Time Transcended
Getting Closer
Disclaimer: Don't own it.
It was now the tenth of December, and the Christmas shopping rush was in full swing. Everyone was maddeningly busy, and Rebecca and Elrohir were no exception. Rebecca's parents were in Denver for early Christmas celebrations with her father's brother and sisters, Elladan and Glorfindel were flying in, and Rebecca was helping Elrohir get everything ready for everyone when they came back into town. The tree was up and decorated, as was the rest of the house, the guest rooms were all ready, and it seemed everything was done. The two flopped onto the couch only to catch a glimpse of the clock on the wall and realize that Elladan and Glorfindel would be arriving at the airport in thirty minutes… that would give them just enough time to get there.
They jumped in the car and flew to the airport. They reached it just as the plane landed. All season they had only ran, and the shock of the whole serial killer thing had worn off just in time for the stress of shopping. Elrohir and Rebecca were both tired, but she more so than he.
"Ro! Rebecca!" came a joyous cry to their right. The two turned to see Elladan jogging towards them with bags hanging off his shoulders, a few yards behind was Glorfindel who was casually walking and pretending not to know the mad-elf that was running and screaming through the terminal.
"DAN!" Elrohir returned. He ran towards his brother and gave him a huge hug. "It is good to see you again!"
"It is good to see you too brother," Elladan grinned. He saw Rebecca hanging back a little, allowing the brothers to reunite, and he beckoned to her. "Rebecca! Come! Give your future brother-in-law a hug!"
Rebecca smiled and gave a short chuckle as she embraced the other son of Elrond. Just then Glorfindel came strolling up.
"And a hug for you to!" she said as she hugged the elf lord.
Slowly he returned it. "It is good to see you again," he said warmly.
They loaded their bags into the back of Elrohir's car and drove off. Elrohir and Elladan in the front, Glorfindel and Rebecca in the back.
"So Elladan, where is my gift from Arwen?" Rebecca asked.
"Right here in my pocket," he said. He fished it out of his coat pocket and handed it to her. It was a small black box, that felt to be made of polished stone. She opened it and found inside a pendent of mithril and diamonds in the shape of a star. She stared at it with a huge grin on her face and smiled broadly. A small tear came to her eye, in remembrance of her friend. "Do you like it?"
"Ai! This is beautiful! How I wish I could give her my thanks!" Rebecca cried.
"What is it?" Elladan asked.
"So you didn't look? All these many years you didn't look?" Rebecca said in utter amazement.
"No. She gave it to me closed and I have taken extreme care to make sure it stayed that way," Elladan proudly said.
Rebecca just smiled and envisioned the chain she would put it on and the earrings she would buy to go with it.
"We heard about the excitement around here as of late, either of you care to expound as to what exactly happened?" Glorfindel asked.
Rebecca gave a brief narrative and only received nods and "huh's" in reply. It was such a long and sordid tale that none of them knew just exactly how they felt on the subject. To change the mood she asked, "So how are things with you all?"
"Well, I am good. I am not sure whether that is the same for Glorfindel here," Elladan said with a grin.
Glorfindel gave his death glare to the seat ahead of him. "You know, there were several instances while you were an elfling that could have gone ill if I had not been there. Do not make me regret being there."
Elrohir teased, "Was it really all that horrible Glorfindel, whatever it was that happened?"
To this the balrog slayer would give no reply.
"If he will not tell you all, then I will," Elladan said at last.
"You would not dare!" Glorfindel said.
"Surely after all these thousands of years you would know better. Of course I am!" Elladan grinned and proceeded to narrate.
"Nai Valaraukar tye-mátar!" Glorfindel mumbled under his breath.
Rebecca burst into light hearted peals of laughter despite the strong cursing and then listened to the story.
