Heget's Blatherings

This piece could be considered the other half of a ditypch with Grief is an Undertow.

“Great was the sorrow of Eärendil and Elwing for the ruin of the havens of Sirion, and the captivity of their sons, and they feared that they would be slain; but it was not so.” [Silm 297]

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Her husband pulls out the shard of sun-stone, notching more lines in the railings of the ship, murmurs into the breeze soft words of heading and degrees into the wind, and wishes for charts of currents. He prays for winds, directions, fish for their hooks, and the provisions of fruit to last. He prays for the Valar, that their faithful ship shall finally reach them, this ship of which Elwing has learned each plank and tar-slick rope by memory of touch. Eärendil hopes to meet the Valar.
Elwing is only interested in one.
The Judge holds all of her family - with the lone exception of her husband beside her- in his Halls. Elwing’s memory can clearly recall each length of this ship, the sound of Vingilot’s sails snapping, the rush of foam as its prow slices through the waves. She can barely recall the sound of her mother’s voice, or her father’s face, or the feeling of her sons. In Mandos’s Halls are her father Dior and mother Nimloth. Her older brothers will be there, no longer lost, no longer forcibly and cruelly separated from family. In the Halls of the Judge Eluréd sits next to Elurin, holding her sons in their arms. Elwing prays her sons have found their uncles with whom they shared the same sweet smiles and now unfortunately the same cruel fate. Her brothers will bring smiles back to the faces of Elros and Elrond, hold them tight to banish any night terrors. Her grandfather Galathil will be there, and his parents who died before the Moon rose, and their kin. Together they shall buoy the spirits of their descendants, share the stories and laughter that they could not in life. King Thingol will be there, her great-grandfather Elu who held her as an infant and declared even as an infant she was as beautiful as Melian and would grow to be as wise and strong. Melian’s grief she has inherited, perhaps, and Elwing thinks her great-grandmother is the only other Power she hopes to meet, someone of her blood who understands the sorrow and fear and anger of which only the reunions that the Halls provide can heal. Only her grandfather’s brother is not in Mandos. And her father’s parents, though they saw it. Most of her husband’s family are in the Halls as well, the side that is not mortal. Of Eärendil's parents, they know not, and Elwing wonders if they will be found with the vast majority of her family, or if they have journeyed far beyond the stars like Grandmother Lúthien and Grandfather Beren to wherever holds the mortal dead.
Her husband sails for hope, to save the still living. Elwing supports him, holds his hands as they search the horizon, grips his shoulders as he perches from the mast to gauge the position of the stars, and listens to his prayers. But her hope is for the Halls of Mandos that hold her dead, the one place overwhelming with love, her one hope to see her children’s faces again, and her parents and people.

At first Elwing thinks the grilled fish is the bluefish she is used to, the heavy fishy flavor wafting off the golden crust, but when her hosts cut into the fish and start to pull apart pieces of the cooked flesh, nimbly avoiding the bones, she sees it is not so. There is a loaf of bread, yet in shape and texture it looks nothing like any bread she knows or has kneaded. Another grilled fish, crusted in a thick layer of charred salt and smelling faintly of some sweet cooking liquor, is dropped into the center of the banquet table, the head and tail hanging over the edges of the massive yet delicate serving platter. The platter is a soft white, with the imprint of feathers along the rim, of a delicate ceramic that she vaguely remembers. She has not seen an object so fine and delicate for a long time. The meals she has eaten for the last twenty years, when she had been fortunate enough to have dishes on which to eat them, have been on wooden platters or the thick reddish brown ceramic of mortal make. In recent memory it has been her fingers greedily pulling apart hastily boiled small fish that either her husband or she had caught. Infrequent meals those had been, often spoiled by stomachs wracked by worry.

The rich scent of garlic and lemon pulls Elwing out of memories, and she looks up to see the next dish being uncovered. A lid is being removed from yet another fish dish, this time a giant and also unrecognizable specimen that has been obviously seasoned and steamed in its own juices. The surrounding broth smells fragrant, and her host uses a ladle to scoop some of it into a small bowl and set it before her. A piece of soft bread is placed next to the bowl. Light highlights the delicate translucence of the bowl's edges as she stares at it. “Eat this first,” the queen says, the small crown of silver shells and mother-of-pearl above her sad face glimmering with the same wet luster as her eyes. “It shall not overtax your stomach.”

As the queen speaks, her husband is uncovering yet another dish of what looks to be fried squid and brightly-colored vegetables with delight. Yet still more dishes are being brought, and the guest feels overwhelmed. This was not to be any large feast, just an intimate meal for newly reunited family, and yet she is besieged by the bounty of food. She thinks back to the excitement of a pot of eel stew. The last dish she notices before the tears overwhelm is a platter of round crab cakes. They look exactly like the ones she used to make for her family, even the small cup of cream dipping sauce, though she served hers in a cleaned clam shell and this one is in a porcelain cup made to mimic the shell shape. She remembers breaking a cake apart with her fingers and feeding a piece to her son as she held him on her lap, his brother greedily reaching for a second serving and dipping his fingers into the sauce to lick it clean.

The memory destroys what remained of her appetite. Elwing sobs.

There are warm arms around her, two sets, holding her tight, a hand stroking her hair, a man’s soft low voice whispering smoothing words to her, promising her she is safe, that he will protect her, a woman telling her that she has permission to cry, she can show weakness, that she is loved. In her most distant memories the woman recalls parents who had once done this for her. Elwing weeps and through her tears thanks them for the meal.

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For the various seafood dishes I used a vague miss-mash of places to reflect the difference in locations, not just the cultural divergence and economic/survival levels, but also the oceanography. Turkish seafood cuisine was a main inspiration, the crab cakes were for my own nostalgia because I lived in Maryland and nowadays am very partial to Louisiana crab cakes with rémoulade sauce, and lastly the very traditionally English eel stew, because this universe was created by Tolkien.