A/N: Okay, I bit. I will try to do Tolkien justice. Hopefully not exactly Tenth Walker, per se. Somewhat AU-ish, sorta – I am using ideas from the Simarillion and changing them a good deal.
Also, I know I'm supposed to be writing the second part of my Seventh Stone Universe. Blame the plot bunnies. But for this reason, this story will have slow updates.
Prologue - Disembarking
It took several centuries to convince her kin that she was leaving, but once she did prevail upon them she found that she did not wish to go. Ever had she been safe under her brother's watchful eye, and ever had she sang with the gayer of her closest companions to forget the pain which the darkness had brought her in the Second Age. Yet it was Iluvatar's will that she face those whom had wronged her, to right the injustice done to those who through her gifts had come to harm, and though she trembled, she obeyed.
The ship that bore her over the ocean seemed likewise reluctant to bear her to the land on which her blood was twined with evil against her will. The grey bark of the living wood on which she sailed creaked as she approached the twilighted shores, a vigilant protest against the idea of placing herself in harm's way. But she smiled, the expression playing about her thin lips in a mockery of something once peaceful and serene. Melkor's betrayal and the subsequent sway he'd gained over the lesser Maiar, turning them from the light, had wounded her deeply.
The meaning was twisted. My work was left unfinished. And now, I must correct it.
Silently as the luminous stars of her eyes, the ship yielded to her will and she stepped for the second time onto the beaches of a land long bereft of her presence. A flame, kindled by the breath from her lips, gleamed from the long mast of her vessel, a ghostly white light much akin to the glow perusing over the folds in the rippling linens she had clothed herself in. A long sigh escaped her, and as she pushed her ship back out onto Ulmo's seas, she thought.
So I shall practice my craft once more.
Fire rippled on the surface of the water, and silver and gold gleamed in the dampened sand at her feet. She looked, then knelt and took the stones in gentle fingers, wrapping them in soft cloths before placing them in the satchel on her back. Any gift, she knew, from both Lord of the Deep Seas and the Lord of the Fabric of the Earth was not something to be taken without deep respect, and these she treasured duly, understanding their healing purpose.
And thus the light of Teleperion and Laurelin gleamed bright in her eye.
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