The House of Fëanor : Little Pity by bunn  

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West of the Moon, East of the Sun

This chapter has been slightly re-written in places to clarify who the character who appears at the beginning and end of the last chapter actually is.  I added similar edits to the Ao3 version but that was years ago, and I don't have a copy of those edits to hand, so these are new. 

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Nienna rarely visited the great stable and the shadowy meadows of the Halls of Mandos, that long ago had been built by Oromë, when Nienna’s brother Námo had found, to his considerably surprise and confusion, that his Halls were filling up with hounds and horses.

Since then, cats had begun to frequent the place too, sliding in and out of shadowy stalls, and sleeping on hay that was not entirely there.  

Nienna suspected that Oromë, who rarely was expected to build anything, had got a little carried away.  Stables meant only for the ghosts of horses surely did not need to have mice. And that small red creature that was peering quizzically at her now, half-hidden behind a tuft of grass, was not even a cat!  It looked suspiciously like a fox.  Nienna was fairly sure that foxes were not supposed to be self-aware enough to need an afterlife.  

She ignored it, and walked on, through tossing manes and tails, dreams of hooves drumming on firm turf, of sweet grass and wind rushing across wide hillsides, until she found the spirit she was looking for.   It was a daunting sight: an arched crest black as night, massive heavy hooves, and a small hard eye with a mischief to it.    The other horses seemed to be keeping their distance from it.  It saw Nienna approaching, tossed its head and showed her a set of huge yellow teeth. 

She stopped at some distance from it, and bowed gravely.  “I wish to request your aid,” she said.  “For someone who was, I believe, your friend.” 

The horse backed away, and swished its tail.  So far as Nienna could tell, it did not appear cooperative.  She sent it an image, as she might have done to an Elf, but could not tell if the horse had recognised it.   Well, either it would come, or it would not.  She turned and walked away.   After a few steps, she glanced behind, and saw the horse take a cautious step after her, and then another. 

She went away through the long empty halls of Mandos, past strong doors and endless walls covered in intricate weavings, until she came to a place where there were no shadows, only a strong, brilliant light that spilled from every wall and from the high curved ceiling, too.  

Those who stayed in this place carried their own shadows, shades that flickered pale among the brilliance, but they preferred the light: as much light as could be given them.  They rarely made forms for themselves, the people of the Hall of Light, for forms made shadows, and those who came to the Hall of Light no longer remembered shape without fearing it terribly. 

Nienna took off her own form and walked among them as light, speaking comfort without using names, for there were no names here any more. She wept for them, the nameless ones, and they gathered around her, so faint that they were barely there at all.

Into that great white hall the tall black horse stepped proudly, head up and ears forward, curious, but it seemed, not afraid.  The spirits of horses held their own forms clear in mind, as a general rule, even when they held little else in memory.  The horse was as clear in its own thought as if it had been truly there in body.  

The shades scattered away from it,  the darkness of it, the solidity of its form, fleeing to brighter, calmer places.  All save one, which hesitated, torn, half its spirit turning, longing to flee and the other half pulled forward as if the horse were tugging at it. 

The horse stepped forward, leant its great long neck down, and nudged.  Nienna moved forward in concern, but the spirit caught between longing and fleeing was not alarmed.  It folded forward a little and leaned against the horse’s neck.  Looking at it with all the perception of the Valar, Nienna could see the faintest suggestion of arms beginning to form, and then at least two fingers of a hand — no, three, then four —  reaching up to rub at the very base of the horse’s neck.  The elf’s body began to take on form and colour: a hint of gold, a hint of green to the great cloak woven of memory she wrapped around her. 

“I wish you joy,” Nienna said, and she wept.  

For here were two spirits that at long last had found the strength to go out again into the world, to take up the threads of their lives again in Eldamar, a land that neither horse nor elf had ever seen under stars. 

Horse and rider had run across the open meadows of Lothlann, long ago, in the morning of the world, under a banner that was green and gold and marked with a proud eight-pointed rayed star. 

The horse had died in battle, and the rider had been taken into Angband and died there in agony. It had happened so long ago that their names were lost, and their companionship forgotten. All that was remembered of them was that once, perhaps, an old story said that Fëanor’s second son had been married.

. . . . . . 

The stars were coming out over Tol Eressëa: a clear night and not cold, with the sighing of the sea gentle in the distance below the cliffs.  

Fëanor, delight sharp upon his face, had taken the shells that Celebrían had scattered around her garden, set each upside down to catch a drop of dew, and then called starlight into each small cup, so that the whole garden shone as if set among the stars. 

Galadriel was watching him across the lawn, as he set light into the last few shells, eyes narrowed with concentration. 

She spoke to Elrond, mind to mind, sending an image of herself long ago in Alqualondë under stars outside the mountains, calling starlight into a shell. 

I can remember that. I remember the joy of calling light into a drop of water, only for the joy of speaking light, and not because the darkness is terrible and must be held back with every last scrap of strength.

Elrond looked at Fëanor too, and smiled. 

Maglor says he was like that, when Maglor was young.

I don’t remember him ever being like that. I remember him rude and demanding, with doom hanging on the edge of every word.

Images swirled into Elrond’s mind: Fëanor’s sharp face set and angry, torches flickering, a crowd in darkness, voices with a sharp edge of fear to them. 

I remember him proud and bitter, speaking words of power. And then later, shadowed and bloodstained.

An echo of a battle that had been all the more terrible for being unplanned. 

Elrond gave her a wry smile and showed her starless shadow hanging over Beleriand in ruins. Foul things scuttled through it, and he folded over it an image of the ruin of Rhovanion and a flicker of the carnage at the gates of Mordor, then very briefly, Maedhros, stern-faced with a sword that shone bright, facing a werewolf with bloody jaws, and then far away, a star that was a Silmaril.  In all my years, I don’t remember darkness being anything but terrible.

