"Go on, lad," Maglor urged gently. "Not everything you do need be perfect. Just try."
"I will make mistakes," Elrond said absently. Still he waited, until those Elves who were nearby grew bored and resumed their conversations. Finally he arched his hands against the strings and drew forth a rippling scale, repeated it, varied it, held it and sent it flying, like the everlasting rhythm of waves against the shore, and the gulls flying out to sea.
His heart circled the mouths of Sirion, seeking his father and mother, and one by one the Elves grew quiet as they listened to the quieter of the two brothers spilling out his heart. He had said little to them on the journey, preferring to keep his own counsel. Even now he addressed no one present, calling out instead to those who were lost over the sea. And in the way of his people, as when Finrod Felagund first came upon the fathers of Men and Elrond's forebears, he painted pictures with the silver strings.
They saw a ship filled with clear light like a phial of purest liquid, and its hull was of mithril and of beryl, its hawsers and pennants of silk woven on Vairë's own looms. A dust of stars and jewels sprinkled the deck, and on it stood a tall man motionless as a figurehead, reduced to no more than shadow by the very brilliance of the shining gem upon his brow, compared to which all else was black. His hand rested upon a tiller of glass. The cloak that billowed behind him was the night sky etched with the dim blue bars of twilight clouds cast over the horizon. The dolphins and birds that rose before him became affixed to the sky and hid themselves within the heavens as glimmering nets of stars. Silent, he sailed past the assembly, and few could look upon his face or meet his eyes. He would not meet theirs, but gazed upon things which the Eldar themselves would never know, beyond the confines of this world.
They saw a tower of pearl rising in the north like a distant cousin of Illuin, gleaming a pale gold in the coming light of dawn. Gulls circled it endlessly, blending their cries like the sounds of the strings which held notes for minutes or more if one had Elven-ears to hear them. A white silhouette stood upon the apex of the tower and suddenly leapt outward onto the air, but did not fall. She was carried aloft with the beating wings of a cloak the color of Thingol's, and rising on the currents of air came to the great ship. Together the pilot of heaven and the lady of birds descended into the west and disappeared beyond mortal and Elven sight.
They saw a city which wrenched at their hearts, for it was achingly familiar. Those Exiles born before the Flight of the Noldor remembered well every shining wall of white stone, every door damasked by delicate filigree, every leaping fountain and blossoming tree. They could hear the birds of Tol Eressëa and the silver bells of Túna.
The Noldor stared at the boy in their midst, with his Sindar and mortal and Maia blood, and were suddenly afraid. They had assumed that he and his brother were Men. But how did anyone know? Had the Valar in fact set a Maia among them to observe all their deeds with those impassive grey eyes? His brother had seemed mortal enough!
Elrond handed the little harp back to Maglor and smiled. "Hennaid. I will have to have a Hall of Fire for song and tale, when I have my own house." He rose and went to find his brother, who was resting at last.
