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Chapter Text

The first time orcs attack them, Nerdanel guts seven of them.

They’re in the middle of the mountains, and the orcs drop down from the cliffs, and it’s all very confusing and very bloody. Nerdanel realizes very quickly to aim for their stomachs; she’s strong enough to bite through the armor, and not precise enough to really get the limbs if she isn’t paying attention, and she can’t pay attention in a melee like this.

They survive without any major injuries- beginner’s luck, Nerdanel suspects, because she’s made her way through more than her fair share of the orcs. Anairë had frozen up for a good period of time, and Eärwen had thrown her knives too quickly to be of much use later in the skirmish. And now, they’re both sitting at the riverbank nearby, trying to scrub off the orc blood. 

Eärwen is white-faced and silent as she scrubs her hands. Anairë’s crying, or so Nerdanel thinks; she’s trembling hard enough for it to be unclear. And then there’s Nerdanel, whose hands are not shaking, whose mind only feels clear and clean, like someone’s swept all the extraneous bits and bobbles away to reveal only smooth stone. 

She wipes down her blade, and sticks her hands in the stream so they run clean. Her face is definitely stained blood-black.

Speaking of…

“Do you think orc blood will make for a good dye?”

Eärwen freezes at Nerdanel’s question, and Anairë chokes hard, as if Nerdanel’s said something sacrilegious. Nerdanel arches an eyebrow back.

She lasts for a minute.

Then- “Oh, you should see your faces,” she says. Eärwen hisses something wordless and threatening under her breath, and Anairë buries her face in her palms, but they both look far less pale than just a moment earlier. She can’t resist the urge to keep the joke going. “Tell me, Anairë, how much dye do we have left?”

“Enough,” says Eärwen firmly. “And even if there isn’t, I’m not going to harvest it.”

“That’s fine,” Nerdanel tells her cheerfully. “I’ll harvest it. You just need to, ah, apply it.”

“You’re insane,” says Eärwen.

“As, my queen,” drawls Nerdanel, “are you.”

She gets to her feet, and helps Eärwen to hers. Before she can help Anairë, she’s also on her feet, though she still looks a little faint. 

They strap their weapons up, check food stores, and continue walking east.

…

“It was easy,” says Eärwen quietly, that night.

“Yes,” says Nerdanel, who’s on watch and thought herself to be the only one awake.

“Do you think it was that easy at Alqualondë?”

For a long moment, Nerdanel doesn’t answer. She doesn’t know how she can. “No,” she says finally. “I think it’s more difficult to kill elves.”

“Or do you hope it’s more difficult?” Eärwen’s voice is soft, because it’s always soft, even in the height of her temper. “Is that what lets you sleep at night, Nerdanel, this- this- belief, that your children found it more difficult to kill people they had once lived with and loved than the black-blooded orcs?”

Nerdanel swallows her first, second and third answer. “To be fair,” she says, “I don’t sleep much, nowadays.”

“Nerdanel.”

“I do not know.” She stares into the embers of the fire. “That is the truthful answer: you are right, I hope it is more difficult. I think it might have been. Surely turning your blade on one who looks like you- who could have been a sister, or a brother- surely that would be more difficult. But I do not know. As you do not know.”

Eärwen makes a sound that Nerdanel doesn’t understand: low and snaking and hurt. “I was there in Alqualondë when it happened,” she whispers, and Nerdanel goes still. “My father could not go to see what had happened in the morning. Already he was hurt by Finwë’s death, and hurt further by Fëanáro’s accusations; my brothers were dead, and my mother was caring for my father, and there was only me. So I went.”

She bites back the instinctive desire to get angry at the mention of her husband’s name, instead tipping her head back to look up at the stars. Here, this far from Aman, they are different; they rise earlier, and there are constellations that Nerdanel’s seen before in their glory.

“I picked up my people’s bodies,” says Eärwen quietly. “Not just Teleri. Noldor as well. I picked them up and I burned them, and I thought my hands would never wash clean.” She sits up, in front of the fire, so all Nerdanel can see of her is her dark silhouette. “When you decided to make your sculpture a set of cupped hands, over the full dock of Alqualondë- I felt like you’d taken the nightmare from my mind and transformed it to something shining and good.”

And then I tainted it, thinks Nerdanel.

But the admission is true, and fair, though Nerdanel would never have accepted it had Eärwen come and accused her to her face. 

“I’m sorry,” says Nerdanel, so quiet as to be a whisper. 

“I- what?”

“I’m sorry.” Nerdanel tightens her grip on her sword, useless, palms aching. “I didn’t mean- well, I didn’t mean for you to think that. I did mean it as a kindness: for the Teleri, for those of us left behind. A set of hands, holding us together in the place where it all fell apart.” She inhales slowly. “I didn’t mean for its worth to be lessened in your eyes.”

“So you really did separate it in your mind.”

“Of course! It was- two purposes in one. A boat to leave Alqualondë, and one last statement within Aman.” Nerdanel hesitates for a moment, but she’s come this far. What’s a little further? “My husband and my sons caused that to happen. Caused the blood spilled on Alqualondë’s beaches. To you those hands were your own, Eärwen; to me, they are mine: hands which have worked and worked, trying to fix what they have broken. That statue is the reason why I’m here. Because there is only one way to fix it, to truly fix it all.”

Eärwen stretches out a hand, and catches Nerdanel’s forearm; she skims her palm down until she’s covering Nerdanel’s own, both of them clutching the hilt of Nerdanel’s sword. 

“I miss them,” she breathes. “I miss them all, more than I can ever say. And that’s why I’m here, yes? To keep them safe. To keep them alive.”

Nerdanel’s hand, almost against her will, turns, so she’s not touching the sword but rather Eärwen’s skin. Her throat aches, a little, like she’s sang too much for it to bear. 

“When Maitimo was captured-” Nerdanel shudders, in and out, and then drags her gaze away, to the outside of the camp. She’s on watch, and she must remain watchful until her watch is ended. “-I could feel his pain. It was so all-encompassing. I knew that something terrible had happened to either him or Carnistir; I knew I had to do something.”

“Oh, Nerdanel,” says Eärwen softly.

“I- do you remember what we do to little babes, when they’ve bruised themselves and must be calmed to apply lotions?”

“We protect them,” says Eärwen. “We- ah- cover their fëa in our own. Take their pain on ourselves.”

“Yes.” Nerdanel lifts a hand, and pushes a strand of hair away from her eyes, and doesn’t stop glaring into the darkness. “Yes. That’s what I did for my son.”

Eärwen chokes. “What? How? How?”

“I told you I was good at ósanwë.”

“Not this good!”

“It exhausted me as you wouldn’t believe. I could do it so very rarely.” 

Too rare. And damn Fëanáro for this, too: he should have protected their son when Nerdanel could not. He’d been so much closer to Angband; if he’d only lived-

“That you could at all is more than any other,” says Eärwen gently.

“More than any other, perhaps,” says Nerdanel heavily. “And not enough. Not near enough.” 

She huffs out a breath, slow as molasses. 

Not enough: write that on Nerdanel’s tombstone. Not enough to outshine her father, not enough to keep Fëanáro reasonable, not enough to keep her family together, not enough to do anything but watch as it all crumbles into ash and dust at her feet. 

Not enough.

If she dies before they steal the Silmarils, if she dies as they’re stealing the Silmarils- there won’t be a tombstone for Nerdanel. There will not even be the memory of dust. There will only be the knowledge in Nerdanel’s own fëa, of her failure, again, here at the end of all things.

(Once, she’d had ambition in her veins, running as thick as blood. Nerdanel had put it aside for long years, for her husband, for her family, for her own peace of mind. Sitting near a fire, in an unfamiliar land, sword in her palm and enemy almost in sight: she remembers it again.

Not ambition to thrive, nor ambition to shine, nor ambition to succeed.

Just: to survive.)

“We’ll be in Angband soon,” says Eärwen quietly, like a whisper of a wind darting across the plains. Her hand is warm in Nerdanel’s own. “Very soon.”

“We’re making good time,” agrees Nerdanel.

…

The sun rises on them, cold and golden, their breaths glimmering puffs of frost in the air. The sun rises on them, revealing two women tangled together, eyes watchful and faces frozen over. The sun rises on them, and Nerdanel rises with it, and lets her muscles warm with movement even as her bones go ever colder, ever colder, ever colder.

…

They pass the Fen of Serech, and then enter well into Anfauglith; they keep rotating the songs of silence and the person singing them, so none can track them and- even if they come that far- they cannot find them. 

Then Anfauglith gives way to the broken steppes and stones of Ered Engrin, and Nerdanel feels her blood boil in her veins, thinking of her darling son being dragged across the rough lands. 

...

(“One and two and three,” murmurs Anairë, a mouthful of sharp splinters. 

Her eyes are glowing from within, as they have been ever since they left the relative safety of Dorthonion- as if the danger has pared away her reason, and the battle-joy has cut away the limitations of her flesh. For the first time, Nerdanel can believe that something of Anairë lives in the son that saved Maitimo.

“The valley,” says Eärwen. She does not smile, but her gaze is like diamond scraping on ice. “Not long now.”

“Not long enough,” says Nerdanel. Her teeth are bared, and she does not remember baring them, but she does not mind the fierce, hot burst of feeling rising from her chest, so hot that she thinks her teeth will melt from it. “Not near long enough.”)

