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Sorry it's taken a while - blame WriterconUK, holiday and a cold!
However here is the next chapter.
In the last chapter Haldir and Tindómë/Dawn had ridden with Oromë's Great Hunt, now it is the morning after...
The Valinor Trail, Chapter Sixteen; Thinky Thoughts
Words; 2,300
Chapter Rated PG.
Disclaimer as Chapter One.
Previous chapters are here.
Thinky Thoughts
Haldir awoke and it took him a second or two to recall exactly where he was. He looked across to see Tindómë also just waking. He found himself wondering when he had begun to think of her as Tindómë rather than as ‘Rumil’s wife’. Sometime in the past couple of weeks, he decided, and it was not a bad thing.
“Elo!” she said. “That was just… elo!”
Instead of being irritated by her somewhat incoherent comment, as he thought he probably would have been not all that long ago, he found himself smiling.
And agreeing.
The horses were close by and turned to look at them, briefly, before going back to what was clearly breakfast. The packs were even closer and beside those was the non-equine version of breakfast; a loaf, a pat of butter, some thick slices of cold pork, apples, and fresh water.
“Well that kind of proves it was real, and not just a very impressive dream path,” Tindómë said, waving towards the food. “And weirdly, considering we ate so much last night, I’m as hungry as a hobbit that missed both first and second breakfast.”
She pulled a piece off the loaf and began to butter it.
Haldir decided that there was a lot to be said for her down-to-earth attitude to life. He could imagine others who would still be so awed by the preceding day, and night, that they would simply sit in contemplation for a day, or two, or three.
He joined her and spread butter thickly onto the bread, which was still warm, and topped it with cold meat and slices of apple.
“Hey!” Tindómë said between mouthfuls, “we can absolutely, and totally, say this is the food of the gods – well of the Valar anyway! How neat is that?”
Somewhere inside his head, Haldir thought he could hear a voice saying ‘Totally!’
Probably, he thought, a memory of Orophin – who copied Tindómë’s bizarre use of words mainly to annoy his elder brother; at least in that brother’s opinion. But, actually, it did sum up the situation rather well.
They continued to eat, quietly, listening to the sounds of the river, the forest, and their horses.
Haldir drifted in thought, as he listened to the song of the trees, but then Tindómë broke into his reverie.
“There is an awful lot of land; Tulkas showed me as we rode. It stretches north and south for – a thousand miles maybe? More? I think there is still a frozen north, even if the grinding ice no longer forms a bridge to the rest of the world. And down south there is a great sea.”
One of the hunt, Haldir had not learnt his name, had told him, too, that there was land in plenty; forest, plains, mountains, swamps… Haldir had found himself yearning to explore, to see more of this world of The West. But not alone. Not with Tindómë as sole companion either. No, he wanted to go with his brothers and travel at will, seeing what there was to be seen, learning new things, having adventures; more than he ever had whilst they lived in Lothlorien.
Except that his brothers were not free to join him in years of exploration. That thought brought a stab of sadness. But not the resentment, he realised, that he had felt before; that they had lived full lives and wed without him. No, he thought, there will be others who will wish to explore all this great land and I, who have already seen some of it, can lead them! As long as Her Ladyship permits….
Surely, he thought, she would be happy; there will be a place here for the Galadhrim. And, he decided happily, there is no real reason why Rumil and Orophin cannot spend some time exploring too…
Tindómë broke into his thoughts, still speaking of her ride with Tulkas, and touching those very things Haldir had been considering.
“And he showed me how it had not been there for the people who travelled this way before. He said that these lands ‘were always intended for those who did not at first accompany us…’ This is for us; for the Ithilrim, the Galadhrim, the people of Eryn Lasgalen…”
She did not sound as enthusiastic as he might have expected. But as he listened the reason for that became clearer.
