Til We're on the Other Side by StarSpray  

Loosen your hands, let go and say good-bye.
Let the stars and songs go.
- “Stars, Songs, Faces” by Carl Sandburg

It was very dark under the trees. They had dropped their torches in their flight, and now the only light came from the stars that filtered through the thick boughs overhead, dim and wavering. Urwë tripped over a root, caught himself, and scooped up his brother, who was nearly too big to be carried like that now. It was only the second time Finwë had come out foraging with them, and of course this would happen—of course the Hunter would come, the Dark Rider on his steed with its terrible, heavy footfalls, and the deep-throated laughter that held no mirth, only malice. 

“Urwë, what’s—”

“Shh!” Urwë slid down an embankment and ducked under the roots of a tree that grew out of it, ancient and enormous. The space beneath was almost a small cave carved out of the bank, the soil damp and cool under them and at their backs, crumbling a little over their shoulders as they pressed into it. He curled around Finwë, pressing a hand over his mouth. “Be silent,” he breathed, as softly as possible, and felt Finwë nod. He uncovered Finwë’s mouth and pressed him against his chest instead. He could feel Finwë trembling under his hands. They both hardly dared to breathe as they heard the footfalls of the Hunter approaching.

Please, please, please, Urwë thought, praying to the stars or to the Creator that the Elders spoke of, or whatever might be listening. Please don’t let him find us. 

At first the Hunter had been no more than a story, just a whisper, a rumor that mothers scolded their children for spreading, saying there were many dangers in the wide world and if someone ventured too far and did not come back—that was terrible, but accidents happened, and there were many beasts that might hunt the Quendi as well as other creatures. Then more started to go missing, and from closer to home. The Elders had since forbidden anyone to venture forth alone, and so some had come back—alive, together, but wounded or with tales of the Dark Rider on his fell steed with burning eyes, of the Hunter whose darts found their marks through even the deepest of shadows. Some had perished from those wounds, which festered with poisons none of their healers recognized or knew how to treat. 

Most who the Hunter found, though, just never came back. 

Please let us make it back. Please, please, please.

The footsteps halted far too close to their hiding place. Urwë tightened his arms around Finwë. The darkness deepened around them, and he felt a chill creep down his spine. He wondered if this was what Morwë had seen before he had vanished with their father. He wondered if Lindo, too, had been taken, or if he had managed to escape in another direction. 

He wondered what their mother would think if none of them came back. 

Slowly, the darkness receded, as did the footsteps of the Hunter. Urwë did not move for a long time. Neither did Finwë. Only when the usual sounds of the wood started to return did Urwë exhale, and loosen his grip. He closed his eyes as they burned with the tears of sudden certainty that Lindo would not be returning home. And in spite of the reprieve they had been given he felt, also, that he would not see the shining waters of Cuiviénen under the stars either. 

But in his mind’s eye he glimpsed, as though he were dreaming, Finwë grown and striding fearlessly forward through the twilit world, spear in hand, a great host of their people behind him. A strange light burned in his eyes—he was fierce and proud, and Urwë wished, desperately, that he might live to see his little brother grow into someone so great. 

“When we leave this place,” he whispered into Finwë’s ear, “we need to run, and you cannot look back. Understand?”

“What about Lindo?” Finwë whispered back. He would be strong and fierce, someday, but he was still young now, all awkward limbs that he hadn’t yet grown into, with a voice that cracked, not yet come into the power he would one day wield in his songs.

“Let me worry about Lindo,” Urwë said, voice breaking on their brother’s name. “You just run, all right?” He leaned down to press their foreheads together. “Do not be afraid,” he whispered. “The Hunter will not catch you—he’ll never even come close, Finwë. You’ll make it home and you’ll grow up to do incredible things.”

“Urwë—”

“I love you. Don’t look back. Promise me.”

“But—”

“Promise, Finwë.”

“I promise,” Finwë whispered.

Urwë waited a little longer, until he could be sure that the way was clear. Then he carefully unfolded himself and slipped out from under the roots, holding tightly to Finwë’s hand as he crawled after him. They paused for a moment, listening hard. Then Urwë rose to his feet and urged Finwë ahead. They ran, silent through the trees, passing through patches of dim starlight and at times pausing in the shadows, listening hard. 

It was when more familiar trees opened up ahead of them, growing wider apart to let in more starlight, where well-trodden paths could be found, that something crashed through the brush behind them. Something snarled, almost sounding like speech, and Urwë cried, “Run, Finwë!” Finwë obeyed immediately, and true to his promise he didn’t look back, running ahead as swift and light-footed as a deer. As Urwë ran after him he fumbled at his belt for his knife, but it fell to the ground when something slammed into him from behind. As he fell he saw Finwë slow, but only for a second before he sped up again, disappearing down the path toward the way home. Urwë twisted, kicking and trying to hit back the thing that had him, biting back a cry as teeth sank into his shoulder, and something else sliced down his side, leaving a trail of burning pain behind that spread until he couldn’t move any of his limbs to even try to fight back anymore.

The last thing he saw before everything went dark was the stars, glinting in between the boughs high over his head. 

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Will there really be a morning?
Is there such a thing as day?
Could I see it from the mountains
If I were as tall as they?
- “Will there really be a morning?” by Emily Dickinson

- - 

Death had been strange, a kind of halfway existence, dreamlike and hazy, a sudden cessation of the agonies of his last hours—and now life was waking up, except it hurt again, lungs inflating for the first time, heart lurching into motion, the grass against Urwë’s skin soft and sharp at once. The air had a bite to it that burned his nose, and the smell—he didn’t know what he was smelling. Grass and damp earth but also—flowers? There had been a few flowers that bloomed in the starlight at home, but their scents had been faint and nothing at all like this. 