…

They settle in the hollow of the mountain, and Nerdanel sets up multiple tokens at the entrance, of hiding, of unimportance, of flowing wind and inhospitable darknesses. It is cold this far north, and their clothes are not made for it, not truly. The scarce furs that they’ve managed to scavenge from their hunts are enough to keep them from freezing, but not to keep them warm.

They’ve spent the past weeks finishing their preparations. It isn’t easy; it isn’t for the faint of heart, walking through Angband, protected only by a scarce token and their own unimportance before the might of Morgoth. They are set to challenge him soon enough: the longer they spend delaying, the more they believe in that failure, and therefore the higher the odds of their failure.

But still she cannot bring herself to speak. Seeding the battlefield is necessary. Seeding it twice-over is caution. Seeding it thrice-over is just plain common sense before an enemy of Morgoth’s strength. Surely…

“Tomorrow,” says Anairë, and all Nerdanel’s justifications shatter as so much marble before a hammer.

“Tomorrow,” agrees Eärwen.

Nerdanel closes her eyes, and opens them, and breathes out. “Tomorrow,” she says, and sits up.

“We can do it,” says Anairë, and means it as reassurance.

“Yes,” says Nerdanel levelly. “But if we shall- that remains to be seen. And I am… afraid. I find myself afraid.”

“Of what?”

“Of dying in silence and solitude,” she says. “Of dying, and none knowing where and how I die, when I’m dying for them.”

“We swore not to contact them,” says Anairë slowly.

“Because we did not wish to give them the chance to stop us.” Nerdanel spreads her arms wide. “We assault the fortress tomorrow morning, yes? There will not be any such chance.”

“Even if we decide to do it, how can we?”

Eärwen straightens suddenly. “Oh,” she breathes.

Nerdanel nods to her. “Yes.”

“Nerdanel’s quite… good at ósanwë,” Eärwen tells Anairë carefully. “Very good. She might be able to connect us.”

“Without him noticing?” says Anairë.

“There is a chance,” agrees Nerdanel. “There is a chance with everything that we have done: that we will falter in our song, or we will falter in our steps, or falter in our strength. There is a chance that a broken bond can have a repercussion that he can feel, but not much of one. Certainly not as much as we risked by stepping out into the valley.”

“I,” says Anairë, and blinks, her great silver eyes sliding in and out of view. “I don’t think this is a good idea.”

“Anairë,” says Eärwen, laughing a little, “has any of this been a good idea?”

“Oh,” she whispers, curling inwards. Then she lifts her gaze to Nerdanel’s, and Nerdanel can see the desire in them, like the ocean, deep and unknowable and ever-present. “Very well then. Whom do you wish to tell?”

Nerdanel pauses, thinking about it, and then says, “We each choose one.”

“You’re strong enough for that?” asks Eärwen.

“I’ll need to borrow your strength,” says Nerdanel. “And perhaps some of Anairë’s control. But I have the skill and the ability. It will be simple; just put your hands in mine. Open your minds to me. Choose someone you’d normally have a bond with: a child, or a husband. It must be a strong bond. And the nearer they are to us, the better it will be.” She pauses, and decides to give the warning. “There shall be no privacy, not between the three of us. Anairë, have you decided?”

A flicker of a smile passes over Anairë’s face, and she puts her cold hand in Nerdanel’s. “Nolofinwë,” she says.

Eärwen’s hand closes over Nerdanel’s other before she can reach for it, and Nerdanel sees the two of them close the circle opposite her. 

Nerdanel breathes in, and breathes out, and breathes in, and breathes out. Then she extends her senses, reaching with the arm-that-is-not-an-arm, and tangling her fingers in the threads of Anairë’s bonds. It takes her a moment to recognize which is Nolofinwë: the bond that sings like the dancing air, ever-whirling and ever-changing; lovely and unstill and as lofty as the mountains on which the strongest winds howl. 

Nolofinwë, she says, and uses her own power to pull the bond taut between them, to hollow it out and allow Anairë to speak through it. Nolofinwë, hear me!

A voice- deep and sonorous and furious- resounds through the bond. Who is this! Nerdanel drops away immediately. Anairë, however, does not speak immediately. Nolofinwë does, even angrier: I tell you, if this is some trick of-

Nolofinwë, says Anairë, in a voice so rich with grief that it silences them all. Oh, my husband. It has been so long.

Anairë? I- I don’t understand. Nolofinwë pauses for a moment, then starts to get angry again. If this is a trick-

No trick, love. Just me. 

I don’t understand. How is this possible?

Thank Nerdanel, says Anairë, and the grief cracks away, so she sounds halfway to amused. She allowed me to do this. 

Oh. I did not know she could.

Neither did I, or I would have asked it of her sooner.

For a moment, he does not say anything. Then: I am so sorry.

Leave aside your apologies, says Anairë softly. We have both done so many things. Oh, Nolofinwë, I must ask your forgiveness, and now I do understand what a bitter pill it can be to swallow!

What could you possible have to apologize for? asks Nolofinwë, bewildered.

I will tell you in a minute. But before that: remember that I love you, yes? And tell our children that. All of them. I love them so very, very much. I love all of you more than anything else in the world. More than anything else that Eru has ever gifted us.

Anairë-

Tell me you love me.

Of course I love you! I don’t-

Promise me that you’ll love me until the end of time, says Anairë, and Nerdanel can see the fear in her now: the fear, and the courage stoked high by the fear, and not diminished by it. Promise me that you’ll remember me, my love.

I don’t- yes, of course, of course, what are you even-

I am not in Aman.

Nolofinwë falls silent immediately. Where are you?

I am in Beleriand.

Tell me where you are! There is joy rising in Nolofinwë, like a rising tide. Like a surging wave. I will be there, Anairë, I will- oh, I don’t even know how you- but you would, you would, you’re more brilliant than-

Nolofinwë, says Anairë, and even her mental voice sounds like it’s scraped glass, and he falls silent. You cannot meet me.

Of course I-

I am in Angamando.

A surging wave must crash to sand somewhere, and it does now, in a grand fall of shock. Why? 

To save us, says Anairë. 

You will die! And here is the terror, as diamond-sharp frothing foam. Nerdanel buries her pity deep within the darkest recesses of her mind. You will die, and there will be nothing but- nothing but- 

-memory, finishes Anairë. The only gift that Eru ever promised us. Is that not what Írissë said to me when you left? Is that not what Fëanáro said to us all, when he left?

No, says Nolofinwë. No, no, this is not- I did not think you so- reckless! Not ever! What shall you accomplish? What can you hope to accomplish?

You will not turn me from my path, says Anairë gently. As you walked your path, Nolo, I have walked my own. You chose your destiny for grief and for love and for pride, too; I chose mine for grief and for love and for rage. Our son is dead, and you were not there beside me to mourn that. Arakáno is dead, and I will do everything I can to ensure no other of my children follow him into Mandos’ halls. I will do everything to ensure you cannot follow him into death.

Anairë! 

You cannot stop me, Nolo.

He stays silent for a long time, and then he says, Please do not do this.

I must, says Anairë. She presses forwards, through the bond, so her fëa presses against Nolofinwë’s own, gentle as a forehead clasp. I love you. I must go, now. I love you. Remember that. Tell our children to remember that, if I never get the chance to tell you again.

Anairë, he whispers, and she pulls away, until there is only the faintest thread of their bond remaining. 

Tell me you love me, she commands once more.

This time, Nolofinwë is the one who opens the bond again: he floods it with memories of Anairë, of the chill in his hands without her beside him on the Helcaraxë, of the doubt in his decisions upon being crowned, of the loneliness and the grief and the loss and the shining, glimmering thread of love singing through all those long years of separation.

Of course I do, he says hoarsely.

Anairë makes a sound, high and piercing and cracked through, and wrenches her hand from Nerdanel’s, breaking the connection cleanly. For a moment, Nerdanel can see nothing but bright spots in her vision; then it resolves to see Anairë’s face, shattered with grief and the sting and weft of old scars being cut open once more.

None of them move for a long time. Finally, slowly, Anairë looks up from her hands, and reaches out, and grips Nerdanel’s wrist. “Whose turn is it?”

Eärwen swallows when Nerdanel turns to look at her. “I don’t think-”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” says Anairë sharply. “I won’t be the only one to speak to my family. Not after relying on your strength and Nerdanel’s ability to do it in the first place. Now. Eärwen: who?”

“Angaráto,” Eärwen says finally, and her face looks luminous in the faint reflection of the stars off of the ice. “He’s close enough to us, and a fair hand with ósanwë besides.”

Eärwen’s mind is stranger to Nerdanel than Anairë’s; made of cool, swirling depths and a thousand-thousand locked rooms that glimmer as the sea underneath a twilight sky. Where Anairë shines like ice and clean stone, Eärwen is darker and dimmer and cooler, never as bright and never as cruel.

She’s already picked out Angaráto’s bond. It threads through the outermost layer of her thoughts like a braided vine of ice and water and kelp, and the ice shines the same shade as her hair, as Angaráto’s hair.

Nerdanel widens it, hollows it, and lets another portion of her energy pull it taut, bring it into focus. Angaráto, she says, through the bond, to call his attention.

It’s when he answers that she drops away.

Angaráto, says Eärwen warmly. My son. Oh, it has been such a long time.

Mother?

Who else?

I- how is this possible?

Someone once told me that all is possible, if only we work hard enough. Eärwen makes a sound, choked-off, like she wants to laugh but can only strangle it in her throat. Let us call it… audacity, Ango, and love and hope as well. All mixed together. I love you so much.

