Untended by Lordnelson100

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Chapter 1

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Prompt: What if the Noldor did as the Valar asked?

The Valar sat now behind their mountains at peace; and having given light to Middle-earth they left it for long untended, and the lordship of Morgoth was uncontested save by the valour of the Noldor.

“Of Men,” Quenta Silmarillion

The Noldor never left Aman.

They never even marched as far as Alqualondë. They heard the words of Eönwë, herald of Manwë, who perched with his eagle wings upon a cliffside to chide them for their first rebellious steps: and hearing, they turned again.

Respect, gratitude, and submission rose up in their hearts and they made their quiet way back to Tirion. To be sure, Fëanor fled away into the wilderness, and was never seen again. A tragedy! Many said the death of his father had undone his mind.

But Fëanor’s brothers and Fëanor’s sons were persuaded to pause and ponder: wisdom and caution won the day, and they returned back with the others.

Now that Melkor was fled with his prizes, indeed, the Valar took thought as to the better protection of Aman. They fortified their land anew, and they raised up the mountains of the Pelori to sheer and dreadful heights, and strewed the sea with shadows and enchantments. And so the Blessed Realm was shut against all who lived outside it.

In Middle-earth, enraptured with the glory of the ravished Silmarils and rejoicing in the unavenged blood of slain Finwë, Morgoth returned to his terrible fortess in victory. He made himself a mighty crown of iron, and fixed in it the Silmarils; he named himself “The King of the World,” and there was no one to gainsay him

But he did not sit still.

Soon his forces poured forth. Alone, unaided, Círdan and his people and all their ships were surrounded and pulled down. All along the wide salt strands, the sea birds sought for far-seeing Círdan and the Falathrim. The gulls cried, but the Sea Elves of Middle-earth were no more. The waves themselves mourned as they roared and whispered over the sands.

Denethor and his Green Elves, the Laiquendi beloved of the forest, who roamed free without wall or keep to protect them, were devoured by Morgoth’s wargs who now multiplied in numbers unhindered. The vast forests of Ossiriand reached their fingers towards the sky in mourning: the seven rivers sang in lonliness as they ran.

Doriath stood for a little while, an island of strength protected by Melian’s magic and Thingol’s stewardship. But Balrogs in unthinkable numbers came against them, and burnt all the wide earth around them and poisoned all the rivers. Then Morgoth seeded the clouds themselves with a bitter rain of acid and the forests shrivelled and blackened, even behind Melian’s Girdle.

Holding hands with her stately parents, their beautiful daughter Luthien raised her peerless voice, bringing hope to the people of Menegroth. The Sindar in all their courage and grace lifted their eyes to the sky, and sang to the Star-Kindler. Somewhere beyond the smoke drifting over Thingol’s realm, they knew that stars still shone.

But at last Morgoth opened a vast chasm in the earth at their gates, full of searing liquid fire boiling up from the heart of the world. Doriath tilted and sunk and crumbled: it fell.

Then only a few of Eru’s Firstborn remained in Middle-earth: scattered, traumatized, hiding among the shadows.

Uncounted numbers of living Elves were now thralls in Angband; vast armies of the houseless dead became spirit-slaves to Morgoth, their own selves and memories lost in pain and darkness and subsumed in his crushing will.

In the mountains of Middle-earth, the Khazâd had begun to create many works of wondrous craft and delving, in underground cities lit by great lanterns and ringing with the sound of hammers.

But now when they came to the surface, each year they found the earth more and more desolate.  Little food could be found in ruined, ashen field and forest. The Elves were vanished, with whom they had in early days built tentative relations. There was no one with whom to trade; no one either to learn from, or to teach what they themselves discovered. The roads between one Dwarven people and another were soon too dangerous to travel and each of their lands became isolated from the others.

Soon they began to weaken. Their once-ambitious delvings became mere dark caves and tunnels. Their numbers dwindled. At last they began to starve. The forge was left darkened; the hammer laid aside, as strength fled from once-strong arms and clever minds clouded.

There came a day when all of the children of Aulë were gone, all the bright promise of their civilization destroyed before it could flower.

Unhindered by any foes, slowed by no siege, fearing no attacks, Morgoth had time to muse and meditate, to invent and make play with all his dark powers of invention.

