[Child of the 7th Age]

Child spent the day organizing supplies. Bird and the hobbits had worked diligently to prepare everything for transport. Child decided to check with Pio to see if an extra seacow or two could be brought along in tow, in addition to those swimming in the vat below deck. Other than that, she was more than satisfied with their preparations.

But something else bothered Child. While she had nothing specific to go on, she wondered if the hobbits had found this imprisonment more difficult than the first. Morgoth's veil had given that community the illusion of being imprisoned only a year. But ar-Phrazon had no control over time. And he had kidnapped the group some sixty years ago.

Sixty years was a long time to survive without losing hope. Entire generations had been raised with no understanding of freedom. A painful thought hit Child. She had been dreading the expected loss of lore and letters. She was certain the king had killed many hobbits. But there could be losses even more serious than these.

What if the years of darkness had cut into the hobbits' fear, so that they forgot their love of growing things, or even of family itself? Who could possibly reteach them such things? Pio, or no Pio, these were serious questions.

She wondered when she'd see the Fourth Age again. But then, she recalled, the most precious things, like sky and stars and feelings, changed little from one era to the next.

[ September 09, 2002: Message edited by: Child of the 7th Age ]