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I. An Eye For An Eye
You watched the birth of a star.
It was bloody and violent. It came into the world, screaming, like you’d never heard something scream before. It was a sound beyond this world, a threatening, killer melody that drew you towards it, to its mother — its beautiful mother.
It always seemed cruel to you, to take away the person who was supposed to take care of someone. Mothers struck you as kind creatures, with gentle, warm hands, a smile that makes the moon pale in comparison. A shy laughter among fresh flowers, picked from the field just outside the house. Warm wool spun to a blanket or a shirt to keep all warm at night. Stories told in a whispering voice to lull one to sleep, with the soft touch of a fleeting caress as she leaves the room to let you sleep.
The sweetest mother birthed the darkest star you had ever seen. You pitied her, to have to raise such a dark shadow to adulthood, through adolescence and the early stages of childhood. Her thighs were covered by blood, as was it. That was its first taste of it, that crimson ambrosia that would linger on its mind for the ages to come.
But it drew so much from its mother’s life energy that she grew weary of living. The father had wept at her bedside when it was born. He knew then, she would not want to stay with this horrific creature. Life would become too bloodstained, so you had to take her from it, escort her to Lórien, where she could finally rest.
The star that you watched had fallen before it had the chance to ascend. The lights of the morning tree illuminated its stricken face, more solemn than you’d ever seen a newborn. Like it knew what it had done to its mother. It would forever be shrouded in darkness, you feared, a shadow clinging to its soul.
Perhaps that shadow was you.
The newborn grew up to be smart. He was given so many titles that you lost count. You watched from afar as he fell, once again like a star, from the daughter of a great smith. They were still so young. You often tilted your head at them, as they were together, as they had seven sons together.
He made many things. The one more precious than the other. Seeing-stones, a way of scriptures, a study of gemstones. He made many things; a myriad of dead bodies littering the swan-boats as his sons are covered in blood and the art of killing.
Your thousand eyes shine on him. He feels watched. His flesh belonged to you now, he knew, as you readied your crescent moon blade. Your hunched figure upon one of the swan-boats was hard to miss, and the newborn star, the black hole, the void, came to you. Approached you. It stared at you with unflinching, bottomless eyes, right at your golden ones, and you changed.
“Speak your business, fiend ,” he spat with the same blackened golden tongue he has used to utter that horrific oath of his. He raised his blade to you, to touch the soft tissue under your newly formed chin. “Or meet your end at the edge of my blade.”
“You summoned me here.”
“I have summoned no demons to this place.”
You made a sound akin to a laugh. No demons? The only demon here was him. Ugly thing, death of a fallen star. His eyes shone strangely, a visceral type of bloodlust you hadn’t seen on any other creature than a feral wolf. His stance was akin to an overgrown tree, his breath raking through his body violently, like every draw is a war. You almost, almost , pitied him.
“Especially not a demon with seven faces.”
“Not faces,” you say. “ Eyes . The eyes see, the face does not. The face lies , the eyes see the truth.”
The star narrows his eyes. “Speak your business,” he repeats. You barely laugh.
“You summoned me here.”
“We are going in circles.”
“Things always do, do they not? Oh, what has become of the world? A spiral abyss set in stone, a flight of stairs we all descend—” You watch him get red-faced in his anger. “You summoned me here, Fëanáro . Through your slaughtering of swan-boats, ordering your sons to the deepest pits of hell . Through your donning of bloodshed, though the scarlet makes you look outstanding .”
The star is quiet. You caught its tongue.
“What is your name, demon ?”
You smile, teeth bared, displaying the same type of bloodlust he has in his eyes. “My name is a gift not given to those who are alive, Fëanáro. You must know this by now.”
The star sheaths its sword. He stares you down, eyes reflecting the water below, the depths heartless as he is. “So you are her .”
You tilt your head. “I am her. Who do you see?”
Shoulders drop. Demeanour changes. Fëanor stares at you, for a while, thoughts running through his head like gears of a machine. “A young girl,” he settles on. “Hair like snow. Eyes like a mirror. You are shorter than me, perhaps swifter on your feet, but I could easily overthrow you. You are dressed in dark robes, though they sparkle in the daylight.”
