================== Eldarin Calendar in Sindarin ===================
IC time is: Early Night About 9:13 PM
IC day is: Orbelain Valar-day
IC date is: 22 Echuir Stirring
Moon phase: Waxing Gibbous 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: Sun May 11 15:04:35 2003
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Healing Talan
This hushed talan is a quiet place of healing for those Galadhrim injured in
battle. White robed Quendi, one wearing a bracelet, easily walk about, tending
to visitors, offering refreshments, and various other small jobs. Meanwhile
patients lie on comfortable, sparkling pads, gazing out at a sweeping view of
the wood. Sunlight streams though the leaves of the mellyrn, casting dancing
shadows on the wooden floor. The air has a fresh, clean feeling. You feel
better just resting here for a moment.
Pale silver moonlight spills across the polished wooden floor, creating a
dancing shadow-play of leaves. The swollen white orb hangs low in the western
sky, for the moment completely free of the few wisps of cloud that obscure
portions of the star-strung heaves. In this talan, a few lamps have been lit,
but most of the room has been left to the softer light of Ithil. Some elves lie
sleeping, others are tended by white-clad, soft-footed healers, and one sits
rather grumpily leaning against a beam. Long black hair is caught at the nape
of his neck and dark eyes stare broodingly across the evening woods. A small
scowl drags Lothdaimoth's mouth downwards and etches creases between his
eyebrows.
The melancholy form picked out and glowing in moonlight is the first
sight that the Attendant's eyes light on entering the talan from the annexe -
his dark hair blending with the night contrasts sharply with his skin, still to
her eyes, tightly stretched from his recent accident. Garbed in the white robes
of the healers that gleam under the silvery light she crosses the talan,
lightly but without her native grace for she holds herself more stiffly than
her wont. Her face too hold the stiffness of one who has recently returned from
great stress or fatigue and is but newly awoken.
Some stirring of air, or flicker of shadow in the serene light brings
Lothdaimoth's gaze away from its distant resting point. A small humorless smile
curls his lips upward and then vanishes. "Mae govannen, Gilrowen. You are
healed?" The bruises that adorned his face once have faded beyond recall, only
the faintest of lines shows where a gash once broke his temple.
"I am grounded to the talan until further notice, banished from my
workshop and unable to attend any but the lightest problems until I am deemed
healed by my watchdogs." Her eyebrows knit in a scowl, "Hyardoel has begun an
unlikely and unblessed alliance with that apprentice of mine," she glances
sharply about her, a frown fighting the her naturally upcurved mouth and
darkening her grey eyes. Still with a wry lift of her eyebrows she continues
lowering her voice, "I could hold those two off but they have conscripted the
head healer into this now and I am caught." Her frown lifts long enough for her
to examine Lothdaimoth with the measuring regard of a healer. "Indeed, though I
deem that I fare better than you. How fare you?"
Lothdaimoth sighs soundlessly and turns his eyes again to the moon-washed
treetops. "There is none needed to see that I remain within, I could not leave
did I wish it." Under his breath, he mutters sourly, "And I certainly wish it."
A hand rubs along the splinting that keeps one leg bound straight and he is
silent for a few moments. When he returns his attention to the jeweler, there
is a reluctant quirk of humor in the set of his mouth. "Indeed, I would say you
are beset round about with caregivers, mellon. Still... it should not be much
longer?"
"We are both ringed in and beset and if I had a potion for wings then I
would grow us both a set and we would fly this place in a thrice," she says
peering out over the moon-lit garden that entices with its heady perfume of
roses. Looking down at his splinted leg with a concerned frown she advances a
step, "But I wonder Lothdaimoth that you are not further advanced in your
healing. Has the chief among us not tended to you?"
Hand on the window sill she
speaks softly into the night turning on occasion to look at him, "And you at
least can have your House's messages brought to you and your work carried
forward from here. If I were to touch a patient then as our chief healer said
so kindly to me 'bandages will fly' - would that I rather it was me," and
adding with some semblance of her more normal good humor, "and you that fly."
The frown returns along with a resigned flick of long slim fingers. "The one
leg is nearly healed," the minister says. "Only they say it should not yet bear
weight for long. This one though," he eyes his own limb with disfavor. "The
healer told me the injury was made the worse in our rescue and thus it takes
longer to mend." Dark eyes glance up and he pats a spot near him. "Will you
sit? Since I cannot stand and join you?" And continues to answer her question.
"I know not who has tended me, I have little memory of that time."
Turning from her yearning inspection of the garden she too adds her
sigh to her cousins and she lowers herself carefully to the mat next to him,
one hand clutching her ribs. " Still I wonder about that?" she says slightly
out of breath. "And the mine Lothdaimoth. What shall be done about it I wonder?
And the ore?" She shakes her head in real consternation at this last thought.
