From Afar
Earendil watches his family from afar. Watches his boys grow up and his wife grow tired.
He watches them smile, cry, play, and sleep, and his heart aches as he wishes he could be with them.
"I hate father." mutters Elros one day, pushing around the food on his plate as if it had done him some great wrong, "Does he not care at all for us? I do not even remember him, he never writes, or visits, or anything. Mother always said he was watching over us, but I think she was wrong."
"Be careful what you say, little one, you never know if he might be listening." Maglor warned softly from where he was chopping vegetables, glancing knowingly at the dejected twins, "Your father might be able to hear you, you would not want to hurt him, he must be hurting enough already."
"He does not care enough to listen." Elros muttered almost inaudibly, gazing stubbornly out of the open window and into the night, chewing a mouthful of his late dinner darkly before exclaiming: "He deserves to be hurt! Does he not remember us? His own sons? Was he there to protect us and mother when we were in danger? Because of him, mother is dead." Elros finished quietly as Elrond let out a choked sob, taking his nearly identical brother in his arms, letting the younger twin bury his dark head into his tunic as they used to so often do when they were but little boys.
A crystal-like tear appeared in Earendil's eye, reflecting the dancing light of the stars around him as he swooped a little lower, sprinkling a handful of stardust down by the open window from where he was hiding behind a cloud, offering the only sort of greeting he knew how to make before continuing on, always doomed to watch from afar.