By the Margin of the Sea by StarSpray

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Chapter 1

“Now when Eärendil was long time gone Elwing became lonely and afraid; and wandering by the margin of the sea she came near to Alqualonde, where lay the Telerin fleets. There the Teleri befriended her..." --The Silmarillion, "Of the Voyage of Eärendil and the War of Wrath"

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The arguments began almost the moment Valinor (at last, beyond all hope!) appeared in the distance, a dark smudge on the horizon. Eärendil wanted me to stay aboard Vingilot while he went in search of the Valar. I had other ideas.

“I would not have you suffer the wrath of the Valar!”

“But you would have our fates sundered forever?”

“You don’t know - ”

“Neither do you!”

Our shouting echoed off the waves, and I do not think we exchanged a civil word from then until we cast anchor in the Bay of Eldamar, having skirted south of Alqualondë to land on white shores nearer the Calacirya. And the morning we did, Eärendil locked me in our cabin; I woke to the click it made as it shut fast. “Eärendil!” I screamed, pounding on the door until my fists were raw and aching. “Let me out!” I called him all kinds of names that had Erellont blushing when he finally let me out. “He’s already ashore, Elwing,” he began, but I pushed past him, too furious and afraid to bother with courtesy. I raced to the prow of the ship, finding Eärendil pulling the lifeboat onto the white sands. He looked up, and I could see his expression was set: determined, if also sorrowful.

I had never been fond of the sea, but that did not mean I could not swim. Ignoring Aerandir’s cries behind me, I leapt from Vingilot, and for a moment I was not leaping into calm sun-spangled waters from a ship’s bow, but from the cliffs of Sirion into churning, angry waters below. I almost screamed, but hit the warm, clear water with a great splash before I could. I sank swiftly, my makeshift canvas skirts, sewn from scraps of Vingilot’s sails, billowing up around me. A startled school of silver fish scattered in every direction to regroup elsewhere. My bare feet touched the sandy bottom, and I pushed off, kicking up and forward, letting the waves on the surface carry me to the foam-strewn shore.

Eärendil caught me when I stumbled, sputtering and spitting water, onto the beach. “Elwing, are you mad?!” I had never seen him so furious—like his father Tuor, his temper was usually almost nonexistent.

I pushed him away. “You left me! How could you leave me like that?” I glared at him through dripping strands of hair. “How could you—”

“I was trying to protect you!” he snapped. “Because maybe if you hadn’t set foot on the shore—”

“I would have been sundered from you forever,” I said. It was the same argument we had had time and time again, but I was more certain than ever that I was right. For several long moments we just stood there, the waves washing over our feet as we glared at each other. Overhead a gull wheeled.

“I wish you were not so stubborn!” he said finally, turning away. “I suppose it’s no use arguing about it anymore. But I do not think you should come with me to Valmar.”

“No,” I agreed, which made him look back, startled. “It is your task to plead before them for both Elves and Men, not mine. I will await you here.”

He frowned. “I may be gone a long time. Alqualondë is not far, and you have kin there. If I do not find you here when I return, I will seek you there.”

I nodded; I had little desire to be parted from him again, but at least now I knew with certainty it would only be temporary. He handed me a packet of waybread, and after a tense moment he pulled me into his arms, crushing me against his chest. “Be careful,” he said. “There are no orcs here, but…”

“I will.” I hugged him tightly, burying my face in his chest, neither of us caring that I was soaked to the skin and getting him wet, too. But in the end we both let go. It was easier than I thought it would be, but maybe that was because I was used to watching him leave, and used to being on my own. It was how most of our marriage had been spent, after all.

After Eärendil vanished from my sight behind a wooded hill, I turned back toward the water, gazing out over the waves. I didn’t feel bitter. I could not blame him for wanting to find Tuor and Idril. I could blame him even less for feeling like someone needed to find the Valar and convince them, somehow, to help us. I did not have his faith in the Valar, but was our passing through their enchantments not like Beren entering Melian’s Girdle? His had been the footsteps of Doom. I thought Eärendil’s must be also.

Eärendil had left a wineskin in the boat, half-filled with flat, lukewarm water. I took it and wandered into the trees just beyond the beach, thinking there might be a stream somewhere, flowing down from the mountains. I was right. The water was clear and cool and so much sweeter than what was in the wineskin, which had been collected by evaporating seawater—a tedious, ongoing process often interrupted by storms at sea. I dumped that into the dirt and refilled the skin after drinking my fill and bathing my face. It had been far too long since I’d sat on the bank of a clear freshwater stream, beneath the shade of trees. Not since the boys…

I shook my head, refusing to allow my thoughts to travel there. I would not think of Elrond and Elros, or of the others I had left behind in Sirion. I felt I would go mad trying to tally everyone I had lost.

