Doctor Ronald Hadhafang walked down the white walled corridor toward ward 31. He had one last patient assignment and than he would be done for the day. God, He was tired!
He had to get out more, away from the troubled minds and demented beings he called patients. But don't get the wrong idea about the good Doctor, He was as passionate about his working and helping the patients and he had been as a youth at 20. It was simply beginning to wear him down.
He had been a psychologist for longer than he was willing to admit, and now he was seriously considering retirement. In fact he had already began the process of finding a replacement for himself. He would see this year to it's end and than he was home free to potter about his gardens and farm as he wished.
Just this one patient he was assigned and he was done. But this was no regular patient; not that any for them were, but she disturbed him more than any other. He remembered the day she had been brought in.
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" Hold on to her or she'll kick you something fierce!" yelled Shelby as he struggled with the waving woman. " Grab her ankles if you can Bob!" he directed next.
Together the two orderlies lifted the woman to her feet and began carrying her down the hall toward a safe room. She seemed to calm and just for a second the orderlies loosen their grip, this was what she had been waiting for, she hit the ground with a heavy bump.
It the blink of an eye she was up and headed for the door. It was blocked by a few scared nurses, so she turned and fled down the corridor that lead to the doctor's offices.
Ronald had just come out his office and rounded the corner to be slammed into by a woman in a long gray dress. He reached out to stead her and found himself looking at a striking woman of 40 something. She was tallish, with long, long hair a mixed silver and brown.
Her face was oddly young and flushed with the running she had done. She pulled her hands out of his grasp, but seeing his face she looked as if she couldn't decide whether to run or not.
He felt her gaze was piercingly on his skin as if it contained heat itself. He looked up into her eyes and saw they were filled with tears! She moved her hand and gentle touched his face a moment. Before he could act she crumbled to the floor, and began sobbing with such sorrow that he felt as if his heart would break. Shelby and Bill came running around the corner and came to an abrupt halt.
" Thanks Doc, we were afraid she do some kind of damage. We'll just take her down to ward 31." said a winded Bill as he and Shelby lifted the sobbing figure from the ground.
Using the strangely gentle way of orderlies they put restrains on the woman's thin wrists and pulled her to her feet. She gave Ron one sorrowful look and was gone. He felt strange and oddly affected by it. He went back to his office and sat in the old leather desk chair.
Her eyes had been so hopeless and empty that it gave him a shudder even to think of it. Who was she?
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Now he strode toward the door behind which she was now living. Serena, a nurse of many years and experience was waiting for him a key ring in her hand. She was a reassuring sight and he gave her a quick smile.
" How is she?" he asked nodding toward the door.
" She's real quiet now. Ron, I don't think she even belongs here. I mean look at her! She looks so sane and peaceful. All she ever does is cry and sleep! I've been here a long time and I haven't seen one like this one before." Serena sighed. "But we can't get anything out of her, Dr. Rimbolt says she hopeless and we should just ship her off to a sanitarium. She only speaks in some kind of gibberish, he says."
"Dr. Rimbolt missed his calling in life when Court Jester's went out of fashion." Ron snorted.
Serena cackled and shrugged her white clad shoulders reaching out and unlocking the door.
He walked in and saw the woman sitting in a chair at the far end of the room. She was facing the window and looking up at the clear night sky. Her hair was neatly combed, a white part showing against the brown-silver tints of her hair. She was wearing the nondescript grab all the patients wore, it hung on her thin frame to the floor.
He went to the table at the center of the room , set his clipboard down next to the untouched food tray, and took a seat. Nothing happened and so he cleared his throat loudly so she would know he was there. She stirred a little and spoke her voice low.
" I know why you're here so could we please just get it over with? I really prefer to be left alone." she said calmly.
Her voice had a peculiar thick accent that he couldn't quite place and he wasn't going to ask about that, at least not yet.
"Well, my name is Ronald Hadhafang and I just want to ask a you a few questions about yourself. Would that be okay?" he asked the woman.
