Chapter 3
The Fellowship had stopped to have lunch. Boromir was teaching Merry and Pippin some of the basics of swordplay, while Sam was baking sausages and the others were reclining here and there on the rocky surface to enjoy some welcome rest.
"Two, one, five. Good! Very good," said Boromir to Pippin as they practiced a few parries. Aragorn provided some running commentary now and then, telling Pippin to move his feet, while Ceirin watched on with amazement.
"It really doesn't look very hard at all, does it?" she remarked to Aragorn. "Do you suppose I might be able to learn something like that?"
"I don't see why not," he answered, keeping his eyes on Boromir and the hobbits. "You have both your arms and both your legs. Though how long you would keep them, I cannot say," he added, without taking his pipe from his mouth.
She blinked at him, then broke into a wide grin. "Seriously. Could I learn that?"
Aragorn finally turned to look at her. "Why do you want to?"
She stared back with one eyebrow comically drawn up. "That's a silly question. To protect myself, to protect any of you, should it come to that. Why else? To fight, Aragorn. Something tells me we'll have seen a lot of fights before this is over."
"I fear you're right. But there are many ways to fight. What makes you think a sword is the right way for you?" He took the pipe from his mouth and focused on her more intently. "Do you believe you would be able to drive that steel into a creature's flesh? Even an orc's? You can feel it, you know. Tearing through tissue, ripping it apart." He regarded her questioningly, half expecting her to scrunch up her nose and say something along the lines of 'well, when you put it that way, no thanks'.
But she showed a different spirit. She moved closer to Aragorn, leaned forward and said gravely: "It doesn't sound terribly inviting, I'll grant, but still more so than standing by idly and watching such a creature drive its sword into the flesh of one of you. I vowed to do whatever I could to protect Frodo, as you did. My skills are limited. But I can learn. I'm not afraid." Her ears were aimed back rigidly, like a startled cat's, the tips were trembling slightly.
He chuckled at her, of all things, reached out and lightly patted her shoulder.
"Are you laughing at me?" she asked with a note of indignation.
"By no means," he replied, growing serious again. "It is almost time to be on our way again, but next time we stop, I will see about teaching you a few things." Ceirin was about to thank him heartily in advance, when he added, while tapping his pipe to the sole of his boot to remove the ash: "But it might not be a bad idea to ask Legolas to show you how to handle a bow. Seems to me that might be a more suitable weapon for you."
Ceirin thoughtfully fixed the scene before her for a moment. Merry and Pippin had charged Boromir, screaming something about 'for the Shire!' and had wrestled him to the ground where they now all lay in a heap, laughing. She allowed herself a brief smile, before letting her eyes wander to Legolas, wondering if he had overheard. But he was not paying attention, instead he was staring fixedly into the distance. She looked to see what had caught his eye, just as Sam asked: "What is that?"
"Nothing. It's just a wisp of cloud," replied Gimli.
"It's moving fast. Against the wind," said Boromir, which caused the others to spring to readiness. Indeed, the dark cloudlike formation in the distance was approaching quickly.
"Crebain from Duneland!" cried Legolas, eyes widening.
Before he had finished his words, Ceirin was moving. She flew close to the ground, almost too fast for Legolas' eyes to follow, roughly along a line at an angle with the course the cloud of birds was taking, directly towards the Fellowship. She followed the profile of the rocky terrain as closely as possible to avoid detection by the spies, often risking painful impact with some of the higher unexpected outcrops. When she had met the menacing cloud three quarters of the way, she suddenly flew up, lingered a moment and then raced directly away from them.
The ploy worked. They followed.
Meanwhile, the rest of the Fellowship had quickly pulled the fire apart to stop the smoke rising and giving away their position, and had hidden under what scarce vegetation they could find. When they saw the birds moving away, they sighed in relief.
Merry and Pippin had been so taken aback by the sudden appearance of danger, they hadn't noticed where Ceirin had gone. "Where's Ceirin?" asked Merry, looking around.
"Luring them away from us," said Legolas, staring half incredulously in the direction in which they'd disappeared.
"Spies of Saruman," said Gandalf. "The passage south is being watched. We must take the pass of Caradhras.
The elf and the men quickly decided that they shouldn't wait around for Ceirin to reappear, lest the birds return before she did.
