Nothing in the World is Single by StarSpray

---

Chapter 4

---

Spring blew into Beleriand with rain enough to swell Sirion into minor flooding. The town’s streets turned to smaller rivers, and mud got everywhere, in spite of everyone’s valiant efforts.

Eärendil didn’t care about the wet. As soon as it was warm enough to be outside without risking a cold or worse, he abandoned the house, and all the tension within, in favor of practicing sailing in bad weather with Aerandir, and often went home with his friend, instead of returning to Tuor and Idril’s house. His mother seemed caught between wanting to coddle him like a child and treating him like the adult he was swiftly becoming. Tuor could usually mediate between the two, but the designs and plans for Eärramë consumed much of his time, spent locked away with Círdan, when Círdan was not with Galadriel and Celeborn, or visiting others in Sirion.

At last, the sun came out, and when the mud dried Elwing made good on her word, and dragged Eärendil away from the shore into the forest to teach him woodcraft - which she did mostly by leaving him to fumble around alone while she flitted in and out of view for an hour or so, before relenting and coming to teach him to read the signs in broken twigs and half-visible footprints, and how to tell a tree by its leaves or its bark. Eärendil tried to pay attention to her words - he really did - but they had never spent so much time in such close proximity before, and he was constantly distracted by the way her hair tickled his face when she turned her head, and the feather-light touch of her hand on his arm.

Finally, Elwing turned to scowl at him. “Do you want to learn woodcraft or not?” she demanded.

“Of course I do,” Eärendil said, offering her a smile. “You have a leaf in your hair.” He reached up to pick it out, but she swatted his hand away. “And you have some dirt there…” He wiped at a smudge across her nose before she could swat him again. “You don’t get leaves in your hair when sailing.”

“You get covered in salt and sand instead,” Elwing replied, wrinkling her nose. “And come back smelling of fish.”

“I don’t always end up smelling of fish,” Eärendil protested as she started walking again. He jogged to catch up, though he stayed a step behind Elwing to pick a few more leaves out of her hair. She turned to raise an eyebrow at him. “You should braid your hair, or something,” he said, holding up the leaves. She just rolled her eyes and turned around again. “I think you’re the only girl I’ve ever met who isn’t always tying ribbons in her hair.”

“I might if they stayed where I put them,” Elwing replied.

She led the way out of the forest, and once they were out of the trees Eärendil fell into step beside her, prepared to convince her that the next day should be spent out on the bay. But before he could even take a breath to begin, Elwing stopped, cocking her head to listen. “Do you hear that?”

Eärendil halted. “What is it?”

“Music.” Someone was playing the harp, and someone else accompanied them on the flute. After a moment more, Eärendil thought he could hear a drum, too. “Come on!” Elwing seized his hand and, in spite of his protestations, pulled him back along the forest. They skirted the freshly-sown wheat fields, and found half a dozen young elves in a glade, with blankets, and baskets of food and wine. As they approached, one of the girls lifted her voice in song, and a couple of the others jumped up and started to dance - a fast, wild, spinning dance Eärendil didn’t recognize.

Eärendil and Elwing were welcomed with bright smiles and offers of wine. Elwing, to Eärendil’s surprise, smiled as she accepted a cup and sat down. These were Sindar, mostly from Doriath, come out to the forest to celebrate the coming of spring, and all of them were more than happy to have their Princess join them.

“What brings you out to the forest?” one of them asked Eärendil, raising an eyebrow. “We all thought your heart was given to the sea.”

“It is, mostly,” Eärendil replied easily, sipping the sweet berry wine. “But every so often it’s nice to have a change.”

“Is that it? I would have guessed it was something else that drew you away - or, I should say, someone?”

Eärendil rolled his eyes, but said nothing to confirm or deny. His new companion laughed and pulled him to his feet, as someone else urged Elwing to hers. “Hey, wait - ” Eärendil started to protest, but before he could finish the sentence, he and Elwing were caught in the wild circle of dancers, spinning and, in Eärendil’s case, stumbling to keep up. Elwing, face flushed from the wine and eyes sparkling, laughed, and pulled him along, so he had no choice but to learn the steps or fall flat on his face. Fortunately for him, the dance was not complicated - just very fast, and growing faster with each round.

