The Cry of the Gulls
By
Stargazer Nataku
I will never forgive myself. I can never forgive myself. She was so beautiful, so young, so joyous. And now she is dead. Dead, because of my love for her. Dead because I took her from the shores of the sea where she belonged and brought her here, to this fortress of stone under the shadow of darkness, where the air is often filled with soot that blocks out the sun.
How I hate myself for bringing her here, for not realizing she was slowly wasting away before me, for being too involved in my duties as the Steward to realize that the most beloved of my heart was slowly slipping away, choked by the darkness and death of the place to which I had brought her.
I did not mean it to be like this, in those bright days in the city by the sea. I remember the look on her face then, of pure joy, as we sailed in the sunny summer days, the wind on her face and in her dark hair, the cry of the gulls ringing in her ears…
There are no gulls here. No breezes sweetly scented with the sea carrying the cries of the sea birds and the whispers of wind across water. No freshness as the air held there, no light and crystal clear air.
I never thought of the differences between my home and hers, never realized how much she would yearn for the song of the sea, and the lightness and airiness of the shore. Minas Tirith has always been my home, strong and steady, a strong bulwark against which the forces of the enemy may break and be deterred back to the fiery lands to the east from whence they came. My city does not have the seemingly eternal peace and calm of Dol Amroth; it has an air of watching and waiting and tension, of fear and strength all strung together with the courage of my people.
Our peoples, too, are different. Hers were calm and kind, trusting and above all else lighthearted, with the songs of the sea in their ears and hearts. Mine are weary, yet strong, distrustful of many, burdened with years of watching and war. Children grow up before their time, boys are become soldiers before their sixteenth year, and girls and wives grow old as they wait in hopeful tension for the return of fathers, brothers, and lovers who may never come.
My beautiful Finduilas felt the tension more keenly than any other, for her heart knew and hearkened to the peace of the sea, the endless sound of waves lapping against the shore that lulled her to sleep more effectively than any mother's lullaby. Her golden voice, that used to sing songs to the gulls as she walked on the shore, fell silent, and her ears were empty.
She loved me; I know this well, for I saw it in every look her patiently suffering eyes gave me, in every soft touch of a too thin hand, in every soft word that fell into the tense stillness of my city. Never before have I felt it so, never before could I myself feel the pressure and the weight as I did the last time she ever looked upon me, with a soft smile and words of love on her lips and yearning in her eyes. At that moment, there was a cry of a gull, and in the moment when I turned in surprise to look out the windows of her chamber to see the bird wheeling high above, my beloved Finduilas' eyes fell closed forever.
I know she loved the gulls, but I hate them. To cause me to turn away at that moment, to leave her alone as she faced her end, the moment when she was torn away from me forever…I hate how I never got to answer her soft words. Never got to tell her how I loved her, how I wished I had let her fly free as the gulls she loved to return to the sea she yearned for. I should have seen it, how she was slowly slipping away from me. I should have sent her home, sent her back to her family to hear again the whisper of the sea.
Yet I did not, and instead of the ocean, which should have been the lullaby as she fell to sleep, she heard nothing but silence and the cry of one solitary, lost gull, flying high above and mourning the darkness ever spreading out beneath it.