and Celebrimbor arrived last of all, shutting the door behind them. While Maeglin took a seat beside his mother, Celebrimbor made his way up to the dias and passed something to each of the grooms. Fingon shook his hand, while Maedhros leaned down to kiss his forehead. Celebrimbor retreated to sit beside Caranthir, and the ceremony began with Fingolfin clearing his throat.

“Family, friends,” Fingolfin began. There was an awkward pause. His eyes darted around the room. “Family,” he amended, “we’re gathered tonight to witness and support this joining of lovers under the eyes of Eru. Welcome.” He turned to look at Fëanor. “I suppose you should go first, then?”

Fëanor, menacing but also ethereal in his beauty, turned to look at Fingon. “Fingon, Son of Fingolfin, do you swear before Eru and witnesses to love my son and to guide him well?” Everyone was very quiet. “...Within reasonable limits.”

Maedhros laughed, breaking the silence. He knew the oath they’d all been thinking of. Fingon smiled. “I swear it.”

Fëanor tilted his head towards him. “Then I give my consent to your marriage.” He stepped back.

“Fingon, Son of Anairë,” Celumë announced theatrically. She stepped forwards past Fëanor, until she was staring Fingon right in the eyes. Married couples often came to resemble each other more with time, and this effect was clear in Celumë now. “Do you swear, within reason and ability, before Eru and witnesses, to guide my lawbrother and to protect him?”

“I swear it.”

Celumë turned to look at Maedhros. Only when he nodded did she say, “Then I give my consent to your marriage.”

She stepped back with what seemed like newfound confidence. The ceremony passed on to Fingolfin, who mirrored Fëanor’s words, but added a clap on the shoulder for Maedhros. Then, last of all, Anairë.

She slid smoothly forward to face the elf who would be her lawson thirty seconds or so from now. She had to look up at him, craning her neck to meet his eyes. Maedhros watched her cautiously.

“Maedhros,” her voice was far more calm than any of those who had spoken previously. “Son of Nerdanel. I acknowledge your mother despite her absence. She was my friend, once, despite everything. Standing here I can tell you with confidence that she would be very proud of the person you are today. You are the best of the boy she raised, and more.” Arafinwë watched Maedhros’s eyes slide closed. “She would be happy that you’ve surrounded yourself with people who see the best in you, as I know she always did.” Stepping forward again, she raised her hand up to his chin. “Before the eyes of Eru and all of us, within the bounds of goodness, possibility, and free will, do you swear to guide my son and to protect him?”

“I swear it,” Maedhros told her, and allowed her to pull him into a tight hug. Whatever other words she spoke then were for his ears alone.

When she drew back, Anairë only said, “I give my consent to this marriage. Now there are only two parties whose words matter.”

She stepped back and all eyes fell on the grooms. Maedhros spoke first, as his party had done. “If you’d asked me six months ago if we would ever make it here, I don’t think I ever would have been able to say yes.” Six months ago, Maedhros had been dead. None of them could have anticipated this. “That’s a short period of time for a courtship. Record breaking, even. Take that, Atarinkë!” There were some laughs. Maedhros smiled. “But the truth is, our courtship was much, much longer than that. It is older than the sun itself. And so, it is an unspeakable pleasure for me to offer you this ring, and with it, my consent to wed.”

From his pocket he withdrew a complex and masterful creation. The way the gold twined with itself to engulf the ruby was nothing short of masterful. Celebrimbor ducked his head shyly from where he sat among the guests. Maeglin had no such modesty. Fingon extended his left hand and allowed Maedhros to slide the ring gently home.

Maedhros had only been possessed of one hand at the start of the ceremony. Now he had two, and used the more ethereal one to stop Fingon from shaking while he put the ring on.

Fingon sucked in a deep breath. “I think I’ve told you all the important bits, but here’s what bears repeating. I love you. My love doesn’t require you to always be at your best, although I want that for you, if only so you can be more assured in yourself. I love you because of your goodness and kindness, your loyalty and resilience. And, yes, because you’re very pretty.” Laughter. “With this ring I offer you my consent to wed. It has been an honor to receive yours in return.”

Maedhros held his left hand out for the ring- copper, plain but elegant- while his right, suddenly very real, pulled Fingon into a passionate kiss.

The applause was almost deafening. As it settled down, they pulled their chairs into a circle and drank and celebrated. Maglor, ever performative, demanded that there be music and was delivered a large instrument with keys by Ossë. It had a sort of bench to sit at, and Celumë sat beside him while Finrod draped rather dramatically over the lid of the thing to watch. As some of the songs were repetitive, he even sang along.

The crowd drifted around to the strange music, sometimes dancing to songs with more familiar beats and tempos, otherwise not. Once, during a slower number, while Fingon and Maedhros were swaying gracelessly in the middle of the room, Arafinwë found himself alone with his brothers.

Fëanor wasn’t paying much attention to the both of them. Instead, he was watching Maglor and periodically murmuring to himself, snippets of song like, “sleepless warrior” and, “kings and troublemakers.”

Arafinwë looked from one to the other. “You must both be very happy.”

Fingolfin nodded in acknowledgement. Turning his head back towards them, Fëanor spoke. His voice was ragged, and Arafinwë realized with shock that there were unshed tears in his eyes. “I am more proud of that boy than you could possibly imagine.”

Arafinwë could imagine it. Unconsciously, his eyes sought his own children in the crowd, Finrod with Maglor, joining in at the chorus, Aegnor and Angrod, drinking and laughing, Galadriel, tucked into her husband’s side in an uncommon show of vulnerability.

Fingolfin slid his chair close, and put an arm around Arafinwë’s shoulder. “I’m proud of them,” he agreed. “For what it’s worth, I think Atar would be proud of us too.”

“Yes,” Fëanor agreed. He looked at each of them carefully. His eyes were sharp, bright with the light of the trees they’d been born under. It was remarkable that Fëanor had managed to tranfer the light to an entirely new form. “He should be proud of the both of you.”

The truth was, he should have been proud of Fëanor, too. If for no reason other than the fact that he had gone above and beyond to protect his children. There were another few moments of comfortable silence. Maglor changed to a quicker song.

“What are you planning?” He asked Fëanor, when the silence became slightly strained. “With the silmaril and Galadriel.”

Fëanor sighed. “I’m preparing to do whatever it takes, Arafinwë. I don’t know yet what that entails, but if I do it for them-” a wide sweep of his hand indicated the rest of the room. “Then it will be more than worth it.”

He wanted to ask Fëanor to look after himself, to choose to live, but he knew that was not Fëanor’s highest concern. Together, they sat and watched their family, as Celebrían taught Amarië some quick-paced mortal dance, while Aegnor, Tauriel and Ambarussa began a hand of cards. As Caranthir and Amdirdis swayed too slowly for the music, and Turgon and Elenwë sat in a corner, foreheads pressed together and hands clasped. They all knew, without ever saying as much, that this was the last time. The grooms, each looking quite whole, shared a tender kiss. To Arafinwë’s old eyes, they seemed remarkably innocent.

When fists pounded at his door again the next evening, for a far less kind reason, Arafinwë was not surprised.

Chapter Text

After two weeks in Ulmo’s home, all of his guests were on the verge of going mad. They had rare visitors from the world above, but as the valar grew more and more suspicious, it was becoming dangerous for their conspirators. Only Anairë, who had a portal in her basement, came to them regularly. Fëanor was not partial to her company, but the desperation for news of the outside world made it impossible to decline.

It had quickly become clear, within the first couple days at least, that Tauriel was the most affected by their predicament. The rest of them were family, and were reacquainting themselves with Maglor, and with their own bodies, and their relationships in corporeal form. Tauriel was alone.

She might as have been Fëanor’s daughter, with her looks and her character, but she was not.

“I just want to see the stars,” she told him one night, when insomnia had robbed both of them. “I only really miss three things, I think, but that is one.”

The other two, Fëanor discovered after some tactical prying, were her home and her best friend.

“I miss Kíli, of course,” she explained. Tauriel’s life story had been divulged to the group fairly early into their shared boredom. “But I would miss him anywhere.”

“Your home would be gone anywhere,” Fëanor pointed out, and immediately felt unkind. Maedhros would have reprimanded him, had he heard these words.

Tauriel shrugged. “I suppose. But those people were not in Mandos, were they? Thus, there must be a place for us somewhere.”

It was a pleasant thought. And perhaps there was such a place, but Fëanor did not think it would be in Valinor, where even those born there had not always found home.

Celebrimbor, who was sitting silently in one of the warmer currents, hair flowing freely behind him, turned to gaze at Tauriel. To Fëanor’s observations, he didn’t sleep much. Fëanor worried for him. Celebrimbor had been prisoner too much of his life already, and unlike Maedhros, he didn’t have the comfort of having all those he’d ever loved returned to him.

“After this, you will always be welcome with us,” he said, voice soft and peaceful. It was a relief to see him so confident and easy in his demeanour. Fëanor’s worries, perhaps, were unfounded.

She smiled. “Thank you, Celebrimbor.”

He returned her smile, and turned away.

And so the days passed. They spoke and worked. Maedhros puzzled away at what might be wrong with his fëa- nothing promising- while Curufin and Celebrimbor joined Fëanor in trying to make an underwater forge that was workable. Ulmo, Uinen and Ossë maintained a sense of normalcy with the surface world. Maglor, when he was not with one of his brothers, spent much time with the Ainur. They seemed to have become close, and Fëanor could not begrudge him that which offered comfort. When he was not working, Fëanor tried to make time to speak to each of his sons more privately.

“So,” he said so Maedhros, who seemed to be occupied with going through the entirety of Maglor’s wardrobe and pulling out the strangest artifacts.

“Please tell him to stop that,” Maglor interrupted, from where he was laying back on his bed, staring at the ceiling.

It had seemed right, in some ways, to speak to the two of them together. Not to mention that Maglor was rarely alone. Maedhros, for his part, often sought to be alone, or alone with Fingon. Of all of them, he had found their first shared captivity most difficult, and still seemed to yearn for privacy.

Maedhros tactfully ignored his brother. “So.” He seemed to have some sense that Fëanor intended for this to be a meaningful conversation, even if neither of them knew what about until Fëanor opened his mouth.

“Would you like to tell me about you and Fingon?’

Maedhros set down a garment that appeared to be a long strand of dyed feathers in various garish colours, and turned to face Fëanor. “You shared space with my mind for thousands of years. You already know more than I ever wanted to tell any other person about ‘me and Fingon’.”

It was more than Fëanor wanted to know, too, but that wasn’t the point. “That was very different from us talking about it.”

“He isn’t wrong,” Maglor commented. He pulled himself off the bed, and seized the feathered garment from in front of Maedhros. “This is called a ‘feather boa,’ by the way.” Fëanor had asked him to teach them words of his new languages, when the mood struck. It seemed to soothe some of Maglor’s anxieties to know that they would preserve what little they could.

He wrapped the garment around Maedhros’s neck loosely, like a green and purple and orange monstrosity of a scarf. Maedhros leaned a little into the contact, and Maglor did not move away. It was good to see them relearning their easy closeness.

Maedhros sighed, and gave in. “There really isn’t much to tell. Fingon is, and always will be, the love of my life.”

Maglor reached over and ruffled his hair. “You should have seen him, when you were gone. He was an absolute ball of righteous fury. Námo should’ve been very afraid.”

It was strange, still, to know how much of the world had moved on without them. They could not logically have expected anyone to wait for any one of them. And yet Fingon had. Celumë had, from what Fëanor understood. Amdirdis and Liltallë still did not know, and Nerdanel was under far too close supervision, but Fëanor was sure that she would have room still in her heart for her sons. Not for her husband, but for them. They mattered, more than anything.

“I wouldn’t have asked that of him,” Maedhros murmured, softly.

“Of course you wouldn’t have,” Maglor pointed out, “but if you have to ask, he wouldn’t be Fingon.”

It was very strange, to see Maedhros speaking so openly, being both supported by his brother and gently teased. It was wonderful, too. “Why didn’t you ever tell me?”

Maglor’s genial expression faded. Maedhros scratched at his feathers. “If it makes you feel better, we didn’t tell Fingolfin either. As far as I know, they’ve still never spoken of it.”

Fingon hadn’t been trapped and damaged in the way Maedhros had. Nolofinwë had never been forced to learn what it was to hold your son together with everything you had. It was a surprise for Fëanor to discover that he did not begrudge them that. Maedhros was healing, and although earlier freedom would have been better for him, it was also good that they had each other. Maedhros, he rather suspected, would never have wanted their situations to be reversed, and so Fëanor could not in good conscience wish it either.

“Will you tell him?”

Maedhros shrugged. His right hand, which had been seeming more solid, flickered away again. Maglor caught him as he swayed uneasily, and helped him to sit.

“Mae?” Maglor wrapped him close, as if he had strength to give away. Neither of them were well enough to be giving any strength away.

“Let me.” Fëanor, who was on Maedhros’s right, reached across to take his hand. He forced what strength he could across this connection, and felt him breathing easier.

“I’ve been trying not to think about things we might do after the war,” Maedhros told the both of them, softly. “It’s better, that way.”

Maglor made an odd noise. “I don’t think it is, Mae.” Maedhros moved to interrupt him, but Maglor rushed on. “I know why you believe that. I do. But why fight if there is no future ahead of us? The future matters. I am tired of not having a future. I want one.”

“I’m sorry.”

Neither of them spoke. Fëanor looked at them. “Maglor, what do you want the future to look like?”

It took him a moment to formulate an answer. Maedhros’s hand twitched against Fëanor’s.

“I want to ask Celumë to marry me again. We aren’t the same people we were, but I think we’re still people who belong together. And then I want to write down mortal music. All of it. As much as I can remember, anyways. Ossë and Uinen and Ulmo would help me with that, I think. They deserve to be remembered. I can do that. I can make everything I did worthwhile.” He paused, as if for dramatic effect. “We could do a double wedding.”

Maedhros laughed, but he couldn’t deny that Fingon would have married him, if he asked. Maglor teased him until a faint pink glow had risen on Maedhros’s cheeks. It was only then that they both seemed to remember that Fëanor was there. Carefully, Maedhros sat up, folding his legs under himself. Their hands still twined together, he looked at his father.

