Iluvatar's Love by Cirdan

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Iluvatar's Love

"Wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes." Maedhros clutched the Silmaril tightly in his living hand and cast the Jewel of his father into the fiery chasm.

Maedhros awakened on a bed as soft as the flower petals of spring, and the canopy above him was formed from the sloped branches of a silver tree from the left and a golden tree from the right. The snow white curtains parted as if blown by a gentle breeze. Beyond it was a man unfamiliar yet familiar. He had the raven dark hair of Feanor, the high- pointed ears of Finwe, and the deep blue eyes of Manwe. He parted his grey robe slowly and then let it fall from his shoulders. He had worn nothing underneath that robe, and now that his naked form was revealed, Maedhros knew him.

"Iluvatar All-father." Maedhros looked in awe at the person before him and was too stunned to move.

Iluvatar smiled slightly, and his eyes twinkled like stars. He crawled onto the bed and began to undress Maedhros. Maedhros flinched and involuntarily drew away. Iluvatar kissed him, and Maedhros could not help but to melt to that kiss. With every touch of their lips, the doubts slipped further from his mind. Iluvatar's hands caressed Maedhros as he continued to undress him. Maedhros yielded and ceased to wonder if this was wrong. He accepted Iluvatar's love and loved him in return.

Maedhros was slowly roused by the singing of his lover. He propped himself up onto his elbows. Iluvatar's face changed slightly but seemed very expressive as he moved through his song. He turned to Maedhros, apparently aware of his awakening, and changed the song. Maedhros blushed, for though there were no words, the intent was unmistakable. The music surrounded Maedhros as if it were water and warmed his very soul. Even if he did not love himself, he could not deny that Iluvatar loved him. When Iluvatar stopped singing, the notes of his melody seemed to hang in the air.

"Good morning." Iluvatar kissed Maedhros lightly on the lips. "Did you sleep well?"

Maedhros nodded then tried to bow and acknowledge his creator in some way, but Iluvatar only laughed and caught him into another kiss, a deep kiss that left him breathless.

After a time, Maedhros regained his voice. "Lord Eru Iluvatar," Maedhros said for lack of a better name.

"Elentan, Star Maker," Iluvatar said then smiled slyly. "Or beloved. Whichever you prefer."

Maedhros averted his eyes and scratched his head. "Ah, El-beloved then. Where am I? I expected Eternal Darkness." He glanced around the bed. "And why.?" He blushed, unable to continue.

"You cast yourself into the gaping chasm filled with fire, did you not?" Iluvatar said as he played with his lover's ear. Maedhros nodded. "Your action was not born of despair alone. You had a question: 'Why?' You thought to reject my gift of life to you in hopes of reaching me. I am here to answer your question."

Maedhros flushed bright red. "You are the All-father! You need not answer me. In the end, I retracted my suit."

"I have chosen to reveal myself to you, have I not?" Maedhros coughed uncomfortably and felt his very ears turn red. "It was not the lovemaking of man and woman that you are even now remembering our time to have been," Iluvatar said. "My love for you and all my creations is greater than you can know, but it is beyond your comprehension, and so you will perceive it as you can through those things that are familiar to you."

Iluvatar stood, unabashed at his nudity, and parted the curtains. Beyond was a workshop similar to that of Feanor's, and Maedhros understood that this was not the place of Creation but a reflection of his mind. Maedhros followed Iluvatar hesitantly, for he was unaccustomed to strutting about without clothing. He soon forgot his embarrassment when Iluvatar showed him many jewels. Each seemed as brilliant as a Silmaril, and the next was more lovely than the last.

"What are these?" Maedhros managed at last. He reached out but dared not touch the beautiful Jewel, for his hand had not yet forgotten the searing pain dealt to him by his Father's Silmaril.

"Worlds," said Iluvatar.

Maedhros looked at Iluvatar with wonder. "Worlds?"

Then Maedhros furrowed his brow and looked at the least of the jewels. It was a world that lacked the complexity and subtlety of its successor, and that successive world was lacking in comparison to the one after it, and so forth until, at the last, Maedhros gazed upon the final jewel, the ultimate world that was no less perfect than Iluvatar himself. In that moment, his heart ached, for he understood to some measure the deficiency of Arda Marred.

Iluvatar picked up one of the jewels and placed it in the left hand of Maedhros and said, "This one is yours."

Maedhros held his world in his hand and looked to those worlds that had come before and those worlds that would come after. He looked down at Arda and remembered the imperfections that he himself had witnessed during his lifetime, and the memories only drove him to will the destruction of this shameful, inadequate world that was so far from the richness, delicacy, depth, and harmoniousness of the final world.

