Now it was that yester-eve I sat upon the sward overlooking the docks at Celondim, and pondered the courses of my life that had led me to this point.
I cast my mind back twelve years, to that time I was about to start training with one of the fairest Orders at the Havens. Only twelve years, yet it seems to me I fitted more living into those fleeting moments than all the previous years. But also as before, as the sweet songs of aduiel were taken up by mariners and those housed upon the land, the lightness in my heart diminished somewhat.
I was not sad as such, but I did have concern for the future. I also had some hope.
I suppose the main difference to me of late was the sailing of my parents. We had always planned to sail together, the three of us, my sister and her family having been gone nigh a hundred years. But it was not to be.
I had bid my parents wait on me a few times, until it no longer felt fair to them. When would I be ready? They pressed me not for a date, but it was not hard to see their eagerness grow, whereas mine remained but little.
I was not finished with this Middle Earth, though it broke my heart to be parted from them.
So it was they reduced the business from sail making to sail dyeing only. It was something I could do alone, or with help from one other. Demand was falling anyway, though some of the harbours along the coastlands still put out a goodly number of ships.
The terraced house was for me alone, and I rattled around in it like one stone in a crate. I had my animals still. Gli was growing old, that I knew it would not be long before my bear friend and I would be parted. But Cugu and Tiri had many years in them, I hoped. There were still a few elven friends. I could go down to the main harbour and spend a little time with Gaerion, who had always seemed to me as a grandfatherly figure. I went often to the Great Library of Mithlond, to speak with Serewen and some of the other lore mistresses and masters, and wished I could take up training there again. My studies had been casualties of recent years, first because of my time with the Hearth, and then because I journeyed to Imladris. Though during my time in Imladris I did learn from the Lady Danel and some of her friends. I still have merry memories of Ambassador Parnard, who was nearer to me in manner than the fine Noldor. I remembered Lord Belegos, who spoke kindly with me, and the other one…the one she sent me letter about, that she was trying to save from the mountains. Lord Estarfin, that was his name.
I miss Imladris at times, though it was ever too distant from the coast for me. I miss some of the folk. The Noldor are not the easiest folk to dwell among in general. Is it not a thing well known? Yet most of those I have encountered have been of the kindlier sort. From Saerdir, who I loved learning from, to the Lady Danel and her friends, that I travelled with to Tum Escale, in Forlond, and dwelt there for some time also.
I accompanied the Lady on a few quests, usually also in the company of Ceuro. Another of the darkly mysterious Noldor sorts was he. But we laughed a lot, and worried a lot over her taking ever more reckless journeys, as if she were seeking desperately for something beyond her grasp.
“Thargelion,” Ceuro had once told me. “She seeks that which she will never find, her ancient home, long since beneath the waves."
The name meant little to me save as a location on maps of Beleriand that was. I felt for her, to be so sundered from her home. I would she could be content.
“May it be she learns to live again here?”
I think Ceuro had been of a similar mind. He never said where or when he was from, but I always had the impression it was not too far from her beloved Thargelion.
And then, when the Household moved closer to Mithlond, to Numenstaya, Ceuro was away on some mission or another.
I missed him. I missed those from the Flower, who had moved or been moved on. Most particularly did I recall the warm friendship of Durthand. But time moves on, and so must we.
The concern? Days were darkening, that it seemed ever more likely there would be war. Talk from the East and North was ill. Oh, it could yet be averted, some said. They were wiser folk. In my own small experience I thought otherwise. ‘This will be the one that settles the course for these lands for yeni. We need to prevail, even if the victory will bless the Secondborn far more than us.’
The hope? Talk has reached me that one of the old, mostly abandoned halls, is now inhabited again.
My tutor has returned to the coast it seems. May it be this time she will stay awhile. May it be she has finally found something to stay for? This day I shall ride to that village and bid her greetings.
