Menellótë Silosse and
Erfaron Sílûgnir
Come to pay a call in Combe
@Purrmonster of Doom
As dawn unfolded lazily into the day to come, it was something else besides the sun though which rose up over the horizon. Combe had seen it’s like before. The horses were not particular. The cart was properly typical of any local farmer, else performed expertly in conveying that impression. The inhabitants of said cart were not quite so easy to overlook.
The debate had begun some days before, when the lonely road they travelled first began to feature others, others who were not as they. Greater wisdom might have been employed in disguising their features, but there, the people of Combe were like to view the strangers with greater suspicion, were there attempts made at veiling their faces. In the end, the pair of outlandish visitors had elected to show their true form, and have those who saw them, stare. They had grown accustomed to being awarded stares. One elected to soundly discourage the practice, by leaping from cart to road, and reaching for the closest tool at hand to make a .. lasting impression. The other spoke but a single word, and saw him stay his sword, at but her say so. And if the one had a reputation hereabout, the other who would wield such a power would assuredly ever after. They two had never travelled together along this road. And so those who beheld them stared. And he did glower ever more at the reasoning. And she said no more, for she had not the need.
Erfaron would rather be anywhere else. His mother knew it and had not wasted either of their time with asking him to tend this errand. Instead she had declared her clear intention to manage it herself. A cunning feat which immediately saw her son striving for causes to be found too busy to keep custody of
Herumacil in her absence. Swiftly he had proclaimed the roads far too dangerous for his mother to travel alone, and she had conceded, so that he could kindly be her escort then. Precisely as she had expected, anticipated, planned. Little time did the mother and son have in each other’s company these days. For she would ever loiter at the shore, teasing the sea with the thought of leaving .. while he avoided the coast for that same reason, and others.
Halyanis was far more accustomed to performing this annual feat.
Herumacil was, after all, her brother; whatever the state of his long addled mind. But the very recent troubles she had endured on the road, had convinced
Tirindo to keep his wife safe, and at home, at the least until she was properly recovered from her ordeal. Which meant that
Herumacil would not have his sister visit for some long time yet, and he would thus require more than ever, some means of recreation to distract him.
Hatholdir of all people had agreed to stay at
Silosse’s home, so that she and
Erfaron could ‘enjoy’ this rare time in each other’s company. The latter may have been surprised at his mother proving so agreeable, so trusting, of this rather infamous friend. But of course, in trusting
Hatholdir with
Herumacil,
Silosse could only be proved right, for either giving the MoleKing the benefit of the doubt, or for why her son should listen to all those who warned him not to trust that Moleking … so she won out either way. And he was all the more irked to recognise quite how well she had managed it all.
Elves passed through Bree of course, some upon their pilgrimage from Rivendell or further east to gaze from the White Towers for a distant western shore. Some had a habit of sharing skills with the Mortals, as their two kinds had once of old. But
Erfaron did not come through Bree if he could possibly help it. There were various outstanding warrants and allegations of vandalism after short stays in the Prancing Pony, for a start.
Silosse had been to Bree but once before; some hundred years before; to set in motion the very errand they were about, what had become an annual tradition for
Haly to keep up, sometimes with her own pseudo-son to keep company. But this time
Silosse deemed that the stars had shown their signs, and it was time for her to come this way again. All those as had observed her previous pass through, were bones now. And she had not took a ride with her son, since they had dwelt in Tirion-Upon-Tuna; when the world was still young.
And so he had kept her company, from so far away as Lindon. And they had camped in the last hem of the wild, just beyond the Great Bree Gate, rather than spend the night debating with Hill Watch over who ought pay for the last time the windows of the Pony inn were broken. But come the first moment they might pass through, still when most the town were not yet wakened to the world, the cart had ambled into Bree and the glances, the stares, had grown in number with the hours since. Of all that common steeds and bog standard transport might have dispelled rumours, the Elf’s surly expression more than compensated for all other tries at looking less alarming. The likeness in the physical colouring, between he and his unknown acquaintance, might have been less striking if they had not also bourne a certain similarity of attitude; a most imposing bearing and an almost apathetic mask of expression.
Silosse was little fairer in the delicacy of her features than she was less tall in stature than her son. Although she sat astride her mundane throne with a slight superiority of grace, it was clear she was not soft, for all that she seemed flawless. She looked not sweet, nor simpering, nor sentimental. She was composed, calm and dauntless. Her blue eyes sparkled like the faintest flicker of a distant star, and when her gaze raked even momentarily upon the bold Breefolk, they felt a windless chill embrace them, in the same refreshing manner as immersing their whole self in cold sea water under a deep night.
She was not beautiful, not in the manner of women that were considered such, ‘round here. There was a somewhat unsettling intensity about her, as though her shimmering silver hair, her pale skin .. it was not meant to be observed by naked mortal eyes ; and if folk stared too long and too hard upon her then they might be blinded. Her glitz and glimmer were as penetrating as a knife thrust through an unwary chest.
She did not present any sure indication that their intrigue bothered her the slightest, but her male counterpart stared for the two of them. He glanced back over one shoulder, defensively, at any fool enough to not flee, and he appraised then with a swift and none too lingering inspection, before apparently dismissing them as harmless. Many a young mortal released a small tremor of relief as he was liberated from that keen if passing interest.
The son's build spoke of no less athletic prowess as his parent, though the sinew of lean muscles were manipulated ever more pronounced, as though he might strike in a moment and a speed which seemed impossible. The anaemic Mole's countenance was equally as severe as his feminine counterpart, but there was something else that gathered in the thin line of his mouth, the promise of peril in his piercing eyes. They were lit by a more sheer blue than the lady, but the stare remained equally glacial.
Both wore an almost uniform garb of arctic purity, dusted from their travel as the sky is freckled by the stars. The clothes were an absence of all colour, almost erasing all hint of the two Immortals that were enveloped within it.
Silosse turned, as they rode on, incongruous, upon the country road, and spoke to
Sílûgnir in a tone like the lap of the moon-led tide. And she smiled in the silence after, even as he did not. And the unlikely replacements for the far more approachable
Halyanis came at last within the sight of their ambition. The house of
Faervelien