None of us knew it was possible to contact people from across the sea. He pauses, but Eärwen doesn’t interrupt him. Tell me, how is everyone? Father, and Grandfather, and-

They are fine, says Eärwen quietly. They all love you as well. But I am not in Aman, my darling. I am in Beleriand.

Disbelief comes through the bond, like a slow-rising wave. How? When? Why?

Images of Alqualondë: blood on white sand. Spires of ice, and a cold biting into his very bones. Angaráto is powerful in the art of ósanwë but not skilled; he cannot control the visions accompanying his thoughts, and the shock of Eärwen’s admission is accompanied by all the reasons he thinks she’d never accompany them to Beleriand.

For many reasons. Eärwen hesitates briefly. I cannot explain them all now. All I can say is that I love you, Angaráto, and I am your mother: is it not a mother’s duty to be a shield and a sword to her children? 

We killed your people, he whispers.

Our people, says Eärwen firmly. Our people. Do not pretend that we are separate now. Your sins have not changed your inheritance.

Mother!

I love you, says Eärwen. I will always love you, and all your brothers and your sister. Listen to me, Ango. There are things that you must tell all of them: tell Aikanáro that not a day passed when I did not remember his laughter in Aman; and tell Artanis that as much as I disagreed with her decision to leave, I admired her courage in the doing; and tell Artaresto not to shoulder the blame of things he is not responsible for; and tell Findaráto- she inhales slowly, -tell him that it was the memory of his love for Turukáno that gave me strength enough to leave Aman. Tell him that it was the memory of his love for your cousins and for your uncle that reminded me, too, of the debts and bonds of family.

Mother, whispers Angaráto. Mother, please, where- what-

I am in Angamando, says Eärwen. I am in Angamando, and we- Anairë, Nerdanel, and I- are planning to steal the Silmarils, and it is not going to be easy, and we might well not live to see tomorrow’s twilight. 

She laughs, high and nervous, and then grips the bond tight. I have to go soon, Ango, but before I do: I wish to tell you, my dear, dear boy: I love you so much. I love you all so, so much. And you are the warmest of all your siblings. The others will forget laughter if the world goes dark enough.

And you think I won’t? he demands. Mother! This is-

-you will not, Eärwen tells him. You will laugh in the face of death, and you will meet it with a smile when it comes, and you, my dearest of hearts, you must remind them all, yes? If we fail- if you never see me again- you must promise me, that you shall remind your brothers and your sister of the brightness of the stars, and the goodness of the world, and the warmth of our family, even if it seems like there is none left to us.

Angaráto doesn’t reply immediately. In the end, all he says is, They are far stronger than you think them, Mother.

Perhaps, replies Eärwen. Perhaps. But soothe your mother’s old soul, will you, my darling boy?

I would not hide this from them even if you asked, says Angaráto. Please, Mother, be safe- be- I- we- would give so much to-

I love you, says Eärwen, with sudden, flaming ferocity. I love you all so much. Remember that, Ango. Tell them as well. I love you.

She lifts her hand deliberately from Nerdanel’s to cut off the bond, and it’s so quick and clean and painless that Nerdanel blinks, startled. 

“Well,” says Eärwen, pressing the back of her palm to her face, and closing her eyes briefly before turning her gaze to Nerdanel. “Do you know who you’ll speak to?”

Nerdanel bites her lip, considering. Her first choice would be Carnistir- he’s skilled at ósanwë in a manner none of her other children are- but he’s also quite far, and she knows how he hates being accused of being her favorite. Her second choice would be the Ambarussa, or perhaps even Tyelkormo; none of them are practiced at ósanwë, but they are the kind that will pass the message on quickest. Makalaurë and Curufinwë would be good choices as well if not for the fact that they’ve got less ability in ósanwë than Anairë. 

And then there is Maitimo.

Maitimo, who was held in Angband for long, long years; Maitimo, who hung from Thangorodrim for even longer; Maitimo, who spurred Nerdanel on this journey.

“Maitimo,” she whispers. 

It is the worst possible decision she could have made. It is the most hurtful, certainly, forcing him to tell his brothers, forcing this last burden on his shoulders. It is also, Nerdanel suspects, the most dangerous.

But she wed Fëanáro the fell and fey, and she loved him truly, with a love sharp and bright as a knife, and Nerdanel has never shrunk from doing what needs to be done.

“Maitimo,” she repeats, and lets Eärwen’s hand fall back against her own palm, and reaches for the bond thrumming beneath her skin.

Nerdanel does not need to do anything more than unblock the bond. If Anairë’s bond to Nolofinwë had been a thread and Eärwen’s to Angaráto a chain, this is a tunnel, deepened and hewn by Nerdanel’s desperation when Maitimo was captured. Nerdanel had blocked it off with stiff, high bricks, stacked high and double, triple, quadruple-layered, when she landed in Beleriand.

Now she lets the bricks fade away in her mind’s eye, stone turned to so much mist, and swoops through the bond to call Maitimo’s attention.

Mother?

Maitimo, says Nerdanel. She breathes, though she does not need it in this mental landscape. Oh, how this reunion hurts! Maitimo.

Am I dreaming?

It is night, Nerdanel tells him gently. The stars are high, and the wind is cold. It would be kinder to let you believe this to be a dream.

He swallows. But it is not.

I love you. You know this, yes?

Even after you abandoned us? he asks dryly. Ah, I don’t need these kind of lies from my memory of my mother!

If only I was a memory, says Nerdanel, and cannot help the smile, and cannot help the tears either. If only it is that simple. Do you tell me that you don’t understand complications? You, who gave up all that you could, to ensure peace between our people?

I understand complication. I also understand hate.

Hate! As if Nerdanel could ever hate him!

It’s good to see that you’re nowhere near to having children, Nerdanel tells him, for you surely don’t understand the least bit about being a parent yet.

Maitimo makes a strange noise, and- Nerdanel thinks- sits straight up in bed. So it takes her teasing him for her son to believe her to be herself, and not a figment of his imagination. It twinges a portion of Nerdanel’s heart; their departure had not been a kind one, and she’d said such things to all of them- Maitimo most of all- and Nerdanel doesn’t know what things he’s imagined of her over this long separation. 

If he’d believed her capable of hatred...

Mother?

Well, says Nerdanel, and chooses to be amused. It is good to speak to you again, my son.

You- you- how are you- he breaks off incoherently, then says, sharp as a honed knife, Are you in Beleriand?

You always were quite sharp.

Why?

Not how, Nerdanel notes, with quiet pride. As if the how matters now. If nothing else, she’s trained her son to ask the right questions.

Because I spent thirty years watching you hurt, Nerdanel says gently. Do you think I could sit quietly and let it happen? Ai, Maitimo, it seems that you’ve inherited your father’s penchant for underestimating all those he dislikes!

I don’t… dislike you.

No?

No, he says firmly. But- where are you? Are you planning to come to Himring?

Perhaps, says Nerdanel, and lets her laughter rise up their bond like a star-studded wind. I’ve some things to finish first. But if there’s time afterwards- I think I’d like nothing more than to see your home, and Makalaurë’s horses, and Carnistir’s lake, and Tyelkormo’s and Curufinwë’s fortress, and the Ambarussa’s hunting lands. 

You’ve done your homework, says Maitimo slowly.

Nerdanel reaches out, and wraps an arm around his, where there is no hand any longer. I love you so deeply, she whispers, it feels like my heart will turn to stone from the weight of it. Believe me, Maitimo: everything I’ve done is for you, and for your brothers. Everything is for the love I bear you.

And what, he asks, is everything?

Nerdanel casts her mind back to a century of planning, and pulls out the most important memories with a quick, deft hand, letting Maitimo see them all. 

No, he says, when he’s done.

No?

No. 

It is said implacably, and with all the surety of a granite stone rolling downhill. 

You cannot stop me, says Nerdanel, still gentle.

She feels the explosion of his rage like a firestorm, so hot she thinks it scrapes off the first layer of skin on her face. Anairë flinches, hard, and Eärwen almost shrieks, but Nerdanel only grits her teeth and bears through it.

I will not let you, says Maitimo, through the same gritted teeth.

Maitimo.

Do not make me stop you, he says, and it would sound like a plea in any other mouth, but not this one, not her beautiful son’s; in his it only sounds angry and angrier, and fierce as ever Fëanáro had been in the height of his glory. Do not make me do something I will regret.

Oh, but everyone always forgets about Nerdanel’s own temper.

Do you remember my amilessë, Maitimo? asks Nerdanel. She does not wait for his answer. My father named me for what he wished of me, and I wished it as well for such long years. But my mother named me for what she saw in my future, and it is what I am, deeper ever than my choices. Maitimo, my Maitimo: do you have it in you to stop an aparuivë?

For a moment there is no answer.

Then Nerdanel feels his fëa reach up, through her own, and seize the motion of her limbs from her. Another moment and he will reach her mind, and he will reach her face, and he will control her, as only one who has such a deep connection as the two of them have can manage.

Nerdanel wishes she were surprised, but she’s not: there had been a reason why Maitimo had been the last of the sons that Nerdanel wanted to call upon. His ruthlessness is borne not only of Fëanáro’s determination but also Nerdanel’s love, like a mirror reflecting on itself a hundred-thousand-thousand times over, concentrated into a beam sharp enough to cleave stone.

