Invisible
Prologue Part 2: The Beginning

Word Count: 2,820

Notes: You might recognise many of the indirect references here, and footnotes are abound anyhow. But to head up any complaint, I do not mean slander either to Tolkien or Paolini; my muse is just too mischievous for my peace of mind sometimes. And my apologies also for the uninspiring diction and atmosphere of this piece; it's already hard enough to try to convey all the varied messages with the plain language and dry narrative and confused timelining I've managed to dredge up. No excuse here; just… I'm sorry?

2. The Convergence

Within the roundness of the planet earth, called Arda in the Elven tongue, dotted and intersperced with vast bodies of water, there laid masses of land in various shapes and sizes, with their own features and aspects, mostly galvanised by the whims of the Powers who happened to have made or decorated them. By the middle of the Fourth Age, only two continents had already been explored by the known physical, sentient inhabitants of earth, namely the Undying Lands, called Valinor in the tongue of the most superior of these races, and Middle-earth, called Endorë in the same language; a chunk of Endorë, called Beleriand, had even sunk under the sea two ages ago by this time in fact. That did not mean that other islands and continents were not available to any of these races however, as proven by the Elves and Dwarves around this time.

The Elves who had sought to clothe themselves back in mortal flesh had somewhat successfully conducted their rituals to gain their goal. The rituals, combining various wefts of enchantments, potions and living sacrifices, saw the end of the Fourth Age and the banishment of the Elves who had participate in those rituals, now no longer immortal and untainted, out of Valinor. They were clothed in flesh now, but the doom of mortals were theirs also since they had taken those bodies for themselves*(1).

Well, those whose ritual consisted of only Men as the 'ingredient' indeed retained their features from millennia ago, before their spirits had overcome their earthly bodies; they even retained the glow of their spirits shining through their bodies that had attracted the curiosity of various mortals, though dimmed*(2). But those who sought stronger bodies by putting orcs and powerful beasts of the forest into their ritual were not so lucky. Nothing of their former features remained, save for their mental and physical prowess. Now their skin was grey and dull, and thick muscles sprouted all along their limbs. Strips of black hair adorned their thick-skulled head in-between big curled horns, and yellow eyes peered from harsh-boned faces decorated also with jagged fanged teeth of the orcs*(3). They were not Elves anymore even in the physical sense; they felt so and, ashamed with those luckier ones and afraid with their own new selves, they fled even before all the partakers of the rituals were banned from the Undying Lands.

The voyage of these disgraced former Elves, and even that of their more successful former brethren afterwards, was not hindered, and so after a long while sailing towards the setting sun they happened upon a great landmass out of the reach of the Undying Lands and Middle-earth altogether. The two species converged again in this new land, as the self-embodied Elves had trailed after their disgraced former brethren after the banishment; but after some original altercation, awkwardness and tension, they agreed to part ways from then on and sought their own places far apart from each other. Since vanity was often the prevailing weakness of all Elves*(4), regardless of who they were or what they were now, each side from then on also tried to forget the ties that had formerly bound them together. They erased each other from their memories except for a few manuscripts and journals that were guarded closely and jealously, which were never seen again by anybody save from afar or from the cover by their guardians. And also, given the fascination of all these Firstborn Children of the Creator with languages*(5), they gradually evolved their own sets of languages from those which had graced their tongues millennia before, until almost nothing of the original dialects were recogniseable in the new tongues.

And about the Dwarves? These reclusive, unshakeable, unmoveable stone-lovers at last set sail with all that they had, away from their birthland and homeland for the first and last time ever, as the Fifth Age rolled round and Men alongside their ever-growing hunters – the old mounds of the nine accursed Ringwraiths*(6) – began to impinge too much into their comfort zones: the caves, the mines, and the tall mountains of Endorë. They made peace with the sea for the first time ever – and probably for the last time too – by the help of a few sailors from the race of Men who still held sincere friendship towards them, who did not mind leaving Endorë forever for various reasons of their own, including to escape those Man-eating beasts legacy of the Necromancer of the Black Land.

