Veils by wind rider

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Part 4

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Part 4

 

I wake up, again, to the realisation that my eyes were closed when I slept. And then I find that I am once more used like a little child’s stuffed animal by Erestor.

 

But then remembrance hits me, and I cannot believe it. Not even when I spy someone sitting with his back to us, someone with a rather familiar frame and bearing.

 

The puzzlement does not dissolve moments afterwards. Erestor wakes up, leaves the makeshift bedding, and calls for the watcher to go to rest. (It is time for him to make breakfast for all of us, he says.) And Fimlin obeys the order wordlessly, almost instantly, laying himself outstretched beside me without once glancing at whom he shares the blanket with. So careless, casual.

 

Moments later, after a careful look over at us, Erestor leaves the campsite. The water-skins are slung across his back, a grass-woven basket is in his hands, and the ornate sword belted to his right hip.

 

It all still feels – looks – like a dream, and I cannot believe it. But the smell of dewy grass and early-morning earth and blooming wildflowers are in my nose, and a light autumnal breeze caresses my cheeks. They are… realer… than mere dreams can ever hope to achieve.

 

–        “Neither Erestor nor Elrond ever diagnosed you of delirium, you know?” –

 

I blink uncomprehendingly. Fimlin is sitting up beside a small fire that was not there, with a small kettle hung above it. And he is gazing down at me squarely, a somewhat quizzical look on his stern face that makes me want to laugh.

 

“He wants you to rest,” I retort, when my still-bleary mind has caught up with reality. I blink again. I expected my voice to be yet rough from disuse and disrepair, but it is now as smooth as ever, although small and a little weak. And my throat no longer hurts, too.

 

A smirk plays on his lips, one that I remember from when he taunted me that night – which feels so long ago. If I could cringe, or recoil into myself, or back away, I would, now.

 

But he only says easily, without any hurtful emotions in it, “A warrior can never really go to rest in a field of battle. And what Erestor does not know, he will not be worrying about.”

 

I stare sharply up at him. (Again, this does not seem to bother him at all.) And a pleased smile lights up his strong features. “You can be a great asset for him, if only you are more thoughtful most of the time,” says he. But the statement just throws me into a deeper level of incomprehension. And worse, he refuses to elaborate the puzzle to me. (His typical smirk seems to tell me to find the answer for myself.)

 

I want to ask him about many things, many things about Erestor (and perhaps the elusive Elrond), now that he is more amenable towards me. Yet I cannot find the right place to begin, and I would rather skirt the questions that are ready in my mind for various reasons.

 

He bids me to try to sit up. I comply as best as I can, scrambling up with much effort and swaying a little drunkenly afterwards from it. (I try to ignore, as best as I can, that the night-cloak is now nearly all unwrapped from my naked body.) Then he proffers me a water-skin, and I reach out a weak, trembling hand.

 

He frowns. After apparently some hesitation, he removes the lid and puts the rim of the water-skin against my lips. – I hate my current weakness, which does not seem to want to go away. But all this dawdling gives me time to gather up my courage to finally ask something of him. The question is right on the tip of my tongue, followed by another, and another; but expelling it needs more than my usual boldness – or so I think.

 

I drink my fill, then raise a hand to indicate that I am done. When he pulls the water-skin  away from me, I take a – hopefully discrete – fortifying breath,

 

And mumble to my lap, “The sword.”

 

–        Oh. I cannot do it…

 

A hand, rough with calluses from handling heavy tools, materialises in my field of vision. Two fingers press under my jaw and lift my chin up. “What did you say?” Fimlin, and his mildly-quizzical look is back on his visage.

 

I gulp. He raises an eyebrow. “The sword,” I mutter, just slightly louder.

 

“Which sword? Whose? And what about it?”

 

I guess he is just being difficult on purpose, so I glare sulkily, imploringly, at him.

 

He capitulates, although not fully. “Erestor’s sword? The one from yesterday?”

 

I stiffen, wincing. – Then again, he always retaliates for his defeats just as well. (He can have made it less blunt or less obvious, can he not?)

 

Still, I nod, because he has his guess right on the mark.

 

He settles into a crouching position in front of me, still holding my chin up, and sighs with something almost like resignation. “I thought Erestor would be the one teaching you about these things,” he confesses, then falls silent for a moment.

 

I can hear him muttering “Where to begin?” under his breath. But then he addresses me directly in a louder voice: “What do you want to know about Ringil?”

