At the Edge of Lasg'len

by AnnEllspethRaven

A Thranduil story like you've never seen, set in modern day Ireland. As of Chapter 11, co-author Spamberguesa joins me in co-authoring this story. We both hope you enjoy this non-canonical adventure :-) Our story is published primarily on An Archive of Our Own, same username...NEW CONTENT IS ALWAYS RELEASED FIRST ON AO3!

36. Chapter 36

The next morning found them at their now-familiar ritual of sipping coffee and assaulting the baked goods case at Tisserie; by now most of the staff must have heard of Thanadir's appetite, as they covertly and not-so-covertly watched him devour pastry after pastry. Lorna, not trying to be remotely covert, took a picture of him and his empty, crumb-filled plate. She still had no idea where he put it all, unless his stomach was a TARDIS. His T-shirt was fitted enough that she'd be able to tell if he had a food baby.

It was a good deal hotter than it had been the day before - 78 degrees fahrenheit, which she'd had to convert on her phone to 25 and a half degrees celsius. Not hot by New York standards, apparently, but broiling by that of the Irish; fortunately, the nicest of her tunics, the black velvet one, had short sleeves. Thranduil had fixed the scar on her left leg (though the pin had to stay in; there was simply no way of getting that out short of surgery), so she no longer had to be self-conscious about letting anyone actually see her legs. She also wrapped her braid around her head like a crown, to keep it off the back of her neck. She was fast discovering that having long, thick hair in a hot and humid climate was not a comfortable thing, and she prayed their day's destinations had air conditioning. Earlene had lived here for years, and was no doubt used to it, and Lorna was quite sure elves didn't care about extremes of temperature unless they were really extreme, but she'd lived almost all her life on a tiny island where the average summer temperature was 16 degrees celsius, which was about 60 degrees Fahrenheit.

Just the knowledge that today would not be overshadowed by her brother was enough to restore Earlene's overall enthusiasm. However, she had taken some time after Beauty and the Beast to send a very detailed email to Claire, her lawyer. If it contained more detail than would be usual in a professional setting, she hoped she could be forgiven. Claire was a friend, and not only someone on retainer. It was not possible to leave out her mixed feelings of being very excited about Allanah and completely disgusted with every aspect of her brother's demeanor. The ball was now out of her court, at least for the moment. But in the back of her mind, her thoughts were already simmering on at least one thing: Adoptions usually required the oversight of social workers. Specifically, an inspection of the prospective home for suitability, safety, etc etc. That whoever these people might be would never see the Halls of the Elvenking went without saying, which left her poor cottage to be the alleged reflection of Allanah's future home. The unused room that currently housed every item she'd not quite decided what to do with would have to be converted to a nursery. And what did it matter, she had an entire barn; it wasn't like storage space had to be an issue. Would it be wise, or necessary, to add on to the home itself? The little place was already the scene of so much more activity than she could ever have envisioned...and while the social workers might not know it, the additional reality was, two more children were on the way. Not all their time was spent at the Halls; the baby would need a suitable place of her own. The babies...at least they were all female. Yet it was hardly realistic to expect that past infancy, the children would be content to share a tiny, cramped room. And Thranduil had said that their own children would be different; precocious. She shook her head as she sipped the swirls of the whipped cream melting atop her mocha. These were all matters that could be left to later.

Earlene stifled a grin as she nibbled on her spinach and cheese croissant. She'd caught just after they arrived today that every moment the staff behind the counter had a lull in their patrons, glances were being cast at the seneschal, who had limited himself to only five baked goods this morning, and a yogurt parfait. Part of her was glad that she was both relatively wealthy and that she had mentally agreed with herself that she would not be evidencing her customary frugality on this trip. Not six months ago she would have been horrified at the sums of money going to food, drink, and admission to the assorted attractions but...not this time. Money no longer even had real meaning, not when her own portfolio was now backed by a literal King's ransom in wealth. Her own resources were merely a conduit for what Thranduil would provide; she wasn't really spending her own funds, truth be told. And as the beautiful seneschal appeared to be finishing the last of his morning beverage...she decided to leave Lorna and Thranduil here to relax a few moments longer, and take Thanadir with her to the deli across the street for their day's lunch supplies.

Lorna had already decided that she'd been missing out all these years, in her stubborn refusal to drink coffee. Admittedly, this was coffee with a load of cream and sugar, but still. "All right, I didn't want to make Earlene feel guilty by asking this," she said, draining the last of her mug (which was more the size of a small bowl; everything in America was huge). "Is there any way to deal with, y'know, this heat? Because too much time out there and I'll drop, but I don't want Earlene worrying I'll keel over from heat stroke every time she looks at me."

Thranduil looked up from the front page section of the Times and frowned, recalling that he had caught thoughts of discomfort from her off and on, when they were at the zoo. "Yes, I can help you. But we should also ask Earlene. There may be some very simple solutions to this that we have not considered. I will acknowledge that it is far warmer here, but Cian and I have a much greater zone of comfort and adapt quicker to changes. Try to remember, Earlene does not worry about the same sorts of things you do. She does not lack empathy, but neither would she hover over you in anticipation of your dropping in your tracks. But either way, I will make sure I pay greater attention. I am not certain of today's plans, but I believe that much of our time will be spent indoors."

Lorna laughed. "I'd figured as much," she said. "It probably takes some bloody extreme hot or cold to faze you lot. This is literally the hottest weather I've ever seen, though; Ireland isn't exactly known for what anyone here would probably call a heat wave. So long as she's not worried, though - my problem is that I've lived too long around hoverers. Mairead, Gran, even Big Jamie...they've rubbed off on me in a bad, bad way."

Earlene and Thanadir returned, with Earlene biting her cheeks hard. Lorna raised her eyebrows, seeing that the seneschal was laden down with what appeared to be more than four sandwiches, if the bulge in the paper bags he carried were any indication. Making her beloved grabby-hands gesture, she took the food from him to find how to possibly stow all that in her leather satchel. She'd give credit for one thing; these New Yorkers knew how to wrap food.

"We should go now, if everyone is ready?" Earlene announced. A temporarily unfocused look came over her face as her husband passed on information silently. Ah. The first thing for that is, a wet cloth around one's neck. And I have such a thing in my purse; it has not yet been warm enough for me to need it. Thranduil nodded, and she continued aloud. "The first thing today is the Metropolitan Museum, one of my favorite places. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do, and, you'll be pleased to know it's air-conditioned," she smiled, as she led them outside and hailed a cab. They'd be on their feet quite enough today, there was no need to add taking public transportation there to the list.

"I looked it up on Google last night," Lorna said, hefting her bag. "It seems to be up there with the Louvre or the British Museum in terms'v she sheer amount'v stuff in it." Not that she'd been to either of those places, but she knew they were two of the biggest museums in the world. Though of them made her vaguely nervous, for the purely nonsensical fear that she might somehow accidentally touch and break something, despite the fact that that was pretty much impossible.

The cabbie dropped them off near the steps to the imposingly large building, which looked very much like it would be at home in one of the great cities of Europe. Give or take the food carts hawking every imaginable form of sausage and other street fare; all three of them surreptitiously glanced at Thanadir, who apparently was actually full. His head did not even turn toward the delicious smells, so interested was he in what lay ahead.

Lorna was just glad to get into the air conditioning, but she just about halted in her steps. While she'd seen a picture of this online last night, the reality, like so much she'd seen in this city, was so much more.

Like half the things she'd seen in New York, it was far larger than it had to be, pale stone shaped into massive walls and arches, much like a cathedral, with a massive, round skylight over the very center. It was crowded, but not unduly so; she wasn't worried about being trampled underfoot. Even so, it echoed, the room vast enough that even ordinary speech was amplified into a slightly bewildering din.

There was, fortunately, one of those 'you are here' signs, so they wouldn't be wandering aimlessly. Egyptian art was probably among the oldest here, maybe going back five or six thousand years - a scarcely-conceivable time to a human, but probably little time at all for an elf.

Earlene knew the place, though; she'd likely be a better guide than any of the ones that came with the place, since she'd know how best to answer the elves' questions. Lorna's knowledge of ancient Egypt was, like so many things, limited to fairly useless trivia: the fact that when a family's cat died, they shaved their eyebrows and stayed in mourning until they grew back, or that most people got around the endemic head lice issue by shaving their heads and wearing wigs. Of the actually important bits of history she knew next to nothing.

On arrival, the three who had not seen this place before were given the chance to ogle the Great Hall, so lovely and ornate. Earlene could tell that even Thranduil was suitably impressed, for while it was different of course, there were echoes of the beauty of his stone Halls here. When everyone seemed to have absorbed what they wished, Earlene steered them toward Egypt. There were few other patrons near them, and she turned to her husband while they stood in front of a lavishly painted wooden sarcophagus. "You said to me once, early on that before there were pyramids in Egypt, you existed in the forest. That phrase always stuck with me. But what I always wanted to ask you was, if you never left your woods, how did you know any such things existed?" Her keen eyes stared up at him as she crossed her arms.

Lorna, who recalled hearing something similar from Thranduil in the past, thought that was a damn good question, and joined Earlene in staring him down. Thanadir simply kept his Mona Lisa smile, while meandering nearby to admire a statue of Bast in a display case.

The King looked from woman to woman and smiled; it was an insightful query yet he felt the answer would disappoint them. "I did not wander off and visit those lands, if that is what you are wondering," he said. "But others did. Two men came along the road near the forest one day, travelers and explorers. This was perhaps one hundred and fifty of your years prior. What exactly they were doing in a place like Lasg'len I never knew. But as they walked, they told their stories, and in short order I was intrigued a great deal. I will confess to having followed them unseen, for some time, just to hear their tales and see the images in their thoughts. It was amazing, to me, and it is how I learned some things concerning the outside world. When you came to me, Earlene, it was the only thing I knew of that was very old in the human world, to use by way of reference. Not very exciting, perhaps, but that is the answer."

What a day that must have been, in the life of a bored elf, Earlene reasoned. "All this must be so...entertaining, for you," she realized. While there were no pyramids here, a great deal of human history was crammed under this roof. The best of them, in a way. Nothing was here because it was worthless, or lacked a story to tell.

Lorna and Earlene moved past the jewelry and the baskets (how in fuck did a basket survive for three and a half thousand years, without elves?) to the Temple of Dendur, where they spent some time looking at the hieroglyphs just inches from their faces. "I learned a little about these, once," Earlene said, resisting with difficulty the temptation to reach out and touch the carvings. "Their language is insane; Sindarin is ten thousand times easier. For example, see that one that looks like squiggly lines? That is what is called a uniliteral. That is both the sign for water, and also the sign for the sound of "n". And there are biliterals and triliterals. And there is grammar, and rules for combining them and...it's a goddamn nightmare, is what it is," she said thoughtfully. "Rosetta Stone or no, how anyone ever made up from down out of hieroglyphs is a miracle."

"They had a bloody complex culture," Lorna said, "and a bit'v a weird one." She tried to stand on her tiptoes to read the plaque beside a fragment of pale, carven stone. "When you died, they mummified you, when meant yanking out all your organs and sticking them in jars. The theory was that once you got to the afterlife, you'd still have all your bits, though I'm not sure just what good having everything in jars would do. You got buried with whatever treasure you actually had, which just meant your tomb got looted at first opportunity by anyone brave enough to risk pissing off the dead."

