Between The Shores Of Our Souls, PG-13, Eärendil/Elwing, for silverstarspray
Title: Between The Shores Of Our Souls
Pairing: Eärendil/Elwing
Rating: PG-13
Recipient: silverstarspray
Author: burning_night
Warnings: Angst-ish
Word Count: 3,096
Notes: I aimed for happy Eärendil/Elwing and it kind of turned into a bit of an Elwing character study. Hopefully it is still enjoyable (I did manage to squeeze in happy Eärendil/Elwing, after all xD) Title from a quote by Khalil Gibran.
Summary:
“A woman knows the face of the man she loves as a sailor knows the open sea.” - Honore de Balzac
Elwing relishes solitude, but she does not always like to be alone.
/
She had left the festival early, though Tanwanel, one of her companions, had begged her to stay. There were still at least six hours of festivities left, she said. It would be unseemly for a lady of standing, such as herself, to leave. It would embarrass King Olwë, she protested. It would probably irreparably hurt her social standing, she had added angrily as Elwing was getting onto her horse.
None of these protests held any sway over Elwing. She wanted to leave, and so she left.
Olwë would probably worry rather than feel embarrassed, but his duty would come first, as ever. There was a high chance he would send someone after her, though, whom she would be forced to rebuff. That would be tiresome.
The road she took was unusual for Valinor; packed earth and grass around the headlands, and hard wet sand where it passed onto the beach. It was an old road - more of a trail really - that had once been used by the Teleri simply for walking or finding a more secluded place to swim. She had insisted that Olwë leave it like that, and not disrupt the landscape with the building of a larger, more elaborate road as he had at first suggested. The builders of her tower hadn’t needed it, having brought their supplies around by ship, and she preferred the more rustic ride, anyway. It reminded her of home.
Her tower was wonderful, beautiful, a marvel of construction. It soared from the headland like a gracefully extended arm, a long tube of white stone dotted with diamond windows and topped with an open air platform and a sloping roof. Tension between the Teleri and the Noldor had been easing over the centuries, she had gathered, and the building of her tower had been something that craftsmen and women from both kindreds had been able to come together and work on in harmony. She still wasn’t quite sure how she felt about that.
It was a refuge from the world, though, and for that she couldn’t have asked for anything better. When they had just arrived and she was still trying to make sense of this strange, strange new world, Olwë had found them a luxurious set of apartments in the palace and seen to their every need. He had been far more generous than was warranted, she thought, considering they had never met and had only the connection of her great-grandfather to link them - a person she had known relatively little. Still, the abrupt immersion into the world of Alqualondë, with all its unfamiliar beauty and distinct social circles and political machinations, had tired her and made her sick with longing for home. When she suggested living away from the confines of the city, both Olwë and Eärendil had understood.
As she swung down from her horse in the small stable attached to the foot of the tower, she thought about her absent husband. She missed him sorely, but the separation had become easier to deal with over the years. If at first when they came here to Valinor, with all its perfection and its calm, she had thought he would stay with her now and never go wandering off into the unknown again…well, she kept that to herself. She couldn’t change his nature, and she loved him all the same.
They kept only a few servants. Just a stable master and a cook, and one young girl to brush the floors and wipe up the dust. Lintári was her name, and she was quiet as a mouse and never spoke unless spoken to. Elwing worried about her, sometimes, but whenever she asked she was assured that Lintári was absolutely fine, and preferred being on her own.
Elwing, too, preferred being on her own. She always had. As a child she had liked to sit by the waterfalls that had given her her name, staring at the play of light on the water and daydreaming. In Doriath she had delighted in exploring the woods, a tiny child running shadow-fast among the greenery and terrifying her nursemaids and her mother with her disappearances. After their escape, she had sought solitude because for a long time she had believed the only one she could trust was herself.
It had all changed with Eärendil. Everything, everything had changed with Eärendil.
They were opposites in many ways. His mother had always said his curiosity would get him into trouble, and she was proved right many times. Curiosity, though, had been what had driven him to her. He had never been able to stay away from a mystery, and he sought to find out just what kind of person lived behind the guarded façade of Elwing, Princess of Doriath. She had rebuffed and spurned him many a time, but looking back she could see that had only made him more eager to uncover her secrets. He told her later that his mother had lectured him on the importance of letting other people decide whom to trust with their personal affairs, but from what she remembered Idril’s words hadn’t made much of an impression on him.
