A Sense of History: Straight Road
The next in a series of articles about ships passing to and from the West, Simon uses "The Fall of Númenor" to attempt to arrive at Tolkien's reading of the exordium to "Beowulf."
It’s not a leap-day, Feanor thinks, finding himself somewhere temporally (spacially-temporally? Physically? Meta-physically? Meta-temporally? Meta-physically-spacially-temporally?) Other. This feels outside of calendars entirely. Outside of everything, but it is not the Void. The antithesis of Void, somehow. This is Some-thing, -time, -place -whereness. Awareness. Anything could happen here, potentially. Any moment, any point in space-time be accessed.
Changed? Or only observed? Outside Song? Divided from it? (Now that was a truly terrifying idea, the Song inaccessible, but no, Music still moved bright through his notional hroa, hummed and rang and wove in his thought.)
Outside the Story, the plot, the narrative.
What might he do, (Make, change, un-do, revise ...) with this day-that-was-not-a-day?
Unravel the Oath, one. Free his children, himself (self-self, gem-selves, Friend-partner-self). Break that chain. (And with the thought-intent-will, it was done. Absurd and magical and finally right.)
Now what?
Unravelling the Oath did not make it not have happened. Making it not have happened (which was notionally possible, here, but would have unknowable, unfathomable other effects and consequences. Leave it at finished, the binding unbound. Leave it.)
He couldn't stay out here, alone. And, reminded of consequences, he knew he must face the ones for which he was responsible.