Tag: eönwë

Headcanons for Eonwe?

Both Michael and Gabriel.

His favorite olvar form is that of a falcon. Tends to stay towards bird forms and as an elf usually Vanyar or a surprisingly short Noldor with light brown hair and pale blue eyes.

Best friend among the Maiar outside of his and Ilmarë’s people are Salmar and Arien (and he has a fondness for Tilion but only in smaller doses.)

He is the dutiful son (though okay, only the earliest version of the legendarium had Eönwë as Manwë and Varda’s son) and loving supportive brother. His anger is not the long-held poisonous rage of Ilmarë, but the sad disappointment that Manwë has, that Melkor and all his followers (and this is the same sin of Fëanor) could have been so much better than they were, if only they saw that their talents and essence were geared towards collaborating with others, that they would have been so much greater if only they accepted that other people could contribute and have worth and not to be a control freak jealous that anyone else had a decent idea. He thinks Sauron’s mocking of Eönwë for never aspiring to be more than Manwë’s errand boy is delightfully ironic – oh, and that his sister’s ex is a weak coward. Eönwë is pretty contemptuous of cravens and traitors – and he thinks Eärendil is the best and bravest and totally bffs and Eönwë joins Eärendil on Void voyages sometimes.

(Eönwë’s opinion of Sauron in one word: loser.)

He and Tulkas get into arguments constantly because Tulkas has raw strength and can wrestle anything into submission once he gets ahold, but since Eönwë canon-wise is mightiest of all with all arms- that means Eönwë is best with swords, bows, whatever weapon you pick- and the leader of the armies- thus he’s every top-tier general rolled into one. Tulkas’s lack of tactics drives him up the wall. And when the War of Wrath starts- Eönwë is the one to make sure the Vanyar and Noldor under Finarfin have the best practical and efficient weapons possible – which because they aren’t making these ‘in secret’ and have the experts helping, are a lot better and more uniform. Frankly, I’m half tempted to put some gunpowder weapons here. (Saruman had to know of it from somewhere…) Eönwë probably admires Fingolfin, though I’m undecided  if he officially likes him more than Finarfin.

Eonwe

All throughout the feast Eönwë could feel his Lord and Lady were distracted by something else, watching for an arrival. They were not anxious, but the anticipation was thick on the wind, and Ossë and Uinen were nearly giddy with rumors of some portend. Aulë and Yavanna were deep in conference with the Lords of Spirit, and even Tulkas had realized the time was nearly upon them. Eönwë wondered if his choice of outward appearance would suffice, not for this party, which was as amusing as most in recent years had been, but for an event far more important. He felt when something momentous had landed on the shores of Aman, and the Herald of the Valar had a fair guess of what it was. Words lingered on his lips, poetry of hope eager to alight. He could feel the light approaching. When watchers from the valley interrupted the feast, all the Ainur present knew already the light they had seen and what it meant. His king finally nodded, and Eönwë flew through the halls of Ilmarin, giving only the briefest of aside glances to his sister who sat with Queen Indis and Lady Nerdanel. The three ladies laughed and waved him on. Falcon-swift he flew from the heights of the palace, eyes focused on a shining light moving slowly through the empty city of Tirion. Words of a greeting repeated in his mind, though knew he never could have forgotten them. Eru Ilúvatar had given him the words long ago, back in the Timeless Halls before all the Ainur had been called together to sing the First Music. Finally, thought Eönwë, as he felt glorious joy expand in his heart. 

