Harsh Realities

Played by:
AelKennyr Rhiano
Belenos Rhiano


Yavanna pushes the food around on her plate listlessly, her stomach a hard stone, her throat too closed with fear for her to swallow any of it.  After her first blind panic in the morning, she had managed to calm herself enough to know she could not just go charging off in her night clothes.  She isn't even sure if she could go charging off fully clothed.  A quick glance across at her companion from beneath lowered lashes only increases her fear.   Arianna is far from a young woman.  Hardwork, loss and time has all taken their toll on one who would once have been an indefatigable worker.  But Yavanna has seen the grimace and catch in her movements from time to time as a hip or her back clenches in painful spasm.  She has seen the once strong hands, now riddled with the blue veins and swollen joints of age, tremble as the old woman attempts finer work.  How can she leave her to cope alone?  How can she walk away from the one who has taken her in, clothed her and fed her, when she had been so lost?

Sighing, she looks down in shame at the untouched food upon her plate.  Yet even the thought of staying, illogically, still makes her heart hammer and a fine sheen of perspiration break out on her skin.  She must go! She must!  She glances over at Arianna again and slumps further into her chair. She must go, but how can she?

...she looks down in shame...

Arianna forces a bit of hard bread into her mouth, and instantly coughs, her throat closing in protest at the dryness. Her fingers try to curl into a fist which she turns sidewise and lifts to cover her mouth, but the joints, swollen and arthritic will allow nothing more than a partial closing of her hand, and it looks nothing so much as a hand but more like the withered claw of an old raven.  Leaning forward toward the table, her eyes tear with the force of each hacking cough as she reaches out, blindly, for the chipped clay cup of watered ale.  But while her hand finds it, her fingers, thick with age, stiff and unbending, fail to close about it, and instead she sends it, and the contents, spilling across the wooden table. Pounding the table with the same hand in frustration, she coughs one last time, onto her plate, and the bread pieces fly from her mouth, and she can suck in sweet air.

It had not been a good morning. It is not a good night.  She was awoken from dreams this morning....sweet, sweet dreams, of long ago times, when her man was alive and filled with life and sweet honey love.  Dreams where she knew no pain but the monthly woman aches that told her she was fertile and part of the creative forces of life.  Dreams where she could feel the breath of her man upon her ear, the touch of his hand upon her skin, and the thrill of their passion in the soft, and still nights.   She awoke to the sound of the door crashing open on its hinges, and the cries from the young woman across from her.  The scream...the gut wrenching, fearful, painful sound one that still echoes in her ear.  It was the sound of a soul torn in two.  Arianna would know that sound.

It was the sound of a soul torn in two.

She has given such a sound, such a sound, twice in her life.  And now, blinking back the tears that stand in her eyes, she turns her still blurry gaze upon the girl across from her.  "Girl," she croaks. "My cup. Fill it, please."

Yavanna's eyes darken in concern as she watches the old woman cough.  Swiftly she reaches for the pitcher of watered ale and rights the empty cup to refill it but she stops in mid-movement and stares at her hands.  Her skin is darker still.  Despite the day spent by the river, taking her time and scrubbing their linens and clothes to an inch of their lives, still her skin has darkened further.  Biting her lip, she remembers herself and fills the cup, pushing it closer to Arianna and watching her carefully, resisting the inclination to drop her eyes to her lap again.  She did not want to see her hands.

Gratefully, Arianna reaches for the cup, closing both hands around it and slowly, so slowly, lifting it to her parched mouth.  Her throat works noisly with each swallow, and she drains the cup, setting it back down on the table with exaggerated care.  Reaching down she takes an edge of the tatter jerkin and lifts it up to dab at her eyes, that, still blurred with tears, are blind to Yavanna's motions.  Slowly, now able to see, she lowers the fabric and flattening out her hand as much as the joints will allow, she strokes the skirt of the threadbare shiny cloth. "This was my man's," she tells Yavanna.  He would wear this when the cold snaps like it done this morning.  And at night, he would come in with firewood and make such a fire as burn all the chill off. "

She pauses and looks over her shoulder a little, at the fire roaring in the fireplace now. "Why, girl, you be done him pride with the fires you learnt to set. " She gives the younger woman a small smile.  "He would smile and tell you how you done right well, on such a night as this."

