Manwë's (Not So) Great Idea

Disclaimer: I have never been, am not, and will never be the great Professor Tolkien. So it should be obvious that I own nothing recognizable.

Some time in the beginning of the creation of Arda...

"Manwë! Come help me with this!" Melkor had started another fire, and was in the process of boiling away one of Ulmo's favorite lakes. Ulmo was trying to catch the water vapor, but it was much harder to do without Manwë. Manwë rushed over and helped Ulmo pile his former lake into a tall nimbocumulus cloud, which almost immediately began dumping rain on the parched, empty basin.

Ulmo sighed wearily. "That was one of my finest," he said regretfully. Yavanna, who was passing by with a few sheets of concept art for her plants, patted him comfortingly on the shoulder.

Suddenly another alarm went off, quickly followed by another. Ulmo looked slightly confused, but rushed off all the same. "He has boiled it and frozen the vapor!" he shouted back to Manwë, who was following as quickly as was proper for the High King of Arda. When they arrived at the scene, they were greeted by a strange sight. The pond was gone, that much was obvious, but all the land around it for miles was covered with a strange white powder. Ulmo picked up a handful of it. "It is still water," he said. "But it is very cold. It is almost as though he has made his ice, but pounded it into the smallest fragments imaginable."

Manwë sent an experimental gust of wind at a tall mound of the strange water. It exploded with a puff and a shower of white. Then the Lord of the Breath of Arda assumed a wicked expression his brother in the thought of Iluvatar would have been proud of. Whipping up a pile of the stuff, he expertly dropped it onto Ulmo's majestic head. Ulmo spluttered and glared at his lord, then scooped up two large handfuls and tossed them straight into Manwë's face.

Caught by surprise, the second shot Manwë had been starting on went wide. He was rewarded with another armful of the strange white substance down the neck of his robe. Ulmo was about to add another handful when a voice interrupted them. "What in Arda are you two doing?" Varda asked. Ulmo and Manwë glanced at each other, then simultaneously lobbed everything they were holding at her.

The Star-Kindler stood there shocked, small white clumps drifting down her face and robes. Ulmo and Manwë laughed heartily, until an irate Varda directed the light of a few of her stars at the ground around them. White disappeared as the heat liquefied the strange substance. Manwë and Ulmo sighed. Games with the material, which Ulmo had dubbed "snow," were cut off for quite a time. After all, one has little time for play when there is an extremely powerful Dark Lord to be dealt with.

Several thousand years later...

However, several thousand years later, the Valar had nothing to do. There were no feuds involving reborn Kinslayers to deal with; and although there was an evil Maia at work in the east of the Outer Lands, he was being dealt with in due course. Finally Manwë had an idea. He called together the Valar and proposed it to them. The torrent of protest was enormous.

"Such a plan is bound to end in disaster!"

"Manwe, what are you thinking?"

"Varda, convince him that this is lunacy!"

"Yavanna, that is an insult to Isil. Manwë, you must realize that your idea is simply dripping with ways to end in darkness, fire, ruin, and death."

"Not at all, my dear. I believe it is the perfect way to relieve our boredom," Manwë replied, his voice as cool as one of his own mountain breezes.

Despite a great deal of opposition, Manwë was the High King of Arda and could use his authority. So the discussion ended with Tulkas, Nàmo, Varda, and Manwë meeting at the Walls of the World. They managed to find Eärendil just coming in from one of his flights. With a bit of persuasion which may or may not have involved a few threats based on one or two interesting woven histories in the Halls, Eärendil was convinced that it was in his best interests to get his ship into the air again. After a few minutes, he came back down.

"He wants to know what benefit there will be for him in this," he reported.

Manwë thought a bit, then said, "He can watch us looking like a pack of fourteen irresponsible elf children. Also, he can stretch his legs again."

Eärendil flew up, came down, and replied, "He agrees."

Manwë and Tulkas nodded and tugged open a large iron door in the walls, jumping back quickly to prevent a desperate attack from the outside. A large, dark shadow emerged slowly from the void beyond. Manwë coughed slightly. "Brother…a body is usually desirable for this sort of thing."

The shadow paused, seeming to regard itself carefully. "Yes, you are quite right," it agreed. The rest of Morgoth appeared, dressed in simple black. Manwë noticed with surprise that no weapons or armor could be seen – although that never meant that they did not exist. Tulkas growled slightly at seeing his longtime enemy again. Varda smiled. Nàmo…Nàmo was himself; that is all anyone can ever do to describe him.

Morgoth inclined his head to them and continued carefully out through the door. Manwë began to state that Morgoth was not supposed to be out of the Void without Angainor on, but seeing the sudden flash of angry pride which crossed his brother's face, he continued, "But seeing as we are trusting you not to destroy the entirety of Arda, I suppose it would not hurt to trust you this far as well."

Regardless, the other Valar quietly encircled the two, a fact of which Morgoth was not unaware. However, he pretended to ignore it as Manwë asked him, "What would you have us call you? Melkor, or Morgoth?"

Morgoth shrugged, secretly taking pleasure in being able to feel himself move again. "Whichever you please."

Manwe nodded, saying, "Then we will address you as Morgoth, if that name will not be taken as an insult."

