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Ulmo’s essence flowed through the turns and bends of the Sirion: his favorite waters in Middle Earth, this land a wide ocean apart from his brethren. Yet in all waters – streams, dews, falls, rains, and beyond – the Music flowed….in, through, and around him. It was part of him, he was part of it. He was restless in this way, he knew, continuous like a waterfall. Movement was in his very being.
The Music’s ending was not for him to know – not for any but the One. Certainly, he might manifest his independent will by stepping in to aid the Children. He chuckled to think of his dear brother’s divergent view on changing the course of things for them…with the water around him stirring and bubbling with his laughter.
Nevertheless, he and his brother were inextricably tied. Water and air combined to make rain, wind carried mist and moisture. Air was in water and water was in air. These things they made together.
A memory returned to him…of what he said to the One ages and ages ago.
Water is now become fairer than my heart imagined, neither had my secret thought conceived the snowflake, nor in all my music was contained the falling of the rain. I will seek Manwë, that he and I may make melodies forever to thy delight!
And Ulmo smiled to remember it, water stirring around his being with his easy joy.
He and his brother could remain one – even while so far apart. Ah, he missed him, he would sometimes see a bird and think…perhaps soon to Valinor, to see him and all of his kin. Yet now to remain here and imbue these waters with his protection and grace. He considered it his duty.
Yes, his independent will, his reflection returned to…his streams of thought flowing together and apart. He had no issue asserting such conviction, yet some things being only for the One to know? That he would always respect. Just as water flowed, adapting to the land or material containing it, he could accept such uncertainty and limitation.
Yet, indeed, so much of the Music he knew well – knew intimately. He thought back to the Doom of Mandos…oh yes, Osse had told him of it, having witnessed from the waters off Alqualonde.
Some of these “Noldor” – of the Children for whom he truly did care…they were unaware of their enmeshment in this pivotal, perilous Doom. He felt a pull to warn them, just as current pulls tides and streams gush over falls.
He would occasionally wonder why he felt such a drive to help…and then he would remember. On a profound level, deep as the deeps only he and the One knew, it was who he was. Water is life, life is water; the Music was the fate of life, the fate of life was the Music.
The will of the One or not, this was his calling – his charge on this Arda they shared. Even the Secondborn who feared him, just as they did all of his brethren, would he aid – because he could. Because it was right. And he thought of doing right by them always, as continuously as a stream’s flow.
It was not that their existence should be without struggle…no, tumult was part of life, of existence: thereby part of him. Yet strife need not go unchallenged; light and shadow would intermingle until Arda’s end. This truth was also part of existence, of the Music…of him.
His servants Ossë and Uinen were unrest and calm, respectively – and his struggle with them was to have their energies balance and synergize. He chuckled again to think of his frustrated counsels to them, and how he still held them both so very dear – waters surrounding his essence again stirring with his mirth.
These thoughts – like a river once again changing course with the land – turned back to these Noldor, of the Exiles to which his heart was called, who he cared for like no other of his kindred did….two specific ones, ones he had seen and known in the Music: those with strength, wisdom, and purity of heart.
They would need all of those assets through their winding, grinding paths ahead. He only needed to prepare them to shore it all up, like lines secured on the Swan Boats of Ossë’s tutelage. Their strength, wisdom, and clarity of soul would guide them from there.
Part of his desire to act here was to stand against Melkor…once long, long ago a brother, now a power he would never trust (another certain difference between him and his dear brother, he reflected, waters bubbling around him yet again with the pondering).
The warning he had to send these Firstborn concerned the success of his armies and the overthrow of those in the North. That was an outcome he refused to abide without resistance, not without doing what he could to prepare the Exiles for its eventuality. With his warning, they could gather forces and secure places of strength from which to defend, and – if needed – attack.
And so down the Sirion he flowed: waters swirling to form the warning visions he would send them, and the turbulence of the water increasing as he moved through it. He would often come as a great wave…yet night was nigh. Arien had begun taking the sun below the horizon line. A deep sleep upon these two Noldor and then dreams of prophetic visions it would be…the diffuse nature of dreams as fluid as the waters that where his nature.
His horn would stay silent, and his form come towards land in gentle ripples on the shoreline rather than an imposing wave (which he knew did frighten the Children – something he regretted, but also knew could be necessary for them to fully appreciate the Powers of the West).
These musings brought him back to another memory from ages and ages ago, words from the One to himself, in wise and caring counsel:
Melkor yet hath not destroyed the beauty of the fountains, nor of thy clear pools. Behold the snow, and the cunning work of frost! Melkor hath not dried up thy desire nor utterly quelled the music of the sea.
Whatever the Music’s Crescendo might bring, there was hope in his choosing to always stand against Melkor – wherever, whenever, and however he may flow. This was his purpose. By his will, and concerted action, Melkor would never go unchallenged in this land that he cherished.