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The light is the most beautiful thing in the world. Even more beautiful than Grandmother, who leans down with an amused smile as Elwing’s chubby little arms wave about as she tries to grasp the source of it, cooing as the rays illuminate her hands and dance in the air – maddeningly intangible.

“No, my little love, you cannot have it. Not yet.”

Elwing cannot manage speech yet, but the indignance in her mind as Grandmother straightens up, taking the jewel out of her reach makes her grandparents laugh, a warm and wonderful mirth that will be her only true memory of them.

“Someday, starlet.”

The Silmaril has always been there, as far back as Elwing can remember. Not always on public display, indeed not often seen by any but her immediate family. It was as much a part of her life as her parents. The light it shed was more beautiful than the lights Grandmother’s mother had kindled in Menegroth.

Elwing had never known Melian, or Thingol either. They had died before she was begotten. She knew them mainly from stories others told. She asked about them sometimes, but it was hard to think of them as real people.

“You’ll meet them someday, little star,” Father told her with a sigh when she said so to him. “But don’t be in a hurry.”

Elwing wasn’t.

It was a shame her grandparents were dead, but people died sometimes. The ‘Blessed Land’ the golodhrim came from was nothing to her compared to her home. Menegroth held everything she wanted or could imagine wanting.

Her parents. Her baby brothers. Her friends. The most wonderful gardens in the world, some with plants and others with living rock. The butterfly room. And the Silmaril lit up their rooms, brighter and more colorful than the sun.

Elwing wasn’t allowed to touch it without one of her parents present. Mother was too wary of it to take it out of its case or let Elwing near it. Father didn’t like to let her handle it.

“I do not think it can break, my little star, but you would be terribly upset if it did. When you are older.”

Elwing had heard that before. And she did not know how to explain to Father that she would not be the one to break it.

“That’s such a long time!”

Father smiled.

“One day it will be yours to do with as you like.”

Elwing was four, too young to recognize the sound of foresight.

“But why can’t I have it now? I’ll be careful with it, I promise!”

“Patience, little star, patience.”

Later, Elwing would wonder if her father had understood what was bearing down on them, or how soon ‘one day’ would come for her. She could only hope he hadn’t seen what was coming for him – then again, he must have known on some level. The words of the Oath were no secret.

But when the Ship-Thieves came for their coveted jewel, Elwing’s father in his questionable wisdom decided to send his daughter and his jewel away. He stayed to die on Celegorm’s sword. Or maybe Celegorm’s dagger. Or Celegorm’s teeth.

Elwing will hear many versions over the years. It could be told any way one liked, given the only ones who walked out of the Great Hall still alive were the Ship-Thieves, and they’ve never commented.  Elwing didn’t much care. In the end, Mother and Father died. Some people thought she should find it a comfort that Celegorm died too, but his death didn’t bring them back, or her brothers either.

She wondered if the Ship-Thieves thought the Silmaril would be a fair trade for their dead. Celegorm wasn’t the only one who had died. Curufin had been killed trying to break into the playroom she shared with her brothers. Some called their brother Caranthir cruel and said he deserved his death, but those who had been there told her he had given up, unwilling to live in a world where they killed children.

Elwing would have given them the jewel if they could have given her parents and brothers back.

But that was a bargain neither she nor they could make.

Instead, she kept the jewel secret and safe, every step of the bitter journey to the sea. Even Uncle Celeborn didn’t know she carried it – or the guilt that she had once wanted it so badly. Maybe if she hadn’t, her family would have lived?

Her first view of the Sea is supposed to be exciting, but instead, it sends a shiver down her spine. It is not quite foresight, and it unsettles her. Water has always been comforting before, but the sea is not Esgalduin whose song was woven throughout her childhood. It is not even Sirion, whose music she had come to know on the long trek and sang of protection. Sirion she can trust.

She does not understand the Sea’s music, not yet. But she is certain she and the Sea will be at odds more often than they will be friends.

The water reflects the light of the sun, moon, and stars, scattering their beams in all directions, but Elwing does not feel the least bit curious to see what it would do with the light of the Silmaril. The jewel, now hers, remains tightly wrapped and concealed in the bag she carries, a child’s version of the adults’ far heavier packs.

