Suddenly and Unexpectedly by StarSpray

Suddenly and Unexpectedly

Read Suddenly and Unexpectedly

If you suddenly and unexpectedly feel joy
don’t hesitate. Give in to it. There are plenty
of lives and whole towns destroyed or about
to be. We are not wise, and not very often
kind. And much can never be redeemed.
Still, life has some possibility left. Perhaps this
is its way of fighting back, that sometimes
something happens better than all the riches
or power in the world. It could be anything,
but very likely you notice it in the instant
when love begins. Anyway, that’s often the
case. Anyway, whatever it is, don’t be afraid
of its plenty. Joy is not made to be a crumb.

- “Don’t Hesitate”, Mary Oliver

.

It was a beautiful summer day. Elwing had taken wing almost as soon as they had finished breakfast, and from where he sat on the bluff on which her tower sat, and which overlooked the cove where Vingilot was anchored, Eärendil could see her out over the water, riding the thermals. Other birds flew out with her, and in the water below he spotted a pod of dolphins leaping playfully out of the waves. 

Underneath his feet, Vingilot rested at anchor. The Silmaril hung from the mast, and lit up the cove from below. There were deposits of some kind of crystal in the stone, and they shimmered and sparkled in its light. Vingilot shimmered, too, with the accumulated stardust of many voyages out into the stars. Eärendil sat with his feet swinging over the edge of the cliff, leaning back on his hands and basking in the sunshine. It was nearing Midsummer, and Elwing had been talking of going to Alqualondë for the celebrations. Eärendil had balked—he had not celebrated Midsummer since, well. 

There had been Midsummer—and Midwinter—celebrations in Sirion, but no one from Gondolin had ever participated in the former. The grief was too near and too raw in those days. And these days… Eärendil frowned up at the sky. It wasn’t painful, exactly, but it still felt wrong. He could not think of Midsummer without thinking of how everything had gone so suddenly and terribly wrong. 

He remembered with painful clarity the last moments he had had with Turgon. When the northern skies had suddenly gone red, and fear and panic had started to move through the city like a wave, he had been in his grandfather’s arms, the better to see everything. His father had immediately taken off with Glorfindel and Ecthelion and all the other lords, as Turgon barked orders, doubtless to do the things they were already moving to do. Eärendil’s mother had gripped her father’s arm where he still held on to Eärendil—his own grip tightening almost painfully around Eärendil’s legs—and had spoken quickly and quietly, telling him of the tunnel that had only recently been completed: a way out of the city, a way to safety. 

“Go,” Turgon had told her. “Gather as many as you can and get them to this tunnel. When you are through the mountains go south, down Sirion to Círdan at Balar.” Then he had kissed Eärendil and set him on the ground. Idril had grabbed his hand and pulled him away; Eärendil had looked back, seeing Turgon for the last time as a tall and imposing silhouette, hair blowing in the sudden wind, back lit by the many colored lanterns that had been strung up about the palace and throughout Gondolin, and which seemed strange and too bright and harsh, now that all revelry had ended and fear had taken its place. He had not, Eärendil had realized even then, promised to follow them, or to meet them later. He could not remember now who had told him that Turgon had died in the last defense of the last royal tower—more likely he had overheard someone telling his parents. Idril had not wept, then, though Tuor had, bowing his head in silence as the tears fell. Idril’s eyes had remained dry until they came to Nan Tathren, and then she had wept for many days underneath the willows. 

Eärendil had wept as a child for Gondolin—and for Glorfindel, and others who died on the hard road south to Sirion—but the loss of his grandfather had not felt real enough to truly mourn until he had taken his first voyage through the skies on Vingilot, with the Silmaril lighting the way. He had passed over Gondolin, and seen the ruin of it, partly overgrown by then with wild grasses and vines. No trees—or no large trees, at any rate. All the gardens and trees that had been planted in the city had been burned and defiled by the orcs and dragons. He had seen the ruin of Turgon’s tower that had become his cairn, and then he had wept, tears falling over the railing of Vingilot’s deck to fade away into the spaces between the stars and the world. 

