-THE GAMES OF THE GODS-
-Disclaimer:-
Glorfindel: Why do you need to even repeat this every chapter?
CS: Because otherwise some lawyer might go psycho on my arse and I'd get sued when I REALLY DON'T OWN ANYTHING.
Glorfindel: And this is a bad thing?
Rachel: (whaps Glorfindel) Yes, you stupid Elf-lord.
Glorfindel: Hey, I'm not stupid...I killed a balrog!
Balrog: Pure chance. And you died in the process.
Glorfindel: AH! BALROG! (runs away)
Rachel: Oh yes, fearsome Balrog slayer...
Glorfindel: (yelling from far away) Hey, death by Balrog is very traumatizing, I'll have you know!
CS: Anyways...did I already say I don't own anything?
Rachel: Yes.
CS: Oh, right, good...
-9: Family-
I wasn't mad at Kari for skipping out on the prank the night before. No, I was mad at her for leaving me up in a tree with Elladan for half the night, and then telling Lord Elrond who had turned her and Elrohir purple. Still, when she finally entered our rooms, she looked so dazed and lost to the world, her lips forming such a small, wondering smile, I decided I'd take it up with her later.
And anyways, I was supposed to be meeting Elladan shortly so that we could go clean up the purple dye that Elrohir and Kari had dripped along the hallways of Rivendell when getting to their rooms - Lord Elrond's chosen punishment for us. Supposedly, after that, we were supposed to wash Elrohir and Kari's newly purpled clothes, but I had a feeling I'd be able to get out of it with Kari. Elladan had looked as if he knew how to get away without doing it, too - though I doubt it would be because he would talk his brother into doing it. Spending half the night in the tree with Elladan had revealed many things, not the least of which was that the twins wardrobes were basically identical. So Elladan would probably just chuck his twins purple outfit, replacing it with his own copy of the outfit, then go get another copy of the outfit made for himself when he felt like it.
Deciding I needed to stop pretending to read while thinking, not to mention just stop thinking and go meet Elladan, I shut my book, put it down on the windowseat, and left. Kari would be able to find out where I'd gone easily enough.
I met Elladan outside of his room, where he was staring at the purple stains on the floor leading to Elrohir's room thoughtfully, two buckets resting by his feet. I was dismayed to find that there were rags in the buckets, and not a mop was in sight. They probably hadn't invented them yet, I realized. I decided I'd have to fix that.
"Penny for your thoughts?" I asked Elladan as he continued to stare at the floor thoughtfully, not seeming to notice my approach. There was a pause, then Elladan looked at me and blinked slowly.
"Penny?" he asked.
"Nevermind." I replied with a sigh. "What are you thinking of?"
"Besides how to make the job easier, I was wondering why the purple stains just lead from the garden to Elrohir's room, and none lead towards your and Kari's rooms." Elladan replied.
"Ah, I have the answers for both of those." I said with a nod. "Kari changed into a robe of Elrohir's before going back to our room - thus, no purple stains leading to her room. As for making the job easier, we just have to make a couple of mops."
"Mops?" Elladan asked, cocking his head to one side.
"Basically a bunch of rags - or a bunch of string - on the end of a pole. Makes it cleaner and easier to clean up, since you can use it standing up." I replied.
"Sounds interesting." Elladan said.
"Sounds handy, to me. Do you know where we could get some poles and whole tons of rags and string?" I asked. Elladan paused, thinking, then nodded. He shoved the buckets by his feet into the doorway of his room so they were out of the way, then set off, and I followed. An hour or so later, we had a couple of ratty-looking make-shift mops.
"Anyone who says everything Elves make is beautiful needs to see these." I said with a giggle as I looked at my mop.
"Well, they do have a sort of...rustic...beauty..." Elladan said, eyeing the mops.
"No, they don't. They're butt ugly." I replied emphatically.
"Butt ugly?" Elladan repeated, arching an eyebrow. "You have many interesting sayings, Rachel."
"Just wait until I start swearing." I said, rolling my eyes. "It will probably take you an hour to figure out that I'm swearing, and another hour to figure out what I'm saying." Elladan arched an eyebrow at me.
"Really." he said, sounding as if he didn't believe me. I shook my head and grabbed the mops.
"Come on, let's go clean up the purple." I said. "Or at least spread it around a bit so it's not so noticable. Hee, clean up the purple, that sounds funny..." I finished in a mumble, and Elladan chuckled.
