Daylight dims leaving cold fluorescence
Difficult to see you in this light
Please forgive this bold suggestion
Should you see your maker's face tonight
Look him in the eye
Look him in the eye, and tell him
I never lived a lie, never took a life
But surely saved one, hallelujah
It's time for you to bring me home.

- TOOL

Rane opened her eyes.

She sat up, looking around her. It was a forest, populated by tall, thick trees, all interwoven with moss and vines and clearly ancient. It was snowing lightly, the ground beneath her coated in it, and overhead crows called raucously, flapping through the boughs, the sounds of their wings loud in the silence. It seemed to be dusk, or perhaps just before dawn. The light was long and low and reddish-purple even through the clouds overhead, the shadows along the snow running along faint and stretched.

Rane got to her feet slowly, eyes on the edge of the forest beyond where she'd found herself. There were lights there, faint and bluish, twinkling amidst the snowflakes drifting down. Though the falling snow obscured the spires, the dim shape of them rose into the sky, far above the canopy. A city of some kind, perhaps. It was . . . familiar to her, though she couldn't say just how. Like a photograph from her distant childhood, or a scene from some long-forgotten film.

"You don't remember where we are."

Rane whirled around at the sound of this sudden voice, hair flying. A young woman was sitting against a tree a little ways away, her back against its bark, long legs curled beneath her Indian-style.

"Who are you?" Rane said sharply. Her hand was fumbling about her belt, and after a second or two of aimlessly grasping at the place where her scabbard should have been she stared down at her waist, alarmed. Her sword wasn't hanging at her belt. She never went anywhere without it. The woman laughed, low.

"You didn't come to this place armed, Rane Roth." She got to her feet, lithe and quite serene. "We have no need for weapons here."

"You skinned me!" Rane's voice was accusatory, almost insulted. She had never been disarmed before, at least not so brashly. "You skinned me while I was laying there, didn't you?"

"I don't suppose you'll believe me, but I didn't, no." The woman was drawing nearer now, and as she did the falling snow ceased to obscure her finer features. She was tall, lean and excruciatingly beautiful, with long, straight dark hair and bright blue eyes that stared out from beneath thick brows. She was clad in jeans and a billowy white blouse, and she was smiling a little, still quite unperturbed. Her feet were bare in the light snow beneath them.

"Give me my sword back," said Rane, watching her warily.

"Your sword isn't here. It's a long ways away. But fear not. If I wished to harm you, we would not be speaking, and you would be lying dead in the snow."

She stopped, her bare feet snow-studded and damp, and for a few moments simply examined Rane with an expression of something like wistful affection. Rane continued to watch her cautiously. The look on her face paired with the words she'd just spoken seemed at odds with one another, to say the least.

"You were always so pretty," she remarked, smiling. "How I've missed looking on your face. What do you see?"

"What do you mean, 'what do I see'?"

"Oh, must we always go over this?" The woman sighed, as if this question bored her. "How do I appear to you, Rane Roth? What form do I take? Describe what you see, when you look upon me."

Rane eyed her watchfully. She didn't like encountering strangers without her weapon, particularly when the stranger seemed a trifle mad.

"Like me. Except the eyes."

The woman came a step closer, her eyes roving over Rane's features. "So it is," she murmured, sounding faintly interested. "Our link has not been changed with time. How very curious. I have often wondered."

"It's . . . it's actually kind of weird," Rane admitted, a little unnerved. "How much you look like me."

"Well, as I've said once before," said the woman, eyes twinkling, "I believe it would be more fitting to say that you look like me, and not the other way around."

Rane gaped her, bewildered. "Who are you? And where am I? How did I get here?"

The woman watched her a moment, the wind teasing her long hair across her face, smiling a little. Then, abruptly, she lifted a hand and swept it toward the lights beyond the forest, aiming one long finger. Rane kept her eyes on the woman, still uneasy.

"I suppose I won't vex you with my usual theatrics, Rane. That's Ylle Thalas, capital of Elyfalume in the realm of Forodhaithas. The Elven city of your father's birth, many long centuries past, if you wanted to know. You spent many days and nights there in another life, though perhaps you do not recall just yet."

" What -?"

"Look," the woman ordered firmly, and with a gentle hand took Rane's cheek and aimed her face toward where she was pointing. Her touch was cool and dry. "Look, if you would."

Rane did, squinting at the blue fairy-lights, frowning. And abruptly, in a rush, she did remember; the long, swaying grass near the horse pasture, the guards in their silver armor, the Council. It was like . . . well, like rediscovering something long lost, hidden in some dusty alcove. The sensation was dauntingly weird. She exhaled sharply, touching her forehead.

