Working Title – Self-discovery/5 - REPOST - With further shame-faced apologies. There were two working copies of this chapter and I managed to pick up my draft document, instead of the finished, corrected product and didn't realize it until Ziggy - thank you, my precious! - pointed it out this morning. I love 's easy posting procoess, but it's so easy, I've been lulled into false complacency and never remember to check and make sure I'm posting the right parts.
Summary: Day 12 – Falls of Siron/different races relating to nature; Day 13 – Balar/ unanswered prayers; Day 21 – Mirkwood/use of East & West
"Up, lazybones. While you slept we anchored off Tol Morwen. If you wish to see it, awake! Greet the sun!"
"Go away. I no longer wish to see Tol Morwen," Aragorn mumbled, burrowing deeper into the warm nest of his substance-induced dreams. Shrugging off the hand shaking his shoulder, he rolled toward the back of the bunk, thunking his skull against the bulkhead. "Ow! I have just gone to sleep, it cannot be time to get up."
The overloud voice in the confined space shouted cheerfully, "Oh, but it is! Come, Master Shadow, the day is wasting away whilest you wrap yourself in dreams. Up, up!"
"Irmo Lórien," Aragorn groaned, pulling the blanket and the pillow over his head, "save me from this madman. Or leastways safeguard my dreams that I may find the paths again when next I lay down my head."
"A prayer destined to go unanswered," Borlath snorted, banging open a porthole. "Trust me in this, the Valar are too engaged in minding their own business to indulge such whims."
A fresh breeze wafted through the small, stuffy cabin, bearing on it the redolent combination of beach sand, damp earth, wet grass and forest.
Under the blanket, Aragorn shoved his fists into his eye sockets and curled into a tight ball. His head pounded as if Aulë worked his forge on the deck above. His mouth tasted like a flock of crebain had roosted there for the night and, he discovered, he was ravenous. The last, he decided, was reason enough to rouse himself to wakefulness.
Before he could force his recumbent body into a sitting position, however, the blanket was snatched away and he was hauled up by the back of his shirt.
"The crew has threatened to throw you overboard if I do not see to it that you wash. This particular bit of rebellion will end today."
His feet hit the floor with a jarring thud and Aragorn folded over his knees, grabbing his head with a groan.
Admittedly, he had purposely left off many of the habits he had been taught practically from infancy. He had actively coarsened his speech and his person, chosen to live in filth and squalor, tried hard to shut down conscience and morality, and generally repudiated anything to do with his life growing up. Ignoring personal grooming, a requisite conformity among the elven enclave, had been easier than some of the others.
To say truth, he was quite tired of this little rebellion himself, had been since before he had boarded ship in Lindon. But it had seemed like every time he had tried to shuck his clothes to wash either himself or his garments, a female of the house had been in dire need of … something. With no locks and no furniture to bar the door, he had finally given up. The itching had faded after a few weeks and he had consciously avoided looking into any reflective surface.
The pounding in his head notched up a level as he staggered to his feet in an attempt to reach the wash basin and at least splash water on his face. Long fingers curled around his upper arm, steadying him.
Borlath shook his head. "I did suggest you stop considerably earlier than you chose to."
Aragorn turned his head to squint at the captain. "You did," he agreed, baring his teeth in a semblance of a grin. "I would suffer a hundred times worse to relive last night's – or – this morning's," he amended, "dreams." Strangely, somewhere beneath the incessant hammering, a euphoric sense of well-being overrode all physical complaints. He sat down abruptly anyway.
"Eat - it may steady both your head and your stomach."
A small plate of sugared dates was thrust into his hands and Aragorn instantly gagged.
"Ai – more unanswered prayers," Borlath opined, having hoped to avoid this very thing. Snatching up the youngster, he half-carried, half-dragged him out of the cabin, up the companionway and deliberately across the main deck to the starboard side. Away from where the long boat was already in the water awaiting passengers. "May Ulmo forgive me for curdling his seas. Harwan, water – and a rag."
Aragorn felt like a rag by the time his stomach settled enough to allow him to loosen his grip on the low railing. He sank to his knees, too shaky to trust them to hold him up and felt someone gather up the hair that had come loose from his queue, pulling it back from his face. The boots at eye level were not the knee-high, cuffed boots Borlath wore. The called for rag was thrust into his hands and Aragorn risked moving his head far enough to acknowledge whoever was tending his hair.
"My thanks," he rasped hoarsely, tentatively lifting a hand to hold it back himself.
The sailor's white grin was genial, though Aragorn was too insensate to be able to translate the rapid fire delivery of the speech directed at him. He wondered briefly why he'd chosen a ship crewed by individuals who spoke none of the many languages he knew – forgetting in the moment that he'd purposely done so in an effort to thwart the news making its way back to his foster father before he had set sail.
