I don't usually believe in writing LOTR fanfiction, as it is impossible to do right, but being entrenched in LOTR literature, I couldn't help but write this one. This is a first-person perspective of an OC, a man who was enchanted by the music of the ocean and set sail in search of it. It is inspired by the accounts of Ulmo from the Silmarillion and Tuor's encounter with Ulmo in Unfinished Tales. Ulmo is the only original LOTR character referenced in the story. I do not own Lord of the Rings or any of its characters. Enjoy, and please comment telling me whether or not you liked it and what I could do better.
The shimmering and soothing waves of vast, unfathomed ocean softly spray against hull of my weathered ship, as it sails further towards unfound coasts, and even further away from the comfort of tamed shores. From the azure depths I hear the sweet and playful melodies that emanate from the flowing waves along the water's surface, and the music fills me with such serenity and solace that I am suddenly overcome with a feeling of love for my powerful mistress, and the boundless freedom she offers me in voyage. I spring to the helm of the ships outstretching deck, only to see the foreboding cruelty that my love sends my way. Only a few shrinking leagues away the peaceful and merciful waves give way to the crashing violence of darker, less forgiving waters; and the clear blue sky that shines down upon the water and reflects brilliant light gleaming over the edges of the deck and flickering onto the sails is soon overwhelmed by deep, black clouds that are cracked with wicked storms.
The dead silence that steams from the solemn faces of my small crew voices their fear and reluctance all too well. Though I realize their trepidation, it is not a feeling I can fully understand, for even if there were still chance to turn back and outrun this storm in order to escape a dreadful fate, even then it would not be an option in my mind. How long since I have seen open land, and yet not long enough to truly appreciate the sea that I have courted for as long. How long have I sailed across this ocean in search of something I cannot know, yet I am sure is out there? How long since I first stood on the long shores and heard the tides wash in a music of beauty and sadness so enchanting that I had no choice left but to seek out the core from which it sang? The promise of new lands undiscovered by man and the unthinkable opportunity they offer was reason enough for my crew to enlist on this quest, but I have hidden from them my true motive in this journey. Indeed it must would seem absurd and delusional to them, to any man who had not heard the splendor of that music so faint but incredibly vivid, but my true and only purpose in this voyage across the seas is to seek out the singer of the song that came to me at the shores from what must be the very heart of the ocean. Now that we sail into a watery doom at the great hands of the ocean for which my adoration and respect has never faltered, my crew prepares to battle for their survival, while I fight only for the realization of my ultimate goal, for the only object of my lasting love.
Before I can even give the order for the sails to be braced and all tethers tied off, the immaculately lit sky is suddenly darkened as it is overtaken by an unbroken and unending mass of black storm clouds, as if the Sun were a great flame being extinguished by a single forceful burst of menacing wind; leaving nothing but a terrible darkness behind. Refusing to be bested by the sky, the silent waves below roared up around the ship into massive walls of foaming, crushing sea. It is all that my trained men of my sea-worthy crew can do to cling to the nearest banisters, ropes, or outstretched hands as the ocean lifts the impressive three hundred ton ship, which I once considered the pride of my life, and turns and tosses it between rising waves as if it were a light stone being skipped across a small pond. In the midst of the men's terror, and my own mysterious sense of anticipation, a flashing bolt of lightning strikes down into the black waters just ahead of us, illuminating the demoralizing scene around us; waves that fall and climb two or three or more lengths of the ship all around us, and even taller, more brutal, black sea as far as the eye can see ahead of us. With this full knowledge of the torment that we have sailed into, I doubt my crew will survive any longer, and I'm sure that I will be soon to follow them to the grim fate that awaits us. But even when I meet my end, I will still rejoice that I have died in within the limitless freedom of the sea.