He opened his eyes to a sky tinged silver-blue. It was so bright, but there were no stars. Where were the stars? Fear drove him up, palms sinking into the springy grass around him, and he found himself in fact surrounded by flowers. The colors were all wrong. There were too many of them. It was too bright and nothing looked right and—

“Urwë?”

Urwë twisted around and nearly fell over. “Lindo!” He was there, his brother, alive and whole and looking just as bewildered as Urwë felt. It took a second to make his limbs work, and then he scrambled through the flowers to throw his arms around Lindo’s shoulders, and Lindo buried his face in Urwë’s hair. They were both naked and the air was cool enough that it would be uncomfortable soon, but that didn’t matter because they were alive and he had his brother back. 

“Where are we?” Lindo asked, voice muffled.

Someone had explained it to him, Urwë knew. Someone kind—there had been a woman who never stopped weeping, and there had been a man with a stern face that belied the gentleness with which he had spoken. One of them, or perhaps it had been someone else, had told him that he would return to life, that death was not the end for the Quendi—that he would be brought back not in the land of his birth but in a brighter place, where the Dark Rider could not harm him, where he would be safe, where he would see his family…

It felt like a dream, still. He raised his head and saw a great wall rising up before them at the top of the gentle hillside on which they sat. At its base was a door, small and unassuming, plain dark wood set into the severe grey stone. 

Something was different, though. The light had dimmed in the few minutes that Urwë had not been paying attention, and something about it made dread coil in his stomach. Lindo also raised his head, and at that time someone emerged from the wood at the bottom of the hill. He was clad in soft grey, and carried a bundle of cloth in his arms. He glanced skyward and then hurried up the hillside. “Urwë and Lindo, yes?” he said, smiling at them as he knelt down beside them. “I am Olórin—here, you must be feeling a chill by now.” The cloth in his hands were clothes, soft robes of a fabric Urwë had never seen or felt before, soft and smooth over his still-tender skin, in a loose style unlike anything he had worn before. “It will be a bit of a shock, of course,” Olórin went on, “to come back to life so suddenly, and so far from the lands you knew. I am sorry for it. But—” The light changed again, turning a sickly yellow-green color, and Olórin turned away from them. He murmured something Urwë did not understand, and then reached for them. “Come. I’m so sorry, we cannot go as slowly as we should.”

“What’s happening?” Lindo asked as he stumbled to his feet. Once they were standing he reached for Urwë, who gripped his hand tightly.

“I don’t know,” Olórin said, “but—”

And then the light went out. 

Lindo pressed closer to Urwë, who wrapped his arms around him and looked up, seeking for the stars as he always had—but there were none. It was wrong—there should be stars in the sky, not just an empty expanse of darkness. 

After a moment Urwë realized that there was still light, of a kind—Olórin shone softly, as though he himself were a distant star, though he stood right in front of them. He held out his hands again. “Come with me. We must hurry—”

“Not into the wood!” Lindo protested, shrinking back against Urwë.

“The wood is safer than the open,” said Olórin. His expression had been cheerful and kindly. It remained kindly, but now he was very grave, and if Urwë was not mistaken he was as afraid as they were. “Something terrible has happened to the Trees—to Telperion and Laurelin—but they are far from here. Please, you must trust me. I am a servant of Lady Nienna, here to keep you safe.”

There was no choice but to trust him. He reminded Urwë of the tearful lady from the Halls, who had been so unfailingly kind. So he reached out and grasped Olórin’s hand, finding it warm and strong. Lindo held onto Urwë as they made their way down the hillside and under the trees. It was very dark there—but it was dark everywhere, and Olórin seemed to grow a little brighter, revealing the path before their feet, well-trodden and with nothing to trip them up. They had to stop several times so Lindo and Urwë could rest—their bodies were too new, too unused to doing so much at once. Olórin apologized over and over again, and promised they would be able to rest as much as they needed or wanted when they reached the shores of Lórellin. 

Other beings like Olórin were there too—some appearing out of the air, or vanishing like shimmering mist on a nonexistent breeze, all of them shining gently in the gloom. They were not Elves, Urwë realized only belatedly. They were something else—but he did not feel afraid of them. Olórin was kind, and these others seemed very much like him. There were other Elves there too, older than Urwë and Lindo but with a strange light shining in their eyes that was very like the light that had filled the sky until the world had all fallen to darkness, and when they tried to speak to one another they found the words all wrong. 

“You have been in the Halls for a very long time, I’m afraid,” Olórin told them. He bade them sit on a blanket spread over the grass near the lake shore, and then brought two more to wrap around their shoulders, for it had grown cold in the dark. “The tongues of your peoples have changed quite a lot in the intervening years. That is one of the things I am here to help you with—or it should be. I’m afraid all of that will have to wait until we can be sure it’s safe. Are you hungry? You must be hungry—these bodies have never eaten at all before!”

The food was strange, but good—nothing that Urwë had names for, but which Olórin taught them, all in the strange new language that held echoes of their own tongue—just enough to make it easy to learn. Someone had kindled fires along the lakeside, and if the sky had not been utterly black, Urwë might have been able to imagine them back by the waters he knew—back home. He missed, suddenly and sharply, his parents and his other brothers—Morwë who had been lost long before he and Lindo had been taken, and Finwë who had escaped at the last. 

