Swan Song by Ithilwen

Adrift

Chapter 2 – Adrift

He wandered.

Once, he sensed vaguely, his life had been different. There had been a time when he had not wandered, when he'd stood tall and proud and defiant. That must have been a very long time ago, though. How long exactly, Maglor could not say. The past was slippery as seaweed in a current, twisting and sliding out of his mental grasp no matter how hard he tried to clutch it. Once that had been different as well, he suspected, but then something had happened – he didn't remember what – and now he floated, a small piece of flotsam adrift on the great sea of time. Trying to stay anchored in the current was hard work, and he was tired, so he didn't try very often. Better to float through the confusion of the days, the kaleidoscope of jail cells, dirty streets, antiseptic hospital wards smelling of pine cleaner and stale urine and unwashed bodies and cigarettes, bus rides, car trips with kind strangers (and those not so kind), which taken together had somehow led to this moment.

Better to float. Much better.

So many other things had changed in his life; Maglor was relieved to see the sea was not one of them. It stretched in front of him as far as he could see, dark waves swelling and subsiding, somehow managing to be both peaceful and restless simultaneously. Maglor liked the tang it created in the air. He did not like the way the lapping waves darkened the sand at his feet; it somehow reminded him of another beach, somewhere else, long ago, with unpleasantly dark sand that had stained his feet red. He decided to close his eyes and listen to the ocean's song instead. Quiet, deep, relentless in its power… Your voice is like the sea. Someone had told him that once; he could not quite remember who, but he supposed that was not important. It must have been someone who had heard him singing. He remembered singing. He remembered writing songs. Somehow the songs in he heard in his head now wouldn't stay still long enough for him to grasp them properly, but he knew that once he'd written songs that had shaken hearts hard enough to nearly stop them. One song in particular… but thinking about that song led back to the lapping waves, and the dark feet… Time to stop thinking about music.

He opened his eyes again, and looked out across the waters. The last sliver of sun had finally dipped below the horizon; in the lingering twilight he saw his father's star floating just over the waves. That was another thing that had not changed. It was still beautiful, and for a moment Maglor remembered throwing another star just like it away. He wished now he hadn't done that, but gone was gone. At least he could still enjoy the one in the sky. That star, he knew, was also somehow tied to the dark feet and his unsettling song, but it was beautiful enough that he didn't mind that. He could sit forever and look at it, and never tire of the sight…

Footsteps suddenly, off to his right. And a voice, faint but unmistakable. "Hurry up, or we're going to miss the tide." Reluctantly he turned his attention away from his father's lovely star, and toward the soft commotion in the dark. He'd learned the hard way it didn't pay to ignore surprises; so often they turned out to be unpleasant.

He saw a small party of people, dragging and pushing a boat across the sand toward the water. For once, an interesting surprise. Thoroughly distracted by their own task, they'd apparently not spotted him sitting quietly in the darkness. The boat looked heavy, and the small group, though struggling mightily, was not having much success; after a moment's observation Maglor decided it would only be courteous to offer them some help. As he approached, he saw an even more unexpected sight: the people pushing the boat were not Mortals, but Elves. He'd walked as quietly as he could, but their ears were as keen as his (and, he allowed, his own footsteps were probably not nearly so quiet as they'd once been). Heads turned in unison, wary eyes gleamed with a not-entirely-friendly light as they took his measure.

It had been so very long since he'd seen another of his own kind! Vaguely he remembered that he'd long avoided these sorts of encounters, but he no longer quite recalled why. In any case, it no longer mattered. They were Elves, and that was enough. He fought with his mind, struggling to remember the proper, courteous introduction; now was no time for harsh Mortal words. At last they came to him. He bowed.

"Elen síla lúmenn' omentielvo."

The effect was not at all what he had expected. The nearest Elf jumped back with a hiss. "It's him! The Kinslayer."

The others dropped their ropes. A tall man went over to the first speaker and laid a hand on the woman's shoulder. "You don't know that, Nimtathar," he said.

The woman shook her head, insistent. "Who else could it be? No one else is left here who would speak that tongue. The last of them departed long ago. All but he."

"Nimtathar is right," a second man called out. "It has to be the Fëanorion. Lachenn he is, though his light is hard to see. What ill-luck this night has brought us!"

"Luck the night has indeed brought us," the tall man replied, "but whether good or ill remains yet to be seen, I think. This is no chance meeting." He came over to Maglor. "Why are you here, stranger?"

