Lost And Found

It was dark beneath the thick trees. But the moon illuminated its silver light in the dense marshes and tangled pools.

Ecthelion walked silently through the maze of mud puddles and moss. He had been searching for a place to stay the night for nearly two hours. His horse, Lintál, followed faithfully behind him.

Ecthelion had tried to find steady ground in the Marshes of the Aelin-Uial. But the ground stayed stubbornly mossy and damp. His boots were covered in mud up to his ankles. His tunic and trousers were also decorated with the brown-green substance. His hair was acting in the most unfitting ways because of the humidity. And to make things worse, fog was beginning to descend, blocking his view on the strange, sleepy land.

Even so, Ecthelion was in a strangely good mood. He didn't mind the mud much, or the fog. He sensed that he was close to finding something important.

Turgon had told Ecthelion in private that at the fords of Sirion, near the Meres of Twilight, he had a dream that created his desire to search for a hidden place to build a city. They both thought that maybe new information would be found in the Aelin-Uial, about this secret place of settlement.

After nearly three hours of searching, Ecthelion decided he would settle for almost anything that was not the marsh water.

Quite suddenly, he noticed a change in the atmosphere. The trees that were nearby whispered and mourned. But the water itself trembled with the breeze and murmured something that called the elf lord to attention. He was being alerted by the waters of the marsh. But he couldn't distinguish the words that were spoken.

In the moonlight, Ecthelion was able to see a thicket of soft marshes, and in the middle of the marshes something glinted strangely in the moonlight. He picked up his pace to investigate. His feet barely made a sound in the ankle deep muddy water.

He came to a sharp stop when he laid eyes upon the shining object. His heart skipped a beat and his eyes widened in surprise.

What he saw was a small silver flower. The petals reflected light on a single blue stone in the centre. And the bloom was held by a delicate silver chain.

The bearer of the flower necklace was lying between the soft marshes.

It took a while for the elf lord to fully grasp what he was seeing. A small child, wrapped in a pale coloured dress and soaked to the bones. When he was able to think straight again, Ecthelion plunged forward and picked up the elfling, dreading that the child was dead. He didn't dare to imagine what he would do if the little one had already passed on.

Fortunately, as he held the elfling close to himself, he could feel what little warmth the child's body emitted. He also noted that her chest rose and fell in a steadfast rhythm.

Sighing in relief, Ecthelion now took the time to examine the little wet bundle in his arms.

The child had fair, smooth skin. Her cheeks were soft, her nose was small but elegant, her mouth had graceful curves, though her lips held a slightly blue tinge. Her damp hair was dark and silky. And she had distinguished spear-like ears. Her eyes were half closed, meaning that she was in deep sleep.

"Where do you come from winë/little one?" Ecthelion wondered, as he stared at the child, "Where are your parents?"

The elf lord scanned his surroundings carefully. He couldn't detect a single sign that there was anyone else in the area. The wind kept blowing and a soft murmur came from it.

Ecthelion decided to worry about the child's care takers later. He wanted to get the child to a warm place where she could dry properly. He tried to pierce the fog that had engulfed the terrain. There had to be a proper place to build a fire nearby.

Lintál suddenly gave a neigh behind him. The grey stallion was staring at a figure that stood a few metres away from them, at their right.

Upon looking at the figure, Ecthelion called out,

"Ai! Mae govannen" the figure had already seen him but didn't return the greeting. It just stood there staring at them with silent awareness.

The figure's silence made Ecthelion uncomfortable, but he didn't believe it to be evil. He slowly came forward, wishing to speak with the stranger, to see if they knew anything about the elfling he was still holding.

Before he could get closer however, the creature made a swift movement and disappeared in a blink of an eye. Lintál neighed again, displeased by the strangeness of all the occurrences.

Ecthelion looked around confused, he thought he could hear a voice before the figure disappeared completely. He couldn't make out all the words, but he did recall portions of the phrases as long as he lived,

"Care and cherish what you found; a child saved from being drowned…In lirë o marato kar na lastã olla in núna váya…lindalë va Nénar yë Wailë/The song of fate shall be heard beyond the western sea…the music of Water and Wind"

Ecthelion was brought out of his stupor when he heard a small whimper coming from the child in his arms. When he looked for the place where the figure had been standing, he saw that it was a fairly flat island.

