Friends Of Nimrodel: Tapestry of Dreams, Part 2 RPG

[mark12_30]

He had promised to choose on the seventh day; it was the sixth, and now he must run. He had stayed til the last possible moment, and departing took all his will.

He slowed. Seven feet tall, the magnificent golden elf appeared on the path ahead, running towards him. "I have come to bear your decision to the two brothers."

"Erebemlin! My faithful friend! How did you know--"

Erebemlin bowed to hide his smile.

Amroth stopped, and nodded. Then he shook his head. "I cannot choose, still. They are both worthy to be chosen. Therefore I choose the younger; the elder is too often chosen. And I can choose no other way."

Erebemlin raised an eyebrow. "The brothers are twins."

Amroth threw his hands in the air. "Was not one born after the other? Then have them draw straws!"

Erebemlin laughed. "You need not choose. I told them you have been delayed."

"I said I would choose. Which one was born later? He shall be the father of the boy."

Erebemlin nodded. Then he gestured back up the path. "Return to her."

"I shall, " said Amroth. "But not til I have given the brothers my choice. My path lies east."

Erebemlin and Amroth ran eastward; the road wearied Amroth, but Erebemlin ran easily.

[mark12_30]

The Lorien elves saw the change in their king, and were glad when he went westward. Some of the elves migrated deeper into the forest, closer to the western edge. Amroth spent more and more time by the stream.

A day's march from the waterfall, there was a green hill that bore a great mallorn tree; from it Amroth could still hear the stream, and he could still hear her voice.

His folk brought white saplings and mallorn saplings, and planted them in two circles around the crown of the hill, where grew the great mallorn. When she came to the hill, she sang for him. Elanor and Niphredil sprang up in the grass, and grew there ever after.

High in the tree they built a flet, and there he held court. When his duties freed him, he went to the stream where she stayed. He built a simple flet there also, and his joy was as great as his love for her. But she would not wed a Sindarin elf. He waited, and wooed her through ever changing seasons. The years passed; he loved her yet more and more.

And then the darkness came.

[mark12_30]

"I fled, " said Nimrodel.

A tear ran down Amroth's face.

"You searched for me. And when you found me, you vowed to bring me to a land of peace, and wed me there. And then we passed down into Gondor. But the land was restless."

"Drenched in evil. And I was parted from you there. I never should have left you, not for a moment. How I have rued that day since."

She gazed at him, doubting. And then she plunged into his mind again.

"You grieved. And searched, and searched. But we had pressed southward. You did not know this til we entered the mountains."

His tears fell freely. "The darkness over the land clouded my thoughts. I strove in my thought to see you from afar; yet however I strove, I could not."

Her face fell. "I was fearful, " she said. "I closed my thoughts. I feared to open my thoughts, lest the darkness find us."

Amroth waited.

"Instead, a different darkness found us. Found me, " she said.

Erebemlin shuddered, and Amroth and Nimrodel startled to see him standing beside them. Amroth reached to his shoulder. "Faithful friend, you could not have forseen that."

Nimrodel turned to gaze at Tharonwe, sitting bound by Raefindan and Mithrellas. "Great grief has he sown. Yet I proved to be fertile ground for such seeds of jealousy and resentment. Bitter I was, and driven to madness, and imprisoned by the darkness I tried to flee."

"Beloved, I would see you free from that; free, and in peace, and bliss."

"You would not enter that bliss without me." She turned back to Amroth, and they both shuddered.

"Nimrodel!" he cried, and leapt from the deck of the ship. A day and a night he fought the waves, but this time he felt her by his side. Then deep green surrounded them; their hair streamed around their faces. They gasped for breath and found none. Nimrodel braced herself at first, but then followed fearfully as Amroth sank deeper, and in the deep, he cried again. "Nimrodel!"

"That was the moment I heard you cry out to me?"

"You heard... perhaps it would have been better had I not cried out to you."

"That cry gave me hope!"

"And despair. Through the long years, it fed your despair, did it not?"

"But what else did I have?"

Suddenly a shriek came from the bound elf. "You had me! You could have had me! All I ever wanted was you! Yet you would have me not! Darkness take you both, darkness forever!" The bound elf was now screaming from frothing lips.

Nimrodel stiffened. Her eyes blazed and she began to tremble. She took three steps toward him, and she cried out. "I defy you. Begone! You have cursed me long enough! Begone and trouble us no more! Begone!"

The redhaired man raised one hand, and Nimrodel fell silent, and bowed her head. She turned, still trembling, and sought Amroth with pleading eyes.

"Show me, " she said.

He showed her his search through Gondor; his race to Edhellond; his pleading with the last elvish crew. The storm; the broken moorings; the receeding shore; his plunge from the deck of the ship; his battle with the waves. His last battle with the deep. And then silence.

[mark12_30]

Nimrodel stepped backward and put her face in her hands.

Amroth waited, but his eyes shone with hope.

~*~*~

Taitheneb stepped closer to Erebemlin. "He chose Ithildir over Celemir simply because Ithildir was the younger?"

Erebemlin searched Taitheneb's eyes before he answered. "Yes."

Taitheneb, thunderstruck, shook his head. "On a whim?"

"Yes, on a whim. There was no other way to choose. Celemir and Ithildir are both fine elves. Among the finest."

