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Supernova 16.6

Olórin and Aiwendil did not come with me on the next leg of my journey across Aman. They served instead as messengers, carrying word of the Valar's muster to every corner of the Undying Lands. Such a force had never been assembled since the War of Wrath, and after this, never would be again.

It was another long ride north from Valimar to the Halls of Mandos. The Halls were built on the western shores of Aman. When last I had been here, they had been built on a rocky outcropping overlooking the vastness of Ekkaia, the endless, frigid ocean that had encircled the flat plane of Arda. Since the breaking of the world and the sinking of Númenor, things had apparently changed.

As I followed Námo and his wife Vairë towards the edge of the world, the sky grew dark overhead. The Sun was still in the sky, but it seemed to grow rapidly distant, as though we were traveling not mere leagues on horseback, but light-minutes across the vastness of the solar system. Stars became visible, glittering overhead in the eternal twilight. The grass beneath our horses' hooves became sparse, then vanished entirely, only to be replaced by strange, luminescent plants and fungi which glowed in strange, brilliant violets and blues.

As we drew near, the Halls became visible in the distance. They were familiar—a fortress of eerie, pale rock, washed out in the dim sunlight. It sprawled more than I remembered, but a long time had passed, and Námo was responsible now for many, many more people than had ever existed in the early Ages.

There was a small city built around the outer walls of the Waiting Halls, where lived those Elves and Ainur who served Námo or felt most comfortable under his rule. It was in a stable in this outer city, near the great iron gates of the fortress, where Námo called us to a halt. We dismounted there, leaving our horses in the care of an Elf whose deep blue eyes tracked me unblinking as I moved.

We continued on foot, passing through the great gates, which clanged shut behind us. Námo led me across the wide courtyard, which was nearly empty save for a few Elves here and there, resting on stone benches or beneath strange trees with silver bark and shimmering blue leaves. None of these Elves moved, save for the gentle rise and fall of their chests with each breath. This was a place of rest, and those who remained here did so because rest was what they wanted.

Ahead of us was the great keep, where Námo held court, and beneath which were the innumerable catacombs of the dead. However, looking past it, I saw that the walls surrounding the halls only encircled its easterly sides. To the west, there was no barrier save for a line of boulders, like teeth jutting along the edge of the land.

There was no sea beyond those rocks anymore.

I expected Námo and Vairë to lead me through the gray doors into the keep itself, but though Vairë turned in that direction, her husband did not. Instead, he gestured for me to follow, then turned aside, walking about the circumference of the castle towards that outer edge.

He slowed as we walked, and I caught up to him. "She came some hours before you arrived at the Mâchananaškad," he said to me in a low voice. "And with her was a creature the like of which I had never seen before. One of Ungoliant's brood, I realized, or something like them. When my servants sought to drive the thing away from her, she fought them. I called them off and spoke with them both. It was through them I learned of your coming."

I swallowed. I could see, silhouetted against the luminous black, two figures standing on one of the jagged rocky outcrops. One was humanoid; the other was a bulbous, squat thing, clinging to the rock on eight legs. They stood side by side, and the woman's head was turned towards the spider as if they were speaking. I heard her low voice murmuring, and the chittering of the Shard as it replied.

Námo came to a halt a distance away. As I stopped beside him, he shook his head and extended a hand, urging me forwards. I needed no further encouragement.

The two fell silent as I approached, turning towards me. Sophia's dark skin took on a pale glow in the reflected light of the remote Sun. The Shard's eight eyes glittered like black stones. It bent on its many limbs in what could only be an approximation of a bow as I approached.

I stopped, staring at it for a moment. Then I bowed back.

Satisfied, it rose and moved away from us, its legs making no noise on the dusty earth.

I closed the last few paces between us. Sophia offered her hand and pulled me up onto the rock where she stood, overlooking the edge of the world. Stars glittered cold in the vast darkness, swirling in rivers of light.

Sophia hugged me, squeezing me close. I held her, burying my face in her shoulder, letting the tears fall. She no longer wore her costume, nor was she wearing the robes or silken outfits of the people of Aman. She was dressed simply in a green sweater and jeans, her hair done up in a ponytail. Her Ring glittered on her finger. It was not the real Cenya, which still lay in shallow water in San Francisco. But the Ring, and the promises it represented, were a part of her identity, her self-image, and so she retained that image here. The same was true of her gear—echoes of Amauril, Raumo, and Alca were sheathed and strapped at their usual places on her belt.