“Before we set out I said to Rumil that there might be so much land that you and I’d be wandering all over it for years trying to find Mandos Halls… And now it looked as if I might have been right.” Her voice broke a little as she went on, “and it might be years and years till I see Rumil again, and it might be too late to rescue Spike, and… and… and now I don’t even know where we are, or how far we came in the hunt, or which way to go to look for Lord Námo’s place.”
She sniffed.
Oh no! Haldir hoped she was not going to cry. He was never quite sure what to do with a crying female.
She sniffed again.
He offered her a handkerchief and, suddenly, she was both laughing and crying at the same time; Haldir felt somewhat nonplussed.
……………………………….
As Haldir passed her a clean white handkerchief, which somehow appeared to have been newly ironed, Tindómë felt the floodgates open. It was such a Rumil-like gesture.
She wasn’t sure whether she was laughing, crying, or both. But Haldir was looking at her with a very worried expression. She tried to explain.
“It’s just, Rumil… handkerchief… he always… and now you… and I miss him. I know it’s not been long but… and we’ve been apart for longer… but… but… and I always wondered why… elves… handkerchiefs…”
It didn’t really seem to be helping. Haldir looked no less worried. If anything he looked quite perplexed.
Then he seemed to make a decision. He stood, with that enviable fluidity of movement that Tindómë still could not quite achieve, so that he looked down at her.
“Come then. You wish to bring this person to Valinor. You wish to be reunited with Rumil. We will achieve neither by sitting here.”
He gathered up their packs and called the horses to him.
Part of Tindómë wanted to just sit and sob more loudly but, she decided, it probably would just give her red eyes, a swollen face, and not much else; so time to ‘put on the big girl panties’, get off her adel-bein, and get moving.
She dried her eyes and blew her nose, rather noisily, in Haldir’s handkerchief; just in time to take the hand he now held out to her, and get to her feet.
“We will cross the river a little further downstream,” he said, “where it becomes wider but more shallow. Or so I was told.”
Told? Well that sounded as if he might have some idea where they were, and where they were going, then…
“Then we will continue through the forest. Perhaps we will have to leave it and climb up more mountains eventually,” he continued, “but did Mithrandir himself not say that the exact whereabouts of the entrance to the Halls of Lord Námo may not be quite fixed… that we might even find it with little difficulty? It seems to me we may not have had very many difficulties – but I… believe… we may not have to travel for much longer.”
“Uh – you believe?”
“I was not told it, exactly, whilst I rode with the hunt but I got the impression that we may be much nearer the end of our journey than we are to the beginning.”
Well that was good to know. They’d been on the road for, what? A month? A bit more? A bit less? So it did sound as if they weren’t going to be wandering around for years… hurrah!
She smiled at him. “It’s not that I don’t enjoy your company,” she began, and almost faltered as she realised that, actually, that was true. “But I am worried about Spike… and I do want to get back to Rumil. And to Legolas, too. He is going to be so happy to know there is all this forest and that we will be welcome here.”
Haldir dipped his head slightly, in acknowledgement, but said no more except “Come, then.”
His source of information was clearly correct. They rode for a little over an hour and the river did, indeed, become wider, and more shallow, as it ran over gravel beds between broad meadows. The horses had no problem picking a path across without either rider even getting wet feet.
As they moved back into the dappled light under the trees, at the other side of the water meadow, Tindómë let her horse follow Haldir’s mount and let her mind drift.
She thought about Spike, briefly. She thought of lying under these very trees in Rumil’s arms, of spending a whole night lazily joining; they would, most certainly, do that at some time. But she thought, more, of Legolas. Oh! How he would delight in these woods and forests. If their song made Haldir dizzy, how much more would they affect a woodland prince? Tindómë could just imagine him leading all those who had accompanied him on the ‘Heart of Eryn Ithil’, and those of his father’s people who had sailed or been reborn.
Then came one of those moments when thought becomes more a flash of insight.
