Vassal of Uinen [One Shot] [Year 536 of the First Age]

The waves were lace this day; gentle, lapping against the shore while clouds hung white above. The sky pale blue of spring, and the breezes blew long and soft; a constant, light tension against fabric and skin. Birds glided above on currents of salt air, circling above cool waters which were so clear that the white stones far beneath could be seen sparkling.

His eye had been upon her for years. He knew her face; a shape sublime, perfect. A sweet, softly curved oval, with elegant tipped ears. Plush lips which spoke sweetly, and a laugh which reminded Ruivo of the high bells in the white towers of Alqualondë singing in a sea breeze beneath the stars. He wondered how she could be Noldorin at all, and imagined her a vassal of Uinien when she reminded him so often of his homeland, and he thought the Falmari should sing of her; the long tucked away part of Ruivo would sing of her; at least inwardly.

He knew her name. Her Quenyan name, her Sindarin name. He knew the names of her parents, and that they served the house of the golden sunburst of Finarfin. He knew wherefrom they had come in Valinor, and that they had crossed upon the Helcaraxë in the bitterness of that long winter, and later had taken themselves to Doriath with Artanis, who was now called Galadriel. He knew the fear upon their faces as they had fled that realm thirty years past when blood had run through the caves of Menegroth, and the birds of Melian had bid the searchers to find them lost in the forest.

That was when he had first seen her; a fair maid in tattered array, though he asked not her name or anything of her; he was not there to ask. He was only there by the tug on his heart to seek them. To do a small deed. To try and offer some repayment for what his kin had done; those who still followed the red sworded oaths of the Fëanorians.

So often had she come to the docks, and Ruivo strayed out of sight. The rangy elf could almost sense her approach. His eye would catch a movement; a strange glimmer in the daylight, or under Tilion, the tug of a silver thread.. And he knew she was there. He felt the squeeze of her on his heart. Something which went beyond infatuation. The elf knew infatuation. He had flesh and bone and blood, and there had been a time he might have acted upon it, but no longer was that time part of him, so now he simply watched.

Imagination. Of course, he imagined it, the line of silver which would point to her. It was only the way the sunlight or moonlight reflected upon the water. Upon her hair. Upon the particles of dust and drifting sand which would blow off the sea.

Her eyes were green like seafoam. Gleaming golden in the light of summer and autumn, her hair, and when winter fell it peeked tawny beneath her hood, though some tressed would cleave still to summer light. Often her hair was up; pinned away from her slender neck, though on rare occasion it fell down in waves as upon the shores of the sea, and the depths of it were a mystery as unexplored by his fingers as dark tidepools which formed upon distant cliffs across the sea in a summer rain.

She loved the sea otters on the edge of the docks, and it had been years since Ruivo had begun to slip the slinky creatures treats each morning and evening. He would purchase abalone and mussels from the fishing boats, and line them along the planks. The otters would come to bask and drift for the easy food. Season after season. Year after year. Birthing their pups near the mouths of the Sirion, and lingering in the fair weather, and the mistmaid would wander here to watch them. Often with her mother at her side, though sometimes not.

Today she was alone, and her dress was white as the feathers of the swan. Her neck bare, and Ruivo felt there should be a silver chain, and a pearl set just above her collarbone. Ruivo imagined jewels as fine as those he had crafted when he still held his good sight in Tirion; jewels which could be set as a garland about her head, around her ears. An otter was drifting on it’s back on the other side of the dock, a pearlescent shell of abalone nestled against the sleek fur of it’s belly, while a smaller otter dipped in and out of the water surrounding it.

She was laughing, and the sound was rising up, mingling with the sure flap of flags upon the masts and ropes creaking. If Ruivo could touch the sound of her laughter, he would. If he could capture it in a shell or bottle and hold it to his ear when the need drew upon him, he would do so. Mixing with the sloshing of the waves as they slapped against hull and the rudder. Ruivo had been coiling a fresh chain upon the deck of the Vingilótë while it sat anchored and taking on repairs and supplies. While Earendil the half-elf visited his family; his young children, and prepared to depart again.

Then she had stepped out onto the docks this day, and since that moment, Ruivo was still, one hand wound within the netting that he leaned against, gripping tightly. The chain he had been coiling was forgotten in the grasp of his opposite hand. The delicate courtier of Menegroth in the sight of his skyblue eye watching so keenly as if he may have caressed her with sight alone.

A heavy sigh drew past his lips. His fingers twinged and tugged. The feeling made him grip harder upon the netting, and he wondered how she would react if he simply called out her name from above.

“Ruivo.”

So startled at the voice which had come behind that the chain slipped Ruivo’s grasp and clattered upon the white deck leaving a black smear of iron dust. Círdan, stood behind him, a placid smile upon his face. The shipwright brushed at the smudge with his foot, and then looked toward the elf who was now gaping at him, having been caught. Ruivo’s back was now turned to the elleth on the dock, and instead upon the aged face.

“Have you yet spoken to her?” Círdan asked, his eyes as keen as stars as Ruivo shook his head the negative, though he half turned again toward Mithiel; his eye still watching. Longing.

“Thirty years and you do not speak,” Círdan muttered.

“I have no leave to speak to her,” Ruivo answered him quietly, and the old elf stared at him long, holding his eye. Then swiftly Círdan turned on his heels, striding toward the edge of the deck.

The bearded elf peered down upon the elleth, calling over onto the dock, “Galu!” Blessings! and waiting for her to turn her eyes away from the otters and greet him in turn.“My lady is here often. Would she desire a tour of the Vingilótë before she again draws anchor?”

When the offer was accepted, Círdan, turned to look to Ruivo, and the elf’s ears were tipped as red as his hair. “You know every board and link upon this ship. Well enough suited to grant a tour,” Círdan told him. Saying nothing else, the old Shipwright started toward the wide gangplank to descend to the dock and collect his young guest, but when he returned, with her upon his arm, the tall Falmari had vanished.

When Círdan and Mithiel rounded the cabin, Ruivo slinked around the other end, like an otter slipping into the water, he slipped back down from the ship, and found his heart pounding in his chest as he made way to the shipwrights forge.

It was not that he did not wish to speak to her. He wished desperately; for the first time since his departure from Formenos he wished something of the sort, but he knew it was all folly. The sight of him would bide his rejection. The scars upon his face. His blindness would frighten her. If not that, his station. She was a courtier. He, a smith who crafted upon the docks. Beyond that; his past. He should not desire. He did not deserve to desire, and he would not broach the subject. She deserved not his burdens and sorrows, nor the treacheries of his past, and at least while he did not speak with her, she would still come again to the docks to watch the otters, and he would be able to look upon her and know she was well.