Time passes, and though I have no way of determining how much, it must be some hours, as it feels like days passing, but all in pure darkness. I seem to have underestimated the pure will to survive, as with the slipping time the ravenous waves and defiling winds have devoured masts, sails, wood, and men from my ship, but still more than half of my crew remain, barely maintaining their grips to life with stubborn rope and desperate solidarity. What baffles me even more is my how long my own life has lasted. Still standing upon foredeck of the ship I am secured by nothing by the railing in front of me, and I have all but abandoned my crew, my ship, and any sense of self-preservation. I have unconsciously offered myself, and my life, to the awesome will of the ocean, and it has refused. In the next moment I can almost hear the sea calling out for me, willing me to obey its command, to drift as it wills, as if I had any sort of say in the course. Soon I realize that what I hear is music, and from within the crashing of the waves, the furious gushing of waters and rushing of winds, and the commanding booming of the storms, a deep but simple, even gentle, singing is arising. The music sounds strikingly familiar, but also different; it is livid and piercing, but also sorrowful and understanding, and nearer. At that moment one wave sweeps up the ship unto it crest, and a vicious bolt of lighting comes down like a judicious hammer across the middle of the deck; splintering what is left of the vessel into pieces. I look back to see the deck and rear of the ship break apart and become swallowed by the ocean, taking all the lives of my remaining crew with it. While the last traces of my expedition receded into the waters below, I cling onto the thick beam of wood jutting out of the water beside me, and hug it as the towering wave tosses me forward and into the depths.
Sinking below the surface, what feels like leagues into the darkest depths of the ocean there is a deadly, silent calm; the expression of resolute hope. Perhaps this is what I've been seeking, journeying all these years for. This must be the end I was fated to. From the music that drew from the safety of land into the liberty and perils of the ocean; it was always the ocean calling me in, demanding my life. But now I hear no song, and I feel no freedom, only the cold clutches of the deepest waters claiming me. Just as the blackest of ocean reaches up from the unseen bottom to extinguish my light, there is another light, shining in from above. I gaze up to see a clear white light flickering down from the surface, and with it the waters around me calm. I cannot determine how deep from the glowing surface I have sunk, or for how long I have been submerged, but I know it does not matter. I'm too deep now to return to the warm surface, the cold has seized my muscles, and my lungs will soon starve for air. Even if I were capable of the impossible feat, my entire crew and my ship have pointlessly given their lives to these waters, it is only fitting, only right, that I end this senseless journey with them.
That's when I hear it, as if it's been there every single day since I it first called to me, that music, the music of the ocean. But it's coming from above the surface, calling for me to make one last journey, to realize why I have been summoned so far for so long. I try to reach up, to move towards the singing light that beckons to me, but my arm is frozen in the water. I am weighed down, by the cold, by the water, by the guilt that owns me. Now I understand the song, now I know the words. It sings of pure life, freedom to choose one's course, but also of the death that bears over all man, which none can choose. It does not sing out of guilt, but both in tones of sorrow, and of love, for the life that has been and for its loss. It calls to me now out of this love, out of a masterly respect for one who has felt the joy of a free life and knows the sorrow and grief that those choices bring. I swim. Through all of the pain, the fatigue, the burning cold in my limbs and the seizing pressure of my entire body demanding air, I swim. Each stroke seems impossible that it will yield the next, yet it feels even more impossible that any force, even all of the strength of the tremendous ocean, could keep me from going on. It only takes moments, though it seems like hours, to emerge from the deep and break my head through the waves at the surface. I was not as deep as I felt, though looking down from the surface I can see that the below dark of the ocean quickly and easily overwhelms the light that seeps into the water. Above me a clear sky of many bright, warm colors and in the center the sun shines down onto, floating in its light. But surrounding the beams of light and the calm waters in which I wade, there is still the darkness of the raging storm, as if I am in a pillar of sanctuary in the center of a battlefield in a war of the gods of nature. Just a few yards away from me is the queerest sight; a small fishing boat is floating peacefully still.
Before I can even try to swim over a small but strong wave comes from behind me pushes me towards the boat until I am right at its edge. The boat is small, and though I know it could not survive for long in the savage anger of the storm around us, its emptiness beckons to me with promises of security. Reaching up onto the boats edge, I cautiously grasp it without force, careful not tip or rock the vessel. But as I pull myself above the rim the boat does not budge, but remains completely balanced and still on the water. I bring myself over the edge and take a seat in the center of the small boat. Where just a moment before the boat seemed completely empty, a figure now sits right front of me, at the other end of the boat.
It is the most mysterious being I have seen in my years. In searching for a way to identify or even describe the figure I find it may be Evlish, yet not at all at the same time, as he seems to be very elderly; they could be thousands of years old, but each shows through ancient face, and his expression wizened with many ages. He appears and harmless but maintained a very powerful presence, and seemed to be very tall even as he sat. I could not even hazard a guess at what he is doing in the middle of this storm and how he found his way out here. He does not speak yet, but motions at a blanket that is folded on the floor in front of me, and take it and wrap it around my freezing, soaking body. I am beginning to suspect that there is something more to this old man, something different, and at that very moment I sense a keen aura radiating from him. I feel his distinct, powerful presence. Still he will not speak, but a combination of the cryptic situation and his overbearing presence builds a tension in me to the point that I must address him, but at the same time I am inexplicably compelled to choose my questions wisely and with tact.
