When they awoke the sky was bathed with gold yet still the stars shone as brightly as ever. Carmelor lay contented on his bed, covering his face with a pillow to block out the light when he heard Aravilui gasp. The blond elf had woken and upon the wall close to his bed was a tapestry long as the wall itself. It was of Mirkwood, specifically where he had dreamed of in Mirkwood last night, an area of the forest he loved to hunt in. Carmelor arose and found on his side was a tapestry of a waterfall of Rivendell, a place he often went to so he could draw and be lost in his dreams. Both were lost for words staring at the tapestries in wonder as time slipped by unnoticed.
Time wore by, immeasurable save by the number of tapestries that appeared each time they slept.
Aravilui looked around sighing softly in the gold bathed room "Five on each side... we have been here about a week... I think, Carmelor."
Carmelor nodded. "Maybe, I really cannot tell," he sighed looking at the tapestries on his side of the large room.
"They look so real, like I could walk into it and be home again," The silver hair elf commented quietly, Aravilui nodding sadly. They did not know where they were, and they were grateful, but they missed home.
In that time they saw little of Irye and Ryia and nothing of Ban. The few times they did encounter Irye or Ryia made them feel more cast into a dream world. Finally they began asking how to get home, but they got a very unsatisfying answer. "When the time comes all will come to you."
The tapestries grew to be more in number and beauty and the two missed home more, wondering how if ever to get back. It was on another sun-bathed day no different from the others that Aravilui had a simple thought. "Carmelor, we got here through the inn... you have to leave places when you go into them, otherwise you will always be in there."
Carmelor looked at the blond Elf, startled. "You might be right, but how to we get to the inn?"
Aravilui shrugged. Carmelor shook his head looking out the window, just then something caught his eye. He could have sworn he saw the waterfall in his first image of Rivendell moving. He got up and walked carefully toward the space between the bed and tapestry. The silver hair Elf gasped; the floor was beaded with droplets of water.
"Aravilui! These images… they come from our dreams, from dreaming the places we wish to be. We have been wishing to be in the wrong place," he said.
"Dreaming? That inn was no dream, it was a nightmare. Carmelor, I have little desire to dream of it. What if the horror is still there?"
Carmelor shrugged. "Do you want to go home? Just dream of going home."
Aravilui sighed exasperated. "That is all I have been dreaming of."
"No, you have been dreaming of Mirkwood. You have been dreaming of home, not going home. I think that might make all the difference." The two stared at each other in silence.
Aravilui smiled and nodded, Carmelor laughed, "Maybe we shall see home after all."