as the shrike by laurefindele  

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i. on what ground i was founded

Ecthelion lingers in the Halls of Mandos. Vairë offers him comfort, Mandos offers a way out.

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The great vaulted ceilings of Mandos are too high for even sharp elven eyes to see with clarity, but at this distance the silver glittering veins that wind their way through the black stone look enough like starlight for Ecthelion to pretend he is gazing up at the night sky. It is cold, colder even than the highest peaks of the Echoriad, and many of the souls that dwell here, Ecthelion knows, tremble within their formless bodies at the bite of it.

Ecthelion is not one of these souls. Perhaps, he thinks sometimes, that is why he has remained in these cavernous halls for as long as he has.

The cold, he knows, is for the benefit of them all. Too comfortable a resting place, and many might choose never to slip into their mortal skins again, contenting themselves with wandering the endless dark corridors for eternity, and Mandos would bloat and swell with the shambling dead until there was no world left beyond its stony embrace for Vairë to weave into her tapestries. A thousand years of nothing but darkness and the dim, far-off mockery of starlight was enough to wash the grief and pain of death away with a longing for the light of Valinor again, for a body to kick and run and play in the endless golden fields of the Blessed Realm.

But seven thousand years ago, into the pitch of unending night, Ecthelion had been born into the icy, raging bosom of the Helcaraxë, and so even the chill of Mandos had never been enough to douse the bitter embers of grief in his soul.

· · ─ ·𖥸· ─ · ·

"Woe that my husband should find you here," says Vairë, when Ecthelion next finds his way into her weaving-chamber. She towers over him as she always does, large and looming as she plucks at the threads of her latest tapestry. The rasp of the shuttle passing over the fibers is loud as a storm in the silent cavern, but the sound of it soothes him.

"He is not looking for me," replies Ecthelion. This, they both know, is a lie.

Vairë's skirts are soft and pillowy, cotton-down layers enveloping Ecthelion like a swaddled child when he lowers himself down onto them. His head comes to rest against the side of Vairë's leg, five times over the size of his own, and when she hums her content at his company he can feel the vibrations of it down to the marrow of his bones.

"Would you like to see this one?" she asks him. The shuttle rasps again; left to right, sharp clack of wood, right to left. The thread between her fingers is gold, gold as the sun. Ecthelion shakes his head.

"I have had enough of Middle-Earth," he murmurs.

He had studied Vairë's work when he first arrived, of course. Many of them did, the wailing dead of Gondolin crowding Mandos as her sure fingers had plaited together and hung the final threads of their beloved city's fate. Long had he stood in the black stone halls staring up at her work, studying the faces of each of the countless dead and wondering where they had found themselves in these dark caverns. Surely not here, with him, although there is little surprise in that. Rarely has he ever encountered another soul here, save for Vairë in her weaving-chamber or Mandos himself. The latter comes to him every year on the day of his death like clockwork, asking if he might finally be ready to don the weight of a new body and feel, for the first time, the light of Valinor on his face. The former welcomes him into the fold of her embrace when he finds himself too weak to face Mandos and tell him once again that no, in fact, Ecthelion is not ready to return to the world of the living. Perhaps he never will be.

There is no one else to converse with, to share stories or sorrows or laments. There is no one to tell him what has become of the world beyond these walls, save for Vairë herself.

The fall of Gondolin had taken her many years to weave. It should be a point of pride, probably, to know so numerous were their deeds of valour that each warranted its own tapestry, its own web of thread hung in the long corridors of Arda's history. Ecthelion himself had been in the halls for nearly three years before she wove his own death. It was a beautiful thing, depicted in stark blue and glimmering silver, his body wreathed in flame and smoke as he'd dragged the Lord of Balrogs down into the watery depths of their mutual grave.

An odd feeling had overcome him, standing there in the endless empty hallway and staring up at himself plastered there alongside the great heroes of old. Vairë had done him far too much justice, he'd thought. The tapestries before his own shimmered with gold, with the threads of light that made up so many of the greatest of their kind; but not Ecthelion's. No, he had been born in the darkness of the Grinding Ice, and died in the lightless chasm of the Fountain, and it had been a just and righteous death.

And then Vairë had woven her next tapestry and he had seen Glorfindel's end, the greatest of them all standing alone and blazing like the sun, sword upheld to the heavens against the snarling face of evil. He'd stopped looking at the tapestries, after that.

"The choice is yours, little Elfling," she says. Her voice sounds so very faraway, towering above him as she is. "But it is not Middle-Earth on my loom today, you should know."

"Is it not?"

