It rarely snowed in Emyn Muil, not even in the cold heart of winter, when the temperature often dipped below freezing at nights. It was always rainy and windy at the shores of Nen Hithoel in the winter. The wind howled like an army of barrow-wights and shades of the unquiet dead as it blew coldly among the ancient ruins of Amon Hen. The sky was filled with ominous, leaden clouds as the pallid days came and withered away, each day exactly like the one before. The nights were long and starless, for after each sunset a gray veil of clouds rose up from the east, beyond the lake of Nen Hithoel, blocking all the light from the stars and the moon.
Delioron had dwelled in these ruins for almost two months now, since late autumn. Like a lighthouse keeper he had spent his days among the crumbling, ancient ruins in perfect isolation, taking care of the watchtower and his horse. Every day he would climb atop the summit and sit on the Seat of Seeing, hoping to see a glimpse of a boat on the back of Nen Hithoel. But every day the surface of the lake remained calm and lifeless.
As the days passed by in isolation and mind-numbing monotony, Delioron had started to move slower and slower each day, like a sleepwalker. His life had turned into a string of routines for his body to remember, not his mind. Sometimes he would catch himself having long conversations with himself out loud. One time he had burst out laughing for no reason at all and unable to stop.
He had numbed all his senses. He did not expect anything to happen anymore. He had stopped keeping count of days and weeks.
He was not sure how many days or weeks ago he had thought for the first time that perhaps the boat would never come. That Parthadan had lied to him. There was no mission at Amon Hen at all, nothing for him to do. They just wanted to get rid of him. He had pushed his luck one time too many, broken the unspoken rules one time too often. He had become an embarrassment and a liability to the Steward Denethor and Parthadan, so they had sent him here because he was not welcome back in Gondor anymore and they just wanted him to disappear.
Perhaps Delioron was supposed to sit here at Amon Hen until he finally figured it out himself; that he had nothing to do here, there was no mission, no boat would ever come and he was free to pack up his things and travel wherever he wanted to go, as long as he did not ever come back to Gondor again.
