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Vairë rarely received devotees directly into her halls, for the work that happened there was both sacred and sensitive. Those she did receive were the greatest of her followers, not only those who worked needle or loom at the highest calibre, but those who were great listeners, students to history, and its recorders by other means.
Indis, Queen of the Noldor, Princess of the Vanyar, was none of these, and the decision about whether to receive her at all took days, mingling after mingling passing as she sat unmoving on the steps, drinking little and eating less. She had not expressed devotion in this way since she was very young, before the deaths of her parents, before she took up bow and spear and made herself a huntress and a guardian. In Valinor, it seemed to her, the gods did not expect such sacrifice of their devotees, and so Indis had gone to stand in their courts, and made gentle requests, and obeyed their judgement.
In the end, Vairë did not admit her. Rather, she did something far more unprecedented, and emerged herself, and led Indis into her fields, where cotton and flax stretched as far as the eye could see, and beyond that, up the slopes of her husband’s mountain, sheep grazed above the dead.
Yavanna’s maiar tended these fields themselves, and Oromë’s hounds guarded them, and no child of Eru set foot here, for these were the materials from which history was made, and they could not be contaminated.
“I am told you had a question for me,” Vairë said, “but I caution you that I cannot tell you of your future, and I must not tell you that of past or present which you do not already know.”
“I have heard it said,” Indis replied, “that ‘ere my marriage was granted me, you went to Míriel Serindë, in your husband’s halls, and cautioned her against giving up the right to walk beyond them.”
“That is not a question.”
Indis said, “my question is not for you, it is for Míriel. Or, I suppose, my question for you is, ‘what would it take to carry a message to Míriel?’ I have no desire to deliver it personally.”
“The dead are not to be disturbed, and I would not aid you in disturbing one who has asked for nothing but peace and rest until the breaking of the world, even if such a thing were my task, which it is not.”
“No,” Indis agreed, “but I hope you might do this for her, because something is wrong with her son, some sickness of the mind. I know you have seen that he did not intend to kill his brother, and I believe that, but if he did not intend it and did it anyhow, then he is not well. Perhaps a sickness related in some way to her own, which robbed her of the desire to live? In Cuiviénen, sicknesses of the child, when they were not yet able to make their own choices, were for the parents to treat. Finwë cannot or will not see it has come to this – he will never force Fëanáro to Lórien, not after what became of his mother. I am not Fëanáro’s mother, and I cannot make this decision. But Míriel is, and she can. Perhaps she is the only one who can, for he may heed her where he would not any other. ”
The wind rustled the fields around them, birds sang in the distance, and somewhere under that mountain, the spirit of Míriel dwelt forever because Indis had fallen in love with someone she should not have.
“You want Míriel to tell you what should be done with Fëanáro.”
That was too blunt a way to phrase it. Despite his actions, Indis had no desire to see him come to harm. She just did not want him to harm her children either.
“Please.”
“I will not carry that message,” Vairë said, and the song rang with finality, for she was a Valië and her word was the law of the world.
“Very well,” Indis said, and bowed. She could not help, as she departed, one last look back at the mountain, and wondered if she would have to face it after all. Míriel might be able to walk again a time, if Indis allowed it and Míriel’s spirit could sustain her. Could Indis count on her to spend that time fixing whatever had broken in Fëanáro?
She said, “I know… I am not sure whether or not she was able to find room to love him, in her sickness, but if she does, I would not deny her the chance to help her son. I pray it would not be denied to me in her place.”
And in return, Vairë whispered, nearly too soft to hear, “listen to him, Indissë Roimenórë.”
--
‘Listen to him,’ as an answer to the question of what to do with Fëanáro, was a strange one. Vairë had not entreated Indis to trust him, nor had she entreated her to have faith in his honesty. Only to listen. The Valar never chose their words lightly.
