Mandos Child by Deborah Judge  

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Mandos Child

Two years into their marriage Ingwion was once again in front of the Halls of Mandos with his husband Elulindo. They were there to collect children. This had been Elulindo's job since he came of age, when he took it over from his father Olwë. Elulindo himself had once been a Mandos child, one of the first picked up by Olwë, and Olwë had brought him home and raised him as his son and as Prince of Alqualondë. Ingwion helped from time to time, especially when Lord Mandos told Elulindo to expect a Noldor child. Elulindo was unfailingly kind to any children, saying it was not their fault that their parents were idiots, but since the kinslaying he greatly disliked having anything to do with any other Noldor and even King Arafinwë, who had once been his close friend.

"Noldor?" he said. "Clever ones? Are you kidding? Better to call them Alangoldor, stupid people, who think they can fight a Vala with pointy sticks. They stole our ships and then they burned them. They talk about fighting valiantly and dying with honor and being remembered in song as if there's something good about that. And then I have to pick up their children.

"There isn't much Lord Mandos can do for children," Eleulindo said. "He can heal the physical pain and give them time to rest. But they need parents. A family. They need a place where they can do the growing up they weren't able to finish. They can't do that in the Halls of Mandos. So Lord Mandos gives them to me, and we try to find families for them, and we all do our best to put them back together as well as we can."

As Elulindo busied himself with preparations Ingwion let himself be distracted by looking at him. Their marrige had been arranged after King Olwë wrote to King Ingwë suggesting that now that both their daughters had firmly dissolved their marriages with Noldor royalty, perhaps it was time to consider a marriage alliance between the Vanyar and the Teleri. Ingwion had been hesitant about an arranged marriage but he found his husband entirely pleasing. He was silver-haired like his father, so that he was sometimes mistaken for Olwë's natural child, but his focused, intent eyes were green rather than Olwë's blue and his face was soft rather than angular. Elulindo noticed Ingwion's attention on him, gave a half-smile, and unbuttoned the top button of his perfectly tailored embroidered shirt. "You're looking," he said. "I should give you more to look at." It was true, his husband was extremely handsome. Ingwion smiled back.

At that moment the child began to appear. He came into existence in swirling mist. A body formed of a young adolescent with dark hair and muscles that spoke of yers of training. Then Laewin opened his eyes. He looked around. His body was still tense, as if he were still expecting to fight whatever killed him.

"You're safe here," Elulindo said. "The Dark Vala and his minions are far over the sea."

"That's what Lord Mandos said," Laewin answed, but the tension did not go away. He looked to the right and the left, taking in the world around him. "This is Valinor," he said. "This is where the Lady Elbereth lives."

Ingwion nodded. "I can take you to see her if you like." Elulindo shot him a warning look. Promises made to children just out of Mandos had to be kept. In response Laewin began to sing:

A Elbereth Gilthoniel
silivren penna míriel
o menel aglar elenath!
Na-chaered palan-díriel
o galadhremmin ennorath,
Fanuilos, le linnathon
nef aear, sí nef aearon!

As he sang Elulindo began to sing with him. It was a hymn to Lady Varda in Sidarin that spoke of singing to her from Middle-earth, from the far side of the Great Ocean. Elulindo must have learned it as a very young child.

"Come with us to Valimar," Elulindo said. "We'll find a room for you in the palace."

*

Elulindo was charming and handsome and Ingwion had agreed to the marriage quickly. And then on their wedding night Ingwion was alone with a near-stranger, completely naked, and could not stop looking. Was he staring? Was it rude to stare? "How do you touch yourself?" Elulindo asked. It was a shockingly intimate question but they were to know each other in the most intimate way. "Here, like this," Elulindo said, and if Ingwion was staring before now there was nothing in the world other than his new husband's long fingers, adorned with rings of silver-pearl, gently moving up and down his shaft. A drop formed at the tip and Ingwion felt an overwhelming desire to taste it. So he did, and then...and then...morning found him besotted and sore and completely delighted with being married.

