The Wandering Elf

Aravanna Dorthorian (more concisely called Ara) had a terrible habit of not quite ending up where she intended to go. She was a wanderer, you see, and contrary to the belief of her elven kin, a wanderer was not a bad thing to be. Still, she was an elf, and not just any kind of elf, but a high elf, who happened to be the most stoic and humdrum elves of them all. High elves were fair, calculating, graceful creatures, and they were the most practiced healers of all the elf orders. Ara, as you may have already guessed, fell short in all of these areas, and because she was sorely lacking these qualities, and possessed instead a great number of other, undesirable attributes, her kin very often called her impulsive, or scatterbrained, or simply dimwitted.

I, however, would like to sort out a few details concerning Ara right this moment (although you may feel free to contest these points later on). Firstly, she was not dreadfully impulsive, only marginally so. Secondly, she was only slightly scatterbrained, and that was only when she was especially excited, which, admittedly, was the case more often than not. Lastly, she was most certainly not dimwitted. Not. One. Bit. In one very simple, perhaps inadequate word, Ara was curious. She was curious about animals and the world around her, which she knew to expand much further than the borders of her home in Rivendell. She was curious about a mountain of other things still, but those you’ll discover as I continue the story.

What I will tell you now, though, is that her inquisitive nature was not the only oddity about her. Aside from her fair skin, she was also quite different in appearance than the high elves of Rivendell. Where their hair was either very light or very dark, Ara’s hair was neither light nor dark. In the sunshine it appeared to be a deep red, with a glimmer here and there of gold, but at night one could easily call it black, or at least a very dark brown. I suppose in modern terms her hair would be called auburn, and, although the color is fairly common now, in Middle Earth, and especially among the elves, it was a strange sight indeed. It grew down to her waist, but she kept it in a single, long braid down her back, as to not bother the other elves with the queerness of it.

Also, her eyes were not stark blue like her kin, but the color of citrine stone, only a few shades lighter than the color of her hair in sunlight.

And, as if her eyes and hair weren’t enough, Ara was also undeniably, markedly, nonsensically short. She was half the height of an average-sized elf, and, since Rivendell was built to accommodate creatures twice her size, she had to do quite a bit of hopping, and neck-straining, and, worst of all, standing on tip-toe.

All in all, Ara made for a pretty poor elf.

Anyway, now that you understand some of her abnormalities, I think it’s time to return to the aforementioned business of wandering. She wandered every day (twice on a bad day and thrice on a good one), but there was one day specifically that landed her in a particularly precarious position. She’d been on her way to a healing examination that she’d rescheduled twice already, when, through the arches of one of the many walkways in Rivendell, she’d spotted a flock of deer racing into the valley from the Yellow Hills. As you may remember, Ara was remarkably curious about the workings of animals, and so she approached the arch, and, standing on her already-aching toes, intently observed the deer clamber to what she assumed they thought was safety.

After a moment, she began to hear a strange noise over the sound of the roaring waterfalls and rushing rivers around her. Turning her head to the side so that her ears better faced the sound, she listened more closely.

“Is that…howling?” she wondered. “Oh! Oh, my! It is! It’s howling! There are wolves in the hills! Eek! ”

Her examination forgotten, she raced back to her chamber. Off went her lavender gown, delicate slippers, and silver jewelry, and on flew her brown trousers, leather boots, and olive long-sleeved shirt with the alarmingly numerous amount of pockets. Into these pockets she placed a few small blades, just in case she’d need them.

I feel as though I should explain why Ara, who shouldn’t strike you as a terribly violent person, would possess weapons. All the elves in Rivendell were trained, men and women, and though most appreciated archery and swordsmanship, Ara preferred throwing knives. There are a couple reasons for this weapon choice, one being that she was a lousy archer, and the second being that she was terrified of killing anything up-close. She wasn’t a warrior by even the broadest definition of the word, but from a distance, when she was calm and had time enough to focus properly, she had average aim. She had many qualms about the killing, and maiming, and otherwise unpleasant-bodily-harming of living creatures, but when it came down to kill-or-be-killed, she’d always chosen survival. I suppose you could say that was one of the other scant characteristics she’d inherited from elves.

When Ara had collected everything she required, she raced down into the valley. Nobody noticed her, though that shouldn’t surprise you in the least; high elves were so preoccupied with keeping their backs straight and their chins up that they seldom bothered to look down.

