Chapter 8: She Who Helped
A/N: hehe, one of my greatest friends appears now in this tale and pretty much takes over like a bustling hen. ...Ok, so I guess I shouldn't compare Prarthana with that, but yes. The elves have landed...oo
Disclaimer: I'm not a Tolkien. Middle-Earth, Lord of the Rings, and Legolas belong to Tolkien. Yay him. God bless his soul.
The bland, barred jail cell gave enough room for the five elves to step around each other and otherwise look around. The inhabitants of the other cells stared strangely at them, and made faces and hurled insults the elves could vaguely understand, and the whole place smelled terrible and smokey. The elves were all but miserable, wishing they were back in Middle-Earth with the obviously confused Legolas among their number. "We've lost our weapons, our horses, Legolas, our freedom..." Talawen sighed, sitting down on one of the two cold benches in the cell and leaning her chin on her hand. "At least the horses are safe in the Black Vale," Enednilwen replied, slowly pacing the length of the cell as her comrades joined Talawen in sitting down for a while. "They didn't get thrown out of it at that last jolt like we were, so they are walking around in a half-void right now."
"I want to know where our weapons have been taken," Ainacalion growled. "They are no good in the hands of Men, especially not these Men, which do not seem to make use of swords or arrows anyway, especially not the likes of Tirindail." He lowered his head at the mention of his friend's glorious sword, his face pinkening slightly. "Tirindail belongs in the hands of Enednilwen Elenhiril, the only one who can master it."
Enednilwen gazed at him, a funny little feeling forming inside her stomach, taking root, and branching out into her every nerve. Eruialiwen was sitting beside Talawen, but she was rigid and pale. "What was wrong with Legolas?" she murmured aloud, knowing nobody could easily answer her. "He did not recognize me, nor acted the same as he did in Middle-Earth. Is he lost to this strange world already, or has some darker force taken hold of him?"
"The bearer of the white-feathered arrow?" Talawen ventured.
"Of course not," Lothatal snapped, turning away from staring at the cell next door, where a particularly drunk looking man with sagging jowls was making lewd gestures at her, much to her disgust. "No Man can wield darkness to completely brainwash anyone, especially not an elf. We are ten times more powerful than Men. If Legolas is truly deadened to Middle-Earth and what he really is, then it is either the work of the Istari or some Drow. Unless there are those even more powerful living in this world, wherever this is." She moved away from the man in the next cell, who was now feebly reaching through the bars with his hand and trying to grope her backside.
Eruialiwen and Enednilwen could not quite protest the weakness of Men at this point, and remained silent and comprehensive.
It was not long later, as the company of elves were still thinking of when they were going to get their weapons back and be freed, when a surly guard--though the guards called themselves cops--came over to their cell and unlocked it with a large set of keys he was carrying. "You fanatics better thank your lust object for bailing you out," he said severely. "He and other people who saw your little skit insist that you idiots were merely in full costume and meant no harm. But you guys keep your weapons at home on your walls and don't bring them into the public, and you'll probably be fine." He swung the door open, his mouth set in a straight line, looking at the elves as though they were the least pleasant things in the world to look at. "I think Legolas does know who he is and who we are," Talawen murmured in Eruialiwen's ear. "Or he would not have gotten us out of this prison of Men."
"Silence," Lothatal hissed back at her, and quickly walked out into the corridor with her comrades at her heels. "Thank you," Ainacalion said boldly to the guard, and then as though to make himself sound normal to the man, added a contrite "Sir cop" to his comment. The guard's eyes widened, then he scowled. "If we hadn't already tested you guys, I could swear in court that you all are completely stoned."
"We have not been stoned by anyone," Enednilwen said.
The guard's disbelieving eyes rested on her, and he scowled once again. "Whatever. Just get out of my sight, ok?"
