Improbable Beautiful & Afraid of Nothing by StarSpray

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One

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I want to think again of dangerous and noble things.
I want to be light and frolicsome.
I want to be improbable beautiful and afraid of nothing,
as though I had wings.
- Mary Oliver, "Starlings in Winter"

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It was high summer in Valinor. Among the eastern foothills of the Pelóri the thick woods were green and cool, shadowed for much of the day by the great mountains. From the snowy heights flowed many streams and brooks that joined together into a much larger river that fell, laughing, over stones and into the hollows of the hills, to flow merrily through the forest, sparkling in the afternoon sun after the morning's gauzy veil of mists burned away. As the land leveled so did the river, widening and slowing so that its shallower waters could be waded without fear of currents and with a great deal of shrieking laughter at the frigid snow melt. Willows grew along the banks where nightingales perched and sang out, and niphredil covered the ground in white and pale green blankets. The first blossoms were said had been planted there long ago by Elwing, from flowers taken out of Lórien where they bloomed in the footsteps of Melian as she wept for the loss of Lúthien and of Elu Thingol.

If Dior sat by the river and half-closed his eyes, and ignored the towering mountains at his back, he could almost imagine that he was not in Valinor at all, but back in Beleriand, in Doriath, just outside the gates of the first Menegroth, with its walls worn smooth with time, instead of these caves that bore the same name but still looked and felt crisp and fresh, too new for time and hundreds of thousands of footfalls and hands to have done any real work on them—especially here. He could almost fancy that the river by which he sat was the starlit and enchanted Esgalduin that flowed through Neldoreth carrying the memory of Melian's music and Lúthien's laughter. But only almost. There was laughter in the Gladhuin, but it was not his mother's.

He opened his eyes to see the woods—filled with more oak and maple than beech, and with dark stands of tall firs and copses of trembling aspens and pale-barked birch—and the river with the slender stone bridge arching gracefully over it. Somewhere behind him upstream a group of elves were fishing, singing and laughing at each other as they cast their lines, and caring little if they actually caught anything. He blinked a few times, dazzled by a flash of sunlight on the water. It was still difficult to live in the present moment, rather than dwelling in the past, though he had been told time and time again that it would grow easier. The body wanted to look forward, however accustomed the spirit was to looking back.

Dior sighed. All that he had seen and been told of Elves returning to life suggested that the spirit was swift to adjust to the new body, or perhaps the body adjusted to the spirit. It was not so for him—or at least, it did not feel so. He was not clumsy or awkward, but there were things he had done with ease in his former life that this new body needed to relearn. His scars and callouses were gone, too, leaving too-smooth skin in their place. Nimloth counseled patience; Nimloth did not have to worry about tripping up the dais before her entire court. It made Dior feel like a child playing pretend in a way that he had not in Beleriand.

He unbent his legs and let his bare feet drop into the water. It was very cold, but the shock of it was somehow reassuring. As he kicked his feet slightly, sending tiny water droplets arcing up into the air to glitter like liquid diamond for a few seconds, movement across the way caught his attention. From a honeysuckle thicket on the other side of the river emerged an enormous hound. It was grey and shaggy and even at a distance Dior could tell that its eyes were unusually bright and sharp. It's mouth opened and its tongue lolled out in a dog's version of a grin, and it bounded across the river. The water was shallow enough for it, and when the hound joined Dior he found himself suddenly drenched when the hound shook itself dry. Then it flopped down onto the grass and laid its massive head on Dior's lap, turning its big brown eyes up to him in a clear request for scratches.

Dior laughed, and obliged. "If I didn't know better," he said as he buried his fingers in the thick soft fur just behind the hound's ears, "I would believe that you were Huan returned."

The hound woofed softly and rolled its eyes up to look at Dior again. Dior paused, and frowned. "Are you Huan reborn?" he asked. An ear twitched. For a dog, Huan was amazingly expressive. "Oh." Dior went back to scratching, and did an even more thorough job of it. He had grown up on tales of Huan and the part he had played in the tale of Dior's parents. He also knew, of course, that Huan had once followed Celegorm. "What will you do when he returns from Mandos?" Dior wondered as Huan rolled onto his back so his belly could be rubbed next. If Huan had an answer to the question, he did not offer it.

When Dior returned to Menegroth, Huan went with him, and received many exclamations of delight and more than one deep bow from those who remembered him from Doriath, and his brave last hunt in Neldoreth when Carcharoth was slain and the Silmaril retrieved. Others looked askance, and murmured to one another—remembering Huan from even older times, perhaps—though no one spoke of it to Dior. Huan followed Dior, also, when he departed from Menegroth with Nimloth, at her insistence.

"It will help you, I think," Nimloth said as they waited for horses to be brought, "to move about, to travel. It is easier, here, and there is less danger."

"Where are you going to take me first?" Dior asked. He knew where he would like to go, but who knew if there was some tradition he did not know about, or expectations laid upon him as a king among many other kings in this land.

"To the coast, of course," said Nimloth. "You have never seen the Sea—and you have not yet seen Elwing."

She spoke lightly, but Dior's own smile faltered. He had not wanted to ask why Elwing had not been there with Nimloth when he had been released from Mandos. There were too many reasons, few of them good. "Will she be in Alqualondë?" he asked.

