The House of Fëanor : Little Pity by bunn  

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From Mandos

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The Halls of Mandos were wide and grey and cool: decked with the storied tapestries that told the tales of Arda. They were utterly separate from the living world, with its growth and struggle and change.  Pleasant enough in their way, for those who enjoyed the shade of star-shadow and the darkness of the woods.  Pleasant enough for a day,  for a few years of the Trees even.  Míriel  Þerindë had found them calming, healing, for a while.

But even she, who had chosen to pass from life to death, had grown weary of the Halls of Mandos in time, and had felt the urgent call of her living body and her skills again. 

 Fëanor, in life, had loved light and children and discovering things new and strange: he had loved the skills of his hand and mind and used them to the full.  

To call it yearning for his body was to use too weak a word.  He missed it with a passion like a flame. 

He was heartily sick of the Halls of Mandos.  He had been imprisoned these seven thousand years, an unwilling subject of the lordship of Námo.  The halls would have seemed dull enough after so long, even for one permitted to roam them freely, but Fëanor and his sons were not permitted that.  The wrath of the Valar lay on them still. 

But now, at last, at last, here was a change coming. 

If he chose to take it. 

“It burns my heart to leave you here, Father,” he said unhappily. “Are you sure you would not prefer that I stay?”

“It saddens me to see you wearing out your heart here,” Finwë said.  “Think of your own sons.  Would you wish Curufinwë the younger to wait here in idleness for you, if he could take up his tools again?”

“No!” Fëanor said. “It has been hardest for him, of all of them, to stay here with nothing to do but think old thoughts.  I would have him free to make and do and think of new things, and be with his son.”  

The Halls of Mandos were not made for new thoughts. It was one of many frustrating things about them. 

“Well then!” Finwë said, and although in the spirit he did not really have hands or arms, any more than Fëanor had shoulders, he put his arm around his son’s shoulders, all the same.  “I am perfectly well here.  I shall visit with your mother in the workshops of Vairë, and watch the tale of years being woven with my old friend Elwë, and we shall be content: ancient Elves with minds full of stars, walking through memory and singing songs of days long past.  I have had many more years of life than you, and I have made what is in me to make: my jewels, my city, my children and my people.  By staying here, I give back your mother’s skills to the world, and that is a thing worthwhile in itself.”  He smiled.  “And I must confess, I am not eager to take back the kingship of the Noldor, and judge their quarrels!  You will all have to sort those out for yourselves.”

“I will do better,” Fëanor assured his father. “It was only that...”

“You were upset. I know.  You thought yourself beset within a ring of enemies. I was not exactly happy myself,” Finwë said, and laughed.   

They had, of course, had this conversation before, many times over.  That was what the Halls of Mandos was made for: looking back. It pushed you that way.  Fëanor was used to it by now, but he still found it unpleasant. Presumably his father did not feel the same.  

“Our Enemy is gone now, and time has softened all griefs and grievances,”  Finwë said. 

“The Valar are not gone,” Fëanor pointed out.

“No.  But the Valar are not the Enemy.”

Fëanor did not answer but looked at him sideways. 

“They aren’t, Fëanáro. Strange and hard to talk with, yes.  Uncomprehending, too, I’ll agree with that, quick to anger and rarely gifted at explaining what they are about or what their reasons are!   But you don’t really believe they are of evil will.”

“Perhaps not,” Fëanor admitted, reluctantly.  

He, who had seen Thangorodrim and fought Balrogs, who had watched in horror as the Oath that he had made had been twisted by his Enemy until it betrayed his sons, one by one, into death, could no longer hold that the Valar and the Shadow were the same. 

There was no point ignoring information.  That only led you into error. 

Finwë nodded gratefully. “Perhaps if I had known what they thought we were agreeing to, all those many years ago at Cuivienen, I might have spoken differently, or made conditions.  They thought we were surrendering ourselves into their hands, to be directed and disciplined as children.  We thought they were only offering light, knowledge and safety! And it was too late by the time we discovered we were not entirely speaking the same language...  But they did give us the light and the knowledge and the safety, after all.”

Fëanor snorted. 

“Mostly, they gave us safety,” Finwë corrected himself.  “You were born for Valinor.  You, the greatest of my children, above all the rest could not have reached your full potential anywhere else. But all of you deserved a land of peace and learning.  Don’t start a pointless argument you can’t win!  Not with the Valar.”

“No, Father,” Fëanor said, dutifully. Finwë looked relieved.

“Don’t start arguments with the Teleri either for that matter!” he said. “If you didn’t teach them that the protection of the Valar was not always absolute, then the arrival of the Numenorean navy did.  I imagine poor old Olwë is a little less confident in them since they abandoned everything outside the Pelóri without a single blow struck. Elwë was horrified by that, and that was after he had been killed himself, and seen his Maia wife desert his people.  They aren’t like us, the Ainur.”

“Yes, Father,” Fëanor said. 

Apparently the meekness in his voice struck a suspicious note. Finwë looked at him doubtfully and shook his head.  “I don’t know why I keep on talking,” he said.   “I know perfectly well you won’t pay attention to a word of it!” 

Fëanor gave him a smile that, from his father’s expression, looked rather more weary than he had intended.  “I will,” he said.  “I do. But you must admit, I’ve heard it all quite a few times by now.  Give me a little credit for not being a complete fool. I know you and Mother will be watching.  I fully intend not to let you down again.” 

