"Haldir," a brunet elf called out just as they were leaving Haldir's flet.
Haldir returned a greeting and the two elves instantly became engrossed in conversation. Although Cassidy couldn't understand what they were saying, she could tell that their discussion was relatively serious. She could also tell that they were talking about her by the way they kept "subtly" glancing in her direction.
After the conversation progressed for a while, the other elf gave Haldir a light shove in Cassidy's direction. He frowned briefly at the other elf before turning his attention to Cassidy.
"Lady Cassidy, my companion here," he gestured towards the other elf who smiled warmly. "Would desire that I assist in this morning's training of our Galadhrim. I informed him that I cannot for I am escorting you this day, and he asked if you would care to join."
"That sounds like a lot of fun!" Cassidy lept at the chance to learn something new about these elves. "What are the Galadhrim?"
"The Galadhrim are the elite soldiers who protect Lothlorien's boarders from intruders."
"So your group of elves with the pointy things from yesterday?" Cassidy couldn't help but tease him about the incident. Really, these elves certainly were full of themselves. They reminded Cassidy a bit too much of those older pureblood families.
"Yes."
"Well, I'm always up for observing new things. Lead the way."
Haldir's companion, who introduced himself as Iallor, guided the pair through a series of winding routes. Much to Cassidy's annoyance, these ones were twisted and they often ended at a place where she did not expect, thus making it impossible for her to apparate. She soon found herself growing mild out of breath as the elves walked on with ease.
Eventually, they reached a rather large clearing where a group of elves, all dressed in identical grey, brown, and green tunics and leggings stood in a loose formation, stretching and checking weapons. As soon as they saw Haldir and Iallor however, they all snapped smartly to attention. Cassidy watched in fascination as Haldir barked a series of orders to them, resulting in them all breaking off to do what Cassidy could only assume to be some sort of drill.
Throughout the training, Cassidy couldn't help but be fascinated by the drills that they ran through, the ease and grace with which they moved. Now Cassidy had always considered herself a pretty efficient tree climber, but those elves flew up the trees, barely rustling a single leaf. Oh how Cassidy envied their skills.
As the practice grew later, a few of the elves set up targets and began to practice archery. Once again they were incredibly efficient, far more accurate than the centers of the Forbidden Forest, and they shot with such precision that Cassidy began to wonder if the elves had more magic than they realized. Her pondering however were interrupted when Iallor wandered over with a bow, offering it to Cassidy with a smile. She could tell by his eyes that he was trying to be kind, but she merely smiled sheepishly and pushed it away.
"Sorry, but I tried archery once when I was nine at summer camp. Let's just say that I'm pretty sure the camp instilled a new policy after after that."
"Most of these Galadhrim have trained with a bow since they were only seventy years old. It is best for you to not bother. Besides, an elvish bow is far too heavy for you to carry," Haldir pointed out.
"Seventy... how old are you?" Cassidy let the sting slide and her attention was immediately drawn towards the blond elf who was still speaking slowly in his language as she corrected another elf's impeccable form.
"I stopped counting some time ago..." he hesitated as he titled his head slightly in thought. "I would approximate somewhere around 2,500 years. We elves live much longer than fleeting mortal."
Cassidy decided to let the frankly lame insult slide. She had heard far worse. After pondering over his age however, she suddenly found herself in a rush to scramble through her bag and find a paper and quill. She immediately began jotting down notes on everything she had observed thus far on elvish culture. She was placing them right next to centaurs and merfolk in her journal. She became so engrossed in her activities that she did not notice that an elf, Iallor again, was attempting to speak to her. She finally looked up when he placed a gentle hand on her shoulder. He was gesturing over to the elves practicing archery and speaking slowly, obviously attempting to get some point across. Cassidy looked over to Haldir who spoke to Iallor and then eventually translated after an audible sigh.
"He wishes to know if you would like to try as you seemed very interested in watching. He offered to fetch an elfling's bow and to move a target closer. I informed him that such was unnecessary as even an elfling's bow requires more strength than you have in your blood."
In your blood, the words flew through Cassidy's mind and rage began to take over. When she presented with magic to her squib mother and muggle father, they embraced her with joy and were happy to team up with her aunt in introducing her to the magical world. They thought that it would be a fantastic place for her and where thrilled with the prospect of her attending Hogwarts. Sure some of the children, mainly the Slytherin, teased her for her family, but she was able to ignore them, her mother would remind her that it wasn't her blood that made up who she was, it was her mind.