There was little to do as they waited. Time passed—how much was impossible to tell—and Olórin filled it with stories. He told them of the great battles between the Dark Rider and the Valar, his brethren—those who ruled these lands and who had promised the Quendi their protection should they cross the world to join them. He explained who the Valar were, and told them of the Creator and of the Great Music sung before the world was ever made. Urwë found then that he understood more than he had thought—for he had always been able to hear it, the echoes of that Music that lived still in the waters at home. When he listened hard he could hear a whisper of them in this lake, too, that Olórin called Lórellin, in the midst of the Gardens of Lórien, where the Vala Irmo had his domain, and Estë his wife the healer, and where Nienna came, the weeping lady, to comfort those who were sick at heart. 

Those were all very pretty stories, but the darkness remained—the Trees that Olórin spoke of were gone, and something more was at work, hiding the stars. Urwë kept looking up, kept searching for anything, even the smallest glimmer of their light, but until a great wind came with driving rain that had them all fleeing to the shelter of the trees, there was nothing. Urwë held onto Lindo as they sheltered between the roots of an enormous beech, and thought with a sick feeling in his stomach of the roots where he and Finwë had hidden themselves when the Hunter had come. 

Then the rain passed and the clouds parted, and a cry went up from the other Elves, for the stars were back. Urwë stepped out into the open with Lindo, both of them blinking up at the brilliant spill of them across the dark sky. Relief warred with fear in him as that particular certainty grew in his heart—the same kind of certainty that had told him long ago he would never make it home. Something terrible had happened. Worse than the destruction of the Trees. Urwë cared nothing for Laurelin or Telperion, however beautiful they were supposed to be. The Hunter had escaped his bonds and he had done something else—and whatever Olórin said of the Valar, they had either chosen not to or had not been able to stop him.

Urwë was young, still—younger even than the other Elves there who had been born in these lands while his spirit had dreamed in Mandos. But he knew better than to ignore the misgivings of his heart. “What have you not told us?” he asked Olórin when he came to them. “There is something you haven’t shared with us—you spoke before of leaders among our own people who led the way here. Who were they? What are they doing now?”

“We were told that we might find our own kin here,” Lindo added. “Did the lady only mean we would find each other?”

Olórin face was very grave. “Finwë, Ingwë, and Elwë were the three who came with Oromë to see Aman for themselves, and who urged the Eldar to follow them back afterward,” he said. “That was long ago, now, and since Melkor’s release—he feigned his repentance and took the chance he found to sow discord among the Noldor in particular—among your brother Finwë’s people. His sons have quarreled, and when one was exiled, Finwë went with him, feeling that the Valar had overstepped. I cannot say whether or not that is true—I have not been to Tirion of late, and I know very little of what has been happening. But Finwë’s exile is why he was not here to meet you at the doors of Mandos. We had thought to wait a little for peace to settle, perhaps for Fëanáro’s exile to come to its conclusion, before we sent for him. It was quite shocking for you already, returning to life in a strange land, and we thought it would be better if you were able to grow more comfortable, both in life again and here in Valinor, before we gave all three of you such another shock—for he is so much older now, than you are. He is a father and grandfather, you know, as well as king of the Noldor.”

“I don’t care about any of that,” said Urwë. Finwë was alive, and he had grown up to do incredible things, just as Urwë had foreseen. “Where is he? Can we go to him? If the Hunter is gone—”

“You should not leave Lórien yet,” said Olórin. “I will send for Finwë as soon as may be, but I do not know what is happening in the north, in Valmar or by Ezellohar—”

“I don’t care!” Urwë said. “If Finwë is—”

“Urwë.” Olórin reached for his hands, and met his gaze. “I promise, I will take you to your brother as soon as I can. In the meantime, you need to rest and build up your strength. Your spirits do not yet sit as firmly in these bodies as they should. You need time.”

Urwë did not want to wait. He didn’t care about his body or his spirit—he cared about his brother. A Finwë who was older than Urwë or Lindo—older than Morwë, maybe even older than their father—was so hard to imagine, but that didn’t matter. Not if he was there.

News came in bits and pieces, spoken in the strange new tongue of that land. Urwë was learning but not as quickly as he wished. He heard many strange words, sprinkled with ones he knew—he heard Finwë’s name often, and the word for son, or sons. He heard the word Noldor, and the word for east. “What is happening?” he kept asking Olórin, but Olórin only ever shook his head. The news wasn’t real news yet, it was only rumor, and until he knew for sure he said he would not frighten them with mere possibilities. 

In the end the real news did not come from Olórin, but from Lady Nienna. She and Estë arrived, clad in grey, Nienna in her veils. Urwë knew her immediately, but if he had been disposed to trust the Valar before, that had been fading quickly. It was they who had released the Hunter, and they who had failed to keep these lands safe as they had promised the Quendi long ago. 

Then he learned what had really happened. The Trees were withered—and Finwë slain. “No,” he said, even before Nienna finished speaking. He scrambled to his feet, Lindo beside him. “No, no—that can’t be! He wasn't supposed to be caught! He ran and he escaped! He was safe!”

“Didn’t you know what the Hunter did?” Lindo asked her. “Didn’t you know that he—” He spoke more softly than Urwë, and was shaking all over with the memory of it. “Why did you ever let him go?”

