Undefined time and space
She kept blinking her eyes, trying to focus whatever it was in front of her. She had no idea what happened, probably fell asleep but where, and when? she did not recognize the bleak sky covered with stormy clouds, nor the barren grassland devoid of color. If she had to guess, it was Forlindon, but not how she had never knew it. first of all, it was as if she had a blurry piece of glass glued to her eyes. Was she looking through a window? She moved her head to look around. Stone walls, washed white. A wardrobe, a bed. Yes, those she could see clearly now, looking back at the window, which now could be clearly defined a window, the bleak landscape slowly became more defined. Flax fields. She knew those, there were many near her home. That was her home, and she did fell asleep then. But still, something was off.
Why all looked like a wash of grey? Where did the color go? Earcalie witnessed many coastal storms in her life but none made everything grey, not like this. She opened the window. Silence, no wind, no sounds, nothing. "Uncle?" she called. There was no elf in sight. Was it midday? She couldn't tell as the clouds covered all light. She couldn't smell any scent of meals being cooked either. Perplexed, the elleth jumped out the window. The grass under her boots crunched like fallen leaves in autumn. The walls of her house, usually a pristine coat of white looked scratched and weather beaten. Did uncle forget to repaint them that year? The place sure looked abandoned... something dire happened? Hardly, she thought, Lindon was largely unaffected by the woes going on in the rest of Middle Earth. Yet unease crept in her head, and dread.
"Hello?" she called again, trodding the dead grasslands. It felt like time stopped too. She didn't know for how long she was walking, then running, frantically looking for a sign of life. What in the world was going on? It was clear to her that this land was... left abandoned. But uncle would never abandon their house without notice. Or without her. They would sail together... so where was he? And why the sea reflected nothing at all? Not even the stormy clouds above. Earcalie wanted to touch its surface and see ripples forming, see that something still had motion around her. But when she reached the shoreline... she found that the water turned to ice. One solid, opaque expanse of ice, hard as diamond, but murky as swamp water. She crept closer, wanting to gaze at her reflection to make sure she at least was alright, yet dreading it at the same time. She crouched to look... and suddenly her head started spinning, and she blacked out.
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She woke up yet again all a blur. "Unnnngh... I must have slipped on that ice and hit my head... what?". She wasn't on the shoreline anymore. She wasn't even in Lindon, by the look of the land. She was now looking at cultivated hills, and a town on their slopes. She definitely felt alarmed. Something happened to her and it was very wrong. Squinting, she tried to pinpoint where in blazes she was now. Perhaps when she fainted on the ice, The storm passed, the ice melted and she was washed in this new place? A far-fetched explanation, but she couldn't think of anything more plausible.
Taking a few steps towards the town, the grass felt less dead, but also less... grasslike? Odd. She felt something familiar as she stopped to look around. The town nestled in the valley formed by the hills around it had signs of life, that could be clearly seen by lights in buildings and the sound of voices. The voices had a cadence she couldn't recognize though... not elven. Not dwarven, perhaps human? She saw silhouettes of people going about their day. If it was day, as the clouds reached even here and the only light came from little bulbs attached to the town's buildings. What was familiar about any of this? She hid behind a nearby tree, staring at a group of townspeople looking definitely human. But they were speaking a strange tongue, not the Westron she knew. Where did she wash up? From her hiding place, she stared at the layout of the town... and almost let out a gasp. The arches dividing the lanes were of clear elven architecture. Some of the rooves covered with red tiles. There was a bridge connecting what looked like a park to a stall market. That bridge she recognized. It was in the design of Imladris, without railings... well, it should have been without railings, but this one had them. In a different, crude style that clashed with the lovely curves... was this a town build upon old elven remains? By some wanderer who happened in the Last Homely House and then was inspired to embellish their home town?