She had often thought, over the years, that the sea-longing was a terrible way to reward Legolas for his part in ridding Middle Earth of Sauron. She had thought, more than once, that she would tell the Valar so if she ever got the chance. But, even though she now had had the opportunity, somehow she had never mentioned it.
Now she began to wonder if this was one of those times where she had been looking at something the wrong way around.
Other folk from his father’s people had made the sea-journey, one or two at a time, but they had no focus when they reached the Western Lands. Perhaps they awaited Oropher returning from the Halls of Awaiting, but that had not yet happened.
Legolas though, as a member of The Fellowship, had come to know the world outside the Great Greenwood. He had spent time with elves from other traditions, and even learnt how to live with people who were not elves. These skills would come in useful when confronted with the inhabitants of Aman. He had developed leadership skills, and diplomatic ones, when he had set up the colony of Eryn Ithil and had earned such loyalty that, when he had finally given in to the sea-longing and sailed, he had brought his own people with him.
And now he was a focal point for those other Sylvan elves who owed no loyalty to Lady Galadriel; ready to lead them out into these woodlands that had been waiting for them since somewhere about the beginning of time, or not all that long after. A forest that was even bigger, and (oh, sacrilegious thought!) more beautiful than the Great Greenwood.
He was also a reason why King Thranduil might bring the rest of their people ‘home’ in time. (Tindómë liked to think that The Key, in the shape of Haldirin, had also helped to make this more likely by reassuring Thranduil that his wife’s fëa had not lingered in Arda.)
In fact, she thought, although the Valar were sworn not to interfere in life in Middle Earth it would not surprise her if she ever found that those gulls at Pelargir had been ‘encouraged’ by Ulmo…
The more she turned the idea over in her mind the more sense it made. She so wanted to discuss it with Rumil (‘hey, hervenn, I can have deep thinky thoughts, too!’). And Gimli. Gimli would be a good person to discuss it with.
But not Haldir, even though he was right here – he was too much her Ladyship’s ellon.
She was so caught up in thought that she didn’t even notice that they had ridden for so long that it was almost dark. Then Haldir brought his horse to a halt and her own mount followed suit.
At first Tindómë thought her companion had decided it was time to make camp, for the night, but Haldir made no move to dismount. Instead he beckoned Tindómë forward.
As she came alongside he pointed ahead, between the trees, and Tindómë realised that, not only were the stars beginning to show above them, but ahead of them small lights were also twinkling amongst the trees as if indicating the path they needed to follow.
“Oh. Oh my.”
She felt as if her pulse was racing with excitement and yet she was afraid. She was sure this was it – as sure as if there had been a signpost saying ‘this way to the Halls of Mandos’ – and the phrase ‘it is better to travel hopefully than to arrive’ suddenly made a lot of sense.
Haldir nudged his horse forward and Tindómë, not wishing to appear as unsettled as she actually was, did likewise.
The path curved gently as they rode between two rows of lights for minutes or, maybe, hours. There was no longer anything but the path; all else was dark, silent, and the hooves of the horses made no sound either. And then they arrived.
A great arch of light filled Tindómë’s field of vision; surely it could not have been there even ten seconds earlier!
Then a figure came towards them, as if the light had taken the shape of an ellon, and a voice said, “Welcome, Haldir and Tindómë, to the Halls of my Lord Námo.”
...........................
adel-bein – beautiful behind –Rumil’s description of Tindómë’s backside!
Hervenn - husband
However here is the next chapter.
In the last chapter Haldir and Tindómë/Dawn had ridden with Oromë's Great Hunt, now it is the morning after...
The Valinor Trail, Chapter Sixteen; Thinky Thoughts
Words; 2,300
Chapter Rated PG.
Disclaimer as Chapter One.
Previous chapters are here.
Haldir awoke and it took him a second or two to recall exactly where he was. He looked across to see Tindómë also just waking. He found himself wondering when he had begun to think of her as Tindómë rather than as ‘Rumil’s wife’. Sometime in the past couple of weeks, he decided, and it was not a bad thing.
