Chapter 20

Wreathed in Gold

Author's Note: O.O... I didn't think I'd update this month... I'm writing in Camp Nanowrimo right now and instead of dedicating my day off to writing my actual story (Elf-Beast) I apparently decided to write 3000+ words to finish this chapter. Wine was involved, so the end of the chapter might be a bit wonky, but eh! It's fanfiction. I'm sure everyone will at least find it entertaining, so enjoy! :P

The atmosphere settled into a semi-warm climate the further south they walked. Though a northern wind beat at their backs a bright sun bore down on them as they skirted the banks of Anduin. Glorfindel's information left them certain of how close the small company were to their final destination and Brianna couldn't wait to finally stop walking. Ever since they crossed the Gladden River into the Drimril Dale all that seemed to stretch before them were endless fields of amber grass. Small plains creatures, muck like those that lived on Earth, bounded about living their happy lives.

Brianna didn't like those fields as she felt too much exposed for her liking. There wasn't a place for them to hide, nowhere they could turn should the enemy discover them, just an endless sea of grass and river. It made her antsy despite knowing their enemies were far away and likely wouldn't catch up to them by the time they made it to Lorien. Despite this, something made her feel very uneasy and she couldn't divine as to why. There was something wrong, somewhere, and the mysterious beings that dwelled around the land did not like it. At first, she thought it was just her, but when she asked Glorfindel if something seemed off to him, he revealed that there was something foul in the air.

"I wonder if this was a point of entry," Brianna said.

"It could be. Is there any way for you to know?" Glorfindel asked.

She shook her head and skirted around a heavily clustered tuft of tall grass, "No, not without a few hours at a desk equipped with a pencil and paper. I'd have to draw a rather large map of Earth and a map of Arda and find similar land masses between our worlds."

Brianna took a deep breath and nearly gagged at the putrid stench she was met with. Something was wrong with the air and the wind and the very ground she stood on. It was reminiscent of the day, three months earlier, when she was unceremoniously shoved into Arda. She hadn't thought much of the stench at the time - there were more pressing matters occupying her mind at that moment - so it hadn't occurred to her that there was anything to take note of.

"We need to stop, for a moment, so I can inspect this," she said.

Brianna was met with four pairs of confused eyes blinking at her from the faces of incredibly beautiful people. It struck her, in that moment, how similar their beauty was to each other. Arwen, though tall, was more of an exception than Glorfindel and her brothers. Brianna blinked the thought away feeling both amused by the observation and alarmed by the feel of the world around her. They complied without too much complaint and left Brianna to her own devices.

The first thing she did was pull her rune notes from her pack and leafed through them. Brianna hadn't memorized the entire rune book. She was only one hundred and sixty-nine years old and hadn't been entirely diligent about her runic studies ever since she left OLYMPUS as a full time huntress. While Professor Moruni had continued her education regarding runes and magic Brianna's knowledge rested more in the archeological field, concealment, and movement. Runes, she concluded, would have to be an anchor for her instead of the main mode of inspection.

She breathed and began to etch runes of inspection into the ground. They acted as a guiding point for her to discern where every part of the distortion area was and gave her a rough idea of what she was dealing with. The fell magic settled in a perfect circle and snapped and crackled in protest at the presence of the pure goodness of logic and order.

Once what effectively amounted to a math equation settled into a steady hum Brianna closed her eyes, lifted her hands - palms facing outward - and breathed. The Enith Gilthaes - the foundations of the very universe around them and the element to begin all elements - answered her call. As was usually the case with gently stepping into the power Brianna's entire nervous system erupted into a burst of euphoria. A pleased gasp escaped her lips and she fought to wrest her being back into a state of neutrality. She succeeded, but the act left her feeling weak in the knees and nearly sapped of strength.

The world looked different when she wielded that particular element. It never failed to catch her off guard; especially when an anomaly was found. In this case, what Brianna beheld chilled her to the bone. Darkness morphed and churned like a thick tar-like fire. Steeling herself, she willingly plunged into the darkness and began to search for the evil that had made it.