 

I suppose he does not mean to be forcefully blunt, or obvious, or startling – this time. But he indeed does all the said three. – Ringil? Does he mean the same famed blade that I think he means?

 

–        “Oh. So you indeed know about Lord Fingolfin’s blade after all? I thought Celebrimbor would close himself and his people against the knowledge revolving around his half-cousins.”

 

“No, he does – did – not,” I mutter, glowering fiercely at him. If I had the strength, I would hit him for putting me for such a dim-witted, narrow-minded person. But he does look innocent from any ulterior motifs, and my senses usually do not lie or mislead me.

 

He sighs again, probably noting my rising hackles. “What do you know of Ringil, other than that it was Lord Fingolfin’s once?” he asks, seeming to rue having invited me to spill out my thoughts. I shrug noncommittally. – After all, two can play the game.

 

Sadly, he seems to think about the same thing, because then he releases my chin and turns away, quickly busying himself with making tea from the boiling water inside the kettle. When Erestor returns, he acts as if nothing had happened. And Erestor himself is distracted by the preparation of breakfast (berries and nuts and three small conies, today). I use the time to grumble to myself, work on exercising my fingers and arms, and plot away half-heartedly on Fimlin’s figurative downfall. But it does not mean that I do not pay attention to what is exchanged between the two mysterious not-strangers before me, too.

 

“When will they come?”

 

“I do not know. Elrond reckoned they should depart the current site as soon as possible.”

 

“And what of the base?”

 

“No news yet.”

 

“Shelter?”

 

“Makeshift. Now in the planning stage. – What do you think?”

 

“We need thorough mapping. Being overcautious is not a bad thing in this case.”

 

“Should you not rather go home, though? Erin needs you.”

 

“He can do well on his own. I am needed here.”

 

“Roles, then?”

 

“Later. The foundation is built before the house, after all.”

 

“Ehh. You seem to need to go home, anyhow.”

 

“No, I do not think so.”

 

–        Well, still, it does not mean that I can understand them. I guess they are discussing the refugees of Ereigion somewhere in their cryptic words, but I cannot be quite sure. (And being this unsure is so, so infuriating.)

 

We eat in a silence churning with thoughts. Erestor and Fimlin do well in reducing the piles of berries and nuts in the basket, and also their shares of the conies. I take my time and eat my fill, although my mind is not in it, using the slowly-returning strength and suppleness on my hands and fingers. – Somehow, my heart deems it important to show off to Erestor about this progress I have made, without the consent of my mind. (In fact, my mind cannot comprehend why I do that.)

 

Fimlin rises to his feet after downing his cupful of steaming tea, with a questioning stare to Erestor. After getting a nod from Erestor, he bows at him with a grim smile – and tweaks my nose playfully when he is half turning around – before departing. He brings nothing with him but his sword; moreover, he says nothing to either Erestor or me.

 

These secrets inflame me further, and I am getting uncomfortable sitting here with one of their perpetrators. The discomfort does not dissipate when Erestor, having put out the fire, tells me that it is time for me to try to test my leg muscles by walking. – “You could swim with them, yes,” he resumes after putting the used utensils in the basket, “but you never walked on them.”

 

The reasoning makes much sense, I suppose. I only do not wish to be near him, with his having been so cryptic right in front of me, as if teasing me by information only half given. Still, I capitulate when he insists. (I can do nothing to the contrary. In our brief time together, I have already realised that he is so subtle but persistent when he wants it.)

 

He has the basket on his left hip, and lets me lean to his right shoulder. We spent the first leg of the excruciating journey in silence, and I take the chance to look around at the surrounding scenery for the first time. (I was yet too tired and apprehensive about the impending bath to enjoy the sight yesterday.)

 

It looks like we are in a steep valley or a very deep gorge, with its middle part nearly bare of trees. Small hills dot the length of the valley as far as I can see, lushly wooded and populated also by fruit-bearing undergrowth. The land is yet pristine, or so it seems, and I am quite glad to see so much fresh green around. And the Sun’s light make it glow pleasantly.

 

And that is the other strange thing about the valley. (Beside the ever-present mist on one side of the river, of course.) It is rather late in autumn, but I have not yet seen any yellow, red or brown among the leaves in the trees here. What keeps the land so green? And the grass under my bare feet is so lush and springy, too, unlike what I found around the forges, workshops and halls at home – no, in Ereigion.