“Elo!” she said. “That was just… elo!”
Instead of being irritated by her somewhat incoherent comment, as he thought he probably would have been not all that long ago, he found himself smiling.
And agreeing.
The horses were close by and turned to look at them, briefly, before going back to what was clearly breakfast. The packs were even closer and beside those was the non-equine version of breakfast; a loaf, a pat of butter, some thick slices of cold pork, apples, and fresh water.
“Well that kind of proves it was real, and not just a very impressive dream path,” Tindómë said, waving towards the food. “And weirdly, considering we ate so much last night, I’m as hungry as a hobbit that missed both first and second breakfast.”
She pulled a piece off the loaf and began to butter it.
Haldir decided that there was a lot to be said for her down-to-earth attitude to life. He could imagine others who would still be so awed by the preceding day, and night, that they would simply sit in contemplation for a day, or two, or three.
He joined her and spread butter thickly onto the bread, which was still warm, and topped it with cold meat and slices of apple.
“Hey!” Tindómë said between mouthfuls, “we can absolutely, and totally, say this is the food of the gods – well of the Valar anyway! How neat is that?”
Somewhere inside his head, Haldir thought he could hear a voice saying ‘Totally!’
Probably, he thought, a memory of Orophin – who copied Tindómë’s bizarre use of words mainly to annoy his elder brother; at least in that brother’s opinion. But, actually, it did sum up the situation rather well.
They continued to eat, quietly, listening to the sounds of the river, the forest, and their horses.
Haldir drifted in thought, as he listened to the song of the trees, but then Tindómë broke into his reverie.
“There is an awful lot of land; Tulkas showed me as we rode. It stretches north and south for – a thousand miles maybe? More? I think there is still a frozen north, even if the grinding ice no longer forms a bridge to the rest of the world. And down south there is a great sea.”
One of the hunt, Haldir had not learnt his name, had told him, too, that there was land in plenty; forest, plains, mountains, swamps… Haldir had found himself yearning to explore, to see more of this world of The West. But not alone. Not with Tindómë as sole companion either. No, he wanted to go with his brothers and travel at will, seeing what there was to be seen, learning new things, having adventures; more than he ever had whilst they lived in Lothlorien.
Except that his brothers were not free to join him in years of exploration. That thought brought a stab of sadness. But not the resentment, he realised, that he had felt before; that they had lived full lives and wed without him. No, he thought, there will be others who will wish to explore all this great land and I, who have already seen some of it, can lead them! As long as Her Ladyship permits….
Surely, he thought, she would be happy; there will be a place here for the Galadhrim. And, he decided happily, there is no real reason why Rumil and Orophin cannot spend some time exploring too…
Tindómë broke into his thoughts, still speaking of her ride with Tulkas, and touching those very things Haldir had been considering.
“And he showed me how it had not been there for the people who travelled this way before. He said that these lands ‘were always intended for those who did not at first accompany us…’ This is for us; for the Ithilrim, the Galadhrim, the people of Eryn Lasgalen…”
She did not sound as enthusiastic as he might have expected. But as he listened the reason for that became clearer.
“Before we set out I said to Rumil that there might be so much land that you and I’d be wandering all over it for years trying to find Mandos Halls… And now it looked as if I might have been right.” Her voice broke a little as she went on, “and it might be years and years till I see Rumil again, and it might be too late to rescue Spike, and… and… and now I don’t even know where we are, or how far we came in the hunt, or which way to go to look for Lord Námo’s place.”
She sniffed.
Oh no! Haldir hoped she was not going to cry. He was never quite sure what to do with a crying female.
She sniffed again.
He offered her a handkerchief and, suddenly, she was both laughing and crying at the same time; Haldir felt somewhat nonplussed.
……………………………….
As Haldir passed her a clean white handkerchief, which somehow appeared to have been newly ironed, Tindómë felt the floodgates open. It was such a Rumil-like gesture.