The darkness churned angrily about her. It's eerie hum rang in her ears and made her teeth unpleasantly tingle. The Enith Gilthaes protected her, shielded her from the seeking tendrils that threatened to consume her. Brianna searched the darkness, uncovered its roots, and traced it back, through space and time, until she glimpsed a vision of how it came to be.

The Morrighan, three women (maiden, mother, and crone), chanting sorceresses, a blade-bladed dagger, and blood. Then she was whipped back to Arda but, instead of finding her companions, she discovered a circle of black-clad riders. At least, black was what they wore. Their faces peeked out from under their cowls with an eerie glow. Fell words echoed in the land around her sung with a song that struck chords that rattled her bones so violently she feared they would part from her skin. With great effort, she tore herself from the darkness and stumbled out of the circle.

As she released herself from the Enith Gilthaes the world returned to normalcy. The stink in the air returned to choke her. A cough violently erupted from her chest. Two pairs of hands steadied her. Voices spoke to her, but she couldn't quite hear them. She blinked and her vision cleared. Once sight returned every other bit of awareness followed after.

"Brianna."

It was Arwen speaking urgently to her. It took another moment to realize that she'd fallen backwards to the ground. As nothing in particular hurt too much Brianna figured the elleth must have caught her at some point.

"What did you see?"

Glorfindel was on her other side across from Arwen. Cold, clammy, and too shaken to reply, all Brianna could bring herself to do was shake her head and pull her legs to her chest. Her companions got the message and retreated from her presence with varying looks of concern. Brianna didn't acknowledge them. The enormity of what she witnessed in the residual sorcery loomed at the head. All things she previously felt she needed to worry about were pushed from her mind. The truth of the situation dawned and it threatened to make all previous efforts against the enemy obsolete.

Sauron had made the rifts. The rifts originated from Arda. It would take magic of Arda to fix it.

Artemis was first, and foremost, a huntress. For over three thousand years she had made a point to hone her craft and match her skill with the elves and men around her. She meant to become the best of the best, the one others called when a particularly dark entity needed to be dealt with. In the end, she became the leader of the largest force of maniac misfits she'd managed to scrounge up. Orphans, half elves, dwarves keen on doing something other than forging weapons, and humans who'd worked out the existence of the other world and took it upon themselves to find a way to help in the battle against Heylel ben Shachar.

It was heartening for her to see a segment of the elven population in Lorien willing to not only scout the perimeter of the forest realm's borders, but also to stretch their legs beyond where they could observe the world around them and deal with the evil that was at hand. Artemis had embarked on many errands with Galadriel's Wardens and exacted appropriate justice where said justice was due. It was mostly on goblins from Arda, but she'd routed out several creatures her enemies had attempted to slip past the Lady's wards. Such exercises were violent and had surprised her companions with the level of cold hearted exactness she employed while killing her enemies, but Artemis hadn't gone on those excursions to play the nice, meek female elleth. She needed to hunt something, do something, and rid the world of one sort of evil just to release the sense of stagnation two weeks in Lorien had developed.

That day, they went a few leagues beyond the border of Lorien into the Drimril Dale for a weekly bought into the immediate northern lands beyond the little realm. Reconnaissance was a bit boring for Artemis' tastes, but it at least gave her something to do. Haldir, the March Warden she was always paired with, had enough presence of mind to use her to cover the high ground and scout several leagues ahead beside him and two other elves. She never got their names. They never attempted to speak with her on account of not knowing how to speak the common language. This suited Artemis just fine as it enabled her to go about her business with very little interference from anyone other than Haldir and the March Warden seemed content to let her familiarize herself with the territory and search for signs of some dark creature or another.

On their second day into the Dale, Artemis had been perched on the crest of a hill slightly higher than the others that overlooked a gradual descent into the Anduin. Her eyes had been carefully cast forward inspecting the wind for an ounce of the taint she'd felt when their scouting parties took themselves closer to the mountains and the entrance to an old dwarven mining city below when they settled on a company of five figures in the distance. Every muscle in her body tensed at the possibility of meeting an enemy out in the open in broad daylight. She reached for the medallion she kept at her neck to activate her bow and arrows when her vision focused on one figure in particular. Breath rushed past her lips.

"Is all well, Lady Huntress?" Haldir asked.

