I neither own nor created Middle Earth/Arda or the Western Shores/Valinor or any of the characters said to dwell in either place in the pages of "The Silmarillion," which I did not write. J. R. R. Tolkien wrote "The Silmarillion." Actions various characters are said to have taken on either side of the fictional sea in that book are mentioned here. I am extremely grateful to Tolkien and do not mean to disrespect him by letting my own imagination play in the land of fantasy he first put to page. I hope he does not mind in heaven.

In the meantime, I make no money from this work I based on his own. I wrote and posted the chapter below in the hope of pleasing my fellow fans.

He didn't wish to wake, not outside the Halls of Mandos. He knew he deserved them. He'd been a fool. He'd known it before the robed and hooded figure had spoken to them on the boats. He'd felt the guilt eating away at him, un-named and not fully acknowledged, since he'd first realized the only crime those on the boats before them had committed was guarding the work of their hands, as dear to them as his mentor's gems had been to him. He never should have begged that mind to teach his, nor let his teacher's kin near his own. He should have forged bars to keep all those he cared about on legs locked inside until the stolen ships had left their shores.

He should face the grim Valar of justice for all he'd done. He admired Mandos even more greatly now. "He" had known. "He" had not voted for releasing Melkor. If only his king had listened to him everything might have stayed the way it had been … before ... Now …

Now, he wanted to wake in the halls of Mandos. He wanted to be judged correctly and fully. He wanted to spend the rest of his endless existence in cold, dark, stone hallways far from others so they wouldn't be bothered by his misery or try to cheer him in it.

He didn't want to wake to see stars, the creations of the Valar King's beloved wife. He didn't want to wake to hear water, the music of the Valar King's dear friend. He did "not" want to wake to feel a breeze ... sent from the Valar King himself.

He wanted to go back to oblivion. It was the closest thing he'd get to happiness. But something was poured into his mouth, first chilling, then burning. Even those sensations only began to pull him back toward consciousness. As his flesh absorbed the drink, jolts of energy flashed through his body. His stomach awakened, clamped, and screamed in hunger immediately after.

More of a growl than a groan welled up inside him and then made it out. He curled up inside himself again. The effort did not work. Sensations reached him from outside even better after the drink

Pin-pricks of silver light cut through his eyelids. Gurgles of running water rushed into his ears. Wafts of chill breeze sank through his skin and then into his bones. He shivered.

A light weight fell upon his shoulder. Warmth poured from it into his skin and then into his bone. He opened one eye. Then he tried to push himself into the earth and away from what he saw.

The face above him must be Elbereth herself. Dark, empathetic eyes looked into his own. They were set in a shining, pale, oval face. Dark, straight hair fell from a straight brow to frame slightly curving cheeks.

He blinked and looked again. No … The eyes were tinged with a warm brown shade. The skin was cream not silver. The contours of the face were slightly off. This beauty was not quite as breath-taking. This was someone else.

He tried to rise. The hand on his shoulder pushed him down again, gently, but the grip felt firm. "Shhhhhhh … You're safe now."

"Safe? Why would you assume this is so?"

A laugh sounded from somewhere. The delicate brows of the face above him furrowed slightly as the eyes beneath them narrowed just as slightly. Pink lips tightened into a thinner line.

He tilted his own head back into the dirt to look beyond the top of his own head. Another elleth sat behind where his head lay. She leaned slightly away from instead of over him like the first elleth.

This second elleth's face was thinner and merrier. Her hair was a warm, red-brown. Her eyes, however, seemed the same dark-brown as the first's. She spoke to him. "We have made you much safer than you were earlier this night."

He frowned. His gaze darted between them. He had definitely never seen these two before. He could tell by their voices, Sindarin had been the first language they learned. However, they did not sound nor look like elves from Doriath or the occasional dark elf he'd run into living outside the girdle of Melian on these eastern shores. "Who are you? Where are you from?"

The first face he'd woken to turned to look back into his eyes. "We are green elves from Ossiriand."

"Oh. I see."

The second elleth spoke again. "Try not to be overwhelmed. After all, aren't we all descended from the same first group of kin to awaken in the east?"

