Enough

Played by:
AelKennyr Rhiano
Belenos Stormchaser (Belenosstormchaser Magic)



Eilif tugs her cloak a little closer around her as she stands on the rear balcony of the Green Leaf Inn.  Standing there in the very newness of the day, she can feel the overnight chill radiating from the stonework that has not yet been warmed by the weak early morning sun.  The rustle of a city stirring to life washes around her.  The clop of hooves on cobblestone as merchant carts make their way to the harbor, the distant call of voices as friend greets friend rise and fall against the steady background of seabirds calling and the slap of waves against the stone of the nearby harbor.   All are so very different to the muted sounds of morning she is used to at Gamilfun.

The rustle of a city stirring to life washes around her.

Eilif gazes up at the mountains that loom behind the stables.  "Gamilfun," she whispers, "Home."  The smile slips from her lips as again she is hit by the realisation her home is destroyed and her life changed forever.  Her life that had always been lived in the fastness of the halls of Gamilfun with all its history, all its sense of enduring permanence that her dwarf blood so loved.  Now all their worldly possessions have been carried down the mountain on their backs or in the cart drawn by the noble pony.  Home was gone forever, and the few survivors of her clan wait at an Inn in an elven seaside town for the benefices of an elven King.

Eilif gazes up at the mountains that loom behind the stables.  "Gamilfun" she whispers, "Home."  The smile slips from her lips as again she is hit by the realization her home is destroyed and her life changed forever.  Her life that had always been lived in the fastness of the halls of Gamilfun with all its history, all its sense of enduring permanence that her dwarf blood so loved.  Now all their worldly possessions have been carried down the mountain on their backs or in the cart drawn by the noble pony.  Home was gone forever, and the few survivors of her clan wait at an Inn in an elven seaside town for the benefices of an elven King.

"Gamilfun" she whispers,"Home."

Olwe slips his other foot into a brown, well worn boot and stands, wriggling his foot to and fro to ease it  in down past the ankle junction, the leather after years of wear soft and pliable.  Blue eyes glance over at the bed next to his where the sea merchant, Nole, is still sleeping. As the Lord of Alqualonde watches a soft smile curves the younger elf's lips. Giving a soft sigh, Nole shifts and turns over, surrendering into much needed sleep.  Smiling himself for a moment, Olwe softly crosses the wide upper floor of the inn, passing  the row of beds and cots occupied by other travelers who now wander in Irmo's realm.  

The smile fades from the Teleri's king face, as, like a cold predawn wind, the dreams of the night before cause his skin to prickle into goosebumps.  Frowning as he climbs down the stairs, he hardly feels the morning chill for the chill in his heart.  His boots make not a sound upon the stone floor, and as blue eyes take in the main room of the inn, he sees it empty, though someone has taken time this morn to stoke up the fire in the main fireplace, which doubles as the inn's oven and stove.  He almost takes the second, shorter set of stairs leading to the main room, the soft crackle and pop of the flames of the fire inviting and familiar, but he stops himself.  His thoughts go back to the dream. That dream, of all dreams, why did he revisit the day Earwen Silverhair --Earwen, his one and only daughter-- left the shores of her native Alqualonde. 

A hand curls into a fist as his mind races ahead, as it must, to a time after the departure of Earwen, when Noldor came once more to the Swanhaven, seeking a different treasure...the swanships.  Once more he sees the white wood of the docks bathed in the blood of Teleri and Noldor alike.  And across the sea, in Tirion upon Tuna, sat his first treasure, already claimed by Noldor.  Now, ages past, Olwe of Alqualonde can accept the Noldor blood of his daughter's husband, of his grandchildren....

But he can never forget the blood on the docks of Alqualonde. 

So now he turns away from the comfort and warmth promised by the inn's fire, worn benches and well polished floors. Now he turns and walks instead to the smaller door leading out to an enclosed porch.  Puzzled that again, in dreams, he watched his daughter become another's, become a woman grown, and a bride. Once again, he lost another one he loved to wind and sails.  