"Oh, holy shit. Ylle Thalas. Of course."

"Holy shit, indeed." The woman had crossed her lean arms and was watching Rane shrewdly, the wind teasing the ends of her long hair. "Are you alright? I'm sure this is coming as a bit of a fright, remembering these little things."

"No, I knew!" Rane said, still rubbing her forehead. Her unease in the presence of this stranger was almost overshadowed by the shock that she had forgotten the Elven capital, somehow, a place where she'd spent much of her childhood. "It was there, but I just . . . Christ, what the fuck?"

"Rane, look at me." The woman took Rane's forearm in her grasp, pulling her hand away from her face gently. Rane met her gaze, her brows knit. "You have forgotten Ylle Thalas because you are in a space betwixt spaces. It's alright. You will remember it all, before the end of this night. I will help you, if I can. And when you wake, you will be in a different time and place, and these things may already be familiar to you once again. There's no reason to fret. These . . . these temporal changes, they tend to have this sort of effect."

Rane jerked her arm away, looking at the woman in growing distress, her brow furrowed. "Who are you?" she asked again, her voice rising, echoing flatly off the snowy landscape around them. "At least tell me who you are, after you skinned my sword off my belt and started talking crazy nonsense. Huh?"

The woman grasped Rane's hand, and this time, when Rane tried to pull away, she was held fast. The woman's strength was breathtakingly large; Rane was strong, she had always been unnaturally strong, but for all her struggling the muscles in this woman's forearm did not even twitch. She only watched Rane calmly, her eyes bright and clear beneath the low red light, smiling a little, waiting for her to relax. Rane had the impression that she had kept this might under wraps until the moment when it was necessitated, perhaps so as not to frighten her. The idea was a little terrifying.

"You know me from long ago," said the woman. "Do you remember? If you remember Ylle Thalas, surely you recall your teachings on Iluvatar, and on the song that kindled the universe."

"I've never met you before in my life." Rane glared up at the woman, still yanking at her trapped wrist, but it was like pulling at a vice, and the stranger gave no indication that she even noticed Rane's efforts to pull free. "This is a nightmare or something. You wouldn't look like me if this was real -"

"Rane Roth, you are a peredhil. Do you know that word, from before?"

"Let go -!"

"You know the tongue of your forefathers, certainly," The woman jerked her a little, making Rane's hair ripple over her forehead. "Sindarin, Quenya, Telerin? Treneri'nin im ha lamb'o adar! What did I say? Tell it back to me, out loud."

"Christ," said Rane, shaking her head, glaring at the woman. "You said 'I've heard you speak the tongues of your father,' I speak all three, yes, you're hurting me -!"

"Peredhil."

"Let me go -!"

"ANSWER me, for we have not much time!" Her voice was suddenly sharp and authoritative, her eyes flashing, and Rane stilled, shocked by this sudden change. "You must answer me for us to proceed! Now, do you know that word or not? 'Peredhil?' You must speak!"

Rane ceased struggling, staring into those eyes, so like hers except for that icy blue hue. "I know it."

"And you know what it means? That word? You know what you are ?"

"Half-Elf. An Ainur reborn."

The woman relinquished her grasp on Rane abruptly, all intensity suddenly departed. She stepped back a pace and spread her arms ironically as if presenting herself, her beautiful face relaxing into a wry smile.

"I am that Ainur, Rane Roth. I am Elbereth Gilthoniel. I am Fanuilos. I am Varda."

Rane looked at her for a long moment, her eyes skating over the woman's face.

"Varda," she said at last, faint.

Varda nodded at once, looking satisfied at this progression. "The name I like best, yes."

Rane looked at her a moment longer, her breath still quick, then her legs seemed to give out beneath her. She staggered backwards, sliding down the tree trunk behind her, boots sliding in the snow and grinding up dirt and chunks of grass along the way. Varda stepped forward and squatted on her hunkers before Rane, still smiling brilliantly. She grasped one of Rane's ankles and shook it gently, looking very pleased.

"It never gets old, seeing you react that way. I suppose it's one of the better parts of all this mess."

"Varda." Rane was still gaping at her, the tendrils of hair hanging in her face a little dampened by the gently falling snow. Bits of it clung to her shoulders. "I feel like I know you."

"Ah!" Varda clapped her hands together once, looking delighted. "Well, you do! Quite more intimately than you might think. You remember me now, Rane Roth? Think back."

Rane did, her lips pursed. It didn't take long. "After Sirius."

"And before your death."

Rane nodded again. "Yeah. And before that."

