It was strange, reflected Aiedale, to see herself in a dress after so long in the wilds of Middle Earth.
True the garment might not be her style but it was still very flattering. It was feminine in its cut, the fabric incredibly light and smooth against her skin. The soft green flattered her coloring and softened the slightly starved look she had to her. A dreamless sleep had helped ease away some of the terrible paleness that had given the young woman a ghostly appearance the previous night. Her hair now fell in soft curls, and the various burns, cuts and bruises had nearly faded away. With no runes showing and no weapons or gear she appeared younger then she usually did.
But Aiedale felt like a girl again. She felt alive and beautiful with her life stretching out before her with no hint of danger or death. After thanking the elf maid prettily for both her assistance and an invitation from Lord Celeborn to meet with him and his Lady, Aiedale left to find the rest of the Fellowship. She could not break, however, the habits of a lifetime and, as she left the private pavilion, she slipped one of her knives into the sash around her waist. A good night's sleep and some food had done much to restore her and only time could erase the remaining signs of her gruelling time in Moria. She knew this kind of recuperation well enough: rest and more rest.
That morning, however, Moria - as terrible an experience as it had been - was not on her mind and neither were her injuries or what she should be doing about them. She was thinking of how beautiful this wood was and how quiet. It was like the quiet in Alicante, unbroken by any buzzing electronics or car wheels on pavement. There was the rustle of leaves, the soft sounds of her feet upon the ground and the chirp of birds high in the golden leaved trees. Lothlorien felt almost unreal to her. It was a magical oasis that she felt just should not exist in this world of orcs, evil lords and Balrogs.
Aiedale found the Fellowship in various stages of wakening. The hobbits were contemplating the breakfast that had been brought; Legolas was wide awake and speaking quietly to Aragorn while Boromir shared a few words with Pippen. Gimli was just beginning to stir, his heavy snores fading into short sniffles and grunts. She paused for a moment to regard them and she could stop a small smile from growing on her face at the sight of her companions. They looked weary to her eyes and still deeply affected by the loss of Gandalf but at least they were all here. Eight of them in varying states of health but at least there were eight and not seven or six or five.
Frodo saw her first. His bright blue eyes widening as he took in her transformed appearance. "Aiedale?"
"Could it be another?" she asked with a laugh as she stepped forward lightly. Aragorn openly laughed at her words, the grim shadow lifting briefly from his grey eyes.
"You look much better," said Boromir as he took in the Shadowhunter's new garb. She still bore the traces of her experiences from the burns to the shadows beneath her eyes. However, she was a far cry from bloody, haunted warrior who had walked into their pavilion like a newly risen ghost the night before. He had not believed that it had been her that night. In his wonder and his joy to see that at least miracles did happen, the man had found that he cared for her as a companion more than he had thought.
"A bath and some sleep work wonders," said Aiedale as she sat down on one of the cushions beside Sam. The hobbit smiled shyly at her and she smiled openly back. She felt relaxed and at ease in a way she had not felt for weeks and weeks, not since her last few days in Alicante. Then again, she hadn't been so in need of a rest as she was now.
"You seem happy," said Aragorn as he examined her.
She laughed at him, amused by the words. Happy? She supposed she was in a way. "I am supposed to be dead. I fell through a mine, navigated my way out of its labyrinth and am now speaking with you lot. Can a person ask more?"
No, she thought with a faint sad smile, you could not ask for much more. She could have thought of so many more deserving then her, people who had found themselves in situations similar to it and not made it out. It had been more than luck that had saved her this time and it was not because of some special ability on her part. Somewhere, somehow, something had happened. Aiedale did not believe in destiny, she had always liked to think she made her own future and that no strange, otherworldly power controlled where she stepped. However, after her experience in Moria, she was beginning to wonder just what unseen powers had a say in what happened to her.
"How did you get out of Moria?" asked Merry over his plate of breakfast.
Aiedale was silent for a long moment. "I am not sure. What happen to me in Moria I should not have lived…quite simply either the fall should have killed me or the orcs or simple exhaustion." The Shadowhunter spread her hands out before her. "I will probably never know just how I managed it."
