#in that eldariel is a nameless character in the appendices

[thestuffedalligator]

The Scholar of Gondor

There was a day’s travel between Undertowers and Hobbiton.

This was less a consequence of the actual distance between the two and more the fault of the state of the road. Namely, there wasn’t one. Thirty-five years of carts had carved two long furrows through the hilly lowlands, and these looped and turned around the hills like a very bored giant had spent an afternoon trailing its fingers through the dirt to make interesting designs. It was generally understood that a road was going to be built eventually, and in the meantime the Westmarch-hobbits and the Old-Shire-hobbits came to enjoy the distance from each other.

But gossip in the Shire never seemed to actually follow the roads. It soared on the open wind, travelling as the crow flies, so what was news in Undertowers somehow became known in Hobbiton in a matter of hours. If it was particularly scandalous gossip, it made the trip in minutes. When Fíriel Fairbairn was caught snogging Donnamira Brandybuck two Yules ago, it had spread across the Shire so quickly that it had reached back to Donnamira a full two minutes before it had actually happened. By that point the two decided that, what the hell, best not to tempt a paradox, and ducked into a parlor closet.

News about the Scholar of Gondor reached Hobbiton a full thirty minutes after the Scholar’s horse clattered to a stop in Undertowers.

This was news because it had been a full sixty years since King Elessar had declared Men as forbidden from entering the Shire. And what was worse, this human had been permitted entry into the Shire upon the orders of King Elessar himself. Worse still, the Fairbairns were apparently allowing it to stay in their home.

This was just too much for the Old-Shire-hobbits. Why couldn’t the Big Folk keep to their own and leave us in peace? And on Elessar’s orders, no less. What did Elessar think he was?  King? As for staying with the Fairbairns, well -

Most hobbits stopped at that. Well. You just didn’t talk about that sort of thing.

***

Fíriel “Sharkey” Fairbairn - a nickname she had picked up by general acclaim somewhere in her tweens - was doing her own research in her family’s library. This mainly consisted of pretending to read Herblore of the Shire while trying to inconspicuously stare at the Scholar of Gondor.

She was, Sharkey decided, rather pretty in a tall sort of way, all dark, wavy hair and brown face. If she was wearing a leather tunic and hunting spiders in the forest, she’d probably be the spitting image of an elf. Instead she was wearing a grey dress and robe that was somehow fashionable in Gondor despite it making her look a bit like a grounded thundercloud, and she was currently hunched over a massive pile of hobbit books, one hand pressing open The Red Book of Westmarch, and the other scrawling notes down in a small, leather notebook.

Sharkey considered herself to be rather attractive - she had to have been, to wind up snogging Donnamira Brandybuck two Yules ago - but even in her sharpest jacket and brightest trousers, a base animal instinct warned her that the Scholar was out of her league.

Sharkey closed Herblore with a snap, pulled her pipe out of her jacket pocket, and made an obvious show of nonchalantly cleaning it. “How’s it coming?” she asked.

The Scholar nodded. “A bit slow, I’m afraid,” she said. “I’ve only just finished There and Back Again.”

Sharkey had experimentally puffed on the pipe to test it for blockages and suddenly inhaled a glob of charcoal that lodged itself in her throat. “Al-ready?” she managed between coughs. “You - just - got here - two days ago!”

The Scholar hummed. “It’s a very short book,” she said. She looked up. Sharkey noticed that her eyes were a stunning shade of grey and, just then, full of curious worry. “Are you all right?”

“Never better!” Sharkey said in a strangled tone. She made one more hard, wheezing hack, and the glob came out into the crook of her elbow.

“What I don’t get,” Sharkey said, changing the subject after a sufficiently embarrassing pause, “is - you’re here to study The Red Book. I get that. But we gave Gondor a copy of The Red Book just three years ago, right?”

The Scholar tapped her quill on the notebook. “Well, yes, and we’re very grateful for it. But the academics of Gondor believed that it deserved some… clarification.”

Sharkey quirked an eyebrow. “Clarification?”

The Scholar nodded and flipped through some pages of notes. “Bilbo seemed to have something of a fanciful imagination, and inserted some creatures from hobbit folklore into his writing.” She got to a page almost black with Sindarin. “There and Back Again has stone-giants, skin-changers, were-worms - were-worms!” She looked back up at Sharkey. “What the hell is a were-worm?”

Sharkey allowed the image to form in her mind. “Something like a werewolf, I reckon,” she said after a moment. “Only it turns into a worm, not a wolf. Stands to reason, right?”

There was a pause as the Scholar thought up the image as well. “No,” she said.

