Chapter 7: Fellowship Renewed (Angharad)

(~***~)

When Angharad woke her mouth was dry and her eyes felt crusty, but at least there was light again. She made herself sit up and began looking around. They were inside somewhere: wooden floors, walls and ceilings surrounded them. But the floor rocked back and forth… this must be a ship, she thought.

As she had discovered the night before, she was in a metal cage. On each wrist and ankle were silver chains – they looked like jewelry except they were uncomfortably tight. In the dim light of the ship's hold, she could see that she was not the only captive. In the cages on both her left and right were short, burly folk with thick beards. Another person that looked similar, but young, was in a cage behind her own – he was small and where the others had great beards, he had only sideburns and some reddish fuzz on his chin.

Past them she could see other peoples, but it was hard to get a good look at them through the sea of iron bars. There was what looked like a man with dark hair and brown skin – until she realized he had four sets of arms. In the far, dark corner of the hold an immense, stinking form lay breathing heavily, covered in chains and in a serious looking cage.

Seeing her looking into the deep corner, one of the dwarfs beside her said in Sindarin, "It is a troll, girl. Though what use they want to put one of those to I cannot imagine. They keep it asleep or it howls."

"You speak Sindarin?" she croaked. "You are dwarfs, are you not?"

The dwarf on her left had started to feel some pity for her. They had heard her crying and when the light had begun to seep into the hold, they could see she was much younger than they had first realized. Hard not to feel for a youngling stuck in this situation – even if she was elf.

"Yes, elf, dwarfs have always spoken Sindarin," the dark-haired dwarf said. "So how did you get stuck in this mess, eh?" [1]

Angharad tried to clear her throat, but it was too dry. She had never felt sick before, so she didn't really understand it. The dwarf's flippant attitude to the horror they faced rubbed her the wrong way.

"I thought you did not care, and I should hold my tongue," she spit, remembering his harsh words the night before.

The red-haired dwarf on the right let out a harsh snort. "At least the little sprite has some spirit, even if you could snap her like a twig," he jibed.

Trust an elf not to accept an olive branch when it was offered, thought the dark-haired dwarf. Still, the youngster didn't look well: her cheeks were red, and her eyes looked puffy. He could not stop himself from pitying her at least a little. He banged on his bars.

"Oi, I thought yer master took care of his 'servants' so they don't look too rough when they arrive. The elf kid needs water," he called out in the common tongue to the guard he knew was standing somewhere nearby.

A short man with dark hair poked his head through the door of the hold and looked at Angharad, then left.

"Bastards," the dark-haired dwarf muttered.

Angharad knew enough New Westron to know that he had just tried to help her. "Thank you," she croaked. He had asked her what had happened to her earlier and she had rebuffed him. Now she felt badly for it.

"I did something stupid in Valinor and ended up in the ocean here. At the mercy of men," she said bitterly. "My parents will be furious with me… if we ever see each other again." Her little body rocked with a few more sobs, but she was too exhausted to cry.

The young dwarf behind her wanted to cry too – he also wanted his parents. But there were other dwarfs he didn't know here, and he would not weep in front of him.

"They say it would take a thousand years to pay off the debts – well you are the only one here who can live that long. All you have to do is wait and you can go home. The rest of us never will," the young dwarf growled.

Angharad lay down on the floor again, her heart too bruised to take more beatings. A thousand years! Her father had millennia behind him, but it seemed impossibly long to her at this point in her life.

"Ach, Ginnar leave off it, she is in the same shit as us," the dark-haired dwarf said to the young one. "He probably misses his parents too – hiding your tears by being nasty, eh, brat?"

The young dwarf, Ginnar, let out a few curses and punched the bars of his enchanted cage, but they all knew he could do nothing to the older dwarf.

"Were your folk known in these lands, elf?" the dark-haired dwarf asked her. "Your people do live long, would we know of them?"

