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Winter took Aman slowly. Leaves that had been green since the first sunrise began to crinkle and curl. Yavanna walked in the woods stretching out her hands to touch their yellowing edges. Where she passed the flowers sprang once more and the grass turned green, and the dying trees put out fresh pale-green buds. But the buds withered on the branch when she was not by, and still the leaves turned. Their colours grew ever deeper and darker, but they did not fall. On the day the Halls of Mandos were broken all the forests for many miles around seemed to be crowned with red flame.
There was a sound like a distant bell tolling just before the great walls cracked. Mandos himself stood up as they crumbled, and walked away into the forest. As he passed the dying trees seemed to finally bow to their fate, and the red leaves fell. Great drifts of them lay piled between the naked trees.
Those who had lately been bodiless spirits stood helpless among the ruins. There were a great many in that throng who had never thought to walk in the world again, not till the world’s ending. Frightened whispering broke out as they felt the cold wind on their faces and began to understand what it meant. The Sun far above shone with a dim reddish light like a failing coal.
The Undying Lands were dying.
At first the crowd simply huddled together. They had forgotten cold - just as they had forgotten warmth. Some sat upon the cracked rocks that were the remains of Mandos and stared into space. Some wept.
Then people began to recognise one another: and heads turned towards the sounds of raised voices, as here a Teler found himself standing next to the Noldo who had killed him, and there a soldier of the hidden city came face to face with the prince who had betrayed him. In Mandos there was the peace of silence: which was no peace at all for the living. These were the spirits whom the world had wounded beyond repair. Now they found themselves once more in the world, and very quickly they grew angry.
The dim red sun began to set. The arguing crowd paid it no mind. They might have remained there from dusk till dawn without noticing, but that there was a sudden cry of rage near the edge of the throng, and one who had stood alone and apart looked up to the heavens in great fury. Such was the power of that wordless cry that all who heard it paused their speech and turned to see whose voice it was.
Then many in the crowd found themselves being shoved aside, and the angry Teler had to cling to the equally angry Noldo to keep his balance as he was elbowed out of the way: for there were those in the throng who did not need to see any more to know that voice and to understand that cry.
Fingolfin reached the edge of the mass of frightened re-made Elves just in time to see his brother turn his hateful glare from Earendil’s light above to the figures of his family as they forced their way to the front of the crowd. It was now most certainly a crowd with a front and a back, and certain quarrels were being temporarily put aside as people turned to watch this greater tale play out. By mere chance Fingolfin stood before them all, and it was him that Fëanor's gaze fell upon first. His look of anger deepened. “Shall I never be rid of you?” he spat.
His eyes were blazing with a light not so different from the light of the star he raged at. Fingolfin could say nothing. Before the first rising of the Sun they had been divided; and he knew now, with a flash of insight he wished he might have avoided, that he would never see his brother’s face by the light of day.
Fëanor turned without another word and stalked away into the red forest. Fingolfin stood watching him go, only half-aware of his own children gathered about him, of his nephews who hung back diffidently - wishing to follow their father, knowing quite as well as Fingolfin did that in this mood he would not be glad of it - and only half-aware too of the crowd of the once-dead who were watching them all. For a long time he stood there staring at the tracks in the red leaves where his brother had passed. Then he stepped forward.
He did not expect the hand that landed on his shoulder: nor the voice that said, “My son.”
Finwë his father gave him a crooked smile. Fingolfin turned and saw it and felt his heart crack asunder. But it was no ill breaking. Thousands of years had passed since his father had been murdered: murdered and never avenged, not by either of his hapless sons. And now - like this!
“Do you mean to take this whole crowd with you when you follow him?” Finwë said. “For I believe they will follow you. Some for loyalty, some for fear of being left alone, and some,” he smiled, “to see what happens.”
Fingolfin looked around at them all. He knew many many faces: not just his kin, but his followers and friends, his people. Others seemed to know him. They watched him with silent uncertain looks.
“You are the High King,” said one near the front, in Sindarin with no accent Fingolfin knew. “If you’re his brother you must be.” He did not seem to have any doubt about who Fëanor was. Well, no one who had once seen him ever could. “Will you lead us now?”
“Lead you?” Fingolfin said.
“It’s come. The long shadow,” said the Elf.
“The last war,” said Fingolfin’s daughter Aredhel. She came and stood by his side. Her face was not quite as he remembered it. There was a new light in it, and a new shadow.
“The world’s ending,” murmured a voice at their backs. It must have belonged to one of Fëanor's sons.
“I do not know how to defeat the shadow,” Fingolfin told the strange Elf. “Nor how to lead anyone to victory.”
“But you wounded him,” the Elf said. “We all know this is a war without a victory. But you wounded him at least.”
Fingolfin said nothing. His thoughts were all with that one tall figure with blazing eyes, disappearing into the dying woods. And here strangers called upon him to fight again the battle that had killed him: and they did not know what it was to die under the Enemy’s feet.
“Will you lead us?” the Elf said again.
Fingolfin bowed his head. “Is there no other?” he said.
But no one spoke, though his father looked at him solemnly. Indeed he already knew the answer.