Okay, a note to anyone who has The Fellowship of the Ring on video/DVD: I have just found the weirdest coincidence. It might only be on the extended version, but I can't tell, so go look anyway. I promise you, if you like the story here, it's good! When the Fellowship first meet Lady Galadriel and Lord Celeborn in Lothlorien, you see the two Elves descending from some kind of dais. Remaining at the top of the dais, one on each side, are two other Elves who look like Guards. After writing this story, in my mind they will always be Aratirith guards: on the left is Bainuilos, Celeborn's Aratirith and, coincidentally, Tondfael's father and Mithmír's uncle; and on the right is Tondfael himself, Galadriel's Aratirith. I know he has slightly lighter hair than the real Tondfael does, but hey, you can't have everything and it gives you a pretty decent idea of an Aratirith. Anyway, go and check it out! Subconsciously the director was working to my telepathic orders. :-) !!!
Anyway, enjoy, review, etc. Legolas returns soon, don't worry, and then he and Mithmír have a very important little chat…
***
Three-thirty came, after two hours of pure torture. It seemed to her like Tondfael had sent extra people to wander about her on purpose – and those "people" were eight guards, not yet fully-grown into their manhood, who began to train noisily about her. The violence-fuelled cries, the clanging of metal on metal, made her itch all over. She wanted to get up and join them, teach them how to really use a sword, and pass on some knowledge the Elves had given her and continued to do so; but she had resisted the urge and sat still.
Tondfael came up at her from behind. He was tempted to jump out on her; but decided that should be too cruel. He walked silently, and she had no idea that he was behind her. Even his calm breathing was silent. Tondfael looked at her with his dark eyes; and surprised himself by feeling pure love for this wonderful, different Elf. The Fair Folk have always been renowned for their joy in the emotion of love, and their quickness to allow themselves to feel it; but in recent times they were normally too suspicious of the other races to live up to their reputation. Tondfael reminded himself that he was close to her anyway – they were cousins, after all. And this Mithmír Rochiwen was so much like Lómwing the Fell-handed… He wondered if she had ever seen her mother handling her daggers and bow. Well, if she hadn't, now she never would, he realized with a sigh. Not only had Lómwing given the fabled bow Cúarien to her daughter; but her suicide was imminent. It was in that moment that he decided to tell Mithmír all the stories he knew of her famous mother; for according to Aragorn – whom he had just spoken to – she knew nothing.
'Well done, Mithmír,' he said, placing a deceptively soft hand on her shoulder. She jumped up; almost instantly bending over double to rub her calves as if in agony.
'Ow… Ow…' She moaned.
Tondfael cocked his head, confused. 'What ails you?' He sounded more Elf-like than ever now; infinitely immortal, innocently confused by a child of Man's pain. Mithmír may have become immortal, but she still was plagued by many of Men's ills.
Mithmír straightened up uncertainly, wincing a little. 'Pins and needles,' she said with a weak grin. 'Don't Elves suffer from them?'
'What are these "pins and needles"?' He asked in complete sincerity, eyes betraying a great mystification and interest in learning something new.
'If a Human stays still long enough, and then moves very quickly, they feel pains in their legs and feet like hundreds of tiny pins and needles – hence the name – sticking into them,' she explained.
'Is it curable?' He asked in all earnestness, turning his head again. Strands of dark hair rushed against his face. He was certainly very attractive, Mithmír realized – but nothing to Prince Legolas in her eyes, she noted with a slight smile. He was adorable, too, in his perplexity on this new revelation. She shocked herself by using that word – adorable. What was she becoming?!
'Yes, of course!' She replied with a kind chuckle. 'They've gone already. I'm fine.'
'I'm glad for that, lady Mithmír,' he grinned as if abashed. 'You learn something new every day. And congratulations on this test – you passed with "flying colours" as Men say.'
She mock bowed, and then straightened up to meet her eyes with his. A hopeful glimmer was lodged there, Tondfael, Lady Galadriel's Aratirith, noticed. He suddenly became aware, as if blessed by his Lady's gift for seeing other's minds, what this shield-maiden wanted; and drew the sword beside him from it's sheath.
'As I promised, Mithmír,' he said graciously, while she gasped in awe and reached out to run her fingers along the blade reverently. 'This is Cristeiliant, the rainbow-forger, the sword that shall cleave the sky and make a trail of colour.' He smiled. 'Or so it is said, though I am not powerful enough a wielder to let it reach it's full power.'
'This is a powerful weapon indeed,' said Mithmír in wonder, caressing the cold metal almost as if it were the warm skin of a lover. 'It was forged many ages ago…'
'In the very furnaces that formed the Elven Three,' nodded Tondfael with no hint of arrogance or boastfulness in his voice. 'So many years ago that a mind which has once been mortal cannot comprehend the time.'
'And the spells that have been cast to protect the bearer are still strong.'
'They should be, also,' he said with a smile. 'She who cast those magics counted them as the least of her skills, but they will last as long as the sword does, and protect me more than I feel I am worthy of.'
'Who was she?' Mithmír looked up at Tondfael admiration. 'She must have been a High Elf…'
'Nay, Mithmír,' he said with a slight, sad smile as if lost in memory. 'Even higher than that. She was a Maiar, and indeed a Queen also: she who cast those protections was Melian, wife of Thingol; who was and is even higher than my Lady Galadriel.' He bowed his head as if in reverence.
'You were not alive in the time of Queen Melian, surely,' asked Mithmír, addressing him but eyeing only the weapon.
He sighed almost silently. This lady seemed to have an unusual skill in finding out the truth quickly. 'I was not,' he said. 'But this is the sword which belongs to the Aratirith of Galadriel, and I was not the first. It was to your mother that this sword, Cristeiliant, was given by Melian the Maia as a gift for past services... She bore it braver than I in the protection of the Lady Galadriel, and when she left, passed it on to me. I count myself blessed to carry the sword that once graced Lómwing's hand.'
Mithmír was silent for a while. 'Tell me about her,' she said finally. 'Tell me all about the woman I never really knew.' And as Tondfael began to reply she gripped the blade so tightly that a thin cut was drawn along her palm, and the daughter's blood dropped onto the mother's beloved sword.
***
Please review!
