*G A Mercy enters office with an armful of papers, which she quickly deposits upon her desk as she looks guiltily at her readers* Gracious, I simply cannot believe that I have been this long without updating my story! A little over two months…! *shakes head slowly* Apologies for having taken so long, I have gotten very caught up in all the work I have on my plate at the moment. There is far too much for me to be worrying about, summer though it is. Exams ended and then I took up a full time summer job as well as a summer internship and things have gotten a little hectic on my end.
Surreal: Fabulous! Feel free to ask questions at any time, I love them! Lots and lots of questions; they truly help me in developing my stories. In attempting to answer your questions I am first going to begin by saying, no, this story is not completely AU. Or at least, it is as far from AU as I can possibly make it with whatever little talent I might somehow unwittingly posses. ^^ I have to thank you though, when I looked at your question about Celebrían I realized that my own story timeline was off. Celebrían is mentioned in my story as being the wife of Elrond and having born him the twins and Arwen Undomíel. Glorfindel has returned to Middle Earth around the year 2520 of the Third Age, I think would be a good date to put him at; Celebrían departed Middle Earth in the year 2510 of the Third Age. So they've just barely missed each other, you see. Allowing a smooth relationship to bloom between Glorfindel and Elrond, how convenient, don't you think? Christopher Tolkien did once make the comment that his illustrious father, once he had decided Glorfindel of Gondolin and Glorfindel of Imladris to be the same dashing elf, suggested that Glorfindel returned to Middle Earth late in the Second Age of the world, instead of in the Third Age as I have put him. That's why many people seem to believe that Glorfindel was at the Last Alliance Battle, I however have found no mention of his name there, so I am going to conveniently ignore Christopher Tolkien's suggestion and press on in my own manner. As to Séremela's comment, well, Erlómiel is actually my healer in this story. Séremela really doesn't have much of a concept of illness because she's more of a house servant of Elrond's, I believe; I'm not quite sure what she does yet. Hopefully I've answered your questions clearly, let me know if I've only made things worse. Thank you for your review!
tenshiamanda: I quite agree, poor Glorfindel. I hate to be so cruel, but it's all for a very good reason…because I said so, of course. *winks* And believe me, I am truly grateful that I am not the keeper of all of the LotR kitties I'm sure it's quite a task. *grins* Thank you for your review!
melissa greenleaf: Perhaps Séremela simply is not gifted in the bestowing of names? She strikes me as being a trifle oblivious to feelings at times, but she is young, I believe she will overcome this obliviousness. I apologize for making you wait so very long for this chapter, the delay was by no means intentional. Thank you for your review!
Songelf88 and G.H.S the warg: Many thanks; it is gratifying to know that at least one person is checking up on me from time to time. Promise to let me know when that dictionary of yours informs you that I've made a hideous mistake in my elvish? *winks* Thank you for your review!
Tidmag: Have I the pleasure of speaking with a fellow GW fan? *smiles* How lovely. Trowa always was my favorite character; I found him quite fascinating. And I'll admit that his Japanese "name" of Nanashi gave me the idea for Essëlaundur. I was pleased to see that a name meaning "no name" could be constructed in Elvish as well as it could be in Japanese. As for getting Essëlaundur to Imladris, I am working on it, however, it will take several more chapters even after this one, I'm afraid. Not that I want the traveling to drag on forever, but there are several important details that I have to fit in before Glorfindel arrives in the House of Elrond. Believe me when I say that it tries my patience as well, I desperately wish to get on with the romantic development. *winks* Unfortunately it can't be rushed if I ever want Essëlaundur's memories to return. I'm doing my best to plant subtle clues for my OC's throughout these chapters. Thank you for your review!
Karaoke Superstar: Wil, darling, what can I say aside from thank you? (Glorfindel: *muffled in the background* I can think of something to say. Do not compliment Mercy like that or her ego will surely reach enormous proportions! Mercy: *smiles sweetly* You can simply ignore the muse for the moment.) I can assure you I'm far from Shakespeare, however. Do not let Duo razz on you. The trick to dealing with these muses is to appear competent and threatening, even when you aren't, otherwise they will walk all over you (as some of us well know)! *winks* And as for cat sitting…*grins* Thank you for your review!
