"Afterlife"

Max opened his eyes and looked around in the large dark space, decorated with stars in every direction, even below him. The floor was invisible, the gravity was much like Earth's, and for a while, Max had a sense of deja vu. Where am I? he thought, looking at the empty space around him, I land on the ground, then this happens? I should be in the City! Surprise and alarm slowly crawled up his spine, "WHERE THE HELLMOUTH AM I!?"

"You're dead," answered a familiar, scruffy voice, "You fell from Ghaul's ship."

Max turned around to find Saladin walking towards him, arm in arm with a white woman that he didn't recognize. The Warlock put two and two together, looked at her and guessed, "Jolder?"

Jolder nodded, "I am she."

"Cool!" nodded Max, then he turned back to Saladin, "So, how am I dead?"

Saladin gestured, "You lack the Traveler's Light and your Ghost," then challenged, "You tell me how you should be alive."

Max raised a finger, breathed in, but before he could speak, he thought about it for a while, recalculating the situation, then he lowered his hand and huffed, "touche."

Jolder let go of Saladin and said, "Do you know why you're here?"

Max shook his head, "No."

She waved her left hand towards the sky and announced, "Before the Guardians, before the Solar System, even before the Big Bang, there was Eru Illuvatar and their Ainur. Eru created the Universe with a song, The Song of Life. The Big Bang was its first note, a loud note that echoed the Creation." The stars in the sky depicted a giant cosmic figure, conducting an orchestra of humanoid lesser cosmic beings and singing with them as they played their own variety of instruments. "From it came two spaces: The Universe and The Timeless Void. Eru tasked each of his Ainur with creating different things to occupy this space, things like planets, stars, nebulas, etc. Eru breathed life into each and every cosmic thing that the Valar created, weaving all of them into their song." From the orchestra's notes and music staffs, stars glowed light blue, rock planets held green and blue paradises, gas giants stirred calmly, and nebulas nested the potential for future life, all drawn by the paths of the stars on the sides. "There was harmony, but it was short-lived..."

The sky turned crimson red as another cosmic figure was displayed, one that sang a different, wretched tune, "Melkor, the Valar who spent so much time in the Void began asking himself, 'Why won't anybody pay attention to the Void!? It needs the same love that this universe gets without question!' He sang a tune of malice, hatred, blight, and Darkness. Just as the others gave Light and life to their creations, Melkor corrupted it or took it away." Random planets were struck, turning paradise into Inferno, or nothing at all as the planet exploded into asteroids and meteors. "Melkor's sister, Manwa, defended her own planet with her own song, tithing to Eru for support, and rallied the other Valar to protect their creations from Melkor's malice." Various colored song sheets wrapped themselves around the cosmic things, blocked the wretched music staffs of Melkor.

"Melkor was furious, so he channeled his anger to corrupt Manwa's planet, Arda, the Last Paradise, in a different way: through the Maiar." Lesser beings came into focus, beings that were not singing, "Most were resistant to Melkor's word, but some of the Maiar turned into power-hungry shadow demons, the Balrogs," a good number of these beings transformed into horned creatures made of fire and shadow, "The first Maiar he corrupted was Mairon," a handsome Maiar formed in the sky, only to turn into an armored bipedal demon, "Mairon was corrupted easily, believing that he could rule Arda, and thus he turned into Sauron."

Max raised his hand, "So that would lead into Lord of the Rings, right?"

Jolder nodded, "Yes, Tolkien's research into the ancestry of humanity was mostly accurate, but he couldn't find any references to the Descension of Arda or the Exile of Man."

"Which would mean that The Silmarillion and the Unfinished Tales are flawed!" Max hypothesized.

"Exactly! said Saladin, "Tolkien misbelieved that Earth was Arda, neglecting the fact that gorillas and chimpanzees were evolving into Earth's own humanity, completely different from Arda's."

"So how did Arda lore arrive on Earth?"

"The House of Telcontar was set up by Aragorn to be the just and fair rulers of Gondor and Arnor," he began, "but the Fourth Age ended that in a civil war: The King of Gondor wanted to seize the Door of Night, but his only obstacles were Arnor and its Queen, his fifth cousin. They sent armies into war, desperately trying to reach their goals," the stars traced a massive battle with the heads of the Queen and King, placed behind their respective armies, Arnor on the left and Gondor on the right, "but the Queen passed away in the 4502nd year of the Fourth Age, crippling her army and granting Gondor victory over Arda." The Queen, now dead, was trampled on and overrun by a retreating Arnor and an advancing Gondor, "The King of Gondor now had unfettered access to the Door of Night, so he rode past Arnor to reach the Door, only to discover that the Kingdom was mysteriously empty and that Melkor's prison, the power that the King lusted for, had been sealed by 9 powerful runes." The Door of Night now stood closed and locked by 9 runes strapped across the seam, below it stood a dramatically baffled King of Gondor and his equally baffled army. "While Gondor repopulated the abandoned Kingdom of Arnor, the King fell into madness trying to decipher and crack open the runes, and he died later that year, bringing the Fourth Age to its end."

"Meanwhile," continued Jolder, "Arnor's citizens traveled from the Elvish Port in the west to reach a new world, a journey that Manwa blessed, and so they traveled via a Tesseract, arriving on Earth, just as chimpanzees and gorillas began to evolve into humans. Arnor's humans and Terra's humans mingled, and the rest is written in our history books, possibly with a little bit of sugar coating."

Max nodded, "Ok, so...why am I here instead of...?" he trailed off, hoping that he doesn't embarrass himself.

"In the Undying Lands?" Saladin and Jolder chuckled, "Because you're still needed!"

Max's eyes widened, then squinted in confusion, "How? And why?"

They presented a golden glowing sword and said, "Do you know who this is?"

Max took it, eyed the blade closely, and marveled at its existence, "Yes, I believe I do."


Author's Note: Hi, guys! Sorry that this has taken so long! I'm currently in college without my PS4, so yeah, I can't play Destiny 2 as of right now.

Also, yes this is a crossover, but I'm not placing it in the Crossover Section at this point because of one factor: You! The audience! I want to share my work with a majority of my readers, let alone the FanFiction community. But I can't do that in the Crossover Section as of right now since this is a crossover between Destiny and The Silmarillion, not Lord of the Rings.

Anyway, I'm sorry for taking so long with my next chapter, but rest assured, the protagonist hasn't died yet. Can you guess who they are?