The Forgetting of History
Year 1400 of the Trees | Year 13414 in the Years of the Sun
It was a clear and breathless evening in the high places of Eärondë. The sky above the Starhall stretched vast and deep, velvet-dark and trembling with the slow blink of stars. The winds of the sea, usually bold even in summer, had grown hushed, as if the air itself leaned in to listen. The Hall lay open to the heavens, its domed canopy held aloft by carved pillars of white stone, wound with silver-veined vines that glimmered faintly in the starlight. Long petals from the high-crowned alalindë trees drifted down into the lantern-lit gallery and across the polished floor of pale onyx, soft as the sighs of distant waves.
This was not a public hall, nor a place of council, though it was noble. It was a hall for the royal family's quiet thoughts and private gatherings—a space raised high above the city like a crown of peace, where Elenwëa and Almirion had played as children beneath the open stars, where Alcaron would sketch runes in the air with gentle flame, and Nimloth would sing to calm their early dreams. It was not so often used now, for the twins had long since ceased to be children.
And yet, it was here that Alcaron had bid them come—not to the Hall of Runes nor the great garden terraces, but to this place where memory and intimacy met.
The twins arrived together, as they often did, and their approach was marked by soft footfalls and quiet murmurs. Almirion, tall and silver-golden-haired, bore a lightness in his step, and there was laughter on his lips still from some jest shared with his sister. A polished band of silver ringed his brow, and his tunic gleamed with faint traceries of hammered light-runes, for he had come straight from the forge with the scent of ever-ember clinging to him like perfume. Elenwëa, graceful and keen-eyed, moved with the stillness of thought. Her garments were woven of sea-threads and twilight-hue, and her hair shimmered like rain-kissed silk as she turned her gaze to the heavens overhead.
They expected something light—a lesson in constellation-myth, perhaps, or some passing curiosity from their father's latest dream-lore. For though they were full-grown and nearly two hundred years old, they had not outgrown the habit of meeting their parents with open minds and guarded affections. They were their own now, independent and rising in renown among their kin. Their days were filled with study and creation, debate and dreams. They were not children—and they had little patience for what felt like careful over-concern.
But when they entered the Starhall, and saw their parents waiting there beneath the dome of stars, a hush settled over them like a tide.
Alcaron stood by the westernmost pillar, robed in white and grey, his hair silver-flecked, his hands clasped before him. Nimloth sat upon the curved bench near the starlit mosaic that mapped the skies of Arda—the same bench where she had once told them tales of Ulmo and Elbereth, of wind-spirits and whale-kings. She looked not stern, but shadowed, as if bearing a burden she had long hoped never to speak aloud.
The twins slowed, their laughter vanishing like mist on the sea.
"Mother? Father?" Elenwëa's voice was soft, and questioning. "You sent for us?"
"We thought perhaps we were to discuss the equinox passage," Almirion said, attempting levity. "Or your dreams again, Father. Has Aulë sent you more riddles?"
Alcaron did not smile. He did not speak at once.
Instead, he turned his gaze upward to the stars, and his breath left him in a slow exhale, like one relinquishing something long withheld.
"The stars," he said at last, his voice a low and thoughtful murmur, "bear witness to more than we remember. And some songs, even when silenced, leave echoes that wait for the right wind to stir them again."
He turned back to his children, and now there was something in his eyes that neither of them had seen before. Not fear, nor sorrow—but a solemnity carved deep, like stone that had weathered many seasons.
Nimloth rose and walked to them. She reached out and placed her hands lightly on theirs, a gesture rare now, and therefore heavy with meaning.
"There are things we must speak of," she said gently. "Things we should have spoken of long ago."
Almirion frowned, confused. Elenwëa's brows drew together, alert and attentive.
"What things?" she asked.
Alcaron stepped forward, his cloak catching the starlight and trailing behind him like a shadow of memory.
"Melkor," he said.
And the name fell like a stone into still water.
The twins said nothing at first. For a moment, they stood unmoving, as if the air had thickened around them. It was a name they had heard before, a name from half-told stories and cautionary parables—tales of the First Days, of ruin and rebellion, of fire that consumed even the heavens.
But those stories were distant. Old things. Dim memories of a time long past, before Valinor became a haven of music and peace, before the Trees shone their silver and gold without fear.
"Melkor was chained," Elenwëa said slowly, her voice uncertain. "He is gone. That is what we were told."
"And it was true," Nimloth said. "For a time."
Alcaron looked into their eyes, and though his heart ached to do so, he spoke the truth:
"He has been released."
