In which Lorna and Thranduil are sweet (in their warped way), Tauriel wants to kill Legolas (and he is right to be afraid), Ratiri and Sigrid bond (over cold), and Sharley and Sauron have issues (like that's anything new).

Lorna woke the next morning both sore and sinfully comfortable. In her own bed, she'd had the best night's sleep she'd had in weeks, the mattress like a cloud, the blankets and Thranduil wonderfully warm. Unfortunately, her back was still her back. At least the anti-itch cream was working.

Thranduil seemed to be asleep, if his fixed stare at the ceiling was any indication. Never, ever would she get used to the fact that Elves slept with their eyes open, though he'd told her that to him, she looked just as corpse-like in sleep. At least they both creeped each other out.

He woke, however, when she tried to squirm out of his very careful embrace. "Why are you getting up?" he complained.

"Because I need to pee and brush my teeth. I'll be right back."

"Oh, fine. You mortals and your bladders."

"Hush, you." She shivered when her feet touched the cold floor, and detoured to poke the fire back to life, adding some wood. There were many things she loved about Middle-Earth, but she really missed central heating. The bathroom was even colder, and she reflected that there really wasn't much more unpleasant than a chilly toilet seat.

She brushed her teeth as fast as she could, then darted back out to the bed and burrowed under the blankets again. Moving so fast pulled at her scabs, and she winced. "So what are we doing today?"

He didn't answer right away – just twined his fingers in her tangled hair. "Legolas will be directing the settlement of all of our guests," he said at last. "You and I must arrange a funeral service."

That sobered her. She'd been deliberately not thinking of it, because she wanted to get home without going crazy, and she'd put that block on the worst of Thranduil's grief. "You'll have to tell me what to do," she said, wrapping her left arm across his chest. "If you have memories of Elvish funerals, I didn't get them."

"I know you do not want to be a queen, but as my wife, in this you must function as one," he sighed.

"I figured as much. It's not the job I have a problem with, it's the title. Right now I'll play whatever part I need to." She'd been pretty sure for a while now that she'd have to take up the technical mantle sooner or later, but she really didn't want the name.

"Why do you objet to it so?" he asked, rubbing her shoulders.

Now Lorna was the one who sighed. "You'll think it's stupid."

"Tell me anyway."

She leaned back to look at him. "I don't know how much'v Ireland's history you got from my memory, but we spent a thousand years getting fucked over by England's kings and queens," she said, "and I do mean fucked over. Murdered, starved, even used as slave labor sometimes. That might not seem like a long time to you, but that's hundreds'v generations of humans. We only got independence as our own country less than a hundred years ago. That was sixty-odd years before I was born, but few people in the world can hold a grudge like the Irish.

"I grew up listening to all the old people talk about what a goddamn mess things were then – hell, the old bloke two doors down had fought in the Easter Rising. It was bloody brutal, put down on the orders of England's king, and all because we were sick'v being shat on. I've got issues with monarchy, is what I'm saying."

Thranduil looked visibly disturbed. "Your people Kinslay far too easily."

"Tell me about it. Though I doubt it's much different here."

"Unfortunately, I think you are right." He gave her a curious look. "Did you have issues with me, being a king?"

"At first, yeah," she admitted. "Didn't help that you scared the shite out'v me. But then I saw you were the sort'v king ours were always meant to be, and that your people respected you. Anyway, that's why I don't want to be a queen."

He laughed, but it was subdued. "You are going to be one, whether I crown you or not. Our people know you, but Elrond's and Galadriel's do not. They will treat you as queen because you are my wife, and there is no way you will ever disabuse them of the notion. You may as well let me give you a crown and have done with it."

The thought was genuinely appalling. He probably wasn't kidding; she knew how stubborn Elves could be. "I hope you don't expect me to actually act like a queen," she said. "I wouldn't know how, even if I wanted to, which I totally don't."

"You are who you are, Lorna," he said. "I would not have you change that. I would, however, like to publicly crown you at some point – and before you object, it is because I think our people will appreciate it. After such loss as we have suffered, it will do them good to have something positive to think on."