The elves hurried past them, and the guard sourly overtook them and led them past a very large, busy room full of more guards and people, where the company gingerly reclaimed their weapons and listened to a strong warning from the guards, and out a set of great doors out into the street. The company merely stood there, gazing this way and that down the black, hard road and the choked buildings flanking it on either side, their eyes seeing far beyond but seeing nothing that could possibly help them at the moment. "Now what do we do?" Enednilwen voiced at last. No-one answered her, for they were all staring in bafflement as great wheeled carriages rolled by, but they were not driven by horses. In fact, they seemed to be driven by nothing at all.
"We rest," Ainacalion said, recovering momentarily and taking a step backward to join her. "We will rise at first light and continue on. It is the middle of the eve here."
"And it is summer," remarked Lothatal. "It was autumn in Middle-Earth."
The other elves already knew this, but did not dare challenge Lothatal's sanity. The sky was not pure, clean blue-black; it had a rather strange dirty tone, and was full of unfamiliar dim stars that were quite nearly blinded out by the very strong lights the buildings and tall lampposts emitted on either side of the road. The air was warm and sultry, but smelled dirty and of massive, extraordinary amounts of the Edain. This world was definitely not Middle-Earth.
"Maybe this is a new age in Middle-Earth," Enednilwen said. "Maybe the Black Vale transported us to a new age, the age of Men." Her eyes were wide with this consideration, one she did not quite like at all. "I smell nothing but humans," Lothatal growled. "They have bred like mice."
"There was a time when elves bred like mice, too," Aincalion said with a half-grin in Enednilwen's direction. She stiffened her back and looked away, hiding a fiery flush inside her, and did not notice Ainacalion's grin fall into a frown at her seeming indifference.
"Speaking of humans, here comes one now," Talawen said in disdain. A dark-skinned young woman with long black hair and equally black eyes had gotten out of one of those horseless carriages and was strolling quickly toward them, her anxious eyes shifting from one elf to the other. The elves warily stood still until the girls reached them, out of breath and still staring unbelievingly at them.
"You came out of nowhere," she breathed, narrowing one eye. "Orlando Bloom was signing autographs and I was waiting in the crowd for him to reach me. I saw you all fall out of thin air onto the ground. It can't be possible...can it?"
The elves exchanged glances with one another. "I mean, it's like from a movie or something. Or a really poorly written fanfic," the girl continued, squinting at the thought. "We are looking for Prince Legolas of Mirkwood," Ainacalion said, after the others were finished raising their eyebrows. "As you seem to not think us mad, please humor us by telling us where we are. We have come through a Black Vale into this world."
Now it was the girl's turn to raise an eyebrow, but as she seemed to be the only one who had seen the company fall out of nowhere, she might as well think that anything was possible. "You're in Virginia Beach," she said. "Virginia. In America. The United States of America. The good ol' New World. Discovered by Columbus, made independent of the Brits in 1776; land of the free, home of the brave and also the incredibly idiotic. That help?" "And what age is this?" Ainacalion inquired, his frown deepening.
The girl paused for a moment, looking rather confused at the question. "The year is 2004, if that helps?" she offered, shrugging her shoulders.
"2004..." Ainacalion repeated, drawing down his dark eyebrows so that they nearly collided together at the bridge of his nose. "The second millennium A.D.," the girl said, with a half-grin at her accomplishment. "It's August. August the fifteenth, to be exact."
Enedilwen and Eruialiwen turned to each other. "It was the midst of October when we entered under the boughs of Mirkwood and the storm struck," Eruialiwen murmured.
Enednilwen nodded, eyes flickering almost suspiciously to the human girl, who was now rocking impatiently back and forth on the balls of her feet. "We are obviously no longer in Middle-Earth, not even in a new age," the elleth said in a voice as quiet as her sister's. "This is a different land entirely, filled to capacity with humans and strange things. How are we to find Legolas?"
Eruialiwen blanched, but knew she could not offer anything helpful to say, so she kept mute for the moment, until this human girl offered something they could better work from.
"I didn't know Middle-Earth really existed," the girl said, her arms now crossed over her chest as she surveyed the elves. "But I really can't imagine where else you COULD have come from, especially from thin air. And you guys are...more...beautiful and fair than any human being there could ever be in the world." Her voice had gone quite soft now, almost awed. "You guys are SO lost."
