A/N: Thank you BEAN, Nene, Elfin BlueEyes and Sympathy. I'm going to try to update more often, and please tell
me about the romance thingy. :-) I love reviews, so please press that
lovely little button and let it be a very late christmas present!
Disclaimer
Lothwing: Elven Bunny doesn't own
Middle-Earth. She owns me.
Lothíriel: Butterfly
Lion doesn't own Middle-Earth either. She owns me.
Lothwing:
Isn't that touching?
Lothíriel: No.
Chapter seven
Part two of the Tyuru Canad set.
Elrohir pranced out of the room, alternating between smooth, gliding steps and short, bouncing steps.
Elladan skipped beside him. He occasionally performed a cartwheel. They seemed to have done a lot of skipping those days.
"So, twinny dear, how precisely should we lay hands on it? The cheese, that is," Elrohir asked him.
Elladan paused, mid-cartwheel, and crashed onto his head. "I hadn't thought about that," he admitted. "Maybe we can just pilfur some."
"Maybe," said Elrohir dubiously. "You distract them and I'll grab it." Elladan nodded and ran ahead. Elrohir took a deep breath, and ran after him.
The two entered the domain of the kitchens.
"The table is set," Lothwing informed Lord Elrond.
"Thank you, Lothwing. You two can go about your business now," Elrond said with a distracted wave of his hand.
Lothwing dropped a wobbly courtesy and dashed out of the room.
Lothíriel glanced up from her cross stitch. "Lothwing, can you help me? I knotted this up something horrible."
Lothwing sat down next to her sister and began to help her untangle the pale silver thread. "What were you working on?"
Lothíriel sighed. "It was going an emblem of two crossed swords. I planned on giving it to Elladan for his birthday."
"Ooh," said Lothwing with a raised eyebrow.
"Shut your mouth," Lothíriel muttered.
"What did I say?" Lothwing cried, pretending to be insulted. "Why art thou so cruel to me, dearest sister mine? Whither will I go, if thou, my only kin hath scorned me?"
"You can go to Mirkwood and be attacked by spiders," Lothíriel retorted.
The door slammed open. Elladan dashed in, his eyes wide. "Hide me! Hide me!"
Lothíriel grabbed him and shoved him into a closet. She quickly thrust a chair in front and sat in it, pretending to have been working on her embroidery. Lothwing grabbed a book and opened it halfway, reading intently.
"Where is that scalawag half-wit runaway cheese-thief thing who calls himself an elf!"
Rivendell's head cook burst into the room, opening the cupboards and looking around wildly. Lothwing's eyes widened in recognition and she fled the room while his back was turned. She and the angular elf had met in a skirmish before. It wasn't the first time that Elrohir and Elladan had ransacked his kitchens.
Lothíriel was secretly glad that she had never met the cook. Otherwise he would've suspected her and made her move aside so he could search the closet.
She caught a glimpse in the hallway of Elrohir and Lothwing running past, holding something. She couldn't tell what it was.
Oh wait. It must've been cheese, for that was what the cook had caleld Elladan: a cheese-thief.
'Why cheese?' she wondered.
The cook had finished slamming open all the cupboards, and with one last glare, left the room.
Lothíriel pulled the chair away from the closet and yanked it open.
Elladan heaved a sigh of relief as he stepped out into the room. "Hannon le, mellon nîn."
Lothíriel smiled and nodded, then paused. "Elladan, what did you do? ... You smell... weird."
Elladan looked sheepish. "Eheheh. Remember those kittens that we adopted?"
She smiled brightly and nodded.
"Well, we ran into Glorfindel (literally) on our way to the
gardens, and he suggested keeping them in our rooms. Ada doesn't poke
around there very often.
"So anyway, we had to find something
to feed them. So we got cheese."
Lothíriel nodded again. "That explains the smell."
"Elrohir is probably running around in circles right now, trying to escape the cook. I hope he doesn't get caught." Elladan looked worried.
"Lothwing's with him."
"Oh, good. He's probably given the cheese to her. They're waiting for us!" Elladan suddenly remembered.
"Give the cheese to me," suggested Lothíriel. Elladan hurriedly produced a large amount of slightly smelly cheese from his cloak, his pockets and even his boots.
"We didn't want to have to raid again for a while," he explained, seeing Lothíriel's shocked expression.
Lothíriel cradled the huge mound in one arm, and started sticking it in her pockets. She tucked some under one arm, then under the other. With her cloak arranged artistically, she looked a tad stiff, but that was all.
"Lothwing is probably down the hallway. You'll have to get out of the building and walk over to our rooms. Don't let the kittens escape!"
"I won't," she promised.
Elladan nodded and watched her walk slowly out of the room.
Lothíriel caught a glimpse of her sister's thick brown hair whisking into the hallway. She knew it was Lothwing's because it was dark, thick, had reddish sunstreaks in it, and also because it was whisking into the hallway.
"It's Lothíriel," she called.
Lothwing poked her head around the corner and grinned. "Come on, let's go!"
The elven sisters rounded the corner together, giggling and talking.
"I'm glad they found a way to keep the kittens!" said Lothwing, her green eyes dancing.
"Mmhmm," agreed Lothíriel. "How do we open this door?"
Lothwing paused. "That is a minor problem, isn't it?"
Their problem was solved by Lord Elrond coming in. He courteously held the door open for them, then followed them outside.
"I wanted to talk to you two," he said.
Lothwing and Lothíriel froze.
"When you first came here I wasn't sure about your
relationship with my sons," Elrond said slowly, "but now I
see that you've had a calming effect on them.
"I just wanted
to say, keep up the good work."
He patted Lothwing on the shoulder, and a hunk of cheese fell out. It landed in the fold of his elegant velvet cape, and was hidden from sight.
Lothwing gulped.
"We've had a calming effect, yet they still skip?" whispered Lothíriel to Lothwing. Lothwing didn't answer, as she was still petrified with the fear that Elrond would discover the cheese.
"A year ago," Elrond had overheard, "They would've been doing cartwheels."
