Bingo #: N31
Prompt: first line of Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God
Ships at a distance have every man's wish on board, he thought, but what is a man to make of a ship whose increasing headway carries his beloved forever away from his arms?
There he stood at Mithlond's greatest quay, beneath the dying rays of Anor, rivulets of tears streaming down his cheeks. He had come alone, thinking to spare his children the agonies of both watching their mother leave them, and an awakened Sea-longing. He had not even told them, an easy feat considering Arwen's residence in Lórien and the twins apparently roaming the Wild in hopes of taking revenge on all Orc-kind for their mother's suffering. He and Galadriel had spoken from afar concerning Celebrían's departure, but his wife's parents, at her own request, had not made the journey with her.
On the one hand, he minded not at all; this was the sort of loss no words of comfort, sure to be given, however grieved also their speaker, could mend. Silence, which he realized with a melancholy matter-of-factness would now be his constant companion, was the only thing that could comfort him even slightly. It seemed somehow to wrap its emptiness around him, allowing his memories, the closest he would again be to her, to be lived again with crystal clarity.
There he stood, reminiscing as he wept into the sea, long after the grey ship was out of sight and the stars had begun to prick heaven's vault. At last, he turned his back to the ocean and made to enter the house of Círdan to take what rest he could.
Fingering Vilya, he knew that, though it could be long before he did so, the anguish he would endure without the hope it gave made up his mind: someday, he sails.