#ainurweek2024

[atane-is-here]

@ainurweek

Olorin / Valinor

The grey rain-curtain of this world rolls back, and all turns to silver glass, and then you see it. White shores, and beyond, a far green country under a swift sunrise.

Gandalf and Frodo are looking out from their boat as Valinor comes into sight.

[saintstars]

The would be Rulers of Arda

Every week is angbang week on my blog but still for @ainurweek

[riding-with-the-wild-hunt]

"Estë the gentle, healer of hurts and of weariness, is [Irmo's] spouse. Grey is her raiment; and rest is her gift. She walks not by day, but sleeps upon an island in the tree-shadowed lake of Lórellin. From the fountains of Irmo and Estë all those who dwell in Valinor draw refreshment; and often the Valar come themselves to Lórien and there find repose and easing of the burden of Arda." - J.R.R. Tolkien, The Silmarillion, "Valaquenta"

@ainurweek day 6 ⇢ ESTË

[ID: a picspam comprised of 16 images in shades of green.

1: Looloo, an east asian model with light skin and long, straight black hair. She is lying in shallow water and twisting over her shoulder to look up. She wears sheer green and white clothes / 2: Koi of various colors swimming in a pond / 3: Pale green and white text reads "estë" in all caps, with "the gentle" in light green cursive below on to the right. The background is a slightly darker shade of green / 4: A white water lily blooming among lily pads / 5: A bird sitting on a pale-skinned person's outstretched hand / 6: A person wearing light green hanfu / 7: A night sky filled with stars and the clouds of a nebula / 8: A stone walkway in a garden / 9: Two pale hands holding a birds nest filled with two white eggs / 10: A white moth with translucent wings perched on a green leaf / 11: A pagoda in the middle of a lake / 12: Tree branches in mist / 13: Stalks of bamboo / 14: Same text and format as Image 3 / 15: A fountain in a topiary garden / 16: Looloo, seen from the back, wearing a purple off-the-shoulders dress and looking to the side. Water and tree branches are visible beyond her //End ID]

[magedarkwood]

Nienna inspired moodboard

@ainurweek Day 8

[dwarveslikeshinythings]

strange syncopation

nienna & melkor at the ainulindalë, and a glimpse of what came after.

She is born in a burst of blissful sound.

She is neither the first to arrive nor the latest, but one of many: an immediate multitude, ignited in a single instant, kindled to life by a call that sounds from the deeps of time. 

All around her, there is music. It swells and grows to heights of perfection that she alone can barely comprehend. Yet surrounded by her fellow ainur, her kindred, she begins to understand, to perceive her place within the great theme. 

She understands that she is Nienna, daughter of Eru Ilúvatar, who created and called forth each of the ainur to serve a great purpose. It is from him that the theme of their music originates, and it is his will that endows every voice.  

At the behest of the All-Father, the theme expands, and she begins to differentiate the individual strains, the varied sounds that each of her brothers and sisters make. 

Instinct draws her closer to he who is first, mightiest, most-powerful. He is at the center of all, shining with a luster that is sharp, radiant… and dangerous. 

Certain of her own softness, her own diminutive nature, she marvels that this should be her intended. She craves neither power nor attention—as she perceives this being does—yet she feels the will of the One, and it guides her until she is skirting around his hardened edges, as something hidden at her core—something deep and true—cries out for Melkor. 

His music is complicated, full of thunderous melodies and churning rhythms almost impossible to match. And yet she does—interposing her own humble harmonies that coax his music gracefully back toward the theme that Ilúvatar intended. 

On and on his music winds, his notes growing tighter and more frenetic, until it takes all her strength and will to keep in time with him. But she is patient, and ever attentive to each change, each modulation that he makes, and so she sings on beside him...

[read the rest on ao3]

[lordgrimwing]

Love of the Ainur: Finwë & Manwë

[for Day 1 of Ainur Week, hosted by @ainurweek, also a continuation of a fill for @silmkinkmeme]

“Manwë,” Finwë said, a heart-felt prayer to the chief of the Valar who had granted his kin entry into Valinor and who saw all from atop Taniquetil. “Lord of Valar, if ever I’ve earned some small favor from you, please keep your eye upon my son.” There was more to say, but he choked on the words.

A breath of wind tugs at his hair where it came loose from the braids.

This is Aman, he reminds himself. This is Aman, and bad things do not happen to children when they disappear. When a Teleri child too young to swim falls from the dock, a wave pushes them back to shore. When a Noldo child slips from the rocks while climbing, an eagle catches them. There are no terrible accidents. There are no terrible things hiding in the dark. They left those behind in Arda. 

“Manwë,” he tries again. The wind pulls on him. He leans out the window. “Manwë—”

The wind howls into a tempest in his ears, drowning out his words. A strange weight suddenly grows in his stomach, and then he is no longer in the palace. He is no longer in Tirion. He is no longer in the mountains he’d claimed for his people. They are all passing away far below his feet. 

He is terrified, but the wind takes his air and he cannot scream.

As suddenly as it began, the journey finishes. 

Finwë stands on shaking legs in the center of a great room. The ceiling is domed and so far above his head that as he looks up he thinks he sees clouds under it. This is Ilmarin atop Taniquetil, he realizes and sinks to his knees on the polished stone of the great chamber. 

There, above him and below the clouds, sits Manwë. 

“Finwë,” says the Vala. His voice is as bright and as clear as the first time Finwë set foot in Valinor, carried there by Oromë. “Stand, friend.”

Read the full story on AO3

[atane-is-here]

@ainurweek day 1

Eonwe / Relations with men

Eonwe bows before Elros on the island of Numenor which has newly risen from the sea.

As the herald of Manwe he stayed with the Edain to help them establish their new realm close to Valinor. At the dawn of the second age a Maia of Manwe saw the rise of the line of Elros. And at its end Eonwe mourned the land and people brought to ruin by Sauron, who had escaped him during the war of wrath.

[atane-is-here]

@ainurweek

Melkor and Mairon / The Void, The Flame Imperishable

Not many in middle earth noticed the strangeness of the glow in Annatars eyes that could be so easily mistaken for the light of the trees. But those who were wise enough noticed the absence of Valinors light and knew it as the flame of creation itself, that within him it had twisted into a burning inferno.

In the beginning Melkor had searched the void far and wide for the flame imperishable. As he realized that a part of that flame resided within him he desperately tried to reach it. Tearing himself apart in the process.