“And what about you?” His eyes, so like his mother’s, bored into Fëanor’s. Though he’d never personally seen the sick, exhausted Maedhros who’d lived centuries after Thangorodrim, Fëanor had those images burned into his mind. Even now, with his fëa torn, ragged around the edges, Maedhros was strong, and kind. Fëanor had such pride in him.

“What about me?”

Maglor rolled his eyes. “You. Our mother. Your marriage.”

Oh, for a time when his children had been too embarrassed by the idea of their parents having sex to be nosy about it. He wondered, idly, if his own father had ever been embarrassed by the idea that Fëanor had been forced to put so much consideration into his sex life from such a young age.

To his sons, he admitted, “I don’t know. I’m well aware of what I deserve.” As if deserving had ever meant anything. Fëanor deserved the void. His sons deserved kindness in their healing. Nobody ever got what they deserved. “My affection for her has never dimmed, but the choice is hers, always. I would not have her tied to me, not even by virtue of being your mother. You are none of you to attempt to sway her towards me.”

“We wouldn’t do something like that,” Maglor assured him. Fëanor hoped he was being honest.

Ulmo, throughout all this, was stymying Námo and Varda in council as much as they could. The valar were bureaucrats as much as anyone, and more than some. He was also their most reliable source of news from the outside world. Thus, whenever he returned from those meetings, they gathered in the dining room to hear the news. This was the only time they could ever be guaranteed to be together, every single one of them. Most of the time, nothing interesting happened.

Fëanor, bored as ever, finally perfected the underwater forge. Maeglin showed them what he’d learned in his unique education. Celebrimbor worked up the courage to discuss the technical aspects of what Sauron had taught him. The pride on Curufin’s face was unmistakeable. Fëanor dredged up his study under Aulë for these younger two smiths, neither of whom remembered a time when Fëanor had been favoured by the valar. Even Curufin had only been alive for the tail end of this earliest period of Fëanor’s work, though he’d studied with his grandfather and Aulë even after the beginnings of the schism.

Fëanor had spent more time these last weeks thinking about his early life than he had in millennia. As he relearned Maglor, he thought of what it might be like to meet his own parents, after so many years. Working with Maeglin, he remembered what it had been like to be a lone, grieving child, isolated; he thought of how easy it had been for Morgoth to manipulate them both. And, when he heard of Maglor’s love for his foster children- as he’d already seen in Maedhros’s mind- he thought of the oddness of his own relationship with Indis.

His relationship with Indis had been fraught from Fëanor’s earliest memories. As later elves would often forget, imagining the Fëanor who’d been orphaned as the bitter adult he’d become, Míriel had died in childbirth. Though Indis had not married his father until Fëanor was twelve or thirteen, she had been there from the very beginning, a friend of his mother’s. Fëanor had loved her, quite innocently, until they’d wed and the decision had been made that Míriel would not be allowed to return. He still remembered the whispers that had snaked down the corridors of the palace, sinking in viper-like fangs. As a father himself, many millennia wiser than he’d been than, he found their words so unkind. They’d said that Finwë must have wanted a more normal child; the rumour had been that Míriel had died of an absence of love, either in her own heart or from her son or husband. Those, Fëanor had been angry about even so young. Now, older, he thought of them calling Indis a Vanya whore in much the same way. They’d come to love her, in the end, but a kinder Fëanor would have understood more the ways in which she was as much an outsider in those early days as he was. The court was never anyone’s friend.

Strangely, it was Tauriel in whom he confided these odd thoughts. She spoke, sometimes, of having been raised outside her home. An Avari, he’d come to understand. In another night of shared insomnia, at perhaps one in the morning, though it was hard to tell here, they sat alone in a shelf of coral and told stories they hadn’t given voice in ages of the earth.

Tauriel was the daughter of refugees. Her parents hadn’t been what most elves would have considered brave or glorious, but they were to her. They had given up everything else that mattered in pursuit of a safe place to raise their daughter. They had died in the service of a home they’d made their own, not the place in which they were born. From then, Tauriel had been alone until she was taken into the palace, almost a year later.

Fëanor had been raised in a palace from the moment of his birth. With Míriel dead, they’d found it almost impossible to find anyone to nurse him. In the end, he’d mostly survived on goat’s milk, prayer, and the good graces of a vanya lady. His father had been doting, but often absent, fulfilling the duties of a king. Indis had run the household, even then, had taught Fëanor his earliest lessons and had hired tutors when it had become clear that Fëanor’s intellectual gifts existed outside normal parameters. It was odd, and very lonely, but not always unhappy. Then, suddenly, he’d become a brother.

The reason for Tauriel’s uncommon upbringing had been simple: the prince needed a companion. She was older than Prince Legolas, but only by a couple years, and already she’d shown aptitude with a bow. Though foreign, she was not ill born. Thranduil had proclaimed that she would be raised at his son’s side in one of his more benevolent moments, and from then they’d been inseparable. Tauriel had always loved her brother.

Fëanor hadn’t hated Findis. She was so small and sweet, and never would have been a challenge to him for the throne. From the moment of her birth, it was so clear that she was a Vanya in her heart. Not even like Indis, who knew well that the world was marred, but rather akin to Ingwë, blinded from the world by her love of the valar. It was Fingolfin who had scared him, Noldorin all the way down, far more normal than Fëanor or Findis, compelling and honorable and full of good cheer. Even then, they’d been alright as children, Fëanor’s anger quietly festering. It was as an adult, with Morgoth’s whispers in his ear, that his feelings of resentment and absence of belonging had come to light.

Tauriel had always belonged with Legolas. It was everyone else that was the problem. She loved him, and missed him, but every moment in Thranduil’s service had been unpleasant. He’d never really respected her, had never treated her with decency or respect. He’d brought her and Legolas together, and then, over the rest of their lives, had pressed to drive them apart. It hadn’t helped that Legolas had fallen in love with her, an affection she’d never returned.

Smiling sadly, she confessed, “I think I could have loved him, in another life. But our life is this one, and here I loved him as a brother. Not that it turned out well for either of us. Queen Anairë told me that he brought a dwarven lover to Valinor. Our tragedy was symmetrical, in the end.”

It was something she shared with Celebrimbor, this loss of a lover who was not one of Eru’s children. They never talked about it, her and Fëanor. It was easier that way. He hated that they lived in a world where it was possible to marry someone you knew would be sundered from you, hated the idea that your children might be sundered the same. He hated that people went out and made more children like him, who would never see their parents together again.

“I’m sorry,” he told her, quite sincerely.

She nodded her head. As if knowing his thoughts were paining him, she said, “do you think you can forgive them? Your half-brothers and sisters?”

Fëanor leaned his head back against the rough surface of the coral. Most of the palace was hewn from marble and from the volcanic rocks of the seafloor, but this part, once, had been alive. “What do I have to forgive them for? They wronged me by being born, not by any choice they made. Findis is a Vanya, but that is her nature, and there is nothing criminal in being religious or conservative as long as you are kind, which she always was to me. I don’t know what she is, now, what my treachery made her into. Lalwen, I’ve always liked. Even when things were at their worst. She’s spirited in the way I am, a wanderer. And as for the others- Arafinwë is and remains one of the most empathetic people I’ve ever known. He loved me even when I treated him badly. I owe him a thousand apologies.”

Tauriel fidgeted with her hair, running strands of it through her fingers. It was straighter than Nerdanel’s, but equally red, brighter than Ambarussa’s. She could have been Maedhros’s twin, in a certain light. Their features were very different, particularly their eyes, which in Maedhros carried the two trees, under everything, but their posture was as similar as their colouring, a commander who leant in to listen to everyone she spoke to. Tauriel lacked the unhealthy thinness that was a feature of so much of Maedhros’s life; instead, she had a muscular form, fit for climbing trees and firing arrows. She was, for her height and mass, stronger than Celegorm, with more of Curufin’s natural inclination to show her muscle. Fëanor had never had a daughter, but he hoped that if he had, she would have been as passionate and as brave as Tauriel was.

“And Fingolfin?” Even Avarin children knew about the elf who’d dealt Morgoth seven wounds. Tauriel blessed his name with a certain awe.

In spite of himself, Fëanor found that his feelings were still complicated. In the end, he could only say, “Fingolfin saved my children. His children died for my cause. I can never hate someone who I owe so much.”

Tauriel’s hand stroked up and down his arm, a silent offering of warmth and comfort. She told him, “Thranduil gave me everything I am, and I hate every luscious hair on his head. You might want to consider what it is that lets you choose not to hate him.”

“I-” Fëanor began, and found himself interrupted by Uinen materializing between them in a rush of water. She was a mortal maiden, short and strong, brown of skin and black of hair, with only a thin covering of scales to denote that she had never been human. She glanced between them.

“Where have you been?” She demanded. “We’ve been looking everywhere for you. Ulmo just returned from an emergency council session.”

Ulmo looked so downtrodden that Fëanor instantly knew the second they saw his face that something had gone terribly wrong. It did not seem likely that a manifested lump of coral could seem downtrodden, but there he was. Uinen and Ossë both stood at his side, leaving the façade of normalcy unmanned for once. For all three of them to be together meant that they were so concerned that they didn’t care about risking being uncovered.

Everyone else was already there. Fëanor took his customary place between his eldest, while Ambarussa slid apart to welcome Tauriel. He could feel Maglor’s foot jiggling with unreleased energy under the table. Maedhros’s hand was completely gone again.

The clams that took the place of Ulmo’s eyes darted over their faces. “I am-” he seemed to focus in on Maglor. “I have to tell you that Námo has finally become fed up with my and Aulë’s stalling. Since Oromë and Nessa have been unable to find any clues to any of your whereabouts, he has taken Lady Nerdanel in for questioning.”

Fëanor squeezes his eyes shut, and thus was surprised to find a hand wrapped around his. Maedhros. There was the sound of someone standing up.

“We can’t let him take anyone else,” Tauriel said. Her confident voice was laced with anger.

“No,” Maedhros said. “We won’t.” He stood, too, lifting Fëanor’s hand up as he went.

Coral ground together, twisting against itself. “I can send water to water,” Ulmo told them. “All I need to know is who intends to go.”

Fëanor couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t-

“I will go,” Uinen informed them. Fëanor suddenly found a pair of slim hands wrapped around his shoulders. “Fëanor, I need you to look at me.”

He forced his eyes open, and met solid black orbs in scaled skin. She’d changed, preparing for war, though her hair and colouring remained the same. “Uinen.”

Her voice was calm, and terrible. “She is not dead yet. Now, get up. We will all need to go, if we are to retrieve all our allies.”

Fëanor loved none other than Nerdanel, but he would not allow his sons to lose the people they loved as he loved her. He forced himself to stand.

“We will need to distract Varda,” Maglor chimed in. “Send me back to Middle Earth. Let me attract her attention there.”

Ossë shook his head, and suddenly, dark skin was replaced with light, long hair grew shorter, straighter, and Maglor was staring at his own mirror image, wearing tattered, dirty clothes. “Varda sees. She does not understand. She will not be able to tell the difference between us immediately. I will be able to flee in ways you will not.”

Ulmo nodded his assent, form twisting unnaturally, not meant for the motion of a conscious being. “Aulë will distract Manwë and Námo. He is Nerdanel’s patron. It makes sense for him to defend her innocence.”

Nerdanel was so closely observed at all times that she had been told nothing of Fëanor’s return and that of their sons. Now, he wished that were different. Even if she would have betrayed them to Námo, she deserved the comfort of knowing her children were well, and that they were together.

“Send me to Elrond, then,” Maglor said.

They decided quickly who would go where, and equipped them with travel bags and weapons each. Maglor to Elrond and his family, Maedhros to Fingon, Celegorm to Turgon and Elenwë, Caranthir to Amdirdis, Curufin to Liltallë, Amrod to Lalwen and Nimloth, and Amras to Celumë on Maglor’s behalf. Aegnor would go to Galadriel, Maeglin to Aredhel, and Tauriel to Legolas.

Fëanor steadied his breathing. They would all need to go, to retrieve as many people as possible. It was his duty to help. For his sons. For Nerdanel. And his duty to his people, too. He owed them, for blood shed and honour lost and lives given in service. For the enmity of Morgoth.

“Wherever I am needed,” Fëanor forced himself to say, as he watched the waters sweep his sons away, one by one. Ulmo seemed to have dedicated a chamber entirely to the practice of this form of transportation by waterways, and gold wires seemed to serve some purpose he could not discern. Perhaps Ulmo would tell him, or at least give the name of their maker.

“Send him to Finrod,” Ossë suggested.

Celebrimbor shook his head derisively. “That is inefficient. We need people to be sent to those who will trust them unconditionally and go. We do not have reliable information on who has already been informed of the situation, and to what extent. Thus, we need to assume that nobody has enough information to go with someone they otherwise would not trust.”

Ossë seemed to look upon him with some respect. “Then I suggest you decide where and when to send people. I will go now.”

He was gone, and it was just Celebrimbor, Fëanor, and Ulmo who remained in the golden chamber.

Celebrimbor seemed to think a while, formulating his thoughts on the matter. Then he turned to Ulmo. “Do you have something I can write on?”

Writing underwater was a challenge, but Ulmo provided a soft stone and a stylus with which to mark it. Celebrimbor, with the speed of his great mind, jotted down a list of names. Fëanor skimmed them over. ‘Mahtan,’ ‘Finarfin’ ‘Voronwë.’ Fëanor let him work, but he had already seen the name that he knew must be first. It was only right.

“Send me to Anairë.” Send me to Nolofinwë.

He couldn’t protect his children. He couldn’t protect Nerdanel. But he could protect his brother. After everything, this was a debt he owed. It seemed rather the thing to do, at a time like this. And, as Tauriel insinuated, there was a deeper bond there that Fëanor did not yet know.

Ulmo seemed to consider his request. Then, with slow, deliberate motion, he made the silmaril Maglor had given him appear.

It called to Fëanor, not just to his oath but to his very being. He wished to take it into himself. He raised his hand, and then, with effort that would have moved mountains, held still. Ulmo placed the stone into Fëanor’s palm with a jet of water, and released it.

