Glorfindel had been standing in the woods listening to the sound of a crow in the distance chattering with another of its kind. His eyes were closed as he walked, concentrating on the avian conversation. For a moment the sound dulled and the Elf did not hear anything, causing him to open his eyes and look around. When he did he found that he had wandered a little farther than he thought… right into little town. That was odd, he thought, for he had not known that there were any Mortal villages nearby on this route. But then, so very much had changed since Estel's coronation, perhaps this place only just came to be in the last few years.
His musing was broken by a giggling coming from below him. Looking down, Glorfindel saw a child of bright red, wavy hair and ruddy complexion looking up and laughing. Glorfindel wore a questioning look as the child pointed and said, "Your ears are funny!" Glorfindel grew all the more perplexed; no one had ever referred to ear-points as "funny" to his knowledge.
"My ears are pointed," he said, feeling like adding for the record that he thought the Mortal child's rounded ears were rather amusing as well.
"What are you?" the sharp-witted child asked.
"What am i?" Glorfindel said, returning the question and wondering what manner of game this was supposed to be. He really didn't feel all that much like playing along. "I am an Elf."
"An Elf? You can't be! Elves are tiny," retorted the all-knowing child, holding his thumb and index finger about two inches apart to demonstrate what size an Elf should be.
"Elves are most assuredly not tiny!" Glorfindel said indignantly. He supposed he ought to either be gentler to the child or utterly ignore him, for clearly this one was not mentally all there. Thankfully Glorfindel heard someone impatiently calling his name not far from where he had come. "What?" he called back, still rather annoyed with the kid who was still staring at his ears. "I am here."
"Where?" was called back, by someone sounding equally annoyed.
"In the clearing… in this little market," Glorfindel called. There was a moment of silence and then Erestor was standing at the edge of the wood, looking about in complete confusion.
"When did this get here?" Erestor said in a moment of wholly uncharacteristic astonishment.
Now the little child who was so amused by Glorfindel's ears was staring at Erestor, pointing again, saying in delight, "You have funny ears, too!"
"I have what!" Erestor said in utter offense, staring at the child in disbelief of such impudence. "Come on, Glor', let's get out of here. Your meandering is going to hold up the lot of us."
"Glorfy?" called a shocked voice from just up the way.
"And 'Restor! 'Ro, am I seeing things? What are these two doing here?"
That was Elladan and Elrohir, sure enough, but why they seemed so surprised to see them was anyone's guess. Obviously they had wandered off from the path and roamed into this little village as well. 'Restor, ever-observant, however, noticed that they were not dressed as they were that afternoon accompanying the party going to the Havens. The twins were along just to say their farewells, of course, and then it would be back to wreaking havoc upon poor old Arda until they decided they'd had enough fun.
For a while Erestor just stood there as the twins made their way over to the elder Eldar. It was rather slow going, as apparently the two were popular in the small community that neither Erestor nor Glorfindel had known existed until just then.
Glorfindel was looking about him and seeming concerned. "Elladan," the blond said when the twins had finally worked their way through the crowd, "what in all of Arda are some of these people wearing?"
One of the twins shrugged and said, "it's the fashion now. They only wear these things," he said picking up the hem of Erestor's robe sleeve, "as fancy dress."
"How did you two get here?" the other twin asked.
"How did we…. Just where are we?" Erestor said, beginning to like this place less and less. There was something that just didn't seem right to him.
Elrohir laughed. "We are where we have always been. How did you two get back from Valinor though? I thought the idea was that one didn't exactly come and go. A bit of a one-way trip, isn't it?"
"Back from Valinor?" Now Glorfindel was beginning to share Erestor's concern. They were only just on their way… but the twins knew that. Obviously this was one of their rather less amusing little games. Still, he could not imagine people dressing as they were here. He'd never seen such garments, it looked to him as though they were all going about in under garments. Only a few, themselves included, were dressed properly. Glorfindel felt sure that not even the twins could get an entire village to dress like that for one of their pranks.
