Adab Gelir III (Pub) - Winter Waning

[Moriel]

They saw a valley far below. They could hear the voice of hurrying water in a rocky bed at the bottom; the scent of trees was in the air; and there was a light on the valley-side across the water… The trees changed to beech and oak, and there was a comfortable feeling in the twilight. The last green had almost faded out of the grass, when they came at length to an open glade not far above the banks of the stream. “Hmmm! It smells like elves!” though Bilbo, and he looked up at the stars. They were burning bright and blue. Just then there came a burst of song like laughter in the trees:

O! What are you doing,
And where are you going?
Your ponies need shoeing!
The river is flowing!
O! tra-la-la-lally
Here down in the valley!

O! What are you seeking,
And where are you making?
The faggots are reeking,
The bannocks are baking!
O! Tril-lil-lil-lolly
The valley is jolly,
Ha! Ha!

O! Will you be staying,
Or will you be flying?
Your ponies are straying!
The daylight is dying!

To fly would be folly,
To stay would be jolly
And listen and hark
Til the end of the dark
To our tune
Ha! Ha!

So they laughed and sang in the trees; and pretty fair nonsense, I daresay you think it. Not that they would care; they would only laugh all the more if you told them so. They were elves of course…. Then off they went into another song as ridiculous as the one I have written down in full. At last one, a tall young fellow, came out from the trees and bowed to Gandalf and Thorin. “Welcome to the valley!” he said.

The Hobbit, A Short Rest


In the vale of Rivendell, where the Last Homely House lies safely nestled, dwell not only its noble inhabitants but the many common residents of the valley, a curious and carefree people. They dance, sing and laugh amongst the trees and by the river, coming together from their secret dwellings to make merry from dusk ‘til dawn. While bands of elves no doubt roam the vale and do their merry-making in the open air, others prefer to gather in the comfortable arms of Adab Gelir, the House of Merriment. This rustic tavern sits in the embrace of an enormous beech tree, built up beneath the hanging boughs to wrap halfway around the tree, so that the trunk itself forms the back wall. The thatch-roofed building thrusts out from the tree in a broad semicircle, with plenty of room inside the hidden pub for the inhabitants of the valley to crowd in of an evening. Above the beechen door, a faded rainbow peeks down at visitors, painted upon the bark one summer.

Within the tavern itself, the ceilings are low and broad-beamed, making the interior seems somewhat smaller than it is, but cozy and warm. In the center of the long, curved room, opposite the door, is the bar. It is a carved structure of beech with a long flat surface that extends just to where the room begins to curve, with plenty of stools for those who wish to sit at the bar. For those who prefer a different setting, there are chairs and tables scattered about the length of the tavern’s rush-strewn floor. None of them are fixed in place, so that patrons of the Adab Gelir can rearrange them as their mood suits, often changing configuration several times in one night. At each end of the semicircular tavern is a roaring fireplace, where groups can gather for quiet conversation or bards may take up a position of prominence.

Behind the bar is Alagon (played by Moriel), the jovial Sinda who runs the tavern. He is a not overtall, a middle-sized ellon with a solid frame, wild reddish hair, a ruddy complexion and bright blue eyes. He is always cheerful and ready with as joke or a song, keeping the Adab Gelir open to all hours for the inhabitants of the vale. All are treated equally by Alagon, from the youngest child to Lord Elrond himself. Always close by is his pet robin, Gliri.


Drinks
Dorwinion Red Wine – Fine imported red, the same variety that the Elvenking favors for his table. Quite strong!
Greenwood Burgundy – A dark red wine from Mirkwood, rich and bold.
Northern White Wine – Delicate white, from a small vineyard at the northernmost edge of the valley.
Blackberry Wine – Created by Alagon himself, this wine made from plump blackberries is extremely strong and sold only in very small glasses, as it is deceptively sweet and fruity.
Mead – Also called honey wine, a powerful drink made by Alagon from sweet clover honey. Available plain, or in varieties flavored by raspberry and rosehips.
Dry Stout – An almost black beer, characterized by a toast or coffee-like taste.
Old Ale – A dark malty beer, fairly bitter
Brown Ale – Dark amber beer, sweet and smooth, with a hint of chocolate.
Tea – Black, Mint, Ginger or Cinnamon.


Food
Bannocks – Flat, dense oatmeal cakes, made with salt and sugar. Very good plain or dipped in tea or honey.
Fruit – A dish of fresh fruit, sliced or chopped, varieties dependent on the season. Also available dribbled with honey!
Bread – Baked fresh, light and crusty or thick and solid. Served with butter or/and fruit preserves.
Stew – Rich, filling venison stew with barley and good root vegetables
Fish – Catch of the day from the Bruinen, grilled and flaky.
Potted Hare – Rabbit stewed in red wine, shredded, mixed with lemon and thyme, then packed into a terrine and covered with broth and butter and left to cool until the mixture has saturated.
Fruitcake – Not your granny’s Yuletide brick, this cake is thick, stodgy and filled with plums.
Pie – Apple, Cherry, Blueberry


Rules
1. Please avoid #008040, as that is the publician (Alagon) color
2. Posts 200+ characters (approx. 2 full lines of text)
3. The year is TA 3015
4. Have fun!


Note: While godmoding is of course not permitted, feel free to say that you're already a regular, or assume a friendly relationship with Alagon, even if you haven't actually RP'd in Adab Gelir before! The pub has been around since shortly after the founding of Imladris, so plenty of characters might spent time here.

If you are interested in working at the Adab Gelir as a baker, cook, server, assistant bartender, or other position you might have an idea for, feel free to approach Alagon IC! Or talk to Moriel in the Imladris OOC/on discord.


***


The deep snows that blanket Imladris in winter have begun to recede, though there's still time for an early-spring blizzard to pounce! Nevertheless, the windows of Adab Gelir, often covered with ice in deep winter, have cleared, and on especially fine days the gentle drip drip of melting ice can be heard outside. The fireplaces still roar at night to keep out the chill, and Alagon offers a special mulled mead on nights such as the one now drawing on, when winter isn't quite sure it's finished. Come in to Adab Gelir, where all are welcome, to warm yourself and share in good company!

[Moriel]

Alagon stood in the doorway of Adab Gelir, watching the sunset as its fire played over the treetops. Winter sunsets and rises were often some of the most beautiful, and all the more so for the chill one had to endure to fully appreciate them. Cold nipped at his nose and fingertips , and augmented the color in the jovial Sinda's already ruddy cheeks. It promised to be a busy night: the cold had come on quickly after a fine day, promising icy conditions tonight and in the morning, and a fair number of regular patrons already filled the pub behind him with low chatter and laughter. Mulled mead kept hot on the bartop in a copper vat, and Gliri swooped from fire to fire taking up his perches where it was warmest. Alagon smiled. A curly-haired ellon came hurrying up the trodden-snow path and grinned as he brushed past the publican, into Adab Gelir.

"Come on Alagon, you're letting all the warm out!" Alagon laughed and shook his head, turning to follow the ellon inside, after one last glance at the sky.

"We can't have that can we? Go on then Remlasson, the usual is it?" Receiving an enthusiastic assent, Alagon took up his position behind the bar and poured a large dry stout for the ellon, who had developed a taste for it at Osdolen. Once Remlasson had departed to one of the fires to join some friends, Alagon indulged in pouring himself a cup of mulled mead, and sipped leisurely. One never knew quite what a night in Adab Gelir would bring!