Morgoth smiled a little more broadly than any of the other Valar were comfortable with, considering that the greatest enemy to the safety and freedom of Arda was standing in Aman within five feet of them. "On the contrary, brother, I take it as a great compliment," he replied smoothly. He was completely correct in assuming that this simple statement caused great concern among the Valar who overheard it.

All the other Valar were waiting for them to arrive in a clearing of Oromë's forests. There was some muttering, mainly from Yavanna, at the sight of Morgoth, but in the end they all settled down. Ulmo pulled in a large amount of water from a stream nearby and held it in a large sphere over their heads. Morgoth closed his eyes and appeared to be concentrating carefully. Soon afterwards the ball began to hiss and sputter, sending up gouts of scalding steam. Manwë and Ulmo piled the steam and vapor into a tall cloud that increased in size by the second. The water Ulmo had brought was gone in a few minutes, replaced by a tower of water vapor that was soon shedding the small white flakes that Manwe and Ulmo had found so long ago.

So Morgoth sat back against the trunk of a tree and watched the fourteen Powers engage in a heated snowball fight. For his own amusement, he froze patches of melted snow into slippery, solid lumps that caused a few interesting falls. Every now and then Ulmo would bring in more water to create more snow. Morgoth found himself enjoying the match very much. He shocked even himself by applauding when Tulkas hurled a particularly large mass of snow at Nessa. So when Manwë's back was turned towards him in an effort to dodge a throw from Vana, Morgoth could hardly resist scooping up a perfectly shaped ball of ice and snow and tossing it squarely at him.

Manwë turned around to see who had hit him. On seeing Morgoth, he grinned broadly. "Come on, join in the fun!" he called, accompanying the invitation with a well-aimed lump that had been meant for Nàmo. Startled, Morgoth's thoughts raced around each other faster than the flick of a Balrog's lash. Why not? You being the Lord of All Evil may have something to do with it. It might be fun. You are also certain to end up looking like a complete idiot. I haven't done anything with Manwe and the others in so long. There's a reason for that; need I remind you that you have been named the Dark Enemy of the World?

In the end, though, he found himself smiling weakly and pouring a handful of ice shavings down the back of Vairë's robes. She laughed, shrieking a little as the cold water trickled down, and reflexively threw the snowball she was holding at Morgoth. Although he should have seen it coming, Morgoth did not. Thus the famous Morgoth Bauglir got a face full of clean white snow for the first time in his life. Wiping his face and spitting water, he turned to Manwë and said wryly, "I can see now why you lot objected to my filling the earth with this stuff."

Manwë laughed and clapped him on the shoulder. Taking courage because his hand was not thrown off at once, he leaned closer and pulled Morgoth into…well, if this were truly a tale about reconciliation and redemption, I would say that he pulled Morgoth into a brotherly embrace, but the truth of the matter is that Manwë pulled his brother into a large snowdrift.

Morgoth came up shaking the snow out of his dark hair and holding a double handful of snow. Manwë, showing good common sense, ducked behind the nearest Vala: in this case Nàmo, who took the blow for him quite unwillingly. However, the Doomsman only sighed, scooped up a perfectly round ball of snow, lobbed it at Nienna, and pointed at Morgoth when she turned his way. Nàmo was well rewarded when his sister launched several powerful volleys at Morgoth, who in turn ducked behind Manwë. Tulkas grinned and threw a snowball at Morgoth and Manwë. At that very moment, however, Irmo threw his own snowball at the back of Tulkas's head, ruining his aim.

That snowball, it was afterwards said, was thrown so powerfully that it landed across the Sundering Seas on the top of a large mountain called Caradhras. On that mountain were nine companions, and the story goes that Tulkas's snowball nearly swept them off to their deaths. This story was later confirmed by five of those nine companions, and we are therefore led to believe that it is true. Tulkas received quite the scolding from Manwë.

Unfortunately, because the one in charge of creating more snow was busy using it, the Valar were standing in a rather wet but decidedly green clearing at the end of an hour. Manwë shrugged. "It seems that our time here is over," he said, not without regret. "Morgoth, if you will accompany me?"

The two walked off through the trees, in the general direction of the Walls of the World. A few minutes were spent walking in silence. Then Manwë said, "We could have had the fight on the top of Taniquetil, you know. There is snow there eternally. But, well, I asked Eru Iluvatar, and he replied that should you wish it and should you be found repentant, we might be allies and brothers again."

The look of utter horror that crossed Morgoth's face astonished Manwë. "You mean that I might end up like those Vanyar, singing and writing poetry all the livelong day? And that I would be called Melkor again? And that, Eru forbid, I begin to laugh at Tulkas's jokes? I thank you for your concern, brother, but I infinitely prefer the Void!" With that he set off at a run for the Walls of the World, diving through the door which still stood ajar and closing it forcefully behind him. Manwë sighed. Things never quite turned out how they should, did they?

This story was somewhat inspired by and afterwards edited by the wonderful writer KiyaJinnSkywalkerKenobi. If you liked this fic, you have her to thank for making me think of it. Also if you like having appropriate accent marks on the names, you have her to thank for that as well.