YRCH
Two brothers are separated as the first orcs are created...
DISCLAIMER: As much As I wish I owned the magical land of Middle-Earth, I do not. I am making no profit from this short story. The characters Calenel, Ramruin, Dae-alda, Aglarel and the hamlet Bar-en-Annon are mine:-)
A.N.~ I use two slightly different words to represent the word 'green' in this: 'calen' and 'galen' in the names Calenel and Galencarch simply because when I pronounced the name 'Galenel' it sounded just plain wrong (figure it out yourself!:-) and because it prevented redundancy in the story when there is myriad of words in the Elven languages to be chosen. ANYWAYS... This is set before the Elves journeyed to Valinor, at the time of the creation of the first orcs. Enjoy!
~*~*~*~*~*~
A balmy breeze flowed peacefully, lazily even, along the length of the trees; whisperings of song arose from their brushing branches and called out to Calenel (A.N.~ Green star) in a way only Elves can understand. He smiled at its calling but resisted the urge to simply sit and listen to its beckoning melody; after all, there was a hunt to do and food to secure.
By all rights Calenel did not have to be hunting; his father Dae-alda (A.N.~ Shadow-tree) was alive and well and his family could go without food if needed, but calm and loyal Calenel enjoyed feeling that he was needed. Silently he slipped along, following the tracks of a deer he had wounded minutes before. It pained the tender-hearted Elf to not have made a quick and clean kill, and it hurt him even worse to know that the poor creature was out there in pain now. He moved his pace up to a jog as he resolved to catch the deer and put it out of its misery as quickly as possible. So intent he was on catching this innocent creature that he did not notice the sinister shadow slinking into step behind him.
It trailed him through the emerald canopy of the vale and did not balk at the fractal patterns cast by the golden sunlight melting through the pale leaves. The thick undergrowth of bushes covered in berries and clad in dark green leaves thin and oblong of shape did not deter it either. Calenel enjoyed the pristine beauty of the forest, oblivious the marring shadow. Birch trees spread their limbs high and filtered the sunlight so that the quarry of a hunt could be seen while supple pine trees nicely coated with needles provided shadows for both the hunter and the hunted. Shapely ash and yew trees dotted the vale too, perfect for the bows such as the one Calenel carried already. Calenel paused at a slender silver stream to look carefully at some tracks and blood the deer had left in the rich brown earth, squinting to see in the sparse light afforded in the shadow of the towering oak tree that stood sentinel by the stream.
He became utterly absorbed in his task; the young and springy grass told him that the deer had paused to drink (the small puddle of blood beside the stream was explanatory of this) then stood still (deeper footprints betrayed this) and listened for any sound. Carefully he rose, looking appraisingly around the clearing. The deer had taken his arrow to the ribs, probably very close to its heart. It couldn't be far.
Calenel turned very carefully on his heels, his placid green eyes searching the vale for any sign of movement. He heard a rustle in the undergrowth behind him. His muscles tensed and he stood very still. If it was the deer, then it might mistake him for another shadow as he was still standing beneath the majestic oak and he could lure it into the open, but perceptive Calenel felt it could be something... else... He stood still as stone; his heart tightened in his chest and his throat tightened in terror's grasp. His blood turned to red sludge and he felt lightheaded. Calenel thought that if this new threat did not kill him first, the terror certainly would.
The terror was shattered by a hand descending on his shoulder.
Calenel whirled suddenly, adrenaline screaming through his blood which now seemed like red quicksilver. So he seemed to move, spinning out with a wide kick to the side. It grabbed his heel and flipped him over so he landed on his stomach, smacking his forehead on the ground solidly. Despite his whirling head, Calenel flipped over again and punched out; again he was caught and foiled. A series of kicks followed his recovery and everything was happening too fast for Calenel to identify his assailant. He fought on pure adrenaline and feral instinct, but every blow he executed was seamlessly and perfectly blocked. Calenel leapt backwards and titled to the side and backwards, resting all his weight on one leg and doing a powerful side-kick. This time, when the attacker tried to push him backwards again, Calenel forced himself down so he landed on the other leg with his back leg out behind him. As he did so he used his momentum to punch forward; his hand was caught solidly in the palm of his attacker.
Palm?
Most beasts did not have a palm, a smooth, humanoid palm.
Nor did they have bright eyes of dusky red color.
