Where the Ocean Meets the Sky and the Land by StarSpray

Chapter 1

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Take me where the angels are close at hand
Take me where the ocean meets the sky and the land
Show me to the wisdom of the evening star
There's only one way to mend a broken heart

- The Wailin' Jennys, "Beautiful Dawn"

 

They arrived in Tirion around sunset. The streets were emptying as the carriage trundled through them. Elwing gazed out the window at mothers leaning out of doorways and windows, calling to children who came scurrying home, dusty and giggling and often sporting scraped knees or elbows.

It was eerily reminiscent of home, except these were Elven children, and there had been precious few of those in Sirion—most of the children who raced up and down the muddy streets there had been the children of Men, dressed in little more than stained, patched rags, and here in Tirion Elwing wasn’t sure there had ever been mud in the streets, or any child reduced to ragged hand-me-downs that had been patched and repaired so often there was hardly any original fabric left.

There was also no mud in Tirion that Elwing could see. There hadn’t been any in Alqualondë, either, although at least there there was a perpetual dusting of many-colored sand.

She did see many fountains, their spray catching the deep golden light of the sunset, so that it seemed like the fountains were flowing with liquid gold instead of clear water.

“I am glad you agreed to come with me,” Ëarwen said, smiling at Elwing from across the carriage. “Arafinwë is eager to meet you.”

Elwing leaned back against the cushioned seat. Riding in a carriage was still a strange and new experience, and not a particularly comfortable one. She hated the jostling and bumping, and missed the feel of wind in her hair; it was too much like being stuck in the cabin of Vingilot when she would have preferred to be on deck. “I only hope I will not make a fool of myself,” she said.

“You won’t,” Ëarwen said. “You are more familiar with the Noldor than I was when I first visited Tirion.”

Yes, Elwing thought, but the Noldor she had known were a people beaten down and hardened by constant war and innumerable loss. She could not imagine that Arafinwë would be much like Gil-galad, or even Idril, for all that they were kin. She even had difficulty sometimes remembering that Ëarwen was Galadriel’s own mother.

Although that was, perhaps, because she’d met and gotten to know Ëarwen as an adult, while she’d always seen Galadriel as someone far older, an authority, if not a mother-figure.

Twilight was beginning to drift over the city as the carriage rolled to a halt in front of the palace. Elwing had been awestruck in Alqualondë by the gorgeous, airy expanse of Olwë’s palace, but even that did not compare to the magnificence of the royal palace of the Noldor. It was tall—perhaps taller—than the cliffs on which Elwing’s home in Sirion had been built, made of marble and granite carved with ornate and intricate detail. “Oh,” she said faintly, stepping out of the carriage behind Ëarwen.

Ëarwen glanced at her, and then at the palace. “Yes,” she said, “and if you can believe it, there are those who don’t consider it finished—the Noldor aren’t a people to leave well enough alone. But no one’s added anything since Finwë left for Formenos.”

“I…see.” Elwing trailed behind Ëarwen, struggling not to gape like a fish at everything around her.

The floors of Olwë’s palace were pieces of art in themselves, colorful mosaics depicting the Great Journey, Tol Eressëa moving like a great ship across the Sea, or colorful underwater landscapes. Here in Tirion they were plain stone, polished by thousands of steps passing over through the years.

It was eerily empty now, however. Arafinwë had only just arrived back from Valmar, and Ëarwen had said that the rest of his court—only a fraction of what had gathered here under Finwë, or even Fingolfin—would continue to trickle back to Tirion over the next few weeks.

That meant that Elwing would have time to rest and prepare herself a little better before facing any large Noldorin gatherings. She’d attended open court on Balar a few times, but she doubted that was anything like what she would see here in Tirion.

After half a dozen turns and several flights of stairs that left Elwing feeling dizzy and hopelessly lost, Ëarwen stopped in front of a door, looking suddenly bashful. “I asked for Turukáno and Elenwë’s rooms to be readied for you,” she said. “Itarillë was still in the nursery, before they left, or else I would have given you her rooms. But I did not want to put you in the guest quarters, far from the family. I hope you don’t mind.”

Staying in a suite that had once belonged to the High King of the Noldor in Beleriand was unexpectedly intimidating, but Elwing pushed that down and summoned a smile. “Of course,” she said. “Thank you.”

Ëarwen smiled, and pushed the doors open. “If you need anything,” she said, “just ring this bell.” She gestured to a cord near the door, though they both knew that Elwing would avoid using it. She’d not had servants to help her dress or do her hair in Sirion—Galadriel had done her hair up sometimes, when she needed to appear in some kind of official or celebratory capacity, but everything in Middle-earth had been designed for simplicity and speed. And those habits had not been broken by a mere few months in Alqualondë. “And do not hesitate to send for me,” Ëarwen added.

“Thank you,” Elwing said again, as Ëarwen ducked out the door, closing it with a soft click behind her.

Elwing turned in a slow circle, taking in the suite. It was no doubt considered small, and hardly opulent, by the standards of Tirion, and it seemed smaller than her room in Alqualondë, though Elwing wasn’t quite sure that it actually was—everything in Alqualondë seemed bigger because it was all so open. These rooms were cozy, though, and furnished tastefully and simply, with bookcases filled to the brim nestled among comfortable chairs and lounges around the hearth, and a door standing ajar leading to a similarly furnished bedroom.

Her things had been brought inside ahead of her, the trunk of Telerin make, fashioned from pale driftwood, looking distinctly out of place among the darker wood furnishings. Elwing pulled out a fresh gown, and ran a comb through her hair, finishing just as a servant entered the sitting room. “My lady, the king wishes me to extend an invitation to dine with him and the queen this evening, if you are not too weary after your journey.”

Elwing paused in reaching for a tie to pull her hair back from her face. “I would like that,” she said. Better to meet Arafinwë sooner rather than later, she thought. “Just give me a moment.” The servant ducked her head and waited patiently as Elwing took a little more care in tying her hair back than she’d originally thought to.

The servant led Elwing through a few more hallways and down a short flight of stairs to the small, intimate dining room where Ëarwen waited with a tall, golden-haired man with broad shoulders who could only be Arafinwë. He had Gil-galad’s smile, and Galadriel’s eyes, though his gaze was not quite so piercing. His hands engulfed Elwing’s when he extended them in greeting, welcoming her warmly to Tirion, and to his home. “My sister Findis will be joining us soon,” he said. “But we shall spare you her brood tonight.”

“Oh,” Elwing said after a slight pause, unsure of the polite response. “Thank you.”

“Five children, all born after the Sun first rose,” Ëarwen added, shaking her head fondly. “The youngest—twins—are only ten, and already Findis and Túrandil are talking of more.”

Elwing waited until Arafinwë finished pouring the wine before remarking, “I knew women in Sirion who had a dozen children. One woman I knew birthed fifteen.”

“Goodness,” said a voice from the doorway. A woman, tall as Arafinwë, but with hair the color of bronze rather than gold, swept into the room. She could only be Findis. “You must be Lady Elwing,” she said, taking a seat beside Ëarwen, who took up the wine carafe to fill her glass. “Who in the Outer Lands is birthing dozens of children? I thought you were all at war.”

“We are at war,” Elwing said. “The women I spoke of are not Elves, though, but of the race of Men.” That appeared to startle everyone—more than Elwing would have expected. “It isn’t uncommon at all for Men to have large families.”

“I wouldn’t have thought it possible,” Findis said as servants entered to serve them. Elwing had not had a meal without fish since leaving Sirion, and it all looked and smelled delicious. “And they have such short lives, do they not?”

“Yes…” Elwing realized suddenly that she had no idea what the Elves of Valinor knew of the Secondborn, or what they thought of them. But this was hardly the setting to find out, and something undefinable about the way Findis spoke of Men made Elwing want to squirm like a child.

Ëarwen seemed to sense this, and turned the conversation to other, more benign topics—the weather, the festival in Valmar, Findis’ children, and what the harvests looked like. There was a slight tension in the air that Elwing could not quite identify, except that she did not seem to be the cause. Arafinwë spoke little, apparently preferring to listen to Findis and Ëarwen—and Elwing, though she kept quiet as well. There was not much she could say on the topic of their harvests, after all, and her opinions of the weather were confined to Alqualondë.

After the meal, Elwing pleaded weariness when invited to Findis’ parlor to continue the conversation, and Arafinwë offered to walk her back to her rooms. Elwing accepted gratefully. “I’m afraid I’m going to need an escort everywhere,” she said as they walked together down the hall. “Your palace is a maze.”

“It can seem that way,” Arafinwë agreed, mouth turning up in a wry smile. “I hope you will visit often enough to get used to it.”

Elwing smiled, but didn’t comment one way or the other, not wanting to make promises she would regret later, if she came to dislike Tirion with its vaulted towers and strange statues.

As they walked, Arafinwë pointed out tapestries and statues, explaining briefly what they depicted, and who had made them—Míriel, Finwë’s first wife, was responsible for many of the most beautiful tapestries and pieces of needlework in Tirion, and they paused before one that depicted the first waking of the Elves by Cuiviénen.

There had been a similar one in the hallway outside of Elwing’s nursery in Menegroth. It was one of the few things she remembered clearly about her days there. Melian’s work had not depicted the first waking, though, as Míriel’s did. In Melian’s tapestry the Elves had been dancing, hands raised toward the stars, heads thrown back, joy evident in every stitch. Elwing and her brothers had mimicked the dancers, spinning in circles until they were so dizzy they couldn’t stand and could hardly breathe for laughing.

Elwing hadn’t thought of Eluréd and Elurín in years. As she bid Arafinwë goodnight, she wondered how things would have been different if they had survived, if they had come down Sirion to the Sea with her. And then she shook her head. “Don’t be foolish,” she muttered, going to change for bed. Maybe it was the wine—sweet and light, but more potent than she’d thought, and it was making her maudlin and silly. She knew better than to dwell on maybes and what-ifs.

Before finally falling into bed, Elwing opened the window and leaned out over the sill, inhaling fresh, cool air that held no hint of the Sea. Somewhere an owl hooted quietly, and she could hear crickets chirping to each other in the garden below. Tirion was quiet that night, too few of its inhabitants returned from Valmar for there to be much nightlife, and it was strange to hear such silence. There seemed a void where there should have been the steady rush and retreat of waves on the sand. She’d spent so many years hating the Sea and yearning for the forests of her childhood, Elwing was surprised to find herself missing it now.

But at least the stars were the same. Eärendil could be seen already high in the sky. He’d only been gone a few weeks, but she missed him desperately—though it was easier to bear, this time. She could see him each night, and she knew he would come to no harm. “Good night, love,” she whispered, and retreated to bed.

Chapter 2

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The next morning it was not Ëarwen who came to fetch Elwing from her room, but a young woman, barely out of adolescence, with golden hair and a bright smile. “I am Áralossë, daughter of Findis,” she said. “Amil and my aunt and uncle are meeting with an emissary from the Valar this morning, and Aunt Ëarwen has my sister and me asked me to show you around Tirion, if you wish.”

“Oh,” Elwing said. “That would be lovely, thank you.”

Áralossë’s sister Elencalimë met them outside on the street, bouncing on the balls of her feet, clearly eager to be off. Unlike her sister, Elencalimë bore the striking dark hair and grey eyes common among the Noldor; under other circumstances, had Elwing not known better, she might have mistaken Elencalimë for Gil-galad’s sister. “There is a bakery just down the hill,” she told Elwing, “with the best fruit-filled pastries in Valinor. Mm, I can smell them from here!” She seized Elwing and Áralossë’s hands and dragged them along behind her, continuing to chatter about blueberries and apples and other fruits that Elwing did not know.

They ate while walking through the streets lined with shops and homes, filling up steadily as folk trickled back into the city. “The city is still emptier than it once was,” Áralossë said as they paused to admire a fountain in one of the smaller squares, which featured a statue of dancing Nessa, arms stretching toward the sky. “There are whole sections of Tirion that stand completely empty, and have since the Exiles departed.”

Elencalimë stuck a strawberry-covered thumb in her mouth before asking Elwing, “Did your people ever build great cities in the Outer Lands?”

“Well, yes.” And so Elwing found herself describing Menegroth as best she could—its pillars carved like great beeches, its silver fountains, the tapestries that graced the halls of the thousand halls delved into the hillside by the Esgalduin. And then she had to try to describe Dwarves, which neither Áralossë nor Elencalimë had ever heard of. The best Elwing could offer of them was that they were short, bearded, fierce in battle, and greatly skilled in metalwork and the sculpting of stone. “I’ve never met any,” Elwing said, “and what friendship there was between the Sindar and the Naugrim is no more. But many of the Noldor were great friends with them. It was the Dwarves who gave your cousin Findaráto the name Felagund, when they helped him fashion his city Nargothrond after the manner of Menegroth.”

“You know, our friend Airelossë would love to meet you,” Elencalimë said, as they passed the fountain by and turned down another street that contained at least one forge, judging by the sharp smell of heated metal.

“Is she interested in caves?” Elwing asked.

“Oh, no—at least, I don’t think so. But she’s been studying the origins of our language, and how different changes happened to Telerin as opposed to Quenya, and it all gets very technical when she talks about it.” Elencalimë shrugged, grinning. “And now here you are, with yet another language she can study—and you speak Quenya already, unlike whoever she might find in Lórien.”

“Who’s in Lórien?” Elwing asked.

“Eldar who never finished the Great Journey have started to return out of Mandos,” Áralossë said. “One of the first was Lady Elunis, Queen Lúnamírë’s mother; she appeared a few decades ago, when Elencalimë was very small. Airelossë spent most of our time in Valmar trying to get up the courage to ask for an audience.” She paused. “Well, Queen Elunis, maybe? She was Elmo’s wife, and he was the leader the Teleri took who stayed behind…”

Elwing shook her head. “Elunis was never a queen, nor Elmo a king,” she said. The sisters gave her matching looks of confusion. “Surely it is known by now that they found Elwë?”

“Not that we’ve heard,” Áralossë said, “but then, we’ve never asked.”

“He was my great-grandfather,” Elwing said. “He…” She trailed off as they paused beneath a tree, and a nightingale alighted on a branch just over their heads. She smiled at it, but although it peered down at her with a bright, beady eye, it trilled no greeting. Elwing’s smile faded; she’d never been met with silence from a nightingale.

Elencalimë followed her gaze. “What’s the matter?” she asked.

“Why isn’t she singing?” Elwing stepped forward and raised her hands. The nightingale hopped from the branch onto her fingers, and started preening its wings.

The sisters exchanged a glance. “I don’t know,” Áralossë said after a moment, sounding uncertain. “Perhaps she is ill?”

“No, that’s not it,” Elwing murmured. She ran her fingers lightly over the nightingale’s downy head. “Is there a place in Tirion where it is common to find nightingales?”

“In the gardens at the palace, in the evenings, I suppose,” Elencalimë said. “Though I can’t recall seeing them recently.”

“I’m sure there is someone you can ask,” Áralossë added. “But why are you so concerned? It’s only one bird.”

The nightingale took off, fluttering away southward over the rooftops, still eerily silent, until it shrank to a dot in the sky, and then vanished altogether. Elwing watched it go, sure without knowing why that it was not only that one bird, that there was something wrong with the nightingales in this land.

Valinor was supposed to be a place of safety, of healing, of peace. So how could it be that Melian’s nightingales filled war-torn, ragged Beleriand with their music, but not this so-called Blessed Realm?

That evening, Elwing slipped out into the starlit gardens, and found a handful of nightingales clustered on the branches of one of the blossoming cherry trees. Elwing stood beneath them, and for several minutes they stared at each other, the silence eerie.

Nightingales had filled Elwing’s early childhood, on golden-green Tol Galen where their music was echoed in Lúthien’s laughter, and in the waters of the Lamath Lanthir. They’d followed her southward along the muddy banks of Sirion, and if they avoided the coast, she’d not had to go very far inland to find them. Since she’d flown to Vingilot, there had been so much else to think about that Elwing hadn’t realized how much she missed songbirds—all of them, but most especially the nightingales.

“There you are.” Ëarwen found Elwing just as she managed to coax one of the birds from the tree onto her palm. Ëarwen raised her eyebrows at the sight. “Elencalimë mentioned your concern,” she said. “Have you coaxed a song out of them, yet?”

“No.” Elwing frowned down at the little bird, nestled in her hand as though it intended to nest there. “Do you know what’s wrong with them?”

Ëarwen shook her head. “Arafinwë says he’s not even seen nightingales in Tirion in years.” She stepped up beside Elwing, making the nightingales in the tree fly to a higher branch. “You’ve a particular liking for these birds?”

“It’s rather the other way around,” Elwing said. “My foremother Melian taught them to sing, long ago, and they followed her when she left Valinor for Middle-earth after the Elves awoke. I think they recognize a little bit of her in me, maybe.” But not enough to sing for her—maybe that was to be expected. She was only a lesser daughter of much greater mothers. She could feel Ëarwen’s gaze on her, but kept her own eyes on the nightingale in her palm, a sudden thought entering her mind. Melian had vanished from Middle-earth after Thingol’s death. Elwing had never given it much thought, beyond the fact that she was gone like everyone else. But what if she had come back here, to Valinor, to Lórien where she had dwelled long ages before the Elves had woken?

Then Ëarwen laughed, softly—and for a moment Elwing was startled into thinking that Galadriel had somehow crossed the Sea to join her in Tirion. But when she looked up it was only Ëarwen, her silver hair gleaming softly in the dying light of the evening. “You are full of surprises, cousin,” she said. “Come inside. The Valar have made an important announcement, and I think you will want to be part of the discussion.”

“They are going to war, aren’t they?” Elwing asked. She let the nightingale flutter back up to join his friends. “They’re going to deal with Morgoth, as they should have long ago.”

“Well, yes, but there will be a host of Elves marching with them,” Ëarwen said. She looped her arm through Elwing’s as they walked back toward the palace. “The Vanyar are already preparing, and it seems that Arafinwë will be leading a host of the Noldor with them.”

Elwing blinked. “Oh.”

Dinner was a similar affair to breakfast, with the added addition of Ingwion and his son Lalion, and the conversation centered around weaponry—swords and spears, and armor that the smiths of the Noldor would need to begin crafting in earnest. It should have been reassuring, Elwing thought, but mostly it was just disturbing—hearing them speak of warfare as though it were a particularly challenging hunting excursion.

She remained quiet throughout the meal, but when she was left alone in her room, Elwing set about exploring the desk that stood in the corner by a wide window overlooking the gardens. As Eärendil ascended into the sky, Elwing pulled out a handful of paper, and some graphite sticks. She had a good memory for images, and had spent so many years staring at maps that she was certain she could recreate one of reasonable use for Arafinwë and Ingwion.

It took most of the night; Elwing was out of practice when it came to drawing. There had been little use for it in Sirion, and paper had been a scarce and precious commodity. But finally she produced a map of Beleriand that matched the one in her mind. Elwing went to bed with grey-smudged fingers and a feeling of satisfaction that drowned out, for the time being, her other worries.

She overslept the next morning, not waking until the sun had already climbed high into the sky. Someone had come and left a basket of fruit and gone again. Elwing examined the contents, familiar by now with most fruit that grew in Aman, but in the end she chose a familiar apple, before going back to the desk. The map was where she’d left it, and even in the light of day she was pleased with the result. The lines needed to be redone in ink, rather than graphite, but someone else with more skill could do that.

