A vision in the Night - a minute after midnight Who: Voronwë and Idril When: Shortly after midnight Where: Close to the Guest houses of the Steward What: Voronwë's vision and then a walk in the night Status/rating: Incomplete/PG for mention of death
Voronwë was resting, for the first time it seemed, truly resting in this foreign city and foreign time. The realisation that his awakening here in Minas Tirith was no fell dream still worried his thoughts and he found it difficult to fully settle with it. For what then, was his purpose?
For now the only purpose he had, was rest. Days spent in constant contemplations on the information he had been able to obtain that proved he indeed had been removed from his true time with six millenia, had exhausted his mind.
At first, as the vision building in Voronwë mind found him returned to his ship, he had thought the fell dream finally had ended. It had however only just begun...
The once so proud ship creaked and groaned as huge waves crashed over it again and again with punishing force. The foremast and the mainmast were broken just above the middle, their jagged remains tangled in and beat by torn rigging and scraps of tattered sail in the strong gales of the storm. Voronwë was filled with fear and dread as the storm only increased in force and wrath around them. As if the Valar in their anger and vengeance themselves had decided to draw up the deepest and coldest waters of the ocean to crush and bury the ship and the Elves upon it beneath the waves. Simply for attempting to seek their aide.
Voronwë could hardly breathe for the strong winds nor move, the deck almost alive beneath his feet from the violent movements of the ship, as he watched more of his crew being washed over the railings and into the all-consuming sea.
Nothing could withstand this for long, not even ships built by the legendary shipwright Cirdan, and Voronwë was certain it would not be much longer before he as well was swallowed up by the sea, cast away and refused by the Valar, and finally destroyed when they had been so close to home. Nothing had ever crushed hope and faith as thoroughly within Voronwë than this realisation.
Not even as another huge wave rolled over the ship, crushing it beneath its waters and pulling Voronwë with it... so deep into the sea, he thought his lungs would explode from the pressure and the lack of air. Consciousness escaped him and only returned as he opened his eyes again, squinting against the bright sunlight. Wet sand was beneath his cheek and hands, small waves washing against his feet.
Voronwë blinked and groaned with pain and exhaustion as he struggled to sit. Finally he was able to look around, letting his gaze linger on the signs of shipwreck that had been washed ashore alongside him.
No signs of life met his eyes though. Not even the bodies of his crew and friends had the sea relinquished from its grip. Only the remains of the ship littered the shoreline on either side of him. Voronwë turned his gaze towards West and the now quiet sea.
Why had he been spared? Why had he alone been left to bear the pain and anquish of survival above all others, of utter failure? Voronwë could not comprehend such cruelty, or the pain it left in his heart. Alone on the beach Voronwë wept from the pain and the dark hopelessness inside him.
Voronwë awoke with a choked gasp and sat, looking into the darkness of the tiny room, eyes blurred with the tears of his vision, heart broken with the despair he had felt on the beach. For long moments he sat, piecing the vision back together in his mind, remembering everything is such detail, as if it was truly was a memory, merely returning to him...
And it was, because he had failed, he had been washed ashore, the sole survivor of the wrath of the Valar. Voronwë knew this with a certainty that chilled his heart.
But why had it come to him now, like this, as a dream? Was it to mock his earlier thoughts - hopes - of being caught in a dream sent by Morgoth? Voronwë could rest no more on this night, almost fearful that such rest would only bring more memories like this.
Voronwë dressed and left the small chamber, heading outside. Perhaps the fresh air of the night would clear the ghosts and pains away from his mind.