Dusky red?
All these thought flashed through Calenel's brain at the considerable speed of his punches and kicks, so it took him only a split-second's pause to think them. But with this enemy, a split-second was a split-second too many. He felt his arm wrenched around but not so that it was snap out of its socket and then jammed against his back. Another hand grabbed his shoulder and pushed him forward onto the ground; a knee connected with his back held him there.
"You do get overly paranoid when you hunt, brother." A familiar and laughing voice came from his 'attacker' as he stood up and released him.
"Ramruin!" (A.N.~ Wall of Red Flame) Whined Calenel. The only thing forthcoming from his younger brother was a hearty laugh as the relatively bruised Elf picked himself gingerly off the ground and retrieved his dropped bow. "Now I'll have lost the catch and left that poor deer to die-" Calenel never finished the sentence for Ramruin whipped his bow off his back and shot an arrow, literally, into the dark. There was no sound from the target, just a stomach-clenching crack as it penetrated bone and a thud as the unfortunate creature fell to the ground. The ever-cocky Ramruin walked confidently over to the bushes and drew out a deer, already wounded by an arrow in its ribs and felled by an arrow to the neck.
"You were saying, Calen?" Ramruin flashed a charming grin to his ruffled brother.
"Quit being so cocky." Calenel quipped.
"Quite being so grumpy!" Ramruin shot right back gleefully.
"And my name is not 'Green' it's 'Green-STAR.' How would you like it if I called you 'Wall' all the time?" The Elf grumbled, uptight about his proper name. (A.N.~ Calen means green, el means star. Ram is wall, ruin is red flame. I got it from the back of the Silmarillion.) Ramruin snorted and as he was pulling the arrow out and it nicked him. "You certainly are thick enough." Calenel added dryly as Ramruin yelped in confused pain. This earned Calenel a prize-winning glare from his younger sibling along with a tussle in the grass. As the now ready Calenel pinned Ramruin, he smiled broadly. "Happy birthday Ramruin."
~*~*~*~*~
Good spirits prevailed as the brothers walked home through the vale. The journey would not take lone as the lush vale was the southern border of the small Elven hamlet Bar-en-Annon which they called their home. The hamlet was aptly named, Bar-en-Annon meaning Dwelling of the Great Gate, for the hamlet was surrounded by a tall and thick wall made of trees from the vale, but perhaps the true reason it was called Dwelling of the Great Gate was because of how it had been founded so many years ago.
The Elves of the city, among them Ramruin and Calenel's father and mother Dae-alda and Aglarel, (A.N.~ Brilliant Star) had wandered away from the larger group of Elves struggling to find a place in the vast world. They came upon the vale one night, and frightened by the dark presence they sensed in it during midnight's reign, they fled in haste. As they broke the eves of the shadowy vale, they saw two towering oak trees, a hundred feet in height, bathed in the starlight, standing perfectly together at a distance of fifty feet apart. Calenel had been alive at the time, but very, very young. Snippets of the flight through the vale were retained in his memory, but clear as his celery-green eyes he remembered coming upon the trees.
They were gargantuan monuments to nature's craft, hundred feet high and ten feet in girth. He remembered, cradled in his mother's arms, looking upward through the crisscrossing branches to see the starlight filtering through, multiplied by the ethereal wonder of the trees. He knew it was home. So did the adults, who saw tremendous potential in the spot. The land was flat and clear around it, broken only by the vale and the mysterious far-off mountains to the north. The ground was fertile and there seemed that no one had a claim upon its virgin soil.
So they began to build their houses in the morning, going to a nearby stream (another asset to the place) to gather stones to make foundations. The women, Aglarel with Calenel on her hip among them, gathered the seeds of the hardy trees in the vale and began to plant them in a perfect circle about two hundred feet in circumference. Come the next spring the trees had grown into beautiful saplings and Ramruin was born. Everything was going well for six-year-old Calenel; he had food to eat, a place to sleep, a family and a safe hamlet full of friends.
Then the troubles started.
It appeared that those mysterious mountains to the north were the home of Utumno, the great fortress of the evil Valar Melkor whose other unspoken name was Morgoth. His demons and beasts began to inhabit the forest and strike out at the small hamlet. The seasoned warriors fought them back each time, but more always seemed to be coming, so they devised a plan of defense for the tiny hamlet.