If Nerdanel had only her own strength, he could have managed it.

But Nerdanel is not alone, is she? 

She uses Anairë as a shield, and lets the first blow from her mind to his shock him into stillness, and then uses Eärwen as a barrier while she builds the barrier once again, blocking her from her son.

No, he says, and she gets the glimpse of stone, shocking-cold against bare feet, and then orders, rapped out in a clipped, short voice. No, no- do not dare- I will not-

You tried, Nerdanel says, and lets her anger go, so only the ashes, so only the blooms of her love remain. She knows Maitimo feels it as well; he sags, briefly, before stalking forwards towards the stables. You tried, my love. 

I will not lose you to madness, he whispers. 

Oh, Maitimo. She imagines brushing his hair from his face, or cupping it in her hands. Nerdanel imagines everything she will give up, if she can just do that, once, before she dies. You will never lose me to that. 

Is this not madness?

This is love, she tells him, and accepts the burden of his weight, of his grief, for a long, heartrending moment. That is all it has ever been.

I, he says. Mother. Please. Please. Do not-

Tell your brothers I love them. Nerdanel pauses, then, deliberately, laughs. Do not tell them that I did this for them. 

It will break their hearts, he agrees heavily.

It will inflate their brains, says Nerdanel tartly. And Eru only knows how large they’ve gotten without anyone to keep them under control.

Mother, says Maitimo, exasperated, and Nerdanel laughs once more.

I love you, my boy, she tells him, and lets him feel the force of that love: hot as Fëanáro’s own spirit, but wilder, but brighter, shining so that he will never be able to forget it. I will always love you. Goodbye, Maitimo.

She lifts her hand from Eärwen’s and Anairë’s, and collapses backwards, so her head thumps against the stone wall hard enough to hurt. Her heart feels so heavy, heavier than the entire sculpture she’d built at Alqualondë, and so light as well, lighter than the thinnest feather and the light running through its spokes. When she sits up again, the tears are frozen on her cheeks, and she is smiling, and it must be frightening; Anairë looks pale. Eärwen is even whiter.

Nerdanel can taste blood in the back of her throat.

“That’s that, then,” she says. “Maitimo is on his way here; we’ll have to move tomorrow morning. I suppose we ought to sleep now.”

…

(Aparuivë: inferno. Conflagaration. Firestorm. Unending, uncontrolled flame.

Here is the best lie that Nerdanel has ever told: she is any tamer than Fëanáro.)

…

“Did he just-”

“Yes.”

“Did she just-”

“Yes.”

“It’s madness. They’re all mad.”

“I mean,” says Anairë. “Yes?”

“Eru,” breathes Eärwen. “Am I glad they’re on our side. All nine of them.”

Nerdanel, face turned away from the other two, smiles, and lets sleep drag her deeper into its arms.

…

…

The next morning, they wake silently and move amongst each other quietly. Anairë’s limbs feel quivery, like muscle pushed a little too far too quickly.

“Pray, if you wish to,” says Nerdanel, right before they leave their little cave of safety. “We shall need every ounce of mercy that we can get.”

“Says the elf who can wring tears from stone,” mutters Eärwen.

Anairë inclines her head to Nerdanel, and turns to the shadowed corner that she’s claimed for herself. She kneels, and presses her hands to the stone, and lets herself think not of Varda’s stars or Manwë’s winds or the stone-cliffs of Aulë or the roaring waters of Ulmo.

Manwë is brother to Morgoth, and the other Vala shall follow him in silence and inaction. Nerdanel has said it before, and said it well: they cannot rely on the Valar’s mercy.

But Eru remains unknown to them all still, and at her heart, Anairë is a hopeful being.

She prays to him. To the spaces between the stars, and the cold unknown unexplored, and the darkness so deep it becomes light everlasting beyond it. She bends her mind fiercely to the task, until Anairë feels numb light spilling over her fingers and up her fëa like a benediction.

We, too, are your children, she says. I beseech you to remember this. We have not the gifts of the Ainur, but we had your blessing once: I beg of you to remember this today.

Perhaps it will not work. Perhaps Eru has stopped listening, ever since he first formed the world, and her prayers will never reach him. But Anairë is a hopeful being, is she not? She can hope for a brighter world than the one she knows to exist.

And anyhow, the weakness of her limbs has fled now.

…

“Ready?”

Eärwen’s hair is braided back in hunting-braids, a tradition from before ever reaching Aman, she says, and the black dye has faded enough to reveal silver strands underneath, like stars shining through a cloud-spangled sky. Nerdanel’s got enough knives on her body to act as a second layer of steel armor, beyond the functional one that she wears underneath.

Anairë’s hands are damp on wood and steel, but her blood is racing, and her teeth feel sharp enough to whet knives. 

“Together,” she says. “Together, or not at all.”

“Yes,” says Eärwen, and is echoed by Nerdanel, and echoed once more by Anairë, and then they step out into the light.

…

Down and up, each step well-known from two weeks of practice. Anairë does not hold her breath as they pass the invisible, unspoken boundary they haven’t crossed: she only lets her song of concealment and silence go softer and stronger. 

Down and down and down, and there are orcs here the number of which Anairë’s never seen before, and malevolence hanging in the very air, and Anairë’s hands flex on the wooden bow in her hand, flex and flex but do not aim. 

Not yet, she soothes the bloodthirst. Soon, soon, but not yet.

Nerdanel guides them past the first door, and into the second hallway, which- though it looks smaller- opens into a wider corridor. Then it’s a maze, one which Anairë memorizes; it’s her responsibility. She keeps the song strong on her lips, and does not let herself falter here, now, when all must be perfect. A hundred years of planning, and her people’s pain, and her son’s death: and now Anairë must make any of it, must make all of it, worth something.

Nerdanel takes the most direct route she can, while ensuring they aren’t seen. It’s rather easy; Morgoth’s throne room is in the center of the rabbit warren. It isn’t the getting in that’s difficult, but rather the escape.

At the throne room’s entrance, they pause for the briefest of moments. 

Anairë is the first to reach out, and grip Nerdanel’s wrist, and then Eärwen’s hand tightens on them both, cool and steadying. It is less than a moment. Anairë does not dare to even look at their faces, too afraid of losing her nerve. 

Then Nerdanel steps forwards, and throws the door opens, and starts forwards, her fëa shining so bright that it almost overcomes the brilliance of the Silmarils studding Morgoth’s brow. Anairë can hear a roar, and she sees the way that flame comes towards them: white-hot, a balrog spurred to fury and defense, and, deliberately, does not even let her footsteps slow; trusts Nerdanel to handle it.

Nerdanel’s sword spins in a white arc, flickering in the dim light, and the whip deflects. They move forward, the three of them, into the scorching heat surrounding the balrog, and the token-shields that Nerdanel’s crafted fizzle but hold firm. Anairë does not stop repeating the song, of obscurance, of unimportance, of darkness and secrecy; it is only Nerdanel who is visible right now. Then Nerdanel swings her sword just as they pass through the balrog’s vulnerable underbelly, and it falls with a screech.

I am Fëanáro’s wife, sings Nerdanel, with her head thrown back and her hair streaming like wildfire, black and red and black and red once more. I am your doom come alight once more.

It is a long throne-room, as narrated by the people who returned from death. It is a long throne-room, and the largest difficulty that they will have is to reach Morgoth before being stopped. It is a long throne-room, and it is Nerdanel who is the strongest of the three of them, and so she must carry them as far as she can.

Her armor is embedded with tokens of protection, and her song is fair and strong, but Anairë can see the tokens blazing out, too quickly, one after another, one after another, one after another-

And then the last one, in the center of her right arm’s vambrace, turns the color of ash, and Nerdanel spins to a halt.

“Morgoth,” says Nerdanel proudly. “You have taken from me my family, and you have taken from me my peace. I have come for weregild!”

“Weregild,” says Morgoth, for the first time since they first broke in. “You, Fëanáro’s wife. I thought him abandoned and spouse-less?”

Nerdanel’s lip curls. “There is no power in this world that would leave my children motherless.”

“Save death,” hisses Morgoth, and rises, and his hand extends like a flaming, giant meteor, and it comes down crashing on Nerdanel’s head.

Eärwen and Anairë roll to the side, in separate directions, as Nerdanel collapses.

Anairë keeps chanting the song under her breath, curls into a ball around her middle, lets her mind and body be subsumed by the knowledge that she’s unimportant. Only when she’s caught her breath does she rise. 

Nerdanel catches her gaze first: the crumpled form of her body, prone on the scarlet stone. Then, just beyond her, in the aftermath of Morgoth’s flame, is Eärwen, kneeling, shining hair catching and reflecting his terrible light. Her eyes glare up at Morgoth, glowing like beacons.

“Another elf,” says Morgoth, an awful smile spreading over his face. “I killed her- but you, you I shall keep, I think.”

Nerdanel might have retorted. 

Eärwen only sings.

Sings, as Anairë has never heard anyone sing before: Eärwen sings with all the power of her blood, with all the love that she has ever held of Varda, with all the ferocity that she has ever remembered of the time before reaching the light of the Trees, with all the desperation and the steadiness of the elf who survived the death of her people to find love for her family once more. Makalaurë is said to be the finest singer in Aman of his time. If ever anyone hears Eärwen’s song now, they will know her to be the finest singer of her time.

Nerdanel’s purpose had been to bring them as far as she can.

