Where the Ocean Meets the Sky and the Land by StarSpray

Chapter 17

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.