Going Home (to a place we’ve never been before.) A New Returnverse Story.
I have begun writing a thing... I'm not sure anyone actually reads my stories here anymore - apart from epiphyta (I hope you are well Epi, it seems like ages since I saw you here). But I have always posted them here first, and so here is the first chapter of the story whose working title was 'Arrival of the Twins', which gives some idea of the theme!
Going Home (to a place we’ve never been before.)
The sons of Elrond have finally taken ship to sail West, along with all those who had remained in Imladris with them...
Chapter One; The Ocean Road.
In which there is a surfeit of relatives.
2,222 words. Rated G.
There had been a change in the motion of the ship in the morning of the previous day. The rhythm, of what he had learnt was pitch and roll, changed as if the direction and frequency of the waves had changed, and the prevailing wind was no longer coming from the angle that had given the ship a permanent tilt to one side (‘heel’ the sailors had explained) over the past three days or so. Now the wind seemed to be right behind them, and the waves also seemed to be pushing them forwards rather than being ridges the vessel had to lift over, and over, and over.
“The Straight Road!” came the cry from a number of the crew, echoed quickly by Grandfather and Glorfindel.
“We will reach Alqualondë tomorrow,” said the captain.
It was not until about a week later that it occurred to Elladan to wonder how he knew.
And now it was that ‘tomorrow’.
They saw a ship sailing on the clouds above them just before dawn, a bright light at the mast, and the sound of voices singing a song of welcome drifting down to them. Thus, as Elladan and Elrohir agreed, confirming that they had been right about Vingilótë, and Grandfather Eärendil, and could definitely collect their winnings from Tindómë when they saw her.
Then a large, white, seabird seemed to drop from Vingilótë’s rail and fly down to their own ship in a graceful curve, where it landed on the foredeck and transformed into a naked elleth.
She looked straight at the twins. “Boys… my beautiful boys…” she said.
Glorfindel was the first person to react, as Elladan and Elrohir stood motionless. He took off his cloak and stepped forward to offer her it.
“My Lady Elwing,” he said courteously just in case, he said later, there was anyone on board who had not figured it out.
The twins did not make any move towards their father’s mother. They had never been sure about her; she had chosen to keep a silmaril away from the sons of Fëanor by hurling herself off a cliff and abandoning her sons. They could not help feeling that, had she not done so, their uncle Elros might have chosen a different path and saved their father the heartache that they could, as twins, fully imagine.
Grandmother and Grandfather, who had both known Elwing as an elfling, had tried to explain that this was her role in The Music; had she not been turned into a bird by Ulmo she would not have reached Eärendil on Vingilótë, they would not have found the way to Valinor, and Morgoth would not have been defeated in the War of Wrath. Had Elros chosen differently it would have meant, more recently, there would have been no Aragorn to play his role in the War of The Ring… and so on.
But knowing how much they had suffered at the loss of their own mother, despite being adults, they still wondered at Elwing’s choice to put keeping the silmaril from those who came to claim it over simply giving it back and keeping her sons safe.
Elwing took one step towards them, but no more. She held out a hand, then dropped it to her side.
“I have waited so long to see you for myself,” she said softly. “Eärendil told me as much about you as he could tell from Vingilótë, and then your mother, when she was well enough, loved to talk of her children. Then Elrond came…”
Elladan could see there were tears in her eyes. She was quite small and slight, no bigger than Tindómë had been when they had first seen her, and there was so much love in her voice when she spoke of Adar; he could feel his resolve weakening.
“We greeted his ship too; I could not wait to see my son. Nor could I have faced greeting him when the ship reached the dock. And now you are here… my beautiful boys. All of my family that I will ever know.”
The truth of that statement hit Elladan. He had known it as history, and as an aside to the loss of Arwen, but in what may well have been a moment of sheer panic, Elwing had truly lost her entire family of descendants.
He glanced at Elrohir and knew his twin had realised the same thing.
“Her life has really not been easy…” he heard his brother say inside his mind.
They both took a step towards her and found themselves enfolded in the sort of embrace that, they realised, they had missed since the last day they had seen Grandmother.
As the sun rose Vingilótë sailed off, into the clouds that now dropped down to touch the sea, enfolding the two sailing ships in a pale veil of mist. Grandfather joined them, where they sat with Elwing, on the foredeck. Grandmother Elwing sat calmly, although she seemed to be drinking them up with her eyes, but Grandfather seemed unable to settle. He was, Elladan thought, what Tindómë would describe as ‘antsy’. (It would be good, he thought, to see her again too.)
