Where the Ocean Meets the Sky and the Land by StarSpray

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Chapter 5

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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.