Chapter Three
When he woke next it was to see a different dark-haired elf maiden seated near him, this female was quite obviously older than his Sermë. As his eyes met hers Essëlaundur blinked not once while holding her gaze for several unnerving minutes, almost afraid that if he did she would find him to be untrustworthy. For this elf appeared to be studying him fairly intently as though she was trying to decide what to make of him. So he remained tense for a moment, unable or unwilling to break her sapphire bright stare, but allowed himself to relax as her mouth curved up into a delicate smile.
"Good morning to you, lucky traveler," she greeted him softly, but with an apparent warmth accompanying her words.
"G-good m-m-morn-ing," Essëlaundur returned her greeting uncertainly, mentally wincing at the sound of his voice. He knew that his speech was not as it usually was, though he could not quite say how it was that he knew this, but the stammer and the difficulty he discovered he had forming words was not natural to him. Essëlaundur was appalled and horrified to find that he could barely speak to this female.
If his stammer surprised her, however, the she elf gave no outward indication of it; regarding him just as sweetly as she had before he had spoken. Essëlaundur continued to look at her, but he turned part of his attention to his surroundings.
He was quite clearly in a camp full of elves, and he vaguely recalled the young elf maiden, Sermë, telling him that he had been taken in by a group of traveling elves. The sky above them was lightening slowly with the approaching dawn and there was much moving about of the company; elves talking amongst each other, eating their morning meal, making whatever various preparations were required to break camp in a short time. He could just catch their movements out of the corner of his eye, for his bedroll and position seemed to be situated slightly outside of the closer knit circle, for he was a stranger.
Turning his head away from the new elf near him he searched for a sign of Sermë, the younger maiden with whom he had spoken in the night.
The elf with him at the moment apparently realized what was going through his mind and spoke up once more. "Captain Narmondor, our company leader, intends to start out soon. It was his daughter, Séremela, who was with you in the night, and I believe that she is with him now," she informed him. "Séremela will return shortly, I am sure. My name is Erlómiel, and I have also been watching over you with Séremela; I am a healer of the House of Elrond who travels with the company."
"Erlómiel," Essëlaundur repeated slowly, trying to put her face and name to memory.
"I live with the Captain, and am, I believe, close in his council, so if you are indeed to continue on to Imladris with us you shall most probably see a good deal of me. I should think you will, at least, for you are not yet fully healed, and I would like to keep a close eye on your condition; you were not far from the Halls of Mandos when we found you washed up upon the beach."
Essëlaundur shuddered at her words, though they were gentle and considerate. She spoke the plain truth, he could see, and he thought that she must usually do so. Erlómiel's softness might dull any painful news, but it seemed that she would always speak it honestly and not sacrificing truth for feelings in important situations.
"Séremela has told me that you are Essëlaundur," she continued. "Not the kindliest of names to have been given, but the child is quite positive that you will not carry it for too long."
Essëlaundur blinked and remained silent as Erlómiel surveyed him thoughtfully. "She seems very confident about your ability to recover, though she knows you not at all; yes, she has told me also of your inability to remember anything of your past," Erlómiel stated. "I feel, however, that her confidence will be true in the end; her feelings quite often are, though this you would not know."
Again Essëlaundur remained awkwardly silent. He was not quite on edge but also not quite at ease in Erlómiel's presence. The healer, however, appeared to at least be making an effort to make him comfortable with her. She at least endeavored to keep the conversation between them alive, though Essëlaundur thought privately that she did not seem the type to be used to long discussions and was perhaps more inclined to silence herself.
