Among the Ainur and Other Animals by bunn  

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The Two Ladies

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The last day of the long ride to Valimar, followed by long, intense conversation, had left Bilbo looking tired, and older than he had for some time. He woke slowly,  the next morning, blinking sleepily from his low bed in the corner of the tall sunlit room in Ingwion’s house.  Beds in Valimar did not have legs, and that, at least suited the old hobbit very well.

Elrond looked at him in some concern, and suggested he should sleep for a while longer after breakfast.  The breakfast was composed of yellow flatbreads with unfamiliar fruits and a dish of spiced eggs. Bilbo regarded it initially with considerable suspicion, but managed in the end to finish off with enthusiasm.  

“I am only going to visit Indis,” Elrond said. “You have met a great number of my relatives already. It would be best if you rest today. Perhaps tomorrow we can go and see Ezellohar, and the remnants of the Trees of Light, or walk along the silver river Oiolairë and look for more friendly dragons.  Ingwion tells me that some of the people in Valimar bring their Oliphaunts down to bathe in the river in the evenings.  I’d like to see that.  I’ve only ever seen them twice, at a distance.” 

“Oliphaunts!” Bilbo said delightedly,  “I’ve always wanted to see one. That would be wonderful. But it can wait a day. I’ve waited a hundred and thirty-two years for them, after all! And I am feeling rather tired.” He yawned, lay back on the pile of pillows, and gave Elrond a shrewd look. “You aren’t going to come back with pieces missing, though, are you?  I’m sure the lady Celebrían will have a thing or two to say to me, if I bring you back without your shadow, or something similarly important!”

“I shall be very careful,” Elrond said, and gave him a smile as he left. 

. . . . .

“I heard that you had brought the last of Fëanor’s sons with you back to Aman,” Indis said, frowning at Elrond rather fiercely.  There was something flame-like about her golden hair, and a definite resemblance in her face to her children Fingolfin and Lalwen, and also to Gil-galad, although Gil-galad usually did not direct that fierce expression at Elrond.  

He had expected to feel rather sorry for Indis, who had been Finwë’s second choice, who had then been left behind when her husband had first gone to Formenos for the sake of his eldest son, and then chosen to stay forever in the halls of Mandos, leaving Indis, robbed of most of her family, to go home with only her eldest daughter to Valimar. 

This fierce bright-eyed spear of a woman was not what he had expected. 

She went on; “I was very surprised that it was permitted by the Valar, for Makalaurë to return.  I thought we’d seen the last of them all, after the kinslaying at Alqualondë.  I wouldn’t put it so strongly as to call it the silver lining to the cloud, but I wasn’t at all sorry to see the back of them.  I was only sorry that Fëanor managed to trick two of my children and most of my grandchildren into following him! But then, I heard that Makalaurë had been brought back by you, and that you had forced him to apologise, which seemed well overdue, and fair enough. So then, I was surprised to hear you had not brought him with you to Valimar.”

“Maglor would have come here with me, if I had asked it,” Elrond said, very calmly.  “I’m sure he would have apologised to you gracefully and sincerely.  He has been doing that, ever since we arrived in Aman, as you say.  But I have not forced him to do so! And I am not aware of any apologies that Maglor owes to the Vanyar, or you in particular.”

“I consider him, and his brothers, and his father, responsible for the unrest among the Noldor that led to the rebellion, kinslaying and the death of my children and grandchildren,” Indis declared.  

 “That is something I only know about at second-hand, of course,” Elrond said. “But it was a very long time ago, and your children and grandchildren have all reconciled with Maglor already.  And  I confess, I am by now rather weary of hearing Maglor turning away insults from people who dislike him for things that nobody could have predicted, and that he had very little choice about.  I love Maglor dearly, and I was one of the people who he injured most, after all.” 

Of course, another reason for Maglor not to come to Valimar was that, like the Silmarils, the city of Valimar was hallowed by the Valar. The Silmaril had burned Maglor.  Elrond was hardly likely to ask Maglor to come here and force him to take the risk that Valimar might do the same. 

But that did not seem like a good thing to mention to the formidable Indis. 

“Mmm,” Indis said. “You were injured by him.  But that is another thing I hold against him, that he not only stole children of my family away from their parents, but he stole their love too! Very shameless, that.   Did he tell you that he was some pathetic tool of his father, unable to resist him? No, that doesn’t sound like them. More likely, he would say his father was a shining star that all should follow, and blame Morgoth for his woes. Or did he pretend that it was all your mother’s fault that she did not return the Silmaril that her grandparents took from Morgoth at such cost?”