“Just... just remember that you are supposed to look after your younger brothers, not fight with them,” Finwë told him.  As if either Fingolfin or Finarfin was likely to need anything from their disgraced and dispossessed half-brother!  Each was head of his own great House, and Finarfin was High King of the Noldor too.  

Yet Finwë went on, as if Feanor were a child,  “Take care of your brothers and sisters, and keep an eye on your temper, please!”

Release from the Halls of Mandos would not be freedom.  It would only be a wider cage. But even that would be better than unlife until the end of Arda. 

“Yes, Father,” he agreed. You could not lie, in the Halls of Mandos, but agreeing to something that never would be needed was not a lie. 

   . . . . . .

It would not be any of the Maiar that came to them, when the time appointed came.  Námo’s Maiar were no longer permitted to speak with Fëanor without Námo’s supervision, since Fëanor had spoken to them of his discontent, and had proved far more convincing than Námo apparently found comfortable.  Probably it would be Námo himself, to send forth his prisoners out just as long ago he had sent Melkor free at Manwë’s command. 

But in the end, it was not the Lord of the Dead who came.  It was Nienna, tall and clad in veils of grey who came to the long hall where they had waited for so long.   Fëanor was glad of that. If he never saw Lord Námo again, it would be too soon.  

Nienna brought pity, which would have been unwelcome, except that Nienna pitied everyone, and there was nothing personal in it.  Nienna had not come to them until recently. Her presence was a sign of change, and welcome for that reason, even if she was of the Valar. 

Nienna arrived, not through a door, but simply by manifesting herself, and inclined her veiled head to them. Fëanor after a moment, bowed back. There was no harm in showing courtesy, and Nienna herself had done him and his sons no direct injury.  Beside him, his six sons as one followed his example. 

“I shall need your assistance,” she said, and regarded them, her head a little on one side, her dark eyes very sharp and shining bright above the veil, despite the tears.  “I must make a body for each of you, formed from the stuff of the world.  This only the Ainur can easily do, or so I believe.  But to shape the form to be right for each of you, I shall need you to give me the image of who you are.”  She seemed to hesitate for a moment.  

“It has been suggested to me that I use the word ‘collaboration’,” she said.

Fëanor, taken by surprise, laughed.  Then, remembering Finwë’s words to him, he bit back a harsh reply which would have achieved little, and silenced Curufin and Caranthir with a stern look before either of them could make the same point. 

“Very well,” he said.

“Who shall be first?” she asked.  Fëanor looked around and considered. “Maedhros,” he decided.  

His eldest son looked at him.  His spirit still did not entirely look himself, though Fëanor was hard-pressed to say exactly how.  

“I do want to leave here, you know,” Maedhros said. “It wasn’t that I wanted to be dead, so much as that there were so many pressing arguments for no longer being alive.”

“Well, now there are pressing arguments for being alive again,” Fëanor told him. “You are eldest, and must lead.”  He winced a little at that, and Caranthir put a hand on his shoulder, but it was true and he would do it. 

“I want to see that all of you are safely gone before I leave myself,” Fëanor told them. And he was not entirely sure that Maedhros would in fact leave, without his father and all his brothers to make sure he did.  

He turned to Nienna. “I would speak with you, before you begin?” he asked. “In private.” 

Nienna bowed her veiled head and made an upward gesture with both hands.  Walls sprung up around them, enclosing Fëanor and herself in a small room with his sons outside it.  Unsubtle, but then the Ainur usually were. 

“Maedhros will give you an image of himself that is not fair, or true,” he told her bluntly. “Don’t let him make himself a monster.”

“I can only make him the form that he carries within himself,” Nienna said gravely. 

“That is utter nonsense,” Fëanor told her firmly.  “Aulë made the Dwarves using the same approach that you will use: I’ve heard about it in some detail, and I do understand the process.  He had no idea what shape to make them, never having seen either Elf or Man, and so he made one up. If you cannot make a shape that looks like Maitimo, rather than whatever shape he has dreamed up and convinced himself that he deserves, then...” 

“Yes?” Nienna asked, head on one side again, eyes looking deep into him. 

“Then I shall know that any faint and foolish hope I might still harbour that the Valar are in the end well-meaning and only very confused about how best to achieve their ends, is entirely vain,” Fëanor told her. 

“Dear me,” Nienna said mildly. “An appalling threat.”

He looked up at her, and smiled. “You are mocking me,” he said, determined.  He had learned. “It doesn’t matter.  You are still wrong, and I am concerned for my son. If I am not mistaken, so are you.  I can’t imagine you want to do this less well than the best it can be done. Call on Aulë, if you need help.  Or Nerdanel.  My wife is a superb sculptor.  She will advise you.  You said ‘collaboration’. So do it.”

“The process used in making the Dwarves is not entirely the same,” Nienna said and this time she looked genuinely thoughtful. “He made the forms without the spirit, and Eru himself shaped the spirits of the Dwarves to suit their form, which is beyond the skill of any lesser being, and certainly beyond mine.  The body must match the spirit, or the spirit will revolt and will not remain within it.” 

“Nerdanel then,” Fëanor insisted. “She made his body the first time, after all, and shaped his spirit, too.”

“His spirit now is not the spirit that you shaped together,” Nienna said sadly, tears running down into her veil from the corners of her eyes. 