This posed the question of what, exactly, Fëanáro had been saying. He was no longer in Tirion, and had ordered Maitimo to turn away all visitors to Formenos, so it was not something she could hear him say now. What had he said in the past? She remembered in horrible clarity his sword against Nolofinwë’s throat, but it was as if the clarity of that moment had blurred in her memory those around it. For some reason, she could not entirely recall what Nolofinwë had said to provoke him. She was sure there must have been something, because that was always how the boys were, but she could not name it.
--
“I would rather not think on it,” Finwë said.
--
“Does it matter?” Asked Anairë. “Anything would provoke Fëanáro’s temper, these days.”
--
“It was the strangest thing,” Findis said, over a cup of tea at her home in Valimar, where she sang daily prayers to each of the Valar, and took much direct exposure to the light of the trees, “he asked ‘Where is Nolofinwë?’ as if he could not see him standing in front of him at all. And then Nolvo called him Serindion, and madness overtook him.”
‘Where is Nolofinwë?’ As if Fëanáro did not believe the elf in front of him was his brother. No, he usually believed that, but he had not said as much. He had implied that this was not the real Nolofinwë, or at least, not Nolofinwë as he should have been.
She had told Vairë that if some madness had arisen in her son, she would want to know, and Vairë had offered this guidance in response.
“Findis,” she said, “have they taught you much of magic here?”
Indis had little inclination towards such things herself, but they did run in her line. Ingwë had it, and so had their mother. Findis and Arafinwë took after their grandmother in that way, and Findaráto and Artanis after their father in turn. But none of that was any good without real, serious training as few in Valinor, where all things came easy with the blessings of the Valar, undertook.
“I learn more every day,” Findis answered, with some caution.
That would have to suffice. “I think I recall the elements of this spell well enough, but you shall have to do the casting.”
--
Indis’s parents had disappeared in the woods, hunting together. It had been winter, unusually cold and bitter, and there had not been enough to eat. They had two children, who they loved, and so they had gone out to feed her and Ingwë. Their deaths still bought that security, for with only two mouths to feed, the dried meat and the stores of vegetables and what few fish Indis could catch had been enough to last them until spring.
But before that, before Indis knew it would have to be her keeping them alive, setting Ingwë, who was brilliant and charismatic and good, on the path to becoming a leader of their people, she had gone to one of the ancients, who was said to be a child of the Awoken, and had begged an answer for the fate of their parents.
“There is a spell,” the Ancient said, “which may grant you the truth you seek. I warn you, however, it is not a kind one.”
“What does it do?” And, because she had heard stories of such things, she asked, “and what is the cost?”
“They are one and the same,” they said, “it will allow you to see the mind of one to whom you are bonded, without them seeing you in turn. If they live, if they are well and merely lost or snowed in elsewhere, then there is no cost at all. But if they were taken… then the cost will be high indeed.”
It was the worst pain Indis had ever known, when she called her mother’s spirit. Her father’s, mercifully, was already fled. She never told Ingwë this. It would not have benefitted him to know that somewhere on those shores they left behind was a twisted creature whose body and spirit had once belonged to their mother.
--
“But why do you need to scry Nolvo? He is in Tirion, I am sure, preparing for his reunion with Fëanáro. You might be better having Finwë scry Fëanáro, to see if he really is coming.”
“Voronilmë,” Indis named her daughter, “it will do no harm to anyone if I am wrong.”
Findis laid the last leaf in its place upon the water, called it to stillness with a word, and with another, set the spell alight, and with it, set alight Indis’s heart, which burned in her chest with the second worst pain she had ever known, and then it became the worst pain, by a thousand miles, as she remembered what it meant.
Without her ever noticing, the same darkness that had claimed her mother had taken her son, twisted his spirit beyond recognition, even by his own brother, and sent his enthralled body back amongst elves to do its bidding. Whatever remained of Nolofinwë burned with agony, and Indis, the worst mother in Valinor, had done nothing at all to stop it.
--
She ordered Findis to stay in Valimar, but Ingwë and his party had already set out for Tirion, so it was too late to hold them back. Indis should have been with them. Instead, she sent a thought to Finwë refusing to come, hid her true reasons behind that old distrust of Fëanáro, and went to the palace in Valimar.
