Chapter Text
It's either too late, or too soon. The silmaril is an object that warps everything around it, almost like a machine or chemical reaction. Beings of all kinds are coming for her, she knows. She's going to die either way, she can see it.
She can see the faces of her dead family in the thoughts of the elves around her. How could her parents leave her? They must be stupid, and/or evil. Hopefully she isn't as bad, but she has a bad feeling about that. She isn't anything special, she knows, despite the elves' worship. She can't remember Doriath, but sees it endlessly in the minds of those around her -- and Luthien, she's not as pretty as her. A poor copy.
[Thankfully Earendil thinks she's pretty and cool, which is really exciting and makes her happy. He is another child that is special, better, an heir too [no magic rock though, no big magic either, she senses.] But she hasn't met him yet, he hasn't come yet, his city isn't ruined yet. Hurry up, she thinks. But then she thinks okay sorry Earendil. Don't hurry up. But it's hard to wait for him to come and meet her. She's all alone in Sirion.]
She sees Melian in the elves' minds in Sirion, Thingol, Beren, Daeron the singing Luthien lover who was the only one with the balls to openly love her in front of her and also Melian, her family, everyone. Elwing knows she herself glows all over like Luthien did, just less bright. The elves worship her as if she's a god-statue to leave offerings by ... which some do.
That's not creepy at all. Oh wait, yeah. It is very creepy. They even pray to her in front of her, which is insane, even child her knows.
Also the elves around her all love to stare at the jewel, which is awkward, since it's around her neck, you know. She sees in their thoughts that Thingol, one of her wicked forebearers, was mind-destroyed by it. He was only an elf -- weak. She is not an elf, she is not susceptible like that to mind madness.
She does not like the gem, personally – she can see into it, into it's past. She sees Feanor-the-creator with it, she sees his first two sons, his wife. She sees evil Finwe. She sees Morgoth, which is scary, too, and Nelyo's torment. It is very sad. At first she doesn't know who all these people are, but she figures it out; the jewel helps tells her, kind of.
It's not alive, but it's kind of alive.
The real world is not a strict, clean, simple binary, as most elves believe. They've only seen glimpses of this mostly, with Finwe wanting a second wife, with Finno and Nelyo loving each other, with Maglor loving his natural enemies in her future children.
She doesn't want a child, she is a child – but if she doesn't get hurt by having kids [which seems terrible], then she'll never meet one of them later. And she knows that's important. That child is important … also, she's heavily invested in the 'her/meeting' part, if you must know. Even though she doesn't get it.
Everyone wants the silmaril, except Earendil, who thinks it's too bright and is annoyed by it, and Idril and Tuor, who are scared for her to have something elves will kill for -- and Morgoth will do worse for. They don't want it, but think she should dump it on the Doriath elves and make a run for it, basically.
She can't do it. Not that they say anything, of course. But she knows if she leaves then she and Earendil will die fast. She has to follow the line of the future that leads to them living. She doesn't want to die forever.
At times she feels she is living in the future, alone, or in the past. Rarely in the present, though Earendil helps her with it, by his presence. He is like an anchor for her, in time.
She wants the stone to be broken, like they were ruined. No, will be ruined.
But only its maker can do that, if the evil gods help. But that is far away, she knows. Why can't they get there faster? She wants to get to the good parts and speed past the bad parts, but she can't.
Earendil meets her, and she is glad, but cannot smile. He is very excited to meet someone [kinda] like him, and so is she. He thinks at first that he cannot see her, the light is so bright on her neck, so she artifically puts a barrier in front of it and then he can see her better, she can tell. [Her elves get nervous so she tells them she is altering it with magic for the moment; then they are silent but loud in their thinking.]
The big elves talk to each other, Earendil's and hers. But his have his parents, she sees, and one is a great mortal. Greater than most elves.
They are all going to die forever, they all have some mortal blood, she thinks. She can tell Earendil is scared about that. She is scared too. At least they might be together in whatever all that means.
Only one boy child of hers will come to see them in Aman, she thinks, [how strange to think of a child when she is a child, she also thinks, she can't imagine it, maybe the child would help her?] incorporeal like a mist in her tower on the shore that the elves built her; these elves don't even know her. The tower's been really handy – not all elves are bad, but most are.
Earendil wanted to die when they got to Aman, he will that is, but then did a double take when he realized she would stay and wait to see their kid[s]; it remains to be seen if he will come and want to see them, but still. He can't even look at her, he doesn't know what to say, she can feel it, when he pauses outside her door in her tower.
He then rushes off to sail, happy for the excuse to not lay down and die, like she's half-trying to.
While he is filled with horror at her, how she forgot the children and went kinda crazy over at home in Sirion, he still likes her; she can feel it. Maybe someday he will not recoil at what she did.
Maybe someday she won't either. She hasn't done anything wrong, but she feels like she has. Nothing has happened, but hasn't everything? It's all going to happen anyway. Eventually she feels solidarity in how Maglor and Nelyo were crushed in this wheel of fate like she is, was, will be, is.
The stone is all anyone wants, but as time passes she can see more clearly down the road that might occur – Elrond won't want it. He alone among the elves [well, elf-y things, expand that category] will look with disgust at it, but he won't go see it, actually, she thinks.
