AN: I'm so sorry for not updating a lot this week, as I usually do. I had
the worst week ever: a Dance History test, a Genetics exam, a paper due for
my Storytelling class, and I had to crash course myself on The Matrix
because my Storytelling professor is making us see the third one as part of
our homework. I must say I liked the first one a lot---just couldn't stop
thinking "Agent Smith=Elrond."
Pidgeypotatoe: I'm glad you liked the story but Ice, Fire and the like are only nicknames. Ice's given name, as given in another chapter is, Litsetaure. Fire's given name, as given in the same chapter, is Marille. The others do have given names but I haven't given them yet.
Lomiothiel: Sorry, I'm really fond of the cliffhanger. I'm glad you liked the chapter!
lulu bell: Thanks for the two reviews! There'll be some jazz dancing toward the end of the story but I feel more comfortable writing about ballet. I've been dancing ballet for 17 years now. I'll translate all the chapter titles at the end of the story. They're in Italian.
PixiePea000: Actually, she knows our red headed friend. Met him quite a few times and he got her out of a rough spot. By the way, GOLLUM!
TitanicHobbit: The reason I used that song is because it was one of my favorite ballet privates I ever did. It wasn't because you're stupid, I just didn't drop any hints. Thanks for the review!
*words*---indicate something being sung. (This time the song actually gets involved. I don't own the song either. It's "Somewhere Out There" From the movie "An American Tale.")
Disclaimer: I own nothing except for a handful of made up characters. Tolkien thought up the concept and, as such, it belongs to him. I'm just playing in his world. I'm broke and in college. All I own are Pointe Shoes.
Arwen took a deep breath and let it out. There was much to be told about this red-headed man.
"This red-headed man, did he have closed cropped hair and was clad in a dark gray or black robe?" Arwen asked.
Legolas thought for a moment, calling up a mental image of the red-headed wizard.
"I do believe so. Why? Do you know him?" Legolas asked.
"His name is Patrick Dolan. He is a friend to my father He comes from this wizarding world, as he calls it, and was trained at a school known as Hogwarts. He was the one who brought us the items used to transport beings over great distances over short periods of time---Portkeys he called them. He has the strange ability to cross into and out off our world," Arwen explained.
"How can this be?" Legolas questioned.
Arwen gave him a sympathizing look. She knew what it was like to be given a great deal of information in a very short span of time. Couples that with the fact Patrick's abilities were quite disconcerting when one was first told about them and confusion was the likely outcome.
"He claims to be something called a Gatekeeper. He can cross these gates or portals, as he is fond of calling them, into our world from his own. It is a very strange concept to think about at first but it makes very good sense when you meet Patrick. He is quite and unusual, and helpful, being," Arwen answered.
Aragorn shared a confused glance with his elven friend. In all the years he had grown up in the elven sanctuary of Rivendell, he had never seen hide nor hair of this Patrick person. He was sure he had head about him in passing but that was about it.
"What about this lady in armor?" Legolas asked, "Is she somehow related to this Patrick character?"
Arwen shook her head.
"Patrick has no ties to Middle Earth, save his title as Gatekeeper. This woman does not seem to be something from his world," she answered.
Aragorn stepped in, relieving his wife from the job of answering the elven prince's questions.
"Do you remember anything, anything at all about this lady? Perhaps something about her armor," Aragorn prompted.
To his great surprise, it was Emma not Legolas who spoke up. The elven princess had been sitting and listening to his wife's explanation. She seemed to be drinking the entire story in, processing it in her own way.
"I do," Emma offered, "there was something about her shield that stuck out in my mind."
"What was that?" Aragorn questioned, carefully, not wanting to scare the young elf off.
Emma thought for a moment, biting her lip as she did so. She recalled that the image on the shield was akin to the Daisy flower she had worn on the front of her Daisy Girl Scout Tunic, back when she was a Girl Scout. Of course, they knew nothing about Girl Scouts here. She would have to find other ways to get her point across.
"It looked like a daisy flower in shape but not in color. There were six petals; each one was a different color. I think they were light green, purple, blue, pink, yellow, and white. The center was split in half. The top was red, the bottom was white. The rest of the shield was gold," Emma explained, sketching the vague shape of a daisy on the table as she spoke.
