I. AM. BACK!
As promised, this is now AT LONG FUCKING LAST a chapter with a least a bit of bittersweet fluff in it - if you squint, that is.
Also, this chapter is so chock-full of imagery, I'd be floored if you lovely people found them all! (Let's make that a challenge, shall we?)
Thanks to everyone that is reading, subscribing, liking and commenting! You guys are the fucking best!
Enjoy reading and spread a little love by leaving a comment!
(PS: Hozier's "Swan Upon Leda" was my constant soundscape for writing this chapter. I'd recommend listening to it while reading this chapter. Let them tears flow.)
44. To swim or to drown – that is the question
The waves come crashing,
steady as the tide,
year in, year out,
back and forth.
Dost thou not hear the song of the sea?
Dost thou not hear the ballad of the child of the sea?
Poor, wretched soul, hath she not filled the ocean with her tears?
Alas, grievous be the tale of the maiden of the sea and her lover of the lands of men,
I pray thee, listen, and thou shalt hear her sing her saddened song.
...
Birthed by the sea, cloaked in seaweed, anointed in saltwater,
she was the most beautiful of daughters Ulmo had ever created.
Hair the colour of the sea at night, with eyes hard and changing and untameable as the sea,
she was the quickest salmon of the bluest realm,
riding the waves with fierce grace and gentle force.
And her sisters, young and playful, would join her and together they would swim far and wide.
Alas, how very much she loved the sea, and no thought ever came to her to leave her home behind.
...
But at night, when the world would fall asleep,
the daughters would watch the world of men
and look for the men of another world.
Fishermen and sailors, men of the sea, men of the land,
how strange they looked to the sea-daughters:
with legs – to run and jump, to stand and dance;
how strange they looked, and how handsome.
...
But the youngest and fairest of them all,
Eaulis Nenniel, she was named,
was most curious of all the daughters of Ulmo.
Growing ever restless, impatient, desperate to see the world above,
and soon it was not enough for her to watch the distant, strange world only at night,
or to catch a glimpse of the strange men-folk only from afar.
And though she knew it was forbidden,
and her Lord Father's word spoke death to anyone who broke their laws,
her curiosity soon enough won her over, and silenced all voices of fear or concern.
...
And so, one day, the fair water-daughter swam to the surface,
the glowing, golden ball of light standing high up in the sky,
making the surface glitter like an ocean of precious pearls.
And, alas! Hark the song of the flying fishes that swam in the blue sky!
How different the world above the waves was to her;
how new, and wild, and exciting!
...
But most of all –
and this was what she had come to see after all –
there they were, the boats of the men of the land,
gliding through her world as though they belonged
(but she knew they were only trespassing,
she knew all it took was a flick of a wrist from her mighty lord father
and Ulmo would have them all drowned),
thinking they had mastered the sea,
charming in their naive confidence.
...
And for a time, her curiosity was sated,
but soon, it was not enough for her to watch in silence –
soon enough she wanted to touch and smell and taste,
soon enough she wanted to hear and be heard,
soon enough she wanted to know and be known in return.
...
She didn't heed the law of her father,
she didn't heed the warnings of her sisters.
Bold and curious –
innocent of the dangers that lurked above the waters for a child of the sea –
Eaulis Nenniel swam too close to one of the boats,
intrigued by the looks of a man with neither scales nor fins nor gills to be called handsome.
...
Caught in his nets
(as she would be later caught in his arms)
the water-maiden was pulled from the sea –
flailing like a fish snatched from the waters,
she thrashed about in the little boat,
her mighty fishtail going every which way,
and surely she would have tipped over both boat and sailor,
surely she would have drowned them both in her desperation,
surely, that would have been it?
...
But then the sun shone on both maiden and man,
drenching the land in beauty, as well as the sea,
and in the eyes of love all forms are beautiful,
and none can un-see what they had beheld at the first beating of a longing heart,
and so it was that when the net was cut,
and the mermaid could have escaped back into the freedom of the sea –
she no longer cared for the freedom of it.
...
Forgotten were the murmur of the waves and the pearls under the sea,
forgotten were her brothers fish and moray,
forgotten were her sisters crab and seahorse.
Lost were her gills and her scales and, over time,
her beautiful fishtail as well.
She had exchanged it all for two beautiful legs and a man of the land.
And she was happy, for she knew herself in love.
...
Ceven she named her lover, for he was a man of the earth,
and the earth was in his name as well as in his blood.
