A Promise of Lightning by The Wavesinger

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A Promise of Lightning

Ilmarë and Thuringwethil. The star-maiden and she-who-weaves-shadows. They swirl through worlds made of gas and laugh as they dodge rocks suspended in space and map strange star-patterns nothing like those seen from Arda. And in the hearts of suns which are collapsing into themselves, their fëar merge in a tight embrace.

 

 

They are on Arda, and Ilmarë wonders, idly, whether they have flown through the stars she sees reflected in the black pool of the eyes of Thuringwethil's fána. She creates stars, but cannot map them, and the skies are just as unfathomable to her as they will be to the Children-who-come-after.

“Ilmarë?”

“Hmmm?”

“What are you thinking of?”

“Stars,” Ilmarë laughs, and the laughter surprises her and fills her with a strange emotion. They are still not used to these bodies, the raiment they have woven over themselves in preparation for the coming of the Children, and each movement, each sensation, and most of all, each word, echoes the song of the Music, near yet far. “Stars, in your eyes.” Then, “I wish I could catch them.”

“Catch them?” Thuringwethil's eyes light up. “I could catch a star for you, Ilmarë. Do you want me to?”

“No!” The words jump out more forcefully than she intends them to. That is a problem with these bodies, these voices, the inability to control tone and pitch. Ilmarë is still learning. She amends, gentler, “No, I do not want that.”

“It would be beautiful,” Thuringwethil murmurs, and brushes a hand against Ilmarë's hair. Soft, Ilmarë knows, from her own experience of touch. Soft and strange. “It would be in your hair, just here, and you would burn so bright, brighter than anything, anyone else.”

“No,” Ilmarë says, again. A shiver runs down her spine.

Thuringwethil looks at her strangely. “I could. I know I could. It would be difficult, but I could weave an image of a star into truth and—”

“Thuringwethil.” More firmly, this time. “I know you can, but I do not want you to.” The craft that Thuringwethil has learned from Irmo makes Ilmarë uneasy, the shaping of the dreams and reality, and what Thuringwethil's task will be, once the Children come, is even stranger. Ainur they may be, but they are given only parts of the Music to know. And some parts, Ilmarë does not want to know.

“If you do not wish me to,” Thuringwethil sighs, and Ilmarë starts. Another weakness of this form, the sudden loss of concentration, and Ilmarë wonders, absently, how to fix that.

“I do not wish you to,” Ilmarë affirms.

The hand is still in her hair, and now it is joined by another, tracing the lines of Thuringwethil's cheekbones. “Your fána is quite beautiful.”

They have spent aeons together, loving each other beyond the edges of Arda, but Ilmarë still feels a thrill of joy at the simple praise (and a flush of heat; not the heat of stars or of a flame, but something newer than those, a heat which grows in her body alone). She presses her lips against Thuringwethil's—a pleasurable motion, they have found, through experimentation. Wandering hands trace circles on her spine.

Ilmarë kisses Thuringwethil gently, languidly, but gentleness turns, soon, into urgency, and they break off, panting for breath. Thuringwethil's light brown cheeks are flushed, her black hair wild from where Ilmarë has been unconsciously clutching it. Her lips are swollen, and her eyes glisten, not only with starlight, but also with some unnameable emotion. It is Thuringwethil, Ilmarë thinks, who is beautiful.

 

 

Thuringwethil takes her to the new-made Moon (the Moon, Ilmarë thinks, as if there is only one in the entirety of Eä, and laughs at the strangeness of the words they are borrowing from those who are not yet born), one night. Ilmarë does not ask whether Tilion knows she is there; she is better off not knowing.

“Beautiful,” Ilmarë breathes. The surface is smooth, white dust and rocks, and although Ilmarë's fána thinks, sometimes, that it is impossible to breathe here and it takes some trouble to convince it otherwise, it is still and calm, and she can see a sphere of blue and green which she would instinctively know is home even if she had no other knowledge of the heavens.

Thuringwethil sees her gaze, and smiles. “Seeking for the familiar, love?”

Ilmarë smiles, too. “It is strange, is it not, how we are attached to that one planet among so many she has seen?”

“Not—” Thuringwethil shakes her head. “Not strange, I think. We have put so much labour into this corner of Arda, so much love, and then the Children will come...”

