Lake Helevorn: A Summer Romance by Himring

Chapter 1: A Summer Romance

For long years she had been lying at the foot of Mount Rerir, her hair among the water lilies, her feet among the rushes, thinking only lake thoughts. Her name, like the rest of her, had merged with the lake. Migrating geese touched down on the surface, deer came down to the water to drink, but they barely caused a ripple. Later, the children of Mahal awoke in the hills; they went to and fro along the shore, stomping about their business, but caused little more disturbance than the geese and the deer.

Then the explorers came, bringing their their fear and courage, their grief and hope. They exclaimed over her dark-faced beauty as the valley first opened up before their eyes; they settled and took roots. The settlers were speakers, she was not, but gradually the continuous flow and gush of their thoughts began to invade her repose, stirring her as if from sleep.

One there was whose thoughts were louder and clearer than the others', harried and driven even among the walkers on the earth. He took a boat and, escaping the rest who called upon him to make decisions, relying on him to know what was best to do, went by himself far out on the lake, beyond even the courses steered by the fishermen. There he found he was able to seek rest better than elsewhere and so he went again and again, when his burden grew too great to bear, rowing along the rush beds, exploring bays and inlets, or drifting motionlessly in the middle of the lake.

Yet while he sought calm on the placid surface of the lake, the echoes of his helplessness and anger drifted down to Helevorn in her watery dreams and roused her further--and before either of them were aware, their thoughts meshed. Memory gathered, less of past events than of self, of being before and other than the lake waters, tied to them though she was in her present existence. She became conscious, first of giving comfort and then of the one who needed it, first of observing and then of the one she observed.

This went on for a time--a slow, gradual shifting. Perhaps the outcome was inevitable, if they had had forever, he in the boat, gazing into the waves, she in the lake, contemplating him from below, focussing her gathering attention on him. But they did not have forever, and so it need never have happened.

There came a long sultry summer, a trial for anyone whose temper was uncertain at the best of times. Once again, Caranthir took refuge in solitude on the lake. He leaned, listless in the heat, in the stern of the boat, trailing his fingers in the cool dark water. And, without warning, his gold ring, which had been sitting a little loose, slid off his finger and dropped glinting down towards the bottom of the lake.

She had not known she had a body until, perceiving the ring as it sank, she stretched out her right hand to catch it. And as in a children's game, like a tossed hoop, the ring settled snugly on her fourth finger.

Up above, Caranthir briefly exclaimed in annoyance. But almost at once an odd thought occurred to him, incongruous as it seemed to him then: Was it not fitting, in a way, that he should thus be tied to the lake, his sole haven of peace in Middle-earth?

He did not in the least guess the consequences, as yet. But the next day he took out his boat again and, when he slipped into the water to cool off in the heat, swimming, she was there to meet him.

Chapter End Notes

Written for the LLA 2016 Poetry prompt for 4 April:
Water Lilies, by Sara Teasdale

If you have forgotten water lilies floating
On a dark lake among mountains in the afternoon shade,
If you have forgotten their wet, sleepy fragrance,
Then you can return and not be afraid.

But if you remember, then turn away forever
To the plains and the prairies where pools are far apart,
There you will not come at dusk on closing water lilies,
And the shadow of mountains will not fall on your heart.

(This prompt would fit even more closely, I think, if I had already written the rest of the story as well.)

By a kind of coincidence, the story also fits the LLA Picture prompt of 9 April (have a look, it's beautiful):
Jason de Caires Taylor's Reclamation:
http://www.underwatersculpture.com/sculptures/reclamation/%20

I had been contemplating writing the scene earlier, for the B2MeM prompt Summer Romance (B2MeM 2014 Seasons of Middle-earth and again for B2MeM 2016 Memories), hence the subtitle.

But the original plot bunny, even before that, comes from the Venetian tradition according to which the Doge married the sea by dropping a ring into the waves.