"Perhaps," said Nimloth as their horses were finally brought. She sprang lightly up onto her own, riding saddle-less in the Nandorin style. Dior did not trust himself to remain seated even on the most mild-mannered horse yet, so he mounted more slowly, settling himself in a saddle, mostly feeling relieved that he had not needed assistance. Nimloth leaned over to kiss Dior, and then to wave at those who had come to see them off. Dior followed suit, and in a few minutes they were cantering through the wood, away from the mountains and the Gladhuin, their escort (and Huan) trailing behind them.

They passed out of the forest into bright sunshine. The skies were clear and brilliant blue, with only a handful of white, fluffy clouds drifting lazily across. Dior could see their shadows passing slowly over the wide meadows and fields that stretched out before them, green and gold, and flowers blossomed in a riot of color as though someone had spilled paint over the grass. In the distance was the silver ribbon of a river, much wider than the Gladhuin; herds of animals grazed near it, unbuttered by the traffic on the wide smooth road that cut through it, running alongside the river until it passed out of Dior's sight. Nimloth let out a delighted, wild cry and urged her horse into a gallop. Dior immediately followed, laughing for the sheer joy of the wind in his hair and the sun on his face. Huan caught up and passed him, his bark echoing off of the rolling hills and the trees behind them.

It was wondrous to ride as quickly or as slowly as they desired, and to travel without armor or weapons of war, and to be able to stop to greet anyone they might encounter on the road without fear. They rested the horses beneath the stars; Dior dozed with his head on his wife's lap as his companions sang and told stories, and he dreamed that he was floating in a river of stars. The next day passed much as the day before, alternately walking at leisure and racing down the road for the sheer joy of it, and so too the day after that. Dior and Nimloth's companions were all old friends from Ossiriand and Doriath who had known them since well before Dior had taken up his grandfather's crown, and for a time he even managed to forget that he was Eluchíl and not simply Dior.

Then Tirion appeared before them atop its great hill, all white stone and burnished roofs. Smoke coiled up from one portion of the city in particular, where the workshops were, Dior supposed. The Mindon Eldaliéva stood above all the others. Dior pulled up short as they crested a hill; the road ran down to snake around Tirion and its hill, passing through hamlets and farmlands and estates surrounding the city. It was truly a marvelous sight, and he could have stared for hours. Menegroth had been glorious, too, and its successor no less so, but it was not the kind of glory that one could see at a distance. From the outside all a visitor saw was the hillside. Dior watched the throngs of people going in and out of the city, and passing between the fields and the houses outside of it. Bells were ringing, and even from where he sat he could smell woodsmoke and occasionally a whiff of something more acrid.

Nimloth rode up beside him. "I thought we would skirt around Tirion," she said. "If we entered the city we would have to give our courtesies to King Finarfin—or perhaps Fingolfin, I have not paid enough attention to who wears the crown these days—and you do not need finery to impress anyone, but I did not pack my good jewels."

Dior laughed, and caught her hand to kiss her fingers. "You need no jewels to outshine even the most glorious queens of the Eldalië, my love," he said. "But I am not prepared to enter the city of the Noldor yet."

"No," Nimloth said more quietly, "I didn't think you were. Come on. We can slip through the Calacirya this way, with no one the wiser."

They took a less-used path through the hills, meeting few others, and none who might recognize them. It was a more winding way than taking the main road through or just skirting the walls of Tirion, and they camped again that night, taking shelter in a small, neat building built for the purpose nestled in among the biggest elm trees that Dior had ever seen. As thunder rumbled, he sat near the doorway with Huan a warm presence at his back, and gazed eastward. He could see nothing, of course, except a tangle of trees and honeysuckle, but he knew that beyond the woods and the pass lay the Sea, lay Eldamar of so many songs that they had sung even in Doriath, and Alqualondë where his grandfather's brother ruled. And somewhere beyond Alqualondë…

"Why did Elwing not come?" he whispered to Nimloth as she joined him.

"Her husband," Nimloth replied, and Dior frowned. "He comes and goes by no pattern than I can see, but she always seems to know, and she is never away from her tower when he arrives." She handed Dior a plate of stewed rabbit with mushrooms and wild-picked herbs. "It is not that she doesn't want to see you. But she is…anxious. I think she wants Eärendil to be with her for the meeting. It was the same when I returned." She tugged on one of his braids and smiled. "Did you think she didn't want to see you?"

"I don't know, Nimloth," Dior said. "So much happened—if I were in her place I don't know that I would be so eager to see me."

"Yes, much has happened—and much time has passed since."

"Yes," Dior said, very softly. He knew a little of what Elwing had seen and done after Doriath, though he'd spent very little time looking at Vairë's tapestries in the Halls, and what he had seen was only a vague and elusive memory. So in his mind Elwing was still little more than a baby, with dark curls and big grey eyes and hands that were somehow always damp or sticky, and arms that constantly reached up to him, wanting to be held or tossed in the air when she was not toddling after her brothers. The thought of Eluréd and Elurín made his heart twist painfully, and he released a sigh. Memories of his children had been a lifeline he had clung to in death. In life, however, his daughter was a woman grown—and he did not know what he would say to her when they met.

Nimloth kissed his cheek. "Eat your supper," she said. Dior ate his supper, and as he lay down between Huan and Nimloth it began to rain, a comforting sound to fall asleep to.

