Work Text:
Her soul arrives raw: scarred and broken, its light diminished to a single spark, barely visible in the serene darkness of the halls.
The coming of the first fëar had been foretold to Námo—a whisper in his heart that came from Ilúvatar himself—and yet as they arrive, he finds himself unprepared for the stricken state of these first fallen Children.
In the singing, Ilúvatar had intimated to him and to Manwë what the children would be: how their fëar would be luminous and bright—not as bright as the eälar of the ainur or the maiar, yet still radiant, imbued with a secret fire that was crafted by the All-Father alone.
But Melkor, in his lust for destruction, has trampled upon these first ones like an iron boot stamping upon burning coals, snuffing out almost every trace of fire and leaving only the faintest embers behind.
It is not Mandos’ nature to weep, yet as he calls his sister Nienna to him and listens to her mournful lament—the first of many she will sing in his halls—he feels closer to the sorrow of Arda than at any time since its making.
Together with Estë, Nienna visits every soul in turn, calling each by the names bestowed upon them by Ilúvatar—the names that Melkor had attempted to steal from them in his endeavor to transform them into slaves of his everlasting darkness.
In this way, they call to the one named Erenyë, keening a gentle lament for her that progresses into a song of healing. Her dim spark grows brighter as it is rekindled and strengthened in the presence of their music. They tend to her with care under Námo’s watchful eyes, coaxing her out of the blindness of torment toward a state of consciousness.
She is quicker to blaze again than the others, and when she reclaims herself at last, it is with a brilliant flare of sorrow.
Eren, she cries. Where is Eren?
His name becomes a ceaseless chorus, ringing through the empty halls in whispers, sighs, screams.
Ever patient, Námo and Nienna sit beside her as she rages: a howling tempest of grief and anguish, for she cannot understand her sundering from the one for whom she was fashioned.
Nienna tries, time and again, to coax her into a state of repose, but Erenyë remains restless, drifting through the halls, seeking for her lost lover everywhere.
In the beginning, there are few souls to scrutinize.
The halls are cavernous and vast, and the first-fallen heal in solemn quietude.
But a day comes ere long when without warning, the halls of Mandos are flooded with an influx of new dead, flung from the waking world all at once.
Erenyë watches with a deep, sinking sensation as they come drifting in, spectral and vague, broken as she had been, crushed by the weight of war, the bitterness of kin slaying kin.
Watching them, she understands that evil—the same evil that had so corrupted her and stolen her from her beloved—is spreading through the world. She flits between them apace, pulsating with hope, searching for the flame that is her twin.
She does not find it.
Mandos offers her new birth. A new life, beyond the halls, in the Blessed Realm.
A life of bliss, a life of healing, where she might walk freely beneath the skies, clad in a hröa that is unblemished—restored to its intended state.
For your soul has long been cleansed of Melkor’s evil, he assures her. There is no need for you to linger here any longer, when you could walk in the light of Valinor, and know peace therein.
But she refuses.
He will come, she tells Mandos, the fire of her faith blazing bright in its insistence. She tells him that she must remain here, that she will be steadfast in her waiting.
The years pass.
More souls drift in, at a steady pace now, ebbing and flowing with the tides of war in the world without.
In Vairë’s great weavings, Erenyë reads the stories of Beleriand, of its heroes and its fallen, of its ravaging in battle after battle. But in all the histories, both the terrible and the glorious, she finds no trace of Eren.
Yet still she searches, half in hope, half in despair.
She asks Mandos when he will come, but he is bound by the decree of Ilúvatar and cannot speak the hour that any of the Children should receive their summons, and he answers her only with silence.
But she is stubborn, and so she asks again.
And again.
And again.
Kementári comes—paying a rare visit to the halls at Námo’s behest, for he has begun to fear that Erenyë is in danger of fading, even here, even in his own halls, which were meant for healing. Manwë has no answers, and even Eru himself remains silent on the matter, whispering to him only that the choice must be hers.
Yavanna speaks to her with bountiful kindness, enticing her with visions of green pastures and growing things, of endless paths leading in all directions—a sprawling expanse, free for her to wander.
They await you just beyond, she says, her compassionate voice soaking Erenyë in molten, golden light. In my pastures you may walk for endless days, and sow seeds once more.
