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Chapter Text

~ ‘Didst thou bring the storm with thee?’

Vanimöré lead the way to his study, aware, until they passed out of sight, that James and Fenny were motionless, staring after them. Damn, he thought mildly, but James must know sooner or later and Fenny, after the first shock, would absorb it.

‘No. I rode in on it.’ Eyes like a banked fire turned to him. ‘I deepened it. Unavoidable, I am afraid,’ But there was a glint of hectic enjoyment under the not-quite-an-apology. ‘I should have seen someone was with thee.’

‘No matter.’

‘Thou couldst make them forget.’

‘From the Monument, yes.’ Vanimöré opened the door of the study and then closed it behind them.
‘But I will not. James is Sauron’s grandson. Think'st thou Sauron would be so gentle with his feelings?’

Codagnir arched his brows. ‘And the other? Fenny?’

‘Old school and a consummate professional.’ He smiled.

‘So they will not leave? Or should I say “flee”?’

‘No.’

‘And thou?’ Coldagnir raised his brows.

‘I am not going to disappear,’ Vanimöré promised, smile turning wry. ‘Or flee. I have too much to do.’ At least now. Maybe that was the secret: Keep myself occupied so that I do not drift away again.

Coldagnir’s eyes regarded him, minutely mapping his face. He nodded slowly, but the doubt remained.

‘These storms are not natural,’ Vanimöré told him. ‘I have the Landseer tracking them. They are bubbling up out of nowhere.’

‘Yes.’ Coldagnir’s eyes dropped to the golden ring on Vanimórë’s finger and then rose again. ‘Everything is febrile. And there is that.’

‘Hmm, yes. Fëanor quite deliberately left it behind. Like a beacon, I think, to lead him back were it ever necessary.’ He tilted his hand back and forth so that the light ran like liquid over the band. Always warm, it sometimes burned like a brand. Now, perhaps reacting to Coldagnir’s presence, it was hot.
‘I should have left it at the Monument but he would only seek for it. It is not a good idea,’ he said wryly. ‘To leave such things around. This ring is an artefact of Power from another universe but so are we. And there are others here, Maglor, Olórin, Sauron…’ His lips pressed together. ‘Together there is a huge pressure on this reality. No wonder there are cracks.’

‘I know. We have spoken of it. I wish—‘ Coldagnir’s eyes turned molten in the ring’s play of light. His voice dropped into muted passion. ‘I grieve for the loss of that universe. For him.’ Outside thunder beat across the sky like the echoes of Dagor Dagorath crashing like waves upon the shores of this world. ‘The lesser flame must always serve the greater. I am bound to the House of Fire. Maglor, in this world.’ Brows crooked, he said, ‘Melkor did not know what Fëanor was, but he must have sensed something, sending us to meet him. To slay him. Yet had he known what he truly was, Fëanor could have commanded the Valaraukar.’

Vanimöré’s eyes narrowed as he considered it. The Balrogs were corrupted fire but the Flame could master them all and burn them back into a destroying Light as awesome and magnificent as Coldagnir unveiled.

‘Gothmog refused,’ he pointed out. ‘Eru unmade him.’

‘Gothmog deserved to be unmade.’ There was a deadly purr of a smouldering fire in the tone, a pitiless judgement. ‘As I deserved my death for what I did. But I am not sure the Flame Imperishable would allow that. I think he would force them back into what they once were, whether they wanted it or no. They — we — proceed from him. We belong to him.’

Vanimöré drew him close. The scarlet fall of hair glowed under his closed eyelids. Energy still sparked from it, hissing against Vanimorë’s cheek.

‘I know,’ he murmured. There was no need to say more. He knew. The mourning, the emptiness, the anguish.

Gently, he drew away. So long ago, Coldagnir, stripped of the greater part of his powers, had been a Balrog in Utumno and Angband, and not the greatest of them: Lungorthin, whom Maglor slew at the Gap, and Gothmog, were far mightier. They had made Coldagnir, who still held something of his original beauty, their toy. So long ago.

Coldganir was one of the few Vanimórë had forgiven. Coldagnir had also been an emissary of Eru…deceived as they all were.

