It was very hard to start writing this. I didn't want to say goodbye.
But all good things must come to an end, as the proverb says.
I knew there was a reason I think most proverbs are silly.
The Game of the Gods, 34
Fëanor laughed.
Morgoth stared. The damn Elf was standing and laughing before the power that had made Eä, the power that had made all the Ainur and brought forth the Elves and Men alone- the power that had made him. How in the world could Fëanor be causal about this? Morgoth certainly couldn't have been; he would have been cowering even if he had been the one to cause the trouble that made Eru pay such attention to Arda.
Do you have an answer for me? Eru's voice asked.
Fëanor managed to stop laughing. "I do have an answer," he said. "I don't know that you will like the answer, in particular, but I summoned you for a reason."
The light grew brighter, and the voice colder. You did not summon me. I came because the Valar laid down their guardianship
"Yes, and I made them do it," said Fëanor, grinning.
Fëanor, said the voice.
Fëanor laughed again. Morgoth shivered and tried to hide behind Varda. For the first time, he thought he was seeing the Elf's arrogance revealed, in the shining grin and glowing gray eyes that truly didn't seem to understand whom he was confronting.
"I am only as you made me," said arrogant Elf now answered innocently.
Eru managed to growl. Morgoth cowered. He had never heard the One sound like that, even the one time that Morgoth had lost control and smacked Manwë in His sight.
"Oh, very well," said Fëanor, and scooped the Silmarils out of his pocket, using a mithril glove so they wouldn't burn his hands. Morgoth twitched. Their radiance called him even now, lust-inducing and awe-inspiring.
Of course, prudence kept him right where he was. Go near them now, and Eru would probably smite him on general principles. Or maybe Fëanor would attack.
To his dismay, Morgoth found that he didn't really know what he was more afraid of.
They were to remain within air, and earth, and sea, said Eru.Why did you fetch them out?
"Because," said Fëanor, "I am reminded that there was something I should have done long since, when I first made them, and I am now going to do them."
He slid to one knee.
Morgoth stared blankly. Varda craned her neck as if she was trying to see the dagger that Fëanor surely must have had hidden in his other hand. Morgoth shook his head. He didn't think that Fëanor's plan was to assassinate Eru, but not because that would have been too wild for him. He just wouldn't have knelt down to do it.
And what is this? Eru asked.
"I am offering up the works of my hands," Fëanor answered. For a moment, his glance went sideways and alighted on Aulë. "I am reminded that, after all, I am only a sub-creator, and not a creator, and that I should not have hoarded my treasures, but shared them freely. Perhaps if I had broken them when Varda and Yavanna first asked, and let their light spill back into the world, then it would not have mattered that Morgoth poisoned the Trees."
Morgoth stiffened. My evil does matter-
Eru was there, though. He shut even this thoughts up.
"I am reminded," Fëanor went on, "that I suffered from the sin of possessiveness, and that I did not pass on to new treasures when I had made the Silmarils, but clung to them and sighed over them. I should not have done that. You put the love of making into me, and I should have remembered to honor you with it." He bowed his head and held out the Silmarils more prominently.
"What is he doing?" Varda asked weakly. "That's a pretense of humility. Surely Eru doesn't believe that for a moment."
"I don't know," Morgoth murmured, studying Fëanor's bowed head. "It looks genuine to me." Yes, the arrogance that had been flashing in the Elf's eyes a moment ago proclaimed it wasn't, but he couldn't imagine Fëanor getting down on his knees and submitting like this. If he had been able to imagine it, most of his history with the Noldor would have been far different.
You are making a mockery of me, said the voice that proved Eru was no fool a moment later.
Fëanor smiled up. "No. I am truly offering up the works of my hands, and admitting that I was wrong. And why should you not accept them? After all, once before a servant of yours who had a great love of making made something that could have been disastrous, even more than my making of the Silmarils, and you listened to his apology and accepted his creations into your world." Again, his gaze went flashing sideways to Aulë.
Eru paused for a long moment. Yes, but that was different, he said.
"How?" Fëanor asked.
That- he submitted to me before he caused any trouble, Eru said.
"Only because you spoke to him," said Fëanor. "How do you know that he would have bowed down unto you if you hadn't? Perhaps he wouldn't."
You have made trouble in the past, Fëanor, Eru said. I will not forget that..
"I am repenting, though." Fëanor bowed his head. "I'm sorry."
"Got to be a trick," Varda muttered, while Manwë cheered.
