This chapter is . . . odd. It's quite different to the others, but I think I quite like it. I hope you do too.
Rúmil led her down through the twisting, befuddling walkways until they reached the ground. Twilight was only just beginning to draw in, but the shade of the great trees meant that the forest floor was sunk in deep, inky shadows. The dark was intense in an almost physical way, unremitting except for small spaces where blue-white lights from the walkways filtered down. Rúmil led her through the patchwork of light and dark, his silvery hair gleaming even in the shadow.
Before long, even her weaker ears could pick up the sounds of the gathering ahead. There was music and laughter, and an insistent tattoo beating out into the night. She couldn't imagine where the staccato sound came from, until they rounded the gigantic roots of a mallorn and she saw that it was the elves' dancing feet upon the floor. She saw that they danced bare foot, dew dampening their pearlescent skin, and toed off her own boots.
Rúmil took her hand and tugged her forwards. "Come on, pretty thing," he laughed, "join the dance."
"I—I'm not very good at dancing," she murmured. Watching the elves was addictive; their movements were languorous and timeless, though the heady beat was faster than any music she'd heard in Lórien before. She cast her eyes around for musicians, and finally saw them on the edge of the group—a flute rose like ship above the waves of the harpist's pulsing arpeggios, and beneath it all, soft like rain falling on leaves and then as loud as a giant's footsteps, a female elf cradled a drum on her lap.
Aubrey swallowed; the drum beat felt as intimate to her as her own heartbeat. She tried to find the words to describe the dance before her, and couldn't seem to make a sentence. Ecstasy was the perfect word the dancers' faces, and longing was their hands, sliding over each other's skin, but perfection was the shapes their feet made on the floor. She thought, perhaps, that the best word for the whole display was life—but then she saw the way their fingers bent, trying to hang on to each other, only to be pulled apart and whirled around, and she decided that grief would work just as well.
Rúmil was still tugging insistently on her hand, and she wasn't fighting him anymore. They paused at the edge of the dancers—they moved like one fluid body, one beautiful creature with a hundred heads and two hundred legs to dance with—and she said, "In my world, there are legends of humans that dance with fairies. Elves."
"What happens to the humans?" Rúmil asked. He'd put his head down next to hers, and his lips brushed the shell of her ear when he spoke.
She swallowed, and said, "If you dance with elves, you can never stop. They danced until they died. They got lost."
"I promise you will not die—but you may get lost. Would you like to be lost, Aubrey?"
It was her name in his lilting, Sindarin-native voice that overcame her resolve. She tugged him forwards and he slid his arms around her, whirling them into the dance. She found that it didn't matter that she couldn't dance—because the music loved her, drew her in, until her feet were tracing the same elegant spirals as Rúmil's, perfectly in sync with every other dancer.
His hands were warm on her hips, hers upon his shoulders. The harp plunged low, picking out a counter melody as deep as the ocean that resonated across the dancers and into her chest. Dizzy with motion and not quite lucid, she leaned upwards and pressed her lips against Rúmil's. He did not look surprised, but, strangely, did not return her kiss. She had a sudden, sickening feeling of wrongness; that her hands belonged on another's shoulders, that Rúmil's were not the eyes meant to reflect hers—but she couldn't find it in herself to care, not when the drum told her bare feet how to paint silver shadows on the moss, and the flute showed her how to arch her back and tip her chin up just enough to see the stars.
Is it possible to get drunk on music? She wondered abstractly. She wanted to laugh, but the exertion of the fast-paced dance stole her breath away. She could feel sweat forming on her brow and sliding down her neck—that didn't matter; the elf dancing just behind her was near lathered, and joyful for it.
Suddenly, she wanted to dance alone. She slipped free of Rúmil's reaching hands and away into the crowd of dancers. She thought she heard him calling after her, but his voice was lost in the music and the delighted welcomes she received from the other dancers. Elves clasped her hands and whirled her around, lifted her and spun her, stroked her hair and pressed themselves against her flushed skin.
