Friends Of Nimrodel: Tapestry of Dreams, Part 2 RPG

[littlemanpoet]

King Elessar had commissioned Bergil to accompany the Seekers of Nimrodel, as Queen Arwen named them. He was to be their guard and guide in all realms that gave fealty to the King of Gondor, and the Seekers' trusty friend and man at arms, and emissary of the crown to all others should they pass into other lands.

Ravion went with because they needed a ranger, never mind that the one remaining Elf could read the land better than any Man. Aeron and Raefindan knew he went for Mellonin's sake, and smiled; Mellondu suspected it as well, and scowled.

Erebemlin had sent Taitheneb back to Lorien despite the younger Elf's many protests; but Erebemlin insisted, for the others back in Lorien needed to be apprised of the progress of Amroth, and informed of the manipulations of Tharonwë. Erebemlin would have preferred to go himself, and to tarry on his way at the home of Marigold, but he refused himself the pleasure for his lord Amroth came first in his allegiances.

Aeron, constantly fingering the cut of Gwyllion's hair at his neck, brooded with a closed face as they progressed along the highways of Anórien, keeping his own counsel. Such a drastic change had occurred in no-one else; Aeron had been devil-may-care until the day his sister died.

Ædegard's eyes harbored a ferocity of purpose the moment he had heard of Tharonwë's escape from the dungeons of Minas Tirith, and the will that drove him onward did not diminish.

Raefindan had the care of Indil. He was drawn to the girl in some way that not even he could fathom or describe, and she was ever ready to talk the hours away with him.

Liornung, who had been quiet for all of their trip southward, had, since they left Minas Tirith, taken out his lyre and begun to sing merry tunes again. It was as if, Raefindan suspected, the songster was brightening at the thought of having Bellyn near again, should that hope be realized.

The Four Halflings Inn and the village that had grown up around it at the shank of the White Mountains, was a day and a half behind them, and they had been making their slow way into the woods that grew about the foothills. Ravion had found spoor and other signs of the passage of horses and humans, which Erebemlin judged to be days old.

They made camp and posted guard for the night.

During Raefindan's watch, the silence of the darkling woods was broken briefly by the fitful dreams of one of them; Raefindan craned his neck to try and decipher which sleeper was in a botherment. It was Ædegard. I'll ask him in the morning if he remembers dreaming, Raefindan thought to himself.

[Feanor of the Peredhil]

Dawn broke hesitantly through the glowering canopy above the travelers, casting faint shimmers of light against the trunks and debris strewn forest floor. Raefindan wriggled stiffness from his limbs, rubbing an ache away that had been caused by an unseen root in the night. He glanced around the group; Liornung moved restlessly in dreams, on the verge of wakefulness. Ravion moved silently amongst the sleepers; he nodded to Raefindan as he passed. Aeron sat a short distance away, seemingly deep in thought, staring toward nothing.

Raefindan looked to the small pile of blankets between himself and Bergil, that would be Indil's sleeping body, and knelt beside her to wake her gently. When he pulled away the blankets, he found nothing. Indil had vanished in the night.

---

The little girl woke to find herself alone and cold on the forest floor, cuddled against a fallen tree in nightclothes streaked with earth and blood, with new scabs forming on a skinned knee and scraped hand.

"Bergil?" she called nervously, "Raefindan?"

Tears began to fall and she shivered violently in the chill dawn air. Light had not yet broken through to her, though she could see patches of sky far above her, lighting the highest branches.

Movement behind her, on the far side of the fallen tree startled her and she squeaked and tried to press herself to the dead wood, to become part of it, hidden and safe.

"I am not here," she breathed frantically, wiping away tears with the back of a dirty hand, "I am not here. You cannot find me. I am not here."

A pair of strong hands gripped her from behind and lifted her from her hiding place. A low voice murmured cruelly, "And who is this, all lost and alone?"

He turned Indil in the air to look into her face and she began to scream.

[littlemanpoet]

Tharonwë chose to let her scream. He reached out to the minds of the men not far away and made them believe they heard a morning birdcall.

