Disclaimer
Apparently, these things are important. So I'll just stick this at the front of every story I put out here: this story is not for money ! I am not going to get anything for it ! That should be obvious, seeing as it's here on FF.net, but if it isn't then this makes it clear.
All right, as to ownership-- I own Esgalmir, his sister Lindaril, and various other characters. I do NOT own any characters mentioned in Lord of the Rings, nor do I own Lord of the Rings, nor do I own any rights to it ! There.
Now you can read the story. :-)
-(----
The Tale of Esgalmir
Chapter 1
Elf in America
There it was again, the blare in his ears, his sensitive ears. Sometimes being a Firstborn had faults- for one thing, whereas human ears would have long ago lost their sensitivity and become deadened, Esgalmir's ears rarely took more damage than a good night's sleep would fix. Not that a good night's sleep was something he got often, due precisely to the noise. It was amazing how little humans nowadays could hear, a result of all the sounds they seemed to love making. The alarm clock was upstairs, right through the floor, and it woke him up every morning, then more than 5 minutes later, the human it rang for would finally begin creaking and muttering. Amazing.
Esgalmir rolled out of the bed to land deftly on his feet, making less sound than a careful hobbit. Another day for facing the world of Men; he could hardly wait. A blink and the sleep was out of his eyes, and he strode into the kitchen. Esgalmir was used to this- what was the word again?- apartment by now, and he wished he didn't have to leave. But he knew that, like all his previous lives, someone would start asking questions, and he would probably end up having to die again to get out of it. Sigh.
After a few tasteless cornflakes and some bland milk, he threw on his outer clothing and headed downstairs, slipping lightly over the creaking stairs. The woman behind the desk greeted him as warmly as could be expected, at 6 in the morning.
"Huh- right on time, 6:01 and you're out the door."
"Good morning, Isa. Without a schedule, you know you'll quickly stop getting things done- you'll sit and watch TV, saying 'I still have time, I-'"
"Whatever, just be sure you pay on time this month." She went back to her newspaper without even a second sneer.
Esgalmir no longer minded the constant distrust he received. It only made sense- humans were so deceitful, how could they trust one another? After nearly 10,000 years, there was little that shocked him anymore, but he really did wish he had taken the Straight Road. To think, he had had a chance at it, a chance beyond hope, and he had scorned it. Prince Legolas had managed to secure passage across the sea; though not Sylvan himself, he still had a close kinship with them, and Esgalmir had been one of the Elves offered a ride with the Elf prince and his aging Dwarf friend. He shook his head, remembering his foolhardy decision to stay and see what Elessar's successor would do. Well, now he knew.
He had almost reached the main road now, his feet carrying him by instinct down and to the right. As a rule, he avoided the nicer areas, they were more likely to have connections. This was probably his 28th life, all because the humans were starting to keep really good medical records. They could even tell if you were the same person, sight unseen, by DNA testing, which would lead to some very troublesome questions if you weren't human.
Too much reminiscing, Esgalmir told himself; he was going to walk into a bad part of town if he wasn't careful. Instead, he deliberately turned and walked down towards his shop.
In the life he was leading now, he was an assistant to one of the "medieval" shops, a job he had just gotten a week ago or so. Esgalmir needed all the innate nobility of the Eldar to avoid bursting out laughing every time he entered the shop, with its ridiculous fairies, gnomes (a far cry from the Naugrim), and demons, and he had yet to see a sword that actually balanced somewhere other than a quarter of the way down the blade. But it was still interesting to keep an eye on how Men remembered the distant past, and assistant was about the highest position Esgalmir could safely hold.
All his employers liked his performance- he was a far better worker than the half-drugged teens they usually made do with- but Esgalmir had the distinct impression they were annoyed by something about him. Perhaps he came across as supercilious; in any case, the shop owner, a tattooed 30-year-old built like a Dwarf, viewed him as a mixed blessing. Darryl grunted when Esgalmir strode in, without raising his eyes from his questionable magazine.
"Morning, Mr. Darryl." Esgalmir looked like an unusually well-built teenager, and could easily sound like one, too, and he had found that made the least trouble. He still hadn't managed to master the casual rudeness of today's teenagers, but he hoped he didn't stand out too much.
Another grunt was all he got, this time with a one-handed motion to the back room. Curious, Esgalmir looked to see a new purchase for the store: a towering tree-like construction designed to overhang the door. Strangely enough, it also had a cord, and when Esgalmir finished dutifully setting it up, he plugged it in and got a nasty shock.
