YULETIDE TALES 2003
"THE TW(ELF) DAYS OF YULE"
Note: This story was written by Eldanar (the person role playing our little Elfling on the EOAS tagboard), not by Master Erestor. For feedback (LOTS OF IT!!!) please send a mail to ELDANAR
Rating: G
THE TWELFTH NIGHT OF YULE - EPILOGUE
"Eldanar's Tale"
He sat in the branches of a tall tree; he’d been there since morning and knew he’d be there still at dusk. He sighed to himself, his nana wouldn’t come looking for him, and she’d be glad that he wasn’t at home to annoy her anymore. He’d heard her telling her friends that now that his ada hadn’t come home she no longer had to live in ‘this damned awkward, drafty talan’; He had spent the day watching as with her friends helping she’d begun packing up the small family’s belongings ready to move into a small cottage in the village. The village itself was a mix of men and dwarves with a smattering of elves, most of whom for reasons they rarely discussed, not wishing to live with their own kind.
He’d heard his parents arguing about their living there; his nana had argued that his ada was ashamed of his family, ashamed to admit he had married a mortal woman and afraid of taking a child such as him to his elven family, his ada had said that he was not ashamed of his son, and his nana had screamed that it must be her that he was ashamed of. He had gotten used to them arguing, but this had been the worst that he could remember, and it was just before his ada had gone away, when nana had told him that she was carrying another child and that this one had better have proper ears: ada had been furious and had said words that the elfling knew were not nice.
He missed his ada dreadfully, he remembered with startling clarity the day he had left. It had been well over a year previously and he had been so proud to watch as his ada, accompanied by several other elves who had come to find him, had marched away, all of them looking splendid in their armour that sparkled in the sunlight, their long silver hair flowing down their backs and held in place only by their warrior braids. One day he was going to be a warrior like his ada, of this he was certain.
He’d asked his nana where ada had gone, she’d muttered something about a helm and it being deep, and when he’d asked why it had taken so many elves to simply collect a helm, or why neither his ada nor any of the others had returned she had boxed his ears and told him he was a useless good for nothing and he brought shame on the family with his ugly nasty ears. As the baby inside her grew his nana had gotten worse, she became more and more obsessed with the notion that he with his rounded ears was a shameful addition to her family, he could do nothing right, and when he came to her in tears because the other children had teased him about his ears she’d simply stared at him and asked him what did he expect?... he was peredhil. The way she said it, he knew it was a bad thing.
Once the older children knew that his nana wouldn’t come to his rescue no matter how loudly he called for her, they made his life a misery, even the older elflings who should have known better. At twenty-five he was still a very young elfling, and many of those who picked on him were more than double his age, but his mother told him they were elflings and that’s what elflings did.
So he’d come to dread the daily trips to fetch fresh bread for his nana, or the trips to collect fallen branches for the fire. These things he did at a run, always praying to the Valar as he’d heard his ada do so many times before; but he knew, secretly in his heart of hearts that the Valar didn’t want to help a small ugly peredhil like himself, and so he was never saved from the attacks of the other elflings and children by the sudden arrival home of his ada; consequently he was always covered in bruises and scratches where he’d had to defend himself, and when he’d finally arrive home with a loaf that was dirty because it had been dropped on the ground or branches that were damp and useless because the older elflings had stolen his good ones, he would get a beating from his nana for being ‘an ugly useless good for nothing’.
Tears crept down his face as he watched his nana gather up her last few belongings and the basket containing her baby daughter before leaving the talan empty at last. He wiped his face with his sleeve and slithered down the tree, he knew there was no point in trying to reason with her, she’d made it quite plain she no longer wanted him, she only wanted her pointy eared daughter. That very morning she’d told him she could no longer afford to feed him and that he would have to make his own way in the world; He wasn’t sure he understood, but he understood the beating that followed when he asked why. He’d run outside to escape only to fall into the clutches of the little gang waiting for him, he still hurt from the kicks and punches he’d received.
