We rode for what felt like just an hour or two, and then we stopped, I figured maybe to rest. Then my blindfold were being taken off. The first thing I noticed was the sun was much lower in the sky; it'd felt like only a few hours but it'd been most the day. Then my jaw dropped.
When I'd first seen Imladris I felt like it would take a minstrel to describe it, and if that were so for Imladris, it were a thousand times more so for the city we was now in. Calling it a city is wrong, though. It were more like a garden the size of a city, but not like any other garden. Sure, it had hills and paths, streams and gentle waterfalls, flowers, fountains, and over all, trees, the grandest, vastest trees I ever seen. Trees taller than Bree-hill, trees what if you put one in the middle of the Mark you'd be able to see its crown from either end. But still, it were more than a garden, on account what been done to the trees.
In and woven through the trees were something as I come to realize was the city, with avenues and homes and markets and workshops and all manner of other things a city needs, but it didn't look like a city. It didn't even look like homes. I seen a house built up in a tree in the Mark, and it looks like a house that someone set in some branches. This were something else. What I first took it as were jewelry. It was as if the Elves saw these mighty, glorious, golden-leafed trees and thought to make jewelry for them, not to add to their beauty and majesty, but just to sharpen it, enhance it, the way jewelry on a pretty girl don't outshine her beauty but just helps you see it the more. And when they finished making the trees as pretty as their finest crafts could do, they just lingered there, and came to live in the adornment they'd made, only on account it were too pretty to leave.
None the Elves what had found us out by our camp were there, but there was a fair-haired Elf-maid what introduced herself as Trevadiel what were waiting with a smile to greet us. "It is my pleasure to welcome newcomers to Caras Galadhon, rare as it is!" she said. I thunk to myself, though I didn't say it, that it's only rare on account they are so strict as to keeping folk out, and how easy her duty must be, waiting long times atween when she got to do it. But she were so friendly and welcoming I didn't think it very long.
First she led us around and atween and beneath adorned trees to a stable, or at least I come to realize it were a stable, but it didn't got the normal stalls or barn, or even a roof. The horses mostly just kept together, not so much for the benefit of the stable-keeper as for their own sake, since horses are happier in the company of their own kind. Ours went to join them, and partake of fine oats and clear water. As oft afore, I felt sorry for Rascal not having any of his own kind to be with; he always stood patient with the horses, but always felt like he didn't fit in with them. I started to tell the Elf-maid that kept the stables about how goats are kept, but she stopped me. "I am familiar with the care of this sort of creature," she said, tight-lipped, and I only nodded.
Trevadiel were telling us to take what we needed for the night, so we did so, and then she led us up the hill. "We have a pavilion we keep for guests that are more comfortable on the ground, in which you may take your rest while you stay with us," she said. "When you have had time to get settled, supper and bath-water will be brought to you." She led us up to the top of the hill, on which stood the tallest and grandest of all the trees, whose roots gripped firm at the whole of the hilltop. The pavilion were a great open tent, airy and bright, though it had no furnishings other than benches in it; we had to sleep on our own blankets as we had the rest of the journey, which seemed odd, considering how courteous they was in all other ways as hosts.
I wondered what she'd meant about bath-water, but after a bit, Elves come in bringing two great tubs of some shiny metal, maybe brass, full up with steaming-hot water, along with soaps, and set them out in opposite corners of the pavilion. As there weren't anything within the pavilion to offer any privacy, me and Miss Adri had to just make a point to look the other way. I weren't sure how a hot bath would feel, but after a few minutes, I decided, when I get back, I got to get me one of these wash-tubs. Don't know where I'd keep it, but it'll be worth it to figure that out. The hot water and soap felt so good, especially after weeks of travel, I didn't want it to end.
They also brung us a meal made of roasted vegetables, all different sorts of them, most of which I didn't know what they were, but they went together perfect; and the thinnest slices of meat, heavy spiced and ever so tender, of a sort I couldn't tell for sure what it were on account of the spices, but might been some kind of pork.
The weariness of the day started creeping in on me as I set the plate aside, but rest would have to wait. As the sky purpled in the east and the darkness crept westerly over us, stars coming out, the jewels that sparkled on the edges of the platforms began to shine and twinkle as if they wanted to dance with those stars. Voices rose in song, first a few, then more, above and around us, and it weren't like they'd planned a song together, each voice -- and later, lutes, and pipes, and drums, and horns -- came in on its own, but somehow found a place to come in with its own song that fit with all the others perfect and proper. I didn't know what the songs were about, but it seemed like it were something felt as deep in the hearts of the Elves what sang them as anything I ever felt, and more. "I wish Beoda had been able to see and hear this," I murmured. "I'll never be able to describe it proper." I stayed just outside the pavilion a while listening before I finally let sleep take me, full of dreams of the stars.