Sharkey grinned. “Oh, what, you’ll accept eagles, trolls, goblins, and dragons, but-”

“They’re history,” the Scholar said. “Giants and mewlips and gorcrows and Tom Bombadil - those are mythology.”

There was a thoughtful pause. “I admit it’s a fine line,” the Scholar said. “But I can see it from where I stand-”

“Tom Bombadil’s mythology?”

“Er - yes,” the Scholar said. She held up The Adventures of Tom Bombadil and gave it an accusatory wobble. “I suspect your Frodo inserted him into the story to add some levity to his travels. He’s a folklore figure. A hobbit fairy tale. He’s not actually real.”

Sharkey frowned. “Isn’t he?”

There was another thoughtful pause. “I… thought so,” the Scholar muttered. “Up until just now, anyways.”

***

It turned into something like a pattern - Sharkey pretending to read some new book in the library, catching up on how the Scholar was doing. Sometimes this turned into the Scholar asking for clarification. Sometimes this was, “A later edition of this could really do with more mentions of Arwen,” or, “Look, just because Aragorn mentions the Beornings doesn’t mean that they can turn into bears.”

Then, somewhere in the middle of Blotmath:

“You’re - you’re asking me if my grandfather ever fucked Frodo.”

The Scholar shrugged. “I’m not necessarily suggesting that the two consumated the relationship, but if you look at the subtext-”

“My dear, sweet granddad, who loved my grandmother very much, and decided to leave for the Undying Lands the moment she died-”

“Well, who’s to say what happened before he got married? I’m just saying, it’s very convenient that Rosie only gets mentioned towards the end of the-”

“My lovely, gentle Grandpa Gamgee-”

The Scholar slapped a hand onto the table. “Your Grandpa Gamgee had a legendary virility among hobbits, and was considered for his time to be the most attractive hobbit in the Shire, Frodo would be insane not to get on that.”

“This is hell,” Sharkey said. “I’m in hell and you’re the devil. Everything makes sense now.”

The Scholar laughed, a clear, beautiful noise that set certain parts of Sharkey’s brain on fire. “I suppose hobbits don’t talk about that sort of thing, do they?”

“In the Old-Shire, definitely. But Undertowers is different.”

“How so?”

Sharkey shrugged. “It’s a new town,” she said. “When hobbits heard that there was a new place, a place away from the gossip, a lot of the ones who were disgraced in their old towns migrated over. A lot of that was for-” She made a vague gesture. “Travelling by ship with Gimli and Legolas, if you catch my meaning.”

The Scholar raised her eyebrows. “I had no idea.”

Sharkey puffed herself up, and pulled on the lapels of her jacket. “I pride myself as being the foremost authority on the subject.”

The Scholar leaned across the desk to her. Sharkey could suddenly see the little droplets of dried ink on her cheek, the shape of her lips, the thunderstorm in her grey eyes. “It’s a theory I’m… less experienced in, but certainly willing to study.”

The library was the biggest room in all of the Fairbairn Hallow, with ceilings that stretched up to a full ten feet. It was suddenly entirely too small and cramped to breathe in.

Sharkey licked her lips. “D’you - what do you say we get out of here and get a drink?”

***

The door to Elfstan’s study banged against the bookshelf built into the wall, dislodging a butterfly collection and Herblore of the Shire.

In the round doorway, significantly ruffled, gently swaying, and, an observer would have to be very close and deal with the very strong smell of hobbit-brewed whiskey to spot it, with dark lipstick smeared across one side of her mouth, was Sharkey.

“I AM,” she declared, “THE GREATEST HOBBIT WHO EVER LIVED.”

Elfstan apparently ignored her. “Write it down for posterity,” Sharkey continued. “On this, the sixteenth of Blotmath in the year 1487 (by Shire Reckoning), I, Fíriel Fairbairn, achieved the unachievable, and okay we just made out a little before she passed out, but that’s pretty good for me, and hey, why aren’t you paying attention?”

Her brother handed her a sheet with some scrawls across it. She read it, closing one eye to shut out the three other images swirling in her vision. “Sindarin,” she said flatly. “Oo-ee.” She looked closer.

“Are you sure?” she said, the dread chill of sobriety reaching its fingers into her hindbrain.

“I think so.”

Sharkey looked back at the sheet. “Damn,” she muttered. 

***

The Scholar was up in the tower of Elostirion, apparently to see where the palantír had once been until it was put on the ship that carried Frodo and Gandalf off into the Undying Lands.

Hobbits said that they could see all the way to the Sea from the top of Elostirion. Sharkey was firmly of the opinion that they were full of crap, mostly because by the time she’d managed to get to the top of the tower, her mind was mostly preoccupied with not dying.

“Stairs,” she wheezed once she’d made it to the top of the tower.