Hot and alive as a magma chamber below a volcano, the anger within Vanimöré whitened. He could not see behind Eru’s veil. Even the Flame Imperishable could not. All of them were blind.

‘How are they?’ he asked, moving toward the heavy desk and his laptop. He waved a hand. ‘I know all is well but I do not wish to intrude on thy privacy.’

‘Well enough.’ Coldagnir followed. ‘Safe enough. We are being careful.’

Quite involuntarily, Vanimöré gave a shout of laughter.
‘As in Venice?’ he teased. ‘As just now?’

Coldagnir retorted, the corners of his mouth lifting. ‘Most of the time.’ Then the smile faded. ‘It is… difficult.’

‘Yes, it is always difficult not to be one’s true self.’

Coldagnir had to contain his power and discharge it into the Sun. Edenel, who personified winter, had to master the deep cold. Maglor, prince of the Noldor, had to live for thousands of years under glamour and forever move on.
It was easier for Vanimöré who had lived for so long as a Slave and refused to access his powers and yet not easy at all. He felt no real affinity with this world, only with some who lived upon it. Ultimately, it was not enough. There had been times, years ago, when he had simply allowed the glamour to drop because he did not care what the reaction might be.

‘We accepted this, Edenel and I.’ Coldagnir laid a hand on his back. ‘We will see it to the end.’

‘There was nothing else for thee,’ Vanimöré pointed out and Coldagnir flashed a smile hard and glittering as broken glass.
‘I swore an oath to Fëanor. I will hold to it. In any universe.’

‘Is it enough?’

Coldagnir moved to the window and, for a moment, was silhouetted by lightning. ‘Sometimes, yes. And no. We are always aliens, wherever we are. Remnants.’

‘There is something else,’ Vanimöré suggested. ‘Somewhere else. I have said I will go to Middle-earth.’ He raised the hand that bore the ring. ‘And Fëanor is always Fëanor. The best of him and the worse.’

‘But thou art there, or another Vanimöré,’ Coldagnir exclaimed, whirling back to face him. The flickering white light spat down his hair as it swirled and sank.

‘Yes, that could cause some confusion,’ Vanimöré admitted. ‘And I do not mean to remain there. I will go to help, if I can or at least throw some dust in the eyes of Melkor and Sauron.’

‘But what a temptation it would be to remain,’ Coldagnir murmured as if to himself.

‘I know but we are —surely — stronger than that. It is not our world but we would know it; it would feel familiar.’

‘Too much so.’ A look of intensity came over Coldagnir’s face, his inner power concentrated so that it glowed from within like a lamp.
‘I am there too,’ he said. ‘I have never sought to look, truth to tell.’

‘Thou art there,’ Vanimöré affirmed. ‘For myself, I would have the same powers — or lack of — as I did before my apotheosis, the same as I possess here, and if I die it will hardly matter.’

‘No, one cannot kill something that is already dead.’ Coldagnir’s eyes sparked back into sunfire. Both hands shot out, palms impacting on Vanimöré’s chest and knocking him back. ‘This is what we fear, this apathy, that it will send thee back to the Monument and never return. What does it take to bring thee back to life?’

‘The world that was lost,’ Vanimöré said, laying down the words like carved metal and stone, as hard and as solid and as obdurate. ‘When we had Valinor and the Timeless Halls, after the Elves ascended. And I could have it.We could have it.’

Coldagnir started back a step. ‘What?’

‘But not really.’ He grimaced. ‘I could imagine it but it would not be real. Dost thou understand? I could sit in the Monument and see it and it would look real and feel real but it would only be in my mind.’

‘But if thou canst do anything…’

‘When a Creator imagines something it becomes real. Yes. But the universes we move in have a progression.’ He opened his hands. ‘The Ancient universe that Eru destroyed became the old universe we dwelt in and I danced the blood-dance to create new ones from its dust. It is like new cities built on the ruins of the old. Like London. Anything else I might create would be simply a fantasy of my mind.’

‘I wonder if it matters.’