[The Good Hunter]

“Just how far are you going to make me traipse through the forest? This blackberry wine had better be worth it.” Crashing along the forest pathway in a way that only an elf can crash, Lilótea came on a clearing and came to a sudden halt. Iesteth, coming in behind her, barely missed running into her student, narrowly dodging, and turning to perform something akin to a pirouette. “I’m not going any further until I know what sort of wicked torture you have planned for me. Come on now, tell me. There is no pub out here is there? I can’t believe I let you talk me into this. ‘Just a quick run’ you said, ‘it’ll be good cardio’ you said. I fell for it like a sack of potatoes down a hill.” She put her hands on her hips, then quickly wiped the sweat from her brow. There’s a myth that elves don’t sweat, no matter how hot it gets. Never had Lilótea wished more that that were true. She was, in fact, covered in sweat. Her clothes clung to her and made her very away of her every curve as she moved.

Iesteth, naturally, had nothing more than a light sheen on her forehead, something that glistened in the light of the sun and made her look more radiant than she already did. Her friend had all the luck. “You need to be a little more trusting,” her voice was bouncy and lyrical, it didn’t sound like they’d just run at least four leagues around in stars knew how many circles.

“Me? Trust you?” Lilótea scoffed. “I don’t think so, not after this.”

“Aye,” said her companion who was already starting to walk ahead of her. “We’re nearly there. Just around the corner. See that big tree?”

“That big tree?” Lilótea pointed to one of the many “big trees” in the area with dubious intent.

“Does that tree look like it could hold a pub?” Iesteth asked, turning to walk backward.

“I—” Lilótea began.

“Come on! Follow me and you’ll get that blackberry wine I promised.”

Grudgingly, Lilótea followed, purposefully moving at a much, much slower pace than her companion, moving at what many might call a lope or a canter. She had no intention of expending any more energy than absolutely necessary on this fool’s mission. She was coming to regret agreeing to allow Iesteth to train her. When she wasn’t torturing her by making her run through the forest to some destination that in likelihood was a dank cave with a badger and two bottles of Old Dorwinion, she was beating her to death with sticks, or she might as well be with how difficult it was for Lilótea to even hold a practice sword without screaming when the wooden blades clacked together. They’d been friends for nearly a century now and despite all that time, their paths rarely crossed professionally. Iesteth was a career soldier, a member of the Host of Imladris, and meletheld to Arwen. Lilótea worked in the kitchens and spent much of her free time in the Hall of Fire. Indeed, if fate had not decreed that they live together for the first few years of Iesteth’s arrival in the Valley, they would have never met at all. Thank the stars for a housing crunch though. Despite feeling like she was presently being tortured and tormented, Lilótea would not have traded their friendship for anything.

She was falling behind quickly now, Iesteth was barely visible through the trees as Lilótea rounded the corner.

Then it appeared. Yes. That tree could hold a pub, though it still looked like it was a pub meant for squirrels and hares and river otters. Lilótea, out of breath and lured by the promise of blackberry wine, wasn’t in the mood to complain though. She was thirsty.

“There now,” Iesteth said, a smirk in her voice. “Was that so bad? The harder you work, the sweeter the wine is at the end of the day.”

“I think you’ve got something twisted in your brain if you think that’s a saying,” countered Lilótea.

They pushed the doors open together and were quickly assailed by the overwhelming scent of baking pies of a dozen different sorts.

“A glass of blackberry wine for the one about to fall over,” announced Iesteth, “and a mug of mead for me.”

[Moriel]

The doors swung open, and Alagon looked up from his cup to see a pair of ellyth making their way across the rushes, and grinned. "Iesteth!" he greeted the one who led the way, "Always good to see you! And you've brought a friend, I see- welcome!" The publican nodded to the other eolith (Lilótea), as he reached beneath the bar to produce a small pewter goblet, and a bottle of dark, viscous wine. He poured what for his blackberry wine was a generous measure, and pushed it across to the newcomer. "My own specialty miss, I hope you enjoy! And good for recovery after one has been dragged around the valley." The sweat upon her brow -and person- had not escaped Alagon, and he astutely ascribed the fault for it to her companion. "As for you," he said, turning to Iesteth with a slight wink, "have a go at this." Rather than supplying her with ordinary mead, he ladelled out a mug of the mulled concoction from its copper vat, and handed it over. "Both spiced and fortified, and sure to keep you happy. Speaking of happy, how is our Lady? And I take it you have taken on a new- pupil, perhaps?" His eyes twinkled kindly as they fell back upon Lilótea, whose clothing seemed to have begun to steam in the warmth of Adab Gelir.

[Moriel]

TR Note: After an inquiry, OP has been updated to specify the year of play! I've also added a note about newcomers to the thread not necessarily being newcomers to the pub, and that it's ok to assume a basic relationship with Alagon. Thanks!

[Silky Gooseness]

Alcadir

O bright is the morning,
and sweet is the snowfall!
But with each new dawning
I grow yet more… woeful?

Alcadir pouted. He hadn’t meant to bring his inner mood down so quickly, but it had just popped into his head and one couldn’t deny a spontaneous rhyme, could one? Not only that, it wasn’t even morning, but rather the beginnings of an early dusk, with a brisk nip to the clear air. He pushed open the door of the tavern with an excessively melancholic sigh; but his naturally perky demeanour wrestled its way to the forefront of his brain and stretched his mouth into an irrepressible grin as he scooted up to the bar.

“Mead, mead, mead for me,” he sang gaily, inhaling deeply. “Has someone here ordered some already? Which flavours would you recommend?

And perhaps we’ll have a pie!”

He leaned his elbows on the counter and merrily shook some sparkles of ice from his blond head.

[The Good Hunter]

She might have been one of her oldest and dearest friends, but Iesteth had never heard someone complain so much as Lilótea when they were out doing any sort of physical exertion. To hear the purple and blue haired elf speak, she was being forced into the worst kind of torture, cruel and unusual punishment, instead of a light job along the well-worn pathways in the valley. Iesteth also had a hard time believing that Lilótea had never even heard of Adeb Gelir. Who lives in Rivendell for a thousand years and hadn’t heard of it?! It boggled the mind. Iesteth herself found the place within a month and been coming back on an almost religious schedule since. The mead was her particular favorite.

Lilótea darted to the counter, moving faster than someone who complained about having to run five miles, and scooped up the goblet with grace, despite being covered in the crystalline sheen of exhaustion. She drank deep and some color returned to her cheeks (along with just the thinnest line of blackberry wine along her chin, but Iesteth wasn’t about to warn her).

Iesteth smirked and followed her companion with a little more grace. She wasn’t dying of thirst of malnutrition just yet. She inhaled the smell of the mead first, taking in a huge breath as she swirled it about in the goblet. She was met by the smells of a least a dozen different notes, all wonderfully pleasant and warm; she took a long, deep sip and felt the sweet honey wine warm her bones. “My Lady,” she drawled slowly with a not very inconspicuous wink, “is doing quite well. She’s in Lórien right now, taking in all the sights of the mallorn trees she can, getting spoiled by her grandmother and grandfather I’m sure. In the meantime, I’ve taken up the hopeless task of trying to train my oldest friend. Lilótea!” the elleth looked up from her goblet and looked like she had been caught with her hand in a cookie jar (a truly heinous offense to a chef of her caliber). “Lilótea, meet Alagon; Alagon, meet Lilótea.”

Lilótea coughed, wiped the purplish stain on her chin before it dripped too far, and nodded. “Well met, Alagon. You weren’t kidding about the wine.”

Before more conversation could be had though, more introductions needed to be had. An elf (Alcadir) that seemed like Iesteth should have known him appeared in glittering, icy splendor (or that might have just been the light appearing cherubical behind him) at the door and sang an order for mead and pie. Quite a sweet combination, it almost gave her a toothache thinking about it. Though maybe—

“You know Alagon, I think, sorry what was your name?” she asked, hiding a smirk (her sweet tooth was rapidly starting to overtake her good sense), “I think our new friend is right. Let’s have some pie.”

