Sons of Destiny [CURRENTLY EDITING AND REWRITING]

Just the Three of Us

A man and a woman stood on the beautifully crafted dock, alone. They had to be alone—there was so much to say now that the crew was loaded. So much to say in so little time. The man was tall, and slim, yer muscular. The light of wisdom usually shone in his clear sapphire eyes, but now shimmering tears replaced his inner light.

The woman was beautiful and cream-skinned, slender and raven-haired. Unlike her husband's tears, which were only just surfacing, her sorrow was steadily streaming out of her sky-grey eyes. She placed a hand on his cheek and replaced a strand of pale golden hair that the sea breeze had knocked out of its place.

"Do you have to?" She said it so quietly that only her husband's partly elvish hearing could pick it up.
"For the good of Arda," he sighed. "You are in Arda, so this is also for you."
The woman turned away. Her beloved would be leaving soon, and he had told her moons ago when he was to leave, but now was different. She had begged him not to go so many times, shed many tears and even refused to share a bed with him after the occasional overheated argument.

But he was Eärendil, the fearless voyager with an unquenchable passion for the waves of distant seas. She was only Elwing, the small, demure girl who stayed behind fretting half to death for his safety. She couldn't sway him before, and she wouldn't try again now. It was "Valinor, ho!" for him and "Love you, Nana," for her.

"Go then. May Manwë speed your sails and Ossë spare his wrath," she said, drying the tears from her almost rancorous glare.

Eärendil sensed her half-hearted blessing and tried to press her into one last kiss. Just before she refused, the couple heard the patter of tiny feet on the wood behind them.

"Nana! Ada!" said two little voices in perfect unison.

The parents forced themselves to smile at the little boys. Eärendil squatted down to their level and stretched out his arms. "There are my little first mates!"

The little ones slammed into their father's legs. Their nearly identical faces brightened when they felt themselves being scooped up. Eärendil rose to his full height. "You two let Cirdain and Naneth breathe, alright?" he chuckled.

One of the boys, the one with brown hair and soft doe's eyes nodded vigorously. "I be gud," he smiled.

"How about you, Elros? Will you be good like Elrond?"

The other boy, was as jet haired and wide-eyed as his mother had been at his age. "Mebbe," he gave his father a tiny smirk.

Eärendil laughed. His twins were barely two, and already their personalities shone as differently as the Sun and Moon. Elros was the firstborn, the mischief maker; Elrond was the second child, the eager learner and pleaser. Thinking these thoughts, Eärendil sighed. He kissed each boy on the forehead and passed the little bundles of energy to their mother.

"Love them for me," he whispered into her ear.

"Stay here and love them yourself," she pleaded one last time.

"If I stay, Morgoth will have his way, and there will be no love left to give, and no world to give it in." Eärendil pulled away from his gorgeous young wife and the twin in each of her arms.

Elwing nodded her doomed consent. Her husband stepped back and gave her one last brush across the lips. Her turned around and took one purposeful step towards the shining white vessel, then another, until he had walked up the boarding plank and stood at the stern of his beautiful ship Vingilot. He raised a hand in farewell and shouted "Weigh anchor!" to his crew. Slowly the ship began to sway away from the docks. Eärendil blinked back tears as he looked back at his little family one last time, getting smaller and smaller.

"Buh-bye! Bye, Ada!" his twins waved goodbye at him from the docks. Their mother grimly watched the ship leave. She wondered if the Powers would accept her husband's second attempt to reach Aman.
The ship still wasn't over the horizon, but Elwing turned away nonetheless. She couldn't bear to watch her hopes and dreams of a bonded family and quiet home sail away on that gorgeous ship.

As she walked down the docks, she put her boys down and held their hands.

"Where Ada goin'?" Elros asked as he skipped along to keep up with his Nana's strides.

"On an adventure," she replied absently.

"When he come back?" Elrond added to his brother's question.

"It's just the three of us now, little ones," Elwing said with a new tear welling up in her eye.

Tell me what you think of my very first tale! Keep the constructive criticism and the admiration clean for all.