A servant cheerfully told Elwing where she could find Arafinwë, but by the time she found the right patio, he’d disappeared. Lalion was there, though, legs stretched out and crossed at the ankles, head tilted back and eyes closed against the sun. There were three goblets and a carafe on the table next to him, as well as scattered bits of paper and parchment, held in place with inkwells and some of the rocks from the garden paths. He opened his eyes upon hearing Elwing step outside, and rose to bow. “My Lady Elwing,” he said, “good morning.”

“Good morning. I’m sorry if I’ve disturbed you…”

“Oh, no.” Lalion smiled, and pulled out a seat for her. As Elwing sat, a servant appeared seemingly out of nowhere with an extra goblet, and a large bowl of blackberries. “Arafinwë was called away to do—something, I forget what—and my father went with him. They’ll be back shortly, if you were hoping to speak with them.”

Elwing glanced over the papers. They looked like lists, although she wasn’t fluent enough in written Quenya to know exactly what they were for. “Actually, I just thought this might be helpful.” She set the map on the table, and unrolled it so Lalion could see.

His eyes widened as he leaned forward to examine it. “This is wonderful! Did you draw this?”

“Yes.”

“From memory?”

“If you’d spent as many hours staring at maps as I have, you might be able to recreate one, too.”

Lalion laughed. “I couldn’t. I can hardly write legibly, let alone draw with any precision. But thank you, Lady Elwing. This will be most helpful, I’m sure.”

“I hope so.” Elwing rose, as Arafinwë and Ingwion returned. “I will leave you to your planning, then. My lords.”

She went to look for Ëarwen, but was found by Elencalimë first. “I was thinking going riding,” the princess said, “would you like to come? The woods outside Tirion are beautiful this time of year.”

Elwing blinked. “I can’t,” she said. She’d only ridden a horse once in her life—on the journey from Ossiriand to Doriath, and that was with her mother’s arms locked securely around her to make sure she didn’t fall. After—well, there hadn’t been time or opportunity to fetch horses when they’d fled Doriath, and then there’d never been a need to learn, for there was nowhere to go, once you came to Sirion.

If her ignorance surprised Elencalimë, she didn’t show it. “Then would you like to go walking? I just want to get out of the city for a while, see real trees.”

The thought of returning to the forest—any forest—where everything was tinged with green as the sunlight filtered through thick canopies, where there was nothing to drown out the birdsong in the deep, cool shade and everything smelled of earth and leaf mold— “I would love to.”

A nightingale followed them as they made their way through Tirion, flitting silently from tree to bush to statue. Elwing found herself watching it, only half listening to Elencalimë pointing out shops and landmarks they hadn’t seen the day before.

When they stepped out of Tirion, its walls finally at their back, and a bright verdant landscape stretching out in front of them—woods and fields and meadows all untouched by war or drought or trouble—Elwing held out her hand, and the nightingale immediately alighted on her palm. It preened its wing for a moment before looking up at her and trilling a few notes of greeting. Something eased in Elwing’s chest, and she smiled.

Chapter 3

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Elwing had never been plagued by boredom before. She’d had to sit through dull lessons and dinners and meetings—but they’d never lasted more than a few hours, and in Sirion there had always been something to worry about, something to do. She’d been glad for snatches of time when she could sit and breathe for a time without doing anything.

In Tirion, though, it seemed all she had was time to sit and breathe. There were no real demands on her time at all, and the lack of anything to worry about paradoxically made her increasingly anxious. She was reminded of the bitter stories told by some of the Gondolindrim, how they had trusted so completely in their hidden city that when the Enemy had finally come they’d been caught off guard and utterly unprepared. It felt like that was happening in Tirion—except she knew it was different, knew there was no Enemy to fear, not here.

However, knowing did not, unfortunately, make her feel any better.

Ëarwen was the first to notice Elwing’s discomfort, and her solution was almost absurdly simple: “No one is forcing you to stay in Tirion. Why not see for yourself that there are no orc hordes hiding in the hills?” She leaned against the door leading out to the balcony where Elwing had retreated, looking amused. “I can tell you don’t like Tirion.”

“I don’t…dislike Tirion,” Elwing protested. Ëarwen laughed. “I suppose I just feel as though I should be doing something.”

“I can’t imagine what it must be like in the Outer Lands, then; you make it sound as though you’ve never had time for leisure.” Ëarwen sobered as she came to sit beside Elwing. From there they could see most of the city, bright and almost blinding in the late afternoon sun, and bustling with activity. It reminded Elwing of a beehive, never still. It was so hard to imagine it as Eärendil had described, empty and silent, his footsteps echoing as he passed through. Even from this high up in the palace Elwing could hear distant shouting, screaming children, the occasional chiming of bells. “There are many who want to meet you, to hear all that has happened since the Exiles departed,” Ëarwen said. “Anairë most of all, but she’s lingered in Valmar with Indis.”

“Áralossë and Elencalimë say that there are Sindar returning out of Mandos,” Elwing said. “That they are gathered in Lórien.”

“I’m told some went to Valmar for the festival, though they remained apart from the Noldor and Vanyar gathered there, except to pay their respects to Lúnamírë.”

“Why did they go, if not to mingle with the rest of the Elves?”

Ëarwen shrugged. “I cannot say. I was not there, else I might have tried to ask them. But they’ll have returned to Lórien, or wherever they’ve decided to settle, by now. Don’t you think they would welcome a visit from their queen?”

Elwing sighed. “I’m sure they would, but I’ve not heard anything about Melian.”

“You know what I mean.”

“I am not the queen they want or expect,” Elwing said.

“But you are the queen they have,” Ëarwen said. “You can have your pick of horses from our stables. And if you would like an escort…”

“I cannot believe Elencalimë has failed to mention that I don’t know how to ride,” Elwing said.

“Then we shall have to teach you! If nothing else, it will be a very Noldorin remedy for boredom.” At Elwing’s quizzical look, Ëarwen smiled. “Learning a new skill, I mean.”

 

Horses made Elwing nervous. They were big and powerful, and in Sirion she had seen more than once the result of falling from the back of one. But Áralossë and Elencalimë both volunteered to teach her. “We taught Aniswë and Analimë to ride, and Aniswë was positively terrified, at first,” Elencalimë told Elwing while intro ducting her to a sweet and docile mare. “But they’re still small enough for ponies—you can imagine her relief.”

“I almost wish I was small enough to be given a pony,” Elwing said, and Elencalimë laughed.

In the end, though, learning to ride was not as difficult or as painful as Elwing had feared, and she passed several pleasant weeks riding all about the countryside around Tirion with Elencalimë, and sometimes with the young twins as well, who were eager to show Elwing all of their favorite picnic spots, and to introduce her to some of their friends among the farmers and herders.

One afternoon, Arafinwë asked Elwing if she would join him for a ride. “I fear I have been a poor host,” he said as they left the city gates. “Ëarwen tells me you are unhappy in Tirion.”

Elwing raised her eyes skyward. “I am not unhappy,” she said. “But I admit I miss the sea—which is something I never expected to hear myself say.” Arafinwë laughed. “You must promise never to tell Eärendil. He can be insufferably smug.”

“You were not fond of the sea in the Outer Lands?”

“I hated it,” Elwing admitted, “for a very long time. I still prefer the forest to the shore. But after spending nearly my whole life by the shore, it’s strange to come so far inland that I cannot hear the waves anymore.”

Arafinwë nodded. “I know what you mean. I used to spend more than half my time in Alqualondë with Ëarwen and her family. Our children spent as much time there as they did in Tirion, growing up.” He smiled ruefully. “And at the end it was a place to escape to, away from all the tension in Tirion.”

“Have you been back, since…?” Elwing asked before thinking better of it. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to—”

“It’s all right. I’ve only been back once. I have personally reconciled with Ëarwen—obviously—and most of her family, but between our peoples there is still a great deal of tension, as I’m sure you’ve noticed.” Elwing nodded. “Speaking of tension…” Arafinwë sighed, his gaze shifting to the road ahead of them, where a pair of travelers approached on foot. They were both women, tall and dressed in traveling leathers, more like to the Laegrim of Ossiriand than to anyone Elwing had yet met in Valinor. “There is Minyelmë, and her mother Lady Elunis. She was wed to Elmo…”

“I have heard,” Elwing said. “Do you not get along?”

“I’ve only spoken with Lady Elunis once,” Arafinwë said, “at this past festival in Valmar. As for Minyelmë—well, she used to be great friends with our family. But since the Darkening she has not set foot in Tirion. I imagine she and her mother are here now because of you, Elwing.”

“Ai! Lúthien, is that you?” one of the women called out suddenly. Elwing stiffened, and her mare tossed her head and snorted.

“Lúthien?” Arafinwë repeated, glancing at Elwing.

“Elwë’s daughter,” Elwing said. “My grandmother.”

“Ah.” Arafinwë nodded, his smile returning. “It seems you take after her.”

Elwing shook her head. “I really do not.” She dismounted as the women drew closer, the one who had called out—Elunis, no doubt—breaking into a run.

“Ah, not Lúthien,” she said upon reaching Elwing. “You are not so tall—oh, but you look like her!”

“Lúthien was my grandmother,” Elwing said. “I am Elwing, Dior’s daughter.”

“The mariner’s wife,” said the other traveler to her companion, before turning back to Elwing. “Well met, cousin. I am Minyelmë, and this is my mother Elunis. And, Ammë, you remember Arafinwë Finwion?”

“I do remember.” Unlike Minyelmë, who remained stern and apparently unhappy to see Arafinwë, Elunis smiled up at him.

He smiled back, before looking at Elwing. “I must return to Tirion. Shall I leave you to walk with your cousins…?”

Elwing nodded. “I will see you later this evening.”

As Arafinwë cantered away back toward Tirion, Minyelmë looked sidelong at Elwing. “So is it true that you are an enchantress of the Avari who can change shape at will and bewitch the heart of even the most noble of the Eldalië?”

“Am I what?”

Minyelmë laughed. When she smiled she looked more like Elunis, and not so stern. “There is little for the Elves to do here but gossip,” she said. “It leads sometimes to outlandish stories.”

Elunis laughed. “Not so outlandish,” she said. “You have never heard Lúthien sing.” Her smile faded. “Even the Lord of Mandos was moved by her song—I remember, it was so astonishing to hear her there. But she did not linger long, and what became of her after, I do not know. She was not returned to life here.”

“I can tell you what happened,” Elwing said. “But it is a long tale.”

They started walking back towards Tirion. Elwing’s horse nudged her shoulder until she reached up to stroke its nose. “Are you headed to Lórien?” she asked. “I’ve heard the Sindar newly come from Mandos have gathered there.”

“Yes,” Elunis said. “We have not decided yet whether we wish to join ourselves to Olwë’s folk, or find somewhere else to settle—except those of the Falathrim, who have already gone to the coast. I think most wish to find a place to await Elu’s coming.” She glanced at Elwing. “We know his spirit resides in Mandos, but no one can say why. There are rumors of Melian’s return to the Gardens of Lórien, but she has not revealed herself to us—even the nightingales have fallen silent.”

“I’d wondered why that was,” Minyelmë murmured.

A nightingale chose that moment to flutter down and land on Elwing’s shoulder, chirping a greeting before settling down to enjoy the walk back to Tirion. Minyelmë stared, but Elunis laughed. “She recognizes you!”

“You should come with us to Lórien,” Minyelmë said after a few minutes of walking. “In the absence of my father and uncle, they will look to you for leadership.”

Elwing thought that when Elmo returned from Mandos she would quite happily cede authority to him. She may be Thingol’s heir, but she was not Thingol—she did not even resemble Lúthien in more than coloring, no matter what Celeborn liked to say.

She missed him, suddenly, so greatly that it made her chest ache. He and Galadriel, and everyone else she’d left behind in the fires of Sirion who had known her from childhood.

But she couldn’t just hide away in Tirion or in Alqualondë. Especially if she was expected elsewhere. “I had thought of going,” she said. “I’ve only really seen Alqualondë and Tirion—and Valmar, briefly—since coming to Valinor. I would like to see more of it.”

“I only wish I could have seen it under the Light of the Trees,” Elunis said.

As they approached Tirion’s walls, Minyelmë slowed. “This is where I leave you,” she said. “I prefer to camp beneath the stars.” With a wave and a smile that did not reach her eyes, she walked off, leaving the road for the fields.

“Don’t mind her,” Elunis said, slipping her arm through Elwing’s. “She’s not been to Tirion in years, but it isn’t because she is angry or resentful—not anymore. But she won’t tell me the full story—and neither will Lúnamírë, though I know that she knows it.

“But enough of that—I want to know everything you can tell me of Beleriand, what happened after I died. How did you come to marry the mariner, and come to Valinor?”

Elwing swallowed a sigh. The tale was long and painful enough that she did not relish telling it again—and again, and again, as she knew she would, until enough folk heard it to retell it themselves. “Of course,” she said.

Elwing found a boy who happily accepted a few coins in exchange for taking her horse on to the palace, and then she and Elunis found a small, quiet tavern where they could sit in an even quieter corner to talk over glasses of sweet wine without being disturbed.

Elunis listened to Elwing’s tales quietly, her dark eyes never wavering from Elwing’s face. She did not interrupt, even to ask questions. When Elwing finally finished, Elunis sighed, and drained her wineglass before speaking.

“I knew it would not be good news,” she said finally, after a smiling barmaid came and refilled both their glasses for them. “But I did not think…ah, Elu! He always had his pride, but I never thought it would grow so much that he would be deafened even to Melian’s counsel.”

“The Silmaril did strange things to people,” Elwing said. “And people did terrible things in order to possess it, or keep it.”

“It is clear to me that it was meant to come to you,” Elunis said. She covered Elwing’s hand with hers, tanned and rough with callouses. “If it had not, we wouldn’t be sitting here together now, and the Valar would not be preparing for war against Morgoth.”

“Everything seems Destined in hindsight,” Elwing said, “especially if it all happened to someone else.”

Elunis laughed quietly. “Perhaps. But that doesn’t make it untrue, even if it is little comfort—and speaking of comfort, will you come to Lórien with Minyelmë and me? I can see you are not happy here. It might be different among your own people.”

Elwing did not answer right away. She’d left her people behind to burn in Sirion. But it was such a relief to speak her own language even for one afternoon that in the end she nodded. “Of course,” she said. “I have been wanting to see more of this land, in any case.”

Chapter 4

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They departed Tirion several days later, on horseback. Elunis and Minyelmë rode without saddle or bridle, after the manner of starlit Beleriand. Elwing watched her cousin spring lightly onto a great gelding’s back and shuddered before hoisting herself into her own thrice-checked saddle.

She couldn’t deny feeling relief as Tirion shrank into the distance behind them, a shining white beacon atop Túna. Minyelmë and Elunis proved to be great traveling companions, both fond of traveling songs and filled with entertaining stories to pass the miles.

The countryside was beautiful, too. They passed fields of wheat and corn and other crops Elwing did not know at first glance, and also orchards, and fields filled with nothing but flowers that filled the air with fragrances sweet and sometimes nearly overpowering. Minyelmë jumped down once to gather an armful of flowers that had been planted inadvertently and haphazardly along the roadside, and spent the next half hour stringing them together into coronets for the three of them, hardly paying attention to her horse or, it seemed, to staying on its back.

That evening they camped by the roadside, beneath the stars. Elunis sang an old song as she kindled the fire. Minyelmë stretched out on the sweet-smelling grass, humming along as the stars glimmered to life in the purpling sky as the sun disappeared behind the horizon. Vingilot was not yet visible, but it would be, sooner or later—if the Valar had hoped for constancy in their messenger, they were sure to be disappointed.

The thought might have made Elwing smile, if she didn’t miss Eärendil so much.

“Tell me more about Cuiviénen?” she asked after a while. She’d never felt terribly curious about the Waters before, but here she was with two who’d been born there, both of them older—in spirit, if not in body—than anyone she had ever known, except perhaps Círdan.

Elunis smiled. The firelight danced across her face and flashed in her eyes. “You know the Sea,” she said. “The Waters were different. Calmer. The sky reflected on the water like a mirror, so you could not tell where the water ended and the sky began. We built our homes along the shoreline, the Minyar together, and the Tatyar, and our folk the Nelyar. From the start, it was our clan that loved the water best, and the forests—though all the best hunters were Minyar…”

Minyelmë spoke of racing along pebbled beaches, and carving elaborate designs into wooden combs and beads and spear handles. She spoke of the dances her parents taught her, wild dances that made the ones still practiced by the Iathrim and Laegrim seem tame in comparison…

When Elwing fell asleep that night, she dreamed of rough animal-skin drums pounding in time to feet in the dirt, with the stars wheeling around her like diamond fire as she soared through them on silver wings.

They rose early the next day, mist drifting through the orchards, making the trees seem strangely ghost-like in the early gloaming. Somewhere she could hear singing, a song of ripening fruit and deep-growing roots. As the music reached them Minyelmë straightened, breaking into a broad grin. “Ah, I thought we were close!” she exclaimed.

“Close to what?” Elunis asked as she sprung lightly onto her horse. Elwing got into the saddle far more slowly and with much less grace.

“My friends’ home! I’ve told you about them, Ammë—Lámion and Cullasso!”

“Oh, yes! Is that them singing now?”

“That sounds like Lámion.” Minyelmë smiled at Elwing. “I met Lámion and Cullasso just after I came out of Mandos. They were traveling home from visiting kin somewhere in the south, and let me ride with them as far as Tirion, since I of course had no idea where I was going.

“Come! They’ll be so pleased to meet you—and it is the season for blackberries!”

The singer they had heard was indeed Lámion, who stood overseeing other workers in the orchards and thickets, picking blackberries and blueberries and even strawberries. When he reached the chorus they joined in, filling the air with a sweet harmony—though someone among the blueberry bushes was singing off key.

Elwing had lived mainly on berries in the days between parting from Eärendil on the shore and coming to Alqualondë. Now, as then, they made her think of Elrond and Elros, both of them wont to return from berry picking with Luinnel or Lindir with purple sticky fingers and a mild stomach ache. And thinking of them, as it always did, made something constrict painfully in her chest.

Lámion turned at the sound of their horses on the road, and with a delighted shout came running to greet them. “Minyelmë! Well met, my friend; what brings you down Tirion way?”

Both Lámion and Cullasso were typical Noldor in appearance, with dark hair and grey eyes that flickered with the Light of the Two Trees. But they were not like the craftsmen or nobility she’d met in Tirion; they were farmers, with dirt under their fingernails, and songs to Yavanna rather than Aulë on their lips. Lámion walked with them down the road to a large sprawling house, where he lived with Cullasso and a surprising number of others—many of whom did not have Tree Light in their eyes, and who called both Cullasso and Lámion Atar.

“There were many children left behind when Fëanáro led the Noldor out of Tirion,” Minyelmë told Elunis and Elwing. “And many of those were left with no family to look after them, and nowhere to go—so Cullasso and Lámion took in as many as they could. More than they could fit into their home, which is why it’s so odd looking now. They just add on as they need to.”

