Chapter Text
All things considered, Námo thought that he had one of the easier jobs among the Valar. No creatures of land, sea, or air to look after; no silly Noldor knocking on his door asking for arts-and-crafts lessons; no vast realms like his brother’s gardens, the Kingdom of Arda, or all the stars in the cosmos to administer. Certainly, his Halls required some management, a little upkeep here and there, but in those days of bliss, there were very few residents in his custody. If it weren’t for the occasional fëa of an unfortunate Elf from the dark lands, careless enough to wander off a cliff-face or eat some bad mushrooms, the Halls of Mandos would have been almost entirely uninhabited.
Mostly, Námo let his Maiar take care of the day-to-day maintenance of his Halls, and he spent his time keeping an eye on the Great Jerk.
There was that business with Míriel, sure, but after the lady put her foot down and refused to go back, Námo had little to do with her. His wife, thankfully, took over her supervision. That was better. Ladies understood ladies, after all.
Then they let the Great Jerk free, and after that, Námo had very little with which to occupy himself, those endless, peaceful days. He was, to speak frankly, getting bored. So were his Maiar. He thought this was just asking for trouble; at best, they would stagnate in their torpor. Ainur ought not to be left without purpose for very long. Maybe they could start team-building sessions on Sunday nights, he thought. Go to an escape room. That could be good for company morale.
Well. Soon enough, Námo would come to miss those simpler days.
He was just starting to draw up plans for a beginner’s-level improv course when conflict in the wider world began to require his notice. First, there was the whole mess with Finwë’s sons. He knew that little family drama would come to a bad end, though, by the time all was said and done, he had to admit, he hadn’t fully foreseen just how bad.
And then, the not-so-shocking reveal: after so many years pretending he had come around, the Great Jerk discarded his apologetic act and showed that he hadn’t reformed at all, not one bit! Námo had to give him a little credit for creativity in casting: the spider was an unexpected, and inspired, choice. Though, it seemed, Ungoliant went a bit off-script there at the end. Some people simply were not team players.
And then, Finwë’s arrival to the Halls! Now there was a VIP event! Nothing before had ever been so exciting. The Maiar all sparkled with anticipation. They made sure Finwë’s fëa was set up in the finest of accommodations. He was the first King to grace the Halls, after all.
“Let him have all the rest he needs,” Námo advised his lieutenant. “After such a traumatic death, well, his recovery should not be rushed.”
In retrospect, Námo later thought, the arrival of Finwë, with all of his unorthodox views on marriage, was a sort of portent of what was to come.
But, well, Námo soon didn’t have any spare time or energy to waste on Finwë. Because before too long, those foolish Noldor, under the rule of Finwë’s lunatic son, had gone and slaughtered half the people of Alqualondë! There were fëar popping up left and right, everywhere in the Halls, suddenly taking up residence in each chamber and corridor, silver hair every which way, eyes wild and fearful, fists still clenched as though holding tridents or harpoons or spring-steel swords.
Oh. Oh, no.
Upon closer inspection, these weren’t just Teleri in his Halls.
Many of the Noldor, Námo now realized, had gotten themselves killed in the process, whether in the fighting itself, or in the stormy seas as they made off with their stolen ships. And now here they were, mixed in with the people they’d Kinslayed just moments before! Well, that wouldn’t do at all. Order! Order needed to be maintained. These weren’t the Halls of Ossë, after all.
With the help of his Maiar, Námo quickly segregated the Noldor from the Teleri, and set up the Sea-elves in the nicer, larger part of the Halls, with more open space and breathing room (metaphorically speaking; there was no need for ventilation). The Noldor got what they deserved, and they wouldn’t dare complain about it.
And then, there was the Doom to pronounce. That speech took some time to fine-tune, get the rhetoric just right, and Námo was not too humble to admit, he thought the final draft set a marvelously portentous tone for the Noldor’s Flight era. He was particularly proud of coming up with “by treason of kin unto kin, and the fear of treason.” Surely the Noldor would think twice before doing anything stupid after hearing that!