There, in the treasury, lay many of the things Indis had carried from Cuiviénen. Ingwë had cast his away long ago. Indis never had the heart. She had imagined, some day, that her children might want them, but none had ever shown any interest in such things. Lalwen was perhaps the closest, for she did love a hunt, but she did not truly understand it, and Indis prayed she never would.
Fëanáro had created swords, as Indis had only ever seen carried by servants of Devourer of Spirits, which were said to be crafted by his Lieutenant. Their presence in the hands of elves was a terrible thing, another sign of sickness. But it was not Fëanáro’s sickness, as had claimed Míriel’s life. This was the thing that had consumed her parents, body and soul, and now it was in the process of consuming her son, and Indis would not have it. She would not stand there knowing that her son’s mind and will had been subsumed, even if his body remained fair. A sword was not needed to kill or to destroy.
Indis had, in this treasure room, a spear with a tip forged by Mahtan, long before he settled on these shores and dedicated himself to jewels and frivolities. She had a bow, by her own hand, which Oromë had blessed when they came among the elves at last as a friend, and acknowledged Indis as a great huntress. She had, in an old, dusty chest, a knife, one of a matched set of four by the hands of her father, who she always suspected might have slit his throat with his own because they knew how much the Devourer liked to capture smiths. It would explain why he had never shown any signs of a desire to join them on these shores. Indis prayed often that the Necromancer had not caught him before he could reach the safety of Mandos.
For the first time in centuries, since before she had become a mother, that long desired passion of her heart, Indis Roimenórë strapped bow and quiver to her back and a knife to her hip. She took up her spear, felt the weight of it in her hands, and went hunting.
--
The Valar had allowed Melkor to wander about Valinor more-or-less unsupervised. This thing he had done, what had happened to her son – her precious, wonderful boy, who she had loved so deeply and wholly that first moment she held him in her arms – proved that they paid little mind. In theory, the Valar could see everything and know everything, but, aside from Vairë, who made it her duty not to damage the course of history and had in fact broken her greatest vow to help Indis, none of them looked on all places at once. In any moment, it was safe to assume they were not watching you.
Indis might have called on them, on Manwë, who was the winds, or Yavanna, beneath the earth, but she did not. Instead, she made her way to one of Melkor’s usual haunts – that of a family who considered him a friend, fortunately also at Tirion for the reunion – and from there, traced him as she would have an animal, for he was not a subtle creature, and had fallen out of the habit of acting as though he was a hunted one.
In point of fact, Melkor had never truly been prey. Oh, Oromë had hunted him, but Melkor had been five steps ahead, raising mountains and fortresses and disguises against Oromë’s pursuit. He did not know how to act like it.
That was alright. Indis was a good teacher; she could show him.
--
In the end, she travelled nearly in a circle, returning to Valimar, and then to Máhanaxar, where she hid behind one of the thrones and watched as Melkor approached the trees.
The city was nearly cleared out; all eyes were on the crowd beneath Tirion, where the twisted and broken thing that had once been her son, before Melkor had taken his spirit, was meeting with Fëanáro. There was no one here to help, no one to stop this fiend in whatever his plan was, save for Indis.
“Fly true,” she prayed, and, stepping from behind the golden throne, she raised her bow and shot Melkor, who was dressed in plain and inconspicuous robes, as if he belonged in this place, in the back.
On an elf, that would have been a killing blow, for it was a clean shot through the heart, but Melkor whirled to face her, and did not die. The beautiful form he had adopted to walk among them, to pretend at friendship, melted away, for Melkor was a creature of rage, without much artifice, and Indis had provoked him mightily. He swelled, twice, three, four times her height. She fired again, but he reached back and tore a branch from Telperion, which was dim but fair, and in his flaming hand it became a blackened club with which he blocked her shot.
Very well, then. She set her bow on her back and drew her spear in steady hands.