And now those children were grown, and some had children of their own. Elwing nearly screamed when a pair of dark-haired children with berry-purple fingers came running through the courtyard. An older girl with copper colored braids and more freckles than Elwing had ever seen on one face went running after them.

“Are you all right, Elwing?” Elunis asked as Lámion went hunting for Cullasso. “You look a bit pale.”

“I’m fine,” Elwing said, as her heart slowly regained its normal rhythm. She was being ridiculous. Her sons weren’t here—and they weren’t going to suddenly appear just because she thought of them. No matter how much she might wish for it.

Both Lámion and Cullasso were delighted to meet Elunis and Elwing, because they were Minyelmë’s kin, and because they’d come from Tirion and had all the latest news. “Is it really true that new star is one of Prince Fëanáro’s Silmarils?” asked one of their adopted daughters, whose name Elwing couldn’t recall through the haze of introductions.

“Yes, it is,” Minyelmë said. “I’m sure all the bards are scribbling away furiously even now, trying to put all of the Mariner’s deeds into song.”

“But they don’t know any of his deeds,” Elwing said, frowning. She didn’t either, not really. Eärendil had never spoken much of his voyages when he returned to Sirion, at least not to her. Círdan probably knew more than anyone, but of course no bard here could ask him. Unless Ulmo or Ossë carried messages across the Sea, which seemed unlikely.

“They’ll still put them to song,” Minyelmë said cheerfully. “The Vanyar can turn a flower blooming into an epic lay half a dozen cantos long. Oh, I hope I’m present when Eärendil comes back and hears the first ones. I imagine the look on his face will be worth a song on its own!”

 

They stayed a week at the home of Cullasso and Lámion. Elwing learned a dozen new recipes, but the whole time she felt restless, like they were wasting time that should be spent doing something more useful.

“We can leave if you like,” Minyelmë said as they sat on a veranda in the late-afternoon sun, sipping a drink made from the juice of a sour fruit they called a lemon mixed with water and sugar. Elwing had not yet decided whether she liked it or not. They’d never had lemons in Sirion. “But it doesn’t really matter when we get to Lórien. Everyone will still be there.”

“I know.” Elwing took another sip and pursed her lips. “But I do want to return to Tirion before the Valar set forth.”

“It will be some time yet before that happens—long enough that we don’t really need to hurry.” Minyelmë set her empty glass down and reached for the pitcher. “The world won’t end if you relax a little, Elwing.”

“Don’t push her, Minya,” said Elunis, springing lightly up the steps to join them, Lámion at her side. “In Middle-earth it is dangerous to let one’s guard down.”

“I know that, Ammë,” Minyelmë said evenly. “That is how I died, you know.”

“It’s worse now,” Elunis said. “The Enemy’s creatures were few in number, and disorganized, then. Their strength lay in the fear they instilled in us. The thing that killed you was not the same as the things that killed me.”

Elwing flinched at the mention of their deaths, wondering what went on in Mandos that its inhabitants could return to the world with the ability to speak so matter-of-factly about their own deaths.

Lámion grimaced, too. “It’s too fine an afternoon to sit talking of death and war,” he said. “Let’s have a happier tale—Elunis, Elwing, tell us about Doriath!”

Elwing set her glass down and rose. “Elunis can tell you more than I,” she said. “If you’ll excuse me, I think I’ll go for a walk.”

“Would you like company?” Lámion asked.

“No, thank you.”

The orchards were quite Noldorin—neat, orderly. They might have sculpted the trees like topiaries if it would have helped fruit production, Elwing thought. She walked between rows of apple trees; it was between the time of blossoming and the harvest, so the apples on the branches were small and green. Occasionally she came upon someone walking through the orchards singing songs of growth and abundance.

At the edge of the orchard a field of grass and wildflowers opened up before her, like a many-colored carpet, swaying in the breeze. Wild carrots were growing in abundance, here, their lacy blooms a pale counterpoint to the bright poppies and yellow daisies and dandelions growing beside them. A flock of birds took flight as Elwing waded into the grasses, and she watched them flutter into the sky and shrink into small black dots in the distance.

“Lovely, aren’t they?” A voice at her side made Elwing jump, and then trip over her skirts to fall over. Laughter like a songbird followed her down, and Elwing found herself staring up at a man with feathers in his hair, and a light in his eyes that was more than Treelight. A Maia, then. “I’m sorry,” he said, extending a hand to help her up. “I did not mean to startle you.”

“Yes, you did.” Elwing grasped his hand, and he pulled her to her feet as though she weighed nothing. “Who are you?”

“I am called Aiwendil,” he said. “I know who you are, Lady Elwing. You’re Melyanna’s granddaughter. Do you miss it?”

Elwing blinked. “Miss what?”

“Flying, of course! You haven’t taken wing since you landed here.”

“Of course not.” Elwing dusted pollen off her skirts. “I can’t.”

Aiwendil laughed. “Of course you can! Ulmo could not have saved just anyone in the manner he saved you, you know. If you ever want to fly again, come find me! Or perhaps I’ll find you. Farewell, Melyanna’s daughter!” And with that, he twisted, in a burst of feathers transforming into some kind of hawk, before soaring up and away into the sky. Elwing watched him until he disappeared, like the meadowlarks before him. Could she really fly again, if she wished? Perhaps it was possible—Lúthien had done dozens of incredible things. But Lúthien had been Melian’s daughter, and the daughter of Elu Thingol, a powerful Elf in his own right. Elwing was only Lúthien’s granddaughter, and she’d done nothing at all incredible in her life, except run away.

When she returned to the house, Elwing found Elunis still entertaining Lámion and Minyelmë with tales of Doriath, when it was still called Eglador, and ungirdled. Cullasso had joined them, also.

As Elwing stepped onto the veranda, one of the younger children ran outside. “Maltien is home!” he announced. “And Master Mahtan and Lady Nerdanel are with her!”

“Mahtan came himself?” Lámion lurched to his feet. “All I sent for was horseshoes!” Cullasso laughed as Lámion rushed inside.

Minyelmë raised her eyebrows. “What’s Mahtan doing here?” she asked.

“Shoeing our horses, apparently. I don’t know why Nerdanel came with him,” Cullasso said. “I should greet him also, but I’ve been on my feet since sunup. Tatharon, take pity on your elder and fetch some more lemonade, won’t you?” The boy who’d brought the message rolled his eyes fondly, and disappeared with the nearly-empty pitcher.

When Tatharon returned, two women trailed behind him. The first had to be Maltien, because the second was clearly Nerdanel. Elwing had braced herself for a shock of red hair, but was surprised to find that Nerdanel herself did not resemble her sons in that way. Her hair was brown, with only a hint of red in the rosy glow of afternoon sunlight hitting the veranda. Her features were softer, too, more given to smiling.

“Hello, Atar,” Maltien said. She leaned down to kiss Cullasso. “And Minyelmë! I thought you were still in Valmar.”

“Change of plans,” Minyelmë replied. She rose to clasp hands with Nerdanel. “Well met, my lady. May I introduce my mother, Elunis? And this is my cousin, Elwing.”

If Maltien or Nerdanel recognized her name, neither showed it, and after the requisite pleasantries, Nerdanel excused herself. “I’m afraid I did not come to pay a social visit,” she said, a little sheepishly. “Lámion said I may wander your orchards to sketch.”

“Yes, of course!” Cullasso waved a hand out toward the trees. “Please, feel free to wander wherever you like. Only forgive me for not getting up to show you the best spots.”

“Oh, it’s all right,” Nerdanel laughed. “Tatharon told us you’ve been on your feet all day. I’ll be fine on my own.” And with that she was off, heading the same way Elwing had gone on her own walk, hair swinging behind her with each step. Elwing watched her go; whatever she’d expected, Nerdanel was not quite it.

“How was your walk, Elwing?” Minyelmë asked as she sat down. Maltien disappeared inside with Tatharon, saying something about dinner, and washing the dirt of the road off her.

“It was nice,” Elwing said, and smiled at Cullasso. “Your fields are beautiful.” He smiled back and raised his glass to her. Elwing accepted the glass Elunis handed to her, and took a sip. It tasted sweeter then, than it had before.

Chapter 5

Read Chapter 5

Elwing met Mahtan the next morning. Minyelmë had apparently expected the beard to startle her, but his bright red hair made a far bigger impression, particularly in the flickering light from the kitchen hearth fire. The pleasantries exchanged were brief, however, and Mahtan didn't seem to notice her less-than-gracious manner, distracted as he was by the morning's work finishing shoeing the rest of Lámion's horses.

"They'll be leaving tomorrow morning," Minyelmë told Elwing as they lingered at the breakfast table. "Mahtan asked if we'd like to travel with them for a time." She speared a piece of melon with her fork. "Mahtan's family lives near Aulë's mansions, which aren't far from Lórien."

Elwing wrinkled her nose. "Will we be visiting Aulë's mansions?" Aulë was the forger, and she'd never liked forges—so much smoke and heat, and the smell of hot metal made her nose hurt.

"No. I've only been there a few times, when traveling with—friends. I prefer Oromë's forests. They remind me most of the woods near Cuiviénen. Do you like hunting, Elwing?"

"I've never been hunting," Elwing said. Minyelmë's eyebrows shot up. "It was too dangerous."

"Oh, of course. I keep forgetting. If you like, we can go together sometime." Minyelmë rose, arching her back in a stretch. Tatharon ducked under one of her outstretched arms to snatch an apple from the bowl on the table. "I'm going to go find Ammë."

Elwing stepped outside to find wild carrot flowers scattered over the veranda, and Nerdanel examining one closely, her sketchbook open on her lap. A page had already been filled with studies of the flower. She looked up when Elwing paused, and smiled a little sheepishly. "Good morning," she said.

"Good morning," Elwing replied. She raised her skirts and carefully stepped over the flowers. "What's all this?"

"Oh, I found a whole field of them yesterday. I'd forgotten how lovely Queen Míriel's Lace is—so intricate. You see?" She held up the flower in her hand for Elwing's inspection. The cluster of tiny white blooms was indeed lovely and intricate, and very lace-like, with a tiny, darker spot in the very center. Elwing nodded, because Nerdanel looked so pleased. "I think I might use this pattern in a wire sculpture—white gold, perhaps, or silver…"

Elwing left her to it, recognizing the signs of an artist so absorbed in her work that nothing could shake her loose. Lindir was much the same when crafting a new song—though it seemed Nerdanel was less likely to snarl at someone for interrupting her trail of thought.

She spent most of the day by herself, wandering the orchards and the flower gardens. Nightingales had started flocking to her, a few of them even letting loose snatches of song, though for the most part they remained silent and somber. "Why will you not sing properly?" she asked them, as one alighted on her shoulder and another came to perch on her fingers. "What grief could assail you here, little birds?"

They gave her no answer—not one she could understand, anyway. Perhaps she could find someone to teach her the language of birds. That Maia Aiwendil would no doubt be happy enough to do it; Come find me! he had said, but how did one go about finding a Maia, here in Valinor where to take on a body was less effort for them than pulling on a dress was for her? "I should have asked him about you when I had the chance," she said to the nightingale perched on her fingers. It winked at her and went back to preening its wings. "Or perhaps he'll find me again, like he said."

That night she dreamed of Menegroth, for the first time in years. Usually in such dreams she was a small child again, carried on her mother's hip or sitting on her father's lap as he held court in the largest of the thousand halls, filled with the music of fountains. But this time she was a woman grown, and stood before one of the many tapestries that adorned the walls, woven hundreds of years before her birth, by Queen Melian, or Lúthien, in the long twilight of the world.

Only this tapestry was unfamiliar, and as she stood and watched, the image began to move. Waves lapped at red-stained shores, and gold-threaded flames licked at piers and ships and homes, and two small dark figures huddled together, until a larger figure, also dark, with an eight-pointed star of silver thread on his breast, discovered them. He sheathed his sword and scooped them up, but other figures came from the burning town, and he fled, joined by a red-haired figure, taking the children with them.

Dismayed, Elwing reached to the tapestry, aching to snatch away the small dark-haired boys from their kidnappers. "Elrond, Elros!" she cried, but beneath her fingers the tapestry crumbled into ash, and all around her Menegroth burned, and then the sea rushed down through the halls to drown her in blood-stained foam—

She woke with burning lungs and tears on her face. Beside her Minyelmë slept on, undisturbed. Outside the window the sky was graying toward dawn. They would be leaving in only a few hours. Elwing slipped carefully out of bed and padded across the cool stone floor to the washroom. A splash of cold water erased all traces of her tears, but her throat and lungs ached with the memory of frigid saltwater after acrid smoke, and when she closed her eyes she saw firelight flickering on red hair, and eyes—Nerdanel's eyes, she realized with a start—burning with cold fire. When she opened them again, she saw her hands were shaking. She clenched them into fists, her fingernails biting into her palms.

Minyelmë stretched lazily and yawned, blinking her eyes open lazily as Elwing stepped back into the bedroom. "You're up early," she said. "Did you sleep well?"
"Yes, of course," Elwing said, the lie rolling easily off her tongue, as it had her whole life. The only people it had never fooled had been Galadriel and, after their marriage, Eärendil. She went to her things to check, again, that she had not forgotten anything. "How far is it to Mahtan's house?"

"Oh, I don't know. A few days. And then a couple more to Lórien, if we ride leisurely; if we rode hard we could make it in one, I suppose, though I've never tried. Mahtan will probably invite us to stay a while with them. And I'm sure they'll have all the latest news from Tirion."

It would be good to know the kind of progress they were making. Elwing just wasn't sure how she was going to look Nerdanel in the eye. Her dream still lingered in her mind. It had the feel of truth, a heavy weight settled on her heart, and really, she was not surprised. She was a daughter of Melian, after all, who had been famed for her foresight.

Only she wasn't sure if it was better or worse, for her sons to be held hostage by Maedhros and Maglor rather than dead. How could they be trusted or expected to raise children well? Especially the children of their enemy, when all hope of ransom was destroyed with Eärendil's first rising.

"Elwing?" Minyelmë's hand landed on her shoulder.

"I'm sorry, what?" She looked up into her cousin's face.

"I said, are you hungry? It will be time for breakfast soon."

"Yes. Yes, I'm coming." Elwing secured her pack and rose to follow Minyelmë down the stairs and to the kitchen, where the smell of fresh bread greeted them.
"Good morning!" Cucuë, another one of Lámion and Cullasso's many children, greeted them with a bright smile. "I've baked way bread for your journeying," she said. "And honey cakes for breakfast."

"Wonderful!" Minyelmë reached for two, still steaming on the rack, to slide onto plates and drizzle with honey and butter. "Has my mother woken, yet?"

"She was awake before I was," said Cucuë. "I think she's off outside, somewhere."

Breakfast was not a formal affair in this house—there were too many people with too many things to see to in the morning for everyone to sit down properly. Elwing sat with Minyelmë, the two of them lingering over their honey cakes and bowls of sugared berries as Minyelmë chatted and laughed with Cucuë, while others flitted in and out of the kitchen, stopping only long enough to grab a honey cake or slice of bread and to kiss Cucuë good morning. She was the oldest of Cullasso and Lamion's adopted children, having been an adolescent at the time of the Darkening, and spent her days mothering the rest. Of them all, she had been the only one to venture a question to Elwing about her parents, but they had been a part of the host of Fëanor, and their names were not familiar to Elwing. It was likely they were dead—she only hoped they had died in battle with Morgoth, and not in Doriath or at Sirion.

Mahtan and Nerdanel came in with Lámion, filling the kitchen with bright laughter and talk of horses and metals, and then about the state of the roads, and whether it was likely to rain over the next few days. "I think it will hold off until we reach home," Mahtan said. "You should get the rain before we do, in any case—it usually comes from the north."

"We do need it," Lámion said. Then, "Have you heard the news out of Tirion?"

"The call to arms? Yes. I received a letter from Arafinwë himself, asking me to help forge swords and spearheads." Mahtan's mouth twisted unhappily beneath his beard. "Someone has recovered Fëanáro's designs from some cabinet somewhere."

"And will you?" Lámion asked.

"I must. There are very few smiths now with that kind of skill, and sword smithing is an art unto itself. I and my students will be very busy over the next few years. And still more smiths will be needed to make armor."

Elwing thought of Eärendil's armor, tucked away in a closet in Alqualondë. He never wore it while sailing, and he certainly did not need it now—though he would, before the war was over, she thought. It had been crafted of the finest steel to be found on Balar, by Celebrimbor, who placed songs and spells on it to ward all wounds and harm from the wearer. It was battered and stained with salt and blood, because if something did not relate directly to sailing Eärendil was less than careful with it, but Elwing suspected that suit of armor could withstand a dragon, let alone a little poor upkeep. She hoped the armor forged here would be as durable. It had to be.
In the end, they did not depart with Mahtan and Nerdanel; a message came for Nerdanel from Anairë in Tirion, and some important piece of equipment chose that morning to break, requiring a little more of Mahtan's skill and time. Minyelmë would have been happy to linger with them, but Elunis was eager to see the Sindarin folk in Lórien, and Elwing's dream had put a strange itch under her skin. So they said their farewells and set off again. The sun was warm, but there was a breeze, carrying the sent of fruit and flowers with them along the road, and the sound of singing. Elunis and Minyelmë chatted about the weather and about the land around—who tilled which fields, lived in which houses—but Elwing only half listened. She kept thinking of her dream, of the little boys in the tapestry, and wondering what it meant. The Sons of Fëanor had taken her brothers and left them to freeze or starve in the depths of Neldoreth. Had they done the same to her boys, in the same spirit of revenge? She had been so sure that both Elrond and Elros were dead by the time she'd jumped, but what if she had only left them to an even worse fate…?

After a few days the beech trees of Lórien came into view, a green haze in the distance. "Ah, Lórien," Elunis sighed, smiling.

"Does everyone go to Lórien, when they are released from Mandos?" Elwing asked.

"I suppose not," Minyelmë said. "But Estë and her folk are healers—of the body, I mean. I remember it was difficult for me to get used to having a body again. So cumbersome, after going so long without one!"

"And Lórien is as pleasant a place to spend your first waking days as you could wish for," Elunis said. "I—oh, Elwing, look!" She pointed to the side of the road, where flowers grew. This was nothing unusual, and Elwing had long since failed to heed just what the flowers were, especially since she was unfamiliar with nearly all of them. Now she leaned forward to peer at the small white blossoms waving in the breeze, and then looked back at Elunis in surprise. "I have never seen them grow here, before!" Elunis said.

"What are they?" Minyelmë asked. She dropped from her horse and picked one. "They smell lovely."

"Niphredil," Elunis said. "They first bloomed in Doriath when Lúthien was born, and spread from there all across Beleriand, and perhaps farther east."

"But why would they bloom here now, if they have not before?" Elwing asked.

"Why would they bloom now, asks Lúthien's granddaughter, just after she's arrived in Valinor!" Elunis laughed. Elwing made a face. "Perhaps it is the power of Melian—perhaps she has heard you are coming. Come, let us see!" With that she urged her horse into a canter, and then a full gallop. Minyelmë sprang onto her own horse and tore after her down the road, leaving Elwing to catch up as she could.

