When Elwing begins suffering the first of the birthing pangs,
Eärendil is confident that he is prepared. He has long been regaled with tales
concerning the peculiarities of childbirth among the Elves – midwives and neighbors
and councilors and random denizens of Sirion simply coming up to their beloved
Mariner in the streets, all eager to inaugurate a Man into their mysteries.
So he knows to expect that Elwing will have some premonition
of the children to come – twins, she says. Boys. Intertwined even now, nestled
within her.
He even knows to expect the screams.
It is because they are twins, he is told – rare, among the
Elves.
And ill-fated, though none say this to him.
(ill-fated, he hears
them whisper all the same)
(all shall fade)
But his early confidence is shaken all the same by the
enormity, the longevity, the gut-wracking intimacy of Elwing’s pain. Day shades
to dusk, and still she labors. Dusk slants into night, and still she cries out.
Night deepens further and further, and still Eärendil’s soothing words, his hands,
his kisses, take nothing of her burden from her.
For all that he never met the queen before her death so long
ago, Eärendil has never felt the loss of Nimloth of Doriath so keenly. Neither,
it seems by the barely-veiled panic in her eyes, has Elwing herself.
“It will be well,” he murmurs, ignoring the pulverizing strength
of her grip on his hand when finally they coax her to lie down and push.
“Please, let all be well,” he pleads of the stars, when
finally Elwing’s screams have drawn the midwives to shoo him from the room in
concern.
And it seems that the stars must hear him, for when finally
he is permitted to return, Elwing is drawn but alive, and she cradles twin
bundles to her chest.
Silent twin bundles.
“Are – are they well?” he whispers, ducking to place a kiss
to her forehead. Surely even no Elven child is quite so noiseless?
“They are well,” a midwife clucks.
Elwing says naught, but blinks, blearily, and from their
places at their mother’s breast, Eärendil’s sons watch him with wide, solemn
gray eyes. He can almost imagine that their brows furrow in sync. Judging him.
He did not expect that these children would be quite so
aware of the world, having been within it only moments.
And yet, there they are, watching him.
~ ~ ~
One of the first things that Eärendil was told, when Elwing
conceived, was that Elven mothers receive a premonition of their children –
their temperaments, their minds, even their futures – shortly after their births.
So he knows to expect that Elwing will name the babes – his sons, Eärendil has sons!
– and that these names will herald something about the boys.
But a day goes by – and then another, and another – and still
Elwing has not proffered their babes’ names.
Not to Eärendil, and not to any of the nurses and midwives
who hover about them, protective in a way that Eärendil imagines they would not
be, were he an Elven mate.
But he does notice her, sometimes, looking down at them in
puzzlement, as if the premonition has been received and it has puzzled her in
some way.
“Perhaps if you just tell me,” he suggests, the next time he
sees her looking at them so. “Will that make it easier?”
“I –“ She seems to consider this for a moment, and then
shakes her head. “I don’t know.”
He waits. He does not understand what she is going through,
but he will be patient, and supportive, no matter what she needs.
“Their names,” she starts, and then stops again. “I – I do
not understand. Their names…”
She comes to some decision – he sees it happen. And he
knows, then, that whatever she will say next, it is not the names that she was
given for their sons.
“Elros. And Elrond.”
But Eärendil loves his wife, and he loves his newborn sons,
and he trusts that if Elwing thinks to hide her premonition, she must have good
reason to do so.
“Elros and Elrond,” he repeats, and he can feel the great
grin growing across his face. “My sons. My sons!”
Elwing laughs at him, her voice low and weak, as he springs
from the chair to whirl an imaginary partner about the room in an ungraceful jig
upon air, but Eärendil does not care. His wife is well and his sons have names!
“Elros and Elrond, Elrond and Elros, Elros and Elrond!
Welcome, boys, welcome!”
As if recognizing the sound of their new names, the twins
open their eyes as one. They remain silent, and watchful, as ever they have
been, but Elwing is still laughing, so Eärendil tells himself that he does not
mind their stares.
~ ~ ~
And it is not that theirs are poor names – not at all!
Consider, for instance, how much worse they could have
portended, as Eärendil has heard told of other mothers and their babes!
