A/N: Thank you, everyone! Glad you enjoyed the Stu chapter so much.

Last chapter, split up into two, and the epilogue.

And you find out what Fëanor has been up to.


The Game of the Gods, 33

"What's so bad about this?" Varda sneered, actually making a motion to catch the Sue as Fëanor tossed her. "I don't think that she could do anything the others haven't done, and we stopped them-"

"Mother!"

Varda stopped talking abruptly. Morgoth closed his eyes.

When nothing happened, he opened them, to see Varda staring in horror at the child who clung to her. Little by little, she turned her head until her eyes could focus on him, though they were still wide and staring with horror.

"Morgoth?" she asked, and if he hadn't been so horrified himself, Morgoth might have managed to laugh at the sound of her voice. "Did you do this?"

Morgoth looked at the small shining figure, aware of Fëanor's laughter in the background. "Well…"

"Mother!" The little girl looked up at Varda, her eyes glowing with similar light. "I'm your daughter and Father's daughter, don't you remember? And I have power over both wind and light, as well as the deeps of the sea and the dead and dreams… oh, all the powers of the other Valar combined!" She laughed and shook out her hair, which tumbled down her back in a mass of dark curls streaked with gold. "My name is Isanthétaril, and my coming was foretold to save Middle-earth!" She frowned when Varda just stared at her. "Mama?" she whispered.

"Is she-" Varda asked, voice still distant.

"Yes," said Morgoth. "Pure Vala, and with the powers of all the other Valar, just as she said."

Fëanor laughed more loudly.

Morgoth spun on the Elf. "What are you hoping to achieve?" he screamed. "I created her in a moment of revenge, but even I would never have used her! You should be ashamed of yourself, Fëanor, son of Finwë!" He stopped, and clapped a hand over his mouth, no longer believing Manwë's claims that he hadn't used some kind of spell on him.

Fëanor just stared at him, but someone managed an answer, even if it wasn't him.

"No, you should be ashamed of yourself, Morgoth son of- Eru," the voice finished, a little less triumphantly than when it had begun. "This scene where you asked Sauron to tie you to the bed and spank you is nothing short of disgusting."

Morgoth spun around. It was, of course, Finwë, sitting on top of a boulder and shaking his head as he held Morgoth's open diary on his back.

Fëanor snickered. "I was going to keep it," he said, "but Father enjoyed it much more than I did."

"And this one," said Finwë, flipping over a few more pages. Morgoth watched him with a jumping stomach, and knew as if by instinct what he would land on. The Elf's face brightened. "Yes, the one where spanking wasn't enough anymore, and you wanted Sauron to take it up to whips, so that you could pretend it was Maedhros getting angry at you for tying him on top of a mountain-"

"Oh, I'm not angry about that anymore," Maedhros chuckled. "I know it just means suppressed passion now." He pushed his hair out of his eye with a hand, and winked at Morgoth.

"Are they bothering you, Uncle?"

Morgoth looked down, then flinched from Isanthétaril's brilliant eyes. But here was a way to get revenge, after all. "Yes, they are," he answered. "They should all be in Mandos, but they won't go."

The Vala Sue frowned, her bright eyes going to the Elves. "They won't?" she asked. "That's not very nice."

Amrod and Amras actually stepped back with apprehensive looks in their eyes, but Finwë remained right where he was, and the other sons of Fëanor smiled tolerantly. Fëanor kept watching the walls of the world.

"No, it's not very nice," said a strong, carrying feminine voice. "But I know something that would be. Want to play a game, little one?"

Nerdanel strolled around the boulder on which Finwë sat, carrying a portable forge and a hammer. Isanthétaril brightened.

"What's that?" she asked, clapping her hands.

"This is a contest," said Nerdanel, putting the equipment on the ground. "You see, Aulë just made this." She held out an exquisite crystal globe that made Morgoth's old Silmaril-lust twitch. Isanthétaril took it in her hands and examined it with quiet attentiveness.

"You see," Nerdanel went on, "he heard that you were claiming the powers of the Valar, and he thought he should make this to show you just how well he can forge. He made this in three minutes. He said that you can have an hour."