You and Gil-galad both.  It becomes easier to see the shades in shadow once you have lived in terror under darkness.  

Galadriel sent an image of the Trees of Light, as seen from Tirion, and then, very deliberately, a face that had seemed a kindly friend, who had only lied and lied.  Then much later, another, then one more, sent as a friend, who in the end had not been.   

Honeyed voices, easy to listen to.

I have learned that in brilliant and endless light, the dissenting voice sounds harsh and foolish. Shadows are either too sharp-edged or cannot be seen at all.  A painful lesson.

He’ll make a better friend than an enemy.

A vision of blood upon the quays of Alqualondë. He made a bad enemy. 

A vision of storm-clouds over Númenor.  He’s not the only one. 

Truth.  A breath of impossible biting cold, grim faces marching over ice faded.  In the far distance, grey ships were dwindling into western mist as the last light fled and darkness fell. A sense of loss, bitter as the ice, Celebrían’s face, and Eärwen’s.

Finarfin in armour with a sword upon his belt and his face twisted in grief, looking back.  

Elrond himself in Rivendell, standing while the world fell apart around him. 

You stayed to see it through. If you are his friend, he is my friend. 

Elrond glanced at Aulë, sitting gravely listening and nodding, as Gimli spoke passionately of knowledge lost when the dragon came to Erebor: the crafts that had, with difficulty been remade, and those that despite all the ingenuity of the People of Durin, seemed lost forever. 

In Valimar, they sing a good many songs of peace and joy, having known little else.  Perhaps this night we should sing of what we have learned of exile.

. . . . . 

Sam tapped Frodo and Bilbo on the shoulder, as the singing went on under the stars.

“Could I have a private word?” he asked.  They followed him into the house, where lamps were lit.  He looked very serious.

“What’s up, Sam?” Frodo asked. 

“I’ve got it in my mind that... well, maybe it’s time.”

“Time?” Frodo asked, confused. 

“Time to go on to the next thing,” Sam told him.  “Wherever Rosie’s gone, and Strider, and Merry, and Pippin...”

“What?  But why?” Bilbo asked, looking startled. “You know Elrond says that time isn’t so pressing, here. Not like in Middle-earth. No need to go until we’re weary and choose to leave.  And we’re very happy here!” 

“It’s not that I’m not happy, exactly, “ Sam said. “But I am... well, a bit weary of it all to be honest with you.  I’m glad to have seen Valinor, that no hobbit but us has ever seen before. The white city of Tirion and the great mountains and the ships, and hearing the songs under the stars.  Meeting the great heroes out of the stories.  A great thing to remember, that is, more than I ever dreamed of when I was a hobbit-lad who longed to hear the songs of Elves. Now I’ve met all these fair folk and can call many of them friends, and had my aches and pains sorted out to boot.  But it’s not for forever, is it?  Not for us.”

“No, of course not,” Frodo said.  “They can’t withhold the Gift of Men, everyone has told us that.  But we were told there was no urgency, and the choice of time was ours. It’s hard enough to keep time in mind here anyway.”

“That’s true, and of course we had to wait till Master Elrond had his family affairs all sorted out, and help him with that where we could,” Sam said.  “It wouldn’t have been right to go hurrying off before that job was done, since we were very kindly given the choice.  But now, that seems to be all taken care of.  And.. well.  The thing is, they’ve all gone.  Very likely even my little girl Elanor by now as well, and all the rest except maybe Tom, my youngest. Here we all are, older than any hobbit has ever been.  And I miss my Rosie.  What if she’s waiting for me and wondering what’s taking me so long?  It’s not like I have a job to do this time.  I’m just on a holiday, and it’s been a long one.”

“Oh, Sam,” Frodo said, and sighed.  “Well, perhaps you are right. I’d dearly love to see Strider again, and Arwen, too, not to mention Merry and Pippin, if that’s a thing that can be.  And even good old Fatty and Folco, too. It’s not right to keep you here if you are tired of all of it. And you’re right that none of this is meant for hobbits.”

“Well, I’m not tired of Valinor at all!” Bilbo said, looking indignant. “And I’m older than the pair of you by quite some way. And a Baggins of Bag End at that: the most hobbity of all the hobbits, or so I like to think!”

“A Baggins!” Sam said and laughed.  “I’m sorry Mr Bilbo, I don’t mean any offense, but if you ever were a Baggins at heart, nobody could call you one now!  You’re more Took than any Took I ever did meet!  Didn’t you go running off with Dwarves to rob a dragon, long before we were born?  And didn’t you find the Shire too dull for you, and run away again to live among the Elves and write poetry?  What’s more Tookish than that?”

“Well, Sam Gamgee, if you’d said that in the Shire, I’d have to take the gravest offence!” Bilbo said. “But here in Valinor among the Elves where there are so few decent hobbits around to be outraged, I suppose it’s not worth arguing over.”

“Oh, what utter nonsense, Bilbo!” Frodo said laughing.  “You said only the other day how proud you were of being Mad Baggins and vanishing in a puff of smoke!”

Sam looked at Bilbo with a thoughtful expression that somehow made him look much older, though he was by some years the youngest.  

“You know, when you were in the Shire, Mr Bilbo, you were always off visiting with Gildor’s people or popping off for a week or so here and there, to celebrate the Elvish New Year, or the springtide, or Midsummer.  Even when you were at home, you were always writing away.  Not that I’m not glad that you took the time to teach me my letters and tell me tales of Elves, and get me started writing poetry!  I owe you more than I can say for that: it wasn’t many in those days who would have spent their time on listening to poems by a gardener’s boy.” 

“Oh, really, it was nothing at all,” Bilbo said, very pink and shuffling his feet. 

