The Fire and the Sea.


Part one of three.


Now I am finding I have so many ideas I can't get them all written down in time. I am trying to add to my notes as I go, in case I forget, but that cuts down on actual writing time.

I need to leave reviews on a couple of stories I have read on ff.net, and return some e-mails..I AM catching up now.

The other thing that holds me back is the dreaded e-bay! We have decided to decorate our 1930's house even further in a 1930's style, and there are just so many things to be found on e-bay! :) We will keep all of our 'modern' conveniences, of course..no going back to a coal fire in each room, or a tiny larder...but will try and blend them in a lot more.

This story is a re-write of one I did ages ago. I always thought it rather long, so I am posting it in three parts.


The Fire and the Sea


(Disclaimer: All characters, places, and the main story line belong to JRR Tolkien. Gaerion, Gilfanon and Gillondë are my characters inspired by reading Tolkien’s wonderful works. All references are from The Silmarillion and HoME, Volumes 10 and 12.)




“But the hosts of the Valar prepared for battle; and beneath their white banners marched the Vanyar, the people of Ingwë, and those also of the Noldor who never departed from Valinor, whose leader was Finarfin the son of Finwë. Few of the Teleri were willing to go forth to war, for they remembered the slayings at the Swanhaven, ….and they sent mariners enough to sail the ships that bore the host of Valinor east over the sea.”

(‘Of the Voyage of Eärendil’ The Silmarillion. J.R.R Tolkien. Ed C. Tolkien. HarperCollins. p 301)



“There (The Halls of Mandos) long shall ye abide and yearn for your bodies, and find little pity though all whom ye have slain should entreat for you.”

(The Prophecy of the North ‘Of the Flight of the Noldor’ The Silmarillion. J.R.R. Tolkien. Ed C. Tolkien. HarperCollins p 95)




The Year of the Sun 544. First Age. A coastal path north of Alqualondë.



“She will have gone to that place just north of Alqualondë where the coastal trail comes to an end at the cliff’s edge. A sheer drop it is, onto the rocks and waves below. In her present mood I know not what she will do!”

Urundil was distraught. Silently he beseeched Aulë’s guidance, wishing that Tulcon, Narwasar or Artaro had been at the dwellings of the Aulenduri to accompany him on his urgent pursuit. He wished his wife had been there with him, rather than overseeing the making of mail hauberks in Aldëaosto. He wished Nolwen, the wife of Curvo were with him, that his daughter's grief might be shared with one who truly undersood. But Nolwen had determinedly busied herself amongst those in Tirion in the drawing up of maps and charts of the Hither Lands from the Valar’s instructions. And even that other ‘daughter’, Enyalimë, Makalaurë’s wife, was in Tirion helping her grandfather and brother prepare for war.

Nay - he alone could give aid to his daughter in her current distress.

He knew where his beloved only child went when the pain of the past grew too great; that she loved the fierceness of that small stretch of coastland promontory with its wild winds and sometimes-wilder waters. He knew she looked from there to the east, and he understood why. But before sunrise she had left his house in a great hurry, seeming in far more anguish of fëa than he had observed in many a year. Grey cloaked, as if she wished to be away unnoticed, she had ridden her favoured dappled horse down through the Calacirya under the fading light of the moon and the stars.

Most times he would not have been concerned for her, for she was strong, determined, and well able to care for herself. But the Blessed Realm that changed but little was again changing most dramatically.

The mariner had come of late out of the east, with a message from the Exiles and from the Second People. Eärendil was he named - a descendent of Finwë through Turukáno. And the holy light, the Silmaril he had bound to his brow, (even as Fëanáro had once worn the three!), enabled him to pass the very shores of Aman unto the festival deserted streets of Tirion and of Valmar. There, before the Valar he had told of the trials, of the suffering of those in the Hither Lands. Mercy he had asked for the two kindred, and pardon for the Noldor that dwelt over the sea, that they might be sent aid - that they might return home.

Despite the words of Námo Mandos that ‘no mortal man may tread upon the undying lands and yet live, neither any Noldo who left, return’, yet had Ulmo spoken in the mariner’s defence. And Manwë; he had granted the prayer of Eärendil.

