Brownie points for whoever can spot the two books of the Bible named in
this chapter. Even more brownie points for anyone who can figure out what's
up with Sivi and her family.- EHAB
Andrea sat by Legolas' bedside in Gondor's Tower, no longer weeping. There is a point at which even your tears will abandon you on the simple premise that your company is too melancholy for their tastes. This is the Deep Sorrow, such as Nienna is concerned with. Yet Nienna is lofty and concerned with a philanthropic pity for others, not with the guilt that comes as a result of having spawned an evil such as would provoke this pity. Andrea was on the other side of the coin.
"It's my fault," she told Sivi sorrowfully, her dark-rimmed eyes fixed on the alabaster visage of her elven-prince as he lay motionless on his long, cold bed, enshrouded to his heavily bandage-swathed chest by a starkly crisp silver sheet and a wine-red coverlet.
"Andrea, this is no one's fault," Sivi said gently. "Legolas did a very heroic deed, perhaps even an epic one. It was his choice to do it, not yours."
"Don't you dare say it's his fault! It's not his fault! It's mine! It's my fault!"
"I said that it was no one's fault," Sivi repeated.
"But if it weren't for me, he wouldn't even be here! None of us would! He's here because he fell in love with me!" Andrea insisted.
"Is it your fault that he fell in love with you?" Sivi asked sensibly.
"Yes!" Andrea fired back. "I made the wish to go... somewhere else. I wished to find someone who cared about me, and my wish came true. If I hadn't made that wish, then maybe -"
"Andrea, listen to me, and then listen to yourself. This is what I just heard you say - correct me if I'm wrong: 'Sivi, I blame myself for being lonely.'"
"You don't get it! You don't get it! None of this should have happened! It's not in the books!"
"The books?" Sivi questioned, taken off her guard.
"The books! 'The Hobbit'! 'The Lord of the Rings'! 'The Silmarillion'! the books! It's not in the books! Look, I'll show you! I'll prove it!" Andrea cried madly, yanking up her bag from the floor beside her ornately carved cherry-wood chair and flipping it quickly open.
Rummaging around, she pushed aside her sketchbook and "tool-box" and pulled out a slightly battered hard-back copy of Tolkien's "The Hobbit." She began skimming the pages with a speed that betrayed how many hours she had spent perusing a certain section of the book. Then, she waved it half- triumphantly, half-despairingly in front of Sivi's nose.
"See! Read that whole page about the capture of the Dwarves. Am I there? Did I spill water on Glóin? Does it say that I was there and spilt water on Glóin?"
"No, I admit that it does not say that, but..." Sivi paused in deep thought. "Does it say that Legolas and Morniwen were engaged?"
"No, it left that part out," Andrea said, puzzled, "but what does that have to do with m -"
"It may just possibly have everything to do with you," Sivi replied slowly. "Think: Tolkien left out Legolas' entire character in this book, because it was not relevant to this story. If the fact that the King of Mirkwood had a son was not relevant, why should the fact that a young girl spilt paint- water on Glóin be relevant? Why should Tolkien not have simply left that fact out the way he left out Legolas?"
"But you can't prove -"
"Actually, I believe that I can," Sivi said suddenly. "In the 'Lord of the Rings' trilogy, did Legolas marry Morniwen?"
"... No."
"Why not?"
"Huh?"
"Why not? Don't you see, Andrea? If you were not there in the book 'The Hobbit' to break apart Legolas' engagement with Morniwen, then why does Legolas not marry her in the 'Lord of the Rings' trilogy?"
"Maybe it wasn't relevant information," Andrea said sarcastically.
"Sam's marriage was relevant. So were Aragorn's and Faramir's. Even the marriages of Merry and Pippin were mentioned - but Legolas' wasn't."
"Oh..." Andrea said quietly, thinking hard.
"I think, my dear friend," said Sivi softly, "that in these books Tolkien treated your character exactly the way he treated Legolas in 'The Hobbit': you were there but not mentioned."