Chapter 6

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The Gardens of Lórien were beautiful. Flowers seemed to be everywhere, like a rainbow had descended from the sky to carpet the ground, and the air was heavy with the scent of lavender and violets. Silvery willows and tall beeches lined paths well-worn by years and years of wanderers. Elwing felt as though she were walking through a dream as she followed Minyelmë down the winding paths, crossing over small arched bridges across laughing books and trickling streams that glimmered in the dappled sunlight that filtered lazily, green-tinted, though the boughs overhead. There were fountains, occasionally, arcing up from the living rock that no Elven hand had carved, to cast a mist over clearings where rainbows danced.

It seemed like there was faint music playing everywhere, though Elwing saw no musicians. "This is where I woke up," Minyelmë told her as they paused beside a pond, where tadpoles darted about the shallows. "By this very pond, I think. It was night, and for a moment I thought I was beside the waters at home." She offered a crooked smile to Elwing. "Then I opened my eyes to Telperion's light. It was a bit of a shock." They walked around the pond, following a string of niphredil blossoms. "Oh, there's Ammë! Wait here, I'll see if she's found anyone yet." Minyelmë leaped away lightly through the flowers, sending a cluster of butterflies fluttering away toward the canopy.

Elwing watched her go, and then turned at the sound of a whisper just behind her. No one was there, except for a path she had not noticed before, lined with more niphredil, thicker now, like a dusting of snow. They had grown like that in Doriath beside the Esgalduin, and on Tol Galen wherever Lúthien danced—which had been everywhere. With a glance over her shoulder to see Minyelmë and Elunis just on the other side of the pond, Elwing turned to follow the path, curious to see where it led.

It led to a small glade, filled with fragrant ferns and shaded by great trees of a kind Elwing had never seen before, with smooth silver trunks and silver-green leaves. Niphredil blossoms in scattered bunches across the ground swayed gently in the whispering breeze. Elwing blinked, and across the glade stood a woman, her hair falling like shadows around her, long enough to touch the ground. She was tall, clad in dark grey, and her face was pale in the gloom, shimmering with the reflected light of the long-gone Trees. Her eyes were brighter still, like stars in a twilit sky. For a moment the breeze sounded more like someone singing, faint and far away, a broken-hearted lament in a voice like the Esgalduin in spring and the nightingales in Hírilorn and the echo of dancing footsteps in the thousand halls of Menegroth.
Then Elwing blinked again, and the woman was gone, the music only the wind through the trees. Rubbing the chill from her arms, Elwing turned back down the path, to meet Elunis and Minyelmë beside the pond. When she reached them, she found they were not alone. "Elwing," Elunis said, taking her hand and drawing her over, "this is Tavron, and this is Helegil; they have just come from Mandos."

"And have learned there is no hope of returning across the Sea to our home," Helegil said, not a little sourly, as she and Tavron bowed to Elwing.

"There is no home to return to," Elwing said. "Doriath is gone, and Mithrim and the Falas overrun long ago."

"Then why do we keep hearing of preparations being made for some great journey east?" Tavron asked.

"No one is returning to settle there again," Minyelmë said. "The Valar are marching forth in war. And you'll find no Nelyar in that host."

Elwing looked at her in surprise. "Why not?"

"We have not forgotten the blood spilled on our quays or the theft of our ships," Minyelmë said.

"Then how will the Vanyar and the Noldor cross the Sea? They cannot cross the Helcaraxë as Fingolfin did."

"I would go back to fight," Tavron said. "I fought before, and I would do it again, whether Doriath still stands or no."

"That is your choice," Elunis said gently, "but if I were you I would think long and hard on it. You have only just returned from death—are you so eager to go courting it again? I am not." Tavron shrugged.

They wandered a little with Tavron and Helegil, until they met other Sindar gathered in a glade with blankets spread out for a picnic. Maiar flitted among them, sometimes visible, sometimes not, and Elwing was not quite sure if the others were able to sense their presence as she was, or if this was some gift of her own Maiarin blood. She sat beside Elunis and reveled in the sound of her own language being spoken by more than one other person. There were very few Sindar now alive in Valinor, and nearly all of them were in this glade. They were both delighted to have Elwing among them and grieved at the reasons for her coming. And perhaps because Elwing was there, they were reluctant to simply go to Alqualondë to mingle with the Teleri there.

"What would be best," laughed a woman, Orondis who had greeted Elunis like a sister, "would be to build another Menegroth. But that will have to wait. A thousand caves would be far too many for such a small number."

"It may even have to wait until Elu returns to us," said Elunis.

"What about Lúthien's son?" Tavron wanted to know. "Lúthien is lost to use forever—alas—but what of Dior Eluchíl?"

"My father was Halfelven, like me," Elwing said. "The Valar decreed that Eärendil and I and our children should choose which kindred to be counted among, but that was mere months ago. My father died long before any choice was given to him."

"Does that mean he died as a Man?" Elunis asked.

"I do not know. And Mandos will not speak of it."

"No, Mandos won't share what goes on in his halls," Minyelmë said. "It is likely the only way we shall know if Dior will return is if he does return, but we cannot count on it. And in the meantime—why not join with with Olwë's people in Alqualondë?"

"There are Falathrim who have already left to do so," said Helegil. "For the rest of us—we prefer forests and streams to the shores of the sea. But we do not know where we can go that has not already been claimed by another people."

"Come to Alqualondë," Minyelmë repeated. "You need not stay there, and perhaps Olwë will have ideas where you can settle more permanently. In any case, that is where Elwing will be."

For a while, at least. Elwing supposed that where she would settle now depended on where these people decided to go. It was a little disheartening; it seemed likely they would want to live somewhere west of the Pelóri, and she did not like the thought of dwelling far from the shore—she was happy to travel and explore this new place, but her home should be where Eärendil would come, and that was Alqualondë, or somewhere close to it. If only Elu Thingol were returned from Mandos! But it would be many long years yet before he walked beneath the sun again.

In the end, it was decided that they would all travel back to Alqualondë. Lórien was lovely, but it was not a home, and in Alqualondë they would be among their own people, though they had been so long sundered. But there was no hurry; after all, Elwing had only just come to Lórien, and there was much that Minyelmë wanted to show her. Around every corner, it seemed, there were wonders—butterflies with wings brighter than gems, and birds to match with the sweetest songs, and berries that burst on the tongue with sweetness.

But she could not forget the coming war for long, and at last they departed Lórien, heading east again, toward Tirion and toward Alqualondë. They went slowly, as most of them were on foot, and there was no set schedule; sometimes they rested during the day and walked by moon or starlight, and sometimes they did the opposite, or traveled in the afternoon through the evening. Every night there were songs sung to the stars; most were familiar to Elwing, but others were new—or rather, very old.

As they passed the mansions of Aulë, their forges ringing with hammers and the songs of his smiths, a messenger from Tirion met them. "Well met, Tatharon!" Minyelmë said as the rider slowed down to greet them. "Where are you going in such a hurry?"

"To find you!" he replied with a grin. "Or rather, to find Lady Elwing. Your counsel is looked for in Tirion."

It wasn't a surprise, really. Her journey to Lórien, as lovely as it had been, had probably been ill-timed.

"I will ride with you," Elunis said as Elwing swung onto her horse.

"I will guide the rest," Minyelmë said cheerfully. "Tatharon, will your grandfathers mind if we camp in your orchards a night or two?"

"I don't think so," Tatharon said. Elwing did not hear the rest of the conversation; she and Elunis called their farewells over their shoulders as they set off at a brisk pace for Tirion. They stopped one night with Cullasso and Lámion, and reached the city in the middle of the afternoon the next day. It was much busier than it had been when they had left. The rest of the Noldor had returned from the festival in Valmar, it seemed, and with them had come a great number of the Vanyar. The forges here were as loud and as busy as Aulë's.

Ëarwen was in the courtyard to greet them. "Welcome back," she said, smiling. "How was your journey?"

"It was lovely," Elwing replied.

"Did you meet your people in Lórien?"

"Yes, and they are traveling to Alqualondë now," Elunis said. "Though they would rather dwell in a forest somewhere. But there is no real hurry to find a place."

"No," Ëarwen agreed. "There are more pressing things to discuss—such as how we are to move our armies across the Sea. I think my father would agree to at least provide ships, but there is a great deal of grumbling in Alqualondë—no one has forgotten the theft of the ships or the blood spilled there. I was hoping that Minyelmë would return with you."

"She remained with the others," Elunis said. "But Elwing and I can speak to the Teleri as well as she—better, even."

Elwing didn't even know how widely known her presence in Valinor was among the Teleri; she had kept mostly to the palace while she had been there, until she'd left for Tirion with Ëarwen.

Inside the palace, there were a great many introductions to be made. Arafinwë, Ingwion and Lalion she knew already, but now she met Ingwion's sisters Maltariel and Lintanis, as well as his wife Nallossë. Indis was there also; all of them were tall and golden and bright-eyed. And there was Anairë, Fingolfin's wife and Eärendil's kinswoman, a dark Noldo with sapphires wound in her hair and ink stains on her fingertips.

And Nerdanel was there, no longer hazy and distracted by her art, but keen-eyed and looking a little abashed upon recognizing Elwing from their previous meeting. Beside her was a smaller, slender woman with stains on her fingers not unlike Anairë's; she was introduced as Nerdanel's daughter-in-law Telpaltië, though if anyone said which son she had married Elwing did not hear it.

Telpaltië did not stay long, though. She had work to do, she said, and departed as soon as it was polite. Everyone else wasted no time in drawing Elwing and Elunis into their councils and plans. A map they had already, but there were other questions. What should they expect from Sirion at different times of the year? Where were all the old Elven strongholds in Beleriand? What kinds of creatures did Morgoth have in his service?

Elwing could say little of the old strongholds—she knew where things were, but they were only dots on a map to her. Sirion she could say a little more about, and she knew many tales of the monstrous things often encountered on the battle field—orcs, balrogs, trolls, and werewolves and vampires. And dragons, worst of all. It had been Glaurung that destroyed Nargothrond and Brethil, and dragons had come to Gondolin, too—sometimes Eärendil dreamed of them.

"How did Doriath fall?" someone asked once. Ëarwen looked worriedly at Elwing, who found she could not answer, not with Nerdanel sitting just down the table, listening to everything. She stammered something about being very young at the time, and Elunis quickly and abruptly changed the subject to numbers.

Afterward, it was late enough that Elwing could plead weariness and escape to her room. Gone was the calm she had found in Lórien, and her dreams that night were filled with fire and smoke and blood.

Chapter 7: Interlude

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It was cold out beyond the airs of Arda, and dark. The enchantments upon Vingilot protected Eärendil from the worst of it, but he wished he had thought to bring heavier clothes. He had been accompanied by two of Varda's Maiar, but they didn't feel the cold and had not thought to warn him about it. The promise of wonders beyond his imagination was almost enough to make it easy to ignore any discomfort, but it would be quite a long time before he actually saw any such things—for now his task was to stay on course over Arda, so that all who looked up might see him and know that they were not forgotten, nor were the Valar idle.

Before Vingilot had taken flight, Eönwë had come to Eärendil with a gift. It was a spyglass, plain to look at and not much different from the one he already had. It had been made for him by Aulë himself, Eönwë had said with a smile, before bidding him fare journeying. Now Eärendil pulled it out as they passed over Beleriand. Even from so far he could see how the land was scarred, could see the dark blight on green Tumladen that had once been Gondolin. He peered through the spyglass and gasped, lowering it almost immediately.

It was almost like being there—an eagle's view instead of a star's, maybe. Eärendil held up the glass again and gazed down on the broken towers, blackened and burned, on the fountains now choked with leaves and growth. It was surprisingly green—the gardens that had not been destroyed with the city were now growing over, rose vines climbing over broken walls, tree roots cracking the stone streets, moss covering once-vibrant frescoes.

There was something encouraging about that. Eärendil trained the spyglass on his grandfather's tower, now a pile of rubble serving as his cairn, and saw that even there the wild was returning to cover it, with tiny flowers blooming amid the scorched stone.

Flowers covered Glorfindel's tomb, too—yellow ones bobbing in the breeze.

Eärendil turned away from Gondolin, seeking the lands to the south, trailing along Sirion down to its wide delta. The ruins of the Havens were horribly easy to find, blackened and broken and too new for anything to have grown over them. Eärendil did not allow himself to look away. He gazed for a long time at every detail, from the burned out harbor to the ruins of his own house.

On Balar there were a great deal of people, many of them standing outside gazing upward—at him, he realized after a moment of confusion. Of course. A new star had risen, and anyone who had seen the Silmaril surely recognized it now. He spotted Círdan and Gil-galad, and Annael his foster-grandfather, their faces alight with excitement and new-kindled hope. He saw Celebrimbor, too, somber and standing apart and wearing the heavy leather gloves and apron from his forge, as though he had been called away from his work.

Eärendil searched the island thoroughly, looking at every face. But he did not see his sons.

Chapter 8

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The next morning Elwing retreated into the gardens after breakfast, with a book from Findis to help identify the plants she did not recognize, and to learn at least some of their properties. In the next few days she and Elunis would leave for Alqualondë, but until then Elwing welcomed any distraction. She would tell the tales of Beleriand a thousand times if it would help, but she did not yet want to think about the opposition she faced among the Lindar.

As she sat in an out-of-the-way corner, on a bench beneath a tangle of climbing rose vines, Elwing became aware of someone else nearby. She looked up as soft footsteps on the gravel path announced Telpaltië's appearance around a corner. When Elwing had met her she had seemed almost severe, with her hair bound back from her head in right braids coiled into a knot at the back of her neck, her gown all sharp cuts and angles. Today she wore her hair unbound, falling nearly to her hips, and her gown was much looser, soft and grey; her fingers had ink stains on them, and she wore a string of opals around her neck. She approached Elwing cautiously, hands clasped together. Elwing carefully closed her book and rose, bracing herself for what could only be a very difficult conversation.

"Lady Elwing," Telpaltië said, halting a few feet away and faltering.

"Lady Telpaltië," Elwing replied, nodding her head courteously, but doing nothing more.

Telpaltië seemed to realize she was wringing her hands together, and dropped them to her sides. "I do not know how your husband came to possess a Silmaril," she said, "but it surely made him—made you both—enemies of my husband and his brothers. I know that my husband is dead," she added before Elwing could reply, "and I will not ask you how." She faltered again, biting her lip.

As the silence stretched between them, Elwing said carefully, "I bear you no ill will, Lady Telpaltië."

"Can you tell me what has become of my son?" she asked, which was not at all what Elwing had expected. "My Telperinquar. He followed Curufinwë to the Outer Lands, but swore no oath…"

For several seconds Elwing could only stare blankly at Telpaltië, baffled, until she managed to translate the name Telperinquar for herself. "Oh," she said. "Yes, I know your son, and he is well—he dwells on the Isle of Balar, with Círdan and Gil-galad the High King. He made Eärendil's armor," she said, remembering suddenly. Elwing herself only rarely saw Celebrimbor; neither of them went out of their way to avoid one another, but it was less awkward if they met but seldom. But she told none of this to Telpaltië, who bowed her head briefly in relief, before straightening again.

"Thank you," she said.

"May I ask why you did not leave with them?" Elwing asked.

"I nearly did," Telpaltië said. "I turned back just before—just before Alqualondë, when it became clear that Fëanáro intended to try to steal the Swanships. It felt too much like we were following the Enemy in more then just his footsteps. But perhaps—perhaps I will go now, with Arafinwë. I have studied long under Estë, and healers will be needed as much as warriors."

"Even more, I think," Elwing said, thinking of all the children and elderly men and women in Sirion who could not lift a sword to defend themselves—her own sons among them.

They spent most of the morning together; Telpaltië had a great number of questions about Men, and the kinds of ills they suffered that were different from Elves. No more mention was made of Silmarils or of Fëanor or his sons. They spoke a little of the Sindar, and the troubles of a new people needing a place to call home in a land of cities and kingdoms long established. Telpaltië was intrigued by Elwing's description of Menegroth. "I am sure a place for a second one can be found," she said. "And the Noldor would help to delve the caves—such a project would be a delight, for nothing like it has been built in Aman before."

Such a project would have to wait, though—probably for a very long time. But the thought of a new Menegroth and renewed friendship between the Noldor and her people after all the sorrows that had come between them buoyed Elwing as she and Elunis departed Tirion for Alqualondë. Lintanis accompanied them, as a representative of the Vanyar. "It has been too long since I visited the shore," she remarked as they crested the Calacirya, and the Bay of Eldamar stretched before them, Alqualondë gleaming like a pearl by the water, the gem-strewn beaches glittering like rainbows. The bay itself was dotted with ships, with sails dyed bright blue and green and red. Elwing inhaled deeply as they drew closer; she had missed the sea, but had not realized just how much until returning to it now.

They entered Alqualondë with birds wheeling overhead, and found the city filled with murmurings and grumblings—no one Elwing overheard as they made their way toward Olwë's palace wanted to take part in the coming war. Elunis and Elwing did not draw many stares, but Lintanis did, with her Vanyar-gold hair and chain mail clinking over her knees, and the spear strapped to her back. Elwing had wondered at the wisdom of traveling to Alqualondë armed for war, but Lintanis had said that it was war that took them there, so as a warrior she would go.

Lalindil was there to greet them at the palace; she embraced them all, though she hesitated upon seeing Lintanis' dress. "You will not make many friends like that," she said.

"The only blood this spear will shed is that of orcs," Lintanis replied. "Will the Lindar truly not take part in this great war? Do they not wish to see the Enemy brought down once and for all?"

"The Lindar suffered greatly when last we were asked for such aid," Lalindil said, glancing toward the harbor. "And those who came demanding were arrayed not so differently from you."

"We make no demands," Lintanis said. "But I will not pretend that the war is far away—it is not, and we must all stand united against Moringotto, even the Lindar. Or would you see him victorious, and all the world under his shadow? He will not be content with Middle-earth, and will look back west to us here across the Sea."

Elunis put a hand on Lintanis' shoulder. "Enough," she said. "We are not so pressed for time that you must hold this debate here and now. Where is Olwë?" she asked Lalindil.

"At the harbor with Aiwë and Ëarion, listening to our people. Olwë is willing to take part in this war the Valar are planning, but he won't send our people east against their will."

"Then we can speak more when they return," Elunis said firmly. "Lintanis, surely you can leave your arms behind for a few hours to swim?"

While Elunis and Lintanis went down to the water by the palace, Elwing changed into fresh clothes and went walking through the streets of Alqualondë. It did not take long to find a wide space with a fountain where a large group was gathered to exchange tales and songs. Elwing sat on the lip of the fountain near the edge of the group to listen; the story being told was of Oromë's coming to the Elves at Cuiviénen, and the choosing of Elwë, Ingwë, and Finwë to go with him to see the Trees. It was, in the end, a mournful tale, for it told of the many sundering of the Nelyar as they traveled, and concluded with Elwë's disappearance, a grief still felt by the Lindar in Alqualondë. Elwing listened quietly; it was a tale she knew, but this telling was of course different than the ones she had heard in Sirion and on Balar.

"Whatever happened to Elwë?" someone in the crowd asked. "He has not come to us through Mandos."

"No one knows," said the storyteller. "Perhaps he is in Mandos. Perhaps he merely disappeared, like so many of our folk did before and during the Journey, taken by some dark creature in the wood."