The rain continued into the next morning, though it lessened into tiny misty droplets that caught and shimmered in Nimloth's hair and eyelashes, and Dior found himself thankful for the excuse to pull on a cloak with a hood that shadowed his face. The joyful abandon of the journey had left him, and now he worried that he would be recognized before he wished to be. All of a sudden he was not prepared to be Eluchíl again, instead of only Dior—and it was Eluchíl they would want to see in Alqualondë, he knew. As they emerged from the wood and rejoined the larger road that passed through the Calacirya and ran down to Alqualondë, they found that fog was rolling into the bay from the sea; the only things of Tol Eressëa that could be seen were the points of light in its towers to guide ships on such a day as this. In Alqualondë there were lights, too, strange and ghostly through the fog. "Perhaps not the best view for one's first view," said Nimloth. "But we can visit properly on our way back. I had thought to take a boat up the coast, but I'm not a good enough sailor to take a chance on this fog."

They parted from their companions outside the city, along with their horses, and Nimloth led the way on foot into the hills outside of Alqualondë, skirting the city much as they had skirted Tirion, and coming to a path that wounds its way up the coast. The sound of the sea crashing against the hillside beneath them and to their right was constant and a little alarming, since they could not see it. Huan bounded ahead of them, either able to see through the mists or uncaring that he couldn't. Dior kept a tight grip on Nimloth's hand, not quite trusting his own feet to stay on the narrow path. As he stepped over a root that had jutted out into the way he said, "It doesn't seem as though many people come this way." He wasn't sure he liked the thought of Elwing having so few visitors that the way to her home became overgrown.

"Most go by ship," said Nimloth as she moved a fallen branch out of the way, tossing it down the steep slope toward the water. "Even those who dwell in Araman use the docks by her tower when they want to go south. It's faster and usually more pleasant. This fog is rather unusual. And if you are worried about Elwing—you needn't be. She needs neither paths nor ships to go wherever she wants."

That was true. Dior ducked his head and tried to concentrate on where he put his feet.

Nimloth looked over her shoulder and frowned. "Have you heard so few tales of our daughter, Dior?"

Dior frowned back and shrugged. "And when would I have had the time, Nimloth? I've heard enough to be getting on with." Fire and blood and a desperate flight. A ship and a jewel that became a star.

"What of Vairë's hangings? I don't remember very much from my own time in the Halls, but I remember them. I knew where to find Elwing when I returned."

"I did not look at them." What he knew had come from half-heard, half-remembered murmurs that swept through the halls, and from Námo himself when he had come to tell Dior that, thanks to his daughter and her husband, a Choice lay before him. Somehow Elwing and her husband and the Silmaril had come to Valinor, and the Valar had listened. But Dior had not gone looking for more.

Nimloth halted and turned to face him. "You didn't?" Her head tilted just slightly as she regarded him. "Why not?"

Dior looked away. He recalled with sudden painful clarity the first and almost only time he had gone to see what Vairë had woven. He watched raindrops gather and drip down a low-hanging branch. "I did not want to know what happened," he said.

"Oh, love." Nimloth stepped forward and wrapped her arms around him. They were both wet and it was not a very comfortable embrace, but he pressed his face into her shoulder anyway. Beneath the rain she was warm. "You could not have known they would come."

"I know. I know, Nimloth, I'm not—I have made peace with it, else I would not be out here in the rain instead of comfortable and dry in Mandos." That made her laugh, a little, which eased something in Dior's chest. "But that does not mean I ever wanted to see what happened after."

"You will hear it told, in time," said Nimloth, drawing back. He shrugged. Hopefully it would be easier to hear in the waking world, dressed up in poetry and song, than to see it unspooled in Vairë's too-vivid threads.

Huan trotted back to them and nudged Dior's shoulder, hard enough that he stumbled back a step. "Yes, yes, we are coming," he said.

"It isn't far, now," said Nimloth. She took his hand and pulled him along, Huan trotting just ahead of them. The trees ended suddenly, and they stepped out into an open space, though it was hard to tell just how open, with the fog still thick around them, growing thicker as the afternoon started to turn towards evening. But the tower was unmistakable: a great stone tree rising up out of the mists and reaching towards the rainclouds. The top floor was lined with windows, out of which shone warm yellow light. "Down there is the harbor, in the little inlet," said Nimloth, pointing to where the path branched away. "Eärendil must not be here."

"How can you tell?" Dior asked.

"It is impossible not to notice when Vingilot is at port. But oh, there he comes! And there is Elwing flying to meet him." Nimloth pointed up toward the tower. Dior followed her gaze and saw a great white bird flying away, up toward the sky. And there through the clouds came the unmistakable and achingly familiar Light of a Silmaril. Soon the form of a ship became clear, with sails gleaming like silver, and the Silmaril hanging from the main mast. Figures moved about on the deck; one sprang up onto the prow, leaning out over it in a way that made Dior's stomach drop. The figure held on with one hand to a rope and kept only one foot on the deck railing, letting the other dangle out over the open air. "That," said Nimloth, "is Eärendil."

