Steadily they rode, stopping but a few minutes every hour to stretch their legs and give the horses a breather or some grain, and to take care of other needs, the golden-haired elf maiden in oak-leaf green and a tall man, travel-stained cloak of heavy dark-green cloth was drawn close about him. Grey-eyed, dark-haired, like lords in whom the race of Númenor ran true he was. Too, they stopped occasionally at streams to water their steeds and refill their waterskins, but in the main they rode steadfastly eastward.
Onward they rode throughout the long spring day, while the Sun passed overhead and then slid down the western sky, casting their lengthening shadows before them. Still they wended forth, the horses at a walk, moving easterly through green rolling grassland.
Many days they rode thus, the weather favoring them with clear skies and warm spring days and cool spring nights. And they spoke of their dreams and of one another and of the days to come. And in the nights the elf sang an elven-song in a clear voice and danced for her companion, her pale face was framed by calmness, and light of the stars. And she was amazed at the stature and the great limbs of the Ranger. For her, in the moonlight he looked as if some king out of the mists of the sea has stepped upon the shores of lesser men. „Stout man and lordly he is, and the men from Bree look almost as boys beside him”, she thought, smiling a little.
They stopped near the Weathertop, halfway between Bree and the Last Bridge. Then they traveled across the plains and dense forests for twelve days.
It was nigh noon the next day when Ranger led her in among the fair dwellings of the High Elves of Hidden Valley. People of the Stars looked up from whatever tasks they labored at, or from wherever they sat or stood, they smiled at the sight of the Man of the West and daughter of the forest. Sweet and sad were their faces, and their eyes had ever a joy within quivering to tears.
And for their part, Thindaer and Linglorel gazed about in wonder, for here was where Elven Folk dwelled. And everywhere they looked was grace and beauty and subtle color. The house of Elrond was a refuge for the weary and the oppressed, and a treasury of good counsel and wise lore, in the fair valley of Imladris, upon whose the stars of heaven most brightly shone.