Artemis wasted little time and turned to snap a reply, "Tell the other two to return to Lorien and inform the Professor, Lord and Lady that my niece has arrived. You and I will hail and meet them shortly."

To his credit, Haldir didn't question her orders and simply turned to his two companions to relay the message and send them on their way. Once their backs were turned and far enough away, the Warden scaled the hill and viewed the approaching group. Artemis didn't watch him. She didn't need to. It was clear that he was validating Brianna's companions as well as her niece. He hummed.

"You told me that your niece was short compared to other elves. You did not lie," he remarked.

Artemis answered with a very unladylike snort and muttered, "If you don't want your ass lit on fire I suggest you don't tell her that."

He didn't smile. She rolled her eyes and watched the group approach for another thirty minutes. When Brianna seemed to be in hearing distance, Artemis cupped her hands in front of her mouth and allowed the wind to gather in her palm. Then she breathed a short message telling her niece where to look before releasing the wind to blow straight across the dale and hit Brianna gently on the face. When the younger elf started, shook her head, and then looked across the dale directly at them Artemis considered her attempt a clear and present success. The moment Brianna broke into a blurred sprint for them, she ran to meet her.

There were many things Brianna hadn't expected upon coming into sight of Lorien. The tall, form of her pale skinned and dark haired aunt hadn't been one of them. When they finally met somewhere between where Artemis had been roosting and Brianna had been walking they embraced tightly nearly shrieking with glee. For Brianna, it was as if her heart was about to burst from her chest.

"I can't believe you managed it," she said once she calmed down and looked around for her companions and realized they stayed behind at their same pace, "I thought we couldn't travel between worlds? I thought the knowledge was lost."

Artemis shook her head not bothering to hide the slight smile that graced her eyes and lips, "It was apparently kept under tight reign. Loki instructed Matt in where to pick up in case something on his end went wrong. I don't know where they are, but I can promise that you have an entourage ready to help stop Hades."

Brianna's face fell, "So, The Morrighan's plan all along was him?"

"Hades, Aries, and Persephone, and I think they needed something from here to break the seal. We're just not sure when they first crossed over."

Brianna's expression turned grave as she thought back to the obstruction she discovered a day before. What her aunt supposed and what she saw from that vision didn't quite line up. They were missing something vital and Brianna couldn't quite put her finger on what it was.

She leaned towards her aunt and whispered, "I found an obstruction a day away in the dale. The land has… memory of what happened."

Artemis tilted her head to one side, frowning thoughtfully, "Lady Galadriel had said her Wardens discovered signs of our enemy's presence a few months ago."

Unconsciously, Brianna cast her gaze to the sky in case they were graced with another dark watcher. So far only the clear blue deep of the atmosphere sparkled down on them with the late afternoon sun. Artemis followed her gaze and then raised an eyebrow.

"Bri, trust me, they haven't flown anything up there in a good while. I made sure of it," she said and smirked, clearly satisfied with her handiwork.

"Erebus is here," Brianna informed her as she cast her gaze back out to her approaching companions.

Their pace had quickened, likely because Glorfindel saw the wisdom of hurrying the lot of them out of the Dale. Brianna and her aunt waited for them and passed the short time speaking of Earth, the things that passed, and the passage of time between Arda and Earth.

"I've only been missing for two weeks?" Brianna asked once Artemis had given her the approximate passage of time since her disappearance.

"Yep! How long has it been for you?" Artemis asked.

"Two and a half months!"

Silence descended between them for a good long while as the gravity of what Brianna said weighed upon them.

"By the Triune's names! The professor said this might happen," Artemis muttered.

Brianna looked down the length of the dale and watched her small group run swiftly up the hill. They were close enough, now, to see their bright eyes look upon Artemis in wonder. Confused by their reaction Brianna took in the entirety of her aunt's appearance and understood their awe.

Lady Huntress Artemis ven Turthin certainly was a sight to behold. Her brown hair was tied back in a simple blade and recently cut to just below her shoulders. Her eyes were grey - the color of the Late Elven King Zeus' eyes - and added to her other-worldly appearance. Every inch of her body was adorned with the highest ranking hunter's garb issued to all OLYMPUS hunters once they reached a certain status in the organization. It was complete with silver armor laced within the cloth - dwarven wrought and elven weaved - and made her glow when the sun peeked out from behind a lazy cloud. She wore no weapons, just a pendant on her left shoulder and two charm bracelets that looped over her middle fingers on her right and left hands. The color of her clothes was white and brown which made the vision all the more blinding.

