Doomsman of the Valar

(This is from milliways_bar canon where Námo has a mate (Gorlim the Unhappy) and children.)

The castle chamber he and Gorlim had taken as theirs a year ago was quiet. The fire crackled softly in the grate, and the wind outside the window rustled dry branches. Autumn was slowly giving way to winter; the air was chilled when they ventured outside the fire-heated rooms.

Every winter, though, Námo became reclusive, withdrawn, and melancholy. His children didn't approach him as openly, Gorlim treaded carefully around him, and the other inhabitants of the castle kept their distance.

In his chamber, Námo laid on the expansive bed, hands laced on his stomach and his eyes closed. His breathing was even, silent, and the untrained eye might have assumed the body on the bed wasn't living. But it wasn't an untrained eye that gazed upon him. It was a very well-trained eye that roamed over his figure with a slight pout gracing an ageless face.

"This is what? The third year?" Gorlim asked, arms crossed over his chest. "What is it that preys upon your thoughts? You shield them from me, keep the pain to yourself."

Námo cracked an eye and glanced at Gorlim. "I do not know what it is you speak of." The lie was awkward on his lips, and they both knew it.

"You're in my head, lovely," Gorlim said with a knowing grin. "Can't lie to me. Never could."

"It is during the winter that... Lee..." Námo took a deep breath and let is go slowly. "We lost him. We lost him and that still hurts."

Gorlim crawled up on the bed, brushing back his mate's dark hair. "I know," he whispered. "It'll... always hurt. But, you can't let the hurt take hold of you every year. Mourn it once, then let it rest, pretty heron. That's the way it should be. He's gone. Out of our reach. Away from our hearts." Tears glistened in Gorlim's eyes as he relived the pain the loss of his brother still caused him. "We survived it. Don't pick the wound open year after year to see how deep it still runs."

Námo took a deep breath and wrapped his arms around Gorlim, drawing the Man down onto the bed, curled against his side. "We know how deep the wound runs," he murmured.

"Then stop prodding at it. Making it bleed again."

They were quiet then, taking the moment to mourn something they had lost. Something beautiful and precious and gone forever.

After a few moments, Gorlim poked Námo's side. "Are you done?" he asked with a teasing chuckle.

Námo couldn't help but laugh quietly, Gorlim's light-heartedness contagious. "Do I have any option available to me but being through with this?"

Gorlim sat up, his unruly birch hair falling around his face as he looked down at Námo. "I could kick your ass some."

"Eru forbid," Námo said, sitting up himself. "What would your mother say?"

As they stood and headed for the door, the melancholy of the moment buried in the past where it belonged, Gorlim shrugged. "Prob'ly say you deserved it."

"Aye," Námo agreed, closing their bedroom door as they headed downstairs for supper with their large, adopted family. "Nerdanel would say that, would she not?"

Muse: Námo
Fandom: The Silmarillion
Word Count: 529

What is time to someone like him?

When he can recall without any trouble the times before time was counted, what is twenty years into the future? Past, present, and future are all one to him, and so he doesn't look forward, he doesn't look back, he simply looks.

Námo, in twenty years time, will be as he is now. A ghostly figure among Men and Elves. Something to fear. Something to welcome. He is run from as much as he is embraced, and it will be such for him until time ends.

Even then, who can say if he will not exist as he always has? Only Eru knows for certain.

Twenty years.

He measures those years not in personal gain or accomplishment, but in the tears his brethren have shed for the blood spilled by their charges. Wars and vengeance, hatred and steel. Those are what account for the days, weeks, and months of those twenty years.

The only difference Námo can say between now and twenty years from now is that he will feel the weight of his age more. He will be just a fraction more tired. A fraction more cold. A fraction more jaded. A fraction more removed.

Twenty years causes little change for one of the Aratar, but even the little changes can be noted.

Muse: Námo
Fandom: The Silmarillion
Word Count: 221

I will tell you a secret.

Nothing you do is your choice.

You have no free will.

Every choice you make, every choice you have made, I know it all. I knew it before there was a measure of time. I knew it long before life was even a thought in the mind of the Ainur. It is the burden I bear.

Because I know all that will come, you have no choice but to walk the path I see for you. There is no changing direction. If your end is to be a traitor, then you cannot turn from it. If your end is to be hero, then you cannot change it. If your end is to be nothing more than a nameless face in the mass of life teeming in Arda, then that is what you will be and there is no diverting the fate.

By knowing your end, I condemn you to it.

Does that not make you feel better?

Removing all blame and placing it on my shoulders, does that not make all the wrong you do somehow less? You are able to walk without the shame of choice, without the burning pressures of free will. You cannot undo what I know. You cannot make a decision I cannot already outline for you.

This is the greatest secret of our world. All was Sung into existence for the benefit and amusement of the Ainur. You are nothing but puppets for us to watch play out the Song we Sang for our Father's enjoyment.

Does it make you feel better?

Muse: Námo
Fandom: The Silmarillion
Word Count: 263

Mother is not something I know.

Even Father is merely a word to me, the name of what created me.

The argument could be made that He is both my Mother and my Father, but to my knowledge, I was neither conceived nor birthed, and so I do not believe He is either.

Does that make sense to anyone but me?