...he can never forget the blood on the docks of Alqualonde.

Eilif lifts a hand to absent-mindedly tug upon her beard as she muses on that elven king, for king it seems he definitely is, despite his somewhat scruffy appearance upon the first night they met.  This Olwe may have been unknown to her other than from Aztryd's colorful and somewhat unbelievable tales, but she knew of the Sylvan Queen, and from what she had witnessed yesterday the Sylvan Queen clearly knew Olwe well, having warmly greeted him as one monarch to another.  "But that doesn't mean he is trustworthy!" She growls under her breath, giving her beard a sharp tug.  A small voice of reason whispers in the back of her mind, and she lets out a long sigh.  "But our entire future depends on.. an elf!" She mutters again, shifting her feet restlessly and dropping her hand lest she pull her beard completely from her face. "An elf!"

Olwe raises his hand to the door, but before he touches the worn wood surface, he turns back to the room, and in his mind, he sees again the young ship wright and the sea merchant.  Now that he gives himself time to dwell upon the young elf's features, he can see so much that is Telerin about the younger elf, in the structure of the face, the sharp, keen gaze he turned upon the drawings and schematics.  Olwe's own blue eyes widen.  The eyes, those  eyes...so wise and knowing...and familiar.  But, but that is not possible.  Shaken, brooding, caught up in a tempest of troubled thoughts, he turns back to the door, touches the wood. Barely has it had time to dissipate than he rushes through it and moves forward to lean against the balustrade, resting both palms against the top as he bows his head and closes his eyes.  Why are those eyes familiar?

Why are those eyes familiar?

Eilif 's mutterings are silenced by the tinkling of the rear door of the tavern behind her, promptly followed by the sound of hasty footsteps.  She turns from her contemplation of the mountains to see the object of her thoughts standing on the balcony, frowning in thought.  Realizing the tall elven King is as yet unaware of her presence, she takes a moment to study him quietly.  He is tall, even for an elf, taller than any she has seen before and even in such an unguarded moment there is a nobility in his stance.  Eilif has dealt with enough horses and people to know this does not come from an arrogant nature, and reluctantly she admits to herself he has shown no arrogance at all in the time she has known him.  Nor, in truth is there anything of furtiveness in that steady gaze of his, the furtiveness she has learned that often accompanies an untrustworthy or greedy nature.

...there is a nobility in his stance.

Eilif narrows her eyes thoughtfully as she watches him.  There is an air of something else in his demeanor this morn.  Sadness?  Intrigued, she realizes there truly is much she does not know of their would-be benefactor.  Clearing her throat politely to alert him to her presence, she lifts her chin and nods to him, "A fine morn it is, Majesty," she says by way of greeting.

Eilif narrows her eyes thoughtfully..

Startled, Olwe's eyes fly open, and he swivels his head in direction of the voice.  Wearing a sturdy brownish cloak against the morning chill stood the dwarf maiden Eilif.  Blinking a little in undisguised surprise, he pushes away from the sturdy wooden railing and nods in greeting.  He knew next to nothing about Aule's Children, only what he read from the accounts of merchants and Teleri sailors, and histories brought home to the Swanhaven, bound books from places in Middle Earth.  The Khazad were both exactly as they were described and much more.

The maiden -- woman, for who could have seen what she has and be maiden still? -- the woman stands before him, not mocking and derisive as before, but nearly friendly.  Daming away his troubled thoughts, he finds his voice, and calmly he answers as in the elven port, life resumes its daily pace. "I give you good morrow, Lady Eilif," he manages to answer. A street or so over, a mother's voice rises stridently as she admonishes her young son to keep his sticky fingers to himself. "I'll not have a thief under my roof!" she yells.

