[piosenniel]

Miri and Rama

Rama embraced her sister once the pot was overturned then bid her a quick farewell. She had already said what was needed; now it was time to put her thoughts into a plan of action. She was restless, still, and her feet took her to the edge of the camp, to the rocky outcropping where she had often gone in her younger years to think. Her head was down as she walked along, cloak wrapped about her in the cool dawn air, her attention seeming on the movement of her boots . . . right toe . . . left toe . . .right toe . . . left toe . . . a moving meditation as her thoughts collected themselves into some semblance of order.

She was near the rocks, when she looked up, her eye caught by a quick movement of someone’s slender little legs and the trailing hem of a brown cloak as it slipped behind a pile of sandstone. She stopped, smiling a little to herself as she recognized the one who was so desperately trying to stay quietly hidden.

‘Miri! What are you doing out here? So early in the morning?’ Rama waited patiently before a resigned voice spoke up, and a familiar little face peered around the rock.

‘I’m waiting,’ Miri said, matter of factly, plopping down on the flat, smooth worn surface of the little outcropping.

Rama climbed up the short way to where the girl sat, facing south. ‘For the sunrise?’ she prompted, knowing that with Miri this could be a drawn out process of fact finding.

‘Well, no,’ returned the girl, looking up at Rama as the woman sat down beside her. ‘Though it is awfully pretty, don’t you think?’

Resisting the sidetracking ploy, Rama cast her net again. ‘Something in the south has caught your interest then?’ She narrowed her eyes and looked hard into the brightening day as it slid slowly over the southern vista.

‘Yes, that’s where he said he would come from.’ Miri could feel Rama fidgeting in irritation next to her. ‘Rôg! He said he would be back soon. I’m waiting to welcome him back.’

Rôg, again! Bit by bit Rama prised out the story. Rôg had gone for a visit to his clan. To see his family. This so far seemed reasonable, and reasonable still that he would promise his little friend to return. After all, Aiwendil was still here, and they had been traveling companions for quite some time, or so Rama understood. She asked if Rôg’s clan were somewhere near. Miri screwed up her little face, thinking; distances were all very relative to her. ‘Well, they’re just on the other side of the mountains, I think he said . . . at the end of them. That way,’ she said pointing south.’

It was Rama’s turn to have her brow wrinkle as she considered what the girl had said. It was forty days of hard traveling to reach the southern end of the mountains by camel; and perhaps he might get there in twenty if he flew, but the forms she’d heard he’d taken in the Eagle camp might not even make it in that time. Rama shook her head, saying that Miri must have misheard. But the girl was emphatic. He had promised, the very day he left, to be back in a week, ten days at the very most.

Taking a small chip of stone in her hand, Rama traced a crudely scratched map on the flat surface of the ledge between her and Miri. She explained patiently to the girl how far it was to the end of the mountains and how long it might take just to get there. Miri pursed her lips as Rama talked about distances and days. She stood up, putting her hands on her hips and shook her little head. With a scrape of her boot sole over the drawing she obliterated it from the sandstone. ‘He’s my friend. He said he would be back then and he will. You can’t tell me he won’t! I don’t believe you!’

The voice of Miri’s brother came ringing from somewhere near, calling her home to break her fast. ‘Mami’s making griddle cakes with honeycomb,’ she said, remembering the pot of sweet honey comb her mother had gotten out from the food chest. As quickly as she had been angry at Rama’s words, the little girl changed focus, inviting her to eat with them. The subject of Rôg was closed in her opinion; she was inviting her other friend to eat with her.

Rama walked along with Miri back to her family’s tent, only half listening as the girl chattered on about this and that. She was trying to remember an earlier conversation Miri had had with her on Rog’s clan. And yes, the girl had mentioned how most of the clan lived to the south . . . but what was it she had said about the mountains in the north . . . about the Elders . . .