Haldir knew that his mouth was open in a very undignified manner, but he couldn't do anything about it. The sight before him was like nothing he had seen before, and it was hard to keep some sense of reserve.

"That is Eressea, the Lonely Isle. If you ever want to go there, you can. Today, however, we do not have time to stop; it is to Tirion as quick as possible."

Haldir had enough sense to nod at Elhith's comment, however he wasn't exactly sure what Elhith had said. All of his thoughts were wrapped up in trying to take everything in, and that was a major understatement.

There were trees he had never seen in his life, taller than even those in Lothlorien. They were all in flower, golden and white against deep green leaves. Yet even for their height, they were dwarfed by the size of the white towers that rose from among them. He could faintly see the glow of what must have been thousands of lights reflecting off the leaves, signs of great cities.

And this is only Eressea, he had to continually remind himself, remembering that what lay ahead would be even greater.

They skirted the shore of the island until a faint line appeared on the opposite horizon. "We are close now," Elhith said once he spotted the dark haze.

It had only been a moment or so after this that another group of elves appeared at the bow. To Haldir's surprise, Sauron was among them.

He didn't say anything or even look at Haldir as he came to the rail. "What changed your mind?" Haldir couldn't help himself from asking.

"I figured that I might as well face it," he replied, although Haldir did not understand him. Then again, he did not seem to be the easiest person to understand.

Haldir considered prying for a moment, but decided against it. Sauron looked anxious as it was, and so probably didn't need Haldir making it worse. Not that Haldir really thought that Sauron deserved such courtesies, but it just wasn't in him to be annoying at the moment.

After a few more minutes, their course turned, the white cliff to their left falling away to reveal a sight that Haldir could never have conceived. An absolute hush fell over the boat; even the sails stopped tugging upon their ropes. Everything was silent.

Enormous mountains stretched into the sky, touched with bronze and gold from the morning sun. The highest of them, Taniquetil, was so tall that Haldir had to look up to see its peak, which was crowned with clouds. Two huge arms of the mountains seemed to reach outward, cradling a valley.

Within this valley was a sprawling city: buildings with domes of gold or silver, lanes of grass and trees, streets made of gray stone, high, blue fountains. The buildings even spread up into the hills of the mountain, the domes reflecting the sun. Haldir could not find the words to describe its splendor, although it had long been a habit of elves to find words that fit their feelings. Yet in this, nothing came close.

Everybody on the boat was lost in their own thoughts, in awe of what was before them. Haldir was barely able to pull his eyes away from the sight long enough to try to see Sauron's reaction.

Like the rest, he seemed to be overwhelmed. Unlike the rest, however, he seemed to be so on account of fear. And, by the way quailed at it, it must have been a great amount of fear, too.

The longer Sauron looked, the more terrified he seemed to get. Haldir was intrigued enough by his behavior that his amazement began to wear off. "What?" he asked Sauron.

Sauron did not seem to notice that Haldir had turned to him, and he started to mutter to himself while backing away, as though that would actually stop him from getting any closer to the city.

What happened next would have ultimately kept him from getting closer. Having stepped back too much, he ran into the rail. As it was not very high in this section, added to the fact that he was tall -- annoyingly so, to Haldir at least -- the rail hit him low enough that he began to lose his balance.

For a moment he swayed, a look of complete surprise and dread crossing his face, his arms out in an attempt to prevent his fall. And then he toppled over the side, yelling something so foul that everybody on the boat gasped simultaneously. His fall was almost instantly met with a splash, and a shout from many of the people who had turned just in time to see.

Haldir ran to the rail and looked over the side, hearing the sounds of others doing the same. A moment later, Elhith grabbed his arm and pulled him to the stern, where a some of the crew had already thrown out a rope.

"That was a vile thing to say," Elhith whispered into Haldir's ear. "What, was he raised by orcs or something?"

Haldir didn't reply as he considered that it had probably been Sauron who had taught the orcs such words.

"Anyway, talk about coordination. I don't think that has ever happened on the trip before. It's just lucky that we are so close to the havens and had slowed down, or else he'd be way out there by now."