What was this little girl doing with them? He gently sifted her mind, finding a cacophony of connections and associations. He searched more deeply.

Ah. This girl had hidden her own parents' death from herself. He saw no reason to undo her little mental escapism. It meant nothing to him.

There. He had found it. Strange dreams and visions, of Nimrodel, and Mithrellas, seen through the eyes of a child. He turned each vision and dream over, studying each one from every angle he could think of.

Satisfied, he looked deeper, as if for dessert. What he saw there was something very odd. It was a blockage that the girl had apparently not put there herself. It was opaque, and did not allow of his searching. Somehow it was closed off to him. He was tempted to force it open, but breaking the child's mind did not seem necessarily a good risk; not yet.

"Shh, quiet, little one." He quieted her mind, and her cries ceased. But she stared at him fearfully and distrustfully. He set her on the ground, but did not let go. "You will come with me and we will see the fair lady you dream about. Would you like to go see her?"

[Feanor of the Peredhil]

Indil's fear of Erebemlin was nothing to what she now felt in the presence of Thoronwe. Though his actions were not violent or unkind, the way he spoke and moved had none of the gentle reassurance of the men she had left behind.

As he studied her, Indil trembled in his grip; he was strong, but not comfortable like Raefindan, on whose lap she could sleep, or patient like Bergil, who watched over her always, and he did not play like Aeron or Mellondu. Thoronwe watched her too closely, and she could not look away.

At his question, Indil's mind seemed suddenly free and she saw the butterfly beat its wings gracefully and fruitlessly where it perched upon the fallen wood. She felt cold dirt against her bare toes. A breeze tugged at her nightclothes and pulled at her unplaited hair. She was hungry and cold again.

She looked into his eyes and saw nothing but her own reflection. She asked shyly, "Will she like me?"

[littlemanpoet]

Tharonwë

How amusing, thought Tharonwë, and childish.

"Of course she will like you," he said gently. He had, of course, no way of knowing that his efforts at gentleness were perceived by honest folk as contrived.

He sifted through her mind again, and again came up against that nagging opacity. What was it? It was like nothing he had ever found before, no matter how complex the mind. And in the relatively simple mind of a child!

He took the girl in hand and started off in the general direction of Nimrodel and Mithrellas, and thought about that place in the child's mind, and what could possibly be the cause. Could the girl be a reincarnated Elf? Surely not, she was obviously human; a pity. Had some Elf or Wizard, or even a Maia hidden in secret somewhere in Gondor, worked his or her art upon this child? Whatever for? Surely there would be more valuable subjects for such craft. Tharonwë absently met the child's needs as she spoke them, always moving south and up; so consumed was he with this strange phenomenon in the child's mind that he forgot about everything else.

Ædegard

Ædegard sat up suddenly, having been wakened by a rather piercing bird call. He was about to lie back down and go back to sleep for a few more winks, but the panic in Raefindan's voice thoroughly roused him: Indil was gone and they did not know where. It was this news that brought his dream of the night back to Ædegard's memory.

"Raefindan," he said urgently, "I had a dream of Indil. It was Tharonwë that took her."

"We must search for her!" cried Raefindan, moving about in a panic.

Within a few minutes they had broken camp and had spread out through the deep woods, within sight and calling distance of each other.

Ædegard had not told them all of his dream. He had dreamt that it had been he who found Tharonwë, holding the girl against her will. He had dreamed that the Elf had taken a knife and cut off the girl's ear. Consumed with rage, Ædegard had drawn his sword and attacked. Tharonwë had flung the girl to the side like a broken doll, whisked his sword from its sheathe, and beckoned him to the attack scornfully. He had attacked, but his feet refused to obey him and would not let him move faster than a dragging walk. He had been forced to parry blow after blow, watching the cold eyes of the wicked Elf, waiting for the death blow. The Elf struck him at the neck.

He had wakened in the middle of the night at that moment, and found that he had rolled onto a root which had given him kink in the neck. He shuddered from the memory of his dream, rolled over, and had gone back to sleep.

