[Imladris]

"It is not as if my mother and father disappeared," Lira told a bottle of wine as she labeled it and set it aside. "They left for good reason. My father had been wounded in the war and the time of the elves is over: the elves' home is the Valinor. They decided to say goodbye to Middle-earth as they journeyed to the Grey Havens, a journey that would take six or seven years." Lira sighed and paused as her fair blue eyes sought the great outdoors and saw the sun shining and the grass dancing in the wind. "Of course, it's nigh onto eight years since they departed, but when one is travelling plans go awry," she said, trying to talk her worry away. "And of course the message could have miscarried," she suggested to another bottle.

A bird sang sweet and high, and Lira rushed to the entrance of the cellar and strained her eyes to see what kind of bird it was. A dove would bring the message...a tamed dove that Liralwen, her mother, had found injured in the woods. Lira found the bird: a sparrow alighting upon a branch of a nearby tree. Lira's spirits sagged and she turned once more to the cellar and began to sing a song of melancholy.