1,49825 / 2 / 25 ~ And in which Eleanor remembers her name.
Disclaimer:"The Lord of the Rings" is the property of J. R. R. Tolkien. I only claim ownership over Eleanor Dace, Rávamë (aka "Tink"), and the subsequent plot of their story.
A/N: I have been waiting almost a decade to write this chapter. I truly hope you enjoy it. x
Part III : Chapter 26
- Morning Star -
"If you are reading this, hide and do not come out until help comes. You cannot fight them. You cannot outrun them. Valar save us—" — a scrawled blood-spattered message on a ruined guard tower
(Taken from Vairë's tapestry of memories within the Halls of Mandos)
Sauron was in my head.
The creator of the One Ring.
The fallen Maia responsible for every horror we'd encountered on our journey.
And he was stood not ten feet from where I was still knelt transfixed on the floor.
I couldn't look away. The second I met his gaze it felt like he was staring directly through my soul, pinning me like a butterfly to a card. I suppose in a way he was.
He regarded me across that pitiable distance between us with a morbid kind of fascination.
"Of all those I expected to find here and now," he murmured terribly softly, "I must admit, you were among the last, agath phazâth(2)."
His voice was impossibly huge. Low, and razor sharp, it seemed to come from all directions at once in a dozen different reverberating echoes.
Some of them impossibly beautiful. Most of them horrifyingly wrong.
I didn't know what he'd called me, but it snagged on something buried deep in my long forgotten memories…
I watched, immobilised as he began to pace slowly, idly across the polished floor, not coming closer, but also not taking those frightening eyes from mine.
"So far separated from home by time and yet still living. But… void of all knowledge of that time…" He went on in that too-huge voice, sounding something close to fascinated. Like he was observing a bizarre artefact in a museum. His facial expression barely changed the entire time he watched me, but something in those terrible eyes abruptly changed from curious to dismissive. "Intriguing, but irrelevant."
I couldn't speak.
I could barely move.
I couldn't even tell if it was some kind of spell or just my own terror, but my dream-self could do absolutely nothing.
He stopped in his pacing directly before me, his stare turning sharp as a lance.
"Tell me where it is."
I opened my mouth to speak, but barely a whisper escaped my throat.
"I…"
Impatience burned in his expression, the gold in his unnatural eyes flaring like coals.
"I will only ask gently once, girl," he said. "Tell me of the halfling that carries my Ring."
My thoughts instantly went to Frodo and Sam, somewhere out there, making their way into Mordor alone. Fear surged through me and I snapped my mouth shut. I was still terrified to the point of trembling, my arms struggling to support me with the shakes, but I focused on the idea of my back teeth all but fusing together.
Whatever came next, whatever happened to me, Sauron could not find out about them.
Nothing else mattered.
Something must have shifted in my facial expression, because his gaze turned black, and when he spoke, his everywhere-at-once voice had grown jagged edges. It physically hurt me to hear.
"Very well. Since the other halfling could not, and the lost Heir of Elendil would not," there was a carefully masked fury at the mention of Aragorn, "I will pry my answers from your head directly and be done."
He took a step towards me.
Just one.
And Tink appeared out of the air before me.
One moment there was absolutely nothing standing between Sauron and I. The next, the air had split like a rift cut with gold fire, and my passenger-turned-friend stepped out. Her relaxed attire from earlier had gone completely. Now she was garbed from neck to toe in what looked like an amalgamation of every hunting armour style ever made from across Arda. All of it in fitted leather so dark it was almost black. Her long hair was twisted back away from her face — my face — in what looked like some kind of warriors braid, and though she carried no weapons at all, her posture screamed the anticipation of a fight.
Before her, Sauron halted as if he'd walked into an invisible barrier. His fair face didn't change; he was too old and too disciplined for that. But I did see his unnatural blast-furnace eyes widen ever so slightly, then narrow into a hostile scowl.
"Rávamë," he murmured, with the inflection of someone who'd just unexpectedly run into a despised family member.
"Mairon," she answered him in equally scathing tones, and I realised with a jolt that it must have been the name she'd once known him by in Aman. Her back was to me so I couldn't see her expression, but I could all but see her cast her eyes over him from brow to toe in familiar, haughty judgement. "Seems like someone finally cut you down to size."
His lip twitched in what might have been the beginning of a smirk. "The same could be said of you."
I found my voice again, still shaky and hollow with fright. "Tink—"
She raised her hand towards me in a gesture to be quiet, turning her head barely enough for me to see her face.
Her eyes were burning the brightest gold I'd ever seen them. Now that they stood in the same physical space, it was haunting how similar to Sauron's they were. Only where his ethereal topaz flames were edged with the bottomless dark of the void, hers were ringed with the brightness of a newborn star.
"Don't," she aimed the words at me before turning back to him. "You're not getting your answers from her, cuptamo(1). Leave."
He did not.
He all but ignored her words completely, instead opting to study her face with the curiosity of a scholar observing a macabre specimen in a lab.
"I had heard whispers you had returned in a new form. Yet you are…" He was scrutinising her in a way I couldn't fully understand, pacing idly. I got the impression that he was seeing all of her somehow — every aspect, physical or spiritual, all at once.
Eventually his brows lifted ever so slightly. "Ah, I see it now. She stole yours as well as her own." His gaze turned back to me, sending another bolt of raw fear through my guts. "Clever. And a humiliation for you Rávamë, to have been so diminished by one so insignificant."
"A rich statement coming from you," Tink sneered. Not once had she taken her eyes off him as he paced before us. I wasn't even sure if she'd blinked. "Take another step toward her and we shall test exactly how diminished we both are."
When Tink had spoken through me at Orthanc, Saruman (and even Gandalf) had been spooked by the sound of her threat. If not outright afraid.
Sauron was not.
Not even close.
He smiled at her, slow and amused, and it was enough to put ice into my blood. Something stirred in the air between them in that moment. Something I could almost feel as a pressure on my skin but couldn't find words for. The closest analogy I could find was the sensation of static and heat in the air that heralds a hurricane…
Sauron inclined his head to Tink in a manner that might have once looked brotherly, an unfathomably long time ago.
"Do you even understand your loathing for me, Wild One? Or do you simply follow the instinct mindlessly?" His taunting smile grew a little wider, turning his fair face suddenly ugly with malice. "It would not be the first time."
That terrible pressure in the air redoubled, enough to make my ears pop and my skin to sting.
I saw Tink's shoulders tighten further, like an over-twisted bowstring…
And I realised with a terrible shudder that the storm-heat I could feel in the air was coming from her.
I could feel her anger, all her rage made manifest in the only way my mind could translate. It was a fury so vast and scolding I knew my mortal mind didn't have the capacity to comprehend it. I wasn't even sure Tink herself fully understood it in her current state.
But it wasn't just her.
