Unexpected Nesting by Kaylee Arafinwiel

Unexpected Elflings

So I wasn't sure whether I was going to continue this, but some lovely reviews on the first chapter encouraged me, and, well...here you go!

Time passed, and Elwing guarded the eggs carefully. Only two did she let near - Eärendil, of course, and a great Eagle who at times would come through the window to rest on the pile of stones as it were an eyrie. He would pluck a feather here, a piece of down there, and place it in the nest. At last, the first of the eggs began to crack, with Elwing in gull-shape, nearly swan-sized, and the Eagle watching over it protectively. Earendil sat by, feeling like an outsider, but as Elwing encouraged him he drew nearer. The great egg burst open, and inside was a chick and...a smaller egg. The eagle nudged the chick away, and Elwing watched the smaller egg intently as it began to crack open.

"An eaglet," Earendil raised an eyebrow at Elwing as the second chick emerged. This was a gull, and Earendil watched as the second large egg began to open. He was almost unsurprised to find a second small egg inside it, too. The first eaglet began preening the second, cleaning it of egg, while the gull chick helped its sibling to emerge. At last, four chicks were fully revealed, Elwing and the eagle clearing away the broken shell. Elwing let the Eagle take over cleaning the chicks, and resumed her natural form.

"Eärendil..."

"Eaglets," Eärendil looked at the two larger chicks. "You said Lord Eonwe told you the eggs would live. Did he tell you there would be four?"

"No," Elwing said, blushing. "He also did not tell me how he would make sure our eggs would live."

"They are yours and mine, are they not?" Eärendil asked.

The Eagle finished cleaning the chicks, and then, suddenly, the light in the room became too bright even for Eärendil to look at for a brief moment, the heady scent of wildflowers mingling with the tang of sea wind that always surrounded Aewellond. The Mariner blinked, clearing his vision as the light dissipated, and then went to one knee, eyes wide. "Lord Eönwë!" He had not expected the Maia to appear in such a form, though perhaps he should have, Eärendil thought dizzily.

"Be at peace, Lord Eärendil," Eönwë replied calmly. "Your question is a fair one, and I have not come to chastise but to instruct. The children your wife has borne are yours, but in my haste to ensure they would indeed live in this state, I may have...been over-enthusiastic." He gave an apologetic shrug. "The...division of the eggs was unintentional. Yet it has happened."

"So..." Eärendil said slowly. "The eaglets...they are yours?"

"Unintentional, as I said," Eönwë said. "Yet, no child is begotten but that Eru wills it."

Eärendil frowned slightly, trying to work that out. "You said 'children'," he said. "But are they then Peredhil?" The two fathers approached the nest in which the chicks lay.

"Touch them," Eönwë instructed Eärendil. He did so, and under Eärendil's touch the chicks shimmered, forms twisting, reshaping themselves in a sheen of sparkling light. When the lights faded, Eärendil stepped back, startled.

Four babies lay in the nest; two boys and two girls. One boy and one girl were larger than the other two, with silver-gold hair so pale it was nearly white, and eyes bright as stars. The smaller babies had a dusting of dark hair, looking much as Elros and Elrond had as newborns, with bright blue eyes that might, if they were like their elder brothers, darken to grey ere long.

"Their eyes will not change," Eönwë told the Mariner. "They are your eyes, not Elwing's."

"I am happy they have something of yours, my love," Elwing said, looking at her children in wonder, and back to Eärendil. "I...only thought there would be two, but four..."

"They are ours," Eärendil said quietly. "They may have two fathers, but so do their brothers."