The Dwarves set sail in fleets of at least a dozen ships each at one time for just as many reasons. The number of ships made sure that they had company and could support each other in this most despised part of their bold venture, but this idea was also born out of practical necessity: Acquiring the sound wood needed to build a strong ship that would brave the oceans for who knew how long was not easy, and other provisions must be gathered enough to secure their lives while on-board also. One big family or one small clan usually took one huge ship for their own use, given the number of belongings a single individual had collected throughout the years and the fact that there were usually twelve to fifteen Dwarves per extended family, and building that one ship would see a small patch of woods demolished. Gathering the needed provisions for such a long and uncertain voyage saw an even more devastating hit on the foodstock throughout the land, unfortunately, which then saw to the decrease of Men's population by at least an eighth out of starvation. In order not to antagonise the larger population by destroying the land and the lives still benefiting from it on the wake of their departure, the Dwarves thus must time the send-off of their voyages properly. They also worked out an advanced communication system by way of improved, tightly-linked Seeing Stones so that the next voyage were benefited by the experiences of those who went before it, usually by margin of at least half a decade.

By the end of the Fourth Age, no single Dwarf could be found in Endorë, just as there was no longer any Elf throughout the land. By that time also, the Dwarves were already established in small ever-growing settlements in the new land that they had discovered, which they called Alag-Kazad in their tongue*(7), which meant Land – in the sense of "big chunk of an island" of the Dwarves. The arrival of the Dragons, their enemies of old*(8), prevented them from being too prosperous or too loose in their new homeland, while nothing and nobody else had ever did before those flying, fire-breathing, dwarf-eating giant coloured lizards came to harass them and mimic their settlement. After all, this wilder, more-beautifully-ragged land had been empty of sentient beings as far as they knew when they had firstly set foot here.

Well, as far as they knew…

Unbeknownst to even most of the Powers, throughout the ages some of the lesser Powers had imitated Melian, one of their number who had taken an Elven spouse and born a half-Elven daughter famed throughout the lands and ages. They had taken mates among the Elves and Men themselves, although not for as long as Melian had, and not as faithfully as well. At most, many of them viewed it as some kind of sport, a profitable adventure, and a show of defiance towards the decree of the Creator who had ordained that there be no fruit in the union between them and matches from their own kind. The results of these ventures, half-Elves and half-Men more powerful and unique than their Elven or Mannish parents, were then spirited away and sequestered in deserted nooks of the various continents and islands throughout the world. From there, began the tales of changeling children and godly progeny that survived until ages later, defying worldly disasters and shifts, even after the real subjects of those stories were no more. These sad progeny rarely ventured out from their hideouts, all too aware that they were different and unable to fit with the rest of the society given lack of social contact, but it did not mean that they lacked in information about the world at large. And more often than not, they held contempt for their divine parents for abandoning them with each other after being taken with or against their will from their other parents, and so found that with good information they might be able to exact punishment on those philandering deities.

Upon the settlement of the Dwarves and Dragons in Alag-Khazad, the half-Powers who inhabited the same continent journeyed to the various settlements and watched the two races unseen and in silence, out of many reasons. But soon the urge to interact with these strange, never-seen-before unwitting intruders grew unbearable, and in twos or threes they began to make contact with the Dwarves and Dragons. The Dwarves called them the Grey Folk, since they always wore hooded grey cloaks whenever they appeared, while the Dragons… well, the Dragons simply acknowledged and tolerated their existence, instinctively knowing that their two races originated from similar sources*(9), and thus they had similar powers. This taciturn relation went on for millennia, even as the "Grey Folk" found the will and ways to communicate with their brethren across the continents, after listening to stories from the Dwarves about the land they had abandoned and the fond memories of places – and sometimes people – they had reluctantly left behind there.