That cloying pressure in the air was being met with another equal and opposing force coming from the other being in my mind. I couldn't have put it into words back then. It wasn't the kind of thing we have words for. But I had something close to an innate understanding of what I was experiencing in those handful of heartbeats…
Rávamë and Mairon were the same.
The two Maiar's essences — what made them what they were at their core — were identical. And yet at the same time so diametrically opposed I could almost physically feel it like magnetic forces in the air.
Order against chaos.
Industry against wilderness.
Logic against instinct.
Whatever Sauron had once been created to be by Iluvatar at the beginning of time, Rávamë had also been made his polar opposite. The check to his nature.
And he to hers.
Unbidden and uninvited, a memory came to my mind as I cowered there behind my friend. A memory of being curled up in my favourite spot in Master Elrond's study by the rain-streaked window. A book detailing the War of Wrath from the First Age open in my lap. I'd read with distant curiosity that the last time there had been open conflict between Ainur, entire kingdoms had been flattened, half the continent had been swallowed by the oceans, millions had died, and it had irreparably changed the face of Arda forever.
It had felt so abstract at the time. Just words on a page.
But seeing Tink and Sauron now, their essences radiating off them like the prelude to a natural disaster, I had little doubt if they chose to truly throw down (even limited as they were within my mind) Meduseld and all the people within wouldn't be left standing.
And I also realised — for all her big talk — Tink knew that better than I did, and she was holding back.
Whether she had any chance at winning that kind of fight aside, she was completely hamstrung by not wanting to hurt me. It was why she hadn't done anything to try and drive Sauron out yet. If she used anything approaching even half her real strength under our current circumstances, she'd likely rupture all the chambers in my heart at once.
That said, if Sauron managed to kill me inside my own mind…
I wasn't sure exactly what would happen, but I was reasonably sure, at best, I'd be left brain dead. And Tink would be permanently trapped.
"I will only ask gently once," Tink whispered, mirroring his words as her own voice echoed from a hundred directions just as his had. "Get out. Return to the shadows you love so dearly."
Again he ignored her, that twisted, ugly smile growing ever wider.
"Irony of ironies. Once upon a time you were truly a threat worthy of eradication, but now…" His amused smile turned as cruel as a saw-blade against skin. "Trapped in a lesser vessel, you are but a dying spark of the wildfire you once were, Rávamë. I cannot say I am saddened to see it. But I am disappointed at just how easily you Fell. How little it took."
Something in those words — in that capitalised 'F' — caught Tink in an invisible weak spot. I saw it, felt it as the air twisted around her suddenly loose shoulders.
"Fell…" Her voice, so all encompassing only second before, came out so terrifying small. "What are you talking about?"
He chuckled, low and rich as dark honey — a horribly appealing sound. It was suddenly, frighteningly easy to see exactly how he had once manipulated so many over the ages.
"It does not matter. You no longer matter. You have not mattered for millennia." He turned his light-consuming gaze from Tink to me. "You on the other hand… are a complication, agath phazâth2. If I cannot take the knowledge of the one who carries my Ring from you, then I have exactly no further use for you."
That feeling of a word snagging on a long buried memory hit me again.
"Agath phazâth…" I felt myself silently mouthing the words, my terror momentarily eclipsed. Deep within me I felt something shift… and click back into place…
And I realised I not only knew the language — could speak it if I wished to — but I also understood the words themselves…
" 'Dead princess' ?" I whispered.
Sauron just chuckled, and it was the worst thing I'd ever heard.
"Go to your end confused," he said to me.
And there was another surge in the air, like the tide drawing back right before a tsunami.
"No!" Tink's scream suddenly ripped through the air, just as a light-consuming wave of fire flared and struck…
… and I watched as she threw herself directly in front of me, the mirror of my own form raising up her arms in futile defence.
The blast — somehow both scorching and freezing against my senses — threw her off her feet like a giant swatting a collided with me hard, and I cried out, locking my arms around her as we skidded across the smooth crystal floor together. When we finally tumbled to a stop, her terrifyingly still form lay sprawled over mine.
"Tink…" I tried to call, but my voice was being smothered by the icy burning in the air. I choked, forcing myself up. "Tink!"
She didn't answer.
I distantly heard slow steps coming towards us again, and I scrambled to my knees, hauling her up so I was cradling her across my lap. Her eyes were closed, and that potent aura all around her had dimmed to the weakness of an ember. The ethereal leather of her cuirass had been split and blackened at the edges, like she'd been slashed half a dozen times across the chest with a white-hot blade. Her wounds didn't bleed, but instead poured forth a kind of pale golden fire everywhere her body had been hit, pooling around us on the smooth crystal floor.
Not once since the moment we'd first met in that star-lit field in the depths of my dreams had I ever seen her so still, or so silent.
Not once.
I felt my eyes filling with horrified tears as I raised them to see Sauron walking slowly, leisurely towards us. He didn't smile this time, but I could feel the satisfaction radiating off him behind the look of determined focus.
Anger, impotent and childlike kindled to life in my chest. Small beside my terror, but catching fast.
"Get out…"my voice croaked, so small and pathetic.
This time Sauron did smile, patronising and charming, as if he'd just heard a simple joke from a dimwitted child.
That kindled fury in my chest grew and flared, as if someone had taken a bellows to it. This was my mind, my body, my dreamscape.
And he'd just hurt my friend.
Some of that gold fire spilling from Tink's open wounds had run over my hands, my legs, pooling on the floor all around my knee…
And I felt the rush of familiar rage and power that had come when we had fought the Uruk-hai chief…
When I'd strangled my attacker in that alley…
When we had burned the ground black with the power of our voice in a single word…
I opened my mouth, and screamed. And the sound became thunder, lightning, a hurricane and the quaking of the earth's tectonic plates colliding.
"Get out!"
The air all around us exploded, flaring with that same essence I'd felt from my friend. Gold as blinding as a dawn, tinged with the brightness of a newborn star.
The force of it almost sent me flying. On pure instinct I clung to Tink's catatonic form, my grip on her the only thing keeping me in place. The chaos in the air was so much that I barely saw Sauron was also nearly cast backwards. Unlike me though, he was sure on his feet from thousands of years of practice. The force of Tink's essence sent him skidding back only a few feet in a crouch, ash blond hair blasted back as if in a strong wind, one hand braced against the floor to steady himself.
That fair face he wore had finally dropped the charm entirely, the smile replaced with a livid snarl. His mouth formed the shape of furious words, but I couldn't hear him anymore.
Whatever I had unleashed, I was powerless to stop it now.
Pain and numbness were already beginning to spread up through me everywhere Tink's fire had touched my skin. And with it, I began to see ghostly shapes forming in the golden-wreathed mayhem all around us. Shapes and memories and feelings so strong they hurt.
None of them mine, but hers.