The scent of warm bread is barely preceeded by an elleth bearing a
cloth-covered basket containing (presumably) bread. Caelwen's eyes light up
when they rest upon both of her cousins, awake and near each other. "Ada baked
his best for you! Just like I asked him to!" she announces, then trips closer
to seat herself on the opposite side of Lothdaimoth.
Frustration shows plainly on Lothdaimoth's pale silver-lit face. From a corner,
one of the few small lamps adds a hint of warmth to his profile. "I cannot tell
you. What ore? What of the mine? I am told we were within when there was a
collapse, but I have no memory of it. I do not know even why I was there." He
shifts against the supporting beam, and moves his leg a little, carefully. In
the distance, a muffled groan sounds, followed by a whisper of cloth and pad of
feet. There is a clink of glass and then silence falls again. And the smell of
fresh baking permeates through the healing talan. The minister looks up and
tries to smile more cheerfully at his betrothed. "Thank you..."
"No memory of it," she repeats, "it is possible or so I am told by the
more experienced among us. They say it a manner for the fea to forget and the
hroa to heal itself, yet it must be passing strange for you cousin. So I must
wait upon Master Aegruam to find out what to do next then?"
Sniffing several times at the aroma that surrounds them, Gilrowen looks
up with a smile for her cousin Caelwen. "You have all the good fortune having a
baker in the family, Caelwen. But I understand that you have barely left us
these past days or so the other attendants tell me. How do you fare?"
Caelwen smiles broadly at Gilrowen. "I am much better now that you both are so
obviously well. I wouldn't have left now if I hadn't had to meet Ada's
apprentice-- ai!" she laughs. "He was so eager for gossip! Do either of you
want to eat now?"
"But I don't see why you must continue beating your head against this,
belegil-nin," complains the Cennan in an undertone. "You don't like the memory,
and it is really only a /bit/ of memory in all that you have, so why must you
struggle on this?" Her hand worms beneath the cloth covering the bread.
"Because I want to know!" Lothdaimoth's voice is suddenly fierce. "I do not
like this blankness in my mind." He drops his head and rubs absently at the
rapidly fading mark where once was a gaping wound. "I am sorry.... Aye, mellon.
You must ask the Master, for I can surely give you no advice." Dark eyes lift
to the low-set window, to the silver and black wash of trees in the moonlight,
and an almost tangible yearning fills them. "I wish..."
A real look of alarm flares in the attendent's eyes at this flash of
temper so out of countenance with the balanced ellon that she has known all of
these yeni. Quickly shuttered she looks around at her cousin Caelwen to see how
she takes this display and schools her expression to be carefully neutral.
Reaching forward with care for the still warm bread, she takes a slice and
offers it wordlessly to Lothdaimoth. "Then I shall ask him if he comes or send
a messenger to him if need be."
The slice rests forgotten in her hand as she glances down in thought
for a moment, "I think that it is a question of balance that holds your memory
in abeyance," in a softer pensive voice she adds, "I think that something can
be done."
Caelwen's eyes are conflicted, but her mouth is pressed stubbornly while her
head bows, away from Lothdaimoth. At last, a whuff of a sigh curls out and she
asks Gilrowen, "What can be done then?" in a low tone that might hold a hint of
rebellion.
Lothdaimoth take the offered bread in silence and tears off a piece, chewing it
and swallowing before he speaks. The moon dwindles as it rises, until it is a
small silvery disc, hanging mishapen far above the troubles of Middle Earth.
"Do you think so?" he asks then, ignoring Caelwen's sulky tone.
Looking about her into the quiet of the ward, she breaths out one long
sigh and studies both of the moon-lit faces before herand nods once. "We can,
we three rectify this. I think that each of the head healers think that the
other has tended to you Lothdaimoth. But I have learned that those who are
close to the patient have the possibility of walking closely with that person
in spirit. If you will trust me in this?" Silently she looks to each.
Caelwen, having spent her time ignoring Lothdaimoth while fishing out a small
roll, looks up suddenly at Gilrowen's question. She looks fretfully from cousin
to cousin, then shifts quite a bit closer to the Minister's side. A question is
in her eyes when she returns them yet again to him-- it is his choice, not hers.
Dark eyes go into thoughtful distance and a hand slides absently up to
Caelwen's shoulder. "Then you think that none of them has seen me?" he asks
after a time. "If you are willing to try, I trust you." A small twisted smile
curves his lips.
A pinch of concern for his condition creases Gilrowen's brow, "For that
I do not have the answer but that you languish like this and that your memory
does not return, well...it does not seem right to me cousin." Grey eyes seek
the emerald eyes of her cousin for confirmation and trust in the endeavor
before returning to Lothdaimoth's face. "Lie down. We will help you. We will
lend you our strength."
