Hi guys!

Sorry for the delay. I want to thank Celridel for her immense help editing this story as well as I want to thank d'elfe, Ducking Cute and Backstreet Girl for their encouraging reviews.

So, in the last chapter Laura gave the twins to the Feänorians so they raised as the princes they were; however, things changed little by little between the twins. What was it? And what about Eärendil's voyage to Válinor?

Waiting for your reviews, guys!


Chapter 5: Stonecatcher

Lindon, January, FA 542

Stars twinkled in the winter sky like pale corn in freshly turned earth. Elrond, now living with the Green-Elves, had begun to adopt their thoughts and ideals. They thought in terms of nature, in growing and green things, leaving stones and jewels for their Noldor brethren.

He studied the sky now, sitting cross-legged in the snow and holding a small fur cloak in his hands. He thought about the stars, how they had seen centuries and millennia flow by, but were still watching this small moment. And what did they see?

It was a question he could not answer, even after spending restless nights trying to discover himself from his childhood. He was three months shy of having lived seventeen years, but still felt more like a bundle of issues in the rough approximation of a man than anything else. Trying to decipher who he truly was from the convoluted, and often internecine, hieroglyphics of his past seemed like an impossible task, especially because of the gaps. Gaps in the shape of his mother and father, of Maglor, Mortissë, and even Maedhros.

It had taken him a long time to learn to trust the woman, but she had been kind in her own way, and he could still recall the tune of the song she had sung. For years after she had given them to the Fëanorians, he had seen a figure lurking in the shadows, but whenever he had tried to get close, it was gone.

After that, it had taken several years to grow to love Maglor but love him he had. He had also learned to sympathize with Maedhros. The world expected a monster when they saw the red-haired Elf, so Maedhros was forced to fit into that mold. He had been distant with the twins, kind but rarely present, and even when he was there, it was clear his mind was far away. But Elrond knew he valued them.

The barter with Gil-Galad had failed, as the High King of the Ñoldor had insisted he knew nothing of Elwing and had no Silmaril to trade with. However, after six years, Maglor had sent them to Balar anyways, trying to keep the twins from being entangled in the Oath, and all the monstrous consequences that it entailed. It had been difficult to leave, yet another parting away from someone he had grown to love.

But who Elrond missed most of all was his twin. Elros was still by his side, but something had come to split the bond they shared. Elros had begun to hold contact with the Secondborn, and his new delight was learning their customs and relaying it to Elrond with overflowing enthusiasm.

Elrond loved esoteric knowledge as much as the next, but his twin's sudden passion worried him. He understood the weighty decision their birth had foisted upon them. Now, the question was raising its ugly head again, at a time when he felt immensely vulnerable.


Flashback

'Elrond? I learned something today.'

Elrond scarcely glanced up from his book of poems. It had been a final gift from Maglor, and one that he treasured more than most of the world. 'What did you learn, Elros?' he mumbled, focusing on the words that leaped and skipped across the pages.

'The bitter-sweet gift of Men,' Elros said, crouching down in front of Elrond and plucking the book from his hand.

Elrond snatched it back, glaring at his brother, who seemed breathless with excitement. 'By which you mean death, I suppose?' he snapped.

'Yes.' Elros sat down, focusing on Elrond with the same intensity that a lens concentrates on sunlight. 'It is such an interesting idea.'

'Interesting?' Elrond asked scornfully. 'What it is is morbid. No one longs for death.'

'I think I would.' For one of the first times he could remember, Elrond saw that his brother's face was still and thoughtful. 'Why stay here and let Time wear me down? I can do great deeds and see great deeds be done, but even miracles grow old after a while.'

Elrond searched for words to say, his lips forming several shapes before he managed 'You can't mean what you are saying, Elros.'

Elros frowned. 'You...do not feel that way?' he asked, puzzled.

'No!' Elrond exclaimed angrily. 'No sane creature wants to die, Elros.'

'Death has many unfair connotations,' Elros protested. 'I do not wish to leave Ennor now, but when I have lived half a dozen Millenium and see that there is nothing new under the Sun? I think I would like to leave the Circles of this world?'

'Leave the Circles of the World?' Elrond mocked, fear making him furious. Elros looked hurt. 'Yes,' he said slowly. 'Yes...I do not know for sure, but I think...'