And the stars above seemed, for a moment, to hold their breath.
The silence that followed Alcaron's words stretched long in the Starhall, as though the very air held its breath. The stars above remained unmoved, and yet their light felt colder somehow, distant and unblinking as the eyes of watchers who had seen too much.
Almirion's brows furrowed. He opened his mouth, then closed it, and looked to his sister. Elenwëa's face, usually so composed, held a faint crease of unease. For all their lore and learning, for all their crafts and songs, the name of Melkor had lived in their minds only as a shadowed echo—an old threat in forgotten verses, a villain in stories told with softened endings.
And yet their father stood before them now, and said plainly what none in all Valinor had dared say aloud for an age:
He is free.
Alcaron did not pace nor raise his voice. He did not cloak his words in metaphor, nor lace them with warning. Instead, he spoke with the gravity of stone, shaped by long thought and deeper dreams.
"It was not without debate," he said. "The Lords of the West did not choose lightly. Tulkas was steadfast in his defiance, and would have kept the chains unbroken. Varda… spoke no word, but her silence weighed more than any speech. It was Manwë who chose, and his choice was not of trust, but of mercy."
He looked to the heavens, to the wheeling dome where the stars turned slowly in their courses, untouched by the sorrows of Arda below.
"Mercy is not blindness. It is the burden of hope in the face of all that says it is foolish. And the Elder King carries that burden more than any other."
Nimloth stood at his side, and her gaze drifted toward the eastern horizon, where the stars were faintest and the world darkened before the dawn.
"There have been dreams," she said, her voice soft, yet clear as starlight on still water. "Strange and trembling. The Music quivers at its edges. There are ripples where once the melody ran smooth."
Alcaron nodded.
"He was not freed because he is trusted… but because the Song, in its fullness, must unfold. And not all parts of the Song bring joy."
The words settled like dust upon ancient stone. No thunder followed them, no lightning cracked the sky—but the twins felt the change, as if something old and slumbering had stirred again beneath the surface of the world.
Almirion spoke first, his voice uncertain, but rising with the questions that had taken root.
"Why would they free someone like him?" he asked. "Didn't he… wasn't he evil?"
The word sat strangely in his mouth, as though it did not quite belong in the air of Valinor. He had forged weapons that sang when drawn, studied runes that glowed with life—but never had he raised a blade in fear, nor carved a sigil for defense. Evil was a word from another age.
Elenwëa's brow was furrowed, her hands folded before her. Her thoughts turned inward, to half-remembered tales, to names once whispered in jest or ceremony.
"I've heard stories," she said slowly. "Of fire, of ruin… of a thief of light and a liar of songs. But they're fragments. Nothing clear. Why were we never taught more?"
Nimloth drew closer, and her hand found her daughter's.
"Because we did not want to burden your dreams," she said gently. "You were born in the Light. And Valinor… Valinor is a garden that heals by forgetting."
She looked at them both—so tall now, so full of promise—and her eyes held a sorrow that was not shame, but the long ache of regret.
"We did not hide the truth to deceive you. We left it in shadow, thinking it would wither and die there. But shadows do not die. They wait."
Alcaron stepped beside her.
"Even among the Eldar, even among those who remember Cuiviénen, there are truths spoken only in whispers," he said. "Not because they are lies, but because they hurt. And for two thousand and five hundred years, we believed they need not hurt you."
He looked to the great wheel of constellations overhead—the watchful stars, the guardians of memory.
"But memory is not the enemy. It is protection. And the truth, even in its sorrow, need not be feared."
A silence followed, long and profound, as though even the wind beyond the tower walls paused to listen. Then Alcaron spoke, his voice lowered, as if the stars themselves should not hear too closely.
"It began in twilight," he said. "The Firstborn—our kin—awoke by the waters of Cuiviénen. Their eyes opened to starlight. They had no guide, no teacher, no law. They learned from the water, the trees, the sky, and from one another. And for a time, they lived in wonder and peace."
He turned, and his eyes found those of his children.
"But Melkor knew of their coming. He was curious, and cruel. He came before the others—before Oromë found them, before the Summoning to Valinor. And from the shadows he watched. Then he began to take."
Elenwëa's lips parted. Almirion's hands tightened into fists at his sides.
"They vanished," Alcaron said. "No battle. No cry for help. They simply… went missing. One by one. A brother gone at dusk. A sister who did not return from the trees. A child whose laughter was swallowed by silence."
His voice grew darker, though it never rose.
