The Leafless Winter by StarSpray

Ah, world, what lessons you prepare for us,
even in the leafless winter,
even in the ashy city.
I am thinking now
of grief, and of getting past it…
- "Starlings in Winter," by Mary Oliver

.

Winters were not gentle on the Valinorean coast. Storms lashed at the rocks and the cliffs, and the winds came down from the north to howl around Elwing's tower, carrying the chill of the Helcaraxë and, sometimes, the echoes of grinding ice. Even Alqualondë could be unpleasant, though it was more sheltered by the shape of the Bay of Eldamar, and the powers of the Lindar and of Uinen. Sometimes Elwing departed from her tower for the season and went to dwell in Tirion or in Valmar. Other years she welcomed the wildness and the cold—and the isolation. Most of her visitors came by boat up from Alqualondë, and that was impossible during the winter months, and very few ever wanted to brave the shoreline paths in bad weather either.

As autumn faded and winter loomed, Elwing paced her tower, up and down the stairs, filled with a restless energy that was as familiar as it was unwelcome; it chased away sleep and, when she did manage to rest, it brought dreams of fire and smoke in echoing caves, and of blood mingling with seawater. Her mother had wanted her to stay with them in New Menegroth for the winter, but after learning that not only had three of the Sons of Fëanor returned from Mandos, but they had come to speak with her father and he had accepted gifts from them, Elwing couldn't remain.

"It is time to move forward, Elwing," her father had said, looking at her with solemn eyes. "The world is changed and Doriath is no more—"

"They should never have been released in the first place," Elwing had snapped back.

"That is not for us to judge." He had been so infuriatingly calm. "I am not asking you to do anything, Elwing. I am only telling you what I have decided. The Sindar will dwell in peace in Valinor alongside the Noldor, including the Sons of Fëanor, and Fëanor himself should he ever return. And I, Dior, will leave the past where it belongs." He had taken her hand in his; it was smooth and uncalloused, and warm. "We are not only of the line of Lúthien and Elu Thingol, Elwing. We are also children of Beren and of Barahir and Emeldir, and it is the nature of Men to look forward."

"It is not the nature of Men to forget all wrongs."

"Nor did I say so."

Elwing had departed then, aware that her father stood silent and still as he watched her leave in a flurry of white feathers. Now she stood at the highest windows in her tower and flung them open to let in the chilled air and the smell of coming rain. These faced the mountains, away from the sea. She leaned over the sill and inhaled deeply. The scent of pine off of the Pelóri mingled with the chill and the damp, and all combined it was invigorating rather than draining. For a moment she closed her eyes and thought about taking flight—but the wind was gusty and unpredictable, and she didn't fancy being blown all the way to Tol Eressëa.

She wished she could forget. Elwing had never seen the three brothers who had been released from Mandos—but she thought they must greatly resemble the brothers whose faces haunted her worst nightmares even still. But even if they did not, how could she attend festivals and gatherings in Tirion where they might also appear, and smile and pretend as though everything was perfectly all right?

Then she opened her eyes and looked down to see a lone figure emerging from the trees, on the path that wound down the coast from her tower to Alqualondë. At first she thought it was Minyelmë, who had come to spend the winter with her before, but Minyelmë never wore red, and though she was of a height with this figure, she was more slender. Elwing leaned farther out of the window, and then gave up trying to get a look from afar, and climbed up onto it. At this the visitor looked up, and she caught a glimpse of alarm on his face as she jumped, flinging her arms out to become wings, feathers buffeting her and slowing her fall. When she straightened again, wings returning to arms, a few feathers drifting to the ground around her feet, she saw the visitor clearly.

For one wild, mad moment she thought it was Maglor, somehow crossed the sea to finish what he had begun in Sirion. But no—that was impossible, and once she got over her fright she saw that though the faces of the brothers were very alike they were not identical. Part of it, perhaps, was that Maglor had been hollow-eyed and gaunt, splattered with blood and half-invisible in the smoky darkness. This brother was unarmed, and not nearly so unhealthy looking. There was a faint flush to his cheeks.

"There are no Silmarils here," Elwing said, as the wind picked up, whipping her hair about her face.

