Chapter 3: To Stand Alone
For the first time in her young existence, Angharad was alone. As the selkies had pushed her into the open maw of the Straight Road, she had felt the bond of her spirit to her parents' grow faint. When the portal closed, she felt their ties snap shut. It was still there, but like a river blocked by a dam nothing passed through.
All around her was a shining white corridor running with seawater. She was in utter silence. She couldn't even hear her own breath. She gripped the coracle hard, knuckles white, as the boat felt like it was falling fast, as if on a waterfall. Her years of practice swinging from trees gave her enough strength to hold on even as the little boat roiled under her.
The girl regretted every time her mother had told her to be more careful and she had scoffed, barreling ahead. Her mother, her mother. Her handsome father. Where were they now? Did they know she lived still, or were they already racing to the Halls of Mandos to meet her shade? Angharad wished her body would die so she could meet them there. She knew that the older elves could release their souls to the care of Mandos if it was necessary, but she did not know how. She prayed to Eru and the Valar to send her home with her lessons learned, silent tears running down her face. She was out of time. The other entrance to the Straight Road opened before her and spit the girl and the boat into the Sundering Seas.
The coracle had likely been meant for use in a harbor, not the open ocean. It rose and fell on every swell of water, tipping wildly from side to side. The child spent all her strength trying to keep the boat from moving when a memory came into her mind.
(~***~)
She was with her father (oh, she wanted her father!) out on the Pastures of Yavanna, where he had taken her for a ride. They had stopped for a break when she had gotten the idea that she wanted to try riding the horse standing. She tried again and again, Legolas only watching her in amusement as she kept falling each time the horse shifted. (Her ada never stopped her from trying things. She loved him so much…)
"It won't keep still!" she complained.
"You don't want it to keep still, do you?" he asked. "Come on, my dear, use your head. How do you balance on something that's moving?"
She could feel tears of frustration prick her eyes. "I don't know," she whined.
Legolas picked her up, touching his spirit to hers with encouragement. He leapt onto the horse, who was used to such tricks. Standing on its back, he supported her small body in front of his, then prompted the horse to move forward slowly.
"Look," he said, showing her as they went, "you move with it."
(~***~)
Move with it, she thought to herself. Instead of fighting the boat, she shifted her weight with every wave. Finally, she had her balance – this had the added benefit of taking much less energy. Over the rolling ocean she and the curragh floated. A day passed, and a night. Then another day, another night. She could only rest a little here and there, when the waters were calm enough that the boat was steady. Without fresh water or food even her elven body grew tired, for she was still very young.
The waves had become lively again and she struggled to keep balanced with her last strength. Around her, something was moving in the water and she felt afraid. A dolphin popped its blue-gray head out of the waves and gave a squeaky shout. Angharad startled and the boat tipped to the side. Water began pouring in, and before she could right it, the boat sank out from under her. She floated on her back, too tired and full of despair to swim. She felt there was truly nothing left now but to wait for death to take her spirit home to Valinor.
(***)
The dolphin, which was just a calf itself, considered the animal before it. It was like the other boat animals, but it seemed different. He felt he wanted to play with this one, but he was afraid of the other boat animals. The pod joined him surrounding the young creature.
A mother dolphin considered the boat animal. She could tell that it was a calf. The calf was not well. She nudged it, making an encouraging sound, but it did not move. All the dolphins knew then that the calf was dying. This pod did not just let calves die. They pushed and prodded the calf, making insistent noises until, finally, the calf turned over and lifted its head out of the water.
The dolphins were pleased. They began to swim, taking turns coming up under the calf to push it forward and encourage it, the way they would their own children. The calf reached out its claw thing and held on to the dorsal fin of the nearest dolphin. It hung on and let itself be pulled through the water. The dolphins were very happy. Now they understood how they could really help the calf. A strong dolphin swam under the calf's other claw thing, encouraging her to hold on again. The calf did.
The two dolphins pulled the calf along, staying close to the surface. They brought it to a dry place they knew, where boat animals came. As the calf moved onto the sand, the dolphins made encouraging noises to it.
(~***~)
Angharad woke from a dream in which she nursed at a dolphin as though it was her own mother. The sun was bright overhead. It was much hotter than she had ever felt before. She licked her lips and tasted salt. She was so thirsty! She had never felt such a terrible feeling. As she sat up, white flakes of dried salt fell off her. She looked all around but could not see any person or even animals. There was just the beach, with the strangest looking trees she had ever seen all along it. She stood, feeling shaky, and made her way under the shade. She could see no river or other clean water nearby – no fruit or nuts she could pick for energy. She sat in the shade, feeling foggy, and tried to think what she should do. Across the water, she could hear the dolphins again – and something else! She heard boat oars slapping the water and looked out over the ocean. Someone was coming for her! She might have wept, but she had neither water nor energy left to give.
The dolphins circled the fisherwoman's boat, leading her to the little island where the clam digging was good. She had already been planning to go out there today, but with the dolphins' insistence at the docks, she had changed her plans and taken the boat out right way. They wanted something, and it was good luck to help a dolphin. They had been known to save drowning fishermen. Surely such a person would be grateful to the one who saved them. Who knew what good things could come from that? As the fisherwoman approached the island, she looked around for what it was that the dolphins might be guiding her towards but couldn't see anyone. At least she'd brought the clam bucket. It was a hot day, so they would be close to the surface and easy to harvest.
