"Time Lords?" Nienna replied, an amused smile tugging at the corners of her lips. When she spoke, it sounded as though multiple people spoke with the same voice in unison, reverberating and echoing with every syllable. "Good name."
"Always seemed a bit arrogant for my liking," the Doctor replied, still staring into Nienna's eyes of swirling gold. "It's long after your time, though."
"All time is our time," Nienna said proudly. "How did you get here?"
"Oh, that's boring," The Doctor replied. "Barely even worthy of being called an anecdote. But how YOU got here? Now that's interesting. Very interesting indeed." Their gazes fought in silence, each trying to peer into the very soul of the other and finding only the void.
"My Lady Nienna," Elwing stammered, practically crawling forward. "Please…Morgoth is on the verge of destroying all of Elvendom in Middle-Earth. We need you-"
"Silence," Nienna barked, cowing Elwing into a kowtowing heap with a voice that seemed to carry the weight of heaven itself. "Those who followed Fëanor the faithless are Doomed to share his fate." Eärendil dashed forward and wrapped a protective arm around his wife, rising to one knee to challenge the Vala.
"My Lady," Eärendil said, religious terror tempering his anger. "With great respect, both of us were born in Middle-Earth; we had no part in Fëanor's transgressions, we are as much victims of it ourselves." The Doctor felt a very small smile flicker across his face; the kind of person who would argue semantics with someone he perceived as a god was very much his kind of person. "We have come through fire and water, across the world and time itself, to beg your indulgence. The Doctor - my friend," he added after a pause, "has brought us here at great cost and risk. We had assumed that he was from the Timeless Halls."
Nienna cocked her head as she regarded the Doctor coolly. "He is not known to us," she replied, "though there is something…familiar about him."
"Ah, now this, I'm used to," the Doctor exclaimed, regaining his usual degree of animation. "I'm not ashamed to admit it - I get around a lot! I've ended up in more civilisation's mythologies than you can shake a stick at. In short - I get recognised. People don't know where they know me from, but they know me, the way you hear someone tell an anecdote so many times that eventually you swear you were there yourself. But," he continued, lapsing back into the soft, threatening tone of before, "that's not why you recognise me, is it? Look at you," he said, looking Nienna up and down, his face a mix of admiration, dread, and disgust. "I shudder to think of what you've done to turn yourself into…this. You've looked where none of us dare look; gone where none of us, even in our arrogance, dare go."
"If you are who you say you are," Nienna replied, a small smile hiding a bubbling well of growing anger, "then you owe everything you are to us. Everything Gallifrey has become will have been because of our sacrifices, our trials, and our triumphs here." She cast an eye over Eärendil and Elwing. "They came to meet their gods. Are you sure you didn't, too?"
"Oh, you're way off-base there," the Doctor replied, chuckling. "See, whatever this place is, I've never heard of it. Now usually I love that, but the thing is, neither has my TARDIS. And if she's never heard of it, that means the Time Lords have never heard of it. And if THEY'VE never heard of it…it doesn't exist." The Doctor's face finally dropped into a grim rictus. Nienna bristled visibly. "Whatever you've done here has blown a hole in space and time so vast that it's broken reality itself. You've meddled with powers you were hopelessly ill-equipped to control."
"Doctor, please, show some respect!" Elwing hissed, still shrunken in fear. "She is one of the Valar, the most powerful beings in Arda!"
"Let me guess," the Doctor said, "benevolent guardians of your race? Lifted you up out of barbarity and into the light of reason?" Nienna's golden eyes lit up with indignation, the blue shroud of stars that surrounded her beginning to dim, like the eyes of a cat slanting before it pounced. "If you believe that," he spat, leaning forward until he was almost nose-to-nose with Nienna, "I've an Einstein-Rosen bridge to sell you."
