Cirvalad stood atop the small rocky outcrop that overlooked the small pool and soft waterfall by which the small band had made its camp in the shade of Amon Sul. He was as still as the old watchtower and his sharp eyes studied carefully for a league all around the hills and road. His ears listened to the rustle of badgers and foxes about their nightly business, and they would prove good warning of all but another elf’s approach.
The night was pierced with stars and his attention fell to the huddled shapes below. He was not entirely sure on Meltharion’s location but that troubled him not at all. Her eyes and woodcraft would equal his own at the least and woe be the unfriendly creature that would run afoul of an elf such as she. His lips held their nigh ever-present smile as he watched the slumbering humans, dwarves and hobbit – it was an easy thing to stand watch in such ways here, the nights ahead would no doubt be troublesome.
Tivlyn, Flent, Vratni and Wittkun – his gaze lingered upon these four the longest. They were blessed by the Valar to be alive from the accounting they have given and while he doubted them not at all their experience had marked them. Or left its mark upon them, like it had enticed them with words that they could not ignore. He flinched a little as a cloud cast a brief shadow across the starlight and he studied how the shadows lingered a heartbeat longer around each of their sleeping forms. His smile twitched as he studied the retreating shade as it fled before the returned starlight. There was nothing there but what they had brought with them – but this would not do. Not yet.
A new, gentle song crept to his lips and mingled with the sound of the flowing clear waters. He sang of light and life, of laughter and joy and of love they knew or may know. He sang of things the enemy could never understand - that it may try to twist but could never truly touch. He sang and wove his words into the world as the Noldorin had been taught to do in the halls of Fingolfin. It was not a truly powerful song, for he had not the skill of the likes of Galadriel or Cirdan. But he had sung in Hithlum in those early days and many places hence and his power was not yet spent either.
The shadows that tried to linger yet even under the starlight, like trail dust upon a cloak or webs upon a bush or tree, failed and dwindled into the night’s silvery grey and the last yellowing embers of the fire.
Cirvalad chuckled at that to himself as his gaze reached out again across the land.
“I have probably just as good as announced myself, for whatever folly that may be. But already my heart says that this endeavor does not rest upon Cirvalad - and poor companion would he be if he did not lighten hearts and dreams of his new friends.”