“The Music is strong here,” Ilmarë agrees. They do not say what they both know: strong, and muddied, all at once, terrible and glorious and heart-rending as it is not in the obscure corners of Eä they love to wander, however pure and clear the notes may sound, there. And so they are drawn here, again and again.

“Strong, because it is the dwelling of the Children? Or the dwelling of the Children because it is strong?”

Ilmarë blinks at this tangent. “I—”

“Never mind.” Thuringwethil shakes her head, abrupt and sharp, and closes a hand around Ilmarë's wrist. “Let me show you, love, what I will do—what we will do—once the Children come.”

And Ilmarë follows her as she explains. They have made a path of dreams, Thuringwethil says, a place where the Children might, for the duration of their sleep, escape the burdens of the earth. It is not perfect, not yet, but it is a beautiful idea, and breathtaking in its execution.

“But there are dark things, too,” Thuringwethil says quietly. “There are always dark things. I have helped with the weaving of the path, and I will help with the wandering of true-dreamers, but my most important task will be to keep the Dark out. To keep this place safe, for the Children.”

“To keep the Dark away,” Ilmarë repeats. Thuringwethil kisses her, again, and she places her forehead against Thuringwethil's shoulder, some unnamed warmth welling up in her heart.

 

 

 

Ilmarë will think, later, that she should have known. The sum of parts makes a whole, and looking back, she will remember touches, words, looks, and wonder how she had not noticed.

But the Music defies comprehension in the moment; it simply is. And so, as they dive through the heart of a star, there is no suspicion, no fear, only their spirits, bright in joy and happiness, burning with excitement.

Thuringwethil is half-clad in her fána (and Ilmarë will never understand how she can hover between soul and body, one yet the other), and the fiery mixture of gases lap at her without touching her skin, deep orange flames winding their way around her arms and legs and torso. She closes her eyes, for a moment, and when her eyelids flutter open again, her pupils are pure, molten gold.

“I am a star,” Thuringwethil whispers. “In this moment, I am a star. I am light.”

And Ilmarë, who is light without effort, who cannot understand the urge to be because she already is, does not comprehend this. She does not need to. Thuringwethil's eyes, fire-bright, the sun curling around her body, all of this only makes her want to kiss her lover hard, feel the touch of burning flesh against her palm (the fána leaves an impression on the soul, marks it deep. A body is not spirit, but spirit is not body).

You are a star, Ilmarë says. Then, The star is eating you.

Thuringwethil scowls. “Then let it eat me. I will rise again from the ashes.”

Ilmarë laughs, and the star throbs with her joy.

 

 

“I am of the dark,” Thuringwethil says. She lies half on top of Ilmarë, tracing idle circles against her stomach. “And yet I am not Dark. Is that not strange?”

Ilmarë yawns (and sleep is another thing she will never understand, but has learnt to enjoy; her fána demands it of her). “You are not Dark, or dark. You are Thuringwethil. That is all that matters.”

“And yet,” Thuringwethil muses, “there is darkness in my very name, as there is light in yours.”

“I—” Ilmarë shrugs, bemused. “It is a name, and a task. We are part of this world, but our place in this world is not all that we are.”

“Do I detect heresy? From you, Ilmarë, oh illustrious handmaiden of Varda?” Thuringwethil is laughing, and it sends vibrations through Ilmarë's body. The sensation is pleasurable, and Ilmarë purrs low in her throat.

“It is true for the Children; why can it not be true for us? And, regarding the other—” Ilmarë pauses to gather her thoughts, her hand tangling in Thuringwethil's hair.“Did He not say that there would be meaning, in the end, even to Melkor's discord? Not goodness, maybe, but there cannot be light without darkness.”

 

 

They grow apart.

It is easy, to grow apart with an entire universe to hide in, but the irony is that they grow apart even as they stand close. The irony is that Ilmarë does not see.

They talk. Or, Ilmarë talks, and Thuringwethil speaks without truly saying anything. They kiss, and Thuringwethil is a little more cold. The hands that trace the lines of Ilmarë's body are those of a stranger re-learning something that should be familiar (but is not). Thuringwethil sucks bruises into Ilmarë's neck as if to drain her very blood, an urgency to her ministrations that was never there before.

Even as Ilmarë buries her tongue in Thuringwethil's hot, wet heat, the warmth between her own thighs a pleasant tingle in the afterglow of climax, there is a distance between them.