But then, despite his clear and deeply scrutable warning, the Noldor just kept botching things anyway. Nearly every day, it seemed, new Noldorin fëar materialized in the Halls and required supervision. They poured in from all directions, from fiery conflagrations and balrog battles, from the great ice-water abyss, from starvation, sorrow, and despair.
And then, Fëanáro! Manwë himself dropped by as soon as he heard the Spirit of Fire would be taking up residence in the Halls. Námo struggled to keep a straight face appropriate for the somber occasion. The second King of the Noldor showed up hardly an Ainu’s eyeblink after he left the shores of Aman, as angry and fiery as ever. He was so shattered, it would take millennia for his spirit to coalesce and recuperate. Námo watched as two of his Maiar got out the metaphysical dustpan and broom and coaxed the fëa of Fëanáro into a sort of ball, which they then heaved into a special, private chamber in the Halls, near his father.
Námo decided to reserve this particular Hall for the Princes and Kings of the Noldor, as it seemed likely that more would be soon on their way. Also, it would be best not to inflict Fëanáro on any other Elves in the Halls, who were minding their own business trying to heal and reintegrate. Fëanáro was nowhere near ready for group activities.
By the time Tilion and Arien launched into the sky for their daily rounds, Námo’s realm was fairly bustling. No longer could he complain of boredom! His efforts were needed in every corner. He knew that, to provide a healthy environment for fëar to heal and eventually be ready to go back into the world, all processes must work smoothly. Efficiency was of the utmost importance. Bottlenecks needed to be eliminated, continuous flow must be maintained, and any small change at one step of the process, Námo soon learned, might lead to unexpected consequences downstream.
Morale, both of his Maiar and of the fëar of the Elves within the Halls, Námo knew, could become a real concern, were they not careful. For several years after the moment of death—especially these kinds of deaths—most fëar were too traumatized to do much of anything other than curl in on themselves and shiver faintly, cowering away from any other presence, Ainurin or Eldarin, that approached.
But once their spirits partly healed, well, then they began to get creative.
And that was the first time Námo realized—because up until this point there had been so few Elves in the Halls, they never even crossed each other’s paths—the fëar of dead Elves could be real perverts.
The truth was, nobody had quite known, before they started dying off, what to expect from healing Elven fëar as they languished within the Halls. All Námo had been told by the head honcho was that the Elves were bound to Arda for the duration of its existence. And sure, perhaps that was not so long a time in the scale that Eru Ilúvatar was used to working with, but to the Firstborn, who had little else to compare it to in those days, well, the years began to drag on, and on.
And once they were over the initial trauma and terror that naturally came from being eaten by a polar bear, or torched to death by one’s own father, or stuck by mistake with the pointy end of a spear wielded by a simple caterer who had bitten off way more than he could chew when he followed the Spirit of Fire into exile, well.
The fëar grew bored.
It took decades, even centuries, for some, but eventually, they reached a point when they were healed just enough in spirit to begin contemplating their Return—
And that was when they began to dream.
Was that the right word for it? Dream? Perhaps reverie, or trance, or fantasy, would describe the phenomenon just as well. When there was time, Námo thought, he would sit down with a group of Maiar and agree on some common terminology for what was happening here.
Whatever one called it, what happened was this. An Elf, once his fëa had recovered from the worst of the shock of dying, would begin to think about what he most desired.
For some, these desires were simple and wholesome: a return to the Blessed Land, the gentle embrace of a waiting wife, the feel of the wind, the taste of strawberries, waves crashing on the beach, thick socks, a crackling fire, a child’s bright laughter, the earth beneath one’s feet, the thrill of the hunt, the back of a fine horse, rolling down a grassy hill, cool water on a warm day, a perfect stone setting, rereading a well-loved book, a tiny carved wooden dove in one’s hand, the shine of gold, the sound of voices singing in four-part harmony, the pleasure of a well-turned phrase, cracking one’s back, taking off a binding undergarment, the smell of clean fresh linens, the satisfaction of falling into bed after a long hard day, fried potatoes, the runny yolk of an egg, melted cheese and tomato jam on toast, a mirror-glass lake, the miraculous hoped-for recovery of the Trees, someone else already having done the dishes, reuniting with a long-lost friend, the flicker of a candle, someone scratching the middle of one’s back right between the shoulder blades, receiving absolution for all misdeeds from the High King of Arda, lullabies, the fall of a silk sleeve, harvest festivals, thinking of a good comeback to an insult immediately instead of several hours later, spring flowers, buzzing bees, an iridescent seashell, turquoise and amber and coral and pearl, baby elephants, baby seals, baby bear cubs, yawning kittens, puppies’ little wet noses, any baby mammals, really, being just a little bit taller than everyone else, letting down one’s hair, canceled plans, weeping willows, running one’s fingers through a bin of glass beads, bubble bath, the relief of a piece of popcorn coming unstuck from between one’s teeth, starlight, licking one of those toads from the hidden places of Avathar, picking off a scab, or a really good sneeze.
