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Old 07-28-2007, 10:41 AM   #76
littlemanpoet
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Join Date: Jan 2002
Location: The Edge of Faerie
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littlemanpoet is battling Black Riders on Weathertop.littlemanpoet is battling Black Riders on Weathertop.
Tharonwë

How amusing, thought Tharonwë, and childish.

"Of course she will like you," he said gently. He had, of course, no way of knowing that his efforts at gentleness were perceived by honest folk as contrived.

He sifted through her mind again, and again came up against that nagging opacity. What was it? It was like nothing he had ever found before, no matter how complex the mind. And in the relatively simple mind of a child!

He took the girl in hand and started off in the general direction of Nimrodel and Mithrellas, and thought about that place in the child's mind, and what could possibly be the cause. Could the girl be a reincarnated Elf? Surely not, she was obviously human; a pity. Had some Elf or Wizard, or even a Maia hidden in secret somewhere in Gondor, worked his or her art upon this child? Whatever for? Surely there would be more valuable subjects for such craft. Tharonwë absently met the child's needs as she spoke them, always moving south and up; so consumed was he with this strange phenomenon in the child's mind that he forgot about everything else.

Ædegard

Ædegard sat up suddenly, having been wakened by a rather piercing bird call. He was about to lie back down and go back to sleep for a few more winks, but the panic in Raefindan's voice thoroughly roused him: Indil was gone and they did not know where. It was this news that brought his dream of the night back to Ædegard's memory.

"Raefindan," he said urgently, "I had a dream of Indil. It was Tharonwë that took her."

"We must search for her!" cried Raefindan, moving about in a panic.

Within a few minutes they had broken camp and had spread out through the deep woods, within sight and calling distance of each other.

Ædegard had not told them all of his dream. He had dreamt that it had been he who found Tharonwë, holding the girl against her will. He had dreamed that the Elf had taken a knife and cut off the girl's ear. Consumed with rage, Ædegard had drawn his sword and attacked. Tharonwë had flung the girl to the side like a broken doll, whisked his sword from its sheathe, and beckoned him to the attack scornfully. He had attacked, but his feet refused to obey him and would not let him move faster than a dragging walk. He had been forced to parry blow after blow, watching the cold eyes of the wicked Elf, waiting for the death blow. The Elf struck him at the neck.

He had wakened in the middle of the night at that moment, and found that he had rolled onto a root which had given him kink in the neck. He shuddered from the memory of his dream, rolled over, and had gone back to sleep.

That did not mean that the dream would not come true. He was eager to meet up with Tharonwë and take vengeance upon him for what he had done to Leafa, and what his slaves had done to him. And his feet would not drag as in his dreams. He would show the Elf.
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