Although it pained their hearts, they cut down the strongest trees in the vale and hacked off the branches of the two oak trees. In-between the saplings they drove the branch-shaven trees from the vale, just far enough so that the saplings would grow to the desired width in time. The mightiest trees they placed between the two oak trees to form two great gates that could only be opened from the inside or else by a secret password known only to the dwellers of the hamlet. And so the hamlet was named for that great gate, carved with stars filled with shining silver and imbued with the magic of nature, for they had two living gate posts and a living wall protecting them.
The forces of Melkor withdrew as the wall literally grew. Elven craftsmen, among them Dae-alda, carved beautiful depictions of nature into the wall and filled them with a type of silver known as ithildin (A.N.~ The stuff on the door of Moria in FOTR.) so that it glowed in the moon and starlight. They no longer thought along the premises of safety; who cared if everyone saw their glowing hamlet like a silver beacon in the night and helped their attackers as much as it helped the defendants? There were no enemies anyway, Melkor had withdrawn from their lands and they were free!
Whenever someone made that very statement, Calenel would smile, but his heart was full of woe, for the forest was disturbed by something; leaves fell untimely in the vale now, disturbed by some ill wind. But no one seemed to see this... Then again, not many people spent as much time in the forest as Calenel anyway. Perhaps that puts them at a disadvantage... Perhaps I should tell them... Calenel thought, but he brushed this thought away as quickly as it had come. Why should he think such things? It was a happy day, Ramruin's birthday! But still.... Why had Calenel, ever alert, been caught off guard by his brother's presence? Why, indeed, had he been on his guard in the first place, in that peaceful vale? Calenel did nothing more than shake these vital thoughts away as they approached the massive gate. It was Ramruin's birthday. Nothing would spoil that.
But still, those dark clouds hanging over the mountains worried him more than a little.
~*~*~*~*~*~
Day passed quickly in the company of his family, Dae-alda his father, Aglarel his mother and Ramruin his brother. He looked upon them now, in the beauty of evening, with adoration and love. His father looked just like him, but for his maple-red eyes. He had silken blonde hair, cut rather short for an Elf (it fell just above his shoulder) and was very slight of build for a male of his race. He was an artist as their artful cottage betrayed, covered in pictures of gorgeous natural vistas that brought nature indoors on the rainiest of days. Also like Calenel, he was the unwilling warrior, skilled enough in arms but hating to kill anything and preferring to spend his days preserving the beauties around him in art.
But if something threatened that beauty, Melkor couldn't stop his wrath.
Aglarel was angelically calm and graceful now, in her matronly glory, but in her maidenhood she was a fiery young woman more eager and competent than many males around her. Slim and light, many were amazed at the power she packed in her slender frame. She had strawberry colored hair falling below her shapely waist and soft blue eyes with a tint of green rimmed by thick black eyelashes that, when batted, could get her the moon stars, sun and then some from her enchanted husband. Having children had overwhelmed and tamed her fiery spirit, and now her solace was in watching them grow and enjoying the serenity around her with her husband.
Calenel was the eldest, having the build and temperament of his father, but the softness of face and eyes of his mother. His eyes themselves though, were the palest green shot with gold and darker green, resembling the light filtering through the forest he loved so much. There was no mistaking them. There was no mistaking Ramruin's eyes either. They were like his father's, but without the gentleness for he had gained the spirit of his mother, perhaps even more feral and reckless at that. He was heavier of build than the others but would be slim to one of the race of men (A.N.~ I know they don't exist yet.... Couldn't find a better comparison:-) and was often eager to fight off anything that threatened his home, which sometimes meant Calenel would search for him only to find him trying to have a swordfight with the woodpeckers trying to peck holes in the trees of the wall.
Keeping his spirit in mind, Aglarel had selected his present from among some of her old belongings. It was an Elven battle sword named Culcarch (A.N.~ Golden-red Fang) for its biting steel and the reddish-gold tint its metal took when it was swung fast around. The slender and slightly curved weapon had hung, crossed with its twin Galencarch (A.N.~ Green Fang) which was once carried by his father over the hearth. For some reason, (probably because of the gory implications of its name) Ramruin had always favored and adored Culcarch more. Now, since it was highly unlikely peaceful Aglarel would ever raise it in battle again, it was being passed on to Ramruin.
