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."