'You think?' Elrond laughed derisively. 'You think, Elros? You were never known for that.'

Elros leaped to his feet. 'I did not come here to be mocked, Elrond. I only wanted...to tell you something.'

Fear and anger dissolved at his brother's hurt, although they left a bitter residue in his mind. Elrond stood up quickly. 'Elros, I am sorry. No, I am. You startled me. I did not know what I was saying. Please.'

But Elros had disappeared out into the night.

End of Flashback


Vingilótë sailed alone through a grey formless world without mark or measure. The fog clung to her proud prow, damp and chilly and there were eyes on her, peering through the mist. They were not kind.

But the Silmaril on Eärendil's brow blazed with a divine light, slicing through the greyness, guiding Vingilótë on a straight and sure course through the black, lapping water. It glowed brighter and brighter as it drew nearer to the Válinor and the memory of the Two Trees, blazing with a light that made the sun only a dim memory. They came to the Enchanted Isles and escaped their enchantment; they came into the Shadowy Seas and passed their shadows, they looked upon Tol Eressëa the Lonely Isle but did not stay. And at the last, the holy light of the Silmaril stripped away all barriers, and Vingilótë cast anchor in the Bay of Eldamar.

There Eärendil and Elwing saw beauty beyond compare, and they gazed upon the white shores and green hills in open-mouthed awe. The loveliness of Válinor was beyond any singing of it, more beautiful than a man's most intoxicated fantasies, so fair that even the Silmaril's light seemed nothing compared to it.

They had come at last.

Eärendil struggled to find his voice, and to his ears, it sounded as harsh as an old raven when contrasted with the beauty before him. "Elwing, this is where we take our leave. You will stay, lest you fall under the wrath of the Valar. That peril I will take on alone, for the sake of the Two Kindreds."

He jumped over the side and waded through the breakers onto the beach, yet Elwing would not be stayed by words nor the wrath of gods. "Then would our paths be sundered forever!" she cried and leaped into the white foam and ran towards him. "All your perils are mine to share!"

Eärendil took her in his arms, his face full of sorrow. "Elwing," he whispered into her hair. "Elwing."

She tried to smile at him, but her eyes were fearful. "Husband and wife," she said, clutching his hands. "We go as husband and wife."

"Yet my wife will wait on the shore," Eärendil said. "Only one may bring the message, and that is my fate to bear."

"We are one in soul," Elwing said. "We will not fear when we are together."

"You can only approach gods on your knees," Eärendil said, gently disentangling her arms from him. "And there is a difference between fear and caution, Elwing. You must stay."

"I am not a dog!" she cried at him. "To go where you point and wait upon your command!"

"No dog," he agreed. "You are a wild bird, Elwing. Such is your nature and I love you for it, but you are a gull and not a phoenix. Please, for my sake if not for your own, wait here."

Her eyes fell. "I will wait for you."

When Eärendil looked back, she was standing in front of the sea, slim and straight as a spear, and very small against the crashing waves.

He turned his face away.


But all the land was still and quiet, and when he climbed the green hill of and found it bare. Tirion lay deserted, and he wandered through its empty and silent streets, feeling long-lost memories come swirling up, tugging at him. The white stone walls and terraces, the crystal stairs and springing fountains, the elegant marble statues, the needle-pointed towers and baroque buttresses that flung themselves to the sky...he had seen them before, when they were nearly as glorious, sculpted from his grandfather's memory.

But for all their grace and beauty, they were devoid of life, and he began to fear some evil had fallen on the Blessed Realm.

Eärendil felt creeping desperation. It came like a black wave, moving with a deadly, patient slowness, stealing distance when unwatched. He raked his hands through his hair, commanded his heart to slow.

Stairs stretched before him, a winding flight built of finest white stone, rising steadily upwards. Unhappily, he began to climb them, coming to a meadow whose grass was the green of summer memories. One side of the meadow was a great cliff that fell down towards where the sea boomed and roared restlessly. Birds sang, and the smell of flowers was on the breeze, but he saw no Elf.

The desperation was back at him, gnawing at his heart. If the Blessed Realm had fallen, then hope had died everywhere. There was nothing left.

"I am here!" he shouted. There were no echoes, his voice drifted out over the tranquil field and faded away there.