The next few days passed in comfortable solitude, with only gulls and songbirds for company, and no duties or responsibilities to fill my hours. It was high summer, and everything was green and fresh, and I found blackberry brambles with bulging, sweet berries. I stained my fingers and lips purple eating them, grateful for the change from plain waybread. There were mushrooms, too, and other roots and leaves I knew to be good to eat.

But solitude was only pleasant for so long. My thoughts constantly strayed back across the Sea, to Sirion and even beyond, to Doriath. When I could take it no longer, I filled my wineskin to the brim and set off down the beach, in the direction of Alqualondë. Vingilot had disappeared; I imagined they had sailed around the other side of Tol Eressëa, or somewhere Aerandir and Falathar could cast their nets for fish. Perhaps I should have worried more about them, but they had spent years at a time at sea with Eärendil and I knew they would be all right, though they must have sorely wanted to set foot on dry land again.

It was easy to lose track of time. Most afternoons I slept, dozing in the shade or sometimes in the sun. At night I climbed one of the trees just beyond the beach, huddling in its branches and jumping at every noise or glimmer of movement in the shadows. All my life I had lived in fear of the night, and even the knowledge that there were no orcs in Valinor did not put me at ease. It only made me wonder what else might be lurking out there—which was, of course, ridiculous when I thought about it in the daylight, but still…

One afternoon, aching with weariness, I started to find brightly colored, translucent pebbles scattered through the white sand. I picked one up, finding it to be a ruby, worn smooth by many long years of being beaten by the waves. Galadriel had told me once of the rainbow beaches of Alqualondë, how the Noldor had gifted the Teleri with more gemstones than they could possibly find use for, and so they had scattered them on the beach for everyone to enjoy, to glitter in the Tree-light that passed over the Calacirya, and the starlight that still shone over the sea. She had described it a little reluctantly, when I had asked about Alqualondë during one of our earliest lessons in the Telerin language. There had been only a little wistfulness in her voice. I remembered asking if she was homesick for her mother’s city. Galadriel had shaken her head. “No,” she had said. “Nor am I homesick for Tirion. I had my own reasons for coming to Middle-earth, and I do not yet regret it. I am not sure I ever will.” And then she had turned the discussion back to verb conjugation.

Slowly, the gemstones on the beach grew more abundant, and the sun rose high and hot in the cloudless sky. The forests gave way to grassy dunes, and rocky hills. Once or twice rock outcroppings stretched into the sea, and I found tide pools filled with life—mussels and starfish, and prickly anemones, brightly colored like the gems in the sand.

As I watched a gull nearby try to break open an anemone, I heard laughter coming from father up the beach, on the other side of the rocks that obscured my view. It was a child’s laughter, and the sound hit me like a slap to the face. For half a moment it seemed as though Elrond or Elros would come running around the bend, covered in sand and wearing a big, beautiful grin…

But it was not a boy that appeared but a girl, older than my boys, but not by much. She was smiling, and her legs were caked with sand up to her knees, her bright silver hair bound out of her face in braids tied with bright blue ribbons. When she saw me, the girl halted, smile vanishing to be replaced by an expression of surprise. I could only imagine what I looked like—I had not seen a mirror since I left Sirion.

The girl turned to call over her shoulder, and was soon joined by an older boy, his hair a pale gold, who moved just a little oddly, as though he was not quite used to his body. He nearly tripped over the girl when he spotted me; I could see the resemblance between them, both no doubt Teleri of Alqualondë. The boy strode forward after a moment, and greeted me courteously enough, and asked whether I was in need of help.

I knew their language, its strange mixture of my own language and Quenya, but the words felt suddenly clumsy on my tongue. “Can you tell me how far it is to Alqualondë?” I asked.

“Not far at all,” said the boy. He glanced briefly over his shoulder at the sound of a woman calling. “Are you all right?” he asked me, eying my clothes.

Before I could decide whether to answer honestly or not, the woman I had heard calling appeared, looking both worried and annoyed. “Ellindo, Isilmë,” she exclaimed, “what have I told you about keeping in sight?”

“Amil, there is a lady,” the girl, Isilmë, said, pointing to me. The woman, her hair as silver as her daughter’s, looked up at me, eyes widening only for a moment before narrowing warily. I slid off of my rock, trying not to wince as my feet hit the sand, and finding it very difficult to look the woman in the face. Her resemblance to my mother was astonishing—at least at first glance. Nimloth’s eyes had been green, not blue, and had not been filled with that strange fire I had always associated with the Noldor who came from Aman. But she wore pearls around her neck, just like my mother—although she had more, and they were strung together with silver and turquoise.

“Where have you come from?” asked the woman. She swept her gaze over my appearance, frowning. “I do not believe we have met.”

