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Chapter 1 – Two princes of the Sea-elves come to hither shores

The tiller was fighting its way out of his pummeled arms, and his desperate cry for help emerged only as an inarticulate moan to be stolen away by the gale wind.  But, his face and lips being numbed into shapeless clay by the pelting rain was the least hardship he endured.  His knees were swollen stiff, and his shoulders ached, protesting against the hard effort needed to keep the ship running with the wind.  His hands and feet were cold as ice.  The whipping salt spray lashed at his burning eyes.  And worst, the utter darkness of the storm was slowly smothering his courage.

Mercifully, before it wrenched itself completely out of his control, his brother stumbled up and took over the helm, after hardly any respite at all.

“I have got it, Isil!”  His brother’s hoarse shout was muffled by a sudden clap of thunderous lightening.  “Go!”

He squatted down, collapsing with relief, and scuttled crab-like with his lifeline dragging heavy behind him, feeling his way over to the small shelter propped up in the lee of the higher weather deck.  Hunkering inside, he shoved his mittened hands into his armpits.  It was useless.  His body had no warmth left.  But, sleep was what he craved more than a fire.  Although, he knew that if he gave in to it he might not awaken when called for his next turn.  He was that drained.  So, he rocked on his feet, his face tucked down breathing between his knees, telling himself that he had to keep awake.  Once when working in the archives, he had gone without sleep for ten arya.  No great feat.  Staying awake after only four of rough weather would be easy to do.

There was a time when he would have actually believed that.  Once upon a time and what seemed a yen ago.  Back at the precipitous start of their voyage.  Back during the mad rush to stock and ready the ship.  Twenty hours – barely even two arya! – with no one stopping for sleep.

For both weather and Andatar Olwë’s royal guard were bearing down on them, and they could not afford even a moment’s delay.  The blustery skies above the hidden cove had turned ominously overcast long before they were prepared to embark.  The King’s Horsemen were riding bent for leather up the road ere the lines were at last cast off.  It had been a hair-raising escape.  Far ahead of the scheduled departure and far short of the planned size of the expedition.  So there was one ship instead of one for each sibling.  But, he and his brother had finally begun their long planned quest.  Rather than being fatigued from their race against time, they and their crew were invigorated by the adventure begun.  Maybe a little frightened too.  It was only after they were past the last known isle and in wide open seas – and had held a truly raucous celebration – did any embrace slumber.

They had thought themselves so courageous, so terribly clever.  Instantly discounting the labor, the sacrifices, and the traumatic events that had forced departure.  Confident from ignorance and arrogant from pride.  With himself, figuring that all he had to do was keep them to a northeastern course.  Compounding that stupidity with blithely telling the crew to have no worries about the strange and unknown stars slowly appearing in the skies overhead.  He would pilot them safely to their far destination.  He had discovered the arcane knowledge that others had missed or ignored.  He alone knew how to apply it.  And they could depend on the Fairëressë, a masterwork stronger and swifter than any ship launched before it, to bear them safely over uncharted seas.  Why, the shore they sought was mere weeks away.

That confidence had faded close unto death when twice the estimated time had passed with no sight of land.  But, they had bravely continued on.  Seeing as they had already sailed past the point of no return in more ways than one.  Still... Encounters with the denizens of the starlit deeps had taken a daunting toll upon their valor.  The temperate weather had turned discomfortingly chill.  What they thought an abundant supply of drinking water had dwindled until rationing was necessary.  Some cold and thirsty for the first time in their lives.

All that was no excuse!  He should never have asked for Ossë’s help!  For the rest of his life, he would berate himself for making that one bad decision.  Especially when they already knew that that Maia harbored no sympathy for their ultimate goal.  Calling on Ulmo’s rebellious servant repeated the same mistake that had started off this insane mission.  Undeniably, their present predicament was his own fault.  They would not be in this danger, if he had not loosed his hold on the hope that had buoyed the company through past peril.  He should have done as his brother had asked and waited for a cloud burst rather than invited a deluge.

How much longer could they ride this endless squall?  The incessant noise of the tempest wore on the spirit and stretched time into a soaked haze.  Monstrous thunder and lightening had now joined in the assault.  Above them, redoubling clouds had blotted out the stars and left them guideless.  The remains of the tattered sails flailed from the masts, snapping like a line of festival flags.  Had they truly been so far from shore that such a stupendous shove as this had not yet brought them to landfall?

