A/N: A bit later than I hoped, but it's also much longer than I anticipated. This chapter and the next were actually originally the same chapter, but if I kept them together, it would be ridiculously long and be out much later. I told myself that it was going up today whether I feel ready or not, so here we are. Please enjoy.


Chapter 6: The Young and the Old

Silence fell upon the open plain of snow. Not a whisper snuck through the company of either party. The wood elves stood at attention, awaiting the orders of their commander. The elves of the Pole huddled together behind their own leaders, uncertain of how to react to the newcomers. Gilrohir turned his head and looked at his youngest subordinate with his perpetual aloof gaze. Lydia looked to Quinton, who looked to his own boss. Santa cleared his throat and stepped forward.

"It's okay everybody. They're visitors from, um, uh….Maybe you three ought to take the reins here."

He stepped back again and gestured for Lydia and Quinton to step forward. Bernard remained stubbornly where he stood, a sentinel between the wood elves and his own. Lydia tried to meet his gaze, but he had turned to speak to the young elves cowering behind him and never once looked back toward her. She took a step toward them and raised her voice.

"Good day, everyone. I am Lydia Hightower."

At this pronouncement a mild tremor shivered through the company of wood elves. At a glare from their commander, they quieted, and she continued.

"I know you are all confused and frightened, and you have every right to be. I imagine there have been rumors aplenty going about today. It is true that I have come back to you. I know you all thought I died many years ago, but these people, they saved me. They took me to their home. They are elves, just like you. They come from a very long way away from a place called Elbereth. It's a forest, far far away from here. But they have been looking for you. They have wanted to find you for many, many years. I assure you they mean you no harm."

"They're related to us," said Quinton. "They've come to tell us about where we came from and who we are."

Lydia turned on her heel and addressed the wood elves.

"They are elves. I know this place. I do not know how they came to be here, but they are most certainly elves. They are my friends."

The wood elves listened to her words with rapt attention. Not a single emotion glanced their faces as they took in what she said, but their eyes were alight when they looked to their leader.

"Gilrohir?" said Orëna.

"I believe Minariel is correct. They appear to be elves. They are no doubt children. Therefore, these must be the Children of Hollin," said their commander flatly.

"Gilrohir?"

"Yes, Orëna?"

"Permission to be excited?"

Gilrohir glared at her. He looked at the faces of all his party, each one barely concealing their own eagerness.

"Granted."

As soon as the words left his lips, the company erupted into elation.

"Look at them all," cried Orëna. "They're babies. Look! They're so small!"

The other members of the group were more subdued in their joy but barely. The elves of the Pole took a collective step or six back away from the ecstatic outsiders, finding their sudden exuberance just as frightening as their seemingly aggressive entrance.

"Small and shy," said Orёna, dropping her voice to nearly a whisper. "We're sorry. Please don't be frightened."

"Yes, please do not be afraid. We are so very happy to see you," said Elrodan.

"We thought you were dead," added Orëna.

"Dead?!" blurted out Santa. "You thought they were dead?"

"For many years, our people had only the faintest of hopes that they survived," said Elrodan.

"Survived what?"

"Maybe they don't remember," said Orëna to her commander.

Gilrohir raised his voice.

"Who amongst you is the eldest?"

"I am."

Bernard still did not step forward. He remained in front of his elves even as he spoke. The eyes of all the wood elves were on him. A few whispered in their own language to each other in hushed voices. More than a couple of the elves looked at him with dropped jaws. Gilrohir once again barked an order at them, and they once more stood at attention. His armor clanked as he strode toward Bernard.

"What do you remember?" he demanded.

The Head Elf merely stared at him. Gilrohir frowned.

"Before you came to be here, what do you remember of then?"

Bernard shook his head. "We've always been here. For as long as I can remember."

Elrodan and Orëna walked over to stand next to Gilrohir.

"Maybe we're in the wrong place," whispered Elrodan.

"No, look at them," said Orëna. "Look at the ears. Look at their eyes. They're elves. And what other elves could there possibly be?"

"Minariel led us to them, as Lady Varda foresaw. These are the Children of Hollin. I have no doubt. Though he should remember."

"It was a long time ago, Gilrohir."

"Elrodan's right," said Orëna. "He would have only been a boy at the time."

"He still is."

Gilrohir turned away and began surveying the rest of the elves. The elves of the Pole seemed to shrink under his severe gaze. Bernard's eyes followed him with an expression that was no less cross than the one the elven commander had given him.

"Don't mind him," said Elrodan.

"Yeah, he's always like that," added Orëna apologetically.

"What did he say?" asked Bernard.

Orëna and Elrodan looked taken aback. They shared a look, then Orëna forced a smile.