In her spot, once again with the goblet tilted skyward, Lilótea mumbled her concurrence.

[Silky Gooseness]

Alcadir, awaiting a Pie

Pie! What a popular concept. No sooner had Alcadir popped his head through the doorway and called for pie than everyone - well, nearly everyone - well, at least one other person, and a mumble that could be taken for agreement - was also calling for pie. This was clearly because Alcadir was just full of excellent ideas, and, shortly, would soon be full of excellent pie.

The tankard of mead was slid silently over the bar top to him, foaming with honey-sweet bubbles. Alcadir sighed a happy little sigh of warm contentment and dipped his chin into the concoction, leaving him with a fine mead-beard the like of which had not been seen outside of the Grey Havens and lent him a certain sage-like appearance. He ruined it immediately by stroking his pale clever fingers across his chin, which he then hastily stuck in his mouth.

“Mmm,” he said incoherently. “Any chance of a napkin?”

[Moriel]

The mead delivered safely to Alcadir and still chuckling at Lilótea's reaction to his wine, the publican watched in further amusement at his latest patron's antics with the mead-foam. If only some artist had been present to capture his beard in sketch! From his perch behind the bar, Gliri chirped disapprovingly. "Hush, you," Alagon admonished the robin with a wink, reaching below the bar to retrieve a clean serviette from atop a stack, and slid that too across the bar to Alcadir. "There you are, if only to clear your canvas for another delightful beard. Now," he spoke at large to the trio who all seemed to be in favor of pie, whether they knew each other or not, "what sort of pie shall it be? Apple, cherry, or blueberry? Though come to think of it I have just a but of yesterday's blackberry lemon left.. not usually appearing on my menu, you understand, but I could be persuaded to bring it out."

[Silky Gooseness]

Alcadir, Pie

A liquid chatter interrupted his thoughts (of pie). Alcadir tilted his head slowly to meet the bright beady eye of a robin, who was clearly judging him. Alcadir peered at it more closely: yes, that was clearly disapproval in the red sugar-puff of its breast and the tiny inky droplet of its gaze, in which he himself was reflected in fascinating miniature. Was that a bit of foam left on his chin?

“Pish, bird,” he said with gentle dismissiveness, waving a long elegant hand at it and accepting the cloth from the proprietor to daintily dab away any more evidence of his gluttony. “Mmm… all those pies sound quite delicious,” Alcadir mused on, as his companions did not seem yet inclined to voice opinion or introduce themselves, “but I’ve never had that last combination… perhaps I’ll try that?”

[The Good Hunter]

She made the clearing, a white blur at her heels. They approached cautiously. The owner of the pub might decide today of all days to return here and what would she have to say for herself then? She held her breath. The husky at her feet looked at her quizzically, not quite comprehending the utter seriousness of the situation. To him, the whole world was a game waiting to be played. She envied that. He looked at her exuberantly, glacial blue eyes alight with mischief.

She had to admit, the air about them was charged with tomfoolery, with rapscallionry. It was not every day she had the chance to break into a seemingly abandoned pub, let alone an elven one. What are the chances of that? There can’t be that many abandoned pubs in the world. Seems like such a waste.

“Shhhh,” she warned her partner as he watched her, feet stamping in impatience. “For all we know some elf is nearby, waiting to pounce on trespassers and feed them to their…” she trailed off. What was it her father used to say elves fed naughty children to? She shrugged, pushing the memory of her father aside for the moment.

They crept, a girl and her dog, closer and closer to the pub. It was not in any sort of disrepair or disarray. It was just… empty. It was most certainly haunted. Everything old and abandoned was haunted. It was a common enough belief. Still, something so comfy being haunted added an air of unease about her as they moved within earshot.

There was still no sound from inside. There were a few birds flittering about in the branches, their song was sweet and light. She did not feel sweet or light. Her husky bounded closer, brazenly moving forward.

“Laurence, no!” she half hissed.

But he was already moving, once the little fellow got it in his mind do something, no force in all the world would stop him from accomplishing it. It was in the world’s favor that he did not favor conquest but food.

He pushed the door open with his nose and a curious paw; it swung open soundlessly. He pranced right in, as if he owned it. It was shedding season for the husky and already, before he was five steps into the pub, there were tiny floating poofballs of white hair dancing in the slight breeze. This place might as well be his now.

She followed him. If no one sounded the alarm at a seventy-pound husky barging into something, no one was home.

The place looked strange and immaculate. Tables and chairs were dust-free, the bar was swept and clean. Light danced about the place from high windows. A butterfly with white, black, purple, and grey wings fluttered passed her, the only previous occupant that could be seen. Everything about the place said it was open and ready for business, except for the oh so minor detail of no one around.

She couldn’t let that stop her. Her stomach growled. Her husky companion turned to look at her. In his eyes were words neither of them needed to speak out loud. They were hungry. The rations they’d taken from that house down the road were running out. If they were going to get to where they were going in one piece, they needed to eat.

If the kitchen looked as nice as the taproom, they might have hit a jackpot.

“C’mon Laurence, let’s see what they’ve got back here.”

[Aikári Salmarinian]

Loremaster Quennar Tarcelmë

Now and then it was a travel far and wide where the master in arts and crafts collected what he could, to narrow the history of Middle Earth as much it could be completed. The Elda always stood out kinda, by the snit of the clothing, the long dark hair and how it was tied away and the crafted sword at his left side, which was a personal weapon for thousands of years. A cloak of darker materials went over it to hide most off. The light footsteps were in sense weightless and therefore barely to be heard. Anyone, but immortal, could have a jolt of the heart, when Quennar stood right behind you, all of a sudden, with a simple smile on the face. He was of Noldorin birth, but was one of the Nandor in Harlindon. The extensive woods at the foot of the Ered Luin harboured a town where they lived called Aegliraind. They were old as the Elder Days and harboured a lot of history. Cirdan’s seat was a few hundred leagues to the north and out of the way.

Now and then it was a travel east to revisit sites that might have changed and document something over it. Some thrived against expectations, others were destroyed and new towns popped up, each time populated by new faces, that beheld the wonders of meeting an elf. In Quennar’s experience it was boring and he travelled very often the coastal route to avoid everything. Harlindon was mostly an empty land, wild and bit inhospitable, due the southwest storms from Belegaer. A perfect place to hide a colony of woodland elves. His family lived there, the woman he married long ago and the children he had. Quennar was import, but that no longer mattered.

The inn was half a smoky hellhole that asked for a cloth over the mouth when entering. But beyond that point it was quite cosy, with a good airflow, anything that could be elvish, up to the food offered. They merged buildings with trees and took the essence into the structure. The loremaster found himself a seat, took a greenwood burgundy and fresh baked bread. Quennar had no idea if he would be recognised, for some time he had worked at craftsmaster in the Tingdain. Alone at a table of four the loremaster had view on the road by the window. It was pleasant and peaceful, but not like home. Life blossomed better there. But what could be said from Imladris? The view other visitors were on themselves. Quennar enjoyed the wine and the fresh buns on the plate before him.

[The Good Hunter]

(Within same timeline as Quennar)

They'll take you far away, my kin
They'll take you places you have never been
- “to my ilk” Zeal & Ardor

Keijo rubbed his eyes. He could feel his lids growing heavier with each step. When he pulled his hands away, the light of the world seemed somehow different. How, he could not say, but there was just something slightly off, lightly askew. He took a deep breath. The air was humid, it stuck to the back of his throat like a burr.

His feet hurt, he needed a place to sit and recuperate. How long had he been on the road? How long had he been alive? The answers were probably similar, yet he had no answer to either. A night here, a week there, a summer over there, a winter under that. Keijo was a transient fellow, unable and unwilling to stay too long in a single place.