‘Sometimes there is a voice,’ Vanimöré murmured, closing his eyes. ‘As one calling to me in a dream, it tells me to “Wake up”.’

‘Who’s voice?’

‘I do not know. I wonder if this is indeed a dream. If it is, I cannot seem to wake from it, or not yet. So no, perhaps it does not matter.’ He laid his hand on Coldagnir’s shoulder and briefly gripped it as he moved past him. ‘Come.’

Coldagnir turned. ‘I saw thy dream Vanimöré, in the Monument. Nightmare rather. It took Sauron to wake thee from it.’*

Vanimöré cast a grim smile back at him. ‘Then it is just as well I did not unmake him, is it not?’

‘It is not a cause for amusement,’ Coldagnir’s voice roughened. ‘I was there.’

‘Yes, so was I.’ Vanimöré swung back, folding his arms. The humour twisted inside him to self-mockery. ‘That is the oldest dream,’ he reflected. ‘The strongest. Come now, my dear, I have to find myself amusing. What else is there? Listen, I have a duty to the universes I created. They’re too bloody similar to the one we knew, and the blame lies solely on me. So no, much as I might wish to disappear, or remain in some Middle-earth, I will not. Now come.’

He opened the laptop, fingers snapping over the keys to bring up the plan of Scotland Yard. Coldagnir came silently to his side but his long fingers drifted down through Vanimöré’s hair and settled on his back.

‘Why didst thou not?’ he asked soft as flame light against old walls. ‘Unmake Sauron?’

‘The evidence will be in this room in a secure safe,’ Vanimöré tapped the screen. ‘A normal fire would not touch them, but we do not want to burn down the entire building so thou wilt have to judge it finely.’ He spun the chair abruptly and looked up. ‘Sauron is the only person who knows me completely, absolutely. I forget nothing,’ he said stonily. ‘I never did, and now cannot. Every moment of torture, every rape. How he twisted my mind so that in the end, I came to want it.’ He did not blink; he stared up into Coldagnir’s eyes, pushing the truth home without flinching, and detesting that it was the truth.
‘But there were times when he spoke to me as if I was a person; his son. He challenged my mind to keep pace with his. It was exhilarating. And those moments tipped the balance. That there is one person who wholly comprehends one. It is not sentiment. It is powerful.’

Coldagnir held himself still, the opalescence that ran under his skin brightened like a lamp-wick turned up. He too, had known rape and torment that one came to beg for. Leaning, he kissed Vanimöré’s brow. The touch of his mouth was fire.

‘Unless I know which safe to burn, they will all have to be destroyed.’ He straightened.

‘I looked from the Monument. XA761A but destroying only one will look suspicious.’

‘It is so vital that James does not see these tapes?’

The room lit and darkened again.

‘He is right on the verge,’ Vanimöré said slowly, bringing the young man into his mind’s eye with a frown. ‘He killed Ollie Skinner without a blink in a passion of fury. Sauron cares nothing for him, neither does his mother. They want to use him, the worst parts of his nature. He is of their blood more than Callaghan’s and it exerts a pull. Gods, do I not know it? In all conscience, I cannot allow him to be used as I was.’

‘No,’ Coldagnir agreed, his fine, dark brows drawn down. ‘Sauron’s daughter, Joanna…Yes, we do keep alert. So what happened to thee, in this world?’

‘I died in the War of Wrath,’ Vanimöré said dismissively. ‘That seems to often be where I end in different realities.’ And would have, he was sure, had Sauron not sent him away to the South. ‘But Sauron believes his son has somehow returned. Well, he is going to be surprised.’

‘And where is he, that Vanimöré?’

‘In the Everlasting Dark, I assume. I did not look,’ he admitted impatiently. ‘I am not interested in failures.’

Coldagnir’s frown deepened but he said merely, ‘Wait for me. This will not take long.’ Trailing a hand along Vanimórë’s shoulder, he walked to the wide window and opened it. The air-conditioned atmosphere of the room freshened with the ozone-crackle of the storm. With one seemingly weightless leap he was on the sill. A flare of lightning and his hair was a storm of fire. His form glowed into energy. Vanimöré watched him burn upward into the sky.