Eilif smiles a little as she too hears the mother's admonishments, not really that different to those she has heard dwarven mothers give to children of their own.  Unable to resist teasing though, she nods her head towards the direction of the raised voice. "It seems there is at least one honest elf," she says, although she softens her words with a smile.

Olwe turns his head, too in the same direction, listening as somewhere close by, a door to a home slams, and soon after there is the sound of running, bare feet, and the excited voices of children, challenging each other to a race down to the harbor. Folding his arms across his chest, he smiles back at Eilif and crosses the distance between them. "He best be, else, by the sounds of it," he answers.  "Ahh," he says, stopping a mere couple of feet from her and leaning back against the wooden railing. "It seems the antics of children are universal, are they not, my lady?"

"It seems the antics of children are universal..."

Eilif lifts her chin more to look up at the elven King as he comes to stand near her.  Why do they have to be so tall, and this one tallest of them all, as far as she could tell.  As she watches him his long silver hair lifts in the gentle breeze from the harbor, and again she is struck by the steadfastness of that gaze.  "Aye," she nods, her voice a little brusque in her discomfort that maybe, just maybe here might be a trustworthy elf. "As are the antics of parents, it would seem."

Why do they have to be so tall..

Olwe tilts his head, and for a moment, he chews at his bottom lip. Watching her now, he sees how she has to crane her neck to meet his gaze.  Nodding once, a decision suddenly reached in his mind, he kneels down, putting himself on a more even level with Eilif. "You know, I remember when Earwen was a child," He confides, a smile lighting his face, his eyes sparkling.  "She was..." he pauses to think,"five turns of the year, when late one afternoon, she was nowhere to be found in the palace. Her nurse had left  Earwen's nursery, thinking the child sound asleep in the crib.  Little did she think, the mischievous child would not only awake but decide to make the most of her new found freedom."

...he kneels down...

Eilif watches as Olwe's eyes light with soft fondness as he speaks of the antics of a child. "His child?" she wonders as she listens, for the love was so evident in his tone and in his eyes.  However, his final words bring a wistfulness to her, and her dark eyes look sadly again at the mountains behind the stables. "Aye, Majesty, it is easy for the young to believe freedom is a wonderful thing, but sometimes," she pauses and lifts her injured arm to touch the newly healing scar on her face, "Sometimes though, freedom is not what we think it might be, and it comes with a price."

Olwe watches her, the sadness in her voice so plain, as she raises her injured arm up to her face, touching the newly made scar.  He nods gently as he watches her face. Once more, the vision of Earwen boarding the Noldor ship, her face radiant, her eyes shining, rises before his eyes.  "There are many different types of freedom, Eilif," he answers. "Which one do you seek?"

Eilif turns her eyes back from her beloved mountains and finds the steady gaze of the elven king upon her, filled with compassion.  She studies him a moment, looking for any signs of the pity that she dreads, but there are none.  Even so, her lips harden into a thin line of pain as she answers. "Some of us have had freedom thrust upon us, when we did not seek it.  Some of us would rather still be within the familiar confines of hearth and home but we have had no choice but to leave it.  Freedom.. freedom is not always sought, nor is it always a good thing."

"...freedom is not always.. a good thing."

Olwe  watches her face as she speaks, the way she cast her gaze up to the mountains, which have surely been her home for the entire of her life, from the manner of her speech, and then back down to gaze directly into his eyes.  She tightens her generous lips into a hard thin line, and as she speaks, he hears the pain in her words, even as it is etched in the jagged scar across her face. "I would ask, then," he answer gently, "Which was the true freedom: the freedom of home or the freedom of escape." He pauses and rests his arms upon his upper thighs, lacing his fingers together. "Freedom, above all else, I think me, a matter of the heart and soul.  True it is not always sought, but also true it is not defined, truly, by any other than one's self."

"I would ask then.. which was the true freedom.."

