All translations, explanations, advertisements, and thought processes are at the end of the chapter.
Disclaimer: All shows/ books/ video games/ songs that are mentioned in this chapter are all © to their respective owners, I don't own them.
"The English language being spoken."
"The Sindarin language being spoken."
Scotland. Early afternoon. November 6th on a Wednesday.
Fear.
She was scared, so scared of these beings that came into the room, especially the two dark-haired ones. They talked too loud, far too loud for her liking. The light-haired one simply stared. She didn't like this.
She did not like this at all.
She was in pain, felt tired, and was so very scared. It was too much, far too much. Her thoughts fluttered around her head and screamed at her, trying to be heard over each other. It was too loud.
Stop yelling at her, just stop it.
'Please,' her mind pleaded. Unable to take anymore, she covered her ears and started weeping. 'No more. Please, just no more.'
The twins didn't know what to do. She was crying. The Queen's daughter was crying because of them. They didn't mean to scare her, but she just looked so much like Elrond...their father...their papa. It was just so surprising and a bit unsettling to see those expressions cross the face of their father.
Even though it wasn't their father.
Her eyes reminded them so shockingly of Estel and Arwen's only child, Eldarion's. It had the same vibrant color and shade. Her face, for all it reminded them of their father, it had a distinctly feminine look about it; more open and softer, like a child's... Her pitiful sobs reached their ears and the guilt ate at them. They had made the equivalent of a small child, in their eyes, burst into tears. Not the best first impression ever.
It just went downhill from there.
Glorfindel, Thranduil, Lindîn, and Gelinnas fairly burst into the room and all of them asked their various of 'just what was going on in there?' Again the Queen's daughter's reaction time was off, but as soon as the extra loud sounds and stress of more people in the room had reached her, she reacted negatively. She started wailing and trembling, it was obvious that she was scared out of her wit's end. Legolas picked her up and gently set her on the bed. Either she didn't notice or she didn't care, because she gave no outward sign of the change.
Lindîn and Gelinnas immediately went to work on ushering everyone else, including the twins, out of the room. They shut the door on everyone's faces before starting to work on calming down the hysterical Queen's daughter with soft words and, most likely, reassuring caresses and hugs.
"Well, that went well." Glorfindel stated dryly.
Thranduil looked at him sharply, "That went as well as a cat with a bucket of water. What happened?"
"We went in there to find that she was already awake and moving about. I went up to her and scolded her for being out of bed in the state she was, and is, in. She did not appear to realize I was there at first. she merely continued walking towards the window while watching her own feet to make sure she did not trip. She then startled seconds later, as if she had just heard me," Legolas explained.
Elladan nodded and continued where Legolas left off, "Yes, she took a fall after that scare. When Legolas moved to her, she shied away from him. She reminded me of a small and frightened rabbit."
"We, meaning Elladan and I, were very surprised to see someone with our father's face and Eldarion's eyes." Elrohir stated, giving pointed looks at the other elves. They were stunned though at hearing the Queen's daughter had the son of Arwen's eyes.
"Truly?" Glorfindel breathed.
"No mistake about it." Legolas confirmed.
"We would know those eyes anywhere." The twins agreed, "However, we are worried about her, her reaction time seems...off..."
"Off?" Thranduil asked.
"Yes, off. It is by seconds, but it is still off." Legolas supported.
"Gelinnas said she had a concussion, so mayhaps this could be one of the side effects of it?" Glorfindel slowly suggested as the elves looked at him, horrified at the notion.
"My wife could give her a through check-up now that the Queen's daughter is awake." Legolas suggested.
"That would be the idea, Legolas, but now we need to get her calmed down first-" Before Thranduil could continue, Lindîn opened the door.
"Thranduil and Glorfindel, you can come in now, just no sudden movements or loud noises. Legolas, Elladan, and Elrohir, all three of you will have to wait a bit... Too many people will make her feel more cornered than she already does." The twins and their friend nodded before stepping farther back from the door, but still within hear distance. Thranduil made sure to leave the door open so the younger elves could hear everything that happened inside the room.
Thranduil and Glorfindel sat in two of the four chairs that had been brought beside the girl's bed. Lindîn was occupying one of the remaining chairs while Gelinnas was waving her finger back and forth in front of the eyes of the Queen's Daughter. The eyes were behind in tracking the finger. Making a noise of worried frustration, Gelinnas took her away, only to see that the eyes still tracked a finger that wasn't there, before stopping and blinking seconds later.
"Now I see what they had meant by an 'off' reaction time." Thranduil said as he leaned back in his chair.
"Yes," Gelinnas answered distractedly. "Both with her visual and auditory senses and because of this, so is her motor movements."
"English, please, Daughter." Thranduil half-jokingly and half-seriously requested, before politely indicating with his eyes the girl on the bed who had no understanding of Sindarin.
"Her seeing and hearing reaction time is off by seconds. Her sense of touch is in real-time though, so it is very baffling for her to feel something, but not being able to see or hear where it is coming from until seconds later." Lindîn explained slowly with a teasing smile while Thranduil mock-scowled at her. Glorfindel snorted and made no attempt to hide his amusement behind a cough until Thranduil glowered at him.