Nénu he named her, for she was a flower of the sea,
and flowering still in the garden of his hand,
and he made her his wife,
and thus the sea was married to the land.
...
(In the depths of the sea, however,
her lord father Ulmo wept and raged and vowed,
never for her to return,
never to forgive,
never to forget –
and should the man, who had taken his child from him, ever find his way back onto the sea,
the god swore bloody vengeance,
and swore to see it fulfilled.)
...
Verily, freely she had left the sea for him,
and freely she went with him,
dancing for him whenever he asked for it,
because even though every step upon the sands of the beach was a step upon knives for her,
she danced and danced and danced –
because it was her love who asked it of her,
and because she was happy
and because she was in love.
...
(We women of the sea don't do so well in the lands of men.)
...
Many years went by this way,
and even though their love never waned,
and even though the water-maiden bore her man of the land many sons and daughters,
and she laughed and smiled as she did so,
her eyes still grew teary with her gaze upon the open sea –
and every night she would wade towards the beach, beckoned by her sisters' sad songs.
...
Where has our sister gone?, they would wail.
What happened to her fishtail, her beautiful scales, her perfect gills?
Where has our sister gone?, they would lament.
Has she forgotten us?
Has the sand of the land, the love for this man, washed out the love she bore us once?
Where has our sister gone?, they would cry.
We have not forgotten her, and never will,
our hearts will never be white-washed from the sorrow of her parting.
Where has our sister gone?, they would weep.
Our Lord Father no longer burns with anger but with grief,
our Lord Father no longer hopes for her to stay away, but for her to return.
Where has our sister gone?, they would keen.
Will she never return to us, will she never again be one of us,
never again swim in the sea, never again?
...
And even though the water-maiden wanted to refuse with a heavy heart –
for she was forever bound to the lands of men by the love she bore for one of them –
it took but one step into the sea, there at the beach, where water met the sand,
for the waves of her longing to pull her back into the open arms of sea;
but what she found was that arms held wide open could close in an embrace
as easily as they could entrap in a cage.
And no matter how much she tried to swim against the current,
the sea would never set her free again.
...
And in her despair, Eaulis Nenniel called out to her lover,
and when Ceven heard her plea for help,
he took his boat and rowed it out onto the open sea –
perhaps he thought: he had caught her once, he could do it again?
But the men of the land do not do so well in the realm of waters,
and its Lord had never forgiven nor forgotten the theft of his youngest child,
and his vengeance came swiftly and terribly.
...
The storm rushed in from the open sea,
thrashing the little boat to and fro,
but the man of the land, blinded by his love and longing, did not heed it.
And when the wave hit,
and pushed and pulled him into the blue depths,
not even his water-maiden could reach him then
(even though she tried with all her little might,
but not even her newly formed fishtail could avail her now),
and thus he was drowned,
never again to be set free by the Lord of the Deep.
...
And thus the tale ends,
of Eaulis Nenniel and Ceven,
the water-maiden that loved a man of the land,
and forever you will hear her cry
(her tears turning the Sundering Seas salty for evermore thereafter) –
in the thrashing of the waves, in the churning of the currents, in the maelstrom of the deep –
about the lovers whose tragic tale gave the Sundering Seas its fateful name.
...
The Ballad of the Water-Daughter, as told by Lothíriel
She knew at once that this was a dream.
At first there were only sounds tickling her ears, oddly familiar and comforting all at once – the rushing of the waves, them breaking against the cliffs, washing to the shore – and the moment her mind recognised the sounds, nostalgia tore at her with the sweetest violence. She wanted to keep her eyes closed, knowing instinctively that this was nothing but a dream; and yet, the sun-kissed warmth on her skin and the smell of saltwater in her lungs shook the foundations of her convictions, and doubts began to creep in … but only because she let them.
Because she wanted the dream to be true once more.
She had not realised how much she had missed the sounds and smells and sights of her home. How much she had longed to taste the salt of the sea on her lips again, and to feel the sand between her toes as she stood at the beach, watching the waves roll in, watching the ships and boats head out, watching them disappear beyond the horizon.
She had not realised how deep the yearning for the sea still rang inside of her, and she wondered briefly, if she would ever be free of it. Or would she forever carry the echoes of her past, having her be hollowed out by them, like a shell taken from the ocean, dried and cleaned and emptied of the sea? If she only kept her eyes closed and her ear close to the shell of her, would she still be able to hear the sea, even now, and remember what it was like to be completely at home?
