Watching the fire devour the parchment in the same way a hungry dog tears into a meal after months of winter did little to stop the bile rising in his throat. Nimlachon leans back in his chair, holding the letter over the candle’s flame to let it burn. He stays in that posture, with his eyes glued to the flames until the very last of the letter fell away to ash.
Envandame… he thinks to himself, the contents of the letter still circling in his mind. You ask too much of me. You ask me of the cold and the snow as if it were not my own ire that kept me warm the last time I braved it.
Flicking away the ash from his hand, he rises. He abandons the chair near the desk, not taking the time to push the plush seat back in like he usually did. The candle is the only light in the circular room, save for the moonlight streaming in through the window above the desk. Boots kept pristinely clean sit by the door, and he picks them up and slides them on. He takes his fur cloak out of the wardrobe where he had put it aside after the previous winter once he had come through the mountains. There is a hesitance before he throws the cloak around his shoulders.
This is not going to be wise of me. I can feel it.
He slams the wardrobe doors shut and then pulls open a drawer of the bureau. Pushing aside gloves and gear, he reaches the place where a ledger once sat. The book is gone now, but he still reaches for something that has been left further tucked away, out of sight and out of the light of moon or candle.
He draws his hand back to reveal a silver ring, tarnished by time, and misshapen by a failed attempt to see it cast into a forge. Nimlachon twists the old ring around in his fingers, his eyes solemn as he remembers the old band. A heavy sigh passes his lips, and he then tucks it into the pocket of his traveling tunic.
Perhaps I am one of few who can understand your plight, Envandame, he thinks as he collects his bow and quiver, throwing both cases across his shoulder and back. Yet there some things best left where they are, dead and cold.
Another sigh as he presses open the door to his room to escape into the halls of Imladris, remembering the message he had given to Galtharian, and the gift he had left in the young Silvan’s hands to be delivered. Although his footsteps are nearly silent as he makes his way down the hall, the soft jangling of his jewelry is still a sign of the nearness of his presence.
And there are other things that were lost to flames that should not have been.