“You must admit, you aren’t at all the usual kind of hobbit,” Sam went on. “One of a kind, Mr Bilbo is, everyone used to say, and they were right.”

 “Well yes, but...” Bilbo spluttered. 

“If ever there was a Took who took a fairy wife, like in the stories, Mr Bilbo, then maybe you do belong here after all.  You’ve lived with the Elves far more years than you were ever in the Shire, after all.”

“I don’t think you can become an Elf by wishing it, Sam!” Bilbo said.

“Maybe not.  But you said it yourself.  It suits you here.  You aren’t tired of it at all.  And I am.  There’s nothing wrong with me, nothing you could pin down and say, ah, that Sam Gamgee, he’s got a dicky leg or a gammy heart or a palsy or the gripes.  Only a weariness, and a longing.”

“Have you spoken of this with Elrond?” Frodo asked him.  “He might be able to help.”

“I’m not going to Elrond about this, when he’s still fresh grieving for his daughter, poor lad!” said Sam Gamgee.

“Poor lad?”  Bilbo said. “Elrond’s thousands of years older than you are, young Sam!”

“He is, yet still it’s the first time he’s lost a daughter,” Sam said steadfastly.  “A hard thing, that, very hard for anyone. But I did talk about it with Gandalf. And no he can’t and I’m not sure I’d want him to anyway.  I’ve had a long life and it was mostly a happy one.  I’m a great-grand-dad. I was Mayor seven times — and I helped you save the Shire, Frodo, and I got to enjoy it afterwards, even if you didn’t.  It’s enough.  I thought I’d wait for you to say it first, but now I think it’s time, if only for me.”

“No!” Frodo said and he took Sam’s hand.  “We’ll go on together this time,” he said. “A hundred and seventy-three years is enough for me. We’ll go to find Rosie, and the Gaffer and Strider, and Pip and Merry and all of them.  Queen Arwen, too. But I think you should stay, Bilbo.  You can always come along later.”

“I can indeed Frodo,” Bilbo said, with a smile that was tearful around the edges.  “But not yet!  I’ve got far too much to do and see and hear. Two hundred and fifty-one years — well, that’s no time at all!” 

Frodo smiled back.  “It’s true that it’s no time at all if almost all your friends are Elves!” he said.  “And most of the rest were Dwarves.  Two hundred and fifty-one isn’t ancient for them. And they have some arrangement with Aulë, don’t they?”

“They’re very mysterious about it,” Bilbo told him. “But they don’t leave with the rest of us, anyway.  That’s another thing I must ask about!  I said I had a lot to do.”

“Old Strider,” Sam said thoughtfully. “I hadn’t thought of it before, but he started off with the Elves, and went off to be with Men.  But you started off a hobbit, and went as far as possible in the other direction.” 

“Yes,” Bilbo said. “He said something like that, the last time I saw him, before you all went off from Rivendell. Yet I remember Aragorn in Rivendell when he was little Estel, Elrond’s foster-son.  He could have been an elf-child then, with flowers in his hair.  Ah well.  Perhaps we’ll all get to catch up eventually.” 

“We will,” Frodo said, and embraced him.  “I am sure of it.  We’ll give Elrond a while before we tell him, shall we, Sam?” he suggested.  “And then, perhaps he’d like us to take a message, if that can be done.  Perhaps it can’t.   Perhaps you can’t take anything with you, even words.  But there’s no harm trying.”

. . . . . . . .

But the next day, there was no need to tell Elrond.  He knew.  

“I am very accustomed to my guests deciding in the end to leave,” he said to Sam, very kindly. “It’s not hard to see the signs, after so many have come and gone.   The Edain were with us for a long time, in Rivendell.”

“It’s not that we don’t appreciate all that you’ve done for us here,” Frodo said, feeling awkward.  “You and Celebrían and Galadriel and everybody.  You have all been so very kind. It’s just that, well...”

“You have another place that you need to go,” Elrond said gravely. “This isn’t your home, as it is ours.”

“It’s not,” Sam said, “It’s very nice here, but it’s not ours.  Not how we’re made, if you take my meaning.”

“And you have people that you long to see again,” Elrond said with sympathy. “I understand.  Frodo has had a chance to heal from his wounds now, and Bilbo, too.  We will miss you, but if you are sure the time has come, Mithrandir has told me how to make the arrangements here.”

“Only two arrangements, Elrond, please!” Bilbo said.  “Frodo and Sam have made their minds up to go, but I’m not the least bit weary.  I’d much prefer to stay for a while.  Well, for as long as I can, if that’s all right. I’d rather stay for good, but I’m not sure if that’s allowed.”

Elrond looked down at him, eyes grey as star-filled skies wide for a moment, and then folded down upon his knees so that he could almost look Bilbo square in the face.

“You want to stay?” he said, wonderingly. 

“Well, yes,” Bilbo told him. “I like it here, you know.  It feels like home, here among the Elves, and it seems that nobody is hurrying to shuffle me out through the door. You and Gandalf are my oldest friends, after all.”

Elrond flung his arms around him.  

Bilbo, surprised, put his arms around his neck to pat Elrond on the back.  “There there,” he said. “It’s not everyone would want a silly old hobbit about the place!”

“I do!” Elrond said.

After a moment, Elrond stood up again.  He took a deep breath and was his usual wise and ageless self again.  “You might wish to stay just a little longer, Sam, Frodo,” he said. “It was you who always wanted to see Elf-magic, was it not, Sam?  There’s one last thing that I think you might like to see,  before you go on, if you can stand to wait a little longer.” 

 . . . . . . . 

Aulë strode out into the bay, growing taller and taller as he waded into the sea.   Green waves were crashing around his knees, but he strode onwards, tall now as a mountain that springs from the seabed, moving North and East with the seabirds calling around his head and the sea-mist shimmering around his knees like a cloud. 