The flush on his cheeks deepened. "The Oath is no more," he said. "The Silmarils have found their long homes, and there they will stay."

"Then why are you here?" Elwing asked. "And which one are you?"

His mouth quirked wryly as he bowed. "I am Caranthir, lady."

"Then say your piece, Caranthir son of Fëanor," said Elwing, "and then go to Alqualondë—you owe Olwë and his people more than you owe to me."

"We have spoken with Olwë already," said Caranthir. "My brothers have gone to Eressëa, and our mother awaits us in Alqualondë." He paused, very briefly, and added, "She sends her greetings to you." Elwing did not answer. Caranthir had not walked all the way to her tower on a day like this only to pass on a hello from Nerdanel. "We expect nothing from you," he said after a few moments, which he seemed to need in order to gather his thoughts. This brother, perhaps, was not a speech-maker like some of the others. "But on behalf of myself and my brothers—of Celegorm and Curufin, at least—I came only to say that we are sorry. For all of it."

The wind gusted again, colder this time. Caranthir drew his cloak more closely about him, but Elwing did not move. The words sounded hollow, but she felt that they were sincere. Perhaps it was because he had not tried to make them pretty or convincing. It wasn't enough—but also, of all of the brothers Caranthir had done the least to her. "Thank you," she said finally. There was nothing else to say—she could not and would not offer anything in return.

Caranthir bowed and took his leave. Elwing watched him disappear down the path, and then took flight, circling her tower before wheeling away, fighting against the wind as she flew up into the mountains. She chose a landing spot at random, and found herself in a dark hollow beneath towering fir trees. There was no wind, here, but her breath misted in front of her face. Beneath her feet was a thick carpet of brown needles that deadened all sound; there were no birds, and no insects. A stream flowed nearby but it was very small this time of year, and even what sound it made seemed flat, as though Elwing were hearing it through cotton stuffed in her ears.

She made her way to the stream and sat down beside it, dipping her fingertips into the frigid water. The shock of the cold sent her for a moment back to Sirion; she closed her eyes and was falling, not yet able to grow wings and save herself, and she hit the water hard, weighed down by her skirts and by the Silmaril around her neck. The Nauglamír had always been famously light, never a burden for its wearer. The Silmaril was nothing but a burden. The seawater had not been as cold as snow melt, but it had been cold enough, and all the air had left her lungs in a stream of pale bubbles that surged up as she sank down.

Overhead two faces, like and unlike Caranthir's, had watched, the flames of Sirion reflected on their star-embossed armor and in their eyes.

When Elwing opened her own eyes she felt tears on her cheeks, and wiped them away on her sleeve. She wanted Eärendil, but he would not return at least until spring, and maybe not even then. She wanted her sons, but they had long ago ceased to be the little boys with sticky sand-encrusted hands that reached for her with every little joy and every little hurt; Elrond dwelt in a valley far away from the sea, surrounding himself with mountains and streams and forests and a family of his own, and Elros had grown up and grown old and died, passing away beyond the Circles of the World, beyond the reach of anyone save Ilúvatar.

A soft rustle of fabric heralded the arrival of a grey-clad woman, tall and slender, her face mostly hidden behind a sheer silver veil. Tears slipped down her cheeks, too, a silent eternal stream of them. Elwing looked up but did not rise, as Nienna sat down beside her on the pine needles, robes billowing gently. "Snow is coming soon," she said. Her voice was very soft, not quite a whisper. Elwing imagined herself covered in snow, a statue frozen and white in the mountains, high enough that no one would ever see. It was, she thought, better than drowning, but not by much. But she did not want to go home. She couldn't face her empty tower, or the kindly sympathy of her kin in Alqualondë or Eressëa, or even Menegroth.

Though Elwing did not speak, Nienna seemed to know her thoughts. "Few of the Eldar come to stay long in my halls," she said, "but they are open to all. Will you come there?"

"I do not know how to find them," said Elwing. A snowflake drifted down through the branches over their heads, landing in the stream and drifting along for a few seconds before dissolving into the water.

"Go west," said Nienna as she rose to her feet. "Seek the way, and you will find it on the shores of Ekkaia." Elwing blinked, and Nienna was gone as though she were never there. Not even the carpet of needles was disturbed.

