Chapter 22
He Danced in the Morning
Author's Note: I. Am. So. Sorry. For. Taking. Three. Months. To. Update! I have a really good excuse! I was planning my wedding XD! Anyway, now that the wedding's over and it's Christmas break for me (a short little break, but a break all the same), I've found some time to write. Please enjoy this chapter! I will try to update more often after this!
December 25th - eight o'clock in the morning, Lorien
Brianna woke feeling even more despondent than she had a few days prior. It was a strange feeling, one that she couldn't fully identify, and it persisted all through the morning as she broke her fast and set about her exorcises. Breathe, look within, consider, ponder, and sing. Yet, her tone rang hollow to her ears even though her mind could feel the magic she attempted to touch. Near midday, after leaving her rooms to wander the forest floor, Brianna temporarily forgot her troubled feeling at the sight of Arwen and three other elf women gathered around a small pool nestled in the foot of two particularly tall mallorn trees. The raven haired maiden spied her before Brianna had a chance to greet them and hastily waived her over to their little group.
With a smile, Brianna approached them and allowed the older elf to pull her into an affectionate embrace upon arrival. When Arwen pulled away she turned and began introducing Brianna only felt slightly awkward about the entire thing. The three other elf women were near identical in their thinness, height, eye color and hair color. For a moment, Brianna thought them to be triplets, but was proven only slightly correct as Arwen explained who they were.
"Brianna, these are my dearest friends and companions, Celeblas, Eregil, and Luthil. My friends, this is the one I spoke of who calls herself Brianna," she said.
The one whom Arwen introduced as Celeblas stood and inclined her head to her. Brianna had to tilt her head only a little bit to look up at the woman. She was much shorter than Arwen, maybe five feet and seven inches to the darker haired elf's six feet. Her hair, like the other two, was a silver blond accompanied by a pair of shining blue eyes.
"My sisters and I are pleased to make your acquaintance, Lady Brianna," she said, "it is rare for us to see one such as yourself and we rarely venture far past Lorien's borders; especially in times such as these."
Brianna nodded and replied with a smile, "I'm happy to meet all of you."
With a twinkle in her eye, Arwen led Brianna to an open space of grass and sat down with her. Once they were seated, Celeblas returned to her perch on the thick tree root she'd been sitting on when Brianna came upon them and the one called Eregil - who was sitting on that same root just below the elf woman - leaned forward in Brianna's direction.
"Is it true what Arwen tells us? Are you from another world?" She asked.
Brianna sent Arwen a teasing smirk and asked, "Telling tales about me, friend?"
Arwen closed her eyes and tilted her chin to the air as she replied primly, "I have only spoken of what is true and verifiable by yourself."
Grinning, Brianna returned her attention to an amused Eregil and said, "I supposed the best way to describe it is that I've come from another world. I don't know enough of the technicalities to adequately describe exactly where I come from. Such a question is best posed to a friend of mine whom I am told is here in Arda… somewhere."
Eregil cocked her head to one side and began to fidget with her hands from what Brianna could only figure was excitement. With a glance to Celeblas and Luthil, she noticed the tint of disapproval in their expressions and strongly suspected that out of the three of them Eregil acted less like a lady and more like a free spirit. Even so, painted alongside that disapproval were varying degrees of fondness and love that could only be shared by those who couldn't help their relation to such an excitable creature. A pang of longing echoed through Brianna's own heart as she observed the sisterly bond displayed before her.
If only… she wondered and then ended that thought the moment it reared it's head.
There was no point in thinking those thoughts, in regretting something that she couldn't even remember existed in the first place, and wishing that she not only remembered her parents and that they'd lived long enough to produce other siblings. She shouldn't think about it. Unfortunately, she did and thought on it more often now then she had in the past. All because she had to learn the magic of Arda to save the world. Again.
"The Lady Laurel tried to give our brother an explanation," Luthil remarked absently, "I do not believe he understood a word she said and I suspect she is very knowledgeable of these… mechanics."
Brianna smiled wryly, "She is. The… Lady Laurel is my teacher and I've learned much from her, but sometimes there are concepts she tries to teach me that I'm not ready for."
There was a certain glint in Arwen's eyes at that confession. The other elf women, of course, missed what Brianna had alluded to, but Arwen - who knew the whole of Brianna's purpose - likely suspected the double meaning behind Brianna's words and knew enough to plan to speak with her alone at a later time.
