Chapter Nine
I am home
feeling oh so far away
Time passed slowly.
Following Cirdan's departure, work carried on as usual in the busy harbor. The swan boat was nearing completion and the sight was breathtaking. Elladan proved to be more than an able leader, and he handled the day to day dealing of the harbor elves with great care and diplomacy. It was not the same as when the beloved Shipwright was there. His presence lent a mysterious quality to the air that was missing in the weeks after he left. But Elladan provided a welcome buoyance and lightheartedness to the departure proceedings that brought a smile to everyone's lips.
Only Itarilde seemed to wilt a little.
"Please talk to me," Eglerion pleaded, "Can we not move passed this –contention?" He slipped her small hand into his, "Can I not persuade you to forgive me?"
"I forgave you weeks ago," Itarilde sighed heavily, "I do not understand this sadness that is upon me. I only know that it is pressing on me, and I cannot see beyond it now." She forced a smile to her lips, "Good hard work is what I need. I dwell too much in on my thoughts. Have we not work to do?"
Eglerion gazed at the hollowed look on the once flush cheek, and the nervous working of her fingers in his hand.
"Of course, there is always work to be done, love," he embraced her briefly and pulled her after him down the path, "Come, you must work beside me today. I insist."
Itarilde told herself she was only being silly. As she helped to put the finishing touches on some beautiful scroll work on the ship, Itarilde reminded herself of her blessings. Eglerion, what a good person he was! What a fine ellon, an example of friendliness and kindness to all around him. Maybe a tiny bit selfish at times, but who wasn't?
Cirdan wasn't.
The thought swept across her mind in a moment and she frowned. Cirdan. Cirdan was not everything. He was just an ellon. A good, kind, ancient ellon, but he was nothing more than another elf might be. Itarilde's movements with the carving become choppier as her thoughts flowed. Why had he left? Why did he stay away? Why did her not come back to the harbor, and the elves and -to her?
The instrument in her hand skipped off the wood and dug painfully into the heel of her left hand. She dropped the tool with a cry of pain and grasped her wounded hand tightly. Eglerion was at her side in a moment.
"Here now, darling," he said as he wrapped it quickly in a make-shift bandage, "We're not supposed to gouging ourselves. I don't think Lord Elladan's request that we put ourselves into the work should be taken literally." His dark eyes twinkled at her.
Itarilde laughed a little and winced as the wrap tightened, "I don't know what I was thinking. My mind must have been elsewhere."
"Well, you need to have that seen to straight away," Eglerion's eyes went back to all the unfinished work, "This can wait."
"No, no, Eglerion. I can go myself. I am full grown. I promise not to fall off the peer if I go to the healer alone." Itarilde smiled at him, and held up her bound palm, "Thank you."
He touched her face lightly, and helped her up the ladder to the deck above. A flick of her skirts and she was gone.
"Could've tried harder to avoid scarring yourself," the healer tatted. She unwrapped the hand examined it, "Quite a deep wound, child."
"I was distracted," Itarilde answered, "My hand slipped."
"I can see that," she replied. She was an older elleth who had joined the havens shortly before Itarilde had herself. She was very tall, almost gawky in height with iron grey hair that would have fallen to her waist if she hadn't bound it up around her hair. She had a distinctly human manner about her speech and appearance. Itarilde liked her.
"What was distracting you so much? Not that young lover of yours was it?"
"Mariel, please," Itarilde objected a bright spot of color brightening the sallow cheeks, "Of course not." This reply seemed to concern the healer more, but she only continued to work with a short answer of, "Mhmm. Would rather that it had been."
Itarilde felt annoyed, "What do you mean?"
"I mean," Mariel answered as she cleaned the wound, "You don't get distracted. You are light-hearted and far more carefree than I would be, for example, but you don't get distracted. Lately though—you haven't been yourself. I was hoping it had something to do with that love of yours."
"Well it doesn't," Itarilde answered the blush suddenly deepening in her cheeks, "I simply have a lot on my mind."
"Mhm," was the annoying reply.
Mariel finished cleaning the wound and began to thread a needle, "This is going to hurt a little."
"Very well."
Itarilde winced as the needled pierced her skin and Mariel began to sew the wound shut.
"I usually do this for the Shipwright. I haven't had call to do that for some weeks."
Itarilde's heart started for a moment at the mention of the absent elf. It felt as though she hadn't heard his name for years.
"Do you? He doesn't need treatment often does he?"
"Him? No, but once a year at least he does something that requires my work." The healer's quick eyes darted to her patient's face, "He's been gone a long time."
"I miss him."
The words fell from Itarilde's lips before she could stop herself. The desire to talk about Cirdan was too strong. It was a relief to say his name out loud.
"I haven't known him to leave before either, child," Mariel said her clipped voice softening slightly, "Sometimes you can't know how much a person means to you until they go away."
Gathering her emotions, Itarilde pushed back unwelcome tears. She could not give into it now. Not in front of another person. The desire to weep choked her throat and she merely nodded.
Mariel tied a knot in the thread and deftly wrapped the wound in pristine white bandages.
"May I go?" Itarilde asked gruffly. Her eyes insisted on filling with tears. Mariel's gaze was sympathetic
"Yes, child."
Itarilde bolted from the room. Dodging anyone she came across in her quick exit, the elleth found a quiet place in the corner of the garden. Screened by a trellis of climbing flowers, she gave into her sadness and watered the ground with her tears.