"It does sound funny." he said, taking one fo the mops from me as we started off. We reached the hallway with Elladan and Elrohir's rooms quickly, then pulled the buckets out and set to work. The mops drew strange looks as we worked, except for from the Elves whose job it was to clean - they stopped and watched curiously for a moment, before walking off with a thoughtful look, sometimes coming over to talk to us for a bit first. By the time Elladan and I were done, we were sure every Elf on the cleaning staff of Rivendell had walked by us at least one. We didn't see much of anyone else, though - it seemed Kari and Elladan had taken unused corridors on their return from the gardens.
We finished around lunch time, and after dropping off the buckets and mops with the head of the cleaning staff - who detained us for a good half hour to talk about the mops - we headed off for lunch in one of the halls of Rivendell. Having previously eaten all my meals in private, I was slightly nervous about going into a hall where a good chunk of the population of Rivendell was, as well. It didn't help when Elladan told me that Kari and I would both be sitting at the head table with him and the other Lords of Rivendell.
But I took my place, nervously - next to Elladan. Kari, entering a few moments later, was seated next to me. Elrohir took the seat next to his twin when he arrived. After managing to stop our sniggering at Elrohir and Kari's purple skin, Elladan and I both soon got wrapped up in having conversations with our respective friend/sibling. At least, we tried to. Both Kari and Elrohir seemed to have their heads in the clouds, and the only time Kari looked in my direction, her eyes were focused on someone else, farther down the table - Elrohir.
Before I could comment on this to Elladan, Elrond arrived - with his wife and his daughter. I'll say this - it's a darn good thing Tolkien decided to leave Celebrían out of the 'Lord of the Rings' trilogy, because Peter Jackson would have NEVER been able to find an actress to do her anything even NEARING justice. Or perhaps he would, since Arwen was supposedly the more beautiful of the two, and she actually did look surprisingly like Liv Tyler - only about ten times more beautiful. I don't know, maybe it was just my inate attraction to Aragorn that made me instantly dismiss Arwen and think Celebrían was the more beautiful of the two. Or maybe Arwen just hadn't grown into her beauty yet or something.
Whatever the reason, I was rather glad that Arwen ended out being five seats away. Besides meaning I didn't have to talk to her, Kari was pulled out of her little trance and got a mischievious gleam in her eyes. She hadn't liked Arwen ever since she saw the film, and, knowing Kari, after seeing Glorfindel in the flesh, that dislike had probably tripled, at the least. A few more seats at the head table were empty, but Elrond, Celebrían and Arwen's arrival seemed to have been the cue for the meal to begin, and servers began to bring out trays of food.
"Remember to find out what she's like before you start cat-fighting." I murmured softly to Kari as the food was brought out, not quite liking the look in Kari's eyes.
"She stole Glorfindel's one moment of glory in the entire trilogy!" Kari hissed back.
"In the movie!" I replied, carefully keeping my voice quiet and eyeing those around Kari and I to make sure they heard nothing. "You don't know what will happen here! If this sticks true to Tolkien's world - which I have a feeling it will - then Glorfindel's moment of glory will still be Glorfindel's."
"Doesn't mean I have to be nice to her." Kari mumbled. I resisted the urge to whack Kari over the head with a nearby loaf of bread.
"Yes it does!" I hissed at her. "She's the only daughter of our host and the Evenstar of the Elvish people! We should act honoured to meet her so as to keep up our story, at the least!" Kari mumbled something else under her breath, but then gave me a resigned smile, assuring me she'd do her best to be polite.
As it turned out, we were far enough away from both Arwen and Celebrían that we were not expected to talk to either, but both Elladan and Elrohir were wrapped up in talking to their mother throughout the meal. So since two of the empty seats at the head table were on the other side of Kari, Kari and I were left with only each other to talk to. We talked quietly throughout the meal about little things - the hall, the Elves, what we'd seen, things like that. We were both too cautious to talk about home out there in the great hall, and neither of us was quite ready to touch on the subject of Kari being purple. By the end of the meal, however, we'd had enough of smalltalk, and were planning on heading back to our rooms to do some serious talking when our arms were snagged by the twins just outside the hall.
"Come, you must meet mother and Arwen!" Elrohir said cheerfully. I caught Kari's quick grimace, and allowed myself a momentary grin before worrying about what she might do or say. The twins led us out of the hall into one of the nearby gardens, where Elrond, Celebrían and Arwen stood talking. They turned to us with smiles as we approached, and I suddenly felt nervous.