“No,” Fëanor said, with, he thought, considerable patience.  “And it never will be.  But I am not asking you for the form of a child.  I am asking for my son to have a form that fits all his life and spirit, not merely the end of it, and certainly not whatever hideous tangle of guilt and fear he has wrapped around it. He can’t unwind that here.  But he will one day.  He was born to be well-formed and so he should be.”

“Ah!” Nienna said.  “Now there’s a thought. I cannot ignore the form his spirit calls for, but I could, perhaps, reach across time and gather together threads that have snapped, a few of them, at least. And it is in his name. Names shape the world, too.  That might do well.” She looked at him with an understanding in her eyes that was deep as the sea, and although Fëanor would not admit it, even to himself, frankly terrifying.  “A good idea, and not only for him.  I will bear it in mind.”

“Thank you,” Fëanor said as she brought her hands down and the walls folded into the floor.

“All sorted out,” he said cheerfully to his sons, as if there were some last-minute hitch in the arrangements for some trip away from Tirion when they were children.  “Come now, Maitimo.”

“Maedhros,” Maedhros said and stepped forward, serious-faced.  “I haven’t been Maitimo in three Ages.”   Fëanor knew that, of course, but he had hoped the name might help.  But perhaps it was still too soon for that.

. . . . . . 

The side door of the Halls of Mandos, where Elves returned to life usually let out directly into the rose-garden outside.  There, Maglor had been told, the returned found clothing and food, left in a small house outside the walls by the charitable of Eldamar. 

But on this occasion, it was generally agreed that emerging naked into the view of more than half of Tirion, now encamped all around the Halls of Mandos, might be an unwelcome ordeal (though the idea made Nerdanel at least, laugh long and loudly enough that Celebrían was overcome with giggles, and had to go away outside the garden with Nimloth.)  

So they put up a tall white tent against the door to provide a degree of peace and privacy.   You could, of course, hear the murmur of the many people not far away through the pale canvas walls. 

Then there was some discussion as to who should wait inside the tent: a debate that Maglor won entirely by not speaking at all, but simply fixing all the others with a pointed glare until they went away. Even Nerdanel nodded, and wandered off to sketch the roses around the gardens that lay around the Halls of the Dead. Finrod showed signs of lingering, but was eventually towed away by Elrond.  

When almost everyone had left, Maglor sat down to wait and then noticed Fingon waiting, quiet as a hunter, in a corner.  He tried the glare on him, and was met by a level, deeply unimpressed look in return. 

“Fair enough,” Maglor said, and shrugged. “Do you want a game of dice?”

Maglor had lost his arm-rings twice, had won them back again and gained a cloak-pin, when the door opened, and Maedhros came out. 

Maglor had prepared approximately six thousand things to say to him, and found that none of them, in the event, were right. 

Instead he stared for a moment. “They made you a whole new body, but didn’t give you back your hand?”

“Hello, Maglor,” Maedhros said. He looked less thin and worn and hunched than he had in those last terrible months at the end of the War of Wrath, after they had lost their last faint hope at the Silmarils, and then, even more appallingly, had regained them. 

But Maglor had expected him to look at least outwardly like the brother of his youth, and he did not.  He might have been the leader of East Beleriand before the Nirnaeth Arnoediad, but he was not Maitimo. 

Fingon, unspeaking, handed him a shirt. 

“Thank you,” Maedhros said to him, taking it with his single hand and pulling it on.  “You look well.” 

“They gave me a body with two hands,” Fingon said, dangerously, looking at the door that had closed behind Maedhros.

“She tried,” Maedhros said.  “The Lady Nienna. It wouldn’t come, I’m afraid.”  He hesitated. “I didn’t think that would bother you.” 

“That’s not the point!” Fingon said furiously. “That is absolutely and completely not the point!  We talked about this.  In the Halls.  You promised me you would not dwell on the past, that if I went first, you’d follow me when you got the chance.”

Maedhros looked at him and the corner of his mouth curled very slightly. “Well, yes,” he said.  “You were terrible at being dead.  I’d have said almost anything to get you to leave. Watching you pacing up and down and ranting was very tiring.” 

“Pah!” Fingon said.  “You can’t tell lies in the Halls of Mandos, I know that as well as you do!”  He took Maedhros’s arm, very gently and looked at where the right hand should have been, then at his face. “I thought the Valar had forgiven all of it.”

Maedhros made a helpless gesture with the hand he still had. “If they have, I haven’t. You can’t go back. It will always be there, behind me.”  

Fingon shook his head, wordless. 

Maedhros pulled on breeches.  They had not thought to  bring clothes that were easy to fasten with one hand, and Fingon had to help him with the laces. 

“You can’t go back,” Maglor agreed, fiercely determined not to weep, since Maedhros was not weeping, though it would be a hundred times easier if he were.  “You can go on though, I’ve found.” 

 “What do you think I’m doing?” Maedhros demanded. “I’m here.  I’d prefer that it was something from Doriath, or from the Havens that I had kept, of course.  But I wasn’t wounded in either of those battles.”