He breathed in, air filling his lungs despite the impossibility of it all. He looked at the gold again, and understood how it worked. How Ulmo broke things down, transmitted energy and magic and fëar. Ulmo could do brilliant things. He could, and Fëanor could, too. He pressed the silmaril to the center of the design on the floor, and watched light spread through it. Then, unpleasantly, he dissolved. His body was still his own, and he could feel water flooding his nose and eyes, but for a second, he was also less and more than himself.

The gold aided with navigation, tracing waterways and currents in minute detail. Fëanor followed it, through cracks in the world and into the cellar of the royal palace in Tirion. There was a thin coating of water on the floor, deeper in the center than on the edges. Fëanor rubbed at his nose, and spat up the saltwater he could suddenly taste. His clothes were, shockingly, dry. He breathed real air, for the first time in weeks, and felt glad.

Fëanor stepped out of the storage room and into the corridor. This had been his home, once. Ages upon ages of the earth ago. Now, he didn’t know it at all.

Maedhros, he thought in his son’s direction, I’m in the Palace at Tirion, and I’m lost.

Maedhros seemed to consider the problem. Fingon says you can find his parent’s bedroom on the fourth floor, in the south wing, but he can’t remember which one.

The private stairs were in the same place. Fëanor slipped up and up, flight after flight. Between the second and third floor, he had a close call. The door behind him opened, and unexpected light flooded the stairwell. Fëanor continued on his way and light followed him. He quickened his pace.

“Who goes there?” The voice was feminine, and Noldorin.

Fëanor knew he had a choice to make. He had a choice to make, and he was no liar.

“Curufinwë Fëanáro.”

The figure behind him dropped her light. “Truly?” It rolled down the stairs, but she stopped it with her foot. She picked it up again, and Fëanor turned and looked at her.

She was tall and dark, with short hair and long robes. Her dress marked her as a scribe, and the bag of papers at her side seemed to confirm it.

“Truly. And your name?”

“Medui.”

Fëanor offered her a slight bow. “It’s a pleasure, my lady.”

She adjusted the strap of her bag. “What are you doing here? What’s happening?”

“I’m here to see my brother,” he told her honestly, “because I am afraid for his safety. Námo has taken my lady wife as hostage.”

Medui took this all in with remarkable calm. “The Dagor Dagorath has truly begun, then.” It was not a question. “They threaten you. Lady Nerdanel. Will Celumë be alright?”

Maglor’s wife had been a fixture of Noldorin political life for millennia. “I hope so.”

Medui turned away, and walked back down the stairs. She said nothing more. Fëanor continued on his way.

He slipped out onto the fourth floor landing. There were no plates on the doors, and so he was forced to check one by one. They were not in his father’s room- empty- his room- empty- or Findis’s room- recently used, but empty.

Fingon’s confusion had led Fëanor to believe Nolofinwë would have moved his room. Instead, he was in the same room he and Anairë had lived in when they first wed. Perhaps Fingon did not remember because he had not been raised here. Or perhaps it felt like more time for him, having lived so long when Fëanor was dead. They could have moved into Finwë’s room, larger and more kingly, or Fëanor’s, which was on the side of the building with the better view, but they hadn’t. It was this, the preservation of their memory, that gave him a swell of genuine affection for Nolofinwë alone, not because of either of their children. It was the first in a lifetime.

Fëanor found the handle, and turned it as silently as he could. Their debt, one forged in the blood of their dead children, would begin to be paid today.

Chapter Text

The messengers told them quite promptly that Námo was summoning the forces of elves- such as they could be mustered- to the Plains of Valmar. Finduilas, had she had her way, would have ignored the summons. Findis, as sole monarch, ignored her entirely. The only concession made to common sense was that Gwindor was allowed to stay with a small battalion to keep order within the city. It was not enough to protect it. They were all keenly aware of the fact. Tirion was a city whose age was measured in millennia, which had built walls a grand total of once. They were ill-maintained and the city surrounded them more than they surrounded it. The palace was no castle. Only the natural border of the sea and the hills provided any defences at all, and these were good for less and little. Gwindor would stay and protect these people with five-hundred peacekeepers. Finduilas felt the first shot of grief already.

He’ll be alright, Beleg reassured her, from a distance. He and Mablung were still with Nimloth, but Finduilas would see them soon, in Valmar.

What if he isn’t? Finduilas returned. She sat on her steed and hoped. Findis rode in a carriage with Lady Idril, while Argon rode out front. Tuor, last member of their family, was with their sort-of navy. He would be the only one who could conceivably get to Gwindor in time, if something went wrong.

Mablung’s mind came through, steady and sweeter than Beleg’s. Both of them had soft hearts, but Mablung’s sort of kindness could better be described as ‘sickly’. Gwindor is braver than any of us know, dear.

It was true.

As the Noldor marched on, the sun set. That night, as they waited for her to rise again, they came to the realization that she would not. It was a new moon, and Tillion had never been visible, so they did not witness his demise. Instead, they watched as the stars blinked out, first one, and then entire patches of the sky were eaten away by some terrible blight. By the time they arrived at the Plains of Valmar, nestled behind sky-scraping mountains and before the forests of the Avari, there was but one star in the sky.

The Noldor had arrived impossibly quickly. Space had folded before them, a gift of one of the Valar, likely Aulë. Still, they had been required to travel the farthest. By Eärendil’s light, swooping overhead, and Varda, watching from the horizon like a nebula unto herself, Finduilas could see the Host of the Vanyar, Ingwë and Ingwion at Eönwë’s side. Far from them stood Elwing, flanked by Mablung and Beleg. Her troops, Sindar and Silvan alike, spread out behind them like the grasslands themselves. They faced not towards the abstract threat of Morgoth from any direction, but towards the tangible threat of the Vanyar. Unlike Finduilas, Elwing was Queen all by herself. She could command her people as she saw fit.

“Take us to my kinsman Ingwë,” Findis ordered from within her carriage. There was a loud noise, and a decisive shuffling sound. Finduilas and the carriage-drivers, both Gondolodrim, tactfully pretended not to notice. Idril emerged from the carriage alone.

“Queen Elwing is wife to our own Eärendil and a Lady of the Noldor by right of marriage,” Idril said, soft and convincing. “Take us to her side.”

Argon, who had been too busy staring at the absent stars to notice any of these proceedings, finally wheeled around. “I don’t believe you have the authority to give that order, niece.”

By order of birth it was true, but, “has Princess Idril not lived more years than you, Prince Argon? Have the Noldor ever not deferred to their elders?”

“I am first born,” griped Argon. It was a question that had plagued many generations of the Noldor, resolved only by abdications. His claim was as good as Idril’s, but not better.

“Moreover,” Idril said. She had her father’s firm, commanding tone, and wielded it like a master, “did Manwë not name each of us heads of our own houses? I have no more need to bow to you than Fingolfin did Fëanor, and Finduilas no more than Arafinwë the both of them.”

Argon gaped liked a scandalized old maid. “This is a coup!” He looked towards the carriage as if Findis might emerge. She didn’t.

Idril looked up at him. Though she was tall, he was astride his horse and she on foot. “Yes,” she agreed, “it is. I’m not asking you to agree with us, or what we’ve done, but please, listen to me. We aren’t here for any good reason, I promise you that. I’ve seen what they did to Eärendil, how they treated him as a weapon, and he was the one they loved the best. If we’re here, it’s because someone is going to die. Don’t let it be someone you love.”

Argon looked at his hands. The fact that he never drew steel said something about his character. “How long have you been conspiring with Fëanor?”

“We never have.” Finduilas denied his narrative. “All I have done, all I have ever wanted to do, has been to protect my family. I think you understand that. I know you hate Fëanor and his sons, and maybe you should. I’m of Nargothrond. I saw what Curufin and Celegorm did to my family. But I also have other family to consider. Eärendil is my family, and he hasn’t been given rest since the day they put him up there. Gil-galad is my family, and the Valar have never counted him as equal to those he loves. Celebrimbor is my family, and he was jailed lifetimes for being too trusting. That Celebrimbor was trusting of anything in his life is a testament to true goodness. Sides have been chosen. If they lose now, every single person in our families except you and Findis will die. To the youngest child, they will be slaughtered.

“You’ve never been a coward, Argon. Don’t let your hatred of Fëanor stop you from protecting those you love.”

Emotions warred on his face, a Dagor Dagorath in and of themselves, with triumphs and losses, shocks and griefs. Slowly, and then quickly, like a man possessed- like Túrin- he shook his head. “I can’t,” he whispered. “I just- I can’t.”

Idril was a pragmatist, like her father. “I don’t need you to lead, or fight, or die, Argon. All I need you to do is get off that horse.”

There was a silence. People around them were staring, now. The Gondolodrim guards had assembled behind Idril. They didn’t know what was happening, but it didn’t matter. Idril was theirs. She’d given everything to protect them, had saved them and their families in the war. They loved her in a way nobody had ever loved Argon. The prince went quietly, but not silently.

“Námo will stop you,” he said, as he got off his horse and allowed himself to be manhandled into the carriage with Findis. “There’s nothing you can do against him, and Manwë and Varda and all the rest.”

Idril didn’t address him. Instead, she turned her face to the crowd. “Maybe I can’t beat them,” she announced, theatrically, “but I couldn’t beat Morgoth either. Those of you who made your lives in Beleriand know what it is to fight with no possible hope of winning. We didn’t just survive Beleriand- we lived!” There was a murmur of assent. “We wed there! We bore children! And yes, we grieved. I lost my mother to the ice and my father to the war. But that death does not wipe out the magnitude of what we did there. We took a broken land and made it home without a single Vala at our side!” The murmur of approval became a roar. Idril reached out a hand to Finduilas.

It was as if she was saying: be what they need you to be. With Gwindor, Beleg and Mablung watching through her eyes, Finduilas stepped up and took Idril’s hand in her own. “I died in Beleriand. I… lost and suffered there. But I am a Noldë who knows the meaning of loyalty and of duty!” The crowd approved her words the way they had Idril’s. “Ever have the Noldor been the greatest defenders of elvendom. We manned the borders of Beleriand and sought to defend Valinor from those who would sack it. It was our king who stood side by side with the secondborn to defeat Sauron, and it was our king who dealt Morgoth seven blows. Find your courage in what we have done, and what we have yet to do.”

Blades left their sheaths. People beat their spears against the ground and the pommels of their swords against their shields. Finduilas had one thing left to do. She knelt. “Hail Idril Celebrindal, High Queen of the Noldor!”

Findis had never been popular. She lacked the courage of those who died in Beleriand, and the moral rigour of her youngest brother. Idril, by contrast, had gone to Beleriand, and had returned glorious, forgiven, triumphant and alive. She was to the Noldor as Lúthien was to the Sindar. They loved her. Finduilas’s personal respect for her, as the first of Elrond’s family to treat Gil decently, was as great as that of any of the Noldor. Others had their own reasons to kneel to her, but they did kneel. Even those who had been appointed by Findis and Argon.

“It seems,” Námo’s voice boomed out across the plains like the horns of war, “that my purpose in calling you here today is supported.” His dark form turned towards the Noldor. “There are traitors in our midst.”

Indis pulled Finduilas to her feet. Námo was still speaking, but that didn’t matter. “If we don’t get to the Sindar now, we never will. Tell Beleg and Mablung to meet us in the middle.”

Finduilas took her mind to Beleg’s. His anxiety was palpable.

Move the eastern edge of your troops towards us, she told him. Idril’s seized control.

How did he know? Mablung wondered, in a corner of Beleg’s mind.

Hedging his bets, Beleg asserted, he knew we’d reveal ourselves if he scared us, and we did.

The troops began moving towards each other. Idril climbed onto Argon’s horse, and Finduilas returned to her steed. Námo had stopped speaking to them. Now he addressed the Vanyar on the topic of treason. Not one of their golden kindred stood up for the Noldor. Finduilas looked for Indis, who should have been their advocate, but saw no sign.

The edge of the two forces drew close. As their lines merged, Noldor with swords, spears and shields stood to defend their Sindarin and Silvan brethren, who strung bows to fire over their heads at any possible threat. The Vanyar began assembling in shaky formations. They were so obviously unprepared; Finduilas could not help but pity their ignorance.

The sound of drumming interrupted these proceedings. The earth shook beneath them. Fear washed across the crowd like a tidal wave. Finduilas found it impossible to keep a smile from her face. Above them, Eärendil circled lower to investigate. Idril’s eyes fixed themselves upon her son, hands clasped tightly as if in prayer.

At a third point on the field, closer to the Sindar than the Vanyar but beside neither, the earth rippled and a spring erupted forth. From the water came Ulmo, massive and eldritch, a being of water and seaweed and ancient fear. Finduilas’s heart skipped a beat. One of the Vanyar in the front lines fainted dead away. Beside Ulmo came two more figures. Uinen and Ossë, armed and dangerous. She carried a trident, he a sword. Eärendil swooped closer, lighting their faces for a second, before Ulmo reach up. Eärendil, even after all Varda had done, was still a sailor and sailing was the providence of Ulmo. The ship rocked as if buffeted by a horrible storm, forcing Eärendil away, turning back towards the safety of the Vanyar.

From the spring, more figures poured forth. With Eärendil sailing over the Vanyar, it was difficult to make out any of their faces. They assembled, a smaller force than any of the others, but armed to the teeth. Their lines were perfect. At the end of it all, Vána appeared, glowing with the youthful light of an April dawn upon new growth. Aulë, although his power was evident, did not make himself corporeal.

“Enough!” Námo screamed, loud enough to pierce eardrums and send the Vanyar around him staggering away. “I know which of you are traitors. The executions will begin with those you hold dearest.”

He waved the sleeve of his robes like a mortal king summoning a servant, and one of his maiar appeared. Before him, he led- no, Finduilas thought, that wasn’t right.

It should have been Nerdanel. She was the prisoner whose captivity had started all of this. Námo had held her, and her sons had taken the rest of the family away. It only made sense for it to be Nerdanel, but it wasn’t. Instead, Finduilas felt her heart- and Beleg and Mablung’s- seize as they dragged first Túrin, and then a group of four who must have been his immediate family, forward.

She bit her tongue to keep from screaming, frustation and shock and grief coalescing into a pain of the spirit. Elwing’s hands found Beleg’s shoulders, holding him steady. He shrugged out of her touch, refusing the comfort.

“No,” Gwindor whispered to himself, far, far away from them. “Please.”