“We have not,” I said. “I come from—well.” I hesitated. “I come from the east.”

“From Tol Eressëa?” Isilmë asked, peering at me curiously from behind her mother’s skirts. “But no one lives there!”

“No, not Eressëa—from Endor,” I said. All three of their jaws dropped.

“Are you one of the Exiles, then?” asked the boy, taking a few steps backward.

It was my turn to stare. “Me, a Noldo?” I had never been mistaken for a Noldo before, and I could not help but feel a little bit insulted.

“Well they are they only ones who went back,” said the boy.

His mother glanced at him reproachfully. “There are others who never completed the Journey, Ellindo,” she said. “Including your own kin.” He looked down, abashed. “Run back home, both of you, and tell your grandparents we’ve a guest. But say nothing of it to anyone else! We do not need the whole city crumbling beneath the weight of rumors.” With one more glance at me, the children obeyed, Isilmë grasping her brother’s hand as they dashed away around the rocks.

Their mother turned her gaze back to me as she removed her cloak. “Here,” she said, handing it out to me. “Forgive me, but your appearance is bound to draw attention…”

“I understand.” I accepted the cloak gratefully. “I must look frightful.”

Her lips twitched in a smile. Up close I could see scars on her arms, not quite completely faded. I had seen many scars like that—from a sword. “I took you for a Noldo at first glance as well,” she said. “There are not many dark heads among the Lindar.”

“There are plenty among those who remained behind,” I said, wrapping the cloak around me. It was light and soft and clean—the first properly clean garment I’d worn in ages.

“You were on that ship, weren’t you? The one we saw enter the bay a few days ago—it shone like a star fallen from the heavens; no one knows what to make of it.” I nodded. “But how did you pass through the Valar’s enchantments? It is said to be impossible.”

“That is a long tale,” I said, looking away from her face, the vision of Sirion in flames rising in my mind again. “But did you say—are you going to take me to the palace? Olwë’s palace?”

She smiled kindly. “Yes. Olwë is my father; I am Ëassalmë, and those were my children Ellindo and Isilmë. I think my father will be eager to meet you, especially if you are of our kindred.”

I was more than just a member of the same clan, but I did not say that. I followed Ëassalmë around the rocks, but had to halt, my breath taken away by the city sprawled out before me, reaching up into the hills, and gleaming with pearls and marble and mother-of-pearl in the bright sunlight. Ships and smaller boats filled the bay, and the sound of singing reached us, echoing off the water.

It was so much larger than Sirion—larger even, I thought, than Menegroth. At least the Menegroth I had known. And yet there were almost no fortifications! The walls were all-but decorative, and even from where I stood I could see that the gates stood wide open. If there were to be an attack the city would be overwhelmed immediately…

“Are you well?” Ëassalmë asked, glancing over her shoulder at me.

“I—yes? It’s just. The city. It’s beautiful.” And so vulnerable. In the back of my mind I was already thinking of ways it could be better protected, thinking of how high the walls needed to be, and what measures could be taken in the harbor…

I took a deep breath and stopped myself. There was no need. There were no orcs here—there never had been—and the kinslayers had long ago passed over the sea...

Unaware of my thoughts, Ëassalmë smiled. “Yes, it is. Come.” She took my hand. “I just realized—what is your name?”

“Elwing,” I said. “My name is Elwing.” If she noticed I did not name my parentage, Ëassalmë said nothing. But she would not have recognized the name Dior anyway.

We passed through the city mostly unnoticed. I received a few curious glances, and Ëassalmë paused often to wave or return greetings from people she knew. It was a little odd not to be doing the same; every time I walked through Sirion people had stopped me, to ask me to settle disputes, to show me the fruits of their labor, or simply to say hello.

Even so, we reached the palace quickly, passing through the wide streets often strung with colored lamps, unlit in the middle of the day, but reflecting the sunlight and throwing splashes of color onto the ground and the buildings. Everyone was dressed in bright colors and many were adorned with pearls. Laughter and music filled the air—singing, harps, flutes, drums, and other instruments I did not recognize all mingled together in what one would think would have been a discordant cacophony, for they almost all played a different song, but it all mingled in a strange yet beautiful harmony. All around me were smiles, yet all I wanted to do was cry.

This was what Eglador must have once been like, before growing danger had meant the building of Menegroth and the establishment of Melian’s Girdle. My grandmother had told me stories of the woodland kingdom by the Esgalduin where people sang and danced and hunted under the stars, without the fear that had colored almost my entire life. Only on Tol Galen had there been such fearless joy, and that only because Beren and Lúthien dwelled there, and no one dared assail Lúthien who had sung towers to the ground and Morgoth himself to sleep, or Beren son of Barahir who had been the terror of all the Enemy’s servants in Dorthonion.

