There are many facts about me that countless people would find surprising.
Tell me, does it shock you to hear that I was once almost married? When I
was not in love? Or that I had a child? I suppose I am now going to explain
how these things came to pass. I have told you that I was in the forest
guard and I was often out with them on scouting expeditions. The woods of
Mirkwood have not been safe since before I was born. It was on one of those
very expeditions that I met her, ...but I'll get into that later. There are
other things to address first.
My best friend from childhood was Inin Meduae, an imp if ever there was one. We were spaced at only eleven years apart. Before all our obligations came into play, we used to practice archery together every morning after a little incident around my fortieth year and around her thirtieth that involved her stealing my bow. She snuck up behind me and grabbed it right off my back! Thankfully it was returned to me after I threatened to dump her in a mountain ice pond and after that we were fast friends. That's not as strange as you might think, the first step towards friendship has always been to be noticed as something else besides a colorless and meaningless wallflower and stealing my bow most certainly made me acknowledge her existence. I supposed it also knocked me a couple of stairs down the pedestal that my gangly, not-fully-grown self had placed myself upon. Honestly! To have my BOW so blatantly stolen like that!
I think she only used archery as an excuse to spend time with me though, if her father had thought she wasn't spending her time on something useful, and archery was useful, then he probably would have set her to work on something else and we would have never have seen each other. Those archery practices are very fond memories of mine and she would hardly practice at all, she would just lounge around, occasionally fire a shot and tell me about the things that had happened to her the previous day. Her tales were always completely confounding. I was no stranger to adventure even then, but all the things that happened to her in a single day! You could be sure that if ever a green dog passed though Mirkwood she would be the first to see it!
Our relationship became a bit more mature over the years; it cooled down. I think both of us realized it when we came to a point where we could no longer have simply jumped on the other from behind in happiness to see the other. It was no longer thought funny when one of us dyed the other's favorite tunic pink either. We had grown up and maybe a little bit more into our own persons as well. Now our joy to see the other was expressed in giving each other one of our rare smiles in a languid way, lips stretching from ear to ear, and then a soft hug. Then, while I became part of the forest guard, she became a healer and both of our duties were very demanding. We simply didn't see each other as much as we did before and we would often miss our practices. Inin's accidental shooting of a rabbit at archery practice, while not paying attention because of some inane story she had been telling, finalized her abandonment of archery. She wasn't a vegetarian but she certainly didn't hunt either so as a result she had never killed anything personally before. She no longer had an excuse to spend time with me in the mornings and usually that was the only time I was ever free to do as I pleased, the afternoons of my youth mostly dominated by lessons and later by the billion councils my father ordered. Our archery era was over, we were finally truly adults but our friendship was as true as it had ever been. I no longer knew everything of her day-to-day life, but whenever we would meet we would pick up where we left off. Nothing had really changed about us at all.
I think that my friendship with Inin may lull you into thinking I had no other close friends. Inin was obviously the closest but there were others that where quite nearly as close.
Bleth was my dark-haired carousing partner. He had a rather condescending air about him that probably stemmed from his noble blood and he could be the most ridiculous bastard sometimes, but it seemed at times that he had a different she-elf in his bed every week. I'll be damned if I know why. He did however possess a nasty sort of talent with a short-sword and he was of equal rank as me. Sometimes I believe we became friends more out of proximity then actually having anything in common because it seems we were constantly thrown together on assignments. Finaer made us a trio; he was a quiet son of a gardener. He enjoyed the forest as much as I and was much more prone to listen then Bleth. As a trio we often excluded Inin from our activities and without her we were renowned for our mischief. I know for a fact that even alone I can be something of a nuisance; with them I was unstoppable. We gave ample competition to any aspiring hunters and were slightly intimidating standing together at a ball.
By now, I had just past my second century and I was frantically busy despite my adventures. Promotions in my rank were frequent and my responsibilities as a result, endless. Everyone seemed to think it would be a good idea to become one of my "connections" and I rarely had time to myself.
I remember that on the return of my most recent expedition, I almost immediately sought Inin out (After Nimarie of course) in light of the fact that otherwise some over-eager socialite might have sidetracked me. I hadn't seen her in perhaps over two years due to the fact that she had been called to Rivendell for a time for her healing abilities, and I found her in the hall with an almost perfect looking elf. It is quite rare for elves to look quite like she did, for most of our beauty lies in our smooth, white skin, our shining hair and our inability to become anything more then slim. If a human were gifted with these things he would be called fair as well. I had not been living the life of a monk obviously, as I think I have mentioned, but those others have faded and they probably remember me no better then I remember them, my exploits till that point had been based on lust and were guiltless, but she...she was something else. Her figure was in a truly astonishing hourglass shape and her hair was just a shade darker then white. Even her eyelashes where platinum and somehow this accented her sharp gray-green eyes even more then darker eyelashes would have. Her name was Tuel and how I prayed she didn't notice me sigh as it left Inin's lips in the introduction. Sometimes you just meet someone you know is going to be important, someone you almost feel you must have known before and so it was with her. She had me in her thrall; there is no other way to say it. But I was still young, a mere two hundred some years and if I had only just met her now, what happened because of my enthrallment would not have happened. Inin had already seen my face and with a knowing smirk had excused herself even though she was the one who had traveled with Tuel from Rivendell and was in fact the one I had sought out. She flipped her bright red hair over her shoulder and winked at me before exiting and I knew that I would later have to endure her teasing.
