Walking the Starlit Road by Independence1776

Walking the Starlit Road

Read Walking the Starlit Road

Maglor turned away from the courtier-- possibly from Meril-i-Túrinqi’s court?-- with a silent sigh of relief. Already the post-premiere party had drawn on too long; he’d become unused to such a slow pace after millennia spent in the mortal world. Even a couple of decades back in Aman hadn’t re-accustomed him to just how long things could take. Or possibly they hadn’t used to be anywhere near as lengthy and this was yet another change in the Undying Lands.

Celebrimbor hurried over to him, an empty wine glass in his hand. “Are you still planning on leaving now?”

Maglor glanced around the throng. He did feel a bit guilty abandoning his nephew to the hordes of socialites and other interested parties, but not enough to stop from fleeing. “I am, yes.” Maglor gestured at the actors and actresses scattered about the room. “This is more your doing than mine; I merely wrote the music.”

“Merely. From you.” Celebrimbor rolled his eyes. “Go on, Uncle. I promised I could handle it without you and I haven’t changed my mind.”

Maglor half-smiled at him and took his leave. Walking unnoticed through crowded rooms was a skill he’d picked up in his early years wandering the mortal world and he put it to good use yet again. He slipped outside the back entrance and into the dimly lit alley while pulling on his gray jacket and zipping it. There was still plenty of light and noise, plus smells of street food, from the main road to his left. The other end of the alley was much quieter, not being the main street in the theater district. At this time of night, even in Aman which sometimes seemed to have forgotten circadian rhythms entirely, most of the theaters on that road were empty, their shows having ended hours ago.

Maglor skipped the crowds. The last thing he wanted tonight was to be caught by a reporter desperate for an interview, or even an uncensored reaction from the infamous singer and composer. Even then, going to the other street wasn’t a guarantee that none would be laying in wait for him. But Celebrimbor and he had kept it between the two of them that Maglor would leave early. Celebrimbor was far more used to Aman than he was, and he’d said that it was unlikely any reporter would be waiting.

Maglor pulled up his hood against the sprinkling rain, turned onto the mostly empty street, and headed to the bus stop just outside of the theater district, passing by office and apartment buildings and the blue bioluminescent trees that lit Minas Aear’s roads. He remained unsure exactly what he thought of them: useful, beautiful, and far too reminiscent of the Two Trees for his peace of mind, possibly sacrilegious to boot. Mother had asked his opinion once a couple of months after he’d arrived; he’d told her exactly that. She’d simply nodded and didn’t bring up the topic again, apart from sending him several editorials covering a range of opinions.

The bus stop-- which he reached just as the sprinkle turned into a downpour-- was a simple three-sided, roofed structure, covered with advertisements ranging from lightning-inspired for the latest headset interface to hair care with stereotypical bubbles to the latest park opening in one of the more northern suburbs. But the one that caught his eyes, even though he wished it hadn’t, even though the marketing team had designed the ad specifically to draw attention, was for The Saga of the Rings, the Doors of Durin printed in glowing ink, a purple-blue duller than the trees.

He’d spent nearly twelve years working on the musical with his nephew: hammering out the historical details and what needed to be changed for creative purposes, writing the music, rewriting the music as the scripts evolved and the story took firmer shape, when the play split into two plays to run on consecutive nights to cover both Ages’ stories in full, when what had originally began as a challenge for themselves became something far larger than they had imagined-- Maglor Fëanorian’s Seventh Age Aman composing debut and Celebrimbor’s first play.

In some ways, this had been a far more difficult project than the Noldolantë. Then, he’d simply had to pour out his history and his regrets and vanish. Not that he hadn’t taken the time and effort to make it the best it could be; he knew it was still sung today even when most of his repertoire had vanished into classical music that wasn’t to many people’s modern tastes. (Not that they liked the one album he’d published shortly after he’d returned home; the Elves who had never lived outside of Aman were distinctly uninterested in mortal-inspired music, just as many who had lived on Middle-earth no longer cared-- if ever they had.) But the Saga was historical fiction, with an emphasis on the history. Yes, they’d changed some details to make things flow smoother. But it was still written mainly from the firsthand accounts of the Hobbits, Gimli the Dwarf, and the Elves who had lived through those times. Or hadn’t and had been reborn, as the case was for Celebrimbor and several others they’d consulted. Maglor had even incorporated musical styles from those times and peoples into the musical: enough for flavor, not enough to overwhelm the modern feel the two of them had decided on.