“Melkor,” she cried, but the name was not enough on her tongue. Nor were any of the old curses for him, which did not fit these modern tongues. “Moringotto! Face me, fiend. Face me, foe. Blood you have shed, minds you have rent, but you will claim no more. This, Indis Roimenórë swears.”
At the first swing of his club, she ducked back behind the throne, which crumbled under the force, but in doing so, gave her enough time to surprise him, leaping forward over the ruins to bring her spear to bear just below his kneecap. He howled, as her fall back to the ground pulled the point from his flesh, and with it came burning blood like the fires of the earth, which hissed as it struck the ground, but her spear, imbued with power by her years of use, did not dissolve.
Indis ducked between his legs and whirled, realizing her mistake even as she did so. She was now the thing that stood between Moringotto, who had extinguished the Lamps and plunged a continent into darkness once already, and the Trees. Before, she might have fled, chosen to draw him away. Now, their fates were bound. Indis would defeat him, or darkness would fall.
There was no more time to think. He struck again with his club, bringing it down upon the earth like a hammer, but Indis dodged to the left at the last second, barely keeping her footing as the ground shook and split. They repeated the gesture once, and on the third attempt he cried, “insect,” before striking. This time, she was not fast enough to escape a glancing blow that tore open the flesh along her left arm, and forced her to drop her spear, but her slowness had allowed her enough time to draw her knife, which she pivoted to slash upwards through the tendons of his wrist. Again, he screamed, and though her arm also burned and bled, Indis did not.
With her aching arm, she reached down and grabbed up her spear just in time to carry it with her as Moringotto backhanded her so hard she flew and landed – by chance or divine will – at the base of Laurelin.
Ever had Indis held an affinity for this tree, and not because of her hair. Laurelin was a great beauty, a wonderful miracle, but it was ever held second best to Telperion, which was the tree associated in the minds of the Noldor – and their king – with Míriel Serindë.
She was quite sure that if they were lost here, the grieving for Telperion would be greatest, and then for Laurelin, and last of all for Indis, who died a fool.
The light of the tree was warm and blessed, and for a moment she allowed herself to close her eyes and drink it in against her flesh. She would never regret journeying to this blessed land, even if, in the end, its blessings were not enough to overcome the marring of the world.
When she opened her eyes, Melkor had drawn, in his uninjured hand, what she thought at first was a dirk and then realized was a sap-drawer, as they had used when tapping maples in the woods of her childhood. Her mother had probably been carrying one the day she was taken.
He was ignoring her again, making for Telperion, which was closer.
Favoured tree or not, Indis would not abide this. She stood, against aching bones, and raised her spear again. She could not shoot with her arm injured as it was, and the knife was not enough, not for this.
“Moringotto!” She called again. “Craven! Coward! Face me or know that a huntress of Cuiviénen is of greater courage than you.”
He turned his head, flaming eyes drawn to her, and Indis cleared her mind, suppressed the bonds of her marriage and parenthood, and charged him, for her father’s death and the ruined minds and bodies of her mother and her son.
Again he lifted the club, and Indis could feel the light of the trees on her skin, and in her eyes, and somewhere deeper, nestled in her soul, flowing around the bonds to the living, which she had abandoned, and the craters left by the dead.
The sound of the horn, which vibrated in her chest and pulled at a lever in her viscera that said ‘prey’ and ‘run’, took them both by surprise, but Indis, who knew what it was to be hunted as well as hunter, recovered first, and, as Moringotto’s swing finished lamely behind her, she slid between his legs again and drove her spear into the back of his other knee.
It worked as it would have on any animal, and he crashed to the ground as the thundering of hooves – and pounding footsteps that shook the earth, began to draw near.
The Valar had come, Oromë and Tulkas at least, and with that, Indis knew, it was over. But some part of her would not accept this. Three hundred years, they had sentenced him to last time, for the price of her father’s life and her mother’s soul along with thousands of others. Not even a year for each victim. Surely with only Nolvo lost beyond recovery, they would not match that. He would soon be released, and Itarillë would grow up in a world where she was hunted by the thing that had killed her grandfather.
