This chapter was rather hellish to get out, honestly, but I'm pretty happy with how it turned out? I think? It's the longest chapter so far, which I hope makes up for the wait. As always, so very grateful for the reviews and favorites (I really didn't expect anyone to pay attention to this, honestly).
Still looking for a beta, PM me if interested please!
Warnings: This chapter isn't that bad, I think. Strong language, as usual, references to drug/alcohol abuse, and a little bit of violence is all.
They were walking with the late morning sun directly behind them, and Nairi squinted, reflexive tears blurring her eyes for a moment as she fought the brightness. Through her dark eyelashes, she could just make out the three figures-two blobs of green flanking a taller, fuzzy figure wearing something odd and long and silver. She shivered despite the heat and frowned, blinking at them again.
It could have been her imagination, handicapped as her view of them was with the sun, but they seemed to move differently, walking with some unnatural grace that gave her pause. The same wind stirring her messy hair toyed with theirs, and Nairi again couldn't shake the feeling that something was very off about them. Their hair was long, flowing, rivalling hers in length, and her hair only brushed past the cuffs of her shorts because she hadn't cared enough to get a haircut in several years.
They continued toward her, picking their way across the undeveloped field her property bordered and crossing now into the chaotic post-tornado disaster that was her yard. Nairi hesitated a moment longer, then turned on her heel, biting back a Gaelic curse as an upended stick scratched her leg sharply, and strode back into the house. She could go out the back door and cut through the back alley to pick up Sorscha. Maybe it was nothing at all, but it never hurt to be a little bit cautious about these things. Nairi was far more reckless than most, to be sure, but even she had the good sense not to poke at things that didn't quite feel right. Especially in dear old Scotland, she added to herself with a trace of sarcasm.
Just like Ireland, Scotland was home to all sorts of tales of faeries and the supernatural, and at any given time, some pub-goer would be telling a chilling tale of something odd that had happened out on a hill, or in the woods at night. It was broad daylight and Nairi wasn't anywhere near a forest, but for once in her life, she was still going to trust her instincts on this one.
She was halfway over the threshold of her back door when a heavy knock sounded at the front. "Shit." Nairi muttered, cursing her pulse for jumping at the sound. God damn Colin and his damned stories. She'd let it all get to her head, evidently, between her hangover and the tales of banshees and faeries that he'd been spouting recently.
It's probably only Sorscha, come to see where the hell I've got to, Nairi comforted herself with, determinedly walking back to her front door, boots thumping on the wood. It still puzzled her as to why Ean insisted she watch the girl, as she usually ran positively wild anyway, and it wouldn't be the first time she'd shown up unexpectedly.
Nairi opened the door with a painted smile on her face and a firm grip on her stupid, useless fear. "So-oh god." she slammed the door shut straightaways, not even sure what she'd seen but entirely sure she didn't like it.
A brown, slim leather boot inserted itself firmly over the threshold, and the door bounced back into her hand. "Damn it." Nairi hissed, wondering if now was an acceptable time to run back to her kitchen drawer for a switchblade.
She let the door swing open gently, with her arms now crossed and her feet planted apart, and glared daggers at the trio of-god, what were they-on her front steps.
The lone woman had been the one to put her foot in the door, and she was standing just in front of two blond men, half a head taller than Nairi and wearing a friendly expression in spite of the carved bow in her one of her hands. She turned her head slightly, and Nairi's blood chilled as she revealed a severely pointed ear.
"You're about a hundred miles from the nearest Ren fest." she said bluntly, masking her stupidly irrational fear with sarcasm and threats.
The woman furrowed a brow. "Nairi?"
"Who the fuck is asking?" she shot back harshly. Something was just so terribly wrong with them, god only knew what.
If she was startled by Nairi's reply, she didn't show it. "I am Tauriel," she said after a pause, "and this is Prince Legolas," she indicated the shorter blond, the one dressed in the same odd green and leather ensemble as she was, "and King Thranduil of the Woodland Realm."
Nairi jerked her head up at that, looking up into the eyes of the man standing behind them, draped in ostentatious silver fabric from head to toe and sporting a silver circlet on his brow. His gaze was arrogant and haughty, and so, so blue.
His eyes met hers and she flinched. Cigarette smoke filled her nose, the cold park bench dug into her no matter how she moved, and that night. That night when everything was black, and Dixie kept screaming.
