The After Ages
by Shauna (wind3213@hotmail.com)
***
Part 5, Chapter 4
From Morning Straight to Dusk
***
Aragorn got up in the morning not feeling particularily refreshed but determined to clear his mind by force of will. Walking quietly outdoors, he looked around, and was better able to see the village now with sunlight.
He could now discern houses built onto or into trees as far back as one could see, although some were mere shacks and others were large and sweeping and spread over several trees. For all the people - elves! Aragorn reminded himself - that walked on the center green, the grass was not flattened or even bent. Small, swaying flowers rose up where the grass was particularily thick.
Closing his eyes, he tried to picture the scene on the insides of his eyelids, tried to recall every detail. It was a slow process, but he did it calmly, as his father had taught him to. Meditation cleared your mind, made it easier to become part of the forest, and therefore easier to hunt. Meditation - peace - was what he needed in this unbelievable place.
Worries insistently tried to worm their way inside his head as he continued, remembering beam by beam the walls of the house nearest him. What had the argument been about? Were his parents upset that he was gone? What had been the meaning of his now half forgotten dream?
He brushed the thoughts away like they were flies or gnats, thankful that they didn't seem to have any physical equals in this part of the woods. Vines, there were vines drooping down from the house like ladders, like swings, just barely touching the ground.
Along the uniformly sweet grass, past clumps of flowers but never weeds. It was a path of growth instead of worn dirt and petals crushed beneath feet. To the next house, smaller, barely a room. Set high in the trees. Spare but sturdy, and opening up to the night... Aragorn struggled to remember any more of the next house, but admitting defeat, opened his eyes.
To his surprise, he found Throndil staring at him with a look that wandered somewhere between approbation and amusement. It was an odd look, one that he might have pursued further, but Aragorn broke it to watch the two smaller forms beside him.
One was easily identifiable as Maylin, the other was a girl- an elf! - an Avari. She leaned close to Maylin, whispering in her ear. Then the three elves walked towards him in unison.
"I would like you to meet Ctctey," Throndil said as they approached. "She is a dear friend of my sister's. I have asked the two of them to keep you company while my father and I meet with the Avari." Without elaborating, Throndil walked off. Aragorn watched his retreating back. For all their alleged long years of living, he was finding elves rather abrupt.
"Hello," said Ctctey, and he turned to her. "How is it said? Have you slept well?"
"I slept fine," Aragorn replied, although his tongue stuck a little on the lie. "How about you?"
She laughed, almost patronizingly. "We Avari don't sleep. We dream waking."
Aragorn could only answer "oh". Then, trying to make small talk, "So how do you pronounce your name?"
"You do not speak it with your mouth, but with your throat," she demonstrated several times, making little clicking noises. Aragorn tried to imitate her, but soon Ctctey was getting tired of shaking her head 'no'. Finally, she said, "When you want my attention, just cough. It is the closest you will get. Now. Maylin wants you to come with us."
"How do you know?" he asked curiously. He had assumed she was dumb and mute, the possibility of sign language had never occured to him. And yet, she didn't really seem to move her hands that much.
"I simply do. We have been together so many years that I have learned to read her face. And..." she hesitated as though she wasn't sure whether or not she should speak, but finished anyway, "I can touch her mind."
"Can you now?" Aragorn tried to sound skeptical, but in honesty he was beginning to think nothing could surprise him anymore.
"Not words, but feelings. Not thoughts, but emotions..." a tender smile came upon her face.
"You're a lot more, um, talkative and - well, friendly then the other Avari."
"I have been close to Maylin for as long as I can remember. How can I distrust her family? Or her friends? I think we all misunderstand eachother, Avari and Eldar, Elf and human."
He had been talking only to Ctctey, and didn't want to be rude, especially not to Throndil's sister. Silently he appraised her, making sure to keep a welcoming smile on his face. At first glance, she seemed only sturdy, light and clean, but the more you looked the deeper her eyes appeared to be, drawing you farther and father into their blue depths. For a moment Aragorn felt like he was drowning.
Still, when he spoke again it was to Ctctey. "Where does she want us to go?"
"She wants you to see again a special friends of ours, who will deign to meet us in a little clearing a ways from here. And she - we - would like you to tell us about your world as we walk there. Then, in return of the favor, we will tell you about our world as we walk back."
The two girls started off even before she had finished speaking, certain he would follow. He stood their a moment, then shrugged and did.