Trolls he had time to modify and reshape, until they had not only great strength, but also cunning: and he sent them into the forests with the mission to hunt down the Shepherds of the Trees, Yavannah’s rare and gentle children.

Fell beasts he raised, generation upon generation, and dragons who never knew the fear of heroes’ swords. These he pitted against the great eagles who lingered in the high places of Middle-earth. And soon there were none.

Monsters he sent East, first to Eriador, then over the Misty Mountains to Rhovanion, and even to the far and legendary Orocarni and down to burning Harad, so that no new races could ever flee or wander there. There never came to be a little mortal fisher people, living in peace in the Vales of the Anduin.

So it was that the Aftercomers, the Race of Man, awoke alone in a dead and empty world. Without teachers; without allies; without messengers of hope.

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Meanwhile in Aman, the centuries turned.

The Trees lay bare and dead. But the Valar made in their place the Sun and the Moon, so that the lands had light and warmth again. Just as the Trees had replaced the Lamps that Morgoth broke, the Sun and Moon replaced the Trees.

The Valar had the power to make new things when Morgoth broke the old. Therefore they thought: why rage and suffer in pursuit and battle with him? Here in the Valars’ safe land, a new wonder could always be created!

To think upon their brother’s deeds in Middle-earth: how sad, how ugly. And so—they did not do so.

Among their Elven guests, festivals were held in Valmar and Tirion and Alqualondë on every occasion; feasting and amusements never ceased.

Many Eldar simply sat at the feet of the Valar, in meditation and repose. Though Fëanor was gone, others who loved arts and invention became in their turn great artisans and created wonders upon wonders. Scholars debated infinitely fine distinctions of truth, without pressure from outward threats and fleeting time. There were goodly woods and gardens in abundance, where no danger lurked, where lions were tame and no spider crept, and all the paths were straight.

Ever the music played, and the people danced in innocence.

No one had a sword.

One day, as the Teleri raced in the harbor in their swan ships, their lookouts began to call out to one another. A strange shape seemed to be forming on the blue horizon.

All at once, a vast huge shape reared up: it was the form of a King, high almost as the clouds, crowned with sea-foam and accompanied by a thousand circling white birds and leaping dolphins. He carried in his enormous fist a mighty spear and he seemed to raise it against an unseen foe.

The Sea Elves of the West cried out in wonder and pointed. “Ulmo! Ulmo! See the great Power of the Sea!” they cried. Then, as they looked, the mighty regal form shifted, warped, and seemed to stagger: with a terrible unearthly cry, his body suddenly broke apart, as if the matter of the sea itself was rent into a million parts. The watching Elves on their ships screamed and wept.

Not for long. For in the wake of cataclysm rose an enormous wave, which burst over the pearl strands of Alqualondë and carried all away.

Rumor of the terrible destruction had already spread through Valinor, and already all the other Elves had rushed to the high places of the land to look forth. Others rang bells and shouted alarms. Many prayed, of course, and rushed to the holy places in which they were wont to meet with the Valar: the Circle of Doom where justice was declared, the healing gardens of Lorien, the forges of Aulë , the forests where Oromë  hunted. But the Valarin were not in their usual haunts.

Instead, they, too, were to be seen on the high hills and on the walls. Standing, silent, the Valar looked Eastward.

In that direction, a great black cloud was billowing, shot through with lightning. The ocean, having drowned Alqualondë , had settled into a strangely flat and desolate waste of darkened water.

And all at once they saw them coming.

Out from the waves rose the heads, then the shoulders, of a vast legion. From the water they came dripping, as if they had marched across the deep unseen floor of the ocean itself,

The shapes of Men and Elves the sodden army had—-but dead, all dead, their eye sockets gaping, their flesh ruined, their bony hands reaching without warmth.

Over the horizon came black ships, manned by houseless spirits, whose half-seen wraiths flickered at the tillers and on the yards.

Balrogs the size of towers waded between them, cracking their whips of flame.

The sky was filled with dragons, whose length and size were swollen beyond what an incarnate mind could accept. They blotted out the stars.

In the midst of all came wading Morgoth. He was as a mountain crowned with flames; and he laughed.

“You left me the world to tend, my brothers and sisters!” he said. “I thank you for it. Taste now the fruits of it!”

 

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