"And now, much to my infinite surprise -" Varda lifted her face to the snowy sky, smiling a little bitterly. "- I find myself back with you, back on this mortal plane. Imagine my astonishment, after all we'd been through, to discover I was once again sent here to be with you. You, who by all accounts shouldn't be alive at all, let alone cavorting about with a horde of brigands some ninety-odd years of Men before you were even kindled." She chuckled, shaking her lovely head. "Fate is strange indeed. Nae."

"I let you go." Rane leaned forward, pulling her legs back toward her and curling them beneath her. "I let you go, to help Harry."

Varda straightened a little, fixing her with a rather decorous smile. When she spoke, her voice was easy, but there was a sharp, dogmatic edge to it nevertheless.

"I cannot be dismissed at your fancy, Rane Roth. You forget who I am if you think so." She relaxed, leaning back a little, letting her palms rest in the snow. If the cold bothered her, she didn't show it. "I chose to give you aid, and so aid was what you received. But that doesn't mean I'm a hound to set upon your whim, or a weapon to aim. I left you because I loved you, and because I could see that you wished for Harry Potter's safety more than you wished to keep your breath in your own chest. So help him I did, and his enemy fell for it."

She shook her head abruptly, as if tiring of this line of conversation.

"We must speak. I have brought you here for as long as I can muster, but this place is fickle, as you may recall. Lingering will not do for either of us. Eventually it will push us out, as any body pushes out a virus, for we are not meant to be here."

"Ylle Thalas?" Rane could not conceal her surprise. This metropolis had never felt anything but welcoming to her, even in the direst tensions of her relations with the Elves. Varda shook her head.

"No. This is a pocket in time." Varda glanced back toward the city. "Long before you were born. Long before your father, at that. I chose this place because it's remote, and unwatched, and good for speaking. The quiet," she added, gesturing around her, smiling. "The snow. Much of the time, in the early centuries of the lands of Forodhaithas, there was snowfall, before the world began to warm and change. There is nothing quite like the silence of new snowfall in the woodlands, wouldn't you agree?"

"What happened, that night?" Rane asked her. She clasped her hands in her lap, the ends of her hair teased in the cool wind. "When I died?"

"Oh, well, I imagine you've worked it out for yourself by now, certainly," said Varda, casting her a wry smile and leaning back on her elbows, quite at her ease.

Rane hesitated. "I think so, but I don't know if I'll ever get the chance to find out for sure again."

"You asked me to save your friend, and I chose to do so. Long years I had seen that moment coming, Rane, though I didn't know who the young man would be until the morning after your Sirius passed. Then I knew." She laughed, low. "I often thought you would bear a son, but it turned out that your son was already nearly a man, and not of your blood at all. Curious indeed."

Rane watched her for a long moment, swallowing thickly, then took the plunge. "Is he okay? Harry?"

"Well." Varda smiled, leaning forward, fingering the snow idly. " Now , you mean? Harry Potter's veriest ancestors are still plotting their courses, Rane. They may not have even emigrated yet, though family trees are not my -"

"That's not what I meant." Rane was still looking at her raptly. "Is he okay? In . . . then?"

Varda watched her a moment longer, smiling, then nodded. "Forgive me my jest. This all becomes so serious sometimes. Yes, Rane Roth, he is fine. Alive and well."

Rane's hands went to her face, covering her nose and mouth, her brows descending. For a moment she looked like nothing so much as a young girl. Her eyes were filled with tears.

"He's okay?" she asked again, muffled behind her hands.

Varda nodded, and reaching out pulled Rane's wrists away from her face, grasping her hands tightly in her own. She met Rane's eyes, smiling, her eyes warm.

"Yes. He is happy. He married, had children. He's an Auror, much like you were. He pines for you, but he's learned to move forward. He thinks on you often. The early years were . . . difficult for him. But they're long since passed."

"Dad?"

" Varilterende lives and defends as he ever has. They dine together every fortnight, your father and Harry," Varda added, smiling. "They often speak of you, Rane, and always fondly."

Rane stifled a sob, staring toward the canopy, willing the tears standing in her eyes not to fall. She watched the wavering boughs above them and the snowflakes drifting idly down, her brows low over her eyes. Varda watched her, perceptive, her blue eyes bright in the dim red light.

"Ask what you truly wish, if you would, child. All the rest has led to her. I know your heart better than you know it yourself, I sometimes think."

"Idril?" The word spoken aloud was almost enough to break her. The tears were slipping down her cheeks now freely. She feared the answer, and her heart was hammering beneath her chest, frightened.