For centuries now, Vairë has done nothing but weave the story of Middle-Earth. Ecthelion does not look, but he knows it nevertheless. He knows it in the work-songs she sings. He knows it in the thread that pools about her feet, the colours of the place he had learned to call home, the green of the forests and the grey-white of the mountains, the black of the Shadow returning to spread its inked fingers over all, which even he was not ignorant of. The halls of the dead had grown too large of late, ever-expanding to house the legions upon legions of sundered souls.

"Not entirely," she murmurs. "It is a homecoming, among other things."

"Ships from the East?" Ecthelion turns his head up at that, peering at the threads in Vairë's lap. Sure enough, he finds the blue of the sea and the white of its wavecrest, the silver of an Elven swanship, the painted orange of the sunset over the shores of Valinor. Vairë tugs at the shuttle in her hand, threaded through with glittering gold. "I had thought there was no more passage, after the splitting of the sea."

"There is always passage for those who are owed it," says Vairë. "Though never before, I think, has it been offered to travelers such as these."

"Men?"

The shuttle rasps its way through the loom once more. "Not Men," says Vairë, and Ecthelion tilts his head in confusion. "A Dwarf, it seems."

"A Dwarf?" Surely not, he thinks. Not even Men are allowed on the shores of the Blessed Realm, much less one of Aule's creations.

"And two halflings."

Ecthelion blinks. "What is a halfling?"

Vairë laughs at that. Ecthelion finds himself struck with the sudden realization that he has never before heard one of the Valar laugh. Not, of course, that he has had a very large sampling.

"One of the lesser races," she explains. "Small as a babe, quiet as the wind. Prone to gluttony, but not easily given to greed. Children of Yavanna, I believe, if their love of little growing things is any indication."

"Surely they are not sailing," splutters Ecthelion. The thought is absurd to him. A dwarf, stood behind the prow of a great swan-ship, guilding it over the waves past the ends of Arda. And halflings— even they could not have been so sheltered in Gondolin as to miss entirely the existence of a whole race—

"They are young," says Vairë, ever-aware of his scrambled thoughts. "A rather insignificant note in the great Song, until now. But no, they are with an Elven host— the last of your kin, in fact, making their way home again."

Home. The word is odd and sour on Ecthelion's tongue. Valinor had never been his home. He had heard the call, of course; the splash of the waves and the cry of the seabirds circling overhead, the aching heart-pull westward. All Elves had. But he had never beheld the Blessed Realm, nor had he come into being in the lush wildlands of Middle-Earth. Ever had he been a lone outlier, caught in between the two great lands of the world. Unworthy of one, estranged from the other. Doomed, Ecthelion is sure, to roam the cold halls of Mandos forevermore, until even his immortal soul fades into the ether of eternity.

"You think so unkindly of yourself," Vairë murmurs. Her voice, ever-melodious, is tinged with an odd note of sadness. "My little Elfling. Do you truly not want to rejoin your bretheren beyond these dark walls? Our halls are a bed for rest, and for healing, but they are no place to spend the rest of one's days."

"Do I not make for good company?"

Vairë is silent for a long moment. Finally, she hums contemplatively, and returns to her weaving. "You do indeed, vinya. Sing for me? Your voice is ever so sweet, and it makes the hours all the more enjoyable for it."

He turns his face away from the loom, from the pool of thread in Vairë's lap, from the gold-wrapped shuttle in her hand. There is a face beginning to form in the half-finished tapestry, wreathed in light, and Ecthelion does not want to see who it might be. He opens his mouth, heart heavy in his chest, and begins to sing.

· · ─ ·𖥸· ─ · ·

Mandos comes to him as he always does, not long after. He finds Ecthelion near the great mirror-pool beneath the tapestry hall, gazing down into the reflected not-starlight.

Ecthelion enjoys the mirror-pool. There is no wind in Mandos, no soft breeze to shift the surface, and so it remains stagnant enough that looking down into its depths feels no different than craning his neck up into the glimmering cavern ceiling. Many times, Ecthelion has dipped the tips of his fingers into the water to unsettle it, so that he can spend hours sitting on the banks watching the ripples fold and unfold over each other, the stainless reflections of the not-stars above him winking in and out of existence as each wavelet passes over them.

Mandos comes disembodied, as he often does. A chill, a silence that brushes first the left side of his awareness and then his right, and when Ecthelion finally tears his eyes away from the marred surface of the lake he finds the darkness around him coalescing into the vague shape of a figure beside him.

"I will not go," he says, because sitting with Vairë has left him braver than usual.

Mandos does not sigh, but the water in front of him ripples outward, as though disturbed by a soft wind. "You have been speaking with my wife again," he says. His voice, as always, is more terrible than Vairë's; soft as a whisper but with a weight to it that shakes Ecthelion's innards as though he'd been run through by a great clap of thunder.