As she spoke of his memories, or in this case the lack there of, Essëlaundur was once again aware of a painful void inside of him. He felt that he knew both many great joys and great sorrows, yet he could remember neither a single instance of grief, or elation. He was empty, bereft of anything that would make him an individual. He knew no parents, no home, and no name of his own. His misery must have shown quite plainly on his face, for Erlómiel's eyes positively radiated her sympathy.
"I realize that it might be painful for you to speak of it," she said her lilting voice becoming rather soothing to him, "but I would discuss this with you with your permission."
Essëlaundur hesitated but nodded slowly, realizing that he would have to speak of such things sooner or later, and it might as well be with Erlómiel who was kind and sympathetic to his feelings.
"You truly remember…nothing?" Erlómiel questioned tentatively, speaking her question slowly as though mentally sending out emotional feelers to detect whether Essëlaundur was honestly in earnest about discussing his state of illness, so that she could pull back quickly if he became disturbed or distraught by the topic. "Not a single thing has returned to you since you first awoke? You know no city as home? No family?"
Essëlaundur shook his head sadly. "N-n-noth-ing," he agreed.
"And you would not know what you might have been doing sailing upon the seas perhaps?" Erlómiel inquired. "For we believe that you were washed up from the wreckage of a ship in a storm some days ago."
Again Essëlaundur was forced to shake his head helplessly. He could not imagine what he would have been doing in a ship upon the ocean. As far as he knew he had never before sailed in a ship, of course, as far as he knew he might have been a Mariner and simply could not recall through the blank in his mind.
Erlómiel's sigh was so soft that it was nearly undetectable and might have been mistaken for a simple light exhalation were it not for the situation. "Never mind, mellon nîn," she smiled slightly in an attempted encouraging manner. "You need not remember now."
She paused, as if debating whether she truly wanted to say what was on her mind, but pressed forward with a startlingly keen resolve; she endeavored to be a healer, she had a duty to be honest with this elf.
"I rarely treat anything other than small physical wounds, those which are inflicted upon the living body," she admitted. "I know nothing of the depths of the mind. I was placed within Narmondor's house as a healer for his son not because it was thought that I could mend his broken will to live, but because he might have taken some comfort from my presence as a healer."
Essëlaundur's brow furrowed and she looked upon him sadly. "I know it makes little sense to you what I have said, knowing nothing of Narmondor or the troubles of his family. My point, Essëlaundur, was that I cannot heal your mind; I have no such power. I have barely even heard of this illness of yours, let alone know it through any small amount of study. What I have heard might be of some consolation, or it might be of none."
"An individual's memory might return to him after a period of perhaps a week, or a month, or it could even take many years. At times it is said to be returned in pieces, which must be carefully stored and accumulated to possess a full memory once again, and at times it is returned instantly, completely intact without so much as a single hole or lost detail. And sometimes…" here her voice wavered, but once again astounded Essëlaundur with the strength of her single-minded determination. "And sometimes it is never returned."
"N-n-never?" Essëlaundur repeated in despair. To think that he might never know who he truly was. Would he forever be nameless?
"I am sorry that I can guarantee you nothing, mellon nîn," Erlómiel murmured mournfully, her eyes averted. Then she suddenly looked up, the sapphires of her iris burning with a brilliant passion. "But please, listen to me when I tell you to take hope in the future, one never knows what events it might bring. Even if you should not remember who you were there is a chance for you to be again. If fate would have it you might rebuild yourself to be exactly the same without even realizing it. You have a chance now to be whoever you want to be if you were unhappy with yourself in the past."
Essëlaundur's brow was furrowed as he regarded her thoughtfully. He felt that for an elf like Erlómiel who was young yet, such a loss might not be as devastating, but it seemed that he had a gap spanning many thousands of years. Yet, if he had been unhappy, here was a chance. Erlómiel knew what this meant and he would think on it very carefully indeed.
"Some of us, when we are in misery with ourselves, are forced to rebuild our lives the hard way," Erlómiel whispered as if in regret. "We have not the luxury of being blissfully unaware of what we were, or our disgraceful actions. You, Essëlaundur, you have that luxury."
