Among the Ainur and Other Animals by bunn  

Herald of the Valar

A wild and windy day in March, and the waves could be heard thundering along the shores of Tol Eressëa, though the dark clouds were shredding and blowing away over Avallónë, and the sky showed patches of pale blue.  

Frodo was ill again, troubled by the shadow of grief that always fell over him in March, and all of Celebrían’s house smelled sweetly of the scent of dried athelas steeped in water. 

“He has gone back to sleep,” Elrond reported, coming outside to meet Maglor, Lindir and Bilbo, who were returning from a windy walk along the cliffs.  “Celebrían is going to sit with him for a while. I think the shadow over him is less than it was last year.”

“Well, that’s something, anyway!” Bilbo said. “And at least it doesn’t seem to haunt him for too long.  He will be himself again in no time, I’m sure.”

The sun was starting to show through the vanishing clouds.  The dark wet trunk of the old wind-bent plum tree outside the house, and the droplets of rain caught in the faded winter grass glinted brightly in the light. 

Eönwë, Herald of the Valar, did not arrive on foot, as Gandalf always did.   He arrived along a sunbeam that glistened brighter and brighter and then took on a form, until suddenly, there was a person standing there, a person made of light, that cooled from sun into nearly-living flesh. 

“Well, bless me!” Bilbo exclaimed, amazed.   Maglor stepped backwards, alarmed, one hand, out of old habit, on his sword hilt. Lindir bowed his dark head in respect. 

“I bring the greetings of the Valar,” Eönwë said in a voice that sounded like trumpets. “I have brought thanks to Bilbo Baggins and to Elrond son of Eärendil for their counsel.”

He turned to Bilbo, and bowed low to him. “To you, Bilbo Ringbearer, and to your kinsman Frodo, I bring a message of my own.”

“I’m afraid Frodo isn’t feeling quite the thing at the moment,” Bilbo said, a little apologetically.  “He’s in bed.  But if you give me the message, I’ll make sure to pass it on.”

“I bring you my regret,” Eönwë  said. “You and your kinsman were put to sore trouble, because I was unable to do my task in full, to bring an ending to our war and bring back Sauron among our captives to Aman.   I thank you for your aid in finding his Ring and ending it.  And also for your aid against one of Morgoth’s winged dragons. We were unable to bring an end to those, either.”

“Oh, well,” said Bilbo, flushing red. “That was Bard.  And the Ring was Frodo and Sam, really.   And lots of other people, not me at all.  But I’ll tell Frodo.”

Eönwë bowed gracefully, bending in slightly the wrong way to be moving as a body made of flesh would do.   “To you, Elrond, I bring you word that Celebrimbor son of Curufin is to be permitted to return to life.” 

“And the rest of the House of Fëanor?” Elrond asked him, smiling.  Maglor was frozen, staring. 

“The Valar are still reflecting upon it,” Eönwë said. “It is not an easy choice.”

“But they have not denied the request?” Maglor asked, with some difficulty.

Eönwë turned and looked at him, a bright expressionless gaze, and Maglor remembered, as the Oath shifted and coiled within his mind, the last time that Eönwë had looked at him.

He had stood at bay among all the great host of Valinor, bloodstained, desperate, sword in hand, back to back with his last living brother, ready to die for his Oath and for the Silmarils they had stolen. Neither of them looking at Elrond or at Elros, but feeling them staring in horror from some distance away, all the same. 

He could feel Elrond looking at him now, and slammed his mind shut. He did not want Elrond looking at his thoughts just now, with Eönwë standing there.

The great camp of the host of Valinor, upon the new shore of the land that had once been Ossiriand, and was not yet called Lindon, where they had slain the guards around the Silmarils, he and Maedhros, and the host of Valinor had come pouring out to surround them, thousands strong. 

Eönwë had said in a great voice filled with pity that was sharp as knives and just as merciless; Stand back. Stand back, all you Elves and Men of the West. Let the Sons of Fëanor depart this place. 

Condemning Maglor to live on, in grief and pain and vain regret.  Condemning Maedhros to find his own escape, without the help of the Valar. 

And all the great host that had been all around the Sons of Fëanor, swords in hand, all of them had stepped backwards silently, and made a wide path for them...

And Eönwë had said...

“There has been enough of death,” Eönwë said, in that voice that was like golden trumpets. 

But now under the plum tree, in the thin bright rain with the sun slanting through it that had begun to fall again, Eönwë bowed his shining head, and said to Maglor again; “There has been enough of death. I do not know, Maglor, son of Fëanor, what the Valar will decide.  But I regret that I took no counsel about your Oath, and did not try to turn enemies back into friends.  For I was strong, and free to choose, and you were not.”  

And Eönwë, Herald of the Valar held out his hand. Cautiously, Maglor took it.