The palace was a sprawling thing, all wide open windows and silken curtains billowing gently in the sea breeze. There were beautiful mosaics on the floors and embroidered banners hanging from the walls and ceilings, all inlaid with yet more pearls and mother-of-pearl, though I could see definite Noldorin style in the architecture, which included more colored gems than I think the Lindar would have thought to use if left to their own devices. But even the Noldorin style was strange to me, for I had only ever seen their fortresses and high walls, built with an eye for beauty (as was everything made by Elves) but for the purposes of war. Alqualondë had been built in a time when there was no war, when there was not even the glimmer of thought of war.

Isilmë greeted us and led the way to a room that had apparently been swiftly prepared for me. Another woman was there, who Ëassalmë greeted as her mother, and who introduced herself to me as Lalindil, the wife of Olwë. I started to curtsy, but wobbled, too weary to do it properly, and she grasped my arm gently to stop me. “There is no need for that,” she said kindly. “A bath has been drawn for you, and clean clothes found. Take your ease. There will be time enough for questions and stories.”

“Thank you,” I said as Ëassalmë ushered Isilmë away. Lalindil just smiled at me again before following them.

Before I got into the bath I looked at myself in the mirror, and could not help but cringe at what I saw. My skin was red with sunburn, and peeling over my nose and on my shoulders. It did not hurt at the moment, but I knew it would. My hair was a limp, matted mess, and I was crusted from head to toe with sand and salt.

It was with relief that I stepped into the tub of steaming water. I winced as it washed over my sun burnt shoulders, but showed myself no mercy in scrubbing away the layers of grime. It was worth the stinging pain to feel properly clean again. I even managed to wash and untangle my hair.

At least when I met King Olwë I would only be red and peeling, instead of appearing like a wild woman who had never even seen soap.

When the water cooled I returned to the adjoining bed chamber to examine the dresses—all made of feather-light fabric and with none of the ties and laces common among the Noldor and Sindar of Beleriand—when Isilmë returned. She smiled at me when I turned to her. “Grandmother sent me with this,” she said, holding out a bottle of some kind of lotion. “It will ease your sunburn,” she said when I took it, “and stop your skin from peeling off.”

“Thank you,” I said.

She peered up at me. “Are you really a Elf?” she asked.

I blinked. “Why do you ask that?”

“I don’t know. You seem…different. You remind me of Olórin, a little bit.”

I set the bottle down and picked up one of the dresses—the yellow one, rather than one of the blue ones. I avoided wearing blue when I could; it tended to make people talk to me of Lúthien. “I do not know Olórin. Is he not an Elf?”

Isilmë giggled. “Of course not! He is a Maia.”

Ah. “I see.” I walked to the mirror and examined myself. The dress had very loose sleeves that only reached my elbows, and a neckline lower than I was used to. It was so light I hardly felt like I was wearing clothing at all. I peered closely at my face. Was there really something of a Maia about me? I believed it no more than I believed those in Sirion liked to tell me how much I resembled Lúthien. But there were things in me more Mannish than Elvish; perhaps that was what Isilmë saw, and having no knowledge of Men simply confused it with the only other beings she knew.

“Will you be joining us for dinner?” Isilmë asked. She had climbed onto the bed, heedless, I suspected, of instructions to leave me in peace she had no doubt received from her mother and grandmother. “Grandmother said you would want to rest.”

“Actually, I think I would welcome company,” I said, turning around. “I decided to come to Alqualondë because I was lonely, after all.”

“But aren’t you tired?”

“A little bit. But I feel much refreshed after my bath.” I picked up the bottle of lotion, and shrugged off the shoulders of my gown to apply it. Immediately my skin felt cooled and soothed, the itchy pain easing.

“That’s good. Grandfather Olwë is very eager to meet you. When I left them he was talking about his brother Elmo, who stayed behind.”

I winced. Elmo and his wife Elunis had both died long before I was born, in the First Battle of Beleriand, and their son Galadhon and his wife, my grandparents, had been killed not long after the founding of Nargothrond—again, long before I was born. I did not look forward to telling Olwë that. Or of what happened to Thingol.

Isilmë led the way to the small, private dining room where Olwë stood by the window, speaking with Lalindil and a woman I had not yet met. But when she turned I could not help but stop and stare, because she looked so much like Galadriel—almost the exact same face, though her eyes were bluer and less piercing, and she did not stand quite as tall. She had to be Ëarwen…

And in Olwë I saw some of Celeborn’s features, and maybe even bits of my father. It was so strange, and I wondered if there were pieces of me they could recognize as well.

There must have been, because Olwë inhaled sharply, and before I could say anything he had crossed the room and pulled me into his arms, into the sort of embrace I had not known since my father died. And then it seemed everyone was crying, and I was, after a fashion, being welcomed home.