Essëlaundur was certain that Erlómiel meant not to imply that he had been disgraceful in his unknown past, for she knew him not. He felt, more than knew, that she was talking from long experience with such matters, though he had trouble understanding what an elven lady so gentle and beautiful as Erlómiel ever had done to be regretful for.
"Or, if you would rather," Erlómiel continued hesitantly, "there are some who might posses the ability to heal your mind. The Lord Elrond, it is said, can often see briefly into the minds of others. He was one of the greatest healers some years ago. His skills of late, however, are not at the level they once were, for they have not been practiced for some time."
Essëlaundur heard Erlómiel's words, but understood also what she was not saying. These individuals who might possess the skills could be willing to help him, but they would also want to study him. They would want to understand all that they could about his condition, and it would be a long road to recovery for him, for they would want to perfect their knowledge of the supposed illness before they surrendered a willing test subject.
He frowned and thought that he would not, no matter what, allow some healer to rifle through his personal thoughts and life like he was an open book. In that moment Essëlaundur was, for the most part, determined to keep all of his suspicions to himself. Let others suppose what they desired, but his past was his and his alone until the time that he willingly chose to share it with another.
Something of his inner thoughts must have shown in his eyes, for Erlómiel relaxed visibly, though Essëlaundur could not remember at what point she had become so tense. "I will not attempt to sway you to any path," she told him. "Make your own decisions as you will."
"If Séremela has her way, you will come to Imladris with us, and perhaps come to call it home," Erlómiel murmured. "Imladris is a fine place to live when one is seeking to rebuild a shattered life; it is very restful and your heart will forever be at peace there."
Essëlaundur was truly grateful for Sermë, without her he knew not what he would do, or to whom he would turn in his desperation. Sermë and Erlómiel had saved his life and kept his fëa from the cold, forbidding halls of Mandos. Though, as he thought on it, Essëlaundur felt an odd pang of regret that he had not been released through death. The regret shook his confidence and he wondered briefly if he might have been miserable in his past, as Erlómiel had suggested.
"Séremela has only to convince Narmondor to take you in," Erlómiel said thoughtfully. "He's rather gruff on the outside, that is almost a requirement of one in his position, and you will always be prompt and orderly while in Narmondor's household; he runs things on a tight schedule, you know." She smiled in amusement. "People might not always like Narmondor, but they respect him, for he is fair if it kills him."
Essëlaundur's smile brightened, and he hoped that Narmondor did not require a great deal of convincing to agree to having him, for he would have hated to think that he was intruding upon another's life and was unwelcome where he might seek to stay.
As he was thinking of it a shadow fell over him and Essëlaundur realized that the sun had now risen in the sky. When he glanced up to see the shadow's master he saw the bright face of a smiling maiden whom he already thought of as his sister in his mind.
Sermë was holding a small bowl in her hands and a cloth was draped casually over one arm. She was dressed quite simply for travel in a long, loose fitting tunic and soft jerkin and leggings. Her hair was tamed and pulled back from her face, tucked up in several basic braids.
"Good morning, gwador," she greeted him exuberantly. "Things do look so much more cheerful in the light of day, do they not?"
Essëlaundur smiled at her uncertainly and nodded his head in slight agreement, but he could hardly say if Sermë recognized his response, for she was already turned toward the healer sitting nearby.
"And a good morning to you as well, Erlómiel," Séremela continued. "I am pleased to see that you and Essëlaundur have had some opportunity to speak, for now you can back up my assurances to father when you speak with him later."
"The Captain wishes to see me?" Erlómiel inquired, raising a delicate brow questioningly.
Séremela shrugged slightly, mindful of her movements with the bowl she carried. "I was telling him that Essëlaundur appeared, to my eyes, greatly improved this morning. For he has some healthy color in his complexion now, and I thought that he should be able to keep pace with us. However, not being a healer myself, I suggested that he get your more professional opinion."
