Peace, Vast and Unknowable by Isilme_among_the_stars  

here is a murmuration scrawling endless hypnotic shapes above the horizon, and a brother at my side, though he, unlike the birds, is silent. Brooding is not normally a word that describes Elros. This evening though, it is apt enough.

Beleriand (what is left of it) is much quieter since Morgoth's capture. Here we stand at the abrupt full stop to endless paragraphs of conflict. War (the only story we have ever known) is a noisy affair; in the clamour metal shrieks, men and horses scream alike. Else it holds tense silence, as limbs and tongues absolutely still before ambush, or a breath never taken, robbed along with all that should have come after. War is never quiet. Not like this. Tonight, there is a hush in which the grass whispers, birds sing undisturbed and brooks murmur gaily, wending their way between the trees, heeding no danger and anticipating no pain. This apparently, is peace. I find it unsettling. It is an end that feels like an abbreviation.

Beside me Elros shifts, rocking his weight slightly between his haunches, knees pulled to his chest.

"Do you think those birds will ever shut up?" he asks, more plaint than question.

To him, all nature seems much louder in the hush that follows the war. At times unbearably thunderous. Peace presses in on us relentlessly, even as, like the atonic atmosphere that heralds a storm, it lets us distend uncomfortably. War hugged our souls like a summer’s day, demanding restraint, holding us to a certain shape. Neither of us know how to unspool into peace. The future before us is oppressively expansive.

“Elrond?”

“Yes?”

“Why do you suppose they do that?”

“Damned if I know.”

We stare long at the mesmerising display as the evening deepens toward dusk.

Stray strands of hair slip between Elros's fingers as he winds them fretfully. “I wish I owned the same certainty."

“So do I," I agree, my words barely more than breath.

I wonder, if I were a starling, whether I too would move effortlessly with the flock. Would I open my wings wide to the sheer joy of shared flight with nary a care beyond the moment? Oh, to be a bird! Never troubled by the concept of hereafter. When tomorrow is a question that cannot be answered, how blissful such heedlessness would be. Will we stumble forward like our winged companions, letting fate make our decisions for us? Or will we stride, owning each step, no matter how faltering or errant? I should have liked to ask Maedhros how to choose. Few others have stood at the nadir of history and written their own doom. But he is gone.

These things I know:

The sun will rise tomorrow.

Unlike Arien, who first ascended from the place she now sets, I can never return to my harbour.

All my homes rot beneath the waves, razed by flames, colonised by the sea. Save one.

Only fools believe home to be made of timber and stone. It is not. Nor of ploughed earth. Home is built with hearts that quicken in time, a friendly sword at your back and willingness to lick each other’s wounds clean.

The dead, of course, can do none of these things, and sunken Beleriand is crowded with ghosts.

There is not a single stretch of this land left in which I belong, except the square foot of earth beside which my brother’s feet tread.

Soon, he and I will decide if that too shall sink beneath the briny sea.

I haven’t a damned clue how to choose.

Regardless, the sun will rise tomorrow. Even now that promise is splashed across the vaulted heavens, reflected in clouds of mauve as a vermillion horizon sets them alight from below. The night is unbearably fair. I wish I could crawl out of my skin.

"Elros?"

"Yes?"

He lays his cheek on one knee, face turned toward me with dim curiosity, half-distracted by his own thoughts.

"When was the last time we did this?"

"What? Sat out in the fields at dusk inviting the mosquitoes to feast on our blood?"

"No. Quietly drank the world in, paying no mind to the next thing."

"You are paying mind to the next thing, Elrond. You cannot keep yourself from it any more than I can."

I fix unblinking eyes on the flaming sky for so long that when I finally close them phantasms of lurid green haunt the backs of my eyelids. Sibilant, the grass sighs between us. Elros closes the distance, then the warmth of his hand is at my back, his voice soft and close.

“It would have to have been with Maglor, before the fighting crept so far north.”

I tip my head against his shoulder, snaking an arm around his waist in turn.

“Do you think they’ll find him?” Finarfin’s Amanyar have been searching for weeks.

“Not if he doesn’t want to be found.” Elros huffs out a derisive sound that seems half ironic amusement, half sigh. “I don’t think he knows what to do with peace.”

“Neither do I,” I admit.

“Well, that makes three of us.”

On the horizon a star rises bright and keen, to join the smattering of faint glimmers above. Hail Eärendil, brightest of stars! What advice would you have for us now? On nights long passed, we sat with Maglor's stolid weight at our backs, eyes turned to the sky. Elros reached up, as if to touch our father's light, while I whispered questions past his dark hair. Maglor swallowed my insatiable curiosity, naming every heavenly body Elros's chubby fingers brushed past with honest delight. Would Eärendil have done the same? Would he have tucked us warmly within his cloak, fending off the chill so we could stay that little bit longer? Who can say? But Maglor did. He had a way of snatching small moments of rapture amid the turmoil of war-torn Beleriand. Though how not to drown when small awes become glut, he did not teach us. Perhaps Eärendil would have bettered him on that point. I cannot say. He made his choice to love us from afar.

This I do know:

Arien followed Tilion into the sky freely. In his adoration, Tilion has trodden in her footsteps ever since.

For the same, my father followed my mother into a fate he wanted not.

Elros and I are unlike either. We will walk the paths our hearts dictate, whether they align or not.

The sky is inky now, not so much smattered as swathed in stars. Elros stands and offers me his hand. "Come on, it's getting cold."

Always my brother has been a shade more restless than me. Never pleased to idle. I let him pull me along like he has been doing my whole life. "Tell me, what is the thing that haunts your thoughts?"

"The frightfully un-drawn spectre of tomorrow," he snorts, "What else?"

“I suppose we must learn to sketch the shape of it for ourselves."

"Sketch? You're a details man Elrond!" he teases, "You will write a thesis into tomorrow, annotating it to death with philosophies and theory. Leave the outlines to me."

Someday soon we will have to choose. We'll make our marks in the vast blank tome of the future and leave it forever changed. But not tonight. Tonight, I happily inhabit the square foot of space beside Elros, putting down roots. His feet stumble at my playful shove.

"Oh, you want theory? I theorise that tankard of ale you downed with dinner slowed your feet. For once, I am going to make it back to camp first."

Eärendil winks at me as Tilion lights the path down which I set off running. Elros and I race to the backdrop of cricket chirps floating clear and sweet above grassy sighs. Faster, the little brooks urge. Their swiftly running streams egg me on as we duck beneath the cover of trees. In the twilit forest, the world trades high voiced starling song for croaking nightjar calls. Beyond the beat of our hurrying feet, the hush of ceasefire goes on, a little less oppressive.

Chapter End Notes

Arien and Tilion are the maia steering the sun and moon respectively, and Amanyar = elves from Aman, in this case Finarfin & Ingwë's followers who came to Beleriand to fight the War of Wrath.

This one came to life with no small amount of blood, sweat and tears (figuratively). Despite this, I have grown to like it. I hope you did too.

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