Haunted by Waters
I am haunted by waters. Haunted by the ghosts of all those I have lost in my long years and the waters which have borne them away from me.
Do not misunderstand me, I miss all of those people that I have loved and lost in more than two hundred years of life. Their faces flash before my inner eye, warriors and huntsman, singers and farmers, wizards and kings. The Hobbits who never grew old, no matter how many years they added to their lives. Éomer, my brother King, whose good sense and battle skills I could always count on, has been gone for nearly sixty years. Éowyn, his beautiful sister, whom I could have easily loved, if my fate had been different, abandoned her Prince and her life long ago. Faramir, beloved Faramir, my gentle, noble Steward whom I loved dearly and I miss every day does not disturb my sleep. No, these faces are at peace, their lives complete and my memories of them mellow. But there are two who will not let me rest and one other who is not a ghost yet, and does not understand that is her fate.
I would never give him the slightest hint, for he has been hurt too much in the past by comparisons, but Faramir was but a pale shadow of the golden, fiery Steward who barges his way into my memories and haunts my dreams. The man who first taught me how to love one of my own race and then forced me to accept that I was part of the race of Men. The man whose claims on my heart pushed me to fulfill my destiny. My lover, the Steward of my soul, and though I would never tell Faramir, the man whom I would have preferred to have beside me as the Steward of Gondor, if fate had been kinder.
Boromir, whom I could not save with my healing hands, was the one person for whom I would have given up everything to have been able to make him whole again. Yes, I would have sacrificed my chance with Arwen in exchange for Boromir's life. He invades my dreams with his sparkling eyes and his warrior's frame and my aged body responds to him even now. And I wake up trembling and panting, to clean off the results of my need for him.
Sometimes I sit beside the Great River of Gondor and listen to the current flowing by and I am haunted by the roar of a waterfall far to the North that took him away from me. And I wonder if the Lords of the West were surprised to see the tiny Elven boat borne across the ocean to them and I think that perhaps they would marvel at the mighty warrior brought so low by death. And then the sound of my tears becomes mixed with murmur of Anduin and I am haunted by more waters.
My only comfort when this grief seizes me is that I was able to grant him peace before he died, that I was able to heal his spirit if not his body. And his spirit rests because I kept my vow to him. As my body ages and my life draws to its end, I rejoice that I will be reunited with him.
But I worry that my grief for Boromir has brought my second ghost. This specter has a thin, almost Elvish face, with enormous blue eyes that were silently screaming the last time I saw him. I saved Frodo, I pulled him back from the Shadow, but I fear that I did him ill by that healing. I was so determined that I would not let him die like Boromir did, but I believe now that the kinder thing would have been to let him go. He was so damaged by his ordeal and the Ring, that when he comes to me in my dreams, his eyes are accusing and as dark as my guilt. I mended his body, but I think his spirit died.
When I take royal trips to the Southern fiefdoms of Gondor, I sit by the sea and watch the endless waves roll in from the West and I think of Frodo fleeing his sorrow on a grey ship. Another one of my mistakes sent to the West and another being whom I loved, but could not save. And the crash of the breakers haunts my dreams and I wake up sobbing.
But waking up does not dispel my ghosts, because there is one more and she sleeps beside me. My final mistake, but one that I will not be allowed to send to the West. She lives her life in blissful unconcern, because she does not understand what I have done to her. I was too weak to turn her away, too full of grief for Boromir that I allowed her to make this sacrifice. She has not yet tasted the full bitterness of the Gift of the One to Men. I fear that she will be haunted by the sound of the breakers and the sea-longing of her people will grow within her. I am afraid that her ghost will stalk my dreams when she comprehends that the last ship to the West has gone without her.
The sound that I hear, when I look at her unearthly perfection, is the musical tinkling of the many waterfalls of Rivendell. I see her dancing among the trees, the last daughter of the immortal line of Lúthien. I pray that I die before she does, because if my slumber becomes haunted by those waterfalls, I think that I will never sleep again.
by Raederle
Break, break, break,
On thy cold grey stones, O Sea!
And I would that my tongue could utter
The thoughts that arise in me.
—Alfred, Lord Tennyson
