They watched the ship until the westering sun dyed the sails pale gold - pale gold, like her hair. Neither of his children had inherited that gleam, mistaken for silver in all but the best lights. But to Elrond her hair had always been golden, as it had been in the setting sun where he first saw her.
Only Arwen remained with him - the rest of their party had abandoned the pier for happier company at Cirdan's table. He would go in to dinner soon, but not yet. Not while he could still see that distant triangle of sail. Arwen had stopped trying to talk to him hours ago, when the wind finally picked up and drove the ship further out to sea, further towards Valinor.
So it was a shock when he heard her calmly say, "Grandmother would like to talk to you now."
Elrond stared out to sea, without turning around.
"Tell Galadriel that I do not wish to speak with her."
The wound was still too fresh. Celebrian had her mother's eyes - he did not think he could bear to look into those eyes and retain his hard-won composure.
"No, not her." Arwen's voice was strained, fearful. "My other grandmother."
Elrond turned, to see a huge white gull perched on the end of the pier. Blue eyes glittered, sharp yellow beak parted. For a moment, he was gripped by wonder. And then his recent hurt tore open ancient wounds; wounds he had thought long healed.
"I have no wish to speak with HER either," he said.
But there were five thousand years of hurt pent up in his heart, and too soon it escaped as bitter words.
"Now you come to speak to me. Now. Where were you when I was taken by the sons of Feanor? Where were you when Elros made the choice that separated us forever? Where were you when he died?" The gull opened her beak, but could not stem the flood. "Where were you then, mother? When your grandsons and great-grandsons many times over lived and loved and died, what did you do for their pain? When Isildur fell into shadow, when my king died in my arms? It took me three thousand years to learn to love. Because I learned nothing about how adults loved from you, only about self-indulgent folly."
Arwen put her hand on her father's shoulders, but she could have been mist for all he noticed her.
Elrond turned away from Elwing, and stared out to sea. "And now my only love is going west, despite all that I could do to try to heal her. And now you come to me." He took a deep, pain-wracked breath. "So what do you have to say for yourself?"
Elwing opened her beak. No harsh cry came out, nor intelligible voice. Yet the shushing of the waves hushed, and then words could be heard like the whispers of a thousand women. "Come away, there is another ship. If you loved her, go to her. Only then will you and she be healed, in Valinor."
Elrond's shoulders stiffened. He turned, and for the first time in weeks looked Arwen square in the eyes. She saw pain, and determination.
"So, mother. You are advising me to abandon my duties, and my children, for the sake of love." He closed his eyes, then spun and faced Elwing.
"I am not like you! Or Earandil! I do not abandon those I love who need me." He paused, and swallowed. "I am the one who is always left behind. If you loved me, loved us, you would have stayed."
Elwing began to cry, great screams that could be human wails. A gem slid from one eye, then the other. They came in streams, tumbling down the rough wood of the pier to slip into the waves, through the cracks.
Elrond's was not impressed. "Things! After all these years, and all you offer me is things! Baubles and jewels." He turned away.
"Those rocks you and father carry were the excuse for the kinslaying. That damned ring killed Eregion, and Numenor, and Isildur and.. and my king. And now I ask you for nothing more than time, and all you give me is more rocks."
Elrond turned his back to the gull, and stared at the distant triangle of sail, red in the last light of the setting sun.
"The stars will be rising soon. Go. Go and trouble me no more. It's too late, mother. I've learned to live without you, and I'm not leaving my children behind."
He turned towards her once more. "I will never leave my children behind, to uncertain fate. I am better than that."
Elwing gave a harsh cry, almost a sob. She launched into the sky, winging towards the distant sail and the western sky. Elrond watched her for a moment, then turned towards the boathouse, and the lights of Cirdan's feast. He saw Arwen crouched on the deck, where the gull's tears had fallen.
Arwen held out her hand. The gems glimmered with a white light, pale as the stars yet still visible against the fires of the setting sun. Elrond clenched his teeth and his fists.
"What do you wish... what can we do with your mother's gift?"
Elrond was disgusted with the awe in her voice.
"I don't care! Do you understand nothing? I want nothing to do with her gifts. String them on a necklace, put them in a jar and give them to your grandmother; I do not care. She is nothing to me now, as I was nothing to her then." He stomped past her, the decking of the pier creaking beneath his fury.
Arwen turned out to sea in time to see the sun slip beneath the horizon, and the white-winged gull rise to meet the evening star, Earandil. For a moment his starlight and the light in the jewels in her hands were the brightest things in existence.
Then she went inside, to comfort her father in his grief.