A shiver passed across the world, as though the Golden Wood -- nay, all of Middle-earth and the sky above to boot -- were but their own reflection in the still water of the Lady's Mirror and a pebble had been blasphemously tossed into the basin, fracturing and distorting the vision.

When the strangeness had ended there yet remained a wrongness to the world, that the ever vigilant guards of Lórien felt in their bones as in their souls, being so closely bound to Arda as they were. Ever since the recent arrival of eight travellers -- one a stranger but a kinsman nonetheless, another no stranger but not kinsman yet, the rest each stranger than the last (yet none so strange as that ninth who would not come to Lórien again) their guard had been redoubled against the lands beyond, against orcs and wraiths and every evil creature that served the Shadow.

Now, the fair morning seemed tarnished and warped, as a painting upon a panel that has suffered from damp and time. The two seniormost of the border guard went on ahead, drawn to the source of the disturbance as though it were a lodestone to their souls.

When they found it, their hearts left them no doubt that here indeed was the cause of the troubling of their land, though their minds were greatly confused. For here was no Balrog, no dragon, no monster of days forgotten or yet unseen. Rather, behold! a maiden fair, fairer far in semblance than mortal flesh or even Elven might ever wear, and all unarmed, bearing neither mark nor token of power.

Yet nothing about her was as it should be: her features were Elven, if surpassingly fair, her stature was small and no soul-light shone to bespeak her fëa unto theirs -- yet what mortal, or being of any race, had that fluid gracefulness, so that she did not seem to walk as a thing made of Eä's substance, formed of flesh and bone and sinew, but rather as smoke curling upon the autumn air, or a strand of blood coiling through the water's flow.

And that hair! It, too, flowed about on the morning breeze like a raging fire sweeping across the sky, untroubled by tangle or twig, in a hue unseen in any creature born of Arda, nor ever reported of Maia or Vala. Lights shone in it, and in her uncanny raiment, like stars trapped and held captive yet struggling to escape, and the same lights flashed within the vast coronae of her enormous eyes. Her skin was flawless, translucent as wax, unmarked by scar or drop of sweat or any smudge of Yavanna's holy earth, from her stamen-slim fingertips to the swelling arcs left bare by the filmy garments that barely concealed the rest of her.

The two grayclad archers gazed upon her in amazement from the shelter of the branches before the younger, Rúmil, called out to her in Sindarin, and then in Quenya, "Halt! Who goes hither, in the lands of the Galadhrim?"

The stranger whirled, looking everywhere but in the right direction, and answered -- but not in any fashion comprehensible to the watchers. When the challengers did not reveal themselves, she began to hasten through the woods, (yet never stumbling, nor becoming caught by leaf or branch) and to call out again, questioningly, yet still in no words of any speech known to them. They followed her, through the boughs above, as wolves follow a stray deer wandering apart from its herd. Since they were Elves and in their homewood, neither they nor their conversation was the least bit perceptible to the intruding stranger.

"Is that the language of Men? It isn't orcish, but I don't recognize any of the words, and it doesn't even sound like what Lord Elrond's messengers were speaking." Orophin lifted one finger in a shrug.

"I don't think it's Westron, but Men have more languages than we. It could be one of the other tongues."

"If only Haldir were back! Now we'll have to follow it and watch it until he returns."

"I don't think we need to wait for him. How does the old saying go? 'Looks fair, feels foul' -- this has the Shadow all over it."

The woman-shaped being, still walking about aimlessly as though unable to see the woodland trail her dainty feet had crossed once and twice already, tossed her impossible hair in a very mortal gesture of anger and impatience, and began to sing aloud. If a flute should be carved of crystal, should be able to form words in its playing, such would the voice of the stranger have been: pure and unflawed, without the slightest variations that even Elven singers must make, when breath draws in betwixt one note and the next, or flesh changes to shape a sudden consonant. (And yet there was something disturbing and unwholesome in the thrilling sound, as though a sweet bell-note covered screams of torment . . .)