Preparations were already well underway for the Great Battle, the war-to-come. Many of the Aulenduri were in Tirion or in Valmar, while others worked day and night at the forges near their dwellings. All were eager to obey the summons of King Arafinwë to craft weapons for the Noldor and Vanyar hosts. Urundil himself had overseen much of the weapon making on behalf of the king. He, who had been so angry at Fëanáro’s crafting of weapons, now forged them with a will. Yet he wanted much more than to craft a means of destruction! He wanted to destroy!

The master-smith had assumed that he, as almost all of the adult neri of the Noldor, would be voyaging forth under the Valar’s banners. He wanted to go – he wanted to take up sword and smite at anything of the Enemy who had darkened the Blessed Realm – who had blighted the life of his family. He wanted to bring his grandsons home! But the king had decreed otherwise.

“You will be needed here, Lord Urundil,” Arafinwë had told him, when he had gone to discuss the making of the king's own sword. “When we return there will be much re-building of dwellings, of our society, of lives to undertake. I cannot risk the loss of the most skilled of our smiths. Nay, I deem it better you serve the Noldor and Valar here, in the knowledge that I will do all I can for my brother’s remaining sons.”

Urundil had been bitter at those words, but he would not disobey his king. Not this king! His first thought – that his exclusion was because of his likeness to Maitimo in appearance, at least from a distance - was quickly put aside. The smith had wisdom enough of his own to understand the situation. Arafinwë could have no reminder of Fëanáro with his host. And Arafinwë had looked at him with understanding of the pain of loss. Had he and his Teler wife not been told of the death of their own sons – that Artanis alone remained?

But at last the prayers of many for their lost children, their lost loves were to be answered; even the prayers of Nerdanel might be answered and the pardon of Manwë granted to three of those from whom she had been sundered.

Good news, indeed – until further word had come forth that many of bright Eärendil’s people in the Hither Lands had been slain and his twin sons taken captive. That most foul deed had been undertaken by Nerdanel’s sons, bound still by their oath: of Ambarussa the elder, (who also was slain in that encounter), of Maitimo and of Makalaurë.

“Ai!” Urundil drew the deepest of breaths at the thought of the deeds of his grandchildren - at the knowledge of what that cursed oath had driven them to do.

“What did you speak with her about? What did you say?” he rather harshly addressed his lone companion in the search. Only this one other had the Noldo found who could be spared at need - he also unnaturally low of spirit, and travelling east towards the sea. Not that Urundil had ever disliked the Teler who had of late paid more frequent calls to his house.

Gaerion knew not how to reply. How could he tell one he had long admired and respected, one of those who had done his best to heal the grievous wounds caused to the Teleri by his people that he, Nerdanel’s ‘everfriend’, had inadvertently spoken forth that which she could not bear to hear? That instead of offering her comfort, he had caused her further sorrow.

“We talked as ever of her sons. That though Ambarussa is now slain, Maitimo and Makalaurë may yet return. I had thought that she would be uplifted in part by the possibility. Yet did she say to me she thought Makalaurë would not return. That though he would long most ardently to come home with those twins of Eärendil’s in his care, (for he who so loved children would surely have cared for them), yet it would not happen.”

Urundil shook his head; copper-brown hair partially escaping from the single clasp that always held it from his eyes when he worked. “No; no!” he addressed himself more than the Teler. “She has come to terms with all of that. My daughter will not despair. She will wait upon the return of those ships to be sent - until King Arafinwë returns from this war-to-be. Until that time she cannot know for a certainty what has happened to either of her eldest.”

“And the white ships,” the silver-haired Elda added. He reluctantly slowed the pace of the lively, brown horse he rode to a trot, as the coastal path became steeper and narrower. “We spoke of the white ships. I had told her that, if they yet lived, I would carry home her sons, even if others of my kin would not. Even though her sons were responsible for the deaths of many of my people, (and Makalaurë slew my father upon the deck of the Uinenlindë’ was the unspoken thought), for her sake, and for yours, I would bring them home.”

Choosing not to comment for the moment on the reminder of his grandsons’ role in the first kinslaying, (or on the knowledge that Gilfanon had been slain by Makalaurë), Urundil focused upon the task in hand.

Throughout the years since the rebel Noldor had left the city of Tirion, intoxicated by the impassioned speech of his daughter’s husband, he and his wife, Taurlotë, had carefully watched over her.