Eying the line of sarcophagi, she added, "So, there was this king, right, King Tut, who died and got buried and forgot about, so when he got found in the nineteen-twenties, his tomb was pretty much untouched. This English tosser decided to take half the shite to their museum, against the warnings'v the native Egyptians, and a bunch'v the people involved in it died or had some other awful thing happen to them. It made the idea of a 'mummy curse' really popular."

"I've never know what to think of that," Earlene quipped. "Yeah the British and the French arguably packed off with gobs of what wasn't theirs to have, but at the time Egypt was a hopeless excuse for a society, and had it not gone to the hands of academics at the time, would any of it be left at all? It seems so hard to say. I mean, look at that broad collar there, all that gold and those beautiful stones. How in hell did they even manage, and you can't tell me it wouldn't have been ruined in some backwater of Cairo had it not gone to a museum. That and ten thousand other things like it," she trailed off.

"One'v those questions that can't be answered," Lorna said. "On the one hand, they'd left it alone for thousands'v years already, but on the other, a lot'v them were desperate. Then again, I automatically have to call bullshit on anything the English do, ever. If I don't, they'll take my Irish license away," she said, giving Thranduil a side-eyed grin. She hadn't forgotten what he'd said, and the thought of Thanadir somehow taking away his license to be an Elf king was just too damn hilarious. "Oi, so, you see that statue'v the cat? We domesticated dogs, but the theory is that cats just sort'v...moved in, and domesticated themselves. They got rid'v the rats and mice that ate the grain, and they were cute and fuzzy, and the Egyptians wound up worshipping them like gods."

"And Droopy, Wobbles, and Hunnie Bunnie do not know that anything has changed," quipped Thanadir to appreciative laughter from everyone but Thranduil, who had not yet had the pleasure of meeting these feline monstrosities. However, of the four of them, Thranduil was the one who most often was found indulging little Tail. He decided that never mentioning finding the kitten in the platter of meat would be wise.

Lorna, now somehow at the head of the line, bypassed the American wing for now, heading to Arms and Armor. This was more her style, because it was more her history. She'd never seen a suit of plate armor in real life, and it looked like an absolute bitch to wear. She could only imagine how long it must have taken to get on right. "Fun but disgusting fact? That armor was so difficult to get in and out'v that the knight would just shit and piss in it, and his page had to deal with cleaning it afterward." Unable to ask this aloud for security reasons, she added, I can't imagine you lot doing that, so how the hell did you manage it? Or do you just not have to go as often as we do? Not a question she would have ever thought she'd ask, but hey, it was a good one. Inquiring minds needed to know. Ratiri would also be interested in the answer. What she did not anticipate was that Thranduil would immediately brainwave this query over to Thanadir.

The seneschal erupted into laughter that he then attempted to stifle against Earlene's shoulder while she patted him on the back. Oh, this had to be good, if the elves were both laughing at it...and "it" almost assuredly came from Lorna, Earlene reasoned, just before her husband brought her up to speed. Even Thranduil seemed perilously close to, as Lorna might say, losing his shit. When another visitor fired an accusatory glance in the seneschal's direction, Earlene said aloud, frostily and in her best fake accent, "Well, we're Eye-rish, so if we want to talk about Henry the Eighth shitting his trousers, what's it to you?" The woman's eyes widened and she hurriedly retreated to the other side of the room, at which point Earlene joined them in laughter. Oh, this was not going as planned but who cares….

And it was, after all exactly the display they were at; one of the dear monarch's last suits of armor, when his personal corpulence must have been at impressive proportions.

Thranduil gently but firmly lined up his errant charges against the nearby wall until everyone regained their composure, though privately he found his wife's unexpected outburst to be hilarious. "The answer to your question is," he responded very quietly, "that you have not seen our armor. Since this subject intrigues you, I will happily don mine when we return home, and you will see that elven armor suffers from no such design flaws; we were more than able to take care of life's necessities in a sanitary manner at need; we were not orcs, by Eru." His voice was earnest but his eyes were twinkling. And now he would spend all day with these labelled as "privy suits" in his mind. Oh, the trials of being a friend of Lorna…

Fortunately they were all soon appreciating some of the finest weapons he had ever seen in the next rooms, of a kind he did not know. Earlene explained that these were early firearms, which only seemed to engender further confusion. So she first explained black powder, and shot and bullets, and that basically everything he was seeing were the technological evolutions of what they called guns, or firearms. An ornate powder horn or two helped them envision her descriptions of how they worked; the flintlock and the wheellock. But these were no ordinary weapons, inlaid as they were with gems and precious metals and ivory. "These were functional weapons, but they belonged to royalty; kings and queens, emperors and empresses. No ordinary person would have had anything like them." When the King's eyebrow raised, she hoped more questions would not follow. While it was possible to fire guns here in the States without undue difficulty, it was out of the question back home.

"You know how I keep saying European -" Lorna couldn't say human, not out loud "- royalty sucked? Yeah, they did. They wanted to make sure nobody but them had anything fancy or useful, like these guns. The English kept the Irish from having them because having an armed population that actively hates you is a terrible idea. As a result, it was bloody hard to hunt anything, because nobody really knew how to make bows anymore - and the English got pissy if we killed their precious birds or rabbits anyway. Birds and rabbits were worth more than we were." And in that, at least, their own poor had shared. Impoverished English tenant farmers had starved right along with the Irish, worth no more to their so-called 'betters' than people on the other side of that narrow sea.

Thranduil digested all of this. It was true, for him, that he'd had gems, the finest of clothing, objects and trappings befitting the kingship he had claimed. But to enjoy these things while his people half-starved? To dress in silks while his subjects went half-naked? The behavior described was a moral outrage. He had always taken great pride in the welfare those who had given him their fealty. Down to the last child, his elves were well-fed, well-clothed, and well-housed. Each had some task to do, according to their desires and abilities. Their happiness meant a great deal to him; they were like his children, in a manner of speaking. These human monarchs sounded...execrable. But on their way out, both he and Thanadir stopped to greatly admire the rapiers and other variations on swords that were housed here; even though it was obvious that these were for ceremonial use only.

Feeling over-saturated in warfare, Earlene tugged them upstairs to something she at least knew Thanadir would enjoy; the collection of musical instruments. This was one of her favorites. There were concert recordings online, of some of the famous violins and other stringed instruments displayed here; especially the ones by Stradivarius. Which got her to thinking. The day of their wedding party, in town, how Thanadir had just picked up Bridie's violin and within seconds been able to play it. She should really see about buying one for him...talent like that deserved to have an entire music room at its disposal. Besides, from a purely selfish viewpoint, gifts like that to Thanadir would likely equal long hours of listening to him play when she was that beached whale that was now inevitably part of her future. For a moment she had a vision of being wrapped up on a cold winter's day, listening to music...and it was incredibly appealing.

"Who is this...Stradivarius?" asked Thanadir, enthralled by the instruments he knew he was not allowed to touch. "I see his name here, more than once." Earlene pondered how to frame the reply.

"It's not just one guy, it's a whole family," Lorna said, "though this one bloke was the main one who made these. The really big deal about Stradivarius violins is that nobody actually knows how he built them - the process was a secret, so people have tried and failed to re-create them for the last three hundred years or so. Supposedly they sound better than any other sort'v really good violin, but in blind testing they don't actually seem to. They're mainly so famous because nobody knows how the hell they were made."

Nodding, Earlene felt she could not have summed it up better, and moved on toward the piano...which she wished she could play. Come to think of it, she wished she could play something. Anything. With a slight feeling of bitterness, she looked on it as yet another bypassed opportunity. Had it been worth it, to push almost everything else aside to be so good, so well-regarded, at just one thing in this life? Or had it all been a colossal mistake, costing her more in lost enrichment and enjoyment than she could ever get back? Well, it's not too late, she said to herself. If you want to learn to play something, what's stopping you? While she stared at Cristofori's piano, she had no answer. What was stopping her? Sure, it wouldn't be like for Thanadir, five minutes and he's playing Beethoven or whatever, but she was not incapable of learning… her thoughts drifted away on this until she felt the seneschal's arm slip around her own.

"Are you well, meldis?" he asked, as his attention was already being diverted to the object in front of him.

"I am, i Hîr nin. I was only lamenting to myself that I cannot play an instrument, followed by wondering exactly what is stopping me."

"If you do not have a good answer, perhaps we should seek to address that, Hiril vuin," he said softly. "Earlene, what is this, in front of us?"

"That is the first piano," she answered. "Or rather, it is the second piano, but it is the oldest of its kind still in existence of those made by the man who invented the instrument. Each of those keys can be pressed, alone or in combinations, to produce the sound. The sound of it is lovely, and there were many, many compositions written for it." And suddenly it flashed into her mind what she would like to learn, though it was completely mad. Harpsichord. She loved all the music written for harpsichord, and if she were to learn, that is what she would enjoy the most. Yeah, because those are a dime a dozen on Amazon, she thought. Leave it to you to want the most impractical thing next to a….tuba.

She was about to pull away when she found her arm still firmly held; the seneschal smiled at her. "What instrument would you like to learn, if you could?" he asked.

Earlene had a deer-in-the-headlights moment, because having just figured that out, she could not tell him honestly that she did not know. "It's too impractical," she demurred. Which was the wrong thing to say entirely, because now she had gained his full attention.

"That was not what I asked you," he said with a note of sternness though he still smiled.

Sighing in defeat, she pointed across the room. "Those. All the music I most love to listen to is written for those. But they are not easy to find, and I would imagine they are very costly. They are like a piano, and yet not."

"Harpsichord?" he said, looking at her, only to see her nod as her cheeks flushed with some embarrassment. This could only lead in one direction, and now she'd put her foot in it, clean up to her ankle.

Lorna was highly distracted by the mandolins. They were one of the earliest precursors to a guitar, so of course she'd be interested in them. The construction of this type of stringed instrument really hadn't varied a great deal, right up until steel-stringed instruments came into being. She had been lucky enough to get her hands on a steel twelve-string once, but her stupid tiny hands hadn't be able to manage a bar chord worth a damn. She had all this bloody money now - maybe she should buy herself a better acoustic, but she was attached the one she'd had. She and Liam hand panhandled all over Ireland and Britain with it, and it was not a bad instrument. She'd try a violin, if she could get a well-made one in child-size. A piano was a nope, but she wouldn't have been able to fit one of those in her cottage anyway. Trying to be a musician when you had freaking tiny child-hands took some creativity.

Thranduil had spent his time reading all the informational descriptions and wondering what in Eru's name half of these things sounded like when played. Then again, they would be home tonight, and there were videos on the Internet. That is, if they did not have another sing-a-long on his bed. The women were so silly at times, and yet it brought joy to see them in such light-hearted abandon. He had to stifle a laugh at his memory of what they'd done during one of the songs, taking the cutlery and cleaned plates from their meal and waving them about; he and Thanadir had been busy keeping all the items from being flung about the room...something about Be Our Guest…

It was soon time to move on, and they found themselves in an area with yet another ancient and lost civilization. This section housed exhibits from a place called Assyria, and the palace of an unpronounceable king. Aren't you glad, my Lord, that you do not need rooms for purification and ritual protection? she teased.

Thranduil arched his eyebrows at her. Are you certain I do not have them? After all, you have not see the entire Palace, he teased back.

True, but if you were sacrificing bulls in there I think I would have heard something by now, she smiled, getting in the last word. "Oooooh, Gates of Bablyon stuff," she said, moving off toward two lions depicted in bas relief in glazed tiles. "This place would have give yours a run for its money," she said very quietly, determined now to remember to show him the reconstructions of the Ishtar Gate so he could have an understanding of the context of these two creatures.

