Part Nine: The White Ship
The gulls fell back behind their ship, to wheel back to the shore. The prow glided through the water, kicking up foam along either side, and calling to the dolphins to ride the crest and dance in their wake. The lands of Middle-Earth were behind them and soon they would come to the place where the world had cracked and the ships of Men would be bent along its curve to pass on into the western seas. But the Elvish ships would continue straight until they reached the far shores of Valinor from which they could never return.
Gandalf declined the invitation to go below deck and play at chess to pass the time, and he was not alone, for many wanted to see the journey, however similar one wave was to the next, one cloud overhead giving over to another. After filling his pipe from the small pouch at his waist, Gandalf leaned down and adjusted a blanket over Bilbo's knees. The breeze coming off the waves was cooler than it had been on shore and the old hobbit was lying frail on Frodo's shoulder, his eyes closed in pleasure at the hushed elvish singing that raced the ship onward toward Valinor. Gandalf patted Frodo's shoulder and turned toward the prow.
Elanna was standing against the rail, her face turned into the wind and hair whipping backward in golden glory. Gandalf went to her side and she glance at him before resuming her study of the horizon, reaching up to brush her hair from her mouth.
He peered ahead of them at the open water and the endless sky. "Do you see Alqualonde yet?" he asked, a smile tugging at his lips.
"No. But soon we'll pass over the ruin of Numenor, sunk beneath the waves."
"I'm teasing you," he replied, putting his arm around her waist to pull her closer. "I'm eager to get there too." He said a word of making and the pipe in his other hand lit with a gentle flame. He drew breath through it, to get it going well, and gave a satisfied sigh. A good bowl in one hand and Elanna in the other, at that moment he could set all regret aside.
"I remember the light of the Two Trees," she mused aloud, "The way they made the air seem sweeter, the colors more rich. I remember making love under Telperion on a summer's evening with the birds singing overhead."
"I wish I knew you then."
"Then I was not who I am now. I was a child in mind and experience…" her voice trailed off as if suddenly lost in the halls of memory. She shook her head. "Well, we know each other now. And though the Trees are gone, it's there in the on the green mound of Valmar that I want to bear our child."
"Our child?" he asked, raising an eyebrow.
"Oh yes," she put her hand low on her abdomen. "If you are willing. In this last year, I've been reminded how precious life is. I don't know what Iluvatar has sung for us at the end of all things, but I have faith again; and I return to Valinor not to retire from life, but to renew it. I would celebrate our tie to this world by giving another child unto it. The mingling of Mair and Eldar: who knows what she could accomplish?"
Gandalf had never considered having a child of his own, never thought of himself as a father to one, more than he acted as father to many. He sucked thoughtfully on his pipe, the wind stripping the smoke away before it could form. Not only were there barrels of pipeweed below deck, but there were green plants tucked into clay pots for the journey, waiting to be planted on that far plain where under Yavanna's hands, he knew they would flourish. All things flourished there. He humphed and gave another large puff of smoke. "A child? Well, then, why not?"