"She encouraged me to petition you for re-embodiment, actually," replies Ecthelion. He turns back to look at the water, frowning when his reflection comes back to him strange and distorted. "I have made my choice. I told her that I have no interest in the Blessed Realm, and Middle-Earth is closed off to me. Why should I not remain here?"

"No interest whatsoever? I find that very hard to believe."

"Is it so bad? It's not as though one more fëa in your home will make very much of a difference." Ecthelion scuffs one foot against the rocky bank of the lake. "I am not so large, after all."

Mandos makes a sound that could almost be a hum, if not for the way it causes the cavern walls around them to shiver in response. "No, you are not. But eternity in these halls is a punishment, not a boon, and you have done nothing to earn yourself such a fate."

Ecthelion isn't entirely sure he agrees with that. Gondolin had fallen, after all, despite his best and bravest efforts.

"We did not bring you into existence to languish," Mandos continues. "It is not in your nature."

Ecthelion thinks of the Helcaraxë, his earliest living memories. Time had seemed to stand still there, out in the sunless wastes. They would walk for miles a day, only to find the shifting floes beneath their feet had dragged them back even further than when they started. The cold had made them sluggish, ill. They had done many things to survive, there on the ice in the dark, that were not in the nature of elves.

"What for, then?" Ecthelion asks.

Mandos places a cold hand onto his shoulder, a deathly chill spreading through Ecthelion's arm and down through his chest. If he had been alive, he thinks, his blood would have run cold and thick in his veins. "To be shepherded," the Vala replies. "As Vairë and I have tried to shepherd you. To sing, and create works of beauty, and to indulge yourselves in the lands we have shaped for you."

"I sing just fine here. The acoustics are impeccable."

"You are afraid," says Mandos. It is not a question.

Ecthelion's tongue dries and shrivels in his mouth. "I am not."

"I take less pleasure than my wife in being lied to, onya."

Ecthelion shrinks back, away from Mandos' icy touch. Afraid. Perhaps he is. Valinor had seemed so very far away in life, an eventuality he had dreaded, if only because the great barrier of death had stood between it and himself. He had spoken of it only once, in the darker hours of the night when Egalmoth and Aredhel were abed and he had been left to tend the fire and watch for enemies.

Glorfindel had woken, and come soundlessly to sit beside him.

"You're tense," he had said, shifting closer, close enough that Ecthelion could feel the heat of his body through the thin layers of their tunics. Glorfindel had always been so warm, as though burning beneath his skin with the force of a small sun. "What troubles you, my friend?"

"I'm uneasy here," Ecthelion had admitted. He often found himself admitting things to Glorfindel, whether or not he'd intended to. "Outside of the city. It makes my skin crawl."

"You see danger behind every tree," said Glorfindel. "We are safe here, meldonya. Egalmoth has swept the forest for Orcs and spiders. You are not alone on watch, and even if you were, I would sooner trust you in a fight than any other elf in Gondolin. The greatest threat to our safety is Aredhel's capriciousness, and she is sleeping soundly enough that an earthquake would not wake her. Rest."

Ecthelion had done his best not to fill with warmth at the endearment. Glorfindel was often like this, overfamiliar and confusing, and Ecthelion did not much appreciate the aftereffects it left on him. Pursing his lips, he moved away pointedly and let the chill night air soothe the hammering of his pulse.

They sat in companionable silence for a while, listening to the crackling of the fire and the chirp of the night bugs. Glorfindel was good company, most of the time. Ecthelion could do without having to carry him home once or twice a fortnight when he'd had too much to drink at the tavern, doing his best to keep his friend upright with one hand while using the other to bat away Glorfindel's searching fingers.

But here, Glorfindel was perfectly pleasant. Ecthelion slid his gaze sideways, surreptitiously trying to seek out a glimpse of that golden head of curls, only to be met with Glorfindel's piercing hazel eyes instead. He ducked away, chastised.

"You were born in Valinor, were you not?" he asked after a moment.

Glorfindel stretched, the hem of his tunic riding up just enough for a sliver of sharp hipbone to peek through from beneath. Ecthelion took his tongue between his teeth and bit down, hard.

"I was," said Glorfindel. "In the heart of the White City. It was beautiful there, Ecthelion— no hardship, no hunger. I wish you could see it."

Ecthelion, who was born hungry and never quite lost the ache in his belly, tried to imagine a world where he could want for nothing. Glorfindel seemed not to notice when he cringed away at the thought. "It sounds very nice."

"I would take you to the seaside, to the Bay of Eldamar, and you could play in the waters to your heart's content."

Ecthelion laughed drily. "You see me as a child, Laurë."

