Far From The World We Know by Himring

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