Chapter Two
Long legs strode past her, the hems of tunics at her eye level. Hands too, just the right height to pat her head as she passed. Some did, if she stopped to let them. No one crouched down to talk to her, each elf busy with a thousand things and had no time for a little waif. She liked the word, it needed her whole mouth to move when she said it. Lady Lentalin had called her that before the others came home: waif. Always underfoot, always running off with the older children into the city.
Lady Lentalin had noticed when she was missing, she had sent Gandir out to look for her. Now, no one noticed if she was not there, as long as she was back before Galdor came to give them supper. So in the hours between his visits she ran out of the house, crawling through the hedge and over the wall into the street for her sister would sit by the front door, waiting for their mother. She wanted to tell Alsea that their mother was not coming back but she did not dare. Gandir woke up before she did every morning and would make her put on a clean dress although he had no idea what to do with the dirty ones. Galdor only came and helped him with supper, he never did anything else. Gandir had brushed her hair as well, he kept petting it oddly. So she did not look too wild as she ran down to the wharves.
There she chose a ship and slipped into it, first climbing to the bow and looking down at the waves knocking the white wood, then scurrying below deck to hide in the nooks and crannies as she felt the ship sway against its ropes. She stayed there until she felt thirsty, no one had given her milk or water that morning. She emerged from the ship, her small feet skipping along the cobblestones of the promenade all the way to the Ship House. Círdan would have something for her, or Lady Lentalin. She loved the boat house, it had never been left to dust as her mother's house had. Always it had a new ship in its belly, the timbers being joined in the hall that sat over a slope running down the the river beneath the bridge. She thought it was a clever house, built so that one corridor was a bridge that had no doors and ran underneath the upper floors, the floor of the house did not quite touch the water except for the ramp. Even when everyone left to follow the banners the door to the Ship House had never been shut.
Inside the ship builders worked away, as they had done for as long as she could remember. Lady Lentalin had brought them to the Ship House every day to learn the craft, even the little ones.
"Yarna, what brings you here, tithen pen?" Círdan stroked her head as she ran up to him.
"May I have some milk?" she asked him. "T'is a long while until supper."
"Is there none in your house?" Círdan took her hand and led her up the stairs to the long room overlooking the ship in progress.
"Perhaps, but Galdor only comes at supper time." She smiled at Curunír who sat at a table. He had a longer beard than her father, and it was already white.
"I shall tell him to come more often," Círdan murmured. "Sit." She climbed into the chair next to Curunír, looking at the book in his hand curiously.
"You are Ada's friend," she said to him. Slowly he put the book down to face her.
"I am." She liked his voice, it sounded like her father's when he was telling a story.
"Can you make him smile again? He forgets us. He was gone so long, I think he forgot all about us."
"He spoke of you often, and he remembers you well." She frowned, her father rarely spoke now and he forgot to do the things that needed doing. Galdor had cleaned away all the dust, but some things he was not there for.
"Here, Yarna." Círdan had come back, a mug of warm milk and a plate of fruit in his hands. He set them before her and she delved into them hungrily. "I should have told Galdor they need checking on more often."
"It has been two weeks, Círdan. Still he does nothing." They were talking about her father, she knew, and if she kept quiet they might forget she was there and keep talking.
"I will ask Lentalin to take them back, but she has lost her son." She frowned when she heard that. Lady Lentalin would be sad. "Yarna, you do not need to hide that apple in your pocket."
"It was for the Lady!" she protested. "To make her smile." Círdan looked very sad as he took the apple from her.
"All are sad, Yarna. You can do nothing to help them."
"Do not listen to him, child," Curunír said suddenly, leaning closer. "Who do you know that is sad?"
"Ada," she replied at once. "And Gandir and Alsea. And Galdor but he pretends not to be. Lady Lentalin, and Círdan is sad too."
"Do you know what will make them happy again?"
"If everyone came back." Curunír looked at her solemnly.
"That may be so, child, but not everyone can come back. What else?" She scrambled down, pointing to the ship below them.
"When people are sad they come here. Nuncle came here once and he looked so very sad, but Erestor came and made him smile. Others, they go on ships."
"Perhaps one day." She frowned, looking up at Curunír.
"If Ada gets on a ship, I shall be all alone."
"Your Ada is not taking a ship," Círdan told her firmly. "Cease this, Curunír."
"He sits and watches the sea all day, and when we eat he never looks at us. When I speak to him he tells me to leave him be." She had managed to climb up into Curunír's lap, which gave him a surprise.
"Does he speak to your brother and sister?" Curunír asked her.
"Sometimes, quietly. He lets them sit with him." She wanted to be allowed to sit with her father as well, she always used to curl up when he was reading and play with the strip of silk that hung down from the spine, the page marker when he closed the book. Now she ran out to the wharves every day and never sat with him.
"Curunír." Círdan have the beaded wizard a look only adults gave each other, which meant something was wrong. There had always been plenty of those looks before the banners were called.
"Apart from Mithrandir, who is in no condition to care for her, who else would take her in? Her uncle?"
"We should give him time, those children are all he has now." Curunír removed his beard from her curious hands, flattening it out again.
"He left our path for them, he should care for them now." Curunír stood abruptly, placing her on the floor. "Come, child, I shall return you to your father." He took her hand, his long arm not long enough to hold it at her height so she had to lift her arm up above her head to hold on.
"Hannon le, Círdan, for my milk," she called back, the Shipwright gave her a fond smile in return. Curunír walked too quickly through the streets back to her parents' house, her little legs tripped over themselves to keep up.
"Olórin!" Alsea jumped up as they came into the yard, running indoors ahead of them. Curunír let go of her hand, matching upstairs as he left the two girls to stare at each other.
"What have you done now?" Alsea asked, scampering up the stairs behind her sister.
"I am not to blame!" Alsea never heard when she said that. At their parents' door they stopped, listening intently.
"What-" They shushed Gandir as he appeared, all ears focused on their father and his friend within.
"Leave me be," their father murmured.
"Then take care of them, as is your duty. I warned you not to fall into this trap of emotion. Now care for these children, or be damned for letting Isowen's-"
"I cannot."
"Then send them away, to Glorfindel. If he can care for Lindir as his own he can care for them." Alsea pushed the door open, refusing to stay put.
"No, Ada! I do not want to go away!" The other two peeped around the doorframe nervously to see their father pick Alsea up.
"Nor shall you." Gandir and Yarna ran forward to receive the first embrace they had in weeks, their father taking his eldest two into his arms before stoping dead, his face ashen and haunted. Yarna flinched from it again. The look she kept getting, every day since her father came home.
"She is, the very image," her father murmured.
"Olórin?"
"Glorfindel, yes, he will- be gone, you are nothing but a ghost." Ghost, that sat on her tongue less comfortably than waif had.
"Olórin!" She had run away from them all, from Curunír and his voice, from her father and the look he gave her. She ran down the stairs and through the open door, straight into Galdor.
"Yarna?"
"I am not a ghost!" she told him before latching onto his leg tightly. He patted her hair as she started crying, creating a wet patch on his breeches' leg. "Not a ghost."
"No, tithen pen. You are not a ghost."