They danced and drank and laughed the whole afternoon away, and were joined by more and more young Sindar, bringing food and wine and their own instruments, as twilight set in. Eärendil soon found himself sitting off to the side, watching the dancing and particularly watching Elwing as she seemed to hold court, discussing serious things in between the laughter and songs, floating from one conversation to another, when she wasn’t swept up in the dancing. She was quiet, but commanded attention whenever she spoke, and when she smiled and laughed it was infectious.

“Yes, you just wanted a change,” said Eärendil’s new friend, Gladir, whose fingers were never idle. He plucked a simple tune on his harp as he grinned at Eärendil. “I see the rumors are true.”

Lovely, more gossip. Eärendil sighed. “What rumors?”

“That your love for Elwing rivals Beren’s for Lúthien.”

Eärendil rolled his eyes again, so hard it almost hurt. The bit about Beren and Lúthien was new. “I doubt that. I don’t think I’d attempt to steal a Silmaril from Morgoth to win Elwing’s hand.” Gladir laughed. “I don’t understand why everyone is so convinced - ”

“It’s obvious, is why,” Gladir interrupted. He strummed a chord on his harp, as the drummers started rapping a quick tempo for another wild dance. Eärendil felt dizzy just watching the dancers leap and spin. He took another gulp of wine. “Perhaps it is so obvious you yourself cannot see it.”

Eärendil decided it was time to change the subject. “Why are all your dances so…fast?” This party was nothing like the stately balls he recalled from Gondolin.

Gladir laughed again. “Have you Noldor forgotten everything from before the Great Journey? These steps are as old as the music we made in Cuiviénen, when we danced to summon good weather or to ensure luck on a hunt. Now we dance for luck and joy in the coming year.” He pulled Eärendil to his feet. “Luck for lovers, too.” And with that, he shoved Eärendil into the spinning circle. Eärendil yelped and stumbled, before someone, laughing, grabbed his hands to pull him along. His world became a blur of dark hair and bright skirts and flickering firelight, and the wine gone to his head, and ancient songs of rich earth and green growing things conjured images of ancient forests and white flowers springing into bloom on the banks of an enchanted river, where reflected stars shimmered like liquid diamonds.

The moon was setting when, at last, Elwing appeared at his side again, taking his cup and frowning at Gladir. “I asked you make sure he didn’t drink too much, Gladir!”

“I’m sorry, princess,” Gladir replied, not sounding sorry at all. “I thought you asked me to make sure his cup stayed full.”

“I don’t mind,” Eärendil said, reaching for his cup, but Elwing handed it to someone else, who raised it in a toast to Eärendil before draining it. “I wanted to finish that…”

“I think it’s time we returned home,” Elwing said, lips twitching. “Good night, Gladir.” Eärendil stumbled just a little as she pulled him away from the fire, as someone opened another bottle of wine.

“Do you do that every spring?” he asked, blinking in the darkness as they passed across the fields, the music fading slowly behind them. It was almost startlingly peaceful, out in the open, with the sound of the sea a distant roar mingling with the drums and flutes, and the crickets. His head felt light, like it wasn’t quite connected to the rest of his body, and just floating along. His feet didn’t seem to want to cooperate, either.

Elwing laughed. Maybe it was the wine (affecting her or him, he wasn’t quite sure), but she seemed far more at ease than Eärendil thought he’d ever seen her. Gone was the tension in her shoulders, and she moved with a dancer’s grace, like the music flowed in her veins instead of blood. “Yes,” she said. “And in the summer, and in the autumn, and on occasion in the winter, too.”

“And they’re all like that?”

She turned to him, eyes sparkling in the moonlight. “Is it too wild for you, Noldo?”