In Yavanna’s words, Erenyë perceives once more the very call of nature itself—the song of the kelvar and the olvar—the same insistent music that had beckoned her so strongly since the moment she had awakened beside the lake in Cuiviénen—beside Eren, beneath the stars.
She had not waited for him then—she had embraced the call, she had wandered off without him, disappearing into the forest. And she had, indeed, found bliss there, in the shelter of the sprawling branches and in the whispers of the fluttering leaves.
But that bliss had been incomplete, until he had awakened and come to her.
She had not waited for him then, she tells Yavanna, resisting the wild allure of the song.
Whatever green-gold bliss might await her beyond the walls, it is meaningless without Eren at her side.
But for all her waiting, he does not come.
Despondent, she begins to despair that he is lost to time—that his fëa has been somehow swallowed by the infinite expanse of its passage, and that he is languishing in a void somewhere, nameless and forgotten.
The thought redoubles her sorrow, and she weeps, unwilling to let his name fade into nothing, for Eren, Eren, Eren…
The other souls around her give her a wide berth now: they move slowly forward while she remains in place. She understands now that they are healing, progressing toward that release that Mandos and Nienna speak to her about when they come, ever and anon, to entreat her, to implore her to accept a new life.
On a time, a soul passes her that glows brighter than most of the ones who have been victimized by the long years of war and torment. Its movements are brisk and intentional, and there is a lightness to it, a sense of certainty that it does not belong here, and will not linger for long.
As she approaches it, Erenyë is filled with visions of a thundering river, bathed in brilliant light, and a chorus of birds singing sweetly. Yet there is darkness around the edges—an echo, a lingering residue of something familiar. Erenyë follows it, curious, as it moves through the halls, at times daring to flit around it, attempting to intermingle with it.
But it yields no answers, and she soon loses it in a sea of other souls, seeking refuge from a world that is utterly ruined.
For Vairë’s tapestries soon tell of the sinking of Beleriand, and the ending of an age.
As the earth slips into its Second Age, the halls grow empty again.
Nienna visits her at regular intervals now, singing bolstering songs of courage to sustain her in her long vigil.
But Erenyë grows weary with the waning of the years. In the depths of her sorrow, she asks the vala queen if she is foolish to hope, after so long a time, for Eren’s arrival. Under the surface of the question, Nienna can sense her reaching, clawing desperately for an answer that she is forbidden to give.
She caresses Erenyë’s spirit with a tender hand.
Hope, Nainatári professes, is never foolish.
Another war begins—another influx of souls, and with them comes one whose name echoes throughout the halls: Telperinquar.
Like his grandfather, Curufinwë—the formidable sprit who lurks in the deepest places within Mandos—Telperinquar’s spirit bears the deep scars of one who has suffered torment at the hands of a maia.
Erenyë recognizes the marks—for they are the same ones she herself had borne upon her first arrival: the way the spark of his soul recoils at first from the healing hands of Estë and the song of Nienna.
She keeps watch over Telperinquar in the days that follow, as Vairë’s maiar spin the sad tale of the fall of Eregion into the histories that line the walls. In quiet wonder, Erenyë observes the slow yet steady process through which the flame of his spirit, which had been reduced to almost nonexistence, begins once more to pulse with light.
Take heart, Estë says, sensing Erenyë’s closeness, and understanding why she watches so intently. For by the will of Eru, even the deepest wounds may yet be healed.
More years pass…
More deaths, more souls.
Never the one she seeks.
Until…
His is the dimmest spark she has yet beheld in the halls, but she would know it anywhere, for she had known the form of his fire since the moment of its forging. They are the same, distilled from the same essence, destined to burn forever in kind.
Eren and Erenyë, son and daughter of Cuiviénen, fashioned by the very hand of Eru Ilúvatar.
She aches to engulf him, to tuck him as close to her own flame as she can, to use her reclaimed light to rekindle him a thousand times over and restore his full warmth.
But Mandos urges caution, and she restrains herself, watching—trembling—as Námo and Nienna call to him by name, beckoning him to arise and hearken to the light.
He flickers, falters, and she shatters at the sight of his struggle. From afar, she cries to him—to Eren, at last—and he blazes at once, pulled out of the darkness by her, for her.
Mandos nods in approval, giving her leave to go to him, but she is already there. She surrounds him, mingling their light together, letting her luminescence fill in every place where he is dark.
She never lets him go again.