You grin. “And I see a man with hair like shadows and eyes like stone. There. We have now become acquainted. Isn’t that nice?”
Fëanor looks undone. “You look like the daughter I never had.”
You tilt your head. Never before have you had someone desire a daughter, not with the sorrow and grief reflected in the irises like Fëanor. A girl to raise, a girl to rot from the inside out, a girl to mold into a porcelain prize set on a shelf, far away from where people can touch her. Never had you expected Fëanor to desire something like this, so utterly foolish .
“There is nothing as undoing as a daughter.”
No truer words have ever left your tongue.
“But all right,” you say, lifting your hand to touch Fëanor’s cheek. Your hand leaves a stain of blood, there, as dark as the rest, as fragrant. “See me as such. It will be the last thing you see, anyway.”
“No!” Fëanor cries out. “I beg of you, do not take me hence. Not yet. I will do anything, anything !”
“Anything?”
He kneels. “ Anything , I swear it, I swear it.”
Bemused, you tilt his chin up. “An eye for an eye, then.”
II. Remember, You Must Die
I had done nothing to deserve this.
I had always been a good son. A dutiful husband. A dedicated father. A determined inventor. I had always protected what was mine, what I loved. Nothing I had done, beckoned you to me. You, the figure clad in black, with hair as snow — portraying the daughter I never had. The ghost of a girl I would never hold.
My wife, Nerdanel, does not believe me when I talk about you. How you stalk my shadows, how you follow my every step. She does not believe you marked me.
My dreams are full of you. I watch you among the swan-boats, burning with the Teleri, your eyes melting from your skull, your skin charring, every inch of you disappearing. I desire to look away, but you force me to keep looking. I cannot turn my gaze from you. I watch as your beautiful white hair burns off and takes on the colour of ash, I watch as your face twists and contorts to a mangled version of yourself, your flesh bubbles and boils. You cry for help. You cry my name, you cry my sons’ names.
I awaken with a start, bolting upright. Your figure disappears into the shadows again, your laughter echoing with melancholy through my tent. I breathe erratically, unable to control my heart nor my lungs. You have a grasp on them, a fearsome, lethal grasp, with long fingers caressing my organs, like you are attempting to warn me: remember, you must die .
Nerdanel sleeps peacefully next to me. Her flaming red hair is sprawled around her like a halo, her beauty ever-present in the night. She has her arms up, next to her face, her breast exposed by the askew furs on top of her. I reach over to adjust it, so my lovely wife is no longer cold, and as I do, I catch a glimpse of my own hand.
Or, where my hand used to be.
In place of it is a pure white skeleton hand, bones nearly aglow in the dark. A scream tries to worm its way out of my mouth, but I manage to suppress it, not wanting to wake Nerdanel from her peaceful, dreamless sleep. What comes out is a noise of despair. A desperate howl, like a hurt dog. I hear you laugh in the shadows again. Remember, you must die . Is it truly your wish to torment me? What have I done to deserve this?
My breath catches in my throat. I notice now that it is not just my hand, but my arm as well, that has turned to bone. Wretched demon! I am half a corpse!
I grit my teeth, rising from the warm sheets and leaving my wife behind. My spot would grow cold, but I will return soon. I must. I cannot let you win. Not this time. Not tonight. I must survive. For my wife. For my sons. For my creations. I must .
The shard of a mirror shows me as I thought I was: half a corpse. Half my face is gone, clean bone shows in the marred looking glass. My eye is gone as well, and I recall your words, haunting my mind as I stare at myself: an eye for an eye . The image is familiar, the disturbing nightmare that had pestered me for numerous nights, and back in my youth it had also been there. How long have you followed me? You know me more than anyone else. I see the face you put on slide over my own, the features too similar to mine. One of your many faces.
Aren’t you beautiful?
You speak to me again. Your words sting like a wasp. Your words cut like a knife. I witness the appearance of those words as my reflection shows my bones, as you bring back the layers of sinew, of nerves, of muscle, of skin. Flesh made whole again.
Aren’t you glad you can see?
What is it that I should see? A man ashamed? Humiliated? All I see is a man who regrets nothing — I did what I had to do. I do not deserve this. Do you hear me, demon? I do not deserve this!
