Time Flows

Played by:
Aelkennyr Rhiano


The elven mariner cocks his head, needle with thread still clenched between perfect white teeth, and with an imperious movement of one elegant hand, he motions for Fafnir to turn around in a circle so that the elf can inspect his handiwork.  Fafnir's amber eyes lock upon the elven features as he completes the turn and watches as the sailor gives a curt nod of satisfaction, reaching up to take the needle out of his mouth. Fafnir reaches down and lifts the hem. The sailor himself gave the dwarf the tunic, after Fafnir opened his pack to find that all his clothes had a damp and mildew, stale smell. Washing anything would do him little good as he had no hope of anything drying in time for the ceremony. Quickly word spread throughout the ship, from elf to elf, until this particular one came to him with a soft smile, holding out a soft yellow tunic, breeches and boots, and with his musical lilting voice, in the common language, assured Fafnir that alterations could be made to the clothes.  

The elf, Fafnir found to his great relief, was correct.  Although a bit tight in the waist, it fit well, and the alterations to hem and to seams in the trousers were executed in a fine handiwork, using needle and thread better suited to the canvas of sail, but undetectable in the clothes he now wears.  Stammering a heartfelt gratitude to the elf, whose name he has no hope of pronouncing, he watches as the elven mariner rises with a grace that causes Fafnir's stomach to tighten with envy.  Bowing his head, his hair a flow of auburn locks, the elf murmurs something in his musical language, and quietly leaves Fafnir to this little solitary corner of the sailors' quarters.  He watches the elf depart before he looks down again, at the donated garments. 

The ship was enormous, like a floating dwarven settlement, and the parts below the top floor...deck, he corrects himself... although cramped and small  to those taller, were comforting to him now.  He walks with increasing confidence over to the lowest bunk, and with a now well practised heave and squirming, sits upon it, feet dangling above the floor, as he laces his fingers together and in this rare quiet moment, contemplating the enormity of their unknown fate.  For all the world, it seems like the Maker has placed a little ring of silence about this part of the ship. Above, the calls of sailors, the sounds of feet upon wooden deck mingles with the constant slosh of the sea.  The ship bobs up and down in a steady, rhythmic beat, one his heart seems to match as Fafnir sits below, and each breath brings smells that are exotic to a dwarf who has never smelled sea free of land.  From the kitchen...what did they call that again?....came mouth-watering smells of stew and bread, and Fafnir lifts his head as he catches the aroma, his stomach growling in approval. Then all else is forgotten as he looks back down and  unlaces his hands to brush across the well cared for soft tunic.  I am marrying Nasi, comes the thought.  I am becoming his husband.

It did not escape his notice that a few of their surviving party, upon hearing the news, looked upon him with a curl of the lip and a flinty expression. It did not escape him his satisfaction as their stomachs heaved again, and what little they had managed to eat, rebelled violently.  He was used to such looks, the disdain.  It is of no matter, he tells himself, again.  In truth, where once that stone hard granite rejection would have the prevalent attitude of the many, now it was the sullen, resentful spurning of only a few.  

Time has changed them, the dwarves of Gamilfun. Time...and a dragon.  They are still Khazad, but to call themselves of Gamilfun?  They are not bound nor defined, anymore, by that which made them Khazad of Gamilfun.  Time has flowed.  They have been flotsam upon its waters until a soft spoken ancient elf came to them, eyes the blue of the sea, humble as no king he has ever heard of, compassion in every word and deed.  He came and offered them a new home. They are not the Khazad of Gamilfun, of the Blue Mountain. They are the Khazad...of Alqualonde.

Above him, he hears the gentle voice of the Teleri king call out to someone, and after a moment, the answer comes back, silk upon the wind.  Fafnir has watched the elves with a wild longing that he cannot identify, an envy that wrenches his heart, and a determination to learn more and more about them, these Children of Eru.  These elves who do not treat them as burdens, as creatures to be endured, but with a kindness that is, sometimes, painful.  And Fafnir cannot even begin to answer within himself why kindness should hurt.  He pushes himself off the bed, and begins to disrobe, to pull on his salt crusted breeches and worn tunic and vest, and pull on his old boots, which have developed a hole in one sole and a thinness that promises a bigger hole in the other.  Carefully, lovingly he reaches out and with a hand, smooths the fabric of the yellow tunic. Hours are flowing away, he thinks. We are sailing upon time as surely as upon the waters of the world, and each second, each minute brings him closer to that point where all time will stop for the dwarf.  He will become Nasi's before all gathered, and Nasi will become his. Sealed one to the other, settled before their fellow Khazad as one heart and soul.  Bonded, flesh to flesh, thought to thought, husbands.  He closes his eyes and tries to imagine such a thing back in their old home.  

