BOOK ONE:
A MAN OF THE WILD
Chapter One:
An Unexpected Journey
She wasn't sure where she was or what happened. All she knew was she completely faded from the conscious world and came to shortly later. The difference between those moments in time were startling. Before she blacked out, Brianna thought that she might have landed on something or someone. After the fact - as she blinked into wakefulness - Brianna discovered her arms and legs pinned against the ground by a great hulking man. She didn't know much about him other than he was big, could hold her down with relative ease, and smelled extremely ripe.
The intensity of his stench made her nose wrinkle, but served to completely clear the remaining fog clouding her mind. This brought her to an issue more pressing than body odor. A sharp, smooth, cold weight pressed lightly, but firmly, against her neck. Brianna squirmed and the pressure marginally increased. Despite the urge to take in a big gulping breaths in an effort to calm her nerves she thought that the better course of action was to lay there in the patchy ground of coarse grass and dead leaves.
Where was she? Who was this? Thin trees hovered above them, so Brianna knew she was no longer at the stones. If she wanted answers the best way to go about getting them was to allow this strange man to work through whatever issue he had with her.
The sword felt too heavy. The man's clothes seemed to be made of the consistency of hard, stiff, leather. If her own uniform was made of anything else Brianna knew the leather would have started to chafe her skin. Reluctantly she met his gaze. Blue eyes blazed with cold fury. His beard was unkempt and scrappy. If she had to guess she would have figured that the man took a knife to his face periodically to keep the thing from getting too long.
He's a wild man. We have them in certain parts of Europe and the United States, but… the leather and… she ceased her pondering when she saw s glimmer of chainmail on his shoulder.
Dread punched her in the gut.
Chain mail hadn't been worn by elves, humans or High Fae since the middle of the eighteenth century. To encounter it in this moment meant one of two things: she either traveled back in time, or she was no longer on Earth.
Either way, I'm screwed, she thought.
"Who are you and how have you come upon my company?" The man asked.
Brianna would have answered, but the sword pressed against her throat made speaking difficult. She pointedly glared at him. His eyes, blue like sapphires and probably the only attractive thing about him, met her expression. After what seemed an eternity he pulled the sword away and Brianna gulped a goodly amount of air thankful to be able to breath without slicing her throat open. She waited until her body felt rejuvenated from breathing normally before answering.
"Who wishes to know?" She asked deciding to be difficult.
There wasn't a real reason for it, but the man chafed her already frayed nerves in a way that made her want to remain combative. The wild man raised an eyebrow and angled his sword close to the major artery in her neck. It took all of her willpower to keep from glancing in the direction of his hovering blade.
Cooperating with the man was the better option, she decided.
"My name is Brianna Davis," she introduced, deciding on the name she took among humans to better fit in, "I'm an elven huntress from OLYMPUS and was fighting an evil entity called a Raiphahim when I fell through… something and landed among your company."
None of whom I can see any evidence of as of now, she thought and willed herself to refrain from glancing around for them.
"That is quite the tale," the man said after a time.
Brianna's rope of patience shortened. Why on earth would she lie about this?
"Who is this OLYMPUS do you serve? Which land do they hail from?" He asked.
Land? She glanced at his sword and then took better stock of his general appearance and attire. Wherever she was the people likely didn't know what a cell phone or a car was. It also meant that they probably wouldn't know what the words "democracy" or "republic" meant if she tried to explain to them what the "State of Alaska" was.
"I..." she paused.
How was she supposed to explain any of this without being painfully specific?
One glance at the man and she decided to make a valiant attempt, "OLYMPUS is based in the State of Alaska which is part of the United States of America. I was born in…" she paused, deciding it best not to tell the entire truth. "I was born in Elicar, the capitol haven of the the elven peoples on Earth. I was in England at a place called Stonehenge when I fought and fell here," she said, voice wavering as her mind slowly became consumed with the increasingly frightening suspicion that she was no longer on Earth.
Her fears were confirmed when the human's eyebrows angled downward, clearly confused, and he asked, "Elicar? I have never heard of such a city before."