Maglor bowed his head and turned away from the ad as the bus he needed pulled to a stop. He slid his ID card through the payment slot and sat down at the back of the nearly empty bus; there were only a couple of Kinn-lai seated near the front of the driverless bus, both of them with headsets on and paying more attention to the virtual world than the physical. Not that it was a bad thing: being well after midnight on a bus, there was pretty much nothing else to do.

He refrained from pulling out his own headset; as tired as he was, he didn’t need something to catch his attention and keep him awake. The bus would lull him into more restful state, the city through the windows a soothing blur.

Eventually, the bus pulled up to his stop and Maglor disembarked into the clearing night. He walked the couple of blocks to his apartment building, occasionally dodging puddles, and up to his seventh-floor apartment after stopping in the lobby just long enough to check his mailbox, which was empty as usual. The motion-sensitive lamp in his living room flicked on when Maglor pushed open the wood-clad metal door. He shut and locked it behind him and proceeded to be tired enough that standing still, staring out at the view that was the entire reason he paid for this apartment, was about all he could do.

The cityscape, even at this time of night thanks to the lighting trees and people who had either left lights on or were awake and using them, was a blanket of fallen stars of numerous colors. The maglev train bridge-tunnel to Tol Eressëa stabbed like a spear of light vanishing beneath the black of the water. He watched one of the trains disappear underwater and turned away. He desperately needed some sleep before dawn arrived.

 

 

The dawn woke Maglor. He glared in the general direction of the sun and rolled over, pulling the blankets over his head. And then felt stifled, so he gave up. He’d never much been able to sleep past dawn-- or the second Mingling, for that matter-- even with light-blocking curtains.

He rose, padded into the kitchen to turn the kettle on, and into the bathroom to get ready for the day.

He fully expected to to be inundated by people trying to contact him, regardless of the hour. So of course, the instant he’d poured the hot water into his mug to let the tea steep, his headset chirped. Maglor rolled his eyes and took it off the hook by the door where he stored it. There was no point in ignoring it… though maybe he should finally get around to personalizing the chirps. That could be something he did this morning; it wouldn’t take more than a few minutes given how few people he cared to speak with over the blasted thing.

He pulled it onto his head and wiggled it so it sat properly on his head. After he pressed the accept button by focusing his eyes on it, Hiswë’s virtual head and shoulders appeared hovering in thin air a couple of feet in front of him. Her blonde hair was pulled away from her face and she wore a blue sleeveless shirt. She smiled, her gray eyes cheerful. “Congratulations are in order, I hear.”

He smiled back at his wife. “What did the critics say?”

She shrugged a shoulder. “The usual adjectives, plus actual commentary. Some of it is even about the play.”

Maglor rolled his eyes. Pretty much everyone they knew had fully expected the play to be overshadowed by its creators, but he’d hoped better from the Elves. “Anything of import?”

She shook her head. “Rikiss and I simply wished to congratulate you. The amount of time you spent at our house complaining to us…”

Maglor laughed. “Not that you two don’t know exactly what it’s like.”

Hiswë smiled fondly. “Why do you think we put up with you?”

Rikiss’s dark face popped into view. Her hair was bound in its usual tiny braids. “We’d love to have you over. Tomorrow, dusk?”

“Unless someone accosts me and demands me at their soiree between then and now, I would be glad to.”

As odd as it originally was to have Hiswë married to Rikiss, he’d simply been glad that, despite the Statute he’d assumed Aman had still operated under, she’d found someone to share the long Ages with. He was now perfectly content living alone without a partner. And the Statute wasn’t actually in effect anymore, thanks to the Quendian clans with their own marriage customs forcing the issue about only two people in a valid Amanyar marriage when they’d emigrated to Aman. Now, the law was that all parties in the marriage needed to consent, but it was perfectly possible to marry multiple people-- something that was still noticeably less common among the Eldar than the Quendian.

Given how Grandfather Finwë’s remarriage had torn the House of Finwë and then all of Eldamar apart, learning of that change had been almost as great a shock as being allowed to return to Aman had been, followed in a very close third by the level of technology the Elves had invented, some of it running parallel to the mortal world and some of it very much not.