Elrond will be filled with anger when Earendil offers to show him it. And Earendil will be crushed by his disdain like usual. They are not going to easily get along, she thinks. Elrond is like a high elf – Earendil and her are like broken seashells on the shore.
Her family is dead, she is aware, when she is a child. She is alone. All worship her, none love her.
She can see a little forward, and almost sees Elrond coming to meet them. That has not happened yet. Elrond does not exist, she reminds herself.
But what's the good in that, this Elrond-old-yet-child coming to meet them, she thinks, while playing with Earendil on the seaside as a little girl [mother Idril watches while father Tuor rests; mother Idril told her in her mind that she will be whatever she wants for her, and she knows Tuor will too, and to come to her if elves bother her or if she needs her for anything. She likes these 'new' parents.]
Because somehow things are going to go wrong. Elrond is afraid of them, when he meets them, she can see in her precognition. She does not bother Earendil with these thoughts while they play together on the shore. He is so unhappy already. This would destroy him.
Elrond is her son's name, she knows. She is thirteen; Earendil doesn't even think of her with desire of the flesh. She doesn't either, but in a sense she does, because she wants everything.
She wants it to be over already. She wants to be over with Elrond when he meets them. Which is obviously a paradox, because he is her kid, she knows. Why is her future kid meeting them for the first time? That seems wrong.
She knows it will all be wrong, whatever happens.
She likes to be near mother Idril. She never wants to see the stone, and does not like the stone, so Elwing makes the light dimmer for her with a magical barrier around it. Mother Idril is surprised by her all the time [cause she's not an elf, of course], but loves her and she can feel it.
Elrond is hurt by them, she can see. He will be when he meets them, far away.
He was treated too well before [by others], and now their pathetic, ruined souls aren't good enough. They are not smart and composed like him; they are about three seconds from trying to kill themselves. Maybe just two seconds.
But it will get better, she can sense, but vaguely. Something good will happen, it will be good. The trouble will be to get past how displeased Elrond will be to meet them, know them. It will destroy Earendil, she thinks.
She follows him as they look at seashells by the water in Sirion. He is only happy when he can forget his life and who he is, by being out in nature. Then he is able to relax, and feel moments of happiness. He is a little boy.
Mother Idril wants them both to be happy, and feels sorrow for them, and for her husband. She is worried about them all. It flows through Elwing likes waves. She wants Elwing to eat and to rest, but she isn't good at either thing, so she pretends, so that mother Idril will feel better about it.
Sometimes when she pretends to eat, she doesn't 'disappear' the food into herself, but back down to the kitchens instead. This way Tuor, Idril and Earendil think she ate. [The kitchens are used to her giving the food back cause she doesn't want to eat.]
The elves that were around her as a little girl try to talk to her now; she is uninterested. She's always seen their souls. They are scared of everything, and they think of her like some dog with a priceless artifact on its collar. They think they can control her. She often lets them think they can.
None of them love her like mother Idril does. This must be what her own family was like – but was it? Her mother and father, the elves have to teach her their names, left her to die. They courted war deliberately. They were evil.
She has always known she has no one.
As time passes, though, she can see further forward. Elrond will warm up eventually to them, and there are people who like her, she thinks. They are there with Elrond, eventually. She just has to survive and get there. That is harder than it sounds.
She can see how suicidal she will be in the future, somehow. It's endless.
And now too, she feels that way.
Earendil thinks she is sad cause her life sucks. She hears his mind and soul. Well, that's true too. He tries to be nice to her.
It takes him forever to love her the way a boyfriend loves you, but she likes that. He is mentally different than any other type of being not just cause of being a half-elf, but because of what happened to him already. His unconscious body knows though, and wants to be near her.
All of her wants to be near him.
That's convenient.
Eventually his parents leave. She understands; Earendil doesn't. Well, he does logically. But not emotionally, he is falling apart. He tries extra hard at his lessons with Cirdan, trying to throw himself into this sailing work to not think of it.
Earendil never asks her to do magic tricks or wants to see the stone, or wants her to do serious things with magic, or wants to talk about that dead bitch her grandmother that set her up in this fucking horrible life.
Earendil doesn't seem to notice her magic, and he doesn't really think about it. He seems to think that's just how it is, the way he has blonde hair. Like it's something mundane. It's a weird relief, to feel that for the first time. To Earendil, she is normal. Almost boring, a regular person, kind of. He is not shocked when she does non-elven things; he barely reacts, if at all.
She can see they must marry and have children; it's important for more than just them. It's like fate, or something. Not for them, for whatever the children do, for stuff past that. Future stuff, whatever.
Eventually Earendil thinks of her more in a desirious way, and looks to the side, embarrassed by it. She is not embarrased. Why be? They are both similar greater creatures, it follows that they are naturally going to do whatever they are going to do. The elves are different from them. She climbs on top of him, to his shock.
They are both aware that they are not very good at this sex thing, and so try to practice all the time and get better, and eventually are quite great at it together, they both think. It's a nice feeling, to have sex. The physical part obviously feels good, and so does the close touch skin-skin part. The kiss part, the rest against other person part. The before part, the middle part, the after part. The bath after part.
It's a small bright thing they have in lives of total sadness.