Then, her parents died, murdered by Death Eaters in front of her and she was left to lie with her Aunt and Uncle. Somehow, the teasings got worse after that and students were more than willing to mock her dead parents. She had spent years defending her blood, defending her magic. Now, this stupid, arrogant, elitist elf was insulting her blood. These creatures with less magic than the merfolk in the Hogwarts Lake. I'll show him strength, she thought.
She was stuck in some nutty world with hardly any magic, and she was found by a bunch of blond pricks that might has well have been Malfoys. She couldn't speak their language, and the only one who could understand her was a pompous arse.
Then, without thinking things through quite as much as she usually did. She stood up and stormed her way over to Haldir, drawing her wand in the process.
"You think I lack strength?!" she hissed. At this point, all the elves in the clearing had stopped practicing and were instead watching the proceedings rather keenly. "Is that what you think? This little girl, this mortal who is oh so young compared to you elves is incapable?"
"I merely stated a fact," he replied cooly.
"Is is because of my blood?"
"Your kin are inferior."
Your kin are inferior, those words wrung through her head. Oh she had heard those words so many times before.
Cassidy laughed. She then raised her wand, pointing it to the furthest target. She leveled her gaze, the target was far, probably too far for a mortal to hit with a gun, but she was dueling champion.
"Bombarda," she watched with satisfaction as the target was blow far back, exploding in so that nothing was left but a few bits of floating straw. The elves looked at her in shock, but she wasn't finished yet. "Flipendo duo," she cried at the next target, watching as it flew through the air, flipping as it went until it was stopped by hitting a tree so loudly, splinters flew. The elves were shifting nervously, some gripping their bows a little too tightly. Cassidy looked to Haldir and saw his grimace. It wasn't enough. She then looked towards the closest target, still a good 200 meters away. She grinned, almost manically as she had reached that peak of intersection between rage and power when all sense seems to fly away. "Lacarnum Inflamarae," her last spell sent a ball of fire towards the target which, being made of straw, promptly burst into flames. She laughed as the flames flew upwards, crackling and burning. As she smelled the smoke and ash, she remembered her night in Malfoy manor. Instead of fear, for a brief moment she felt joy, she remembered how good that spell felt, the only time she ever called upon so much of her magic at once... oh it was like nothing anyone could ever imagine.
Immediately the elves scrambled into action, Haldir was barking out orders and for once, Cassidy saw what they looked like when frantic.
"What's the big fuss about..."
"The trees," Haldir shouted, venom dripping from his tongue. "The Mallorn trees, they will..."
"Aqua Eructo," a jet of water shot out from Cassidy's wand before Haldir could finish his sentence, quickly dousing the flame. "It was a simple inflamarae... it's not like it was gonna light the forest on fire," she grumbled the last part half heartedly, realizing how foolish she had acted.
When she looked up, Cassidy noticed that the elves were all giving her looks of unease. Even Iallor, who had tried so hard to be kind to her, was standing a decent distance, hand tight on his sheathed sword. The high of anger and injustice that she had been riding fell and she found herself feeling utterly lost. Looking around at the fear and uncertainty, she found that she herself was feeling much of that.
"It... it was just a little joke," she whispered. "I'm sorry."
With that, she fled. Where to she didn't know, but she was running, racing through the forest contemplating how much she just screwed up. Every summer, every summer since turning ten she spent behind the doors of the dueling dojo, practicing her self control and mastering her emotions. After all that time, all those years, she lets the tiniest bit slip and terrifies everyone around her. I didn't even screw up the spells! She thought. I was in complete control, no mishaps or magical misfires. Indeed, her little stunt would have been nothing at Hogwarts. All the spells except her last one could easily be performed by a fourth year, or even really a talented third year. Even her last one wasn't that impressive for a seventh year during these times of war.
These elves though of her as weak, but feared her magic. They were the worst of purebloods and muggles combined.
She continued to stumble through the dark, feet dragging along the ground as she pushed away branches and cast extra warming charms over her clothes. She clutched her wand tightly and held it to her chest, listening for any other sounds of the forest. She was lost. Very very very lost and alone.
That night, just as Cassidy found herself utterly lost and alone in the dark, a figure startled her by leaping from the trees to land directly in front of her. She had her wand out and a blasting spell at the tip of her tongue before she recognized the shape.
"Rumil?" she questioned.
"Yes... hellow?" he spoke slowly with his best attempt at English.
"I'm assuming you've heard about what I did. Come to kick me out of the forest?" she asked with a sigh.
Rumil, not understanding her, tilted his head to the side. He then smiled gently and beckoned her to follow him and the pair walked until they reached the little flet that was supposed to be Cassidy's temporary home. Haldir was standing outside it with his arms crossed and a rather angry expression on his face. Rumil walked ahead and spoke a few words to Haldir in a hushed tone. They made several glances over to Cassidy before Rumil turned to walk away, giving Cassidy one last smile.