Before he had begun pestering her she had relied on a cool, aloof demeanour, and anger that was cold and scorning. He was the first person in years to make her truly lose her temper, to yell and scream and expel him unceremoniously from her house. Afterwards she was even more shocked at her outburst than her servants. She felt guilty the whole evening - despite reminding herself that she didn’t like Eärendil, he was annoying - so when he appeared at her door the next morning with a contrite apology and an unusually reserved manner, she forgave him.
After that he became less intrusive and more tolerable. She couldn’t understand why he sought her out and he never offered any explanation, but she enjoyed their time together. They spent time walking by the seashore or in the woods, talking about themselves or the world or, when Elwing would let him, Eärendil waxed lyrical about the boats at anchor or being constructed in the harbour. She let him talk even though she had barely anything to contribute to the discussion, just because she loved seeing him so animated. She liked it less when he mentioned his ambition to go on long journeys - she hated the thought of being parted from him, and wondered where that feeling had come from - but she kept it to herself.
Then one cold evening she had gone alone to the end of one of the quays, removing herself from the noise and chaos of a winter dinner party, and he had followed. He lent her his cloak and then, deciding she still looked too cold, had wrapped it around both of them. He had rested his forehead against hers and smiled sweetly and then, well, what choice had she really but to kiss him? He had probably planned it from the start, devious as ever. He had most likely known she wanted to do it before she did.
She had reached one of the highest rooms in the tower now. It had an unparalleled view out over the ocean, speckled with sunlight today from a blue sky with fluffy white clouds racing across it in the grip of high winds. She sat on the window seat and leant on the sill, placing one elbow on the stone and resting her chin on her palm.
The wedding had come after that, she remembered, seeing it in her mind’s eye. She had been so happy. She had thought she had finally beaten her darkness, that her fate would not be so terrible and full of sorrow as she had once thought. She and Eärendil had danced near all night until, as was customary, he had taken her to his house. The details of that night came back to her with such clarity; she smiled fondly to herself. They were so young, so nervous. She remembered how his hands had trembled on her shoulders.
And after that-
She stood up suddenly, an almost involuntary movement, like a convulsion. Anything to distract her from those thoughts.
But they came anyway.
The memory of two tiny bursts of warmth in her arms; their identical faces and bright little eyes. Her beautiful sons, whom she had loved and simultaneously been slightly terrified of at the same time. She had always been afraid of failure, aware of the responsibility conferred on her as the last of Thingol’s bloodline. Now the stakes were higher, because how could she fail her sons, in any way? They needed so much and she would give everything, but what if that wasn’t enough?
It hadn’t been enough, her doubts whispered. She had given them death.
Usually she could drown out these thoughts with some other activity, but today they had taken root in her mind and she could not shake them off. She wandered listlessly up to the open platform at the top of the tower and stood, the breeze cold up here as it whipped past. The wind would always clear her head, and the view gave her something else to focus on. A gull alighted on one of the perches surrounding the platform and called softly, and she smiled at it, walking over to smooth a finger over the soft feathers of its back.
She stood for a long while before she heard footsteps on the stairs. She could tell from the light tread that it was Lintári - especially since the girl was one of only three possible people it could be, anyway - and she smiled slightly as she turned around. Lintári was out of breath when she reached the top of the stairs, and had to pause for a moment before speaking. “You have visitor,” she said.
Elwing sighed. The expected emissary from Olwë, most likely. “Let them know I am coming,” she said tiredly. Lintári nodded and scampered back down the steps. Elwing followed at a slower pace, mentally cursing the annoyance of having a worrisome - was he a great-great-uncle? She thought that was right.
However, when Lintári opened the door for her, who she found waiting was not who she had been expecting.
She stared at her visitor for a long moment before saying softly, “Leave us, Lintári.”
The girl bowed and retreated, leaving Elwing all alone with the King of the Noldor.