They get married [the elven way – in front of the elf peoples in Sirion cause they view them as weird little mascots they own and worship like false idols; but they also marry the mortal way re Tuor's people and what he and Idril had learned of them, and her maiar friends tell her how to do it their way too, so they have two extra weddings that are just them, and that they are happy at], and eventually there are children. She hovers nearby, outside of her body for it.
… Then she continues to hover as a ghostly presence, near the children, afraid of hurting them. She has never touched a baby before.
There are two children, unusual, she knows. They look alike but are very different. They make noise, and move around. It's very interesting, and nerve-wracking, even just to watch. She doesn't know what to do.
Elwing often appears as images above them, to be close but safely far away enough to not mess up; Earendil looks at them from a distance, feeling like she does, in awe and also super scared to get close and make a mistake or hurt them, or something. She and Earendil have elf nurses stay with the children at all times, in case they need something, or in case of emergency. [Mostly these elf ladies openly stare in amazement and worship at Elwing's different forms, and at the children. But they get stuff done, which is helpful and good. They know things like how much a baby should eat, or how to feed one, or how to remember to feed one.]
She does not want to make a mistake with these children; they are important, not just hers. But also cause they're hers, too. How strange, to think they now live – she knew they would so long ago, but to see them is weird. They are people, new people. They made them, before nothing, now more people. How utterly inconceivable and impossible to think, to know.
Earendil she knows feels the same, they are afraid to touch them. They often feel the same without even talking about it; anyway, they mostly talk just in osanwe anyway, it's easier.
Earendil has to leave of course for his foretold mission. She is happy for him – out there he is happy, to forget who he is on the sea. She is never happy anyway; at least one of them is, sometimes.
She can see more and more visions of the future; of the people that like her as a friend. Some ladies, different color hair. All elves obviously, but also other creatures she does not know much of. She can't really tell. She sees Maglor too, which feels strange. But she does not understand her thoughts most of the time, so she shrugs about it.
Earendil too she knows will be cared for, she looks and can see it, at times. She can only see kind of vague impressions. It might not happen, she thinks.
But then everything happens very fast.
Before she knows it, she's in her tower in Aman, like she always foresaw. Oh. So this is how she got there, she realizes.
Everything went wrong, even though the outcome is right.
Earendil is extremely fragile now; so is she. Any jarring and they both might kill themelves; just for Mandos-going now, but still. That's not good, and not the best future, either.
She wants the best future, for herself. Also for other people, if she likes them. Now that they both are in Aman, and immortal, thankfully – she knew Earendil would want to die, ie pick mortality, by this point, but it still came as a shock, she doesn't want another person to leave her!! – she can see further down the roads of the future.
[She is afraid of the evil god creature, that she stems from, in part – Melian. She goes to Eonwe, cause he likes her and them all the most, she can tell, and asks him to protect her from Melian trying to hurt her. He agrees, and seems shocked, but she leaves. That's good enough, now he'll tell all his wicked god fellows and they will all look upon Melian with disgust, that her own line hates and fears her, and she will therefore stay away on her own. She has a feeling this will happen. And it does. Yay.]
She can see the faces of their friends now. It will be many thousands of years before they meet any of them. But she spends a lot of time imagining it, enjoying it. Okay, more like clinging to this vague idea of a better future.
She looks to see if telling Earendil about it will make him feel better – it doesn't, so she doesn't. She doesn't want to hurt him. He is in as much pain as she is.
Mother Idril comes to see her eventually, in her tower, but she is not strong enough to talk to her or to look like a person. So mother Idril leaves, but tells her that she and Tuor love her and Earendil, and to come see them if she needs or wants to.
They are good. But it's so hard to do anything right now. Existing is hard enough. When she has energy she watches the memories of Elrond's boyfriend, when he comes back from Mandos and lives in Aman. It's nice to see Elrond happy with him, in his thoughts. It's like a little beacon.
It's the same in the Feanorean elves' [of Elrond] minds, who are taken to Gil-Galad when they are re-embodied by the agreement of everybody. They hear his plan, and choose to stay and wait there for Elrond to come to Aman. The elf ones who weren't close to Maglor go to Nerdanel instead, who will not see anyone anyway, but they all live by her for multiple reasons.
The more time goes on, the more she feels even more like the little girl she is, with no family. She knows her mother will return someday, and she can tell maybe her brothers are in some strange situation, but she doesn't care in a sense. She doesn't know any of them.
It takes forever, but finally she can foresee Elrond finding Maglor. It's funny, how she's supposed to be higher than an elf, but just had a total mental breakdown as Maglor and his people came towards her city for the jewel and tried to kill herself. She was out of her mind, she freaked out.
This hysterical break of course looks different because of the whole flying thing. She kinda hadn't been thinking about that. She just was smothered for a moment [ … at the worst moment] by everything bad in her life.
Many elves think she is a hero, but even some of them are confused by how she left the children. Are they even hers anymore? She knows Earendil thinks the same thing. He is horrified by her leaving them too. She can feel it.
In a way, she can't believe it, that she did that, but in another way, she can. That was the only way, she thinks. For the future, but also for her. She lost it.
She's still lost it, actually.
The only good part is the closer Maglor got to her tower in Sirion, the more she knew she had to leave – he has to not die, he is important. He has to take the children, and they have to live too. She knows it's essential for the world, not just for her. But she also knows that if she doesn't get Earendil the stone he'll die in Aman, twiceover [by choice and by Valar shit, they want any excuse to fuck them all in middle earth over, she can tell.]
