[piosenniel]

Durelin's post

Helkaur

The defense of Lorien had marched out upon the army, and their stand broke their enemies, with the unseen aid of the scouts of Mirkwood, and the lost ambassadors of Lorien. The enemy had faltered when the key part of their plan was unsuccessful. Orcs and Men, servants to a cruel master, would not stand long when their attack was met by a defense that was meant to be frail and without a backbone, without the elfin magic that any cruel heart would find impossible to stand against. Their leaders had faltered, knowing that the plan to rid their Master of the great defender of a stronghold of good in this Middle-earth that he would rule. Instead, the Lady Galadriel would depart on a grey ship, into the West, along with the rest of her kind, the last of her kind, the Ringbearers.

This victory reached their hearts even more than any former ones against the forces of Sauron. The defenders of Lorien had never answered such a call as this. Scouts had discovered the body of one of their kindred, a member of the envoy sent to the Woodmen of Mirkwood. Taking this as evidence that the envoy had not reached its destination, Lorien realized it was alone. And alone, Lorien was not slow to answer the call to war.

Helkaur watched his enemies flee from him and his comrades for the second time that day, these survivors of a much smaller number than those who had fled upon the routing of the main force. He cried out with the joy that filled his heart, and thought of his return to his wife, when he would get to see Moraniel smile. He stood among so many dead, and could not help but let his happiness fade, though he did so almost begrudgingly. But he felt his heart grow no heavier, because life was his focus right now. He focused particularly, and almost selfishly, the fact that he lived. He shut his eyes, wishing that that would also shut out the sounds that surrounded him: words of grief, songs of sorrow, and the final whispers of a dying soul manifested in the air, and through those who mourned the dead around him. He wished to get away from them, wished to return to his home and who would greet him there. And so he ran.

They had met the army from Dol Guldur only a few miles from the beginnings of the woods. Lorien had much to thank the Anduin for, it seemed. Without such an obstacle, they would not have had time to make such a stand as they had. Nor, most likely, would the mysterious Ambarturion – a great servant to the Lord Celeborn and the Lady Galadriel, who was practically a legendary name to Helkaur – and his companions would not have come in time to ruin the key part to the attack. Time was not something an elf often considered, and it could be frightening, perhaps, how much time could mean. It could have been the undoing of the Lord and Lady of Lorien, thought it had never touched their land.

Soon Helkaur was making his way along familiar paths under familiar boughs, hastened by some need that was even greater than that which had driven him to march in defense of his land. But when he was still nearly a half mile away from the home he so desired to return to for the last time, he was stopped by a young elf woman. She greeted him kindly, and it was only after he returned her greeting that he recognized her. And then he was forced to recall the dead that still lay upon that field he had left behind, as her husband was among them. That elf was not racing home to show his wife that he was alive, and it hurt Helkaur to look into the elf woman’s eyes. He was afraid that she would ask him of her husband, and he did not know what he would say. He certainly did not know how to comfort her, when she would begin to weep in her grief and shock… But she did not ask of her husband.

“Where do you run to, soldier of Lorien?”

“To my home, my lady,” he answered rather curtly, perhaps finding a reason to be annoyed with her for not even asking of her husband, of who she loved.

“Are you not standing within your home?”

Helkaur glanced around him, but his eyes snapped back to the young elf woman as she began to laugh. She laughed surprisingly loudly for one who spoke so softly, though she quieted quickly. “What did you fight for?”

“For Lorien.”

“Not your home?”

“The home of my people.”

The female elf smiled. “And you do not return to your people. Much of your people lie dead outside these woods, others mourn their deaths, outside of these woods.” For a moment, he was afraid she was referring to her husband, but their was no sorrow in her voice, nor did any show in her eyes. So Helkaur spoke boldly.

“I return to my wife, glad that she does not need to mourn me.”

“Then your home is gone.”

“Gone?” Fear was starting to creep up his throat, choking him, while simultaneously growing in sickness in his stomach. His voice was disgustingly empty, void of emotion. His tongue was dry. She spoke without any feeling, as well, and so very quietly. “You answered one call, she answered another.” Fear seized him, and he was frozen. His eyes revealed all that went on inside him, but it seemed she chose simply to ignore what she inevitably saw. Anger rose in him as warm tears stained his face, suppressing the fear and allowing him to speak. “You speak words that make my heart tremble with fear, and you say them as if they were trivial things that should already be known to me. Tell me girl, why do you speak of ‘calls’?”

“Melian has taken the road to the Towers, and then will take the ship across the sea, into the West. It was the call of the gull that she heard.”

He did not want to remain in this girl’s presence. What she said angered him, and he feared that she spoke truth, feared as he never had, never actually fearing his own death. And so he ran again, away from the frightful young elf woman, coming at last to his home in the trees. He climbed up the ancient wonder, the mallorn, and entered his home. He found no one to greet him on the return he had not believed he would make.