It didn't make sense. Earcalie felt the dread mounting standing there. And an unnatural hatred for that town. She felt like she couldn't stare at it any longer... so she turned her back and ran. Nevermind asking the humans where she was, what time, what day. She climbed up one of the hills... and this time she couldn't help but scream. Lava poured from active fumaroles. Acrid fumes blackened the sky; she turned around, and the town and hills were replaced by a gaping maw in the ground, and cracks like a spider's web criss-crossing dead soil.
"What in the seven hells is going on? WHERE AM I?". That sure looked like a hellish place to be. She heard enough of Mordor to know that she was likely staring at a similar landscape, but she felt like that wasn't the Black Land. The town and hills? Erased by an earthquake? In the blink of an eye? She scrambled through that hellscape trying to find a way out. She felt so parched, so much so amidst the pungent smell of smoke she thought to have caught a whiff of water. it made no sense, but what ever did at this point? So she followed the trail to a little nook in a pile of rubble. Sure enough, a rivulet streamed and pooled into a clear puddle at her feet. Soundless, but it was a miracle to her.
She kneeled to gather the water in her hands... and her heart almost skipped a beat. This water was not murky. She could see her reflection. She could see that she was wearing her favorite blue tunic, but the blue parts swapped place with the original pattern... she could see that she was wearing her most practical shield, of unadorned metal, but this one presented way more scratches and abrasions than usual. She could see that her hair had grown longer, the ponytail now reaching past her back. She could see her face, paler than usual. And she could see her eyes. Grey wells of incredible depth, filled with sorrow where they should have been full with life. She was staring at herself alright. But her future self. And that, she now realized as if a veil was lifted, was the future. The bleak Lindon abandoned by her kind. The mountains of Hithaeglir levelled into hills and lovely Imladris replaced by a town of Men. The dreadful end that would inevitably come in the far, far future. What was she still doing there? Why all her people left but she was there? Did she miss her ship? That's why she looked so full of sorrow? That was a sight she truly disliked in any older elf she met and one she hoped never to wear on her face. She snarled. That's not the future she wanted for herself, and she had to find a way out of it.
But how did she end up there in the first place? Did she fell asleep for three thousand years past the Third Age? She had no reason to sleep for so long, not even after twenty bottles of Dorwinion wine. Looking back at her older reflection, she spotted yet another incongruent element. Behind her future self, was not lava or rocks but the sun shining, hues of bright green and blue, swift rivers and woods. It felt like Lindon. When she tried to touch the water surface, it hardened instantly like glass. Now truly frustrated, Earcalie did the only thing she could think of. She threw a punch at the glasslike surface, shattering it.
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Forlindon, present time, midday
"WAH!" she yelped, jolting from her bed and tumbling on the floor in a tangle of sheets. "What in the world..." so it WAS a dream. A nightmare rather. Earcalie felt a wash of relief over her, her vision no longer blurred, the walls of her room were the usual fresh coated white. The window was open, and the wind was blowing away any cloud in the blue sky. The grass was as green as ever. it didn't look quite like the place she saw in the dream pool though. She was staring at Forlindon, and the ellon near the picnic table shouting at her to "Get her pointy ears ready for lunch" was definitely her uncle Histealdo. And there were other elves walking in the fields.
"What... was that dream?" she asked herself. A rethorical question, she understood it to be the future... the far future, with no trace of her kind. So why was she there?
She didn't tell uncle of her dream. munching on a piece of bread, she asked him if he knew of any other place that looked like Lindon. "Hm..." he pondered. "Probably the coasts of Gondor, as far south as Edhellond. And Arnen. But it has been so long since I last travelled tither, I do not know if those lands are still lush as they used to be.
"Arnen?"
"I knew it with that name, but I think nowadays it is called... Ithilien? Why do you ask?"
"Curiosity" she left it at that. Was Arnen that she saw in the dream? She still didn't understand what was the point of it all.
"If you care to help out at the stables, one of the mares brought a little one to life but a few hours ago"
She nodded, stuffing the rest of the bread in her mouth and scampering towards the stables. Having something practical to do will do wonders chasing the last tendrils of dream away, she hoped.
tulwië: future in quenya
lórë: dream in quenya
