A/N: Back to our favorite dorky elf's POV.
Also, on a hilarious side-note Alice scores a 40 on the Universal Mary Sue Litmus Test which apparently means cast it into the flames!
Edit: Much of the plot for this chapter pulls from what was once Chapter 3. Don't worry, baby stuff is coming up next chapter. And then after that we'll be where I left off and everything onwards will be brand new territory.
History Will Be Kind To Me
From Lands Beyond
"A nation's culture resides in the hearts and in the soul of its people" - Mahatma Gandhi
04. Human Customs
Lothlórien, 2998 of the Third Age
Celírion had seen Alice do many strange things over the course of her stay in Lothlórien, like when she wrote in her book in that queer script of hers, or when she waved her hands around when she spoke. And yet...this by far had to be the strangest.
"What is that?" He eyed the mutilated squash in the girl's lap and then the considerably sharp looking knife she was using to carve holes into it.
She didn't even bother to look up. "I make Jack o' Lantern."
Celírion blinked.
"And what, pray tell, is a Jack o' Lantern?"
This time she stopped and glanced up at him, pausing to consider the question. Celírion watched wearily as the blade in her hand slipped a little in her fingers, forgotten. She furrowed her brows and pursed her lips in concentration. "Jack o' Lantern...tradition...in...my...home." She said the words slowly as if she were attempting to recall the correct ones. Their lessons in the gardens had improved her Sindarin immensely, though she was still nowhere near fluent, and it showed in the way she often stumbled over her words.
"Tradition?" He prompted, sinking down to crouch at her level.
A wistful smile crept across her face then. "Yes. Halloween."
"Halloween?" The word was strange on his tongue.
"Human festival," she explained, still smiling.
Celírion's eyes flicked back down to the disfigured vegetable in her lap. "And what then, is this Jack o' Lantern of yours for?"
Alice shrugged. "Bad spirits."
His brows rose into his hairline. "Bad spirits," he repeated, somewhat skeptically. And how exactly was a mangled yellow vegetable going to ward away evil spirits?
"Long time...away...people make Jack o' Lantern scare bad spirits away." It was clearly a tricky explanation for her and he caught himself staring as she bit on her lower lip pensively. "Halloween when...spirits visit humans."
"And what is it you do on this Halloween?"
"Dress like spirits...and monsters." She added the last part as if such a thing were normal and Celírion had to wonder if perhaps, to her, it was. Humans dressing up as monsters and carving holes into vegetables? Such strange holidays she had!
"Why?"
She shrugged. "Fun," and then, "I miss."
Though her communication skills were barely adequate at times, her face said everything. She looked so...sad. Unbidden, the wheels in Celírion's mind began to turn.
"When is this Halloween?"
"After harvest."
"But what kind of food do you need?" Lúthiril drawled, amused. She was of a similar height as Celírion and yet he felt as an elfling before her knowing blue gaze. He fought the urge to fidget.
"Sweet things. Fruits and pies I imagine."
A slow smile spread across the cook's face. "You imagine?"
This time, Celírion did fidget. "They are not for myself."
"Oh?" She was teasing him now. It was clear in the mirth in her eyes and the laughter in her smile. "And who are they for?"
The ellon fixed her with a hard stare. It was the same look his father had given him when he had been young and troublesome. "How long must I endure your mocking before you agree to my request?"
Lúthiril laughed. "Very well. I will see what I can do. Come back tomorrow. I should have them ready for you then."
Celírion wasn't sure if he liked the look she cast his way before turning back into the warmth of the kitchens. Sly and secretive, as if she were in on some great jest and he had yet to figure it out. Then again, Lúthiril had always been a mischievous creature, easily amused by the petty woes and fortunes of her fellows. He tried not to imagine what that meant now that she was suddenly directing such attentions upon him as he wandered away in the direction of the gardens.
Thankfully, the elves in the gardens proved to be much more accommodating than nosy Lúthiril had been, happily assisted him in picking the largest and brightest squash to take home, and never once questioning why he needed so many of them. His mother, however, was not nearly so understanding.
"Is there a particular reason you brought a whole basketful of vegetables home?" Celephíl bent over the basket in question, smoothing her hand over the flesh of a considerably large striped squash sitting at the top.
Celírion grinned. "I am going to make Jack o' Lanterns."
His mother's brows raised straight into her hairline. "I see…" she began carefully and went back to studying the basket's contents curiously. "And what, pray tell, is a Jack o' Lantern?"
Her son's grin widened.
"Well, you see…"
It was several days later before he arrived on her doorstep once more. Alice peeked out from her front door curiously, her bulging stomach hidden behind swathes of gray linen and the thick yellow shawl she'd wrapped around her shoulders to ward off the autumn chill. She gave him a friendly smile, but it was laced with a note of confusion. He had never called on her at night before.
