The Muse Errant

Disclaimer: Okay, the auction house has taken out a restraining order to get me off their doorstep. But I will not be deterred so easily!

Notes: Sorry it's taken so long to get this out. I must bow to Tolkien's genius for managing to formulate SIXTY THOUSAND WORDS of Council discussion and debate. I do not have anywhere near that level of intestinal fortitude and thus, hashing this out took longer than expected. So since you've all been so lovely, here's an extra-long chapter. Enjoy!

Part the Fourteenth

Not long afterwards, the pair of us made our way to the stone dais, where the Council was waiting. For such a high-sounding name, we made a remarkably motley crew of characters. Elven leathers, Gondorian formalwear, Dwarven armor, Hobbit country garb, and Wizard robes; the gammut was well and truly run. The newly-arrived octet of Muses and Charges made the dais feel quite crowded indeed. Lord Elrond had also joined the proceedings; though saddled with no Charge of his own, Rivendell was still his domain and he fully intended, it appeared, to remain a part of any and all official happenings therein. Everyone jockeyed for position on a dais crammed with chairs for the better part of ten minutes before things got settled.

Gandalf, resplendent in his snowy robes, was joined by a middle-aged woman with a cheerful, open face, whose ink-stained fingertips and bifocals carried on a beaded tether proclaimed her a librarian. The woman, one Jan by name, wore the same simply designed robes as her Muse, but in a plummy quixotic shade of purple with paisley trim.

Beside them, looking ever-so-slightly comic on the too-large seats, were the Hobbits and their Charges. Frodo still wore his gentleman's suit of brown velvet. Persephone, his pale and slightly dour-looking Charge, was dressed entirely in black, and how she managed to find eyeliner and black nail polish in Middle Earth, I will never know. Sam and his Charge, Samantha (who I later discovered was a botanist...how apropos), had come straight from the gardens, if the grass stains on their knees and the dirt beneath their nails was anything to go by.

Pippin looked more chagrined than I'd ever though was possible for a hellion of his caliber. His Charge, an overly bubbly redhaired girl called Lauren, kept staring intently at the interactions between the Big Folk in the group and whispering excitedly to her Muse, despite his alternating attempts to shush or ignore her. Nearby, Merry and the Cookie Fairy (even after discovering her given name was Rachel, I could not help mentally giving her that title) were doing their level best not to notice, and thereby possibly encourage, Laurens' antics, despite frantic save-me glances from Pippin.

Gimli, still wearing his armor, looked much more presentable with the blood washed out of his beard, but he fidgeted in his seat and puffed at his pipe in an agitated fashion, grumbling all the while about time being wasted on needless dithering when the enemy was at the gate and any self-respecting Dwarf should be out adding notches to his axe handle. His Charge looked similarly itchy for a fight. A rugby player and child of massive Tom Baker fans, Sarah-Jane had the solid lean build of a seasoned athlete and a slightly demented sense of humor. In Dwarven mail and surreptitiously kneading the grip of a longaxe, she was a formidable figure indeed.

Directly to my left sat Boromir, toward whom my Muse, sitting on my right, kept directing vaguely poisonous glances as the Man tried his best to strike up a conversation with me. His Charge looked exceedingly annoyed by this, as if he were committing some sort of obscure faux-pas. Erinn was pleasant enough, unfailingly polite and ever-gracious; her one downfall was a sort of stodgy, nit-picked way of thinking that corrects people who round the time up two minutes and seems to ask if "anal retentive" has a hyphen.

Of all the Muses in attendance, Aragorn was the only one who looked like he'd rather be cliffdiving without a chute than sitting on that dais. I'd heard of the expression "heavy hangs the head that wears the crown," but this was bordering on ridiculous. Amber sat beside him, regal and haughty, arrayed in a sumptuously impractical gown trimmed in gold, and looking extremely pleased with herself. The King, on the other hand, looked nothing short of nauseated. His face was drawn and pale, as if he'd been kept up all night by a supremely irritating noise. I could hazard a guess as to what it might have been and counted myself lucky that, as annoying as Legolas could be, at least he knew when to shut up. I couldn't imagine what it must have been like to be responsible for inspiring someone who would stand on a ladder with a light bulb in a socket and then be shocked when the world didn't revolve around her, and quite frankly, for the sake of my mental health, I wasn't about to.