Brianna squinted at one thing she saw looped on her aunt's semi-thick chain.

"Is that a cell phone?" She asked, stunned.

Artemis blinked, looked down at her side, and grinned sheepishly, "It's modified. It's one of Matt's projects."

Brianna blinked and felt the full weight of her neglect towards her friends from Earth descend on her heart. The cell phone, able to work in a place where there were no cellular towers or satellites, was clearly something he'd been working on for several months. She'd been so disengaged from the hunters that she willingly sacrificed her remaining family, her friendships, and everything else she used to value just because she couldn't handle being their queen.

"I should have known," she whispered.

Artemis' expression didn't turn hard or angry, but there was a glint in her eyes that told Brianna that this conversation would be resumed later when all were inside the borders of Lorien and away from any danger posed by their enemies. In that moment, Glorfindel and Arwen crested the hill followed closely by Elrohir and Ellandan. All eyed Artemis with varying degrees of mistrust and awe. Laughing, Brianna turned to them and placed a hand on her aunt's shoulder.

"May I present my aunt, the lady Huntress Artemis ven Turthen," she introduced, "Aunt, this is Glorfindel, his fiancé, Arwen, and her brothers Elrohir and Elladan. All three of them are the sons of Lord Elrond the Half-Elven and the grandchildren of Lady Galadriel of Lothlorien."

Artemis raised an eyebrow and inclined her head to them ever so slightly, "It's a pleasure to make your acquaintance. I've heard much of you from Lady Galadriel."

Arwen smiled and bowed deeply before her, "While I can't speak for my fiancé or my brothers, I can say from the bottom of my heart that it is a pleasure to make the acquaintance of the aunt Brianna speaks so highly of."

Brianna flushed a deep red when her aunt fixed an incredibly satisfied smirk in her direction and said, "Oh? She speaks highly of me? How sweet!"

Shit, I'll never hear the end of this, Brianna thought.

Upon entering the Golden Wood Brianna found herself presented with a world of undeniable beauty and grace. Great trees of silver bark and golden leaves loomed above her infused with a magic she couldn't quite identify. As it was likely the beginning of December she felt the never-death in the land's flora that simultaneously rang both natural and wrong to her senses. Beside her, Arwen tilted her head back and breathed a sigh of contentment as she set foot in the small realm around her.

"These trees. What are they?" Brianna asked.

"They are mallorn trees gifted to my grandmother by her sire, Gil-Galad and planted by her long before the War of the Ring," Arwen explained.

Brianna nodded, "Gil-Galad as in the Gil-Galad who fought alongside your father with Isildur against Sau… er… the Dark Lord?"

"The very same," Arwen clarified.

Artemis whistled, "Your people certainly have a long standing history. Your grandmother and the Professor have been trying to explain it to me, but I confess that I can't quite keep it in my head. Now, show me a map and I'll have the thing memorized by sun-set."

"Not one for the scholarly pursuits, Lady Huntress?" Glorfindel asked.

Her aunt sniffed and replied primly, "Indeed not! I left that to Athena and my brother. I had a planet to protect from the evils my father allowed to fester under his watch."

Brianna smiled, but remained silent. Athena, her great-great grandmother, had been both warrior and scholar. When the day called for leadership in war it was Athena who managed to muster an army and successfully fight and win against Aries' and Hades' armies of berserkers and dead. As far as power, guts, and the ability to bring herself to do the necessary things to effectively eradicate the evil that infected her family Athena hadn't been able to do it. Killing her uncle and half-brother, as necessary as she had known it to be, was impossible for her. It resulted in Hades, Aries and Persephone being locked into the seventh gate of hell as punishment for their crimes. Artemis and Apollo had long held the opinion that locking the three of them in hell wasn't actually a punishment, but an opportunity for them to learn secrets of a darker nature that would, in turn, set them on a course to destroy the light. After the current events slowly unfolding before her, Brianna was inclined to agree with her aunt and uncle.

