Chapter 11

"For the last time," Leda croaked, squinting through the gloom at the two guards stationed by the door. "I don't know what the fuck a Laurelin is."

Celeborn and Elrond murmured together and then shrugged at her, expressions the same as they had been for hours: disappointed but not surprised at her lack of understanding.

She groaned. They'd been at it for ages and neither party was any closer to understanding the other.

Peace had been quickly established once she had been convinced (by wild hand gestures and big, pleading eyes) that they weren't going to dismember her. She didn't trust them per se, but she was confident enough to stack all her eggs in one basket and relinquish the quill to Elrond's outstretched palm. As soon as she had given it up, the guards put away their swords and a kind of forced calm filled the room where she pretended that she wasn't surrounded by criminals and they pretended that she hadn't just crawled out of a river.

They'd told her their names (Celeborn en Eregion for the guy with silver hair and Elrond en Lindon for the brunette) which she of course butchered, and then she did a weird homage to Tarzan and smacked her chest and tried to tell them hers. Me, Leda, she'd grunted and then immediately felt stupid for it. But that small breakthrough had been the only one they'd managed to reach. Anything more complicated was impossible and now they'd come full circle- back to the leaves or Laurelin and Telperion as they seemed to call them. As they struggled to understand one another, she kept thinking of all the UFO nuts back home and how stupid they were for wishing for First Contact. First Contact sucked. Nobody understood anything and every second that passed carried a nails-on-a-chalkboard level of discomfort.

All she needed was for them to give her some directions back to the river and she'd happily be on her way. But every time she tried to change the subject they found themselves right back to the beginning: the dumb leaves.

Celeborn's tongue poked out to wet his lip. "Telperion mi Ezehollar?"

"No-" She ground out, resisting the urge to tear at her hair. "Look. I already tried to tell you. I don't know what Telperion or Ezehollar is. If you could just point me in the direction of the river I'd be happy to be on my way."

Elrond's ears flicked, ruffling his straight black hair. "Tolo." He called and a second later the door opened quietly. Weird, she hadn't even heard a knock.

The Blonde strode in with another man who set a tray with a jug and a few large mugs on the coffee table. The curious look he cast her as he left quickly morphed into shock when he caught sight of the leaves. Stunned, he swallowed once, then twice, then bowed stiffly to the room and scurried out.

"Uh- what was that about?" She asked, but no one replied because a, they couldn't understand her and b, they were all too busy staring at the leaves themselves.

The Blonde had changed out of his silver armour and was now in a black chainmail shirt and tight black trousers. He had managed to clean the majority of gore off his face, although his name-sake hair was still streaked with flaky, black blood and little chunks of flesh. He stared at the leaves, utterly still and Leda took the time to acknowledge the weird feelings she got when she looked at him. He wasn't snarling or shouting at her in fact, he hadn't even looked at her yet and although some part of her was thankful for him saving her life (by murdering another, no less) she couldn't shake the disgust that came with seeing him again. And the fear. And the anger. Because if he hadn't boxed her in in the clearing maybe she could have made her way back to the river without running into any of the monsters and already be home by now. It would have ended up with her dead, no doubt, but at least she would have tried. Now she was trapped in a mountain and while she wasn't shackled in a jail cell she was under no confusion that the guards at the door were there to reinforce a point: she wasn't going anywhere they didn't want her to.

The Blonde blinked as if coming out of a dream, visibly shaking himself from his staring contest with the leaves. His ears, long and tapered like Elrond's and Celeborn's, flicked back to lay flat against his scalp and his lips pulled into a stiff line. With a huff, he threw a crumpled black heap onto the table and with a start she realised it was her backpack. She squeaked, familiarity pushing the exhaustion from her mind and surged forward to grab it but he dragged it away just as her fingertips skimmed the edge. She frowned, leaned forward a little more to snatch but he only pulled it out of her grasp again.