Elwing sighed, and got to her own feet. She closed her eyes and inhaled deeply the smell of cold and coming snow, and of pine, and she listened to the whispers of the trees who so rarely saw any of the Children walk among them. It was calming to hear their thoughts, which had to do with the coming snow, and the rich soil into which their roots delved deep, all tangled together beneath the surface, and the fresh water of of the stream, and of the birds that had flown away for the season and whose nests and songs they missed in the deep quiet of winter.

As the snow began again, a few more flakes at a time, building up to what would be a long and steady fall, Elwing leaped into the air in a flurry of feathers, and wheeled away from the mountains, arcing out over the choppy grey sea before passing back over Eldamar and Alqualondë, where many colored lamps were lit against the growing cloudy gloom, and flew on through the Calacirya. She flew over Tirion, and heard the faint echo of bells away in Valmar, and flew on, over roads and fields and pastures, now brown and sleeping after the harvest, and over bare-branched woods that had, only a few weeks before, been alive with brilliant color. There were other mountains and hills, and valleys, and towns and hamlets. She did not stop; a flight across Valinor was nothing compared to her very first flight, and when she finally alighted on the very edge of the world, where the dark waters of Ekkaia lapped against the stony shore, it was evening. She watched the sun slowly sink over the far horizon; the sky was streaked with clouds lit from beneath with gentle golden light.

Ekkaia was calmer and quieter than Belegaer. The waters were darker, though, and as she watched the sunset it seemed to Elwing that the stars were brighter, where elsewhere the sun would still be too bright for them to shine yet. She searched for Eärendil's star, but he was off away somewhere deep in the heavens, out of sight of Arda for the time being. It was also warmer, there. The breeze off of the water carried no chill, and when Elwing knelt to let the waves wash up over her fingers, the water had no bite. When she turned back east she saw heather-covered hills, luminous in the fading light. And to the south, just in sight, she saw a rooftop and walls of pale stone. She had imagined something bigger, more imposing—like Mandos—but of course Nienna's home would be more welcoming—more homely. She kicked off her shoes and scooped them up to walk barefoot down the beach through the shallow water. The beach was pebbled rather than sandy, all the stones worn round and smooth as satin, and all different shades of grey and brown and black. There were, strangely, no seashells. Elwing stooped to pick up a stone, turning it over in her fingers and watching the glint of water on it with each movement.

When she looked up she found that she was not alone. It was not Nienna this time, though he was clad in the same sort of grey robes, which were soaked already up to his knees where he stood in the water. He smiled at her. "Welcome, Lady Elwing," he said, and bowed—a swift, graceful motion that hardly seemed formal at all. "I am Olórin. What brings you to the shores of Ekkaia, and Lady Nienna's home?"

"Nienna invited me," said Elwing. She hesitated. "I do not know exactly why I am here." That was not entirely true. She felt like one large wound that had been reopened, like her lungs were still filling up with seawater. But she was realizing that she did not quite understand what it was that happened in Nienna's halls, or what Nienna herself did for those who came to her. What good did someone else's tears do for the bereaved and the heartsick? The wind changed and came down off of the hills rather than in from the sea, and this time it held enough of a chill that Elwing shivered.

But Olórin only smiled kindly at her, and held out his hand. "That's all right," he said. "Come. My lady is expecting you."

Inside, Nienna’s home was open and airy, and not quite grand enough to be called a hall. Elwing saw no Elves as she followed Olórin through the wide corridors, past windows open to the winds off the hills and off of the water, but there were many Maiar, some clad, most not. Those who did take on an Elven form were dressed in grey, like Olórin, and all of them smiled kindly at Elwing and greeted her warmly. It was quiet, but just at the edge of hearing there were voices singing—gentle songs, like lullabies whose words Elwing could not quite make out. The air smelled of lavender.

“What goes on here?” she asked Olórin.

He did not answer immediately, tilting his head slightly as he seemed to consider the question. “You have been to Lórien,” he said, half a question.

“Yes,” said Elwing. “Many times.”

“This place is a little like Estë and Irmo’s gardens. It is also a little like Mandos. It is a place for healing.”

“I thought that was the purpose of Lórien,” said Elwing.

