Story: No regrets

[clotho123.livejournal.com]

Title: No regrets
Rating: General
Characters: Eärendil

Notes:  I find a lack of explanation in the legends for why Eärendil ended up on a never-ending voyage and this is an attempt to fill the gap. A bit strange, a bit bleak and a bit cynical about the Valar.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Some days he barely remembers his name.

He does not regret: this was the price he chose to pay.  The cloud seas are wonderful and ever changing, the winds give him the illusion of pitting his sailor’s skills against them although he knows in his soul this craft cannot be wrecked.  Always there is the Light, as it must have been in Valinor of old.  He misses the Night at times, but although Night is all around it is banished from his craft, a pool of the Tree Light surrounding him alone.

Not the bearer of the Silmaril, but the guard, although what use a single Man could be (a Man still in his heart, forever,) he does not know.  Perhaps mere pretext, their way of giving him a task to fill his endless wandering.  This was his choice.

They had told him that he could not go back.  There was too much of the Mortal in him, even once the choice had been made.  Set foot on the mortal shores again and he would die.  They had not understood his protest (how should they, the Powers that dwelt in the West), had not understood why he felt he must go back.  He could not leave them, his kin, Elves and Men, could not remain in ease upon the further shore whilst the battle against Morgoth the destroyer was fought.  He had to aid them.

The Powers had taken his craft and worked their enchantments on it. The ship which had borne him so long was now to carry the Jewel, the Silmaril, cause of so much suffering.  There was grieving then, that the gem would not be held in Valinor; more grief, it seemed to him, for its loss than for the suffering of his kin.  For the Stone was bound with a fate not to be broken, never to rest or be owned until Arda ended.

It is not for biding here

The words had run through the light rain which fell as he stood before the Valar.  Ulmo had taken no form. 

Yours was the locking of the words  A voice of earth and metal.  Aulë.

Earth, Sea and Air  The endless night of Mandos.  So it shall be  This for the Air

So it was.

That had been after they had set his sentence.  After the voice of Manwë had pronounced that Doom should fall not on him, nor yet on Elwing, and the words meant as mercy had set fast his despair.  For how could they call it merciful to lift the Doom from her, who had no taint of Noldor blood?  How could they call it justice to punish the victims for the crimes of their slayers? (…the broken bodies of Cirdan’s mariners cast upon the shores of Balar…)  Yet so they named it, seated in grace and brightness in their unstained land; and so they believed, not seeing their Doom as cruelty. 

And so he despaired, even as his prayer was granted.  Just as desperation came upon him, when he learned the Elves of Tirion had come to festival, making merry whilst their kindred perished, for how could he love a land where the griefs of his home were as nothing? 

No regret.  No regret for his plea, better abase himself than see the last legacy of Beleriand perish.  No regrets for his errand or its price.  Yet this pitiless mercy was no answer to Morgoth.  And so in weariness of life he had despaired.

And then his wife had chosen immortality.

He must go back, he told them. No matter if he set no foot on land.  No matter if it was his death.  He must go back.  They had told him there were fates not even Manwë could set aside, but still he had persisted.  He must go back.  Then at last they had told him, he could go, if he must, if he set no foot on land.  But he could never return, never tread the shores of Valinor, he would have no choice but to wander the skies, the touch of land, mortal or undying, would be his destruction.  His body would wither, his soul not be released from Mandos within the history of Arda.

He had accepted the price.

Not a high price in truth, what would a sailor do in Valinor?  Better to voyage eternally, however lonely.  At times still he could pause in his faring, those still ashore had seen to that (for her most likely, which of them understood him?)  The tower was tall, to rise through the clouds, the platform at its top wide, so his ship could ride beside it as though at anchor by a quay.  He could not set foot on land, but in the Tower’s high apartments he could join his wife.

He could remember that he loved her; yet so often she seemed strange now, more a child of the Maia than of the mortals with whom his heart lay.  Only a child of the Maia could have assumed a bird’s shape.  Fair and strange, a creature to be treated with wonder rather than a partner of the soul.  Yet how strange was he himself grown, a man who could scarce remember his name?

(She had chosen immortality, for Lúthien’s sake she said.  Yet Lúthien had chosen to be mortal.  He would never understand).

More star and bird now than man and wife.  So few come to the Tower now.  Some had, in the early days, but he no longer knows how to hold conversation.  She tells him the Light is beloved.  It seems to him cold.