Aglarel now brought he treasured blade to her son; wrapped in several layers of homespun brown cloth, it seemed a homely gift at best, but eagerness was brilliantly alight in Ramruin's eyes as he reached for the package. Dae-alda slipped his arm around Aglarel's waist and kissed her forehead tenderly while they, and Calenel, watched ecstatic Ramruin reverently raise the scimitar from the simple wrappings and hold it in the firelight disbelievingly so the carved runes filled with lustrous rubies glimmered richly and with searing heat in the glow. Everyone knew what the runes said: Gurth gothrim Tel'Quessir which means 'Death to the foes of the Elves' in their tongue.
Ramruin seemed to hold very still, the silver blade's reflection sparkling in his eyes. All the cottage held still too, even the crackling flames froze as images flashed across the reflection of the blade in his eyes, images of blood both black and red spurting from mortal wounds, shouts in the fair Elven speech that he knew so well and a dark, guttural and incongruous tongue that grated roughly in Ramruin's pointed ears. He shuddered, and then he blinked and reality was back upon him.
"Ramruin? Are you all right?" Aglarel's melodic voice asked. Ramruin's head jerked up and happiness was in his face.
"Ai! Amme diola lle!" (A.N.~ Oh mother thank you!) He cried joyously, hugging his mother.
"Lle creoso, Ramruin." Aglarel said affectionately, returning the embrace. This tenderness did not last long though, for soon energetic Ramruin was chasing Calenel around the room with the scimitar leveled at him. The parents sighed.
"Well, we knew it would happen." Dae-alda laughed, pressing another kiss into Aglarel's smooth hair. He did not see the frown on her face though.
"Yes.... But I did not think so soon..." Aglarel murmured distantly, her cryptic message bearing more then just sadness at her sons' fast growing. Her blue-green eyes wandering beyond the walls of her house and outside to the night; it was pitch black in Bar-en-Annon, but the mountains housing Utumno seemed to be drenched in simmering blood.
~*~*~*~
A.N.~ Grrrrrrr bad me! I can't write anything shorter than two chappies!!! *runs around in circles pulling hair out* This was suposed to be one but it was gettin' to long so I'll finish it in another chapter (hopefully by tonight.) Please read and review!
Two brothers are separated as the first orcs are created...
DISCLAIMER: As much As I wish I owned the magical land of Middle-Earth, I do not. I am making no profit from this short story. The characters Calenel, Ramruin, Dae-alda, Aglarel and the hamlet Bar-en-Annon are mine:-)
A.N.~ I use two slightly different words to represent the word 'green' in this: 'calen' and 'galen' in the names Calenel and Galencarch simply because when I pronounced the name 'Galenel' it sounded just plain wrong (figure it out yourself!:-) and because it prevented redundancy in the story when there is myriad of words in the Elven languages to be chosen. ANYWAYS... This is set before the Elves journeyed to Valinor, at the time of the creation of the first orcs. Enjoy!
~*~*~*~*~*~
A balmy breeze flowed peacefully, lazily even, along the length of the trees; whisperings of song arose from their brushing branches and called out to Calenel (A.N.~ Green star) in a way only Elves can understand. He smiled at its calling but resisted the urge to simply sit and listen to its beckoning melody; after all, there was a hunt to do and food to secure.
By all rights Calenel did not have to be hunting; his father Dae-alda (A.N.~ Shadow-tree) was alive and well and his family could go without food if needed, but calm and loyal Calenel enjoyed feeling that he was needed. Silently he slipped along, following the tracks of a deer he had wounded minutes before. It pained the tender-hearted Elf to not have made a quick and clean kill, and it hurt him even worse to know that the poor creature was out there in pain now. He moved his pace up to a jog as he resolved to catch the deer and put it out of its misery as quickly as possible. So intent he was on catching this innocent creature that he did not notice the sinister shadow slinking into step behind him.
It trailed him through the emerald canopy of the vale and did not balk at the fractal patterns cast by the golden sunlight melting through the pale leaves. The thick undergrowth of bushes covered in berries and clad in dark green leaves thin and oblong of shape did not deter it either. Calenel enjoyed the pristine beauty of the forest, oblivious the marring shadow. Birch trees spread their limbs high and filtered the sunlight so that the quarry of a hunt could be seen while supple pine trees nicely coated with needles provided shadows for both the hunter and the hunted. Shapely ash and yew trees dotted the vale too, perfect for the bows such as the one Calenel carried already. Calenel paused at a slender silver stream to look carefully at some tracks and blood the deer had left in the rich brown earth, squinting to see in the sparse light afforded in the shadow of the towering oak tree that stood sentinel by the stream.
