savetheearth | [Closed] Fly, pigeon fly, cross your windblown sky

Aaron stands at the edge of the town, at the foot of the path that leads up into the mountains, where, as of his last surreptitious check five minutes ago, Julien is. He gazes up the path, taking in a deep breath and letting it out. It's not going to be an impossible climb, he thinks, but it won't be an easy one.

"Almost makes you wish you had wings."

He adjusts the bag that's slung over his shoulder, letting it hang more comfortably.

"But he's there. I'm sure of it."

Thorir could point out that at least Aaron didn't shrink 50 centimetres since last winter and thus still is a good deal further above the snow, but instead just starts marching, his boots leaving deep imprints as he trudges up the mountain path that in the summer attracts plenty of hikers, but now is unused.

He is slowly coming to understand this body more and knows that he will be able to get up the mountain without a problem as long as they don't start running.

"I prefer hands. They're a lot more versatile - you can both use a computer and swing a hammer with them."

"Not the way his work. I've seen them fasten buttons." Aaron trudges along after Thorir, walking softer but not much lighter. "I don't know if that's still the case after this last change, but he may have us outmatched when it comes to versatility."

"They are not without uses; but hardly as sturdy as my hands." He walks in silence for a good while. When he speaks up again, it is in a heavily accented Sindarin, imperfect but also clearly derived form the variant of Sindarin that Aaron himself speaks - he got it from Julien and has almost a year of learning under his belt now. "Julien told me about you. We're from the same world." The grammar is simple, too simple for complex things, but it is oddly reassuring to speak this language that is so firmly Not Thorin. Sure, English and Icelandic aren't, either, but this is still different. Thorin would have learned English and Icelandic.

He smiles, in spite of the cold, and lets out a soft, breathed laugh. "It is true," he replies in the same language, unable to suppress the smile. "A memory of you came to me today, when we met. Nay -- not of you, of one named Thorin. I was unsure of how to begin to speak of it." He is careful to use plain language -- not out of any condescension, but in the interest of clarity.

Thorir has to pay attention to the words even with the plain language - learning from someone who only learned it himself in the idle manner of "I'll probably never need it" didn't really help the learning experience.

Sometimes, he wonders if he would teach anyone how to speak Khuzdul if Fil lost his echoes, but... no. He won't.

"What do you remember of Thorin?" Ariel remembered Killian, but that is the closest that he knows of that his side of that world has gotten to any of the Elves yet (that "fire in the mountain" thing was a pretty big misunderstanding, after all).

"He led a company," says Aaron, boots crunching in the snow, "a company of dwarves like him. There were thirteen in all, and a fourteenth: a Hobbit named Bilbo Baggins. I remember little, only that I was a child at the time, and they were in my home. It was a beautiful place."

"So you were an elf." Themselves aside, he cannot remember seeing anyone who was not an elf in Rivendell. Plus going by what little they know... "And Eliot's and your other knew each other."

Aaron blinks in surprise, staring at Thorir. "No, I was a Man," he says. "I am certain of it. And if I knew Eliot then, I have not remembered him."

..."But that place was full of Elves." He is pretty sure that Thorin would have taken notice of anyone who was not an Elf, even if only as an aside of "slightly more trustworthy."

"...He lived there as well, we think, and Gabriel too." It is too bad that Eliot lost his echoes. ...And John. And a lot of others. All his friends who aren't young enough to be his children lose their numbers.

"Yet I was there. I have no other memories of it, so I cannot tell you why. I am sorry." Aaron's memory of Aragorn's life is patchy at best.

He nods slowly, and then shrugs. "We all know very little of that world; I remember more about Thorin's childhood and young adulthood, and a time that I assume was not long before his death, than many remember about their others, but between those stretches of time there isn't much."

"I know something of the geography," Aaron says. "There is a place in the North called the Shire, and dangerous forests near it; there is a river that runs north-to-south, passing over a waterfall and coming finally to the Sea in a place called Umbar, west of a kingdom called Gondor, whose capital is called Minas Tirith; there is a high mountain called Caradhras. Below it lie abandoned mines, a place I'd rather not talk about." His mouth pulls tightly closed. There are other caves, too, but he'd rather not even bring those up. "There is a valley inhabited by Elves -- the one we just talked about -- and a forest that Elves live in also. There are marshes, as well, but I couldn't tell you where any of those lie."

"I remember a number of places, yet I don't know much about where they are located. I remember the Shire, and the folk that lived there." He also remembers getting lost in that place. "Rivendell as well, though I only remember it as a place full of water and Elves; a valley outside of the place that used to be called Khazad-dûm, and later Moria." And the many Dwarves who died before its gates. Including his brother. "I remember a town on a lake, and the Lonely Mountain, the last Dwarven kingdom of Middle-earth." He pauses, trying to piece together what else there is. "There is a mountain range called the Misty Mountains.

We also know that there is a volcano somewhere; Eliot remembered that one, and ...mountains, over which was fire, though Gabriel's memory of those is very vague."

"Moria I know." Aaron's jaw is set again -- his expression tight. "It is the name of the mines under Caradhras. But I don't recognize the town on the lake, the volcano, or the mountains with fire."

"...You went in there." The sharp glance that he gives Aaron is very intense, and resembles that of a man who has just been told that someone decided to climb Mount Everest without any equipment.

He knows. God, he knows what a bad idea it was.

"Twice," Aaron said, "once traveling east to west, then again west to east. Aragorn made it out alive both times, but I'd rather not talk about what happened there. I'll just say it was necessary, and leave it at that."

"Thorin never entered." For other reasons, but still. One good decision that he made.

"...Did your other know any Dwarves?"

He was smart not to. But Aaron is glad to leave the topic of Moria behind.

"One," he says. "His name was Gimli. We traveled together."

An echo.

He really should have suspected that that would happen, but it still takes him by surprise and he almost slips at the sudden vertigo. "Gimli, son of Glóin."

"The very same," says Aaron, not sure if he should be surprised or not -- it's probably racist to assume all Dwarves know each other, but since Aragorn and Thorin had been alive around the same time and been in the same places, well...

"He knew one called Balin, and one called...Ori, I think it was. I -- never met them." The expression on his face darkens. He's not sure Thorir will want to hear what he knows of Balin and Ori. "And Dain." Dain, at least, was alive -- or at least, Aaron got that impression.

"...Dain is my cousin, as is Balin. I don't know the degree of separation, though." He listens to himself and then shakes his head abruptly. "Thorin's cousins. Ori and Balin where with him when he reclaimed his mountain, Dain came to his aid later, first to defend them against Elves and Men and then against Orcs and their ilk."

Aaron nods. "It's hard to keep distance when you talk about it sometimes, isn't it?" he says, understanding. "Especially when discussing people with strong feelings connected to them. But Balin -- he was--"

But here, Aaron cuts himself off. They've arrived: Aaron points forward at the building.

"That's it. He was in there when we started the climb." Aaron reaches into his bag to pull out the crystal ball, to check one more time.

"....yeah. He's there."

[Closed] Fly, pigeon fly, cross your windblown sky

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