"We had a lay over at JFK international, and as we were sitting and waiting for our plane, Glorfindel is sitting around and reading a magazine. Suddenly this song starts to play on some kids headphones, and it reminds him of home and all the time he spent in Rivendell and Valinor, so he leans over and whispers, 'I am finally beginning to get homesick. Even if Elro and Mirë are not ready we should leave without them. We have been gone too long.' The man next to him turns and says, 'Thanks, but no.' Then gets up and moves away. I have not seen Glorfinel turn that red since we stole his clothes while he was swimming!"
"Oh! I have not heard this story! Please, tell me how it goes!" Rebecca grinned.
"If he does it shall be the end of his life," Glorfindel growled.
"Do not be so cranky!" Elrohir said lightly. "Then again, you have always gotten cantankerous while traveling, haven't you?"
Glorfindel gave him a dirty look then fell silent.
"You shall have to tell it inside. We're here," Elrohir said.
They filed out of the car and carried the luggage in the house. Elrohir and Glorfindel also received upstairs bedrooms, which resembled theirs from Rivendell, and once the two were settled they headed to the kitchen for some strong coffee. They had to stay up much later than they wanted too, and already they were getting tired.
For a few minutes the four sat around the kitchen table with a cup of something or another, in dead silence. Thanks to webcam and instant messenger, they were all caught up on the others business and had nothing else to talk about, at least, at the moment. Rebecca looked from one face to the next and saw the far off looks in their eyes and the blank expressions on their faces. She burst into laughter at them.
"What?" Elladan asked, amused and annoyed.
"All of you look so blank it is humorous," she said in a matter of fact way.
"From hence forth, let us speak in elvish when we can. English is such an uncouth language to my mouth," Glorfindel suddenly interjected.
"Pourquoi pas français?" Rebecca suggested with a silly grin.
"Oder Deutsch," added Elladan
"O español," Elrohir said.
"Or not," Glorfindel added in his native tongue. "I think you sons of Elrond have been in this world a little too long."
Elrohir and Elladan laughed a little and then the silence ensued once more.
"I'm hungry," Elladan blurted out.
Rebecca broke into peals of laughter. "You sound just like a hobbit!" she gasped.
All three elves just stared at her as she laughed.
"You need to go to be early tonight Mirë. You are ridiculously tired," Elrohir said.
"I am not," she retorted like a child.
"Yes you are. If you laid down you would be sound asleep in five minutes," he replied.
Elladan and Glorfindel looked at each other with grins on their faces and smiles in their eyes. It was so cute to watch those two together. Especially when they acted completely oblivious to the world around them.
"I would not," she stated.
He sighed and let it go at that. They sat around and talked casually for a bit, Rebecca growing more and more giddy with every minute that passed. When she was tired, she grew giddy, and Valars was she giddy! All had been warned of this by her parents, but none quite realized just how it was.
"Mirë, are you sure you do not want to go to bed? You are acting quite tired," Elrohir said softly.
"I'm bouncing off the seat and you say that I am tired!" she laughed.
All three just looked at her with a look that said, "you are in denial". It was now getting late, about ten, and Elrohir realized if he didn't put her to bed, she would bounce all night until she fell over. He scooted his chair next to hers and put an arm around her and said, "Are you sure you are awake Mirë?"
"Yes! Quite sure!" she exuberantly replied.
"Mirë, why do you not go to bed, relax… you have had a rough month and you need to rest. There is naught more to do. If you will not sleep, then at least go sit on the couch and relax a bit. You are tired," he said softly.
As he spoke, Glorfindel and Elladan watched her face go from hyper to calm, with grins on their faces.
"Yes, the couch would be a good deal softer than this wooden chair," she said at last. She sounded spacey, close to dreaming…
She went into the living room and sat on the couch, accompanied by Elrohir and Elladan and Glorfindel watching from a distance. He talked to her softly for a few minutes and then… she was asleep on his shoulder. Carefully Elrohir picked up his sleeping Mirë and carried her off to bed.
"Ah, just like your father," Glorfindel said as Elrohir came down the stairs. "I watched him perform that trick more than once with your mother."
