::Jupiter:: I have no clue what's going on.
::Laurëalas:: Well, that's normal.
::Jiana:: Shut up. Good chappie. Read. Laur, how we keeping Ewik?
::Laurëalas:: *sweatdrops*
::Jiana:: So... nothing's ours except Erik and ourselves and anything that seems like it might be a personality in the DBZ characters.
::Jupiter:: We don't own Erik!
::Jiana:: No, not we, us! Laur and I.
Chapter 14 – Laurëalas Heero
I was sitting in between Legolas and Glorfindel,
and across from Aragorn. We had been trying to eat lunch, but the quite
disgusting display at the table assuaged most of our appetite. So instead
we went outside and I had talked them into helping me with pronunciation
of the few phrases I knew of Sindarin and Quenya. They were beautiful languages,
even if I would have no one to speak them to once we figured out how to
send them home.
"Ai lintulinda Lasselanta
Pilingeve suyer nalla ganta
Kuluvi ya karnevalinar…"
"Karnevalinar. Make the last 'a' longer."
"Kuluvi ya karnevalinar
V'ematte singi Eldamar." I smiled triumphantly. That was probably the
longest one I knew all the way through. It was actually a poem. I was catching
on by this time and hadn't made many mistakes. "Auta i lome."
"Auta i lómë.
"Auta i… lómë." I was rather frustrated
that my success had made me careless. "Aurë… um… entul-luva? Is that
even close to right?"
"Entuluva," said Aragorn slowly. "You seem to have
picked up quite an assortment of phrases."
I nodded. "Entuluva. Aurë entuluva," I repeated.
"Well, I told you how here you're from a book. I've read it a lot. It's
a good story, one of my favorites if fact. It's right up there with the
Shannara books and the Vampire Chronicles. Elen síla lumenn' omentielvo."
"Very good. Shannara? The Vampire Chronicles?"
"I'm glad. I've known that one for so long that
it would be very difficult to make myself change the way I say it. The
Vampire Chronicles are amazing books! Anne Rice wrote them. I do hope that
we don't get any characters from there showing up though, as the majority
of them are vampires. The Shannara books are by Terry Brooks, and
really that world is a good deal like yours. There are Elves, humans, Dwarves,
no hobbits though. There's Gnomes, and trolls. And a few other races –
Mogwrents? I think that's it, or at least close. It's been a while since
I read those books. The Druids there are quite a bit like the Rangers of
your world and the minions of darkness, whose names I've forgotten for
the moment, are very similar to the ring wraiths. Okay, let's see how much
I can get of this one." I paused, taking a breath and drudging up the Elven
song from my memory. "A Elbereth Gilthoniel silivren penna míriel
o menel aglar elenath! Na-chaered… palan-díriel… o… ga… gala… galad?"
I stopped, sighing in frustration. "I don't remember any more."
"Well, your pronunciation was near perfect until
the end," stated Aragorn. I shrugged.
"I still wish I could remember all of it. It's one
of my favorite songs from the story. Well, except for… wait. That's much
later. Can't tell you about that one then. It was very touching though.
I've always been partial to melancholy ballads."
"Why?" Legolas looked truly curious. I shrugged
and stared at the ground, not wanting to explain that morbid music helped
me through my frequent bouts of depression. I had quite a collection of
burned CD's filled with songs about death, destruction, and heartache.
"I wish I could remember the rest of it," I repeated
in an attempt to change the subject. There was a moment of silence in which
none of us spoke.
"A Elbereth Gilthoniel
silveren pena míriel
o menel aglar elenath!"
Glorfindel was singing in a soft, clear tenor. His
voice lifted me from the dark mood I had been threatening to fall into.
I listened attentively to catch the rest of it. I would always remember
the sound of him singing for me.
"Na-chaered palan-díriel
o galadhremmin ennorath
Fanuilos le linnathon
Nef aear, si nef aearon!"
"Thank you." I wiped away tears that I hadn't noticed
until now. Glorfindel looked definitely embarrassed, not to mention a little
upset that he had made me cry. I smiled a little to show that I was all
right. The songs of Elves touch the soul in a way that the fleeting music
of mortals cannot.