 

And the wildlife… I have just spied a deer bounding into the nearby woods, avoiding us, while a pair of rabbits instead come out and watch us pass. Unseen squirrels chatter on the leafy branches nearby and above us, and some make bustling noises nearer to the ground. A small white fox tags after us, running close to Erestor’s heels then mine, sniffing us alternatingly with great curiosity. And birds sing their various songs merrily all around, while bees and butterflies dance above some patches of flowers we pass by.

 

I inhale deeply, and hold the clean, fresh air as long as I can in the depths of my lungs, before exhaling it again. My back straightens up, unknowingly, after each deep breath I take. And the time we need to reach the riverbank passes as if just a moment, taking almost no toll on my recovering hröa.

 

It is wonderful, what nature can do to an Elf. And our Ñoldorin healers in Ereigion only prescribed ready-to-use medicine or complicated, book-based medication to overworked or distressed people… Why did they never advise people to simply go out of town for a while and enjoy the scenery? But then again, most people that I know would have rejected it at once, anyway. – And thinking about our past in the city just brings pain to my heart and spirit now, so I had better stop. The wound is yet too fresh.

 

I help Erestor clean and dry out the utensils as much as my current condition allows, thankful that he does not scorn my meagre contribution to the work. We do not return to our camp as soon as the task is finished, though. Erestor invites me to swim again, and I eagerly comply.

 

We dare play in a bigger rapid farther down the river this time, riding in its exhilarating swinging-and-bouncing motion. All the same, my body tires out before my spirit does, and I am forced to notify Erestor thus, as he has ordered beforehand. On my disgruntled look, albeit, he takes us playing among the boulders and pebbles strewn along the riverbank, instead of going up completely to the dry land.

 

It is when he drops the proverbial boulder over my head. – “We need to come back soon. There are grass blades to hack and roofs to plait.”

 

“It is a female work!” I protest spontaneously. “And what are they for, anyhow?”

 

But he just cocks an eyebrow at me, until I begin to feel uncomfortable and jittery. “What do you think?” he retorts after a moment, perhaps pitying me. I glare sharply at him – which is returned with amusement by the infuriating nér.

 

“It is winter soon.” He yields at last. “The wounded need roofing, just like you did, so we need to make the necessary items as soon and as fast as possible.”

 

I turn away, disappointed. So everyone is going to move here, across the river? They will inevitably spoil the land, and I do not want it to happen. I have not also explored it to my satisfaction. Can they not make camp on the other side of the river? I reckon we are already at a safe distance from Ereigion, judging from Erestor’s and Fimlin’s more relaxed bearings, so we do not need to worry too much. (Is that not so?) I do not wish to share this land at the moment.

 

And I am forced to admit to myself that I, too, do not wish to share Erestor yet with anyone else. I was inexplicably glad when Fimlin departed for the other side of the river, because then I did not have to share Erestor’s attention with him. (And it did not help that Erestor seemed to be more amenable towards him than me.) I do not know why I feel this way towards him, but right now I do not want to explore any possible answer to that. I am revelling about being a selfish child at once, after twenty years of having to be an older brother to a pair of mischievous boy and girl.

 

The river loses its appeal because of Erestor’s unexpected – and unwanted – pronouncement. I cannot bring myself to enjoy the bubbles and frothing sprays tickling my soles and calves from amongst the rocks. But I cannot also bear the thought of returning to camp and plait grass blades like a Nando or Avar, which result then will be used by some rough usurpers of the land.

 

But are they usurpers, really? Am I not being a usurper too, lording over a lordless land on my own claim and no other?

 

I allow Erestor to dry me up and tug me back towards the camp in peace. (I would not win against his determination, anyway, if I tried to argue with him, like I have proven to myself yesterday.) It is hard, reconciling with the notion that I might have overstepped my own boundaries, making too much use of my current condition to behave like a child I always yearned to be. And at last, tired of my inability to seek and face up the truth, I simply let go of my old restraints, and nod when Erestor asks me once again if I am willing to help him plait roofing from grass blades. After all, people will call me a Nando or an Avar anyway if they know I love the living earth too much, so why not behave like one?

 

To my surprise and bafflement, though, he does not put me directly to the task as soon as we reach the camp. “There is a wide clearing close to this place, and the grass there is tall and dense. It will serve our need well, I reckon,” Erestor explains to me as he stows away the utensils in his pack. “If you would cut the stalks and put them in the basket for me, I shall be able to manage our dinner faster.” – So why did he insist on making me plait just some time ago?

