Disclaimer: It all belongs to Tolkien.
A/N: Here's a shout out to "a happy fan" who was the 100th reviewer and gave me an idea for something to slip in this chapter. I had fun writing it, so here's to hoping you have fun reading it. Now on with the story!
When Sara failed to answer the question, Crenna didn't repeat it. Instead, she quietly gave directions to The Tipsy Cat and counted the hefty wad of dollar bills in her wallet. Halfway to town, Sara recovered enough to turn on the radio.
"Rah, rah, turn out the lights, what's the dealio? I love when it's all too much, 5 a.m. turn the radio up, where's the rock and roll?" Cren sang along softly. Never one to resist the music, she gave in to the beat and started dancing.
Torn between guilt, confusion, frustration, and a whole peck of other nasty emotions, Sara drove more cautiously than her mother. Her hands clenched the steering wheel tightly to keep from shaking. Just when she had almost accepted the fact that she was home all summer, Bernie stepped in and changed things. Would she ever find equilibrium?
The Tipsy Cat was set up on one of the town's larger side streets. It was not the trendy place Sara had discovered a few short weeks ago. This 'Cat had taken over a small tin burger joint. An appallingly fluorescent sign hung just above the door.
"Bye-bye Burger Time," sighed her friend as the girls got out of the car.
Sara hesitated in front of the door. Although she longed to go in, she was mildly terrified of what she would find. Gutsy as ever, Crenna banged the door open with a hip and dragged her in. There were a few teenagers inside, a family with two young kids, and an elderly couple, scattered all around the tiny restaurant. Mercilessly pulling Sara up to the counter, Crenna rang the bell.
"Come on back!" yelled a familiar voice. Sara's knees went weak.
"Why did you do that?" she hissed to her friend. "What if you just pulled a Diggory Kirke?"
"The lady hardly sounded like Jadis on the phone," Crenna shrugged, pushing open the kitchen door. Somehow, Sara refrained from asking her how she knew what Jadis sounded like.
They stepped into a small kitchen that was nonetheless gleaming and immaculate. Bernie was waiting for them, her brown hair bushy as ever. Her hazel eyes glinted merrily, as if she'd just pulled off some tremendous joke. An apron covered in Technicolor cows and old sauce stains protected her jeans and cobalt blue top. Rosalind the calico cat ran out from behind the fridge to weave her way through the girls' ankles.
"Surprise," announced the fry cook ironically as Crenna dropped to one knee and began to pet the cat. "Didn't expect that one, did you?"
"What the heck . . .?" Floundering, Sara leaned against he kitchen table. "Bernie, what are you doing? Why?"
Bernie withdrew a sequined gray headband from her apron pocket and used it to tame her wild mane. The flimsy accessory looked rather incongruous up there amidst the tangled, frizzy mass. "Found this thing in the kitchen this afternoon," she explained, catching Sara staring at the shiny headband. "Not sure where it came from, but you use what you got. Now as for your questions, I decided I wanted to try running a smaller place. And there's a different kind of hoi polloi in a town like this. Not to mention I fired Fin."
"You fired Fin?" Sara gasped, thankful that Crenna was too involved with the cat to be listening.
The cook shrugged. "Just until July. He's got to gather research for his thesis if he's ever going to graduate and get a real job. How can the boy support his future family if he never gets a real job? Anywhat'sits, since the sons of Elrond are hunting tonight, it's a good time to get out of the city. What's more, the cat likes you." She nodded to Rosalind, who was currently curled up in Crenna's arms, purring like a race car engine.
"Rose? Or the restaurant?"
Smiling slightly, Bernie gave her a queer look. "The 'Cat can't exist without the cat, my dear. None of this would be possible. That's what I've been wanting to tell you."
"You mean . . . wait." Sara shoved this new information to the back of her head. She had a question to ask first. "Speaking of telling, what on Earth did you tell Cren?"