*

When Ingwion's sister Indis returned to Valimar she immediately threw herself into building towers. No longer Queen of the Noldor, she was once again Princess of the Vanyar, but a Vanya who had lived centuries among craftsmen. Crafts were in her as much as song. "I cleaned up messes for young Fëanor," she said. "I took him to his first classes. Of course I learned things." The Vanyar had always built upwards, since the Mindon Eldaliéva, but Indis insisted that the towers be in an architectural style that was entirely new. "We are the people of the future," she said "The Vanyar were the first to see the future and look upon it with joy." It was an important reminder at a time when the future felt uncertain and the light for which they had come was gone. Indis's future was more uncertain than most. All her children and grandchildren had thrown off the yoke of the Valar and taken themselves into exile. "We are immortal," she said, to remind herself as much as anyone else. "In infinite time there is always hope." When she heard the news that her youngest son returned to Tirion she sat down in front of her drafting easel and wept.

Since then Indis was nearly always surrounded by children. Every time she went to visit her son Arafinwë she returned with Noldor apprentices. Some were Fëanorian children who had returned with Arafinwë after their parents were killed in the kinslaying. Fëanor heard his brother was returning and rounded up a group of children whose parents had died at Alqualondë and and told Arafinwë they were his problem now, he had no extra manpower for childcare. There were other Noldor, kinslayers themselves, who gave their children to Arafinwë to save them from the Doom of Mandos. Although young, they had been trained in crafts and brought their energy and creativity to the new skyscrapers in Valimar.

Indis had also built for Ingwion a special gift: a laboratory near the top of Mt. Taniquetil with telescopes to look at the stars, a devotion to Lady Varda. They liked to sit there together, sketching the stars and the patterns in which they moved. Some of the stars, when looked at closely, were discs. One had rings. Some had other stars moving around them. Through the telescopes they were able to see more of Lady Varda's greatness and the infinite possibilities that came from sitting at her feet.

Elulindo rarely joined them. His relationship with Indis was somewhat tense. Ingwion knew that Elulindo had tried his best to smash Indis's grandson's head with a boat hook during the kinslaying and and as much as he loved his grand-nephew Ingwion had to admit that in that moment little Findecáno had more or less deserved it. But Indis refused to call it a kinslaying at all, referring to it instead as the battle of Alqualondë. "Morgoth needed to be fought," Indis said. "He was going to Middle-earth." Elulindo's response to this was that a bunch of idiots trying to fight the Dark Vala with pointy sticks and no brains were going to get everyone else killed as well as themselves. From the way children kept coming out of Mandos it was hard to say that he was wrong.

Ingwion brought Laewin to his telescope. "This is where I speak to Lady Varda," Ingwion said to Laewin. "Come see." He showed Laewin stars that he had never seen, that were not visible except through a telescope. In the movement of the stars he could feel the presence of the Star-Kindler. When they turned away from the telescope she was there, clad all in white and shining like the stars themselves.

Laewin bowed low, touching his head to the ground before her. "Lady," he said, "the peoples of Middle-earth need help. My parents need help. Who will bring it to them?"

The Lady reached down and touched Laewin on the shoulder, then gestured for him to rise. "I do not have power to lift the ban," she said. "No one from Valinor may set foot on Middle-earth."

Laewin was too young to have been born in Valinor. He had not crossed from Valinor to Middle-earth. He had disobeyed no ban. "I will continue to ask," he said.

"You may," Lady Varda said. "Only think carefully on my words."

*

Laewin answered Indis's questions as well as he could. Nolofinwë was king of the Noldor in Beleriand and was determined to be Morgoth's worst nightmare. Turukáno and Írissë had gone, with a third of the people, and no one knew where they were. The Sons of Fëanor had their own kingsoms and so did Prince Findecáno and the sons of Arafinwë. There had been some kind of explosion in the north, and fire. Laewin had rushed out to fight...and then he was here.

"Did the Valar ever send any help? Any help at all?" When the Doom of Mandos was proclaimed Indis walked to the top of Mt. Tanequetil and shouted that if the Valar closed their ears to her laments she would shout even louder. She still continued to ask for their help every day.

"There was the one time with Prince Findecáno," he said. He told the story of how an eagle had appeared in response to his prayer duing his rescue of Prince Maedhros.

"No foot," Ingwion said. Indis looked at him curiously.

"Lady Varda said that no one from Valinor could set foot in Middle-earth. The eagle flew."

"Hm," Indis said, but did not elaborate.

*

Ingwion was still a young child when his father came back to Cuiviénen, speaking of a distant place with light. "Like torches, but brighter," he explained. "Like stars, but closer." He said it felt like another world, a better world. Every foodstep felt lighter when it was easier to see where it landed. He could see so much more in his friends' faces, it was like he knew their minds.