"Nothing. He's just being crotchety."

Elrodan's face took on a bemused expression. He went to Gilrohir's side.

"I'm afraid this is going to take some time."


Elrodan's prediction turned out to be correct. In spite of their initial apprehensions, the elves of the North Pole quickly warmed to the newcomers. The Clauses offered the small garrison bedrooms on the vast grounds of the Pole to stay in, but Gilrohir spoke for the collective and turned them down. In wake of their leader's sharp rebuke regarding the need to keep their senses sharp, the company pitched tents out on the grounds on the outskirts of the village. This did not stop the younger elves from taking breaks from their duties to bring their woodland kin comforts of the indoors. Morning and night, Judy sent her underlings down to the campsite with warm drinks and food, and the seamstresses provided them with blankets that were far more ornate and comfortable than the austere bedding they had brought with them.

The warm reception was, Gilrohir's cold demeanor notwithstanding, equally reciprocated. The wood elves took great joy in the task of becoming acquainted with their younger brethren. Most of the wood elves rose early each morning and wandered through the village and the factory where they allowed the elves of the Pole to demonstrate their daily tasks.

Despite the isolation of their surroundings, Gilrohir enforced a regular night watch, wherein the elves rotated who of their company would stand outside their encampment and keep their eyes on the icy horizon. Yet even the guards were not left out, as the Pole never seemed to sleep. Without prompting or invitation, the kitchen elves also took it in turns to wander out to the campsite by night to keep the guards company and refresh them with warm drinks.

When the wood elves drilled and sparred out on the grounds, they were guaranteed to have an audience. Either the younger elves did not understand or did not care that their mock fights were for practice rather than for show, as they applauded the "winners" of the combat drills, much to the annoyance of the wood elves' commander. To Gilrohir's even greater irritation, some of the elves even began to pick favorites and cheer them on from the sidelines.

"They will be forming betting pools next," groused Gilrohir to Elrodan, who barely managed to conceal his amusement at his companion's aggravation.

The wood elves, for their part, did not seem to mind and took to bowing at the sound of their young audience's appreciation. Archery drills were no less popular. Young elves approached their woodland counterparts and asked to hold the bows. The wood elves happily obliged, showing them how to properly nock and draw an arrow, though none of them could actually pull the strings of the wood elves' bows back to full draw.

"Do not be downhearted, little ones," said Imharion, a dark-haired elf with pale purple eyes and a strong chin, to a group of frowning elf-children. "The draw weight of our bows is immense, so that we may better shoot at long distances. Orëna, let them try your bow."

Orëna's bow was thicker and shorter than the longbows used by the other wood elves and made of the horn of what must have been an enormous animal. Not a single elf child could draw back the string a single inch. Imharion took it from them and pulled back the string. He could only draw it back a few inches. Orëna took it back and plucked an arrow out of a nearby quiver. A second later it landed neatly in the center of the target. Imharion did not quite manage to look annoyed as she smirked at him.

"It's these thick dwarf arms," said Orëna, patting her bicep.

Imharion muttered something in Elvish under his breath as he went to collect his arrows from the target.

"What did he say?" asked one of the elves.

Orëna smiled broadly at them.

"He called me a show-off."

When Imharion returned, he picked up his own bow. Orëna quieted the chattering elves as he fitted an arrow and took aim. The elves heard a soft crack as Imharion's arrow split Orëna's in half. He flashed a toothy grin at Orëna as the elves clapped.

"Now who's a show-off?"

"Can't take the competition, stay off the range," countered Imharion.

"You're wasting ammunition! Don't you realize we could be under attack at any moment?!" barked Orëna in such a perfect imitation of their their stern commander that Imharion doubled over and let his bow hit the snow with a soft thud.

"CONSTANT VIGILANCE!"

The little elves giggled while Imharion frantically looked about through tear-filled eyes to make sure their leader was out of earshot.

"How do you get away with that?" he asked.

"He knows I'm a lost cause," said Orëna with a shrug.

Imharion collected himself and picked up his bow.

"Aren't we all?"


Days passed and turned into a fortnight, wherein the wood elves and the elves of the Poles spent their nights and days learning of one another. The wood elves took great joy in the company of their young kin, often following them about as they worked and asking them questions. Within a week, most of the wood elves could recite "Twas the Night Before Christmas" from memory, though few of them truly understood its meaning.