Eärwen’s is to distract them all, and her song does: as a gleaming thing, as a glinting thing, of fury and rage and the pain of her people, of pride everlasting and love unending, of the life that lasts even after death and the light found in the most terrible of shadows.

Morgoth and his lieutenants are frozen, held in place by the sheer power and the vibrancy of Eärwen’s visions. 

Anairë swallows, and moves.

The song is terrible and lovely, like a high, arching bird, spiraling through the air, dancing in the wind. Where Nerdanel’s had been as a plume of flame, Eärwen’s flares like a spray of water, icy and salty and cutting.

Rise up, she sings, and the thralls in the room stand a little taller than just a moment earlier. Eärwen’s song swells, a wave building to its height. Rise up, stand up, do what must be done!

Anairë lets it flow over her. Her own song is thoughtless, by now, but she is so close to the throne; she cannot be wind here, not within Morgoth’s domain, not when wind is Manwë’s power, so she murmurs things of the crackle of fire, of the tiniest licks of fire, those that hold no danger within them, only the promise of future violence. 

The song reaches the peak, and Eärwen’s power, impressive though it is, falters. Anairë can see Morgoth startle, his hand close into a fist. He rises. 

Eärwen’s song tinges with desperation. The power in it rises as well, but now Morgoth is expecting it, and he turns it back on Eärwen, and-

Oh, oh, oh, thinks Anairë. 

She’s not close enough. Not truly. The angle’s so bad. If she does it, if she tries now-

-Anairë hesitates in the moment when she must act-

-and Morgoth’s spell latches into place around Eärwen, forcing her into silence.

“A precious attempt,” he says, and reaches out, threading a hand through Eärwen’s braids. His voice sounds awfully, awfully, paternal, and kindly, and like a mentor giving advice. “You might have had better luck, little elf, if not for your anger.”

His hands close on the braid, forcing Eärwen’s face back, and Morgoth leans forwards to whisper in a voice that Anairë, too far, manages to hear: “I will enjoy breaking your spirit.”

Still, Anairë hesitates. 

For a moment, the malevolence of Angband stretches her spirit. She thinks of fleeing. She could manage it, too, likely; Anairë’s armed, and her spirit’s strong, and she’s the only one who knows the way out. 

Then she remembers her son.

Arakáno is dead, and this Vala killed him. 

Screw the plan, really. 

The old plan won’t work anyhow, and if they’re going to die uselessly in this forsaken pit, then she’ll not die by shrinking into the shadows. Anairë is a queen and a princess, and she is a woman as well: a mother and a wife and an aunt and a grandmother. She has pride, too, running in her veins alongside the blood, and rage, and grief, and all of it boils down to one very simple thing: she will not die quiet.

The arrow nocked in the wooden bow hewn and carved by her own hand flies, true and truer, and Morgoth’s crown flies off his head to clatter on the stone floor. 

He howls, and Anairë steps forwards, dropping the obscurance to stand before him.

She is no songstress, like Findis or Eärwen. She does not even have Nerdanel’s raw power. She is a wordsmith, trained and mastered; but that will be of no aid here. 

But before everything else, Anairë has always loved dances.

She knows how to dance. She is good at dancing. She loves dancing. She has no training in it, but Anairë knows dancing, knows all the older forms, knows all the newest styles. 

Perhaps it is a paltry thing, this shield that Anairë relies on to survive, but she has nothing left. 

The dance she slips into is a traditional one, buoyed by her determination rather than her anger. It begins simply enough, of the Lamps of old; and the shock of the image being portrayed now is enough to still Morgoth’s rage at least briefly. Anairë has never had to suffer from a lack of imagination, and she uses that to throw the Lamps ever-brighter, to make the mountains ever higher, to make the world ever colder and lovelier. 

Arms up, back extended, legs curving up, knives falling to the floor as she curls down in a controlled fall-

Once there had been a love between Manwë and Melkor. Once there had been understanding between them, the two most powerful, the two most beloved. Anairë cannot understand that understanding, but she knows it existed, and so she sings only of that love. 

Hair tumbling as a rainfall, neck twisting to meet the spine, toes arched-

And of course Melkor made mistakes. Of course he did; everyone does. But his mistakes were so cruelly punished, and so needlessly punished- when none other would have been. 

Do you remember?

Hands beneath the chin, shoulders thrown back-

Oh, do you remember?

Three steps forwards, and two steps back, and then four steps to the side. This dance ends, traditionally, with two fistfuls of crushed diamonds thrown into the air by the dancer, through the vision they’ve engendered, as their body spins gently to the floor. 

Anairë has no diamonds. 

She only has one thing in her sleeves now, and there is no guarantee of its success. But she hasn’t become who she is by overthinking things that don’t need overthinking: she must trust in their plans, as she’s never trusted before. 

Anairë throws the Vala-stopping tokens straight into the air, through the mist of the vision, at Morgoth. 

Even as the image shatters, Anairë slides seamlessly into the next dance, the most difficult of the Noldor: the Lílta Ilcaüva, the Dance of Gleaming Future, which does not rely on the dancer’s skill alone to craft the visions, but rather their imagination, and their innovation, and their intricacy as well. It is not a prophecy; it is just a dream given color and vibrancy by the power of the dancer. It is danced only very rarely, and only by the finest dancers in all of Tirion. Anairë herself has danced it only thrice in her life, all in private; once in front of her mother, and once in front of no other, and once in front of Nolofinwë, to tell him that she is pregnant with Findekáno. Even those dances have been closely-held secrets, because an untrained elleth dancing that dance would have caused too much of a stir.

Only the finest of dancers know the motions well enough to bring life to their visions. Only the finest of dancers know which curve of the wrist will heighten the watcher’s emotion, or diminish it, or draw them further into the dream.

Anairë is not the finest of dancers, but she’s got desperation and love like a shield and a shining sword in her palm, and she’ll make it enough.

In and out, a rolling twist of her waist to align her hips with her knees, and-

Manwë will forgive Melkor one day. They are brothers: Anairë knows brothers, and knows sons, and knows it will come. It might take a long time, but the Valar have those years. It matters not what Melkor does, for the forgiveness shall come inevitably. Unconditional is their love, and unconditional shall it remain.

Can you see? Oh, do you remember what used to be? Can you think of what can be?

There is no wind in Angband, so Anairë lets fire twist about her wrists instead, a winking flare of white and scarlet and gold. She is of the Noldor, and has wedded into a line of craftsmen without compare, and she can control this little fire without difficulty: this flame of Morgoth’s, which shall never go out, for Manwë shall forgive Melkor, this Anairë knows, this Anairë can swear-

Remember, if you can! Remember, if you dare!

And would that not be a lovely world, where Melkor rules with Manwë by his side, fierce and ferocious and fell and fey and grand as none else can dream? Would that not be the best future?

Two rolls, and the clatter of wooden coins on the floor around her, and the visions are bright, bright, bright-

Anairë’s hand closes on Morgoth’s crown, as she’s been approaching since beginning the dance, and the power in the Silmarils almost blazes up her mind, almost makes her stumble. She’s grateful- more than she can ever put into words- that Nerdanel had insisted that they practice their drills until they became more than thought and pure instinct, because that’s all that keeps the visions going. 

Remember! Remember!

Dream of a better life! Awake, and dream, and remember it!

And here, now, Anairë feels the the briefest of hesitances. 

(She’s spent years dreaming about Morgoth’s dearest wishes. She’s spent years thinking of the best way to have her vengeance on him. She’s spent years wanting it with deliberate, savage fury. 

Walking into a throne room that would look like Ilmarin remade if Ilmarin were to lie underground, Anairë had known exactly what Morgoth wanted.)

It is a cruel thing that she will do. It is hurtful. The vision she has woven around Morgoth holds him in thrall, because he had told the truth to Eärwen: without her anger pricking him into awareness, he would not have been able to resist. Anairë’s never minded taking lessons to heart if she knows them to be helpful, not even if they come from the worst of mentors. The vision she has crafted is all of Morgoth’s deepest desires, given life and hue and depth until it appears irresistible. To destroy it is so deliberately is, undeniably, cruel.

Anairë does not want to think she’s a cruel being.

She’s never wanted to be called that. But Morgoth’s forces killed Arakáno. Morgoth hung Maitimo from a cliff for thirty years. Morgoth slew Finwë and began this entire mad venture.

Anairë is hopeful and kind and loving. She is also ruthless and vicious and unforgiving: and while she can forgive some things, hopefully, eventually- she can never never never forgive the death of her youngest child. 

She looks up at Morgoth, and then to Eärwen, still caught in his power, and takes the monster within her that she’s spent years caressing and cajoling and silencing, the monster that she’s fed stories of vengeance, the monster that burst into life with Arak á no’s death: and lets it out.

One breath in, one breath out, and she lets the power of the Silmarils sing out from her voice, for the first time since walking into Angband, loud and louder and louder still, calling as one calls the dead:

REMEMBER!

The dream of Melkor and Manwë, shining side-by-side, collapses to white-hot embers, collapses to ashes and dust. Morgoth screams so loudly that Anairë falls to her knees, ears bleeding. She lifts her head just in time to see him starting towards her, vibrating with fury, shaking with hatred, and Anairë rolls to the side, praying the tokens will act.

She has no shields left, now, other than trust.

…

…

(“I will come with you to Beleriand,” Eärwen had said, hand heavy on the token that could spell both war and freedom and death. “But you’ll have to remake these.”

“No,” Nerdanel had replied immediately.