“They’re waiting for us, on the far side of the Sea.”

Aunt Galadriel looks troubled as she gazes westward. She nearly died in the attack, and her recovery has been slow. Elwing does not ask which of her dead kin it is she is straining to see. Surely not the ones who came so close to killing her.

“They will have a long wait,” Elwing says, not sure how it is she knows this.

Aunt Galadriel’s eyes do not look any less troubled as she drags them back to the here and now.

“A long wait indeed,” she replies quietly. “For both of us.”

Elwing didn’t touch the Silmaril, even though now there was no one to tell her no.  She can’t bring herself to hate it, any more than she could hate her family. But she did not have to like it. She occasionally shifted it from hiding place to hiding place as she herself moved from one temporary accommodation to the next – it took time to build something her people were satisfied was fitting for a queen.

Queen Elwing sounded so strange, but that’s what they told her she was now, so that’s what she needed to be. It’s what her people needed her to be. So it’s what she becomes, working hard to learn as much as she can, as fast as she can. It worried her, how they looked to her – and not just the Iathrim.

There were folk already in what they’re starting to call the Havens of Sirion who had fled from Brithombar and Eglarest when they fell. The Falathrim are Lindar. While they look to Círdan also, they do not dispute that she is the last of Elu Thingol’s line.

It was only a year after they had found their Falathrim kin amidst the marshes and been guided to the Sea that Uncle Celeborn discovered the jewel. The horrified look on his face made Elwing wish she had managed to keep the secret a while longer. The grief of the Kinslaying is still too near for all of them, but for him in particular – he would have guarded her parents with his life, but Father had commanded him to guard her.

“He gave it to me just before you came to take me to safety,” she explained.

She knew he would not have guarded the jewel.

“It brings danger on us all,” her uncle warned.

Elwing tried not to wince, for that was the thought he trusted to words. His mind screamed what he would have done with the jewel had he only known he carried it, though he had too much pride to share that thought willingly with any but Galadriel.

Later, as an adult, she would learn enough to know that by the time he could have found it, Celegorm was already dead anyway. They hadn’t stopped to shift her little pack around until the adults with her had put several miles between the concealed exit and the children they’d managed to save.

But as a child, it was both confusing to hear that her beloved uncle would have turned kinslayer and reassuring to hear that he would rather have had her parents alive than any jewel. And of course she could not ask if the jewel would have cut Celegorm’s throat from the inside or if he would simply have choked on it.

Adults did not like being reminded that the children knew so many of the ways one could die.

“Only if anyone knows about it,” Elwing whispered back. “And no one does.”

Her uncle pondered that for a moment.

“The Kinslayers will guess, sooner or later. They know they do not have it – they will have ransacked Menegroth in search of it.”

“Father could have thrown it into the river, or down one of the deep wells.”

She always saw water sooner or later if she looked at the jewel.

Celeborn regarded her for a long moment.

“For such a little maid, you certainly have clever ideas,” he said at last.

“A little queen,” Elwing sighed. “I have to have ideas.”

Her uncle did not laugh, though she knew he wanted to.

“Very well. On your head be it if they come again.”

“Was it on Father’s head that they came the first time?”

Celeborn hunkered down to look her in the eye.

“The Kinslayers made their own choices, but your father had a choice, too.” He gestured at the Silmaril. “He chose to keep this.”

“But he didn’t keep it,” Elwing said. “He gave it to me.”

She wondered as she said it who she might give it to. As beautiful as it was, it was a heavy responsibility. And she was only six.

“He chose not to yield it to the sons of its maker,” Celeborn sighed. “Right or wrong, that was his decision, and no one else’s.”

Elwing did not know what to say to that. She also didn’t like to think about its maker or his sons. Sometimes she saw them in the facets of the Silmaril. Maybe it was her imagination. She hoped it was. Some of what she saw seemed so normal, and she didn’t like to think normal people could do what they had done.

She made to wrap the jewel back up, but Celeborn held up a hand.

“I will get you something better. You’ll need that cloak soon enough, the leaves already begin to fall.”

