Dawnstar and Friend chapter 24
Eleanor's POV
There was very little that happened between my little conversation with Elrond and just beyond the turn of the Millennium, something even the elves celebrated with gusto, and lots of alcohol.
The next year, Ginny and I elected to make sure we didn't miss the last explorations of Bilbo Baggins. One joy of Miriel knowing that we have a certain amount of foreknowledge is that she no longer fights us when we suggest something strange.
We tailed the little Hobbit from an unobtrusive distance, and were actually quite helpful in making sure he didn't get hurt, him being rather clueless.
Eventually he got brought back to Rivendell and settled there.
Silva, who had never seen a Hobbit before, was utterly enchanted by him. We teased Erestor about that quite a lot.
One fun thing was letting Bilbo into the secret of exactly who we were. Last time we had seen him he had been with the Dwarves and so we had kept our identities, particularly Miriel's, secret.
He was absolutely delighted to realise that he had two elfin princess and two people who had grown up in another world to talk to and grilled us intensively. We didn't let on about foreknowledge though.
Once the novelty of the Hobbit in residence had dried up, our wanderlust got dampened again and so we prepared and left, this time for Rhûn.
This was a place that Tolkien had barely described so was new to us.
It turned out to be much like eastern Russia and the many little countries that the Soviet Union had absorbed on the eastern side.
The main difference is that it is pre-industrialisation.
All the men there wear those large baggy trousers with tops that have equally baggy sleeves that you see on the stereotypical picture of Russian dancers.
The women's style is also stereotypical Russian peasant gear and three females in fitted leggings and tunics definitely get notice, though the people of Rhûn are more comfortable with elves, there being a ready trading line with Mirkwood.
When we are going through one of the more westerly towns, we have the weirdest moment. We meet one of the traders who Thanduil dealt with when we went to stay in Laketown. What is more strange about this is the fact the guy was one of the youngest in the party, barely old enough to be joining a trading group, but he is old now and I am amazed that he recognises us, though admittedly we are probably the only female elves he has ever met.
He is unbelievably happy to see us and invites us to dinner at his house. We have swatted up on the local culture and know it would be rude to say no so we go. It has the added plus of good beds for the night and we don't have to cook.
His son, who now trades with Thanduil, and his wife are the ones who are actually running the house and they are even more welcoming, Miriel's father having just given them some good terms.
The cooking is not quite like anything we have tasted before, though it is very nice, and we thoroughly enjoy our stay in that quite large house. We quickly find out that the family has been made rich by its trade with the elves, probably another reason they are keen to welcome us.
As we travel further and further east it becomes increasingly like Asia.
The food is very nice and we (that is Ginny and I) are amused to have dishes that, though they have a different name, are basically korma, curry, and a few other dishes we expect to find in an Indian meal at home.
Once again our cats stop there being any problems, though more than one or two of the men we see seem to be thinking that, if it were not for our oversized guardians, they would be trying something, I am so glad for our cats, I would hate to have to deal with some letch's come on.
Eventually we return westward, taking a different route to return by.
Once we return we stay in Rivendell for a while, partly because a certain unnamed Hobbit insists on picking our brains on the eastern lands, before going to join the Dunedan again.
We pick up our old habit of alternating between the rangers and Rivendell again, usually spending winter and Christmas in Rivendell, and the rest of the months with the Dunedan.
Our little festival has really taken off; the happy light-hearted elves of Rivendell liking the present giving and general joy, even if they don't truly get its significance.
It is particularly fun introducing Silva and Bilbo to it...
Bilbo particularly likes it as an excuse for more hearty food, proper Hobbit food he says.
The other our world tradition that takes off in Rivendell is Valentines' Day, though for some inexplicable reason it has migrated to late spring/early summer. Can't think how that might have happened.
At the beginning of spring we go visit Gilraen in her village, and in the year 3007, we have a shock.
Gilraen is dying.
We stay with her for the entire time it takes her to die, later that spring.
I think the most heartbreaking thing is the conversation between Aragorn and Gilraen when she tells him she can't go on.
By now, even Miriel is getting used to grief and loss, there having been many deaths in the years of us fighting with the rangers.
The funeral is short and solemn and then everyone is left to cry out their grief. I think the fact we have nothing else on our minds for once helped. It was a change not having to quickly bury the body, after burning the Orcs and whatever before moving on quickly.
After the funeral, we returned to our own village with Halbarad, who had also attended, and immediately went back on patrol.
We were patrolling the edges of the Shire more now, at the request of Gandalf, and everything got tenser. We got more action in those months of patrolling then we had in the first few years of us being part of the rangers of the north.
Ginny and I knew why and everyone else could guess.
It was all of about a decade until the storm broke and all hell would burst forth.
Ginny and I had long conversations if we wanted to be around for the Nazguls in the shire.
We didn't decide until it was nearly upon us...
Ginny's POV
In the year 3001, Miriel, Ellie, and I decide to follow Bilbo Baggins on his final adventures before he settles in Rivendell.
That was rather interesting as his journey took him into Dale, a place we girls had never entered before.