"You've seem something like the…well the Balrog before, haven't you?" said the Ringbearer. "That is why you stayed with him."
"I have." The Shadowhunter's face darkened, "But to destroy a Greater Demon with one sword, a single seraph blade, a tired wizard and a weary Nephilim? That is impossible and he knew that – so did I."
"But…" began Frodo and everyone leaned a little closer, listening intently to the conversation.
"Frodo," she said with a gentle smile and the air of someone explaining that two plus two equals four. "There are better things to think about." With that she changed the subject and inquired about the Fellowship's own journey from the mine, having long since grown sick of repeating the same things over and over to them.
This day she felt oddly at ease. As though she was closer to the ground, but taller at the same time. Her concerns about getting home, what happened in Moria and all the rest that is the wild mess of her life no longer weighed so heavily on her.
And, when breakfast was over and she determined it was not too early to call upon her elven hosts, she rose. They all offered to go with her. Legolas saying he knew the way while Boromir drew out his courtly manners and the hobbits told her that they would be delighted. But she refused their company. She did not want even Aragorn and Legolas to see her part of the way there. Aiedale did not want them coming and hearing things that she would have to explain to them later. Her parents were not something she particularly wanted to talk about. What she thought she knew about them was clearly not true and she had always searched for some shred of truth or understanding or, maybe, it was security in her life.
She needed something - some place within herself - to act as a grounding wire when her heart was about to shatter from the pressure.
A little bit of walking and some directions given by a curious eyed elf and she found herself at the bottom of the mallorn tree that she had climbed the previous night. A staircase twirled up around the trunk and, with a sigh, the Shadowhunter began to climb. At one point she passed by two watchful elves in grey mail and white cloaks who barely glanced her way. Her muscles still ached painfully. Aiedale still wasn't quite sure how she managed to climb all the way up one of these giant trees the previous night. She supposed you could do anything when you didn't have a choice. Besides she had been so desperate to make it to the end of it all. She had told herself to keep going until she found the Fellowship and she had even though it had meant pushing herself to the very end of her strength. Until she had set herself down to sleep in the comfortable bed in her quiet pavilion, she hadn't realized just how finished mentally and physically she was.
The Shadowhunter paused for a moment on the top step that opened up into the wide talan where the two thrones where her hosts had greeted her the previous night. Instead she followed the directions begged from another set of guards had given her and took a wide door immediately to her left that led her down a corridor built out of intertwining silver branches. She paused, at last, before an arched doorway.
Before her was a kind of sitting room with bookcases on one wall and open arch windows on the other. There was a scattering of chairs and a table at which the Lady Galadriel sat, her deep golden hair braided back and her white dress glimmering softly in the sunlight that streamed inside. The Lord Celeborn sat behind a desk before a stack of papers that he seemed to be reading, his silver hair glinting in the pale gold light. The scene was so at odds with the last time Aiedale had encountered these two powerful and ancient rulers that she very nearly laughed out loud. There were no thrones or silver starlight upon them now. They seemed somewhat more reachable but that, Aiedale knew, was not accurate. Like the Fey Queens she had interacted with back home, these two elves only showed their age in their eyes and were as tall and fair as if they were in the very height of their youth.
Galadriel raised her head then and smiled in welcome at Aiedale, gesturing for her to enter. Celeborn rose when he saw her and the elf Lord moved forward to the table where Galadriel sat. The Lord pulled out a chair and clearly offered it to the Shadowhunter who stood uneasily in the entrance. She felt as if she had intruded upon something and she wasn't quite sure what to do even as she moved forward and summoned a polite tone.
"You wanted to see me," said the warrior as she accepted the proffered chair. She sat down with easy grace, quite familiar with the way to sweep a long skirt around so that it did not get crumpled.
"Yes," said Galadriel, "we did." The elf's far seeing eyes regarded the Shadowhunter and took in her changed appearance. The elf Lady knew nothing would ever quite take away the weary shadows beneath her eyes or change the lean muscles or erase the faint scars and marks that traced their way across her body. No amount of sleep or peaceful days spent in Lothlorien would ever change her or make her forget.