"I think that is enough lessons in the Elven tongues
for today," Aragorn said gently. I nodded in agreement. Then my face brightened
and my smile grew.
"Time for a lesson in listening!" I hopped off the
porch railing and grabbed Legolas's hand, pulling him around to the side
of the house. Aragorn raised an eyebrow in question and Glorfindel shrugged
sheepishly.
"We promised Laur that we would try to teach her
to hear the trees' voices." Aragorn chuckled and the two of them followed
us. We hadn't gone very far, which was why I could still hear and see them.
I'd sat under the small mimosa tree. I'd wanted to go to the huge black
walnut tree behind the house, but dragging a half amused-half annoyed Elf
that far hadn't seemed like a good idea.
"Okay, how do I start?" With a sigh Legolas sat
beside me and began explaining things like breathing and concentration
and such. It was really a lot like my first karate lesson, so I caught
on quickly. I laid a hand on one of the little tree's thin limbs as a way
to mentally ground myself to it. Then, in a relaxed and almost trance-like
state I began to listen.
Listening to a tree is not at all like listening
to sounds. You don't hear them with your ears. It's a little bit your mind,
a little your heart, and a little something else. I'm not quite sure what.
Maybe it's your spirit, your soul, the essence of your being. It didn't
really matter much. I could sense the sap pulsing deep under the smooth
bark, and the green frond-like leave drinking in the sunlight. I could
feel the life in it as if it were a songbird under my fingers rather than
cool wood. I couldn't quite hear what the tree might be saying, but I was
most definitely closer than I ever had been before.
After what seemed like only moments I felt a hand
touch my arm. I shook my head, drawing myself away from my communion with
the tree. The sun felt too bright against my eyes. My head felt as if I'd
gone and slammed it repeatedly into a brick wall while moving at high speeds.
"Ouch," I observed, moving my hands gingerly to my head as if I could keep
the viscous headache from splitting my skull open like an over-ripe watermelon.
"Here, chew these." Aragorn handed me a few withered
looking leaves, which I obediently popped into my mouth.
"Ew," I stated, but my headache was already subsiding.
Whatever these nasty-tasting leaves were, they worked better than any pain
reliever I would have found in the house.
"I remember my first lesson in hearing the trees.
I didn't last nearly so long as you did," Aragorn told me. I smiled a little
through my swiftly vanishing headache. "Of course, I was five at the time."
"Thanks," I said sardonically as the three of them
grinned.
"Humans trying to learn do generally end up with
headaches fit to bring down a mountain. Elves, apparently, do not."
"Of course not, Estel," Glorfindel huffed as though
he were mortally offended by even the thought of Elves getting headaches.
Then he and Legolas laughed as Aragorn gave me a rueful look.
"How long was I listening?" I asked curiously, noticing
that the shadows had moved significantly.
"Only about an hour. That's quite impressive for
a first try though," Aragorn told me.
"An hour?" I was surprised. "It didn't feel like
nearly that long!"
"Yes, and now you may understand why trees take
so long to do anything, if they do anything at all. Time moves slowly for
them."
"Well, maybe next time I'll actually hear her speak."
"Perhaps." I stood, a little shakily, and wiped
bits of grass off myself. My leg was asleep, but after sitting Indian-style
on the ground for an hour I suppose it had a right to be. I stayed put
a moment until I was sure that it would support me before the four of us
trooped back inside.
They almost immediately sat in a corner and began
a conversation in rapidly flowing Sindarin. It sounded quite lyrical and
I pause a moment to listen to it even though I couldn't understand it.
Most everyone else was sitting on the floor playing games. Vegeta and Gandalf
were actually talking to each other. I decided I didn't really want to
know about what. Walking through the kitchen I saw Chi Chi and Bulma washing
dishes from lunch… still. I was about to offer to help out when I heard
a knock on the back door.
