Where the Ocean Meets the Sky and the Land by StarSpray

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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.