@tolkienseaweek day 5: family | Elanor & OFC | AO3
The rain-washed sky shone pale above as Elanor and Rían followed the path to the shore. Rían peered in every puddle, watching the clouds drift through the water and naming the birds or beasts she made out of their wisps.
Of all of Elanor’s grandchildren, Rían reminded her the most of herself, finding stories in every cloud and stone and shadow and asking questions of every grown hobbit she met. She spent long hours at Elanor’s home, begging for stories of Elanor’s adventures and for her great-grandfather’s story.
Elanor’s own children had had her thirst for adventure, roving far and seeking the places of the Elves and Dwarves and Big Folk until they, like she once had, found their feet returning more than they left, and they settled down, hanging up pack and walking stick, content to tell the tales of their adventures around the warmth of their hearths.
Though Frodo had had no heirs of his own, he lived on, Elanor thought, in every Fairbairn that strode from their home seeking the wide places and the old tales, and in every Fairbrain that told his story anew.
Scenting the sea, Rían gave a cry and ran up the swell of the hill. Elanor, smiling and settling her basket more comfortably on her arm, followed.
The green hills rolled down into the pale slopes of dunes, thatched with drifts of sea grass. Rían was far ahead now, running along the line of the shore.
When she reached the edge of the sea, Elanor knelt and unloaded her basket. Inside were three lanterns and three small boats that Fastred had carved for her. He had a great talent for carving and whittling, and each year he made for her a different fleet of boats, some bearing wings like swans, lifted in flight, and others vines of curling leaves or blossoming flowers.
Rían came running back, a bundle of sea thrift tucked in her pocket. Elanor showed her how to fasten the lanterns inside the boats, and then struck a flame and lit each lantern. Into each boat, next to its lantern, she placed a small golden flower, not the elanor for which she was named, but the little yellow pimpernels that grew about the path that wound up to her door.
As the sun sank before them and the sea kindled to flame, Elanor and Rían carried the boats to the shoreline and set them in the cradle of the waves. One for Frodo, one for Bilbo, and one for Sam, dearest of all.
Bilbo was surely gone now, and Frodo too. Even her father had likely passed beyond the circles of the world. The thought brought a pang.
The little boats caught the swell of the waves and bobbed over crest and into trough, shining like stars as they passed into the gloaming.
Rían, damp from the waves, leaned against her. “Will they return?”
“No,” Elanor said. “No one ever returns from over the sea. But we remember them, nonetheless.”
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