~EDORAS~
Elladan pulled up on the reigns as he rode to the crest of the hill overlooking the broad valley. His horse had been bartered from the peasants who had settled the strangely fertile land outside Hornburg. She lacked the vigor and the wits of Eomer's lovingly bred destriers. Her sides heaved with exhaustion as she welcomed the rest and sniffed the rising petrichor. Thunder echoed off the mountains behind them and the wind lifted Elladan's braids and his grey cloak in a snapping swirl.
Fractured beams of the noonday sun cut through the rolling clouds, gleaming off the roofs of Meduseld. Some motion out on the plains below him drew Elladan's attention, and he saw that a great host was riding forth from the city gates, their hooves shaking the ground as they rumbled across the plains, sunlight glinting off their spears. Scowling under the shadow of his hand, Elladan instructed his horse to go forward and was momentarily frustrated when she did not respond before he nudged her flanks and with a weary huff, she began a reluctant trot towards the city.
He was amazed to find the outer guard post manned by a pair of young maidens in green hauberks over brass mail that glinted like gold. They held long spears and had no horses but stood atop wooden barricades beside the road into the city.
"My ladies." Elladan greeted them with a smile and a hand on his chest, "Would you grant a weary traveler admission to the Golden Hall?"
"Lord Peredhel!" one of the guards went pink under her helm as she recognized him, "Of course, sir."
"For what reason does the king ride out?" Elladan asked, following the retreating host with his eyes where they tossed up a cloud of dust.
"We know not." The other woman said, watching the distant riders with concern, "Only that the king called up all riders in the city with great haste, but an hour past and ordered the shieldmaidens to protect the city."
"I thank you." Elladan gave them a nod and prodded his mount into a trot. To his concern and disappointment, he found that the stables were emptied of every horse capable of making the journey to the city. Leaving his mount with a yellow-haired stable boy, he turned his saddle-weary stride uphill.
Mounting the broad, grassy stairs up to the high hall, Elladan could not help but notice the heightened security, all of them women, assigned to bravely guard the homestead while the men rode off to war. Whatever was happening there were clearly greater deeds afoot than the illness of his little niece.
The first hissing sheets of rain landed fat grey dots on the flagstones as he removed his sword belt and deposited it with the guards before the door to the Golden Hall.
Inside, it was dark, and the sound of rain was loud on the golden roof. A low fire burned in the hearth and a few women sat in attitudes of mourning along the outer walls.
The heels of Elladan's riding boots made sounds like horseshoes on the granite floor. In one of the two high thrones sat the queen. The firelight illuminated her face from below, and she leaned heavily on one arm of her throne. In Eomer's empty place, there was an open messenger scroll, and hanging from the queen's hand was a spiraling lock of golden hair.
"My Lady." Elladan Bowed.
"Lord Peredhel!" Lothíriel raised her head, pushing back her dark curls, and he saw that there were tears in her eyes.
"Elladan." He supplied out of habit, "A shadow hangs over your hall, m lady." He observed, his eyes drifting to the open letter in the king's empty seat. "on what errand does the king ride out?"
"They took Elfwine!" she admitted, her sob turning into a hiss of pain as she clutched the lock of hair in her hand and tried to shift her weight. "He rode out with Prince Eldarion three days hence, this morning we received this." She gestured with the lock of hair to the letter, and Elladan reached out to take it, reading the messy runes with widening eyes.
"He says nothing of Prince Eldarion," Elladan observed with concern.
"I fear for his life." Lothíriel cringed again, holding her breath and rubbing her stomach.
Elladan's healer's instincts immediately kicked in. "How long have you been having contractions?" He asked.
"Since this morning." She admitted with a hiss.
"Have you a midwife?" he asked gently, stepping closer.
"These people understand only the crudest of medicine." She answered him in accentless Sindarin, a frustrated plea in her eyes. "I think something is wrong." Thunder rolled, and a few seconds later, there was a crack as lightning danced off the golden roof and was channeled safely into the ground. Everyone inside looked up as a sudden gale battered the high windows.
"Ai Eru," he sighed, scanning her body with a trained eye, "I could not, in good conscience, leave you, and without a horse to bear me, I don't know how I could. I pray that my nephew's absence from this note means that he has escaped to raise his father's armies."
"Do not abandon your duties to practice midwifery, my lord." She dismissed him with a wave of her hand." The firelight caught on the sweat of her brow.
"My lady, I cannot…" he smiled crookedly, "You are about to deliver twins."
~TIRION~
Elrond looked down from the third floor of the administrative building, adjusting his collar as he watched people gather in the plaza beneath the shade of Galathilion. The tree under which Fëanor had once sworn his deadly oath had grown twisted and hollow in the long yeni since the sun had first warmed its bare branches. They were tipped with the buds of spring flowers, but the chill in the air had kept them from blooming. The great tree's serpentine branches were propped up by decorative braces. Through the bare branches that reached higher than the rooftops, he could see the towering, abandoned height of the Mindon Eldaliéva and its soaring towers.