The bird reached the ship and circled around it before landing somewhere on the deck. Eärendil disappeared from the prow, and the ship dipped sharply down, descending past the cliffs' edge to the water. The Silmaril did cut through the fog with ease, and after a short time two figures, like ghosts, could be seen coming up the path, lit from behind. Dior realized after a moment that they had left the Silmaril behind on the ship. But no—of course they did, of course they could. There was no one here who would steal it. The ghostly figures solidified into a man and a woman; the woman was slender and clad in white, and with featherers braided into her dark hair. The man was fair, and shimmered faintly, as though stardust clung to him from his voyage through the heavens. He was laughing, and Elwing was smiling—and Dior was glad that they had not noticed their visitors yet, so that his first glimpse of his daughter as an adult was in an uncomplicatedly happy moment.

Nimloth went forward, calling to Elwing as she threw the hood of her cloak back. Elwing turned and her face brightened even further. "Mother!" she exclaimed, and darted forward to embrace Nimloth as Dior also stepped out from the shelter of the trees. "We were going to come to you," Elwing was saying. "You did not have to come and fetch us."

"We didn't," said Nimloth as Dior stepped up beside her.

Elwing looked at him and her eyes went wide. "Elwing," he began, and then her arms were around him, clinging, and somehow he ended up lifting her off the ground, in something of an echo of the way he'd picked her up when she was small.

When he set her down, Eärendil was there, bowing gracefully and welcoming him. "We should go inside," he added, "out of the rain." Up close it was clear that he was covered in something that shimmered and clung to him in a manner that the rain could not wash away. He led the way into the tower, where they were all distracted by the usual bustle of arrival in a new place—of settling in, washing away the dust of the road and the chill of the rain, and changing into more comfortable clothes. There were a handful of servants in the tower, and they appeared and disappeared on silent feet, bringing hot water and whisking away wet clothes to be laundered, all amid a great deal of laughter as Huan got in the way, wanting to greet everyone with a thorough sniffing.

"Is this really the Huan?" Eärendil asked, plunging both hands into Huan's thick fur. Huan nearly knocked a poor maid over with his tail's enthusiastic wagging, but she only laughed and dodged out of the way, arms full of wet cloaks.

"He gets very huffy when one suggests that he isn't," said Nimloth.

"But what is he doing here?" Elwing asked. "I thought—well, didn't he…?" She looked at Huan, puzzled. Huan barely had to lift his head to lick away the frown on her face. She laughed, and the sound brought to Dior's mind the falls of Lanthir Lamath, on Tol Galen far away and long ago. He felt, suddenly, like he'd been punched in the chest—but there wasn't time for his thoughts to start circling, as Nimloth whisked him away to the room she used when visiting the tower, and Elwing and Eärendil disappeared as well.

"You see?" Nimloth said once they were alone, as she combed her fingers through her damp hair. "I told you she would be glad to see you."

Dior twisted his own hair into a simple braid, deciding it was still too damp to leave loose. "Yes, you did," he said. "Was that really Elwing, that great bird?"

"Yes." Nimloth's smile turned a little wry. "She likes to jump off of high places to take flight."

Dior tried to imagine it. After a moment Nimloth smacked him in the arm. "Don't you start jumping from towers and cliffs!" she said. "Though I suppose you could if you wanted to. It's you she gets it from, the skin-changing."

She led him up winding stairs to the very top of the tower, which was one large, wide room, lined with windows and lit with dozens of amber-colored crystals that shone with unwavering light. More than one brazier burned throughout the room, which looked as though it were several kinds of rooms combined into one. There was a large loom near the widest windows, where the light would be best when the sun shone, and there were baskets of wool or flax or some other material scattered around it, alongside spindles and a spinning wheel. Near the center of the room were cushions and seats just for sitting, where someone had left a book and a small lap harp; closest to the door where Dior and Nimloth had entered was a table set for a meal with platters already laid out and covered to keep the food warm.

In between the windows were tapestries and other kinds of hangings. Dior drifted to the nearest one while Nimloth went to peer at the meal. He found himself looking at a scene on a beach, where two small identical dark-haired figures were busy building a city out of the sand. Dior thought first of Eluréd and Elurín, except they had never been to the sea, and he did not recall them ever being prone to building things, even when they had suitable materials—and anyway, Elwing had been so young when Doriath fell. She likely did not have any clear memories of her brothers. So of course it must be her sons that she had woven, as they played on the beaches of Sirion, children of tides and sand and open skies, rather than of tree-shadows and woodland streams.

He turned away from the tapestry as another door opened to admit Eärendil and Elwing, dry and clad in soft, comfortable clothes, both of them with their feet bare. Dior remembered Elwing as having very fine, soft hair as a baby, and he could see now that it remained so—so light that it almost floated around her face like shifting shadows. Her dress was pale grey now, edged with silver embroidery in the shape of stars, and she wore a necklace of glass beads, a long string of them in all colors and sizes. Eärendil wore blue, and the hem of his tunic was embroidered with niphredil blossoms. He carried a bottle of wine, which turned out to be from one of the Vanyar's finest harvests in recent years, a gift from High King Ingwë upon the news of the birth of Elrond's eldest children.

Dior had known vanishingly little about his daughter's husband before that evening. He turned out to be friendly and kind and funny, and his gaze was constantly drawn back to Elwing as though she were the one he really wanted to see smile or laugh. They both had stories Dior was eager to hear, of their childhoods and of their children, before Eärendil's last voyage and before Sirion had burned—they did not tell that story, though they skirted near its edges, and Dior saw Elwing's eyes darken. But it was only for a moment, and the food was good and the tower room was warm, and the wine was light and sweet. The wind picked up as the evening wore on, and the rain drove against the windows by the time Dior and Nimloth retired. He fell asleep to the sound of rain on glass, limbs tangled up with Nimloth's, warm beneath soft blankets.

