Otherside

Chapter Summary

Legolas babysits, Rohesia ventures out, and a different decorator compares various shades of blue!

Chapter Notes

A short chapter. This one is mainly meant to give the "otherside" to what what going on in Chapter 10 a bit. Chapter 12 will have more fluff and more on the recent kinslayings, I hope. I want to play with Galion more. His sense of humor is similar to his taste in wine - very, very dry. :-)

See the end of the chapter for more notes

Chapter 11: Otherside

The court runner was a young ellon – really little more than an overgrown elfling as far as most elves were concerned. Most court runners were. A court runner was typically the first job many had in the internal ministry unless you went through the internal guard ranks. The young ellon rather enjoyed being able to run from ministry to ministry and getting to meet some of the nobility in person.

For now, he was doing a run for Vain Glossien to the elvenking's apartments. She wanted the scroll delivered immediately and to be given to Galion if not the elvenking himself. It was the first time for him to be able to go there. You didn't get to go to see Galion often in the archives and the court runners the young ellon knew who were placed in the other ministries had not seen the elvenking other than in passing. The court runner from the archives was hoping to get lucky and see the elvenking himself.

Making his way passed the Justice ministry doors, the court runner was stopped. Blinking, he looked to the deputy of the Justice ministry, Lord Tirnendir, who called to the young ellon to halt. "Is that from Vain Glossien?" the lord asked the court runner.

"Yes, my lord. I am taking it to the king's apartments on her orders," the young ellon replied, nearly bouncing in place. Lord Tirnendir realized this one couldn't be more than a decade past his majority- little more than an elfling still.

Holding out his hand, the lord commanded, "I shall take it."

The court runner blinked again. Vain Glossien gave him strict orders to give this to no one else than Galion. If it had been the elvenking or Prince Legolas, the young ellon wouldn't think twice; however, this was the deputy of the Justice ministry. He was, in a way, Vain Glossien's supervisor, was he not? Still, he hesitated. "Vain Glossien ordered that I give it to Galion, my lord," he explained.

Lord Tirnendir bristled angrily at that. "Then Vain Glossien has once again forgotten proper procedures! All her work must go through the Justice ministry before it leaves for King Thranduil's eyes!"

Flinching, the court runner slowly handed over the scroll. He had really wanted to be able to talk to Galion in person even if it was just in greeting. Galion may not have been given a title but he was to this young Silva ellon as the canopy is to the roots of a tree.

Lord Tirnendir ripped it out of the court runner's hand with a sneer. Impetuous whelp! Really, the deputy wasn't angry at the young ellon who ran back as quickly as he could, he was angry at Glossien, once again, not following the rules. What is the point of having rules when so few follow them? And fewer still seem to care about punishment for those that continually forget the chain of duty? Lord Tirnendir doubted heavily that Vain Glossien forgot she was to hand any documents from her office to the head office for the Justice Ministry before they went to the elvenking. Rather, she was abusing her position as daughter of Lord Alagos to simply do what she wanted.

It wasn't that Lord Tirnendir in any way doubted Vain Glossien could do her job without her father. He had seen for himself she was quite capable. It was more that she seemed to believe she could skirt the edges of a rule or ignore it completely to get what she wanted to get done. It was a ridiculous notion. She needed to follow the rules just as all the other heads in the Justice ministry.

Taking the scroll – sealed both with the Justice ministry and Archives ministry seals on it – Lord Tirnendir took it to his desk. He had only just placed it there when there was a commotion from one of the heads of the lesser justice courts about one of the plantiffs bringing in a bull to the courtroom. Sighing, the deputy stood and went to check on the chaos that was unfolding.

When he returned a few hours later, the scroll was missing. Huh. Probably Vain Glossien. He really would have to speak to her, again, about following the rules.

Angreneth was appalled when the aphadon woman told her that she hadn't been out of the apartments since she arrived there. Between the woman's fears of getting lost and exactly who to leave her own little ones with, Rohesia explained she wasn't comfortable with going farther than from her makeshift chamber to either the prince's former bath or the Lady Tauriel's room. The prince hadn't minded giving up his bathing chamber – he used his father's instead.

