Disclaimer: I don't own the Silmarillion
Pairings: none specific, but a few mentioned
Characters: Mandos (mentions Manwë, Varda, Irmo and Nienna specifically, the Valar, Morgoth, Fëanor, Fingolfin, all the children of Fëanor, Fingolfin and Finarfin, Maeglin, Sauron, Celebrían, Elros, Elrond, Elurín, Eluréd, Istelindë (OFC), Thranduil, Gil-Galad, Sáriel (OFC), Eöl, Finduilas, Andreth and Eru)
Warning: extremely AU, canon character death, skewed parentage, non-con implied, mutilation, war, torture, mass murder, superstition, filicide, betrayal, mercy killing, unrequited love, secret identity, insanity, etc...
Song: Utopia
Words: 2,236
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prayer (noun): an address (as a petition) to God or a god in word or thought; an earnest request or wish; something prayed for
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/prayer
Thousands of voices overlapped, weaving through the fabric of time into a tapestry, warm and heavy across the walls of his mind. But he heard all of them--every single insignificant whisper--felt as their minds brushed across his through space, a million butterfly wings made of whispered words in the dark.
And wished there was something he could do. To help.
"Please, keep my son safe. Let no war or terror befall him. Let this time of darkness pass over his head as a summer storm..." Of a child held in his mother's arms, rocked to sleep to the drumroll of thunder. "Let his namesake prove false..."
To protect an elfling whose death loomed on the horizon as a phantom of a night-terror. A strike of mace and a flash of light--a brilliant star--and a body falling to ashes after a lifetime of watching friends and family die and die and die...
And wondered if the others felt these words as lightning strikes. Wondered if they, too, wished there was something they could do to cease the suffering. Or if they felt justified.
"Please, make it end. Please, I do not want to kill anymore. I do not want to fight anymore. I just want to lie down and rest." Between sobs and hands shaken with primal terror and horror and grief. "Please, I am sorry... So sorry..."
Was it justification? Watching this soul cursed from the moment of birth, shy and wary and broken, plead for some way to end the terrible deeds an oath bound him to commit. Watching more and more of the innocent spirit crumble as hope faded, took away the last bit of heart and empathy worth preserving...
If the heavenly brethren felt satisfied, hearing a million broken cries to fill the prophecy spoken from hasty lips. If in his hallowed halls of sapphire and airy finery, Manwë heard also these same entreaties and turned his back to the black shadow overtaking the lands to the east. Because it was punishment.
"Spare them the curse of sundering and death. Of separation by fate. Let their histories be better writ than those before them who shared a womb." In the dark, in the night, in the wake of sleeplessness and unbidden comfort. "Would you even hear the pleas of a kinslayer?"
Punishment to make the childless father watch the two fragile souls ripped asunder. Punishment, that one day the faithless whisperer might look up and see twins separated by mortality and tragedy, over and over and over, and feel heavy the weight of guilt.
If the others, too, heard all those souls crying out every night, pleading brokenly for help that could not be given through coldness of heart. That could not be sued for on pain of death.
"Please, Oromë, if any love you had for me in golden years long past, watch over them. Spare them." Blood spilling from pale lips and tears boiling from heartless eyes. A hand reaching for empty air. "I did not mean for things to end this way... Just keep..."
Not even for two children stripped of their home and left in the wilds to die. Not even when, without guiding hand, they would make their end in the far east, broken in mind and spirit, naught more than slaves without thought and without will, without even the ability to speak. Not even for innocents who had spilled no blood but carried sin in their own veins.
Not even that could move Manwë's frozen heart and empty stubbornness.
"Let her stay. Please, if you are there, if you are listening to the words of one who rejected your light, take her not from my sight or my arms." Fingers tracing over pale, soft skin in the twilight. "For all the treachery of her kin, she is all I have left... and I do not want to be alone..."
Could anything move the hearts of those who could not see?
See the woman torn between her home and her love and her son and her pride. Torn between two cages, one of gold and adamant, the other of iron and shadow. Lost. And her protectors each standing against the other. Each willing to die to keep her secure. But only one would win in the end, and cast the other down to the rocks below...