To see Father's star set, Maglor almost answered, but then he realized the man was not asking him why he came to the beach, but why he'd approached them. He raised his hand and pointed to the boat. "To push. You looked like you could use some help."

The man grabbed Maglor's outstretched arm by the wrist, turned it over to view his palm. He gently touched the scar he saw there, faded almost into invisibility. "You were right, Nimtathar. It is Maglor the Kinslayer," he called to his companions. In a lower voice he muttered, "We must be the very last ship to leave. No chance meeting, indeed." The man looked up again and stared hard into Maglor's eyes, seemingly troubled by something he saw there. Maglor bore his scrutiny with equanimity. Finally the tall man asked softly, "Maglor son of Fëanor, do you want to go home?"

"No!" the woman shouted, and another man cried out, "How can you even think it, Daerthôn? He is the last of the Kinslayers! You might as well invite an Orc to sail with us!"

"And I would!" the tall man said savagely, spinning around to face his companions. "I would not condemn even an Orc to live in the Anfauglith the mortals have turned this land into." He spread his hands placatingly, and continued in a calmer voice, "Open your eyes. Our ship is mired in the sand, the tide is turning; very soon we will miss it. If we do not somehow get underway now, we will have lost our chance. And yet you think the Kinslayer's arrival at just this moment is an accident? I say otherwise. We are almost certainly the very last ship to leave, and this delay was arranged by the Powers to offer this one –" and he jerked his head toward Maglor – "one final chance to sail. If we refuse to offer it to him, they will refuse us passage in turn, for it is their place, and not ours, to judge him. Do you presume to usurp the role of the Powers?"

The others made no reply. The tall man turned his attention back to Maglor and asked him again, "Do you want to go home?"

Maglor considered the question for a moment. Do you want to go home? He was no longer sure he knew what home was. It had been a long time since he'd thought about it. He tried to think about it now, but no thoughts came at first. So he listened instead to the ebb and flow of the sea: the harsh roar of the incoming waves, the softer rush of the waters flowing back across the sand, rhythmic as a heartbeat, a sound like breathing. And with the sound came images: a white city drenched in silver light, the calm green stillness of forests, a plain-faced woman with nutmeg hair, another woman willow-slender all dressed in white, a tall man with hair and eyes like fire. Come home, the waves sighed at him. He felt a tug on his arm, and brought his attention away from the waves and back to the beach.

"Answer, quickly," the tall man demanded. "We are out of time. Would you go with us?"

"Yes," Maglor replied. It seemed as good an answer as any.

"Get behind the boat, then, and push. You're stockier than any of the rest of us." The tall man waved for his companions to pick up their ropes. Maglor put his hands on the keel of the boat, feeling the rough wood prick his palms, and when the signal came he pushed for all he was worth. The boat resisted for an instant, and then, as though something unseen had abruptly given way, it jerked forward and began to slip steadily across the sand. He kept pushing until the water reached his knees and he felt a wave lift the boat up and toss it onto the sea's back. The others quickly scrambled aboard; the tall man extended an arm and helped Maglor aboard. He pointed to a spot beside the rudder. "You can sit there. Be quiet, and be still. We are grateful for your help, but you are not among friends."

Be quiet, and be still. Once those would have been difficult commands for Maglor to obey, but no longer. Quiet and stillness came easily to him now, as they had not when he had been whole, when he had been home. He curled up in the indicated corner and wondered idly as he watched the tall man take the rudder and the others raise the sail whether that was another thing that would change when they reached their destination. The world had become an altogether too changeable place; he hoped home would be different.

The sail billowed as the night breeze caught it, and the boat, carried by wind and tide, slipped silently through the dark sea. The stars were bright overhead, and Maglor noted idly that his father's star now sat at the very edge of the horizon, where it threw a beam of dazzling silver light across the dancing waves, a beacon to guide their way. He let his hand dangle over the side of the boat, his long fingers lightly brushing the crests of the waves, and lay his head on his knees and looked out to the horizon, drinking in the sight of his father's star, and lost himself in the sensation of gliding through the water.

It was indeed better to float.

Chapter End Notes

Lachenn – "flame-eyed." A term Moriquendi Elves sometimes use to describe the Noldor, who have the light of Aman in their eyes.

Nimtathar – "Pale Willow"

Daerthôn – "Great Pine"