Heartfelt thanks goes to HaloFin17 for giving this story a first look and a more fitting title! Thank you, my friend!
The map was giving him a headache. One of his captains had dumped two handfuls of pebbles onto it; some of them where white, the others had been painted black with tar. There seemed to be many more black pieces than white.
War, unfortunately, had been a part of most of Imrahil's life. He wondered if it would end like that, too.
Ruthlessly, he pushed that thought away. If he lingered on it too long, his nights would be haunted again by images of his city burning, the river flowing red with blood, and his wife and children strung up or worse.
"Prince Imrahil, Captain Barahir asks to enter!"
Imrahil straightened. "Come in!"
That Barahir's hair was turning grey said many things: that the captain was able and cunning enough that he still lived in these times of war; that Dol Amroth could not do without him leading men into battle and death; and that he was showing the signs of age prematurely for his years.
"The scouts have come back from the south," he reported.
"What news?"
Barahir collected a few more black pebbles and dropped them along the coast and up the river.
"More of Sauron's allies move up the river. Haradrim, mostly, but orcs, too, and a ship from Umbar they also saw."
"Only one?"
Barahir nodded. "For now."
"Send a message to Ithilien. Faramir must hear of what we found."
"Yes, my prince. A man stands ready to ride. Let me send him off—unless you have more to say to Captain Faramir?"
Imrahil regretfully shook his head. For a while now he had not had time to write letters including anything more than the enemy's movements. Even his family, who were only a few leagues away, had to do without him, and only once in a while did he succeed in writing at least to his wife a few lines.
"There's something else, but let me send off the messenger first," Barahir said and stepped out.
Imrahil was curious. If the 'something else' had been more orcs, Haradrim or some other enemy, Barahir would have told him right away. The captain only took a moment, then he returned.
"We found something else. Or rather, someone."
The man did not appear to have moved far from where Imrahil's scouts first saw him. A group of orcs lay slain there, their black blood thick upon the sand and stinking up to the dark sky. Their opponent did not seem to mind the foul smell, or at least not enough to leave quickly.
He only turned partly to look at them from the corner of his eye when Imrahil and his escort neared on horseback, and said:
"I had wondered when my watchers would reveal themselves."
Torthon, one of the scouts at Imrahil's side, bristled. He was young yet, while Imrahil immediately had a feeling that this man was not human.
"Who are you?" Captain Barahir demanded.
The man did not reply.
His clothes were clean, but old and worn. Even the boots, which appeared to be good quality, had seen too many roads and too much wilderness. A long cloak covered the tall, slim form, and the hood had been pulled down deep into his face even on this relatively warm day so that, from the side, only the ends of long black strands of hair showed and a sharp chin pale as milk. It reminded Imrahil of the Ithilien rangers that his nephew Faramir captained. Some might have considered him a poor vagabond, but the voice was far from feeble and old; it was strong, full of resonance, like some of the best singers Imrahil had heard in more peaceful days and with a strange accent. Finally, he wore a sword on his hip; it was half covered by his cloak, but the decoration of the hilt did not fit a poor man at all, nor did it have the look of a sword forged by men.
Barahir put a hand on his weapon, but Imrahils stayed his hand. "Wait."
The prince moved his horse into the man's direct line of sight, and when their gazes crossed, his suspicions were confirmed. Those were elf eyes set in a never-aging face of the eldar!
"Master Elf, you are far from home," Imrahil said, switching to Sindarin. His men, who had formed a semicircle behind the elf and blocked any escape, gasped.
"Farther than you can conceive," the elf replied in the same tongue. Imrahil still could not place his accent, less so in Sindarin, for he had never had the chance to speak to elves and no idea how the different kinds and groups differed in their speech.
"The elvish havens are far to the north, and that is the closest elven settlement I know of."
"That was not my destination, nor my origin."
"These lands here are perilous, especially for lone travelers."
The elf only nodded, and his eyes moved to the dead orcs in the distance. "The numbers of the enemy have swelled," he mused.
Imrahil frowned. "Sauron's orcs have been multiplying for decades, Master Elf. But now he moves his full strength against the free peoples, and those you slew only represent one small pebble in the swarm of his army. I do not recommend wandering the lands here alone unless you have some purpose protected by the Valar."
The elf let out a dry laugh. "Protected by the Valar I am not, nor my purpose, for I have none. As for orcs, I have faced many enemies and wars in my time; it is unlikely that this one will kill me and if it does, then the Valar willed it so."
Imrahil frowned and dismounted to approach further. The pale eyes, piercing like none Imrahil had seen before, were hard to look at; age and too many other things lay there that most humans could not have understood, but Imrahil did not turn away.
"You have the blood of the eldar in you, Lord of the sea," the elf remarked.
"So it is said in the lore of my land. My name is Imrahil. I am Prince of Dol Amroth, which lies north of here. May I know your name, Master Elf?"
"I would give it to you if any good came with it, but ruin and remorse are my sole companions. Far from my kind I have wandered, and I have stopped counting the ages that have passed since then. Nothing holds meaning for me, for all that I held dear has gone like the wind or were slaughtered like the orcs that lie there."
It was the longest speech the elf had held yet, and the pain within his voice was so vivid that Imrahil was moved by it and did not dare probe further.
"Will you not at least come with us to rest and eat? I know not how long you wander, but purposeless those wanderings need not be if you used that sword against orcs more often, and I know were very many of them are."
"Nay, Prince Imrahil of Dol Amroth; my sword has seen enough wars and battles and already shed too much blood. Moreover, I will not be parted from the sea."
Imrahil was disappointed. Spending ages in grief and taking roads without a destination were beyond his understanding, especially if there was yet something good that he could contribute to the world. But what did he know of the eldar? Nothing, he felt, that would convince this old soul. Perhaps the elf was a poor man after all, though not necessarily in wealth.
"Very well. I will pray that the Valar safeguard your road, wherever it may lead."
The elf smiled, a very small, amused curve of his lips with an even smaller glimpse of white teeth in a face still full of sorrow.
"Would that a prayer to the Valar could show me a purpose or road out of damnation."
Prince Imrahil mounted his horse again and rode away, his men following behind him.
"What a shame," Barahir remarked when they had left the beach and reached the road. "In legend the elves always fought the orcs the most fiercely of all. Perhaps even one of them could have helped us turn the tide. But if many more of them remain, they are all in the north and far from where they are needed."
"Far from where we in the south need them perhaps, but news have already reached me that legions march on Helm's Deep, and the Misty Mountains have been said to be the cradle and shelter of orcs and goblins for years. The elves and men in that region will likely be facing the enemy themselves, and if they do not stop the armies there, Gondor will be caught between two fronts."
Imrahil prayed that night, for elves and men in general, and for the lost soul by the sea in particular, still wondering who he was and what he had seen in his long life. And perhaps his prayers were––at least partly––heard, for he met Legolas of the Nine Companions some time later, in Minas Tirith after the siege, and there the tide was at last turned.
End notes
"So it is said in the lore of my land" is a line directly taken from chapter 9 "The Last Debate" of the Return of the King. Imrahil says it to Legolas, who looks at Imrahil and, seeing that he has elven ancestors, says: "It is long since the people of Nimrodel left the woodlands of Lórien, and yet still one may see that not all sailed from Amroth's haven west over water."
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