Strange Alliances
by Erestor
Disclaimer: I own nothing pertaining to The Lord of the Rings, The Silmarillion, or the Harry Potter series. This story was written for entertainment purposes only.
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CHAPTER ELEVEN
'All flowers spring as she passes and open if she glances upon them; and all birds sing at her coming.'
- J.R.R. Tolkien, 'The Silmarillion
Perhaps she would not have done it, had it not been for Oromë . Had it not been for the lack of Oromë, that is. Vána had watched him go riding forth on his hunts day after day, and the repetition of the event had not softened its blow. It was clear to her that Oromë preferred killing animals over spending time with his wife. How insulting.
The next thing Vána realized was that she had no purpose. The flowers and birds liked her, but she didn't really do anything. She had no career, no specific talent, and she was not particularly memorable. This knowledge made Vána depressed.
The final straw was when Vána's handmaiden, Melian, scarpered off to Middle-earth, to marry an Elf, help rule an Elven realm, and give birth to the most beautiful Elf-woman in history. Vána was furious, and when Melian came creeping home, her husband murdered, Vána did not exactly offer the Maia her warmest condolences.
The Vala decided that she needed to create a fanbase for herself, and it ended up being incredibly easy. Girls in several universes, girls who wanted to be more beautiful, more talented, and more in touch with nature, were eager for Vána's help. And she helped, all right.
Any girl who had visited Middle-earth and seduced one (or more) of its inhabitants, owed it all to Vána. They could not have done it without her.
Nor could Vána have done it without the help of another disgruntled Vala: none other than Vairë. Vairë, with her ability to assist the rewriting of history, had made it much simpler for girls to enter Middle-earth and wreak havoc there.
"How went the tea party?" asked Vána. She was braiding flowers into her hair with careless abandon. It was rather spiteful of her: Oromë was allergic to them.
"I think Varda liked the donkey," said Vairë.
"Did she take a welcome mat?" asked Vána.
Vairë nodded. "She was very admiring of them!"
"That's great," said Vána, with some condescension. "By the way, I hate to critique your style, but your act of righteous rage was a bit overdone, in my opinion. You shredded an awful lot of your old work."
"It wasn't completely an act," said Vairë ominously.
"How's history coming along?" asked Vána, changing the subject.
"Well enough," said Vairë. "I wish I could see what Námo was doing in that other world. But the history of Middle-earth is completely under control. It should start looping again at any moment."
"Wonderful," said Vána. "The waiting list is full, you know. Seven girls for Legolas (they can each have him for a few hundred years), four for Haldir, three for Faramir (if possible– we'll see how that turns out), two for Aragorn (it's harder to pack girls into a mortal's life span, even if he is one of the Dúnedain), two for Elrond, two for Glorfindel, one for Thranduil, one for Celeborn, one for Éomer, one for–"
"I get the idea," said Vairë. She envisioned lots of weaving in her future. "What about Mandos?"
"What about him?" asked Vána mildly.
"What if he finds out that I'm the one reweaving history?" asked Vairë, her eyes widening with panic.
"What would he do?" asked Vána. "What does he do if he's angry or upset?"
"Nothing," said Vairë.
"Exactly."
Jennifer wrote fanfiction. Humorous fanfiction. It helped her get through life with her sanity intact. Her sons were flooding the kitchen: she wrote humorous fanfiction. Her husband was stuck under the kitchen sink, trying desperately to fix it: she wrote humorous fanfiction. Her mother-in-law showed up with handmade teddy bears for the grandchildren, waded through the flooded kitchen and decided that Jennifer was not rearing her sons properly: she wrote humorous fanfiction.
On days when Jennifer felt her nervous breakdown coming on, she wrote humorous fanfiction until her fingers nearly hurt from typing.
She never let anyone see what she wrote. It was private. Writing it made her feel better, and afterwards she could be a good mother again and not be so tempted to scrag her sons.
Jennifer was planning to check her e-mails on the library computer, while her sons improved their minds by reading books, but when she took Benny and Sammy to the Kiddie Korner, she found a strange man sleeping there, sprawled across several beanbag chairs. Jennifer did not think that this was a good environment for her children. She pulled two books off the shelves at random, handed them to the boys, and went back to the computers, holding Sammy's hand so he wouldn't escape.
"Sit down next to Mummy's chair, Sammy," said Jennifer, who had a habit of speaking about herself in third-person. "Read your book. You too, Benny."
It was an early Saturday morning, and yet there were already other people using the computers. A tall, oddly dressed man, and a black-haired boy were chattering away to each other in a foreign language, and thumping at the keyboard, seeming excited with the results. Honestly, had they never seen a computer before? Jennifer sighed and shook her head world-wearily.