"You are all powerful, Iluvatar."

"Beloved," Iluvatar interrupted.

"Beloved," Maedhros amended. "Why did you create such imperfect worlds when the world that you desire is so much greater?"

"Would you destroy it?" he asked in a kindly voice.

"I would."

"The good and the evil?" Maedhros nodded. "But you must remember that all that is created in your world has its uttermost source in me, nor can any alter the music in my despite, not even Melkor."

"Are you saying that you created the evil?" Maedhros asked, trying to hide the horror in his voice. "That you not only allowed your children to suffer but created them to suffer?"

"It is so." Iluvatar took Arda from Maedhros and put it back in its place among the worlds. "It is impossible for you to truly understand, for I am infinite and all powerful, and I lack the beginning and end of life that would be normal for a finite life, but I was also 'young' once. Your people call me Eru, the One. I am alone. I began alone. In my 'infancy,' I thought to create, and this was the result." He picked up the first of the worlds, a place of temporal rhythm, of sound and silence like a simple drumbeat. "I assessed my work, learned from it, and then created a second. As you can see, each world that I created was more rich and subtle than the last." His hand passed over the jewels, and he seemed to caress each briefly as his fingers ran over them, and Maedhros was reminded keenly of his father Feanor. "I learned from each creation and became myself more mature and complex such that the next world was infinitely better than the last."

"Until you created the perfect world," Maedhros said with a touch of envy in his voice. He glanced again at the final creation.

Iluvatar nodded. "It is my ultimate and most subtle world, for which all others were but tentative preparations. In it is the fulfillment of my desire."

Maedhros felt hot tears slide unbidden down his cheeks. In Iluvatar's words, it seemed as if the previous night of passion was but an illusion. Maedhros, as an imperfect being from an imperfect world, could never fulfill his lover's desires; only the final world could do such a thing. Rather, Maedhros was but a dalliance. Iluvatar would study and love Arda Marred, but he would eventually discard it when he had learned what he could and then seek to create a still more perfect world.

Iluvatar embraced Maedhros and stroked his hair as his tears fall onto his lover's bare shoulder. "Still you do not understand." Iluvatar kissed Maedhros repeatedly until Maedhros could look into his lover's deep blue eyes without the blurred vision of his tears. "Your world is the first of my mature creations, and from it, I learned what I needed to in order to progress towards the making of the perfect world. Upon its completion, I became what you would perceive as omnipotent; I became fully mature as a creator. As I am now, I could recreate your world and make it perfect."

Maedhros looked at Iluvatar with undisguised admiration. "You could make Arda as perfect as that final world?" His eyes flickered towards where he knew the jewel sat upon the worktable. "If Arda was perfect, then would it not fulfill your desire to create just as that other world did?"

Iluvatar nodded. "It would." Maedhros felt hope rekindled in his heart. There was a chance, then, that his world was an intimate part of Iluvatar even as it was apart. There was a chance that their love was not as transitory as Maedhros had thought it to be when he'd first began to weep.

"Then, by all means, please break and remake Arda," Maedhros pleaded.

"I will, and I have, and Arda Remade already is." Iluvatar drew Maedhros close and kissed him on the forehead. "But you are a finite being and constrained to your perception of time and events, and so it has not been for you and will not be for many years." He pushed the hair from Maedhros's ear, kissed it, and whispered, "You will return to Arda Marred, to that moment right after you cast yourself into the fire, and you will find that the world is still imperfect though Melkor, whom you call Morgoth, has been thrust through the Door of Night. But far into the future of your world, Melkor will return and be defeated again in the Last Battle. Then will Arda be broken and remade. The Silmarils shall be recovered out of Air and Earth and Sea, and you shall break the Jewels of Feanor so that their fire will rekindle the Two Trees and the Light will go out over all the world. In that light, the Ainur will grow young again, and the Elves will awake and all their dead arise, and my purpose for you will be fulfilled."

Maedhros nestled his face into Iluvatar's shoulder and was content with this vision that was given to him. His only regret was that it would be long before he would be able to fulfill the desire of Iluvatar, but he remembered that the time was long by his reckoning, not by Iluvatar's, and realized that his regret was selfish.

Iluvatar chuckled. "It is indeed your desires, not mine, that you wish to fulfill at this moment." Maedhros found himself suddenly upon the bed again, and Iluvatar ran his hand upward along Maedhros's thigh. "But I will not withhold this last pleasure from you, for you are my creation and I love you."

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