Whooooo! DVD! DVD! Phe-chan got her DVD! *dances* Yes, erm. you should go
get it too. A warning, though: My Little Ponies, Labyrinth and LotR don't
mix well. Anywhoo, I pas on a message from the Elf Huntress! To Kylie606
she sends the following message: You needn't apologize for your long
review. Long reviews are much more fun, so we thank you greatly. The part
about would she die for him was not meant as foreshadow, though who knows.
To Lindiel Eryn she says: We mean a different kind of keeper. OK, I'm done
playing messenger now. YAY! But I have advice to all you happy readers. A
copy of the "Silmarillion", or at the very least, a copy of the "Tolkien
Handbook" would come in handy while reading this fic. I can say no more.
Thanks to all the wonderful reviewers!
~Phe-chan~
Chapter 38: Well Done
The city my mother loves best, Sivi mused, governed by Star Dome of the line of Dior: Rivendell that the Eldar call Imladris. What did she mean me to do here? Usually, she gives me things, things to help me in my task......... Let me see...
She flipped open Andrea's bag. There were footsteps down the corridor. What had her mother said?
"The Elven Star Dome may not welcome you..."
If that were so, then Sivi were better not to be found. She ducked into an adjoining chamber and closed the door quietly behind herself. Then she turned around to survey the room - and started horribly.
"Frodo?" she whispered.
The Hobbit was lying asleep in a long Elven bed, his lidded eyes rimmed in pale red, and his brow glistening with a half-broken fever. Standing guard over him was the likeness of a lady of the Elves, robed and unsmiling.
"So I am in Rivendell before the Fellowship's departure. Then those footsteps most likely belong to Gandalf, Samwise, Aragorn, or Elrond Star Dome the Half-Elven, and in any of those cases, it is probable they come to see to Frodo. I am still not safe."
She moved around the room, Andrea's bag slung over her shoulder, slipped out onto the balcony, and swung herself over the edge. The intricate Elven carvings formed a perfect lattice-like trellis so that she could climb easily down to the stone walkway that coursed around and through the city. She dropped to the ground, landing on her feet with practiced ease.
Hearing soft voices approaching, she slid behind the bole of one of the trees that could be found growing in the middle of the path. It was too slender to hide her, so she dropped to her knees and pretended to be concerned with the bushes at its base, as if she were no more than an elven gardener. The voices passed her by, unheeding, and she chanced a look at their owners. Aragorn and Arwen were walking together through the fair Elven streets, and Sivi watched the Elven princess wistfully. She had always admired Arwen and desired greatly a chance to make her acquaintance... but now was obviously not the time.
So Sivi sat down by the tree and let her long, red-gold hair fall around her face. She was tired, inexplicably tired. She tried to keep her mind on task, but her eyes were heavy. She curled up behind the flowering shrubs at the tree's base and fell asleep.
~*~*~*~
"Melui!" cried Gil-galad, throwing his arms around her shoulders.
She allowed him to hold her for the briefest moment, but then pulled away.
"It feels odd for us to do that without a chaperone," she blushed, "even if we are only dreaming."
"I'm sorry," he said gently.
"No, it's alright. Where are you?"
Gil-galad looked around. The sea was glassy and calm, reflecting the glistening stars.
"Cuivienen, where we always meet this way," he said off-handedly.
"No, no, not where are WE in the DREAM; I mean, where are you when you're awake," Sivi laughed. "That sounds so weird," she added lightly.
"Weird?" Gil-galad queried.
"Extremely unusual," Sivi explained, smiling at the déjà vu.
"I see. Yes, well, Sarah and I have been transported to Lorien," Gil-galad said. "Christina and her friend Boromir are there as well -"
"BOROMIR?!" Sivi shouted.
Gil-galad's ears flattened and stuck out at odd angles.
"Aiya, Melui, my hearing," he murmured painfully. "Christina brought her friend Boromir to Lorien with her. Is that a problem, then?"
"Boromir is supposed to be dead!" Sivi cried incredulously. She made a funny noise in her throat that sounded like, "Ohhhhhurgghhh."
"Even as I am?" Gil-galad commented wryly.
"EXACTLY!! If we don't stop changing the future, Daddy's going to throw a FIT! Not to mention Uncle Mand -"
Sivi broke off and became completely silent.
"Ereinion," she murmured. "I - um, well, I..."
"You stutter, Melui," he said, brushing her cheek with tender, reassuring fingers. "It is unlike you."
Suddenly, Sivi remembered her father saying,
"The first guy, besides me, that can make you stutter will be your husband - I'm sure of that."
Sivi turned rose-red.
"I told you a half-truth," she said hurriedly, "that night in the shell tower. I'm neither human nor mortal, though I assume that form... that fana."
