Lusseriel was wandering around, scouting a bit, when she came closer to the marsh banks and decided to stop there for a little bit.
She took her notebook out of her backpack and started writing.
“I must admit I had missed playing music more than I thought. I borrowed a lute from the camp’s musician or at least from the music amateur from the camp. The lute isn’t the best I ever heard. Hells, it’s not the best I ever had, but it was nice to play music for a bit under the light of the moon and of the rising sun.
Rolegard, Andrahir, Ilthirian and Salhael joined me there as I was playing at the edge of the camp. Interestingly, Salhael came from outside the camp.
She said she went close to Ost Celebrant. Well, I wonder what a woman who has of course only legitimate reasons for traveling may have wanted to do in a ruin full of aggressive shades. I’m sure it can only be innocent, of course.
Anyway, Rolegard told us he talked to Cerdic yesterday evening. Apparently whatever Rolegard found and brought back was so old and damaged that Cerdic didn’t know what it was. Apparently, according to Rolegard, he decided to give it to his wife as a gift.
Andrahir found that romantic somehow. I’ll admit I fail to see how gifting an old unidentifiable relic can be romantic. For all we know it was just a piece of rubbish left purposely behind by some soldier to get rid of it.
But to each their own.
I’m sure Cerdic’s wife will be delighted by the… Thing.
Rolegard told us that Cerdic had another task for us. Apparently our “friend”, had a kinsman in the bog area that sent word of strange happenings.
Ilthirian seemed to dislike the idea of going into or near a bog. She would have apparently preferred having to investigate a cake shop or a bath-house. To be perfectly fair, if she found a suspicious cake-shop, I’d volunteer to help. I’m sure I can find suspicious honey-comb to investigate in a cake-shop.
But alas, I’m afraid that bath-houses and cake-shops aren’t suspicious enough to warrant an investigation.
Do the rohirrims even have bath-houses?
And so we went, and found Edbrit… Who told us that he saw a great shadowy shape fall from the sky not long ago. That he’d investigate it and would welcome help but first if we could help ensure the safety of the camp by killing some of the more aggressive wild-life that tends to approach the camp from a bit too close…
Men I swear…
Anyway, we managed to kill the poor wildlife that saw their vital space invaded by unwelcome men to the satisfaction of said men and we then all went in search of the flying/falling shadow.
Honestly I had my suspicions on what it could be and I dearly hoped I was wrong.
And I was.
I was wrong that is. It was worst than I thought, cheers. Because with Nona and Edbrit, we found a fell beast dead near an Easterling camp. The beast had a saddle, but its rider was nowhere to be seen.
So now we’re in a hostile land and we’ll have to hunt for a ringwraith.
But, because things would be too easy of course, the beast and situation was a straight reminder of Ilthirian’s vision, much to her apparent shock…
And behold just as we were talking about it, there came a man, a stranger, Brunnadan, who came “as a friend”, speaking Sindarin, telling us a pretty convenient tale of why he was there, and didn’t we know, he’s a friend, and if not a friend at least was hunting the same creature we were so we could be ally and work together.
He admitted to overhearing our conversation, but not on purpose, it just happened of course.
At Brunnadan’s suggestion to work together, Rolegard asked us if an enemy would know elven tongue. Please, some elves know blackspeech, so why not the other way around?
Ilthirian seemed to think that the idea of having one more “ally” to hunt for the wraith would be good. Which… NO!
Come on, even in the perfectly unlikely event where the strange man that came to us in the vicinity of the camp of a known enemy would be perfectly truthful with us, we don’t know him, we don’t know how he fight and in a case of a fight for our lives, that’s a death sentence.
And that’s IF the man is a friend in the first place.
Rolegard seemed rightfully mistrustful of the man up until then. It was fantastic. Someone FINALLY showing some sort of survival instinct here…
But alas, Brunnadan told us that he found wraiths once, mid-ritual but that they fled when Strider arrived…
And there in one word Rolegard forgot all his sense because of course, if the man knew “Strider”, then he’s a friend. Andrahir and Ilthirian seemed to share the same opinion.
Nevermind that an enemy working with the wraiths would have been able to know that, with information straight from said wraiths. Nevermind that a spy could have discovered that. No or course, he knows the name used by Aragorn while in Bree so of course he’s entirely trustworthy.
In the end only Salhael showed any sense in that.
Ilthirian told us that “surely if we didn’t trust him it was better to keep him where we could see him”. Uh, yes, sure… If people could be careful of their words, it’d be a great idea, I agree. Salhael said something along those lines before I could and I totally agree with her.
I don’t trust her but I’m starting to think she has more sense and a more developed survival instinct than all my travelling companions put together.
Brunnadan went back to the rohirrim camp at the edge of the bog so we’ll surely see him soon.
Honestly I took the first opportunity to go scouting and get some space after that. I think I’d have started to sing loudly a song written long ago about blind trust and betrayal. Thought it’s in quenya so I doubt everyone would have gotten it.”
Night was falling around her, and she felt relatively secure where she sat, the moon rising providing enough light for her to see her notebook.
Though, while she was thinking of song… She just had the perfect melody in mind to accompany that catchy song about discretion she was thinking about… Of course the melody in itself wasn’t anything new, and was well known, but…
On the page under her diary entry, she started to write the song as she had it in mind then, taking the time to do it since she didn’t find any trace of specific danger around apart from the Easterlings. She knew the song would be subjected to change but it was always good to keep track of those...
“Oh discretion, sadly forgotten concept,
Oh discretion, even though you could save lives,
Oh discretion, you mean to keep your secrets,
Full of tact and diplomacy,
Carefulness is your law,
Oh discretion, alas still a forgotten idea
Oh discretion, rarely ever remembered
Oh discretion, alas so often betrayed,
Oh discretion, such a wonderful idea,
Of loyalty, safety and concern
For those we don’t want to risk
Oh discretion, if only you were more practiced,
Oh discretion, sadly forgotten concept,
Oh discretion, even though you could save lives,
Oh discretion, you mean to keep your secrets,
Full of tact and diplomacy,
Carefulness is your law,
Oh discretion, alas still a forgotten idea
You mean to keep your secrets,
Full of tact and diplomacy,
Carefulness is your law,
Oh discretion, alas still a forgotten idea
Oh discretion, rarely ever remembered
Oh discretion, alas so often betrayed,
Oh discretion, such a wonderful idea,
Of loyalty, safety and concern
For those we don’t want to risk
Oh discretion, if only you were more practiced,
Such a wonderful idea,
Of loyalty, safety and concern
For those we don’t want to risk
Oh discretion, if only you were more practiced,
It’s such a wonderful idea,
Discretion, of loyalty, safety and concern”
It’s humming the music she remembered that Lusseriel went back to writing seriously:
“One of the drawbacks of messing with a catchy melody to write a mockery of a song is that the rhythm actually gets stuck in your head for hours afterward. I wonder if someone will notice and get annoyed at me if I sing along too much.
I guess I’ll have to see…”
It’s far more cheerfully that Lusseriel put her notebook back in her bag, and started to walk back to where she knew she would find her companions, humming low, perfectly aware of the little fox that seemed to follow her trail.