"Haldir, the March Warden, is their brother, Brianna," Arwen said, providing a bit of information that Brianna didn't know in an effort to turn the subject of their conversation away from their purpose.
Celeblas smiled fondly at the remark, "Ah, yes! I remember our brother speaking of your coming. He was most surprised to see our friend, Arwen, among your company."
"It was a surprise to all of us," Luthil said. "The world has turned dark and is full of terrors from your world, Lady Brianna. Lord Elrond loves his daughter and takes great measures to protect her. While Lord Glorfindel is a great and powerful elf among our kind, we didn't think Lord Elrond would believe his protection sufficient."
Brianna smiled and said, "There are many things I disagree with Lord Elrond about. One of them is the act of keeping one away from the person they love with the pretense of protecting them. Having lost two I have loved at different times, I can attest to the fact that it is better to be with them than away from them."
She felt the sadness keenly, but kept it from ruling her in that moment. It was probably for the best that she take the advice Lady Galadriel had given her a few days earlier and actually traverse the words of Lorien. The mental bandage she used to keep the things she'd not quite dealt with at bay had been ripped off.
"I never wish to love," Eregil piped up after several moments of silence.
Brianna and Arwen smiled fondly at her. Arwen reached out and placed a kind hand on Eregil's shoulder.
"Whatever fate has in store for you will be your destiny, of that I am sure," she said kindly.
For her part, Brianna chose not to comment. As Eregil's sisters gently chastised her for believing herself immune to the throws of love and eventual matrimony, Brianna kept her thoughts to herself on the matter. In her experience, if the Triune brought the person meant for one directly to them, then there was no helping the love. It would happen despite resistance and denying it would bring pain.
A necessary pain, she reminded herself. One I suppose I'll have to face.
"I do look forward to tonight," remarked Eregil on a subject completely unrelated to romance.
Brianna blinked and took her mind out of herself to pay attention to what the other elves were speaking about. After listening for some time and then inquiring after the particulars she managed to get a direct answer from Luthil. Apparently, at this particular day in December, Lorien's flora released pollen and glowed in various colors of gold, silver, and light blue. This night was a night of magic and the elves left their homes to bathe in it's beauty and participate in the light of the song that thrummed constantly within the earth of Lorien's boundaries.
After several moments of quite thought as the four elf women discussed their plans for the night, Brianna understood the significance of the day. It was December 25th. Technically, it was Christmas back on her world. Or Yule, or solstice, or whatever. Either way, it was a special day for her world where the natural powers of the created world congregated the strongest. The elements were most alive on those special days where she was from and, apparently, Arda's calendar was similar enough to mirror Earth's for one of those days to fall on Yule.
It's Christmas, she thought as felt that strangeness which had been following her around the entire day.
It was a strange thought to have in a world that didn't have a concept of Christmas and all that it entailed. The history of the holiday, what it meant to different cultures, and why the elves of Earth held that particular day in such high regard. Arda had their own traditions, of course, though Brianna didn't precisely know what they were and suspected they varied widely from elf kingdom to elf kingdom.
As that thought passed through her mind Brianna noticed the collective silence from the other elf women and returned to the present once again. She grimaced at her lack of attention to the conversation at hand. It was rude, she was being rude, and her inability to focus embarrassed her.
"Forgive me, ever since I've begun learning the ways of your magic I've found myself… lost in thought more often than I usually am," she apologized.
They smiled and Arwen responded, "Worry not! All is forgiven. All of us have a mastery of the craft in some form or another and have experienced the side effects. If I may, would it trouble you to share your current thoughts?"
Brianna was happy she hadn't been thinking of things that were of a more personal nature and could, actually oblige her audience with something happier than her homesickness and "tragic" love life. She leaned back on her left hand and fixed them all with a smile.