“None of those things,” Elrond said quietly. “If he had done that, I do not think I would have loved him.”

“You were a little child,” Indis said. “And it was very much in his interest to be loved.  Easy to portray himself as wronged and helpless, so that kind children would swiftly come to love him.  But you know, everything that happened to him, and his father, was richly earned.”

“I don’t think so,” Elrond said. “I didn’t think so then, or now.  And I am far from young now.”

“Well, no, of course you don’t think so!” Indis said, kindly. “He is one of the Sons of Fëanor. All of them could play emotions with their voices like a harp, and Makalaurë more than most. I don’t blame you, of course. But so far as I can see, the Sons of Fëanor became servants of the Enemy.” 

“Of the servants of the Enemy, at least, Lady Indis, I know far more than you,” Elrond said, with a small, polite smile.  “I have fought the Enemy since my childhood, down through the Ages of the World. His servants have certain characteristics, and I am entirely confident that Maglor is not one of them.”

“None the less, even if he regrets it now, I’d advise you not to have any further involvement with him.  I don’t see, with Fëanor’s sons, how one can really be at all sure that any repentance is genuine. They are very cunning.”

Elrond thought about that very carefully for a long moment. “There are, as I say, certain characteristics of the servants of the Enemy,” he said.  “They are often deadly, as Maglor is deadly, Lady Indis.  I have seen him kill, of course, many times.  He’s very expert at it.  But then, so am I. He has seen me kill too, orcs, and wolves and spiders and trolls and evil men.  I was born into a bitter war, after all.  So that is not much of a distinction. And yes, there is the darkness that lies on many of the people in Middle-earth, that lies on Maglor too.  I am afraid that is hard to avoid entirely, for those of us who have ridden out against the Shadow.   But you mentioned cunning. It is true, that sometimes the servants of the Enemy are cunning.  Sometimes, they are intelligent, too. Occasionally, you encounter one who is well-read, and amusing, as Maglor is amusing.

“But in over six thousand years, Indis, I have never once known a servant of the Enemy to be kind.  I have never, in all that time,  known even one of them to choose their own suffering over the suffering of the innocent, or to turn away from power, as Maedhros and Maglor did. Maglor is kind.  He always has been, and he still is.”

He stood up, and now his anger was burning, a slow fierce flame, white-hot. He opened his mind a little, so she could see the savage brightness of it, burning. 

“Believe me, Indis, when I say that if Maglor were a servant of the Enemy, he would not have walked alone upon the shore, regretting his deeds and grieving for those he slew.  He would have come down on us as a leader of terrible foes out of Angmar, or out of Mordor, and we would have died.  He would have brought war to Aman long ago for the Silmaril my father bears. 

“We were not mere lost elf-children.  We were of the Children of Lúthien, Elros and I, of the Houses of Hador and of Bëor!  We were not fools.  We were not weak.  We had all the power, and the foresight, and the vision of the great houses of the Eldar, we had the strength and will of Men, we had the spirit that comes out of the light and song and darkness before the world was made.   We knew exactly what they had done.  We saw it.  They did not try to hide that, or excuse it.   And love grew between us anyway, Indis, because Maglor and his brother were not servants of the Enemy.  They were worthy of being loved.  Are worthy of being loved.”

“Well, don’t beat about the bush,” Indis said, and she smiled. “I was starting to wonder if you were a changeling, or really one of ours.  Perhaps you are, after all.  But all the same, even if Makalaurë is not himself a servant of evil, you admit yourself he has done terrible things, and so have his brothers, and his father. And you brought him here.  How sure are you, really, that he’s safe?” 

“I am not sure,” Elrond said.  His anger, once woken, did not fade swiftly.  “How could I be? How could anyone be?  There is no certainty. No peace is forever, in Arda Marred, not even here, hidden behind the mountains, outside the circle of the round world, leaving evil things to those who have no choice but to suffer them, in Middle-earth.  There is only the perilous path between the Shadow and the Light and the depths of the sea.  But I’d rather have love and friendship to guide me on that path, than fear or hatred or the lust for power.  For the rest, I’ll rely on hope.”  And with that, he bowed rather stiffly and left.

Outside the house of Indis,  there were many of the the half-seen people of Valimar, looking at the door in curiosity and some alarm, as if the house was going up in flames.  They turned and bowed back away from Elrond as he left, leaving a wide ring of space around him as he walked swiftly back towards the House of Ingwion.  He could feel the echoes of his anger echoing away from him among the buildings.  This would not do. He took a deep breath and pulled himself back to calm. There was no point in being angry.  He had probably only allowed himself to become angry, because he was feeling unsure. 