"Has my cousin been informed of my whereabouts?" Brianna asked.

"Yes, though he and the Counsel of the Eldar have elected to keep it from the nobles for the time being. We don't need them to have anymore reason to despair of you than they already do," Artemis said.

Brianna grimaced, but didn't respond. There wasn't much point in trying to argue her case. Just because she didn't think herself capable of ruling her people didn't mean that the Triune agreed with her. As the mark of the elven ruler and the power that came with it remained, so did her eventual fate of having to pick up and rule them later remained. As her cousin remained her steward, so he would rule in all but name.

"The nobles?" Arwen asked. "I didn't realize there actually was nobility among our people."

"There are, on Earth, twelve noble families that can trace their lineage back to the Great Conflict many billions of years ago. It doesn't seem like a small thing to consider, but reading our knowledge, our histories…, "Artemis shook her head, "Only two of us who came to Arda remember the day when we were given a choice to leave heaven and return to the physical realm. They remember the days before the humans and the days long after they arrived. Did you know there was a time when elves could still move across the many habitable planets and galaxies? I hadn't until now when my little niece decided to get pushed into Arda. Suddenly the old sciences and mysteries are being revealed and…" she trailed off, clearly not wishing to finish that thought.

"And the world is suddenly greater than you ever imagined," Glorfindel offered kindly.

Artemis nodded and fixed Brianna with a hard stare. She returned that expression with equal hardness. For as long as Brianna could remember her aunt always stressed the fact that she'd seen the terrors of the world and that she alone could perceive the complete destruction of the darkness that could engulf the world and leave desolation in its wake. This time Brianna wasn't going to give her aunt the luxury of being the only one who "knew". She'd seen the visions Enith Gilthaes provided of the past. She knew what it would take to bind the world anew and repair the walls that separated Earth from Arda. She wouldn't share how terrified the prospect left her.

"Too right, elf lord," Artemis finally replied, not averting her gaze from Brianna's determination. "I only hope we can keep on protecting it."

With that Artemis broke eye contact and moved to the front of the group where Haldir led them. Brianna watched Arwen and Glorfindel whisper to themselves of what she figured were memories of their time shared in Lorien. Every once in a while one of them pointed in a direction towards something Brianna couldn't quite make out and smiled a memory or two. Once again, the distracting ache thrummed through her as she thought of Aragorn and the ring he gifted her hanging on its chord around her neck. Subconsciously, she lifted her hand and pulled the ring out from beneath the folds of her vest where she hid it and caressed it with her thumb.

I… miss him. Everything Glorfindel and Arwen do remind me of him and it hurts. It shouldn't hurt, nothing could come of he and I, but still it does, she thought.

They walked through the night, sometimes in complete silence with the sounds of the forest creatures echoing around them, and sometimes with a gentle susurration of whispers from Artemis, Glorfindel and Arwen. There were moments Elrohir and Elladan joined in their gentle cheerful banter, but she and the March Warden, Haldir, didn't join them. Haldir seemed to be the sort who didn't speak much about anything, but Brianna discovered that she didn't want to speak to anyone. Once the high of seeing her aunt died away other thoughts crept into her mind and left her pensive and unsure of the situation she found herself in.

When they entered Caras Galadhorn, Brianna was met with a sight she would never forget in all the long years after. The mallorn trees stretched high above them with wide silver trunks and branches that stretched out above them forming a thick canopy of silver and gold. Torches of fire hung from golden chains attached to the trees and illuminated the forest floor and the many levels of bridges and what looked to be houses inside the trees above them.

"Jesus' Holy Name," she breathed. "This is… beautiful."

It was a lame description of the world around her. Thick clouds of happy fireflies drifted around them. Blue and yellow flowers grew among thick ferns and creeping vines on the forest floor. It took everything Brianna had not to dash about the place and inspect every ounce of plant and architecture grown and built around the great trees.

"Welcome to Lothlorien, home of my heart," Arwen whispered to her from Brianna's right.

