Tirlómë
Jun 29, 2018 21:56:03 GMT -5
Post by RUIVO on Jun 29, 2018 21:56:03 GMT -5
Tirlómë, 'Twilight Vigil'
At the House of Tom Bombadil
“Heed no nightly noises,” was the last breath of thought that had come forth from the nodding Irwain Ben-adar before he had retreated from the night. Goldberry's singing had ended hours past as she had taken her leave, and now Ruivo was alone.
He was settled by the window in the hearth room of the cozy house, humming to himself as he stared outward. The moon was a pearl set against the firmament, the sky was made of diamonds, and silver flakes drifted lazily downward. The window was cracked, just slightly ajar, and the elf had his hand out; only to feel the soft damp of the snowflakes as they settled upon him. More gentle than a breath. When he drew his hand back into the room, he looked upon the delicate crystalline structure. So perfectly shaped.
“I shall carve you in mother of pearl, and set you in Váya's hair...” he whispered to none but himself and the snowflake. The ice crystal slowly gave way to the heat of the room, as his eye studied it, and Ruivo smiled, brushing his hand along the leg of his breeches, and glancing to the basket of freshwater mollusk shells which Goldberry had procured for him a month past when Irwain had brought him indoors as bedraggled as a water rat, and had pronounced that he needed something to do with his hands.
As Goldberry sat weaving reed and willow baskets through the cold months, water lilies floating in bowls around them, Ruivo had worked through the basket of gleaming shells, one by one carving them into delicate masterpieces, each as different as the snowflakes their thoughts had started upon. He would weave them on to silver filaments; silver threads, and they would hang beautifully over Váyasilmë's tawny hair, streaked with the leftover fragments of golden sunlight which the coming spring and summer would bring.
Ruivo reached down, and ran his fingers across the carven snowflakes, listening to the light tinkling sound they made as they brushed together. They would sound as lovely netted in Váya's hair on Tanfui. He would hear the pine boughs outside creaking in the breeze, and the hoot of the snowy owl perched on a bare beech tree in the moonlight.
Ruivo sighed, a contented sound passing his lips, and he reached for the wooden lute that leaned against the wall nearby. He had played already the evening away, with Tom singing, and Goldberry aside, yet he seemed… not yet finished. A song missing. A voice missing. His fingers thrummed easily a chord, and his voice came soft as the owl hooted outside.
“I must go down to the seas again,
for the call of the running tide
Is a wild call and a clear call
that may not be denied;
And all I ask is a windy day
with the white clouds flying,
And the flung spray and the blown spume,
and the sea-gulls crying.”
“Tirlómë,” Ruivo murmured to the white feathered watcher, looking up at the silhouette of the owl, then mimicking his rasping hoot, soft and low through the cracked window. The bird's head turned, and he stretched his great white wings but gave no answer as he flapped away to a tree out of view. “The song did not suit you?” he hummed, a glimmer in his eye, and his shifted on the floor, raising the stringed instrument again.
“Something more to your liking then.” Ruivo's fingers plucked the strings anew, singing a new chord and melody into the night air, before his words came again.
“The moon, beyond her violet bars,
From towering heights of thunder-cloud,
Sheds calm upon our scarlet wars,
To soothe a world so small, so loud.
And little clouds like feathered spray,
Like rounded waves on summer seas,
Or frosted panes on a winter day,
Float in the dark blue silences.
Within their foam, transparent, white,
Like flashing fish the stars go by
Without a sound across the night.
In quietude and secrecy
The white, soft lightnings feel their way
To the boundless dark and back again,
With less stir than a gnat makes
In its little joy, its little pain.”
A fluttering whispy hoot came again from outside, and Ruivo smiled to himself, setting the instrument aside as the fire crackled. Content. He moved back to his carving; his fingers working delicate measure over the Mother-of-Pearl as a new snowflake formed at his fingertips. He hummed to himself as the fire burned lower, and lower yet. The dark deepening around him, around the room, until the stars came brighter than the embers.
Ruivo felt the call to rest; seeping through his body. The heavy weariness that came at the end of many long days awake. He had never rested well, or long, and Ruivo often avoided what he could for the dream vision which often plagued him in the night. Yet now, he thought not of it, and he set his carving tools aside, still fingering the smooth shell in hand as he let his mind slip away. His dreams came, and took him to the sea.
The great expanse of ocean before him as the moon was settling itself below the horizon in the twilight hours of morning. It was silent, and he was alone with the grasses and the soft lap upon the shore; though not for long.
He sensed her presence, before even he heard the rustle of the grasses as she neared. Warmth and peace descended over him.
”I am dreaming,” Ruivo spoke, hearing Váya draw in upon him. The sound of sand shifting beneath her feet. The gentle slide of her white gown against the earth.
“So am I, it is a good dream,” she responded, and Ruivo felt her settle beside him, felt her head rest against his shoulder. Soft and lovely. He drew in a deep breath, her scent filling him, mingling with the salty brine on the air. His eyes scanned the twilight horizon as a secure intimacy filled him.
