Aule's Dilemma by Uvatha the Horseman  

Aule's Decision

The Mansions of Aulë - Present Day (TA 3018)

After giving the note to Yavanna to deliver, Aulë returned to the Vault. He lit the forge, then gathered up all the notes he'd made when trying to figure out how the Ring was made.

He fed loose sheets of paper into the fire one by one: pages of writing, calculations, diagrams, procedures, lists. It was interesting to see some of his early ideas that hadn't panned out, and also the finished documentation of things that had, recorded with more care and in neater handwriting.

After the loose sheets were gone, he burned the larger items: the long scroll with the carefully drawn schematic and the notebook he'd kept throughout the whole process.

One by one, the papers caught, flared up, and blackened around the edges. The notebook didn't burn easily. He had to lift the pages with a fire rake to help them catch and be consumed, one at a time. When he was done, everything he's learned about the Ring and carefully recorded had been reduced to ash.

The Ring was still sitting on his desk. Aulë had no idea what to do with it.

His first thought was to keep it in the strongbox which held the stores of gold, mithril, and precious gems used for jewelry. It was double-locked and bolted to the floor, but opened every time someone needed precious metals for a tiara or brooch.

One drawer in his desk held short bits of string, souvenirs from long-ago festivals, and other small tools he no longer had a use for. He opened the drawer and chucked the leather bag far to the back, where it joined small-denomination coins and a few festival souvenirs he particularly liked: seashells, pewter charms, and a few brightly colored glass beads that were too nice not to keep..

A few days later, Lord Manwë entered the Forge. Aulë put down his hammer and prepared himself for the ass-chewing of his life. Manwë looked pleased. "You did it! I just heard that the volcano went out, and the invasion of Gondor fell apart. The armies of Orcs fell back beyond the Anduin and appear to have dispersed."

The note had reached Mairon, and he had heeded it. It was the first confirmation Aulë had heard.

"Well, I'll leave you be. I expect you're behind on your work after I dumped an unpleasant task like that on you."

As always happens when someone stops by to talk, the piece Aulë was working on cooled to grey-metal, too cold to work. He worked the bellows and laid the piece back on the coals. He watched the fire and realized that he'd gotten away with it.

He wouldn't tell anyone what he'd done, or to be exact, failed to do. Yavanna didn't know. She only knew he'd written to Mairon, but unless she'd lifted the seal, she didn't know what was in it. He hadn't told Eönwë, who had been Mairon's closest friend and would have liked to know he'd survived. If anyone asked him a direct question, he would avoid it.

If Lord Manwë asked him a direct question, Aulë resolved to answer truthfully. He would, if Manwë was angry with him and said, "Look at me," and if Aulë thought he already knew, then Aulë would confess, but not until.