"You appear rested," said Celeborn as the elf Lord returned to his own seat.
"Thank you for your hospitality," said the Shadowhunter in a low voice as she bent her head in thanks.
"You must have questions for us," said Galadriel, "just as we have questions for you."
An elf maid reappeared just then with a tray consisting of three delicate, steaming tea cups. Aiedale was silent as one of those fragile china cups was placed before her and then, her duty done, the maid vanished through the door she had come through.
"I do have questions for you," said Aiedale at last as she wondered at the elf's direct approach. "And it starts with: How do you know my mother?"
Celeborn answered her, the elf Lord's calm grey eyes fixed on some distant point as he quietly sipped the fragrant tea. "When she was here in Middle Earth she traveled to Lothlorien with a patrol of elves that she met while she was with Gandalf. She spent a little time here before she moved on."
"Ah," said Aiedale quietly. "And you came to know her well?"
Galadriel sighed, "Well? No, but well enough to be saddened by news of her passing." The elven Lady regarded the quiet Shadowhunter before her for a moment before she asked, "From what she said, your family is important in your world."
"My family name is very old and very famous. We are respected...and hated." Aiedale looked away for a moment, "Our world is a shadowy one hidden from view and nothing is quite what it seems."
Not even my mother, thought the warrior bitterly. No one seems to have really known her. Where is the truth? Must I search for the truth until I cannot possibly continue searching anymore?
"How did you mother…pass?" inquired the elf Lord gently.
"She made a mistake," said Aiedale simply. "Both she and my father underestimated the hatred an old enemy had for them. He caught them at a low point in their strength and his trap was expert." She ran a finger along the rim of the fragile tea saucer and her voice took on a harder edge. "I was very young and they were often away on work for the Clave. What I know of my parents come only from a few memories and the stories told by their comrades."
Celeborn's eyes were dark with sadness. Aiedale had seen enough of those kinds of expressions to know when the emotion was genuine and when it was not. The look on Celeborn's face told her that he must have known her mother well enough to be truly saddened by news of her passing. She did not quite know what to make of it all nor of his following words that were delivered with such complete sincerity.
"I fought beside her. It was a dark fight against shadow but she laughed at our fear and was instrumental in our decision to challenge Dol Guldor." He met Aiedale's eyes, "If you are anything like her then your assistance in this final fight against the Shadow is…is more welcome then you could know."
Aiedale met his gaze and a glint of her old, fierce determination and desire for answers shone through before she pulled herself back in. There was no point demanding answers like an impatient child no matter how confused she was. "What did my mother do?"
"She did not run," said Celeborn simply. The elf Lord looked away from the hard eyes of the warrior, "Your mother never turned away from the truth and she forced others to see it. She was gone before the time came to actually go to battle came but she was one key reason that we chose that path."
Aiedale had read about that period in Middle Earth's history during some of her long hours spent sequestered in a corner of Rivendell's large library. However, not once in all her reading about that strike against the Necromancer in his stronghold of Dol Goldur had she read about a Shadowhunter taking part either in any of the patrols that had ventured there, the meetings between the White Council or the fight that took place against the forces of the Necromancer. There had been the names of Gandalf, Thorin and many others but there had been no mention of a Darklighter.
Some of her confusion must have shown on her face because Galadriel took it upon herself to explain a little. "Your mother specifically requested that her part in the events leading up to that confrontation with the Shadow be kept hidden. She had her own reasons and we respected that."
Aiedale was silent for a long moment. As a Shadowhunter, the first thing that one was taught was to prefer the silence of being unknown because it was in that silence that Nephilim were able to do as they must. No history books on Earth spoke of their sacrifices or the suffocating darkness that they tried to hold back. If anyone asked her if she would want to be recorded in a history book she would have refused.
For a long moment no one said anything.
