Daegond II

Manadhlaer sighed, not for the first time that day, or that hour. She dipped her quill and made another attempt:

It has been widely known since the Elder Days that the sap of an unopened poppy...

Instantly she stopped and put a line through her words. "If it has been widely known," she said aloud, "why write it at all?" One of her delicate silken slippers, as light as an Elfling's first breath, had already gone. She kicked the other against the far wall of her office and began again.

It was not that, as she removed a stack of hairpins, Manadhlaer thought anything had gone particularly wrong at the Ball. Indeed, at times the dance-floor had been an impenetrable Huorn-forest of bodies through which she simply could not struggle hard enough to reach the other side of the room.

They say, Diary, that there is no fool like an old fool, and so I felt when -- having sent a panicky message to our Tûr via raven -- I discovered the source of the blood on the missing scribe's bed-clothes: a bat flew in somehow and chose to devour its mouse far from the hungry hawks -- indeed, hanging immediately above Sorontar's bed. A second search revealed tiny bones and, horrifyingly, the tail. 

My dear Merenellon,

I have only just received this letter by courier -- I have learned from the earlier incident with the postal courier, you will be glad to hear, and now no matter how much little Daegond barks, I have my mail brought to Pillar Hall instead. Cats do have a way of treating strangers with a sublime indifference of which my poor little anger-sprout is simply incapable.

Captain Sáranassë of the Order of the Arrow was many things, as she stood in Lady Manadhlaer’s office. She was tall, and fair in her austere way, and armored. She was a daughter of the Noldor, a creature of stealth and odd habits. She was a hardened warrior and a keeper of secrets. The one thing Sáranassë was not, by any means, was amused.

After her night in the Hammer Hall, which at the very least did her no harm, Manadhlaer had been whisked around the Vale to a dizzying variety of safe-houses. This bright, bright morning, Manadhlaer had taken her breakfast in the Hall of the Order of the Fountain. Where Hammer Hall had smelled like a soldier's armpit directly after a battle, despite the most heroic efforts of Lieutenant Ancalassë, Fountain currently smelled like -- well, soap, and lots of it.

Manadhlaer awoke in the dark, in more than one way.

Someone had thoughtfully tucked her diary under her arm. Had she a quill and ink? They must be in her pouch, if she could find it.

With infinite care, she put her feet -- disguised, as she had thought, in mismatched boots, which suited her sloppy grey tunic -- on the floor. She groped around a bit, head pounding; she tried not to move more quickly, lest she vomit again.

Arradril of the Order of the Arrow hooked a finger into the collar of her immaculate tabard, as though it were too tight. It had in fact been made to measure, to drape perfectly over the reinforced gambeson that Arrows wore in order to creep about the forest in silence. But Captain Sáranassë was, of late, insisting on visibility -- at least part of the time. So Arradril wore the indigo, inspired by Gondolin's House of the Swallow, and bore herself gravely when within the Vale. Most of the time.

This diary page is splotched with tea along one edge, but is perfectly legible.

Well, Diary? Can you believe it? I shall finally be having some company who is not coming to my door with an arrow in them, or bone sticking out of them, or spitting blood. That is, if he actually forgives me. I do hope the boy forgives me. Not everybody of my own kindred has had the sort of life I have led, and I need to be mindful of that.