"I see you managed to catch them." Elrond said cheerfully, and the twins nodded. We were then introduced to Celebrían and Arwen, who both greeted us nicely enough. Watching Arwen, I saw that she seemed to be watching Kari rather closely, and understood after looking at Kari myself and finding that she still hadn't let go of Elrohir's arm, unlike me, who had let Elladan's arm go almost as soon as we arrived. I grinned to myself then. Ah yes, Kari was going to have to be more than polite to Arwen if she wanted to get any farther with Elrohir.
"Elrond tells me you have been travelling for the past four millenia?" Celebrían asked once we were introduced. Kari and I both nodded.
"That we have." I replied.
"So you must have seen much of Middle-Earth, correct?" Celebrían asked. Kari and I nodded again, feeling a little wary now.
"We have seen much of the wilderness, yes." Kari said, hoping to stop any questions about towns. We both knew that we could fudge descriptions of wilderness well enough, but cities or towns - not a chance.
"To have travelled for over four millenia to see naught but wilderness, you must have developed some extraordinary survival skills." Celebrían commented. Celebrían was testing us, I could tell - if she asked us any specific questions, we would fall flat on our faces. We had some survival skills from living in the Australian outback, but I had a feeling those would all be practically useless in Middle-Earth, even if we could find an environment somewhat like the outback. Thankfully, Kari thought up a way around that little problem.
"We developed some, yes, but they are mostly untaught, and we went into small towns or stopped as homestead quite often to renew our supplies." she said easily. I made a mental note to thank her later, as well as to find a book on surviving in northern, colder wilderness and read it as quickly as possible.
"I am somewhat interested in wilderness travel, myself. Perhaps we could talk of it sometime?" Arwen put in. Kari didn't seem to relish the idea, but nodded all the same.
"Perhaps." she replied.
"Speaking of the wilderness, I hear you two do archery?" Celebrían said, and I grinned.
"Not very well on my part, but yes." I replied.
"If you'd just TRY to improve, I'm sure you'd do fine." Kari said to me, rolling her eyes.
"Probably." I said cheerfully.
"But it is much more fun to shoot annoying people in the butt, right?" Elladan said dryly, and I grinned as I nodded. Elrond looked rather disaproving at that, but I noticed that both Arwen and Celebrían were trying to hide smiles.
"If your skills with a bow are so dismal, what weapon did you use to defend yourself in the wild?" Arwen asked after a moment, getting her amusement under control.
"Eh, this and that, torches, rocks, the occasional sword, some kicking and punching, playing dead, and insanity." I replied vaguely.
"Insanity is a weapon?" Elladan asked, arching an eyebrow.
"Just as much as fear." I replied with a maniacle grin. "It's amazing how fast bandits will run if you pretend to be a madwoman." Kari, besides me, sniggered, probably remebering the incident I had based this little vague story on - a door-to-door insurance salesman had shown up at our door one day shortly after our burned-down house had been rebuilt, and we had both pretended to be crazy. We absolutely terrified the poor guy, and he probably broke a world record on the dash back to his car when we finally let him go.
"I am sure I can imagine." Celebrían said with amusement, and the glance she shot at Elrond implied that there was more to that statement than was shown. Elrond just cleared his throat, however, and made an excuse about having business to attend to before leaving. Celebrían followed.
"Notice he did not say *official* business?" Elrohir said to his twin with a snigger once their parents were gone, and Arwen promptly whacked her brother on the arm.
"Elrohir! Behave!" she said, and cast a meaningful glance at Kari and I.
"We've heard worse." I said with an amused smile.
"Hell, we've said worse." Kari said with a laugh.
"And I'm pretty sure you've done worse." I said with a grin. I ducked as Kari took a swipe at my head, causing the twins to snigger slightly. Arwen, too lady-like to snigger, laughed instead.
"Then there is little risk of them corrupting you, then." Arwen said when we calmed down.
"Nah, we're more likely to corrupt them." Kari said dismissively.
"I doubt that." Elrohir said dryly. Kari and I looked at each other, then turned back to the twins.
"Ever heard of incest?" I asked the twins. They paused, then reluctantly shook their heads.
"Then we're more likely to corrupt you." Kari said with a grin.
"Though I'm not sure I'd care to introduce the concept of incest to Rivendell." I said with a grimace. "Even if it has already happened once in Middle-Earth's history."
"Really?" Kari asked me in surprise, and I nodded.
"Yep, First Age. In the race of Men." I replied. "Due to the Dark Powers, of course."
"Now I want to know what incest is," Elrohir complained.
