Interlude I
Ára spent the next few weeks quite busy, and growing increasingly agitated.
She met with Elrond to begin learning the finer points of Healing, and learn she did. The list of reading he had given her had been extensive, and very well organized. Truly, he was a well-organized scholar and teacher. She also continued to spar with Glorfindel several times a week, both eagerly waiting for Curudan to finish her commissioned weapons.
Gilraen was very, very slowly coming out of her grief, helped on by her frequent visitor, of which Ára made sure to be counted among, and Estel. The boy was precious, and kept leading Gilraen all over Imladris, leaving her no choice but to follow after him as he explored as much as he could on his tiny legs.
Most of the elves of Imladris had gotten used to seeing Ára flit about, though few actually struck up conversation with her. That was fine, Ára had a close circle of friends very quickly, and when she was alone she was either reading or meditating.
Ára had taken to meditating on the Song and the memories which could be found within much more than she used to. Her favorite area of concentration to focus on over the past few weeks had been those visions of Aman, when the Two Trees still shone.
Perhaps that was influenced by her conversations with Glorfindel. Ára assumed he enjoyed speaking of Aman before the Darkening with someone he assumed remembered it, and though the fogged feeling remained when Ára thought on Aman in that Age, the images she saw when concentrating in meditation were readily available—far more so than before, though Ára had not truly concentrated so very much then—and vast in their variety.
Still, there was that feeling of having forgotten something she should remember, while at the same time being sure she did not quite need said memories just yet. That feeling began to make Ára feel wary and unsure.
What exactly had Námo done while she’d been in his halls before sending her off to Middle-Earth?
She hadn’t spent much time at all over the past centuries truly thinking about that.
When she’d come to Middle-Earth, she’d been very angry, and for so very long. She’d mostly taken that anger out on orcs and wicked men. There had been the odd bandit groups of doing terrible things, or wanting to attack her, as alone she seemed to be an easy target. They never lived to regret their decision.
Ára had pushed those first centuries she spent essentially alone to the far corners of her mind and locked hose memories away. Why, then, were they now beginning to plague her so? Was it because she actually had the time to truly think about them now, after so very long? Had she not healed from that time as she’d thought when she’d finally joined the wandering Dúnedain?
Perhaps not. She had never shared tales of her wandering years with anyone, not really. And the few memories she’d told even fewer persons of, were only the smatterings of small lights amidst a long shadow of darkness.
Ára was pacing in the garden by now, her thoughts ringing loudly in her mind, and she was beginning to feel just a touch of recklessness. If she wasn’t careful, she would go and do something truly stupid, and she couldn’t afford foolishness.
Strangely, as if by some happenstance, both Elrond and Glorfindel found her then, pacing as she was in the garden. Their presence stopped her pacing, but she could see the concern on their faces and knew she hadn’t even sensed them until they stood in front of her.
She felt as if she was losing her mind.
“Are you well, Ára?” Elrond asked.
Ára nearly wanted to snort, it was quite obvious she was not at all well. But she merely shook her head before rubbing at her temples. Finally, she decided to sit down, and sagged onto the nearest bench. Glorfindel and Elrond quickly sat down beside her, one on either side.
“Truthfully, no,” she admitted frankly. “I have found myself reliving the far past more and more recently, and I am unsure as to why. The more I have meditated on Aman in early years, the more I remember the early years of my wandering Middle-Earth. As if for every vision of light I recall, I recall even more of darkness and shadow. I had thought I had moved past these memories, but I am still plagued my first centuries in Middle-Earth, at the beginning of this Age.”
There was quiet for a time, Elrond hummed but didn’t speak.
“Perhaps,” Glorfindel said, “it would help you to finally tell someone of those years, instead of keeping the memories trapped in your mind.”
Ára sighed and leaned towards him, letting her head rest on his shoulder. She shouldn’t have, but his mere presence, the warmth of his body, was a boon she did not have the strength to deny herself of presently.
“Perhaps, but it is not a happy story.”
“Such tales rarely are,” Elrond commented.
Ára took a deep breath, but did not remove her head from Glorfindel’s shoulder, and she closed her eyes.
“Very well. But I ask you not to share what I tell you with anyone else, for it is very private, and I am ashamed of some of what I will relate.”
“We shall not,” Glorfindel vowed, voice solemn, and Ára found she trusted both Ellyn to hold to his word.
“At the very end of the Second Age, I was sent to Middle-Earth. Sauron had just been defeated, but the remnants of his armies had been scattered as they fled from the battle-field. I still do not know exactly why I was sent her then, but I was not…I had little control over my Power then, compared to now, as if I had been newly born and it was…erratic.