"I can tell you what happened to him," Elwing said. The small crowd turned to her. They were startled, but intrigued. "I know many songs and tales of Beleriand, and of Elu Thingol."

"Tell us!" someone exclaimed.

"Sing us a song!"

There was one song often sung in Sirion, on summer nights beneath the stars, when the moon was dark and the world was all silver and shadow, and those who remembered the days before the Sun and Moon were willing to recall them. It was this song Elwing sang for the Lindar, of the wide lands of Beleriand where the rivers flowed and the Elves walked beneath the shining stars, and the niphredil and other flowers perfumed the air in Eglador by the Esgalduin, where Lúthien danced, lovely as dawn in spring, and Melian sang with the light of Aman in her face, and all was joyful and peaceful.

She ended up sitting by that fountain for hours; everyone was eager for new tales, and she told them of the Naugrim of the Ered Luin who helped to delve the caves of Menegroth, paid for with pearls from the Falas and Nimphelos most lovely of all, and of Daeron and his runes, of the coming of Denethor Lenwë's son and his people into Beleriand, and his death in the first battle when the orcs came streaming out of Angband upon Morgoth's return.

It was late when she returned to the palace; the sun had vanished behind the Pelóri long ago, and the stars shone bright and cold in the sky, and glittered on the water. Eärendil was brightest of them all. Elwing slipped around the palace rather than going inside, instead making her way to the small bit of beach where Elunis and Lintanis had swum earlier in the day. It was deserted now. She kicked off her shoes, hiked up her skirts, and waded into the water, just far enough that it washed over her feet and up her shins, cool and clear. There was music in the waves; Uinen was singing out in the bay. Elwing stared up at Eärendil, missing him terribly and wondering whether he could see her standing there, or if he looked rather to the eastern lands.

A slight breeze swept over the beach, threading through her hair like fingers brushing it out of her face, and on it she heard snatches of whispers in familiar voices. Gil-Estel, she heard, and We are not forgotten, and Eärendil has fulfilled his quest!

The breeze died away; it seemed to have taken with it some weight that had lain heavily on her shoulders, and when Elwing turned to go inside she was smiling.

Chapter 9

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Elwing woke suddenly in the grey hours before dawn; it was a few seconds before she realized why. There was a cacophony of birds just outside her window—sea birds and songbirds, all clustered on the railing of her balcony. "What in the world!" She rolled out of bed and flung open the curtains. "What are you doing here?" she exclaimed, though she could hardly hear herself above the noise. But they quieted quickly enough, and before long most of them had flown away. It seemed their intention had been to wake her, but Elwing could not think why.

One of the larger birds, of a kind she did not recognize, hopped off of the railing, and in the blink of an eye was no longer a bird, but a man, all in shades of brown. It was, of course, Aiwendil, who she had met beside the orchard only a few weeks before. "What are you doing?" she demanded, seizing a robe and wrapping it around herself tightly over her light nightgown.

"It's a beautiful morning—perfect for flying!" he said, flinging out his arms, the wide sleeves of his robes fluttering like feathered wings with the movement. Elwing stared at him. "Well? What are you waiting for? I promised I would teach you."

"You said I should come to find you if I wanted to learn," she said.

"Or that perhaps I would find you. And so I have. You've come back to the sea, and what better place to learn! We shall soar over the swells and ride the thermals with the gulls and the albatrosses, and we shall tease Uinen and her maidens in the bay!" He laughed at Elwing's expression. "I will ask again, what are you waiting for, cousin? For so I shall call you, as you are a child of Melyanna."

This was not how Elwing had hoped to begin her day. Yet she found herself agreeing.

And so she found herself standing once again at the top of a cliff staring down into the sea far below. This cliff was higher than the one at Sirion, and though the waters crashed against its base similarly, there were no rocks to pose a danger. And, of course, the sun was shining and the Silmaril did not weigh heavily upon her breast, nor did anyone stand at her back with bloodied swords. Still, she could not stand looking down for very long. On the cliff around her were gathered a handful of birds. A great albatross that Aiwendil said could glide across the Great Sea and back twice without tiring, a few gulls that looked on with keen black eyes, heads tilted curiously, and a hawk in a tree that watched Elwing and Aiwendil rather less than it eyed the gulls.

"How do you propose to teach me to fly?" Elwing asked. "I have no wings. And it was not my power that gave them to me before."

"Ulmo only woke in you what lay there already," Aiwendil said. "I think if another had done what you did, he would have had to resort to other methods of rescue. But you are not so unique as you might think! There are skin-changers among Men, did you know?"

"I did not," Elwing said. "But you have not answered my question."

"Of course I have! The power is inside you, and you only have to reach for it. Command your body! Tell your bones to hollow, and they shall! Summon feathers, and they will come!" He demonstrated by, in the blink of an eye, transforming from a brown-robed man back into a falcon, smaller than the hawk and faster, dropping like a stone toward the waters before spreading his wings and soaring up toward the sky, passing in front of the son so that Elwing's eyes were dazzled and she lost track of him.

Elwing sighed, and sat down on a rock to wait for him to return. The albatross roused itself and walked over to sit beside her. "He's right, you know," it said. Elwing started. "About the skin-changers, I mean. I've seen them."

"I've never heard of such a thing," Elwing said, eying the bird warily. "How is it you can speak?"

She had never thought of birds looking smug, but this one certainly managed it as it settled more comfortably on the stones. "All birds can speak," it said. "But some of us are cleverer than others, and have learned the tongues of Men and Elves."

"Oh. Can other birds speak in our tongues, then?"

"I suppose. I haven't met any." The albatross looked up at Elwing. "Are you going to join old Aiwendil, or not?"

Elwing looked back at the cliff's edge. "I rather doubt it," she said.

"It isn't hard," said the albatross, a little scornfully. "Flying, I mean. Although I suppose having to make wings each time would be a bit tricky, though the Maiar seem to manage all right."

"I'm not a Maia," Elwing pointed out. She frowned down at the albatross. "Don't you have better things to do? Fish to catch, or nests to make, or something?"

"Not just now," said the albatross.

Being looked at like that by a bird, no matter how large and impressive a bird it was, rankled more than Elwing would have thought it would. She got to her feet and went again to the edge of the cliff. She spotted a dark speck in the sky overhead that she thought must be Aiwendil, riding the breezes and, it seemed, waiting for her to do something.

All right, then. She took a few steps back, taking deep breaths to try to calm her suddenly-racing heart. "Uinen catch me," she murmured, as she closed her eyes and turned all of her thought not to the changing, but the being, of wind through feathers, of soaring with effortless, weightless ease over the waves, of hollow bones and wide spread wings. Then she took a running start and leaped off the cliff.

Wind rushed in her ears and unraveled her braids almost immediately. Elwing forced her eyes open and resisted the urge to scream as she focused on feathers—feathers and wings and flying not falling flying not falling flying—

Just as she was about to give up and scream before hitting the water, she felt her body change—it was not like before, when other hands had taken and molded her like clay, it was smooth and painless and thrilling, and she spread out arms-turned wings and caught a breeze that carried her over the water, not quite close enough to skim the surface, and then up, and up. Uinen rose from the waves, hair streaming like silver foam, to lift up her hand and laugh with joy, and her maidens on a nearby beach burst into cheerful song as Elwing soared over them. She was a sea bird, something like an albatross, something like a gull—but not really either one. Aiwendil in his hawk shape swooped by with a scream that must have been what laughter passed for in such birds. Elwing returned the call with a keening cry of her own.

They spent the morning in the air, and on the cliff. After her first thrilling success Elwing had to be caught by Uinen three times before she was able to call on her bird's shape again. Uinen was very kind about it, encouraging in a different, gentler way than Aiwendil's boundless enthusiasm. After that she struggled to return to her own shape, and that was a panic worse than falling into the water.

"There you are!" Minyelmë said when Elwing finally returned to Olwë's palace. It was lunchtime, and she was both starving and exhausted. And she would be sore, she was certain. "Where have you been?"

"Flying," Elwing said. Minyelmë's eyebrows rose. "It seems I am a skin-changer, though whether through Melian or Beren's line I'm not sure."

"Melian, surely," said Minyelmë. "Shall we lunch on the veranda? I'd like to hear more about this skin-changing. Do you need songs for it?"

Elwing had not even thought of that. Finrod had needed songs of power. Had Lúthien? She couldn't remember what the tales said at the moment, or if they said at all.

"No," she said. "I just sort of…tell my body to be a bird, and it is a bird." She shook her head. "I'm going to wash and change."

Minyelmë was delighted with the idea of Elwing's being a skin-changer, and the subject dominated the conversation at lunch. It was just the two of them, Elunis being off with Olwë and Lalindil somewhere and all of Olwë's children having engagements elsewhere. It was a relief to sit back and listen to Minyelmë speculate about what skin-changing for the Secondborn was like. "What sort of things do you suppose they can turn into? There are big cats that live in the mountains. Or horses, or wolves—or bears. I'd like to see someone turn into a bear."

"It would have to be a very large person," Elwing said. She tilted her head back and closed her eyes. A breeze swept down the beach, blowing strands of her hair across her face to tickle her nose.

"That's true. Are you all right?"

"Changing one's skin is very tiring," said Elwing without moving. "At least at first. Aiwendil, of course, was baffled when I told him I needed to go take a nap. He wanted to fly around the bay all afternoon and evening, too."

"Oh, well, Maiar." Elwing heard Minyelmë shift in her own chair. "If you want understandings of bodily limitation you should go back to Lórien. Estë and her people are better about it than most. Aiwendil's one of Yavanna's followers, I think."

"I like him," Elwing murmured. "He's always laughing."

"You should find somewhere more comfortable if you're going to fall asleep," said Minyelmë after a few minutes of silence.

Elwing opened her eyes. That sounded like a good idea—and there was a divan just down the veranda with silk pillows that looked terribly inviting. "All right," she said, sitting up and rubbing her neck, which was already feeling stiff. "Wake me before supper, though, won't you?"

"Of course."

Elwing retreated to the divan and fell asleep almost immediately; she dreamed of flying, over the sea and through the stars.

Chapter 10

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In the end, few of the Teleri were eager to go, but they agreed to sail a fleet to Middle-earth to bear the armies of the Vanyar and the Noldor to war, though they themselves would not set foot on that land. It was less than Elwing had hoped, but at least it was something.

"I would go fight," said Minyelmë as they sat on the beach together on afternoon, letting the waves wash up over their feet. Elwing watched a hermit crab scuttle along, buffeted by the surf. "But my mother and my sister have forbidden me." She sighed, falling back onto the sand dramatically.

"I do not blame them," said Elwing, still watching the crab. "You died once already; they do not want you courting it again."

"Yes, yes, I know. And I'm not going to sneak onto a ship anyway, like Lúnamírë seems to fear." Minyelmë put her arms behind her head and stared up at the puffy clouds slowly drifting across the sky. "Elwing…I'm sorry, I know you must be sick to death of these sorts of questions, but—"

"It's all right," Elwing said, amused. The hermit crab was now exchanging one shell for another. "Who did you want to ask me about? I may have actually known them."

"Princess Lalwen."

This was surprising. Elwing looked at Minyelmë, who was frowning now up at the sky. "The last I heard, she was on the Isle of Balar with Gil-galad," she said. Minyelmë's relief was visible as she relaxed into the sand. "But I thought you didn't…"

"I haven't been to Tirion since the Kinslaying," Minyelmë said. "I wasn't here for all of it—only the aftermath. But Lalwen was. I found her on the road, still covered in someone else's blood. Our parting was bitter, and now so are the memories."

"I'm sorry."

"It was a long time ago, now. I'm truly not sure whether I want to see her again or not, but I am glad that she's safe. Or as safe as one can be, anyway."

The hermit crab was now scuttling away, leaving a zig-zagging trail behind it on the wet sand. Elwing watched until it was swallowed up by the foamy surf, and then looked back at Minyelmë. A little hesitantly, she said, "I did not meet many of the Noldor who were at Alqualondë. I think most of them have died. But those I met in Sirion or on Balar regretted it deeply. I have never spoken with Lady Lalwen, but I would imagine she feels the same way."

"Perhaps," said Minyelmë. "But Lalwen was never one to dwell on past mistakes or regrets."

"That isn't the same as not having regrets," said Elwing. "But you know her far better than I do."

"Maybe I did once." Minyelmë sighed, and sat up. "But enough of that. I don't want to dwell on past mistakes either. Let us talk of the future. What are you going to do now, cousin?"

"Me?"

"Yes, you. I know you have your handful of people to think of, but what is it that you want to do, cousin?"

"I don't know. I have not thought beyond the coming war."

"Well, perhaps you should start."

Elwing looked down along the beach toward the shipyards, which were swarming with workers, Elf and Ainu alike, as they hurried to craft enough ships to take the armies of the Noldor and the Vanyar to Middle-earth. Everyone spoke of what was coming as though their victory were assured. Of course it would be easy for them to think so. The Valar were marching themselves to War, and nearly all of those who dwelt here in Valinor knew nothing of war, and so little of the Enemy and what he was capable of. "I don't know if I can," she said.

Minyelmë sat up. "Then I will help you! Tell me, Elwing, if you could live anywhere at all in all of Aman, where would you choose? Do not think of safety or defense or obligation."
"How can I ignore all of those—"

"Elwing, just for a moment, please. What do you want?"

Elwing looked down at the sand and tried to think about it. It was very difficult not to turn her mind to defenses (Alqualondë still horrified her, a little, at how easy it would be to overrun), or to think about her responsibilities to the Sindar who continued to trickle out of Mandos and to make their way to the coast because that was where she was.

And then it occurred to her that her own desires did not conflict with what she knew those Sindar wished for. They had little desire to dwell right on the coast in Alqualondë, but there were forests aplenty between Alqualondë and the Pelóri, and no one lived in Araman to the north, which was mostly uninviting wilderness. Elwing could dwell outside of Alqualondë yet still near the coast—she thought of that high cliff that jutted out into the sea where Aiwendil had taught her to fly—and her people could dwell nearby or wander where they liked, always knowing where to find her. And she would be close to Alqualondë—only a few minutes, if she chose to fly. And there was even a natural harbor there, where Vingilot could be anchored when Eärendil was finally permitted to return to the earth.

"Ah, so you do have some ideas," Minyelmë said, watching her face. "Good!"

"Maybe I do," said Elwing, raising her head. She felt, to her surprise, a great deal lighter than she had just a few minutes ago. "But I don't have the faintest idea how to go about turning them into reality."

"If you mean you don't know how to build a house," Minyelmë laughed, "have no fear! There are some Noldor I know who would delight in building a new home for you. And," she added, leaning in to lower her voice almost conspiratorially, "such a project would go a long way to repairing the friendship between the Noldor and the Lindar."

"Says the woman who refuses to set foot in Tirion," Elwing said. "Are these your words you are speaking or someone else's?"

"That has little to do with old resentments," said Minyelmë. "But it is true that I am echoing Ëarwen, and that it is not entirely a coincidence that Lady Anairë is arriving in Alqualondë tomorrow."

.

Lady Anairë arrived the next afternoon, with a large party of craftsmen out of Tirion, including Mahtan, to lend their skills to the shipbuilding and to begin shoring up the stores of weapons and armor that would be stored in those ships. Anairë herself swung out of the saddle and embraced Ëarwen with a cry of delight. She wore a riding gown of dark blue edged with silver, and her hair was coiled up in many braids studded with beads of silver and diamond. There were rings on her fingers and a glittering gem-studded chain around her neck—she was every inch a fine Noldorin princess. And she shared Idril's smile.

The formal greetings were soon over with, and the company scattered to whatever tasks they had come to Alqualondë to do. Ëarwen looped her arm through Anairë's as she turned to beckon Elwing forward. "Anairë, this is Lady Elwing, daughter of Dior son of Lúthien daughter of my uncle Elwë," she said. "And wife of Eärendil son of Itarillë."

"I am so happy to meet you at last," said Anairë. She took Elwing's hand in hers. It was warm and soft, though with a writer's callouses on her fingers. Her voice was just slightly deeper than Elwing would have expected. "I was sorry to have missed you in Tirion."

"I am honored to meet you as well, Lady Anairë," said Elwing, inclining her head. "I am only sorry that Eärendil is not here as well."

"As am I." Anairë smiled again, and laughed. "Though it is difficult to imagine my little granddaughter with a child of her own!" For a moment Elwing was afraid she would ask after Idril, or Turgon—but she did not. Instead Ëarwen steered them all inside, talking of ships and of the antics of Ëassalmë's children, and asking after the goings on of Tirion.

Elwing did not learn what Lady Anairë in particular had to do with Minyelmë's insistence that she think about the future until a few days after that. Isilmë dragged her out onto the beach to build sandcastles. Elwing mostly sat and watched her do the building, except when Isilmë instructed her to help construct a tower or to hand her a seashell to decorate the walls. Elrond and Elros had done much the same—the difference being that there were two of them and only one of Isilmë, so there were far fewer scuffles and arguments. Elwing spent most of the afternoon trying not to imagine what her boys were doing or who they were with.

As Isilmë finished her tallest castle yet, they were joined by Ëarwen and Anairë. Anairë had abandoned most of her jewelry and her heavier Noldorin dresses for a lighter gown in the style of the Teleri, and she wore her hair loose like Ëarwen did. "Look what I've made, Aunt Anairë!" Isilmë exclaimed, jumping to her feet to show off her castles. Anairë laughed and showered her with compliments, though they were not the usual kind.

"Anairë is an architect," Ëarwen told Elwing as she sat down on the sand beside her. "She's always sketching plans, though there's been little enough need for new houses or halls in recent years."

"But now you think I will need one," Elwing said.

"If you wish. Minyelmë seems to think you do." Elwing made a face, which made Ëarwen laugh, as Anairë finally came to join them. Isilmë had abandoned her castle building in favor of racing the waves up and down the beach, pausing occasionally to pick up a seashell or piece of driftwood that caught her fancy. "Anairë," Ëarwen said, leaning back on her elbows in the warm sand, "what sort of house would you design for Elwing?"

"I cannot possibly answer that question, Ëarwen. I only met Elwing a few days ago. What sort of house would you like, Elwing?"

"I don't know."

"Do you know where you'd want to live?" Ëarwen asked. "You won't offend either of us if it isn't Alqualondë or Tirion!"

"Well, there is a place…" Elwing paused as Isilmë came to drop her growing collection of trinkets beside Ëarwen before skipping away again. A few tiny crabs scuttled out of the pile and away into the sand. "It's a tall promontory that juts out of the coast—a little ways north of Alqualondë."

"When did you go out there?" Ëarwen asked, surprised.

"Aiwendil took me there."

"Who is Aiwendil?" Anairë asked.

"A Maia. He knew my great-grandmother." It occurred to Elwing that she had neglected to tell anyone besides Minyelmë about her flying adventures. She hadn't meant to keep it a secret, but it seemed an odd thing to bring up now. "There is a natural harbor there," she went on, deciding that was a conversation that could wait for another time. "And the forest is not far away."

"I think I know the place you mean," said Ëarwen. "I would not have thought you'd choose such a high place, but I imagine the view is lovely, of the coast and the Sea." Elwing nodded.

"It would be a challenge to design a home for such a place," Anairë said.