 

Still, I am not about to complain about this unexpected fortune. Armed with a small dagger (that Erestor pulls out from one of his boots), I trail after him to our destination.

 

I fall into the task as soon as we reach the said clearing, having found out that Erestor is not going to be far – in case anything unfavourable happens. My stomach is growling, but the tedium of my chore soon distracts me from it. Being put to use constantly, my hand and arm muscles swiftly return to almost normal, and the other parts of my hröa follow suit as I move from the first patch of grass to another, and then another and another. I do not look back to see how much of Erestor’s roofing material I have gathered, but it has long overflowed the basket and now is stacked up in piles along my random route.

 

And when Vása is giving out her parting colours as a farewell to the known world for the day, Erestor comes to me with a wineskin and a bowl of vegetable stew. I quickly put down the dagger and sit back on my hunches, cleaning up my hands by rubbing them against each other. The smell in the steam wafting to me from the wooden bowl is even more tantalising than a similar stew he made yesterday.

 

I reach out my hands before he can proffer the bowl to me, and he laughs with startled amusement. “Hungry much, little one?” he teases me, smiling. But I ignore him for the moment, busy eating the stew and drinking its soup, observing no table manners in my tempted hunger.

 

But afterwards, I am barely aware of anything around me. (I know that Erestor carries me back to the river and bathes me, but cannot care less for now.) And when I am laid between layers of familiar garments, deep sleep welcomes me warmly. It is as if I let go of restraints I have kept for far too long and plunge happily into the abyss.

 

–        Well, but I am not so happy anymore when I wake up. In fact, I am unpleasantly surprised, and angry, and quite annoyed.

 

People are swarming noisily back and forth past me, around me, and Erestor is nowhere to be seen or sensed. I am totally alone in a sea of people, and that reminds me too much of my life in Ereigion, the life that I have abandoned when I woke up in that tent the first time and heard the singer sing.

 

I am clothed in a short tunic and a pair of trousers that smell strongly like Erestor and travel. The night-cloak is no longer around me, but I do not really care about it. It is the only welcome change I feel this morning.

 

A pack is sitting beside the bedding. (Erestor’s, it seems, from the look and smell of it.) I open the lid and reach inside, finding an assortment of water-skins,  and wineskins, and also small sacks of berries and nuts. I do not reach deeper, because then hunger hits me. I can just pretend that today is yesterday, and I am racing playfully against Erestor in demolishing his fresh store of berries and nuts.

 

It helps me block out the outside world for a moment. But it also heightens the feeling evoked by his absence in the long run, so I hastily quit eating when my stomach feels full enough. – And only then I am aware of sharp, hostile and disdainful looks aimed at my back by the people around me.

 

I stiffen for the fraction of a moment, then fold the bedding with forced nonchalance. I have forgotten, in the short span of being in Erestor’s – and Fimlin’s, to an extent – constant presence, how it felt living in Ereigion before its destruction. Now that I have experienced for myself how it feels under someone’s gentle watch, I long for it and shun this unwelcome scrutiny – this weak semblance of Ereigion’s normalcy.

 

–        Where is Erestor? I have to escape this throng or I shall go mad. I will even welcome Fimlin’s presence for now. (Admitedly, he is not much better than my former fellow citizens of Ereigion. But at least he showed me some affection once, and he was capable of more gentleness than I know these people are, when we camped together here.) I do not know how I coped up with them for so long…

 

I search around the base of the oak tree, making sure that Erestor has left nothing else other than the clothes I am wearing and the pack of provisions. Afterwards, still trying not to heed the people loosely surrounding me and their hawk-eyed stares, I stuff the bedding into the pack, close the lid, then put it over my shoulders. Erestor cannot avoid me forever. And in case I cannot find him by the end of this morning, I can always search for Fimlin and harass him.

 

The plan is thwarted somewhat, however, by the morbid-looking spectators closing in their ranks around me. “What do you want?” I rasp, hoping I do not sound too intimidated by their show of force.

 

“Fraternising with the Grey, now?” a stern-looking man in patched tunic snaps disapprovingly. My memory supplies his identity without my permission: Narpilindo, one of Lord Telperinquar’s right-hand men.

 

I probably blanch, because he sneers disgustedly at me with a contemptuous, triumphant look in his eyes. Dart of Fire indeed. – And I shrink away from it, automatically.