"We know," Talawen said dryly.
The girl moved closer to them, unfurling her arms and sticking one hand out to them, but then she balkingly lowered her hand and tentatively said: "I guess elves don't shake hands?"
She was met by awkward silence; no one knew what to say next.
"Well, anyway, my name's Prarthana. I LOVE Lord of the Rings, so pardon my drooling over you guys. Umm...so what are your names?" She was still rocking back and forth on her feet, swinging her hands around her. The elves proceded to introduce themselves, one by one, cooly and trying not to show their mounting worry if this girl was all right in the head or otherwise. She softly repeated each name to herself as they were said, and nodded her head in feigned understanding. "OK, now that we seem to know each othre a little more," she said once they were done, "You guys can crash at my house for tonight. Or however long you need to. You don't have any place to go, after all, so you might as well just come with me."
The elves by now were too bewildered by everything to protest, and the girl named Prarthana took this as affirmation, and motioned for them to follow her toward the horseless carriage she had stepped out of. She stepped out of the way so they could get in, then immediately thought better of this and opened one of the doors for them. "I'm driving," she informed them as Ainacalion surveyed the inside of the vehicle. He eyed her for a moment, then got inside the carriage, leaving the door open as though ready to flee.
Eruialiwen was trying another of the door handles. "How strange," she murmured as it came open and she bowed down to sit inside. "How really strange this is." Talawen followed her, and Lothatal stood on the hard ground for a moment, suspicious and undecided, but finally joined the other two elleths and closed the door behind them.
"There is nowhere for me to sit," Enednilwen announced in dismay, gazing through the windows at her comrades and sister. She looked up at Prarthana expectantly, but the girl only shrugged her shoulders.
"Sit on somebody's lap, then," she said practically.
Enednilwen began quite an objection, but Ainacalion reached out and grabbed her around the waist, pulling her into the carriage and onto his lap. She gasped and struggled against him, but laughing he closed the door and blocked her from trying to get out. She turned her head to glare in surprise at him as he smugly loosened his hold on her, now that she had no choice but sit there, and let his hands remain settled on her abdomen. Eruialiwen was managing a grin behind them, and Talawen was tittering, and Lothatal groaned, and all three earned a more fatalistic glare from Enednilwen.
Prarthana got into the other front seat and closed the door. She eyed Ainacalion and Enednilwen for a moment, and grinned toothily. "Well, whatever works," she said. Directly in front of her was a black, hollow, circular object, and she placed one hand on this as she turned a key that was sticking out below it. The horseless carriage shuddered to life, startling all five elves.
"Jeez, you all act like you've never seen a car before...oh, yeah, I guess you haven't." The carriage bounded off like a frightened horse, but the movement was shockingly smooth. Eruialiwen and Talawen's faces were white, as they tried to keep their composure, but Lothatal now seemed to ignore the fact that no animal bore the carriage, and was instead curiously inspecting the backs of the seat in front of her and the floorboard and windows. Enednilwen felt like she was about to be propelled out of the wide front window as the carriage hurtled along, past more lights and buildings, and many more carriages with blinding-bright lamps on the fronts of them and dimmer crimson-red lamps on the backs. She closed her eyes and sank back against Ainacalion, more out of the need for protection than anything else, and he took good advantage of this and wrapped his arms around her. She almost hated to admit it to herself, but now she felt an odd sense of safety, as though nothing worse could happen now as long as Ainacalion had her like this. Hardly a word was spoken during the trip, and it was only a few minutes later when Prarthana pulled the carriage into a slightly rocky path and stopped. The carriage died down to silence, and the elves relaxed in their seats. Enednilwen thought about sitting back up, now that there was no longer the danger of being hurtled out the window, but she felt much too comfortable. "Okeedoodles," Prarthana announced, looking out the window at what lay before them. "Welcome to my house. My parents are away for the next couple of weeks, so it's just me and my grandmother. Hooray, huh?"