Someone tapped her on the shoulder, and Jennifer looked up. A woman was standing beside her chair, smiling pleasantly and holding Sammy and his book. "Is this one yours?" she asked in a strangely accented voice. "I found him in the Young Adult Section."
"Oh yes, that's Sammy," said Jennifer. She took him from the woman. "Thank you very much."
"You are welcome." The woman didn't leave. For a moment, she just stood there, looking at Jennifer, and then she said, "Do you write stories about... an Elf? His name is Legolas."
Jennifer gaped at this question, and then said, "No, I don't write stories about Legolas. I write stories about the hobbits."
"Which hobbits?"
"Oh, all of them," said Jennifer, with a vague wave of her hand. "Merry, Pippin, Sam, and, of course, Frodo." She smiled dreamily.
"You," said the woman, "are perfect."
Jennifer did not know what to say. She was flattered.
"Wait one moment," murmured the woman. "Sauron, Fëanor," she hissed at the two, and when she had their attention, she said something rapidly in the foreign language. They nodded, and came over to Jennifer's side.
"Greetings," said the boy. "I hear you write about the halflings."
Jennifer nodded.
"Are you so deluded? Do you not realize that they are cunning and deceitful creatures?"
"They're cute," said Jennifer.
The boy rolled his eyes. "But they–" he began loudly, and the woman shushed him.
"You'll have to forgive Sauron," she said. "He's still bitter about what Frodo did to him." Then, to Sauron, "I've sent Fëanor to get Lórien. Would you find Mandos for me?"
Sauron nodded and hurried off.
Jennifer began to realize why the names of these people sounded so familiar. Sauron was the Lord of the Rings. Fëanor was that Elf who'd made the silmarils. Lórien and Mandos were Valar.
"Imagine being called Sauron!" said Jennifer to herself.
"Well," said the other woman, "the Elves weren't very fond of him, you know."
Jennifer smirked. "And what's your name? Arwen?"
"No. It's Nienna," said the woman calmly. "You seem to think that we are mortals like yourself. You are wrong."
Sauron stuck his head out around a bookshelf. "I've found Mandos," he said, "but Mandos has found the Non-fiction Section. I need some help extracting him."
"Excuse me a minute," said Nienna, and walked purposefully to where Sauron was now lounging against the shelves, nonchalantly holding a book. She disappeared around the corner. When she reappeared, she was leading a man by the sleeve of his ink-black robe. This was necessary because the man was reading from a very thick volume with minuscule print, and never once took his eyes off the page.
Fëanor appeared, dragging the man from the Kiddie Korner behind him. Both of them looked annoyed.
"This woman will help us," said Nienna. "She writes about Middle-earth. Sauron, we have work to do, so would you entertain her children for us?"
"What?" exploded Sauron, in the Dark-Lord-version of righteous indignation. "I, the Lord of the Earth, entertaining children?"
"You aren't the Lord of the Earth any more," said Lórien. "Sorry."
Jennifer looked a bit worried. She was thinking: 'A Dark Lord, looking after my two darling little boys!"
"Don't worry," said Nienna. "He won't hurt them."
This was not a very reassuring comment. Jennifer wondered why.
Sauron was sitting on a blue beanbag chair in the Kiddie Korner, asking Eru what he had done to deserve such a fate. The answer was pretty obvious. About fifteen or twenty good reasons for Eru to make Sauron suffer came readily to mind.
"I don't like you," said Benny, throwing a building block at the Dark Lord's head. Sauron didn't even duck. The child had terrible aim.
"Don't get too smug, snot-face," said Sauron. "Not liking me doesn't make you very unique, you know."
Calling young innocents 'snot-face' would probably not work in Sauron's favor, he realized. Eru would hate that. And when Eru got mad... bad things happened. Sauron decided to try to be a little nicer. If possible. If these brats weren't too annoying.
"Would you like to play a game?" he asked, standing up and scowling down at them. 'Benny' and 'Sammy'. Bah. Who had named the poor things?
"No!" shouted Sammy. "I don't like you!"
"What makes you think I care?" demanded Sauron. He stacked up a number of beanbags in a circle, caught Sammy, and put the shrieking toddler in the center. Sauron hoped he wouldn't be able to get out too quickly.
The moment the Maia turned his back on him, Benny dashed out of the Kiddie Korner and began running for his mother. Sauron dashed after him, his handmade robes flapping. He grabbed Benny's slimy hands and began dragging the five year-old back to the Korner.
"Help me!" yelled Benny.
