Wayward Daughter, Carry on by Himring

Chapter 1 (of 3)

The first chapter does not yet feature either of the tagged Valar.

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Young Ramavoite grew up in a sheltered environment. Her watchful and loving parents had their eyrie on the rocky slopes of Taniquetil itself, enveloped by the steady light of the Trees and almost directly under the eyes of Manwe himself. The most daring flight she had attempted yet was straight upwards as far her wings would carry her, until the air grew thin and Varda’s stars seemed almost within reach.

Among her agemates from eyries in the Pelori, especially those from the farther slopes, she felt she had something to prove. They had convinced her they were tougher and more experienced—she took their swagger at face value. So, when their ringleader dared her to fly east all the way to Middle-earth she agreed without hesitation, although her heart sank within her a little.

Without further ado, the group of young eagles swooped out through the pass of the Calacirya and soon they were flying towards the Sea. Alqualonde lay shimmering on the shore to their left and ahead of them, a little to their right, loomed the long dark shadow that was Tol Eressea. They went on flying straight east and now there were deep waters beneath. The light emerging through the pass behind them was reflected in the crests of the waves below them, but became fainter the farther they went. Above them, the stars blazed brighter than in Valinor, but also seemed much more remote.

Ramavoite was now much farther from Valinor than she had ever been before. Never had she travelled in a space so dark and she could glimpse nothing up ahead, where Middle-earth ought to have awaited, only more and more darkness. It was overwhelming. She tried to take heart from the stars, Varda’s gift, but the tiny pinpricks of light no longer gave her a sense of surrounding space and their reflections on the roiling waters below confused her eye.

The very quality of the air seemed to change around her, out there in the middle of the Belegaer, as if suddenly she could trust it no longer to support her. Ramavoite, disoriented, began flailing and tumbling about, losing height. A couple of her companions called out to her, seeing she seemed to be in trouble and was flying dangerously low. Deaf to their cries in her panic, she did not respond or react, but somehow managed to right herself and turn around.

She could perceive the direction of the Calacirya again, far away, more by guess than true sight, and without sparing another thought began to speed back towards the familiar with all her might. She flew and flew, paying no heed to the others or anything else, and never stopped until she had reached Taniquetil. She did not seek out her family and their nest, though, but headed to a private hiding place she knew, a cleft among the crags. Exhausted in body and mind, she took shelter there and it was long before she emerged again.

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Chapter End Notes

Ramavoite is an older form of an Elvish (early Quenya) word meaning "winged".

Chapter 2 (of 3)

Here's where the Valar come in.

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‘Your parents are worried about you, young one,’ said Manwe’s voice to Ramavoite.

Ramavoite was very aware of that. It was the reason why she was perched in a secluded spot well out of their way. Manwe was not as easy to avoid, however, at least not if you were an eagle in Valinor.

‘You have been sad and anxious for weeks. They do not know what happened and you have not told them or allowed them to ask.’

‘Do you not know what happened, Lord Manwe?’ Ramavoite asked.

‘I know a little more of what happened than they do, but I do not understand either. Will you speak to me so that I can understand?’

Reluctantly, Ramavoite began to tell him about the dare.

‘So,’ asked Manwe, ‘you are unhappy because you lost a dare and were unable to impress your age mates?’

‘No!’ answered Ramavoite, as if that should have been obvious. Indeed, she had almost forgotten about the original challenge, although she had not bothered to think that through until now.

‘Then what is it that troubles you?’

‘Soon I will be old enough to serve as your messenger, Lord Manwe.’

‘Yes. And?’

‘What use is a messenger that is too cowardly to fly to Middle-earth?’

‘Cowardly? You use harsh words for yourself, young one! In fact, many of my messengers carry messages that do not take them out of Aman. And, in any case, the importance of my messages is not measured only in danger! You could serve me perfectly well without flying to Middle-earth.’

Ramavoite looked as mulish as it is possible for an eagle to look.

‘I can see that you will not be convinced, young one. You will not believe in your worth, if you cannot fly to Middle-earth, will you? Then we must find a way for you to do so. But after what you experienced, out there above the Belegaer, you should not try alone.’

‘But I wasn’t alone!’

Manwe’s voice made a Valarin noise of disapproval that was almost like tut-tut.

‘I did not mean a flock of inexperienced youngsters—those eagles still have never been to Middle-earth themselves, you know!  I was thinking of somebody who knows Middle-earth well… Orome shall take you.’

‘Lord Orome! Why would he want to bother with the likes of me?’

‘Oh, Orome will not mind! I will talk to him.’

*

Ramavoite had the gravest doubts, but it seemed that Lord Orome did indeed not mind being burdened with an overanxious eaglet.

‘Welcome, Ramavoite!’ he said, when she hesitantly approached. As with other Valar, his voice boomed a little, resonating even when he was toning it down to converse with other beings.

‘You can ride on here for the time being’—he extended a gloved hand—‘but I have also arranged this perch for you on Nahar’s back.’

Tall Nahar turned and looked at her with wise eyes. It seemed he did not mind the idea of having a young eagle on his back either.