"Hadhafang? That is your name? Strange…" she murmured. "Is it your mother name?"
"I'm sorry?" he said, "I'm not sure what you mean."
"It is of no importance. As to the questions you spoke of…" she shrugged, "I believe I have already said I would answer, so let us begin."
"Good, alright perhaps that will make things a little easier for both of us" he spoke cheerfully. He was watching her closely, he wasn't deceived by false calm and was on the alert for any sign of movement. She still hadn't turned to face him.
"Won't you come and sit with me here at the table, there's a lovely meal waiting for you."
She gave a bitter little laugh and said " If you call that synthetic chicken and vegetables a meal. Or that liquid that you refer to as water. I can't stand any of it."
" I don't blame you at all" he laughed " But you really need to eat something"
Instead of answering she muttered something in the "gibberish" that Serena had mentioned earlier.
He tapped his pen against the note pad and after a moment said " That wasn't very nice, I quite prefer my wife thank you very much."
She stiffened in her chair and half turned her head toward him, but she did not speak. He sighed a little and wrote a note and tore it out and folded it. " I can see we're not really going to get anywhere tonight so I'll just leave you this little note and we'll go from there okay? If you change your mind abut talking, just ask the nurse who brings your meals to get in touch with me."
He walked slowly up to her and placed the note into her open palm. After his foot steps had receded down the hallway and the echoes faded, she looked down at the piece of folded yellow legal paper. She smoothed it out in her lap and lifted it to the light. In a graceful script that flowed across the page she read.
"Please trust me. I only want to help you, you aren't alone."
She stared at the note which she held in her shaking hand. A fat tear slid down her cheek and plopped onto the paper. There it spread causing the blue ink to run down the page.
The note was written in beautiful Tengwar.
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Ron Hadhafang waited eagerly to see if his note had affected the woman at all; but a long, slow week went by before he finally had a memo that the mystery patient wanted to see him.
He gathered up his clipboard and some of the things that had been found with the patient. Maybe it would help her to open up to him having some familiar things around. He went down the long hallway to Ward 31, however he found the room empty . He went to the central desk and discovered that his patient was walking in the enclosed garden courtyard.
Today there were no other patients in the garden and so he spotted the woman easily enough. She sat on a stone bench in a peach robe. She appeared listless and her red rimmed eyes betrayed the fact that her heart was not at rest. He pushed the glass door open and felt the crunch of twigs and dirt under his penny loafers.
The garden was in a sad state, they had a caretaker for years, but the fellow was old and a few years ago had passed away. Every year an enthusiastic group of teens from the Boys and Girls club would come and clean out the dead plants, weed and plant fresh living flowers. It never lasted very long, soon the weeds would take over and all their work would be for nothing.
All these thoughts ran through his mind as he drew nearer to the woman. She rose gracefully but did not speak until he was a few feet away.
"Suilad, Doctor Hadhafang, it is a beautiful day is it not?" she greeted him. "Heniach nin?"
She was testing him, "Greetings and do you speak elvish? She was a handful that was sure. Bowing slightly and feeling ridiculous for doing so he replied, " I'm glad to see you think so. Henion, híril nín" He returned without missing a beat. " How are you today?"
She blinked and smiled a tiny smile, he understood her, he called her my lady.
" I would rather come right to the point Doctor, where did you learn Tengwar and how did you learn such fluent Sindarin?" she asked settling herself comfortably on the bench again. She motioned for him to do the same.
"When I was in college I was part of a fraternity called the Knight of the Galadhrim. To enter it you had to live by the rules of an elvish life style for a year and take the Sindarin language class. So I joined because it was the hardest frat to get into."
" It probably was not a very large group was it?" she asked a smile playing around her mouth.
"Well not really, but we got pretty good at speaking elvish. We all had names from the books of J.R.R Tolkien. I was Ereinion." he laughed a little, but it died away as he saw the effect his words had on the woman.