Ruivo looked down at Váya, as she stared at the calm sea, and he reached for her. One hand slid leisurely to rest against the small of her back; the other, cupping her chin. Tilting her face up to his. Her face was pale in the moonlight; flawless and beautiful, and he looked upon her with two eyes; ice blue. Two eyes softened upon her countenance, resting his forehead against Váya's.
”Come home soon,” she whispered. The corner of Ruivo's mouth turned upward, and he brushed his nose against hers. Long did he hold her grey-green eyes in his own, even as the purple of the sky continued to fade. Váya turned from him, to look back upon the waves, but Ruivo could not part from her. His head rested yet against her tawny hair. He breathed, soft and heavy, the breath of sleep against her ear. Ruivo could hear the sound of the waves upon the shore. The calm sea rising as the wind shifted, as waves began to crash upon the shore, and gulls called.
“We were together once you and I, I will cover you again,” came the words of her lips, soft against the tumbling of the sea, and finally Ruivo's pressed a gentle kiss to her temple. Soft was her skin; sweet against his lips, and felt a tender longing. His heart was beating, quickening in his chest, and his fingers clenched against the fabric of her gown. A strong breeze blew, and Ruivo lips rested yet against her temple as the heard the rustle of golden sea grasses.
So entranced was he that he did not see the rise of the wave as its fingers reached from the sea. He felt it first in her pulse on the warm skin of Váya's temple. He felt the alarm rising from her being, and Ruivo's eyes were upon her as the wave hit; crashing over him. Ripping his hand from her gown, ripping her skin from his touch.
“Váya!” he called as he swallowed the wave; as he gasped, and even his strong arms could not propel him nearer her. Ruivo kicked with all his might; swam against the current. Her hand was reaching, aching. Pain in her sea green eyes, and her head disappeared beneath the waters.
“Váya!” Ruivo shouted again in a frenzy, his voice high pitched, cracking above the waves as he gasped, a deep breath of air filling his lungs before he dipped beneath the water; his eyes open and stinging as he swam. Deeper, deeper. Searching, yet not seeing. Seeking until his lungs burned for air, and he kicked towards the mottled surface of the raging sea. Another breath, and he dove beneath the breakers. Powerful arm taking him deep; deep into inky blackness. He could not surface without her. He could not rise until he found her, and his lungs again grew heavy in his panic as he swam through the murk.
Deeper.
Deeper.
“I'm coming!” Ruivo cried out in terror as he opened his eyes, gasping and scratching at the wooden floor of Irwain's home, driving splinters into his fingers. The carven snowflake from his hand was rolling across the floor, flung in his madness as he gasped. His vision blurred from the salt water… no, from tears which flooded from his eyes. Ruivo's cheeks were damp and sticky from them, and he sucked in a ragged breath and released it again with a shuddering gasp, touching the side of his face.
“I've packed you some food for the journey,” Goldberry said, barefoot as she glided to the doorway, suddenly within Ruivo's view, as if she had been planning all along his departure on this day; waterlilies blooming and swirling around her green gown. “And Tom has here a satchel. The cold and snow are not long to last, and the blizzards are over. Elf feet can tread over the pass.” Her voice was clear and rippling as the springtime, and soothing to Ruivo's ears.
Ruivo was still gasping, his breathing slowing; his hand pressed against the wall as he gathered his bearings. Goldberry bent, her thick golden braid brushing the floorboards, plucking the Mother of Pearl snowflake from where it had rolled to add it to the pouch she had already placed in the satchel. Ruivo looked around him; the shell basket already emptied. His tools put away. His lute wrapped carefully in a padded, embroidered case, with a strap to sling it over his shoulder settled near the doorway by the bag of supplies.
“She is drowning,” Ruivo muttered, his voice unsteady as he wiped a sleeve across his face.
Goldberry seemed to ignore him.
“Tom says to take your music home this time, and bring your Váya to eat at our table when next you come to visit. We'll have a candle lit. The water will be clear in summer, and I will take her wading. The stars are singing now. Hurry, before down, and make to the road. Do not cross the Downs. Tom is singing to the swelling buds, singing that they ready for spring, but you need only call for Tirlómë to seek him if you find trouble on his lands.”
The elf was rising to his feet, slipping into his boots, as slender Goldberry slipped a cloak over his shoulders; the fabric warm, and rippling as if it were made of the stream itself; woven of greens the color of lily and lichen, and the stone grey that clung to the bottom of the Withywindle. It smelled of lily, of fresh water, and sun kissed dawn. Ruivo's shoulders were weighted with the satchel, with the strap of his lute, and lastly his dagger sheath placed in his hand. He felt at his belt, surprised, for he had forgotten the knife had even been removed.
“Before the dawn, be on your way,” Goldberry ushered, saying nothing else, but reaching to brush Ruivo's cheeks with smooth hands that cleansed away the salty sea trails, as if he had dipped his face into the stream and cleansed it. Ruivo could only nod, grateful, and a warm loaf of bread was pressed into his hands. The door of the home swung open, and a blur of white flapped through the pre-dawn twilight. Tirlómë hooted thrice, then flew south-east, and Ruivo's footsteps followed close behind as he started toward the Great East Road, and Imladris.
*sea fever by John Masefield
**the night sky by Mary Webb