"He would smile and tell you how you done right well.."

She lifts a hand, pushes the plate away and drops it back into her lap to rest atop the other one that has been stroking the worn leather. "Such nights like this can set a body to strange dreams...strange dreams.  Why, iffn we gots a full moon, the blood gets all stirred, "She pauses and glances at the other woman. "And then, no telling what nonsense you be dreaming. You may even dream answers to questions you ain't knowed was in your mind."

Yavanna grows very still at the other's words.  How could she know?  Sighing, she gives up on any pretense of eating and pushes her chair back from the table, turning it so she can stare into the leaping flames of the fire.  "Dreams are not real," she murmurs softly. "They are just dreams."  She stares into the fire silently and then, without looking at Arianna asks, "Who are Yavanna and Aule?"

"Who are Yavanna and Aule?"

Arianna watches the younger woman as she turns to face the fire, her bird bright eyes regaining their intensity.  "Dreams," shesays, and leans back in the chair, folding her arms.  "Dreams may be the realest things they is, girl." She rocks a little to and fro, watching Yavanna carefully.  "They tells us our heart, you know, if we has sense to listen.  They tell us of who is thinking of us..." her voice drifts off, and for a moment her gaze grows distant as her mind, and heart remembers..."who be thinking of us, even if they has gone from this world."

"Dreams may be the realest things they is, girl."

She shakes herself and leans forward, reaching out with a hand to pat at the table lightly.  "We can't be living no silly world where cows gives cream and not milk, or rabbits give us golden eggs, or fairies leave us good king's silver under our pillow." She huffs and leans back again. "But there be no living if there be no dreaming.  Thank Irmo for dreams, girl. Makes the ugly in life bearable."

She stops, and then, looks at Yavanna.  "What...what did you ask?  Who is who?"

Yavanna catches her breath and turns to stare at the crone, her heart in her mouth.  Irmo!  Why did that name resonate so strongly?  Why does the face of the stranger she had met in her dreams leap to her mind when she hears it?  Her heart hammering, she blinks rapidly as she continues to stare at Arianna.  Finally, she shakes her head as though to clear it of the image that shimmered there.  "I..." She pauses and coughs a little to clear her throat, "I asked how were Yavanna and Aule?" She bites her lip again as her heart hammers harder as she voices those names, but desperate for answers, she blurts out,  "And.. and how would Irmo know of them?"

The old woman squirms a little in her chair, leaning slightly to one side to ease the dull throb in her bad hip.  She casts a glance at her rocking chair, but does not move.  Taking in a deep breath, she thinks for a long moment upon her answer, while the sounds of the night fill the silence. Then after a loud pop from the fire, she purses her lips and starts to reply, pausing only to lift a hand to her mouth to cover a belch.  "Pardon, that, girl, at my age, out beats in. Well, now, to  understand, you have to know the old ways...not the ways of us humans, mind...but..." her voice drops low, almost a whisper, " of elves. You meet any?" She does not stop long enough for an answer but continues.

"Now, my grammy told me when I was a wee thing that all the world was created with a song, and all my life I's been waiting to see if someone can sing a song that makes life easier...which they ain't and it ain't. But that's how the world started...a song.  And that elven God Eru was there, and he had all these magical beings called the Ainur who were the ones who did the singing.  And after everything started, each of them Ainur...had a special task.  Some were Ainur, which means they got to do the everyday things...like fetch and tote and do what the Valar says.  The Valar were different.

"They were supposed to make every single thing in this world, make it so that when the elves came, and we came, we could live.  They mades the oceans and the mountaints, and the trees, and...everything but us. Eru made us." She closes her eyes and drops into the story with a sigh of pleasure. "Now..Irmo...his job is to bring us dreams and sleep, and...and ideas...we have visions, and that is how we create new things.  But Yavanna and Aule....well, they are...they are special."

The fire pops and crackles.  "Yavanna is Aule's wife, you see. I reckon ain't been no time when that tweren't so.  She it was done created all things that growed from the ground, and all animals.  And if the elves ain't wrong..special tree people who will rip a man's head from his body if he takes too many trees from this world.