“Why?” Anairë had asked. Then, rethinking her question: “How do you want it remade?”

“I won’t have us becoming needless killers. Our path is to Angamando, and to Morgoth, and no other. Remake these so they need all three of us to activate them. Not one, and not two: but all three. So we all make the decision to kill, and none of us is blameless, just as none of us is to blame.”)

…

(“Together,” Anairë had said, before they walked into Angband. “Together, or not at all.”)

…

Eärwen is frozen by Morgoth’s own power. 

This is her fate, always: to watch those she loves die, to remain behind and pick up the pieces. Nerdanel at least is not aware of what is happening. Anairë shall die, too, now, silently, bitterly. But Eärwen is frozen and held, watching and pained and furious. 

They’d assumed Morgoth would strike Eärwen down, as he’d struck Nerdanel. Of course he wouldn’t, not in hindsight; why would he behave the same? Why would things ever be so simple?

Morgoth yanks her head back by the braid, and Eärwen would weep for the sharp, unexpected pain. 

Would weep, if not for the arrow that streaks through the air and knocks his crown off his head.

Anairë, thinks Eärwen, hopelessly, exhausted, drained. Oh, dear heart. Oh, sister-of-my-soul. I cannot save you. I wished for- I wished to- I would have-

She cannot even speak now.

But Anairë knocks Morgoth’s crown to the floor, and she does not sing out, nor follow the plan. Instead, she sinks into the opening motions of… a dance?

It takes Eärwen a long time to recognize it: it’s an old dance, so old that it’s common to both the Teleri and the Noldor, taught to them by Nessa while on the Great Journey. A dance of the oldest years, before even the Trees were formed, when the Lamps still shone on the land and the Valar still dwelt in Middle-Earth.

The visions that Anairë shows are so breathtaking that Eärwen finds herself weeping, soundless and motionless: for all that was lost, and forgotten, and never regained. The world that Anairë constructs is a shining one, unmarred and perfect, with no room for grief, with no space for discontent. 

Eärwen had never known Anairë to be able to dance like this.

For Anairë shatters her own visions by throwing the tokens straight at Morgoth’s face, and then slides into the stance of a dance when Eärwen knows no dance opens like that, which means she’s-

Eärwen’s breath would catch, if she could breathe in anything more than the shallowest of motions.

The Lílta Ilcaüva is a dance the likes of which Eärwen’s seen danced a sum total of five times in her life: three in Tirion, where the Noldor assuredly enjoy the dance more than the Teleri or the Vanyar; once in Alqualondë and once in Vanyamar. Even masters of dance don’t do it without years of practice; they spend months on the meditation alone.

And here is Anairë, dancing, with a fervor and a skill that Eärwen’s never seen before: beautiful, earthshatteringly beautiful. Here is Anairë: dancing, and succeeding in dancing the Lílta Ilcaüva.

Her steps flow over the stone of Angband’s throne room like liquid fire. The visions of Morgoth’s rule over Arda glow bright. Everyone watching is transfixed, because the Lílta Ilcaüva is one of very few dances crafted by the elves that yet holds all the majesty and all the power of the Valar’s creations.

Eärwen does not let herself get lost in the visions. Instead, she watches Anairë, bird-boned Anairë, stone-hearted Anairë, who dances in ever-tightening spirals over to the crown she knocked off Morgoth’s own head. Fire-eyed Anairë, the first elf to hold the Silmarils since Morgoth stole them. 

Anairë, queen and woman and friend and mother: who looks straight into Eärwen’s eyes as she speaks for the first time since entering Angband, and lets the power of the Silmarils strengthen it far beyond what any of them could have managed alone, and lets it become a scream high and furious enough to silence everyone within the room.

…

Remember, Anairë had said. 

Eärwen feels the vestiges of Nerdanel wake, called back by Anairë’s scream, and the blaze of the tokens as she activates them from her end. She feels the threads of Anairë’s own desperation, as she activates them from her own end. Eärwen, frozen by Morgoth’s own power, frozen, feels her heart tighten. Feels herself scream, soundless, motionless, helpless. 

They need all three, and Eärwen cannot move, and Eärwen must, or else the tokens are but coins of wood and nothing more.

I will save you, dear heart.

Eärwen had sworn.

Not by any power higher than herself, but Eärwen has never needed someone else to hold her to her word when it becomes necessary. Her choices are her own: her decisions are ever her own. 

And she’s always been stronger than she knows.

Eärwen could not have done anything if Morgoth had been any less focused on Anairë and his wrath. Even now she cannot do much of anything; her fingers are so numb-

But muscle does not need to be felt to know it is there, and Eärwen is the Swan-Princess of Alqualondë and the Pearl-Queen of Tirion, and she forces her arm to move, move, one handspan and then two, until it brushes the tokens within her own pocket.

Remember, she commands of the spells sung into it that lie in quiescence. Remember what you are. Remember what you were made to be.

And the tokens built to stop him, to silence him, to confuse and confound him: they come to life.

Morgoth falters as light blazes up around him, and Anairë ducks forwards, unhesitating, to drag Eärwen away. The further they get, the more control Eärwen has over her limbs; by the time they reach Nerdanel’s collapsed form, she’s almost able to walk properly. Eärwen winces, as Morgoth starts to scream, high and horrible and ear-shattering, and bats aside one of the balrogs that dares to move after Anairë and Eärwen, before starting to shred another balrog to pieces with hands that glow like forgefire.

But where Eärwen pauses, Anairë doesn’t. She swiftly scoops Nerdanel into her arms- it looks ridiculous, but her arms aren’t trembling, and it’s quite clear that the Silmarils give her a strength she would not be able to manage alone- and then, because they still have not finished their mission, they run.

…

(Nerdanel marched in for the fury of her husband’s memory and her children’s pain. Eärwen sang for the thralls of Angband to rise up against their masters. Anairë danced for Morgoth to remember his past.

All of this is true.)

(But here is more truth:

Nerdanel marched more than three-quarters the length of the throne room, carried onwards by the memory of her grief, and when she fell before Morgoth’s might her fall served as nothing more than the distraction it was supposed to be. Eärwen sang the words rise up, and did not mean it simply for the thralls of Angband: Morgoth rose to meet her, and approached her, and he’s never offered anyone that kind of an honor that was not a Maia, coming into a position that allowed Anaire to knock his crown to the floor and retrieve it. Anairë danced a dance that asked everyone to remember, and it ensnared Morgoth for long minutes, and it allowed her to get the crown, yes, but also: she sang to remember, and that song called Nerdanel back from her unconsciousness.)

…

Formenos had shields the likes of which protected it from the worst of Morgoth’s powers. Nerdanel has those same shields on her skin, now, keeping her from death if not from injury. Morgoth’s power had cut her down, and Nerdanel had fallen with it, but not as utterly as it would have done to any other elf. 

Morgoth really should have been more careful with his secrets.

…

Anairë leads them up and out, and her song is more of a shout than a true melody, graceless and barely utilitarian; Eärwen can barely hear it over the ringing in her ears from Morgoth’s screams.

Eärwen saves her breath for when they finally make it out.

The first sip of fresh air is a balm on her lungs. The second feels like a revelation. The third brings reason to her mind.

“No,” she says, digging her feet in, and drags Anairë over to a loose overhang. 

It’s shadowy and hidden between two carts, and they cannot go much further with Nerdanel still as weak as she is. If they push themselves now, then Morgoth might realize it and follow, and they need him to remain in Angband for the final piece to fall into place.

Wake-Nerdanel-up, she gestures quickly, through hand signals. Recover-first-later-escape.

Anairë’s eyes narrow, and then she nods, before laying Nerdanel out in the sparse space. You-heal?

Eärwen grimaces, but bends over Nerdanel. She can scarcely hear herself; the healing will not be very good. The very air of Angband does not lend itself to such things as healing or laughter or kindness, and Eärwen doesn’t dare to call upon such things with great force either, for fear that she’ll call upon the attention of some errant Maia hanging too close. 

She’ll have to get creative, then.

So Eärwen sings of fire- the fire of a sun’s rays, spreading over the surface of Arda. She sings of darkness- of the darkness in Makalaurë’s hair, in Carnistir’s hair, cold as night and ever-welcome. She reaches for Nerdanel’s fëa and reminds her of Maitimo’s rage, of the unforgiving nature of their family, of the pride and the hate and the hand ever-reaching higher. 

There is one very, very good way of working Nerdanel up: to insult her family to her face, and stand back to watch the fireworks explode over the unwary bystanders.

And in a land where Eärwen cannot sing of love, she thinks that anger is a good substitute indeed.

…

Nerdanel recovers slowly, in fits and bursts over the next minutes. She’d survived the full force of Morgoth’s powers in the same manner that Formenos had: through Fëanáro’s shields, which had ensured it hadn’t turned to ash and dust, and which had, now, anchored to Nerdanel’s skin, saved her from death. Even now, her recovery is remarkable; she swallows the miruvórë that Eärwen forces down her throat after only a few minutes, and her cheeks grow less sallow almost immediately after that. 

But it isn’t quick enough.

Anairë returns a few minutes after that, a scraggly bunch of athelas tight in her fist that she shoves into Nerdanel’s mouth.

“We must move,” she breathes into Eärwen’s ear. “Quickly. The mobilization that’s happening now- there’s confusion, but if that fades-”

“We need her to activate the fire-tokens,” Eärwen replies. “Two of us aren’t enough. Let her recover enough to walk, Anairë.”

