A Glimpse of the Harbor by Rocky41_7

A Glimpse of the Harbor

Elwing had a crook in her neck. She often did, these days. There was a window in the sitting room from which she could see the harbor, and so frequently was her gaze turned towards it—even without thought, anymore!—that the muscles in her neck had begun to protest being so awkwardly craned or snapped abruptly when she thought she saw something from the corner of her eye. It was become a reflex that now occurred whether she thought she saw something or not.

            The Silmaril was heavy against her breast and every night she prayed it would keep the Havens safe, and bring Eärendil back to her. The feeling of being exposed at the seaside had never left her, and she knew her fellow Wood-elves shared the sentiment. Without the comforting rustle of the tree canopy overhead, she felt restless, and although she was growing to enjoy the crash of the waves on the shore, her heart still yearned for the forest. The remnants of the Gondolindrim, Eärendil had explained, felt exposed in a different sort of way, far from their walls and their encircling mountains.

            And so every day she watched for the return of Eärendil’s ship.

            At night, she dreamed of Doriath. She saw her father stand and call the sons of Fëanor to account; she saw the flash of his blade; she saw him cut down. She heard the pounding of her mother’s feet down the hall as she ran for the twins. She felt her own shivering as she mounted up, the Nauglamir burning in her pocket, and urged her horse at an ever-faster pace out of the forest, the branches seeming almost to clear a path as she charged out of the realm of her grandfather.

Even those things she had not seen herself she dreamed of. Her mother’s throat slit and her brothers dragged out of Menegroth, thrashing and wailing. Elured and Elurin, shivering and crying alone in the woods while the Doriathrim tore the forest apart looking for them. The ransacking of Menegroth and the slaughter by those looking for her and what she clutched in her fist. The burning eyes of Maedhros the Red seemed to sear through her mind into her very fae, and it was always after these dreams she woke most discomfited.

            She would flee from her bed and pace about the kitchen and rub the Silmaril and try to displace her memories of the Kinslaying at Doriath with gentler recollections of encountering the Gondolindrim and settling the Havens with them, of meeting Eärendil, of the kindness of Idril and Tuor. There was comfort, she found, in another like her—he who was neither Man nor Elf, and yet both. And Eärendil would have had more in common still with Elwing’s father, being more evenly split between the two than she. She was sorry they would never chance to meet in this life.

            She liked to think they would have gotten along (but, said a voice in her mind, Eärendil got along with most everyone!)

            Still, these thoughts could not calm the rabbit racing of her heart, and so she would retreat to the bedroom of her children. Elrond and Elros, her twin treasures; the sight of them made her heart ache, for they should have had a chance to know their uncles, a matched set just as they were. She would sit on the floor at the foot of their bed and lay her head against the mattress and watch them sleep, and only then the fretting of her heart quieted enough for her to task herself with something simple until morning (there was no returning to sleep on these nights, too many nights, Eru she was so weary at times).

            And so every day she watched for the return of Eärendil’s ship.

            There was plenty to do to keep her hands and mind occupied. The Havens were busy and there had been much building to do in the early days. The settlement was still rudimentary as far as Elves were concerned, and they had great care for beautifying it up to their usual standards. The images of Gondolin and Doriath burned in their faer, and while none yet had gone so far as to say this would match with either of those, it was in the nature of Elves to care for the aesthetic of their living space. Truthfully, she was often grateful to have something to occupy herself with beyond the running of her household—though two young boys did give her quite a bit!

No one argued about with her about the need for minor fortifications, but neither was anyone willing to suggest such ill winds as they needed more than minor ones. The memory of Gondolin’s betrayal and the sacking of the city—the memory of the brutality of the kinslaying—meant Gondolindrim and Doriathrim alike were willing to put in the work to create a few defenses for the city, though everyone hoped they would serve no greater function than making the denizens feel slightly more secure.

The work was never done and as glad as Elwing was for a purpose, exhaustion seemed to bleed into her bones, and she longed for the days when she could look to her mother and father for direction, for succor. If she had ever had a carefree day, dancing barefoot under tree and laying supine in pools of summer light, it seemed so far away as to have belonged to another Elf entirely, one who had never seen the corpses of her people spread out in front of her, their hands empty of weaponry.

And so every day she watched for the return of Eärendil’s ship.

Some nights, the twins were restless too. They crept into her room, lingering about the doorway until they could determine from the sound of her breathing that she was still awake, and then—

“Nana?”

            They would say it together and she would take a breath and then push herself up to look at them. They did not wait for an invitation to clamber onto the bed and make themselves comfortable and ask for a story. Elwing was not good at telling stories. Her mind lingered in too many dark places, and she had not the imagination for it. Eärendil was better at giving them something fun to listen to, and Tuor had been better still (How they had loved to be regaled with grandfather’s stories of his long journey to Gondolin!) Still, she would do her best, and the actual content seemed to matter less than the effort, for inevitably she ended up snuggled down with a child under either arm, and the pair of them sleeping, or at least resting, and if she herself could not sleep, at least she could cradle her babies a while.

            They seemed to grow so quickly. Already they were tall enough to grope around on the counter for anything that might have been left behind, and she had seen Elros lifting Elrond up about the waist for a better look. Perhaps she should have intervened and scolded them, but instead she had only watched and then ducked out of sight, as if she had never seen anything at all. She made sure to keep the knives well out of reach.

            Eärendil was home as much as he could be, but it never felt enough. Moments of joy turned to anguish for her thought that You’re missing it! You’re missing them! She knew their options were limited, and Eärendil did what he could and it grieved him too to be away, but still she wept for those moments she shared with her sons that her husband should have been a part of also.

            And so every day she watched for the return of Eärendil’s ship.

            Some days, her aching neck was lucky. For she would catch sight of a boat on the horizon with her sharp eyes, and need cry only: “Ada—” before both boys were flying past her, out of whatever place they had been hiding and playing then, and racing down the path towards the docks. Elwing would gather her skirt or tighten her cloak around herself and run along with them, and so all of the Havens knew when Eärendil’s ship was due to dock for seeing his family go racing through the town to await his arrival.

            It was always many hours, often much of a day, before he closed the distance between where Elwing had first seen him and where he could hop down onto the dock to be swarmed. The twins would grab at his clothes, babbling over each other for his attention, and he would scoop one up in each arm, and then look to Elwing with that gentle look of I’ve missed you that made her at once forget whatever ungenerous thoughts she might have had during his absence.

            They would always be waylaid by a friend (or several) inviting them for dinner, and the night would pass with drink and song and Elrond and Elros glued to their father until they both passed out and he carried them to bed. The other mariners would share stories of what they had seen, and those who remained ashore would detail what had transpired in their absence. Theirs in the Havens was a simpler sort of life, but far from unrewarding.

            For a while then, Elwing’s neck would be free of kinks and aches, and she looked no more towards the window in the corner, for there was nothing beyond the walls of the house that could have taken her attention off what was inside it.

Chapter End Notes

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