Tales from a campfire In Between

-This is a soft place?

-Not the only one. There's a few thousand square miles of Central Australia, a couple of Pacific Islands, a field in Ireland, an occasional mountain in Arizona…

Neil Gaiman

The borders of reality shifted as they left the Forest of Fangorn. What should have only been a day's ride to the city of Edoras, the seat of the horseman's realm, was lasting far longer and the remainder of the Fellowship found themselves out on the vast plains of Rohan as night fell.

The stars came out and there was still no sign of the hill or the Golden Hall. To the east and west was only flatland, the soft green grass that covered all the ground. To the North…

"Look," said Legolas. "A fire!" And without additional words the weary band turned around headed together because they had been traveling as a group for so long that certain thoughts did not need to be uttered. As they rode nearer, the fire became a small spark surrounded by a tinker's wagon and two figures, one playing a strange instrument, and the other sat by the fire attempting not to burn something.

"Well, if this is a dream that still doesn't explain why you don't have any marshmallows in that wagon of yours," the four heard a high female voice say. Whatever else she might have added was cut up by the sound of their own arrival. The pair stood and waited for the riders to say something.

"Greetings, we were not expecting to find anyone on the plains of Rohan save ourselves. Do you not know that orcs patrol these lands unchecked?" said Aragorn from the height of his horse. The musician mused a space of time before speaking.

"Rohan? My." replied the man. Standing he was of medium height and build, his hair shone like a dull copper in the firelight. The shadows danced on his breeches and tunics, making a night's forest out of their browns. "And the young lady thought that this was Tir Na nOg. But please, forgive me for my rudeness. Come share our fire for the meadows are strange tonight and phantoms haunt the hills. I at least am real."

"Oh, and I suppose that the other on isn't?" asked Gimli.

"No, she is but a dream, something my sleepy head has conjured up, much like yourselves."

"We are no dreams," said Gandalf. "But in good faith we will share your fire for it would be no good to let travelers come to harm, even if one is not real." The wizard dismounted from his unearthly white horse and let the majestic creature roam freely. The ranger tied up the other two horses to the wagon, next to the tinker's own pony. They stood uneasy as the breath before a thunderstorm, and waited, eyeing the illusionary girl and the musician.

"You may call me Gandalf," the wizard said after a time. Tonight his radiant robes seemed to cast his own light rather than reflect the fire's. And the strange calm became more natural and peaceful, like the breath of a rainbow after a heavy storm.

"I am Aragorn, son of Arathorn. This is Gimli, son of Gloin and Legolas of the woodland realm." he introduced. To the strangers' eyes each was as separate as the seasons. Aragorn dressed in a ranger's dark clothing and carried himself with both regal assertion and the desire to fade into the shadows. Gimli was despite -- or because -- of his short stature proud and uncompromising. He was a beard, a helmet, an axe, but all well taken care of. And Legolas, who was everything Gimli was not: tall, graceful, and fair, looked in his green clothing like a child's version of Robin Hood.

"I'm Taliesin," their host said. "And she claims to be human, but I rather doubt it with such a tree-ish name. Please, sit. Marshmallow?" The man produced a packet of big marshmallows. Each person around the campfire took one to be polite.

"I'm Ashling Derowan, perfectly real and human despite what he says. Although if you believe him, not only am I not real, but a dryad," she said. "He also says that he taught Merlin and that is why he doesn't like my name." She wove around the marshmallow as if each stab in the air added extra punctuation to her words. Her ash blonde hair was pulled half up as an attempt to keep the strands out of her face. Pieces of it still fell in front of her blues eyes. A cream-colored sweater type jacket kept the chill, although it was open revealing a curiously cut black shirt. Her pants were made of a heavy canvass type material and were a dark, deep blue.

The members of the Fellowship looked at the two and waited to see what they were to do with the soft bit of food they had taken. Taliesin carefully ate his, while Ashling impaled hers on a stick and held it over the flame until it was lightly browned. Then she put the browned puff in her mouth and went inside the wagon because Taliesin had asked her to get graham crackers and chocolate since she at least was inclined to make s'mores.

"Y'know some meat would be nice," Gimli said. He eyed the white confection with wariness not believing that anything that was so unnatural could be edible. Even the elven way bread look as if some hand made it. Ashling bounced out of the way with an armful of bags and boxes, and placed them near the others on the ground. She dug out for herself a box of crackers and chocolate and listed off other things for everyone else including a string of sausages and a bushel of potatoes. Everyone took something and ate grateful for the substance except the elf who sat before the fire, but didn't partake of any food.

"So, my friends, what brings you out here?" Taliesin asked.

"We might as well ask the same of you."

"I have already promised the girl a tale of my own. What else is there to do in a campsite? And my friends, you do seem to have an interesting story, for what else would bring an elf, a man, a dwarf, and a wizard to the Riddermark." he said.

"Is that another name for this place?" Ashling said.

"No, it's not."

"Oh, I thought that we were still in Ireland."

"In a way we are. You see many things can happen in a dream. I can talk to my student's jail, and we can sideline people on their quest."

"The house?" Gimli asked, referring to the wagon. "You talk to your house?"

"No master dwarf, but I can talk to her. For my pupil, Merlin will one day be imprisoned by the sorceress Vivian in an Oak tree."

"But he's imprisoned in a cave," Ashling protested.

"All the heroes are sacrificed to trees in some fashion. Dionysus, Odin, Christ, Balder."

"I do not believe so," Legolas added in. "More that trees are sacrificed to men. I have never seen it otherwise. But the forest is used for fires and for houses, and often without thought of what is being hurt." He stared at Taliesin with a glare that would have melted cold iron as he tried to get the man to admit that he was wrong. Taliesin only took a sausage link and skewered it before cooking it. The air became quiet as if listening to what the bard would say next.

"You think to make me wince under that gaze, elf?" he said as the fire crackled. The glow about him increased to almost infernal proportions. "I will not apologize if I offend your wood elf sensibilities. I have faced and challenged the devil himself, and his stare is one that even the mightiest would shudder under." The company lurked in time until a moment later when biting into his sausage brought them out of that spell and into another. "Since Ashling was niggling me before to explain how I became 'Merlin-the-greatest-wizard-that-ever-was's' teacher, I might as well begin our night's entertainment."

The moon was beginning to travel over the meadow, and those spirits who were too good for hell and too evil for heaven stopped their mischief to listen. The fire crackled and the food was set aside and Taliesin the bard began his story.

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Disclaimer: despite how much I would like it, most of the characters and places are not public domain, and won't be for a very, very long time. They belong to the Tolkien estate. However, Taliesin has long been a character that has been used and abused for centuries. Ashling Derowan is, despite her claims, a figment of my imagination.

The next chapter will contain references here and there to the characters you all care about and (with any luck) not just the ones I've thrown in for my own amusement.