"Hey, Taylor," Sophia whispered.

"Hey, Sophia." I kissed her.

When we broke apart, she looked at me with a complicated, bittersweet expression on her face. "I knew I'd see you here," she said quietly. "I didn't want to, but I somehow knew you wouldn't finish it without me."

"I'm sorry," I mumbled.

"I'm sorry, too," she said, letting go of my body to take my hands, running her thumbs along my knuckles. "If I'd been more careful, if I'd realized what he was going to do… well. Things might have been different."

"Maybe," I said. "Or maybe this was all fated. Maybe it was always going to end up like this, one way or another." I gave her a sad smile. "We talked about mortality. No matter what, you were going to end up here one day. At least this way, I followed you here before you moved on."

"Mandos mentioned that 'moving on' thing," Sophia said. I noted that she used Námo's common Elvish name—I wondered, idly, where she had heard it. "I'm not sure I get it." She cocked her head slightly. "I mean, isn't this the afterlife?"

"For Elves, yes," I said. "But humans have another leg to the journey. No one, not even Mandos, knows where you go next."

"And you're not going to be there," Sophia said. "Ever." Her voice shook slightly on the last word.

"No," I confirmed. "But even so, this isn't goodbye forever, Sophia. I can't go where you're going, but you'll come back. It won't even be that long, all things considered."

"Yeah?"

I nodded. "Dagor Dagorath is here," I said. "It means, literally, 'Battle of Battles.' The end of the world. By the end, everyone will be there. Everyone who ever fought for good or evil, assembled against one another for one last, great struggle. I'll be there, and so will you. Once we win—and we will—whatever the world becomes, we'll be together for it."

Sophia looked down at our joined hands. Then she let go and sat down, swinging her legs off the edge of the world. I sat beside her, leaning my head on her shoulder.

"That was your Shard you were talking to?" I asked her, looking out into the black.

She nodded. I felt her chin move against my scalp. "Intangible," she said. "That's the name he gave me, anyway. I get the feeling they don't usually have names, the way we think of them."

"No," I agreed. "Just functions. But those which we touched with Discord, bridging the gap between Silence and Song—those came to see the world, and themselves, a little more like we do. Shaper took their function and made it into their name. I expect the same is true of all the Ring-Bearer Shards."

"Do you ever wonder what happened to yours?" Sophia asked. "After you fought it off, during your second trigger."

"I expect it retreated to wherever they go, and tried to find another host," I said. "Maybe it even succeeded."

"Do you wonder what would have happened if you'd accepted it?" she asked.

"I hadn't thought about it," I admitted. "I… don't know. The person I was, during those few weeks, was not someone to set a good example for a Shard learning to be human. I don't know how that would have affected it."

Sophia hummed softly. "Intangible doesn't know why he's here," she said. "He thinks Zion should have only killed me, and he should have been cut loose. He doesn't know what it means that he's followed me here. This place is supposed to be barred to his kind."

"It was supposed to be barred to me, too," I pointed out.

Sophia scowled. "Yeah, I heard," she said.

"Námo implied you'd argued on my behalf," I said. "Vouched for me."

"Námo?"

"Mandos. That's his original name in Quenya, derived from the Valarin Nâmanôz."

"Oh." Sophia sighed. "He asked about the Discord on me and Intangible. We got to talking about the Rings. And about you. I mean, I knew most of the story already. I told him you were doing better. I guess he believed me."

"You weren't sure?"

"He's hard to read," Sophia said.

"So he is," I chuckled. Then I shook my head. "Anyway. If Intangible is here, he's here for a reason. Whatever that reason might be."

"Do you think he'll be able to stay with me?" Sophia asked.

"I hope so," I said. "I expect so, too. If he followed you this far, I expect he'll follow you further."

Sophia turned her head and pressed her lips against my hair. "Do you have any idea how long it'll be?" she asked in a whisper. "How long I'll have to wait before I can see you again?"

I closed my eyes. "No," I admitted hoarsely. "When I imagined Dagor Dagorath, I always imagined a pitched battle on an open field between two armies on foot and horseback. This… isn't that. There's a whole multiverse out there, and Entities scattered all over it. I don't know whether we're going to have to slowly expand a perimeter of safe universes, driving Entities away one at a time, or if they'll reorganize and meet us in direct battle somewhere, or something in between. And there are still other prophecies that have yet to be fulfilled. Melkor still hasn't returned from the darkness where he was imprisoned, and I don't have any idea where or how he'll come back. It could all be done in a matter of weeks. It could take another several centuries. I just don't know, and I hate it."