"Shall we go take a look at it?" Ëarwen asked, sitting up. "We can take my boat, and pack a picnic for supper. Isilmë! Come along, my dear."

An hour later the three of them, Elwing and Ëarwen and Anairë, were in Ëarwen's small sailboat, making their way out into the bay. Elwing peered over the side to see in the clear depths the shape of a woman, just for a moment, moving beneath them. She turned her face up and winked before dissolving into thousands of tiny bubbles. They passed by dozens of other smaller and slightly larger boats, and Ëarwen called out greetings to each one, before bursting into a joyous and playful sailing song. Anairë joined her after a few lines. Elwing was content to sit and listen.

It had been a long time since she had gone out on the water for nothing more than pleasure. Usually when she had stepped on a boat in Sirion it had been to go to Balar, though even then it was more usual for Círdan or Gil-galad to come to her. Not since she and Eärendil had been young had she been coaxed out for pleasure jaunts across the Bay of Balar. It was nice to do it again, though she was still mostly useless when it came to sailing. Ëarwen and Anairë worked together with the ease of many long years of practice and familiarity.

The jaunt up the coast was not a long one. The afternoon sun was bright and warm and the wind was strong in their sails. As they sped over the water it felt almost like flying. Elwing closed her eyes and tilted her head back to enjoy the spray on her face as Anairë and Ëarwen laughed together and burst into song again. Maybe she should learn to sail. It would be a wonderful thing to surprise Eärendil with, when he returned.

"Is that it?" Ëarwen asked finally, as the promontory came into view.

"Yes, that's it," said Elwing.

"Whatever did Aiwendil bring you out here for?" Anairë asked as she gazed up at it, shielding her eyes with one hand.

"To fly," Elwing said, and found herself laughing at the looks on Anairë and Ëarwen's faces when they turned to stare at her. "Like this." She got to her feet and leapt from the boat, as though she were going to dive into the water, but instead her body shifted and changed and her wings caught the breeze and she went soaring up, and up, and up, the little sailboat shrinking beneath her until Ëarwen and Anairë were tiny as dolls, and the world opened up around her. She circled over their heads as they continued on to the natural harbor she'd described for them, and as they made their way onto dry land she flew down to join them, stumbling a little as she regained her usual form upon touching the ground.

"How did you do that?" Ëarwen exclaimed. "You never told me you were a skin-changer!"

"Aiwendil tells me it is thanks to my great-grandmother Melian," Elwing said. "It was a power I did not know I had until Ulmo awoke it in me."

"Ah, now I see why you would like to live here!" Anairë said. She slung a satchel over her shoulder, while Ëarwen hefted a basket with their supper inside. "Let's go take a look at the top of this cliff! How do those of us without wings get up there?"

It was more difficult on foot, but Elwing showed them the path that she'd found when Aiwendil first brought her. The view was as lovely as always, though it was getting darker now, the sun drifting back behind the Pelóri and throwing the coast into shadow. In the forest farther inland Elwing heard the faint sound of singing voices. Her folk with wandering hearts were already out exploring. Elwing sat on a large boulder while Anairë walked around, examining the land and looking out in all directions. While she did that, taking a sketchbook out of her satchel and a piece of charcoal to sketch or take notes, Ëarwen set out their picnic. "What is she doing?" Elwing asked.

"I have no idea," Ëarwen said cheerfully. "I don't know the first thing about designing buildings, unless they're sandcastles. And even then mine are always lumpy. Pastry?"

As Elwing accepted the pastry, Anairë came back to join them. Her fingers were smudged with charcoal and she had a streak of it across her forehead where she had pushed her hair out of her eyes. Her sketchbook page had several half-started drawings and a dozen lines of scribbled notes that Elwing could not quite make out. "Elwing," Anairë said, eyes bright, "how would you like living in a tower?"

Chapter 11

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"How tall is it going to be?" Elwing asked as she leaned over Anairë's shoulder to look at the sketch. This one was done in pencil, and much clearer than Anairë's quickly scribbled charcoal drawings had been while they were up on the cliffs. The desk was scattered with pencils and broken erasers and rulers and other instruments that Anairë said were to measure angles.

"How tall do you want it to be?" Anairë asked in reply, and laughed when Elwing of course had no answer. She had never had to think about building a house before. "Well, how tall would be too tall?"

"I don't know," said Elwing. "We had no towers in Sirion."

"Well, there are plenty in Tirion," said Anairë. "Or even in Valmar. You have not visited Valmar yet, have you?"
Elwing sat down beside the desk. Anairë's rooms were open and airy, as were all the rooms in Olwë's palace. The desk, though, had been brought originally from her home north of Tirion, and it was of dark and sturdy wood, with so many drawers filled with pens and ink and papers and pencils and other instruments that Elwing could not fathom how Anairë kept track of it all. "I have seen Valinor—from a distance," she said. "But I have not yet visited."

"We can go on a tour of towers after the fleet departs," said Anairë. She glanced out of the window. Ships bobbed in the bay, big ones with little ornamentation, made to carry as many soldiers and as much supplies as possible, as quickly as possible. Aulë and Ulmo themselves had been flitting in and out of Alqualondë to help speed the processes. What preparations of their own the Valar were making, Elwing could not guess. It would not be long now, though, before the armies departed—the ships for the coast farther south, and the Valar presumably straight for Angband. The armies were gathering outside of Alqualondë, which was making tensions run high—everyone remembered the last time there was an army outside of their gates, and the presence of the Vanyar only did so much.

After leaving Anairë to her sketching, Elwing lunched with Finarfin and Ingwion and their captains. The conversations of late had centered around dragons—Elwing had told the tale of Húrin's children one evening, and the descriptions of Glaurung had everyone alarmed. Of course, Elwing could tell them nothing except what she had heard in the songs and tales sung of Túrin Turambar, which was little enough. There had been dragons in the army that had overtaken Gondolin, but Elwing had never heard the tale of that battle in full.

.

The days and weeks passed swiftly, Alqualondë now busy as a beehive with folk coming and going and smoke pouring from the shops and smithies. Seeing the Valar walking through the streets or consulting with the captains of the armies in Olwë's palace became commonplace, though Elwing always turned around and went another way when she saw them, if she could.

And then Aulë himself called upon her. He was stocky and muscular, and sported a thick black beard with beads braided into it that gleamed like stars and clicked when he moved. Elwing had met only one or two Dwarves in her life, those who had become trapped on Balar when the roads east grew too dangerous to travel far, and the only difference between them and Aulë was that he was taller—and even then not by very much, for he was scarcely taller than Elwing herself.

"I'm told you have a piece of my children's work that Ulmo managed to damage," he told her cheerfully. "May I see it?"

Elwing stared at him for a moment before realizing what he meant. "Oh! The Nauglamír? Yes, of course, my lord. Please wait just a moment." She hurried to fetch it out of the chest where it had lain, wrapped carefully in soft cloth, since the Silmaril had been removed to be fastened permanently to Vingilot's mast. She lifted it out and brought it to Aulë, who set it on a table by a window, where the sun caught and gleamed on the gold and the silver, and glittered on the gems like fire. "Ah," Aulë said, sounding pleased and proud. "This is beautiful. Or it was, before Ulmo got so careless. His power can be crushing as the weight of miles of ocean water."

"What are you doing?" Elwing asked as Aulë ran his fingers along the wide chains.

"Repairing the damage," he said. "I do not like to have broken things lying about. And this is one of the finest pieces that my Children have yet crafted, and I would see it restored to its glory." He reached into a pocket of his apron and pulled out a handful of gems, and as he hummed softly and manipulated the necklace, the bent metal smoothed and the settings were restored, and the air around them felt heavy with Power and heat not unlike a forge, that set Elwing's skin to prickling. And finally, as he ceased his singing, he set the gems from his pocket into the empty setting. In the largest one, where the Silmaril had been set, he placed an opal of equal size and shape. "There," he said once it was done. "Not exactly as it was, perhaps, but close enough." He lifted the necklace and placed it around Elwing's neck. "Made for broader shoulders, but still quite lovely."

It felt lighter on her shoulders than it had before. Perhaps the Silmaril had added imagined weight. "Thank you, Lord Aulë." She dropped into a curtsy, the gems on the Nauglamír flashing with the movement. He inclined his head in response, and took his leave. Once she was alone again, Elwing removed the necklace and wrapped it up again in the cloth. Even repaired, even with the Silmaril gone from it, she did not have much desire to wear it.

.

Then, at long last, Elwing received word that Eärendil was returning. That evening she hurried down to the harbor as his star began to grow larger—and larger, and larger, until Vingilot itself was visible. It sailed down and onto the clear waters of the Bay of Eldamar with hardly a splash, and when it did the harbor and the city erupted in cheers.
Eärendil appeared at the bow of the ship, leaning out over the railing as Vingilot approached the docks. Elwing had already made her way to the end of one of the very few empty ones, and when he spotted her his face lit up brighter even than the Silmaril. His hair was windblown and his cheeks were flushed, and he shimmered as he moved, as though someone had sprinkled diamond dust all over him. He did not even wait for a single rope to be thrown from the ship before he leaped down onto the dock to catch Elwing up in his arms. "I missed you," he said into her hair.

"Welcome home," she replied.

It took a very long time to return to the palace. It felt as though everyone in Valinor had come to Alqualondë, and all of them wanted to catch a glimpse of Eärendil. Elwing kept a tight grip on his hand throughout the walk, half-afraid he would be swallowed up by the crowd. He laughed and waved to those who called out to him, and eventually they escaped into the palace itself, which seemed empty and near-silent after the clamor outside. Only when they reached her rooms did Elwing let her grip on his hand loosen, and Eärendil turned to embrace her again, kissing her soundly. "Ah, Elwing!" he said. "It's incredible out there! To see the stars from the stars—and to see the whole earth stretched out beneath you—I could see everything! I may like it even better than sailing the Sea!"

"I didn't think such a thing was possible," Elwing said, which made him laugh. "But Eärendil, what did you see? What is happening at—in the East?"

He sobered immediately. "I found our boys," he said. "It took the better part of the year, but I finally saw them, near the eastern end of the Amdram. They've grown quite a bit—but Elwing, they are with the Sons of Fëanor. I wasn't certain at first—even with the spyglass Eönwë gave me, since I've never seen them before. But Maedhros is unmistakable."

"I dreamed that they had been taken," Elwing said. "But I hoped, perhaps…"

"They looked well," Eärendil said. "I cannot say if they are happy, but they are healthy, and cared for."

"By Kinslayers."

"I would rather see them as they are than fallen prey to orcs, or worse," said Eärendil. "In any case, there they must stay—Beleriand is near overrun with the servants of the Enemy. I think it is only Maedhros' reputation that keeps that little fort safe. Ossiriand remains mostly untouched, but the only other island of safety is Balar. I know that the Valar have not been idle, but they need to march forth soon, or it will be too late."

"They plan to set out any day now," said Elwing. "It was why you were recalled—Arafinwë and Ingwion will want to hear all that you can tell them. But it can wait until the morning," she added as he raised a hand to stifle a yawn.

"Better not wait," Eärendil replied. "Or not that long, anyway—I would like to have a bath first, and a meal cooked in a real kitchen."

"Both are waiting for you," Elwing replied. This earned her yet another kiss, before Eärendil retreated to wash away the glittering stardust and whatever other grime accumulated when one sailed the skies. He did not linger, and emerged in fresh clothes and smelling properly earthbound—of lavender scented soap, rather than the strange metallic scent that had followed him from Vingilot. He and Elwing dined alone, giving her the chance to tell him who was there, and to warn him about which relatives to expect—Anairë, of course, foremost among them.

"What is she like?" Eärendil asked.

"She's lovely," said Elwing. "You can see Idril in her smile."

Eärendil's own smile was brief. "Have you spoken of my mother with her? Or my grandfather?"

"No. I think she knows or suspects already that Turgon is dead. But she has not asked me. Most of our conversations have been about the tower she is designing for me."

"A tower?" Eärendil repeated. He leaned forward. "Tell me all about it."

After the meal they went to the council room, where Olwë's sons Aiwë and Ëarion were seated with Ingwion and his sisters, and Arafinwë. They all rose and bowed when Elwing introduced Eärendil, but formalities were quickly dispensed with, in favor of information and strategy. Elwing sat beside Lintanis and watched as Eärendil leaned over the maps to point to encampments and strongholds, and to trace the movements of both the Enemy and their own peoples, and a little bit of the movements of the Dwarves in the Ered Luin—but they seemed to have retreated beneath the mountains, and Elwing could not blame them. The picture that Eärendil painted was not good. It was worse than Elwing had feared, though if anyone else in the room felt any fear, they did not show it.

"When do you set sail?" Eärendil asked finally.

"Three days' time," said Ingwion. "And you will be our herald, Cousin."

Eärendil's grin was fierce. "Gladly."

They spoke and planned late into the night. After, curled up together in bed and listening to the sea outside the windows, Elwing traced her fingers down over Eärendil's face. "At least I do not need to fear for you," she said softly. "Unless there is some other devilry brewing in Angband. You'll come back."

"Of course I'll come back." Eärendil caught her hand and kissed her palm. "I always will."

Chapter 12

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Eärendil went to see Anairë early the next morning, and did not return until lunchtime, just in time to dress to greet High King Ingwë and his company. He dressed hurriedly as a maid put the finishing touches on Elwing's hair, having twined strands of pearl and diamond through the braids. She wore pearls around her neck and in her ears as well, and a gown of light and breezy fabric in several shades of green and blue. Eärendil's tunic matched, and bore a six-pointed star embroidered on the front in bright silver thread. Someone had made him a circlet of intertwined silver stars set with hundreds of tiny glittering opals the sizes of pinheads, and he made a face as he put it on.

"Would something plainer not have sufficed?" he asked.

"All of your Noldorin relatives would be shocked to hear you ask such a thing," Elwing said. He laughed. "You look very princely." As the maid left them, she added, "How was Lady Anairë?"

"She's wonderful," said Eärendil. "We spent most of the morning talking of Gondolin."

They had to hurry to join Olwë and Arafinwë and the rest in the courtyard before the palace. Elwing could not see it, but she knew that the whole of Alqualondë and the encampments beyond were thronging with people, of the soldiers preparing to leave and their families and friends come to say farewell. She did not think there was a single elf in Valinor who had not come through the Calacirya. Music and laughter and noise echoed all along the shores of the bay, off of the water and off of the mountains—determined gaiety, fierce celebration in defiance of what may come. It must be a great comfort, she thought as she took her place beside Eärendil, to know that though your loved one might die they would still return to you someday.

At last, trumpets and cries went up to announce the arrival of High King Ingwë and his party. They rode on white horses through the gates into the courtyard, tall and lovely and arrayed in splendor. At Ingwë's side was his wife Lúnamírë, with emeralds woven through her soft brown hair, and on his other side rode a tall woman with hair of burnished gold who could only be Indis. Behind them came Findis and her family, and Lady Nerdanel with them, and other high lords and ladies of the Vanyar and Noldor. They were greeted with appropriate pomp and ceremony, and the whole company returned inside to one of the many wide open halls, where the courtiers of Alqualondë were gathered for dancing and drinking and singing and feasting.

"How much trouble will I be in when one of my cousins asks me to dance?" Eärendil murmured in Elwing's ear as they entered the hall.

"I have no idea," she replied. "I've done very little dancing."

They had some time before the dancing truly began. Elwing introduced Eärendil to Tavron and Helegil and others of the Sindar who had made their way from Mandos to the coast. They were clad in shades of grey and green in the old styles of Doriath. There were a dozen or so in the hall, scattered through the rest of the gathering. Elunis and Minyelmë were there also, and their reunion with Lúnamírë was merry, and Minyelmë immediately brought her over to Elwing and Eärendil for a second introduction, this time as cousins and with far less formality.

As the festivities stretched into the evening and the stars began to come out, someone called for music from Middle-earth. Something from Doriath, or even from the Great Journey or before. One of the Sindar—Orondis, Elwing thought, though she was across the room and unable to see clearly—stood immediately to take up a drum, and someone else a flute. Elunis announced, "I will sing for you one of many songs that have been written of the meeting of Elu Thingol and Melian in the dark woods of Nan Elmoth. It was written by Daeron our greatest minstrel and loremaster long ago when only starlight shone on the enchanted waters of the Esgalduin in Neldoreth, when Menegroth was newly-wrought and before Melian wove her Girdle."

It was a beautiful song. Elwing had heard it before—many of Daeron's songs had survived and come down to the Havens—and by the time it was done there was no face in the room untouched by tears. Eärendil took her hand and squeezed it. Across the room she caught a glimpse of Olwë standing alone by a window, head bowed and hands clasped in front of him, with starlight shining on his hair. It was only a glimpse, for the crowd was still moving about, and when she looked again he was gone. Someone else called for another song out of Doriath, and Elunis obliged with a song that was mostly wordless, meant for revelries and dancing. The other musicians quickly caught on to the melody, and as quickly as the music had brought tears it dried them into laughter.

"Oh, I know this dance!" Eärendil exclaimed, and pulled Elwing, laughing, into the throng. It was not a complicated dance, and one that they had both danced many times at summer celebrations in Sirion.

There were many other songs sung that night, each one older than the last until the oldest Elves among them were singing in a language nearly forgotten, songs that had been crafted on the shores of Cuiviénen long and long ago, before Oromë had come, before there was ever any thought of leaving that place. Those who were not dancing gathered together to talk and laugh and tell stories, and to drink sweet wine and eat the finest foods that Alqualondë had to offer.

The music and dancing and determined festivity did not last as long into the night as another celebration would have, for it was with the tide at dawn that the ships would depart, and it was just after the moon sank behind the Pelóri that Elwing and Eärendil were able to retreat to their rooms. The windows were open and the gentle breeze off the water made the curtains billow gently. Eärendil's armor sat gleaming on its stand. Neither of them looked at it as they undressed and slid beneath the soft cool sheets. Elwing curled up against Eärendil, who wrapped his arms around her and sighed. They did not speak; they had already said all there was to say, already made what promises they could. Elwing closed her eyes and listened to the steady beat of Eärendil's heart until sleep found her.

She dreamed that night of flying again, of that desperate and terrible flight across the sea with the Nauglamír a heavy shining weight around her neck. In the dream Sirion was always burning behind her so close she could feel the heat, and Vingilot was always a pale speck on the horizon, and she flew and flew and flew but could never get any closer to it…

Eärendil's kiss woke her. It was not yet dawn, but the eastern sky was growing pale with the promise of it. Elwing opened her eyes and Eärendil smiled down at her, before kissing her again and moving to get out of bed. Sounds from the rest of the palace reached them, a last flurry of activity as all prepared to depart. Elwing sighed, and rolled over to sit up, as servants came in to help Eärendil into his armor and to help Elwing dress. On this morning she wore white, a gown she had had made in the style worn in Sirion—which was in turn a blending of the styles of Doriath and Gondolin. The sleeves were wide like wings, and the neckline was high; over it she wore the Nauglamír, but no other ornamentation—the Nauglamír did not need anything to compliment it. Her girdle was of silver and edged with pearls.

