Strange Alliances
by Erestor
Disclaimer: I own nothing pertaining to The Lord of the Rings, The Silmarillion, or the Harry Potter series. This story was written for entertainment purposes only.
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CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
'They were suddenly aware of great hunger, for they had not eaten anything since breakfast; but they dared not make more than a frugal supper.'
-J.R.R. Tolkien, 'The Fellowship of the Ring'
Manwë played a few dozen games of solitaire while waiting for Varda to return. He had a vague feeling that she would not be happy when she arrived home. He decided that maybe a hot drink would soothe her.
He just hoped that she would come back to him in one piece.
Manwë was boiling the teakettle on the stove when Varda staggered into the kitchen and collapsed into a chair. Manwë was glad to see that she was missing no limbs.
"How were the eagles?" asked Manwë. A lesser Vala might have gloated, but Manwë only sounded sympathetic and concerned.
Varda chuckled raggedly, took the proffered cup of tea with a nod of thanks, and swigged down the scalding concoction in one gulp. "You were right," she said. "They don't like constructive criticism. They don't take it well."
"I'm sorry to hear that," said Manwë. He was, of course, very definitely not thinking 'I told you so'. He was too nice.
"I'm going to learn how to play the piano," said Varda.
"Really?"
Varda nodded, and poured herself some more tea. "Pianos are beautiful instruments," she said. "I've always wanted to learn how to play them. I will write rousing piano concertos."
They sat quietly for a few minutes.
"The salmon?" said Manwë at last.
"Well," said Varda slowly, "would you like to hear the good news first, or the bad news first?"
"The bad news," said Manwë.
"We are going to starve," said Varda.
"Oh," said Manwë. "And the good news?"
"No more salmon," said Varda.
"I suppose the eagles did not like to hear what you had to say?"
"The eagles were... offended by my constructive criticism. They told me that they would no longer bring us anything to eat."
"What did you say?" asked Manwë.
"I told them that I didn't care," said Varda. "And I don't. And I said to them that if I saw their ugly eagle faces anywhere near Taniquetil, I'd really lose my temper."
Manwë did not like to hear his beloved birds described as having 'ugly eagle faces', but he also did not like it when Varda really lost her temper. He gave her a little unhappy look, which Varda feigned not to notice, because if she noticed it, she would feel guilty.
"What did the eagles say to that?" asked Manwë eventually.
Varda scowled at the table. "They laughed," she said.
Manwë, being wise, did not.
There was nothing to eat for breakfast. Fëanor had retired from the culinary industry, abandoning his spatula for the more familiar hammer and anvil. Sauron, a hardworking Dark Lord, had little time to waste on such trivial things as a morning snack. Lórien had disappeared, leaving Mandos and Nienna to sit in the empty kitchen, feeling stunned.
The rats were still rejoicing.
"I do not like this place," said Nienna. "It is giving me a headache."
Lórien returned, unscathed. "I found a garden!" he announced. "I need you to cry over it, Nienna."
Nienna raised her eyebrows in surprise, but followed him out the door.
Mandos sat in the kitchen for a while, dazed. Like Nienna, he did not like Barad-dûr. It made him feel harassed. He wished he were back in the quiet, peaceful, dark-in-a-good-way Halls of the Dead, laying down the law and doing paperwork with his cat beside him. He hoped someone was remembering to feed his cat.
Mandos wondered who Manwë had placed in charge of his Halls. Ulmo, perhaps. Mandos hoped not. Ulmo would get everywhere wet. Tulkas... no. Tulkas would find the Halls far too gloomy; he wouldn't come near them. Aulë would be too busy to take the job. Manwë would be too busy as well, or else he would have been a perfect Doomsman of the Valar. Except he wouldn't have the heart to doom anyone.
That left Oromë as the best choice. Mandos did not know Oromë very well, but he seemed to be a decent Vala, despite his inordinate love of hunting. He would keep everything organized. At the very worst, he would place his hunting trophies all over the Halls, but that would not be very bad. Moose heads could be detached from walls with little difficulty.
Nienna and Lórien returned. They were holding round, red fruit in their hands.
"Breakfast!" said Lórien proudly, handing Mandos one.
"What is this?" asked Mandos, holding it up and staring at it doubtfully.
"I have no idea," said Lórien. "I found some weeds outside, and Nienna came and cried over them, and stuff started growing. This looks edible, doesn't it?"
Mandos looked at his siblings. "You haven't tasted it, have you?" he asked shrewdly. "You want me to take the first bite, and if it doesn't kill me, you'll have some too."
Nienna and Lórien nodded, unashamed.
Mandos sighed, and took a bite. What was the worst that could happen? If it were poisonous, at least Fëanor was nowhere near, and would not be able to save him for the third time.
"Is it good?" chorused Nienna and Lórien.
It was juicy. It had many small seeds. It tasted vaguely familiar. "It's fine," said Mandos.