"Bring her back safe. Give me a sign. Anything to tell of her fate." Worried beyond rest and beyond pride, staring up at the rain pouring from the gray sky. "Please, bring my baby sister home. I would never forgive myself if..."
Or feel the terror of kin for kin. Of blood for blood.
"Keep them safe. Valar, move their blades swiftly and accurately. Give them the strength of twenty in defense of their brothers." The night before the battle. A father looking upon his sleeping sons. "They have done nothing to deserve an unkind fate..."
Even cursed blood. Even dispossessed blood. Even blood split by harsh words and screams in the night. By conflicting ideals and broken dreams and shattered idols. By flames eating away shredded bonds and fragile loyalty, reflecting off the water and up towards the stars. Reflecting in eyes lit with all the vehemence and passion of a vala. For better or for worse, sundered.
"Please give him rest and carry him back to his mother's arms." They all thought him the most heartless, the coldest and craziest. "Many things for which I would neither ask nor desire forgiveness, but Valar forgive me for what I have done to my child..."
And he wondered if any of his siblings laid awake, ceaselessly wandering their domains. If his sister wept bitter tears as she lamented their fates. If his brother swept them into his arms and tried his best to soothe away dreams rotting with the decay of reality.
"I know this is not him. Not my best friend. But he does what he does out of love and out of fear." Honor and bravery beyond measure--kindness and understanding without price. "Have mercy on him, despite his traitorous actions. His heart is heavy with sorrow..."
If the rain as it spilled upon the marred earth whispered a melody of healing and helped hide the tears of the prideful. Or if, perhaps, there was no healing to be found for the spirits of the unrequited. If their journeys were forever in vain. If they would be lead down a path of bloodshed, jealousy and vindication to a joyless and empty end. Bitter.
"I care not if I die here; let it not be in vain. Let my foolishness be only the downfall of my kingdom." Blade lowered, eyes closed, ready to stop shedding blood. "Let my sacrifice have been enough for my daughter to escape capture..."
If the earth cried and screamed and rumbled with horror with the stampede of a million enslaved feet bare to rock, marching slowly to death and mutilation with no chance and no hope of salvation from deities who looked the other direction. If the trees felt the heat of spilled blood as spears imbedded in their flesh, carrying the lifeless bodies of those who looked up at the sky and pleaded and pleaded but in the end heard no answer and received no quarter.
If the stars overhead spoke to their mistress of those who whispered her name.
"Ai Elbereth, strike me down! Let me not live to see another dawn!" Blood spilled over white skin, lifeless to the touch. Ravaged and destroyed. "Please, please, I cannot bear to look anymore. To remember anymore. What have I done? What have I done?"
If her sight was tainted by all those images recorded in the cold eyes of the stars, memories written in faith and despair. Of young beauty brought low, defiled and left to rot. Of those who lost more than their lives in the wake of destiny. Of spirits whose will to continue--bright as a star of her own make--suddenly began to wither away beneath depression or beneath torture or beneath the crushing will of darkness to suffocate all light.
"See them away gently and in peace. I do not regret, but if you never forgive me for all the horrible things I have done, at least grant me this much." Cradling a ragged, limp body in thin arms. Dead eyes staring upwards. "For their sacrifice, grant them freedom from dark fate..."
If her heart was stung by lovers who would never come together in bliss. If she, the Queen of the Valar, even cared for those insignificant little lights looking upon her glory. If she would look upon them and wish she had directed them away from the long, toxic years of separation and yearning, from the short and fiery end.
"Please, let him--"
"Let her--"
"--find someone else--"
"--a farmer or a warrior. A good man--"
"--a beautiful elf maiden to live out all the long years--"
"--and a good father for a dozen children--"
"--so he won't be alone."
"--so she will be happy without me."
Because he cared. Cared more than he would like to admit. Felt their pain as if it were the pain of his own heart. And regretted. Regretted everything. Every. Word.