"But I had always believed he had a firm reason for choosing Ithildir over Celemir simply because Ithildir was younger!"

Erebemlin raised an eyebrow. "Younger by moments, Taitheneb. What lead could Celemir possibly have had in those things usually gained by long years?"

Taitheneb gazed blankly at Erebemlin.

Amroth spoke, as if out of a great distance. "Did Ithildir father you well?"

Taitheneb nodded. "Of course. He is a fine father."

Amroth smiled. "Why then, I am glad. As you should be. And Celemir was a fine uncle?"

Taitheneb thought this over, and then laughed. "I guess I would have been well raised either way."

Erebemlin slapped his younger friend on the shoulder, and a rare smile lit the ellon's face. "You were well raised indeed."

Their attention turned back to Nimrodel, who was pacing on the nearby sward.

[mark12_30]

NImrodel paused, and gazed at Amroth, and lingered. And then she approached him, and stood before him.

He watched her, and waited.

She looked into his eyes again, and trembled. She spoke then in a whisper, but the glade quivered to hear it.

"You are true."

Taitheneb watched the king steadily brighten, and Erebemlin's fear began to ebb. At last, he thought. She knows him. An age seemed to slip away like a dream upon waking.

Erebemlin turned suddenly to the north. "My lord, hark to the breeze." Taitheneb caught his breath. Amroth's spirit burned brighter, for from far away, as if borne upon a breeze from a thousand years, he heard a silver voice, falling. His blood trembled in his veins. Once again torn between listening enchanted, or joining her in the song, he listened. His spirit burned steadily brighter. But Nimrodel stood still and silent before him.

Amroth offered her his hands, again, and she gazed down at his hands; slowly, she placed her hands in his, and then returned her gaze to his eyes.

"I will go with you."

Erebemlin bowed his head to hide his tears of joy; Taitheneb stifled a shout, for a moment, but then gave a great shout, and wept, and turned laughing to find someone to embrace. Some of the mortals laughed, some wept, some shouted for joy. Only Raefindan and Mithrellas neither moved nor spoke.

"Beloved, my heart desires naught else." He kissed her brow as joy swept through the glen.

Then he said, "But I can not take you with me."

Stunned silence fell, and one of the mortals gasped. The mocking laughter of the bound elf echoed in the glen before Raefindan silenced him.

Erebemlin's heart all but froze. She had been healed for moments, and now must she be wounded again?

"I do not understand," Nimrodel replied. But she did this day what she could not do for the past thousand years: she trusted him. "What must I do?"

Amroth's gaze kindled. "You shall choose whether or not to follow me-- alone."

Her eyes grew very wide. "I am afraid."

"I know."

"I felt the pain you knew under the dark water. Must I follow you into the water?"

"I do not know. Your way will be made clear if you are willing to take it."

"I have been in the sea. It is cold, and too strong. I fear it."

"The stream does not fear, but sings as it rushes to join the sea."

Her eyes sparked, and she pressed his hands. "Will the song give me hope?"

"The song of the stream." He lingered over the words. "That is what you came to ask me for."

Nimrodel gathered her courage. "Give me the song, " she said.

[littlemanpoet]

Roy was saddened that Maegeleb could not change. He had not completely given up hope, but he was not about to take any risks that might ruin Nimrodel's chances to find Amroth. He turned his thought to Indil.

She had grown! Her thought was all given to Nimrodel, as was Mithrellas'. But he sensed Angela too, and in the sensing discovered her thought. And she was aware of him.

There you are. You have been busy, and that is good.

It still amazes me that you are here.

It's a grace.

Don't I know it! And it's been a long journey.

Yet we're much nearer the beginning than the end.

So true. He sensed that this was just as much so for Nimrodel and Amroth.

And it includes Mithrellas, Raefindan.

It is strange, you calling me that. And now you will become my step-daughter while she and I make a life we once had. Most passing strange!

All of it preparation.

Was your life cut short such a preparation?

Roy sensed a sigh from her.

You still grieve a little.

Don't you? How is it for you?

I wonder what it would have been like to become a woman who loved you.

You were already.

For years, I mean.

Now you get the chance to do both, but as my daughter.

Angela began to laugh for the sheer hilarity of it, and Mithrellas joined her for she had been listening all the while - without jealousy - which increased his love for her.

And so we receive reward and grace far beyond our desserts.

So it always is.

May it be so for Nimrodel.

Aye, may it be so for us all,

said the thought of Mithrellas.

Then the three quieted for Nimrodel had just asked Amroth to give her the song.

[mark12_30]

The long winter would soon be past. The sun gleamed on the snow-covered mountainsides. The snow crystals sparkled with golden light behind the glistening sheen of melting water. Below drops formed, and running down, joined into the merest trickle over the ice. Beneath, rocks and pebbles lay hidden that would soon see the sun. The trickle found her way downward, joining other drops, and finding a channel. Further down that channel would find a golden wood, and among the golden wood, the stream would find her voice; her sweet, silver voice.

To the south, Celebdil towered over the Wild, and Celebrant flowed from his mighty sides down towards the golden wood, cascading and rushing. Yet the voice of the Celebrant sang less sweetly than she. Falling silver ran beneath the golden sun, down, down, laughing downwards; the forest yet lay far below in the warmth of the valley.