Muse #2: I had no idea I was capable of this.
Head Muse: Neither was I, you are usually so…
#2: Quiet?
#3: Yeah.
#4: But I suppose you were going to pop in there sometime, we just had to wait.
Vana: But I didn't even KNOW that you were the slash muse!
#2: Well, now you know.
*all sit around the table and an awkward silences ensues; they have all noticed the usually quiet #2 becoming bolder by the day. As the story progresses, he gets stronger and it's slightly scary*
Vana: *jumping up suddenly and nearly making the muses vanish in fright* Well! I guess I'd better introduce you to the world then number 2.
#2: Call me Herb.
All: NEVER!!!
*#2 sits down again and grumbles about lack of name giving. Then he silently gets an idea and plants it in Vana's head, making her ask of something from the readers.*
Disclaimer: I don't own anyone except the OC's, and these are rare and few between. I don't even own the mention of Tolkien himself in this pre-chapter, what a great man, and here I go and try and continue a story that ended thousands of years ago. But maybe it is real, maybe it all really happened, hee hee, what a lot of fun that would be.
Summery: I'm not giving you one, you have to read the story and find out for yourself. Hee hee, I am cruel aren't I?
A/N: I don't know where this came from, but my head is telling me to ask any reader to help me in naming my muses and…NUMBER 2! You did this, I'll get you for that, I seriously will. Come here, you get back or I'll… *we leave Vana chasing her slash muse around the table and continue with the telling of the story*.
Here you are.
PROLOGUE
I was wondering what to do with myself, sometimes days could just get so darn boring and monotonous it was irritating, but I suppose it was all brought on by myself, it was my choice after all. They had said I couldn't do it, that I would suffer terribly by this choice but I was so hot-headed that I had to prove myself, and look where it got me, look where I am now.
The apartment was a nice one, I couldn't deny that, with its space and luxuries it would be my modern dwelling until I had to move on yet again. I was starting to get a little sick of it all, in the years since I came I had to move so many times, 'globetrotting' as they called it and I was starting to run out of ideas of where to go next. The world is only so big you know.
But onto present items of interest, the day was Saturday, it was 7pm and I was simply bored out of my mind and extremely moody. Gone were the days I could just pop in and out whenever I wished, trekking for miles and miles in uninterrupted forests and nature, breathing in pure air that wasn't riddled with the poisons they had now. Yes, it was my choice, but at the time I made it the world was a lot different, cleaner, and more open, now it was becoming more crowded by the day and I was really starting to feel the pressure.
To come back, it was my choice, what a screwed up choice that seemed now.
"Hey Larry. Hey open up! I got booze and I wanna share, HEY!" The thumping at my door snapped me out of my musings and I got up from the couch, stretching my stiff body until bones popped, and sighed. Paul always showed up at the perfect times, and he only had alcohol when there was something to celebrate, which was at least twice a week.
"Hi Paul, what's the occasion this time." I said, opening the door and seeing him there with that same old cheeky grin on his face. He squinted a bit at my monotone voice, but as usual he shrugged it off and marched into my flat, a carton of beer under his arm before he plonked it down on the kitchen table.
"This is!" He slipped his backpack off his shoulder and rummaged around in it for a bit before drawing out what looked like a photo frame. I was only confused for a moment before I realized what it was and forced a smile on my face, I should at least TRY to feel happy for the guy, he had worked so hard for this.
"I passed Larz, you are now looking at a fully fledged member of the Law Enforcement Bureau. YES!" He punched the air and did a little dance around the table. Now my smile was genuine, I really WAS happy for him and I handed his framed certificate back, patting him on the back as I did. He was a cop, and though I hated the idea of it from the beginning, my only real friend had persisted and now at the tender age of 22, he was a cop, a bobby, a policeman, whatever county I was in it was always the same, they just spoke different.
"Good for you Paul." Oh man I was trying so hard to be enthusiastic, but it really is hard you know when you have seen so much and done so much that everything just seems the same afterwards.
Paul noticed, as usual. I guess I was just even more depressed than I thought and it was showing.
"You ok Larz?" he frowned a little. I just smiled and looked at the beer, which was looking tantalizingly appealing to one who loved to drown their sorrows, like me.
"We leaving that to get warm or are we gonna celebrate!?" I got my answer when Paul ripped at the cardboard and tossed me a can before getting one himself and flipping the tab. It was a 40 pack; I was in for a long night.