Elrohir grinned wide, "I learned from the best!"
"Remind me again, Elrohir, why I agreed to come back with you," Elladan said. "I have sat around in this world for hundreds of years watching you hunt for your love, whilst I have been entirely loveless…"
"Not true! Remember, 1112, that Irish peasant girl with the big green eyes… what was her name…" Elrohir said, trying hard to recall.
"I don't know. I called her Crazy Catherine," Elladan confessed. "Remember, she turned out to be a schizophrenic kleptomaniac."
"What about the Italian girl, Rosa Marie?" Elrohir said. "The 1342 one, not the strange 1276 one," Elrohir suggested.
"Her father was a mercenary and her mother was controlling," Elladan said.
"How about Helga? Or Samantha? Or Mary?" Elrohir listed.
"Mad, possessive, leper," Elladan flatly replied.
"Mary was a leper?" Elrohir said.
"Well, the first one had other interests besides me, the second one died of the Black plague, the third one was killed by a mad cat, but the fourth one was," Elladan informed.
"I told you Elrohir! But you would not listen," Glorfindel said.
"Glorfindel, you were in Greece when Elladan got to the fourth Mary. It was the second one you said was leprous. The second one was just warty."
"Are you certain?"
"Positive."
"Perhaps you shall meet someone yet," Elrohir said, trying to comfort his brother.
"Yes, and if I do, then I shall want to take her with me, and she shall not want to go, and even if she did, the Valars would not permit it," Elladan sighed.
"I was thinking of when we get back to Valinor," Elrohir said. "Remember that elleth… Aranel, she seemed to be rather interested in you."
"I have been gone how many centuries now… I do not think she would wait that long," Elladan said.
"Even if she didn't, Valinor is full of unmarried elven women," Glorfindel said.
"True true!" Elladan said with a grin.
"Speaking of marriage," Elrohir said, "You are willing to do our wedding, are you not?"
"I am," Glorfindel said. "And I am quite honored to do so. I may tease you and your brother, but I hold you both in the highest esteem."
From there subject shifted to elvish customs, and it was decided that around the house at any rate, they would speak only elvish and wear their elvish clothes, which were buried under everything else they owned.
"Over three hundred years," Elrohir said at last. "It has been well over that many years since we could still wear our robes in public."
"Has it been that long already?" Elladan inquired.
"Well, probably a bit longer, but I would sneak mine on for special occasions a little longer than I should have I think," Elrohir confessed.
"How about your shoes, do either of you still have yours? Mine rotted away finally two hundred years ago," Glorfindel said.
"Two hundred! What were they made of? Mithril? Our last pair withered away in the sixteenth century," Elladan exclaimed. "Which ones were they?"
"They were my mithril coated ones. The leather underneath finally rotted out and I have not the skill to repair them. I now have mithril dust sitting in a jar upstairs," Glorfindel said with a laugh.
The twins shook their heads. It was just like Glorfindel… to keep boots for sixth thousand years or better.
"The spells finally wore off then?" Elrohir said.
"That or I swore to many times against them when I stubbed my toe," he added. He laughed and the other two joined him. "We should make another pair, just leather, for when we sail. It wouldn't do to arrive in Valinor barefooted or in a pair of Nike's."
Elladan said, "Yes, I can see it now, we all arrive once more on white shores in royal elvish robes and pleather shoes with rubber soles."
They laughed and joked for a little while longer, then realized the hour and went to bed with a smile on their lips and a laugh in their hearts.
TRANSLATIONS!
Nai Valaraukar tye-mátar! - May Balrogs eat you!
Pourquoi pas français? – Why not French?
Oder Deutsch – Or German
O español – Or Spanish
AUTHORS NOTE: Who said my fanfics weren't educational? LOL! You all just did your French, German, and Spanish homework, plus a little elvish for good measure. YAY FOR YOU! LOL! Yeah, incase you should wonder, I'm tired, almost like Rebecca, and well, it's late. Good night!
