Shela burst into the tent breathlessly. "The company of elves, quick! Come and see! They are leaving!"

Haleth crouched by the fire, her arms cross over her chest. Stirring from her thoughts, she blinked up at Shela, feeling numb in both spirit and body.

"Haleth, is all well?" Shela asked, her gentle face twisting with concern.

Brushing away her heavy contemplation, Haleth stood strongly. 

"Of course. Only weary."

"Come. They are quite a sight." Shela held out a small white hand to her sister-in-law. "It will hearten you to see such beauty." 

Haleth took her bony fingers with an attempted smile. The girls rushed from the tent, following the scant crowd leaving the stockade to witness the departure of the grand company.

Shela and Haleth rounded the crest of the battle scarred hill, the bodies of their dead already buried and the mounds of slain orcs smoking in charred piles. The valley below where the elvish encampment had been was clean as though no one had been there at all. Shielding her eyes from the brilliant twilight, Haleth gasped. 

The company moved with utter precision, their dark banners catching the blood red light of the dying sun. Their armor burned cold like icy river water as they rode tall and proud on their fine steeds. Haleth briefly thought she saw one of the riders pause, turning his horse back towards where they watched. However, the moment passed and the elves were gone as swiftly as they had come.

***

Seven months later

"Dear sister." Shela grasped Haleth's hand, her gaunt face grey with childbed fever. A bead of sweat slipped from her hairline. "Tell me what you dream."

Haleth was choked by a sob as she dabbed Shela's forehead with a kerchief. "Dreams? What could you mean?"

"I mean what you see... for our people." Shela's eyes grew large as a tear escaped and slide across the bridge of her nose. "I wish I could be here to watch you rise. So bright. Next to my son."

Haleth wiped her nose with her sleeve. "But you'll be right there with us."

"Tell me what you dream."

Thoughts tumbled through her head. Haleth wanted to come up with an answer to appease her friend, her dead brother's bride. Her sister even. Shela gave a shaky breath. Haleth could feel her skin growing colder.

"I dream... I dream of tree tops burning red and gold with autumn." Haleth choked out, her throat throbbing. "I dream of children laughing beneath them, old women weaving and young men hunting in the shadowed eaves before dawn. I dream of a home that sings in our blood. I dream of your son as chieftain, his children afterwards leading our people in justice and peace."

"It's all so lovely." Shela's eyelids fluttered, her eyes rolling back towards the ceiling of the tent, firelight dancing off the canvas. "How I long to see these things."

"You will." Haleth begged for lies from her dying friend. "Just you see."

"You dream of someone too, don't you?"

"What do you mean?"

Shela opened her eyes once more, resting their pale blue depths on Haleth. "I've heard you breathe his name in your sleep. You can't lie to me."

"I don't know what you mean." Haleth found herself replying, feeling her heart close hard to the emotion. "Shela-"

"You will see him again." Shela lifted her hand wearily, letting the back of her fingers trail down Haleth's jaw. "Trust me in this. The Noldo will not forget your friendship so easily."

Haleth bit her lip, unable to deny the truth coming from the fading girl's mouth.

"I know you will see to my child, I have no doubt. I have never doubted you, my chieftain." 

Shela closed her eyes.

***

Seven years later

Snow had fallen deeply, gusting in thick drifts into the settlement of men. Though it had been a hard season, the people of the Haladin were hardy. They had built their homes from the earth, creating warm shelters of peat and clay that blended into the great green sea of Estolad. Their chieftain's home sat at the head of the settlement, only slightly larger than the others.

By the yellow warmth of a tallow candle, Haleth hummed a song that her father had sung at her own bedside. The child's eyes drifted shut. Haleth smoothed back the pale tuft of hair against his fair forehead. 

She smiled softly, thinking of how blue Haldan's eyes were when they opened. As blue as his mother's had once been. The child had also been blessed with her brother's dimples. 

Her nephew was her joy. 

Blowing out the candle, the room scented with the heady aroma of melting animal fat, Haleth carefully shut the cloth partition to their common room.

"The boy asleep?"

"Yes, finally," Haleth replied, approaching the fireside.

"You should let the lad play with his friends outside." Hagar lifted a brow at her, puffing on his pipe.

"Not in this weather," Haleth stated firmly. "He does not have the constitution for it. You know this."

Hagar stood from his customary seat by the wooden hearth and stretched his aging back. He laid a paternal hand on her shoulder. 

"Let go of your fear, chieftain. And let the child have some freedom."

Haleth wrapped her arms around her middle, not meeting her key adviser's gaze. "I will consider it."

"Please do." Hagar wrapped his cloak around his broad shoulders. "It will help him go down easier at night at least."

"That would be a welcomed relief."

Haleth followed Hagar out into the snowy night.

"You did not answer my question from earlier." Snowflakes dusted Hagar's silvery crown. "Haleth?"

Haleth shifted her weight, the snow groaning beneath her feet. "I need to think more on it. It doesn't need to be decided till springtime."

"It'll be here sooner than you think."

"I know." Haleth gave him a genuine smile. "Time tends to go by faster these days."

The years tend to be lost to me. 

The words echoed through the halls of her memory like a forgotten ballad. She shook the memory away and rubbed her hands together, blowing on them.

With a final nod, Hagar turned toward his own home on the edge of the village. Haleth stood alone in the snowy night. She turned her face skyward. The snow burned her skin where the flakes landed and melted on her cheeks. 

It had been seven years since she had taken on the chief's mantle. The same amount since Shela had died, along with her father and brother. Seven years since Caranthir had entered her life for such a brief yet poignant season. She was in her twenty third winter of life. She wondered how many seasons this had been for her long missed elf friend, if he could even recall the number.

She had not thought of him in a while. There was a time in her life when the elf lord's presence in her heart was as overwhelming as sunlight reflecting against snow. Though her duties as the leader of her people were always superseding, there was a part of her heart that remained private. That was where she had buried the memories of their life altering meeting. 

Though she had only been a girl of sixteen, Caranthir had left an impression on her that she could never fully understand.

Feeling the cold start to numb her fingers and toes, she turned once again towards the warmth of her small home.

Removing her heavy, woolen overdress, she wrapped a coarse shawl over the shoulders of her linen shift. Sitting by the fire, she pulled out her own pipe. It had been her father's when he lived. Before long, the spicy smoke of the dried leaves lulled her to a light doze in her high backed wooden chair.

A strong knocking at the door that disturbed her dreams of childhood. The visions of her father, Haldar and Shela's calm faces faded before her sleeping eyes. Haleth stumbled to her feet, realizing her fire had died down considerably. After struggling to relight the nearby candle, she stumbled towards the door.

She blinked in the faint light as she opened it to the harsh wind, her eyes barely registering what she saw. She held the candle up high.

"Well. I believe it is you."

Haleth's mouth dropped as she opened the rough wooden door wider. "You?"

Caranthir's gloved hand grasped her chin, tipping it back as he studied her in the faint light. 

"Yes. It is you."