[Child of the 7th Age]

Unable to find an empty seat in the crowded dining room, Child opted to go outside on the Inn's front porch. A bit of space and privacy was just what he needed to mull over everything that had happened that day. For the last ten years, he'd spent many a night under the open skies. Staying cooped up inside, even in a friendly place like the White Horse, was not the kind of thing he enjoyed.

In any case, it was a lovely night. The air was cool and crisp; the stars sparkled like glittering jewels. Directly above him was the Valacirca, the constellation of seven stars said to be placed there by Varda long ages ago as a weapon against Morgoth. And he had no trouble hearing the music that wafted through the open window.

Child awkwardly maneuvered his body onto the topmost step and leaned back against the stairwell railing as he listened to the lively strains of the fiddle and drum. It was a rare treat to sit by himself and let others do the singing and storytelling. It couldn't have been more than ten minutes later that Child saw a number of children come bursting out of the Inn's front door and run outside to play a game of tag.

They sprinted back and forth in the front courtyard, chasing each other through the tangled bushes and tall grass, then finally dropped down on the steps beside him, panting and holding their sides.

"I see you're managing to stay out of trouble," Child looked over in Alaric's direction.

The boy vigorously shook his head. "Well, I'm trying but it's not easy. It's boring inside. One of the guests was going on and on about some ancient kings. I was hoping he'd tell us about a dragon or some Orcs, but it's just a long list of names I don't know. I don't understand a word of it."

Child nodded and sighed, "Those names you don't recognize are probably the valiant kings of Rohan." He thought quietly to himself: don't they teach children anything these days beyond simply the skills to earn a living?

"How about if I tell you a tale? Something you will understand?"

Alaric agreed, "As long as it isn't boring and has some scary parts."

Child thought a minute and added, "Alright then. This is a tale about something that actually happened to me when I was travelling in the far north of the Misty Mountains. It was definitely not a very agreeable place at least when I was there. Filled with trolls and Orcs and other miserable things." As he began speaking, several of the children came over and sat down, folding their legs underneath and leaning forward to hear Child's words:

High up on the lonely mountains,
Where the wild men watched and waited;
Trolls in the forest, and Orcs in the bush,
And I on my path belated.

The rain and the night together
Came down, and the wind came after,
Bending the props of the pine-tree roof,
And snapping many a bough.

I crept along in the darkness
Stunned and bruised and blinded;
Crept to a fir with thick-set boughs,
And a sheltering rock behind it.

There, from the blowing and raining,
Crouching, I sought to hide me.
Something rustled; two green eyes shone
And a warg lay down beside me!

His wet fur pressed against me;
Each of us warmed the other;
Each of us felt, in the stormy dark,
That beast and men were brother.

And when the falling forest
No longer crashed in warning,
Each of us went from our hiding place
Forth in the wild, wet morning.*

Alaric stared over at Child, his eyes wide and questioning, "I don't believe you. That couldn't have happened. My father says all wargs are savage creatures."

Child looked out to the distant plain with a sad expression on his face, "Perhaps they are, and perhaps they aren't. Believe what you will. But that actually happened to me, and things even stranger than that. Perhaps, Alaric, there are more things in Arda than you have ever dreamed of."

Even after the others left, the lad sat over to one side of the porch, saying nothing but thinking carefully on what Child's words might mean.

* My apologies to Bayard Taylor....

[ July 09, 2003: Message edited by: Child of the 7th Age ]