(A continuaution of In Your Room, part 1)
Some few days after the company’s return from Angmar.
A flutter of fabric, over the stairs. Cloaked. Hooded.
He stopped as sounds of laughter reached him, throwing his back against the wall to conceal himself. From beyond the doorframe that lead into the main hall, voices could be heard, the creaking of chairs, clinking of glasses. A glance through the window and the Silvan could safely determine it was far too late for patrons to still be up, far too early for them to rise either. Laughter rang out once more and he focused on the voices... Theothar and Aearrien, from what he could tell, drinking in the middle of the night. He hid for a moment longer, waiting for an opportunity where their voices would grow louder, and then dashed further across the steps.
He did not stop until he was before the locked door. A hand reached towards his neck and pulled out a key on a delicate chain, hidden under the robes. It was another lie, standing firmly in his grasp as he turned the lock.
How long has he been planning this? Since their return to Bree? Since they escaped the arena? Since they were tossed into the prison, perhaps, when this grief had only begun burning in his throat. It mattered not, for he pushed open the door and stepped in, small clouds of smoke rising with each light step across the room that Cedmon once could call home.
We all failed him.
Quick fingers traced over covers of books, each note checked, turned to the light of the moon and stars, no crevice or hidden corner spared from the gaze of the bright blue eyes. It would make no sense if he tried explaining what it was he was searching for, but the search continued, unrelenting in the pursuit.
The dusty floor stood lined with piles of books, a labyrinth for those that would never walks its intricate path. Dried wildflowers decorated the vase upon the fireplace - placed in hope then and abandoned now in grief. He gathered what he needed into his arms, the inscriptions on the delicate leather cover weaving a riddle that only further twisted the perception of his intentions. Maps of faraway places, letters that were left abandoned, not addressed to the Silvan himself, accounts of travels that strangers walked... This was no work an innkeeper was tasked to do, no search for one concerned with bringing food and drink. This was no grief of one who lost a friend. This was cold and measured determination.
The answers stayed stitched into the worn olive cloak upon his shoulders, each tear of the fabric pointing to a road he walked with those he cherished. Only I remain, of what once was Windswept. The thought echoed emptily in his posture, and he turned to leave. The fabric, as if the Valar themselves would not allow him this silent escape, caught on the vase upon the fireplace, and the hurried step that would lead him away from the inn pulled the flowers with it.
A crash.
He turned swiftly, the shattered vase having fallen to the floor, disbursing into dozens of clay pieces. It has been so long since the flowers were placed there that there was no fear of water spilling over the precious research but the flowers... Withered and brittle, the fall scattering them over the dusty floor. The laughter in the hall beneath the room stopped and he waited to listen. Hurried footsteps soon followed, the stairs creaking as someone ran to see what the noise was about. The Silvan had no time to dwell on the fate that found him standing there, in hiding, with withered flowers at his feet. Instead he turned to the window and began the swift descent, the same way Cedmon did so many times, each time he left Bree secretly.
Dawn broke, a hurried figure flew over the frozen grass, lit by the first rays of sun. Books stood cradled in his arms, each a thread that he could pursue to right this wrong. Each a duty he would not allow to die.
Months later, after the Windswept's return from the rescue mission in the Misty Mountains.
Dawn broke in the peaceful Breeland dwelling that the Silvan called his home. Autumn passed, winter came and went, leaving grief ever stronger in its wake - spring was now upon them, with new joy present in the inn with the arrival of Gurni Ironhelm, the father of Dal and his brothers.
His hands pressed against the table, hunched over the mess of books scattered around him with names that still only further tangled the riddle he had spent so much time trying to solve, he hardly even noticed footsteps that approached him.
In the midst of the intertwining research laid the crowning piece of this puzzle, a map laid out with names describing the dark place he has seen far too many times. His fingers stood firmly planted over it, barely hiding the tidy writing outlining the foreboding name... Carn Dum.
Bright eyes flickered back and forth, a line of intense concentration settling into the young, weary features.
How many lies will it take? How much doubt will it cause?
How many more lies, Crownlight?
