dream

Stitches sighs, wiping sweat from his brow under a straw hat. He licks his dry lips and looks up at the blazing and setting sun. After this he removes his leather gloved hands from the small mound in which he had just buried the roots of a sapling into a bright green clearing of grass next to a moderately sized pool of water.

A dream in which Ithilien is still unsullied and holy;

And for this I but repeat Ethel’s own words, as she told it to me:

My beloved liege,

I wanted to tell you of my dream -- I dreamed of Themodir once more.

But first, I will report that I have tried the corn beverage on hir Silwë and hir Tolmen, who are both long-lived Noldor of good constitution. (Tuilerie and Ailinwen were also nearby, but Tuilerie never takes strong drink, and Ailinwen was perhaps too intelligent to try it.)

Alphaear stands in the river, the water rushing and tugging the fabric at her knees, soaking the lower half of her dress. In a dream, the world is still innocent. Her hair is long, and her hands are unbloodied. She raises her arm to let gentle moths settle upon it and then fly away as they desired, for here - by the river - the world is without fear.

Gondor. How it loomed in the distance. She frantically took step after step away from it, but somehow each step seemed to take her closer to her homeland.
It was not that she hated her homeland. Nay, it was quite the opposite for her. However, now, Gondor simply was associated, to her, with danger itself.

In a peaceful glade in the woods, there is a little wooden house. And in that little wooden house there is a dim room. And in that dim room is a stone hearth. And in that stone hearth there is nothing. Nothing but a cold emptiness and lonely space. In front of that nothingness sits... a man? Or perhaps an elf if one was to take a closer look. That one lone figure sits still, eyes open but boring into the empty hearth. 

There were fell voices on the air. Whispers that I could make no sense of. The wind was cold and biting against my skin. It howled and moaned in my ears, but still, the whispers were tangible. My feet cannot move through the snow. Is it snow? Is it something else? I cannot move.