Erestor, on the contrary, was less passive than his partner was and decided that he would rein those two in himself. "Listen, this is a difficult enough journey, for me it is at any rate, and for your adar. Would the two of you kindly behave just this once? You did not behave this way when your nana departed." Erestor knew that would check them, even if it wasn't exactly kind.
"We were just going to ask you how she is," Elladan said rather quietly. "I don't know what journey you are on, but we would love to see our ada again. Is he here with you?"
Erestor glared at Elladan, trying to hold back from telling him off. This was not in the slightest bit funny to the Noldo.
"I do not believe this is a prank, Erestor," Glorfindel said looking about. "Look up on the hill there," he said pointing beyond the fence surrounding the town. "I've never seen colorful armored carriages like that before. Something strange is going on here."
"I wouldn't put it past them!" Erestor snarled. "Your father will not appreciate this," he said threateningly, walking back to the woods from which he had emerged.
"Where are you going, Ere'?" Elrohir called. "There is nothing out that way, just woods."
"I am going back to the host and suggest to Elrond that we depart immediately. If his sons do not have respect for this happening than I care little if they stay in Arda and disappear into thin air."
Glorfindel watched as Erestor walked away and had a feeling that he would not find the host they'd been with. "All right lads, jokes aside now. There is no path through there anywhere that passes through Rhudaur's land, is there?"
"There was," Elrohir replied. "But that was ages ago, literally."
"Things have changed a bit, Glor'," Elladan understated.
"Changed since when?" Glorfindel tried to clarify.
"Since the third age, even the fourth," Elladan said. "That was when things got really bad though. We all thought that seeing Barad-dûr meant that it was all over and peace would reign again. Well, we'd known that even those dark days were nothing compared to the whole Gondolin thing and all. But the Darkness that came at the end of the fourth age… be glad you sailed after 'Wen's death."
"You aren't joking about this?" Glorfindel said in shock.
Both twins shook their heads solemnly. "But how did you and Ere' get here?" Elrohir asked. "Don't worry, he won't get too far before he finds out that the path isn't there anymore. Even the stone trolls are gone."
"I'd heard something off the path and went to have a look, since I wasn't leaving I was supposed to be along for security… as were you two." Glorfindel said.
"Forget it, Glor', we invented that game," Elrohir smirked.
"I am not playing it. We are on the journey to Mithlond. I walked off the path before we broke camp for the day and must have taken a while because Erestor came after me, apparently. I didn't know that there was a village here, but I thought that perhaps it was only just founded since Estel reclaimed Arnor and promised to rebuild Annúminas. I knew that there was something strange going on because I was listening to a conversation between a couple of crebain and then everything was silent and dull for a moment before I heard the sounds from the town."
Elladan looking intensely interested. "That is very strange. Tell us more about this."
"Let's sit down and have a pint first," Elrohir suggested. "Erestor will be able to find us." The twins lead Glorfindel to a very small pub where Elrohir leaned against the bar and practically attacked the barmaid, asking her for three "rocks." The waitress tried to give him a humorless look, but it clearly wasn't easy for her to deny his allure. "You're boyfriend can meet me on the tilt again at 5, if he dares," Elrohir said with a wink.
"What is this?" Glorfindel said taking some sort of flimsy cup from Elrohir's hand.
"Ale," Elladan said. "We never used to care much for it, but it beats water these days. Anyway, that stuff is really good."
"I meant this glass… of sorts." Glorfindel sniffed hesitantly at the frothing drink before taking a little sip. It was no Dorwinion wine, but it wasn't half bad.
"Just a plastic cup," Elrohir said. "Anyway, run that by us again, about how you wound up here."
"A what?" Glorfindel pleaded in confusion. Why was everything so strange here! "Boys, what year is this?"
"2005," Elladan and Elrohir said in unison.
"Of what age?" Glorfindel asked looking fearful.
Both shrugged. "We stopped keeping up with the 'age' system ages ago. They don't even know how to measure years anymore. Someone arbitrarily decided to make this 2005, but get this, there was a year one, but before that they numbered the years backward! Naturally, they didn't number them that way at the time. They just recently decided to do that. It's so bloody confused no one really knows when it is anymore… though they think they know."
