North and east with the elf beside me. Fate and fortune rise about me like the dust on the road. Here I ride, back into the north, the occasional wind chill as it blows from the further northlands, off the snows. Across the lands once enlivened by long forgotton Fornost. Even as I ride here, my linnet will be preparing her flock for its journey to scrabble about the ruins, inspire her to sing a new tale of Arvedui.
Dust rises, is taken up by the wind and shivers in the air before being swept away. A drab bird flies quick, dropping from the sky and into a half-dead bush, clacking its alarm cry as we ride into sight. Sparrow. Sparrow on my doorstep with a tale of Arvedui's dead ship, embalmed in white, held afloat by ice. Was it a true tale, or merely one spun to catch my ear before I left Bree? Had she heard a song from the innocent lips of my linnet, already dreaming of the doomed king? But story enough for me to sit and be entertained as she waved a worthless elf-bauble before me. Did she think I was a newborn child, to try and fascinate me with a glittering toy?
Better for her was her naive attempt to be both lad and lass. A pipe and a big hat is not enough to disguise what she is from me... I scent beyond pipeweed. How one takes a glass, how the lips themselves form to enfold the wine. Would you place your own lips there ? - your own lips tingle, they know a lad from a lass.
Slowly then, they come. Little birds with chirruping tales, hoping for breadcrumbs. Sparrow and linnet, falcon and magpie. And one eagle ... perhaps, with pinnioned wings. Perhaps he is, and mayhap not. One hopes a magpie can winnow true silver from worthless scrap.
