Goterdammerung Prologue & I
I'm posting this here as I'm a bit too scared to post it on OSA for some reason that I can't quite fathom. It's an A/U, set in the Fifth Age, and is my attempt to describe how Middle-earth finally gave way to the world we know today.
Being taken from the manuscript of Íuberge of Edoras
I begin my journey where most others would end, upon the steps of an ancient and beautiful ruin where none now walk. I have spent many days and nights on this trek, but not a footstep matters now that I behold her splendour. She is a testament to ages past and days forgotten.
As I walk the crumbling stairs from one mountainous level to the next, I gaze up at the high walls. Stone faces observe me beneath the vines and lichen. I fancy I can still hear their voices on the wind, on air so still not even the leaves dare move. I make my way past fallen lintels and doorways into homes that have not heard laughter in an age. Oft the shadows play tricks on me. Do figures move in those houses, behind the windows that have lost their glass? Nay, alas! There is no life here now, save the birds and myself.
I have come here to reflect, to my hidden place that only I can find and that only I care to find. Though I fancy this will be my last visit.
There is no bright sunshine on the white-paved streets today as I spiral upwards, leaning on my staff. My weary feet have crossed the wilderness of Pelennor, sheathed only in the roughest sandals which my order is permitted to wear.
It seems strange not to bathe in warmth in these secluded spots, yet today the skies are frowning, like a warlord placing his toy soldiers upon a board. I try to imagine what the city might have been before age, war and fire brought it to this awful state. It is not difficult, with so many ghosts around. One can almost hear the clash of steel and the scream of catapult shot hurling through the air to bring down the walls. And as I finally approach the penultimate level and glimpse the entrance to the most silent of these silent streets, I imagine I can hear Elessar give his crowning speech, and urge the people of this city onto their new age. An age that brought hope, prosperity and riches, but which sadly has come to its conclusion.
Ahead, I see the darkened archway leading into the depths of the mountain. Its ornaments have fallen and a white pillar lies across the entrance, vines trailing like a veil over the opening. As I climb over these obstructions and sniff the cold, shadow-laden air, I feel I am a novice once again, embarking upon the final stages of initiation. I step into the unknown, for any number of foul things could lurk in this darkness. Men may not bother with the ruins of their past, but there are other, deadlier things than Men in the world these days.
Beneath my feet, the tunnel curls sharply upwards and I feel my way, my hands scrabbling at the damp stone. They shake a little, for I am no longer young, I must confess. That too is why I believe this shall be the last time I visit my old friend, the White City.
But finally light greets me, blinking through the vines and rubble, and I come at last to the plateau. And here I sit, on a weatherworn ring of stones beneath a strong white tree whose roots pushed up the paving slabs nearby, and whose branches brought welcome shade on warmer days. Today I still see the sun, twinkling through the leaves, but it is a cold sunlight, swathed in silver clouds, as though I viewed the orb through mottled glass.
Silent Minas Tirith, ever watchful on her perch above the wilderness. The Great River wends below us, through the uninhabitable wilds, like cold steel glinting in the sun. Hard to imagine that my kind once lived here. Though I am glad they do not. I am glad that I have spent these last few days alone, walking southwards from my home at Edoras to find the ancient roads of my people, and then to ascend the pathways of the city with no hindrance to my contemplation. It has been such a blessing!
For of late I do not find the company of Men to be wholesome.
There are foul things brewing in the air, like the first wisps of smoke from a grassfire beyond the next hill. Not in any of my meditations has the answer come to me, nor to any of my brothers in the Order, yet I am certain of it. We are coming now to a crux of years.
And somehow and for some reason, the Valar, whom I gave my life in service, have set a doom that Brother Íuberge of Edoras should have a part in it all.
I only wish I was not so alone in facing it.
I
It was my intention to reach Cair Andros before sunset, and so I followed the river. There was no other way, lest one wished to be lost forever in the wilderness that has grown up around Pelennor and indeed o’er all that was once Gondor. Occasionally I passed marker stones, or piles of rock and timber that might have been buildings, but these alone attested to my people ever having been here.
First plague spread up the Anduin and sank its fangs into our babes and our elders, before staring on the strong and the hearty. Then, as though it had been some dark design, the hordes of Harad came, with marauders of Umbar at their side, and swept across the land to finish what the disease had started. Within ten years they held this realm, razed its cities and stripped all that was of use from its lands. Those of my kind who survived fled north to their cousins in Rohan, who were likewise diminished by the sickness. And there, huddled together like sheep in a storm, we have remained ever since.