“We do know what he has done,” Nienna said. She sat with her hands clasped loosely on her lap, looking up at them with tears still falling steadily from her eyes. But if someone was always weeping, by their very nature, Urwë wondered if it really meant anything. When he looked at her now all he saw was someone akin to the Hunter, of the same order but clearly not as strong. She went on, “He was not always as he is now. He had a chance to choose otherwise, to come back to us—our brother who we had lost, and mourned, and missed.”

“But he didn’t, and now we must mourn our brother,” Urwë said bitterly. 

He and Lindo retreated, away from the other Elves, away from Nienna and Olórin and the other strange spirit-beings. “What do we do now?” Lindo asked. He stumbled a little as they waded into the cool waters of the lake. Tiny silver fish darted around their feet, shimmering in the starlight.

Urwë shook his head, trying to think. It was so hard, past the sick feeling in his stomach and the way his lungs didn’t want to work anymore. Finwë was dead. Finwë had been slain—Melkor, the Hunter, the Dark Rider—he’d gotten to him in the end. “He’ll come back someday,” Urwë said. “We did.”

“I don’t think everyone does, though,” Lindo whispered. “I think—the two of us, I think we were the lucky ones.”

“Finwë will,” Urwë said, unsure if he was trying to convince himself or Lindo. “He wasn’t—he was killed, but he wasn’t taken.” He stared down at the shadows of their reflections in the water and thought of other waters that they would never see again. He thought of their mother, and wondered what had happened to her—if she were here, surely Olórin or Nienna would have told them? His eyes burned, and the tears fell to send tiny ripples across their shadows. 

And in the meantime… “I don’t know,” Urwë said finally. “I don’t know what to do.” 

“Finwë had a family of his own,” Lindo said after a moment. “Children—but there is trouble among them, Olórin said. Losing Finwë will only make it worse, I fear. They will not want to be burdened with two uncles young enough to be their own nephews, who can barely speak their language.”

Urwë bent down and splashed water over his face. It was cool and fresh—at least that was the same. At least there were really still stars. “We could make our own way,” he said. “It did not sound to me as though there are many Quendi living in the west. If the Dark Rider is really gone, and none of his servants are left in these lands—then there’s nothing to fear.”

“Will they let us?” Lindo asked softly.

“If they’re really as different from—from their brother—as they say they are, why wouldn’t they?”

“Olórin is different,” Lindo said after a moment. “I trust him. He would not tell us to stay here if he did not really think it would help us. I will follow you anywhere, you know that, but let us wait a while. Have you seen anything?”

Lindo was the only person Urwë had ever told of the fact that he saw things, sometimes, before they came to pass. There had been others among their elders with such gifts—but though they were respected they were often burdened, both by the visions and by the expectations that came with them. He did not feel as wise as those elders had been. 

“No,” Urwë said after a moment. “The last time I was shown anything—I saw Finwë, leading our people…somewhere. He had a light in his eyes like the Quendi do here. I suppose that vision did come to pass, but I was also…” He turned and stepped back out of the water. They sat on the grassy shore and Lindo leaned against him, steady and warm. “I was so sure that he would be all right. That the Dark Rider would never, ever touch him.” His eyes burned again, and he leaned forward to bury his face in his arms as it really hit him that Finwë was gone. He had been alone; they hadn’t been there, and he had done so many incredible things—and death had been his reward. 

Lindo wrapped his arms around Urwë and wept with him. Around them the breeze whispered through the reeds, and a strange bird called out from across the water, plaintive and lonely, as though it mourned with them their brothers and their parents and the lives they should have lived but hadn’t, and everything else that had been stolen from them.

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So listen to the darkness, listen to the patterns
Listen to the breathing sea
Listen to the colors, carry them inside you
They will bring you back to me
Listen to the sirens, listen to the heartbeat
Listen to the turning tide
Listen to the murmurs, carry them inside you
‘til we’re on the other side
In the breaking light
- “The Breaking Light” by Vienna Teng

- - 

Eventually, the light returned—or at least new ones were made. First the Moon, soft and silver, then the Sun, blazing and warm. With the first sunrise it was as though the whole world breathed a sigh of relief. Urwë realized only then just how worried Olórin and his folk had been, for Olórin came to them with much easier smiles and an eagerness to teach them whatever they wished to learn. Before, his lessons—mostly in language and tales of their people’s history—had felt half-hearted, rote, something he did because they needed to fill the time and because it was his duty. 

Now that the lands were safe and no longer dark, Olórin brightened too. He remained kind but he also began to laugh more, to tease them and make jokes, and Urwë found himself laughing with him even when he didn’t mean to. 

Not everything was so bright, though. Word trickled in from the outside world of the rebellion of the Noldor, of nearly all Finwë’s children marching away east—and of the violence that broke out in Alqualondë, so that they left Valinor not only angry and grieving, but laid under a heavy doom as well. 

Even if they did desire to go to Tirion, there was no one left to meet them. Just as well that neither Urwë nor Lindo wanted to turn eastward. Now that there was light again, and the world seemed to be opening up like a flower in the morning, and fear was at last ebbing away, Urwë was eager to be gone. Lindo’s eyes too brightened whenever they spoke of their plans, at the thought of seeing new lands and going where few—perhaps none—had walked before. When they told Olórin what they intended, he smiled at them and promised to make sure they had what they needed when they were ready to depart. 

Before they left, Nienna came to them again—with more ill news. They knew by now the fraught tale of Finwë and his wives, of Míriel who had faded and died and of Indis who yet lived. Lindo had disappeared for three days after learning of the judgment passed that would keep Míriel in Mandos forever, and Urwë had felt the unfairness of it too. What then would become of those whose spouses had married again before they ever knew of Mandos—before anyone could have known that death was not the end? They had not quite dared to ask Nienna, and Olórin had not had answers—but it was hard to be angry with him over it, when it had not been his decision and he was so willing to admit that he had no real explanations. Now, Nienna told them the newest ill that had come of the judgment.