"Some say they were twisted—made into mockeries of the Firstborn. Orcs, they say, though many of the Wise debate this. Others claim they were bound to Melkor in shadow and worship, willingly or not. And some say, in hushed tones, that they still wander the hidden places of the world—neither dead nor living, bound to forgotten altars where dark prayers linger."
Nimloth stepped forward, her hand lightly brushing Elenwëa's shoulder.
"We call them the Forgotten Lost," she said, her voice like wind through winter boughs. "And in some ancient tongues, they have been called the Silent Mourning—for their fate is known only in grief, and spoken of only in dreams."
Her gaze was distant, as though seeing beyond the walls of Eärondë.
"They were not slain by sword or fire. They were taken by shadow, never to see the halls of Mandos. That is what makes it so dreadful."
The twins stood still. The mirth of their youth seemed, in that moment, very far away. In its place grew the first weight of old sorrow—a knowledge their kind rarely touched in the peace of Valinor.
"But that was long ago," Elenwëa whispered, as if unsure if the words should be spoken. "And we are here, in Valinor. In the Light. What can he do here?"
Alcaron looked to her—not with reproach, but with the grave patience of one who once asked the same.
"Shadow does not always begin with flame or sword," he said. "It begins within—where desire festers, where fear is nursed, where pride whispers sweet lies, and pain goes unanswered."
He gestured toward the walls of the Starhall, where faint lines of rune-light pulsed beneath the stone, like veins of starlight.
"Even here, the Light can be bent. Not broken—no. But turned. Colored. Diminished. If we do not guard the hearts of our people, the shadow may find soil even in this bright land."
He walked toward the great table of crystal and white wood, where a map of Eärondë lay spread, its spires and gardens marked with shimmering runes.
"I have begun the rune-fortifications. Not to keep an army out, but to keep our harmony intact. I do not fear a sword at the gate—I fear a thought, a whisper, a doubt planted deep."
Nimloth added, "Our gardens will be watched by Listening Stones. Our roads and walls inscribed with protections—not to wall us in, but to help us feel when something shifts, and although these protections will not stop the darkness it will give us the chance to become aware of it before we are lost to it."
Alcaron nodded, his voice low but firm.
"The dark does not always knock. Sometimes, it whispers. And our walls must listen."
The stars burned steady above, their gaze eternal, as the quiet settled once more over the Starhall. Nimloth stood beside her husband, hands clasped, her face luminous in the moonlight—a silver crown against the shadowed sky.
And now they spoke a harder truth, one that pressed against the bounds of their hearts as parents, and the vows of their station as guardians.
"You are of our blood," Nimloth said gently. "But also of this city. Princes of Eärondë, born of peace, born in Light—but not untouched by the world beyond."
Alcaron's eyes were deep, and sorrowful.
"We do not bind you. That would be folly. Even the roots of Laurelin stretch to the wind. If you choose to leave—to travel, to learn, to shape the world as your hearts guide you—you are free to do so. No crown or rune will weigh upon your steps."
"But," Nimloth said, her voice quivering with the quiet thunder of love, "we ask caution. Not as rulers. As your mother. As your father. The city is watched, guarded by light and memory. The world beyond... is not."
Almirion stirred. His eyes were restless, kindled by the hidden fire in his soul. His voice trembled not from fear, but from yearning.
"I was not born to sit within walls—even runed walls of beauty. I have dreams I cannot yet name. Songs I have not yet heard. I cannot bear the thought of being caged, not even by love."
His words hung in the still air.
Nimloth looked at him, but did not protest. She had known this flame since he was small, and no hand could smother it without harm.
Then Elenwëa spoke, her voice quiet as falling petals, yet firm.
"I hear the grief in your voice, Mother," she said. "The silence behind your songs. You do not speak only of Melkor, or danger. You speak of those who were lost... and how we forgot them."
She looked down at the starlit floor, at the delicate inlay of silver and white stone.
"Do we protect the city by staying?" she asked softly. "Or do we dishonor those who vanished, by hiding from the shadow they faced?"
Her words were a blade, not sharp in cruelty, but honed in truth.
Alcaron did not answer at once. Instead, he stepped to the center of the room, and there knelt upon the great mosaic—crafted in the likeness of Eärondë's founding Song, its lines a sacred memory of light and becoming.
He laid his hand upon it, fingers spread.
"I do not ask you to live in fear," he said, voice low and resonant, "Only to live in awareness. To remember not just what we are—but what we could become, if we forget."