Námo became quite familiar with these types of plain and playful pleasures that lay within the hearts of dead Elves, for one simple reason.
You see, in the Halls of Mandos, as it turned out, fantasies became perceptible to others. “Visible” would be the wrong word to use; one did not see with eyes, nor hear with ears, nor perceive any other stimulus with any other physical senses, seeing as the interior of the Halls was not, strictly speaking, a place that abided by the laws that governed Arda’s physical reality.
But if another being, whether an Elf, a Maia, or Námo himself, came close enough to the dreaming Elf’s fëa while they were in the throes of their imagination, it was possible, given the permeability of reality in this place, for the other being to perceive the other Elf’s fantasy as though it were in their own mind.
If the dreaming Elf was particularly attentive to detail, noting, for example, the specific color of the strawberry, red blending into pink into white, the juiciness of its flesh, the tart firmness on their tongue, then these details, too, would become ever more vivid in the mind of the being with whom they were sharing their dreams.
It was rather remarkable, really, when you thought about it. Námo was ever impressed by the clever ways that Elves managed to transcend the boundaries of what one would expect from creatures inherently limited by their Incarnate nature. To share such visions, with little more than a thought and a hope—now, that was a neat trick.
And it seemed, too, that the fëar of Elves on the receiving end of such shared visions were comforted by participating in that dream. One Elf, on his own, might not have had the idea of dreaming up the pleasure of sitting by a campfire in the night, warm flames leaping, cinders popping, the smell of smoke permeating the air. But if he came into such a vision shared by another Elf, and found it pleasing, why, the fëar of both Eldar were sweetened by the experience; the one, with the joy of receiving, the other, the honor of providing.
Some dreaming Elves became quite popular in the Halls, for all were attracted to the fëa of a being who was becoming whole again, whose inner peace was in the process of being mended, no matter how shattered it had been, upon its initial arrival. Such fëar shone with an inner light that served as a beacon to the others: here I am, it’s all right, let me tell you a story of how sweet it is to be alive with a body in this hard but precious world.
Slowly, such Elves attracted regular audiences, other fëar who liked the experiences of the particular dreams they authored, subscribing to the tone or mood or sensory pleasures they suggested. Such popular Elves could be found surrounded by admirers, eagerly twinkling their appreciation when a new dream was produced.
And if a dream wasn’t to the taste of the observing Elf? Well, that was all right. The fëa could simply drift away, either to rest in the quiet of another Hall or alcove, or to find another Elf dreaming a dream that was more to his liking. Nobody was forced to watch a dream about a polar bear if they had, for example, found their death between white jaws. Don’t like, don’t dream.
Everything could have worked out well enough, Námo reflected, much later.
As Eru Ilúvatar surely intended, the traumatized fëar began to recover from the worst of their hurts, proceeded to the healing stage in which they could observe one another’s dreams, then on to the point of producing their own; and then, once they were truly ready, they could, perhaps, one day, return to the world of the living.
But—well.
Some of these Elves’ dreams—
Of course, Incarnates had desires of the flesh. Námo was aware of this. He was the one who pronounced their Dooms, after all. He was no stranger to the salacious, the dissolute.
And he understood that a healthy adult Elda might dream about the reproductive act. Marriage was a part of life for all speaking peoples, wasn’t it? Surely, it was only natural, as well, for those who had met their perfect mate, to recall their marital bliss and desire to be reunited in body. And tragically, due to the Marring of Arda, some died before they were able to achieve bodily union in their first lives. Surely, it was to be expected that those unfortunate souls might dream of the touch of a hand, the thrill of a first kiss, the press of a firm embrace.