“I knew, from my own memory, that I needed time to re-learn control, and so spent many years alone, and so I stayed in the more eastern part of Middle-Earth, though now I feel that was, perhaps, slightly unwise. For it was there most of the orcs and Men from the east who’d allied with the Dark Lord were scattered about.
“I had seen some of the surviving Alliance marching home from war, and knew I could not reveal myself. I was very wary then, and you all had just fought a fallen Maia. I did not have much trust, either in myself or those who I knew should be my allies, not to make unwise choices. So instead of going westward, I found a small wood and built a shelter for myself there. I stayed there for some time, meditating and trying to make sense of my scattered memories and Power. I succeeded, or so I had thought, until the first time when I ventured from my hastily built home and ran into a small group of men.”
Glorfindel had stiffened, and even Elrond seemed to understand where Ára was going with the story, for Ára heard him inhale sharply.
“They were not men of Gondor, for they were dark of skin, and very unlovely to look upon. My senses were very strong then, but also seemed quite unpracticed. I could not control the dive into their minds when they went to approach me, for there was nothing in I could sense from their hearts that was noble, and what I found…I lost myself in anger.
“To them, I appeared an easy target, a lone female, without any weapons, and even if I’d had them, they believed themselves to be stronger than me. That was a mistake, for them. But before I’d even found orcs, I’d found Men. And when I lost control of my power…”
“This is why you are so wary of it, even now,” Elrond whispered.
“In part, yes, though if it had only been that one instance, I do not believe I would be so very cautious now that it has been so long.”
Ára paused, shifted slightly, and felt Glorfindel pulled her closer into his side. His arm remained wrapped around her even as she kept her eyes closed.
Glorfindel felt a cold, furious anger rise up within him, even as he held Ára close to him, and knew on her other side, Elrond would be feeling much the same.
“You have to understand,” Ára continued, “when I came to Middle-Earth, I was alone, my memory in shambles, probably bound, and I did not understand much of why I had been sent, or for what purpose. I am still sometimes, even now, quite upset with my Lord Vala for this, though that resentment has died down much over the centuries as I eventually followed the Song and found purpose.”
Who, which Vala had sent her so shackled in mind, alone and without aid to Middle-Earth, Glorfindel wondered. He dared not ask though, for it seemed she could not yet bring herself to name the Vala aloud.
“So, after that run in, I retreated to my shelter, and spent many more years simply meditating. I was frightened of myself more than anything. I had proven I could protect myself against threats such as that, but the lack of control, for it had been instinct which caused me to obliterate those men, that was what scared me. Time passed in a blur, I still, to this day, cannot tell you if it had been only a few years, or a few decades I spent there. But when I began to feel as if I had stitched the pieces of myself back together, I decided to travel west, for that was the direction my intuition told me to go. That was when I first truly came upon orcs.”
She fell silent, and Glorfindel could only wonder what atrocities she had seen, how she could have known what to do then. But he was still far too upset to speak, and so remained silent.
“I still had no weapons other than my own Power, my own magic, if you will. And the first group of orcs I ran into, quite blindly and stupidly, I should add, for I should have sensed them long before I saw them, was rather large. Then, I had only sensed shadow, but there was much shadow throughout the land, and I was unlearned in understanding it as well.
“The orcs had been downwind of me, so I had no time to flee, and once again I found my mind diving into their minds, and what I found there was even worse than what I had found in the minds of that first group of men. But orcs, at least, I understood, should not be given mercy, and so I showed them none.
“I had felt pity for the men I had destroyed years ago, little though it was, but I could feel nothing but righteous anger and justification when I slaughtered the orcs. I had better control of my Power then, though not as much over the instinct to use it to protect myself. But even that carnage was not the worst I experienced in the early years of this Age.”
“I dread to ask,” Elrond whispered softly, his tone cautiously neutral, “but what could have been worse.”
Ára’s sharp, bitter laughter startled Glorfindel, and he found himself tightening his arm around her.
“Worse, was when I was travelling through a wood, and found a group of thirteen men whom had captured three adolescent girls.”
Glorfindel closed his eyes then, he knew where this story would go.
“They thought they had been hidden well, as they were a good distance into that wood, but I had sensed something amiss and followed that sense. I could not find it in myself to allow such a stain on my senses to continue, and so I used all the stealth I knew and crept upon that group of men. What I saw then I shall not tell in detail, but suffice it to say that the three girls were wishing for death, and that was something I could give them without pain. And so I did.”
Ára paused again, taking a breath.
“And the instant after I painlessly separate their Fëar from their Hröar…well those thirteen men were made to understand the reason for my displeasure before they were painfully shoved to the Halls of Mandos.”
