“Look, look!” The Elf’s cry summoned the entire crew to the bow of the ship, and they followed his gaze to the bizarre creature that rose from the waves. He leaned forward with delight, arm resting near the ship’s prow, and Gwetheril’s gaze was drawn to a creature that seemed not to belong to the ocean—although on land it would have been no less strange. Its wolf-like head turned away in casual disregard of the ship, but above the water twined its tail in a complex and ever-shifting series of knots.
Dínfalver—sharp-eyed even for an Elf had given the cry, but then picked up his flute again and played a strange and keening song. The creature turned and swam alongside the vessel, matching its rise and fall. Its head reared back, and it sang reply to the Elf’s song with a shivering call of its own, a strange and wild duet to the flute.
Súldil the captain, and Hearon, the oldest of the Elves, grasped for their weapons, but Dínfalver leaned forward over the hull of the ship far enough that Gwetheril stepped forward with some thought of grabbing him if he slipped. But nowhere was the Elf surer of foot than on the sea, and the Dúnadan had no need to save him from the churning water beneath.
At sunset, when the Elf’s hair turned russet in the warm light, the creature slipped below the waves with the last of the evening’s golden glow. All but Mithes, who now turned her attention to navigating them back toward the shore, looked for the creature to reappear and Caleareth climbed high on the rigging as she looked out over the water. Only when it showed no signs of reappearing did Hearon and Súldil relax, and in the absence of any danger showed themselves as excited by the sight as Dínfalver.
All on the sea was new to Gwetheril’s eyes, but Dínfalver told her how elusive this creature had proven, how but twice before he had seen it, and never lured it so long after the ship.
When morning came, Gwetheril set her ink pot on the rocking floor of the ship and began to write as faithful a description as she could. She wrote of the twisting and knotting of its tail, of its piercing cry, but also of the glow on Dínfalver’s face as he drew it towards the ship, and of the song that had beguiled it.
But when she turned her attention to drawing the creature her attempts met with frustration. Neither the shifting of its knotted tail or the strange, wolf-like head showed true on the page.
Her interest in recording everything of note both bewildered and fascinated the Elves, and Dínfalver watched her write. But when she set aside notebook and quill, he took it up and drew besides hers his own rendition of the creature. It was perhaps less life-like than her own, the tail too large, the lines of the head too graceful, but it captured in some way the song of the creature, and how it had felt to see it glimmering in the sun above and below the waves.
But Dínfalver’s drawing drew interest from the other Elves, and Súldil snatched the book away from his brother, insisting that someone ought to do it properly. He bowed to Gwetheril as he completed the final flourish, handing it back the book with all the confidence of one who had just done a great service to the lore of the Dúnedain. Dínfalver tried to get her to confirm that his drawing was better, a fact with which she privately agreed, but she saw Súldil’s laughter hidden behind his mock-serious face, and would not undermine his teasing of his brother.
Then Caleareth, laughing that they would use all her ink and not aid her study, took the quill, and drew with more care than the others, filling the page with drawings focused on the patterns of its tail. She took some spare rope that lay by, and showed Gwetheril some of the knots and the purposes to which she turned them above the waves.
Gwetheril perched on a rock, watching the swans settle on the dark evening water. Her notebook sat in her lap untouched as her mind turned from the stories she sought to record and remember, to the familiar tightness that threatened to replace the joy of the voyage. Yet almost its presence was a comfort, and she clung to her grief as a shield against a heart that stirred at last.
The salt scent of the ocean blew toward her on the cool wind, and she imagined the warmth of his hand in hers—her husband—she would not entertain the other threatening thought. But if he lived would she even be here? For he would have thrived in this age, these days of the king. He would have loved to step out of the shadows, to build and make a home in Caranost or Annúminas. And perhaps that heightened the tragedy, that he with his looking toward the future never saw it, and she with her love of the past lived only to watch it slip away.
How strange that she should yearn for his comfort now of all times, should wish to pour out to him what she would not tell another soul. She feared that the perceptive eyes of Himdanel, the ancient Noldo, might read more of her heart than she wished to reveal, to none of the living did she wish to confide. But if for a few minutes he could return from beyond the world’s circles would he tell her of her folly, could he have words of comfort?
Were he here there would be no need of comfort for a lovelorn heart, and they could talk of dreams for a renewed land and watch the stars light the evening.
The notebook lay open on her lap, and she stared at the drawings wondering idly how they would have liked each other, her husband and this Elf she called a friend.
