There were seashells on the ceiling.
Ariel stared at the unassuming treasures with not a little wonder. Had they always been there? Curious recollections of the night before touched her mind.
Oh, she dreamt she was in Aman!
There had been a tireless trek across the sand, and a seafood fare upon the table, and a far-off sunrise across the Sea, and a falling star upon the haven.
What a strange dream!
No sooner had Ariel thought so than the equal strangeness of her surrounds ensnared her consciousness.
Slowly, she sat up on the bed, disturbing the sheets about her. Just as slowly, she began to take note of the multitude of differences in the room.
The walls, most noticeably, were white sandstone instead of grey. A close correspondent was the ceiling, which explained the never-before-seen seashells embellishing the surface.
From the foot of the bed, her chest of possessions was markedly absent, and if Ariel peered inside the unfamiliar dresser, erected by the opposite wall, she could guess well enough that only the same dearth awaited her.
So her unconscious mind had not conjured yesterday's events. But what a dream, if it had been. What a fine story to be told!
Yet it seemed she was truly in Aman, which might make a finer story yet!
Ariel went to the balcony again. She found the harbour below astir. Market stalls had been erected on the beach, pale yellow sand interrupted by vibrant spurts of colour. Children at play zipped in between the brightly-dyed tents of blues and greens, their elven voices high with youth and glee.
Wonder filled Ariel's heart at the sound. No elven child had been born in Imladris since her mother, and none in Lothlórien since the days of the Watchful Peace, an Age agone. Most of the Galadhrim had followed their beloved lady over Sea, the great-grandmother Ariel had never met, and few now remained with her great-grandfather in East Lórien.
Only a handful of children had been born anew in Lasgalen since the passing of the Shadow. The Wood-elves there knew their king would one day take ship. Legolas had heard the call of the Sea. He would come, and his father would follow him, and they would follow their king.
Most would plant no new seeds in the forest they grieved to leave behind, but there were those who had brought forth new sprouts, one more memory in a woodland of memories.
Ariel thought it was surely the greater gift to remember. She had laughed and run beneath the Elvenking's leaves and climbed trees with those new sprouts. For though she was younger, she was taller. Elf-children grew at a snail's pace.
A knock on the door drew her attention. Ariel bid them enter, and not a moment later, the ladies who had diligently attended her the day before appeared.
Their greetings were cheery. "Good morning! Well, it is noon."
Ariel matched their cheer. "Good afternoon!"
They cleared the hearth and made the bed and bathed her again to tend her unwashed hair. She was given a selection of dresses to choose from, all as plain as before but variously coloured in greens and blues, yellows and whites, browns and greys. There were no reds.
Ariel chose a blue gown. Once dressed, the ladies went about drying her hair. It took some time, and they passed it in pleasant conversation. Ariel told them the current fashion in Gondor, which was whatever her mother wore. In Arnor, it was whatever Eldarion's wife wore, and in the kingdoms of Rohan and of Dale, it was whatever her queenly sisters wore.
By and by, Ariel's hair dried from roots to ends, and one of her companions went to fetch her brooch and girdle. The star was fixed to a silver chain and fastened around Ariel's neck, and the girdle secured at her hip, a chain of smaller stars connecting to a single white tree.
"For whom is that star, Araniel?" she was asked.
"For my people," Ariel answered. "It is the star of the Dúnedain."
"Whence came it?" inquired another, in a worrying tone of voice.
Ariel blinked in confusion, but told them: "From Elendil the Faithful, and to him from Tar-Minyatur."
That roused evident disquiet. For what reason, Ariel could only begin to guess.
"That star is known to us," came the strained admission, and no more was said.
Ariel did not pry, but curiosity flared within her. One of the ladies noticed and smiled.
"Put it out of your mind, child," she was advised, though the following words only served to intrigue her further: "Houses fall, and Ages pass. Grief lingers, but it is feeling and memory." Then the lady stood and said, "Come! Or shall we send for him? The lord Eärendil is without, and begs an audience."
All thoughts of the star fled from Ariel's mind.
"Eärendil!" she exclaimed.
She recalled her dream that was not a dream, and the falling star that was not a falling star.
It was Eärendil.
Eärendil the Mariner, Eärendil the Blessed — one of the great heroes of Ariel's childhood!
He was her grandfather. More than that, he was her great-grandfather. For Ariel was Arwen's daughter, and Arwen Elrond's daughter, and Elrond Eärendil's son.
"But what does he want with me?" she cried. "And how long has he been waiting?"
"I know not!" Her reaction seemed to have taken her companions by surprise. "And he is come with the sunrise, and has waited since!"
