Homecoming by Grundy

The Return

Read The Return

Vilissë stood on her tip-toes, trying her hardest to catch a glimpse of the returning host. But all the elves in front of her were just as eager to see as she was, and those who had spent more than just the earliest bit of their childhood in the light of the Trees were as a rule taller than those begotten later like she had been. (The first children begotten in the light of the Sun and the Moon were shorter still.)

Once in a while, if she cudgeled her memory, she could come up with faint impressions of a time when there had been a golden glow that slowly gave way to silver. And in that light, like and yet more than that which they had now, her family had been larger.

She’d had brothers, and an older sister. Her brothers’ faces she knew mainly from the portraits that hung on the walls, for they had been grown by the time of her begetting, and often out and about when she had been a baby. Her sister she remembered better, but still with the slight fuzziness of childhood.

All three of them had followed King Fëanaro, and for nearly six hundred years, there has been no word.

Ammë feared her eldest dead. She had woken one night from a terrible dream of fire sobbing as though her heart was breaking, and told them she had seen Maikindo fighting bravely but futilely against enemies beyond count. Ammë had been so fragile ever since, so much so that Vilissë’s father had decided he could not in good conscience go with Prince Arafinwë, no matter how much he desired to help their kin in the east and seek his children.

But Vilissë’s other brother and her sister might yet live. If they did, they would be returning today.

Now, even, if the noise of the crowd was anything to judge by.

She jumped slightly, trying once more to see, and nearly stumbled into the watchers in front of her as she landed less gracefully than she’d intended. One of the older neri nearby jerked his head at the lamppost between them. For a moment, she wasn’t sure what he meant, but he nodded at it again, and she understood. She scrambled up, using the metalwork as both support and handholds, until her head was high enough above the crowd to see.

Prince Arafinwë and Princess Eärwen marched at the head of the column. Both looked older than they had when they left Tirion, though it had not been all that many years. Was that because of the war, Vilissë wondered, or because of Beleriand itself?

She had no idea what Beleriand looked like. Had looked like. Nearly all of it had fallen into the sea in the end, broken by the war and the malice of the one who had once been called Melkor.

The rest of the returning Noldor followed their Prince, marching into the Square of the King in good order, until those who had gathered to see them had to fall back to the edges, or crowd into the surrounding store fronts and buildings to make space. But even so, it was plain to see that fewer had come back than they had hoped; it looked to be mainly those who had gone with Prince Arafinwë. Many of them also looked older.

Vilissë felt the shock run through the crowd when the last of the ranks took up their positions and it became clear there was no one else.

But whatever murmur started to rise from the people of Tirion was lost in the sound of the entire army snapping to attention at their prince’s command, saluting Queen Findis as she came down the steps from the palace.

“Hail, my Queen!”

Even Prince Arafinwë’s voice sounded different than when he’d departed.

Queen Findis returned the salute. Though she tried to cover it, she must have been as stricken as any other in the square who had looked hopefully for returning kin. Prince Arafinwë and his wife had returned alone. Not a single one of the princes or princesses who had followed King Fëanaro stood beside them. Not even their daughter…

“It is finished! Our Enemy has been defeated and brought to justice. The mortal lands have been made safe for Elves and Men.”

“Well done, Prince Arafinwë. Well done, my valiant warriors! You have served with honor. There will be a time for speeches and memorials, but this is not it. I release you now – return to your eager families with our deepest gratitude.”

There was another salute, this time accompanied by a rather heartier ‘hail, my Queen!’ before the assembled host relaxed. It was not to their families they turned first, but to each other, embracing the comrades at their sides before they took their leave of each other.

It was only when they began to disperse that Vilissë slid back to the ground. She realized at once that it would be all but impossible for her to find her brother or sister in the crowd – assuming they were even there to find. Too many people were moving in every direction at once. Besides, she had no certainty she would recognize her older siblings even if they chanced on each other.

She sighed and worked her way to the edge of the square, to the Street of the Bookbinders. It was the quickest way home. Even that was becoming crowded, as she was not the only one who had concluded that the sensible thing to do was await their looked-for ones at home. (And maybe she was not the only one whose hope was a bit fainter than it had been in the morning. It would be easier to deal with disappointment at home than stay composed in public.)

The streets were emptier by the time she reached the Weavers Street, so it was hard to miss the woman pushing an odd contraption – it looked like a chair with wheels.

“We are nearly there, nethig,” she heard the woman say.

The last word was unfamiliar, and the rest were slightly off, not quite the same cadence as the rest of Tirion. Vilissë had focused so on the words that she realized with a start there was another elf in the chair only when the person spoke.

“Are you sure? You need not take me to your parents’ house,” the person in the chair said, her voice trembling. “I am sure I could find shelter with Márindo and Téranwë ’s family.”