“Fingon,” Maglor said abruptly, because it was too much. “Please. Take him away.  Take him to Elrond and Celebrían. Perhaps they can...” Then he remembered. “No, wait.  Maedhros, our mother is out there.  And Eärwen of Alqualondë. She isn’t angry. I have talked to her. And Ecthelion of Gondolin.  Galadriel, if you can believe that, and Celeborn of Doriath.  Nimloth.  Dior.  Gil-galad is out there, and I promise you if you speak to him he will shake your hand and greet you as a friend.   As well as half of Tirion. Most of them carrying your banners, or Father’s and very delighted that you have returned.”

Maedhros blinked and looked at him, shocked. “Why?”

“There has to be an end to things,” Maglor said, feeling he was putting it very badly. He shook his head.  “It’s better, to call an end to things, than keep on...  Oh, you didn’t listen to me before.  Why would you now? I should have asked Elrond to wait. Or Finrod. He’d find the right words.”

Maedhros gave him another startled look. 

“No, you shouldn’t,” Fingon said, watchful.  “You have done this.  Not Finrod, and not even Elrond.  You came back and faced them all, and showed them who you are.”

“Did you just say that Finrod would put something better than you?” Maedhros said, in Maglor’s view, missing the point entirely.  “Finrod?”  He took a long step over to Maglor, took him by the shoulder and looked down into his eyes.  

“Finrod has been helpful,” Maglor told him staring back defiantly into Maedhros’s eyes, with the hint of familiar flame burning bright behind them. “He is very forgiving.”

“Well, I know that, of course, but I never thought I’d see the day when Maglor deferred to Finrod on a matter of words,” Maedhros said, scrutinising him closely.  “Or to young Elrond, either!” 

Maglor laughed, a laugh that sounded harsh in his own ears.  “He’s hardly young any more.” 

“I suppose not.” Maedhros frowned. “Still, it’s not like you.”

“How would you know?  You threw yourself into the fire to get away from me, thousands of years ago. People change.” Maglor twisted away from him.  “No need to look into my eyes for darkness.  There’s nothing hiding there that isn’t in yours as well.” 

Fingon said, warning, “Maglor,” and Maglor caught himself, remembering that he owed Maedhros for Losgar, and for Thangorodrim as well, and that he had meant to arrange things so that Maedhros would not have to deal with anyone pushing blame at him.

“Sorry,” he said unhappily to both of them. “I didn’t mean that.”

“I can honestly say that of all my reasons, getting away from you was not even on the list,” Maedhros said. “You can stop feeling guilty about that right now. You weren’t the reason and could not have stopped me. Don’t be such a fool.”

“Says the person who made himself a body with only one hand,” Maglor pointed out.  “It’s not as if you aren’t deadly with the left!  Honestly, what were you thinking? ‘I’ll make myself a body that can kill people but not tie my breeches’? How does that help?”

Maedhros looked terrifyingly furious for a moment, then suddenly he laughed. “You make an excellent point,” he said.  “I didn’t think.  It wasn’t planned.  I don’t think it works like that.  It’s just how I came out.” He looked down at his remaining hand.  “At least it isn’t scarred.” 

“Does it hurt?” Fingon asked practically.  

Maedhros thought about it, and stretched, moving his arms and shoulders.  “No.” 

“Well, that’s something, anyway,” Fingon said. “No doubt you’ll have a cunning hand of metal made.  But I don’t intend to stand here and watch you two pushing guilt about and talking around each other until your brothers arrive too and we end up with a shouting match.  No wonder you were such disasters after I died and left you to get on with things!   It’s been thousands of years. Everyone but you has come back to life long ago.  To the amazement of all, including me, Maglor has been convincingly harmless since he arrived in Aman with Elrond, and very nearly everyone has seen it and decided that we should all reunite and go on. Get to the point, Maglor.”

“Eärendil is out there,” Maglor said. “Vingilot is anchored in the sky. With the Silmaril.” He felt his Oath rouse in his mind and bite harder at the words.  He braced himself and ignored it.  He must not let it colour his thought. It pulled at Maedhros a little too, though, he thought, not as insistently, at least not yet.  Maedhros’s body had not been in Middle-earth, where Morgoth’s essence still ran like a thin dark thread through the very rocks, of course.  Perhaps that helped. 

“I’m not going to take it, and nor are you. Nor our brothers, or our father.  He has some idea that it can break the Oath. I don’t think it can be done.  You tried. We tried.  We must make them wait. The Oath doesn’t say we can’t wait. There is no urgency.  We took the two.  The third may come in time. But we aren’t going to kill for it.” 

The Oath bit into him again, and he ran out of words. He could have quelled it with the harp, but the harp could be a weapon, too.  Not worth the risk, to carry harp or sword, for all that both were habit and not having the sword upon his belt felt odd. He pushed it back, writhing and hideous.

“Easier, now,” Maedhros said, wonderingly.  Fingon was looking at both of them doubtfully

“Yes.  Much.  You can.”  He set himself to watch the Oath.  If he was looking at it, it could not move behind his thought and push it out of shape. 

“Can I?” Maedhros said heavily. “Very well then.  We tried my way.  Now we’ll try yours.  If the others agree, at any rate.”

“No.” Maglor said, and pushed the Oath back harder, with an effort, running cool rounded notes through memory in his mind until it stilled. “Make them!” he said. “We could have done it at Losgar, if I had had more sense, before it became strong. We can do it now.”

Maedhros rubbed his neck with his hand and did not answer. 