"But what if she can't find us again?" Frodo protested briefly. "She doesn't know we're taking a different route. Maybe one of us should stay behind."
"No, Frodo," said Aragorn. "I think this time the fairy was well aware of the consequences of her actions." He looked at Legolas as he said this, not at Frodo. "She has a lesson to learn here. Let us trust her to learn it and manage on her own."
Legolas nodded almost imperceptibly at his friend.
And so the Fellowship set out at a brisk pace, trying to put as much distance as possible between themselves and the suspicious place. The birds had seemed to know exactly where they were. Quickly they went, towards Caradhras.
Ceirin soared as fast as her wings would allow, looking back always to find the birds still close behind, though they didn't seem to be trying to gain on her either. She would have to find a different way to shake them off. She led them into ever rising terrain, into the heart of the mountains. She swivelled around a sharp stone shoulder jutting out and, momentarily out of the birds' view, nestled close up behind it, squirmed into a tiny nook in the stoney wall.
Once again, her manoeuver had the desired effect. The birds flew right past her. As she heard the sound of their beating wings and their raspy screeches die away in the distance, she realized she'd been holding her breath, and let it shudderingly escape. Shaken as she was, she thought immediately to find a different place to hide in. If the birds found they'd lost her, they might return to the last place where they'd seen her, which was the very cliff she was hiding behind. And such an encounter, she'd prefer to avoid. She scanned the opposite mountainside, spied a cranny which should be just large enough to allow her to squirm her small frame into. She dashed quickly across the dividing valley, snuggled as close into the mountain as possible.
And sure enough, mere minutes later, the birds returned. She watched appalled as they spread across the mountainside opposite her, poked their beaks in every nook and cranny and then disappeared again from whence they'd come.
Ceirin inwardly said thanks for a youth spent hiding away from keen-sighted elves, too frightened to even whisper the words. Wedged in her tiny haven, she rested her head against the rock and took a few deep breaths, trying to regain some balance. There, she stayed the rest of the day and all night, too uncomfortable to sleep, too certain that she should stay right where she was for the time being, to move.
At the break of dawn, she awoke from the semi-conscious state one will drift into when sleep itself eludes for too long, hyper-aware of every aching muscle, every over-strained joint. Rational thought slowly began to flow again as she considered what to do next. After a few moments, she peered out from her little hide-out, scanned the area for any prying eyes, and flew down from the cliff to the valley below.
She began by stretching like a cat after a nap and basking her battered body a moment or two in the first rays of sunlight. This immediately made her feel better, and she was soon eyeing her surroundings on the prowl for something edible. She hadn't eaten since lunch the day before. The few practical skills she'd been taught at Rivendel included how to identify plants with edible parts. Though the vegetation was mostly different here, she detected a few familiar berry-sporting bushes and ate some of them. The berries were just short of ripe, and Ceirin wished her own folk would have taught her how to help them grow, as she knew they could do. But it could not be helped, and she decided the unripe sourness of the berries was refreshing in its own way.
Suddenly she heard a faint noise behind her that sounded suspiciously like laughter. Ceirin spun around just in time to see what she thought was the edge of a wing disappear behind a tree.
A wing very much like her own.
"Who's there?" she called out, on her guard. Never having met an other fairy in twenty years, she was beginning to doubt whether one would ever actually show itself to her. Better be sure. And after a close encounter with a flock of birds that had seemed to have the ability to think rationally, she would be surprised by no dangerous oddity that resided outside the safety of Rivendel. When she received no response, she called out again: "Who's there?"
More laughter bubbled up behind the tree, and a crystal clear voice sang out: "Tamesis ite we. Kechepaun ghanet io mahele?"
This was neither Westron nor any form of Elvish Ceirin had ever heard of.
"What are you saying? I cannot understand you," she called.
"Silly Tamesis. Do you not recognize one of your folk if you see her?" replied the voice now, in Westron.
"My folk? Are you a fairy?" Ceirin's heart was racing in her breast, beating like a large bird in a small cage. Her knees had turned weak and she felt like crying. "Are you?" she called again, voice shaky.
The owner of the voice stepped out from behind the tree. A young woman, looking like an exact replica of Ceirin herself, only with white hair instead of pitch black and wings a few shades lighter and much more brilliant. Her dress seemed to be of the same semi-transparent material as her wings, but then so did her entire body so this made no difference.