It was not that Elwing had avoided him, not really. She knew that those who deserved her hate were not the Noldor as a whole. Still, she had never spoken alone with Finarfin.
He smiled at her, but it was a smile tinged with sadness, though she knew not why he would be sad. “I hope you don’t mind the intrusion. I know you are fond of your solitude.”
Coming from anyone else’s lips, it might have sounded insulting, but Finarfin’s tone was too caring for her to take offence. She shook her head. “No, I think you timed your visit perfectly. Today my thoughts have seemed too loud for my own head.” She paused, and then said cautiously, “But to have come so quickly you must have left the festival early…”
He shrugged delicately. “Only by an hour or so. To tell you the truth, I think they have missed you more than they will miss me.”
She couldn’t help a snort of derision. “You are the King of the Noldor, and I am the princess of a long dead kingdom somewhere back across the sea. I think it is obvious about whom they care more.”
“I would not be so sure. Your part in bringing the Silmaril back has endeared you to many.”
She tried a smile, but wasn’t sure that it didn’t come out more like a grimace. “Perhaps.” Eager to change the subject, she gestured to the chairs across the room. “Anyway, we should sit down.” She hesitated. “If it was your intention to stay, of course.”
“That was, indeed, my intention,” he said with a smile as he followed her to the chairs.
“To stay?” she asked, putting a different emphasis on the word as she leant back in the comfortable chair she’d picked for herself. “We have a few guestrooms, though I am not sure how comfortable they are. I don’t take great care of them, I must admit, and we have only one servant.”
He shook his head. “Unfortunately I must be back in time for sundown, else my wife will leave for Tirion without me. But I have a few hours yet, I think.”
Elwing was gratified that he made no comment on her self-deprecating assessment of the state of her home; Olwë would at least have offered to lend her a few servants, which always irrationally annoyed her. She remembered Galadriel’s uncanny talent for knowing the minds of others, through sorcery some said, and wondered if it was an inherited trait.
“A flying visit, then,” she said.
“It may be far too short, I fear,” Finarfin agreed, “But I feel I have been remiss in not initiating some form of contact with you earlier. We are family, though not closely related.”
“Closer on your wife’s side,” Elwing pointed out.
Finarfin smile was rather wry. “Eärwen’s side of the family can be as wild and treacherous as the sea they love. I tend to walk on careful ground with them.”
“And with me?” Elwing asked before she could stop herself.
He gave her a considering look. “You, I think, I am still puzzling out.”
Elwing found herself smiling. “I should call for tea, then. That always seems a good way to tease out people’s secrets.”
He returned her smile. “I think that would be most agreeable.”
As their conversation continued, Elwing found her earlier thoughts of his forbidding and impressive daughter returning, though not in the way she expected them to. Galadriel was usually immortalized in her memories as intimidating, fierce and proud, perhaps even slightly removed or aloof. But she had known the other woman in her more intimate moments, too, when she was softer, smiling, sharing smalltalk. It was her in those moments that Elwing was reminded of now as she talked to Finarfin.
There was also something she might have named calculating behind both their gazes, though it felt different in him than in her. With Galadriel she had often felt like she was being weighed up, that the other woman was gauging her prowess or usefulness; with her father it felt more benign, as if she were simply being observed. Still, the similarity reminded her painfully of how everyone was not always exactly what they seemed.
As the evening shadows grew longer she noticed him glancing to the windows more often, and felt a surprising amount of disappointment at the thought of him taking his leave. “The sunset is beautiful from the top of the tower,” she said casually.
He smiled and she knew he had seen through her. “I would love to watch it, but Eärwen will be put out if I come back later than I told her.” He gathered his robes and rose from his seat. “I must thank you for your tea and hospitality.” His smile turned slightly sly, “I hope whatever secrets I shared with you were interesting enough to serve as payment.”
“They were more than interesting enough,” Elwing said with a slight laugh, rising also. “Next time you must stay long enough to watch the sun set. And perhaps bring your wife as well.”
“She would be honoured, I am sure.” Finarfin inclined his head to her, and she returned the gesture gracefully. She saw him out to the stable, where a horse was waiting ready. “It was wonderful to spend the afternoon with you, Elwing,” Finarfin said as he swung up onto his horse.