Aragorn was quite for a moment, his mind wandering through all the lore he had learned and all the armor he had seen in his days as both ranger and king. His armory was full of well preserved specimens of ancient armor, though none bore the type of shield Emma was referring to.
"If it helps any, the rest of the armor was in the style of the ancient Númenóreans," Legolas added.
A few more moments passed, the silence becoming tense and oppressive. Everything from the creak of a chair to the footsteps in the hall seemed to be ten times louder. Emma tried not to breathe for fear she'd disturb the king's thought processes.
"There was a story from very long ago. It is seldom spoken of any longer for many feel it was false, something created by the line of Stewards perhaps. It spoke of a female warrior whose sprit was allowed to return to life but not in Middle Earth. Are you familiar with this tale?" Aragorn, finally, spoke.
"I believe I have heard of this tale, my friend," Legolas confirmed.
He had heard the story, told as folklore, in his youth. It was an interesting story and, if one looked deep enough, one could find a ring of facts in it. Most myths, though, have some basis in fact and his questions about the story were usually written off by his tutors.
"I'm not!" Emma piped up, "What's it about?"
Aragorn laughed at the young elf's eagerness to learn something new.
"I will tell you the short version of the tale for the full version would take many nights to explain. A very long time ago, well before I was born, there was an island in the sea. This island was called Númenor. It was destroyed by the beings known to us as the Valar and very few were able to escape the tragedy. My ancestors came on those ships and they were the ones who built this fair city. Among the escapees was a talented warrior. Her name is lost to time but she was said to be the most skilled of any guard in Númenor. When this city was, finally, created and all the lands around it were thought to be safe, this woman gave up her warrior life style. She married another guard and they began to plan for a family. One day, the city fell under siege and both her and her husband were called back into duty by the king. They could not refuse and both fell on the field outside the city. Her spirit, being very strong, was sent to the Valar to be judged. To her great surprise, so it is told, the Valar informed her that she had not just given up her own life but the life of an innocent---the child she did not know she was carrying. She did not know this fact and became very disheartened for, out of all the fair things she could have wanted; a family was the first and foremost in her mind. The Valar took pity on her and promised to return to her the family she so desperately wanted. Their only ban was that she marry a man who was of Celtic blood and accept the fact the child might not be hers. Of course what one of Celtic blood would be is unknown to us. Such a race never lived in Middle Earth," Aragorn explained to Emma.
"But what does that have to do with what I described for you," Emma questioned.
She could not see how the daisy she described fit into that story. With only one mention of a battle, the odds of what she described being present were slim to none.
"The sigil you described was the one this woman bore into battle. It was on her shield at the time of her death. She even wore the likeness of it on a silver chain about her neck. This chain we still possess," Aragorn answered.
"The mirror was not the first time we encountered this image. It appeared in front of what Emma considers to be her mother when I showed this woman Emma's true image," Legolas intoned.
Suddenly, something made totally and utter sense to Emma. Part of the tale she had been told appeared to be made for her understanding only.
"The Celts are the Irish. If a person is Celtic, then they have Irish blood in them," Emma, quickly, said.
"What does this have to do with the unraveling this mystery?" Legolas questioned the excited elfling.
"My dad is Irish, like one hundred percent Irish. Both his parents are from Ireland going back many generations. He's pure Celtic blood," Emma explained.
Aragorn and Legolas seemed to consider this new piece of information. The information Emma had provided them seemed to fit in nicely with the story, giving it one more layer of truth.
"You do not think," Legolas started.
"I do think so," Aragorn commented, confirming Legolas's train of thought.
"Is that good?" Emma asked, not following what was going on and becoming thoroughly confused as a result of it.
"Very good, little elf. You mother appears to be this warrior returned. As such, my father can not send her away. She belongs here as much as you do," Legolas explained.
Emma smiled, brightly. She liked this new idea very much. A link to her old family, to the family that wanted her and was kind to her, was being allowed to stay. She hoped that Legolas could convince his father to somehow let her father stay with them.
"In celebration of this," Aragorn said with a smile, "do you think you could furnish us with another dance?"
Emma nodded and walked herself to the center of the room. She wanted to do another private ballet dance but a dance that meant something. Her mind settled on a dance she had done the year after the "Kiss from a Rose" dance. Her costume looked very much like the dress she was wearing, right down to the colors of the flowers on the straps and in her hair. Of course, she had worn pink tights and Pointe shoes but that was irreverent at the moment. She recalled that this one private, this singular dance, had made her mother cry so hard every time she did it that she began to feel bad asking her mother to watch it.
