The shadows of dusk were deepening with the passing of the minutes. Anor had long ago dipped below the lip of the Vale, though the sky was still colored faint by her brilliant hues of purples and pinks, with rays of light that lit the edges of passing clouds like fire. Wayward Ithil, guided by his hasty pilot, was hovering almost directly overhead, his own pale luminescence far outstripped by the sun that was no longer even in sight.
Before him the Vale was quiet, peaceful. The embracing walls of the mountains meant that the shadows were the greatest here, but there was a beauty to the colors that violet and shade and red and orange played upon the eyes. Dotted here and there with elvish lanterns that gave the appearance of tiny stars among the settlements so well hidden from prying eyes
It was a sight wholly different from Lórien, but no less breathtaking in splendor. Yet as Raudnucal sat and stared at what was below him, he could not say his heart was truly stirred by it all. Indeed it was a marvel, that he could not deny, but he had seen fair Tirion countless centuries ago and he could not say that anything so far had ever come close, save perhaps Ost-in-Edhil…
And there it was, the stirring of emotion in his heart that had been so absent before. It rode suddenly from his chest in a wave that crashed upon his throat, pressing into the back of his eyes, and he had to shut them against the assault. It did little to help, as the vision he remembered so clearly was in his mind, not in front of him, and it stayed there regardless of where he looked or not. A city upon the hill, shining like a jewel in a crown—
An Iron Crown from which the Unsullied Light blazed in all of their pure glory, shadows parting before them like cobwebs before a flame—
Hundaquildo slammed those memories down tight before they could overwhelm him, instead focusing on the city that he remembered so perfectly in his mind. It was painful, but it was the far lesser of the two sorrows. Such a city would never exist in Middle-Earth ever again, but in his mind and memory, nothing could tarnish it. No army could tear down its stones, no fires could ravish its streets, it would ever be untouchable.
His chest ached, and he released the breath that he had no idea he had been holding. It passed silently from his lips, softer than any of Manwë's winds, yet as if it had been some sort of summon, he felt a touch graze his shoulders.
Immediately a smile graced his face, and once more there was youth and vigor in his face, and the eyes that looked as dark and gray as thunderclouds now seemed to glint like steel. He reached up and twined the fingers of his right hand with Lothlhossil's, glancing at the matching gold rings on their fingers.
“What troubles you so?” her gentle voice asked, accompanying the approaching night and its silence rather than dispelling it.
Of course she would know. Raudnucal liked to imagine that he was hard to read in face, but with how deeply they were bound in their marriage, she would not need to read his expression.
At first he did not reply, simply staring at nothing while the leaves whispered to each other, stirred by a breeze that was fluttering through the whole valley. “My heart does not sit still today,” he replied, another wave coming upon him even as he spoke. “It grants me no peace this night, even in a place as serene as Imladris.”
Nor did she reply to him immediately, her hands gently wandering, playing with the long locks of his dark hair that he kept in a tail. “You have been like that ever since we met the lady on the Last Bridge, Tuilerie. It is only now, when you are at rest, can you hear what it has to tell you.”
She was right, of course. She always was. It was that insightfulness that made him fall in love with her first and why she out of all others was the one he turned to most.
“She said she was from Ost-in-Edhil,” he mused. “She had the air of it, the way she spoke her words…Like yours, but different.” It was hard for him to speak what his heart was saying, but he at least knew what it was feeling. “It reminded me of the holly, and the wind that blew in them, and the smell of the heath and flowers…”
And those were the memories that warmed as much as they hurt. He held them, and cherished them, a blade he had handled so much that the edge had become blunted with time. But even Almanuldë could not weather them, and he could feel her hands tremble ever so slightly at his words, and in his flood of shame he stopped.
“I have upset you. Forgive me.” He seized her hand gently, and brought it to his lips to kiss.
He felt her kiss graze his cheek, and the brush of her hair falling over his shoulder, mingling with his own, nearly identical. “You have not upset me,” she assured him softly, her words whispering into his ear, for him alone. Not even the Valley would know of what she spoke. “It is simply what it is now...”
“We have little idea of what it is now,” he was quick to refute. Almost too quick, but he could see where the conversation was leading, almost as if it was stretching before his eyes like a path. “It has likely healed, and has become better.”
“It will never be what it was, though.”
“It does not always have to be so,” Raudnucal said, his eyes looking to the lip of the mountains, thinking, and knowing the Hollin that lay beyond them. “We can try to preserve the Eregion that once was, before it fades from this land altogether.”
Her hands stroked his shoulders a little. Gentle, thoughtful, and with so much attention to detail… “It is a thought that pulls at my heart the more you speak of it,” she said quietly. “I have wanted to make something of the sort for a long time. To gather the whispers and songs of the land, of the sky coating the plains, and make them into a craft for our people to remember the glory and beauty we once had.”
He nodded. “I already have one home that I lost, and could never say farewell to,” he spoke softly. “I wish that number to remain one.”
The arms around him tightened their embrace, and he allowed it gratefully. A part of him wanted to also preserve Eregion somehow, the lands that were unlike any other, for he knew how the ravages of time could change all within the blink of an eye, but he had little in the way of ideas for that.
“I will write to that scout, Tuilerie,” he said. “We will need a guide, and another pair of eyes to scour the plains with us cannot hurt. And she would…understand, as well. Of this I am certain.”
She nodded again, her thoughts no doubt robbing her of her words, and he did not blame her. If anything he had spoken long enough and desired little more of it.
Instead he wanted to enjoy the rest of the evening he had, with the one who mattered to him the most. He would send his letter in the morning.