"Assume - wait," Gil-galad said, going even whiter than he had in his tent before the battle, his turquoise eyes wide as bucklers. "WAIT. FANA?"
Sivi winced.
"Let me tell you a little about my family," she whispered.
"Yes, please," Gil-galad managed softly.
~*~*~*~
Sivi awoke the next morning under the tree in Rivendell. He had taken it rather well, actually. Well, one hurdle behind her, another ahead. She began to ponder again what her mother had meant for her to do here. If she were not meant to be recognized, should she change her form, become an Elda? No, her mother had said that she would not be welcomed, and that probably meant, knowing her mother, that she would be received unkindly in any form.
"I am in Rivendell before the Fellowship's departure," she murmured, trying to work it out by talking through it. "That probably means that I need to help one of the members of the Fellowship before they leave. I can't do anything for Frodo... I don't see why the other three Hobbits would need me... Aragorn definitely doesn't need my help... Boromir? Should I say something to him, about the Ring, perhaps? I don't think Mother would want - well, but that's the thing about Mother: I'm never really sure what she wants. So, maybe -"
"Cúedhel, Cúedhel, won't you leave the past in the past? She is gone, but I am here."
Sivi stopped and listened. It was the voice of a woman - it sounded human. She hadn't known there were any human women in Rivendell. A male voice answered, and Sivi knew it instantly: Legolas.
"Whose fault is that, Witch? Do not touch me. Go and throw yourself at one of your entourage."
"My entourage is gone," the female said carelessly. "I sent them from me, as they were needed elsewhere."
"My father Thranduil required you to have a guard as befits a lady when traveling. Do you defy him?"
There was a dangerous edge to Legolas' voice that made even Siobhán shiver. Apparently, the woman was either very brave or very foolish, for she went on derisively,
"This world knows greater Powers than your father's. I obey THEM, and they have called for my soldiers."
"So suddenly, and without a word of notice to anyone, they have gone? The warriors of my father do not behave so," Legolas said with authority.
"I chose my own entourage," the woman sneered. "They have done what I commanded them to do and gone where I commanded them to go."
"Where you commanded them to go?" Legolas repeated, and there was a note of sudden unease in his voice. "And where have you commanded them to go?"
"They have gone ahead to wait for me," the female said cryptically.
"What, in the Black Land?" Legolas snarled hatefully.
"How did you guess?" the woman laughed hideously.
"I do not pretend to understand you, Dark One," Legolas said with obvious loathing, "but my father has decreed that you will have a guard, and while you live in Mirkwood, you will obey Thranduil King."
"I will never return to your cursèd wood unless it be on your arm," the woman vowed.
"Then do not return, and the wood will be the merrier. You will not have Andrea's place."
Sivi rose carefully and turned. Around the curving side of Elrond's palace, she could see Legolas, his brow furrowed in anger and disgust. The female speaker was hidden by the building. Keeping her head down and her stride casual, Sivi ambled in that direction, but to the right a little, towards the open forest.
"That place was mine before it ever was hers," the female voice said bitterly.
"By way of an arranged marriage," Legolas snapped. "You never held my heart. You know that."
"She will not return to you. YOU know THAT, and I hope you die of it, die of a broken heart!" cried the female speaker, and rounded the building at a run.
Sivi gaped as the woman ran by her - it was an Elven woman! Her skin was an ashen gray, unlike most elves'; her hair and eyes were jet black; and her expression was one of malice and hatred. Her voice had lacked that soft, light, somewhat ethereal quality that denoted the tones of the Elves. Her voice was... Sivi reflected a moment. Her voice was unpleasantly sultry. Then Sivi realized who the woman had been, and of a sudden the conversation made sense.
"Morniwen," she said darkly. "That was Legolas' ex-fiancée, Morniwen, and they were talking about Andrea."
Then Sivi knew what to do. She pulled her hood over her head and stole softly up behind Legolas, whose brow was leaned against the Elven building in grief.
"She will not return, it is true," Sivi said quietly. Legolas whirled.
"What did you say?" he demanded. "Who are you?"
"She will not return to you... until you go to her first."
"Who are you?" he asked again. "What do you mean, until I go to her?"
Sivi took a step backwards, baiting him, then darted across the walkway, knowing he would give chase.
She passed through one of the Elven arches, down some stairs, and over a bridge into the council's place of meeting. All the while, she was groping inside Andrea's satchel. She stopped beside the pedestal in the center of the round veranda, feigning that she needed to catch her breath. Legolas came sprinting up behind her. She gave him a startled look and pretended to drop something out of fright. Then, clutching Vilya, she vanished.
"It was well done, my Gem."