Pulling his cloak around him he resolved to go and find his ada. It shouldn’t be too hard to do, there were elves everywhere; he knew it because he’d heard his nana telling her friends that Arda was crawling with them. Looking around him carefully he made off towards the great woods he’d heard about, his ada had often told him tales of the shining Lady of the Wood, he wasn’t sure if she lived in those woods but he hoped maybe he would find her and she could tell him where his ada was.
~~~~~~~~
He was cold; he sat high in the branches of a tree his cloak wrapped firmly around him and watched as a troop of orcs passed by. He’d had a very lucky escape he knew, although this was his first sighting of orcs they’d frightened him enough that he’d realised approaching them for food or asking if they’d seen his ada would be a bad thing; and they smelt awful too.
He’d first seen them earlier in the day, whilst he’d been skirting the edges of the mountains; it had taken him over a full cycle of the moon to reach this point, he’d travelled mainly by day and had hidden himself away at night, not sure what he was hiding from but feeling that he ought to be hidden. It had been a hard journey for the young elfling, he’d grubbed for food eating what berries and roots he could find, and discovered from trial and error which were good to eat and which weren’t. After eating some lovely ripe looking red berries he’d been terribly sick and had been unable to travel for several days; he’d lain in a thicket of brambles sobbing for his ada to find him and make him better. He was now a much thinner elfling than he had been when he left home; he’d hoped that nearer the mountains there would have been more bushes, more places to find food, maybe even people who might want a little elfling with no where else to go. He was puzzled as he’d been expecting to find himself in a great wood; instead he’d walked steadily with mountains at his side until he eventually found himself with mountains in front of him too and so far all he’d found was this band of orcs from whom he’d managed to flee and hide before they had realised he was there, and it was getting colder the further he travelled. He looked up at the mountains in front of him knowing that somehow he was going to have to cross them; he was tired, very tired and cold, he’d never been so cold in all his short life or so hungry.
He watched the orcs passing, deciding that on the morrow he would try to find some berries or nuts, something that would keep him going in his journey over the mountains; he was sure that he’d find little to eat once he began the climb. He hoped that he could be up and over them easily, but in truth he knew that young as he was it would take him at least another cycle of the moon before he reached the other side. He prayed silently to the Valar, he knew they weren’t going to send his father to him, not after all this time, he’d given up on them actually choosing to help an ugly good for nothing peredhil such as himself, but he prayed to them to give him the strength to find him himself.
Once the orcs had passed he slipped down from his perch and hurried on his way, he planned to make it to the mountains by nightfall, stopping only to find food. He was puzzled by the lack of elves, he knew there were plenty out there somewhere he’d heard his nana say so, but as yet he’d not met any, not a single one; he was beginning to feel very, very alone.
He stopped by a pool of cold clear water; dipping his hands in to drink he caught sight of his reflection and looked closely at himself, he smiled sadly, even if he found his ada he’d never recognise the dirty elfling that he saw looking back at him. His shoulder length hair, once a glorious silver blonde was now a mass of dirty mud splattered tangles, two huge blue eyes peered from a dirt encrusted face on which the only clean marks were the trails left by his tears. He’d tried hard to be brave, after all he was going to be a brave and strong warrior one day, but he missed his ada terribly and try as he might he wasn’t able to stop the tears from flowing when he curled up at night wrapped tightly in his cloak. He hurriedly took his fill of the clear fresh water, and after a moments hesitation washed his hands and face, he would have liked to wash his hair too, his ada had always told him how beautiful his hair was, but the water was too cold and he was frightened of staying too long in case more orcs came, and he was too far away from the bushes now to have anywhere to hide.
