When I, and the few who had come with me to fetch my things, had rejoined the main group, my pack had been taken from me and I was lead to the place where the elves were camping.
They had been quite surprised to see me to say the least. They were quite a bit taller than me, maybe five or six inches above my 5ft 10 height and it made me feel short.
They greeted me cordially and were mildly surprised by my voice when I replied. The rangers then spoke to them of my preferring to sleep outside and joked about me being Peredhil. The Elves didn't find this as amusing as they did but grit their teeth and bore it. I don't think the Dúnedain quite understand how serious it is when an elf falls for a mortal.
When the mortal dies and their soul goes to a fate beyond the world (of which the elves know naught), the elf will most likely fade from grief and their soul goes to the halls of Mandos. Eventually the elf is born again and will live out the rest of the ages of the world, as is their fate.
After discussing our plans for the morning, they left and I got myself ready for bed. I decided to forego sleeping in the bivvy sack and instead just lay on top of it in my sleeping bag looking up at the stars until I fell asleep.
The next morning I was awoken before dawn by one of the Elves. He had dark hair like most of the Noldor and he glowed slightly in the dim light.
"Come, it is time to leave." He said.
I sat up and blearily rubbed my eyes; I had been up late the night before and was quite grumpy at being woken so early but by the time I had finished packing up my things that mood was gone.
For all that it was early it was a beautiful morning; the birds were just waking up and everything was fresh. I just felt like singing my heart out but I was worried about what the elves might think so I kept quiet.
When all was ready and we had eaten, we shouldered our packs and made our way toward the road where the Dúnedain were waiting for us. They had two packhorses with them so probably wanted to move quickly but weren't in enough of a hurry to travel on horses instead of walking. Daroth took my pack from me and secured it to one of the horses.
We set out and after we'd been walking a while I couldn't help it anymore, I began singing softly under my breath
"The Road goes ever on and on
Down from the door where it began.
Now far ahead the Road has gone,
And I must follow, if I can,
Pursuing it with eager feet,
Until it joins some larger way,
Where many paths and errands meet.
And whither then? I cannot say."
The sun was just coming up over the horizon. This is why I should get up earlier; the world is so beautiful and peaceful at this time.
We were walking along the road instead of through the bush as I had expected but I'm not complaining. I don't want to go through the same things as Aragorn and the hobbits; I had enough of the midges just walking past the marshes never mind through them.
We walked until nightfall then stopped and made camp. We had travelled further in one day than I had walked with my pack in the same amount of time and I was tired. I fell asleep almost as soon as I lay down and I slipped into uncomfortable dreams.
I was warm and comfortable wherever I was before I was jolted sharply into a black silence broken only when I hear a voice say,"Welcome to my halls. Though I haven't seen you in many years or know how or why you came to be here at this time I recognise you nonetheless. Yavanna will be pleased to finally know where you are."
The voice didn't seem to be coming from any direction and I couldn't see because it was dark.
No, not dark.
There was no light or dark here, it wasn't so much a matter of seeing as of being aware of your surroundings. I let myself drift and fuzzy 'images' began to register with me. A large hall with walls covered in tapestries. There was someone, a being, here with me but I couldn't make them out, everything else was clearer to me than it had been, though not perfect, except for the being.
I suddenly felt like I was a dust bunny under a couch and there was a vacuum cleaner being moved toward me. I was sucked out of that place and put into an uncomfortable container that felt all wrong. It was black and silentand then I woke up.
The elf that had been on watch was just going over to wake his friend and I figured that it was time to get up. It seemed dimmer and greyer this morning than it had been yesterday though there was no fog or mist. It seemed almost like my dream, like I was losing touch with the world around me.
When everyone was up we ate, packed and left. We walked all day then set up camp when night fell. I didn't dream that night, nor for the rest of our journey; my mind, while I slept, was just filled with a grey haziness, which seemed to carry over to the waking world. I felt no need to sing as I usually would have and sort of drifted along as the days went by. I eventually stopped paying attention to the conversations going on around me and stopped looking at the world as it passed by. If someone spoke to me I didn't realize or react to it and my actions soon became methodical, I was losing touch with reality.
I did notice when we met someone on the road, coming from the direction we were headed. He said something to the elves and then made his way over to me. He was slightly less dim than the others and there seemed to be a light shining out of him.
It was that which drew me to him more than anything else. The light felt familiar, more comfortable than how I was now and I wanted it. I wanted to become part of it. The fact that it came from within a person ceased to exist. Everything faded except for the light.
I reached for it and discovered that there was something blocking it from me and that it was incomplete, dimmer than it should be. It was the same light, yes, but more like a reflection, a piece of something else which I had known before and lost a long time ago.
That was when I lost touch with all that was around me; everything ceased to exist except the slowly fading light. Sometimes there were other lights, further away and brighter than the first. They moved overhead and came and went but I couldn't get to them through the grey haze and I just stayed looking at them until they went away and I didn't see them again.
I stayed that way for some time with no change, the lights growing dimmer and me wanting to flee from whatever was taking the light but I couldn't, not this time. This time I had to stay.
The change came eventually in the form of some of the haziness going away. Someone said something and things became clearer, there were two people, the one with the light and another who had only been touched by the light. It was this other who had made things clearer for me but still couldn't respond though I could hear clearly enough.
"She's fading, I've never seen it happen like this with a human."
"Lord Elrond I'm still not sure if she is fully human. She doesn't look normal in either way. Her fëa and her body do not match. It is disorientating seeing two different things at once. Her physical looks are strange but her other image is familiar to me, though I can't recall where I've seen it, perhaps it was before or with Lord Námo…" The voice trails off. It is the one belonging to the light but I do not remain aware of it or of the other for any longer than those few moments owing to the grey dimness, which eventually fades and becomes black.
Time had no meaning and my thoughts and consciousness drifted and strayed before coming back together all at once to the same grey hall from my earlier dream.
The being was there and this time I could see him. "I see you have returned, though at my summons this time, I hope you will remain here instead of whisking away to Arda before you were meant to as you did previously."
Ah, so it wasn't a dream.
"Indeed not." I started, had I said that out loud?He laughed, "Come there is much which needs to happen and little time for it to happen in and though time hardly has meaning here, it still passes."