Like the dwarves, Mithrellas lost her home and family to the inferno all those years ago. Unlike them, she's not so eager to venture to the Lonely Mountain. She's haunted by the life taken from her too early. Knowing she needs to overcome her heartb...
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2780 of the Third Age - 10 years since Smaug entered the Lonely Mountain
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Like her father had taught her, she counted all the different sounds as she walked.
The whisper of the red and gold leaves dancing in the wind above her head. The melody of birds singing farewell to the sun. The snap of an acorn falling off its branch. A scamper of a hasty squirrel ahead. If she concentrated hard, she thought she could hear some of the trees snoring as the first moon of winter was quickly approaching.
Mithrellas abruptly stopped, her steady pace interrupted.
She tilted her head, brow quirking upward.
There it was again.
That same sound. The rustling of fabric over the forest floor.
"Come out of the shadows, I know you are there," she called, sparing a glance over her shoulder. She pushed her hood off of her head while turning, carefully scanned over the clearing.
Then he was suddenly there, standing beside a wide tree. He stepped forward, holding his empty hand out low and open for her to clearly see.
Mithrellas felt her eyes narrow at her follower. She could see no weapon hanging at his belt. She took in his long gray cloak and the pointed hat on his head. He carried a tall gnarled staff and a small satchel at his side. A long grey beard hung down to his belly. Neither his face or clothing were dirty and his eyes were bright. He certainly didn't look like an ordinary wanderer who was between towns.
"Why are you following me?' she asked suspiciously, tightening her hold on the handle of her sword. The action remained hidden by her own long cloak.
"Why would you think I am following you? Perhaps I am also headed in the very same direction as you. Perhaps I am weary and would like to feel protected by a younger person such as yourself. Perhaps you strike me as curious," he rambled on, motioning toward her with his staff.
She didn't fall for his clever tricks to catch her off-guard. And besides that, she was not in the mood for conversing with the stranger. She smoothly drew her father's sword and held it aloft diagonal to her body.
"You have been like my shadow since I left the main road this mid-morning," she reminded him calmly, "Now I will ask again only once, why are you following me?"
"You clearly know how to take care of yourself, youngling," he commented with a kind smile that caused his lively blue eyes to twinkle.
"Who are you?" the she-elf nearly growled as she demanded an answer.
He took a moment to reply and to consider the elf in front of him. Her hair shone a brilliant gold in the slanted afternoon light that filtered through the old trees. She was of average height for a she-elf and by her stance, clearly knew what she was doing with the gleaming blade before her. Her eyes were the same color as the rich soil of the Shire and were uncommon for an elf.
Yet, the wizard noticed, her eyes burned just as fiercely and full of life as any other eyes of the Fair-Folk. Under the scathing and forceful gaze, he could see a glimmer of cold grief. He frowned, knowing the story of how that pain was planted and what allowed it to grow.
"I eneth nîn Gandalf the Grey, Gi suilon Mithrellas!" he finally introduced himself, "I am following you because I have need of you!"
The steadiness of her sword faltered and she lowered it a bit.
"Gandalf!" she exclaimed, "Mae l'ovannen Olórin!"
He laughed, a jolly booming laugh that seemed to brighten the forest clearing.
"That name I have not heard for an age, my dear girl," he finished chuckling.
She lowered her sword, almost tempted to sheath it at the sense of calm and safety that surrounded him. It was feeling she had not felt for many days. She had been on the road, nerves frayed and emotionally raw, since the city fell in ash and the dragon disappeared into the mountain.
Gandalf took a seat on a rotting log and dug in his robe for his pipe. With a snap of his fingers, a flame appeared and he lit his tobacco.
"How do you know my name?" she queried, eyes wide as she watched him, "I have not met you before, wizard."
"Oh, I knew your father of course," he said as if the answer was right beneath her nose.
She didn't move.
"My father?"
"You are the daughter of Renior the wanderer and Malfimben the rafter, are you not?" he asked, releasing a great puff of smoke. A glimmer was in his eyes that told Mithrellas that he was not really asking; he knew.
She looked down at the clearing in which they stood, anguish veiling her kind face. Flashes of that day raced through her mind. The smell of burning wood and flesh, a scent she could never forget, filled her senses. She felt the flash of heat from the flames as if the great serpent was in the clearing with her and the grey wizard.
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His sword flashed in the firelight as he pushed it into her hands; the sword she still carried. Her ada's voice saying to stay away and to find her mother as he raced to the mountain.
He said he would find them. He said he would return.
She saw her naneth's beautiful face, bruised and blistered on one side as she laid in the ash. Mithrellas' eyes stung.
"I know of his fate," Gandalf voiced grimly from his seat, "And the fate of your mother."
Mithrellas looked back up at him to find him watching her. He continued to speak steadily as she met his piercing blue gaze. Smoke from his pipe billowed around his head like a brewing storm. Any sign of the jolly old wanderer was far gone.
"And I know of the fire that burns within you since the dragon's wrath took your home. I ask that you take up your father's sword and duties, for I have a task for you."