Ariel's eyes widened. She rushed to the balcony again. Shocked intakes of air sounded behind her, and when she reached the baluster, a hand wrapped around her arm and pulled her hastily backwards.
"Forgive me!" gasped the lady, and immediately released her. "I feared you would jump!"
"Jump!" Ariel said, startled. "I would die!"
Well, she might have risked it if she fell into the Sea, but it was the sand that would catch her fall here. But she had not planned to jump in the first place! She had only wished to catch a glimpse of Eärendil's legendary ship.
"It is said that the lady Elwing turns into a swan," her flustered saviour explained. "I thought you might take flight."
Ariel remembered the story. "I have not her magic!" she said laughingly.
But, inside, her heart was racing.
Elwing.
Elwing the White, who was once turned by the King of the Sea into a beautiful swan. She was the wife of Eärendil, and the mother of Elrond, which made her Arwen's grandmother, and Ariel's great-grandmother.
And who else? Who else was here?
Ariel knew who was not, but now she thought of who was. The White Ship had ferried away the lady Galadriel, and the lord Elrond with her. They were here, somewhere, or elsewhere.
Tol Eressëa was only a small island. There was a larger continent, she knew, a mainland where the Eldar lived and walked side-by-side with the Valar.
And — oh, Celebrían!
Celebrían, her mother's mother, who had passed over Sea long before Ariel was born. Nay, even longer than that — long before Ariel's father was born. Long before Ariel was even a thought!
And the Ring-bearers must be here, too, somewhere or elsewhere, if they still lived. Ariel dearly hoped they still lived. And Mithrandir!
Well! Now Ariel was quite determined to meet them all before she left.
She scanned the docks eagerly. There! A ship with a swan on the prow. The sails were said to be silver, but at present they were folded up. Vingilótë was her name, the fabled ship of Eärendil the Mariner.
Not inconsiderable wonderment filled Ariel. "I will go to him," she said at once.
It was mortifying to think of how long she had kept him waiting. Since sunrise, they said, but it was well past noon.
It was even more mortifying to think of sending for him.
So they brought Ariel down the same winding stairs they had brought her down the night before, but instead taking her to a private receiving room, it was to the same great hall they went.
A crowd had amassed within, perhaps as large as the crowd had been during the feast. There were voices upon voices, but someone spotted Ariel at the entryway and proclaimed, "Tinúviel! Undómiel! Eleniel is come!"
Another name! But Ariel would delight at this newest gift at a later time.
She was taller than almost everyone in the room, so it was not difficult to see over their heads. But even if she had not been, Eärendil's own height would have singled him out.
He was standing in the far side of the hall, just below the dais. Admirers fenced him on all sides, clamouring for his attention, and a shower of sunrays through the open windows at his back bathed his profile in a wash of golden light.
Ariel had never seen an elf with golden hair before. She thought Eärendil looked very fair in the Sun.
And he was easily a head taller than the tallest elf in the room, for all that he was only half one.
At the proclamation, his head had whipped around to the doorless doorway where Ariel had stopped to gawp. Even across the room, she saw his eyes were blue as the Sea.
"Ariel," Eärendil breathed.
A hush had fallen over the busy hall. Ariel could hear her own heartbeat, slowing in her chest. Eärendil was staring at her in abject wonder.
Half a heartbeat passed, then he was crossing the room in quick strides. The crowd dutifully parted for him, and soon enough he was standing within arm's reach.
A great well of curiosity quickly overwhelmed Ariel's awe. The wonder in Eärendil's eyes did not abate, but inflate. A thousand expressions seemed to flicker there: sorrow, joy, hope beyond hope, and love, bewilderingly.
But what was this love? He did not know her, and Ariel did not know him.
"I never thought..." Eärendil's voice was thick with some emotion. Ariel waited with bated breath, struck by such interest she felt as though she should hold in air in anticipation, but he did not finish his sentence.
He pulled her into his arms and embraced her.
Oh!
Ariel had not expected that.
Eärendil was taller than her father, and broader yet. She might have thought he would feel cold for his daily voyages in the heavens — was not the air freezing, so high up? — but enveloped in his arms, Ariel found, rather, he felt entirely too warm.
In her shock, she had gone very still. Eärendil did not seem discouraged by her lack of reciprocation. When he released her, his eyes roamed her face with immense pleasure, and when his hands came up to cup her cheeks, it was done with utmost tenderness.
"Daughter," he said with quiet marvel. "Daughter."
Daughter! But she was. She was. His only one. The realisation caught Ariel unawares. She had thought of him only as her kinsman from afar. She had not thought of what she must have meant to him. For Eärendil should never meet her mother, nor yet her sisters.
