Wanderer

50 - Paradise

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Earendil

I awoke violently, jumping unsteadily to my feet. 

The Vingilote had no movement.

Several times during the night, I had felt a shift in the boat's movement. The massive current ebbed and slowed, but we'd always been moving.

Beside me, Elwing also awoke and joined me at the prow in the swan's neck.

Neither of us could speak.

The Vingilote had moored at a beautiful white sand beach, edged by pale, milky-white cliffs. Streams of crystal ran down the shell-dotted sand to the pawing waves. Beyond the beach, through a little pass, I caught a glimpse of green hills on fire with dewdrops illuminated by the rising sun. 

I shook my head. Nothing could have prepared me for such perfect beauty.

"Look," Elwing said, turning.

Behind us, where we had come, there was a great rent in a sea of white lillies that stretched as far back as I could see. 

"What do you make of that?"

"It's like a huge pond," Elwing said. "How could anything like that grow in salt water?"

"I don't know." I answered. A gentle wave, crested in foam, brought a particularly large seashell up onto the shore. No sooner had the wave abandoned it did a vibrantly green crab poke its head from the depths of the shell and scuttle after the retreating wave.

"It's beautiful here," Elwing commented. "Are you sure this is the end?"

I looked as far down the beach as I could see. In my line of sight, it was perfect and unbroken.

"I hope so," I said, and leaped down. I hit the ground right where the sand and the sea met, water splashing me all over. I tasted it, and thus drank the coolest and sharpest drop of water I'd ever had.

With it came a realization.

"Elwing, I need to go on alone here."

Elwing looked down at me with utter horror. "You can't do that. Earendil, I need to have you with me."

For a moment, I considered telling her of her promise not to need me, but then I realized she was right. I needed her at the end of the world more than she needed me. 

"Come on down then," I said.

She jumped, and landed next to me gracefully. I noticed that her feet were bare, and she was dressed in white.

"Are you nervous?" I asked her with a smile.

Elwing just slipped her hand in mine. "Not with you."

We crossed the sand, which was cool between my fingers and seemed to be speckled with a blue jewel's dust. The pass led us through cliffs  dotted with caves overhung with curtains of green.

"Maybe on the way back?" I said playfully, slipping my hand behind Elwing's back. 

Cue the kiss.

Out of the cliffs and over the hills, we were met with wonder after wonder. The grass seemed to be made of silk, and sported flowers of purple, white, and gold. Through meadow after meadow we wandered, through groves of perfect silver birches, towering oaks, and cherry trees that were explosions of pink and white blossoms. 

At last, overwhelmed with the beauty, Elwing and I followed a stream that cascaded down hills and into pools until at last it ended in a motionless pond edged with willows and laden with nenuphars.