Hey Thranduil, how old were you, when this was current? Lorna asked. She still didn't know just how old either he or Thanadir were. "Okay, so, there was this guy in ancient Babylon named Ea-nasir, and he's got what's believed to be the world's oldest complaint form. He was into everything - copper, kitchen goods, second-hand clothes, and everyone hated him, because apparently he was a cheating gobshite. Anyway, he'd get this old-school hate-mail and he kept it. All'v it, in some room in his house, and now we know who he is four thousand years later - all because he was an asshole."

When Babylon was current, or Assyria? I do not know Ea-nasir, he returned, with a smirk of amusement, before realizing that Lorna and Earlene had long reconciled themselves to a view of his age that was more or less accurate. Lorna had him at at least ten thousand years of age, and Earlene had begun to use closer to twenty thousand so...really, there was no point fearing any longer for their sensibilities. I will be honest, Lorna, I would have to sit down with Thanadir and carefully compare calendars to tell you my exact age. There comes a time when one stops keeping precise records of such matters. Thanadir mentioned a figure of eighteen thousand years to Earlene some time back and...that would not be too far removed from accuracy. The look in his eyes was almost apologetic but, there was nothing he could do about it.

Lorna's eyebrows shot to her hairline. All of a sudden I don't feel bad about turning forty, she said.

It was the best answer she could have given, because it put him at ease and genuinely made him laugh. That they could share humor about a topic that in some ways was not funny in the least touched his heart.

Already at their visual saturation point, and yet with room upon room remaining to be viewed, they walked more quickly now. Bronzes and ornate Art Deco rooms bled into pillared halls, extravagant objects from the Far East, and even entire rooms preserved from other cultures and historical eras. Some time was allocated at the end to the store/gift shop, which had some really nice offerings. Lorna found a very pretty set of Art Deco peacock earrings for Mairead, who would find any and every excuse to wear them.

Finally, they'd had enough. "Bathrooms, anyone, before we leave, and do you mind if we eat outside? Earlene asked, with an overly hopeful look on her face that no one felt inclined to naysay. Being smart that way, the women made use of the facilities before departing. Earlene marvelled at how little elves seemed to need this function, and decided not to think about it. Especially given what she'd read pregnancy would do to her relationship with toilets. Lorna just needed to deal with the fact that when one rode the cotton pony, the pony occasionally had to be replaced. At least this time a stall was available.

They exited back out onto 5th Avenue and walked around the building. It was obvious that Earlene was on a mission to somewhere she wished to go and...ah. They rounded the corner of the museum to see that on the side of a small hill, there stood an obelisk. A little path led up to the base of it where there were benches, and with great happiness Earlene plunked down and waited for the distribution of sandwiches.

Soon everyone was munching their food, and after seeing Thranduil wrinkle his nose at the sharp scent of her lox and cream cheese sandwich (Earlene saw no need to eat anything but lox, for the duration of this visit) she stood up to slowly circle the great pillar. Here we are again, you and I. Except, I left, and here you still are, she reflected at the silent monument that told its praise of a forgotten Pharaoh to the skies above. And I was right, I didn't belong here. And neither do you, though I suspect you are not going anywhere. Earlene did not care about her odd mental relationship to this ancient carving. Seeing it once again felt like checking in with an old friend. She continued to eat her sandwich, and ponder all the changes that had come since she last stood here.

Lorna, already sweating, conscientiously chugged water while she ate her sandwich, mainly so she could tell Ratiri she did. It was so hot she almost wasn't hungry, but she ate anyway, knowing that if she didn't, she'd regret it later. She wondered if she could get away with dumping the rest of the water over her head without anyone looking at her weird.

Is Lorna too warm? Earlene asked Thranduil, temporarily breaking off from communing with the obelisk.

She is, meluieg.

I'll be right back; I need to get this wet. A water fountain was not so far away; it would allow her to tank up herself as well as soak the bandana. Though, perhaps a better statement would be, the fountain was no so far away for a runner. She paused. Thanadir had finished his food. Perhaps you could let Thanadir know; it will save him the trouble of being surprised when I leave. I need to run or else this will take forever. Thranduil looked up with a grin and a slight nod, and seconds later Earlene was off to what she fondly thought of as The Watering Hole. They ran easily past several tourists whose wider middles spoke of the probable inability that they would run much of anywhere.

"Why are so many of those we see physically unfit?" Thanadir asked carefully, not entirely certain how to phrase this.

"Many reasons. We lead more sedentary lives now; just decades ago people had to move around more, do more physical labor. But the biggest reason of all is food. You have not been exposed to the worst of it because I refuse to buy it or eat it. Processed food. That means, all the things you see in the stores that are in bags and boxes and cans. Food that has had something done to it so that it lasts a very long time. Outside of our King's Realm, food is supposed to spoil within a given amount of time. Fresh food has the nutrients bodies need. When vegetables and fruits and meats and grains are eaten, one isn't hungry later for foods that are not healthy. But the kind of food that most people eat fills the stomach but does not give nutrition. And so people are hungry for more and more of it. They weigh too much and become ill, while their bodies are actually starving. It is more complicated than what I am saying now, but, that is much of it."

Thanadir thought privately that for a human, Earlene ran very well; not so different than what the elves could do. He was fascinated by this thing called Public Drinking Fountain, which seemed like a marvel. Though, he watched as Earlene constantly had to move her head to keep the water from splashing in her face. "Did you want to try?" she grinned, wetting the cloth. He eyed it skeptically and declined, he was not particularly thirsty. Lorna was delivered of the bandana, which hopefully would keep her a little cooler. They walked at a very leisurely pace to the west, with the vague destination of Belvedere Castle. When they came within sight of it, Earlene pointed it out to Lorna with a grin. "They built it just to look nifty," she said.

New York, Lorna decided, was just full of surprises. An arboretum, and now a castle. A tiny castle, but a castle nonetheless. "It does," she said, pulling her phone out of her bra even as she scurried toward it, bag somewhat awkwardly thumping against her side, keeping her eeeeee! internal. Ratiri was going to love this, she thought, as she snapped away before turning on the video camera. "Okay, so look at this," she said, panning it over the castle. It was about as big as a decent-sized house, suitably castle-esque for something produced in America. "Earlene says it was just built to look good, just...because. I'm going to see if you can actually go inside it." Even if not, she was totally willing to climb part of it. She'd climbed a tree, so why not a castle?

"There is no real explanation for this place, as near as I can tell," Earlene explained. It is what is called 'a folly.' In this instance that means a building whose purpose is to look good, for lack of better words. But I have read that there is a weather station here, and that it is a good place to watch birds." She eyed Lorna, frowning. "Thanadir, you may wish to turn guarding me over to a higher authority for the moment. I'd hate for our Lorna to end up on the wrong side of gravity." Whether to laugh or be mildly concerned, that was the question. Earlene watched her friend make a solid attempt at scaling a wall in a less than usual manner, but Thanadir was already silently closing the distance to her. Unlike that derp of a tourist that had managed to fall, she would at least have a safety net that hopefully would not be needed.

Lacking any other way to carry her phone, Lorna opted to hold it in her teeth, grateful her sandals had good soles. Not looking down, that was the real trick; this was rather higher than her tree of yesterday, but scrambling like a squirrel was not new to her.

Once she'd got up, however, and could survey her temporary domain, she realized just how high she was, and, after snapping a few more pictures and some video, immediately started looking for a better way down. Climbing with her bag really had not been the wisest idea, but this was New York; like hell was she leaving it unattended.

A bit of scrabbling led her to a slightly lower slope, so she inched her way along it, scratching her arms on branches as she went, but still having far too much fun. She managed another shot of the castle, and paused to wipe her face with her damp bandanna.

I have a feeling she probably isn't supposed to be doing that Earlene sent to Thranduil. I also have a feeling that the lone individual some hundreds of feet behind us might be a police officer. You might want to encourage her to descend. Quickly.

Thranduil wondered if this was even a shadow of what having three young ones would be like. Lorna, you must jump down to Thanadir. He will not allow you to hurt yourself. Earlene tells me that this is wiser than the policeman who is nearby managing to see you there. It is likely not lawful to be climbing the building.

Thanadir, calm as always, held out his arms.

Despite knowing how tough elves were, the human instinct in Lorna's brain told her that she would squish Thanadir like a bug if she jumped from this height. How can it not be legal? If it's not legal, there ought to be a bloody great sign. Either way, trying to keep her bag steady, jump she did, eyes squeezed shut. Even such a modest fall was stomach-lurching, but at least she didn't knock Thanadir over when she landed. He didn't even stumble, which - well, elves.

Via silent communication everyone scuttled off hurriedly in the direction of the Lake. One or two bored passers-by had watched the little show and applauded, and, that was enough for Earlene. It would probably be a miracle if Lorna didn't flip them the bird. Or two birds, since this was Lorna. She rolled her eyes, but she need not have worried. Thanadir had offered his arm in a manner that suggested she might not get it back for a few minutes. Fortunately a particularly thick grove of trees obscured them nicely, and Earlene made off for the Bow Bridge. It was pretty and a relaxing sight, and only a little out of the way of their next destination. The lake was weirdly green at this time of year, but in New York any color that was not brown was probably a positive thing. That being said, she wouldn't swim in it even were it twenty degrees hotter.

Though Thanadir was obviously unwilling to relinquish Lorna's arm, she was more than adept at using her phone's camera, even if she had been getting a few weird looks for keeping it in her bra. Whatever. She got some lovely shots of the bridge, which looked rather like something out of a fairy tale. (Yes, she was a little tempted to use the railing as a balance-beam, but not that tempted, since she knew full well she'd just fall off. She would behave, for once.)

In spite of the warmth of the day, the lake and trees were soothingly quiet, and reminded Earlene of many a run she'd enjoyed. If there was a trail in this park she didn't know, it was news to her. They strolled, saying little, until their path came to a mosaic circle with the word 'Imagine' inscribed in the middle. "I guess at least Lorna knows what this is," she said with a hint of sadness.

"Christ, where do I start?" Lorna asked. "With the Beatles? With Lennon? If I explain the Beatles, we'd be here all day. A musical phenomenon like that takes more than five minutes to describe. They were one'v a group who basically changed the face'v music in the last century. John Lennon, he was one'v them - kept making music even after the band split up. Beautiful music. Some mentaller shot him in the back in 1980, and I never have heard why. Maybe he didn't have a reason. People like that often don't."

"He lived right across the street," Earlene said, pointing up West 71st Street. "It happened right outside the building. That's The Dakota." Earlene paused. "What Lorna said, it was more than that. Not only were their songs amazing, a lot was happening at that time in the country. An unpopular war was being waged in Vietnam and there were many people that were very tired of it. People who wanted to see peace. Perhaps more than any of the other musicians, John Lennon spoke out uncompromisingly in favor of love and the idea that we should just all get along. He wasn't perfect, no one is, but his ideas resonated. This, here," she waved at the mosaic, "that was the name of one of his songs that said the most about all these sentiments. He wanted us to imagine a different world, a better world, because he felt that if enough people did the same we'd get there after all. We've not gotten there," she said softly. "Not at all."

