Space was quiet and calm, much the sea on a mellow summer's day. Noise from Varda's stars was like the lapping of waves on the prow of Vingilot, as it cut through the ether as he sailed westward once more. Another day, the same journey over and over again. Sometimes different stars burned brighter, other times the dull ever-present star-noise was almost musical. The earth and seas below, appearing like a delicately drawn map to his eyes, always seemed tranquil from his place above. Of course there were times when he saw storms brewing and volcanos erupting, but such events were fleeting and impersonal. He sometimes caught himself finding beauty in the destruction; a worrisome notion no doubt cause by his proximity to the Doors of Night and the Void beyond.
The best, yet most awkward days were the ones where he crossed paths with Arien or Tilion. They would yell meaningless pleasantries and small talk across the ever-wide gulf of space, with each exchange initiated by himself. They would end quickly and artlessly, with Eärendil drifting onward feeling pitied but not so lonely anymore.
But those days were rare. Most days he spent were uneventful, lacking in anything that could stir him, physically or emotionally. The tedium of a thousand so years was getting to the Mariner, each journey inducing in him deeper and deeper melancholy that not even the light of Valinor could dispel.
For, you see, a journey undertaken in a place so safe and soothing, without companions, without demanding work, leaves a person with only their thoughts and themselves.
It was natural for him to reflect on himself and his past actions, after he had thought every inane thought already over the past thousand years. And Eärendil was an elf with many regrets.
"When did it all go wrong?" he murmured into the cold twilight. It swallowed up his words greedily, and seemed to hunger for more. Lost in himself, Eärendil did not notice this.
"Was it when Gondolin fell?" he considered aloud, leaning on the rail of the ship, his arms folded atop each other. "While horrible, I doubt that was it."
"When the Silmarils were foraged," suggested a voice, weak and scratchy, floating out of the darkness above his head.
"Too broad," Eärendil dismissed firmly. "I could have been happy even with the Silmarils causing havoc."
There was a pause before the voice responded. "Ah, but not with your wife. Having one was her identity, wasn't it?"
Eärendil stiffened, his hands gripping his arms tightly. "Being Elwing was her identity," he snarled back, defensive.
"There were other women to choose," the voice crooned. "Other women who could have made you happy. But you chose her, and then she caged you. You fled from freedom."
"I ran towards love!" Eärendil yelled, filled with emotion. He tore away from the railing and paced around the deck.
The voice tsked, the cold click snapping across his face. "Then why did you forsake her for your parents?"
Eärendil flinched. An oppressive smuggness filled the silence as he failed to summon a defense.
"You used her to play house. You wanted to pretend that you were the adult everyone said you were, when you were really just a child unable to let go of his own parents."
"I loved my parents!" Eärendil cried, a hand flying up to grasp at his heart. "Was it so awful that I wanted to see them well? That I wanted closure if they were not?"
"Did Elwing not love her little brothers?" the voice retorted gently. "Was her love for them insufficient because she did not go searching for them?"
"No! Of course not!" Eärendil replied, agast.
"She handled her loss maturely, more like the Second born do," the voice stated somewhat condescendingly. "For the elf who wished to become mortal, your behaviour is most unlike theirs."
The noisy silence of space returned as the ship drifted forward at a lazy pace. Eärendil, thoroughly chastised, went around checking the knots for the sail, and the position of the rudder. He expected that the dialogue he experienced was finished.
"What do you think of a child having to be a parent?" the voice asked, now sounding stronger and deeper, carrying more presence in it.
Eärendil jumped, now wary of the strange voice. He looked about, but could see no one.
"Who are you?" he asked, alert, as he searched for his sword as subtly as he could.
"That's not an answer to my question now is it?" the voice replied, amused.
"You are no Maiar, for none choose to come out here," Eärendil began to think aloud. "Nor are you one of the Valar, for I know their voices as well as I know my own."
"Now do not dare think me to be Eru," the voice warned angerly. "It rubs salt into the wounds."
Sheer panic coursed through Eärendil as he realised who he was talking to. He wanted to run as far away as he could manage, but he couldn't bring himself to move.
"Ah, I see that it clicked," mocked the voice. "I am disappointed though. Eärendil the Mariner, Slayer of Ancalagon the Black, largest and most fearsome of my dragons, is quaking in his boots over my mere voice. Be at ease brat. All that can reach you is my plain words."
Eärendil found himself falling onto the deck as he collapsed, drained. "Wh-why now? Why talk to me now?"
