Her granddaughter's voice chases him up from dreams of fire, dreams of elven voices lifted in terror, lifted in defiance, warning.....and suddenly silenced.
Olwe, Lord of Alqualonde and Tol Eressea, fights his way out of the dream, the smell of burnt flesh and wood choking him, his throat raw, his eyes flying open. His mind certain to find devastation and blood all about him, he finds instead the cabin given for his use aboard Miro's ship.
Gulping lungfuls of salty air, he rubs his eyes with the palm of his hands, sitting up in the bed. Night has covered the sky with a velvet of stars, and a small shiver of the moon, nearly started on his nightly voyage across the sky, finds it way into the cabin window close by.
Slowly the hammering of his heart slows down to its normal beat, and drawing in yet another deep breath, the Teleri king flops back onto the bed. Folding his arms behind his head, he looks out the cabin window, watching the sky. The stars, faithful still but for the loss of the one star most important to all of the Firstborn, the morning star, shining, bright, silent, as the sea itself rocks the ship in a gentle, comforting motion. Where, wonders Olwe, is the morning star, and where is his niece, Elwing the White? For the sudden disappearance of the morning star also meant the disappearance of her beloved husband, and was but one of the alarming portent of evil yet to come.
...he looks out the cabin window....
Slowly, the Lord of the Swanhaven closes his eyes, and allows the lull of the motion of the ship to comfort him. The kiss of the water against the wooden hull soothing, is reassuring to the Mariner King. The great Vala Ulmo, Lord of the Waters of the World, has dealt gently with the ship, and as Miro the Teleri shipwright promised, the ship was sure and fleet upon the sea, and easily manned by the two elves.
Their course would take them to Southwestern Eriador, in Minhiriath. The woods named by the Númenóreans as Eryn Vorn, but known to the Teleri sailors in Tol Eressea as Moire Taure, the Black woods, all that is left of an ancient woods that covered most of northwestern Middle Earth. Woods that existed when a shy and young Olwe took on the mantle of leadership and led his people West to Aman.
"So long ago," Olwe whispers. "So long ago." Slowly he rises from the bed and stands up, stretching long limbs and placing a hand in the small of his back to rub at muscles that seem to never un-knot now. "I was young, and the world was young. Before the Númenóreans grew in their greed."
He crosses his cabin and pulls out the sturdy wooden chair, sitting at the desk so cunningly built into the wall of the cabin itself. Reaching into a drawer, he pulls out a well worn book with a cracked spine and yellowed pages, and lays it down upon the desk. Above him, the globe of the elven lantern casts enough soft light for him to make out the pages as he opens the book and flips the pages to the section he seeks.
... he pulls out a well worn book with a cracked spine...
There in those pages, Olwe reads again how the forest was decimated by the Númenóreans in their quest for wood suitable for the building of ships. There in those pages, he again reads how that same forest was nearly completely destroyed by Sauron during the war in Eriador. Natives of Minhiriath either fled to Bree or fled deeper into Moire Taure for many years after that brutal war. Perhaps they were still there during the recent war of the Ring.
Perhaps, as whispered by the Telerin sailors, elven kin settled into the forest after the One Ring was destroyed. Slowly, reverently, Olwe closes the book. No book in the Master Library in Alqualonde, nor the smaller one in Tol Eressea can tell them that for certain. Not even his granddaughter, Nerwen, could shed light on that. Slowly Olwe rises from the desk, and touches the hanging lamp, its light responding to his touch and softening to a dull glow. There is only one sure way to find out.
Olwe turns on seaworthy legs and with the grace of his race, crosses the cabin to the doorway. As it disappears at his touch, he walks through the area where crew would bunk and into the door way of the galley. Leaning against it, he crosses his arms and closes his eyes a moment. "I do not know if you hear me, Great Manwe, Mighty King of the West, Breath of Arda," he offers in a silent supplication. "The dreams have started back, as bad as before, and I am without the guidance of the Lord of Dreams. I do not question nor challenge the task set to me. But I ask, Lord Manwe, guide me, lead me, grant me wisdom. Make me strong for what is to be. Let me serve the Valar well."
Leaning against the doorway of the galley....
Slowly he opens eyes the color of the blue skies, of the great waters of the world and pushes himself away from the doorway. With sure strides he crosses to the ladder and climbs up topside to relieve the sea merchant, his boon companion, Nole at the wheel of the ship. Ae he watches the retreating back of the loyal Nole, seeking his well-deserved rest, Olwe lifts his gaze to the lightening sky. Soon dawn would come, and another day upon the waters of the world, seeking hope...seeking answers.
...seeking hope, seeking answers