#twofolddoom

He was powerless here, alone and vulnerable. Langon shivered a little, glancing around him nervously. Even Irmo's help could no longer benefit him here; the Vala had done enough already in agreeing to bring him here, in gaining for him the chance to be judged.

Langon's fate now lay in the hands of Námo, the Doomsman, judge of the Valar -- a frightening thought, but one that held his only hope of a new life, a fresh chance in the world. Through despair and desperation he had come to this, the willingness to lay everything on the line and reach out for whatever forgiveness or condemnation the Valar might offer to him.

He had surrendered of his own free will, and could only hope that this would count in his favour, and Irmo, at least, had looked into his heart already and seen something worthy of bringing him here.

Now, though, all else was Námo's to decide.

Langon waited, feeling a sullen coil of anxiety roiling within him, remaining immobile through willpower alone as his fears whispered to him that he ought to flee, abandon his hopes before they could be shattered by the Doomsman.

In the beginning times, Ulmo turned his thought to water, Manwë to air and the winds, Aule to the material of Arda itself, Yavanna to its plants. Each of the Valar to his or her own domain turned their thought.

But to what did Námo and Vairë turn their minds, of what did they sing? What need is there for a Psychopomp and Doomsman before there are souls to be gathered and judged? What need for the Moira who weaves all of history into her webs before there are events to be recorded?

In the time before there was time, Námo opened the mouth of his spirit and forth spilled the dark and glowing notes of Entropy, devouring and all-encompassing and yet the necessary balance within the vast system of life and creation. When Vairë began her theme, out unrolled Time itself, that dimension of creation which allows events to occur at all; that thing which, to the minds of those bounded within it, seems an orderly progression but which is in fact a vast snarl of chaos—a tangle of thread but slowly being woven into the tapestry called History.

Emilie Autumn: 'Across the Sky'