Finwë would not return. He had fought the Enemy hard, but he had been alone, and his death had been swift but not clean, or painless. It would be years uncounted before he would heal enough for it to be possible to return—but he had also chosen not to, so that according to the statute Míriel might return to life herself. 

Urwë couldn’t be angry at Finwë for such a choice—it was made out of love, and his brother had always loved both freely and fiercely—but he could not do more than bow his head to Nienna as she took her leave, gritting his teeth against the furious words that wanted to escape. If the Valar had not passed the statute to begin with, it would not be a matter of if but when both Finwë and Míriel returned, and Urwë did not think he would ever forgive them that, no matter how good their intentions or how kind they otherwise were. 

It also meant there was nothing at all to keep them in the east. West of Lórien the lands were wide open and pathless, at times roamed by Elves but never settled. They passed out of the Gardens of Lórien into the pathless wilderness of Valinor, crossing wide open grasslands and through forests both young and old beyond reckoning. Sometimes they stopped in one place for a year, perhaps two or ten; most often they kept moving, eager to see all there was to see now that there was nothing holding them back. Grief shadowed them, for those they would never see again, but Urwë was glad to follow Lindo into new delights, making up names for the new flowers and creatures and trees they came across, and naming the rivers and streams that they followed back to their headwaters in hills and mountains. They abandoned Quenya for their own tongue, for the most part, though as the years passed they met other travelers—wandering Vanyar, mostly—and so it was impractical to forget it entirely.

Then, little by little, other Avari began to venture west. 

These Avari were those who remembered the Great Journey and who had chosen to remain behind—or their descendants—unlike Urwë and Lindo who had adopted the name later, as a rejection of the Valar only after they found themselves in Valinor. The world had grown only a little less dangerous after Melkor’s imprisonment, for he had had many servants—and the world itself was not without its own dangers. Those who returned to life were not resentful of being forced to come to a place they had turned from, exactly, but they had no desire to rejoin the Eldar in the east. Those who had been born after the Journey and the sunderings were excited for new lands to explore, but felt little kinship with the Eldar and so rarely ventured back there. Many took up wandering. Others settled, building sturdy homes of wood and stone, and tilling fields, and trying to rebuild something of what they had lost. 

Eventually, Urwë and Lindo agreed that they were weary of wandering, and joined with one of the towns, building a house of their own near the edge of the woods on its border and watching it grow, slowly, from a hamlet to a small but thriving city. No one knew who they were, there, except that they had been born beside Cuiviénen and come from Mandos after the Darkening. Urwë did not see a need to tell anyone that they had come at the very moment of the Darkening. No one knew, either, that they were kin to Finwë of the Noldor, or his infamous sons and grandsons, and both he and Lindo were glad to keep that a secret, too.

Olórin came to visit them at times, and both Lindo and Urwë eventually gained a reputation for wisdom because of it, for Olórin himself was wise and kind, and always willing to teach anything to anyone who asked him. He brought news, too, of the happenings in the east—on both sides of the Sundering Sea. If much of it was difficult to hear, especially after the War of Wrath came and went and it became known that all but one of Finwë’s children and grandchildren who had left for Middle-earth had died or been lost—well, Urwë grew skilled at hiding it until he was alone with his brother, when they both wept for the nieces and the nephews they had never known, and for the loss of all that Finwë had gained. 

When he learned that Melkor—Morgoth, the Hunter, the Dark Rider—had been thrown beyond the Gates of Night, never to return, Urwë took his bow and emptied his quiver over and over into a straw-stuffed target he set in a clearing deep in the woods, until it was shredded beyond repair and he could no longer lift his arms. When he turned away at last he found Lindo waiting. “If they had done that before—” Urwë began.

“I know,” Lindo said.

They spoke no more of it. They rarely even spoke of Finwë these days. It was too hard. More often than not his name stuck in Urwë’s throat, and so he had stopped trying. 

Time continued to pass. Lindo became a mighty singer among the Quendi of the west. Urwë threw himself into learning the land, to raising horses and hounds, to leading the great hunts held in the autumn to prepare for winter, and in learning the tongues of all the birds that he could. Sometimes he dreamed—flickering visions of a hazy future, of people he did not know but who shared the shape of Finwë’s chin or the silver-grey of his eyes, but he never knew what any of them meant, whether their futures, in or out of Mandos, were dark or bright.

Olórin came to visit one last time to tell them that he was leaving. “Leaving where?” Lindo asked. 

“East. Across the Sea—a handful of us are being sent. I do not particularly want to go, but both Manwë and Nienna have ordered it.” Olórin smiled when Urwë bristled. “No, don’t get angry, Urwë. I know your feelings, but they would not ask such a thing of me if they did not think I was not needed. I am not entirely willing but I am not unwilling, either, if you understand me. But I do not know when I will return, or if I will return, and so this may be farewell—”

Urwë blinked, and in the second that his eyes were closed he saw shadows and flames, and out of them rising a brilliant white light—like the star of hope, but brighter. “Farewell for now,” he said as he opened his eyes to see Olórin sitting before him, silver-haired and soft-eyed just as he had always been. The light in him remained faint and shimmering, far away and yet unveiled.

Olórin blinked at him, and then smiled. “I hope so!” he said. “Farewell for now, then.”