Remember, you must die .
III. Many Faced God
I am the knife.
I am the butcher.
I am your devastating end.
The veil of darkness hiding the stars over the ruins of Dagor-nuin-Giliath, the remains of the campment in Mithrim. My voice beckons the stars to hide. I am the blade in the night. I am both Death and the Maiden.
These are all his mantras. He, who was so arrogant, so overconfident that he could win from Morgoth himself. The battle was long, I confess. Many souls that needed ferrying to the hereafter. My scythe is soaked in blood, the black metal taking on a crimson hue, and so do I. My black robes drip with blood, my hands are caked with it, dried blood crackling on my palms as I bend them around my scythe.
When I find you, my wings are weary from flying. The soft black feathers drip with the old blood and sweat, damp from the dew in the night air. I strike down on the ground with a quiet sound, one that only the wounded one will hear.
I witness as you bid your sons to keep your oath; your dreadful oath. They stare at you in horror, begging you to reconsider, as your oath is what brought your end. Do you think it is worth it to curse your sons, as you are cursing Angband and Morgoth all the same? It is futile. They will live with the sins of their father weighing them down like rocks on their feet in an endless ocean. And for what? For your gemstones? For how precious they are, they are filthy. Filthy with blood.
I kneel down next to you. Your sons are whispering among themselves in the darkness of the night. Your younger sons are resting on the ground, head in hands. They know there is no saving you. I tilt my head at you, and you stare back at me.
“So we have come here at last,” you say. You are defeated. You do not struggle when I pick up your hand to look at your injuries — dripping with tar and obsidian slick where Gothmog had wounded you. The same viscera drips from your lips. “Another circle complete.”
I say nothing. I stare at him with my head tilted like an owl’s. His sudden mortality fascinates me. He is but a man now.
“I do not deserve this,” you whisper.
“I do not decide who deserves death and who does not, Fëanáro,” I say. Nightfrost leaves my tongue, and the air grows colder. “I’m only a ferryman.”
You hum, a bolt of pain shooting through your side. You wince, the wound glowing under your hand — a dead crimson. “What will happen?”
“I will carry you hence,” I say. My voice is nothing more than a whisper. “Are you prepared to leave?”
Tears well in the pools of your eyes. Grey, they are. A duller shade of it than they used to be when you were alive. There is hardly any colour left in you, besides the wound oozing darkened red.
“Is there a choice?”
“There is always a choice.” I pick up my scythe, resting it near your neck — much you did, when we first met. “You can go quietly, or you can go loudly— but go, you must.”
The tears fall over your cheeks, leaving little rivers in your skin. “Go, I must.”
I nod.
You look at me with dimming stars for eyes. You break out into a desperate smile. “You have ceased looking like the daughter I never had,” you whisper, voice hoarse. You raise up a hand to touch my face, and I let you. “Your hair is dark, like a raven. Your eyes are a deep tree-bark. Your skin, speckled with stars. You look younger than before — yet older. Is this what you truly are?”
My face remains neutral, but a veil-like smile spreads across my lips. “I am a god of many faces, Fëanáro. I appear how you want me to see. What you need to see. I am but a reflection.”
Your eyes shut for a moment. Then, you speak again. “Will my sons find joy again after my passing?”
“I cannot say. Perhaps they might, perhaps they do not. Alas, I do not know. Life does not like to be leashed.”
“But their fates—”
“—Will be fulfilled,” I interrupt. “Cease your questions, elfirin . Let me guide you forth. Accept your own fate, without pondering the ones of your sons.”
Your whole abdomen is stained black. It is only a matter of time before your light goes out. You know it too. You can feel it slipping from you, can you not? The essence of your life, the ichor turned rot.
“I thank you, Menel Nûrnen.”
Then, you nod to me. I extend my hand to you, you take it, and you burst into flames.
It is a wondrous sight — you, alight, like your swan boats, like your heart in your life. You burn to a pile of ash as your fiery spirit takes my hand and follows my shadows to what comes hereafter. You burn so brightly it light the way to where you go, it burns so bright it illuminates my path back to the void. You are a flame. And you burned out.
And now you are gone.
I watched the death of a star.