Fingon said, “This is not a problem that the House of Fëanor has to solve alone.  You have friends, you have allies, and the Enemy is gone beyond the world. Stop looking so gloomy!  You have very nearly won.” 

Maedhros looked at him and laughed. “And will the House of Fingolfin ever stop riding to our rescue, even now beyond six thousand years?” 

“I doubt it,”  Fingon told him grinning.  “My father, me, Aredhel and Elrond, anyway.  Turgon and Idril are less enthusiastic.  But Turgon came to join our alliance, after all.” 

Maedhros frowned. “That was before the Havens.”

“Elros would say: ‘so try to do better,’” Maglor reminded him. “I’ve talked to Turgon.”

“You’ve talked to everyone!” Fingon said. “He has, Maedhros.  Finrod could not have been more conciliatory. A very curious sight it was too, and I never would have believed it if I hadn’t seen it myself.  I had a theory at one point that Elrond was putting something in his wine...”

“I wish Elrond would put something in your wine!” Maglor told him reprovingly. “ Maedhros, are you going to wait for the rest, or do you want to go and meet people?  Elrond wants to see you, but he’s far from alone.”

“I’ll wait for the rest,” Maedhros said.  “There is, as you said, no urgency.”

 . . . . . .

Celegorm was next, then, and somewhat to Maglor’s relief, Caranthir arrived very shortly afterwards. He had always got on better with Caranthir than Celegorm. 

 “I don’t know why you two took so long,” Caranthir said rather curtly, when Celegorm raised an eyebrow at his swift arrival.  “It was very simple.  Show her who you are, she makes a body, you get into it.  How hard is that?”

“Not hard for you, apparently,” Maedhros said. “I found it more complicated, myself.” Caranthir looked at the place where the missing hand should be, and nodded abruptly. 

“Some of our bodies require more artistry in creation than others,” Celegorm suggested, and received a brotherly elbow in the ribs. 

Amras was next.  “What happened to Curufin?” Celegorm demanded.  

“I don’t know!” Amras said. “He went off before she came and called for me.  I thought he’d be here already.”  He hastily pulled on a shirt and breeches, and began to rummage through a pile of tunics.  

“There are some belts,” Maglor told him, pointing them out, and Amras looked up, put the pile of tunics down very carefully, came over and put his arms around Maglor instead. 

“I’m very glad that you are still alive,” he told Maglor quietly.  

Maglor hugged him back.  He should be worried, still, and yet his face badly wanted to smile, and so he did. “There were times I wasn’t glad,” he admitted.  “But today I am.”

Amrod arrived before Curufin did.  “I saw him on the way through,” Amrod reported.  “He says he’s talking to Nienna and will be along once he’s finished.”

“Will he!” Celegorm said, pacing.  “Hasn’t he had long enough in the Halls of Mandos?”

“We have time,” Maglor told him. “There is no urgency.  Father isn’t here yet.”

“Wait,” Maedhros said quietly.  Fingon raised his eyebrows at Celegorm, who nodded and sat down again.  

. . . . . .

In the afternoon sun a good distance away from the gloomy walls of the Halls of Mandos, Elrond, Celebrían and the hobbits were eating lunch with Nimloth, Dior, Finrod, Amárië, and Edrahil.  They had been joined by Eärendil and Elwing too, who had arrived in Vingilot and descended on great white wings to greet their son, much to Bilbo’s delight.  Eärendil was carrying the Silmaril, Elrond knew, but it was hidden, for the time being. Elrond’s father and mother looked quite ordinary, at the moment.  They could have been any man and woman eating lunch together, sitting quietly on the grass.  

Left to himself, Elrond would not have wanted food, but the company of hobbits made a missed meal impolite, and so they sat and ate, and made conversation.  

After a while, an unexpected guest appeared, sat down rather heavily between Bilbo and Frodo, and helped himself to cheese, beer and bread.

“Good afternoon, Gandalf!” Bilbo said.  “I didn’t know you were coming here too!”  

“Good afternoon!” Gandalf said.  “This is an event unthought-of since the Elder Days, after all. I hope I’ll be excused for intruding.”

“Old friends are always welcome,” Elrond said smiling.  

“That’s good to hear!” Gandalf said. “We have kept our people away as much as possible, since the Three High Kings have made their views very clear that this affair is a matter for the Elves.”  He nodded politely to Finrod, who as his father’s representative, nodded politely back. 

“Yes, we noticed,” Elrond said. “And I wondered who to thank for such restraint.  I thought it might be you.” 

“I heard that you and Bilbo spoke uncommonly bluntly to the Vanyar, when you were in Valimar,” Gandalf said, his bristling eyebrows twitched together in amusement. 

“There’s no point beating about the bush,” Bilbo told him. “I stand by what I said. The Valar left Sauron to the hobbits, and that was a quite ridiculous decision!” 

“Ridiculous! I daresay that it was,” Gandalf said “But in the end it worked, and nothing sank into the sea.  Things have been known to come to far darker ends.”

“They certainly have,” Elrond said.  “And I will say it again.  We owe you thanks for helping us change the ending of this part of the story.” 

Gandalf looked at him with eyes that saw uncomfortably more than Elrond would have liked, but if he saw that Elrond was uncertain, he did not say so. 

