Interlude II
Ára spent the next day until after the evening meal nearly shaking in anticipation. She had finally done what she had not wanted to do, but in telling half of her tale—the longer half, she thought—she found she did want to tell the rest of it. At least to Elrond and Glorfindel.
She was once again in the garden, though this time she was already seated on the bench she’d nearly collapsed on the previous night, and she’d come prepared. There were three empty glasses next to her, and two bottles of wine she’d managed to grab from the kitchens.
When Elrond and Glorfindel entered the garden and saw her, the wine, and the glasses, both wore nearly identical expressions. Each had a brow raised, a half-smile on their face, and their eyes glinted in amusement.
“I see you brought fortification,” Glorfindel remarked as he took the seat to her left.
Elrond laughed as he picked up the glasses on her right and handed them out. He then opened a bottle of wine and poured.
“Well, I figured that since I was unable to imbibe the previous evening, I may as well make up for it now.” Ára accepted her glass from Elrond and immediate drank deeply from it. “Although, truthfully, I believe the wine would have been better served yester eve.”
Elrond sat down on her right once Glorfindel had taken his glass, and also drank deeply from the draught. “Well, better late than never I suppose,” he said.
“Indeed.”
“So,” Glorfindel started. “You were going to tell us how you came to be the Guardian of the Dúnedain?”
Ára took a breath, laughed lightly, and smiled.
“It truly is not that interesting of a story. My part comes after the Watchful Peace began, actually. Aranarth was getting older, but still traveling and he was ambushed by a pack of orcs just west of the Hithaeglir, and just south of the Etenmoors, and it was mere happenstance that I had been traveling on an intercepting path. He had only two other rangers with him, and one was his son, Arahael. Needless to say, I did not believe they could easily handle even the small number of orcs—I cannot recall the precise number, but it was more than ten and less than fifteen—I sped my way to them, hoping to help in the skirmish, and arrived just in time to kill an orc who nearly managed to land a blow to Aranarth’s back. We made quick work of the orcs immediately afterwards, though I do believe those three were quite shocked to find their rescue came in the form of a darkly clad, fair-haired female, and that I had dispatched the larger number of orcs between the four of us.
“They asked what I had been doing, and I merely said I was following my whims when I heard the orcs and began my pursuit of them. I am not sure to this day which shocked them more, my skill in the skirmish, or what seemed to them a suicide mission of pursuing that number of orcs alone. In any case, Aranarth felt indebted, and invited me to follow them for a while. It did not take very long, really, during our travel for the men to discover I was more than I seemed. I think Aranarth had some ability of sensing power, though it was small enough, but he and his son had spent their youth here, in Imladris, and I think that had more to do with his senses than even his bloodline. In any case, I ended up telling Aranarth, his son, and the other man, who was Arahael’s cousin, my tale. From then, the Chieftains of the Dúnedain and their House became my Secret-Keeper and I became their Guardian.”
“So it was providence which led you together after all,” Elrond remarked.
Ára shrugged a shoulder before taking a sip of wine. “Intuition, providence, Fate, Doom, whichever you prefer.”
Elrond and Glorfindel chuckled at her statement, but both wondered just how close to the truth it was.
“The next near four hundred years were largely uneventful overall. But then we found orcs in growing numbers in the Hithaeglir, and the wild once again became and even more dangerous place.”
Ára knew both Elrond and Glorfindel were remembering Celebrían then, as her attack happened not long after orcs returned in number to the mountains.
“I spent the next couple of centuries between guarding the Heirs of Isildur and traveling Middle-Earth. When orcs invaded Eriador once again, I stayed put until we drove them out. And when Rohan was invaded, I traveled with a small group of rangers who were restless to assist in its recapture before we returned to Eriador, avoiding the White Wizard like the plague, as he’d just gained the keys to Orthanc a year later. I was mostly comfortable in my purpose then, and had no desire to be persuaded otherwise.
