As always I must thank my patient beta readers, Aearwen and Ruger and all of the wonder writers on the Garden of Ithilien. Any remaining mistakes are my responsibility.

‘Look out!’ The silent warning was so unexpected that Haleth, instead of doing the sensible thing and dropping to the bottom of the boat, looked up to see the source of the danger.

Something whizzed over Inglor’s head and embedded itself in the mast, brushing her arm on the way by. Haleth, grasping her injured arm, recoiled in shock.

‘Haleth? Are you well?’ asked Inglor, jumping out of his seat and violently rocking the boat.

She examined her injury. The arrow, which was still quivering in the mast, had ripped open her sleeve. A thin, red gash ran across her upper arm. ‘Yes, Inglor, it only scratched me,’ said Haleth. ‘I told you they were trying to kill us,’ she added.

‘I never disagreed with you on that point,’ he said. Bracing his feet, he pulled the arrow out of the mast and threw it over the side. ‘We are nearly out of their range, but it would be best if we put more distance between us.’

With Inglor steering the ship and Haleth working the sail, they quickly made their way to the west.

After some initial miscommunications, they worked quite well as a team. Inglor would suggest to Haleth that she adjust the sail to best catch the wind. It was difficult, particularly at first as the wind was blowing directly from the west. They had to tack to make the best use of it, but this required good communication between them.

Unsurprisingly, they had different ideas of how this could best be accomplished. It led to disagreements; at least, it did after the black ship was lost on the horizon behind them. The situation was not made any better by Inglor’s sudden decision to speak Quenya instead of Sindarin. He changed languages while in the middle of directing Haleth of how to trim the sail.

She stared at him blankly.

‘You understand Quenya,’ he said softly.

‘I do, but not well.’ Haleth answered in Sindarin. ‘Now probably isn’t the best time for a language lesson.’  What was Inglor playing at now, insisting on speaking a language that she would never use again? She bit her lip to keep from shouting at him and tried to reason with herself.  It had been obvious for some time that Inglor missed his home very badly. He was understandably excited to return to the Undying Lands and leave everything of Middle-earth behind, including the languages and those who spoke them.  Even so, this was not a practical time to be nostalgic. She glared at the horizon as though a dozen Corsair ships were bearing down on them.

‘They are far behind us,’ said Inglor. Remarkably he had understood her unspoken allusion; or a least that part of it. To make up for that burst of comprehension, he continued speaking in Quenya.

Haleth glared at him. He returned her gaze with a calm, slightly bewildered expression. She sighed loudly. There was no arguing with Inglor’s whims and she hardly wanted to shout at him and spoil their last hours together. He was undoubtedly planning to set her on land somewhere in the vicinity of the dwarf settlements in the Ered Luin.

Her temper was not improved by the ache in her arm; the scratch made by the Corsair arrow stung. There was nothing to be gained by complaining about that either; so she did her best to follow his instructions, even though half the time she had to guess what it was that he wanted.

Through practice, she had things down more or less pat by the time the sun began to set.

When the wind died down, leaving her with nothing to do so she began to organize the food and water they had loaded in such a hurry on the dock at Mithlond. ‘You seem to have an awful lot of supplies,’ she asked as she righted a wooden chest. ‘How long will it take you to reach the Blessed Realm?’

‘Long enough,’ said Inglor.

Haleth favoured him with a long, penetrating look. She wondered if he was being deliberately evasive. There was no reason for it. It was not as though she could follow him.

If her intense scrutiny bothered him, he gave no sign of it. He leaned against the stern, one hand resting on the steering oar, the other draped over the gunwale. He seemed to glow in the rosy light of the setting sun.

Haleth’s skepticism transformed to regret; within a few days they would bid their final farewells and she would never, ever see him again. A lump rose in her throat. She scratched her arm to distract herself.

‘Would you care for some water?’ she asked hoarsely in badly accented Quenya.

‘Yes, please,’ he answered, smiling warmly at the way she massacred his mother-tongue.

Haleth examined the crates lining the bottom of the boat.

‘I don’t suppose you could tell me where the mugs might be?’ she asked.

Several hours later Haleth was lying at the bottom of the boat, staring up at the sky. At Inglor’s insistence, the sail had been furled for the night. Haleth wondered why he had suggested it. Even though she would be sleeping, the sail was close enough for him to adjust it from his current position. He would have to learn how to use both the sail and the steering oar simultaneously sooner or later.

She laughed silently at herself. After what he had done earlier that day, she had no reason to doubt his sailing skills.

The summer stars burned brightly above them. The air was warm and the ship rocked gently on the waves. It was soothing to lie at the bottom of the boat and watch the sky. She should have been easily lulled to sleep, but her mind kept dwelling upon the upcoming parting from Inglor. It was worse actually being in the ship with him because, although her rational mind knew she could never dare to approach Valinor, in her heart she wanted nothing more than to travel with him, even if it meant her death. She shifted restlessly and wished she had never set foot in the ship.

‘Are you not comfortable?’ Inglor asked.

‘I’m fine, Inglor,’ she lied. ‘My arm is a little itchy.’

Inglor began to sing. With images of white shores and tall, green hills filling her mind, Haleth passed in the world of dreams.