A/N: I'm so excited to finally be updating this! I promise I never meant for it to take more than two whole months, and I offer my most profuse apologies! I actually started this vignette the same day I posted Illuminate, but I just couldn't tie it all up to my satisfaction and it's been rewritten several times. But here it is at long last! I hope you enjoy.

Unraveling

I am accustomed to dealing with trouble, but I never expected to find it breeding among the princes of Ilúvatar's firstborn.

The first sword drawn against a friend in Arda was drawn by one elf-prince against another. Though no bloodshed was done, the Valar called court in the Ring of Doom, and Fëanor who had threatened his half-brother Fingolfin was summoned by my call to stand before us, and with him all the elves who had any part or knowledge in the doings of the Spirit of Fire. Gathered now, they are somber and still, for once communally uncertain of foot. None dare speak.

The elf stands kindled, but not yet burning. I cannot understand the heart of his doom. Is not peace better than hate? What reason can Fëanor have for mongering war amidst his brethren?

Stone limbs come forward, bringing one body at a time to bear witness. Words spool into the open, making stories, unveiling roots buried in the loam of previously unconnected circumstances. The Children tell us all.

In a moment I see the truth of it: my brother has done this. It is he who is at the heart of this evil, he who has corrupted Fëanor, though the elf despises him more deeply than does anyone, even my star-queen.

When at last these words are voiced, Tulkas leaps up, his presence flexing as he swears justice on Melkor. He is gone in a moment, leaping over the mountains, his prowess lent at once to the chase of his dark quarry.

At my side, Elentári looks on with hard eyes, and I can feel her wrath at Melkor rousing from its drowse. Of all the Valar, she has felt and hated most keenly the evil of the foe. The next time I meet her eyes, I will have to relive again the day I released Melkor from the imprisonment of Mandos and unleashed the seedlings of this animosity upon Arda. She will not blame me—she could not accuse Súlimo, whom she loves, even though I might deserve it; the single broken link of our circle has brought evil itself upon the world, and further fracture among us could destroy it, or doom it—but I will nonetheless feel her pain, her compressed fury. I think that she must understand something at his heart that I cannot. Somehow her eyes can pierce further into the veils of evil than mine, the farsighted, ever shall.

Whatever Melkor did at the heart of the matter, however, we cannot hold Fëanor blameless. We have sworn that he will answer to us, and so he shall. The weight of his crime hangs like thunder over Aman, and restitution must be made.

Without voice, in the space of minutes, we confer. The elves cannot hear us, nor read the hearts of the Valar as we debate over the fate of this little one. We confer without overmuch emotion, for the Ainur do not know fear, though tightly bound anger slips into the words of Vairë especially, whose tapestries have been snarled by the workings of this little Eldar. Mandos says nothing, though I can read foretelling in his face. Some darkness, much greater than this—but Eru cautions us not to speak of it yet.

At my bidding, the Doomsman speaks reprimand and banishment upon the elf, confers upon him exile from Tirion. These are words that riddle the elf with loss, though still he stands, barely trembling. Chill he seems still, a pyre not yet taken to torch. It is a strange countenance on him.

Fingolfin, his wronged kinsman, turns the pale and gentle eyes of forgiveness on him, promises to release him, but Fëanor makes no answer. I look at Varda, and she at me; even together, though we have the farthest sight and keenest hearing of any being upon Arda, we cannot make out the workings of this troubled heart.

Did they not once swear a vow to be ever brothers, to ever go where the other went? Even if Fingolfin stands by him in this valley, he must not follow him into the underworld where I think Fëanor may yet go.

Sometimes the Eldar forget that even we, though mighty Ainur who have sung the Music and thus the worlds into being, cannot see all.

He will not stay stagnant, nor plead for us to let him return, says Elentári, smooth-faced. The machinations of Fëanor, whether for good or evil, will not halt because we separate him from the only home he has known.

Eru knows what this way comes. The Valar are rarely swayed in their course, and in certainty I stand now. We follow not our own hearts in this matter—for we have seen what comes of that.

There is no need to speak his name again. Nessa blinks, and I know she is thinking of her mate, even now on the scent of him, and she does not fear, but she wonders. As do we all.

The Children scatter when we rise to go, and I can hear among them whispers of triumph, of grief, of mockery, of bewilderment, of fear.

It is not division between the Noldorin houses alone that has been spawned here. Eru keep us—yet I wonder if the shadow by which we tried to protect the Children from Melkor's destruction has instead only fostered the same darkness within them. I know not how to keep them.

I know not if we are even meant to.