The Scholar was looking out over the railing. She made a sound, not really laughing, more a puff of humour without any of the effort behind it. “The hangover’s probably not helping, is it?”

“Definitely not.” She walked towards the opposite railing. “Don’t mind me, I’m going to throw up over the side.”

“I would’ve thought you’d inherited your grandfather’s constitution,” said the Scholar behind her. It sounded like she was smiling.

Sharkey wheezed over the railing until her mouth stopped tasting like she’d gargled pennies. “Granddad never had to deal with stairs while hungover,” she said. “Confusticate and bebother, I don’t know how you did it.”

The Scholar made another sound like laughter. Sharkey wiped her mouth, looked out over the railing, and said, “But I reckon it must be different for half-elves.”

There was silence. A breeze drifted through the tower, Sea-borne warmth now chilling into proper wintery discomfort.

The Scholar sighed. “How did you find out?”

Sharkey nodded and turned. The Scholar was still looking out over the opposite railing. “Elfstan’s been studying Sindarin. ‘Unglittering Gold’ - ‘All that is gold does not glitter’ - it wasn’t really a subtle pseudonym.” She added, “Er - I mean, your high-”

“Don’t,” the Scholar said. “Please don’t. I’m not that, not here.”

Sharkey took the point. “I’d like to know your name, though,” she muttered. “Your real one.”

The Scholar of Gondor turned her head and gave Sharkey a sad little smile.

“Eldariel,” Eldariel said.

Sharkey nodded. “The princess-”

“No, Sharkey, I’m not. Not here.”

“But you are.” Sharkey suddenly felt like throwing up over the rail again. “Oh ye heavens, you’re the prin-”

Eldariel whipped around, grey and black cloak and dress swirling like a woolen thunderstorm. “No, I’m not. Not here, Sharkey, do you understand? Here, I’m a scholar. I can do what I want, study what I wish. That-” she waved a hand vaguely, “-person, that girl, she’s back in Gondor.”

She raked her fingers through her hair and took a deep, dramatic breath. “I am the daughter of King Elessar, the first daughter of the House of Telcontar. Do you know what that makes me?”

Sharkey considered this. “A pri-”

“Nothing, Sharkey. I’m nothing.” She made another noise like laughing, only this time there was no humour behind it. “Worse than that - I’m a token. An asset. Do you know what the name Fíriel is from? It’s from a princess of Gondor who was married off to Arvedui of Arnor and disappeared from history all together. That’s what the princess of Gondor is meant to do, just exist and be happy until you continue the family line.”

She turned back to the railing. When she spoke again, it sounded as though her voice was coming from very far away. “My brother will be the one who takes the throne, and he’ll be the one who’ll stay in history. Stories will be told about the great deeds he’ll do once Father passes and Mother fades away. He’ll go on great quests with Elboron and Elfwine, I have no doubt, and they’ll probably find the Entwives and the Beornings and maybe even the two Blue Wizards. And what will people what remember about me?”

Sharkey looked out over the railing. She didn’t know how far half-elf eyes could see, but for the first time in her life, she thought she could just spot the Sea.

She almost said: The tip of your nose wiggles when you talk.

You hold your forehead in your palm when you read.

You are personally offended by the concept of were-worms.

When you get frustrated, you run your fingers through your hair to try and make it as messy as you can. It never works.

When we got drunk together, we walked out on a snowy night and you started crying. Snowflakes were glittering gold in the lamplight, and you’d decided that it was the prettiest thing you’d ever seen.

Your first kiss felt like revenge against your parents, and I’m terrified to ask for a second kiss because it might taste like you falling in love with me.

At the same time she thought: But people won’t remember that. People don’t deserve to have those moments remembered, written down, because that version of you belongs to me.

But for now - and tomorrow - and forever - that’s what I’ll remember about you.

She said: “To hell with what other people remember about you.”

Eldariel looked over at her.

“To hell with what other people remember about you,” Sharkey said again, a bit more certainly this time. “Maybe centuries later, somewhere, someone’ll read ‘And Old Samwise had a granddaughter named Fíriel Fairbairn,’ and they’ll say, ‘Fíriel Fairbairn? I wonder who she was,’ and they’ll read, ‘And King Elessar had a daughter,’ and they’ll say, ‘I wonder what she did.’

“But by then it’s all a story, and people will forget the truth, or they’ll remember it accidentally, but in some way it’ll carry on. What’ll be important,” she reached up and took Eldariel’s hand in hers, “is what we do today.”

What happened next - who’s to say?

***

And maybe it happened And maybe it didn’t. Oh! Who is a hobbit to say Of those dirty codgers, Those damn gossip-dodgers, Who packed up and all went away.

- Chorus of a traditional Undertowers drinking song