Disclaimer: If I owned any of this "Lord of the Rings" stuff, I wouldn't be sitting here, writing fanfiction. I own Arwith. Steal her for your own use, and I'll send small, furry animals to eat your socks.

I'd like to thank teinesamoa for her review. Yes, I admit, it is moving rather slowly, but don't worry; it'll be worth the wait. I'd also like to thank Eccentric Banshee for her review. (Hope you're feeling better soon.)

Said Elrond, "You were right. We do have much to discuss." "Yes, your visit was well timed," Gandalf responded. Elrond had been sitting in the same spot for about the past quarter of an hour, watching Aragorn, Faramir, and Gandalf pace back and forth, gesturing wildly at times, recounting the events of the last few weeks and, especially, the previous day. Legolas and Gimli had both headed outside, one to practice his archery, the other to smoke. Frodo was in the library. Sam was in the kitchens picking up on a recipe for lamb stew in exchange for his grandmother's recipe for honey mead bread. Merry and Pippin had followed him in the hopes that dinner's appetizers would be finished and were promptly chased from the room, only to disappear outside.

Elrond inquired, "Is she fit for questioning, this… What is she called?" Gandalf responded, sounding exasperated. "As we said, we don't know! She has thus far said nothing, made no motions to cooperate, and all attempts at communication up till now have failed- utterly. We don't know who she is, where she's from, why she's here-" "With those ears and those teeth, we don't even know what she is," Faramir interrupted. Aragorn added, "But other than that, yes, you can talk to her."

Elrond rose and followed Gandalf to the doors and down the corridor. Aragorn and Faramir were following closely behind, but Faramir was pulled to one side by an nervous-looking attendant. He waved his hand, signaling that he would follow, so Aragorn continued without him.

The trio made their way down the stairway to the prisoner's cell and the guards allowed them inside. She sat inside, still staring at the pages of the book, completely unchanged from the time that they had left. For several minutes, Elrond tried his hand at speaking with her, with a similar lack of success. Elrond stood, shaking his head. "You weren't exaggerating; for all the good it does me, I might as well be banging my head against a brick wall- nothing's moved and my head hurts." Aragorn nodded. "She does seem to have that affect on people."

The elf lord turned, addressing an exasperated-looking wizard. "I believe you mentioned that this journal," he brandished the deteriorating book, "had something in it about her." Gandalf nodded. "Yes, on the third to last page. Be warned, however," he continued as Elrond flipped to the back, scattering pages. "The vocabulary suddenly becomes a bit… flowery. Though, that might have been the blood loss."

Elrond paused on one page and stared. "I think the word you're looking for is 'blurry.' Or perhaps even 'nonexistent.'" Gandalf appeared somewhat baffled. "No, they were quite clear." He strode over, peering into the pages. His lips parted in disbelief. Chunks of the paragraph had completely disappeared, and in their places were large, grey smears, if anything at all. Elrond continued. "Then you have far better vision than I."

Gandalf flipped frantically through the book, occasionally spotting a similar situation. He then got on his knees, picking up pages from the ground. Two pages had like sentences. Gandalf muttered under his breath, "Erased. Gone. Everything that mentioned…" He trailed off, the realization dawning on him. He raised his eyes from the pages to the young woman still seated calmly in front of him, staring calmly at him. Gandalf continued slowly, softly. "Everything that mentioned you." She scarcely blinked in response.

Gandalf continued to stare, as though willing her to say something, and suddenly rose. He was beat to his destination by Aragorn, who asked the guards outside, "Did either of you notice anything unusual while we were away?" The two looked at each other. One spoke. "No, I don't think so." The other nodded in agreement. "Mm-hmm. Except that smell." "Right, there was smell, wasn't there?"

Aragorn held up one hand. "Smell? What smell?" The second answered, "There was an odd smell about three minutes-" "Four minutes." "Right, four minutes after you left. It was this earthy smell-" "Like leather. It lasted for eight minutes-" "Seven minutes." "Right. For about seven minutes. But other than that, nothing." "Not unusual-" "At any point." "Completely normal-" "The entire time."

Aragorn stared at the pair for a moment. "Are you twins, by any chance?" They shook their heads. "No sir." "Just very used to one another." Aragorn nodded numbly, then murmured. "Like leather…"

Immediately, Faramir came leaping down the stairway, jumping every other stair. He skidded down the hall, stopping just past the door. "Aragorn you may want to come upstairs." Startled by Faramir's sudden intrusion, Aragorn asked, "What's wrong?" Faramir continued breathlessly. "It's Arwen, she-" He was cut off by Aragorn, who croaked something resembling "Ar… ay," made several queer expressions very quickly, and suddenly ran down the hall and up the stairs, skipping two at a time. Elrond came up behind him and sounds from further up the stairs gave the impression that they were trying fight past the other in an attempt to reach the top.

Gandalf, though somewhat startled, asked Faramir, "What on earth happened?" The two began up the stairs, using all of them, as Faramir recounted what had happened upstairs.

earlier

Eowyn, Arwen and her elf friend, Luthien, were sitting on a sofa in the library. Luthien was an elf with long, thick, chestnut hair and lips that stretched like accordions when they moved. Frodo had chosen not to invade the conversation, but hovered about, listening in on what Arwen was saying. "… they brought her back down to her cell and she hasn't moved since." "Really? And see hasn't said a word?" Arwen shook her head. Luthien tilted her head to one side. "I don't blame her for acting like that, actually." Eowyn almost spilled her tea. "How could 'not blame her?'"