"I just realized you hadn't technically seen me. Only the tip of my wing. Do you recognize me now?" said the woman logically, smiling winsomely.
Ceirin had dropped to her knees. "Recognize you?" she said, muffled behind the hands she'd clasped over the lower half of her face.
"Yes, you know. To know again. To remember from before."
Ceirin shook her head slightly.
"Oh, well, no matter. You are Tamesis, I am Amabel. Now next time we meet, we will recognize each other."
This brand of logic vaguely reminded Ceirin of an old elf she'd once met who had spent four hundred years trapped in a collapsed cave and had gone slightly weak in the head as a result. Her own logic compelled her to ask many questions, but the first she settled on was a detail that had almost escaped her: "What did you call me?"
"I called you by your name, silly. Tamesis," Amabel replied, still smiling unnervingly happily.
"But my name is Ceirin," said Ceirin.
The other fairy rolled her eyes dramatically, which was an impressive sight as they were an even brighter class of purple than Ceirin's own. "Yes, but that is the name they gave you," she said impatiently, making 'they' sound as if she were speaking about incomprehensibly strange creatures to a person who thought about them the same way.
"They? You mean the elves?" said Ceirin warily.
"Yes, them," replied Amabel. "But now, let's talk about why I've come to see you..."
"Hey, wait a moment!" Ceirin interrupted her. "Do not change the subject. The elves. I grew up with them. Why?" She regained her feet, tried to keep her knees under control, stood akimbo. "Who are my parents? Why did they do this to me? Why did they not want me?"
"You ask many questions," said the woman, absently bringing up a hand to play with a lock of white hair.
"And you answer none," replied Ceirin matter-of-factly.
"No," said Amabel, fixing her and letting go of the strain of hair to cross her arms. "For which I have my reasons. So you might as well stop being nosey and be quiet and let me help you."
Ceirin dropped her hands from her hips, shoulders slumped and ears drooping sideways. "Twenty years I've known nothing. And the first fairy I meet tells me I'm nosey to ask."
"What are twenty years," remarked the woman dryly. "You'll get over it, Tamesis."
"And stop calling me that! My name is Ceirin. If you'll not tell me who gave me the other name, then it doesn't exist to me."
"Fine. Ceirin," said Amabel, a tightness playing about her lips and a coldness in her eyes.
"Alright then," said Ceirin, feeling a bit huffed up and not knowing what else to say. After a few moments of tense silence in which Amabel was fixing her levelly, causing her to cringe, she asked: "So you said you've come to help me."
"That's right," said the woman rather coldly.
"Then could you start by ripening up those berries a bit? The ones I ate are upsetting my stomach," she requested, gesturing helplessly towards the bush and rubbing her stomach with the other hand.
Amabel regarded her mockingly, eyebrows drawn up. She strolled over to the bush, ran a fingertip along a branch of it that bore berries. Ceirin watched in amazement as within seconds, they turned a rich, deep red. Ravenous, she fell on the berries, picked off every last one of them, savoured their sweetness.
"Thank you," she said weakly when she was done.
"That's alright," said the woman more mildly than before, sinking down on her haunches next to Ceirin. "But don't expect me to do that for you again. It's messing with the balance, that is."
"The balance?" asked Ceirin, still licking juice off her fingers.
"Oh, Great Clouds, you really don't know anything, do you?" said Amabel with a concerned frown.
Ceirin shook her head in the manner of a child denying to know where all the cookies had gone.
"Right. Well, first things first. You, young fairy, seem to find yourself in a spot of bother, don't you?" said Amabel, poking a slender finger into Ceirin's shoulder. "On your own, need to find your friends, and you're not sure how."
"Well, quite. I mean, they're not likely to still be in the same spot where I left them, are they? And I'm not sure if I could even find that again. It's bound to be a long way from here. I flew away in such a rush."
"Right. So here begins the first lesson."
"Yes?" said Ceirin eagerly.
"Space..."
"Yes?"
"... is an illusion."
"What?"
"As in it's not real. Not in the sense you believe it to be, anyway."
"I don't understand."
"Of course you don't. Just close your eyes a moment and bear with me."
Ceirin shifted to cross-legged position and closed her eyes as requested, poised for the lesson.
"What is above you?" began Amabel.
"The sky," replied Ceirin.
