Maglor looked around at the white sand and realized with a start that he had a strange dilemma. While he knew the Silmaril had been found, he had no idea where, by whom, or how to even begin looking for it. The world had to be different; he could hear a strange roaring noise in his ears apart from the sea, and the air... it felt so... foul. He could barely breathe, and when he tried to it felt so contaminated that he wondered if he even wanted to. He wondered how long it had been; 2, 3 ages? More? Slowly looking down, he noticed an object in the sand near his feet.
He stooped down and picked it up, peering at it intensely. It was a brightly colored cylinder, slightly tapered at both ends, with markings along the middle that he couldn't read. The language they were written in seemed ungraceful compared to his father's script, and completely different from anything he had ever seen. He squinted at it for a moment longer and then dropped it, standing and folding his arms slowly. It was obvious that he would have to start somewhere, and maybe...
He sighed. If he walked along the beach in one direction for long enough, he was bound to hit something...
()()()
"And that's the moon; the flower of Telperion, set forever in the vessel that became the moon, guided across the sky by the Maia Tilion. He..." Patricia Black paused and glanced over at her friend's glazed expression. "You aren't listening to a word I say, are you?" she asked, scowling.
Karri sighed and returned Trisha's glare. "No, I'm not. Why won't you talk about anything but Lord of the Rings? Just because I don't know about Teleprion- "
"You mean Telperion," interjected Trisha. Karri sighed.
"Whatever, doesn't mean that you have to 'fix' me or anything! Why can't we have a normal conversation about NONFICTIONAL boys or school or the latest movie or something?!" she demanded angrily. Trisha stepped back a pace, wounded.
"I... I'm sorry! It's just... I'm sorry, alright? I just want to share what I think is a beautiful mythology!"
"Right."
"Okay, so maybe I just want to show off." She sighed. "You want to talk about boys? Okay, start talking. I swear by the preciou... by the river Styx I won't bring up Tolkien once."
Karri sighed, but then taking it as a serious invitation began to talk. The topic drifted around a bit, usually lingering around their math teacher (who Karri hated) and how hot Orlando Bloom was, but Trisha's heart just wasn't in it. Who could care about Orlando Bloom when you could talk about Legolas? Or Fëanor? But she had given her word not to talk about Lord of the Rings, and... "I swear, Orlando is the hottest guy EVER. I'm actually writing a story about Legolas, my character is transported into Middle-earth and she falls in love with him! I might post it somewhere online..."
Screw this. She was changing the topic as soon as she could.
She stared around the beach and noticed another figure walking vaguely in her direction, which struck her as odd. This part of the beach was usually deserted; it was constantly windy, far too hot in the summer, speckled with rocks the size of footballs and generally ignored in favor of the tourist beach about a mile along the coast. But Trisha liked it; it reminded her of Turgon and Finrod, and she could have sworn that once she heard trumpets blowing faintly over the roar of the ocean.
Trisha stopped in mid step, her mouth falling open and one foot barely touching the ground. The figure was closer now; by the miracle of thick glasses, she was able to see... him...
He was beyond description.
He was tall; easily over 6', broad shouldered and strong while remaining slender and lithe like a cat. In fact, he reminded her quite a bit of a cat; something the controlled grace of his movement and the way he looked at the two with lazy curiosity struck her as incredibly feline.
But that wasn't where it ended. His skin was pale to the point of translucency, with a metaphorical sort of light in his eyes more potent than the brilliance of the summer sun overhead; however, his eyes were where that light began and ended. It seemed to her that underneath his pale skin, in place of muscle and bone, there was darkness; shadow seemed to originate inside him and fill every pore, surrounding the light and nearly smothering it. But in despite of the contradiction, his face was exquisite; it was flawless, and beautiful beyond anything she had ever seen, completely beyond her powers of description.
Karri's rant about her Algebra class ended with a shrill squeal showing that she had noticed the man also. His look of curiosity instantly turned to distrust and he stepped back, drawing a long knife out of his boot. Trisha jumped back in alarm.
