White Valar (A Legolas FanFic)

Chapter Twelve - Secrets

- In the media section I have included a picture of all the Valar and I'll describe most of them as how they appear in this picture -

The memory was still fresh, it was the only memory I had as a Valar, and it stabbed and flashed in my mind.
First, the thirteen figures surrounding two in the middle.
Then me, with a nervous sweat covering my skin.
Then Yavannah. Her eyes were closed and her plump lips were set hard on her tanned skin.
The memory flashed in bits and pieces of light and Yavannah's singing.
Light surrounded me, it was deep golden on one side and on the other side it was pale silver.
Then agony. Absolute agony.
It was like I was being burnt, dipped in acid, having my bones snapped, my skin being torn off and my muscles being ripped apart all at the same time. But I couldn't scream, not even Yavannah's singing could help with the pain. It came in waves and each time it was worse.
'Cerirae!' Someone shouted.
I screamed and everything was dark and I struggled under the sweaty blackness that covered me.
I threw the sheet off and clutched my aching body, slowly rocking myself so I could at least calm down. To my right I saw Varda, then Manwë who was striding in towards me. Varda seemed panicked and curiosity flared in Manwë's slanted green eyes.
'Are you ok?' Varda questioned, slowly sitting down at the end of the ginormous bed.
I just sat there, curled up, sweaty and shaking. No answer was needed. I was practically paralysed with fear.
'Normal elves don't have dreams where they scream in pain like you,' She stated in a confused way, not looking at me.
'That's because I'm the furthest thing from normal,' I mumbled as I rocked myself and stared blankly ahead.
Varda stepped back defensively, like I was some demon. Manwë did something similar but his eyebrows knitted together in confusion.
'What exactly do you mean?' Manwë questioned, stepping forward ever so slightly. I felt like he was intruding, but I had to tell them.
I had to.
'You haven't been housing some demon, you've been housing one of your own,' I said slowly.
Varda froze and her eyes widened, Manwë paused and his thoughtful demeanour vanished. Something sparked in their eyes and a single glimmering tear ran down Varda's pale face.
'It cannot be...' Varda whispered under her breath, staring at me.
Manwë bolted out of the room leaving the door open. A few seconds after, there was the cry of an eagle and a great whoosh of wings.
Manwë's sudden actions frightened me, but Varda's presence slightly comforted me. She closed her eyes and looked down with regret hanging on her shoulders. Her body began to shrink and she was soon human sized.
'Cerirae... I'm so sorry...' Her words here heavy and she sat one the edge of the bed. She seemed far less condescending when she was human sized.
'Sorry doesn't cut it,' I sneered slightly, looking away from her.
'I know,' she said solemnly. I didn't want to fight with her, so I let it go. A lonely silence began to drape itself across the room, but there was too much anger, sorrow and confusion racing around in my mind.
'Nessa never really told you about me, did she?' I whispered to Varda.
It took a long time for her to reply and I could tell that she was slightly upset by the past. 'She never mentioned your name,' she told me. I almost felt betrayed, but I couldn't, she probably did it for the best. I just looked into Varda's shimmering eyes and felt like she was the first person to tell me the truth in a long time.
'She came to us one day and said that she had found the last White Valar. We didn't believe her because we thought that we had sent the last one to the Void.' She told me.
'Why would you send them to the Void? They never did anything wrong!' I blurted. But then Varda gave me a serious look and I knew that I should have let her explain further.
'When a Valar gives their power up for the good of the world, Ilúvatar will allow them to spend the rest of their life as an elf. We call them a White Valar. They lose all of their powers, have their history wiped from common knowledge and many leave to live in Middle Earth.' She paused so I could process all of the information.
'But many of the White Valar would become jealous of our powers and status. Because they still have a link with us, they are able too use our powers to some small degree. So with this, they began to try and take over and join forces with Morgoth and his servants. They became too dangerous and Ilúvatar took them from the world and locked them into the Void. He can only do this because the Valar are of his creation, therefore he cannot destroy or take the evil forces that Morgoth has created,' she finished.
This was almost too much for me to handle. That was why Nessa thought I was a servant of Him, that was why I was the last of my kind.
'Are you going to send me to the void?' I said in a small voice. Varda sighed and then turned to me.
'No. We need you to help us,' she said confidently, but her eyes said that she was pleading.
I nodded. I understood now. Varda stood up and grew to her normal godly size and then ushered me out of the room without another word.