Lorna shuddered. She didn't like that idea at all, but he was probably right, dammit. "Do I have to say…vows, or anything?"

"Yes," he said, stroking her hair, "but I doubt anyone will mind if you misspeak. As I said, our people know you, and Elrond's will come to soon enough."

The mere thought filled her with dread, but if it would help, she'd do it. "Okay," she said. "But you'd better not make my crown look stupid. And do I really have to wear a dress?"

Thranduil laughed again. "I will not, and yes," he said. "I will not put you in anything elaborate, but you do need a dress."

"It better not be elaborate," she grumbled. "I'm too short to wear most Elf clothes. I'd look like a little kid playing dress-up." She paused. "Is Legolas going to have a problem with this? I mean, yeah, he's accepted we're married, because it was an accident. But his mother was the queen, and in his eyes, she probably always will be."

"He might," Thranduil admitted, "but hopefully not once I have explained my reasoning. I ought – I have never spoken of Anameleth, even to him, since the day that she did. He was so young that I do not know how much he remembers of her."

Privately, Lorna thought that was absolutely awful, but she was hardly going to say so. The only reason she could think of for his silence would be the fact that it hurt too much, and that was something she could understand. "Would you be able to tell him about her now?"

Thranduil shut his eyes. "I do not know," he said. "I can try." He didn't sound at all confident.

She sat up, looking down at him. "If you can't, would you mind if I did?" she asked gently. "I have so many'v your memories of her. I know how much you loved, and still love, her."

He froze, as she'd figured he would. There was a hefty chance this would really piss him off, but she had to ask anyway.

He was quiet for a very, very long time, and she let him be. That would not be an easy question for him to answer.

"He will wonder why it comes from you, and not me," he said at last.

"Because losing her destroyed you," Lorna said. "I understand that. You're the only one who knows much'v anything about Liam. If my kid had lived, I don't know how much I could've told him or her about him. Not after how I'd lost him."

Thranduil stayed very still. "Do you have my memories of Anameleth's death?"

Lorna shut her eyes. "Yes," she said. "I've seen…all'v it."

He sighed. "I wish you had not."

"I don't," she said, opening her eyes. "Like I said, I'd rather you not carry your pain alone. You've had to do that for way too long. I get why you could never talk about it – who else could ever understand? But I saw what you saw, and felt what you felt, just like you did with me and Liam."

He touched her chin. "May I say something utterly terrible?"

"Go for it."

"I do not know how much I would have loved you, had you not suffered such loss," he said. "Had you not understood. We are very different, Dilthen Ettelëa, and not just in race, but we have some truly horrible things in common. Things that connect people across the divide of race and age."

Okay, that was pretty terrible, but she couldn't really get angry over it. "That's pretty damn awful, but…I think it's mutual. If you were any other Elf, I don't know that I'd've loved you."

"There is likely something wrong with the fact that we can bond over that," he mused. "You may talk to Legolas, but – not yet. Not when we have so very much to do."

"Deal. And we should probably get up, before someone comes hammering on our door."

Legolas was profoundly grateful for Elladan's help. Between the pair of them, Galion, and Tauriel (who protested that her involvement really shouldn't be necessary, now that everyone was home) they made real headway at actually sorting out the issue of housing. There was more than enough space for Elrond's people, but the addition of the population of Lothlórien would make accommodations rather cramped. It would be difficult for everyone, since Imladris and Lothlórien were both quite spacious, and their people unused to living underground.

Still, it would work, once they'd fully figured out how. Wholly new quarters would have to be built, wherever they could be put. The four of them were hard at work on plans when his father found them, looking exasperated.

"Ionneg, did you really dismiss half my council?" he asked, with a raised brow.

"They were useless," Legolas said, "and thought they could take advantage of the fact that I wasn't you."

"With several of them, I am not surprised. I leave it to you to choose their successors."

Legolas looked at Tauriel, who looked utterly horrified.

