Thalassophobia (Tumblr Crosspost)

[endless_natterings]

Day 1 Prompt: Eärwen

Relationships: Eärwen/Finarfin

Summary: Eärwen is terrified of the sea, which is not an ideal thing for a princess of the Teleri. She might also be losing her mind but that's not something she wants to talk about.

Warnings: Blood and injury, unconscious/unwitting self-harming behavior, drowning, uncontrolled foresight.

AO3 Link

Author's Note: This was my first time writing for Eärwen but I think I did a pretty good job (and it's always fun to play with the whole foresight thing)


There’s a story the Falmari tell, something about how while Ossë taught them how to build their ships, Uinen taught them how to swim and dive deep beneath the waves. Parents tell their children that she’s the reason the can hold their breath longer than any other of the Eldar, and why the water will never hurt them. She will always be there to catch them and take them home, sweet friend to their kin that she is. That they love their craft because of Ossë but their ocean because of Uinen.

Their love and sea are one and the same, and they are loved in return, well and often.

It’s a story Eärwen keeps turning over and over in her mind, she grew up with it after all, her father’s voice soft and gently and full of wonder when he told it. But it just makes it harder to not blame the Maia for her pain.

After all, she was normal until she first went in the water.

She had been very little still, but the Falmari toddle, then swim, then walk as her people say. She was little and she remembers her mother holding her feet above the water. She remembers giggling, feeling the waves lap at her feet.

Then she remembers being lowered gently into the water, and then nothing. Her parents tell her she screamed, that she shook and they thought they’d lost her for a moment. Then they say that she probably only lived because the illness or misfortune or whatever it was, struck in the water, that it kept her safe.

Maybe it did, and maybe she would have been better off if it hadn’t. Ever since that day she’s been half-here half-somewhere else. That ever since the water she keeps slipping between the cracks of what is real and what isn’t and that it gets worse the closer she gets to the ocean. So she blames Uinen and Ossë, and maybe even Ulmo because she was normal and present before it all.

It’s not fair but it’s what her thoughts wander to as she idly watches her father’s guests mingle on the pleasure barge. Her father had suggested going sailing, and his friend had agreed. She had not been asked if she wanted to go, she had just been expected to.

And judging from the looks the rest of the guests are wearing, they’re in a similar – The ground shifts under her feet and she’s watching the sea turn wine red. She’s trying to scream and no sound will come and there are gray eyes staring at her- there’s a pair of gray eyes staring at her, one of Noldorin princes has been talking to her. He’s either the eldest or the prince born after, they’re both dark haired and she can’t tell them apart.

“-the weather seems to be holding, I heard it was- it was necessary, there was no other way around it, we-” There’s a dark sky above her, darker than she’s ever known it to be, and firelight shining off the water and-

In hindsight it is a foolish thing to do. In the moment the only thing she can think of is that she needs to get away from the gray eyes and the boat.

So she jumps straight into the water.

The water burns when it runs into her lungs and her vision blurs. She can feel the air being forced out of her, can feel the current dragging her forward like a rag-doll.

She’s- not here anywhere but here- drowning and something pulls at her fëa and- there’s a girl drowning right next to her and Uinen reaches out, hands covered in coral and barnacles and-

There’s a boy. She can’t see him, not really, not through the saltwater. But she can feel the thread of gold running through his clothes and his hands grabbing on to her, trying to pull her up. To pull her out.

Her first thought is that she will drag him down to the depths with her. Her second is that if she doesn’t grab hold of him she’ll die.

It feels like a miracle when they break through the surface.

Her fingernails dig into his skin, leaving behind bright red trails of blood. Anyone else would drop her. He holds on tight, even though she can feel him wince under her hands. It’s only when they’re back on the shore, sand sticking to her skin and his hands gently smoothing her hair, that she remembers to apologize.

“It’s only a little blood,” his smile breaks her heart, he looks unsure of what to do with an apology, like he’s used to being an afterthought, “the water already washed most of it away. See?”