Rikiss frowned. “How likely is that?”

Maglor grinned. “As I don’t intend to leave my apartment and to ignore all calls unless it’s from Celebrimbor or Mother, it isn’t.”

“Good. We’ll see you then,” Hiswë said.

Their faces disappeared and the headset’s default icons hovered in their place. Maglor grimaced and pulled the headset off. It was entirely too early to try to deal with the amount of messages he knew he’d received overnight, and that ignoring the rest of the news, the composing listservs he lurked on, and the social sites his extended family insisted his presence on simply because they were not prone to contacting him off them. He hung up the headset and returned to his over-steeped tea, just barely drinkable with the addition of sugar.

He carried the mug out to the small table placed underneath the window in the living room and looked out at the Bay of Eldamar partly bisected by the maglev line, ignoring the city that appeared far more mundane during the day than it did at night. He didn’t want to stay here… He didn’t have to remain. Hiswë and Rikiss lived in Tirion; he could show up there tomorrow afternoon, stay the night as they clearly intended, and then travel westward in Valinor. The maglev ran all the way to Ekkaia’s coast, with plenty of towns and cities along the way, with branchings of the line heading north and south and taking him even farther from Minas Aear. He’d still be noticeable, still approachable if people wished to, but at least he wouldn’t be here.

But that would leave Celebrimbor to fend off the crowds alone. And he wouldn’t do that to his nephew without asking first. It was one thing to leave for a brief family visit, another thing entirely to what amounted to something Maglor had become extremely good at when dealing with unwanted attention: running away. It had been necessary to learn while living in the mortal world; here it was far less so. But instincts engrained after thousands of years were not so easily ignored.

Maglor glanced at the headset. No, he would wait until after noon to call; Celebrimbor likely wasn’t even awake yet. Decision made, Maglor leaned back in his chair and looked out over the city in a much more equanimous mood.

 

 

Hiswë hugged Maglor farewell at the station platform when his train pulled into the station. “Do you know where you’re going?”

“Not yet,” he said. “Westward.” Tol Eressëa would quickly feel too closed off. He needed room.

The wandering life had sunk into his bones. Moving back here was the longest he’d stayed in one place since… since Beleriand. He blinked. That hadn’t really sunk in until now. No wonder he was discontent in Minas Aear.

He kissed her cheek and released her before bending down to pick up his bag and board the train. He settled in one of the window seats and waited while other passengers boarded and found their own seats. Once the train left the station, leaving Tirion to turn briefly northwestward for its next stop at Valimar. From there, the train would travel steadily West, only stopping thrice before reaching the end of the line at the city that had grown up at the farthest Westward point of the continent. Nienna’s Hall remained nearby, secluded in the wild forests along the coast.

He seen that city only briefly, staying there overnight before heading the fifty miles south to Nienna’s. He still couldn’t say why he’d gone there rather than to Lórien, but he had-- and found more comfort there in the mourning than he’d anticipated.

Maglor glanced out the window at the Vanyarin farmlands-- mostly run by robots, now-- and the snowcapped Pelóri towering above them in the near distance. There was no peace for him here, not with how many remembered him. The calls to his headset still hadn’t stopped once they’d began shortly after his wives had invited him to their home, despite him blocking every single number he hadn’t recognized. The only reason he’d brought it with him was so he wouldn’t drop out of contact with those he cared about; he’d done enough of that in his life already. That was one habit he didn’t need to carry over from Middle-earth.

He stayed seated, concentrating on his book the entire time they’d stopped in Valimar. The Máhanaxar had been visible as they’d traveled closer and the site of the ring of thrones discomfited him, a stark and visible reminder of the major mistakes of his life. The blackened stumps of the Trees were even worse.

Oh, the Valar hadn’t put him on trial when he’d returned. They hadn’t even sentenced him. Nor had anyone else. Only Manwë had spoken to him, at his palace on Taniquetil. Even then, it was a brief conversation-- a welcome home, the Elder King had termed it-- without even Varda’s presence. That alone was enough to know that Maglor had turned into an afterthought: one brought back to Aman as the mortal world struggled to change and adapt to a world they’d poisoned, but even the old wounds had scarred over. He wasn’t outright forbidden from Telerin lands, though he knew better than to travel there outside of business-- especially to Alqualondë-- but beyond that? No one seemed to care.

