[Imladris]

First it was Mellon, the elvish word for friend, and now he was Amroth, an elven king of old. "Dost thou miss thine elven love?" Felly asked as she pattered in Mellon's wake, the pitcher of water clenched in her little hands.

He turned, startled, and saw the little girl following; and then he smiled, but replied gravely: "Indeed, Little One, I do miss my lady Nimrodel."

Despite the smile sorrow haunted his eyes, yet nobility there was also, a mien that quite impressed Felly. Whoever would have thought that a blacksmith could look like an elf-lord of Lorien? Yet as the girl stared at him in awe, a sudden change came across his face: bitterness cast his shadow.

"Poor Nimrodel," Felly added, trying to remember the elven maid. "Her voice was like falling silver, a star was bound upon her brows," Felly's voice faltered and she racked her brain. "A light was on her hair," she whispered, "and her shoes were silver grey. Into the mountains she had strayed, and where now she wanders none can tell, for lost of yore was Nimrodel." Fellwyne's voice sank as she stopped. It was all she remembered, besides the fact that Amroth had leaped from the helm of the grey ship into the sea. She closed her eyes, felt the salt spray on her lips, the tug of the wind upon her hair. She was no longer a little girl of Rohan, but an elf upon the grey ships across the sea, watching the grief of Amroth, Lord of Lorien, from afar.

He looked at Fellwyne's sadness, and nodded. "I never should have left her, Little One. And now she is lost. I must find her and I will search ceaselessly until I do."

Fellwyne fell silent as snatches of a distant song whispered to her softly:

From helm to sea they saw him leap,
As arrow from the string,
And dive into water deep,
As mew upon the wing.

"Mellon no!" Felly whispered, dropping the pitcher that shattered before her very feet: an echo of what had been, an omen of what was to come.

<font size=1 color=339966>[ 1:51 AM January 02, 2004: Message edited by: Imladris ]