At last I ask "Where are we? By what power has this storm subsided about us?"
"This is no power, and the storm continues to pass on as the water feeds it. What we sit in is the great eye of the sky as it pierces through the storm to meet the ocean's, and the eyes replenish each other with one light"
At length I speak again "Am I alive?"
The old man doesn't change his expression, but seems thoughtful, not in contemplation, but deep observation. "That relies solely on how you define living, and how you might define yourself? Are you living? Have you been truly alive? Is that not why you have sought out the glories and mysterious of these open oceans?"
His last question seemed to resonate in me and strike the core of my being the very same way that the music had as I would listen in longing. "Who are you? You're the singer, aren't you?"
The being now appeared almost wizardly, but less with the face of a man, and sat more like a force cloaked in robes of deep dark blue and gray that obscured the man himself, almost as a mist. Then he appeared almost to be laughing as he spoke again "I have sung many songs, many with the ocean, and many into it, singing to the ocean as it sings unto Arda. That was the only music you have felt, and learned."
"But it was you who called me out here!?" Unable to cipher the true answers I have been seeking, I grow impatient.
"You have bared concert to the ocean, and it is to its call that you answer. My songs are only reflected through the waves just as the sun's light. Those are the melodies that feed the earth, as they feed the desires and passion of your kind's hearts. Many have sought far and through trial to understand its music just as you have, but none have made it quite so far as thee."
I am calmed and my curiosity nourished by his answers, but even more intrigued. "Who are you?"
"Still you ask questions to the answers you do you do not seek? Many of many of the Teleri as well have sought to understand the mighty ocean through my being. The only way to find what you seek within these waters is to endure its waves, surrender yourself to the mastery of the ocean, and it will show you its true heart. It will sing you its songs, and you will then know the life that it gives, and that it claims without remorse."
"But why? Why has it given me my life that I gave gladly, and taken that of my crew, innocent to its woes and its songs? Does it have no love for the life it gives?"
"Love? Is it not impossible to love that which you are part of, and has grown from yourself? It has love and compassion for the very life it veins into the Ea through every tributary and stream unseen, but it holds no mercy. The respect and value of life requires sorrow and pain of if ever it is to grow."
"The ocean has taught me freedom and beauty, yet enslaves me with its grief. Again I must ask, why? Why am I the sole student of its hymns?"
"Every singer shall choose an audience to receive its recital, and it will choose that who can most fully understand and appreciate it music, one who will love the music and make it their creed. Look into the water, and discover the reflection it sings to thee."
Slowly I look over the edge of the boat. From the sunlight that shines directly above, I make out a pure and clear reflection of myself, staring back at me. Softly and slowly a music creeps into my ears and vibrates through my entire body, and it seems to shine through my reflection. Then another light seems to shine, not from above but from below, a light that pierces through the darkest deep to my eyes, and between them the entire depth of the ocean is lit and revealed to me. The music is clearer than every before, and I can make out every word, though I could not express them. Staring across the waters I can see all the vastness of the sea, endless as it is but bordered by stony lands.
Then the sky quickly darkens and my reflection disappears, taking the music with it; leaving only the dark, deep ocean. Immediately I bring my face back up to look at the heavenly visage that sat before me to find that he now stood, towering to an incredible height, as if he reached to meet the black cloud of the darkening sky over the ocean. Water now teems over the edge of the boat, though I cannot tell if it is from around or within the vessel, and high waves approach the boat from either side. Seemingly from the storm itself a voice booms "Heed no fear of the ocean, heed not but the pure respect of its creation and destruction. From this you shall teach all of your kind that respect for it, through pure love or fear." At this moment the waves meet at the boat and it is raised into the sky, but not overtaken by a drop, and as they pass so does the Lord of the Waters, flowing over the waves like a mist of foaming water. The boat is again lowered, and floats still amongst the ravages of the storm that returns to the waters. From either side of the boat's walls I raise two long oars, and set them over the edge and dip then into the pushing waters. The storm passes over, and I simply flow through it.