From the time she could swim strongly enough to reach it, Hidhuinen had been a favorite refuge of Lilleduil’s. After the rather trying events of the afternoon, she did off her fine clothes in her room, put on her favorite comfortable ones, and found her feet taking that path again.
Taking off only her boots, she plunged into the pool. Holding them awkwardly above the water with one hand, she swam to the tiny island. It was the work of mere moments for a trained loremaster to dry herself and her clothes with conjured gusts of hot wind. She reflected on the many times she’d shivered in damp clothing here as a child and smiled at the recollection. For a time, she’d even kept a change of clothing here, wrapped in oilskins and shoved beneath a bush, until her mother had wanted to know where they had gotten to.
Her mood soured, however, as she mounted the rock and climbed to the top with the surety of one who had done it countless times before. The view about her was still as lovely as ever, but the recollection of how she had behaved in the Hall of Fire was anything but.
Nothing like letting the Lady Elisbeth think you’re a hobbit-loving, pipe-weed smoking party girl, who armors herself against the encroaching Dark by sucking down the Old Winyards by the barrel!
Elisbeth was sharp, with an eye as keen as any eagle. She’d been quick to pounce upon any weakness Lilleduil had shown, quick as a lynx outside a rabbit burrow. It was not entirely the interview Lilleduil had expected, and she’d been a bit rattled as a consequence.
Though in truth, I suppose that it is meet she should be thus. She leads us, and it is her duty to hone us into weapons.
To have been tapped for the Warband was a thing of terror and wonder and delight. Contemplating whether that tapping might have been a mistake was a thing of dread. Lilleduil sat down upon the warm rock, then laid back upon it, hands behind head, eyes closed against the brightness of the afternoon sun. At night, this place was like being at the bottom of a bowlful of stars. During the day, she’d spent endless hours watching the clouds make shapes across the sky. The familiarity soothed, and eventually led her to thinking about the parts of the interview that might not have gone so badly.
At least I stood my ground. There was a time when I might not have. Which was hardly proper behavior for a scion of the Noldor, and would have disappointed her father immensely.
And Lord Khalis seemed not so bad. I had not expected to find him so…merry. Khalis had seemed rather amused by the whole business. He put her in mind of Lord Elrohir in that regard.
She lay for a time, simply absorbing the warmth of the stone, metering her breathing, using the disciplines she’d been taught to control her gift to settle her mind.
An eagle screeched above. She knew that call and smiled, unsurprised at the whoosh of wings but moments later. A shadow passed across her eyes, then there was the muffled sound of back-winging and the slightest scrape of talon upon rock.
“Hail, Lintroval!” she said politely, eyes still closed.
“Hail, Storm Caller,” the eagle responded in his tongue. After a moment, he added, “I spied a wyrm sunning on a rock. A tiny little wyrm.” Lilleduil stuck out her tongue and he screeched again in what passed with the eagles for laughter.
After a moment, she rolled back up to a sitting position. “How have you been today?”
The eagle had an air of sated well-being about him, which he confirmed with his words. “I am well. The air is clear, the currents are strong and the hunting was good.” Lintroval cocked his head to one side. “But you seem troubled. What has passed?”
Lilleduil drew her knees up, and wrapped her arms about them. “I met the captains of the Warband this afternoon. I fear that I did not impress them much.”
The eagle considered this for a long moment. Of all of her friends, the eagles were the ones she could come closest to discussing abstract concepts with, but she wondered if she might have exceeded his capacity. “Fledglings seldom do,” he said at last, proving he‘d understood what she was saying.
“Are you still calling me a fledgling, after all we’ve done?”
“To them you are,” Lintroval said simply.
“Fair point,” Lilleduil conceded. “I just don’t understand why I mess these things up!” she continued in frustration after a moment. “I talk to Hobbits, to Men, to Dwarves, to all my wild friends. Why can’t I talk to my own people? I grew up with them!”
“But you didn’t talk to them when you were small,” Lintroval pointed out. “You were too busy talking to us. And as for all those other two legs…you didn’t talk to them either.”
Lilleduil glared at the eagle. “What do you mean? Of course I did!” She was held in high regard in the Shire, in Ered Luin, in Bree, in the Lone Lands, in Esteldin, in Thorin‘s Hall. Even here-in other quarters than the high command of the Warband. How could Lintroval say she had not talked to those people?
“You did not talk to them,” the eagle asserted once more. “You would go to a place. They would say, ‘Storm Caller, there is this bad thing we can’t kill. Would you kill it for us? And we would go and kill it and you would take the burnt meat back and they would be happy. Or they would say, ‘Storm Caller, there is this treasure we have, that was carried off by bad things, would you fetch it back for us? And we would go and kill more bad things and bring the treasure back and they would be happy with you. But not because you talked to them. Because you hunted for them.”
The problem with eagles, Lilleduil reflected, was that they were truthful to a fault. And they expected truth in return.
“All right, you’ve got me there,” she conceded. “But what do I do now?”
“What do you do when you study a new wild creature?” the eagle asked.
“I watch and I listen to learn its ways.”
Lintroval ruffled his feathers and shook them, then bobbed his head once. “Exactly! Beak closed, eyes and ears open. And until you learn their ways and words-let your hunts speak for you.”
“Deeds not words, heh?” she said with a rueful smile. Lintroval leapt up onto her knee then, startling her into sitting up. They were rarely this close. She could feel the weight of him, surprisingly heavy for a creature that flew, smell his feathers. The grip of his talons was carefully metered. They gripped strongly enough that the tips pierced the fabric of her leggings, but not her flesh.
“Deeds not words,” the eagle agreed. He cocked his head to one side, regarding her with one gleaming amber eye. “Remember, Storm Caller. Eagles do not answer the calls of those who are unworthy. You hunt well-for a no-talon two leg.“ His beak swiped her cheek, a rare gesture of affection that warmed her heart. Then he jumped back down, hopped to the edge of the rock, spread his wings and flew. To Lilleduil, it seemed that many of her cares flew with him. Her heart lightened, she settled back again to watch the clouds.