The two elves recalling the woman they had known for a few brief weeks and yet had left such an impression. Aiedale was trying to put together these fragments and reconcile them with the memories she did have her auburn haired, vibrant mother. Unconsciously, her right hand reached up and clasped the pendent her mother had left for her. She had a few things from her parents but one of the most precious was the pendent that had been passed down through generations. The hand fell away from the necklace; she had never really understood what the pendent did. Her aunt said it concealed her from unwanted gazes and kept the darkness from catching hold of her but Aiedale did not know how accurate that was. There were so many questions, so many things she longed to discuss despite everything. But at the same time she felt so very exposed before these two ancient, powerful elves and it made her want to withdraw, through her shields back up until she was once more unreachable.
Her thoughts, however, were interrupted a moment later by Galadriel.
"Why did you chose to go with the Fellowship?"
"Why?" asked Aiedale as she met the searching gaze of the elf Lady across from her and struggled to understand just why so many people were obsessed with asking her that question. "There are practical reasons, of course, that drove my decision and my oath to Frodo. It seemed unlikely that I would find a way home if I remained in Rivendell." The Shadowhunter was silent for a long moment, "Esse quam videri," she said with the faintest of smiles as she watched a brief look of confusion flit across her hosts faces at the sudden change in language. "To be, rather than to seem. It's the Darklighter family motto. Perhaps that is your answer, Lady."
Aiedale turned her head slightly and regarded one of the sweeping columns that rose up from the talan's floor to the ceiling. She admired the study and thought of others where she had done business, learned and played music. She liked rooms like this, they had been something of a home to her. "Why does my decision matter so much to you?" She turned her eyes back to the swirling powerful ones of the elf Lady. It was like trying to look into a deep well and seeing only a few feet but knowing that there were so many things concealed. There was an unnameable power to this elf Lady, the same power that swirled through the air of Lothlorien. Aiedale didn't quite know what to make of it and, had she not be so disciplined, she might not have been able to meet that gaze. But years of experience had taught her never to drop her eyes.
"I can see things…see what might be and what has been. But I cannot see what you might be or do or have done." Galadriel took the warrior's scar flecked hands in her own, "When I see you I see nothing but possibilities. You carry a great many burdens with you. A heavy heart. Things you've lost. The things that others have asked you to carry. Titles and deeds and memories. But you do not stop." Galadriel sighed, "What I see when I look into your future almost contradicts itself."
Aiedale could not stop herself from laughing a little. "I am not surprised," she said with a faint smile. "For where I come from one cannot see the future, it is not something anyone can read. And a Shadowhunter's life is short and it takes us to places that we do not even know exist."
"Don't you wish you know?"
"Know what James?"
"When we will die and how…" her younger brother's voice trailed off as his bright eyes met hers.
"No," she said emphatically. "No I have never wanted those kinds of answers, brother."
"Tell me of Moria," said Celeborn. "How did you come to escape that net of death?"
Aiedale glanced at her hands, remembering how she had fallen into the black abyss after Gandalf and the Bal'rog. It was easier then she had thought it would be to tell the tale of not only her escape from Moria but her journey to the Golden Wood. There was something about Celeborn, and she spoke mostly to him, that she could relate to. He is and was, she knew, a very great warrior and in his duties of Lord of Lothlorien that had not completely fled him. The Lord was steady, she decided. He was steady as the roots of an old tree.
"What now?" inquired Aiedale as she finished her story.
"You may rest here for a time," said Galadriel. "As you yourself have said the last few days of your journey have been most taxing for all concerned."
"I hope," said Celeborn, "that you enjoy your time here, brief as it may be."
Aiedale rose then and Galdriel did to, Celeborn stepping forward and away from the window until he stood beside his wife in a contrast of silver and gold. She wondered what more they could tell her about her mother and just how well they had known her. But the Shadowhunter did not voice those questions. Some things she does not feel ready to know and she is tired of asking questions.
"Perhaps," said Celeborn, "when you feel ready for it you would consent to spar with me?"
"It would be my pleasure to spar with you, my Lord." The Shadowhunter smiled, genuinely touched and honoured that Lord Celeborn would make such an offer.