He went in and went to talk to Bilbo.  Bilbo had got up, and was sitting on the end of the bed, observing Valimar through the window. 

He explained about Indis, and that he had become angry. 

“Oh dear!” Bilbo said. “Perhaps you should have hidden in the hedge, after all!” 

Elrond smiled. “Perhaps I should.”

“At least she doesn’t sound much like the Sackville-Bagginses, apart from a talent for being somewhat infuriating, that is.  But in any bag of spuds you’ll get an ugly-looking one, as the Gaffer liked to say.  There was a hobbit with a fine collection of hideous vegetables, if you like.  Used to cheer me up no end, if I ended up having to be polite to the Sackville-Bagginses, to chat to the Gaffer afterwards across his garden fence, and be shown some grotesque turnip that he swore blind looked just like loathsome Otho.” 

“Am I doing the right thing, do you think, Bilbo?” 

“Is that a question that you should be asking a silly old hobbit?” Bilbo enquired.  “I mean, it’s expected for an elderly hobbit to dispense reams of advice, wanted or not! But not usually to elves, and very rarely to people who are named among the Wise.”

“I’ve had more than enough counsel from the Great and Wise,” Elrond said.  “I asked you.  Not as a hobbit, as a friend.”

Bilbo looked at him and sighed.  “I can’t say I have much idea about the House of Fëanor, or about what they did and what they may yet do.  But it seems to me they drew the short straw, and with rather more excuse than horrible Gollum!  I do like old Maglor, you know.  He seems all right to me.  And I trust your judgement over pretty much anyone else that I have ever known.  If you think this is the right thing to do, I’d happily wager money on it.  You were right about the Ring, and that Frodo and Sam were the right ones to deal with it, though I’m sure the Lady Indis would have thought that most unlikely.”

“It would be easier,” Elrond said thoughtfully, “if Maglor had done as she suggested, and told us only good things about his family to make us love them.  He never did, though...  You know, I call him my foster-father, sometimes, and there was a time when that seemed very important, because so many of my family were dead or gone beyond the Sea.  I let the children of the Edain call me that.  Aragorn, when he was young, I counted as my own child, long before he was my son by marriage.”

“I remember!” Bilbo said.  “You introduced him as your son, the first time I met him.  He was, what, nine or ten? I thought he was an elf. I was most confused when I got back again to Rivendell and realised he wasn’t.”

“There was a time when he wanted to be. But he wanted a father, mostly.”

“That sounds familiar,” Bilbo said. “I didn’t adopt Frodo only to annoy the awful Sackville-Bagginses. Although of course, that was extremely important.”

“Of course it was, Master Baggins,” Elrond said, with a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. “But Maglor has never called me anything but Elrond.  Or cousin, very occasionally, and you know how many cousins we both have!  Very correct and never asking for anything more.  But now, I realise that I know all the bad things people say about Fëanor, and very little else.  Except that his sons loved him, and his wife would have him back.  Perhaps that is all that I need to know, after all.”

“If in doubt, trust your gut.  Mine says, Elrond is right.” 

“I hope your gut is right.”

“I’ve found it pretty reliable, on the whole,” Bilbo said.  “We’re blessed with sound digestions, in the Baggins family. I’ve written a few more verses of my cheered-up Noldolantë, while you were out.  Can I get your opinion on them?” 

.....

The gardens of Lorien

They stayed for a number of days in Valimar, seeing oliphaunts and dragons, hearing the golden bells ring and listening to the singing of the great choirs of Valimar.   They visited the mound of Ezellohar, and the great gaunt and blackened shapes of the Trees, looming still impossibly tall against the blue sky.  Groves of smaller trees with shining white and golden bark, had been planted on the lower slopes, making it a pleasant place to walk, and there were many singers there, wandering among the groves. 

But at last they said farewell to their host, and rode on West, towards the Gardens of Lórien.

You could smell the fragrance of them, first, before you came close enough to see anything but tall trees and an understory of dark bushes against the brightening evening glow of the Western sky.   

There was no road to the Gardens of Lórien, only short, close-cropped green turf starred with tiny blue and golden flowers, that grew thicker and brighter the closer they came to the Gardens, until at last you could hear the nightingales and the singing of the Maiar of Lórien, and see the great red poppies and the scented white flowers of silver-leaved rowans dipping low, reflected in the dark pools that shone beneath the trees. 

They let the horse take herself off to graze, and wandered through the trees and pools, down through the winding paths that led through the gardens to the lake of Lorellin. 