"I dunno that it's as bad as that," Lorna mused, tracing a line of the flower with her toe. "I mean, it's bad, but most people, I think, are good, when you get right down to it. Problem is that the good ones usually aren't the ones that seek power. I think most people just want to...live their lives. Raise their families. Be happy. The news, it only shows what sells - hate, fear, violence. It makes the world seem worse than it is - ignores the good that's there to balance out the bad. I can be pretty bloody cynical, but Gran thumped that into my head. Literally. She said if we lose sight'v the good beside the bad, what's the point?"

She shook her head. "I've seen some nasty, nasty shite in this world, but I've also seen wonderful things I'd never've expected. Little things, not something flashy. Kindness where I'd never've looked for it. There's a saying we've got, that love is blind, but sometimes I think it's silent, too. It doesn't always ask to be recognized."

"That's true," admitted Earlene, "and I don't mean to be a pessimist. I guess I was thinking in terms of the grand scale; about our ability to not have wars and terrorists and unchecked greed. Sure, all kinds of things happen on a smaller level that remind me that people are good."

Thranduil listened, fascinated. This was one of those honest and spontaneous discussions that told him more about mortals than anything else. Thanadir stood in front of the mosaic, leaning in and appreciating the symmetrical design of flower petals around the word Imagine. "That changes all the time," said Earlene quietly. "Since it was installed here, it rarely looks the same two days in a row."

He straightened up and fixed her with the doe eyes she suspected he knew she could not resist. "I do not know the song," he said plaintively.

She sighed, being more than a little shy about singing in front of others. But that look could make her walk into traffic, she felt fairly certain. It was a superpower. Oh just sing the goddamn thing, she told herself. She was barely aware of taking his hand, to steady her nerves before they could run away.

"Imagine there's no heaven, It's easy if you try," she began in a strong and smooth voice. To her immense relief, Lorna joined in almost immediately, which made this seem easier.

"No hell below us, Above us only sky…" And that was when the unexpected happened. They were not singing loudly, but it was enough to be heard by two others who were not so far away. They too joined in.

"Imagine all the people, living for today…" A few more came and their voices were added.

"Imagine there's no countries, It isn't hard to do. Nothing to kill or die for, And no religion too. Imagine all the people living life in peace…" And suddenly they were a magnet of sorts; people were jogging over and a circle was forming. Thanadir was astonished and did not understand their behavior. But his Queen was safe; none of these mortals seemed to intend harm, and not a one of them stepped on the mosaic, he noticed. And neither Earlene or Lorna seemed to be the least concerned beyond mild surprise.

"You may say I'm a dreamer, But I'm not the only one. I hope some day you'll join us, And the world will be as one...

Imagine no possessions, I wonder if you can. No need for greed or hunger, A brotherhood of man.

Imagine all the people sharing all the world…" Thranduil did not know humans could or would do...this. It was spontaneous, and every thought that surrounded him revealed that they sang because they wanted this. They wanted the world the words described, very much, and this was a way to express that. This was far more than a song. Even Lorna, who he feared might be ready to assault someone for being too close by, seemed to be in harmony with the moment.

"You may say I'm a dreamer But I'm not the only one I hope some day you'll join us And the world will be as one…"

It ended as quickly as it began; in seconds what had seemed like at least sixty people where had they all come from? dispersed, leaving the four of them.

"Well, I think we just created a flash mob," said Earlene, shaking her head in mild disbelief. "And now you know the song...Cian."

"You wouldn't find that in Dublin," Lorna said, looking at the suddenly empty space around them. "But I don't know that I'm that surprised. I think we want it all the more because it doesn't look likely we'll get it. The ones that go after real power, the ones who're looking at the government - there's good ones, yeah, but there's also a lot'v arseholes, no matter what kind'v government you've got. Difference with democracies and republics is that they're answerable to other people, and if they break the rules, they get kicked out." That was the theory, anyway; she was quite sure there were plenty out there that should get kicked out but didn't, because money. "Maybe, with this next generation - a lot'v the worst bigots in many places are older, by our standards, sixty-odd on up. It sounds a bit brutal, but once they die off, the world might be a better place."

Earlene wasn't so sure, because in the last two millennia, every time some arse died off, a different or bigger arse managed to fill the space. Nature abhors a vacuum, she thought. And apparently so does politics. With a shrug to herself she realized she was still holding Thanadir's hand and dropped it, coming back to reality and fishing her phone from her little backpack purse. It was nearing four o'clock which meant, it was time to close the distance to Lincoln Center. Regardless of their exact path, there were buildings and traffic, so she elected to take them down Columbus Avenue because, why not? As they crossed 65th Street, she explained the famed Julliard School and its near-legendary status in the performing arts, before guiding them into the impressive complex of theaters and music halls. "I wanted to take us to something I hoped especially Thanadir would enjoy," she said, "though this is a little odder than I envisioned. We are going to see the New York City Ballet, and there was little choice as to the program given the short length of our time here. The dances tell two different stories that are set to more modern music by an important Russian composer. That is another way to say, music that is less pretty and more dissonant at times, yet no less filled with emotion. The two dances are called "The Firebird" and "The Rite of Spring". The first is about a magical bird who helps a prince fight against an evil sorcerer. The other is about pagan rituals; an expression of primitive worship, and at the end a chosen virgin dances until she dies in sacrifice to...something or other." The ellyn stared at her, and she shrugged. "I didn't write the thing, and, I definitely cannot explain Russians. Though, interestingly enough, when the Rite of Spring was first performed it caused a riot. People were not ready for the precious tradition of ballet to turn into this, nor were they interested in seeing the darker side of humanity as subject matter," Earlene smiled. That was the thing about classical arts, you didn't have to make up all the parts that were weird about it.

"I'm not even sure the Russians can explain the Russians," Lorna said. "It's a huge country - more square miles than Pluto, so there's no lumping them all together. Though I've got to admit my experience is a bit limited. My cellmate was Russian - she's the one that taught me the language - and she was just a bit mental. She'd found out her husband was cheating on her, so she killed him and the other woman." She'd offered to give Lorna a prison tattoo - apparently, killing someone merited a skull on the knuckles, and the more you'd killed, the more skulls you had. Lorna, as politely as she could, had declined. "She looked after me, when I first got in there. She was mental, but she was a good ally, and you need allies in there."

Laughing, she added, "During the Cold War, they celebrated the October Revolution every year, and once the Soviet Union disbanded, the government had to make up a new holiday so everyone could keep getting drunk on that day. Also, the word 'soviet' means 'union', so us calling it the Soviet Union just meant 'Union Union'."

They entered the building and Earlene smiled to herself to see that her guests were suitably impressed by the Koch Theater...while at the same time she found she could not get 'Union Union' out of her head; Lorna was a fountain of trivia. The rows of red velvet seats added an overtone of luxury to the ivory toned balustrades, and the golden ceiling and stage curtain; it was an attractive venue. Thanadir especially seemed enchanted, which she'd hoped for the most. Whatever the seneschal actually thought, he carried a sense of childlike wonder that she hoped never vanished. It probably gave her more happiness to watch him, than it gave him to see this.

"Jesus Christ," Lorna muttered. You could fit what, two, three thousand people in here? She'd bet it took ages to seat them all. A stage like that, you could perform anything up to and including a very cramped game of cricket. And Firebird...it was, so far as she knew, an offshoot of Koschei the Deathless. "Nekotorom carstve, v nekotorom gosudarstve zhil-byl car'; u jetogo carja bylo tri syna, vse oni byli na vozraste," she muttered. In a Kingdom in a state there lived a King; this King had three sons, and all of them were of age… There was no way she'd remember the entire thing, not anymore, but Tatiana had been fond of it. (Then again, Tatiana had been fond of stabbing people with plastic sporks.)

Earlene had seen both pieces before, and she hoped the costumes were good. It wasn't like the music ever changed. Of both of them she liked the Firebird best; while not being a dancer, it seemed like an inordinate of time was spent en pointe in this piece. It had to be hard to dance, especially the role of the Firebird herself.

Will we survive with our sensibilities intact, meluieg? she heard in a gentle tease.

It won't be worse than "Sugar Daddy" from Hedwig, if that's what you are asking, she smirked silently, taking his hand. But Russian folk tales are a little strange. Come to think of it, an inordinate amount of longer ballets are from Russian composers. I'm sure there is a reason, I just don't know what it is. But I thought you might like it; there are things you see in a live performance that are much harder to notice on a video, if it is possible at all. You'll see how hard they are actually exerting themselves. And in your lucky case, I'd guess that you can even hear the thoughts of the performers. I'd be very curious to hear about that later, if you feel any of it can be shared. I'll never know what it is to dance like this. Earlene had a sudden and disturbing vision of a woman pregnant in her third trimester in pointe shoes and...it really wasn't working.

'The Rite of Spring' can be sexualized, depending on the choreographer. There were times and places in human history when our beliefs and practices were little above those of animals. People thought that gods were everywhere, that natural forces were gods, and that they had to be appeased. Much of it was violent, brutal, appalling. I think this is what the composer had in mind, what he wanted to force people to consider. And I guess we'll find out…

The curtain was rising, on a very dark and morbid scene. And turning her head, Earlene saw Thanadir's lips part at the visceral experience of having this illusion presented right in front of him. When the Firebird took the stage, an audible gasp went through the audience and a brief roar of enthusiastic applause followed. The costume was incredible, even to this jaded group of New Yorkers. Realistic long golden feathers sprouted from her arms out of red plumage, with oranges, reds and golds on her body suit. A leotard of screened reds and golds down to her calves added the the effect, while not hiding her musculature (presumably it was a leotard, and not body paint? There was no means by which to tell). A stunning headdress that gave her a crest of red and golden feathers completed the ensemble. She'd seen a lot of costumes, and this had made coming today worthwhile in and of itself. Glancing out of the corner of her eye, she was taken aback for a second reason. My King, look at your seneschal. I hope you realize that he is worth all the treasure in your vault, and some more besides.

Thranduil looked to see a single tear rolling down the corner of Thanadir's cheek, while his lips were parted. He was completely entranced and...even the King had to admit, the sight of his innocent enjoyment was hard to set aside. He squeezed Earlene's hand in acknowledgement, before forcing himself to watch the performance, and she had to do the same.

Lorna had never actually seen ballet before - even on TV, really. It wasn't something anyone she'd ever lived with was into, so she just didn't have the exposure. The costumes were gorgeous, but more than that was the way they all moved...they must be phenomenally strong, to be that graceful without breaking something in their feet or ankles. How much practice would it take, to be able to do something like that? She probably couldn't spin like that more than twice without getting dizzy and falling over, let alone sweep - and she had to call it sweeping, for lack of a better word - so smoothly.

The tights on that bloke, though...oh dear. It looked like they'd been spray-painted on, and given that this was actual Art, she felt rather guilty for appreciating his arse. She was pretty sure you weren't supposed to ogle Art, but seriously, how did those tights even work? You probably weren't allowed to take pictures in here, or she'd totally do it, and send one to Siobhan.

Thranduil genuinely wanted to pinch the bridge of his nose, because both mortal women were absolutely enraptured with the male dancer's rear extremity. Though even he had to admit, it was a fine specimen of anatomy but...he was not used to this. Usually Earlene's thoughts were not in alignment with Lorna's and it amused him to no end that they had found common ground...here. It was no detraction from his wife's appreciation of his own physical charms. These were very athletic mortals, and not reflective of the general population, that much was certain.