"I am here!" he shouted again, and then repeated it in every tongue he knew, until his voice was hoarse and his throat raw.

Then he heard a great voice calling to him, rolling like thunder across the grasses. "Hail Eärendil, of mariners most renowned, the looked for that cometh at unawares, the longed-for that cometh beyond hope! Hail Eärendil, bearer of light before the Sun and Moon! Splendour of the Children of Earth, star in the darkness, jewel in the sunset, radiant in the morning!"


When the son of Idril and Tuor had left Máhanaxar, his face the color of ghosts, trembling like moonlight on water, the Válar sat alone on their great thrones. They were beautiful, yes, and majestic, but terrible in all their beauty and majesty, for they were old gods, ancient when the oldest of the stars were newborn. The only reason that Eärendil's heart had not stopped in his chest and he fallen dead in the Ring of Doom was that they had taken on shapes that his eyes and mind could abide, hiding their light and splendor, which was beyond space and time and reason. It was their song dimensions danced to, their music that kept the galaxies in tune, their words that the cosmos shuddered and swung too.

Then Mandos spoke, the gentle, sad Guardian of the Halls. "Shall mortal Man step living upon the undying lands, and yet live?"

But from the other end of the Circle, Ulmo countered, "'For this he was born into the world. And say unto me: whether is he Eärendil Tuor's son of the line of Hador, or the son of Idril, Turgon's daughter, of the Elven-house of Finwë?"

"Equally the Noldor," Mandos answered, "Who went wilfully into exile, and may not return hither."

But before Ulmo, who loved the Elves greatly, could return his words, Manwë held up his hand in peace. His voice was like mellow thunder, a deep, bone-touching tone that rattled in the pillars and stones. "In this matter the power of doom is given to me. The peril that he ventured for love of the Two Kindreds shall not fall upon Eärendil, nor shall it fall upon Elwing his wife, who entered into peril for love of him; but they shall not walk again ever among Elves or Men in the Outer Lands. And this is my decree concerning them: to Eärendil and to Elwing, and to their sons, shall be given leave each to choose freely to which kindred their fates shall be joined, and under which kindred they shall be judged."

"Yet what of Eärendil Free-Chooser's plea? Is that then we shall aid those who have turned their faces from us?" Varda asked. In her voice was the echo of a distant wind strewn with stars, and yet she of all the Válar held the most ill-will against the Noldor.

"A child may desert his father, but a father may never desert his child," Ulmo said. "And never have they been truly alone. There are always those touched by a power beyond their knowing, those who go where the evilest wind blows to keep wickedness in check."

"Indeed," agreed Irmo, who dreamed dreams, divining the future through closed eyes. "And yet we should do more. Here we sit, calling ourselves Powers, and yet enslaving ourselves with dread and waiting. Shall we stand like children waiting for the wave to destroy their sandcastle, knowing it will come but not when? Shall we wait for the Fallen to strike and steal our thrones and overcome us all? Children may not erect a dike to hold off the sea, but we may rise in might and overthrow the greatest Darkness."

"And not all those who die beneath Melkor's lash are to blame. Is it not our duty to at the least to rid the world of the darkness we brought upon it?" said Tulkas, he who despises fear, who never turns his back on a sword and who laughs with joy when he heard war. "Shall we not claim justice for those who have fallen in blood and in fire?"

"Speak not anything rashly," protested Yavanna. "The Firstborn rushed to place their doom on their own heads. Shall we bend like reeds or shall we let them learn?"

"And what shall they learn?" Ulmo demanded. "For the love of family and freedom many set forth, and that love was set in their hearts and was not of their own doing, but of a hand greater than ours. And if we will not suffer them to return to Valinor until the sand of times scours the blood from their hands, let us at least make it so they may live until that time comes."

"Yes," Nienna agreed, who laments for all evils, who sheds tears for those who are forgotten in mortal days, whose sighs are wrought with canticles and lamentations. "Obdurate they might be, and ungrateful too, but few who dwell in Ennor are wholly wicked. Let us give them a sign, so they do not think we have forgotten them, and turn away from hope. We threw a stone, now let us catch it before it falls, before it is revealed that none of us here are without blame."


Waiting for your reviews, guys!