Act III, Part VI: The Lonely Wanderings of Tinnurion
Without a following, the hardships Tinnurion endured returned twofold, for there were none to share them with. The loneliness was perchance the hardest to weather, for even though he had reclaimed the house they had lost, he could not make it a home. The dread of the spider lingered there still, and the evil he had wrought in leading the woodman to his doom could not be wholly overcome, though he had laid him to rest in a manner suited for great kings of Men. And in repentance he had thwarted the evil of spiders where he could find them, and through it made secretly secure the homes of the woodmen.
But even then the days beyond were best lived outside the confines of his house, on the road and in the wild. Hence he travelled much beyond the borders of Mirkwood and far into both lands unexplored and lands much familiar, with the silent moon as his only witness. The occasional Dwarf traveller or trader granted some relief from his lonely sorrows, but none he could confide in. And Men he did not suffer.
'Twas in such manner that, after many a year, he made his way far into Eriador, to other forests that once housed him, though it were ever a cold welcome, devoid of any sense of belonging until at last he came forlorn to a small wood upon the borders of Buckland. In their wanderings he and his companions had sojourned here and he knew of a pool that they had come across in the dead of night. A pool reminiscent of the cold and silent waters of Gladuial which once lay near Eöl's abode and smithy in Nan Elmoth. Indeed, the wood had much akin to his home of old, though the feeling of entrapment here was due to another, more ancient agent; a great willow, evil-hearted.
Here he abided for a while, lying still near the wistful pool, seeing an image of himself staring back at him intently - or at the very least some distant memory of it brought low through the ages. He had not savoured the cold taste of water in some time, but he knew better than to drink from the wells here. For though they appeared welcoming to mortal eyes, Tinnurion knew them to be but part of the Willow's enchantments. Perhaps in younger days he could have withstood them better.
It was here that, in a moment of slight unbecoming of him, he was espied near the water by a shape hardly discernable from the shadowy backdrop of the woesome willow trees.