~ ‘I existed before Time,’ the Flame said and the Mirror was filled with the untamed glory of the inferno. ‘And in potentiality before that. Only once have I merged the living Fëanor with the Totality. And then, I destroyed the universe.’

Fëanor stared into eyes that were not truly eyes at all. They were gaps into fire. That form was constructed around it by will. He reached a hand toward the Mirror’s surface.

I am thee… He recalled things that Vanimöré had said, and Nael’s words: Everything you want to know is within you, Fëanor, Spirit of Fire. Even the name…!

‘Thou wilt not be able to remember everything of thy previous lives,’ The Flame Imperishable said. ‘Not yet. I did not. Vanimöré was right that the Earth-born need to live, to learn and grow toward their apotheosis.’

‘Why?’ Fëanor demanded. ‘Why wouldst thou choose to be born into a world?’

‘Thou to ask me that?’ The arching brows, twins to his own, lifted. ‘I am Life. But I cannot experience life, the good, the bad, here and the Totality cannot set foot upon a world, just as Eru cannot or Vanimórë. We have to filter what we are into the brain of a living being which reduces it.’

‘Vanimórë said thus.’ Mentally examining the facts, Fëanor, with unblinking eyes, regarded the impossible Power that bore his own features and felt a visceral recoil at the thought of existing on the Outside.

Lonely. A lonely burning.

There were echoes in his blood, like the fading reverberations of a memory he longed to forget and could or would not, a no-place where he had hung upon nothing, writhing in fury and blazed…

‘I am the part of thee that comes through.’

‘And it is not easy to contain it, is it?’ the Flame observed. ‘Something always bleeds through and struggles against the constraints set upon the truth, and not for thee alone; there are others who were gods in the Ancient universe.’

Fingolfin, yes, Fëanor knew he was more and — ‘Maglor?’ he questioned. ‘His voice…’

‘Ah yes.’ And the smile that came was a father’s for a beloved son. ‘Yes. He embodies the Great Music, the Song that stretches from end to end of all universes and compliments the Flame. Maglor, yes, Maedhros, all thy sons and others too. The Elves still carry what they once were; it cannot be wholly taken away. What we must do is go back…or rather forward to what we were. When Valinor was ours and the Valar faded, when Vanimöré opened the Timeless Halls to us so that we could live as we were meant to.’

‘Then tell me how,’ Fëanor commanded, eliciting a flash of approbation.

‘Already thou knowest more than I did. Or more than he who was Fëanor in that dead universe, and that is who I speak for. I may speak for all of us because I am.’

Fëanor frowned. ‘Thou canst take form, be more than the wind through universes. So Nael said.’

‘Yes.’ The Flame stared into unimaginable distances. ‘I prefer to have a form — of sorts, especially here and I am always here. The Flame is Life, consciousness. When I died, I burned in the Void.’ His eyes came back to Fëanor who wanted to drink all the knowledge the Flame possessed at one gulp.

‘Manwë had already judged us,’ the Flame told him. ‘Elven dead are summoned — or snatched — to Námo’s Halls to await rebirth. Some refuse it and the strong succeed, most often the Elves of Middle-earth who never knew Valinor. But thou hadst spoken the Oath and there was a moment when thy spirit was unhoused and vulnerable, straining toward thy sons, not wishing to leave them. Námo seized it and flung it hence, into the Everlasting Dark.’

A lonely burning.

‘And then, one by one they died and were condemned: Fingolfin, all thy sons save one, and others who had transgressed against the Laws of the Valar.’ The Flame's mouth curled as if he would spit out another Oath and this one directed at the gods. ‘We were to remain there until the universe ended, to go with a whimper into the dust and darkness.’

Fëanor inhaled the fire of outrage.

‘So thou didst burn in the Void and reached out to the others condemned to it, who also burned. When I touch any soul, it leaves its mark.’ The Flame’s fingers traced fire through the universe leaving tendrils of brilliance in their wake. ‘Then Melkor was defeated, not without great cost and he, coming also into the Void, tried to consume thee. He always desired the Flame Imperishable, always searched for it, without understanding what it was.’

