The After Ages
by Shauna (wind3213@hotmail.com)
A/N For those who asked, Aragorn is fourteen years old as the story begins. This chapter is rather short, almost an interlude, but I probably will be too busy working the next couple of days to post another so I thought I'd at least give you guys this. To forewarn you, though, I was struggling to come up for a way to make 'Eldar' an adjective and settled on Eldaren. It's probably wrong, but you forgive me, don't you? Also, I had to start naming the Avari, and as I've never heard an Avari name I went with my gut instinct that it wouldn't sound much like the other elven names we were given.
***
Part Four, Chapter Three
Dreaming and Deceiving
***
/
He was following a deer through what had once been a field, clutching the hilt of a long, thin blade. The deer left no footsteps on the path, and was easily sighted, but still he bent down to the earth and scoured it for tracks. He brushed his fingers over the hard dirt, then jerked them back. They burned where he had touched the ground.
When he looked up again, the deer stood waiting for him. Their eyes met. It began to move, and he started to stalk it again. As he walked, he felt his feet growing warmer. He sped up, trying to keep the bottoms from staying down too long, but the deer did not increase its pace, and soon he was almost directly behind it.
'Aaahh,' he moaned as the heat became too much to bear quietly, but the deer was unspooked, and even turned back to look at him pityingly. 'Aaaaahhhh.'
Rolling his head back, he continued moaning, his eyes searching the sky for help, but he saw nothing, not even the sun he had assumed was heating the ground. Above the dirt the sky faded from clear to a deep blueblack. No clouds, no moon or sun, only stars.
Sluggishly turning his attention back to the path before his burning feet, he realized the deer had stopped and he had come up beside him. Before them lay an endless tract of bare desert, empty but for small tufts of dead grass. And then - he saw ahead of him his father's gemstone. He ran for it, heedless of the pain where the soles had melted off his shoes and clung to ground and flesh, scooping the familiar heirloom up into his palm, and was consumed by fire. The last thing he felt was a brush of soft fur and muscle as the deer tried to knock him away...
/
He awoke to voices outside his room. He stayed motionless upon his bed, torn between wanting to rescue the fragments of his dream and needing to hear what was being said. The room was stifling hot.
When he heard his name, though, he decided to listen.
"We will not be endangered!" hissed the voice of the Avari representative from dinner. "Tonight and tomorow night is all we can give him to make the oath, or else we will be forced to end his life."
"He's but a boy, he cannot hurt you!" the other elf outside, Throndil, protested.
"We will not take that risk."
"That's cruel, Tsttay, it isn't Elven!"
Tsttay laughed mockingly. "It might not be Eldaren, but the Avari must listen to the forest. It tells us to be ware the sneaking stranger."
"It isn't Elven!" Throndil repeated.
"You seek to define us, Prince?" Tsttay replied, and spat out the honorary. "When will you fool Eldar realize we care not for what you think? We-"
"That isn't what I-"
"Silence!" Tsttay shouted. "When I speak I will be heard! You think because some spectre of your legends has come to you from the past, this makes you greater then the Avari? You think because you have more grace and beauty, this makes you greater then the Avari? We have never cared for ghosts, nature nourishes us from day to day without the decaying past. We have never cared to have your beauty - we want only the beauty of the stars. Valar!" He laughed. "You worship half-gods and long for them still, though you cling to this land and profess to love it. You Eldar who walked so proud among our forests, have fallen to us, and to the dwarves, and most of all to the men."
It seemed to Aragorn in his bed that the moments dragged on without an answer from Throndil.
"Do you deny this?" Tsttay said at last. "Can you?"
Throndil remained silent.
"Good. We let you stay with us because you were our kin. Do not prove us wrong." Aragorn could barely make out the sound of Tsttay's movement in the hallway as he left.
The door rattled sharply and suddenly as Throndil emitted a curse, and then another softly in a different language when he remembered that this was Aragorn's room. The boy shut his eyes quickly as the elf peered in. "Are you awake, Aragorn?" Throndil whispered.