"I'm sure it is better that you do not," Arwen replied dryly.
"Yeah, in fact, forget the whole word." I said.
"What word?" I jumped and spun, coming face-to-neck with another Elf. Peering up, I discovered it was Glorfindel.
"Dammit, don't sneak up on people!" I said. "And you all need to shrink." Everyone chuckled at that, even Kari - she was several inches taller then me, after all. Somehow my human shortness had translated into me being the shortest Elf in Rivendell, and it wasn't fun.
"My apologies for sneaking up on you." Glorfindel said with a smile. "But I am afraid I had to come to steal Elladan and Elrohir from you. They have weapons lessons this afternoons, if they recall." Elladan and Elrohir groaned as one.
"Is it time to get beaten up by you again already?" Elladan mumbled.
"If you would just practice, you would not be beaten so easily." Glorfindel scolded lightly.
"This sounds amusing. Can I come watch?" Kari asked, a gleam in her eyes that I recognized all to well. Her thoughts had gone down the path of weapons practice = shirtless male elves. I rolled my eyes as Elrohir seemed to perk up at the idea of Kari coming. Glorfindel seemed to notice Elrohir's reaction, and glanced between Kari and Elrohir before nodding.
"I'm sure it could do no harm." he said.
"Might do some good." I muttered, just loud enough that Glorfindel could hear, and a grin flitted over his face before he motioned for the twins and Kari to follow, and they all set off out of the garden.
"So what IS incest?" Arwen asked once the twins were gone, and I looked at her in surprise for a moment.
"Ever hear the story of Túrin Turambar and Nienor Níniel?" I asked. Arwen paused for a moment, frowning, as if searching her memory, and then nodded. "Their relationship after Nienor forgot her past was incest."
"Ah." Arwen said, frowning.
"Don't tell the twins." I added.
"Trust me - I shan't." Arwen said emphatically. "Their minds are demented enough as it is."
----To be continued...with 33.333333333% more cool horses!----
(Pretty horsies!)
-Things to know:-
Túrin Turambar and Nienor Níniel:
Túrin and Nienor lived while Morgoth (the original Dark Lord) was still trying to take over Arda. Túrin was fostered by the Elves before his sister Nienor was born because of the war with Morgoth, and thus neither knew what the other looked like. Túrin eventually left his foster home when word came in that the village his mother lived in had been attacked, determined to find his mother, but he got sidetracked along the way. When he finally reached his mothers house, he found it deserted, and assumed the worst, not knowing that his mother and sister had gone to his foster home to find him. Thinking his mother had been killed, he started on a major vendetta against Morgoth.
While Túrin was carrying out this vendetta, he happened to become the top warrior in another Elvish kingdom, and his mother and sister heard and set off to find him. Before they could arrive, however, Morgoth attacked the kingdom where Túrin was, sending Glaurung the big bad dragon. Túrin managed to flee and find a group of men living in the woods, but his sister and mother showed up after the battle. Glaurung had stuck around after the battle, liking all the gold the Elves had. He scared Túrin's mother's horse so it galloped off into the wilderness and she was lost, but he hypnotised Nienor so that she forgot her past. You can see where this is going.
Nienor wandered around lost for awhile, then found the same wood men that Túrin had. Túrin, now going by the name of Turambar (Master of Doom), and Nienor, now called Níniel (Tear-maiden) because she was found crying, met, fell in love, got married. Eventually Túrin went off to kill Glaurung for some reason that I forget. In the ensuing chaos, Nienor and Túrin found out that they were siblings, Glaurung died, Nienor threw herself off a cliff (thereby dieing), and Túrin, sick of having bad luck, impaled himself on his sword and died. A demented version of Romeo and Juliet.
And that it how you compress an entire chapter of 'The Silmarillion' into three paragraphs.
-Authors Note:-
'The Mask of Zorro' = cool movie. Lots of sword fighting! And cute guy playing Zorro at the end! Once he got cleaned up and shaved. Yes.
Thank you to all my reviewers, especially Aislin, Duke Storm, KnowInsight, and everybody else who has been reviewing my stories even before I started posting this one. All reviewers get the cyber brownies I made in home ec today...enjoy! (they're edible, I promise...)
Also, sorry for any typos or spelling errors int his chapter. It's late (ok, more like I'm low on sleep) and I can't remember whether or not I spell-checked this chapter, let alone editted it...
~Crimson Starlight
-Revision's Author's Note:-
Messed with the three-paragraph summary of the story of Túrin Turambar and Nienor Níniel...tried to make it clearer.