Fëanor saw (remembered?) the howling nothingness again. It was not the universe; he had walked that. This was something else.

‘It is not,’ the Flame told him. ‘It exists beyond even the Outside.’

There was no time, only the defiance of holding on, burning until the Nothing was shattered by incandescent light. A Silmaril shone and cracked the Void.

Fëanor felt his body again, strange and oddly weighty for a moment until his soul remembered the shape and feel of physicality. There was sand under his knees, his hands. He raised his head and salty air flooded his lungs. Sea-wind lifted his hair. He tasted it on his tongue.

‘Thou wert reborn. Re-housed rather. Thou and all were cast into the Dark. But Námo tricked the Elves of Valinor, lied to them.’ The Flame came closer to the Mirror. ‘All Elves have the ability to rehouse themselves. It is not easy, I grant that and it comes down to will.’

Fëanor narrowed his eyes, stared into the light. ‘Then my mother—?’

‘In thy world, Míriel does not wish to be reborn,’ the Flame said gently. ‘Not yet. She does not have the spiritual energy or the desire. Carrying the embodiment of the Flame Imperishable requires immense strength and love. She gave all to bear thee.’

‘Then I did kill her,’ Fëanor pronounced harshly, looking bitterly inward.

The Flame regarded him without pity but with fullest understanding.
‘Yes. And so it has always been. No Power can be born without loss and grief. No birth is without pain. So it was with Vanimórë. And with Elgalad. Thine own wife suffered a loss of strength, but thou wert with her, lending her thine own and she is a strong woman.’

‘Yes,’ Fëanor acknowledged.

‘Míriel needs time. And more than that, for she was ever torn by her love for Finwë and for Indis whom she was not permitted to love in Valinor.’

Fëanor had been so very young when his mother died; all he retained were impressions of a lovely face smiling at him, thickly braided silver hair. He recalled Indis’ pain, undimmed by the years while his own was of a a lack, a space that would forever be unfilled.

‘Is she…safe?’ He could not bear to think of Námo’s hands (or whatever grey creeping servants roamed his Halls) putting their hands on her soul.

‘She is safe. Not because of any mercy on the Valar’s part, but because Vairë has her eyes on Míriel.’ The Flame’s mouth thinned. ‘For her unparalleled artistry. But for now she sleeps.’

It was, Fëanor supposed, enough, at least for now.

‘And so remember it. Manwë and Námo do not hold the souls of the Elves in their hands. We are not theirs!’ His features vanished, even to Fëanor, in pure glare. Only the eyes remained, Silmaril-power blazing outward.

‘I will.’ Fëanor did not blink.

Slowly, the Flame’s features solidified again.
‘But now, let me explain why I brought thee through the Mirror.’

Fëanor gazed back. ‘It was thee?’

‘I have no form in that world where thou didst speak to Nael. But thou knowest why I did it?’

‘The situation is worse here. I am to improve it.’ He gleamed a smile.

The Flame returned it and Fëanor saw his own indomitable assurance reflected back at him. This was what others saw, muted of course, but he understood why it came across as arrogance. It was. The thought did not trouble him. This was what he was; why would he attempt to disguise it?

‘And the Fëanor who has taken thy place will see how things can be — and will be. This will not be forever.’

‘So then, tell me what I face. All of it.’

The amusement deepened briefly then smoothed away.
‘In that world, Finwë loves thee more deeply than Fingolfin or Finarfin,’ the Flame told him. ‘And they know it. There is some truth in the rumour that thou wouldst have them gone from Tirion and some truth, too, in the murmurs that they would replace thee as being dangerous. But they are only thoughts which cross the mind, something heard when thou — or they — were hurt, angry, frustrated. It can be mended.’

‘It will be,’ Fëanor vowed. ‘The Valar here, will they know?’

‘Vanimórë is not the only power that can hide thee. No, they will not know. We three, Vanimöré, Eru and myself held concourse to judge if thou couldst take greater power into Middle-earth. It had to be the Silmarils that carried it, not thee. Everyone who sees them are blinded by them. They see the power and the beauty, but they see objects, inanimate. And they cannot be broken even by the hammer of Morgoth. They are indestructible, thou,’ he ended. ‘Are not. If the power had been placed within thee the Valar would have moved against thee at once, Morgoth, too. And thou wouldst have struck back. Whatever the schisms among the Noldor, very few would have stood aside and there would be slaughter. We could not permit it.’

