Friends of Nimrodel: Tapestry of Dreams

[mark12_30]

Mellonin pulled her coak up over her head. "It cannot be time to rise. Not yet."

No one replied. She huddled deeper under her cloak and blanket, thought better of it, opened one groggy eye partway, found the fire, and crawled towards it. When she could feel its heat through the blankets, she curled towards it and pulled her hood over her eyes again.

She heard Raefindan's racking cough not far away. Gond snorted. She thought she heard Ravion whisper; but he was always noiseless. She opened an eye and peered out, and saw Ravion moving through the mist, hooded and cloaked.

She closed her eyes again, snuggled closer to the fire, and drifted off.

Blistering heat. Caustic fumes. Dust and ashes. It was neither day nor night. She stood in a valley-- no, a crevasse; on both sides sheer cliffs rose. Bones were scattered about; skulls leered at her. Misty forms wafted past her, each one a wave of fear in her soul. Despite the heat she was chilled.

"Why have you left me? Why have you not returned for me?"

The cliffs echoed her cry. The skulls mocked her. The misty forms drew nearer, listening. Fear took her breath away; she grew faint, fighting for air.

" You cannot be false. I have been true. I have waited. Why have you not come?"

Darkness fell. The skulls glimmered in the unlight. The misty forms wove around her, and sometimes passed through her in an ancient dance; she writhed to avoid the touch of their clammy hands. Their hands met hers nonetheless. Every handclasp made her weaker. Each breath was a struggle.

"Mellonin, wake. It is but a dream. Hear me. Mellonin, wake."

"I will not wake, for waking is only torment. I wake to find that you are not here. Beloved, when will you come? Why have you not come? I will sleep forever and dream of you."

The dance quickened, and every touch brought a deadly chill to her hands, her arms. She was slipping, slipping. The dance wove around her. Every breath seemed her last. The chill neared her heart. She welcomed it.

"Yes, I will sleep; I will forget my despair in sweet dreams of my love. Come, dreams. Come, sleep of death; would that you would take me hence. But alas, you may not. I will dream til my love comes."

No longer were the misty forms taking her hands in the dance; now they seized her by the shoulders.

She was face to face with a skull; she shrank from it, closing her eyes, willing herself to dream of her love.

"Mellonin!"

"You are too gentle, Ravion." Aeron slapped her hard. Ravion glared at him.

Mellonin's eyes opened. Mouth open, choking for air, she stared wide-eyed at the faces hovering over her, shrank from the hands that held her.

"Mellonin, " pleaded Ravion.

Aeron raised his hand to slap her again, but Raefindan caught his wrist, and spoke. "Mellonin, it's us. Your friends. You're with us now. Ravion is here, Aeron is here, and Gwyllion. We won't hurt you. Remember us? You're awake now. You were dreaming. It was a dream."

Raefindan's soothing voice gradually brought her around. She sat up, looked at each one in turn, put her face in her hands, and slowly regained her breath.

[mark12_30]

The night was clear and bitter cold. The horses' whiskers had frost on them. They camped near a small copse and made two large fires, and huddled together for warmth. Even the elves on watch stayed near the fires.

The next morning they woke cold and stiff, and hungry. Lembas had no appeal, but they used dried meat, fruit, and lembas to make a sort of breakfast stew. Cheered, they mounted and rode.

The river murmured and bubbled along its thin edges of creaking, crackling ice. Fallen leaves blew along the shore, and swirled along the river, eddying near rocks and shallows. The sky was clear, the midwinter sun had been bright but cold. Liornung had wrapped his fiddle in his spare shirt and stored it deep in his saddlebag. The sun went down; they could see their breath even in the twilight.

Careful search all along the bank had showed them nothing. Amroth let his thoughts roam further south; there were no elves here.

"Erebemlin, there are no elves along this riverbank."

"None with open minds, my lord. I do not think her mind is open. If she had opened her mind, would you not find her?"

Amroth considered his friend, and nodded. With a sigh, he said, "We will search the bank." He rode on, pondering. "But Erebemlin, when I first came, I thought I found her in dreams. I thought that I sensed her presence. Yet waking, I could not and cannot find her."

Erebemlin grew thoughtful. "Yet the nightmares weary you, my lord. Your body needs sleep or you will sicken as men do."

Amroth gazed ahead. "Do not think me ungrateful, friend. But perhaps you should lessen your guard over my sleep."

Erebemlin hesitated, and bowed his head. "As you will, my lord. Yet I would not see you weaken again. It is not many days since you first regained any strength."

"I will rest when I find her, " Amroth replied.