"And beyond that?"
"I don't know. Nothing. Space, a whole lot of space."
"Can you imagine an end to it? A boundary?"
"No, not without wondering what is beyond it."
"Very good," smiled Amabel. "And what is below you?"
"Earth."
"And beyond that?"
"I see where this is going," said Ceirin, pleased with herself. "Beyond that is the other side of the world, and beyond that more sky, and more space and no boundaries."
"Very good," Amabel said again. "So you see how you are the center of all this infinity. Wherever you go, infinity stretches out to all sides from where you are. Can you understand it? Can you feel it?"
"Yes," said Ceirin breathlessly, amazed by the power of this simple mental exercise.
"The next step," Amabel continued, "is to understand that if every point is the center of infinity, then every point is essentially the same. No two can be divided, for all are the center of the same infinity. There is no such thing as space. You think that we are here in this valley, on the ground next to a berry bush, but that is an illusion."
"I understand, and yet I don't," said Ceirin, opening her eyes.
"That's alright. What use is an immortal lifetime if you can learn anything in a single lesson?"Amabel grinned. "Take this lesson with you, back to your friends. Learn from it as you go along." She got up and began to walk away.
"But you haven't told me how to find them," protested Ceirin, getting up also to go after Amabel.
The woman turned around to face her again. "Yes, I have. You are already in the same place as they. Your mind may not grasp it yet, but you are a fairy, an elemental of Air. You will know in all the right ways. Close your eyes and think of your friends. Let the air take you to them." And with these words she was gone. Just like that. Vanished.
Ceirin looked about her wildly, confused by Amabel's inexplicable disappearance. She plonked down on the ground again quite gracelessly and started kneading both hands through her unruly black hair, found that it was a mess from yesterday's crazy flight, full of dust and a bug or two. She thought about everything the fairy had told her, figured she might as well give it a go.
She got up, closed her eyes, let the wings appear at her back, and thought of her friends with all her might, tried to imagine them in as much detail as she could. As real as if she was actually looking at them. An image appeared before her eyes, of all of them hasting along a ridge, Gandalf leading the way, Gimli closing the line, Legolas sprinting from one high outcrop to an other to get the best overviews of their wide surroundings. Ceirin was unsure if this image was coming to her from her own memory and imagination or from somewhere else, but she whispered to herself: "That's where I'm going..."
She found herself floating upwards as if lifted by a strong gust of wind. After three unexpected lashes from treebranches on her way up, she opened her eyes and hoped whatever fairy trick this was would still work. It did. She found herself flying without thinking, covering the distance as if following an old and familiar path from a favourite walk.
After what seemed a mere few minutes, she saw the ridge from her vision appear before her, and on it were her friends.
Legolas was the first to spot Ceirin, predictably. "Look," he called to the others, pointing at Ceirin.
"Ceirin!" yelled Frodo in welcome.
"Hello! We thought we'd lost you!" cried Merry and Pippin.
Ceirin set down on the ground gently, retracted the wings, looked around incredulously at her friends. "Well, I'll be buggered," she said, "it worked."
"What did?" asked Gandalf, crumpling his eyebrows.
"Talk about it on the road, will you. We have no time to linger," interjected Aragorn as he took over the lead from Gandalf.
Ceirin fell in beside the Wizard as the group began to move again, beaming a few happy smiles over her shoulder to the hobbits who waved back. "Well, let me tell you what has happened to me..." she began to relay her experiences to Gandalf. The Wizard listened patiently, inserting a hmm here and there.
"One thing I don't quite understand. Well, many things, but one thing in particular," Ceirin said when she was done telling the story. "Amabel called me an elemental of Air. What does that mean, Gandalf? Is that an other word for 'fairy'?"
"No... hmm, no, I shouldn't think so," replied the Wizard, deep in thought. "It must be as I suspected."
"What must be?" asked Ceirin when the Wizard said nothing more.
"Well, I've long suspected that there must be different types of fairies, you see. One for each element, Fire, Earth, Water and Air," Gandalf explained. "It would lead me too far to tell you why I have suspected this, but apparently there must be some truth to it."
"That's nice," said Ceirin, still puzzled. "So I'm a fairy of the Air? Sounds lovely, but what does that mean?"
"I don't know," said Gandalf, looking down at her sideways. "That is for you to find out."