Brianna was quite surprised the man who was clearly human could effortlessly pronounce the name of the elven capital. Many younger elves had trouble with the name at the beginning and they learned the ancient tongue the moment they began to her astonishment Brianna closed her eyes and inwardly cursed using every vile word she could think of. Humans wouldn't know Elicar, but OLYMPUS was clearly foreign to him as well. On Earth most humans would have recognized that particular faux acronym. Greek mythology had influenced western culture in many large ways. Even the most unlearned human would have heard the term "Olympus."
"Have you heard of anything I've just explained to you?" She asked desperately.
The shrill tone to her voice inspired an unstoppable cringe to roll through her. Could she have sounded any more pathetic than she did now?
Cool it, Bri, she thought, losing your shit isn't going to get you out of this.
If it was ever possible for a hard, cold gaze to become harder and colder this man proved it to be so. His eyes held no warmth within and Brianna could see he was on the edge of taking her life and being done with it. Maybe such a thing wouldn't be so bad? She didn't deserve to live anyway not after abandoning her people in the way she had.
"Lies will not work on me, woman. Continue to do so and the consequences will be severe," he warned.
There were many ways Brianna could have handled his remark. For instance, she could have calmly explained to him how she wasn't lying and take the time to use logic and reason to bring him to her level of understanding. She could have remained patient, calm, and gracious in the face of this man's clear and present ignorance. Had she handled her situation that way, she may have calmed the man's overly suspicious attitude. Brianna employed none of these things and, instead, opted for the emotional - borderline hysterical - response specifically engineered by the Triune, Himself, to make matters worse.
"Lies?" She snapped, "Why the fucking hell would I lie about a thing like that you inconsiderate bastard!"
Immediately, Brianna regretted her choice of words, but there was no taking them back. She buried the horrified wince and continued to allow her emotions to burn. It was better than appearing weaker than she already did.
What was that about not loosing your cool, Davis? She wondered.
It had been many years since she felt this close to hysteria. She forgot how unpleasant it felt to feel as if she was on the brink of losing control. Brianna closer her eyes and went limp into the earth as she tried to regain her typical line between apathy and wrath.
"Strider, maybe we should listen to her," chimed a youthful male voice from her far right.
Brianna blinked and forced her head to remain still instead of looking to see who spoke. This voice had to be one of the wild man's companions. Hope rose. Was it possible that she had an advocate?
"Frodo, there is a chance this elf woman is in league with The Enemy. We can't take the risk," responded "Strider".
What sort of name is "Strider?" She wondered.
"We don't know she's with The Enemy. Give her an opportunity to explain her circumstance and let us judge for ourselves," this Frodo beseeched.
She held her breath. Strider didn't look convinced. She didn't blame him. Whatever elves existed in this world she suspected they looked and sounded different than her.
In a moment, Brianna managed to grasp the gracious patience that eluded her earlier and released a calming breath. It was time to review the past few minutes of her conversation with this smelly human and figure out a way to approach him from a position of reason.
"Please," she said and this time her voice didn't betray how pants-wettingly scared she was, "I don't know what's going on, but believe me when I say I mean you no harm."
Strider fixed her with his cold sapphire stare and Brianna held it, allowing her expression to reflect more of the woman in her than the warrior. It was her hope that she conveyed how afraid and lost she was, yet bring this strange man to a point where he would be convinced that she didn't mean them harm. She hated doing it, hated being vulnerable, but something told her this Strider wouldn't believe her unless she showed something that was less like the cold hearted huntress she allowed herself to become.
"How is that, miss?" He asked.
Here, she let steel creep into her expression as she replied, "I kill monsters. If you're not one, then I won't hurt you."
His expression turned contemplative. It softened his features enough to make him seem less like the scraggly, dark wild man he initially appeared to be. This was someone who had feelings and could connect with normal people should he choose to. Brianna could work with this.
Strider shook his head and Brianna forced herself to remain hopeful. His hard expression didn't return and he looked in the direction of his unseen companion.
"I am at an impasse. We cannot linger and listen to lengthy tales. The Enemy follow us as we speak," he said.
"I know," replied this faceless Frodo, "but I truly don't believe she's a threat to us."
Strider narrowed his eyes, "How?"
"It is shaking in my pocket."
Brianna blinked.
What?
Strider's pensive gaze returned to her. She chewed her bottom lip. After what seemed an age, he lifted his sword from her neck and hefted off her slim body. The absence of his weight allowed her to finally catch her breath and she laid against the ground reveling in the return of her personal space before sitting.
