Valemdar and Elowyn shared a private word. The king seemed to grow more distressed with each passing moment, but it was hard to tell with elves. Their expressions often remained stoic except in extreme circumstances. Ruddy wondered whether this was deemed an extreme circumstance.
Finarion arrived a little later and joined the discussion. Ruddy saw him shaking his head several times though he couldn't tell whether it was disbelief, dispassion, or disagreement. It was some kind of dis.
While they spoke Ruddy took some time to look about the room. He was back in the Celestial Observatory. The various instruments shown with even greater splendor than they had in the dying starlight of Ruddy's first early morning here. Valemdar seemed to spend most of his nights here, and Ruddy wondered if the king ever slept.
He shook himself when Valemdar turned away from Elowyn and addressed him.
"There are many kinds of magic, Ruddy and yes, some of them induce dream states. But this is not one of them. You were forcibly ripped from your plain and planted here on Eladar, physically, in the flesh. How you've managed to miss that, I don't know. Perhaps your mind hasn't caught up yet."
"Well it just seems a little to perfect your majesty," Ruddy spat out hastily.
"How do you mean?" Valemdar asked patiently.
Ruddy huffed, "I mean look at this place! It's like heaven. People living in perfect harmony with each other and nature, a woman who matches every physical and emotional desire I could possibly have, and a forest teeming with undisturbed life. It's everything I ever wanted. How can I possibly think it's something else?"
Valemdar smiled softly at this, "You find yourself in a perfect place."
"Uh huh."
"Filled with everything you could possibly desire."
"Yep."
"And decide that its a dream and therefore obviously can't be real?"
"That about sums it up," Ruddy shrugged.
"You might have self-esteem issues."
Ruddy was threw his hands up, "Exactly! That's exactly the sort of thing my subconscious would say to me. It's constantly giving me crap like that."
Valemdar flicked an eyebrow up and down and turned to Elowyn, "I see your dilemma now."
Elowyn said nothing, just dipped her head respectfully to the king.
Finarion spoke softly, urgently to the king. Ruddy only picked up bits of it, "He...lear...quickly...yet...gresses...slowly."
Valemdar sighed, "Then it's time we showed him. I'll take care of the summoning bit, you..."
Finarion nodded, "I understand sire. You are the heart of the forest, you must remain here."
Valemdar waved for Ruddy to follow and strove toward the center of the room where the giant celestial orrery hovered in the center of the floor. It shone softly like a mirror, yet reflected nothing.
"Vylor'thar thil-hirilthar Eladar thil-velan Homodar," the king commanded the orrery.
Ruddy stood beside him and watched as the surface of the orrery shifted in three dimensions. It showed a planet, round like Earth. Three continents drifted slowly across the side Ruddy could see while countless smaller landmasses and islands dotted the worlds oceans and seas. It was green and blue with deep bands of gray and brown running down the planet's many fault lines.
"This is Eladar," Valemdar said softly, "my home. We orbit our sun, Avarsi, in the constellation Sagalithar, the one you've described in our occasional conversations as Sagittarius."
"I heard that in Sean Bean's voice," Ruddy interrupted chuckling. He shut up when Valemdar wheeled on him with a glare more fierce and wounded than anything Ruddy had seen on anyone's face much less that of the stoic Eladrin.
Valemdar went on calmly, "Your home, is over here." The king waved a hand over the orrery and whispered, "Thralorith Homodar."
The surface of the orrery shifted. It seemed to move slowly yet countless star systems passed before Ruddy's eyes, journeys of millions of years by conventional travel back home, until it rested on a familiar sight, Earth.
"This is Homodar...your home. You orbit Avarsi Homa, which you simply refer to as 'The Sun' in the constellation Magnus. With me so far?"
Ruddy just nodded trying to take it all in.
"I suppose it remains easy to deny that this is not a dream, yet pay close attention as we are just getting started. Knowledge is the antidote to all forms of ignorance especially the unwitting kind. Follow me."
Ruddy obediently followed the king to an empty spot on the shimmering floor. The king raised his hands toward a sphere that hummed softly with energy high above them, "Thralorith venylur."
The orb descended from the ceiling and came to rest a few feet off the ground between them.
"This is the Astral Nexus. It is a tool, nothing more, through which we connect with the Aeloria. Master Finarion has surely explained the Aeloria?"