Brianna, for her part, could only nod. She was too stunned by what was before her to speak. A cloud of fireflies drifted in front of her. Like a child would Brianna reached out her hand and thrust it in the midst of their light. The bugs illuminated her pale skin and cast a cold orange glow around her arm. She smiled and laughed her heart thudded in her chest and an urge to dash amongst them and sing and dance nearly overcame her. Brianna checked herself despite the urge and remained where she was watched by the elves around her.

"This place is absolutely beautiful, Arwen. Your grandmother maintains a fine city," Brianna said, voice light and breathy.

The older elf maiden smiled broadly at the compliment, reached down and grabbed Brianna's hand, and began to lead her towards one of the larger mallorn trees. Brianna allowed Arwen to tug her along. If she didn't she knew she'd stop at every interesting thing she passed at every opportunity she found. At one point, she caught the amused smirk in Artemis' eyes and childishly stuck her tongue out at her. Her aunt raised her eyes to the tree canopy and muttered something unintelligible under her breath that sparked a sharp guffaw of laughter from Glorfindel and a few smiles from Elladan, Elrohir, and Haldir. Before she could figure out exactly what was said Arwen snatched her away and practically dragged her across the forest floor towards the large tree Brianna observed earlier.

"That," Arwen said, motioning towards the tall tree, "is the house of my grandparents, Lady Galadriel and Lord Celeborn, my mother's kin. It is here they will receive us and here we will stay. My grandparents have a great library at their disposal free for anyone's use and one I suspect you will be employing much during your stay here."

Brianna voiced an affirmative while her eyes darted to and fro trying to take in all of the sights to be seen despite knowing she could look once she was settled. The tree approached, great and beautiful in it's growth and surrounding stone and wooden architecture, and Arwen stopped at a wooden staircase that peeked out from the great trunk. Arwen gave Brianna a few instructions about watching where she stepped and other incredibly useful things that she nodded her head to and then carefully led the ascent into the tree beyond.

There were only a few terrains Brianna wasn't comfortable with. Deserts with their shifting sands that forced her to constantly concentrate on to keep from letting the fine grains of dirt slip out from under her were one climate she absolutely hated. While the heat never particularly bothered her like it did her instructor, Maf, both shared a similar distaste for desert climates. Swamps, marshes, or anything similar was another terrain Brianna felt uncomfortable navigating for similar reasons of it being difficult to keep track of the ground. The added irritant of the local bug population only made navigating the bloody thing even worse.

Ascending what were clearly stairs grown from the silver bark of the mallorn tree? Brianna certainly could do. She scaled the thing so well that Arwen had to remind her that she didn't know where she was going and needed to follow her, though the elder elf was far more amused by Brianna's enthusiasm than irritated. They reached the level of the tree where Arwen intended them to go quickly - far quicker than Brianna first thought they would - and practically pulled Brianna through an opening into the tree and down a wooden corridor.

This is all grown to look like this, she thought, awed, I can barely do this right now, yet Lady Galadriel not only managed to make the tree grow into a house, but sustain the way the tree grew as a house as well.

Humbled, Brianna let Arwen pull her along the passageway and through an archway shrouded in white silk curtains. Sitting in a few simply constructed wooden chairs were two elves Brianna didn't recognize and a tall, red headed elf dressed in a plaid shirt, jeans, and brown leather boots. She stopped before Arwen did, mouth open just a bit. Of course, she'd known the professor was in Lorien. Artemis had said as much, but to actually see her mentor sitting casually in a chair before her made everything come together for her.

She was in Arda, but she was no longer alone.

Brianna blinked away tears of joy threatening to spill out of her tear ducts and took a deep breath before saying, "Took you long enough, Professor."

Professor Laurel Moruni's eyes shown just a bit as she replied, "Well, you certainly didn't make it easy now did you?"

The other elf woman merely smiled and said, "Welcome to Caras Galadhorn, Queen Aracasse ven Aldura. It is an honor to finally meet you."

Brianna grinned, "If I here you say 'You're Majesty' I'll convince one of your trees to tie your up for an hour. Lady Galadriel, I presume?"

The lady stood and towered over her, eyes bright with the clear and present joke running between them, "I hear from Laurelie and your aunt that you prefer Brianna, so I will call you that if you only call me Galadriel, my lady."

Brianna pulled a face at the "my lady" and replied, "Done and done!"