He was no traveler, or at least he would not have considered himself one. He was just a man, an elf, going from one place to another. Why and where, when and how were all questions he didn’t let himself get bogged down in. Let other’s worry about the minutiae and semantics. A butterfly landed on his shoulder. It spread its vibrantly patterned wings. Light poured through that prism and the elf’s vision was filled with purple, grey, white, and black.

“Where are you off to, little one?” he asked the creature as it leapt and fluttered in front of him. It flittered back and forth, coquettishly beckoning him follow.

“Alright then,” Keijo said, “lead the way.”

They walked and fluttered for who knows how long. They crossed streams, when around trees, up hills and across furrows. Keijo lost all bearing on where he was going, not that he had much to begin with. He often traveled like this, moving as if by flight of fancy rather than purpose, a derive rather than a sojourn.

He lost himself to thoughts, then those thoughts led him to others and before he knew it, the landscape that was filled with shrubs and small trees turned into a viridian forest of tall trees and white fungus growing in perfect circles.

There was a large tree ahead of him, very large.

“What’s this?” he asked the butterfly who had taken to land on his shoulder, contented.

“Reached our destination have we?” The butterfly flexed its wings, a motion the elf took to mean yes.

He pushed the door in the tree (a door in a tree, how mellifluous) open and was met by the most interesting of sights. An inn! An inn in a tree! The concept was so absurdly wonderful that he burst into an effervescent laugh.

There were tables and chairs aplenty here, though not as many customers. Rather than sit by himself, Keijo sat next what seemed to be the only other patron at the moment.

“Salutations and greetings, would you mind too terribly if I sat with you for a spell? I’m Keijo.”

[Aikári Salmarinian]

Loremaster Quennar Tarcelmë

(Time TA3015 with Frost)

People came and go at the entrance also in elvenland, if it were humanland. An inn was an inn, little more could be said, then the clientele was adapted to the place of ambiance. The hollow insides of huge trees might hide something. The Eldar had always been clever to build their world with and around them, in a symbiotic relation. Quennar had hoped on sit in contemplation. But fate decided a bit differently when a customer invited himself to the table the Nandor occupied and settled himself down. Quennar motion was superfluous to take a seat, but expressed enough he was not refusing. Could an Elda refuse someone else? It had never crossed his mind. It was more of a human response.

“Keijo? From what region are you coming from?” did ask Quennar after having swallow the last bun away with the wine in the glass. “Looks you’re not from these lands.” Nor the name was this man was calling himself with. “I am Quennar and just a traveller from the road and a visitor to Imladris.” The Eldar kind had seldom sore feet, as they walked light and swift. Weight was no issue to them. Snow or a rope, the highways of wonders. “If you like to have something, the bartender can provide,” nodded Quennar. The loremaster didn’t really what to say to the stranger who came sitting at the table, and seemed to be in a quite merit mood. He gave the elf the menu card laying on the table.

Quennar had no memory to people so lighthearted. Was Keijo coming from across the sea? The undead lands? Could it be a Sindar? Or was Keijo an Avari? There were many who stayed behind on the long journey west. Those had always belonged with the third group, the most unwilling. Quennar’s former people had been the second group. The first group had all left Middle Earth, came back once for a battle and left again. Quennar had known them in the youth, thousands of years ago before the rise of the sun and moon. A distant memory invoked with pain and loss.

Around the elf’s head flew a butterfly of some kind. Quennar frowned slight. “Where you looking for a spell? I am not at home in sorcery.”

[The Good Hunter]

(Within same timeline as Quennar)

Keijo gave a barely perceptible wince. He saw a shadow, brief though it had been, pass over the face of the man sitting at the table before him. He’d interrupted some deep thought process. He could recall many times he had prematurely been forced out of a reverie, the jarring sensation of being thrust out of a world of your imagining to a world of less saturation and vibrancy. He looked down, shamefaced and sat.

“I apologize for interrupting you,” he said first, wishing he could somehow take that back. “I’m from…” he swallowed, it was difficult to say where he was from, not because it was difficult to pronounce but because it was difficult to pinpoint a place he called ‘home.’

“I suppose you could say I’m from up north,” he decided, “further north than the Grey Mountains, past the lands of the Forod. It has been years since I saw my home though, enough that I cannot quite recount how long it has truly been. The stars have changed since.”

“It is good to meet you Quennar, thank you.” rapidly, the elf searched his mind for the name, it had a ring of familiarity, or perhaps something near to that. It was a name that rolled gently off the tongue, and easy lyrical name. Perhaps he’d heard a story from an innkeeper or farmer he’d stayed with once upon a time. Still, the exact memory eluded him. If he chased it now, he’d never catch it, like looking for a specific grain of sand on the beach.

His stomach rumbled, oft his body betrayed him. He had not even realized he was hungry. How long, then, had it been since he’d eaten last? Again, he was often so wrapped up in his own thoughts he had no idea. He blinked. The little butterfly on his shoulder could be seen in his periphery, the wings slowly, gracefully moving back and forth, a restless but gentle gesture. “I suppose some spiced tea would be nice,” he said almost to himself as much as the elf that materialized then dematerialized beside him. He barely had a chance to register them.

“Spell? Oh? Oh! No, no, my good sir. I only meant to ask if I could sit with you for a time. I’ve no practice in any sort of mysticality or supernaturalism. As much as I daydream, I’ve no power to bring any of that about. And you,” he asked, leaning forward, “ if you say you are only passing through, only a visitor, where do you hail from? Where does Quennar call home?”

[Aikári Salmarinian]

Loremaster Quennar Tarcelmë

(Time TA3015 with Frost)

Quennar, curious to other places, drank quietly while listening to his fellow tablesharer. There was a hesitation where to come from, but perhaps the elf was not so certain how people around Imladris felt of very distant kin coming from places they barely heard off. Via different channels the loremaster knew that in the deep north held onto lands, that were deemed hospitable. But not all of it was icy tundra. There were pine forests as well, thousands of kilometres. Keijo was one of the Avari, elven dwellers that chosen different than the Valar had ever attended for them. Quennar shrugged: “My home rests at the westcoast of Beleriand and looks upon the ocean.” It was always an arduous journey not to meet the pesky Periannath, with minds that held little appreciation for the world beyond their borders.

Keijo was a person the loremaster had never met, nor even in the times working as a mastersmith. Those days were long over. Keijo knew nothing of spells or sorcery. But that was not entirely true. Elven always a power what stupid humans considered as sorcery, a power similar to Saruman and Sauron. Places like this in a tree were protected by this kind of power. Sorcery that was about light and balance, beauty and serenity, a shadow of what existed out in the deep west. The man across asked for spice tea.

“I don’t know much about the cold north, and I never was there. But there are men and women who saw the bowels of the earth at their own risk in the times Morgoth pasted his stamp on the world and was defeated. My people stayed out of it as much they could, after a disaster with tremendous consequences. Since then it is a good life in seclusion, we thrive and prosper, and there is little to complain about,” said Quennar in generic terms. He was never a good sir, but said nothing about it. But butterflies could be drawn to the elven folk. As the creature danced around Keijo’s head. “It is nice to meet as well, feeling is mutual,” nodded the loremaster with a smile. With strangers he was always aloof, unless it was about young elves who hadn’t seen the particular wonders of the world, the other races wrote off.

“Long road you have travelled to end up in Imladris?” commented Quennar. Keijo was certainly not a name from these regions, or even in the west. It hadn’t roots in Quenya nor Sindarin. “Ered Mithrin is a long stretch east to the red mountains and over the north the shortest route to reach them.” Arda was a globe these days in space. How vast the universe was, even Quennar didn’t know exact. All kinds were bound to it, unless they developed technologies to escape it, like the Eldar lands out of reach. Still you had to cross the ocean west. “Are you planning this is the end of your journey, or just a temperate place to stay?”