"Ah-hem..." Glorfindel coughed before studiously ignoring his friend, "I do believe we have an important discussion to have with the Queen's Daughter, such as her name and why she had decided to come onto the 'Silver Wood's' property."
Lindîn turned to look at him, "That as well as introduce and explain ourselves to her, my friend."
"Ah, but that is a given." Glorfindel grinned at her before turning his attention to the youngest occupant in the room. "I am Glorfindel, Queen's Daughter."
"I am Thranduil and this is my wife, Lindîn." Thranduil squeezed Lindîn's hand and Lindîn smiled at the silent girl.
"And I am Gelinnas. What is your name?" The elves then patiently waited for a response of some sort, but they received none, only a girl looking at them with a wary curiosity.
"Do you speak English?" Thranduil asked gently, only to receive a politely blank look. The elves all exchanged glances at each other, before trying 'do you understand' in various common languages; Spanish, Gaelic, German, Italian, Russian, French, and a few others. She understood none of it. The elves collectively leaned back, perplexed.
Lindîn studied her for a second or two before moving forward to rest in front of the Queen's daughter. She waited until the girl was looking at her before Lindîn rested a hand on her own heart. Speaking clearly and slowly, she said, "Lindîn." Then she held out her other hand to the girl. The girl slowly shook her head, before pointing at the she-elf.
"Lindîn..." The girl pointed at herself, opened her mouth to say something, and remained silent. A puzzled look stole over her features, then closing her mouth, she gave a feeble shrug. All the elves exchanged panicked glances, there was no mistaking what the Queen's daughter had meant by that. She didn't remember her own name and she possibly had forgotten how to talk. This was grievous news indeed.
Lindîn eased back and slowly pointed out each and every elf in the room and said their names. She paused between each name and waited for the girl to repeat the names. While Lindîn was busy with the human girl the elves conferred amongst themselves. "How extensive do you think her memory loss is. If she cannot even remember how to talk..." Thranduil broke off, troubled.
Gelinnas bit her lip before saying, "I don't think that it could be too bad. I think she remember some things, just not the name or word for them; this includes herself. I will conduct a small test to see how much she remembers, simple math problems, puzzles, pictures of animals and places, and more tests to time how off she is. It's possible that her reaction time will slowly return to normal and that it is only temporary..." Gelinnas didn't say what would happen if it wasn't temporary.
"Yes, that is good for the present, but what about for the long-term? Should we attempt to teach her a common language? A language we all know and can use? Also, what about the D.N.A. test? What if it comes back negative? ...What will we tell Elrond if it comes back positive?" Glorfindel said, asking the questions everyone was wondering.
"So, we are going to wait for the results before telling Elrond? I thought we were quite sure." Thranduil pointed looked at Glorfindel, expecting an answer.
"Yes, I don't think I would have the heart to tell him it was a false alarm-if the results turn out to be negative-after just getting his hopes up that we had found his line again. That we had found the Queen's daughter, when there was a slight possibility that she wasn't..." Glorfindel didn't feel the need to continue. A steady and pensive silence filled the room as the elves thought of their friend who was hiding in the Black Forest of Germany in his lonely mansion. Of Elrond who was hiding in the remnants of Imladris and the Last Homely House.
"I think..." Lindîn said thoughtfully, "That we should teach her Sindarin, regardless of whether or not she is the Queen's daughter, because it is quite apparent that she will be staying here for a long while because of us. I also think that we should wait for the results and tell Elrond about her was soon as we get them. I feel that not matter the results, he will still be interested in her. But, that is not our choice."
"What do you mean, mother?" Gelinnas asked Legolas's mother and her mother-in-law.
"That should be left up to Elladan and Elrohir. It is their sister's line and we may have found a direct descendant. They should be the ones deciding her fate before and after the results as well as whether or not their father is told."
Thranduil nodded, "Lindîn is right. We should also leave the decision of what to call the Queen's Daughter up to them as well. When should we start teaching her?"
"As soon as Gelinnas does her tests, which she should do after we leave. The sooner the better."
"Oh, I could do them right now. It matters not who is or is not here."
"All the same, we want her concentration to be completely on you. Do we have anything else?"
"No, I believe not."
"Right, then let us go discuss what we must with the twins and Legolas." Thranduil and Glorfindel stood up and let with Lindîn, who gave an encouraging pat to the girl before leaving her in the caring hands of Gelinnas.
Scotland. Noon. November 11th on a Monday.
Gelinnas smiled kindly at the Queen's daughter and said, "I believe that we should take a break now, Penneth." The girl's face lit up.
"Break good," She nodded happily. "Elladan, Elrohir where?"
"I do not know, Penneth, but I think Elrohir might be trying to sneak into the kitchen for a snack and Elladan might be doing some paper work." The girl remained quiet bit a second or two, slowly dissecting what words she knew out of the sentence from what ones she did not, to understand what Gelinnas just said. She had come far in the past few days of her staying here.