Luthien continued matter-of-factly. "Well, if you think about it, she was knocked out of a tree, chased through the woods, knocked out of another tree, tied up in a bag for an extended period of time, dumped on the ground, questioned, yelled at, dragged through a castle, and thrown in a cell. When she did the only normal thing, that is try to escape, she was chased through the woods again, chased up a tree, bound when she came down from the tree, bound again after killing that orc and helping that soldier, thrown over a horse with a knife at her throat, and thrown back in her cell. All this, despite the fact that she never presented a threat or a bother to anyone, except the dead orc, and in fact never even made herself known. If all this had happened to me, particularly within the span of about two days, I imagine that I would be quite hostile as well."

Eowyn and Arwen stared at Luthien for a moment, looking like words failed them. Arwen's pushed forward her lower lip. "I hate it when you do that?" An amused Luthien asked, "What?" "When you do that!" Arwen turned to Eowyn. "She can argue any side of a story and do so convincingly. People have been unable to get the best of her since she was thirteen." Luthien put on a false pout, feigning offense, as though her dignity was under attack. "Now really, my little tulip, I resent that. You make it sound as though I was a lawyer. And what's more, I was not thirteen when I last verbally outwitted." She drew herself up proudly. "I was eleven." Eowyn snorted, muttering under her breath, "Even worse." Luthien smiled, both coyly and winningly.

Arwen, in her somewhat reclined position, placed her cup on her stomach when she reached for another biscuit. Eowyn's lip twitched before she restrained herself, but Luthien's reaction was one of uninhibited chortles and giggles. "Ooh Arwen hee hee hee, since when do you balance tea cups on your belly? You look positively silly hee hee hee." Arwen pushed her lower lip forward. "It's a too much of a hassle to have to lean over, put the cup on the table, pick up the biscuit, pick the cup back up, and then lean back with the cup and the biscuit. This method is considerably more convenient."

Luthien eyed the biscuit Arwen was eating. "I don't even know why you're eating them. You've never liked cinnamon biscuits before." Eowyn watched with amusement as the two went back and forth. Arwen continued. "I've taken a liking to plenty of foods of which I was never previously fond. My midwife says it's perfectly normal." Luthien smiled cynically. "'Plenty?' How much 'plenty'?" The other elf pursed her lips. "Enough, plenty."

"Hmm." Luthien leaned backwards to Frodo and, barely lowering her voice, spoke through one side of her mouth. "What's she really eating?" He muttered back, "Everything that can't run away." After this, both individuals had to dodge a flying cushion.

The next two or three moments continued peacefully enough, until Arwen felt a sharp pain. She tensed and didn't move, so the others in room didn't notice. The pain left quickly but returned within ten minutes, this time much more painfully. It left again, yet in came back. This time, Arwen's feet came and pushed violently against the table and she began to breathe heavily. Eowyn and Luthien sat bolt upright and looked panicked. "What's wrong?" Luthien asked, clearly terrified. Arwen said "Contraction, contraction, contraction, contraction, contraction…"

Eowyn promptly leapt from her seat and ran for help while Luthien held Arwen's hand, mimicking her breathing pattern as though it would offer some encouragement, and Frodo tripped trying to do the same.

currently

Arwen was now in the infirmary, with her contractions two minutes apart and, as the midwife and the medic had put it, "most definitely going into labor." Aragorn and Elrond had been told there was nothing they could do to help at the moment, but they would be called if they were needed. Until then, the two concerned figures stood pacing beside the door, refusing to eat. Everyone else had been called to dinner long ago and could talk of nothing but what was happening in the hospital wing. Sam, being the only one with a wife and child, dominated parts of the conversation. "When Rosie was pregnant with Elanor, she couldn't be anywhere in the house while meat was cooking; just the smell of it cooking would make her nauseous. And she started eating all these odd food combinations, like jam on her fish."

Faramir wondered aloud, "Did Rosie ever say what giving birth feels like?" Pausing between chews, Sam thought about it and answered, "I did ask her once actually." "What did she say?" Merry asked. Sam swallowed and continued. "She said it was like vomiting, only in reverse." Many of the other diners wrinkled their noses at the thought. "It seems like all that would be rather painful, wouldn't it?" Merry remarked. A plump, deep-voiced old woman who was passing around food answered. "It's awful." Merry leaned over to look at her. "How awful?" The old woman's lids lowered, her brows rose, and her shriveled lips pursed, all making for a very dramatic look. "Worse than being kicked in the crotch, but not as bad as passing a kidney stone." No one pressed the matter.

There was silence at the table for a few moments before Gimli spoke. "Things will be quite different after that child's born." Pippin appeared confused at this statement, a common look for him. "Why? Won't things go back to normal?" Sam snorted the naiveté of his friend's remark, but the old woman did appear to be at all amused. "Quite the opposite, young man. Everything in a new parent's life makes a complete turn." Frodo asked, "How?" The old woman continued. "It's quite simple really. The infant will spend his days sleeping and crying, the parents will be awoken at all hours of the night, and in some cases, the mother will go through mood swings." Eowyn paused between chews to ask, "Did you go through mood swings? What kind?" The old woman thought for a moment. "I can't quite be sure- it was some time ago and is now a blur. But I do vaguely remember throwing a bowl at my poor nurse." No one was quite sure how to respond to this.

In the hospital wing, Arwen was lying in her bed, propped up by pillows, covered in sweat and obviously exhausted, but smiling peacefully. Aragorn was in the same position next to her, smiling warmly at the tiny bundle she held in her arms. The small, red infant, while not the cutest baby ever born, lay curled up against his mother, wrapped up in a blanket, sleeping peacefully. Arwen fingered the tiny fist. "We have a son," she said quietly and gleefully. Aragorn smiled wider. "Hmm… Eldarion, our first child." He twirled the thick dark strands of hair on his son's head around his fingers. It was a moment of pure, unadulterated euphoria.