"My father might be known to the dwarfs. He was dear friends with Gimli, son of Gloin, Lord of the Glittering Caves. He is called Legolas Greenleaf, or Thranduilion," she answered. She could not think straight to decide if she should be talking to them or keeping silent.

The older dwarfs had heard about this elf, but he didn't mean anything special to them. They were from the Blue Mountains. But Ginnar sat up from his sulk, regretting that he had insulted the elf girl.

"I am from the Glittering Caves! I share kin with Gimli! A portrait of your father still hangs in our hall of records." the young dwarf cried out in surprise. Being a child and prone to exaggeration, he did not point out how tenuous his family ties to Gimli's long-deceased mother were. Nor did he mention that said portrait was usually thick with dust. [2]

This was enough to get Angharad up off the floor. She scooted to the edge of her cage that was set just a few inches from the young dwarf's. They looked through the bars at each other in curiosity.

"Really, you have a portrait of my father in your home?" she asked, surprised. Ginnar nodded.

"You look terrible, elf," the dwarf child said gruffly. "I thought your people were supposed to be hardy against hurts. What did they do to you?"

She leaned against her bars and shrugged. Why was everyone so harsh in Middle Earth?

"I think he gave me poison," she guessed. "I have never felt so horrible in my life."

"Poison is for cowards. May he choke on his drink," the young dwarf offered in sympathy.

That much she could agree with. "And then fall into his own hearth and burn," she added with spite.

The young dwarf chuckled darkly. He could come to like this elf.

(The older dwarfs were not impressed. They were skeptical of this whole conversation. Whatever pity they might have for her, they were not inclined to befriend an elf. Let them stay in their Western havens and rot.)

The conversation was interrupted as a pale man in good cloth stepped into the room and approached the elf's enclosure. Everyone else in the hold held their tongues. This was the Collector, the one who held claim to all their 'debts' and kept them captive.

The Collector did not speak Sindarin, but he had been watching the elf speak with the dwarfs with some interest. She had been looking sick and despondent, but now speaking with the young dwarf she was sitting up again and looking more animated.

Ever since he had been offered the elf child, he had been doing some research: such an opportunity had never come to him before, and it was unlikely to again. The elf had been expensive, and he did not wish to waste his investment. He had learned that elves could die of despair, so she could not be sold into any situation so harsh that she would perish. There was only one master that he thought could afford the elf and make good use of her given these practical restrictions… but first she had to survive being held captive.

He approached Angharad and silently offered her water. She was afraid to take it, so he drank from the waterskin himself and then offered it to her again.

"Go on, girl," the dark-haired dwarf encouraged her. "He is a villain, but he wants us in good shape for his buyers. He will not give you poison."

Angharad took the water. She drank a little at first, then gulped down water as her burning body demanded more.

"I was sorry when your debtholder brought you to me drugged," the Collector said in the common tongue. "But I see you're making friends now."

Angharad was quiet. Everyone else was being silent and avoiding this man. His voice was smooth and dangerous.

"My Westron is not good," she offered, trying to make an excuse to speak with him as little as possible.

"Don't try to fool me, young one. I can make your life unpleasant," the man said. It frightened her how calm he sounded while he threatened her.

"But you are not well, I see. I understand your people don't need healers for such things, only time," he said. He pushed a second water skin through the bars of her cage, along with a slice of plain bread. "But eat, drink, rest. We'll speak later when you have recovered. I must understand if you have any hidden talents I should know about."

To the lot of them he said, "No more of the elven speech, I think. The guards will tell me if you use it again and I'll have to decide how to deal with you."

He paused on his way out the door, thinking of an experiment to test a theory he had started to formulate. "Except the children. The children can speak as they please."

(~***~)

The Collector had removed her from her cell later, activating the magical restraints when she tried to fight. Her mind had turned cloudy and her body weak. When she became aware of her surroundings again, she was locked in his cabin with him.

