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Old 05-17-2004, 02:09 PM   #251
Hilde Bracegirdle
Relic of Wandering Days
 
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Join Date: Dec 2002
Location: You'll See Perpetual Change.
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Hilde Bracegirdle has just left Hobbiton.
Menecin

Some time after Vanwe had left, a second elf arrived, this one apparently not a healer, but bearing the harp of Maglor in it's battered case. Entering the room, he set it reverently on a small table that stood in the corner by the door, placing Menecin's ornate leather pack in a chair that sat alongside it. Nodding courteously to the bard, who was following his movements with a chilling stare, the dark haired elf quickly hurried out of the room, Menecin watching as the door was shut and the familiar sound of the bolt sliding into place deepened his sense of isolation.

Vanwe had not come back. And like a glimmer of light that he could not contain in his grasp, he did not know if she ever would return. Indeed as time wore on he began to question the validity of the morning's events in his memory, no longer certain that she had been truly real and not a trick of weary imagining. And again he was locked in a fine cage, but was no longer contented to while away the hours in safety, struggling within his mind. For this vision of his child summoned in him fierce strength of will that had lain long dormant, and with it a gnawing dread that Vanwe had gone to return obediently to Her. For was not her mother's compulsion stronger than any warning. But a vow he had made to this maiden, not to lose her. Should he then wait here like a craven, while Naiore was free to show her displeasure at his daughter's mercy? No, far better that he should die than for Vanwe to suffer this. Blind rage flared sharply within him at the poignant memory of that intrusive presence that lay bare the terrors of the heart. No, his daughter must not be defiled in such a way!

Lifting with one hand the delicately turned chair, he ignored the leather pack that slid from it. And swinging it, to catch the seat in his left hand also, he then pivoted rapidly, breaking his spiraling thoughts as he shattered the seat against the unyielding wall. Almost immediately he heard the door to the chamber open behind him and quickly shut again, the bolt thrown back in place. Menecin sighed and looking at the ground, he saw amidst the splintered wood his pack, its contents spilling onto the floor. Underneath the patterned leather, a long pouch of dark brocade lay half hidden. Stooping down, he pulled it out from under the leather bag, carefully drawing open its strings to remove something wrapped in soft cloth. It was a flute of purest mithril, a gift bestowed on him in brighter times. But it too had been through much, and seen too many dark days. Wrapping up the flute again, the elf slipped it back in its pouch and set it on the table, and turned to examine the pack. Searching it, he grew increasingly restless, and not finding what he sought threw the thing into the corner and walked to the open window. If he had been left no weapons then but his bare hands, so be it. He had used them before now, to such a purpose.

Breathing deeply he looked again from behind the window frame out upon the gardens and the tangled woods beyond, wondering where Naiore might be in this place. So close, he knew, he could almost feel her presence. Slipping quietly out of the window, his looked down over the balustrade, to the one hiding in the shadows below, to the guard granting him the protection he had once desired, but who held him now as a prisoner of his past. Climbing over the balustrade, Menecin walked with skill noiselessly along the narrow roof that extended over a colonnade before disappearing amidst the branches of a spreading tree and from there to the wilder woods.

Last edited by Hilde Bracegirdle; 05-22-2004 at 07:24 AM.
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