[piosenniel]

Erkaliel’s horse was tired by the time they reached Michel Delving. Tanroth had pushed the group these last three days, and while the Elves showed no signs of fatigue, their mounts were flagging. As they neared the outskirts of Michel Delving, word spread among the local inhabitants that a party of the Fair Folk was passing through the Shire. Many of the Little Folk had come into the main section of town, or had gathered in the hedgerows along the road to see the Elves.

Others of the group took little notice of the Periannath, recalling to Erkaliel something she had once heard said – that sheep may look different to other sheep or even to their shepherd, but that mortals have not been the study of Elvenkind. ‘No wonder they call us stiff-necked and aloof,’ she murmured to herself. ‘I wonder how long it will be before their memory of us fades and we become nothing more than pleasant stories told to children at bedtime.

Bracken nickered and shook her head as if agreeing with her rider’s thoughts. The two of them fell to the back of the line, letting the main body of the group go on ahead to look for a place to camp, there being no sign of an Inn in the town. Erkaliel watched as the backsides of the horses grew smaller in the distance. She wished to be alone with her thoughts, and the chattering of the rest of the group had already stretched her patience thin over the past few days.

It was a fair night – the sky black as a crow’s wing on whose feathers glittered strands of fiery jewels. The stars in their familiar patterns above her brought her comfort and she wondered if the same patterns held in the Western Lands. She had just picked out Wilwarin, the Butterfly, when she heard some exclamation to her right and the sound of someone hushing the speaker. Erkaliel brought Bracken to a halt and dismounted. There was a rustling of leaves and a few hushed words then thick silence.

‘What’s this?’ she chuckled pulling back a low lying branch from a shrub at the side of the road. There, in the ditch, near the roots, huddled two small Hobbits, tinier than most – children, she supposed, a little boy and girl, by their clothing.

The little girl, the bolder of the two stood up, blinking in the starlight. Unsure of the Elf’s intention, she stood in front of her brother, as if to protect him. He pushed past her, seeing the smile on Erkaliel’s face and smiled back. Names were exchanged, and the children grew bolder as the Elf stood still, and did not seem menacing as their parents said she might be. They fingered her tunic, asking why she wore something so common, when they had heard that Elves dressed always in finery and jewels. Erkaliel laughed, saying that even Elves must take care of the business of their ordinary lives and that fine clothes would not do for such mundane tasks. Where have you come from and where do you go, they asked her, and she answered in kind. Their eyes grew wide at the thought of sailing on a great ship over the bent seas, and the girl lamented the fact that all the Elves would soon be gone.

‘Not all of us will leave,’ said Erkaliel. ‘There are many who love this world and will stay. Though, in time they will fade as the world grows beyond them and memory of them fades.’ She had crouched down to be on a level with them, and reached out to touch their soft cheeks. This would be their world now, and the world of Men, if Sauron did not prevail. From her waistband she drew two little knives, wrought fair in Elven design, with a small green jewel each set in the pommel. ‘Remember us,’ she told the two, who accepted them wide-eyed. ‘Tell your children of us.’ She helped them tuck them into the waistbands of their breeches and their skirt. ‘They will also serve you should the foul forces of the Shadow come into the fair Shire.’

‘We have nothing to give you back!’ cried the little girl. Erkaliel laughed, a bright silvered sound against the dark night. ‘You have given me your friendship, and that is enough,’ she said. ‘But if you will, my companions and I need a place to camp this night – can you tell me of one nearby?’

There was a fair sized glade just to the west of the town, on the north side of the road, they told her. The trees would shield them from the wind, and there was a small creek that ran on the east side of the clearing. Erkaliel mounted and waved good-bye to them, their little figures growing smaller as she sped away toward her companions.

As soon as she caught up with the group, she told Tanroth of the glade. ‘Perhaps we can camp there tonight,’ she said. ‘And let the horses take some rest.’

<font size=1 color=339966>[ 4:24 AM December 15, 2003: Message edited by: piosenniel ]