He became utterly absorbed in his task; the young and springy grass told him that the deer had paused to drink (the small puddle of blood beside the stream was explanatory of this) then stood still (deeper footprints betrayed this) and listened for any sound. Carefully he rose, looking appraisingly around the clearing. The deer had taken his arrow to the ribs, probably very close to its heart. It couldn't be far.
Calenel turned very carefully on his heels, his placid green eyes searching the vale for any sign of movement. He heard a rustle in the undergrowth behind him. His muscles tensed and he stood very still. If it was the deer, then it might mistake him for another shadow as he was still standing beneath the majestic oak and he could lure it into the open, but perceptive Calenel felt it could be something... else... He stood still as stone; his heart tightened in his chest and his throat tightened in terror's grasp. His blood turned to red sludge and he felt lightheaded. Calenel thought that if this new threat did not kill him first, the terror certainly would.
The terror was shattered by a hand descending on his shoulder.
Calenel whirled suddenly, adrenaline screaming through his blood which now seemed like red quicksilver. So he seemed to move, spinning out with a wide kick to the side. It grabbed his heel and flipped him over so he landed on his stomach, smacking his forehead on the ground solidly. Despite his whirling head, Calenel flipped over again and punched out; again he was caught and foiled. A series of kicks followed his recovery and everything was happening too fast for Calenel to identify his assailant. He fought on pure adrenaline and feral instinct, but every blow he executed was seamlessly and perfectly blocked. Calenel leapt backwards and titled to the side and backwards, resting all his weight on one leg and doing a powerful side-kick. This time, when the attacker tried to push him backwards again, Calenel forced himself down so he landed on the other leg with his back leg out behind him. As he did so he used his momentum to punch forward; his hand was caught solidly in the palm of his attacker.
Palm?
Most beasts did not have a palm, a smooth, humanoid palm.
Nor did they have bright eyes of dusky red color.
Dusky red?
All these thought flashed through Calenel's brain at the considerable speed of his punches and kicks, so it took him only a split-second's pause to think them. But with this enemy, a split-second was a split-second too many. He felt his arm wrenched around but not so that it was snap out of its socket and then jammed against his back. Another hand grabbed his shoulder and pushed him forward onto the ground; a knee connected with his back held him there.
"You do get overly paranoid when you hunt, brother." A familiar and laughing voice came from his 'attacker' as he stood up and released him.
"Ramruin!" (A.N.~ Wall of Red Flame) Whined Calenel. The only thing forthcoming from his younger brother was a hearty laugh as the relatively bruised Elf picked himself gingerly off the ground and retrieved his dropped bow. "Now I'll have lost the catch and left that poor deer to die-" Calenel never finished the sentence for Ramruin whipped his bow off his back and shot an arrow, literally, into the dark. There was no sound from the target, just a stomach-clenching crack as it penetrated bone and a thud as the unfortunate creature fell to the ground. The ever-cocky Ramruin walked confidently over to the bushes and drew out a deer, already wounded by an arrow in its ribs and felled by an arrow to the neck.
"You were saying, Calen?" Ramruin flashed a charming grin to his ruffled brother.
"Quit being so cocky." Calenel quipped.
"Quite being so grumpy!" Ramruin shot right back gleefully.
"And my name is not 'Green' it's 'Green-STAR.' How would you like it if I called you 'Wall' all the time?" The Elf grumbled, uptight about his proper name. (A.N.~ Calen means green, el means star. Ram is wall, ruin is red flame. I got it from the back of the Silmarillion.) Ramruin snorted and as he was pulling the arrow out and it nicked him. "You certainly are thick enough." Calenel added dryly as Ramruin yelped in confused pain. This earned Calenel a prize-winning glare from his younger sibling along with a tussle in the grass. As the now ready Calenel pinned Ramruin, he smiled broadly. "Happy birthday Ramruin."