"No," she said. "The Council is meant to be made up of nobility, isn't it?" she added, turning a beseeching look to Thranduil.

"Nobles are useless," Legolas said. "Adar, Tauriel is one of the only reasons I did not drink myself to death in your absence."

"The others?"

"Galion and Marty." He strongly doubted his father would allow him to appoint a butler, a guard, and a zombie child – perhaps that would take this task out of his hands.

His father's eyes flicked from Tauriel to Galion. "Fine," he said. "You have four more places to fill." He was gone before Legolas could protest.

Silence followed that, and then Tauriel kicked him. Hard. "I hate you so much," she growled.

Elrond was at something of a loss.

It had been over a century since he had been away from Imladris, and he hadn't been to the Woodland Realm since Thranduil's coronation a thousand years ago. The halls had not changed much since then, but Elven realms rarely did. He'd spent so much energy and effort getting here that now that he was here, he didn't know what to do. His son, being far more familiar with the halls, was seeing to the practical arrangements, and Thranduil would be busy with more somber tasks.

In the end, he decided to seek out Galadriel. His mother-by-marriage had, according to Elladan, been here since the previous winter, and he wanted her counsel.

The paths and parapets were mercifully less crowded, but he still nearly stepped on an Edain child. A dead Edain child.

She wasn't one of his dead, but dead she unquestionably was. Her eyes were milky, not bloody, but her skin held the same blue-marble pallor, and at the collar of her green tunic he could see the beginning of what would have been a gruesome wound on a living person.

"Hi," she said in Sindarin. "Are you Elladan's dad? You look alike."

Before he could respond, a…creature…crept up behind her. "He's another Elf, precious."

She rolled her white eyes. "Duh. But he's a new Elf. Elladan's dad, this is Sméagol. Sméagol, I'm pretty sure this is Elladan's dad. You say 'hi' when you meet people, remember?"

"Hi," Sméagol said obediently, and Elrond wondered just what in Eru's name had been going on here already.

"Hello, Sméagol. Do you have a name, little one?"

The child smacked her forehead, running a hand through her long hair. It was the same shade of silver-blonde as Thranduil and Legolas's. "Oops. I'm Marty. I didn't come here with your dead guys, but I came from the same place they did. You look lost. Are you lost?"

Her speech was certainly losing him. "In a sense," he said. "I seek the Lady Galadriel."

Marty brightened. "Oh, I know her," she said. "We can take you to her. C'mon."

Elrond didn't recognize that last word, but it seemed she intended for him to follow her – them, since Sméagol bounded off ahead, sometimes on all fours.

"He does that," Marty said. "We're working on it. He's better than he was, but he's got a long way to go."

They ascended a flight of wide, shallow steps, onto an aerial walkway. The stone had been carved to mimic a great tree branch, the stone textured like bark. Dark green moss grew within the fissures of the carving, and in places delicate deer-ferns had actually taken root. It would seem that the sicker the forest outside had become, the more the inside had come to resemble what it should be. The rushing of a nearby waterfall reminded him starkly of home. The idea of living underground hadn't filled him with enthusiasm, but now that he was here, he thought perhaps he could manage it.

They were waylaid by Elladan, Legolas, and a red-haired elleth in a Guard uniform, who looked ready to murder someone. Legolas was carefully staying rather far from her, and Elladan was obviously trying not to laugh.

"Marty," he said. "Just the person we were looking for. Congratulations, child – you have been appointed to King Thranduil's council."

Elrond's eyes widened, but the girl looked totally nonplussed. "What's that?"

Behind Elladan, Legolas shut his eyes in silent pain. "If you come with us, we will explain," he sighed. He very nearly looked ill.

"I hesitate to ask," Elrond said.

His son's grey eyes danced with mirth. "Legolas half disbanded the Council while his father was away, and chose others to aid him – among them Tauriel, and Marty here. King Thranduil told him to appoint them permanently, and to fill the rest of the seats as he saw fit."

Elrond's eyebrows rose. That was entirely unlike the Thranduil he had ever known. The strangers had obviously had a rather large effect on him.