Grinning, Glorfindel leaned to the side, nudging Ecthelion's shoulder with his own. Warm, too warm. Ecthelion shoved him back, aiming for playfulness.

"I do not," Glorfindel said, mock-offended. "I see you as a lord of Gondolin, greatest of our musicians and dearest of my friends, who pretends no one can see him when he splashes about like a little boy in the fountains."

"Funny," Ecthelion muttered, suddenly cold again. He thought once more of the hunger, of the ever-present gnawing in the pit of his stomach. "If I am a child, I make for a very poor one. Scared of the dark, and all that."

"You are right to be scared of the dark, in these times. No one would begrudge you."

"I would begrudge me," said Ecthelion. He drew his knees up to chest, tucking his chin between them and gazing out at the trees. "With your beautiful Valinor awaiting me, and still afraid to die."

Glorfindel's gaze was hot on his cheek. "You are not a coward for fearing death."

"Am I not? I certainly feel like one."

"When you see the Blessed Realm," said Glorfindel, his voice soppy with longing, "you will know it was all worth it."

With that, Glorfindel clapped Ecthelion on the shoulder and rose to his feet, turning away to the woodpile to stoke the fire. Ecthelion kept his eyes fixed squarely on the treeline and did not turn to watch him go. His stomach twisted, empty.

 

"You have nothing to fear," says Mandos, snapping Ecthelion out of his reverie. "Aman is the greatest of our creations, made for you to live a long and blessed life."

"Perhaps I fear a blessed life," mutters Ecthelion.

"Perhaps you fear disappointment."

Mandos is not wrong. Ecthelion knows this. The Valinor of Glorfindel's stories might only be that— a story, a pretty tale to ease Ecthelion's spirits during a cold and dismal part of his life.

Or perhaps it is real, and Ecthelion would then be found wanting. He must be the only Elf in history, he thinks, to prefer the muck and blood of wartime to the peace and prosperity of the Valar's homeland. At least in the pits of the world his purpose had been clear, his path straight. At least he had belonged.

"Do you not miss the people you knew?" Mandos asks. "Your subjects, your fellow lords."

"I failed our city. How would I face them?" How would I face him?

Mandos shakes his head. "It has been an age and then another since then," he replies. "The blame has been washed clean. As for your friend, there was never any to begin with."

"I don't know who you mean."

Mandos sighs. "Another lie. He waits for you, you know. He expects you, even."

Blinking, Ecthelion turns to face him. "What?"

"His ship grows closer by the day. It will dock at Tol Eressëa soon, and Glorfindel will be home. Manwë is pleased, more so than I can remember him being in a very long time."

Ecthelion takes a moment to process this. Glorfindel, in Valinor— he had not known his friend had left at all. Surely he had been re-embodied into the Blessed Realm, as were all who passed out of the Halls of Mandos. He had so loved this place, had longed for it so fiercely. Why would he return to Middle-Earth?

He itches, for the first time in countless centuries, to rise to his feet and tread the hall of tapestries. To study each one, and search out the face of his dearest friend. It is only Mandos' presence that keeps him rooted to the spot, unwilling to disrepect a member of the Valar by running off in the middle of a conversation like a distracted child.

"He was sent back," Mandos explains. "Manwë saw need of him in the battles to come, and granted him swift passage from these Halls and bid him return to Middle Earth. And he was right to do so. Many a tragedy has he averted, by his presence alone."

Unsurprising, thinks Ecthelion. Trust Glorfindel to see a task through, whatever it might be.

"And now he returns?"

Mandos nods. "The long fight against the Shadow is over, and the time of Elves has come to an end. He has done his duty, and now sails for our shores with a host of the mortal blessed. Ulmo tells me he is most anxious to return."

"Certainly not for me. How would he know I had been freed from the Halls already?"

"Do you doubt me?" asks Mandos. "You have tarried here thrice as long as any elf save those who will never leave. He is not wrong to expect you."

Ecthelion considers that. The prospect of leaving this place, of his hunger sated. What else will gnaw at him, he wonders, when it is placated? What shape will his want take next?

Glorfindel's eyes flash before him, bright hazel and penetrating in their severity.

"Send me back," he whispers, so low he wonders if Mandos hears him at all. Then, louder: "You are free of me. Send me back."

Mandos stands, and he is larger than anything Ecthelion has ever seen, larger than a mountain, swirling darkness enveloping him in an frigid embrace he has not known since he was a small child.

"Then I bid you depart," he says, and the ground shakes and the water of the mirror-lake churns, and Ecthelion closes his eyes and breathes in the cold, stale air of the Halls one last time.

· · ─ ·𖥸· ─ · ·

When he opens them again, it is bright.