"How can you trick Ilúvatar?" Morgoth asked, even though he agreed with Varda. There had to be some trick here, some deception he wasn't seeing, but he could think of no cause in whose name Fëanor would apologize.
There was a long, long silence. Then Eru said, I do not know how much to trust you, Fëanor. Since you have broken out of Mandos, you have done nothing but cause trouble.
"All in the name of stopping Morgoth's Sues, who were a threat to creation," said Fëanor, his face shining with pure innocence. "And, of course, gathering up the Silmarils, and bringing them to you so that you could judge me." He smiled even more widely. "I called on a disgruntled Balrog of Morgoth who dwelt in the Mines of Moria to get the Silmaril out of the fire for me, and you let me. You even gave Námo the only order he would have accepted to let my sons out of Mandos, and gave me the knowledge of where the Men slept so that I could let Túrin out. You must have been curious to see what I would do."
How do I know that you would continue this repenting behavior? Eru asked sternly. How do I know that you would submit any other treasures of your hands to me?
Fëanor grinned. Morgoth inched backward, particularly when he saw that Maedhros, who didn't seem all that impressed by what was happening in front of him, had his eyes on the diary.
"Of course, the only way to test that would be to let me make more things," said Fëanor. "They won't let me have so much as a forge in Mandos. Let me live again, perhaps among the Valar-"
You have caused too much trouble in Arda. I will not let you remain here.
"Perhaps in the Void, then?" Fëanor asked.
A living Elf could not survive there.
"But perhaps here, he could." Fëanor nodded to the side, and Maglor came forward tenderly cradling something that looked like one of the crystal globes Nerdanel had had Isanthétaril forge. This one was colored blue and green, though, and Morgoth could see white shapes sweeping across it.
Fingolfin's words, whiny and pouty though they had been, returned to him. 'Oh, Fingolfin, look, Fëanor made a working model of the universe today!'
And he had done it. He had made a world that worked, one that looked much like Arda, but was, if Morgoth could judge of the shape of the continents beneath the swirling clouds, substantially different.
You are suggesting that- that- Eru sounded as if he couldn't get His vocal chords to work right, which would have been all the better if He had actually had vocal chords. Or maybe He did. It wasn't a question that Morgoth had ever thought to ask Him.
"Yes, that you make it real." Fëanor gave that smile of blinding innocence again. "Of course, I am not so arrogant-"
Morgoth tried, and totally failed, to suppress a snort. Fëanor serenely ignored him.
"-as to think that I could make it live like Arda. It will require your help, of course. Another world set in the Void, for purposes of redemption. Of course I would go there and work in peace, and not trouble you or yours again, other than submitting the works of my hands to you." Fëanor bowed his head in that sickeningly false humility again.
Eru was silent for a long moment. Then He said, I suppose that you would want company in this world- of yours?
"Troublemakers, of course," said Fëanor. "My poor sons. Maedhros still thinks that everyone's in love with him, poor thing. You've heard him bragging of it. Maglor needs counseling from wandering the shores of Middle-earth. Celegorm is desperate enough for love to look for it in the arms of a Sue, and he has never quite gotten over Lúthien. My younger sons have this distressing tendency to want to kill and torture Morgoth. In a quieter, gentler land, they would learn better. And my wife and I need time to reconcile fully. And my father must learn to control his libido. And my mother would like to see and walk in the sunlight again, I am sure. All pressing problems, and Nienna's counseling has done absolutely nothing to rectify them-"
"Hey!" said a voice somewhere near the back, whom everyone ignored.
"And I would ask for nothing more than their company, and the world, and the time and materials necessary to create my works," said Fëanor.
Nothing more than that.
Morgoth, listening, frowned worriedly. There was a tone of something like amusement in His voice, and it definitely shouldn't be there.
"Well, of course, if you want to throw in Morgoth free to torture and make me Vala of the world, that would be nice, too." Fëanor considered for a moment. "Actually, no, no Valar powers. That would take up too much of my time. But a free Morgoth. And no more Sues, especially that one," he added, waving a hand to Isanthétaril.
Isanthétaril, who seemed to have been involved in mentally comparing her power to Ilúvatar's, looked up indignantly. "Hey!"
Fëanor, said Eru. What makes you think that I would grant this? What makes you think that I would accept such a pretense of humility, when you have shown me how much you disdain it?
"Because," said Fëanor, his smile blazing like a comet, "you created me in the first place, and Morgoth in the first place, and Aulë in the first place-"
Aulë muttered something that sounded like, "I'm being placed after Morgoth?"
