Thank you so much! I'm glad to know that someone else likes the progeny of my boredom. This chapter was supposed to go up last night, now the night before last, but I decided to rewrite it and make two out of the original. I hope I won't be ruining the story with the direction that it seemed to be taking now, but Cali can't be swayed. It's all evil – good. It's all good. -glances both ways- Ok then, now back to the road! Let's see how much I can remember out of the books.
***
"Truly then, you are elves… Elves – such fair folk as in legend and dreamers' memory, that immortal breed so sprung from starlight, the slayers of darkness and its very rumor… Such tales have been told to fearful children in the battle-eves, before their deaths, and here I spirit to a world where legends remembered for comfort live in fear. What folly dwells my years… You are an elf."
That whispered voice had often sung in Glorfindel's elven ears that day, that sorrowful chanting of words void of meaning though beautiful to hear, and then silence followed with forgotten words too great in meaning to be uttered there, where she sat astride his own horse, this forlorn creature of ethereal circumstance, this battle-bloodied dove.
His lips spoke without call, weaving vast empires of old into remembrance, drawing ancient war unto recollection. Such things he said to her that the greatest of elf-friends could not claim to know, and each syllable she locked into some great vessel within her memory. Of orc and man alike he made tale, and to each of these she would nod her fair head as each word was etched upon her mind, to be considered by her fain thought in later times.
But ever the verity of the elves' existence seemed to amaze her, who seemed so unlikely to be surprised. New questions sprang ever to her lips, and his every answer was too shallow a cup to quench her overwhelming thrust. It was as if she wished to hold the worlds within her hands, and yet he did not fear her endless hunger for knowledge. It was clarity she sought, clarity of mind when all his world was of such confusion to her. She was as great as he if not greater, and yet so much less, and so much more – what indeed was she that sat behind him, and talked of life and death as if it were such a mild event, and yet whose voice was ever sown with grave remembrance? Her eyes did not see him, but looked on into the faded distance, dwelling upon some other earth and breathing some other air.
"Elves, I remember so little, were of minor text in the few eldest chronicles of the first great Circles, all written of in languages dead by many eons – they are left without count. It was a friend of mine who gave them to me long ago to read, when such knowledge was still gifted to me. Most of those few pages are gone, or destroyed, some unfinished and others stained by the slow succession of time, if they do indeed yet exist. But there did not seem much order in all of those sparse notes, and I thought them some characters of fiction recorded by the pleasure of some great Power. Perhaps the Circles knew more concerning the threads of time than they would let one know, or at least their ancestors must have possessed that knowledge. But if elves are true, then perhaps I should take the existence of dwarves into consideration as well."
Caliasar had laughed at that last of her words, as if such blatant pain as had been within her voice before had never passed unto her face, whose betraying curves were played with the very fingers of sorrow. The voice of her blemished recollection was filled with the niches of darkness, and the caves void of light, unexplored then by will or by fear of their content, as if such words had risen from the most distant corners of her being, bringing rumor of foul water within the pure of that great well.
Glorfindel felt the allure of that inconsolable voice, alike to the challenge of some unseen foe – alike to the deer's thought Run! as a hunter stands by, alike to the beast drawn to a trap by the rumor of fare there to be found, alike to the bird whose careless flight has caught him before a net with no might to prevent that ensnaring line from stealing his wings from the sky. He laughed, the sound seeming a gravest lie, and yet he could not have helped but laugh, undecided as to if he was truly amused or simply wishing some escape. How indeed could any word of his speak any comfort unto such nameless hurt?
Swiftly he turned his eyes to the path once more, lest his opportunity be gone. The trail of his query had once more met the path, as he had suspected, and it seemed as good an excuse as any other not to look back into that shallow depth behind him. And yet, he was not so certain that it was what he wished. He could feel her looking past him, gazing at nothing and seeing things that the onward thrust of time would not let her eyes behold in truth ever again. The every emotion that graced her features seemed like a challenge for him to decipher her meaning, to understand her appearance, and why she had been sent to his world – to know why she was at all.
But most of all he wished that he could understand the meaning in all of the beautiful words of which she had spoken, the liquid song of her world, a silent drop of water screaming of an ocean. Long ago his mind had consented to allow her to have come from another earth. If it had not, then it would doubtless be he who sounded so confused and forlorn. He had never chanced to come across a creature so unsolved unto his elven mind, and he could not conclude if this was for the better or the worse. But in her presence all fear of his pursuit and all worry for those that he pursued seemed suddenly trivial. Or did it seem but less existent?