Angharad watched the person approaching her and realized it must be a man. No, not a man – a woman. She really was in Middle Earth! She remembered how excited she had been by the tales of Middle Earth before. Now she didn't want to be here but had no choice but to put one foot in front of the other. The woman looked incredibly strange to Angharad, who had lived her entire lives among elves. Her skin was wrinkled, like Gandalf's but not as badly, and it was pale brown. She had dark eyes the crinkled at the edges. Her hair was a fuzzy tangle of dark brown and gray. Her clothes looked rough and worn to the elf child. Her face shone with sweat. She was constantly running her tongue over a tooth, grimacing in discomfort from time to time. She began digging in the sand, singing to herself. Angharad didn't know any of the words, but she liked the woman's voice.
Angharad reached out her spirit to touch the woman's, desperate for comfort from the only adult she'd seen in days, but the woman did not react at all. Another memory arose: She was asking her mother about humans. She had loved tales of strange beings and far off lands!
(~***~)
"Grandfather says you used to embrace him, why?" she had asked, prodding her mother to speak about her fascinating and strange past.
"It was just a habit," her mother said. "From my memories of being human."
"But why?" Angharad asked again, pushing. It seemed so strange, putting your body so close to another's body. (Except your parents of course).
"Because…" her mother seemed to try to find an explanation. "Because it was comforting. Like how you might touch fёa with someone."
"But mother, why not just touch fёa?" Angharad prodded.
"Because, my love, they can't feel that. They are beings of hröa, not of fёa. They feel things in their bodies."
(~***~)
"Right," thought Angharad. She crawled out from under the tree, walking carefully towards the woman on shaky legs.
The fisherwoman's clam bucket was only halfway full when she noticed the strange child walking towards her. It looked like a girl, maybe from one of the lands to the North. The child was covered in salt and sand, so it was hard to see her clearly, but she looked pale. The woman thought her hair was yellow. Her eyes were large and greenish under her white-flaked lashes. Definitely from the North. The girl must have been shipwrecked on some merchant vessel, but who brought their children on long sea voyages? Based on her size the woman thought she might be 8 or 9 years old. Before she could think anything else, the child walked up to her and hugged her.
The fisherwoman was surprised and confused but felt a stab of pity for the child who now clung to her clothing, letting out as few dry sobs from her parched throat. She patted her back awkwardly: her people weren't really hugging people. The woman felt anxious for the girl. Such an innocent! She was too trusting, coming up to a stranger like that.
"Well, a good deed always pays for itself in the end," she thought to herself. She pried the girl off her and gave her some water. The girl drank too quickly, so the woman took the bottle away and scolded her a little for good measure, feeling fond. The fisherwoman would have liked to finish filling her bucket, but she could see the child was helpless, possibly foolish, and definitely exhausted. The clams would be here tomorrow. She steered the girl into her little boat and set out for home. Maybe the child had surviving kin in the city – these northern merchanting families tended to be big. It didn't hurt that they had a lot of money, either.
Angharad was so confused. This woman was so gruff with her, but she gave her water and some kind of dried meat to chew on. More than that, Angharad could feel something good about her.
The dolphins who had saved her earlier followed them as the woman paddled them back to shore. They gave off encouraging squeaks and whistles, feeling happy that the boat animal and the calf boat animal were together now. Despite herself, Angharad smiled at them and leaned over – carefully – to put her hand in the water.
In Sindarin, she thanked them for their help and called on the blessings of the Valar to these noble animals and their kin. The dolphins responded immediately, delighting in the magic of the elves, leaping in the air. The woman stopped rowing for a minute, surprised by the dolphins' activity. As the boat slowed the animals gathered around the girl's hand in the water, taking turns touching it. The woman could swear she saw the girl's hand glow. The words she spoke made the fisherwoman feel strange and still. She shook her head, thinking the sun must be really getting to her these days. She wasn't a young woman anymore after all.
The fisherwoman brought the girl back to her home, which was quiet before her husband and their children returned from the morning haul. Now was the time to bathe this silly creature, she thought. She didn't need her boys getting any funny ideas about trying to peek at a girl getting a bath. She shuffled about, heating water and rolling the small wooden bathing tub into the kitchen. Once set up, she herded the girl in after it. After a lot of pointing, and even some affectionate shouting, the woman convinced the girl to strip off her salt-covered clothing and climb into the tub, where she scrubbed her thoroughly. (Angharad had never been handled so roughly!)
This child was incredibly strange, the woman thought. Her skin and hair were too soft. She was well fed, but lithe and muscular, not plump like a merchant's child or royalty. When washing her hair, the woman noticed something bizarre. Reaching out in confusion, she touched one pointed ear, making the girl to shy away from her. When the girl stepped out of the tub, she glowed like a lantern, lit from within.
The fisherwoman was starting to feel afraid. She had heard tales about peoples other than humans that had once lived in these lands, but she knew little about them. There had been some vicious wars, she remembered… More respect was better until she could find more information, she thought. She dressed the girl in her youngest daughter's only spare outfit and carefully combed her hair into a tidy braid, accentuating the pointed ears. The result looked odd to the woman. The small child reached out to the adult who was caring for her, touching her right above her heart, and the woman could feel the gratitude flow over her like a little breath of wind.
The woman was very worried now. Although she badly needed to start cooking for her family, she made sure to give the girl something to eat and then went out into the street, grabbing a boy to send a message to the town scholar to come to her house as soon as he could. This child could not be human – or maybe she was some kind of witch girl? Could she put a curse on their family? Her husband would be furious… Suddenly a thought occurred to the woman that made her feel cold into her feet: what kind of parents might be out looking for this girl?