 

Several men and women in the throng laugh harshly, and I am painfully reminded of the leering, crowing orcs that raped and burnt my family. – The pack on my back scrapes against the bark of the oak, and I am truly cornered now.

 

“No Grey to help you now?” a woman calls, then snorts in derision. I flinch. She was one of Amil’s best friends.

 

“Ellenoros will be so disappointed. And where is she?” She advances on me. My legs tremble. She is right. Amil would be quite disappointed with me. – But Amil is dead, and I cannot tell this woman – her friend – that. Too painful…

 

She covers the remaining distance with a long stride, and harshly yanks my face up by her bony knuckles on my chin. My heart pounds frantically in my chest, and I am sure she can hear it, standing so close to me – too close. Our eyes meet, and she reads me like a book – with rough handling. I whimper pitifully. I was used to this, done by Atar and sometimes Amil, but I had gladly forgotten it for a new, gentler life and people. – I am foolish, and too naïve, just like many people said back then in Ereigion. I hate it. I hate myself…

 

“She is dead, is she not?” Her softly-spoken words tear me like the swipe of a blade. “She is dead, and it is all your fault. – And how about Ilinsor and Ellesarë, and Meneldil your father? You abandoned them all, did you not? You forsook them, just to save your own hide?”

 

The word “worthless” is not spoken aloud, yet it seems to brood between us, before exploding on my face. Tears stream down my cheeks, and my body is racked with uncontrollable sobs. She has just spoken aloud the accusations I have levelled at myself; but coming from another person, justified, it is many times more agonising than my own assumptions.

 

Snarling. Jeering. Claw-like hands reach out at me.

 

– Hideous faces, the parody of Elven features, blackened and ruined. Stinking, full of darkness; grabbing, tearing… Flee, flee, flee. Pursued. Raucous, excited laughter of predators in a chase for a weak prey. – “Run, Cúmenel, run!” –

 

I scream, scream until my lungs are airless and my throat raw. – Flee, flee, flee. – My hröa moves on its own accord. Fleeing, fleeing up the tree. Hands swipe at me, but never catch me. Up, up, up, up to a bough far from those hands…

 

Someone shouts under the tree, wrathful. A familiar voice… Commotion explodes like heat from a kiln when it is open. Strong, strong melodies like dousing water; another familiar voice…

 

And then yet another familiar voice speaks, firmness and authority in his not-entirely-Elven timbre, while the singer yet sings his wordless melodies…

 

A pair of hands close carefully, awkwardly, around me, and my head is lowered down onto a strong shoulder. And a voice murmurs low into my ear, “Easy there, lad. I get you now.” If I were not so shaken and stricken, I would laugh with the irony of his words. I would never think of being safe in Fimlin’s arms, before now. – But now I only cry harder, letting go of any restraint and compunction, fisting my hands in his tunic. And he says nothing to it, just sitting there holding me in his lap, although his shoulder is now damp with my tears.

 

It is now eeriely silent on the base of the tree, and I am somehow more unnerved by it than I was by the previous cacophony, – but Fimlin’s arms are around me. And he is moving down now, as agile as a squirrel – or a Green.

 

I am passed to another person as soon as we arrive on the base of the oak tree. And like a limpet to a good rock, I swiftly attach myself to the hröa that bears the scent I have memorised. Erestor. – Home, at last. – And he is singing at me in low tones, while cradling me gently and walking towards the river.

 

He seats himself on a boulder on the riverbank, and Fimlin does the same beside him. My head is pealed off his shoulder, then, and he wipes the tears from my cheeks with the palm of his hand. “Hush now,” he murmurs. “It is over. Nobody will be able to harm you here.” A wineskin is proffered to me, and I drink from it as much as I can take it. But all the while I never release my grip on the night-cloak he is wearing, burying my curled fingers deep inside the silken folds.

 

He is attempting to peal them off now, gently but persistently. And then Fimlin is speaking, and I am distracted. (And Erestor brings my hands together on my lap with a triumphant little “Ah!”)

 

“Now I really understand what I did that night. It was really horrendous… Thank you for rebuking me, Erestor, – and also waiting for the realisation to sink in before giving me more… which you did not do anyway.” A grim chuckle. “And for what is worth, little lad, I am sorry for wounding you that night.”