What evil haunted the shadows of her mind? What horrified cries clung to the corners of her lips? What was that death-like veil that so viciously refused to clear from her living eyes? And why was this pain that emanated from her very skin so apparently unable to be healed, and yet made so present in his mind?
***
Caliasar sighed with her surrender, what contentment might be called a smile found lingering within her thoughtless tire. She leaned back once more with hands against the horse's sinuous flesh, and watched the wraithlike gray of the clouds deepen with the shadows of night, drawing the depths of her eyes to their shade. They swept past her vision like ghosts drifting reluctantly from the grasp of life into the oceans of their eternity. With them she wandered through the passages of time, and drew about her the likeness of their baleful cloak. She was a specter looming in a foreign land, a shadow cast within a dream, an apparition made living with blood and flesh, and flesh's fear.
Inclining her head she watched her new companion, letting the etiquette of her more abstemious mentality fall away as she considered his world and designed a culture within her mind to surround him. Glorfindel seemed never to tire of her inquest, though she knew he spoke but a bead of such intriguing sustenance from his memory's deep and darkened well. If he thought her mind so treacherous, more was her advantage.
But with all of her concern and for all of her ambiguity, she could not help but take such solace as might be permissible in the company of an elf. He was soft-spoken and fair of voice though his tongue seemed apt to think of sharpness when incurred with evil memory, and command was not unknown to his lips if even it was less heard by his ears. His mind had been more swift to consent that she was not of his world than even she had been, though the notion seemed still reserved by his few remaining thoughts of logic. This, of course, was for the best, but she could not help but wish that he would simply come and ask where she had come from, and who, or what, she truly was. It would have made the tasks at hand by so far much easier, and feeling as if she would sleep for days if allowed to lie down, Caliasar truly didn't feel up to making anyone understand more than the fact that she was exhausted and hungry enough to relieve Asfaloth, as Glorfindel called him, of at least one leg, and maybe a few ribs.
As the evening cooled, she could almost taste the sense of his concentration. It had been many passings of both moon and sun since she had last been in the presence of such an unfathomable ancientness. But perhaps she had only become used to its presence among those of her companions who could claim it, and only because of its profound differences of content in this world did it seem so astonishingly breathtaking as it had when first she experienced it so long ago. Would one ever know that they were the vessels of such amaze if they were never told of it? Or was it something that every being possessed, and that only age could make so profound? This seemed more the likely, and most likely why mortals rarely gained such empowering qualities. Most mortals.
It was then that they passed yet another grove of trees, and her vision immediately turned outward again. The night was paled by the shadows of day, radiance lingering in the wells of distant mountains as they marched abroad her horizons. Softly the chill of evening descended and she felt refreshed by that cool hand, her mind awakened once more to her surround. Silent rock spoke of strange tales in languages alike to the songs of foreign birds, whose melodies seem out of place where more common harmonies once rang.
Her hand placed itself upon Glorfindel's shoulder when at last this new presence flowed as if a mist or on a raindrop's path into her consciousness, tainting the air about with apprehension. But the elf-lord had already reined in his great horse, and glanced up into the bramble that lined the road even as she did, and even as the tall figure of a man leapt with a cry of joy from the heather's shadow.
Glorfindel quickly dismounted, leaving all thought and memory of her behind as he ran to meet this one who must be that which he had been searching for. Again a beautiful thread of words sprang from his lips, this time answered in the same language by this tall man whose rough appearance and dark complexion made him almost impossible to place any detail on from so far away. They were speaking so rapidly that she was forced to cease her struggle to find any meaning in the elegant syllables, content and yet not comforted in listening to their urgent speech, the flurry of words reeling in her mind as she glanced about for the others who should have been with this newcomer.
The dark man chanced to glance up then as her eyes panned the wood, and his eyebrows knit with an expression none short of purest awe. Another word he spoke to his companion, and Glorfindel turned to wave his hand as if to encompass a thought. The only word of his reply that she could pick out was his now improved pronunciation of "Caliasar." Yet still the man left his eyes upon her, and the elf surprised her with his smile. For a moment they stared as this, his gray eyes ploring the depths of her own. What emotion flickered within him she could hardly see, so stern and grave was his face. Yet with the long passage of a moment his expression was soft as if with much weariness and sorrow, for which or whom she could not tell.
Resigned to a nod as if he had no other response to give he turned away once more and beckoned toward the bushes from whence he had come. To her surprise, out of the thicket clambered four children, one on a pony, though they were not children at all. Miniature men, seeming as tired as she and their faces lit with joy as they watched Glorfindel, all hurried down to the road as swiftly as their rather large feet could carry them.
