[piosenniel]

Child's post

As Earendil’s beacon of hope merged into the shadows of dawn, a solitary figure trudged wearily along the path that led to Bywater pond. Arriving at the burrow, Cami initiated her search of the bank that encircled the water, periodically halting to crouch amid the patches of grass and bracken and sift her fingers through the foliage. After an hour of scavenging in the vicinity of the burrow, she’d come up with nothing more than bits of smashed crockery, the charred remains of a mattress, unrecognizable clothing, and a few pillows with half their goose feathers missing.

Against Maura’s better judgment, Cami had stubbornly insisted on paying a final visit in hopes of salvaging a few of their belongings. That prospect now seemed remote even to Cami. She accepted her loss with equanimity; it was the other part that bothered her. Since coming to the Shire, she had spent much of her free time and all her resources hunting down tomes of hobbit history and genealogy, even contacting friends and distant kin to aid her in the task. While Lorien would never permit her to bring these back to Greenwood, she had promised to donate them to the Mathomhouse at Michel Delving where they would form the core of a genuine collection of Shire lore. It would be her one concrete contribution to her beloved birthplace, a tiny thing to compensate for Halfred’s condescending remarks and for all the dreams and visions that somehow she’d never found time to accomplish.

But Ferny had put an end to that. He and his men had savagely upended the shelves in their burrow, tossing the contents back and forth, and finally taking aim and hurling the volumes into the water. Everything was gone, even the two packets of books newly delivered from Tukborough and Buckland that Cami hadn’t even had a chance to open.

Overwhelmed with sadness for so much that was about to pass from her life, she retraced her steps to the Inn with obvious reluctance, hesitant to let go of even the ruins of this special place that she and Maura had called home. With each footstep she calculated the losses in her mind: her friends Piosenniel, Mithadan, and Bird; the twins whom she would never see grow to maturity; Sam and Frodo and Bilbo who’d known her since she was a child; even the green fields of the Shire itself. But all of these dwarfed before the one implacable reality that she and Maura would never hold each other again, or share words of love and encouragement. How was she to deal with all the problems in Greenwood, or try to help her own troubled sons reach out beyond their grief, when she herself was mired in the past?

Gazing back over her shoulder to register one final image in her mind, Cami continued walking towards the Inn, pushing open the gate that led into the rear courtyard and then to the kitchen itself. She waved a vacant good morning to Cook and turned down the corridor towards the small room where she and Maura were now staying. Coming inside the bedchamber, Cami stared over at her husband who had wakened and dressed and was already helping Holly into her clothes.

Rose knocked on the door with a breakfast tray for her parents, thinking that they might want to spend the morning together without so many prying eyes. Setting the tray down onto a chair, Rose stared blankly over in her mother's direction, thinking of a hundred questions she wanted to raise about what was going to happen next, but then hesitating to ask any of them when she saw the subdued look on Cami's face. She hugged her mother goodbye, promising to check in on her brothers and meet up with the rest of the family later that day at the twins' naming ceremony.

There was a strained interval as Cami awkwardly cleared off the night table to prepare a place for the two of them to eat, carefully positioning the platters of bacon and eggs by each setting. Maura pulled up a chair just opposite Cami who remained perched on the bed. Neither of them spoke as Cami focused intently on her plate, pushing food from one side to the other, while her husband stared absentmindedly out the window.

After a long, dead silence, Maura fumbled in his pocket and pulled out a small packet placing it in front of her. Cami looked down at Andreth's journal with surprise written in her face, "But I thought this was lost when Ferny destroyed our burrow."

"No, I'd slipped it into my pocket to show Frodo at the party. It's been there ever since."

He paused and drew a short breath. "Cami, I want you to take this. Back home. Back to Greenwood. It is my gift to you. There's nothing inside that Lorien could possibly object to. Just some old history that everyone's forgotten."

She shook her head firmly, "No. You bring it yourself. Just bring it with you when you come."

"But we don't know that. I mean...." He stopped and looked at Cami beseechingly, not knowing how to continue.

"You'll come. I know you'll come," she murmurred with quiet obstinacy.

His fingers curled around the edge of the journal as if he was about to push it towards his wife. Then he thought better of it and picked the volume up from the table, slipping it deep into his pocket. Nodding his head, he gave her his promise, "Alright, Cami Goodchild Tuk. This book is yours. My gift to you. The next time we meet outside the Shire, whether in this world or some other, I will keep this beside me and fulfill my promise to deliver it to you." Then he gently kissed her grey-brown curls. The two sat down to eat laughing and chatting with each other as the cold fear of the unknown warmed for a moment under a promise born of estel .

[ August 01, 2003: Message edited by: Child of the 7th Age ]