Ruddy nodded, "Yes, the magical energy that flows through your realm like water in streams."
"It is more," Valemdar said, "The Aeloria is not magical energy it is the life force of the divine mother, the conduit's through which her life flows to all others and returns to her when their time is done. It is infinite and yet balanced, the epitome of what you call love. Love and life are one in the same. Those who do not love, wither and die even before they are dust. Do you understand?"
"Not really," Ruddy replied honestly.
"You will. Place your hand on the Nexus."
Ruddy did as he was told. It was warm and soft to the touch despite its cold glow. There wasn't any one moment that he could describe later where he understood. There was no magical crackling of kinetic energy or a sudden sense of euphoria. He just seemed to gradually notice things, like how the headache he'd been nursing from last night's study session was gone and how light he felt, like he could run and run forever and never tire out, how beautiful Elowyn was. He shoved that one to the back of his mind quickly. Even if this wasn't a dream, he still had a fiance to get back to.
Peaceful, that was the feeling. Not excited, not sad, not euphoric, not emboldened, peaceful and light, like he could endure or be anything he needed to be in service of one thing, this in himself and others.
Ruddy looked up at the king, who just smiled softly and nodded, "Thralorith avanyr."
The orb rose back to its place near the ceiling.
"Now you have met the Mother. And yet...this could still be a dream...couldn't it?"
Ruddy nodded. He couldn't seem to manage much else, though he did manage to mutter politely, "Yes, but I'm beginning to wish it wasn't."
Valemdar chuckled and led him to a small pool on the raised pedestal in the corner.
Ruddy had noticed it earlier, but brushed it off as a bird bath. Who knows? Maybe the harmonious king of the high elves likes bird song in his study.
"This is the Lylorstone. Through it we can see anything."
"Like the one Galadriel shows Frodo?"
Valemdar cocked an eyebrow at Ruddy, "You know Galadriel?"
Ruddy's mouth almost hit the floor for the...actually he'd forgotten how many times...since he'd arrived here, "She's real?"
"No," Valemdar muttered, "I was...fucking...with you."
Ruddy laughed, genuinely laughed, possibly for the first time since arriving here. It felt good. The heat rose from his spine to the top of his head, just as it always had before in his real body.
"But yes, if you're referring to the Lord of the Rings. Elowyn tells me you ceaselessly compare us to them and even decided that we are from Scandinavia. Yes, the Lylorstone can show you the past, present, and future though it is not always accurate with the future. At the very least, it's a fickle thing that demands the utmost from its observer, serving endless cryptic messages and truths disguised in metaphor."
"Which way are we looking today?" Ruddy asked. He was actually getting a bit excited about this one. There was only one thing he wanted to see and it wasn't a thing at all.
"The present," Valemdar replied.
This time he didn't wave or gesture at all. He only placed his hands on the sides of the pool and gazed into it. Ruddy, a bit hesitant to copy more elven gestures he didn't understand, eventually copied the king.
As soon as he did, the king whispered, "Vylorithar Amy wylorar thil-Ruddy."
Ruddy wanted to whisper, "She's not my wife yet," but didn't want to break the spell. One of the first things Finarion told him was, "One thing you must never do is break a spell. Counter it, yes, deflect it, sure, but breaking spells during casting is a bit like dropping a glass dish. You don't know where all the pieces go."
Instead he gazed into the pool as the surface shifted. It didn't take long. Soon he saw the plain country girl face that was the most beautiful thing in the world to him, framed by gently swirling blonde curls. The eyes that stared back at him through the Lylorstone were distant and sad. Ruddy felt his heart breaking.
He started to call out to her, but a warm slender hand covered his mouth. He glanced up to see Elowyn gently shaking her head at him. Swallowing the instinct he turned his eyes back to the pool.
Ruddy was so wrapped up in the vision before him that he almost missed the background. She was in a restaurant. Ruddy knew it well. It was her favorite spot, Butch's Bakery and Bar. An odd combination. A bakery by day and a bar by night. People worked there in around the clock shifts, baking, serving, bartending and bouncing. It was always alive and that was why Amy loved it.
Ruddy could never stand the place. Too loud. Give him the soft whispers of the woods any day, but he loved her, so he'd been there a few times.
Today he was not, and he wished with every fiber of his being that he was, just to be with her again.
