Sirion by Grundy

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The Sun Also Rises

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Elwing could see that her husband was nervous. Truth be told, she was as well.

The storms had finally abated, as abruptly as if someone had blown them out as one would a candle. The color of the water had changed, suddenly bluer and clearer as it calmed. The wind turned to a soft and gentle breeze. The very air around them smelled sweeter.

They all understood what it meant. The islets they could see in the distance behind them were the boundary between the mortal lands and the immortal. It was as she had suspected – with the Silmaril on board, their ship was being granted passage where all others had been denied.

They were finally drawing near to the place she had heard so much about from the Noldor over the years.

Elvenhome.

The land that only one of her people – her own great-grandfather – had ever beheld.

He had seen it by the light of the fabled Trees. She would see it by the light of sun, moon, and stars – the only light she has ever known. For all the Noldor have always spoken of it as the land of all elves, she cannot quite convince herself that it can ever be hers as it was theirs.

She was a daughter of Menegroth, a child of forest and living rock and starlight. She has never known a world untouched by the Enemy’s shadow. For all she is descended from an ainu, she has never seen a Vala nor desired to either.

She does not need to be told that she has nothing in common with the elves born to Treelight and protected by the ones that had sung the world into being, so safe and secure that the loss of that light had been a cataclysm for which they had no comparison.

She still did not understand their willingness to chase the Enemy across the Sea, daring even the Ice, when they’d had such safety. Had they not understood what it was they were giving up, or what it was they proposed to fight? If she could bring her sons here, to a place she would know they were safe, where their children could be born safe and never know the fear and danger of the Hither Shores, there was nothing in the world that would persuade her to leave it, or allow them to leave it.

She has never understood Fëanor’s love of his jewels, but his lack of love for his sons she understood even less. Now that she has actually stood face to face with what was left of them, she occasionally wonders which had been the worse deed- the father swearing his sons to his mad Oath, or taking them across the Sea in pursuit of an Enemy so far beyond their power to vanquish.

She will bring her sons here, if the Valar permit it. She will bid all her people come here, should the Powers allow it. The forests of Ennor are beautiful, but there must be forests somewhere in the Immortal Lands just as beautiful, and her people have bled enough.

She glanced over at her husband.

“Surely you’re not finally feeling nerves now?” she teased Eärendil gently. “You stand shortly before the goal you set yourself when we were but children!”

“It was one thing to dream,” he replied, unexpectedly serious. “It is another to stand here in the light of day.”

It is my mother’s home, he added silently. But it is not mine, nor a place I expect to find any I know.

“Your mother may be here,” she whispered.

He did not answer, not even with osanwë, but she could feel that he was less optimistic on that score than she was. All others had failed to find the way West, why should Idril have been any different? Even Vingilotë had faced fierce storms. And they had carried no mortal with them. Idril had sailed in the hope against hope that in the Uttermost West there might be at least a surcease of pain for Tuor until the time came when they must be parted. Or perhaps she had dared hope for more? If Luthien could lay down her immortality, might not a mortal be granted the life of the Eldar, a balancing of the scales of sorts?

Idril was a child at the time of the Exile, my love. She committed no crime in being carried away from Aman by her parents. Surely she does not fall under the Ban.

Elwing was not so sure how true that was, but she would not have her beloved brood on the thought of his mother being struck down. She knew Idril’s history well enough, and she could not hold it against a child not yet of age that she went with her parents when commanded. The Valar have always seemed rather capricious to her, but even Galadriel, no acolyte of the Powers, did not hold them to be cruel.

He nodded, but that was the best he could manage.

It was not heartening to Elwing to realize that Eärendil was as unsettled as she was at the prospect of finally setting foot on the immortal shores.

But it was too late to change their course now. Having come this far, there was no option but to see it through. Their sons’ lives depended on it. Her peoples’ lives depended on it. With that motivation, Elwing would brave far worse than the land of light.

As day wore into night, they passed by several small islands. After dark, they sighted one large enough that they nearly put in, thinking it the mainland, until one of the older elves said he thought it might be Tol Eressëa. So they carried on, and as dawn broke, they saw that he had been right.

The sun shone on shores that sparkled, and reflected off of white tiled buildings that seemed to catch and magnify its rays. It lit docks grander by far than those of Sirion or Balar, and touched the graceful tower that rose above the harbor with every hue of the rainbow.

Elwing had thought the Noldor foolish before now, and she knew they had lived in a style grander than even Menegroth at its height, but seeing Alqualondë for the first time, her very breath was taken away.

“They left this to come die in Ennor?” she whispered in disbelief.

Eärendil smiled at her sadly.

“I suppose they did,” he answered. “It is rather difficult to compass, isn’t it?”

They were not sure enough of their welcome – or the rules of the harbor of her long-sundered kin – to put in at one of the docks, no matter how impressive and inviting they might look. Instead, Eärendil chose to drop anchor in the roads, in a spot he judged to be clear of the main route in and out of the harbor.
Elwing was not about to be left to wait aboard while he went ashore, so after the pinnace was lowered, she was the first to climb down.