***
As they walked he told them about the world as he had known it. Three-hour car rides to minor league baseball games. Friday night coffee houses and high school dances. Studying for tests and hanging the weight of the world on the grade you got back. The wars that had come and gone in his life time, and before it. Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Garbage piled high into disgusting mountains. The even even more grotesque piles of shoes outside mass graves. He felt compelled to tell them this, and even as he explained the Holocaust with projected calm their faces filled with pain. Eventually his voice grew ragged and he turned to safer topics. Things that they shared.
Walks in the woods. Nights watching the stars. Racing thunderstorms. Maylin giggled at the phrase 'running between raindrops' and he almost asked her whether or not she could do it.
The talk was beginning to turn personal as they neared the little clearing. Maylin listened to him explain his mother's job with glowing eyes, and he searched around for more details to please her, but then Ctctey raised a hand to quiet them.
"We are here," was all she whispered.
Brushing aside some tall grasses, she stepped into a small clearing, and after a moment Aragorn and then Maylin did as well. There, nibbling at the weeds in a beautiful garden, was the deer Aragorn had followed, and who had appeared last night in his dreams.
"Goldberry, Goldberry," Ctctey sang softly, and Aragorn looked at her, surprised, for he thought they called it the Great Deer. But that had been Throndil and Thranduil, perhaps the Avari knew it by another name. The deer raised it's head, almost swaying to the tune. "Goldberry, Goldberry daughter of the forest, why stay you now where the trees whither sorest? Goldberry, Goldberry mother of flowers, to succor the broken is use of your powers."
Barely louder than breathing, Aragorn murmured, "Is Goldberry her name?" But the deer seemed to hear and bounded off.
Seeing Aragorn's blush of disapointment, Ctctey explained, "She only likes singing. You were probably singing when she found you in the forest."
"I don't sing!" Aragorn protested. "It's a horrible habit to have while you hunt. I broke it a long time ago." Still, he wasn't certain.
"Don't worry overmuch. I could tell she likes you. But come, now, cheer up, and I'll keep my half of our bargain. What would you like to know about my world?"
Pushing his regret aside, Aragorn thought for a moment. "Well, how isolated are you?"
"We get visitors every once in a while," Ctctey said as they began the return. "The last time was sixty years ago. A tired, hungry man was found, staggering along the forests with a gun in his hand even as you had. He was in considerably worse shape then you, however. He got better for a little while, for six months, but then he sickened again and died."
"And how long ago was this? Throndil mentioned sixty years ago, but that can't be right, because you said you saw him-"
"Throndil spoke truly. We are all aged beyond the years we show."
They came to a worn rock jutting out from the earth, up to his waist and nearly twice as far lengthwise. Maylin stopped and climbed gracefully on it, motioning for the others to do the same.
While they had been walking, Aragorn had spoken as though he were just with Ctctey but now the three of them sat facing one another. And he saw that Maylin did indeed speak with her eyes and with slight gestures of her hands.
The way she rubbed the soft skin of her palm against the stone was 'Isn't it wonderful to rest together on this rock?'
The way her gaze travelled over him, stopping again and again at the corners of his t-shirts, the laces of his shoes, and the scarred corner of his mouth-- that said, 'I find you fascinating. Continue - continue!'
The way her face turned ever towards the forest he'd come stumbling out of meant 'I am eager', even if her expression was always that of peculiar sorrow.
Watching her, he saw that she felt deeply but kept silent.
... "There you are!" Aragorn gave a gasp of loss at the cry. Even as the sound of Throndil's voice rang out from a ways behind them, he realized they had shared something without words. The silent, subtle communication of Maylin's eyes made even Throndil's 0 baritone words seem rough and childish.
"I have been looking for you for some time," Throndil explained as he walked up to them. "The council wishes to hear your story before the hour grows too late."
Aragorn looked to the sky in confusion, and saw that the sun had travelled far. Ctctey took his hand and whispered, "These moments you have experienced as elves do, for we devote hours to a single feeling, and consider it not a waste. Perhaps some day you will repay us, and let us feel your urgency."
"As it is," Throndil interjected, "there is some urgency needed here. The council is patient, but it is never wise to dwadle."
"Go on ahead," Ctctey said to them. "We will not be wanted."
So Aragorn again followed Throndil, who every few moments turned to make sure he followed. "How is the meeting going?" Aragorn ventured at last. "It's about me, isn't it?"