Sunlight on his face woke him. It was red with the dawn, slanting through the window. Dior blinked his eyes open and stared for a moment at the carved wooden beams over his head, and then at the tapestry on the wall opposite the bed. It depicted a fleet of ships, headed towards a star hanging low on the horizon. The star had been stitched in golden thread, and gleamed red with the sunlight. Dior stretched and sat up carefully. Nimloth sighed and rolled over. By the small smile on her face, she was caught in some pleasant dream.

Dior did not look out of the window. Instead he dressed and made his way downstairs and out into Elwing's garden. Around the base of the tower niphredil bloomed thickly, a carpet of sweet-scented white and pale green. The smell mingled with the salty smell of the sea, and with the violets that also grew there. Huan trotted over from around the other side of the tower. "Good morning," Dior said, reaching up to pet his snout. It was damp; he had been rooting around in something, probably.

The fog was gone, washed away by the rain or burned away by the sun, and now Dior could see the thin strip of cliff on which Elwing had chosen to build her home. He walked to the edge of it, and saw for the first time, at last, the Sea. It surpassed all expectations and descriptions—even Daeron's songs of its starlit wonders did not capture it. The sun had just risen fully over the horizon, still red but beginning to pale into yellow. The sea matched the sky, in its varying shades of blue and pink; small bits of white foam appeared and disappeared where waves crested and sank again, the water choppy this morning with the remnants of wind from last night's storm. Dior turned to look back down the coast, to where the glittering rainbow beaches of Alqualondë were just visible, and the pale towers of the city were glowing. There were no walls around Olwë's city. Ships of various sizes and shapes were already out and about on the water, zipping away towards Tol Eressëa—a green haze in the distance—or making their slower, more leisurely way out to deeper waters with fishing nets at the ready.

A large pale shape appeared over the waters, gliding swiftly over the waves before turning sharply up towards the cliff where Dior stood, reaching it in just a few mighty wing beats. Dior watched as it came down to land not far from him; he blinked, and when he opened his eyes Elwing stood there, feathers drifting to the ground around her. "Good morning," Dior said.

"Good morning," she said, coming to stand beside him. "Is this the first time you have seen it?" she asked, gesturing out toward the water.

"Yes," said Dior. "It is beautiful."

Elwing hummed, and for a moment they stood there in silence. She looked at the water; Dior looked at her. Finally, she said, "I used to hate it. When I was a child in Sirion—it was too big and too cold and too loud."

"What changed?" Dior asked.

She shrugged. "I don't really know," she said. "I didn't realize I had ever stopped hating it until I left Alqualondë and went to Tirion and couldn't sleep the first night, because I couldn't hear the waves. But I can never love it the way Eärendil does."

Dior reached up to tuck a stray strand of hair behind her ear, where it did not stay. "I am glad that you found one another," he said.

She smiled at him. "I am, too."

"And—Elwing…"

"You don't need to apologize," she said. "I—you were right not to give the Silmaril to them. That was not its fate."

"Perhaps not," said Dior. He searched her face. "But you suffered, and it was because of my decisions. And I am sorry for it. More than mere words could say."

She searched his face in turn. "Is that why you lingered so long in the Halls?" she asked.

He shrugged. "I don't know. Time is strange there." It felt at once like forever and like no time at all.

"I have never felt angry with you, Father," Elwing said. "I have been—I was angry for a very long time, but never with you." Her smile was a little crooked. "You were very young."

I still am, Dior thought. Aloud he said, "So were you."

Elwing nodded. "We both did the best we could," she said. "It just…was not enough. Nothing was enough, in those days. Not before the Valar listened." She turned her gaze away again to look down the coast, toward Alqualondë. "Even if we had given it over, though," she said, "they could not have held it. It would have burned them. The other two did."

"If I had known that," Dior said, "I might have let them have it." It wasn't that he had cared particularly for the Silmaril itself, or even the Nauglamír—though it had been beautiful, the most beautiful thing he had ever seen that was made by someone's hands—but it had represented all that his parents had suffered in order to come together, and giving them to those who had tried to stop them—who had tried to murder them—had made his skin itch with rage. The messages had borne the name of Maedhros, but he'd read it in the imagined voices of Celegorm and Curufin.

Elwing's grin was sharp, there and gone in a flash. Then she said, "Do you want to see it? The Silmaril, I mean. Eärendil has it hung on Vingilot's mast."

Dior glanced back down towards the light. "No, thank you," he said. It was enough to know that it was in good hands, and that its Light could be seen by anyone who looked skyward at twilight. He was a little curious whether it was still set in the Nauglamír—Finrod Felagund must be walking about somewhere, surely—but not curious enough to feel a need to see for himself.

Dior and Nimloth stayed with Eärendil and Elwing until Eärendil's itch to be always moving grew too strong to ignore. In the meantime they took Vingilot down the coast to Alqualondë to at last meet Olwë and his court, and to Tol Eressëa, where Finrod could be found (wearing the Nauglamír, now with a large opal set in the center where the Silmaril had once been), and many other figures out of songs that had not been written when Dior died, but which were now old and well-known even to children—and there were so many children! Elwing and her brothers had been the only children in Doriath, and Dior had known no others his own age while growing up in Ossiriand; it was strange and marvelous now to see packs of them racing one another through the streets of Alqualondë and Avallónë, and splashing in the waves, and paddling their own small boats about the Bay of Eldamar.