"Before you start, Emma, what is the name of this dance?" Arwen questioned.
"The dance was called 'A Prom Queen' but the song is called 'Somewhere Out There,'" Emma replied.
She took her mark, starting in the center of the room, back to the viewing audience, and began the dance.
*Somewhere out there
Beneath the pale moonlight
Someone's thinking of me
And loving me tonight Somewhere out there
Someone's saying a prayer
That we'll find one another
In that big somewhere out there And even though I know how very far apart we are
It helps to think we might be wishing
On the same bright star And when the night wind starts to sing a lonesome lullaby
If helps to think we're sleeping
Underneath the same big sky Somewhere out there
If love can see us through
Then we'll be together
Somewhere out there
Out where dreams come true And even though I know how very far apart we are
It helps to think we might be wishing
On the same bright star And when the night winds starts to sing a lonesome lullaby
It helps to think we're sleeping
Underneath the same big sky Somewhere out there
If love can see us through (can see us through)
Then we'll be together
Somewhere out there
Out where dreams come true*
She finished by slowly walking off the stage area, head down, eyes focused on her feet.
"That was wonderful," Aragorn commented.
"Thank you, sir, but it looks a whole lot better with Pointe shoes," Emma replied, sitting back down next to her brother.
"Pointe shoes?" Arwen questioned, imagining a slipper with the point of a blade on it.
"Pointe shoes are these wooden shoes ballet dancers use to dance on the tips of their toes. I wear them to do dances like that," Emma explained, not wanting to go into the messy details about breaking Pointe shoes in, boxes, shanks, and toe pads.
"Will you two stay the night?" Aragorn offered.
Legolas seemed to consider the offer for a moment, answering with, "Of course we can, my friend. It seems to me that I will need to do a great deal of thinking before I return to my father."
Servants came in and made ready two rooms for the two guests. There had been a great deal of whispering between Legolas and Aragorn at the end of the meal. The two seemed to be concocting some type of plan, a plan that Emma has a role in, though how she knew that, she could not say.
(AN: Please read and review---good, bad, indifferent. I really don't care! By the by, the song Emma dances to in this chapter does really always make my mother cry.)
Pidgeypotatoe: I'm glad you liked the story but Ice, Fire and the like are only nicknames. Ice's given name, as given in another chapter is, Litsetaure. Fire's given name, as given in the same chapter, is Marille. The others do have given names but I haven't given them yet.
Lomiothiel: Sorry, I'm really fond of the cliffhanger. I'm glad you liked the chapter!
lulu bell: Thanks for the two reviews! There'll be some jazz dancing toward the end of the story but I feel more comfortable writing about ballet. I've been dancing ballet for 17 years now. I'll translate all the chapter titles at the end of the story. They're in Italian.
PixiePea000: Actually, she knows our red headed friend. Met him quite a few times and he got her out of a rough spot. By the way, GOLLUM!
TitanicHobbit: The reason I used that song is because it was one of my favorite ballet privates I ever did. It wasn't because you're stupid, I just didn't drop any hints. Thanks for the review!
*words*---indicate something being sung. (This time the song actually gets involved. I don't own the song either. It's "Somewhere Out There" From the movie "An American Tale.")
Disclaimer: I own nothing except for a handful of made up characters. Tolkien thought up the concept and, as such, it belongs to him. I'm just playing in his world. I'm broke and in college. All I own are Pointe Shoes.
Arwen took a deep breath and let it out. There was much to be told about this red-headed man.
"This red-headed man, did he have closed cropped hair and was clad in a dark gray or black robe?" Arwen asked.
Legolas thought for a moment, calling up a mental image of the red-headed wizard.
"I do believe so. Why? Do you know him?" Legolas asked.
"His name is Patrick Dolan. He is a friend to my father He comes from this wizarding world, as he calls it, and was trained at a school known as Hogwarts. He was the one who brought us the items used to transport beings over great distances over short periods of time---Portkeys he called them. He has the strange ability to cross into and out off our world," Arwen explained.
"How can this be?" Legolas questioned.