"-and you created me with the ability to bring forth beautiful things, which was disrupted by someone who shall remain known by the name I gave him." Fëanor glared at Morgoth. "You wanted those beautiful things to be. Yes, you know what they would have been. Yes, you know that this humility is a pretense." Fëanor turned back to Eru. "But that is not the same as actually seeing them, or knowing that you made an Elf who would try to get away with this kind of thing, and actually believe that he could succeed."
The light was silent, and still. Morgoth stared back and forth from the light to Fëanor, still shaking his head. The Elf was beyond psychotic. Morgoth was actually willing to think that the reason Nienna's counseling hadn't helped him had nothing to do with Nienna.
Then Eru said, Yes.
Morgoth stared.
"Yes to which part?" Fëanor asked hopefully.
Yes to this world, said Eru, and yes to your making things in it, and yes to the company you asked for. No Morgoth to torture, no Vala powers.
Morgoth thought about screaming that it wasn't fair, but couldn't, for two reasons: his jaw was hanging open too far to say anything, and the being who set the laws of fairness in the universe was the one who had just violated them.
"What about Sues?" Fëanor asked.
No Sues. Eru turned towards Isanthétaril. In truth, this one has existed quite long enough.
"Don't talk about me like that!" said Isanthétaril indignantly. "And I'm more powerful than you! I can do anything!"
But you are Vala, said Eru, and that means Ainu, and that means that you're under my control.
Isanthétaril had a moment to look surprised before her bodily form dissolved. She wailed, but the wail cut off.
Morgoth turned back in time to see Fëanor's world float out of Maglor's hand and towards Ekkaia. It grew as it went, and brightened, and Morgoth could see continents that he wouldn't get the chance to uproot, and seas that he wouldn't get the chance to disrupt. He had to close his eyes to hold back his tears of frustration at that.
Fëanor laughed, stood, and turned to face the Valar. "I suppose this is farewell," he said.
"I always knew that thou couldst reform, Fëanor!" said Manwë happily.
Morgoth thought that the look of pity he gave Manwë then was the first expression he had ever shared with Fëanor. His brother obviously understood nothing of what had just happened.
"Good riddance," said Varda, but she sounded choked up.
Fëanor winked at her. "Admit it, Varda. Some part of you liked the havoc I caused."
"Yes, but you'll do better in another world," said Varda firmly, "far, far away from me."
"I suspect that's true," said Fëanor, and then tilted his head and listened as two distant shouts ripped through the air. "Ah, I suppose that's Celegorm, being ripped away from his Sue love, and my mother, being put back into life again." He smiled, and while this wasn't the comet-like smile, it was at least star-like. "Well, they will just have to get used to it."
"What about Fingolfin and his sons?" asked Varda. "Why did you not name them as part of your company, and give them the chance to live again?"
"Because," said Fëanor, "I don't like them."
He turned to Aulë, and nodded once. Morgoth didn't know what had passed between them, but it was enough to make the Vala close his eyes for a moment.
Nerdanel skipped up to her husband and took his hand. "There will be time to reconcile?" she asked.
Fëanor kissed her cheek. "Truly."
The air rippled, and Finwë appeared at his side, looking traumatized and muttering something about rabbits and pillows. Fëanor gave him a sympathetic look and gripped his free hand.
"Come, Father," he said. "You have more problems than ever to work out, I think, but it will happen. I can remember enough to make you a copy of Morgoth's diary."
Morgoth clutched the diary protectively.
Fëanor turned to face him. "And I suppose this is farewell to you, as well," he said. "You'll probably have a nice life."
"Huh?" Morgoth asked. He knew it made him sound unintelligent. He didn't care. His enemy was going far, far away, to a place where he could never bother Morgoth again. It was worth it.
"You helped the Valar, didn't you?" Fëanor asked. "You're good now. They'll be calling you Melkor again, next thing you know."
"No!" Morgoth exclaimed.
Fëanor winked at him, then turned as Eru's voice spoke again. It is time to go.
His sons, Finwë, and Nerdanel faded from sight first. Fëanor glanced back once at Morgoth before he himself vanished.
"Just remember one thing," he said.
"Yes?" Morgoth asked. He didn't know what he was expecting- some proverb, perhaps.
"I won," said Fëanor, and smiled.
The light took him before Morgoth could think of a response to that. He was still trying to think of a response when the light turned its attention to him.
Then Eru's voice said, I suppose we shall have to think about what to do with you, next.
One more, the epilogue, and that's it.
I have the sniffles.