"Karri! He's got a knife!!" she exclaimed under her breath, her voice rising in panic. Karri stepped backwards to join her.
"Thanks for stating the obvious!" she replied, both of them backing away. "I've got my cell phone! Can you distract him or something while I call the police?"
Trisha drew her breath in with a hiss. "I'll try. I swear, he looks actually frightened of something... Are you sure it's a good idea? Couldn't you just call your mom or somethi..."
He chose that opportune moment to speak, asking what was obviously a question and gesturing to the beach with his right hand while still holding the knife in his left. Trisha noticed that there was blood on his palm, with thin red lines of it running down into his sleeve; above that near the center of his palm the skin was white and glossy with scars. And his voice... Trisha's mouth opened even wider. He wasn't speaking English, that was for sure, but whatever he was saying... it was beautiful...
She pinched herself vigorously then yelped. "I'm sorry, I don't know what you're saying..." she began, and then stopped. It was obvious that he didn't know what she was saying, either. A couple of feet to her right, Karri had found her phone and was dialing her mother's phone number as fast as she could. Trisha winced and once more attempted communication. "PUT THE KNIFE DOWN!!! Hablas Español? Parlez-vous français? Put... knife... down!"
In truth, even had he known Spanish or French it wouldn't have availed him much; Trisha knew so little of either of those that he might as well have been speaking Greek.
Karri pressed the phone to her ear with increased panic as it continued to ring while Trisha tried to communicate with him using hand gestures. After the first couple of attempts he finally narrowed his eyes and placed it back in his boot; Trisha sighed with relief and Karri removed the phone from her ear and turned it off. "It's not working! Mom's not home!" she whispered frantically. "Just great. I'm trapped on a beach with a homicidal maniac and no help in sight... How come we had to go to the icky rocky windy part of the beach?"
"Because I like it better," stated Trisha matter-of-factly. "Look, panicking isn't going to help. Maybe screaming. Really loud screaming. That wakes up the dead. Or at least the houseless spirits that refuse to go to Mandos. But they wouldn't be asleep so never mind but maybe it could wake up the..."
The man narrowed his eyes. "Mandoth?" he asked.
Trisha's mouth dropped open and she mouthed several words, fish-like, before finally speaking. "Yeah, Mandos. What about it?"
"What's Mandos?" Karri asked, wincing as Trisha glared at her.
"Mandos is the Eldarin equivalent of heaven or hell or something."
"Look, Trisha, as great as it is that you know what things like 'Eldarin' mean, would you just speak English? And aren't we forgetting that there's a maniac with a knife 10 feet away?" She squeaked the last part, throwing a worried glance at said maniac.
The maniac stared at them. "Ma quetelyë i Eldalambë?" he asked cautiously.
Trisha's mouth dropped open even farther. "Lá..." she muttered, then turned to Karri. "What did he just say?!" she said.
"He said something like maa ketelyay ee eldalambay only prettier," she replied.
"Pinch me."
"What?"
"Just do it." Trisha stated, wincing when Karri complied happily. "Okay, rules that possibility out. Maybe..."
"Look, Trisha, didn't your mother ever teach you to not talk to HOMICIDAL MANIACS WITH KNIVES WHO DON'T SPEAK ENGLISH?!!!" Karri exclaimed. "Let's just run! Or yell really loudly!"
"Wait..." Trisha pointed to herself. "Patricia," she said.
After a long pause he copied the gesture. "Maglor."
Trisha jumped and stumbled back so fast she fell backwards onto the sand, then suddenly began to laugh out loud. "Mae govannen, Maglor! Elen sila lúmenn' omentielvo!"
What a wacky dream she was having...
---------------
I'm terribly sorry that this is taking so long... It's really a combination of being too lazy to write regularly, having very little inspiration and deciding that it's nearly impossible to write about what would REALLY happen, knowing as little as I do about Maglor's personality; I'm probably just going to end up improvising a lot in that respect. Sigh Wish me luck.