I learned only much later how self-centered Tuel was. Oh she was an extraordinary being, so undeniably clever and so enticingly opinionated, but she had such a way of always believing she had gone though infinitely more hardship then others and when you told her how trivial her problems were she would answer in such a way that you would have to hold your tongue because, like the fool I was, I would have never risked losing her. I could only deduct after it was all was done how little she had ever cared for me. I do believe that she believed she loved me... but then she must have never considered love her first priority. I always felt very young whenever I was with her even before I realized her vices and I remember the way she would talk to me would always give me the feeling I wasn't very important to her. If I confronted her with this suspicion she would deny it completely but her denial never really put me at ease She would tell me all of the terrible woes that had befallen her while we lay in the grass together with her head in my lap and it was amazing to think that this elf--maid, who had all of eternity in front of her, buzzed on high-speed and lived the lives of hundreds instead of just one as if she would perish the next dawn. I think she was drawn to me for my honesty, my way of making things simple and so she claimed her love for me, announced her faithfulness and stayed with me. I was endlessly grateful, for I had thought that this had confirmed that I was as dear to her as she was to me and so I gave her advice for all her maladies and stayed waiting in her shadow to comfort her.
This is not to say that we didn't have our moments of mindless joy. There were days when we visited well known hot-ponds together, where we bathed together, the heat driving us to a burning delirium and other days when we would lay under the cool shade of trees, reading to each other. There were waterfalls and singing birds that we would silently regard together. There were dawns and dusks occupied by watching the mysterious shadows play across her face. There were hundreds of festivals and balls where envious eyes would play upon our backs, the backs of the fair couple, and we would hide our amusement with our hands. There were nights spent climbing cliffs in the thrilling, dangerous dark and nights when her and I and all our friends, Inin, Bleth, Finaer and sometimes elves we had only just met, would run into the woods at night, grasping flasks of wine and then we would dance to nothing but the music of the forest. In these moments she became an enchantress. And isn't it odd that though I was undoubtedly chained to her, I had never, in our years yet together, considered marrying her? She was the one who brought it up...and oh how I was shocked when she slipped a ring over my finger and slid her arms around me, pressing her lips to mine. As if I had already agreed.
My best friend from childhood was Inin Meduae, an imp if ever there was one. We were spaced at only eleven years apart. Before all our obligations came into play, we used to practice archery together every morning after a little incident around my fortieth year and around her thirtieth that involved her stealing my bow. She snuck up behind me and grabbed it right off my back! Thankfully it was returned to me after I threatened to dump her in a mountain ice pond and after that we were fast friends. That's not as strange as you might think, the first step towards friendship has always been to be noticed as something else besides a colorless and meaningless wallflower and stealing my bow most certainly made me acknowledge her existence. I supposed it also knocked me a couple of stairs down the pedestal that my gangly, not-fully-grown self had placed myself upon. Honestly! To have my BOW so blatantly stolen like that!
I think she only used archery as an excuse to spend time with me though, if her father had thought she wasn't spending her time on something useful, and archery was useful, then he probably would have set her to work on something else and we would have never have seen each other. Those archery practices are very fond memories of mine and she would hardly practice at all, she would just lounge around, occasionally fire a shot and tell me about the things that had happened to her the previous day. Her tales were always completely confounding. I was no stranger to adventure even then, but all the things that happened to her in a single day! You could be sure that if ever a green dog passed though Mirkwood she would be the first to see it!
Our relationship became a bit more mature over the years; it cooled down. I think both of us realized it when we came to a point where we could no longer have simply jumped on the other from behind in happiness to see the other. It was no longer thought funny when one of us dyed the other's favorite tunic pink either. We had grown up and maybe a little bit more into our own persons as well. Now our joy to see the other was expressed in giving each other one of our rare smiles in a languid way, lips stretching from ear to ear, and then a soft hug. Then, while I became part of the forest guard, she became a healer and both of our duties were very demanding. We simply didn't see each other as much as we did before and we would often miss our practices. Inin's accidental shooting of a rabbit at archery practice, while not paying attention because of some inane story she had been telling, finalized her abandonment of archery. She wasn't a vegetarian but she certainly didn't hunt either so as a result she had never killed anything personally before. She no longer had an excuse to spend time with me in the mornings and usually that was the only time I was ever free to do as I pleased, the afternoons of my youth mostly dominated by lessons and later by the billion councils my father ordered. Our archery era was over, we were finally truly adults but our friendship was as true as it had ever been. I no longer knew everything of her day-to-day life, but whenever we would meet we would pick up where we left off. Nothing had really changed about us at all.