"ENOUGH!" Nienna shrieked, throwing the Doctor back as though she had exploded. Waves of force seemed to pour off of her in every direction, sending the three companions tumbling across the grass as her entire body began to glow with a fiery light that licked off of her in tendrils. "I will tolerate this disrespect no further!" She said, her voice mutated and distorted beyond recognition. Eärendil and Elwing hunkered down, digging their heels and fingers into the earth to keep from rolling even further, as the Doctor struggled up to his hands and knees. A jet-black hole appeared in the air behind them, at first no bigger than a pinprick but growing steadily, with a corona of pure white encircling it. As the winds pushed them back, the maw of the hole pulled them in. "Into the void, I cast you all!"
"Lady Nienna, please!" Eärendil screamed over the cacophony. "This man does not speak for us, we have been loyal servants of the Valar! Please don't do this!"
"Doctor, please!" Elwing cried out, almost sobbing. "Please ask her to show mercy!"
"Remote singularity creation!" The Doctor shouted, almost joyfully. "Incredible, I had no idea you'd have made it even this far! But before you turn us into spaghetti," he said, reaching into his pocket, "you might want to reconsider!"
Nienna's face turned from furious to incredulous in the space of a moment. The winds died down, the void collapsed. The only thing that could be heard in the silence that followed was Eärendil and Elwing's fading cries as they slowly released their grip on the earth. Eärendil rose to one knee and prepared to launch himself at the Doctor, but froze. The Doctor knelt with his hand thrust forward, clutching the Silmaril.
"The moment I saw those," the Doctor said, motioning to the giant, dead trunks of the Trees, "I knew you wanted this more than anyone else on this planet."
"One of the Jewels," Nienna breathed, scarcely believing what she was seeing. "How did you come upon it?" The Doctor closed his fist around the gem.
"None of your business," he replied, pocketing it once more as he got to his feet. "Here's what IS your business. You bring me to your boss, and you tell me exactly how you got here, and what you did, and maybe-maybe!" He exclaimed, looking pointedly at Eärendil, "I'll consider giving it to you."
Nienna swallowed hard and forced an unctuous smile. "My children," she began, making her way over to Eärendil and Elwing, who stiffened and retreated, regarding her now with fear instead of awe. She halted and inclined her head. "Forgive me," she said, "but…Morgoth's tricks are many. It was only when I saw the Jewel that I could be sure you were not servants of darkness." She offered her hands to them both. Eärendil shot the Doctor a meaningful look before he and Elwing took Nienna's hands. She pulled them to their feet with a strength that seemed effortless.
"No apologies necessary, my lady," Eärendil replied diplomatically, his smile thin and eyes hard.
"So," the Doctor said, wiping dirt from his knees. "Shall we take mine?" He asked, gesturing to the TARDIS in the distance.
Nienna turned to him with a withering look. "No need," she replied, raising a hand in a wide arc. Another singularity appeared in the air between them, and Elwing instinctively clutched Eärendil's hand. This time, however, instead of blackness its growing mouth was filled with the vista of a palace of unearthly splendour atop a mountain impossibly high. Elwing and Eärendil stood slack-jawed as they stared through the glowing gate, which coruscated all the colours of the rainbow at its edges and seemed to ripple in the centre, as though they were viewing the scene through a veil.
"It cannot be," Elwing whispered.
"Ilmarin!" Eärendil said, utterly disbelieving.
Nienna turned to them with a look that bordered on smugness. "Come," she said to Elwing, "it's only right that the first from Middle-Earth to set foot in the halls of Manwë be an Elf."
Elwing cringed a little, still shaken from Nienna's outburst and attempted banishment of them all just minutes earlier. But the Doctor gave her a brief nod, and she took Nienna's hand, stepping through the gate. The pair were still visible through the shimmering aperture, but no sound could be heard.
"So," The Doctor said conspiratorially as he crossed to Eärendil's side. "Penny for your thoughts."
"The Valar are…" Eärendil grimaced as he worked through the thoughts that were consuming him. "Not as we had been led to believe." Despite the darkness in his mind he couldn't help but smile as he watched his wife almost bend double in awe through the gate.