When he was dressed Eärendil looked as splendid as any warrior hero from a story, in gleaming mail of steel coated with silver. His helm bore a plume of eagle feathers, and his shield was so scored with runes of warding and protection that Elwing's eyes crossed when she tried to look at it for too long. His cloak he held in place with a brooch made from the emerald Elwing had given him from the Nauglamír.

Together they emerged from the palace, and joined with Ingwion and his sisters as they made their way down to the harbor, where Vingilot waited. On her deck were the Maiar who served as Eärendil's crew, all of them also clad in shining armor, ready for war. The Silmaril hung on the main mast, blazing as bright as ever, illuminating the entire harbor as soldiers and sailors streamed onto the fleet. Many ships already filled waited floating in the harbor, their colorful sails bright as butterfly wings.

Eärendil turned to Elwing and kissed her. "Farewell for now, my love," he said.

"Be safe," Elwing replied. He flashed her a bright smile before striding away. He sprang up the gangplank to Vingilot, and in minutes she had lifted from the harbor, water falling from her like gleaming gems in the Silmaril's light, and soared up and around to hover over the fleet, a flagship and beacon all in one. Eärendil jumped to the very front of Vingilot's bow, leaning out over the harbor, one foot dangling in the air and only one hand grasping a line to keep him aboard. "Utúlie'n aurë! Aiya Eldalië ar Atanatári, utúlie'n aurë!" he cried in a loud voice, echoing the words of Fingon before the Nirnaeth Arnoediad when Turgon had come from Gondolin unloooked for, but now they were spoken truly, for no machinations of the Enemy would thwart them this time. As he spoke the sun crested the horizon over the sea, red as fire, and the Silmaril caught the new light and blazed forth with new brilliancy.

For a breathless moment the harbor was silent, before Elwing cried just as loudly in reply, "Auta i lomë!" And it was taken up by the whole host of Valinor, so that the words echoed off of the Pelóri to the west and the waves to the east. Soon, she hoped, it would echo off of the walls of Angband and down into the deepest and darkest of its pits.
As the cries began to die away Vingilot rose higher, and Eärendil retreated from the prow, and Elwing stood between Indis and Lúnamírë as they watched the ships drift out of the harbor and out into the bay. Uinen rose from the waters and bowed her head as they went past, until at last the hindmost ship was gone even from elven sight, and the Bay of Eldamar was again empty and smooth as glass. Vingilot was again visible only as a star on the horizon.

"I had not heard those words before, that Eärendil spoke," Ingwë said after a long stretch of silence. "Where do they come from?"

"Fingon the High King of the Noldor spoke them, before the Nirnaeth Arnoediad," Elwing said. She did not look at Anairë as she spoke. "He died that day, with too many others, and his hope was not realized. But now his words will at last ring true. May Morgoth hear them and tremble."

Chapter 13

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It was very quiet in Alqualondë after the fleet's departure. Many of the Teleri had gone as sailors, including Olwë's sons in the fleet's flagships. Elwing saw that for everyone it was difficult to return to any semblance of a normal routine, when their eyes were forever drawn to the horizon. She knew that feeling well; she had sat for many long hours watching the Sea when Eärendil had been gone on his long voyages. The worry was almost comforting in its familiarity, though now her chief concerns lay with Elrond and Elros, wherever they dwelled now with the remaining Sons of Fëanor.

The Noldor were the first to recover. They had watched their friends and family march away before. There were very few now left to return to Tirion, but return they did, bidding the Teleri and the remaining Vanyar in Alqualondë fond farewells as they went back through the Calacirya. As they did, the Vanyar stirred, eager to return to Valmar and to the mountain slopes beneath Taniquetil where they kept their sheep and roamed beneath sun and stars.
Anairë prepared to leave also, and as promised she invited Elwing to go with her to see Valmar and its towers. Elwing agreed eagerly. She wanted to see the famous city up close, and she wanted even more to see Anairë's plans completed and come to fruition. She wanted for nothing in the homes of her various relations, but she did not want to always be a guest.

They traveled with Ingwë and his wife Lúnamírë, and with Indis. It was a quiet journey with little conversation, all of them lost in their own thoughts. They came to Tirion and stayed a while, but the city was all but empty now, and the silence was oppressive. So they went on to Valmar where Anairë and Elwing were welcomed as guests to Ingwë's own house, a sprawling mansion of white and grey stone. There were several towers from which the countryside all around could easily be seen, and the stars too on clear nights. Towering above them was the great mountain of Taniquetil, where for the first time since the first imprisoning of Morgoth Manwë was not to be found.

"This is the city of the Valar," said Anairë as she and Elwing left Ingwë's house to walk the streets. Somewhere bells were tolling in clear sweet tones. "It is normally overflowing with Ainur." As they walked, however, the streets were quiet. There were Vanyar, though of course relatively few—barely enough to make the city seem less desolate than Tirion. "It will be very hard to get used to…I am glad we will be returning to Alqualondë to build your tower."

There were many towers in Valmar, as there were in Tirion, but they were of very different construction. Some had been built by Elven hands, but many had been raised by the Valar, who needed only to put forth their thought and will to shape the earth into what was needed or wanted, and so they came in many shapes and colors and forms. There was one made entirely of gleaming emerald. They entered and looked out of the windows at a world all in shades of green. Another seemed straightforward stone from the outside, except that there were no windows, but inside the walls were lit by strange mosses that made their own pale blue light. Others were not straight, but crooked or twisted and branching out like gnarled trees, and Elwing could not tell how they could stay standing at all. More than one building turned out to in fact be a great living tree, hollow inside with carved out steps and rooms and windows, always with the sound of wind in the leaves overhead or, in the upper floors, all around.

"So what do you think?" Anairë asked Elwing after they had spent many days exploring the city together, Anairë showing her all of her favorite places and introducing her to the Vanyar who remained behind—including the great singer Elemmírë, who they had found hanging upside down by her knees from a tree branch for apparently no reason at all, her long hair piled on the ground in a tangle of grass bits and thick curls beneath her head as she hummed to herself.

"Of the towers?" Elwing replied. Anairë nodded. "They are all beautiful. I would not like to live in one made entirely of emerald, though…"

"Sapphire, perhaps?" Anairë suggested, and laughed when Elwing wrinkled her nose. "We could do it, you know. There are some Noldor still in Valinor who know the secrets of gem-making."

"No, thank you," said Elwing. "White stone, I think. Or pale grey. I would rather it be simple than something strange. It must withstand the winds and storms off the Sea."
"Oh, it will do that regardless."

"And…I would like an open room at the top," said Elwing. "Like the rooms in the palace at Alqualondë, that are open all the time unless there is a storm. A big wide open room." As she spoke Anairë scribbled some notes in the little notebook she kept in her pocket with a pencil nub. They were seated together on a bench of branches that had been grown for the purpose, with leaves and flowers all along the back and arms where jewel-bright butterflies were flitting. "Big windows," Elwing added, watching a butterfly take flight and disappear up into one of hate malinornë trees that lined the path through the park.

"Naturally," Anairë agreed. "Now, I have an idea—I was speaking with Elunis before we left Alqualondë, and she was talking of the Laiquendi who live in the trees. They build platforms and little houses in the branches of the tallest and strongest trees."

"Yes," said Elwing, "though I never lived in one."

"What if the tower was a tree?" Anairë asked. "Not a real tree, I mean, but carved in the shape of one? A thick and sturdy tree." She turned the page of her little notebook and in a few strokes sketched out her idea. To Elwing it looked merely like a sketch of a tree. Anairë laughed and promised a model that would show her ideas better.

When Anairë became busy with her sketches and models, Elwing found herself welcomed into Queen Lúnamírë's circle, all golden-haired Vanyar who delighted in music and singing and dancing, though there was little dancing now and the songs they sang were somber and quiet. They went walking and riding through the countryside where many of the Vanyar lived instead of in the city, tending to sheep and goats on the mountain slopes, or living lives of quiet contemplation either alone or in small groups. It was very quiet and peaceful, with only the baaing of sheep and the tinkle of their bells to break the silence.

It was Lúnamírë who took Elwing to Ezellohar, not far from the western gates of Valmar, where the blackened and gnarled remains of Telperion and Laurelin still stood. The great vats that had gathered light from the trees were there still as well, empty but for some recent rainwater. The Trees themselves were still enormous, bigger than the biggest trees Elwing had ever seen in Doriath, and she had once thought that no tree could have grown taller and mightier than Hírilorn outside of Menegroth's gates.

"I remember," Lúnamírë said as they stood on the hill between the Trees, "I remember when Elwë returned to us after Oromë brought him here. He spoke of the wide green lands and the safety and the mountains and rivers and the Bay of Eldamar under the stars—but most of all he spoke of the Light, and of the Trees themselves, the most beautiful thing he had ever seen." She sighed. "I have often wished that he had not been lost to us. But perhaps it is better that he was not here to see the Darkening. Perhaps that was why he desired a Silmaril."

"In part, maybe," said Elwing, looking up into the bare branches of Telperion. "Maybe that was why he refused to give it to the Sons of Fëanor, after."

Lúnamírë sighed. As they turned to leave the Trees behind she said, "What happened at Alqualondë was grievous for many, many reasons, but among them is the gulf that it opened between our kin and Finwë's children. Once upon a time Finwë was as close to Elwë and Olwë and Elmo as a fourth brother. And now…"

Elwing thought of tapestries burning in Menegroth, and blood on the snow. And she thought of choking on smoke in Sirion and the wailing of terrified children, before she had jumped. "If only Maedhros and his brothers felt the same," she said.

"The Maitimo I knew as a child would," Lúnamírë said. "I think Fëanáro in Mandos must be horrified by what his Oath has wrought."

Elwing did not answer. She hoped Fëanor knew all that had happened, and she could not summon any pity for him. And she did not want to think about him anymore, so she turned the conversation away from the Noldor entirely by asking about Vanyarin poetry, whose modes were so different from what Elwing was used to.

Chapter 14: Interlude

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Nearly all of Beleriand was burning. Or at least, it seemed that way to Eärendil. He had abandoned his courses over the world and through the seas of night to hang as a constant beacon in the sky to those fighting far below. Finarfin and the armies of the Noldor and Vanyar were crawling northward from where they had landed in Arvernien, and with them were Gil-galad and Círdan. Behind on Balar they were busy building ships—when the Valar went to war, the earth was changed, and the lands the Eldar had loved for so long would soon be reshaped or perhaps sunk beneath Belegaer altogether. Only in the east was there open and green lands, between the River Gelion and the Ered Luin.

Birds—eagles, hawks, ravens, even gulls and albatrosses—flocked to Vingilot, called by the Maiar accompanying Eärendil who served Manwë. They took what Eärendil and his companions could see from their position so high above everything, and gave it to Finarfin and Ingwion and their captains, so that they might avoid ambushes or traps or areas that were so defiled that they were now nigh impassible.

When he was not watching the progress of the Valar or of the growing army following Finarfin and Gil-galad and Ingwion's banners, Eärendil was scanning the lands to the east. The little fort on the eastern end of the Amdram where he had finally spotted Elrond and Elros stood empty, and while he was certain the Fëanorians had taken his sons east toward the Gelion, he was not able to find them anywhere—which was not surprising, if they were hiding in the safety of the forests, but neither was it reassuring.

Then a bird came fluttering up in the wake of one of the great eagles. It was a nightingale, and she perched on Eärendil's shoulder and sang for several minutes, before Aisto laughed and held out his hands to the little bird. "She brings news of your sons, Mariner," Aisto said.

"What does she say?" Eärendil asked.

"That they are safe and well in the lands of the Laiquendi, and they sing with fair voices. That is only to be expected, from the children of Melyanna." Aisto released the little nightingale over the side of Vingilot, and she fluttered down and away; Aisto stood beside him as they watched her vanish into the clouds passing beneath them. When the clouds passed the nightingale was long gone, but Eärendil recognized directly beneath them the forests of Neldoreth and Region, where Melian had once walked, followed by other nightingales, and where for so long she had held her own against the power of Morgoth. And Melian had been alone. Eärendil looked northward to the dark peaks of Thangorodrim, lit from below with blood-red fires. Lighting flashed overhead, and strong winds out of the west kicked up the dust of the Anfauglith into whirling storms. There could be no doubt of victory; he could not wait to see Morgoth dragged from his deep dungeons in chains.

Chapter 15

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By the time Anairë had finished the model that would be come the basis for Elwing's tower, Elwing thought that she was starting to settle in, or at least starting to grow used to Valinor, at least a little. Sindar once of Doriath came and went from Valmar, seeking her and also paying their respects to Ingwë the High King. Some roamed farther north or east onto the mountain slopes, welcomed warmly by the Vanyar, who gladly offered themselves as guides, for even in Valinor the mountains could be treacherous, especially with the Valar themselves gone off to war.

Elwing went on a few excursions but never too far into the mountains. She loved the forests and the rivers, but nearly her whole life had been spent among flat river deltas and low rolling hills near the Bay of Balar, and the thought of climbing high mountain peaks was alarming. Anairë and Lúnamírë teased her, since she could have no fear of falling, not when she could fly, but Elwing only shrugged and kept to the lowlands and the river valleys.

And then she returned to Alqualondë with Anairë, where preparations were beginning for the construction of her tower. Barges for the stones were being constructed in the harbor, and masons and carpenters and other architects and many more craftsman besides were all coming together, eager for a new project. They greeted her brightly and warmly. Mahtan was among them, though Nerdanel was nowhere to be seen, and Elwing found herself consulted over nearly everything, from the shape of the windows to the color of the wood paneling in each room.

It was very nearly overwhelming. In Middle-earth they had built for warmth and protection—repelling orcs or the relentless winter rains was more important than comfort or beauty. There had been beauty, of course, because it had been mostly the Noldor doing the building, but it had been secondary and mostly unplanned. Sirion had been a patchwork haven of driftwood and stone and most of it had been hidden in the reedy marshland of the river delta. And now the Elves of Aman were surprised to find that Elwing had no opinion on paneling and was more concerned about the tower weathering the sea storms than about which shades of grey stone would do best for the stairs and whether the counter tops in the kitchen (and what a kitchen it would be!) should be of marble or of granite. And then they were more surprised to learn that she did not know the difference between them.

"They only want to be sure that you will be comfortable," Mahtan said when Elwing finally escaped the throng, and he accompanied her down to the beach. "You must excuse their enthusiasm—they are all very young and this is the largest project they have yet worked on."

They were all much older than Elwing was, and yet she felt ancient in comparison. She sat down on the sand and picked up a handful, letting the white and pink and pale green grains fall through her fingers. Not far away a group of children was building a sandcastle, taller than they were and all the colors of the rainbow. Mahtan sat down with her, and followed her gaze. "My Nerdanel and her brothers used to do that," he said. "Autano and Carastaro would compete to build the tallest. Nerdanel's were always smaller but of strange and lovely forms."

"My sons used to build watchtowers out of sand," said Elwing. "Elros would sometimes try to build little cities, but the waves always came and washed them away before he finished." She scooped up another handful of sand, this one all pinks and blues. "They would love the sands here."

"It is the work of many long ages of friendship between the Noldor and the Teleri," said Mahtan. "But much of the gem dust has been washed away by the tides. Perhaps we should bring more stones to the beach." He tossed a handful into the air and watched it settle. "My daughter has heard the tales you told of Doriath and Sirion." The names sounded strange on his tongue. "That is why she is not here."

"I hold no grudge against Lady Nerdanel," said Elwing.

"I am glad. We have heard also that her sons have yours in their keeping. I know it will not be much comfort to you, but Russandol and Macalaurë were always good with children."

Elwing bit her lip to keep from snapping. When she felt she could speak evenly she said, with only a slight tremor in her voice, "It does not comfort me. My brothers were the same age as my sons when they were left in the winter woods to die. Forgive me, Master Mahtan, but I cannot believe that Maedhros and Maglor keep my boys out of the goodness of their hearts." Mahtan sighed, and did not answer.

A call came suddenly from down the beach, and when Elwing looked over she saw a single figure striding down the sand. He was barefoot, and his hair was long and golden and swinging loose behind him, catching the sea breeze like a golden banner. He was clad in the soft grey raiment of those new-come from Mandos. Mahtan leaped to his feet with a startled cry, and Elwing scrambled to her own feet. The children building the sandcastle paused in their play to watch the stranger's approach. They whispered to one another, and then took off running back toward the palace.

"Master Mahtan!" exclaimed the figure as he drew closer. His smile was bright as the gem strewn beach and his eyes were piercing grey. He looked, Elwing thought, rather like Galadriel. "Where is everyone? I have come from Tirion, but found it empty! Is my father here?"

"Prince Findaráto," said Mahtan. "How…?"

Elwing stared at the prince in wonder. "King Felagund!" she exclaimed.

"Felagund!" He looked at her and laughed. "I did not expect to hear that name on these shores!" Then he looked closer, and swept a bow. "Fair lady, I can see in your glance and in your bearing that you are descended from Lúthien my cousin and Beren my dear friend! So he survived and returned to his Tinúviel after all—I am glad!"

Before Elwing could reply Ëarwen came racing down the beach. She cried out wordlessly and threw her arms around Felagund, who staggered as he caught her. And then there were tears and questions and much laughter. Felagund was exclaimed over by everyone who met them on the way back to the palace, and most of all by his grandparents and aunts. His coming was unlooked for but more than welcome. In the commotion Elwing slipped away, neither wanted nor needed at the moment. She was relieved to go back to her own rooms where it was quiet, but for the sound of the waves on the sand outside, and the birds calling cheerfully to one another in the garden. The breeze off the water made the curtains billow inward, and she slipped between them out onto the little patio. It was nearing evening, and she could see Eärendil on the horizon. She sighed, and sank down onto the top step to watch until he disappeared into gathering rainclouds.

The next week or so was rainy and grey, though Elwing could not call it exactly dreary. She kept to her rooms and left the architects and craftsmen to their planning, after assuring them several times that she trusted their judgment, and that Anairë knew her desires, only please do not ask her anymore to choose between cherry wood or oak or pine, or this color or that color. It all made her head spin, and she was glad to retreat out of everyone's way, especially with all of the commotion surrounding Finrod's unexpected return.

When the skies finally cleared and the sun came out again, Elwing went down to the little stretch of beach outside her rooms to cool her feet in the water and feel the breeze on her face. She sighed, tilting her head back and closing her eyes, listening to a group of gulls calling to one another, complaining of elusive fish in the bay. Then she heard someone singing, and turned to find Finrod Felagund walking along and singing a song that she had hard often in Sirion, from the mariners that lived on Balar. It was not a song for polite company, and he startled when she sang a few lines along with him. Then he laughed, and splashed through the waves to bow to Elwing, the courtly gesture a little ridiculous with him wet up to his knees and his hair windblown. "Well met, Lady Elwing!" he said. "I beg your pardon, I didn't think anyone was about to hear me."

"You needn't apologize to me, my lord," said Elwing. "I grew up around sailors and very few of them cared whether a young princess was about to hear their songs."

Unexpectedly, Finrod sobered. "My mother told me what you have said of Sirion, and of Doriath. I am sorry."

"Did you not see what happened?" Elwing asked. "I mean—I have heard it said that all the doings of the world are recorded in tapestries in the Halls of Mandos by the Weaver."

