Letting Light and Twilight Mingle by StarSpray

Chapter 1

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In-between the sun and moon,
I sit and watch
and make some room
for letting light and twilight mingle,
shaping hope
- "In-between the sun and moon" by Pádraig Ó Tuama

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FA 542

It was their birthday, and so Maglor had released Elrond and Elros from their studies and chores for the afternoon. This year it was a beautiful day, all sunshine and blue skies, and it was almost easy to forget that outside of their little fort in the hills the world was a dangerous and ever darkening place. So after lunch, Elros led the way to their favorite tree that grew inside the walls. It was very old and very tall, and slightly misshapen from the strong winds that often blew over the Amdram. From its highest branches they could see a very long way in all directions.

Elros had been making plans to built a talan for weeks, and while Elrond climbed as high as he could, he remained below with a piece of string to make measurements. Elrond perched on a branch a few feet above Elros' head, and watched him. "You know you won't get to actually build it," he said as he swung his feet. "I heard Maedhros talking to Glamren this morning. We're going to go somewhere east, and he wanted her to scout the road."

"What? Why?" Elros demanded, looking up with a frown.

"It's too dangerous to stay here," said Elrond. He glanced over the wall toward the west. There were no enemies to be seen in broad daylight, but come nightfall he knew they would hear the far-off baying of wolves. And they were getting closer every night. "But if we go down to Ossiriand there will be plenty more trees, and you can build a whole city in them if you want."

Elros sighed and put his string away. He climbed up to join Elrond, and they helped each other to the very highest branches, where they liked to sit and pretend they were sitting in the mast of Vingilot. The memory of their father's ship was growing hazier with every passing day, but Elrond could still clearly recall the view of the whole Bay of Balar from the crow's nest, and the sound of their father's laughter as he carried them one by one up the rigging, while their mother watched from below with her hands on her hips and a frown she was trying not to let turn into a smile. He could remember them, too—the way Father smiled and laughed like it was an act of defiance against the Shadow, and the way Mother tried not to let them see her cry whenever Father left.

"Do you think Mother found him?" Elros asked as they sat up there now.

"I hope so," Elrond replied.

"But they would have come straight back, wouldn't they? She would have told him what happened, and that we were still there."

Elrond picked at a little piece of bark that was coming loose from the trunk. "I don't know. Maybe they did come back," he said finally, "but they can't come to us for the same reason Maglor can't take us back like he keeps saying he wants to." Even as he said it, he found he didn't quite believe it, though if anyone asked him he would not have been able to explain why. They had seen Mother turn into a great white bird, with the Silmaril shining on her breast as she flew away out over the Sea, faster than anything Elrond had seen before. If that could happen, he supposed anything could. Maybe Father had even found the way to the West that he had been searching for.

"Maybe." Elros sounded doubtful, too.

They stayed up in the tree most of the afternoon, making up stories and trying to outdo one another in how outrageous they were. They did not speak more of their parents, or of where they might be going and when or why. They watched the sun sink down westward, where clouds were gathering, edged with gold and turning pink and orange with the coming dusk. In the east the sky was growing dark; they turned away from the sunset to watch for the first stars. Elros spotted the very first one.

Maglor and Maedhros had both come outside sometime, and were sitting together near the fort on a bench, watching Elrond and Elros up in the tree. Any moment Maglor would call them down to supper, and he would supply all the conversation while Maedhros sat and hardly ate, and either stared at them too long or did not look at them at all. He had never said or done anything unkind, but he still frightened Elrond sometimes. But if they were lucky perhaps there would be raspberry tarts after…

"Elrond, look!" Elros burst out suddenly, interrupting Elrond's musings and shoving him in the shoulder so hard he nearly fell off his branch. "Look!" Elros got to his feet, clinging to the trunk with one arm and pointing to the west with the other. "It's Mother!"

Elrond swung around, heart leaping. He looked at the ground first, at the road leading away down the line of the Amdram, but there was no one on it, not even a single person on foot. Belatedly he realized that Elros was not pointing at the ground but to the sky, and he looked up above the last glow of the sunset to see what looked like a new star hanging there, brighter than all the others.

He knew that light. No one who had seen a Silmaril would forget it, or not recognize it even at such a distance. He waited, expecting it to grow brighter and closer as their mother came flying back to them just as she had flown away, but it did not. It only climbed higher in the sky. Because it was a new star, or something very much like a star. And it was not coming to them. It was rising out of the west like the sun and moon did in the east.

Elrond looked back down at Maglor and Maedhros. They had risen to their feet, and Maedhros had taken a few steps forward, both of them staring at the new star with stricken expressions. Maedhros spoke finally, and Elrond could only just hear him in the quiet of the evening. He spoke in Quenya, which Elrond thought he must have forgotten that Maglor was teaching Elrond and Elros. "Brother. Surely that is a Silmaril that shines now in the West?" His voice shook, ever so slightly, and he did not look away from the star to notice Elrond watching him, or Maglor sink slowly back down onto the bench.

"If it be truly a Silmaril which we saw cast into the sea," Maglor replied slowly, haltingly, in the same tongue, "that rises again by the power of the Valar, then let us be glad; for its glory is seen now by many, and is yet secure from all evil." At this Maedhros did turn, and they exchanged a look that Elrond did not understand.
Elros had not heard; he gazed enraptured at the star. Finally he turned to Elrond. "What does it mean?" he asked.

Elrond looked back up at it. It was beautiful, a beacon in the darkness alongside all the others. A little to the north Elrond could see also the Valacirca blazing up out of the night, and his breath caught a little. "I think it means something very big is going to happen," he said.