Fëanor considered it briefly. ‘I see that,’ he agreed.

‘But the Silmarils attract lust.’ The moue of disgust hooked itself in Fëanor’s gut. He knew. ‘It cannot be helped. And not only from the Valar or Melkor. There were others who desired it, all of them yearning for something they could never truly possess: Thee. There was no need for the Oath; the Silmarils would have destroyed those who took it in time. It did, overthrowing their minds and reason.’

‘The Oath…’

‘I had ample time in the Void to realise the Oath should never have been given voice,’ The Flame said grimly. ‘Do not thou make that same error.’ And then he intoned words that lifted the hair on Fëanor’s scalp and sent a fission through his hot blood.

‘…Our word hear thou,
Eru Allfather! To the everlasting
Darkness doom us if our deed faileth…’

The following silence loomed like the shadow of a mountain.

‘Comprehensive, is it not? And I would speak thus.’ Fëanor acknowledged. In grief, in passion. ‘Nael said the Valar influenced me, but…’ He shrugged, taking on the responsibility of his intemperance, the arrogance that looked back at him. He would speak those words. Had. And locked his sons and so many others into them.

‘The Valar took all thine emotions and twisted them to breaking point.’

Fëanor had noted how the Flame’s emotions showed as billowing fire, brighter and more terrible with anger which flared now.

‘The Oath would destroy thee and thy sons and all the others, like a night path with a hanging noose at every step; the Valar knew it.’

Fëanor threw back his shoulders. He said, tight and hard, ‘I would vow to reclaim the Silmarils, yes, for they are no-one’s to touch save those I give leave, and they hold parts of my soul, but it is my oath to keep.’

‘And if thou wert dead?’ the Flame questioned. ‘Thou set no Oath upon thy sons, remember. They took it up willingly.’

‘I assume I did not expect to die,’ Fëanor returned with mordant humour. ‘But I will not make that mistake again.’ He would not speak those words to be bound by them; neither would his sons.

‘Oath or death?’

‘Both, I hope. But if death leads to greater power then I will embrace it, and Námo shall not seize my soul.’ He flung the words like a challenge. ‘I am forearmed now!’

The Flame nodded, mouth curling. ‘First, repair the relationship with thy half-brothers. There is time yet.’

Fëanor dragged his mind back from vengeful contemplation.
‘Finarfin and I could be friends if he were not so exceptionally controlled,’ Fëanor replied indifferently.

The Valar viewed Finarfin as the preeminent example of what a Noldo should be. High praise, thought Fëanor sardonically. But Fingolfin concealed his true nature. Perhaps Finarfin did, too or perhaps he was exactly what he seemed. Fëanor’s interactions with his youngest half-brother had been limited; he spent much time in Alqualondë.

‘And Fingolfin…’ The muffled thunder of his heart quickened, clapped like great wings in his ears. The thrill of the chase. The memory of passion. Yet what if Fingolfin should survey him with those splendid star-blue eyes backed by all that proud, kingly haughtier and there was nothing behind it but dislike?

But Fingolfin was always Fingolfin, just as he himself was always Fëanor. He had no doubt of his ability to mend the divisions between them.

‘How long will I remain here?’ he asked. ‘Will Vanimórë return me when he finds out?’

‘He will not interfere,’ the Flame promised. ‘Not if I have acted. But he will not like it. As for Eru…’ He fell silent, brows drawn the incandescence of his eyes directed elsewhere, a far-off burning. ‘I wish I knew. He veils himself. Vanimörë secluded himself in the Monument for millions of years but he has an ironclad sense of duty that binds him. I know him. No-one knows Eru.’

Fëanor thought of the silvery remoteness that was Eru, the incalculable depths behind the smile, and the chasm behind Vanimöré’s eyes that told of pain past measure — and an impenetrability that permitted no entry.