Knowing something and actually handling it or making it happen are two different things. She couldn't figure it out, how to make it all happen correctly, and panicked, and tried to die.
Thankfully that didn't mess things up, since Elrond still got to Maglor, and Earendil was safe with her and the stone in Aman – the Valar didn't dare kill them, not with Elwing beside him and also holding the stone. Those monsters.
The only thing Elwing did fuck up was that now everyone that matters hates her guts. Even though it all worked, it looks bad.
She knows if she tries to tell everyone the truth, they will all hate her even more. Well, she didn't want to talk to elves anyway, so that's fine.
When Elrond gets on the ship to come over, Maglor is on it too, she knows.
She loves Maglor, because he saved Elrond. [She won't think of the other child, who hates them, and thought Elrond was stupid to wait and meet them someday.] But Maglor is a scary person. Maglor attacked Doriath with his people, he attacked Sirion too. That doesn't bother her, in a way. Him or Morgoth, it would all be the same, except worse re Morgoth, obviously.
But Maglor loves her children, and is a better mother than her, she can see. Even just in Gil-Gald's memories of Elrond mentioning him … versus mentioning his 'sire' and 'the Princess Elwing'. Maglor and Elrond too will look at her with personal revulsion, for picking how she did. She is afraid of that. If they are mean to her, she thinks she will cry forever while killing herself.
They are a package deal, she's aware. Maglor might feel pity for her though, more than Elrond, and be nice. She hopes that happens. There's no way Elrond is not going to be hurt by what happened, that's a given.
For a long time, Maglor has been warping the world around him, she can tell even from a distance, just in a good way.
Since he wants Elrond to feel good and Glorfindel too, and even Erestor and his people, they do. He is affecting everything, subconsciously. Galadriel does this too, she sees. Her people worship her, just in a more healthy way, thinking that they serve a god, like Elrond's people do. Of course Elrond's Feanoreans love him as if he's still a little boy at Maglor's knee, so that's different.
Maglor has too much power, and not just his own, he can draw power in through music and use it in any way he likes. Since he only consciously knows of destruction and healing as options, that's all he does, and unconsciously does the 'things are good' altering of everything all the time, it emanates from him. Being constantly suffused in the power of Elrond, and Elrond's ring, and Glorfindel, has only made him more powerful. That's why he was able to recover at all, she sees.
But really, she feels sorry for him. He feels as bad as she does, just in the opposite way. Child abandoner, child stealer – both are bad, only different.
So she sees what line of the future is best, and what it requires, and tries to be brave, and shows Maglor the stone. [He looks so dead now, horrible thin and ill, it's weird, cause he looked so different in the silmaril's memory.] This will make him feel better, she thinks, to see that Elrond and Earendil did truly end the 'bad words curse' on him. She can see into the future where Elrond and Maglor are very happy that she showed them that Maglor is truly free of it.
… Also, she is scared of him all at the same time, but knows he will love them eventually. So she goes for it.
Okay, the problem with foresight is that while she knows they are all happy and relieved she did it in the future, right now they are all angry, she finds out. She can see far away, but not always up close.
Maglor is indeed relieved, but also extra afraid of her, now. Elrond wants to hit her in the face. Elrond's boyfriend is concerned for all of them, and she can feel how he finds her insane and repulsive, like some horror-show twisted evil crazy version of a lady Elrond. Ouch.
She can see the spark inside Elrond and Maglor, that they will love them. It's just tiny, not formed into real love yet. But it is there, like a seed versus a flower plant.
She's not into the whole waiting thing. It is going to take forever and that's very obnoxious.
Earendil too thinks she's lost it, which hurts her feelings. Just because she can feel this had to happen doesn't mean it's fun in the moment. But being truthful wouldn't work either – everyone would freak out and be even more upset and afraid of her. Like she's some dragon or something, instead of a little girl with no family, and only Earendil and mother Idril sometimes.
Elrond is polite to them, and clearly doesn't like them. Not when they first meet and he thinks they say everything wrong and act wrong, not when they later meet, and not earlier when he was a little boy with Maglor, either. She can see it.
She can also feel how hurt he is by them, despite them trying their best. It's an impossible situation. At least Maglor starts to feel sorry for them, and thinks of them with kindness, in his heart. Sometimes she hangs out nearby as a bird just to feel it, cause it feels good.
His father will be weird like her, she's sure, she knows. She's seen him in the silmaril's past. They will have fun making crazy inventions – he is as 'crazy' as people think she is. After his time in Mandos watching his kids be tortured, he's healed and gotten better, and gotten way sadder, she can see it will be, after the remaking.
She knows if she tells the elves what she thinks the remaking will actually be [boring/nothing], they'll get even more dubious and scared than they already are, so she says nothing. Elrond too is scared, but feels better with his little cabal of Glorfindel and Maglor, and Gil-Galad across the courtyard.
She also realizes that Elrond does better when he sees one of them at a time, so she tries not to be there when Earendil is there. This is easier for him, to try to deal with one ruined/disaster 'unparent', to coin a phrase, at a time.
But she can see that Maglor will love them, and Finno and Nelyo too. It's just not past the remaking yet, so Nelyo isn't there and Maglor is sick still.