I talk of this as though I was there to see it. But although my blood holds distant traces of the Western Lords, my lifespan is only slightly greater than my fellows. And all that I describe here happened centuries ago, before my father or even his father was born.
The Southerners are gone now, thankfully, but as I walked through Ithilien, I kept my hand very close to the dagger on my belt, for it was not unknown for them to come back in small parties, looking for game or prisoners to drag back to their deserts. My great great grandsire had felt the sting of a Haradrim lash in his youth, in fact, and was renowned in our family for having executed a daring escape by navigating the rivers in a wooden chest. I was told, as a child, that he had been one of ten thousand men who built up great mountains of sandstone in Harad, imitations of the stars, where their shaven-headed priests would worship idols and corrupted names of the Valar. I have never seen Harad, yet I believe the tales.
My feet squelched into the Anduin’s marshy banks and I took care not to stumble too far into the water. The currents were strong at this part, churned by the falls of Rauros, and I would soon be swept away. Though part of me yearned to be released into that watery grasp, where I would need worry no longer about the world and what was wrong with it.
I paused for a moment and crouched by the water’s edge to drink. How old I felt all of a sudden, yet I had made this trip so many times before. When I was a boy, and my parents gave me to the Order for instruction in the ancient ways, my Master took me into Gondor and led me to the city. He stopped first upon Pelennor and pointed at the White Mountains, asking what I saw. I told him I saw a shard of white rock on the mountainside. Then as he took me closer, he told me the city’s name, which all had forgotten. Since then, I came this way each year in summer, when the ground was dry and the weather clement. Yet I had never felt my bones ache so much as I did then, my breathing laboured from the simple task of straightening after my drink.
I seemed to have become an old man without noticing.
I threw the last drips of water off my hands then tidied my robes, picking up my staff again as I made to set off. Only as I turned, my ears pricked. I do not know what I heard, only that I knew it was out of place. I stayed there, still as a tree, and listened. All around me were brambles and woods that could hide any number of things, and even parts of the riverbank were obscured by bushes and reeds. What then was following me? Where was it hiding?
I slipped my hand to my dagger and pulled it from its sheath.
I was not prepared for the blow that struck me and I crumbled to the ground. My face landed in the mud. My dagger flew from my hand and something pressed heavily on my back, pinning me down. I waited for the final stroke.
Then the thing that held me down rolled off my back and tumbled into the river.
At last I looked up and pulled my hair back from my eyes. I saw a bundle of cloth and limbs flounder in the mud, like an upturned beetle, and at first I thought a Southron child had attacked me. Then I saw the over-large foot at the end of one of those flailing limbs and the true identity of my marauder dawned upon me.
Frowning, I edged towards the water and watched him for a while longer, before I offered my hand.
‘Would you permit me to help you, Master Hobbit?’ I called. ‘Then perhaps you will tell me why you set upon me.’
The Hobbit in the river spluttered and emerged slowly, dark hair splayed about his face, obscuring it. He ended each cough with a curse and I permitted myself a silent chuckle. Were it not for my aches and bruises, I would have found the scene quite hysterical.
‘Here,’ I said again, ‘take my hand and let me help you. I at least mean no harm.’
When the halfling continued to squirm and splash about, I gave a sigh and stepped forward, reaching out to catch his collar so that I could whisk him out onto the bank. Not that he showed much gratitude. He swore and blasphemed as he sailed through the air and cursed all the more when his backside thumped onto the grass.
But it was only the final, punctuating ‘let me be’ that sounded strange to me. Somewhat lilting and high in pitch.
‘Ah,’ I said, ‘I see I was in error. Then would you permit me to help you, Mistress Hobbit’?
‘I need no help from you, longshanks!’ grumbled the little bundle of hair and cloth, scrabbling to her feet in an attempt to regain some dignity. I felt a little ashamed that I had caused such embarrassment, then I remembered that this creature had beset me in the first instance.
‘Why did you leap upon me?’ I asked. ‘I have no gold. I am a brother of Rohan, and I travel with little besides my faith.’
‘What makes you think I am a robber?’
I scowled, and then took hold of her collar again, lifting her just off the ground so that I might give her a little shake. Several bags fell from within her coat and hit the ground with a clank. A few pieces of gold spilled out. Other bags lay in the mud by the river’s edge. I simply regarded the Hobbit and said nothing.
She glared for a moment, then hurriedly retrieved her spoils.