I saw the towering magnificence of a twin trees, one gold and one silver, each as tall as mountains, casting blinding radiance across the world…
I felt the soul-deep longing to ride east as the newborn sun made its first journey across the heavens. The pull to seek out the first of the Secondborn where they woke…
I saw the faces of Men young and old, male and female, as beloved and precious to me as family, laughing as we rode across Arda together…
And I saw those same face pleading for mercy as furious, poisonous betrayal and a howling need to vengeance pierced my heart… even as I pierced their hearts with the spear I'd once taught them with…
I felt the wrath of a righteous anger far greater than my own crushing my soul. Divine outrage for 'innocent' blood spilled. And I felt the agony of my physical body being torn asunder atom by atom by celestial winds…
I saw a great twisting grey tree called forth from the earth in the east by a merciful Power. A terrible punishment to be sealed within, in that same land where I had once instructed and ridden alongside murdered friends…
I saw eons passing in the blink of an eye, kingdoms rising and falling, the world around that tree changing even as the bark and leaves never did…
And I saw a furious young mortal woman I did not recognise touch a power-thirsty hand to that same tree thousands of years later. Her eyes turning a furious burning gold as her palm met the bark, her pupils splitting like a cats as she willingly took something terrible into herself…
Taking me into herself…
And I felt that howling, millennia-old need for vengeance swallowing me again… turning me into something else…
Something wrong.
One more had survived.
One more betrayer had got away.
Even in mortal Men's death he would not escape me.
His descendants one-by-one would pay the price for their forefather's sin.
I swore it.
Pain lanced through me again as I tried to pull myself from the maelstrom, but it was no use. What little influence I'd had to spark this storm, I had absolutely no power to stop it.
Beyond the screaming gale of Tink's power and memories I could see the void-edged fire of Sauron's will had risen up and was pushing back against it hard. They might be evenly matched in terms of nature, but Tink was not in any shape to defy him now.
And I was but a tiny, flickering candle flame caught between two ancient wildfires.
I choked on a gasp of agony and renewed terror, that numbing pain spreading deeper into my body, entwining ever deep with my own being…
Then outside the vaults of my mind, I sensed more than felt one of my friends pull me bodily from the seeing stone.
Sauron's furious dark-wreathed form vanished with an inhumane howl as the palantír's contact with my skin was severed. But instead of coming back to consciousness, or falling into merciful oblivion, I was thrown down a well of dark blurring visions and screaming sounds.
The moment my vision came back I knew I was in another waking dream.
I knew because the second I realised I wasn't back in Meduseld, lying in a heap on the floor of the sleeping quarters with my friends shaking me awake, I tried to wriggle my hands, fingers, and toes.
And just as in my cliff diving memory, absolutely nothing happened.
I was once again completely conscious of everything that was happening around me, but powerless to change anything. Trapped within my past-selfs body looking out like a ghostly spectator. But unlike the blistering chaos of Tink's memories I'd experienced just moments before, this one felt warm, comforting, familiar…
And clearer than any I had experienced before.
As the world came into sharper focus, I found I was striding down an elegant white stone hallway lined with arches. Floor to ceiling lattice windows cast intricate patterns across the grey marble floor in the afternoon sunshine. Somewhere outside I could hear the cries of seagulls and the distant crash of waves as I walked — the sound an instant, unexplainable comfort to my troubled heart.
My present-day self had absolutely no idea where I was, or where I was headed in such a hurry, but I knew on some instinctive level that I'd already walked these grand halls a thousand times before.
I'd run down them laughing with playmates as a child.
Stomped down them in a temper as an adolescent.
And now as a grown woman, my past-self knew her way through them without needing to even look or think about it.
Enormous as the palace was, it was my home after all.
I barely had time to absorb that thought before a familiar figure rounded the corner at the end of the hallway, striding in the opposite direction to me. Just as he'd been when I'd seen him looking down atop those cliffs, the familiar man was dressed in the dark blue and gold uniform of the royal guard, his dark wavy hair pulled back from his deep bronze cheekbones in a low tail.
Abrazîr — my past-self's mind provided the name immediately, even as I remembered his face and name from the first waking memory I'd experienced. I also remembered the gentle flutter of excitement I'd felt in my stomach at the sight of his smile and the sound of his laugh.
Hearing my footsteps on the marble, he glanced up from the tablet he'd been scowling at.
The second he saw me the frown dissolved, a warm smile spreading over his full lips as his dark eyes softened on me. It released another wave of butterflies into my insides. The sensation was unsettlingly similar to the feeling I'd experienced around Legolas lately, but mellowed somehow. As if it had become familiar and tempered over time.
"Welcome home, aranelya(3)," Abrazîr addressed me softly as we slowed to a stop before each other. "I am ever relieved to see you returned to us in one piece."
His voice was deep and rich, and far less formal than I knew it should have been when addressing me. It didn't matter though. The hall was empty save for the pair of us, and I could feel myself returning that smile with the same informal warmth.
"Thank you, Abrazîr," I heard myself answer softly. "My brother?"
The guard captain tried gallantly not to smirk in amusement, and failed entirely. He gestured down to the far end of the marble hall with the hand not occupied with report scrolls.
"In the library," he said, dark eyes twinkling with repressed laughter. "He has not left in over five hours."
"What else is new?" I chuckled.
"He did remember to stop and eat this time."
"Did you have to send a sentinel up to remind him though?"
His smile turned into a white-toothed grin, and it turned his face from merely handsome to something close to devastating.
Jarring as this entire experience was, I had to admit, my past-self did have very good taste.
"Of course," he laughed, his expression softening on me once again. "He will also be relieved you are home."
"He always is. Once he thinks to look up from his tomes," I agreed, holding his gaze a bit longer than I knew I should have.
The silence that followed weighed heavy in the air between us as I felt my past-self's urge to say something. To ask him something…
But in the end, I chickened out.
"I should… I should speak with him before…well…" I murmured at the same moment Abrazîr cleared his throat and averted his eyes towards the lattice windows.
"Of course. Yes…"
Neither of us moved for a heartbeat.
Then, just as my present-day self felt like she had somehow become trapped in a romcom, my past-self straightened her posture and made to sweep past him towards the library. And as I did I felt the backs of our fingers brush lightly. The feeling sent warmth and frustration flooding through me in equal measure.
But I'd barely made it three more steps before his voice stopped me in my tracks again.
"Éla—" the sound of my shortened amilessë(4) coming from his mouth was enough to make my heart stutter. That nickname was assuredly not a proper method of address for a member of the royal family, and it would have absolutely got him in deep water if anyone had been there to witness it.
But it was just us there.
And my past-self couldn't help but enjoy the sound of it — rare as it was from him.
I felt myself turn on the spot to look back at him, trying to feign something like composure.
"Yes?"
The sun-dark skin of his cheekbones had coloured a deep shade of red, and the uncertain expression on his usually confident face bore such a striking resemblance to Legolas for a moment that it made my present-day self's heart clench.
