I Will Not Say The Day Is Done by bunn  

One who cannot cast away a treasure at need is in fetters

In the white city of Tirion, Elrond came to the house that long ago had been renamed the House of Nerdanel, ignored the front door, and went in through the garden gate, between the rosebushes which were just beginning to show dark red buds. He came to the door of Nerdanel’s workroom and tapped on it a little tentatively. 

There was a long pause, then a sound of clattering, and then Nerdanel appeared, wearing her working clothes, her red hair springing around her freckled face in wild tangled spirals. 

“Elrond!” she said delightedly. “Come in, come in! I was just about to take a break!”

“I’m not interrupting?” he asked.

“When you’re interrupting, I’ll tell you,” Nerdanel said firmly. “And I always have time for my grandsons, honorary or not. I’ve only got the two of you, after all. And I only got Celebrimbor back because you spoke for him! Come and have some wine. How’s my horrible son? The living one, obviously.”

“Maglor is well,” Elrond said. “He sent his love. Oh, and this.” He gave her an envelope, and accepted a cup in return. “He wrote it with Bilbo. It’s rather rude, I’m afraid. He said you wouldn’t mind.” 

Nerdanel laughed and took it. “He really is my most disreputable son! I’m sure it will be very funny. I’ll make sure to read it to Anairë and watch her blush.  Are the Gondolodrim still following him about watching angrily like so many guard dogs, waiting for him to put a foot wrong?  Or has he managed to lead them astray?”

“Something of both,” Elrond said with a smile. “My old friend Glorfindel has been talking to them. He knows them all well, of course. We seem to have settled on a compromise.  Maglor has agreed to stay on Tol Eressëa, for now, and those of the Gondolodrim who suffered at the Havens have agreed to stay off it. It does at least mean we no longer have an encampment of heroes of Gondolin on the doorstep. And Maglor has written a new sonata for flute and harp for him to play with Ecthelion. ”

“Well, that does sound like progress of a kind,” Nerdanel said. 

“You said in your letter that you had something you wanted to tell me in person?” 

“I fear so. I have spoken with my horrible husband in the Halls of Mandos,” Nerdanel said with a rueful smile. “He’s come up with what he says is a way to break the power of his Oath. You aren’t going to like it, Elrond. I don’t think it’s possible, to be honest, but he says it is the only way, so I thought I’d tell you at least, so you could say you thought it impossible too! But I didn’t want to put it in a letter. He says it needs a Silmaril.” 

“Hm. I’d better not mention that to Maglor,” Elrond said thoughtfully. 

“You think he might react badly?” Nerdanel asked. “I thought you felt he could be trusted?”

“I do trust Maglor,” Elrond said. “He knows that. But talk of his father and the Silmaril will wake his oath. It will torment him, and he’ll have to fight it. I’d rather spare him that for as long as possible.” 

That way, too, it was less likely that Maglor would fail. Elrond was not so foolish as to believe that Maglor could resist his oath for long if it were awake and preying on his thought. But if Maglor could put his oath away out of mind, he would, and if he could not, he would at least give Elrond warning. Even with Morgoth in the world, Maglor and his brothers had always managed that. 

“One Silmaril only?” he asked.

“You say that as if you think it would be easy to get one!” Nerdanel exclaimed. 

“It will be a good deal easier to get hold of one Silmaril than three,” Elrond said, considering the problem. “Do you think he’ll give it back afterwards?” 

Nerdanel shook her head. “I don’t know what Fëanor will do,” she said. “I rarely did before he went to Formenos. I certainly don’t now. I did ask. He said he would return it, and he always used to be honest, whatever else he was. But he also says that dead, he is only the half of himself. I wouldn’t rely on it.”

“Hm.” Elrond thought about it. “Aman, at least is clear of the Enemy’s darkness. Though of course, he did sow his lies even here, and no doubt their seeds still lie hidden in the dust, as they do everywhere. We can’t recover the Silmaril that Maedhros...” he remembered in time that Nerdanel was Maedhros’s mother, and left the sentence hanging. “I’ll try to convince my father. There is also the Silmaril that Maglor threw into the sea. Ulmo, presumably, has that. If the Valar rule that the House of Fëanor may be released from the Halls of Mandos, then it might be that Ulmo will be prepared to return it, if we ask him. But I’ll try my father first.”

“Really?” Nerdanel said. “You want to do that? The awful things burned Maglor and Maedhros. It seems pretty clear that Fëanáro’s right to them is void.”

“I’m not asking for a Silmaril because Fëanor has some special right to them,” Elrond said. “I’m asking because it seems he needs it for a good reason. One who cannot cast away a treasure at need is in fetters. I’ve believed that for a very long time. That applies to my father as much as anyone else. Lending a treasure to a kinsman, or even giving it to him at need is not unreasonable.” 

“It might burn Fëanáro,” Nerdanel pointed out. She thought about it. “I could bring some gloves and tongs.” 

Elrond smiled. “Very practical.”

Nerdanel frowned, fingering the small irregular pebble that hung around her neck on a thong. It was, presumably, the stone that was enchanted to allow her to speak with her notorious husband. It would not speak for anyone else. 

She said, “I keep hoping that he might come out of the Halls of Mandos himself, whole, as he used to be. Not overwhelmed with anger and mistrust and grief. I wish I could make myself entirely believe it. No matter what he says now, dead, I can’t forget his living voice calling me untrue for deserting him. Anger fades, but Morgoth’s lies were in his mind and voice, Fingolfin says. What if they still are?”

“Morgoth’s lies got into many voices,” Elrond told her wearily, feeling oddly old. Nerdanel was ages older than he was himself, but she had never left Aman. “I’ve heard them from my brother’s mouth and Maglor’s too. Despair, terror, anger, greed, jealousy... so many kinds of lie that can spring up unlooked for and swiftly take root. You learn to watch your thought, to take miruvor, to play the harp or sing, to set a virtue on a gem, or the hilt of your sword, to call on Elbereth, to think of starlight on the Sea, to keep on hoping... so many ways we learned to hold thought and memory constant against the Shadow. Celebrimbor is a master of the art. Galadriel, too, and my daughter Arwen. And Sam Gamgee, though he would be most surprised at the idea. Darkness isn’t something you have to accept or flee. You can learn to know it, and reject it too. It’s a skill that can be taught.”

“Is it? You give me hope, Elrond! If it’s a skill that can be taught, then Fëanáro will certainly want to learn it.”

“Well, that’s a hopeful sign, too,” Elrond said. “Sauron lost that. He lost the desire to learn or make anything new. Or so Galadriel says, and she knew his mind and saw his purposes.”

“She did?” Nerdanel looked faintly horrified, and took a generous swig from her cup. 

“It was a very long and terrible war,” Elrond said. “All one war, really. The Jewels, the Rings, the Shadow of the Enemy.” 

“But you still think they can come home,” Nerdanel said. “After all this time, they might come home from the war at last.”

“I don’t know,” Elrond said. “I hope.”