Disclaimer: see chapter one, in part one. I take no credit except for Feavair.
Chapter 3. An Unexpected Friend
The humming continued as, whatever it was, came closer. Feavair closed her eyes trying to determined if what was coming was evil, but she could feel no presences of dark spirits. Merry and Pippin huddled together, looking anxiously around. The humming stopped and an ancient voice said thoughtfully.
"Now here is a strange sight, two small ones and a elf"
Then it stepped out of the shadows and the most extraordinary sight greeted them. It was a large man-like or troll-like figure. It was at least fourteen foot high, sturdy, with a tall head and barley any neck. It was clad in gray bark and moss or that was its skin was hard to say. The arms, a short distance from the trunk were covered with a brown smooth skin and the large feet had seven toes each. The face was covered with a gray beard that swept the ground and was mossy in the ends.
The only thing they saw were the eyes. The eyes were looking at them solemnly and with a glare that penetrated them. They were brown with a small green light that had burned for endless years. Feavair stared into those eyes for a long time and even though they calmed her she could not hide the feeling that had been growing inside her ever since she entered Fangorn Forest.
He knew she was coming.
"Hrum…. hoom" it murmured in a deep voice that seemed to be able to make the very mountains quake.
"A very strange sight indeed. Do not be hasty, that is my motto, but even before I saw you I knew I liked you, there was a strange warmth in the wind, most peculiar, it reminded me of something…. something I can't remember… it has been years since I felt the wind so warm, and just then….very odd indeed, Root and twig, very odd!"
Feavair took a steep in the creature's direction; she twinned her fingers anxiously, wondering what to say. Pippin walked up behind Feavair and then poked his head out from behind her back and asked.
"What are you?" Merry was about to hit him in the back, worrying that Pippin had insulted the creature. It laughed with its deep waving voice.
"Hum hum…well I am an Ent, that is what I am called. Yes Ent I believe the word was, The Ent if you want to be snappy, but some call me Fangor, although I cannot recall that being my real name. Treebeard others make it…. yes Treebeard is much better Treebeard will do"
"An Ent, beg you pardon, but what is that?" Merry asked. Treebeard laughed heartily in a voice that reminded Feavair of a deep woodwind instrument. Then he started to sing in a swinging tune that was only interrupted when he thought aloud with his deep humming voice
"We are hobbits" Pippin explained when Treebeard was finished with his song.
"Hobbits…. heard that word before I have….you live in the grounds…in holes I recon. It sounds very right. Elves made that old word, they did a long time ago, though it doesn't sound very elvish" Treebeard hummed thoughtfully.
"Nobody else calls us hobbits but we" said Pippin.
"Hum hum…come now don't hasty, you should be careful to who you spread your name to. You call your self hobbits, you would be letting out your own name if you are hasty"
"We are careful," said Merry. " I am a Brandybuck, Meriadock Brandybuck, though most people call me Merry"
"And I am a Took, Peregrin Took, but I am mostly called Pippin or just plain Pipp" Pippin said brightly.
Treebeard hummed thoughtfully again and then turned to elf. "Though you I recognize, you don't have to tell me your name for you I know….hum….let me think. Yes Ithill it was, Ithill Quessir…long time since last we meet"
Feavair shook her head. " I am called Feavair, and I can assure you, we have never met!"
It looked like it was the first time Treebeard had been wrong and it probably was. He furrowed his mossy eyebrows, leaned closer to Feavair and his beard tickled her face. He studied her long and hard before he said.
" I see now….it was the same eyes I meet in this forest a long time ago, Ithills eyes….but you are only half of what she was….." Feavair felt her heart jolt a little and she bit her lower lip not show any signs of emotion. There was one other man in this world that had called her Ithill and that was her foster father, Ithill was the name the elves gave her mother.
"You've met my mother?" she asked in a voice that sounded like it belonged to a small child. Treebeard hummed again for a long time.
"Humm….hummm"
"Was it your mother you say, most strange indeed that I should happen to stumble on mother and daughter in this very forest. But then again lots of strange things have happened lately. Especially after young Saruman appeared down at Isengard, and the presence of these orcs…. Don not like them, trampling down the forest they do. Your mother was on her way to Isengard when I met her…. but that is another tale for I can see that you are all tired let us go to my home"
"What…what are you going to do with us?" asked Pippin rather nervously.
"I am not going to do anything with you; not if you mean by doing something to you. We might do something together, but as I said let us go to my home and then you can tell me where from you have traveled." and then he bent down, picked them up, and placed them on his shoulder where they clanged to his beard, roots and twigs.
"We seem to have lost our belongings and have little food," Pippin said as he started to walk.
