#now I am so tempted to make his eye glow actually from a seeing Valinor situation

[koha-dragoon]

When living with a Keeper, once must be prepared to get up for a drink of water at 3 am and turn the corner into a dark hallway to see this staring at them

[mythopoeticreality]

The Road Goes Ever On- Chapter 1

Ao3 Link: The Road Goes Ever On

Eeeee! Here it is! I have wanted a meeting like this for so long. So, Right then! John Uskglass and  Fëanor! Ohhhh, I have such plans for this! It’s going to be awesome! But for now: Chapter 1! Hope y’all enjoy!^^

Chapter 1

He was awoken...not by any sound he could place, no touch that he could feel, no change of light or sudden brightness. No. Through the silver wash of Telperion’s light the shadow of some creeping forest beast or another would slip by, padding across the undergrowth before vanishing once more amongst it’s darkling kin. A branch would bob, here or there, in the passing breeze while the leaves in the canopy above hissed and whispered softly against one another. And there was the breathing of his sons, a steady in-and out, just barely audible. 

Fëanáro shut his eyes. Pressed out a breath of his own, long and low, a faint mist that curled, slowly drifting upon the air for a passing moment. It must have been that which pulled him from his sleep. That was it, and that had to be all, the elf decided as he pulled both cloak and blanket more tightly around both he and his wife, drawing in closer to Nerdanel. Only the cold, perhaps  the rough bark of the tree he leaned against digging into his back as well. He turned aside, but after a moment gave it up for done. Beside him Nerdanel stirred, her brow crinkling, unseeing eyes beginning to blink to life. 

“Hush now,” He murmured, leaning down, brushing his lips against her temple, “I will return.”

With those words he slipped his arms from around her waist, taking care as he stood to ensure she was well wrapped in their blanket, and began to walk into the night.

He was awake now, and there was nothing to be done for it, so he picked his way towards the edge of the glade, taking care as he stepped around Curvo and young Tyelpë curled upon his chest. He needed to be up. Needed to be moving, rather than waiting silent and still. 

The air felt...there was something on it. Something Fëanáro could not quite describe. He was so strangely aware of the blood flowing through his veins, however, and his heart beating in his chest, and the air seemed somehow to be singing in reply. Singing, huh! There was no sound, merely a subtle vibration, a tension, as if he stood on the edge of a precipice, as if the entire forest around him were waiting…

And then…

And then something in the shadows moved. There, where the slim shadow of a birch cut a gouge through the soft, silver light, falling into the silhouette of a hawthorn tree. A figure emerged, striding out amidst the trees and hanging drifts of moss. It held no bestial shape, but rather stood as an elf would, and paused for a moment, glancing about at its surroundings and nodding, almost...satisfied, to itself, as though gathering it’s bearings in no way Fëanáro had ever seen an animal act. 

Ai! But he must have been going mad, this strange excitement he had woken to driving his mind to who knew what kind of wild, paranoid fancies. Others may not have often traveled out this far, but there was nothing to stop them from doing so. And even had he not seen anyone come from that direction to emerge into the light on the opposite side of the hawthorn tree, who was to say it was not some Maia, some follower of Oromë’s or Nessa’s cloaking themselves in physical form?

No, it was nothing. Simply the rarely seen sights of the forest at night, Fëanáro assured himself. 

And yet, there they still remained. The questions niggling at the back of his mind as he watched the figure move off into the forest, as if it were no different than a loping wolf, a running stag. Where did you come from and what is your purpose here?

And perhaps it was merely that the being had just appeared. Oh, to hear about the Ainur doing such was one thing, but to actually see it? Nothing, mere empty space in one moment, and then the next…

Fëanáro shook himself. Slid a glance back over his shoulder to his wife and his sons still fast asleep.

“Void have me!” he muttered to himself.

And with that curse spoken, little more than a breath on the wind, he was gone, turning on his heel and slipping away after the figure. He would have no peace otherwise, and he knew it. He had to go and at least try to understand.

He padded softly through the spaces between the trees, moving as he remembered moving with Turko as a child, stalking along after some roving deer or unknowing bear in order to observe and satisfy the boy’s curiosity. Perhaps he was no huntsman, as his son had grown to be, but his step was as sure and silent out here in these far wildernesses as it was upon Tirion’s diamond-dusted streets. Surer, even, perhaps.

It did not take Fëanáro long to note the same ease in the Stranger’s own stride. He moved as though he belonged in this place. More evidence towards his simply being some servant of Oromë’s? 