A/N: hehe, one of my greatest friends appears now in this tale and pretty much takes over like a bustling hen. ...Ok, so I guess I shouldn't compare Prarthana with that, but yes. The elves have landed...oo
Disclaimer: I'm not a Tolkien. Middle-Earth, Lord of the Rings, and Legolas belong to Tolkien. Yay him. God bless his soul.
The bland, barred jail cell gave enough room for the five elves to step around each other and otherwise look around. The inhabitants of the other cells stared strangely at them, and made faces and hurled insults the elves could vaguely understand, and the whole place smelled terrible and smokey. The elves were all but miserable, wishing they were back in Middle-Earth with the obviously confused Legolas among their number. "We've lost our weapons, our horses, Legolas, our freedom..." Talawen sighed, sitting down on one of the two cold benches in the cell and leaning her chin on her hand. "At least the horses are safe in the Black Vale," Enednilwen replied, slowly pacing the length of the cell as her comrades joined Talawen in sitting down for a while. "They didn't get thrown out of it at that last jolt like we were, so they are walking around in a half-void right now."
"I want to know where our weapons have been taken," Ainacalion growled. "They are no good in the hands of Men, especially not these Men, which do not seem to make use of swords or arrows anyway, especially not the likes of Tirindail." He lowered his head at the mention of his friend's glorious sword, his face pinkening slightly. "Tirindail belongs in the hands of Enednilwen Elenhiril, the only one who can master it."
Enednilwen gazed at him, a funny little feeling forming inside her stomach, taking root, and branching out into her every nerve. Eruialiwen was sitting beside Talawen, but she was rigid and pale. "What was wrong with Legolas?" she murmured aloud, knowing nobody could easily answer her. "He did not recognize me, nor acted the same as he did in Middle-Earth. Is he lost to this strange world already, or has some darker force taken hold of him?"
"The bearer of the white-feathered arrow?" Talawen ventured.
"Of course not," Lothatal snapped, turning away from staring at the cell next door, where a particularly drunk looking man with sagging jowls was making lewd gestures at her, much to her disgust. "No Man can wield darkness to completely brainwash anyone, especially not an elf. We are ten times more powerful than Men. If Legolas is truly deadened to Middle-Earth and what he really is, then it is either the work of the Istari or some Drow. Unless there are those even more powerful living in this world, wherever this is." She moved away from the man in the next cell, who was now feebly reaching through the bars with his hand and trying to grope her backside.
Eruialiwen and Enednilwen could not quite protest the weakness of Men at this point, and remained silent and comprehensive.
It was not long later, as the company of elves were still thinking of when they were going to get their weapons back and be freed, when a surly guard--though the guards called themselves cops--came over to their cell and unlocked it with a large set of keys he was carrying. "You fanatics better thank your lust object for bailing you out," he said severely. "He and other people who saw your little skit insist that you idiots were merely in full costume and meant no harm. But you guys keep your weapons at home on your walls and don't bring them into the public, and you'll probably be fine." He swung the door open, his mouth set in a straight line, looking at the elves as though they were the least pleasant things in the world to look at. "I think Legolas does know who he is and who we are," Talawen murmured in Eruialiwen's ear. "Or he would not have gotten us out of this prison of Men."
"Silence," Lothatal hissed back at her, and quickly walked out into the corridor with her comrades at her heels. "Thank you," Ainacalion said boldly to the guard, and then as though to make himself sound normal to the man, added a contrite "Sir cop" to his comment. The guard's eyes widened, then he scowled. "If we hadn't already tested you guys, I could swear in court that you all are completely stoned."
"We have not been stoned by anyone," Enednilwen said.
The guard's disbelieving eyes rested on her, and he scowled once again. "Whatever. Just get out of my sight, ok?"