"You are allowed to take a break, Rohesia," Angreneth mused, dark bronze hands on her hips.

The aphadon woman bit her lip worrying, looking at her own children and the Lady Tauriel on the floor. The gwinig was having a great deal of amusement rolling back and forth on the blanket provided her only to push herself up and either sit full or make the rocking motion as if she were to crawl. She wasn't quite at crawling. Angreneth suspected it would be another day or two. Rohesia was shocked that the gwinig could sit up without help.

Aphadon babes, apparently, do not age as quickly as elven babes. That would switch by the time the Lady Tauriel was at her fourth year in Arda, three by the aphadon ways of calculating such things. Then, Rohesia's sons Saberct and Eudes would be growing leaps and bounds over the Lady Tauriel. To Angreneth, there was something scientifically interesting in being able to see such with her own eyes. Eudes was only a solar year and a half older than the gwinig – nothing when it came to elves.

"Who would watch Eudes and Saba?" Rohesia reasoned. She didn't bother to include the elven babe – the elvenking or the prince would claim her attention. Angreneth teased that she was more here to keep Rohesia's children busy than the Lady Tauriel. Not that the ancient elleth minded. She found the way ephadyn children learn and do things fascinating.

"We can take them with us," Angreneth suggested. Another worry crossed Rohesia's face.

"Are you certain I am allowed to even visit beyond these walls?" the aphadon woman asked.

Angreneth laughed at that. Did the ephadyn keep their servants more as thralls; forever contained in walls and roofs and never again to see the sun or the stars? "Do you not wish to see the trees again? Hear the river?" the ancient elleth teased.

The look on Rohesia's face at that would be a dear memory. The slight hint of a glare, though lacking heat, and the fall of her lip from her constant worrying showed Angreneth exactly what the elleth already knew – the aphadon woman needed to feel the wind again as badly as any elf would.

"Do you plan on making an outing?" came a voice from the door of the Lady Tauriel's room where they were gathered. Immediately, Rohesia stood and bowed as well as Angreneth.

"I am hoping to take Rohesia out into the halls and perhaps to the river, your highness," Angreneth answered easily. The ancient elleth followed with a bit more teasing of her aphadon mellon, "However, she believes she will get lost and be forever trapped here by the magic of the elves."

From her still bowed position, Rohesia shot another glare. Angreneth barely contained her mirth. Legolas didn't bother to do so. Giving them both leave to rise, he, still chuckling. went over to the aphadon woman. "You are welcome to come and go as you please from these chambers, Rohesia. We only ask that you inform Galion, Angreneth, or myself where you will be," Legolas gently told her before flashing a small smile to Angreneth.

"As for any magical traps, the only one I am aware of is the one Galion has put in place in the wine cellar. It does seem that many enter but few have I ever seen leave," the prince stated.

A humph from the door now showed that Galion himself was listening. Though he clearly wasn't the least bit vexed at being teased. "If your attention lasted more than a flap of a hummingbird's wing, your highness, you might see quite a few eventually leave my wine tastings," the butler informed him.

Angreneth couldn't hold her mirth anymore. "Come! We shall go and see the river," the ancient elleth told Rohesia. Still the woman looked to Tauriel and her own two children. She wasn't sure about bringing them on such an expedition.

The prince commanded her attention again with a smile. "Leave them. Galion and I can watch them for a couple of hours," Legolas said before sitting down again with her boys. Saba immediately greeted the prince with showing him his attempts at learning his letters. Angreneth thought it a good exercise to teach the aphadon boy until the Lady Tauriel would come of age to be taught the same.

Galion raised an eyebrow at his prince but said nothing. It wasn't as if he was unfamiliar with children – he had three of his own. His daughter even had a child of her own and he hoped his youngest child would settle down soon. Still, he was unsure of how this particular activity fit into his already wide range of duties. Perhaps it fell as the general watching of the welfare of the royal family? At least, Galion reasoned, that would apply to Lady Tauriel as the king's ward…and to Prince Legolas, the king's overgrown elfling.

