Laurie listened with some awe as Pio talked of her planned birth. There is no end to the wonderous ways of the Elven folk, she mused to herself. But for some reason, she felt that Pio would be right, the birth would be easy for her. It sometimes seemed the the race of Elves were more favoured than any other, but Laurie brought herself from those thoughts by remembering the many tales of pain and sorrow she had heard from the men of Dol Amroth. Whenever she visited the White City, Laurie would listen with wide eyes to stories of the Eldar Days. Stories that most in the world had forgotten or dismissed as legend. Amaranthas brought Laurie from her thoughts, speaking softly.
‘Tell me of your mother, child.’ she asked her gently. ‘She must have been a lovely woman to have had a daughter of such grace and beauty.’
With a small smile at the compliment, Laurie looked with studied eyes into the old hobbit’s face, wrinkled with both time and wisdom. Amaranthas sipped a little tea and Pio started on another seedcake as she began to speak.
“As I mentioned before, my mother died very soon after my birth, so I never really got to know her. In fact, I have no memories of her at all.” Laurie spoke in a matter of fact manner, but she kept her eyes carefully on the table before her. She picked at the edge of the tablecloth and threaded the checkered pattern between her fingers. “My mother’s death was very hard for my father to bear, even now he rarely speaks of her. Most of what I know about my mother I have learned from the men of my village, and even that is not much. She was not of Rohan, no one seems to know from whence she originally came. My father was already becoming old when he saw my mother ride through the fields upon a cloudy day. He used to say that a ray of sunlight danced through her golden hair, and her white dress glittered
like the diamonds of the sky. Not a word of her homeland or family did she speak, but he cared not, a spell was laid upon him that day and he knew she must be his. And she was.” Laurie ended simply, and looked up. “My mother bore three boys, each as wild as the last. Though she was strong, the births were hard for her and when she became pregnant with me, a bitter winter swept the country. After catching a lingering cough, she never recovered and my birth simply proved too much. Her spirit left this earth when I was but three days from the womb. However, before she died, my mother insisted that I be named Laurie. Laurie means joy in the Elvish tongue, of course, and it was her hope that I would bring joy to my family. But now I have left them to seek what I know not.”
Both Pio and Amaranthas had listened patiently without interruption to her story,
and Laurie realized with a blush that she had rambled on long enough.
[ February 05, 2003: Message edited by: theWhiteLady ]
|