She wasn’t sure whether she was laughing, crying, or both. But Haldir was looking at her with a very worried expression. She tried to explain.
“It’s just, Rumil… handkerchief… he always… and now you… and I miss him. I know it’s not been long but… and we’ve been apart for longer… but… but… and I always wondered why… elves… handkerchiefs…”
It didn’t really seem to be helping. Haldir looked no less worried. If anything he looked quite perplexed.
Then he seemed to make a decision. He stood, with that enviable fluidity of movement that Tindómë still could not quite achieve, so that he looked down at her.
“Come then. You wish to bring this person to Valinor. You wish to be reunited with Rumil. We will achieve neither by sitting here.”
He gathered up their packs and called the horses to him.
Part of Tindómë wanted to just sit and sob more loudly but, she decided, it probably would just give her red eyes, a swollen face, and not much else; so time to ‘put on the big girl panties’, get off her adel-bein, and get moving.
She dried her eyes and blew her nose, rather noisily, in Haldir’s handkerchief; just in time to take the hand he now held out to her, and get to her feet.
“We will cross the river a little further downstream,” he said, “where it becomes wider but more shallow. Or so I was told.”
Told? Well that sounded as if he might have some idea where they were, and where they were going, then…
“Then we will continue through the forest. Perhaps we will have to leave it and climb up more mountains eventually,” he continued, “but did Mithrandir himself not say that the exact whereabouts of the entrance to the Halls of Lord Námo may not be quite fixed… that we might even find it with little difficulty? It seems to me we may not have had very many difficulties – but I… believe… we may not have to travel for much longer.”
“Uh – you believe?”
“I was not told it, exactly, whilst I rode with the hunt but I got the impression that we may be much nearer the end of our journey than we are to the beginning.”
Well that was good to know. They’d been on the road for, what? A month? A bit more? A bit less? So it did sound as if they weren’t going to be wandering around for years… hurrah!
She smiled at him. “It’s not that I don’t enjoy your company,” she began, and almost faltered as she realised that, actually, that was true. “But I am worried about Spike… and I do want to get back to Rumil. And to Legolas, too. He is going to be so happy to know there is all this forest and that we will be welcome here.”
Haldir dipped his head slightly, in acknowledgement, but said no more except “Come, then.”
His source of information was clearly correct. They rode for a little over an hour and the river did, indeed, become wider, and more shallow, as it ran over gravel beds between broad meadows. The horses had no problem picking a path across without either rider even getting wet feet.
As they moved back into the dappled light under the trees, at the other side of the water meadow, Tindómë let her horse follow Haldir’s mount and let her mind drift.
She thought about Spike, briefly. She thought of lying under these very trees in Rumil’s arms, of spending a whole night lazily joining; they would, most certainly, do that at some time. But she thought, more, of Legolas. Oh! How he would delight in these woods and forests. If their song made Haldir dizzy, how much more would they affect a woodland prince? Tindómë could just imagine him leading all those who had accompanied him on the ‘Heart of Eryn Ithil’, and those of his father’s people who had sailed or been reborn.
Then came one of those moments when thought becomes more a flash of insight.
She had often thought, over the years, that the sea-longing was a terrible way to reward Legolas for his part in ridding Middle Earth of Sauron. She had thought, more than once, that she would tell the Valar so if she ever got the chance. But, even though she now had had the opportunity, somehow she had never mentioned it.
Now she began to wonder if this was one of those times where she had been looking at something the wrong way around.
Other folk from his father’s people had made the sea-journey, one or two at a time, but they had no focus when they reached the Western Lands. Perhaps they awaited Oropher returning from the Halls of Awaiting, but that had not yet happened.
Legolas though, as a member of The Fellowship, had come to know the world outside the Great Greenwood. He had spent time with elves from other traditions, and even learnt how to live with people who were not elves. These skills would come in useful when confronted with the inhabitants of Aman. He had developed leadership skills, and diplomatic ones, when he had set up the colony of Eryn Ithil and had earned such loyalty that, when he had finally given in to the sea-longing and sailed, he had brought his own people with him.