She waits around Maglor, for when he will be happier and will want to be with them, and smooth their hair back, and kiss their foreheads; when she thinks of it, though, in those visions he looks better physically, not so death-sickly. Eventually she realizes he is still too ill right now to do that; the remaking will restore him health-wise a lot [it will fix the whole Varda's curse burned his soul, which keeps him from fully healing], and then he will have the energy to envelop them in his love too.
It's too soon to look for it, but she wants it anyway. She wants Elrond to like her faster and lurks around both of them.
Maglor feels more comfortable if he plays for her, so she asks him to do that. Actually, if she just leaves, then Earendil will have a better future relationship with Elrond, she can suddenly see, so she says she's off to visit Mandos.
She obviously doesn't go there, she spies on everyone as a bird instead, duh.
Elrond reacts like she thought – he is pleased to try to have his father to himself, in a way, and offers to have a house made for him in his town so that Earendil can live in it when he wants to.
This is very exciting, for Earendil and for her too. She watches Elrond work with the Feanorean elves to plan and build it [Earendil stays in special guest rooms by Elrond's side of the town in the interim.] The Feanoreans promise Elrond they will only help with it if they truly don't begrudge Earendil, because 'who knows if my parents can feel the 'vibes', I have no idea', Elrond tells them.
Some of the elves recuse themselves and Elrond thanks them. They don't really hate Earendil, they just are worried about not being grudgeless enough for this magical-level situation.
The elves who do work on the house are fanatical in their devotion to Elrond, and figure if he thinks his parents are good enough to live there, they must be. Some of his elves begin to think kindly of her and Earendil, so she spies on them just to feel the good feelings. The more they get to see both of them and meet them from a distance, the more they all like them, and feel sorry for them, and how they helped create their horrible lives.
[Actually, Elwing feels like their lives would have been bad regardless honestly. Let's pretend Maglor stops his group – so Morgoth comes instead. Good luck … Also, Elrond is truly dead, in the literal best case scenario, here, and so are they; so is everyone.]
Elwing watches everybody all the time. It's not like she's busy. Oh wait, she's pretending to be in Mandos, right? Damn, it's hard to remember when/what/why, at times.
Time is so slippery.
Now that Earendil has his house, he seems to feel slightly better, and recovers better, she can see. He also starts to want to be with her more, feeling less 'I want to be alone' and 'she left the kids???!!, but I did kinda too right, I need to kill myself' than usual.
So she hangs out with him more, and he is happy about it. Sometimes she can't tell what she feels, but she can feel what others are emoting, expressing. She does what she wants, and tries to course correct based on her feeble ability to figure out her own thoughts. She has too many.
She and Earendil get more clingy with each other now, and it's nice. She likes how he likes to spend time with her, and talk to her, and obviously sleep with her. She likes that too – they both like that she is the more dominant partner, having real power to use him like a rag doll, but they both know that's strange in elven terms. Good thing they're not elves, they often say to each other, and mean it.
Though at times they do wish they were elves, just to fit in, blend in, be anonymous. Earendil often hides from Elrond's elves, nervous about being among elves at all.
He goes on walks all around Elrond's new valley, looking at stuff. The elves try to be nice to him, but he's shy of them, and they can tell that he's not proud or mean, just shy and sad and nice. So they are extra nice to him. She follows him around secretly on his walks at times, just cause. And also to see what happens.
It's fun to see Elrond's town, with all his elf people and their stuff. Elrond likes books, she knows. She's never been into them, or read much at all, ever. Elrond likes stuff they know nothing about.
But she does like all the real stuff, like all the little cute animals Earendil walks by, and the cooking buildings, with fancy foods being plated. She likes all the gardens and fields and plants, just seeing it all.
Elrond has a weird thing going on with plants and books, he seems to compulsively love them and collect them, but Earendil she knows thinks of it as some crazy side-effect of Elrond being abandoned as a child. [She asks Maglor, he says this is a normal ruler thing, that you have cool fancy collections of stuff. He tries to leave out the word 'Noldor' before 'ruler' but she knows he means it, and he thinks it, and tries to pause and not say it. So maybe it is normal, since Elrond is very much like him, for a million obvious reasons.]
Elrond's elves work obsessively, and are happy doing it; the elves in the town on the other side [of Elrond's little boyfriend, the one with the big spear stick] that don't work are not as happy, she sees.
[She meets her mother eventually, when she returns from Mandos; it's very anticlimactic. Nimloth says all the right things, and hugs her, and all of it. But Elwing feels nothing inside. None of the love she feels for mother Idril. Is this how Elrond feels about her? This upsets her for uncountable time. She tries to see Nimloth often but it's very hard, this random elf lady doesn't know her, of course. Like many elves, she basically 'slept' the whole time in Mandos to recover, and so doesn't know about Elwing's life. Nimloth goes to Elrond in secret to ask to live on his land anonymously, so no elves from Doriath can bother her, and he agrees immediately, giving her a house out away from others, and only having his most trusted elves build it, and then bring her food and do chores for her. Elrond has her treated like a secret queen, since she was one for like half a minute with Dior.]