~CS
-Disclaimer:-
Glorfindel: Why do you need to even repeat this every chapter?
CS: Because otherwise some lawyer might go psycho on my arse and I'd get sued when I REALLY DON'T OWN ANYTHING.
Glorfindel: And this is a bad thing?
Rachel: (whaps Glorfindel) Yes, you stupid Elf-lord.
Glorfindel: Hey, I'm not stupid...I killed a balrog!
Balrog: Pure chance. And you died in the process.
Glorfindel: AH! BALROG! (runs away)
Rachel: Oh yes, fearsome Balrog slayer...
Glorfindel: (yelling from far away) Hey, death by Balrog is very traumatizing, I'll have you know!
CS: Anyways...did I already say I don't own anything?
Rachel: Yes.
CS: Oh, right, good...
-9: Family-
I wasn't mad at Kari for skipping out on the prank the night before. No, I was mad at her for leaving me up in a tree with Elladan for half the night, and then telling Lord Elrond who had turned her and Elrohir purple. Still, when she finally entered our rooms, she looked so dazed and lost to the world, her lips forming such a small, wondering smile, I decided I'd take it up with her later.
And anyways, I was supposed to be meeting Elladan shortly so that we could go clean up the purple dye that Elrohir and Kari had dripped along the hallways of Rivendell when getting to their rooms - Lord Elrond's chosen punishment for us. Supposedly, after that, we were supposed to wash Elrohir and Kari's newly purpled clothes, but I had a feeling I'd be able to get out of it with Kari. Elladan had looked as if he knew how to get away without doing it, too - though I doubt it would be because he would talk his brother into doing it. Spending half the night in the tree with Elladan had revealed many things, not the least of which was that the twins wardrobes were basically identical. So Elladan would probably just chuck his twins purple outfit, replacing it with his own copy of the outfit, then go get another copy of the outfit made for himself when he felt like it.
Deciding I needed to stop pretending to read while thinking, not to mention just stop thinking and go meet Elladan, I shut my book, put it down on the windowseat, and left. Kari would be able to find out where I'd gone easily enough.
I met Elladan outside of his room, where he was staring at the purple stains on the floor leading to Elrohir's room thoughtfully, two buckets resting by his feet. I was dismayed to find that there were rags in the buckets, and not a mop was in sight. They probably hadn't invented them yet, I realized. I decided I'd have to fix that.
"Penny for your thoughts?" I asked Elladan as he continued to stare at the floor thoughtfully, not seeming to notice my approach. There was a pause, then Elladan looked at me and blinked slowly.
"Penny?" he asked.
"Nevermind." I replied with a sigh. "What are you thinking of?"
"Besides how to make the job easier, I was wondering why the purple stains just lead from the garden to Elrohir's room, and none lead towards your and Kari's rooms." Elladan replied.
"Ah, I have the answers for both of those." I said with a nod. "Kari changed into a robe of Elrohir's before going back to our room - thus, no purple stains leading to her room. As for making the job easier, we just have to make a couple of mops."
"Mops?" Elladan asked, cocking his head to one side.
"Basically a bunch of rags - or a bunch of string - on the end of a pole. Makes it cleaner and easier to clean up, since you can use it standing up." I replied.
"Sounds interesting." Elladan said.
"Sounds handy, to me. Do you know where we could get some poles and whole tons of rags and string?" I asked. Elladan paused, thinking, then nodded. He shoved the buckets by his feet into the doorway of his room so they were out of the way, then set off, and I followed. An hour or so later, we had a couple of ratty-looking make-shift mops.
"Anyone who says everything Elves make is beautiful needs to see these." I said with a giggle as I looked at my mop.
"Well, they do have a sort of...rustic...beauty..." Elladan said, eyeing the mops.
"No, they don't. They're butt ugly." I replied emphatically.
"Butt ugly?" Elladan repeated, arching an eyebrow. "You have many interesting sayings, Rachel."
"Just wait until I start swearing." I said, rolling my eyes. "It will probably take you an hour to figure out that I'm swearing, and another hour to figure out what I'm saying." Elladan arched an eyebrow at me.
"Really." he said, sounding as if he didn't believe me. I shook my head and grabbed the mops.
"Come on, let's go clean up the purple." I said. "Or at least spread it around a bit so it's not so noticable. Hee, clean up the purple, that sounds funny..." I finished in a mumble, and Elladan chuckled.