And now he was a focal point for those other Sylvan elves who owed no loyalty to Lady Galadriel; ready to lead them out into these woodlands that had been waiting for them since somewhere about the beginning of time, or not all that long after. A forest that was even bigger, and (oh, sacrilegious thought!) more beautiful than the Great Greenwood.
He was also a reason why King Thranduil might bring the rest of their people ‘home’ in time. (Tindómë liked to think that The Key, in the shape of Haldirin, had also helped to make this more likely by reassuring Thranduil that his wife’s fëa had not lingered in Arda.)
In fact, she thought, although the Valar were sworn not to interfere in life in Middle Earth it would not surprise her if she ever found that those gulls at Pelargir had been ‘encouraged’ by Ulmo…
The more she turned the idea over in her mind the more sense it made. She so wanted to discuss it with Rumil (‘hey, hervenn, I can have deep thinky thoughts, too!’). And Gimli. Gimli would be a good person to discuss it with.
But not Haldir, even though he was right here – he was too much her Ladyship’s ellon.
She was so caught up in thought that she didn’t even notice that they had ridden for so long that it was almost dark. Then Haldir brought his horse to a halt and her own mount followed suit.
At first Tindómë thought her companion had decided it was time to make camp, for the night, but Haldir made no move to dismount. Instead he beckoned Tindómë forward.
As she came alongside he pointed ahead, between the trees, and Tindómë realised that, not only were the stars beginning to show above them, but ahead of them small lights were also twinkling amongst the trees as if indicating the path they needed to follow.
“Oh. Oh my.”
She felt as if her pulse was racing with excitement and yet she was afraid. She was sure this was it – as sure as if there had been a signpost saying ‘this way to the Halls of Mandos’ – and the phrase ‘it is better to travel hopefully than to arrive’ suddenly made a lot of sense.
Haldir nudged his horse forward and Tindómë, not wishing to appear as unsettled as she actually was, did likewise.
The path curved gently as they rode between two rows of lights for minutes or, maybe, hours. There was no longer anything but the path; all else was dark, silent, and the hooves of the horses made no sound either. And then they arrived.
A great arch of light filled Tindómë’s field of vision; surely it could not have been there even ten seconds earlier!
Then a figure came towards them, as if the light had taken the shape of an ellon, and a voice said, “Welcome, Haldir and Tindómë, to the Halls of my Lord Námo.”
...........................
adel-bein – beautiful behind –Rumil’s description of Tindómë’s backside!
Hervenn - husband
no subject
Date: 02/09/2013 06:07 pm (UTC)kidding...
no subject
Date: 02/09/2013 07:32 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 03/09/2013 05:13 am (UTC)Huggs,
Lynda
p.s. How is D.D. settling in?
no subject
Date: 03/09/2013 07:42 am (UTC)D-d sent me an e-mail to say she was settling in well, and had been invited to the home of one of the other staff for the evening so wouldn't be able to phone - which was nice to know.
no subject
Date: 03/09/2013 05:47 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 03/09/2013 07:43 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 03/09/2013 09:50 am (UTC)Nice cliff-hanger :-)
no subject
Date: 03/09/2013 11:41 am (UTC)To be honest, the idea came to me almost as 'out of the blue' as it did to her; I was thinking about it in the car one day, and suddenly it occurred to me that, at least in my version, his sea-longing could have very major long-term consequences for all the wood elves.
no subject
Date: 03/09/2013 09:56 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 03/09/2013 11:43 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 03/09/2013 11:52 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 04/09/2013 02:20 am (UTC)As always, thank you so much for sharing your stories!
no subject
Date: 04/09/2013 07:50 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 06/09/2013 11:51 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 07/09/2013 10:25 am (UTC)And I'm really glad you thought the questions raised are interesting, and worth thinking about.