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At the end of the First Age, the Valar lock Melkor away in the Void to remain until Dagor Dagorath.
This is not the problem.
For many centuries has foul Morgoth caused blight and terror upon the land and peoples of Arda, poisoning minds such as Mairon, Maia of Aulë and Fëanáro Curufinwë Þerindion– starting all the way back at Cuiviénen with the starry-eyed Quendi. He destroyed the Two Trees of Valinor, Laurelin and Telperion, surrendering the Eldar from their dear light, cursed the line of Húrin, slaughtered the peoples of Beleriand, and created horrors unspeakable in his dread fortress Angband: orcs and slavering wolves, balrogs and wicked dragons. All, it should be noted, were not so much created as they were twisted from other beings, for even at Ainulindalë, Melkor’s discordance could not stop or destroy Arda’s creation– only change it. And not even totally, at that.
At the end of the First Age, Melkor– Vala, Monster, Morgoth– is locked away outside the bounds of Arda and Eä. There are no thieved jewels on his crown to give a light to him he could not create, nor any armor to hide that even now, his hands have not healed. He is as pale-haired as bright blight, though the strands around his empty crown are the color of steel rust.
There is a ceremony to it, the Valar sealing one of their own away.
This is not the problem.
Morgoth lies chained in body and power in one of the courtyards he once walked in younger days. All the Valar gather around him, as witnesses and condemors both. Aulë does one last check on the bindings. Manwë and Varda, hand in hand, prepare to open the seams of the world. Oromë and Nessa stand watch on either side of Yavanna, who weeps from rage. Ulmo blocks Manwë from Morgoth’s sights and his venomous speech.
Vána, the one to divest him of the cloak of the intimidating shape he has ever-worn, leaves alone the empty, stained thing atop Morgoth’s head– let it be yet another manacle.
Irmo and Námo remain deep under their veils, one of dove-gray, the other a hazy, shifting thing, so that their hatred may not be seen.
Estë drifts, one moment brushing back a stray piece of hair from Aulë and allowing him the moment for his face to twist and crumple, another at Manwë’s side, then Yavanna’s. She doesn’t stray towards the Fëanturi.
Vairë weaves in silence, invested with the duty of documenting this solemn piece of history.
She won’t be recording how Manwë’s hands shake.
Nienna stands the closest to Morgoth and stares him down. No veil obscures her, the eroded tear tracks and many, many eyes. She weeps, unblinking. Stray tears hit Morgoth and his shouting at Manwë cuts off into a hiss. He looks at her like he has just realized she is here, a shock she has never seen on his wickéd face.
Tulkas heaves his sword.
Nienna holds Morgoth down.
He screams when the blade comes down. Screams when Nienna’s tears hit him, and screams at the touch of her hands. (The touch of mercy burns.)
This is not the problem.
There is another thing that happens in the First Age, before the defeat of Morgoth. Namely, after of the Destruction of the Two Trees, the murder of Finwë, High King of the Noldor, and the theft of the Silmarils by Melkor– only recently named Moriñgotto and not yet Sindarized into Morgoth– Fëanáro Curufinwë Þerindion loses his mind. Rot-hearted Morgoth is, and thus rot he spreads to other hearts. Fëanáro, quick to hate and quick to act, like the flame he was named for, succumbs to smog Melkor speaks. He binds himself and his seven sons in hate and in Oath, for three stolen gems.
For all that he was and is still Most Skilled among the Noldor all these Ages later, his wisdom was much like tinder for fire– the first thing to go up in smoke.
This is not the problem.
Fëanáro, his sons, and their followers steal ships and spill the blood of their kin, their fellow Quendi, into the sea to leave for Beleriand. He burns all that his host not needs.
And then Fëanáro, paranoid, bloody-handed Fëanáro– bright, ever-burning Fëanáro marches to Angband, and burns himself out.
This is not the problem.