Struck by sudden certainty, Orophin tapped thrice urgently on Rúmil's shoulder.

"I know what it is. It's that creature from last night. The thing that isn't an orc."

"Stop that, will you? And I think it cannot be. Thranduil's boy said naught of it shapeshifting."

"Nor did he say it could not. He said it was beyond belief how hard it was to catch: surely that bespeaks some strange ability past nature. True, they are not as blessed as we, but still our Mirkwood kin are Eldar nonetheless."

"I don't know," Rúmil said a touch wistfully. "It seems too beautiful to be a creature of the Enemy, far less the frog-beast we saw at the tree." His brother scoffed.

"The Loremistress will be very disappointed when I tell her you slept through her songs. Morgoth? The Enemy? Unearthly fair -- more beautiful than the Lady even! -- appearing out of the wilderness yet perfectly attired, with neither horse nor servant to attend her, and hard upon the heels of the travelers from Imladris? Oh yes, I am sure she can be nothing but as good as her seeming! Someone surely left his wits back on the talan this morning -- I hope the night watch didn't tread on them."

Rúmil raised one pale eyebrow a bare leaf's thickness in devastating insult.

"Think you then that we should shoot it here, ere it reaches the City?"

"Nay, rather I think we should summon each and every one of our company to witness, and to consider, and hold counsel, and then each to cast a vote for aye or nay - after all are we not put here to let whatever pleases traipse the Golden Wood as it wills?"

Faster than mortal sight a green-stained arrow leapt from its quiver and flickered to lightly rap the archer's companion across his head before it nestled nock against bowstring. The swift arrow sang through the air like a bee and its keen head drove through the creature's perfect bosom without slowing and straight through, transfixing it like needle through silk. Whether it had a heart or not, they could not tell, for it did not bleed: it simply sank down, gracefully as a silken scarf cast aside on the breeze, and lay still as a gem cast upon the ground. Being indeed a phantom of evil and containing no soul, no fëa of its own (though the watchers did not know this as yet) the figure began to shiver apart and sift into the autumn grasses, returning its component elements to the Middle-earth from which it had briefly stolen them.

"Spiders!" swore Rúmil. "Now we have a blood-drinking ghost on the loose looking for a body. Ward yourselves, everyone," he advised the rest of their troop. "I go back to the City to warn the Lady and Lord of this."

"Not alone," Orophin declared. "You might be taken, lacking someone to look after you -- being so careless as to have left your wits behind this morning!"

But when they came to Caras Galadhon, their fears were taken from them by their Guardian's wisdom (or at least such fears as came from the fell thing that had vanished.)

"Do not trouble yourselves, my faithful guards," Galadriel said, smiling upon the brothers. "The intruder was no part of this world, nor bound to it, as even our Enemy and his creatures be. Its spirit was only a faint shadow of one who dwells far beyond the Void, and cannot remain here without great expenditure of effort. Yet you have done well to banish it, and done your part in defending our hope."

The Lord and Lady gave them their blessing, and sent them back heartened anew to their post at the frontier, and with them their older brother Haldir; yet upon them lay a troubling thought: for the Lady of the Golden Wood had at the same time advised them not to slacken their vigilance, and foretold that they might yet see many more of the strange beings.

And indeed, it was not but a few nights hence, when a shiver passed over the face of the moon, and a song of vile yet entrancing timbre threaded through the eaves of the forest and drowned out Nimrodel's soft lament. With a shudder the leader of the border guards arose and took up his bow, followed by his younger siblings.

Rúmil bent to the ladder, but Orophin still blocked the way, his elbows on the flet's boards. When the other gave him a querying look, he pressed two rounded beads into Rúmil's hand. As the Elven archer turned them over curiously, Orophin explained, "Beeswax and wool for your ears -- so you'll not be snared by its song again, O my brother!" and with that he quickly dropped down the rope web before any chance of retaliation.

Very soon thereafter the unearthly melody ceased once more, and only the peaceful sounds of Lothlórien were to be heard under the stars.

For a little while, at least.