Responsibility by Elwing

Chapter 1

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There she stood surrounded by nightingales. They adored her and whispered to her and told her stories. She created them and they in turn created their surroundings. Made them light and shadow and twilight and dawn. Flowers and sunsets and dreams. 
Elwing understood the language. The birds had taught it to her. But still she didn’t understand the reasons. But then she wasn’t sure she understood her own. Why had she thrown herself off that cliff? Sometimes she told herself that it had been fate, that it always had to happen this way. So Earendil would receive the silmaril and the Valar would fight Morgoth and she would be there to convince the Teleri to allow the use of their ships and that everything couldn’t have happened any other way. But could the end ever justify the means? She knew by now her children were safe, but she hadn’t known that when she jumped. And even safe…safe to be brought up by kinslayers and murderers. Sometimes she really wondered whether the fate of the world could ever justify what she had done. 

They stood at a distance looking at each other.

Elwing knew she had no right to judge. But at least she had had a reason for what she had done. She could explain herself, even if she never thought the explanation good enough, never more than a shameful attempt to excuse herself from her guilt.
Still, nothing like this would have happened had Melian stayed. Her parents would still be alive. So many people who were dead and gone, Doriath and Beleriand lost and drowned…all this wouldn’t have had to happen had Melian stayed in Doriath, with their people, instead of abandoning them.

The question was written on her face. Elwing knew. But still she didn’t speak it. She didn’t know how. She didn’t have the right.
She expected an answer nonetheless. But when Melian approached her, it wasn’t an answer she got. It was a question.

„So why did you throw yourself off that cliff, little one?“

Elwing flinched at the address. She remembered it from times long ago, from Doriath. Before Elu had died, before she had learnt that the world was a cruel place.
It took her a moment to really understand the question.

„You know why. They would have killed me. I knew I had to save the silmaril. I was…I was so very afraid. Everyone was gone. My people…I couldn’t protect them.“

How did she do that? Why could she make her say all those things, she never wanted to speak of again? Elwing grew angry.

„How can you ask me that anyway? I was scared and abandoned and alone. The people I loved either gone or dead. I didn’t know where my sons where, my husband was lost at sea. My parents and grandparents, everyone was dead. Because you abandoned us. Because you left. I was so young and I was afraid. How dare you judge me? Who in all your power and wisdom abandoned Doriath and delivered us into the hands of the enemy. We were afraid, forsaken, powerless. We could only run away. We fought back like wounded animals, not the mighty people the Doriathrim once were. None of us knew what to do.“

Melian stood still and looked at Elwing, standing there agitated with burning eyes and flying hair. So very like Elu, all of a sudden.
Then she said slowly.

„Neither did I.“

Elwing didn’t understand. „What?“ she asked.

„I didn’t know what to do either. I was lost, too. I was afraid and alone among strange people I couldn’t understand. We were sent to prepare the world for the children of Eru, but we could never see it with their eyes, never understand their deeds. I never was a ruler, Elwing. You were born a princess, you knew you would represent your people, and when your brothers were lost, you knew you would have to rule.“

„Nobody ever taught me how!“

„Nobody taught me that either. I was there to sing and bring music to Arda. I sang in the gardens of Lorien at the mingling of the lights. I came to Middle Earth for the beauty of the twilight. I found Elu and the beauty and power of the firstborn children of Elu, but I didn’t understand what it meant. To me it was all music and dance.“

„And yet they call you so very wise.“

„It wasn’t wisdom I was lacking. When Elu was gone, I found myself in a world gone strange. I had guided his people through the fate of the world. But I never was one of them. I didn’t know what to do now he was lost and all the music was gone from the land. So all I could do was leave as well.“