The Fellowship had stopped to have lunch. Boromir was teaching Merry and Pippin some of the basics of swordplay, while Sam was baking sausages and the others were reclining here and there on the rocky surface to enjoy some welcome rest.
"Two, one, five. Good! Very good," said Boromir to Pippin as they practiced a few parries. Aragorn provided some running commentary now and then, telling Pippin to move his feet, while Ceirin watched on with amazement.
"It really doesn't look very hard at all, does it?" she remarked to Aragorn. "Do you suppose I might be able to learn something like that?"
"I don't see why not," he answered, keeping his eyes on Boromir and the hobbits. "You have both your arms and both your legs. Though how long you would keep them, I cannot say," he added, without taking his pipe from his mouth.
She blinked at him, then broke into a wide grin. "Seriously. Could I learn that?"
Aragorn finally turned to look at her. "Why do you want to?"
She stared back with one eyebrow comically drawn up. "That's a silly question. To protect myself, to protect any of you, should it come to that. Why else? To fight, Aragorn. Something tells me we'll have seen a lot of fights before this is over."
"I fear you're right. But there are many ways to fight. What makes you think a sword is the right way for you?" He took the pipe from his mouth and focused on her more intently. "Do you believe you would be able to drive that steel into a creature's flesh? Even an orc's? You can feel it, you know. Tearing through tissue, ripping it apart." He regarded her questioningly, half expecting her to scrunch up her nose and say something along the lines of 'well, when you put it that way, no thanks'.
But she showed a different spirit. She moved closer to Aragorn, leaned forward and said gravely: "It doesn't sound terribly inviting, I'll grant, but still more so than standing by idly and watching such a creature drive its sword into the flesh of one of you. I vowed to do whatever I could to protect Frodo, as you did. My skills are limited. But I can learn. I'm not afraid." Her ears were aimed back rigidly, like a startled cat's, the tips were trembling slightly.
He chuckled at her, of all things, reached out and lightly patted her shoulder.
"Are you laughing at me?" she asked with a note of indignation.
"By no means," he replied, growing serious again. "It is almost time to be on our way again, but next time we stop, I will see about teaching you a few things." Ceirin was about to thank him heartily in advance, when he added, while tapping his pipe to the sole of his boot to remove the ash: "But it might not be a bad idea to ask Legolas to show you how to handle a bow. Seems to me that might be a more suitable weapon for you."
Ceirin thoughtfully fixed the scene before her for a moment. Merry and Pippin had charged Boromir, screaming something about 'for the Shire!' and had wrestled him to the ground where they now all lay in a heap, laughing. She allowed herself a brief smile, before letting her eyes wander to Legolas, wondering if he had overheard. But he was not paying attention, instead he was staring fixedly into the distance. She looked to see what had caught his eye, just as Sam asked: "What is that?"
"Nothing. It's just a wisp of cloud," replied Gimli.
"It's moving fast. Against the wind," said Boromir, which caused the others to spring to readiness. Indeed, the dark cloudlike formation in the distance was approaching quickly.
"Crebain from Duneland!" cried Legolas, eyes widening.
Before he had finished his words, Ceirin was moving. She flew close to the ground, almost too fast for Legolas' eyes to follow, roughly along a line at an angle with the course the cloud of birds was taking, directly towards the Fellowship. She followed the profile of the rocky terrain as closely as possible to avoid detection by the spies, often risking painful impact with some of the higher unexpected outcrops. When she had met the menacing cloud three quarters of the way, she suddenly flew up, lingered a moment and then raced directly away from them.
The ploy worked. They followed.
Meanwhile, the rest of the Fellowship had quickly pulled the fire apart to stop the smoke rising and giving away their position, and had hidden under what scarce vegetation they could find. When they saw the birds moving away, they sighed in relief.
Merry and Pippin had been so taken aback by the sudden appearance of danger, they hadn't noticed where Ceirin had gone. "Where's Ceirin?" asked Merry, looking around.
"Luring them away from us," said Legolas, staring half incredulously in the direction in which they'd disappeared.
"Spies of Saruman," said Gandalf. "The passage south is being watched. We must take the pass of Caradhras.
The elf and the men quickly decided that they shouldn't wait around for Ceirin to reappear, lest the birds return before she did.