That did not mean that the dream would not come true. He was eager to meet up with Tharonwë and take vengeance upon him for what he had done to Leafa, and what his slaves had done to him. And his feet would not drag as in his dreams. He would show the Elf.

[Feanor of the Peredhil]

As she traveled with Thoronwe, her hand tucked nervously into his, Indil became less vibrant, more quiet. At times he carried her more with efficiency than gentleness, and at times he let her walk, though the slower pace her child's legs provided irritated him. So intent was he upon the contents of Indil's mind, that Thoronwe failed to notice when her chatter slowed to nothing. Indeed, when she cut her foot upon a sharp stone, it was her mind's registry of the incident that alerted him to the bleeding rather than any physical reaction of hers.

For a brief time they stopped. Thoronwe cleaned and bound the wound, meeting Indil's eyes. Brown. Bright, though the sparkle in them was fading.

You will sleep.

She was less trouble to bring when she slept; Thoronwe had taken to encouraging her mind to slumber as often as seemed prudent. Indil yawned, already sleepy, and her eyes closed. Thoronwe probed her unconscious thoughts gently, admiring the intricacy of the child's awareness. Men, he sneered, so unaware of the contents of their own insides.

He gently sent her sleep to deeper levels, watching her dreams with fascination.

Raefindan holds her hand and helps her over slippery rocks. The one beneath her shifts at her weight and she falls, but he catches her.

She laughs and he meets her eyes and his face turns white. "Angela..."

Thoronwe was startled. Indil's dreams deepened, casting farther and wider through broken moments.

"Look at her beautiful face, my love. Look at the light in her eyes. She will be named Eledhwen."

A flash of lightening cuts the sky and the ocean is thrashing violently against cliffs. The echoes of a scream from far away attack the water. The swimming man persists.

Aeron bounces a stone over a still pond. Indil watches hers sink beneath the surface and cries. He teaches her like he taught Gwyllion, pressing the stone into her palm. "Throw fast." he says. "Like this."

A little girl is under water, being held fast. Her eyes are filled with terror. Men dive for her, are forced back, and dive again. Indil throws stones as they fight the cold water. One cuts through Ædegard's ear. Indil cries as he cries out in pain and he begins to choke, sinking slowly.

Thunder echoes in the mountains. A woman weeps under the shadow of an outcropping.

"He will never come. He has forsaken me. Death and despair take us... all must die in the end."

[littlemanpoet]

The pieces of the puzzle were infuriating in their refusal to congeal into a web of connection.

Angela. What kind of name was that? It had no relation to any known speech Tharonwë had ever heard; not Quenya or Sindarin, not any of the Northern speeches of Men; certainly not the Black speech; nor anything from the South or East.

Eledhwen. The name was readily familiar. It was Sindarin for Star-Maiden. Perhaps the girl had overheard lovers speaking together. Over a child, an infant. Did the words refer to this girl? It was a reasonble conclusion.

Storm on the waters. Swimming man. It must be Amroth, curse him.

Throwing stones on the water. Aeron the little thief, and Gwyllion the one the Morlocks had killed. Negligible of import; a mere flitting amongst the threads of association typical of dreams.

Drowning girl, the Elf rehearsed. Indil throwing stones on the water. Indil must be the girl's name form the self-connection to it in her dreams. Ædegard the fool of the Eorlingas cut in the ear? By a stone? Might that happen in days to come? Could this girl dream the future? Perhaps not. The dreams were a jumble.

Except for the last; he knew her. How could he not, weeping for the wrong suitor? She whom he had been driven to win this last millenia. How close was she?

Tharonwë stopped and looked. It was night. The stars were out in their glory. He was high up. He took stock of where he was and where the stars and planets were in order to determine how much time had passed while he had been lost in thought. He was relieved: it had only been all of one day, and into the night. It was time to rest, or he would wear out the child, who was only Human. She was proving useful and might again on the morrow. He laid her down on gathered pine needles and sat with his back against the trunk of another tree, watching and waiting. He let his thought drift to Nimrodel, fearful of her continued rejection, drawn by the insatiable taste of her madness and grief of love, wishing it was he that was its object.

Angela? What kind of name was that?