On Tol Eressëa too they met with Idril and Tuor. Dior did not know exactly what to make of Tuor Ulmondil, the only mortal Man to come to dwell in Valinor—accounted among the Eldar, seemingly, though Tuor laughed and said that he had not asked why he was so blessed, in case it was an oversight that might be corrected if attention were drawn to it. He was tall and broad and shared his son's passion for sailing. To Dior Tuor said that he might also be called cousin. "For my mother was cousin to your father," he said. "Though I never knew her."

Dior's father had rarely spoken of his own kin, and Dior had—being young and thoughtless—had never asked. Now the thought occurred to him as he watched Tuor that Beren might also have had this fate, that Lúthien need not have died as she did. But even as he had the thought he knew it was childish and selfish—and even if they had had the choice, Dior did not think his parents would have taken it. Beren would not have given up the Fate of Men, and Lúthien was always going to follow him. And, perhaps, Tuor was only permitted this grace because of what had come before.

Nimloth sat down beside Dior and leaned her head on his shoulder. They were all seated outside of Tuor and Idril's house, on a little stretch of beach where the waves were small and gentle, washing up over the white sand with a whispering sound. "What are you thinking of?" she asked, as Finrod brought out his harp to tell the tale of his first meeting with the first Men who had come west over the Ered Luin long ago. Orodreth had joined them that afternoon, alongside Finduilas and Prince Fingon. Dior had met more Noldorin royalty on Eressëa than he had intended when he set out, most of them of the line of Finarfin. Overhead the sun was bright, passing in and out of large fluffy clouds that drifted lazily through the impossibly blue sky.

"Of the kinds of stories we find ourselves in," Dior said. Nimloth frowned at him. "And also of my parents," he admitted after a moment.

"Ah. I thought you might be." They sat for a few minutes, watching a pod of dolphins leaping up and over a small boat farther out in the bay, and half-listening to Finrod. "They were happy, your parents," Nimloth said after a few moments. "I don't think they wanted more than they had." There was a pause, and then she asked, "Are you happy?"

"Of course I am."

"I mean—are you happy with your choice? You did not have to come back—and I know that it has been difficult."

"I don't regret my choice," Dior said. "Never fear that." He would have gone on without question, if he hadn't been given a choice at all, but when it had been presented—well. He had wanted to see Nimloth again, and his children, if their own choices allowed it. And it was worth it to stand on the edge of the Sea and to breathe the salt air, and walk beneath the ancient trees of Valinor, and kiss his wife whenever he liked. He did so then, startling her into laughter.

"I beg your pardon, Dior Beren's son!" Finrod exclaimed. "If you are going to interrupt my tale-telling, would you like to take my place?"

Dior grinned. "I would, in fact!" he said. "I am sure everyone here has heard your tale of meeting my forefathers dozens of times before—" at this there was a great deal of laughter and agreement, to which Finrod shrugged and grinned, "but has it yet been told on Tol Eressëa from the point of view of the Edain? That is the tale that my father told me when I was a child."

"That sounds much more interesting than the thousandth rendition of Finrod's tale," Fingon announced. Finrod made a face at him; Finduilas giggled.

Dior told the Bëorian tale, which really was the story of their first coming into Beleriand, and only culminated in meeting Nóm. There were other tales of the exploits of his forefathers in their journeys east of the Ered Luin; Dior had loved to hear them, as a child, and now as an adult he could recognize the joy his father had taken in telling the telling. Eluréd and Elurín, too, had enjoyed those tales of adventure, and he had often seen them pretending to be Mannish explorers seeking a path through the wilderness. When he finished the telling Fingon declared it far superior to Finrod's, although that was mostly just to tease Finrod, who threw an apple core at Fingon's head.

When he was not telling tales—or listening to them—Dior explored Avallónë and found himself learning to sail a boat and to catch fish in the bay. He learned all over again how to swim—for swimming in the sea was much different than paddling in a pool or in a river—and went diving for pearls near Alqualondë. But eventually Eärendil departed again, Vingilot sailing out to sea and then tilting up—an odd sight, from afar—and gliding away towards the sky until all that could be seen was the Silmaril, brighter than and as far away as any star. Dior watched the starlight glitter on the water and felt an itch in his own feet, a desire to be back in the forest where the sunlight was tinged green through the trees, and nothing smelled of salt.

Several weeks later, Dior was back beside the Gladhuin, sitting amid the niphredil. Huan lay beside him, snoring softly. The water flowed by, laughing and glittering in the sunshine; nightingales and meadowlarks sang in the trees. Dior had again eschewed kingly finery, and sat in a plain tunic with his hair loose and unadorned, enjoying the quiet. Guests, including Finrod and Angrod, had accompanied them back to Menegroth from Eressëa, and others had arrived not long afterward—a handful of Olwë's children and grandchildren, several groups of Sindar who yet preferred to wander rather than dwell always in one place. Elwing had not travel with them, but joined them not long after they arrived, coming in her form as a great bird and transforming back into her own self in the space of a blink. As summer waned and the harvests began in earnest, Dior's realm was full and bustling and busy, the way Doriath once been under Elu Thingol and Melian. Dior finally started to feel as though his body really was his.