He would be able to puzzle it out, Eärendil thinks, if only
he could remember where he had heard others like them before…
~ ~ ~
The children grow faster than even the midwives had
suspected, given their half-mannish heritage.
Well. Say not ‘the children,’ though, and rather, ‘the
twins.’
For Elros and Elrond look like children. And they sound like
children. And they certainly act and speak as though they have observed
children very closely, and are doing their best to mimic recognizable
behaviors.
Eärendil loves his sons – of course he does.
But he has also come to suspect that they are not children.
Whatever the twins are, though, Eärendil does not take to
the sea to avoid their too-old, too-watchful, too-knowing eyes.
He does not.
And neither does he take to the sea to avoid the way his
wife looks at them – with a frown and a furrowed brow, as if she knows who or
what they are, and is trying to persuade
herself that she does not.
~ ~ ~
The Fëanorians never send an embassy demanding the return of
their father’s gem.
Eärendil is far enough apart from the quarrels of his wife’s
race that he never thinks to question why this this might be so.
~ ~ ~
When the time comes for him to sail again – and longer, and
farther, than he has ever ventured before – Eärendil kneels before the twins
and embraces them.
(for he loves them, he
does, whatever other emotions he feels for them besides)
“You have heard that I am sailing into the West, yes?” he
asks. “I go to seek the gods, to beg their aid for our people.”
They nod.
In synchrony.
“You will return,” says Elros. It may be a demand; it may be
a statement.
“You cannot leave our sister,” says Elrond. It may be a
premonition; it may be a command.
“Your – sister?” Eärendil asks.
Elwing has not told him that she had conceived again. And if
she had, how would the twins know that they have a new sibling?
“She has lost enough,” says Elros.
“More than enough,” says Elrond.
“Mother,” says Elros.
“Father,” says Elrond.
“Us,” they say together.
Eärendil simply draws them closer, the twins (his sons, his sons, they are *his* sons).
Even he knows enough not to promise them that they can never
be lost again.
“So,” said the man. He knelt so that his long red hair kissed the sand, but still he towered over them. “Which of you is which? I’m sure you’re sick of being asked, but I promise not to do it twice – I have the trick of telling twins apart.”
Elrond and Elros said nothing. The other man, who had dragged them from the cave, was silent too, even when the kneeling man glanced to him with a frown upon his handsome face.
“We’re your closest kin upon these shores,“ he said when the silence had stretched long. “And so we’ll guard you until your parents return for you.” Guard could be taken a number of ways but he did not choose to clarify.
“They won’t come back,” said Elrond, who was given to portentous prophecy.
“You killed them,” said Elros, because you didn’t need the foresight of the Eldar to read bloody blades and corpses on the nursery floor.
The man stood at their backs made a dry clacking sound. They would later learn it was a laugh. He was as ugly as the other man was handsome with a twisted mouth, spindly, crooked fingers, and pale eyes that stared and stared.
“My brother does not speak,” said the kneeling man, in his place. “And your mother lives, as far as we can tell. It is our hope as much as yours that she return.”
“And if she doesn’t?”
“As I said, we are kin. Do you know us?”
“Kinslayers,” said Elros.
“Fëanorians,” said Elrond.
“Precious little distinction these days,” said Maedhros – for surely that was who knelt before them – as his brother clacked another laugh. “Our people will see to your needs. Pelingil will-”
The grip upon their shoulders tightened and the mute man made a sound that was almost words.
“I do not think that wise,” said his brother.
The sound again, but more insistent and Elrond, despite his resolution, flinched away from those cold, broken fingers. The man let him go and he staggered, righted himself and almost took off running, but Elros was still held and where would they run to now?
“Are you certain?” Maedhros said.
“Ekh,” hissed the man.
“As you wish.” And then, to the twins, “My brother will have the keeping of you.” He stood, brushed himself off, and was away up the beach, calling orders to his soldiers, as his brother knelt between them, looking from boy to boy with bright, pale eyes.
He made a new noise and tapped Elros’ chest. Even had it not been for the anger and the fear, they would have struggled to make out that tongueless gurgle, and he had to repeat himself again before they could find sense in it.
Evidently, Maedhros was not the only brother with the trick of telling twins apart, for the word that he had mangled was Elros’ name.
Raising Cain 2: Electric Boogaloo 