He turned his eyes on the elfling and saw her face scrunching up as she attempted to stretch her little arms and legs. Shifting his hold on the slumbering child, the elf lord made his way towards the island. He sighed in relief and thanked whoever had graced him with the piece of dry land.

After laying the child at a safe distance from the fire and making sure that her clothes would dry in the warmth, Ecthelion tried to make sense of what had just happened.

He had just found a child lying in the middle of the Marshes of Twilight. A number of strange occurrences had followed this event. And now he felt that he had to take the child with him.

There was little debate about it, as Ecthelion saw it. And somehow he knew that he was almost meant to find and take the child. He was not stealing her from anything or anyone. He found a child in need and he would help her and care for her, that was it.

As the night passed, Ecthelion watched over the sleeping child. The little one sometimes sighed or sobbed slightly in her sleep. He played his flute and it seemed to have a soothing effect on the elfling. So he kept playing until a few hours before the sunrise, when the child began to stir into wakefulness.

As she came out of the realms of sleep, the elfling stared at Ecthelion before sitting up and wildly surveying the situation with her silver stare. Her eyes watered as she tried to contain her conflicted emotions. It was clear that the child did not recognize anything around her.

"Hush little one, you're safe," Ecthelion said quietly "everything's alright"

The elf lord smiled gently. His mind jumping into action in what the child might need.

"Are you cold?" he asked. The elfling shook her head. "Hungry? Thirsty?"

The silver eyes shot up in expectation, letting the elf lord know that she must be both parched and famished.

Ecthelion wondered when was the last time the child had anything to eat. He walked over to Lintál who was drinking water from a small pool. The elf lord took out a water skin and a few portions of lembas from his saddle bag and returned to the elfling's side.

He handed the water skin first, telling the child to take a sip of water first. After that he offered a small piece of the way bread.

As the child ate bit by bit, Ecthelion could feel his fëa brushing against her's. The child squirmed occasionally, but then she stopped altogether, allowing their spirits to connect. Her spirit was cold and distant to the touch.

"Do you know where your Nana is?" Ecthelion ventured to ask. The elfling only shook her head as tears threatened to spill from her silver eyes.

"That's alright…" Ecthelion tried to calm her "do you know where your home is?"

Again, he got the same answer. But there was something strange about the child's behaviour, as if she wasn't telling him everything.

"Do you remember what happened winë?" The child shook her head again. And Ecthelion slowly came to a very cruel realisation "Child…do you know your name? Can you tell me?"

This time, the child wasn't able to contain herself any more and she sobbed, curling into a tight ball. Her eyes betrayed the sense of loss that overcame her.

Ecthelion's heart ached when he saw that the elfling didn't remember almost anything at all.

The glimpses that he was able to get from her mind were fuzzy and splotched. He saw that she didn't know her name, or who her parents were or where she came from. It was as if her mind had been erased of any distinct memory of her past.

He tried consoling the child, but there wasn't anything that he could say or do to appease the child's grief. Her young mind was obviously having a hard time trying to wrap itself around the concept of being lost. Completely and utterly lost.

She was lost. As he had once between the grinding ice and the bitter cold. His heart strings pulled with incredible force to comfort the child in any way possible. He couldn't let her grief take her away.

In an attempt to put the elfling at ease, Ecthelion took up his flute and started playing a simple tune. The music seemed to soothe the elfling and she relaxed almost immediately. Something in her eyes changed from fear to trust. She came closer and rested her head on the elf lord's lap. It wasn't long before she fell asleep again, exhausted but comforted.

Something in the atmosphere felt as if a huge ice wall had just melted between them.

Ecthelion felt warmth spread over his body. He had also been comforted by the child's reaction. The part of his heart that had been painfully frosted in the Helcaraxë, melted a bit on the spot.

As the sun came up, Ecthelion knew what he would name this child that seemed to have forgotten her name;

A'numireth.

In ancient Gnomish this name meant "Saved from going under."

He was aware that the name was not a very happy or exuberant name. But it held hope and bitter sweetness that made him choose it for her.

And somehow, he knew that she was not the only one who had been saved.

He surely had made a discovery by coming here. It wasn't a discovery he had expected.

But he wouldn't have changed it for anything.

Author's Notes:

Winë - Little one, Quenya

The phrase that the figure says in Quenya is just something I put together using an elvish dictionary. I'm sorry if I am using the letters wrong, I don't know elvish as much as I would like to.