Paul tried to drink me down once again but he passed out before he saw me even blink an eye. He had no idea of my resilience to the stuff, I don't think I had been drunk since…since I left.
The night wore on and I stared out at the city twinkling below my balcony, like a million fireflies all bustling for a space in this overcrowded world. Why had I come? Why did I choose to keep on living and living until someone saw my face again, and discovered the truth? I sighed and scratched my head, pulling out my hair tie and letting my hair out to fly in the soft breeze that was coming in from the sea. I had tried to cut it once but gave up after it grew back in the space of a week; my hair was just too attached to the old ways, and only like to be trimmed to below my shoulder blades, any higher and it protested. It was funny to think of dead cells that way, I think the Lady must have had something to do with it, she wanted something of my old life to stay behind so I would never forget, like I ever would.
Paul left the next day with a hangover to kill and I never saw him again. He was shot on Broadway a week later while trying to break up a simple tiff that went horribly wrong. The bullet went through his heart and killed him instantly; this world was getting screwier by the second, time to move on.
I packed my stuff in boxes and found something that brought a small smile to my face. It was a small old fashioned long-pipe, crafted by tiny hands long since vanished and worked in the style of the age I had loved. I turned it over in my hands and a small bit of ash fell out, it was a strange feeling knowing that that ash had been there for more years than I dared to count, just simply waiting until someone moved it just right to dislodge it. I rubbed my finger through it on the hardwood floor and lifted it up to my face, sniffing it and smiling at the familiar smell. After all this time, it still smelt the same.
I only took one box this time, when I had moved in I had tons of furniture and knick knacks as I had only moved from DC, now I was leaving the country and had decided to go north. I had no idea where I was going; I was fast running out of places to go. One day I was going to accidentally backtrack and someone would see me, recognise me, and reveal me. One of my old friends in Germany would be in his eighties now, how could I explain myself? I was dead to him, I had died in the war and had used that assumption to make a fast getaway and I fled to America in hope to escape war and had come head to head with it again a few years later. I was drafted and Vietnam had been my last war, I never wanted to touch a weapon again, not even my old bow and arrows. To kill people whose loyalties ever changed over the years was the craziest thing I could ever do, I had seen so many, and I never wanted to see another that close again.
My paintings were making me rich, I couldn't see how as they were merely representations of my life. But the critics had said things like 'An amazing and unique view of human society', and '…it is like he was right there, experiencing every moment'. I HAD been right there, but how would they ever understand my view of their history? How would they ever believe that this youthful face is not by my making, but merely my race's "gift" and curse? How could they ever consider that the stories were true, that the man knew me and I knew him, that I am an elf?
Yes, I am an elf, a rather tired one who made a stupid choice and now lives to regret it but one nevertheless. I have seen nearly a millennia of events since coming back from Valinor. I have been on the English side in the Crusades. Have seen Joan being burned by mine own hand under the threat I should be killed if I refused. I sided with the revolutionaries in France against Louie XIV and fought with Napoleon. I kept my head clear during the American Independence and was nearly burned as a witch in Salem. After the American Civil War I went back to England for a short while before thinking I might want to go back to the States and became a sailor. I was lucky to escape Titanic by one incredible fluke, someone pushed me off the side and I fell into a boat being lowered, breaking a leg but surviving. I was then drafted by a white feather and was sent back to France shortly after, getting involved in yet another war. Then I made my dwelling in Germany in times of peace and unfortunately got caught up in the intelligence of World War 2 and sent to Holland, where I narrowly escaped a bomb and was presumed dead. Thinking I couldn't take much more I fled back to America where I lived in peace for a while, even though I was partially extradited for my hair and looks, then I was drafted yet again. This time I refused and when they found out only true force would get me on that plane; I was put in prison and served three years for "refusing patriotic duties".
One thing I forgot to mention, I met a fine man when visiting England for a short while prior to the 2nd world war, to this day he is the only one who knows my secret and he took that to his grave, but his works live on and I fear the day someone add one and one together and I am discovered.
That day that I left the apartment, I was presuming that it would be another simple move, another trek into the unknown and hopefully another fade away into obscurity. But how was I to know that the Feds were suspicious, that someone actually had checked pages of history and seen my face, that I was being hunted.
TBC
A/N: PLEASE review, I live off reviews as if they were the very essence of life. PLEEEEEAAAAAAAAASSSSSSSEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!