There was something there, in her words, which nagged at Glorfindel, but he did not have the presence of mind amid his anger for Ára’s situation, and what had happened throughout her tale to understand what was pricking at him.
He looked to Elrond, found the Lord of Imladris already gazing at him, eyes burning in fury. Glorfindel simply closed his eyes again in the face of the fury he felt reflected back at him.
“After that instance, I began to understand a bit more. I made it a habit to meditate for long hours, and the more I accepted the more I understood, though it was very slow going. After some time, I finally allowed myself to visit outlying villages of Men sometimes, following my intuition. I helped many people in those years, in various ways, and the more I followed my growing intuition, the more pieces of myself began to feel as if they were stitching together.”
Ára was quiet when she spoke next, her voice only barely above a whisper.
“I’d had weapons made for me by the time I reached the north-west, having had one too many run-ins with bandits or small amounts of orcs. Once, I had sheltered in a cave, and found I should not have, though I was not truly very sorry for doing so. For that night I had come across goblins for the first time. They did not survive the encounter.
“I began to see a pattern. If I did end up coming across darkness, in whatever form, and I had not sensed it beforehand, there was a purpose, a reason for it. And if I had sensed it, I sometimes followed it, especially after I’d acquired a sword, and a bow and arrows. For some years then, I thought my purpose was hunting out darkness and destroying it, but whenever I meditated on the Song, my growing intuition told me that such an idea was not exactly true, that I would find a more concrete purpose later on, and so I learned what I could, where I could, and journeyed all over, visiting all the Kingdoms of Men and accumulating knowledge and understanding. I never stayed anywhere too long, and had quickly learned to shroud myself and my visage, because I had learned from one group of dark Men that I was too bright and too fair to look upon when compared to other women they had seen.
“As time passed, my ability to control my Power and my instinct to lash out at Darkness grew, and I continued to hone it razor-sharp, but I remained very wary of it, not knowing what could possibly push me over the edge.”
Glorfindel felt Ára smile against his shoulder and she said, “I actually spent quite a bit of time in Arnor then, back before the kin-strife which split that great kingdom.”
She had truly been that close so long ago? Glorfindel looked over to Elrond and saw a raised-brow over slightly amused silver-grey eyes, and found Elrond was feeling much the same.
“I did not involve myself in the kin-strife, for my meditations on the Song felt to me as if I was forbidden, and truly, I am not sure what good, if any, I could have done then. So I traveled south once more during that time, to Gondor.
“I was far better equipped to travel alone, and had a much better understanding of the lands then, so felt quite safe to do so. That was the first time I visited Minas Tirith, and my time there was well spent. But soon enough I grew restless, and following my intuition I headed north once more, back into Eriador.”
Ára tensed a bit in Glorfindel’s arm, and he had a feeling he knew what would come next.
“Once back in the north, I felt a great shadow had come to lay upon the land, and the news I received along my travels was steadily growing more troubled, so I followed my senses and soon found myself in the Old Forrest. There I met Iarwain-Ben-Adar and his wife, Goldberry.
“They were so interesting, I stayed for quite some time with them. Iarwain-Ben-Adar was a being deeply rooted in the Song, and Goldberry was truly kind. I enjoyed both Iarwain-Ben-Adar’s strange songs and Goldberry’s merry melodies. There with them, I felt as if Ages of the world could pass by without notice, and when I said as much to them, Iarwain-Ben-Adar counseled that my first visit, needed though it was, would soon end. I did not resent his advice, for I had been feeling the truth of it for a while then. When I finally left them, it was not with sadness nor with regret, for I knew I would come back to visit with them many times. They were the first to know of my true nature, and I knew they would keep that secret, for I knew then a secret it needed to remain for some time to come.”
Glorfindel was shocked, but grinning. He had met both Iarwain-Ben-Adar and Goldberry. They were certainly the strangest beings he’d ever come across, Iarwain-Ben-Adar most of all.
“When I left the Old Forrest, I had planned to travel the East-West road, but the shadow I had sensed before I’d spent my time with Iarwain-Ben-Adar and his wife had grown so thick and heavy, I knew I had to at least investigate what was causing it. I found it quite by accident really, for in those days the shadow upon the land felt nearly akin to the shadow in the east after Sauron had been defeated in the previous Age.”
Ára paused, and Glorfindel felt a flicker of apprehension then, for he believed he knew some of what she would say next.