Aragorn did not know how long Throndil could stand there gazing on him, only felt that he did. He could just tell where he looked from the involuntary shiver of his skin as Throndil's gaze traveled along the curves of his blanket and over his face. He tried to feign sleep. Breaths neither shallow nor too deep, muscles unclenched, try not to blink... soon enough, the real thing claimed him, but he never knew when Throndil left.
by Shauna (wind3213@hotmail.com)
A/N For those who asked, Aragorn is fourteen years old as the story begins. This chapter is rather short, almost an interlude, but I probably will be too busy working the next couple of days to post another so I thought I'd at least give you guys this. To forewarn you, though, I was struggling to come up for a way to make 'Eldar' an adjective and settled on Eldaren. It's probably wrong, but you forgive me, don't you? Also, I had to start naming the Avari, and as I've never heard an Avari name I went with my gut instinct that it wouldn't sound much like the other elven names we were given.
***
Part Four, Chapter Three
Dreaming and Deceiving
***
/
He was following a deer through what had once been a field, clutching the hilt of a long, thin blade. The deer left no footsteps on the path, and was easily sighted, but still he bent down to the earth and scoured it for tracks. He brushed his fingers over the hard dirt, then jerked them back. They burned where he had touched the ground.
When he looked up again, the deer stood waiting for him. Their eyes met. It began to move, and he started to stalk it again. As he walked, he felt his feet growing warmer. He sped up, trying to keep the bottoms from staying down too long, but the deer did not increase its pace, and soon he was almost directly behind it.
'Aaahh,' he moaned as the heat became too much to bear quietly, but the deer was unspooked, and even turned back to look at him pityingly. 'Aaaaahhhh.'
Rolling his head back, he continued moaning, his eyes searching the sky for help, but he saw nothing, not even the sun he had assumed was heating the ground. Above the dirt the sky faded from clear to a deep blueblack. No clouds, no moon or sun, only stars.
Sluggishly turning his attention back to the path before his burning feet, he realized the deer had stopped and he had come up beside him. Before them lay an endless tract of bare desert, empty but for small tufts of dead grass. And then - he saw ahead of him his father's gemstone. He ran for it, heedless of the pain where the soles had melted off his shoes and clung to ground and flesh, scooping the familiar heirloom up into his palm, and was consumed by fire. The last thing he felt was a brush of soft fur and muscle as the deer tried to knock him away...
/
He awoke to voices outside his room. He stayed motionless upon his bed, torn between wanting to rescue the fragments of his dream and needing to hear what was being said. The room was stifling hot.
When he heard his name, though, he decided to listen.
"We will not be endangered!" hissed the voice of the Avari representative from dinner. "Tonight and tomorow night is all we can give him to make the oath, or else we will be forced to end his life."
"He's but a boy, he cannot hurt you!" the other elf outside, Throndil, protested.
"We will not take that risk."
"That's cruel, Tsttay, it isn't Elven!"
Tsttay laughed mockingly. "It might not be Eldaren, but the Avari must listen to the forest. It tells us to be ware the sneaking stranger."
"It isn't Elven!" Throndil repeated.
"You seek to define us, Prince?" Tsttay replied, and spat out the honorary. "When will you fool Eldar realize we care not for what you think? We-"
"That isn't what I-"
"Silence!" Tsttay shouted. "When I speak I will be heard! You think because some spectre of your legends has come to you from the past, this makes you greater then the Avari? You think because you have more grace and beauty, this makes you greater then the Avari? We have never cared for ghosts, nature nourishes us from day to day without the decaying past. We have never cared to have your beauty - we want only the beauty of the stars. Valar!" He laughed. "You worship half-gods and long for them still, though you cling to this land and profess to love it. You Eldar who walked so proud among our forests, have fallen to us, and to the dwarves, and most of all to the men."
It seemed to Aragorn in his bed that the moments dragged on without an answer from Throndil.
"Do you deny this?" Tsttay said at last. "Can you?"
Throndil remained silent.
"Good. We let you stay with us because you were our kin. Do not prove us wrong." Aragorn could barely make out the sound of Tsttay's movement in the hallway as he left.
The door rattled sharply and suddenly as Throndil emitted a curse, and then another softly in a different language when he remembered that this was Aragorn's room. The boy shut his eyes quickly as the elf peered in. "Are you awake, Aragorn?" Throndil whispered.
Aragorn did not know how long Throndil could stand there gazing on him, only felt that he did. He could just tell where he looked from the involuntary shiver of his skin as Throndil's gaze traveled along the curves of his blanket and over his face. He tried to feign sleep. Breaths neither shallow nor too deep, muscles unclenched, try not to blink... soon enough, the real thing claimed him, but he never knew when Throndil left.