Celebwen Telcontar: Here's chapter three of Literally Treasure. None of the characters, save Tarichar, the priest, Silence and Danielle are mine, except for the idea of the Bardréd family.
Balrog: I see. Well, lets sit back and enjoy this show!
Celebwen Telcontar: Very good. You are improving your social habits, my friend! Now on to the story!
Silence stood near the casket, her eyes dry and her breathing even.
"I… I know you never knew him well…" Ben began. Silence looked at him with an unfathomable look in her grey eyes. She was true to her name, and silent, then she walked away towards her uncle, who was staying on the fringes of the mourners, Ian and Danielle with him.
"Len, dearest…" Danielle whispered, a silk handkerchief near her eyes and dabbing at falling tears.
"U si, Nanneth." Not now, Mother. Silence's voice sounded dead, even to her own ears.
Tul, met uva kel." Come, we will go. Danielle laid a hand on her daughter's arm. Ian looked odd, not even blinking, and staring at the casket dumbly. Shaw placed a hand on his boss' arm and guided him out of the gathering; his face just as stoic and blank as ever. Ben stood near the casket now, a hand on the coffin. The priest droning on about Patrick's life went unheard by the Treasure group.
CraaaaaaSSSHHH! The splashing and shattering sound was heard by all of the mourners.
"Le gondol!" You stonehead! Silence snapped as Riley backed away from the fallen and shattered punch bowl. Danielle managed to repress a snort of contempt at her son's friend. She, her brother, daughter, and her daughter's boyfriend went out into the parking lot and found the SUV that they had come in, and then drove off to Danielle's home.
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Ben awoke with a mind-numbing sneeze. Abigail was out of bed, and had left her side rumpled, and he could hear her brushing her teeth. He looked down, and saw a large grey and brown tabby cat laying, sprawled on the coverlet, taking up seemingly more space than was physically possible for an animal of that size. Ben sneezed again. He hated cats. The cat raised its head and blinked sleepily at him, then stood and stretched. Ben kicked at the beast, hoping to get it off of the bed and out of the room. It started to growl deep in its throat and attacked his feet, sinking its teeth deep into the hollow between his big toe and the rest of his foot. Ben yelped and kicked again. The cat kicked back, growling slightly, then began to purr as it kicked him repeatedly, gnawing on his already sore foot.
"Ow, you confounded monster!" he snapped at it. The cat dug its teeth and claws in deeper, making Ben yelp in pain. He leaned over, sneezed, and seized the cat about the scruff of the neck, intending to toss it off of the bed. It yowled and twisted around, latching onto his arm, and sinking its teeth into the soft flesh between first finger and thumb, its claws raking furrows down mid-forearm to a bit above the elbow, the fore claws digging into his wrist. Ben yelled, shaking his arm and sneezing. The cat growled and dug its teeth in deeper.
"Tarichar!" Queen's Heir! a voice, his mother's he thought, snapped. Danielle stood in the doorway, a fierce expression on her face. "Tul! Tul si, Tarichar!" Come; come now, Queen's Heir!The cat growled and bit deeper. Danielle glared at the tabby, who released Ben and sauntered off, rubbing its side against his face and making him sneeze all the harder.
"Get away, you confounded beast!" Ben snapped, giving the cat a good kick. It only went back to its game of Hunt-and-Kill-Ben's-Feet. Danielle walked over and bodily removed the cat, scolding it while it hissed at Ben. "I hate cats," he moaned.
"Lor hir nin, estel tul le, Sleep my child, hope come to thee,
Nai mi du. May it be in the night.
Aglareb maia Eru anna-uva le Glorious angels God will gift thee,
Nai me du. May it be in the night.
Oiale i lor lumenn' na raen Ever the sleepy hour is wandering
Amon i imlad loresse lor Hill and valley in slumber sleeping
Im hir nin chebtir I my child, watch am keeping
Nai me du May it be in the night.
Maia tir oiale pel le Angels watching ever round thee
Nai me du. May it be in the night
Loresse le pel le In thy sleeping (close) surround thee
Nai me du. May it be in the night.
Oiale i lor lumenn' na raen Ever the sleepy hour is wandering
Amon i imlad loresse lor Hill and valley in slumber sleeping
Im hir nin chebtir I my child, watch am keeping
Nai me du May it be in the night.
"Im mel le, Dinnen. Lor man, muindeth-iel." I love thee, Silence. Sleep good, Sister-daughter.
Ben listened to the beautiful song, not understanding the words, and suddenly realized that the person singing was Shaw, and he was getting sleepy again.
Suddenly the recent events hit him like a thunderbolt. His father was dead, killed by a creature he thought only existed in fairy tales. But that must have been a nightmare. How could dragons be real? He laughed at his own gullibility; then rose and dressed, and went downstairs.
Gregor, Ian, Phil, Victor and Abigail were eating. Or rather Victor was standing and gathering the still full plates and saying something about edible food while Abigail kept on wolfing down the greenish-brown mess.
"This is edible!" Abigail protested.
"No, it's not. Red beans and rice, with pickles and vanilla extract?" Ian asked. Ben choked and looked at his fiancée.
"Great." He groaned and stared at the mess, not liking the looks of it in the least.
"It's good!" She cried, defending her plate with her arms from Victor trying to grab it to rinse the odd concoction off of it.
