The Stars are Ripe to Hold by StarSpray

Chapter 1

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Since Melian had returned from the Outer Lands, she had not taken physical form. Ilmarë thought she understood this: the Ainur were not bound to a single body or shape as the Children were, though many of them took that raiment by habit, now, because of the Children dwelling among them. But Melian had taken it even further, and her Elven shape had become nearly as bound to her spirit as the bodies of the Children themselves. Now she dwelled in Lórien, a quiet, mournful presence near the lake. Those of the Eldar who passed by might find themselves moved to tears, though only the most perceptive among them might tell why.

Ilmarë hated to see Melian reduced thus, but did not know how to help her. They had been close, once, seeking each other out during times of rest in the tumultuous Making of the world, to laugh and sing and dance. But then Melian had disappeared into the forest with her Elven-love, and now…

Then she stumbled upon Olórin in Lórien as she wandered the sun-dappled paths beneath the great beech trees. He was lounging in a sun, like one of those great cats that lived in the wild grasslands far to the south. As Ilmarë approached he opened one eye, and smiled before closing it again. “Hello, Ilmarë. What brings you to Lórien?”

“Melian,” Ilmarë replied, stopping in front of him. Her body cast a shadow over his face, which turned his smile to a frown. “Have you spoken to her?”

“Yes. But she didn’t reply.” Olórin sat up. He had grass sticking in his hair. “I think she’s on the other side of the lake at the moment, if you wish to have a try. But Estë and Lórien and Yavanna and even Manwë have tried, but with little success.” He stretched, and rose to his feet. “Maybe that’s the problem.”

“What do you mean?” Ilmarë asked. One had to ask that question a lot in conversation with Olórin. He tended to speak vaguely, sometimes even in riddles. She suspected it had started as a joke when he was speaking with the Children, and then it had become a sort of habit.

“Speaking,” he said. “Perhaps some other sort of comfort would be better. Did you notice? Even among the Quendi, words sometimes lose meaning.”

It sounded like another riddle to Ilmarë, but he had given her an idea. “Perhaps you are right, Olórin,” she said. He smiled at her, but already he was distracted by that last thought, and he wandered away, humming something slightly off-key.

Ilmarë shook her head, and then loosed her grip on her physical form, moving with as little effort as a thought across the clear waters of the lake, the waters rippling in her wake as though nothing more than a breeze had passed by. She found Melian almost immediately, a small and insubstantial presence in the shadows beneath a stand of fir trees clustered close together, so their boughs wove together and blocked out the light of the sun. Ilmarë hovered outside that small cool patch of twilight, and called gently to her old friend, beckoning her. I want to show you something, she said. Come away with me, to the stars.

She could feel Melian’s reluctance, but there was something more in it than mere unwillingness to leave her tree-shadows. There was something of fear in it, and something of uncertainty, as though she had forgotten how to be something bigger than an Elf-woman. And, well, perhaps she had.

I will help you, Ilmarë said, reaching out. It was not the same as joining hands, rather she wrapped the presence that was herself around the presence that was Melian, and guided her friend out into the sunshine, and then up beyond the trees, and the mountains. As the air grew thinner Melian grew more afraid, until finally they had left Arda entirely, and floated in the vastness of space. Then Ilmarë separated herself from Melian, allowed herself to grow, much much bigger than the form she had taken while walking beneath the trees of Valinor, so big that she could hold a star in her hands, like a fruit plucked from a branch. Melian copied her, albeit reluctantly—the space between the stars was not a place for small things. Come, we have much farther to go! Ilmarë reached for Melian, and together they sped away, faster than light or thought, until they came upon a certain star.

It was dying.

This star, however, had been large—very large, as stars went. And now it was collapsing, all of the outer gasses rushing in toward the much heavier and denser core. But there was so much energy, so much power coiled there, that it could not remain stable, and so it exploded, gasses and radiation and heavier dust streaming past and through Ilmarë and Melian. Melian shrank into Ilmarë, radiating dismay, but Ilmarë laughed for the sheer joy of it. The star was dead, yes, but now the cycle could begin anew. Look, Melian, and listen. A great cloud of gasses and dust whirled around them, filled with all the ingredients needed to make new stars—which was just what would happen: Ilmarë could hear it.

In Arda, the Music echoed in the waters. But it was still playing out here, too—Ilmarë and her brothers and sisters had been with Varda when she sang the first piercing notes to kindle the first of the stars, and they had swiftly joined her, and now the stars themselves, and the nebulae, all of it hummed and echoed with it. Ilmarë sang for Melian, then, of the birth of stars, and their bright fire, and of the death of stars—many a quiet fading, others like this an explosion to rock its closest neighbors, of such brilliance that even the Children would see it, someday, a bright flare in the night sky—and of the worlds and stars that came after.

It was from this that the Ainur had gotten the materials they needed to craft the world for the Children. The iron, the calcium, the oxygen and hydrogen and the carbon, all from the cores of dying stars. And the Children were a part of Arda, in their bodies was the stuff of stars, in their blood and bones. Ilmarë sang all this to Melian, who hearkened with more interest than she had shown anything else since her return to Valinor.

Finally, she stirred, as Ilmarë sang of the birth of stars—and of worlds and comets and other things. Show me?

Of course! Ilmarë reached for her, and together they sped through the cosmos, to discover its most beautiful secrets.