Bree-land was perfect in the summertime.
She was certain, even without having seen much of the wider world, that there was no place in Middle Earth more sublime than this spot. A hidden pool, deep in the Chetwood, so far to the north that the foreboding Downs seemed little more than a stone's throw away. The trees were older than any tale she knew, towering and bent, their branches weaved together high overhead, dappling the sun's hot rays. With her eyes half-closed, the world was a blurry melange of verdant green, rich brown, and wind-washed blue.
Sound was muffled due to the water that cradled her head and body, keeping her afloat in the middle of the pond. The contrast between warm air and cool wetness was delicious, and she trailed her hands lazily up and down the water's surface, while toes dipped slowly in and out of view.
He hadn't come back. Whether this was due to being tangled up and bogged down in unexpected duties, or because she had gently put off his feverish advances, she could not say. The former seemed more likely than the latter, as he had never been a man to be deterred by a challenge. But then again, she had not been so close to him in such a long time. And he had been so nearly broken and tamed and set on a leash by his pale-faced, black-haired mistress. Perhaps he had lost the will to fight in the end, for what he really wanted.
With a soft, delicate sound, that of flesh moving through liquid, she turned over and slipped beneath the surface. Beneath, the world was dark, murky, cold. Blessedly quiet. Only that distant, low roar that seemed oddly and peacefully primeval. She swam until her chest began to ache. The light from above beckoned. She pushed on, well-shaped arms and legs churning silently. The aching became a sharp prickling. With lips pinched tightly together, she pressed a foot into the muddy bottom and launched herself smoothly upward.
The world greeted her again with a flush of its balmy summer air kissing about her bare shoulders, feeling both warm and cool as it tenderly brushed past her cheeks. The murky quiet was broken into starkly clear birdsong, and the rustle of leaves in the wind overhead. The denial of breath was removed, and her lips parted wide to suck in relieving lungfuls of air.
It was easy to push thoughts aside in such a beautiful setting. Easy not to think about what had once been. What might have been. And what was no more. The forest was not bothered by her presence, nor did it lean one way or the other in the face of her questions and her brooding. The shadowy memories of loved ones were dimmed along its ferny trails and moonlit glades. Less a woman and more a wild creature, she seemed to become, with each passing day.
