Some folks should never be trusted with children, even their own. Unfortunately, Earendil and Elwing fall into this category, not for want of trying though. Earendil tries to be a good father but fails on all counts.
My Little Starfishes
Honestly, I have no experience in child-rearing – Mannish, Elven, or mixed. Still, I was alarmed when at the age of four and a half, my sons were still unable to speak. All they did was babble to each other in no known language. I even got Cirdan to visit in case they picked up some Avarin or obscure Mannish tongue from their nurses. My sons seem to go through their nurses at a most alarming rate. Every time I am in town, I meet a different set of nursemaids attending to my children.
I tried to speak with Elwing about my concerns. She shut me out of the room after I suggested I take the boys on my next sailing trip. I mean, surely it will be a good start to give them their sea-legs early in life. No, I definitely did not think that one through. On hindsight. A ship is the last place a toddler should be.
Using his rugged charms, Cirdan managed to convince the nursemaids to leave the boys with him for an afternoon on the shore, which was probably the only time I got to see them. Not sure if they remembered me picking up starfish from the rock pools and showing it to them, or that sea urchin one of them stepped on. I could not tell them apart. I mean, they were identical. Wonder if this had any influence on their decision to choose differently in their Choice.
Not sure what exactly went wrong but I was shocked to learn from Cirdan Elwing has not yet got round to naming our sons too apart from embroidering 'El' on both their bibs before losing interest. The nurses named them both El and stitched the same this on all their clothes. So my boys had no actual names for the six years they were in her care. I do hope she was not intending to name them for her lost brothers. Scribbling up a whole list of names for consideration during my long hours at sea, only for Lord Osse to wash it overboard.
Elwing? By now, we had given up on her sanity. She spent her time locked up in the top of her tower with the Silmaril. That tower was like a flipping lighthouse for miles about. I was informed much, much later that Maedhros wrote a letter to Elwing demanding she stop flaunting the gem and provoking their Oath. Of course, the letter went ignored.
The boys spent their nights with their mother, but otherwise they were left to the care of their nurses in the lower tower. No need to bother her in the day now both boys were weaned. Hardly any visitors, no playmates their age, just shut up in their little nursery with each other. Aunt Galadriel tried to talk sense into her, but Elwing would have none of it. Aunt Galadriel has no child of her own to speak of and no experience with younger siblings. Aunt Galadriel left the tower after giving me her implicit support should I decide to bundle my sons onto Vingilote and bring them to Balar so they might start growing like proper elflings should be doing. She even offered to look after the boys should I run afoul of Lord Ulmo. I declined. Aunt Galadriel was and is still too much of a force for elflings to be reckoning with.
I was growing increasingly desperate with a wife that was not really all there, missing parents, and possibly developmentally stunted children. Well, Cirdan recommended I give them more time as they might be late bloomers. Something about jellyfishes slumbering for years before blooming in all their painful stinging glory. He also recommended I spend more time with them – but Elwing did not like having me about them and getting into another spat with her was too exhausting.
Give me the freedom of the waves any day. I did not really have any hopes of finding Valinor despite what the bards claimed, but it proved a good excuse for my travels. Head west far enough to be out of sight of Sirion, then turn north or south and head east. I do not wish to run afoul of any watery Maia or Vala. Perhaps I might even find inspiration on how to name my sons before their twelfth year. Anything better than Cirdan's Starfish and Sea-Star. So I thought.
Elros and Elrond got their names from their kidnappers turned foster family in the end.
Author's Notes:
With parents like Earendil and Elwing, was it any surprise Elros and Elrond grew to love their captors Maedhros and Maglor? I believe Galadriel might be more capable with child-rearing than Earendil gives her credit for. She might have been in Menegroth when Elwing's brothers were very young and helped Nimloth with them.
About those jellyfish, yeah. It is real science. There is a jellyfish whose polyps can spend years quiet on the ocean floor before erupting into a bloom as adults when the conditions are right. Then they can revert back to the polyps stage and wait for the good times to return when things get tough. They are biologically immortal.