“Finduilas,” Idril called her back to herself. “I can’t make this decision for you, but for my piece, I know what I have chosen.”

Her husband was mortal. Her son was a prisoner. She had chosen to risk them for the sake of all free peoples. What a travesty it would be for anyone to make all that sacrifice for nothing.

“I won’t give him the satisfaction,” Finduilas whispered. Beleg and Mablung assented in the back of her mind. Gwindor began to weep silently. A sickness rose in her throat. They were chained. It wasn’t right. Túrin didn’t deserve to die like this. Neither did Morwen or Húrin, Nienor or Lalaith. Her chest felt hollow and she became deeply aware of the noise of her own breathing.

“Make your decision,” Námo demanded. His voice was uncommonly high and cruel. “Surrender, or die.”

“Don’t stand down,” Finduilas told Idril. Together, they drew their swords, steel reflecting what little light there was.

“Don’t stand down,” Beleg whispered to Elwing. Both of them nocked arrows.

“Don’t stand down,” Mablung called to the archers who looked to him for command. He too prepared to fire.

“Whatever happens,” Gwindor told his troops, “we are the best protection Tirion has until her Queen returns. We cannot, under any circumstances, stand down. We have done our best to evacuate people within the walls of the city. Now we will do the best we can to hold them, come what may.” People were still trickling through the gates, towards the palace, but it wasn’t enough. Millions more were still vulnerable, in Tirion proper and the surrounding area.

“Very well,” Námo said. As Eärendil came around again, low in the sky, to make another pass at the Noldor, he raised a skeletal hand. In this fresh light, Beleg’s eyes caught something others had missed. They were the finest pair in elvendom, and they saw three fingers and a thumb of white bone emerge from black robes. As if it were his calling, the moment of his destiny, Beleg raised his bow.

Though she had not Beleg’s eyesight, Finduilas had her own brilliance. She dropped her sword to cup her hands around her mouth and scream at the top of her lungs. “Túrin!”

As he turned to look for her, she stood in her saddle, raising her fists shoulder-width apart. It only took him a breath to understand. He raised his hands in a mirror of her gesture, pulling the chains at his wrists as taut as he could. Eärendil passed just over him, hurtling towards Ulmo’s magics with renewed vigor.

Afterwards, none of the three archers who fired in that moment would speak of who fired which arrow. Finduilas knew. She did not speak of it either. All three bore arrows made by Beleg’s hand, and each archer was fine enough to have made any of the shots. All three shots were difficult, perfectly timed, and well executed. The first was what Finduilas intended. It struck Túrin’s taut chains, and the force of the blow was enough to weaken the metal. Perhaps, without Aulë as an ally, they could only be made so strong. Either way, it allowed Túrin to pull the link apart, freeing himself. In the very same instant, as Námo’s four-fingered hand would have closed around Túrin’s neck, an arrow struck the folds of the robes where they covered his face. This should have been irrelevant; he was one of the Aratar, after all. But it was not. He toppled backwards towards Nienna, who let him fall to the dirt. All eyes watched his form writhe and change, bones protruding at odd angles and then melting into robes that moved all on their own without any bones to speak of. He seemed to be preparing to become something else. Some animal, perhaps, or man, or-

At this very moment, the third arrow, furthest to travel, struck. It had whistled high above the crowds of elves, a smooth, arcing motion, perfectly timed. The shot led its target, and as Eärendil passed threateningly over the rebels, the arrow caught him in the neck. There was a moment where all the world stood still, just beginning to shift their gazes upwards, as the Star of High Hope staggered backwards in his ship. The silmaril, held in his hand rather than its usual place on the prow, flew from the boat first. Its master followed after, his lifeless form twisting through the air until it struck hard earth within the crowd of elves. With the silmaril on the ground, its awesome light absent, it became very difficult to see, but even Finduilas, on the other side of the field, heard the fleshy thud. Mablung, Beleg, and Elwing lowered their bows. Túrin grabbed his mother’s chained hands and vanished into the darkness.

Varda stretched herself thin in an attempt to light the battlefield, but it did no good. Dragons swooped from the sky, burning her form. Werewolves and orcs appeared, surrounding the three armies. Dimly, Finduilas could hear Idril shouting commands, demanding her soldiers stay in formation, to not break under any threat.

Finduilas could hear her own voice saying, “I’m sorry Idril, Eru, I’m so sorry.” The Queen either didn’t hear her, or didn’t care.

It’s a trap, Gwindor was trying to press on them. Through his eyes, Finduilas could see the wooden parts of Tirion beginning to smoke. Through a looking-glass, they could see the forces who were burning their city, who were already killing those of their people who had refused to leave their homes. So many of them had not gone to Beleriand, and could not have understood the danger. Finduilas had pleaded for more security, but Findis, confident in the valar, had not cared. Men, finely-clad and filthy with dirt cut down people who the royal family should have protected. They must have been the dead of Númenór, brought back to finish what they’d been buried alive trying to do millennia earlier.

I love you, Beleg thought. It meant goodbye. He broke from their minds and from the legions of the Sindar. Finduilas knew he was going for Túrin, but couldn’t find it in herself to forgive him. She loved him far too much for that.

“Don’t shoot!” Mablung was ordering, his voice raw with preemptive grief. “You’re as likely to bring down elves and eagles as orcs and dragons in this darkness!”

Nobody had transmitted this order to Námo’s men. They shot, and though they brought down wolves and orcs, Finduilas heard the screams of elves as they were struck. On the third side of the field, Ulmo was commanding his archers to fire up towards the dragons. His faith in them must have been immense. Then again, of all forces they had the best light. The silmaril still let off some of its majesty in their midst, shining and refracting through Ulmo’s mass.

Beleg, like a mortal before a funeral pyre, raised his bow to the sky again in parting. A single, graceful arrow flew past one of Varda’s stars to bury itself in the eye of a dragon. The great beast shuddered through a couple more flaps and then collapsed to the ground, shaking the earth with its massive form. Beleg blew a kiss to Mablung and then he was gone into the night.

Manwë took to the sky with his wife, their respective maiar flanking them. The Vanyar were being abandoned by their defenders rapidly. Oromë had changed form, and the sound of horns and hounds signaled the coming of the hunt. Tulkas had waded into the battle, striking blow after blow. Vairë was nowhere to be seen.

“Finduilas!” Idril snapped, drawing her from her reverie, “tell Elwing that we have to hold this position and trust that Ulmo and Aulë will bring help to us.”

Finduilas relayed the message, and winced as the first wave of orcs and wolves struck them. There were screams as elves in the front lines fell beneath them. The Vanyar had already broken form, but Yavanna, who stood loyally with them, was doing her best to minimize the damage. Massive briars ripped from the ground and small lights shone at the point of every thorn.

Creating light was difficult. It must have been killing her to give the Vanyar that much. By this light, Finduilas could tell that she was the only one of the Valar who remained where she had begun the fight. More than half were unaccounted for, and this number grew when Ulmo suddenly vanished, brightening the battlefield by his absence.

For a second of foolishness, Finduilas hoped he had gone to bring reinforcements to help against Morgoth’s forces and the Vanyar. The earth began to tremble below them, a sign of Aulë’s invisible activity. A soldier handed Finduilas back her sword. Across the field, the roar of Oromë’s hounds swelled as the hunt charged.

And then the Pelori exploded. Finduilas felt the roar of it, the force of sound striking as hammer to anvil. The world suddenly went from abyssal darkness to burning light as fire spewed across the sky. The tops of mountains shot off, crashing down in the distance. If there has still been a sun, the thick smoke would have choked her. From Mablung’s eyes, she could see it all clearly, and together they watched charred arms reach from within the heart of the eruption, signaling the coming of the fallen Vala. Finduilas’s horse stumbled, but didn’t fall. Yavanna screamed, her voice rising singularly above the battlefield.

If the crust of the earth could not contain Morgoth’s strength, that only meant one thing. Finduilas hoped that wherever dead Valar went, it was better than here. She couldn’t imagine that whatever Aulë was experiencing could be worse. The void might be more pleasant with all its worst inhabitants here.

Morgoth pulled himself from the smoking ruins of the mountains. His nails dug deep tracks through ancient stone until he was free from the confines of the earth to stand upon its surface He brushed up against the sky, the sharp points of his black crown tearing the fabric of reality. His skin was burning, so hot and full of fire that the surface of it charred black in places. Light and air shimmered and fled in his wake, rippling around him like black stone on a hot day. Mablung shielded his eyes, and almost missed Tulkas leaping over the lines of the Noldor and Sindar to tackle his great enemy against the base of the broken mountains. Where Eönwë flitted around, striking as best he could at a being of such immense power. His speed seemed to work to his advantage.

It was in this moment of distraction that Ulmo’s rebels charged.They broke into the waves of orcs and wolves, pressing towards the edge of the Sindarin-Noldorin lines. Finduilas wished she had Beleg’s sharp eyes to search for her brother.

Elsewhere, Gwindor ordered terrified innocents to fire shaky arrows towards men, then ordered them to stop as he realized they were too nervous to shoot straight. The population of Tirion was too intermingled with the army that was attacking them to risk a mistake.

A single hand came up and swatted Eönwë out of the sky. Mablung searched the sea of the battle for signs of Beleg. Gwindor took a bow in hand. All he could think was that Gelmir was somewhere in that mess, and it reminded him so strongly of the Nirnaeth that he thought he might vomit. Finduilas’s stomach lurched at the thought.

“Finduilas!” Idril shook her, one strong hand on her shoulder. Finduilas blinked her own eyes open. “If you can’t concentrate with your bonds open, close them.” She opened her mouth to protest, and was cut off again. “The lines are breaking, Finduilas. We are going to be in the middle of a messy, disorderly, chaotic fight. We may die.” Idril’s fingers dug into her shoulder sharply and let go. “I release you from your command.”

“Idril I-”

“Go,” she ordered, “you’re no good to me like this. Fight and die as you see fit. I pray you are able to save those you love.” Her grief made her harsh.

There was no argument Finduilas could make against her. She dug her knees lightly into the flanks of her horse and pushed forwards. The Noldor parted before her, and then, as she rode out into the battle, charged after her. There was one moment of wonder, as they seemed true heroes challenging dark forces that sought to destroy them, and then chaos.

Orcs, rebels and Noldor crashed together, threading through each other. Some of the rebels wove their way through, behind Noldorin lines, and turned there to fight. Like an ancient tapestry in Vairë’s halls, there were far too many elements for the human eye to conceive of. Or perhaps it was like the back of a tapestry, with the chaos of the elements in reverse, seen from the ground as an embodiment of confusion. One of Ulmo’s people went to Idril’s side, while two more carried on, past the Noldor, towards where Morgoth and Tulkas still wrestled against the ruins of the Pelori.

A dragon swooped low over the Sindarin lines, scoring them with fire. Mablung was alright, but deeply shaken. Elsewhere, Gwindor found himself overrun. He couldn’t move. Finduilas seized control of his body and drove his sword through the throat of the closest man. The blood covered them, but she found she couldn’t care. In her mind, with her fear for her husband tangible, it was to her as innocuous as the stain of a blackberry. Her own sword came down, beheading a nearby orc. Mablung drew Finduilas’s arm back for her, and down again for the next orc.

Even without Beleg, they had great ability as a coordinated unit. Finduilas and Mablung were cool in a fight. Gwindor was a skilled strategist. Freed from the constraints of her own mind, Finduilas struck with arms that were not hers, and felt Gwindor issuing commands in her voice, directing her horse deeper into the battle. Finduilas could see from three angles, could taste the blood from Gwindor’s split lip and feel the confidence of Mablung’s hands on his bow.

They all fought losing battles. Even their combined skill could not change that. Gwindor’s people were untrained. Finduilas’s were outnumbered. Mablung’s were under a new wave of dragon fire.

There was a noise like a flag snapping in the wind, and then a thud. Mablung turned to watch Tulkas stumble back. For a second, it seemed as though Morgoth would be able to step into the battlefield, but something stopped him. Mablung couldn’t make out the figures. They all hoped that no one they loved was there.

“Finduilas!” She recognized the voice of the other rider, though her face was obscured by a fine plumed helmet.

“Ho, Celumë!” The court official was wielding a long cavalry sword and carrying a shield. Her husband was not far behind her, also on horseback. The steeds seemed more wild than normal Noldorin horses, as if they belonged with Oromë and the hunt. “Maglor! It’s been a long time.”

He didn’t say anything. Celumë pressed on. “Who’s in charge on your side?”

“Idril and Elwing here. Gwindor in Tirion- watch out!” Maglor sped up to run down a wolf that was approaching Celumë, pulling up to her side and swinging down to finish it off. “The city is under attack.”

Celumë took this in stride. “Ulmo is making his best effort. I promise that we’ll do what we can.”

It was reassuring to know that Ulmo was still out there, fighting. In the corner of her mind, she felt Mablung flip Gwindor gracefully up onto the edge of the city walls.

Finally speaking, Maglor asked, “where is Elrond’s cavalry?”

Finduilas pointed in the direction where she had seen their bulk last, commanded by some friend of Findis’s, and watched as Maglor dived through orcs like a fish through water. Even when he left her eyesight, she could hear him shouting.

“To me! Riders of Elvenkind, to me! Riders of the Gap! Riders of Beleriand! Riders of Middle Earth! To me!”

Celumë lingered a while, dispatching of what orcs she could. “Have you seen Túrin?” Finduilas asked. Then, because Gwindor was plagued by urgent, irrational fear for his brother’s sake, “and who is that, fighting Morgoth?”

Even beneath her helm, Celumë seemed grim. “I last saw Túrin approaching Oromë and the hunt. Maedhros and Fingolfin are fighting Morgoth.”

Fingolfin was the only reasonable choice. Gwindor, who’d seen Maedhros fight at the Nirnaeth, did not find him a surprise either.

He’s a nightmare with a sword, Gwindor thought, kicking a man in the head from his perch. And I certainly don’t think he’s afraid to die.

Finduilas admonished him for the remark with thoughts of Túrin, out there in all this. Maybe with Beleg, maybe alone. Beleg, at least, was armed.