In time, these Half-Maiar closed ranks despite the barriers of land and water, and they began to exchange information and plots with each other. They, wishing to pool their resources together and prevent more Half-Maiar to be conceived just to be abandoned after birth, also thought of gathering the races left out of the Undying Lands together in a strong, stable continent. Hence the Grey Folk living in Alalía, the land of the former Elves and their unfortunate counterparts, urged them to migrate to Alag-Khazad. The same persuation deal was whispered through the ears of Men in Endorë, which the Men now called Elor.

Sadly, before the plan managed to be enacted, the Maiarin parents of these Halflings sniffed it out and became outraged, especially when they found out that these rebellious offspring of theirs wished to bound the laws of energy into one single language as 'punishment' for their parents and their misuse of power.

They struck. They hunted down and killed many of the Halflings*(10), creating chaos in the world as the balances of power tipped here and there and everywhere, which then impacted on the races living outside of Valinor's protection as well in subtle ways. Deserts and icy stretches of wasteland were formed*(11), winter got harsher, earthquakes became frequent, volcanoes erupted, thunderstorms visited often, trees and plants and farmed crops became withered and blighted despite all nourishments or indications otherwise, animals turned skittish and rather hostile even the domestic ones to their own owners, and the seas got even rougher than before.

The Grey Folk became angry; angry and desperate. Their friends from the other races suffered unduely, they suffered very much themselves, and they perceived that their divine parents cared not at all to everything save their total obliteration. So half of their plan got enacted long before its due, and what would later be called "the Ancient Language" was born.

Only a scattered number of the Grey Folk survived this great change because of various reasons, as it did need the melding of much energy from each individual regardless of health and injuries, but they staid true to their own kind, and began to help restore order even as they evaded the notice of their now-bound divine parents.

The Fifth Age had just began, and it already started with a figurative and literal blast; one that never got recorded in the history of any other race however*(12).

Five millennia after this Arda-wide change, those who now called themselves Álfya and Urgralgra, on the subtle-but-persistent urgings of their Grey friends, began to migrate to Alag-Khazad on the east of their own continent. The Álfya called this new land Alagaësia, while the Urgralgra called it Allghrishard. The Dwarves and Dragons were not pleased with this, considering it an invasion of their land, but the discontented voices were quickly soothed by their sometimes-there sometimes-not friends in grey cloaks.

That was, until in the time of famine that proceeded the settlement of the Álfya and Urgralgra, one young Álfa by the name of Lethion mistakenly thought that the dragons were prey and shot one young yellow-scaled dragon to death…

The herendous, bloody war between the two races lasted for five long years, but the restoration of the land and the peace within it took far, far longer. In fact, three hundred years later, as Men began to venture to this war-torn place though just round its southern tip, things were only slightly getting back to the new norm of "normal" – where Dragon Riders, the result of the ultimate pact between the Álfya and Dragons, roamed the land and tried to soothe some figurative ruffled feathers as well as repair the land. But to be fair, none of the Mannish explorers ever met either of the warring parties, only some Dwarves*(13), so they would not know – and frankly, would not be interested in the adventure other than some new experience in an exotic land.

Only more than two millennia afterwards, Men began to have serious second thoughts about doggedly trying to eek a living in Elor, formerly Endorë, under the ever-growing shadow of the Man-eating beasts they called Draoren and their more-wily offspring called Drinun*(14). Their number had decreased sharply due to wars, bouts of famine, and the destruction of the forests and bodies of water, caused either by themselves or the pre-voyage preparations of the Dwarves from a long, long time ago and the hidden war of the Grey Folk too soon after the voyage. They would not be able to afford more loss, and yet their leaders still persisted on continuing the current war against each other: two kingdoms who had always been at war with each other, on and off since the long-forgotten First Age: the white-skinned people of the north and the dark-skinned people of the south. The Grey Folk living in this ravaged land had long given up trying to persuade these stubborn creatures to abandon their 'skin-and-bone' continent to settle anew in another to the south-east, but here and there they still whispered about more peaceful time and more abundance of living space in the new land to those who would still listen.