"Aule, he...he a bit of a ...well, girl...he's like a man. They get some fool ideals of doing things better, and all they muscles make up for all their lack of thinking things through. He made the world, the ground and mountains, and that stuff...oh and caves...and he made smelly old dwarves, with their long beards and short legs and bad tempers."

Despite herself, Yavanna finds herself enraptured with the old woman's tale.  Easily she could picture Aianna as a child, sitting wide-eyed listening to the telling from her 'grammy,' and the corners of her lips lift in a small smile until she hears, "Irmo.. his job is to bring us dreams."

The smile slips, and her eyes widen as all the panic from the morning returns with a rush.  It was in her dream she had seen Irmo!  The Lord of Dreams had come to her and called her Yavanna.  No!  Immediately her mind rebels against the idea.  No! Why the idea  is preposterous!  Her touch kills things, not make them grow.  She was no Valar.  It was a dream!  Just a dream!

 "It was just a dream!" With a start she realises she has spoken the words out loud.  Looking down to where her hands were folded so still in her lap, she continues quickly, "I mean, you must have had wonderful dreams from stories like that."

Yavanna's hands lose their stillness as one begins to pick restlessly at the plain brown fabric of her skirt.  "You have been so kind to me.  I.. I do not recall having a 'grammy' or a mother or father, for that matter.  But if I did, I could only hope she was as kind as you.  This cottage..."  She pauses and glances around at the worn, sensible yet comfortable room, ".. it.. it is like home to me...".. her voice trails off as her throat catches, unable to continue.  She must leave. She MUST.

"... it is like home to me..."

Slowly, Arianna struggles to her feet, leans across and picks up both plates, ducking her head and turning half away from Yavanna so that the other cannot see the expression upon the old woman's face. The worn leather surcoat brushes against the softer fabric of Yavanna's servicable skirt as the old woman sways a little, getting her balance as she bites back a moan from the pain that shoots through her hip.  When she turns back, the face is kindly, the eyes soft. "But, girl, remember or no, a mother you has...or had...somewhere in this world."

She turns away and hobbles across the floor to where the wash tub sits upon the worn and sturdy wood  work table.  "Aye, mother and father, poor child.  know them now or not.  And out there.." she pauses to cock her head towards the door, "other there is any number of people looking for you." She starts to say more, to scold and warn the younger woman against the perils of the world, but instead edges away from that talk.  Daft child, she thinks, surely Varda will protect her. She came to me near naked and yet safe.

She turns back and reaching the tub, submerges the plates after scraping the remains of the meal into a clay pot.  "Now these, scraps go out into the back in the morning, away from the leaves we gathered up. Leaves be dirt in the spring.  These scraps be good for feeding squirrels and what not. Want them tame enough to lay a few traps to catch for meat."  She pauses, realizing that she has to tell the young woman the reality of their situation, that Yavanna will never enjoy that meat.  Not here, not with her.  "You been right sweet. A bit soft, but tain't no shame, pretty as you be." She keeps her back to Yavanna." But this ain't home, is it child?"

"But it ain't home, is it child?"

Yavanna lifts her eyes to follow the old woman's movements, listening numbly to her words as she speaks.  Do I? Do I have a mother somewhere?  Surely I must have once.  But who searches for her now?  Surely by now they would have stumbled upon the crone's cottage, just as she had?  Is anyone worried about her?

"Lord Aule is beside himself!"  The words from the dream echo in her head, and desperately she shakes it.  No!  NO!  She springs to her feet, her chair clattering against the plain wood floor of the room.  She must leave!  "You.. you are right."  Her whisper is barely audible and heavy with pain.  "You are right. It is not my home.  I.. I thank you for all your kindness, but I have imposed overlong.  My family will be worried: you are right."  She smiles, over-brightly as she speaks the lie. "I.. I will leave in the morning.  I should get some sleep now.  Goodnight."  

Abruptly, without waiting for a response, she swiftly covers the distance to the stairs and ascends to her room.  Standing, heart still hammering.  Not her room.  Not her bed.  Not her home.  But she will remain this one last night.  She will remain and wait until morning.  She will lie in the bed that is not hers and pray she does not sleep, and if she sleeps does not dream.