Clearly I had a type.
"If you are not occupied with your report to his majesty later… I wonder if you would wish to…"
He trailed off.
"Wish to…?" I prompted softly, quietly feeling hope bloom in my chest. The colour spread from his cheeks to his rounded human ears and down his neck as I watched.
Yes, I definitely had a type.
He swallowed.
"Perhaps you would care to take dinner with me later this evening?" He asked like he was half expecting a reprimand for the very idea, let alone the question. "The harbour district perhaps… I'd intended to take a walk along the seafront after my duties are complete…"
My past-self's stomach flooded with triple the butterflies as before. I didn't need to search my thoughts far to understand that it was a question I'd longed for. The dynamics of our ranks made it so I couldn't have extended an invitation like that without it heaping unfair pressures on him. He might have felt obligated to reciprocate simply because of who I was.
"I…" I cleared my suddenly dry throat and tried again with an uncharacteristically shy smile. "I would enjoy that very much."
The uncertain, almost anxious expression on Abrazîr's face melted to be replaced by that devastating smile from before. The flush of colour in his cheeks, ears, and neck did not recede however, which softened the impact just a little.
"Around dusk then?" He asked. I nodded, unable to control the luminous smile on my own face any longer.
"By the market arch?"
He nodded, his dark eyes unable to hold back the warmth and excitement behind them.
When we finally parted and I was out of sight around a corner, I had to take a moment to compose myself again. I could feel my cheeks aflame, and I had to cover them with my cool fingers until the flush had receded enough to not raise questions. Even so, I couldn't quite fight back the smile on my lips or the lightness in my chest. When I finally reached the library wing my pink cheeks had mostly returned to normal, but there was still a little skip in my steps.
My present-day self had been so thrown by what I'd just witnessed that I didn't even realise the scale of the halls I'd just entered until I'd already walked in through the carved double doors and glanced up…
And up, and up.
The moment I passed into the palace library, towers of shelves rose up all around either side of me. And not just a few, but dozens on dozens, at least three floors up on each side. They only stopped when they eventually reached the vaulted ceiling — the plaster intricately painted with landscapes, ethereal figures, armies of elves and men, and important historical figures occasionally accented with gold and silver. I realised somewhere at the back of my head that I was seeing depictions of the events of the First Age. Homages to the troves of knowledge and histories kept in the books, scrolls, and even ancient looking tablets that filled the displays and shelves below.
Distantly I couldn't help but wonder in awe if even the Library of Alexandria could have held a candle to all this.
My past-self on the other hand had walked the rows so many times that my steps barely slowed. Scholars and researchers — mostly Men, but also some Elves — passed me by as they attended their duties, occasionally nodding or offering murmurs of 'aranelya' as I navigated the maze of stairs, stands and shelves. I eventually found who I was looking for after climbing a twisting white staircase up to the second floor and navigating a maze of artefact displays.
The familiar form of my brother came into sight behind one of the research tables. He had his back to me, his curly head hunched low like a prawn over an enormous old book with gold brushed edges. He was taking impossibly tiny notes at light speed on a sheet of parchment with one hand, and flipping carefully through delicate pages with the other.
I felt a fond smile find its way onto my mouth at the sight, and I wondered not for the first time how he'd managed to avoid any premature back pains with such terrible posture.
He was so enraptured with whatever he was reading that he hadn't noticed me standing there.
Actually I wasn't sure he'd noticed anyone at all since Abrazir had sent a guard to drag him down to lunch earlier.
"Var," I called gently. When he didn't even blink I placed a hand on one hip, eyeing the back of his head. "Vardamir. Vardamir Elrosion."
My present-day self's heart jump at the sound of his full name, but there was still no reaction from the man in question.
Pursing my lips but still failing to hold back an amused smile, I pulled a thick hardback tome off one of the nearby shelves (a detailed genealogy of the house of Finwë apparently) and stepped over to where he was hunched. Var didn't even glance up as I lifted the heavy book high, and promptly dropped it down onto the table with a loud bang.
My ever studious twin brother all but leaped out of his skin, his quill flying out of his hand and his chair almost going over backwards.
"Éla! Manwe's breath!"
"Sorry," I laughed lightly, not even trying to hide my glee. "But I have been waiting weeks to do that again."
"Weeks indeed," he beamed, green eyes bright as summer as he got up from his seat in one swift movement. He pulled me into a tight, long hug, and I returned it gladly.
"I am so glad you're finally back," he whispered.
"As am I," I breathed, releasing him and scrutinising him at arms length. "Have you truly been sat here for over five hours?"
He grinned sheepishly at me.
"Ah, ran into the Guard Captain on your way here I see." When I simply raised an eyebrow at him, he shrugged. "I took a break for food."
"Did you really though?"
"Mostly," he shrugged. And again I gave him a thoroughly unconvinced raised brow. He made an exasperated noise and threw up both hands in defence. "I was engrossed in an epic romance! Given the colour of your face and who you were just speaking with, I'd have thought you sympathetic to my plight."
I felt my traitorous cheeks colouring again. "And that is supposed to mean…?"
My twin gave me a look I knew as well as my own reflection. It was the one he wore when he knew I was trying (and failing) to lie.
"Don't even attempt it, sister mine. I have eyes. I know what is beginning to happen between you and Az."
I knew I should have known better than to play dumb with Var, but when it came to what had begun to grow between Abrazir and I, it was reflex to mask it. For both our sakes.
I sighed, turning to lean against the table Var had piled high with books and research notes.
"He asked me to dinner, you know," I admitted quietly, allowing my shoulders to slump. Var perched beside me, close enough for us to whisper without even the Elven scholars hearing.
"Truly?"
"This evening."
"How brazen."
"And for a walk along the seafront."
"Scandalous."
I gave him a slightly petulant side-eye.
"You joke, brother dearest, but it may actually be seen as just that."
"I know," he answered, his usual teasing tone edged with a little note of sadness. "And do you intend for more dinners and unsupervised time together in future?"
"I don't know."
"But you'd like to?"
I pretended to think about it, even though I already knew the answer.
"… I would."
My wise, clever, and impossibly kind brother gave me what I knew was a look that mixed elation, brotherly pride and gentle pity in equal measure. He nudged me lightly with his elbow.
"I'm happy for you Éla… but I'm sure I don't need to state the obvious difficulty."
I turned to look at him, my brows furrowed with momentary confusion before I realised what he was talking about. Then it was my turn to make an exasperated noise and throw up my hands.
"Stars, no one is speaking of marriage, Var. Certainly not this early."
"Mother is."
I scoffed. "Mother would have seen me happily married a decade ago if she'd had her way."
"You say that as if I haven't received the exact same treatment," he argued, suddenly with all the grace of a sulky teenager. "Worse in fact! Do you have any idea how many 'gifted young ladies' she introduced me to at her last symposium? It was well into double digits."