Beside him moved the ship of Eärwen the Queen, lent, for this occasion, to her daughter and her eldest son.  It was not one of the swan-ships of long ago, elegant and slim, built for kindly coastal waters and the sea under stars, but a craft painted black and white with the livery of the storm petrel, strong and swift, made for wider waters, made to ride the sunlight on the Open Sea. 

Long ago, Fëanor and his sons and people had passed this way in stolen ships, and Uinen herself, the Lady of the Sea, had risen and called storms upon them in her grief.  But now the sea was clear and bright, and the deeps below them glowed green like a great emerald. Fish and seals flickered through them, shining, and on their bow wave rode porpoises.

The Sun sank golden towards the distant line of Aman behind them, and almost dead ahead, the silver disk of Tilion appeared above the line of the horizon, reflecting in a scatter of bright shards across the water.  

The sky was darkening, but it was too soon yet to see the stars, all save one, for he had been invited.

They heard a distant sound beyond the waves, a sound of great deep horns calling.

“The horns of the Ulumúri,” Galadriel said quietly. 

“Yes,” Finrod said, and looked up speculatively at the mast in the growing moonlight.  “He is coming. Time to reef the sails, I think.”  The Falmari were already moving, adjusting the halyards and turning the trim little ship bows to the running sea.

The waves were building and the motion of the ship more urgent. Sam gripped onto the side with both hands, and looked back at Frodo with a mixture of alarm and excitement in his face.  

Far ahead a dark line spread across the bright water, racing towards them, taller and taller, a great wave filled with all the power of the Sea. Ulmo had come to meet them.

Aulë took a single great mountain-step forward, and the force of their joyful meeting sent a great spray of foam high into the air. 

Where Aulë’s voice was like flame and stone falling, Ulmo’s was like the grind of shingle on the shore, and the rush of waves.  They did not speak in words. 

“Well I never did!” Sam said. “The sea’s a person!  Or is it a person who is the sea? This is your friend Ulmo, is it, Elrond?”

“I wonder if he has fish swimming around inside him,” Bilbo said.  “Do you think it tickles?”

Elrond laughed down at him. “I’ll admit, I have never asked him,” he said. 

. . . . . . 

Fëanor went to the stern, and looked up at the Valar, looming vastly above against the sky, outlined against the last golden light of Arien, and the first silver light of Tilion. 

“This feels like more or less the right place,” he said to them. “Shall we get to work?”  He did not raise his voice: they would have heard him if he had whispered. 

Aulë held out a vast rocky hand, and Fëanor stepped onto an enormous finger-tip and was lifted high.  A considerable part of him was quietly terrified, and he ignored it with determination. 

Somewhere far below him in the dark water was a faint and distant point of light. 

He reached out with his mind and touched it, gently, reverently. 

One Silmaril answered at once, as if it had been waiting for him, hidden in the dark abyssal depths of the ocean. 

The other was hidden far deeper, buried deep within the living rock of Arda, wrapped in a cocoon of pain and darkness, its light entirely hidden.  It hurt to speak with it, and as he touched it, Fëanor wept. And yet, it was still alive, still filled with the living light that was the light of trees held forever in memory, and more than that too, the Light of Sun and Moon and Star. 

Ulmo knelt, if a wave can kneel and wrapped vast half-translucent protective hands around the ship, which from up here, high in Aulë’s mountainous hands, looked like a chip of floating bark.

Fëanor took a deep breath, and concentrated all the fire of his burning spirit, feeling himself an infinitesimally tiny spark of light, surrounded by the looming shades of the great Powers of Earth and Water.

Fëanor called out, words in a language never meant to be spoken by Elf or Man.  

Around his voice, two voices immeasurably greater spoke. 

And beneath them, though broken by war, buried beneath six thousand years, lost outside the Round World, and hidden beneath the ocean, Beleriand awoke, and wrapped around a Silmaril, began to rise. 

The water roared, pouring away white and foaming into the deeps, as the first dark peaks began to break the surface, a great white mist forming all across the water as far as Fëanor could see.  It hid the tiny ship below from view.  

As the great mountains of the Crissaegrim and of Ered Wethrin began to shoulder massively into sight in the growing moonlight, Ulmo and Aulë stepped backwards, one pace, and then another, and another.

Now the Mountains of Mithrim and the Ered Lómin were rising into view, and further east, a great mass that Fëanor had never seen in life, but from the careful sketches that Finrod had drawn must be the highlands of Dorthonion, was lifting in the moonlight.  The lowlands of East Beleriand and the Falas spread out, wide and wider, as Ulmo stepped backwards, hands still carefully wrapped around the tiny ship, and the roaring waves followed him west into the far distance.

The roaring faded, and far below his feet, Beleriand Risen shone in the light of the moon.

. . . . . . 

Aulë was dwindling in size again, and Fëanor looked down, judging his moment, and leapt before the hand became awkwardly small to stand on.  He landed lightly, and found himself standing on dark wet rock beside a deep chasm that might, from the position of the mountains all around him, once have been Lake Mithrim.  

Gleaming on the wet sand a little way away,  illuminating the wet ground and casting great shadows from the rocks up into the bare mountains, there lay a Silmaril. 

Fëanor picked it up cautiously with a small pair of tongs from his pocket, and pushed it into a thick leather bag.  Nobody was here to see, after all, apart from Aulë, who for all his faults was not a gossip.  

Eärendil’s silmaril, passed hand to hand by a kinsman with the favour of the Valar on him had not burned him, but this gem had been stolen many times, and might behave differently.  If it did, he was keen to take measurements of the exact methodology of the burns.  Asking Maglor or Maedhros to assist with testing it would not be wise or tactful, but Curufinwë would very likely be prepared to help.

