"We know who you are Thorne." One of them said.

"Oh, good!," Thorne replied, "Lead way!" he said almost drunkenly.

The bow-elf, lean and dark of hair; fair of face, like most if not all elves, motioned Thorne along. Thorne suddenly noticed the bobbing of Tulroc's saddle a bit more, he felt unsteady. Hooves clicked on the white stone of their current path. The elf noticed this, "How old is the wound on your head?" he asked.

Thorne responded: "What day is it?" Thorne thought a moment, "It's an old (if unclean) wound, if something bad was going to happen it would have." There was a tickle at the back of Thorne's mind, it was almost painful, and the hum passed over him again, "Have we met before? I feel as though I should know you."

They stopped, "You don't remember me?" the elf asked, "Do you remember the name of my father, the one who raised you, the master of this house?"

"Should I?" Thorne replied.

"You just said that yourself!" The elven man, his name started with an r, Thorne was sure of it, had a rather severe look of worry on his face.

Thorne heard music then, coming from below and behind him, he turned Tulroc around and tried to follow, he was unable to find it and ended up walking the goat in circles. Abruptly, (Rutherford, that was his name! Thorne was certain!), took Tulroc's reins and lead the two somewhere, there were beds and the air felt warm. At some point Thorne had dismounted and was being supported someone, he didn't see who, it felt like he couldn't lift his head.

Thorne flopped bonelessly onto a chair someone set him on. The next moment were fuzzy to Thorne, but he distinctly remembered the abrupt removal of his hood, someone making a gasping sound and someone else asking if they should take his ring, calling it dangerous; he lifted his head and saw an older looking elf, one he recognized, the one he had come to see. "I...you..." Thorne tried to say something, there was something he needed to say, something of grave importance.

Thorne let his head flop back down, and heard someone, the older elf, say: "I think that would explain his memory. "

Once again Thorne lost time. Hours or days, he didn't know. "A disturbing trend" Thorne said, he thought it remained a quiet thought, he was wrong.

"Oh?" Came a voice, Elladan, the elf with the bow. He sat in a white chair, made of wood or stone, across the room from a bed Thorne didn't remember laying down in. Thorne's hood was gone, on a little table next to the head of the bed.

"The past days have not been kind to me, Rutherford." He said quietly, there was a pain in Thorne's voice that even Thorne himself heard. "I mean Elladan." Thorne corrected himself.

Elladan tried not to grin at Thorne's slip of the tongue, he changed the subject, "I see you were successful in breeding goats big enough to ride.", a pause, "I have to admit, I didn't think you'd manage that."

Thorne smiled to himself, "It was more difficult than I had anticipated at first, but I enlarged each generation by half a foot in size, the method was meant to affect people. The challenge came from adapting it and making it permanent. There was also the problem of rapid aging, I believe I've fixed that part."

"It worked well from what I could see." Elladan said, "He likes Elrohir well enough."

"How is your brother anyhow?" Thorne hadn't seen either of the two since leaving and he rarely saw them apart. It was then that Thorne noticed his ring was gone from its place, "Why did you take my ring?" a tension filled the air.

Another voice spoke and Thorne saw Elrond, master of Rivendell, father of Arwen, Elladan and Elrohir, foster father of Thorne and Estel, "Where did you get it? I will know should you lie to me, such things are dangerous." his voice was hard.

"I made it." Thorne said, sitting up. Elrond looked him dead in the eyes and what was a mix of worry and anger shifted almost on the instant to one of surprise; of pride.

"Truly?" Elrond asked, Thorne nodded, "That is not a feat many could replicate, even when the world was younger. What does it do?"

"It prevents the wearer from sinking beneath the surface of water." Thorne replied, after a brief silence he asked: "What happened to me?'

"A place in you," Elrond began, " In your head, I'd say, was damaged. It was the part of your mind you've changed in order to use magic, that alteration made it fragile in some ways, stronger in others. Imladris tried to mend it for you."

There was a gentle breeze flowing through the place they were in, almost in response to the mention of Rivendell's elven name, the hum was gone, replaced by a single note. There was warmth to it, some sort of alien benevolence. "From what I can recall," Thorne said, ", that isn't quite what happened."

The wind died down, the note soured and died. "No, it isn't. Imladris doesn't know you as you are now. It would have succeeded eventually, but it was fumbling around in your mind, in your being; you may have forgotten yourself entirely had I not intervened." Elrond explained.

"Could this happen again?" Thorne asked, sitting up. The quiet note returned, gentler this time, almost timid.

"Not here, it knows that part of you now." Elrond sounded relieved. Silence hung heavy in the air, aside from that one note, which seemed as though it wouldn't leave Thorne. Something about that note felt good and yet it hurt, like something broken being forced into place.

It felt like ages before someone finally spoke, Thorne tried to meet either of their eyes, "It..." he tried to speak, but his voice caught in his throat and he looked down. The warmth on the wind returned; he found himself steady in a way he had not felt recently and able to meet the gaze of Elrond, "Radagast the Brown is dead. As is everyone else that was at Rhosgobel, it was goblins. I would've been killed if not for fog and dumb-luck." The steadiness he felt was wavering and Thorne's voice grew dark.

For long moments, no one spoke, they barely moved; scarcely breathed. "Dead?" Elladan asked, no small amount of shock and fear evident in his voice, "One of the Istari?"

"Are you certain of this, of Radagast?" There was a tension in Elrond's own voice, contained but evident.

"He left a body, like all the others," said Thorne, "But there were no wounds, no cuts, bruises, nor broken bones. It was as if the life was removed from his form in an instant."

Elladan and Elrond exchanged glances, "What do you make of it?" he asked the two. There were more footsteps, and surprise of surprises another elf walked in, she didn't stay long, only to leave a silver tray with steaming cups of what had to be tea and a pitcher of water that seemed to be so cold frost was perpetually gathering upon it.

She turned to face them, gave a slight bow and tried to leave, before she could Elrond spoke, "Thorne, this is-" Thorne didn't get her name, he was too distracted by the absolutely horrified expression she carried, and that single note caught repeating upon the air.

With what seemed like no warning she turned and managed to leave, "What's wrong with my face?" Thorne asked abruptly.

It caught both father and son off-guard. "Nev réd," Elrond turned to Thorne, That can't be good. Throne thought. Elrond had just called him "Near Son" if Thorne remembered the language correctly, the two were close, but Elrond didn't use language such as this with Thorne unless he was going to tell him something very good, or very bad. Becoming an orphan and learning his ancestry came to mind, as did finding ways to use magic, as well as getting his first goat.

"There is no easy way to say this, you did not escape so cleanly as you seem to think, in fact, you may not have escaped at all, and in that I may know what, or rather who killed Radagast," he said as he handed Thorne a mirror, reflective side down. Thorne grasped the handle of blue-white wood with an iron grip, the knuckles of his hand turning white, pink, and white again as he worked his grasp in an effort to calm himself.

The mirror turned and it was almost immediately clear who killed Radagast The Brown. It was Radagast The Brown.

There was a long scar running down Thorne's face, it started at the back of his head from what he could tell. It came up and over his brow and his face, traveling down and leaving an angry path of flesh still red with unspilled blood. The eye the scar crossed was milky-white with damage. His left ear was missing entirely. "Radagast The Brown killed Radagast the brown." The ear was cosmetic he supposed, but the scar could only come from a wound that should have vertically bisected his head entirely.

"He gave himself up so that you could live," Elrond said quietly.