He looked and looked at her, and wondrously, he professed, "I never thought to meet you. Long have I watched over you, and your sisters and brother, and their children, and your mother and father, and I knew we should never meet. I knew, yet I hoped, but I never thought. But, love, my love, how come you here?"
Ariel found the words after a moment. "By Sea."
Privately, she was marvelling. Eärendil watched over them! Nightly, by his own account, dusk unto dawn. Her mother would be comforted to hear it. The Evenstar had always loved best the Gil-Estel for whom Ariel's father had been named in his secreted youth.
"By Sea!" Eärendil's astonishment was clear as the waters of Belegaer, and he asked her: "And what brought you?"
"The Sea," answered Ariel.
"The Sea." This, too, he uttered with voiceless wonder. The astonishment had taken his volume. Eärendil embraced her again. "Would I could enter the Deep to give thanks to the Dweller," he murmured against her hair, "but why?" And then he pulled away again to look over her in concern. "You are well? You are unhurt?"
"I am well," said Ariel.
Eärendil looked relieved. He released her then. If he remembered their audience, he did not show it, or did not care.
What did one say to a great-grandfather newly acquainted? Ariel thought of the one she knew, but the one she knew was as close to her heart as her own father was close.
Celeborn had cradled her at birth, had carried her at his hip, had held her hand beneath the trees, had sung her songs to sleep. That love was without thought, even without breath. It was part of her fëa, the ancient silver branch in the tree of her spirit.
Eärendil was not a new branch, but newfound, as if long buried in the earth and now dug up.
Ariel would dig them all up, and a forest for her!
But first things first. "Eärendil—"
His face fell.
It was as the Sun shrouded by rain clouds. Ariel wanted to laugh at him, but she kept her hilarity to herself. She thought of her favourite grandfather across the Sea and the stern upbraiding the lord of Lórien would have treated her to if she had ever presumed to call him by his name.
So Ariel corrected her address with all due respect, and not without a newfound rush of affection: "Grandfather," she said, "do the hobbits still live?"
Eärendil blinked. "The hobbits!" he said. The laughter seemed to have been startled out of him.
"Do they still live?" Ariel pressed.
"They do," Eärendil told her. "Shall we pay them a visit?"
Ariel gaped. She dared not believe it. "Are they here?" she gasped. But that was entirely too good to be true!
Eärendil's ocean eyes were full of mirth. "They are!"
So together they went from the tower of Avallónë and round to the greening hill beyond. The sand sloped at a gradual incline and grew biddably denser the closer they drew to dirt and packed earth.
Plains of waving grass greeted them from above, dusted with golden sprinkles of sand here and there, but lush green by far. Sea thrifts and spring quills flowered along the hillside in pink and purple spreads, painting a pastoral scene that might have come straight from one of the idyllic murals that decorated the walls of Imladris.
Ariel thrilled at the sight, though Eärendil seemed not to notice any of it. His eyes seldom strayed from hers, if at all, and he gazed upon her as though she were a flower fairer than the Sun.
Elo! But what was this love? It was a parent's love, or a second Sun inside her, feeding all things within that were green and growing.
Ariel had seen that look before, in Celeborn her grandfather whenever he should gaze upon her sister, who alone of Arwen's daughters walked in Celebrían's long gone likeness, silver-crowned as their grandmother had been and tall as a birch tree.
What a gift!
They walked and talked, and Eärendil asked question after question after Ariel's family, who must be his family, too, just to hear of them from her. He proved merry enough, and easy to bring to laughter, and Ariel felt light as air.
She was on Eressëa, and she was going to meet the hobbits.
The hobbits!
Ariel had seen hobbits before, of course, for some still dwelled in Bree-land and she knew them to be Bree-hobbits, and there were those adventurous Tooks and studious Fairbairns who were often guests of her brother in Annúminas, but these were no ordinary hobbits.
These were the Ring-bearers.
Every child of every race must surely know their names. Ariel had known them in the womb and then in the cradle, from stories told by her mother, by her father, by her uncles, by Legolas and by Gimli.
She had never thought to meet them. By the time Ariel was born, the last of the Ring-bearers had long ago passed over Sea.
And yet!
Here she was, and the Sea was singing, and the Sun was shining, and Ariel was jittery with a certain kind of excitement.
Up the grassy hillock they went, past rows of coastal blooms, and round at last to a high knoll that looked ever eastwards, and so ever homewards.
Ariel saw it and clapped her hands together. She laughed in delight. How wonderful!
There, built into the hillside, was a round green door.