Her eyes narrowed. "Would you stop being a dick-"

With a clatter, he tipped the bag upside down, scattering her belongings onto the stone table. He lowered to his knees and began to pick through the mess with his long, weird fingers and ignored her.

Anger flared in her chest. "You can't just-!"

Elrond, sensing her ire despite the language barrier, cut in. He lay a hand on the Blonde's shoulder.

"Glorfindel en-" he paused as with a merging of snaps, Glorfindel crushed an emerald syringe in his grasp. He blinked, ears flicking quickly as he shook the packet. He handed it to Celeborn and, despite Leda's strangled gasp at having her things broken before her eyes, he began to shake it too, fascinated by the snapped needle half poking out and the shards of tinkling plastic within.

Elrond cleared his throat. "Glorfindel en…Arda." He pointed at her. "Le-"

"Leda Acker Gauling." Glorfindel 'en Arda' interrupted distracted, not bothering to look up. She was going to have to drop the 'en Arda' bit- it was a mouthful to say and think.

He picked up the sad lump that used to be her Aether Group pack, and one of his stupid big fingers stabbed right through it.

His tsk'd and shook his hand to dislodge the ruined paper. It ripped right across and fell back to the table with a squelch where he proceeded to poke at the mishappen mass. It might have been endearing if it wasn't utterly rage inducing. The pack wasn't legible anymore and the needle hadn't been usable but that wasn't the point- it was the principle of the matter. She hadn't come into their anthill and battered all their possessions. Sure, everything was probably contaminated by river water and stray intestines, but they were still hers. If anyone was going to break her things it should be her.

Oblivious to her nearing aneurysm, Elrond picked up the bottle of Metronidazole and, confused, began to tap his long fingernail against the foil sealing. It bowed under the pressure and her heart leapt into her throat as it threatened to give way.

"Would you stop breaking my-" The rest of her sentence dried on her tongue as the familiar buzz and crackle of Astrid's taser filled the room. Glorfindel was holding it in front of his face, capturing the attention of the other two. Even the guards at the door seemed intrigued, leaning forward from their posts, eyes narrowed in concentration.

She froze, gulping. Dread made her heart seize. She hadn't ever been tasered before but if it could take down one of those monsters, she didn't want to find out what it was like.

"Put it down." She said quietly and, when Celeborn did the unthinkable and reached for the crackling line, she raised her voice, threatening the tenuous peace. "I said put it down!"

Glorfindel's gaze snapped to hers, finally looking at her and her resolve almost threatened to fold under his intensity. His expression was indecipherable, but he clicked the taser off and set it down, all without taking his eyes off her.

The room stilled. Her skin prickled. The walls seemed to wobble, and it wasn't until she felt the ache in her lymph nodes that she knew she was suddenly (stupidly) about to cry.

"What is wrong with you?" She warbled, desperate to keep herself from bawling and failing. "You can't just touch a taser! You can't just- you can't j-just-"

The sentence mushed to pieces in her throat as it closed and then her vision blurred, and it was over before it began. She hiccupped, buried her face into her palms and gave in to the hopelessness that had been creeping along her spine for hours.

She could feel their gazes, sharp and hot on her birds-nest hair and crumpled damp clothes. They were probably confused. Maybe their people didn't cry- she didn't know. She didn't know anything. And now they had her taser and what little medicine she had left, and she had no way pf explaining to them that she just wanted to go back. She'd done her job- she'd helped Belwen and Gildor Inglorion get here and now- Well. How do you even gesticulate to someone who still used bows and arrows that on a quest to prove once and for all that your dad was either totally insane or insanely right you had fallen through a portal? And that in doing so, you were ninety-eight percent sure that you were no longer on earth? And that you had to get back now because you were dumb enough not to have asked if the Vortice was open before you lied to your boss and flew to Bermuda? It just wasn't something you could charade away and each second that passed cemented the fact that she was in way, way over her head.