"It does sound funny." he said, taking one fo the mops from me as we started off. We reached the hallway with Elladan and Elrohir's rooms quickly, then pulled the buckets out and set to work. The mops drew strange looks as we worked, except for from the Elves whose job it was to clean - they stopped and watched curiously for a moment, before walking off with a thoughtful look, sometimes coming over to talk to us for a bit first. By the time Elladan and I were done, we were sure every Elf on the cleaning staff of Rivendell had walked by us at least one. We didn't see much of anyone else, though - it seemed Kari and Elladan had taken unused corridors on their return from the gardens.
We finished around lunch time, and after dropping off the buckets and mops with the head of the cleaning staff - who detained us for a good half hour to talk about the mops - we headed off for lunch in one of the halls of Rivendell. Having previously eaten all my meals in private, I was slightly nervous about going into a hall where a good chunk of the population of Rivendell was, as well. It didn't help when Elladan told me that Kari and I would both be sitting at the head table with him and the other Lords of Rivendell.
But I took my place, nervously - next to Elladan. Kari, entering a few moments later, was seated next to me. Elrohir took the seat next to his twin when he arrived. After managing to stop our sniggering at Elrohir and Kari's purple skin, Elladan and I both soon got wrapped up in having conversations with our respective friend/sibling. At least, we tried to. Both Kari and Elrohir seemed to have their heads in the clouds, and the only time Kari looked in my direction, her eyes were focused on someone else, farther down the table - Elrohir.
Before I could comment on this to Elladan, Elrond arrived - with his wife and his daughter. I'll say this - it's a darn good thing Tolkien decided to leave Celebrían out of the 'Lord of the Rings' trilogy, because Peter Jackson would have NEVER been able to find an actress to do her anything even NEARING justice. Or perhaps he would, since Arwen was supposedly the more beautiful of the two, and she actually did look surprisingly like Liv Tyler - only about ten times more beautiful. I don't know, maybe it was just my inate attraction to Aragorn that made me instantly dismiss Arwen and think Celebrían was the more beautiful of the two. Or maybe Arwen just hadn't grown into her beauty yet or something.
Whatever the reason, I was rather glad that Arwen ended out being five seats away. Besides meaning I didn't have to talk to her, Kari was pulled out of her little trance and got a mischievious gleam in her eyes. She hadn't liked Arwen ever since she saw the film, and, knowing Kari, after seeing Glorfindel in the flesh, that dislike had probably tripled, at the least. A few more seats at the head table were empty, but Elrond, Celebrían and Arwen's arrival seemed to have been the cue for the meal to begin, and servers began to bring out trays of food.
"Remember to find out what she's like before you start cat-fighting." I murmured softly to Kari as the food was brought out, not quite liking the look in Kari's eyes.
"She stole Glorfindel's one moment of glory in the entire trilogy!" Kari hissed back.
"In the movie!" I replied, carefully keeping my voice quiet and eyeing those around Kari and I to make sure they heard nothing. "You don't know what will happen here! If this sticks true to Tolkien's world - which I have a feeling it will - then Glorfindel's moment of glory will still be Glorfindel's."
"Doesn't mean I have to be nice to her." Kari mumbled. I resisted the urge to whack Kari over the head with a nearby loaf of bread.
"Yes it does!" I hissed at her. "She's the only daughter of our host and the Evenstar of the Elvish people! We should act honoured to meet her so as to keep up our story, at the least!" Kari mumbled something else under her breath, but then gave me a resigned smile, assuring me she'd do her best to be polite.
As it turned out, we were far enough away from both Arwen and Celebrían that we were not expected to talk to either, but both Elladan and Elrohir were wrapped up in talking to their mother throughout the meal. So since two of the empty seats at the head table were on the other side of Kari, Kari and I were left with only each other to talk to. We talked quietly throughout the meal about little things - the hall, the Elves, what we'd seen, things like that. We were both too cautious to talk about home out there in the great hall, and neither of us was quite ready to touch on the subject of Kari being purple. By the end of the meal, however, we'd had enough of smalltalk, and were planning on heading back to our rooms to do some serious talking when our arms were snagged by the twins just outside the hall.
"Come, you must meet mother and Arwen!" Elrohir said cheerfully. I caught Kari's quick grimace, and allowed myself a momentary grin before worrying about what she might do or say. The twins led us out of the hall into one of the nearby gardens, where Elrond, Celebrían and Arwen stood talking. They turned to us with smiles as we approached, and I suddenly felt nervous.