Then, when the mist was clearly lit by late morning sunlight, Grandfather smiled and said, “We are almost there… your grandmother is with me again.”
His face lit up, and Elladan felt guilty that the indecision of the twins had kept their grandparents apart for longer than they should have been.
But there was no time to wallow in the guilt for the mist began to lift and ahead they could see land, a town of white buildings, and a number of smaller craft coming out to shepherd their vessels into harbour.
Soon everyone who had travelled with them was gathered on deck, or even climbing the rigging. Elladan began to think that it might not have been such a good idea to have all the elves on this vessel and their belongings on the other, as he began to worry that it might become top heavy, but the sailors did not seem concerned.
He was distracted from this worry by Elwing, who handed the cloak back to Glorfindel, and said “I do not do well in crowds. I am content to have seen you first… I will see you again ere long, Elladan, Elrohir.”
She seemed to shiver and then she was no longer an elleth, but once again a great sea bird, and with a powerful downbeat of her wings she rose from the deck and away.
There was, indeed, a crowd waiting on the quayside. But the only person Elladan could really see was his mother for, once he identified that flash of silver hair, he could not take his eyes off her. And within seconds of the gangplank being pushed across to the ship, before it was secured, she ran up it to where her sons stood and, unknowingly, echoed their grandmother.
“Boys… my beautiful boys…” she said, as she gathered them both into a hug.
If there were any of the Noldor on the dock expecting a dignified reunion, Elladan thought as he held her tightly in return, they will have to cope with our more exuberant Sindar heritage. He could ‘hear’ Elrohir laughing and agreeing.
Then, almost simultaneously, Adar reached them and Naneth saw someone behind them.
Somehow she managed to pass them to their father, and run between the elves on the deck, crying “Ada! Ada!”
“Grandmother,” Elladan heard Elrohir say silently, “will just have to wait!”
“I don’t expect she will mind,” Elladan replied, as their father stood back a little, whilst still holding onto them, and then nodded slightly.
“You look well, my sons,” he said. “Better than I thought you might.”
He looked around, greeting many by name whilst still holding onto the two of them, then in what Tindómë would have described as a ‘lording voice’ caught the attention of everyone.
“Whilst I admit that Celebrían and I have claimed privilege to come aboard, it will be much easier if everyone disembarks as there is a great deal more space on the quayside. Some of you will doubtless be scooped up by family or friends, but Erestor is here to help organise the others and ensure that you find your way to our home.” He paused, “And don’t be surprised if the land appears to be moving underfoot - it will take a little time to get your ‘land-legs’. I remember it was quite disconcerting.”
He added, a good deal more quietly, “Almost as disconcerting for you, my sons, is the large number of grandparents and uncles and aunts you are about to find engulfing you, no matter whether you want them to or not.”
………………………………………………………..
Adar had not been wrong. Tindómë had once pointed out to them that their paternal grandparents Elwing and Eärendil were more or less legendary, and that they were also related to the High King of the Noldor, so not all that likely to be shunned as peredhil. As an aside, they had not even been sure who would be the High King of the Noldor by now as they did not know who might still be in Mandos, and who might have a claim on the title… there may have been money wagered during a boring part of the journey.
Two things became clear over the first week or so. Well, three things in fact. Firstly that, as this was Alqualondë, the King’s House here was the residence of their Great-great-grandparents on their mother’s side - and they were determined to spend time with these ‘Princes of the Teleri’. Secondly that it was actually their maternal great-grandfather Finarfin, or Arafinwë as he was known here, who was the High King of the Noldor despite his older brother having returned from Mandos. And he wanted these ‘Princes of the Noldor’ to come to be greeted as such in Tirion. The third thing was that their mother would have preferred to keep them to herself for a while - and this would have been their choice too.
This was without the messages of welcome (both carrying the implication that they expected visits in the near future) from their paternal great-great-great grandparents Elu Thingol and Melian, and paternal grandparents Turgon (a.k.a. Turukáno) and Elenwë. Thingol, of course, referring to them as Princes of the Sindar…
Elladan had already collected his winnings from the person who had remembered Turgon having held the title High King at some time and who thought he might have reclaimed it. It was not Elladan’s fault that the person in question had not thought to ask Glorfindel’s opinion on this.