"This is Glorfindel, who dwells in the house of Elrond," spoke the man as he smiled upon his small company. Caliasar let her head tilt once more as she watched their joyful exhaust, and felt the first true finger of trepidation stroke her heart as she let herself pity those such small men, whose faces bore all fear and loss of hope returned.
"Hail, and well met at last!" returned the elf, seeming to speak more to one taller and fairer of the four short men. "I was sent from Rivendell to look for you. We feared that you were in danger upon the road."
The little man replied swiftly, asking if one named Gandalf had come to this Rivendell. He seemed very grieved when Glorfindel said that he had not, and with the elf's explanation Caliasar learned much that seemed less useful than even those blasted bells so ringing from Asfaloth's harness. The bridge that she had found was called Mitheithel, and Glorfindel had set out nine days before. He spoke also of the "Nine" and the "servants of Sauron," which were perhaps more important, and she supposed they were the same thing, of which five were pursuing them. He felt that the ford for which they were making was already held against them by the remaining four, which was a touch irritating to hear after so long listening to the accounts of ancient time. Was the present always to be forgotten when the past once again chanced the mind? I'm doomed, she sighed, and shook her head for such distress.
Now made more curious than frightened, Caliasar slipped from Asfaloth's back and came to Glorfindel's side, almost oblivious of the movement. She was watching the small man with out reason for her intent, as the eve deepened and he suddenly swayed, catching his companion's arm.
"My master is sick and wounded," said the second angrily. "He can't go on riding after nightfall. He needs rest."
Glorfindel caught the creature as he sank to the ground, taking him gently into his arms and looking at his face with grave anxiety.
Briefly the tall man told of an attack of these "Black Riders," glancing back and forth between Caliasar and Glorfindel as if they should suddenly disappear by such talk of evil. He drew out the bladeless hilt of a knife, and handed it to the elf. Glorfindel shivered as he took it, staring intently at its design.
"There are evil things written on this hilt," he said, "though maybe your eyes cannot see them. Keep it, Aragorn, till we reach the house of Elrond. But be wary, and handle it as little as you may! The wounds of this weapon are beyond my skill to heal. I will do what I can – but all the more do I urge you now to go on without rest."
Caliasar sighed once more as softly as she could, realizing that she was not going to be receiving any sleep that night for certain. Aragorn, as he had been called, glanced up as if suddenly remembering her again. Returning his gaze for only a moment she could not even coax her lips into a word of greeting, such was her exhaustion. After being silent for such a time she no longer bore a desire to speak. Instead she turned her eyes to watch the doings of Glorfindel.
His hand searched a sickly healing wound that held most of the little man's shoulder, his face growing more grave with every passing moment as if what his fingers learned disquieted him. Caliasar moved to look at the creature's face, his eyes glazed with pain and his brow heavy with sweat. But he seemed to grow more at ease as Glorfindel stood there, and his eyes suddenly fixed on her as they had not seemed capable of doing just a moment ago.
Suddenly she found herself lifting a single pastel hand to stroke his cheek, murmuring an echoing stream of words from Elendrith tongues that even she did not understand. Nor did any other in her world save the most learned in ancient lore, for it was of a language so long dead that even the children of its time had ceased to find any meaning in it save purest beauty and hope. Smiling, Caliasar wiped the sweat from his forehead and was pleased as he returned the smile.
She looked up to find five other faces turned upward with gazes locked on her as if they were waiting for her to disappear in a puff of smoke or fade back into the wind. The small men seemed all to think that she was an elf as well (which seemed enough amazement for them), as did Aragorn, though he seemed to be fraught with the awareness that he knew better, and Glorfindel seemed to be only once more in awe. Inclining her brows with an unreadable curl to her lips Caliasar shook at least the elf back to his senses.
"You shall ride my horse," said Glorfindel suddenly, looking down at the small person in his arms once more.
"I will not!" the little man intoned with a voice still harsh from pain. "I shall not ride him, if I am to be carried off to Rivendell or anywhere else, leaving my friends behind in danger." He certainly was a thoughtful, chivalrous little thing.
Glorfindel smiled. "I doubt very much if your friends would be in danger if you were not with them. The pursuit would follow you and leave us in peace, I think. It is you, Frodo, and that which you bear that brings us all in peril."
Caliasar snapped her gaze upward once again as swiftly as she dared to glare at the elf, trying to discern the meaning in his words. Why indeed would anyone wish to harm such a small people, and what thing did this one carry that would make him so suddenly a target of such pursuit?