Aulë had reduced himself to the height of a Dwarf again, and was looking at Fëanor with his bearded head on one side and his starlike eyes twinkling.  Strange to be looking down on one of the Valar.  It made him seem somehow easier to speak to: less utterly strange and different, though one could hardly forget his power.

“It will need some work,” Fëanor said to him, looking around at bare rock and sand. “But still, I give you my thanks for your help.”

“Do you?” Aulë said, looking oddly pleased.  “That gives me joy.”

Fëanor was not entirely sure that he had any desire to give any of the Valar joy, but he restrained himself from saying so.  Aulë had, in fact, been helpful. 

“What of the second?” Aulë asked.  There was no visible sign of the second Silmaril, though Fëanor could feel its presence, far below and a long way East of where they now stood. 

“It is within this land,” Fëanor told him.  “I do not intend to remove it. It can stay where it is.”

“You would hide its light?” Aulë asked.

“Its light has been hidden for well over six thousand years, “ Fëanor told him. “I am not keeping it to myself, if that is what you mean. It has become a gem of the earth. You, of all people, can surely see the difference.” 

“A light in the heart of the land,” Aulë said, and smiled.  “That seems fitting to me, to have a Silmaril set at the roots of the mountains.  One to soar above the land, set into the sky, one below it, set into the rock of Arda, and one in the hand of the maker.”

“And will your relatives agree with you about that?” Fëanor asked warily. 

“It was agreed,” Aulë said, in a low rumble like a rockfall. “Manwë himself has said it.  Beleriand, and all things in Beleriand are neither in Middle-earth, nor under the hand of the Valar in the land of  Aman. A third path, for the Elder Children of Ilúvatar.”

“And will it be a path they will let us walk alone?” Fëanor asked. 

“Perhaps,” Aulë said, thoughtfully. “Perhaps. We will not walk it with you.  Our time to fade is come, the time to retreat into the West and be one with that land which we made for ourselves. That is the song we sang.  We are not made to make new songs.”

“Are you not? You, who made the Dwarves, and made our Father change the song?” Fëanor laughed.  “I am not clear that you, of all of them, are one to sing obediently only the music set for you.” 

Aulë smiled.  “Yavanna and I both like surprises.  And I have come to see that perhaps, after all, the Allfather sees no great harm in improvising a little around the theme.”

“I too have had that thought,” Fëanor said. “It has long grieved me that I met none of your children in Middle-earth.  I wish I could learn more of them.  Gimli’s tales are fascinating, but they only cast a light that shows me all the things I do not know.”

“The paths we made fail and fall at last,” Aulë said. “But we are not the only path-makers in the wide world.”

Fëanor shook his head. “What is that supposed to mean?” he demanded. 

Aulë laughed at him. “Oh greatest of the Noldor, do I still need to teach you?  Work it out.”

“There is such a thing as being too subtle, you know,” Fëanor said reprovingly.  The Moon was well up now, and casting dark shadows across the rocks.   He looked out west.  “Not much here yet, save sand and stone.  It will be a long walk, to the ship.  A long time since I saw this land, but I can remember that much. I hope they’ll wait.”

“I shall not wait,” Aulë said, and began to draw himself up tall again.  “This is not the land of the Ainur. Farewell, for this time, Fëanáro.”  He stepped out massively, heading west towards the distant mountain peaks, and in three strides was gone. 

Fëanor sighed and looked around.  It must be at least a three-day walk to the Sea, for him, and there would be no supplies along the way, unless he stopped to fish.  And then the fish would be raw, and there would be no firewood, in this land newly-risen from the Sea. 

Still, it would be a good chance to remember the shape of the land, walking alone through it at any pace he wished, free to feel the air and watch the stars.   

And perhaps time to put in place another small idea, too.   

He picked up a small round white stone from the sand, and another, and another.  He had collected seven of them and set them in a circle, when a set of great dark wings cut out the stars. 

“Eru himself has set the land of Aman apart from the Round World,” the Eagle said, once it had landed next to him.  

“So I hear,” Fëanor said.  “I was sad not to see it done myself.  A fascinating concept, I thought : the round world and the plane together yet forever apart.”

“Forever apart,” the Eagle said. It stared meaningfully with sharp dark eyes that glistened in the moonlight at the wide ring of white pebbles.   

“This is not the land of Aman,” Fëanor said to it.  “Your lord has said it may be set aside for us. A third path, Aulë called it just now.  You can’t have a path that doesn’t go anywhere.  What would be the point?”

“The point might be the voyage,” the Eagle said.  It hopped, and prodded one of the stones more neatly into place with one huge talon. 

“Your people voyage from world to world,” Fëanor said.  He spotted another pebble and picked it up.  “From globe to plane to globe again, upon the winds, don’t you?  I’ve watched you fly.” 

“We watched you fly, too,” the Eagle said. “Long ago, you flew, and burned.” 

Fëanor shook his head patiently.  “No,” he said.  “I am an Elf, and I am alive.  I can’t fly in body across the oceans.   I have to walk. Or sail, or row, or ride, or devise some other cunning plan... Never mind.”

The ring of small white stones was complete. “The will of Eru...” the Eagle began.  

Fëanor shook his head in frustration.  “Why should Eru speak only with the Valar?” he said. “They are his friends and servants, we are his children.  You don’t have children then go away and never speak to them: why would you? We were born in Middle-earth beneath the stars... Show me your path, or keep out of the way, and I will make my own.” 

“I will show you the way across the winds,” the Eagle said, in its harsh, croaking voice. It opened its mind, a mind of storms, mountains, and clouds, a world where land — all of it —  was infinitesimally small, yet utterly sharp, and all of it, beneath. 

“Oh!” Fëanor said, as he saw.  “Oh, of course.  How beautifully simple.  How clever, too.” 