Strider stood and walked away a few paces. She turned to her right to find herself face to face with her impromptu lawyer. He was short, really short, and he didn't even have the shadow of a beard. In fact he resembled the fae with his slight figure. He looked a bit hungry and ripe - like he hadn't been off the road for quite some time. She frowned, but didn't comment.
At this time, Brianna chose to inspect the rest of her environment and discovered the attendance of other small men hovering around a pony some six feet past Frodo. They gaped at her, eyes wide and wary, and didn't move from their crouched positions.
"I don't know what to believe," Strider said after a short passage of time.
Brianna tore her gaze away from the strange child-sized boys and met the eyes of her assailant once more. She shrugged. What did he want her to say? He wouldn't believe her even if she repeated it over and over again.
"You're a bit short for an elf, are you?" Asked one of the little men.
She pursed her lips. There was always someone who felt the need to mention her height. She wasn't that short!
"My ancestry has a bit of human dilution within and though it's watered down the human blood remains. The women in that family were short; therefore I am short," she explained testily.
*A distant elven king from time past married one of the children of Laurel Moruni when her mentor still used her elven name. Professor Moruni held a taste for human men. Though she never bound them to her in the rituals of an elven marriage, the professor loved each husband as equally as the other. Her resulting children over the millennia permeated the world as the best witches and wizards known to her people. Brianna didn't remember the name of her ancestor - such a time hadn't been the focus of her studies - but she did know from a cursory glance over her family tree that the one she'd thought of had married a Morelinde Witch. By all accounts, the woman's height made many elves and humans question her ancestry. It was why Brianna never grew beyond five feet and three inches. Even on Earth, female elves grew much taller than that.
"If you truly are from another world how did you get here?" Strider interrogated.
Brianna shrugged, "There was this ritual a Raiphahim - half elven half angel - performed. Human sacrifices were involved and they killed the victims. I inflicted a mortal wound on her, but she pushed me through what I'm guessing is a portal, or something, to this… world."
Perplexed expressions met her explanation and Brianna bit back a despairing groan. It looked as though explaining things was going to be complicated. After all, did she fall through a portal to an entirely different universe, or was she on another planet? Was she even in the same Galaxy?
I suppose I'll know soon enough, she thought.
One of the hobbits - who was a bit chubbier than the rest - leaned forward. While his expression remained guarded, there was a light of interest reflected in his eyes. Brianna regarded him curiously as he worked up the courage to say whatever was on his mind.
"What's an angel?" He asked.
Brianna grimaced. How was she supposed the explain that? Angels were strange beings, but to explain what they were would prove incredibly difficult.
Hobbits seem to be adept at stumbling on the awkward questions, she thought.
"They're… heavenly beings of… er… power and authority over nature," she explained and winced a bit at the attempt.
I feel like I just explained what I am, she thought.
**She sighed and rallied for a better attempt at a coherent explanation, "Angels are considered one of the First Beings, or the Heavenly Ones. They can be forces of nature or beings of great and terrible power. In times past, they were best known as the greatest of the Children of Heaven until a Great War tore the universe apart and laid a good deal of it to waist. They primarily serve the Triune, but there are some who've bound themselves to the fate of a Fallen by the name of Heylel."
She didn't invoke the full name. Names had power and to speak the true name of the King of the Fallen was to invite trouble.
"You say this raiphahim was of elven descent?" Strider asked.
"Yes."
He frowned, but didn't inquire further. Brianna considered, for a moment, explaining the significance of The Morrighan's heritage, but thought better of it. The hobbits alone looked confused and she had the suspicion that, should she keep talking, Strider would only distrust her more.
"Why was it necessary for you to allow innocents die?" Asked the ranger, instead.
She pursed her lips. In her initial explanation, she hadn't explicitly said she was instructed to let the ritual carry out. He must have read the implication.
Why indeed?
"They inject them with a serum. It makes them slowly lose their minds and we've never been able to find a cure for it. As much as I hate to say it, sacrificial ceremonies tend to kill quickly," she explained.
It was the answer she was most comfortable making. Had she arrived earlier, Brianna wasn't sure she would have been able to stop herself from acting. The cries of the newborn child echoed in her mind and she closed her eyes to ward both them and the echoes of her past away. Now was not the time to give into her self-hatred.
