Shadows - Horns of the West
A/N - Hi, it's Horns of the West here - originally Camel in the Arcti...meh, things change...anyways, here is my story, hope you enjoy it - for a more completed version please visit 1 - Aurëil
Strider pulled the hood of his cloak further down his face and hovered in the doorway. It was raining outside. A soft, silvery drizzle sifted down from the night sky, wreathing down around the roofs of the houses of Bree and hissing in the dying torches that lined the glistening cobbles. Somewhere, far off, thunder rolled. A gauzy mist clung low to the ground, curling up the sides of the tightly packed, half-timbered stone houses that arched over the streets, and rippling in the moist breeze. Thunder rolled again – closer this time, and then the eerie silence of midnight descended on the sleeping village. From behind the iron-grey clouds thin shafts of the moon's pale light broke out, spotlighting the roofs below. Strider shuddered in the bitter wind and a flower of cold breath unfurled from the depths of his cowl, hung for a moment in the cold air ere being torn away by the wind. With a furtive glance at the overcast sky above Strider ran out from under his shelter and disappeared into the sea of mist.
They called it the Old Forest, though its age far surpassed 'old', it stood on the borders of Buckland of the Shire, but once - a long, long time ago - it had stretched far over the lands of Eriador, even reaching so far as the forests of Fangorn. However, the decay of time and the destruction of industry had diminished it, twisted it into a place of hatred and mistrust where few dared enter. The woods hadn't always been this way, in times of old they had been a place of joy, Elves had walked there, singly sweetly on the evening breeze; the tree-herds walked among them, teaching and learning and shepherding their flocks. But something happened, something that none now alive could remember; a shadow had entered those woods, forced the Elves out, corrupted the trees, made them unruly and dangerous until their herders couldn't control them and they too left leaving the once great woods all but alone.
The young ranger came to a halt outside the forest, he looked up at the gaunt trees that loomed up into the tempestuous skies, he had been in there once in his many years and it had not been an experience he was in a hurry to repeat – but the answers he required were in there somewhere…
He scrambled through the brambles and half jumped, half fell into the woods beyond. There was already a chilling divergence from the word outside, the woods were deathly quiet, no rain or light fell within the tightly knit trees, the skeletal canopy far, far above was too dense. There was just a thin, shred-like mist that clung low about the gnarled trunks.
Lowering his hood, Strider looked around; tall, thin grass tickled his fingers as he walked slowly forward and vast, glistening cobwebs stuck to his face. He walked for three or four miles in silence, occasionally a crow would caw loudly overhead making him jump, but apart from that and the squelch of his boots on the sodden leaves he didn't see or hear anything.
It must have been three or four hours after Strider had first stepped into the woods, at first he thought that he was just seeing things – a shadow in the corner of his eye, but whenever he turned around to see if there was anything there, it was gone. He tried to ignore it at first but after about a half hour it seemed to be growing bigger and then disappearing ere Strider could see. The ranger knew he was being played with...
Once or twice he thought he heard footsteps to his left, sometimes to his right, but there was never anything there, Strider closed a steady hand around the hilt of his sword and slowed his pace until he was creeping silently along the leaves; in all his years of wandering alone in the wilderness there had been little that had worried him, but this shadow that dogged his very steps was making him anxious.
He walked on in silence, his hand now resting on the pommel of the sword strapped to his waist; he walked on in silence for an hour trying to the ignore the shadow that beleaguered him but its stalking was continuous and irksomely just out of the reach of his sight. The woods now seemed, if possible, darker than ever, whatever shreds of moonlight had pierced the canopy some while back had now all but disappeared and the trees now stood in an eerie half-light. And after another half hour Strider was forced into reaching for his tinderbox and lighting a torch to help him through the gathering darkness.
The mist that had swirled around his feet as he walked had thickened, reaching up to his waist, curling up around his arms and reddening in the ruddy glow of his flickering torch.
Another hour passed – maybe two, the ranger suspected that dawn would soon break, but within the dark labyrinth of trees there seemed no sign of light, he must have been wandering for a good eight or nine hours without rest and suddenly he felt very, very weary. He would have to find somewhere to sleep for a while but the forest all around looked unwelcoming and not to mention the shadow that was dogging his trail.
Strider carried on for another half hour, expecting all the while for the first rays of sunlight to break through the treetops – but it never did, if anything the place seemed only to darken and become colder.
Suddenly the ranger's senses peaked and he drew his sword in one fluid movement, the blade glowed red in the torchlight. There was something out there: he knew it, the shadow on the edge of his vision, the faint footsteps following…he wasn't alone. Lowering the flickering torch, Strider let his elf-trained eyes adjust to the murky dark of the forest, and looked slowly around.
"Aragorn…" Strider turned sharply…...there was a little girl. Pale and fair, but cold - like a spring morning still clinging to winter's chill, her long black hair reached almost to her bare toes and despite the coldness of the forest she was clothed only in a wispy white dress. Strider could tell at once that she was an elfling.
The Dunedain lowered his sword; the young elf didn't present much of a threat to the strong ranger but he didn't sheath it completely – his time in Rivendell had shown him what powers the elves truly possessed.
"Who are you?" he asked her cautiously.
"Aurëil," the she-elfling answered, her voice was soft and mellow, but full of sadness, the very sound made the hardy man's heart wrench.
"What are you doing here alone, Aurëil?"
"I am always alone now…"
"Why? Where are all your kin?"
"They are gone, to the West..."
Strider knew what that meant; he said a little prayer in the back of his head. He knelt down and looked into the girl's big, blue eyes, "I am sorry, little one," he whispered with all the kindness he knew.
"Do not grieve their passing, you knew them not…you carry too much sorrow already, do not burden yourself more so…" she patted Strider's shoulder gently but the touch was like ice, and in that second's contact, when the thin shapely hand, like the shoot of a new flower, brushed the rangers body there was pain: images flashed before Aragorn's eyes, memories from his past, his father – hewn roughly by hill-trolls until his body, broken and torn was set upon a pike and the grass beneath ran red with his blood – a woman, his own mother, driven mad by grief and burden cast herself from the cliffs about Rivendell and lay there until he had gone looking for her and found the crows picking at her swollen body – a small girl, captured by orcs and ravaged and beaten until she was red with pain and black with shame, a frail, unspoilt child suddenly tainted by the foulest creatures weeping for death until the fell carrion monsters of Morgoth consumed her living flesh…
Strider cried out in anguish and jumped back, his sword in his hand again ready to face the elfling, but when he looked up she was gone, only the mist and the shadows of the Old Forest were with him and the coldness of the Aurëil's touch and the memories of sorrow that had been recovered…