“And you,” she called, and waved as he rode away. She stood watching him a while until he disappeared out of sight around a headland.
Strange company for her afternoon, she thought to herself. But not at all unwelcome, as surprising as that may have been.
She dismissed the stable master and went back inside, consumed in happier thoughts than those that had plagued her earlier.
/
She awoke from a strange dream, unable to recall what it had been about almost as soon as she regained consciousness. It was still the middle of the night, but she got out of bed. There was a heavy expectancy in the air all of a sudden. She threw the shutters wide, letting in the light of the moon and stars, and stared out at the heaving sea beyond.
A light caught her eye, shining in the distance, and she smiled widely and turned away from the window.
The ship sailed gracefully from the heavens and made a smooth transition from air to water, gliding along the crests of the waves and into the small natural harbour created by a the cove at the bottom of the tower. The few crew members scrambled here and there in organised chaos, pulling down the sail and weighing anchor.
Elwing, wrapped in a long cloak, waited on the beach, as she had a hundred times before. Never did the anticipation of seeing her husband abate. She smiled to herself as she caught sight of his golden hair, shining in the starlight.
Once the boat was secure they lowered the small rowboat and coasted in on the waves to the shore. She walked into the breakers, soaking the hem of her dress and cloak, and laughed as Eärendil jumped out into waist-deep water and began to wade toward her.
“You have soaked your clothes,” she laughed, unable to sound even slightly reproving.
He just grinned disarmingly. “They can be washed, and anyway they are no great loss.” Having broken free of the surf’s pull, he near bounded the last few steps between them and threw his arms around her. “I have missed you, dearest,” he murmured into her hair.
She wound her arms around his chest and squeezed tightly. “Not half so much as I have missed you.”
He laughed. “We can argue about that later. Right now, I think I need a long, warm bath.”
“You are right,” she stepped away and wrinkled her nose in mock disgust, “You smell like fish.”
“Ah, so this is love,” he said wryly, grinning, and then bent to press a soft kiss to her cheek. “How glad I am to be home, Elwing.”
“Come inside,” she said softly, and reached out to take his hand.
Pairing: Eärendil/Elwing
Rating: PG-13
Recipient: silverstarspray
Author: burning_night
Warnings: Angst-ish
Word Count: 3,096
Notes: I aimed for happy Eärendil/Elwing and it kind of turned into a bit of an Elwing character study. Hopefully it is still enjoyable (I did manage to squeeze in happy Eärendil/Elwing, after all xD) Title from a quote by Khalil Gibran.
Summary:
“A woman knows the face of the man she loves as a sailor knows the open sea.” - Honore de Balzac
Elwing relishes solitude, but she does not always like to be alone.
/
She had left the festival early, though Tanwanel, one of her companions, had begged her to stay. There were still at least six hours of festivities left, she said. It would be unseemly for a lady of standing, such as herself, to leave. It would embarrass King Olwë, she protested. It would probably irreparably hurt her social standing, she had added angrily as Elwing was getting onto her horse.
None of these protests held any sway over Elwing. She wanted to leave, and so she left.
Olwë would probably worry rather than feel embarrassed, but his duty would come first, as ever. There was a high chance he would send someone after her, though, whom she would be forced to rebuff. That would be tiresome.
The road she took was unusual for Valinor; packed earth and grass around the headlands, and hard wet sand where it passed onto the beach. It was an old road - more of a trail really - that had once been used by the Teleri simply for walking or finding a more secluded place to swim. She had insisted that Olwë leave it like that, and not disrupt the landscape with the building of a larger, more elaborate road as he had at first suggested. The builders of her tower hadn’t needed it, having brought their supplies around by ship, and she preferred the more rustic ride, anyway. It reminded her of home.
Her tower was wonderful, beautiful, a marvel of construction. It soared from the headland like a gracefully extended arm, a long tube of white stone dotted with diamond windows and topped with an open air platform and a sloping roof. Tension between the Teleri and the Noldor had been easing over the centuries, she had gathered, and the building of her tower had been something that craftsmen and women from both kindreds had been able to come together and work on in harmony. She still wasn’t quite sure how she felt about that.