Throndil sighed deeply. "It is. I requested you be informed, so you'd have time to prepate your arguments, but they refused. So I cannot tell you more then to say that the Avari have decided not to let the matter stand solely with my father."
Aragorn shivered at that. "And how is it going?"
"Not so well. They are at a standstill. They've reached their limits and can venture no further."
"What are their limits?"
But Throndil only looked at him regretfully and would not answer.
"Tell me, Aragorn, when will someone come looking for you?"
"Well, I snuck off to go hunting when they went out, so maybe my parents didn't really I was gone until this morning. Then, they won't be able to do anything about it besides maybe search the woods near the house. That is, for a day. When a day is up they can have the police search the woods, and they'll do it better," Aragorn squinted up at the sky through the trees. "Although I don't think their helicopters will do much good."
"Helicopters?"
"They're flying machines," he said, half-expecting the elf to gasp in surprise.
"I see," was all he said, with cool ease. Then he gave a short bark of laughter and added, "You did not build them, Aragorn. You should not take so much pride."
Chagrined, Aragorn muttered, "Well, you didn't know about Indians or America or anything."
"Think you that I've never seen a man fly? A machine," he waved his hands in an inexact gesture, "should be easy enough."
"Into outer space?" Aragorn challenged.
Throndil gave a teasing sigh of exasperation, but Aragorn could tell his interest was piqued. "You have been to outer space?" There was a note of longing in his voice.
"Not personally," Aragorn replied. "But plenty of people have. Landed on the moon."
"Now I know you lie. You cannot walk upon the moon."
"Can't walk upon the moon?" Aragorn exclaimed. "Of course you can. They videotaped it!"
"What is videotape?" Throndil asked.
"Never mind that. What do you mean you can't walk on the moon?"
Throndil laughed. "It is simply not to be walked upon. It is a glowing silver flower, Rana or Isil the Sheen by my estranged kin. And it is guided across the sky in a great vessel, manned by the Maia Tilion, who chases after Arien his love."
"No. No! You've got it wrong. It's just a big, dead rock."
"Then maybe," Throndil said sadly, all laughter gone from his face, "the Ainur have forsaken even them."
They walked along in silence until they reached one of the tree-houses. Throndil drew open the door and gestured him inside, saying "We are come."
***
by Shauna (wind3213@hotmail.com)
***
Part 5, Chapter 4
From Morning Straight to Dusk
***
Aragorn got up in the morning not feeling particularily refreshed but determined to clear his mind by force of will. Walking quietly outdoors, he looked around, and was better able to see the village now with sunlight.
He could now discern houses built onto or into trees as far back as one could see, although some were mere shacks and others were large and sweeping and spread over several trees. For all the people - elves! Aragorn reminded himself - that walked on the center green, the grass was not flattened or even bent. Small, swaying flowers rose up where the grass was particularily thick.
Closing his eyes, he tried to picture the scene on the insides of his eyelids, tried to recall every detail. It was a slow process, but he did it calmly, as his father had taught him to. Meditation cleared your mind, made it easier to become part of the forest, and therefore easier to hunt. Meditation - peace - was what he needed in this unbelievable place.
Worries insistently tried to worm their way inside his head as he continued, remembering beam by beam the walls of the house nearest him. What had the argument been about? Were his parents upset that he was gone? What had been the meaning of his now half forgotten dream?
He brushed the thoughts away like they were flies or gnats, thankful that they didn't seem to have any physical equals in this part of the woods. Vines, there were vines drooping down from the house like ladders, like swings, just barely touching the ground.
Along the uniformly sweet grass, past clumps of flowers but never weeds. It was a path of growth instead of worn dirt and petals crushed beneath feet. To the next house, smaller, barely a room. Set high in the trees. Spare but sturdy, and opening up to the night... Aragorn struggled to remember any more of the next house, but admitting defeat, opened his eyes.
To his surprise, he found Throndil staring at him with a look that wandered somewhere between approbation and amusement. It was an odd look, one that he might have pursued further, but Aragorn broke it to watch the two smaller forms beside him.
One was easily identifiable as Maylin, the other was a girl- an elf! - an Avari. She leaned close to Maylin, whispering in her ear. Then the three elves walked towards him in unison.
"I would like you to meet Ctctey," Throndil said as they approached. "She is a dear friend of my sister's. I have asked the two of them to keep you company while my father and I meet with the Avari." Without elaborating, Throndil walked off. Aragorn watched his retreating back. For all their alleged long years of living, he was finding elves rather abrupt.