The sincerity of the other's words are clear in his tone and in his gaze, yet Eilif is in no mood to wax philosophical of her loss with an elf at this hour of the day and on an empty stomach to boot.  Her innate dwarven shrewdness reminds her not to be overly harsh with one in whose hands her future lies, nor is she inured to the compassion that prompts his words, so her tone is softer as she replies to him, "Would you, Olwe of Alqualonde, who can return at any time to his home, still speak so if that home now lay in ruins, if your kirth and kin were slaughtered around you, and you were never able to return?  When you have faced that, then speak to me of where freedom is to be found."

With a gaze unwavering, Olwe answers her as all about the city comes to life. The smell of meat, overdone, rises from somewhere in the market square beyond them.  Behind him, a horse stamps his foot and wickers  impatiently.  Someone at a stall near the inn itself begins his day of calling out, "Melons, fish, melons, fish, fish, fish, fish."  His voice rises above them all as he answers, his calm melting, though his voice is sure. "I have knelt upon the docks of my own Swanhaven, in the congealed blood of my people, my slain people. I heard the wails of the mothers, the screams of children, as they held lifeless bodies. I looked upon my own harbor, as the blood of innocents floated out to sea.  I know," He pauses, "I know. I have seen. I have sat on foreign shores in a time the world was new, abandoned by my brothers, left in charge of a people, heading towards a destination I knew not. I watched as groups of them stayed behind. I led, knowing not how to lead. " He drops his gaze and lifts them. "I have suffered, Eilif, the loss of the greatest freedom I had, and now, now I have an ache in my heart.  Before I had the freedom to walk among my kin, to sing among my people, to draw close to them and be with them. And now...now, I, too, seek where freedom is to be found."

"I have suffered, Eilif..."

Eilif watches as the shadows of those dark memories flash across his eyes as he speaks. She listens to his words, taking them in, awed that one could have endured so much in a lifetime yet still hold the world in a steady and serene gaze.  Yet watching his face as his words tumble forth, her eyes tell her so much more than his words.  They see the strength of the one who has lived these things and not only endured, but learned how to live beyond them.  They see the depth of the heart that was rent by the events of which he speaks, the utter sorrow that is there in those clear blue eyes that now look inwards at a distant time and events.  Most of all she sees his need, the need for one who has known such loss to reach out to others who now suffer similar.  It is a compassion, a kindness, a selflessness that leads his actions, she realizes.  Not self-seeking or greed or any of the other things she has feared.

Eilif looks down and scuffs the toe of her boot against the stone floor of the balcony, and she murmurs softly, "It would seem that it is not just the antics of children that is sometimes universal, but.. but suffering too."  She glances up at him, self-conscious and hesitant as she continues. "Perhaps, you who have survived such things could show us how to. How to rebuild a shattered life and perhaps.. perhaps find a peace with that. If you are still willing?"

"...if you are still willing?"

Olwe drops his gaze to watch Eilif's boot, the sound soft, almost swallowed up by the cries of the merchants, the squeal of children, the faraway screech of a hawk.  Looking back up into her eyes, he lifts an arm and extends his hand, palm up.  "Child of the Maker, I see in your eyes your loss and your pain.  I cannot promise more than this: my hand in friendship, my land as a home, and my aid as best as I can give it and to the extent you wish it. Come with me to Alqualonde, at least to heal and find it in a place to still your aching soul and find what freedom means for you, now."

Eilif slowly reaches out her own hand and rests it; small, rough and work-worn upon the long, tapering palm that is offered, her fingers barely reaching the edges as she curls them to grasp his hand.  She looks into his eyes, her own intent and serious as she nods, "I will come.  That is enough for this woman."  She pauses a moment as a thought occurs to her, and her eyes dance in merriment as she continues. "Well, it is nearly enough.  There best be food, too!  And there best be food awaiting us inside now, too!" Her face softens into her first true smile at the elven king. "Come, Majesty, let us break our fast, for nothing was ever achieved on an empty stomach!"