She would have pulled an oar if necessary to justify her presence, but there were more than enough willing men among her husband’s mariners, and she wasn’t sure how much real help she would have been in any case. She could barely keep her hands from shaking.

What if the Valar did consider them to be violating the Ban – even though neither of them had been born at the time it was decreed, and she was not of the Noldor?

Worse, what if they were like some of the Noldor and thought it was only males who counted – what if they judged her husband mortal, despite his elven mother?

It would not occur to her until much later that they might have applied the same logic to herself.

When at last they reached the hallowed shore, Eärendil leapt out first.

“Remain here, and do not set foot out of the boat,” he commanded. “It may yet be that the wrath of the Valar will fall upon us, and I would take any peril on myself alone. I will dare it for the sake of the Two Kindreds, but I wish to know you are safe.”

Elwing snorted.

She’d once heard one of the edain visiting Sirion remark “may as well hang for the sheep as for the fleece.” The man had needed to explain himself to his bemused listeners, as elves did not hang anyone no matter the crime, but she rather thought it might be appropriate here. Staying in the pinnace was hardly going to save her if the Valar decided they had violated the Ban, particularly not when it had been her idea that got them there in the first place.

Besides, her husband might speak for Men, and for the Noldor, but he couldn’t speak for her people. And if she was going to die for being here, she wanted to at least talk to her sundered kin before she did!

“You swore to me when we married that our paths would never be sundered,” she replied, in a tone he had learned already as a boy meant that further argument was useless. “Where you go, I go. If that takes me into danger, so be it.”

Because I certainly know nothing of danger after facing down your cousin Maedhros wearing a Silmaril!

He bowed politely, probably to cover a very unprincely and un-Noldo laugh, and offered a hand to help her from the boat.

The water felt no different to her bare feet than the waves on the beach at Sirion, and she almost giggled at the unexpected normalcy of it.

Hand in hand they made their way toward the center of town. Few people were in the streets so early – those who were abroad at this hour were those who had reason to be, and most of them moved briskly, only registering the strangeness of the couple after they had already passed them by.

When they came to the main square, her husband embraced her.

“You would still be parted from me?” she asked, knowing all too well that he feared what lay before them.

“Beloved,” he began, all reason and concern, “that we have not been struck down yet does not mean that the Valar may not be wroth with us. It takes only one to carry a message. I could bear their anger though they were all like to Morgoth so long as I know you safe.”

“Why should I be safer here than with you?” she protested. “I know none here!”

“You will be among kin here,” Eärendil pointed out. “Olwë the king is brother to your grandfather Thingol – would he shun his brother’s descendant who comes to him in need?”

When Thingol was so angry at the harm done his brother’s people that he banned our very tongue?

He had her there, the smug Noldo.

He grinned as he caught her irritation, the boyish smile that had captivated her from their first meeting.

“Stay, my love. Charm the Teleri with your tales of the mortal lands. I will find a way to move the Valar to action.”

“So long as your way does not involve you being turned into a smear on the floor,” she grumbled, holding him tightly.
He pressed his forehead to hers, looking into her eyes.

One way or another, we will be reunited, beloved, he told her. This I promise you. Whether ours is to be the fate of Beren and Luthien, or Turgon and Elenwë, I will find you. Always.

If we must take examples from our family trees, I find I prefer Finarfin and Eärwen, she replied tartly. He came back to her. And they lived!

“We hope so,” Eärendil said gently. “That was only supposition, for even Galadriel could not be certain how he was received on his return.”

“We have always hoped,” she said firmly. “Go.”

She watched him as he took the road that led inland – his innate sense of the sea telling him without needing to ask which one it was – and did not turn until he was out of sight.

It was only then that she realized that a small knot of onlookers had gathered by the fountain, clearly trying to work out who and what she might be.

She glanced down, ruing for the first time that she had chosen to dress simply, as she would have among her own people on a normal day. If the Lindar were used to the finery of the Noldor, she would cut no impressive figure in her simple tunic and leggings (which all the amanyar she had ever met found scandalous on an elleth in any case) and lack of shoes. Hardly the thing to convince what may prove to be skeptical long-sundered kin that she was a scion of Thingol and Melian.

And yet- if her husband could brave the Valar in all their splendor and might, she couldn’t shy away from a few curious Lindar.

She took a deep breath and approached them.

“Well met, kinsfolk. I am Elwing…”

She hesitated for a moment.

She has been used to describing herself as Elwing of the Sindar to the amanyar, for that was how the Light Elves in Ennor had known her people. But her kin here would not recognize that name- they had all been Lindar when they parted. Eglain would not be politic, for she no longer blamed the ones who left, not knowing what they had come to and comparing it to what became of what they had left behind. Doriath they would not know either, and in any case, Doriath was no more.

“… of the people of Elu,” she finished, hoping they had not noticed the slight pause. “I am seeking my kinsman Olue, can you tell me where I might find him?”