Elrond's Feanorean people are obsessed with him, but in a different way than the elves act with Elwing and Earendil. They hide it from him, because Maglor wanted them to pretend the boys were normal, she can see in their minds. So that's how they act, but they love him; he rescued them, after Maglor rescued him. And then he rescued Maglor! They half think he can do anything, but remember Maglor's warning to them to not put children up as gods, and try to think of him as a normal person.
So now Earendil lives there, in Elrond's new valley. She can see the old one in the elves' minds; it's similar to this one, and the building is mostly the same, due to Gil-Galad deliberately copying it.
Earendil stops sailing in the sky because Elrond hates it and everything to do with the stone [he refuses to look at it]. Elrond and Maglor and many elves in their circle are very excited by this, and Earendil is very depressed. But does feel good, she can tell, in the sense that Elrond both cares and bothered and now seems pleased by it.
Earendil though is sad to have nothing to do; different elves try to engage him, but Elwing can see he's just too freaked out by doing nothing all the time to react normally. Sometimes Elwing goes around Aman for fun and looks at nature, and talks to other maiar, many of whom obviously see her as one of them, almost.
But she is careful about it, scared to accidentally encounter Melian. That monster.
She avoids the Sirion elves and the Doriath ones too, they are just reminders of her bad life. And they think weird stuff about her, too. It's not like mean, it's just their thoughts, but it feels mean, to feel their auras when they think of her. She doesn't like it.
It never feels that way near Elrond or Maglor.
She is waiting now, for the remaking. That will make everything better. This interim time is annoying, to slog through.
Elrond gives her a house eventually, which is insanely exciting. He helps design it and picks the stuff out that's in it. Sometimes she just looks at it all, these artifacts of his love. She can see into them, see when and why he picked them, what he said about it all. She can feel the love emanating from them. It feels good. She obviously rearranges some stuff in the house cause it's set up for elves, since Elrond had elves make it all. Elves are their default. She fixes it all.
She knows Earendil thinks it's super cool too, and is excited for her.
Sometimes she says hi to Nerdanel – Elrond's grandmother. Yes, she knows Maglor is Elrond's real mother. [Nelyo was kind of like an almost-dead, ill, rarely seen kindly father, if anything.] Nerdanel is nice.
She feels sorry for her, and does not think she is an enemy, like Malgor thinks. They think many similar things; it is true then, how people said he was like her.
Elwing only appears to her in her sculpture rooms, when she's taking a break there, where no other elves go – this way she won't scare other ones. Nerdanel seems to like to see her, and tells her what she's working on.
Nerdanel though is sad that her family is all gone, except Maglor, who now has his own child [Elrond]. She wants them back, even just in the project sense, Elwing can tell. And she wants to be nice to her kids again, and for them to like her.
Maglor doesn't need her, Nerdanel seems to know. It's true, Elwing can see how he is too distant now, in both ways. She is some person in his ancient past. And he now is loyal to Elrond instead of to her, so. It's awkward for them [just cause she didn't think he'd have a new family to go to and live with, instead of her.]
So she is sad, in that way, too.
Elwing already got Nerdanel's permission to ask Feanor to make her some inventions. "If he is well enough to do that and work politely with a higher being, then I am all for it," she tells her. "I hope that will be the case."
She doesn't seem to get that Elwing wouldn't ask if she didn't think it would be the case, that it would happen.
Finally after forever the remaking happens, and everyone is obsessed with Feanor immediately. Elrond is also concerned with Maglor's reaction to it all, and then once they get Nelyo safely into his special house with Finno, then they are all worried about him.
It's exciting that the Valar come to her and Earendil, asking for the silmaril. She watches them talk to Feanor, and he agrees to break them [they brought the other two out of the ocean and the deep lava in the earth], after they magically help him remove his soul from them. After it's all out and back in him, the jewels are much less impressive.
Earendil is glad to be rid of the gem, as it is a symbol of bad things to him; her too. Now they can learn of all these new returned people, and everyone is restored to greater health. She feels kinda the same, honestly.
The valar and maiar are all cowed now, by their loss of power over the elves in the remaking. They are nothing comparatively, now. It's awesome. The elves literally hold open celebrations, even the non-Feanorean and non-'dark' ones. Everyone is super excited -- some elves literally marry in groups [odd, but cool, she thinks], others divorce. She and Earendil don't remarry in some ceremony, but she knows he is feeling like he wasn't good enough before; and mentioning it will upset him, so she doesn't say anything. It's superficial to her, irrelevant honestly, because they literally live together and are together [in all ways] all the time anyway. So who cares.
Elwing can't be near Nelyo, he still oozes suffering. That level of it is not something that can be fixed by Mandos one hundred percent.
She tries to think of how to stop it, for him and very much for her cause it's loud and gross and upsetting to see, but it takes her a long time to figure something out. The simplest things are the hardest to figure out.
Elwing watches Feanor for a long while, to see what he's like. He's in a lot of pain, though happy to be with Miriel, finally. Like her with Elrond.
Elrond likes them more now, she can tell. He doesn't pretend to be polite, he is just naturally polite now. Elves can't tell the difference, but she can.
Feanor's family openly treats him with disdain and ignores him as she watches, except for Miriel and his half-brothers, who are both scared to talk to him and also just want to, cause they eventually started to miss him being alive.
Feanor treats Finwe like his family treats him.
