Taking Readings I by Himring  

The Girl from Doriath

Earendil and Elwing--at the Havens and later on.

Drabble for the Homophone Challenge at Tolkien Weekly.
Prompt: beech/beach

Rating: PG (themes of displacement)

He saw her wandering barefoot along the beach. Seagulls called overhead. The seashore was new to him, then, rich and strange, and she seemed to belong entirely to that brave new world.

But he found that, just as inside him there was a boy who had never left the encircling mountains, she too was part astray, an earlier self never dislodged from oak, beech and elm.

They had been forced to learn departure too early. He went on practicing it, making it his own, while she clung.

In the end, she was all that remained to him of any shore.

Chapter End Notes

Earendil ought not to be quoting Shakespeare, but there was no stopping him.