At length, Gandalf called the meeting to order and everyone got down to business. Another half hour was spent rehashing what was already known, ostensibly to get everyone on the same page. I was grateful for the recap; a few things were mentioned that Legolas had forgotten in our talks. The manuscipts each Charge had brought to Middle Earth sat in two neat stacks on a nearby table. Elrond laid out the story as we'd recorded it thus far, then went on.

"This all began simply enough. Our nine Muses found their Charges and set about inspiring the creation of stories, as is their wont. It was not until discussing their individual projects among themselves that it was discovered that each Charge was writing what amounted to the same story, from nine differing points of view. Never before in our history has this happened, and not since the great days of Tolkien have so many from our world been drawn into one tale." I blinked at this and turned to ask Legolas about it, but he shook his head and indicated that he would explain later. "In addition, Sauron the Deceiver, whom we thought long defeated, has re-emerged. Our scholars surmise his memory has lived on in the same literary works that continue to give us life, with a recent surge in popularity placing long-forgotten names on many tongues once more."

"Has the Ring also returned?" Erinn piped up, leaning forward.

"No," was the immediate reply from Frodo, who winced and rubbed at his left shoulder. "No, it hasn't. I would know." Persephone gave his arm a sympathetic pat with one black-nailed hand.

"Frodo Baggins is correct," Elrond agreed. "Sauron's lifeforce remains decimated and the One Ring remains a pool of melted slag in the belly of Mount Doom. It is destroyed and cannot be remade." Several people seemed to breathe a sigh of relief at this, myself included.

"Then it is the memory of Sauron that endures still," Gandalf mused, "and breathes some feeble life into the bones of our enemy."

"But if he was gone for good when the Ring was destroyed, how can he still be alive at all?" This time it was Sarah-Jane who spoke and both she and her Muse looked slightly offended that anything would dare rear its' head again after a thorough destroying. Dwarves are far more wily and intelligent than most people give them credit for, but their favorite method of dealing with a military problem remains to give it a good faceful of axe until it stops twitching.

"Good and evil are eternal forces, forever locked in a struggle to dominate the minds of all beings," Gandalf replied. "However, the laws of universal equilibrium being what they are, neither can ever fully triumph. Which is to say, neither ever be completely defeated. Good and evil, light and shadow, all things must be held in balance. Neither can exist without the other. One may hold sway for a time, but eventually the pendulum will reverse direction. It is the way of things." I thought I head Pippin's Charge giggle something about lots of things swinging the other way before she was vehemently shushed by her seatmates.

From there, the discussion turned to four hours of exceedingly boring conjecture on what to do about Sauron's reappearance. From the repeated forays by orcs in an effort to capture a Charge, we already knew that somehow the convergent stories written by the nine Charges was the key to his growing strength and that he intended to take advantage of the power of the written word to resurrect himself. Numerous theories on how to circumvent this were proposed by nearly everyone, to be considered or vetoed by the others. The conversation went around in ever more dizzying circles until Elrond, who looked as though he was about to suffer Rivendell's first migraine, proposed a break for lunch. This was hailed with the enthusiasm of eighteen empty stomachs (there is nothing sadder than the faces of eight Hobbits who have missed second breakfast) and we adjourned to a nearby grove, where picnic blankets and refreshments were waiting.

Suppositions continued over sandwiches, sweets, and tea in a much less formal fashion. In addition to the mornings' peace offering, the Cookie Fairy...I mean, Rachel...had found the time to bake some truly exceptional cranberry scones. Erinn joined Jan and Gandalf for a discussion of classical literature while Sarah-Jane did her level best to teach the Hobbits how to play soccer, much to the amusement of Boromir and Gimli, who eventually joined in the game.

Amber raised a bit of a stink when a foul ball upset her teacup, sending a minor flood down the front of her skirt. She fussed and whined until Aragorn excused her to get fresh clothes, completely ignoring her oh-so-subtle hints that he should accompany her. As soon as she was out of sight, he relaxed visibly.

As for my cheeky brat of a Muse, he'd sprawled on the picnic blanket and plunked his blond head into my lap the second I'd made myself comfortable. Fortunately for him, I was still riding the tender feelings from earlier in the day and even after headache-inducing debate, I wasn't in the mood to swat him.

"So, what did Elrond mean about the 'great days of Tolkien' anyway?" I asked as Aragorn, apparently seeking to put more distance between himself and Amber, crossed the grove to join us.

"Ah yes," Aragorn said with a smile, as he settled onto our blanket. "Great days indeed." I tried to nudge the Elf off of my lap for the sake of decorum, but he refused to budge.

