I. Seen

The Ring of Power approaches, borne by a Halfling, a trivial race – untraveled and uninformed - but doughty, I am told. Hobbits, they call themselves. But I did not see the bearer of the Ring - only the jewel itself - radiant circle of white light, entrancing and perilous as the nimbus of an occult sun, larger than could be carried by Elf or Man. Slowly, haltingly, it makes its way through our forest.

The Ring… nearly a thousand years have passed since I last considered it, yet it assails my senses now as when its power was new to me, and I feel its ascendancy once again - the more so as it comes within my reach. I had abandoned hope of such a chance and finally even convinced myself that such hope was foul, a sign of the Ring's aggression. Now, I am not so sure. The Ring's shape alone - unadorned, unflawed - inspires thoughts of healing, peace, joy unending… dangerous in the hands of its dark lord's minions, but upon the finger of a handmaiden of the Valar?

I envision little else besides the Ring, though at times only its heat, its glow. And that is enough! Never in all my years battling its maker has it been so near - a profound evil of compelling beauty and promise, potent as the snow cast bud.

Indeed, the Ring has haunted my thought since I learned of its possible reappearance nearly a year ago, in scant hints and cryptic rhyme from the Grey Wizard. Then, in the biding of the last Hunter's Moon, word reached me from Elrond of Imladris – the briefest of messages: 'A halfling has come, bearing the one which was lost. Nine have sought him.'

The One, the ruling Ring, had it returned as the Mithrandir suspected? The Nine, the Enemy's most deadly henchmen? Were they held at bay? Who was this halfling? So I pondered.

At length, Lord Elrond engaged my thought again, telling of a council that convened in his halls, where Mithrandir recovered from incarceration at the hands of Saruman - the White Traitor. There, the One Ring's end was decided upon and a halfling of the Shire was chosen to carry it to its unmaking in the Black Land of its origin. Mithrandir would lead a small convoy to support him lest we make of this innocent an utter sacrifice.

In awe of this decision, yet I must not doubt it. We of the Eldar have learned from the Wise and through bitter experience that the Ring's very existence would threaten all we hold dear should it surface again upon Middle-earth, and so my own mind has been aligned. Golden autumn days drifted into winter and I have been at peace, resigned to what fate awaits us.

Until a fortnight ago, when a scout intercepted a rider with news that Elrond had dispatched the Halfling and his burden with a small company at year's waning. Then a rare foreboding seized me. Indeed, my heart was so wrung with unease that Celeborn sent runners to the northern reaches of Lorien from whence I felt presentiment. Not long after, a report came that a small party of men and children hastened this way and even now traversed our border just north of the Silverlode.

'The guard will handle them as unknown trespassers,' said I, then took leave of my maidens to find sanctum deep in the dome of the wood. Only young Tyriel caught my eye as I turned away, a look of worry upon her face. I managed a consoling smile before succumbing to somber thoughts as I passed among the pillars of the thickening forest.

There, where oak and mallorn part briefly around a carpet of grass, at all seasons new green, I descended a stair to a mossy grotto where stood a carved basin of still water. A dove alit upon my shoulder and the rush of a small freshet made quiet music as I considered the reports. The approaching band was not as it appeared. The small ones, surely not children – no more than their taller companions, compared with the Eldar - could be these strange half-sized Periannath. In which case, this is none other than the company of the Ring. Moments later, what I discerned in the basin's levels – the advancing wheel of gold - made me certain.