Nairi blinked hard, willing herself out of whatever dizzying flashback she'd been sucked into, and resumed her hard, relentless glare. "Uh-huh. Still not a Ren fest. Fuck off." She made to close the door again, but Tauriel flashed out a hand, holding the door open. "We only want to talk."
Nairi raised herself on tiptoe, looking with some difficulty over their shoulders and across the street. She made a quiet growling noise of frustration and jerked her head, gesturing them inside. If she had to choose, she'd rather have a mad circus happening in the house, and not on the front steps. Damn nosy small-town Scotsmen would never give her a moment's peace if they caught sight of these eejits.
Her head gave a particularly painful twinge as she shut the door behind them and Nairi cursed quietly, wondering why the hell she'd even gotten up this morning. She usually didn't anyway, and especially not after drinking as much as she had last night. Of course, usually she didn't have a bunch of concerned neighbors making a racket because her yard looked like hell. Nairi snorted humorlessly. God, this day…and it wasn't even noon yet.
A metal crash had her whipping her head around and she entered the kitchen just in time to catch the blond idiot-Legolas, she recalled-retracting his hand carefully from her gas stovetop, one of the grates above the burners rocking slightly. His shocked expression was almost comical, and she shook her head, striding over impatiently and halting the motion of the stovetop with one hand as she passed.
Nairi deliberately took up a position with her right hand inches away from the knife drawer, just in case, and crossed her arms in a simultaneously defensive and slightly threatening stance. "So what the fuck is this all about, then?"
The woman cocked her head curiously at her, leaning in the open doorway separating the kitchen and living room. "You don't know." It wasn't a question.
"No," Nairi shot back shortly. "I bloody well don't."
"You have never questioned the things that happen around you, then?" prompted Legolas, as though he thought she were utterly daft.
Nairi swallowed, suddenly not sure she wanted to hear them out, but shook her head mutely.
"Things around you destroy themselves when you're angry, shatter when you are afraid."
And sometimes a man drops dead for no reason. Her mother had called her a monster, had referenced witchcraft in her fingers. And she knew all at once that she couldn't hear them confirm it. It's not possible, whispered the rational voice in her mind. But Nairi had never been a predominantly rational person.
"Just get out." Her voice was hard, unforgiving and icy. Because protecting herself was, and always had been, her only priority. "Get the fuck out!"
"You will listen." Thranduil broke his silence, hovering just behind his companions, and she frowned at his patronizing tone. Because I wish it, his cold blue eyes seemed to add. He was every inch the king he'd been introduced as, and Nairi loathed his stupid arrogance.
"I will tell you to fuck off, you bloody pox," she countered hotly. "And, for the record, when a woman who's done time for assault tells you to beat it, you haul ass."
He arched a thick eyebrow. "I'll wait." A parent waiting to scold their child until they stopped throwing a tantrum. God, she hated him. She hated all of them.
"You'll be waiting a damn long time."
"We have eternity." He returned with a maddening shrug. "It matters little."
"Ada," Legolas looked at him with vague reproach, saying something in a language Nairi couldn't recognize.
"Nairi," Tauriel tried. "You are the last one alive in this world with Elvish blood in your veins. You're our last chance."
Nairi's stomach fell into her toes, and she felt as though she was hearing her own voice from underwater. "What?" She managed, her mind racing desperately to contradict this madwoman's words. She was crazy. She had to be.
"She is of no use to us." Thranduil said flatly, beginning to turn away. "She is weak and untrained, not to mention…" he paused, looking over her with something like disgust. "...unstable."
"You son of a bitch." Nairi snarled out. "I swear to god-"
He turned with vague disinterest to Tauriel. "Perhaps if her father-"
That was it. "You know nothing about my dad." Nairi spat, her hand flying downward into her kitchen drawer. "Not a damn thing. And whatever the hell you think you know," her fingers closed over the metal switchblade, "you can take it to hell."
With those words, Nairi lunged forward, lethal metal blade in hand, seeing red and heedless of the consequences. Legolas and Tauriel went immediately for their weapons, Tauriel palming a wicked silver dagger while Legolas had an arrow trained suddenly on her heart. Ignoring the imminent danger they were posing, she crossed the kitchen in seconds and plunged her own weapon downward, straight toward his heart.