"Do not worry, I have drinks that will keep your leaves green for a long, long while"
As they walked through he forest Treebeard kept talking and humming to him self and now and then he sang some small songs filled with words on a tongue they did not know. Merry and Pippin were just glad to rest and they nodded their heads sleepily, but Feavair could not sleep although she had not rested for many days.
Treebeard knew her mother.
He had met her, here, in this very forest. Why? And when? Why was she on her way to Isengard? Was it perhaps after her visit to Mordor when the Dark Lord had set her free, had she stumbled through the dark lands and ended up in this tangled forest all alone and scared for the life she carried inside her?
Then for the first time she thought about her father.
She had given him little to no though in all her life. He had never had a position in her life, she had never known him. Had he loved her mother, had he waited anxiously for her return worrying for the safety for the woman that carried his child? Had he perhaps fallen in battle before her mother bound the spirit to the Ring? Maybe he had been slain by the Dark Lord him self.
And as she thought about the unanswered question about her father's love for her mother, she thought about her own love to the man who seemed to be so far away, and at the same time he haunted her every thought and followed in her wake. She knew he worried for her, he always did. She knew he searched for her and that he would never stop looking until he found her. She closed her eyes and took deep breaths, ragged with tears. How she whished things were differently, how she whished they had never met, never loved.
The wind grew fouler and this time she heard a harsh whisper in it, he was stronger, and he knew she was coming.
"Amin khiluva lle a' gurtha . gurth tula khila amin, gurth ta tuluva a' lye""Hm! Here we are!" Said Treebeard, ripping Feavair out of her thoughts. " I have carried you seventy thousand ent-striders but I do not know how many leagues that is in your measurement. Anyhow we are near the roots of the Last Mountains, I think they call it Wellinghall on your tongue" he sat them down on the grass between the isles of trees and they followed him towards a great arch.
A great stone table stood there, but no chairs. At the back of the bay, it was already dark and they could feel the cold winter wind blow over them. Treebeard lifted out a great vessel and stood them on the table. It seemed to be filled with water, but as he held his hands over it, it glowed. Now they could see that the other trees also started to glow in different colors of faint red and yellow.
"Well now we can talk again, I suspect you a thirsty, I expect you are that indeed, now drink this. Perhaps even tired. Now drink" Then he took out four bowls, three small ones and one large and filled them with the liquid from the vessel.
They drank heavily and it tasted nothing like the water they had drunk earlier that day. It was cool to their soar throats and warm to their body, they could feel their strength return and it tasted of what their lips missed the most.
"Hm…hummm hummm…. that was good indeed, now let us talk and do not hurry" Treebeard said and sat down on the floor while they sat on the table.
Feavair looked at Merry and Pippin, and they just looked at her, wanting her to talk.
"We come from Rivendell….we where eleven, but through troubles at Moria we lost….dear friends" she lowered her head thinking about poor Tquel. She missed him, she missed his wet nose his busy fur and his brown eyes, and she missed the security he brought her. She turned to Merry and Pippin and saw that they to were reminded of the grief.
"Gandalf the Gray fell in Moria at the bridges of Kaza-dum" Treebeard hummed a long time before he sighed. "So he came to a rest there….we shall see" he muttered and the hobbits looked at the elf, hoping she could explain to them something she couldn't. Later they understood what he meant.
"But why do you travel so far….what is that you seek on this part of the mountains…and where are your friends?" Treebeard asked slowly. Merry raised an eyebrow at her, they remembered Gandalf's warning that the dark Lord had spies everywhere and they were hesitated to tell Treebeard about the one Ring.
Feavair doubted not. She hadn't felt the kind of calm warmth around any stranger before and knew that whatever Treebeard would do with the information they gave him, he would surely not betray them. He had met her mother.
"We went to Lothlórien where we traveled down the great River. We journeyed for ten days, until we had to rest at the banks of Dunhow, but we were attacked and the fellowship split. Merry and Pippin were taken by orcs, and I followed them hoping to be of aid" she stopped her story and looked another way; refusing to think about the task she had at hand.
Now Merry and Pippin started to talk fast adding more dramatic details to their adventure. It was not easy to follow their trail for they interrupted another all the time, and followed now clear order and some times Treebeard had to pause them and ask them to go back on previously points.
He was specially interested in anything that concerned Gandalf and most interested in Sarumans doing, he listened as they spoke the little they knew about Sauron, at that time Treebeard fastened his brown gaze on Feavair. She looked her another way, trying to find the dark mountains and to lock her gaze on her target. She glanced her fists worriedly.
Then Treebeard started to talk, and they listened in silence. Only did the howls of wind interrupt them.
Sauron was growing stronger, and she felt small twigs in his soul. The part of him that was resting inside her was anxiously calling out for its other part. He would soon know of her presence, and that meant that it got dangerous for anybody to be near her.
Death would follow her.
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