She recalled reading, once, when Evan was newly diagnosed and she was seized with a crippling desire to understand him, a desire that never left and was never sated—that people with autism had trouble blocking out irrelevant stimuli, and so were bombarded all the time with an overwhelming amount of sensory information. Caught in the sweltering, smothering heat at the centre of the dancers, her heart climbing and crashing in time with the music, head ringing with laughter, she thought that she might, finally, understand Evan's pain.
She could no longer find the edge of the throng. The elves were all around her, moving so quickly that she lost their faces before she could recognise them. Her feet were beginning to ache, and she wanted her boots, but the music. The music was insistent, lifting her spirits until she couldn't remember why she'd ever disliked dancing, until she couldn't imagine stopping.
The stories were true, she thought dazedly. I'm lost.
o0o
Haldir relaxed at the edge of the gathering, leaning his shoulders against the smooth buttress of a mallorn root, sipping at the glass of Dorwinion wine he held in his right hand, one ankle crossed over the other. He was not even armed, his sword hung carefully, reverently beside his bow and his many knives back in his talan.
It had been a very long time since he'd last attended one of these parties—the younger elves threw them often, lacing their music with just enough of the magic that was inherent in all the eldar to send the dancers into a haze. It had no serious effect and very little point, other than to make it a little more fun, and a little easier to forget that not a month ago, one of their own had died. He had to admit that the musicians at this dance were very skilled; even he was fighting the urge to join in with the compelling beat.
Movement caught his eye on the far side of the dancers and he looked up sharply, instincts that he had formed in war never quite dulling. Rúmil. He sighed; Rúmil was somewhat notorious for finishing each dance with a different elleth, and he certainly seemed to have found a willing pair of arms this night. The elleth Rúmil was leading towards the dance turned her head, the tip of her curved ear catching the light beneath her dull blonde hair, and Haldir stiffened.
The mortal.
He watched as they paused at the edge of the dance and exchanged a few words, the girl seeming almost breathless with trepidation, before stepping into the gathering and whirling away. He kept his eye firmly on them watching for—there. A dazed smile lit her features and she arched back in Rúmil's arms, staring up at the sky with all the joy of a child. The heady music would do nothing but make a dour elf smile, but a mortal—a mortal with no magic of her own, and one unused to the tricks of elves . . . he was astonished she hadn't passed out—or accosted someone.
He paced around the outside of the circle, watching his brother with the girl. He lost sight of them a few times, especially the girl's shorter frame. He couldn't imagine what Rúmil had been thinking, bringing the mortal to one of these dances. At least the idiot had the good sense to keep hold of her, he consoled himself—and then, even as he thought the words, she slipped from Rúmil's arms and danced away, a dandelion seed caught in a wind that even she could not feel the power of.
He watched her dance, watched her twirl and step and skip, her hair flying out behind her like a dark gold raiment. She was smiling widely, drunkenly, green eyes feverishly bright. She was beautiful.
For a long moment, he couldn't bring himself to go and get her, simply watching the way she moved in perfect formations, but then the speed of the dance caught up with her imperfect mortal body, and she stumbled. The elves around her caught her and turned her slip into a graceful step, but he'd seen it, and knew it wouldn't be long before she fell.
He clenched his teeth against the power of the music and strode forwards. He did not dance, but neither did he disrupt the dancers, moving through and around them in his own lonely ballet. He took her in his arms when he reached her, balancing most of her weight against his chest, but did not try to stop her dancing. Instead, he used the steps and spins of the dance to manoeuvre her to the edge of the throng, and away.
Dazed, she stumbled against his side. He wrapped an arm around her waist and supported her, walking them slowly out of the clearing and through the forest beneath the city until the music faded in his ears. She came back to herself as he let her fall against the soft, mossy ground.
She blinked up at him as one rising from deep water, and cast around, searching for anyone else, but they were alone in the small clearing that he had found. "Haldir," she said softly. And then, "what happened?"
"You were dancing," he informed her, not unkindly. "Our music can be very powerful, Rúmil should have known better than to let you dance."
"I just wanted to have some fun," she said sullenly.