And the Elvenking caught her hand. She froze in wordless disbelief as his hand flashed out, almost faster than her eye could track, and closed around her wrist with impossible strength. She knew fighting to free herself from his grip would be futile, and merely stared at him uncomprehendingly, her arm held above her head in his relentless grip. He squeezed her wrist a little tighter, glaring at her with icy eyes. Drop it, he commanded her silently, then turned over his shoulder and brusquely said something to the other two, again in that language she couldn't name. They obeyed his apparent order, putting away their weapons.
Nairi winced at the added pressure he continued to put on her wrist and the switchblade dropped involuntarily from her grasp, clattering to the tile floor. The instant it left her hand, he released her wrist and gripped her shoulder instead, backing her the short distance to the wall and pinning her there, looking for all the world as though he could murder her with half a thought. So do it, she thought brazenly. See if I give a damn.
She cursed herself for not taking note of the deadly sword he'd evidently had on his hip under that bloody dress, and squirmed in vain as he leveled it with her shoulders, the razor thin silver edge a hair's breadth from her throat. She extended her neck awkwardly, desperately, her heartbeat pounding in her throat.
Nairi started to jerk one knee roughly upward in a street-fighting sort of move she'd had occasion to use too many times, but it was apparent that he was above such tactics. He moved to stand close enough to her that her personal space felt thoroughly invaded, setting himself up in a position where, with his added height, it was nearly impossible for her to hit anything hard enough to hurt.
"There you are," he murmured, eyes glinting with something she couldn't read. Her collarbone was stinging where the sword had brushed it, and he made no move to sheath the blade, but Nairi relaxed a little nonetheless. She didn't get the feeling he'd use it on her now.
"You have fire, Nairi, but it is your choice where to direct it. You have seen how far drowning it in wine and the weight of your own misery can take you-turn it somewhere else now. Wake up."
Nairi flinched as though he'd slapped her. She'd known this man for all of five minutes and it seemed he'd already worked out everything about her. Wine and misery. And drugs, her mind whispered traitorously. Her dad would've just about killed her if he could see her now. A wreck of a human disaster, well aware of what she was and yet unmotivated to change herself, hungover and high half the time, and now pinned to the wall with a sword at her throat by a man who was too goddamn strong to possibly be human. I'm sorry, Dad.
She glared up at Thranduil, his last words echoing in her ears. Wake up. "Right then. Explain what the hell all'v you are on about. Really explain. And for the love of all that's holy, put that thing away and let me up." She'd been tempted to tack on a threat, hinting what she'd do to them if he didn't, but bit it back quickly. What could she possibly do to them? He could have killed her, and all so easily. Nairi was well out of her depth, and she knew it.
"Before I 'let you up'," he echoed in a tone that made it clear he was mocking her word choice, "understand this. If you should ever try to harm me or my guards again, you will have more to contend with than a bit of blood."
With those words, he swung his weapon artfully away from her throat, vanishing it again among the folds of his ridiculous ensemble, and Nairi leaned back on the wall with a shaky sigh, one hand coming up to brush along her collarbone. Her fingertips came away wet with blood. She wiped the blood off on her shorts with a careless motion, then crossed her arms, still leaning on the wall. "Bloody bastard," she muttered, glaring at him. He didn't so much as spare her a glance, and she rolled her eyes.
Nairi shifted her weight, waiting for one of them to speak. At the continued silence, she huffed and said shortly, "Am I just supposed to accept this utter bullshit about elves with no explanation, then?"
"It is true," Tauriel said levelly in reply. "We are elves of the Woodland Realm, and-"
"There is no such thing," Nairi said impatiently and a little desperately, "as elves."
"Not for you. Not anymore," she said a little sadly. "But there used to be. Elves, dwarves, Hobbits-how do you think these legends began? Races you think of as mere fantasy used to walk this world alongside humans, thousands of years before your birth.
"But Men began to fear them too much, and killed them. Those that survived fled back to Middle-earth, and the walls between the worlds were closed. Not before, however, half-elves were born. Dwarf and Hobbit blood has died out in this world, and you are the last alive with the blood of the Elves."
"I have a brother." Nairi said, then, "I think." She hadn't seen or heard from Liam in fifteen years. God only knew what her-what Varya had done to him by now.