‘Very well,’ she grumbled. ‘So I am a thief? Who isn’t these days?’
‘I, for one.’
‘Then you are unique amongst your kind,’ muttered the Hobbit, wringing out her shirt,
I watched her for a long time, taking the chance to retrieve my dagger when she stooped to squeeze the water and river weeds from her trousers. I did not think I would use it, but I did not like to be parted from it nonetheless. My master gifted me the blade when I was no longer a novice, when I had past the test and seen…ah but how could I describe what I had seen? No mortal eyes had glimpsed it, save the chosen few who served amongst our brotherhood. How to describe paradise?
‘What pickings could you have in Ithilien?’ I asked the Hobbit. ‘None live here now. There are only Haradrim hunters and pilgrims such as myself. Neither group I fancy has much in the way of wealth.’ Then I remembered the gold she had so quickly scooped up into her clutches; I remembered how worn the jewels looked, how tarnished the silver. ‘But then perhaps the dead make much simpler targets. Those who sleep in the Rath Dinen would put up less of a fight than a Haradrim raider.’
‘What does it matter?’
‘It matters…’ I breathed deeply. ‘It matters because those piles of dust were not only people once, but kings and stewards of the throne. Their bones are all that is left of their kingdom, for even their names have faded into obscurity.’
She looked at me blankly. It did not matter one bit to her, I could see. And I had seen the same reaction painted on the faces of innumerable youths around the Golden Hall.
‘The dead are dead,’ said the Hobbit with fire in her brown eyes. ‘They have no use for trinkets. Whereas I have seven sisters, twelve nieces and fourteen nephews to find food for. Rings from a dead man’s hand can still be melted down by the smiths in Edoras and they will pay highly. Will you stop me, worshipper of trees and stars?’
‘I do not worship the trees nor the stars, Mistress,’ I told her. ‘I revere them, and that part of the Valar which resides within them, for it is so much greater than I am. But as for stopping you, I imagine you could outrun me if you wished. Or kill me even, if you truly consider me a threat?’
‘I could do so,’ spat the Hobbit. ‘Don’t think because I stand no higher than your chest that I haven’t brought down men twice your size!’
‘I don’t doubt it.’
‘I am feared throughout your lands and Hobbit children are taught to fear my name! When my shadow passes, people run in fright to their homes. I have killed and I will kill again.’
‘And what,’ I began, ‘would so fearsome a creature be named?’
At this she seemed somewhat awkward and suddenly took an interest in the grass.
‘I am Íuberge,’ I said. ‘Now I have given you my name, will you not at least return the favour? If I am to be murdered, I should like to know the name of my killer.’
I believe to this day that she blushed.
‘Buttercup,’ she replied finally, flinging the word away like a hot coal. ‘Buttercup Took.’
‘Fearsome indeed. I quail at the sound of it.’
‘Do not mock me!’ she yelled, drawing a stubby knife from her belt. It would have been threatening, but as she held the blade towards me, a glob of green weed slid along the steel and dripped off the tip.
‘How old are you?’ I asked.
‘Old enough.’
‘And how old is that?’ I edged closer. ‘You are no more than a child. Whatever age your folk consider grown, I see it in your eyes - you have barely cast off your swaddling cloth. Have you no choice but to live like this?’
‘Spare me your pity, Brother! I’ve had my fill of pity and yet my belly is still empty.’
‘Then perhaps you need another manifestation of concern,’ I mused, and went to the trees. I thought she might run once my back was turned. I even wondered if she would kill me then and make off with what little I possessed, but once I had cut the few plants and clusters of mushrooms I needed, I found her still behind me, watching my every move.
‘Eat these,’ I offered. ‘My order knows much of the lore of plants and of the wilds. There is enough food here to feed us both for a while. I know nothing of your path, yet I have a long journey ahead of me.’ With a sigh I glanced towards the skies and remarked the violet tinge creeping onto the horizon. ‘Night will be here soon. I have dallied far too long, it seems. And you - what will you do for shelter?’
‘I will find somewhere,’ grumbled the Hobbit, who I noted had finished off the last of the mushrooms already. She turned away and tramped along the river bed, pushing the reeds aside as she strode on.
‘You would not prefer to travel with me? For safety’s sake?’ I called after her.
‘I need no one,’ came the reply from within the reeds. ‘I have never needed anyone.’
After a moment’s thought, I made to follow, but other than a few large footprints in the mud, I could see no trace of Buttercup Took.
