#shadowy seas

[cmax-writing]

I have a real hard time coming up with titles, particularly for chapters and books. It takes a while for me to be happy with a title. For my most recent book, The Patron Spirits of Kalish, I tried to focus less on something that would sound cool and more on something that would stand out a bit and be memorable without sounding completely stupid. This is in contrast to the book before it, Shadowy Seas, which I'm still not completely happy with the title of.

[novemberthecatadmirer]

Maybe the Shadowy Seas were haunted by dead swan ships

Completely stupid headcanon

I saw the headcanon that Teleri elves’ ships were sentient like Anglachel and I absolutely love it

If Teleri elves’ ships were sentient then they probably turned into something else after they got destroyed

The ones that sank turned into the enchanted isles

The ones that were burnt into ashes and smoke turned into the shadows and mist

The isles, shadows and mist moved just like the way they were when they were still ships

Teleri could walk on the islands and sail in the shadows & mist safely but anyone else (Especially Noldor) got knocked out in very ungentle way

The isles and mist disappeared in the end because their makers finally managed to convince them that it’s safe to be ships again

One of the first things every Teleri elves died in first kinslaying did after reembodiment was to find the isle/piece of shadow or fog that was their destroyed ship.

(The isles and shadows and fog looked all similar but somehow the elves could just tell. Creator’s instinct, something like that.)

It took a long while, but slowly they rebuilt the ships and coaxed the spirits back into their new bodies

(The ones that got burnt were the most traumatized.)

(Some ship spirits had opinions on what exact kind of new body they wanted. Some wanted to be shaped like seagulls or geese or killer whales.)

(Most of them wanted fire proof coating and some mechanisms that allowed them to shake down evil abductors and auto-pilot to safety.)

When Host of the West went to fight in Beleriand some of the ships they took were new ones with old spirits.

People had to carefully group the Noldor elves with Teleri & Vanyar elves and make sure the Noldor stay far away from the edges of deck. Otherwise they kept getting shook into the sea.

(My cracky theory “in Arda everything that existed for a long while or carried a lot of emotions and thoughts eventually started to develop some kind of spirit”)

[alicebeckstrom]

...and [Eärendil and Elwing] came into the Shadowy Seas and passed their shadows... ~ The Silmarillion, Chapter 24 (Shores of Heaven by brandtcampbell, deviantART)