Chapter 41: At Sea
Notes I apologize for making a mid-writing shift if you're following along: the countdown convention I instituted in the last chapter wasn't working, so I've changed it. I'll go back and fix it in the last chapter, too. It's just going to be the month now. They leave Temple Mountain with either 2 or 3 weeks to go before the spring equinox, so right around the end of February. They have until the middle of the following March to reach home.
c/w: trauma & trauma processing
(~***~)
February
Angharad was jumping out of her skin. Being back on a boat was upsetting for both she and Ginnar – something they hadn't thought about when they'd left Temple Mountain. But they kept being reminded of the Collector's ship. The gentle rocking of the waves, the creaking timbers, the salt and fish smell constantly in the air…
The children could not believe it when they'd first seen the ship. They were going to get all the way back to Gondor, and then Valinor, in this? Angharad wondered, if they stood with their arms stretched out, fingertip to fingertip, if the five of them could cover the entire length of the ship.
"Where do you sleep?" Ginnar asked Lossrilleth, his voice full of concern. Lossrilleth lifted the edge of a tarpaulin that was stretched over the deck on the far end of the ship. Beside several storage containers carefully covered in waxed canvass or oiled skins, there was a small space where one adult elf, or two children, could lie down and rest.
"I will be honest with you children, life on this vessel is not for the weak of heart. But I know that describes neither of you, now, does it?" she said. The children shook their heads, but still looked doubtful.
"Do we stay on the ship all the time?" Angharad asked, confused. "How do we have enough food? Or fresh water? Or cook anything?"
"No, we go ashore often. We will show you everything, do not worry," Legolas reassured both children. "This will not be like your last journey. Try to think of this as an adventure. You will learn how to sail and feed yourself along the trail – a number of things that could be useful to a warrior someday. Yes?"
"Alright," Angharad said in a small voice, unconvinced. She had been hoping she could wake every morning and do some exercises. She had been relying on that familiar routine for quite some time now to keep herself steady. But on this ship, there would be no room. They were going to be on top of each other constantly.
"How does this work?" Ginnar asked, poking at the rigging that secured and controlled their single sail.
"Come learn!" Legolas replied, then began to walk the children through the ship's systems.
"This is going to be interesting," Lossrilleth muttered to her father-in-law.
"That is one word for it," Thranduil replied dryly. Círdan had built them a practical vessel, purposefully plain so it would not garner too much attention from humans they passed. But it had to be able to be manned by only two elves at a time and it had not been designed for a trip around the globe. With all the provisions they'd had to pack onto the already limited deck space, they'd been stepping around each other already on the way over. Now they were just plain crowded.
The first night the girl fell into a fitful reverie with her mother crouched beside the dry spot the children were packed into, singing softly to help them settle their raw nerves. Half an hour later Angharad leapt up and bolted out of the cramped space, tangling herself in the edge of the tarp in panic. Lossrilleth lifted the cloth for her and Angharad streaked across the deck.
Thranduil was not certain she was aware of her surroundings, so when the girl raced by him, perilously close to the gunwale, he grabbed her and lifted her up into his arms where he could grip her even as she wriggled and the deck rocked beneath them. Angharad clung to Thranduil – any of the adults would have done for her just then.
"I hate that man, I hate him!" she cried, pounding one helpless fist against his shoulder. "If we ever see him again, we will slaughter him. We will, right, grandfather?" she spit out through tears.
Legolas felt his heart breaking as he made his way down the mast, where he'd climbed to adjust some loose rigging. Lossrilleth echoed his grief and outrage back to him from the other end of the ship, where she had stayed once she saw Angharad was safe, to make sure Ginnar was not about to make any dangerous sudden moves, either
Thranduil kept the girl in a reassuring hold. He was shocked to hear these violent words spilling out of one so young. It might be true of him, certainly, to say that the Collector's fate would be sealed if he ever met the old king. But to have her wish to visit brutal death on someone? Thranduil could feel the wrongness of it.