Grandmother had greeted Grandfather on board the ship but had quickly spirited him away… to her wing in Adar and Naneth’s home. And in the end, she and Adar had put their heads together and then sent word to King Olwë to say that the twins, and also King Olwë’s grandson-in-law, needed a few days to recover from their journey before anything formal should be considered, although an informal meeting here in Elrond and Celebrían’s home would be nice.
Then the same two sent word to Tirion to say that The High King’s son-in-law and his twin grandsons would need some time before they were up to travelling on from Alqualondë. There were, doubtless, wagers made on whether the desire to see these new great-grandsons (and a son-in-law) would be strong enough for them to decide to travel to Alqualondë, for Queen Eärwen to visit her parents, or whether they would decide a delay would give them time to prepare a lavish welcome; but Elladan did not know them well enough to put his money either way.
By this point they had been here in Aman for over a week, had reacquainted themselves with some of their parents’ household, met Grandmother’s grandparents over a family dinner, and were currently ‘hiding’ in Elrohir’s rooms.
“It really is almost exactly the same as your room at home,” Elladan said.
“Naneth must have put a great deal of thought into making these rooms ‘ours’,” his brother replied. “I think it must have been almost an act of faith - that, if the rooms were here for us, we would come to use them.”
“Do you think there was also one for Arwen?” Elladan asked, “I had not thought of it before, but…”
Elrohir did not answer, but it looked as if the thought had not occurred to him, either.
They both sat quietly for a time.
Then, “What I wonder,” Elrohir said, “is when did Naneth ask Legolas to leave my rooms, then rehang the blue drapes and hide all the green? She has not even mentioned that he was using it and, as no-one has mentioned Ithilienne ‘visiting us’ to convince us to sail, I would presume that we are not supposed to know.
“Do you think someone was busy doing it whilst she came down to meet our ship? Or did she ask him to leave when she got our letters? And where is Legolas? And Tindómë? And Ithilienne for that matter; I really want to speak to her.”
“I think,” his brother answered thoughtfully, “we are going to have to ask if we can see our friends next, rather than more relatives.”
.................................................................................................
Chapter two is also written, and I have made a start on Chapter 3.
Thanks as usual to my beta speakr2customrs
Going Home (to a place we’ve never been before.)
The sons of Elrond have finally taken ship to sail West, along with all those who had remained in Imladris with them...
Chapter One; The Ocean Road.
In which there is a surfeit of relatives.
2,222 words. Rated G.
There had been a change in the motion of the ship in the morning of the previous day. The rhythm, of what he had learnt was pitch and roll, changed as if the direction and frequency of the waves had changed, and the prevailing wind was no longer coming from the angle that had given the ship a permanent tilt to one side (‘heel’ the sailors had explained) over the past three days or so. Now the wind seemed to be right behind them, and the waves also seemed to be pushing them forwards rather than being ridges the vessel had to lift over, and over, and over.
“The Straight Road!” came the cry from a number of the crew, echoed quickly by Grandfather and Glorfindel.
“We will reach Alqualondë tomorrow,” said the captain.
It was not until about a week later that it occurred to Elladan to wonder how he knew.
And now it was that ‘tomorrow’.
They saw a ship sailing on the clouds above them just before dawn, a bright light at the mast, and the sound of voices singing a song of welcome drifting down to them. Thus, as Elladan and Elrohir agreed, confirming that they had been right about Vingilótë, and Grandfather Eärendil, and could definitely collect their winnings from Tindómë when they saw her.
Then a large, white, seabird seemed to drop from Vingilótë’s rail and fly down to their own ship in a graceful curve, where it landed on the foredeck and transformed into a naked elleth.
She looked straight at the twins. “Boys… my beautiful boys…” she said.
Glorfindel was the first person to react, as Elladan and Elrohir stood motionless. He took off his cloak and stepped forward to offer her it.
“My Lady Elwing,” he said courteously just in case, he said later, there was anyone on board who had not figured it out.
The twins did not make any move towards their father’s mother. They had never been sure about her; she had chosen to keep a silmaril away from the sons of Fëanor by hurling herself off a cliff and abandoning her sons. They could not help feeling that, had she not done so, their uncle Elros might have chosen a different path and saved their father the heartache that they could, as twins, fully imagine.