Arwen gave him a sympathizing look. She knew what it was like to be given a great deal of information in a very short span of time. Couples that with the fact Patrick's abilities were quite disconcerting when one was first told about them and confusion was the likely outcome.
"He claims to be something called a Gatekeeper. He can cross these gates or portals, as he is fond of calling them, into our world from his own. It is a very strange concept to think about at first but it makes very good sense when you meet Patrick. He is quite and unusual, and helpful, being," Arwen answered.
Aragorn shared a confused glance with his elven friend. In all the years he had grown up in the elven sanctuary of Rivendell, he had never seen hide nor hair of this Patrick person. He was sure he had head about him in passing but that was about it.
"What about this lady in armor?" Legolas asked, "Is she somehow related to this Patrick character?"
Arwen shook her head.
"Patrick has no ties to Middle Earth, save his title as Gatekeeper. This woman does not seem to be something from his world," she answered.
Aragorn stepped in, relieving his wife from the job of answering the elven prince's questions.
"Do you remember anything, anything at all about this lady? Perhaps something about her armor," Aragorn prompted.
To his great surprise, it was Emma not Legolas who spoke up. The elven princess had been sitting and listening to his wife's explanation. She seemed to be drinking the entire story in, processing it in her own way.
"I do," Emma offered, "there was something about her shield that stuck out in my mind."
"What was that?" Aragorn questioned, carefully, not wanting to scare the young elf off.
Emma thought for a moment, biting her lip as she did so. She recalled that the image on the shield was akin to the Daisy flower she had worn on the front of her Daisy Girl Scout Tunic, back when she was a Girl Scout. Of course, they knew nothing about Girl Scouts here. She would have to find other ways to get her point across.
"It looked like a daisy flower in shape but not in color. There were six petals; each one was a different color. I think they were light green, purple, blue, pink, yellow, and white. The center was split in half. The top was red, the bottom was white. The rest of the shield was gold," Emma explained, sketching the vague shape of a daisy on the table as she spoke.
Aragorn was quite for a moment, his mind wandering through all the lore he had learned and all the armor he had seen in his days as both ranger and king. His armory was full of well preserved specimens of ancient armor, though none bore the type of shield Emma was referring to.
"If it helps any, the rest of the armor was in the style of the ancient Númenóreans," Legolas added.
A few more moments passed, the silence becoming tense and oppressive. Everything from the creak of a chair to the footsteps in the hall seemed to be ten times louder. Emma tried not to breathe for fear she'd disturb the king's thought processes.
"There was a story from very long ago. It is seldom spoken of any longer for many feel it was false, something created by the line of Stewards perhaps. It spoke of a female warrior whose sprit was allowed to return to life but not in Middle Earth. Are you familiar with this tale?" Aragorn, finally, spoke.
"I believe I have heard of this tale, my friend," Legolas confirmed.
He had heard the story, told as folklore, in his youth. It was an interesting story and, if one looked deep enough, one could find a ring of facts in it. Most myths, though, have some basis in fact and his questions about the story were usually written off by his tutors.
"I'm not!" Emma piped up, "What's it about?"
Aragorn laughed at the young elf's eagerness to learn something new.
"I will tell you the short version of the tale for the full version would take many nights to explain. A very long time ago, well before I was born, there was an island in the sea. This island was called Númenor. It was destroyed by the beings known to us as the Valar and very few were able to escape the tragedy. My ancestors came on those ships and they were the ones who built this fair city. Among the escapees was a talented warrior. Her name is lost to time but she was said to be the most skilled of any guard in Númenor. When this city was, finally, created and all the lands around it were thought to be safe, this woman gave up her warrior life style. She married another guard and they began to plan for a family. One day, the city fell under siege and both her and her husband were called back into duty by the king. They could not refuse and both fell on the field outside the city. Her spirit, being very strong, was sent to the Valar to be judged. To her great surprise, so it is told, the Valar informed her that she had not just given up her own life but the life of an innocent---the child she did not know she was carrying. She did not know this fact and became very disheartened for, out of all the fair things she could have wanted; a family was the first and foremost in her mind. The Valar took pity on her and promised to return to her the family she so desperately wanted. Their only ban was that she marry a man who was of Celtic blood and accept the fact the child might not be hers. Of course what one of Celtic blood would be is unknown to us. Such a race never lived in Middle Earth," Aragorn explained to Emma.