~*~*~*~*~
Good spirits prevailed as the brothers walked home through the vale. The journey would not take lone as the lush vale was the southern border of the small Elven hamlet Bar-en-Annon which they called their home. The hamlet was aptly named, Bar-en-Annon meaning Dwelling of the Great Gate, for the hamlet was surrounded by a tall and thick wall made of trees from the vale, but perhaps the true reason it was called Dwelling of the Great Gate was because of how it had been founded so many years ago.
The Elves of the city, among them Ramruin and Calenel's father and mother Dae-alda and Aglarel, (A.N.~ Brilliant Star) had wandered away from the larger group of Elves struggling to find a place in the vast world. They came upon the vale one night, and frightened by the dark presence they sensed in it during midnight's reign, they fled in haste. As they broke the eves of the shadowy vale, they saw two towering oak trees, a hundred feet in height, bathed in the starlight, standing perfectly together at a distance of fifty feet apart. Calenel had been alive at the time, but very, very young. Snippets of the flight through the vale were retained in his memory, but clear as his celery-green eyes he remembered coming upon the trees.
They were gargantuan monuments to nature's craft, hundred feet high and ten feet in girth. He remembered, cradled in his mother's arms, looking upward through the crisscrossing branches to see the starlight filtering through, multiplied by the ethereal wonder of the trees. He knew it was home. So did the adults, who saw tremendous potential in the spot. The land was flat and clear around it, broken only by the vale and the mysterious far-off mountains to the north. The ground was fertile and there seemed that no one had a claim upon its virgin soil.
So they began to build their houses in the morning, going to a nearby stream (another asset to the place) to gather stones to make foundations. The women, Aglarel with Calenel on her hip among them, gathered the seeds of the hardy trees in the vale and began to plant them in a perfect circle about two hundred feet in circumference. Come the next spring the trees had grown into beautiful saplings and Ramruin was born. Everything was going well for six-year-old Calenel; he had food to eat, a place to sleep, a family and a safe hamlet full of friends.
Then the troubles started.
It appeared that those mysterious mountains to the north were the home of Utumno, the great fortress of the evil Valar Melkor whose other unspoken name was Morgoth. His demons and beasts began to inhabit the forest and strike out at the small hamlet. The seasoned warriors fought them back each time, but more always seemed to be coming, so they devised a plan of defense for the tiny hamlet.
Although it pained their hearts, they cut down the strongest trees in the vale and hacked off the branches of the two oak trees. In-between the saplings they drove the branch-shaven trees from the vale, just far enough so that the saplings would grow to the desired width in time. The mightiest trees they placed between the two oak trees to form two great gates that could only be opened from the inside or else by a secret password known only to the dwellers of the hamlet. And so the hamlet was named for that great gate, carved with stars filled with shining silver and imbued with the magic of nature, for they had two living gate posts and a living wall protecting them.
The forces of Melkor withdrew as the wall literally grew. Elven craftsmen, among them Dae-alda, carved beautiful depictions of nature into the wall and filled them with a type of silver known as ithildin (A.N.~ The stuff on the door of Moria in FOTR.) so that it glowed in the moon and starlight. They no longer thought along the premises of safety; who cared if everyone saw their glowing hamlet like a silver beacon in the night and helped their attackers as much as it helped the defendants? There were no enemies anyway, Melkor had withdrawn from their lands and they were free!
Whenever someone made that very statement, Calenel would smile, but his heart was full of woe, for the forest was disturbed by something; leaves fell untimely in the vale now, disturbed by some ill wind. But no one seemed to see this... Then again, not many people spent as much time in the forest as Calenel anyway. Perhaps that puts them at a disadvantage... Perhaps I should tell them... Calenel thought, but he brushed this thought away as quickly as it had come. Why should he think such things? It was a happy day, Ramruin's birthday! But still.... Why had Calenel, ever alert, been caught off guard by his brother's presence? Why, indeed, had he been on his guard in the first place, in that peaceful vale? Calenel did nothing more than shake these vital thoughts away as they approached the massive gate. It was Ramruin's birthday. Nothing would spoil that.
But still, those dark clouds hanging over the mountains worried him more than a little.
~*~*~*~*~*~
Day passed quickly in the company of his family, Dae-alda his father, Aglarel his mother and Ramruin his brother. He looked upon them now, in the beauty of evening, with adoration and love. His father looked just like him, but for his maple-red eyes. He had silken blonde hair, cut rather short for an Elf (it fell just above his shoulder) and was very slight of build for a male of his race. He was an artist as their artful cottage betrayed, covered in pictures of gorgeous natural vistas that brought nature indoors on the rainiest of days. Also like Calenel, he was the unwilling warrior, skilled enough in arms but hating to kill anything and preferring to spend his days preserving the beauties around him in art.