"It's never happened before?" Haldir asked, genuinely surprised. "Ever?"

"No. And to think it happened to him, with him so freaked out about sailing and all! I'll bet you'll never get him on a boat again! Think of the odds!" Elhith said as seriously as he could manage.

Haldir nodded and then stood at the stern with Elhith while the other two sailors pulled in the rope.

Finally, Sauron emerged. Haldir and Elhith both grabbed one of his arms and pulled him onto the deck, where he sat dripping and coughing for a moment, but was otherwise silent. The men with the rope went back to see to whatever it was they needed to see to, and Elhith left momentarily to look for a blanket.

Haldir was just barely able to contain his amusement. It really was quite funny, once he had thought about it with the statements Elhith had made. The sight of Sauron sitting there looking very dejected while his black hair hung down into his eyes, sopping wet, was something that nobody would probably ever be able to say they saw. Elhith could of course, but he could not appreciate it completely.

Elhith reappeared and handed over the blanket, which Sauron took and wrapped around himself without a word. In fact, he didn't even look up at Elhith, instead continuing to look blankly into space.

Elhith looked at Haldir with an eyebrow raised, but Haldir just shrugged. As though that was a fitting enough response, Elhith left again. Then the stern became a very quiet place.

He did try to bite his lip, but his habit of speaking at such moments was just too strong to overcome. "Well, your hair looks a bit better," Haldir remarked.

Without moving his head, Sauron looked up at him.

"It doesn't look so much like little animals could live in there," he elaborated.

Sauron let go of the blanket with one hand and pushed back the hair that was hanging down in his face. Once he was done, Haldir could see his expression completely, and it was not good.

He was mad, madder than Haldir had seen him. Although he had only had a short amount of time in which to made such assumptions about Sauron's character, it was apparent that his level of anger at this moment was very high, even for him. It was probably to the "I am this close to killing and/or destroying something" level.

Haldir had a pretty good idea that Sauron was not really angry at him. Since Sauron needed to have something to direct his rage at and Haldir had spoken up, it seemed that Haldir was now the object of Sauron's wrath. Which didn't seem to be a very good place to be.

Sauron stood up, pulling the blanket even closer about himself as though it was a robe or cloak of that nature. Slowly, he made his way over to Haldir and stood dripping on him while giving a look of such complete ticked-offedness that Haldir was instantly reminded that, although he might have been harmlessly immature and smart-arsed until this point, he still was for all intents and purposes evil.

As, at that moment, Haldir was stuck between a rock and a hard place, the hard place ironically being the ocean, it would be very true to say that Haldir was pretty freaked out. Sauron had not repented anything that he had done in the past, so there was no reason to think that he would have any qualms about breaking Haldir's neck that moment.

"Sorry," Haldir muttered, finding that to be the only word that seemed even somewhat appropriate, although he didn't know what he was really sorry about. It was probably that he had agreed to be part of this whole cursed scheme.

There was a very long pause that Haldir was almost certain would end with him being on the receiving end of some sort of physical pain. However, Sauron only sighed. "Yes, I know you are," he said, and although he still looked miffed, he did not look homicidal. "Listen, you are the one of the very few elves I've met whom hasn't completely irked me within eight seconds. I'm not saying that you don't bug me, because you do, it is just not to the point where I feel like smashing your head in, understood?"

Haldir nodded weakly.

"Alright. Now, just because I am not hacked off with you yet doesn't mean that I never will get to that point. I am sure that you can think of what I end up doing to people whom I start feeling some malice towards, so don't think I have an endless supply of tolerance to getting annoyed." He took a step back, instantly becoming less frightening and imposing, and began to walk off somewhere. Haldir wasn't sure where to; there weren't that many places to go on a boat. However, Sauron paused for a moment. "Also, take into consideration that when I get upset, it probably isn't the brightest thing to draw attention to yourself and give me something to vent on."

It seemed that he had nothing more to say now and so was gone, leaving Haldir to think about what he had said, but only for a moment.

Among the sounds of wood clapping down on wood and the shouting of people, Elhith's voice carried all the way to Haldir. "Welcome to Valinor!"