They went their separate ways, and Finduilas did not see Celumë again until sometime later, when the newly assembled cavalry charged back into the fray, the rider couple leading. By this stage, she’d made it almost half way across the field. She lacked Maglor’s uncanny ability to glide through battle without being stopped. The wolves were tightly packed here, piling over one another in their thirst to fight, and soon, by no fault of her own, she found herself on foot. Tulkas had rejoined the fight against Morgoth, though Mablung thought that he still seemed weakened. Neither of the elves fighting beside him appeared to have fallen.

In the distraction between herself, Mablung and Gwindor, Finduilas might have fallen then had it not been for the sound of drums. At first, she thought they were in her own ears, but nobody else on the field reacted. Gwindor did. With Mablung’s aid, he scaled a tower to see another army approaching. They were not elves, though a few walked among them, and for a second his heart raced. Then he understood who they were. As the men turned, reacting to this new potential threat, Gwindor grabbed a horn from a fallen herald to return the call of Aulë’s children. Even with their father dead, they were reborn at the end of all things.

Ulmo, having saved Tirion, returned to the battlefield at last. to save Elwing. Constructing a massive form that towered above Elwing and Mablung, he drenched the fire out of a dragon. It spluttered weakly, fire failing, and by the time Ulmo had vanished again, it was dead.

The world was brighter now, with Yavanna’s vines and Morgoth’s fire and Varda’s remaining gifts, but it was still dim enough that Finduilas almost missed the one mortal in her field of sight completely. It was not Túrin. Instead, she cut her way through wolves to stand back-to-back with his father.

“My lord.” Though she owed him no titles, it was hers to dispense as she wished. “My name is Finduilas, if I may be of assistance.”

The strange sound he made at this must have been a laugh. “Of course you are.” Before she could ask for clarification, Húrin added, “the other fellow mentioned that we might run into you. He says that you were supposed to stay with your Queen.”

Of course Beleg did. That asshole. “And he was supposed to stay with his.”

The noise again. “He mentioned that he thought you’d say that, too.”

The wolves rushed at them all at once, as a tidal wave of fear. Finduilas found herself uncomfortably trapped with a man who had almost been her lawfather. It was there, as teeth came close to her throat, that she had an epiphany. As Gwindor was finally able to free himself and breathe until the sharp pain of air like swallowed glass in his throat subsided, she realized the great truth of her life.

“I don’t love Túrin.” Húrin tactfully stayed silent. The wolves didn’t care much for words. “I don’t even know Túrin! I haven’t seen him for thousands of years. When we met he was lying to me! Maybe I will love him, some day, but that certainly isn’t now. Túrin brought the loves of my life to me, and if he takes them away now, I will never, ever forgive him.”

Mablung and Gwindor hung on her words. There was no judgement in them.

“Túrin doesn’t know me. Doesn’t know any of us, now. If we fall in love again, it will be a miracle, not a certainty.”

One of the wolves was listening to her. Finduilas watched it critically. It seemed identical to its brethren, perhaps slightly bigger and darker in coat, but not at all special. It had already been wounded in the conflict, blood matting the fur on its face. Except for the fact that its ears had tilted towards Finduilas as she spoke. It met her eyes, and then, in a careful, calculated motion, leapt at her.

Finduilas batted the creature away with her sword, the force of the contact reverberating through her arms. As if proving her point, the other wolves backed away in deference to their commander. Unhurt, it prepared to spring again.

“You killed my brother,” she told the beast. “I know you.”

Sauron showed his teeth, and changed. The element of surprise was gone, and he stood as a suit of black armour, wielding a long sword.

“Another Arafinwian,” he rasped, as if his throat was dry as bone. “You die so beautifully.”

Finduilas found it in herself to smile at him. Gwindor, in her mind, filled with fear. He thought of Gelmir, marched onto the field of the Nirnaeth to die. “No Arafinwians anymore. Just Finwians, standing together.”

Sauron moved, uncannily quick. Finduilas was not the warrior her brother was. She thought about her goodbyes to those she loved. If only Beleg had been able to hear her, to know that she loved him for himself, without a hint of Túrin’s involvement. She thought he would have forgiven her terrible mistake.

Húrin pushed her out of the way. Where Sauron would have caught her on her armour, he struck Húrin’s uncovered stomach. The maiar laughed, and, as he finished his blow, turned back into a wolf and vanished. Túrin’s father crumpled to the ground.

Kneeling over him, she pressed her hands against him, trying to stem the blood flow. She was no spell caster. She couldn’t fix this. The wolves began to close in.

Curufin emerged from the darkness, a force of nature in his own right, and brought down two wolves with one blow of his sword. Finduilas had never been more grateful to see anyone in her life.

“Why did you do that?” She demanded of Húrin. He laughed, hollowly. It had all been such a waste, as she reminded him: “I can survive dying, maybe! I don’t even love Túrin. He doesn’t deserve to lose you again.”

His hand came up to touch her shoulder. “It’s alright.”

Curufin stood over them. His sword danced in fine motions that Finduilas remembered watching from Celebrimbor thousands of years earlier. She knew that she was safe, for now.

Let me, Mablung thought, and helped her begin to spin the healing. Like a spider’s web, but without the void’s corruption, it was intricate and delicate, every strand where it needed to be. It didn’t do much, but at least it would stop some of the pain. Stomach wounds were a bad way to die, slow and painful as the gut and bowels poisoned the rest of the body. Stink and infection, sure death in men. She’d seen it before, or Gwindor had, and it always made both of them nauseous.

“Don’t die,” she said, feeling stupid.

Húrin’s eyes closed as he came to rest. Mablung tied up their spell and left it be.

I’m sorry, Gwindor thought.

The horns began low at first, noise wide and then sharp, an unfamiliar call to battle. It wasn’t until Mablung saw the first of the torches go up behind the Valarin lines that she knew. There must have been tens of thousands of them, a greater force of elves than had been seen in either of Finduilas’s lifetimes. It could only have been the Avari. They smashed into Vanyar and wolves alike, a firestorm of everything. The light they carried with them washed across the battlefield as they slaughtered surprised orcs and disorderly wolves. Blood misted through the air. Curufin pulled her to her feet, strong and solid in his every motion. Finduilas had forgotten this about him. She was shocked by how glad she was that this person who had betrayed her was here.

“He’s gone,” he said gruffly, and pulled her towards the approaching army. She thought that, in his horrible, insensitive way, he meant this as a kindness.

With Curufin at her side, they made good time through the battle. Orcs, wolves, and Vanyar were no match for them, and at his side all three tried to strike them down. Dragons and balrogs, fortunately, were further afield. Soon, exhausted, blood-spattered, but alive, they met with the front of the Avarin lines. As a weary Gwindor embraced Celebrimbor in relief, Finduilas watched Celebrimbor’s father speak unfamiliar words and lead her through the lines into a moment of blissful respite.

They let the two of them sit in the torchlight, and offered water. Between small sips, Curufin explained, “We’d left a message asking for help from the Avarin Triarchs.” Sip. “We weren’t sure if it had been received, but evidently it was.” Sip. “The Avari love freedom. They were never going to let Morgoth or Námo do what they wanted.” Sip.

Finduilas rushed in, with her own question and Mablung’s. “Who are the Triarchs? What happened to Eärendil’s Silmaril?”

“My father-”

Mablung grabbed up Finduilas’s focus, forcing her to see through his eyes. His mind was ablaze with panic. Tulkas was down again, seemingly for the last time, and the two elves were being pushed back towards the disarrayed rear of the Noldorin forces. Mablung directed her focus towards another small figure who stepped up beside them. He was wearing leather armor, and carrying a black sword. In the terrible light of Morgoth’s form, they could see the chains that still hung, broken, from his wrists.

Finduilas had always known this moment would come. It was prophesied, after all. But that didn’t mean she had to like it. Even if she didn’t love Túrin, she remembered what it had been to love him. He didn’t deserve to die in this battle. He’d already given more than his share. Then again, so had Maedhros and Fingolfin, she supposed. They three, distinguished from one another by how they carried their swords- left hand Maedhros, right hand Fingolfin, both hands Túrin- made one last charge towards Morgoth.

Each was gifted with a blade in different ways. Fingolfin had a traditional skill and style. He could have used either hand, but was used to carrying a shield in his left. Maedhros’s gifts were built on need and desperation. Even now, his right hand was empty and he didn’t try and use it to his advantage, used to a body with only the left. Túrin, for his part, was mortal. What Eru had robbed men of in speed, he had given them in an ability to gain strength and brutality greater than what their forms merited. He raised a sword that was long and heavy for a man, and wielded it to maximize the force of each blow.

The fight was short and brutal. They must have been exhausted, and it took almost no effort for Morgoth to step towards them. Túrin drove his blade into the Vála’s heel, and found himself kicked backwards, losing his blade as it remained wedged in burnt, oozing flesh. A fireball knocked Fingolfin backwards, and as Maedhros stopped to try and pull his uncle to his feet, Morgoth raised up the same foot that had thrown Túrin aside, and began to bring it down.

The scream was piercing and devastating. Finduilas could feel it in her bones, and in Mablung’s. It wasn’t a physical scream, it existed in a higher plane. It was a scream in the way that Arda being sung into being was the music of the Ainur. Elwing, more magical than most elves, fell to her knees. Curufin’s body shook and clenched. Maedhros fell flat beside Fingolfin, shielding his face as he disappeared from Mablung’s sight beneath the charred foot of the enemy. Time turned into sludge. Although Gwindor, far away, could still see people running, could hear voices and feel the wind in his face, Finduilas found herself moved out of phase with this world. Space shifted. Although they never moved, Finduilas found her position and Curufin’s changed in relation, moved further apart. Sounds were deeper. Like shadow puppets, objects glided across the world with no motion to propel them. Mablung watched a dropped sword rise of its own volition, sliding upwards with no sign of stopping. Dragons and eagles hung suspended in the air, wings still. Light streaked, its paths becoming visible as Finduilas had always imagined the Two Trees looking. Colours separated, all the world painted as a rainbow of neverending colour.

And then Fëanor was beneath Morgoth’s foot. The motion never halted or wavered; the enemy stamped down upon him and the world went white.

Finduilas, who had been furthest from the explosion, stumbled to her feet first. Before her, the battlefield was almost entirely unconscious. In her mind, Mablung was cold while Gwindor was paralyzed with anxiety. He wanted to see what was happening, desperate for truth. She tried to explain, finding words inadequate. Gwindor, resolute, assured her that he could look. I am not anyone’s prisoner, he thought, and neither is Gelmir; nothing else could pain me as much as seeing him blinded and chained. So, she showed him Morgoth, sprawled back against the remains of the Pelori, one leg gone at the knee. There was a vicious glee in Gwindor’s mind at seeing it. Túrin was pulling himself up as Maedhros and Fingolfin helped each other. They looked shaken, but unhurt, despite the proximity of the explosion.

Above them, suspended in the air about thirty feet up, was Fëanor. Or it had once been Fëanor, anyhow.

He radiated light, slow strings of it coming off him in waves. When he turned from Morgoth to survey the devastation behind him, Finduilas saw- In his chest, embedded in the flesh, sat a silmaril. Eärendil’s stone, still set in its cursed necklace; he had been wearing it when Morgoth’s foot came down. He opened his hand to gesture at Curufin, who was coming to his feet beside Finduilas, and she realized that the other two stones were embedded in each palm. The light had gone into the rest of his form also. Lines of it trailed across his flesh, silver or steel made of what had once been armor. His hair had changed in streaks, white in places and corscating in others, radiating energy. And then there were the eyes, like silmarils themselves.

Other Avari were getting to their feet, as were orcs, wolves and Balrogs, but nobody seemed to know what to do. Dragons and eagles, blown to the ground, remained there. Together, they watched this new, terrible being, taut with fear of what he might be. Finduilas found herself sliding closer to Curufin, sure that Fëanor would not willingly harm his own children.

“What are you?” Morgoth hissed. His powerful voice was raw, as though he spoke through a gash in his throat, but audible for miles as the valar often were.

Fëanor looked over a shoulder at him, a lazy motion. “I don’t think you’ll be asking the questions today.” His voice was, if anything, more awe inspiring and terrible. He looked down to the ground. “Are you alright?”

Maedhros shrugged, helplessly. Fingolfin cupped his hands around his mouth to call back, but his voice was lost to the wind. Finduilas imagined that he was informing Fëanor of what he looked like to the rest of them.

Fëanor waved his hands about in a vaguely apologetic gesture, shifting the lights of the whole world. Finduilas shielded her eyes. In the back of her mind, she could feel Mablung blinking awake. She assured him she was alright, and shifted over to looking through his eyes, since he was closer to the action. Manwë and Varda came to form themselves before Fëanor, presenting as elves for courtesy’s sake.

“What are you?” Manwë demanded, echoing his brother’s words. He looked old, and very tired. Varda was bleeding, streams of liquid light dripping down her arm to fall towards the ground. Liquid starlight pooled. Túrin wisely stepped away from it.

Fëanor shook his head. “You don’t get to ask the questions either.” Carefully, he glided backwards until he was spaced evenly between the brothers. “As I see it,” he informed them, calmly, “I’m powerful enough to defeat one of you. But not both, I think. That leaves me with a choice to make. I think I know the right one, but first, I’d like some more information. What did you do with the real Námo?”

Manwë visibly flinched. Morgoth threw his head back and laughed. It was an awful, grating noise.

“Perhaps you don’t know,” Fëanor lectured. Turning back to Manwë, he said, “It took me a long time to figure it out, so I’ll forgive some of your foolishness. You never really understood Sauron’s capacity. I don’t think I did, either. He was always the servant, to us. We never thought much about the things he did after he became the master. But I’ve been learning, recently. When I saw that arrow strike, I understood. By my estimation, I would say that Sauron has been in place in this role since the End of Man. All that death certainly provided plenty of distraction, didn’t it?”

Manwë turned to Varda, who clutched at her wounded arm and looked helpless. From within the crowd of the Avari, a fourth figure rose into the sky.

“He’s right,” Vairë said. She was knitting, even during the respite from battle, pulling together spells with her skilled hands. She was dressed as an Avarin soldier, no different from them save in her Being. “I’ve known since the moment it happened.” Her deep-set eyes fixed themselves on Morgoth. “I’m not stupid. I know the difference between my husband and your rabid dog.”