Námo understood all of that, in theory.
Indeed, for so many of the young Eldar, those unlucky enough to fall before they could wed, like the youngest son of Nolofinwë—the poor dear—their fantasies of intimacy were downright adorable. Arakáno, it seemed, had only the fuzziest idea about the actual mechanics of union. His erotic dreams tended to include a faceless Elf maiden whose hair color and length varied (always a fantastic body, though), who would kiss his lips, press her cushiony and ample front against his chest, take him by the hand, and lead him into a darkened chamber, at which point the dream would mostly dissolve into an indeterminate series of soft sighs and sweet sensations, finishing with a vague, politely ecstatic splat.
Among the married Eldar—oh, it was such a shame when they were severed from their spouses. Like that sweet girl Elenwë, who left her husband and child behind on the Ice. Námo had a soft spot for her; as far as he could tell, she was the first Vanya to ever grace his Halls, and though he didn’t think she technically counted as a Princess, he made sure her fëa was housed in a proper alcove befitting her unique status.
Sometimes he stopped by personally to see that her fëa was healing up all right.
He didn’t mean to interrupt her fantasy, really; it hadn’t been so long since her death, not by Ainur standards, and honestly, he hadn’t even expected her to be lucid, let alone dreaming already. And normally, when Námo came upon a fëa in the throes of carnal visions, well, he mostly backed away and gave them some privacy.
As he floated by her alcove, Námo noticed that she seemed to be having a nice time; her fëa glowed and fluttered. She looked healthy. Námo couldn’t help but get a little curious. He floated just a bit closer. Just enough to check things out.
And suddenly, he found himself inside a shared tent on the Helcaraxë, one that was rumpled and ragged, but that seemed to be just enough to keep out the elements on behalf of the two Elves inside, which was a good thing, Námo thought, because they were badly dressed—indeed not dressed at all!—for the harsh, frigid conditions on the Ice, and if this were a real memory, and not just a dream, Námo would have been very, very worried about Prince Turukáno losing his most turgid part to frostbite.
He watched for a few moments, as within the dream, the sweet Elenwë lay back on the makeshift bed of polar-bear skins, her golden hair shining in—well, there was no light source at all, was there? The entire dream came out of Elenwë’s imagination, including the rosy glow that covered everything, the implausible warmth within the tent, and the wild abandon with which Prince Turukáno was burying his entire face into his lady wife’s pussy and eating it as though it was the day of harvest and that was where all the Fruits were Gathered.
Elenwë, fully immersed in the dream, didn’t seem to notice that she had company. Námo thought that was probably for the best, as she likely would not have wanted anyone else to see the way her thighs quaked, the way her high, round breasts bounced, the way she clutched her husband’s hair in her hands, and certainly not the way that her entire body seized and arched in a curve that nearly launched Turukáno into the air before he propelled himself forward, face glistening with pride, grabbed onto her hips, and sheathed himself inside with one sharp, powerful thrust that had both of them crying out the name of Eru, voices carrying even above the dream-memory wind whistling outside the tent, on the Grinding Ice.
After a while, Námo excused himself silently and thought about what he had just perceived.
He was, of course, pleased to see that Elenwë was healing. She had been through so much. And very little of it her fault, of course (though she did, by marrying a Noldo, put herself into a situation that was bound to go awry somewhere down the road). She deserved to reintegrate her fëa and eventually return to a new hröa, alive and well.
On the other hand, Námo wasn’t entirely comfortable with the non-procreative nature of the act he’d witnessed. Indeed, for a moment, he had feared that the fantasy might have ended right there, with an act that couldn’t possibly have led to the conception of a child, no matter the skill and force with which Turukáno had shoved his tongue inside her.
But thankfully, after the completion of the questionable carnal configuration, Elenwë had the good sense to dream about the natural progression of such activities, in which man and wife became one in the way that the One had, in all His great wisdom, intended.