There were very many secret passages in and out of Rivendell, some opened only by words spoken in elven tongue, others hidden behind rocks and in walls of twisted ivy. She took one of the latter routes now, following the sound of the wolves’ howls. She didn’t realize, of course, that these were not ordinary wolves, but very dangerous wargs. Wargs were triple the size of a large wolf and belonged to foul-looking orcs, who were just as lethal.

Yet, thinking on it now, I suppose that even if Ara knew these facts, she still would have wanted to see for herself, though she might’ve been a bit more careful about it. When she was in the hills, where the yellow grass grew tall and was interrupted only by large rocks, she simply snuck from stone to stone until she was a fair distance away from the passage she’d taken to get there.

She saw many silhouettes in the distance, and, deciding they were too far away for her liking, she snuck ever closer. In her ignorance of the danger she was so eagerly placing herself in, she’d failed to note that she was now far too close, for the figures were barreling through the grass with speed much faster than she could run.

As the figures become much less distant, she made out that the wargs (though she still thought them to be wolves) with the orcs astride their backs were chasing, of all things, a wizard on a sled pulled by Rhosgobel Rabbits. The wargs were snarling and snapping their powerful jaws, and the orcs had their swords and spears aimed straight at him.

Ara, sensing finally that this was most certainly not a sensible situation for her to be in, made her mind up to return home. She’d ventured too far from the pathway she’d originally taken, but she knew of two other passages. One was hidden between two great rocks, but it was near the center of the hills, and she’d be damned if she was going to risk running there. The other, more logical choice was near the outskirts of the hills, and could be opened only by a special elven incantation.

The problem was, however, that the passage was two stones away, and there was quite a bit of distance between the stone at which she stood and the stone to which she needed to go.

“Alright, Ara,” she said, breathing deeply, for she’d become relatively frightened, “you are very capable of doing this. Come on, then. On three. One…two…three!”

If anyone had happened to glance over in her direction, they would’ve seen Ara, with her hands outstretched and her knees lifting high, looking very much like someone had stuck a hot poker up her behind as she ran to the next stone.

“Good. Very good,” she gasped, her back resting against the rock. “One more to go. One…two…three!”

This time, her foot caught in a tangle of grass and, with a high-pitched squeal, she nearly bashed her head into the second rock. The snarls of the wargs were merely a mile from her now, though in her terror she imagined that they were right on the other side of her rock, plotting to tear her apart with teeth the length of her arm. She’d been seconds away from placing her hand on the stone and reciting the incantation required to reveal its passage, when, in the very corner of her eye, she spotted movement from somewhere else in the hills.

She didn’t know it, but the movement she’d seen was the result of thirteen dwarves and one hobbit. All she’d perceived at the time was that a company of exceedingly small creatures was scuttling from rock to rock in a fashion not unlike how she’d just been. Her eyes had widened to the size of soup bowls and her mouth had hung open, for she’d never before encountered creatures who were the same size as her. Naturally, she’d concluded that they surely were elves like her, so she just had to meet them, because they would prove that perhaps she wasn’t so abnormal after all.

Of course, they weren’t elves in the least bit—again I’ll tell you they were dwarves and a hobbit—but she was quite content to think differently. The one in front with long dark hair and big furs was called Thorin, and he was clearly the leader of them all, for wherever he pointed, the rest of the company went.

They’d been running back and forth across the hills, hoping that Radagast the Brown (who was the fellow on the sled) would distract the wargs and orcs long enough for Thorin and his company to escape. Try as he did, however, Radagast was flying across the hills so haphazardly that he would unintentionally lead the wargs near the dwarves, so that they constantly had to circle back to where they’d just come. This happened so often that the whole ordeal had begun to resemble a dangerous, disorganized game of hide-and-seek.

Once, when Radagast had circled mere feet away from the dwarves and hobbit, a warg jumped onto the rock they were hiding behind, which coincidentally happened to be where the hidden pass was. Ara was horrified, for she believed without a doubt that they’d be discovered and torn to shreds, but instead, she heard a thwack, and with a yelp, the warg fell dead from atop the stone.

Unfortunately, the others had heard its dying cry. Pointing to the warg’s carcass, an orc said something in a very guttural language and, all at once, every warg collapsed in on that area. The company realized that hiding was now futile and formed a wide circle back-to-back, though even from where she was sticking her head out over her rock, Ara saw that the little hobbit was trembling.

“Hold your ground!” shouted Thorin.

