The Swan-ship by heget

Vingilot

Read Vingilot

“She looked so odd, the Vingilot, moored to our docks amidst our rebuilt ships, the Envinyai Ciralie, the slowly remade fleet to replace the unsurpassed swan-ships. Our docks had refilled during the long years of re-building, and debate had been made on what the replacements for the swan-ships taken from us would be, for the new fleet was necessary but could never approach what was once there. More lost to us than the mingling of Tree-light, but to have ships again was - no, more - necessary than light. The Unadorned Fleet, we decided. For humility, not pain. And there was always a jetty left clear for remembrance and sorrow. That was where Eärendil’s ship waited. No other spot felt right.” Helcerían’s words were slow as she explained, searching for translations of her Telerin into the Sindarin that Elwing taught her. “You could see the ancestor-ties in Vingilot’s design, and one can only draft an ocean-worthy vessel in so many ways- but we knew she was not ours. From the angle of her prow to how her sails were hung, all was peculiar. Wrong and yet not. She was so small, so narrow and battered. Her sails torn and patched and re-patched, her white birchwood damaged by storm and barnacle infestations had fouled her hull. You would compare her to a feral, starved animal having wandered into our pastures from the cruel winter wild, covered in matted fur and scars and too skittish to let us approach. Our mariners tied her mooring rope to the dock, but we would not dare more. Our sailors and divers would not touch her, for fear and reverence. Vingilot was … there was this holiness, this light even after Lady Elwing disembarked with the Silmaril and before the Valar hallowed it. Such a small, worn, sharp ship, ugly and yet profoundly beautiful. More than just her resilience, though for that alone she deserved all glory. She came out of the horizon sea mist like this object that should have only been a phantom of song, and yet to look upon her you could not deny her mortal components and all that she endured had marked her. She was peredhil, too, the Vingilot, half elf and half mortal.” Helcerían’s quavering voice shook most on her final words, almost impossible to hear. “Swan prow. Eärendil and Círdan gave her a swan prow. It was all wrong, wrong shape, wrong curve, wrong size, but she came through the waves and up out of the sea-mist that our swan-ships had died in. Our dead ghosts, rising back from the ashes and the sea floor.”