For his awful deeds and disrespect, Fëanáro is consigned to the Void by the Valar he so feared and detested. There is no ceremony here: only a streak of flame flying through Valinor to the Halls of Mandos, so bright it hurts against the dark sky. Only the echoes of Námo’s prophecy and Fëanáro’s Oath, and the hole in the fabric of the Arda that swallows him whole.
There Fëanáro and then his fallen sons stay for all Ages to come until Dagor Dagorath and the remaking of the world.
Except– at the end of the First Age, the Valar banish Melkor to the Void.
Morgoth is bound, yes, his power sealed beneath his skin, but that was a temporary measure until he was locked away in a place no one can return from.
Morgoth is bound, yes, but he is a Vala, the strongest Ainu and second in clever wickedness only to Þauron who he himself corrupted.
Morgoth is bound, yes, but in the Void he is not alone. Fëanáro and his sons share the empty with him and there is nothing they can do to stop their inevitable unmaking at his hands.
(The Valar either forget the previous inhabitants of the place they consign Melkor to, or it simply does occur to them to be concerned. He’s bound, is he not?)
The problem is that the Valar have locked the strongest of them in the same cage as said strongest’s most hated enemies.
The problem is that when Dagor Dagorath comes there will be no blazing Fëanáro or enduring Maedhros or songsmith Makalaurë to fight against Morgoth’s dark. There will be no Tyelkormo, or Ambarussa, no Carnistir or Curufinwë to hold the line.
There will only be Morgoth that comes out of his prison that day.
Not even a remnant of them will remain. (Not even the remaking of the world will bring them back)
–
No matter the opinion a person has on Fëanáro himself, all must admit that he was once called Anmagna amongst his people, a title earned not by mastery over one craft, but many. Though he loved the forge best– at first making the finest jewelry in Arda for his family and later making weapons to harm members of that same family– Fëanáro was at his heart an inventor.
And his speciality was the impossible.
It was a rip in the seams of the world which brought them here. It’ll be a rip in the seams of the world that will bring them out.
The only problem being, of course– once you tear a hole through the Void, how do you sew it shut? The only problem being, of course– they are banished from Arda, not all of Eä. The only problem being, of course– are they willing to leave?
Several centuries of always having to be one step ahead of Morgoth, and the addition of Lómion Maeglin Irission later, Tyelpinquar arrives.
Tyelpinquar Curufinwë Khelembrimbur, founder of Ost-In-Edhil, Lord of Eregion, Ring-Maker, Dwarf-Friend, and husband to Narvi the Careful, flexes his hands, willing them to scar over in the great empty that calls to let go and rest, dissipate, fade and let the edges of your fëa drift. With his life-blood not yet dry he goes again to do the greatest act he has ever done– make a door.
–
At the end of First Age, the Valar seal away accurséd Moriñgotto into the Void.
At the end of the Second Age, Khelembrimbur stands in front of a door.
It is a beautiful, awe-inspiring door, many heads taller than even Maedhros. It is beautiful because it was crafted by masters, and carefully so. It is beautiful because it was made with relentless hope in mind, because it is hewn from miracles and sung from impossibility. It is beautiful because it sits amidst clawing oblivion and offers an escape. (It seems to hum, faint echoes of the thoughts and yearning of its makers reflected in its mirror-like finish.)
Maeglin, still so hazy after all these years that all his fëa resembles is ephemeral mist and one night-dark eye, shoves them open and disappears inside. He curls around Maedhros and Makalaurë and drags them with him. Curufinwë and Tyelkormo link arms. Telufinwë, Pityafinwë and Carnistir tangle together, almost on top of each other as they go.
Khelembrimbur stands witness until only him and his grandfather remain.
He thumbs over the silver and coral marriage beads Narvi made, and the wedding rope he wove from hundreds of thin threads of silver and steel. He had continued to wear them after her death, intending to wear them until his own, then ever-after. (Somewhere, in Mahal’s Halls, Narvi wears the matching set.)