Indis dropped her spear and drew her knife, rushing forth. Melkor, who seemed to have accepted that this was over, lay still on the ground. No doubt, he had made much the same calculation Indis had. If he remained still, and pitiful, and relatively obedient, he might again win undeserved mercy. Perhaps he would even say Indis had provoked him into wounding Telperion by attacking him first.
And yet again he underestimated her, and underestimated the sharpness of her father’s blade, for though his neck was as thick as the trunk of a tree, it was still flesh, and though he began to writhe after the first blow, striking out at her, he was still slow and uncoordinated, and the third severed enough nerves to still his movements beyond a bit of twitching, and the seventh at last separated the head entirely, leaving only Indis, in a pool of divine blood, and above her, descending from the sky, Manwë and Varda with a great net, woven of golden threads.
Madly, for a moment, she thought they meant to ensnare her, but instead they closed it on what looked like empty air, and there it writhed like a tightly-held cat.
“I had thought,” said Varda to her husband, “that this was made for the spirit of Mairon.”
The name was unfamiliar to her, but Manwë understood, for he said, “Vairë will have another for him, I am sure. You know how she plans.”
At last, Oromë and Tulkas drew up, the latter breathing raggedly, and the former, on Nahir, looking so exhilarated that Indis was of a mind to strike them.
She did not. Instead, she went to her knees, where the blood of their kinsman, now cool and black, soaked into the earth, and said, “please, Lords. He has sullied these lands. He has taken and twisted the spirit of my child, as he took and twisted that of my mother. I know you have judged his crimes against our people forgivable, but I beg, with all I am and all my soul, that he never again be released upon us. We are loyal, and we have served, and I will serve, for all my life, if only you do not set him upon us again. You may have my hands, my spirit, my body, my life, only do not allow him to take my children who live. Do not allow him to touch my grandchildren. Let them have peace.”
They stared at her, with faint horror, and none of them spoke until a single hand, which had both the colour and texture of porcelain, touched her cheek to wipe away a tear, and she found herself looking up at the masked face of Nienna, Lady of Pity.
“He twisted their spirits?”
“We saw it, on our former shores. He – or at least his torturers – would break minds and bodies, and if a body could be matched to a name and family, it would not know them, would try to destroy them, would serve his will, and in time, as he grew better at it, the bodies that came forth did not resemble people at all. This is what came of my mother.”
That gentle hand moved to her hair, up in its hunting braids, and stroked along them. “It is not given to any of us, even Melkor, to shatter the spirits of Eru’s children beyond repair, child. I cannot say what will be mended, nor when, especially if a spirit has not yet arrived in my arms, but such things are never lost.”
“They may find healing with you, then? Nolofinwë may? He is still here, at least, and relatively together, only so broken, for I swear he would not act in service of Melkor had he any control left in his mind.”
“Oh,” one of the other Valar said, but Nienna went to her knees in the blood at Indis’s side, fouling her grey robes.
“Indissë,” she said, “it was Mairon the Maia, not your Nolofinwë Aracáno, who sought to divide the Noldor through deception. Nolofinwë was taken by him, and suffered greatly, but Curufinwë Fëanáro sought him out, and recovered him, and exposed Mairon’s impersonation for what it was. Nolofinwë is returned among your people at last. While he is always welcome to rest a while in my arms, if that is what he needs, at this juncture I think the best thing for him will be to remain with you and the rest of his family. He is wounded, and tired, but his mind and heart are entirely his own.”
Slowly, Indis shoved away the barriers she had erected in her mind, and found that Finwë was reaching out for her, upset and pain radiating off him. He was reaching out not for comfort but for energy, the way parents often did, sharing the strength of their spirits to nurture a child. Traditionally, it was mothers who reached out in this way and fathers who bolstered, but now Finwë held their child – their son – and wanted to bathe him in their combined strength.
Indis had nothing left to give, save a rush of her deepest love, and even this effort made her body tremble, sending a shiver of pain through her.
Nienna, whose arms were gentle despite their spindliness, lifted her up, out of the blood and the dirt.