Now don't think I'm crazy (well, I am, but that's
beside the point) but I sincerely hoped it wasn't anyone real. With a house
full of cartoon and storybook characters I seriously didn't need any relatives
showing up, and they were to only one's who used the back door. That, of
course, meant that I was hoping for more fictional characters. That meant
more people in the house, more people to figure out how to send home, more
mouths to feed, and that Ji might possibly go completely ballistic.
In spite of all this I trudged to the back door
and opened it. "Oh." Standing in front of me were a pair of black-haired
children alike enough to be twins. The one on the right wore a striped
tee shirt, jeans, a jacket, and sneakers that were untied. The one on the
left wore a frilly dress and cloak, a tiara perched in her hair. A blue-clad
faerie hovered just above her shoulder. Behind them stood a boy who was
about the same height as the two children. He had spiky, tri-colored hair.
Behind him stood a white haired boy and a tall boy with short brown hair.
"Oh," I repeated for good measure.
"Excuse me," said the spiky haired boy. "We seem
to be lost…"
I interrupted him. "You have somehow, by some method
we've yet to discover, traveled to another dimension where you are all
fictional characters in a cartoon. A particularly good cartoon, I might
add. Anyway, come on in and I'll introduce you to everyone. We're doing
our best to try to figure out how to send everyone home."
"Oh," said Yugi, echoing my earlier sentiment.
"So you know who we are already?" asked Mokuba.
"Princess Adina, who is also a mystical elf, and
her little helper faerie," I began, nodding toward the girl. "Mokuba Kaiba,
who idolizes his older brother and wants to grow up to be just like him.
Yugi Motou, Duelist Kingdom champion and bearer of the Millennium Puzzle
and Hikari of the ancient spirit that resides inside it." Yugi's eyes widened
in surprise as I said this. "Ryou Bakura, bearer of the Millennium Ring
and Hikari of its evil spirit. Seto Kaiba, head of Kaiba Corp., boy genius,
amazing duelist, inventor of some really awesome technology to make dueling
more realistic, but above all, Mokuba's big brother."
"I guess that means yes," Mokuba stated in amazement.
I just nodded.
"My name's Laurëalas Heero. Well, I'll introduce
you to everyone and then we'll see if you can blend in and pretend you
were always here. I think that if Ji realizes more people have shown up
she'll go postal or something. Oh, and please keep your technology to yourselves
as much as possible. Most of these people are from less advanced realities.
Not all, but most." Taking my warning about Ji quite seriously, they all
followed me in silence. The kitchen was empty now. Bulma and Chi Chi must
have been almost finished when I'd come through. I reached the living room
and Jupiter looked up, did a double take, and grinned. I motioned for him
to keep quiet and introduced everyone with as little noise as possible.
However, our peace was not to be. Just as everyone was settling back into
talking and game playing, Jiana came down the stairs.
Authour's Note:
::Laurëalas:: Wow! I talked a lot.
::Jiana:: I have a sharp and pointy object. *grins evilly*
::Laurëalas:: Review... before she uses it.
Translations for Elvish:
Ai lintulinda Lasselanta
(O swiftly sing of autumn)
Pilingeve suyer nalla ganta
(...)
Kuluvi ya karnevalinar
(Red-gold-will which red fire of power)
V'ematte singi Eldamar.
(... Elvenhome.)
Auta i lómë.
(The night is passing.)
Aurë entuluva.
(Day shall come again.)
Elen síla lumenn' omentielvo.
(A star shines on the hour of our meeting.)
A Elbereth Gilthoniel
(Oh Star-Queen, Star Kindler)
silveren pena míriel
([White] glittering slants down sparkling like jewels)
o menel aglar elenath!
(From firmament gloy [of the] star-host!)
Na-chaered palan-díriel
(To-remote distance after having gazed)
o galadhremmin ennorath
(from treewoven middle-earth,)
Fanuilos le linnathon
(Snow-white, to thee I will chant)
Nef aear, si nef aearon!
(on this side of the ocean, here on this side of the
great ocean!)
[word]=added in during translation for gramatical
purposes.
(...)=not a clue what this part means.