[The Good Hunter]

(Within same timeline as Quennar)

There was something about this elf that Keijo could not quite put his finger on. He was not a people person, often filled with his own thoughts and imaginings along the roads he travelled, but this person, this Quennar, seemed an entire level of magnitude higher than he. He did not have the air of a misanthrope, not quite. He was old, Keijo realized after listening to him, watching him as he spoke and the way his eyes moved as he spoke. When individuals attain a certain age, there is a wistfulness in the way they see things, both physically and spiritually. There was something of that look in Quennar’s eyes. Sad but not mournful, perhaps entwined with roots of regret, hope, joy, loss, and heartrendings. An elf’s life was filled with all these and more. They saw so much, felt so deeply. Keijo was then keenly aware of how young he was compared to his table companion. He was not young by any stretch of the imagination, this was true enough, but he felt almost as a dibbun by the fire.

He swallowed a mouthful of his tea, savoring the spiky warm flavor as it filled him with light. A typical spiced tea might have a few herbs to warm and heat, but this was elven spiced tea and an elf never did things by half measure, he could taste half a dozen different spice and still more he could not quite identify. Good tea indeed.

“We live far, far to the north, past the stain of…” he would not say the name, invoke the image, or sully the air. It was superstitious perhaps, but Keijo had seen wild things based on superstition and folklore and he would not cross that. “… and we have lived there long, my great-great grandfather twice over was born there back in the depths of time, before the rising of sun or moon. No enemy did we see for generations, ours was a fastness hidden and hearty beside. Helothlante it is called. I doubt many legends have passed across the snow and mountains in the south… I mean north. We are a hidden people.”

He took another sip of the tea and smiled. “I must admit ignorance. I have never been to Imladris, though I have heard stories of its grandeur and its staidness. I came here from the westerlands, allowing my feet and my fancy to guide my steps. Men might call it a dérive, a journey without a purpose or an end. I love the colors of this world, often, I will follow a color I see in the trees or the sky. I came down this valley following something golden in the light.

“Tell me, though, Quennar, what brings you here? Is this your home? Imladris? You mention Beleriand, but even in the farthest glacial valleys of my home we knew it is no more.”

[Aikári Salmarinian]

Loremaster Quennar Tarcelmë

(Time TA3015 with Frost)

Grandeur? Quennar was kind of surprised hearing such words from one of his brethren, albeit distant. It was as much a humble home, a shadow to the cities scattered over Valinor and the ones known on the soils of Beleriand. He came once across them, only for one time. He had never seen someone following colours, but if you were Lossidil and came from lands eternal grabbed in white, it made sense. “Imladris is the home to the Noldor of Lord Elrond,” said the loremaster. “Oh Beleriand is out there. The Ered Luin never vanished.” It was a matter of perception in the young and old. “Partly it rests under the waves.” The news had reached far and wide, which was an interesting detail, as Quennar had never really been certain of it. He had his suspicions, but only once in a thousand years you ran into a member from the tundra lands.

“Heliothlanthe on the island of Dor Bendor?” There were towns out there. “Lands as Lindalf and Järvimaa must say you something?” There were maps. Quennar had assembled them from mostly human travelers from all nations across the planet. He knew that there somewhere wandered a wizard around, or so the Lossoth said. This wizard was dressed much like them, dressed in fur made clothing and owned a ship to sail the seas. Quennar had never learned really more, that the two visits from Mulkan Kaupunki at the Hub Helchui bay. Talath Muil was the border between Arthedain in the south and Lodalf to the north. It were lands once part of the Ered Engrin.

“What brings me here?” smiled the loremaster soft. “Seeing old friends mostly. Catch up on news and other tidbits, what happened since my last visit.” Not much really, but just for the records he sat secretly on. Another beverage was served for Quennar. And something as sugared cookies, which was a human delicacy. He didn’t always eat just elven food. However the cookies were brought up to taste, that the finer senses liked. It could be too sweet off course. And his kind wouldn’t choose no longer for them, as customers. Other customers came and went, and Quennar kept an unnoticeable eye on them. His hearing picked up the smallest nuances of sound, where human ears failed. So Keijo had seen a golden light in this place. Peculiar, Quennar hadn’t seen it at all. Just the pesky smoke at the entrance. But perhaps the Lossidil were tuned differently due to their adaption to the cold? Quennar wouldn’t survive there long and had never dreamt of going there.

[The Good Hunter]

(Within same timeline as Quennar)

Despite confessing to having never been there, Keijo was impressed by Quennar’s knowledge of his homeland, or at least the names of the surrounding lands. He was far more used to giving history and geography lessons to those chance road companions. It was refreshing and brought a smile to the young elf’s face, his icy blue eyes twinkling. “You know, Master Quennar, it does me good to hear those familiar names in the voice of someone else. I had no idea how well it treats my soul until you said them now. I have been away from them for a time now, years I believe at this point, and my heart longs for the icy, biting winds and roaring pines. How did you come to know anything of my homelands? Surely it is more than just looking at maps? The familiarity with which you speak their names seems to attest something else? Have you ever been?”

Keijo’s own village, situated amongst ghostly pines nearly five hundred feet tall, was small and distant from the royal forests and icy slopes of Helothlante. His own family were ranchers of a sort, raising caribou and elk. Initially, as a youth, he rebelled against such a pedestrian, mundane life, he wanted to see the world, he told his father and grandfather, to experience summer, to explore the regions south of the Grey Mountains. They had been less than angry but also less than understanding of his precocious mind. They must have had similar journeys in their youth and found, as he was finding, that the lands of pines and caribou were the place for them.

He took a proffered cookie and sampled the edge. It was sweet. Far sweeter than he could have imagined. He winced, coughed, then laughed. “Now, I can tell you this for certain Master Quennar, we do not have confections so sweet in my lands. How can you stand it? I have eaten peppers that have been less abrasive.” That was, of course, not to say he did not enjoy to cookie, just as he enjoyed the peppers. Southern food still surprised him.

“Forgive my inquisitive nature, Master, it is rare I am able to sit and interview someone of such bearing. If you say your home is Beleriand, you must be quite old. What, then, is it you occupy your time with?” Keijo was young but not necessarily youthful. He was older than some of these southern kingdoms but knew that there walked vast fortresses of wisdom and experience, veritable giants of time. He knew that, sitting across from him, was one just giant. “With all your long years, what keeps you from growing weary and tired?”

[Aikári Salmarinian]

Loremaster Quennar Tarcelmë

(Time TA3015 with Frost)

Quennar enjoyed the drink and cookies, but the man across didn’t like it. He had no idea about what the peoples ate in the north, not much on vegetables really, but more on fish and meat. The months of ice, snow and darkness had little than that to offer. That much the loremaster knew on crossing ice sheets and snowfields. Honey could be collected in the warmer months when snow and ice were mostly gone and the tundra flowered. Accounts had told about it, life was harsh and you died in a whim. How that exactly with the elves were, if there lived any? Anything from elf or human, to dwarf and orc, all lived in the coldest corners of Middle Earth, unless you travelled to the deep south. There was a huge icesheet there too.

Quennar smiled: “If your heart desires the lands of ice and cold, well what keeps you from returning and never leaving?” It was a simple measurement, that needed little thought. Just to do it. “How I know? Just maps and accounts really. And an occasional telltale like yours.” More was not really to it, than gathering up the leads of information and mostly watch around. “What are you searching in these lands?” The Lossidil seemed rather lost in this place, so near Imladris. What was Keijo searching for? Quennar was not someone of great bearing, nor shared he names with the grandest around. What was old? A relative term. Maybe it meant something to the young? What were peppers?