“Oh, it is. And it is also the purpose of Mandos, though most people who have not been there like to forget it.” Olórin glanced at Elwing and smiled. “You are skeptical—that’s all right. You have not been there.” He stopped and turned to her. He raised one hand, palm up. “Here you have Irmo, the master of dreams, who works most closely with Estë his wife to bring rest of both hröa and fëa to the weary and the hurting. And here,” he raised his other hand, “is Námo, who presides over the dead, who have no hröa, and can focus solely on their fëa. And here,” he spread out his hands to gesture to the whole of their surroundings, “dwells the sister of the Fëanturi, where go those whose hurts are not of the body and run too deeply for Irmo to heal, but who yet reside in the realm of life and so cannot find what rest and healing Mandos offers. Now, that is not all that occupies my lady,” he went on, lowering his hands and beginning to walk again, “but that is why you are here.”

“I see.” Elwing fell into step beside Olórin again. She had thought herself healed—happy, all old hurts healed over. Scarred, maybe, but not painful. Then Námo had released not one but three of Fëanor’s sons, and all of a sudden it was like she had only just washed up on the shores of Alqualondë, sunburned and tattered.

“Here we are.” Olórin stopped before a door and pushed it open. Inside was a fairly large chamber, a combination bedroom and parlor, with comfortable seats gathered around a hearth, and a large bed stood against the opposite wall; a wardrobe stood just by the door. The walls were of the same pale stone as the rest of the building, and the floor was wood, also pale, as were the furnishings. The bed linens were died various shades of light blue, and the upholstery was all in shades of green. The only dark colored things were the canopy hangings over the bed, which were of a much darker blue. The windows looked out over a pleasant garden, from which the scent of lavender came, as well as grass and other herbs. “I hope you find everything to your liking. There are clothes in the wardrobe there. If you wish for anything, you need only ask.”

“Thank you,” said Elwing as she stepped into the room. “But what—what am I to do here?”

Olórin shrugged. “I cannot say for you, my lady. Few who come to stay here know precisely what they need before they find it.”

“I see. Thank you.”

Olórin bowed, and left her alone. Elwing dropped her shoes by the door and went to the windows, which stood open. The stars twinkled gently overhead in the gloaming. It seemed strangely quiet, and Elwing couldn’t think of why until she realized that no one was singing. Almost anywhere else in Valinor where there were Ainur or Eldar gathered together, there was music. Here there were only crickets, and the whisper of Ekkaia on the stony shore. Elwing sank onto the cushions of the window seat and gazed up at the stars, letting her thoughts wander.

Time seemed to pass slowly there, or perhaps it was only that there was nothing happening, nothing really to look forward to. It was a place of quiet contemplation and solitude and, of course, grief. Sometimes Elwing heard someone weeping as though just around the corner, but she never saw them—one was not found here if one did not wish it, much like in Lórien. Once or twice she heard laughter in the distance, brief and startling. Always, under everything, was the quiet sound of the sea.

Elwing grew so used to solitude that she was shocked the morning that she stepped out into the garden and found another person there—a man, seated cross-legged on the pale grass beneath one of the slender mallorn trees that grew there. A few leaves had fallen, and he held one in his hands, twirling it gently by its stem. It glinted in the sunshine like the golden threads woven through his dark braids. Elwing knew Fingon by sight, of course, though they had been introduced only briefly after he had returned from Mandos and she had happened to be in Tirion. Upon seeing her he rose and bowed. They exchanged polite greetings and pleasantries, dancing around the natural curiosities of why the other was there at Nienna’s house.

Fingon was not made for diplomacy or dancing around sensitive topics, however. “May I ask what brings you here, Lady Elwing?” he asked.

Elwing clasped her hands, letting her sleeves fall forward to cover them. “Three of Fëanor’s sons have returned from the Halls,” she said.

For a moment Fingon was silent, mouth agape in his shock, eyes opened very wide. “Three—I had not heard this news,” he said finally, almost breathlessly. “Which ones?”

“Curufin, Celegorm, and Caranthir,” said Elwing. “They have been to see my father, and one came to speak to me.” She saw disappointment war with hope in his gaze. “You were friends with them once, were you not?”