"But what if she can't find us again?" Frodo protested briefly. "She doesn't know we're taking a different route. Maybe one of us should stay behind."
"No, Frodo," said Aragorn. "I think this time the fairy was well aware of the consequences of her actions." He looked at Legolas as he said this, not at Frodo. "She has a lesson to learn here. Let us trust her to learn it and manage on her own."
Legolas nodded almost imperceptibly at his friend.
And so the Fellowship set out at a brisk pace, trying to put as much distance as possible between themselves and the suspicious place. The birds had seemed to know exactly where they were. Quickly they went, towards Caradhras.
Ceirin soared as fast as her wings would allow, looking back always to find the birds still close behind, though they didn't seem to be trying to gain on her either. She would have to find a different way to shake them off. She led them into ever rising terrain, into the heart of the mountains. She swivelled around a sharp stone shoulder jutting out and, momentarily out of the birds' view, nestled close up behind it, squirmed into a tiny nook in the stoney wall.
Once again, her manoeuver had the desired effect. The birds flew right past her. As she heard the sound of their beating wings and their raspy screeches die away in the distance, she realized she'd been holding her breath, and let it shudderingly escape. Shaken as she was, she thought immediately to find a different place to hide in. If the birds found they'd lost her, they might return to the last place where they'd seen her, which was the very cliff she was hiding behind. And such an encounter, she'd prefer to avoid. She scanned the opposite mountainside, spied a cranny which should be just large enough to allow her to squirm her small frame into. She dashed quickly across the dividing valley, snuggled as close into the mountain as possible.
And sure enough, mere minutes later, the birds returned. She watched appalled as they spread across the mountainside opposite her, poked their beaks in every nook and cranny and then disappeared again from whence they'd come.
Ceirin inwardly said thanks for a youth spent hiding away from keen-sighted elves, too frightened to even whisper the words. Wedged in her tiny haven, she rested her head against the rock and took a few deep breaths, trying to regain some balance. There, she stayed the rest of the day and all night, too uncomfortable to sleep, too certain that she should stay right where she was for the time being, to move.
At the break of dawn, she awoke from the semi-conscious state one will drift into when sleep itself eludes for too long, hyper-aware of every aching muscle, every over-strained joint. Rational thought slowly began to flow again as she considered what to do next. After a few moments, she peered out from her little hide-out, scanned the area for any prying eyes, and flew down from the cliff to the valley below.
She began by stretching like a cat after a nap and basking her battered body a moment or two in the first rays of sunlight. This immediately made her feel better, and she was soon eyeing her surroundings on the prowl for something edible. She hadn't eaten since lunch the day before. The few practical skills she'd been taught at Rivendel included how to identify plants with edible parts. Though the vegetation was mostly different here, she detected a few familiar berry-sporting bushes and ate some of them. The berries were just short of ripe, and Ceirin wished her own folk would have taught her how to help them grow, as she knew they could do. But it could not be helped, and she decided the unripe sourness of the berries was refreshing in its own way.
Suddenly she heard a faint noise behind her that sounded suspiciously like laughter. Ceirin spun around just in time to see what she thought was the edge of a wing disappear behind a tree.
A wing very much like her own.
"Who's there?" she called out, on her guard. Never having met an other fairy in twenty years, she was beginning to doubt whether one would ever actually show itself to her. Better be sure. And after a close encounter with a flock of birds that had seemed to have the ability to think rationally, she would be surprised by no dangerous oddity that resided outside the safety of Rivendel. When she received no response, she called out again: "Who's there?"
More laughter bubbled up behind the tree, and a crystal clear voice sang out: "Tamesis ite we. Kechepaun ghanet io mahele?"
This was neither Westron nor any form of Elvish Ceirin had ever heard of.
"What are you saying? I cannot understand you," she called.
"Silly Tamesis. Do you not recognize one of your folk if you see her?" replied the voice now, in Westron.
"My folk? Are you a fairy?" Ceirin's heart was racing in her breast, beating like a large bird in a small cage. Her knees had turned weak and she felt like crying. "Are you?" she called again, voice shaky.
The owner of the voice stepped out from behind the tree. A young woman, looking like an exact replica of Ceirin herself, only with white hair instead of pitch black and wings a few shades lighter and much more brilliant. Her dress seemed to be of the same semi-transparent material as her wings, but then so did her entire body so this made no difference.