"Granddaughter, I cannot honestly recommend the path of rage to you," he told her in sober tones. "I could not vouch for that man's safety if he and I were to cross paths, it is true. I am old and have lived through many dark times. The shadow of them is in my blood now. But I have been coming to the conclusion of late that, for myself, wrath has been costly – often not worth what it bought me. Do not let such hatred take hold in you, Angharad, I beg you. Be the better of us. And if we ever meet that man, leave him to me."
"Then I will have learned the Tradition for nothing, if I cannot be a valiant warrior and defeater of evil as you have both been," the girl sniffed into Thranduil's shoulder.
"Defend yourself when you must. Defend others when you must. But there are other ways to find your valor, I am certain of it. Surely it is not the only thing that made you love your training – your wish to rain harm on others?" the old king counseled her.
"No," she admitted in a small voice. "That was not even the largest part of why the training was good."
"That is as it should be," Legolas told her. He approached the two and offered her to move from Thranduil's embrace to his. Watching his father care for his daughter so kindly touched something in Legolas, but she was connected to him still in a way she was not with Thranduil. She squeezed her grandfather hard and took the invitation to shift.
"Thank you," Legolas told Thranduil softly as Angharad leaned into him; the old king let his hand rest on his son's shoulder for a moment, then strode away to finish adjusting the sail. This ship needed near-constant attention from someone.
(~***~)
February Through July
It took several months for everyone to fully adjust and fall into a new routine. Angharad never came to like the canvas shelter, opting to brave the elements both resting and awake. She was often wet and chilled, but at least the air stayed fresh. Lossrilleth counseled Ginnar to use the space whenever it was to his benefit, although he did not like being the least hardy person aboard.
"It takes a very great deal for an elf to suffer harm from wet and cold," she told the boy. "Yours are people of stone and flame. The open ocean is not where you are at your best. We do not doubt your strength, I promise you." It was true: the air was cold still when they started out. He was shivering too often in the damp. He admitted defeat in this foreign environment and made the dry space his little sanctuary. He became intimately familiar with the instruments the elves kept in the dry area. He took on the task of operating Lossrilleth's water filtration system and learned how the navigation instruments worked from Legolas. As the weather warmed, the dwarf spent more time out on the main deck with the elves.
Both children were frequently set to the task of fishing off the side of the ship. It kept them occupied and was a necessary task: feeding and watering themselves and maintaining their boat took constant effort during this voyage. Every few days they would find a concealed inlet along the coast, or a small, unoccupied island and make landfall. When they could, they would gather fresh water, hunt, and forage for fruits or fresh greens to supplement the endless fish and waybread they lived off most of the time. Every month or so they'd have to send someone into a market town to fetch flour or some item that needed replacing: a frayed rope, a broken pail. Every item they had with them wore down quickly under such relentless use.
If they made landfall, they would often stay for the night, enjoying the chance to rest somewhere stable and dry. After the first few weeks, the adults learned it was also a good place to run Angharad around until she was calmer. She was bursting at the seams with energy that needed leeching off for everyone's sanity. Legolas had figured it out after a particularly nasty argument between the two children, when Ginnar had slipped and called Lossrilleth 'nana' and the girl had snapped back at him that she was her mother, not his.
They'd made landfall that evening on a jungle-infested island that looked abandoned. Thranduil and Legolas hoped to do a little hunting in the morning while Lossrilleth would get their tiny bucket stove going and bake another batch of unsatisfactory, if necessary, waybread. But as they walked about the little beach gathering driftwood for a fire they might enjoy, the children continued to glare at each other in ugly silence.
"That is enough," Legolas finally declared. "Angharad, come with me," he said, securing his knives to his back and shedding a few unnecessary outer layers.
"What? Where are we going?" she asked, surprised out of her sulk.
"We are doing what you used to do every morning at Temple Mountain to balance your energy: we are running around this island," he declared.
"Oh, bless you," Lossrilleth muttered.
"Just running? Just to run?" Angharad asked, a little confused.
"Just to tire you out, yes. You have been practicing martial arts for many hours every day for over a year. I do not think the cramped quarters on the boat are suited to your energy, iell nin. Come, we can speak on the move. Unless you think you can outrun me?" he challenged the girl. She grinned and dropped everything she could, then raced across the beach.