"I am supposed to be captain of the Guard," the elleth – Tauriel – said mutinously. "Legolas, if this interferes with my duties, I will – what is it Lorna says? Oh yes, I will murder you in the face."

Elladan dissolved into helpless laughter, and Legolas looked more nervous than ever.

"Help me choose who will share in your suffering?" he offered.

Her eyes narrowed. "Oh, I will," she said. "You and your father will heartily regret this."

Elrond had no doubt at all that they would.

He rather wanted to watch.

When Ratiri woke, it was to find his bedroom so cold that he could see his breath, and his window opaque with frost. He bundled into his clothes as quick as he could, and hurried down to the comparative warmth of the kitchen. And it was 'comparative'; Sigrid had only just lit a fire.

"Is what, first September?" he complained, not knowing what to call the month in Westron. "Why so cold?"

"Sometimes it happens that way," she said, pouring water into the big pot on the stove. "It will warm later. You act as though you have never seen frost before."

"Not that," he said, shivering. "My world, we heat our home different. Always warm, with no fire."

Interest sparked in her hazel eyes. She'd always been curious about Earth, but he didn't speak nearly enough Westron to explain much, and anymore Arandur was rarely on hand to translate. "How do you do it?"

"Electricity," he said, moving to stand in front of the fire. "Like lightning, but…tame."

Her eyes widened. "You have tamed lightning?"

"We make it. Sort of." Even if he spoke better Westron, he doubted he could explain hydroelectric dams to her, especially as he had only a had a hazy understanding of how they worked himself.

"Your world must be amazing," she sighed, crossing the room to stand by the fire herself. She was wrapped up in a very old dressing gown, that had likely been her mother's.

"I think I like Middle-Earth better," he said, and more or less meant it. There were a great many things he missed from Earth, things he had always taken for granted, yet he found he didn't want to go back – and not just because of the situation with the cursed.

She tilted her head, regarding him with greater curiosity. "Why?"

He sought a way to explain, in his limited Westron. "It is…simple, here. My world is very…" he didn't know the word for 'complex', so he laced his fingers together, miming tangling string.

"Difficult?" she supplied.

"Yes," he said. "Too many things. Too much to do that should not need to do. Here is cold, but simple." What he really missed was modern medicine, but between the Elves, humans, and Dwarves, they were on their way, at least. That, and indoor plumbing. He sometimes dreamed of long, hot showers, and he knew Katje did, too. Now that all their guns and bullets were made, she was apparently working on some designs with the Dwarves.

"After all I have heard of your world, I wondered why anyone would ever want to leave it," Sigrid said. "I do not think I would like anything more complicated than this one."

"You would hate it," he agreed. "Many do." He had no idea how to explain poverty and homelessness, though he was certain Middle-Earth had plenty of both itself. The difference was that on Earth, with all its resources and technology, neither should exist. Human greed was mostly to blame.

"Did you?"

Ratiri considered that. "I did," he said, "but I did not know it until I come here, away from all that."

"If the darkness comes, you may well change your mind," she sighed.

"No," he said thoughtfully, "I do not think so. Not with what is happen to my kind on Earth. Maybe I die here, but I would die there. Where I was, before I was here…." That he couldn't talk about, even if he'd had the words. Even yet he had nightmares about the Institute, and he suspected he always would. He really doubted he was the only one, either.

"Good," she said firmly. "I would miss you."

Sharley was incredibly displeased to find Sauron had left her sword on the battlefield. True, what he couldn't actually pick it up, but still. Going back for it cost precious time, especially since he'd hauled her quite a ways away.

She said little on their trek, and he seemed content to let her stay silent – but then, he had the Stranger in his head, and who the hell knew what they were talking about. Not her, and she didn't want to. She had way too much else on her mind.

Time felt wrong now – it was actually physically uncomfortable, like insects crawling across her skin, and she could think of only one reason why: somebody else was fucking with it.

Somebody like her. And that shouldn't be possible.