“You have to understand, the only knowledge I had was rumor and history then, and I had never come across anything so foul which had not already passed by. But that was my first run-in with the Witch-King of Angmar. I really did not like him. And he liked me less than I did him, I believe, because he found that he could not kill me. I probably would have lost myself and lashed out with my Power then, but I had just spent a significant amount of time in the Old-Forrest, communing heavily with the Song, and I am unsure if I would have even been able to kill him. In any case, he fled from me after our first battle, and I turned south once again, knowing I could do no more at that time.”
This brought Glorfindel up short, chancing a glance towards Elrond, he found the Lord similarly shocked. “You have battled against the Witch-King?”
Ára picked up her head and nodded though. “Yes, his shadow was a festering, black thing, full of unnatural stagnation and rotting decay. If I had known then how to cast his tethered soul from this plane, I may have done so. But, alas, I had no such understanding.”
She shook her head a bit and resettled into Glorfindel’s side, laying her head once more upon his shoulder, eyes still closed.
“In truth, due to lack of understanding, as that was the first time I had seen such an abomination, I think I could have more easily cast Sauron himself to the Halls of Mandos than the Witch-King then.”
“Your tale is…well it is very strange to me, and this was all before you became the Guardian spoken of in tales by the Dúnedain?” Elrond asked, shaking his head.
“Yes. I spent some time again in Minas Tirith and left to what later became Rohan a year or two before the plague had made its way into Gondor. I left those plains to explore Fangorn Forrest more fully again, and what I saw saddened me, for it seemed much of the outlying trees there had been felled. I spent some years in that Forrest, for it was very old and full of memory, even if that memory was not always happy. But the Forrest did not mind my presence, as long as I did not set fire to the trees!”
Both Glorfindel and Elrond laughed at that statement, and as they each looked at each other, Glorfindel knew they were of one mine. Both were thankful that the Maia’s time in the beginning of this Age had not been all darkness and death.
“I was back in north-east when I finally learned that Mordor had been left unguarded. I was very angry at that, for foul creatures had flocked there most of all, and I sometimes ran into an odd creature of darkness here and there even still. I came very close a few times to trespassing into King Thranduil’s realm while there, but knew I should not do so, not yet, and so I left over the mountains and made my way back to the Old Forrest for the second time.
“I spent some years there again with Iarwain-Ben-Adar and Goldberry, bringing what news I had and learning what they could tell me. I had learned about the Barrow-wights, and offered to see what I could do about them, but Iarwain-Ben-Adar counseled otherwise and so I refrained. Still, I wanted to at least investigate them, to try and better understand what they were.
“Their darkness is unlike anything I have felt, for it is so foreign. And something in the way in which their spirits were cursed and bound prevented me from understanding how they might be released into the peace of death. So I followed the counsel I had been given and left them alone. But I had come out of the Barrow-Downs north and east into the destruction of Arnor.
“I was filled with wrath once more, for I had quite liked the Kingdom of Arnor of old, and so joined myself in the effort to destroy Angmar, and that is when I found purpose with the wandering Dúnedain.”
Ára was quiet then, and it seemed as if she had finished her tale, though all three knew it was not so, for there were at nearly a thousand more years to cover to bring them up to date. But Glorfindel was in awe. Ára’s story had run his emotions through several times, and he knew the same was true of Elrond.
“So, how did you become the Guardian of the Heirs of Isildur, surely that is a tale in its own right?” Glorfindel asked.
Elrond was very much interested in the answer to Glorfindel’s question, but he was barely holding himself together as it was, and did not think he could suffer through another gamut of charging emotions for much longer.
So he said, “Perhaps we should finish your tale another time, for it is quite late in the evening now, and I find myself weary.”
The look Glorfindel shot him was half-annoyed, half-understanding. “You are correct,” he said. “It is quite late, even for me. Your continuing tale can wait for another day, Ára”
Ára yawned, and wasn’t that telling, Elrond thought. For Maia should not yawn, even elves rarely did so. It was a good thing he had put a stop to this.
“Let Glorfindel escort you to your rooms, and if you wish we can speak more on this tomorrow."
Ára merely nodded, and accepted the helping hand to rise after Glorfindel stood and offered it to her. “Thank you, both of you,” she said, weariness and gratitude in both tone and face. “I think I have been holding that in for much too long, even if I have been reluctant to share it with anyone.”
Elrond nodded, understanding. Such a tale was not something one told another lightly. “We shall repay your trust with confidence.”
As Elrond watched Glorfindel lead his newest-found distant cousin away, he suddenly felt every year of his age come to bear upon him. He knew there was yet more darkness in her story to come, but hoped there was more light as well.
If her firm friendship with Gilraen was any indication, Elrond thought there had been light too, though he dearly hoped even more would shine in the coming years. Yes, it was good that she had finally come to Imladris.