She watches Elrond talk to Feanor, and how curious he finds her kind-of son. He thinks of how he can't believe Maglor took some kid, but of course knows all, because he watched the tapestries of it in Mandos. No elves seem to grasp that he already knows everything.
She watches him talk to Nelyo, who kind of ignores him, as if he's some random horse, and not a person. Finno won't leave his side – she's had to avoid him before, mostly, since he was so upset before the remaking and is still upset.
Feanor constantly comes to talk to Maglor, who openly hates his guts. It's almost fun to watch, since Maglor is now back to fuller strength, but still cuts his hair and wears black. Elves think that's due to Elrond, or penance, or something, but it's not, she can see; it's cause Maglor feels more relaxed that way.
Maglor now indeed loves them openly, and comforts Earendil, who has started to crumble after coming out of this long fog of depression they've both been in almost their whole lives. Earendil often gets hysterical, and Maglor soothes him. She watches it all the time; it's nice to watch.
Maglor thinks nice things about both of them. And Elrond is pleased by this, that Maglor likes his blood parents. Elwing likes it most of all, because Maglor doesn't mind treating them like they are children, which is very relaxing. She still feels often like she is in Sirion, a child forever alone in life, with a horrible future of only violence and death.
Galadriel reaches out to both of them too, more and more. She had in the past, but they were rarely able to react or accept. As time goes on now, they even meet other friends of Elrond's, and go on trips with Maglor. It's the same for Glorfindel, who used to try to get Earendil to do fun stuff with him, but Earendil was too sad or tired most of the time. Now they do things together all the time, more and more.
Elrond and Maglor have long since stopped being surprised by magic, now it's commonplace to them, like it is to Earendil. That feels good. Well, Finno's joy and amazement and thrill at seeing magic is fun also, to be honest, but just cause he's such a great [in loving] elf with a good heart.
She looks into Nelyo's aura and sees he is intrigued by Maglor's love of them, and is more open to them, and to Glorfindel too.
Her brothers are back, she knows, but who are they to her? More strangers. She meets them to be nice to her mother, but they are confused to meet her, and vice versa.
She starts to think about Melian, actually, because of how her brothers play with Celegorm in glamours, and how her mother is okay with it. Celegorm acts like a maia despite being an elf. Orome's presence close to him so young, so long, changed him into something more than an elf. Like Maglor with Elrond, kind of.
Celegorm would take a message to Melian she thinks. If she ever wanted that. She doesn't. Don't even think about it. No.
But he would. She can see he doesn't care at all that she is Dior's daughter, that he caused the deaths [almost real death but then valar intervention] of her brothers. He is plain and simple, in a way. Maglor is complicated.
For some things, some tasks, it's easier with plain people than complex people. And vice versa.
Finally she meets Feanor and Maglor is worried for her, but won't listen when she tells him it will be fine. He thinks his father will upset her, or anger her – he couldn't if he tried. What hasn't she thought about herself?
The weird creepy Queen who left her kids to die, and now abandons new Doriath too. Strange, the elves think of her, though they think she is a god before them at the same time. She must be beyond their understanding, they all think.
She is, and she isn't, all at the same time. Only Maglor treats her like a little girl who needs a teacher and to be loved without expectation, and Earendil too he treats like that. They both desire it. The other family they have respect them as heroic adults. They don't want that.
They want to be little kids and be told what to do, sometimes. They want Maglor to brush their hair and rub their back and tuck them into bed, and think of them as poor sad children who need to be taken care of. It feels amazing, to finally get here.
And she meets her friends too, which is nice. But knowing what will happen and having it happen are two different things; she is nervous. So she asks Maglor to help her, and he does and goes with her, happily. The two little elf minor queens of the hasty replacement children of Finwe are a bit in awe of Maglor, remembering his music from the distant past.
They are excited, she can tell, when he deliberately is nice to them, and shows them he is more on their side than his father's, and shows them he loves Elwing, and that he wanted to spend time with her and them. This is very flattering since all elves in Aman know that the famous Maglor won't even see his own elf people, much less other ones, unless they insist to Elrond that they want to talk to him [and Maglor finally agrees on a very short audience.] Maglor is a big celebrity to the elves, she knows, even more than he is feared as a great killer.
They are nice to her; she tries to be nice back. She is not good at it, but they are forgiving. She explains to them that she is not like them, and they try to understand. Thankfully Maglor talked to them first, so this is all not shocking to them, him prepping them really seemed to help.
Elrond too is very nice to her now, and thinks nice things about her too. She knew they'd probably get here one day, but it's freshly exciting, honestly. Expecting stuff and then it happening are like night and day.
She tries to do stuff with Elrond when he wants to see her, she can feel it, but she's no good at anything. And he doesn't love looking at seashells like her and Earendil. He doesn't hate it, but he wasn't practically permanently stunted in growth mentally and emotionally like Elwing and Earendil were as children. Elrond is a grown up.
Elwing and Earendil are just pretending. They are not great at it. They can't fake much, but thankfully Elrond gets them out of a lot of stuff, and Maglor does too.
Eventually Maglor figures out how little Elwing and Earendil knows, and starts literally teaching them stuff. They also meet the other creatures that Elwing had hazily foreseen, the ringbearers and the dwarves, mainly at parties. They knew of the ringbearers before and even saw them, but didn't have enough energy to care about it.
