Whispers of the Breeze
Prologue
It was night. The last remains of daylight had dissolved into the darkness, and the towering heavens were aflame with a glittering frost of stars. Moonlight fell to earth in fragile webs, icing the smoke-grey infinity of trees with the softest traces of silver. The night formed a shadowy frame about the figure of a young maiden, standing silent as death amid the deepening gloom. Unearthly she looked, her pale hair drifting as a spectral mist about her shoulders. The glow of distant stars clouded her ashen features, glinting ethereal and pure as the sacred lights that had once torn the darkness of Middle-Earth asunder, ere the rising of Laurelin's final bloom. The girl smiled into the calm night, her dark eyes echoing the shadows of twilight that reared up on either side. Tinuial the Elves named her, for her true name was a secret known to none. As a child she had been found wandering the twilit forests by hunters of Nargothrond. Whence she came none could tell, though all who had looked upon her perceived that she fled from some deadly peril - a half-forgotten darkness that lingered like an unspoken prophecy behind her. She had been brought before King Orodreth, and taking pity on the child, he saw that she was fostered within his great realm. And so she was taken under the care of one Durthol, the very hunter who had first discovered Tinuial and named her. He took the place of her father and came to love her as a daughter of his own. As the years passed, Tinuial became fair, even, to some degree, by the measure of the Elves. Yet the everlasting youth of the Eldar was not hers, for she was mortal.
She stood now in the secluded woodland region half a league distant of her home, gazing into the shivering firmament past the slender branches of the trees. Suddenly, Tinuial was disturbed by a sharp cry near at hand, and she started violently as her thoughts plummeted back to the hard earth on which she stood.
'Tinuial!'
She turned, and beheld (with a vague bemusement crossing her pale features) the unnecessarily noisy approach of an Elven-youth bearing a lantern. The piercing radiance stung her eyes, and she blinked as he stood before her. He wore a long cloak of soft woodland hues, which contrasted sharply with his tousled black hair.
'Tinuial! Where have you been all this day?' Thaliondil, son of Durthol, demanded breathlessly. His countenance was stern, and a little reproachful, 'Since nightfall I have searched these woods, fearing that some evil had befallen you!'
Tinuial noted that his gaze flickered with annoyance, and thought it wisest not to argue.
'Peace, my brother.' (for so she called him). She looked evenly into his rain-grey eyes, 'I meant no harm. Yet how could anyone bear to remain indoors upon such a night?'
'We must hasten!' Thaliondil took his sister's arm with a gentleness that belied his severe manner, and steered her firmly towards the lights of home.
Neither Tinuial nor her brother could have guessed at the tragedy the rise of midnight would bring.