A few more polite words were said and then the Shadowhunter left the talan. She felt restless but also weary. Aiedale knew she should go back to the Fellowship and reassure them that she was quite well and that nothing happened to her during that meeting with the Lord and Lady of the Golden Wood. However, she could not make herself do it. Reassurances or sitting quietly for no reason, no matter how weary she was, had never come naturally. So she spent the rest of her day wandering through the forest city wondering what power she sensed on the outskirts of her awareness, there but not quite, and drinking in the peace of being alone with her thoughts in some place secure. She returned to the Fellowship for the evening meal as the sun was sinking and the shadows deepening in the woods. Elves were uncovering their silver lamps and the sounds of their tinkling laughter, songs and voices could be heard from the open clearings and talans as the Shadowhunter returned from her wanders.
For some reason she could stop thinking of what Galadriel said about her future. A single line she once read in some book back in Paris had come back to her: Because I do not wish to know. I prefer to remain unenlightened, to better appreciate the dark.
The Fellowship noticed her quietness and her apparent distraction but no one was quite sure if they should ask what happened to her when she was with Galadriel and Celeborn. Each member of the Fellowship remembers the moment they met the far-seeing gaze of the elf Lady and what they saw in those blue depths. Aragorn tried to touch on it but she breezily swept his subtle questions away and asked something about a totally unrelated subject. Besides, all of them were still weary and grief still hung heavy above their heads. It didn't take much to conjure the memory of Gandalf and what he might have to say to them had he been there.
As she retired for the night and stepped into her pavilion she saw her reflection in the mirror. She regard the image critically: a green dress, auburn hair and a jewelled pendent that winked in the softly glowing light of the candles that illuminated the space. But Aiedale took in more for her eyes were not blind to things that are concealed. She saw the black runes that curve up her arms and the burns that are now faint silver lines on her skin. She saw the truth of what they tell her, the stories they speak of in their dark and white lines.
What does her future hold?
There are so many places she has to get back to. So many elements to consider and so many people that she so desperately wants to see again.
But perhaps, she thinks as she regards her reflection, that was the gift given to mortals whether they were hobbit or Nephilim or mundane. Perhaps Galadriel could see the future but she could not shape it the way Aiedale could. Armed with a seraph blade, her bright brief little life and her runes she could do many things and many of her actions had influenced the lives of others in ways she did not know or could even comprehend.
Aiedale turns away from the reflection and leaves those thoughts behind her as she raises one hand to cup around a candle flame and blows it out.
"Give me a story," said hissing voice.
She sat in the chair, bound to it by viciously tight ropes around her wrists and ankles. There was no moving in this position and she knew her captor was behind her in the shadows which made her very uneasy. She wanted to be able to see it and talking The smell of damp mold and blood made her want to gag. "A story?" she inquired in a cold voice. "Why does a demon such as yourself want with a story?"
It hissed in a grotesque imitation of laughing. "So young, little Shadowhunter, and so inexperienced in the ways of the wide world. Stories…stories can affect you little mundanes in ways not even I can predict. Tales can move and drive them and who knows what they might do because of it, because of a story. It might drive them mad or make them do things they would normally never do."
Aiedale wanted to say nothing but she found herself asking scornfully, "What story can I give you?"
"Yours," hissed the voice in her ear and she nearly retched as the smell of rotting meat wafted over her. "For only you can know the truth of it."
It felt timeless to the Shadowhunter.
The time they lingered in Lothlorien was magical in a way. The Shadowhunter duelled once with the Lord Celeborn and conceded that, strong as she was, she could only just hold her own when faced with an opponent so experienced. The two, the elf Lord and the Shadowhunter, enjoyed each other's company immensely in the few meetings they had together.
There was time spent reading and wandering through magnificent gardens and rooms. Aiedale even joined a few of the parties held beneath the golden leaves and, during those glittering hours, she would dance and laugh with carefree abandonment.
But she never forgot.