The horrible thing was, nobody else had. At least, not until Irmo and Nienna revealed themselves at her sides. Manwë demanded, “And you?”

Irmo, at least, had the decency to look guilty. Fëanor cut in before they could speak. “You’ve known all along, dream-maker. You’ve been sending visions to my people since the war began. You’ve been trying to guide us. What I want to know is: why didn’t you just tell us the truth? Any of you?”

They exchanged glances, guilty but also self-assured. In the end, it was Nienna who answered. Despite being a whisper, they could all hear her. “If we’d let the truth slip, you wouldn’t have been ready for the war when it came. None of us would have. The second we opened our mouths, wolves and orcs would have been at your doors. You would still be dead, the silmarils would still be scattered. None of these people would have come together before the battle started. Sauron believed we would turn on each other before we discovered him, and so he allowed us time to prepare.”

She was right, but that didn’t absolve the wrong of what she and her allies had done. Fëanor took control of the audience. Finduilas realized dimly that he was speaking many tongues at once. The way Mablung heard him was different than what her own senses perceived. For all his many audiences and their many tongues, he spun a tale with such skill his own mother could not have woven better.

“And so, all said and done, let us think through the sins of the valar. Námo may not have tried to kill us, or kidnapped my wife, but he still held us prisoner for thousands of years. That we could not tell the difference says a great deal of his character. Manwë, Varda- you were more than complicit. Lady Vána tells me that the valar, by and large, didn’t really understand what Mandos was like for elves. But you could have tried. This wrong that was done to my children is unforgivable.”

Morgoth was smiling. His teeth were made of ice. Finduilas wanted to scream for Fëanor to turn around.

“But,” he continued, whirling around to catch the villain in the act. “Then I thought about what you’ve done. And you- you’ve been trying to pit elves against each other for thousands of years. Every sneaky, conniving trick in Sauron’s heart comes from you, even if he improved on them. You wanted me to hate my brother. You wanted me to come after you. You wanted me to create an army to kill your brother for you.” His tone changed, from furious to gloating. “The trouble is, you made a mistake. You let me have these allies. You let me have my sons, and my grandsons. You let me meet all the disparate peoples whose lives you destroyed for your pleasure. Well, I refuse to play your games.” Turning back to Manwë and Varda, he extended a glowing hand. “Work with me.”

The battle resumed in earnest, lightning-quick and brutal and everywhere. Finduilas returned to her own body to find Curufin pressing her sword hilt back into her hand.

“Are you all here?” He asked her, seriously.

She took her body completely as her own, letting herself feel the aches and exhaustion in every fibre of her being. Then, for Curufin’s benefit, she nodded.

“Where are we going?” She asked, as Curufin began to lead her back towards the battle. He pointed with his sword held flat.

“To kill a wolf.”

Presence revealed by Fëanor’s meddling, the renegade maia had become a whirlwind of violence. Even as they spoke, he tore a hapless Avarin soldier limb from limb.

All across the field, they were winning. Mablung and Elwing were gaining ground, a single ringed fist raising to pull a dragon out of the sky; the Avari swept through orcs and wolves with renewed hope. Now that the archers could finally see, they struck down orcs and wolves from safe distance. Vairë, Nienna and Irmo appeared from nothingness randomly across the battlefield, helping as best they could. Finduilas even thought that she caught a fleeting glimpse of Estë, pressing her hand to a bloody chest wound. Balrogs stumbled back before Noldorin swords. Yet where Sauron was, they were being killed in higher and higher numbers.

Finduilas lost herself in the battle, bringing down wolves and orcs with the last of her strength. The sight of Fëanor, Manwë and Varda together in the sky had rekindled something unexpected in her: faith. The three forced Morgoth back over the ruins of the Pelori, out of her and Mablung’s sight. As the tides turned, she turned herself to the task at hand. Everything became the battle, in her own body. She was the stench of the battlefield and the heavy feeling of her blade catching on flesh. She was slaying threats that came near to Curufin. She was everything.

When they came upon Sauron, they were not the first there. Instead, Finduilas almost stopped dead as she watched Gil-galad bring his spear up to block Sauron’s thrust. The ironclad figure, seven feet or more, wielded a massive, blood streaked sword. His helm was formed as a wolf, perhaps hiding a wolf’s head underneath. Behind Gil, Elrond and Lady Amdirdis were dedicated to stopping any of Sauron’s wolves from helping their master.

Finduilas and Curufin threw themselves into the fray. Finduilas whirled around to fend off the wolves from this side while Curufin struck at Sauron, all the anger that could have been expected from him coalescing into powerful, devastating blows. They were good fighters, maybe even great ones, but Sauron was better. Finduilas heard Gil-galad scream, and was unable to stop herself from whipping around to look. Only Curufin’s quick reaction stopped a wolf from tearing into her flesh. Elrond was not so lucky. It was a stupid, childish mistake. And such an understandable one. Gil-galad lay unmoving on the ground, blood rushing from beneath his helmet. Elrond, wolf’s teeth embedded in his thigh, sank down next to him. Amdirdis’s blow, crushing the wolf’s spine, came a second too late.

Although Finduilas could see Finrod and Turgon out of the corner of her eye, fighting their way towards her, they were too far away. Nobody else could take up this fight.

She grabbed Gil-galad’s glaive from his loosening grip. He had always called it a spear, but the blade was longer and more designed for slicing. She was weaker than Sauron in close combat, but her skill with a glaive was only a little less than that with a sword, and it could give her a crucial foot of extra space. She prepared to heft it, but stopped as her lawbrother moved towards her.

Elrond’s hand ran along the flat of the blade. His eyes met Finduilas’s through his helm, and as he slumped forward against Gil-galad, unconscious, she understood.

She and Mablung had watched Elwing pull on her maiaran heritage to tear a dragon from the sky through sheer force of will. Elrond did not have as strong an affinity for magics, but he was no weakling. Finduilas pulled herself into a wide, steady combat stance.

Sauron looked at her like a bloodstain on his boot. Everything about her presence was nothing but a waste of time. “You again,” he complained, “I see you don’t have the decency to die as cleanly as your brother.”

Finduilas watched Finrod and Turgon coming closer. She only had to hold him back for a little while. Together, they and Curufin would be strong enough to bring him down. Stalling would help.

“No I don’t,” she agreed. “I died slow and bloody. It wasn’t noble or honorable, just painful. But I suppose you’d know something about slow and painful deaths, wouldn’t you?”

Wolf’s teeth emerged in his human face. “Yes,” he hissed. “I do.”

His sword came up, and Finduilas caught it in the wings of the blade. His eyes narrowed in disbelief as she pushed his sword away and danced to a different angle to try and slip through his guard. Amdirdis, Curufin and the wolves all gave her a healthy amount of room.

With Elrond’s magic endowing the weapon, it was unbelievably responsive in her hands. The metal sang with the touch of Arda, and she found herself able to match Sauron in a way she never could have alone. Still, she could not threaten or harm him. In the end, she knew, she would fail and die. It would not be such a bad way to go, defending her family to the very last. Mablung and Gwindor wanted to be with her, but she forced them away. This was something she knew she had to do alone. Instead, they watched warily from a distance, grazing the corner of her mind with thoughts of love.

“I think,” she told Sauron, through gritted teeth, “that you fundamentally misunderstand the nature of elvenkind.”

“You sound like Finrod, right before I had his throat ripped out.”

Since Beren and Lúthien had gone on to take a silmaril from Morgoth despite Finrod’s murder, this seemed a somewhat unfair characterization of the whole sequence of events. Sauron had been proven wrong in the course of things.

“Maybe,” she agreed, “but maybe he was right, too.”

“I killed him,” Sauron hissed. Finrod and Turgon were still advancing behind him, although they’d been somewhat waylayed by a party of orcs.

“Yes. And yet. You and Morgoth tried to destroy our spirits at every step of the way, to tear us apart. I felt that as much as anyone. But we’re elves, and you can’t break our spirits. We come back, in the end.”

Their banter slipped away, and the pace of their blows increased. Finduilas fought by memory and instinct, letting her body guide her. She was a glaive, hands whirling as she switched grips, striking and defending and changing the shape of the battle. For the first time since they’d begun, Sauron had to take a step back, and then another. She nicked the top of his thigh, drawing blood and a hiss from him.

He pushed back, sending Finduilas scrambling as he turned into a being of mostly fire, like his master was. The heat burnt at her, making the air come off of him in waves.

His sword melted the armor on her chest, but didn’t cut her. She whirled the glaive, and instead of coming in for another strike with the blade, she shifted her body and grip to smash the heavy butt of the glaive into his stomach. Sauron stumbled backwards, sparks bursting from where she’d hit him. He turned back into a man.

“Cheating bitch,” he rasped, and reached a hand out to work some terrible magic at her.

Finrod’s swing didn’t take his head clean off, but it did sever the better part of the spine. Black blood spewed all across his gleaming armor and weary face. Somewhere in the chaos, both he and Turgon had lost their helms. Turgon spat a glob of blood out onto the ground. Just to be safe, Finduilas finished the job with her glaive, taking the head off entirely and pushing it away. Then the magnitude of what she’d done finally caught up with her as her knees gave out. She collapsed beside her brother’s fading body while Curufin and Finrod embraced like they were brothers themselves.

The battle reached its epilogue around them. With the Avari, they outnumbered the orcs, and with the Valar and Maiar mostly on their side, the other beasts had never stood a chance. Once, at the Nirnaeth, they had come far closer to victory in this fight than they had any right to, and that with no ainur, less people and many of them traitors. Now, as Gwindor and his dwarven rescuers- and other Finwians, Celebrimbor, Arafinwë- rested from a brutal, tragic victory, the orcs fell in greater and greater numbers. Their master dead, wolves abandoned the fight. Some even went over to Oromë’s side as they sought the protection of a pack. Though she understood what Mablung was seeing, Finduilas paid it no mind. All her focus was on her brother.

While Curufin, Amdirdis and Turgon protected them, Finrod joined Finduilas on the ground, gently lifting Gil’s head so Finduilas could remove his helm. The armour had crumpled slightly, and the back of his head with it. Finrod hissed through his teeth at the sight.

“Can you do anything?” Finduilas asked, keenly aware of her own exhaustion.

The weariness in Finrod’s eyes spoke for him. Even so, he moved his hand to act. Finduilas stopped him with a shake of her head. Finrod, reminded of his own limitations, refocused on the simpler wound in Elrond’s calf. Soon, his breathing was easier and he moved from unconsciousness into sleep. Releasing Gil-galad into Finrod’s arms, Finduilas lifted Elrond tenderly, resting his head on her lap. She rather thought that this, more than anything else, was what Gil-galad would have asked of her. He’d always loved Elrond and Celebrían more than life itself.

It was Maglor who came and found them, in the aftermath. He looked battered and exhausted, one eye swollen shut from a blow to the face, but when his other eye caught sight of Elrond, something in him softened. He knelt at Finduilas’s side, and brushed a loose hair out of Elrond’s face. The gesture was honest and Finduilas felt like an intruder just watching it.

Finally, he looked up at her. “They’re asking for you. Lord Mablung, I mean. Also, Manwë and my father. Apparently, there’s been some consternation over who, if anyone, is in charge, and your name’s been put forth as a potential contender. Idril, for obvious reasons, has declined at the present time.”

Poor Idril, such an unthinkable grief must have weighed on her. Finduilas, looking down at Idril’s grandson, asked, “will you look after him for me?”

Maglor gave a half shake of his head. “Not for you,” he said, even as he was removing plates of his own armor to hold Elrond more gently. It was such an obvious, kind love. But of course it was. As she’d learned from Gil-galad once, a very long time ago, this was Elrond’s father in all the ways that counted.

“Did Eärendil-”

Maglor shook his head before she could even finish the thought. “He was dead on impact. I don’t know if it was the arrow that killed him or the fall, but I’m not sure that it matters. Did you see who did it?”

“No,” lied Finduilas, adding more truthfully, “but I think I know why.”

“Why?”

She knew nothing for certain, but, “I think it was an act of mercy. You never saw Eärendil after. What Varda and Manwë made him into, but- if the battle had started, with him believing his parents were on one side and Elrond on the other- I don’t know what he would have done, but mostly, I think he would have suffered. I think whoever did it loved him.”

“A cruel sort of love,” Maglor noted, without a hint of judgement, “a difficult kind.”

“It’s all difficult.”

Maglor’s good eye was focused on Elrond, looking at his sleeping face with such intensity that Finduilas almost thought it might wake him. “Of course. But not always cruel, I hope.”

Finduilas made herself leave. She knew that she never would have, if she didn’t force it. There was already so much grief in her heart that she didn’t have room to learn the rest, nor share that which she already carried. If she left, she would have to learn Beleg’s fate. She would have to tell Túrin that his father was dead. When the others heard about Gil-galad, sleeping but not long for this life, they would all say that they were so sorry. Finduilas didn’t want to deal with sorry. But the others were out there, living with this. Idril and Elwing were out there, sharing their grief. They deserved better from her. Elwing deserved to know that her son would live.

The battlefield was so still. People were coming to retrieve the injured, but there were far more dead than wounded. It smelled putrid, of blood and faeces. No maiar of Námo came for the bodies, although Estë and Nienna’s followers walked the field, doing what they could. Blessedly, Finduilas recognized almost none of the dead. This became less true as she approached where the Noldorin lines had been. Many of these people were from Nargothrond. Many of them had died in her stupid, futile charge for Túrin’s benefit. Her guts twisted painfully upon themselves, and she thought she might be sick. It was all the worst sorts of cramps wrapped up in one. That Noldo had been one of her aides as a princess. He’d had a terrible habit of forgetting to lace up his boots. That Noldë had married a Doriathrim friend of Mablung’s. They’d both gone to the wedding. Falling into Námo’s- Sauron’s- trap, becoming too invested, she’d killed these people.

Closer again to the light, she began to run into her own family. Obviously, they’d been unofficially gathering their dead and wounded here. Aredhel sat with Celegorm on the steps of Findis’s carriage- remarkably undamaged- a bloody cloth over her left eye. He was cleaning a wound on her arm. A large black dog lay curled at their feet. They seemed to be keeping watch over the two bodies they’d found here. Findis, they must have moved. She looked like she was sleeping, arms crossed over her chest and eyes closed. Argon, close by, looked anything but. He lay sprawled, eyes still open and glassy. His sword was in his hand. The orcish arrow that had killed him protruded from his back, a bloody reminder of the threat he had forgotten in his hatred and fear of the other. Finduilas turned to the living.