“Over the next years, I roamed once more around Middle-Earth, though with frequent trips back to Eriador. When I found something absolutely foul was in residence in Dol Goldûr, I returned to warn the rangers not to travel near there, but after Arassuil and his wife died, my closeness of friendship with the Chieftains and their house began to wane, for I was weary of so many deaths. It was not until the late Chieftain Arathorn that my friendships with the heirs of Isildur grew strong once again. And of course there is Gilraen, whom I have been close to for nearly half her life.”
There was silence for a time as the three sitting in the garden sipped on their wine and lost themselves in memory.
“Now, I believe it is someone else’s turn to tell a story,” Ára said with a smile.
Elrond turned to face Ára and raised his glass for a toast.
“You have lived an interesting life for this Age, Lady Ára of the Maia,” he said. “I only hope the coming years will be more interesting in less dangerous ways for you.”
Ára cracked a wry grin and raised her glass. She rather thought the opposite would be true, and she believed he knew it. But there was always hope.
“Well, perhaps there will at least be more interesting adventures. But at least I have found more friends, and even distant kin!”
Elrond laughed and Glorfindel chuckled before each drank from their glasses.
“You know,” Glorfindel began, “I dearly wish you had been at the battle when I confronted the Witch-King, but alas foresight came to me in that moment.”
“Truly? What did you See?”
Glorfindel shook his head. “I did not See a vision, merely uttered a prophecy of intuition.”
Elrond laughed. “Yes, Glorfindel’s Intuition is far keener than his Sight.”
Ára nodded, she understood how that worked, for she was much the same. Though she believed her intuition was so strong due to her ties to the Doomsman of the Valar, more than anything.
“I can understand that. My gift works much the same. I am forever having strange feelings, and then often I find myself speaking words which just a moment before would have made no sense.”
“Foresight is a terrible gift to have,” Elrond said gravely. “And though I would not wish the burden upon anyone, it is not a gift without blessing either.” He cracked a sardonic half-smile. “Though there have often been times I dearly wished I was not plagued with visions of woe and despair, I cannot help but to think I was so gifted for a purpose, and it has stood me and mine in good stead.”
Glorfindel nodded in agreement. “I shall take my intuition over your Foresight any day, my friend, though I am not un-glad you have been gifted so.”
Ára lost herself in thought for a bit, mulling over a question she had been thinking of for weeks. She wondered if it would be wise to ask. She had been thinking of visiting Iarwain-Ben-Adar again, hoping he might have some advice. But, surely, after telling the tale of her time in Middle-Earth, she could ask these two wise elves. It did not mean she needed to speak of her origins.
She nodded to herself, set her glass down on the ground and turned to look at each Elf Lord before facing the garden itself. Then she spoke.
“I have been thinking of making a visit to the Old Forrest again soon, for I much wish the advice of Iarwain-Ben-Adar, but perhaps I can speak with you both first.”
She took a breath, and inhaled air heavy with anticipation. “I have been thinking, lately, that my mind has been fogged from clear memory of Aman, or truly much of Arda at all, when meditating. True, I can see images of Aman in the past, but there is nothing of substance, more like if I were viewing a painting. The paintings are lovely, and have a sense of peace about them, but nothing truly personal. It is as if they are not images of my own memory when I view them while meditating, and that is fine enough. I have done so with other subjects, and I know the Song is full of Memory. But it is frustrating.”
Ára took a long breath again, wondering how to explain without explaining her death in another world and remaking. She didn’t know how it would come across, for that was the main issue in truth, compared to what she was both finding and not finding in her mind and memory.
“You have mentioned that the other Maiar in Middle-Earth, the Istari, were bound, in Hröa, and that much of their power was constrained due to the Hröar in which they were bound. What of their memory?”
“What is it you are asking, Ára?” Glorfindel queried as Elrond remained silent.
Ára turned to look at him then, and her eyes were stinging with unshed tears.
“When I try to find personal connection to memories of Aman before I came to Middle-Earth, it is as if there is a fog my mind concealing them, and it feels at once as if there should be something there while also there cannot be anything there. And I do not understand. Why is this so? How is this so?”
Ára bent over then, placing her head in her hands, and covering her eyes. She barely managed not to let her gathering tears fall.