"Please, Mandos, take me now. I am ready and willing. Remove me from this mortal shell of pain." So much pain. Endlessly, on and on. And insidious whispers in his ears. "Please, I don't know how much longer... How much longer I can..."
Regretted that he was unable to answer. Knowing that that spirit, little more than a child, would break apart and give in to whispered promises and temptations. That would never come to fruition. That would prove nothing but lies. That would lead to the fall of a city and the destruction of a young heart that only wanted love, that had done no great wrong.
"Please, if there is any mercy in the world, if I cannot reach him, let him at least be dead. Please, do not make him suffer." Even after betrayal of friend to friend and kin to kin. "And if he cannot be saved, let me grant him a fast death."
Regretted that no such mercy could be offered. Regretted that a good spirit was tortured into a misshapen form, handless and childless and emotionless, molded into someone--something--terrible and twisted. Regretted...
"I care not for what he has done. I care not for the hurts he has inflicted upon myself, upon my home and upon my people." Looking out at the sea, longing to reach across great distance but trapped on pearlescent, unforgiving sands. "Just, please, keep him safe despite..."
Regretted that she would receive her query in pieces, broken in body and mind. And receive shards of her dreams. And receive a shadow of memories.
"Let my daughter pull through. Please, do not put the sins of the mother upon her child. Do not take her away from me." The only child she would ever have. The only light in the world of death. "She is much beloved, much needed, my sweet princess..."
Regretted that there was no forgiveness. That there would be separation. That even thousands of years after the exiles were cursed away from their home, still it brought forth the payment in shed tears. Unnumbered tears.
"Please, keep them safe. My children (my siblings). My sons (my brothers) and my daughter (my sister). My people (my father's loyal servants)." A king looking over a blackened, barren land. But hoping for the best. "Do not let me fail them. Not again."
Regretted that there was no compassion. That families would be ripped apart without hesitation. By both sides. For thousands of multi-faceted reasons, backed by motivations veiled in a hundred diaphanous curtains of deceit. Too many to see through. Too many to unravel. And that in the end--
"Bring him back--"
"Bring her back--"
Sons. Daughters. Husbands. Wives. Mothers. Fathers. Brothers. Sisters. Who would never be coming home.
"Please..."
There would be no mercy either.
But mostly, he regretted that it need come to this--a million voices whispering prayers that would go forever unanswered--for him to finally understand the folly of his own actions. To understand the true extent of his own powers. And the true depth of the separation between guardian and child in this asymmetrical world laced with Melkor's theme. The true danger of flaunting one's knowledge in a reality where every scrap was worth its weight in diamonds.
And he wept alone. Because they were supposed to be guardians. They were supposed to protect and defend against the darkness and preserve the innocence and purity of the Flame Imperishable in every spirit. Yet, he had never felt more powerless or useless, more guilty or tainted. It was not Melkor who rained down vengeful wrath upon his charges, but he himself. With selfish, hasty words.
The Dispossessed for ever.
And he wept and whispered his own prayer to the unseen powers beyond the edges of the earth. That, perhaps, the Children might be yet forgiven, might yet be saved.
And, unknowingly, he did not weep alone.
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I blame the song entirely for this. Utopia by Within Temptation is an absolutely gorgeous song all on its own, and I could listen to it for hours and hours and never get bored of it--indeed, even most of my friends, who sometimes have very conflicting musical likes and dislikes, all like this song and its message. Add that to the music video and I almost cry every damn time I hear it. It's one of my absolute favorites.
As for the story itself, Mandos isn't giving the other Valar enough credit. They're listening, too. It's just that he feels particularly guilty over the entire incident and resents that no one else seems to. Even the Valar are not gods, and they are not perfect in my head-canon. They can be callous and they can do wrong. And moreover, they mean well but they don't really understand the Children of Eru. I mean, how could they? They don't have families the same way. They don't have the same limitations. They certainly aren't powerless.
I think I'll have to write from each vala's POV sometime in the near future. It would be an interesting little array of stories, I should think. And lots of character development. LOL.
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