Reunion

For a long moment, Thannor kneels there upon the pale shore, his head bowed.  His heart and mind are too full for words.  He is here. He is finally here.  The vigil has ended...  So, he remains kneeling, trying to gather his whirling thoughts, and sinks his fingers into the sands of a land that he knows will someday be called 'home'.  Just as Eryn Lasgalen was, aye, and just as that wonderful kin-home became.  Suddenly, a sound reaches his keen ears, above the hiss of the tide or the call of unfamiliar birds.  Footsteps on the sand...  Just one person, moving lightly.

"Belegurdaer?"

The breath catches in his throat.  There is but one who would call him by that name...  He knows that voice, even after years beyond counting.  He will always know her voice.  Slowly, as if in a dream, he raises his head.  His blue eyes widen as he drinks in the sight of her, the breeze whipping at her dress and long hair.  She is not as she was when last he saw her, but hale and whole and so beautiful he knows no words in any tongue to do her justice.  She smiles, her face lit up with joy, and he feels like he has given her his heart all over again.

"Hissaeldis...!"

The name he has not spoken in years beyond counting leaves his lips.  And suddenly, the spell is broken and they are both rushing across the sand.  She flings her arms around his neck; he catches her in an embrace.  She laughs as he lifts her off the ground and twirls her in the air, and it is the most wonderful sound he has ever heard.  He overbalances and they wind up lying in the warm pale sand, laughing and weeping all at once, holding on to each other as if they'll never let go again.  After all, death cannot stop true love.  All it can do is delay it for a while.

(...So, this thingamajg is the result of a lot of Dr. Pepper, Twizzlers, having The Princess Bride on the brain, and wanting to write some Thannor/Merilwen fluff.  :3)

The Man from Afar

Let me tell you of a man I met once long ago, in a faraway land under a tent of gold and rose. Sit down to feast, all that may, the company is fine and the time right for play. We ate and laughed, and drank our fill. Many men, altogether then, but fierce and few their thoughts that hour. How strange twas the evening, tell me lass, when three maidens fair sat down as guest. Whisper lads, how strange that hour, when on the war's eve they dressed in gown and face of sour. Who was it then to ask or wait, ne'er the forks to be lifted from the plate. Men of great and glory reckoning, sat all aghast, and none dare stirring...

~Taken from Maeflower Tooke's book of Tales and Adventures

Tyrral Ezekiel Jones

"I am one of the King's champions. There is no land too distant, no expanse too wide, no chasm's depth too great that would prevent me from answering the call of my King. - Nay, not even should I be called to travel from here to the stars would I be kept from His service."    

     ~Tyrral

  When the call goes out that the land where a man was born is in need of him, will he not leave behind all that he owns to go to its defense? Or will a loyal son wait a day to consider the plea of his mother, before he comes to her aid? Nay, he would not, and neither did I when the call came... 

I sojourned from my home faraway, coming as a stranger to my native land, here to aid the people lest they fall to the encroaching evils at hand. 

In my own land I have seated with captains and kings, and dined in fine halls and luxurious palaces. Here, I feel I am neither a complete stranger nor a regarded friend, and my welcome has been most suiting in that respect. 
Captain Naumran has remained optimistic of our endeavors and precarious acquaintances, all of whom seem to be of... different and varied ethical origin. Nonetheless I come not as a judge to uphold or condemn, rather as a soldier whose place it is to defend without question or cause.  

I know not how or why General Mountainzephyr has chosen his current company, whom oft between one another is used the word "kindred", though there is nothing to relate them. But as I have known little of the General, his comings and goings, save the power he wields on the battlefield, I cannot say it is either odd or irregular. Though I must admit he has been strange for his kind since the day I met him. 

I recall that meeting with some fondness, if only for the comical first appearance of one I have now come to esteem with highest regard.
 On that occasion there was some trouble in the Riddermark involving the passage of orcs in lands where they were most unwanted, and I, along with few of my men had come to aid in the campaign. 
I recall we had encamped on a hillside somewhere in the Norcrofts with the intention of keeping our enemy between us and the great wood of Fangorn, wherein none of the foul creatures dared venture.
 
 The morning of that day, the sun had risen in such manner as would surely see victory in the coming hours, for it shown brightly. The smell of hay-straw growing in the farmer's fields was thick in the air and strengthened the hearts of all our men, for in their minds were the thoughts of home and the vision of women and children going to and fro amid the wheat. Greater cause has no man to go to battle, than the thought of his wife, children, and kine all peaceful in the safety of secured lands.
Yet, for me, no greater motivation came than that this was a good day for battle, and under the blue sky, a great day for glory! 

The captains of the Rohirrim had gathered to the tent of their council and I was shortly to join them, but I was that morning standing with my men from out of Gondor, as we pleasantly related to each other the promises of the day and the hope for finer meals. When then to our eyes was met a most curious sight; A stout, bearded man leading a great steed, and alongside it, a much smaller pony. 

I took him almost immediately for a manservant, and I wondered where his master was, for I desired to see by his attire  from what land the nobleman had come to aid us in this battle. Surely, thought I, the grey-dappled mare he leads has been bred for war by one of the Masters of the Riddermark. Little did I suppose however that I was then beholding the man I sought, and lesser still did I suppose that I looked then upon both a Dwarf and a General. Imagine then, my great astonishment, when in the next moment I should discover my folly...

"Whose man is this?" Said I to one of my men.
"My word, I daresay it is a Dwarf." Said he to me. 
"Not a Dwarf here, surely,"  I returned.
"A Dwarf indeed!" Said the Dwarf himself, and he stood before us without the least shame. Then to silence any further argument on our behalf, he commanded the great horse to kneel (which she did most willingly) and before our eyes he mounted as well as any horseman might. When his steed rose in the next moment the Dwarf looked down on us, and I would have been surprised to discover I had not shrunk five feet in his shadow. 

"Now then," said he, "I see there are lilies growing in the mire and the frogs are fit for catching, but boys are not for battle and neither men for the mire."

In that riddle that he later proved, I was to come to understand how greatly the General was esteemed in countries where his folk are seldom seen, as was on that occasion when I watched him lead against the orcs and drive them out from the lands of the Riddermark.

  Little did I think then that some years later, while traveling to join the King's campaign in the Reclamation of His Northern Kingdom, I should once again find myself in General Mountainzephyr's service, and come to know something of his history and the people who look to him as leader and friend. 

Concluding, 
~Tyrral Ezekiel Jones.