"Who made that?" Ben couldn't resist asking.
"I did. I wanted red beans and rice and pickles, then smelled the vanilla and thought it would be a good addition." Abigail snapped. She crossed her arms over her chest, as if supporting her breasts, as if they were aching. Ben looked revolted at the food.
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Shaw held the purring feline in his arms, scratching behind her ears. She tipped her head up, closing her eyes lazily.
He was worried about Silence and Ian, though he supposed he was also worried about his nephew, but Ben hadn't been brought up to know about Dale and its calling, about the long Lake and the land the Bardréd family must eventually rule as the royalty of Dale.
'You like that, don't you, Queen's Heir?' he asked the cat in Sindarin. The animal purred even louder, and made an oddly charming chirruping noise. Shaw laughed. He looked into his niece's bedroom, happy that she was finally asleep. He almost gave his boss a good dose of sleeping pills after the funeral, but knew from experience how furious Ian would be, then Shaw saw Ian asleep on the guest bed, out like a log. Now hopefully Ian would be able to concentrate better after a full night's sleep.
'Father… Father! No! Father, don't! It's a dragon!' Silence cried out in Sindarin in her sleep. Tarichar wriggled from Shaw's grasp and leapt onto Silence's bed, meowing, and curled up on the sleeping woman's chest, purring rhythmically. Silence settled back into a deep sleep, and Tarichar's head went down as the cat seemed to go into sleep as well. Shaw smiled and nodded to the cat, before going downstairs to find his sister and catch up on lost years.
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"Dinnen, Le na vana. Im mel le." Silence, thou art beautiful. I love thee. Ian was practicing some Sindarin, after Shaw had told him several lines that he had asked for. Now he was running them up and down through his mind. He had been awake, though he had feigned sleep, through the night. The dragon kept coming back, though he had almost convinced himself that it was a nightmare come to life. But the charred body of Patrick Gates kept coming back to haunt him, and he was still very confused and resistant to believing the truth.
"Here," Phil said, handing Ian a plate with a Pillsbury orange roll and a hearty helping of hash browns and eggs on the side. On either side of the hearty meal was a triangle of toast, and a full glass of orange juice was at his place at the table.
"I'm not hungry," he muttered.
"Eat, boss!" Phil said.
"Ian," Shaw's voice came into the kitchen. "You need to eat." Ian let himself be guided to the table by his right-hand man, and began to pick at his food. He felt Shaw's eyes on his back, and knew that his ruse wasn't going to fly as well as it did last night. He ate half of his orange roll, some eggs and a piece of toast before trying to rise, only to be stopped by a pair of strong hands on his shoulders holding him down. He looked into Shaw's unamused eyes. "Eat." The Bardréd man said firmly. Ian sighed and ate another bite, still feeling Shaw's eyes on the back of his head. He didn't relent until Ian had cleared his plate of all but the icing on his roll.
Victor cleared the plates, and placed them in the sink. Shaw then got a piece of a board, tattered, and with a peeling piece of paper glued to it. The paper was yellow and in some places worn through, and reminded Ian of pieces of hide found in different places, such as the Ice Age cave in France, old and ready to fall apart.
"Here is where the Lonely Mountain is," Shaw began. Everyone leaned closer.
"Nanneth-muindor!" Mother-brother!a voice cried, scandalized, and all beheld Silence storming down the stairs, her face like a thundercloud. Thinking quickly, Ian put together a plate of breakfast and handed it to her as she came down, quickly kissing her. She looked at him fondly, then glared in the direction of her uncle.
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Shaw nearly qualed under that furious look. Oh, she was her mother's daughter, all right, and not much of her father was in her!
'Uncle Derek. I thought you would do this, then I remembered you singing a lullaby to me. Why?'
'You need sleep, since you've hardly slept in two weeks.'
'Pray tell, why did you not speak to me?'
'I have too much experience with your current love interest to be much other than like I am. And besides, I always wanted a daughter, now I feel as though I have one.'
'You are not my father, though I may feel as if you are.'
Shaw felt as though she was not completely certain that the dragon was real.
Suddenly Ben gave an odd groan and fell.
"He's gone…" Ben said. Riley pattered up to him and stuffed a glass of some clear liquid in his hands. Ben drank it, and yelped, tossing the glass and choking.
"What the hell was that?" Abigail asked.
'That, Abigail, was Mother's liquor.'
"Eru. Vodka?" Shaw asked, startled. He didn't think his nephew could handle such a potent drink, but one never knew. Ben collapsed, taking Riley to the floor with him. Phil and Shaw took him upstairs and put him on his bed, then went downstairs to be briefed on the newest treasure, the Bardréd Treasure.
Celebwen Telcontar: Bardréd means Bard's Heir, and since Bard the Bowman was the King of Dale in the Hobbit, or was after Dale was restored, I thought that would be a good family name. Also since the Bardréds and the Dunedain have inter-mixed, they are a far more noble line than say the Tudors. It's like Aragorn being called Isildur's Heir, even though Isildur was not the last King of Gondor.
Balrog: So is that why Shaw and Danielle seem so young for their years, that they are related to Aragorn and thus Arwen's blood in their veins lengthened their lives?
Celebwen Telcontar: Correct. Now I want to thank all who have reviewed, especially my Beta, Elenhin. Thanks, you all! And I hope you continue to read Literally Treasure! Please review!