 

– Wounding me? –

 

Fimlin’s hand slips under my chin and tilts my face up. His stare bores into my soul, touching my innermost spirit, and I can feel that the action makes the both of us rather miserable. – I cannot gather enough will and courage to say out loud that I forgive him, while he can barely stand to see… To see what? My inner wounds? He must have many more than I have, given the age I can see in his eyes, so why should he shrink from the injuries (at times self-afflicted, consciously or not) of a young lad like I am?

 

I never get the answer to that question, and neither do I have the chance to tell him he has been long forgiven. Fimlin looks away and releases my chin. Then he moves a little farther from the water and busies himself with a task I can neither guess at nor see. (Erestor is now moving a small jar of honey tantalisingly under my nose, so my attention is momentarily riveted on it.)

 

The world falls away from my attention when he puts a wooden spoon into my hand and the jar into the other. I can barely prevent myself from squealing. (Squealing is just for girls and pigs and dogs, not for boys…) Trying to keep up a nonchalant countenance while under the onslaught of his laughter, I dip the spoon slightly into the brownish-gold sticky liquid and lick it daintily, savouring the rich taste.

 

What he says afterwards is not as pleasant as the treat he has just given me, though. – “You have to stay here for a little while, at least until everyone is calmer and can think more clearly. We – Fimlin, Elrond and I – will be with you as long and as often as we can, but you should not venture too far into the valley to search for us.” – His being regretful in the telling does not do much in softening the blow. And suddenly I understand why Fimlin is bustling behind us like a denning badger.

 

Vása’s beautiful colours, presented as she sinks below the western horizon, does not bring a smile onto my face. I am unwanted. I am a trouble maker.

 

Worthless.

 

How stinging… but she was right.

 

Erestor stirs around me from his deep contemplation. A moment later, his voice fills the dead silence that has been stretching between the two of us; earnest, pleading even. “You are not going to stray too far, are you? It is not that we would like to bar you from roaming across the land… We will have time for it later.” When I do not answer after a long, uncomfortable pause, he resumes in a somewhat pained tone, “I am sorry for leaving you there. I thought they would not… would not do something like that to you. You were, after all, their former neighbour. But they will not be able to find this place without knowing about its presence in the first place, and you are going to be safest here.”

 

His desperate stare undoes me. I look away to the churning water and nod mutely. I caught layers of meanings and emotions underneath his words, yet found none that would suggest his getting rid of me. Still, being left alone is not a prospect I would welcome with any excitement.

 

But he does leave me, and Fimlin too, here on the riverbank. Fimlin has built a lean-to of leaves and branches, with moss and some more leaves as its floor. And Erestor has replenished the pack of provisions for my use, slipping the small dagger I once handled to cut the grass into a side pocket, perhaps in case I need any protection. They go back inland when Rána is climbing up the night sky, after hearing a commotion at the distance.

 

I stare down at the gurgling foam amongst the rocks, so contrast to the loud frothing currents farther away from the bank. It is a big question, if I can sleep in this kind of environment; but more doubtful is my ability not to feel the loneliness about me – which screams louder than the river. I was never alone, truly alone, before now. I was always with Amil or Atar when my siblings were not yet born. And I was not alone either in the tent after I was rescued, or afterwards. But now I only have the noisy river to accompany me, and perhaps some insects, and the trees growing close to the bank and surrounding the lean-to – my new dwelling.

 

The smell of rain in the air does not help alleviate my misery. Reluctantly, I get up from the boulder I have been sitting on and go in search of a bush to relieve myself. (Then comes a thought of who helped me relieve myself when I was not capable of doing it on my own. And I squash it down with more vigour than necessary, more peevish with everything than ever.) Afterwards, I sit hugging my legs under the lean-to, waiting for the rain to pour down, hoping the river will not then overflow and take me away. – The clouds are blotting out Rána’s light now, marching gloomily across the heavens in dark, thick sheets and clumps. The wind is blowing wetly above and across the river, whistling and rumbling in sync with the noises of the water. The nocturnal insects are strangely silent…

 

Soon, those are the only sounds filling my ears and mind, blotting out all others. And strangely, I am not perturbed by the promise of a downpour or a flash flood, and the sheer power of the water wrapping around my fëa. Even more oddly, it reminds me of Erestor and his quiet insistence, and it is not an entirely unwelcome notion to be had.

 

My spirit is buoyed on a wave of pure energy, warm and glowing and so comfortable. And I know no more about the outside world.