“Why would you grow weary and tired? Where does that idea originates from?” asked Quennar raising an eyebrow. There was nothing back in Valinor to return to and a chapter long closed, he never thought about it, or considered it to be a false thought. Among the Laegrim, Laiquendi from former Ossiriand it was good living. His wife was from that people, so were his children. One time there had been a king, but since then no more. The land of the seven rivers, thought changed, was still there: Ossiriand. But the younger people could it today Lindon. “My time? As any other, what one can do to keep the community safe and secure. Not all towns of our kind are protected by magical rings, staffs, stones or other jewels. That comes just from wit and skill.”

Quennar had given the Laegrim very much and gotten the home he had never had before. He was one of them. His home was the most guarded secret of all elven realms, and usually Mithlond was the town where they lived, or so was said. Cirdan and his Sindarin Teleri resided there. “They build ships in the coast town for those who leave these lands. Perhaps you’ll be one day on one too?” Keijo was a bit too inquisitive, but the Laegrim loremaster knew to weave around it with a lot of delicacy. “Mithlond is the town in the west, most sea-elves live. Cirdan sits there. He said once hello to the wizards that came to Eriador.”

[The Good Hunter]

(Within same timeline as Quennar)

Keijo took another sip of the spicy tea, the soft vapors brushing his cheeks. “What keeps from going there and never leaving?” He smiled impishly. “Lord Quennar, the answer is all around you. There is an entire world to experience. Though I dearly love my home and one day I shall no doubt return and curmudgeonly look askance at anyone desiring to leave, I have an unquenchable desire to explore and experience. There are things down south, like these cookies, this inn really, that could never exist in my homeland. It would be a travesty not to experience them. Perhaps, it is because I am yet young in the eyes of our people and have not grown weary of the turning of the seasons yet, but my heart rejoices in the finding of new things.”

He was enjoying this conversation. It did not go as many of his attempts did with humans in the various out of the way places. Men, it seemed, were incorrigibly tight lipped about, well anything. Keijo tried not to judge them too harshly, there were, doubtless, many things for them concern themselves with that left little room for small conversations with strangers. Drink took up much of their time, and playing dice games with rules too complicated for Keijo to appreciate. Quennar, though he was doubtlessly ancient, did not appear too busy or too uninterested in conversation. Keijo decided he liked him, based solely on a few minutes of conversation.

“What I mean when I say ‘grow tired’ I suppose is…” he pursed his lips, trying to find a better way of explaining his thoughts. “Perhaps not tired, nor weary really, perhaps just uninterested would be a better word. Many of my elders seem to grow more distant as they grow in age, their minds seeking the youths they experienced in lands that no longer exist. I wonder if it due to the cold…” he shrugged, then, as Quennar spoke of his home along the coast, began to grin widely.

“I hope you will forgive my eagerness, but I would dearly love to set sail one day. I have seen the sea, though it might not be the same sea of Lindon, and I have never set foot upon a ship within that wine dark sea. The waves are too high and too cold there, the foam that lays across the peaks of waves is colder then the snow it crashes into. I have no doubt the warmer, southern seas offer a more mild introduction.”

[Aikári Salmarinian]

Loremaster Quennar Tarcelmë

(Time TA3015 with Frost)

Keijo kept him referring with lord or master, but Quennar was neither of them in the sense Lord Elrond was of Imladris. There was no point to correct the young elf, they held on to other ideas. The northerner was travelling spirit, all in line with the age to be young. For Quennar this was different. The vigour of youth was slowly waning. Celidië and he wouldn’t live forever, but as long life had to offer niceties and excitement, there was no reason to say goodbye. The loremaster nodded agreeing: “Then it is wisdom to travel around, meet what the earth has to offer. It is the way how songs are born, from travelling the roads.”

The Laegrim always had children around, sometimes a few, other times more. It was a personal choice of a couple to go through a year of pregnancy and then tend to over a century for the growth of their kid to become a adult in every sense. “You are really eager, more eager than I was used to once. And sailing you can, if you want. It is a choice, not a demand,” shrugged Quennar. Alataire was out of the question. The wish to sail over it, was almost incomprehensible to the loremaster. He hated the waves and the body of water. He could recognise something of thinking about nations that were no longer around. It was the nature of the mortal lands and even in the youth of elves, this happened on whimsical. Quennar travelled now and then to make some documentations, but further kept within the walls of the hidden realm, protected secure from the outside world. “It is perhaps of the cold, you’ll now that better of your people than I ever can."There would be Avari elves in southern lands, where the sands and jungles ruled. Nations even Quennar knew very little about.

The very first generations had massed greater numbers than ever were calculated by mathematical minds. There were certain numbers how and why, but Morgoth’s discords had extended so far enough, most was distorted and muddled by the end of the Third Age. The darkness was not fully bad for that reason, it had influenced the behaviours of all races in erratic ways beyond the road of similarity. For Quennar it was one big interesting mudpool, for you never could know what to expect in places. If there would be ever a Second Marring of the planet, Quennar believed the portion he lived, would survive the ordeal and become perhaps an island on the uttermost edge of a new continent, also called Eriador, or something similar. How would it be named otherwise?

The cold the Eldar could endure, they had crossed through Helcaraxë, driven by a desire that surpasses most passions these days. Even so the Eldar had crossed a thunderous sea and still reached the shores. They had with fervour engaged in battles still lamented in fantastic songs. But how great battles were and how many songs conducted, they had only left death and destruction. Wars never build something. All battles, skirmishes and fights the lore and forgemaster skipped simply. Quennar had never seen reason to draw a sword, unless for self-defence. There appeared a strawberry cake and Quennar owned himself a big slice to consume in the coming moments. “So what are wishes or dreams you are hoping to meet on your travels? What have heard about in the north, that made you coming south and have a curious snoop around?”

[The Good Hunter]

(Within same timeline as Quennar)

Before he knew it, the tea was gone. The cups down south were so much smaller in comparison to those of his kin. He remembered, as a child, the mugs of warm broth the family would sip each night in winter, he had to use two hands just to hold it steady. Naturally he always dribbled a little down the corners of his lips and down his chin. He smiled reflexively, though he felt just how long ago that time was and how far from home he was in that moment. How much longer would he travel and traipse around? Surely the time was drawing nigh that he must return and settle down. But that day was not this day, and the arrival of another pot of tea drove away the melancholic atmosphere before it had a chance to gestate. Summer was not the time to be morose and dour! He refilled his cup and watched the steam dance and play.

“I suppose I am a bit eager, sometimes I wander if I’ve really grown out of my adolescence. My travels are oft in the grip of anticipation and unpredictability, but that is what I find so enjoyable about my time down south. Sailing in the north is a rather perilous endeavor, one in which only the most skilled of boatsmen undertake, save for the lake fisherman, who paddle out on tiny boats in the midst of great, purple waters. One day, before I turn my boots back north, I shall visit Lindon and see these magical golden sunsets I’ve heard so much about in songs and poems.”

A curious snoop around? Keijo could not help but grin broadly at the phrase. It simultaneously made him feel youthful again, before he was allowed out of sight of his family home, and mischievous. In the early days, Keijo had been the author of more than a few well-meaning pranks. “What drew me?” he mused, folding his hands and intertwining his fingers. “Now that’s a decent question. Well, there were the traders that came to see us every few seasons, you call them Forodwaith I believe. They came with fantastical tales of people and places below the Grey Mountains and one day, once I was old enough, I petitioned my grandfather, the head of the family, to see the world. He granted me my request, with the stipulation that I bring knowledge of the south in the form of maps and songs and history and such. I’ve yet, shamedly, not begun to write any of my wanderings down. So much of it is still swimming about in my head.

“Tell me, Quennar,” he dropped the honorific when he noticed the elder’s micro-aversion to it, “Aside from placating young hooligans in treeish cafés, what do you do to fill your days?”

