I did not create, nor do I own Middle Earth, Ossiriand, Erestor, Manwe, Valinor, Varda, Noldo elves, green elves, or orcs. Tolkien first wrote of them, and I am so grateful to him for it.

I did, however, create Sarnin the Green elf seen in this chapter and Sarnhael the Noldo.

This chapter was written for entertainment purposes only, so please read and, hopefully, be entertained. (chuckles)

Sarnin pushed her foot through the water. Her eyes searched the gravel and sand revealed by her shadow. The sun heated the back of her head and flashed off the water enough to dazzle even her elven eyes somewhat. Where her shadow fell, though, Sarnin could see treasures.

The stones covering the riverbed were smooth. Those she found buried in dirt or coated in dust upon or within the ground were always rough. Those the water ran over, like feet continually taking the same path, had surfaces without sharp points. She loved this about them.

Sarnin knelt in the water and closely examined a certain stone. She reached up and tucked a lock of hair behind her ear as she did. Then a cry made her look up. After gazing with open mouth, Sarnin laughed and waved.

Above her, the sun cast a shadow. Her elven eyes could discern its shape to be that of an eagle. The sound of its cry, deeper, more resonant, and more careful than those who nested in the "low cliffs" of these mountains told her it was one of Manwe's servants. Without its call, she would have had difficulty telling it apart from the eagles who'd never seen Valinor.

Manwe's servants were giants to the rest of their kind, but flew higher than any of them as well. Therefore, there size was always difficult to judge from below. This time, though, Sarnin was sure.

The eagle swooped in a loop above her crying out in a friendly way. Then it flapped its wings and rose even higher into the sky and out of her sight. Sarnin sighed. Her shoulders slumped. She had enjoyed the momentary company.

Her kin had left Sarnin to enjoy her uncommon interest by herself while they searched the area for signs of their quarry. She hoped they might also see the eagle and that he now saw them. Most of her folk liked knowing, though they'd failed to travel to his shores, Manwe still sent his servants to watch over their lands and them.

Sarnin's people also loved the Valar whose music they heard in the many waters. They hadn't crossed over sea, but several rivers running through their land made it great. Trees grew lush and high. Birds and beasts grew fat and strong. Always, her folk added their own voices to the music all this made. As for her, Sarnin, delighted in how water made stones so smooth and how they shone in the light of the sun.

Sarnin looked back down into the water with a smile. Then her brows drew together. She placed her hand in the water. Something had changed. There was sadness in the water, horror, pain.

Sarnin raised her head and looked upstream. A turn in the canyon walls hid whatever lay beyond from her sight. If she was to find the source of this sorrow, and do something about it, she would have to travel farther than she had told her kin she would.

Sarnin looked downstream. Her sister's children had cautioned her to stay near the place they left her, but … If there "was" someone in trouble upstream, hurt, wounded, hunted … They were likely alone. Only the waters of Ulmo carried news of their plight to her. The sole friendly eyes to see her then, would be those of Manwe's eagle, the Valar king himself, and their Creator.

Sarnin looked straight up. She thought she could still see a dot of a shadow in the sky. She didn't know for sure. Did it even matter?

The elleth swallowed. Then she looked upstream again, set her jaw, and set out. She would both do and trust mercy.

. . .

"Sarnin …"

Mellolaes jerked. Erestor's voice had pulled her out of the story. She glanced at the ellon. "Yes ..?"

"That is one of your people isn't it?"

Mellolaes lips pursed together. She had rather hoped to hang on to the mystery in her story. However, Erestor was speaking in that somewhat curious, yet mostly bored voice, used by those who've already seen through your words into the reality within them.

Mellolaes' brows drew together in annoyance. "Yes."

"She is married to Sarnhael, and the grandmother of Tirven now, yes?"

Mellolaes crossed her arms over her chest and huffed out a breath. "Yes."

"Nice ellon." Erestor commented. "Polite. I knew despite his common features, he had to have some Noldo in him along with a bloodline from Doriath I think. I didn't believe he could have such a sour ancestor in his history as this character earlier mentioned, though."

"Are you going to let me tell this story or guess aloud what you 'think' will happen every time it occurs to you!"

Erestor looked away from the ceiling to glance at Mellolaes. She looked ready to throw something at him. He had already been on the receiving end of such happenings. Erestor held up his hands in what he hoped Mellolaes would find a placating gesture. "Peace … I will listen in silence if you wish. However, you should know now, I am not inclined to enjoy romance in stories unless it is 'very' well done and mixed in with other things." Erestor then crossed his hands over his chest and looked up at the ceiling again. "Continue."

Mellolaes blew out a blast of air from her lips and glared at him, but she continued just the same.

. . .

The sun now shone from behind the canyon walls. Sarnin had run along the river's shores crossing it when a shallow or dry place appeared that was also the straightest path to the next turn in the canyon walls. As she did so, the shadows had grown long indeed. Finally, she made one more turn and saw him.

She ran through the water to him. Droplets sprayed up around her as she fell upon her knees beside the form. She turned the creature over and gasped. You could hardly see he "was" an elf.

His ears and cheeks were marred by red scars. His skin shone and drooped slightly as if the skin had melted like wax and then re-hardened. Sarnin placed her a hand over her mouth and shuddered. Then she removed her hand and began to examine him further.