Ilmarë will see these things, in hindsight. But parts mean very little without the whole, and, in the present, she sees only Thuringwethil, as free of malice and guile as Ilmarë herself.

 

 

It ends near the edge of the sea, with Ilmarë staring at her lover-who-might-as-well-be-a-stranger as she speaks words Ilmarë cannot—will not—comprehend.

“Come with me.”

“Come where?” Ilmarë asks, and it should be obvious, but it is not. Come where?

“Come with me,” Thuringwethil says, again, and there is an edge to her voice Ilmarë has hear very few times before. “Come with me, love.”

“Thuringwethil? Where?”

“It will be a surprise,” Thuringwethil says, and Ilmarë remembers the day on the Moon, and relaxes, and takes a step toward her lover—

And Thuringwethil grabs her forearm. It should be no different to the hundredthousandtenthousand times it has happened before, but her fingers dig in, too tight. And that, again, has happened, by accident, before, but Ilmarë twists her hand out of Thuringwethil's grasp, instinctively. This, at least, has never happened before.

“Where are we going?” Ilmarë asks, again, even as she re-takes Thuringwethil's hand, a gentler grasp, this time.

“Nowhere.” Thuringwethil tugs at Ilmarë's hand, again, and Ilmarë suddenly remembers Thuringwethil's teeth against her throat, digging to deep, drawing blood, and she cannot hide the fear flashing in her eyes. (Maybe it is the fear which condemns them. Maybe Thuringwethil's purpose was innocent, before.)

“Thuringwethil. Please.” Then, in a more playful tone. “At least a hint?”

“I—” Thuringwethil looks torn, for a moment. “We are going to visit someone. Someone we do not know as well as we should.”

“Who?” She should not press. She should go with Thuringwethil, trust her lover. And yet— “Who, Thuringwethil? Please. I—I do not like this.”

“Very well,” Thuringwethil says slowly. “But—promise me you will not disapprove?”

“I promise,” Ilmarë says.

Thuringwethil lowers her voice. “Melkor.”

Ilmarë rips her hand out of Thuringwethil's before she thinks. (That, too, is another mistake. Maybe she could have been talked around, before.) “Melkor?”

“You promised,” Thuringwethil snaps, and there is something in her eyes, something dangerous and wild. “You promised.”

“Melkor,” Ilmarë whispers, again. Of all the things—“Why?”

“A shadow cannot be cast in the absence of light,” Thuringwethil says. “You are my reflection. We should go together.”

That is not an answer. That is nowhere near an answer. “No, Thuringwethil, stay, stay with me. We should be together, here.” Ilmarë clutches at this, at the only truth she knows in a crumbling world.

“Come with me,” Thuringwethil repeats.

“Stay with me,” Ilmarë says, again, blinking against the wetness in her eyes. “Stay. Please.”

“Come with me.”

“Thuringwethil. Please, stay. Please.” Ilmarë clutches at Thuringwethil as if she is drowning, and there is a strange dampness on her cheeks, but she does not care. “Please.”

“He said—he said you might say this.” Thuringwethil is talking to herself, Ilmarë realizes. “He said—he was right!” The scream is sudden, and Ilmarë flinches. Thuringwethil does not seem to notice. “He was right, but I do not want to leave you.”

Leave? “No! No, Thuringwethil, stay, please, I beg you, stay with me—”

“I am truly sorry, Ilmarë,” Thuringwethil says, and there is something awful but gentle about her tone. “I will come back for you, I promise.” And she bends, presses a kiss to Ilmarë's forehead, and turns and walks away.

“Please!” The last cry is hurled at Thuringwethil's back, but she keeps walking until she reaches the sea, then takes on a strange shape, and starts to fly, and then there is a black dot, and it disappears—

Ilmarë turns, too, and flees to the stars. She should tell someone of this betrayal, she knows, but she cannot. Not yet. Thuringwethil will come to her senses, Ilmarë thinks, and return.

 

 

There is a battle. Ilmarë feels this in her bones, but she is on the other side of Eä, and such vast distances take time be covered, precious time which she loses. When she arrives on Arda, it is in—not uproar, there are too few of them for that, but something close to it: Ainur drifting, both clothed and unclothed, a mass of conversation, mind-to-mind and words on tongue. Tilion, she sees (and how strange it is that he has abandoned his post), is ragged, and even unclothed; Ilmarë can see wounds, not made to last an eternity, but deep enough.