The party collectively turned various shades of green. Even the hard, weather worn, Strider seemed repulsed. Brianna turned her gaze to the ground and worried her lips with her top teeth.
"That's horrible! Who would do such a thing?" Asked one of the younger looking child-men.
"Heartless sons of bitches," she spat.
The little company grew silent and Brianna found herself blushing. Apparently elves in their world didn't curse.
"That indeed," Strider muttered and met her gaze. "You know little of this land, I presume, so if I may, allow me to offer my services as a guide?"
Brianna shot him a mistrustful glance, "Guide to where?"
"Rivendell, or Imladris if you prefer, home of the elves of this particular region. Lord Elrond is head of that household," he offered.
***The man stood on the other end of the small camp looking unimpressed. He was quite tall - even for a human. He easily towered over the hobbits and made quite the imposing figure. He reached behind his neck and pulled the grey hood of his cloak over his head. The act made him seem ominous which, she suspected, was his intent. Brianna sighed and rose to her feet. Even at her five feet and three inches she had to tilt her head up just to look him in the eyes.
"Or lock me under house arrest to keep me from enacting the evil, diabolical, plan of whoever it is you're running from may have concocted?" She asked with a falsely sweet smile and a sugary voice.
She wasn't good at faking sweet, nor was she the best at making courtesies sound genuine. That didn't mean she couldn't use them. Maybe, one day, she'd sound genuine?
"I cannot say for your intentions, but if what you say is true then our enemies would lust for your knowledge of the other world. I believe it would be better if you accompanied us to Imladris to meet with your kin," he said.
It was the best she could hope to get given the circumstances.
Brianna inclined her head, "Alright, it's logical. Now, tell me, who are your enemies and why are they chasing you?"
The silence that met her ears was deafening. The men presented a good show of "not looking" at the other. Brianna huffed and placed her small hands on her hips.
"Really? Either I'm with the enemy and chance me killing the lot of you where you stand, or I'm a friend and I don't know what I need to help protect you! Just say it!" She said, exasperated.
Frodo broke first.
"It's a ring. I carry a ring that an evil being named Sauron wishes to find. It's part of him, it wants to get back to him. To achieve this goal he has sent out these wraiths called the Nazgul to find me, kill me, and take the ring back to their master. We travel to Rivendell to keep it hidden and safe," he said shakily.
She didn't say anything, not at first. Brianna stared at all of them - Frodo who spoke, Strider who distrusted her and was currently glaring at Frodo for revealing the entirety of their quest to the open air, and the nameless other hobbits gaping at her too intimidated to speak - unable to quite come to terms with what she heard.
A ring.
A dark Lord.
Wraiths hunting them.
All to get back a ring.
She blinked.
"I'm sorry, could you repeat that? Did you just tell me that you're running for your lives all because some asshole wants his jewelry back?" She asked bluntly.
Strider never believed he experienced everything there was to behold in his eighty-seven years. This elven woman with hair like glittering bronze and eyes the color of the post-dawn sky counted as one of those things he definitely never seen before. Her clothes were strange – a form fitting combination of cloth and armor – and even embarrassing. One time during their trek she ventured in front of them and Strider beheld the full view of what was possibly the fullest posterior he'd ever seen on any elf. For several minutes he barely noticed where he stepped until she turned to him to inquire after a path of jagged rocks before them and whether the Hobbits could handle it. Aragorn – as cool as he could manage – explained to her the mechanics of a hobbit's foot and how they were quite hardy in rough terrain.
There was much to her troubling him including the way she became an instant favorite with the hobbits. It could have been related to how difficult it was for him to gain their trust. Yet this outlander – a true outlander – fell right on top of him seemingly out of the sky and was met with barely a grain of suspicion. It was nonsensical at first until he silently admitted she was prettier than he and closer to them in height. The way she casually walked arm in arm with Merry and Pippin was almost picturesque and very much worrying.
Her reaction to the ring was what astounded him the most. Frodo had the good sense not to take the thing out and show it to her and for that he was thankful; however, the sheer irreverence and lack of fear towards the talisman shocked him. Isildur's Bane - just a piece of jewelry yet it promised so much power to the one who possessed it. Brianna Davis didn't seem to think so.