"So they are," said Finrod, "but the longer I am out of the Halls the harder it is to recall all that went on in them, or all that I saw. It is like trying to remember a dream upon waking. I remember watching the weavings of Nargothrond's fate, but very little else. Alas for Nargothrond, and my brother Orodreth, and my poor dear niece Finduilas! That was hard to see. And the dragon in my beautiful halls!"

"Oh!" Elwing had almost forgotten from where the Nauglamír had come before it came into her grandmother's possession. "Not all from Nargothrond was lost, Lord Felagund!" She turned and hurried back into her rooms, to the chest where she kept the necklace wrapped in soft cloth. The gems glittered in the sunlight through the window as she lifted it out, and the opal in the center flashed and sparkled. She carried it back out to the beach where Finrod was waiting, a bemused expression on his face. This faded into wonder as she held out the necklace. "Húrin Thalion brought this out of the ruin of Nargothrond, and gave it to Thingol, and when Thingol was slain it came to Lúthien, and so to my father Dior, and so to me. Now I am glad to return it to you."

Finrod took it with careful hands, as though fearful it might dissolve at his tough. "I did not expect to ever see this again," he said. "Thank you, Lady Elwing. It looks different—this is new." He ran his fingers over the opal, and so Elwing told him in brief the tale of the Nauglamír from Húrin's finding it in the ruin of Nargothrond, to her falling into the sea with it in Sirion, and Aulë's coming to Alqualondë himself to repair the work of his children.

"I must thank Aulë, when next I see him, then," said Finrod. "I think I like it best without a Silmaril of Fëanor stuck in the middle. But this necklace means more to you now than to me, Lady Elwing. It was a gift from dear friends, but it is now an heirloom of your house, and I know the store that Men set in such heirlooms."

"I would rather have had my parents than that necklace," said Elwing. "It is a beautiful thing but I shall like seeing it better around your neck than my own."

"Very well, then." Finrod reached up and clasped it about his neck, and looked only slightly ridiculous, in his plain clothes and loose hair and bare feet, with no other ornament but the ornate and glittering treasure at his throat. "I thank you again, Lady Elwing."

They spoke for a short while longer, of Alqualondë and what had changed and what had not since Finrod had last seen it before the Darkening, and how Elwing liked it, before Finrod wandered off back down the beach, singing an older song from the days of the Trees, of starlight on Eldamar and the silver and golden light spilling through the mountains to meet it. Elwing watched him go, and after he vanished around a bend she turned leaped into the air to fly up into the mountains, suddenly hating the sea all over again and missing desperately the trees and rivers of her earliest childhood, when Lúthien had danced beside Lanthir Lamath and Beren had held her in the shallow water to paddle her feet.

Chapter 16

This chapter was written for the 2021 Holiday Party prompt "Family"

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Elwing wandered the slopes of the Pelóri, and the plains of Yavanna, and the woods of Oromë as the seasons changed and the years passed by. She went only sometimes back to the tower being built for her on the coast, when she could bear to stand at the edge of the Sea and gaze across it to the dark shadows over the eastern horizon. Little word came back to speak of the war and its progress, as the stones were piled one on top of another to slowly grow from a jumble of rocks to a smooth, elegant tower in the form of a mighty tree, with a branching crown to hold a wide, open, airy room at the top. All around it was a balcony with railings of cleverly-wrought metal in the shapes of leafy branches.

Inside, when the tower was at last completed, there were many rooms of varied sizes and designs. All were comfortable and lovely, and the artisans who made the furniture and hung the decorations consulted Elwing on every detail. The stairwells and many of the lower rooms were hung with beautiful, vibrant tapestries depicting everything from the Singing of the World to the coming of the Elves into Valinor, and other scenes beside—an homage to Eärendil and his kin. But there were many gaps, left at Elwing's own insistence. The weavers of Valinor were talented indeed, but she would weave the scenes of Beleriand herself. So a great loom was built for her in the high tower room alongside great bundles of thread in every color Elwing could have imagined and more—and more wool and silk and flax besides to be spun by her own hands if she wished.

At last the tower was finished, late in the spring. A small household was established for her, staffed entirely by reborn Sindar. Minyelmë told Elwing, laughing, that lots had had to be drawn to decide who would have the honor of dwelling with their queen. The rest of the reborn Sindar had scattered into the mountains to find dwellings for themselves; some had gone south, and there was much talk of finding a place that might someday become a second Menegroth.

On the day the last workmen and women left, and the last of the dust and dirt of construction was swept up, Elwing stood at the top of her tower, the smell of stone dust and furniture polish still strong in her nose, and gazed out over the sea. Over Valinor the skies were clear and blue, and to the south she could see the sparkling waters of Eldamar, and the great green shape of Eressëa. To the north the waters were darker, shading to green and grey rather than clear blue, and at the very edge of her vision Elwing could see the hazy beginnings of the Helcaraxë. Behind her the Pelóri reached skyward, never-melting snow shining at their peaks. But to the east the skies were dark. They were always dark. On this day Elwing could see flickers of lightning in them. Several times over the past few years tremors in the earth had been felt even in on the coast of Valinor, and once a rush of water had nearly drowned part of Alqualondë and swamped Eressëa. Elwing both yearned and dreaded to know what was happening in Beleriand.

She did not stay long in her completed tower. Lovely as it was, it was still too new to feel like a home, and was at once too big and too stifling. As the sun rose over the dark clouds in the east Elwing took flight and landed at the edge of Alqualondë just as the market began to fill up. She was long since a familiar sight in the city and received no stares as she passed through the streets, though many paused to greet her and ask about her new tower. She smiled and answered them, and in turn asked if any word had come out of the east. None had.

From Alqualondë Elwing took flight again and passed through the Calacirya, heading south and west to the Gardens of Lórien. She passed over Tirion, gleaming in the sunlight, and the green and golden fields of Yavanna. The workshops of Aulë loomed up to the south alongside the deep and dark forests where Oromë hunted. Lórien was a paler green, less entangled with underbrush and with kinder trees that let more of the sunlight down to dance on the flowers and grass and little streams.

She alighted near the pond where the niphredil grew. There were fewer blossoms this time, but they seemed to grow a little, and a few new flowers opened, when Elwing sank down among them. Their sweet clean scent smelled like homecoming. As Elwing brushed her fingers over the white and pale green petals, a breeze brushed by her, and a sensation like soft fingers brushed her cheek. When she turned her head she thought she saw, for just a moment out of the corner of her eye, a woman clad in grey with shadowy hair. "Hello, Grandmother," Elwing said softly. The breeze sighed again, and this time the ghostly fingers passed through her hair, an affectionate and motherly gesture.

When Elwing had been young she had been angry and resentful of Melian, who had reacted to Thingol's death by abandoning Doriath and all its people. But now that she saw, and felt, and heard the state of her grandmother, Elwing realized perhaps she had been unjust. Perhaps Melian couldn't have stayed. And perhaps her grief and the loss of all of her own power that she had poured into the Girdle and into Melian and into Doriath had diminished her so that this was all that remained: brief visions and mournful sighs on the breeze, and niphredil blooming in her wake.

She carefully picked a few niphredil blooms that were gong to seed before going in search of one of the other Maiar who had remained behind in Lórien when the others had gone away to war. She found one in the branches of a young beech tree, clad all in pale grey and singing in a strange tongue a song that made leaves unfurl around him and flutter in a nonexistent breeze. When he saw Elwing he ceased his singing and jumped lightly down to greet her with a bow. "Good afternoon, Lady Elwing!" he said. "What brings you to Lórien?"

"Flowers," Elwing said. "But I wish to ask a question—I think Estë would be best to ask, but she is not here."

"I will do my best to help you if I can," said the Maia. His hair shifted from grey to pale blue and then to an even paler yellow, and Elwing wondered if he was one of Irmo's folk. They were always shifting and changing the way things did in dreams. But this Maia's eyes remained the same, a steady blue-grey, and there was an air of kindness and care about him that put her at ease.

"It is about my grandmother," Elwing said. "Melian, I mean."

"Ah, Melyanna," said the Maia, eyes growing sad. "She is much diminished."

"Is she to remain so for ever?" Elwing asked.

The Maia did not answer immediately. He seemed deep in thought, his gaze drifting away from Elwing's face to look over her shoulder at the shadows beneath the trees where she had come from. Elwing waited. Finally, the Maia said, "I do not think so. Melyanna put forth much of her own power—her own self, for among the Ainur there is little difference—into her fair daughter Lúthien and into the defenses of the realm she shared with Elwë, and to withdraw and flee was to her as cutting off a limb might be to one of you Children, and her grief has been a heavy weight besides. But already, I think, she has begun to grow stronger. Before you came I do not think any Children would have caught a glimpse of her—and before you came, niphredil did not bloom anywhere in Aman. Not even here in Lórien." He smiled at Elwing. "I hope you come back to Lórien often, my lady, if only for her sake."

Elwing returned his smile. "Thank you," she said.

The Maia bowed again. "If you have need of me again, you have only to call," he said. "My name is Pallando." And with that he was transformed into a bright cloud of butterflies that flitted in a soft, whispering flutter into the treetops. Elwing watched until they had vanished from sight, and then retreated back to the pond where the niphredil bloomed. Elwing sat by the edge of the pond to bathe her feet in the cool water. Tiny gold and silver fish darted about, pausing to nibble at her toes before vanishing into the reeds. She watched them for a few minutes before beginning to speak—describing Sirion and the reedy wetlands of the river delta, and the cliffs that rose up on the coast just to the north, and the ships that came and went from Balar. There were no more sighing breezes and she saw no glimpses of dark hair, but it felt as though Melian's presence settled beside her, like she was listening intently to every word.

Chapter 17

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Elwing had worried, a little, whether the niphredil would grow in her garden. It was right on the sea and the winds off of the water were not always kind. But she needn't have worried: the niphredil thrived, and refused to be tamed by even the most determined of gardeners, and so spread out of the garden and down the path and on into the woods. The Sindar who dwelt there now were delighted, and Elwing never saw one without at least one blossoms braided into their hair or tucked into their clothes.

Slowly the smells of stone and sawdust and of fresh paint faded, and the tower began to feel more like a home than merely a fine building. Elwing ensconced herself in the tower room, windows flung open to let in the sunlight and the breeze, and set to work at the loom. She had had little time for weaving—especially this sort of decorative weaving, which she had scarcely had the opportunity to learn, let alone practice—in Sirion, and her first few attempts were clumsy at best and absolutely disastrous at worst. It was a challenge, however, and when she was trying to decipher why all of her threads had gotten into a tangle yet again there was no room to dwell on anything else. Not even the dark clouds that still hovered on the far eastern horizon.

Ëassalmë came to visit with her children and with Ëarwen. Neither sister was a weaver, not even of sailcloth, but they were pleasant companions to chat with while the children took turns with a spyglass at the windows, and Elwing fought with the tangles of her project. And they brought news.

"A few of Uinen's maidens came to the harbor yesterday evening," said Ëassalmë. "Beleriand is sinking—much of the southern portions are already beneath the waves. But they also said that victory is near at hand. What that means exactly, no one knows. Uinen and her folk are of the deeps, and they could not tell us what is happening on whatever remains of the land."

Elwing paused in her untangling and gazed out of the window, imagining the Sea rushing up over Sirion, drowning the reedy beds and the rough wooden boardwalks, and the hills where sturdier homes had stood—including her own. She did not know who had survived the last attack by the Sons of Fëanor, but she hoped that they had also survived the waves. She wondered also where her sons were; years had passed and they were no longer children. "Is there no other way to know what is happening?" she asked.

"If there is, the Lindar do not know it," said Ëarwen.

.

Though the eastern horizon was always dark with clouds, Eärendil was nearly always visible, a steady beacon hovering over the world. Elwing spent hours gazing at it, wondering what he was seeing, what he was doing—whether he played any part in the war besides merely existing as a symbol of hope—and wishing that she were there with him, though she knew that she would be miserable trapped there on Vingilot.

Then, as she watched, the star dipped down into the clouds and vanished. Elwing's breath caught in her throat, and for a terrible moment she thought she would faint. She gripped the railing of her balcony and closed her eyes, inhaling the salt-smell of the sea. When she opened her eyes again the star was still gone.

If Eärendil's rising was a sign of hope, what then did his fall signify? Scarcely able to bear the thought, Elwing leaped from the railing and winged her way south to Alqualondë. But when she arrived she found that scarcely anyone had even noticed the star's sudden absence. The market was bustling, and there seemed to be an impromptu music festival happening on the beach. Elwing went to the palace, and found things much as they usually were there, too.

But Finrod stood upon the garden walls, his expression grim beneath the noonday sun as he gazed at the darkness on the horizon. "Do you know what has happened?" Elwing asked him. It was a foolish question—no one knew, unless they were perhaps one of the Maiar, and there were precious few of them left in Valinor to ask. Finrod only shook his head. "Do you think—" She couldn't say it aloud.

"I do not know," Finrod said softly, shaking his head again. He leaned forward, bracing his palms on the smooth stone balustrade. "Would that I were there, I and all the strength of Nargothrond at my back…"

"Would it make a difference, if Morgoth has the power to cast Eärendil down from the very sky?" Elwing asked after a long stretch of silence, broken only by the distant joyful singing on the beach.

"It would be better than standing here beyond sight or knowledge," Finrod replied. "At the very least I would stand beside my father."

Elwing remained in Alqualondë. Word began to spread, first in a trickle and then a flood, of the disappearance of the Silmaril from the eastern sky. Anairë and Findis came from Tirion, and even Indis and Ingwë and Lúnamírë from Valmar, and as the days passed a vigil was kept. Elwing did not count the days, but it seemed as though an Age of the world had passed before a cry went up. She sprang to her feet and ran with Findis to the nearest window. Lalindil was there already, and Indis, and all four of them cried out upon seeing the distant but piercing light of Eärendil's star, high above the clouds—and those clouds were dispersing, scattering on great winds. Elwing sank to her knees, pressing her hands to her face.

"It is over," Findis was saying, in a voice thick with tears. "It must be. Look how the darkness is lifting!"

"Feel the wind!" said Lalindil, and as she spoke the light and gauzy curtains in the room all billowed inward, and with the wind came voices on it, joyful and hard to understand. Elwing struggled to her feet as a figure whirled into being in the middle of the room, with pale skin and paler hair, clad in sky-blue robes that whipped around his form in constant motion. "What news?" Lalindil cried.

"Melkor the Enemy of the World has been vanquished!" said the figure, raising his hands toward the ceiling. "He has been bound and dragged from his throne and his fortress cast down, and the Aratar shall cast him into the Void where he shall remain until the ending of the world!" And with that he dissolved into the breeze. Elsewhere Elwing heard echoes of the same message being shared in every part of Alqualondë, and doubtless in Tirion and in Valmar and all across Aman as well.

It was over. Morgoth was defeated for ever, and Middle-earth made safe. Elwing stood by the window, scarcely able to believe it. She couldn't take her eyes off of Eärendil's light. All around her the other women were speaking rapidly, talking of celebrations and plans for the returning army. All Elwing could think of was Eärendil's return, and of Elrond and Elros. Would they be on the ships returning out of the east? She did not let herself think that they may not have survived.

.

The first ship to return was Vingilot, gliding down from the skies. There were scorch marks on her hull, and some of her sails were patched and ragged at the edges as though they had been burned. Elwing saw her sweep down onto the waters of Eldamar, and raced to the harbor, arriving at the dockside at the same time that Eärendil, foregoing the gangplank, jumped down from the deck. His mail shone in the sun; above him on Vingilot's mast the Silmaril was nearly blinding.

"Elwing, we did it!" he cried as he caught her up in his arms. "It's over!"

"But how?" she demanded. "What happened? I saw your star disappear—"

"There were dragons—winged dragons," said Eärendil. "I had to go down to join the battle. But I'm unhurt, and Thangorodrim is broken and the gates of Angband destroyed! Oh, Elwing, it was a glorious sight to see, all of the armies of the Eldar and the Edain, with their banners in the bright sunlight as the Valar dragged Morgoth from his deep lairs!"
By that time a crowd had gathered, and Eärendil turned to address them, giving much the same news that Manwë's Maiar had, but with promises of fuller tales to come. "And when they return, King Arafinwë and Prince Ingwion shall be able to say even more," he added, and a delighted cheer went up throughout Alqualondë.

Eärendil was barely permitted time enough to take a proper bath and change into new, clean clothes before he was called upon to give his accounts to King Olwë and King Ingwë and the rest of the lords and ladies and princes and princesses gathered in the palace. He spoke of the valor of the armies of Valinor and of the terrible majesty of the Valar themselves as they assailed Angband. There had been fiery balrogs and serpentine dragons that slithered down the choked river courses, and countless legions of orcs that swarmed like ants over the steadily shrinking land. Most harrowing, to Elwing's mind, were the winged dragons that burst out of the mountains at the last. The greatest of all Eärendil himself had slain when he came down from the skies with a legion of birds, led by Thorondor himself, and when Ancalagon fell upon Thangorodrim the peaks broke beneath him. Eärendil told the tale well, but Elwing did not applaud with the rest of the audience; she could too easily imagine the sheer size of Ancalagon, and imagine how terrible a battle it must have been.

"It was terrible," Eärendil admitted to her later, when they were finally alone. "But I think even the Valar were taken aback by the dragons—the sheer numbers, not to mention the sizes, though none came close to Ancalagon. I had to do something. The Silmaril helped—it blinded him long enough, at the end, for me to deal the final blow."

Elwing stood by the window, open to let in the breeze. The stars were very bright, all the way down to the far horizon, as they had not been in many years. "What of Beleriand?" she asked. "What if—what of the boys?"

"Beleriand is gone," said Eärendil after a moment. "Or nearly gone. Some of Ossiriand remains, near the Ered Luin. Sirion drowned long ago. The highlands of Dorthonion survived, and Himring, and a smaller island to the south that an eagle told me is called Tol Morwen. I watched the waters rush in to cover the ruins of Gondolin." His voice trembled only slightly with the name. "That is the price to be paid, when the Valar go to war."

"And Elrond and Elros?"

"They are with Gil-galad. They are men grown, now, tall and strong, and they were not badly hurt that I ever saw."

Men grown. In her mind they were still six years old with sticky fingers and wide grey eyes. Elwing turned into Eärendil when he came up behind her, and he wrapped his arms around her. Neither spoke; there was nothing more to say.

But the war was over, and Morgoth gone from the world—thrust into the Void, never to return. Whether Elrond and Elros came west with the returning armies and Exiles or not, they would be safe. They could go wherever and do whatever they wanted without fear. It was what Eärendil had dreamed of from the moment he cut the first timbers for Vingilot. And even, Elwing told herself, if they could never see their children again, it was worth knowing that they now lived in a world free from the Shadow.

.

Before Eärendil departed again Elwing took him to see the tower, and to show him the little harbor where Vingilot could land when he returned from his voyages. But they had scant little time alone together before he had to leave. Elwing watched from the top of her tower as Vingilot sailed out onto the ocean and then up, new sails gifted by Queen Lalindil and her ladies shimmering silver in the Silmaril's light. Before long the ship shrank and disappeared, leaving only the light of the Silmaril to hang among the rest of the stars. In the north the Valacirca burned.

Elwing closed her eyes and breathed deep, and turned back inside.