Songs of the Sea by Raiyana

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Deepest Current

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Part 7

Swimming slowly, Uinen taking the time to meander through the sea-grass meadows as she thinks. If Maglor is right – and why should he lie? – there are a lot of moments to think through, looking for proof. Ossë has been with her and Ulmo always, since before there was Arda, when she was only thought and Song, Music made form and yet formless, shaping reality with her voice. She followed Ulmo, into Eä, for friendship and kinship – their voices have always harmonised together – and Ossë… followed her. She always thought he followed her for the same reason she went with Ulmo, but now… what if that was not the truth – or not all of the truth. Pensively, she lets her webbed fingers run over the soft plants that move with the currents, waving at a passing turtle.

Love… she loves Ossë, she knows that, even if she has never even wondered if there was more for him than friendship when he sought her company. She loves him, her friend and companion, in some ways more than she loves Ulmo; there was more than one reason it was her Aulë asked to save the land-dwellers from Ossë’s rebellion, not the Lord of the Seas, the Smith had once said, laughing deep as thunder. Uinen colours; had he known, then, what she had not?

The meadows end in a steep drop, one of her favourite chasms, and Uinen dives, suddenly desperate for an answer. The chasm is deep, but some light remains when she reaches Ossë still staring at her with hurt and fury mingling in his face.

He turns away from her.

“Ossë,” she says, but the questions do not want to come, staring at his broad back, implacable in the dimness. She swims closer.

“What do you want, Uinen?” he asks, his body painfully stiff to look at. She wants to put her hand on his shoulder, but she doesn’t quite dare, suddenly terrified. What if the Children are wrong?

“Tell me why,” she begins softly, unprepared for the violent way he whirls, pushing back against the bonds that hold him.

“Release me!” he demands, his anger subsuming the hurt as he glares at her. Uinen recoils.

“Tell me-” she tries again, only to be interrupted once more.

“I’ll stay away from your little love, but you will not keep me here!” Ossë says angrily, one arm flicking out to gesture at the empty space around them.

“I’m sorry,” Uinen says, and she is; she knows how much it hurts him to be restrained, and she had never wished to do it again. Releasing the coils of water with a thought, she reaches for him again, but Ossë does not care, gone in a storm of bubbles that block him from view. “Ossë,” she calls, “come back!”

He is long gone.

 

He is hiding from her, has gone up one of the rivers and asked her not to tell Uinen or Ulmo where he has gone; she spends a long time searching before she realises. With a sigh, she returns to Singer’s Cove, too preoccupied to notice when she gives Maglor ten fat cod instead of one, and too distracted to talk to him. Instead, she floats in the surf, listening to the song he is playing. Aptly, it is a lay involving Ossë’s rebellion, which does not make her feel better, disappearing with a splash of her tail.

If Ossë truly believes she has given her heart to Maglor – a thought that occurred to her soon after leaving her singer, but was dismissed immediately as the foolish notion it is – he would want her to be happy in love, she knows, and when the thought reappears in her mind, Uinen thinks she has found the reason for his anger at last. If Ossë saw her, the last time she went to see her singer, he would have seen her – Uinen blushes deeply at the idea, but part of her knows she is right – kissing Maglor, but also turning away in sadness. Of course, she amends, she had not meant to kiss the Child at all, the meeting of mouths nothing more than an exchange of breath she owed him, but from a distance … Ossë would not have known that.

Lying on a coral bed in Núramartan, Uinen thinks, but does not know what to do. Ossë is capable of staying away from her for years if he wishes, and suddenly she wonders if the other times he has done so have been times when she hurt him without realising how deeply the pain struck. The waters around her grow cool and dark with sadness, the memory of the bright sparkle of his laugh not nearly enough to banish the spectre of his hateful expression from her heart.

“You fought with Ossë,” Ulmo says quietly, wandering into her room. He wrinkles his nose at the darkness; Núramartan is not far enough underwater to be this dim, if not for Uinen’s mood.

“I did,” Uinen agrees, her eyes closed. Eärlinno is scurrying through her hair, but the slight tugs don’t make her smile as they usually do. “He tried to kill my singer, and I… I bound him.” Ulmo hums soothingly. He knows, too, the agony of forced stillness, and Uinen feels guilt rise up in her breast once more.

“He will forgive you,” Ulmo says, but Uinen shakes her head.

“Not this time.” Last time she had had no choice, but this time… this time she had done it as much to restrain as to punish, and Ossë would know the difference, feel her anger in the bonds that bit into his flesh. He would see it as proof, proof that even being scorned would not make her love Maglor less, love someone who wasn’t Ossë less. Ulmo reaches out to squeeze her hand.