"I know. There is no problem, you were simply becoming fatigued, so I escorted you away."
She nodded lethargically. "I think . . . I think I kissed Rúmil."
Rage swelled in his breast and he couldn't stop a sharp gasp leaving his lips, though he had no idea why he should feel so strongly. He'd never taken an interest in Rúmil's activities before. "I am not surprised. The dance is like rich wine, it takes your inhibitions."
She looked vaguely horrified. "Did he—did he take me there just so that I would kiss him?"
"I doubt it. He has been worried about you, the way you have withdrawn these past weeks. You do not eat in the hall anymore, and if you are not training with me, you are with Ilye in the library, or your talan. He probably quite genuinely wanted you to have fun. He will have forgotten what an effect the dance can have on mortals." She looked relieved, and he couldn't stop himself from adding nastily, "Though I doubt he was upset."
"I've been busy," she said defensively. "I think I've found something. I'm going to speak to Galadriel. Will she mind? You didn't mind, and you mind everything I do."
With the air of one recovering from a blow to the head, Haldir blinked rapidly. "As you say," he managed. "Are you quite alright? The effects of the music should not be so long lasting."
She shrugged helplessly, and stood, swaying slightly. "I feel drunk," she observed. "I haven't been drunk since I came here. And for quite a bit before that."
"Come, I will escort you to your talan," he sighed, gesturing her ahead of him.
"Haldir," she called, and he stopped, looking back over his shoulder. "If . . . if I kissed an elf again, it wouldn't be Rúmil." She said. He quirked a brow. For a long moment, she looked torn, as if she wanted to say more, but then her expression closed and she looked away. He led her back to her talan in silence, and left before she'd shut the door.
o0o
Aubrey expected to wake with a pounding head and a throat like the Sahara, so she was pleasantly surprised to feel refreshed and alert in the morning. Elvish dancing, she thought absently as she dressed. Get hammered without the hang over.
Unfortunately, she also remembered every detail of the night before—including the soft, warm press of her lips against Rúmil's and the the anger that had burnt in Haldir's eyes when she'd told him about the kiss. She sighed; she was far from an idiot, and a lifetime of interpreting social ques for Evan had left her pretty adept at it. She knew jealousy when she saw it, even if she couldn't for the life of her think why Haldir would desire her.
She had no delusions; she was good looking and the training she'd received in Lórien had left her with a shapely, lithe figure—but beauty went only so far with the other-worldly attractive elves, and Haldir didn't like her. The animosity between them following Celedan's death had settled into an uneasy peace, fraught with tension, but they were certainly not the friends she had once hoped they would be, and he seemed faintly revolted by her humanity, if anything.
On her part, she was certainly attracted to him—how could she not be, with his bold, handsome features and well built, athletic frame—but she had no interest in a relationship, especially not with a man who appeared to despise her. The dance aside, she had no time for levity and partying. She needed to return to her world and her brother.
She rubbed at her temples absently, chasing a headache that still had not occurred, and ambled over to the table that housed her many scrawled notes. She was due to meet Ilye in the library at noon, and she thought that she was close to a breakthrough with one of the texts that had been written in coded rhyme, for some reason.
I don't have time for Haldir being jealous, or attracted to me, she told herself firmly. I need to get home.
The dance—Haldir, Rúmil—all of it, both of them, were compelling. It was impossible not to be drawn in by this world, impossible not to fall in love with the beauty of Lórien, which somehow managed to exude both tranquility and power. It would be easy, so painfully easy, to slide into life here, to carry on with her training and forget all about returning home. God, in her old life she'd wished often enough, quietly and burning with shame, but wished it nonetheless, that Evan was gone. That she was free to do what she wanted, and she hadn't even had the lure of Lórien then.
She steeled herself, clenching the papers tightly enough that her fingertips tingled. The people that wandered into faery rings in the stories were always eager to fall, she remembered. They shrugged away their responsibilities and danced away the centuries, falling in love with the beauty that they found. Every single one of them gave in to the lure of the magic, the freedom. And every single one of them turned to dust.
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