“You really think he’ll come back?” Lindo asked as they watched Olórin walk away down the road a little while later. Dusk was coming on, and the first stars glimmered in the east. One of them was the star of hope, the jewel that their nephew had made long ago. 

Urwë glanced at it and then away. “Yes, I do.”

Time kept passing, the years rolling one into another in a blur of seasons and journeys and sunrises and sunsets. Urwë had long ago stopped counting them. They heard distant rumors of the return of those who had perished long ago, as Mandos began to empty a little at a time. Finwë’s children were all coming back, but there was as little reason to seek them out now as there had been when Urwë and Lindo had first come to these lands. Urwë remembered how strange and hard it was to return to life, and though they were returning to lands they had once known they were returning to find them changed; they had enough to worry about without two strange kinsmen appearing without warning. 

“Someday, though,” Lindo said one afternoon a few months after word came that Fingolfin had returned and taken up the crown in Tirion again. “We should go to Tirion someday. I would see where he lived. I would—I would hear him spoken of by those who knew and loved him best. Because we didn’t, you know. We didn’t know him as he was here. After he grew up. All there is now is…story. Legends and titles. None of that is really him.”

“I don’t know if I could bear it,” Urwë admitted quietly. 

“I couldn’t, if I went alone,” said Lindo. “But I do want to—to have something of him, to walk where he walked and to see the things he made, the city that he helped to build. It’s more than we can ever have of Morwë.”

There were many in Mandos, Olórin had once told them, who might never heal enough to return to life. There were yet others who had either chosen or had been unable to answer the call upon their deaths. Which was their brother’s fate, or their father’s, or anyone else they had known—it was impossible to say. They were lucky enough, Urwë thought bitterly, to know where Finwë was, even if they would never see him again.

When Olórin finally returned to see them on an afternoon late in the summer, Urwë almost did not recognize him. That made Olórin laugh—and that sounded the same, though his voice was different, gruffer, more befitting his guise of an old bearded man. His eyes were dark but glinted with the same light that Urwë remembered—but brighter—and he wore too a ring, gold set with a deep red stone, that was an odd counterpoint to his slightly tattered grey cloak and blue broad-brimmed hat. “Olórin!” he exclaimed when Lindo greeted him. “I have not heard that name in a very long time. I am called Mithrandir these days, or perhaps Gandalf—other names I gained, too, in my travels, but those are the two that I have brought back with me.”

“When did you return—Mithrandir?” Lindo asked. “Yes, that suits you better now than Olórin would.”

Olórin—Mithrandir—grinned at them. “It certainly feels as though it does!” he said. “I was Gandalf the Grey for a very long time, and then circumstances changed, and I was Gandalf the White—but I’ve taken up the grey again, as you can see. I much prefer it. As for when—I returned with the other Ringbearers—with Elrond and Galadriel, and with Frodo and Bilbo. I’ve been busy—and I also had a bit of recovering to do myself, for I was quite weary by the time I took ship at last—but I am sorry not to have come visit you sooner.”

“That’s all right,” said Urwë as Lindo got out cups for tea. “It isn’t as though we’re going anywhere.”

“I hope you are going to the great feast next summer.”

Urwë and Lindo exchanged a glance. Messages had come from Ingwë, and from the great Vanyarin singer Elemmírë, with invitations to all and promises of celebration and cheer—a reuniting of all the kindreds, which Urwë supposed was a nice idea, though he remained skeptical of its success. “We hadn’t discussed it,” Lindo said finally. He had declined to join with the other singers who planned to participate in Elemmírë’s plans for a great song cycle, though he was one of the greatest singers among them. Urwë had not seriously thought of going at all. 

“Everyone will be there,” said Mithrandir. “And that includes your brother’s family—all of them, from his own sons and daughters to his several-times great-grandchildren. And,” he added, with a glint in his eyes, “there is to be a smaller gathering sometime during the larger, just for the House of Finwë. It is being planned by his grandsons Findekáno and Findaráto. I remember your reasons for keeping your distance long ago, but they no longer hold. They are your brother’s family, and that makes them your family. A loud and chaotic family, rough around the edges to be sure, but no family of this size could be otherwise. Your great-nephew Macalaurë will be one of the singers performing at the feast as well. He is said to be one of the mightiest singers of all the kindreds of the Elves, named only after Daeron of Doriath—who will also be there, for where one of them is to be found these days, the other is never far away.”

“Maybe,” Lindo said after a moment, which likely meant yes, though now that it came to it Urwë felt as strong a desire to stay away as he felt a longing to go. 

“One of the songs Macalaurë is to sing is for his grandfather,” Mithrandir said, speaking more gently—sounding a little more like his old self from when they had first met him. “A song I think you would both wish to hear—and hear from him, and this will be the only chance for that, for he has said he will not perform it again after next summer.” When they still hesitated he asked, “What holds you back?”

“Nothing,” Lindo said after a moment. “Only old grief—old wounds that neither Mandos nor Lórien could heal.”

“We are at the start of a new Age, you know,” said Mithrandir. “It is an age of healing—of reuniting, of reconciliation. I have been watching the House of Finwë find all these things. I admit, I have a particular fondness for Macalaurë—Maglor, as I have known him—for we met in Middle-earth, and he is very dear to Elrond. His road has been a long and hard one, back from the very brink of utter despair. You do not want to miss this performance, not when the song is one as close to his heart as this one. He loved his grandfather dearly.”