The elves hurried past them, and the guard sourly overtook them and led them past a very large, busy room full of more guards and people, where the company gingerly reclaimed their weapons and listened to a strong warning from the guards, and out a set of great doors out into the street. The company merely stood there, gazing this way and that down the black, hard road and the choked buildings flanking it on either side, their eyes seeing far beyond but seeing nothing that could possibly help them at the moment. "Now what do we do?" Enednilwen voiced at last. No-one answered her, for they were all staring in bafflement as great wheeled carriages rolled by, but they were not driven by horses. In fact, they seemed to be driven by nothing at all.
"We rest," Ainacalion said, recovering momentarily and taking a step backward to join her. "We will rise at first light and continue on. It is the middle of the eve here."
"And it is summer," remarked Lothatal. "It was autumn in Middle-Earth."
The other elves already knew this, but did not dare challenge Lothatal's sanity. The sky was not pure, clean blue-black; it had a rather strange dirty tone, and was full of unfamiliar dim stars that were quite nearly blinded out by the very strong lights the buildings and tall lampposts emitted on either side of the road. The air was warm and sultry, but smelled dirty and of massive, extraordinary amounts of the Edain. This world was definitely not Middle-Earth.
"Maybe this is a new age in Middle-Earth," Enednilwen said. "Maybe the Black Vale transported us to a new age, the age of Men." Her eyes were wide with this consideration, one she did not quite like at all. "I smell nothing but humans," Lothatal growled. "They have bred like mice."
"There was a time when elves bred like mice, too," Aincalion said with a half-grin in Enednilwen's direction. She stiffened her back and looked away, hiding a fiery flush inside her, and did not notice Ainacalion's grin fall into a frown at her seeming indifference.
"Speaking of humans, here comes one now," Talawen said in disdain. A dark-skinned young woman with long black hair and equally black eyes had gotten out of one of those horseless carriages and was strolling quickly toward them, her anxious eyes shifting from one elf to the other. The elves warily stood still until the girls reached them, out of breath and still staring unbelievingly at them.
"You came out of nowhere," she breathed, narrowing one eye. "Orlando Bloom was signing autographs and I was waiting in the crowd for him to reach me. I saw you all fall out of thin air onto the ground. It can't be possible...can it?"
The elves exchanged glances with one another. "I mean, it's like from a movie or something. Or a really poorly written fanfic," the girl continued, squinting at the thought. "We are looking for Prince Legolas of Mirkwood," Ainacalion said, after the others were finished raising their eyebrows. "As you seem to not think us mad, please humor us by telling us where we are. We have come through a Black Vale into this world."
Now it was the girl's turn to raise an eyebrow, but as she seemed to be the only one who had seen the company fall out of nowhere, she might as well think that anything was possible. "You're in Virginia Beach," she said. "Virginia. In America. The United States of America. The good ol' New World. Discovered by Columbus, made independent of the Brits in 1776; land of the free, home of the brave and also the incredibly idiotic. That help?" "And what age is this?" Ainacalion inquired, his frown deepening.
The girl paused for a moment, looking rather confused at the question. "The year is 2004, if that helps?" she offered, shrugging her shoulders.
"2004..." Ainacalion repeated, drawing down his dark eyebrows so that they nearly collided together at the bridge of his nose. "The second millennium A.D.," the girl said, with a half-grin at her accomplishment. "It's August. August the fifteenth, to be exact."
Enedilwen and Eruialiwen turned to each other. "It was the midst of October when we entered under the boughs of Mirkwood and the storm struck," Eruialiwen murmured.
Enednilwen nodded, eyes flickering almost suspiciously to the human girl, who was now rocking impatiently back and forth on the balls of her feet. "We are obviously no longer in Middle-Earth, not even in a new age," the elleth said in a voice as quiet as her sister's. "This is a different land entirely, filled to capacity with humans and strange things. How are we to find Legolas?"
Eruialiwen blanched, but knew she could not offer anything helpful to say, so she kept mute for the moment, until this human girl offered something they could better work from.
"I didn't know Middle-Earth really existed," the girl said, her arms now crossed over her chest as she surveyed the elves. "But I really can't imagine where else you COULD have come from, especially from thin air. And you guys are...more...beautiful and fair than any human being there could ever be in the world." Her voice had gone quite soft now, almost awed. "You guys are SO lost."