I often watch the Elves and the Men with their young, and the young with their parents. It is a strange thing, to see them dote on the children and the children clinging to skirts and tunics. I was never so young or so innocent, and I sometimes find myself craving the safety of skirts to hide behind or a tunic to clutch in my hand. It is not an urge I understand, but it is one I have nonetheless.

So when I see the Lady Nerdanel round with her twins and five other children clutching at her... and her ever loving, ever forgiving, ever caring eyes focus on her offspring... something inside my spirit weeps.

Maybe the Valar are as they are because we never had such careful devotion given when our spirits were young. But that brings me back to the problem Mother and Father create: if we had neither, were we ever young?

I am not certain.

All I know is that somewhere in the recesses of my spirit, the Song I carry craves the loving, forgiving embrace of Mother.

Muse: Námo
Fandom: The Silmarillion
Word Count: 244

I remember everything.

I remember every little thing as if it happened only yesterday.

Yes, I realise how overly dramatic that sounds, but it is the truth. Time means little to me. It is nothing to me. Nothing. How can it mean anything significant when it is the mithril that binds your hands? For many, a prison sentence is something that will end, and so time passes. Time is marked. Time is treasured and cajoled and endured.

My prison sentence will never end.

Even now, I long for the beginning.

Or the end.

In the beginning, which is just as clear to me now as it was then, there was nothing. Nothing for me to endure. It was song and joy. The joys of discovering new power. The sweeping enjoyment of creating this world given to us. We carved caverns, raised mountains, ran rivers! I breathed the air and I smiled.

But the beginning always brings the middle, and it is the middle that is unending. The final moments are but a distant, hopeful future, which seems to grow farther in distance. Every time I reach for that blinding end, that moment when the First Song will conclude and the peace I crave can be given, it slips away.

Another sour note to drive it away.

Time means nothing to me.

Muse: Námo
Fandom: The Silmarillion
Word Count: 221

He stood beside Manwë as the Lord of the Valar looked out into the coming Darkness. It swept Aman like a plague, a living thing woven from Light and malice. He had known.

Námo had always known.

Silence was his burden and now Night had come. Deep within him, Námo seethed.

Without a single outward tell, the Lord of Mandos hated. He despised himself for his lack of choice, and he despised Melkor for doing as fate had dictated he would.

For a brief, frightening moment, he even felt unbridled fury at his Creator.

This was, after all, Eru's fault!

Manwë's voice, soft and sad, broke him of his loathsome thoughts.

"He has avenged himself fully."

Námo remained still and quiet. Melkor's true vengeance would span an Age, not just this night. This night was nothing compared to the tears the Valar would shed, and the blood the Elves would spill. But it was this night when Aman lost its most treasured possessions. It was this night that all that was good and wholesome in the realm of the Valar died a pitiful, painful death.

This night, when nightfall came to devour the hearts of the Elves, was when all would begin.

"We must go to the Ring of Doom," Námo said in a firm, unflinching tone. "We must decide what will be done."

The winds of Manwë were called to drive back the stench of decay and permit Varda's stars to shine in the perpetual night, and the two Valar left the high perch of Taniquentil and descended to the Ring.

As they walked, Námo kept his head high, his lips shut.

Nightfall had come to Aman.

Muse: Námo
Fandom: The Silmarillion
Word Count: 278

Before the gates of Valmar Melkor abased himself at the feet of Manwë and sued for pardon, vowing that if he might be made only the least of the free people of Valinor he would aid the Valar in all their works, and most of all in the healing of the many hurts that he had done to the world. And Nienna aided his prayer; but Mandos was silent.

Give me the dust of my father
Stand on the face of the ancients
Bare the secret flesh of time itself

He could stop it with a word.

All that he sees and knows in that moment. Melkor was false in his sincerity. Námo knew that. Better even than Melkor himself.

Seated on his throne between Manwë and Nienna, Námo seemed a dark shadow. His eyes were steady; to any who gazed upon him would see nothing but masked sapphires glittering. Behind the tranquil surface raged emotion he could never permit himself to express. Guilt for deeds yet to be done, anger for words yet unspoken, and deep sorrow for wounds yet to be made.

His memory was long. His foresight longer.

All that would happen has happened in the mind of Mandos, and it is the knowledge of all that will come which troubles him now. Shackled and brought low, Melkor was not a threat. Released, however, he would wreak such havoc that it would bring the Valar to their knees.

All that I wanted were things I had before
All that I needed, I never needed more
All of my questions are answers to my sins
All of my endings are waiting to begin

If he didn't know what was to happen, he could stop it from happening. But, because he did know, it must therefore happen. And if his knowledge was the only thing forcing it into being, then didn't that mean that he was causing it to happen by knowing it must?

The poisoning of the Noldor.

The darkening of the Two Trees.

The death of a great king.

The theft of the Silmarils.

The slaying of Elf by Elf.

The future was a great river of blood before Námo's all-seeing eyes.

He could stop it with a word.

But he said nothing.

Then Manwë granted him pardon; but the Valar would not yet suffer him to depart beyond their sight and vigilance, and he was constrained to dwell within the gates of Valmar.

(Song used: Slipknot - Circle)

Muse: Námo
Fandom: The Silmarillion
Word Count: 252 (not counting lyrics and quoted text)