He returned a few minutes later with rough cloth that had been woven in haste when they first reached the mouths of Sirion.

“Use that until we can make something for the purpose.”

Elwing nodded. No one would look for the finest jewel in the world in work even apprentices in Menegroth would have blushed at – nor think anything of it if that cloth were stored carelessly in some out of the way corner.

It did not serve for long, though. Within a fortnight, Aunt Galadriel handed Elwing some of her finest work, cloth that turns light so deftly one might overlook whatever is wrapped in it. The Silmaril and its new wrapping found a home in the bottom of the newly-completed chest that holds Elwing’s clothing.

Elwing could go weeks without looking at it, but even when she didn’t, she still knew it was there. Always.

Elwing sits on her throne, looking as regal as she can manage. Aunt Galadriel has lived among the Lindar long enough that she is practically one of them, but the newly arrived golodhrim are a different matter. She needs to make a good impression on them – and not look like she is merely a charming little puppet saying words on her guardians’ command.

She welcomes Princess Idril of Gondolin politely, and does not ask too many questions about Prince Ardamírë, though that is really the person she is most curious about among the new arrivals. Not only are they the same age, he’s the only other person like herself aside from her lost brothers that she has ever heard of.

But she conducts herself as a queen should and only after the audience is at an end and it has been agreed that the Gondolindrim – who should not be called golodhrim in their hearing as the word is unlovely in their ears – will henceforth live side by side with them in Sirion that she allows herself to be childish again and wander along the beach.

She hears the golodhrin children well before they see her. To them, the Sea is a novelty and welcome sight. They are playing games that will probably get them scolded later – it is late enough in the year that sea-bathing is not for those bothered by cold.

The boy who spots her first is friendly and invites her – in her own tongue, as he should – to join the game. Elwing does not much care to get wet, but she also does not want to be unfriendly. Besides, she does not want to be the one who clouds his sunny smile.

She is delighted to learn that this is Ardamírë – who prefers to be called Eärendil. Sea-friend fits him.  She is less amused that his friends tease him his name. And she certainly does not want them nattering about jewels of any kind.

“It’s rude to make fun of people’s names,” she tells them firmly. “You should stop.”

They do. And that’s the last anyone other than Eärendil himself has to say about jewels among their age-mates. Before long, it’s more likely to be her they’re teasing him about.

He explains to her a few weeks later, when they’ve become firm friends – best friends, even – that Ardamírë is his mother-name, and a name of foresight, though his mother had not fully understood what it was she had seen.

Elwing frowns, and wonders if she should tell him about the Silmaril. A burden shared is a burden lessened, or so the saying goes. But she is not sure she should burden him with it – especially not when she is suddenly sure the jewel Princess Idril saw and her secret are one and the same.

Later. When they are older.

“It’s really something.”

Eärendil was many things, but eloquent has never been one of them. He chalked it up to Mannishness, but whenever he did Elwing pointed out that Prince Tuor had no problem expressing himself in elegant words.

In the end, she had decided sixteen was old enough. He probably wouldn’t make the connection. Eärendil often called himself a simple creature who had the misfortune to be born a prince. He would have been quite happy as a simple fisherman, and he said so again now to defend himself from her amusement at his verdict.

“As well you’re not,” Elwing sniffed. “I’m fairly sure my Council would be upset about me wanting to marry a simple fisherman.”

That got the combination of delighted and poleaxed expression Eärendil always wore these days when she said anything about their joint future. She was absolutely sure about it, and she knew he wanted it as well, so she wasn’t sure why it startled him every time.

“They’re going to be upset anyway, aren’t they?” he sighed. “They want you to pick another Sinda.”

“Linda,” she corrected patiently. “Or shall I start calling your people golodh?”

“You can if you want, I don’t see why it’s such an ugly word.”

She sighed and did not point out that was because he generally contrived to skive off his rhetoric and language lessons in favor of fishing, swimming, wading, boating, or more recently watching the shipwrights at their craft. And she knew it was useless to point out that he ought to have a better ear – he heard the music of the sea and sky just fine.

“I can’t, because you’re the only one so indifferent.”

“You’re queen, you can do as you like,” he grinned.

“That’s really not how it works and you know it.”

