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Withered Leaves Chapter 2- Domesticity.


Breakfast was being served in the dining hall of Imladris. It certainly wasn't the most breathtaking sights in Imladris, but it was light and airy, with a cheerful atmosphere and none of the impatient discontent that was a friend of the younger elves in Imadris.

Mavwyn herself had felt no inclination on her own part to join the patrols at the border, nor the urge to join the occasional band of foolhardy soldiers who thought themselves worthy of journeying with the Dunedain, the weather-beaten and hardy men who, it was rumoured, protected the borders of Bree.

Although having received some formal education, as much as had been deemed enough for young ladies of her station to study, and a considerable amount more on herbs and healing in general, an art which she had been quite adept at right from the start, she had felt little or no inclination to study maps of places beyond her sheltered life of Imladris, and thus regarded outer lands, as sadly many of her age did, barbaric and uncivilized.

To be quite fair to them, it was not expected of the younger elves to show any interest in the affairs of Middle Earth at all, except the odd hot blooded lark who had heard too many stories of gory war, shrouded in false visions of glory and renown to be entirely unmoved. Most of these young fools had come back, heads down and tails between their legs.

They had been taught, instead, to look forward, beyond the limits of this Arda Sahta, to see the untainted land that lay beyond mortal realms. They were taught to never form attachments; this would, of course lead only to unnecessary grief and strife when the time came to part. This was not, of course described in so many words, but that was the general consensus among all the families.

Therefore, the light of Imladris was preserved only by the lords who had stayed with Elrond since the beginning. They were wiser than she ever could be, and greater besides. The twin stars of Imladris were the only ones from anything remotely close to her generation who could truthfully boast of having fought orcs and lived.

Gildor, Mavwyn's own father regularly frequented the border patrols and was welcomed to their ranks with a bluff and hearty slap on the shoulder, a manly gesture, which left Mavwyn with no doubt about the insensitive nature of men.

In her fanciful mind, still a display of weak ambitions and unsteady, swerving ideals and harsh morals, true men were they who could recite a stanza from the Lay of Leithian withough stammering once, or they could wear their neck cloths without the least hint of discomfort.

It hadn't yet occurred to her that the unsung heroes who, with their lives protected her unworthy person would, by their bravery and loyalty, concepts that she thought she knew much of, yet in reality nothing at all, be more worthy of the title of 'man' than any dandy ever could aspire to earn it.

Having nothing but a vague impression that something important had happened the previous day, and that too, the word of trees, Mavwyn, like all people were wont to, toyed with the incident as a product of her imagination, and later, unwilling to admit that she was having hallucinations, dismissed the whole thing to be a dream.

Now, she was in a rather small group of girls who were equally frivolous and gay as her. This satisfied her immensely, for no more did she have any lack of company, as her sister had married and had settled in the Grey Havens, her brother one of the few younger border patrollers.

They were discussing a strange dream that Varne, a young, shy girl had had the night before. Mavwyn's subconscious pealed bells and the warning chimes in her mind rang as never before but she heeded them not.

"Tall you say she was?" Ninde, the acknowledged leader of the group asked trying to mild her curiosity.

"Tall, yes, very. But her eyes were grey as the dusk, like the clouds on Isil, but darker, and kinder. But they were so sad, they made me weep. Wisdom, they had, and grace, and strength too. I could not comprehend them. And her hair…oh but 'twas wondrous, Ninde! Would that you could have seen it!

"Like the deepest reached of twilight, and the grace of the stars twinkled as she moved. Not like the evil fog, but dark as the underside of a raven's wing. Her skin was so white, it seemed as though she was of the moon herself, though it seemed sickly and pale that day, as though jealous of the Queen." She broke off with dreamy eyes and saw our incredulous stares.

"Forget I said anything." Varne blushed hotly.

Mavwyn had the faint idea that Varne held them in a lazy, mute contempt that was sharp in its very dullness.

At least, as sharp as any girl like Varne could feel.

Varne was a frivolous sort of girl, the very epitome of a faerie, vain and fripperish, content to wallow in the perfection of her own beauty, never searching for anything new or interesting.

So perhaps, it was not so startling when not many of them believed her tall tale.

But Mavwyn idly began to picture the vision herself. Varne's words seemed to come not from herself, but from someone else, whose words had been as powerful as their deeds. Certainly, Mawyn thought, she could not have known the meanings of half the words she had just uttered.

The rest of breakfast went on as dully as it was possible to be, what with Mavwyn acting distracted, playing with her porridge and wondering if all of them were going mad and having hallucinations and wondering what juice would clear it up, Ninde wondering if her beaus would go to this mythical creature, goddess as she seed, and Varne wondering much the same.

A little towards the end of their meal, Celebrun piped up. She was a slight, delicate looking girl with a crown of silver mist, as her name suggested. She was betrothed to one of the guards of the annex, whom Mavwyn had not yet met. But her ears were sharper than even Mavwyn's, and it was the truth when one said that Celebrun could hear a rabbit scratching his ear a mile away.

"We shall see this Queen at the levee tonight." She said and without a trace of unbcertainty, walked across the hall to her betrothed.

" What a beastly girl ." Silimriel, a tall girl, young and hopeful said shuddering.

"As though Luthien herself is coming here! Bah!" she exclaimer bitterly, shoving down the contents of her plate as though they were now worms, and stalked bad tempered out of the hall.

It seemed that the hypothetical presence of the Luthien look-alike was already casting waves into the otherwise stagnant pool that was Imladris. While on healer duty, a rather dull and boring set of hours that she usually spent musing deeply on the nature of the latest type of lace that was in the crack. But today it seemed that Elladan had bruised himself while sparring his equally unstable brother and they had come to have it seen to.

"Next time you will not be so irresponsible." She told them coldly, crossing her arms after doing an admirable job of bandaging Elladan's arm while his twin hopped vaguely here and there, looking confused and concerned.

Elladan however laughed in her face. "You will not tell me what to do and what not to." He said flatly, looking cold and regal and staring down his elegant nose at her.

Mavwyn raised an eyebrow at him. " Tis called advice, lord, and you would be wise to heed it. You waste precious supplies on small, painful bruises while people die everyday. Take it and be responsible."

Elladan,b to his credit,b took the insult admirably and swept out of the room emanating lordliness while Elrohir spoke to him urgently about "silly and irresponsible maidens" and 'green chits from the schoolroom".

Ticking off an elf lord gave her a rather reckless sense of importance and she disobeyed every rule of the healing rooms, including the one that said not to leave the curtains open at noon.


It should be fairly obvious by now who the 'Queen' is. And yes, Celebrun overheard someone else's conversation and told Ninde's group.