"Not even slightly," The Doctor replied. "And it wasn't the shouting or the trying to kill us either, was it?"
"No," Eärendil replied, knowing the Doctor already knew what he was going to say. "It was the lie."
"Exactly," the Doctor hissed, jabbing a finger into Eärendil's chest. "Why would an all-powerful, benevolent god need to lie?" Eärendil stared at the Doctor's breast pocket before scoffing mirthlessly.
"Why indeed?" He replied, poking his own finger into the Doctor's chest in return, feeling the sharp edges of the Silmaril through the fabric. "You told me you were no thief."
The Doctor grinned impishly. "I'm only borrowing it. Thought I'd need it. I'm rarely wrong about that."
"You pushed the Lady Nienna to the point of rage, thinking you held the trump card," Eärendil shot back with a vein of annoyance. "You played a very dangerous game."
"We're playing with gods, or at least people who pretend they are and have the power to back it up," The Doctor said, forcing a smile and waving as Elwing waved enthusiastically at them from the other side of the glowing gate. "All the games are dangerous. Keep that in mind for whatever happens next." Eärendil side-eyed the Doctor, also waving back to his wife. "Are you ready?" Eärendil nodded. Without another word, they walked through the gate and into the heart of Valinor.
All the tales and songs that Eärendil had ever heard about the beauty of Ilmarin were woefully inadequate. The greatest craftsmen of the Noldor could have laboured until Dagor Dagorath and would never have come close to replicating it. It rose so high that the very top was lost in clouds, and seemed to cover the entirety of the summit of the mountain it stood on, as though it had been carved out of it. The view from atop Taniquetil, too, defied description; it was as though he could see not only the whole of Valinor but the whole of Middle-Earth as well, from Angband in the north to the mouths of Sirion in the south. The Doctor had warned him to keep his wits about him but here, in heaven itself, that was a hard lesson to remember.
The three had stood at the base of the steps to the palace for some time while Nienna had gone inside to speak on their behalf. Golden-armoured guards with silver lances had watched them unflinchingly all that time, as still as statues.
"Friends of yours?" The Doctor asked Elwing, who sat cross-legged on the grass staring all around her in rapturous wonder.
"They are the Vanyar," Elwing replied distractedly, "those who remained."
"Remained?" The Doctor asked, standing face-to-face with one of the soldiers. His eyes were blue shot through with gold, and seemed to stare straight through the Doctor as though he wasn't there. His bearing was tall and proud, limbs long and strong, and he had the air of the divine about him; looking down the line, all his comrades seemed just the same. If the Doctor were human, he would have called them angels.
"Remained here, in Valinor," Elwing replied after a long silence. "When Fëanor and his kin travelled to Middle-Earth to reclaim the Silmarils, just one clan of the Elves remained loyal to the Valar; they are the fairest and greatest of all my race."
As Elwing spoke the Doctor approached the soldier slowly, ever-watchful for the flash of his silver spear, scrutinising every part of him. "Greatest," he muttered, "and fairest." He stopped mere inches away, their toes almost touching. "But you aren't what they wanted, are you?" He asked softly enough that only the soldier could hear. "You never will be."
The distant clank of metal drew the Doctor's attention away. Nienna was descending the palace steps, flanked by guards. "You have your wish," Nienna told the company when she reached them. "Lord Manwë and Lady Varda will speak with you."
Eärendil broke his gaze over Middle-Earth and spun around. Elwing rose in shock. "Lady…Varda?" She said, stunned.
"I take it they're important?" The Doctor asked Eärendil quietly.
"They are the King and Queen of all Arda," Eärendil replied, sounding somewhat overawed. "Second in greatness only to the Creator, Eru Iluvatar himself."
