================== Eldarin Calendar in Sindarin ===================
IC time is: Early Evening About 6:24 PM
IC day is: Orbelain Valar-day
IC date is: 13 Laer Summer
Moon phase: Full VISIBLE
Earendil: Gil-Estel is not visible.
IC year is: Loa 4 o Yen 22, Nelandran o Endor TA 3028
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RL time: Thu Feb 06 21:08:07 2003
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Lothdaimoth's Office
The ladder leads up to a small flet off the main talan. Set away from the trunk of the great tree, it almost seems to float - a small wooden ship in a great leafy ocean. Smooth planks are slotted together to make the floor, and a carved wooden screen stands along one edge. Curving branches are the only walls, and to the west, they have been evidently trained to one side, leaving a gap through which the sun or stars can shine. From one such branch a small lamp hangs on a short chain.

Lined up neatly on the floor below this gap are a range of bottles. All different sizes, shapes and colors - some filled, some not - they glow intriguingly when the sun sets, casting an array of brilliant shadows across the floor. A hammock piled high with cushions hangs from two thick limbs; it appears more suitable for sitting in than sleeping. Aside from this, a low table topped with ink bottles, pens and sheafs of paper with a cushioned stool before it; a small cabinet, and a single chair, evidently for guests, are the only furniture.


Late summer sun slants golden and thick through the leaves, bounces off and through and into the colored bottles sitting on Lothdaimoth's floor, and rainbows across the room. No breeze blows to lighten the air or the mood, the Wood is silent. Well, as silent as it ever is; but no songs rise from without, no murmur of voices hums in the background. A tense waiting stillness has descended upon Lothlorien and much thought is bent upon the borders.

Caelwen and Lothdaimoth sit together, huddled on the smooth wooden floor. A branch of the great tree rises at an angle behind them, providing support and shelter and possibly comfort; for the leafy arms seem to curve about them as a mother might comfort her young.


"Hmm.." Caelwen leans closer to Lothdaimoth, her cheek against his shoulder. She whispers as if she fears listening ears-- or perhaps that the silent newborn leaves would catch her words and steal them in their fists. "I am glad you are not in the Order anymore. So you're here and I can see you." She swings one of her slippers from a finger, idle hands gone fidgety.


There is no response for long moments. Then, "I do not regret no longer going to battle, yet...." Lothdaimoth falls quiet again. After a time, his deep quiet voice breaks the silence once more. "I cannot help but think.. what if my skill, such as it is, were needed? My friends and my kin come again from the fighting injured and sometimes dead... and what difference might one additional bow have made?" Turning dark eyes towards her, shadowed and troubled, he opens his mouth as if to speak again but doesn't. Silence wraps itself about them again, the very Wood is waiting.


An echo of the troubling shadow is found now in green eyes, a misty mirror. Caelwen's lips part, but no words are fit in the gap for a time, though she searches for them in Lothdaimoth's gaze. An intake of breath, and at last: "But what of the difference you make in the Arnpand?" A hand lifts, and as she sometimes does, the young elleth brushes hair back from the Minister's brow. "Surely you do not need to be in the battle to save lives. And such a difference you make for Lorien with your gift with words and the knowledge that the Lord and Lady glean from you."


Gentle fingers smooth his hair, and Lothdaimoth bows his head before them. "I do not know," he says at last. "I do not want," a shudder goes through his body, "I do not want to fight any more. I do not want to kill, nor to see my kindred slain. But how can I know that my absence is not of selfish reasons though I tell myself it be wisdom?"


"I do not want..." Caelwen straightens, and closer she pulls herself to Lothdaimoth, her hand still stroking his hair. She bites her lip, and starts over, more gentle and uncertain. "I do not know, guren. Beloved. But... so much has happened to you. I am unsure if you would be the same in battle. The... the bad things might make it difficult for you to fight the same, aye?" Her voice drops lower. "I love you.." It is almost a question.


But Lothdaimoth is already shaking his head: no. "I think not, I... my skill lacked naught when we sought for Erinstar from Imladris." He sighs deeply, one hand sliding behind her shoulders and drawing her to him as if all hope and ease left in the world might be found in her presence. "I do not know," he repeats quiet, hopelessly. "Yet, nin melda, I do not know if I can bear to watch another lost while I sat home and did nothing."


Caelwen's hand turns, her fingers draw circles on his arm even as she rests her cheek on his shoulder again. Reassurances gone, she curls close to him and whispers a little plaintively, "But I don't want you to be lost." Again she bites her lip, and her brows pluck together.


"Do not worry." A humorless little chuckle joins the bitter twist to the minister's lips. "I will not go out to fight. Not unless all else is lost and the Order calls even upon the least of those in the Wood for aid."


"Do not, nin-belegil, do not!" Caelwen pleads, fingers all busy and restless as they stroke him. "You are brave and you have done much and you still do much." Tears are in her voice, and closer she rubs her head against him, brow to his neck.


Lothdaimoth turns from his preoccupation to slip his other arm about her and hold her tightly against him. "Do not cry. Nin Barawen, meldanya, little one do not cry." Soft the murmurs whisper into bright coppery hair, lit to flame by the setting sun. A splash of blue quivers on his pale face, trembling with the slightest motion of the wine it glances through.


Caelwen laughs once, or bursts into tears-- it is hard to tell by the sound and tears do brush her skin and his. She then falls silent and trembles greatly as she holds to him as tightly as he does to her. After a time, she gains a bit of control over her voice. "Stay near me, Lothdaimoth, please. /Please/ do not go." She sniffles, and takes a calmer breath. "I am sorry-- I am being selfish. Frightened."


"I cannot promise this." Lothdaimoth's voice is rough, like leaves brushing over raw silk, and so quiet it is little more than a breath. "Please do not ask it of me. As long as there is no need, I will not. But.. " A single bird begins to sing, one low clear melody against the hush of Anor slipping behind the horizon, and he stops to listen. Perhaps it sings to him of hope or of cheer, for when he speaks again some edge of anguish is gone from his words. "None can see all the future, nor all the paths their fae might go. If I am needed, beloved, I must go."


Caelwen's embrace of him loosens somewhat, and a fingernail begins toying with some thread embroidered on his sleeve. "I know," she answers, subdued. "I meant.. today. Maybe." She pushes against him once, a little, rocking them, then falls silent and still once more for a time, watching the play of sun on his shoulder, eyes caught. The same finger touches his chest. "Are you well, meldanya?"


Lothdaimoth stills, his gaze going distant as he considers this. "Well?" he asks after a time, a little questioning movement to his head. "Yes..." But the same question has wormed its way into his words, so that his yes sounds none to sure of itself. "Why do you ask? I am uninjured..."


Calm is Caelwen, yet a tear clings still to the corner of one eye. She lifts her head, to touch her lips to the corner of his mouth.


Her mouth is the barest whisper of skin on skin against his face before he has tilted his head to return her kiss with one of his own. The last golden-bronze ray of sunlight touches two heads in benediction, and dimness steals into the talan; the still encovering night relaxing around them. The singing tension eases from the air: all her children are safely home.