Her eyes were full of tears and she trembled violently; a hand was pressed over her mouth; the other clutched the bench so tightly the knuckles were white. He waited for her to speak, or begin crying out right, but she did neither.
" Forgive me, I need a moment " she lowered her hand and drew a deep breath and cleared her throat. " Please go on Doctor, I am ready for your questions."
He was caught a little off his guard and came back to the moment and said "Okay we'll star with something simple. What is your name and where are you from?"
" My..my name is Aeroniel of Balar, I was born in …..England. I can't remember anything else."
He wrote down the name, mentally intending to run the it through the missing persons files.
" I haven't seen my parents since, oh Eru since I was fifteen years old!" she gasped. She seemed amazed by the very thought.
He looked at the woman in front him; she was maybe forty, graying hair and hazel eyes and an oddly fresh complexion. She didn't seem to have ever used make up either.
" Do you mind if I ask how old you are?" he asked tentatively.
"Fifty-four" was the short answer.
He was a bit surprised " Come on, you can't be more than forty-one!" She smile again but said nothing.
He finished writing everything down and turned to the bag at his side. " I brought some things of yours with me. I thought you might like to have them with you." He brought out a leather portfolio and handed it to her.
It was a dark brown and had signs of obvious wear. It laid in her lap, for a few moments she merely stared down at it; and finally slowly she reached out and untried the leather thongs that held it closed.
She flipped back the cover and Ron was immediately struck by the by a beautiful water color painting.
It was of a young man, his face was framed by carrot orange hair pulled out of his eyes and down his back in a thick red plait. His youthful countenance smiled up with a mischievous glint in bright blue eyes. His face was sprinkled with a few tan freckles on an otherwise pale complexion. He wore a snug tunic of amber silk, narrow sleeves trailed down his arms to long white hands. In his palm lay a light wooden flute delicately craved with vines. The artist had drawn it to seem as though he would, any minute lift the flute to his lips and play a merry tune.
But the point at which Ron was drawn was the way the carroty hair flowed passed one pointed ear. It was than that he saw the starry light shining out of the young man's eyes and the gentle glow that seemed emitted from his whole body.
"This is quite beautiful! Did you paint it?" he asked tearing his gaze away from the portrait long enough to hear the woman's answer.
"He was as close to me as a brother, and was my first friend in the House of Fingon. We could not have been closer if we had been born of the same Mother. Even so his mother was like my own when I had none." she said as her fingers traced the curve of the portraits cheek.
" My dear friend Mahsos. If only you could see me now."
Another page was turned and a field of yellow poppies greeted Ron's eyes. An azure sky stretched above it, and in the center knelt a girl.
She was young, maybe 20, light brown hair hung below her waist and wrapped around her bare shoulders. She looked up as if in inquiry, a happy smile parting her lips in a laugh. Sheer joy highlighted every feature, warm hazel eyes shone out at him. The soft summer gown of misty green brought out the fresh bloom of youth in her cheeks. And around her head was a simple poppy chain. Clasped to her heart was a small nosegay of the same flowers.
" Who is she?" Dr. Ron breathed "She's lovely."
The woman beside him looked from the portrait and to him again and back at the portrait.
" Would you like to hear her story? Be aware that it is a long and requires patience on both parts of the teller and listener."
Ron straightened up and checked his watch and said " I have three hours before I have to clock out, so go ahead."
" Very well" she said and paused taking a breath, eyes closed.
In that pause a faint breeze swirled down into the courtyard, kicking up dust and fallen petals. It twirled them together into a little whirlwind. Ron closed his eyes as the dust struck them and he felt a chill run down his spine at the cool air. And quietly, so you almost missed it came the sound of laughing children.
He snapped his eyes open and looked for the source of the sound, but all he could see was the woman smiling as a tear ran down her face. She opened her mouth and began to speak.
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Author's Note : I have decided to go through and make necessary corrections to the story. Also I will change a few things that I simply didn't get right the first time around. Please let me know what you think of the changes.