“Yeah, but you could do as you liked more often.”

“Back to the subject at hand?” she prompted.

“It’s beautiful, but I’m not sure it’s worth killing for,” Eärendil replied soberly, gazing steadily at it. “I can see the light in it is different. Kinda like the sun and moon both at once but more. Or maybe Cousin Galadriel’s hair, if that was light.”

Elwing’s lips quirked. He might not be eloquent, but you did always know where you were with Eärendil. She didn’t ask if he saw anything more. She’d begun to understand that her seeing other things in it was much like her always knowing if there were any of Melian’s kin about - not something everyone could do.

“Who else knows about it?” he asked. “You made such a big production of this I thought maybe you’d found a way to beat the Enemy. Or a way West.”

“No one,” she said sharply. “Well, Uncle Celeborn. And now you. But other than that, no one.”

Eärendil blinked in surprise.

“You trust me with this?”

“I trust you with everything,” she told him steadily. “I’ve trusted you with my life, why wouldn’t I trust you with this?”

“Your life is more important,” he said flatly. “That I could throw away.”

“Good.”

She’d thrown him again.

“Good? But you think it’s really important.”

“Not so important I want to get people killed for it. Not so important I want children to die for it. If the Kinslayers come back, tell me to throw it away and I will.”

“Not if you don’t want to throw it away.”

“I want us to be safe and happy. If I can’t see past the light of long dead trees, I trust you to tell me I’m blinded.”

Eärendil thought about it a moment.

“Fine.”

“Fine,” she echoed.

He grinned.

“You really do trust me.”

“Yes. You and I, together always, even if it’s against the whole world.”

It was their promise to each other, even before it had dawned on either of them that they were going to be married someday.

“I’ll try not to let it come to that,” Eärendil reminded her.

“It might,” she whispered.

“The Enemy is not the world,” Eärendil said stoutly. “Not even close.”

“No, but he’s quite enough to be getting on with,” she sighed.

Him they were going against either way. He didn’t know yet where the jewel was, but Elwing knew sooner or later he’d work it out. He was kin to her great-grandmother. He’d find out long before the Kinslayers that the jewel was not cast aside somewhere. And he already knew the last scion of Melian dwelled at the Havens of Sirion. He couldn’t reach her, not yet. But time was not on her side.

“Have you ever worn it?”

Elwing was almost thrown, but after ten years in Eärendil’s company, she had grown used to the way his mind leapt from one thought to another – and how he rarely dwelled on the darker ones. From what little he’s said, part of the way he’d managed to remain so sunny was to simply not think about all that had happened when his city fell, or that it could happen again.

There might yet come a day when he has to think on it, but unless it’s truly necessary, Elwing would not badger him about it.

“No,” she said. “Wearing doesn’t really work well with the ‘keep it secret’ plan.”

“Go on then?”

It was just the two of them, and she hasn’t actually touched it in years…

The necklace is more complicated than she’d thought – she hasn’t actually looked at that part of it really, only ever the stone – and she needs Eärendil’s help to get it on correctly.

The utterly entranced look on his face was more than worth the trouble.

“You’re beautiful.”

She knew perfectly well he thought that already anyway, but the way he says beautiful this time makes her feel like she’s actually what she’s supposed to be – the daughter of Dior the Fair, granddaughter of Lúthien the fairest of the Children.

And while Eärendil is gazing at her like she’s the stars in the heavens, she has the rare experience of seeing him lit by its light.

“So are you,” she says, wondering at how his hair shines and his amazing sea-blue eyes look so much more.

She might do this more often were it not for the weight of the Silmaril sitting so heavy on her throat. It is less noticeable as long as she keeps still, but the moment she tries to move, she feels the weight – and the chains, for all they’re dwarf-made. They should be whisper-light, but with the Silmaril dragging on them, they might as well be the chain that once bound the Enemy.

She had no idea how long they’d stood there, entranced by each other, before she heard Uncle Oropher calling.

Startled, she realized it was full dark outside already.

“Starting to see why this thing is so dangerous,” Eärendil said, sounding as shaken as she’d ever heard him.

