Tyelkormo's Great Escape by Aprilertuile  

Tyelkormo again

The night in the grove had been enjoyable. The weather remained steady. The air was cold, but the sky was clear, with no sign of rain during the hours of Telperion.

He also met a chatty mouse that told him tales of what lived out there.

Alright so mostly about the danger of owls and wild cats but… It was cute and good company.

To be fair, most animals made for good company, as far as Tyelkormo was concerned, far more than elves.

Come morning, when Laurelin started to awaken, the steady weather changed: now there was a drizzling rain that looked like nothing but would drench everything quickly enough and it was freezing. Not enough to risk the life of a healthy elf, but still, it wasn’t enjoyable.

Tyelkormo picked up his bag, and contemplated leaving the grove. The weather was absolutely dreadful. Did he really want to go walking under the thin icy rain?

Meh, not really.

But did he want to take the risk of being found here shall his mother become actually resourceful in tracking? Certainly not!

He sighed, said goodbye to the mouse, and left.

There were priorities in life…

The weather certainly was playing against him. Still he remained careful to leave not a trace behind. And even in its dreadfulness, the weather brought a certain charm to the landscape around him. The sky was that strange goldenish grey that storms always brought in Valinor, but still rays of Laurelin reached through the rain, Through the cloud and fog in interesting rays of colors that reverberated on the mountains around.

It accentuated the shadows, making them seem larger than they were. It seemed to oddly accentuate the seasonal gloom that some elves seemed to feel for some reason. The only gloom he ever felt in Winter came from his mother’s persistence in trying to push him to find a wife, and it was certainly not weather-related, so he didn’t quite understand those elves.

People could be just too complicated for him at times.

Overhead he saw a bird of prey flying. It was circling around something. Tyelkormo had a vague thought for the poor animal soon to become dinner for this predator. But so was the life of wild animals. Predators too needed food to live.

Tyelkormo missed the moment the eagle plunged on its prey, it just disappeared from his sight.

The air itself carried the scent of water, of ice, and of woods. Something chilly, and something old. He would feel very small in front of the harsh nature around him, if he wasn’t so used to this feeling, running with Oromë.

The Vala himself was so foreign a being that standing next to him was like standing in the middle of a storm, lost in a dark woods filled with predators and prey and never knowing which was which.

And well… Being one of Oromë’s Hunters, albeit newer than most, meant he had his fill of ending up alone in forests and mountains, hunting predators gone wrong, and strange giant spiders that seemed to leak in from somewhere far south, for some strange reason.

He walked, and walked, for days, until he found something that… was oddly convenient for him, but hey, he wasn’t going to cry that he found an empty cave, near a flowing and clear river bed, in the middle of a somewhat poor forest of pine trees, now, was he?

The cave was not all that deep, but good enough to keep him safe from the elements. The stone was hard and dark, its floor was stone, but also covered in dirt.

Tyelkormo observed it quietly, looking for any trace, any hint that the cave was used by any sort of animal, but there was nothing.

He wondered briefly what was the catch, but shrugged. Nothing too bad seemed to be going on around. He didn’t have the feeling of warning he learnt to listen to with Oromë’s Hunt so…

He set up his camp for the night. For now he’d try to remain for one night, although he hoped he’d find he could spend the winter here. It’d be honestly ideal.

Going further north might become a problem soon, and he was far away from any village by now: to find him, anyone would have to even start by finding his tracks. If anyone managed, they deserved to find him, he guessed.