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Valinor was all brightness: the clear air, the shining sea. Elwing seemed to stumble at every turn upon some new marvel - a sea-cave that at noon each day blazed suddenly like a jewel, glass and mirrors channelling the light for a brief and glorious hour; an orchard laden with vines and flowers that, she was told, had been carefully tended to flourish and blossom for more than a thousand years.
A thousand years! Elwing had tried to accept the kindness of her sundered kindred, their horror and sympathy; had not known how to say - to ask - how could anybody, a thousand years of peace -
The sunrise was breathtaking. Elwing watched it in silence, her chest a terrible ache of hurt and shame; her own body feeling strange and wrong, as if part of her had never changed back, and no longer knew how to take human form.
It was easy to tell when Eönwë was near to her. Elwing ignored him as long as she could, wrapping her arms around herself, nails digging into her flesh; and then turned, the incoming tide washing away the wet marks left by her feet in the sand.
“Lord Eönwë - “
“Please,” he said, unsmiling. “You and your husband have done us a great service. You have no need to offer me honorifics.”
A pause. Elwing dug her nails harder into her arms; forced herself to meet Eönwë’s gaze. He was – unnervingly direct, standing blade-straight, with none of the small hesitations or attempts to break the silence most people would have offered; he looked, she thought, perfectly content to wait as long as she required.
His time was valuable, she thought, even so. Eönwë had, as far as she could tell, been waiting a long time for the war the Valar were finally preparing; it had been selfish, to ask him to leave his work aside to speak with her like this.
Elwing forced herself into speech.
“I – Eönwë, then,” she tried, “in that case – I wanted to ask – “
A tilt of the head; that disconcerting clear-eyed regard.
“My children,” Elwing said, at last, desperately. “I know that – it hardly makes sense, to ask if the dead are well, but – they must have come to Mandos, and if there is anything at all, that you can tell me – “
Forcing the words out was almost unbearable. She wanted to say, let them go, or take me to them; she wanted to say no, I can’t, I don’t want to have you say it and know –
Eönwë watched her; and then, so unexpectedly that Elwing stalled mid-speech, smiled at her, looking gently pleased.
“But your children are alive, Elwing,” he said.
She –
For a moment, she could hardly breathe. Relief, so intense it shook her, left her staggering back a pace on the sand; the world turned grey, and then somehow Eönwë was holding her shoulders to stop her falling, looking concerned, now.
“Elwing – Elwing, are you – “
“What are they – “ Joy welled up inside her; she laughed, shakily. “Did Gil-galad find them? He would have come, I know he would have come – or Círdan – “
Eönwë looked a little relieved himself, to be asked a question he could answer. “No. The sons of Fëanor took them in – that is, Maedhros and Maglor – “
“What.”
Elwing’s snarl reverberated across the beach; a pair of seagulls bobbing nearby on the waves broke into started flight, skimming away to settle again at a wary distance.
“Maglor and his brother are caring for them,” Eönwë said, a faint uncertainty in his voice. “Elwing, you seem – “
“Caring for them – as if it were not enough for them to be murderers, is there nothing they do but take and take, they, those orcs – “
Elwing could hear her own voice rising towards a howl; restrained herself with an effort. She felt bright and weightless with anger, flaring up inside her like a white flame; turned and paced back and forth along the shore, shallow waves washing now and then against her feet.
“I had thought the news would please you,” Eönwë was saying, and she spun to face him. At her expression he took a step back.
“My children in the hands of my family’s murderers,” Elwing hissed, “and you thought it would please me – “
She took a breath. Tears prickled at her eyes; she forced them down.
There was real confusion in Eönwë’s expression. “You were glad to know they were alive. I don’t understand – “
“No,” Elwing snapped. “You don’t. If you did then we – I didn’t do you any service, Lord Eönwë, we didn’t do it for the Powers, we did it because – “
She broke off.
“I’m going to find my husband,” she said, and turned and ran across the beach; trying to think of Eärendil, and not of the Havens burning, and the Kinslayers bloody-handed, and that last step out into nothing, as she held the light to her and fell into the air; and fell, and fell, before she flew.