"But even if it was in the books, it's still my fault for BEING in the books, because I wasn't SUPPOSED to be in the books."
"Andrea, it's NOT -"
"IT IS! IT IS! GET OUT OF HERE AND LEAVE ME ALONE! IT IS!" Andrea screamed, not even noticing that her din made Legolas stir and turn his saffron-gilt head.
Sivi said nothing at all, but only looked at Andrea for a long moment, her eyes deep and hurt. Then she rose and silently walked to the door. Turning, she said in an expressionless voice,
"I'll send Thranduil in to chaperone you."
"And then you'll go straight to Gil-galad and cry because I was mean," Andrea shouted, upset and not thinking her words through. "Fine! Go cry! But I don't have anybody to cry with, and it's MY FAULT, do you hear me? It's MY FAULT!"
Her eyes misted, Sivi said only,
"OK."
Then she left.
On her way through the halls, Sivi spotted Thranduil and quietly entreated him to go and watch over Legolas' wounded form with Andrea. He agreed instantly and hurried off to comply. Then Sivi sought Gil-galad.
She found him with her father. Joseph looked up at his daughter and smiled. She stood in the doorway shifting her weight.
"Looking for me, Punkin?" he grinned.
Guiltily, Sivi coughed.
"Er, um, actually, I was looking for Ereinion - but - but you can help me, too, Daddy," she added quickly.
"Sweetie, you're not hurting my feelings," Joseph said amiably. "You have the right to ask other guys for help besides me."
With another nervous cough, Sivi pulled out a chair and sat down a little too hard. Gil-galad took one of her hands, and Joseph took the other.
"What troubles you, Melui?" Gil-galad asked gently.
"What do you do," Sivi murmured, carefully addressing the question to neither male in particular, "when a friend is hurting, and they blame themselves for something that they didn't do, and they won't listen to reason?"
"Andrea," Joseph and Gil-galad said together.
"Well... yeah."
"Let me speak with her," Gil-galad suggested firmly.
"She wouldn't listen to me," Sivi said uncertainly.
"She'll listen to me, I promise you, Melui," Gil-galad answered with a strange smile.
"So you are the one Melui calls friend," Gil-galad said coldly from behind Andrea's chair.
"I guess so," Andrea replied dully.
"You've been crying," he observed.
"Yeah," she shrugged.
"Why so?"
"Huh? I've been crying because my Pretty One is hurt, and he might not get better, and he has to get better, and it's all my fault!" she burst out.
"So what are you planning to do about it?" he asked bluntly.
"What?"
"If you've caused this, hadn't you better fix it?" he demanded.
Thranduil stared at the Elven-king.
"How? What can I do?" Andrea asked piteously.
"That's your affair, not mine, but I don't see how wallowing in self-pity is going to help."
"I'm not -" Andrea began, but then she stopped. "Well, I guess I am, really," she whispered, startled.
"Let me tell you a secret," Gil-galad said, dropping to his haunches to meet her gaze with kind eyes: "everyone does."
"You're confusing me," Andrea whimpered.
"Everyone indulges their self-love," Gil-galad told her. "You must realize that you are doing it and rise above it. I struggle with this, and so do you. Everyone does. Now, with a mind crystal clear and free from all undue prejudices, tell me how this is your fault."
"Well, uh, did Sivi tell you where we were from?" Andrea asked cautiously.
"She tried to, once, but we were... interrupted in our discussion. She said something about another world."
"Exactly," Andrea said in relief. "We're from a different world. I found this magic tiara in my attic, and I made the wish... to have an adventure and find somebody who loved me. So, the tiara brought me to Middle-Earth, to the forest where Legolas lives, and his father, King Thranduil -"
Thranduil made a strange noise in his throat. Andrea stopped.
"Oh, shoot. Oops."
"Perhaps you mean a different Thranduil," Gil-galad suggested to forestall the genesis of an entirely new conflict.