"Thank you," she called to his retreating form. Haldir, thankfully, translated both Cassidy and Rumil's reply of "it was no bother."
"Listen-" she began. But, he held up his hand.
"It is past, it is forgotten. We go to the library tomorrow. There is food in your kitchen for tonight. I bid you a good evening Lady Cassidy."
With that, he walked away into the night.
Cassidy then found herself stumbling inside. If she was following any sense of normalcy or logic, then she really should have been crying her eyes out. Instead, she was just tired. Soon enough, she was asleep, still wearing her clothes from the day.
"It's beautiful," Cassidy marveled in awe as she walked through the massive library. Besides a polite greeting that morning, Haldir had hardly spoken to her, but he seemed to be pretending that the incident the day before didn't happen. Cassidy was content to act the same.
Like everything else in Lothlorian, the library was built high in the trees. The elves were obvious cautious of nature however as they hadn't cut any main branches from the trees, instead they built their sprawling library into the very canopy of the trees. Massive glass panes formed skylights in the being, allowing golden sunlight to filter into the open, cavernous space. The book shelves were arranged in a spiral radiating from the center, creating what felt like a maze of towering volumes of books. I must have found heaven.
"This is the heart of all information of the elven realms," Haldir spoke ever solemnly behind her. "It holds many precious and irreplaceable volumes, most older than mortal civilizations. They are meant to be handled with delicate hands. Take care."
"Humph," Cassidy frowned lightly at the insinuation that Haldir made. "Excuse you, I happen to be one of Madam Pince's favorite students... and she doesn't like many." Cassidy spoke with a huff before casting a simple searching charm that the aforementioned librarian had taught her. The spell was able to quickly locate a rather large dictionary which would be a perfect reference for her spell. She then used accio to summon the book, much to Haldir's displeasure, but she ignored his glare and took the book over to a large desk situated off to the side.
From the corner of her eye, Cassidy could tell that Haldir was following her like a shadow, but she did her best to ignore him as there was no way that he was going to ruin her fun. There was nothing that Cassidy loved more than this, searching through texts, flipping page after page, book after book in search of hidden knowledge. She reached for her wrist and unclasped her charm bracelet. The delicate, though deceptively strong, silver chain held what appeared to be a series of book shaped charms. Sorting through them, Cassidy found the three most likely to provide answers and unclipped them from her chain. She then placed the charms on the desk and waved her wand above them.
"Engorgio," she spoke softly on instinct as she was in a library, but the spell worked like a charm and the three charms became three full sized books.
"How..." Haldir began.
"I'm very protective of my book collection, and you never know when you'll need a reference," Cassidy explained absentmindedly, already flipping through the pages. "It's really a simple shrinking charm. I did it myself so I have to remember to renew it every few weeks, but it keeps my books close so it's definitely worth it."
Haldir lapsed into silence and for once, Cassidy was grateful for it. Despite what Haldir said the night before, she had not forgiven him and she was quite certain that he had not forgiven her. But, she had work to do, she became engrossed in her research, pulling forth a piece of parchment and a quill so that she could make notes, she began cross referencing her texts and pulling together the spell- actually, the potion that she would need to make. The potion was a tricky one as it involved not only a foreign language that no witch or wizard had a record of, but also a completely different species. Such would be a large challenge, but Cassidy was enjoying herself far too much.
Once several hours had passed and she had made a mess of scribbles on her notes, she closed the books with a satisfied smile, shrinking her own volumes and re-clipping them to her charm bracelet before picking up the library book and tucking it under her arm.
"We're gonna need to head outside for this one. To create a charm that allows me to understand your language, I'm gonna need to brew a potion and that involves lighting a fire."
"You cannot light a fire in Caras Galadhon," Haldir replied. He had obviously no forgotten about the incident from the previous day.
"Relax, I'll keep it under control. If I can apparate up and down your stupid stairs then I'm sure I can prevent a forest fire from a tiny potion set."
Haldir considered for a moment before nodding stiffly and guiding Cassidy to an open platform a decent ways away from the library. Cassidy then dug through her bag and pulled out her portable potion cauldron and all the ingredients that she needed for the spell. It was a good thing that she was always an over planner. Cassidy pretty much had an entire potions laboratory in her bag at all times. On never knows when they will need such things.