The Elves had moved on, something he never once assumed would happen. It bothered him. But then… unlike mortals, the murdered Elves had been reborn. It was easier, he supposed, to forgive and move forward when there were no more dead to mourn. None save for the Fëanorians.

How was it fair that he had been allowed to return when his father and brothers had not?

The truth was… it wasn’t. He’d meant the Oath just as much as they had. But had he been the only one to forswear it? He’d thrown away the Silmaril and walked away. Was that the difference? His father had asked them to reaffirm their Oath before his death and they had. His brothers, apart from Maedhros, had died without ever regaining one. And Maedhros had died while still holding it, never giving it up despite knowing the truth about their claim.

Maglor looked down at the faint, barely noticeable scars on his right hand. They’d taken millennia to fade and his return to Aman had hastened it even more. The difference between his arrival and the couple of years he’d spent in Nienna’s hall was startling.

Maybe he’d needed a chance to truly rest and heal before accepting that his scars were no longer a necessary reminder of his past. He’d always have them, yes. But he didn’t need them.

Guilt was just as powerful a force to harm as hope was to heal.

He sighed. No wonder he’d chosen this train. Nienna. Where else would he go? He knew Aman. Maybe not Aman as it was now, and he hadn’t explored Avathar yet despite living on the border of it, but it was still the land of his childhood and youth, brilliant in the light of the Two Trees and never dreaming of the end or of the disasters that followed. He had been happy then, an innocent happy, with the horrors of the shadow-monsters consigned to myths and scare stories told around campfires and in the dark of storms battering the windows. Memories, too, of course, for those who had been in Cuiviénen and on the Great Journey-- but they were less immediate, not frightening to him due to the safety of the Valar and Aman.

The reality had been worse than anything he’d imagined-- and the darkness was within himself, not just an outside force imposed on him. He’d chosen to swear the Oath-- not once, but twice-- and turned Kinslayer thrice over. He deserved exile for that; execution even more. Yet here he sat in a maglev train car in Aman, alive, unharmed, and healed in body if not yet healed in spirit. He knew well that his spirit may never heal fully; scar over, yes, even more than it already had. But heal? Not while his family lay sundered.

Not that he could do anything that Mother, Grandfather Finwë and both of his wives, Father’s half-brothers, pretty much all of the cousins, and plenty more besides had not already done. Two months into his stay with her, Maglor had asked Nienna if it was possible. She’d frowned and turned away, a tear falling down her cheek. But she hadn’t said no. It was the smallest, weakest thread of hope, one he’d passed on to those who he knew cared.

Maglor sighed and leaned his head against the cool glass of the window, looking at the blurred fields and forests as the train sped by. Soon, they would make the first of three brief stops at the major cities in the plains. And then, shortly after sunset, they’d reach the coastal city. There, he could rent a room for the night and truly decide where he’d go next.

Though he knew he was only pretending to himself; he already knew his destination.

 

 

Maglor departed the driverless taxicab and it drove off back toward the city, away from the edge of Nienna’s property. Maglor stared down the grassy drive that disappeared into the vast growths of the forest, trees that he had seen the like of only in California and Lórien, but these were neither redwoods nor mallyrn. He didn’t know what they were and he hadn’t thought to ask during his previous stay. Were they grown for Nienna by Yavanna in the millennia since he’d left Aman? Or were they simply something he’d missed seeing; he didn’t recall ever visiting this part of Ekkaia’s coastline. There was a fair amount of undergrowth, too, where the trees’ canopies let some light in, making the forest dim but not gloomy.

Maglor stepped onto the drive, feet sinking into the grass. Three hours later, he rounded a curve, the woods coming to a sudden end, and Nienna’s house spread out before him. It was low, single-storied, gray-sided and black-roofed. Additions had clearly been add over the Ages, some disappearing into the forest and some further down the coast on either side of the main house. Smaller buildings were scattered even farther down the coast. Gardens spread out on either side of the drive, largely of edibles. The slate-gray front door opened and a Maia dressed in the pale gray of Nienna’s personal household-- as opposed to the darker gray of those attached to her service-- stepped onto the covered porch. “Welcome back, Maglor.”