Bernard and Lydia saw very little of each other, though not for want of Lydia looking. They hardly ever seemed to cross paths. Bernard remained determined to spend his time corralling his charges back to their work stations, which at this time was more like herding cats than it had ever been. Busy as Gilrohir kept her, Lydia became desperate to speak with him properly. Yet, on the few occasions she managed to corner him, he would either spot some - likely nonexistent - mischief making in the distance and run off, or she would catch some of the elves whispering about them nearby. By the time she had finished shooing them away, Bernard had disappeared.

The wood elves were not satisfied with learning only of the goings on of the Pole, and they longed to learn more of the world the elves had hidden themselves in and of the humans that occupied it. Orëna in particular became fast friends with Quinton. They could often be found walking with their heads close together, engaged in rapid conversation. eager for him to show her something new or making excited commentary on the Pole's architecture. Their association began one night when Orëna, having only mere minutes before been introduced to the head of Research and Development, practically dragged him outside into the dark and under the sky.

"Quinton, my lad. Minariel tells me that you study the sciences."

"I do."

"Excellent. Then perhaps you can answer a question for us ignorant wood elves."

Orëna waved a massive hand in the air, summoning nearly a dozen other wood elves to gather around them.

"I can certainly try," said Quinton, not certain at all.

"Good, good. What, pray tell, is that?"

She pointed a finger toward the sky at the purple and green light which furled like a giant ribbon across the dark background.

"That is the aurora borealis. Named for the Greco-Roman goddess of the dawn, it occurs when plasma particles from the solar wind collide with the Earth's electro-magnetic field."

Quinton might as well have given his explanation in Pig Latin for all the wood elves understood it. He tried again, explaining about sunspots and magnets and atoms, but still the wood elves stared at him like he was a fish who had just leaped out of the water and started talking. Quinton held back a sigh.

"Perhaps I had better start from the beginning."

Minutes later, a dozen wood elves flooded Quinton's lab. Orëna sat on a stool with a globe and began cheerfully spinning it as fast as it would go. She let the tips of her thick fingers coast along the Earth's surface, then slapped her palm down against it to make it stop.

"These bumpy bits all over, are those mountains?"

"Yes, they are. The tallest one is here, in Nepal."

Quinton spun the globe around and pointed his finger over Mount Everest. Then he spun the globe again and tapped a spot in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.

"Though, the largest mountain by base area and volume is Mauna Loa, here in Hawaii."

"Such strange names," said Elrodan. "They are not the same language?"

"No. Humans have thousands, if not millions of culture groups. It would take an eternity to study them all."

"Where are we?" asked a young lady elf, who Orëna introduced as her healing student Naurelin.

"Right here, at the top," said Quinton. "The North Pole. And the South Pole is here on the-"

"On the other side," finished Orëna.

"The earth's poles are an effect of Earth's magnetic field. It's generated in the core. Molten iron and nickel spinning incredibly quickly at the center of the sphere."

Quinton went further, explaining the layers of the Earth and geology to his fascinated companions. Orëna's coppery eyes lit up.

"For millenia, my people mined in the mountains, digging up metal ore and gemstones. My mother's people practically worship the mountains. Yet, I never questioned where they came from, how those ores and gems came to be. You say the mortals discovered all this?"

"Yes. Deprivation of magic has made them rather inventive. They're a curious lot."

"You've studied all this? What do you do with it?" asked Elrodan.

Quinton felt a quick moment of panic, the sort one might feel when asked to name a favorite book or pastime, only to find the mind completely blank of everything one's ever read or done.

"Lots of things," said Quinton after a moment of reflection. He began to explain about medicine and flight, traffic signs and television, calculators and anything he could think of until even his head began to spin.

"But what do you do with it, all the way up here?"

"We make toys."

Quinton knew how ridiculous that sounded as soon as those three little words came out of his mouth. Most of the wood elves resumed staring at him blankly, but after a moment Orëna buried her face in her hand. Quinton could hear her snickering behind her hand, and Elrodan nudged her hard on the shoulder.

"No, no," she said, struggling to breathe. "Don't misunderstand me. It's wonderful."

Quinton still felt perturbed by her amusement and the dumbfounded confusion of the elves. With his pride still stinging, he began to explain in simple terms about combining magic and jet propulsion and demonstrated the concept by pulling out an E.L.F.S. jet pack, much to the wood elves' open mouth astonishment.

They all agreed that there was far too much for Quinton to cover in a single hour, and he invited the wood elves to return after he had made up some notes. They bade him farewell before exiting the lab. Afterward, only Orëna and Elrodan remained.

"So," began Orëna as she spun the globe lazily and twisted back and forth on her stool. "Minariel."

"Yes," said Quinton. He paused briefly as he rifled through a filing cabinet. "Or Lydia, that being her human name. What about her?"

"You're friends?"

"Yes."

"And Bernard? The elder one?"

"He's my best friend. Why?"

