Grief is an Undertow by heget

Chapter 1

The ships that carried Ilsë from the shores of Middle-earth, parting her from her mother, father, sister, brother, uncles, was pulled by swans. The ship that Ilsë, Fleet Admiral of Alqualondë, commands today is not a Swan-ship. Once she had sailed the most graceful of crafts, tending the rigging and rudder of a ship she had designed and built. Her hands had placed and known every plank and rope and canvas and jet insert on the swan-like prow. But her ship had been stolen from her over the dead bodies of her sailors, taken and then burned.

The ships Ilsë embarks on today are not Swan-ships and can never match them. No swans are carved on their prows; no swans fly before them pulling these ships back to Middle-earth. Still, Ilsë had requested each of her captains gather a fragrant bough from the trees of Tol Eressëa to hang on the prow. The trees came from the Bay of Balar, their seeds grown in the earth of Beleriand. They are a piece of Middle-earth retained in the Undying Lands and one of the only connections to the land of her birth. They are the trees of the family that Ilsë and her people abandoned, the reason she sails today.

One of the oldest among the Falmari of Alqualondë, first among its captains and high in the king’s councils, many forget Ilsë is not one of the Unbegotten, though she was born on the shores of Cuiviénen and remembers the day her uncle returned with a strange light in his eyes and a cloak of starlight. It is Ilsë that leads the fleet of the Falmari, and until her ships reach their distant unfamiliar harbor, it is she and not Ingwion of the Vanyar or Finarfin of the Noldor who command the Army of the Valar.

Ilsë walks to the prow of her deck, ignoring the glances of her sailors, the nervous cough of the helmsman behind her, the bosun’s mate that points to the spray of the waves cresting over the railing. She closes her eyes and breathes in the scent of sap and seaweed, salt and storm-winds. A gull cries above her, and Ilsë nods faintly. The birds that carried her from Middle-earth were swans, but gulls should take her back. It was a seagull that brought her to this deck, a once-gull with the voice of her family that spoke of those who had been abandoned. Star-spray had launched the fleet of the Falmari, and for her sake does Ilsë lead these ships.

She opens her mouth to scream the ancient song of Cuiviénen, the grief chant that she thought would lie forgotten once she reached Valinor’s shores. The song she had been promised would be never sung again, until Fëanor came with his demands. In the dark had her people relearned the chants and songs of Cuiviénen’s terrors, to recount entire families gone and the feeling of security and peace shattered. The songs of the Falmari are water, and tears of grief have as much salt as the sea.

"Carry my song on your winds," she cries to Ossë, feeling his storms whip at her silver hair. He knows her feelings of sorrow, has shared them with her these long years. More importantly he knows rage, and Ilsë screams her grief in anger, feeling the heady satisfaction that there is finally a way to sate her cries for vengeance, to expel the hurricane of rage and horror and weeping upon targets that can be smashed and drowned. She desires a storm to carry her ships laden with soldiers and spears and the reckoning of the Valar to the shoreline of Beleriand, to the very feet of the Great Enemy. She wishes the very sea to swallow him. The is a dark undertow in Ilsë from too many years of pain. "Hear me, oh stars of the Hinder Shore! Hear me, oh stars of my birth! 

"I am the daughter of Elmo, taken from us by teeth of the Enemy’s wolves. I am the daughter of Linkwînen, taken from us by the Enemy’s deceit. I am the sister of Galadhorn, taken from us by the Enemy’s orcs. I am the sister of Egnith, taken from us by the Enemy’s deceit."

Ilsë lists her dead, the family she had parted with on the shores of Middle-earth to never see again. Hers is a powerful voice, rough from eons of hollering orders above the flapping of sails and crashing of waves. She does not have a beautiful voice, but this song is for waves that smash the shore, for whirlpools that suck victims for the deep. This a song of harsh winds and ungentle tears. The crew on her deck do not interrupt her song, and if some whisper their own names to the wind that fills the sails, Ossë listens.

Elwing had given Ilsë the names of her dead, of family she did not know she had. They are names without memories, for only her oldest uncle, his name changed unfamiliar to her, does she have a face to recall, a sound of a voice, and a feel of a hand. Her sorrow must be for lives cruelly ended and the lost opportunity to embrace them, as she was able to her distant cousin with the name of star-spray. But her grief is still potent. 

"I am the aunt of Galathil, taken from us by elven blades. I am the niece of Elwë, taken from us by dwarven axes. I am the cousin of Lúthien, taken from us by the Gift of Men. I am the cousin of Dior, taken from us by elven blades. I am the cousin of Nimloth, taken from us by elven blades. I am the cousin of Elured, taken from us by elven malice. I am the cousin of Elurín, taken from us by elven malice."

Ilsë remembers the cold face of her uncle Olwë, of her king when she chose to board the ships that would carry her from Middle-earth. She thinks of her graceful Swan-ship, the delight of her seas, the darkness of her grief.

"I am the cousin of Uilon, taken from us by elven blades. I am the cousin of Airesarë, taken from us by elven blades. I am the aunt of Marillo, taken from us by elven blades."

Ilsë wants to rage at Ossë of her home, that she is the captain of her lost sailors, teacher of the ships’ captains, princess of her people. But the ship she stands on is festooned with the boughs of trees and sails towards the sun. It must be the vengeance before her to fill, not the grief behind her that cannot wash away. When she boarded the ships pulled by swans she told herself she was no longer a daughter, a sister, a princess of the family behind her. Now she sails to them.

"I am the cousin of Finrod, taken from us by the teeth of the Enemy’s wolves. I am the cousin of Angrod, taken from us by the Enemy’s fire. I am the cousin of Aegnor, taken from us by the Enemy’s fire. I am the cousin of Orodreth, taken from us by the Enemy’s worm. I am the cousin of Finduilas, taken from us by the Enemy’s orcs."

The saltwater on her face comes from the waves that wash up with each roll of the deck.

"I am the cousin of Elwing, who bids for my aid. I am the cousin of Elrond and Elros, her sons she cries for. I am the cousin of Celeborn, sapling of a beloved brother. I am the cousin of Artanis, last of my cousin Earwën’s children. I am the delight of Círdan, who taught me to swim. I am a child of water, that taught me to sing."

Ilsë’s throat is raw, and her voice has not the weight of power. The sea does not care, she tells herself, for how unlovely are the cries of gulls.

I am the captain of this ship, that will take me to that shore. I am the silver starlight that reflects in my family. I will not be the last of my family, nor hear and see more taken from me. When I was born, Uncle found the Valar that went after the Great Enemy, hunted down his monsters, and pulled him beaten from his throne. Now it is my turn to bring the Valar and their wrath, as terrible as the engulfing sea, to pull the Enemy from his throne. I will see him drown in the sea. Then I will have my family return to me.

Chapter End Notes

Ilsë and her other sister appear in my family tree for the brother of Elu Thingol and Olwë and thus in stories involving the Lindar, be they Sindar or Falmari. And there was little focus on any Falmari character, especially during the end of the First Age. She is darker and angrier then what I imagine the consensus in Alqualondë might be, but she has more than enough reason to be.

Beleriand drowns between the waves. Just whose doing is that?