Morning found Tindalma at the door of her old home, her belongings, laid aside on the front steps. The scraping was done, and Faelon had joined them at dawn to help return the ship to the water. All that was left to do now was to finish stocking and loading supplies. Tindalma had left the boys to it.  She had another errand.

With a quiet sigh, she stepped up to the door and knocked softly. Like every time before, there was no answer, but she opened the door anyway. Only a few candles burned inside, and the two front windows were veiled shrouding the house in partial darkness. Against the far wall were two old chairs, but only a single figure sat there.

The door creaked in the silence as Tindalma swung it shut.

"Hello Rainä," she greeted quietly. The figure lifted her head, but did not turn her gaze from the opposite seat. Her father's seat. "I've come to let you know that we're going on a voyage. We should be gone a few weeks. Maybe longer." Still no response. Tindalma sighed. It was always the same.

Then she moved. Slowly, as if the effort were too great, she stood, facing her daughter with hollow, dead eyes. "Do you have anything else to say? Or are you only here to disturb my mourning yet again?"

Anger prickled in Tindalma's chest, but she kept her voice calm. "I have nothing more to say to you, mother. Only that it has been years since father's death and there are other things in life for you beside mourning him."

"Like what," she spat. "You? You left my life long ago when you helped not one, but three Noldor escape this city. You sided with those who murdered my husband. You're nothing to me."

Tindalma drew back a step, stung.  Without another word she yanked the door open. "Try to survive while I'm gone," she snapped shortly, stepping out and slamming the door behind her. Snatching her bundle from the steps, she strode off down the road, back toward the ship. She was not really angry. It was hard to hate someone so broken, whom she had once loved so dearly.

Shaking her head, she quickened her pace down the road, trying to enjoy the brisk breeze sweeping the port city. It was a good wind that would fill their sails and carry them far, far away from this bloodstained, memory spattered place.  Those Noldor.  

It had been just after the attack.  After her father's death, Tindama had hidden in a back alley.  Once the screaming stopped, she ventured out again.  In the next alley over she found a small child, no older than twenty at most.  A Noldo child.  Tindalma had let her go, along with her two older brothers who had come back to search for her, showing them an unused road out of the city.  

Rainä had never forgiven her. 

Tindalma raised her chin to look out at the sea.  It was time for another voyage. A real one. No more two day fishing trips up the coast, but a real journey out onto the vast ocean.

"Oi!" Aearion's voice jarred her back to reality. She looked up to see him hanging by one hand over the side of the ship from the lowest rigging, the other arm dangling limply as he leaned out toward her. Grinning she came to a stop before him.

"You lazy boys got the ship loaded yet?" she questioned, crossing her arms.

He let himself out enough to come nose to nose with her, returning the grin. "While you were day dreaming, sure."

From the deck above, Faelon cleared his throat. The both looked up to see his unamused frown over the gunwale. "If you don't mind, I'd like to be sailing sometime before tomorrow."

"Oh you'll get your wish, you impatient old gull," Aearion crowed, swinging back up onto deck, and tousling the other's silken silver head.  This earned him an icy glare.  "Just as soon as Tily gets her slow self in here and we push off."

Shaking her head, Tindalma tucked her bundle tight under one arm and started up the ladder. Faelon pulled her up the final rung onto the deck, pausing as he looked down at the bundle, a frown creasing his brow.

"You're bringing that old sword?"

Now it was Aearion's turn to grow serious. "She brought the what?"

"The sword."

"Why?"

They both turned to her expectantly.

She shrugged. "I didn't want to leave it with your siblings."

Aearion raised one sharp brow, unconvinced, but shrugged and paced off to cast off from the dock. "Do as you please. If we start sinking, you know what's first to go."

She chuckled softly, staring blankly down at the wrapped blade against her side. Even through the cloth and her shirt she could feel the chill of the metal on her skin. Looking up, she caught Faelon's gaze lingering on her for a moment longer, before he too turned away and began to untie the ropes that held the the sails back.

Heading below deck, Tindalma wasted no time in tucking both blade and clothing away in her small cabin and banishing all thoughts of it, the Noldor, and her mother from her mind.  Leaving the hold, she scaled the steep steps to the deck, smiling as the warmth of the sun touched her cheeks and the brisk sea breeze tossed her hair.  

It would be good to leave for a time.  

"Casting off!" Aearion called from the aft.  "Sails ready, Faelon!"  

"Ready."  

At the cue, Aearion pulled free the ropes that bound ship to shore and Faelon released the boom, lowering it steadily into place.  The sail unfurled with a rush of wind from their long yard, proudly displaying Alqualondë's star at their center.  They drifted only a moment, before a brisk breeze caught the tall Lateen sail and sent them skimming forward across the water, the speed raising them atop the waves.  They seemed barely connected to the water below, grazing its surface only enough to throw up a rooster's tail behind them that gleamed like a prism in the bright sun.

Tindalma took her place at the tiller, running a fond hand down the wood, weathered soft by use.  Planting her feet, she pulled it steady left and the ship veered against it, swinging around to point its bow toward the great arch over the the harbor's exit.  

The white stone archway towered over the ship as they flew toward it.  Tindalma tipped her head back to gaze up at its beauty, the natural knots in the stone, the equal fragility and strength of such a structure.  Greenery grew lushly in the crags where the gulls nested.  The sea birds wheeled about its greatest height, their white wings flashing in the morning sun.

Her father always told her that the Lord Ulmo himself had carved it out of a mountain that once stood there, forming a gateway into their home.  Her breath caught.  There she went thinking about him again.  Setting her jaw, she set the ship straight on, a chill racing down her spine as she passed under the shadow.  

Then they were out in the sun again. 

But for a moment, the sun's light felt cold.  Glancing back over her shoulder, Tindalma caught a glimpse of Alqualondë one last time before it was hidden by the rocky wave break.  She shook off the feeling and faced the horizon once again.  She would see home again.  But for now...

"Faelon, set our course!" she called to the silver haired ellon, standing at the railing. 

"To where shall we sail?" he asked, bracing one hand on the taffrail as he turned back toward her.

"Take your pick, old friend," she replied, leaning her weight casually on the tiller.  "As long as it takes us a long, long way from here."