I couldn't help but snort out a laugh, shaking my head and kicking him lightly in the shin with the tip of my boot.
"Yes, well, you're the Heir to the Sceptre. It doesn't matter half as much who I eventually marry as who you do."
He smiled at me without any humour.
"It's adorable that you believe that," he told me, and the mirth slid from his face as his gaze drifted back to the genealogy tome I'd dropped on the table. "You're the First Princess, Éla. The first one ever for the entire line. It matters. Even if mother and father only want you to be happy with whoever you choose, history won't care."
I hated how correct his words were. I always had.
The breath left me in a hard exhale, the weight of that title I hadn't asked for suddenly very heavy on my shoulders. On both our shoulders.
I slumped where I sat beside him on that table. "I know."
We just sat there beside each other for several long minutes, watching quietly as the scholars and researchers all went about their work on the floors below.
"On a potentially far less cheery note," Var said quietly, "dare I ask how your scouting run in the south went?"
For a moment my present-day self didn't understand what he meant. But unlike previous memories I'd experienced, when I instinctively reached for the knowledge, it came easily to the forefront of my mind.
I was no warrior in this time, and had no interest in ever becoming one. But I — along with a small group of similarly keen peers — had been lucky enough to be trained in reconnaissance by some of our island's Elven guest hunters from Tol Eressëa. As a result, after over a decade of instruction, I'd become among the most valuable scouts, surveyors and cartographers in the palace garrison. Valuable because, unlike the Sea Guard or the Mapmakers Guild, we reported all our knowledge directly to the king alone.
I didn't have time to try and piece together what any of that meant before my past-self was speaking again.
"It depends on what you'd class as successful," I told Var, a quake of dread pooling in my gut that my present-day self didn't quite understand yet. "We confirmed that the reports were accurate. All of them."
Var made a noise of worry, shaking his head. "Given the contents of those reports I still can't believe father allowed you to go."
The chuckle that came out of me was a dry attempt at levity.
"I bribed him with his favourite goldwine cakes from Andúnië," I said, and was only half joking. "But I also pointed out that, unlike my good self, any other scout might make the mistake of sugar-coating the severity of whatever we found out there."
It was the truth, but it was also not all of it.
I knew father still had scars on his mind and heart from the years before we'd been born. I knew that beneath all the poise of leadership there was no one who was more viscerally protective and adoring of our home than him. But he wasn't the only one who'd come into this new Age with scars. Var and I hadn't been around to see it, but for all intents and purposes it hadn't been so long since the end of the deadliest war our People had ever known. We had survived and were finally safe now. We had a home. We had a future.
And no one from that time — Man or Elf — wanted to believe that kind of darkness could ever reach us again.
"You are entirely too sweet natured to be so good at manipulation," Var told me, but there was a wry smile on his face when I glanced at him.
"Only when it comes to things that try to invade my home and hurt my People," I forced a smile in return, but it felt a bit brittle now. He noticed instantly and his forced jovial expression faded entirely.
"Was it as bad as described?"
It was a simple question, but the yet unspoken answer still made my insides twist.
The whole journey home I'd be trying to avoid thinking about what we'd seen, and had mostly succeeded. Running into Abrazir and all the feelings that came with him had been a welcome distraction, but now the recollection of all my scout party had witnessed came back with a force.
"It's worse," I admitted, my voice very small. I felt myself fighting down a shiver, turning back to look at all the books my brother had been scouring. "Did you find anything like it in the histories while I was gone?"
Var shook his head, taking obvious note of my avoidance.
"Nothing helpful. Access to near all the surviving records of Elves and Men of the First Age, and all I can find that carries any resemblance to this force is a mainland nursery rhyme."
"A nursery rhyme?"
"A Southlands one it seems. Here, look."
He turned and pulled a slender, well worn leather book from the pile. It had been bookmarked with a scrap of parchment absolutely covered with his minute but neat handwriting, and he flipped it open for me to see.
My past-self read the marked page quickly even as my present-day self instantly recognised an early rendition of the Dirge of the Hravarim written in elegant script. I could all but hear Freda's soft voice singing the words in my head as my past-self's read them, my stomach dropping.
"Nienna's tears…" I heard myself breathe, unable to look away from the stanza about eyes being plucked from heads. "It's absolutely about them."
Beside me, Var was very quiet as he processed exactly what that meant.
"Valar, Éla…" he breathed, looking at me. "This is truly the sort of thing you witnessed? I'd assumed the whisperings from Hyarrostar were exaggerated."
My face fell somehow further, now completely unable to hide how much my time away from the city had truly hit me. I looked to my brother with genuine, quiet dread.
"They weren't just whisperings, Var. We found an entire outpost gone after one night. All of them dead. Just as described here. The ones whose bodies we actually found anyway. Men, women… only the children were left alive. We found several of them hiding in the basement of a guardhouse. The things they described they'd seen…" I felt myself shudder and ice slid down my spine at the memory. "Something's here, on the island. Something terrible."
"Fortunate then," Var murmured, a shadow of his former humour creeping back in, "that father wants to speak to us in the Audience Chamber as soon as you were ready."
I blinked. "Now?"
That was unusual. Normally myself and the other scouts gave our reports to the king in private after his daily meetings were finished.
Var nodded. "There's a meeting with the Council of the Sceptre in about half an hour. He wants us both there. Likely so you can present your full report centre-stage for all to hear."
"And for all to mercilessly question, no doubt," I sighed, cynically. With one last look at that haunting nursery rhyme, I steeled myself again before pushing off the table. "Very well, let us head there now. We can stop by the kitchens on the way and find you an actual meal, lest you faint dead away on the audience floor."
Var gave me a dubious look and chewed his lip, casting an eye over my form thoughtfully.
"Are you not going to at least change first?"
I raised an eyebrow and gave a sweeping gesture down my figure.
"I thought I'd make an impression on the lords, just to be sure they comprehend the true reality of the situation."
Var just continued to eye my still windswept hair, my rough terrain scratches, and the small spatters of dirt and mud that still marred my scout leathers from the cross-country ride. I likely reeked of sweat and horse as well.
He sighed.
"I think they shall receive the message loud and clear, dear sister."
My present-day self felt the shifting of time passing as the waking memory blurred all around me. And a few breaths later I was walking alongside Var into another breathtaking room of a similar style to the library.
The Audience Hall was round, about the size of a small auditorium, with tiers of encircling benches leading down to a sunken floor in the centre of the room. A great mosaic dome arched overhead, the acoustics allowing for anyone in the hall to be easily heard no matter where they stood. An aqueduct or fountain must have been built to run through the hall, because the section of floor at the centre was encircled by narrow channels filled with gently flowing water and lilypads. They ran down past the steps and benches, around the speaking floor, past a larger bench that I realised must be a throne, before all meeting under a large archway across the room from the main doorway. The arch provided an unobstructed view of outside, where a large white tree grew in a courtyard of stone, high above a huge city built into the bay below.
