Journeys of Vása by Dawn Felagund

II. Innocence Reclaimed

Mahtan on the creation of the Sun and the revelations of the new light.

But the flower and the fruit Yavanna gave to Aulë, and Manwë hallowed them, and Aulë and his people made vessels to hold them and preserve their radiance.
"Of the Sun and Moon and the Hiding of Valinor"

II. Innocence Reclaimed

I don't think that, in hundreds of years of service, I have ever heard the Aulendili fall into such utter silence. Restive hands lie flat upon the balcony railing; busy eyes content themselves with staring at the featureless horizon. I wonder if all are tormented, as am I, by endless thoughts turning and unspooling and forming themselves anew into dark designs. I wonder if their hearts are as peaceful as their faces. Mine is not.

My palms sweat ceaselessly and so I force them to lie motionless upon the railing lest I betray my unease in damp hand-shaped patches left upon the stone. Perhaps that is why we are so calm on a sudden, I think, and I cover the bark of laughter as a cough.

"Blessings," someone replies mildly.

"And gratitude," I answer.

The recent weeks have been busy beyond compare, even for the Aulendili, for whom rest and reprieve are unfamiliar concepts. Usually, though, we are free to follow our inspiration wherever it may lead, and our efforts are rarely guided and never come under order. Yet this time, Aulë gathered us all, and the forges were silent and the fires allowed to cool. Darkness huddled in the corners and cast frightening shadows from tools designed to facilitate acts of creation. Suddenly, though, Creation seemed to walk hand in hand with Destruction, and those swaying shears might have cut tin or cut flesh; the hammers might bend metal to our will or break bones that resisted it. These are the thoughts of a people that have succumbed to kinslaying.

We stood silent as we do now when Aulë told us of his idea. Mostly silent: Noldor have busy hands and busier tongues, says the proverb, and there is truth in that. Two lamps, Aulë said, I seek to build, and immediately, one spoke up: Have we not tried that already? With Ormal and Illuin? and I winced at the pride in that, so Noldorin. We have tried nothing. Ormal and Illuin fell long before our people awoke; neither the triumph nor failure of their creation has anything to do with us.

Not like Ormal and Illuin, answered Aulë, for these new lamps will be held aloft in the firmament by naught save air.

There was a sniffle of laughter. Impossible! we loved to cry to the most outlandish suggestions made by our peers. Many times, behind Fëanáro's back, we made such proclamations, when he claimed to hold the secret to putting light in stone, for example. But I'd never been able to join fully in the laughter, for I had believed what he said: that nothing undone was impossible. Many times, he'd proven this, collecting impossibilities the way that some might pearls or colored bits of glass: the death of Míriel Þerindë, the seven sons, the Silmarils. What happened at Alqualondë. The myriad impossibilities, first cradled in our hands, then staining them, scarring them.

He would walk among us, deserving of the honor of Aulendil, certainly, but unwilling to take it, becoming the object of scorn and awe as a result. For Fëanáro saw no honor in servitude, only in creation for the sake of creation, no matter the consequences.

He would not have laughed at the idea of two vessels of Light traversing the sky. He would have set his hands and mind to the task without a word.

Aulë did convince us, eventually. I found that I needed more convincing than usual; the time between my first contact with the precocious Fëanáro--a letter received inquiring about my techniques for making cobalt alloys--and my loss of hope in him (that was long in coming; even after first rumor of the kinslaying, I maintained a delusion of his innocence: nothing undone is impossible!), I seem to have developed a sort of skepticism. Finally, I sometimes think. I convinced myself that my skepticism of Aulë's claims was more of the same; by his patience with us and our endless questioning, ever edged with a note of mockery, I suspect that he understood our need for doubt after centuries of too much trust.

Now, we wait. We wait for reason to trust again, to give in to the comforts of faith. We hope--wordlessly, privately, each of us--that with the return of Light, maybe we will also return to a time of innocence when the word of a Vala was the most solid proof that we needed to prove that vessels so heavy that twenty strong horses were required to move them will not only be set alight but will be borne upon the air light as smoke.

The first, Rána, has already gone. Like a silver balloon, he has crossed the sky above us seven times, and we watched in wonder. But it is Vása whom we now await, the one that--Aulë says--will dispel the shadows for hours of each day and return Valinor to Light and splendor.

Innocence reclaimed, I would whisper as I worked on my share of the vessel.

But we have grown accustomed to the dark. No longer do we stub our feet on furniture and hesitate upon the paths. I have become used to working by lamplight; reading by candle flame. This comfort in the dark, I realize suddenly, belies our intention to return to innocence. Originally creatures of the dark, we found Light. When Light was banished, we found that we quickly adapted again to shadow, like the Light was unnecessary in the first place.

I am suddenly afraid to see what we have become, in the shadows of our own making.

But it is too late now. The Pelori are vicious points fringed in gentle light, and it is increasing. Long shadows spill across the land. And there it is: a vessel of fire borne upon the air as light as a breeze, as Aulë portended.

I glance at the faces around me: wife and daughters, friends beloved across the centuries. My mentor, Aulë, akin to a father to me when my own father had chosen to remain in the treacherous dark of the Outer Lands. It has been so long since I last saw their faces in the light.

But the familiar countenances free of shadow and care are gone. Nerdanel's eyes are haunted, with dark shadows beneath. Aulë's face betrays no joy at all but rather dread: accomplishment precedes failure. Vása is not even once across the sky, and already, he is awaiting her fall.

And I know then, in the secret darkness of my heart: This light is different. The Trees are dead. Our innocence is gone.

And it shall never be reclaimed.