More than an hour late she declared, "This island is big! That was fun." She plopped down on a log next to the cheery fire the rest of the company had set up.
"Sorry," she said to Ginnar bashfully. "You can call her nana if you want to. I know your mother is Amad, anyway." Ginnar shrugged, but felt a bit better.
"I am glad you enjoyed that. I think we may do it again in the morning, although I say we bring some sacks with us this time. There was some good fruit on the far side we can bring back for everyone," Legolas suggested.
"Yes!" the girl crowed.
After that, Legolas made sure to find something for her to do to move herself everywhere they stopped. If there was nowhere to run they might swim or spar. Angharad would develop many cherished memories of these times during their journey West. She would always remember racing through lands unknown with her father as the unfamiliar trees and animals called out to them in tongues they could not understand. Her journey to Middle Earth had been full of grief and peril until now, when she was finally able to discover the joy of exploration under Legolas's protection.
With both ellyn's support and many words of comfort to her mother the girl had learned to climb the mast and adjust rigging under her father's watchful eye. Lossrilleth resigned herself to allowing the girl to climb, for it was good exercise and her daughter now exhibited excellent control over her balance and could fall safely. It was worth the relief they all enjoyed to not have her so on edge all the time. Angharad loved the feeling of the air whipping past her face, full of salt spray as the sun sparkled on the blue waves around them. As the journey progressed, she became a clever sailor, keyed in to minutes shifts in winds and tides that could push them astray.
The children were very glad of the change in their circumstances, but the ghosts of the past had not been banished entirely. Angharad never wished to go into the canvas shelter: not to keep Ginnar company on cold days, and not to get out of any weather. During one particularly bad storm her mother had strong-armed the girl into waiting inside with her friend so the adults could focus on maneuvering safely and trying to find somewhere to land. Angharad held back bitter tears as she waited under the tarp – cramped into a small space while the ship rocked and the rain beat on the tarp above them.
"It is not the same as the Collector's ship," Ginnar tried to reason with her. "There is no lock, or even a door. No bindings on our wrists."
"I know that, but try telling my heart," Angharad said through gritted teeth. The thought of being captured again would occasionally haunt her dreams.
"Do you think we might come across him on the way home?" she asked her friend, sharing the fear she could not shake.
Ginnar shrugged helplessly. He didn't want to think about this. "I do not know. Those men show up in all sorts of places. They were not even near the ocean when they took me."
The ship pitched sharply, and the children clung to the sides. As frightening as that was, it was welcome to think about something else.
(~***~)
August
The specter of their captivity would find the children at the oddest moments. On a day the company had ventured into a market town in search of a fresh water filter, flour, and cloth Lossrilleth could use to make new clothes for the children, as their Eastern attire was beginning to attract odd looks as they moved West, especially since they were travelling with adults dressed as Northmen. (Lossrilleth had surprised everyone by suggesting it might be safer and more comfortable for Angharad if she were to dress as a boy in public until they returned to Valinor. Once she'd puzzled it over, the girl had no objections and the ellyn agreed it could be sensible. Angharad thought it might be kind of fun to try it. So a 'boy' she would be for now, and she could avoid the annoyance of skirts when she'd rather be free to move.)
At that point they were moving quite close to the canal Legolas had identified as their fastest route to Gondor. The adults had agreed to pause their debate about whether to go to Aglarond until they had at the very least passed this obstacle and they could be a little more certain about how much time they might have to spare. Ginnar knew nearly six months had passed and the canal speeding their journey was the only real chance he had at being brought home by this family he now loved so dearly instead of a random human he'd never met before.
So when he looked down the hill of that market town and, for a moment, could have sworn the ship in the harbor was the Collector's ship, he dismissed it as his edginess turning into paranoia. He had only seen the outside of the ship for a few minutes, years ago now. The dark hulk in the harbor could be any ship, he reasoned. Still, he was glad that they wasted no time in the town and moved on quickly.
