Beneath the Ever-Bending Sky by Isilme_among_the_stars  

The Sails Are Set, The Moorings Fret

A tall ship loomed above the calm waters of the firth, its furled sails muttering restlessly in the wind. Currents of change tugged and swirled as the neap tide drew the last remnants of a bygone era into the past, once and for all. Beset by a resigned anticipation that left him uncomfortably off-kilter, Ossë could muster no more than a few feeble waves to slap half-heartedly against the hull.

“Ho, Ossë!”

A spray of dark curls wafted in the breeze, caught in the playful fingers of Manwë’s airy sprites, as Maglor leaned over the side. His piercing grey eyes, with a twinkle in them more mischievous than sea lion pups at play, found Ossë’s fathom-deep gaze. The old elf was cheerful this morning, and Ossë curmudgeonly. Oh, how the tides ebbed and flowed.

“Catch!” Maglor called, as something hard plummeted down, shining, sun-lit as it fell. Caught between his deft, webbed fingers, Ossë found it to be a shell, shimmering pearlescent with all the variform colours of the vast oceans.

“What is this?” he asked.

“A message,” answered Maglor. “I hoped you might bear it to the hither shore.”

“I am not your herald, elf,” Ossë pouted.

Laughter, bright as ship’s bells that sound out the hour, dropped like pearls to the water line as a grey head joined the dark. Fistfuls of rigging were clutched tightly in Círdan’s hands as he leant out wide. “After the last errand you had me run surely we can call in a favour! Do you recall how long I was about it?” he teased genially.

Thirty-five spring tides had Ossë counted between Círdan’s departure from Mithlond and his return; enough to bathe the coast in all her seasons and then some. Playing messenger would be but a minor inconvenience in comparison, especially as he already purposed to make for that shore.

“I shall carry it,” Ossë conceded.

“And you will see it found?” Maglor raised one eyebrow, less in question than in knowing. No fool was that old elf, nor a stranger to Ossë’s capricious nature.

Ossë bared his very sharp teeth one last time in what he knew to be a grin that brought little reassurance to most; and bright bubbles of laughter followed him as he dove, muffling and distorting as the depths rose to meet him. Luminosity came in strobing curtains of teal through the tourmaline depths of the sunlit zone. Bright enough was their play for his piscine eyes to make out the message carefully engraved in nacre.

Túlalme márenna. We are coming home.

Beneath the words Círdan’s anchor and Fëanor’s star sat side by side. What would Olwë make of that? Ah, to be a gull perched on the pier when he found it, for the Teler’s face would undoubtedly twist into many amusing shapes. Chuckling to himself, Ossë leapt and fetched up on the deck of a lonesome ketch, left roped securely to the pilings. The pair of Dol Amrothian sailors to which Círdan had offered it had hardly been able to believe their good fortune. Perhaps they re-considered now, for the pale faces that peeped out from the hold were accompanied by mutterings of haunting and water sprites.

From the depths rose a great swell, surging forward as Ossë settled into his favourite position on the prow. Catching the tall ship in its momentum, the great wave set it on its way. In the distance, whoops of delight echoed through the gulf, and great canvas sails unfurled, their convex bellies gorging on air as the ship hurried toward the open sea.

On a hither shore there would be a reunion. Two elves, one dark-haired and one grey, would step onto shimmering sands and find themselves caught up in the unyielding embraces of incredulous loved ones. One, who had chased after tree-light long ages ago, would never find what he had once sought, and yet, in its stead would deem reunion with long-sundered kin, and the meeting of many new beside, a greater gain. The other, who had known that light, would rue the harsher luminance of the sun on those once soft-lit lands, even as he found himself besotted with their radiance in its glow. Long would it take him to believe the hand-wringing, bright-eyed descendent of Melian, or the tight-lipped, russet-haired woman waiting for him to disembark truly wanted him back. He would, though, in the end. Both would grieve and laugh and love, and continue their strange, messy, painful, wonderful lives, in the way that elves did.

Ossë dangled his feet over the edge of the ketch. Watching as the tall ship approached the lip of the gulf, he kicked his webbed toes lazily at foamy wavelets that played about them. Soon enough he too would depart, but there was no hurry. A world of white-tipped waves and free-blowing winds awaited, old friends called from distant shores, and so too did the wild joy of the open sea.