Tattered and Split by StarSpray

Two

The beaches of Eldamar are not like Middle-earth. They are smooth and wide, stretches of white sand that feels soft beneath Elwing's feet. Beyond the reach of the waves it is loose and hot, shifting beneath her feet as she walks along. The waves are not the same, either. They are gentle and almost quiet, washing up with a whispering sound over the sand, and the water is pleasantly cool beneath the bright warm sun. The bay glitters, sun-speckled and dazzling, and the water is a clear bright blue. It is not a thing to be feared, not here.

The white sand is soon streaked with green, and blue, and a dozen shades of pink and red, until there is hardly any white to be seen. Elwing stoops to scoop up a handful, and finds herself holding the dust of gemstones, crushed and scattered to be worn smooth and soft by the water. She lets the grains fall back to her feet, like tiny bright stars winking in the sunlight.

And there are shells, different from the ones she knows, but little driftwood and less seaweed and muck. Elwing pockets a periwinkle. Somehow it is reassuring to find a plain brown shell amid the splendor of the gem-strewn shore.

.

The tower they build for her sits on a bluff overlooking the sea and a small stretch of beach onto which a little quay is built for Vingilot. There are more woods along the coast, here, and more driftwood that washes up. Elwing does not visit the beach often. Her bird shape lets her fly from the sea inland to the deep woods whenever she wishes. She has long since lost her fear of the sea and its crashing waves, but in her heart she loves better the music of the sweet-tasting forest rivers and the little streams that tumble down the mountain slopes, frigid with snow melt and glittering like silver ribbons in the moonlight.

But when Vingilot returns, she flies out to meet it, and disembarks with Eärendil in the little cove, where there is a path marked with white stones leading up to the tower, and another leading back down to Alqualondë. And Eärendil loves still the flotsam and jetsam that wash up onto the sands, and without fail he pockets a shell or a stone or a gnarled bit of water-worn wood.

Elwing stands in the shallows, water swirling around her ankles, and watches him bend over to plunge his hands down into the sand, stardust shedding off his wet clothes to float away. He brings up handfuls of whelk and clam and scallop shells, some whole, most broken—even here. She watches and thinks of their sons on the beaches of Sirion and of her brothers on the river banks. Above them the tower feels too big and too empty.

.

Elrond comes to Valinor at last, tall and fair as Lúthien had been, and on his finger is a golden ring set with a sapphire of the deepest blue. Its power is gone, but Elwing can feel an echo of it, like the last lingering note of a song on a still-quivering harp string. He comes to Elwing's tower, up the stone-lined path, and they walk along the rocky coast together as he tells her of Imladris, nestled in the mountains far from the sea, with silver waterfalls and tra la la lally echoing through the trees. And he tells her of Lindon when it was full and merry and Gil-galad was king, and also of Gondor and Arnor where Elros' children built their kingdoms after Númenor was drowned, and of his own children and their adventures and accomplishments. Elwing looks at him and thinks of what her brothers might have been if they had gotten to grow up, and what Elros must have been like when he took ship for Elenna when it was new and green and the Edain young and strong and hopeful.

They do not speak of Sirion, or what came after.

When they return to the cove where Vingilot docks, Elrond stoops and picks up a jingle from the surf. "These were Elros' favorite," he says, turning it over in his fingers.
"I remember," Elwing says.

"Elros took all of the important heirlooms," Elrond goes on, "but we both kept the boxes you made for us, and all of the shells inside. But Father's chest was lost."

"He has new ones," Elwing says, both surprised and pleased that they were able to rescue something out of the ashes, and that they were permitted to keep them. "These days he brings back strange things from his sky voyages. Would you like to see them?"

Elrond's smile is bright as the sun on the waves, and as they go back up the hill together he hands Elwing the jingle. It shimmers silver in her palm, and when Elrond's visit is over and he returns to Eressëa where Celebrían waits, Elwing does not put it in a box, but on the windowsill by her bed, where it can the moonbeams and the starlight.