“They are my cousins,” he replied. “I was closest in friendship with Maedhros…I do not expect he will return for a very long time.”

Elwing looked away. “I beg your pardon, but I cannot be sorry for that.”

“No,” Fingon said quietly. “I expect not. I wish—” He sighed. “He was not always as he was when you saw him. I am sure you have been told that before, but it is true. Once he was great and brave and noble, a good friend and a loving brother.”

“I am not sure I can truly believe that. How can one fall so far?”

“Too easily,” said Fingon. Grief gathered like dark clouds behind his eyes. “I was not there to see it…but I think perhaps it was the Nirnaeth Arnoediad. I have seen great and terrible change wrought by grief and despair, and we had pinned all of our hopes on that battle.” He smiled, a small and brief and sad thing, and added, “Of course, our hope had not yet been born then.”

“I too have fallen to despair,” said Elwing. This seemed to surprise Fingon. “Yet I have slain no kin.”

“I offer no excuses,” said Fingon. “There are none, though I might wish it otherwise. They were all my friends in our youth—Maedhros best of all. When I speak of missing him, I do not speak of the Maedhros that you knew.”

“Does that make it easier to forgive him?” Elwing asked.

“No,” sighed Fingon, “it makes it harder.” He tilted his head back, gazing for a moment around them in the garden. “Will you walk with me, Lady Elwing?” He offered his arm, and Elwing took it. They wandered down the nearest path. The day was sunny, with only a slight chill to the breeze that came off of Ekkaia. Their conversation turned to Nienna’s home and its comforts and oddities, and to the differences between Ekkaia and Belegaer.

At last, Elwing got up the courage to ask Fingon why he had come to Nienna’s house. His smile was rueful and wistful. “I am grieving that which never was,” he said. “But also, the shock of it has worn off and songs are being written and sung in Tirion of Gil-galad and his last stand in Mordor.”

Oh. Of course. “I’m sorry,” she said. The words were wholly inadequate, but she wasn’t sure what else to say. “Do they often sing them before you?”

“Oh yes,” said Fingon. “It isn't always remembered that he is my son—I think that comes out of the terrible confusion and chaos of the last years of Beleriand—and the rest of the time I know it is meant as a compliment to me and to him. But it is still hard. My own uncle Finarfin knew him better than I ever did.” He glanced at Elwing. “For that matter, you knew him better than I.”

“Not very well,” said Elwing. “He kept to Balar, mostly, and when he did come to Sirion we rarely met outside of official business. But he was very kind to me when I was a child. And he did a great deal for my own sons, after the War of Wrath—Elrond especially.” And he had died we well as one could, when one died in battle. He had taken Gorthaur with him, and that was no small thing. Elwing had not forgotten Númenor. “And what of your lady wife? I have not heard any news of her lately.” She had known Glingaereth even less well than Gil-galad, for she was hardly ever even on Balar, instead spending her time riding out on patrols, keeping orcs and other fell creatures at bay. Elwing didn’t think she had ever heard what had happened to her after the First Age.

“She remains in Middle-earth,” said Fingon. “That is also why I am here, to steel myself against her continuing refusal to sail. I won’t be one of those that stands upon the shores of Eressëa for ever gazing eastward.”

“I have been one of those,” Elwing said. “Though I gazed west rather than east. I do not recommend it.”

“Our last parting was not a happy one,” said Fingon. “I refused to let her ride to battle with me.”

“The Nirnaeth?” Elwing asked. He nodded. “Surely she has forgiven you that by now.”

“I hope she has.”

There were many reasons someone might choose not to sail. It might just be that Middle-earth was Glingaereth’s home, and she did not wish to leave it. Elwing could certainly understand that, though the home of her own childhood was long drowned, and only Ulmo and the creatures of the deeps could wander now the remains of Doriath or of Sirion—unrecognizable now, surely, crushed by the weight of water and of time.

Their talk turned away from Middle-earth and its griefs to Valinor—the ways it had changed since Fingon’s youth, and the places that he loved and the places that Elwing had visited. Eventually their path led them back to the entrance to Nienna’s home, where they parted. Fingon disappeared inside, and Elwing turned back into the gardens, wishing to remain in the sunshine for a time. She came to a fountain carved carved in the shape of flowers, water pouring out of their centers, and sat on the lip. When she trailed her fingers through the basin, the water was cold but not frigid.