“Thank you,” he said.

The Maia’s grim expression didn’t change, but Maglor hadn’t expected it to. This particular Maia simply had a severe default expression, something that had taken him some time to become used to during his first stay. “Am I residing in the main house again or elsewhere?”

“The main house,” they said, moving aside to close the door after Maglor stepped inside.

The entrance hall was dim, partly due to leaving the brightness of the noonday sun. Facsimiles of candles flickering in a chandelier overhead were the only source of light. But past the entry hall, the house was brighter lit. Some of it was from skylights; others lamps.

The Maia led Maglor away from the public areas of the house where people gathered to mourn and learn and into the residences. Most of them were empty, though some of them were for the Elves who had pledged themselves to Nienna’s service. His mother had been one of them once, during the First Age. The maze of halls and rooms hadn’t changed since he’d left, and he was in turn led to the room he’d claimed when he’d arrived: a small room at the end of a dead-end corridor, overlooking the Sea.

Contrary to what he’d originally thought Nienna’s house would be like, dark and severe, the furniture was made of driftwood, the bedspreads and rugs brilliants splashes of color. This time, the bedspread was brilliant shades of sunset-on-water and the circular rug next to the bed a pale orange. Last time, it had been all blues and greens. A platter of cheeses and dried meat sat in the middle of the desk, beside a pitcher of water and a glass. “Thank you,” he said to the Maia, who nodded their head and left without speaking.

Maglor closed and locked the door. First to unpack and then what? He could wait here for the afternoon or he could wander. Nienna would find him when she wished to speak with him-- or he knew where he could find her in the early morning, watching the stars fade from the sky.

But he didn’t need to speak with her right now. He needed… he needed time to himself, away from the artificial pressures of living in Minas Aear, of the tiring and exhilarating work of producing a demanding musical, and, truth be told, away from the other Elves. After so long alone, simply being with his own kind again was a unique kind of exhausting. No one else understood him as well or misunderstood him just as much.

 

 

Two weeks into his stay, Nienna found him one morning on one of the multitude of garden paths, this particular one in the garden between one of the additions and the cliff’s edge south of the main house. He paused when he heard the scuff of light shoes on the brick path behind him and turned to see Nienna walking up behind him, her black hair tucked and pinned under a dark gray veil and wearing her usual pale gray dress. “Good morning,” she said. “Will you walk with me a while?”

“Of course.”

They walked side by side in silence, away from the buildings and deeper into the gardens that followed the cliff south. Eventually, they came to a grotto, fenced off by wooden latticework and covered with morning glories. A stone bench sat underneath the greenery. Nienna stepped inside and sat down. Maglor followed her and stared out over the ocean, light dancing on the waves and dolphins leaping out of the water near the horizon. The crash of waves on the cliffs below soothed him, a sound he hadn’t realized how much he’d missed until he returned here. Living by the shore for long-years, Ages really… Maybe he had made a mistake choosing to live where he had. This part of Aman was more wild, less tamed, than places further East, even after all these Ages.

“You still mourn the life you had in Middle-earth,” she softly said.

“You can mourn things that you do not miss.”

“But you do miss it.”

Maglor nodded, not looking at her. The freedom to simply… be, without his history and without peoples’ judgements on a Kinslayer and Oathtaker-- that he missed. He did not miss the fear of people recognizing him as something Other, of the sense of the world closing in around him. He missed being able to travel the world, knowing that if he returned in a couple of centuries, the location would no longer be the same. The mortal world moved at a far faster pace than the Elven.

Change was inevitable even here, and for all of Aman’s technology, something things hadn’t. Democracy was more or less a foreign concept, useful in the small scale but never in the large. The Valar and Maiar still held some influence with Eldarin culture, though the Elves as a whole had definitively broken with some aspects that had seemed natural to him, having grown up in an Age when the Valar had truly ruled Valinor. It wasn’t quite abdication-- but Eldamar seemed to encompass almost all of Aman now. It shouldn’t have surprised him, but there were billions of Elves now and billions of Elves needed places to live. The Ainur, for all they loved having physical forms, simply didn’t need the space.

