The warm afternoon sunlight glinted off the gossamer tresses off the young woman who walked the path leading away from the Greenway Road, just north of Bree-town. A small hollow lay ahead, tucked between sheltering hills, and shaded by ancient maple, oak, and willow. As she drew closer with a slow but determined gait, her head dropped forward and bowed towards her chest. How out of place she looked! With her pale locks, milky flesh, and midnight-blue eyes, and her youthful figure draped in the dark, earthen color of her homeland.
Thoughts lay heavily on her shoulders. Thoughts that she had not been to visit enough. Thoughts that she had no real reason to visit at all, when his body was not laid to rest here. Thoughts that she had an obligation to come anyway. Thoughts about the young figure in the Prancing Pony who had assaulted her mind and heart with unexpected and unwanted grief, and had set upon her this unyielding feeling that she needed to see the place again. To touch the cold stones and think of the past, even though she didn't want to. And most unwelcome of all, thoughts that the powers that be had conspired to draw away those that might have cared for her, having deemed her unworthy.
Yet it seemed dishonorable, somehow, to think of her own self-pity in this moment. She passed the small stone wall and turned to step carefully and reverently through the scattered headstones. A large and shady tree loomed ahead, and beneath it was not a carved slab of stone, but a humble cairn of rocks, perhaps knee-high. It was here that she knelt in the lush, sun-dappled grass, and reluctantly laid her gaze upon the mound.
A gentle, warm wind danced through the hollow, tousling the rippling river of her hair. A finger lifted slowly to draw away the wayward strands that played over her eyelashes, cheeks, and lips. Seconds ticked past, and she did not move nor speak.
Minutes became an hour. The sun moved lazily through its cerulean field overhead. The graveyard remained as it had been. And the young woman did not move, save for the subtle rise and fall of her shoulders as she breathed. Birds sang in distant thickets. Butterflies flickered around the overgrown hedges near the stone wall. The boughs above whispered and swayed in the wind.
It was not until the afternoon had worn on, and the sun was just beginning to lower in the sky, flooding the fields with a richer, deeper light, that she stirred again. Silently, with her head still bowed, she placed a soft kiss to her fingertips, and then touched the topmost stone of the cairn. Then she stood to her feet and turned away, making a careful path back through the cemetery.
As she passed through the gateway, a sharp, chirruping sound arose from the encircling wall. She turned to look, and a tiny, brown and white shape flitted past, twig-like legs dancing over the craggy rocks. Unaccountably, she thought of her deceased love, of how he might laugh at the sight and make some quaint remark in that Bree-ish manner she had loved so well. The thrush twittered at her again, then darted up into a nearby oak tree and bent his eye to watch her.
She had very nearly turned away and continued back towards town, when something else caught her eye. A splash of white at the base of the tree, and the glint of sunlight off something shiny upon the ground. Curious, she stepped through the grass and approached the oak. Once she was close enough to see the object more clearly, her breath caught in her throat.
An old helm sat there, rusted with time and exposure to nature's influence. The grass was trimmed short, and wild weeds seemed to have been kept away from it. But most striking of all was the ring of delicate, snow-white blossoms that formed a ring around the helm. Reluctant to believe it might be what it appeared, she crouched down and bent low to examine them more closely.
Simbelmynë. Evermind. Her chest ached with a sudden pain, and the world seemed to go silent for a few beats of her heart. She had never seen it growing outside the Mark. She had scarcely seen the blossoms at all after leaving Rohan, except for a rare gift from one who had traveled there and brought it back with them, dried and preserved in its frail beauty. Ever she had been taught that it only grew upon the graves of her fallen kinsmen. How came it then, to be here? And whose was the helm?
A fingertip brushed over the slender, white petals of a blossom, but she did not dare pluck one to take with her. Instead, she lifted her head and gazed up at the oak tree above. The dappled thrush sat there still, his song now hushed, his black eye bent upon her.