It was a refuge from the world, though, and for that she couldn’t have asked for anything better. When they had just arrived and she was still trying to make sense of this strange, strange new world, Olwë had found them a luxurious set of apartments in the palace and seen to their every need. He had been far more generous than was warranted, she thought, considering they had never met and had only the connection of her great-grandfather to link them - a person she had known relatively little. Still, the abrupt immersion into the world of Alqualondë, with all its unfamiliar beauty and distinct social circles and political machinations, had tired her and made her sick with longing for home. When she suggested living away from the confines of the city, both Olwë and Eärendil had understood.
As she swung down from her horse in the small stable attached to the foot of the tower, she thought about her absent husband. She missed him sorely, but the separation had become easier to deal with over the years. If at first when they came here to Valinor, with all its perfection and its calm, she had thought he would stay with her now and never go wandering off into the unknown again…well, she kept that to herself. She couldn’t change his nature, and she loved him all the same.
They kept only a few servants. Just a stable master and a cook, and one young girl to brush the floors and wipe up the dust. Lintári was her name, and she was quiet as a mouse and never spoke unless spoken to. Elwing worried about her, sometimes, but whenever she asked she was assured that Lintári was absolutely fine, and preferred being on her own.
Elwing, too, preferred being on her own. She always had. As a child she had liked to sit by the waterfalls that had given her her name, staring at the play of light on the water and daydreaming. In Doriath she had delighted in exploring the woods, a tiny child running shadow-fast among the greenery and terrifying her nursemaids and her mother with her disappearances. After their escape, she had sought solitude because for a long time she had believed the only one she could trust was herself.
It had all changed with Eärendil. Everything, everything had changed with Eärendil.
They were opposites in many ways. His mother had always said his curiosity would get him into trouble, and she was proved right many times. Curiosity, though, had been what had driven him to her. He had never been able to stay away from a mystery, and he sought to find out just what kind of person lived behind the guarded façade of Elwing, Princess of Doriath. She had rebuffed and spurned him many a time, but looking back she could see that had only made him more eager to uncover her secrets. He told her later that his mother had lectured him on the importance of letting other people decide whom to trust with their personal affairs, but from what she remembered Idril’s words hadn’t made much of an impression on him.
Before he had begun pestering her she had relied on a cool, aloof demeanour, and anger that was cold and scorning. He was the first person in years to make her truly lose her temper, to yell and scream and expel him unceremoniously from her house. Afterwards she was even more shocked at her outburst than her servants. She felt guilty the whole evening - despite reminding herself that she didn’t like Eärendil, he was annoying - so when he appeared at her door the next morning with a contrite apology and an unusually reserved manner, she forgave him.
After that he became less intrusive and more tolerable. She couldn’t understand why he sought her out and he never offered any explanation, but she enjoyed their time together. They spent time walking by the seashore or in the woods, talking about themselves or the world or, when Elwing would let him, Eärendil waxed lyrical about the boats at anchor or being constructed in the harbour. She let him talk even though she had barely anything to contribute to the discussion, just because she loved seeing him so animated. She liked it less when he mentioned his ambition to go on long journeys - she hated the thought of being parted from him, and wondered where that feeling had come from - but she kept it to herself.
Then one cold evening she had gone alone to the end of one of the quays, removing herself from the noise and chaos of a winter dinner party, and he had followed. He lent her his cloak and then, deciding she still looked too cold, had wrapped it around both of them. He had rested his forehead against hers and smiled sweetly and then, well, what choice had she really but to kiss him? He had probably planned it from the start, devious as ever. He had most likely known she wanted to do it before she did.
She had reached one of the highest rooms in the tower now. It had an unparalleled view out over the ocean, speckled with sunlight today from a blue sky with fluffy white clouds racing across it in the grip of high winds. She sat on the window seat and leant on the sill, placing one elbow on the stone and resting her chin on her palm.
The wedding had come after that, she remembered, seeing it in her mind’s eye. She had been so happy. She had thought she had finally beaten her darkness, that her fate would not be so terrible and full of sorrow as she had once thought. She and Eärendil had danced near all night until, as was customary, he had taken her to his house. The details of that night came back to her with such clarity; she smiled fondly to herself. They were so young, so nervous. She remembered how his hands had trembled on her shoulders.
