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April 3, 2012

"He Dares Defy ..."

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AelKennyr Rhiano

He paced, beneath the waves of the waters around the island Alqualondë  had become when it became part of the mortal realm, and beneath his feet,  sediment rose and swirled in small murky clouds about his ankles.  Close by, his wife, Uinen, the lady of the seas, watched Ossë with eyes the soft grey blue of sea  seen from a shoreline; glittering with reflected light of Eru, she sways gently with the flow of the waters of the world even as her hair lies spread about her.  "Husband," she says, her voice calm and sweet.

"No," interjected her husband, his hand making a cutting motion through the water that flowed all around them.  "We befriended them, at the banks of the river Sirion.  Well, you did, first. Your heart weakened at the sight of them." He looked at her, his chin jutted out, and lips pursed in a way she knew all too well.

Them. She knew "them" were the Teleri.  Olwë in particular. Uinen had, indeed, been the one to befriend this largest clan of the Eldar elves. That was back when they were a newborn race, children in fully grown bodies, unknowing of the world, uncertain of who were friends and who were foes. They were so beautiful in their innocence. As she watched the Maia who has always been and always will be, her husband, she did not mention that he, too, was taken with the Teleri and their shy, earnest king. The same king who now has vexed both her lord, Ulmo, and her husband.

"He dares defies my Lord," replied Ossë. "He was always shy, deferential, respectful. What changed that?" He stopped his pacing to glare at his wife's placid expression?

"Olwë?" she asked, her eyes widening in an surprised expression. She ignores is baleful gaze. Even after the rolling of the waves of hundreds of year, she remembered the elven king, not as an Eldar Lord, weathered by the turning of the ages but as she first saw him; blue eyes wide with honest awe and surprise, the shy smile and the bashful stammering as he first spoke to her. "Time has changed him, my loving husband."  She watched with a bemused expression as Ossë rolled his eyes and crossed his arms across his chest.  She watched him for a few moments, the set of his jaw, the tight lines of his mouth. "You are...angry," she realized aloud.  Now that she said it, she knew it, felt it with every fiber of her essence.

Ossë threw her an exasperated look and continued his agitated pacing. "Yes, I'm angry," he finally admitted. "My Lord Ulmo was clear.  Stay away from Sylvhara. He has ears. He heard."

Uinen allowed the gentle sway of the waters to move her gently back and forth as she watched her husband. "He heard, my love. But his heart whispers to him a different thing."

"Oh?" Ossë whirls around on her, an eyebrow cocked. "And what does it whisper?"

She thinks back to a time, ages past. The Teleri king, kneeling in a pool of blood, cradling one of his own Teleri, slain by other Firstborn who called themselves Noldor.  Hot tears coursed down his cheeks, his eyes hollow and empty as sobs wracked his body.  The Kinslaying.  That is what his heart whispers. Remember the kinslaying.  No, Olwë would not rest until he sailed once more to Sylvhara. Or at least try.  She started to answer her husband, in such a way as he would accept and understand, but before she could, she felt the presence of the mind of Ulmo, calling, summoning them both.

"I have been called unto Manwë," resounded the voice of the Lord of the Waters of the World, his voice, rolling, deep as the oceans.  "He summons me immediately."

After the Valar pronounced the Doom of the Noldor, Ossë helped guard the shores of Beleriand to keep the ships of the Noldor from reaching Valinor. His storms had a part in wrecking all the ships that they sent, and only one Elf from among their crews survived, by the will of Ulmo: Voronwë. During the Second Age he rose the island of Elenna (Numenor) from the depths of the Sea.

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