"Let's see... lacewing flies, everspeak peppers, mandrake extract," she ignored the look of horror on Haldir's face then the latter ingredient let out a high pitched shriek upon her opening the vial. "Veela blood, billywig venom, crushed ashflake... and one more thing..." Cassidy turned to Haldir, a sweet smile on her face. "There's one more ingredient that I need..."
"Yes?" A look of suspicion crossed Haldir's face.
"Well, as this potion is rather complex... the best stabilizing agent that will also ensure that it is fully effective is... well a strand of hair of a being who understands both languages."
Haldir's expression became horrified and Cassidy swore that she could see him reel back slightly. So I was right, all these elves have long silky hair because they're obsessed with it, she thought to herself.
"Are you asking for a strand of my hair?" Haldir's question sounded more like an accusation, but Cassidy nodded nonetheless.
"Well technically, it's a "piece" of a being who speaks both tongues... so an ear or something could do," she shrugged and her smile grew wide as the look of horror spread through Haldir. The elf lifted one hand to his ear and took a half step back. But, when his other hand strayed to his sword, Cassidy tucked her wand back into its sleeve holster and held her hands up placatingly. "I kid, I kid. Jeez, you gotta relax bud, it was a joke. I just need one strand of hair. If you're so protective of whats on your head, then you can run on home and grab a piece off your hairbrush."
"What you ask for... it is not something to take lightly," he hissed.
"Listen, if your hair is sacred or something, then I'm sorry, but I need a piece for the translation spell to work. It'll be consumed in the spell so it's not like I'm gonna be keeping it as some weird talisman, and I promise there are easier ways to put a spell on someone then with their hair."
Haldir looked reproachful for another moment, but after considering his options he must have deemed it worth giving up a strand of hair so that he could stop playing translator. He reached towards the back of his skull, tugging lightly. He then drew forth his hand and offered upon an open palm, a single strand of long, blond hair.
Cassidy took the offering carefully and smiled lightly at Haldir before setting it down next to her ingredients. Now came her second favorite part of potions. Her first was of course the research into the potion, but her second was most certainly this. She lit the cauldron and rechecked her ingredients, she was ready.
She began working in a methodical flurry: crushing seeds, measuring out liquids, slicing and dicing, pouring her ingredients in precisely the right order. She mumbled quietly to herself as she worked, having gotten into the habit long ago. Professor Snape always considered it annoying, but even that old grouch could not help but be mildly impresses with her skills... Professor Snape... Cassidy tried not to think of him much these days.
"Always add the Dragon blood to the potion after the mandrake extract... then lacewing..." she counted each stir, careful to not overwork the spell. At the last moment, she dropped in the hair and watched as the potion turned from its light pink color to a warm, golden tinged green. Cassidy then reached into her bag and pulled forth a piece of pure, untainted crystal- the perfect vessel for holding magic.
She stirred the potion one last time to create a tiny whirlpool which she dropped the crystal into, watching form the corner of her eye as Haldir leaned in mystified as the green potion seemed to be sucked into the crystal, chaining it from its off white color to a brilliant green, shining like the leaves fo Lothlorien's precious Mallorn trees.
The spell was complete.
Plucking the already cool crystal from the cauldron, Cassidy set up a simple spell to wrap a little piece of wire around it, forming a pendent which she then hung on a chain around her neck. She noted how Haldir purposefully did not make a comment on he several other crystals, all of various colors, hanging there.
She looked up to the sky and found that it was almost evening. She had spent so long working on her potion, she had missed lunch. She did have a tendency of getting lost in her work. For a moment, Cassidy regretted that she made Haldir miss lunch, but judging by the way he still stood in the exact same spot he was planted in when they first arrived, Cassidy guessed that he was doing just fine.
"So... how's my Sindarin?" she asked with a smile. Haldir looked taken aback for a moment.
"You speak adequately," he said upon composing himself. But, the look that he first gave her was all that Cassidy needed to know.
She had succeeded.
"We should make it to the city by first light," the elf spoke with more excitement than he strictly should. He had not expected the wizard to move so rapidly after reading the letter.
"Yes, well a wizard can move with haste when necessary," Gandalf pointed out. His little pony was indeed moving with rather rapid speed. "So tell me, have you met this "witch" who Lady Galadriel writes of?"
"Briefly, I was among the party that apprehended her upon her entrance to Lothlorien. She bears a strange stick, much smaller than your staff, and wields magic with ease."
"Hmmm... what kind?"
"It did not seem dark, but powerful. She also seems to have a mortal's temper."
"Sounds like the beginning of an adventure," Gandalf smiled lightly.
They were indeed close to the city, soon he would be meeting with Lady Galadriel and Lord Celeborn. They had much to discuss.