"Harwan says it is not unusual for this to happen your first time smoking the shisha. Few have the iron stomach, he says, to tolerate the power of the opiate." Borlath lowered himself carefully to his heels beside the pale-faced young man, offering a dry biscuit. "Usually this hits catechumen earlier in the experience. I did not look for it with you, since you did seem to tolerate it so well last night."
He glanced up at the sailor still standing behind the youth as Harwan rattled off another gurgling speech, chuckling throughout.
"I suspect he would not appreciate a translation of that," Borlath chided good-naturedly, in his own tongue. "You are likely correct, my friend; his body is still virgin territory, unaccustomed to our ways. And, aye, I will smoke less and supervise more, if there is a next time."
"You said I would grow used to it," Aragorn challenged, translating enough to catch the gist of the humorous exchange. While he could not capture his dreams in memory, the insubstantial wisps curling through his mind still, were infinitely pleasing. "I would suffer far worse than this."
"You found the kingship not so onerous with the lady by your side, eh? Eat the biscuit." Borlath unfurled himself to rise. "Unless you are Túrin-cursed, it will give your stomach something other than itself to digest. Sit."
The command was easily enforced as Aragorn was swaying on his knees and the hand on his shoulder guided him back and down on his rump so he was leaning against the railing he'd just been leaning over. He drew in a deep breath, let go of his hair and leaned his head back carefully as well.
"Come Harwan, I expect he will feel better without an audience."
Two pairs of footsteps receded and Aragorn was alone with the sun steadily warming the extremities that had gone cold as all the blood had rushed to augment critical organs. He concentrated on controlling his racing heartbeat…slowing his respiration…filling his lungs completely…and trying to recapture the essence of the dreams where he had walked with the one he loved beneath the great mallorn trees of Lothlórien.
His gift of healing had been enhanced by his studies with Elrond, but he did not yet have enough control to exercise it on his own behalf. And practicing here, under these conditions, was out of the question. So he sat and nibbled carefully at the biscuit until he was sure it would not immediately reappear, waiting for that underlying sense of well-being to seep back after its temporary displacement.
Because he was young and healthy and fit, his body threw off the effects of over-indulgence relatively quickly. While he did not exactly swarm down the netting with the crew heading for shore, he did make it down into the long boat on his own, and by the time the sailors were shipping oars as they beached the craft, he was one of the first ones out to help drag it up beyond the high tide mark.
Borlath stepped out of the boat onto dry ground. "With your interest in maps, I must assume you know the cardinal points and can orient yourself by the sun?"
Aragorn nodded.
"Good. Come then, I will show you the best place to bathe and then you may explore on your own, if you wish, or if you prefer, I will assign one of the crew to accompany you. The island is hardly large enough to become lost, you have only to head down hill and you will eventually reach the beach."
"I have been finding my way around on my own for many years; I do not need a chaperon." Inside the borders of Rivendell to be sure, but the valley was likely larger than the island, though the deceptive distance of the ship from shore had obviously diminished the relative perspective.
"It was an offer only," Borlath said mildly. "You are a prickly one are you not." He did not inflect it as a question, nor wait to be answered.
The captain turned and headed up the beach toward the verge of the pine forest sloping tamely upward to the summit rising no more than a mile or two above the beach. At that rate, its circumference could be no greater than a day's walk, perhaps far less.
Aragorn instinctively fielded a feathery branch that slapped back in the wake of Borlath's passing, following more with his feet than his mind as he visualized yesterday's maps again. The ship was anchored on the lee side of the island, prepared to sail further east, on to Himling and Tol Fuin, which meant they were moving steadily west as the slope of the hill was very gradual and it appeared they were moving sideways rather than straight up.
The forest was ancient, the undergrowth dense and gloomy where the sun did not penetrate. Scrambling over a boulder taller than he was, planted deep amongst the beeches and oaks that had grown up around it, Aragorn was reminded that this was an island because ages ago, the earth itself had been rent from its foundations by Morgoth's treachery. Yavanna's lovingly nurtured gifts had suffered ravishment, yet even in death they had reseeded much of the land, growing up again around the protruding bones of the earth.
It was a wild beauty, untamed by any human hand, yet clothed with an almost decadent richness. This far north on the continent, autumn was tinting leaves and withering the stumps of harvested crops. Here, the shades of green were innumerable and clumps of wild flowers in rioting colors reached for the sun in every open space. Bright yellow trefoil, purple thistle and catmint, red woundwort, white clover, pink marjoram, blue bindweed all growing cheek by jowl, spilling over rocks, fountaining from unexpected crannies, sprouting in the cracks of boulders where eons of rich earth had accumulated, blossoming everywhere a tentative foothold could be gained.
Rivendell, for all its famed beauty, seemed tame in comparison. Here chaos reigned supreme, but it was a chaos that majestically encompassed nature's bounty. Aragorn looked upon it with a keen eye and a heart pierced deep by the loveliness.
