Many Journeys by Elleth

Not Set in Stone

A double-drabble AU featuring Fëanor for the lovely Allie Meril who gave me a wonderful quote to work with:

For those who believe in God, most of the big questions are answered. But for those of us who can't readily accept the God formula, the big answers don't remain stone-written. We adjust to new conditions and discoveries. We are pliable. Love need not be a command or faith a dictum. I am my own God. We are here to unlearn the teachings of the church, state, and our educational system. We are here to drink beer. We are here to kill war. We are here to laugh at the odds and live our lives so well that Death will tremble to take us.

- Charles Bukowski

The last steps of the upward struggle, and then they blaze like stars on the hilltop. Before them run wide empty stretches of land, a patchwork of lakes, forests, rivers, mountains, plains, all the wilds of the Hither Lands colourless under starlight. But as they stride onward, down the slope, the shadows flee and grass flames green before their feet, in all the true glory that the Valar saw Middle-earth bereft of after the overthrow of Illuin and Ormal, after the greedy harbouring of the Light behind their Pelóri walls. Now let them sit deedless and sing laments in darkness!

There is singing in the distance, in a language they do not yet know but have all the time and world to learn. The land opens into a shallow vale and the mountain ranges stretch out like waiting arms to lift a child from the cradle. This is where it all began, Cuiviénen without returning. If the Lapdogs come from the West, let them marvel at the ruin in the North, and the three Lights in his hand – never again to be forced into a crown – and understand that songs and words and histories are never set in stone.