Grandmother and Grandfather, who had both known Elwing as an elfling, had tried to explain that this was her role in The Music; had she not been turned into a bird by Ulmo she would not have reached Eärendil on Vingilótë, they would not have found the way to Valinor, and Morgoth would not have been defeated in the War of Wrath. Had Elros chosen differently it would have meant, more recently, there would have been no Aragorn to play his role in the War of The Ring… and so on.
But knowing how much they had suffered at the loss of their own mother, despite being adults, they still wondered at Elwing’s choice to put keeping the silmaril from those who came to claim it over simply giving it back and keeping her sons safe.
Elwing took one step towards them, but no more. She held out a hand, then dropped it to her side.
“I have waited so long to see you for myself,” she said softly. “Eärendil told me as much about you as he could tell from Vingilótë, and then your mother, when she was well enough, loved to talk of her children. Then Elrond came…”
Elladan could see there were tears in her eyes. She was quite small and slight, no bigger than Tindómë had been when they had first seen her, and there was so much love in her voice when she spoke of Adar; he could feel his resolve weakening.
“We greeted his ship too; I could not wait to see my son. Nor could I have faced greeting him when the ship reached the dock. And now you are here… my beautiful boys. All of my family that I will ever know.”
The truth of that statement hit Elladan. He had known it as history, and as an aside to the loss of Arwen, but in what may well have been a moment of sheer panic, Elwing had truly lost her entire family of descendants.
He glanced at Elrohir and knew his twin had realised the same thing.
“Her life has really not been easy…” he heard his brother say inside his mind.
They both took a step towards her and found themselves enfolded in the sort of embrace that, they realised, they had missed since the last day they had seen Grandmother.
As the sun rose Vingilótë sailed off, into the clouds that now dropped down to touch the sea, enfolding the two sailing ships in a pale veil of mist. Grandfather joined them, where they sat with Elwing, on the foredeck. Grandmother Elwing sat calmly, although she seemed to be drinking them up with her eyes, but Grandfather seemed unable to settle. He was, Elladan thought, what Tindómë would describe as ‘antsy’. (It would be good, he thought, to see her again too.)
Then, when the mist was clearly lit by late morning sunlight, Grandfather smiled and said, “We are almost there… your grandmother is with me again.”
His face lit up, and Elladan felt guilty that the indecision of the twins had kept their grandparents apart for longer than they should have been.
But there was no time to wallow in the guilt for the mist began to lift and ahead they could see land, a town of white buildings, and a number of smaller craft coming out to shepherd their vessels into harbour.
Soon everyone who had travelled with them was gathered on deck, or even climbing the rigging. Elladan began to think that it might not have been such a good idea to have all the elves on this vessel and their belongings on the other, as he began to worry that it might become top heavy, but the sailors did not seem concerned.
He was distracted from this worry by Elwing, who handed the cloak back to Glorfindel, and said “I do not do well in crowds. I am content to have seen you first… I will see you again ere long, Elladan, Elrohir.”
She seemed to shiver and then she was no longer an elleth, but once again a great sea bird, and with a powerful downbeat of her wings she rose from the deck and away.
There was, indeed, a crowd waiting on the quayside. But the only person Elladan could really see was his mother for, once he identified that flash of silver hair, he could not take his eyes off her. And within seconds of the gangplank being pushed across to the ship, before it was secured, she ran up it to where her sons stood and, unknowingly, echoed their grandmother.
“Boys… my beautiful boys…” she said, as she gathered them both into a hug.
If there were any of the Noldor on the dock expecting a dignified reunion, Elladan thought as he held her tightly in return, they will have to cope with our more exuberant Sindar heritage. He could ‘hear’ Elrohir laughing and agreeing.
Then, almost simultaneously, Adar reached them and Naneth saw someone behind them.
Somehow she managed to pass them to their father, and run between the elves on the deck, crying “Ada! Ada!”
“Grandmother,” Elladan heard Elrohir say silently, “will just have to wait!”
“I don’t expect she will mind,” Elladan replied, as their father stood back a little, whilst still holding onto them, and then nodded slightly.
“You look well, my sons,” he said. “Better than I thought you might.”
He looked around, greeting many by name whilst still holding onto the two of them, then in what Tindómë would have described as a ‘lording voice’ caught the attention of everyone.