A few days later, Thranduil spotted an animal that looked like something between a goat and a deer rooting through some weeds at the edge of a large island. As Xiaoqing had warned them, sea life was becoming scarcer as they approached the canal. Game on land was not especially plentiful, either, in this region. Much of it was too small to waste arrows on, although the children repurposed some frayed strands of rope into pouch slings that were useful for stunning smaller animals like lizards, which cooked up fine in a pinch.
The days of Ginnar shivering alone in the shelter were gone: the air sizzled with heat, which could be seen bending the air over rocky, arid lands dotted with scrub and some wholly unfamiliar trees. (Lossrilleth thought at least one variety looked like some kind of palm tree, but the massive evergreens that reminded her of umbrellas baffled her as much as any of them.) Upon sighting the goat-deer, the ellyn agreed this could be a good place to stop and hunt. If they could catch one or two and spend a few days smoking the meat, it could prevent them from eating hand-to-mouth for days or weeks.
The family sailed up and down the coast of the large island for several hours, looking for any signs of potentially unwelcome visitors. They could see no ships, settlements, nor signs of human life. They returned to a beach not far from where they'd sighted the animal, where there was a rare wealth of greenery following a trickle of stream that drained into the ocean. As soon as their boat was secure, everyone but Lossrilleth stripped down to dive in the ocean and swim, eager for a break from the heat. The elleth followed the stream until she found its source: a freshwater spring that flowed into a pool surrounded by an Eden of plants. Her companions snapped their heads up in concern when they heard her shout, except for Legolas, who looked confused and surprised.
"She is not hurt, she is excited about something," he reassured the company.
Lossrilleth emerged from the trees looking triumphant. She dropped a load of yellow and red fruits on the sand from her skirt.
"Mangoes!" she announced happily. "There is fresh water from the spring back there as well. I ate one of these already – they are a treat!" Her companions cheered enthusiastically. The adults still split the night into watches, as they always did, but everyone slept easy in this good place.
The next day Legolas came back before midday with a goat-deer slung over his shoulder. Lossrilleth had been preparing: she'd had the children gather as much wood as they could find, as they would need to feed a fire for hours. She set up a simple grill surrounded by a tripod of long sticks she could drape canvas over to make an impromptu field smoker. They butchered the entire animal and smoked its meat until it had been reduced down to dry jerky – a process that took all night. The results were meager, and this seemed like a good place, so the elves resolved to stay for a few days to hunt and smoke a few more goat-deer that could get them through the 'dead place'.
On the third evening Lossrilleth joined everyone for a swim, soaking in the joy of this scene: pleasant water, a setting sun, the children splashing each other and laughing. After a dinner of fresh mangoes and grilled meat, Thranduil entertained the children playing two-on-one chess by the light of their fire while Lossrilleth and Legolas took a rare break, walking to the other end of the beach to speak for a few minutes.
Angharad glanced after them partway through the game, suddenly remembering to be nervous without them nearby.
"Ew!" she shouted. "Stop kissing, you are so gross."
"Do not look, then!" Lossrilleth called back to her daughter.
"You are supposed to be battling your grandfather on a chessboard. How you expect to defeat him when you are spying on us, I do not know," Legolas teased her.
Ginnar snickered. He thought it was nice, though, that the elves were affectionate with each other. His own parents were typically brusque dwarves in public, but sweet with each other in their own apartments. He felt as comfortable with these elves as they apparently felt with him now. It made him happy.
Thranduil's next move made him even happier. Ginnar stared at the board in surprise. His gamble had actually worked!
"Check!" he called out, triumphant. "I did not really think you would fall for that!"
"Yes!" Angharad echoed.
She returned her attention to the board. Her parents could return their attention to each other, reveling in this beautiful evening, safe and together under the vault of Varda's heavens. When they returned, the children were cheering and amped up.
"They achieved a draw," Thranduil explained calmly, although he was impressed. That young dwarf was a keen strategist. The old king thought they ought to make sure his parents knew so the talent did not go to waste.
"Alright, settle down you two," Lossrilleth admonished the children. "It is late already, it is time to rest."
(~***~)
Footnote:
The island the elves find towards the end of this chapter is loosely based of Socotra island in Yemen. The 'goat-deer' is meant to be a kind of small gazelle.