If this is a dream, will I ever wake from it?, she thought then, but even as the thought raced through her mind, a voice inside her answered, If this is a dream, would you really want to wake from it? In her mind she imagined her hands balling to fists at her side, the instinctive impulse in her to deny the truth even as she sensed it in her very being; but then her fists unclenched, and relaxed, defeated, relieved, she stood, knowing the answer to a question she had never asked.
When she opened her eyes then, blinking, she let out a gasp of surprise and joy – because in her dream all was as she had imagined it. Before her the wide open sea stretched out, farther than her eyes could see, farther than her mind could reach, and in her joy at being home again at last, she took but one step into the sea. Oh, and how she delighted at the cool caress of the waters around her ankles! How the soft winds blew the salty breeze against her skin.
Yes, she was home at last.
A sudden sound to her right then shook her out of her remembrance then, and instinctively she turned towards the source of the sound – only to be surprised once more when she saw that the beach all around her was actually covered with the softest, greenest grass she had ever seen – and yet, she could feel the memory tug at the back of her mind, that she had seen this very sea of grass before. And how very strange it seemed to her then, that she would feel home-sick still, even as she was ankle-deep in the only home she had ever known and that now sought to claim her back.
And there again, there was that sound again; and only now did she recognise it for what it was. Laughter; ringing loud and ringing free. And the sound was so intriguing that her eyes searched to and fro, chasing it all the way across the sea of grass; and when her eyes found the source of that sound at long last, she was taken aback by what she saw.
Far across the sea of grass, she saw a man leading a horse along where the green met the sands of the beach, and she felt something constrict in her chest when she recognised the gold of that hair and the green of those eyes, the warmth behind that smile, and she knew the man without having to speak his name. And, of course, even in her dream she recognised how inherently odd it was to see him walk beside the horse rather than sitting on top of it (the only throne he had ever wished to sit upon), and yet – and she blushed to remember it – she recalled another time when he had walked next to a horse, holding the reins, smiling as he led the animal along, as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
Trust me, right now there is no place safer in this whole wide world than on the back of this steed.
And as if compelled by an unseen force (and, indeed, the force cam from somewhere deep within her chest), her gaze shifted back from man to horse, and what she saw then surprised her even more than seeing a Horse-king walk next to his trusty steed. Because there upon the animal's back sat a child with hair just as golden and eyes just as green, and a smile that was just as warm. Reflexively her hand flew to her belly, but found it only flat and unassuming, and she understood – much quicker, actually, than she had outside of her dream. And with a sigh somewhere between joy and anguish, she looked up again – her eyes magically drawn back to the picture before her.
Across from her, across the sea of grass, the golden-haired father led along the horse carrying the green-eyed child on its back, and they both laughed as they went; and the child was urging the father on, impatient, giddy, excited to go faster, but the green-eyed man only smiled at the golden-haired child. She had seen that kind of smile before, had felt the warmth that radiated from it, and even now she could feel the memory of it seep through her skin to touch her heart – like the sun whose rays burned with such bright kindness it almost blinded her with tears of joy.
As if in response, the soles of her feet began to burn, and she knew without even having to look down that the red of her blood was washed out towards the blue of the sea. And soon enough, she knew, the pain and blood would lick up all the way of her legs, reminiscent of the beautiful fishtail she had cut in two to walk on land – to be with him.
It is only a tale, she told herself then,I have sacrificed nothing to be with him.
Ah, but that's not true, now, is it, little swanling?, a voice to her left spoke then, and a sea-snake slithered into paradise, and she didn't have to turn around to know it carried the face of her late aunt Ivriniel. But even as the creature stalked around her, she would not look her way, would not allow to give it power of her ever again; her eyes ever trained upon that image of the man she loved and the child she had given him.
No, she had sacrificed nothing, not truly, and even if she had, she would do it all over again.
And with a fire her water had never known she realised that she wanted that image, that image of the father and the child, and she wanted it to be real. Not because she knew what had always been expected of her, not because she knew that it would be a solution to at least some of her problems (or at least, so she told herself), but because she wanted something of herself, something that had all of her fresh water and none of the salt in her veins, something that shone with all the might of his gold without any of the taste of sharp metal in it – she wanted something of them to endure, even if they could not.
Because she wanted the family she had never really been allowed to have.