It sounded as though Séremela wished to say more upon the subject of her conversation with Narmondor, but that she was restraining herself, possibly, for not wanting to mention it before Essëlaundur and the blonde elf worried about what that could mean.
Erlómiel sighed and rose to her feet in what appeared to be a single fluidly graceful movement. "Then I shall seek the Captain now," she declared, surveying Séremela and Essëlaundur with the knowing smile of one about to impart some great wisdom upon the young and impressionably minded.
"When a confrontation is inevitable it is always best for you to do the confronting on the other party's time and not on yours," she told them sagely. "It often throws them temporarily off balance if they are not suspecting such from you, and it allows you a small, early advantage."
Séremela laughed in delight. "As you say, Erlómiel," she agreed. "I believe that I would take advantage of any advantage I could win over father."
"Such are my feelings as well," Erlómiel murmured. "So I would take my leave of you for the moment. Perhaps we shall speak again later, Essëlaundur," Erlómiel told him.
Essëlaundur nodded briefly and watched as she moved swiftly toward the activity of the inner camp. Erlómiel was not at all what he would expect; there was something about her that did not seem completely true to character. Yet he could not fault her, for she was as sweet a lady as he could hope to meet. He certainly hoped that he would see a good deal of her later.
G A Mercy: Boring chapter, I know, but at least it has a little more substance to it this time. I've been rather displeased with the length of my last two chapters. They were rather short for what is normal for me. *shakes head* I'm also beginning to play with Erlómiel's character. I have some interesting ideas for her, but I am not sure that they will all come out in this story. *shrugs thoughtfully* We shall have to wait and see.
*the office is rather suspiciously silent*
G A Mercy: *glances up and frowns when she spots her muse creeping cautiously around the office lifting pillows and peering under couches* Glorfindel?
Glorfindel: *jumps in surprise before composing self* Yes Mercy?
G A Mercy: What in the name of the Valar are you doing?
Glorfindel: *attempts to keep self from looking guilty, but fails miserably* Nothing.
G A Mercy: *raises eyebrow* Oh, really?
Glorfindel: *fidgets nervously under Mercy's stare before breaking down into hysterics* Mercy, I apologize profoundly! I simply cannot think of what could have happened to them! The little beasts must be off wrecking havoc somewhere but I cannot even begin to imagine where. Chaos and destruction seem to follow them like a dark cloud, but I was only ignoring them for a moment and then I realized how blissfully silent it was and when I turned back to them they had disappeared! I truly didn't mean to loose them –
G A Mercy: *interrupts in confusion* Glorfindel…is it permissible to ask what exactly it is that you are talking about?
Glorfindel: Your devilish little kitten monsters. I cannot find them anywhere. *looks mournful and then very offended as Mercy bursts out laughing* I fail to see what is so amusing about my distressing situation. *crosses arms petulantly*
G A Mercy: Didn't you remember? Wil offered to cat sit for us so that we might work on this chapter. The kitties are with her at the moment.
Glorfindel: Well, I – but – I wish you had told me that sooner!
G A Mercy: Well, I did think that you had remembered, mellon.
Glorfindel: I have been in a state of panic all afternoon over the fate of the little horrors and you mean to tell me that they are being watched over by another? I have been wasting all of this time hunting for them when I could have been relaxing?!
G A Mercy: *looks at readers and Glorfindel thoughtfully* Perhaps it would just be best if I simply skip to the part where I beg for reviews, opinions, questions, comments, suggestions and whatever else you might care to offer me after having read this chapter…
Glorfindel: *ignoring Mercy and the reviewers for the most part in favor of ranting* All of this time, Mercy! I might have been resting! Do you know that I haven't slept for three days?! Those kittens certainly do not pause in their destructiveness simply because I desire sleep! Oh, no! They would use the chance to create even more mischief. Three days!
G A Mercy: I believe that I shall be going as well. Somehow a sleep deprived Glorfindel does not seem safe…Please remember to review? I promise that the fourth Chapter will come sooner than this one has.
Glorfindel: Three days!