"What's he like?" asked Elrodan.

"I don't know. He's sort of complicated. Brooding and snarky. Compassionate and caring. Why do you not introduce yourselves and get to to know him?"

"He doesn't seem too much inclined toward conversation," said Elrodan.

"No, not very talkative that one," agreed Orëna.

"Probably in shock, poor thing."

"That's no excuse," said Orëna. "He should be leading talks and such, not hiding from them. What does it say that the little ones are more open to us than he is?"

"Perhaps he is more set in his ways. After all, he doesn't remember any more than they do."

"That's true, I suppose. Little ones are nice and springy that way."

"He's very devoted to what we do," said Quinton, fidgeting with the papers between his fingers. He pulled out a file and slammed the drawer shut. "Although, you may be right. I'm afraid he hasn't taken any of this at all well. He was shaken by Lydia's return. He barely had time to recover from that when you arrived."

"And Minariel?" asked Elrodan.

"I've hardly had time to speak with her," said Quinton with a frown.

"You three were quite a group, I imagine," said Orëna, earning a quick smile from Quinton. "Tell us about your time with her."

"She hasn't told you herself?"

"No, she didn't remember before we arrived, and ever since we did, she's been a bit quiet," explained Orëna.

Quinton liked all of the wood elves. Even Gilrohir's stern leadership endeared him for reasons he could not quite explain. Perhaps his stubborn devotion was a little familiar. Elrodan and Orëna in particular he found he liked very much. Their camaraderie and eagerness to learn, added with the fact that they treated him not like a centuries old child, but rather like the learned scholar he was, and a like mind, made him feel more or less instantly close to them. He therefore felt no qualms whatsoever about telling them the entire story.

"My goodness," was all Elrodan could say when he had finished.

Orëna recovered only a bit faster. Her face bore a look of grave shock, as she muttered something under her breath in a language Quinton did not recognize. He only knew enough to know that it was not Elvish. She shook her head and tugged at her braided beard, and a twinkle came into her eye.

"Quinton, my lad," she said. "How are you at matchmaking?"

Quinton blinked at her. As soon as his mind caught up with hers, he began to vigorously shake his head.

"Oh no," he said. "Bernard hates it when I meddle."

"I doubt that would stop someone like you."

"Ordinarily no, but they've both been through quite a shock. I think we should give them time to work it out for themselves, before we start putting in our oars."

"Eh?"

Quinton put on a smile of his own.

"Orëna, you are going to love Gilbert and Sullivan."


Orëna and Elrodan were far from the only ones interested in learning all that the human world had to offer. Thus one day, as Carol straightened up her office, she heard a knock at the door.

"Come in."

The door opened, and Lydia walked into the room. She looked nervous.

"Carol, may I ask you something?"

"Absolutely."

"Quinton told me that you used to be a schoolteacher?"

"I was a high school principal."

Lydia's head tilted to one side.

"Sort of like a headmistress, I think you would say. I ran the school."

"I see. Did you do any teaching yourself?"

"I did, before I was promoted."

"Would you happen to have any books from those days?"

"You want to read? At a time like this?"

"I've been away so long. Away from the human world, that is. Even though so much has changed, I feel as though part of me will always be human."

"You want to get caught up?"

"Yes, please. Quinton said he'd help me learn about modern science, but if you had any history books-"

Something seemed to light up inside Carol.

"Definitely," she said as she beamed at Lydia. "I can absolutely help you get caught up in history. Anything else?"

"Literature, perhaps. Culture in general. I keep hearing references to things I don't understand."

Her eye caught a doll standing on a shelf. She picked it up and looked into its plastic face. She was not a baby doll like Lydia remembered from her childhood. Rather the doll was in the mold of a young woman, tall and slender with long voluminous hair. She wore a gown in light gold fabric with embroidery in silver threads and a circlet with three rhinestone gems in her hair. Her face shimmered under her silvery makeup. Lydia worked the doll's limbs and frowned at the limited movement of her joints. She returned the doll to its shelf.
"This world was once my home, but I don't know it anymore. I'd like to get reacquainted."

"I would love to help you do that. Give me some time, and I'll see what I can track down, book-wise."

Thrilled as Lydia was to have her help, she was astonished to find that Carol did one better. Several of the wood elves, including Orëna and Elrodan, also expressed interest in learning about human culture and history. Elrodan especially, historian of the elves, viewed their expedition as an opportunity to learn as much about the human species as he could. At Gilrohir's tepid response to his enthusiasm, Elrodan gave him a fervent reminder.

"These elves have been isolated all this time, except for their interactions with humans. If we have any hope to understand what they have become and the lives they have led, we must endeavor to understand the human world as well."

