sabcatt

Title: Rediscovery of the Family
Author: sabcatt

Fandom: The Silmarillion
Prompt: looking back
Rating: T
Words: 907
Characters: Eärendil, Elros, Elrond, Gil-Galad, Eönwë

Summary: Eärendil observes his sons, now grown, from afar.

—

In the fading dim season of the year 572 of what would later be called the First Age of Arda, Eärendil leaned over Vingilot’s taffrail and watched two strangers ride into Gil-Galad’s forward camp. The strangers, he would later learn, were Elros and Elrond, his sons; and though he knew it not and marked it not, this was the first time he had beheld them since they were children, his last image of them being two identical boys waving goodbye with clumsy, chubby arms that had scythed through the air, winglike, until he could no longer see them where they stood side-by-side with their mother on the dock, nor they him on his ship.

They were not children any longer.

▼

Elros refused to spar with sharpened blades, as was the custom of the Host of the West. “I will not practice softening my blows,” he declared. His dull sword, which had been with him when he arrived, hung loose in his hand; his expression was half-disgusted. On the ground nearby lay the groaning body of his opponent, bruised by what would have been a killing blow from a sharpened blade.

Some argued with him; practice with live weapons was a matter of trust, they said, and Elros' choices precluded his comrades from learning that he would not hurt them.

"That's stupid," Elros said. "Hurting your opponent is the purpose of fighting. If you don't want to hurt someone in a fight, you just roll over and let them hurt you instead. I guess the concept is nice, honorable and sweet, even, but for my part, they'll have to learn to trust me some other way. I'd rather be rude and alive than noble-minded and dead."

This philosophical proclamation produced some fuss.

It took Gil-Galad’s pronouncement that Elros should be allowed his choice, with the faintest insinuation that to deny him would be to align oneself with the enemies of Sirion, to lay the matter to rest.

▼

Elrond, though he habitually carried a sword and a knife, refused to spar at all; Gil-Galad, not willing to risk his miraculous safety after the trauma of the twins' capture, assigned him guards. Elrond complained about being minded, as if he were a child, to anyone who would listen; then, before a week was out, he took advantage of a scouting party's return to slip away.

He returned hours later, none the worse for wear and annoyed by the production made of his reappearance by an agitated Gil-Galad, and said he had departed the camp to gather medicinal herbs in privacy. Gil-Galad spoke with him then, entreating him to think of the sacrifices his family had made for him, that he not waste them by risking himself in stubborn shows of independence; Elrond, in response, nodded solemnly.

The next time he left his guard behind, Gil-Galad told him that to disobey his King was insubordination and would not be borne in a resident of a military encampment.

"You will obey, or be punished," he said. "I do not mean to treat you as a child, Elrond. I am treating you as a soldier and, like it or not, a prince; I'd send you away if there were anywhere safe to send you to, as my father did me. But I cannot, and so, as you will not show that you can defend yourself, I must make sure you are defended. I trust that you can understand."

"I do," Elrond said, and continued to do exactly as he pleased; the promised punishment never came.

▼

Eärendil had no chance to see Elros fight, and no chance see Elrond dodge, light-footed, through the crowds and tents of the camp. He had news of their role in the war from Eönwë; Gil-Galad sent missives with the herald sometimes, sharing stories. Elros countered me in a strategy meeting—I won’t say I was wrong but he certainly wasn’t either. Elros nearly disarmed me in a spar today. Elrond was in my personal tent when I entered, and I almost jumped out of my skin, and by the time I could breathe again he was gone; he has his mother's grace. Elros has taken a liking to the Men who’ve come up from the south; he says he is bored of being trapped in the camp, and seeks to command a company of them—I may well let him.

I hope you’ll forgive me the liberty, but I spoke with the twins, who assented to my plan, and I spoke with Eönwë, and he has agreed that the twins ought to be permitted to visit you on Vingilótë. I will leave you three to manage the details between yourselves.

Eärendil wept the night he received that message, and in the morning apologized to Eönwë for using him as a messenger pigeon, but begged him to take his thanks to Gil-Galad.

“Of course I will do so,” Eönwë said. “I serve foremost the Elder King, and speak his words before any others, but it is not his wish that you should be cut off from the world entire. I will take Lord Ereinion your thanks, and I will even seek out your troublesome sons to arrange your meeting.”

Eärendil laughed, because in his mind, his troublesome sons were still five-year-olds wiping sandy, salty hands on the drapes. Eönwë departed with no further word.