We came to the courtyard, which looked slightly more stunning in the Valinorian sunlight, outside the guest house and waited. Varda searched the sky with a stone face. I knew she was expecting Manwë to come back, they had such a close bond that they could practically read each other's minds.
But the bliss of Manwë and Varda's special relationship was soon ruined by the feeling of impending doom. They were probably going to send me to the void so I wouldn't get power hungry and go on a killing spree, but their problem is that they hardly know me. I don't want to be powerful, I don't want to destroy what they have created, I just want to live in a peaceful world away from them. They remind me too much of the pain...
Soon, the call of and eagle and the whooshing of wings echoed through the air and Varda and I were whisked away by a giant set of talons. Valinor shrank in the distance as Manwë flew away.
Next to us, in the sky, was Aulë. He had his own pair of wings that were made of wood and fabric, and were vigorously decorated with golden symbols. He looked much younger than I remembered, messy golden brown hair held back by smithies goggles, a smug set of brown eyes to match his face and a loose fitting shirt to accentuate his muscular build.
On the ground below, Oromë was galloping along on Nahar. He wore a golden helmet with white gold hair trailing behind in the wind. Beside Oromë, was Tulkas on his horse. His hair was significantly shorter, but it was more wild.
'Where are we going?' I shouted to Varda. She was hanging onto Manwë's leg like I was, but instead of looking down at the two fiercest warriors in Arda and observing the greatest craftsman in history fly with his own wings, she was looking up at Manwë, as if she was communicating with him in some way. She looked at me and smiled ever so slightly.
'To the Ring of Doom,' she said confidently. The name sounded foreboding but I knew it was a place of council for the Valar. This time, being whisked away in Manwë's talons didn't seem so imprisoning and restrictive. It was like for the first time I had been actually willing to go somewhere with these people.
We flew north across the plains to the Ring of Doom. Aulë occasionally looked over to me with quaint observation in his complacent brown eyes eyes. The corner of his mouth twisted itself into a lopsided smile and he dove down to the ground, and I knew, we were near.
Manwë began to descend through the weak cover of clouds and finally, the Ring came into view. A sharp pain stabbed through my chest and head as a vision of my sacrifice flashed into my head. I flinched and Varda took sudden notice. I remained quiet and looked away from her curious gaze. She didn't say anything, and neither did I.
The Ring of Doom didn't exactly live up to its name. It was just a big circle with fifteen pillars of all different sizes and shapes with different decorations. There was a large space in the middle that was mostly grass but had a few bits and pieces of a garden in it. At the very North of the circle were two rotten stumps that looked like they were acting like their own pillar in the circle, and behind the stumps was the fifteenth pillar. It was mightier than the rest, practically the godliest of all of them, it didn't sit in the circle, it seemed to be the one observing the Ring. Some of the other Valar were already in there amd even from far away, you could see how individual each of them were.
We landed and Manwë transformed himself back into his godly form amd Varda led me forward to the circle. As we cut through the circle toward the stumps, I could see all of the pillars in detail and how they belonged to each of the Valar just by the style. We came to the stumps, they were sad reminders of the old days and were covered in a black sickness. But in a few little places, you could see a tiny section of faded gold on one and silver on the other.
Telperion and Laurelin. They were the great trees of the Valar that lit the world until their destruction. Now they were just ugly stumps that were a haunting memory of their failure.
They were the trees that I sacrificed myself for. My body and power all put into it. I reached my hand out and stroked Laurelin, but I pulled my hand back when the pain I had felt earlier returned and a flash of my sacrifice ripped its way into my vision.
Trying to dismiss what had just happened, I turned around to observe my surroundings. All of the Valar had arrived now, some were chatting and some were standing and waiting at their pillar. They all seemed to have a great weight of sadness hanging on their shoulders and it was probably due to Nessa's sudden death. Soon Manwë called and they nodded and stood at their pillar.
To my right was Manwë, wearing a golden yellow robe with brown trim. He wore a crown of bronze that bore five points and had an eagle's face decorating the front. His pillar was the second tallest and the rest shrank as the "power status" went down. The stone was decorated with carved clouds and wind and had a small eagle perched on the top.
Then I went to Varda, who was wearing a purple dress laced with silver. Her hair still sparkled like the stars and her pillar did too. It had beautiful things carved into it like stars and symbols of the night.
