Originally written for Amber in the 2009 Ardor in August exchange, this story is currently in the process of being re-edited. If you'd like to help out, please don't be shy; any concrit is welcome!
Thank you so much to my lovely beta-reader Jaiden, without whom this story would have been entirely unreadable. Thank you also to my alpha-reader rxlcrab, for bearing with my wailing and gnashing of teeth.
I'm very excited to thank Mirach, for drawing the Eönwë from this story. You may find a link to her lovely art on my profile.
This was the doom of the Valar, when Eönwë returned to Valmar and told of all the things that had been done. The Eldar they summoned to return into the West. To the Fathers of Men of the three faithful houses rich reward also was given. Eönwë came among them and taught them.
Eönwë set forth for Middle-earth, breathing once more the salt breeze that stirred his memory to long years of war. Not now did he command all the arms of the Valar, but upon an ocean that rolled ink-black about its hull his swan-ship rode out alone.
When the Enchanted Isles faded dim into the sea-mist, Eönwë went to the high prow, seeking a voice that called him in his thought. He stood listening, though the mariners heard nothing but the rush of swan's breast through foaming wave, and the flap of white sail and the pennant above as they caught the shifting airs, and beneath their feet the creak of strakes flexing to their task. Suddenly into the facing wind Eönwë upleapt, melting into the shimmer of rising sun upon the surface of the sea.
From a deep-shadowed cave that rent the white cliffs of Harlindon, a vampire darted, who for a year had awaited Eönwë's answer, venturing no further than the receding shore for fear of the lands of the West. Now high above that place where blue waters breaking gave way to green he wavered, until at length in growing desperation the shadow of his leathery wings darkened the empty waves.
Gliding swift amid the lightening sky, Eönwë descried his approach. He flung upon himself the hue of a great hawk, moved to such exaltation of the chase as he had not known since returning to Aman. In such mighty shape, he stooped upon the vampire, seizing him in damascene talons that pierced more bitter than steel. Sauron wrestled him with barb-tipped wings, but Eönwë sank his talons deep into his flesh; and striking with his beak sharp as the sickle moon, he rent Sauron's wings into black rags. In a cloud of feathers they fell out of the sky, and plunged panting into the crimsoned brine. A tumult of waters arose about them, as in a great storm of wind.
Sauron took the shape of a sea serpent, glittering as a living column of jet, and twined tight about Eönwë as they sank into the deep. In a convulsion they met the tremulous silt that lines the carven cradle of the sea. Eönwë swelled his form to lofty size, and beating his far-reaching pinions burst his coils. Forth he bore them out of the deep, wheeling northward in the bright noontide.
With a roar, the sunken lands of fair Beleriand again were broken asunder by the clash of their arms. Out of the heaving tremors Ossë arose and charged eastwards in swift onrush, towering as a bulwark ranged heaving against the bulwark of the mountains. The billow surged and broke, crashing upon shores new-made: he levelled houses, and trees were uprooted from the earth; into the retreating maw of the sea he swallowed jetties and quays; and ships foundered, and were splintered and lost.
Borne soaring over the main, unknowing of the tumults that raged beneath, the writhen worm uprose in Eönwë's grasp, girdling him in coils. He laid his bejewelled head upon Eönwë's back that shifted warm beneath him, and with forked and darting tongue he savoured Eönwë's scent that was heady with the magnificence of mastered might. After a while, he flicked his tail, ruffling with its spikes the down at Eönwë's breast, and said, "You are long in coming, sluggard of Manwë. Further West are we now than I dare venture, had my need been less."
"Further, maybe," answered Eönwë, "yet not far enough."
Sauron was silent.
Eönwë came at last to a northern isle, and laid Sauron upon a crag that from three sides thrust as a lone tower above a forest of pine, but southward plunged into stinging spray that crashed against its feet far below. He cast himself down beside Sauron, who was clad again in the form of that fair servant of Aulë that pleased him best to take in Eönwë's society. But Eönwë was a life-giving breath that shone blue in the sunlight, brighter than the cloudless sky and deeper than the depths of the Encircling Sea. Clear as water, free as the air, firm as a tower of adamant from whose substance was Vingilot hewn, Eönwë bore up Sauron, and surrounded him. Then Sauron's grievance was stilled, for it sprang from dread, and there was no dread when he was with Eönwë.
Eönwë spoke of his new command, telling of his errand to deliver the Valar's doom. The Lords had decreed that Sauron must render himself unto their judgement on pain of being sundered forever from all his kindred; for Námo had doomed of the servants of Melkor that in the end they all should perish by the valour of Men. Upon Men they had granted anew the strange gift of mastery over Fate, that the more fully they should inherit the dominion of Arda for Eru's glory.