"Hello," said Ctctey, and he turned to her. "How is it said? Have you slept well?"
"I slept fine," Aragorn replied, although his tongue stuck a little on the lie. "How about you?"
She laughed, almost patronizingly. "We Avari don't sleep. We dream waking."
Aragorn could only answer "oh". Then, trying to make small talk, "So how do you pronounce your name?"
"You do not speak it with your mouth, but with your throat," she demonstrated several times, making little clicking noises. Aragorn tried to imitate her, but soon Ctctey was getting tired of shaking her head 'no'. Finally, she said, "When you want my attention, just cough. It is the closest you will get. Now. Maylin wants you to come with us."
"How do you know?" he asked curiously. He had assumed she was dumb and mute, the possibility of sign language had never occured to him. And yet, she didn't really seem to move her hands that much.
"I simply do. We have been together so many years that I have learned to read her face. And..." she hesitated as though she wasn't sure whether or not she should speak, but finished anyway, "I can touch her mind."
"Can you now?" Aragorn tried to sound skeptical, but in honesty he was beginning to think nothing could surprise him anymore.
"Not words, but feelings. Not thoughts, but emotions..." a tender smile came upon her face.
"You're a lot more, um, talkative and - well, friendly then the other Avari."
"I have been close to Maylin for as long as I can remember. How can I distrust her family? Or her friends? I think we all misunderstand eachother, Avari and Eldar, Elf and human."
He had been talking only to Ctctey, and didn't want to be rude, especially not to Throndil's sister. Silently he appraised her, making sure to keep a welcoming smile on his face. At first glance, she seemed only sturdy, light and clean, but the more you looked the deeper her eyes appeared to be, drawing you farther and father into their blue depths. For a moment Aragorn felt like he was drowning.
Still, when he spoke again it was to Ctctey. "Where does she want us to go?"
"She wants you to see again a special friends of ours, who will deign to meet us in a little clearing a ways from here. And she - we - would like you to tell us about your world as we walk there. Then, in return of the favor, we will tell you about our world as we walk back."
The two girls started off even before she had finished speaking, certain he would follow. He stood their a moment, then shrugged and did.
***
As they walked he told them about the world as he had known it. Three-hour car rides to minor league baseball games. Friday night coffee houses and high school dances. Studying for tests and hanging the weight of the world on the grade you got back. The wars that had come and gone in his life time, and before it. Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Garbage piled high into disgusting mountains. The even even more grotesque piles of shoes outside mass graves. He felt compelled to tell them this, and even as he explained the Holocaust with projected calm their faces filled with pain. Eventually his voice grew ragged and he turned to safer topics. Things that they shared.
Walks in the woods. Nights watching the stars. Racing thunderstorms. Maylin giggled at the phrase 'running between raindrops' and he almost asked her whether or not she could do it.
The talk was beginning to turn personal as they neared the little clearing. Maylin listened to him explain his mother's job with glowing eyes, and he searched around for more details to please her, but then Ctctey raised a hand to quiet them.
"We are here," was all she whispered.
Brushing aside some tall grasses, she stepped into a small clearing, and after a moment Aragorn and then Maylin did as well. There, nibbling at the weeds in a beautiful garden, was the deer Aragorn had followed, and who had appeared last night in his dreams.
"Goldberry, Goldberry," Ctctey sang softly, and Aragorn looked at her, surprised, for he thought they called it the Great Deer. But that had been Throndil and Thranduil, perhaps the Avari knew it by another name. The deer raised it's head, almost swaying to the tune. "Goldberry, Goldberry daughter of the forest, why stay you now where the trees whither sorest? Goldberry, Goldberry mother of flowers, to succor the broken is use of your powers."
Barely louder than breathing, Aragorn murmured, "Is Goldberry her name?" But the deer seemed to hear and bounded off.
Seeing Aragorn's blush of disapointment, Ctctey explained, "She only likes singing. You were probably singing when she found you in the forest."
"I don't sing!" Aragorn protested. "It's a horrible habit to have while you hunt. I broke it a long time ago." Still, he wasn't certain.
"Don't worry overmuch. I could tell she likes you. But come, now, cheer up, and I'll keep my half of our bargain. What would you like to know about my world?"
Pushing his regret aside, Aragorn thought for a moment. "Well, how isolated are you?"