And because she wanted to give that sense of family to the child she as of yet did not know.
That sense of love for somebody, not because of what they were or what they could do, but because they simply … were.
Instinctively, her feet wanted to move, to get closer to the image she yearned for most, but as she was trying to get to the man she loved and the child she had born him, she realised that she was stuck in the sand beneath the water, and indeed the water already reached up to her knees. What was more, she saw now that it slowly claimed more and more of the sea of grass and threatened to swallow it inch by inch; it was a capture that was barely noticeable at first, but she realised that soon it would drown them all.
Worried she wanted to call out to the golden-haired father and the green-eyed child but for some reason no words would come out of her mouth, even as she opened and closed it several times, like a fish on land almost, gasping for air. And indeed she felt as though she could not breathe at all, and instinctively her hands went to her throat – it burned and it felt tight, and there was no air coming through. And it was then, as her hands clawed desperately at her neck, that she noticed the scars on each side that, under her scratching fingernails, turned to fish-like scales, and beneath that: gills.
We women of the sea don't do so well in the lands of men, the sea-snake with the face of her aunt crooned then, smirking even as (or especially because?) she perceived her niece's so very obvious distress. The sea-snake smirked still as she rounded her, just so she could follow her gaze all the way over to the man her protegee had chosen, but whatever hope or connection her niece may have found in the Northern man, for the older woman it reeked only of heartache and betrayal, and foolish, foolish weakness.
A fish and a bird may fall in love, little swanling, but where would they live?
Wherever they could, she wanted to shout at the creature, however they could, she wanted to snarl in spite against the taunts thrown her way, for however long they could, she wanted to whisper in a voice more akin to a vow of longing rather than of anger – but still, her voice would not allow her to make even so much as a sound. And the more she struggled to breathe, to live, to exist, to simply be in this world cut off from the sea, the more her own nature seemed to fight against her.
Gasping for air, desperate, panicking – refusing to accept the nature of things – she tried to move out of the water, to save herself and to escape towards the shoreline and beyond it, to the sea of grass, towards the man and the child and the future she yearned for, but still her feet were stuck in the sands beneath the watery surface, and already the water reached up to her hips. And when the tide rushed in then, it took but one wave tearing at her to pull her away from shore and back towards the open sea.
Torn from the land and the life she had so desperately clung to – that she had so desperately wanted to live – the tides took her back towards the home she had never really been able to escape from in the first place. The sea was in her blood always, and the sea had never taken kindly to the soul that sought to defy its current. And when her head was pushed under by the next wave that hit her, and she was fully submerged in the world she had hoped to have left behind, she felt the change go through her like lightning – hot and blinding and painfully sharp.
It started in her legs; her feet that had already been burned by the cuts she had received – as though she had walked on knives every step of the way when she had walked in the land of the man she wanted to love. Now that pain moved along her legs, tearing at the seams of the life she had stitched together by sheer will and kindness and trust, and where the pain followed, she knew a tear had preceded it. Whose knife had it been that cut her open now, and whose was the hand that had held it?
All around her, the bright blue of the home she had once known, was marred by the blood it forced her to spill, turning it into a mess of violent colours that showed nothing but the truth. The pain of it made her open her mouth in a desperate attempt to scream – and through that motion saltwater filled her lungs. And what was worse – worse even than the pain clearing the way for her old home to lay claim to her again – was the realisation that now, now that she was underwater, back in the home she had fought so hard to escape from … now, at least, she could breathe freely again.
It was that realisation that hit her the hardest, that realisation that made her will falter for all of a second, that made her heart break at the tragedy of it all: the one thing she needed to survive was also the thing that kept her from truly living. And she could not stop it now. She was slowly turning back into the creature she had been before, the one made of salt and water, the one that rose and fell with ebb and flow, the one that belonged to the sea and to the sea only. And even though she tried to fight against her transformation, she could not stop the metamorphosis from taking place, from taking all that she was and changing her back to what she had been before.
Ripping, breaking, splitting, her fishtail sprang forth from her torn legs with a pain that clove her straight in half. Oh, she had known pain before, before when she had walked on knives just so she could walk on land, just so she could be with him – but none of that pain was comparable to this agony. Because even though she was born anew, with her reforming fishtail mending the flesh of her legs into a tight corset of scales and fins and slippery skin, she yet felt the death of the self she had been on land keenly amidst the rebirth of her old self from the sea.