“Why should it be less trouble for you to shelter with them? I am sure my parents won’t hear of such a thing. You will stay with us, and once things are more settled, we will take you to Lorien. They will be able to help you there.”

Vilissë walked somewhat faster at first because she was curious about the chair, but as the unlikely pair proceeded further down the street, she broke into a run.

There were not so many houses at the end of their street, and none of the others had sent a daughter to the war. It had to be her sister…didn’t it?

“Nyellië?” she called, half hopeful, half fearing she was making an embarrassing error, running after someone who had merely been away from Tirion so long that she had misremembered her way.

The woman pushing the chair whirled at once.

Her face ran a swift course from hopeful, to slightly puzzled, to startled, to joyful.

“Vilissë? Little Vilissë?” she exclaimed, her hand going to her mouth for a moment before she reached out to pull her into the tightest embrace Vilissë had ever known.

It was broken only when Nyellië let out a sound somewhere between a laugh and a sob, and swung Vilissë around as easily as if she were still the little fourteen-year-old who hadn’t been able to stop crying when her older siblings left.

“You’re grown up,” Nyellië announced in astonishment, as if she couldn’t credit such an unfathomable thing.

“Well, yes,” Vilissë said.

Did her sister think she would have somehow not come of age in the six hundred years they had been apart?

“Mother and Father will be overjoyed to have you back!” she continued.

She paused, unsure if she should ask after their brother or not. If he had come back, wouldn’t he be the one pushing the chair instead of Nyellië? And who was the elf in the chair?

“Are they-?” Nyellië broke off, evidently just as unsure about questions as her younger sister.

“They told me I was being silly going to the square,” Vilissë explained. “Father said there would be no room with the whole host there, so he would rather make sure dinner was ready. I think Mother did not want to raise her hopes only to be disappointed.”

Vilissë put on a smile.

“But she won’t be, because you’re finally back!”

Nyellië looked a bit sad all the same.

“Yes, I am. But… has anyone told you about our brothers?”

“I know we have brothers,” Vilissë replied with a frown. “I was not that young.”

There was a small cough from the woman in the chair.

Vilissë got a good look at her for the first time. Her hair was dark, but a different shade than was usual among the Noldor. But the thing that would instantly strike anyone in Tirion was her face. From just below her nose down, the woman’s face was perfectly normal if slightly paler than usual even for the Teleri. But above that, the flesh was red and shiny, uneven as if it had been sculpted by a young apprentice who wasn’t quite sure how to finish their work. The eyebrows were oddly incomplete, and the eyes beneath them a milky white.

“Oh! Glinwen, we are not quite to my parents’ house yet, but we have found my little sister – or more accurately, she has found us,” Nyellië said. “Vilissë, this is Glinwen. She can’t see just now, so it would be kind of you to talk to her about the neighborhood as we walk.”

“It is so good to meet you at last,” Glinwen said, her mouth curling into a lovely smile that made the ruin of the face above it all the more heartbreaking to look on. “Nyellië has been telling me of you for years! Even before I understood enough Noldorin to know what she was saying, she spoke of you. I didn’t know what her words meant at the time, but I could hear how much she loved and missed you.”

Vilissë looked from one to the other, confused.

“Let’s go home, sisters,” Nyellië said. “It will probably be easier to tell your story once, Glinwen.”

The other woman nodded, apparently more composed than Nyellië.

“Of course. I did tell you it would be odd to bring home a dark elf none of your family here had ever met.”

She did not say it with any bite or rancor – if anything, Glinwen sounded rather amused.

Vilissë was sure her eyes were about to pop out of her head when she heard ‘dark elf’ and did her best to pull herself together before she remembered that Glinwen couldn’t have seen her expression anyway.

She supposed she shouldn’t be so shocked. There had been elves in Beleriand, after all. And for all she knew, this woman was her law-sister or soon would be.

Nyellië had said she should tell Glinwen about their surroundings…

“We’re in the Weavers Street now, which is not particularly grand. We’ve gone past most of the shops and workshops already, this end is just houses. Some have workshops in the house, but they’re only little ones.”

Nyellië laughed.

“The ‘little ones’ she speaks of, Glinwen, are bigger than what we would call little. All these houses are larger than most of the ones on Balar, and probably in Sirion either. They are twice the size of anything in Ambomar.”

“We’re just coming to our parents’ house now,” Vilissë continued, curious about the places her sister spoke of but sure this was not the time or place to ask. “Which is not much different than the ones around it except that the stone is blue-grey rather than white like the ones on either side because Mother likes the color. And…”

She trailed off at the look of dismay on her older sister’s face.

“I’d forgotten the steps,” Nyellië groaned. “Vilissë, do you think you could help me carry the chair up?”