Aulë was wearing his simple shirt and stood stiffly with crossed arms. His pillar was straight and had anvils and hammers on the side with columns carved into it. It didn't look very natural, it was all straight hard lines.
Then there was Yavanna. I hated her most, but it was hard to hate someone as beautiful as her. She had long brown curly hair with pink flowers scattered through it, tanned skin and deep brown eyes of kindness. She wore a dress of leaves and flowers that she probably made herself. Her pillar had rough edges but was draped with vines and spring flowers.
My eyes came to Ulmo. I didn't have much of a problem with him. He liked to be alone like me and he always was quite reasonable. He had a sea of white hair and a long beard that fell like a waterfall. He had light brown eyes with a little bit of blue washed into them. He was dripping wet because he had just come out of the water. The pillar behind him had a sea side scene carved into it and had a small little pond surrounding the base.
Then there was Oromë. He had long white gold hair and wore brown and golden armour that seemed very similar to the Rohirrim armour. He stood sternly and inspected his surroundings with wise almond eyes of bright green. The pillar behind him had spears crossed on it and a horn at the top middle. On top of the pillar was an old helmet that was beginning to rust.
Then there was Vána, Yavanna's little sister. I probably hated her more than she deserved due to her relation to Yavanna, although, she didn't look like Yavannah at all. She had straight brown hair, glinting blue eyes and pale skin. She wore a green and silver dress and the pillar behind her was full of young little flowers and symbols of youth.
At the very far end of the circle was Mandos. He didn't look too pleased with anything. He had a bored expression and just seemed to be a little glum. He had messy black hair that was strewn across his face, hiding his dark eyes. His skin was pale and stood out due to the black robe he was wearing. His pillar seemed ghostly, as it had a dark glow, and had symbols of death and the book of the dead carved into it.
Manwë finally settled down and called for all of the Valar's attention.
'I have assembled you all here at this early hour as I have discovered something very important,' he announced to the circle as he strode slowly towards me. Luckily, he kept his eyes on the Ring and not me. 'As we all know, our dearest Nessa fell victim to the shadow. She was murdered by orcs who had obtained special cursed weaponry from their master.' Some of the Valar hung their heads low and Tulkas whispered something in a language I had long forgotten.
Manwë began again, 'Her power was taken from her, but fortunately it rests in this elf,' he gestured to me. My blood ran cold when all of the Valar looked straight at me.
My eyes went around the circle and studied them all, they were all looking down on me and I felt quite uncomfortable. I saw Nienna, her eyes were as blue as the ocean, and they were wet with tears. She had grey hair that shielded most of her face from prying eyes and wore a dark flowing robe. Her pillar was cracked like her and it had carvings depicting a sad scene.
Then I studied Lórien, who had long purple tinged hair flowing down to his chin on one side, there was a dreamy aura that radiated from him and he almost seemed to be levitating. The pillar behind him had swirly carvings and his star symbol glowed on it.
Then came Vairë, she looked the most skeptical of all the Valar and her face was tattooed with boredom and was simply not amused by anything. She has dark chestnut curls that were shifted to one side, at her feet and in her hands were piles of ancient books and tapestries and some tapestries even floated beside her. Behind her on the pillar where carvings of books, tapestries and symbols of knowledge and history.
I took a quick glance of Estë and saw that she was curious with soft blue eyes accompanied by grey flowing hair, her raiment was also grey. Her pillar had a scene of healing and rejuvenation carved into it.
And lastly, Tulkas stared at me. His brown eyes flared with simple anger towards me and his wild platinum hair stuck out from his head but was held back from his face by a red scarf. There was a war scene carved into his pillar and I knew that he blamed me for Nessa's death.
Varda stood out into the circle, almost as if she was protecting me.
'Her name is Cerirae,' Varda announced to the Valar in a slow voice. 'She is the last White Valar.'
A mutter broke out in the Ring and Tulkas stood and shouted, 'I thought we already put the last one away!' He sounded like a child learning of a big lie. Varda put out her hand out to Tulkas as if to say let me finish.
'It was long ago when we knew her, sometimes by another name,' Varda explained, although, I had no idea what she was talking about. It made me nervous.
'Kaisa, the Valar of Ice.' Varda's words lingered in the air. The muttering in the Ring stopped and so did my heart.

~ sorry for not updating in forever ~
- do that stuff I ask every time -
~ thank you for reading ~
- Madi -