And after that-
She stood up suddenly, an almost involuntary movement, like a convulsion. Anything to distract her from those thoughts.
But they came anyway.
The memory of two tiny bursts of warmth in her arms; their identical faces and bright little eyes. Her beautiful sons, whom she had loved and simultaneously been slightly terrified of at the same time. She had always been afraid of failure, aware of the responsibility conferred on her as the last of Thingol’s bloodline. Now the stakes were higher, because how could she fail her sons, in any way? They needed so much and she would give everything, but what if that wasn’t enough?
It hadn’t been enough, her doubts whispered. She had given them death.
Usually she could drown out these thoughts with some other activity, but today they had taken root in her mind and she could not shake them off. She wandered listlessly up to the open platform at the top of the tower and stood, the breeze cold up here as it whipped past. The wind would always clear her head, and the view gave her something else to focus on. A gull alighted on one of the perches surrounding the platform and called softly, and she smiled at it, walking over to smooth a finger over the soft feathers of its back.
She stood for a long while before she heard footsteps on the stairs. She could tell from the light tread that it was Lintári - especially since the girl was one of only three possible people it could be, anyway - and she smiled slightly as she turned around. Lintári was out of breath when she reached the top of the stairs, and had to pause for a moment before speaking. “You have visitor,” she said.
Elwing sighed. The expected emissary from Olwë, most likely. “Let them know I am coming,” she said tiredly. Lintári nodded and scampered back down the steps. Elwing followed at a slower pace, mentally cursing the annoyance of having a worrisome - was he a great-great-uncle? She thought that was right.
However, when Lintári opened the door for her, who she found waiting was not who she had been expecting.
She stared at her visitor for a long moment before saying softly, “Leave us, Lintári.”
The girl bowed and retreated, leaving Elwing all alone with the King of the Noldor.
It was not that Elwing had avoided him, not really. She knew that those who deserved her hate were not the Noldor as a whole. Still, she had never spoken alone with Finarfin.
He smiled at her, but it was a smile tinged with sadness, though she knew not why he would be sad. “I hope you don’t mind the intrusion. I know you are fond of your solitude.”
Coming from anyone else’s lips, it might have sounded insulting, but Finarfin’s tone was too caring for her to take offence. She shook her head. “No, I think you timed your visit perfectly. Today my thoughts have seemed too loud for my own head.” She paused, and then said cautiously, “But to have come so quickly you must have left the festival early…”
He shrugged delicately. “Only by an hour or so. To tell you the truth, I think they have missed you more than they will miss me.”
She couldn’t help a snort of derision. “You are the King of the Noldor, and I am the princess of a long dead kingdom somewhere back across the sea. I think it is obvious about whom they care more.”
“I would not be so sure. Your part in bringing the Silmaril back has endeared you to many.”
She tried a smile, but wasn’t sure that it didn’t come out more like a grimace. “Perhaps.” Eager to change the subject, she gestured to the chairs across the room. “Anyway, we should sit down.” She hesitated. “If it was your intention to stay, of course.”
“That was, indeed, my intention,” he said with a smile as he followed her to the chairs.
“To stay?” she asked, putting a different emphasis on the word as she leant back in the comfortable chair she’d picked for herself. “We have a few guestrooms, though I am not sure how comfortable they are. I don’t take great care of them, I must admit, and we have only one servant.”
He shook his head. “Unfortunately I must be back in time for sundown, else my wife will leave for Tirion without me. But I have a few hours yet, I think.”
Elwing was gratified that he made no comment on her self-deprecating assessment of the state of her home; Olwë would at least have offered to lend her a few servants, which always irrationally annoyed her. She remembered Galadriel’s uncanny talent for knowing the minds of others, through sorcery some said, and wondered if it was an inherited trait.
“A flying visit, then,” she said.
“It may be far too short, I fear,” Finarfin agreed, “But I feel I have been remiss in not initiating some form of contact with you earlier. We are family, though not closely related.”
“Closer on your wife’s side,” Elwing pointed out.