They let her sob into her hands until her crying turned to hiccups and the shudder weakened to erratic jerks and embarrassment quickly filled the gap often left after a good cry. She sniffled, wiped at her eyes and avoided looking up. She didn't want to see their confusion or worse- their version of pity. She didn't need pity. She needed to go home.

A repeated scraping sound finally made her peek up. It was Elrond, pushing one of the cups towards her. Celeborn was nowhere to be seen and the two guards had left as well. Glorfindel was still there but he was standing by the window, hands clasped behind his back, gazing out into the night. His shoulders were stiff and his ears, in a motion she was coming to realise was annoyance or agitation, flicked against his blood-speckled hair, moving the locks to and fro as if caught in a light breeze.

Elrond bent his head to catch her puffy gaze and did something strange: he smiled. The first she had seen since crawling her way out of the Vortice. Maybe even the first since before the plane had taken off in Bermuda. It wasn't big- just a small upturn of his full lips, a crinkle at the corners of his grey eyes. But it was enough- or, almost enough. Which, given how dire everything was, was certainly more than she had expected.

He nodded to the cup. Her throat threatened to collapse at the sight of the liquid- she had almost forgotten how thirsty she was, but common sense had her shaking her head.

"Thank you but-but I can't drink it," She said, voice deep and water-clogged. "I'll get sick."

He only stared so she mimed drinking and then made a sick face and clutched at her stomach feeling ridiculous. There had to be a better way of communicating.

"National Health Service guidelines advises not to drink the water when you go on holiday" She explained. "I'm sure they'd class getting sucked through a portal as a 'holiday'."

Misunderstanding he drank from the cup, raising his eyebrows to show it was ok. He poured more of the clear liquid from the jug into another cup and pushed it towards her again.

She shook her head. "No-no, I can't."

Where was Howard when you needed him to build a water purification device out of plane debris? Christ. She missed them. Not individually. But 'them', communication. Familiarity. Humans. She'd take a thousand of Julian's insults over whatever this nightmare was.

"I need to heat it." She pointed to one of the lanterns on the desk by Glorfindel, and to the newly filled cup in front of her. She flicked her fingers and made a popping sound with her mouth to mimic boiling water. "The water has to boil first. It has to be- ugh- purified. I can't mime that."

Elrond pursed his lips, but a clatter from the back of the room pulled their attention. Glorfindel was fiddling with something and it wasn't until he had turned and was setting it down on the coffee table that she realised he had somehow jimmied the top off of one of the lanterns. The uncovered flame banished the lingering shadows from the room and turned her skin a funny brown-green but strangely, gave off no heat. He was back to avoiding looking at her but he picked up the second cup Elrond offered and balanced it on the lamp above the exposed flame.

She blinked, brain five seconds behind her eyes. "Holy shit." She breathed. "Did you just understand me?"

He looked up, gaze settling just past her shoulder and shook his head. It was ionic- him responding to a question he couldn't understand by correctly indicating he didn't understand but she was so happy at the prospect of something drinkable that she didn't even let the fact that she was once again blocked by language bother her.

It took about ten minutes for the water to begin to pop and another eleven minutes forty-three seconds for it to cool down. She only knew this because from the moment he had taken the cup off (without a wince from its heat, mind you) she had kept count in her head.

The cup was huge and cool despite its steaming contents- closer to a pint glass than to a standard mug and it took two of her hands to hold it but it didn't matter. As soon as the liquid touche her tongue she knew what it was- water. She could of cried, that's how happy she was to drink the scalding, flavourless drink. She winced as it burned her throat and dribbled out of the corners of her mouth to drench her chin and drip down onto her chest.

When she breathed the first easy breath she'd had since the plane had crashed and looked up. Glorfindel quickly averted his gaze from where he had been staring and her face heated.

"Sorry." She dried her chin with her palm, embarrassed. "I'm just- I was really thirsty."