Her uncle’s footsteps on the stairs motivated both of them to get the necklace back off in a hurry and the jewel safely hidden.

“We’d better not do that again,” Eärendil murmured as they went down to dinner. “Too risky.”

The next time she dares to put it on is their wedding night.

“You know why I can’t go with you – can’t you stay a little longer?”

She can’t quite bring herself to plead, but she does ask her husband.

They’ve promised since childhood to stick together always, but if Eärendil keeps up this madness of trying to find the way West, he may well break his word – the golodhrim have tried for years, and most who have tried have not come back. The few that have say the others died.

“You know I can’t.”

Eärendil looks wretched.

“Things are desperate, you know that. The only reason He hasn’t come yet is the protection of the waters holds on the marshes. But he keeps pushing, keeps encroaching, and if that falls…”

“Then we’ll go to Balar! Círdan won’t turn us away, we’re his kin!”

“It will happen quick if it happens. There may not be time to get anyone away.”

He sounds so ragged, so desperate when he says it that she shivers. Has he had a taste of foresight? It sounds like this is something he’s seen, not just something he’s reasoned out.

“It’s how it happened before,” he told her quietly. “It was a holiday, El. We were in our festival finery. And a few hours later, nearly everyone was dead. I can’t let it happen again. I have to at least try.”

She pulls him into whatever comfort an embrace can give.

“Fine. But you better come back for me.”

If Eärendil dies at sea, she may kill herself just so she can find him in the Timeless Halls and give him a piece of her mind.

He did come back – but without tidings of success. And by the time he did, Elwing was no longer the last of Elu Thingol’s line.

The pregnancy had startled her. She had never thought of her father as Mannish, and her mother was elven. So how was it that she could beget not just one but two children without any intention?

She’d had a terrifying eleven months without him, for neither the elven midwives nor the Mannish ones were sure what to expect, and though they tried to keep her calm, she picked up on their worries. Everyone had been briefly reassured when the length seemed to point to things proceeding along elvish lines – until her labor had started.

When it was finally over – an agonizing day later – and her sons were asleep, the Mannish midwife dropped into the chair next to her bed, nearly as exhausted as Elwing herself.

“If you were one of ours, I’d say you were not likely to bear again,” the woman told her. “But as everything about you seems to go by contraries, you may yet have a large brood.”

Elwing emphatically did not want a large brood after what she’d just been through. And if she had to have another, Eärendil had better be present for the entire process, not just the first few hours.

At least her recovery had been more along elven lines. She heard the Mannish women whispering about how quickly she was up and about again.

On Eärendil’s return, they had a serious conversation about what they would do. Once Eärendil got over his shock, that was. It was not just her who had not known they had begotten children.

She was not pleased when his solution was to redouble his search for the way to reach the West. As far as she could tell, the risks were the same as they’d ever been, but now if he died, she wouldn’t even be able to tell him off in the Halls, because she couldn’t well go after him and leave their sons orphans.

She knew what it was to grow up without her parents, and she did not want that for Elrond and Elros. (Since Eärendil hadn’t been there to give names, she’d done the naming, and she’d decided that the line of Thingol would keep using El- in their names.)

But now she was a mother, she had another worry – she had found the Silmaril a burden. She did not dare inflict it on her children. If someone came for it, be it the Enemy or the Kinslayers, she would take Eärendil’s advice and throw it away. She would not do as Father had done.

That resolve did not make it easier to watch Eärendil sail off again, even if they were both oddly certain that this time was the time he would make it.

“I’ll come back for you,” he whispered in her ear as she got in one last hug on the quay. “Together always.”

She did not say ‘except when you’re off at sea’. She also did not cry as she watched the ship go.

The letter is both eloquent and elegant – that she would have recognized even without Galadriel’s assessment. Maedhros Fëanorion has no wish to cause pain to any Elf, only to their mutual Enemy, he assures her. He implores her, in the name of defeating said Enemy, to return his father’s jewel.

The problem, of course, it that it is also her father’s jewel. And while she would throw it away at need, she would not throw it at her parents’ murderers.

But Elwing is no fool. She may be a sapling to a mighty oak in the tale of their years, but she has been in charge in fact and not in name long enough to know she didn’t dare send a bald refusal.