Finarfin smile was rather wry. “Eärwen’s side of the family can be as wild and treacherous as the sea they love. I tend to walk on careful ground with them.”
“And with me?” Elwing asked before she could stop herself.
He gave her a considering look. “You, I think, I am still puzzling out.”
Elwing found herself smiling. “I should call for tea, then. That always seems a good way to tease out people’s secrets.”
He returned her smile. “I think that would be most agreeable.”
As their conversation continued, Elwing found her earlier thoughts of his forbidding and impressive daughter returning, though not in the way she expected them to. Galadriel was usually immortalized in her memories as intimidating, fierce and proud, perhaps even slightly removed or aloof. But she had known the other woman in her more intimate moments, too, when she was softer, smiling, sharing smalltalk. It was her in those moments that Elwing was reminded of now as she talked to Finarfin.
There was also something she might have named calculating behind both their gazes, though it felt different in him than in her. With Galadriel she had often felt like she was being weighed up, that the other woman was gauging her prowess or usefulness; with her father it felt more benign, as if she were simply being observed. Still, the similarity reminded her painfully of how everyone was not always exactly what they seemed.
As the evening shadows grew longer she noticed him glancing to the windows more often, and felt a surprising amount of disappointment at the thought of him taking his leave. “The sunset is beautiful from the top of the tower,” she said casually.
He smiled and she knew he had seen through her. “I would love to watch it, but Eärwen will be put out if I come back later than I told her.” He gathered his robes and rose from his seat. “I must thank you for your tea and hospitality.” His smile turned slightly sly, “I hope whatever secrets I shared with you were interesting enough to serve as payment.”
“They were more than interesting enough,” Elwing said with a slight laugh, rising also. “Next time you must stay long enough to watch the sun set. And perhaps bring your wife as well.”
“She would be honoured, I am sure.” Finarfin inclined his head to her, and she returned the gesture gracefully. She saw him out to the stable, where a horse was waiting ready. “It was wonderful to spend the afternoon with you, Elwing,” Finarfin said as he swung up onto his horse.
“And you,” she called, and waved as he rode away. She stood watching him a while until he disappeared out of sight around a headland.
Strange company for her afternoon, she thought to herself. But not at all unwelcome, as surprising as that may have been.
She dismissed the stable master and went back inside, consumed in happier thoughts than those that had plagued her earlier.
/
She awoke from a strange dream, unable to recall what it had been about almost as soon as she regained consciousness. It was still the middle of the night, but she got out of bed. There was a heavy expectancy in the air all of a sudden. She threw the shutters wide, letting in the light of the moon and stars, and stared out at the heaving sea beyond.
A light caught her eye, shining in the distance, and she smiled widely and turned away from the window.
The ship sailed gracefully from the heavens and made a smooth transition from air to water, gliding along the crests of the waves and into the small natural harbour created by a the cove at the bottom of the tower. The few crew members scrambled here and there in organised chaos, pulling down the sail and weighing anchor.
Elwing, wrapped in a long cloak, waited on the beach, as she had a hundred times before. Never did the anticipation of seeing her husband abate. She smiled to herself as she caught sight of his golden hair, shining in the starlight.
Once the boat was secure they lowered the small rowboat and coasted in on the waves to the shore. She walked into the breakers, soaking the hem of her dress and cloak, and laughed as Eärendil jumped out into waist-deep water and began to wade toward her.
“You have soaked your clothes,” she laughed, unable to sound even slightly reproving.
He just grinned disarmingly. “They can be washed, and anyway they are no great loss.” Having broken free of the surf’s pull, he near bounded the last few steps between them and threw his arms around her. “I have missed you, dearest,” he murmured into her hair.
She wound her arms around his chest and squeezed tightly. “Not half so much as I have missed you.”
He laughed. “We can argue about that later. Right now, I think I need a long, warm bath.”
“You are right,” she stepped away and wrinkled her nose in mock disgust, “You smell like fish.”
“Ah, so this is love,” he said wryly, grinning, and then bent to press a soft kiss to her cheek. “How glad I am to be home, Elwing.”
“Come inside,” she said softly, and reached out to take his hand.