And at last, as her head broke through the surface of the water, and she could open her mouth to let out a scream of agony – though whether from the pain in her body or the anguish in her heart she did not know – but the sound that spilled from her lips was nothing short of a song, sweet and soft and seductive. No man would have been able to withstand it, and her lover had not just been any man but the one who had fallen for her – hook, line and fucking sinker.
Alarmed by the sounds she made, her thrashing finally caught the attention of the golden-haired man and as soon as he saw her, he ran towards her without hesitation, her obvious distress a lure he had no defences against, and even though she tried to shout for him to stay away, to save himself, he would not abandon her to the sea. Am I now truly Ceven who lost his wife to the sea?, she remembered his words from all those weeks ago at the beach of her former home as if he were saying them now.
I can't lose you.
You won't lose me.
Taking one of the many boast stranded at the beach covered by the grass of their home (that was now quickly being flooded by the wrath of the home she had hoped to leave behind), the golden-haired man pushed the vessel into the waters, only to climb in afterwards, and with nothing but a paddle he sought to brave the waves for her – to get to her, to save her, to be with her. And even though she felt her heart overflow with love for him, she felt the dread of what was to come more keenly still.
I know this tale and I know how it ends.
In the distance, upon the beach, amidst the sea of grass being slowly but surely drowned by the sea, the horse from before was rearing up in panic, its black mane upon a white hide flapping wildly in the wind. And then red flames devouring flesh; the horse was on fire, and, around it, the sea devouring land was on fire too – an ocean of red and black where once there had been familiar tones of blue and liberating colours of green. And she saw now that the golden-haired child with the green eyes from before was gone too, vanished into nothingness, as though it had never been, as though it would never be, and she knew it well to be a dark omen.
Elvish blood bore Elvish gifts.
Out from the sea a fiery storm came rolling in, dark clouds blotting out the sun, bringing a blackness with it, thunder growling in the sky, lightning cracking through the sounds of the ocean raging, and she knew that her father, lording over all the waves that crashed against them, was behind it. She knew the father of all waters wanted to drown this man that she loved, and she knew there was nothing she could do to stop it now.
I know this tale and I know how it ends.
But the golden-haired man would not be deterred. Steering his little, pitiful boat towards her, right through the eye of the storm, he did not heed the warnings in the sky nor the danger from below. His eyes ever fixed upon her, he cared about nothing else – not even himself. Rowing and rowing, he sought to get to her, but the waves pushed ever on, to push them apart, and even her mighty fishtail flapping beneath her could not bring her closer towards the man she loved.
Her time away from her home had made her forget her strength.
We women of the sea don't do so well in the lands of men.
But even her lord father, who commanded the wrath of the sea, had underestimated the will of men. By the sweat upon his brow and the muscles aching in his back, the strength of his arms manning the oar, the man she loved made his way through wave and wrath, and neither the fury above in the sky nor the vengeance from below could keep him any longer from coming to the one he loved. Even in her dream, he put her first, and even in her dream she knew he would suffer for it – and even in her dream she would hate herself for it.
I know this tale and I know how it ends.
And yet, when she saw him draw close to her, when she saw him pull up next to her, when she saw him reach out to her, she could not but feel hope flickering in her heart, and in that moment, her love for him swelled up to overflow and be as boundless as the wide, dark sea surrounding them (nay, bigger even, and her mind revolted at the blasphemous thought even as her heart agreed with it). He seemed so beautiful to her then; golden-haired and green-eyed, gentle kindness in his smile and unconditional longing in his gaze, with no frowns of worry deepening the lines of his face and no bitterness to harden the heart shining through it. To her, he was the sun, warm and bright and live-giving, and she understood it with a sudden clarity then that she had always yearned for it and forever would.
A great king is in need of a great queen.
But even as she reached for her sun, just as he reached out for her, to pull her up into his boat – their boat – and to save her and him from the wrath of the waves around them, he fell from the vessel, into the swirling, churning masses around them. What a fool!, the voice of a sea-snake hissed then, and she recognised the cruel spirit of her late aunt in the words, a man of the lands has no business being on the open sea. Or was it her father's voice that would mock them so, even as he sought to drown the man she loved?