Rohesia turned to look at the butler and then to Angreneth. She gave the elleth a slight nod. Quickly, the ancient elleth hooked her arm with the aphadon woman's, grabbed a small leaf shaped leather purse, and headed out the door. Rohesia had barely enough time to give her boys kisses and making Saba and Eudes promise to be good. "We will only go to the market street and the riverside," Angrenth announced before quickly leaving with the bewildered aphadon woman.

Galion came into the room and looked to his prince. "We shall watch them?" he inquired in Sidarin; not bothering with the common tongue around the moral children.

Legolas looked up to his father's butler – Galion had been the wine steward and butler since long before the prince was born. "She is a chickadee among the woodpeckers," Legolas supplied, referring to the aphadon woman. Galion sighed; he knew what the prince meant. The smaller songbird would often join with somewhat larger woodpeckers to form their own flocks.

The specific story the prince alluded to is one that Galion himself probably told Legolas when he was an elfling. A small bird, a tit or a chickadee, who produces a pretty tune loses her flock. She sees a large flock of woodpeckers gathering food and working together. Hungry, she sings to them and asks if she may join them. The woodpeckers allow her to join only after she sings and warns them of a great predator that would have eaten one of their flock. With her new flock, she lived happily and fully in the woods.

To Legolas, it appeared, they needed to show their own chickadee that she was a part of their realm and how to be part of their 'flock'. The problem in Galion's mind was that the saying could easily refer to either the aphadon woman or the Lady Tauriel.

Overwhelmed was ten minutes ago. Rohesia was flabbergasted. She had no idea so many elves lived within the halls. She clutched to Angreneth to keep from drowning. The dark skinned elf – elleth as she learned the women were called- laughed but gently guided her through the maze of halls and chambers.

"We are almost to the doors!" the ancient elleth spoke both allowing Rohesia to wrap her left arm around Angreneth's right but also allowing the scared deer of a woman to clutch her hand as they walked. Rohesia looked from left to right, finding no purchase in her vision. Each individual blended into the next – none paying her much mind. Anyone within the halls of the elvenking knew well that an aphadon woman had come to help care for the survivor of the orcish massacre. Beyond that, the poor mortal looked like a scared doe amongst the jungle cats with no where to bolt.

"How will we find our way back?" Rohesia asked. Angreneth laughed but held tight to the mortal's arm.

"I will remember the way," the elleth tried to assure the aphadon woman. It did not appear to help despite Angreneth knowing full well the way back to the royal apartment – it was merely two halls away. Could the mortal not track her way out of a vegetable sack?

Rohesia nodded and tried to take everything in. Her mind was trying to make sense of every smell, every sound, every feel and everything she saw. It couldn't. Focus on one part and her mind could not take in the rest. Angreneth proved to be an anchor in this storm upon her senses.

"If you wish to go back, say so and it shall be done," the Avari and Nandor mixed elleth assured her mortal mellon.

Rohesia shook her head. She wanted to hear the birds in the trees and feel the wind. Though there was a balcony near her chamber, she wished to also know that it was dirt beneath her feet and not carved stone.

Angreneth smiled and guided her mellon through the small crowd until Rohesia quirked her head and refused to move. Curious at this development, Angreneth followed her mellon's line of sight to one of the internal guards pushing a cart. That was curious as the internal guards did not do such labor lest by the charge of the elvenking himself – perhaps the prince or a member of the privy council? Angreneth could think of little other reason for the guard to behave as such.

"He is quite handsome, is he not?" the mortal breathed.

"And what to your own husband?" the elleth half teased. She had learned that such as marriage was different among the mortals. They were not bound in soul even in death.

"One may look and not dine at the feast," the mortal answered, her head held high. Angreneth laughed again.

"Come, mellon, let us find the river and hear birdsong!"

Edlenniel was awake, if one could call the mechanical motion of her blinking eyes 'awake'. She knew servants were around her but she felt nothing save the pain of loss. Her son, the child she had held in her womb and given all she had to, had plotted against the very one that gave them title and land. The one that had helped to assure they had every luxury. And what did that luxury mean now without her child? Where had she done wrong to lose her child in such a way? Why did the Valar and Ilúvatar plot to take him?