Isanthétaril snorted. "I can forge my answer in two minutes," she said, and set to work at the forge.

Nerdanel nodded and smiled over the little Vala, but cast her husband a tense glance.

Fëanor turned his head to meet her gaze, and Morgoth shuddered. There was something even crazier in the Elf's glance than he had imagined.

"Now that that's out of the way," said Finwë, flipping to another page in the diary, "I think that we should get to the scene with the whips and the spanking both at once. And there was something about winding a rope around your throat just at the moment that you started to-"

"Isanthétaril!" Morgoth yelled.

Isanthétaril turned around, a beautiful crystal globe in her hands, even more beautiful than Aulë's. "What do you think?" she asked Nerdanel. "Do you think it will suit?"

"Of course," said the Elf breathlessly. "It's wonderful."

The little Vala Sue nodded, and glanced at Morgoth. "What is it, Uncle Mor-Mor?"

Morgoth winced, but cheered himself up with thoughts of what was going to happen to Finwë in a moment. "That Elf is the worst one," he said, pointing to him. "He stole my private diary, and he's reading sections of it aloud. I think that's mean, and that you should stop him and send him back to Mandos at once."

Isanthétaril narrowed her eyes. "I don't think that's bad enough," she said, and snapped her fingers.

Finwë vanished. Morgoth ran forward and grabbed his diary, clasping it close to him and shutting his eyes in bliss.

"What did you do to him?"

Morgoth glanced uneasily at Fëanor, who was watching him with a wide gaze that showed nothing at all. Morgoth edged a little backwards. At least, when the madness looked out of Fëanor's eyes, then he knew what he was dealing with, even if it wasn't something nice, or comforting.

"I sent him to the Field of Bunny Rabbits," said Isanthétaril firmly, snapping her fingers again. A mist billowed up in the air before them, and then formed itself into a vision not unlike the way that Middle-earth had looked when it was part of the gamespace. Morgoth, squinting, could just make out a bright green meadow dotted with colorful flowers and hopping rabbits of many colors. Most of them seemed to be walking on their hind legs. "Watch."

Finwë appeared in the middle of the field. At once the rabbits turned towards him, and began to beat him with pillows they snatched out of the air.

"Each pillow is a magic pillow," Isanthétaril went on haughtily. "They'll make him realize what he's done with each blow, and then the next one will make him feel bad about it. He can't come out until he's reformed and doesn't steal people's diaries any more."

Fëanor was staring at her. Once again, Morgoth found that he didn't like the look in the Elf's eyes. But surely, he thought as he edged away again, there's nothing more that he can do to me now. I have my diary back, and there was no worse torment than hearing Finwë read that aloud.

"Isanthétaril," said Fëanor, his voice far too soft. Morgoth flinched and hid, aware that Fëanor's sons also looked at their father uneasily. That was a bad, bad sign.

"What?" the little Vala asked, turning around and looking up at Fëanor expectantly.

"Is it really true that you can do anything?" Fëanor asked. "Anything that the other Valar can do?"

Isanthétaril tossed her hair, eyes growing bright and rebellious. "Not just anything they can do. Anything at all."

Fëanor nodded. "But I bet that you couldn't raise Númenor from the sea again and bring back everybody alive who drowned in it."

Isanthétaril looked uneasy for a moment. Probably Morgoth had made his Sues with a little of his own sense of self-preservation, though he wasn't really sure about that.

But then wildness overcame good sense, and Isanthétaril said flippantly, "'Course."

"I bet you can't," said Fëanor, who was giving that peculiar smile Caranthir and Curufin had inherited.

"Can too!" Isanthétaril stamped her foot.

Fëanor bent down towards her, his face calm.

"Can't, either," he said to her, from just a few inches away.

"Can can can!" Isanthétaril shrieked, and lifted her hands.

Morgoth felt the tremble as the world's seas tried to readjust themselves. Then the earth shook, too, as the rising peak of the Meneltarma and the island that came behind it started to lift. Morgoth glanced to the east, and shuddered when he made out the island rising, indeed. Just the thought of all the Men, his old enemies, having their home again was enough to make him frown, but he turned back, compelled by some odd fascination, to watch the contest between Isanthétaril and Fëanor. He had no doubt it was a contest, though the Sue seemed unaware of it.