He huffed through his nose and with a bang that made her jump, set the whole jug on top of the lamp to heat for her and began to pace the length of the room behind Elrond's chair. His ears twitched as he went, muttering under his breath, eyes periodically landing on the pile of leaves with something close to alarm. Whatever the leaves were, they were important enough to rattle a guy she had personally seen commit murder about fifteen times, and she wasn't sure what to make of it.

Elrond refilled her cup when the jug was done heating, and she drank it just as greedily as she had the first. The room filled with her slurping and Glorfindel's muttering until satisfied, she set the empty cup back down and slumped back against the couch.

Elrond offered her another smile and this time she managed a weak one back. It wasn't friendship- she wasn't doe-eyed enough to think this meant she was out of the woods. But it was a start, at least. And enough of an olive branch that, between Glorfindel's quiet murmurings and Elrond's occasional replies, she gave into the exhaustion and dozed off.

She wasn't sure how long passed but someone calling her name jerked her awake. Confused, she blinked up at Elrond who was looming over her, carrying a cushion in his hand and a blanket under his arm. Her limbs felt stiff and she blamed her tiredness on not putting up a fight when he gently pushed her forward to slip the pillow behind her head and set the blanket beside her.

Glorfindel stood by the door like some giant wraith, sucking in the blue light from the lanterns and emitting it back to her in a glow that covered his whole body. A sight that she blamed on still being half asleep. She wasn't about to deal with glowing bodies just yet.

Through drooping eyes she watched Elrond potter around her, blowing out all of the lanterns, leaving the room in deep shadow, only lit by the glowing leaves and whatever the hell was going on with the living lamp, Glorfindel.

"Heruin Galadriel a Olorin," Glorfindel murmured as Elrond moved to the door. "Toled mi cae aur?"

Elrond whispered something, shot her a shadowed glance, and left. Glorfindel lingered and stared at her for a moment longer but she had no brain functionality left to decipher the look on his face. She yawned and he frowned. He seemed troubled, opening and closing his mouth as though he wanted to say something. He decided against whatever it was though because he only nodded stiffly and left. A part of her knew she should fight the sleep- try the door and make a break for it back to the river and home but as soon as she rested her aching neck against the cushion, her eyes closed and she slipped into a heavy, dreamless sleep.

Words: 3000

Authors Note:

Hello! A very short chapter and a surprisingly speedy update. Unfortunately, not much happens but it's a 3,000 word filler that had to be included, so I apologise for that. I tried to cut it down as much as I could but we all know I struggle with saying too much. I'm trying to speed it up so it's not boring but that's proving tough. I think I made things harder for myself by barring her from understanding but for believability's sake, the Vortice isn't a universal translator. It's just a mode of transportation. I will say- I'm not going to make her learn the language- that would take too long and patience I don't have so don't worry, things will pick up next chapter!

I got a couple questions about Belwen- Belwen isn't anyone! Leda met her at the same time you did, I think I need to go back and make that a little clearer so thank you for pointing that out.

The response to last chapter was so lovely. You're all such great supporters but more than that- you call me out on things. It's like one big writer's workshop and I love it. So thank you to all of you for all the reviews and the kudos and favs and bookmarks. I'm so thankful and I hope you enjoy this new chapter! To my guest reviewers (JustAFemaleGeek and various 'Guests') that I can't reply to: Thank you so much from the bottom of my heart!

I hope their names have helped you situate yourselves. This is not the Imladris of the Third Age- you'll find out just where we are in the next chapter hopefully.

I hope you're still enjoying and I hope everything is well with you all. I know these times are horrible and we're all anxious and grieving so take care of yourselves, please.

All my love and joy to you,

Novaer,
Aobh x

Translations:

Celeborn en Eregion: Celeborn of Eregion

Elrond en Lindon: Elrond of Lindon

Telperion mi Ezehollar?: Telperion in Ezehollar?

Heruin Galadriel a Olorin Toled mi cae aur?: Lady Galadriel and Olorin to come in ten days?