I'm rather surprised at the warm reception Bilbo gets in Dale. I find out later that in 2941, Bilbo along with thirteen Dwarves, visited Dale, causing a very angry Smaug to fly away from the Lonely Mountain over to Laketown, and that, after the Battle of the Five Armies was fought in the valley, Bard the Bowman was able to rebuild Dale using the share of the Dragon hoard that he received in exchange for the Arkenstone given to him by Bilbo.
The men of Dale became rich once more and revived their highly coveted trade in magical toys. When I see these in the market, I am absolutely enchanted by them and immediately buy one for little Vanlanthiriel as well as, I'm rather embarrassed to admit, one for Murrlin. Well, she did look so sweet batting and jumping up at the little bird as it flew tantalizingly close to her head.
After Dale, Bilbo goes on to the Lonely Mountain and spends some time with his old friends the Dwarves.
This part of his trip is actually quite boring as we don't really want to intrude, so we had to forgo the comfortable hospitality of the Dwarves. In fact it gets so boring that we head back to Rivendell before Bilbo has even made preparations to do the same thing. I'm glad Ellie and I have the advantage of foreknowledge, even if it does mean we're kept on tenterhooks all the time. Not to mention having to be extremely careful we don't let something monumental slip.
"Ginny!" squeals Vanlanthiriel as we ride into Rivendell. She immediately wrenches herself out of Naneth's grasp and comes bouncing up, causing the cats to slink into the background.
Don't get me wrong, neither Murrlin, Nyx, nor Falathiel are actually scared of Vanlanthiriel, they just don't like the fact that whatever she touches seems to end up stickier than a pot of glue.
Vanlanthiriel, you see, even at less than ten years old, has developed an alarming curiosity. Absolutely nothing is safe from her little fingers, although she seems to favour those of the more sticky variety, the cooks' best honey for one thing.
She has also developed a fascination for Elladan and Elrohir and follows them about whenever she can – this is probably how she got to be so mischievous. Not that anyone does anything to stop it; Vanlanthiriel has everyone wrapped around her little finger, even Elrond and Glorfindel.
All Vanlanthiriel has to do is look up at them with her big blue eyes all moist with tears and they back off immediately. Of course that may also have something to with the fact that Ada would rip their guts out if they did anything to upset his beloved daughter.
Vanlanthiriel launches herself into my outstretched arms, laughing as I swing her around. Luckily, Naneth actually seems to have managed to keep her daughter relatively sticky-free today so there's no worry about needing to give my hair an extra thorough clean tonight.
She laughs still more when I give her her present: a tiny toy dragon that actually flies around and acts as though it were alive. I tell her that it's a model of the dragon Smaug who was beaten by the men of the town we had just visited. Vanlanthiriel then pleads for a story about our travels, something which I'm always happy to provide and which everyone is more than willing to agree with seeing as me telling Vanlanthiriel a story is one of the few things that actually calms her down.
So I carry Vanlanthiriel off to the gardens while everyone else breathes a sigh of relief and is allowed to relax for a while.
We can't calm down for long though. Vanlanthiriel does quieten a little after we've been back a few days and the novelty has worn off, but then someone else turns up.
Bilbo is very much taken by Vanlanthiriel. Neither she nor Naneth have ever seen a Hobbit before and so they are utterly enchanted by him.
Of course it helps that Bilbo is always willing to tell of his adventures so I'm relieved of Vanlanthiriel-duty, whilst she trails after Bilbo with an enraptured expression in her eyes.
Bilbo is also rather taken by us girls when we let him in on exactly who we are and so we, particularly Ellie and I, spend a lot time telling Bilbo stories about our past world.
As you know by now, Miriel, Ellie, and I aren't exactly ones for sitting around, especially when there are still lands we want to explore as well as the relative peace of the present (3018 is still a little way off).
We decide to head back to Rhûn and do more exploring there seeing as we'd only visited Laketown before.
It turned out to be very much like Russia, right down to the tops of the buildings, which are identical to the onion-like domes on St Basil's Cathedral in Moscow. This pleases me immensely as I've always wanted to visit Russia – it seems so tantalizingly different somehow.
Even the food is very Russian. On the night we stay with one of the traders we met when were in Laketown, we were fed big bowls of a Borsch-like soup with thick, crusty rolls followed by blini and fruit.
The further east into Rhûn we travel, the more like Asia it becomes. Again the food is spookily similar to what they do actually eat in Asia.
Eventually, however, we take a U-turn and head back west, although on a slightly different route.
After a little recuperation in Rivendell, we head back out to the Angle and join our patrol again.
Old habits die hard and we find ourselves slipping back into our old routine of alternating between Rivendell and the Angle; although, we always manage to spend the winter months (and by extension, Christmas) in Rivendell.
You may well sneer at this – spoiled little rich girls and all that, but if you had our choice, what would you choose? Out in the cold snow and pouring rain camping in tents or in a warm palace with a variety of food and entertainment?
I'm only human after all.
***
It's 3007 and we've just had a terribly sad experience – the death of Gilraen.
I don't tell anyone this, but I'm really quite affected by her passing. It probably has something to do with the fact that I helped to deliver Aragorn and was present when Arathorn was killed. I've never really forgotten that battle.
***
Things are definitely hotting up now.
We've reached the period when the rangers begin to patrol the borders of the Shire a lot more.
It really isn't all that long before all hell breaks loose...