ALL GREAT WORKS INSPIRE IMITATION, FËANÁRO; YOU KNOW THIS. LOKI IS NOT TO BLAME.

"Maybe yours do; mine are inimitable. No one ever made some kind-of-shiny jewels called the 'Sylmarylls' or something."

"Who was that?"

"Eru, I presume. The supposedly-benevolent creator of the universe. My personal heresy is that he's actually optimizing it for entertainment value rather than the well-being of any of us who actually live here. He isn't normally that talkative, but I also thought he was very insistent on only having two races of intelligent Incarnates and yet here you are."

"I don't think the One-Above-All has ever made himself known except when the destruction of the entire universe was imminent. I suppose Thanos could probably bring him to the table. You might be on that level too, if you really made the Infinity Stones."

"Nah he just threw a rampaging army of Balrogs at me and then caused the Silmarils to get 'lost' after they'd caused their fair share of murder and horrible tragedy. The Silmarils can theoretically kill Valar and turn the universe into a perfectly entropic hot gas of non-interacting particles but fighting Eru isn't even a metaphysically coherent concept."

"Is there a way out of here? Where I'm from it is not customary for the dead to return to the world of the living but I had always planned on it if I continued to exist in any recognizable form."

"It's customary for us, I'm just not allowed to on account of being considered dangerous. It's quite possible to leave anyway—I just need outside help, a Silmaril, and the means to make a new body without the aid of the Valar, and I haven't had any of those."

"I might be able to request outside help—I'm pretty sure my magic works while dead and my magic is visual and auditory illusions at theoretically unlimited range as long as I have a line of sight—although that might be hard to get in here—and Asgard had good cloning tech—it kinda got blown up but I don't think any of its tech was completely unique, we could find somewhere else with it. Infinity Stones might be harder, considering, y'know, Thanos."

(Actually, whatever these Silmarils are, they're not the Infinity Stones, so this might actually be a viable plan.)

"The tapestries let you see any point in space and time, but they all got destroyed a little while ago—do you know what happened there—I'm assuming that if Thanos killed half the population of the universe he didn't exclude the Valar from that and he got Vairë—"

"I don't know who Vairë is but if that sounds plausible to you then sure. I also don't think tapestries would be sufficient for the line-of-sight thing; images generally don't work."

"Vairë is the Weaver, sort of a history and time goddess. She made the tapestries and I guess they're considered somehow part of her being. If any image would be considered a direct window onto the thing it shows, it would be Vairë's tapestries.

"My mother is her assistant. We should try to find her. We don't speak much anymore but if anyone in here will help us she will."

They start looking for Míriel. As is usual in Mandos, she'll be found if and only if she or a higher power wants her to be.

She wants to be found. She's been looking for Fëanor too.

A living mortal could not be seen at all by the Dead in Mandos, but a living Calaquendë glows very brightly in the gloom of the Halls. She makes everything around her seem bright silver, like a miniature Telperion.

"Oh, Fëanáro, darling. What have you gotten yourself into this time? Who is this?"

"The sudden appearance of half the world's population here is not my doing, although—apparently—the Silmarils were used. I'm currently searching for a way to recover the jewels and hopefully reverse it in the process. This is Loki, an Asgardian. He has magic that will allow us to send a message to the outside, but only if we can repair the tapestries. Do you know what happened to Vairë?"

Míriel looks very worried.

"I knew those cursed things were more dangerous than they looked! Vairë just...turned to dust, suddenly, a little while ago. If I'd known that your jewels could kill the Valar I'd have..." She actually has no idea what she would have done.

"You know, I can take a message out of Mandos, if you need, without needing the tapestries or magic. I'm not technically permitted to facilitate communication between the Living and the Dead, but I'm pretty sure Mandos isn't concerned about being a stickler for the rules at the moment."

"I made the Silmarils to preserve the light of Valinor beyond the rule of the Valar. That they could also be used as powerful weapons was a necessary side effect of their design, and one I kept secret for a...contingency. It should remain so—do not tell anyone who does not already know what artifacts were used to accomplish this attack. This is very important. I allowed myself and my sons to be thought madmen and murderers rather than allow the world to know why it was the most important thing in the universe that I not allow anyone I did not trust completely to handle the Silmarils. Hopefully some things make more sense now.

"Can you take a message to Endórë?"

"That might take a while. It's a separate planet now, you know."

"And I need you here, to help me work on the Loom in case we need a backup plan."

"What's the message, anyway?"

"That we are trying to escape Mandos, and need to be rescued by living allies with a Silmaril—or something that can serve its function of navigating twisted spatial geometry, since those seem to be unavailable—and cloning technology. I believe that Loki knows some people we can contact."

"They call themselves the Avengers—'Earth's mightiest heroes'. They're quite famous; you won't have trouble finding them. They're—not exactly my allies, under normal circumstances—but these are obviously not normal circumstances, and they are trustworthy though they won't be inclined to trust me. My brother is one, however, and I don't think he'll refuse the chance to rescue me from death."

"Mother—can you carry that message to someone—trustworthy—in Valinor, and have them carry it on to the 'Avengers' in Endórë, and come back here to help me work on the Loom?"

"I don't think trying to escape Mandos is a good idea. But I don't doubt you can do it, or that you're going to try, whatever I say. Yes, I can carry a message."

She leads them to the room where the now-broken Loom of Vairë is kept, then leaves them and walks unobstructed, as one of the gods, out the high iron gates into the grey Forest of Twilight. The wind off the Outer Sea is wet and chill, and rain threatens, and soon comes, but she walks on through it. There is a maze twisted into space itself around the Halls of Mandos so that errant travelers may not reach the gates unless Mandos himself permit them, but she knows all the quickest paths through it. She does not have to make the weeklong walk back to civilization which the Returned do; she is at Mettanyë within the hour.

The Oronairë, the Mountains of Lamentation, were made to look ancient; nothing in Valinor is more than twenty-five million subjective years old, and had the mountains formed by the usual geological processes they would all be as knife-edged as the Pelóri. To be as worn-down as they are, under the time-slowing effects of Valinor, the Oronairë would have to be older than the universe. In a certain sense, they are, for the gods are, and to go beyond the Oronairë, it is said, is to see the true nature of the gods, stripped of the shapes that they wear for the Children's comfort. The low mountains divide the sunny plains where the Eldar dwell, where once the full light of the Trees shone, from the empty, pathless, and twilit wilderness of the west beyond west, where few living things have walked, and none that have not passed through death.

At the eastern feet of the mountains lies a small village, the last outpost of Elvish civilization. It was built sometime in the Second Age, by the first of the Returned who came back out of the western wild; they called it Mettanyë, a poetic word for the End, and it has stayed true to its name: none has ever built anything further west. Those who choose to make their homes here are whispered about in Tirion and Alqualondë far away east—most are Returned, and of those in particular it is said that they must not believe themselves worthy to return to life fully.

Míriel is greeted coming into town by an elf she does not know, but seems to recognize her. "What is this?" she asks. "Half the living taken away, and now the dead return unlooked-for from beyond the western wild! First two mortals, and now the Grey Seamstress, who swore herself to eternal death before the Ages of the World began. Shall Fëanor himself come over the hills next?"