And this is the COMPLETE OPPOSITE of Obsession, in that it's completely unrealistic. XDDD Set in Middle-Earth, this is the Legend of Ratha Skyhewer, because face it: I'm long overdue to write an OP character. And also: I haven't found a single fic about the Maiar. I know this means I'm subjecting myself to intense research...but I'm kind of itching at how much freedom I have here.

When death finally came to claim her, she looked it in the eye. She stared at its face, at the visage it showed her, and welcomed it.

Did she want it? Had she anticipated it? Did she wish for it?

No, no, and no.

But when the time came, she did not turn away, and thus it was that she glimpsed the in between of life and death, and when death bore her away, her eyes did not close.

It is why, when her Turning came, she was able to make a better choice. A simple choice, the time of her rebirth, but the ramifications of it would shake through the world.

Through Middle-Earth.

When she finally deigned to close her eyes, Ratha found herself born in a world of magic and legends.

In the time when the Valar walked the lands.

xXXx

When Ratha was first sang into existence by Eru, she was a Maiar. A Maiar the melody of which was probably the first inklings of Man. When Eru first sang the Song, he did not sing clear forms, they were elementals and ideas—they existed indistinctly. Except Ratha already had a form before her reintroduction, and thus Eru's song merely wove around the core of her, a gentle harmony.

Similarly, when Melkor sang his Discord, it crashed against the Song in what would create the first Tides, but it could not reach deep enough to unmake or twist anything.

When Ratha took her first breath, she heard the song and unlike the rest of the Maiar who wept in joy, she whistled.

(Actually, she wolf-whistled, but since it did not yet exist, it was just a whistle. The First Whistle, actually, with which her kin communicated.)

It made Namo laugh, while the lewd undertone of it made Melkor snigger in triumph. And thereafter Ratha served the both of them, for she was the first Maiar to make solemn Namo laugh, while Melkor saw her as proof of the triumph of his Discord.

She grew strong and bold and wild. She learnt the joy of the hunt, despite not belonging to Orome. She leaped and ran through the lands, bounding over mountains and forests, whooping and yelling and playing with the Eagles of Manwe. Melkor felt slight fondness for her—this sign of his own Creation—while Namo smiled more in his Halls.

When the Maiar were called by the Valar to descend to Arda, she was the first. She leaped through the invisible webs of Vaire and more fell than descended, the impact with which she crashed into the land strong enough to send tremors throughout.

(Melkor giggled for the first time when he saw that, but seriously, he'd long since given up any expectation of grace from Ratha. Namo sighed and shook his head, but could not hide his amusement. Unfortunately, hope sprang eternal for him.)

When the other Maiar descended, they found Ratha frolicking in a field. Frolicking. Aiwendil, who was rather taken with Ratha, promptly followed her actions, whilst Curunir sneered in contempt. A bunch of Fire Maiar gathered around her to dance, until the field was ablaze and Namo started banging his head against his doors full of grass.

Melkor rather thought it was charming, in a strange sort of way. And also rearranged the Song so that plants did not flood Namo's precious Halls. He wasn't sure how you were supposed to usher them to the afterlife, since both sides already had grass anyway (why in Eru's name was the Creator himself so obsessed with it nobody knew, but he'd left patches of it everywhere).

But it was interesting. Ratha made many things interesting.

(The First Dead Plants were taken and planted along the Halls, separately from their already present brethren, to forever commemorate the descending of the Maiar…and to remind Ratha not to incite the Fire Spirits.

Not that she remembered often.)

And thus the Middle-Earth was first populated…with fire.

(Ratha laughs, because fire did not come so early into her old Story, but where's the fun in that? Blowing through things was not nearly as fun as blowing up things.)

And then they started making Children. (Ratha wolf-whistled again when they announced the fact, which made Vaire blush. To be fair, she had accidentally created lewdness and all it entailed, so if she couldn't make someone blush she wouldn't deserve her name.)

xXXx

To be honest, Ratha did not like the Firstborn. They were fair of form and strong and smart and a lot of other good things in various degrees of intensity, but most of all they were boring. She suspected Eru had sang solemnity into their creation, which was no fun at all.

(When she told him that, he chirped tangles into the flow of her hair. Eru was a rather vindictive bastard sometimes, and everyone wondered where Melkor got it from...)

Whilst plenty of the Valar were handpicking through the Firstborn, cooing like crazy people and generally causing the raucous expected of a baby shower, Ratha decided to create disparity in the lands. Orome had his forests and Manwe had his vast, lush plains, but Ratha felt it was rather too much like holding an entire chain of slightly differing links, all of which fitted seamlessly into one another and merrily twinkled in harmony with the whole. There was no uniqueness in it, and she was going to be bored to tears if she continued on like this.

So she pleaded with Melkor, who was known for indulging her ideas just for the strangeness of them. She asked him to make a volcano, though it was not yet named one. She asked for rocky outcroppings and jagged edges and sudden, steep drops. And the centre, she insisted, was to be fire, because there were lush forests and burbling brooks for every element but fire, and she wanted them to have somewhere of their own.

When Melkor asked her what she would name the first volcano, she naturally replied, "Mount Dooooom." With the appropriate dramatic voice, of course.

He was intrigued by it, for the general agreement was that nobody wanted to purposefully create something inhabitable or dangerous to the Children. Ratha had always been special, but for her to be utterly different from the rest of them was rather…

In any case, he named the mountain as per her request, even telling everyone the proper inflection by which to say it, and thus Mount DOOOOOM was formed. Olorin had quite a bit of fun getting the pronunciation right, twisting his new-formed tongue around the words and delighting in the thrill the reverberation gave him. It was also when he discovered humming, which he promptly infected many of the Valars' new creations with.

(Sadly, the elves were rather opposed to humming, seeing it as not truly music in the way Eru had created. Why hum when one could sing?

Why indeed? Ratha made all their voices fly back at themselves, running through and at their faces so they could not sing. Olorin was appreciative of her efforts, but stopped her after one of them tried to sing and swallowed a fly instead. She rather wished someone had made helium here.)

I wonder if anyone can guess what kind of Maiar Ratha is. XD In any case, I'm not entirely sure how this story will go, but maybe something like drabbles for the next couple thousand years until one of the books. Remember, this is basically the beginning of Middle-Earth, so the things here are the stuff of Legends with a capital L. Even if it's just Ratha wolf-whistling. XDDD

*Coughs* I am completely unrepentant at de-mystifying Eru. *Whistles*

Memory25