He sighed, swinging his legs a little, and began to hum, and then to sing. It was a sailor’s shanty he’d learned from fishermen in Sirion, long ago, a wish for fair tides and brisk winds to bring the singer home again to his hearth and heart’s love. He’d sung it coming into port at home every time he returned to Sirion after a long and fruitless voyage. 

As he sang, movement from farther inland caught his eye. A path followed the coastline down from the tower to Alqualondë, though it was not often used. Most visitors came up by ship, and moored in the cove with Vingilot. But sometimes someone decided to come by land, though Eärendil was sure that Elwing would have told him if she was expecting someone. But when he looked over he saw no one. Perhaps he had imagined it, or perhaps they had passed behind some stones or trees that blocked the path from sight. Eärendil shrugged and started to sing again, this time a song of sunshine and flowers growing in the green grass, and he plucked some flowers and grass that grew nearby and started to weave them together. Elwing always looked lovely with flowers in her hair. 

After a few minutes, though, he heard an answering voice. He looked up, falling silent. That had sounded like—but no, it couldn’t be. Eärendil saw movement on the path again, just the top of someone’s dark head coming up the last slope toward the tower. As whoever it was drew farther up the hill, more became visible, and Eärendil abandoned his flower weaving and scrambled upright, bare feet slipping over the stones as the grass and daisies tumbled over the cliff side down into the water below. 

It was Turgon, with that particular indescribable look of the newly returned about him, though he had been back in the world long enough at least to find new clothes, for he was not dressed in the undyed robes that Eärendil had heard spoken of before. His clothes were of the simple, clean cuts preferred in Tol Eressëa, and his boots sturdy and made for walking. He had silver rings in his ears and on his fingers, and his braids were clasped with silver and sapphire clips. He looked both like and unlike Eärendil’s memory of him. Eärendil called out to him as as he ran down the path, and Turgon looked up. A smile spread across his face, and he picked up his own pace. They did not meet so much as collide; Eärendil was lifted off his feet with the force of their embrace—and Turgon’s height. Eärendil had inherited neither his father’s nor his grandfather’s height, and Turgon still seemed nearly as big as he had when Eärendil had been a child. For a moment all of the long years and all the long miles seemed to dissolve, and he was once again a child in Gondolin, safe and happy in his grandfather’s arms. His heart felt so full that he thought it must burst. 

He laughed as Turgon set him back down, for the sheer joy of it. “No one told me you had returned!” he said, looking up into Turgon’s face. 

Turgon laughed too, and it was the most wonderful sound Eärendil had heard in years. “I have come back so lately that no one has had the opportunity,” he said. He drew back, setting his hands on Eärendil’s shoulders as he looked him up and down. “I cannot believe you are grown! Time passes differently in Mandos—it feels to me as though you should still be a child, though I followed all your journeys in Vairë’s tapestries.”

“It has been a very long time,” Eärendil said. “And I am not often here.”

“So I have been told,” said Turgon. He glanced toward the cove, where the Silmaril’s light gleamed. “And so I have seen, as we came out of Lórien, your star shining in the east.”

“We?” Eärendil asked.

Turgon looked back at him, eyes shining and smile softer than Eärendil remembered it ever being. “Elenwë and I,” he said. “She is coming up the path behind me, with Idril and Tuor.”

“Grandmother Elenwë!” Eärendil laughed again. He wanted to dance and to sing, if only he knew the right song for such an occasion. He turned to look for Elwing, and saw her already soaring back up to the tower. She alighted at the top, and after a moment reappeared at the window as herself. She waved, and vanished again. “Elwing will be down in a moment,” Eärendil said, turning to Turgon again. “I have long wished that you could meet her. There is so much I have to tell you!” 

“We have time.” Turgon’s smile was warm as sunshine. “I want to hear all of it.”