Tauriel offered an apologetic sort of shrug. "You're the only one."
Nairi tried not to think about what this meant for Liam. If he was even alive. "Okay. Okay, fine. Assuming I choose to believe you, what does this have to do with anything? And if you're elves from…" she hesitated, "Middle-earth, then how the fuck did you get here anyway if the, uh, 'walls between the worlds' are sealed or whatever the hell you said?"
Tauriel looked uncertainly in Thranduil's direction. "Lord Thranduil brought us here. We…" she trailed off.
"Okay, right." Nairi said sarcastically. "Just chalk it up to magic, I suppose."
"With the assistance of a number of magic-wielders, I followed the trace of Elvish blood to you," Thranduil supplied coolly.
Of course you did. Bloody bastard. "Yes, fine." she snapped. "Why?"
"We are immortals, Nairi." Legolas explained. "But we are not wizards. We do not have the magic that you do. We cannot stop our enemy. You can."
"Your enemy." she echoed disbelievingly. This has got to be some kind of fucked-up joke.
"He is an unpleasant mortal man, doomed to die and yet obsessed with achieving immortality."
"And I suppose, along with all the wizards and elves and dwarves that are totally real, that's possible too?" Nairi mocked. "Bullshit."
"He has extended his life and vitality beyond what is normal," Legolas conceded. "But there is no way for a mortal to truly live forever. His body will cease to function eventually, and when he dies, the release of the magic he has kept himself alive with will raze entire cities. And while he lives, he wishes to see himself the ruler of both our worlds, with every one of us enslaved to his command."
"Sounds like a first-rate creep," Nairi commented. "But, short'v coming after him with that," she nudged the fallen switchblade with the toe of her boot, "there's absolutely fucking nothing I can do for you, elves or no."
"You control the air around you." Thranduil spoke coldly. "It is why you decimated your yard; every other thing in your past that has destroyed itself happened when you unconsciously compressed the air around it. Control the air around him, and you control the power released when he is killed."
"I don't believe you." Nairi said stubbornly, her palms slick with sweat. She couldn't stand to hear them continue, even if it meant lying. Lying because, in spite of it all, she did believe them. Thranduil had been superhuman when he caught her hand. Nobody could have moved that fast, could have been that strong, unless they weren't human. And she'd always known on some level that there was something different about her. Something she'd tried to beat into submission so many times over the years, but that always came back, this time uprooting trees.
But it would mean that Varya had been right about her. Would mean that she had choked her father to death over a petty fight. Would mean that every despicable thing she'd told herself she wasn't responsible for was true. And so Nairi railed against these elves and their words with every ounce of stubbornness she had.
"What other explanation makes sense?" Tauriel countered. She gestured gracefully toward Nairi's ruined front yard. "How did this happen to you, and only to you, if not by magic?"
"Magic is for children's stories." Nairi insisted, a trace of desperation in her voice. "It's not real. It's not fucking real and elves don't exist and I don't have some freakish power and you are delusional!" Her voice had risen to a shout, her hands clenched into fists. "You are not elves and I am just a woman and I didn't fucking kill my father!" Nairi's wild mane of hair was falling into her too-pale face, some tangled strands in her mouth, and she looked rather like a raving madwoman.
With that final, desperate cry, the knot of panicked anger in her chest seemed to explode, and not only in the form of words. Nairi could see the translucent ripple in the air, flying outward from her in a growing circle, knocking her back into the wall and making even the elves stumble slightly as it passed through them. Wind whipped hungrily at all of them, the walls trembled as though with a violent clap of thunder, and then it was gone. Dead silence reigned, and then Nairi turned on her heel and ran for the bathroom.
A few more end notes because I never shut up:
The only Elvish in this chapter was 'Ada', which just means 'Father'. Nothing too exciting there...
If you want to see my endless commenting and complaining while I write, go follow girlgonnafly on Tumblr, my online home for fandom rants, writing, and screaming into the void about my life.
Nairi has an Instagram now! I've found a number of pictures which remind me of her and, if you're interested, I'll be posting them as these things come up in the story. Follow her with her full name (Nairi Ocallahan), period separating the first and last, if you're so inclined. Fanfiction apparently won't let me post the username but I trust you can figure it out!
