Bearer of Chiaroscuro by AdmirableMonster

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mandos: after a character dies

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It had been a long time since he had seen the stars, and now he looked up at them from a long, long way down.  It seemed instinctively familiar, this place, but all he could see was that single patch of starry sky, and a few strands of silvery grass framing it.

He realized slowly that there were silver chains fastened about his wrists, heavy weights pinning him down, and that he was naked and shivering a little.  He occupied no fana.

“Aren’t they beautiful?” said a voice that was not quite familiar, speaking fluting, beautiful Quenya in an accent that reached in and tugged at his heart.

That one is Wilwarin.  It was my mother’s favorite.  He remembered a hand upon his, and an impossible aching joy at the sight of those stars, when Mairon helped him and Lómion escape.

“Yes,” he whispered.

“I thought you might like company,” the voice continued.  “My name is Tinweriel.  You were very kind to my son.”

“Where am I?” Mairon asked, though he was not sure he wanted to know the answer.

“In Mandos, beneath the shaft that leads to the Máhanaxar.  The Valar have been waiting for you to wake up, I think.  Not that I have been told much of anything.  But I am quite good at finding things out.”  A warm hand patted his shoulder.  “I brought my husband—I’m not speaking to him right now, but there’s no reason you can’t.  He and Irissë will be here in a moment.  I think she was yelling at Mandos.”

“Irissë?” Mairon echoed in some confusion.

“I am Irissë.”  She was tall, hard to see in the dim light, clothed in some white stuff, with black hair falling to her waist and eyes that sparkled with the same light that Mairon remembered reflected in his lovers’ eyes.  She came right up to him, put her chin on his face and tipped it up.  “Well,” she said after a moment.  “I’m sure I should have some strong words with you, as I’m positive you must have had a hand in my brother’s death, but you saved my son, and I find that most pressing in my mind.”

Her round face with its square, determined jaw was familiar, and Mairon felt a shocked little shiver in his Song.  “I lost your necklace,” he found himself saying.  “I’m sorry.  I meant to give it back to Lómion.”

She laughed sharply.  “The necklace I lost on the way to Gondolin?  Did he find it and give it to you?”

“No, I just—picked it up,” Mairon said helplessly.

“Oh, well, he can make me another.”  She gave him a wry, kind grin, then tousled his hair with one hand.  “Curvo, come here and thank him for saving your son!”

“Thank Sauron?” scoffed a thin, freezing voice.  “I’ll come to his defense and no more.  I hope he knows my word for him may hurt him more than it helps.”  

The stars shimmered overhead.  A spiral staircase formed from glimmering specks, winding its way upward towards those few tufts of saw-edged grass.  

Mairon, once Aulendil.  Approach.  It was Námo’s voice, less a voice than a physical pronouncement of what was to occur.  Mairon could no more have held himself back than he could have held all of Gondolin together with sheer force of will.  But as his eäla began to climb the stairs, the fëar of the three Elves surrounded him like an honor guard and shadowed his steps.

The Ring of Doom itself was murky and hard to see.  The Stars above shone down a bright and piercing silver, and Mairon could feel soft moss beneath his feet.  A small ring of too-bright light illuminated just him and part of Tinweriel’s hand cupped in a comradely fashion beneath his elbow, but he could hear the whispers of the Valar as the four of them emerged from the round gateway to Mandos and stood in the center of that place.

“What are you three doing here?”  Manwë’s booming voice was so like his brother’s that Mairon’s legs gave out and he tumbled to his knees, shaking as if he had an ague.  It did not seem to frighten the Elves.  Curufin Fëanorion crossed his arms and scowled outward.  Irissë knelt beside him, not quite touching him.  “Someone has hurt you,” she murmured.  “What do you need?”

He did not know.

“We are here to speak for our sons’ lover and the father of our grandchildren!” Tinweriel announced loudly, stepping in front of him.

The whispers grew louder.  Then a voice so familiar that it made Mairon choke on a sob said, “If he has those who would speak for him, I would hear it, Manwë.”

A long pause, broken by a dreamy voice, “Yes, indeed, for have we not seen to our cost what occurs when the Firstborn are denied their freedom of choice?”

There was a long pause.  Mairon stared at the lichen before him, blurring with a thin golden sheen.  He had expected to be banished immediately to the Void.  This was far, far worse, the pain of humiliation clawing up his spine, his throat.  He flexed his hands.  He would have torn at his hair if he could.  “Send me to the Void,” he whispered.  Then, louder, “Please, I will not defend myself—” If only he could hide from the many pairs of eyes upon him.  “Do not look upon me,” he whispered, trying to cover himself with his hands.

Then some light cloth was being thrown across him.  Irissë’s hands tucked it about him, and he shrank down in it, pathetically grateful.  

“Tell us, Mairon, what you have done,” Námo ordered, with a voice more like a voice, this time, and Mairon screamed in pain as word after word tumbled from his lips, a dissonant song.  He could taste his own gold blood on his tongue and dripping down his chin.

“I see what the Valar consider justice,” Curufin’s voice said with disgust, but Mairon could not stop.  He would have begged if he could, but he could not.  Mistake after mistake was torn from him, in his own voice.  As he began to speak of what Melkor had eventually demanded of him, the grass rose around him and bound itself about his mouth, choking off the words.

“Enough.”

She did not look the same as when he had left.  In those days, she had been beautiful, and she still was, but there was a ferocity about her now.  She was not only flowers and soft growing things, but sharp with thorns; the bark of her face and limbs was gnarled and, in places, burnt.

“My lady.” Irissë bent her knee, and Yavanna smiled crookedly.

“Get up, little Irissë,” she murmured.  “Thy son’s pleas have reached my ears.  I, too, will intercede and ask for mercy for his beloved.”

“Whatever he has done, this is not the right punishment,” Irissë said.  “This is not the right recompense.  This is ripping open a wound inflicted upon him by the one the Valar freed from Mandos and infecting it.  He will not heal this way.”

“No,” Nienna agreed.  “I stand with Yavanna.  I will weep for him.”

“If he cannot even confess to his sins, how shall he atone?” Manwë demanded.

Mairon sobbed.

“Is it not atonement that led him to lay his life down for my son?” demanded Irissë.  “Is it not atonement that he was struck down in defiance of the one that all of you are now taking him to task for following?  There may be more demanded, but he does not owe you this abasement.  And if you still demand it, then you are as cruel as Morgoth himself.”

The vines gently freed his mouth.  “Please,” Mairon sobbed.  “Please, anything.”

“I will take him to Lórien.”  It was the dreamy voice again, and he recognized it this time as Irmo.  “Este will tend him.  Perhaps we can find how he is to be healed and what recompense is owed.  But Irissë is right.  Look at him, Manwë.  You who once had pity on your brother.  Can you not find it in your heart to pity his servant?”

“Not anymore,” Mairon whispered pitifully.  “I betrayed Him.  I betrayed my oaths.  I—”  He choked himself off.

A heavy sigh.  “Take him to Lórien, then.  Perhaps you are right.  I am no longer certain I trust my own counsels.”

It was Yavanna who lifted him into her arms effortlessly, holding him gently wrapped in the cloth Irissë had given him.  “Hush, little Maia,” she murmured.  “Hush and dream yourself to a better place.”