Realization
Summary: Elwing ponders about her Silmaril.
Setting: Some time after the War of the Wrath.
"Beauty captivates us, but the greatest beauty sets us free even from its own essence."
I have seen you thousands of times.
Perhaps that is why you fail to mesmerize me like you used to do.
Perhaps it is because I have seen your other face, an image of you, which is deeper than your appealing façade.
A cynical reality, which is hidden from everyone, save from me.
Save from someone who has awakened from your diabolical spell.
You are more treacherous than Morgoth. Yea, you are.
You have succeeded to do what he has failed to do, seducing Feanor into the deadly path, blinding our mind and soul with greed and pride.
We believe the lie that nothing matters but you.
We trade our kin for you, we trade our loyalty for you, our breath, our family, our conscience, our strength, our souls, our very being.
It is useless to rehearse the story that follows your existence. Everyone knows the dreadful Oath of Feanor and his sons, which led to the first kinslaying.
And the second, and the third.
Everyone knows how you ensnared my great-grandfather, and my father, and then me. Everyone knows how my father and I protected you, the one we think as our most valuable inheritance, sacrificing everything we had. Our lives, our kingdom, our people, our children. If Maglor did not pity my sons, they would have had the same fate as my brothers.
In your hand our fate is bound. In your hand we meet our doom.
Blood flows along your path. You bring death to whoever owns you or desires you.
Death and madness. Death and treason. Death and greed. Death and oblivion. Forgetfulness that you are not the only thing worth pursuing.
What kind of power do you have, oh Lifeless Jewel, that no one can escape your disastrous charm?
Beauty?
Is a child's soul less beautiful than you? Are lover's lips less sweeter than your blinding light? Does a single star in the sky shine less than you do? Is a breath of an Eldar less precious than the ownership of you?
Your sisters have faded into the fire and to the sea. The Vanyar weep for them. Yet they shed not a single tear for the death of Maedhros, or for the lost of Maglor.
Aye, you blind everyone from that which is truly valuable. Love and life, innocence and kindness, joy and thanksgiving, humbleness and wisdom. We forget that the real beauty comes from inside ourselves, and not visible splendour. Real beauty is when we give instead of take, save instead of kill, and letting go instead of possessing.
Perhaps the fault lies not in you, but in us.
All you do is only awaken our deepest desire, testing our weakness, showing our frailty. Perhaps you are a temptation on which makes us fall short miserably. A stumbling block on which our virtues are tested.
And when we fail?
Then we will learn and achieve wisdom. In great price maybe, but we will learn.
Isn't that the meaning of our immortality? To repair that which is broken and heal the wounds, to forgive and forget, to let go and move on. To have faith in a distant future in which one day Arda Marred will be remade. To believe that our existence will have meaning, that our struggle and tears will not be in vain, that our bitter lesson will bring us joy.
I touch your cold form on my husband's brow.
People call you the Evening Star, the brightest, even among the stars of Varda, the most beautiful entity every created by our hand.
But for me, you are only a glimmering shape of a frozen tear. A cold reminder of the greatest achievement and folly of our kindred.
The End
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The first sentence, which is in italic is from Khalil Gibran.
Thank you very much to Nemis for beta reading.