“Perhaps your memories were bound, though I do not understand why they would be so,” Elrond considered.
“I have thought that as well, but there is more,” Ára admitted, muttering. “I can remember Aman in my mind. I could even share with you, Elrond, the sight of the Two Trees in their glory, shining with Light. But it does not feel like my own memory.”
She took a deep breath before raising her head once more, though she did not turn to look at either of them. She did not want to admit to her origins, not yet at least. She needed more time, but it was beginning to seem as if she would have no choice if she were to unravel this mystery. Still, she held out hope, and tried to explain.
“A good example is that I have meditated on the War of Wrath,” she said. “It was relevant, and I desired to understand what I might of it through the Song. I can say with perfect clarity of picture in mind that I never wish to see the Valar go to war again. Yet, I cannot say I was there. It does not feel as if I were, and yet it also does not feel as if I was not. And that is what does not make any sense to me. How can that both be so?”
Both Ellyn were silent for a time, and then Elrond asked, incredulous, “You have memory in your mind of the War of Wrath? Truly?”
Ára did turn to him then and said with grave sincerity, “Elrond, let me tell you now that if your memory of the Valar dragging Morgoth up from his dark fortress in chains is even slightly blurred, you should be thankful.”
Elrond stared at her for a moment, and Ára wondered what was going through his mind, but dared not ask. Her memory gained through meditation was terrible enough, and he had actually lived through the entirety of that war, and at such a very young age as well. She was grateful she did not have decades worth of that dreadful war in her mind as he did, even if at the time his memory was more akin to Men, which would fade in time. There were some things which could just not be forgotten, no matter how long the memory was held.
She shivered.
Glorfindel gently grabbed her hands before moving to kneel before her, causing Ára to look to him. His eyes were grave, but gentle, and his hands were warm. There was a flutter in her gut, and she wanted to curse, because she was feeling very vulnerable, and very lost, and yet she still basked in his soothing warmth.
“I do not know the reason, if there is such, behind the binding of your memory, but I do believe it is a binding of some sort.” He paused, closing his eyes and inhaling long and deep, before he continued, and his next words were spoken softly, but with authority.
“When I first returned from the Halls of Mandos, much of my memory was shrouded, especially that of my death. It took time to uncover them, and I spent a great deal of that time frustrated, because I could not emotionally connect with many memories I uncovered, not at first in any case.”
His hands tightened slightly around hers as he continued to speak.
“Death and rebirth for the Firstborn is a process of purification as much, if not more so, as it is an event. I do not know if the same is true for the Maiar, but perhaps it is. And perhaps you did not need the memories of your life before coming to Middle-Earth until this time. Though I cannot fathom at present why that would be so, I do not know the answer to that.”
He paused, closing his eyes and inhaling sharply. Ára sensed he was about to ask a question she would not want to answer, but knew she couldn’t lie to him, not now, not if she had any hope for retaining their friendship at the very least.
“Did you die, Ára?”
Ára closed her eyes as she heard Elrond suck in a great deal of air. This was the moment of truth. Did she tell them everything? Ára dug deep, tried to hear the Song, but knew her heart and mind were conflicted and that would dampen whatever she could or would hear. This choice was well and truly up to her.
“Did you die?” Glorfindel repeated.
Ára’s eyes shot open and she knew her gaze was bright and filled with everything she was currently feeling. Hope, despair, the stirrings of what she thought might become love, and fear.
“Yes,” she whispered hoarsely, and marveled at the choice she made.
As soon as she admitted to it, it seemed the floodgates opened, and she couldn’t hold back. Later, she was sure, she would chastise herself, and maybe give thanks for being so overwhelmed that she wasn’t quite coherent.
“I fought against the Dark Lord, and felled him as I was felled,” her voice was a rasping whisper, but she couldn’t stop now. “I found myself in the Halls of Mandos, and Námo came to me, gathered me up, and we spoke for what seemed a long time.”
She took a few gasping breaths, wondering if she dared speak all of her truths, but it seemed her mouth continued with her heart where her mind did not.