"Idril is very well." Varda smiled again, warm. "She stayed with Harry Potter after you were gone, just as you wished. He takes care of her. She attends Hogwarts, in the now you think of. She's beautiful beyond measure. She sometimes feels guilt that she was not Sorted into the same House as her parents, but her friends comfort her. She is happy. And clever. She will go on to greater things, given time enough and space. And Harry Potter can give that to her. You chose her Godfather wisely."

"Oh, God," Rane said softly, one hand over her mouth. "I wish I could tell you how happy I am to hear that."

"Well." Varda placed her hands in her lap, watching Rane. "It is a long time away, and that world is gone from you now. We must discuss now what lies before you."

"What do you mean?"

"Arthur Morgan."

Rane wilted a little. In all this madness, in all these discussions about Sirius and Idril and Harry, she'd nearly forgotten about Arthur. The idea of him seemed . . . strange, like a distant dream, the same way Ylle Thalas had. She believed, for the first time, Varda's insistence that this was a pocket in time. Everything outside of these moments seemed surreal, anesthetized, moving with the slow cadence of a narcotic in the bloodstream.

"You know about Arthur?"

Varda laughed. "Child," she said, "I know the veriest fires of the farthest star from the farthest walks of life. Yes, I know about Arthur Morgan. I knew about him from the moment he was kindled in his mother's belly. However," she added, looking a little amused, "knowing what you would mean to him someday in his manhood, and knowing how far you were from him in every direction within both time and space, well . . . that was quite a riddle to me, yes. Until now."

"What d'you mean?" Rane was listening to this raptly, bewildered by this turn. "What does Arthur have to do with this?"

"Your soul traveled across nearly a century to find his arms," said Varda, smiling a little. "In the opposite direction, I might add. Do you not know?"

Rane snorted, frowning. "I love him, but he's dying."

"So are all who find their homes in this plane. He is not unique." Varda touched Rane's hand gently, meeting her eyes, looking terrible and lovely in the red light. "He leads you on to your next epistle. Or he does not. The road is forked and I cannot see past it."

"What?"

Varda shrugged, looking up at the falling snow with an expression of faint perplexity. "I do not understand many of these matters, Rane Roth. Much like you, I'm given only clues to a much larger puzzle." She sighed. "We are not passengers on this train, we're strapped to the front of it. I believe you understand."

"You're trying to say I don't really love Arthur, I just got dropped into his lap because of some higher power crap," said Rane flatly.

"No." Varda was shaking her head, looking amused. "That's not how love works, Rane. His heart called to yours, and yours to his, across decades of time, seas of time. Not even your own death could stall it. Surely you can see how profound such a thing is. Surely you see that you must answer a call like that, no matter how it pains you."

"Even if he dies."

Varda nodded steadily. "Even then."

"To what ends?" Rane burst out, feeling exasperated. "To what ends, though? So I can go through the same shit I went through with Sirius all over again? Because that sounds like a nightmare on loop, Varda, it really does."

Varda shrugged. "As I said, I don't understand many of these things."

"But you still follow blindly along."

"It's my nature." Varda spread her hands. "I'm only an Ainur. I am not Iluvatar Himself. But I trust him not to lead us astray, and what he commands, I obey. I'm just a messenger, Rane, powerful though I know the Eldar believe me to be. I do what I must."

Rane watched Varda for a long moment, then leaned forward again, meeting her eyes, hazel on blue. "How'd I get to Lemoyne? Why am I there? Really. Bullshit aside."

Varda reached out and touched Rane's cheek gently. "You are blessed and you are cursed," she said softly. "You were not born to die."

The wind was picking up around them now, collecting the dust of the fresh snow and whirling it into a tempest around them. Rane kept her eyes on Varda, her brows knitted.

"I want to save him from this."

"You cannot save mortal men from their fate," said Varda gently. "They must perish, one way or another."

"Not him."

"You would have said the same of Sirius Black, yet for all your powers you could not save his life." Seeing Rane's shocked expression at this, Varda shook her head gently. "Some things are simply out of your hands, powerful though you are, Rane Roth."

"I won't let him die." Rane's voice was fierce, her eyes flashing. The snow was flying around them now, madly. "I won't ."

"This is your curse," said Varda. Her voice was beginning to fade with the wind now. Her eyes were bright and glowing and blue beneath the madness. "This is your curse. You are a peredhil, and you may never perish, but you will die, and you will lose those who you love, until there is no one but yourself. This is your curse, and your blessing. Use it well, and grow. You're a sapling, Rane, but you will be a redwood before long."

Rane rose, lifting an arm against the wild wind. "Varda!"

"This is your curse," Varda's voice came, only light now against the howling wind. "But you might break it."

"VARDA!"

The snow swept up around Rane, enveloping all in white, and then she knew no more.