He has no regrets.

 ~~~~~~~~~~

Endnotes:  I know it's canon that the Silmaril was bound on Eärendil's forehead, but I think that would be dreadfully uncomfortable after a while, and therefore this story pictures it on the masthead of the ship.  Say if you like that the accounts that got back to Middle-earth were a bit garbled.

There is a backstory to the Valar's comments on the Silmaril but it isn't ready for posting yet, and I wanted to get this one up while Eärendil month was still on.  I don't think the story suffers too much for the mystery.

Comments

[heartofoshun.livejournal.com]

This is not something that I can completely assimilate on a single read. I definitely will read again and may comment further. But my first impression is that this is wonderful, if chilling and generally distressing, but then I always found the original version to be exactly those things and less clear. I am more than a little cynical about the Valar myself (and, as a mom, react negatively to a woman who runs off and abandons her children to people she believes are muderous kinslayers instead of just turning over the Silmaril). On the other hand, Eärendil always seemed to have gotten a raw deal to me.

[clotho123.livejournal.com]

I have a hard time seeing Earendil's canon fate as a happy ending, although I trid to suggest here that it might not be all bad for someone who is truly sailing mad. And the bit in the Silmarillion about how Earendil's heart was with men, and that he said to Elwing 'I am weary of the world' - and then she chose immortality. That seems desperately sad as well. Maybe the idea of eternal life seemed better to him later, we can only hope so.

Elwing I have to say I don't get at all. It's not as if she doesn't know the Feanorians carry out their threats, so she could have at least sent the children to Cirdan. Ah, well, perhaps I'll think of an answer one day.

And I'm glad you liked the sailing references :) Thanks for commenting!

[heartofoshun.livejournal.com]

I do not sail myself, but married a family of sailors so have had my share of great days on both the east and west coasts of the U.S.--the Long Island Sound, and the San Francisco and Monterey Bays. Definitely worse ways to spend one's time.

On Elwing--I am definitely too much of mom: "To the demand, your kids or the jewel?" I'd have definitely said, "Here you go! The rock is all yours." (Oh, shame on me for over-simplification--I am always arguing with those not as smitten with the Feanorians than I am that the Silmarils are SO much more than merely shiny objects.)

[clotho123.livejournal.com]

I can understand Elwing not wanting to do business with the people that killed her family. On the other hand the fact that they *did* kill her family should have made her take the threat seriously, which she doesn't seem to until they're actually breaking the door down. Very odd.

I tend to see Feanor's sons as being driven more by the Oath than by wanting the shiny things - but that's a subject for another fic.

[heartofoshun.livejournal.com]

Whoops! Forgot one thing: love the references to sailing; Vingilot as the virtual sailing machine; always perfect winds; sailing forever; and, with the light of Silmaril, always a beautiful day. Great line: "what would a sailor do in Valinor?"

[jilba.livejournal.com]

Poor Earendil, he seems to be punished rather than rewarded. Tuor and Idril must be so sad about his fate, death would seem to be preferable. His comment on Elwing is also sad, only a child of a Maia could have turned herself into a bird, so know he feels she is a Maia, not his wife. Sad, sad for both of them, caught eternally, one by blood, the other by marriage, in the Doom of the Noldor.

[clotho123.livejournal.com]

Earendil seems to me a tragic figure. If Tolkien intended him to like his fate he doesn't give much indication of it. Elwing is certainly a mystery to me, which is partly why I wrote her as a mystery to Earendil. (And the bird thing is unusual even in the Silm world)

Tuor and Idril - ah that's a whole other mystery...

[jilba.livejournal.com]

You have to admire Earendil though, he doesn't moan about his fate, he accepts it. He can't see his kids (and one dies anyways) he's as good as seperated from his wife, and while I like to think that Tuor's being counted as an elf means he lives in Valinor, we really don't know, so he's as good as not seeing his parents either.

I wonder what would have happened to Elwing's Silmaril if Earendil had chosen to be mortal?

[clotho123.livejournal.com]

You have to admire Earendil though, he doesn't moan about his fate, he accepts it.

Oh, I'm glad that came over. I didn't want him to be whiny.

In this version I think the Silmaril would still have ended up on the ship, it would just have been unmanned. Outside this veraion who knows? Interesting point.

[jilba.livejournal.com]

He's not whiny, he accepts his fate, doesn't always like it, but accepts it.

Unmanned ship? No perhaps a Maia would have manned it, like the Sun and the Moon, too dangerous to have it unmanned, I think, just in case someone evil tried to take over the ship!

[clotho123.livejournal.com]

Good point.

[jilba.livejournal.com]

:)