"We get visitors every once in a while," Ctctey said as they began the return. "The last time was sixty years ago. A tired, hungry man was found, staggering along the forests with a gun in his hand even as you had. He was in considerably worse shape then you, however. He got better for a little while, for six months, but then he sickened again and died."
"And how long ago was this? Throndil mentioned sixty years ago, but that can't be right, because you said you saw him-"
"Throndil spoke truly. We are all aged beyond the years we show."
They came to a worn rock jutting out from the earth, up to his waist and nearly twice as far lengthwise. Maylin stopped and climbed gracefully on it, motioning for the others to do the same.
While they had been walking, Aragorn had spoken as though he were just with Ctctey but now the three of them sat facing one another. And he saw that Maylin did indeed speak with her eyes and with slight gestures of her hands.
The way she rubbed the soft skin of her palm against the stone was 'Isn't it wonderful to rest together on this rock?'
The way her gaze travelled over him, stopping again and again at the corners of his t-shirts, the laces of his shoes, and the scarred corner of his mouth-- that said, 'I find you fascinating. Continue - continue!'
The way her face turned ever towards the forest he'd come stumbling out of meant 'I am eager', even if her expression was always that of peculiar sorrow.
Watching her, he saw that she felt deeply but kept silent.
... "There you are!" Aragorn gave a gasp of loss at the cry. Even as the sound of Throndil's voice rang out from a ways behind them, he realized they had shared something without words. The silent, subtle communication of Maylin's eyes made even Throndil's 0 baritone words seem rough and childish.
"I have been looking for you for some time," Throndil explained as he walked up to them. "The council wishes to hear your story before the hour grows too late."
Aragorn looked to the sky in confusion, and saw that the sun had travelled far. Ctctey took his hand and whispered, "These moments you have experienced as elves do, for we devote hours to a single feeling, and consider it not a waste. Perhaps some day you will repay us, and let us feel your urgency."
"As it is," Throndil interjected, "there is some urgency needed here. The council is patient, but it is never wise to dwadle."
"Go on ahead," Ctctey said to them. "We will not be wanted."
So Aragorn again followed Throndil, who every few moments turned to make sure he followed. "How is the meeting going?" Aragorn ventured at last. "It's about me, isn't it?"
Throndil sighed deeply. "It is. I requested you be informed, so you'd have time to prepate your arguments, but they refused. So I cannot tell you more then to say that the Avari have decided not to let the matter stand solely with my father."
Aragorn shivered at that. "And how is it going?"
"Not so well. They are at a standstill. They've reached their limits and can venture no further."
"What are their limits?"
But Throndil only looked at him regretfully and would not answer.
"Tell me, Aragorn, when will someone come looking for you?"
"Well, I snuck off to go hunting when they went out, so maybe my parents didn't really I was gone until this morning. Then, they won't be able to do anything about it besides maybe search the woods near the house. That is, for a day. When a day is up they can have the police search the woods, and they'll do it better," Aragorn squinted up at the sky through the trees. "Although I don't think their helicopters will do much good."
"Helicopters?"
"They're flying machines," he said, half-expecting the elf to gasp in surprise.
"I see," was all he said, with cool ease. Then he gave a short bark of laughter and added, "You did not build them, Aragorn. You should not take so much pride."
Chagrined, Aragorn muttered, "Well, you didn't know about Indians or America or anything."
"Think you that I've never seen a man fly? A machine," he waved his hands in an inexact gesture, "should be easy enough."
"Into outer space?" Aragorn challenged.
Throndil gave a teasing sigh of exasperation, but Aragorn could tell his interest was piqued. "You have been to outer space?" There was a note of longing in his voice.
"Not personally," Aragorn replied. "But plenty of people have. Landed on the moon."
"Now I know you lie. You cannot walk upon the moon."
"Can't walk upon the moon?" Aragorn exclaimed. "Of course you can. They videotaped it!"
"What is videotape?" Throndil asked.
"Never mind that. What do you mean you can't walk on the moon?"
Throndil laughed. "It is simply not to be walked upon. It is a glowing silver flower, Rana or Isil the Sheen by my estranged kin. And it is guided across the sky in a great vessel, manned by the Maia Tilion, who chases after Arien his love."
"No. No! You've got it wrong. It's just a big, dead rock."
"Then maybe," Throndil said sadly, all laughter gone from his face, "the Ainur have forsaken even them."
They walked along in silence until they reached one of the tree-houses. Throndil drew open the door and gestured him inside, saying "We are come."
***