Disclaimer: It all belongs to Tolkien
A/N: Just a little plot bunny, inspired by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's poem The Tide Rises, The Tide Falls. I think I've caught the sealonging myself.
Into the West
It was dark in the little town by the sea, for it was late on a moonless night. One lone traveler yet walked upon the shore by the light of the stars, seemingly illuminated slightly from within. He hastened his pace as he approached the village. Soon he reached the point where the road curved inland towards the small town. There he turned off the path, continuing along the beach, past the town, until he reached a small, concealed cove. There a small ship lay waiting. He'd worked on it all year, slipping away whenever he could, and now it was complete. That night he would sail, away across the sea that had so claimed his soul. Silently he slipped away onto the open ocean.
When the sun rose over the eastern mountains hours later, the ship had passed out of sight over the horizon. For a moment, those first rays of morning light turned the damp brown sea sands to shining gold, and revealed a barely visible line of soft footprints. Then the moment was gone. The sand was just sand again, and the footprints were washed away by the rising tide, leaving no sign that the traveler had ever been there. A sea gull cried. Far out to sea, the white gulls wheeled and turned in the wind above his ship. Those same birds that had tormented his soul with their cries for the sea for so long now led him into the west, nevermore to return to the shores of Middle-Earth. Now he was going to the land of his people, home across the sea.
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