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Blessed be the day when the mayor of Formenos had suggested building a proper hospital 150 years ago, nearly at the same time as Himring became a national park. No more unsafe days-long, or even weeks-long travels to the hospital in Nargothrond prior to the trailway being built, no more long-distance traveling doctors who had the nerve of demanding payment when coming too late to do anything for a sick or injured patient. Even the local shamans and healers had seen the usefulness of a proper place for medicinal treatment where they too could help out if needed.
“Honestly, those city people are really clueless about how to treat wild animals with respect!”
Even though she was quite old for a nurse working at the Formenos hospital, Ioreth knew many locals by name or at least faces from her long time. And today, she was tasked with checking on someone who was not that comfortable in crowds.
“Good afternoon, Adar, I hope that you were having a good journey here?”
Adar was a member of a Silvan tribe living outside the northern edge of Himring National Park which was quite weary of tourists from the south, due to a rather ugly history of the natives of Northern Valinor being caught and enslaved by unfriendly soldiers and traders from the south who came there on orders to find “exotic” servants for nobles and others with a lot of money and no fear of getting caught as a slave owner.
“Yes, Madam Ioreth.”
Despite following his tríbe in being weary of southern people, Adar had still chosen to train as a modern soldier and witnessed the social unrest of Eastern Middle earth about thirty years ago. Having been diagnosed with PTSD at his return alongside a huge number of orphans that he had adopted, outside a few physical scars to show what he had dealt with, he still came here on regular check-ups to see how his health was being looked after and if he needed more help in everyday life.
“How are your children doing those days? Having come to view themselves as full members of the tribe since most of them were quite young when you brought them here to Valinor?” Ioreth asked as she checked his blood pressure.
“I would be alarmed if they had not done it in some form after this many years, and it is not like the tribe elders forbid them from performing their birth faith despite that I showed up without warning with all those children.”
Adar had more or less literally brought half a orphanage with him home, after that a bombing had ruined the building and many siblings risked to be separated from each other if going to other orphanages.
“It is true that not everyone may be a suitable parent, and that some people should not become parents at all for various reasons, but I think it was a noble deed of you to take all those children with you despite how it caused some problems down the way.”
He narrowed his eyes, not at her words but in memory of why he had acted so.
“They were all without mothers and fathers, or left there by poor relatives who were already having a lot of children themselves and unable to feed another mouth in the household. The orphanage staff was few in number, and could not care for everyone when they had to spend months in the hospital for injuries after the bombing. which thankfully happened when nearly all the older children was at the market place to help buying food and a few other staff members had brought most of the infants and toddlers to a adoption center for registering them for international adoption. Sometimes adoption is the best answer, over foster care and other systems where a child risks to face harm.”
The tests showed that Adar was in good health, and Ioreth reminded him about having a therapy session next week.
“Nienna may be young, but she is a natural at this thanks to being the sister of two local shamans.”
They spoke a little about the wildlife in the national park, and cases where modern humans showed that sometimes, they literally was too stupid around wild animals and nature to become parents to the next generation.
“It is like Mother Nature trying to tell us that noooo, modern life is NOT better than how our ancestors lived, for they often depended on Her goodwill for a good harvest and knowing how to be careful around even domestic animals for survival. No one wanted to be remembered as the fool who lacked common sense in getting away from angry oxen or a spooked horse pulling a cart!”
Adar laughed, remembering how tourists sometimes tried to show off skills that they actually did not have. As long as there were few deaths that could be proved as “caused by lack of common sense among wildlife” as Judge Thorin Durinsson called it whatever he had a such case in court, the national park was safe from idiots who wanted to shut it down on the grounds of learning about a tourist getting harmed by unpredictable behavior of a single animal.
“True enough, and Formenos would face a lot of unemployment if the national park was closed for that sort of idiotic reason. I am working with the park rangers after all.”
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The national park was part of how Adar kept his PTSD somewhat under control. Just to be out in nature, and knowing that it was the same sights that his ancestors had witnessed, if not quite the same lifestyle, was a balm on his spiritual wounds out of the trauma as a soldier.
“May you forever be protected by those who care for nature and the life of animals, Himring.”
He could hear it, almost like a song carried by the wind from the mountains. A whisper in his soul that if he wanted to avoid modern life, the landscape here would always welcome him, on their terms that was best to know.