“Whilst I admit that Celebrían and I have claimed privilege to come aboard, it will be much easier if everyone disembarks as there is a great deal more space on the quayside. Some of you will doubtless be scooped up by family or friends, but Erestor is here to help organise the others and ensure that you find your way to our home.” He paused, “And don’t be surprised if the land appears to be moving underfoot - it will take a little time to get your ‘land-legs’. I remember it was quite disconcerting.”
He added, a good deal more quietly, “Almost as disconcerting for you, my sons, is the large number of grandparents and uncles and aunts you are about to find engulfing you, no matter whether you want them to or not.”
………………………………………………………..
Adar had not been wrong. Tindómë had once pointed out to them that their paternal grandparents Elwing and Eärendil were more or less legendary, and that they were also related to the High King of the Noldor, so not all that likely to be shunned as peredhil. As an aside, they had not even been sure who would be the High King of the Noldor by now as they did not know who might still be in Mandos, and who might have a claim on the title… there may have been money wagered during a boring part of the journey.
Two things became clear over the first week or so. Well, three things in fact. Firstly that, as this was Alqualondë, the King’s House here was the residence of their Great-great-grandparents on their mother’s side - and they were determined to spend time with these ‘Princes of the Teleri’. Secondly that it was actually their maternal great-grandfather Finarfin, or Arafinwë as he was known here, who was the High King of the Noldor despite his older brother having returned from Mandos. And he wanted these ‘Princes of the Noldor’ to come to be greeted as such in Tirion. The third thing was that their mother would have preferred to keep them to herself for a while - and this would have been their choice too.
This was without the messages of welcome (both carrying the implication that they expected visits in the near future) from their paternal great-great-great grandparents Elu Thingol and Melian, and paternal grandparents Turgon (a.k.a. Turukáno) and Elenwë. Thingol, of course, referring to them as Princes of the Sindar…
Elladan had already collected his winnings from the person who had remembered Turgon having held the title High King at some time and who thought he might have reclaimed it. It was not Elladan’s fault that the person in question had not thought to ask Glorfindel’s opinion on this.
Grandmother had greeted Grandfather on board the ship but had quickly spirited him away… to her wing in Adar and Naneth’s home. And in the end, she and Adar had put their heads together and then sent word to King Olwë to say that the twins, and also King Olwë’s grandson-in-law, needed a few days to recover from their journey before anything formal should be considered, although an informal meeting here in Elrond and Celebrían’s home would be nice.
Then the same two sent word to Tirion to say that The High King’s son-in-law and his twin grandsons would need some time before they were up to travelling on from Alqualondë. There were, doubtless, wagers made on whether the desire to see these new great-grandsons (and a son-in-law) would be strong enough for them to decide to travel to Alqualondë, for Queen Eärwen to visit her parents, or whether they would decide a delay would give them time to prepare a lavish welcome; but Elladan did not know them well enough to put his money either way.
By this point they had been here in Aman for over a week, had reacquainted themselves with some of their parents’ household, met Grandmother’s grandparents over a family dinner, and were currently ‘hiding’ in Elrohir’s rooms.
“It really is almost exactly the same as your room at home,” Elladan said.
“Naneth must have put a great deal of thought into making these rooms ‘ours’,” his brother replied. “I think it must have been almost an act of faith - that, if the rooms were here for us, we would come to use them.”
“Do you think there was also one for Arwen?” Elladan asked, “I had not thought of it before, but…”
Elrohir did not answer, but it looked as if the thought had not occurred to him, either.
They both sat quietly for a time.
Then, “What I wonder,” Elrohir said, “is when did Naneth ask Legolas to leave my rooms, then rehang the blue drapes and hide all the green? She has not even mentioned that he was using it and, as no-one has mentioned Ithilienne ‘visiting us’ to convince us to sail, I would presume that we are not supposed to know.
“Do you think someone was busy doing it whilst she came down to meet our ship? Or did she ask him to leave when she got our letters? And where is Legolas? And Tindómë? And Ithilienne for that matter; I really want to speak to her.”
“I think,” his brother answered thoughtfully, “we are going to have to ask if we can see our friends next, rather than more relatives.”
.................................................................................................
Chapter two is also written, and I have made a start on Chapter 3.
Thanks as usual to my beta speakr2customrs