Birdie fell into an exhausted sleep at the rail. She dreamed she beheld white shores and beyond them a far green country under a swift sunrise.
The Elven ship was pulling up to a great, stone dock, and Cirdan stood by the pier, shouting "Welcome home, Elf-Kind! Return to Aman!"
And the passengers disembarked, but there were no half-elves, or half-elf/half hobbit combos. Every one was an elf, and every one looked exactly alike, tall, fair, and impossibly beautiful. In lock step, they marched down the ramp chanting "We return to Aman, We return to Aman", while Cirdan called "Off the ship! Everyone off the ship!"
"They look like such shiny, happy people," thought Birdie.
Birdie saw someone she knew was Child, though she looked just like everyone else, and her face had a polish like stone. All lines of hobbit character were erased, and her feet were uncomfortably naked.
Birdie tried to follow Child, Pio, and the other down the ramp, shouting "Wait! You don't want to do this!" Suddenly Cirdan turned to Birdie, but instead of the face of the wise, bearded elf, she saw the face of a demon!
"Off the ship!" he screamed, and pushed Birdie off the ramp into the sea. As Birdie sank into the blue-green waters, she saw the light flashing through the ceiling of the waves. Suddenly a greenish face with a kelp brown goatee looked down on her. "Sink or swim. Sink or swim," he said in a matter-of-fact way. And then he began to sing:
"O what hills are yon, yon pleasant hills,
That the sun shines sweetly on?"
"O yon are the hills of heaven," he said,
"There you will never win."
"O whaten a mountain is yon," she said,
"All so dreary wi' frost and snow?"
"O yon is the mountain of hell," he cried,
"Where you and I will go."
"He strack the tapmast wi' his hand
The foremast wi' his knee
And he brake the gallant ship in twain
And sank her in the sea."
Birdie woke with a start. "The Demon Lover. The Demon Lover!?...I have to find Child!"
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