Finally... the Lindir story that I've been planning!
This is dedicated to fabulous NirCele, who won a certain contest that I was holding awhile ago. The updates of this story will be few and far between; I want it to be perfectly canon with my other Imladris stories, so I don't want to mess anything up.
This chapter is meant to be rather ambient and mysterious, so, if all of your questions aren't answered right away, please wait patiently, and they'll hopefully be answered soon enough.
Please enjoy! :)
He sat on his own, quietly thinking. He thought about many things, but none of them seemed to make very much sense.
For example. He wondered why his name was Lindir.
It meant "songbird". But he wasn't a songbird. "That's a songbird," he mumbled to himself, pointing upward. A lark fluttered across his vision, singing its quiet, two-note call. Lindir closed his eyes. It was singing… a B, then a G. Very nice. A major third. It was a pretty sound, very much so.
But now he was losing his original thought! Where was he… ah, yes. He was not a songbird; a lark was a songbird. But perhaps… perhaps his name didn't really mean that it was a songbird… perhaps it was a– what did Erestor call it? Ah, yes. A figure of speech. The name just meant that he was good at singing.
But how did the people that named him know that he would be good at singing? They must have named him when he was older… he couldn't have been good at singing when he was a baby, could he?
It all hurt his head. That was enough thinking for one day. It was time to play some music.
The lark's song was a good place to start.
Lindir found his lyre. And… yes, it was, thankfully, already tuned to G. He breathed a sigh of relief. He would have gone insane if it was tuned to something other than what the lark actually sang. Although, he was insane already, wasn't he? How amusing.
"Lindir, why are you laughing?"
Lindir stared up at Erestor, eyes wide. "Was I?"
Erestor nodded slowly, carefully. "Yes. Well, it's time for dinner… do you want any?"
Lindir thought. Did he?
"If it helps you decide, I'm not having any if you're not," said Erestor.
"I suppose I will," said Lindir, getting up slowly, reluctantly tucking the lyre under his arm. He didn't want Erestor to go hungry… but he had wanted to write this new song. He looked wistfully up at the lark, which sat on the trellis above the bench that he had been sitting on. "I'll be back soon," he mouthed to it.
"So… what's wrong with him?"
Glorfindel was talking. Glorfindel always talked… he thought that everything that he said was important.
It was fine for Lindir to think this way, because he knew that Erestor thought the same.
Lindir picked away at his food. He didn't really like food. It didn't taste good anymore; it hadn't since when he was much younger. He only ate it because people told him to.
Erestor was talking now. "I… I don't really know." He sighed. "But it's my fault, in any case. And don't try to say otherwise; I know when I've done something wrong. All that I can do is try to make it right."
"So, you knew him before?"
Erestor nodded. "Although, not terribly well."
The musicians were playing, off in the corner of the banquet hall. It was lovely, what they were playing. Lindir longed to join them… he was as good as they were. At least, he knew that. But they didn't want him there. He was too…
Too 'not smart'.
He didn't want to think about the more succinct word for "not smart", because he hated to admit that he was that. And he knew that he hadn't always been this way! He used to be smart; he was sure of that. But why wasn't he now?
"Lindir, eat your food," said Erestor sternly. "You're going to disappear if you don't. You'll get so thin that you'll waste away."
Glorfindel was staring at him, staring with those huge, cerulean eyes, and Lindir wanted to cry. He wasn't as oblivious as all that. He knew that the mighty elven lord of old was wondering why such a stupid, stupid, stupid person, someone so stupid that they needed Erestor to tell them to eat, was even allowed to dwell within these walls, where everything was good and lovely and perfect, like Glorfindel.
"Don't look at me like that," Lindir whispered helplessly.
Glorfindel winced, looking away at the walls, looking for something to stare at. His eyes rested upon the musicians in the corner. He cautiously looked back towards Lindir. He cleared his throat. "You play the lyre, don't you?" He tried to smile again. "You should play it for me, later on… when you have time, of course."
It was too much… Lindir couldn't pay attention any longer. He stared away, out of the window. Then, his eyes lit up.
"Oh! A butterfly!"