AN: This is a short one shot piece for my creative writing class with the sole purpose of highlighting and describing a character in a setting. In this case Aragorn in an unknown forest.
Disclaimer: Oh I shudder at the thought of what might happen if Aragorn belonged to me. He is much safer as is. He and his book belong to Tolkien. The forest and narrator are mine though. Breaking Benjamin and their song belong to themselves and their record label.
A Light in the Forest
I was walking through the woods bouncing around to Breaking Benjamin on my mp3 player when I saw him. I crept over silently, mysteriously drawn to him. There was an aura of foreignness filling the clearing seeming to come from the man and yet it felt as if I had known him for years. I was shocked to see the trees on the other side of the man were oak, ash and the like for they were not native to the area.
He was tall, most likely over 6 feet though it was hard to tell because he was sitting crossed legged on the ground leaning against a great old oak reading from a small yellowing book that was written in strange characters which seemed super-imposed with English words and a language similar to English but hard to distinguish. The way his legs stuck out away from his body reminded me of a young fawn.
He came off as gangly and young with a strange surreal grace that evaded my semi-rational explanations. His hair was longish, lank and wavy. It dripped over his eyes mysteriously and was very dark but with a chestnut shine in the dusty rays of sunlight.
I crinkled my nose for even through the overpowering scent of pine, I could smell that he needed to bathe. I crept around the tree I was hiding behind amazing myself at the absurdity of the situation. Strangely I didn't want to be noticed, to disturb him yet I could tell he knew I was there and was just letting me look my share.
He was wearing brown stained hiking boots; brown cargo pants with water and mud stains half-way up the leg; and he was wearing an old, worn, brown leather jacket with dark patches on the elbows over a dark green tight-fitting shirt that had a deep neckline from which a long graceful crystal gem fell from.
As he flicked the dusty yellow page a shock of silver on his long, dirty fingers glared to life as it ripped through the sunlight. A green gem in the middle lighted from within almost magically. It looked as if it went endlessly down. Blinking sharply as it moved from the light I saw a bright flash of silver eyes that were as polished steel as his hand dropped back to the page.
I shook myself mentally because I was certain he had been looking at me. Stepping back it felt to me as though he had seen through me like through a window. I turned to run when I heard over my shoulder a faint whisper. The husky voice which fit the man in the clearing so perfectly carried through me. Chilling me to the bone and raising the hairs on my arms. 'Namarie,' with that one simple, beautifully flowing word my world fell apart. I fled as if my life depended on it and may quite truthfully say I have never run that swiftly before or after.
When I looked back over my shoulder, there had been nothing there except the book, closed which read "Of Beren and Luthien" in English, something similar to English but not quite and Sindarian, each super-imposed over the other.