“Estë first, I think,” she said, “that you will have your strength when you return to them.”
“I cannot tarry.”
Oromë, rather sternly said, “you can and will tarry long enough to staunch the bleeding and mend your bones, Roimenórë. Wounds inflicted by our kind are no small thing.”
“As you will, Lord.”
They reached out to her, before Nienna carried her away, and, dipping down to soak a finger in blood, made their mark upon her forehead in it. “Go again with my blessing, and know that you shall never have to hunt alone again, Child of Eru.”
“And Fëanáro?”
Oromë’s smile was a dangerous thing, sharp-toothed and clever. “Curufinwë Fëanáro will not hunt alone either, I suspect, though not by my will. I do not think his brother would let him.”
Indis was going to wrap Nolofinwë in a blanket and never let him out of her sight again, which would inhibit his capacity for hunting. But, admittedly, that did sound like something he would do. Her Nolvo would not let Fëanáro be the greater fighter than he.
“Favour them in it?”
“I think the last thing that Fëanáro needs is greater strength and ambition,” said Oromë, “but Varda has a suitable reward already in mind, I believe.”
She inclined her head with great and terrible grace, which would have been more impactful had she not still been holding the writhing net with Moringotto in it.
“He will not want anything from you.” None of them reacted, and Indis considered briefly how Fëanáro might react to a divine surprise under the circumstances. “Perhaps speak to him about what he wants first?”
“So be it,” Varda agreed, and Nienna bore Indis away from that place as Telperion, wounded but alive, began to brighten as the mingling commenced.
--
She could not help standing in the doorway watching them, for a moment or two. Finwë, at her side, radiated contentment beyond what the situation deserved, but who could blame him? Their sons had been at war for so long, and worse, and here they were, emerging on the other side.
He has not slept for days, Finwë said, with the idea of his eldest entangled with it. This is the last burst before he ends up falling asleep on the floor somewhere.
Fëanáro had gotten a large blackboard from somewhere and was drawing diagrams of hand gestures on it. Nolofinwë was largely responding with what seemed to be rude ones.
Do you think one of us should tell him that we had a complete sign language at Cuiviénen and Rúmil certainly remembers it well enough to teach them both?
No. This is funnier.
“But of course, increased subtleties limit the potential range of success. The gestures Tyelko tells me are used in Oromë’s hunt - no, of course it needs articles, Nolvo. I- Ammë?”
Fëanáro had never called her that in his life, and by the way he glanced at Nolofinwë, this was still the case. They both stared together at her arm, with its burn scars, and the faint glowing marks left by embedded shards of Telperion. It did not hurt any longer, but it was a sight to behold.
She would not have her greeting derailed by telling her long tale, so she embraced Fëanáro, who was more proximate, and went stiff as a board against the gesture as she said, “thank you.” Then she went to her son, to kneel by his side. Their eyes met, and so too their minds. He was afraid – her precious, brilliant boy – that she would not love him, in his pain and change.
“Look at me, Nolofinwë Aracáno,” she commanded him, and folded their scarred hands together between them. “You and your siblings are the best of me, and of your father – and of Míriel, I think, in Fëanáro’s case.” She could sense him shifting awkwardly behind her. “I am proud and privileged to be your mother. Always.”
This was a harder thing to fight than any beast – than even Melkor – but Indis was no craven, and did not shy away from a difficult fight.
--
“But speak truly,” Fëanáro said, when all the children were gathered around her, even Findis, who had disobeyed Indis’s command to stay in place and ridden through the night from Valimar the second she heard Nolofinwë was wounded, and was now cuddling with Arafinwë on the settee. “What did you do to your arm?”
“I did not do anything to it,” Indis told him. “It was Melkor.”
“What? How? Why?” Nolofinwë’s expression repeated Lalwen’s questions as they each grew furious at the thought of her being hurt.
“Well,” Indis said, hopeful she could prevent an uproar if she said it very calmly and casually, “I was trying to kill him at the time.”
This did not prevent the uproar in the slightest.