Somehow, though, I felt I had not seen the last of her.
Any comments appreciated, especially as this is the only place this is posted at present.
Being taken from the manuscript of Íuberge of Edoras
I begin my journey where most others would end, upon the steps of an ancient and beautiful ruin where none now walk. I have spent many days and nights on this trek, but not a footstep matters now that I behold her splendour. She is a testament to ages past and days forgotten.
As I walk the crumbling stairs from one mountainous level to the next, I gaze up at the high walls. Stone faces observe me beneath the vines and lichen. I fancy I can still hear their voices on the wind, on air so still not even the leaves dare move. I make my way past fallen lintels and doorways into homes that have not heard laughter in an age. Oft the shadows play tricks on me. Do figures move in those houses, behind the windows that have lost their glass? Nay, alas! There is no life here now, save the birds and myself.
I have come here to reflect, to my hidden place that only I can find and that only I care to find. Though I fancy this will be my last visit.
There is no bright sunshine on the white-paved streets today as I spiral upwards, leaning on my staff. My weary feet have crossed the wilderness of Pelennor, sheathed only in the roughest sandals which my order is permitted to wear.
It seems strange not to bathe in warmth in these secluded spots, yet today the skies are frowning, like a warlord placing his toy soldiers upon a board. I try to imagine what the city might have been before age, war and fire brought it to this awful state. It is not difficult, with so many ghosts around. One can almost hear the clash of steel and the scream of catapult shot hurling through the air to bring down the walls. And as I finally approach the penultimate level and glimpse the entrance to the most silent of these silent streets, I imagine I can hear Elessar give his crowning speech, and urge the people of this city onto their new age. An age that brought hope, prosperity and riches, but which sadly has come to its conclusion.
Ahead, I see the darkened archway leading into the depths of the mountain. Its ornaments have fallen and a white pillar lies across the entrance, vines trailing like a veil over the opening. As I climb over these obstructions and sniff the cold, shadow-laden air, I feel I am a novice once again, embarking upon the final stages of initiation. I step into the unknown, for any number of foul things could lurk in this darkness. Men may not bother with the ruins of their past, but there are other, deadlier things than Men in the world these days.
Beneath my feet, the tunnel curls sharply upwards and I feel my way, my hands scrabbling at the damp stone. They shake a little, for I am no longer young, I must confess. That too is why I believe this shall be the last time I visit my old friend, the White City.
But finally light greets me, blinking through the vines and rubble, and I come at last to the plateau. And here I sit, on a weatherworn ring of stones beneath a strong white tree whose roots pushed up the paving slabs nearby, and whose branches brought welcome shade on warmer days. Today I still see the sun, twinkling through the leaves, but it is a cold sunlight, swathed in silver clouds, as though I viewed the orb through mottled glass.
Silent Minas Tirith, ever watchful on her perch above the wilderness. The Great River wends below us, through the uninhabitable wilds, like cold steel glinting in the sun. Hard to imagine that my kind once lived here. Though I am glad they do not. I am glad that I have spent these last few days alone, walking southwards from my home at Edoras to find the ancient roads of my people, and then to ascend the pathways of the city with no hindrance to my contemplation. It has been such a blessing!
For of late I do not find the company of Men to be wholesome.
There are foul things brewing in the air, like the first wisps of smoke from a grassfire beyond the next hill. Not in any of my meditations has the answer come to me, nor to any of my brothers in the Order, yet I am certain of it. We are coming now to a crux of years.
And somehow and for some reason, the Valar, whom I gave my life in service, have set a doom that Brother Íuberge of Edoras should have a part in it all.
I only wish I was not so alone in facing it.
I
It was my intention to reach Cair Andros before sunset, and so I followed the river. There was no other way, lest one wished to be lost forever in the wilderness that has grown up around Pelennor and indeed o’er all that was once Gondor. Occasionally I passed marker stones, or piles of rock and timber that might have been buildings, but these alone attested to my people ever having been here.
First plague spread up the Anduin and sank its fangs into our babes and our elders, before staring on the strong and the hearty. Then, as though it had been some dark design, the hordes of Harad came, with marauders of Umbar at their side, and swept across the land to finish what the disease had started. Within ten years they held this realm, razed its cities and stripped all that was of use from its lands. Those of my kind who survived fled north to their cousins in Rohan, who were likewise diminished by the sickness. And there, huddled together like sheep in a storm, we have remained ever since.
