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Old 08-26-2010, 07:08 PM   #230
mark12_30
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Location: Elvish singing is not a thing to miss, in June under the stars
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Silmaril

Nimrodel stepped into the grey boat from Lothlorien, stood in the stern, and began to sing. Mellondu followed, and the boat swung out into the current. He hid his face, for a moment, but then raised his eyes, and looked full into her face, and waited.

The roar of the falls grew.

Ravion watched, surrounded by song, as the boat dwindled and rushed toward the falls. He could see as clearly as if he stood nearby. He shook his head; suspended over the falls with Gwyllion and Aeron, he caught his breath as the grey boat hesitated on the glassy top. A moment it hung, and then it plunged down the falls.

They waited.

Beneath the thundering foam, silver trout rippled and flashed southward. Ravion, Gwyllion, and Aeron flew above the river, and gazing, saw the grey elvish boat filled with clear water. Nearby swam Mellondu, and the boat seemed to pause and wait for him.

Nimrodel was nowhere to be seen.

Mellondu's cry pierced even the thunder of the falls. The boat swept him switfly southward; he clung to it, at first, and then crawled over the gunwale, and sat in the clear water. It seemed to Ravion that day turned to night, and the river slowed. Mellondu passed six streams, and when he came to the seventh, he took up the paddle, and steered into it, and got out of the boat, leaving it carelessly in the shallows.

From the marshes, a bent and haggard woman in green came slowly out to meet him. He knelt before her, and she took his face into her bony hands, and his tears poured through her fingers and onto the grass.

She let him weep awhile, and then taking him by the shoulders, raised him to his feet, and turned him to look at the boat. She raised one hand, and the boat turned, and floated past; he cried aloud. Nimrodel now lay, composed and still and young, in the boat beneath the clear water. Only her hair moved, as tiny silver minnows flickered about her. A school of silver trout swam south, around and beneath the grey boat.

Marigold stood with one hand holding Mellondu's shoulder, one hand still raised in farewell; Mellondu froze in disbelief as the grey boat followed the current south, dwindling into the distance til it faded from sight. Mist rose from the river, and the cold settled deeper and deeper into Mellondu's heart. They stood so til dawn.

Last edited by mark12_30; 08-27-2010 at 06:28 AM.
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