“I’ve seen Turgon, Maglor, Amdirdis and Curufin,” she said. “They all survived.”

Celegorm gave her a nod. Neither of them spoke.

It was bright, here, and the air smelled cleaner, sharp like a very high mountain. That was probably because of Manwë’s presence, but it was such a relief that Finduilas didn’t begrudge it.

At the end of the unofficial lines of the dead and injured, Eärendil’s body was half-covered by Elwing’s capelet. It hid his head and torso, leaving his broken legs very visible. He looked so small, and so thin. The sight of his limbs contorted made Finduilas’s joints hurt. Nobody was sitting with him.

Here, perhaps twenty feet from Fëanor and Varda, Finduilas’s eyes hurt with the brightness. Gritting her teeth, she was able to pass close enough to hear the conversation that went on before her. To her surprise, they were not meeting in council. Instead, they who should have been council sat in small groups on pieces of rock and conjured furniture. Idril and Elwing huddled close together. Finduilas wondered if Idril knew what her lawdaughter had done. She hoped so, and that she was forgiven. Mablung, Voronwë and Nimloth loitered nearby. Fëanor, Fingolfin and their eldest sons formed another group, although Maedhros looked to be half asleep leaning back against Fingon’s knees. Ingwë sat with the masters he’d given everything for, his son nowhere to be seen. Varda and Manwë flanked him, and never offered touch or comfort. Neither of their closest maiar were present.

Of the rest of the valar, relatively few sat in council. Ulmo had resurfaced, with Uinen and Ossë both. They were vulnerable in their closeness, all three of them, an image Finduilas recognized from her own life. Yavanna was a small form in Vána’s arms, trembling with exhaustion or grief. At a conjured loom, Vairë sat alone, working at the very end of a tapestry that contained so many images it might as well have been abstract. None of the rest were there. Finduilas watched them all, elves, valar, maiar, as they shifted silently in their grief. Fingon took off his gloves and began removing Maedhros’s armor. An unfamiliar ring sat on his finger, and the gentle and familiar way in which he undressed Maedhros left no room for error in guessing why.

Finally, they seemed to notice Finduilas. Mablung, sitting up at Nimloth’s side, hurled himself at her with great force. Beleg was still nowhere to be seen, and Túrin was loitering a few feet away, but in this moment none of that mattered. She loved Mablung on his own merit. His arms encircled her, warm and steady. He allowed her to bury her face in his neck and sob. She’d been steady, through as much of this fight as she could, but with permission to let go, she could not keep herself from weeping. It was all too much. Gil was going to die. Beleg was probably dead already. She’d almost lost Gwindor and Mablung; she might lose them anyways over the fact that she’d given up on Túrin.

Some of this must have bled over into Mablung’s mind. He pulled away to meet her eyes. He didn’t have the starlight that was always in Beleg’s pupils, or the darkness that had always given Túrin bags beneath his eyes. Instead, Mablung looked at her with a calm understanding that shocked her.

“I love you,” he reminded her. They’d said it before many times, but somehow, this mattered more. “With or without Túrin. With or without Beleg.” His voice cracked against the name of his first love, his recognized husband. “And I’m so, so sorry about Gil.”

She let him hold her and make soothing noises into her hair. To his mind, she said, I love you, and I don’t want to lose you, and my love for you is in no way contingent on you not being with Túrin. Even though she was sweaty and blood-soaked and disgusting, he pressed kisses to her forehead.

They were so absorbed in each other that the sound of everyone in the circle standing came as a great shock.

“Hail, the Triarchs of the Avari,” Celumë announced, warily, “kinsmen and friends, Tata, Imin and Enel.”

Mablung pulled away slightly, and they looked through his eyes together at the three approaching figures. He knew none of them, but Finduilas, through his eyes, could recognize two. She gathered herself enough to push him away so they could both kneel before these beautiful, familiar strangers.

Of them, Finduilas had only ever actually met Indis, and her only thrice. In this moment, Indis looked more like her youngest granddaughter than she did like any of the rest of her kin. She had Findis’s look most, of course, but her brazen, almost furious confidence was all Galadriel. Finduilas had always wondered where her great aunt had acquired such wicked character. Now she knew. With a quiver on her back and dressed for battle in leather and furs, golden hair braided plainly Indis was the very picture of the pre-Valinorian elf. At her left was a figure Finduilas knew from a hundred old statues and art galleries. She was so clearly a witch. Mablung, who’d known Melian all his life, could see it in her posture. And yet Finduilas also knew her because an elf with her exact colouring had once shared her home for more than a decade. She had less of Celegorm’s muscle, but was equally graceful in her posture. Her robes were embroidered with hundreds of terrible spells. Like her son, she was almost difficult to look at. Míriel Serindë, first and greatest High Queen of the Noldor.

To her right was a stranger, of Sindarin blood, and he was the most ancient of all of them. There were deep lines on her face like a mortal man, his white beard long and twisted into a single braid down the centre of his chest. The very sight of him made Finduilas uneasy. This was a being that shouldn’t be. And yet he was.

Indis ignored all those who knelt before her, and looked to those who were not kneeling. Her eyes fell on her brother.

“Coward,” she scolded him, harsh as a mountainside, sharp as a knife in the back. “I raised you better than this.”

Finduilas knew nothing of the circumstances of Indis and Ingwë’s life before coming to Valinor. She watched the king flinch back.

“I did what I thought was right,” he said eventually, looking at her feet. His hands were trembling, ever so slightly. “I did what I thought was right,” he repeated as if convincing himself.

She paid this no mind. “Where’s my nephew?” Ingwë folded in on himself. Indis did not soften, although Míriel’s hand did drift to her shoulder as a silent gesture of shared grief. “Perhaps now you will understand a sliver of the price you were willing to ask the rest of us to pay.”

“Your children could have survived if not for him,” Varda noted, raising a sparkling finger to point at Fëanor. Surprisingly, he averted his eyes, cowed by this patronizing, worthless Vala.

Indis was not so easily deflected. “If ‘my children’ survive by his death, then who do you think raised him? Who held him against her breast even when she had nothing to give?” A couple steps brought her finger into Varda’s face. “Don’t you dare say I should care any less. You’ve never loved anyone like that in all your life.”

Fëanor was frozen, staring at these two mothers of his. Hand still hanging in the air, Míriel turned her focus to him. Their eyes meet, and the world seemed to close in around them, falling away. Fëanor’s light carried his feelings, a lifetime of grief, of loneliness, of yearning, and a totality of forgiveness so strong Finduilas could have taken Sauron to wife by it. Her heart sung with their joy and grief. Her mouth was half-open with a note before she realized that this was the beginning of something far more than any of them. She forced it closed again. Mablung, older and more attuned to such things, could feel the hum of magic in the air. Fëanor shone, and then he and Míriel were embracing, locked tight as if they’d never been parted. Mouth opening with a gleeful smile, Fingolfin watched them.

When his mother approached him, his face fell. Indis touched his shoulder and he said, “Findis is gone.” The weight of it was enough to quell all the joy of Míriel and Fëanor’s reunion. Indis, back to the crowd, bowed her head solemnly.

The third Triarch turned to Manwë. “Your death-god is dead,” he said, in a dialect a little like Quenya and a little like Sindarin and a little like Beleg’s earliest memories. “Does that mean that those now fallen are eternally parted from us?”

The Vala King seemed to shift into a more terrible form. Physically, he barely changed, but there was lightning in his eyes and thunder on his words as he spoke. The tongue he responded in was not one that even Beleg would have recognized. It was primeval. It made Finduilas’s bones shiver. Without understanding one word, she knew he was saying that he didn’t know.

Indis must have understood too. She turned in place, Fëanor’s light scattering across her crown of hair. As if they could feel that they were being watched, he and Míriel pulled away.

“I’m sorry about Findis. She- well, you know who she was.”

Indis nodded in simple acknowledgement. Then, she looked from Fëanor to Manwë. “Don’t accept this,” she commanded, just as she had scolded her brother. “You-“ She pointed to Manwë- “Are Eru’s favoured Son. You’re the King of the Heavens. Do something! And you-” Whirling around to face Fëanor again, she shook her head in disbelief. “You made yourself into a Vala, Fëanáro. You are remarkable. You know that better than anyone. I think- I know- that all of this has a purpose. Your remarkable gifts, your extraordinary mind. Let it be this. We remake the world together. Guide us, craftsman. Aranya Istima.”

The name shook the world. Fëanor fell to one knee.

Every elven mother named her child with what sight she had. Indis was of old blood and older magic. If anyone should have been able to gift their child with destiny, it was her. She’d never named Fëanor, had never seen for him. It had been proof that ties of blood were more important than those of reality. And yet she did so now. She named him as a Vala. She named him wise, and she named him free. Tears streaming down his shining face, Fëanor raised his head to look at his birth mother.

Question unasked, she answered. “You can be anything, Istima. Yonya.”

Fëanor clambered to his feet, raised his hands to the sky, and immediately stumbled. Finduilas fell in time with him, and Mablung too. Even Vairë trembled.

Beleg was back, standing before them, and he wasn’t alone. Together, he and a battered, dusty Nerdanel supported what could as easily have been a pile of rags as a person. But it was a person. Unlike Sauron in his guise, the real Námo had a face under everything. It was emaciated and beaten, but not at all a skeleton. When Vairë took his hands in hers, weeping as openly as her lawsister, there were five fingers on each. They pressed their foreheads together in silent greeting of their physical forms. Beleg and Nerdanel stepped away. Finduilas found herself frozen on the ground, even as Gwindor’s heart was thumping with anticipation. Mablung stood. Maedhros clambered to his feet. Like her, Fëanor didn’t move. His light took on a slight greenish tint.

In the end, it was Túrin who broke the moment. Blundering in, he crushed Beleg’s ribs in an enormous hug.

Finduilas listened to Beleg’s mind. She felt Túrin’s too-tight arms around her, and knew why. She watched Beleg meet him in the battle, heard him questioning Túrin about the void between worlds. She felt the realization course through him of what he had to do. Beleg’s fingers closing around Túrin’s as he pressed the hilt of his sword into Túrin’s hand, blade to his own throat.

Suddenly, she was very, very angry. But not as angry as Mablung. He surged to his feet, pulled Túrin away with great force, and slapped his husband across the face.

“How dare you?” He, Finduilas and Gwindor demanded in one voice. “How dare you do that to him, after everything?” Even if Finduilas didn’t love Túrin, she knew how wrong this was.

Again, Túrin intervened. His broad hand stopped Mablung from striking again with a simple touch on the shoulder.

For Mablung’s ears alone, although they all heard, he said, “I know what it takes to inflict that sort of violence upon yourself. I would never have asked any differently of him.”

Finduilas was so tired, and so angry, and had forgotten this aspect of goodness, of self-sacrifice, that lived within Túrin. Body not entirely her own, but minds resolved at the conclusion, she and Gwindor managed to stand, to cross this segment of the battlefield with trembling steps, and pull both Beleg and Túrin close as she could. Beleg’s skin was still cold as death. The light in his eyes had been dimmed by all the darkness he’d seen, but as he folded in on himself to bury his face in Finduilas’s hair, she was struck by the realization that it was going to be alright. Everything was going to be alright. Mablung’s arms closed around them. Through his eyes, they watched Nerdanel move of her own volition, and then stumble. Fëanor was at her side without ever moving, steadying her shoulders.

“I’m sorry,” his lips read, though his words were but a whisper. “I’m so sorry.”

Then they were kissing, Nerdanel searching his body with her hands. The light shone brighter than ever, stretching out to encompass her. Tendrils of fire stretched across her body, and then dove inside, lighting up her veins and turns her copper hair to threads of molten metal. Where her body was scraped and bruised, it flared brighter, healing and wiping away the marks. When Fëanor pulled away, the light dimmed but didn’t fade entirely.

After everything settled, and everyone said their piece to those they loved, Námo took the stand. Or, rather, he sat before them, powerful and regal even without trying to be. Irmo and Nienna had appeared from somewhere, and were watching from a distance, arm in arm. She was weeping, of course. He was still and watched his brother coldly.

Running a hand through his silver-gold hair, some of it falling out around his fingers, Námo told them, “It’s a long story, and a very short one.”

Slowly, each word falling from his lips like stone, he painted the picture for them:

Námo was a seer. Oldest and best of them. He had known that, some day, the walls of Morgoth’s prison would come down, and had known that when it did, he would be the first to fall. He’d searched the eventualities, combing through them, and had realized what Sauron intended to do. This was many thousands of years ago. Before most of the participants had even been born. Thus, all this time, Námo had been preparing.

“You could have told us,” Irmo hissed, through cold lips. “I would have helped you.”

His brother shook his head. “And then you might have ended up helping him. No. I needed him to come into my life and find himself friendless. I did everything to ensure that when I was replaced, the tools would already be in place to bring him down.”

Námo had begun plotting almost immediately. He’d sent Míriel to Vairë, sewing the seeds of the friendship that would motivate her to step away. He’d urged his sister’s dearest friend to go to Middle Earth and become invested in its politics. Quietly, in seemingly insignificant moments, he’d planted seeds. He’d discussed ‘fears of a potential escape’ with Aulë, letting him know how it might be done. He’d ‘begrudgingly allowed’ the Avari to form government without the valar. He’d freed enough elves to build a government, and kept enough to make the free ones angry. He’d alienated Ulmo from the rest of the valar, making him feel an outcast for loving Uinen and Ossë as equals. Every action calculated, every action cruel.

Every action successful.

“And so Sauron came,” he finished, “and I died, and you did what needed to be done.”

“But you forgot something,” said Beleg, from where he sat in Mablung’s lap, lover’s arms around his waist. “This world has its valar for a reason. It needs you. All of you. Coping without Melkor was stress enough for it. Without you, we can’t get our dead back. That is unacceptable.”

Beleg had died intentionally, and, in death, he’d grabbed the first person he was sure he could trust. Nerdanel, who loved her children well enough to act. Together, they’d gone, and had found the door. Eärendil was already waiting there. He had been as surprised to see them as they to see him.