“I am a great admirer of the work of Fëanor myself,” Gandalf said. “And I may say that the Valar have learned a good deal from their dealings with the House of Finwë.  One reason why they sent us to Middle-earth in the form of Men, I and my colleagues. To make it easier to understand, and harder to overrule.  It is hard, when you look down from a great height, to see how things are on the ground, no matter how keen your eyes.”

“I’ve wondered why you have not changed back to... whatever you were before.” Frodo said, looking thoughtfully at Gandalf’s long white beard. “You can be any shape you like, can’t you?”

“And what, Frodo Baggins, makes you think that with a choice of any shape I like, I would not pick this one?” Gandalf said, bristling his eyebrows imposingly. 

Sam looked at him thoughtfully, head on one side. “If I could pick any shape I liked,” he said. “I’d pick a different one for each day of the week, I reckon.   But if it was me doing the picking, I wouldn’t pick one of ‘em with a beard.” 

“Perhaps I should make you a beardless frog for a week and see how you like it, Master Gamgee!” Gandalf said, and laughed.   “But in fact, Frodo, you have the right of it. We get used to a form, if we wear it long enough.  You end up not shaping it, so much as being shaped.  I’ve worn this form long enough that it is me, and I am it, and we are one.   And so I’m no longer what I was, and never will be again, but something else.  Part Man, part Maia, perhaps?  An unusual thing to be, but useful in its way.”

“I had not realised!” Elrond said.  “In that case you should be doubly welcome; not only as an old friend, but as family too: kin to myself, my mother Elwing, Elrohir, and my grandfather Dior, of course.  There are not many people who are part Man and part Maia, and most of the rest of us are here already.” 

Gandalf’s bristling eyebrows shot up.  “Are you determined to make every person in the land of Aman your relative, Elrond?” he asked, and he laughed, a great laugh filled with joy. “It is a great thing to be one of Elrond’s family. I am honoured,” he said. 

. . . . . .

The sun was falling into the West, and the great host  gathered and quietly waiting upon the plains around the Halls of Mandos had begun to make fires and settle for the evening.  The shadow of the Halls of Mandos stretched out long and dark across the white tent that hid the door through which the dead were permitted to leave.  

Someone should bring lamps to the tent before it became dark, and probably food and drink too.  Celebrimbor appeared to possess quite inexhaustible supplies of patience and no nerves at all.  He was still happily chatting with some of his jewelsmiths and Nerdanel about some new project they were planning together.  

Elrond looked at them, and concluded that ‘someone’ should be himself.  He gathered up supplies and lamps and a couple of people to help carry them.  Then he poked his head into the tent, to meet shining eyes in a surprising number of faces that looked more or less like Maglor.  One of them was pulling on a tunic.  

And there was Maedhros, too, next to Fingon, and looking somehow much younger and less careworn than Elrond had ever seen him look, though he still had one hand missing. 

“Elrond!  Your timing is perfect,” Maglor said, and came over to draw him inside.  It struck Elrond that he looked much older than his brothers: not as the Edain look older, with greying hair or wrinkled skin, but something behind the eyes was tired and shadowed.  He waved the people with the lamps and food to set them down and thanked them. 

“Hello Elrond,” Maedhros said, and smiled.  Not, perhaps, by most people’s standards the most carefree of smiles, but for Maedhros, who had usually had to work up to smiling at all, it was a very good one.

“You look so well!” Elrond told him, smiling back.  

“Does he?” said someone Elrond didn’t know, but from his fair hair must be Celegorm.  “We’ve just been telling him that Nienna has made a terrible mess of him, and he should go back and complain!” 

Maglor shook his head reprovingly.  “Elrond, this is Celegorm, who, against stiff competition, is probably my least tactful brother. This is Curufin, and Amrod, and Amras, who is probably the most tactful...”

Amrod said indignantly,  “Him and not me?”

“Definitely him and not you, Amrod,” Curufin said, rolling his eyes.

Maglor went on “... and over there already with his hands already on the sandwiches is Caranthir. All of you, this is Elrond son of Eärendil, of the house of... well all of them, really, ours included, since to my continuing surprise he has chosen it.”

“Of course I have chosen it,” Elrond told him.  “Why would I not choose to be of the house of my foster-father?”

Maglor grinned at him. “Anyway, we owe him a great debt, and if any of you are impolite to him, Celegorm, I will send you back to Mandos in a box.”

Celegorm chuckled, and bowed very politely to Elrond.

The person who had been pulling on a tunic over his head had finished dressing, now.  Maglor turned to him. “And this is my father.  Father, this is Elrond.”

Fëanor looked very much like Celebrimbor, but unlike his grandson, unlike everyone there, he did not keep his mind and spirit closed against casual intrusion.  Fëanor’s spirit was open and blazed furiously bright.  It was like looking into the heart of a furnace.   Elrond blinked, although it was not exactly his eyes that were dazzled. 

“You are the son of the keeper of my Silmaril,” Fëanor said to him thoughtfully.  

The word ‘Silmaril’ resonated as he spoke it, and Elrond could feel it catch and pull on Maglor next to him, and almost everyone else there too.  It came to Elrond in a frantic rush of thought that everyone around him had sworn the Oath save Fingon, and that there was no accustomed weight of a sword against his hip, because Maglor had chosen not to bring one, and so Elrond had done the same. 

Out of the corner of an eye, he saw Maedhros come to his feet, and Fingon standing very still next to him, so still that the very stillness caught the eye.  Maglor, who had been cheerful and relaxed, was now taut as a harp-string.  That one word from Fëanor had changed the mood entirely.