"As you see, you won't be escaping so easily, elf," the man had said coolly. "I or whoever purchases your debt shall hold the key to your bonds until what you owe is repaid and you are released."

Given what the dwarfs had said about the 'debts' she wondered if they were a sham. Could the so-called debt ever be repaid?

The Collector had interviewed her thoroughly. He made her sing (he was pleased), dance, and draw. Her brought her up to the deck, reminding her again that he could cloud her mind whenever he wished, and demanded that she climb the mast. He tested her hearing, eyesight, and memory. (He was pleased again. The abilities of the elves had not been oversold.) Finally, he brought her back to her cell and left her to her own devices as they journeyed from port to port. People would come and go from the cages at each port with no explanation. They were somewhere cold when the troll was carefully removed from the ship.

Angharad and Ginnar took full advantage of their language privileges, whispering through their bars to each other as a tentative friendship formed. The Collector had his guards reporting back and was pleased at what he was hearing. It seemed the elf needed a pet to keep her from fading, so she would have one.

Angharad had lost track of how many weeks they had been on the ship when the Collector and two guards took Ginnar out of his cell and pushed him into her cage with her.

"I've found a purchaser for your debts, children," the Collector said. "Since you're going together, you'll be responsible for each other now. Don't worry – I've heard that elves and dwarfs love things of beauty in both nature and craft. Where you're going you won't lack for such delights."

Neither of the children were happy about this new arrangement. The cages were not especially large to begin with. Even though they were not adults, being together in the cage felt crowded. They sat on opposite sides of the cage, Ginnar fuming and Angharad sulking. They had been warming up to each other, but not this much. Too often Angharad took Ginnar's attempts at solidarity as offensive. Too often Ginnar took Angharad's attempts to be polite as haughty.

"Just stay on your side, elf," the dwarf child grumbled.

Angharad decided this didn't merit a reply. She only sniffed at him in annoyance.

In the row of cages behind them, including the one Ginnar had just been removed from, the Collector was speaking to another man. He wasn't one of the guards they had seen before. The Collector handed the man some coins, and then the man began going from cage to cage, reciting incantations, and placing yellow pieces of paper inscribed with black and red symbols on the corners of each cage. [3]

Angharad scooted over to Ginnar, who bristled until she started whispering to him.

"Have you ever seen a man like that – the one doing magic? Or heard that tongue? We are somewhere different now," she said to Ginnar. "It has been getting warmer ever since they took the troll away."

"The new man is from the Far East," Ginnar said. "They trade with the King of the Reunited Kingdom sometimes. They have fine goods – silk, spices, and rare stones like jade or turquoise. The jade from the Far East is the best quality there is. The dark green is my favorite." Ginnar was thinking fondly of times he had sat with his mother as she showed him how to carve different types of stones.

"Have we been traveling long enough to be in the Far East?" Angharad asked, interrupting his daydream. Ginnar shrugged, feeling resentful for the disruption. He honestly had no idea.

Angharad went back to her corner and chewed on her lip. She was holding out hope that her parents would come looking for her. But if she was being transported to distant lands she had never even heard the elves speak of, how could they ever find her? She felt her spirit sink. She kept running over the silent place where she should have shared in her parents' song, hoping that she would hear something again. But there was still nothing. Surely her parents would not abandon her?

The Collector's men began coming in and out of the hold. It looked like it was an onboarding day. Angharad hated when they brought new people in. She always felt as sorry for them as she did herself. The hatred she had for the Collector burned in her heart like a hot coal.

On most days like this, one or two new captives would be brought into the hold. But today, the men came and went for hours. The man who had been warding the cages came and went with them. It seemed he had some power to keep the captives quiet and sleeping, for they did not fight until he left, when they would shake themselves awake and howl, or cry, or sit in silent rage.

Most of the new captives shared some characteristics with the magic man: they had shining, straight black hair and dark, almond-shaped eyes. If they spoke, the language sounded similar to Angharad as the one the magic man had spoken. She thought it sounded like music with its rising and falling tones.