Palancar, the King of the North, caved into this whisperings just as soon as it appeared that the South would get the better of him and seize his sovereignty. Silently and swiftly, he mobilized his army into emptying the villages and towns and cities in his kingdom for a massive exodus instead of a massive battle, and in staggered stages they fled towards the coast.

And to those who opposed him, or tried to persuade others to oppose him, or refused to lend aid during the exodus? Well, dead people told no tales, and they lightened the collective burdens during the desperate, haphazard voyage away from Elor too, without decreasing the wealths they left behind, a good outcome all-in-all for the proud-but-desperate monarch and his same-minded advisors.

The same continued as, outside of the notice of many, the remaining Grey Folk drove their ships unseen to the shores of Alagaësia, and also those of the Southmen who snuck after them based on information gathered from their spies and sheer deduction. Palancar was greatly displeased that the land turned out to be richly populated by other races, although some patches were left unclaimed by either of those races, as he had originally wanted the land for himself. As the other inhabitants naturally opposed the idea, he resorted to getting on the offensive once more.

Unfortunately, he had assumed that all the other races were just as powerful as Men were…

Alagaësia saw another war, this time committed by Álfya and humans. It was short, thankfully, though bloody nonetheless, and the Men suffered a great loss. And once more it was ended by a pact: the same pact that had sealed the fates of Álfya and Dragons together in fact, by some alteration: the Dragon Riders.

It had been more than seven hundred years ago, and already most of the details had been forgotten or forsaken, even in the long memory of the Álfya and the exacting archiving of the Dwarves. But fortunately or unfortunately, one particular youth had the drive, penchant, resources, curiosity, and dogged loyalty to uncovering and understanding all the invisible things; one particular youth with a tweaked history, with a tweaked destiny… and perhaps a tweaked future also?

Footnotes:

1. Hey don't fault me! Lifaen's remark that once the elves were just as mortal as the humans intrigued me very much since the very first time I stumbled upon it.

2. I couldn't help pulling a thread through the two known characteristic of elves in both universes. It was even more apparent with Dusan and Alana, the little elven twins, from Eragon's point of view in Brisingr. Shiny shiny…

3. Just my overabundance of imagination, I swear! I'm sorry if any elf-loving readers are offended… I just couldn't help it, from all the descriptions of Urgals that I have read so far and how intricate their culture turned to be.

4. Another interesting similarity between the two universes, here, and a temptation too great not to mention.

5. Erh… since the elves of The Inheritance Cycle are deadly boring about their language, and pardon me for being a little irked with that, this one is purely from the Tolkien universe.

6. Foul-smelling, leathery, beaky, huge, clawed, ugly, screechy… what more do you need to convince you that those Lethrblaka are truly those "foul beasts" that Legolas shot and Éowyn beheaded?

7. Sorry for mangling the Dwarven language! It kinda fits though, you can't complain about that… can you?

8. Similar in both universes too. Even in The Silmarillion and The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings the Dragons harassed the Dwarves more than the Men and Elves.

9. It's said in The Silmarillion and a few side manuscripts related to it that the Dragons and others such as the Wargs and Werewolves and Vampires were actually Morgoth's Maiar put into the bodies tweaked and warped by him.

10. Apologies. I borrowed the term meant for the Hobbits for this, since I felt that it is also apt for these people; and I admit, it was partly because of laziness on my part too.

11. Remember that loooong mural on the outer wall of Celbedeil, the dwarven temple? This is how the Hadarac Desert was created… in Rey-verse, that is.

12. Oromis said that much to Eragon when Eragon was asking about the Grey Folk. I think it was in Eldest, but I could be mistaken. Subject for later updating.

13. Again, as told by Lifaen in Eldest. He gave more useful tips and clues than Oromis!

14. My word-creation, based on the sizes of these creatures and my imagination of how they would sound. (Trust me, I would rather not try imagine such a thing ever again.)