Wonder Ere the Waking Dawn by StarSpray

Wonder Ere the Waking Dawn

Eärendil could not have said why he invited Bilbo Baggins to sail with him for a time. The halfling was very elderly and frail-looking, but there was a spring in his step and a brightness in his eyes that spoke of a more youthful vigor returned to him upon his arrival in Aman. He had taken both the Ringbearers on a tour of Vingilot, such as one could make a tour of it, and Bilbo had seemed particularly interested, while Frodo was polite but rather obviously eager to get his feet back on solid land.

Once the invitation was made, though, Eärendil couldn’t regret it. Bilbo had lit up with delight and immediately accepted. It was everyone else who expressed doubt as to whether it was a good idea—until Eärendil went to Ilmarë, who promised that the Maiar who often sailed with Eärendil would ensure the safety and comfort of the Ring-finder.

And now here they were, surrounded by the vastness and darkness of the heavens. Vingilot shimmered in the light of the Silmaril where it hung from the mast, and beyond the only light came from the distant stars, and from Arda itself beneath them, a swirl of blues and greens and whites. Eärendil sat by the railing with Bilbo, his spyglass resting upon his knees. Bilbo sat wrapped in a cloak and with a blanket laid across his knees. “It is rather lonely up here,” he remarked. “I thought it must be. But I am glad to know now that the tales that say you go home to Elwing are the true ones.”

“Are there others?” Eärendil asked. “I confess I don’t know many of the tales told about me. I think it rather embarrasses people, and I always forget to ask Elwing.”

“It’s quite embarrassing, let me tell you!” said Bilbo. “It’s one thing to make up songs and do translations in Rivendell, and quite another to perform them in front of the subject!”

Eärendil laughed. “I rather liked your song about me!” he said.

“It’s not very accurate, is it, though?”

“Perhaps not, but I don’t think such songs need to have all of the details, not if the feeling is right.” Eärendil peered over the side of the ship, down toward the world. “Why, there is your part of the world, Bilbo—see the Misty Mountains there, and there the Sea—and in between your own land. What did you call it?”

“The Shire,” said Bilbo. “My, and there’s the Brandywine, and the Weather Hills out along the Road! How marvelous! It’s only too bad you can’t see it all close up. The Shire is a very lovely country, you know.”

“I do know,” said Eärendil. He handed Bilbo his spyglass. “Would you like to see? Aulë made that for me, long ago when I first began my journeys.”

“Oh, gracious me,” said Bilbo, taking the glass very gingerly. “Aulë himself made this? It feels rather like holding the Arkenstone.” But he it to his eye to peer down at the world, and gasped in delight. “Why, it’s almost as though we were just above the treetops, instead of away in the sky! There’s Brandy Hall, and oh, that’s the Old Forest—and that hill there with the house, that must be old Tom Bombadil’s home! I wish I had ever thought to wander into the Old Forest and met him; he sounds like a fine old fellow. And there’s Woody End, and Woodhall where the Elves used to gather. And there’s Hobbiton and Bywater, and oh goodness, there’s Bagshot Row and Bag End! It all looks quite different now, but very nice—and there’s young Samwise! Gracious, he has a gaggle of children, now, and they’re all looking up at us!” He lowered the glass. “Or at you, I should say. They can’t have any notion that I’m up here.”

Eärendil smiled as he accepted the spyglass back. He put it to his eye and indeed saw Samwise Gamgee in the field where the mallorn tree grew, and a small group of children tumbling around on the dewy grass about him. “It has been a pleasure to watch the Shire blossom again, after all the damage that was done,” he said. “And Master Samwise has been at the heart of it.”

“I am very glad not to have seen what old Saruman did,” said Bilbo. He sighed. “I will admit I wept when I heard about the Party Tree. Like losing an old friend, that was! The mallorn tree that Lady Galadriel gave to Sam to plant—I saw it just now and it’s very lovely, but it isn’t quite the same.”

“No,” Eärendil agreed. “But that mallorn tree will be to Sam’s children, and their children, what the Party Tree was to you. It shall be a marvel of the Shire for many years to come.” He turned away from the world and searched the wide open space of heaven beyond, before handing the spyglass back to Bilbo. “Now look and see what else is out there! Elbereth and her maidens have been busy indeed!”

The voyage was not a very long one, compared to Eärendil’s usual journeys, but it was by far one of the most enjoyable; it was as though Eärendil were seeing all the wonders of the heavens for the first time all over again through Bilbo—seeing the births and deaths of stars, and tracing the tails of far distant comets, and witnessing the dawns and twilights of the world below, and all its people going about their lives. And by the time they sailed back down to the shores of Valinor, and Elwing flew up to meet them, her white wings turned rosy in the light of the dawn, Bilbo was talking of multiple songs he intended to write about it all. He trotted down the gangplank to meet Frodo on the shore, glittering with stardust. “Frodo, my lad, you should have come with us! It was a marvel! ”

Elwing laughed and kissed Eärendil. “Was it a marvel?” she asked.

“It always is.”