I own nothing.

Mad, labyrinthine desire: this is what kept her prisoner. Obsession is a labyrinth, and Elwing knows the twists in the halls all too well. The Halls of Waiting could not be a more effective trap.

And was I the only one ever to be ensnared by the jewel? she wonders bitterly, running poor, thin hands over poor, thin wrists as she wanders the stony shores. The pale mauve light of morning laps at her feet. Was I the only one ever to be ensnared by a Silmaril? Was I the only one ever to throw away things of greater value for a blood-stained bauble?

She had escaped the destruction of Sirion, escaped those who sought to take what was hers, escaped with all thought driven from her mind. There was only one thing left in Elwing as she flew away—fear. No fear of death. Death meant nothing to Elwing, who loved life not; death might have even been a relief.

Elwing was beyond a fear of death. What she was afraid of, instead, was the theft of her Silmaril. She was afraid of that, afraid of the strange, alien form she had taken without warning. She had been a woman, broken, bleeding, but then she was a great, white bird, flying away from the city. Elwing did not know how her shape had come to change. She did not know why she was flying, or where; she could not stop no matter how her wings (arms) ached and she felt that she would fall out of the sky at any moment if she did not rest.

Out of the night after four days, flying without cease, came the shape of Vingilot, white and ghostly in the dark. Elwing's exhaustion was so great that she did not first recognize the one who caught her, but after a while her rescuer's face resolved itself into a familiar form: Eärendil, blue-eyed with a mane of golden hair falling past his shoulders. He did not know her until the morning, when at long last she regained her rightful shape.

Almost immediately, Eärendil began to try to press Elwing to give him the Silmaril. She knew not why he wanted it or what he wanted it for. Eärendil would not say, but that did not matter. Explanation or no, any attempt to divest her of what was hers had Elwing clinging to it more tightly. The Silmaril was hers, and no one else could have it. It took months (or was it years?) for Eärendil to wheedle it away from her, and even afterwards Elwing coveted it. She watched him, wearing it at his brow, and plotted plans to get it back that never seemed to go anywhere and never took into account that even if she did recover her jewel, Eärendil would know just who had taken it and would surely take it back.

It was mine. It was mine, and mine alone. No one else could have it, not even him. I had given it to him only to cease his begging—I thought that surely this would only be a temporary measure.

Setting foot on the Undying Lands had not been enough to give Elwing back independence of mind. She had wanted it back, even then. The recovery of the Silmaril had been first and foremost upon her mind, everything else taking second place. She remembers watching as Vingilot lifted up into the sky.

It was a wrenching. A wrenching feeling. Like pulling away a scab. Like opening up a great scar. Like reaching down into my chest and ripping out my heart, and refusing to ever let me have it again. It was a part of me—no, that's not right. I was a part of it. I was a part of the Silmaril, an appendage attached to it. The only time I ever felt right was when it was lying against my skin. What was I without it? What was I without that great, terrible jewel?

I thought I would drown in darkness without it. That was the only time I ever feared dying, when I thought I would drown in darkness without the Silmaril with me, for sunlight was nothing compared to it. It would be nothing more than a twinkling in the sky, and its loss grieved me more than the loss of my husband.

I was a part of it. And it was going away. My jewel was leaving me for good. I feared being bereft. I wandered the shores and mourned while the Swan-Elves built my tower. The birds sang me songs of comfort, and I listened naught.

There I was. I was caught in the belly of a ravening beast, for that was what my obsession was. It was a long and perilous climb I was facing, and I was not strong—I am still not strong, weak, pathetic, scrawny thing. I was facing a climb out of the belly, out of the maw, and into the light of the Sun.

I was weak, and I was nothing without the Silmaril, I was sure.

But I did it. But I still made the climb.

And when I made it out, and stood blinking in the light of the Sun, there was no one there to greet me.

Elwing was free of it. Her flesh was still wasted, and remains wasted still, but the thing that had claimed her mind and her heart since tiny girlhood could claim her no longer. She was amazed at how light she felt, wondered how she had never noticed how heavy she was before, how that jewel around her throat had weighted her down, dragged her down, ever further down and down into the depths. She—

What have I done?

Realization hit her as though she had gotten down on her knees, here on this shore, and let a wave crash over her. Realization was a dose of cold water.

What have I done?

It still is.

Her knees are weak; they often are. Elwing collapses onto a large rock, pulling her thin white cloak about her and shivering, though whether from an unseasonable chill in the air or something else, she can not say. Fat raindrops hit her hair and her bare arms, or perhaps that's just sea spray. She can never tell, at times like this.

Elwing escaped Sirion, all thought driven from her mind, except to keep that which was hers.

And where are her sons?

Where are her boys, whom she left behind in Sirion?

How could I… How could I… Where were they in the palace, that day? I don't even know that. I was so intent on what I thought was mine. I forgot about them, about Elros and Elrond. I forgot about them, in favor of a blood-stained bauble.