“He will.” Uinen opens her eyes to glare at him, which only makes him smile at her. “He loves you.”

“That’s why,” Uinen replies, pulling her hand away and turning her back on Ulmo.

 

She cannot stay in Núramartan, wallowing, of course, there is work to be done, and so Uinen returns to her duties, tending to the herds of animals and the currents alike, crafting storms with Ulmo and Manwë at will and visiting her singer in between.

She does not smile at the leaping porpoises dancing around her, nor does she sing with the whales on their long migrations, she simply exists, moving through the Seas thoughtfully, without the joy of the heart that was stolen long ago, and remains hidden upriver with its thief.

 

“You’re moping,” Ulmo accuses, appearing before Ossë who is making tiny waves across a small lake, hunching his shoulders furtively when he hears the deep voice.

“I don’t want to watch… them.” Ossë replies, cringing at the thought. He always knew he’d never be worthy of her love, but the thought that a kin-murdering Child has been given what he so long coveted from afar is beyond galling. He saw only the one kiss, but it was more than enough for him. Of course, he had not been able to stay away, even if he remained hidden, and so he had also seen the small tears that escaped her eyes as she dove back into the water, leaving her lover’s bed in the dunes. Rage had filled him; the Child had hurt her! He knew she did not like to take lives, and so he had moved to do it for her, avenge her tears with blood… and she had fought him. For the sake of the Child who harmed her.

“Watch who?” Ulmo asks, doing a creditable imitation of obliviousness that Ossë doesn’t believe for a minute.

“Uinen and that… that…” Ossë doesn’t know a word that fully encompasses his loathing, helplessly waving his arm in the direction of the shore where the Child yet lives, a thought that takes his breath away with sharp agony. “I cannot bear to look at her.”

“You are hurting her,” Ulmo says, humming softly. The sound thrums through Ossë’s body, disapproval and thoughtfulness rolled into one large wave of shame-inducing sound.

“She made her choice,” he protests, seeing again the way she kissed him, the way his legs wrapped around her body, holding her close. His wrists ache, as though he is still tied in the deep, struggling to free himself of bonds woven in anger.

“Uinen defended her singer,” Ulmo agrees, “and more violently than you had expected, I am sure, but have you ever known her to be docile when it comes to protecting those she loves?” The designation is a punch to the gut, driving the air from Ossë’s body in a low hiss of hatred. If only she had waited a few more moments, the Child would be a smouldering heap of charred flesh, and she could… no, she would not, and killing the Child would not make her not love him – perhaps she would simply sleep, as Melian did, unable to cope with a world that did not have her love in it? Ossë shuddered painfully.

“Uinen is not Melian,” Ulmo rumbles. “Do not mistake her heart for that of the Queen of Doriath.”

“She made her choice,” he repeats, and does not look at Ulmo, whose stern disapproval still runs through the water. “She wants him, regardless of how he hurts her; she loves him. I cannot watch her destroy herself that way. I will not.”

“You are stubborn as rock, Ossë,” Ulmo sighs, as the light reflecting on the water takes a familiar shape, “but I never knew you for a coward.”

With that, he is gone, leaving Ossë to stare at the image he leaves behind in the lake until it disappears with the sunset.

 

When he flows out to Sea, she is already there, waiting for him; the Five Sisters have called her into the bay, told her that Ossë was coming back.

“Maglor…” she says, falling silent as the words escape her, what she meant to say lost to her mind, lost as she stares at Ossë. Horrified, she reaches for him, guilt spilling over and falling down her cheeks like tears, shimmering even underwater; Uinen’s tears are heavy, heavier than the salty water that surrounds them. She had known that she hurt him, but seeing the rends in his clothes – Ossë likes to wear flowing robes, intricately decorated with pearls and shells – and the deep angry welts beneath, the abraded skin her anger has left behind is heart-breaking.

Ossë moves, and suddenly his arms are wrapped around her, her face pressed into his bared chest as he runs soothing hands down her back in a way that only makes her feel more guilty. “I told you he’d hurt you, Uinen,” he whispers, “I am sorry – this time, I will kill him.”

“What?” At first, she is confused – Ossë’s arms are warm and comforting and she does not deserve either from him – and then the words register properly. “Ossë,” she whispers, reaching to cup his face, to make him look at her, blinking away the tears that continue to fall, “Ossë, Maglor could never hurt me.”

“You continue to defend him?” he asks, anger making him tense beneath her touch.

“This has nothing to do with Maglor!” Uinen protests, catching one of his wrists gently. “This is only about you and me.” Turning it in her hand, Uinen studies the dark marks that run up his arm. Ossë’s fingers are hesitant, drawing a tear from her cheek.