Sophia reached down and squeezed my thigh. "Me too," she murmured. "Melkor's, uh, your old boss, right?"

"That's him," I said, grimacing. "The first and greatest Dark Lord. They cast him beyond the Doors of Night, into the same abyss that Ungoliant first crawled out of. Part of me hoped he'd die down there, but Námo prophesied that he'd come back. At the end of time."

"And he hasn't yet?"

"Not in Earth Bet, at least," I said. "And I feel like his reappearance is something that'd reverberate through the multiverse pretty quickly."

"Yeah, that seems like a safe bet," Sophia agreed.

We sat there in silence for a while, pressed against one another, just enjoying the closeness.

"Before I met you," Sophia said quietly. "Hell, even until you gave me Cenya, I never thought much about the future. If I'd had to think about it I would probably have figured I'd be dead before too long, but I didn't really dwell on it. Realistically, though, I wouldn't have survived much longer than this anyway. Most capes don't. Didn't. Average life expectancy wasn't more than five or ten years, I don't think."

"You still should have had longer," I mumbled.

"Sure," she agreed. "That's not the point. The point is, Taylor, in spite of everything, everything I did, every regret and hurt and mistake—if I could choose, knowing everything I do, between a full life as an ordinary person and the life I wound up living? I'd take this life every time."

I squeezed my eyes shut. Tears welled up from behind my closed lids. "I wish I hadn't hurt so many people," I said. "I wish I hadn't done all the damage I did, over all the time I was around. But if that was what it took for me to meet you… I'm not actually sure I can bring myself to regret it."

"Yeah," Sophia said with a heavy sigh. "Is that selfish of us, do you think?"

I wasn't sure, but suddenly words echoed in my memory. "And thou, Melkor," I whispered, "shalt see that no theme may be played that hath not its uttermost source in me, nor can any alter the music in my despite. For he that attempteth this shall prove but mine instrument in the devising of things more wonderful, which he himself hath not imagined."

Here, on the edge of the earth, in the land of Elves and Ainur, I felt the very air around me hum at the recitation of the words of the One. Sophia swallowed. "You're saying that's the point."

I nodded against her shoulder, opening my eyes and looking out through blurring tears at the stars. "I don't understand why evil exists," I said. "But I know it exists for a reason. There's a point to it all. Everything we did—to each other, to everyone else—it was part of the Song. From our limited perspectives, the actions themselves were ugly. But the Song itself is beautiful, and it is more beautiful for what we did."

"I think I get it," Sophia murmured. "Sure, we might have still met and fallen in love if none of that had happened. Somehow. We might even have wound up right here. But we wouldn't be having this conversation. We couldn't. We couldn't have made this music."

"We couldn't have told this story." I squeezed her with one arm and took her hand with the other. "I'm going to miss you, Sophia. I love you so much."

"I love you too, Taylor," she whispered, squeezing me back. "If I end up in some kind of heaven, I don't care how pretty or wonderful it is. I'd give it all up for one more day with you."

There was a sound beside us. I looked up and across Sophia. Intangible stood there, his black eyes glittering. He lacked any sort of expressive anatomy I could read, but somehow he still looked sad. He chittered, his mandibles making strange sounds that somehow formed into words on the air. "Mandos says Eärendil has arrived," he told me. "I'm sorry."

For a moment, I imagined refusing. Just staying here until Sophia had to pass on to the Gift of Men. Then I gritted my teeth and stood up. It was one of the hardest things I'd ever done.

Sophia stood up too, but for a moment, I looked Intangible in his many eyes. "Take care of her," I said. "Watch over her."

"Past the edges of worlds," he promised.

I met Sophia's eyes, memorizing what they looked like here in the light of the pale Sun, green and deep and expressive.

She smiled, and despite the pain of parting, there was no bitterness there. "Sounds like you've got a multiverse to save," she said. "Go get 'em, tiger."

I kissed her, one last time. "Until next time, Sophia," I whispered.

Her smile widened. Her eyes sparkled in the twilight. "Until next time, Taylor."

I turned away. The Vingilot was hovering over the plains east of the Halls. I took a few steps towards it, then turned back.

Sophia still stood on the rock. She smiled at me.

I smiled back through my tears, then turned and walked away.