~*~*~*~
Legolas blinked at the spot where she had been, then moved to pick up whatever it was she had left. He gave a cry of pain: it was Andrea's "toolbox." He lifted the carven lid, and a sheet of parchment fluttered to the ground: a painting of the night sky over Mirkwood; the stars caught like fireflies. In the bottom corner - Legolas' hand shook -, a message: "To Legolas, from Squee - I did it."
The review button is hungry!
~Phe-chan~
Chapter 38: Well Done
The city my mother loves best, Sivi mused, governed by Star Dome of the line of Dior: Rivendell that the Eldar call Imladris. What did she mean me to do here? Usually, she gives me things, things to help me in my task......... Let me see...
She flipped open Andrea's bag. There were footsteps down the corridor. What had her mother said?
"The Elven Star Dome may not welcome you..."
If that were so, then Sivi were better not to be found. She ducked into an adjoining chamber and closed the door quietly behind herself. Then she turned around to survey the room - and started horribly.
"Frodo?" she whispered.
The Hobbit was lying asleep in a long Elven bed, his lidded eyes rimmed in pale red, and his brow glistening with a half-broken fever. Standing guard over him was the likeness of a lady of the Elves, robed and unsmiling.
"So I am in Rivendell before the Fellowship's departure. Then those footsteps most likely belong to Gandalf, Samwise, Aragorn, or Elrond Star Dome the Half-Elven, and in any of those cases, it is probable they come to see to Frodo. I am still not safe."
She moved around the room, Andrea's bag slung over her shoulder, slipped out onto the balcony, and swung herself over the edge. The intricate Elven carvings formed a perfect lattice-like trellis so that she could climb easily down to the stone walkway that coursed around and through the city. She dropped to the ground, landing on her feet with practiced ease.
Hearing soft voices approaching, she slid behind the bole of one of the trees that could be found growing in the middle of the path. It was too slender to hide her, so she dropped to her knees and pretended to be concerned with the bushes at its base, as if she were no more than an elven gardener. The voices passed her by, unheeding, and she chanced a look at their owners. Aragorn and Arwen were walking together through the fair Elven streets, and Sivi watched the Elven princess wistfully. She had always admired Arwen and desired greatly a chance to make her acquaintance... but now was obviously not the time.
So Sivi sat down by the tree and let her long, red-gold hair fall around her face. She was tired, inexplicably tired. She tried to keep her mind on task, but her eyes were heavy. She curled up behind the flowering shrubs at the tree's base and fell asleep.
~*~*~*~
"Melui!" cried Gil-galad, throwing his arms around her shoulders.
She allowed him to hold her for the briefest moment, but then pulled away.
"It feels odd for us to do that without a chaperone," she blushed, "even if we are only dreaming."
"I'm sorry," he said gently.
"No, it's alright. Where are you?"
Gil-galad looked around. The sea was glassy and calm, reflecting the glistening stars.
"Cuivienen, where we always meet this way," he said off-handedly.
"No, no, not where are WE in the DREAM; I mean, where are you when you're awake," Sivi laughed. "That sounds so weird," she added lightly.
"Weird?" Gil-galad queried.
"Extremely unusual," Sivi explained, smiling at the déjà vu.
"I see. Yes, well, Sarah and I have been transported to Lorien," Gil-galad said. "Christina and her friend Boromir are there as well -"
"BOROMIR?!" Sivi shouted.
Gil-galad's ears flattened and stuck out at odd angles.
"Aiya, Melui, my hearing," he murmured painfully. "Christina brought her friend Boromir to Lorien with her. Is that a problem, then?"
"Boromir is supposed to be dead!" Sivi cried incredulously. She made a funny noise in her throat that sounded like, "Ohhhhhurgghhh."
"Even as I am?" Gil-galad commented wryly.
"EXACTLY!! If we don't stop changing the future, Daddy's going to throw a FIT! Not to mention Uncle Mand -"
Sivi broke off and became completely silent.
"Ereinion," she murmured. "I - um, well, I..."
"You stutter, Melui," he said, brushing her cheek with tender, reassuring fingers. "It is unlike you."
Suddenly, Sivi remembered her father saying,
"The first guy, besides me, that can make you stutter will be your husband - I'm sure of that."
Sivi turned rose-red.
"I told you a half-truth," she said hurriedly, "that night in the shell tower. I'm neither human nor mortal, though I assume that form... that fana."
"Assume - wait," Gil-galad said, going even whiter than he had in his tent before the battle, his turquoise eyes wide as bucklers. "WAIT. FANA?"
Sivi winced.
"Let me tell you a little about my family," she whispered.
"Yes, please," Gil-galad managed softly.