[Aikári Salmarinian]

Loremaster Quennar Tarcelmë

(Time TA3015 with Frost)

It has been quite a talk until now. Under the consummation of the strawberry slice Quennar listened to the relay this northerner was telling about. Were the sunsets in Lindon golden? Perhaps in the north? People in other places did have sometimes pretty romantic ideas. But the empty western lands were just like all other lands, meant for the mortal kinds and not the deadless peoples. Quennar didn’t care about that fact. Had Keijo not asked earlier how Quennar spent the days? But first there was more on the snooping journey in the south what Keijo had to tell about rather eagerly. The loremaster listened interested, taking in the ideas of the young, for they changed with each generation.

So it were nomads of Forodwaith who travelled even more north and relayed what they knew about the south, or what lay beyond the Ered Mithrin. An evil fortress lay on the most western summits. Or better known as Carn Dum. How active it now was, Quennar had no idea about. His interests didn’t lay with the things of evil. The third agers could flesh that out and create their own heroes. “Not yet time to write?” grinned the loremaster amused. “Dedicating the swimming images and words in the head to paper helps to clear it up and create order. You should try it when the chance appears?”

The coin had turned to a better side when Keijo just mentioned his name and no longer all sorts of titles that were not earned. “My tale is the same as thousands of our kind, neither exciting nor heroic. If you search for sword-wielding lunatics you have to interrogate Lord Elrond. He knows hundreds of them, being child to the heroes of old with a nice pedigree.” Quennar had never felt any awe for the seven sons of Fingolfin. He knew the forging skills of Celebrimbor, but the promising upstart was stonedead. Most of the Noldor had foolhardy and taken the Sindar up in their battles. Where this spirit had ever come from, Quennar had never understood. “Consider yourself a hooligan?” asked Quennar drawing up one eybrow on an amused tone. The slice of cake had disappeared. “I don’t have fantastic tales to tell. Sorry for that. I learned a trade because it was beneficial. We were never a match for the lords of the west and neither we were awarded with great jewels, staffs or much else. Just an existence as the elven kingdom in the east left and the many realms in the deep east to Orocarni, a sister mountain range from the Ered Luin in the west.” Quennar sipped from the drink, with a patience that would drive Lord Melkor mad, if that could happen.

[The Good Hunter]

(Within same timeline as Quennar)

Keijo suppressed a grin forming at the corners of his lips. The phrase ‘sword wielding lunatics’ seemed at once so incongruous and out of place within the context of its speaker but also so impishly at peace within the context of the actual conversation he was having with the elder statesman. It was impossible to have conversations like this with animals, Keijo found, as they were always conversations with himself and those always ended in a depressing flutter of silence. Having someone, anyone, to talk to and converse and share ideas was a treasure. If there was any wisdom he could bring back north to his people, it would be thus: every now and then, find someone to talk to. The linda did not want to seem too overeager to his conversive partner, so he filed away the phrase in a chest within his mind so that when the time came to start his writing, he would have it ready to expound upon.

“I can’t quite tell,” he said after another sip of tea, “perhaps it’s the place we’re in and the legacy of art, history, natural philosophy, and thought, but I do rather feel inspired to write. Granted, I’m about as comparatively learned as a illiterate docksman in the ways of writing history and travelogue, but I shall give it a go.” He wasn’t sure if he sounded eager or resolute or perhaps a mixture of both. His eyes, though, sparkled with the thought, a new experience for him when he thought he was running out of them. Hope, he was learning in these travels, was a rare and precious commodity, found here and there in corners and in small amounts, but each and every place he found it, there was an unquenchable light. Perhaps that would be a good title of his memoir. He mused, placing the title alongside the earlier phrase in his memory palace.

“I will say this, in response to what I believe to be modesty on your part about the effect you have or haven’t had on history. Heroic and exciting isn’t really about heroes and excitement. I don’t think so anyway. Sure, most of us will never have songs sung about us or tales told in music halls, but if not for the invisible folk, the heroes would have no foundation upon which to be heroic. Without the heroism of everyday folks, we would have no need for heroes. It is heroic, I think, to continue doing the things you love.” Keijo realized, after he’d spoken, that what he’d said might really be just a load of gobbledygook and gibberish, but he thought it sounded good either way. “There is wisdom in what you say, though, Quennar. Should you ever wish to teach, I think you would find many a willing pupil throughout the lands. I think you don’t give yourself credit for the lifetime of quiet, contemplative wisdom you’ve accumulated.” Keijo hoped he was not coming off as pompous, but as genuine. Quennar was doubtlessly quiet humble, but there were so many hidden depths within him that it might take another full lifetime to delve them all.

[Aikári Salmarinian]

Loremaster Quennar Tarcelmë

(Time TA3015 with Frost)

Same as Aelfwinë and Caewinië the young held on to different opinions than the elderly. That signified the times they had grown up in, that coloured their thoughts. The sense of humbleness was almost as old as Quennar was himself and resonated from the Valinorean lands he had been born. It had allowed him access to the various Valar in the gardens, listened to their tales and stories and wrote them them in Quenya. After the journey to Middle Earth, which was never had been his choice, but his parents, he had continued to write in his own power and collected over nearly twenty works together that came under the title of Quentalë Ardanómion. It was the history of Arda in the full sense of the word. But Quennar had always kept this a deep secret and nobody knew about, not even the Valar.

He remained aloof as much possible and presented himself to be an uninteresting character for others. Quennar so had his thoughts on writing. “Recording never started with the professionals, but with those who had an untapped talent for writing and knew how to wield quill. And if you have no historians among your people, interview the elderly, and put it down in writing. That is the start of recording and of history. That what happened the day before, and the day before that. Recording is as beneficial to the Eldar as the Edain. Each writer starts as the illiterate docksman, to put it in your terms,” nodded the loremaster.

Quennar, coming from the very people who he had titled haughty in appearance and spoke with disdain about, got confronted with a different opinion on heroism, was used to it as this happened also with his own children. He smiled only at what Keijo expressed. The youngster might feel Quennar would be a good teacher, but the loremaster felt not. He couldn’t teach how to write. You had to discover it yourself, as he had discovered thousands of years ago in the gardens of Valinor. He was a mastersmith as well, who could forge weapons with the quality Celebrimbor had been fabled about. But the memories came not with the tranquility Quennar was surrounded by since his marriage with Celidië. The commitment between them was unraveled. If ever came the question to return to Valinor, it would be the mainland and not the accursed island for the coast, where the fallen Noldor were exiled to.

Keijo was not stupid as he expressed to Quennar on not giving himself enough credit for a for a lifetime of quiet, contemplative wisdom he had supposing accumulated. Perhaps? The mastersmith would not be swayed though. “Writing cannot be learned. You have to find your own voice and put it down,” he said. “The believe exist even among the Eldar that everything must be learned by example of others. But the first who woke back in Cuivienen, they had no examples. They took the teachings from their surroundings and gave word and song to the Onodhrim when they met them on the journey west. The treeherders remember and speak out still the awe of it. The legacy of art, history, natural philosophy, and thought are not my sources of inspiration. But it is the simple ingenuity of people that battle through different times and have a tale to tell. You have to overcome your own fear for an ignorance you believe to have.” Quennar sipped from the drink. He had never grown up under the shadows of evil. The Edain suffered from ignorance caused by mortality, but the Eldar had no excuse on that front to hide behind. They knew perfectly well what happened in Arda, as long they observed and didn’t put their eyes in a pocket and clog their ears with mud.