He drew a word upon his own palm, there in the moonlight, with the Eagle watching with its dark and clever eyes.  The word hung there for a moment, gleaming, and then he blew on it gently: one puff, and it shimmered across the divide, sliding without a fuss into a world that was round.  A smile crept across his face, almost without meaning it to be there, a wide delighted smile.  He walked around the circle, once, twice, three times, binding word to place, and there it was: a path, for those who could see it. 

He looked at it longingly for a moment.  But no: the ship would be waiting for him, Nerdanel would wonder — and perhaps this time, she might come with him too.  Anyway, he had three hungry days of walking ahead.  Another time.  There would be time.  

He nodded politely to the Eagle, and set off, heading West towards the Sea. 

It took three years to build the ships, even with Círdan’s assistance and most of the carpenters, builders and woodworkers of Tirion turning their skills to the new art.  With many of the Teleri helping, too.  They came wandering over to the new shipyard on the estuary to watch, at first, to pass comments and to laugh.  But that lasted only a handful of days.  Before long, they were coming with tools, spare parts, rope and ideas, bringing lunch and offering helpful if sometimes contradictory advice on balance, rigging and loading. 

When the fleet set off, most of the Teleri fleet went with it.  Only to demonstrate that they could outsail it, of course.  To show the Teleri ships were swifter, nimbler, more beautiful in every way, the jewels of the Sea. 

Only for that. 

And to carry a few extra bits and pieces that might be needed.

And to sing songs to Uinen to soothe the seas.

And to take the people who might want to go along but there might not be room for on the voyage.  Some of them were kinsmen, after all, Sindar out of Doriath and Hithlum and the Falas.

As the Noldor fleet came in, rather clumsily, to beach upon the empty new shores, the white ships came gracefully behind them to anchor in neat lines, to make rude remarks about the Noldor and their sailing, and to send out many small swift gigs to thread through the Noldor fleet with practiced, flashing oars to help tow the new ships to the shore.

It would, after all, be a terrible waste, if their neighbours damaged their fine new ships that the Teleri had taught them how to build.

. . . . . . 

“I can’t quite believe that we’re doing this all over again,”  Maglor said to Maedhros, shaking his head, as he gave his own three companies the signal to move up into the bare hills of West Beleriand and wait, and then turned to see where Celegorm’s people had got to. 

Fëanor and his people had already gone up ahead of them and were almost out of sight upon the bare rocky hillside.  

“I know,” Maedhros said, and he began to laugh.  He did laugh, now, quite often, though not always at the things you expected him to.

“Not quite the same, this time,” Fingon said grinning.  

Maedhros stopped laughing and made a helpless gesture at him.  “I don’t.” he said, and then abandoned whatever he had been going to say.  “I think I prefer this version, “ he said instead. 

“Yes,” Fingon replied, absolutely straight-faced.  “It’s not as dark. And, do you know, I think it might be very slightly warmer?  Even though there’s nothing burning.” 

“I hate you, Fingon,” Maglor said laughing, as Maedhros flung an arm around Fingon’s shoulder. 

Eventually everyone who had come on the ships had found their way to the shore, and the assembled Noldor had arranged themselves along the bare and empty coast. 

“Do you think this is going to work?” Elrond asked Maglor quietly.  “It’s such a huge place.  Númenor took many years to build.”

“It is my father’s plan,” Maglor said.  Elrond raised his eyebrows, but Maglor smiled.  “They don’t always go wrong, honestly!  And he has prepared for this very carefully.  Think what Celebrimbor and his Gwaith-i-Mirdain were able to do.”

Elrond opened his mouth, and then closed it again. “If you think it will work, I’ll trust you,” he said. 

Celebrían put an arm around him. “Are you seeing something dark ahead?” she asked. 

“No,” Elrond said.  “I am thinking of something dark behind.  I am remembering what Beleriand was like, last time I saw it.”  He waved around at bare rock, sand and gravel. “This is a considerable improvement.” 

“Good heavens!” Bilbo said. “It looks dreary enough!  I wouldn’t care to live here myself, Maglor.  Not that it wasn’t impressive, seeing it come up out of the sea,” he added hastily,  “But it’s so grey and empty and forlorn!  The only colour is the water and the banners.”

“It looks dead,” Gimli said, looking around with a frown.  He stamped once, heavily.  “Nothing left here but old grey bones.”

Legolas, beside him, laughed. “I never thought I’d see the day when you complained a place had too much rock and not enough life, Gimli!” he said.  “It gives me hope!  You’re learning!” 

“I should hope I am, after all these years, and after hearing so very many tales of trees!” Gimli said and snorted.  “Though it seems these Noldor folk are inclined to be more fond of rock than you, Legolas.  They don’t seem much like proper Elves at all.”

Maglor laughed.  “We are improper Elves, Maedhros!  I think we must take that as a compliment, coming from one of Durin’s folk.” 

“And so shall I!” Legolas exclaimed. 

“But still, this place seems grey to me,” Gimli said. “Even by the standards of the Mountain. Erebor was not so grim and bare, even when we first returned there after the Dragon died.”

“It’s grey now,” Elrond said.  “It has known worse. I am glad you did not see it when it was black with ash and stinking of sulphur. Think of Sam’s descriptions of Mordor, then add some dark woods of tangled malevolence, giant spiders, dragons and spirits of the malignant dead.”

“Anyone would think you did not remember your youth fondly, Elrond!” Maglor said, and grinned at him.

Elrond laughed.  “I do.  But emphatically not for the giant spiders!”  His face became grave again and he glanced at Celebrian. “I am not sure you should have come, Celebrían. You could go back to the ships...”

“Oh, don’t be silly, Elrond!” Celebrían said. “Just because something bad happened to me just once doesn’t mean I should shut myself away in safety forever!  I shan’t,  I won’t and there’s no need to anyway. If you can take risks, then why not I?”

Elrond made a face.  “Because it makes me wince?  Oh, well, you’ll make your own choice: you always did.   I’ll agree you do need some darkness if you’re going to see the stars.”