The archer of the group began to shoot, but despite the fact that he hit every one of his marks and the rest of the group was fighting well (aside from the hobbit), they were simply outnumbered. If they didn’t think up a better strategy soon, they’d surely be picked off one-by-one.

Then, suddenly, Ara saw the tip of a gray hat poke up from the pathway in between the stones. “This way, you fools!” a booming voice said, and, one after the other, the hobbit and the dwarves leapt into the passage. Thorin stood to the side, ensuring that each dwarf entered safely until, finally, only he and the archer remained.

The archer had been very valiantly holding the wargs back, but since he was now isolated from the others, the wargs were all starting to descend upon him. Two of the beasts came barreling at him at once, one from the front and one from the back. It was impossible for him to shoot them both, and Thorin was occupied with felling his own wargs.

“Thorin!” he called, and he’d sounded so desperate and so sure that Thorin could help him that Ara had felt a stab of sympathy that struck deeper than it should have, considering these people were utter strangers.

“Kili!” shouted Thorin, and under the power in his voice, Ara heard genuine fear and distress. I know where that distress and fear stemmed from, and perhaps you do as well, but at the time Ara didn’t. All she knew was that she’d never expressed concern that strongly for anyone, and nobody had ever expressed it for her.

She made a decision then, that to this day she will tell you was the most intelligent decision she’d ever made, though in that moment it made her dizzy and nauseous.

She pulled a throwing knife from her pocket, and right when the archer shot down the warg in front of him, she hurled it at the one behind him. Twisting through the air, it flew. She’d been aiming for its neck, but didn’t have the heart to see if her aim had been true. She’d heard the sound of its contact, and that was all she needed. Crouching down, she placed her left hand on the stone and said, “darn llie amin, nesh amin aul ant,” which, in a more common tongue, roughly translates to, “reveal yourself to me I plead, for I find myself in dire need!”

Where her hand was, the rock glowed blue, and just when it cracked open to reveal the tunnel beneath it, she heard elven war horns and the thumping of horses’ hooves.

“Oh, no,” she groaned.

If you’ve ever snuck out of your home or have just otherwise gone some place you are not allowed to go, and have had the misfortune of seeing your guardian stroll into that very same place, perhaps you can empathize with Ara when I tell you that, for a split second, she was more terrified than she’d been when that archer almost got torn apart by wargs.

She hopped into the tunnel, the rock resealing itself behind her, and stumbled through its darkness back to Rivendell. She was conflicted, mind you, because usually when she returned from wandering, she’d sneak back into Rivendell, slip into her room, re-don her previously discarded clothing, and pretend she’d never left at all. This time she hadn’t enough time to do all that, for the dwarves would be entering the valley any minute, and if she wasn’t there at once, she’d miss it!

As such, she decided she’d stay dressed as she was and hope for the best. The sun was setting in the valley, thus many of the elves were inside enjoying their supper, save for the ones guarding the entrance. She crept behind one of the tall, marble statues of great elves from the past, not too far from where the dwarves would be, but again, too close, and waited.

It didn’t take long; she soon heard the thumping of many footsteps. When she peaked around the statue’s legs and saw Gandalf’s brown staff and grey pointed hat at the very front of the troop, she positively beamed. Gandalf was known for visiting Rivendell often. Gandalf, with his fireworks and smoke rings of all different colors, shapes, and sizes.

The dwarves each wore variously-colored tunics that went down to their knees and were held in at the hip with a thick brown leather belt. Tucked into very large fur boots were loose trousers they wore underneath the tunics. They all carried swords, though some carried secondary weapons, such as axes and war hammers. The hobbit was more simply dressed in a maroon overcoat, olive waistcoat with a formal white shirt underneath, and brown trousers. The trousers cut off at his ankles, revealing shoe-less, hairy feet that were even larger than the dwarves’.

“I must speak with Lord Elrond,” Gandalf said to a guard in the no-nonsense manner that he was infamous for.

“Lord Elrond is not here,” the guard responded.

“Not here? Where is he?”

Just then, Ara heard the war horn again. The elves had returned from the Yellow Hills, and had come thundering down into the valley. With a shout, the dwarves raised their weapons and stood back-to-back. “Close ranks!” commanded Thorin, anticipating another battle when the horses began to circle them. The dwarves held their weapons up in warning, but the elves paid them no mind.

“Mithrandir.” Lord Elrond greeted the wizard with a little smile.