They had continued on in their journey once the company shook themselves of the stunned stupor she placed them in with her blunt way of describing their predicament. Strider was too troubled to respond at the time, but Merry and Pippin seemed to meet with her particular way of thinking and responded thusly:
"Oh aye! When you put it like that, it seems rather ridiculous! Almost like that squabble old Bilbo and Lobelia Sackville-Baggins always had over Bag End!" Pippin piped in.
"Yeah," Merry agreed, "Why put so much stock in a ring you haven't seen or touched for almost three thousand years?"
"I know elves older than that," Brianna said.
"It's not even a pretty ring, it's just dull and gold. Doesn't even glitter when the light hits it," Sam had remarked.
Frodo had been the only one of the hobbits, in the end, who looked torn between agreeing with them and telling them exactly how dangerous the ring actually was. He, himself, didn't know that tidbit, so the lad remained silent while the four laughed. Strider had offered as much silent comfort as he could.
At this moment, as the light of the day faded into eventide, Strider contemplated their predicament while he tied low-hanging branches together with a bit of rope they had on hand. Low-hanging clouds hovered in the distance and moved slowly with the wind, but evidently promised rain possibly that night. It was a small contribution he could make to their company while Brianna showed the hobbits how to build a fire that would only smolder and glow dimly, but give out enough heat to fill their small tree alcove. Sam had been the one to catch on the quickest, so she patiently instructed him while the others watched.
And not but a few hours ago she trivialized our entire venture, he thought irately.
Despite this Strider wondered what it was, exactly, that she faced in the past for her to look at a magical ring and proclaim it to be a "bit of jewelry". What was worse than Sauron?
He made his bed against a thick trunk after grabbing a bit of jerky from their food-pack that Sam took upon himself to hand out. Absently he glanced up at the sparse branches and blinked. They were thicker, wider and new leaves grew stiffly out and allowed for little space for rain drops to spill through. He narrowed his eyes at the lady sitting next to Frodo with a bright grin on her face as she spoke of this self-moving thing she named a "car".
There wasn't a single musical note sung. Even if she quietly wove a spell, how had she manipulated the growth of that tree so quickly? Brianna Davis was a riddle and one he intended to solve - and soon.
One by one the Hobbits faded into various forms of sleep around them. Frodo slept the closest to the fire while the others settled against the thick tree trunks further away. He noted her expression - the slight downward turn of her lips and the furrow of her brow - and crossed his arms. If she was an enemy the he would deal with her when the time came.
As if she could read his thoughts Brianna Davis met his gaze. Strider remained stoic as one of her eyebrows lifted. He resisted the urge to respond. There was no need to confront her about whatever it was she did as of yet. He didn't have enough evidence to combat the likely slew of denials she would utter the moment he did so.
****She held his gaze for a while longer. With a shrug she turned away and settled into the nest of leaves. Strider regarded her for a while as the sound of quietly snoring hobbits filled the air. She shifted and winced, though it was clear she still slept. A cold wind swept down from the north. She shivered. With a sigh, Strider pulled his back to him and pulled out his extra cloak. He quietly rose to his feet and stepped up to her through the fallen leaves. Brianna didn't wake though her brow furrowed and a small frown slipped across her lips. Gently, he covered her slim form in his much larger cloak and promptly returned to his seat.
I will bide my time, lady, and you will soon reveal yourself, he thought.
*FOOTNOTES*
*As mentioned in later chapters (so no spoilers) Athena takes on a different post-humus role in the story. In any case, her backstory in my own cannon changed drastically to the point where it felt wrong to not keep things consistent. I will not make any more amendments to her backstory for Consequences, just know that what is currently in fan fiction, now, might be different in the final iteration of my own set of novels.
**My original explanation of angels in my personal lore left much to be desired and, frankly, didn't match with the character Brianna is purported to be at the beginning of this story. She's a historian and archeologist. She's also a huntress. The idea that she'd stutter her way through an explanation about a creature she knows something about. With that being said, I can see her being thrown off-kilter by the necessity of explaining what an angel is in the first place.
***The delineation of the original set of dialogue for this scene didn't quite flow well and left much to be desired. I've expanded it and am left a much happier author with the end result.
****I began the next chapter with Brianna covered in Strider's cloak but never explained how she obtained it in the first place. I originally ended this chapter with her using his cloak as a pillow. This change fixes that hole in Strider's character arch.