I do not own the Valar or many events told of here. I do own many of the named elven characters.

Since I make no money from this, please don't sue me, but just enjoy my works for free. I very much appreciate all the work J. R. R. Tolkien put into this world which so inspires me.

Melkor, at least he who was once Melkor, was dragged out into the light. The last part of his form to appear were stumps ending where his ankles should have been that left slicks of black blood in their wake. When he saw Manwe standing, waiting, and watching outside his broken fortress, the former brother of the merciful king of the Valar began to crawl on his knees and elbows to him, though the Dark Lord kept his head bowed and eyes closed so as to not meet that light-filled gaze again.

Sarnhael felt an uncomfortable understanding with his great enemy. He also knew even with one's eyes closed the blazing light of Manwe shone through their lids so you could easily locate him with your eyes shut. The once Valar stopped moving across the earth after falling so his face landed on Manwe's feet. Eyes still closed he began to weep and plead for himself. And Manwe did not respond except to raise his own gaze from his once brother's dark head to stare into the west as tears bright and large flowed out of his eyes and down his face to land upon the charred earth. The dust they landed on turned from charred black to a soft grey. As Morgoth filled the air with his words, cries, and shouts for mercy, Manwe did not respond at all.

Mandos, however, stepped up behind his king. With drawn together brows and focused eyes, he interrupted the prisoner and began to speak listing the victims of Morgoth to him. The jaws of elves, men, and even Maia dropped. Mandos spoke of animals of Yavanna, causing her to turn her gaze away from Beleriand sinking into the sea and onto him. The Valar known for ruling cold halls described how his fellow Valar had lovingly made a creature after the vision she had seen from Iluvatar. He described how she had then sent it out into the lands then crafted by her husband with a smile, the creature itself snorting and tossing its head in joy, and then Melkor had found it. He spoke with some detail of how the jealous Valar then corrupted the beast before setting it upon one of its fellow creatures till they gouged each other to death with their great horns stabbing them into each other's bellies. That was not so harrowing a tale as some he told later of elves caught by and then pulled into Melkor's earlier dark fortress far to the east, where he tortured them outside the knowledge of his fellow Valar or those elves own kin century cycle upon cycle of the stars above where they could not see them, who were made children of the stars. The Valar of Justice named these elves before describing their torments: the breaking of their bones and stretching and restructuring of their faces as well their as their own pleas and exclamations of horror and pain. He gave some of them their last words as some had died before their transformation into orcs were considered complete by the dark lord who had just pled for himself. Some of the later tales Mandos seemed tame in comparison like the story of how he fed Feonor and Fingolfin lies about each other to turn brother against brother and disrupt the peace of the west, how he did the same to Hurin to turn him against his friends after cursing his family and him to see only the worst of their shortened lives he otherwise missed. Mandos also told of the prisoners, elves and men, dropped into the maw alive of the werewolf who had guarded Morgoth's gate. He followed that by speaking of the slaying Huan by this same monster he'd so strengthened, which Morgoth had fully intended by doing this. The Valar of justice spoke also of humans deceived in the east, humans like the unhappy man deceived into betraying Barahir and his fellows, who while their hearts were never deceived into serving Morgoth for power or glory or gold did so believing loved ones would be freed only to be tortured to death themselves. And there were of course the numerous deaths in this decades long war the Valar themselves participated in. Rather than dwelling more on those they had lost on their own side, Mandos spoke of the many men, orcs, and other creatures Morgoth had sent out to fight them without coming out himself after giving them false promises or delivering dire threats and of their horrible deaths. Mandos finished with this. "All this and more have I learned in my halls from the numerous souls you have sent me there. Did you not realize when you finally sent them away from yourself thus, they would end up with me to add their testimony to the list of your crimes I have born in my heart and head all this age against you? And you have not admitted any of this to us now all is lost to you, but have simply begged for mercy and insisted you can change and heal what you have broken. You were set free by our king with such promises before, and most of what I have listed you did after. How can you expect any to trust you now?"

Yavanna and Esti's usually gentle faces scowled. Their fists clenched as they glared down upon the cowering and now shaking prisoner. Orome and Aule had never looked gently upon him at all. And their faces were like stone. Varda Elbereth had closed her eyes. Her long lax face sparkled more than usually with tears like crystal. She kept a hand on her husband's shoulder as he too continued to cry staring into the west. Finally, he spoke. "How indeed, brother, once brother, can I set you free or even keep you in this world, when you have hurt so much, so many, and most thoroughly of all corrupted yourself? Thoughts of your own fate so consume you now, you mention none of your victims or crimes against our own works, delights of your fellow Valar you destroyed, though you appeal to us. How can you promise to help, when it is clear you know not even how to heal yourself nor have tried to? All these years you could have left your throne and sought us out if you wanted healing, reconciliation, or even just to repent. Yet, you claim you will 'now' make better what you have marred, when we must drag you out after you attempting negotiation to be left alone to do less? No. I cannot let you stay here. You will go perhaps where all your troubles began: into the void."