"Absolutely not." He answered the question, turning to his cousin. "I have already sacrificed my retirement to govern this city."
"She named you and none other." Finrod's aqua robes swished across the carpet. The rooms here were all too large and too ornamental for comfort, but he seemed utterly at ease amid the polish and pomposity of court.
"I have no desire to be king," Elrond admitted, watching the crowd gather to hear him speak. Dark heads, for the most part, had their divisions grown so stark in a few nights that pure-blooded Vanya would not come to hear him speak? "I am a friend to kinslayers and cannot rule these people. It would only divide them further."
"I am only a messenger for my sister's will." Finrod inclined his head seriously, and the jewels in his hair caught the sunlight, casting rainbows across his face. "But you would be wise to count your allies quickly. I fear my mother's wrath. She sees my sister's disfigurement as a threat equal to the theft of the Silmarils."
"She does not believe Olórin, then? That no one is to blame"
"Called him Umaiar and sent him from the camp," Finrod smirked, "I suspect he has gone to Mandos."
"What's in Mandos?" Elrond asked, shrugging into his long grey doublet and pulling a cloak over his shoulders before deciding that it was too regal and discarding it on his desk beside the other garments.
"Answers." Finrod folded his hands, "I would avoid the red." He suggested as Elrond's hand passed over the silks, "And the blue…" Elrond threw up his hands in frustration.
"Shall I wear black then and reveal myself as a servant of the Enemy!" he put his hands on his hips.
Finrod threw back his head in laughter, going to the window. "The wind blows cold, Nephew," He turned suddenly serious, "the music of creation is a fickle tune, here a stop, there a trill."
"You speak in riddles," Elrond observed as he tightened a green sash around his ribs.
"Olórin believes that the grace of the Valar has departed from these lands," Finrod watched as a sudden wind tore through the crowd of gathering elves below them, "The people will need a leader if he is right." Finrod was looking up through the naked bows of the trees; the clouds had begun to gather, and a shadow came across the sun.
"And they shall have one," Elrond adjusted his braids in the mirror, "But I will not take the title of High King. We must arrange a council and call representatives from the hosts."
"Alas," Finrid pointed, and Elrond's eyes followed his gesture to the sky, "you may not have the luxury of time."
Elrond frowned for a moment, perplexed at what he was seeing. Down from the gathering clouds floated a shimmering curtain of swirling white flurries. It was snowing in Aman.
~DRUEDAIN FOREST~
Mother Willow caught many things in her roots. Mostly rocks and branches from further up in the foothills, once, an elk's carcass with its antlers still attached, but this was the first time in her life that the river had captured a person. She had seen strangers from outside the forest exactly thrice in her life and had always followed her father's warnings to stay far away from those who the woses called "Sea Giants" who spoke strange tongues and dwelled in stone cities beyond the safety of the forest.
But this stranger spoke intelligibly, something that her grandmother had assured her was impossible. The Hunter recognized the song of healing that her father used to sing before he went away and wondered at the one who would wield such power. She watched from the shadows as the stranger sang, even hunched over and battered, his voice was well trained and pinched with pain and bore a power to heal like the scent of sweet herbs. A healer, she marveled, a real healer, and maybe the solution to her recent hardship.
As the storm began to turn the canopies to silver in the rising wind, the hunter watched him collapse between the roots of the great tree. Upon his back, he carried her father's spear. That settled it, she thought to herself, narrowing her forest green eyes. If he could not lend her aid, she could at least retrieve her inheritance.
Thunder echoed off the mountain peaks, and soon, the pale water would turn brown and angry with the swelling rain. The Hunter crept forward on strong hands and silent feet, which did not disturb the years-deep drifts of leaves between the boulders. She parted the willow branches, sniffing the air as the first spatters of rain painted the sculpted stone, and the wind caught her silver hair.
The stranger lay between the roots of the willow. One strong limb was looped possessively about his waist. His breathing came in pained gasps, and his eyes were closed tight. One hand protectively covered a bloodied shoulder, and raindrops sparkled in his dark hair. Thunder rolled, the rain fell in sheets upon the hills and the mountains, and the hunter knew that her time was running out. She drew a narrow knife, which had the same decorative etching as the spear.
"Mother willow, mother willow!" She called in a whisper, reaching out to touch one stretching root. The twisted mass of the tree seemed to groan and open, revealing pale shards of gleaming wood and two galactic eyes blinking their way back into consciousness after a very long sleep. "You must let him go, mother willow. The water is rising, the wind is dancing, and he is hurt." The tree creaked and seemed to stretch in the wind, taking on the shape of a full-bodied woman with long streaming hair, reluctantly clinging to the mortal in her arms.
