Tham Lumren, some time ago
A full moon rose, pale orange, casting its mellow light over the rolling hills and shining in the Bruinen. A lone horse trotted along the path winding among the pine trees and tumbled boulders, its rider's golden hair shimmering dimly in the twilight. The hoofs of the dark horse made little noise on the broken stones of the old road, overgrown with moss and lined with multitudes of wildflowers. The only other noise was the wind in the pines and the faint rush of the river. The Elf slowed his horse to a walk and pulled a hood over his head as the path straightened and rose toward a broken silhouette on the top of a hill, set against the starry sky.
Mist swirled about the horse's legs as it mounted the last short rise, passing between the two ends of a once-elegant stone outwork and into a courtyard overrun with grass and wildflowers. Dismounting, the Elf left his horse to wander into a corner and eat its fill, while he looked about, still and solemn. After a moment, he walked slowly across the courtyard and stepped up onto the broken top of a stone parapet, looking out over a deep chasm, and beyond, a waterfall plummeting from a rocky cliff, whose top was clustered with pines. Behind him, against the black sky, rose the jagged pinnacles of what was once a fair Elven hall. Its keep was now crumbling and its walls shattered, charred stone revealing where burning roof timbers, now long decomposed, had fallen.
Some time later, the Elf stirred, letting out a deep sigh, and turned around to face the tumbled hall.
After gazing a moment, he stepped down and crossed the courtyard slowly, stopping before a crested shield, fashioned as golden leaves branching from a central stem, adorning the facing of a stone porch. He put his hand gently on it for a moment before turning away and ascending the steps, halting again on the threshold beyond.
The graceful arch remained intact, though scored and overgrown with vines, framing a tall door that no longer stood. The threshold was cracked, but mostly clear of weeds, and on it an engraved coat-of-arms could still be made out. The Elf's head bowed, and he fell to his knees on the weathered stone.
A few moments of stillness and silence passed before he took a deep breath, pulled himself back to his feet, and entered what once was home. Wind now whistled through the empty doorways, swirling mist through the cold, dark interior. A gaping patch of sky was the only roof; the floor was bare, broken stone. He looked through the opposite arch at the weed-choked garden and the stone basin beneath the rocks where a small spring once flowed. Then, turning to his right, he crossed the empty hall to a small dais where a great chair had once stood. Behind it rose a decorative arch, and on the wall was engraved a great crest, like the faded threshold. He fell to his knees again, wondering.
Did she even make it this far? Did she even try? His mother's body had never been found, but had she escaped into the cellar and tunnels beyond the concealed door before him? When he had come to this place last, when the ruins were yet smoking, he had tried to search for her there, but fallen stone had choked the tunnel behind, and the door would not yield. Since then, and yet still centuries ago, men had discovered the old elf-tunnels from the opposite side of the hills, and had used them as a stronghold, covering any trace that might have been left. That stronghold, too, now lay in ruin, inhabited only by the wolves that made it their den. The Elf turned away, and stepping lightly up the broken stones of a half-fallen wall, sat and looked down upon the empty halls under the cold moonlight.
