Strange Alliances

by Erestor

Disclaimer: I own nothing pertaining to The Silmarillion, The Lord of the Rings or the Harry Potter series. This story was written for entertainment purposes only, and not for money.

Many thanks to those of you who took the time to review. I'm very grateful! I hope you enjoy this fifth chapter.

CHAPTER FIVE

'His likeness has never again appeared in Arda, neither has his spirit left the halls of Mandos.'

-J.R.R. Tolkien, 'The Silmarillion'

When she had been born, she had been named Corky. Her parents had thought it sounded cute. She thought it sounded like a name a shamelessly eccentric person would give their poor dog.

When she had turned eighteen, she had legally changed her name. She was now Lúthien Tinúviel. No one ever got the accent marks right. Her few friends all called her Luthy, which was aggravating, because it sounded like an infantile pronunciation of Lucy. But one has to take the good with the bad, sometimes.

On the Internet, she was known as death-to-writers-of-tripe. She struck with a vengeance, humiliating tripe-writers and pointing out all their misdeeds with great skill and enjoyment. She liked to think that she was the terror of all non-purists, and that they shook in their shoes at the thought of death-to-writers-of-tripe reviewing their work (i.e. figuratively ripping their work to tiny shreds and then figuratively cremating the remains).

In her spare time, she wrote theses discussing the question of Balrogs' wings. She composed tunes for the Lays of Beleriand, and sang them as she played on her harp. She had memorized most of The Silmarillion so that she could crush nonconformists to the Canon without having to reach for her well-worn edition of The Book.

Every night, before she went to bed, she gave her laminated photograph of Professor Tolkien a chaste kiss.

She was, without a doubt, one of the most fanatical Tolkien purists in existence.

She came directly to the library from her job, and, after waiting in a slow-moving queue for a while, had gained access to one of the library computers. Usually she would have gone straight to a fanfiction website to hunt down tripe-writers and flame them into oblivion, but today, she had new priorities.

She had decided that she was going to write her own work of fanfiction. Tripe-writers would read it and despair. It would be so well-written, so clever, so witty and so original that she would get hundreds of admiring reviews. People would beg her for more.

She sniggered to herself, considering writing up to a cliffhanger, and then ceasing to update. She would drive them all mad.

She was going to write about Fëanor. Fëanor was an extraordinary Elf. Luthy could identify with him. He hadn't been afraid to make his feelings known. She wasn't afraid to make her feelings known. "We would have gotten along so well," the poor deluded female told herself, as she preened before the computer screen.

She decided to start with angst. Fëanor would be repentant. He would be suffering in the Halls of Mandos, thinking repentant thoughts and arguing with his sons. She wanted her reviewers to be reading her story through a blur of tears.

After a while, Luthy began wondering if she was pouring on too many clichés (clichés that she would have flamed anyone else over), but she dismissed this worry almost immediately. She was writing a masterpiece. A masterpiece is just a set of clichés compiled in a new way by someone with talent (her, obviously).

Now that Fëanor was truly suffering, she decided to add herself to the mix. He was going to fall in love with her; that was the point of the story. He would somehow fall into her world, end up in her apartment, and she would take care of him. Unfortunately, Luthy was unsure of how to write this section, so she put an ellipsis in between the paragraphs and moved on, to when Fëanor landed in Her World.

Just as she was writing this part, the librarian tapped her on the shoulder. "Your time's up, miss," she said severely, peering over her spectacles in a way indicating that she disapproved of everyone who came to the library for purposes other than reading. "There's a gentleman waiting to use this computer."

Luthy sighed heavily, with a half-hearted glare in the direction of the 'gentleman' and e-mailed her Story So Far to herself, as was her technologically advanced method. She heaved her weary body from the painful library chair, and staggered off in the direction of the parking lot, to find her car and go home.

She did not notice the tall man who stood by the shelves with a worried expression on his face. Mandos had sensed the liberation of Fëanor from his Halls. Such an event could only have horrific consequences.

Mandos hurried off to find his sister, muttering things about doom under his breath.