She goes to Varda, who has not assumed human raiment, but shines with her spirit-brightness, a sad, cold edge to her light. Irmo stands next to her, and his fána quivers as if it will disappear. “My lady?”

Ilmarë. The voice which envelops her is gentle, but tired. You are here.

“I came as fast I could, my lady. What—what happened?”

There was an attack on the Moon. Melkor gathered spirits of the cold. The dream-path is tainted, now, and sometimes, the Dark will slip through. And we do not know yet, but we—suspect that the Moon will not shine so bright any more. And there was nothing we could do; we were taken completely unaware.

“One of my Maiar,” Irmo whispers, and his voice is broken, held together only by shreds of control. “One of my Maiar let him through, hid him, hid them.”

“Who?” Ilmarë asks.

It takes an eternity, but she knows the answer before it comes, simultaneously, from both Irmo and Varda: “Thuringwethil.” Thuringwethil.

“No,” Ilmarë whispers. “No.” And she turns away.

 

 

She visits the Moon only once, after. It is no longer beautiful, scarred by the battle, thousands of craters marring its surface. This is what brings her to her knees, in the end, with the realization of what Thuringwethil has done. Not the darkness she saw in her lover, not the knowledge of their brethren Thuringwethil betrayed and tore asunder, but this, this—object, this cold ball of dust.

My task here is to keep the Dark out, she remembers Thuringwethil saying. To keep the Children safe. And yet, here, she let the Dark through. She stood, and watched their planet, their home, below them, and let the Dark through.

Why, Thuringwethil, why? And for the first time since that terrible day, Ilmarë weeps.

 

 

Afterwards, she puts her agony behind her. There is work to be done, and she has spent too long idling with— with her (with the enemy, but even now, there is some part of her which rebels at that word used against she-who-once-was-her-lover). They are preparing, now, for the coming of the Children, and Melkor is working too, they know, plotting who knows what.

What comes next is a sudden tumble of years and events, hurrying one after the other. Manwë and Varda attempting to disperse the Darkness Melkor has woven over Middle-earth, and Ilmarë by their side, lending what aid she can give, and then the waking of the Elder Children, and the battle, tearing apart the fortress in the North (and Ilmarë hears of this only later; she is too much of a coward to take the chance of meeting—and battling—Thuringwethil), and (this is spoken of in whispers) the mortals, the strange ones, waking in some far corner of Endórë and something gone terribly wrong, and then Melkor's defeat and the Elder Children coming, at last, to Aman—

It is too much, and she knows her brethren are as overwhelmed as she is at the sudden acceleration of time. And there is, too, the fact that Melkor is in Aman, now, and his lieutenants have fallen, or fled to the corners of the world.

Ilmarë will not allow herself to think of that.

 

 

“Do you believe, my lady,” Ilmarë asks Varda, as they both stand on the slopes of Taniquetil, “that Melkor has truly repented?”

Varda contemplates this, staring at the landscape of Aman, spread below them like a map and awash in the silver light of Telperion. “What do you think, Ilmarë?”

“I—” Ilmarë pauses to gather her thoughts. The stars of the Dome glitter above them, and Ilmarë is reminded, suddenly, of Thuringwethil. “Maybe—maybe he has not. But we will never learn whether he could have, if we do not give him the chance.”

“That is what made me agree to this,” Varda says. “And I do have my doubts, but—” She falls silent. Her face is a mask as she gazes out at the land under their charge.

A chance, and hope. And yet—“But,” Ilmarë ventures, “what if he has not repented, and this is all a charade? With his capacity to destroy—” She shudders. “Is the price worth the chance?”

Varda turns to face Ilmarë, and a hint of—something flits across her features before they settle back into impassiveness. (Later, Ilmarë will wonder if she knew, if the Music spoke to her.) “I cannot decide that, Ilmarë. None of us can. We can only give him a choice. If we do not, we lose sight of what we are. Whatever happens, in the end, will be the will of Eru.”

Ilmarë wishes to believe that. But what is worse, sanctioned defiance or Thuringwethil truly being lost, a glimmer of hope or a Father who allows evil to thrive? She cannot choose, and she hopes she will never have to.

 

 

Vampire, Ilmarë hears. And, Thuringwethil. Lúthien. Defeat. Battle. Morgoth.