They set out as soon as they could, all fourteen of them. They made their way to the coast where Lord Ulmo uprooted an island to bring them to Valinor.

"When do we go back for our friends?" Ingwion asked.

"Lord Oromë is going to find them," his father said.

Lord Oromë could not find his father's friend Elwë. Much later Elwë's brother Olwë came to Valinor and said that his brother and those who followed him will not come. He was afraid for them, he said. He had left them in great danger.

Elulindo, whose birth parents had been sentries on the outskirts of Doriath, had much less sympathy for those who remained. "My father had a great ship. A floating island, made by Lord Ulmo. Anyone who wanted could go. They could come here and live in a place where Orcs wouldn't gut their children while their parents watched. But they stayed. And for what? For Elwë, who was busy with a Maia. And Doriath! They were so proud of their thousand caves. They would die to defend them. Like the stupid Noldor, they wanted to be valiant and remembered in song. And then I came here and walked with my father on sands strewn with sapphires and rubies and sat on a throne of pearl.

"And their children come from Mandos," he said. "And we try to put them back together. But we never really can."

*

The next day Elulindo decided to take Laewin to Tirion himself after all. "I'm worried about him," he said. Laewin was older than the children who usually came out of Mandos, almost old enough to be judged as an adult in his own right. It can be harder, Elulindo said, to find a family for older children. Ingwion suspected that was not all. It was Elulindo's job to find families for children but this one he seemed not to want to let go of so quickly. Elulindo came back from Tirion late the next day, Laewin still with him. He found Laewin a nearby guest bedroom and came to bed. "How is Arafinwë?" Ingwion asked.

"He says he's repentant," Elulindo said. "I told him to tell it to my dead mariners whose bodies he stepped over to follow his brothers. I know he's your nephew, don't expect me to like him."

Elulindo had spent some of the happiest days of his youth on the water with Arafinwë, it was hard not to hope that they would one day reconcile. "What about Laewin?" Ingwion asked, settling behind his husband to work his thumbs up the tense muscles in his neck.

"His family is from a Nolofinwëan village," Elulindo said. "The village is empty and there's no one in Tirion that he knows." And now he was sleeping in the next room. It seemed that he was going to stay in their lives for some time longer.

*

At the astronomy laboratory, Ingwion found Indis with two of her apprentices at a drafting desk, gems and figure-models all around them. They were devising some kind of contraption using Noldor gems, controlled explosions and gears. It looked like it was intended to lift something up off the ground. "No feet," she said.

It was a thought. They could fly above the Dark Vala and drop things on his head. It would not be at all valiant and would not be remembered in song but also might possibly work.

"What are you going to put in the air?" Ingwion asked. "It would need to be some kind of ship."

"And I don't know how to build ships," Indis said. "I never lived with the Teleri. But surely," she said, looking at him with her big round eyes, "surely my dearest kindest older brother, who has always been there for me, surely has an idea of who can help."

*

Back in the place courtyard Elulindo and Laewin were sparring. It was clear that even at his young age Laewin was well-practiced with a sword. From what Ingwion had heard of the life of the Noldor in Beleriand he supposed it was necessary. What was more surprising was, Ingwion had not known that his husband could fight with a sword at all. Elulindo's fluid, graceful movement was delightful to watch and he carried a sword like he had been born to it.

"Laewin missed sparring," Elulindo explained later, when Laewin had returned to the mountain to plead again to Lady Varda, to ask her to help his parents in Middle-earth. "He used to train every day, back in Middle-earth."

"You are not bad with the pointy stick yourself," Ingwion said.

"My father is the greatest swordsman in Valinor," Elulindo said. "The one who defended his people in Middle-earth for the longest, and also his brother's people when Elwë left them. His swords were rusted in some museum during the kinslaying but after that he took them out and taught me."

Elulindo had faced kinslaying Noldor with nothing but a boat hook. Fully armed, he would be an impressive warrior.

"Do you ever think..." Ingwion started, then stopped. Elulindo was looking at him frostily.

"Think what," he said. There was something in Elulindo's voice that Ingwion had never heard before.

Ingwion stopped, unsure how to continue. Elulindo had never hidden his contempt for those who returned to Middle-earth or for those who stayed there. Laewin was getting to Ingwion as well.

