Work Text:
Elwing stands beside the tower that is her home in the failing light of a golden afternoon. She waits for the approaching Elf to come to her.
She knows who he is. She would recognise that red hair anywhere (red hair blowing in the sea breeze, a bloodied hand reaching out to her, and those eyes, eyes like stone, no, like the cracks in stone, hard and wild and so tired).
It is Maedhros who is winding his way up the shore towards her. The same as on that fateful day, yet not. She can see the light in him now, a warm, mellow glow that was not there before. She thinks it is the blood of Melian in her veins that gives her this gift—she understands people down to the beating heart of them, though like Lúthien before her she treasures her solitude. Or perhaps it is not a gift at all but a byproduct, an afterthought, a remnant of the touch of the Silmaril against her skin: that great jewel like a white flame in the palm of her hand that changed her, shaped her, made her what she is today.
She thinks of the Silmaril on her husband’s brow, of all the loss that it has caused (the nightmares that not even the sweet air of Valinor can heal, of dark and cold and salt, of her beautiful baby boys).
She realises that Maedhros is speaking to her. She blinks, forcing herself to pay attention to his words.
“I hope I am not intruding, lady,” he says with a pleasant smile, and Elwing feels an itch beneath her skin, a memory that jars, a sense of missing puzzle pieces.
She crosses her arms over her chest. “You are.”
Maedhros winces. His façade drops, just a little bit, and he glances away from her towards the glittering sea. Something in the core of her softens at the sight, without her permission.
“I will not accept your apology,” she tells him, and what she means is I do not need your apology and I have moved on from you.
“I know,” he replies. “That is not why I am here.”
There is a pause. The gulls cry overhead and the waves break foaming on the shore. Elwing knows that he is waiting for her to speak. He wants her to ask him Then why are you here?, wants her to make this easy for him. She isn’t going to. She stands in silence, stares at him with eyes that are too bright, too holy (for she died, she was so sure that she died in that cold, dark water, but then she was flying, alive, blinding, a streak of light and fate soaring higher and higher and higher.)
“Elrond and Elros would have made you proud,” Maedhros says eventually. He looks at her, briefly, but cannot endure her gaze for long.
Her heart jumps at the mention of those two names, those two perfect names for her perfect little boys that she cradled in her arms (that she kissed one last time, pressed her cold lips to each of their foreheads and said go and hide and don’t look back).
“I wouldn’t know,” she says in response.
She wants this to end, she realises suddenly. She wants to be on her own. It always felt right, keeping her own company, but now it feels like she must be alone, otherwise she will split apart at the seams, otherwise a second self will emerge from the ruins of the first and she will be lost.
Eärendil is the exception, the only person whose presence she does not mind. He does not understand, not entirely—he was not there when the waters ran red and she told her boys to run—but he knows what to say, he knows how to touch her and when to keep his distance; and that is enough.
They are two people made anew by fate.
Sometimes, when she thinks about it for too long, Elwing wants to scream.
“We took care of them,” Maedhros adds, bringing her back to him, to what he is trying to tell her. “We loved them.”
There is something like pleading in his voice. Elwing tilts her head, pins him with a bright stare like a bird might, a not entirely human gesture. In that moment, she is less flesh than stone.
“So did I.” She cuts him off when he opens his mouth to speak again. “Go, Fëanorion. This visit was for your benefit and not mine. We had a part in each other’s lives, and in the fate of the world, but that time is now long gone. Let the past be past.”
He bows low before her. She does not move.
She watches him as he goes back the way he came, until he is no more than a speck on the darkening horizon.
There is a tightness in her ribcage, something that shifts and prickles over her skin and under it, something that seeps into her bones and makes them restless.
She will be a bird tonight. She will take to the skies, wide and empty and dappled with stars like little lanterns; she will perch upon her husband’s shoulder, or fly ahead of him, or leave him to seek the company of the seabirds that are her friends.
She will look at the world blurring below her in shades of blue and grey, she will feel the air rushing through her feathers, and for a moment, the blink of an eye, a beat of her fluttering bird’s heart, she will be free.