"Well, there's a sort of holiday in my world that many humans celebrate called Christmas…"
December 25th - three o'clock in the afternoon, Gondor
Loki was not known for his rashness. In the thousands upon thousands of years of his existence he prided himself on thinking through each and every major decision that affected his life. As a raiphahim, he was in a particularly unique position that so many of his own kind refused to acknowledge. Some even looked on him as an abomination and traitor to their particular purpose of existence. A raiphahim was to pervert the purpose of the Triune. They were meant to show the effects of the Fallen Seraphim and Cherubim intermingling with the elves. To them, the rejected the notion that the elves were the picture perfect image of service to the Triune. They hated the notion that such dim beings with flesh and blood could ever be blessed beyond them and be prophesied to produce the lines that would hold a special place as the proverbial Hand of God. Heylel ben Shachar was the first to fall and take a third of his kind with him, but Abaddon was the first to take an elf maiden, ensnare her mind, and rape her. She'd born the child half made with sorcery and corruption and produced Ba'al - an abomination to the elves, dragons, and what would later amount to the Fae - and the elves hadn't quite known what to do with him. Ba'al was before Loki's time, but from what he'd heard, the elder raiphahim had betrayed the peoples who'd attempted to accept him as a son of their race and joined his father in the earlier stages of the rebellion. Abaddon had gone on to sire three more children with different elven women. The Morrighan had been one - a prized daughter he both adored and hated - and Asherah and Astarte had been two others.
The ironic thing about Loki's birth was the fact of his particular father. Heylel ben Shachar had never participated in the rape of elven women though he strongly encouraged it among those he ruled. The Grand Eldar, Ailiya had never been able to fully divine what it was, exactly, about Loki's mother that had appealed to Heylel. The only thing Loki knew about her was that she was the sister of Silmarliel ven Geat. Neither were part of one of the great elven houses. In fact, their clan had served the elven House of Aldura for countless years. Heylel had stolen Loki's mother in the proper fashion and took the time to both break and woo his mother to the side of the Fallen and then proceeded to mate with her.
It was supposed, later on, that had the course of Heaven's Children gone a different route, that his mother would have united their races in marriage with a good, bright, and shining Heylel. After all, what could have explained the elf woman's complete and total fall for the monster that was Heylel? What could have explained Loki - a raiphahim born of such a union and living in the evil conditions of his father - turning away from all of it to join the side of the light by betraying his father and leading to the eventual death of his mother and the hands of his very own aunt. At the end of the great war Silmariel ven Geat was crowned queen of the elves, his father was locked away into the four winds, and the universe of that time became a massive wasteland with little habitable planets left.
All supposed that there was always a sense of goodness within Loki that his fellow raiphahim had sorely lacked. Such wasn't, actually, the case. The light of the elves, no matter how corrupt they became, remained for all. After speaking at length with Ba'al, Asherah, and his numerous other brothers and sisters, Loki learned they all felt the pull of the light, but chose to stamp it out. Loki had thought long and hard about where his loyalties lay. He considered the growing insanity of his mother and the arrogance, conceit, and underlying hatred for anything that was exuded by his father. Loki had made his choice because the logic demanded it. What Heylel wanted, what his ultimate goal happened to be, was unattainable and Loki came to the conclusion that all of it must be stopped.
The memories of a past long faded into a time that had long since faded from the memories of all mortal races settled in his mind as Loki looked out into the vast sea. Wind touched his face and played his his dark hair kept long and tied back at the base of his neck. His eyes raked the rolling waters as they boiled with sea foam and something far more sinister than sharks. Karen had very keen eyes and was always the best to be placed on early morning watch. She'd been the one to spy the creature in the far distance. For all he complained of their recent unprofessional - rash - behavior Loki had to admit that they were good hunters. Mafortion - a bumbling idiot half of the time - had managed to train them passably.
Beside him, Prince Imrahil looked on at the horror approaching them face as white as a sheet. Loki didn't blame his fear. Krakens were notoriously terrible creatures to behold and it seemed as though the enemy had no qualms about bringing one or two sea monsters with them.
Karen and Matt, to this day, had no idea how Loki talked their captors out of killing the lot of them and he intended to keep it that way. By his nature, Loki was a very secretive person and that nature was violated profusely by his personal conversation with the prince. It had, thankfully, been enough to sway the prince though even then it had been close. Prince Imrahil was a stern man and grave man. It was a personality trait reflected in the eyes of his eldest son, but not shared among his children and wife. All of them were afraid of the evil that haunted them. Loki knew that his presence would feel questionable to anyone with any sort of extra sense. Raiphahim all shared the feeling of complete and total wrongness.
"This creature is from your world?" The prince asked.
"It is. The kraken isn't a natural creation. Dark magic had a hand in creating it," Loki offered.
"And you can kill it?" Prince Imrahil asked.
Loki chuckled, "My skills aren't quite adept enough to take down a kraken. My companion, Miss Gillian; however, is most adept at bringing down ginormous creatures."
