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Chapter Text

“Follow me!” Elwing called to her sons as she led them away from their home. The fighting hadn’t reached them yet, so they managed to get out without challenge. In one of Elwing’s hands, wrapped in a thick cloth that nearly concealed the light, was the Nauglamir and Silmaril, the reason they were currently under attack. Even if it was hopeless, Elwing had to do everything she could to make sure the Sons of Fëanor didn’t get their hands on it.

When they had gotten far enough away, Elwing stopped and turned to her sons. “Run and hide, and don’t come out until the High King or I come to get you,” she told them. “Do you understand?” Elrond and Elros both nodded, and Elwing pulled them into a hug and kissed them both one last time. “Now, go!”

Elwing watched them as they ran off. She hoped that they would find a good hiding place, and that Gil-Galad would arrive soon. She wasn’t so naive to think she would be able to come back for them. Then she started running along the shoreline.

She reached a place where the ground rose in a sheer cliff above the water and looked back. She saw the Havens–her home since she had been three years old–in flames. Smoke billowed from several of the buildings, and she could hear screaming over the sound of waves crashing against the cliff far below. Elwing grieved for the loss of her home and the last safe place in Beleriand.

There was movement nearby and Elwing’s stomach dropped as she realized she hadn’t managed to escape the Havens unseen. Three soldiers in Fëanorian armor surrounded her on all sides except the side facing the sea, which was the edge of a cliff. Elwing clutched the bundle containing the Silmaril to her chest and backed toward the edge.

The leader of the Fëanorian soldiers was the tallest of the three. His red hair that came out from under his helmet shone in the evening sunlight. He held his sword in his left hand, as he didn’t have a right hand. Terror froze Elwing in place as she realized that she was in the presence of one of the monsters who had haunted her nightmares since childhood.

“Lady Elwing,” said Maedhros, “It’s a shame that our first meeting is under these circumstances, but you know what we want. Give us the Silmaril and we will let you go free.”

Elwing didn’t believe him, and her mind raced as she considered her options. If she tried to run, they’d kill her and take the Silmaril. If she threw the Silmaril off the cliff, it would be lost and she would be at the mercy of the Fëanorians. If she gave them the Silmaril, then the deaths of her parents, her brothers, and many other people would have been for nothing. The four of them stood still for several seconds. Elwing marveled briefly that they gave her time to think instead of simply killing her and taking the Silmaril. Did they actually intend to let her go free if she surrendered it? No. More likely they just wanted to toy with her now that she was trapped. Elwing came to the conclusion that there was only one thing she could do.

Elwing slowly unwrapped the cloth bundle while Maedhros and the two other soldiers looked on expectantly. When she finally dropped the cloth to reveal the Silmaril, it shone brightly. The sudden light seemed to dazzle the soldiers long enough for Elwing to put the Nauglamir over her head and take a few running steps toward the edge of a cliff. Maedhros yelled at her to stop, and the soldiers on either side of her moved to try to cut her off, but Elwing was already too close to the edge. With one last leap, the ground under her ended and she was airborne.

As Elwing started to fall, she heard another voice calling out. Not Maedhros or one of the other soldiers, but a much more familiar voice yelling, “Mother, no!”

Her sons hadn’t hidden as she told them to. They’d followed her.

She had led them right into the hands of the Fëanorians.

The Fëanorians would kill them.

Elwing hit the water.

Chapter Text

Elwing was surprised to discover that she was still alive. She was underwater, but she could see where the surface was and swam toward it. When she broke through the surface and could breathe again, she found that she floated on the surface much more easily than usual without needing to tread water. She could feel that she was still wearing the Silmaril. Elwing looked around and saw that the current had taken her quite a ways from the shore. She glanced down at the water and was startled to see a face under the surface looking up at her. Upon closer inspection, she realized it looked like Ulmo as Tuor had described him in his stories. That meant Ulmo must have been the one to save her when she fell into the ocean. She tried to talk to him, but the sounds that came out of her mouth were more like sounds a bird would make than like words. She looked down at her body and realized she was covered in white feathers. She stretched out her arms–which up to that point she hadn’t noticed had been folded close to her body–and saw that they were shaped like wings, complete with flight feathers. She looked closer at her distorted reflection on the surface of the water and saw that not only was her head smaller than expected, but there was something long and narrow sticking out from it–a beak perhaps? Ulmo had saved her and turned her into a bird.

When Elwing looked back at where Ulmo had been, he was gone. She tried flapping her wings a few times in an attempt to take off but nothing happened. It took her many tries to move her wings in the right way to leave the surface of the water and not immediately land again, and by the time she managed it, the sun had nearly set and there was no longer any sound of fighting. She circled low over the waves, and started to get used to being in a bird’s body. She could steer with her tail, and she could flap her wings or hold them out straight to glide.

Once she was comfortable in the air, Elwing flew back toward the land. Her home was almost completely destroyed. She could see several scattered survivors, but no sign of her sons. She flew back to where she had jumped into the ocean but did not find their bodies. Had the Fëanorians thrown them over the edge as well? Elwing mourned the loss of her sons and her inability to help her people as a bird. All she could do was take the Silmaril as far away from the Fëanorians as possible.

Elwing wondered if she could fly to Valinor. Would the Valar let her in if she was a bird? Or if she carried a Silmaril? Perhaps she could try to find Eärendil somewhere in the vast expanse of ocean. At the very least she could take the Silmaril far enough out to sea before succumbing to exhaustion that the Sons of Fëanor would never get it. As the sun fully sank beneath the western horizon, Elwing flew after it.