[Imladris]

Lira

Lira stared at the manse, her blue eyes wide as she took in every crumbling corner, the soot blackened planks, the weeds that struggled in the courtyard, the broken pottery, and the scattered ashes of old camp fires.

Esgallhugwen stood aloof from Lira, her grey eyes downcast. Lira flashed a gentle smile at the other elf, and then began to walk towards the left hand side of the manse. A wooden porch surrounded it, though the boards were warped and rotten. Tiny insects scurried within the labyrinth of holes and snake slithered between the cracks and disappeared into the shadows.

The greensward in front of the manse was a graveyard of skeletal weeds, moldering leaves of autumns past, and piles of stone here and there. The rings of dead fires dotted the yard, while a grove of dying trees sprawled beside the path. So far they had found nothing to explain the unaccountable darkness that seemed to grow in Lira when they had neared the abandoned city. Frowning, Lira slowly made her way over to the grove, wondering if the wound had made her slightly delusional.

Lira saw that pits of long rotten fruit littered the ground, and a rank mephitic stench saturated the air. Gagging, Lira stumbled, tripped over a gnarled root and fell headlong into a pile of rotting leaves. Shaking her head, Lira saw that the leaves hid something in their depths -- something that was had a pallid milky hue.

Shaking Esgallhugwen’s helping hand off, Lira gently brushed the leaves away and gasped: the empty sockets of a human skull stared up at her, the remains of an abandoned web fluttering in the breeze. The jaws were twisted into an agonized scream, the skull crushed, the fragments of bone scattered across the ground.

Ashen pale, Lira glanced up at Esgallhugwen, then, turning away, she stared at the skull and other bones that littered the area. Her blue eyes turned cold as steel, her jaws were set, and she fingered her dagger contemplatively. Corn, with a shrill squawk, dived from the branches of a leafless tree and rummaged in the leaves. He picked something up and then flapped to Lira, dropping in her lap rags of silver and sable colouring: the colours of a man of Gondor.
****************
Gorby

I paced back and forth between the gates while Anson rested against the mossy wall of Fornost. A chill seemed to have settled in my bones, and I soon began to wonder how the guards of cities such as Bree and Gondor ever manage to wait out the night. It swiftly became incredibly boring just walking back and forth, waiting for something to happen. Not even the snapping of twig broke the silence.

Finally, I went and sat down by Anson. “Too bad no surprises such as barrels of Longbottom Leaf and delicious meats await us here,” I said with a sigh to my fellow hobbit.

“What do you mean?” he asked.

“Remember when Merry and Pippin were the guards at that place called Orthanc?” I asked. “Meriadoc told me about it a long time ago,” I said. “I told you too, but you just don’t remember probably,” I said mournfully.

I looked around and wondered what the others were finding. Hopefully they wouldn’t find a thing and then Anson and me could go back home to our decent hobbit holes. This wasn’t really an adventure so far. Not only had we not found Eodwine and gallantly rescue him from his enemies, but we didn’t even know who had attacked and whether they really came from Fornost. I highly doubted they had, too. The place looked too deserted.

“Gorby,” Anson whispered, “what happens if someone tries to get past us?”

I rolled my eyes. Anson always was worrying about the worst. “Nothing will happen….there’s nobody here.”

“That’s what we thought when we were attacked,” he whispered back.
He did have a point there and now I could feel my back begin to prick, as if my hair were rising like the shackles of a frightened dog. “Then we’ll run to that ruined house over there,” I said, gesturing to the manse that Falowik and his crew had gone into. “The big men will protect us.”

“What if the big men run faster than us?” Anson asked, his brows puckering in concern.

That one got me. I looked at him and saw how small he really was, how pitiful he looked in his torn breeches and faded jacket. I never should have asked him to accompany me, to leave his siblings. I really hadn’t considered the possibility of Anson dying…nobody could hurt Anson. I coughed and said, “Then we’ll die.”

<font size=1 color=339966>[ 8:59 PM February 01, 2004: Message edited by: Imladris ]