A hand and then arms wrapping around her. Really, it was the familiar scent of her husband that forced her awake enough to know who enveloped her. Rhîwon said nothing. He simply was. He held her and slowly fed her bit of things by pressing them against her lips. She had been pulled into his lap, Edlenniel realized. Leaning back against her husband, she ate. She didn't know why she bothered – they no longer had a son. However, if Rhîwon still wished her to be, then she would be. She would not follow their son to the Halls of Mandos. Her fëa would stay and she would stay with her husband.

Mallowen compared the two blue silks. One was as pale as a late rhîw sky; the other was as bright as a robin's egg. Both were sheer and one or the other was to go into the design of aphadon woman's room. The designer was nearly finished with the Lady Tauriel's room – a mix of green and silvers per the insistence of the prince. The elvenking wished only for a room that the gwinig would be able to grown in and change easily to her personality as she grew. Neither seemed terribly concerned with expense.

When asked to also design for the ephadyn and the ancient elleth, she jumped at the chance. The Avari Nandor mixed elleth was easy enough – she wanted to the flowers of the wood to be brought into her boudoir. The aphadon woman was more difficult – she did not seem to understand that the elvenking himself demanded that Mallowen remake the chambers however the woman wished.

Her children were easier – the eldest simply wished for great warriors to line his walls so he may dream of heroic deeds. The younger one, when questions by her eldest, only nodded his head – he wished for what his brother wished for. Younger children often followed in the footsteps of their elder siblings, not matter the race.

If anyone had asked Mallowen even a month ago when she would command her own studio with her own assistants, the elleth would have laughed and said a century or two. However, King Thranduil was kind and, upon hearing the enthusiasm for the project of the Lady Tauriel's rooms, he commissioned her and not the former Tûr Lainodron.

She was fired from his service within two steps from the royal apartments. She was still forced to carry the heavy bolts of fabric back to his workshop, tears upon her face. Her mellyn, at least, were fired with her. After a night of commiserating, she found a letter from the king at her door, asking if she would be the decorator for the Lady Tauriel's chambers.

"Have you heard the latest on Lainodron?" Luindess gushed as she rushed in with various mint greens. The bedding and curtains for the Lady Tauriel's chambers where in place but the table cloths and accent pieces were not.

"Oh dear," Mallowen began. "Is he now marching without his clothing in the latest story, as if Saeros?" She did not look up from the two blue silks.

"Not quite," Luindess spoke, hiding a smile from her face but not in her voice.

Mallowen turned to look at her friend and sudden assistant. "Oh? What is this story?" she inquired, knowing one way or another she would hear of it anyway. The decorator could scarcely leave her chambers without being waylaid by fellow crafters or those of the Worker's Council demanding to know what occurred. It was the latest fodder for the gossips. Unfortunately, Luindess was a gossip herself and drank from this attention as if a tree at the end of a drought.

"He is missing," Luindess nearly crowed.

Mallowen dropped the fabrics in her hands and looked fully at her mellon. "Missing?" she questioned. Luindess nodded quickly and rapidly.

"Missing! None have seen him since the quorum was called! The Worker's Council themselves have called for the Justice ministry to help in the search for him," she gleefully added.

If the Worker's Council themselves asked…was this merely a case of broken pride or something more sinister. Mallowen tried to think of where her former tûr might hide.

"Have they asked for his patron? Perhaps she may know where he has fled," Mallowen asked.

"None of us should give much pain to the matter on his account," Luindess quipped distainfully. His former assistants from over the past two centuries each had a reason is actively be repulsed by his very mention. Mallowen simply hadn't dwelled on her reasons as she was too busy with her work.

"Dislike him…." Mallowen started only to see her mellon's face. She smiled slightly, "His repugnant personality be what it may, he is still a child of Ilúvatar. For those of us that live forever, should we still not hold hope that he may learn humility?"

Luindess scoffed. "A rock on the riverbed would soon travel to Valinor than he would learn humility!"

Mallowen laughed. "Come! Help me decide for the aphadon woman's rooms!" she stated as she held up the two blue silks. Luindess quickly turned to the business matters, forgetting all about how she saw their former employer running through the streets towards a noble woman's residence the night of the quorum.

Chapter End Notes

I hope this filler chapter filled in a couple of gaps. Tauriel will be in the next chapter more, I promise!