Yet, after meeting Annatar, he woke up one day and could not find them, no matter how he looked, high or low. Annatar had comforted him in his agony over their loss afterwards, and that support had been what made him even consider picking up a jewelry smith's tools again. He had called Khelembrimbur Tyelpë after that, a shortening of his name reminding him of better, uncomplicated times. He had called Khelembrimbur Tyelpë until the very end, even after revealing himself, while snapping every boundary and barrier in his mind.
Khelembrimbur’s hands rest on the beads, feeling every indentation. Narvi had proposed after they had finished the Great Western Gates, and teased that they need not even exchange marks of marriage– after all, were their doors not the far better symbol of their joining? He can still hear her warm, smooth orator’s voice calling him my dear Khel with none of Þauron’s sickly sweet sincerity.
He remembers Elrond, who survived all the misery Middle Earth gave and came out each time even more stubborn and ready to heal the world’s hurts, and Gil-Galad, who was as ill-suited for peace as a bull is for a hen-house and yet tried anyway. Who both called him cousin for all that it would have been easier to repudiate him. He remembers iron-spined Galadriel, Celeborn and little Celebrían saying us silver ones must stick together.
Khelembrimbur takes his grandfather’s hand. He walks to his door and cannot help thinking– as he has thought throughout the process– that Narvi could have made it even more magnificent.
(He cannot collaborate with Narvi again if Morgoth unmakes him. He cannot see Elrond and Gil-Galald and his mother– ai, how long it has been since he has seen her face– if they do not leave the Void, and thus Arda, behind them.)
Khelembrimbur walks through his doors.
Before he falls, he wrests its heart from the Void’s grasp, leaving nothing behind but the cobwebs of Maeglin’s illusions.
–
Ages later, at fateful Dagor Dagorath, Morgoth crawls out of the Void.
No one else comes out.
–
Arda is remade, Aman rejoining the same plane as Middle Earth.
Cuiviénen, Beleriand, and Númenor rise from their sinkings, though they are not as they once were– each have fractured into verdant, wild archipelagos. They are thick with the familiar and the unknown, as is now the rest of the world– mangroves and coral reefs, swamps painting water green with algae.
Neither is Aman unchanged: the fearsome Pelóri remain but without their jagged inhospitality. Before, nothing grew on their fierce peaks, for the mountains were not so much a haven for life as a… wall of a sort, guarding a haven. Now lichen devours what was once unforgiving white stone, and great herds of elk and ibex claim their home. Now, a patient path blooms from Eldamar and Avathar to Valinor, and Valinor to Araman. Perhaps one day, there shall be homes carved into that sharp stone.
The Great Lake of Middle Earth comes into being once more, though it might be more accurate to call it the Great Lakes, for the many craters from Melkor’s throwing of the Two Lamps are diminished but not gone. These craters are filled with a glut of water, with long, winding rivers breaking off. The whole region flushes with life where before only destruction laid.
Where the Helcaraxë fell rises a land of tundra, tree-less and snowy, surrounded by fish and glaciers. Aurora borealis graces the skies there with ghostly blue light. To the East of Middle Earth lie great stretches of desert intercepted with oases, rich in rock and rich in animals despite their seemingly-abandoned appearance.
Steppes, tropical rainforests, wide grassy plains, taiga, deserts, alpine mountain tops and tundras– Arda Remade is larger, more spread out, Avathar shifting so far it is almost broken off from Aman, and Tol Eressëa gaining siblings to the north and west.
It is a different Arda, but still recognizably theirs all the same. Ruins of the past still dot Middle Earth, after all.
–
Arda is remade, and all the Children and Grandchildren of Eru Ilúvatar are reunited.
Elu Thingol collapses, weeping, onto his daughter Lúthien Tinúviel. Melian the Maia wraps both of them, and Beren Erchamion, in her arms. Only a few paces away Nimloth of Doriath clutches her sons to her chest, Dior Eluchíl slammed to the ground by the force of his daughter’s embrace.
Elrond holds his twin’s hand for the first time in four Ages.
And yet. And yet.