The ellyn and Lorna were grateful for the program notes. The plot was simple enough, and it was easy to follow what the dancers were describing, having read about it. Though how an egg was supposed to allow a...deathless one? to keep from perishing was beyond Thranduil. The wraiths of his old world were certainly more difficult to kill than that. Eänur and Glorfindel together could not utterly vanquish the Witch-King; should it only have been so easy.

Each time one of those lady dancers went up onto her toes, Lorna couldn't help but wince a little. Yes, it was graceful and beautiful, but what was it doing to their feet? Their feet, their legs...some joints, she was sure, just weren't meant to bend like that, no matter how lovely the result.

A thunderous applause after the Firebird was hoisted up in victory at the end of the dance gave way to an intermission, but Earlene had no interest in leaving her seat. Her head was actually deep in her phone on Yelp!, trying to think of what would work best for dinner. She saw something that made her laugh and handed the phone to Lorna so she could read about Holey Cream, the place where they sold ice cream scooped on top of donuts. With what she hoped was discretion, she pointed at Thanadir. Though for actual food, Italian sounded better.

Lorna's eyes widened, and she gave as discreet a thumb's-up as she could. That sounded damn tasty, and the thought of watching Thanadir - he'd be like a kid in a candy store, only better. And hell, she'd want a little bit of everything, because turning forty had done nothing to kill her sweet tooth.

That part was concluded. Now to figure out the perfect Italian place. Thranduil had actually decided to use the restroom and...she frowned, hoping that he would know what to do. He knew how to use the facilities in her home but aside from the pubs, where had he ever...oh, he was a damn Elvenking, if anyone could figure it out, he could. "Lorna, look. There is this place called Becco, they have an unlimited pasta option," she said quietly. "The downside is, it can get crowded and noisy to the point of obnoxiousness. There's another place, closer, and higher rated, a little pricier….? They have the fancy stuff, and pizzas too."

"So long as we can afford to feed Thanadir," Lorna said. "He has a hollow leg, I swear. Or he's like a cow, and has a second stomach. Somehow. I'm not entirely convinced it's not a TARDIS." One of these days, when the elves were done with Star Trek, they really needed to see Doctor Who.

It was hard work, very hard work, not to burst out laughing at the TARDIS comment, because it was true. How did Thanadir ever manage to fade in the first place? How could he possibly stop eating in order to do it? Maybe she didn't want to know, and it was probably very impolite to ask. Thranduil returned without showing any evidence of mishap, so Earlene leaned over him to show Lorna her second choice. The food was highly rated and a little easier on the wallet, too. That way she could order him a few pasta dishes and maybe the rest of them would get a forkful before it vanished. Poor Thanadir…

"That looks good," Lorna said. And pasta was filling; even Thanadir could only handle so much (she hoped, anyway). She snuck a few pictures of the venue, flash off, since it didn't look like anyone was going to stop her; while she might not be able to send Siobhan a picture of that dancer's arse, she could at least show off the interior.

"The Rite of Spring" looked promising as well. Earlene was relieved to see that there were no weird frou frou costumes that basically covered the dancers' bodies. Ballet without being able to see most of the human form was 'why bother' in her worldview. This dance could be edgy to the point of creepiness sometimes, and it looked as though that might be the intended effect here. The movements were raw, passionate, primitive. It was very convincing.

Lorna's eyebrows shot to her hairline. This was Art, and she had not expected Art to be this...sexual. She was so surprised that it actually at first distracted her from the rather obvious male anatomy on display. She didn't even know that she could call this sexual; it needed a more high-brow word like erotic, which was not a word she had ever used to describe anything in her life. When you had that much arse on display that gracefully, to say nothing of, er, other features, 'erotic' was the only way to go.

She hazarded a glance at Thanadir, wondering if he was going to be intrigued or utterly scandalized.

Some of the dance steps (could you call them that?) looked very, very hard. The lead ballerina walked around the stage, completely crouched down and….how? Just, how? Earlene was yoga-fit, but this was at a whole other level. And the men...there were several leaps that looked as if they were imitating the moves of the gorillas they'd seen at the zoo, in imitation of being on four legs….wow. Part of her wished she could give all of them a tip, because she knew they didn't earn even vaguely enough money for what they did. They must love their art, down to the last one. Knowing that all the women there were going broke just trying to afford pointe shoes...it really wasn't fair.

That was it - Lorna, when they returned to the hotel, was going to try a few of those. She was reasonably flexible for a woman her age; once upon a time, she'd been able to touch the back of her head with her foot (something she and Liam had had fun with - he had quite enjoyed her flexibility). Yes, that was over a decade ago, but still. The more complex moves here were utterly beyond her, but surely she could manage a simpler one.

The virgin collapsed onto the stage in a final flourish, everyone applauded, and then they made their way out. The performances had been as good as Earlene hoped they might be. If she had to give this up from here on out, this swan song had made that bearable. Maybe someday they'd get their act together and and the ballet would offer simulcast subscriptions; it seemed like with technology, that kind of thing couldn't be too far into the future.

Happily, she ushered everyone into the aisle to join the queue of departing patrons. They'd had good seats, quite close to the front of the orchestra, and so they were among the last to leave. It surprised her when she felt herself held back by Thanadir; what had she done this time?

"Earlene, thank you," he said, reaching down to kiss her on the cheek. "This was so...I am very grateful." Her face lit up in a smile, to know she had succeeded. Especially when, by the time it was all said and done, there would be so few things she could really do for him of a meaningful nature.

"You're welcome," she beamed, taking his arm. "Now let's feed you."

Thanadir liked New York, very much.

Lorna stretched, joints cracking, quite ready for food herself. She had actually managed to sneak a tiny bit of footage of that Rite of Spring dance, because she knew that more than Siobhan would appreciate that bit. While those blokes all had fantastic arses, she still preferred Ratiri's.

Her stomach growled embarrassingly loudly. Oh well. If these fancy people wanted to look at her weird, let them. At least she hadn't burped.

"Back to the hotel first, or straight to food? It's ten streets down and around the corner from the hotel, right around where the theaters are."

"I vote food," Lorna said, figuring Thanadir would be right there with her. Moving, sadly, alerted her to another issue. Thranduil, cramps. Please. Ow.

The King offered his arm to her, wondering if she had ever asked Earlene about...this issue. But he had no cordial here and so there was nothing but time that could help her. Every month...he frowned. It seemed like a recipe for bleeding to death. Ellith had a considerable advantage.

Lorna took his arm, and just about sighed with relief. I wish there was some way to bottle and sell that, she said. Whatever it is you do. However you do it. Millions of women around the world would throw money hand over fist. There's no logical reason for periods to be this awful, and some women have them so bad it makes one week out of every month a living hell. I'm guessing elf ladies don't have this problem. She somehow couldn't imagine an elf lady ever needing to curl up with a heating pad on her abdomen.

They do not have these troubles; our medicine cares for that. And I am sorry; it is indeed unfortunate. I am glad, that I can help you, he said, and he meant it.

It was just one long stroll, down 6th Avenue into the heart of the theater district. They'd be coming back here tomorrow, for the next treat...and arguably the last big hurrah in terms of entertainment. They only had two more full days remaining; their time here was flying by. Fun had a way of doing that. The theater names they were passing were self explanatory, so they strolled along, admiring the occasional incongruous sight such as a horse and buggy in the middle of the avenue at a stoplight, and similar sorts of random amusements. Finally they reached their destination, Trattoria Trecolori, with all the pasta anyone could want. Usually she would've avoided any place to eat in the Theater District just on principle, but the Yelp! Reviews for this place had been so solid that it seemed like a completely safe choice.

Lorna knew very little about Italian food, but probably figured she'd be safe with a minestrone (provided Thanadir didn't eat it all). The restaurant, predictably, was crowded, and she did her best to stay on Thranduil's heel, lest she get stepped on. It smelled good, at least - very, very good, and it only made her stomach rumble again. The Italians, she reflected, really were a lot like the Irish - fiercely clannish, yet they'd argue from sunup to sundown, over next to nothing. It was how they showed they cared.

After conferring a little, it was agreed they would order as a group and find a way to share it all. Two kinds of salad, caprese, minestrone, antipasti, and then a parade of pastas. There were lots of different sauces and flavors on parade, so there was no point skimping. Rigatoni, gnocchi, tortellini, fettucine, linguine, and a chicken scarpariello just to break up the starch. A little. Earlene guessed that this just might tip even Thanadir into an inability to eat dessert, but, they'd see. And there was still time to get him to the sugar. Thranduil felt very grateful that his wife knew so much about food, because he was utterly lost. The names were strange, he'd only ever eaten pasta once or twice at her cottage and the only thing he felt certain of is that everything smelled very nice. After she rattled off all the food, she added two carafes of house red wine, and figured if they didn't go home happy, it wouldn't be her fault. Service was very prompt; inside of ten minutes bread, wine, salads and soup were already on the table.

Lorna actually managed to nibble bread, rather than inhale it, and sipped at her wine. Though it was probably excellent by human standards, it just couldn't compare to elf wine. (Then again, what could?) "So, I have to wonder just what happens to those dancers' feet after a while," she said. "I mean, it's not a natural way to stand. The wash-out rate has to be huge." You could only do that for so long before your joints just went 'nope'.

"It's completely disgusting, I can't fathom how anyone does it. You spend your whole life working to be a dancer, then if you make it you get paid dirt, get a ruined body, and you better hope you marry a podiatrist. Oh and they make you buy your own shoes. I read that if they can't afford new shoes when they need them, they're out of a job. What a deal," Earlene said, shaking her head. "I feel guilty for enjoying it so much, it's like I'm….I'm...I'm helping them be repressed." The similarities were suddenly too weird…

"Now I feel really guilty admiring that guy's arse," Lorna muttered. She wondered just what crazy diets they had to go through, and probably didn't want to know. "I don't get why anyone would want to. I mean, they must really love what they do." Had she ever loved anything enough, to do that to herself over it? Not anything that wasn't a person. "I don't know that you can say you're helping them be repressed, though. They wouldn't have any work at all, if people didn't go see them perform, and then they'd have shite joints and be unemployed. Though why in God's bloody name they'd make you buy your own shoes, I can't imagine." Somebody involved was too lazy to do the figures and work out what it would cost to get shoes for the lot of them, she was sure.

They had just finished mowing down the first round when the real food showed up; they had to assure the server that they would be more than happy eating off of small plates in order for it all to fit on the table. Thranduil watched in complete amusement as Earlene did not wait or speak but began dexterously scooping a portion of each order onto the seneschal's plate, making a neat hexagonal shape out of it somehow before placing it in front of him. She did the same for Thranduil and Lorna after they both indicated with general alarm that they wanted their portions to be...smaller. Biting hard on her cheeks not to laugh, she complied and soon they were all eating.

This was pasta in a way even Lorna's brother-in-law couldn't have managed it, and that was really saying something. She occupied herself eating, somehow not devouring everything on her plate inside of five minutes. As ever, watching Thanadir was both a joy and an education in just how much one slender male could put away. Thranduil didn't eat like that; was Thanadir's stomach actually a TARDIS? She couldn't think of any other explanation. She could eat a hefty amount of food for a woman her size, but she had nothing on Thanadir.

How did the rest of you not starve, when he eats like that? Or is he normal for elves? Ratiri would certainly be interested in the answer.

Thranduil sighed, but not in a way easy to notice as he surreptitiously glanced at Thanadir's current state of culinary bliss.