With a quick glance around him, the small elfling took off in a mad dash toward the mountain range in front of him, dressed as he was in greens and greys his slight figure hardly stood out from the rugged ground he crossed. By the time night had fallen he was already on his way up the slopes and looking for somewhere to hide himself away. Finding an overhang of rock he wriggled underneath it and wrapped his cloak about him wishing that he’d thought to take his warm winter cloak with him, the lighter one he was wearing had already succumbed to the scraping and tearing of the rocks he’d climbed, not to mention the tumbles he’d taken; he was covered in scratches and bruises and his clothes had a decidedly battered look to them. With a deep and heartfelt sigh he slipped into sleep, his eyes slowly closing as his thumb crept up to his mouth.
~~~~~~~
It was good that he didn’t know there was no pass through the mountains where he chose to cross; otherwise he might not have made it. When he tumbled backwards down a steep slope of scree and had to lie still for a day until he could move his injured ankle, he had no comprehension that he couldn’t cross there. When he reached the snowline, and found himself shivering with cold despite his elven heritage, he didn’t realise it was hopeless. When he slipped and fell into a small crevasse, knocking out one of his front teeth, he wasn’t aware that no one had crossed the mountains there before; all he knew was that he had to cross. No matter how hard it might be, no matter how cold he was, no matter how his stomach hurt because he had no food; he pulled his ragged cloak about him, wiped the tears from his face and marched onwards. His ada was out there and nothing was going to stop him finding him.
By the time he stumbled into the grass on the other side, the moon had completed its second cycle. The elfling lay in the scrubby grass for a long time, exhaustion making him unable to go any further. Eventually, crawling on all fours he slowly made his way into the closest bushes, his eyes open wide for any sign of berries or shoots that he might eat, his clothes hanging off him, little more now than dirty rags. His leggings were holed in the knee’s and the seat, his tunic torn at the elbows and in the front where he’d become wedged in a small gap between two rocks and had forced himself through, his boots were holed and his toes peeped through, if it were possible he was even more dirty than he had been when he saw his reflection in the pool a month earlier; he was most definitely skinnier, his arms and legs were now painfully thin and he was in danger of losing his leggings altogether, he’d pulled the lacings as tight as he could but they were still hanging off his hips.
He slept for a full day wedged in under the slight overhang of some huge boulders before he finally readied himself for another long trek to find his ada. Pulling the tattered remains of his cloak about him he strode off in the direction he thought looked most promising, he could see trees and hoped to find a river; berries and tasty shoots often grew along the waters edge.
~~~~~~~~
The landscape around him offered little in the way of shelter, a few scrubby trees and the odd bush or two, the usual moorland vegetation. He plodded on towards what he hoped was the river; had he but known it he was in troll country, that alone would have had him scared witless as his nana had always told him that trolls ate naughty elflings, and he was sure that leaving home as he had qualified as being naughty; despite the fact that his nana had told him to go he didn’t think she meant as far away as he had gone. As night fell he found himself a roost in the branches of a weak scrawny looking tree, it wasn’t much but it provided him with some cover and besides he was used to sleeping in trees, he felt comfortable there.
He may have given up on the Valar but they had not given up on him; and so that night when not one but two trolls passed his tree on their hunt for food, the wind was blowing in a direction to take any scent of him away from them, not that they would have smelled anything other than the rank odour of two months journeying without a bath nor seen anything but a bundle of filthy rags seemingly blown into a tree. He himself was so deeply asleep that they may well have eaten him without him noticing, as it was he merely awoke the following morning feeling more refreshed than he previously had been and intrigued by the strange tracks around the tree; his ada had once taken him out for a day and shown him all sorts of different tracks but these he did not recognise.
And so he continued to walk, slower now, his exhaustion making each step more difficult to take, his hunger causing him pain. When he stopped to rest, which he was doing more and more frequently, images of cake and cheese and delicious meats rose in his mind, causing him to weep for lack of them; but each time he would draw a deep breath, tell himself that when he found his ada all such good things would be his and stride on with renewed vigour.