Sharley never thought she'd be glad Sauron had made that damn Ring, but she was now. As it stood, he was as immune to everything as she was, and while he was the last person she'd have picked for an ally, he'd be damn useful now. Yes, he was pure fucking evil, but it was in his best interest to help her. He'd be a massive problem later, but that was later.

He followed her through the frosty night, surprisingly quietly for a seven-foot-tall dude in full armor. The moon was waning, but it still washed the trees and grasses silver, gilding each individual blade. A faint breeze stirred both, downright frigid; a living person would have been uncomfortable, but Sharley liked it, because it took away a little of the wrong. She wondered if whoever was doing actually knew they were doing it. If they really were like her, ignorance could be far more dangerous than knowledge.

But ignorant or experienced, she was immune to Time and all its vagaries, and Sauron…oh, shit.

Sharley halted in her tracks. "Oh, motherfucker," she sighed.

So long as the Ring was around, Sauron was immortal. Even the sword demonstrably couldn't do shit to him. But Time…he was probably immune to that, too, seeing as he was basically a god, but she'd better make sure.

She turned, and found he had stopped as well. Goddamn, was he creepy – he couldn't do anything to her, either, and he still unnerved her. She tapped her temple, indicating he should join her.

The Stranger came with him, and she'd swear it was curious. She'd brought them both to her favorite overlook in the eternally dying forest, and she sat heavily on a granite boulder.

"I need to test something," she said. "I don't think it'll work, but we'd better make sure before it could become a problem."

"What?" he asked, arching an eyebrow in a manner disturbingly reminiscent of her father.

"You can't die," she said. "I think we've established that. I'm pretty sure nobody can fuck with your Time, either, but I'm not completely certain."

"What does that mean?" he asked, looking worryingly intrigued.

Sharley pinched the bridge of her nose. "Whatever's out there is something like me," she said. "Theoretically, while I can't kill you, I could unwind your Time down to nothing. The Ring ought to prevent that, but if not, I'd rather not find out the hard way."

"And how do you intend to test it?" Dammit, he looked more intrigued than ever. Whether this succeeded or failed, it was not going to end well.

"I'm going to try to unwind some of your Time myself. If it works, I have to figure out how to put a lock on it so that other asshole can't do the same thing." How she was to do that, she didn't yet know, but it was a long way to Angmar. She'd think of something.

"Sharley, that might just be the dumbest idea you've ever come up with," Kurt said.

"If you've got a better idea, I'd like to hear it," she said peevishly.

"Well, no. But it's still stupid."

"What, exactly, will that do?" Sauron asked, ignoring Kurt.

"De-age you a bit, basically," she said. "Obviously it won't show physically with you, but I'll be able to read it in your Time if it works. If it doesn't, we're golden. If it does…I've got a few things to figure out." So long as the Ring was around, he wouldn't get wiped out entirely, but there was a chance – albeit a slim one – that he could be rendered useless, at least temporarily.

"How am I to know you will not try to destroy me in such a way?" he asked, eyes narrowing.

Sharley sighed. "Because, and I can't believe I'm saying this, I need your help. I don't know what being around someone else like me will do to me – or to them. You're not…fractured, like I am. You're an evil son of a bitch and I kinda wish I could cut your head off, but you're sane, and a little more powerful than I'm comfortable with. If I do something stupid, you can't kill me, but you can probably stop me."

"And what if I do not want to?" he asked. "What if I wish to see all that you can truly do?"

She glowered at him. "Then you're a goddamn dumbass, and deserve whatever happens to you. If I lose my shit, you've gotta step in and stop me."

"Sharley is right," the Stranger said unexpectedly. I have seen once, as you put it, all that it is that she can do, and I never wish to again. You would not, either."

Sauron very obviously didn't believe it, but whatever. Hopefully it wouldn't come to that.

"Anyway," Sharley said. "Let's do this, and hope it fails."

Sharley, you are going to regret this. At least Sauron is, too.

Title means "Progress" in Irish. As always, your reviews give me life.