“Lord Elrond,” Gandalf said fondly, embracing his friend once he’d dismounted his horse. “Where have you been?”

“One of our elves has gone missing.” Ara cringed. “We heard the wargs on the hills and thought we should search for her. Strange, for orcs to come so close to our borders. Something, or someone has drawn them near.”

“That someone would be us, I’m afraid,” Gandalf said, gesturing to Thorin and his company.

Thorin, with quite an impressive glower, stepped forward from the group.

“Welcome, Thorin, son of Thrain,” said Elrond.

“I don’t believe we have met,” the dwarf said in an agitated tone.

“You have your grandfather’s bearing. I knew him well, when he reigned as King under the Mountain.”

This only seemed to further irritate Thorin, for he replied, “Funny, he made no mention of you.”

The atmosphere had grown quite tense after that, and sensing this, Gandalf stepped between the two, sparing a quick glare at Thorin.

“Tell me, my friend,” Gandalf said, “which elf is it that you were searching for?”

Elrond attempted to make his voice light, but Ara heard the exasperation in it when he replied, “Must you even ask?”

Gandalf, apparently hearing the elf’s exasperation as well, chuckled. “I’m sure she will show up in no time at all, my friend. You know how she is.”

They continued to chat amongst themselves. Ara wanted to run out and thank the wizard for trying to lighten Elrond’s mood, but instead she smiled and mused quietly, “I can’t believe that was Gandalf’s hat I saw in the hills. I had no idea!”

Suddenly, everyone fell silent.

“I told you we would find her soon enough,” said Gandalf. “Aravanna, my dear, come out from your hiding place, please.”

She poked her head out from behind the marble, and, all at once, heads twisted, and tilted, and turned so that innumerable pairs of eyes were focused on her.

“Er…hello!” she squeaked.

Although Elrond appeared calm, she imagined that a lecture was coming together in his mind, and that later on she would be in for a very stern talking to. Moving to stand beside him, she sheepishly glanced up and mouthed, ‘sorry’.

To Gandalf she said, grinning broadly, “Hello, Gandalf! It’s very good to see you alive and not eaten by wolves! Have you brought any fireworks?” and then, upon noticing Elrond’s almost imperceptibly clenched jaw, she stiffened her back, cleared her throat, and in a most formal tone amended, “I mean, welcome, Mithrandir.”

“Yes,” said Elrond. “I, too, am glad to see you in one piece, though I am curious to discover how Aravanna knew of your quarrel with the wargs.”

As you probably suspect, he was not curious, for he already knew. This was his way of passive-aggressively telling Ara that, if she was trying to be secretive about where she’d spent her afternoon, she was doing a piss-poor job of it.

“Erm…well…you see…” she stuttered.

“I’m sure this will be a thrilling tale,” interrupted Gandalf, “but you have before you thirteen hungry dwarves and one exhausted hobbit, so I hope it can wait until after supper!”

“Dwarves and a hobbit?” repeated Ara, disappointed. “I thought you might be elves like me!”

This earned her a loud uproar of protestations from the dwarves and a harsh glare from Thorin.

“No, lass,” a dwarf wearing a hat with flaring ear flaps told her. “We’re dwarves, I promise ye that.”

“Oh,” Ara said, a trifle sad.

Scanning over each and every dwarf, she saw two at the end who were watching her quite intently. One, with long blond hair and a mustache that hung in short braids on either side of his mouth, was regarding her with suspicious blue eyes. The other, with long brown hair, eyes of the same color, and dark stubble where a beard would be, looked quite amused. She saw the bow on his back and frowned, approaching him. Kili, Thorin had called him, if she remembered correctly, which, in case you were wondering, she did.

“How about you?” she asked him. “Are you certain you’re not an elf?”

“Aye,” he said proudly, and Ara thought he’d sounded fairly chipper, for someone who’d very nearly just been ripped apart by wargs. “Our ears are different. See?” He lifted up his hair and Ara saw that, yes, her ears were quite a bit pointer than his at the tips.

Still in denial that these creatures were not in any way related to her, Ara said, “But you haven’t a beard and your hair doesn’t have braids in it like everyone else’s.”

Suspicions abated, the blond one snickered, leaning his elbow on Kili’s shoulder while he merrily watched the exchange.

“I don’t have a beard because I’m an archer. Can’t very well shoot a bow with a beard in the way, can you? And as for the braids, well…”

He’d clearly grown uncomfortable with the conversation and didn’t know how to continue, but luckily for him he didn’t have to.