Glorfindel seemed to ignore her and shortened Asfaloth's stirrups up to the saddle-skirts before setting the one that he had called Frodo (such strange names!) astride. The little man looked like a child sitting upon a great warhorse. They began rearranging their gear, giving more to their pony and giving some for the elf to carry. Caliasar took Frodo's pack and made the straps longer, filling it with as much as Aragorn or even Glorfindel could bear. They protested, having thought that she would ride with Frodo, but she raised her hand decidedly, silencing them.
"It is easier to walk with a full pack than not," she said, and they had not the chance to argue with her as she set out at a pace that only Glorfindel himself could have matched.
***
"Who are you?" Frodo spoke from his seat above her, seeming embarrassed that he could do nothing more than be carted about by an elf-lord's horse.
"I am called Caliasar," she replied in a voice clear enough for them all to heed, noting this question burning upon all of their faces, even in Glorfindel's, though his thoughts were far deeper. "May I ask, who are you?"
"I am Frodo son of Drogo, a hobbit of the Shire." He blinked, seeming to think that he had said too much.
"Hobbits, then, are what you call yourselves?" she smiled at him, and Frodo relaxed. "And the rest of you, you also have names?"
The small men, the hobbits, fidgeted under her eyes, but it took only a moment for one of the younger looking ones to pipe up in his thick ascent, far worse than Glorfindel's, and she was forced to listen very closely if she was to understand him.
"I'm Peregrin Took, but you may call me Pippin, and this is Meriadoc Brandybuck, Merry for short. Frodo here is a Baggins, and this is Samwise Gamgee – call him Sam."
Aragorn (not to mention Sam, though he seemed to have relaxed about her as Frodo had) seemed unsure as to if they had said too much or not, having glanced up at her with the word "Baggins," and seeming relieved that she thought nothing of it.
"Hello then, well enough. Now that I know what you are, I suppose you would wish to know what I am. But that is a tale of another matter entirely, and fit for times of less haste. You are called Aragorn, are you not? Though these hobbits call you Strider," she said, looking up at him.
"I am Aragorn among many other names. Strider is what men who know less have taken to call me in the village of Bree." He seemed very uneager to answer her, shrouded both sinister and mysterious beneath a cloak of tension and time. Glorfindel smiled faintly and the two began to speak once more in his language. Aragorn lifted his brows once more, and glanced in her direction again before continuing their exchange.
Drawing a smirk across her face Caliasar glanced about once more before turning to the hobbits, feeling a slight awkward now that Glorfindel had found someone whom he could confer her appearance with, not to mention someone who also knew that same language that she did not. No longer wishing to attempt a translation, she turned to the hobbits once more.
"This Shire that you come from, what is it like?" Little did she know that with that single sentence and in the next seven hours at least she would not only learn how beautiful the Shire was (though words could not describe it as they had said, though they seemed to find enough words to say about it), but also the origin of pipe weed, the best foods to eat for every occasion from a wedding to the discovery of a lost button, and everything that had happened to each of their uncle's wife's cousin's husband's best friend since the day that he or she had been born. Which it was, she had forgotten long ago when the conversation had turned toward how wonderful the beer was at the Prancing Pony, whatever that was.
***
Recap: Glorfindel and Caliasar meet Aragorn and the hobbits. Caliasar ends up on the outside and gains a few hobbit friends. We're all happy. It's 4:00 in the morning. Here at least. It's probably like 6:30 or 7:00 p.m. there. Oh well, you get the picture. Now having gained a bit of knowledge and a few companions to base her thoughts of Middle-earth on, Cali is bound to start lightening up and show more of her character. By the title alone you should be able to tell that she's a little sarcastic, if I may say so myself. Whoop.
I'm sorry for all of the questions that they keep asking themselves, but I'm trying to stress the confusion thing. I'm not very good at making people sound confused, so I just started making them ask themselves a bunch of idioms. Heh, works for me.
Okay, I understand that elves and orcs go together, but Glorfindel wouldn't have told her that, or else she would have been more interested in them. But her world has never heard about orcs or humans before, though they have read a few stories about elves. It's just natural that she would be more interested in elves, not only because she had never thought that they could be real, but because she had found them so intriguing on paper in her own world. By about now she wouldn't care much about what Glorfindel thought of her, she just wants to know, feeling now that he isn't going to club her over the head for asking questions. She would have been very careful about what she asked, nonetheless, and he would have been careful about what he replied. But still, don't feel that I skipped over too much. It was just talk, and probably more abbreviated than the conversations that she will have with other elves once people know for certain that they can trust her. (ooooohhhhhhhhh, foreshadowing!)
A review submitted is a very good review indeed.