“Where is my son,” someone says, their voice cutting through the crowds like a knife.
Elrond can hear various people offering to help the person look through the people milling about, but. But. There is a dread lingering in his throat, growing ever-larger as each moment passes and he still sees no glimpse of copper hair and scars, hears no voice like molten gold.
(There are no Noldor among the crowd with red hair save for Nerdanel and Mahtan.)
“No,” cracks the voice, “He’s not here– where is my son?”
A hand lands on his shoulder, and Hísetinwë Leptanerca, Master Enameller and mother to Tyelperinquar Curufinwë, turns him to face her. Her eyes are wide and wild. He can see his own terror reflected in them.
“Elrond,” she says, suddenly very, very quiet, as if she already knows the answer. “Have you seen Tyeleperinquar?”
“No. No, I haven’t.” Elrond grips the sleeve of her dress like a lifeline. His tongue is thick and clumsy in his mouth. “I can’t find any of them.”
Hísetinwë sags like a puppet with her strings cut. She’s trembling.
“I can’t find them!”
The crowd is silent.
–
Life drags on.
Mahtan overhears Yavanna cursing the Feanorians, heartbroken that without them, and thus their ability to cede the Silmarils, the Two Trees cannot be made anew.
At that, he sets his hammer down in its exact place, quenches the metal of the project he was working on, cleans up his station. On that unremarkable day, Mahtan Urundil, known also as Aulendur and Aulendil, goes back home as he always does– quietly.
He doesn’t come back. Not when he is so wroth with Yavanna that he can feel the bright, raging flame his son-in-law was so known for in his chest.
Finwë reunites with Indis, and all branches of his family but one. He was a great King, but a… complicated Noldo, and he played no little part in creating the splits in his family. His first months are so much work, so much listening and making amends that he rationalizes with an aching heart that Fëanáro and his grandsons are avoiding all to make a point. Events haven’t fallen the way the prophecy foretold it, but his eldest has always had a talent for bringing old plans crashing to the ground.
By the time he realizes that Elrond and Leptanerca’s fear is true, A Year Of The Sun in this Remade Arda has passed, and his children and descendants have been visiting him with shadows dark ‘neath their eyes and unsaid words on their tongues for far longer.
–
Míriel ventures into sunlight one spring day, her limbs just as heavy and her spirit just as exhausted as it always is. She reembodies not as she was in life: all her joints bear strange, cracking scars, and her hair falls to her feet in a solid sheet of blinding, bone white. Her skin is different now– paler around the scars– though her hands are exactly the same wall of calluses.
Once, many years ago on the other side of the sea, Míriel wanted better for her and her people, and in that she and Finwë were the same. Once, she came to Valinor though she detested what Finwë promised and the price the Valar asked. Once, she bit her tongue in public and wove so many arguments for Finwë in private but he never listened to her, him who dared to say he achieved their dreams, when his dream had consumed him.
Once, she died rather than live the long life she saw stretching out in front of her– full of Finwë’s platitudes and the Valar’s thoughtless ignorance and her, alone and growing thinner from no lack of food, bringing children into this– this–
Míriel is always sharp, and always bright, and always hollowed out, a candle burning at both ends with the desperation of a hound backed into a corner. To look at her many faucets is to be blinded. She was a leader, and then a not-queen of a land that broke its promise to her, and then a lady of quiet rebellion, and then dead.
(She has never been a mother, yet Fëanáro is her son first, and everything else last.)
Míriel ventures into light for the first time since the Trees, and Remakes herself.
An elf– or something like it– walks away from Vairë’s hall. She heads for Mahtan, and Nerdanel, and Rúmil, and she will stop for nothing.
If she could have cast herself into the Void, into true oblivion, she would have.
But we don’t always get everything we want, do we?
–
Findis journeys through the new streams that have crept into Aman. The hem of her dress is muddy and wet, dragging behind her. No one will remark on her absence, as she has spent more time wandering Aman with songs cracking in her throat than she has at home.