‘What happened between them?’ he demanded. ‘Are they at war?’

The Flame shook his head. ‘They dare not war for they would destroy everything. Neither can I. Our wars must needs be limited to the physical world. Those two maintain an impasse. And what happened is for one — or both — to tell thee. I loved Eru too — or the person he appeared to be. In the end…like so many things, it came down to the bitter spike of betrayal — and love.’

‘And what—?’

‘Enough,’ the Flame raised a hand. ‘Enough for now, Fëanor. One step at a time. Focus. Go to Tirion in thy full magnificence as High Prince and thy sons with thee and do what thou must.’

‘I will,’

The Flame inclined his head. Fëanor recognised the gesture used between lords of equal standing.
It was the bow accorded a compeer.

Naturally.

I want to thank Ellspeth so much for this lovely piece of art she gifted me with 🤗

https://www.deviantart.com/annellspethraven/art/Vanimore-Modern-AU-6-panel-concept-953594799

I asked her if I could pop it on this chapter because it fits very well with Vanimórë’s thoughts and mental state and

This all started out with "I'd really like to make an art gift for a friend who doesn't prefer trinkets or clutter but does commission a lot of works. Eru only knows what will happen, but I've meant to start drawing her characters for a long time, and as an artist friend advised yesterday, "existing art will always be better than hypothetical non existing art." Enough said.
I had a week to work on this, surely enough time to meet the challenge to fill out six panels in a manga/web cartoon art style that I've been trying to learn of late, right? We know the answer to this...everything was going so well and then there was panel 5 which really became panel 5/6 because like the Borg it had to assimilate. I'm still not sure about this decision to break the 'rules' of defying the panel borders but the thinking here was...

The modern AU stories have amazed me in a different way than the original. For the latter, the protagonist's defiant endurance in the face of relentless abuse and adversity caught my attention. I have to emphasize that this was more than an 'our hero survives' tale, those stories and characters are legion. It was this relentless determination of the captive to always resist and maintain an outward stoicism coupled with the failure of his overlords to produce a monster. They instead molded a person with deep compassion for others similarly afflicted and the strength to offer help once his circumstances finally changed. But. A horrific past leaves damage, and as the Ages passed this formerly dynamic individual who had some element of if not an emotionally healthy side, at least a remaining facet willing to forge some intimate, passionate connections (however brief) had managed to (with what appeared to be subconscious deliberation) excise these constructs one by one even while extending aid to those deemed truly in need such intervention -- including the brilliant Fëanor, destined to play a key role in all that will unfold. In short, Eru and Vanimórë are the two greatest existing Powers, and no one can force either to confront their teetering mental states or in Vanimórë's case, engender any acceptance that his self-perception has gone clean off its already distorted axis (and cause him to give any fucks about resolving that issue). But there is the tenacity of love and loyal friends, always countering and disturbing his wishes to withdraw into his own self-hatreds and conviction of irrevocability.

With this summarizing how the stories/characterizations strike me, the panels comment on the inner state of the main character. Who, while mired in a state of mind so bad that I believe he would cease to exist if possible, has earned the unbreakable devotion of everyone whose path he crosses (who is actually someone of worth). Even his adversaries offer up some grudging admiration (well, of course, there are those who just want to degrade him but they tend to fall into the category of the terminally stupid or depraved so I'm not really discussing that faction).
Vanimórë continually finds himself locked in a chess game with a differently unstable Eru (who I have to call a proto-creator as the earliest existing consciousness in the timeline of this story...but there are enough paradoxes in the AU temporal and otherwise that everything is in the air at this point).  I know who has a following and who only has avatars, though...and it seems to me that even the avatars feel a bit dubious and under compulsion. 

An author has to be doing something right when readers want to create fanart. At this point it's also shameless self interest, given I'm blessed to write Vanimórë in my own stories, and trying to draw a sun-spirit (and uncorrupted balrog) and other Maiar could be useful later on. Practice, practice. 

This also was my introduction to Krita 5.1.5 and much was learned. I feel like an American Express commercial. "Drawing in a program designed for drawing? -- Priceless."