Tulkas was enjoying having a captive audience. Forcing people to listen to his jokes was a technique that possessed wonderful merits. He was half-way through his joke book, and he hardly ever got half-way through his joke book. Once he had read nearly half of it to Lórien, but Lórien had been asleep at the time. When Lórien had woken up, he had been extremely cantankerous, which was unusual, because the Vala was generally good-natured. He had blamed the joke book, most unfairly.

"Knock, knock," said Tulkas, peering over the top of the book at the fëar. They hadn't quite perked up yet, he thought. They would probably have to hear the whole joke-book before it took full effect.

"Who's there?" chorused the fëar spiritlessly.

"Banana!" said Tulkas.

"Banana who?" droned the fëar.

At that moment, Fëanor, who had been sitting in a corner, glaring at the Vala (and not participating in the joke session!), disappeared completely with a little poofing sound.

"Where did he go?" wondered Tulkas aloud.

The fëar had no answers. They looked at the Vala sadly and shrugged. They were all thinking about how Fëanor always managed to avoid suffering the consequences of his actions. All were thinking this but Turgon. He was murmuring confusedly to himself, "'Banana, where did he go?'... I do not think I understood that joke. I do not even know what a banana is."

"Oh well," said Tulkas. " We can have fun without him. ...Knock, knock!" he repeated.

The following describes what an Elf-lord does when he has been whisked out of the Halls of Mandos and into your small city apartment.

First he stands there, completely in shock, staring wonderingly at the strange pattern on your wallpaper. Then he realizes that he has a body again, and he is thrilled and excited. He stretches luxuriously, like a cat, and then he goes in search of a mirror, to remind himself of what his face looks like.

He finds a mirror in your bathroom, but it is too low down for him to see anything. Unwilling to stoop to its level, he pulls it off the wall and holds it up at the proper position. He is happy with what he sees. He admires his burning eyes and his perfect nose and so on, and eventually he starts singing to himself in Quenya, as he happily exits the bathroom, a skip in his step.

He opens all the cupboards in your little kitchen, and accidentally turns on your microwave, which startles him. When he recovers from his shock, he proves to himself that the microwave does not frighten him by turning it on again and watching its every move.

Once he has determined that the microwave will not attack him, he opens your refrigerator. The sight of food makes him resume his singing with even more gusto than before. He supposes that the refrigerator is a new kind of ice box, and he likes it.

He takes out a can of soda, and shakes it, and the sloshing sound inside informs him that it is some kind of drink. He inventively puts your electric can opener to good use, and a column of soda goes shooting into the air. At last the aluminum can is nothing but a mangled heap, with soda seeping from it like blood. He is unperturbed by this. He finds a glass and pours the remainder of the soft drink into it, then fishes the slivers of metal from the liquid and takes a wary sip. The sugar in the soda nearly sends him into a diabetic coma.

When he recovers from the soda, he pours the remains of the drink into the kitchen sink, and then rummages through your refrigerator again. He finds a container of milk, but the milk tastes completely different from the milk he remembers. He finds an apple, and eats that, even though it tastes nothing like a real apple, because he is very hungry. He has not eaten for thousands of years, since he has been languishing in the Halls of Mandos.

He drifts into your bedroom, and peers out your window. He thinks that Valinor has changed a lot since he last saw it. There are less trees. There are many tall, grey buildings. The air looks smoggy. For a moment he panics, wondering if Morgoth has taken over the world again. Then he recovers, because this world looks nothing like Morgoth's black fortress. He smiles, and tells himself that he always knew that Valinor wouldn't be half as good without his unique presence.

He finishes his apple as he switches on every electrical appliance in your apartment. As he is scowling at your television, wondering what sort of gibberish the people are speaking, he hears you enter.

He does not know that you own this apartment. He is curious. He wanders over and sees you tossing your car keys onto the coffee table. You are humming to yourself, thinking about the fanfiction you are writing, and how wonderful it will be. Then you look up, see him looming over you, and begin to scream, the sound of which hurts his delicate ears.

Offended by his reception, he stalks back into the kitchen to eat the rest of your apples.

TBC