"Hello Celírion," Alice greeted, opening the door wider and stifling a yawn behind her hand. Tinuthel appeared behind her and gave Celírion a knowing look. He had warned her of his intentions the day before while her ward had been visiting the bathhouse. Without a word, she produced a thick green cloak and wrapped it around the girl's shoulders.
"Go on. I think your friend has a surprise for you."
Alice's spine straightened and she blinked, startled. "What? I...I not understand…" She glanced back and forth between her guardian and her friend, utterly perplexed.
Gently, Celírion held out his hand and grinned. The girl stared at it wearily and then squinted, glancing back up at his face.
"Surprise?" She said the world slowly, suspicious even.
"For you," Celírion agreed eagerly. A silent war seemed to wage itself in her mind but it was soon obvious that curiosity had won out when she mustered her courage and delicately placed her hand in his own.
It wasn't until they were descending the last few steps that he saw the look of surprise and delight on Alice's face when she caught sight of the flickering light at the base of the steps.
"A Jack o' Lantern!" Despite the cold and the bulge at her middle, she stooped down to examine the crude face Celírion had carved into the squash the day before. He was not nearly as skilled at the art as his sister or her husband but Alice seemed unbothered by his lack of artistry. If anything, she was elated. She turned back to him, her face lit up with joy. "You make Jack o' Lantern!"
"I did," he confirmed and then bent down to pull out the basket he had hid under the bottom stair. Alice watched him with wide golden eyes as he carefully shook out a deer hide cloak and settled it around her shoulders. She glanced down at it curiously, brushing her fingers over the soft fur as he produced a much larger cloak of white feathers and two wooden masks. He donned the feathered cloak and then offered one of the masks to her. She took it wordlessly and marveled over it in the dim glow of the Jack o' Lantern. It had taken him two days to get the look of it right, though that probably had more to do with his father's hand in the work than his own. He was far more adept at whittling arrow shafts than he was at carving animals.
"You said on Halloween your people dress as animals," Celírion explained. He watched realization wash over her as he took the mask from her fingers and stood behind her to gently tie it into place.
The doe mask hid much of her expression from view, but he could still make out her eyes, shining bright and golden in the candlelight.
"Halloween?" She breathed. She said it like a question or a prayer, as if she dared not hope but wished for it anyway.
He nodded, his smile hidden behind his own mask now. "Halloween."
For someone supposed to be weighed down by her pregnancy, Alice was as sprightly and buoyant as one of the elves. Celírion had planned it so that there would be people stationed on the forest floor to visit, worrying that forcing the girl to climb up every talan staircase would tire her. Now he wondered if hadn't made a mistake as she practically skipped from elf to elf, forcing her friend to lengthen his stride to keep up. She laughed as she reached an amused couple by the creek and giggled the strange phrase ("Trick or Treat!") she'd taken to saying every time she met a new elf bearing treats for her. The ellon gave her an indulgent look as his wife handed her a pastry wrapped in a mallorn leaf. Alice's face was hidden behind her mask but it was obvious she was happy by her ecstatic "Thank you!" before she was off and running again.
"Humans have very strange customs," Celírion heard the ellon, Caladir, say as he watched the girl go.
His wife, Elwien, laughed, "Yes, but she is so happy. Let her have her fun." She glanced at Celírion and added, "Do not lose her now. I see she has already reached poor Megilthor. I do not believe you thought to enlist him in your game."
And she was right. Too late, Celírion spied Alice gesturing at the captain of Lord Celeborn's personal guard. He sprinted forward just in time to hear her say, "Trick or Treat?" in a decidedly more shy tone than the boisterous exclamations she'd been making previously. She must've already begun to realize that this particular elf was not in on her fun.
Megilthor glanced down at her, puzzled.
"I apologize dear child, I do not understand."
"It is a game!" Celírion all but shouted as he hurried forward. The elder ellon turned to him, an odd expressions reaching his face as he took in the curious appearance of first Celírion and then Alice again.
"A game you say?" A slow smile spread across the elder ellon's face as he studied the two. "Is that why you both are pretending to be little forest creatures?"
Flustered, Celírion tried to explain. "She missed her human festival. So I attempted to...recreate it...for...her…" He trailed off as he realized that Megilthor's expression had only grown more amused.
"I see."
"...She thought you were a part of it.."
"Yes," the ellon confirmed, his smile wide. "I noticed."
Celírion rested his fingers between his friend's shoulder blades. They fluttered under his touch, as delicate as a bird's wings. "We will leave you be," he said and bowed. Alice curtseyed instead, her middle making it impossible to copy him. It was as he was steering her away that he heard Megilthor laugh and call after them, "Have fun children!"
He directed Alice back towards the creek where they had come from. The couple from before had disappeared.
Alice lay her basket full of sweets on the cool grass and leaned heavily upon Celírion as she struggled for a moment to sit down.
