“What Is It?” by wind rider

"What is it?"

Thank you very, very much for Himring and KyMahalei for the critiques!

Read "What is it?"

1

Glorfindel looked at the small, brightly-coloured package with both suspicion and interest. He could smell a sugary scent through the wrapping, but he had never seen any sweets wrapped by such kind of paper. 

In the end, though, his curiosity won and he carefully pealed off the wrappers. 

A small stack of soft, tiny strips of… something… now lay before him. Gingerly, he picked one up and sniffed it. The smell was almost cloying. Definitely not a sweet he knew. 

He pealed off the wrappers on the topmost strip, revealing its colour: pink. The smell was truly revolting now, but it made his mouth water, and – to Angband with caution – he wanted to try this strange thing. 

He poked his tongue out and licked the edge of the strip, and gagged. It tasted like the parody of a sweet. But oh how it melted like snow on fire on his tongue! He wanted to try more, to have more… 

Bracing himself, he put the whole strip into his mouth and chewed. The taste got more bearable the longer he chewed, and he enjoyed toying with the elastic thing in his mouth. 

Why was the sweet not gone after a long moment, though? The semi-hard texture was gone, but the elastic thing itself was not. The taste was now bland in his mouth, and it was somehow more disgusting than the cloying sweetness had been. 

He spat the strange, strange thing onto his upturned palm, and saw that the shape of his molar had been cast onto it. – And it was now a very unendearing shade of off-white, and smelling like his saliva. 

Ah, he could not give it to Idril, then… Who knew what would Turgon do to him if he gave her this. She would enjoy the adventure, though, for sure. – Hmm. Perhaps he could slip it in as a present for her next begetting day? With tips and warnings, but anonymously, of course… 

2

There was no pomp, no ceremony. The daughter of the famed Elf-lord and the Maia was slipping out like a begger or a thief. 

Luthien smiled bitterly, mockingly, as she drifted among the trees out of her mother’s protection, out of her father’s lands. Beren was her love, and he was in danger. Elu and Melian were her parents, but they saw it fit to cage her up a tree while refusing to send any reinforcements to save Beren. (Her cousin Finrod was in the same danger as Beren, for the Creator’s sake! And still they did not budge – not even for their own kin.) 

The journey to the Isle of Werewolves was long, however, and she could only hope to reach it in time. If only— 

But what was that, leaning against a maple tree? It looked like those horse-drawn wagons Beren had ever talked about, except that there were only two wheels (front and back) attached to the contraption, and there was no horse for miles around. (If not, she would have set out to see if it would let her ride it.) A strange leather seat was perched atop it, behind an even-stranger bar consisting of two handles… 

On closer inspection, she could see that the contraption was built mainly of metal rods linked together like a skeleton. It seemed harmless enough… 

She touched the handle bar gingerly, 

— And the whole front section of the thing swayed slightly, following the direction of her accidental nudge. She jumped back with a frown. She had not expected the thing to be so… sinuous. 

But if the front part could be directed wherever she wished, and those handles set at the opposite ends of the bar were really for hands to clutch… 

She looked down, and scrutinised the system of rolled chains connected to the set of paddles under the seat-pole. Realising what it was meant to do, then, a slow smirk spread across her face. She would have a steed at last, although this would make a strange one indeed. Balancing herself was no cause of worry. (She had had to balance herself on feats more difficult than this.) 

She guided the contraption away from the tree, and mounted it. “Beren, here I come,” she whispered into the night falling around her, as she set her feet on the paddles. 

3  

It was so dark. It was darker than the darkest sky in the Swanhaven during tempests. This darkness was… alive. Tulkas hated it. He must chase down the vile creature who had robbed Valinor of its sources of light – and made Yavannah so devastated in the process. But he could not do it in this total non-existence of light. Stupid corporeal form… 

He took a step forward, and stumbled on something that instantly rolled away. What was that? 