It didn't feel so much like a regal throne room for a king to receive subjects, but a beautiful meeting hall where all could and should speak freely.
And it was already full of people my past-self recognised, the names and titles coming to me without even needing to think this time.
My small party of fellow scouts were all there, seated on benches on the bottom tier near the front. Three women, five men; all of them still dressed in the same lightweight leather armour I was. From the scuffs and flecks of mud still on their boots it seemed like they'd also not had any time to clean up before being called. They quieted and offered me and Var grim smiles as we passed them.
Just a few steps past them were a small cadre of Falmari Elf hunters — guests of the city from Tol Eressëa. One of the taller red-haired ones I knew as Rhumir. He was an old friend of my mother's and one of the elves who'd helped train my peers and I when we'd first set out to learn more of our island home. While his brethren spoke quietly among themselves, he was sat looking pensively out at the white tree beyond the arch. He glanced up and caught my eye as I passed, and though he didn't smile (he rarely did) his expression lightened and he gave me a tiny nod.
The rest of the tiered benches were filled right to the back with the lords and ladies from all the different corners of the island, the sounds of their conversing echoing throughout the hall.
It was near overwhelming for my present-day self even as it was a mundane experience for my past-self…
But then the sudden appearance of two hauntingly familiar figures cut through the noise as cleanly as a sunbeam through a shadow.
A man and a woman.
They were stood close enough for their arms to idly touch each time they moved, deep in conversation with one of the elder lords. The woman was small, maybe within a few centimetres of my height, and had the straight-backed posture of one with natural confidence and sure steps. The long blue satin of her gown draped gently over the swell of her pregnant belly, and she'd rested one slender hand affectionately atop the bump. Save for a far more elegant bearing and a slightly darker shade of brown hair, she looked so much like me…
Or rather, I looked like her.
'Mother,' my heart told me with instant bone-deep affection.
The same green eyes Var and I had inherited from her warmed at the sight of us.
And beside her...
Something in my chest, both past and present ached at the sight of him. Something about his face was so painfully familiar to me far beyond the intrinsic, soul-deep understanding that he was my father.
He was tall, almost as tall as the other elves present. Long dark hair fell down over his upper back and shoulders, over a tunic and robe no more fine than the others around him. He had a neatly trimmed beard, gentle grey eyes just starting to crease at the edges with graceful age, and beneath the dark hair, the tips of delicately pointed ears were visible. Just like Var's and mine.
He spotted us over the lord's shoulder only a breath later, and a smile that was a more matured mirror of mine and Var's spread over his face — warm and endlessly loving.
He raised a hand in the air, and within seconds the room had quieted down. The idling lords and ladies ceased their chatter and took their usual places. Mother glided to her seat to the left of what was less of a throne and more of a glorified bench — as if it had been carved so the one upon it would remain at eye level with those addressing him.
"Good luck," Var whispered to me before moving to also take his usual spot as Heir just to the right of the throne.
The only two left standing in that hall were now me, and my father.
"Welcome friends, and thank you for your swiftness in answering," he addressed the room as a whole, his warm but commanding baritone carrying through the room without the need to raise his voice even a little. "As you have all already heard by now, there have been several rumoured reports of attacks on our settlements in the south of Hyarrostar. All within the last week. I have called you here at this unusual hour to hear the formal report of our Armenlos' scouts, who were sent on my order to investigate and confirm these rumours." He turned his gaze to me, his grey eyes softening slightly as he raised his hand to me. "I have requested my daughter speak on behalf of her team. Élanor, if you would."
I felt my past-self nod, stepping towards the centre speaking floor as if I'd done it before and was used to the uncomfortable sensation of dozens of eyes all focusing on me at once. Once I was stood in the absolute centre of the room, and father had taken his seat on the throne, I breathed deep and began to recall all we had seen.
"My lords, ladies, for those of you who are not yet aware; a total of three minor settlements along the south-east coastline were initially hit with unprompted attacks just a little over eight days ago. We only received word of these incursions thanks to two wounded ravens making it as far as Mittalmar with messages of warning. These messages spoke of neighbouring villages going suddenly silent and dark in the night, and villagers seeing what they thought to be oncoming shadows approaching with the sounds of wild creatures.
"Our king initially dispatched us to determine if some kind of natural disaster or ecological change from the island was responsible — hence why scouts and not soldiers were sent. In the time we rode south, more messages apparently arrived at Armenelos, this time speaking of an entire shadowed hoard of riders moving in the night. The writers of these messages were unable to determine clear numbers due to the riders never carrying torches against the night."
I took a moment for the audience to process those words, quietly muttering with each other before I carried on.
"On the way to the location of the first missive, several of our trackers," I gestured to the others sat behind me, "discovered the path these riders had taken. We followed the trail to an outpost we had not received word from at all — a lightly fortified hunting settlement on the edge of the Hyarrostar forest."
I swallowed the sudden dryness in my throat at the memory.
"The outpost was almost entirely destroyed. Few of the buildings had been fully pulled down or burned, but all of them had been torn through as if by wild animals. Even those that showed signs of being heavily barricaded. There were less bodies than we would have expected from a village that size, but when we did find corpses… those who tried to fight appeared to have been cut down by claws, fangs and spears, while those who tried to run were crippled with arrows to their legs and savaged by beasts who chased them down."
The murmuring from the noblemen and women was louder this time, many of them not bothering to mask their shock. And I couldn't really blame them.
"Only the children were apparently left alive," I went on, eager to get the rest out so I didn't have to continue to relive the memory of what my group had found. "We could not determine why, but any youngster less than about thirteen summers old were all left entirely unscathed. We found many hiding themselves in basements and cellars. They have all since been escorted to safety far outside the path of this force, but before they departed the older ones described their attackers as a pack of human hunters who struck in the darkest part of the night. They rode atop the backs of beasts, wielding hunting bows and javelins, and… cutting down any in their path like madmen."
I shivered as I recalled one terrified girl of about twelve whispering wide-eyed about seeing dozens of reflective yellow eyes in the dark to the sounds of howls and screams.
"At first we believed the children had been so traumatised by the attack that they had filled the gaps in their memory with a joint fantasy. But after our trackers examined many of the bodies, wounds and tracks, we determined that what they witnessed was true. Whatever force has attacked these settlements, it's one made up of the kinds of hunters and creatures we've never encountered ever before."
I allowed for one more pause as the din of murmuring rose still further, mostly to collect my composure again. Once I had, I gestured to one of the other scouts — a sharp-faced human woman about my age, her dark hair bound back in dozens of slender braids.
"Tracker Desha took careful note of the movement patterns they left behind before we returned here. If her theory is correct," they always where and everyone here knew it, "their path will intersect with the coastal settlement of Nindamos in just under two days."
