What Lies Beyond the End by Melesta

Chapter 1

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Maglor believed he would feel relief when he was finally free of the Silmaril.

But as he watches the jewel touch the surface of the Sea, setting it ablaze with tree light, he isn’t certain that he can feel anything at all. Or maybe, it is the all-powerful whirlpool of all sensations at once surging through his heart and body that robs all thought from his mind.

The Silmaril falls slowly, so slowly, as if taking its time to caress the weightlessness of Ulmo’s waters. Does it seek relief also, Maglor wonders, to be free at last of all the hands that lusted after its blessed shine?

The jewel illuminates the liquid space around it, calling all life to itself. Sea creatures, enormous and minute, come to offer their welcome, spiraling in a meditative dance around its brilliant streaks. Even the seagrasses reach their slim fingers with such longing they all but detach themselves from the corral that nurtures them to grasp but a strand of light.

It is a silent spectacle of marvel and dread, like the sight of an erupting mountain seen from a great distance. A convergence that perhaps should never be allowed to happen upon Arda, of Sea and Sky, of profound darkness and starlight. In that fleeting instant, Maglor comes to believe that for this alone, it was all worth it.

As all things, even this, comes to an end. The Silmaril folds upon itself, and its light retreats, sinking to the depths like a most ordinary rock taken from the barren plains of Lothlann.

The relief arrives then, at last. Not as a triumphant liberation. Rather, it is a quiet untangling, like the inhale of brisk autumn air after a much too warm summer or the unbraiding of a tight plait at the end of a full day’s labor.

With it come the tears trickling down his face and blackened fingers, cleansing him before they drown in the white sands. They call forth the love and sorrow from the very marrow of his bones, and Maglor finally mourns.

He mourns his dearest friend, his fiercest enemy, the mightiest Lord he has ever known—all those people in one being, in a brother who now lies as deep beneath the earth as the Silmaril within the Sea. Has Maedhros found his own release?

Maglor can no longer tell where his tears end and where the waves begin, feeling himself one with the tides. And they are so gentle, so alluring. Come to me, the foam whispers as it caresses his bare feet. Come to me, and be free.

It would be so easy to give in to its loving embrace, to join Maedhros in this final act. Put an end to all that remains of Fëanor’s flame. Let the waters quench it forever.

The Sea calls and calls, but Maglor does not dare take a step forward. Unbidden, a yearning seizes him. He craves the light of the stars, that primordial matter older than the Trees themselves, the first memory of his people. The same light that burned his flesh without mercy.

But he wants it now more than he has wanted anything else, and he looks up defiantly. Let Elentári scorch his eyes also, let him be blind to all that is fair but this!

The cold immortal beauty of the stars is harmless, forgiving, even as the light of the Silmaril when he freed it into the water. Maglor drinks it deeply, and it fills all the spaces in his heart left hollow by the Oath.

What else is left now? What is to be found beyond all absolution? Do you deserve to love deeply a world that cannot love you anymore?

When he closes his eyes, he knows that he has made his choice.

Maglor turns his back to the Sea and walks away.

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Chapter End Notes

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