"Most impressive," Fëanor mused, his eyes on Ekkaia still, and not the Sue or the east. "But I bet you can't make a ring that is as powerful as the One Ring, but good instead of evil."

"Can can can!" shouted Isanthétaril, and ran back to the forge.

Fëanor smiled.

Morgoth shook his head. "What are you doing?" he whispered, and only realized when Fëanor turned to look at him that the Elf had heard.

"Oh, something," said Fëanor. "You may be sure that I am always doing something, even when you don't know what it is." He paused. "Of course, you aren't intelligent enough to realize it most of the time, so I suppose I should say 'even though you don't know what it is.'"

Morgoth growled, but was distracted by Isanthétaril running back, holding a golden Ring. He might have desired it, but he could feel the pain it would cause him from here. It would work only for the good and pure of heart, just as Fëanor had intended that it should work.

"Fëanor!"

Morgoth looked up. Aulë stood behind the forge that Nerdanel had brought along, his arms folded and his face worked in a scowl. Fëanor nodded and waved to him.

"The advice that you gave me is proving very useful!" he called back.

"Is it necessary for it to go this far?" Aulë asked.

"Yes," said Fëanor, with a fervor that Morgoth had only heard when his enemy cursed him before, "it is."

"Very well," said Aulë with a sigh, and then stepped aside and sat down behind the forge, as if he were waiting for something.

"Thank you," Nerdanel said to him quietly.

Morgoth narrowed his eyes. He had wondered why Aulë seemed to be helping Fëanor with this plan. Of course, Nerdanel's kin had been close to the Vala. Perhaps he had helped Nerdanel's husband out as a favor to her.

Nerdanel, too, turned and watched the Walls of the World with something like hope, mixed with nervousness, on her face.

If there was any nervousness in Fëanor's voice when he next spoke, Morgoth couldn't hear it. "And do you think that you could rule over Manwë if you wanted?" he asked. "Even though he is your father?"

There came a sharp gagging noise from beside Morgoth, and he turned to see Varda standing there, watching Fëanor with something like hate in her eyes. "He is trouble," she muttered.

"And you never realized this before?" Morgoth felt compelled to ask.

Varda shook her head. "I never realized that he would do what he is doing."

"Of course I could rule if Father wanted me to!" Isanthétaril tossed her hair. "But that would be taking his place before he is ready, and I don't think that he wants me to do that."

Fëanor turned his back, his arms folded across his chest. "Then I suppose you can't really do anything," he said. "Just a small group of things. Who knows what else I might ask you to do, and you couldn't do?"

Isanthétaril wailed, sounding very upset.

"There's really no way to stop her, is there?" Varda asked. "Not if she's a Vala, and the most powerful one of us all."

"None," Morgoth confirmed, for a moment feeling a fleeting sorrow that he had made the Sue. Then he shrugged. At least I'll be here for the destruction of Arda, even if I'm not the one who'll cause it.

"Fëanor."

Morgoth turned his head. Manwë was standing not far away, looking so grave that he didn't even use archaism when he addressed Fëanor.

"Do you know what you will force us to do?"

"Oh, yes," said Fëanor, face as passionate as Morgoth imagined he must have looked when creating the Silmarils. "I know very well."

Manwë stared at him a moment longer, then closed his eyes. Varda closed hers, Aulë his, and Morgoth felt a ripple of power travel eastward that probably meant the other Valar were doing the same thing.

"We, the Valar, are the guardians of the world," said Manwë clearly. "But when we must, we can resign that guardianship."

The Walls of the World shook. A light came pouring through them, and a presence that made Morgoth whimper and cower, clutching his diary and the box of Sues close. Even now, Maedhros was edging towards him as if he would steal the diary.

Fëanor, said a voice that everyone there heard, the voice of Eru Ilúvatar. What have you done?



Yes, Fëanor really is that crazy.