Gerion

Back in Westeros, Gerion had never taken thought how beautiful the sky was, smooth and clear, and blue as a field of forget-me-nots, and what made it such, and here he did, lying with his hands behind his head amidst grey-green coastal grasses, whilst the warm sand beathed him pleasantly from underneath. He had so far advanced little in comprehending what had actually chanced and what was chancing still even now, yet his miscomprehension made him not a bit less delighted. Damn, it was verily the most blissful time of his life, he had no doubts about it!

Erelong the grasses rustled and a silhouette as light and bright as a seagull's feather and more graceful than a young deer sat silently cross-legged beside him, gazing at him curiously and casting a shadow over his face. "What are you thinking of, Gerion?"

He slowly shifted his own gaze and looked at her. Maugre he was now able to do so somewhat more freely, each time he did was still no less of a challenge than facing a much mightier opponent in a tourney. It alway took him a while ere he grew used to looking straight at her - Nellas was a blooming loveliness. All Elf-women were, or at least the few he had managed to behold over his time here, yet Nellas was still the hardest to bear. Mayhap because she was the first he had seen and the one he had been spending the most time with, Gerion supposed.

"I keep wondering," he said, raising to sit, "how long it's been since I got here. Even if I try, I can hardly measure the time or even count the days. At times it seems it has only been a while - and that seems quite reasonable, that indeed very little time has passed. Other times, though, I think I've been living here whole long years, all my life, that I don't remember another one. At times I truly remember nothing of my former life and," he gave a quick laugh, "it is not quite a bad feeling."

Nellas giggled. "Time in Aman passes as it wills, lord Círdan alway says so."

Afterwards she tilted her head slightly, wrinkled her little nose and began to look at Gerion again with peerless curiosity. "You would be the third Man whom I have ever seen. First there was Beren, then Túrin, and now you."

"Are we that interesting toobserve?" Gerion lowered his gaze and chuckled nervously under her intent stare. There was still something overwhelmingly unnerving about the Elves' stares, they eyes glittering as if glowworms lived therein or sunrays were spouting from them, that might pierce through. Gerion could scarcely get used to it, no matter how hard he tried.

"Perhaps," Nellas said. "I would fain listen more of your kin."

Gerion looked at the Elf-maid somewhat awkwardly and smiled. "How would I tell you if I don't remember?" He lay down and gazed back at the sky. "Even of myself I know nothing, as though till now I have not yet lived."

Nellas seemed to think over his words awhile, remaining silent, ere Beleg emerged from behind the trees, carrying a jug of water and cups. Having set them down on the sand, he said suddenly, though softly, "We must decide something."

Gerion took his cup and drank greedily. What a land this was, where even water tasted better than the finest wine of the Seven Kingdoms!, he was ferlying again whilst Beleg went on, "As far as I mind not you among us, we cannot keep you on the fringes of Aman unendingly. We ought to let the Valar know of your coming."

A chuckle followed Beleg's words, flying over to them anon from the very shore where lord Círdan was chiselling something at the boat, as he usually did. It seemed that the carved head of a proud swan with a neck long and graceful was just being created by his deft hands on the bow, no less luminous and ravishing than everything else around here. Of all the three Elves, Círdan made Gerion most unnerved. His eyes were the worst. They gave Gerion a feeling that the Elf wist of every single filthiest thought he had ever had and made him regret deeply his every tiniest trespass, even if in the end, although at the cost of Gerion scarcely breathing, his chest being crushed and his heart hammering, they left him somehow oddly clean.

Círdan's work, however, fascinated him to the point he ofttimes caught himself simply staring at the Elf's every move, forgetting the whole world.

"Do you think they yet know not of him?" Círdan glanced at Beleg with indulgent, nearly amused eyes.

"Do they?" Beleg seemed surprised.

"Beleg Cúthalion, you amaze me!" Lord Círdan smiled. "You are not artless and I deem you not a fool, I believe erstwhile in Doriath you were close to Queen Melian and King Thingol therewithal."

Beleg got clearly embarrassed and displeased with himself. "Yet I have never been as close to the Valar as you, lord Círdan, and they have never taken any interest in my presence sith I have lived here," he said quietly, looking into the depth of his cup.

"Which is not to say that they know not of your dwelling here precisely what they need. Of him," Círdan nodded at Gerion, "they know as well, as much as they need, I assure you. We do not have to lift a finger for them to take their interest in him whenever they see fit. And that shall be sooner rather than later, methinks."

Gerion froze and felt his throat suddenly become dry and tighten. He liked not at all the certainty with which the word 'sooner' had escaped lord Círdan's mouth. He did not dream of meeting those fabled Valar any time soon. The Elves themselves were, for the time being, enough of a burden to his poor, unaccustomed to them heart.

Círdan had not been mistaken, Gerion got assured as a knocking came upon the door to Beleg's house, soft at first, then more urgent and impatient.

As Beleg opened, a guest needed not special encouraging to enter. With a few sweeping movements, he found himself in the main room, his head-higher than himself staff clattering against the clay floor to the rhythm of his steps. When the utterly dazed Gerion at last grew used to this new level of brightness that the guest was spreading, his eyes stopped stinging a little from the glare and the comer was no longer one huge white patch of light for him (as though one had put the moon itself before his very nose and obscured his view of anything else), following the three Elves, he bowed low, then beheld an old man before him, who somehow magically seemed not old at all (or, as Gerion thought, it was his senses that had at last succumbed and gone mad to the rest).

The old man stared at him unselfconciously with the gaze of a hungry hawk eyeing its prey, and Gerion kept cursing inwardly all seven faces of God (or praying to them, he was no longer sure himself), trying to preserve the remnants of his dignity and not faint again. For a while, that seemed like an eternity to him, no one spoke, till at last the old man muttered to himself, seemingly astonished, "Thus a Man, without doubt."

Thereafter, however, he suddenly forgot Gerion entirely, as it were, and shifted his eyes to Círdan, his countenance lightening and softening, "Do you remember me, lord Nōwē, my old friend? Iwilfullychose a form from days long gone by, so that you might easily recognise me."

Círdan gave a small nod, slightly bewildered himself, but then he smiled. "Surely I remember you, my lord Olórin, although centuries must have passed if not ages since we have last spoken."

The old man named Olórin returned the smile, then looked around the room curiously. "You lead a solitary life, in seclusion, such as you once too led in the East."

"Such fits me most, methinks," Círdan said softly. "Yet even I met fellows here that no more than me seek the splendour of the central regions of Aman. Here is Beleg, whose house it is and who used to be a great warrior and the finest archer during the days of old, and the maid is Nellas... and here," he pointed at Gerion, "is Gerion Lannister, wherefore the highest lord Manwë belike sent you hither, my lord."

"Oh, yes, indeed." Olórin again looked at Gerion, who swallowed hard and froze back in uneasiness under these eyes black as coals wherein little fire sparks burned, and breathed an inward sigh of relief as soon as the old man shifted his gaze to lord Círdan. "Yet it was not Manwë who summoned me hither."

Círdan got surprised. "Who did, then?"

Sorry, I've split Gerion's chap into two parts, cause I haven't managed to edit it whole before I go away on my holiday (where I'll mostly be in the wood and not able to edit things). So, here is the first part, the next shall be when I'm back, and then Ned POV :) Ty for reading!