Look at Éolan! – a young lass whose dreams and stoic perseverance are her weapon of warding off the darkness of misfortune that seems to follow and shroud her every step ever since the night of her birth, 2493 T.A. She is beautiful in face, slender, healthy-looking, green-eyed, her cheeks often rubescent, lips full and naturally pink. There is a small almost unseen beauty mark next to her left eye. Her coiffure simple: blonde hair reaching the middle of her back, with a braid or two to keep it tight. Her arms are long and pale, hands usually scarred by thorn, dust and soil adhering to her nails. Her ragged green dress covers her frame, a yellow horse skillfully sewn on it just above each of her firm breasts, and a leather belt to hold it. In her leather boots are tucked woolen trousers with a pocket on each side. Not rarely a lad’s eyes would follow her.
In her 19 years – for that many have passed since she was found screaming and bloody in a basket under the storm that beat upon Greenhoof, the mountain above her village – Éolan has worked as a baker with the couple who adopted her and raised her as her own, as a gardener for the neighbors, as a hewer of wood with the men thrice as hard and strong as she, as a drawer of water, as a horse-tender in stables, as a maid, as a cook’s apprentice, as a field worker.
Twice she broke her ribs, once her left elbow; countless times she fell and just as many she bled. She had a man she called brother in this world but she had seen him last before her breast grew. The kind man she calls father lost a hand to a wolf carrying her freezing infantile body to his home. The woman she calls mother suckled her from her own bosom and is now in tears with each dying sun for her firstborn.
She had never learned save from experience. She can neither read nor write. Her Westron is limited and broken, but she does not feel ashamed of it; her prejudices she does not hide, for her experiences is lacking in friendship with folk outside her village. She is cautious of strangers, yet soon friendly once names and stories are shared; she is innocent of many dark secrets in the hearts of men that Illuvatar did not intend, but curious to know the wishes and dreams of those who grow close to her; she is shy, yet speaks in words shaken by awe and delight when her muscles relax in new company, and listens carefully.
Joy she finds in finding herbs and brewing tea, in cooking and baking, and in watching the riders sweep across the plains whose trails she daily treads. She watches them fight and spar, and learns by observing. She understands cavalry formation and battles stances, remembers all the advice captains shout to their men. Of horses she is fond, and they of her. She learned to ride but never had a chance to own a steed of her own. Jewelry and pompous trinkets displease her, and so do the tales of evil sorcery and unnatural power she hears by the fire – she prefers tales of valor and wisdom of the ancient knights of the houses of men whose glorious deeds echo in tongues of their descendants to this day.
When alone, she clads herself in her father’s old armor, for he is a man of smaller stature than other of the Rohirric race, and his gear fits her perfectly. During rare sleepless nights, she swings his cold sword and ax in the woods, pretending to slay the phantoms who took her brother away. She then drops her shield and sits on a stump and watches the stars fall through her hair swirling in the nightly breeze. A torch on a caravan or a merchant’s wagon passes through the darkness, the sound of wheels an whistling wakes her from her fantasy, and she departs to her home and waits awake until the shrill cry of the cock sounds sunrise.
”Good, good! Assemble here!” Ofnir said as the gang members began appearing at the randezvous point. He found it appropriate to sit on a rock and light the little weed he had remaining, as if I haven't hand enough smoke for tonight!, he thought filling his lungs with the heavy weed smoke. With the first puff he wished for a passing hobbit merchant to ride in from the south carrying a satchel of the fragrant, dry weed just for him. It was actually not his favourite substance. He remembered how during his travels in the east, he and his brother -- who was not as fond of intoxication as Ofnir became -- came in contact with plants that would bring otherwordly experiences to those who chewed on them or smoked them. The spices and seeds of the east were in some places worth more than any dwarvish gem, and the use of them was wide: he met oracles and seeresses who prophesised and looked into the future of those who sought them, he witnessed men occupy the minds of their animals from snakes to elephants and control them, he visited temples to false gods wrought with magic where illusions materialised on the altars filled with aromatic dust. How far seemed the issues of the Middle-Earth in the warm lethargy of the desert and the steppe... But the Shadow always lingered behind him. Whenever he'd turned back to see the sun set in the west, its disc would fix on him like serpent's eye and then sink into the darkness.
He poked his horse with the tip of his staff and the animal stirred. ”You won't be moving far tonight, will you? Poor frightened beast.” With a sigh of a weak old man he rose and looked around. Hmmm... We should better make camp somewhere not too far away. Better to rest a bit than drop dead-tired tomorrow.
”Come down, Calariel!” he said looking up at her. ”I've got something for you! And for all you others, too!”
He brought out a pouch from his robe and shook it in his hand, making the contents rattle within. ”Gather around, gather around!”