The Barrow-Downs Discussion Forum - View Single Post - The Green Dragon Inn #11

littlemanpoet · 05-29-2005, 07:15 PM

Uien had been wandering over the hummocks and turves of the pastures behind the Green Dragon for hours. Her Elvish step was light, but her heart was not. Her mind was dark with images she did not know from her own memory, nor that of her family, nor from any long lost friends from Lorien. Nor from Falowik. The trees and stream might as well not have been there, for she did not see them though her body knew to pass them by without injury.

The images flowed in and out, melding with horrors from her own past, then breaking away again. Beside a red bonfire a fair woman sneering, spitting at her would turn into a slant eyed, sallow faced orc padding at her with their filthy hands. She had survived imprisonment in the darkness of Caradhras, but these new memories overwhelmed her. Now she was walking over a dark, blasted land, dead and cold, fleeing from a dread that assailed her heart. She could not leave it behind. A man came at her with a firebrand as others held her down. The firebrand scalded her face and she screamed, fighting to back away. Only to find that she was standing in front of a tree, a limb waving in the breeze; someone was whimpering. She stopped to listen, and realized it was her own voice.

She closed her hands into fists and furrowed her brow. It was that burned elf. He had shouted her away from his mind, and in doing so, had cast his own violent memories into her mind. Had he done it on purpose? How could an Elf be so evil? Maybe he had not intended it. Still, why had he been so violent?

She was walking again, not seeing the land and trees.

After all, she had done no more than had always been the way of the osanwë in Lorien. One touched the edge of the mind of another Elf to discern whether the other was open or closed. It was like saying "would you like to talk?" If the other's mind remained closed, you pulled away, no harm done to either. But this burned elf had behaved as if the way of Lorien was, what? Akin to torture! Ridiculous. He had something to answer for, that was certain. No more probing the edge of his mind. She was going to confront him face to face and be answered.

She strode back toward the Inn with a purpose.

05-29-2005, 07:15 PM	#2
littlemanpoet Itinerant Songster Join Date: Jan 2002 Location: The Edge of Faerie Posts: 7,066	Uien Uien had been wandering over the hummocks and turves of the pastures behind the Green Dragon for hours. Her Elvish step was light, but her heart was not. Her mind was dark with images she did not know from her own memory, nor that of her family, nor from any long lost friends from Lorien. Nor from Falowik. The trees and stream might as well not have been there, for she did not see them though her body knew to pass them by without injury. The images flowed in and out, melding with horrors from her own past, then breaking away again. Beside a red bonfire a fair woman sneering, spitting at her would turn into a slant eyed, sallow faced orc padding at her with their filthy hands. She had survived imprisonment in the darkness of Caradhras, but these new memories overwhelmed her. Now she was walking over a dark, blasted land, dead and cold, fleeing from a dread that assailed her heart. She could not leave it behind. A man came at her with a firebrand as others held her down. The firebrand scalded her face and she screamed, fighting to back away. Only to find that she was standing in front of a tree, a limb waving in the breeze; someone was whimpering. She stopped to listen, and realized it was her own voice. She closed her hands into fists and furrowed her brow. It was that burned elf. He had shouted her away from his mind, and in doing so, had cast his own violent memories into her mind. Had he done it on purpose? How could an Elf be so evil? Maybe he had not intended it. Still, why had he been so violent? She was walking again, not seeing the land and trees. After all, she had done no more than had always been the way of the osanwë in Lorien. One touched the edge of the mind of another Elf to discern whether the other was open or closed. It was like saying "would you like to talk?" If the other's mind remained closed, you pulled away, no harm done to either. But this burned elf had behaved as if the way of Lorien was, what? Akin to torture! Ridiculous. He had something to answer for, that was certain. No more probing the edge of his mind. She was going to confront him face to face and be answered. She strode back toward the Inn with a purpose.