Mithrandir left after a few days, claiming to be needed elsewhere. Once he had gone, Lindo turned to Urwë. “We should go.”

“Maybe.”

“Olórin has never tried to convince us of anything that he did not truly think would help us,” Lindo said.

“That was a long time ago, when we were young and didn’t know anything.”

“So?” Lindo put his hand on Urwë’s arm. “It will be hard,” he said softly, looking up into Urwë’s face, “to see the traces of him in all their faces, but is that not better than never seeing anything of him at all? If the discord the Enemy sowed between them all is passed, then we might meet them in—in grief, but maybe it need not stay that way. At least there likely won’t be anger. We’ve heard the stories. They are all incredible. As incredible as he was.”

“Some of them have also been terrible.”

“If they were still, I do not think Olórin would try so hard to get us to go. I have heard the tales of Maglor—of he who harps on long forgotten shores, whose voice is like the sea. Who was long thought lost to us all forever. If even he has returned, then…”

“Don’t, Lindo.”

“I would at least like to hear this nephew of ours, even if we choose in the end not to meet the rest of them, to hear if he sounds like Finwë.”

“We have not heard Finwë’s voice since he was a child,” Urwë said, voice cracking a little on Finwë’s name. 

“Then perhaps we might hear something of what he sounded like when he was grown. Even if we don’t—what we spoke of before holds true. What better chance will we have than this?”

Two days after Mithrandir left them rainclouds suddenly blew in, bringing a gentle shower that made Urwë think, for some reason, of tears. The music of the raindrops around them reminded him of the quiet waters of Ekkaia, which he had visited several times over the long years. Yet the lamentation in the Music was laced through with hope like a thread of shining gold, and beside him Lindo paused, turning east, frowning a little. “There is a voice on the wind,” he said. “Can you hear it?”

“No.”

“It almost…almost I would say it sounds like Finwë—what I have imagined Finwë might have sounded like, anyway.” Lindo smiled a little ruefully and shook his head. “Likely it is only my imagination, because he is so much on my mind of late.”

Summer passed into autumn and then into spring, and as summer drew on they prepared to depart. Lindo had agreed on behalf of both of them to travel with the other singers from their city, though he still refused to take part in the performances. Urwë likewise had practiced and sparred with the spear dancers, but though he had devised many of the steps himself he had no desire to show off for their eastern kindred. He was going because Lindo wanted to go and he would not deny his brother anything—but he did not want to be known, not outside their own people; he did not want the attentions of Ingwë or even Elu Thingol, and certainly not those of the Valar.

The feast was held farther west from Valmar than Urwë had expected, on the rolling plains near a wide lake, beside which a large stage had been erected, and all around it a veritable city of tents and semi-permanent structures. It was all easily built up and easily taken down, and strings of gems and crystals had been hung so that it all glimmered in the bright sunshine. 

They were all greeted warmly by Ingwion and by Elemmírë, who was smaller than Urwë had expected, but with a presence about her that more than made up for it. Urwë and Lindo hung back, not being among those there to perform, and so they were free to observe all the others who were already there. Daeron of Doriath was easy to spot, when he turned in response to someone hailing him. He was dark-haired and dark-eyed, with an easy smile and ready laughter. Beside him was another, also dark-haired though with strands of white threaded through it that did not seem like the natural white or silver that some sported, and his face was more lined than was usual among the Elves. A scar stood out on his cheek, and he also wore a long-sleeved tunic rather than the shorter or sleeveless styles of the other Noldor around them. He also turned when someone called to him—answering to the name Maglor. 

“So that is our nephew,” Urwë murmured to Lindo. 

“Mithrandir said he walked a very long road to get here,” Lindo said. They watched a cat jump up into Maglor’s arms, and heard his laughter as he scratched her behind the ears. “He sounds like—” He sounded a little like their father. So did his cousin, golden-haired Finrod Felagund who seemed eager to make friends with everyone with whom he came into contact. 

Urwë and Lindo kept their distance. The air of excitement and celebration was impossible to deny, and the bulk of the people had not even arrived yet. As Urwë wandered through the tent city he was greeted warmly by everyone he met. There was no sign in either the Noldor or the Vanyar of that faint sense of superiority that had colored his occasional interactions with them over the long years. Perhaps everyone was merely too excited, or perhaps Ingwë had been doing more than Urwë had thought to change attitudes.

A very large party arrived to great fanfare after a successful hunt, bringing with it a niece, bright and fierce, and perhaps a pair of nephews? Urwë was not sure who they were, but they greeted Maglor with all the deep affection of close kin. 

Over those weeks, Urwë heard a great deal of Maglor’s singing—and Finrod’s. They both had fair voices, and both were powerful beyond nearly everyone else there, though Maglor was the greater, Urwë thought. His talents had been honed over many years, and it was clear that music ran deep in his spirit, as much a part of him as his heart and his lungs. In this he was very like Daeron, who brought the whole of the tent city to a standstill when he raised his voice. When they sang together it was as though the whole world paused to listen.

The great and mighty lords and ladies and kings and queens and princes, all arrived at the same time to great fanfare, from the east and south and west. Urwë saw then for the first time all of Finwë’s children—Fingolfin who held the throne in Tirion, and his brother Finarfin with the same golden hair as Finrod, and their sisters Findis and Lalwen, all resplendent in jewels and gold and silver. Fëanor, the eldest—and not the king, which Urwë found curious considering all the tales of the Noldor’s history—was with them too, as alike to Fingolfin in face as Urwë and Lindo were to one another, and in all five of them Urwë could see Finwë—in the way they held themselves, in the shape of a jaw or the glint of silver-grey in Fëanor’s eyes. They were accompanied by all of their children and grandchildren, each equally impressive in their own right.