[The Good Hunter]

(Within same timeline as Quennar)

Keijo nodded sincerely. Many of the things Quennar told him about writing, particularly about talking to the elder folk of his home about their lives, had already passed through his young mind, but to hear them vocalized by someone with vastly more wisdom than he made the young elf confident in what he needed to do. He smiled self-depreciatingly as Quennar repeated his words, deflecting the linda’s attempt to put himself down. “I think you have the right of it, Quennar. I’ve heard advice of a similar nature from a few folks I’ve met along the way. Things like ‘you can only get better if you start doing it’ and so forth.” He nodded, “When I finally return home, I shall take your advice. I might not be a practiced quill-wielder so I shall have to start with smaller things like moving mountains.” He laughed a little at his own dumb joke. “Though in all seriousness, I will take up recording the history of my people. Even in mundanity and commonplaceness we are a fascinating people. Perhaps one day I will be able to send you a copy of the work for your own archives. You’re the only person I’ve met that has any understanding of the area, you deserve to have better first-hand accounts than dubious maps of second or third-hand nature.”

When he’d sat down in this pub, Keijo had not expected such a light but affirming conversation. His mood felt positively airy. He’d forgotten the butterfly momentarily, his passenger from the outside. During the conversation it had explored the expanses of the tree, finding the kitchens and the sweet honey stored within, once it had its fill, the purple, white, and grey creature fluttered back out and began circling the patrons, aimlessly examining each face before drifting off to the next with no discernible pattern or course. Finally, having exhausted all the unique personages currently in the pub, it returned to the table, resting halfway between the two elves on a small saucer with an upturned sugar spoon. It helped itself as the conversation passed back and forth, having an innate comprehension of speech that even it did not understand.

Keijo didn’t notice his tiny companion, still enraptured in his conversation with Quennar. The elder was much wiser than he let on, and a sense of patience that might rival the great glaciers. Thoughtful and methodical, but kind and pointed. Even if he didn’t want to teach, he had the qualities of the best kind, at least in Keijo’s estimations. ‘The Simple Ingenuity of People’ might well be the title of his travelogue, translated of course to sound more lyrical and musical.

“When you began to write, as you said one has to overcome fear for an ignorance one believes one has, what sort of fears did you have?”

[Aikári Salmarinian]

Loremaster Quennar Tarcelmë

(Time TA3015 with Frost)

Quennar had written enough works that the beginning always started with uncertainty and doubts, the feelings not worthy of it. It was a mental focus the best to get rid off, as it stood in the way of artistic progress. “Sure, I’ll await your writings in time,” nodded the master. Keijo inquired for the fear Quennar once had. “Just that I felt myself an unworthy writer , not able to record the connections that made history visible.” It had even before the very darkening in the gardens Quennar had known he was not a crafter of stone and iron or had a fire burning inside of him. He had never been proud to be Noldo in the first place. Now he was just part of the Laegrim. “Each youngster thinks this, part of being young, the admiration for the elders above. It is the lack of years in life experience. Just as you expressed yourself,” said Quennar convinced. “It has nothing to do with background or pedigree, or the flow of Ainu blood in your veins, you are equipped with a better voice. It comes from listening, observing and taking notion what happens around you.”

Quennar fell silent to arrange his thought, adapting to what Keijo had asked. The moments had been on another continent, in other times, in another life actually. Or so the mastersmith thought of it. Very distant memories he never told about. He had given the Laegrim a lot, such a lamps created from starlight.. They were used in the underground chambers of Aegliraind. The focus was on Keijo and his skills what he could mean for his own people. In two eras he could write as many works as Quennar had. He sipped from his drink and viewed the other across the table. “Your people too woke once in Cuivienen and branched off from the followers by Olwë on the journey west. His brother Elwë ruled in Beleriand. Both were from those lands, and left by the summons of Oromë. Only Olwë’s little group reached the Valinorean lands and dwell still in the seatown of Alqualondë. They are the Falmari, people of the waves.”

[The Good Hunter]

(Within Same Timeline as Quennar)

Origins. Keijo, as young as he was, didn’t think about the origins of his people much. They existed, had since he was born, would continue to exist, grow, thrive, endure, and persevere. It was difficult, if not impossible, for someone immortal and young, to comprehend that things have a beginning as well as an end. The present, for all its difficulties, tribulations, exaltations, and triumphs, took up far too much time.

And yet.

The longer Keijo listened to Quennar, the longer he actually listened the more he understood the wider scoop of the world around him. Naturally, it would not take more than a single conversation with a stranger (as wonderful a stranger as Quennar had begun) to fully shift the axis of comprehension, but the tectonics had begun their slow procession nonetheless. The man before him was ancient, true enough, and had seen, experienced, and forgotten more things than Keijo could imagine, but with that age came perspective, something Keijo found himself lacking as the conversation went on. For a singularly terrifying heartbeat, the vast universe unfolded in the linda’s mind. The true age of the entire world and the slow progression of time, the vast immensity of history and his tiny, pinprick moment within the tapestry crashed into him like a great white bear. For an elf, insignificance is a petrifying prospect. His smallness in regard to the universe frightened Keijo. What was his confidence to the slow crumbling of peaks older than the concept of elven song? What were his thoughts and hopes and dreams compared to the true depths of the sea?

He felt the blood drain his face. He took in a breath and held it, not wishing to interrupt Quennar or bring his sudden discomfiture to the forefront. He took another sip of tea to cover. The warmth felt good. Keijo breathed in the steam and felt a little color and life return to him.

“I recall,” he began as Quennar finished, “hearing stories about how we came to the northern lands, separating further from a group of those already separated. The story seems to depend on who you ask though.” Keijo chuckled. “My great-grand father was there and he told me it stemmed for an argument about whether or not to try to go north to avoid certain things in the mountains. Others have said it was purely prophetic, dreams and such. Some say the Ocean Vala was involved somehow, guiding us to the land beyond land and sea. There are songs sung about the crossing of the great white desert, but there is little in terms of a concrete beginning. I suppose, when I return home, that will be my task. I shall speak to as many people as I can and, like a puzzle with innumerable pieces and strange shapes, create something like the truth. Perhaps that is a worthy goal. I suppose it will take more than just speaking to the very old folk as well. I wonder….”he trailed off, his eyes shifting east before he paused altogether.

“I wonder if I could retrace their steps…” It was an idea, a seedling of one at least.

[Aikári Salmarinian]

Loremaster Quennar Tarcelmë

(Time TA3015 with Frost)

Keijo filled in where Quennar had quitted to talk and processed of just the few things the loremaster had just told about. It couldn’t be that there were no tales that a people not guarded and shared, if precious stones. Even it was passed down orally and not in written form, it was still a part of their past. Each version of the total story was slightly different. But all put together a whole picture emerged. More memories flooded back to gardens that not existed in the form as they once were. Nienna was his biggest source of information, but a wide variety of other faces had given their visions and opinions on the musical cords once woven. The young days had been mindboggling, but so the old days would be too.

“The ocean Vala is not else than Ulmo, lord of the waters,” nodded Quennar with a faint smile. The one Keijo’s people could have met, was a horserider and was known under a north-Sindarin name. “Have your people met a hunter, by the name of Arum?” asked the loremaster casually. “A quiet sort of man, bearded possibly with a spear and horn and rides a white steed?” The man was an inconspicuous person, if he wanted to be. He had the power reshape a continent if the man wanted. The Calaquendi, the light-elves of the west, had a rivalling power that the Maiar had, and lady Galadriel was a living testimony to that.

Keijo would have a task to find out. He sounded pretty sceptical, but Quennar was much lesser about the elves than about the mortal kinds. He was convinced that Keijo would find many stories, sprung from memories by those long living. Often there was a gap between the old and young. But if the young asked, the elderly would oblige. Young elves had an unquenched thirst for knowledge. Keijo had many it too. “Their traces can be retraced. It is the power to ask,” nodded Quennar. The immortals had great memory. He didn’t think it would be much of a problem. Mortality was not their enemy. But the snowelves could feel different about it?