“Yes, I am,” Elrond said, and smiled, because he had never been afraid to take a risk. 

“And mine,” Maglor said to his father, and there was power ringing his words. 

“And your son too, I understand, Maglor,” Fëanor said, his eyes crinkling at the corners in amusement. “I have heard a great deal about you, Elrond.  It seems I am fortunate in one respect at least: I have grandsons as talented as my children, and at least one is luckier, too. ”   

“Or wiser,” Maglor said. “We are not going to war for the last Silmaril. I am not.” He was shaking slightly, Elrond noticed with concern, and forcing out the words.  Next to him, Maedhros was pale and silent, and his eyes were like flames.  Fingon had his hand casually on his sword-hilt.

“How dare you...” Curufin began, and Celegorm took a breath, but their father silenced both of them with a look, and put an arm around Maglor. 

“Look,” Fëanor said gently. “I started this to avenge my father.  That is what it was all for.  Makalaurë, I know it must seem that you have been fighting for a very long time: so long that it’s hard to see any other choice. But you don’t have to fight me.” 

“Don’t I?” Maglor said, stiff and unhappy.  “It’s your Oath.  There’s no point.  No. ” he took a harsh breath and finished in a rush. “No point my breaking it if you won’t. And I’m breaking it.” 

“I forswear it,” Maedhros said grimly. “I will make no more war for jewels.”

 Elrond could see how much it hurt them, and in that moment he wanted very much to sweep Fëanor and all his other sons back into the Halls of Mandos  and take Maglor back to Tol Eressëa where his oath could sleep quiet surrounded by the music of the Sea for ages of the world.  

But it was far too late for that, and Maedhros at least had the right to expect better of him. 

Fëanor looked around at all of them.  “I never meant to sacrifice my sons.  I never thought it would come to that.   I knew you were brave, all of you. I knew you were strong and able and determined. It did not occur to me that might not be enough.  I let my anger carry me. It’s not a good way to make decisions, making them in the heat of grief and wrath.”  His eyes went to Fingon, who nodded, rather stiffly. 

Curufin laughed bitterly. “Someone should mention that to the Valar!” 

“We did,” Elrond said.  “Many times over.  The Valar have changed their position, over the years,  on the matter of judging in wrath and offering little pity.  There were a good number of letters written to them, once we got the idea started.  Many by people who were neither kinslayers nor followers of the House of Fëanor.” 

 Fëanor looked startled by that. “Really!” he said. “As I see it, this is not a matter for the Valar, now. There’s little point sticking to a single approach, when other possibilities present themselves.  No point treating silver as if it were steel, Curufinwë.  Better to try something different.  Makalaurë... it will be all right.”

“I think it might be, too,” Elrond said.  “Maglor, will you come with me to rest and take some miruvor?  You are not well.” 

Maglor pushed his father’s arm away.  Fëanor’s sharp mobile face looked hurt.  “No,” Maglor said, his face set. “I’ll see this through.” 

“Very well,” Elrond said.  He looked at Fëanor. “There are a lot of people waiting,” he said. 

“Are there?” Fëanor said.  He looked at Maglor again, and then around at his other sons.   “I suppose we had better go and talk to them.”

The sun was setting as they came out of the tent, Fëanor first, and his sons behind him, with Fingon beside Maedhros, and Elrond next to Maglor.  The sun was behind them as they left the shadow of Mandos’s walls, and before them their shadows reached out long and dark, while the whole great watching host with its banners full of stars was dyed red and gold with light.  

There had been a murmur of voices, the sound of conversations going on all around, and here and there, voices singing or music being played, but as Fëanor stepped out of the shadow of the Halls into the light, the voices and the music died as if an enchantmentl of silence had been spun across them, and for a long moment there was complete quiet.  

Then Nerdanel, her hair like a flame in the sunset light, came hurrying to them to fling her arms around Amrod, Amras, and Curufin, and then around Celegorm and Caranthir, and last of all around Maedhros, and a great joyful shout went up: a wordless cheer at first, that shaped itself into a name:

“Fëanor!” they cried, “Fëanor!”  Thousands of clear voices shook the air and echoed from the walls of Mandos.  

It was a warcry that Elrond had never heard used in battle himself, but he had grown up with the tale of it.  It had rung out across long vanished East Beleriand and North across the plains of Lothlann and Ard-Galen, bringing terror to the servants of the Enemy.  

If Námo heard it, deep inside his halls, he made no sign. 

Fëanor waited for Nerdanel to finish greeting their sons, looking out in wonder at the crowd. Then he held up a hand, and silence fell. 

Elrond had expected a speech, some grand oration of the kind that Fëanor’s legend was made of. In fact Fëanor said, conversationally, “Thank you very much for coming. I hope someone remembered to bring the wine.” He nodded to them all and turned to Nerdanel. 

They cheered anyway, and then, since neither Fëanor nor his sons seemed inclined to speak again, they took it as a command and began to broach wineskins that had been brought from Tirion.  

“He doesn’t make speeches until he has something to say,” Maglor told Elrond, watching Fëanor and Nerdanel talking.  Nerdanel had her hands on her hips again and was wearing a very determined expression.  It was not, of course the first time that Nerdanel and her husband had spoken, since, entirely without precedent, she had been permitted to speak with Fëanor in the Halls of Mandos. Elrond was not sure if that had been intended as a concession to Fëanor, or to Nerdanel, or to both of them. But then the usual rules rarely seemed to apply to Fëanor.