"No, I recognize him, but, um... um, just forget I told you that."
"But I'm not even married!" Thranduil pointed out urgently.
"Not yet," Andrea sighed. "Let me finish."
Gil-galad gave Thranduil a sympathetic glance. He knew what it was to have a young mortal predict one of the most monumental events in his life.
"Anyway, Thranduil and Legolas decided I could stay at the palace..."
An hour later, the entirety of the tale had been recounted. Andrea fell silent and waited for the two Elves to pass judgment. Thranduil was staring at Legolas' face, thunderstruck. His son... Legolas was his son... Legolas was dying... His son was dying.
Gil-galad was quietly considering these new revelations. At length, the High King spoke.
"Considering your tale as objectively as possible," he told Andrea calmly, "and from as many view points as I can, I cannot find any case or point to justify" - Andrea cringed - "the notion that any of this is your fault."
Startled, Andrea blinked pitifully up at the Elven-king.
"What? But I -"
"You were lonely. You made an innocent wish. Legolas made a choice between you and this Morniwen. He made a choice to follow you to your world -"
"I still gotta figure out how in the world - whichever world - he did that," Andrea muttered.
"He chose to return to Middle-Earth and to accept Lady Galadriel's task."
"He also chose of his own accord to rush the Enemy. You had nothing to do with that," Thranduil added.
He had moved from his chair to the bedside and placed a hand on Legolas' brow.
"That's what Sivi said," Andrea murmured remorsefully. "I shouldn't have yelled at her."
"She understands that you hurt," Gil-galad said kindly. "She knows."
"Ereinion," came Sivi's voice from the doorway.
Gil-galad and Andrea turned. Sivi stood in the door, Joseph behind her. Her face was flushed and her eyes excited. Joseph wore a wide grin as his daughter announced words that fell like soothing rain on Andrea's ears:
"Ereinion," Sivi smiled breathlessly, "we think we may have found a way to save Legolas."
MAGIC REVIEW BUTTON!! ~Phe-chan
Andrea sat by Legolas' bedside in Gondor's Tower, no longer weeping. There is a point at which even your tears will abandon you on the simple premise that your company is too melancholy for their tastes. This is the Deep Sorrow, such as Nienna is concerned with. Yet Nienna is lofty and concerned with a philanthropic pity for others, not with the guilt that comes as a result of having spawned an evil such as would provoke this pity. Andrea was on the other side of the coin.
"It's my fault," she told Sivi sorrowfully, her dark-rimmed eyes fixed on the alabaster visage of her elven-prince as he lay motionless on his long, cold bed, enshrouded to his heavily bandage-swathed chest by a starkly crisp silver sheet and a wine-red coverlet.
"Andrea, this is no one's fault," Sivi said gently. "Legolas did a very heroic deed, perhaps even an epic one. It was his choice to do it, not yours."
"Don't you dare say it's his fault! It's not his fault! It's mine! It's my fault!"
"I said that it was no one's fault," Sivi repeated.
"But if it weren't for me, he wouldn't even be here! None of us would! He's here because he fell in love with me!" Andrea insisted.
"Is it your fault that he fell in love with you?" Sivi asked sensibly.
"Yes!" Andrea fired back. "I made the wish to go... somewhere else. I wished to find someone who cared about me, and my wish came true. If I hadn't made that wish, then maybe -"
"Andrea, listen to me, and then listen to yourself. This is what I just heard you say - correct me if I'm wrong: 'Sivi, I blame myself for being lonely.'"
"You don't get it! You don't get it! None of this should have happened! It's not in the books!"
"The books?" Sivi questioned, taken off her guard.
"The books! 'The Hobbit'! 'The Lord of the Rings'! 'The Silmarillion'! the books! It's not in the books! Look, I'll show you! I'll prove it!" Andrea cried madly, yanking up her bag from the floor beside her ornately carved cherry-wood chair and flipping it quickly open.