He was glad for Borlath's silence, preferring his own ruminations to conversing. The Easterling walked with his head down, apparently equally lost in his own cogitations, as his boots trod heedless upon boulder and flower alike. Perchance the man came so frequently the island's charming vistas were no longer appreciated.
Aragorn turned his thoughts again. Glancing around, he wondered if perhaps the shallow vale they hiked might have once coursed with the waters of the River Tieglin. Which reminded him that somewhere nearby, long ago on this remnant of First Age land, the mighty Túrin had slain Glaurang, the father of all dragons.
As a small boy, Aragorn had begged for dragon stories at every opportunity, cherishing a not-so-secret desire for a dragon of his very own. He'd been absolutely certain, aided and abetted by his brother's cultivation, he could tame one if only he could find an egg. To that end, there had been many a woodland romp with the twins, seeking out aeries where dragons might nest, hunting for clutches of eggs. Until an eight-year-old Estel had misstepped and tumbled down into a deep defile too narrow for either Elladan or Elrohir to descend. Fortunately, they had carried rope and Estel had only sprained an ankle badly, but their father had put an end to the nest hunting with the simple expedient of telling the bed-bound youngster of the tragedy at Laketown and the death of the last dragon in Middle-earth.
But then his brother's had snuck an enormous iridescent blue egg into his room and bade him keep it under the blankets to see if would hatch. Which he had done faithfully for the duration of his convalescence. When the progeny had failed to come forth by the end of the eternal week-long recuperation, they had convinced him he should break open the egg to see if the baby dragon needed assistance getting out of its hard shell.
Being the best egg cracker in the house, Faeleth the cook had been summoned to preside over the ceremonial splintering. She had come bearing a large bowl, and lo and behold, with a two-handed whack against the edge of it, Estel had watched a little dragon slither from the broken egg.
Of course it had been an intricately carved and painted little dragon, but so life-like that for a moment, the boy had imagined it was real. He had named it Brégarod and it resided still, on the small table beside his bed. To this day hedid not know how they had contrived the appearance of the pristine egg, though age and experience suggested the iridescent paint had likely been the agent of conviction.
Aragorn swallowed the sudden surge of homesickness that swelled like the sea beneath the ship. And brought his mind back to cardinal points and paying attention to the way they were going. He slapped another branch aside and increased his pace, catching up to the ship captain who had forged ahead at speed while he had been daydreaming.
"Not far now," Borlath called back over his shoulder." Shortly he was ducking under the low hanging branches of a massive beech, Aragorn following in his wake.
They straightened on the inside edge of a verdant glen. A thick layer of feathery fern carpeted the forest floor, springing back as soon as their feet had passed as they approached the edge of the natural rock pool dominating the clearing. The translucent green water hinting at mineral springs.
"One of nature's bounteous gifts." Borlath made a sweeping hand gesture. "Your bath, my lord," he said with a bow, dark eyes twinkling. "Do not slip and drown yourself."
From the voluminous pocket of his coat, he drew a small canvas bag and handed it to Aragorn.
"To reach the standing stone raised in commemoration of Morwen Eledhwen, go straight up from here, at the top continue east and follow the crest of the hill until you come to it. If you go straight down the other side, the beach where we landed is half an hour's walk west again. The boat will return at sunset."
From the other pocket, he withdrew a mesh bag of dried meat, cheese, some more of the biscuits from the morning's meal and more of the dates that had caused the precipitous departure from the cabin earlier.
He turned to go even as Aragorn began shaping words of thanks. "Ai, it will take some scrubbing to get down to skin again, it will be interesting to see what you really look like under all that filth," he tossed over his shoulder, then stopped abruptly and turned back. "One other thing before I forget. The men will be hunting game today. Do not go slipping through the woods elflike, else you will be returning to the ship with piercings to rival an Easterling." The captain turned once more to go with one last word of advice. "Be sure to wash behind your ears."
"You must know my father," Aragorn chose to enter into the spirit of the teasing rather than resent it. He tossed the grimy grey shirt he pulled off over his head into the bed of ferns and started on the buttons of his breeches.
"Nay," Borlath returned without slowing. "I have never met Lord Elrond or his sons, though I have met his daughter."
"What? Wait!" Torn between wanting to follow and demand further details and the waterfall burbling over the rocks behind him, Aragorn took a step forward, then halted as the captain's voice drifted back to him again.
"Lúthien took a mortal to husband, t'would not be the first joining of elf maid and man."
He heard snatches following of the Lay of Lúthien until the booming voice faded into the distance and was gone.
Aragorn shook his head, stripped out of the rest his clothes and dumped the contents of the canvas bag into the grass beside the rock surround. A smallish, framed piece of highly polished tin, a leather razor strop, a lidded jar of soap, and a comb slid out.
Bracing himself, he lifted the mirror and met a stranger with a scraggly beard, a bird's nest of snarled and matted hair, and a darkly tanned face totally foreign to the one he had known in the mirror at home.
Here, truly, Estel met Aragorn for the first time.
TBC