Where the Ocean Meets the Sky and the Land by StarSpray

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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.