Light from Shadows

Chapter 10

Mîrrómen's POV

"Come on, little ones," Gil-galad called to us as he led us to the beach. He had taken the day off to get to know us better. "We're almost there." My eyes widened at the endless blue field that spread before us. Iltani was even more fascinated than I was and raced, laughing happily, to the beach shore. "Iltani, wait!" Gil-galad called after her, but she paid no attention.

Squealing with delight, she ran straight into the waves, which immediately tossed her back into the soft white sand. She gave a joyous laugh and charged right back into the sea's embrace. Elros and Elrond quickly followed her, with me hot on their heels. Gil-galad sighed and followed us to make sure none of us got hurt.

Elrond and Elros, who had lived next to the beach before, began building a sand castle. I found a jellyfish and Gil-galad promised me it wouldn't sting so I picked it up and poked it in confusion. It jiggled, to my great amusement, so I poked it again. It jiggled again, causing me to laugh before I asked what it wanted.

I saw it thinking of drifting in the sea and, without thinking, I wandered into it to help it get home. As soon as I went waist deep into the salt water, I felt a powerful presence in my head and heard an angry voice demand. "What do you want here, son of Morgoth?!" I whimpered but quickly freed the jellyfish before scurrying back to the shore as swiftly as possible.

Elrond and Elros had abandoned the sand castle so I went looking for more sea life. I found a starfish and a sea anemone in a tide pool. Gil-galad approached me with something in his hand. "Put this to your ear." He told me as he pressed a conch shell into my hand. I did... and I heard the sea roaring in my ears. I looked up at him in amazement, he grinned back.

Suddenly he whirled around to see Elros and Elrond horsing around quite roughly and chasing seagulls. "Elrond, walk please! Elros, stop tormenting the Sea life!" Suddenly there was a loud wail from a little ways down the beach. Elrond, Elros, Gil-galad and I rushed to see what happened. It seemed Iltani had been teasing a crab that was toddling across the beach. Having never seen a crab before, Iltani was curious and decided to get a much closer look.

The crab had grabbed her nose and no matter how much she shook her head it wouldn't let go. Gil-galad managed to coax it to let go by offering it a noodle from our picnic lunch. It took the noodle, let go, and toddled towards the ocean. Iltani began wailing and Gil-galad scooped her into his arms and began cooing. "It's ok, sweetheart, it's gone now."

"The cute thing is evil!" Iltani wailed as Gil-galad gently bounced her in his arms. "No," he said as he tried to calm her down. "No sweetie, he was just startled. Shhhh, it's ok." Iltani didn't calm down however, she had never been hurt so before, so we left the beach, much to my relief.

When we were returned to our new nursery, Iltani fell asleep and I asked Elros. "Did you feel a presence when you went into the ocean?" "Do you mean Ulmo?" Elros asked. "He's a friend of my father's." "Then I suppose he is not a friend of MY father." I sighed, hating how everyone hated my family. 'Fëanorean brat' was among the more common insults, along with 'spawn of evil.'

"Well, I guess we can try to make him like you," Elrond suggested. "Maybe if you help his sea creatures, that would work." "I saved a jellyfish," I yawned tiredly. "I guess I'll just have to do it more often." We then snuggled together and fell asleep.