Perhaps, but a strange one this figure would be. The shadowy aspect that lay about him diminished not at all as Fëanáro grew nearer, and instead the Prince of the Noldor found himself stalking after a young man dressed completely, from cloak to boots in black. He might have almost believed this stranger had meant to go skulking about, were it not for the fact that the cut --though strange to Fëanáro’s eyes -- was so fine. To look at the snaking silver knots embroidered along the hem of the cloak and the wide sleeves of his robes was to see that this was not the clothing of a simple traveler or a mere hunter, yet odder still, his hair --long and dark as any Noldo’s -- was left to hang loose and drift about in the wind, neither in a hunter’s braid meant to keep it out of the way, nor in any of the formal, complex styles meant for court functions. 

The more he saw, the more questions the elf inevitably had. 

And all paled to what was to follow.

A Look, that was all. The Stranger did not even pause in his stride as his gaze slid from straight ahead, back towards the line of tall, silvery birches that stood between he and Fëanáro. Their eyes met just briefly, shining sword steel and night dark, before the Stranger reached out his hand towards the elf.

And he was bound. This creeping stillness had stolen over Fëanáro completely, washing over him from the tips of his ears to the soles of his feet. Not a inch could he move, down to the smallest finger on his hand. His eyes couldn’t widen. He could not even scream, standing there, silenced. 

Move...Move! He commanded himself, muscles straining, his will pounding against the invisible binds holding him as though he were some wild beast trapped within a cage  He wanted to claw at his own throat, Wanted to turn upon the Stranger and--

 The ground began to shake with the familiar sound of it. Horses’s hooves pounding across the earth. 

They broke through the wood a moment later. His own horse, Nárcolindo, was as sleek and fleet-footed a beast as could be found in Valinor, yet compared to the creatures ridden by these hunters, that courser of his looked no better than a knock-kneed donkey.  Their fur was a gleaming velvet black, manes whipping out behind them, while darting at their hooves ran hounds so white they nearly glowed. 

As for the riders themselves?  If you had told him that they had broken free from a painter’s canvas or an illumination in a book he would not have been surprised. They were...stylized, idealized, those were the only words that seemed suited for it. Something about them looked unreal, but what he could not name.

A shout rose amongst their company as they approached. “Aha! And there he is! Hail, Starling and well met!” 

A thousand thoughts swirled through his mind in that moment, ranging from the fact that these riders knew this man -- were expecting him -- to noting the subtle twitch of the Stranger’s lips, the brief moment where the bones of his hands stood out, stark and white through his flesh as his hands clenched, and then let go. He saw it because he recognized it, had felt it, that flash of irritation whenever one of his half-bothers had entered a room.

 But beyond all of that and erasing all thought of everything else? It was the very words they spoke, the language. How was it that Rúmil had described it once? “Great and stern, and yet also swift and subtle in movement, making sounds that we find hard to counterfeit; and their words are mostly long and rapid, like the glitter of swords, like the rush of leaves in a great wind or the fall of stones in the mountains." Yes, this speech was Valarin! Yet...no…as much as he had studied the language himself this sounded like no dialect of it he had ever come across before. Was it possible? Perhaps, how much of the Ainur was truly known? But to hide an entirely different branch of the language? To conceal it’s speakers from knowledge--

The Stranger was speaking. 

“Well met indeed. You heard then, of my arrival?”

“But of course!” So spoke the presumed leader of the Hunt, a man whose shaggy mane --the exact shade of fox’s fur -- caught like embers in the lamplight carried by his company.  “I have my friends here, and do you not think they would tell me of the arrival of a stranger in my realm? But come, I am nothing if not hospitable and you shall not remain a stranger for long! Allow me to welcome you properly! We hunt now, but I have heard you enjoy such pleasures, and afterwards, why! We shall have nothing less than a feast worthy of a guest of your esteem!”

It was a speech that had Fëanáro wishing that he could roll his eyes. The stranger as well, seemed hardly impressed. There was little he could see of the man’s face, but the tone in his voice suggested something of a raised brow. “You hunt tonight? In this land?”

“Oh! You are surprised? Or  is it that you fear the wrath of the Powers that inhabit this realm?” The tone in the Huntsman’s voice might have been teasing, his manner perfectly easy, for all of his own words.To tempt the wrath of the Valar, in their own realm? What were these beings about to do? Some vauge memories, Tales of the Black Rider rose up in the back of Fëanáro’s mind, but he quickly quashed them down. For all he might say of the the Valar would never be fool enough to allow such a thing to happen upon their own doorstep!

Then again, even now Melkor roamed freely in Valinor...