And Morgoth screamed at these words. But he was nonetheless picked up and carried to a large ship, but Manwe whom he was pulled away from while still trying to lunge back towards his feet rattling out more words of promises and pleas, continued to stare into the west and cry. One might have thought he did not hear except for the tears he cried. And something moved in Sarnhael Narkal's heart as he watched. For once, he found what had happened to him and his brothers mild, happy even. Unlike so many in Mandos' stories, they had not been dragged away to an unknown fate, not even one like his own or the other freed prisoners had just seen. Most of them had died swiftly, all of their remains had been discovered, prepared, and interred with respect and love. Their forms though without life then had remained those of elves. They had never become orcs in capable of speaking of or perhaps even remembering their shared happy pasts together. But more than that, now, he, Narkal still called them brothers and looked forward to seeing them again.

Manwe would never have that with the one he had once called brother. Sarnhael began to move toward the king of the Valar, this time looking full up into his face. And Manwe, who would not look down at a weeping Morgoth glanced down immediately as Sarnhael stopped about one of his body-lengths from the crevice Morgoth had made in the earth by throwing himself upon Manwe's feet. The elf now spoke. "I give, freely, my condolences to you, my king, for the loss of one you once held dear and lost through no fault of your own."

Manwe smiled at him, his face still wet, but there was a change in his light, it grew warmer. He knelt, also avoiding the place Morgoth had laid, and angled himself to fully face the elf staring back up at him with a lax and solemn face. "Thank you Narkal. Well met. How are you yourself after all of this? I see you can meet my gaze once more. I am glad …"

Though the smile remained the king of the Valar's eyes and stare into the elf's face grew sad at this last statement. Narkal stared back neither smiling nor scowling surprised at himself. He wondered as if from far away at his own actions and words. And how could he answer the question his king asked?

"I do not know … except, I feel a weight lifted off from me somehow … I did not only fear, I despaired … and now … I have hope again, but I am unused to hope now. I am therefore unsure of how to live with it again. Even with destruction all about me, I know the particular destruction I feared will not happen at least not beneath the rule of enemy I thought it would."

He then started and looked up at the Valar sorry for saying this, but while Manwe had closed his still weeping eyes he and nodded solemnly, he then reopened his eyes and smiled at the elf again. "You call me "king. Does that mean you trust me and the other Valar again?"

Sarnhael bowed his head. "I believed before … you would never help us in this land against one you once counted among your number. Now, I see with my own eyes you have, and my stubborn heart admits the truth of your concern for us even at the cost of … Melkor." The Noldo looked away and out over at the broken burning lands all around them knowing those beyond such sights into the west were sinking into the sea. "And I also see, why you waited so long and the cost of the aid of those so mighty against such a mighty enemy as he was …"

"And what do you want from us now this battle is finally won?"

Narkal fell silent his gaze turning inward.

Manwe spoke gently again as the elf's silence continued. "The last message you sent me by one of my winged servants … that one you do not regret?"

Narkal closed his eyes and shook his head.

Manwe gave a wider grin. "You should know then the ones you asked mercy for are now at home."

Narkal raised wide eyes and blank face.

Manwe continued. "Tarman helps your adar at his forge again. Rombar played a song for a party for the first time since returning to us just before my army set off from Valinor, the twins offered to come and fight with us, but I thought it better they stay and heal more the wounds they gave others instead, for of all your kin, they find it hardest to speak to any, save perhaps each other, for even I cannot read thoughts. And it has taken time for them to apologize and ask mercy, but they had done so to some before I left."

Narkal who had tears slowly slipping down his cheeks to fall from them then asked, "And Ascarant?"

Manwe nodded. "He still runs and rides much along the many paths across Valinor, but not to compete, only for the joy in it. He is more likely now to stop and talk to others he would only pass before he left our shores. He was the first to apologize to everyone he wronged in some way, even before Tarman and Rombar, in fact I think he helped them do so, and there is peace in his eyes I had never seen there before."

Narkal had bowed his head, but it bore a wide peaceful smile of its own.

Manwe smiled in return before asking "Would you like to come back to me and rejoin them?"

Narkal started back slightly. He lifted his head with wide eyes and open mouth, but Sarnin further away in a soft shadow, clutched her stomach as if she had taken an arrow there and covered her mouth. Her eyes not only wide, but watering she turned and began to stride away into the dark broken lands as swiftly and silently as she could even as tears ran even more swiftly down her face than her feet moved.

What do you think?

God bless

ScribeofHeroes