"They'll do," the Doctor shrugged. Nienna scowled and ascended the steps once more. Their guards, as if by psychic command, filed themselves around the trio, ushering them up into the palace. After an ascent that made both of the Doctor's hearts feel their age, they finally emerged into a foyer that rivalled any cathedral for size and opulence. Golden statues the size of houses were arrayed along either side of a carpet that stretched away so far that even the Doctor had to strain to see the end of the hall.
"Middle-Earth doesn't really do minimalism, does it?" The Doctor quipped as he stared up at the gleaming statues, before breaking into a jog to catch up to the troop as he realised the guards weren't going to allow him to catch his breath.
"These are the Valar," Elwing breathed in joy, like a starstruck museum patron finally seeing the works of art she had always heard of. "There is Nessa, the dancer! And Tulkas, the mighty warrior! And…" Elwing continued, naming each and every one of the Valar as they passed their statues. They got larger and more elaborate the further in they went, and the individuals they depicted seemed more and more illustrious. By the time they reached the other end of the hall, the statues of Varda and Manwë were so massive that they barely fit in the space.
The Lord and Lady of the Valar stood either side of an enormous door wrought in gold and iron. Unlike the other statues, theirs were carved from the living rock and clad in garments of beaten gold. Manwë seemed the cliche sky-god; all flowing robes, long beard and serious brow. Varda, in contrast, seemed young, but motherly and kindly. They each stood with a hand raised to the sky, turning their bodies into pillars which supported the huge roof.
"Who goes there?" An Elven guard in armour even more elaborate and impractical than his comrades asked as they reached the door; by the tone of his voice, merely a formality. Nienna stepped forward.
"The Lady Nienna," she replied. "I come with guests to speak before the Lord and Lady of Valinor."
"Pass, friend!" The guard replied, raising a hand and signalling for the dozen guards behind him to push open the mammoth door. After a huge amount of effort the door crept open with a jarring, resonant shudder, like the creak of metal on a sinking ship. The blackness within seemed almost as total as the void Nienna had just earlier summoned to destroy them, and Elwing and Eärendil regarded it with not a little trepidation. Even the Doctor rested his hand on his breast pocket to reassure himself his trusty sonic screwdriver was close at hand.
"Few have been afforded this privilege," Nienna addressed Eärendil and Elwing. "Fewer still have emerged unchanged," she added with a note of warning in her voice, throwing a look the Doctor's way.
"We have not come this far to be intimidated," Elwing replied, to Nienna's seeming surprise. The Doctor smirked; he hadn't seen much of Elwing's character in the last few frantic hours since she awoke, but it came as no shock to him that Eärendil would have married a woman with as much steel as himself.
"Well said," the Doctor chimed in. "Let's go."
The three crossed the threshold and noticed immediately that the air seemed colder. After they had made their way some distance into the darkness the doors began to close loudly, the light from outside slimming to a sliver before disappearing, leaving them in pitch black.
"Doctor?" Eärendil called out, clutching Elwing to him.
"Mind games, Eärendil," the Doctor replied. "Remember what I told you. All is not as it seems."
Suddenly the trio were bathed in blue light. Winds rose and stars blinked into being overhead, the moon appearing from behind a cloud. As the light increased it became apparent they were standing on the bare summit of Taniquetil, with the fine halls of Ilmarin nowhere to be seen.
"Have we gone through another of those…gates?" Elwing asked.
"No," the Doctor said lowly.
"Blessed ones!" Eärendil gasped, more-or-less instinctively, as two figures seemed to walk down from the stars themselves on shafts of moonlight. One wore the guise of an older man, grey beard and hair flowing, in sky-blue robes with a crown of gold and azure; the other a beautiful, raven-haired woman in a sea-blue dress and a silver tiara. From him came the sound of wind and rain, from her the smell of dusk.
"Elbereth," Elwing addressed her, falling prostrate before her. "Oh, heavenly Queen!"
Eärendil took a knee before the male figure and bowed his head in supplication. "My Lord Manwë," he began. "Thank you for the honour of allowing us to address you."
"What is it with people bowing and scraping in this place?" The Doctor asked aloud. If the godlike figures before them heard him, they did not react.
