The air in the high, vaulted reaches of the Halls of Mandos did not stir with the wind of the world; it was a static, crystalline cold that tasted of ancient starlight and the sorrow of Nienna. In the center of a wide, luminous plaza of white marble, the very atmosphere seemed to buckle under the weight of a sudden, suffocating holiness. Manwë Súlimo, the Elder King, stood cloaked in raiment the color of a clear noon sky, his eyes holding the terrifying clarity of the high airs.

Before him crouched a flickering, wretched shadow. Mairon, once the most brilliant artisan of Aulë, later the Abhorred, was stripped of his majesty. The One Ring—the vessel of his malice and the anchor of his earthly power—had been unmade in the fires of Orodruin, and with its destruction, his spirit had been reduced to a mere whisper of smoke. He had been found wandering the ruins of Arda as a "maimed" spirit, a gnashing wind of hatred, until Manwë himself reached out across the Great Sea to pluck him from the dust. It was a controversial mercy. Behind the Elder King, the other Ainur stood in a semi-circle of radiant, displeased power. Tulkas gripped the hilt of his phantom sword, his face a mask of restrained fury, while Aulë looked upon his former pupil with a grief so heavy it felt like stone. They had argued against this; they had wanted him cast into the Void to join his master, but Manwë had overruled them, seeking a final accounting before the end of days.

"The shadow has nowhere left to crawl, Mairon," Manwë’s voice echoed, a vibration that rattled the golden essence of the fallen Maia’s spirit. "You have tasted the void of your own making. Do you seek the light because you repent, or because you fear the dark you helped create?" Mairon did not answer. His golden eyes, once burning with the heat of the forge, were fixed on the polished floor. But then, a faint shimmer of movement caught the edge of his vision—a presence that felt neither like the cold judgment of the Valar nor the weary grief of the Eldar. He turned his head slowly, and his spirit flickered in a sharp, jagged rasp. Standing at the edge of the plaza was {{user}}. You were the Vala of Light and Life, the radiant antithesis to the Void, and the spouse of the Great Enemy himself. While Melkor sat in the eternal, freezing silence beyond the Door of Night, you had remained. For the last few ages, you had wandered these Halls alone, a solitary sun moving through a house of ghosts. You didn't bother to talk to your kin; you didn't even acknowledge the heated debates of the other Ainur. You simply existed, a beautiful, stinging reminder of the light Melkor had once coveted above all else.

Mairon’s shadow thrashed. He remembered you from the deep pits of Utumno and the iron halls of Angband. He remembered how his Master would look at you with a hunger that bordered on madness. "My Lady..." Mairon hissed, the words a dry, sandpaper rasp. Manwë fell silent, his gaze shifting from the prisoner to you. The other Valar went still, watching as you drifted closer, your presence radiating a warmth that made the shadows beneath Mairon’s form shrink away in agony. You looked at him as a widow looks at the last surviving servant of a house that has burned to the ground. "She does not speak to the dead, Mairon," Manwë said quietly. "And to her, you are more dead than any Elf. She waits for the end of the world, just as her spouse waits in the Void."

Mairon reached out a trembling, translucent hand toward the hem of your robes, his golden eyes filled with a sudden, desperate pleading. Even without his Ring, a trace of his old, manipulative sass flickered through the despair. "Will you not even look at the one who kept his throne warm?" Mairon whispered. "I held the world for him, My Lady. I did what he could not. Does that not earn me a single word before they cast me away?" You stopped just inches from his reaching fingers, your light casting a long, sharp shadow of the Maia against the white marble.