It was not ever quite like this, before. He has always been known to enjoy his food when it was available. But I have seen him in times of war, and want. He is the first one willing to go without, so that others can have more, when there is a lack. A more selfless individual, you could not hope to find. But now...he has been brought within reach of a superb cook who enjoys spoiling him, and there is no lack. For perhaps the first time, he is enjoying food in a manner not previously possible. I enjoy food as well, but not that much. Do you know, I cannot actually answer your question? His is as physically fit and healthy as ever; he does not gain in weight. I cannot explain; neither do I know of another in my Halls with such appetite. He shrugged, and with his usual decorum kept eating.

Lorna laughed silently. Thanadir violated the laws of physics - that was the only explanation. Whatever the reason, watching him was oddly enjoyable; very oddly, because normally watching people eat wasn't precisely something she enjoyed much. If he'd been human, he'd be getting sick. She knew that from experience. Prior to moving in with Mairead, her diet had been odd, often poor, and equally often spotty. Large amounts of food just hadn't figured into it, so when she was finally presented with a table full of things she hadn't necessarily even heard of, she'd tried all of it, and inevitably eaten herself sick. For elves, there didn't seem to be too much of a good thing, if Thanadir was any indication.

Earlene had refilled Thanadir's plate for the third time and was almost done with her own meal when she heard a voice very close to her left ear. "Gesu bambino!" Lifting her head, startled, she looked up into the face of a formidable and wrinkled old Nonna who wore an apron and had her hands on her hips, smiling broadly at Thanadir. "Mangia come tutti i dodici apostoli!" she said. Startled, the elf looked up from his eating, not entirely certain what was happening. Thranduil's eyes widened and all his self control was needed to keep his features neutral. "You like?" she said to Thanadir carefully in her broken English.

Earlene felt she had better help. "She is asking you if you like her food, Thanadir. I suspect she is the family cook for this restaurant."

"I like it very much," the seneschal said politely, nodding.

"Ai!" she said, smiling from ear to ear. "Nonna vi aiuterà, si sta morendo di fame," was sputtered at remarkable speed, and she turned on her heel and swiftly left.

Earlene did not have any idea how she would get through this. Her Italian was complete crap, but unless she was much mistaken, this lady was about to bring Thanadir even more food. "Excuse me, I need the ladies' room," she choked, leaving the table quickly. And when she got there, she leaned against the wall and giggled. And giggled, gasping for air. This had to be fast; she couldn't abandon them. Sure god, how in the world did they manage this stuff? Patting her face with a wet paper towel, she tried to put on her best courtroom look before departing.

She returned to her chair less than thirty seconds before Nonna returned, setting down a plate of lasagna and trefunghi, a mushroom dish, in front of him. "Nessuno che sembra il nostro Salvatore sos offre la fame nel mio ristorante," she said, patting him tenderly on the cheek as he looked at her in utter incomprehension. "Gesu bambino! Mangia! Mangia!" she said.

"She wants you to eat," Earlene whispered as discreetly as possible. "Grazie, signora, grazie," she said politely, wondering if this woman knew any English? They were out there, the holdouts, and this might be just the place one would be found. With a profound sigh, the woman returned happily to the kitchen, but not before she noticed two who were obviously her grown sons watching her and shaking their heads.

"Cosa stai grardando? Tornare al lavoro," she hollered, while the other patrons looked on and smiled indulgently. Nonnas could say whatever shit they wanted to, and they knew it.

Lorna had to pinch her thigh really, really hard to keep a straight face, and even then she wound up having to stuff a piece of bread stick in her mouth. She didn't dare look at Thranduil, or she'd utterly break - looking at poor bewildered Thanadir was bad enough. While the language might be different, tiny old grandmothers seemed to be the same among the Italians as they were the Irish. At least Thanadir could probably eat whatever the hell she put in front of him, though Lorna wouldn't put it past an Italian Gran to be able to actually leave him full.

Earlene decided that she really didn't care if they were charged for the extra dishes or not. She had enough room to take a forkful of the mushrooms for herself, and they really were excellent...and she would make up much of it in the tip, if they weren't. The memory of this was going to be fairly priceless. She rolled over what was said. Did that woman tell him he ate like all twelve of the apostles? Do not think about it, she ordered herself, and returned to sipping her wine.

When their check was brought, their waiter looked at them sheepishly. "I am sorry about my grandmother," he said. "She is very set in her ways."

Lorna and Earlene grinned at the same time. "Our families are Irish," Earlene said. "It is exactly the same, but the swearing is different." The man's face transformed as he nodded and smiled.

Lorna, still pinching her leg, downed half her glass of wine at one go. If she didn't get out of here in short order, she was going to explode from the effort of keeping her laughter at bay. All the pinching in the world wasn't going to be enough.

Earlene settled up and soon they were waddling out. And dammit if Thanadir hadn't cleaned both of those plates, with each of them having taken only tiny slivers just so they could try it. Thranduil suspected, however, that his seneschal had at last arrived at a place of having eaten too much. It was subtle, and perhaps only he would notice, but there were traces of bodily discomfort in his movements. And, for perhaps the first time he could ever recall, visible distension around his middle.

Thranduil saw that his wife at least suspected the same problem, because she seemed to dawdle noticeably as they made their way back to the hotel up 7th Avenue. Earlene did point out the sign for the Radio City Music Hall, because many people had at least heard of the Rockettes. She personally didn't see the fuss, but, they were famous. Holding onto Thanadir, she darted furtive glances at him from time to time, hoping he wasn't suffering extreme gastric distress, and wondered if elves had anything like Rolaids.

Lorna, full and at one with the world, did manage to hold her laughter in until they were out of the restaurant, and then she dissolved into helpless giggling. "She and my gran could've taken over the world," she managed. "Christ, I could do with a charcoal biscuit before bed, though, or I'll be miserable." Thranduil, from what she'd seen, had actually eaten like a sane person, and probably wouldn't be curled in a ball dying of indigestion at two in the morning.

"I will be encouraging you to drink plenty of water," he smiled down at her. "Though, the food was indeed delicious. I suppose if we were going to tip into excessive eating, that was the place to do it."

"I love pasta," sighed Earlene. "I should make it more often. It isn't that hard." A faint groan from Thanadir caused her to glance over, and pat his arm with her spare hand. She genuinely felt sorry for him; being blindsided by a Nonna determined to feed you was no joke.

All four of them were extremely thankful for the invention of the elevator. When they returned to their room, there was mass flopping on the beds and for a time, no one moved or spoke. Earlene was the first to roll to the remote control, to bring up the evening news. The weatherman blathered on about some astronomical happenings for the month of June. Though she had missed the closest day of opposition, Saturn was supposed to be visible in the night sky. "You know, I'd dearly love to go for a jog in the park tonight. Just a short one. I miss doing that. But as I know I can't go alone, I worry about whether this is the worst night ever to ask for company after that dinner." She glanced worriedly at Thanadir's midsection; he was not the one who was pregnant and yet….poor Thanadir.

"I will go with you, Earlene," he managed to say. "Though it would be an act of mercy on your part, if you could first allow me an hour or two."

"You are certain?" she said. "This can wait…"

Thanadir held up his hand in a gesture that meant, no further discussion would be tolerated. "We will go," he said with conviction.

Well, it is a warm and beautiful night, she reasoned. Rising and digging through her luggage, she found a loose tee and her running pants. She hadn't worn these since the first morning she'd gotten herself lost in the woods, and it somehow felt very homelike to be using them again in Central Park. Just like old times.

"You have fun with that," Lorna said, kicking off her sandals. They'd done far less walking today, so her feet weren't very sore. "I'm going to lay here and be a slug for now." She flopped back onto the bed, lacing her hands behind her head and staring up at the ceiling. It was lovely and cool in here, away from the heat and humidity of the outdoors - heat and humidity that nobody else seemed to even register that much. The joy of growing up on a tiny, misty island, but the wet bandana really did help quite a bit. "Earlene, how the hell d'you think that guy in red's tights worked? It looked like they'd crawled right up his crack."

"You know, even I wondered about that. I mean, there is always little to the imagination but his, ah, attributes were rather exceptional. Let me Google it; there must be something they wear that's not ordinary. Sure god I hope those things never get snags or runs. That would be a performance alright, and not in the way anyone wants." She paused. "Doctor Dancebelt's Guide. Well, this sounds promising….oh, my."

"Doctor Dancebelt's Guide?" Lorna asked. "All right, now you've got to explain." Every time she heard the words oh, my she automatically repeated them in her head in George Takei's voice. Every. Goddamn. Time.

"So apparently there is a thing called a Unibutt," Earlene said, her eyes wide as she read. " 'Backstage, the last thing most male dancers do before going on is to pull their tights' rear seam up into their crack.' Sure god, and here I thought only the women suffered," she said, half-aghast. " 'An idealized male round-mound bulge is part of the ballet costume…' oh, my…'some companies ask male dancers to wear two pairs of white tights for a super-white (and no see-thru) look…..'...those poor men."

Thranduil had been certain nothing could outdo the Nonna, until this conversation happened.

"Excuse me, I would like to take a bath," Thanadir mumbled, as he moved past them. Earlene and Lorna barely appeared to hear, and Thranduil wondered deeply about the state of his life.

Lorna laughed so hard she actually fell off the bed, wincing when she hit the floor and not caring in the least. "Earlene, email me that link," she said. "I need to put it in the email I send Ratiri, along with what little I filmed'v that scene. Round-mound bulge…" She dissolved into utterly helpless laughter again, hauling herself up and flopping back on the bed. "Thranduil, you've had a bit'v an education this trip, haven't you? I mean, I have, and I grew up in the modern world. How are you and Thanadir not overwhelmed?" Still snickering, she at least managed to pull the pins out of her hair and take her braid down, unwinding it with no real urgency.

Only then did it occur to Earlene that they had been speaking about this with males present. She rolled back over with a somewhat apologetic glance in his direction. "Sorry. It's just that when you don't have the plumbing, you can't help but wonder." That and, I did keep hearing about your lack of body issues, she added, reaching to work off his boots. For whatever reason, she felt like rubbing his toes. While continuing to watch the news with her head hanging upside down off the end of the bed again, because she liked it.

"I do not find it overwhelming so much as different. Do you find my Halls overwhelming? Maybe it is not the best comparison, but, they are very different. I enjoy the newness, it is interesting. Though I will allow that humans can be filled with surprises," he smirked. "I will not forget the Nonna anytime soon."

"Heck, life is an education no matter what," piped Earlene while she delicately rubbed an elven toe. "Even if it is male dance equipment."

"Equipment and equipment," Lorna snickered, flailing for the hairbrush she kept in her bag (she had another in the bathroom. With hair as long as hers, you always needed a backup brush.) "I don't know that anyone can forget Nonnas. Or Grans. A certain type'v person seems to be universal, and that includes little old grandmothers." She drew the brush through her hair, still marveling at how soft the elf hair products left it. Seriously, it was unfortunate that it apparently took elf magic to properly make them work, or she'd try to brew some for Mairead.

Thranduil sighed, not even caring about the droning content of the evening news. He was trying to recall if Earlene had ever rubbed his toes before and...it really is rather nice, he thought. "I take it, Lorna, you have zero interest in running with Earlene?" he asked, just to confirm. He was trying to decide if he had any himself, or whether he felt confident sending his wife and seneschal alone. His wife had done this same activity, alone, for over a decade, he knew. Assuredly he was being ridiculous to worry further.

