The Dread Fall of the Shadow

Wrapped in the winds of the world, shed of all but the illusion of flesh, the Herald of the Breath of Arda would sigh, if he could.  Invisible to the World of Elves and men, he trails behind the most unusual pair who walk --Blessed Eru! Oh so painfully slow.  Covered in his airy blanket, Eonwe is surrounded by all that rides the wind, smells and sounds, and most especially, the voice of a most petulant Istari.

 "I am hungry, too, Oromë," Alatar speaks, and turns his head to address a tiny creature nestled in the folds of his voluminous cloak. "But you know what Eonwe said, and we all know how late a start we got.  And if only that cat was not awake when I flew in through the window to open your cage."

A mouth Eonwe has not, given up all but the sheerest of material form, but still the ghost of the sensation of doing just that comes automatic.  Nerves that do not exist create a tic just as nonexistent.  Eonwe pulls at the energies about him, clothing himself in flesh just...just enough to affect the physical if he so chooses, and understands, now, with perfect clarity, why mortals grind teeth and clench jaws.  Frustration, yes, frustration. This is truly what the Children of Eru feel, at times...with willful younglings.

Frustration, yes, frustration.

Alatar was speaking again. “I don’t miss Eonwe’s …” Alatar pauses…”fussiness. Yes, fussiness. It was all, ‘And my Lord, the Breath of Arda this’ and ‘The Lord of the West that.’ Well, we are Istari, you know. We can move at the speed of the wind if we put our minds to it..."

Then, DO IT! thinks Eonwe, and with a low growl, Eonwe wraps the wind tighter around him and then sends it rushing up behind the slender, dark haired wizard.  He whispers to the wind, low, weaving it about the twists and turns of the air itself.  "Then, oh, mighty Istari, be light as the air and fleet of feet, as OUR Lord commands."  

He whispers to the wind...

Alatar whips his head around at the wind's approach and says, "We’re going, we’re going.  No proper lunch, I’ll thank you… EONWE,” he frowns and pouts, “but we’re going.” He turns back around and hurries to catch up with Pallando, huffing.  

The Herald feels the ghost, for that is all it could be in this form, of a smile play about his lips as he folds his arms across his chest, and is surprised to feel a small satisfaction as both Istari hasten on their way.  Eonwe stops and watches as the two move much quicker toward the forest ahead of them.  Then, he turns and lifts himself up to the sky to speed quickly back to his Lord's side.   

But then he feels it. A wrongness in Moire Taure. A disturbance, a pressure, a darkness that seems to swallow the forest from its very center out.  There, There, where the sylvan elves have settled, far, deep in the woods....

 “Orcs,” says Pallando, the other wizard, standing there on the trail beside Alatar. “Orcs. In the forest.”

Eonwe floats there, a moment of indecision. Instinct screams to the wizards' side, and the warrior in him near does so. There are Orcs, here, where none should be, and as he hears the anguished screams of the First born below, feels the souls, torn violently from their bodies as the Orcs reveled in fire and slaughter, he clenches ethereal hands in rage.  He reaches out  to feel the mind of the two below. Wizards, Maiar in the flesh, and he feels the anger rise like a long sleeping beast in Alatar. The Ithryn Luin can do without his interference.  Turning now, a growl rising like gorge in his throat, Eonwe speeds home, to Mount Taniquetil in Valinor, the most sacred of places. Home of Manwe, Lord of the West.  Already in his mind,  he is forming the words which he will lay before the feet of the Breath of Arda.

"Now, my Lord, comes the dread fall of the shadow of Evil, once more upon the world of the Children of Eru. There are Orcs where none should be."

"There are Orcs where none should be."