Glorfindel might not be the oldest elf alive—though he was certainly one of the oldest—but he was certainly old enough now that not much ever truly surprised him. In fact, it was very, very rare for him to be truly surprised, and he found that he missed when the world was younger and there were new occurrences and ideas.
He had met and walked with the Powers and the Spirits, had seen the beauty of the Light of the Two Trees and dwelled in the land of Aman during its noontide. He had fought in some of the biggest, most terrifying battles and wars that would probably ever be, and battled against forces so dark that the mere thought of them still made him shudder at times. He had met a vast number of people from various races, and been around long enough to watch their kingdoms grow great and fall into obscurity.
He had dined, traveled, and battled alongside elves of nearly every clan, dwarves, men, and hobbits too. Truly, Glorfindel had become tired of the lack of surprise in his life.
So, it was with great relish and a good deal of astonishment when he met someone who gifted him with his very first surprise, simply by existing.
By the Gods she was sick and tired of walking! It didn't even matter that she'd long grown used to her physical lack of need for rest. If she didn't want to, she hadn't needed to sleep in thousands upon thousands of years, and if she desired to, she could walk for weeks straight without ever stopping as long as she had water and something to snack on at appropriate intervals.
But no matter how long she'd lived, she still hated traveling by foot for an extended period of time, day in and day out.
When she'd eventually been shunted to this world, she'd known she would need to explore every corner of the world in order to successfully map it out in order to enable her ability to essentially teleport. But that did not mean she appreciated the need, nor having to do it all on foot most of the time—there were far too many places horses just couldn't navigate, and it wasn't like she didn't have the ability to walk, she just did not like doing so alone.
Whatever had changed her an eon or two or ago, whatever curse she'd been inflicted with, had granted her greater power than she'd had as mere mortal, but the use of her abilities came with such strange constraints that she'd spent countless mortal lifetimes simply figuring out how her magic worked and how it didn't. After living for as long as she had and in as many worlds as she had, she'd even gained some new aspects of magic and power over that time.
But the one thing that remained was her hatred for walking. Especially when she had a specific destination in mind, but had never been there and needed to map the route step-by-step at least once.
Why, oh why did she need to visit these specific elves, and why was their settlement in one of the few places she had yet to travel since she'd been present in this world?
Sometimes, the intuition of her magic needled her far more than anything else. But she trusted her magic, had faith in it above all else. It had never steered her wrong before, and only when she did not listen to it did she run into problems of any magnitude.
Glorfindel had been out riding past the Bruinen at the edge of the Trollshaws when he'd heard soft muttering in a language he did not recognize. For and elf as old as he and as well traveled and learned, not even recognizing a spoken language was very strange indeed.
He'd decided to locate the owner of the seemingly low female voice speaking words he'd never heard. He couldn't sense anything foul in his vicinity, and if he could hear he should be capable of sensing, so he rode further afield and finally saw the woman—for indeed her figure clad in tight, black clothing, black hooded-cloak blowing out behind her on the especially windy day was decidedly female—skirting the edges of the Trollshaws close enough to touch the outlying trees if she so wished. She kept her hood up, and there were several weapons attached to her body in various places. What he could sense of her—odd though she felt to him, but fair enough—was so foreign, he knew he'd never perceived its like before.
How interesting!
He cast his senses wider and deeper, still gazing on the slowly approaching female figure so as to try and understand the foreignness he'd felt. For it was surely she whom he'd been sensing. She halted abruptly and her head snapped up, her eyes two burning green orbs which found his gaze immediately, and such was the light in them that Glorfindel was stunned speechless and in disbelief.
What pinged back upon his soul nearly unseated him from his horse, such was the power of it.