Playing at being Valar (Amras Day vignette)
I remember Tyelkormo had at one time always been the Vala of Hunting, which had caused some problems when Pityo and I had wanted to be the Vala of Hunting once in a while. Tyelko had said we could be his Maiar instead. Yet eventually we, too, became the Valar of Hunting. That, however, was at a later time when Tyelkormo had already grown too old to see the ordeal as being of any interest.
I was not sure such reminiscing entered my thoughts that morning when I woke up in my room to the autumn sun shining brightly through the high windows, and I supposed it had something to do with whatever I had dreamt of that night. Then I remembered that it was not so, because what I had actually been thinking of had been more related to what our mother had said after Pityo and I had ended up playing Valar in her room, asking her whether she would mind being the Valie of Sculpting, since two Valar were all too few. For once she had put down the chisel in the middle of her work, wiped her hands on her apron, and sat down on a block of marble, taking us by the hand.
”Ambarussa, I will be your Valie if you want me to, but does it matter how many you are?” she had said. ”If you call yourselves as great as the Valar, you have the power to be great on your own.” To which I had replied that even the Valar were worthless if they stood by themselves. She had asked whether it was father who had told me that, then shaken her head and said: ”You go out there, my sons, and show them your might!”
Such were the silly memories engulfing me as I lay there, and I thought to myself how we would some day perhaps finally show them our might. And at the same time I regretted that Nerdanel was not there to see us, that indeed she perhaps knew nothing of how we were doing here on the other side of the world, where no Vala or Valie sent their blessings. Sometimes I wondered whether I should not just have taken a ship before they were burnt and sailed back to Valinor.