It turned out, as their fëar healed and recovered and more and more of the Eldar entered the dreaming phase of their stay in the Halls, a scandalously large number of them did not, in fact, restrict their erotic fantasies to the canonically authorized acts that permitted biological reproduction.
And that was something Námo had trouble understanding.
He did not relate to the experience of being bound to a body, it was true; unlike some of his fellow Ainur, Námo was never much interested, himself, in experimenting with the faculties of the flesh. Bodies were sticky. They were limited. And they were entirely unnecessary for Námo’s work on Arda. The Doomsman needed nothing more than a dark cloak and an air of menacing authority.
So, he observed. He monitored. He took reports from Maiar when there were too many different erotic dreams going on willy-nilly in too many directions for him to supervise all at once.
That was when the perversions of the Noldor (and even, he was forced to admit, the Teleri of Alqualondë and the many Elves of Middle-earth) became too evident to ignore.
Oh, they were interested in non-reproductive sex acts, all right. The lady Elenwë was far from unique in this regard. They thought about putting their hands and mouths all over each other, stimulating the male organ to completion without a care in the world for the seed’s destination. They thought about the female’s satisfaction, even though it wasn’t, to Námo’s understanding, in any way necessary for the ultimate purpose. They thought about inserting their male members into places that certainly wouldn’t lead to conception and were altogether unsanitary besides. In fact, they seemed to have no limitation on the body parts that they would consider erotic: not just penises and vaginas, or even breasts and buttholes. But bellies! Ear-tips! The spaces between their toes! Body hair and head hair, lips, tongues, armpits, knees, navels, necks, backsides and front sides. Bodies arranged in every imaginable position, standing up, lying down, on the bed, under the bed, half-hanging-off the bed, seated on thrones, bending over forges, pressed against castle walls, pinning one another to the cold ground, swimming under waterfalls, flying through the air, lounging beneath the Trees, swinging from the rafters, fastened into the pillory, and precariously Perching in perilous places.
They dreamed about embellishments to the act of reproduction that had nothing whatsoever to do with its Eru-given purpose: adorning themselves in fine costumes of sheer silk, supple leather, delicate lace; jewels and fine metals of all colors and shapes, on every imaginable appendage, including, with the help of piercings, places that Námo was quite sure gold and silver were never, ever meant to go; elaborate props and scenery, like mirrors on the ceiling, impossibly supple and soft bedding, room dividers with conveniently located holes, swings and hammocks, hot springs and cold pools, cages and doghouses, life-sized dolls, pillows, ramps; teasing and stimulating one another with various objects of both natural and Elven origin, swords, knives, ink-quills, paint, flutes, vines and feathers, ropes and chains, switches and whips, belts and blindfolds, masks, candle wax, oils and perfumes, metal balls, pliable rings, paddles, saddles, ice, wine, fruit, suggestively shaped vegetables, sleeves whose purpose was not for arms, and carved or cast implements whose purpose was unfortunately extremely obvious from their shape (though often their colors strained credulity).
It didn’t stop there. The perverse permutations of particular people these Elves came up with! Not just a man with a woman, as Eru intended. But men with men, and ladies with ladies, not a care at all for the impossibility of such pairings to ever lead to proper union. Or groups of people—two men sandwiching one woman, or two women and one man, or three of the same variety, all together, or people who didn’t seem to quite fit either category so neatly, or four Elves at once! Five! Crowds of six or more! Námo supposed that some of these combinations could, technically, be considered procreative—but how would one know who fathered whom, if they let seed from different sources mix freely like promiscuous bees making honey from different flowers? Some of the Elves dreamed about fornicating with Aulë’s creations, with trees, with animals, even with Orcs (actually, could that be procreative? Námo reminded himself to check with Manwë on that one). They dreamed up creatures that Námo had never even seen in the world, and had sex with them all, deep-sea creatures with prehensile tentacles, bulls with the heads of Elves and Elves with the heads of bulls, people the size of a finger, fingers the size of full-grown people, Elves with green skin, Elves made out of metal, fox-people, bat-people, bird-people, horse-people, crab-people with claws and antennae, vixen-people with antlers, creatures that looked concerningly like smaller versions of Ungoliant, spirits that seemed more shadow than flesh, walking corpses, wolves with bad attitudes, and great, leathery, fire-breathing worms.
