Disclaimer: This is a work of fanfiction. I do not own any of the character, places, names, or anything associated with the works of J.R.R Tolkien or the Lord of the Rings (books or movie, whatever). My characters are Anita, Leila, and Arlandria and that is all.
Author's Note: I know this is a lot of exposition guys, hang with me though. Legolas shows up next chapter i swear it
Chapter 4: Take Me Under
After a night of not sleeping, Anita knew the next day was going to suck. Even wrapped in her own little cocoon made from the heavy down comforter, she had been all too aware of the sun coming up and over the horizon. It took all her willpower to force her exhausted self out of bed and to get ready for the day. The only nice thing about her room here was that she had her own adjoined bathroom instead of having to share with Leila like they had back in Tucson, affording her the luxury of peeing in peace without her sister banging on the door.
A knock at the door alerted her that, as she feared, people here were early risers. It had been something about Leila that had always annoyed her, but apparently everyone here was that way. Changing her clothes with lightning speed and answering the door, Ani was surprised to find none other than her fair haired twin standing opposite her across the doorway.
"Good lord, you look like hell. Didn't you sleep?"
"Good morning to you too Lei," Rolling her eyes, Ani stepped back into her room and left the door open, an invitation for her sister to come in.
"I figured we could walk down to breakfast together," Leila's chipper morning attitude was welcome today, if only because it was something that still reminded Ani of every single morning before school back home.
" K," Ani replied shortly and started to tie her Vans onto her feet. She knew she was inside the house still technically but something about the stone floors made it feel like you needed to put shoes on before leaving the room.
"Is that what you are wearing?" This question wasn't all that alien coming from Leila, who had never approved of the rocker/skater style that Anita had donned since she could make her own outfit choices. Leila of course was always the chic femme type, like she was proud of her ovaries or something.
"Um yeah why?" Ani looked into the giant circular piece of polished silver that functioned as her rooms' mirror. She was dressed in her normal attire; red tank top, black jeans, and her Vans.
"Well, uh, you are going to stick out a little dontcha think?" Leila was dressed in a pastel skirt that fell to the floor and a very simple solid colored green shirt, a far closer match to the style of clothing her family had been wearing yesterday than what Ani had on. And as much as she didn't want to admit it, Leila was right as usual. Between the skin showing top and tight pants, not to mention the neon purple that was sporadically streaked through her hair, and top it all off with an eyebrow ring? Yeah Ani was going to stick out just a little bit. After a long moment of silent thought, she reached up and unscrewed the ball on her eyebrow ring, took out the little round circle, and set it on the vanity.
"Really? That's it?"
"I'm not going to let this place change me. Just because it's part of who I am doesn't mean it's what I have to become,"
"Ani, this place still seems to be in the Medieval times…" Leila's sentence was cut off by a snort from her sister.
"Tell me about it, I feel stupid for having brought my iPod with me, they don't even have lights!" And with that statement cutting the discussion about her attire short, Ani exited her room and a few seconds later her twin followed. Leila however continued down the hall ahead of Anita, not bothering to wait for the young page girl who had been guiding them around the day before. Of course it as more in Leila's nature to already know such things, her ability to memorize things with little difficulty was no doubt why her grades were so much better than her artistically inclined other half. The fair haired twin practically skipped down the steps and through the hall that led to the dining room, it left Anita green with envy that she couldn't be as happy-go-lucky as her sister always was. Rounding the corner into the dining room after her sister, Anita was surprised to see that the twins were in fact late to breakfast. Frowning, she glanced out the massive window to see the sun was barely making it over the mountain caps… early riser seemed like an understatement for her family.
"Christ don't you people sleep?"
"Sparingly," Elrond replied bemused as he took a drink from his cup, " As you will find when your own Elven qualities develop, the need for sleep becomes less and less."
"Pssh, not Anita, she would sleep all day if you let her," Leila said as her sat down at the table and proceeded to serve herself a hearty breakfast of fresh fruit and some sweet smelling bread. Anita glared at Lei as she sat down across from her sister, and grabbed only a deep red apple from the array of fruits after making a face at the bread.
"Anita," The sound of her name drew her attention towards Elladan, who sat with a frown on his face as he scrutinized her clothing. "Perhaps after breakfast we could visit the dressmaker and find you more suitable and comfortable clothing."
She could practically feel Leila's 'I told you so' expression scalding her from across the table. "I'm comfortable like this."
"Such clothing is not acceptable for a young lady."
"Is it acceptable for me to not give a fuck?" Somewhere inside she knew the phrase 'give a fuck' probably didn't mean anything to him, but she was hoping her tone got the message across. They stared tensely at each other for a second before Arwen's even voice broke up the silence.
"What plans do you have for your first day in Rivendell?"
"Oh I want to know everything," Leila replied a little too enthusiastically for Anita's taste, " anything you guys can tell me. Language, history, culture, literature. I want to know it all." Lei was like a kid in a candy store, she had already soaked up so much knowledge from their world and now there was a whole new one for her to learn everything about.
"I can take you to the library when our meal is finished and give you a rudimentary breakdown of culture and history if you would like." Leila was so excited by Elrond's offer she temporary seemed to forget how to talk and just nodded spastically.
"Yeah well that sounds…awful," Ani mumbled mostly to herself. She had only just survived twelve academic years of history and science and all that crap, like hell she was going to throw herself back into it. "I just want to wander about and get my bearings."
"Would you like a guide? I would be happy to…"
"Nooo." Anita cut her father's offer short mid-sentence. " I really just want some time by myself to think. "
While Elladan seemed unpleased with the answer, he didn't challenge the decision, and when breakfast was finished he allowed her to leave in silence.