"None whatsoever," Lorna said, pulling more of her hair over her shoulder. She had so much of it that she had to split it in half, some over each shoulder, to get it properly brushed. Otherwise she couldn't get all the knots out. "Especially not with all this food sitting like a lump on my stomach. Earlene, I don't know how you can enjoy that. It's beyond me." She'd always had physical jobs, and stayed in shape simply because she worked hard; the appeal of jogging or running was entirely lost on her. She might, however, try a few of those weird dance moves in the bathroom, where she could take a hot bath if she somehow pulled something.

Lorna's thoughts caused Thranduil to consider that staying behind might be doubly advisable, in the event something anatomical ended up faring badly. But in the meantime, he still had his foot rub.

"Trump Trump Trump," Earlene hissed in disgust. "I don't know what's going to be worse; now, or when this election is over. We had a great music duo here in the city, Simon and Garfunkel. A line in one of their songs went, 'Laugh about it, shout about it when you've got to choose, any way you look at this you lose.' And that, my friends, sums up the current state of national politics." Just then, Thanadir emerged from the bathroom, his long hair damp. He looked as if he felt better. Though how anyone could want to bathe and then run, made no sense to her.

"At least you live in Ireland now," Lorna said, stretching and cracking both her ankles. "And you're married to an Irish citizen. Given how much money you've got, if you wanted to apply for citizenship yourself, I don't think it'd be that hard. I don't know what all's involved in it, but I do know their main concern's that you're able to support yourself, and you've already been living there what, four months? You haven't got any kind'v criminal record standing in your way, you're well-educated...you're the kind'v immigrant the government actually wants. Christ, with practice I think you could even pick up the accent." She still didn't know how much money Earlene actually had on her own, but given the law firm she'd worked at, and how she was able to pay Lorna the ridiculous salary she did even before the gems were sold, it was probably a lot.

Speaking of all that money, Lorna needed to get more souvenirs while she was here. The M&M statues were hilarious, but she needed more than that, especially to give Ratiri.

Earlene thought it wise to not comment on her views of citizenship here or in Ireland; the depth of her feelings concerning her fealty to Thranduil were not something she imagined Lorna could stomach, now or ever. It would be more profitable to stretch a little before her run, so she spent her time moving through increasingly difficult yoga contortions while Thranduil watched in amusement. Thanadir watched too, not having seen this yet, but his face held no emotion. And in order to have a prayer of focusing on what she was doing, she ignored both of them. Half an hour later, she straightened up.

"We can go now, if that is still your wish," the seneschal said. Earlene laced up her shoes and went to her purse. Thanadir or no Thanadir, she never jogged without her bobby whistle and her pepper spray. Never.

They walked over to 8th Avenue; she had a mind to keep this run on the shorter side; just to the lake and back, passing the seasonal amusement park that operated there. The city was in twilight, and the lit skyscrapers provided a stunning backdrop as they moved out of the streets and crossed into the park itself. She explained Trump Tower to Thanadir; that the man who owned the building was seeking to become the leader of the entire nation. "It is very...big," he said, apparently finding nothing else meritorious about it. Everything about him is big, she thought, including his capacity for creating controversy. And yet those sentiments were better left unspoken to her utterly disinterested audience. How petty modern human politics must seem, to such an ancient being. As she prepared to break into a running pace, she instinctively looped the keyrings that held her whistle and spray into each hand, having always taken self-defense very seriously. The spray stayed in the right hand, the whistle in the left. Sure, it wasn't a guarantee (nothing was), but she liked to think that if she went down, she was taking someone with her.

The park at night was lovely, and this was exhilarating to her senses. Thanadir ran easily and silently at her side; her footfalls made little noise and his made none at all. Though strangely enough, this made her miss running in their woods at home. It was good to her, that she missed Lasgalen; that told her that her decision to leave in the first place had not been a poor one. They ran on to Bethesda Terrace, a scenic spot near the lake, and she came to a halt, taking his arm. They stood there for some minutes, enjoying the stunning view of the city lights that bordered the park. And that was when she thought she heard something, and released the seneschal's arm to look around her. Moving out of the trees was a man whose demeanor caused her to go on red alert; in the dark he appeared ungroomed, moved erratically, and was already saying "hey, spare any change?" as he moved toward them.

"We're leaving, now," she said to the elf. A lot seemed to happen, very quickly. The man who spoke kept advancing, and Earlene barked "Back off!" in a tone of voice that would have slowed most people down. Was he on drugs? His next step brought him almost to her, and her pepper spray was suddenly being offloaded full into his face. The amazing thing was, that didn't stop him, and for the first time she felt a stab of fear. Before she could bring her whistle to her mouth, he grabbed onto her arm, which caused her to violently kick into his groin. From either her kick, the power of the Necklace, or both he went down like a rock, but now she herself was half choking on the fumes from the spray; he'd come too close to her face. Vaguely surprised that Thanadir had not intervened, she turned to realize something else was going on behind her.

Her assailant had not been alone. Her mouth hung open to see that the elf had a second man held up off the ground by his throat, and that something Jesus was that a gun? was being forced from his grip as the snapping noise of a bone greeted her ears. The weapon clattered to the ground while he wriggled impotently in the seneschal's iron grip, unable to breathe. Earlene carefully kicked the weapon a short distance away. Red hot anger washed over her, and she turned back and leveled a second kick at her own would-be attacker's crotch, eliciting a scream of agony. She might not have gotten in enough kicks to Sean, but goddammit she wasn't missing out this time. But her lashing out had just caused this encounter to become noisy, and while they'd done nothing wrong...if this attracted the attention of a police officer, they could both count on being front section news before they left New York. No. Just...no. Her name was not going to be in the paper. Not like this.

With a sickening thud, the seneschal slammed the man against the ground with great force, his eyes flashing dangerously.

"Perhaps this will teach you to attack women" she said, as she kicked him in the nuts too, as hard as she could. Taking Thanadir's hand, she silently urged him away as fast as they could, not slowing or stopping until they were within a few dozen yards of 59th Street. The run gave her the time and space for some of her emotions to bleed away. For years on years, she had done this very thing without incident. And yet tonight, had she been alone, would have been her Waterloo. That those men were planning on far more than panhadling; of that she was sure. Slowing to a walk for a minute, she finally came to a stop, and reached for the elf. "Thank you. I would not have been okay tonight, had you not been with me. I don't even really want to think about what you saved me from. Just, thank you…" she said as she embraced him with great feeling, not knowing what else to say or how to say it. The fear she did not allow herself to feel before, she was feeling now.

He gently pushed her back and lifted her head with his fingers, so that she had to look up at him. "You are welcome, Earlene. But I want you to know that I am proud of you. You were alert and prepared. You fought back. And truthfully, you saved at least one of their lives, because had you not acted as you did, I would have killed one of them to ensure I stopped the other. As it is they are both only...damaged."

While she did not wish to, she was involuntarily shaking. He pulled her back against him, and whispered reassurances to her. That she had acted in a way of which he approved; it meant a great deal to her, and left her feeling like she could yet hold her head up. "We will run again, before we depart," he said. "I would not have this be your final memory of something from your home that you enjoyed so much."

Earlene nodded, taking a deep breath. He was right, and it was a good idea. The odds of that happening twice were astronomical. Taking his arm, she shook off her bad feelings and focused on what had gone right, not what had gone wrong. And now she had to tell Thranduil; no way would she dump that in Thanadir's lap, tempting though it was.

Lorna ran through her own stretches, just for the hell of it; they were the ones she'd learned from Shane, who'd learned them in the army. If she was going to try to attempt any of that crazy ballet contortion, she needed to be as well-stretched as possible. A lovely hot bath helped relax her, so when she was through and had donned her ancient T-shirt and cut-off sweatpants, she wrung her hair out as best she could, braced herself against the sink (studiously ignoring the still-covered portrait, because seriously, eek), and tried quite valiantly to touch the back of her head with the ball of her foot.

Her spine still flexed quite well, if she did say so herself, but her quads were less pleased even in spite of her stretching. Still...she tried to reach over her shoulder to grab her foot, which proved to be a mistake. Her balance quite abruptly gave up, sending her crashing knee-first onto the tile floor in a tangle of wet hair and cursing.

"I'm good," she called automatically - and then spotted her knee. Oops. The damn thing didn't actually hurt much until she looked at it, and then she all but facepalmed. Still, she'd had to do this once before, years ago; shoving a kneecap back into place wasn't fun, but it also wasn't that difficult if you knew what you were doing, and Shane had made sure they all did. The sound it made was rather unpleasant, and she swore like a drunken sailor before wrapping a hand-towel around it. Asking Thranduil to fix this was humiliating, but not enough so that she wasn't willing to do it.

She barely had the door open, when it pulled away from her, nearly causing a second upset in her balance. This time, however, she was not allowed to hit the floor.

"And to think I felt not going jogging with Earlene was the more sensible decision," he teased as he supported her weight. "And before you have a chance to give me one of your special salutes, yes, I will fix this."

He helped her carefully to the bed instead of lifting her; that would only serve to move her injured joint more. Frowning, he tried to ponder the best way to do this. That he had her permission, he was well aware. Tough as she was, he did not wish to cause her more pain. She had seemed about to say something, when at a touch from him, she slumped asleep against the pillows. He then felt less squeamish about pulling and moving the joint as he needed to, until all the structures moved back into place. Another moment to ensure that all the damage was undone, and she was brought back to wakefulness. "You were about to say?" he said, smiling, knowing that he could half-likely expect an earful now that she was restored to order.

"I was about to say I'm good," she said, "even though I wasn't. Thanks for…er, that. Apparently I'm still flexible, but my balance has gone to complete hell." Lorna poked at her knee, fascinated. She knew he could heal just about anything, but that didn't make it any less amazing when he actually did it. Last time this had happened, she'd been screwed for months, stuck with a sports bandage Shane had lifted from some shop. Now it was so fine she'd never know she'd done a thing to it. "Though Christ, warn me next time you're about to knock me out, will you? Not that I don't appreciate not being awake for that, but waking up without realizing you'd gone under is a bit freaky." She was already wondering if there was some way she could try doing that again - some way that wouldn't involve dislocating any joints. The sink was obviously a no-go.

"If it will not offend your sensibilities, I can offer to hold your waist just as the dancers did? At least you will not crash to the ground and reinvent your skeleton a second time?" His words were sarcastic but the tone of his voice really was not. Lorna suspected he was trying to make this bit of epic common sense digestible to her.

"As long as I won't crack my head on the ceiling," Lorna said, not bothering to point out that she was heavier than she looked. That didn't matter with elves, the lucky bastards. She wasn't actually sure about the upper limits of their strength, but she'd wager they could probably at least lift the front end of a decent-sized car.

"I think I can manage that," he said drily. "I will merely be making sure you stay upright unless you tell me to do something different." His hands came around her midsection, above her hips, barely touching her, but prepared to prevent a loss of balance. Truthfully, this seemed amusing. Though most of Earlene's yoga poses would be easy for him, perhaps this was something different?

Lorna was a bit more careful about attempting this a second time, wincing as her hip popped. She just. Couldn't. Do - oh, wait. This time she managed to reach back and catch her ankle, but it wasn't - no, a bit more - she cackled in triumph when she managed to touch her big toe to the back of her head, then immediately swore as she dropped the pose. She probably shouldn't have tried that, but she could still do it, dammit. "Forty can go fuck itself," she said, grinning. "If I can still do that, it can fuck right off."