Celebrían took his hand.  “Anyway, it’s not the least bit dark here now.  It’s just a bit grey and bare and sorrowful.”

“It won’t be that for long,” Lalwen said, coming up to join them with Círdan and a number of his Falathrim.  Her hair was tied up, as if for battle, and there was a bold light in her eyes.  “We’re all ready at the southern end, Maedhros.”

Maedhros nodded.  “In that case, I think it is time,” he said.  “Where is Finrod?  Oh, over there.”  He lifted his hand and signalled to Finrod, and to Galadriel. “We had best join our companies.”

“We’ll wait here, and see you later,” Elrond said to Maglor.  

“Good!” Maglor said.  “There are some memories that will be much better left safely in the past.  Come on, Elior.”  He started to climb the grey slope, up to where his companies were waiting.   

“Well!  Celebrían said brightly to Bilbo and Elrohir. “This all makes me feel delightfully young, and at the same time terribly old, because suddenly I seem to be just the same age as Elrond is, and I’m used to him being so much older. But here we are: both of us too young to be any use at all!”

Bilbo laughed. “In that case I’m the same age as Elrond too.  There’s a thing I thought I’d never say.” 

Elrohir grinned, and sat down on a huge boulder to open the pack he had been carrying.  “Well, while the ancient and legendary ones get on with whatever they are doing, I suggest that we have lunch,” he said.

“A good idea,” Elrond said smiling.  “But keep your sword to hand. This is not Valinor, nor Tol Eressëa.”

Elrohir nodded seriously, and Gimli patted the small axe that he still kept upon his belt, as Legolas pulled out provisions from a bag. 

“They wouldn’t bring anything dangerous here though, surely.  Would they?” Bilbo asked. 

“They are bringing the land back out of memory, Bilbo, not making it anew,” Elrond told him. “Beleriand was never safe, even in its earliest days.  It was part of Middle-earth, with all its perils and its terrors.”

“Oh!” Bilbo said. He thought about it.  “I gave my sword to Frodo, and he left it in the Shire,” he said.  

Elrohir looked sideways at him, and took a bite of bread and cheese.  Then he slid a long knife in a sheath from his belt and offered Bilbo the hilt. 

“Oh.” Bilbo said again. Then he shrugged, took the knife and put it on his own belt. It was more than long enough to be a sword, for him.  “Better safe than sorry.  Thanks, Elrohir.” 

The harpsong came first, faintly to be heard from the nearer companies marching out into the hills, and then the distant singing began, thousands of strong voices lifting to the sky, building a spell of memory, reaching far back into time.  Calling out to the rocks, the sand, the stones, and to the sea.

As the singing rang out through that quiet echoing land of stone, it changed.  The rocky ground blurred into soil and soft green grass swept across it, growing longer in faint ripples, and then one by one, the trees stepped out of memory, shook themselves and lifted up their branches towards the midday sun.  

Along the seashore, long white sandy beaches swept up across the rocks, making a faint burring sound as they settled into place.  Twisted willows lifted up their heads beside a stream that suddenly began to flow clear and bright down through the rocks and out onto the sand, and as Bilbo turned in surprise to look at it, a fish leapt in a pool and made a spreading ring of ripples that shook the reflection of the gladdon-stems.  

 Small birds were singing in the grass as it swayed to a gentle wind.  Sprays of small flowers with golden bells shook in the wind, as very gently, Beleriand, fair and perilous, was sung out of distant memory and began again to live. 

. . . . . .

 

Three times three years of the Sun had passed, and the stars were fading high above over Alqualondë. In the east, a line of brilliant rose ran across the line of the horizon where the distant mass of Beleriand could barely be seen, outlined faint against the clear gold.  Waves were hushing quietly along the shore, catching the growing light.  It was cold but the air was still, and just above the tideline, a driftwood fire was still burning, blue flames dancing along the dark edges of the wood, almost invisible now in the growing light. 

Finrod, in an old shirt with an ash-mark smudged upon the cuff,  was sitting on a washed-up log, singing very softly, almost to himself, and Maglor was accompanying him on a small wooden harp, the frame plain without any decoration, but the voice of it clear and true. 

Finrod missed a word, and laughed, and Maglor grinned and struck a bright jangle of notes from the harp. 

“What did I expect!” he said.  “Finrod and his terrible poetry! You can’t even get to the end of the song!” 

“That was the ninth song!” Finrod said holding up a hand as if to ward off the mockery and laughing. “Nine new songs in a night, sung right through to morning and you expect the ninth to come as easily as the first?  Your standards are impossibly high!”

“You need more practice.  You never know when you might need to battle a Necromancer!”  Maglor put the harp down and stood up to stretch, looking out over a sea now shining brilliantly in a thousand shades of glittering flame, then turning to look south along a misty shore fading layered soft into fainter shades of orange-red. 

A little inland, the faint shape of a horse was moving along the shore, dark against the pale misty loom of the hills behind.  

A very tall horse, a black mare with a streaming mane and clever eyes that had allowed one person only to ride her, familiar out of a memory out of very long ago, yet clear as spring water. 

On the mare’s back was a rider, long dark hair braided down her back, wearing the plain unadorned clothes that are left for the returning dead outside the Halls of Mandos. 

Maglor stood and looked, as still as if he had been turned to stone.  

Finrod turned to see what he was looking at.  “Oh!” he said softly. 

“But,” Maglor said. “But she chose not to return.” He looked at Finrod, wild-eyed, his fingers clutching in his dark hair. “You said she’d chosen never to return.”

“No. I said that I had asked after her, and she had not chosen to return, not yet.  It takes a long while, for those who were taken alive into Angband itself. You know that.” 

“I thought she would not speak with me,” Maglor said, eyes fixed on the approaching horse and rider.  “Did you know...?”