A few even dreamed about pleasuring themselves all alone, a preposterous idea if Námo had ever heard one.
Námo became increasingly concerned about these fantasies. What was their function? How could this help the fëar heal?
And, more importantly, what kind of effect were the pervert Elves who thought about such things having on others?
Námo had already observed the way that a dream-idea could catch on—beginning with just one Elf, who might himself have a very small, niche audience for his original vision of debauchery, but then those who viewed the dream might come up with an imitation of the same idea in their own fantasies, or variations thereof, and by such means, mimetically replicate itself rapidly across the Halls. Such a trend might be harmless if the dream were about, say, perfectly innocent pillow fights.
But Námo couldn’t allow the more dangerous, inappropriate, unhealthy, offensive, derogatory, harmful, problematic, and disrespectful dreams to spread. Not on his watch. Not if he had anything to say about it.
It was when Námo visited the Hall he had reserved for the Noldor royal family that he realized he had to do something, and soon.
By now, every fëa in the Halls sentient enough to care about such things had discovered where the kings were housed. Fëanáro had been controversial yet popular in life, and even moreso in death. Elves from all kindreds hovered around his chamber, waiting to see if he would do anything interesting. Even Manwë asked about his recovery on occasion. There was never anything to report; Fëanáro’s fëa remained largely fragmented, and in the rare moments he was reconstituted, he mostly just puffed around his chamber in little fires of scorn and rage that possessed no real dream-content.
For a long, long time, Finwë, too, was in no shape to dream.
But Finwë recovered.
And Námo discovered this by wandering into Finwë’s dream one day, drawn by the crowd of no small number of gentle, unsuspecting Elven fëar in audience, observing with great interest. For you see, in dreams, at least, Finwë had managed to reconcile the great schism between the Noldorin factions, the supporters of the son of Míriel, and those of the children of Indis. Finwë seemed to have come to the conclusion that one needn’t choose just one wife, when he could have both—at least, in his imagination.
In Finwë’s dream, the king sat upon a plush orange divan as though it were a throne, naked, resplendent, hair unbound, crown atop his regal head.
Before him, the facade of Tirion’s palace, which featured a majestic stone fountain, one that, in the physical world, spouted great streams of clear, cool water from a high statue into a wide, shallow basin where children could frolic.
In Finwë’s dream—
Well, the fountain was mostly empty, for one thing.
Empty, but for the two wives of Finwë, Míriel and Indis, both dressed in long, flimsy white nightgowns slit up to the thighs and cut in deep v’s in the front, which seemed to facilitate their provocative, undulating dance.
As Námo watched, the wives of Finwë danced more and more closely, until their bodies were pressed together, moving so fluidly, it was as though one single thought governed their coordination—which of course, it did, as this was Finwë’s dream, and the wives merely manifestations of his deepest desires.
And those desires were also evident in one other respect: Míriel was, in dream-form, quite vibrant and flush with the spark of life, indeed, the spark of new life—her belly, rounded; breasts, plush and pendulous; nipples, dark and large in the way of expecting mothers.
She was beautiful, Námo thought. And in the dream, Indis plainly thought so as well. Dispensing with the dance, Indis bore Míriel down to the mosaic-tiled floor of the fountain and straddled her. Indis, too, was herself gravid, nearly bursting, her full belly colliding with Míriel’s as she writhed on top of her. Both women moaned and wriggled, flesh rippling, nightgowns rucking up around waists and falling down shoulders as Finwë, observing from his position on the orange divan, applauded, four rapid, staccato claps.
As the women’s movements became more frantic, drawing near what appeared to be a mutually gratifying conclusion, Indis suddenly stopped. She clenched Míriel tightly between her thighs, pinned down her upper arms with her hands, and leaned over, as she took one of her own breasts out of her gown, and positioned it, heavy with milk, nipple engorged and protuberant, right over Míriel’s face.