"Told her I was a friend of yours and that I needed to see you, mentioned the Elves as a kicker. Had to say something to make her bring you. Hmm. She is quite the animal person, isn't she?"
Sara sighed. "Why'd you have to bring her into this?"
Bernie raised a bushy eyebrow. "Wanting to keep all the hott Elves to yourself, is that it? Or are you afraid your friend is one of Them?"
"I can hear you, you know," Crenna pointed out, setting the cat on the floor with one last pet.
"Oops."
Crenna grinned at her mortified friend. "Just 'cuz I'm looking at the cat doesn't mean I've gone deaf. I worked at Burger Time this school year – how 'bout I clean up after your customers while you two have your talk?" She walked away before they could answer, her easy stride somehow turning her old ranch clothes into a fashion statement. Sara would tell her everything later, whether Sara knew it yet or not, and there was no point in worrying until she did.
"You know," Bernie commented after Crenna had disappeared through the swinging door, "I think I like her." Her expression became suddenly business-like. "Have you found a job yet?"
"No. I just got here at two." Sara was beginning to empathize with Fin's near-constant exasperation with his boss.
"Would you like to work for me? I know I asked you before, but this time I really need the help. I'm taking some courses on medieval lit this summer, and I really can't concentrate on customers."
"Of course I'll work for you." Where was the angle? Trust Bernie to always have an angle.
"I want her, too."
"Her? Oh, Crenna. Why?"
"Rose likes her. She also wants to meet your friend Valerie. We could use a few new waitresses, actually. I'm thinking of totally reworking my menu."
"Does Rosalind talk?"
Bernie looked at her pityingly. "Everything can talk, Sara. You just have to learn how to listen. But don't worry. It's a long summer. There will be time to teach you."
The nineteen-year-old stared at her blankly for a long moment, then turned on her heel and left. She collected Crenna from the front room where she was cleaning tables.
"C'mon. Let's go to Sonic. I need a milkshake. I've got a story to tell you."
The girls piled back in the car, and Sara turned the radio back on. It would take a few minutes to get her thoughts in order.
"Shut up and put your money where your mouth is. That's what you get for waking up in Vegas," sang Katy Perry – and Crenna.
As she drove, Sara wondered, If that's what you get for waking up in Vegas, what do you get for waking up in Tolkien?
A week passed while Sara struggled to connect the two dissonant halves of her life. Crenna had accepted her long story with a quiet "I knew Elves were out there somewhere. Glad you found them" and then said nothing more about it. Valerie found the existence of Them to be curiouser and curiouser. She attempted to wheedle Dean's number out of Sara, but that was one thing the girl would not share, not even with her best friends. She didn't tell her mother or her brother, not wanting to bother the one and not wanting to talk to the other.
On Tuesday, she started her new job. Bernie acted as normal as it was possible for her to act. She had yet to find any men in this town to flirt with and was feeling despondent. On Wednesday, Sara mastered the art of the soda machine at work and promptly downed a suicide glass of cherry Coke/pink lemonade/Sprite/Dr. Pepper. Miraculously, she didn't throw up. Thursday, Val was off work, and the two besties spent their entire day – and half the night – watch a Psych marathon. Friday brought Crenna's high school graduation. Afterwards, Sara was somehow talked into going dancing.
Sara didn't dance. She didn't like to, she wasn't any good, she'd only danced at the Elven feast because Legolas asked her to . . . Her friends listened to the excuses and ignored them all. Crenna had that steely look in her eyes, and Val thought it would be fun. As did Crenna's six newly graduated classmates who wanted to come along.
Half an hour later, the young woman found herself piled in the back of somebody's Suburban with a pack of girls in their cute little graduation dresses. Since Val was the only person over 21, they drove to a dance club for teens in the next town over. Remembering her last club experience, Sara vehemently did not want to get out of the car and go in. No one listened to her. She was removed bodily from the backseat and frog-marched into the club by the two giggliest girls in the group.
"I'm going to get you for this," she shouted to Crenna as they entered the cavernous room full of flashing lights, thrashing bodies, and a pounding bass.