"Tolkien was a Charge," Legolas explained, giving me a glare for kneeing him in the back of the head. "One of our more famous Charges, actually, and certainly one of the most prolific. Galadriel was his Muse. She taught him the languages and histories of our world and he was the first person in your world to tell the tale of the War of the Ring, among many other stories."

"Times were grim beforehand," added Aragorn, helping himself to a sandwich. "Oh, there were writers, without question, but violence and fear permeated the public consciousness and left little room for wonderment or fantastic stories. We survived on fairy tales and penny dreadfuls for many a year, as they were one of the few things that contained the spark of fantasy that sustains our world." This piqued my curiosity, but I held my tongue. "Then a group of young writers from Oxford calling themselves the Inklings started meeting to discuss literature and their own writings. All those open minds in one place...it was as if a beacon had been lit. We whispered to all of them, but Tolkien was the one who heard us most clearly. And so the Lady of Light went to him and became his Muse, and thus the Great Story was written. Suddenly, life and light were flooding back into our world; the old tales were being revived and new ones created...I cannot begin to tell you of the excitement."

"From then on, everything improved," the Elf interjected, bouncing a grape off his friend's forehead and receiving a playful kick for his trouble. "Tolkien's work was hailed as genius - which, of course, it was - and other authors followed in his foosteps."

"Have they all been Charges? All those writers?" I couldn't help asking.

"Not all of them, but a good many." Boromir, escaping the clutches of the soccer game, made himself comfortable in the shade. "My brother Faramir still speaks fondly of Anne Bishop."

"Anne Bishop, really?" I suppressed a sudden urge to squeal. "I've read her, she's wonderful!"

"Mm, that's what Faramir said too," was the broadly grinned reply. A patched leather ball sailed across the lawn to land squarely in his lap. "Oof! You miscreants, let a man catch his breath!"

"You know perfectly well he meant it as a compliment to her skills as a writer," Aragorn chided him. "Your brother is as devoted to his lady as I am to mine." Boromir's grin only widened and his eyes acquired a dancing gleam that I'd seen before on a certain Elf plotting to misbehave.

"A sibling's privilege, Aragorn! What kind of brother would I be if I didn't give him a good ribbing every once in a while?"

"It does not do him much good if he is not here to hear you, does it?" my Muse added lazily, closing his eyes and getting comfy in my lap. "At least wait until he is present to defend himself."

"And what sport would that be?"

All three of us sighed.

A gaggle of Hobbits dragged Boromir back onto the field shortly thereafter and Aragorn made tracks for Gandalf's literary discussion as Amber made a reappearance in a gown that probably wasn't meant to be worn with a pushup bra. Legolas retained his position, sprawled next to me, hands folding at his waist, looking quite settled. It was rather an adorable scene actually, but I was swiftly losing circulation in one leg.

"I don't suppose I can convince you to move," I grumped, wincing as a slight shift sent pins and needles through my calf.

"No," he said, cracking one eye open to observe my expression, which was no doubt amusing.

"Don't I get to be comfortable?"

"You are very comfortable," he replied mildly, smiling up from where his head was pillowed on my thigh. My exasperated sigh made him grin.

"Must you?"

"Oh, I must, I must. Ouch!" He sat up and rubbed the ear I'd just given a hearty flick. "I rather thought we had gotten past this phase."

"You thought wrong, pointy-ears." I tried to be grouchy, but I couldn't help but grin at his aggrieved scowl.

"Very well, have it your way." He settled himself back against the tree under which we were sitting and held out an arm. "Well? Come on then."

I blinked, but accepted the invitation anyway. His arm curved around me and I rested my head on his chest, with an arm slung over his stomach. Everything was peaceful and quiet, even with a horde of Hobbits thoroughly beating the pants off Boromir and Gimli at soccer. I felt Legolas pluck the tie off the end of my braid and unravel the plaited strands so he could run his fingers through them. Normally, I get very antsy about people touching my hair, but somehow this soothing touch seemed as natural as breathing. A deliciously drowsy feeling stole over me, despite all the time I'd spent nearly comatose over the last week.

"Comfortable now?"

"Mm-hmm..."

"I will wake you when we reconvene."

Deciding this was as good an excuse as any, I let my eyes flutter shut and drifted off to the sound of his heartbeat.

(Phew! That was a long one. Hopefully now that the Council bit is mostly out of the way, we can get to the really good stuff. You know...battles and bickering and good old-fashioned fluff! R&R 'cause Mal loves you!)