I see the last black swan
Fly past the sun
I wish I, too, were gone
Back home again
Grey clouds hung low over the Vale, brightened only a little by the winter sun above them. Manadhlaer had seen many such days, many such skies that portended snow by nightfall, and was unsurprised to find a dusting beginning to cover the fallen leaves -- surprised only by the fact that the little dog at her side was barking at snowflakes. All of them, apparently. The weather was as novel to the dog as it was utterly predictable to his mistress, and despite her mood, she cracked a smile at the dog capering in his first snowfall.
The pair halted at two simple stone cairns, lying side by side on a hill not far from the path to the Last Homely House. The inhabitant of the first grave had requested to lie where he could watch the comings and goings in Imladris, and the second to fall had requested to lie at the side of the first. A soldier's life is short, and luckily these two had made their wishes known in advance. Neither, had Manadhlaer been able to prevent it, would have fallen quite so soon, or in such grim ways. But they had, and that was that.
On the slightly older grave -- six and a half turns of the seasons -- she placed a rose she had spent a great deal of time selecting: a single stalk out of which grew two full-blown roses and a single bud, for a father, a mother, and a son yet to come. She touched her lips, then placed her fingers on the red capstone of that grave.
On the second grave, only a year old, Manadhlaer thoughtfully placed a spray of flowers, whatever she could coax to grow indoors with the help of letters from Fëamíril, as often as they would come from Lindon. One of the Hammerites, possibly Lord Veryacano himself -- it bothered her that she couldn't remember this -- had selected the large black capstone, like a shadow even on days like today when the light was low.
"Daegond! Come here." It was a request, not a command, but the little dog came running, comically outsized ears flapping, as fast as his stubby legs would go. The Dwarf-pedlar had absolutely sworn that the puppy would grow. And he had. He just hadn't grown very much. Some time after the pedlar in question had left the Vale, Sorontar had taken pity on Manadhlaer and explained that, yes, the dog was a hound, but he was bred specially for badger-hunting, and would never grow into the tall, fearsome animal Manadhlaer had pictured.
She knelt and opened her arms, and caught the dog on his first bounce. "Here, pretty thing. I want you to meet your uncle. You were named after him. Yes, you were!"
The dog wiggled in her arms and licked his lips. Usually this affectionate tone from his mistress meant a treat was forthcoming, like one of the meat-flavored biscuits for which Honorary Uncle Telpenaro had devised a recipe.
"Clever pup! Yes, we certainly do hope the flowers are--" Here Manadhlaer's voice wobbled and very nearly broke. "We hope they are delicious."
At this, Daegond the Second looked up at his elleth in concern. Was she hurt? She sounded like she might be hurt. Ah! Clearly some of the snow, as she called the wet sky ash, had struck her cheek and hurt her! He set about licking her face, and was rewarded by a suitably silly expression and a snort as his tongue caught her nose.
"You have absolutely no sense of appropriateness, either, do you?" The reproach was as barbless as it might have been to the Elf-sire beneath the cairn, though Manadhlaer well knew exactly where the dog's tongue had been. "And you will eat anything. You would have got along famously, although he would have called you a sausage on legs."
"Urf?"
"No, that would not have been a terribly bad thing, all in all. He quite liked sausage." Manadhlaer paused to shudder at the implications of what she had just said. "And we are so sorry that we haven't caught the bad Men yet." There was an irony for you, when the ellon most equipped to investigate a horrible and gruesome murder was himself. Not that the original Daegond had been innocent of dire killings, and not only of Men, but Manadhlaer couldn't quite shake the feeling that if someone else had been betrayed in the same manner, the Hound of Vanimar himself would reject the manner as sloppy overkill. There was no point, in his philosophy, in expending more effort than was necessary. Even if you meant to send a message, as many had realized immediately that someone in fact had.
"We are going to catch them." The iron that had forever shaped Manadhlaer's fate was in her voice now. The dog whimpered. Surely he hadn't done anything bad?
"Shh. We'll go home soon, and have a good meal. It was one of two things your uncle thought was best in peacetime." Manadhlaer omitted her husband-brother's second thing, a good wipe, as being irrelevant to the dog.
"We just want one more minute here, don't we? And then we'll go home before it snows any more. Just -- just one more minute." The elleth's voice threatened breaking again. "That's all I want," she whispered, not to the dog, but he redoubled his efforts in licking her cheek, still wet and curiously salty.
Lyrics by Horslips, "Time to Kill," The Táin