"Has she ever killed a creature such as this?"
Loki hummed and said, "No, not one this large. She's been looking forward to killing this one ever since a tentacle peeked out of the waves."
As if summoned by Loki's remark, three long tentacles shot up from the water and tore an unmanned ship to splinters. Both men winced at the ferocity of the act, but didn't back away from their vigil.
"When does your friend plan to fight the beast?" The prince asked.
Loki frowned. It was a good question. Where was she? He turned to look back at the palace on the hill and squinted to see if Karen had left the place yet. His eyes settled on a mass of straight red hair blown wild in the sea breeze. From his vantage point he watched her move bits and pieces of metal round and about making a sort of machine. Beside her, Matt frequently sketched and erased something on a slab of slate with a piece of graphite in his hands. They were far enough away that Loki hadn't quite been able to make out everything they were about, but he made a few deductions. Karen clearly had a plan. It was bold, possibly too bold, but it would serve its purpose in solidifying the trust of the people of Dol Amroth.
He turned his gaze back out to the sea. The creature approached swiftly now, but it didn't matter. Whatever previous menacingly slow bliss it originally operated under was gone and replaced by a sense of urgency likely felt keenly by its handler. The increased haste would be futile. Karen was almost finished. Loki looked back to the palace to confirm and nodded to himself. Whatever she'd made was ready and being aimed at the kraken.
"Your friend is waiting until the last possible second," Prince Imrahil grumbled.
Loki grinned as the beast reared out of the water and lunged for the docks. He could practically smell the stink of its open mouth as it prepared to swallow one of the larger, manned, ships.
"My dear prince," he began as a deadly hiss cut through the air.
A harpoon made of Arda's steel alloy approximately ten feet long buried itself in the depths of the kraken's open mouth. It stumbled and fell just before reaching the larger ship. One stray tentacle landed on the starboard bow and splintered the uppermost deck before sliding back into the ocean.
At a glance at the prince's stunned expression Loki continued, "One cannot rush an art as delicate as beast slaying."
December 25th - early night hour in Lorien
Lorien, on a normal night, usually had little lights of pollen floating about the various little flowers released every hour or so. This night was different by virtue of the mallorn trees that grew around them. Not only were they releasing their pollen into the air, but the entire shimmered and thrummed with a song that was woven deep into the soil. Brianna loved every minute of it. The elves of Lorien joined that song with one of their own for a few minutes at a time. Even the professor and her aunt joined in every once in a while. Sometimes they went out into the forrest floor and danced with the other elves as they same, sometimes they'd stand and walk while singing a melody Brianna had never heard before. There were moments she caught Professor Moruni standing in a corner clearly caught in the past looking forlorn. When Brianna had asked what memories she'd experienced in that moment the professor had smiled and shook her head.
"Good memories, Bri, but they were so long ago that I rarely think of them," she'd said.
At one point early in the night, Artemis stood abruptly from her seat on the lawn and walked into the forrest. There was a bitter expression in her eyes and her hands had balled into tight fists. Brianna, curious, made as if to follow, but Professor Moruni stopped her with a gentle hand on her arm.
"No, Bri, best not become involved. Your aunt's regretted more in her life than most, even you. Let her feel them tonight," she said.
Brianna accepted that, but still looked on her aunt's retreating figure until it disappeared in a white ethereal mist.
Around the time Lady Galadriel began to pass around sweet bread and fruit Arwen and Glorfindel stood and began to dance in the crowd together as one entity. Brianna's breath caught in her throat at the sight. They moved in sync with each other with each intricate and difficult movement. In that moment, Glorfindel didn't look like the great warrior Brianna knew he was. Instead, he was a man and before him was the woman he loved and cherished beyond life itself.
Unbidden, song and verse sprung from her throat.
"Hark! the herald angels sing,
"Glory to the new-born King!
Peace on earth, and mercy mild,
God and sinners reconciled."
Joyful, all ye nations, rise,
Join the triumph of the skies;
With th' angelic host proclaim,
"Christ is born in Bethlehem."
Hark! the herald angels sing,
"Glory to the new-born King!
Christ, by highest heaven adored:
Christ, the everlasting Lord;
Late in time behold him come,
Offspring of the favoured one.
Veiled in flesh, the Godhead see;
Hail, th'incarnate Deity:
Pleased, as man, with men to dwell,
Jesus, our Emmanuel!