"Tired," she explained with a yawn, her side pressed up against his, warm and distracting. They sat there for a while, listening to the chirping of the crickets and the rustling of the leaves overhead. Slowly, he felt her lean even more heavily upon him, her head lolling onto his shoulder. If he hadn't heard her speak once more, he would've thought her asleep.
"I no Trick or Treat long time," her voice was quiet and soft like the autumn breeze that blew through his hair, whisper-soft. "Friends say Halloween for children."
"Why would your friends say such things?" Celírion asked before a sudden thought made him pause and add, "...Is Halloween for children?"
Alice giggled, the sound vibrating up his shoulder. "...Maybe."
"But...you enjoy it anyway?"
"Yes." He couldn't see her face then, but Celírion knew that she was smiling.
There was a long moment of silence and this time he was sure she had fallen asleep when a hushed voice whispered, "Celírion?"
He turned his head in question. "Yes?"
"Thank you."
It rarely snowed in Lothlórien (and never so close to Caras Galadhon due to the Lady Galadriel's influence over the wood) but out here at the edges of the forest where their Lady's magic waned, the winds cooled and whistled through the trees and, occasionally, snow blew from Hithaeglir and dusted the treetops with glittering white frost. To Celírion it was as if he were entering a completely separate world when he went on patrol in the winter, when the balmy eternal springtime of Caras Galadhon fell away as he and his fellows ventured ever further towards the borderlands. There was a chill in the air here that bit at his cheeks and reddened his nose in a way he never experienced ensconced in the shelter of the city and the novelty of it never failed to gladden his heart. Unfortunately not all in his merry band felt as he did.
"Cease your shivering Aegol, it is not nearly as cold as you seem to believe," Dúferil scowled at Celírion's friend as he continued to quiver underneath his thick wool cloak.
"Are you sure you do not have a trace of the secondborn somewhere in your ancestry?" Teased Gorlas with a sly grin. "You certainly seemed to shiver like one." Aegol glowered at the other warden and made an unflattering suggestion about Gorlas' own family history. Celírion snorted.
"I wish Lord Aragorn would finish with his business," Aegol muttered.
Gorlas laughed. "I see you have the impatience of a secondborn too."
Celírion heard Dúferil let out a long-suffering sort of sigh and he watched her move away from the shelter of the trees and into the brightness of the open sunlit fields beyond the wood. He followed her line of sight and easily spotted the dark shape moving over the brightness of the snow-laden field.
"Lord Aragorn returns."
A sennight ago the Rohirrim had gathered along the edge of the Limlight to battle invaders. Hearing of the plight of his mortal brethren across the river, Aragorn had left the shelter of the trees to aid them and though the elves of Lothlórien took no part in the dilemmas of men, they did not stop their friend from doing so. Celírion had been there to see him off beyond the border that separated Lothlórien from the mortal world and now he was here once more to welcome the man back home.
The ellon eyed the man as he drew closer, cantering forward on a spirited roan stallion which he drew up as they entered beneath the treeline.
"How fare you my lord?" Gorlas called jovially.
The stallion tossed his head and Aragorn leaned in to soothe the creature. "I am well my friend," he swung from the saddle and Aegol moved forward to take the reins from him. "The Rohirrim drove the creatures from their lands well enough without my help, though they seemed glad for the aid."
"As well they should be," Dúferil exclaimed with pursed lips. "Come. Your lady awaits you."
Celírion caught the man's lip quirk into a wry smile.
"Well we had best not keep the lady waiting then."
A/N: Sorry this one's so much shorter than the others. This chapter was kicking my ass. No seriously. Celírion doesn't like to cooperate like Alice does. I'm all, "Okay the outline says we need to do this," and Celírion is all, "Nope. I'd much rather do this instead," and I'm all like, "Butthatdoesn'thaveanythingtodowiththeplot!OMGAARRRGGGHHHHHgfbcreunxcrgdfhslsglaefgrugsfcailefgaigf!" and then I proceed to angrily tear my hair out. Welcome to my writing process. And you wonder why it takes me so long to write these chapters...
Chapter Timeframe: October 10, 2998 T.A. - November 4, 2998 T.A.
Today in "Middle Earthean History, Culture, and Geography Notes AKA Stuff I Feel Like Talking About":
- Surprisingly I have very few notes for this chapter. This chapter was totally fluff and filler. Shameless fluff and filler. Come at bro.
- I literally listened to Spooky Scary Skeletons by Andrew Gold and Danse Macabre by Camille Saint-Saëns on an endless loop while writing this chapter.
Sindarin Names and Their Meanings/Pronunciations
Elwien - Light Blue Daughter (ell-wee-en)
Caladir - Light Male (cal-uh-deer)
Megilthor - Sword Brother (meh-gill-thor)
Gorlas - Impetuous Joy (gore-loss)
Aragorn - Revered King (air-uh-gorn)