~*~*~*~
Sivi awoke the next morning under the tree in Rivendell. He had taken it rather well, actually. Well, one hurdle behind her, another ahead. She began to ponder again what her mother had meant for her to do here. If she were not meant to be recognized, should she change her form, become an Elda? No, her mother had said that she would not be welcomed, and that probably meant, knowing her mother, that she would be received unkindly in any form.
"I am in Rivendell before the Fellowship's departure," she murmured, trying to work it out by talking through it. "That probably means that I need to help one of the members of the Fellowship before they leave. I can't do anything for Frodo... I don't see why the other three Hobbits would need me... Aragorn definitely doesn't need my help... Boromir? Should I say something to him, about the Ring, perhaps? I don't think Mother would want - well, but that's the thing about Mother: I'm never really sure what she wants. So, maybe -"
"Cúedhel, Cúedhel, won't you leave the past in the past? She is gone, but I am here."
Sivi stopped and listened. It was the voice of a woman - it sounded human. She hadn't known there were any human women in Rivendell. A male voice answered, and Sivi knew it instantly: Legolas.
"Whose fault is that, Witch? Do not touch me. Go and throw yourself at one of your entourage."
"My entourage is gone," the female said carelessly. "I sent them from me, as they were needed elsewhere."
"My father Thranduil required you to have a guard as befits a lady when traveling. Do you defy him?"
There was a dangerous edge to Legolas' voice that made even Siobhán shiver. Apparently, the woman was either very brave or very foolish, for she went on derisively,
"This world knows greater Powers than your father's. I obey THEM, and they have called for my soldiers."
"So suddenly, and without a word of notice to anyone, they have gone? The warriors of my father do not behave so," Legolas said with authority.
"I chose my own entourage," the woman sneered. "They have done what I commanded them to do and gone where I commanded them to go."
"Where you commanded them to go?" Legolas repeated, and there was a note of sudden unease in his voice. "And where have you commanded them to go?"
"They have gone ahead to wait for me," the female said cryptically.
"What, in the Black Land?" Legolas snarled hatefully.
"How did you guess?" the woman laughed hideously.
"I do not pretend to understand you, Dark One," Legolas said with obvious loathing, "but my father has decreed that you will have a guard, and while you live in Mirkwood, you will obey Thranduil King."
"I will never return to your cursèd wood unless it be on your arm," the woman vowed.
"Then do not return, and the wood will be the merrier. You will not have Andrea's place."
Sivi rose carefully and turned. Around the curving side of Elrond's palace, she could see Legolas, his brow furrowed in anger and disgust. The female speaker was hidden by the building. Keeping her head down and her stride casual, Sivi ambled in that direction, but to the right a little, towards the open forest.
"That place was mine before it ever was hers," the female voice said bitterly.
"By way of an arranged marriage," Legolas snapped. "You never held my heart. You know that."
"She will not return to you. YOU know THAT, and I hope you die of it, die of a broken heart!" cried the female speaker, and rounded the building at a run.
Sivi gaped as the woman ran by her - it was an Elven woman! Her skin was an ashen gray, unlike most elves'; her hair and eyes were jet black; and her expression was one of malice and hatred. Her voice had lacked that soft, light, somewhat ethereal quality that denoted the tones of the Elves. Her voice was... Sivi reflected a moment. Her voice was unpleasantly sultry. Then Sivi realized who the woman had been, and of a sudden the conversation made sense.
"Morniwen," she said darkly. "That was Legolas' ex-fiancée, Morniwen, and they were talking about Andrea."
Then Sivi knew what to do. She pulled her hood over her head and stole softly up behind Legolas, whose brow was leaned against the Elven building in grief.
"She will not return, it is true," Sivi said quietly. Legolas whirled.
"What did you say?" he demanded. "Who are you?"
"She will not return to you... until you go to her first."
"Who are you?" he asked again. "What do you mean, until I go to her?"
Sivi took a step backwards, baiting him, then darted across the walkway, knowing he would give chase.
She passed through one of the Elven arches, down some stairs, and over a bridge into the council's place of meeting. All the while, she was groping inside Andrea's satchel. She stopped beside the pedestal in the center of the round veranda, feigning that she needed to catch her breath. Legolas came sprinting up behind her. She gave him a startled look and pretended to drop something out of fright. Then, clutching Vilya, she vanished.
"It was well done, my Gem."
~*~*~*~
Legolas blinked at the spot where she had been, then moved to pick up whatever it was she had left. He gave a cry of pain: it was Andrea's "toolbox." He lifted the carven lid, and a sheet of parchment fluttered to the ground: a painting of the night sky over Mirkwood; the stars caught like fireflies. In the bottom corner - Legolas' hand shook -, a message: "To Legolas, from Squee - I did it."
The review button is hungry!