Songs of the Sea by Raiyana

The Puzzle

Returning to Singer’s Cove, she studies her singer – he belongs to her, now, she feels, with Ulmo’s words a soft rumble in her mind – wondering how she will keep her promise. She had not been able to deny the request, yet she has no plan for how to approach the elf sitting on a large boulder, staring across the waves with a far-off expression on his face. His fingers are busy, moving across the holes of a small reed flute; she hasn’t seen him play the flute before, and takes a while to enjoy the soft sound. Somehow, the flute is playing with the indignant squawks of one of her servants, a gull trying to remind her singer that he needs food. The elf, however, does not understand her tongue – Uinen had thought he would; Oromë was so proud of his brother, surely a few of his skills should have rubbed off on this one? Considering his dismal success as a hunter she should probably not have expected that to be the case; his snares tend to break when a rare rabbit actually trips them, and though he is capable of finding the mussels she keeps offering, he seems unable to contrive of a way to catch fish except for a bit of string attached to a rod he then forgets about entirely, focusing on his music. Sometimes, she wonders if she should give up, let him starve, but she feels responsible for him, now, somehow, which is all the more vexing for his lack of self-care.

Shaking her head, amused by the apparent helplessness of her charge, Uinen floats just beneath the surface, invisible to the singer; the gull eventually flies off, landing on the water and spends many minutes complaining about the task she set it. Uinen rewards it a fat herring for its trouble, and the gull flies off in a reasonably good mood, off to find its mate and chicks.

When Arien falls beneath the waves, Uinen still hasn’t solved her problem. On his boulder, her singer seems to be in a trance, of sorts, the flute still sending small bursts of melody towards his unnoticed audience.

In the morning, she is still there, though the instrument is different now, soft and sorrowful as only a harp can be. The metal strings sing beneath fingers that have healed from the last time he touched the Silmaril, and Uinen knows he will need to retrieve it soon. For now, however, there is a new lament on his mind, less easy to pin down, it seems, hesitant notes slipping through the careful weave of melody.

“I don’t understand you,” Ossë says darkly, appearing in foam-crowned glory beside her where she drifts some ways from shore, listening to Maglor try to pin down the conflicted emotions he felt for his brother. Curufinwë, his name was, the one who had disliked her most of all for taking away his pretty wife; Uinen had not wished to take her life, but she had died in the water, one of the many lost at Alqualondë.

“I think, Ossë,” Uinen replies, her eyes closed as the gentle current swells around her, “that I may yet come to understand how Melian loved her Elu Thingol.” There is something about the Children, the way their experiences shape the world around them – not like she and her kin do, of course, but they do bring change in the smallest of ways – that she finds more than fascinating.

Ossë is gone when she opens her eyes, wondering why he had no response.

The music falls silent.

Uinen does not watch him dive into the water; instead, she feels, feels the dark stickiness that clings to his soul take shape in the water around him – she had thought it was his guilt, all the evil he had done that created a noticeable taint, but as she keeps studying her singer she knows that is not what the darkness is made of. Guilt there is, yes, and more than guilt, colouring his fëa sickly green in places, blood-rust red in others, with spots of pus-yellow self-loathing everywhere. The dark strands are woven from a different power, however; not unlike her own, but a different kind of magic. The Oath, she thinks, feeling the rightness of the knowledge settle in her mind; the Oath is this thing she can see, more clearly when he is just about to head into her waters, but always there, silent and watchful. It tugs, it pulls, it hurts – more than the guilt, she thinks, though a lot of the emotion she can sense when her singer is submerged is dark with self-loathing and agonising guilt.

An idea is born, almost crystalline in its perfection, and Uinen moves.

Surging towards the shore, she notes the surprise on her singer’s face, sees the bubbles of breath leave him. He struggles, feeling her webbed hands cup his face, but Uinen does not let go, staring into eyes that skitter away from her gaze. Tendrils of her power move across his soul – he is in her element, now, and she is stronger than anyone but Ulmo in the water – seeking out the dark webs, trying to see their weave, trying to undo… whatever it is. More bubbles float towards the surface. Leaning in, Uinen breathes into his mouth, her powerful gills easily able to pull enough air from the water for him.

The darkness fights back, and Uinen is scared to feel the dead weight of his body suddenly going limp. Flowing with the currents, her tailfin speeding them both further towards the shore, she absentmindedly scoops up the leather pouch on the way, continuing to force breath into his lungs until she has brought him up above the tideline.

“Lóra,” she says, the power she breathed into his fëa obeying her words even as she pulls it back, worried that the Oath will harm him. Sleep. “Forget…” Reaching out, she gently smoothes tangled black hair away from his face, her mind preoccupied with the puzzle before her.

Leaving the pouch by his hand, she watches him curl protectively around it, even in sleep; the darkness is stronger than expected, but she can study it now, as she studies her charge, remaining on the sand beside him, even as Arien’s light dries the salt water on her skin until she itches for the cool of the deep.

When it finally meshes in her mind, the puzzle lock breaking open with the ease of a proper key in place, she rejoices, the sea around her crashing with her happiness. On the shore, her singer is silent, but Uinen does not care, laughing to herself as she jumps through the waves in the company of dolphins, her strong tail fin slapping the waters around her, stirring up the depths. Uinen dances across meadows of seagrass, the bounties of the sea reacting to her joy and growing ever swifter. In her wake, new things are born; small things, but also a new kind of sea bird that seems confused to find itself in existence.

Uinen’s laughter embraces her creations, her spirit jumping through waves and diving down to the depths of the sea where she finds Ulmo, who smiles at her joy and offers her a small twirl through the glittering shafts of sunlight filtering down from above. Ulmo laughs to see her happiness, though he does not ask for its source; he is heading to a council, she knows, and does not truly have time for talking. Deciding the fate of Melkor who is chained in Mandos once more is no easy task and Uinen does not envy him the heartache. She would go with him, but Ulmo charges her with the keeping of the Seas in his absence, and so she obeys the command, tendrils of her mind stretching to encompass the wide waters of the world.  Ossë is playing in the Bay of the Anduin river to the east, and she sends him south around the parts of Endorë the Children have not yet explored, keeping an eye on the currents there and playing with the giant whales that roam those deep seas. Part of her wants to join him – the whales that live in the south have learned new songs since her last visit, and she promises herself she will go once Ulmo is returned – but a larger part of her wants to keep an eye on her singer, who is waking on the sandy shore, seeming confused to find himself asleep at the water’s edge.