"We know," Talawen said dryly.
The girl moved closer to them, unfurling her arms and sticking one hand out to them, but then she balkingly lowered her hand and tentatively said: "I guess elves don't shake hands?"
She was met by awkward silence; no one knew what to say next.
"Well, anyway, my name's Prarthana. I LOVE Lord of the Rings, so pardon my drooling over you guys. Umm...so what are your names?" She was still rocking back and forth on her feet, swinging her hands around her. The elves proceded to introduce themselves, one by one, cooly and trying not to show their mounting worry if this girl was all right in the head or otherwise. She softly repeated each name to herself as they were said, and nodded her head in feigned understanding. "OK, now that we seem to know each othre a little more," she said once they were done, "You guys can crash at my house for tonight. Or however long you need to. You don't have any place to go, after all, so you might as well just come with me."
The elves by now were too bewildered by everything to protest, and the girl named Prarthana took this as affirmation, and motioned for them to follow her toward the horseless carriage she had stepped out of. She stepped out of the way so they could get in, then immediately thought better of this and opened one of the doors for them. "I'm driving," she informed them as Ainacalion surveyed the inside of the vehicle. He eyed her for a moment, then got inside the carriage, leaving the door open as though ready to flee.
Eruialiwen was trying another of the door handles. "How strange," she murmured as it came open and she bowed down to sit inside. "How really strange this is." Talawen followed her, and Lothatal stood on the hard ground for a moment, suspicious and undecided, but finally joined the other two elleths and closed the door behind them.
"There is nowhere for me to sit," Enednilwen announced in dismay, gazing through the windows at her comrades and sister. She looked up at Prarthana expectantly, but the girl only shrugged her shoulders.
"Sit on somebody's lap, then," she said practically.
Enednilwen began quite an objection, but Ainacalion reached out and grabbed her around the waist, pulling her into the carriage and onto his lap. She gasped and struggled against him, but laughing he closed the door and blocked her from trying to get out. She turned her head to glare in surprise at him as he smugly loosened his hold on her, now that she had no choice but sit there, and let his hands remain settled on her abdomen. Eruialiwen was managing a grin behind them, and Talawen was tittering, and Lothatal groaned, and all three earned a more fatalistic glare from Enednilwen.
Prarthana got into the other front seat and closed the door. She eyed Ainacalion and Enednilwen for a moment, and grinned toothily. "Well, whatever works," she said. Directly in front of her was a black, hollow, circular object, and she placed one hand on this as she turned a key that was sticking out below it. The horseless carriage shuddered to life, startling all five elves.
"Jeez, you all act like you've never seen a car before...oh, yeah, I guess you haven't." The carriage bounded off like a frightened horse, but the movement was shockingly smooth. Eruialiwen and Talawen's faces were white, as they tried to keep their composure, but Lothatal now seemed to ignore the fact that no animal bore the carriage, and was instead curiously inspecting the backs of the seat in front of her and the floorboard and windows. Enednilwen felt like she was about to be propelled out of the wide front window as the carriage hurtled along, past more lights and buildings, and many more carriages with blinding-bright lamps on the fronts of them and dimmer crimson-red lamps on the backs. She closed her eyes and sank back against Ainacalion, more out of the need for protection than anything else, and he took good advantage of this and wrapped his arms around her. She almost hated to admit it to herself, but now she felt an odd sense of safety, as though nothing worse could happen now as long as Ainacalion had her like this. Hardly a word was spoken during the trip, and it was only a few minutes later when Prarthana pulled the carriage into a slightly rocky path and stopped. The carriage died down to silence, and the elves relaxed in their seats. Enednilwen thought about sitting back up, now that there was no longer the danger of being hurtled out the window, but she felt much too comfortable. "Okeedoodles," Prarthana announced, looking out the window at what lay before them. "Welcome to my house. My parents are away for the next couple of weeks, so it's just me and my grandmother. Hooray, huh?"