silwritersguild | FICLET UPDATE - VIGNETTES OF THE BLESSED REALM: AFTER THE SUNDERING

Title: Vignettes of the Blessed Realm - After The Sundering
Rating: Gen
Warnings: None
Characters: Vaire, Este, Vana the Ever-Young
Summary: In which we look at the beginnings of the Istari, among other things.

Note: Slightly modified from the original post on my own LJ.

In the silence of the Halls of Waiting, at the request of Her sister Powers, Vaire the Weaver set Her will upon Her Loom . It took a long time to respond, almost a full minute, for this event had happened long, long ago, when the world was far different, and the one They watched for had always been a slippery target, even for the all-recording Loom:

The young Sun gleams through spring leaves, Her light dappling leaf-mould, tree bark and the sleek skins of the young pair of Men coupling happily on a cloak of deerskin, absorbed in each other and their mutual pleasure. If they even notice the silence of the wood, they might attribute it to their own presence, and the quiet (for they are of a hunting people) sounds of their enjoyment of each other's youth and strength and the first warm day of spring.

A little way off, a greater shadow waits in the deep shadows of the wood; fear pools in the silence around her. The young male and female would not have the words to describe her were they so unlucky as to see her: a tree out of nightmares, awake and aware and worst of all, walking. Branches and tendrils that move of their own will, to trap and hold, and, if the prey was lucky, devour quickly. The Elder Kind have the words, though none that has met her has returned to their people to say them: Balrog she is, a demon of might, but not one born of Fire. No whirlwind of speed and flame, but terrible in her endless, inexorable patience. And on this day and in this place, she too is hunting, though not her usual prey.

The male reaches his climax, gasping his way to the moment of thoughtless ecstasy. And as his seed enters his lover's womb and the spark of continued life ignites, the tangled shadow looms over them for the barest moment, too swiftly for weak mortal eyes to see...and is gone.

"There," Vana the Ever-Young said, with rare grimness. "That was where it happened. How far down can you resolve the image?"

Vaire did something complex to the Loom. It made a protesting noise and the Halls of Mandos darkened a little around Them. The Goddesses waited. Vaire hummed at it soothingly for a few moments, until it settled down and reality re-stabilised.

"On the corporeal plane, I can get You down to the sub-atomic level, but You will appreciate that things get a little...uncertain at that point. On the incorporeal plane You'll need a look at the hroa-fea interface. That's hard to resolve in Men. Fuzzy-minded creatures..."

Este leaned over Her sister-in-law's shoulder, peering at an image that no embodied being could have comprehended in the entirety of its meaning.

"She did it," She said with something between horror and unwilling respect. "She really took the risk and moved into a mortal body. Not a fana, an actual body. Why?"

"Why did Innin ever do anything?" Vana said with a sniff. "People call me frivolous, but I never Rebelled just to see what would happen afterwards!"

"I see how she managed it," Este said, "But the cost...see there, how much memory, how much self she had to give up, just to fit! We can't do that to Olorin and the others!"

"No, We won't have to," Vana said, sober again. The grey quiet of the Halls of Waiting shadowed even Her brightness, though all of the Valar were sombre in these grim days. "If We grow the bodies directly, not relying on the conceptive spark, so that they are empty, and wait until they are adult before Our people move in..."

Vaire said, "Where in Aman...ah. Tuor."

"And Earendil and Dior and Elured and Elurin and Elwing." Vana smiled for the first time, though faintly. "They were all so kind...We wanted as wide a genetic range as possible, and I can do a bit of tweaking, but unfortunately the base material is all more or less Edain. It will be a disadvantage, though with luck the ageing and the facial hair will disguise a lot."

Este said firmly,"But we must not do anything until Lorien and I have worked out how to keep their patterns un-degraded, so that they can re-integrate themselves once they leave the bodies. I accept that there will be some loss while they are corporeal, but it cannot be forever. Not like that," with a glance of both sorrow and dismay at the still image in the Loom.

"No," Vana said. "Oh dear. My sister will be even more upset when I tell Her about this. We hadn't realised quite how badly... Innin(1) was one of Her best, you know."

"How is She?" Vaire asked with unusual gentleness.

The Lady of Life Renewed looked away, across the dim hall, lit only by the brightness of the Loom and the Goddesses gathered around it.

"She's still not talking to anyone. She is very busy, of course, the Sundering did a lot of damage to the biota, both here and in Middle-earth..."

She sat down onto a curule chair that opened for Her like a lotus. Her gown of flowers rustled quietly, the blossoms half-closed against the shadows of the Halls.

"Numenor upset Her so much, She worked on the modifications to their genome Herself, and She still thinks that the King and Queen were wrong, that We were wrong, to let it happen."

Vaire said without expression, "Once We laid down Our Guardianship the matter was out of Our hands."

Vana's hands moved restlessly among the flowers of her gown. Petals shredded and re-formed under Her fingers. "Well. That's the issue, isn't it? She thinks that She, that We could have resolved it Ourselves. An attack of dengue fever, a bit of narcolepsy, and We could have poured them back onto their ships without them lifting a finger against Us." She did not look at Este, the Healer.

"And the next time that they tried it?"

"What else were the Enchanted Isles for?" Vana snapped. "There was no need to kill them all! And don't tell me that they were doing awful things, because other Men have done just as bad in the rest of Middle-earth, and nothing like that happened to them!"

There was no answer to this and the other Goddesses wisely made none.

"There is nothing that we can do about it now," Este said at last. "Except to try and make sure that it does not happen again. Clearly We have no proper understanding of Secondborn psychology, much though Lorien and I are pained to admit it. The Emissary Project may at least help with that, and, We hope, with the Sauron problem too."

"If it doesn't make matters worse in some completely unforeseeable way," Vana said glumly. "We really have no idea what the effect of being really and truly corporeal in a Secondborn body will be, you know. Innin is not a good example, she wasn't sane to start with!"

Este sighed and nodded. "There is always that risk. Come, let Us see what We can do with the body-spirit integration process, in the light of what We have just learned. Vaire, thank You very much for showing Us this, it has been very helpful."

Vana smiled weakly at Vaire, tossed a garland of daisies over the Loom (it hissed in response) and vanished. Este waved an apologetic hand and followed suit in a swirl of mist-white robes.

Left alone in unmoved calm, the Lady of the Halls of Waiting turned again to Her work. Separated from their Maker, the daisies withered to their constituent atoms as the fierce energies of the Loom devoured them.

In a pavilion in the Gardens of Lorien where none but the Ainur go, five crystal pools gleam against a floor of glassy smoothness. A child sleeps in each, mindless and dreamless, waiting.

(1) An OC, the Sauron-equivalent among Yavanna's people. Someone like Melian, but gone to the bad. Also known in others of my fics as the Grandmother of the East.