Caelwen, too, fretfully pinches her brow-- forming a crease in the same spot as
Gilrowen's. She nods to her cousin, however, and spans a hand across
Lothdaimoth's chest. "I shall help him. You mustn't think of straining
yourself, meldis!"
"Yes, help him lie back," she says with a rueful smile, "I have learned
of late my ribs limits but I am well and feel capable of this." She shifts off
of the cot to make way for him, standing with care and waits for him to lie
back. Slim and straight, back to the window she stands like a lily in her white
gown silvered by the moonlight her face grown expressionless as she looks
deeply inside of herself.
"I can certainly lie down by myself," Lothdaimoth mutters grumpily. But he
squeezes Caelwen's shoulder, smiling at her affectionately and shifts his
position away from the wall. Thin black eyebrows pinch together as he struggles
to lift his leg onto the cot, and his mouth tightens. Caelwen jumps to her feet
and hurries around to lift the leg carefully with both hands. She bites her lip
a little and looks nervously at Gilrowen and then back down to Lothdaimoth.
"Are you certain?"
The faintest smile traces itself on her face as she nods at Caelwen's
question and she beckons her to face her on the other side of the cot. "I do no
more than guide us and enhance what is natural for us to do when we heal.
Come." Holding her gown to one side she kneels and lets the robe settle about
her self before looking Lothdaimoth once deeply in the eyes and nodding, no
need to smile or speak for her eyes hold all of the affection and reassurance
that she holds for her cousin. Slowly she places her hand on his brow and
gestures, one pale hand gleaming in the moonlight that streams through the
talan window for Caelwen to do the same.
Silence seems to take of this place and into that silence the faintest
of voices - golden and pure begins to pour.
Caelwen kneels on the other side of Lothdaimoth, her own silken raiment
drifting about her in a pale cloud, a mirror of her cousin in fire instead of
ebony. Another trusting, yet nervous, glance to Gilrowen, and she looks down to
the Minister's dark eyes for a time. Her strong fingers lift, touch his brow,
and although she does not sing, her touch warms, and the essense of the Silvan
maid might be felt in it.
And the minister's dark eyes go from Gilrowen to Caelwen and then sag shut. Two
hands settle lightly on his forehead, and he takes a deep breath, letting it
out again soundless, and relaxing into the cushioning bed.
Song and yet no sound, the purest of notes hang between them and each
enters into a land evenly lit by a light that steadies and holds them. The
deepest of silence stills the talan and the moon-lit figures rest unmoving
limned in silver as the song takes hold of them. In silence it climbs and then
leaks into a stream of lightly chanted words that speak of bringing strength,
sing of holding fast, whisper of knitting strong and restoration."
Wordless, meaningless save for love and hope, Caelwen's voice adds to the song,
in a simple undertone that only weaves through and around Gilrowen's healing
lay. Lacking in skill, perhaps, it is heartfelt, and sure, and the air grows
thick with meaning.
Song limned in living color curls through the darkness of Lothdaimoth's mind.
His breathing slows, deepens, and muscles relax still further. Green for
healing, gold for love... jagged broken edges begin to slide together and
almost it seems they form a pattern.
It builds between them this seemingly fragile structure yet the bonds
of love are strong and hold its crystalline beauty in place. Words of holding,
harmony refound, force rekindled and love bound cap the gentle flow and rest
suspended between them for shining moments - and then fade.
Caelwen's eyes focus upon Lothdaimoth's face, her lips parted and building a
bridge, her own steps of it shimmering, uncertain at times-- fear warring with
affection. Yet it remains, though her breath catches as it wanesm and her hand
shivers on the Minister's brow.
It is like a puzzle, the shattered pieces of a certain piece of space and time.
And though the shining colored beauty of Gilrowen and Caelwen's song binds many
pieces together, there are others which seem not to fit - they are the wrong
size or the wrong shape or the wrong color. But even these have their sharp,
ragged edges blunted by music; and a little color returns to warm the pale wax
of Lothdaimoth's face. Where once was a fine-lined fading scar on his temple,
there is only smooth unblemished skin.
Caelwen bends over in the hushed aftermath, a delicate move in slow-motion
through the thick and humming air, to touch her lips to his brow where her
fingers were.
Gilrowen's hand is slowly withdrawn and falls to lie lightly on his
shoulder. Grey eyes lift slowly and examine his face, still radiant with the
song that was shared among them and she then glances away from the tender
gesture of her cousin. Moments pass in which nothing is said nor does she feel
the need to speak to these two that she walked so far with. Rising with care,
she nods solemnly to both of them and says in a simple unadorned voice, "I will
take my leave of you both. It is well."
From trance to true sleep, Lothdaimoth falls swiftly, gently through time;
still cradled by the memory of the healer's song.