Old. Home.  He cannot.  Opening amber eyes, with a suddenness that jolts him, the cocoon of silence that has afforded him his musings drops away, and he hears in the next compartment a soft moan. Nasi? He drapes the outfit that will be his wedding suit atop a crate, as he was given permission to do, and then turns to leave it there, for now.  Nasi, he thinks, and his heart lifts. For a moment, he stands stock still. His entire soul seems to fly from this shell of flesh and soar, like the gulls that circled the mast as they pulled from the harbor, their avian language harsh and grating but also proud....

and free.  He stands transfixed as in that moment he becomes more than Fafnir and no less than all that surrounds him; birds, fish, sea, air.  He fills his lungs, and slowly he releases the breath, becoming again just Fafnir the Khazad. The one who is too tall, too cunning, too odd.  Fafnir, the one who is the beloved of Nasi.  Nasi.  And nothing else matters as he walks, with sea legs, to his Nasi's side.

Take us Home

Played by:
Belenos Rhiano


Eilif wonders if she will ever get used to the movement of the ship.  With luck she will not have to, for word is they will reach their destination the next day.  Now as she makes her way carefully up the stairs, the wood creaking softly under her feet, she pauses at the landing outside the captain's cabin and looks back to where the small group of Khazad lie curled in sleep.  In the shadows of the hull their faces look peaceful, the soft lighting from the one night lantern hiding the pinched lines of strain that she knows lie upon every face.  It could be any dormitory in any hall after a night of feasting and hearty draughts of ale, but it is not.

Sighing, she mounts the last few steps that take her upon deck.  Her nostrils flare at the still unaccustomed tang of sea air, and she tucks her cloak closer around her against the chill.  Glancing up she can see a shadowy figure at the helm, guiding the ship through the night, but it is too dark to see which of the elves it is.  She hesitates, manners dictating she should call a greeting, but she is in no mood for company this night, elven or Khazad.

Instead, her eyes are drawn to the distant horizon towards which they travel.   Grateful at the gentler movement of the ship, the order having been passed earlier in the evening to lower the speed in preparation for the morrow's wedding, she edges forward cautiously until she is finally standing at the very front of the vessel.  The deck rises and falls with each cresting swell, and even at this slower speed the wind seems to rush past her, tugging playfully at the hood of her cloak.  Surely this must be how the birds feel, when they fly.   Such a sense of speed and nothing else around them.  Such a sense of... freedom.

Eilif tilts her head at the thought.  Who would have thought one of her kind would think freedom such a wonderful thing?  She is Khazad, and  Khazad  live by solid routine and tradition.  Freedom is not something they sought.  Yet here at the very bow of the ship, she cannot help but lift her face to the shining expanse of night sky above her and feel her heart lift.  So much has changed.  Their entire lives have changed. SHE has changed.  Oh, the yearning for the heat of the forge still aches in her heart but... but now there is more she yearned for.

She had thought, once, that all she wanted was to work her craft and perhaps in time find a husband and raise a family.   She had been woman enough to envy Aztryd her babe when first she had arrived, the fleeing wife and young child bringing home vividly to her the unlikelihood of that ever happening now.  Again she raises a hand and fingers the scar that rents her face from brow to cheek.  Who would want such a wife?  Aztryd with her fine silver bands in her hair, the matronly ways of one complaisant and sure of their fertility and desirability, had shattered Eilif to the core.  But not now.  Not now.

She lets her hand drop to the rail, and her full lips curl into a smile above the braids of her beard.  Their journey down the mountain and time at the Inn, in such close quarters with the mother and child, has shown Eilif that babes are not what she had thought they might be.  Noisy, smelly and fretful they often are, demanding and mischievous things.   To her surprise she has found herself grateful in the end, that such is unlikely to be her lot.   Leaving Aztryd to her labours at the elven Inn had been a relief.  Stepping aboard the ship had been like stepping into a new life, leaving behind not just an old ruined home, but also old dreams and desires.

A new home. A new life.  Somewhere just below the horizon lay the land where that new life would begin.  And it would begin tomorrow.   Standing there she thinks of the two who will enter that life newly wed.   She nods her head in approval.   Truly a new beginning for the stonemason and his tall beloved Fafnir.   A new beginning for all of them.   The old traditions will not rule in this new land.  They will create new traditions of their own and something tells Eilif they will not be as isolating as the old.   Their life will be what they make of it, not what age old custom decreed it should be.  Her life will be what she makes of it, and by Aule's hammer she will make a life for herself!   She has not survived dragons and destruction to live a small, mundane life now!

She turns and looks over her shoulder at the figure at the helm, guiding them through the night.  "Take us home, mariner," she whispers quietly.  "Take us home."