"I just realized you hadn't technically seen me. Only the tip of my wing. Do you recognize me now?" said the woman logically, smiling winsomely.
Ceirin had dropped to her knees. "Recognize you?" she said, muffled behind the hands she'd clasped over the lower half of her face.
"Yes, you know. To know again. To remember from before."
Ceirin shook her head slightly.
"Oh, well, no matter. You are Tamesis, I am Amabel. Now next time we meet, we will recognize each other."
This brand of logic vaguely reminded Ceirin of an old elf she'd once met who had spent four hundred years trapped in a collapsed cave and had gone slightly weak in the head as a result. Her own logic compelled her to ask many questions, but the first she settled on was a detail that had almost escaped her: "What did you call me?"
"I called you by your name, silly. Tamesis," Amabel replied, still smiling unnervingly happily.
"But my name is Ceirin," said Ceirin.
The other fairy rolled her eyes dramatically, which was an impressive sight as they were an even brighter class of purple than Ceirin's own. "Yes, but that is the name they gave you," she said impatiently, making 'they' sound as if she were speaking about incomprehensibly strange creatures to a person who thought about them the same way.
"They? You mean the elves?" said Ceirin warily.
"Yes, them," replied Amabel. "But now, let's talk about why I've come to see you..."
"Hey, wait a moment!" Ceirin interrupted her. "Do not change the subject. The elves. I grew up with them. Why?" She regained her feet, tried to keep her knees under control, stood akimbo. "Who are my parents? Why did they do this to me? Why did they not want me?"
"You ask many questions," said the woman, absently bringing up a hand to play with a lock of white hair.
"And you answer none," replied Ceirin matter-of-factly.
"No," said Amabel, fixing her and letting go of the strain of hair to cross her arms. "For which I have my reasons. So you might as well stop being nosey and be quiet and let me help you."
Ceirin dropped her hands from her hips, shoulders slumped and ears drooping sideways. "Twenty years I've known nothing. And the first fairy I meet tells me I'm nosey to ask."
"What are twenty years," remarked the woman dryly. "You'll get over it, Tamesis."
"And stop calling me that! My name is Ceirin. If you'll not tell me who gave me the other name, then it doesn't exist to me."
"Fine. Ceirin," said Amabel, a tightness playing about her lips and a coldness in her eyes.
"Alright then," said Ceirin, feeling a bit huffed up and not knowing what else to say. After a few moments of tense silence in which Amabel was fixing her levelly, causing her to cringe, she asked: "So you said you've come to help me."
"That's right," said the woman rather coldly.
"Then could you start by ripening up those berries a bit? The ones I ate are upsetting my stomach," she requested, gesturing helplessly towards the bush and rubbing her stomach with the other hand.
Amabel regarded her mockingly, eyebrows drawn up. She strolled over to the bush, ran a fingertip along a branch of it that bore berries. Ceirin watched in amazement as within seconds, they turned a rich, deep red. Ravenous, she fell on the berries, picked off every last one of them, savoured their sweetness.
"Thank you," she said weakly when she was done.
"That's alright," said the woman more mildly than before, sinking down on her haunches next to Ceirin. "But don't expect me to do that for you again. It's messing with the balance, that is."
"The balance?" asked Ceirin, still licking juice off her fingers.
"Oh, Great Clouds, you really don't know anything, do you?" said Amabel with a concerned frown.
Ceirin shook her head in the manner of a child denying to know where all the cookies had gone.
"Right. Well, first things first. You, young fairy, seem to find yourself in a spot of bother, don't you?" said Amabel, poking a slender finger into Ceirin's shoulder. "On your own, need to find your friends, and you're not sure how."
"Well, quite. I mean, they're not likely to still be in the same spot where I left them, are they? And I'm not sure if I could even find that again. It's bound to be a long way from here. I flew away in such a rush."
"Right. So here begins the first lesson."
"Yes?" said Ceirin eagerly.
"Space..."
"Yes?"
"... is an illusion."
"What?"
"As in it's not real. Not in the sense you believe it to be, anyway."
"I don't understand."
"Of course you don't. Just close your eyes a moment and bear with me."
Ceirin shifted to cross-legged position and closed her eyes as requested, poised for the lesson.
"What is above you?" began Amabel.
"The sky," replied Ceirin.