Rummaging around, she pushed aside her sketchbook and "tool-box" and pulled out a slightly battered hard-back copy of Tolkien's "The Hobbit." She began skimming the pages with a speed that betrayed how many hours she had spent perusing a certain section of the book. Then, she waved it half- triumphantly, half-despairingly in front of Sivi's nose.
"See! Read that whole page about the capture of the Dwarves. Am I there? Did I spill water on Glóin? Does it say that I was there and spilt water on Glóin?"
"No, I admit that it does not say that, but..." Sivi paused in deep thought. "Does it say that Legolas and Morniwen were engaged?"
"No, it left that part out," Andrea said, puzzled, "but what does that have to do with m -"
"It may just possibly have everything to do with you," Sivi replied slowly. "Think: Tolkien left out Legolas' entire character in this book, because it was not relevant to this story. If the fact that the King of Mirkwood had a son was not relevant, why should the fact that a young girl spilt paint- water on Glóin be relevant? Why should Tolkien not have simply left that fact out the way he left out Legolas?"
"But you can't prove -"
"Actually, I believe that I can," Sivi said suddenly. "In the 'Lord of the Rings' trilogy, did Legolas marry Morniwen?"
"... No."
"Why not?"
"Huh?"
"Why not? Don't you see, Andrea? If you were not there in the book 'The Hobbit' to break apart Legolas' engagement with Morniwen, then why does Legolas not marry her in the 'Lord of the Rings' trilogy?"
"Maybe it wasn't relevant information," Andrea said sarcastically.
"Sam's marriage was relevant. So were Aragorn's and Faramir's. Even the marriages of Merry and Pippin were mentioned - but Legolas' wasn't."
"Oh..." Andrea said quietly, thinking hard.
"I think, my dear friend," said Sivi softly, "that in these books Tolkien treated your character exactly the way he treated Legolas in 'The Hobbit': you were there but not mentioned."
"But even if it was in the books, it's still my fault for BEING in the books, because I wasn't SUPPOSED to be in the books."
"Andrea, it's NOT -"
"IT IS! IT IS! GET OUT OF HERE AND LEAVE ME ALONE! IT IS!" Andrea screamed, not even noticing that her din made Legolas stir and turn his saffron-gilt head.
Sivi said nothing at all, but only looked at Andrea for a long moment, her eyes deep and hurt. Then she rose and silently walked to the door. Turning, she said in an expressionless voice,
"I'll send Thranduil in to chaperone you."
"And then you'll go straight to Gil-galad and cry because I was mean," Andrea shouted, upset and not thinking her words through. "Fine! Go cry! But I don't have anybody to cry with, and it's MY FAULT, do you hear me? It's MY FAULT!"
Her eyes misted, Sivi said only,
"OK."
Then she left.
On her way through the halls, Sivi spotted Thranduil and quietly entreated him to go and watch over Legolas' wounded form with Andrea. He agreed instantly and hurried off to comply. Then Sivi sought Gil-galad.
She found him with her father. Joseph looked up at his daughter and smiled. She stood in the doorway shifting her weight.
"Looking for me, Punkin?" he grinned.
Guiltily, Sivi coughed.
"Er, um, actually, I was looking for Ereinion - but - but you can help me, too, Daddy," she added quickly.
"Sweetie, you're not hurting my feelings," Joseph said amiably. "You have the right to ask other guys for help besides me."
With another nervous cough, Sivi pulled out a chair and sat down a little too hard. Gil-galad took one of her hands, and Joseph took the other.
"What troubles you, Melui?" Gil-galad asked gently.
"What do you do," Sivi murmured, carefully addressing the question to neither male in particular, "when a friend is hurting, and they blame themselves for something that they didn't do, and they won't listen to reason?"
"Andrea," Joseph and Gil-galad said together.
"Well... yeah."
"Let me speak with her," Gil-galad suggested firmly.