"I see you managed to catch them." Elrond said cheerfully, and the twins nodded. We were then introduced to Celebrían and Arwen, who both greeted us nicely enough. Watching Arwen, I saw that she seemed to be watching Kari rather closely, and understood after looking at Kari myself and finding that she still hadn't let go of Elrohir's arm, unlike me, who had let Elladan's arm go almost as soon as we arrived. I grinned to myself then. Ah yes, Kari was going to have to be more than polite to Arwen if she wanted to get any farther with Elrohir.
"Elrond tells me you have been travelling for the past four millenia?" Celebrían asked once we were introduced. Kari and I both nodded.
"That we have." I replied.
"So you must have seen much of Middle-Earth, correct?" Celebrían asked. Kari and I nodded again, feeling a little wary now.
"We have seen much of the wilderness, yes." Kari said, hoping to stop any questions about towns. We both knew that we could fudge descriptions of wilderness well enough, but cities or towns - not a chance.
"To have travelled for over four millenia to see naught but wilderness, you must have developed some extraordinary survival skills." Celebrían commented. Celebrían was testing us, I could tell - if she asked us any specific questions, we would fall flat on our faces. We had some survival skills from living in the Australian outback, but I had a feeling those would all be practically useless in Middle-Earth, even if we could find an environment somewhat like the outback. Thankfully, Kari thought up a way around that little problem.
"We developed some, yes, but they are mostly untaught, and we went into small towns or stopped as homestead quite often to renew our supplies." she said easily. I made a mental note to thank her later, as well as to find a book on surviving in northern, colder wilderness and read it as quickly as possible.
"I am somewhat interested in wilderness travel, myself. Perhaps we could talk of it sometime?" Arwen put in. Kari didn't seem to relish the idea, but nodded all the same.
"Perhaps." she replied.
"Speaking of the wilderness, I hear you two do archery?" Celebrían said, and I grinned.
"Not very well on my part, but yes." I replied.
"If you'd just TRY to improve, I'm sure you'd do fine." Kari said to me, rolling her eyes.
"Probably." I said cheerfully.
"But it is much more fun to shoot annoying people in the butt, right?" Elladan said dryly, and I grinned as I nodded. Elrond looked rather disaproving at that, but I noticed that both Arwen and Celebrían were trying to hide smiles.
"If your skills with a bow are so dismal, what weapon did you use to defend yourself in the wild?" Arwen asked after a moment, getting her amusement under control.
"Eh, this and that, torches, rocks, the occasional sword, some kicking and punching, playing dead, and insanity." I replied vaguely.
"Insanity is a weapon?" Elladan asked, arching an eyebrow.
"Just as much as fear." I replied with a maniacle grin. "It's amazing how fast bandits will run if you pretend to be a madwoman." Kari, besides me, sniggered, probably remebering the incident I had based this little vague story on - a door-to-door insurance salesman had shown up at our door one day shortly after our burned-down house had been rebuilt, and we had both pretended to be crazy. We absolutely terrified the poor guy, and he probably broke a world record on the dash back to his car when we finally let him go.
"I am sure I can imagine." Celebrían said with amusement, and the glance she shot at Elrond implied that there was more to that statement than was shown. Elrond just cleared his throat, however, and made an excuse about having business to attend to before leaving. Celebrían followed.
"Notice he did not say *official* business?" Elrohir said to his twin with a snigger once their parents were gone, and Arwen promptly whacked her brother on the arm.
"Elrohir! Behave!" she said, and cast a meaningful glance at Kari and I.
"We've heard worse." I said with an amused smile.
"Hell, we've said worse." Kari said with a laugh.
"And I'm pretty sure you've done worse." I said with a grin. I ducked as Kari took a swipe at my head, causing the twins to snigger slightly. Arwen, too lady-like to snigger, laughed instead.
"Then there is little risk of them corrupting you, then." Arwen said when we calmed down.
"Nah, we're more likely to corrupt them." Kari said dismissively.
"I doubt that." Elrohir said dryly. Kari and I looked at each other, then turned back to the twins.
"Ever heard of incest?" I asked the twins. They paused, then reluctantly shook their heads.
"Then we're more likely to corrupt you." Kari said with a grin.
"Though I'm not sure I'd care to introduce the concept of incest to Rivendell." I said with a grimace. "Even if it has already happened once in Middle-Earth's history."
"Really?" Kari asked me in surprise, and I nodded.
"Yep, First Age. In the race of Men." I replied. "Due to the Dark Powers, of course."
"Now I want to know what incest is," Elrohir complained.
"I'm sure it is better that you do not," Arwen replied dryly.