A chuckle rang in his ears. "Why now? A good question. For the longest time I hated you. After all, your journey West was the beginning of my downfall. It brought me great joy to find you stuck up here, away from your precious seas, and unable to live a free and proper life. And your continuing pain still does!"
The Mariner scowled at the gleeful declaration. "I am not in pain."
"Oh really?" the voice crowed. "You resent your wife for trapping you in this role, forever stuck in the sky with only a moment of loving contact. And you feel guilty about resenting her, since you choose to be with her. You choose this life."
"Elwing deserves happiness," Eärendil murmured. "If we did not stick together, then she'd never be happy again."
"Really?" the voice scoffed.
"Yes, really!" Eärendil snapped, glaring at the darkness above. "She has her own guilt, her own regrets. I am not one of them."
"What about your sons?"
The elf flinched and looked down, as if avoiding eye contact. "She regrets leaving them behind." he responded, subdued.
"What about you?" the voice queried, a note of genuine inquisitiveness colouring its tone. "Do you regret leaving them behind?"
"Every damn day!" Eärendil yelled forcefully, tears welling up and choking him. A strangled noise left him as he inhaled, trying to regain control over his emotions. But the tears kept flowing. "Every damn day I think of how things would be if I stayed, if I went back for them. But I did not, and I lost the chance to be their father!"
The elf's muted sobbing filled the silence as his conversation partner seemed to contemplate him, unsure of what to say or do.
"You cared for them," the voice finally said after a long silence.
"Damn it, of course I cared for them!" Eärendil cried hoarsely as he slammed a fist into the deck, as if to punctuate the remark. "They are my children, mine and Elwing's! I love them!"
"And yet you abandoned them, along with their mother, to chase after your parents."
"I know," he whispered.
"You should have let them go. You should have stayed with your wife and children."
"I know," he said a little louder.
"Instead you left them at the mercy of your enemies, who took them in and did the job that you were unwilling to do!"
"I KNOW!" he screamed, hiding his face in his hands. "I know. I am aware of my failures. I curse my childishness every day. I lament my loss. But nothing I do now, no amount of awareness on my part, can bring them back to me."
The boat continued its course slowly, the star-noise lapped at its sides, and the silence dragged on so long that Eärendil figured that he has lost his conversation partner.
"You said you hated me," he said in a whispered croak. "Not hate, hated. What changed?"
The silence continued as if it had never been broken, and Eärendil finally slumped in defeat, gazing at the stars ahead. Valinor was close by, no more than 10 leagues away. He would have to prepare for the approach.
"You made me sympathise you."
Eärendil jumped, surprised that he was still around.
"It has been said that evil cannot comprehend good, but I think I can understand you. Your abandonment of your new family to pursue your old is your greatest sin. But it was done out of misguided love and natural obliviousness. You could not see how your wife was suffering until it was too late. Your determination to make it up to her lost you your children."
There was a pause, but Eärendil felt no anxiety. Instead, there was a budding serenity growing inside him, as he waited for the voice to finish his thoughts.
"Besides, your melancholy is infectious. By the hundredth year I couldn't get any joy from your misery! You were a hero yet were as caged as I! I pitied you, until I realised that I might as well have pitied myself. Even so, I did not want to assume where your sadness came from. That's what this conversation was for."
Eärendil nodded slightly, a small smile crossing his face. He stood up and faced the darkness above.
"Shall we speak again in the future?" the elf asked, surprising himself.
"Don't get too cocky, elf!" the voice snapped, sounding fainter. "This was a one-in-a-thousand-years kind of thing! You should be worried if I talk to you often! How do you know I'm not trying to get out of here as we speak?"
Eärendil laughed, adjusted the sails, and took his place at the ship's rudder. "So this is goodbye then," he murmured.
"It is," the voice replied, and odd softness in its tone. "Farewell Eärendil the Mariner"
"Farewell Melkor," he said quietly to the dark.
Varda's stars winked at him, and Eärendil could see the silhouette of Valinor before him. Elwing would fly up to greet him, he would spend a few precious hours with her before going to sleep. Another day gone by, only for the next one to be exactly like the one before it. The never-ending drudgery of it all sparked a burst of anger in Eärendil's chest, but he quickly doused it; slowly he realized how the conversation had affected him.
"This job is driving me mad," Eärendil said aloud with a wry chuckle, leaning against the stern. "I was looking forward to talking to Morgoth!"