“I did not mean the blood. I was dragging you down with me, you would have drowned.” They would have sunk to the bottom and disappeared. Or they would have ended up on the shore, bodies bloated and feasted upon.

Her nails are still stained, and- She is in a garden when she feels it. She grips the stone fence hard enough to make herself bleed, it stains- There’s a cut on her lip from where she always bites down. It grounds her. Usually.

“If you hadn’t held on to me you would have died. Your life was worth the risk.” The expression on his face makes her wish she had studied painting. His golden hair is damp and stuck to his forehead, and he sounds like he means it.

She wants to answer, wants to apologize again, or maybe tell him his life is worth too much to risk it rescuing an insane princess. Shouting interrupts her.

“Eärwen!” It’s her mother and somewhere in the distance, the rest of the party are also running towards them. “What in the world where you thinking jumping overboard like that?”

She should probably say something, apologize to her parents, to the visiting king- “What in the world are you thinking? Can’t you see?” It’s her own voice that echoes, tired and scared. Something is breaking her heart, something is- her mouth is all cotton and molasses though, and for some reason she suddenly understands the desperate look in her mother’s eyes.

“She didn’t jump,” her rescuer lies, “I saw her, it was an accident.”

They believe him and so frustration turns to fussing over her.

Later, he sits next to her at dinner. Introduces himself as Arafinwë and asks if it would be alright if her were to write to her. She almost says no, still embarrassed by the near-drowning but- there’s a garden full of violet and blue blossoms, the grass feels soft under her feet, and Arafinwë is laying on the ground eyes closed and a smile on his face- he’s still looking at her with so much hope and she decides she wants the garden.

So the letters start coming weekly and she finds out she actually enjoys writing back. He’s kind, always patient, and most importantly he listens to what she says.
It starts small, a complaint about her father not understanding her, or a comment on how much of a mess their archival system is. How she wants to change things and she can’t because every meeting is either near or on the sea and she wouldn’t be able to breathe let alone speak.

And when he writes to her about his family? About how his father barely sees him if his eldest brother is in the room, how one of his sisters has built walls higher than the Pelóri and the other hunts for affection like she needs it to breathe? How he sometimes catches his mother staring off into the distance like she’s lost something, or how one of his older brothers is likely to follow the other off a cliff if it meant winning his love?

She doesn’t tell him about the blood that fills her eyes when she reads some of his letter, or how she sees fire everywhere when he speaks of his brothers. He has enough worries. Instead she offers to have him come visit, to maybe take an apprenticeship with the Falmari archivists. She tells him she’ll speak to her father if he’d like, to ask for a place at his council table for Arafinwë.

When he finally arrives at the city gates she’s there to greet him, she walks with him arm in arm through the city and ignores the feeling of frostbite that lingers where they’ve touched.

His proposal comes soon after.

Love is a fickle thing- there’s screaming, she thinks it’s her but her voice comes out ragged and wounded and Arafinwë is staring like he doesn’t know how to fix it- and she tells him as much. He smiles and offers her trust- everything is silent so so terribly silent-, friendship, and the chance to build a home together.

Her friends scoff when she tells them. Her mother sighs, and her father asks if he needs to send a letter to Arafinwë’s father asking for an apology. It’s frustrating, they way they don’t understand that what he’s offered is enough.

More than enough. She likes Arafinwë, trusts him. And he doesn’t roll his eyes or ask her incessant questions when her mind goes somewhere far away. He’s solid and present next to her, ready to welcome her back.

The Falmari tend to love as the sea does. But Eärwen will take solid ground over the tide each and every time. And the further she is from the water, the easier it is to ignore the horrible things it makes her see. Aranfinwë understands, even if others don't.


The concept of someone being scared by the very things that are supposed to define them is fascinating to me. And her seeing these out of context snippets of a future she doesn't know enough about to prevent (or even that it is the future) just feels so tragic to me