Grey Havens, At Last

Played by:
AelKennyr Rhiano
BelenosStormchaser Magic
Shawn Daysleeper


Olwe, Lord of Alqualonde and Tol Eressea, King of the Teleri elves, lifts eyes as blue as the ocean beneath them up, watching as the mountain ranges slowly grow larger and larger.  The blue-grey of the rock blends in with the verdant green, and on the peaks are still caps of ice and snow at the higher elevations.  The crippled swanship bobs upon the gentle swaying waves, and it lurches drunkenly, off-balanced despite as the sea merchant brought the ship into the mouth of the harbor.

Olwe shifts his weight, and the boiled leather of his armor creaks in response, but the sound is lost in the lapping of the water. Olwe turns his head back and starts to offer to help the sea merchant, his tongue and teeth pulling down his top lip to lick the sea salt from it.  His eyes feel gritty, and his lips and mouth parched and dry.  It was a hard journey, done without complaint on Olwe's part, for the Teleri king feels the weight of his defiance of the Vala Ulmo settle upon his shoulders and across his lower back. It was a hard job to mend the sail enough to be seaworthy, and parts of the sail did not hold up to the wind, hanging instead down in tatters. The ropes, however, held strong, and the merchant more than steady at the helm.

Grey Havens unfolded gradually for Olwe; a sprawling stone-hewn port, boasting functionality , utility, and at the same time a delicate beauty, as  the harbor city sat cradled by the Blue Mountains and kissed by the sea. Are they here, Olwe wonders. The Khazad. Did they make it to Grey Havens? The swan that had flown with them circled and doubled back, for Alqualonde, he imagined, when Osse unleashed the storm that propelled them from Sylvhara.  Olwe has searched the skies for a glimpse of the swan, but  has been rewarded only with a cloudless sky and a red, scorching sun.  He could not send them a message, nor receive one, and now he wonders where they are, and if they are, and how they will receive him.

Nole is very pleased his makeshift repairs brought them from the sandy isle  to the Grey Havens. The last day of sailing has been very stressful on the sea merchant, and he suddenly begins to feel somewhat weary of keeping watch on the repairs. Looking at his king, he remembers his defiance against a Vala and a Maia, whose realms are the seas within sight of the wooded shores of Sylvhara. The unnatural storm that followed nearly wrecked his ship. With a relieved sigh at a safe haven, he scanned the markets from the deck of his ship afar, and he sees vacant stores on the waterfront. It looks like it may be difficult to find one to repair his ship. But for now weariness begins to take him as he prepares to step on the quay and secure the battered swanship.

Estelin looks out the portholes of the hold, seeing the distant Ered Luin and harbor city draw closer. With a relief the ship comes to a stop by the stone docks. The ship still bobs about gently, but after the waves he did not feel anywhere as queasy as he has the last few days. With a dissatisfied short nod towards the opening of the Gulf seaward, the domain of his brother Ulmo ad his surrogate, Osse, he rises with difficulty and ascends to the deck.

Eilif kicks at some small stone rubble underfoot. Here, on the  promenade by the lighthouse the dressed stone is old and weather-worn, patched with lichen of different colors like the worn out clothes of a once grand lady.  The glow of the rapidly lowering sun bathes the stone in a soft rosy glow, muting the air of age and decay that is so clearly evident in the noonday's harsher tones.

How old is Mithlond, she wonders, as she looks at the graceful curves of the harbor arches. Despite its somewhat functional purpose, the elves have always taken great pride in this city as they seem to with all their settlements, from what Eilif has seen, but in truth she has noticed fewer and fewer of their kind among the merchants and officials of the town over the course of her visits here.  Where they have gone, she did not know, but stores and homes that had once housed the businesses or families of elves now either stood vacant or hold the wares of men, for that race seems to be everywhere these day, except, of course, in the fastness of the dwarven cities.

Eilif's fingers play absently with the jewel in the hilt of her sword as she thinks about the two races.  She trusts one no better than the other really. Elves, humans, they were all Outsiders.  Despite this, though, and despite Adelstienn's admonition to always go about the city in pairs, Eilf has felt the need to be alone.  She has spent much of her life alone in Gamilfun, but since the Attack this small band has lived, breathed and even slept in close proximity.  Now with their arrival in Mithlond, their departure for a strange land across the ocean is that much more imminent.  Eilf, the sword at her hip prominently displayed to ward off any thoughts of her being an easy target for a light-fingered thief,  has slipped out the back door of the tavern and escaped up to the point that was home to one of the twin lighthouses of Mithlond.

