The Moon Druid of Arcedia; And the One Ring to Rule Them All

~12 Creepy Crows and a Bitter Blizard~

~Creepy Crows and a Bitter Blizard~

The party turned southward towards the land of Rohan once they reached the misty mountain base. The country was rougher and barren than the green vale of the Great River in Wilderland from whence they came. Ahshala knew their journey would be slow, but she hoped their cut across the waving hills would help them hide from unfriendly eyes. The spies of Sauron had seldom been seen in this empty country, and the paths were little known except to the people of Rivendell and the two rangers who knew the land well, even in the moonless nights Aragorn expertly traversed the hills and valleys.

The first part of their journey was hard and dreary on the hobbits, Frodo had confessed he remembered little of it, save the wind. Ahshala assumed the others had felt the same.

The many sunless days did not help the traveler's mood. Ahshala, who soaked up the light of the moon as a sponge to a puddle of water, was the only one who seemed unaffected by the absence of the heavenly body. Gimli had become quite irritable, Sam and Bill seemed rather somber, and Merry and Pippin hardly said a word. Aragorn hid his tiredness well, masked behind a familiar vale of mystery but Ahshala could still see the sadness sagging around his eyes.

Icy blasts of winter wind came from the Mountains in the east nearly daily and no garment seemed able to keep out its searching fingers, not even the thick wool and cashmere clothes the elves of Rivendell supplied. Even Ahshala, who was the least affected, found herself with the occasional shiver night and day, but even so Pippin and Merry often found themselves once again asleep in the arms of the elven maiden to siphon her sunny warmth. Much to Ahshala's surprise, the two hobbit boys spent less time with her than they had and often would spend their breakfasts and lunches with the sandy-haired man from Gondor.

As an elf and a druid Ahshala spent most of the night and day awake, keeping the party hidden from the sunlight in a hollow or beneath a thicket of thorny bushes. In the afternoon, she would wake the party for their primary meal before taking her short rest and moving onward at dusk.

At first, it seemed to the inexperienced hobbits that although they walked and stumbled until they could no longer stand, they were creeping forward slower than a banana slug on a pile of copper coins; In other words, they were getting nowhere. Yet steadily the Misty Mountains were drawing nearer.

Ahshala couldn't blame them for their confusion. The land south of Rivendell all looked the same. Round about the feet of the main mountain range sat rocky remains of fallen formations where factions of firs took root, huddles of heather and holly tumbled over an ever-widening land of bleak hills, and deep valleys filled with turbulent waters tossing leaves of larkspurs about its wakes. Paths were few and winding and barren of huckleberries which pleasantly populated its tight turens during the summer months.

Despite the bleak conditions of their travel, the conversations were joyful. Ahshala and Sam had discussed much about plants and gardening, Merry and Pippin had softly sung drinking songs and held long discussions about comfort foods, Boromir had talked about his family and of Gondor, and Gimli often joined the Druid in singing dwarven traveling songs.

Light snow and heavy rain accompanied the fellowship south offering the rocky hills and yellowing plains moisture to nourish the soil. The leaves had long since fallen and flowers wilted away before they set out on the travels, but they still seemed to cling to the air around the party's Druid.

Holly bushes tickled Ahslala's feet as the morning sun spilled over the rocky boulder field in which the company sat for a light meal before their daytime rest. The cold December air gently rustled her curly hair and the chokeberry bushes that clung to the hillside and flowers grew near the Druid. The red and white Amaryllis popped up around the limestone boulder she sat upon while yellow Acacia flowers curled up behind her ear. Neither were from the region, and neither should have grown mid-December but they seemed to flourish wherever she went. She picked one of the Amaryllis from the grown twirling it in her fingers. The flower was said to have grown from the blood of a woman whose love had never been reciprocated; it stained the once-white petals as if blood had dripped off the edges leaving only the tips a bright crimson. She set the flower down on her woolen pants and noted the blend of the colors. Copper and Crimson.