"My Children," Manwë addressed them, his voice as deep and resonant as a peal of thunder, as comforting as velvet. "Welcome to Ilmarin. You have travelled far, and endured much, to come before us. Please, speak."
"My Lord," Eärendil began, "I-"
"Don't worry, Eärendil, old son," the Doctor piped up, clapping Eärendil on the shoulder. "I'll field this one." Eärendil almost turned green with shock as the Doctor strode forward to the edge of the cliff on which they stood. "So, like the old joke about the locksmith - who are you, and how did you get here?"
Manwë's grizzled grey brows knotted in consternation. "You are not known to us," he replied. "You are not Quendi, Atani or Casari. But neither are you Morgoth's spawn."
"Oh, I'm known to you, alright," the Doctor said. "Go ask your engineer." Lady Varda's eyes widened and darted towards Manwë, who opened his mouth to speak but closed it at the last second. The Doctor grinned broadly. "Oh, I knew it. Bit of a guess, I must admit, but who else would be tending the vortex manipulator?"
"These words…they mean nothing to us," Varda retorted, struggling to maintain her look of constant serenity. Eärendil's horror began to melt as he started to see through the facade; even Elwing, as pious a soul as Middle-Earth had ever produced, furrowed her brow.
"Yes, they do," the Doctor replied, his voice terrifyingly calm and kind. "And I'm going to give you one chance to admit it." He opened his jacket to reveal his sonic screwdriver poking from his pocket, like a wild west sheriff brushing back his coat as he prepared to draw.
"Elf-king," Manwë ordered Eärendil, "control your servant or you will be banished!"
Eärendil rose and stood shoulder-to-shoulder with the Doctor. "He's not my servant," he replied, "he's my friend. And I've been a king long enough to know when I'm dealing with a liar."
Manwë and Varda's faces hardened and they suddenly ballooned in size four or five times, and the skies of Taniquetil were filled with lightning and gale-force winds. "You dare!" Manwë roared, his eyes white-hot and spitting sparks. Varda raised bony hands that seemed to glow with starlight.
"Oh, I dare," The Doctor replied. "Kind of my thing."
"As do I," Eärendil declared.
Elwing's slender hand filled her husband's. "Tell us the truth," she demanded, her voice tremulous with corralled fear. Their defiance brought on an apocalyptic display; the sky turned orange with flame, and Manwë and Varda seemed to transform into demons, far removed from the godlike figures they had previously cut, with expressions distorted and uncanny.
"The truth! The truth would shatter your minds!" Varda screeched. "You are not capable of beholding the might of the Ainur in our true form!" The mountain they stood on began to fall as fire rained from the sky, the collapse creeping towards their feet. "Our voices would strike you dead! Our bodies-"
"Yeah, yeah, yeah," the Doctor mumbled, pulling out his sonic screwdriver and calmly adjusting a few settings as the entire world fell into shadow and flame around him. "Well, don't say I didn't warn you. Let's just hope you're wearing clothes." He raised the sonic screwdriver, which emitted a growing, piercing whine, above his head. Light began to radiate out of it, almost matching the cacophony around them, until at its peak it let out a burst of brightest white, blinding all three of them and silencing the storm.
When their vision returned, the three were standing in a plain white room, with no clear demarcation between wall, floor and ceiling. It was as though they had slipped between the cracks of reality itself and were in some kind of eternal limbo.
"What happened?" Elwing asked.
"I just pulled back the curtain a bit," the Doctor replied. "Put us on an even playing field."
In the distance two figures in blue jumpsuits desperately hammered at the wall, looking for a switch or door. "Aule? Aule, something's wrong!" The Doctor coughed loudly and the pair spun around. They bore only the slightest resemblance to the figures they had just seen; the man was portlier and balding, and the woman definitely no longer in the first flush of youth.
"I promised you I would take you to your gods," the Doctor addressed Eärendil and Elwing, "and I have."
"No refunds."