A troubled hush fell over the room as I completed my report, finally allowing myself to look and properly see the reactions of my parents and brother.
Mother had one delicate hand to her mouth as if to hold back quiet horror, but her green eyes held a kind of quiet fury I knew was aimed at whoever had orphaned those children. Var looked the least surprised, given that he'd already heard the news from me earlier, but he was also struggling to hold back a dark look of revulsion and anger.
By stark contrast, my father's expression hadn't changed once. To all the world it might have looked like he was unmoved as he quietly listened to what I had described. But I knew him better. I saw the dark look forming behind his deliberately stoic eyes, and I knew there was no one else in this entire hall who was more struck by this news than him.
However, I didn't get a chance to hear his thoughts before one of the lords of Orrostar made a soft noise into the silence, and the entire room turned their focus on him.
"While none of us here doubt your words are true, aranelya," he said very carefully. "I must ask; is it at all possible that in all those inarguably horrific scenes, you and your company may have seen catastrophe where there was only simple tragedy? Savage as these attacks doubtless were, if it were an invading army, or even a battalion, there would be far greater and more widespread bloodshed already. As it stands, it could very well be an especially brutal and organised group of raiders."
To his credit, even though he was directly questioning me, the lord didn't do it with anything like contempt, and he held my gaze respectfully the entire time.
"Raiders? This far west? Truly?" One of the ladies of Andustar immediately spoke up with all the scorn-laced frustration I felt but couldn't voice. "Simple raiders could not have reached our shores unnoticed by the Sea Guard. Whatever they may be, are you suggesting we simply ignore them until they go away?"
"Of course not," the Orrostar lord answered sharply. "I would never suggest we sit idly and do nothing while our People are threatened. I only wish to remind us all that caution must take precedence over impulse, however justified that impulse is."
It wasn't strictly my place to offer a biased opinion that might colour my report, especially on the floor of the king's Audience Hall, but I couldn't help it.
"But we also cannot risk acting so slowly that another settlement is left scoured like the others. We must do something for them quickly," I argued, unable to keep the emotion out of my voice.
The Orrostar lord turned back to me again, his gaze softening to something almost grandfatherly, but also quietly dismissive.
"I find your zeal for defending the vulnerable admirable, arenelya. Truly. But this is not a time for rash, spirited decisions made in haste. We must be careful to not frighten and panic the rest of our People unduly. Not now when so many have finally begun to find peace again…"
Another heavy silence descended over the hall. Many of the older faces around us — including my father's — took on suddenly distant, haunted expressions, as if they'd collectively relieved a nightmare at the same time. And despite the tightened emotions I could feel rising in the room, all those of us who were young enough to have no memories of brutal wars and lost loved ones held our tongues.
Eventually it was the king who broke that uneasy silence.
"I sympathise with your concerns Lord Zahir," he said softly, meeting the man's pained gaze. "But by the same token, my daughter is correct. We cannot waste time hesitating when the lives of our People are threatened."
I felt a mingled rush of relief and affection for my father in that moment, and risked sending him a grateful little smile. He didn't return it, but gave the barest nod of approval.
"So what is to be done then?" Another of the ladies of the audience asked.
Father had leaned over to rest his elbows on his knees, still looking deep in troubled thought when one of the lords of Forostar spoke up.
"Send them a raven. Warn them to evacuate before a fully armed detachment can be sent to—"
"A single raven will not be enough to convince an entire settlement of farmers and fishermen to abandon their homes and livelihoods," mother cut him off, her light, sharp voice holding the same chiding tone it had whenever she'd scolded Var and I for swearing at the dinner table.
"Queen Nazrin is correct," one of the younger Hyarrostar lords agreed, his dark eyes heavy with fear for the people under his care. "And if this force is as thorough as our scouts have indicated, that raven may well be shot out of the sky before it can even reach them."
"A full battalion of soldiers then? Even a single cadre of our vanguard warriors would be well equipped to handle even the fiercest invaders."
"Yes, but even if they departed in the next hour it would take them at least three days to reach Nindamos. By then it will be too late, and we will not know where they will strike next."
All around me the room descended into increasingly loud debate on what was the right action to take, but it all became white noise in my ears. I suddenly couldn't drag my mind away from the images of what we'd seen in that destroyed village.
The mauled and hamstrung bodies we'd found…
The claw marks on the walls of family homes…
Blood and viscera spattered across trampled grass…
That wide-eyed twelve-year-old girl who'd described the sounds of her father being dragged screaming into the dark by monsters…
The words were out of my mouth almost as soon as I'd thought them.
"Send me," I said, and the perfect acoustics of the room carried my voice for everyone to hear. The entire room fell suddenly very silent, even as my nerve strengthened, and I repeated: "Send me. Send us."
I turned and looked back to the other scouts, trackers and cartographers who'd found that ruined village with me. A couple looked horrified by the very idea. But most of them had the same steely, resolved looks in their eyes as mine.
"Arenelya, that is—"
"We know the lands and terrain better than anyone else," I cut across whoever had begun to naysay me, not bothering to register who it was. "Our trackers already know their movements and path. We are light and fast enough to evade them if it comes to that, and we can reach Nindamos in a day if we leave before dusk. We could warn and evacuate the people quietly before this force can even reach them."
"Surely a messenger would be—"
"A messenger might get there in time if they ride hard, but no one in a settlement that size will abandon their home on the word of a mere courier," I insisted, sparing an apologetic look to the minor lord who I'd just shot down. "But they will on the word of one of the royal family."
Out of the corner of my eye I saw my father's hand tighten on his armrest, shaking his head just once.
"No."
"We are willing, your majesty," Desha spoke up behind me, rising from her seat along with several of my fellow scouts. Only two of the eight remained seated.
"Lord Rhumir might accompany us if combat strength is a concern," Tamar, one of the younger cartographers agreed, then quickly inclined his head to the Elf lord seated a few benches away.
Rhumir was already standing though, all grace and deadly elegance beside my significantly younger peers.
"I and my hunters would gladly offer help should it be requested, arnya(5)."
Father shook his head again, his expression once again unchanged. But I recognised the growing dread flickering behind his eyes, and I momentarily regretted that I was the one to put it there.
"My answer is no," he repeated more sharply this time, straightening in his seat again. "Even with an escort, given that we do not know exactly what this force truly is yet, it would be far too great a risk to you all."
"And none here would advocate for putting our First Princess in the path of such danger," the same lord from Orrostar who'd argued for caution noted, gesturing directly to me.
I couldn't help it. I turned a harsh, unmasked stare at him.
"If they are mere raiders as you suspect, my lord, then what exactly is this danger to fear for me specifically?"
