Written for the July 2008 LOTR_Community Challenge
My starter was:
The sound of the waves, the cry of the gulls and the salt smell seemed familiar, no matter that he had never encountered them before.

Sea Longing

I didn’t think of it much at the time.  I was busy.  Busy with the War and the army and my place in it all.  The cries of the gulls caught my ears, how could they not, loud raucous creatures that they are!  Not like the cries of the water birds I was familiar with.  There were hundreds of them about, I am certain.  Perched on every wooden post jutting out of the quays and every pile of rocks on the shore, while others bobbed about on the surface of the water.  Their cries echoed into the city.  But what were the gulls to me?  Yet . . . all these years later, the sound is with me still; comforting, although I find it makes me restless.

The memory of the smell of the Sea on the wind as it blew from the South is with me too.  Well, all I knew at the time was that the air smelled fresh in a way I had never smelled before.  I did not connect it with the Sea.  Not that I had never smelt the scent of a body of water, I had.  That different smell of wind flowing over the surface of a lake or broad river.  I knew that smell well.  But this; this was different.  I know the smell of salt when I smell it, and it was there in the wind, though faint, as though the breeze had only been lightly seasoned.  Sometimes, in my dreams, I smell it still.

And the soothing sound of waves lapping against the shore.  So different if the ground slopes into the water or if it forms steep banks.  Different too against the side of a boat.  Yes, I had heard the sound of the waves before.  Ofttimes now, it returns to lull me to sleep.

Familiar sounds, yet not.   A familiar smell, yet not.

Familiar, but different now.  It is all different here.  Different on this late summer’s day in this place I have never been to before.

This is the Sea.

The cries of the gulls do not echo here as they did then.  Well, a bit from the ruins of the ancient harbor behind me, but even so, much of their noise is lost in the Sea’s vast expanse.  The salt smell is strong and I taste it upon my lips.  The waves upon the rocks near the shore crash and roar.  I am lost in the wonder of it.

How odd it will be to leave it all behind.  But I find I am not sad at the parting.  A new adventure awaits!

“Come, my friend.  The time has come.  The others all have gone before us.  It is our turn now.”

I nod as I follow Legolas up the plank and onto the ship that will bear us away from Middle-earth.