It was a couple hours that Erestor finally came back to the village and found the other three Elves. He was looking very upset and frightened. "I walked straight back the way I came. I know perfectly well where I was going and I never got there. There was nothing even remotely familiar. Nothing."
"Here, 'Stor, have an ale," Elrohir said.
"No, I do not want any intoxicating substances," Erestor protested. "I want to get back where I started and I want to get there now. Either I am crazy or you are, but I want to go home. Now."
"This is going to be difficult," Elladan muttered. "We need to talk about this with you, Erestor, but here is not the place. Come on with us."
Several hours later in a barn with a few horses as company the twins had managed to explain the situation as much as they could gather to Erestor. Glorfindel had managed to keep his mate from either exploding or falling apart completely. Actually, Erestor seemed more or less numb. That was actually more disconcerting than had he overreacted. "So… I – I can't get home at all? We are stuck here? Not that I know where here is or how I got here."
"Ah, it's not really so bad 'Restor," Elrohir said stretching out on a pile of hay.
"It seems to me that there was just a little gather in Vairë's cloth and surely everything will be put right again soon," Elladan said comfortingly.
"A little gather! How soon? How long do we have to wait? And how will we know?" Now Erestor was beginning to sound flustered and everyone felt much better. Things were already getting back to normal.
"Elladan, you know that people think you are strange when you say things like that, don't you?" Elrohir said, sounding slightly bitter.
"Then we are even, I think they are just as strange," Elladan retorted.
"Vairë's cloth… right. Like anyone even knows about that anymore. Have you met a single person who knows what that means in how many thousands of years?"
"What about you? You think I am living in the past, but you are profiting from it more than I am."
"Profiting, yes. That doesn't mean I still live it though. People think you are really carried away with all this stuff, 'Dan. People don't even believe in Elves anymore. They think we only do this between 9 and 5 and go home and take our ear-points off."
Elladan glared at his twin. "Just because they don't believe in what we are and what once was does not mean you have to stop believing in the Valar. There is more than just belief involved. We had proof in our day. Glorfindel dwelt in Námo's halls!"
"In our day… what is to say that anything of them still exists? Do you really think that the Valar would have let Arda turn into this? They were probably wiped out in the fifth age, along with most everything else of our lives and ways. They sent help before when Arda was failing… they have yet to step in now though and I think Arda is beyond help now."
"That was you just a moment ago saying how it wasn't so bad after all. Make up your mind and then you can join me at home," Elladan got up and walked out of the barn, saying, "if you two want to come with me you may as well, until everything is sorted again."
Glorfindel helped Erestor up and they followed Elladan to one of those colored armored carriages that Glorfindel had seenthe whole hill filled with earlier. Two of them, the same color and style sat side by side, these two did not have roofs as most of them did.
"How do you tell them apart?" Glorfindel asked, trying to deal with this new reality in stride.
Elladan reached over into the back of the other vehicle and fished around for a moment before producing what looked like a triangular scrap of brightly colored cloth which had a couple of thin ribbons attached to it. "One can always find these left in 'Ro's car. Besides, they all have their own number," he said pointing to the back of the carriage where a metal plaque had a combination of letters and numbers that meant nothing to either elder elf.
"What – what does it say?" Erestor said, attempting speech again and still sounding utterly drained.
"Nothing really. Get in, we have a bit of a drive ahead of us. Want to stop for dinner? You two must be hungry."
Here we have a bit of a reverse on the old "two-girls-wander-into-Middle-earth" joke. I intend to keep this going, so you all are going to have to keep yelling at me until i promise to write andhave it done. I've been a bad writer lately and it's only just this week that i have been getting any writing done. I am still working on A Separate Chaos, know just what i want to do with it and everything, but it is just not coming as quickly at the moment for some reason. These things are like that. Keep prodding me, i will get back into form eventually.
The title "A Stitch in Time," comes from the old adage "A stitch in time saves nine," but that really doesn't relate to the story, as it were. It is more a reference to Vaire the Valier who "weaved" all the stories of time in cloths that hung in the halls of Mandos (the Vala Lord Namo's realm).