[piosenniel]

Pio turned down the lamps and leaned back in her chair. ‘Let me tell you a little of my childhood.’ she said, speaking into the darkness. Her voice was low, her words clear as she gazed on scenes that came bidden now to her mind.

‘When I was little, just six years old, as I recall, I lived in a very beautiful place. A place filled with the music of waters pouring over stone, the music of many fountains. It was a hidden city. And its King thought to keep all safe within the vale surrounded by the Encircling Mountains. Ondolindë was its name, The Hidden Rock, Gondolin, in Beleriand.’

‘But there was one who betrayed the city and her people into the hands of Morgoth. And he sent his minions against us, and so great were their number that the city was destroyed and the King killed.’

‘I was separated from my mother by the cruel events and taken under the protection of the King’s daughter, Idril. She had planned long in advance for escape from the city, feeling that it might meet its doom when Morgoth turned his eye on it. When Morgoth was at last overcome, and Beleriand sunk beneath the sea, Idril sent me to foster among the Teleri, my kin, along the Gulf of Lhûn.’

‘This was a time most dear to me. They took me in as one of their own, teaching me to love the sea. A child of Ulmo I became, skin brown from the sun, my arms and legs taking me far into the currents and deep below the glassy surface of the water. I reveled in that freedom, and often, I have found myself wishing I could sink again into the salty arms of the waves.’

‘Those were simpler days, among the Solonelli - the Surf-singers, the Fallineli - the Foam-singers. For these two words were the names the Teleri gave themselves. The harmony of their voices and the graceful rhythms of their movements adding truth to their naming.’

‘And now I have you here before me. A young woman who hears the sighs and murmurs of the waves on the shores of the Middle-earth, and is pulled irresistibly toward them. And in her pocket is her mother’s shell hair clasp, made of mother-of-pearl and bearing an inscription in Telerin. “Fallinel”, it says, “foam-singer”.’

‘Elven blood runs strong in you, Laurialassië. And judging by your mother’s clasp, it is Telerin blood. The sea calls you to make the choice, as all those of the Firstborn, the Eldar must do. To answer the call and return to the West, along the Straight Path above the Bent Seas, to Tol Eressëa and the Undying Lands, or to remain in Middle-earth.’

‘You have come from Rohan and now find yourself in the Shire. Your feet travel the Great East Road, though the direction which you follow is westward. Should you travel further along this road, you will come to the Emyn Beraid, the Tower Hills, on the western boundary of the Shire. You can climb them and look on the distant seas, you know.’

‘And down from the hills, you will come to Mithlond, the Grey Havens, to the harbour of Círdan, a lord of the Teleri. This is the place where the Elves sail from, those who leave Middle-earth –to “the white shores and beyond them a far green country under a swift sunrise”, called West by a “sweet fragrance on the air and . . . the sound of singing that (comes) over the water.”

‘It seems to me you are bound for the Havens, but what happens, once you are there, is left for you alone to choose.’

Pio sat quietly, having said all this, remembering her own time in the West. Laurie would speak when the questions came to her.