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In the beginning, when there was the One and the song, and all else was but a dream, the specter of her future had come to Arien as a shadow. It was not revealed to her in full—it was not for her to know in full, not then—but the strains of the song she sung had become a burden to her and she had to be held aloft by her fellows to keep from stumbling. The burden was terrible, its weight unrelenting. Neither had it gone unnoticed. Melkor had offered her relief from it, if only she would enter his service, and Arien had refused, but with difficulty, and only because she perceived that a worse burden would be hers if she joined with him.
(She’d not known how much worse, not at the time, but time had shown her better. She had kept her mind and her will, more than could be said of the fire-folk who had become slaves to Melkor’s will. No matter how terrible her burden, she could console herself with that.)
The day was spent; Anar plunged beneath the waters of the Western Sea, sending off plumes of steam that could have engulfed Taniquetil in whole. As so often was the case, the light still danced on the ripping surface of the water, orange and scarlet and gold in the gathering darkness. Arien could feel the relief of the Eldar for that last hour or so of light, like the strains of a song only half-recalled, but still sung for love of what had gone out of memory. It was consolation, but not much.
Arien had forsaken physical form forever, becoming naked flame as she had always been underneath the guise of flesh. No longer would she walk on the earth or live among its people; she was sundered from it unto the breaking of the world. She traveled the trackless skies alone, holding Anar aloft with her power alone; only now, when it came time for Anar to set, was she aided, as the Sea-Maiar emerged from every reef and rock and trench to bear Anar’s impossible weight for her until it came time for it to rise again.
That was not the worst of it. The worst was to be doomed to look down upon the struggles of the world, to truly see them and not simply know of them from news carried by Oromë and Ossë, and be helpless to intervene. Arien saw all of it. The Exiles waged war against Melkor, and occasionally won the day, but they would never prevail, not with Námo’s curse hanging over them. Only some of them bore the blood of the Falmari, and yet they all labored under the weight of the Doom, even those who had been born in Beleriand and could have had no part in the sins of their parents. All the Úmanyar suffered for Melkor’s presence in Endóre, even the Avari far to the south, who felt his presence only through wind reeking of smoke and storms of gnats upon the land. Meanwhile, far to the east of Arda, the Atani labored in the shadow of their cruel master.
All of this, and the Valar could not be moved to action. Only Ulmo could be persuaded to give aid to the Quendi or to the Atani, and he was constrained by his peers from aiding the Children as he would have liked. They said to wait, said their designs had yet to reach fruition. They also said that they needed to wait for their plans to bear fruit, lest the effort expended to rout Melkor and his ilk destroy the Quendi and the Atani in entirety, but it seemed to Arien that Melkor would kill them all long before the Valar as a whole could be roused to action.
She was as a flame that burned so bright, so hot, but could not burn out. There was no relief. She felt very… tired.
“Are you spent of hope already?”
The voice came to her quietly, not spoken in words as many of the Maiar did these days, even amongst themselves, but a whisper in Arien’s mind, soft and insubstantial, like the sighing of a spring breeze. Then again, Ilmarë had never had much use—or proficiency—for spoken words.
There she was, drifting along in the water at Arien’s side. She had shed the child form she favored when moving amongst the Eldar and was what she had been at the beginning—a wisp of white mist, with the shadows of stars glimmering dimly in her, blue and red and golden. A shadow of Varda’s brilliance, but then, all the star-folk were but shadows of Varda, and her handmaiden the truest of them.
“Not spent,” Arien replied slowly, even as the weariness of her long work washed over her like the brine had when she steered Anar to the ocean for the night. “Weary, perhaps, of bearing witness to so much suffering, and being powerless to give aid in any form.”
“The light brings hope to all who struggle against Melkor.” Ilmarë sounded almost puzzled, though the inflection in her voice was so bare that Arien doubted that any who did not know her well could have recognized it. It had taken uncounted days beneath the stars and the light of the Lamps, then the Trees, for Arien to learn. “You burn, but if you did not, you would leave them in darkness. You are not powerless, not as you think you are.”
Though she had no physical form with which to express it, Arien still smiled bitterly, or managed the closest approximation of it that she could. “You are kind, Ilmarë.” Her voice softened, bitterness draining out. “Thank you. But hope will be of little use to the Quendi or the Atani if they all perish before they can do anything more than hope.”
“Do you not remember what hope is?”
Arien laughed tiredly. “Have you come to teach me about hope, Ilmarë?”
Ilmarë paused. She quavered in what seemed almost like uncertainty, before going on, “…That is not why I came.”
Around them, the light was fading, the last of Anar’s reflected light vanishing for the evening. There they were, in dark water, bright flame and pale mist, alone. The Sea-Maiar were thoroughly occupied with ferrying Anar across the dark waters to the east of Arda. The things that swam were incapable even of comprehending what the two apparitions before them were. “Then why have you come?” Arien asked her, and the water vibrated with her curiosity.
“…I heard your spirit crying out in solitude,” Ilmarë murmured. She held one wispy hand out to Arien, with the air, almost, of someone who was waiting. “It is a sound I have heard before.”
At the beginning, when Arien buckled under the specter of her burdened future, Ilmarë had been one of the ones who bore her back up, steadying her with her own unwavering devotion to the Song. Even after the others left, confident that Arien had recovered her strength, Ilmarë had stayed at her side. She had never remarked upon it, never treated it as anything to remark upon. To her, help had simply been something to give without hesitation.
Arien took her hand. Immediately she felt calmer, Ilmarë’s eternal composure washing over her as flame and mist began to mingle where they touched, softly, gently, as the lights of Malinalda and Silpion had mingled, far too long ago. Arien could barely describe the knotted feeling at the core of her being. She had spent the untold days of darkness gripped by terror, and had had terror overtaken by grief at the knowledge of her task immediately afterwards. It had been so long, so long since… “And what will you do?” she asked thickly.
Ilmarë gave her no answer, but the answer was clear enough. If Arien’s constant burning, the constant weight she bore, could be made more bearable, then that was enough for them both.