Ossë would keep his word, but he was cruel in intent.  Curtained by waving sheets of heavy rain, the main deck was hidden in featureless darkness, save for the swinging circle of sputtering light cast by the last lantern not blown away by the wind or washed away by the waves.  They would reach land eventually – as a sinking derelict.  The ship itself was sturdy enough, but mounting exhaustion was forcing him and his brother to take shorter and shorter turns battling the tiller.  That was because there was no help to be had from the rest of the remaining crew.  The bilge pump had broken down and was not repairable.  The crew was baling, desperately baling.

At least, those who had not been washed overboard or were so worn out that they had collapsed.  Those like him, too weak to have been allowed on this voyage and ultimately proven worthless to their survival.  Even Nerwen, with her athletic stamina, might have outlasted this trial, where it had become obvious he would not.  Nonetheless, when considering the likely outcome, and what else they had already faced, he was glad that she and his sister had not come along.  He wished that he had been able to convince her, as he had Lindë, to make that choice for herself.  Outright forbidding her had nearly caused his brother to quit their quest.  It had been a chancy order for most of the crew would have followed him.  But, a good and right decision, all the same.  However heavily it weighed on his brother to have to leave her behind.

Outside his huddled reverie, he discerned a new, different sound growing in volume beneath the overriding loudness of the storm.  A low, quavering whoosh... an echo of surf... Had they finally reached land?!  He raised his head to listen better.  But no, how could that be when Ossë has no mercy!  The heralding hiss was the crash of waves smashing against rock.  A bright flash of rumbling lightening lit up everything for a moment.  He glimpsed the unbelievable disarray of the flooded deck and the line of balers staggering with fatigue.  The residual glare to the eyes had not even begun to fade when came the dreaded cry.  “Reef!” bellowed Maica, who had lashed himself to the bow as lookout.  “Reefs ahead!”  The returning darkness felt even deeper.

Isil struggled out of the shelter, meaning to go to his brother’s side, but found he could not stand; his legs would not unbend.  Dragging himself to the edge of the deck, he could hear his brother cursing in a fruitless effort to turn the ship.  Although, the short distance was impossible for him to cross, he no less tried; barely crawling forward.  Remorse dragged on him as much as rigidity.

They should not have skirted around the Valar’s benevolent care.  This wretched end was meant as their punishment for defying the Powers.  It might be that they had been allowed to commit folly; that their destruction was inevitable from the very start.  Perhaps because success would have exposed the truth that quendi kind might be just as well off when left on their own.  Well, such suppositions had no significance now.  This band of adventurers would not be sung of as heroes but fools.  Fools who had stupidly gambled everything they valued and had only ended up losing their lives.

The deck heaved beneath him as a huge swell speedily lifted high the ship.  The flimsy shelter broke down, and he was shoved back onto the lower deck.  The Fairëressë seemed about to take into the sky, yearning to become the swan it emulated.  And then, it dropped precipitously out from underneath.

For a sliver of a moment, he floating like a leaf, suspended inside whirls of silver rain.  A burst of thunder shook his bones, and in a brilliant burst of simultaneous lightening, he saw the pale prow of the ship falling towards glistening stone teeth.  Light-blinded, he heard the hull strike ere he dropped hard onto the shuddering deck.  Pulled backward then slung forward again on the next swift swell, the ship heeled, keel to rock, until on beam ends.  His body, which had been rattled into alertness by the fall to the deck, instinctively clutched for the lifeline that secured him.  He slid across slick planks, until the rope snapped taut, and he was jerked to gut-bruising stop.  Lightening exploded again, spectacular with a reverberating, deafening boom.  The rope broke.  Startled, he flailed for a handhold on anything.  But, his fingers, blanketed by the mittens, could find none.  He tumbled, head over heels, towards the low bulwark.

Suddenly, his out-stretched arm was grabbed by the sleeve, and his body was halted.  A heavy wave fell over everything.  He was torn from the saving grasp and flushed into the roiling sea to be towed under with other debris.  In the pitch black and numbing cold, he became urgently wiser.  Pulling off his shapeless gloves, he threw out his hands and groped in the liquid void.  Something small with a buoyant heft to it skimmed past; grazing the fingertips of his left hand, whispering the taunting probability that it was rising to the surface.