“I just-”

“Patience,” says Eärwen firmly. “It has brought us this far.”

Anairë sags, a little. “I find myself a little too worked up,” she whispers. “I didn’t- he wasn’t in position. I had to act. And the only thing I could think of doing was to dance.”

“It was the loveliest dance I’ve ever seen,” Eärwen tells her, completely truthful. “And the most frightening.”

The corner of Anairë’s mouth quirks up, into a smile, though her eyes remain focused. “How much longer?”

“Not much,” says Nerdanel, and levers herself upright with a groan. She leans forwards and starts massaging her legs, hissing out through her teeth. Her hair spills down over her shoulders, and in the dullness of Angband it looks as red as its natural color. “What happened after he knocked me out?”

“Not here,” says Anairë. “Give it until-”

Eärwen nudges Nerdanel to her feet. Before they leave the little cocoon, she turns to Nerdanel, and she whispers, “Anairë danced.”

Nerdanel sputters to a halt, and Anairë huffs irritably, and Eärwen grins; and they set off to escape Angband properly.

…

They stop once they’ve left the valley, right where the downward curve of the hill flattens out, and split up. This is the true battlefield: the most danger they’ve been in since walking out of the Fen of Serech, not including, of course, walking into Morgoth’s throne room with every plan to steal the most powerful Vala’s most favored items. But this is the battlefield that they’ve chosen, seeded thrice-over, and that’s the only advantage that Eärwen can think of right now.

Eärwen walks to the west- she’s supposed to go to the south, but that’s the closest position from their exit out of the valley, and Nerdanel’s still shaky enough on her legs to convince Eärwen to switch their places.

So: Anairë to the east, and Eärwen to the west, and Nerdanel to the south as a triangle, stabilized and focused by the fact that the centroid of that triangle is the entrance to Angband.

It isn’t so much that they’re separated and defenseless that represents the danger now: rather, it’s what they’re doing which can kill them. 

In the time before Fëanáro’s flight, when Morgoth was Melkor and attempted to seduce Fëanáro to his side, he had given Fëanáro a text of elven physiology. Any other elf might have destroyed the information. Fëanáro, who- like his wife, like his brother’s wife- had never hesitated to divorce information from their source, even unto Morgoth himself, had not burned any of it.

That text had saved untold lives on the Helcaraxë. 

That text had saved Maitimo’s life, after Findekáno’s rescue. 

And that text had also written out Morgoth’s destruction.

In Beleriand, there are storms the likes of which Aman has never seen, and they’re even fiercer in the mountains. Thunder roars and lightning crashes and the world is lit up into electrum and the briefest flashes of light: and in the body of every elf, every last one, there is a similar lightning storm. Morgoth had stated in that book, baldly, that the easiest way to stop an elf in their tracks was to hijack that lightning storm, and flood them with too much lightning.

In Formenos, Fëanáro had spent decades building up shields the likes of which nobody else had ever considered. He’d woven experimental shields beneath the obvious ones; it was one of those experimental shields that saved his sons’ lives as they escaped. It was one of those shields that managed to stand against Morgoth and Ungoliant after they’d eaten the Valar-forsaken Trees.

They’d both fled Aman immediately after, and Eärwen strongly suspects that their flight had been spurred on by fear of Fëanáro as much as the other Valar. 

But Morgoth had fled Aman too quickly- Fëanáro still had that ability to stop him, didn’t he? And anyone that Fëanáro taught would also have that ability. Had there been more time- had Fëanáro been calmer, or slower- the elves might have discovered that information, and they might have survived everything. But there hadn’t been any time, not by the end of it, not through the confusion of Fëanáro’s flight and the Kinslaying and the return of Arafinwë’s people and all the blame and hurt and grief.

Formenos lay in ruins, and Fëanáro died before he could recover himself enough to come up with a proper plan to assault Morgoth and use the tools he had, and his son and heir was tortured inside of Angband for years on end, long enough to assure Morgoth that the shield in Formenos was an accident rather than a part and parcel of war.

Without Nerdanel, it might well have been.

But Nerdanel had gone to Formenos, and she’d studied the stones as only a stone-carver could, and she’d then snuck into the vault that Morgoth ravaged, and she’d retrieved the scraps of Fëanáro’s notes to understand what he’d done. 

Here is what Eärwen knows: if one harnesses lightning properly, it can stop an elf in their tracks. The Ainur are not so different from the Eldar. When Morgoth was Melkor, the people of Alqualondë rioted time and again because when he walked on the sand he turned it to glass. In Vanyamar, they sing of Melkor’s blood of flame. In Tirion, the Lílta Ruinë, the Fire-Dance, has its roots in the dance that Nessa taught them to worship Melkor.

Fire is Morgoth’s domain as the wind is Manwë’s. Fire and flame and fury: and if the Ainur are not so different from the Eldar, they are different enough to have an element to which they belong. If it is not lightning, it does not matter. 

They cannot kill him, but they can stop him, and that’s what matters.

Fire is Morgoth’s domain, and fire is therefore the element to which Morgoth is most attuned. Fire is what he is most sensitive to.

And sensitivity, used correctly, interpreted properly, is nothing less than a weakness.

For the past weeks, Eärwen and Anairë and Nerdanel have sown tokens of fire into the earth. These are not the same ones that stopped Morgoth in his tracks- those are more powerful, and more direct, and likely to be the things that will frighten any other Vala who hears of the innovation. These are simply tokens that call upon the elements around them; they act as conduits, activated by Eärwen’s song, strengthened by the rituals that Nerdanel’s spent the past hundred years perfecting.

Kneeling on the grass, Eärwen starts to sing.

She cannot hear Anairë or Nerdanel yet; it will take some time before they reach that level. For now, it’s just the single plume of fire that comes from the token embedded beneath the grass, hot enough to blister Eärwen’s wrists. 

She swallows. Then she drops her voice deeper- not quite an octave- and sings again, softly and gently and coaxing, and the fire grows higher. But it isn’t that which interests Eärwen: she focuses instead on the roots underneath, where the fire spreads tiny fingers outwards outwards outwards, spurred onwards by Eärwen’s exhortations, and just manages to touch the nearest token.

A second plume of fire comes from that one, blazing blue and then cooling to a yellow so insubstantial it would be easily tripped over if not for the heat coming from it. 

Eärwen swallows, again, through a dry mouth. They’ve forgotten to take the water canisters from Nerdanel. it’s a rookie mistake, one that their children would never have made. The third flare takes Eärwen by surprise- it’s white, and underneath the shining sun it looks alternating silver and gold, like Artanis’ lovely hair.

Distantly, Eärwen thinks that the distraction and dizziness is not a good thing. But they’ve spent too long practicing this; she can’t stop now. She doesn’t know if she could stop even if she wished it.

She hums the last part of the song, and watches the three flares connect in a triangle of fire, with Eärwen herself at the center. Hands clenching, Eärwen sings louder and louder still, lets the vision of the fire carry her onwards: it’s beautiful. It’s so beautiful, pale as the stars, shining as the stars, and Eärwen loves starfire as only a Teleri can love it. It’s so beautiful that she can even forget her own pain and discomfort, lost in blue and red and white and gold and brilliance so lovely it hurts to see, even as she cannot look away.

A triangle.

As Fëanáro once was, with Nolofinwë and Arafinwë. Eärwen swallows, once more, and the tears in her eyes almost eclipse the flame, blurring beyond recognition. As I once was, with my brothers. 

As we never will be again.

When she opens her eyes again, Eärwen’s hands are cold.

She is Teleri, of Alqualondë’s sands and Olwë’s pearl-palaces, of the salted fish and the high seas and the twilight sky. She opens her eyes, and her grief is a raging river within her breast, unstoppable and sloppy, and the flame hot and angry ringing her is a fierce, deep, actinic blue.

Over the crackle of grass and the hiss of flame, Eärwen hears Nerdanel’s voice- a high, sweet song- and Anairë’s, further away, shriller and angrier. She squints, looking through the fire, into the valley below.

The fire is traveling swiftly. 

There are three portions: the blue one is Eärwen, and she suspects the white to be Anairë’s glinting silver and gold, and the cooler red to be Nerdanel, still recovering from Morgoth’s actions. The fire spills over the lip of the valley and past the guardtowers, too quick to be stopped, too hot to do anything other than kill everyone in its path.

It reaches the gates, and licks at the wood and stone for long minutes, long enough for Eärwen’s breath to grow short. If it doesn’t work…

But then something gives way- perhaps a hinge, perhaps a pylon, perhaps some thinner portion of the construction- and there’s a roar the likes of which Eärwen’s never heard before, deep and cracking and reverberating through her chest, and the fire surges high with savage triumph. 

Angband has been breached.

The fire will not stop- it’s a self-sustaining cycle, and it will last all the longer with the more bodies it consumes. Once it reaches Morgoth- and it will, because fire shall ever return to its master- 

It will be as a lightning strike to an elf.

Eärwen ducks away swiftly, underneath and between the plumes of fire, extricating herself as gracefully as she can manage while her legs feel like jelly and her head still throbs. 

She heads east, then south, so she finds Nerdanel, on her knees and looking like she’s managing even that only by the dregs of her strength. She doesn’t react, not even when Eärwen pulls her arm over her own shoulder and drags them both upright.

But with the physical touch, Eärwen feels the sudden snapping link of ósanwë.