I think that my friendship with Inin may lull you into thinking I had no other close friends. Inin was obviously the closest but there were others that where quite nearly as close.
Bleth was my dark-haired carousing partner. He had a rather condescending air about him that probably stemmed from his noble blood and he could be the most ridiculous bastard sometimes, but it seemed at times that he had a different she-elf in his bed every week. I'll be damned if I know why. He did however possess a nasty sort of talent with a short-sword and he was of equal rank as me. Sometimes I believe we became friends more out of proximity then actually having anything in common because it seems we were constantly thrown together on assignments. Finaer made us a trio; he was a quiet son of a gardener. He enjoyed the forest as much as I and was much more prone to listen then Bleth. As a trio we often excluded Inin from our activities and without her we were renowned for our mischief. I know for a fact that even alone I can be something of a nuisance; with them I was unstoppable. We gave ample competition to any aspiring hunters and were slightly intimidating standing together at a ball.
By now, I had just past my second century and I was frantically busy despite my adventures. Promotions in my rank were frequent and my responsibilities as a result, endless. Everyone seemed to think it would be a good idea to become one of my "connections" and I rarely had time to myself.
I remember that on the return of my most recent expedition, I almost immediately sought Inin out (After Nimarie of course) in light of the fact that otherwise some over-eager socialite might have sidetracked me. I hadn't seen her in perhaps over two years due to the fact that she had been called to Rivendell for a time for her healing abilities, and I found her in the hall with an almost perfect looking elf. It is quite rare for elves to look quite like she did, for most of our beauty lies in our smooth, white skin, our shining hair and our inability to become anything more then slim. If a human were gifted with these things he would be called fair as well. I had not been living the life of a monk obviously, as I think I have mentioned, but those others have faded and they probably remember me no better then I remember them, my exploits till that point had been based on lust and were guiltless, but she...she was something else. Her figure was in a truly astonishing hourglass shape and her hair was just a shade darker then white. Even her eyelashes where platinum and somehow this accented her sharp gray-green eyes even more then darker eyelashes would have. Her name was Tuel and how I prayed she didn't notice me sigh as it left Inin's lips in the introduction. Sometimes you just meet someone you know is going to be important, someone you almost feel you must have known before and so it was with her. She had me in her thrall; there is no other way to say it. But I was still young, a mere two hundred some years and if I had only just met her now, what happened because of my enthrallment would not have happened. Inin had already seen my face and with a knowing smirk had excused herself even though she was the one who had traveled with Tuel from Rivendell and was in fact the one I had sought out. She flipped her bright red hair over her shoulder and winked at me before exiting and I knew that I would later have to endure her teasing.
I learned only much later how self-centered Tuel was. Oh she was an extraordinary being, so undeniably clever and so enticingly opinionated, but she had such a way of always believing she had gone though infinitely more hardship then others and when you told her how trivial her problems were she would answer in such a way that you would have to hold your tongue because, like the fool I was, I would have never risked losing her. I could only deduct after it was all was done how little she had ever cared for me. I do believe that she believed she loved me... but then she must have never considered love her first priority. I always felt very young whenever I was with her even before I realized her vices and I remember the way she would talk to me would always give me the feeling I wasn't very important to her. If I confronted her with this suspicion she would deny it completely but her denial never really put me at ease She would tell me all of the terrible woes that had befallen her while we lay in the grass together with her head in my lap and it was amazing to think that this elf--maid, who had all of eternity in front of her, buzzed on high-speed and lived the lives of hundreds instead of just one as if she would perish the next dawn. I think she was drawn to me for my honesty, my way of making things simple and so she claimed her love for me, announced her faithfulness and stayed with me. I was endlessly grateful, for I had thought that this had confirmed that I was as dear to her as she was to me and so I gave her advice for all her maladies and stayed waiting in her shadow to comfort her.
This is not to say that we didn't have our moments of mindless joy. There were days when we visited well known hot-ponds together, where we bathed together, the heat driving us to a burning delirium and other days when we would lay under the cool shade of trees, reading to each other. There were waterfalls and singing birds that we would silently regard together. There were dawns and dusks occupied by watching the mysterious shadows play across her face. There were hundreds of festivals and balls where envious eyes would play upon our backs, the backs of the fair couple, and we would hide our amusement with our hands. There were nights spent climbing cliffs in the thrilling, dangerous dark and nights when her and I and all our friends, Inin, Bleth, Finaer and sometimes elves we had only just met, would run into the woods at night, grasping flasks of wine and then we would dance to nothing but the music of the forest. In these moments she became an enchantress. And isn't it odd that though I was undoubtedly chained to her, I had never, in our years yet together, considered marrying her? She was the one who brought it up...and oh how I was shocked when she slipped a ring over my finger and slid her arms around me, pressing her lips to mine. As if I had already agreed.