“No!” Eärendil said quickly. “I liked it! I just didn’t realize…”

She laughed again. “You should have seen some of the celebrations of the Green Elves, in Ossiriand, if you think tonight was wild.”

When they returned to the courtyard between their houses, they found Tuor lounging by the fountain, apparently waiting for them, which completely ruined Eärendil’s half-formed, half-coherent plans to possibly try to tell Elwing how lovely he thought she looked in the moonlight. “There you are,” he said to Eärendil as Elwing bid them both goodnight and went inside. “I was wondering…are you drunk?” His eyebrows rose as Eärendil paused, trying to decide whether a denial was necessary. “I think that is a yes.” Tuor looked hard at Eärendil for a moment, before glancing toward the door closing behind Elwing. “Were you two together all evening?”

“There was a party. In the forest,” Eärendil said finally, realizing with sudden (drunken) clarity just how much wine he had consumed. “With music. And dancing. And - um - wine.”

“Obviously, there was wine,” Tuor said dryly. He slung Eärendil’s arm over his shoulders, and together they staggered inside. “You’re lucky your mother’s already in bed.”

“Everyone thinks I’m in love with Elwing,” Eärendil said as they reached his room. He wasn’t quite sure his bed had ever looked so comfortable. “But I’m not.”

“Of course you’re not,” Tuor said. He pushed Eärendil down onto the bed, and set about untying his boots, like he had when Eärendil was very small.

“I just maybe wanna kiss her. A little.”

Tuor laughed. “If you say so, Eärendil.”

“It’s true.”

“Mhmm. Arms up.” Eärendil obediently raised his arms, and Tuor pulled his tunic up over his head, tossing it into the corner. “You don’t feel sick, do you?”

Eärendil had to consider the question for a moment. “Umm…”

“I’ll get a bucket. If you do have to use it, make sure you get it all in the bucket. Cleaning up after yourself will just make you sicker, and it’s a miserable cycle to get caught in.” Eärendil suspected his father spoke from experience, and made a note to ask Voronwë for the relevant stories later, when he could form the question coherently. Tuor disappeared only for a moment, before coming back with a bucket, which he placed right beside the bed. “Good night, Eärendil.”

“Good night, Ada.”

His dreams that night were filled with fire and shadow-dark hair and moonlit grey eyes. But they ended suddenly and painfully, when someone threw open the shutters of his window to let sunshine stream in, bringing terrible pain along with it. Eärendil groaned and rolled over, throwing his arms over his head. He hadn’t felt sick the night before, but his stomach twisted now, and his mouth tasted terrible.

“That’s what you get, when you drink so much,” Idril said, not unkindly, but not very sympathetically, either. Eärendil thought she must have never been drunk in her life, and made a note to ask Voronwë about that, too. “It’s nearly noon.” Eärendil could only respond with another groan. “Elwing was here earlier, asking about you.”

That made Eärendil sit up, although he regretted it almost immediately. “Urgh,” he said.

Idril stood in the center of his room with a frown on her face, hands on her hips. Her scolding stance. “And here I thought, when Voronwë reported you weren’t in any of those ale houses by the docks last night, that we wouldn’t have this problem,” she said. “Where in the world did you go to end up with this kind of hangover?”

“Um, the forest?” Eärendil rubbed his face, wishing he could crawl beneath the blankets again. “There was a party. Sindar. Welcoming spring. Elwing was there, too.”

“I doubt she drank as carelessly as you,” Idril replied. Her face softened, and she leaned down to kiss Eärendil’s forehead. “Your father has a hangover cure in the kitchen for you.”

She swept out of the room, leaving Eärendil to fumble with his clothes, to stumble out a few minutes later with one sock on and his tunic’s laces only half tied. As Idril had said, Tuor was waiting in the kitchen. He pressed cup of some foul-smelling concoction into Eärendil’s hands with a grin. “It tastes as bad as you think,” he said. “Just gulp it down, and I promise you’ll feel better.”