I talk of this as though I was there to see it. But although my blood holds distant traces of the Western Lords, my lifespan is only slightly greater than my fellows. And all that I describe here happened centuries ago, before my father or even his father was born.
The Southerners are gone now, thankfully, but as I walked through Ithilien, I kept my hand very close to the dagger on my belt, for it was not unknown for them to come back in small parties, looking for game or prisoners to drag back to their deserts. My great great grandsire had felt the sting of a Haradrim lash in his youth, in fact, and was renowned in our family for having executed a daring escape by navigating the rivers in a wooden chest. I was told, as a child, that he had been one of ten thousand men who built up great mountains of sandstone in Harad, imitations of the stars, where their shaven-headed priests would worship idols and corrupted names of the Valar. I have never seen Harad, yet I believe the tales.
My feet squelched into the Anduin’s marshy banks and I took care not to stumble too far into the water. The currents were strong at this part, churned by the falls of Rauros, and I would soon be swept away. Though part of me yearned to be released into that watery grasp, where I would need worry no longer about the world and what was wrong with it.
I paused for a moment and crouched by the water’s edge to drink. How old I felt all of a sudden, yet I had made this trip so many times before. When I was a boy, and my parents gave me to the Order for instruction in the ancient ways, my Master took me into Gondor and led me to the city. He stopped first upon Pelennor and pointed at the White Mountains, asking what I saw. I told him I saw a shard of white rock on the mountainside. Then as he took me closer, he told me the city’s name, which all had forgotten. Since then, I came this way each year in summer, when the ground was dry and the weather clement. Yet I had never felt my bones ache so much as I did then, my breathing laboured from the simple task of straightening after my drink.
I seemed to have become an old man without noticing.
I threw the last drips of water off my hands then tidied my robes, picking up my staff again as I made to set off. Only as I turned, my ears pricked. I do not know what I heard, only that I knew it was out of place. I stayed there, still as a tree, and listened. All around me were brambles and woods that could hide any number of things, and even parts of the riverbank were obscured by bushes and reeds. What then was following me? Where was it hiding?
I slipped my hand to my dagger and pulled it from its sheath.
I was not prepared for the blow that struck me and I crumbled to the ground. My face landed in the mud. My dagger flew from my hand and something pressed heavily on my back, pinning me down. I waited for the final stroke.
Then the thing that held me down rolled off my back and tumbled into the river.
At last I looked up and pulled my hair back from my eyes. I saw a bundle of cloth and limbs flounder in the mud, like an upturned beetle, and at first I thought a Southron child had attacked me. Then I saw the over-large foot at the end of one of those flailing limbs and the true identity of my marauder dawned upon me.
Frowning, I edged towards the water and watched him for a while longer, before I offered my hand.
‘Would you permit me to help you, Master Hobbit?’ I called. ‘Then perhaps you will tell me why you set upon me.’
The Hobbit in the river spluttered and emerged slowly, dark hair splayed about his face, obscuring it. He ended each cough with a curse and I permitted myself a silent chuckle. Were it not for my aches and bruises, I would have found the scene quite hysterical.
‘Here,’ I said again, ‘take my hand and let me help you. I at least mean no harm.’
When the halfling continued to squirm and splash about, I gave a sigh and stepped forward, reaching out to catch his collar so that I could whisk him out onto the bank. Not that he showed much gratitude. He swore and blasphemed as he sailed through the air and cursed all the more when his backside thumped onto the grass.
But it was only the final, punctuating ‘let me be’ that sounded strange to me. Somewhat lilting and high in pitch.
‘Ah,’ I said, ‘I see I was in error. Then would you permit me to help you, Mistress Hobbit’?
‘I need no help from you, longshanks!’ grumbled the little bundle of hair and cloth, scrabbling to her feet in an attempt to regain some dignity. I felt a little ashamed that I had caused such embarrassment, then I remembered that this creature had beset me in the first instance.
‘Why did you leap upon me?’ I asked. ‘I have no gold. I am a brother of Rohan, and I travel with little besides my faith.’
‘What makes you think I am a robber?’
I scowled, and then took hold of her collar again, lifting her just off the ground so that I might give her a little shake. Several bags fell from within her coat and hit the ground with a clank. A few pieces of gold spilled out. Other bags lay in the mud by the river’s edge. I simply regarded the Hobbit and said nothing.
She glared for a moment, then hurriedly retrieved her spoils.
‘Very well,’ she grumbled. ‘So I am a thief? Who isn’t these days?’
