Title: Eärwen

Author: Eärillë

Rating: PG

Warnings: (implied) Child Delivery, First Draft

Summary:
What is the perfect begetting-day gift for the Sea Maiden of the Swan Haven?

Genres: Character Study, Family, Ficlet, Fluff, Vignette

Place and Timeline: Beleriand, Aman: shores of the Great Sea

Characters: Eärwen, Ossë

Words (in MS Word): 695

Point of View: First Person, Past Tense; First Person, Present Tense

Challenge: Day 19: Rivendell:
"Every parting is a form of death, as every reunion is a type of heaven.”–Tryon Edwards.
Write a story or create a piece of artwork centred on meetings or reunions.

Author’s Notes:
In my universe (Rey-verse? Heheh.), Eärwen was born just at the end of the Great Journey. There is also a reason why Olwë her father entrusted her to a guardian, but perhaps I will address it in another story. For now, enjoy!
Rey

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I was born under the stars, beside the Great Sea. I had known much love tempered by fear of loss and restlessness to move on, to venture out, since I had still been in my mother’s womb. But the celebration that proceeded my birth was beyond what my limited experience had taught me to expect. The first sounds that greeted my ears upon coming into the world were the sea, my father’s relieved yelp, and my kind’s merry-making.

Three people attended my delivery, yet two of them were not of my kind. My father held me awhile after I was cleaned and bundled by my weary mother, with such teary wonder in his eyes and countenance that it caused my crying to cease. But then he passed me to one of the strange persons, another male, who received me as though accepting a boon.

And how he felt so invigorating! There was a wildness in him, in such a rate that I had not encountered in the spirits of my parents; yet I knew that it was not malicious, and in fact rejoiced in it just after a moment. My mother promised me playful, safe ventures in a new land, and so did my father, but neither of them had promised me such a thing in the water. And he did.

I was passed on, yet again, to the second strange person, and her long, coarse hair quickly grabbed my attention. I played with the strands and giggled.

She blew me several notes from a strange, colourful devise clenched by her lips, and I tried to imitate her while cooing happily. Next she pressed the wider end of the devise around one of my ears, evading my reaching hands, and I hear the gentle shushing and suffing of waves in it. My eyes widened considerably, and I laughed. I did not know how else to express my glee on such a sweet, beautiful yet powerful sound – that song I had been introduced since I was newly-formed, which was now so near and even captured in that devise.

There was a bit of talk between my parents and the two beings, and then I was passed to the invigorating male again, and he stared into my eyes, and smiled softly.

Such colouring! It somehow reminded me of the sea, and I wanted to touch them, to fall into their depths.

His smile widened, but he did not let me touch his eyes. Instead, he looked up and away from me, before looking back down at me and proclaimed in a soft tone in which I could hear the rushing of wind and the rumbling of waves, in words I later knew to be: “You are my Sea Maiden, and always will be.”

*

A light kiss falls on my temple, stirring me up from a deep, peaceful sleep. My eyes blink into focus and regard whom has kissed me with a bleary, bemused expression, not yet comprehending of my surroundings after such a detachment from reality.

I fell asleep lying languidly down on the wet, packed tidal line on a remote beach along Alqualondë, apparently. (To think that today is my begetting-day…) But now I find myself having rolled to the very edge of the water line. The waves somehow did not disturb me at all as I was slumbering away.

Sea Maiden, indeed, I muse to myself with a tiny smile.

And now I at last recognise who has woken me up as the person who named me at my birth, who was in my recent memory-dream, and who is like a second father to me. (And indeed, I call him “Father” in private.) My joy bubbles over, free from tethers I have never known existing, and I let out a laugh tempered by joyous sobbing. I never expected to see him again after we all moved here!

Now he lifts me into his lap and embraces me, kissing my brow, and I hug him back just as fiercely. “How fair you, child?” he asks, but I can only shake my head, speechless with poignant joy and wonderment. My family is complete again, at last…