Mainly she knows that Bilbo is very interested in Maglor and Maglor tries to avoid him; one time he goes up through a window to sneak away. He wouldn't have done it easily, so Elwing helped him with magic secretly.
She helps lots of the elves in new Rivendell like that at times. They just think things happened luckily, but it's either her deliberately interfering for them, changing stuff, or Maglor's unconscious desire for things to be good. She's like an invisible hand moving stuff on purpose, Maglor's like an ocean wave, rolling in all the time, pushing everything further and futher into goodness.
The elves gossip all the time, even just in their heads. Elwing hears it all. They think Maglor is sleeping with Finno [and hopefully not Nelyo?!] while also sleeping with her and Earendil. This is very funny. Maglor and Finno primarily take care of Nelyo, it's their first thought, though Finno schedules time in to love Nelyo the romantic way, because he doesn't want him to feel like some permanent patient.
Maglor barely even feels physical desire, she knows. Though he's been pleased to help Glorfindel feel good, when he felt up to it after a long time. She watches them at first, to see if they are nice to each other; they are. She has learned over time that elves think being naked and intimate is private, which she doesn't really feel.
Earendil is like the opposite of her, he wants to be modest all the time, in terms of himself. So they only couple when other people can't see them. Thankfully, he likes to do it all the time, like she likes to.
Only she or Elrond or Maglor are allowed to see Earendil in any state of not put-togetherness, or maybe Glorfindel too. Maglor too doesn't want to disrespect her or him by any of this, she can tell. They have to compromise a lot; so, for example, he will rub her back if she keeps her clothes on or if only her back is bare, and nothing else. Noldor elves have a lot of rules; the other types don't as much, she sees.
The other types think the Valar are fucked up crazy gods and just didn't speak openly of how they never followed their rules, ever, no matter where they were living.
She likes when Elrond thinks of her with kindness, or talks to her, and she likes when Maglor does lessons with her; Earendil often wants to hear them too, cause he knows as little as she does. Maglor often plays and sings for them; she likes the feeling of it more than the music, though she does like his lighter stuff, which he keeps to for her when near her.
It slowly becomes more fun to see Nimloth, who is her mother, she has to remind herself. It can be hard to remember, since she kind of thinks of Idril that way. But if Elrond can be nice to her now, maybe she and Nimloth will love each other too, in time.
She sees Idril and Tuor all the time now, often without Earendil [with his okay.] Mother Idril still loves her; Tuor does too, but she has always been close to Idril in her heart. Tuor often tried to help Earendil while Idril tried to help her, back in Sirion. So she is special to her. Idril doesn't mind that they have both been so fucked up for so long, so messed up. She is happy to see her.
They often talk of Elrond together, since they go see him or he comes and sees them, at times. They love him and call him their grandchild. Elwing does not call him her son. He is Maglor's son. Most elves don't seem to understand this basic reality. It's not anyone's fault, in a sense, it's not a choice, it's just the truth.
She hangs out with Eärwen and Anairë all the time now, even without Maglor -- they are very different, despite being best friends.
Anairë is often super angry at and about Fingolfin, who is her husband [and at her kids, too]. She has to remind Elwing often who he is, but doesn't mind. Eärwen has clearly tried to help her, because the guy was gone, then dead, then eventually back, and Anairë is angry about all of it -- and also she's angry that the other king elf guy, Eärwen's husband, got his kid back from death super quick and she got nobody back quick. Honestly, she mostly forgets that Galadriel is Eärwen's kid, half the time.
[Elwing later starts to remember this kid is Finrod, and his dad is Finarfin. ... These names are rough. How does anybody remember this stuff? she thinks. Also the weird nicknames are too much, and too many.]
Uh oh.
They never gave Elrond a long elf name of many names, like Maglor has, she knows he is called Kanafinwe Makalaure Kano Maglor Feanorean, at the very least, often. She knows his names more than other ones because everyone around him thinks those names all the time, and she is so often around him and their inner circle in Elrond's town.
Elrond is some kind of genius [how he got that she's not sure, since she and Earendil have idiots for family and obviously aren't bright themselves], there's no way he doesn't both know about this and know that it's wrong that his parents didn't do it.
She looks into Maglor's mind, hoping he did it for them back a million years ago [please!] no, nope. He was being 'respectful', and only gave the children little private nicknames and private special names, so they'd have some, something, but had also left an empty space for their hero parents to fill someday. If only Maglor would just openly take over, it'd be so much easier.
But she can see that if she asks for that, that he will baulk, and also that Elrond will be very angry. So she doesn't.
Life is hard, often. At least it's nicer now than it used to be, she thinks, and looks at seashells on the shore alone. She has to have animals remind her when she should go somewhere else, she tells them when she gets places, otherwise she forgets about stuff like hours and times. Now they remind her all the time, cause people want to be with her, and even expect her places -- not just her family or Earendil, but even Elrond, or Maglor and her friends. It's pretty neat, for someone to want to see you.
Earendil often thinks about how Elrond has no 'other', no similar match in terms of his weird blood. There is no partial-elf lady in Aman for him. There never will be. She gets that it's sad, but likes that Elrond feels non-weird about being weird/different. And Gil-Galad is nice to him, and Elrond likes him a lot, so that all seems fine to her. She mostly is sad about Elros, honestly, and also how Dior will never live again so that she can punch him.