Acquainted With Grief

You felt her before you saw her. She’s not one of your normal visitors. For a moment you thought she was Gandalf. Olórin. He’s Olórin here. For a moment you thought she was him, but when you turned to her you knew you hadn’t met before. Yet she seemed familiar.

“May I intrude?” she asked.

You stand and bow. “Forgive me, lady. Of course.” You pause. “I don’t think we’ve been introduced. I am—”

“Long have I known thee, Frodo Baggins,” she interrupted gently. She cast back her grey hood, and you saw her smile and her neverending tears.

Treasures In Paradise

Sam got the letter in November, but it was May when the visitors came. The Men stopped just outside Buckland. Merry was hosting them. But the Elves passed on. It wasn’t as if they never did so anymore. The Road passed through the Shire, the Road into the west.

But his guest wasn’t going West yet.

“Am I bothering you, sir?” he asked the tall figure standing by the mallorn tree.

“By no means,” was the reply.

Sam shared a glance with the Elf for a moment; then Celeborn nodded, and both gazed past the sunset, thinking of their treasures.

Small Talk

“The sea is quiet today,” said the Shipwright.

Merry nodded. “Some debris though.”

Cirdan agreed. “A strong current that rises from the warm seas far south gentles our nearer shore,” he said. “Oft it brings storm-wrack.”

“Ah.” Merry nodded again. “This year’s harvest?”

“Kind as last; and yours?”

“Quite good again. We had a bountiful crop of barley, among other things. And the herds. I brought some fine wool with me.”

“Indeed.”

“I’m always glad to visit,” said Merry. He checked the grey sky. “Well,” he said, smiling and bowing at Cirdan. “Until next year.”

“Until then,” acknowledged the Shipwright.

The Falcon and the Oliphaunt

They came to the spring to feed their little ones. They were all cows, only about half as large as the bulls brought to the Battle of the Pelennor; still they towered twice above the thorn-bushes green in winter wet. An aged matriarch led them thence, and stopped and stood and watched the wind while her daughters and their children drank. He caught her eye; he must have; she made as if to trumpet. But then perhaps she thought otherwise, and looked kindly on him as he crouched there: a hobbit far from home.

Slowly she sang, and Pippin smiled.