But if something threatened that beauty, Melkor couldn't stop his wrath.
Aglarel was angelically calm and graceful now, in her matronly glory, but in her maidenhood she was a fiery young woman more eager and competent than many males around her. Slim and light, many were amazed at the power she packed in her slender frame. She had strawberry colored hair falling below her shapely waist and soft blue eyes with a tint of green rimmed by thick black eyelashes that, when batted, could get her the moon stars, sun and then some from her enchanted husband. Having children had overwhelmed and tamed her fiery spirit, and now her solace was in watching them grow and enjoying the serenity around her with her husband.
Calenel was the eldest, having the build and temperament of his father, but the softness of face and eyes of his mother. His eyes themselves though, were the palest green shot with gold and darker green, resembling the light filtering through the forest he loved so much. There was no mistaking them. There was no mistaking Ramruin's eyes either. They were like his father's, but without the gentleness for he had gained the spirit of his mother, perhaps even more feral and reckless at that. He was heavier of build than the others but would be slim to one of the race of men (A.N.~ I know they don't exist yet.... Couldn't find a better comparison:-) and was often eager to fight off anything that threatened his home, which sometimes meant Calenel would search for him only to find him trying to have a swordfight with the woodpeckers trying to peck holes in the trees of the wall.
Keeping his spirit in mind, Aglarel had selected his present from among some of her old belongings. It was an Elven battle sword named Culcarch (A.N.~ Golden-red Fang) for its biting steel and the reddish-gold tint its metal took when it was swung fast around. The slender and slightly curved weapon had hung, crossed with its twin Galencarch (A.N.~ Green Fang) which was once carried by his father over the hearth. For some reason, (probably because of the gory implications of its name) Ramruin had always favored and adored Culcarch more. Now, since it was highly unlikely peaceful Aglarel would ever raise it in battle again, it was being passed on to Ramruin.
Aglarel now brought he treasured blade to her son; wrapped in several layers of homespun brown cloth, it seemed a homely gift at best, but eagerness was brilliantly alight in Ramruin's eyes as he reached for the package. Dae-alda slipped his arm around Aglarel's waist and kissed her forehead tenderly while they, and Calenel, watched ecstatic Ramruin reverently raise the scimitar from the simple wrappings and hold it in the firelight disbelievingly so the carved runes filled with lustrous rubies glimmered richly and with searing heat in the glow. Everyone knew what the runes said: Gurth gothrim Tel'Quessir which means 'Death to the foes of the Elves' in their tongue.
Ramruin seemed to hold very still, the silver blade's reflection sparkling in his eyes. All the cottage held still too, even the crackling flames froze as images flashed across the reflection of the blade in his eyes, images of blood both black and red spurting from mortal wounds, shouts in the fair Elven speech that he knew so well and a dark, guttural and incongruous tongue that grated roughly in Ramruin's pointed ears. He shuddered, and then he blinked and reality was back upon him.
"Ramruin? Are you all right?" Aglarel's melodic voice asked. Ramruin's head jerked up and happiness was in his face.
"Ai! Amme diola lle!" (A.N.~ Oh mother thank you!) He cried joyously, hugging his mother.
"Lle creoso, Ramruin." Aglarel said affectionately, returning the embrace. This tenderness did not last long though, for soon energetic Ramruin was chasing Calenel around the room with the scimitar leveled at him. The parents sighed.
"Well, we knew it would happen." Dae-alda laughed, pressing another kiss into Aglarel's smooth hair. He did not see the frown on her face though.
"Yes.... But I did not think so soon..." Aglarel murmured distantly, her cryptic message bearing more then just sadness at her sons' fast growing. Her blue-green eyes wandering beyond the walls of her house and outside to the night; it was pitch black in Bar-en-Annon, but the mountains housing Utumno seemed to be drenched in simmering blood.
~*~*~*~
A.N.~ Grrrrrrr bad me! I can't write anything shorter than two chappies!!! *runs around in circles pulling hair out* This was suposed to be one but it was gettin' to long so I'll finish it in another chapter (hopefully by tonight.) Please read and review!