The face above him frowned, raised its gaze, and shook its head at the cheeky voice once again beyond his line of sight. He was almost amused by the expression on the first face and how the green elleth's movement caused the curtain of her dark hair to bounce. He decided he would to speak to "her." "How did you find me?"

The elleth beside him sat up, looked away, and blushed. It was the cheeky voice who replied, "My Aunt searched the river for stones and then found you also."

Now the view was clear he stared up into the sky filled with stars. He clenched his jaw. He had tried to escape, but Manwe's close friend was just as cruel as he. He should have seen this coming. If you can hear my thoughts as well as my words across the sea, Varda, tell your husband and his friend I thank them not for this.

But he only glanced in silence between the faces of the elleth near him. They seemed to have taken some trouble over him. And as far as he knew, they had committed no crime. Why should he punish them? Why should he let his curse come upon them?

"I regret telling you both, you have made a mistake."

The first elleth bent her head to stare down at him again with wide eyes. "Have we?"

"You should have nothing to do with me either of you. I am cursed."

The other elleth leaned over and stared down at him too, her face appearing upside down to his eyes. "Are you?"

He nodded. "I fell into the clutches of Morgoth. I escaped the enthrallment of his gaze whatever any might say, but he then turned me over to his favorite servant. When he could not make me do as his master wished, he punished me and then set me to another task. While performing it, I escaped, but my own people will not take me in for fear of any spell our enemies might have cast upon me while I was with them."

"No wonder you are so starved."

He started and stared at the elleth staring back at him from his side. He noted she had not removed her hand from his shoulder. He next looked to upside down face above his. Her smooth brow, cheeks, and intent eyes showed no fear.

He raised an eyebrow at them both. "After all I have said that is all you have to say to me?"

The second elleth shrugged. "I too was a prisoner of some of our joint enemies, though they were not as powerful enemies as those who kept you. I also escaped. My kin have long guarded me from my once-captors. Besides, our home is not a place of great interest to them save for the fact I am there."

"I know not why you think yourself so important to them elleth, but I can assure you, you are not."

The second laughed. "Well then, you should feel all the safer in Ossiriand."

"I'm not going anywhere near your home. Have you not listened to anything I said?"

"We both listened to you."

He looked back to the first elleth now raising one eyebrow head held high, eyes cast down, but only to squarely meet his gaze. Her form and face seemed carved of stone, her moving lips barely ruined the illusion. "And we are not leaving you to die, nor letting you run off to do so."

"You are holding me prisoner?"

"If we must. Show us you will not run off to die, and we shall trust you not to do so."

The other elleth spoke again. "We tree-dwelling elves have a tendency to find creatures who have gone off to die and then poking them into living years longer."

There was a sound of scraping nearby. He turned his head that direction to look. Then he jerked away so hard, he slipped out from beneath the firm hold the first elleth had on his shoulder. He leapt to his feet and reached for his weapon. There was nothing there. He took a deep breath and a step back before planting his feet and reaching up and out to grapple with his hands.

His eyes fixed themselves on those of the orc. But … the orc's eyes were glazed-over. Its jaw hung open and slack. The scrambling noise was coming from behind it. Then another form appeared beside the orc's. A young ellon climbed over the cliff edge, past the orc head and shoulders, and then turned back to face them. He took ahold of the orc under the armpits and lifted it up with him before walking backwards just to drop it in the dirt at his own feet after several steps.

The older ellon lifted his gaze from the enemy in the dust to study this elven newcomer. The ellon was young, short, only slightly taller than the elleth seemed to be still kneeling on the ground. The youth's hair was an even brighter shade of brown than the second elleth's. When the younger ellon turned toward him, the noldo saw the color of this ellon's eyes nearly matched his hair. The newcomer smiled at him. "Ah. You're awake. Mae govannon …"

"Indeed." The first elleth stood and stepped up to take his left arm. She also smiled upon him. "We never did get around to saying that before. Mae govannon, dear guest."

The younger elleth stepped up to his other side and grabbed his other arm and smiled even more brightly up into his face. "Mae govannon."

He glanced between the two of them and then looked off into the darkness beyond the younger ellon's head. What sort of elves has Manwe's mercy caused me to fall in with?

. . .

"What sort indeed?"

Mellolaes frowned down at the one listening to her story and growled. "Oh, hush!"

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God Bless

ScribeofHeroes