She shudders at the name, and stops her ears, and does not listen. There is a difference between knowledge of general evil and knowledge of a very specific evil, and Ilmarë had never thought, before, that she would understand the distinction.

 

 

They are marching, at last, to war. Ilmarë has seen many battles, but she has never fought side-by-side with Elves. And, since Thuringwethil's Fall, she has not fought where her former lover could be her opponent.

“I do not like that it has come to war,” Eönwë says, beside her, his voice too low for any other to overhear.

Ilmarë does not answer. Her own reasons for not fighting before are selfish, and selfish without even a veneer of respectability, without even the flimsy excuse of causing even more destruction and death than has already been wrought, without the reason of punishment (and if innocents are punished along with the guilty, well, that is the price they have to pay).

“But since it has,” Eönwë continues, “We must finish this quickly.” His hands tremble; he has never fought beside the Children either.

“We must,” Ilmarë agrees. But I will not fight her. I cannot.

 

 

Quickly, it turns out, is relative. They have been here scant few years by the reckoning of their kind, but to Ilmarë and her fellow Ainur, it seems an aeon since they marched from Aman. War among the Children, they learn, is a mess of blood and brutality and death, and seeing it from afar is not the same as experiencing it as they are.

They try to leave fighting the mortals Morgoth has swayed to him and the Orcs he has created to the Elves, and maybe it is not only Ilmarë who is a coward. Instead, they fight Balrogs and dragons and creatures of the Night who have no name, their souls twisted beyond recognition.

Thuringwethil, Ilmarë thinks, must be one of these creatures, but she has not yet encountered her. Or if she has, she has not realized who she was fighting.

 

 

It would be irony if Ilmarë fought Thuringwethil. It would be irony if she found Thuringwethil and they fled Arda and dwelt in the outer reaches of Eä until Dagor Dagorath. But this—being told that Thuringwethil has surrendered, and being told to be her gaoler—

“Eönwë,” Ilmarë chokes out, “are you mad?”

“I know you are busy,” Eönwë says, and this is the most dishevelled state Ilmarë has ever seen his fána in, “but I cannot—we do not have time, Ilmarë, Morgoth is the priority, we cannot restrain him for long, and there are so many others to hunt down, only two of his lieutenants have surrendered, and everything is chaos, and we need to leave, quickly, and that is not even starting on the mess with the mortals, and I need someone I can trust guarding her.”

 

 

Say no. Say no. Say no. “I—yes,” Ilmarë says, and her throat is suddenly dry. “I will.”

“Thank you.” Eönwë exhales, passes a hand over his eyes. “She will have to stay in your tent. We had no plans for prisoners, so I do not know what to do about—accommodations. I have assigned you a dozen guards—she is weakened, that will be enough—but...be careful.”

“I will,” Ilmarë says, quietly. She is horribly uncertain, and something of this must have shown on her face, because Eönwë puts a hand on her shoulder.

“If you cannot—”

“No! No, I can.” When Eönwë looks unconvinced, Ilmarë smiles, a tight, forced smile. “Do not worry, Eönwë.”

Eönwë smiles, too. “Thank you.”

“Say nothing of it,” Ilmarë replies, and watches as he walks out.

She wants to collapse, but the next few hours are a rush of preparations and erecting hasty barriers. Ilmarë's tent is moved so one side of it presses against a sheer cliff, and steel bars have been erected around the area designated for Thuringwethil. This, normally, would not be enough, but she was told, by a messenger of Eönwë, that Thuringwethil could not rip herself from her fána. (Ilmarë tried not to think of how this could have come about.)

She is busy, and so it comes about that when Thuringwethil is brought into the tent by four Elven guards, Ilmarë is taken completely by surprise.

The figure being shoved into the cage (for that it what it is) is nothing like the proud, beautiful lover of her memories. Thuringwethil's body is scratched and torn, and her eyes have a wildness to them Ilmarë has never seen before. And yet it is still Thuringwethil. She does not look like a Dark creature; her form is, quintessentially, still the same form Ilmarë had loved millennia ago.

She is struck dumb by the sight, and can only nod as the guards leave (they will be outside the tent, ready to rush in at the slightest disturbance).

It is Thuringwethil who finally breaks the silence. “Ilmarë,” she says, and her voice is hoarse, ragged.

Ilmarë still cannot speak.

