In the Silence
Raven's POV
coast between the rivers Angren and Gwathlo, TA 2906
"A black wolf made the world, and it was all black, like his own fur. When he shook it, tiny hairs flew from it, and when they fell onto the world, they became the stars. A long time the wolf was content, knowing the world was there. But he was curious, and he turned his head so he might see his creation, and cocked his head like curious or puzzled wolves do. With one eye he looked at it, long and wary. He saw the creatures on the world running and moving as they saw his eye and were frightened like prey running from a pack. He blinked slowly, opening his eyes and closing them, and saw that the creatures were now watching him.
But then a great brightness came, and the glitter of the stars vanished, and his creation was changed in the un-shadow. The black wolf was frightened at first, and retreated and left the world to the brightness. But he had made the world, and it was his, and he felt like defending it. So he challenged the brightness, and slowly drove it from the world so that the glitter of the stars became visible once more and his creatures were happy at the sight of his eye.
But the brightness would not abandon the world, and it returned to fight the black wolf, and since then the wolf hunts the brightness, and brightness hunts the wolf, and often they overtake each other.
Sometimes they close with each other and fight, and sometimes the wolf loses and his eye glows red with anger. And sometimes the wolf wins, and his black fur hides the brightness as they fight.
That is how we see the Nightstar waning and growing, and moving across the sky as the wolf hunts the brightness.
That is how sometimes the Nightstar hangs in the sky low and red when he should be shining bright.
That is how sometimes the Daystar fails while the sky is free of clouds and it should be the time of brightness.
That is how the moon is also called Wolf's Eye"
I stared across the greyish waves. Far away the border between sea and sky vanished into a colourless haze. The heavy grey clouds overhead seemed to lower on the water. I watched the wheeling gulls, white specks against the leaden sky, trying to swallow bitterness.
White birds.
Ravens don't cross the sea.
I had lost track of time. A few nights ago.
Things were out of perspective. And out of control.
For the first time in my life I realized I was unable to find the faintest beauty in the land around me, or the faintest sense.
This is all worthless.
The wolf wanted to live.
He always wanted to.
The rough rock on which I crouched felt icy cold. Thin rain began to fall, driven in from the sea.
How had I come here? This had been stupid. The sea had never been a favourite place of mine.
Things come full circle.
Just what circle?
In my mind, I recounted every curse in Ashi'kha, Quenya, Common and Dwarvish I had ever known.
This was it. I had known this day might come. In my darkest dreams it had haunted me. The knowledge did nothing to ease the bitter emptiness.
I am not supposed to be here at all, to be here still.
Things come full circle.
I could not decide what was worse, this, or the memory of that last night.
It is the Way.
The wolf knew.
Knows.
There was no other way.
We knew.
Small pieces of stone came loose. I clutched them in my fist, then threw them out into the water.
My knees stung. How long was it since I had come here?
Behind the clouds the sun was nearing the west. Somewhere, I could feel it, like the heat from an invisible fire.
The circle closes.
I cannot do this.
I can't die.
I don't want to.
I cannot live like this.
He's gone.
Gone -
For the first time in hundreds of years I was alone. Utterly, completely.
There was only one way to deal with sorrow that was too strong.
Turn it into hate. Anger.
But at what?
It was futile, impotent anger.
I wanted to bite something.
No one to blame.
The Valar are unfair.
But the One ordained it so.
And where is our place?
Neither wolves nor elves.
Where was our place in the music?
What are we?
I could be just as well mortal.
No you can't the wolf whispered.
If you were, even this little control would be taken from you.
You live, and you decide.
As long as you live, you hold the power to decide.
Once you die, you are in Mandos' hands.
And there, you have no decision, no power.
Ravens don't cross the sea.
I was bound to this land, and Valinor was no option. Neither would I die like a true wolf, like mortals.
I could not for the life of me imagine Mandos.
The thought of such a place was more horrible than a land full of light and without wilderness, without wolves.
I should not be thinking of the bright ones' land. Not of Mandos.
The hawk. That is it.
Without him.
What about the hawk?
How many dawns had passed?