"And beyond that?"
"I don't know. Nothing. Space, a whole lot of space."
"Can you imagine an end to it? A boundary?"
"No, not without wondering what is beyond it."
"Very good," smiled Amabel. "And what is below you?"
"Earth."
"And beyond that?"
"I see where this is going," said Ceirin, pleased with herself. "Beyond that is the other side of the world, and beyond that more sky, and more space and no boundaries."
"Very good," Amabel said again. "So you see how you are the center of all this infinity. Wherever you go, infinity stretches out to all sides from where you are. Can you understand it? Can you feel it?"
"Yes," said Ceirin breathlessly, amazed by the power of this simple mental exercise.
"The next step," Amabel continued, "is to understand that if every point is the center of infinity, then every point is essentially the same. No two can be divided, for all are the center of the same infinity. There is no such thing as space. You think that we are here in this valley, on the ground next to a berry bush, but that is an illusion."
"I understand, and yet I don't," said Ceirin, opening her eyes.
"That's alright. What use is an immortal lifetime if you can learn anything in a single lesson?"Amabel grinned. "Take this lesson with you, back to your friends. Learn from it as you go along." She got up and began to walk away.
"But you haven't told me how to find them," protested Ceirin, getting up also to go after Amabel.
The woman turned around to face her again. "Yes, I have. You are already in the same place as they. Your mind may not grasp it yet, but you are a fairy, an elemental of Air. You will know in all the right ways. Close your eyes and think of your friends. Let the air take you to them." And with these words she was gone. Just like that. Vanished.
Ceirin looked about her wildly, confused by Amabel's inexplicable disappearance. She plonked down on the ground again quite gracelessly and started kneading both hands through her unruly black hair, found that it was a mess from yesterday's crazy flight, full of dust and a bug or two. She thought about everything the fairy had told her, figured she might as well give it a go.
She got up, closed her eyes, let the wings appear at her back, and thought of her friends with all her might, tried to imagine them in as much detail as she could. As real as if she was actually looking at them. An image appeared before her eyes, of all of them hasting along a ridge, Gandalf leading the way, Gimli closing the line, Legolas sprinting from one high outcrop to an other to get the best overviews of their wide surroundings. Ceirin was unsure if this image was coming to her from her own memory and imagination or from somewhere else, but she whispered to herself: "That's where I'm going..."
She found herself floating upwards as if lifted by a strong gust of wind. After three unexpected lashes from treebranches on her way up, she opened her eyes and hoped whatever fairy trick this was would still work. It did. She found herself flying without thinking, covering the distance as if following an old and familiar path from a favourite walk.
After what seemed a mere few minutes, she saw the ridge from her vision appear before her, and on it were her friends.
Legolas was the first to spot Ceirin, predictably. "Look," he called to the others, pointing at Ceirin.
"Ceirin!" yelled Frodo in welcome.
"Hello! We thought we'd lost you!" cried Merry and Pippin.
Ceirin set down on the ground gently, retracted the wings, looked around incredulously at her friends. "Well, I'll be buggered," she said, "it worked."
"What did?" asked Gandalf, crumpling his eyebrows.
"Talk about it on the road, will you. We have no time to linger," interjected Aragorn as he took over the lead from Gandalf.
Ceirin fell in beside the Wizard as the group began to move again, beaming a few happy smiles over her shoulder to the hobbits who waved back. "Well, let me tell you what has happened to me..." she began to relay her experiences to Gandalf. The Wizard listened patiently, inserting a hmm here and there.
"One thing I don't quite understand. Well, many things, but one thing in particular," Ceirin said when she was done telling the story. "Amabel called me an elemental of Air. What does that mean, Gandalf? Is that an other word for 'fairy'?"
"No... hmm, no, I shouldn't think so," replied the Wizard, deep in thought. "It must be as I suspected."
"What must be?" asked Ceirin when the Wizard said nothing more.
"Well, I've long suspected that there must be different types of fairies, you see. One for each element, Fire, Earth, Water and Air," Gandalf explained. "It would lead me too far to tell you why I have suspected this, but apparently there must be some truth to it."
"That's nice," said Ceirin, still puzzled. "So I'm a fairy of the Air? Sounds lovely, but what does that mean?"
"I don't know," said Gandalf, looking down at her sideways. "That is for you to find out."