Call to the West by daughterofshadows

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Fanwork Notes

So this one requires a bit of an explanation, I think.

My Dark Matter prompt came from the Words and Letters category and forbade me from using the word "sea".

Now, I could have solved that very easily by setting this story literally anywhere that wasn't a beach or the ocean, but that seemed rather boring, so instead I decided to write about sea longing.

It tried to be a poem in the beginning, but that wasn't going anywhere, so the muse and I came to an understanding and settled on this drabble instead.

Fanwork Information

Summary:

A drabble about sea longing without ever using the word sea. Or longing.

Major Characters:

Major Relationships:

Genre:

Challenges: Dark Matter

Rating: General

Warnings:

Chapters: 1 Word Count: 101
Posted on 22 February 2025 Updated on 22 February 2025

This fanwork is complete.

Call to the West

The narrator is unnamed, but I think it is someone that is in a similar position to Legolas in the LotR when he first sees the sea.

Experiencing the call, but not really sure they want to follow

Read Call to the West

They call again, bringing haunting dreams of a land far beyond the horizon. A land free from evil, a land frozen in time.

Oh how I wish I had never laid eyes on the endless expanse of Ulmo’s realm. Now, I fear, it will never let me go, its claws sunk deep into my very soul.

Their song cares not for the lands it asks me to leave behind. There is only one way to go. Into the uttermost West.

One part of me wishes to stay, the other is ensnared by the song.

What cruel fate tears me apart!

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For a land free of evil, this seems like a very cruel thing to do. Great use of the anti-promt.

The sea longing always felt like one of those cases where the Valar just don't quite get the Children.

It just seems cruel to me to induce the sea longing in elves, when they might have been perfectly happy where they were, until they made the mistake of "looking at the ocean"

And now they have genetically induced Fernweh. I don't know. Feels weird to me.

Very much so! They seem a bit self centred when it comes to wanting the company of the Elves. This feels like a natural extension to their motivation to bring them to Valinor in the first place. (I forget the actual quote in The Silm, but it reads to me that heir safety seemed more like an excuse and their real reason was that they wanted their company.)

This does seem rather like a poem, I think! It's so beautiful, but painful, with its use of words like claws and ensnared. My favourite line is 'Their song cares not for the lands...' - I love how the narrator is thinking beyond their own feelings.

absolutely. I imagine by the time the Third Age rolls around there might even be a few elves born in Middle-Earth that have only the vaguest of ideas about Valinor and everything, and then suddenly getting that urge to sail must feel like insanity. I'm suddenly thinking of the sailors that believed they could fall off the edge of the world if they sailed too far out. 
Do Elves intrinsically know how to find the Straight Road? Or do they set out and hope for the best? Hmmm much to think about

Anyway, thank you for your comment!