Slowly Arien's vessel sinks behind them, rosy fingers stretching out for one last caress of the skies of Middle Earth before her vessel, too, docks, and lies still until next called to duty. Slowy, too, the crippled swanship  is guided by Nole, as a wind rises, as soft as a lover's breath upon a cheek, filling what parts of the sail are still whole. Now as they are moments away from dropping anchor and mooring the ship, the smells of a trading post rise and tease Olwe's nose. The fishy salt smell mingles with the hefty smell of cooking meat and the smell of vegetation, the "green" smell that comes from fruits and vegetables lately picked and laid out beneath a hot sun for inspection. There are noises, too, noises Olwe has not heard in his own beloved Swanhaven in, lo, these many months.

There are the calls of merchants, enticing sellers with, "Fresh Fish, fresh crabs...catch, catch, catch them as they have been caught!" How familiar the call! There another voice rises, ancient and cracked but strong for all that, the ancient accent thick and hard on the Teleri Lord's ears: "Oh-hey-oh..my wares must go.  The pots are black as they can be. In the looking glass, your fair face you'll see.  Pay my fair price, no one beats me. Oh-hey-oh!"

On and on, voices raised in the old tradition of haggling. Voices calling out for news of neighbors or of kin.  The squall of a child who has tripped over a cat, and now sits on the cobblestone, hot tears forgotten a moment later.  Voices offering leather, tools, jewels, cabbage, pipeweed, and things of which Olwe has never heard.  Voices, such a  cacophony of voices.  They sound both beautiful and discordant.  His eyes sting for a moment, and he blinks hard.  The sounds of life are like a blow to the gut after the near silence of Alqualonde.

Nole watches to ease his ship to settle next to the warf without damaging it further against the stonework. He hurries to furl the sails to keep the ship stable. He then drops anchor and moors his ship at the wharf. As the ship comes to rest he is very relieved to be here at last. He makes ready to secure the ship to the dock.

The teleri musician finally arrives on deck. He is very ready to set foot on dry land. He grabs the ropes to steady himself as the ship bobs around gently. Feeling his stomach, he sighs. He feels a new kind of pain there, one he has not felt in quite some time. The smell of cooking reaches his nostrils. "Am I feeling... hungry?" he barely voices aloud.

Eilif tugs the hood of her cape a little further forward.  The breeze off the water has a damp chill to it, which is very different from the crisp clear cold of the mountains.  As has become her habit since arriving in the city, whenever she is out and about her eyes are drawn to the ships in the harbor.  From this distance with the mighty peaks of the Gulf behind them, they seem tiny, like children's toys.  They bob and dip with the movement of the water, much the same as the twigs she had dropped into the clear mountain streams as a child.  Surely without the ropes that tie them to the wharves they would be as much at the mercy of the currents of the ocean as those twigs had been.   As her eyes roam the frail-looking timbers and rigging of the shipping a shiver passes through her that has nothing to do with the briskness of the late afternoon breeze.   It is with interest then she watches a new arrival to the harbor.

Eilif narrows her eyes to see it better in the swiftly gathering gloom of approaching evening, for this one was unlike any she has seen in port before.  As she watches, the ship seems to lurch drunkenly, and her own stomach lurches with it at the thought of being on board when a vessel does such a thing.  Eilif leans against the old stone arch, as she watches the ship settle awkwardly at the dock.  Even to her inexperienced eye, it is evident all is not as it should be with it.  Raw jagged edges of timber glare through the fine paintwork, and the sail, oddly smaller than those the other ships bore, was ragged and torn.  As she watches the captain fight the wind and water to bring his vessel safely to harbor she feels her stomach clench.  It appears they truly are as frail and vulnerable to the whims of wind and water as she fears. Her toes flex inside her boots as though reassuring themselves that for now, at least, she is still on good solid stone.

Nole steps ashore onto solid ground. With a grateful sigh, Estelin moves towards him. Nole holds up his hand as Estelin tries to come ashore however. "My friend, I need to check in with the harbor master and register our ship. Perhaps you could help Olwe gather our packs from the hold and bring them to the dock. When I come back we will go to a place to stay and seek out our dwarves." He looks around towards the large bustling city. Finding little people here may be a task. Dwarves are small, they barely come up to his waist. "There is naught for it just now," he concedes. "I think a good supper and rest are in order tonight." He nods to a stately looking building nearby. "I think the best place for us to stay is there. The Green Leaf Inn."