‘Now, listen to me Ramavoite,’ said Orome. ‘This is serious.’

Ramavoite tensed, but it turned out that Orome was not addressing her panic above Belegaer at all.

‘When we leave Aman, but especially once we reach Middle-earth, you must do exactly as I say, do you hear? Especially if we should run into one of Morgoth’s creatures. You are too young to fight and untrained. If anything like that happens, you stay on your perch on Nahar’s back and you do not move from there. He will take care of you, but I will want my hands free. Do you understand?’

Oh. Somehow Ramavoite had never thought beyond getting to Middle-earth and hardly spent any consideration on what would happen when she got there. She supposed that ought to have been more frightening than the thought of the crossing but she found that she was not afraid. Orome and Nahar exuded such an air of calm, trustworthy competence that she did not doubt at all they would take care of her.

‘I understand,’ she assured Orome.

She hopped onto Orome’s arm and they took off.

*

Manwe’s plan worked. Not only did Ramavoite cross the Belegaer on Orome’s arm without panicking, both ways, on this journey, on a second journey she was able to fly for short stretches alongside, returning to her perch on Nahar’s back when she grew uneasy. Orome and Nahar encouraged her all the way.

And when she was older and trained, she flew and fought with Orome and Nahar. Later, she also flew to Middle-earth in Manwe’s service on her own. But her story does not end here.

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Chapter End Notes

Problem solved? There will be another crisis in the third chapter, nevertheless.

Chapter 3 (of 3)

Gentle warning that if the second chapter led you to expect a tale that is one hundred per cent pro-Valar, this third chapter may let you down a bit.

Also, minor warning for brief description of canon-standard violence.

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Ramavoite was on a long exploratory flight in Middle-earth all by herself, when Melkor attacked the Trees. She chose to return by way of northern Beleriand, deciding to have another look at those Iron Mountains that had been worrying her for a while, because she had observed signs of  suspicious enemy activity around and underneath. In this way, she became the first to see the armies of Morgoth pour out of Angband and march south against Melian and Thingol’s woodland realm, toward what was to become the bloody First Battle in the Wars of Beleriand.

‘The Elves have Melian and Dwarven weaponry on their side, but that won’t be enough for those numbers!’ she cried out in distress. ‘I must immediately fetch Orome and his hunters to help!’

She launched herself like an arrow westward, racing toward the Sea. So great was her haste that she only gradually noticed that there was something clearly not right in the direction she was flying, as well. Below her, Belegaer, the Great Sea which she now had crossed so many times and had long ceased to be afraid of, had turned strange and hostile, leaden-looking, and the winds above it were unkind, pushing her back and up and down. Ramavoite was now a strong and experienced eagle who had weathered storms, but this seemed no ordinary weather of the world. She could not be stopped in her urgent errand and flew on, but she was alarmed. Had something else happened during her absence, then?

She flew into what seemed like a wall of air above the Sea and at almost the same time she became aware of darkness ahead, where surely by now there ought to have been a seam of light. Only shadows loomed ahead—and where, oh where, was the Calacirya?

That flight was the worst thing she had ever done. Even the terror of her first flight across the Sea had not been like this. The resistance was so strong that she almost flew directly into the waves, several times, and the sea spray wet her pinions. And all the while the thought tormented her that something was wrong, wrong, wrong up ahead. Her home that had seemed untouchable until now, her family…!

She made it. She reached the bay of Eldamar and it lay in complete  darkness. She was no longer being pushed back, but her strength was nearly spent. Yet she continued without rest, found the pass through the Pelori in the lightless dark and rising upwards on tired, aching wings, passed by strangely silent Tirion.

An eagle in Valinor always knew where Manwe was, even if all other senses were muffled and obscured. Ramavoite tumbled at Manwe’s feet in the Mahanaxar, in a bundle of exhaustion and tousled feathers, and still remembered her errand.

‘Lord Manwe!’ she cried at once. ‘Beleriand is being invaded! Melian’s Sindar are in danger! You must send help…’

She became aware of Orome’s presence, of the other Valar. The faces of Manwe and Orome both looked utterly blank.

*

‘And that is how I came to make my roost in the Iron Mountains, for quite some time, keeping an eye on the movements of the Enemy,’ Ramavoite concluded her tale.

She paused to swoop down from on high and terrify an unhappy orc she had spied straying too close to Ramavoite’s nest and to Gondolin, driving it shrieking and bleeding northwards.

‘I even got permission from King Thorondor, retrospectively, of course,’ she continued, returning to her fascinated listeners.

‘And I dwelt there, not returning to Valinor, until I relocated south to the Echoriath to have you lot,’ she told her bunch of eagle chicks.

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Chapter End Notes

This piece was not planned to be set in my main 'verse and I think that is how it will stay.

The suggestion that the eyries of the Eagles in the Iron Mountains were essentially war camps and that they went south to the mountains around Gondolin when they wanted to breed was one that came up in a discussion in the SWG Discord some time ago. I'm afraid I no remember who all was involved in that discussion.