Grinning, Crenna tugged her onto the dance floor. The DJ was playing some Lady Gaga nonsense about card games. Sara figured it was probably really about sex. Why were all songs really about sex these days? Rotten-minded world. Sex or no sex, the song had a great beat, and Sara soon found herself moving to it. First her toes, then her hips, and finally her entire body was swaying and twisting and – great Oz! – writhing to the music.
Thankfully, Val and Crenna stuck by her and kept the suggestiveness in their dancing to a bare minimum as everyone else went crazy. The DJ segued from Gaga to Usher to 3OH!3 to Ke$ha to Bieber. Sara had never known that pop music could be so addictive. It was like eating chocolate chips straight out of the bag or sneaking cookie dough out of the fridge. You listened to one song, and then you listened to the next, and your heart kept pounding and your body kept moving until all that mattered was this strangely catchy music.
Partway through some ridiculous song about doing all sorts of inappropriate things over the weekend, someone taped her on the shoulder. "Sara?"
The girl froze momentarily, horrified. She knew that voice. Sara turned slowly to see Legolas and the sons of Elrond, all three dressed in tight black jeans and plaid button-up shirts, left open two buttons below the collar. Their hair was shiny and silky and pulled back into ponytails at the base of their skulls. They looked, if it were possible, even hotter than normal.
"Hi," Sara squeaked out, acutely aware that she had been caught in a mortifying, while not actually compromising, situation. "What're you guys doing here?"
"Trolling, apparently," Valerie snorted, giving the Elves an appraising look.
"I thought it was trawling?" Crenna came forward to stand on Sara's other side.
"Nah. That's for crabs. These guys aren't interested in crabs."
"Not to mention crabs rarely inhabit night clubs. Eh, Sara?"
"Exactly." Sara picked up the thread where her friends left off with it. "So since you're not trolling – or trawling – for crabs, what are you trolling for?"
They had formed a clot in the middle of the dance floor, and people were shooting them nasty looks. After one particularly virulent glare, Legolas extended his hand to Sara. "Come on. Let's discuss this outside."
"There's discussing to be done?" hissed Val to Crenna under her breath.
"I guess so," the younger girl replied distractedly as they followed Sara and the Elves out to the parking lot. She was comparing the two dark-haired Elves. One wore red, the other blue, and their faces were, as far as she could tell, identical. Obviously their names were Elladan and Elrohir. But which was which?
"Elrohir." The one in blue glanced over his shoulder and almost smiled at her. "This is Elladan." He inclined his head towards his twin.
Well, that answered that question. Crenna studied the backs of the sons of Elrond's heads very intently. They wouldn't always be wearing red and blue, and what would she do then?
Sara led the group over to the far side of a beat-up red Ford F250 where they couldn't be seen from the door. "Okay, spill. What's up?" Examining the Elves in the much clearer outside air, she wrinkled her nose. "Why do you look like jailbait?"
Torn between taking offense and laughing, Legolas settled for a coughing fit. Elrohir pounded him forcefully on the back, leaving Elladan to respond.
"Technically, it is you and your friends who are dressed like jailbait." The Elf looked pointedly at Val's black leather pants and hot pink highlights, Crenna's knee-length blue dress and two-inch heels, and Sara's own sleeveless top. "We are just dressed like Men out looking for jailbait." Realizing belatedly what he'd just said, Elladan flushed pink all the way to the tips of his slightly pointed ears.
"Nicely done, brother," Elrohir commented dryly as the three girls burst into giggles. Val and Sara clutched each other to keep from falling over, they were shaking so hard.
"Sorry," Crenna gasped, holding her stomach as she laughed. "We know what you meant, but that sounded really bad."
Disgruntled by their excessive merriment, the older son of Elrond frowned. His blush did not fade – if anything, it deepened. "Are you three quite finished?"
"We're good." The girls untangled themselves and straightened up, brushing their hair back into place with their fingers.