Meanwhile, in answer to the insult to his pride The Stranger tilted his chin just upwards, his shoulders set back straighter. The  matter-of-fact murmur in his voice never changed, though.  “It is not fear, merely courtesy. Where I am from Kings are not known to appreciate…” here Fëanáro struggled with the translation, the word itself meant something along the lines of theft, though what there was to steal in a wilderness owned by no man was beyond Fëanáro, “in their forests.” 

“Hrmm? Well perhaps that is so, yet we have no lack of game, here.  Hart and Hind, Buck and Doe, Fox, Boar and Hare, we are free to hunt all -- even if other quarries must be sought elsewhere.”

The Stranger only nodded, “Then I wish you good hunting. My journey has been long, and I wish to acquaint myself with my surroundings. I will gladly accept your hospitality once you have returned, however.”

For what seemed a long while, the Huntsman looked down at the stranger from up above, upon his horse, almost as though he were searching for something within the words. Finding nothing he could take offense to however, he merely shrugged, smiling a fox’s smile. “As you wish, young Starling.”  he said, “You will find the path to my home easily enough, and a warm welcome once you meet it’s end. Until my return…” The Huntsman bowed his head, and with those words was off again, kneeing his horse on, and leading the others off in a thunderous dust-cloud, kicking up dirt and undergrowth as they dove deeper into the trees. 

The sound faded off into the distance. One moment, then another passed. And then finally the Stranger too began moving off again. Once more Fëanáro was left only to uselessly pound iron will against frozen body. He would not be left like this, he could not-

The world lurched forward, feet running over the earth as though he’d just crashed through a  barricaded door. He only caught himself last minute, panting as he drew himself upright, eyes wide, and scanning the woodland about himself.

When his eyes fell onto the Stranger again, his gaze was turning ahead, and his hand was falling back to his side. It was then that Fëanáro realized that amending his situation -- the one this man had put him in -- was entirely an afterthought.

It had become too much, and after all that had just passed…

Fëanáro wanted an explanation.

“Is that all then?” He demanded, calling after the other, “And you think now you will simply walk away? After...after doing...what did you do to me?”

The chirping of crickets and  frogs hung on the air between them. There was a moment…

And then the pause. A Stillness that fell over the Stranger as realization struck him.

Slowly the Stranger turned around, head canted just to the side. His eyes were narrowed as he looked upon Fëanáro and his gaze raked him up and down. 

“You speak this tongue?” 

Fëanáro’s brows shot up, “Why should I not?” he asked. Admittedly, it was a language few amongst the Eldar had learned, or even truly wished to. The sounds were difficult for elvish tongue to form, and were unpleasant to most ears regardless. But that was entirely beside the point.

“I have met few who do. That is, few who are not amongst the Daione Sidhe.” Said with little more than a shrug as the Stranger edged a step or two nearer. Fëanáro would give him this much: he recovered quickly.

“Dee-na Shee?” Fëanáro repeated, as though feeling out the shape of the words on his tongue, again they were unfamiliar and untranslatable. “That is what your kin call themselves?”

That was answered with little more than a sharp snort. (Fëanáro shot the man a hard glace) “Do you ask nothing but questions?” Fëanáro thought he might have seen the faintest ghost of a smirk flicker over the man’s features then, but he was already shaking his head and turning away once more, quickly and suddenly.

What? Had the man grown bored?

 Fëanáro’s tongue clicked, sharp and irritated against his own teeth. He would not beg for his answers. Not go chasing after  this man . He had his pride, after all, and if the man were to be this way, there were other ways to --

“Are you coming?” The man had paused, was casting a glance back over his shoulder at the elf, a brow half-quirked.

“What?”

“You might prove useful. As a guide.”

Silence. A flat look. That was all Fëanáro could return with in answer. Did he honestly think...after...after binding him as he had, did this man seriously think… “You are absolutely mad, aren't you?”

And there it was again, not hidden now. The barest flicker of a smirk, an ironic twist curling at the man’s lips. He simply shrugged, turning asside and once more begining to stride off.

“Answer my questions, and perhaps I shall answer yours.” Was all the stranger said.

He was being toyed with. This man thought himself clever with these games. He should have turned about then and there and returned to his family. He had no reason even to trust him!

And yet, and yet….

And yet, what was he out there for if not to explore the unknown? If not to discover and learn? And if such a discovery should just fall directly into his lap, would he not be a fool to turn it away? 

Void take him, and Void take this stranger as well.

“If I answer your questions, you will answer mine.” Fëanáro said, falling into step beside this stranger.