The Myth Hanging Heavy Over You by stormfallen

| | |

Chapter 1

"Do you remember...?"

"Nana sang as she rolled lembas dough. A song about, um, strength and...no-nour–healthy food! Do you remember?"

"She handed it out to everyone. Edhil and Edain. Do you remember?"

"She looked so sad when she ran out. She wanted to bake more, but there was too little corn. Do you remember?"

"She always saved a piece for Ada. I saw her leave the house with it once when you were sleeping. Do you remember?"

"She came back with empty leaves when I woke up early. She'd been crying. Did she eat it?"

"Do you remember?"

“Your mother jumped off the cliff. She turned into a bird. She hasn’t come back for you. I’m busy, go find Maglor.”

“No you’re not. That’s a 357 import schedule from Thargelion you’re pretending to review.”

“Fine. She screamed at us. Called me various rude words. Asked where her family was. That was rhetorical, I presume. Then she told us it was all for nothing and jumped. She hit the water and turned into a bird. We realized afterwards that she'd tried to draw us away from you."

"She hit the water first?"

"That is not a sound one forgets."

“Elwing?” Oropher jerks upwards from the sword he sharpens, hawk-like gaze drilling into Elrond’s own. “She was brave, and dedicated, and ruled our people with justice and wisdom, and never bowed beneath the burden laid upon her. That…filth was unworthy to merely lay eyes on her." He returns to his sharpening with renewed vigor, as if said filth dulled the blade. "A true heir of Elu Thingol! I would have followed her to the pits of Angband if she asked."

But you would not follow me, Elrond does not say. There is too much of that filth on him.

Gil-Galad stands quietly as the question hangs in the air between them, but that is hardly unusual from his king. “Your mother was proud, and fierce when needed, but she knew her peoples' hearts. As proud as hers. They never accepted me as anything more than an ally, and so neither did she. She could only be a queen around me."

"So you did not know her well at all?"

"I knew her very well! Queen Elwing was still Elwing. The face of rulership was the one she wore most often. Her other faces, you would know better than I."

The High King of the Noldor in Aman is beyond exhausted and no longer trying to hide it. “Your parents miss you desperately. My wife’s people built a tower on the northern shores for Elwing, where Vingilot docks when Eärendil returns to land. There’s spare rooms, for both of you.”

Elrond hears what Finarfin does not say: I came here for my family. How can I return with none of them?

But the tower on the far shore is but a vaguery. The dirt streets and hasty shacks of Mithlond are what’s real, are home, are where he is needed.

Círdan’s eyes don’t leave the hull he’s repairing. “I remember a little girl, carrying a weight none should bear, already far too skilled at masking her fear. I remember her welcoming band after band of ragged refugees with grace and kindness, learning how to be a queen at Idril’s knee, laughing with Eärendil in the surf. I remember wings of pure Light bursting from the sea, streaking westwards unerringly. But most of all I remember that girl, when offered shelter on Balar, staring in my eyes and replying that her people would make their own refuge. Pass me that hammer.”

"Hmm? No, I barely went to Sirion, for obvious reasons. After the Kinslaying was only the fourth time; Círdan was hoping I could convince any of my uncles' stragglers to stand down. I helped dig through what was left of her house, looking for you and Elros. Hmm. There were shells on every windowsill. Two chests full of smocks and trousers for you to grow into. Handkerchiefs stashed in odd places behind shelves. Dozens of watercolors of trees— I tried keeping those for you, the ones that weren’t burnt, but they were lost in the War. As below, so above!”

“Lady Elwing?” Glorfindel raises an eyebrow. “Alas, I did not have a chance to meet her in Aman. She has her own fiefdom there, north of Alqualondë. All who cannot otherwise find a home in the Blessed Realm are welcome, and many of the survivors and Returned of Sirion have settled there as well. They mainly govern themselves, and Elwing merely sits as judge when needed. When I visited Eärendil, she kept her distance. I thought it wise not to press. But that sight, the meeting of wings and ship as the sun rises—that I was glad to witness."

With Rivendell’s strongest telescope, salvaged from the wreck of Ost-in-Edhil, Elrond can just make out the shape of Vingilot in the heavens. With Vilya’s guidance, and centuries of practice, he can mimic shedding his rhaw to cast his mind aloft into the skies, and seek the ship. It is limited, and imprecise, and terribly straining to them both, but in this manner he can, in some way, know his father.

He sends radiant wings, dark hair streaked with silver, a queen’s pride, laughter among the waves, lembas, handkerchiefs. He receives home, with such ardentness that he weeps for a week.

Celebrían hands him the letter that night, as the joys of reunion fade into the steadiness of finality, of knowing that at long last his story is concluded. “From your mother. She tried sending it during the War, but it was lost.”

“You have met her? What…what do you think of her?”

Oh, how he missed that laugh! “A woman like any other! Aye, she has known grief beyond reckoning; a loss few on this shore comprehend.”

Like you, he cannot help to think.

“But she is kind, and strong, and much relieved from her burdens.

“Go to her.”

From a letter, never delivered:

"I love you as the sky loves the stars, as the forest loves the deer, as the waves love the sand. I have loved you since you were but a spark of hope in this dying world, and I will love you until its last ashes are forgotten. I'm so proud of what you've become. I wish I could have seen you grow. I'm so sorry. I left you. I gave you up. I did not return. I'm so sorry."

 

From a reply, given in person:

"I forgive you, I forgive you, I forgive you."

Chapter End Notes

Somewhere beyond the bounds of Arda, Elros is shouting “There’s nothing to forgive!”
(He’s right, but it’s not what Elwing needs to hear right now)

Rough timeframes for when the conversations occurred:
Elros: ~540 FA
Maedhros: ~550 FA
Oropher: ~570 FA
Gil-Galad: ~570 FA
Finarfin: 590 FA/1 SA
Círdan: ~10 SA
Celebrimbor: ~800 SA
Glorfindel: ~1700 SA
Eärendil: 2511 TA
Celebrían: 1 FoA
Elwing: letter written 588 FA, reply 1 FoA

Go read some other good short Elrond and Elwing fics which helped inspire this:
History Obliterates by consumptive_sphinx
Memories, Like Grains of Sand by cuarthol
Stained Glass by polutropos
après moi, le déluge by HerenorThereNearnorFar
joy is a bird, a fragile thing by estuarie

Table of Contents | Leave a Comment