Tumult by StarSpray

Tumult

The time after the War of Wrath was an unsettled one—not only for the lands of Middle-earth, but for the seas, too. Uinen was kept busy, rescuing some of her beloved creatures from sudden fissures that opened to spew molten stone and hot gasses where none had been before, and seeing that those who thrived in such environments found their places. She gave little thought to the Children or the surface of the Sea, though she loved the Elven mariners, for that was Ossë’s domain, and the Children were Ulmo’s charge.

Then, once the tumult settled at last, and Ossë had done with his great storms, Ulmo came to Uinen, finding her far to the south of the wars, among the coral reefs and colorful fish, dancing through their schools and singing with the whales that passed by. “An island has been raised for the Edain,” he told her, “and they shall soon set sail, led by Eärendil’s son Elros. I would have you safeguard the fleet on their voyage.”

So she did, speeding north with the currents, and finding the fleet just setting sail from the new-made coast of Middle-earth. Eärendil sailed the skies before them, the Silmaril a shining beacon to his son and his people. Uinen put forth her music into the waters between the coast and the island in the west, forestalling both storms and calms, and urging the currents to be kind and smooth. Her songs attracted whales and dolphins, to the delight of the Men on the fleet, and also starry algae that filled the water with light around the prows of their ships as they cut through the water.

When at last they reached the island, and disembarked, Elros Tar-Minyatar waded into the waves, singing a song to Uinen herself. She arose out of the roam to meet him, and cast her blessing over him and his people and their ships, with a promise to answer when they called to her, before sinking back beneath the waves into the deeps that were her own domain.

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When Númenor sank, the world changed, and it was terrible. It was a violent rendering and bending, and even Ossë could take no delight in the waves and the tumult that overcame the island, and battered the coasts of Middle-earth. The currents shifted and changed, and Uinen found herself tossed about like a ship in the midst of a tempest, unable to find herself, or her lord Ulmo, or even Ossë—though she could hear his distress echo through the waters, just as her own did, discordant notes in a once-harmonious song.

She regained herself, but could not go near the island, could not save the children of the mariners she had loved so dearly. But a nudge from Ulmo alerted her to ships—nine of them, all Faithful, struggling on the wings of the storm to reach the east. She sped through the deeps, calling upon all her power of Song to smooth their way, to shield them from the worst of the crushing mountainous waves, and though she could do naught for the wild winds, she could set them on the paths of easterly currents.

They were split, north and south, in spite of her best efforts, but all came through the storms in the end, safe and still seaworthy, though with battered hulls and tattered sails. She spread herself along the coastline, north and south, and heard the cries of relief and tasted the tears of grief that Elendil and his sons and their wives and their children let fall into the waters.

She wept, too, for the memory of Elros Tar-Minyatar and the kingdom he had founded in hope and joy, and for all of the generations of mariners who had called to her, and who she had loved—and not least for fair Tar-Míriel the last true queen, who had perished with her island and her people—and even for Pharazôn, who had not always been the golden tyrant and cruel conquerer: once he had been a small tow-headed boy who loved to play in the water under the watchful eyes of his nursemaid.

At last the tumults eased, and the world settled into its new roundness. Uinen made her way back to the founded island, and gathered the bones of the dead as best she could, entombing them in deep stone far below the surface where they might rest in peace, as their souls she hoped found solace in that place that Men went that even the Valar knew not.

Her duties done, she unleashed her own grief, erupting in great waves and hurricanes far from land that churned violently yet harmlessly for many days before dissolving into the winds and blue skies.