“Why would I know?  I’m not the High King’s eldest son any more.  They wouldn’t send to me.  They’d send to Maedhros or Fingon or Fingolfin or your father, whoever it is who has been landed with the task now. Or to you, possibly, in which case it’s probably lurking somewhere near that chaotic nightmare that Bregolien says you call a desk.  I haven’t even asked.”

“I thought.” Maglor said. 

“You might have been wrong,” Finrod said, smiling infuriatingly. “It would hardly be the first time.  Go on, go and talk to her.  If you don’t mind, I’ll borrow your harp while you do. I’ve thought of a new song.”

. . . . . . .

In the willow-meads of Tasarinan, Galadriel and Celeborn walk with Fangorn and the Shepherds of the Trees, and there, sometimes in spring, Galadriel will dance with Fimbrethil the Ent-wife, Wand-limb the lighthearted, in glades of wild oats blowing among the forests of apple-trees, and around the glades stand Ents and trees of elm and ash and oak together, their arms uplifted in gladness. 

In the East, the great mountains of the Ered Luin tower against the sky, gold and purple against the sunrise as they did in time distant beyond even the memory of Elrond. There the peoples of the Dwarves have gathered, a few at a time across the long years, family by family, along the hidden paths West of the Moon, East of the Sun to dwell in the Mountain that Aulë built for them. There, the hammers ring like bells, and the great halls are lit with lamps that sparkle on the clear water of the streams that run from mountain-spring to mountain-root. 

Nearby dwell Caranthir and Celebrimbor, in a fair white city by the shores of Lake Helevorn, and beside the dark lake that reflects the sunlight on the mountain-peaks in the evening they have a great friendship with the Dwarves. 

Amros and Amrod live close at hand, beside the silver river Gelion, and they ride up singing to the city by the lake to greet their brother and their nephew there.  Sometimes Aredhel, the White Lady of the Noldor, rides with them, and sometimes she rides alone, ranging across the plains, for Aredhel has no single home, but visits all her kin in turn.

But Maedhros and Fingon dwell together in Hithlum among the golden mists of the Lake of Mithrim, and they ride south often through the high passes of the Ered Wethrin in a great company, singing, to visit friends and kinsmen by the pools of Ivrin, or the birchwoods of Arvernien, or in the harbours of Eglarest and Brithombar to take ship to visit their kin in Tol Eressëa and in the white city of Tirion upon the green hill of Túna, where Fingolfin is King.

In the ancient shore-city of Eglarest dwells Eldalótë and her husband Angrod, and many of the fair people of Finarfin, and they welcome the white ships of the Teleri and the grey ships of Círdan’s Falathrim that come swooping across the blue waters from Tol Eressëa and from Aman. 

But in the North, in Dorthonion reborn among the dark pine-trees is the home of Fëanor, the High King of the Noldor, and he is of perilous mood, for sometimes he is bitterly angry, though at other times he is kind as sunlight and laughs like a joyful child.  

With Fëanor are his sons Curufin and Celegorm, and Curufin and his father make new and wondrous things.  But in the gorges of Nan Dungortheb,  the land still remembers creatures strange and dark and terrible. Celegorm the Fair rides out to hunt them, and keep them from wandering out to trouble the people of the land, and Nimloth of Doriath rides out North from her fair woods to hunt with him. 

Nerdanel goes out into the snows of the far North and shapes the ice into figures wild and strange, and sometimes Fëanor travels with her with the Silmaril.  He calls great lights of many colours into the sky and into the figures shaped by Nerdanel, and all who see them wonder at them. 

And they say that even now, if you walk alone the first mists of dawn when the the light catches in the mist and makes it bloom into light, you might hear the sound of Elf-horns blowing far off in the mist, or look up and see the Sun as a golden flower driven by a woman in a chariot of flame. 

Or when you wander in the woods by starlight, when you look up to see the stars of Elbereth framed in woven trees, you may hear far off the distant sound of clear voices singing.    

Or if you look out across the heather hills in the silver light of the Moon, up towards the peaks where great stones stand like mighty castles formed of living rock towering against the sky, you may see a light high above, the flame of a lantern burning where no human lamp could ever be, and a path that was never there before, leading upward. 

And then you should beware. 

For Beleriand is fair indeed, but it is perilous.  If you walk into the mist, or upon the mountainside to the land where Fëanor is King, you might not return at all, and if you do, it will not be unchanged. 

---

Chapter End Notes

AFTERNOTE

Thank you everyone who has left encouragement, suggestions and ideas, to the partisans of Finrod, of Doriath, of the House of Fingolfin, and to everyone who has read the entire Return to Aman series right to the end. 

And thank you particularly to the Fëanorian Faction, who have both commented, joked and sent a surprising number of passionate private messages expressing very strong views on the ownership of Silmarils and the behaviour of the Valar.  

Fëanor appreciates your support, and would like you behind him next time he has to fight Balrogs. 

Maglor would like to remind you to take your banners with you when you leave the building, and to strongly suggest you avoid hitting either the Sindar or the Valar with them.

Celegorm says if you do decide to hit one or the other, he recommends the Sindar, they don’t hit back so hard.

Maedhros had a very elegantly expressed message for you all written out, but unfortunately, he dropped it when he and Fingon had to suddenly sit on Celegorm. 

Caranthir has sent you each a cask of fine wine.

Curufin, Celebrimbor and Nerdanel are working together on a Very Important Project and did not leave a message because they are Busy. 

And Amrod and Amras, after much debate, decided to get you each a pony, only I pointed out to them that if it’s seventeen hands tall with silver hooves and a mane like spun starlight, that’s not really a pony, and also that not everyone might have space for an elven steed.  So they said they would keep them for you until you find your way to Beleriand and are ready to go hunting with them.