AelKennyr Rhiano
Nimros, son of good Teleri fisherelf stock, could not call this leaky, creaking, makeshift vessel a boat, much less a ship, but it was made with the materials he had onhand at the time. Although he was up to his ankles in chilly water where he sat, he has managed to keep the tiny craft afloat and never too far from landmasses that he could not make landfall, which he had to do, constantly. He looks up at the tiny sail made out of his cloak and sees that the hole he had patched is once more breaking the stitches.
He closed his eyes for a moment, because he could hear his father so clearly in his head, once more berating him for such lousy patchwork. "Take me to heart, son," he would say, "Those things you call stitches will never bear up to wind. And what would you be doing once the sails are in tatters?" his father would ask, eyeing him shrewdly.
"I'd be swimming," would be his response, blushing and laughing. And his father, hapless to avoid the good humor would laugh too.
"I'm close to swimming now," he whispered hoarsely, and then roused himself. He cannot allow himself to dwell on his father's voice, his mother's face, the smells of Alqualonde. He could almost feel his father's hand slapping lightly the back of his head, where he recently had a knot, from what he knew not. "Pay Attention, BOY!" his father would say, were he there. Nimros nodded to the ghost of the voice, and started to guide his leaky craft to land. He must stop here and make repairs...dry his feet and find sustenance.
He was on land, preparing to push off his craft for another day of sailing, when the morning star disappeared. He stood stock still, mouth open as it winked and vanished. Then he fell to his knees, crying out to Blessed Eru, feeling more lost than he could express. The Hope of the Elves was gone from the sky. The young fisherelf knelt in the sand, dear to the crash of the waves against the shoreline, numb to his surroundings.
How was he to find his bearings to Alqualonde without it? He was a fisherelf, but he had never sailed far from the shorelines of the Swanhaven, only as far as the fishing was plentiful, and by Ulmo's grace, that was always close enough to sail, fish, and return with loaded ship by day's end. And he knew enough of the stars left to know, without a doubt, he was nowhere in the Undying Lands, had not been since he woke up in that foreign land with a knot on the back of his head.
Looking at the horizon, he squinted and could make out another..a true swanship, or close enough in design. He has not seen one even remotely close to the delicate vessels of the Teleri until he beheld this one. Could this boat belong to another Teleri? Perhaps he has found, at last, one of his own people.....
and the way home?
Pulling and maneuvering his leaky, tiny vessel, Nimros urged it, patiently to continue along the shoreline, his eyes, all the while, upon the ship ahead, growing larger as he sailed his craft nearer.
Perhaps, in this new strange land, he will find the way home.
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