To her it mattered not. Neither her aunt's words nor her father's cruelty. As the man she loved was relentlessly pushed underwater by the waves around them, she did not hesitate to dive back down after him. For him she would brace the wrath of the sea itself, to save him she would resist her father who had ever sought to create her in his image, and her lord father roared at her defiance, sending more and more of his waves to punish the lovers that had dared defy his will, to separate them. And when even that didn't deter her and she fought to reach her lover still, with her strong fishtail beating through the water, propelling her forward, the Lord of the Deep sought crueller punishment still.
Pulling her down with the might of the current, she felt her body scrape across the bottom of the sea then, the beautiful but sharp shells buried in the ground ripping at her back and at her arm, a piece of coral getting stuck deep within her shoulder. No, she thought, that's not how it happened! And then a rip went through her, a lightning strike of pain, and then her fishtail was no more – only two limp legs kicking uselessly, helplessly, treading water, and at her neck, no gills now provided air and she felt her human lungs burn from the effort it took to hold in what little air she had left.
What point would there be in watering a sapling that just won't flower?
The Sea giveth and the Sea taketh away.
You wanted to be with him, daughter – so, be with him.
Panic clawed violently in her chest just as the waves clashed violently over her head but she knew she could not give in now. Instead, she pushed thoughts of herself out of her mind completely as her eyes searched through the blue depths for her golden-haired lover, and when had spotted him at long last, she used her weak human limbs to get to him. But even as she was bridging the distance between them with stroke after stroke, pushing her exhausted, bleeding body on and on, pushing it past the brink of the humanly possible, even as she felt the air burn in her lungs, hoping against hope that this excruciating ordeal would be worth it in the end – even then, she saw him sinking, sinking, sinking, and her heart sank alongside him.
I know this tale and I know how it ends, a small voice inside her whimpered, defeated.
No, our tale is not over yet, another voice inside her roared then in defiance.
Rise with the tides!
And she did reach him then.
But his eyes were closed, his limbs limp and lifeless as he was being pulled down, and even as she sought to hold on to him, to pull him back up, she felt the sheer weight of him drag her down into the watery deep, just as the sheer weight of the blue world around them dragged them both down. She knew she couldn't do this on her own, not without his help. And so, not knowing what else to do, she took hold of him, took his face between her hands and pressed her lips to his.
All around them the dark blue sea was drenched in sudden light every now and again when lightning struck in the world above the surface, but down here, the chaos of the storm above was drowned by an eerie, calm silence.
Time had come to a standstill.
She clung to him, and to the desperate hope that as long as there was life in him, he would respond to her. And she waited; waited for the storm to pass, waited for the sea to drown them both, waited for him to open his mouth to her live-giving kiss. And when he did, with what little strength she had left, she pushed the air from her lungs into his own – a kiss of life and true love, straight from the tales she had loved so much as a child – and to her great joy, his eyes opened then, and they were widened in surprise and gratitude, only to soften then with his devotion for her.
A great king is in need of a great queen.
And even as their lips let go of each other then, their hands did not; fingers interlaced, one hand each holding on to one another, they ascended towards the light above the water, their legs kicking in an effort to swim. They would not let go of each other, not even once, not even to swim more effectively; because they understood that they were strongest together, and nothing, not even the current from below nor the roaring waves around them nor the storm above them could separate them ever again. Yet even as she smiled through the pain (her body bleeding and broken from her fight with the sea itself), she felt seawater enter her lungs, filling her with the salt of regret and ruin, but still she pushed on, determined to see herself and him get their heads above water – and with the last of her strength her head breached the surface of the water at last … and she gasped for air and for life itself.
FUN FACTS #1: The ballad at the beginning (well, poem-like thingy, I should rather say) is the actual ballad / story that I referenced in this story in earlier chapters too. I wrote it for this story many years ago but so far it never felt right to publish it, as there was simply no place to publish it in full in this story. Now, however, I think it's quite useful, as I'm sure it'll make sense of a few things that Lothíriel is dreaming about here. How do you feel about it? Too much?
FUN FACTS #2: When I conceived my story about Éomer and Lothíriel, and I came up with the ballad of the mermaid and her lover of the land of men, I did not anticipate just how fucking much my chaos pair would fit the fucking bill here. Like, it almost physically hurts to see the parallels. At least, it did for me. What about you? What parallels did you find while reading this chapter? And what other imagery did you find in this chapter that alludes to Lothíriel, Éomer and their story?
FUN FACTS #3: ... and now, the chapter focus will return to Lothíriel after we've followed Éomer for a bit. But where is? *strokes chin intellectually*