The Wind Fell Silent

6. Falling

Kili's POV

A small man, standing on a rabbit-pulled sleigh came to a sudden halt. "Thieves! Fire! Murder!" he yelled franticly. We all held our weapons up, ready for a fight.

"Radagast, Radagast the brown." Gandalf said with a relieved sigh. The name sounded familiar, though I could not remember where I may have heard it. Taking a moment to examine the man, I noticed that he was rather peculiar. He was short, by the standards of men, dressed completely in brown garbs. He wore a brown hat that was not so different from Bofur's and had some greenish/white lichen forming on the side of his head.

"Radagast, what on earth are you doing here??" Arenna said from beside me.

"Arenna, my dear child!" he answered, noticing her presence. Then it clicked, Radagast, the old wizard that Arenna had spoken so fondly of.

"I was looking for Gandalf!" he said, returning his attention to the grey wizard. "Something is wrong, something is terribly wrong!"

"Yes?" Gandalf said concernedly.

Radagast opened his mouth to speak, but shut it, with a perplexed expression. He opened his mouth again, but again shut it, bemused. I was equally bewildered.

"Oh... just give me a minute. Um. Oh. I had a thought, and now I've lost it... it was right there, on the tip of my tongue." He curled, yes curled his tongue.

"Oh it's not a thought at all; it's a silly old..." Gandalf then pulled from Radagast's mouth a LIVE STICK INSECT! There is no end to the strange ways of wizards.

"-stick insect" Radagast finished as Gandalf dropped the bug in his waiting hands. The two wizards walked a ways from the company to discuss what I assumed were private "wizardly matters". I saw Arenna leaning on a nearby tree, looking at the two wizards with a hint of a smile on her face. My brother was right, it happened occasionally, I could not stop staring at Renn. Because, well, to put it plainly she fascinated me. Not merely because she was beautiful, and by Mahal, she was beautiful, but she just interested me. It's hard to explain. She was clever beyond belief, she spoke with a natural eloquence that amazed me; and she was hysterical, Renn had a quick, biting wit that made riding with her exciting. But what enthralled me the most were her thoughts, not that she ever shared them with me, but I could see them forming in her eyes. I could see those bright green eyes become utterly captivated by the flight of a bird in the sky, I could observe her curiosity in the way the wind rustled the trees, or note the mirth in her eyes when she noticed an abnormal occurrence in the surrounding countryside. A few times I had woken in the middle off the night to see Renn up, gazing at the stars, with a look of wonderment on her face. She was odd, to say the least, and odd things captured her attention, and when I watched her, I nearly understood her thoughts; I could grasp at a different world that existed within her eyes, a world that was part of mine, yet somehow separate. She was wild and free and mysterious. For our many hours of conversation, I knew little about her, she seemed to avoid questions that probed to deeply into her past. Whatever that past may have been, it must be marred by sadness because every now and then I would look at her, and she would be lost in a memory. Her eyes would grow distant... haunted, her lips would thin and the enchanted little reality that I perceived through her would vanish.

Yes, she was enigmatic, but she was Renn, and I felt comfortable around her... comfortable and alive.

I walked up beside her and rested on the tree that supported her.

"So, that's what sprites are like?" I said, motioning to the peculiar little fellow that had startled us so.

Her eyebrows furrowed confusedly, so I continued, "You said that he reminded you of your people."