No sounds came through the scrying pool. Ruddy smiled when Bailey, Amy's best friend bounced into view and dragged Amy, smiling reluctantly, onto the dance floor.
He enjoyed watching her dance. Some part of his mind whispered that it was a bit creepy, kinda like stalking from beyond the grave for she must surely think him dead. But Ruddy couldn't tear his eyes away. He wasn't thinking about them in bed anyway, just them together.
Another figure emerged on the screen, and tears formed in Ruddy's eyes. They traced the contours of his face as they raced to add themselves to the pool below. Through blurred vision Ruddy watched his fiance dance with the man, grind on the man, and kiss the man.
"Kylorithar," Valemdar whispered quickly, and the image faded until nothing more than Ruddy's own tear streaked face stared back up at him.
Ruddy wept in silence, kneeling on the ground arms covering his face.
Valemdar stood by dispassionately. Elowyn knelt to wrap her arms around him, but Ruddy shoved her away. He missed the hurt look on her face because he didn't even look up, but the look was quickly replaced with compassion anyway.
Instead Elowyn gently lowered herself to the floor and sat a few paces away from the weeping man.
The scent of jasmine and saffron washed over his senses as he breathed lungful's of air that departed as shuddering, shattered breaths laced with misery.
"Why?" He finally whispered, "Why did you show me that?"
"You needed to see something your mind could never imagine, and you could never imagine that because Amy would never do that to you if you were alive."
"And am I then?"
"Are you what?"
"Alive?" The word came as a ragged hiss from Ruddy's trembling lips.
"Yes," Valemdar replied.
"Then why?"
Valemdar sighed, "You just asked that."
"No," Ruddy choked as the angry words forced their way through his throat, "Why did you do this to me? Why did you bring me here?"
Valemdar said nothing.
"Why!"
"I will not answer that question while it is spoken in anger from the lips of a coward curled up on my floor."
Ruddy shot to his feet and leveled red eyes burning with fury at the elven king, "Fine," the calmness in the word was labored, "Why am I here?"
"Because Ruddy," the king replied softly, "The tears you're crying now, I cry for thousands of my people who lose fathers, sons, mothers and brothers every day to Talboat's onslaught. I do not expect the Mother's aid to be easy, but I do trust it to be what we need when we need it. In this case, that's you."
"This isn't my war," Ruddy spat.
"You don't mean that!" Elowyn cried.
Ruddy turned to see the plea in her amber eyes.
"You can't mean that," she whispered, "There are never many wars, Ruddy. There is only one," her voice trailed off.
"What do you mean?" Ruddy demanded more harshly than he intended.
"There is only one war. The one between light and dark, good and evil. It has always been this way, and it is fought every day in our own minds and hearts and between each other."
That didn't make a lot of sense to Ruddy, he'd seen wars back on Earth where both sides did some pretty fucked up shit, in fact, he was sure that described most wars.
"No one is really good. Who can claim to be of the light without becoming the darkness by that very claim?"
Elowyn cracked a smile, a soft one, "Look at you, Ruddy, perhaps you have learned something."
Valemdar let that sink in for only a few seconds, "Finarion, show him."
"Show me what?"
Ruddy looked surprised when his mentor appeared next to him. Finarion had been so quiet, Ruddy had quite forgotten he was there.
"Wait," Ruddy said.
Finarion paused.
"If I see whatever this thing is you decide to show me, and still decide I want no part of it...will you send me back home?"
Valemdar was already shaking his head, "We can't. For reasons unknown to us the Mother sealed off passage to Homodar millennia ago. Neither elves nor unicorns have managed to personally pass through the Aeloric Cascade to get there. We know the mother maintains a tenuous presence there through certain sites that still have strong spiritual significance. If she didn't, you wouldn't be here. Your world would either be dead or in the realm of the Nethershale--"
"So what you're saying," Ruddy cut off the monologue, "Is that only I can transport myself home...and I don't know how to navigate Aeloric Cascade yet."
"Pretty much."
"Then if I decide I want none of this, will you prioritize teaching me that?"
Valemdar exchanged looks with Elowyn and Finarion then looked back at Ruddy, "We won't stop begging you to help us...but yes."
"Velorithar sylkithith alunor Wesfaranor!" Finarion cast the spell as his hand landed on Ruddy's shoulder.