“I remember the grey fog of that place. It was heavy and cloying, and I did not feel as if I belonged there, but a part of me felt also that I did, just not in the form I had been. There was a choice which seemed no choice at all, and a great deal of information seemed to be imparted to me within a short deal of time, most of it seemed to flood my subconscious, but I felt, at least in those halls, that I would be able to recall it at need, and so there was no worry on that matter. But soon, I heard him, Námo, and his voice was clear and strong.”
Ára sagged and collapsed to her knees. Glorfindel caught her though, and embraced her for a moment before giving her space once more. Ára’s eyes closed, though she could still feel his hands tightly grasping her own. This was the truth she had not wanted to speak, but now she knew she must. The Song hummed in agreement, even if it tormented her to reveal herself so utterly, for not even her life in another world was so intrinsic to her being as her communion with the Vala Námo. She felt at once, all of what had occurred during her time in his halls, and tears fell down her face as she recalled with perfect clarity for the first time her memory of her time in the Halls.
“He claimed me for himself, then spoke of the one who he once thought to name as his though it was not to be. He said…” Ára trailed off, memory of her time in Námo’s Halls coming to her in sharpest relief for the first time in many, many centuries. “He said I had a choice. I could linger in his halls, or become his in truth. There was such longing in his voice, and no one can spin falsehoods in the Halls of Mandos, not even the Doomsman himself. I heard his heart in his words, and felt for him. He was grim, but not at all unfeeling. Others of his order had claimed spirits for themselves, those spirits had become as children of their thought as much as was capable, and in that moment I felt love and pity for him.”
Ára wept as she finally recalled in fullness her meeting with the Vala. All her bitterness, all her resentment seemed to float away in the face of the overwhelming, fatherly love she now, finally, embraced for the Vala.
Glorfindel was astonished as he held unto Ára, and knew Elrond was as well. He had not expected this, not at all.
But he held fast to her hands, still kneeling before her as the Maia fell on him once more. He pulled her into a strong embrace, circling his arms around her, and felt her head touch his shoulder.
He closed his eyes, but could not fight the feeling of completion he felt whilst holding her in his arms, and knew then he was utterly lost to her. But he kept silent, for she continued to speak.
“I did not know until this moment all of that which occurred whilst I tarried in his Halls, but Námo is as much my father as any could be, and I do love him. How he must have despaired these past millennia, for I have been resentful of him for so long!”
Glorfindel opened his eyes, and caught Elrond’s gaze. Both had tears which had yet to fall, though Glorfindel knew Elrond could not hope to understand fully what Ára was confessing. Even he, Glorfindel thought, could not understand the fullness of her revelation, though he was the only one on these shores who could come close.
Elrond nodded at Glorfindel as he stood, and the Balrog-Slayer watched his friend of many years silently make his way from the garden.
Ára wept on his shoulder, and Glorfindel was unsure of what he could do to comfort the Maia. So he pulled her closer to him, and brought up his hand to her head and he smoothed it over her hair as he would a child.
As Ára cried, sinking boneless into his embrace, Glorfindel recalled his own time in the Halls of Mandos, and with the Judge of Fate and the Dead. He knew, perhaps better than most, that Námo was not unfeeling. In fact, it seemed he was quite possibly the most feeling of all of the Valar, for he knew more the Fates and Dooms of many who would grace his Halls, be they Fristborn or Secondborn.
Glorfindel remembered then his many conversations with the Vala before he was reborn and rehoused, and recalled a cryptic pronouncement, which Glorfindel knew now to be a Prophecy the Lord Námo pronounced to him just before Glorfindel left his Halls.
“Grim and of little pity you may find me now, But I shall share with you what I would not others,” the Lord of the Dead pronounced. “For you, Laurefindelë, known also as Glorfindel; Your Fate shall be unique amongst all the Firstborn, and with my daughter shall you finally find the half of your heart you yearn for. To you, I say: Long years shall you abide once more on the Eastern Shores, but not without triumph or love. And you shall live to see then end of the long-cast Shadow. This is your Doom.”