================== Eldarin Calendar in Sindarin ===================
IC time is: Dawn About 6:19 AM
IC day is: Orbelain Valar-day
IC date is: 12 Laer Summer
Moon phase: Waxing Crescent HIDDEN
Earendil: Gil-Estel is not visible.
IC year is: Loa 3 o Yen 22, Nelandran o Endor TA 3027
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RL time: Sun Oct 06

Anduin Vale, North of Lorien
The ground slowly and graciously levels out before you, as the foothills to your west give way to the long, straight plains before the Anduin River. The river glistens brightly to the east, a snakey, hazy line of trees marking its path. All around you, the ground is becoming less rocky and less rolling. Trees dot the landscape, each one reaching high up to the sky. The heat reflects off the ground and the trees, and the humidity of the undergrowth around you can at times be stifiling. The weather is hot and muggy while all around there is a feeling of growth.

The dawn sky still dumps copious amounts of rain down onto you. The morning summer air is hot and muggy around you. The moon is hidden.


Even so near to Lorien as this, the weather is completely different. The air is heavy, still and filled with moisture that sticks to the skin in a tangible blanket. A warm rain pours down, drenching the earth and washing everything clean, but failing completely to feel refreshing. Grey misty clouds move sluggishly overhead, the feeble light of the rising sun unable to pierce their enveloping cover. Still, the sky is slowly brightening, and in the midst of the downpour, there is a furtive stirring. From bush to tree, figures slip nigh-unseen - certainly unheard. One, tall, black hair plastered to his head, walks near the end of the line - bow held loosely in one hand, an arrow ready. Dark eyes scan their surroundings ceaselessly as he drifts, no more than a shadow (albeit an exceedingly wet one).


Caelwen threw back her cloak long ago, and now finally tugs down her hood, her flaming braid freed, though already drenched to a dark auburn. She looses one breath in a pant, mouth open as though to release heat from between her lips. She plants the end of her stave in the wet ground with every third step or so, but gradually walks slower and drops back near Lothdaimoth. A baleful glance is sent upwards, earning her a raindrop in the eye, and then she looks sidelong to her cousin. She murmers, "And Rhibi had the good sense to run off during autumn. Lucky lad." A half-smile.


Lothdaimoth's chuckle is nearly unheard, but the smile that accompanies it spreads half across his face. "Yes. I told you it would be warm." A brief glance at her face and he winks. Voice as soft as the laugh; both are lost from knowledge mere inches from conception. "So tell me, cousin. What think you of the outside world so far? Besides that it is wet?"


"And hot?" Caelwen's gentle voice is then silent, the sound of rain pounding out any noise that her feet might make against the sodden ground. Finally she laughs, too-loud and quickly stifled. "Is not that it is hot and wet enough? I have never been so hot in my LIFE! Is it going to be like this all the way to Imladris?" She reaches behind her, and lifts her braid up, which only allows the muggy air to reach her neck. She sighs, "I am sorry. I promise I'll not complain the whole way." A small smile is given to him.


A fat raindrop splatters loudly onto a leaf, followed by a crack, and Lothdaimoth's head whips toward the sound, black strings of hair slapping wetly against his back. He freezes in place, bow half-raised, then relaxes and returns to his silent walk. "Complain all you wish, cousin. Only do it quietly, I pray you." Side to side and all around, he watches. "No. It will not be this hot. As we climb into the mountains, it will become cooler."


Caelwen freezes a half-step after Lothdaimoth, head lowering, then walks again when he does. "Aiya, I wish you did not do that," she whispers. "I feel like I shall swallow my own tongue and crumble to pieces." A deep shiver crawls down her spine, and her fingers tighten about her stave. Even quieter, she breathes. "Cousin? What happened to you that you were injured on your last trip?" Peridot eyes flicker to him as often as they do to the path.


Dark eyes flick to meet green, and then away again. "You wish I did not do what?" Still the rain pours down, although the day grows somewhat brighter. In places, the drifting grey clouds even thin to a dirty white. Beneath the tree, the incessant drumming of raindrops is muted; but instead come random splats as drops slide from twigs to hit the ground. Slowly, the counsel says, "I do not wish you to worry over much, but..." And then, seeming to make up his mind, he continues. "There was a patrol along the High Pass. In the snow and wind, we could not get around them. So we fought. I ... got in the way of a warhammer."


Caelwen shivers, despite the muggy heat, and does not look up to the clouds, but watches her cousin almost without pause now. Wide-eyed, she queries, "They take hammers into battle? And then build with them?" She skips over a stone, then suddenly gives a quiet gasp. "You were /struck/ with a hammer?? Where..? How did..? Are you....?" She snorts. "Well, I suppose you are all right now." Still, she scans his form briefly as though she could discern the old hurt now.


Chuckling softly, but without humor, Lothdaimoth corrects the young elleth's perception. "It was a 'war' hammer. They are made solely for fighting. And yes, I was hit by one. It broke my arm." He makes a vague movement with the hand that holds his bow and then looks down, his mouth tightening with disgust. "Hold a moment." Stopping, he runs a testing hand down the string and hisses. A rag is fished from a small pouch, and the bowstring carefully wiped before he begins to walk again.


Caelwen stops when she is bidden, twisting idly her hand to dig the end of her staff into the moist earth. She eyes him contemplatively, then speaks very low, "You are brave to have come again then, Lothdaimoth." When they begin to walk again, she looks forward, or up to the clouds, her braid piling on the bulge of her pack and eyes squinting. "Do you expect we will find yrch on this trip, in truth?"


"We will go quickly and as quietly as possible. If we are lucky, we will see none." Sober, quiet, 'if' is emphasized ever so slightly. Ahead of them, only the last elf in the line is visible at all, and he only as a wraith ghosting its way from tree to tree. With no expression visible at all, Lothdaimoth looks down into Caelwen's upturned face. "I do not scold you, cousin; do not swallow your tongue nor crumple into pieces." A wry smile flits across his face and is gone. "But this is no pleasure walk. There is no room for error, nor for foolishness." His face is turned away, and his final words can barely be heard, but in them though his tone is yet kind, there is no room for compromise. "Promise me, Caelwen. If anything, anything at all happens, you will do exactly as I say. At once."


And Caelwen looks back up into Lothdaimoth's face, bright eyes meeting dark for a moment. Her reply is solemn and hushed: "I swear it." She quickly turns her face forward again, and attempts to make her murmer lighter. "And I have been clinging to your heels again like when I was little." A soundless chuckle. "As if this could be named a pleasure walk!" She grabs her braid in both hands and wrings it out, a stream of water falling on her thigh and running into her boot. Another fat drop immediately falls on the fiery length.


Lothdaimoth laughs, near-soundlessly. "And they wonder at Rhibi. Surely there were never two such children for tagging around underfoot." Quickening his steps, he begins to close up the distance between themselves and those ahead. "Come, Caelwen," he calls over his shoulder, quietly. "We should not get too far behind."