There were three women who turned into white foxes and back into women, kept together in one of the larger enclosures. When men came by, they would reach their arms out of the cage and try to stroke them, speaking in tones that sounded sweet and enticing. A creature that looked like something between a man and a bat hissed as it woke and climbed the bars of its cage to hang upside down, leathery wings folded tight against itself.

In the cage directly behind theirs, the magic man and the Collector carefully placed a sleeping woman. She was wearing a delicate green garment with an asymmetrical neckline and wide legs. Over it she had on what looked like a long jacket to the young elf – green with long sleeves and yellow embroidered flowers. Delicate green slippers completed her outfit. A red silk rope dug into her neck much like Angharad's silver chains. Angharad thought she was pretty and looked elegant, other than her restraint. [4]

As she woke up, the woman in green hissed at Angharad for staring at her – a forked tongue lashing out of her mouth. Ginnar, who was in a corner of their shared cage close to her, barely had time to react when the woman transformed into an enormous green snake, her muscled coils straining at the bars around her to no effect. The red silk rope shifted and grew with her, although not enough that it did not cause her to choke painfully in her larger form.

Ginnar leaped away from her in alarm. Without thinking, he launched himself at the most familiar thing in his orbit: Angharad. The young elf was too stunned by the snake to be offended by Ginnar's sudden approach. The two children shrank into the far corner of their cage, pressed against each other as they watched with wide eyes.

The snake turned back into the woman, hissing in rage and rubbing her sides, where welts formed everywhere she had touched the yellow papers. The magic man and the Collector ignored her as they continued to drag in a few more victims.

Ginnar was shaking a little, unable to prevent his child's fear of the monster from showing. Angharad felt just as frightened: her spirit felt as shaky as Ginnar was. She again followed her mother's advice: mortals were not fёa beings, but hröa beings. She took a chance and put an arm around Ginnar's shoulder and held tight to him. The young dwarf stiffened, ready to give her a gruff rebuke, but Angharad whispered to him in their shared Sindarin.

"Be allies with me, kin of my father's friend. I think we are going to need them with creatures like this all around us. It seems no adult is going to take any pity on us at all. We will have to help ourselves."

Ginnar thought it over. The green snake woman changed again, trying one more time to use her great strength to break free. The young dwarf had to admit an ally would be a good thing right now. The older dwarfs had shown no inclination to take him under their wings, to his surprise and disappointment. Their rejection had hurt: dwarfs usually stuck together. He clapped Angharad hard on the back. He whispered back, not wanting their neighbors to jeer at them.

"Then let us seek a path to our shared freedom, ally."

"And burn their house down on the way out," Angharad whispered back.

"Yes!" replied the young dwarf, shaking a fist.

(~***~)

Footnotes:

[1] I think it was really earlier ages that dwarfs are depicted as knowing Sindarin by Tolkien: but it is in there at least. Gimli is shown in the FotR movie as not understanding Sindarin in Lothlorien, but I'm going to go ahead and say they continue to use it in this story, admittedly for my own convenience.

[2] I really wanted this to be a direct descendant of Gimli but alas, he did not marry or have children according to the canon and that is too large a divergence even for me.

[3] This is meant to be a reference to the fú talismans used in Taoist traditions to ward against, or instruct, spirits or demons.

[4] This is a version of the character Qingqing from The Sorcerer and the White Snake, (film, 2011), which is based on the Legend of the White Snake. (Although I will be using the original name from the legend, Xiaoqing.) From some research I understand that to be considered one of China's four great folktales. I'm going to use the version of this character from that film as a guidepost: I understand she can be more evil or more good in different versions of the tale. In this film she was in a gray area. The white foxes and bat demon are also inspired by this film.

I'm still not listing this as a crossover because I wouldn't know what second story to reference. This storyline is going to be pulling from a bunch of Chinese folktales & some Wuxia films.