Her voice hardly louder than the waves: “What do you miss the most?”

“Exploring,” he said. It was the easy answer and yet the truest. There had always been more to learn and to see. The mortals were endlessly inventive, in both good and bad ways. He didn’t have the same sense of discovery here, despite all of the changes.

“When you are ready, you should talk to your mother.” She stood and looked down at him, her storm-gray eyes kind. “She may have answers for you.”

Nienna walked north, back toward her house. Maglor remained seated. What did Nienna mean? He talked to Mother on a more or less regular basis and Mother hadn’t mentioned anything even approaching answers.

He rubbed his hands along the smooth, worn stone of the bench Mother had carved so long ago. When he was ready-- that was the other thing Nienna had said. For all he was now curious, he was not yet ready to return to Eldamar, his apartment, or his fairly useless life. In Middle-earth, he’d done what he could, when he could, to help those around him. Here, no one needed him. Not really, now that his work on the Saga was over. Life had moved on, him a living relic, out of step with Elven society.

Here at Nienna’s, he felt himself again.

And he could not return to Eldamar until he was able to keep that sense with him.

 

 

Maglor shifted on his feet as footsteps hurried toward the door. Mother, with her brown hair pulled back in a bun and in her now-usual tunic and trousers combination, smiled when she opened the door and saw him. “Come in, come in. Makalaurë, what brings you all this way down Avathar?”

He followed his mother into the small house, one of a set of townhouses built in a wide circle around a central green containing a playground. The sitting room was in the front of the house; a surprisingly large kitchen at the back of the open floor plan. The furniture was plain, clearly handmade, and the cushions were a gray that reminded him of Nienna. He put his bag down next to the sofa, out of the way, and said, “I haven’t been here before despite your invitations. And Nienna said I should speak to you.”

Mother turned toward him, an eyebrow raised. “As if we didn’t speak regularly?”

Maglor tilted his head and said slowly, “It came in the context of my missing aspects of the mortal world, specifically exploring and re-exploring.”

“Ah.” Mother turned back around to finish making coffee. Only when it had brewed did she return to the living room. She handed him a mug, sat next to him on the sofa, and said, “Yes, I can answer that.” She smiled mischievously and sipped her coffee. “What do you know about Avathar’s industries?”

“Nothing,” he said. “I know after the Darkening and the War of Wrath, the lands were opened up and made fertile. So people moved here, but where in Aman don’t Elves live? I didn’t look into it further as it didn’t seem important.” Not like learning the technology or finding his way around the Tirion-Minas Aear-Alqualondë megalopolis or the new laws and customs of Eldamar or reuniting with family and friends with all the joys and perils that brought.

She put her mug down on a coaster and he mirrored her. She said, “We call it ‘walking the starlit road.’ The industry of Avathar, at least this part of it, is shipbuilding.” He gave her a very confused expression, but before he could ask what was so different about ships crafted here, she continued, “Starship building.”

“Starships. No one said anything--”

She shrugged. “The language is different than I think the mortal terms you would recognize. And we have technology far beyond what mortals are capable of: faster than light travel, for instance.”

“You worked for the industry.”

“Last long-year.  Part of the design process was modeling ship AIs to be more visually realistic.”

Ah. That would explain her involvement. Her main work-- across all media-- remained hyperrealistic people. “How can I become involved?”

Mother grinned. “You can buy a ship, Makalaurë. You’ll need a piloting license and a crew of at least two others before you can walk the starlit path, but it’s well within your reach.”

“Why did the Elves--”

“The Teleri wanted the challenge; the Quendi still feel our place is helping the world rather than locking ourselves away, despite the security it gives us. But Aman is becoming overcrowded and we’ll eventually require the space to grow. The Valar know what extra-solar planets are inhabitable and we need explorers for all of them.”

Maglor pulled his mother into an embrace. “How much money is a ship? How long does it take to earn a license? What else do I need to know?”

She laughed. “We’ll talk while we make supper.”

 

 

Two years later, Maglor sat in the pilot’s chair of his starship and looked over his shoulder at the other four members of his crew: one Teler and three Quendi from as many clans. “Ready?”

They said in unison, with a mix of facial expressions ranging from determined to excited, “Ready.”

Maglor grinned and hit the switch to turn on the thrusters.