Her answer is equally eloquent and elegant, and plays into the worldview of the golodhrim – she is after all but a woman, and it is to their kinsman her husband that they should direct their words. Unfortunately, Ardamírë Itarillion is at sea just now, but she gives her word that he will write to them immediately on his return.

As she watches the messenger depart, she is already making evacuation plans. A second messenger departs for Balar the next day. She has bought time, but how much, she does not know.

It was not enough.

Maedhros and his brother – or was it brothers, how many were left? – were impatient. Elwing knew of their coming even before the scouts reached the Havens bearing the frantic warning.

There was just enough time to get everyone away. At least, there should have been. But not enough ships were in port. She’d had them ferrying people and material to Balar, and a full half of them were away.

In the end, her decision is her father’s all over again – protect the children. She sent her darling sons away for their own safety, with people she knew would defend them with their lives.

The Silmaril she kept.

It had been given into her keeping, her burden. And she will not make either of her boys carry it.

Besides, she’s not the only one who has had the Silmari hanging over her head all these years. She knew the Kinslayers would see nothing else. As long as they chase the jewel, Elrond and Elros are safe.

The problem, of course, is that there is only one way that can end.

She could only hope Eärendil would understand.  

She is drowning – until she is not.

She somehow understands how to fly, and that west is the direction she must go.

She also understands why she is still alive. The Sea wanted the jewel, but only if it was freely given. She had not given. She had a death grip on the jewel even as she expected to die.

She doesn’t know if birds see light differently, or if by changing form, she has also changed her nature and is seeing the world as Melian’s kin do. The colors are more and different, the Music louder than it’s ever been. And she can see where Eärendil is, a thread of gold and blue stretching out before her.

She will find him. And they will go back.

Elwing woke to confusion.

The world had shrunk while she was asleep – but the colors had stayed.

She did not remember the landing, but she must have landed, because she was aboard Vingilot.

She and the Silmaril.

She had to stifle an urge to chuck it overboard, because while the Sea may want it – she can hear that with every wave against the hull – she can see now that despite the water, this jewel was not for the Sea. Water was its past, not its future. There were two more in the Enemy’s keeping, the Sea will have to wait for one of those.

This one had another mission.

She managed to keep calm before the others, but Eärendil knew her too well not to know how amused she was at the idea of bringing the High Ones to heel by dangling a Silmaril in front of them.

“You’re going to get us both killed thinking like that,” he sighed.

“No, I won’t,” she grinned. “You’re going to be the diplomat.”

“Me?” he demanded in astonishment. “Now I’m sure you’ve gone mad.”

“I have not,” she sniffed. “A bit of plain speaking is just what they need to hear. And you’re the best one to do it. You’re married to me and a son of an Exile. You have a Mannish father. And you’re not sniffy about Dwarves.”

“That’s your people,” he snorted. “The Noldor like fellow craftsmen and miners.”

“The Lindar liked them just fine until they killed Thingol,” she shot back. “Which is not the point. The point is that you’ve got ties to all the groups in Beleriand. Which makes you a good person to tell them they need to go clean up their mess for all our sakes.”

“I am not going to tell them it’s their mess,” Eärendil sighed.

“Say it however you like. But say it. And they do not get the jewel unless they help.”

“You can’t bargain with them like that!”

“Why not?”

“The Valar –”

“Are much like everyone else in wanting the jewel, and also much like everyone else in wanting the one I have rather than bothering Belegurth for the two he stole.”

“I’d take you with me to talk to them, but the more you tell me, the more sure I am you would get us both either killed or clapped into Mandos as punishment.”

“That’s two different ways of saying the same thing,” Elwing frowned.

The Lindar here are not the Lindar she knows.

She is also not what they expect. She can see Olu’s puzzlement at the idea of a tiny little thing like her being a descendant of Elu Thingol and a maia.

And everything here is so bright even without the Silmaril. She can’t quite understand why they’re so fussed about not having the light of the Trees anymore, not when it still sparkles on every surface. By day, the sun shines, but she sees it refract as moonlight, by night just the opposite, the light of Ithil bouncing up as sunlight.