"It isn't you," Leila said quietly as her sullen twin disappeared from view. When everyone still seated at the table gave her a look of blatant disbelief she clarified, " it isn't only you.."
"Your sister is very spirited." Gandalf didn't seem to be able to contain his amusement at Anita's strange behavior.
"It's the way it she's always been. Her therapists say she only feels emotions in extremes; she doesn't feel angry she feels rage, she isn't sad just she's depressed, when she likes something she loves it. If Ani was capable of just been upset with you, she would be. That's the way it's always been." This seemed to be Leila's lot in life, explaining away her sister's strange behaviors. What she didn't tell her family was that unlike Anita's pendulum of extreme emotion, Leila suffered from the almost exact opposite problem. Yes she felt emotions, but nothing like Ani did. It was more like happy indifference to any of the outside forces that would normally mess with a person's dispositions.
"What is this therapist you mentioned?"
Leila had to consider her words before answering her fathers question, because while therapists were a mainstay in Tucson, it would be a very new concept here. "They are doctors for your…spirit?"
"I do not understand…your sister, her spirit is broken?"
"It's hard to explain. I got picked on a lot growing up, mostly for being a bookworm, and me being bullied was something Ani wasn't going to stand for. She got in fights constantly, beating up the kids who were messing with me. Well the school told our mom that unless Anita started going to a therapist to work out her fighting issues they would expel her…and that looks really bad for second grader. So that's what mom did, took Ani to a therapist. The doctor suggested different activities for Anita to do to vent out some of her anger…art and music…and they worked. As it turned out she had a talent for both."
Leila continued to gab away with the family as Anita continued to wander aimlessly around. The old world houses were very different from the brick, cement, and adobe that Ani had grown so used to, at least they appreciated the merits of breezeways and atriums here. Architecture wasn't a passion of Anita's but the art that was literally ingrained in every doorway or crowning, everything was painted or carved with the utmost detail. The longer Anita wandered around Rivendell, the less she was focused on learning her way around and the more interested she became in the art that was everywhere around her. She was so entranced by art she was seeing that she didn't have the first clue which part of the enormous house her family occupied she had wandered into.
And that was when she saw it.
Clearly she had wandered into what would be considered the music den because occupying the center of the room was a beautiful black concert piano. Anita was temporarily stunned by the sight of it. It wasn't something that had been made in someone's basement, it was a Yamaha grand concert piano... and it cost a fortune. It also certainly wasn't something that could be made in a back woods medieval place like this. The reality of this understanding slowly sank in.
Elladan had been to her world.
Elladan had been to her world and bought a ridiculously expensive piano.
Ani stared at the piano for a few minutes as she processed the new information. Slowly she walked over and ran the tips of her fingers over the beautifully crafted instrument. The cover for the keys was locked, but a quick check in the piano bench revealed the key was hidden in the most obvious place. There was a strange sense of home sitting at the piano, her pale skin still in stark contrast to the white and black keys. It was too natural for her fingers to find the notes to the "Moonlight Sonata", and the deep rich notes of the piano began to fill the small den around her.
"You play quite well." The sound of the voice behind her caused Anita to yelp and her fingers to find sour notes on the scale. Gandalf chuckled softly, "I apologize. I forgot that your hearing is not quite developed yet, I did not mean to scare you."
"Nah it's okay," Ani replied composing herself, " my mom used to do it to me all the time. Scared the wits out of Leila and I at least once a day." She placed her fingers back on the correct keys, but the music no longer seemed to want to be played, it wasn't flowing through her like it had a moment ago, so instead she sat musicless ay the piano. "Gandalf can I ask you something?"
"Of course my dear, I will answer any question the best I can." The older man came and sat next to the younger girl at the piano bench.
"Leila said that a wizard was the only on that could find the bridge between universes, " Ani was choosing her words with extra care, the sentence sounded absolutely insane to herself. Gandalf anticipated where the question was headed, and his face slowly turned to a deep frown. "That means it was you who took my pregnant mother to Tucson. Why?"
"Because that is the way it had to be." His cryptic response earned him a dramatic and exasperated eye roll. "I know you have questions about the events involving your parents, but the only people who can answer them are your parents. Lord Elladan bought this for you, you know."
Gandalf rapidly changed the conversation from how her pregnant mother ended up in Tucson to the origins of the piano. It was beginning to grate Ani in the wrong way that no one wanted to talk about it, like the subject was taboo for something. Obviously her father's family was filthy rich by the enormous mansion house and this concert piano, had her mother been a servant or something and they sent her away to cover a scandal? And was a piano going to make up for it if that was the case? As she mused to herself, the old wizard and stood up and was beginning to make his exit from the room when Anita's voice stopped him.
"I made a lot of excuses for him growing up, and for every excuse I made Leila had a thousand more. Prison, witness protection, insane asylum, POW… you name it. I always figured there had to be some huge pressing reason he wasn't there to help raise us. Come to find out that he has been here, just hanging out. He missed out on the first eighteen years of my life, my entire childhood, and I have hated him every day for it. It is going to take a lot more than showing up now with a lot of money and a piano to make up for all that."
"A fact I am sure he is well aware of." Anita didn't respond to Gandalf's statement, and the older man didn't wait around for a reply. He left her there to consider in silence and alone. After a long time, Anita finally stood up from the piano bench and slid the cover back over the keys. She pulled the small silver key from her pocket to lock the cover, and rolled it back and forth between her thumb and index finger, thinking as the watched the lights glint of the shiny metal. Slipping the key back into the pocket of her jeans, Anita left the piano cover unlocked; who knew, maybe she would come back to it.
Take Me Under- Three Days Grace