He stooped down and picked the thing up, after groping around for a moment. (Thankfully nobody was able to see him in this compromising position.) It was… a torch? Nay. It was shaped similarly, but the material which made it up was of a strange origin; and it lacked the hollow to put the fuel in. Aulë might know what it was, but he had no time to ask him. He had two miscreants to capture… 

His hand unwittingly slid on the smooth surface, and something on the body of the torch-like thing clicked. – Light instantly burst forth from the glass surface which should have contained the fuel hole, illuminating the immediate surroundings (and blinding his eyes for a moment with its radiance, as it had been aimed at his face). 

Definitely a strange thing, but definitely useful too. And it was the first ever weapon he took up. He brandished it like a sword or a spear, letting its brilliant light chase away the darkness like mere flame could not. And then he advanced on his route once again, using the newly-discovered item to ‘clear away’ the path. 

After all, he had a task to perform to his brethren and the younger Children. They did not have to know who – or what – helped him. 

4

It was certainly not a sunken ship, as it was floating serenely a safe distance from the seabed. And then again, he had never heard anyone making a ship from strips of metal. It was the most bizarre thing of the younger Children’s creations that he had ever seen so far. (And to think that he had taught the Firstborn the art of shipbuilding!) 

Ossë was so, so tempted to assume a form and confront the egg-shaped giant thing. But the strangeness of it all made him pause. He had just spied two illuminated windows and several more that were unlit, and he could see figures resembling the younger Children moving in it as if above water. How could that be? Should it not be full of water by now? And he knew that the younger Children could not breathe underwater. (If not, shipwrecks would not have taken such a toll, all blamed on him.) 

He wrapped his presence around the thing, just as it rose – on its own volition – towards the surface. – Wha? 

The thing broke the surface after a moment, and floated like an iceberg. Now Ossë was really confused. And when he was confused, he was irritated. And when he was irritated, he was prone to anger. And when he was angry, he released the excess emotion-charged energy via tossing up a tempest. 

Sadly, Uinen was not around to calm him down, and the younger Children inside did not know to call for him, to remind him that they were there – and still alive. 

5  

Two bards sat opposite each other at a table, glaring at one another. And on the table, perched an odd item with flat rectangular bodyhalf the size of one’s palm and attached to two very long, very thin hands. They were discussing – or rather, bickering – about it. 

“It is inanimate,” Maglor said. 

“I know that,” Daeron retorted heatedly. “What do you take me for? An idiot?” 

Maglor just arched an eyebrow and let out a tiny smirk. Daeron’s glare grew more venomous, but he refused to say anything, to fall into the baited trap. 

He grabbed the debated item before Maglor could, then spent some time dodging the other bard’s grasping hands. When Maglor finally subsided, he began to scrutinise the thing still in his hand. 

There was something springy there, he found out; a tiny square shape on the head of the item. When he pushed it, light flashed on a section under the nub, and then the section – rectangular in shape – kept itself lit. There were symbols looking a little like runes on the illuminated section, and several tiny pictures too. 

Maglor grabbed the item when Daeron was busy pondering what the runes and images pertained to, intrigued by the other bard’s cry of pleasant surprise. He scrutinised the features for himself, and experimented with the nub. There were four smaller nubs around the bigger one, too, set like directional points – north, east, south and west… He pushed at one of them, curious if they were as springy as the bigger nub. 

It was, and the other three too. And now the features on the illuminated section below the nubs had changed. 

Maglor frowned. So the nubs directed what was put on the illuminated section? It seemed like the Seeing Stone, then; except that the Stone was directed by one’s mind. 

He smiled, and resumed experimenting with the item wordlessly. Opposite him, Daeron had ceased glowering at him and returned to pondering the runes and images he had seen. 

After a while, both bards could hear a faint sound – (“Is that music?”) – from the end of the two weird hands of the item. Instantly, each grabbed a hand for himself and put the rounded end closer to his ear. 

Yes, music, definitely. But it was of a similarly strange origin as the item itself. 

And what item could store music in it? None of them saw how it could happen, nor did they see any system that could produce it, like in a music box. 

But regardless, the music was good and upbeat and well, and they would set aside their animosity for a time to listen to it. – Perhaps then they could compose something with this new brand of music as inspiration? But of course, they would tell nobody that they were working together… After all, they had their images to uphold.