She knows that they live. The hardiest of birds, who can make the journey across the Belegaer and back, they have brought her this news to soothe her troubled soul. But while Manwë's Eagles are intelligent, the minds of ordinary birds are simple, and their language reflects this. They have words for 'dead' and 'alive' and 'well'. They can compliment and insult, commiserate and gossip—and goodness knows that Elwing has picked up truly salacious gossip from the sea gulls—but they can not do much more than that. Elrond and Elros are alive, but that is all she knows.

Where are they?

What has happened to them?

Ideally, Elwing imagines that her sons have been rescued and sheltered by her own people. She imagines that the Sindar have found them, that they are raising the sons of their Queen. If not that, than they are among the remnants of the Gondolindrim, or even protected by Gil-Galad, the Sindarin-raised High King of the Noldor.

But Elwing has never set much stock by hope. Hope deserted her long ago, whatever they call the Silmaril in the sky now. It is far more likely, she realizes, that her twin boys have been taken hostage by the Enemy. Not by Morgoth. Not even by the Easterlings. Her twin boys have likely been taken hostage by the sons of Fëanor, if they live still, who came to Sirion for their father's creation. Perhaps her sons are well-treated hostages, but they are nothing more than that, and the moment they become inconvenient, they will die.

She abandoned her children and her city, left them to their fates at the hands of the conquerors. How could I, how could I…

How could he?

Truth is truth. And blood is blood as well, and blood always runs true. Elwing is inevitably brought to mind, in the silence, the miserable silence broken only by crashing waves, of another who chose as she did. Of one who put her in the same position that her sons are in now. Elwing can feel nothing for Dior but ambivalence. She had adored her father as a tiny girl, thought him the bravest, most beautiful, most perfect person she knew, but that does not change truth. Here was one who loved the Silmaril to his death, to his family's deaths, to the ruination of his kingdom. She had loved him, but that does not change the fates of the dead. Elwing is still without Nimloth, without Eluréd and Elurín, without Galathil and Thínloth*. Where are they, the blameless dead? They are dead as the result of one man's obsession.

The Silmarils belong to no one. Elwing knows that now. They are claimed by the earth, the air, the sea, for they are accursed and nothing else will have them. She knows that now. But Dior did not, and she still chose to act as he did, despite remembering all too well the ruination of Doriath and the loss of her whole family, in one fell swoop. She is indeed her father's daughter, and Elwing runs her hands through her hair, wishing that she was not. The family curse of sorts ran true, from Thingol to Lúthien to Dior to her, only growing stronger through the generations until Elwing, little Elwing, daughter and granddaughter and great-granddaughter of those also obsessed with a Silmaril, was devoured wholesale by her passion. She is her father's daughter, and that is why her sons are not with her now.

She is her father's daughter.

Her sons are not with her.

Everyone knows these things.

Well, there's a reason Elwing chose to live in solitude, away from the established cities of Aman.

Whenever she went out into society, Elwing could hear the whispers, feel the stares. Whether imagined or not, condemnation was with her wherever she went. It followed her like Death itself. 'How could a mother abandon her children? How could a mother value a jewel over the lives of her children? How could a mother do such a thing? How could she how could she how could she…" Oh yes, she can hear it, imagined or not. Those words are like knives, and their pierce more deeply than blades ever could.

She thinks she understands.

Dior is tragic because he died.

Elwing is monstrous because she lived.

As if she was the only one ever to be caught fast by the obsession of a fatal jewel. As if she was the only one who ever looked into a Silmaril and was lost.

But Elwing is not a monster. Whatever she and others say of her, she knows she is not a monster. She is just an Elf. She is just a person who was weak, and alone, and lonely, and who loved the image more than the reality. The waking world was a nightmare from which she could never escape, and she preferred oblivion and blindness to wakefulness. Her sons got lost along the way. Whatever else she may be, she is not a monster.

The sea gulls wheel about in the sky above, and they cry down to her 'Time to get up. Time to get up. Day is coming. Time to get up.' Elwing hops to her feet, and brushes her skirt clean of sand. She has duties to attend to.

The Sindar in Aman, released from the Halls of Waiting, who are not content to be ruled by a Kindred of the Eldar flock to her. Thingol resides still in the Halls—those who have been re-embodied hint that it is likely to be a very long time before he is released. No one knows of the fate of Dior; no one can report having seen him in the Halls, but neither do they know if he shares the fate of mortals, to go beyond the circles of the world as his parents did. Elwing was Queen of the Sindar in Middle-Earth, and she is as well in the Undying Lands. They look to her, and she has her duty to them.

A city has sprung up around her tower, small but growing larger with each year. No longer does Elwing live alone, in solitude. Again, she lives among her people.

And if her sons ever come to Aman, if they ever wish to be with her, there will be a place for them here. There must be. There always has been, and she's simply not had the eyes to see it, until now.

End Note:

1: Galathil is the canonical name of Nimloth's father. Since her mother isn't given a name, I have dubbed her Thínloth.

Eärendil's chapter is up next.