[mark12_30]

Nethwador listened as Amroth and Erebemlin talked. Their minds did not touch his, and all he heard was the words. He felt left out.

Nudging his horse, he trotted up between them. They looked at him, and Amroth's mind touched his.

"The night is cold; we will need a fire, " Nethwador reminded them.

Amroth laughed. "Yes, little brother; we will indeed. No doubt the horses will want some grass. How I do forget the comfort of my friends. I am sorry." His smiled gently faded, and he looked ahead in the twilight.

He shook his head. He could see little. He felt blind.

"Erebemlin."

Erebemlin answered gently. "There is a dead tree two miles hence, my lord. Enough to feed several fires."

They urged their horses into a trot, and made camp under the dead tree.

[Nurumaiel]

Liornung's fiddle was out of his pack and he was carelessly drawing notes from it, pondering on the lesson of Nethwador and Bellyn earlier that day. He wondered where Nethwador would go when their travels were over. Liornung would dearly love to instruct him further on the art of music; Nethwador had deep talent.

Argeleafa was sitting by herself again. Liornung frowned and thought for a moment, and then his face brightened and he gestured to her, calling her name. She came a little closer. "Argeleafa, we have given everyone a chance to sing except you," he said, shaking his head. "I am most ashamed of myself." He picked up his bow and ran it down the strings once. "Would you sing while I play?"

"What would you have me sing?" she asked, glancing at Ædegard. He smiled encouragingly at her and she grew in confidence.

"Name a tune," replied Liornung. She blushed slightly, leaned forward, and whispered something in his ear. He nodded and began to play a sad and mysterious tune. Argeleafa sang thus:

"My young love said to me, 'My mother won't mind
and my father won't slight you for your lack of kind.'
She stepped away from me and this she did say:
'It will not be long, love, till our wedding day.'

She stepped away from me and she moved through the fair
and fondly I watched her move here and move there;
and then she turned homeward with one star awake
like the swan in the evening moves over the lake.

The people were saying, no two e'er were wed
but one had a sorrow that never was said
and I smiled as she passed with her goods and her gear,
and that was the last that I saw of my dear.

Last night she came to me, my dead love came in.
So softly she came that her feet made no din.
She laid her hand on me and this she did say:
'It will not be long, love, 'til our wedding day.'"

[littlemanpoet]

As Ædegard listened to the sweet voice of Argeleafa, the words of her song bit deep. He knew the tune, for it was one he had heard before among the Rohirrim. But these words were new, and he knew in his heart that these were the best words he had ever heard matched to that tune.

He rose and crossed to where Argeleafa was sitting. He stretched his hand to her.

"Walk with me for a little while." His voice rose on the final word, giving the suggestion of a request. She looked up to his face and hers blushed visibly in the firelight. She laid her hand in his and he drew her up. He offered her his arm, and she laid her hand in the crook of his elbow, and they walked a little way beyond the camp. They were quiet as they walked. His heart lifted as he felt her warmth next to him. He stopped and turned.

"Your voice is sweet as honey. And those words! I loved them! May it not come true, though, for I would rather you were alive than dead."

She looked away with a smile, and he was abashed at his words, for in them he had spoken far more than he had a right to say.

"I am sorry. I have no right to say such things."

"I do not mind," she said, her voice still as sweet and lilting as it had been in the song, as if she were still echoing it in her mind. She looked up at him, her face pale and serene beneath a slivered moon. "There is time aplenty to see how we will fare."

They continued their circuit around the camp. Ædegard asked her to teach him the words to the song, which she did.

As they lay down to sleep, each in their own cloak, the song flitted, verse by verse, through Ædegard's mind until he dozed and dreamed of a fair maiden who walked on a hill, and through whose form he could see the moon.

[alaklondewen]

Erebemlin, as requested, did not watch over Amroth’s sleep during the night, instead he watched him from a short distance in hopes the king would dream of the lady once more. If this happened, the elf might be able to gather more clues of her whereabouts. Amroth, however, slept without showing any signs of troubling dreams.

The night wore to morning and the wind picked up chilling the campers to the core. The elves worked diligently to keep the fire blazing as a source of comfort, but it helped little as the wind whipped through their blankets and whistled in their ears. Their breakfast was bleak and cold, and they talked of finding real meat for their dinner. Soon the campers repacked their horses and were ready to ride. Erebemlin brought forth a flask of miruvor and insisted each of the travelers take a mouthful to warm their bodies and spirits for the journey ahead.

Erebemlin rode silently beside Taitheneb for most of the morning. The younger elf sang softly of the warmer seasons, and the elder let the song comfort his mind as he kept his eyes moving along the river’s shores.

After several miles, Erebemlin rode forward to accompany Amroth. The two nodded a silent greeting.