‘I, for one.’
‘Then you are unique amongst your kind,’ muttered the Hobbit, wringing out her shirt,
I watched her for a long time, taking the chance to retrieve my dagger when she stooped to squeeze the water and river weeds from her trousers. I did not think I would use it, but I did not like to be parted from it nonetheless. My master gifted me the blade when I was no longer a novice, when I had past the test and seen…ah but how could I describe what I had seen? No mortal eyes had glimpsed it, save the chosen few who served amongst our brotherhood. How to describe paradise?
‘What pickings could you have in Ithilien?’ I asked the Hobbit. ‘None live here now. There are only Haradrim hunters and pilgrims such as myself. Neither group I fancy has much in the way of wealth.’ Then I remembered the gold she had so quickly scooped up into her clutches; I remembered how worn the jewels looked, how tarnished the silver. ‘But then perhaps the dead make much simpler targets. Those who sleep in the Rath Dinen would put up less of a fight than a Haradrim raider.’
‘What does it matter?’
‘It matters…’ I breathed deeply. ‘It matters because those piles of dust were not only people once, but kings and stewards of the throne. Their bones are all that is left of their kingdom, for even their names have faded into obscurity.’
She looked at me blankly. It did not matter one bit to her, I could see. And I had seen the same reaction painted on the faces of innumerable youths around the Golden Hall.
‘The dead are dead,’ said the Hobbit with fire in her brown eyes. ‘They have no use for trinkets. Whereas I have seven sisters, twelve nieces and fourteen nephews to find food for. Rings from a dead man’s hand can still be melted down by the smiths in Edoras and they will pay highly. Will you stop me, worshipper of trees and stars?’
‘I do not worship the trees nor the stars, Mistress,’ I told her. ‘I revere them, and that part of the Valar which resides within them, for it is so much greater than I am. But as for stopping you, I imagine you could outrun me if you wished. Or kill me even, if you truly consider me a threat?’
‘I could do so,’ spat the Hobbit. ‘Don’t think because I stand no higher than your chest that I haven’t brought down men twice your size!’
‘I don’t doubt it.’
‘I am feared throughout your lands and Hobbit children are taught to fear my name! When my shadow passes, people run in fright to their homes. I have killed and I will kill again.’
‘And what,’ I began, ‘would so fearsome a creature be named?’
At this she seemed somewhat awkward and suddenly took an interest in the grass.
‘I am Íuberge,’ I said. ‘Now I have given you my name, will you not at least return the favour? If I am to be murdered, I should like to know the name of my killer.’
I believe to this day that she blushed.
‘Buttercup,’ she replied finally, flinging the word away like a hot coal. ‘Buttercup Took.’
‘Fearsome indeed. I quail at the sound of it.’
‘Do not mock me!’ she yelled, drawing a stubby knife from her belt. It would have been threatening, but as she held the blade towards me, a glob of green weed slid along the steel and dripped off the tip.
‘How old are you?’ I asked.
‘Old enough.’
‘And how old is that?’ I edged closer. ‘You are no more than a child. Whatever age your folk consider grown, I see it in your eyes - you have barely cast off your swaddling cloth. Have you no choice but to live like this?’
‘Spare me your pity, Brother! I’ve had my fill of pity and yet my belly is still empty.’
‘Then perhaps you need another manifestation of concern,’ I mused, and went to the trees. I thought she might run once my back was turned. I even wondered if she would kill me then and make off with what little I possessed, but once I had cut the few plants and clusters of mushrooms I needed, I found her still behind me, watching my every move.
‘Eat these,’ I offered. ‘My order knows much of the lore of plants and of the wilds. There is enough food here to feed us both for a while. I know nothing of your path, yet I have a long journey ahead of me.’ With a sigh I glanced towards the skies and remarked the violet tinge creeping onto the horizon. ‘Night will be here soon. I have dallied far too long, it seems. And you - what will you do for shelter?’
‘I will find somewhere,’ grumbled the Hobbit, who I noted had finished off the last of the mushrooms already. She turned away and tramped along the river bed, pushing the reeds aside as she strode on.
‘You would not prefer to travel with me? For safety’s sake?’ I called after her.
‘I need no one,’ came the reply from within the reeds. ‘I have never needed anyone.’
After a moment’s thought, I made to follow, but other than a few large footprints in the mud, I could see no trace of Buttercup Took.
Somehow, though, I felt I had not seen the last of her.
Any comments appreciated, especially as this is the only place this is posted at present.