They had watched Nerdanel’s initial numbness turn to acceptance - then again to grief at the awareness of the death of Fëanáro and of their youngest son. In time, over the space of further years she had taken up her life again, though never with the joy she had once possessed so abundantly. She had busied herself in her work, in her care for those of both Noldor and Teleri who remained, and in her devotion to the more distant Aulë. In so doing, and in the closeness of her friendship with Nolwen and Enyalimë, a measure of peace did it seem she had found. But his wise and thoughtful child had not sung her heart’s song into her crafting, nor laughed with delight, neither oft walked in the hills or by the shores as had once been her want. That she lived in silent hope that one, at least, of her children would eventually return to Valinor - to her - those closest to her had always known. Despite the doom proclaimed upon the House of Fëanáro and the knowledge that all who wilfully left Aman were not permitted to return, yet had she hoped.

Now all was changing, and the Lords of the West, the mighty Valar, looked to bring war upon Moringotho in the Hither Lands, that the Quendi of Beleriand be saved and those ‘rebel’ Noldor who so wished, be pardoned. It was even as Fëanáro had said:

‘Such hurt at the least will I do to the Foe of the Valar that even the mighty in the Ring of Doom shall wonder to hear it. Yea, in the end they shall follow me.” (1)

'Such hurt' pondered Urundil! Had not Moringotho’s servants rendered ‘such hurt’ upon his daughter’s husband, so also upon her? But again, had not the Silmarils, those creations of the hands of Fëanáro, been the very thing to burn the hands of the Enemy, to cause him never to be free of the pain of that burning and to put upon him such a deadly weariness that he ventured not forth, save once, from his abode? (And that to confront Nolofinwë in single combat!) And were the Valar not now following Fëanáro’s course, even as he had said they would?

Slowing the pace of his own mount to a walk, the master-smith again reflected upon that which had caused his daughter to take up her grief anew. Angry at his own lack of foresight was he, of not truly considering the influence that Eärendil’s message would have upon the mother of those who had brought ruin to the havens of Sirion. He thought on how Nerdanel had felt when she knew Fëanáro had perished - on how she now felt with the knowledge that at least five of her sons were already slain. Alas, that was not all to grieve her; but also the knowledge brought them through Eärendil of her sons' actions, that not one, but three kinslayings there had been. How could he have believed she could bear to know that?

Now would Urundil have continued riding further up the steep and narrow slope of the coastal cliffs behind the city of the Teleri. Yet safety was also important. Neither he nor his companion could help Nerdanel if they fell themselves. Reluctantly he swung himself down from the saddle, the Sea-Elf doing likewise. Swifter on foot would they be over such a treacherous stretch of ground.

Noticing the horse she had ridden, the dappled mare, grazing upon rich tufts of grass that grew in a spot that of old had been touched by the light over the mountains, Urundil knew his goal was close. He cupped his hands to his mouth, calling on his daughter to pay him heed, for she could not be much further ahead. Although the roar of the nearing sea nigh drowned out his voice, the smith called anxiously:

“Yendë, do nothing of rashness! We know not the will of the Valar for certain, nor what yet may come to pass.”

In the far distance he could see her. She stood on the edge of a narrow ledge that jutted out from a grassy incline. That place it was, overlooking the rebuilt Alqualondë, which held some special memory for her. (There it was, he believed, she had conceived Maitimo.) Her grey gown and cloak and her unbound hair were blown this way and that by the changing winds, almost as an outward reflection of the turmoil in her thoughts.

But she could not, or would not hear him.





Urundil - Sarmo Urundil / Mahtan. Nerdanel’s father.
Aulenduri - Servants of Aulë
Aldëaosto – Tree-shadowed town, I think.
Turukáno - Turgon
Arafinwë - Finarfin
Ambarussa the elder - Amrod
Maitimo - Maedhros
Makalaurë - Maglor
Moringotho - Morgoth
Nolofinwë - Fingolfin
Yendë - daughter
Uinenlindë - ‘Song of Uinen’
Vása - The Sun
Finwion - A childhood name of Fëanor, sometimes used by Nerdanel.
Atar - Father

‘More noble neri are there amongst the Teleri’. This is referring to a comment of Nerdanel’s, reported back to Fëanor, in one of my other pieces of writing, ‘Nerdanel’s Story’. ‘Betrothals parts 1 and 2.

(1) ‘Of the Flight of the Noldor’ The Silmarillion. JRR Tolkien. HarperCollins Ed. p 91