“Good afternoon, Lady Elwing.” Olórin had reappeared, absent one moment and there the next. “Are you in need or want of anything?”

“No, thank you.”

Olórin sat with her by the fountain. “Spring comes slowly to this part of the world,” he remarked. “In the vales and meadows of Yavanna and Vána the flowers are all in bloom now, under a bright and warm sun.”

“And I should be there to enjoy them rather than here?” Elwing replied.

“Well, I think you would be happier there. Tell me, are you still angry?”

Elwing opened her mouth to say yes, of course she was, but then she paused, and thought for a few moments. Olórin waited, patient and still, with naught but kindness in his dark eyes. “No,” she said finally. She raw edges of the wounds the Sons of Fëanor had reopened with their return were starting to close, she thought. It would never be easy to see them, or hear them spoken of, but she thought perhaps it might be bearable—for those three, at any rate. The others, Maedhros most of all, were another matter. “But I do not think I can forgive them.”

“That is between you and your own heart, my lady,” said Olórin. “But know that it is your burden, and they shall go on with their lives whether you forgive or no. It is only a letting go of the past, not any obligation to allow them into your future.”

He left her then, and Elwing remained by the fountain for a while longer, watching the water ripple and flow, and thinking of Sirion, and of Doriath, and of her sons. Elros was long dead—that grief grew easier to bear with time, for he had chosen his fate and went to his rest in easy contentment—but Elrond lived yet, in his hidden mountain valley far away. By all accounts both of her sons were kinder than she was. The tales no one liked to tell when they knew Elwing could hear said that love had grown between them, her children and Maglor Fëanorion.

“Elrond would forgive them,” Elwing said aloud, and only then noticed that she was not alone. Nienna had come, and was seated quietly beside her, a comforting presence even when unnoticed. “He did forgive them, if the stories speak truly.”

“So he did,” Nienna said. “He is wise, and in his wisdom, kindhearted.” She laid a hand over Elwing’s, where it was clenched into a fist on her lap. “Have you spoken of what happened to you? To anyone at all?”

“Yes…yes, of course. I told my tale many times when I first came here.”

“You told the tale of your people,” Nienna said. “But what of your story? If you can, speak to me of it now.”

“But surely you already know,” Elwing protested.

“I have not heard the tale from your own lips,” Nienna said. “Only you can speak to the hurts that lie upon your heart.”

Elwing began to speak, hesitantly at first, but then it was as though someone had unleashed a flood and the words and the hurts and the anguish spilled out of her, like the torrent of the Sirion rushing down to the Sea after the spring rains. Tears flowed, too, and through it all Nienna sat in silence, never interrupting, never questioning, only listening as no one had ever listened to her before. At last she came to the end, hoarse and spent. Nienna rose then, and leaned down to kiss Elwing on both her cheeks, and then her forehead. Elwing closed her eyes, and when she opened them again, she was alone.

She went to her room and fell into a deep and dreamless sleep, not waking until the next morning. Sunshine and a light breeze came through her window, carrying the sweet scent of niphredil. Elwing could not recall when she had last felt so rested. She rose and went to the window, looking out at clear skies; beyond Nienna’s home the hills were covered with purple and pink heather, glowing in the morning sunshine. As she leaned out to breathe in the sweet spring scents, Olórin came by, carrying a basket of freshly cut flowers. “Good morning, my lady!” he said.

“Good morning!” Elwing replied, smiling at him. “A good day for flying, I think.”

“Indeed!” Olórin looked up at the sky, eyes crinkling with his wide smile. “A very good day, I should say.”

“I thank you for your kindness, and please thank your mistress for me,” Elwing said. She swung herself out of the window, not bothering with the door, or with shoes, and simply for the joy of it she took a running start before leaping into the air, wings unfurling in a moment’s thought. Behind her she heard Olórin’s laughter, and beyond him the whisper of Ekkaia on the rocky beach. The sun was warm upon her wings, and she felt lighter in the air than she ever had before, as though she left a great burden behind her.