Title: In the End, Unbroken

Author: Eärillë

Rating: PG-13

Warnings: Alternate Universe, Character Death, First Draft, Sensitive Topics

Summary:
Life in the Land of the Powers was not what Tuor and Idril had invisioned when they had set out from Beleriand. But they could not go back now, only forward – but until when? Still, they stood together, a family reunited and united – until the end, unbroken.

Genres: Family, ShortStory, Spiritual, Tragedy

Place and Timeline: Valinor, end of First Age till early Second Age

Characters: Eärendil, Elwing, Idril, OFC Half-Elven children, Tuor

Words (in MS Word): 1,495

Point of View: Third Person General, Past Tense

Challenge: Day 15: The Shire:
The cuisine of the Shire is unsurpassed. Write a story or poem, or create a work of art, featuring food.

Story Notes:
The story is AU past Tuor and Idril’s voyage to Valinor. And no actual names are used here; hopefully they are all deductable.

Author’s Notes:
The story is kind of desperate from the beginning to the end. If you would blame anyone, please blame my mutinous muse, who has been blaming me for entering this contest… I hope you will like it, still.
Resignedly,
Rey

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It had been years since they had been allowed to set foot on land. It had been years since they had met again with their son – and his wife – this side of the Sundering Sea. Any turmoil of emotions they had experienced then had faded by now, slightly, if not entirely. But one thing persisted: the feeling of mingled distrust, disgust, disdain, and even the pure loathing most of the people of Aman treated them with. – He was a Secondborn, a kind reputed to be of Morgoth’s vile breed; and she had married far beneath her, suggesting some foul, evil tricks at play. – The renown of their son, being the messenger bringing the pleas for aid from all the good races in the war-torn Beleriand, with a silmaril bound on his forehead, did not help them any. In fact, they were then viewed as the kind of wicked parents who would abandon their child – an only child no less – to survive alone in a hostile environment.

Their son had offered to fight for purification of their name, if not some semblance of relaxing life after the horrors that they had been through in Beleriand; of course, after he had gotten past his own bitterness towards their – especially his father – forsaking him for the sea. But they refused, not wanting to bring the taint on their son’s name – one that he had made for himself with tears and sweat and blood. Then, later, their priorly-unknown daughter-in-law proposed something so wild and unexpected that their first response was only to gape in stunned incomprehension.

Another child, or in fact more children, might be able to bring them out of their misery, she said. (And to that, their son looked extremely guilty.) It was a ridiculous notion, but true nonetheless, especially after the said daughter-in-law shared about her experiences taking care of her twin sons, while waiting forlornly for her husband to come back home from his long voyages. (It explained, in horrible insinuation, about their now-less-than-perfect son, who then curled into a ball on his seat and buried his face in his arms.)

It had been years since then, and now they had a pair of twin girls who had swiftly become the centre of their lives and those of their son and daughter-in-law. But sadly, those who had been ostracising them also demanded for their new daughters, claiming they had no right to produce more children, being filths on the world that they were. Those people taunted them by offering food and clothes and shelter for them if only they gave their daughters in exchange, and some went as far as threatening to just kidnap the twins without any retribution to the parents.

Life had become harder, but sweeter at the same time. Their daughters grew into young, pleasant girls, showered by love and care by not only their parents, but also their older brother and his wife. Leafy root-den as home and sewn rags as clothing were an everyday norm for them, just like their nomadic and frugal lifestyle and the fact that they always played and talked, a little one-sidedly, with the pond and the river and the creek and the falls near each of their current abode. They knew their parents were holding something from them, something big and menacing and horrible, but they did not wish to pry. It was heaven, as far as they knew, with loving, tight-knit family and the nature itself to guard them. They might have questioned their current states if they lived near some civilised community, comparing themselves to other children; but unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, they did not.

It was hard to keep such secret a secret, especially under pressure, but the proud parents of – now – three children were confident that they would endure it and survive. It was not until a few years later that they were truly backed into a corner, almost literally speaking.

Their daughter-in-law was in her tower, communing with the gulls that she took a form of once in a while. Their son was in the same tower, dozing after a night patrolling the sky with the Moon and giving hope to all good people left in their birthland. (In fact, the both of them had not visited in close to a year, only sending a brief missive every month to see if the family was all right, only saying that there was a trouble brewing and they had to monitor it closely.) It left only themselves and their daughters, stranded on the edge of Aman’s heart: a wide expanse of grilling desert. And now their supplies had been emptied but for a few scraps, their water-skins had been reduced from twelve to eight to four, and the most radical of their haters were besieging their camp by half-a-mile radius, all fully-armed and on the prime of their health. The Secondborn man was half dead, the Firstborn outcast was just bone-and-muscle-and-skin, and the Half-Elven twins were stunted in addition to their looking skinny-as-a-stick.

There were just a few scraps, and four water-skins, and enough will to live for a day more – if possible. There was enough for a meal, and no more.

The mother cooked them all – the scraps of food and water from most of the containers. She made thin bread from the last handfuls of flour they had mixed with some water and baked slowly in the sand, and bits of fruits and vegetables and meats were strewn on top of the circular pad like an array of haphazard settlement. (In fact, the twin girls helped to arrange them on the piece of bread, taking joy in play even in their most desperate moment.) The father, meanwhile, made a cup of sauce with the shrivelled tomatoes he ground with a small piece of oval stone he had cleaned with his share of water, then added the mixture on top of the bread when it was ready. He cut the bread into four sections, afterwards, and gave his family three. But he did not eat his share of bread, like he had not drunk his share of water.

Nobody asked, but they knew. The twins cleaned the camp after they had eaten, setting the bread portion of their father aside reverently on top of their best clothes – faded, torne night-shirts. They pretended not seeing, then, as their parents kissed with passion, arms locking and gripping and mouths devouring each other just as eyes did.

Night came, and the family huddled with each other for what little warmth and comfort they could share. But their besiegers did not make a move yet.

They did not have to. The Secondborn man gave his last shudder when the night grew old and the chill set in firmly. The little twins followed near dawn, as the world held its breath for the coming of the Sun and because of the choke-hold of the chill. And the Firstborn woman faded in grief for her shattered family, her eyes open, beholding the light of her eldest son for the last time, heralding the Sun that she would no longer greet.

The besiegers came, then, cautiously, prodding and whispering and pointing. And they approached the slab of stone on which the ratty night-shirts and the portion of bread lay, and beheld a single shaft of light illuminate the pile, the last ray of the Silmaril that was bound on the prow of Vingilot. – At another part of the desert, a tribe of wandering people found the body of a Half-Elven man broken and mostly buried under the sand, with the powdery substance clinging most steadfastly to his tear-stained face. And miles away by the sea, Ulmo’s servants crying in dismay found the body of a Half-Elven woman broken and draped bloodied on the jagged rocks supporting the tower in which she had dwelt, mouth open in a hollow laugh that was never heard.

A motley family of Elf and Man and Half-Elves perished. Some cheered and some mourned; but no one forgot the ratty night-shirts and the one-fourth of odd titbit bread and the single shaft of Silmaril light. They took the bread and studied it, mimicking it, making a tradition of baking it that soon grew into more than tradition. The ragged clothes they encased in crystal and set on the head of their owners’ tombs, where their family also lay. And with that they tried to live, survive with the knowledge of what they had done to be in this point of the history, to be without the light of hope to guide and guard their nights. A family had hope and never lost it till the end; a family had ties and never broke it till the end; they tried to remind themselves of that, by the odd titbit bread, by the sight of humble clothes, and by the memory of faded light. And perhaps, just perhaps, they would regain hope in the end.