"Yeah, in fact, forget the whole word." I said.
"What word?" I jumped and spun, coming face-to-neck with another Elf. Peering up, I discovered it was Glorfindel.
"Dammit, don't sneak up on people!" I said. "And you all need to shrink." Everyone chuckled at that, even Kari - she was several inches taller then me, after all. Somehow my human shortness had translated into me being the shortest Elf in Rivendell, and it wasn't fun.
"My apologies for sneaking up on you." Glorfindel said with a smile. "But I am afraid I had to come to steal Elladan and Elrohir from you. They have weapons lessons this afternoons, if they recall." Elladan and Elrohir groaned as one.
"Is it time to get beaten up by you again already?" Elladan mumbled.
"If you would just practice, you would not be beaten so easily." Glorfindel scolded lightly.
"This sounds amusing. Can I come watch?" Kari asked, a gleam in her eyes that I recognized all to well. Her thoughts had gone down the path of weapons practice = shirtless male elves. I rolled my eyes as Elrohir seemed to perk up at the idea of Kari coming. Glorfindel seemed to notice Elrohir's reaction, and glanced between Kari and Elrohir before nodding.
"I'm sure it could do no harm." he said.
"Might do some good." I muttered, just loud enough that Glorfindel could hear, and a grin flitted over his face before he motioned for the twins and Kari to follow, and they all set off out of the garden.
"So what IS incest?" Arwen asked once the twins were gone, and I looked at her in surprise for a moment.
"Ever hear the story of Túrin Turambar and Nienor Níniel?" I asked. Arwen paused for a moment, frowning, as if searching her memory, and then nodded. "Their relationship after Nienor forgot her past was incest."
"Ah." Arwen said, frowning.
"Don't tell the twins." I added.
"Trust me - I shan't." Arwen said emphatically. "Their minds are demented enough as it is."
----To be continued...with 33.333333333% more cool horses!----
(Pretty horsies!)
-Things to know:-
Túrin Turambar and Nienor Níniel:
Túrin and Nienor lived while Morgoth (the original Dark Lord) was still trying to take over Arda. Túrin was fostered by the Elves before his sister Nienor was born because of the war with Morgoth, and thus neither knew what the other looked like. Túrin eventually left his foster home when word came in that the village his mother lived in had been attacked, determined to find his mother, but he got sidetracked along the way. When he finally reached his mothers house, he found it deserted, and assumed the worst, not knowing that his mother and sister had gone to his foster home to find him. Thinking his mother had been killed, he started on a major vendetta against Morgoth.
While Túrin was carrying out this vendetta, he happened to become the top warrior in another Elvish kingdom, and his mother and sister heard and set off to find him. Before they could arrive, however, Morgoth attacked the kingdom where Túrin was, sending Glaurung the big bad dragon. Túrin managed to flee and find a group of men living in the woods, but his sister and mother showed up after the battle. Glaurung had stuck around after the battle, liking all the gold the Elves had. He scared Túrin's mother's horse so it galloped off into the wilderness and she was lost, but he hypnotised Nienor so that she forgot her past. You can see where this is going.
Nienor wandered around lost for awhile, then found the same wood men that Túrin had. Túrin, now going by the name of Turambar (Master of Doom), and Nienor, now called Níniel (Tear-maiden) because she was found crying, met, fell in love, got married. Eventually Túrin went off to kill Glaurung for some reason that I forget. In the ensuing chaos, Nienor and Túrin found out that they were siblings, Glaurung died, Nienor threw herself off a cliff (thereby dieing), and Túrin, sick of having bad luck, impaled himself on his sword and died. A demented version of Romeo and Juliet.
And that it how you compress an entire chapter of 'The Silmarillion' into three paragraphs.
-Authors Note:-
'The Mask of Zorro' = cool movie. Lots of sword fighting! And cute guy playing Zorro at the end! Once he got cleaned up and shaved. Yes.
Thank you to all my reviewers, especially Aislin, Duke Storm, KnowInsight, and everybody else who has been reviewing my stories even before I started posting this one. All reviewers get the cyber brownies I made in home ec today...enjoy! (they're edible, I promise...)
Also, sorry for any typos or spelling errors int his chapter. It's late (ok, more like I'm low on sleep) and I can't remember whether or not I spell-checked this chapter, let alone editted it...
~Crimson Starlight
-Revision's Author's Note:-
Messed with the three-paragraph summary of the story of Túrin Turambar and Nienor Níniel...tried to make it clearer.
~CS