Eärendil made a face, but obeyed, spluttering and coughing as it went down. But he did feel better, marginally. He had no appetite, but Tuor insisted he eat a light meal, and drink a lot of water - which did do a lot to help.

“So,” Tuor said as Eärendil finished eating, “what have we learned?” It was a question Eärendil had heard many times as a child, mostly while being stitched up after some ill-thought-out escapade or another.

“Don’t rely on a Sinda for your drinks,” Eärendil replied, thinking of Gladir and his teasing smile and fingers that were never still.

Tuor snorted. “That wasn’t exactly what I was thinking.”

“Um.” Thinking of last night had conjured images of Elwing smiling and dancing, skirts flaring and eyes sparkling, and Eärendil momentarily forgot what he was supposed to be saying. “Uh.”

“Never mind. I don’t know if you recall vehemently denying having feelings for Lady Elwing last night, but that look on your face tells a completely different story.” Eärendil opened his mouth to protest, but Tuor rose. “If you feel up to it, we’re starting to prepare the lumber for Eärramë today, which I think you’ll find worthwhile.”

“All right.” Eärendil frowned at his plate for a moment, then asked, as Tuor reached the doorway, “Adar?”

“Yes?”

“Why are you going to sail West?”

Tuor didn’t answer for a long time. He stared at the floor, frowning, as he leaned against the door frame. He looked suddenly very tired, the lines of care on his face appearing deeper, the faint streaks of grey in his hair standing out. Finally, he said, “Because we cannot continue to fight this war alone, and the Valar will not come unless someone asks them to.”

“But why does it have to be you?”

“Because no one else is going to. And - well, I was Ulmo’s messenger. That must count for something.”

Eärendil returned to his room to dress properly before heading outside, where he found Elwing in the garden with a book. “Feeling better?” she asked without looking up.

“Much,” he replied, leaning over. “Is that in Quenya?”

“Yes,” she replied, speaking Quenya. “I’ve been studying it since last autumn.” It felt strange to hear the language of the Noldor coming from her. Eärendil blinked as she smiled up at him. Switching back to Sindarin, she added, “Lady Galadriel has been teaching me. She’s also insisted I learn Telerin, but I’m not nearly fluent enough to try using that language in conversation.”

“I’m…surprised,” Eärendil said, frowning. “What about the Ban…?”

Elwing waved a hand. “Celeborn says Thingol decreed that in a fit of anger, but couldn’t retract it later without seeming foolish. Anyway, it was all well and good when Thingol still ruled Doriath, and no one could enter or leave without his permission - ”

“Except Beren,” Eärendil said.

“ - who didn’t know Quenya anyway, but that’s not the point. Doriath is no more, and we’re living here all mixed up, Noldor and Sindar and the Laiquendi and Edain and others, and there just isn’t any point in trying to enforce some ridiculous Ban like that.

“And anyway, there was nothing to do all winter, except learn a new language.”

“Well, I’m glad,” Eärendil said, speaking Quenya himself. It always felt a little strange, since even in Gondolin the everyday language had been Sindarin, but he loved the language of his mother’s people. “I’m going to watch them prepare to start building my parents’ ship. Would you like to come?” He didn’t really expect her to say yes - shipbuilding wasn’t something he thought Elwing would ever have much interest in - but it was worth asking.

As expected, she declined, but reminded Eärendil he’d promised to take her sailing on his own boat. “Maybe tomorrow, if this clear weather holds,” Eärendil said as he left the garden. He raised a hand, and she returned the wave, and if he smiled all the way to the lumber yards - well, it certainly wasn’t because he was in love.

Voronwë greeted him with a wide grin. “I heard you had quite the experience last night,” he said.

“Did you hear it from my mother or my father?” Eärendil asked.

“Tuor. I hope you don’t expect to hear the end of it any time soon.” Voronwë leaned in as they walked over to join Tuor and Annael, whispering loudly, “But it seems you hold your drink far better than your father!” Annael snorted, covering a smile with his hand, as Tuor rolled his eyes, cheeks reddening, before pointedly changing the subject to wood and trees and ships.