What is your amilessë, Eärwen?

My amilessë?

Your ataressë is Eärwen, yes? Nerdanel doesn’t sound very patient, but then, she never does. What did your mother name you?

Does it matter?

Yes.

Avahaira. Eärwen feels her distaste at the very name coloring her thoughts, and she’s too exhausted to try to control the emotion. She says she did not see anything when she birthed me, but rather only felt the same kind of grief she felt when Elwë left them. The grief of separation, and the grief of longing, and the grief of- well- distance.

(Avahaira refers to the remote places, the far-off places; it indicates those places that are forbidden. To name a daughter that name while leaving Endórë, before ever seeing the blessed isle of Aman: it had been yet another warning that made the Teleri- already hesitant- cold and wary, and happier by far to settle at Alqualondë than Tirion. But it was after that, over the long years in Aman’s comfort and joy, that Eärwen’s name had come to mean a curse to her specifically- for it meant something forbidden and far away and griefstricken, and why would those who had everything they wished for go somewhere forbidden?

Eärwen is a name of little substance. Sea-maiden; as remarkless a name as Olwë could find. It’s a running joke in their family that Olwë is terrible at naming children, but it doesn’t matter- he’d given Eärwen the choice of making the name her own, when her mother had given her only a burden.

It’s why she chose it; it’s why she chose, for each of her children, a name unremarkable and wide-ranging and simple as she could manage.)

Nerdanel’s surprise is a faint thing, like the blush on a courtier’s cheek; made more obvious by its presence than its strength. That is a cruel name for a child.

Hence why I don’t go by it.

I don’t either, says Nerdanel wryly. 

You mentioned it earlier. When you spoke with Maitimo.

Aparuivë, says Nerdanel. She inhales sharply when her foot catches on a root and they nearly tumble, but then Eärwen manages to get her feet under her and stabilize them both. Wildfire. Inferno. She snorts. I thought it referred to Fëanáro, for so many years. Now… I think it might have been this. She breathes in slowly, and then pulls away from Eärwen, stumbling for a few feet before walking properly. A fire so wild it burned Morgoth himself!

I thought mine referred to Tirion, Eärwen replies. Well. It might well have meant Aman. I wondered- when Arafinwë left Alqualondë- if I ought not to have followed him. If that was my destiny.

Then you followed your children, even after your husband regained your senses. Nerdanel makes a sound from the back of her throat, and it’s both derisive and sardonic. It’s why I couldn’t stand you for so long, you know? Why was Arafinwë the one to get all the sense in the family?

Now I know you’re not alright.

For Nerdanel to be saying such things… either she’s on the verge of death, she’s struck her head badly, or Morgoth laid a spell on her. 

“No,” says Nerdanel aloud, voice cracking. She grimaces at it, rubbing her throat, before sighing.  “I’m- I should’ve said it before. Blaming you for not suffering was unfair. Particularly when your brothers died. When your people died.” Her lips twist. “I don’t like being unfair.”

Of course she doesn’t, and of course that’s the only reason to apologize. 

Nerdanel’s wiser than her family and kinder than them- slower to temper, slower to perceive threats or insults- but that isn’t saying much, not in the larger scheme of things. Not when her family is made up of the bloodiest, most infuriating individuals in all of Arda.

Eärwen realizes, suddenly, that she’s still got that mental link to Nerdanel, and she’s probably revealed a good amount of her aggravation and anger to her, when they don’t have the time or energy to properly fight.

But Nerdanel only smiles at Eärwen, less a smile and more teeth bared, but Eärwen pays attention to the loose set of her shoulders- Nerdanel’s a sculptor, and she holds her anger in her muscles and not her face- and there’s no honest anger there.

“I know what they are,” says Nerdanel. “I know what we are; I always have. Fëanáro would not have wed me if I were anyone other than what I am. He would not have loved me if I were any less.”

Eärwen’s throat hurts. This is not the time for this conversation, but Nerdanel doesn’t look like she’s going to wait. “I am not less than you.”

“No,” says Nerdanel thoughtfully. “You are not. I once thought you were: you, who had everything she ever wished for, princess and then queen and beloved by so many, who never had to fight for a single thing in her life. I could respect Anairë- she’d lost dance, as she’s told every star in the sky- but you? What had you had, that you’d not had given to you?”

“My uncle,” says Eärwen, flatly, to hide the growing lump in her throat. Where, by all the Valar, is Anairë? “Ages before ever you were a light in your parents’ eyes. What did you lose, Nerdanel, then, if you’re so unloved? You had a mother, a father, a sister- Fëanáro- yes, Fëanáro- and seven sons.”

“It wasn’t loss that I was looking for,” says Nerdanel. “Not then, at least.” Which is at least truthful, because she’s certainly been looking and feeling viciously vindictively jealous of all that Eärwen’s had over the past century that Nerdanel’s lost. “I was looking for fight.” The faintest of smiles flickers over Nerdanel’s face. “And I never could see it.”

Eärwen doesn’t know whether it’s the truthfulness or the smile that washes away her anger. But it does, and she’s so tired, and without her anger to sustain her, she only feels like she could fall on the stone and grass beneath her feet and sleep for a thousand years.

“If someone ever shouts at me,” Eärwen tells Nerdanel, softly, “I stop listening to them. Once the shouting begins, I am done. So if that’s your definition of a spine or a person’s strength, then you ought to stop looking for it in me.”

“Which is why I said I thought it, not think it.” Nerdanel shrugs, then turns unerringly to where Anairë’s coming towards them. “And also why I apologized.”

Eärwen sighs. There’s no use to any of this. Nerdanel’s not going to change who she is, at her core, and Eärwen certainly doesn’t have the patience or the will to teach her to. And anyhow, Anairë’s here; they just need to find a place to stay safe for the next few days until Maitimo and his men come to pick them up. 

Then Anairë’s next to them. She’s got ash speckling her dark hair, and her hands are tight on the Silmarils, the iron crown a bare spot of darkness between the Silmarils’ glow. She doesn’t look as bad as either Eärwen feels or Nerdanel appears- perhaps it’s because she wasn’t struck down by Morgoth, or because the Silmarils themselves are aiding her- Eärwen remembers the flood of white fire from the opposite end of the valley, almost dwarfing Eärwen and Nerdanel’s own.

Perhaps it’s the Silmarils, but Eärwen doesn’t think it is.

Anairë’s not the kind of person to burn bright or burn fiercely, but she’s the kind of person whose flame will never go out, whose strength is not in its ferocity but in its steadiness.

Pushed to the brink, little wonder that she’s got more left to her than either Eärwen or Nerdanel.

“Nerdanel,” she says, eyes bright as stars. “Eärwen.” She reaches out, and her hand clamps on Eärwen’s wrist, on Nerdanel’s elbow, and drags them both into an embrace. Into their ears, she breathes, “We did it.”

When she releases them, Nerdanel laughs, loud and high. Eärwen blinks, once and twice and thrice, and then sinks to her knees, swamped by such relief that her knees go weak. They’ve done it. They’ve pulled it off: the wildest and maddest venture in all of Arda.

(To be fair, Fëanáro’s flight would have been the madder adventure, but he hadn’t actively planned to sneak into Angband with two elves at his back and nobody else in all of Arda aware of his actions.)

Eärwen looks up at Anairë, and beams, and says, “It’s over, now.”

She’s expecting Anairë to smile back. She’s expecting Anairë to do many things, the least of which is smile back.

But the laughter fades from Anairë’s face, replaced with the same expression she’d had in Alqualondë when trying to hide the boats: guilt, masked with indifference, and discomfort, and fear. 

“Anairë,” says Eärwen slowly.

Nerdanel realizes that something’s happening, and turns to look at them both. She’s not frowning, not yet, and it’s that which calms Eärwen- the fact that Nerdanel doesn’t know what’s happening either, there’s no conspiracy building up around Eärwen.

“We stopped Morgoth,” says Anairë. She lifts the hand not holding the Silmarils to gesture to the field of fire that they’ve just escaped. “But how long do you think this will hold him? A hundred years, a thousand- ten thousand- we’ll still be alive then, and knowing our children… they will be as well, and leading the army against him.”

“We knew that when we started,” says Nerdanel coolly.

Anairë’s free hand clenches into a fist. “I’ve been thinking about that. We cannot stop him. Not forever. I know that. But… we also know who can.”

“No,” says Eärwen, realization dawning.

“It’s the only choice we have!”

“Be reasonable!” snaps Eärwen.

“I am,” replies Anairë. “I am. Don’t you think I’ve thought about this? We don’t have a choice. We have to do this.”

“Anairë,” says Nerdanel, interposing herself between them, voice as soft as she can make it, “what do you want to do?”

“The Eldar can never stop a Vala,” says Anairë, looking up into Nerdanel’s eyes. “Only a Vala can do that.”

“But the Valar are in-” Nerdanel looks between Eärwen and Anairë, and goes white. “No.”

“We wanted to end this.” Anairë lifts her chin. “Which means we have to do what must be done.”

“And return to Aman,” says Eärwen, staggering over to a tree to slide down it. She isn’t certain when she stood up, nor when she decided she needed to sit down again, but her head really, really hurts. “Which we left.”

Anairë closes her eyes, and then opens them again, and they’re large, and shimmering, and backlit from the Silmarils. She’s never looked lovelier to Eärwen, not even in the light of the Trees. Determination and resolve suits her narrow face. 

“Yes,” she says.