The North-East Road
by Morgana
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Disclaimer: Middle-Earth
doesn't belong to me - I just play here. Tinuviel is mine, though. Don't
touch her. She might touch back with a blade.
The old addage "evil travels faster than the news of it" had been proving itself true these days, and Tinuviel Aiwe found herself an unwilling victim of that saying. First, a long journey to Rivendell from Mirkwood with word of patrolling Orcs across the lands was intercepted twice by marauding Orc parties. Now a lone Uruk-hai, and a Rivendell messenger meeting her with news of it's presence in the forests after she'd managed to stab her blade through it's throat. Oh, irony. Reaching up to brush a smear of blood from her pale cheek, Tinuviel nodded to the shocked messenger. "Ride a faster horse next time," she commented and started off down the road abroad a chestnut stallion of high spirits and higer breeding. She headed North-East, to the oily-black paths of Mirkwood.
Halfway between Rivendell and Mirkwood, a journey taking the better part of a fortnight, the lone Elven woman stopped to make camp in a clearing just off the North road. Settling her horse with grass and cool water from the stream, she settled down by her fire and extracted her sword, Morandune, from it's sheath to lovingly clean the vile blood from it's edge. She hummed to herself, a song of the Sindar, taking a moment to gloss the rune-set moonstone at the base of the blade that the sword was named for. It was of no noble descent, but much loved by it's bearer. It gleamed silver in the graceful way of Elven blades, and it's voice was sweet when slicing through the air. She was proud of it. For this was no genteel Elven maiden who sat fawningly at her father's court and read books and spoke poetry. Here was a diplomat. A warrior. She didn't shirk at the sight of blood nor battle. Tinuviel Aiwe could ride better than even the men at her father's court, and she brandished a sword with just as mush assurance and confidence as they. She walked into war with the Elven archers and warriors, and then rode to Rohan to negotiate breeding contracts with their studs. She was a Lady, though one does not care for titles to keep them warm when out in the woods in the dead of the night. But her fire was bright, her horse lively, and her clothing warm. No cause to complain. Yet.
The fire, though it would attract attention, would also serve to ward off the various species of evil that lurked the woods and paths, and the gleaming pair of eyes just outside the fire's light, but easily visible to keen Elven gazes, were no exception. Wolves. They would come no closer to the fire, but her horse was looking like an easy meal to them. Tossing down a thick, warm blanket, she moved to lead her horse closer to the fire. With the intelligance that it's forefather had passed on, increased understanding of the spoken languages, it easily descerned that laying down by the fire would be safest. No harm would come while his mistress weilded Morandune. Wolves were some of the kinder species one came across in Mirkwood these days, courtesy of the shadow that befell it. Spiders of ugly proportion, a host of unfriendly creatures... save for the court of Thranduil, King of Mirkwood, it was a dismal place altogether. And so these wolves were of no concern to Tinuviel.
Tinuviel unwrapped her saddlepacks, selecting a canister of the wine served in Rivendell, sent along with her on her journey home. Bread, such vegetables as she could procure, and an apple comprised her dinner that evening, and a flake of sweet hay for her mount. Let the Orcs come, she needed song to keep herself cheerful. And so, as she settled down by the fire, her voice filled the air with a song of the Nothern Woods. She didn't have a particularily sweet singing voice, nor could she play an instrument, but it was decent enough, and she felt quite light-hearted as the song ended.
With a grin, she
reached over to thump her horse lovingly on the neck. "We'll be home by
the end of the week, handsome lad. And by then, your lady-friends should
have been delivered from Rohan." The stallion whinnied quietly in response,
and from the woods, the wolves grumbled hungrily. She merely laughed. "No
supper here for you, my furry fellows! If you must find a meal of meat,
why don't you hunt yourselves some Orc. Beneficial for the both of us."
Irritated growling answered her, and again she laughed. Despite the noise
the wolves made around her camp, her elven ears were sharper, and the sound
of was detected. The keen eyesight of her race gave her a view of the figures
beyond the preying lupine...
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More when I get
around to it. I have no real aim with this, it was just a bit of a character
study to pass some
time... Review appreciate anyhow.
~Morgana