"To go back?" Elulindo said. "To defend the Sindar peasants who spawned me?" Who will go to help my family? Laewin had asked, over and over. Ellulindo had never referred to his birth parents as his family at all.

"You are Prince of Alqualondë," Ingwion said.

"I was two years old when I died," Elulindo said. "Barely old enough to walk. My parents were sentries on the front lines, sworn to give their lives to defend Doriath. It wasn't their own life they gave, when the Orcs set fire to our home."

We try to put them together, Elulindo had said, but we never really can. Which meant that something somewhere in Elulindo was still broken.

Elulindo fell to his knees and put his face into his hands."You weren't supposed to see that," he said.

Ingwion sat down next to him, pulled one finger away from his face, and kissed the top of his eyelid. He might not be able to put his husband back together but he would love him as well as he could. They sat like that for a time, Ingwion's arms around Elulindo while he refused to look up.

"You know, I had a big crush on you, the perfect golden prince," Elulindo said. "A massive, stupid, crush for years, even though we had only barely met and all I could do was admire you from a distance. I didn't tell anyone. I didn't even tell my father, but he figured it out."

Ingwion had wondered. As he came to see how Olwë doted on his son it started to seem unlikely that Olwë would set up a marriage for Elulindo that he did not want. It still felt wonderful to hear, like Treelight shining in his chest. "You could have just asked to marry me," Ingwion said. "I would have said yes, as soon as I got to know you even a little. Or as soon as I saw you with your shirt completely undone."

"I know that now," Elulindo said. "I can be an idiot sometimes too." He climbed into Ingwion's lap and lay his head on Ingwion's shoulder. His hair, unbound in Teleri style, was like silk in Ingwion's hands.

"Or you could have seduced me wickedly and had me in the forest," Ingwion said, "so I would have needed to shamefully tell my father that I had married secretly and without his consent."

"My husband has the best ideas," Elulindo said, nuzzling his neck happily. There might be time, Ingwion thought, to take Elulindo back to their room and show him on his body how completely he was adored. Best to start soon, so they would have time before Laewin returns. "What do we do with Laewin?" Elulindo asked, picking up on the last piece of Ingwion's thoughts. "He says he wants to live here. And I...I don't want to give him up."

Laewin had changed both of them already and would only change them more. "We have been married for two years," Ingwion said. "I think it is not too soon to have a child."

*

"No fighting on the ground," Elulindo said, standing over Indis, who had sketches and models spread out all over her drafting table. "I won't get off the ship." She smiled up at him sweetly and nodded.

"No valor. No bravery. No being stupid." She nodded again.

"No acting against the will of the Valar," Elulindo said.

"Of course not," Indis answered. She had already spoken with to Lady Varda, lady of everything in the heavens, and Lord Manwë, lord of all things that fly. Neither had objected.

"And when the war is over you will come to Alqualondë with your Noldor apprentices and build for us whatever we want."

"Gladly," Indis said.

"And who is leading this mess?" Elulindo asked.

"I am," Ingwion said. It was what he had asked for, when he was a child, to return for the people that Lord Oromë was not able to save.

"And I am going with you," Indis said. "And we will send a message to Morgoth, and we will tell him that Nolofinwë's mother is coming."

*

It took time to desiign and buiild an airship, even with Vanyar, Noldor and Teleri working together. In this time Ingwion and Elulindo raised Laewin until he came of age, as even more Noldor children returned from Mandos.

And when Indis's great-great-grandson came from Middle-earth to Valinor wearing a Silmaril on his brow, Valinor was prepared to answer.

Chapter End Notes

The SWG challenge for this fic was to write about Art Deco architecture and Valimar. I didn't end up actually describing the towers that Indis built, but Art Deco brings with it connotations of modernity and progress and that has influenced how I have written the Vanyar here. I do not think Tolkien would have approved.

The song that Laewin and Elulindo sing is sung in Rivendell in the Fellowship of the Ring, Book 2 chapter 1, "Many Meetings."

Laewin's name is from chesnut_pod's name list. It is in Sindarin because he was born in Beleriand. Alangoldor means the unwise, the un-Noldor. Many thanks to Himring for the linguistic help. Also many thanks to the SWG for in-depth discussion of Teleri weaponry and to the Pelma Lumbule group for indulging my fantasies about Vanyar in Space and Manwë Lord of Spaceships.

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