Thus Carol sought out an empty room and filled it with chairs and tables. She mounted a whiteboard and a large screen on one wall, and covered the rest of the walls in bulletin boards and educational posters she had kept from her days as a high school principal.

"Nice touch," said Santa, looking at a poster of a green creature with large ears holding a book that said 'READ and the Force is With You.' "but I don't think these guys are going to understand the reference."

"One more thing to put on the list then."

"Ah yes, after the World Wars came the Star Wars."

"Lydia said she wanted to get caught up on human culture as well as history, so film history is something we'll discuss. You never know, maybe one of the wood elves will end up a fan."

Carol, delighted to be at the front of a classroom full of eager students, threw herself into teaching. Quinton assisted, lightening her load by hosting workshops in the lab and teaching the wood elves about science.

Orëna was a regular fixture at these workshops and often visited him at other times, going so far as to offer insight on the applications of certain elements. Within days of his explaining the basics of physics and chemistry, she had the entire periodic table memorized, a feat she credited to her dwarven ancestry, even if she did not fully understand yet all the table meant. She also read every book he could find for her on medicine. As soon as she had finished one, she gave it to Naurelin with orders to read it as soon as possible. The pair could often be seen at mealtimes, poring over anatomical diagrams with a mug in one hand and a pen in the other. One night, Quinton finally became curious enough to look over their shoulders at their notes, only to find he could not make out a single word. The elf ladies each had a sheet in front of them. The one in front of Naurelin was in an elegant flowing script, while the one in front of Orëna was scrawled in a blocky geometric lettering.

"We're translating them," said Naurelin, storing her pen behind her ear, a practice both she and Orëna seemed to have picked up from him. "For back home."

Soon after this, Orëna eagerly granted Quinton's request to teach him Elvish, though he found the intricacies of its script and grammar far more difficult than he anticipated.

Other elves displayed other interests. Elrodan had to negotiate with Lydia over whose turn it was with Carol's history books. While he was occupied with one volume, he spent his time reading literature. He developed a particular fondness for Marquez and Tennyson. He became determined to memorize Tennyson's In Memoriam in its entirety, a goal which astonished Carol and had Santa himself muttering under his breath at its sheer audacity, once his wife explained that her copy of the poem was nearly eighty pages long.

As eager as the wood elves were to allow their new young to teach them all they knew, they were equally reticent to reciprocate. Certainly they were willing to teach them new skills and their language, especially to the oldest among them, but they were very reluctant to discuss the past, answering only in the vaguest terms when asked. They told stories and legends which seemed almost like they had come from a book of faerie tales rather than history. Little bits of trivia about the culture of Hollin were all the elves got from their woodland kin. Even Orëna was oddly quiet about Hollin's fate when Quinton questioned her about it.

"You're young," was all she said. "I don't think we expected you to be so young."

Only the oldest and sharpest among the elves appeared to mind or even notice for that matter. They had acquired, quite literally overnight, a few dozen elder cousins and were more than content to simply become acquainted with them person to person. Most of the wood elves felt the same, lovingly attentive as their young friends showed them aspects of their lives that to those at the Pole were routine, but to the oldest of eyes, were new and wondrous.

Not all was well though. One night found Gilrohir staring at the wisps of green and purple against the black of the sky. The crunch of snow behind him signalled that he was no longer alone.

"What troubles you?" said Elrodan.

"I do not know these stars."

"So learn them," retorted his companion. "They have names. The humans know more of the stars then we ever could."

Gilrohir said nothing.

"There's something else, Gilrohir," said Orëna. "What's wrong?"

"This peace cannot last."

"What do you mean?" asked Elrodan. He laid a hand on Gilrohir's armored shoulder.

Gilrohir stared out into the endless expanse of ice and snow. He shook his head.

"A smell, a tremor in the ground, a shift in the air. I cannot name it."

If his companions had not known him better, they might have said they saw him shudder. He turned and looked at them, his face like stone.

"Something is coming. I can feel it."

Gilrohir then turned away from the blankets of darkness and ice and headed back toward camp, and his companions, filled now with silent unease, followed him.


A/N: You have no idea how hard it was for me to resist geeking out in this chapter. Astronomy, geology, anthropology, poetry, and history are all strong interests of mine. I had to cut Quinton - and myself - off somewhere. This chapter about killed me, but I'll be honest, I had fun showing off a bit. I know this chapter's a bit Bernard (and Lydia) light, but they'll be back in the next chapter, along with the dialogue. And I swear the plot's going to happen soon.

*Italics indicate dialog spoken in Elvish.

-Title adapted from "Carol of the Bells"