"She wouldn't listen to me," Sivi said uncertainly.
"She'll listen to me, I promise you, Melui," Gil-galad answered with a strange smile.
"So you are the one Melui calls friend," Gil-galad said coldly from behind Andrea's chair.
"I guess so," Andrea replied dully.
"You've been crying," he observed.
"Yeah," she shrugged.
"Why so?"
"Huh? I've been crying because my Pretty One is hurt, and he might not get better, and he has to get better, and it's all my fault!" she burst out.
"So what are you planning to do about it?" he asked bluntly.
"What?"
"If you've caused this, hadn't you better fix it?" he demanded.
Thranduil stared at the Elven-king.
"How? What can I do?" Andrea asked piteously.
"That's your affair, not mine, but I don't see how wallowing in self-pity is going to help."
"I'm not -" Andrea began, but then she stopped. "Well, I guess I am, really," she whispered, startled.
"Let me tell you a secret," Gil-galad said, dropping to his haunches to meet her gaze with kind eyes: "everyone does."
"You're confusing me," Andrea whimpered.
"Everyone indulges their self-love," Gil-galad told her. "You must realize that you are doing it and rise above it. I struggle with this, and so do you. Everyone does. Now, with a mind crystal clear and free from all undue prejudices, tell me how this is your fault."
"Well, uh, did Sivi tell you where we were from?" Andrea asked cautiously.
"She tried to, once, but we were... interrupted in our discussion. She said something about another world."
"Exactly," Andrea said in relief. "We're from a different world. I found this magic tiara in my attic, and I made the wish... to have an adventure and find somebody who loved me. So, the tiara brought me to Middle-Earth, to the forest where Legolas lives, and his father, King Thranduil -"
Thranduil made a strange noise in his throat. Andrea stopped.
"Oh, shoot. Oops."
"Perhaps you mean a different Thranduil," Gil-galad suggested to forestall the genesis of an entirely new conflict.
"No, I recognize him, but, um... um, just forget I told you that."
"But I'm not even married!" Thranduil pointed out urgently.
"Not yet," Andrea sighed. "Let me finish."
Gil-galad gave Thranduil a sympathetic glance. He knew what it was to have a young mortal predict one of the most monumental events in his life.
"Anyway, Thranduil and Legolas decided I could stay at the palace..."
An hour later, the entirety of the tale had been recounted. Andrea fell silent and waited for the two Elves to pass judgment. Thranduil was staring at Legolas' face, thunderstruck. His son... Legolas was his son... Legolas was dying... His son was dying.
Gil-galad was quietly considering these new revelations. At length, the High King spoke.
"Considering your tale as objectively as possible," he told Andrea calmly, "and from as many view points as I can, I cannot find any case or point to justify" - Andrea cringed - "the notion that any of this is your fault."
Startled, Andrea blinked pitifully up at the Elven-king.
"What? But I -"
"You were lonely. You made an innocent wish. Legolas made a choice between you and this Morniwen. He made a choice to follow you to your world -"
"I still gotta figure out how in the world - whichever world - he did that," Andrea muttered.
"He chose to return to Middle-Earth and to accept Lady Galadriel's task."
"He also chose of his own accord to rush the Enemy. You had nothing to do with that," Thranduil added.
He had moved from his chair to the bedside and placed a hand on Legolas' brow.
"That's what Sivi said," Andrea murmured remorsefully. "I shouldn't have yelled at her."
"She understands that you hurt," Gil-galad said kindly. "She knows."
"Ereinion," came Sivi's voice from the doorway.
Gil-galad and Andrea turned. Sivi stood in the door, Joseph behind her. Her face was flushed and her eyes excited. Joseph wore a wide grin as his daughter announced words that fell like soothing rain on Andrea's ears:
"Ereinion," Sivi smiled breathlessly, "we think we may have found a way to save Legolas."
MAGIC REVIEW BUTTON!! ~Phe-chan