maybe this is nothing but i just read a peter pan fic. thinking about elves as eternal children, 'gay and innocent and heartless', especially in the first age. thinking about growing up without any example to follow, because you're the first and the oldest. about the flight of the noldor from valinor to beleriand, and how it's literally called flight. how children are so often cruel to each other. thinking about falling: hook falling from the ship, maedhros, elwing. the line between bedtime stories and fairies and myth. woodlands and wild lands and neverland. the pirates as villains and monsters, as foul creatures of morgoth. 'second star to the right and straight on till morning' makes me think of eärendil the morning star, flying and sailing, hopeful. the reality of adulthood. the edain grow and mature and mellow and die, but the elves can never grow up, only fall to their doom, or fade away into whispers on the wind.