From his place to my father's side I saw Vardamir wince. He'd always been better at politicking, diplomacy and holding his tongue than I had, but on this occasion I couldn't bring myself to care. From infancy to adulthood, I had apparently always chafed at my status. It was not so much that that I resented the gifted life I had, but that I was so limited with what I could do with it. No matter what I did, thought, said or chose, it was never anywhere close to enough to overshadow that title I'd received at birth.
For better or worse, what I was would always win out over who I chose to be.
Somewhere to the back of the audience pews where the guards stood watch, I could feel Abrazir's eyes on me. It just made my skin burn with frustration all the more.
It might have been a selfish, egotistic frustration to feel, especially in that moment.
But it was also a real one.
"Quiet," the kings voice rang through the room, instantly quelling the din that had erupted outside my mind. "We will send a fully armed detachment of soldiers bearing the royal banner and as light armour as is feasible. They will depart at dusk at full speed—"
"They won't be able to get there in time!" I heard myself cry out, loud enough to spark a few shocked gasps from he ladies. "Those soldiers might arrive in time to attack and drive out the riders, but if the villagers don't leave in time…"
I felt more than saw the king turn his slate grey gaze back to me, gentle and unyielding and so agonisingly familiar.
"And yet it is still the best option we have, Élanor," he said firmly, but not unkindly. "Rhumir if you are indeed willing, we would welcome you and your hunters aid. Vardamir will send out ravens with messages of warning to the resident immediately. Then, Élanor, you and your fellows will prepare detailed instructions and terrain maps to guide them. Am I understood?"
I stared at him, holding his unyielding grey eyes with my own green ones.
I couldn't begrudge him — this same man who had laughingly taught Var and I how to swim and climb trees — for this decision, or all the realities of leadership he'd taken on when he'd became king. I knew he was only doing his duty as the ruler of a nation still in its infancy. He was only protecting his people as best he could while placating a hall full of nobles. Nobles who so often forgot that it had been courage and not birthright that had earned them their lands; that had earned us all our blessed island home.
No, I could never resent my father for that burden.
But I was still infuriated by the necessity of it all the same.
Suddenly, standing there amidst that hall of lords and ladies wasting time debating the best way to save their own people, I was so irrationally angry I could barely breathe. The air of the audience hall felt too hot, even with the ocean breeze flowing in through the archway…
And the face of that terrified, mourning little girl was still etched on my mind.
I turned my back on them all and strode towards the doors without being dismissed. The beginnings of a thought — maybe even a plan — were already forming in my mind as I heard mother and Var calling my name. But it was my father's voice that cut through my haze of anger.
"Élanor," he called, but when I didn't stop his voice rose to a near shout over the din of voices in the hall. "Tindómiel!"
I halted in the doorway, my present-day self's heart hammering with the unconscious recognition of the name.
My name.
Unlike Vardamir, I'd always disliked my ataressë(6). Compared to my amilessë — Élanor — the formal name my father had given me at birth was a mouthful that I only ever seemed to hear when I was in trouble. Or being referred to by people who neither knew me nor cared to beyond my title.
And right now it felt like a tether keeping me tied to Armenlos. To a palace I loved, but also where I felt powerless to really grow, and to help my People with more than just words, maps and symbolism…
"I forbid you to go anywhere near that settlement," father said so quietly I knew only those with elven ears could have heard him.
I almost smiled.
Of course he expected that of me. He was the one who I'd inherited my stubbornness and inquisitiveness from after all. I turned back to see he had risen from his throne and was looking at me across the hall with his mask of leadership beginning to crack just a little…
But regardless of the myriad feelings I knew he kept locked behind it, it still remained ever in place.
"As you command, arnya," I whispered in answer, and then strode from the room.
To be continue in Book III: Amabilis Insania
Translations:
(1) "cuptamo" — liar/deceiver (Quenya)
(2) "agath phazâth" — dead princess (Adûnaic, speculative translation)
(3) "aranelya" — your highness, the formal address for a daughter of the king (Quenya, lit. "my princess"). The male equivalent would be "aryonya"
(4) "amilessë" — mother name, the second name an elven child is given some years after birth by his or her mother. This name is chosen to reflect their personality in some way. (Quenya)
(5) "arnya" — my king (Quenya)
(6) "ataressë" — father name, the first and official name given when an Elven child is born (Quenya)
A/N: And so, just as we got Tink's real name at the end of Book 1, we now have Eleanor's real name (and a solid chunk of her past) for the end of Book 2. To all of you who messaged me with this theory over the past few years, I'm deeply impressed and thrilled to confirm you were right. Please, please continue sending me your theories, and questions, but also be mindful to keep big spoilers out of the comments where you can. And to those of you who don't recognise the name and are desperate to know, feel free to go digging in the Tolkien genealogies — you will find her and Var there.
I know I've said it before, but I really did start this project just for myself in a very dark time. I only continued all this time later because I truly love story I unearthed while try to escape reality. A (thankfully rare) few people have been hurtful and petty at times over the years, but honestly, they've been so vastly outnumbered that entire time it never mattered. And I'm not here for them anyway. I've never been here for them. I'm here all this time later for all you folks who've come to love this story I originally wrote just for myself.
Despite being in a much better place now, I'm once again finding the world to be a pretty dark and frightening place right now. So if I can continue to share the little bit of the comfort I take in this little story I started almost ten years ago, then I'm very glad to.
In prep for Book 3 (which I've already outlined and I've started writing) my plan is to re-read everything I've written in chronological order over the next few weeks. At the same time, I plan to update/mildly edit some of the earlier chapters that are… showing their age a bit. After all, I was literally a decade younger when I wrote them.
Also, as a treat/nod of appreciation to all you who have been re-reading this fic for the past few years, I'll be adding epigraphs to the start of each chapter just like I did for this one. Each of them has been written to give clues/insight into the world outside Eleanor's perspective, and if you're clever you can use them to start figuring out some of what's been happening with her and Tink over time. I'll mark any chapters that I've edited/updated, and once those are all done, the plan is to write and release the first 5 chapters of Amabilis Insania within the same week.
Until then, once again, thank you so much again for coming along for this ride.
Much love,
Rella x
Side note I: I realise the scene with Sauron, Tink and Eleanor was tonally quite tense, but there was a little part of me the whole time I wrote this going: "Sir, they're not trapped in there with you. You're trapped in there with them." Also I just want it know that in my head Sauron is voiced by Gareth David Lloyd. Do with that info what you will.
Side note II: I wrote Tink/Rávamë saying the line "looks like someone finally cut you down to size" to Sauron well before I ever watched the Rings of Power (which I have very mixed feelings about). Originally it was meant to reference Isildur cutting the Ring from his hand. But now it's doubly harsh - and somehow funnier - because of what Adar did to him at the start of Season 2.
Side note III: Yes I am aware that's now two (2) books where Eleanor has fallen unconscious at the last moment. It was absolutely on purpose. It's basically tradition at this point.