In Beleg’s mind, Finduilas could see their conversation, could see Beleg pleading to be allowed to go, thinking of Elwing’s guilt if Eärendil was killed forever because of her. In return, she could hear Eärendil explaining that he was never meant to live forever, could hear him persuading Beleg. Finally, she watched him pass through. Even standing close to the door, holding it open, had tarnished Beleg and Nerdanel, had changed them. What passing through it had done to Eärendil, she couldn’t imagine. With goodbyes to be passed to his loved ones, he stepped beyond. Only Námo came back. Idril’s choked off tears pulled her back to reality.

“I can’t force him back,” Námo told her, oddly gentle. “I’m sorry.” Sundered mortals always had been the one thing to touch his cold, dead heart.

As if getting back to business, he turned to Fëanor. “And now here you are. A new Ainu, not just sent, but born here. You always thought you were Eru’s gift to elvenkind, but-”

Indis interrupted. “It makes sense. The world is being made anew. Melkor is gone. He will need to be replaced. His actions were evil, but his purpose never was. We need someone to control the fires of the earth, the frosts of the poles. The wolves and bats and the hidden, twisted places need a master.”

“That was the breaking of Arda,” Varda objected. “We can’t make those mistakes again. Least of all with him.” The identity of the ‘him’ was implicit, even without her pointing at Fëanor.

“Who says?” Maedhros spoke for the first time since the meeting had begun. “ ‘Melkor’ was Eru’s son, same as the rest of you. He had a purpose in the song. Mortals would say that there is evil in death, and in the unknowable sea, and in the predators of the woods, but those all have their role to play, and none of them were his creations. I know Morgoth. I know what his evil was. But do we really want an Arda without every one of his legacies?”

Fingolfin added, “there is beauty in the ice and the fires. We should know that better than anyone.”

They were right, damn them. Varda still looked skeptical.

Finduilas was a child of the most broken parts of this world. She was from a family made up of people who’d lost their homes, who’d come to a strange world beyond their knowledge. Her mother had lost everyone she’d ever known before coming to Nargothrond. Her father had given up his home for a war beyond his imagining. Her brother was an orphan and a bastard. In Varda’s perfect world, Finduilas would never have known him. He might never have been born.

“If we try to make a perfect world we’ll never get anywhere. All we can do is try to make it better than it was left to us.”

Everyone stared. Fëanor nodded at Finduilas, a slight smile tracing the curves of his lips. “I like that idea.” He clapped his hands forcefully, startling everyone. “No good craftsmanship ever started by waiting around,” he said.

They all knew what was to be done. One by one, they each lifted their voices and began to sing, of the beauty of the world and all the people in it. As everything was swept away, Finduilas found a calm baritone at her side, Túrin’s hand asking for permission at her wrist. Taking it in her own, Beleg’s in the other, she thought of her brother and began to sing. All around her, she could hear songs of the living, stories of the dead. Their chorus swelled, and Finduilas’s last sight in this world was Ingwion, appearing, remade, before his father. She knew what that meant as well as anyone. Raising her voice higher still, chest swelling with a last breath of air, she felt the minds of all those she loved in her own.

The world was made anew.

Chapter Text

The ground beneath her was hard, clay-like. Nerdanel, eyes still heavy with sleep, dug her fingers in, feeling the slight wetness of it beneath her nails. Perhaps, in this new life, she would work clay again. It had never been Nerdanel’s greatest gift, but there was merit to it, and it was an ancient art suited to the being of a new world.

She rubbed her eyes with the heels of her palms, trying not get dirt in them while she brushed away Irmo’s sand. Her lashes still felt heavy as she tore them away from one another. The sky above her was an ink-black canvas painted across with streaks of stars. As a child, Nerdanel had never seen the fullness of the galaxy. Instead, it had come only at her darkest hour, her lawfather murdered, her husband and sons gone. Now, finally, she could appreciate its majesty. She exhaled in wonder, watching her breath fog in the night air. Each individual star was a different colour; some patterns seemed not to be stars at all, streaks of green and violet painting the sky. Nerdanel watched them and the maiar who laid them dance above the few branches that jutted into the clearing where she lay.

“They’re more than we ever imagined they could be,” whispered Fëanor, the same soft tone he’d used when one of their sons had just barely fallen asleep. Nerdanel pushed herself up on her elbows to see him, sitting against the base of a tall oak. If not for the dimmed silmaril that pulsed in the centre of his chest, the streaks of ethereal light in his hair, he might have been her father’s irritating, egotistical, apprentice.

There was so much to say. “Yes.”

He was wearing a jacket, hands tucked into the sleeves as if he was cold. But he could not be cold now, and never would be again.

Nerdanel sat herself up fully, and then began to step carefully over the rest of the bodies in the clearing. Some were known to her- how tender, that Morifinwë and Amdirdis had sung themselves back into being wrapped together- while others were not. It seemed an odd mix of family, friends, and strangers. Others were missing entirely, though Nerdanel was sure they were somewhere in this reborn world, if only she could find them. Perhaps that was why they had been remade apart, to force different groups of elves together again.

She leant against the tree at Fëanor’s side, wanting to lean into the warmth of his body but unsure how. Wordlessly, he raised a hand, revealing the stone nestled in the palm, and held a small flame out to her. It was hot, but not all too bright.

“How are you?” Asked Nerdanel, finally finding her tongue.

Fëanor shrugged. “I think you mean, ‘what are you?’” He wasn’t wrong, exactly. “I think I’m what I was born to be, maybe. Not to be arrogant, exactly, but it does make sense. You know better than anyone that I was never quite… right.”

“No, you weren’t. I hardly minded.”

They finally leaned together, Nerdanel placing her head on his shoulder. He still ran hot.

“I’m sorry,” he said, not for the first time. “You never should have had to suffer any of it.”

She took his hand, flame extinguishing at her touch. The jewel was smooth against the centre of her palm. That would take some getting used to. “You did a monstrous thing. The consequences far, far outweighed anything you could have done, to anyone. What Námo did was far worse again.”

If anyone deserved her hatred, it was the Lord of Death, but she did not have this in her heart. Instead, she remembered the sight of him coming back through the door, fëa weak and fluttering like a dying butterfly. He’d paid his debts already, a punishment of his own devising.

They were silent awhile, fingers woven together as Vairë’s tapestry. This new Fëanor had different callouses as well as the stone, different scars. The mark where he’d burned himself on a hot coal within the first week of their meeting was gone, as was the scar from the first blade he’d ever fashioned.

“You haven’t even seen all the children yet.” He sounded unspeakably sad over the fact.

She hadn’t. Morifinwë lay before them, of course, and Curufinwë, face pressed into the ground. He’d always had an odd habit of sleeping on his stomach, so totally ingrained that he was reborn to it.

“How are they?”

Fëanor smiled, fond and proud. “Well. They’re well. There’s so much for you to see.”

How to broach the topic? “Would you show me?”

Fëanor stiffened against her. Nerdanel found her breath bated. Though she knew it was wrong, she found that she wanted nothing more than for things to be as they once were, without marring from grief and loss. Indeed, in this remade world, that should have been possible, but something told her it was not. After all, the bonds of their marriage were still absent, as if Fëanor was dead instead of sitting at her side.

Voice barely a ghost of a whisper, he breathed, “do you want everything that would entail?”

“What do you mean by that?” She asked, hoping it was nothing sinister.

His hand withdrew from hers, and, pushing himself off the tree, Fëanor came around to kneel in front of her like a penitent. He folded his gifted, enchanted hands in his lap. She could not help but find him beautiful. Though he barely resembled the elf she had married, glowing as he was with barely-contained power, hair and eyes transformed from that which she had known, there was familiarity in him also. He had the same proud cheekbones, the same serious mouth and trickster’s jaw.

“I mean…” It was unlike Fëanor to be robbed of words, which were the one thing he never seemed to lose. “The silmarils, their power… it doesn’t want to just be mine. It wants to spread itself out. Parts of it are already yours, have always been yours. You know that.” Parts of them were hers, because parts of them were of Fëanor, and parts of him were hers. “There’s a balance to the way Arda was made. I know that now. Every one of the ainur had their purpose. It is not just Morgoth who needs to be replaced.”

Her heart beat fast, like a bored child’s tapping foot, replete with nervous energy. “Aulë?”

“He has his father’s favour yet. Mairon, I meant, and Curunír and all the others who fell with Morgoth. Those who were corrupted against their volition have been remade, but the rest are evermore gone from this sphere.”

He was asking her to be a maiar. “Who would I serve?”

Slowly shifting so his legs were crossed, Fëanor began to speak. He told her of his time with Ulmo, who, unique among the valar, treated his principal maiar as equals, never as servants. Whose maiar were his lovers. Still, he was tentative, and though what he was offering was clear, he also spoke of how Aulë would need replacements for his own lost children.

“I had thought Celebrimbor,” Fëanor told her, “there’s a certain justice in that, I think, and he more than deserves it. But that still leaves a position open for you, if you want it. I could give you that which is yours and you may use it as you will.”

She had loved her time with Aulë, but, “he will have to find somebody else.”

Waiting for confirmation, she reached out a hand to just above the surface of his hair. He let her touch him, and slowly leaned in to complete the gesture, lips catching on hers in a sensual, earnest way. The cascading light faded as his jewel-bright eyes slid closed. Their lips met, and as Fëanor move onto his knees to kiss her more deeply, they began to allow their bond to be made anew. Nerdanel became more than what she was. Bark dug into her back, and fire and ice chased each other through her veins. Ultimately the ice won out, and the freezing magic slid down each of her limbs before curling in her chest like a cat in the sun. As Fëanor pulled back, Nerdanel raised her hands and stared at the layer of crystalline ice that coated her from head to toe. Where Fëanor had lived his destiny as a being of fire, she had inherited Melkor’s other greatest contribution. With care, she brushed her fingers through the air, letting snow fall from them. Under the ice, a dim light glowed, but it was more contained and natural than Fëanor’s, like a firefly in a jar. Much like the firefly, it seemed to move across her skin as she watched, tracing the lines of veins and arteries. Fëanor watched it too.

“Remarkable,” he whispered, and she had loved him long enough to know the words were a sign of deep affection.

Now that she was this, fully, she could feel the rest of her kind, a dim awareness of Manwë in the air and Varda overhead, both still hesitant at the presence of their new, strange, kindred. In contrast, Yavanna and Aulë, entwined in roots and earth, were steady, willing to accept these new creatures. After all, both of them were more than familiar with life that fell outside the scope of the original songs and plans. Nerdanel reached a tendril of thought out to them in greeting, careful not to freeze the ground beneath her feet. They returned the gesture with a soft tremble. A single leaf tumbled down to land in her hair.

The new song of Arda thrummed in all of it. She’d touched the fabric of the old song relatively rarely in her first life- when her children were born and when they died- and had never felt it so deeply as this. Every elf was aware of the music, of course, but there was a difference between that and reaching a hand into its ceaseless stream, pulling out some future knowledge or past intent. Now, as a maia, she could feel each of its component parts thrumming through her body. There was the deep singing of dwarves, making up the hidden places of the world, sharing the hope for new discovery and mastery. There was Vána and her maiar, warbling on the cycles of the year. She reached deeper and felt individual voices. There was Maglor, singing in a tongue she did not know, whose words were tied to remembrance of the lost world, weaving into the song that it would not be forgotten.

“Careful,” Fëanor warned, and pulled her back. “It is not for us to know what each of us brought to the song. We shall see how it comes to harmonize in time.”

What odd wisdom. And yet, now that she was outside the song again, she felt something else. The world waited like a dancer about to leap, energy as a haze in the air, ready for more maiar. To take into themselves the leftover power of Melkor’s maiar. There were hundreds of small maiar to each of the valar, with fields so insignificant as to be unnoticed. There was a maia in every river basin. There were dozens to stir the currents of the wind. Varda’s handmaidens scattered stars like Vána’s did petals. Relatively few of them were sentient, even of those who had served Melkor, and these were the ones who would be replaced. Those who had once served him, and had become Balrogs and elder dragons, who represented the ancient and terrible places of cold and heat. The power wanted to be held.

“Who will you choose?” Nerdanel asked, knowing without knowing how she knew that Fëanor was the one responsible for this choice.

Reaching out, he showed her glimpses. Artanis Nerwen, a powerful witch with a good sense of what the limits of that power should be. She had shown him that the Silmarils were far more than they had ever been intended to be. Nimloth of Doriath, if she wanted it, for her contradictory abilities to hang on to loss and forgive the takers. He remembered for Nerdanel how she had scolded him as family. She smiled at it. If she didn’t want the responsibility, then perhaps Elrond Peredhel, who knew already what it was to be not-quite-an-elf. Nerdanel, who had rarely seen Peredhel, was surprised to catch glimpses of Maedhros and Maglor’s deep affection for him. And then, either way, Fëanor thought of a girl who was a stranger to Nerdanel.

His feelings for her were steady, the same solid love that he felt for their children.

“Who is she?” Nerdanel said aloud, to give him the chance to put it into words.

“Tauriel is her name,” said Fëanor, and then, giving voice to what Nerdanel already knew, he added, “she’s… I think if we’d ever had a daughter, I think she would have been like Tauriel. I hope so, any how. She’s selfless, for her people and all the peoples of the world, clever and empathetic. She reminds me of you.”

“You love her.”

It was a long time since Fëanor had come to love someone. In Nerdanel’s memory, he had loved his father, her, their children, and Teleperinquar. Nobody else. Now here he was, loving people who shared none of his blood, people she’d never even heard of. There was no jealousy in her heart, only pride.

“I love so many of them,” Fëanor whispered, and showed her his brothers and Lalwen, his nieces and nephews. Nimloth and Tauriel, Elrond and his family. He showed her the utter devastation that had coursed through his mind when he had thought Maedhros and Fingolfin both lost to him. He showed her the unparalleled joy of the last wedding in Arda Marred, of the dancing and singing, of laughing and confident touch, and she took into her heart that this was what their family had become. It was something new and strange, but also something made whole from all its broken pieces. Like Arda itself. Fëanor wanted so badly for Nerdanel to be part of it, too.

With a thrill coursing through her veins, Nerdanel said, “I can’t wait,” and kissed him again.

Around them, the world came alive.