When he reached a river he grew alarmed not knowing how he would cross it being only a small elfling and the river so wide; he spent several days just searching the area for berries and shoots before deciding that as with the other rivers he’d crossed before scaling the mountains it might well be easier to cross closer to it’s mountain source. So it proved to be, the river was shallower and less wide before it joined several smaller streams and became the larger river that further down country would be known as the Hoarwell; and with some effort he was able to cross and continue his journey, albeit with a little less grime attached to him.
The weather he noticed was still very cold; the skies looked grey and unfriendly, full of snow. He looked on it as yet another way in which the Valar were hounding him for being such an ugly good for nothing elfling and kept on walking. It was over another cycle of the moon during which the threatened snow had begun to fall, before he found himself looking towards a tree filled valley, his heart filled with delight as he realised that maybe here he would find berries at least, and somewhere warmer to sleep than under a bush as he had the previous few nights. The tree’s looked mature, he was sure he’d be able to find one that was perfect for an elfling like him to rest in for a while; as he made his way into the valley he realised that there were buildings here, and buildings meant people. He became increasingly fearful of being found and began to use the trees to get about, watching to see who lived here in this place.
He had found himself something he recognised high in the branches of a tree quite far out from the buildings, a small flet, boarded up to protect it from winter damage; to anyone else it would have seemed dirty, cold and damp, to the elfling it was a palace. He used it as his base when he went foraging for berries which were increasingly hard to find, or crept closer to spy on the activity around the main house. To his amazement it seemed rather like the village from which he had run away, excepting that the buildings here were much grander; he’d obviously stumbled on the home of someone very important. There were dwarves, he recognised these easily as there were many back in the village, he’d seen several men and some very small people that at first he’d thought were elflings but once he’d gotten a better look he could see were not, no elves had hairy feet such as these folk did. He had even seen what he thought was an orc.
And then there were the elves, a few of whom looked so like his ada with their beautiful silver hair that when he’d first seen them he’d almost called out to them before remembering that he was an ugly good for nothing peredhil, and that such elves would not even look at him. So he watched, one silver haired elf in particular, one who looked much like his ada; until he’d seen the elf with a small elfling in his arms and another scary looking dark haired elf kissing them both, he knew then that this was not his ada and had gone sadly back to his flet and wept. He wanted to feel his ada’s arms around him; he wanted to be held tight and so obviously loved.
It was several days later that he’d found himself out in the open as two elves had approached him on horseback. With a quick terrified glance at them noting that one had hair so fair it was white, he’d run for the nearest trees and clambered up them as fast as his skinny arms and legs would carry him. Trembling in terror he’d peered down through the branches to see a pair of blue eyes laughing up at him, he’d turned and fled as fast as he could back to his flet, stopping every now and again to throw pine cones down upon the two following him. If he’d been an older elfling he might have realised the folly of this, instead of making his pursuers afraid it merely showed them where he was. He’d sighed with relief as he’d seen the white haired elf pull his horse up and with a quick word to the other, head off back up the path towards the house.
He had run for his flet while they’d been talking and had collapsed relieved to be safe at last. He’d slept for a while until woken by the sounds of voices below; crawling to the edge of the flet he’d been horrified to see more elves gathered below and the silver haired elf he’d been watching actually climbing up. Retreating to a corner he gathered his limbs about him, curled into a ball and lay trembling in fear, terrified of the beating he knew was coming. Instead the silver haired elf had appeared over the edge of the flet, sat and looked for a long while at him before shaking his head sadly and climbing back down. There had been more discussion and eventually the sound of hoof beats as someone had ridden away; he had been too frightened to get up and look and had once again fallen into a light sleep of exhaustion before yet again came the sounds of hoof beats and voices softly speaking.
Then he had found himself peering at another silver haired elf, one who knelt on his hands and knees and spoke softly to him, asking him what he was doing here. He was far too terrified to speak, fighting back sobs of terror until the big elf had called him something his ada had called him…penneth.
He had finally looked up into the blue eyes watching him, and had spoken… "E-eldanar."