"Curse you, you're heavy," muttered Sauron. The self-styled Lord of the Earth was small for his new age (it came with being 'nonthreatening'), and Benny was rather burly. Benny was also thrashing about frantically, and Sauron was having a hard time holding onto him. Eventually Benny managed to elbow the Maia sharply in the stomach, which, to Sauron's everlasting shame, sent him flying backwards, winded. He landed on the floor and glared after Benny, who was running to his mother as fast as his chubby little legs would carry him.
Then Mrs. Tey came looming out of nowhere, in much the fashion of Mandos, and Benny ground to a halt. "Do not run in the library," snarled Mrs. Tey.
Benny cringed.
Sauron scrambled to his feet. "Thank you, ma'am," he said, remembering his manners. It usually paid off to seem fair and wise. It had worked with the Elves. "Benny," he said, with a dark look at the child, "has been misbehaving."
"Are you looking after him?" demanded Mrs. Tey.
"Yes, ma'am," said Sauron, looking responsible. "At least, I'm trying to, ma'am. Thank you for stopping him, ma'am." Maybe he was overdoing this. "Come on, Benny," he concluded.
Benny, who had been suitably chastened by the head librarian, followed after Sauron meekly. As for the Maia, he didn't start storming through the library until he was out of Mrs. Tey's line of vision. Then he stormed in a very satisfying way. It felt good.
He came to the Kiddie Korner, loathing the very sight of it. Sammy was gone. Valar, that was predictable. Sauron swore –in Black Speech, which also felt good– and then said, very firmly, "Benny, stay here."
"No," said Benny, who hadn't learned his lesson.
Sauron knew that when niceness failed to persuade little brats, intimidation worked just as well, if not better. "Stay here," he snarled at Benny, pointing to a bean-bag chair.
"Stay here," mimicked Benny, stupidly unafraid.
Sauron decided to stop going easy on the little fiend. He brought his face very close to Benny's, widened his yellowish, catlike eyes, letting his spiky hair rise a little on his head, and growled, in his most ferocious voice, "Stay, or I'll claw your nasty little eyeballs out." Benny stared at him in dumbfounded shock, too frightened to cry, and Sauron set off to find Sammy.
Sammy was eating a book in the Sci-Fi Section. Sauron, feeling fed-up and impatient, snatched it from him squelchily (it was soggy), rammed it back onto the shelf, picked up the wailing Sammy, swaying under his weight, and wobbled back to the Kiddie Korner.
On his way there, Sauron passed a shelf, and a title caught his eyes and held them. Harry Potter. It hadn't been 'hairy' anything, after all. Trust the Valar to hear it wrong.
Holding Sammy with one hand (Sammy was trying to pull Sauron's hair out and eat it, which hurt), Sauron slid one of the Harry Potter books off the shelf. There was a picture of a boy on the front, holding a stick and looking half-annoyed and half-scared-witless. "Hmm," said Sauron. He hoped he didn't look anything like that.
Sammy was yelling "hate you, hate you" in Sauron's sensitive ears. The Maia decided that babysitting was a lot harder than he had expected and being a Dark Lord was nothing compared to it. He returned the book to its shelf, took a deep breath and staggered back to the Kiddie Korner, where Benny was sitting, as motionless as though he'd been frozen.
"You may move now," said Sauron. Benny began soberly playing with building blocks, and Sauron, seized with a fit of industry, began to pick up books and crayons that littered the floor of the Korner. Suddenly he halted, staring at the cover of the book with fascination. It was called The Elfs and the Shoemaker. Sauron could feel his eyebrows creeping towards his hairline with surprise. Little Elves? Nudist Elves? Helpful Elves? If they were capable of making shoes, why were they incapable of making clothes for themselves? Why couldn't the shoemaker have left them cookies or something? It would have been a far cheaper act of goodwill.
"Is this the sort of rubbish you read regularly?" asked Sauron, waving the book at Benny. He got no answer. Benny was staring at him in wide-eyed horror.
"I pity the two of you," said Sauron.
There was no response from Benny. Sammy was still screaming. Sauron began to feel rather like screaming as well. He put The Elfs and the Shoemaker back on the bookshelf with careful deliberation, trying to stay calm and rational, despite the toddler's incessant screeching.
Mrs. Tey would come at any moment, he was sure, to see what was going on in her precious library. Sauron went over to Sammy and clapped his hands sharply right in front of the child's contorted, yowling face. "Be quiet," he hissed.
Sammy became silent very rapidly, much to Sauron's relief.
The Maia collapsed into a bean-bag chair and regarded Benny and Sammy with great dislike. Then he said, "All right. I am going to tell the two of you a story."
TBC...