"Treebeard some call me," said a horrible electronic voice, and two eyes flapped open and shut in the plastic expanse of the thing. Esgalmir was confused- what did this mean? Was this supposed to be an Ent? And it was frighteningly close to reality, at least in the concept. How did this one idea survive across the ages, when the other races had been twisted and shrunken so badly?
"Nice, ain't it?" said Darryl, finally looking up. "Got it in yesterday, wanna start offering some higher quality stuff to the customers."
"A new shipment, or something new?"
Something like a gleam of pride was actually kindling in Darryl's eyes. "Something new, all right. I seen the second one of them Lord of the Rings movies last week, I don't know why I didn't try to get their stuff before now. It's so dang popular everyone will be runnin' here to get anything connected with it!"
Esgalmir was severely flustered now. Lord of the Rings? That was something he hadn't heard in a very long time, one of the euphemisms used when speaking of the Dark Lord in lieu of using his name. Clearly he had been much too much out of the mainstream.
"Uhh, Mr. Darryl, what is Lord of the Rings?"
Darryl's eyes narrowed on Esgalmir. He was always suspicious of anyone who seemed too stupid to believe, they were usually hiding something. "How can you work in a fantasy shop and not know Lord of the Rings? It's only been around for 50 years!"
"Sorry, I didn't know about it; is it a movie?"
"Well, no, it's three movies- too long for one, of course! Where've you been? Under a rock?" Darryl had a little laugh at Esgalmir, standing there confused.
"Oh, I, uh, need to go to the bathroom quick," blurted Esgalmir. Blurted, indeed! When did an Elf ever blurt? He needed time to think . . . and quiet. Something dangerous was going on. He rushed to the lavatory and slammed the door. All right, someone had talked. Clearly, a Man had heard an only slightly garbled version of the history that the modern world had so nearly lost, and he must have published it 50 years ago. Esgalmir vowed, first of all, to involve himself a little more in humanity, so that nothing like this would happen again. It was a serious shock, but it wasn't something they had been trying to hide. They didn't want to be discovered for who they were, of course, but they didn't need to hide history from Men, it had just been hidden by the years; so this wasn't a bad development. They would be a little more careful until this production fizzled, and then everything would be back to normal. In fact, Men probably didn't believe it anyway; there was no guarantee the writer had even believed it. More than likely he took the interesting parts and wrote a story that became popular, maybe several stories. All right, so he wasn't going to worry about this. He took a calming breath and stepped out of the bathroom to get to work.
Apparently, these things are important. So I'll just stick this at the front of every story I put out here: this story is not for money ! I am not going to get anything for it ! That should be obvious, seeing as it's here on FF.net, but if it isn't then this makes it clear.
All right, as to ownership-- I own Esgalmir, his sister Lindaril, and various other characters. I do NOT own any characters mentioned in Lord of the Rings, nor do I own Lord of the Rings, nor do I own any rights to it ! There.
Now you can read the story. :-)
-(----
The Tale of Esgalmir
Chapter 1
Elf in America
There it was again, the blare in his ears, his sensitive ears. Sometimes being a Firstborn had faults- for one thing, whereas human ears would have long ago lost their sensitivity and become deadened, Esgalmir's ears rarely took more damage than a good night's sleep would fix. Not that a good night's sleep was something he got often, due precisely to the noise. It was amazing how little humans nowadays could hear, a result of all the sounds they seemed to love making. The alarm clock was upstairs, right through the floor, and it woke him up every morning, then more than 5 minutes later, the human it rang for would finally begin creaking and muttering. Amazing.
Esgalmir rolled out of the bed to land deftly on his feet, making less sound than a careful hobbit. Another day for facing the world of Men; he could hardly wait. A blink and the sleep was out of his eyes, and he strode into the kitchen. Esgalmir was used to this- what was the word again?- apartment by now, and he wished he didn't have to leave. But he knew that, like all his previous lives, someone would start asking questions, and he would probably end up having to die again to get out of it. Sigh.
After a few tasteless cornflakes and some bland milk, he threw on his outer clothing and headed downstairs, slipping lightly over the creaking stairs. The woman behind the desk greeted him as warmly as could be expected, at 6 in the morning.
"Huh- right on time, 6:01 and you're out the door."
"Good morning, Isa. Without a schedule, you know you'll quickly stop getting things done- you'll sit and watch TV, saying 'I still have time, I-'"
"Whatever, just be sure you pay on time this month." She went back to her newspaper without even a second sneer.
Esgalmir no longer minded the constant distrust he received. It only made sense- humans were so deceitful, how could they trust one another? After nearly 10,000 years, there was little that shocked him anymore, but he really did wish he had taken the Straight Road. To think, he had had a chance at it, a chance beyond hope, and he had scorned it. Prince Legolas had managed to secure passage across the sea; though not Sylvan himself, he still had a close kinship with them, and Esgalmir had been one of the Elves offered a ride with the Elf prince and his aging Dwarf friend. He shook his head, remembering his foolhardy decision to stay and see what Elessar's successor would do. Well, now he knew.