“Erebemlin…” Amroth began hesitantly. “Yesterday, I asked something of you, and I do not believe you obeyed me.”

Erebemlin was visibly taken aback. “My lord?”

“I asked you to take your hold from my sleep, mellon, but I slept as though you were still watching over them.” Erebemlin opened his mouth to protest, but Amroth continued. “I understand you want me to have restful sleep, but if my dreams are the way to find her…you must let me dream.” Amroth turned from the river and met Erebemlin’s injured expression.

“I am sorry, my lord, but I did not watch over your sleep…” The ellon paused momentarily. “I have watched over you for many nights now. It is possible the blanket I laid over your dreams lingers.”

Amroth considered this and then nodded. “Please accept my apology, mellon. I should have trusted your faithfulness and obedience. Forgive me.”

“Of course, my lord.”

The company continued their ride down along the river, taking small breaks periodically for food and stretching. Once nightfall came they stopped and made a small camp.

[mark12_30]

Nethwador remembered that Ædegard and Argeleafa had walked around the outskirts of the camp the night before. He had envied them, a little. He cast a long, hopeful look towards lady Bella.

She blushed, and looked down, and then spoke to Liornung. "Perhaps another song, or tune? The fire is cheerful, and company of many friends is brighter still."

Nethwador understood her tone if not her words, and knew that she felt unsafe. He was still wild, still unknown, still unpredictable.

But all that could change. He glanced over the grass, then made a wry face. Flowers in midwinter! He must find another offering. In the dark? He made another wry face. He had nothing to give and no light to find a gift by.

He stood, and slowly approached the fire. Liorning and Bella looked up, and smiled to see him approach. He slowed, halted beyond arm's reach, and sat down, gazing at the shimmer of the firelight on her hair and her face.

[Nurumaiel]

The company had grown more silent as time wore on, and Liornung felt this keenly. Perhaps it was because of the lands that they travelled. He could not say, but he missed the cheerful songs they had traded and the words that had spoken to each other. Once again his mind drifted towards the Inn at Edoras, and, disturbed, he tried to push the thoughts away. Why did his mind consistently travel to wander through the bright halls of the Inn, to seat itself by the blazing fire and bask in its glow, speaking words of comradeship to Good Secgrof and making pretty Blostma laugh by his ridiculous little tunes? Why, when his life had ever been on the road? He loved the road still and he did not want to abandon it... why did he feel urged to?

"It is the weariness of this long journey, nothing more," he murmured to himself. "Ever before in my travels have I stopped in a lighted inn to sing the night away, and here I have travelled day and night without sight of a home, and ever on and on with no seeming end, and no one in sight save my own companions." It was not that he did not enjoy the company of his friends, but they were too few faces. He wanted an inn full of the faces of friends, not a barren wasteland with only a few familiar faces. He wanted to see little children hanging onto his every word and gazing in awe at the way he played his fiddle.

He chuckled slightly and he remembered the fiddle lesson. Bellyn and Nethwador were children, and Argeleafa was also a child. The way Bellyn and Argeleafa had sat at his feet to hear his songs, and the way Nethwador had played the fiddle with unsure but eager hands... it was what Liornung had grown to love. Well then, he would satisfy himself with what he had. It was, he thought better to have but a few faces of friends than faces of many he did not know.

Bellyn sat not too far from him, and Nethwador had wandered towards them, gazing at Bellyn with hope. It warmed Liornung's heart and his dark thoughts vanished. He held out a hand to the young lad, a friendly, offering hand. "Come, Nethwador," he said, his voice encouraging. "Come sit by me, and sit by the lady Bellyn."

Argeleafa lay awake, huddled in her cloak and gazing up at the stars, her golden tresses spread about her head. She was not sleepy but there seemed nothing else to do. She considered the words that Ædegard had spoken the previous night, and blushed warmly again at the remembrance of them. But she was not now, as she had not been then, displeased by those words. Rather she thrilled in them and was pleased.

She heard Liornung speaking from where he sat with Bellyn, and she propped herself on her elbows and gazed in that direction. Perhaps she would find company there. She stood and pulled her cloak tightly about her shoulders, seeking warmth from it and the fire. Softly she went to Liornung and sat down beside him. He smiled at her. Feeling that she had been in some way welcomed, she sat easily in their company though she said nothing. Ædegard was not too far off, and he was looking at her. She met his eyes and smiled a shy little smile, contemplating the way the firelight flickered across his features.

Nethwador had hesitated and Liornung gestured again. "Come, Nethwador," he said. "I fear it is too late for a fiddle lesson, but we would not grudge you to sit in our company."