Something dark twists across Thuringwethil's face. “Come to gloat, have you? To laugh at your poor, pathetic prisoner?”

Ilmarë finally finds her voice. “I would never do that.”

“Of course you would not. Too pure for that; too pure to come with me, even when I begged.”

Bile rises in Ilmarë's throats at the words, words her lover, her Thuringwethil would never have spoken. This is not Thuringwethil, she thinks. This is some creature of Morgoth, taking on Thuringwethil's appearance. She should not reply to her, will not reply to her. And yet the words force themselves out of her mouth. “I begged, Thuringwethil, but you would not stay.”

“I could not!” Thuringwethil snaps.

“Why?” This is what Ilmarë has wondered, since the moment Thuringwethil left. “Why?”

“You would not understand.” And Thuringwethil turns her back to Ilmarë, and refuses to speak another word.

 

 

Over the next few days, Thuringwethil speaks little, and when she does speak, her words are angry and brittle. Ilmarë thinks, in the privacy of her own mind, that she will be glad to hand her over to the Valar when the time comes.

This is not what she had expected. She had expected the malice and Darkness, but not the anger and helplessness, not the near-clarity of memory interwoven with a twisted perspective which causes her to doubt everything about their shared past, not the broken shell in the oh-so-familiar body.

And yet, as she watches Thuringwethil, hope and love well up, rebellious, and refuse to be quelled.

 

 

“Ilmarë,” Thuringwethil says.

She has said this many times before, but the tone of voice gives Ilmarë a pause, for it is soft, quiet, almost pleading. “Yes?”

“I—” Thuringwethil's throat bobs as she swallows. “Do not let them put me into the Void. Please.” Her eyes flutter shut, as if to avoid Ilmarë's gaze.

It is not regret. A moment later, Thuringwethil is back to her old vitriol. But she said please, and the hope grows, and Ilmarë, for the first time, does not try to beat it back.

 

 

She begins to speak of their past to Thuringwethil, of the ages when they were young and carefree. Sometimes, Thuringwethil spits obscenities at her; sometimes she turns away and plugs her fingers in her ears.

But very occasionally, she listens.

 

 

Maybe, given time, she could have bought Thuringwethil back to her, convinced her of the terribleness of her deeds. But time is a luxury she does not have; the days rush by, and before she knows it, they are packing up camp to head back to Aman.

“What do you think will happen to Thuringwethil?” Ilmarë asks Eönwë.

Eönwë shakes his head. “I do not know.”

“But if you were to guess?” Ilmarë presses. She knows the answer already, in some part of her soul, but she needs to ask nevertheless.

“After her trial? To the Void. Her crimes are too great for anything else.”

Ilmarë nods. It is what she had expected.

It is what Thuringwethil expects, too. When Ilmarë announces that they are leaving, she laughs, long and low. “To the Void with me, then.”

“Thuringwethil—”

“It is true, is it not?”

Thuringwethil's eyes bore into Ilmarë, and she cannot answer with a lie. “It is.”

They both fall silent. Then, “You burn brighter than anyone else I can see.”

The echoes of an old conversation reverberate in Ilmarë's mind, and she smiles, unwillingly. “Your fána is quite beautiful.”

“It is not,” Thuringwethil says, her mouth twisting. The bitterness and anger are back, then. Right now, Ilmarë cannot blame her.

“I—” Ilmarë stops. Closes her eyes, and turns away. “I am sorry, Thuringwethil. Truly.”

“I brought this upon myself,” Thuringwethil says (and it is the first time she has admitted her guilt, her part in this disaster), and falls silent.

It is not right, Ilmarë thinks suddenly. It is not right. Thuringwethil will repent, given a chance, Ilmarë knows. Given a few years. And she deserves the chance as much as—if not more than—Melkor did, long ago.

“Thuringwethil,” Ilmarë says, quietly, “would you like to fly through a star again? With me?”

Thuringwethil looks up, slowly. “Do not tempt me, Ilmarë. You know I cannot.”

Ilmarë smiles. “But if you could, would you?”

“Yes.”

 

 

Ilmarë and Thuringwethil. The star-maiden and she-who-weaves-shadows. They swirl through worlds made of gas and laugh as they dodge rocks suspended in space and map strange star-patterns nothing like those seen from Arda. And in the hearts of suns which are collapsing into themselves, their fëar merge in a tight embrace.

 

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