“Are you sure you are an elf?” interjected the blond one. “You’re a wee one, if you are. I reckon you’re only a bit taller than Master Bilbo, and he’s a hobbit!”

“Yeah,” Ara said, looking down at her feet. “I know.”

Over her head Kili shot the blond dwarf a look, which only made him shrug. “That’s alright, lass, being tall seems real inconvenient anyway. Makes you easier to spot in battle, it does. I’m Kili, this is my brother Fili, and the rest of the lot are called Gloin, Oin, Bifur, Bofur, Bombur, Dori, Nori, Ori, Dwalin, Balin, and Thorin.” He helpfully pointed out each dwarf as he listed them. “What’re you called?”

Still reeling over the pile of names she’d just been thrown, she answered, “Aravanna Dorthorian. I’d prefer if you called me Ara, though.”

“Aravanna?” repeated the dwarf named Gloin. He had a thick reddish beard that flowed well passed his knees, and a bulbous nose. “How many a’s are in that? Four? Four a’s in one name! Excessive, don’t ye think?”

“Well, Gloin, your name is not too far off from ‘loin’, and only one letter away from ‘groin’, so you’ve no room to talk!” she responded.

She’d thought she might have offended him, but after a brief moment of surprise, he released a great bark of laughter. “Right ye are, lass!” He good-naturedly clapped her on her shoulder, and she stumbled sideways into Kili. With his hands on her upper arms, he steadied her. Embarrassed, she mumbled apologies, though they were unnecessary, for when she looked up she saw that both Kili and Fili were chuckling.

This was something she’d soon discover about the dwarves; they were a very merry bunch. They were proud creatures, and could hold onto a grudge for ages, but they were also the first to laugh, loudly and with abandon.

“Well, if you’ve finished with introductions, I invite you to join us for the supper we’d been speaking of,” Elrond said. “Come with me, please.”

The dwarves shuffled forward until Thorin suddenly yelled, “Wait!” Even Ara, who knew the command hadn’t been directed towards her, stilled. If you were her, you would’ve stopped, too. Thorin just had one of those voices, you know, the powerful, rumbling kind that seemed to fly into one’s ear, echo off the walls of one’s head, and never come back out again. “We must discuss it first.”

The dwarves huddled together and began muttering amongst each other, forgetting that Ara was within earshot. She didn’t mean to eavesdrop, she really didn’t; she just couldn’t help herself.

“Should we stay?” she heard one of the dwarves ask.

“They’re elves. Elves, Thorin.”

“Aye, ye know our feelings about them.”

“Bloody untrustworthy lot, they are.”

“I propose we eat, use the bathroom, then go.”

Ara giggled, slapping a hand over her mouth when Kili glanced over his shoulder at her with his eyebrows raised. “Sorry,” she whispered. “I’ll just wait over there instead.”

She shuffled over to stand beside Bilbo and Gandalf, who was frowning at the dwarves. No doubt he would've said something to hurry them along, if Thorin hadn't stepped out from the huddle and said to Elrond, “Alright, then. Lead on.”

“Thank heavens,” breathed Bilbo. “If they said no, I think I might’ve wept.”

He trudged on forward after the dwarves. Ara did as well, accidently bumping into Gandalf as she went. This might not have been a big deal, if Gandalf hadn’t stiffened and glanced down at her inquisitively. “My dear girl,” said the wizard. “Have you grown colder?”

Ara, her eyes wide, began to frantically rub her arms. “I don’t know,” she replied, distressed. “Have I?”

I realize that you’ve not been given enough context to understand those last two lines of dialogue, but you will soon enough. I’ll tell you that it has something to do with Ara’s oddities, and that it’s the oddest oddity of them all. I’d like to embellish upon the subject, really I would, but I fear I’ve already given you enough information to fill a troll’s belly, and it’d be very ill-mannered of me to burden you with even more!

Instead, I will leave you with this final bit about Ara on that day in Rivendell. She’d been extremely excited and enthralled, and understandably so, for she’d missed Gandalf very much, and had never seen so much as a lick of neither a hobbit nor a dwarf. However, even in all her fascination, she never imagined that she’d grow to care for the dwarves as much as she did, or that she’d become so attached to them. Most importantly, she never, ever, not even in her wildest daydreams, imagined that, as a result of her wandering habits, she’d end up joining the dwarves on a journey across Middle Earth that would end in ice and flame.