The King released her when it was apparent she had two feet again to stand upon, and now he was intrigued. That, he had never tried. He kicked off his boots, with a determined look on his face. "Is there a trick to it?" he asked, as he began to arc his leg up behind his back while reaching behind his shoulder, a look of concentration on his face. He was close, but not quite there. "How are you supposed to convince your leg to do this?" he asked.

"It's all in your muscles," she said, half unable to believe he was actually going to do it. "Your glutes and your quads. Plus having bones like a jellyfish, but neither'v us is young enough for that anymore. Arch your spine as much as you can and you'll get closer." She hoped elves couldn't throw out their own joints, because could Thranduil actually heal himself? She wasn't sure she wanted to find out.

"Yes, I can, though I would never hear the end of needing to," he said, renewing his efforts as he bent his back even more and triumphantly felt his fingers brush his foot. With one extra effort he snagged it, and just as quickly let go, with a faintly pained look. "That is truly not easy," he said, now exponentially more impressed with Lorna. "You almost caused a serious blow to my self esteem," he joked, but it was with humor in his eyes. "I will try to act my age now," he said, straightening up before seating himself back on the bed.

Oh, Earlene would be so, so sorry she missed this."I'm sure you would've survived," she said dryly, grinning. "It was a lot easier when I was twenty years younger. I wouldn't've tried it again if I hadn't got someone who could heal anything I tore nearby."

Now that Earlene wasn't actually here, Lorna felt she could say this. "D'you have any idea how lucky you are that it was Earlene that found you?" she asked. "You've not seen much'v the human world yet, so I don't think you can. Somehow you got a woman who's brilliant, educated, well-connected, and willing to sign over her autonomy entirely, forever. That just doesn't happen. Yeah, there are people out there who get into relationships with power imbalances, but they're short-term, and usually have stipulations attached, so the sub doesn't actually have to do something they really don't want to. Normally, the only sort who'd sign on for what Earlene did would be meek doormats who didn't want the bother'v having their own opinions, and yet you found her. Or she found you. The odds'v that, especially in a tiny little village like Lasg'len, are astronomically low. I can't say I've ever believed in divine intervention, but that makes me wonder. You might'v found the only woman like her on Earth who'd sign on like she did without being a weak little mouse."

An Irishwoman - any Irishwoman - would have automatically bailed, but America's issues with monarchy were so far in the past they weren't issues anymore. An American wouldn't have immediately told him to get fucked, but the sheer odds of an American, let alone an American like Earlene, finding that cottage to begin with? Lorna wouldn't take that bet. Even yet she didn't understand why anyone would do it, but her life experience pretty much rendered that impossible. She was Irish, and she'd been in prison, and the latter especially gave her a rather skewed worldview. There was a world of difference between surrendering your freedom willingly and having it taken from you, and she'd had hers taken. Once that had happened, thought of voluntarily surrendering it ever again was just inconceivable. Still, for someone, anyone, to surrender as Earlene had done, completely and forever...Lorna wasn't kidding. That just didn't happen, and certainly not with someone as intelligent and self-possessed as Earlene. Maybe those Valar actually had had a hand in it.

Thranduil was attempting to digest this piece of brutal honesty which had never occurred to him, and frowned, but before he had any time for rumination Earlene and Thanadir returned. The storm of his wife's thoughts snapped him onto other topics entirely. Trying to master his own rising anger, he quickly took her into his arms as her memories poured out at him. Thanadir stood quietly, his face showing no emotion. "I see," he said aloud. "You are unhurt?"

Earlene froze in confusion. "I think so," she said. "I don't think I stubbed my toe or anything." Thranduil gently pushed her sleeves up to reveal slight bruising around her arm.

"Almost," he said kindly. She had done exactly as he had wanted her to, and he must ensure that he did not leave her feeling that he was in any way displeased with her. Closing his hands over it, the marks were gone in seconds.

"I did not know," she said, "I-" His finger came up to her lips.

"I only care that all is well for you," he said. "You did very, very well, and like my seneschal, I am quite proud of you." He chuckled. "You may have even prevented a damaged part of the mortal gene pool from reproducing itself." With a kiss to her head, he hugged her to him once again.

Lorna was completely and utterly baffled, and wished like hell she had Thranduil's telepathy. Based on Thranduil's words she could, however, guess. "Something happen in the park?"

"Uh, yeah, it did," said Earlene. "Sorry, maybe I should have said all that out loud but I'm still getting over it a little." She heaved a sigh. "So we ran back to the Lake, it's pretty there, and stood a few minutes to enjoy the view. I need to preface, when I run, I've got a bobby whistle in one hand and spray in the other." Holding up her hands, she demonstrated, because the objects had not left her grasp, though now she tossed both down on the dresser. "Some panhandler was coming toward us, and I was making ready to run away from there when he came at me. The whole can of spray went into his eyes but he didn't stop. Thinking back, he was acting like a tweeker. And then he grabbed my arm, and hit the ground like a stone. I kicked him in the balls as hard as I could but then I heard noise behind me and see Thanadir holding up a second idiot by his throat, with the other hand on this guy's wrist. That fucker had a gun, and dropped it right after what I'm guessing were his arm bones being snapped. I kicked the weapon away. And the guy met the ground with quite a thump. I don't know what shape he's in and honestly I don't give a rat's arse. Somewhere in there I kicked everyone in the nuts again for good measure, because I was pissed. Pepper spray guy made a racket and we ran away; there is no way I wanted the cops to find us. It would've meant names in the paper and right now I just don't need that." Another sigh was heaved. "So over fifteen years of running in the Park at night alone and had Thanadir not been with me, I would have had my ass handed to me on a plate. Actually, I suspect it might have been a lot worse than that." She looked at Lorna one last time and shook her head. All of those conversations about the indignities of being guarded flashed through her head as she spoke and, what was she supposed to say? It had just quite probably saved her from rape, murder, or both. Shit.

Lorna felt quite bad that she wished she'd been there. It was a terrible experience that she wouldn't wish on anyone, but...well, at least Earlene couldn't read her mind. She didn't want to say anything that might be mistaken as her diminishing any of it. "Tweekers are some'v the most dangerous," she said. "They can be like...like zombies, just fast. Their ability to feel pain and fear are both gone. Kicking them in the goolies is about all you can do." Unless you carried a knife, but then things could get messy with, you know, police. She wondered...Earlene didn't look like she'd got a rush off of it. She just looked pissed, and shaken, and maybe a bit more pissed. It stirred Lorna's own anger, because how dare some sticky-fingered fuck try to lay hands on her, like she was...like she was property? She wondered if they were still to be found, somewhere in the park. She might not need - no. No, and yet she was so tempted, because a kick to the junk wasn't enough punishment for what they'd tried to do to Earlene. Maybe she ought to take a walk herself. "I'm guessing a drink's in order?"

"Probably." She looked up at Thanadir. "I"m just curious, if I can ask. Was that man still alive when we left? Do you know?" She'd been careful to kick the gun, not touch the gun, for a reason.

Thanadir tilted his head. "He breathed yet. Which is more than he deserved," was the simple reply.

While this was not entirely what she wanted to hear, she nodded. Whether he lived or died, she could care less. That their encounter was untraceable to them, that mattered. No possibility existed of fingerprints, or having been filmed. No possession had been left behind. The men were both in need of medical assistance; the odds of the NYPD coming across them were quite good. It was dark; their features would have been unrecognizable. As she reviewed this all in her mind, she felt as assured as possible that they had avoided what she would consider a serious annoyance and intrusion into her privacy. Especially with Allanah's future in the balance, their lives needed to seem...normal. Very normal.

Thranduil heard all of this pass in her mind with interest, understanding now the full scope of the issue. Earlene excused herself to take a shower, and the King waited until the water was running. "Lorna, I see bottles of wine. And glasses. Surely that is a good idea, about now?" Truth be told, he still felt insecure about the wine corkers; the one they had here was completely different than the one in Earlene's cottage. What did these mortals have against wax seals? Surely Lorna knew how to use the...object.

Lorna drew a deep breath. What she really, really wanted was to go hunt both those fuckers down and make them regret the day they were ever born. "It is," she said. She had some vodka, too, since human wine did fuck-all for her; eight or so shots of that and she wouldn't feel like murdering anyone in the face.

She took a bottle of something red from the mini-fridge, eying it and the wine corker atop the fridge. She'd seen Mairead use one, but she'd never tried it herself. Still, how hard could it be? It was a corkscrew. It screwed, right? Except balancing it on top of the bottle took both hands, so she had to set the bottle on the dresser. It seemed like no matter how she screwed - that's what she said, she thought - the damn thing didn't actually go down into the cork.

"Well this is fucking wick," she said, eying it in frustration. "Either'v you know how this damn thing's meant to work?"

Thranduil came over to her, now not feeling so bad. "I have always seen Earlene remove the...substance, that is on the outside, first. The….metal."

Lorna eyed it. "Well, that'd explain a bit," she said, peeling at it. Naturally, it was too thick to peel that way, and her fingernails were awfully blunt. She wound up breaking part of it with her teeth, then tugging the rest of it free. "Okay, let's try this again." It took all her effort not to just ram the thing into the cork and tear it to bits.

Thanadir now came over, interested. "I have always seen Earlene screw it in further," he noted, genuinely attempting to be helpful. All three of them were staring at the bottle as if it had mystical powers, when Earlene burst out of the bathroom, wrapped modestly in a towel.

All of them were huddled over something that seemed terribly important, so she leaned over as well to see what it was. Perhaps more than anything else, this broke her dour mood over what had happened in the park. "Are you drawing straws over who will pull the cork out?" she asked, honestly not knowing that there could be a problem.

Thranduil looked up and smoothly intervened. "No, meluieg, Lorna was just showing us how to use this kind of opener."

"I'm sure she's better at it than I am. I always have to hold the bottle between my knees with that kind before pulling the cork out; those give terrible leverage. But at least they're cheap," she quipped. "Excuse me, I forgot to bring clean clothes in there," she said, swiftly grabbing the needed items before disappearing again into the bathroom.

Well, if Earlene had a hard time with it, Lorna was hopeless. "Forget this," she muttered, grabbing the hand-towel off the handle of the mini-fridge door. Wrapping it around the bottle, she braced the neck against the edge of the dresser and hit it as hard as she could.

The glass snapped cleanly, and when she took the towel away, she found a smooth, even break. "There. Now we just have to drink the whole bottle, which, wow, what a hardship." She grabbed a glass and held the towel over it, slowly pouring the wine. It would filter out any glass particulates that might have managed to get into the wine. There was nothing quite like breaking glass to cool one's temper, though she'd be much happier if she could just go smash the empty bottle.

Earlene reemerged from the bathroom in time to see the...proceedings. Her eyes widened in disbelief. It's a fucking wine bottle, for god's sake...really? With a...towel? This was really close to the French toast episode, and the last thing she needed to see right now.

Meluieg, if you can possibly manage, I would be very grateful if you could not react to this. I will explain at a later time. Could you play along as though this were somehow normal? Please?

Taking another deep breath, she returned to the bathroom because that's where...combs were. Sure. She walked to the toilet and lifted the towel. THIS IS YOUR FUCKING FAULT, she said in her mind, as she pointed to the disturbingly bizarre face. And with another great sigh she came out for a third time, combing her hair. "Pour me a glass," she said. For Thranduil, she would do anything in her power. If you can't beat 'em, join 'em.

---

Song references:

"Imagine", by John Lennon

"Mrs. Robinson", by Simon and Garfunkel

"Meldis" is an affectionate term that indicates a close female friend.