Maedhros had been watching them, too, until Finrod, hurrying out from the crowd, came to meet him with a joyful smile and an enthusiastic embrace, and close behind him came Fingolfin, Lalwen and a number of friends that Elrond remembered from his youth, who gathered around Maedhros and Caranthir together. 

Celebrimbor had come to greet his father, and had brought Elrohir, Frodo and Sam with him, as well as some jewel-smiths. It seemed a somewhat awkward meeting, from what Elrond could see, but Elrohir was clearly trying heroically to bridge the awkwardness, as he might have done between guests at Rivendell.  Frodo asked an earnest question about Curufin’s work  in the years of the Trees in a manner that no-one could possibly take offence at.  

Amrod and Amras together were greeting people who must be old friends from Beleriand, who seemed uncomplicatedly glad to see them.  Now, someone tall, bright-eyed  and dark-haired had come up to Caranthir and touched him tentatively on the shoulder.  Caranthir turned.  His eyes went wide, and they embraced, weeping.  Of course: Caranthir had been the third of Fëanor’s sons who had been married.  It seemed that this marriage, at least, might have survived war and death. 

They had left Celegorm standing alone, and Elrond was just groping hastily for some neutral subject to discuss with him, when Elrond’s grandmother Nimloth came striding up, her strong face determined and her silver earrings swinging. 

“I have a thing or two to talk about with you,” she said to Celegorm. 

Celegorm raised unimpressed eyebrows.  That had no effect on Nimloth at all. Clearly he had recognised her, so there was no need for Elrond to make introductions between Celegorm and his victim.  Elrond would have done it, but it was something of a relief not to have to. 

“First,” Nimloth said, “I want to talk to you about my cousin Lúthien.  And then about my death and my husband’s.”

“You certainly hold onto grudges for a good long time,” Celegorm said looking as though he had a bad taste in his mouth.  “I have been pardoned by the Valar. That’s why I’m here, in case that wasn’t clear.  Mandos does not let people go who still hold malice.  Why make yourself unhappy?” 

“I never make myself unhappy,” Nimloth told him sternly in her strong Doriathrin accent. “Nor do I hold onto grudges.  That sounds more your kind of thing than mine, I see no merit in it.  But your brother Maglor turns out to be annoyingly squeamish about some of my questions. I think you might be more robust.” 

“You won’t see any guilt from me,” Celegorm said, with his flaxen head held high, although his eyes flickered in a way that suggested to Elrond, who knew Celegorm’s brother very well, that he might be skirting the truth a little there.

“Guilt,” Nimloth said firmly, “Is not what I am looking for.  I would like facts.  Facts are far more useful, in the general way.  And there are some things we need to get sorted out.” 

“Are there.” Celegorm did an excellent impersonation of someone who was bored rather than discomforted. 

“Yes,” Nimloth said firmly.  “I want to know how you did that last backward cut.  It looked physiologically improbable.  There must be a trick to it.   And also I have some questions to ask you about the languages of dragon-flies.”

Celegorm had given up looking bored, and was now frankly staring at Nimloth.  “Dragon-flies.” 

“They are an interest of mine.” Nimloth told him. “But first things first.  Lúthien.” 

Elrond, filled with silent laughter,  caught Maglor’s eye. 

Maglor was still looking tense, but managed to smile back. “If there is one person who deserves an inquisition by Nimloth, It’s definitely Celegorm,” he said.  

“... did she just pinch his backside?” Elrond asked half under his breath. 

“Probably,” Maglor said distantly. “She patted mine.”  

“She did?” Elrond blinked. “Celebrían thinks she sets out to disconcert people deliberately.” 

“Disconcerting Celegorm seems a gentle enough revenge, under the circumstances,” Maglor said.  He was still watching Fëanor, some distance away. Night had fallen and some way away, the first fires were flaring into light.  Stars were coming out.  

Aredhel had joined the little group around Curufin, and had put an arm round her cousin. Angrod’s wife Eldalótë had come to join Amrod and Amras. 

Maedhros appeared by Maglor’s shoulder.  He seemed to have lost Fingon, somewhere. “Can we not get this over with?” Maedhros said quietly. “I know you said, wait, Maglor, but he hasn’t said he’ll break it, and we can’t go on as though he will. You look as though you are about to snap.”

“I am not,” Maglor said in a voice that was granite, compared to the usual gold. 

Maedhros frowned. “Well if you aren’t, I am.  Whether we are going back there,” he nodded at the dark mass of the Halls that loomed against the dark sky some distance away, “Or out into the darkness, then we might as well get it over with.” 

“You aren’t,” Elrond said. “But let us have this done.”

“Are you taking foolish risks again, Elrond?” Maedhros asked him. He was, improbably, smiling. 

“Oh yes,” Elrond said. “For many thousands of years of the Sun.  Come. You always said that I should on no account follow the House of Fëanor.  So, just now I am of the Children of Lúthien, and I suggest you follow me.”  

He went to Fëanor and Nerdanel. “I apologise for interrupting,” he said.  “But there is still the matter of the Oath and the Silmaril, and my father Eärendil is waiting.”