The underwater crackle of their tormented ship’s dying throes, as it was again smashed against the reef, offered ironic confirmation as to the direction he needed to go if he was to live.  He stroked with his arms, climbing rather than swimming.  When his head cleared water, he was gasping for air.  Immediately, successive waves washed over him, grabbing and carrying him along.  Twisting his body to the roll of the water, he broke through the crest of each just long enough to catch a single breath.  Until he thudded against a large, floating timber.  Desperately clawing at its splintered bulk, he dragged himself up onto it as best he could.

The monumental effort used up the last of his remaining strength.  He was spent.  Waves coated him again then again, weighing him down under what felt like a thickening shroud of ice.  He lay frozen and panting, trying to take in enough air to stay alive.  But, the harsh surf spoke clearly.  He was being brought to the sharp rocks.  The first toss against them would kill him. 

Death looming, he made one last effort, pulling both air and water into his lungs in a single, final breath.  In what he believed would be his farewell to his little brother, he cried out, “Telpë!”

He compulsively coughed and continued to cough, sucking in more water with each uncontrolled spasm until his lungs simply gave up.  His wrung-out body relinquished its hold of the timber, and he began to slip away.

It was over.  The sea would have his corpse.  Mandos would have his spirit.  He was done... wrecked along with their beautiful swan ship and their heroic quest... drowned... his only brother with him... friends and crew... all drowned... on the very shores they had sailed hither to find...

His sluggish heartbeat became slower still, about to come to a dead stop.

... well, to be absolutely fair... he had been warned… that it would end this way...

“Isil!  Isil... “

TBC

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Author’s Notes:

All elvish is in Sindarin unless otherwise indicated and underlined means I put it together myself – corrections and comments are welcome!

Aleglain – Unforsaken – eglan forsaken (singular) which is both an adjective and a noun with eglath a collective noun

||… Some of you old-timers may recall a transient story by Marnie entitled “Unforsaken”.  This is kinda my continuation of that short collaboration between her and me.  I wish to express my utmost gratitude to her for her generosity and what I learned from her about writing fanfiction.  It’s just too bad so little sank in... ;P  – and Congratulations! to her on the publication of her first book ...||

aran – king (also translates as ‘Lord’ for it means the ruler of a realm, not just royalty)

arya – 12 hours (different from aurë or ré) in my tales, the 12 hour ‘day’ of the Two Trees Quenya

yen/yeni – year/years - a Valarian year consisting of 144 solar years Quenya

andatar – grandfather Quenya

Lindë – Lindenya, an OC middle sister of the two brothers

Maica – an OC, friend and crewman – as did practically all the members of the quest, he had kin left behind in Beleriand.

Fairëressë – the brothers’ swan ship, ‘Lone Spirit’, renamed when it was the only ship fully fitted and could be made ready for the voyage

= Concerning the basic premise =

The Umanyar Eldar – The Eglath were Eldar, having set out for Aman as part of the huge host of the Teleri.  They just did not quite make it there on the first try... or the second.

It should be noted that Varda’s stars were closer to the earth before being moved back to make way for the Sun.  The Hither Lands were not as dark as night before the destruction of the Trees.  An Amanyar elf would not have found starlit Arda all that dim in the Years of the Trees.  The Darkening of Valinor impacted Endorë as well.

Seaworthy ships – It is shown that the Eldar could not cross the Great Sea without direct help from Ulmo.  But later on, the Teleri of the Falas were apparently not given the same assistance with building boats as were the Teleri of Tol Eressëa.

In the Years of The Trees, the Umanyar Teleri are not specifically noted as coming west in their own ships; resuming their interrupted journey west after Elu Thingol returned and telling tales of the Hither Lands.  It also appears that the Amanyar Teleri were not sailing their great ships east nor trading between the continents.  Because, the Valar’s intent was to keep the Eldar safe from harm, and they exercised a benign dominion over Aman.  One could not legitimately leave without getting Their leave.

The Teleri, as a people, exhibit strong emotional ties.  The Amanyar Teleri desired to be reunited with the Noldor on the mainland and were gifted with ships to take them there.  So, I speculate that some of them must have had a desire to be reunited with the Forsaken.  The Valar would have obviously discouraged such a danger-ridden venture.  However, departures would have been left to the control of local governors.  The idea of fetching the unwilling to share in the bliss would have been disdained by society.  A social stigmatism which can be seen in the Exiles and their dealings with the Umanyar.