Far From The World We Know by Himring

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Fanwork Notes

Title taken from the lyrics of "Up Where We Belong" by Joe Cocker and Jennifer Warnes.

Further minor allusions to the lyrics in the text.

The mood is rather different, though.

Fanwork Information

Summary:

At the top of Elwing's white tower.

Earendil has landed, back from traversing the pathless sky, and Elwing has flown to meet him.

Major Characters: Elwing, Eärendil

Major Relationships:

Artwork Type: No artwork type listed

Genre: General, Romance

Challenges: Just an Old-Fashioned Love Song

Rating: Creator Chooses Not to Rate

Warnings:

Chapters: 1 Word Count: 168
Posted on 9 August 2017 Updated on 9 August 2017

This fanwork is complete.

Chapter 1

Read Chapter 1

‘Speak! Speak to me,’ shrieks Elwing. ‘Speak, speak!’

Her arms are featherless now, five-fingered, but she wields them like wings, restlessly, as if she were about to take off again.

‘Elwing,’ Earendil says. His lips and tongue seem cold and stiff from disuse. His voice is faint and far in his own ears, like the creaking of Vingilot's rigging in the clear icy currents he has sailed high above, in Ilmen.

He takes her hands to still them. She seizes his, fiercely, clinging to him.

‘Tell me!’ she says. ‘Talk to me of what you saw!’

He begins to speak, incoherently at first, but gradually sentences take shape and speech flows more freely. She calms as he speaks, holding on. Warmth seeps into him from their clasped hands.

She begins to ask questions and he answers. It is just them, up there, far from the world they knew. Just the two of them, but they talk each other down, keep it real.

They talk each other—almost—to the ground.

Chapter End Notes

This is really part of an Earendil thing (fic project? sequence? series?) that has always refused to come together.

There is an earlier ficlet about Earendil and Elwing, "The Girl from Doriath" (in the "Taking Readings" anthology), that also grew out of this context 

Comments

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I'm amazed how much you've got going on in this short piece. The consideration you've given to the practicalities of their particular situation is brilliant - Elwing's birdlike shriek, Eärendil's frozen tongue, the calming and warming influence they exert on each other. The way in which she needs to return to being human, and in which he needs to find his way back into the world of speech. Following their exchange (and change) was quite exhilarating, and I suspect this fic is going to reverberate with me for quite a while.

Thank you!

I actually managed to leave out a line that had seemed important before I started writing. Now I wonder whether I should take that as a sign that it wasn't such a good idea after all or whether I was just too out of it, at the time of writing.

"As she un-birds, he un-stars."

<<stares dubiously at line>>

Maybe I'll put in the summary or the notes.

I love the way you make her a flapping cawing gull, and earendil like his ship's rigging- really effective imagery.  I never liked Elwing so have no sympathy for her but the strangeness of their story is brought sharply into focus here- like a folktale. I like the way you point out that it is never resolved though and that hanging ending gives it a poignancy I don't find in Tolkien.

Thank you, ziggy! Good to hear the imagery works for you.

Whether one likes Elwing or not, her story starts with displacement and the loss of her parents and siblings and ends by taking her even farther away--a strange story, as you say.

I think Tolkien wants it to be a happy end, but it seems to me that he only achieves that by looking at it and describing it from a distance.