She was a Shadowhunter and, as much as she enjoyed the reprieve, part of her always thirsted for the danger and darkness of the world. It was this that made her spars with Aragorn, Legolas and even Haldir who had warmed to her significantly when he heard who her mother was, more intense than a friendly practice match. It was this that drove her to accept an invitation to the fences of the North where a great watch was now kept since the tidings of Moria that the Company had brought. Legolas always came with her and on their third and final trip to the fences, they had occasion to draw their weapons when a hunting patrol of wargs entered the perimeter of Lothlorien. Aiedale enjoyed the experience for they brought back a taste of her days back in Paris with her cousins. The company of the Galadhrim warriors, reserved, somber though they were most of the time was more welcome then she had thought it would be. Aiedale came to realize that, had she not been bound by oath and her deep desire to find a way home, she might have chosen to remain in Lothlorien and not go on with the others to Mordor. The elves of Lothlorien welcomed her and she suspected that the reason was because of her mother. Many of the warriors she met had known of her and, although she pressed them for anecdotes, they would just smile and say: You remind me of her. To Aiedale such statements were incredibly annoying and about as useful as not saying anything at all.
In the time she had with them, Aiedale watched her companions. She talked briefly with Aragorn about Boromir's increasing infatuation with the Ring and the dangers it posed to their quest and to Frodo. The Shadowhunter made a point of ensuring that she always around Frodo when Boromir was near at hand and that all the hobbits continued their training with Aragorn. The Ring, she knew, was a canny enemy and it terrified her to think of how easy it could turn the Fellowship against each other.
And, of course, there was Gandalf.
The memory of the Gandalf, that is.
Aiedale did her best not think about him and put distance between herself and the memories the wizard. She hadn't quite known what to think about him and it didn't feel right to openly grieve for him like her companions or the elves of Lothlorien did. So she listened to the songs of lamentation for his fall and did her best to support her companions but she did not quite know how to support. She listened to Frodo's and Sam's songs but she didn't know how to create one herself or add to their own creation. Such ways of grieving for a fallen companion were foreign to her and she failed miserably in her attempt to explain about how Nephilim honoured the dead to Gimli and Boromir when they asked her over dinner one night.
But, when the time to leave came, Aiedale was (of course) ready for it and getting very impatient for it. In her mind Sam had the right of it when he said: 'It's the job not started that takes the longest to finish.' They had lingered long enough in this place and Aiedale knew that she was not alone in her desire to get the journey started once more. Frodo mentioned it to her once when they were alone and she saw clear unease in his face as he spoke of his worry that they had already spent too much time here.
She had readied herself for this new path long before the Fellowship had been ready to go and her eyes were bright when Aragorn told her when they would be departing.
The past could wait with all its mysteries for the future lay before her. The darker the road, the more pressing their task, the more vicious the battles and the higher the stakes...well she was not a Shadowhunter for nothing. Such things made her heart beat hot and fast with adrenalin and now she was well rested and as fit for battle as she had ever been.
One. Two. Three.
She was ready to go and already at the starting line.
Why wasn't everybody else?
By the Angel, these Middle Earth people were slow on the uptake!
I know. This took a long time and it is rather short with not a lot going on that is interesting but I hope people enjoy it! I am so sorry about the wait and, while I know this chapter doesn't come close to making it up, I hope it reassures you all that I haven't given up on this story.
Review Replies:
Hanane: I like Haldir and he will make more of an appearance in the next chapter. haha I understand about Fanta! Darn good stuff and I am glad you liked the Galadriel scene. It was fun to write and I wanted to convey just how finished Aiedale was and frustrated. Aiedale's mother will come back into play in the next few chapters :) but it will be more focused on the pendent that she left for our poor Aiedale. I am sorry if there isn't a lot of Fellowship time in this chapter but I am really wanting to get onto the Boromir scene! Should be nice and exciting! And I loved your review and I am so sorry this chapter took SO LONG to get to you! Thank you for the wonderful review and I hope all is awesome for you and that, soon after posting that review, you got some Fanta!
Ray: I hope you enjoy this chapter! Thank you for reviewing!
Motoko The Red Queen: You are so sweet :) and there is a bit of past and present going on. But that will a play a role later on when Aiedale is getting closer to the big finale. She is going to have a Haldir meeting in the next chapter and, who knows, she might just flirt a little with him! ;) and I really am a Glorfindel person but that is me lol Hope you enjoy this rather pathetic chapter and I will try to get the next one to you soon! Thank you for this review and I hope all is awesome in your life! and yes to that statement about the Sues!