Foothills of the Misties
The foothills can be dimly seen around you, while you can make out one or two mountains to the west, marking the forbidding Misty Mountains. The ground feels decidedly thawed and covered with sprinklings of snow about you, while a path is dimly lit by the stars twinkling above you. The land has become a beautiful array of colors, even in the scant glow of the countryside proves that. A copse of trees lies nearby, and flowers dot the landscape of these hills. Paths lie to the east, north and south. You can see the foothills continuing both north and south, while the ground seems to level out somewhat.

A heavy downpour of sleet washes over the darkened landscape, only adding to discomfort. The late night autumn air is cold and dry. The moon is above the horizon and in its waning crescent phase.


The air is wet, and icy, sleet biting the skin and thwapping into tents and cloaks. Clouds obscure most of the stars, but a curved moon lingers just above the eastward horizon, lazily drifting lower. There are no fires, but hopefully everything is warm and dry enough inside of the ring of tents.

"Hmph!" An annoyed, loud sound precedes the appearance of a small elleth from one of these tents. The flap is thrust aside, thrust shut again, and Gwantolor straightens, pulling her hood forward and stamping on the ground. Dark eyes glitter in the darkness.


A tall silhouette against the faint light of the moon stands silent and still, apparently unaware of the sleet that plasters black hair to his head and ices over the hems of his cloak. Steel grey eyes turn a quarter of an inch to survey the source of this irritated sound and rest a moment on Gwantolor's small form; sidelit by the sinking moon, they are almost silver in the darkness.

After a time, his lips lift upwards in the smallest of smiles and a thin thread of irony twists itself through his words. "Gwantolor. Has something occured to distress you?" Unheeded, fingers of sleet trace slim tracks down his pale cheeks, melting as they go.


"Well." The words are a little short and swift, as are Gwantolor's steps toward the edhel. "Waiting a half-season would have had this in spring. Or a little longer, for summer. Or gone sooner, and it would not have been in winter. You know the pass might be closed. 'Tis always amusing to see if we might fall off the mountainside or not this time." Little hands tug the hood just the least bit forward.


One thin eyebrow raises sardonically. "You fear to fall from the mountain?" Fyaeglim asks. And then he shrugs, dismissing both question and tone in one minute gesture. "Waiting, or not waiting... each different time would have brought with it its own disadvantages, and a little snow is not the worst barrier I have seen." Politely, he turns from his westward watch to stand near to the tiny Silvan. "You go to Imlad to visit your daughter, I hear?"


"Oh, aye, I suppose so." Gwantolor's hands, like little nervous birds, tug at her cloak, wipe at her nose, smooth cloth. Her tone brightens. "Two daughters! We have been parted for too long. Some time with them is what we need. Have you kin in Imladris?"


"I may." Fyaeglim turns a dismissive palm outward. "Though I think not. It has been many years since I have heard from my kindred." Softer, almost unheard beneath the unrelenting thud of icy rain, "For all I know, I may meet them beyond the seas..." And a light flickers in his eyes, as if lightning stabs through stormy clouds.


"That will be nice, won't it?" Gwantolor says brightly, almost blurting the words. "Just think! It will not be long now ere you will see the beauty that is the undying lands...." Her voice drops near the end, and into her sharp eyes comes a softening, a longing, and she falls silent as the hard pelting of sleet complains against cloth and branch and leaf.


Hooded and brooding, are the eyes that rest now on Gwantolor's face. "I have longed for this day for uncounted yeni." Though he has not raised his voice from its whisper, passion turns the simple words into notes that ring through the night like diamonds cut through sand. But it is gone the next minute, as if it had never been, and voice and face again are calm. "Tell me of your daughters. How is it that they live in Imlad?"


Gwantolor has tipped her face back, until sleet is pouring into her eyes and she bows it again, darting hands lifting up to rub at it, hood-cloth drying her skin. "Oh, the younger followed the elder, you know," emerges her muffled words. "Palanamra's sister and father live there. Ai! It will be very good to see them again!" She tucks her cloak about her again, in the manner of a little bird straigtening her feathers. "We have seen Olathlinn, but not the others."


Now those silver eyes watch Gwantolor as if listening to her speak of her family is the only thing of importance left in the world. Yet a certain underlying stillness might speak of ears that never cease to listen to the earth around them. "I have a daughter," he says at last. "I left her in the Grey Havens e're Eregion fell. I have not seen her but once since then."


"Oh?" Gwantolor's face tips back again, eyes wide and uncaring of the heavens that pelt her skin. "What is her name?" Voices fade into the din of storm, dawn creeps closer, and the moon, along one curved line, strokes the edge of the world.