But he was still more used to the quiet of the dead than the noise of the living, and so it was a relief to come out into the wood to sit by the river. Huan followed, but Huan was always quiet, and asked nothing of Dior except ear scratches and company. Dior half-closed his eyes and was transported back to Neldoreth on the cusp of autumn. If he closed his eyes fully and reached into the deep wells of memory, he could even summon the sound of children giggling. Eluréd and Elurín had loved the Esgalduin, and would race out to splash along the banks well into autumn when the days were too cold or on days in early spring when frost still clung to the banks, heedless of Nimloth's scolding.

He opened his eyes again; the world blurred for a moment before he blinked the tears back. Beside him Huan shifted, butting his huge head against Dior's thigh. No one, not even Nimloth, had spoken to Dior of his sons. He had taken that to mean they were dead—truly dead, passed beyond Mandos in the footsteps of Beren and Barahir and all the rest. They had been headstrong and adventurous even as small children just learning to take their first steps; it would not have surprised Dior to learn they had not listened to Námo when he bid them wait, as Dior had.

Huan suddenly raised his head. Dior looked at him, and then down the river toward the bridge that arced over the water. Finrod and Angrod and Nimloth had ridden out with a hunting party that morning, but it was not their victorious return that had caught Huan's attention. Dior saw nothing and heard nothing, except after a moment a soft whine escaping Huan. Dior got to his feet, and standing he could just glimpse a trio of horses coming up the road. Huan also rose to his feet, but he did not move further, standing with his fur almost bristling. "Who is it, Huan?" Dior asked.

Then the riders came around a large tree and he could see two heads of dark hair and one of silver several shades darker than Nimloth's pale starlight. Dior felt his hands curl into fists and something in his stomach twist into a knot. He made himself loosen his hands and take a breath and square his shoulders. It was not far to the bridge; he stepped up to it as the horses reached the other side. They halted abruptly, bells on the tack jangling into discordant silence. For several long seconds the silver-haired rider and Dior gazed at each other unspeaking.

In Dior's memory Celegorm Fëanorion was all sharp edges and bloodstains, from the splatter across his star-embossed armor to his too-prominent cheekbones to the edge of his sword. His hair had been bound up out of his face, then, but he had lost his helmet by the time Dior met him in the throne room, and strands of it had been darkened with blood and stuck to his temples. Today his hair was bound back again but looser, and the pale strands loose around his temples shifted in the breeze. He was not as thin, though there was still something in his bearing that made Dior think of sharp things. Beads clicked at the ends of his braids; his bare arms sported gold and green armbands.

What Dior remembered most, though, was the fear—its bitter taste in the back of his mouth, the way his lungs would not expand fully, the weight of his sword in his hands, the prickle of sweat beneath his armor, the black spots gathering at the edges of his vision. The air had been filled with smoke and the stench of blood as Elves fought and died all around him, turning the fountains red, and Melian's tapestries caught and burned.

He breathed in; there was no smoke in the air here. Only leaf mould and flowers. And as Celegorm swung out of his saddle it was clear that he had no weapons, least of all a sword. Probably, Dior thought, they had expected to find him in his court, crowned in splendor and surrounded by the lords and ladies of the Sindar. Doubtless Celegorm, who had cowed all of Nargothrond, had a speech prepared. But here they stood, and Dior wore neither crown nor finery, and there were none to witness this meeting—so he was free to be only himself: only Dior, not Eluchíl Aranel.

If Celegorm was discomfited by this unexpected meeting, he did not show it. Instead he bowed deeply. "Well met, Eluchíl." His voice in Doriath had been ragged and hoarse from shouting into the smoke-filled caves. Here it was smooth and lilting, the distinct accent of the Exiled Noldor flavoring his Sindarin.

"There are no Silmarils here," Dior said as he stepped up onto the bridge, just to see what they would do. One of the dark brothers turned red, and the other visibly flinched, but Celegorm only straightened, his expression grim. "What brings unannounced the Sons of Fëanor to my realm?"

"A desire to make peace," Celegorm replied. Then he knelt, and after a beat his brothers followed suit. "We wronged you and your kin and your people and did a terrible thing, and for that we are deeply sorry. Please accept our apology, Dior Eluchíl, on behalf of ourselves and our brothers who are not yet returned to us."

Dior looked at the trio of bowed heads. In the far distance he heard a hunting horn, and the baying of hounds, but they drew farther away, not nearer. Nearer at hand all was quiet, but for the sound of water flowing beneath them. He knew what he should say—what he would say, were this encounter taking place before all his court: that he too wanted peace between their kindreds, and that he would accept their apologies. Probably he would accompany it with a pointed look at those in Menegroth less willing to see such an easy resolution. With only the river to listen, though, he said, "When you met my parents on the road near Brethil, you tried to murder them." Celegorm looked up, as did one of the dark-haired brothers—Curufin. "Why?" Dior asked. He had asked the question before. Beren had only shaken his head, rubbed the scar on his chest, and had not answered. Dior had never known whether that was because he knew and did not want to speak of it, or whether he knew no more than Dior did.

The silence stretched, until finally Curufin spoke. "There are no excuses—"

"I don't want excuses," Dior said sharply, "I want the reason."