"So why are you out looking for jailbait?" asked Val. If these hott Elves were after jailbait, hey, she could definitely be jailbait.
Reading some of this in her eyes and face, Legolas took a hasty step backwards. "We are trying to track a group of Them. The same group we countered last weekend. Apparently there aren't enough people whose lives need ruining in Forks, Washington."
"Most of the things in Forks to attract Them aren't technically alive."
The wood elf glanced at Crenna in surprise.
"Bibliophile, okay? Sara, care to explain?"
Sara sighed. Why did she always get these jobs? "Forks is home to a coven of vampires. Vampires are undead, so they aren't alive. Although why they call themselves a coven is a complete mystery to me."
"Like Angel and Spike, Faith's friends?"
"Nothing so virile, I'm afraid." Had those words actually just come out of her mouth? They must have, for the sons of Elrond and her friends were sniggering like nobody's business. Oh, drat. "They're pale and annoying. As is their favorite human."
Confused, Legolas wrinkled his forehead in puzzlement. "They have a human? Vampires keep people as pets?" Faith, thought undoubtedly scary and fiercely devoted to her friends, was definitely no one's pet.
"I think they call it true love, but let's go with pet. It fits better. So why are They in my neighborhood?" Anywhere within an hour's drive of Sara's house counted as her neighborhood.
Elrohir shrugged. "They hunt us as we hunt Them. It's an intricate dance."
"Except you want to kill Them, and They want to do the nasty with you."
"Thanks for that lovely mental image, Val. I think I'm going to go Lysol my brain." Sara shook her head vigorously to clear it. "Speaking of hunting, how'd taking out that bunch of orcs go?"
Elladan smiled wolfishly. The girls shivered, suddenly very glad that he and his brother weren't hunting them. "Very well. Very well, indeed. Thank you for asking."
"Would have been better if Gimli was there."
"Legolas . . ."
"I'm just saying . . . he and I would have had a contest. Our usual game of who can kill the most orcs."
"And on that rather revolting and deeply disturbing note, would you guys be willing to drive us home? 'Cuz Val works at eight tomorrow morning, and something tells me Liza and the gang won't be done dancing for hours. Will they, Cren?"
"Nope. Club closes at 2:30. They'll leave at 2:29." Crenna knew her friends and their unquenchable thirst for dancing all too well.
"How 'bout it? We promise not to act like jailbait," grinned Val.
"Too late for that," Legolas mumbled so quietly that only Elladan and Elrohir heard him.
Chuckling softly, Elladan turned to his brother. "Think we have room?"
"Maybe. If they don't inhale for the entire trip."
"Funny."
"Thank you, Miss Gilley. I've been practicing that line for the last century." Elrohir couldn't keep form smirking. It was a paradoxical expression. On the one hand, the smirk made him so devastatingly handsome that you wanted to swoon. On the other, it was so blasted aggravating that you were dying to slap him.
Still smirking, the Elf led the way to a shiny black SUV. "We felt like being dramatic tonight," he explained, opening the back door for Crenna. "Admittedly, a coal black destrier would have been more fun" –
"Not if you were trying to fit six people on it. Unless it was a giant's horse. And giants don't exist . . . or do they?"
"Not in Middle-earth, Val," Sara answered wryly, thinking of Bernie's ginormous cauldron and her giantess friend.
She climbed into the back seat with Legolas. Crenna and Elrohir were talking destriers and palfreys in the middle. The newly graduated senior was intrigued by how horse breeds had changed over the passing millennia. Unable to resist showing off her horse, she invited the Elves to come out sometime and meet Shiva. Up front, Valerie was giving Elladan concise directions to Sara's house.
Glancing around at Legolas, Sara smiled. "Congratulations! You've gone from running to hunting Them in seven short days. I think you owe me a story."
Author's Note: And so the adventure continues! Today's my sixth anniversary on the site, so I thought I'd post today instead of yesterday. As always, reviews are greatly appreciated.
Until next time,
AiH