Míriel cried out in delight and hunger. She opened her mouth. And she proceeded to suckle, drinking deeply of Indis’s flowing milk. So abundant, in fact, was Indis’s supply, it soon filled Míriel faster than she could swallow it down, spilling over her lips, onto her cheeks, down to the mosaic fountain floor beneath her. Míriel choked and spluttered and snorted, and yet continued gulping for more. From Indis’s other breast, still more milk flowed, spraying down her body, drenching them both. Their white nightgowns, already straining and askew, turned altogether transparent, revealing every line of their bodies. And then Míriel’s breasts, too, began to leak their own milk, first a slow drip, then more, and more, until she was gushing just as much as Indis, proven in her own fecundity, not deficient at all, just as capable as Indis of sustaining new life.
The flow did not stop, it only accelerated as Míriel and Indis embraced and gripped and glided against one another, pausing only to reposition for a better viewing angle for Finwë. The milk rose to ankle-height and soaked Míriel’s hair; it swirled and spread out around her like rays of a silver sun. Milk filled the basin and still Míriel and Indis kissed and stroked each other, breathless and gasping. Milk streamed from the statue’s spout and sprayed like a sprinkler all around, striking Finwë at his vantage point, and still they only had eyes and hands for each other.
Suddenly Finwë was no longer on the divan, but was himself now in the fountain, lounging on a floating chair, a goblet in his hand. He dipped the goblet into the overflowing milk, filled it, then drank. He looked as happy and relaxed as Námo had ever seen him.
Námo, on the other hand, was growing increasingly concerned. He watched as the two ladies floated to the center of the fountain. Míriel bore Indis against the base of the statue and dropped to her knees, lifting up Indis’s sopping skirts. She spread Indis’s legs and stared, speechless at what she found there, but not for too long, for she began to stroke between Indis’s legs. Her fingers were first gentle and sweet, then not so gentle. Before long, it seemed Míriel’s entire hand, twisting and thrusting, had disappeared into Indis’s birth canal.
That can’t be good for the baby, Námo thought.
Then he remembered, there was no baby! This was all out of Finwë’s imagination! This was, apparently, Finwë’s deepest desire, manifested in plain sight, for Námo and any Elf who wandered by. Indeed, as Námo checked around, he realized that the audience had only grown since he had first joined in, a crowd of curious fëar gathering around their onetime King.
Finwë seemed unaware of his audience, mesmerized as he was by the vision he had dreamed up before him. Míriel’s hand and forearm were moving in a frenzy now, pumping into Indis’s body, fiercely, passionately. As Míriel worked Indis with one arm, she held her own belly with the other, stroking and circling the taut, stretched flesh around her bulging navel. Míriel’s look of bliss was lovely to behold. Indis thrashed her head and flung her legs about, suspended on only Míriel’s hand, her back pressed against the statue. Her breasts flowed steadily with milk.
And then, in a moment of shocking, ecstatic bliss, Indis’s body seized up, she wailed an unearthly wail, her head rolled back, and great gushing gallons of milk began to flood forth from her nipples. Míriel was fixed in place, unable to escape the torrential downpour of milk upon her, gasping, immersed, her hand lodged deeply inside Indis, whose body did not seem to wish to let her go. Indis howled on and on, insensate with pleasure and bursting forth the sustenance of life. Her supply seemed as limitless as her climax. Soon, there was so much milk, the fountain’s basin surged and roiled, great tidal waves moving across the surface. Finwë toppled off of his floating chair, falling beneath the rolling, swirling liquid. For a moment, time stopped, as Námo and the fëar around him held their breaths, waiting to see what had happened to him.
Soon enough, Finwë’s head popped up, and he swallowed visibly, hair and eyebrows dripping. He reached out, found the pull-switch of a lamp that hadn’t been there before, and with a single movement, brought the entire scene into a sudden and satisfied darkness.
Námo blinked, or he would have, had he eyelids.
The fëar around him seemed shell-shocked, shivering.
Should he do something?
Yes. He had to. It was his realm. These spirits were all under his charge. He was responsible. If they witnessed a scene from a dream so depraved, so decadent, so far beyond the righteous path that the One had laid out for them—well, who knows what might happen next? Who else might envision such flawed and flagrant fantasies of—of—of whatever that was!
Námo had to take control.
“Oh, Eru, we’re really in for it now,” said he.