Prompts: Aegnor/Andreth; "A mother's love"


My Lost Son

He still had not returned. All my other children had already been released from the Halls of Mandos, but my poor Fell Fire was still lost in the darkness.

"He is clean from his deeds. He has had permission to leave any time he want for a long time already," Lady Nienna explains to me. "And yet he refuses, no matter how long I talk to him. Maybe you, Eärwen can change his mind."

Maybe I will. I stand in the cool emptiness of the halls, calling for my son. I receive no reply. But at last, from the darkness emerges a wave of heat. The fire rushes towards me, and only inches away from my feet it rolls up to take a glowing red figure of my son, of my own Fell Fire.

"Mother," he says quietly as he recognises me, "you do not belong to these halls of souls."

"Neither do you, Aikanáro," I reply. "Lady Nienna told me you could leave any time you want. All your siblings are in Valinor, so why aren't you?"

He looks at me sadly. "I do not wish for life on Earth," he sighs at last. "If I could, I would escape from Arda."

"How can you say so?" I gasped, but he merely turned away. It saddened me to hear that he was so tired of this world that he would rather pass into the unknown than stay with his kin. "Aikanáro," I called and he stopped to listen. "What would you gain by leaving Arda? Is not Valinor the place where all should be happy and have their hearts' wishes fulfilled?"

At those words he dissolves again and becomes a trail of fire as if emitted from a glare as his fëa swirls around me.

"Maybe for you, mother, but not for Andreth, and thus neither for me." With that he disappears back into the shadows, leaving me standing in the darkness again. I call for him, but he won't return.

He may have regretted his deeds during his exile, Artafindë explains to me later, but the Fell Fire is also regretting his choice to leave the one and only he ever loved. And unless he understands that Andreth would not wish for him to remain unhappy, he will never find joy in Arda. And I will never get back my Fell Fire that is now dimmed by sorrow.