A Long Time Falling by Himring

Prologue

‘He says they want us to give ourselves up and let ourselves be taken to Valinor to stand on trial—and, when we get to Valinor, they will decide whether they are going to give us the Silmarils or no?’

‘Yes.’

‘You realize that once we set foot in Valinor—no, once we set foot in his camp and hand over our weapons—, if they decide not to give them to us, there won’t be a thing we can do about it?’

‘Of course.’

‘That is a risk you want to take?’

‘I suppose if they decide to declare the oath invalid, as Eonwe hinted they might, it would be—after all, you could say they are the world experts on oaths.’

‘Well, technically we swore by Eru—a slight disadvantage to Atar’s insistence on always going straight to the top. He’s not exactly around to grant dispensations, is he?’

I shrug.

He frowns.

‘I suppose... ‘, he looks up at the sky in the approximate direction where the evening star will appear tonight, although it’s day and nothing is to be seen at the moment,  ‘...having gone to all that trouble to put one Silmaril up there, they are unlikely to set about destroying the other two, as originally planned? Although obviously they aren’t offering us any guarantees whatever that they won’t... What do you think it would do to Atar, if they did? They say he claimed he would die, but—he’s dead already...’

He falls silent. I shrug again. When Maitimo continues to say nothing, I get up and turn away to go.

‘Macalaure?’

I turn around again. ‘Yes?’

‘You see hope in this, don’t you?’

‘Yes.’

‘Then we do it your way.’

I raise my eyebrows.  He smiles a small tired smile.  This time it is he who shrugs.