He had almost reached the main road now, his feet carrying him by instinct down and to the right. As a rule, he avoided the nicer areas, they were more likely to have connections. This was probably his 28th life, all because the humans were starting to keep really good medical records. They could even tell if you were the same person, sight unseen, by DNA testing, which would lead to some very troublesome questions if you weren't human.
Too much reminiscing, Esgalmir told himself; he was going to walk into a bad part of town if he wasn't careful. Instead, he deliberately turned and walked down towards his shop.
In the life he was leading now, he was an assistant to one of the "medieval" shops, a job he had just gotten a week ago or so. Esgalmir needed all the innate nobility of the Eldar to avoid bursting out laughing every time he entered the shop, with its ridiculous fairies, gnomes (a far cry from the Naugrim), and demons, and he had yet to see a sword that actually balanced somewhere other than a quarter of the way down the blade. But it was still interesting to keep an eye on how Men remembered the distant past, and assistant was about the highest position Esgalmir could safely hold.
All his employers liked his performance- he was a far better worker than the half-drugged teens they usually made do with- but Esgalmir had the distinct impression they were annoyed by something about him. Perhaps he came across as supercilious; in any case, the shop owner, a tattooed 30-year-old built like a Dwarf, viewed him as a mixed blessing. Darryl grunted when Esgalmir strode in, without raising his eyes from his questionable magazine.
"Morning, Mr. Darryl." Esgalmir looked like an unusually well-built teenager, and could easily sound like one, too, and he had found that made the least trouble. He still hadn't managed to master the casual rudeness of today's teenagers, but he hoped he didn't stand out too much.
Another grunt was all he got, this time with a one-handed motion to the back room. Curious, Esgalmir looked to see a new purchase for the store: a towering tree-like construction designed to overhang the door. Strangely enough, it also had a cord, and when Esgalmir finished dutifully setting it up, he plugged it in and got a nasty shock.
"Treebeard some call me," said a horrible electronic voice, and two eyes flapped open and shut in the plastic expanse of the thing. Esgalmir was confused- what did this mean? Was this supposed to be an Ent? And it was frighteningly close to reality, at least in the concept. How did this one idea survive across the ages, when the other races had been twisted and shrunken so badly?
"Nice, ain't it?" said Darryl, finally looking up. "Got it in yesterday, wanna start offering some higher quality stuff to the customers."
"A new shipment, or something new?"
Something like a gleam of pride was actually kindling in Darryl's eyes. "Something new, all right. I seen the second one of them Lord of the Rings movies last week, I don't know why I didn't try to get their stuff before now. It's so dang popular everyone will be runnin' here to get anything connected with it!"
Esgalmir was severely flustered now. Lord of the Rings? That was something he hadn't heard in a very long time, one of the euphemisms used when speaking of the Dark Lord in lieu of using his name. Clearly he had been much too much out of the mainstream.
"Uhh, Mr. Darryl, what is Lord of the Rings?"
Darryl's eyes narrowed on Esgalmir. He was always suspicious of anyone who seemed too stupid to believe, they were usually hiding something. "How can you work in a fantasy shop and not know Lord of the Rings? It's only been around for 50 years!"
"Sorry, I didn't know about it; is it a movie?"
"Well, no, it's three movies- too long for one, of course! Where've you been? Under a rock?" Darryl had a little laugh at Esgalmir, standing there confused.
"Oh, I, uh, need to go to the bathroom quick," blurted Esgalmir. Blurted, indeed! When did an Elf ever blurt? He needed time to think . . . and quiet. Something dangerous was going on. He rushed to the lavatory and slammed the door. All right, someone had talked. Clearly, a Man had heard an only slightly garbled version of the history that the modern world had so nearly lost, and he must have published it 50 years ago. Esgalmir vowed, first of all, to involve himself a little more in humanity, so that nothing like this would happen again. It was a serious shock, but it wasn't something they had been trying to hide. They didn't want to be discovered for who they were, of course, but they didn't need to hide history from Men, it had just been hidden by the years; so this wasn't a bad development. They would be a little more careful until this production fizzled, and then everything would be back to normal. In fact, Men probably didn't believe it anyway; there was no guarantee the writer had even believed it. More than likely he took the interesting parts and wrote a story that became popular, maybe several stories. All right, so he wasn't going to worry about this. He took a calming breath and stepped out of the bathroom to get to work.