The water had marked her trunk with mud where it had reached before when the Palewater swelled. "Come now, I don't mean him any harm." The Hunter coaxed and after a moment's reluctant trembling, the roots parted, and she was able to assess the intruder more carefully. She had been right; he had healed himself with a song of power, the kind which was not meant to be remembered in these late years, the real sort of power that her grandmother spoke of, not just herbs and potions.
"I've caught myself a sorcerer!" She whispered, creeping closer. But the shifting of the roots was enough to rouse the intruder from his bed of flower-studded grass.
Eldarion winced and groaned, covering his face to shield it from the rain. His vision was blurred, and it took a moment for his addled mind to make sense of the crouching figure perched upon the roots before him; there was a recurve bow on her back, and her long braids fell as she turned her face to meet his gaze in blinking curiosity. She wore garments of crude leather and had pheasant plumes in her hair. She held up a knife defensively as Eldarion startled, scowled, and backed warily against the tree. The dainty silver ring she wore between her nostrils both disgusted and fascinated him.
"Well met," He tried by way of greeting, feeling the rough bark against his back as he met the strange woman's eyes. She seemed to have a forest inside of her. He closed his eyes tight and then opened them, trying to get the ringing in his ears to subside.
"You're a healer?" She gestured to his shoulder, where his clothing had been torn and stained with blood. Eldarion was about to throw up his hands in feigned ignorance, but through her strange accent and the rising din of distant thunder, his foggy mind noticed what language she had spoken.
"Who are you?" he asked, using High Elvish as had she. Her expression broke into a broad smile of comprehension. Beneath the kohl smudged in camouflaging patterns on her face, the girl was young, perhaps even younger than he.
"Hannë." She offered without moving the knife. "Bardalaniel." Her eyes flickered to the spear at his back, but she did not say anything, only moved the knife in a figure eight pattern that she hoped made her small frame look threatening.
"Well met, Hannë." Eldarion tried to smile harmlessly and judge whether he could fight the woman at the same time. His head throbbed and spun, and a rippling iridescent distortion was crawling across his vision as he struggled to think of a name to hide his identity, "I'm… Alaman of Gondor."
"That's a funny name." She let the knife drop a bit. Whoever had taught her Quenya had mangled the language of the high elves into a nearly unrecognizable pidgin.
"Please." Eldarion put out one hand as he tried to step away from the tree, the forest spinning around him. The rain had started to fall in earnest now, and the river was growing louder. He discovered, as he moved that he was soaking wet, and with every motion, his clothing dumped a measure of water down to his ankles. "I… ah…" He suddenly remembered the sounds of Elfwine's screams as he was beaten and dragged away. "Do you know the way out of the forest?"
Hannë stood straight and let the knife hang at her side, "I have never left the forest."
"No… Eru…" Eldarion cursed under his breath, rubbing the bridge of his nose as if that would banish his tinnitus. He had misused the interrogative syntax.
"Help me find the path," he mimed, walking with his fingers across his palm, "to the big field." He gestured, and a fresh gust of wind came to dump a fresh pounding of rain upon the vast and tangled darkness of the forest all around them. Hanne did not seem to mind as it ran down her face, revealing freckled streaks of fair skin under her camouflage.
"My friend was taken." Eldarion insisted.
"Horsemen with no horses and mechanical bows," she said with a nod, looking around at the dripping forest. "I have seen them." She looked like she was about to say more but decided against it.
"Yes," Eldarion followed her glance, "I am not one of them, I swear." She seemed to size him up, her eyes landing on the spear tip across his back. "Just… Help me find a big field beyond the trees."
"You are a healer?" she repeated earnestly.
"I suppose so." Eldarion shrugged.
She seemed to size him up, biting her lip and flipping the knife a few times around her fingers, "Come," she beckoned, "heal."
"I can't." Eldarion threw up his hands, his migraine worsening to a crippling throb. "I have to find my friend."
"And I cannot leave." She folded her arms stubbornly, "Big field is that way." She thrust her chin out to where the rising river plunged over a cliff into the steaming rain. Eldarion knew that to wander unaided through the forest in a storm would be foolish. He took a deep breath, and thunder cracked ominously.
"Why can't you leave?" Eldarion had the sense that he would later regret not just leaving the girl then and there.
"My grandmother is ill," Hannë admitted, the wind buffeting her braids, "I must return." She looked over her shoulder into the forest, where the trunks of ancient beaches were streaked with dark water. "She needs a healer, Alaman of Big Field. If you heal her, I will show you the way home." Hannë sheathed her knife.
"Ai Namo," Eldarion squeezed shut his eyes and, when he opened them, found that the rippling distortion in his vision had grown alarmingly. Unsteady on his feet, he put out one hand and felt Hannë take it to steady him.
"Use this." She detached the spear from his back, studying it with wonder for a moment before returning it to him. "The rocks can be slippery in the rain."