Most of the ellon's body was exposed to her eyes. Remnants of clothing clung to him as a strap over one shoulder and tatters which had once been attached to this now hanging down and plastered over his waist and down toward his knees instead. Beneath them lay a belt wrapped around material meant to cover him from waist to mid-thigh. Lying mostly exposed to her eyes were his ribs, tiny bones of the spinal column and long bones of his arms and legs leading to the smaller ones of his fingers and toes. Skin remained stretched over them, but failed to hide the bones' shapes from her.

Sarnin picked up his hands and turned them over. His fingers and palms were also red, having melted and re-hardened into scar tissue. The healer shivered again. Then she picked up and slung the ellon's bpdy over her shoulder before turning to walk back the way she'd come.

The healer already knew he lived. The elleth had heard his breathing when she first came upon him, though it had remained soft. His heart-rate was slow, but steady. The water had cooled, but sun had warmed his skin. His head had lain out of the water so he could breathe. She'd felt his skull and found no crack. It was something else that kept him from waking.

Sarnin had been surprised, somewhat, to find a starving, burned elf in rags on her day dedicated to smooth-stone searching. She was not surprised to find him washed up ashore where the river grew wide and shallow, however. Elves float.

Unlike most beasts, Green elves had long realized they and their elven-kin did not readily sink. They had to gain momentum by jumping from far up and then straighten their body to dive deep, before kicking their feet strongly once they had stopped sinking to dive even deeper. Of course, there weren't many deep waters in Ossiriand.

That did not mean water was "never" dangerous for Sarnin's people. The erosion and collapse of whole banks during a flood was very dangerous. So were sweeping currents when they threw one against rocks. Still, if an elf could be fished out of water, have water they'd breathed in forced out of their lungs, and have any cracked bones mended through the healing touch, they were often fine in a few days. They were often more water-shy afterwards, but otherwise fine.

This elf seemed to have escaped all these things, as if he had dived into deep water only to float to the surface again and be carried she knew not how far. She felt in him no injury, but great despair and anger instead. He might still wake, he might still not.

What she did know was she could not leave him to be found by flesh-eaters. She would, instead, carry him back to her kin among whom they'd both be safe. Otherwise, they might be caught out here by her kin's quarry.

The sun set. The stars came out, and the moon also, somewhere. However, it had not risen above the canyon walls. Few stars shone down between them upon Sarnin's head or before her feet either. She was not blind in that darkness, but there was a great deal of it surrounding her. She couldn't climb up the cliffs with her patient. She would have to use an entire arm to carry him up with her, and in this darkness, she needed both to seek hand-holds.

Laughter wafted out of the shadow on her right. Sarnin started and turned toward it. Laughter came from her other side too, and she spun around to face it. Her widened eyes searched the shadow. They picked out a form stepping into the starlight. The latter flashed off pointed teeth now grinning at her.

A chill went down Sarnin's spine, but she gently laid her patient in the cool sand at her feet. Then her fingers began digging into granuals for something larger. Her other hand began to untie a knot at her waist.

Sarnin gripped something hard in the sand. The orc charged. She threw. The stone struck one of the orc's glinting eyes. She heard a yipe.

Then Sarnin spun around and smacked her pouch of stones against the temple of the orc behind her. Both goblins grumbled and backed away a few steps. They then stared at her. The wheezing laughter began again.

"The fatter meat fights, Snagalug."

"Indeed it does, Burzgnash. Perhaps bones and skin aren't so bad all on their own after all … Leave the cartilage connected bones with us, elleth, and we will let you run away."

"No."

Both goblins growled, lowered themselves into squatting positions and began to circle her. They stared at the bag of stones hanging from her right hand. Sarnin spun in place herself with them trying to keep both enemies visible in the corners of her eyes.

They growled again showing her their gleaming teeth in the pale light. Sarnin glared back. Then she began to spin the stone-filled pouch above her head. "Go, I say, before you die. Death now closes in on you!"

The orcs laughed again. Then one picked up an even larger stone than she had thrown before and tossed it at her. Sarnin jerked away from it. The missile flew past her head. She felt the air move by her with it. Then, she spun and caught the stone the other orc had thrown at her back. She turned again and threw this missile at the first orc. It struck him in the head. The orc behind pounced upon her and got the pack of stones in the snout.

Both orcs backed away shaking their heads. After this, they paused and laughed again. The elleth's eyes grew wide.

More eyes appeared in the darkness. A dozen pairs seemed to surround her as she turned her head and then her whole form to take this sight in. As they closed in, they blocked Sarnin's way to the canyon walls, as well as upstream and down. Any three enemies on either side would converge on her if she fled.

The first orc gave a wheezing sigh. "We didn't want to share your flesh with the rest of our pack, elleth. But since we couldn't devour you before they got here, we'll have to settle for scraps of you."

Sarnin swallowed. Then she hardened her form, bowed her head, and closed her eyes. She spoke aloud to Varda and Manwe, but mostly to the one who had seen, heard, and created the elves long before those two had known of her people. So surely, He must see her now. Then Sarnin lowered herself to the ground, spread her form over her patient's, and went entirely still.

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God Bless

ScribeofHeroes