Lórien and Nienna nibbled their samples of the red fruit. "There is plenty of it," said Nienna. "We won't starve."
"Then it looks as though we're stuck here indefinitely," said Mandos. "What year is it anyway?"
"Don't know," said Lórien. "When will Legolas go over the sea?"
"Year 1541, by Shire Reckoning," replied Nienna promptly.
They were quiet for a few minutes. Then Mandos said, "I think we have miscalculated."
Nienna selected another fruit, and asked, "How?"
"According to what normally happens in Middle-earth," said Mandos, "there is a large, climactic battle in Mordor, and some weird gollum creature tosses Sauron's One Ring in Orodruin, and then Barad-dûr falls apart."
They were quiet for a few more minutes. "I guess we're in a bad place," said Lórien eventually.
"It won't happen for some time," said Nienna. "We can evacuate if things look grim."
"How can we evacuate without Sauron realizing that something bad is going to happen to him?" asked Mandos. "He could really mess up history all by himself if he knew the plans of the free peoples of Middle-earth. He could defeat them easily."
"We should have stuck with our first plan," said Nienna, "and tried to get Legolas over the sea as quickly as possible."
"Aragorn ruined that particular plan," said Lórien. "He's keeping Legolas occupied."
The three Valar looked at each other worriedly.
"And I wonder," said Nienna, "why Sauron tried to have Erestor dragged all the way to Mordor."
"We could ask him," said Lórien.
Mandos and Nienna laughed.
Most of the Valar, who firmly believed that mathematics were a lesser form of evil, were of the opinion that Morgoth had lured Sauron to the Dark Side with trigonometry. Sauron knew this. It amused him.
Sauron sat in his throne room with a piece of paper, a pen, and some ink, and played games with numbers. He had just performed a complicated mathematical maneuver that would have made Manwë nauseous if he'd been watching, and was feeling pleased with himself.
The Valar came into the room. They seemed to be on a mission of some sort.
"You three look ridiculous when you try to look determined," said Sauron snidely, putting the piece of paper away. "What is it?"
"Sauron," said Mandos in a confrontational manner, "why did you have Erestor abducted?"
"Erestor?" asked Sauron.
"An Imladris Elf," elaborated Mandos.
"Oh, him," said Sauron.
"Yes, him," said Mandos.
"I don't see why I should make my plans known to you," said Sauron. "It will be very dull for me to have to explain to you in painstaking detail everything I do. Anyway, don't you enjoy living on the edge, waiting for exciting things to happen unexpectedly?"
"Not really," said Mandos.
"Well, that's your problem," said Sauron.
"By the way," said Mandos, "we discovered something to eat."
"Really?" Sauron began to look interested, instead of moody and mean.
Mandos tossed Sauron a piece of fruit, and Sauron caught it most dexterously. "What is this?" he asked suspiciously, squinting at it. "Will it kill me if I eat it?"
"It has not killed any of us," said Mandos.
Sauron announced that he wasn't going to eat a mysterious piece of fruit before he had seen one of the Valar taking a bite of it first. Mandos said he wasn't biting it after Sauron had touched it. Sauron flung it at Mandos's feet, and that was that.
"Go and amuse yourselves somehow," said Sauron. "Stop bothering me."
The Valar slunk off. Sauron picked up his piece of paper, and started playing with numbers again, smiling broadly.
"Hello, Nessa," said Vairë.
"Hello, Vairë," said Nessa. She was jump-roping in Mandos's office. She had been jump-roping for some ten or fifteen minutes, and was not yet out of breath.
Vairë hovered warily in the doorway, trying not to get hit with the rope.
"Did you come here for something?" asked Nessa, jumping around.
"Yes," said Vairë. "I came to pick up some paperwork. I need to withdraw a mortal from the Halls."
"Really," said Nessa. "I don't think that's possible."
"I'm sure it is," said Vairë. "I just need to do enough paperwork." She looked around her husband's office, wincing. Just finding the appropriate forms to fill out would take several mortal lifetimes. "You know," she said, "Mandos won't be too happy when he comes back and finds his office like this."
"Like what?"
"Like unbounded devastation," said Vairë. She poked through some coffee-stained, crumpled pieces of parchment on a desk. "If I remember correctly, there were some filing cabinets somewhere."
"Oh," said Nessa. "I moved them out of the office. There was no room for the indoor swimming pool, otherwise."
Vairë looked at the indoor swimming pool. "To clarify things for you, Nessa, when I said that Mandos wasn't going too happy, I meant that he would absolutely homicidal."
Nessa smiled, still jump-roping. "Doesn't matter," she said. "I can run fast."
"What is this 'Grand Plan' that you've been hinting at for so long?" asked Caranthir one day.
Maedhros let an enigmatic smile play about his lips. He was getting very good at his enigmatic smiles. They drove his brothers crazy. Still smiling enigmatically, he carefully dabbed sparkly glue on his piece of origami paper. "You'll find out," he said. "Very soon."
TBC...