Icy wind blew from the sea. I felt cold tears on my face.
The wolf was kept at bay by desperation.
Below me, the waves crashed against the rock.
The tide was turning again.
It's all senseless.
I wanted to run. Escape this all.
So I started out, slowly at first, but then I realized I would be able to hold this speed for hours. It would do nothing to ease the pain.
I broke into a run, as fast as I could, until the blood pounded in my ears and my sides ached.
On a wide empty stretch of sand the sea had dug deep water-filled potholes into the sand. I stumbled into one and water splashed up around me as I flung out my hands to break my fall. The shock of falling and the unexpected depth of the icy water jolted me back into the present. I was on my knees and the water reached up to my neck. Gasping and drenched I crawled onto hard sand and lay still, cursing myself, my stupidity, the fancies of the water and the Valar.
Even the wolf seemed numbed.
I curled into a ball and dug my nails into the sand. The smell of brine and wet salty sand seemed stifling. I cried until I had no tears left, and lost every track of time.
Dawn came unnoticeable, a lightening of the steady grey of shore, sea and sky. I crossed the sand towards the dunes and curled up on the landward side at the foot of a steep sand-hill, the sea hidden from sight.
After an indeterminable time though, the wolf stirred, driven by the omnipresent urge to survive. I pushed him back.
The wolf persisted.
Finally, I gave in and opened my eyes.
Mist.
Darkness.
Silence.
Beyond that, the roar of the sea.
Darkness.
Hungry, the wolf whispered.
Thirsty.
Lonely.
Unfurred tried to shake him off. I rolled onto my back and stared into the empty night-sky.
There is no infinity in looking up, the humans said
Maybe a hawk could fly so high as to find what was beyond the clouds.
But I was not even a raven.
And even if there was nothing beyond, that in itself was a boundary.
You are nowhere free. Neither raven nor wolf nor elf.
Hunt, the wolf whispered, pacing somewhere in my mind like a caged beast.
Live. Kill.
Rain began to fall.
I rolled over and curled up again, sheltering my face in my arms, ignoring the wolf.
I woke from a half sleep of weird images and silent tears in daylight.
Grey again.
The wind had picked up.
I could not say what had woken me.
There was a crunching sound. The wolf seized me with the violence of attack.
I twisted into a crouch, facing the sound. With a defiance born of sorrow I gripped the change like a writhing creature and turned it back on itself.
I had never fought the wolf like this. It tore at my very essence, and it hurt. I could not say if the pain was physical or mental, but it was blinding, paralyzing.
For a second I could not move, barely breathe, caught between the wolf's mind and the unfurred.
Bird, the wolf supplied, unabashed by the defeat, quicker than unfurred in putting a name to the scent. No reason to attack.
Bird.
A raven.
Staring at me, fluffing black feathers in the sharp sea wind.
Picking at the shell of a long dead crab. Then he flew off.
As all birds did, taking off against the wind, for a moment flying towards the sea and then turning and wheeling landwards with the gale.
Ravens don't cross the sea.
Niy'ashi had said it in jest. In another life.
"Stop going on about the west. You are Ashi'kha, and ravens simply don't cross the sea"
The Valar are unfair – so he had said as well, after listening to father's tale of the land beyond the sea.
He was more Ashi'kha than I still am
He never bothered about the west truly. And father never meant to get us into trouble when he first mentioned the Valar.
The wind started to drive the rain across the beach in curtains. I was soaked and shivering and still did not move.
Finally, as the light began to dim almost imperceptibly around me once more I stirred.
It was along way back, to the cliffs. The wind drove the rain into my face sharply. Despite the cold, I raised my head and faced the gale, welcoming the sensation of raindrops spattering on my skin, the bite of the wind.
I'm alive. I am still alive.
Nothing matters –
Here, I knew the sounds and smells, here, I was alive, because the land around me was alive. Even if it was only full of sea.
The smell of sea, the sound of sea, sand everywhere.
Slowly, feeling returned. And with it, the cutting edge of loss.
It is impossible to go on a part of me screamed.
But all else is unacceptable the wolf argued.
The wolf survived.
Always.
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