"But what does that have to do with what I described for you," Emma questioned.
She could not see how the daisy she described fit into that story. With only one mention of a battle, the odds of what she described being present were slim to none.
"The sigil you described was the one this woman bore into battle. It was on her shield at the time of her death. She even wore the likeness of it on a silver chain about her neck. This chain we still possess," Aragorn answered.
"The mirror was not the first time we encountered this image. It appeared in front of what Emma considers to be her mother when I showed this woman Emma's true image," Legolas intoned.
Suddenly, something made totally and utter sense to Emma. Part of the tale she had been told appeared to be made for her understanding only.
"The Celts are the Irish. If a person is Celtic, then they have Irish blood in them," Emma, quickly, said.
"What does this have to do with the unraveling this mystery?" Legolas questioned the excited elfling.
"My dad is Irish, like one hundred percent Irish. Both his parents are from Ireland going back many generations. He's pure Celtic blood," Emma explained.
Aragorn and Legolas seemed to consider this new piece of information. The information Emma had provided them seemed to fit in nicely with the story, giving it one more layer of truth.
"You do not think," Legolas started.
"I do think so," Aragorn commented, confirming Legolas's train of thought.
"Is that good?" Emma asked, not following what was going on and becoming thoroughly confused as a result of it.
"Very good, little elf. You mother appears to be this warrior returned. As such, my father can not send her away. She belongs here as much as you do," Legolas explained.
Emma smiled, brightly. She liked this new idea very much. A link to her old family, to the family that wanted her and was kind to her, was being allowed to stay. She hoped that Legolas could convince his father to somehow let her father stay with them.
"In celebration of this," Aragorn said with a smile, "do you think you could furnish us with another dance?"
Emma nodded and walked herself to the center of the room. She wanted to do another private ballet dance but a dance that meant something. Her mind settled on a dance she had done the year after the "Kiss from a Rose" dance. Her costume looked very much like the dress she was wearing, right down to the colors of the flowers on the straps and in her hair. Of course, she had worn pink tights and Pointe shoes but that was irreverent at the moment. She recalled that this one private, this singular dance, had made her mother cry so hard every time she did it that she began to feel bad asking her mother to watch it.
"Before you start, Emma, what is the name of this dance?" Arwen questioned.
"The dance was called 'A Prom Queen' but the song is called 'Somewhere Out There,'" Emma replied.
She took her mark, starting in the center of the room, back to the viewing audience, and began the dance.
*Somewhere out there
Beneath the pale moonlight
Someone's thinking of me
And loving me tonight Somewhere out there
Someone's saying a prayer
That we'll find one another
In that big somewhere out there And even though I know how very far apart we are
It helps to think we might be wishing
On the same bright star And when the night wind starts to sing a lonesome lullaby
If helps to think we're sleeping
Underneath the same big sky Somewhere out there
If love can see us through
Then we'll be together
Somewhere out there
Out where dreams come true And even though I know how very far apart we are
It helps to think we might be wishing
On the same bright star And when the night winds starts to sing a lonesome lullaby
It helps to think we're sleeping
Underneath the same big sky Somewhere out there
If love can see us through (can see us through)
Then we'll be together
Somewhere out there
Out where dreams come true*
She finished by slowly walking off the stage area, head down, eyes focused on her feet.
"That was wonderful," Aragorn commented.
"Thank you, sir, but it looks a whole lot better with Pointe shoes," Emma replied, sitting back down next to her brother.
"Pointe shoes?" Arwen questioned, imagining a slipper with the point of a blade on it.
"Pointe shoes are these wooden shoes ballet dancers use to dance on the tips of their toes. I wear them to do dances like that," Emma explained, not wanting to go into the messy details about breaking Pointe shoes in, boxes, shanks, and toe pads.
"Will you two stay the night?" Aragorn offered.
Legolas seemed to consider the offer for a moment, answering with, "Of course we can, my friend. It seems to me that I will need to do a great deal of thinking before I return to my father."
Servants came in and made ready two rooms for the two guests. There had been a great deal of whispering between Legolas and Aragorn at the end of the meal. The two seemed to be concocting some type of plan, a plan that Emma has a role in, though how she knew that, she could not say.
(AN: Please read and review---good, bad, indifferent. I really don't care! By the by, the song Emma dances to in this chapter does really always make my mother cry.)