Her ability to remember words once she was taught them was amazing, but not surprising. She was learning how to talk again, since whatever language she used to speak was now long forgotten. Think of it as this, she mind was like a computer desktop. She use to have files upon files of information and memories. Suddenly, it crashes and all the files are deleted, except for the preset ones that were saved on the hard drive. There are now gigabytes upon gigabytes of space now to store new information to replace what was lost.
As a bonus, the girl's hearing and sight reaction time was getting better and she was now only a few seconds off. Gelinnas had predicted that by the end of the week, the girl's reaction time would be back to normal. Contrary to what the elves originally feared, the Queen's Daughter wasn't afraid of the twins nor Legolas the next time she saw them. In fact, she didn't realize that they were the ones who startled her in the first place, either she didn't associate them with the scare or she didn't care.
It was not like they could have explained it to her if they wanted to.
"Go?" She asked with a pleading look and looking hopefully over to the door.
Gelinnas sighed, "I do not know, Penneth. You almost strained yourself last time you walked all the way over there. You will simply have to wait. Lindîn said the wheelchair will arrive tomorrow."
"Wheelchair coming tomorrow..." The Queen's daughter repeated with a resigned air about her. Gelinnas patted the girl sympathetically on the back before standing up.
"Would you like to paint for the rest of your break?"
"Yes...please." Gelinnas started, before smiling widely; this was the first time the Queen's Daughter had used the word 'please.' She must have picked it up from the twins, for they were the ones who worked the hardest on teaching her how to talk. The elven lady pulled the easel over and set a chair beside it. Next, she assisted the human girl into said chair. Gelinnas gently tied the apron securely on her charge and placed the painting supplies within easy reach.
The brunette studied the paint colors, before nodding approvingly. "Thank, Gelinnas."
"Thank you, Gelinnas," the elf gently corrected.
"Thank you, Gelinnas," the girl parroted back before quietly repeating the words 'thank' and 'you' to commit them to memory.
"You are welcome, Penneth." Gelinnas then left the Queen's Daughter to her own devices. The brunette didn't seem to notice her caretaker's departure, as she was too absorbed in considering the blank paper in front of her. After staring at the white range of artistry potential, she dipped a finger in the gray paint and carefully started to draw out her masterpiece. It started out looking like a large gray mound, but with a little bit of black mixed in here a splash of white mixed in there, it started to look like a large rock of some sort.
She rinsed off her fingers in the provided pan of water before dipping her finger into a shade of light green paint. Rolling green hills were added thoughtfully before shadows-of what one could assume were created by clouds-were also added using a bit of a darker green paint. The girl included trees of red, orange, and yellow as well, quite possibly trying to mimic the colors of what a person would see in the autumn. Using a light blue, the girl made a curving river that snaked in between the hills and past the large mountainous hill of stone that strange resembled an animal of some fashion.
A wolverine or a bear, perhaps?
She made the sky a deary and misty greyish-white. As a final touch, the Queen's Daughter added the brown figure of a soaring bird of prey, scouring the land for its next lunch or its enemies from which it so jealously guarded its home from. Several hours had passed before the artist was finally done, but before she rinsed her hands for the final time, added one last thing. This final thing was added unconsciously and with no thought pertaining to the action. A habit that the always been there and had been reawaken with the familiar motion of finger-painting.
A small initial was added on the lower right-hand corner.
A small initial that blended in so well, no one would notice-least of all see it!-if they were not looking for it. Her caretakers, all of them, would be too busy being bewildered by the painting to notice it. They would be too baffled by the impossible to ponder the odd marking. They would be too busying seeing the memory of an old and almost completely forgotten eyot that no longer existed. An eyot that long crumbled under the sands of time, the Carrock.
To Be Continued...
Translations: *Penneth ~ Young one
Explanations: *What ever medical jargon that Gelinnas spewed out is learned from Google.
*It is totally possible that the elves would know a multitude of languages, it would be necessary for blending in, you know.
*If that metaphor about the QD's mind being like a computer did not in any way make sense or had some errors, sorry. I am ignorant.
*Please tell me you Tolkien fans remember the Carrock?
Thought Process: Hey. Hi. Whatever... I am so tired and achy. I stood on my feet for four hours straight yesterday painting the gate inside the mountain that led into Menegroth of a thousand caves. Then it sleeting outside, I had to stand outside in it wanting for the bus with sixty-something other people so we could go back to school for the last twenty minutes of class.
Then when I got home I had to shovel. It is Minnesota. It is sleeting. And I had to shovel about six inches plus another three or so today.
OW.
Well, enough of my whining. I will not be able to update 'A Ring of Endless Light' until May Day. Please do not hate on me. Your flames of wrath may just throw me out of the game. Life has already beaten me up enough as it is, please do not add to it. I am about half-way through the chapter and I have breached around 11,381 words. The wait will be worth it, I can promise you that much.
This chapter was pathetically short and I am not happy with it. Hopefully the next one will be much longer. And better. Much better.
Elrond will get notified two chapters from now about QD. The D.N.A. test results about one chapter from now. Their thoughts about her painting? Next chapter as well.
Happy Friday, everyone. Lord knows I need it.
FFA, the Fan Fictional Authoress.
Date Submitted: Friday, April 19, 2013.