She stepped out of the front door into the coolness of the morning air, placing a bare foot on the grassy flagstones before her, still damp with dew. Breathing in deeply of the scents around her she cast her glance upwards towards the stars now waning in the light of the coming dawn. I am here, I am home. Her new home. She walked out a few more paces and a shiver passed down her spine as she stood under the shadow of the stoney cliff walls that surrounded their peaceful valley. No orcs here, she reminded herself, no dwarves that have delved too deeply. Her own house was placed far back into the corner of this valley surrounded by the stone, each time she entered the front door she felt herself holding her breath as if that wall would come crashing down about her. If but it were trees instead. The sound of the waterfall to her right filled her senses as it came crashing down from the top of the valley to flow under the bridge before her and out towards the river.
Outside a light breeze had arisen off the waters stiring the skirt of her robe about her legs and picking up loose leaves fallen from the trees marking the onset of autumn. She walked across the bridge that seperated her house from the main building of the kinhouse, hard and cold against her feet. She missed the warmth of the woods, the smells of the bark and leaf the rough but soft feel of a living entity. Here the trees were smaller but beautiful in blossom no less. Passing the still lit lamps that marked the paths and another of the smaller houses that was home to her new kin, onwards she quietly stepped to the main building that towered above the others. The shadow against a light showing in the windows at the top of the tower belied the precense of someone else also awake and studying texts gathered from distant places. She turned away from the house and under an arch grown over in vines, leaves and flowers, the soft scent was pleasing. Outwards from the valley and past the gardens being tilled and prepared ready for planting of herbs and other plants that would be used for healing rememdies. Towards the waters of the river she continued to walk, until she stood upon the wooden platform of a short dock.
Her mornings had begun like this for several days now since her coming to this place, as she took in the sights, scents and sounds of her surroundings. She came here to contemplate on her thoughts and let the flow of the river calm her. Though each time her thoughts turned to only one matter, one person. She pictured him now stood at her side or her his as so often was the case, her a silent shadow to his tempered form, clothed in robes of exquisite cloth and thread, his hair braided back in the style of the Calarind males. Her now mentor Galvathalion who brought her here from Imladris by way of the battles in Melunien. The one who stole her heart and senses in the valley of Lord Elrond's now encaptured her again in this smaller valley of river and waterfalls. Only a few small words had passed between them since her coming here and fewer still of the matters of her heart. Often it felt as if such a topic is too difficult to be broached, taboo even, or that she herself did not know how to talk of it. For all her time in Lothlorien she had not felt so much for one person. From that first day her curiousity had been awoken, and each one after when he had spoken to her, admist brough and branch or in those high halls, her heart had been stirred more so.
She drew a deep breath and pulled her eyes away from the river least she be drowned admist these feelings in the depths below her. She straightened her robes, set her mind afresh for the day ahead and walked back towards the kinhouse and her new home, knowing one day that subject will need to be broached or forever hold her entrapped within its tightening chains.