Celegorm rose to his feet. He stood only slightly shorter than Dior, which was faintly surprising—he loomed so large in Dior's memory. "We were angry," he said, "and shamed, and—in that moment it seemed that we had nothing left to lose. All of our plans had gone awry, and it seemed to us that your parents were to blame. Especially when Huan—" He broke off, voice sounding suspiciously close to cracking, and he looked away from Dior.

"They were not," said Curufin quietly. "We were wrong—for all of it. The Oath drove us in part in Nargothrond, but not there on the roadside." He met Dior's gaze solemnly. "I am sorry."

"As am I," said Celegorm, having mastered himself.

Dior took a breath, and let it out slowly. "I accept your apologies," he said, "for myself and for the people of Doriath. I cannot accept what you offer for your brothers—they must speak for themselves when they return, and to my daughter more than to me."

All three brothers bowed yet again. "Thank you, Dior Eluchíl," said Celegorm, and his words were echoed in turn by the others. Then Celegorm stiffened, suddenly stricken, his gaze shifting past Dior to the road behind him. Dior turned to find Huan coming to join them, padding on silent feet up onto the bridge. He had almost forgotten that Huan was there, and wondered a little that he had waited so long to join them. Huan paused to shove his cold nose into Dior's hair, snuffling, and then went to Celegorm, who made a small, choked sound before throwing his arms around Huan's neck and burying his face in his thick fur.

Curufin stepped back, and then went to his horse, drawing something from one of the saddle bags. He had to give Huan and Celegorm a wide berth as he came back, for Huan had started to lick Celegorm's face with enthusiasm—and, more dangerously, to wag his great tail. When he held out the object to Dior, it was revealed to be a wooden box, polished to gleaming and intricately carved with twisted vines and leaves and flowers. "Please accept this gift, from our house to yours," said Curufin.

Dior took the box, opened it, and gasped. Inside, nestled on a bed of dark green velvet, was a crown. It was made of gold and silver and copper twined into branches and inlaid with thousands of tiny gems of all colors. From a distance it would give the illusion of living greenery from all seasons: summer berries and spring snowdrops nestled together with golden winter mallorn leaves and the bright green of summer beech, and the vibrant shades of autumn oak and maple, all of it glittering in Dior's hands. "This is marvelous," he said. "Thank you." He looked up to find Curufin's expression one of surprise and pleasure.

The other brother—Caranthir, perhaps?—said, "We will leave you in peace now, Eluchíl. I hope you will forgive our intrusion."

Dior closed the case and held out his hand to Curufin. "Let us part perhaps not in friendship, but in hope of it," he said.

Curufin stared at him, mouth slightly agape, before he smiled and clasped Dior's hand. "Gladly," he said. And then, "This is not how we expected this meeting to go."

"Nor did I," said Dior, surprised in his turn by how easy it was to smile.

He clasped hands with Caranthir and, when Huan was done with him, Celegorm. Huan gave a great lick from Dior's chin to his hair, and then trotted off behind Celegorm as he and his brothers rode away, silver bells tinkling on their horse's bridles. Dior watched until they disappeared from sight; then he looked down again at the crown, marveling at it.

He spoke of the encounter to no one until late that night, when he and Nimloth were alone. "They handed you a shiny bauble and you forgave all things, just like that?" she exclaimed. "Dior!"

"I forgave nothing," said Dior. "But I think—I think that I could. I cannot hold onto old hurts forever. Nor do I wish to."

"Elwing will not be pleased."

"I spoke for no one but myself when I said I hoped for friendship," Dior said. "I would never take this out of Elwing's hands. But I cannot stay angry for ever, Nimloth. And I think—if things were different, I think it would be easy to be friends with them."

Nimloth rolled onto her side and onto an elbow, sighing as she looked down at him. "All this because they gave you a pretty crown, Dior?" she said. "By the Powers, sometimes I forget how young you still are."

He could not help bristling. "This has nothing to do with my youth, Nimloth. I hope I would make the same decision were I old as Elu Thingol himself." The body wanted to look forward, and his spirit was at last catching up. "And it isn't that the crown is pretty. Curufin could have given me anything as a mere gesture of peace and apology—I am sure there are plenty of lovely things that it would take no effort at all for him to make. But this crown is not one of them. I cannot imagine how many hours it took to find or make all of those gems, and then to craft the thing itself. And there is power on it—I could feel the echoes of songs for strength and wisdom and good fortune."

"He is a Noldo—of course he would want to show off his skill," said Nimloth, but she softened, and sighed again. "I don't want to argue. They must be nearly as new-come out of Mandos as you are, for I had not even heard that they were returned until tonight. But I cannot follow you in this, Dior. I cannot forget what they did in Doriath."

"I do not ask you to follow me," said Dior. "When I spoke of friendship I spoke for myself, as only myself, not myself as king. I can proclaim peace between our people and theirs, but I cannot and will not ask anyone else to do what they cannot. And I have not forgiven them yet. Though Huan has, it seems."

That made Nimloth laugh, and she lay back down. "Well, at least we know that Huan has good sense. Perhaps that will make it easier."

Dior put an arm around her and sighed into her hair. "I'm not sure it is meant to be easy," he said, "but I think few things worth doing ever are."

It was quiet easy, however, when he next held court to take up the new crown and place it on its head. It was not as light as he expected—but then, crowns never were.