“What are you talking about?” he asks, the anger still hovering just beneath the surface. Uinen traces the marks she made in his skin, her fingers not quite daring to touch.

“I hurt you,” she says, “I hurt you… I hurt you!” The last words are a pained sob, the apologies following almost lost as Ossë brings her back close to his chest. “I’m sorry, Ossë, I am.” She does not deserve to be comforted and yet she clings to him, craving his touch with a desperation that surprises her.

“I forgive you,” he murmurs into her ear, his lips close enough to touch the shell. Uinen shudders lightly.

“You shouldn’t,” she whispers, pressing her lips gently against the dark marks on his skin, watches them fade and heal. He lets her continue, a trail of kisses reaching up to his shoulder, crossing the expanse of his back when she tugs the tattered cloth from his body, offering penance until she reaches his other wrist. The dark line beneath his ribs makes her frown, but Ossë chuckles when she traces it with her lips, tickled by the touch.

“Ui-Uinen,” he stutters, one hand clenching in her trailing hair when her lips move down across his hip, following the path of bruising. “Wha-what are you, uhm… doing?”

Looking up at him, she smiles, bending to press her lips against the jutting bone of his hip – Ossë prefers legs, sensibly finned, of course – feeling him jump at the touch of her tongue. “Do you want me to stop?” she asks, already knowing the answer, surprised when his fingers tighten in her hair, yanking her away. Uinen winces.

“Why are you… what kind of… !” Ossë does not seem to know what he wants to know, so Uinen waits silently. Licking her lips, she feels nearly giddy; still guilty for the pain she has caused him, but buoyed by the sheer joy of being close to him. It has been too long, she thinks, since it was just the two of them, playing in the water. Ossë grips her wrists, tight enough to restrain, though not tight enough to hurt, staring into her face. Uinen smiles softly.

“Did you know the Children have songs about us?” she asks, making no move to free herself, staring into his eyes, the colour of the waves above them, grey and wintry. Ossë nods; the Children have many stories of the Ainur – some are even true – even if they do not always understand the whys of their lives. “Maglor told me,” Uinen adds carelessly, giving no reaction when his grip tightens to the point of pain. “In their stories… I am yours.” And you are mine, she doesn’t add, testing the waters for those words. Ossë stiffens, but Uinen catches the flash of longing on his face that he cannot smother in time for it to go unnoticed.

“The Children do not know everything,” Ossë replies, oddly hoarse, and closes his eyes.

“No,” Uinen agrees softly, “though that part is true enough.” The expression on his face is surprisingly satisfying, but Uinen ignores it as she continues speaking, “although I have yet to learn if what they say of you is true.”

Ossë gapes at her, his fingers still loosely wrapped around her wrists, disbelief written stark across his familiar features. “You… Me?” he asks, sinking down towards the bottom as though keeping himself afloat is too much effort. Uinen follows. “What do they say of me?” he asks, trying to make it a demand and falling far short. Uinen smiles – her singer spoke truly – hearing the impossible hope in his hoarse voice.

Repeating Maglor’s words – in Maglor’s voice – she swims closer, speaking them directly into his ear. “All the tales of the Sea – Ossë’s rebellion, the Songs of Ulmo, all of them – say that Ossë of the Waves loves none but Uinen, Lady of Water, whose hair stretches across all the Seas.”

For a moment, Ossë does not react, but he cannot keep his skin from giving away his agitated emotions. Uinen runs her hand slowly down one taut arm, twining her long fingers through his. Her free hand grasps his chin, turning his face towards her.

“And that is well,” she murmurs, leaning in to press her forehead against his, “for Uinen of the Deep loves best of all Ossë.” Chuckling softly, she adds, “Even when he tries to kill her pets, and makes her feel guilty for causing him pain in return.”

“But… pet?” Ossë exclaims, though he does not move away, wide eyes locked on Uinen’s own. “But I saw you… you kissed him!”

Uinen frowns, but then a wave of mischief surges through her and she clasps her hands over Ossë’s gills, just at the bottom of his ribcage, closing her mouth over his and breathing slowly. I owed him air, she explains soundlessly, her fingertips teasing Ossë’s colourful skin, her hands moving away from his gills to sweep over his chest.

His arms flail for a moment, and then one hand wraps around her back, another tangles in her hair and her demonstration becomes a kiss ages overdue and sweet enough to make her lose her breath.

You are mine, he replies, hissing into her mouth when her tail turns into legs to match his, wrapping around his waist.

Always, she promises, nipping at his lower lip once before returning to the novel experience of kissing which is far more pleasurable than she had ever expected, and you are mine.