The foliage is beautiful today. Yet it sings its beauty to me each day, even in wintertime. Autumn has come and caressed her fingers over the countryside, quieting the activity, soothing anxious creatures; the sun plays upon the autumn trees as firelight upon mightily wrought armor. As the silent wind sifts through our hair, so it does in our spirits…

I step to a tall tree, dark in its bark and life force, and press a hand to it. It knows I am here. As beautiful as it is, it is dying; we both know it. It drops a few red-golden leaves over me and offers shade with its many arms; warmly I accept, keeping its leaves in my hair and leaning against its body. A doe with her child steps close, nuzzling the ground as the fawn-deer nuzzles her underside. I will not aim except only with my eyes. Time is at peace with my and my kind- so it shall be with the deer. I stretch my hand, and the doe allows me to touch her. For a moment my fingers feel fur softer than any leather or velvet my own could procure. There is a glimpse of white tail and backside, and fawn black eyes – and they are off.

I feel the quiet breeze fill the crevices of my dress and garments and cloak, and realize it has grown stronger. The leaves make absent my hair, and cascade to the ground. I choose one, changing from gold to red, and place it in my satchel – the cloth-makers could use it for pattern.

Though my eyes close, my ears stay open…I hear the light voices tarry and rival the emotion of the wind. Bird songs they are to me, quick and fleeting, beautiful to witness but all too brief.

Fly with us, Cuthalion! Run with us, Strongbow! they say.

Quickly I rise and join them, staying their hands and bows and flying with them, letting their laughters surround my heart. For the tree that gave me shade has died; the last leaf has left its branches. I will take it and use it, and forge many a mighty bow for them all, and one for myself. The tree will bear a legacy. It is black yew-wood.

We spar and aim long. I do not grow tired, but perhaps in spirit.

Leave me, Elflings, I say. Find your arrows, practice more, think of the Lady Maiar. The Strongbow is old; let him rest.

They laugh, saying that I could never be old. I do not see them for the rest of the day and night, though I hear their chime-like songs whenever the wind casts again. Little how they know me.

I do feel “old”, though not old as of Men. Doriath and beyond to Beleriand I know within and without, every tree, all regions, each area. Long have I spend underneath leaves and stars with my brethren, far and absent from the warm halls of Lord Thingol and Lady Melian. And longer have I spent alone with myself and without companion… and discovering myself as lonely.

Yes, I come from a long line of ancestors that has spanned all of Arda and time and lived before the Sun arose and the Moon followed her. And the court of Thingol is aloft with strong and gentle kin I have known since my first days, warm with the hearth and love for each other.

Yet…

I feel a foreshadow in my soul. I cannot see what lies in the future, but I know that things, events, wait for me.
I sit back against the dead yew-wood and dwell upon these things.

Praise to You, Illuvatar… what do You have for me? Why do I fear?

for previous adventures of the Strongbow, try here if you wish.