It’s too much and not enough all at once. She sleeps for days just to avoid the way it all sets her nerves to jangling. More than ever, she’s sure whatever Ulu did has changed her, and worries it may be permanent. Or perhaps it is that despite being a descendant of Melian, not having grown up in the West she cannot adapt herself to it, being too much in tune with the land of her birth.

Through it all, worry for her sons consumes her.  Were they safe? Had they made it to Balar and Círdan’s protection?

She can scarcely think.

And then…

Granddaughter.

She looks up, startled.

Melian is there. Her great-grandmother has come for her. As if she is someone of infinite importance.

Of course you are.

Elwing didn’t hear all of what her grandmother Melian was saying to the Valar, but she could hear enough to know that both Namo and Manwë were being thoroughly raked over the coals – and to think Eärendil had been worried about what Elwing might say.

Melian was furious at the attempt to class her descendants as Men. Not that there was anything wrong with Men, mind. (After all, Melian’s daughter had married one.) It was simply the principle of it.

Ulmo was seething at the attempt to say Eärendil – not just a son of a line he favored, but a sea-friend in his own right – was either mortal and thus must die for setting foot in Valinor or Noldor and thus must die for setting foot in Valinor.

Yavanna was simply against any harm coming to living creatures, in Valinor or anywhere else.

Tulkas was bored with the entire debate and wanted to get to more interesting matters like knocking Belegurth down again.

Elwing was tempted to put her own opinion in.

Please don’t, beloved. I think they’re hearing enough as it is.

“Oh, fine,” she sighed. “But only because you asked nicely.”

The argument – if it could be called that given how well Melian was holding the metaphorical floor with occasional help from her allies – went on for some time.

When it finally wound down, Elwing was called to step forth.

“Elwing, daughter of Dior, son of Lúthien, daughter of Melian.”

She nodded, although she knew they were expecting a bow.

“It is our decision that you and Eärendil should choose your kindred.”

She wasn’t sure why that was the most pressing business, but she looked to Eärendil.

“You choose,” he shrugged.

“We’re elves,” she said firmly, and nearly gasped in relief as suddenly things were quieter, and the world slowed to a more bearable pace. The colors were still more vibrant than she was used to, but that she could handle.

“Very well, elves. We shall do as you ask and bring down our kinsman Melkor to make Middle-earth safe for elves and Men.”

“And dwarves,” she said sharply. “And Ents. And…”

Words were rather inadequate, so she simply threw thoughts of all the creatures of Beleriand at them. Even the ones Belegurth had made deserved better!

She could feel Eärendil torn between pride and worry that she was going to get them killed. Melian had no such qualms - it was all pride.

“As you were willing to give your Silmaril into our keeping, we believe it would be unfair to take it only for the benefit of those in the West.”

She raised an eyebrow.

“It shall be sent into the skies, to be a sign of hope to all those you spoke so fiercely for.”

Oh, blast. Just when she’d thought she was finally free of it…

“You may, if you wish, name someone to sail the skies in your stead,” Manwë added.

Focusing on him, she found he’d envisioned her flying as a bird with it.

No thank you, she’d had more than enough of that. And they’d said sail…

“I can think of no better sailor than Eärendil,” she replied firmly. “So long as he gets to come back to me in between voyages?”

Manwë could feel Melian gearing up for another round as easily as Elwing could.

“That seems reasonable,” he said hastily. “Though we must add this restriction: neither of you may return to mortal lands.”

“No!”

She could feel Eärendil’s shock as sharply as her own at this unexpected restriction. Handed down by the Elder King himself, it was not one they could evade.

Their sons were still in the ‘mortal lands’! Going back for them had always been part of the plan. Even when she’d expected to die, she’d known Eärendil wouldn’t leave them on their own. 

“Together always,” he murmured in her ear, holding her. Whether it was meant to be comfort, support, or restraint so that she didn’t attack someone, she couldn’t tell. Perhaps it was all of that at once. But she could hear pain and loss in their longstanding promise now. 

Why? They’d been so close to everything coming right, and now she felt like she was right back to the beginning – a Silmaril hanging over her, and a sea she couldn’t cross between her and the ones she loved most.