“I do not think either Indis or Míriel are here,” Urwë said to Lindo later that evening, when they were alone again. “Is that not odd?”

“I have heard it said that Míriel does not come often among the Elves,” said Lindo. “But I would have thought she would come this summer, if it is all as important as we have been told.”

“And Indis is Ingwë’s sister, is she not?” said Urwë. “What would keep her away?”

“Who knows? The ways of the Vanyar and Noldor both are strange.”

At last, a day came when no one of the House of Finwë was anywhere to be found. Mithrandir came to find Urwë and Lindo in the afternoon while they watched Elemmírë and a choir out of Valmar perform. “Are you ready?” he asked. 

“Do they know we’re coming?” Lindo asked.

“No!” Mithrandir laughed as he turned to lead them away from the encampment. “They’ll all be very surprised.”

“But is that—”

“Trust me, Lindo—all will be well!”

He led them around the lake and to a small wood, where a path had been marked by bright ribbons tied to tree branches. As they passed beneath the trees Urwë could hear voices ahead, and the occasional burst of laughter. After a little while he saw the trees open up beyond a thicket of honeysuckle, where all of Finwë’s children had gathered, on chairs and on blankets, or just sitting on the grass. A pair of young children ran around, and he heard at least one even younger child as well, starting to fuss before being quickly cheered. Lindo reached for his hand, and they slowed their steps, letting Mithrandir go ahead.

A woman’s voice exclaimed suddenly, in the accents of one who had been born in Middle-earth, “Gandalf! What are you doing here? This is a private family party, and you weren’t invited!” It almost sounded rude, but for the undercurrent of laughter in her voice. As Mithrandir replied in similar tones, Urwë glimpsed the woman standing up among the rest, fists on her hips and an amused look on her face, her silver hair caught up in braids around her head like a crown. 

“—two invitations went astray in the planning, and I was only showing them the way. I do apologize for their late arrival.” 

A hush fell over the clearing, and Lindo glanced at Urwë. Past Mithrandir they saw everyone looking at each other, confusion written across their faces. Mithrandir then turned back to them, his expression softening as he said very quietly, “I did make you a promise, long ago, if you remember—and I am very pleased to have been able at last to keep it.”

“What promise?” Urwë asked, but Mithrandir only winked and stepped back to allow them room to pass into the clearing—and then his words became clear. 

Sitting in the midst of the gathering was—almost Urwë thought it was somehow Lindo, except that Lindo was right beside him, suddenly gripping his arm with both hands hard enough to leave bruises. He blinked several times, unable to really believe what he was seeing—who he was seeing.

Finwë rose to his feet, eyes going very wide. He was very newly-come back to life—Urwë could see it in him, in the way his spirit still shone just a little too brightly under his skin, the way he moved as though his body didn't quite feel like his own yet. His eyes shone with the memory of Treelight, the same silver-grey of Urwë’s own. His hair was long and dark, half up in braids to keep it out of his face, and the rest falling over his shoulders, thick and shining like a spill of black ink in the sunshine. In the seconds before he had seen them, he had seemed entirely at ease, entirely happy, as though this clearing in this forest was the one place in the whole world that he most wanted to be.

“Finwë?” Lindo gasped, finding his voice first, and in his shock he slipped back into the tongue of their youth. “But you were—we were told you were gone forever—”

“I thought you were gone forever!” Finwë cried. He crossed the clearing at a run, crashing into first Lindo and then Urwë, weeping openly. “How is this possible?” His voice was different, deep and resonant—he was grown, of course, not the slender youth that Urwë had last seen vanishing through the trees in the dark. Now he was as tall as Urwë was, broad-shouldered and strong—a king, a father, a grandfather, all the things that Urwë had hoped he would be, and he was alive. “How can you be here?”

“How can we—how can you be?” Lindo exclaimed. “We were told you had chosen to remain in Mandos forever—”

“I did. Then the Valar changed their minds. But you were—they said, when I first came, that you were too…” Finwë kept touching their faces, staring at them like he didn’t dare look away. “I can’t believe you’re here. You’re really here. But is it only you? Is—is Morwë, or…?”

“No,” Urwë choked out, finally finding his own voice. “No, only us. But—Finwë—Finwë, you were supposed to run.”

Finwë smiled at him, though it didn’t reach his eyes. “I thought of it,” he said. “I thought of you, when I heard him coming. But—my grandsons were out there in the dark. How could I give them less of a chance than you gave me?”

“We’re so proud of you,” Lindo said, reaching up to take Finwë’s face in his hands, wiping away the tears with his thumbs. “We’ve missed you so much, baby brother.”

“I’ve missed you every day. All my life—and in Mandos. I—” His voice broke. 

“Oh, Finwë. I’m sorry. We’re so sorry.” Lindo embraced him, and Urwë wrapped his arms around both of them, hiding his face in Finwë’s hair as tears he’d never thought he’d get to shed began to escape. There was so much to say, so many questions to ask and to answer, but that would all come later. There were nephews and nieces to meet—generations of them—and for the first time Urwë felt excited for it rather than reluctant. Here was at last just what Mithrandir had spoken of—an end to grief, an end to partings, tears of sorrow turned to tears of joy instead. 

Finwë lifted his head and reached for Urwë, pressing their foreheads together. “No more running,” he said.

“No,” Urwë agreed. “No more running.”

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