Her destination looms ahead of her, a crumbling fortress sun-bleached and wind-beaten, overtaken by ivy. The same spot she comes to each year.
In the middle of the leftmost courtyard, a grim, rusted sword spears the ground. The handle is warped by heat. Wrapped around the hilt is a long, bejeweled braid of golden hair.
The courtyard is barren, stinking of iron and copper. There is nothing here but the sword, stained with her brother’s blood, and warped to her other brother’s hand, and the braid that was cut from her head. There is nothing here but betrayal, and the echoes of cruel words.
Findis, even all these Ages later, wears the name her elder brother gave her in some fit of either mockery or pity, the one that means skill-woman, or skilled-sister, for all that it looks like a cruel combination of her parents’ names without any space for herself to remain. She wears this name, instead of the ones her parents gave her, and most people have forgotten that she had any other. She is not anyone’s salvation, nor anyone’s bridge to peace.
And so she goes to the sword each year, to honor that gift at least, though she sings it no songs and tells it no tales.
This year it is raining. The sword bleeds.
The wind howls around her, and Findis only just refrains from howling along.
Arda is Remade, and all those dead and gone are living again. Her father is back, Nolofinwë is back, her nieces and nephews are back.
Her family is back, her father is trying, her mother is trying, her brothers are all trying, her sister is trying and their meetings are filled with empty chairs and empty tables and she could not stand a second more of it!
The sword bleeds, her feet are numb and she still cannot forgive her father. She still cannot forgive her mother for making herself small and staying even when it hurt her, and Nolofinwë for always making everything a fight, and Arafinwë for smothering so much of himself out and always holding his damn tongue. She cannot forgive Irimë for never listening, and she cannot forgive Fëanáro for building a thousand and one walls and yet never leaving until he did, and she cannot forgive herself, for leaving and for staying and for always, always letting herself get dragged back.
Her name is Findis. She could shake the world apart with her Song, and she almost did.
She might still.
–
Fingon walks into the Void with his harp on his hip and his heart in his hands.
Foul Morgoth was defeated a year ago, and now he lies slumbering and stripped of all his power by Eru Ilúvatar. He looks– diminished, somehow. Sharp hooked like the smog he sent through the fields during the Nírnaeth Arnoediad, sickening and withering those all around. Yet his face, jumbled and faded and devoid of light, holds some measure of great truth, as if all Eru Illúvatar ever did was remove a mask.
Fingon knows because he saw it, Morgoth held in a quiet alcove open to all. Fingon knows because he stood before Morgoth– looming monster turned sleeping black hole– and screamed: where is my belovéd: where is my uncle: where are my cousins and my nephew.
And so too, Fingon intimately knows that Morgoth will not wake.
Fingon– elf, hope-smith, lover, king– journeys into the dark for hónrya, as he has once before. This is not the sámalóraruinë of his uncle or the cradling madness of his brother– his hands shake not, his mind unfogged. Fingon enters the Void, accurs’d prison of Morgoth (and his family, that is what no one remembers and everyone forgets) not because he is insane, but because he loves.
Maedhros– ai! How Fingon can hear him and the shape of his words in his own mind– Kánya, Kánya, he said all those Ages ago, his hand tight on Fingon’s shoulder. This is a clear-headed madness that haunts me. It will never let me end. And how terror clenched Fingon’s heart at it, and how he felt only worse when Maedhros tried to assure him with there will be no leaving you for me.
How right he was, in the end. How you died, and he didn’t and didn’t and didn’t, right up until he did.
Dark is the Void, and dark Fingon knew it would be, and yet– he knew not, really. Yet this place, light-forsaken and light-eating is not the worst to suffer, not when there is a chance–
–
It is a pity that love won’t help him find someone not there.
–
(Fingon finds the shards of the door. This is farther than anyone journeyed who was not a native, converted or otherwise, of the Dark. But this is a hollow accomplishment, for a hope-smith with his hope broken.
Fingon stumbles out the Void with his harp, his voice, and his mind.
But not his heart.)