There, beside a deep dark pool under tree-shadow, singing, Bilbo and Elrond found Melian, who long ago had been Queen of Doriath, with nightingales singing around her. 

“Ah,” she sang, with no sign of surprise. “Elrond, Elwing’s son, O vault of stars beloved!”  and she stood and made a deep curtsy to them, almost as if she were beginning a stately dance. 

“You came at last!” she said.

“I have been somewhat occupied in Middle-earth,” Elrond said to her. 

“So I have heard,” Melian said her rich dark musical voice. “You have made yourself into a song. And this is Bilbo. I have heard songs of your deeds too, little one.”  

Bilbo bowed, uncharacteristically short of words and rather pink about the ears, Elrond noted with amusement. 

“Galadriel has told me much about you,” Elrond said. 

“Clever, lovely brave Galadriel! She too is a song. And has she too come home from Middle-earth?”

“She has come home at last,” Elrond told her.  “She was unable to return until now, of course, under the Ban of the Valar.”

“Hmmmm?  I had not noticed,” Melian said.  Elrond blinked at her. Losing track of the years for a while had not been unusual in Rivendell, or in Lórien, particularly in time of peace, but losing track of thousands of years of prohibition placed upon a dear friend still seemed an unusually severe case. 

“I have been perhaps a little inattentive to the words.” Melian said, smiling. “I have had a great deal to listen to, since I returned to Valinor. Birdsong and leaves and roots growing under starlight.  And I have been trying to grow my heart back together into a whole.  It seems to be very difficult, doing that, but perhaps it is that I am going about it wrong.”

“Galadriel has been in Aman for some time,” Elrond said.  “Did you not wish to visit her?”

“I expect she will turn up here, eventually,” Melian said.  “Most people do.  You did.”

“I suppose we did,” Elrond said. “Shall I tell her that you would like her to come and see you?  I shall be seeing her again soon.”

Melian smiled, lifted her long brown arms high, and sang a string of wordless liquid notes full of joy.  Around her the trees lifted up their branches, and the nightingales sang. The light was dying, and glow-worms were shimmering into blue-green light.  

“I will tell her,” Elrond said. He looked at her thoughtfully.  “There is a question I have always wanted to ask you, if it does not bring back memories that are too painful,” Elrond said. “Why was it that you left Doriath so swiftly, leaving it undefended?  Did you not worry for the people you left behind?”

Tears welled in the corners of Melian’s dark eyes. “Oh!” she cried.  “I wept for them.  Of course I wept for them.  But the time was come for the doom of Doriath, and I could not turn it aside. We had the joy, and I had hoped that it would be for longer.  But Elu would not heed my advice, and the shadow of doom fell.  It was always going to fall on us eventually.”

“I suppose it was,” Elrond said, thinking about it. He sighed.  It seemed, on reflection, a very familiar situation.

“I am not like you,”  Melian said “You would have stayed to fight, I know. But I am not a warrior, and I am all one thing, not made of many.  I lifted up my heart and voice to spin my defence around my lover’s heart and home.   But then my heart was broken, and the music ended, as I always knew it must, from the moment that I saw my love in the shadow beneath the stars. I was not Beren, to forge my own path against all that has gone before.  I am only Melian, and I saw my doom and had to go to meet it.  Without him, I was so much less than I had ever been before.  I could not have held Doriath without him if I had wished to.  I wept for Doriath, as I wept for Elu.  It was all that I could do.  And Lúthien is gone too far beyond the world... All the lights go out, one by one, and the broken heart is left in darkness.”

That too seemed a familiar thought, though it was not one that Elrond had ever allowed himself to entertain for more than a passing moment. But he was not wearing Vilya any more, and anyway, Vilya’s power had passed out of the world, and Rivendell, soon, would be empty, as Doriath had been.  

The nightingales were singing, and the song was a sad one, but it was very beautiful, and very strange, as the darkness under the trees grew and shifted beyond the small light that the glow-worms cast.  

“Elrond?” Bilbo said, and there was an odd note in his voice, almost apprehensive.  It occurred to Elrond that most of what Melian had been saying had been voiced outside of anything that hobbit ears could easily hear, and moreover that the woodland was now very dark indeed, to hobbit eyes, as the light had died in Melian’s thought, and the shadows had woven around her. 

He shook his head, to clear the shadows from it. 

“We had better go and find some supper, don’t you think, Bilbo?” he said.  He bowed to Melian and rummaged in his pack for the small Noldor-made crystal lamp, to light their way as they walked up through the quiet woods, to find the way back up into the starlight, where they found some of Lórien’s people sitting around a fire, preparing their evening meal.