Day 20: Something about your least favorite moment

This was the only time I actually cried reading the Silmarillion. Or, technically, Melian's saddness after when Tolkien gives us a, for him, really tragic depiction of what she has to be sorrowful about.

oh look at least my least favorite moment fic manages to be tragic, since even my favorite moment wasn't very happy :p

So this is a good place to mention my headcanon that Melian had to leave Middle-earth, she didn't just run away because she didn't care anymore, or didn't want to, but she absolutely had no choice.

Even if she left her people, which I don't think she would have done if she could have helped it, she left Lúthien without saying good-bye to her now mortal daughter who she would never see again? If she could have stayed, surely she would have taken the time to say good-bye to her, and possibly Beren and Dior, and Elwing and the twins.

So the fact that she didn't leads me to believe Melian couldn't. She, like when Lúthien died because Beren had, for all intents and purposes died when Thingol did.

I don't think the Ainur know how to deal with grief. I mean, except for Melian, when would they ever need to? Most of their relationships (except slightly Olorin who has an obsession with befriending other races) are with each other, and the Ainur don't have to worry about losing each other. So I don't think they're prepared to deal with loss in any way; they expect everything around them to last forever.
So I think Melian has no worry, before it happens, that she might lose Lúthien or Thingol, and I think when it does, she has a really hard time dealing with it because she just doesn't know how to. The elves are used to death, or at least prepared for it, but death isn't really something that happens the same way among the Ainur.

She was a powerful Maia, but she was only powerful enough to keep their people safe and keep the Girdle in place because of her union with Thingol. Without him, she didn't have that "power over the substance of Arda" that it required:

"For Melian was of the divine race of the Valar, and she was a Maia of great power and wisdom, but for love of Elwë Singollo she took upon herself the form of the Elder Children of Ilúvatar, and in that form she became bound by the chain and trammels of the flesh of Arda…and in that form she gained a power over the substance of Arda, and by the Girdle of Melian was Doriath defended throughout long ages from evils without. But now Thingol lay dead….and with his death a change came also upon Melian."

So I think that change wasn't just sorrow, I think it was that she literally could not be what she was, the super powerful Queen, without him. She would have just been a regular Maia again, and that wouldn't be anything against Morgoth or his Maiar.

Also, she couldn't rule without without Thingol. The Ainur couldn't rule, they were only supposed to guide the Children. So she could be his Queen and rule through him, she could give counsel and teach his people, but ultimately he made all the ruling decisions, and without him, Melian couldn't take his place. Perhaps she would have wanted to; I think she cared about his people as much as he did, even if just because he did, but she knew she couldn't stay and rule, that there was nothing left for her to do.

"I am going to watch the Dwarves work again today. They should be nearly finished." Elu said, somewhat distantly, when the King and Queen had finished breakfast.

"I wish you wouldn't." Melian answered automatically, though as she had been telling him constantly to stay away from the Silmaril for years now with no avail, her words had lost most of their meaning by now.

"Hm." Elu answered, distantly.

"No good shall come of you keeping this Silmaril." She recited for the thousandth time.

"Yes, dear. All the same, I shall go today." He kissed her cheek and rose, neither of them really listening to the other's words.

He left the chambers, and a moment later Melian rose and left as well, heading to her study.

"I am sorry if I was rude." Elu's voice came in her head, and she couldn't help smiling.

"No worries, my love. It is not a new disagreement."

"Still. I will not even mention the necklace at dinner tonight, I promise."

"If you say so." Came her laughing response. "Have a nice day, dear."

"You too." He chuckled, and then he reached the smithies and fell rest of the day passed as usual for Melian, getting work done, meeting with a few counsel members on matters, and small successes with her students she was currently working with. Nearing time for the evening meal Melian and her students were reading as she absently hummed softly.

...

Something was very wrong. Melian would have sensed the danger anyway, but suddenly she realized she could not reach Elu's mind, and that made her more frantic than anything else.

She dropped the old volume she had been holding to the floor and fled the room without a word, her students staring wide-eyed after her, not knowing what was going on.

Armed guards were marching towards the smithies of the Dwarves, intensifying Melian's panic, as she did not bother to stop and ask anyone what had happened. Melian threw them out of her way as she rushed ahead, her elven heart pounding harder in her ears than it ever had in her memory.

She reached the heavy doors to the smithies and cast them open with all her strength, re-lighting the extinguished torches by the doorway as she stepped inside the dark room.

There on the floor, elegant grey and silver robes stained with his own dark red blood lay the King, collapsed where he had stood.

Melian's cry reverberated through the caves and violently shook every wall in Menegroth, though she was not aware of anything but what was in front of her eyes.

"Elu, please still be here…" She thought to him, but before she even reached him she knew he was not.
She bent over him, shaking, ignoring the tears making their way down her cheeks, dimly aware of the guards entering the room behind her.

"Go, find them! Leave us!" Melian commanded loudly, and without a word they obeyed, closing the door behind them. She should have known the moment she could not sense Elu's mind that he was gone, but she hoped blindly that somehow he was only injured, or any other cause.

"Elu, meleth minai nîn…." Melian whispered, brushing her hand across is face that was still slightly warm, but only slightly. She tamed his hair so that it lay as smooth as it always did. There was nothing to do about hiding the stains of blood, and for some reason this was what made her lose any composure she had left, and a sob choked her as her tears began to fall faster.

Where was she when this had happened, he could have called for her, why hadn't he? Had the Dwarves not given him the time?

She did not have to wonder at the cause, at any rate. The cursed Silmaril, and the power it held over beings, had betrayed its bearer. If Elu had, indeed, gotten the chance to bear it at all.

She briefly cursed Aulë for his creation of the Dwarves in the first place; perhaps he had ruined the original Song by adding them. She cursed Fëanor for his cursed Silmarils, and every one of the Valar for not interfering yet.

Melian sat beside him for as long as she felt she could, remembering everything that had been good during her life in Middle-earth with Elu Thingol. She knew that she could not stay here now. These were not her people. She loved them dearly, as much as Elu had. But they were not her people, they were his, and she could not rule alone without him- it was forbidden for the Ainur to rule, was it not?

Though, either way, Melian knew she could not remain here long, not in this form. She had been tied to her elven form through her love for Elu. But now that he was gone, as well as Lúthien would be soon, this form was only tied to pain and loss. She could not wear it for much longer even if she wanted to. Even if she were to be able to simply keep wearing it, there was nothing she could do here. Her great powers here had mostly been tied to Arda through Elu; without him she couldn't hold the Girdle, or do enough to protect the people inside it through any powers she had now, not against Morgoth and his armies, nor not against any armies. Unable to rule and unable to give aid of her powers, there was no reason to remain in Doriath.

As soon as she realized it, it was a struggle to hold on any longer. She bid her last tearful good-bye to what had been Elu, pressing her lips one last time to his now cold forehead, and she rose.
Holding tight to her form she slowly left the room, finding Mablung waiting just outside with the Silmaril. He offered it to her, but she would not touch it.

One look at her had told him all he seemed to need to know, and in a hollow and dying voice she told him all she could, her last counsel. Mablung bowed one last time, and when he rose again she was already gone.

Her elven form dissipated, she rushed unseen from the caves and the forests that had been her home, bidding them a half good-bye with any mental presence she had left, silently apologizing to Lúthienfor not saying good-bye to her, and she was gone