Ilmare

Her Admirable One, who stood at the side of the Smith of Invention as chief of his servants as she did for the Lofty Lady of Stars, existed no more. Her brother bled out before her eyes, body leaking blood, soul leaking out more endangering spirit and pain and loss of will to carry on, to fight, and to hold a shape. It was easier when They took bodies of the material essence of Arda to contend with one another in battle and work upon the world that the One had set for Them to shape and tend, their focus as sharp and narrow as staring through a pinprick. Once she described the feeling of crafting a body and inhabiting it for the little one that delighted in casting visions and learning from the Weeper as a sensation akin to the immense gravitational pressure condensing to create a star  – but also the ignition of light in what was once darkness to give another dimension to perceive. Her brother’s chosen body lay broken before her. That one that had been once admirable stood over her brother, responsible. She was Starlight, mightiest and paramount of the Star-kindler’s disciples, and her chosen body grew taller and heavier, lengthened the heavy beak and the talons of her feet, and sparks flew off the midnight blue of her feathers. Shrieking she entered the clearing, short wings outstretched in a gesture of warding and anger, tail fanned behind her as her own crown, motes of light drifting off her feathers like the tail of a comet. She was tall and beautiful and terrible as a meteor impact. Her beak, greater than her king’s eagles, slammed down on the immense feline that had ambushed and mauled her fallen brother, her enraged will behind the strike. Furiously she shrieked as the Cruel One dodged the blow, his red eyes laughing at her. She kicked out with her lengthened legs, the longest talon ripping through his flesh. She could feel this strike connect, could smell the iron of his blood. This delight of hurting him overpowered her, and the rage and revenge-thirst intoxicated her better senses, the layer of her mind that would be horrified at causing pain to another of her brethren. He had betrayed her. He had danced with her at the wedding of the Laughing Golden-hair and the Young Deer. He had pretended to be loyal, to love her and her brother and the Powers and creation. Yet here he was, no longer Admirable, no longer a creator, only a destroyer, only a cruel one inflicting pain. She wanted to hurt him, to shred him to pieces, expel his spirit from any material body. She had not hurt him enough; one shallow wound did not answer what he had done to her brother, the betrayal he had done to her.

The Cruel One danced away from her striking feet and sword-like beak, so Starlight pursued him. Into new slender forms he shifted to avoid her strikes, all the while mocking her with his eyes, daring her to attack. Crane-like she lengthened her neck and beak, twisting with him as two serpents intertwined, desperate to constrict the life from his material body, to force him into a shell-less spirit retreating to his dark master. Her focus compressed to answering his contempt with her vengeance.

He was laughing at her, mocking her attempts to rend him to pieces, still whispering how beautiful she was, how powerful, singing to her shrieks of rage as chords to remove dissonance. She wanted to silence the Cruel One, and he thought this a duet.

She did not notice how dark her feathers were, that the sparks of light which the one she once loved had compared to the sparks flying off metal when he worked in the forge had burned out and were no longer generating. She did not see how dark the clearing was. She gave no second thought to her injured brother. Only the smell of blood mattered, her brother’s and hers and of the red eyes before hers.

Then the earth heaved beneath her feet, rising up to trap her and throw a wall between her and the Cruel One, shards of stone and metal like the claws of a mighty badger reaching for the fallen servant in vain. The Cruel One shed his former body for that of a featherless, hairless creature of flight, sweeping up into the sky on naked black wings. She wanted to pursue him, though with every second that the tendril of the Smith’s power held her back less possible would it became to have any hope of catching him. She watched him escape, and screeched her thwarted rage.

“Come back,” called her brother, “Come back before you sink your song into his, become like him and like the Storm Terror, like the others that followed our King’s brother because his song drowned out the melody the One wished us to play.” Her falcon-eyed brother pulled her back, stopped her from lengthening her wings into something useful for flight. “This is not you, dear and gentle sister, you are more than bloodlust and violence. You are light and creation, not destruction. He was taunting you to become like him. Had you followed him, you may have hurt him, but you would have become a monster of the Rejecter, one who only delights in drinking blood.”

Starlight wept, her grief layered with fear of what she almost became and her brother who ignored his injures to preserve her soul and the heartache of a loved one’s betrayal. She diminished her form in her shame of what she had almost become, because a lamenting songbird, and her brother copied her. Together as two piping chicks they cried and huddled next to one another, until the King of Air found them in the form of a great eagle. Gently he shielded them under his pale wings, singing the soothing tones of shared grief. To the Healer and the Weeper he carried them, like two gentling burning embers in the soft cradle of his talons.

“Never do I wish to see him again,” whispered Starlight.