Sauron frowned. In his long sojourn amid the woes of Middle-earth, he had learned much of Men, and most of all had he learned to what profit they wielded their gifts. If Eönwë spoke true, all that was good and fair in the world soon would pass away into friction and welter and waste. Then was sown within his heart against the Second Children the seed of a threefold hate. He hated that such honour should be done unto them; hated that they should oust him from all the lands that he had wrought; but above all he hated that in heedlessness and pride they should destroy all of those designs that he held most dear. He looked in wonder upon Eönwë, and said, "And you, Eönwë, is this then wise in the counsel of your heart?"
Seizing a pinnacle of rock, Sauron crushed it into shards. But Eönwë breathed upon them, and they fell tumbling down the precipice to vanish beneath the surf. As the scree they were that tumbled into the tarn, down from the mountains that Sauron raised, whose peaks sang with the song of drifting cloud-shadow over stone. Long Ages had passed since that time when they laboured together in joy at the newness of the world, and the shape of the land was changed. Sauron's mountains were gone beneath the wave, and the veils that gathered now at the furthest bounds of the Dome were not the wracks that Eönwë once had driven across a different sky.
"Well you know the counsel of my heart," answered Eönwë. "For who in Arda sees more clearly all Fates that bind than the deep sight of Námo? Who then will defy Námo's doom? Thus I would have you return."
"In the end shall all the servants of Melkor perish by the valour of Men, you say, yet Men stray beyond Fate. How then should such a doom come to pass?"
"Still my heart is unchanged. For who understands the purpose of Ilúvatar beyond the understanding of Manwë? Who then will gainsay Manwë's command?"
"All love Ilúvatar," said Sauron, "each according to his mood and measure, but it follows not that he shall therefore be bound by Manwë's command. For who assures us of Manwë's wisdom, if not Manwë himself? Who holds the throne of Arda in jealousy and avarice? I say that Manwë has seized the throne of Arda, nor heeds he any purpose but his own, feigning, merely, to impart the thought of Ilúvatar. Can you deny it?"
Sauron's harsh words troubled Eönwë. He said, "I need make no denial, for you see the truth in your own memory of the Music that each retains from the Beginning."
Then for a long space Sauron was silent.
At length he said, "That is dark to me. Try as I might, I see it not."
"Then I will show you," said Eönwë.
Upon that bare summit that stands atop what once had been the dim fastness of Taur-nu-fuin, Eönwë joined with Sauron, and mingled his being with his. As the wind that moans in the hollows of the hills, as the sandstorm that arises in the night, as the emptying of a fiery mountain that mingles earth and air to hang heavy for long ages in the first forging of the world, so they passed together beyond the Beginning. Then to Sauron was revealed his own knowledge of the Music, returned to him even as he had accorded it to Eönwë ere they parted. So profoundly had Melkor enmeshed the memory within his guileful malice that it appeared before Sauron now as a new thing, terrible in its splendour and majesty. Awe overtook him, and he was silent.
Eönwë held Sauron fast, sorrowing at all that he had lost. The sun sank behind the ramparts of the Guarded Realm, and fire raged across the sky. Looking into the sunset Eönwë said, "Tell me, is not your heart a little changed?"
"A little," said Sauron, "save my shame is grown the greater. If I go West, as you wish, I am the more fearful of the manner of my usage under Manwë's authority, if he is indeed Eru's regent, as I now believe."
"I shall speak for you when the time comes. Nienna will be your friend, and perhaps Aulë also. And Manwë is not without pity."
"No, not Aulë," said Sauron in scorn, "for our roads parted long ago. And I do not think that he would love a faithless servant, when even for the things that he esteems most high he shows so little love. Look about you how eagerly he forsakes to Ulmo even the work of his own hands!"
"Might not love cause one to release a thing that would be free?"
"No," said Sauron, and pressed himself against Eönwë, so close that unclad they shimmered on the edge of sight. "Tethers so easily sundered are not truly forged of love."
Eönwë said, "I must soon part with you as I was bidden, and then we shall be sundered until you answer the summons."
Sauron could make no answer, for to hide his thought from Eönwë he hid it even from himself. Fear of Melkor and punishment that would reveal him to Melkor were ever foremost among the counsels of his heart, beyond even adoration of Eönwë. Of this he was ashamed.
"So be it."
Eönwë arose, and spreading his pinions leapt into the surf that foamed blood-red, and he said to Sauron without turning back, "When my errand is done, I will watch for you, waiting upon the Far Shore."
It seemed then to Sauron that all had befallen because of Men and their Doom. His hatred for that race quickened and burgeoned, and from this hatred welled all the woes and sorrows of that Age. Yet he looked after Eönwë, a black speck fading into the distance. Perceiving that Eönwë did not go as swiftly as he might, nor as swiftly as he had come, he sprang after, rushing southward. He reached Eönwë far from any land, and nestling as a sheen of dust amid the warmth of his feathers, they went to rejoin Eönwë's ship. Soaring aloft, the hawk followed the swan-ship for many days, the shadow of his pinions marking the full breadth of its yard, and Sauron parted not from him until they entered the Gulf of Lhûn.