Hark! the herald angels sing,
"Glory to the new-born King!
Hail! the heaven-born
Prince of peace!
Hail! the Son of Righteousness!
Light and life to all he brings,
Risen with healing in his wings
Mild he lays his glory by,
Born that man no more may die:
Born to raise the son of earth,
Born to give them second birth.
Hark! the herald angels sing,
"Glory to the new-born King !"
("Angels We Have Heard on High" by James Chadwick, Bishop of Hexham and Newcastle)
A happy laugh startled her as the last note drifted through the air. Professor Moruni clapped and nudged her.
"Is that all you have, Davis?" She asked.
Brianna grinned, stood, and added another, joyful, song to the chorus around her. She began to danced and sing. The elves, those who were intuitive, joined in the chorus the second time she sang through it.
"I danced in the morning when the world had begun
I danced in the moon and the stars and the sun
I came down from heaven and I danced on the earth
At Bethlehem I had my birth
Dance, dance, wherever you may be
I am the lord of the dance, said he
And I lead you all, wherever you may be
And I lead you all in the dance, said he
'Tis the gift to be simple,
'tis the gift to be free.
'Tis the gift to come down
where we ought to be.
And when we find ourselves
in the place just right,
'Twill be in the valley
of love and delight.
Dance, dance, wherever you may be
I am the lord of the dance, said he
And I lead you all, wherever you may be
And I lead you all in the dance, said he
When true simplicity is gained,
To bow and to bend
we shall not be ashamed.
To turn, turn
will be our delight,
'Till by turning, turning
we come round right.
Dance, dance, wherever you may be
I am the lord of the dance, said he
And I lead you all, wherever you may be
And I lead you all in the dance, said he
I danced in the morning when the world had begun
I danced in the moon and the stars and the sun
I came down from heaven and I danced on the earth
At Bethlehem I had my birth
Dance, dance, wherever you may be
I am the lord of the dance, said he
And I lead you all, wherever you may be
And I lead you all in the dance, said he
Dance, dance, wherever you may be
I am the lord of the dance, said he
And I lead you all, wherever you may be
And I lead you all in the dance, said he"
("The Lord of the Dance/Simple Gifts" by Blackmore's Night)
All around her the world shimmered. The elves who joined in the chorus clapped and danced with her. Joy filled her, an unparalleled joy of the likes she'd never felt before. As she turned and began to run through the song again to teach it to some of the elves who wished to learn, she missed the change in the world around her.
Professor Laurel Moruni; however, didn't miss anything. She didn't miss the way her foot tapped in time with the beat, or the itch in her fingers to join in with the dance, or when she caught herself humming the melody despite herself. Beside her, Lady Galadriel and Lord Celeborn looked on with the same barely contained reserve she felt. The Lady caught her eye and raised a single blond brow.
Such a long way in so little a time, Laurel heard in her mind.
She's always been adept at magic. Brianna's good at picking up concepts, but not very good at completely understanding them, she replied.
This is more, Laurelie. Lorien does not accept the magic of another lightly. She's changed the tune of my magic without rejecting me.
I doubt she knows what she'd doing.
She doesn't.
Laurel pursed her lips as she considered the meaning of this new development. For the magic of Arda to accept her so completely could only have meant one thing. The rulers and authorities in the world recognized Brianna and fully accepted her. Not only had they accepted her, but they were allowing her to weave the magic of earth into the foundation of Arda.
You knew this would happen, she thought accusingly to the elf Lady.
We came here as a rejection of the elven sovereign. We wished to explore, become something else, and rule our lives as we saw fit. This culminated in the kinslaying perpetrated by my brothers and their followers. Those who did not murder our fellow elves, but sought lives outside of Valinor, followed them from the Undying Lands and were rejected by the Valor. Now they allow us to return, one-by-one as each remnant of the eldar regains their favor. When we leave there will only be the wild ones to remain. They will be tamed by this new magic and take the mantel we've so long rejected. Should Sauron be defeated, this is the direction Arda will inevitably go.
There wasn't much more to say on the matter. Laurel had known from her previous travels that the elves who inhabited other planets originally left earth to escape the terror Prince Uranus and Princess Gaia had unleashed among the peoples of earth. While she and Athena had begun a mending between their peoples it seemed as though Brianna, Aracasse, would further that mending in Arda.