Parnard

Laurelindo left Estarfin's rooms as another healer arrived. He went straightaway to replace the stock of rapidly diminishing draughts and salves. However, he was momentarily distracted while working, a mistake even healers in-training knew the danger of, and what was bound to happen, happened. He cut his finger on the jagged edge of one of the vials of sleeping draught. 

"When did I break it ?"

The snow white petals of her royal roses cuddled the tip of her nose as she inhaled their lofty scent. These had always stood apart from their more colorful brethren - not as heady in scent, but still retaining the elegant integrity of the rose. Danel's instructions on the scents of Thargelion came in good time, just as the edges of her lavenders and herbs began to crisp and dry.

Lilleduil pulled the silk gauze from over her eyes, since she was safely under the cover of the trees, and looked up the hill at Akûltot.  Yes, the goblin settlement had spread further than the border she’d noted the last time she’d been up here, creeping like some leprous fungal growth down the slope.  The goblin activity was subdued in the bright daylight, but there was still some bustle in the camps.

A comforting sense of forgetfulness was draped over him like a shroud; drowning out all fears and all questions in a warm and dark embrace. Yet it was not a sense of peace that filled his limited perception, for peace is a state of being that is dependent upon the existence of another, alternative state. Without war or conflict what meaning does the word peace have? Perhaps then oblivion would be correct; an absence of all sensation except darkness. Although despite the emptiness around him, not all was still and silent.

Hir Parnard,

Talkale looked down at the white parchment stretched upon the teak desk in front of him, wondering to himself if he was following the proper course of action. His intentions were good and he had already raised the matter once. No action had occurred, so further steps were needed. Such were the burdens he shouldered and at times they could become wearyingly heavy. Rolling his head from one side to the other to stretch his neck, he dipped his quill into lavender ink and began to write in his usual beautiful script.

***

Lord of Bar-En-Vanimar Anglachelm,

Dolthafaer frowned down at the map spread across his desk, brow furrowed, restlessly drumming his fingers against the smooth wooden surface.  His gaze swept over the inked region of the Hithaeglir, returning again and again to the red splotch marked on the top right corner.

That is where Estarfin went, Parnard had claimed.  To the Goblin Caves.

Miruial crept into the healing room on the soft padding of her thin periwinkle slippers. The scene before her was clearly the cause of alarm among the steady stream of healers who had come to her at her workshop that day. Glass jars and phials that usually stood at attention in neat orderly rows on their shelves stood in haphazard locations all throughout the room. Several balls of parchment paper lay littered at the base of the red table, where Eliriael sat poised rigidly.

“She cannot be consoled!” the first had announced.