-Disclaimer-
Nothing
belongs to me besides the characters of Rachel and Kari, and sometimes
I wonder about them. The rest belongs to the brilliant genius that was
JRR Tolkien...or reality.
-3: Oz -
The next morning we were all woken by Elrohir tearing strips out of Elladan. Almost literally, as he'd discovered a whip somewhere. Fortunately, he found that he had to use it to tie Elladan's feet together, otherwise his twin would run off, and he had caught Elladan in a sitting room, so there were no other weapons available except his voice. But the whole manor heard him as he ranted at his twin for putting him to sleep.
"Uh - Elrohir? You did need the sleep." I interjected after a moment of open-mouthed awe as I watched Elrohir go at his twin in full wrathful Elf lord mode - he was, truthfully, scarier than Elrond when he got mad. At my comment, however, Elrohir instantly calmed and turned to me.
"It's the principle of the matter. Before he came here, we always had a strict policy of not messing with each other's minds. Other people's, yes - each other's, no. He broke that rule, even if I was half-way asleep already, and he must be made to see the seriousness of what he has done." Elrohir then returned to reaming out his brother. I glanced at Glorfindel.
:Has to be your world.: Glorfindel stated. :The Silmarils are all gone, and anyways you never saw them, and yet you are unpredictable and odd, and now so is Elrohir.:
:Makes me wonder what chaos we'll be unleashing taking Gil-galad with us.: I mused. Thoughts of Gil-galad in a strip-club flashed through my head. Glorfindel shuddered. I eyed him, then mentally switched it so it was me doing the stripping instead of Gil-galad. Glorfindel eyed me appreciatively.
"Dirty old man." I said, poking Glorfindel.
"(A) Not man, elf. (B) I'm married to you, I can leer if I want." Glorfindel said solemnly, grabbing my wrist and pulling me to his side.
"I really don't want to know what goes on inside your heads." Laurind commented with a sigh from a few feet away, and I realized that the rest of the household was gathering out in the hallway to listen to Elrohir's rant.
"Eh, guess we'd better break this up." I said absently, looking at the twins. Elladan was cowering at the foot of a chair, the whip wrapped around his ankles, while Elrohir loomed over him, currently going on about the sanctity of promises between blood-brothers, especially twins.
"Hm, maybe a few more minutes? This is amusing, and I think Elrohir needs to take his frustration out on someone." Glorfindel said.
"He's waking the whole house, and it would be better if he saved his frustration for FBI agents." I replied, and Glorfindel gave a long-suffering sigh.
"Fine then." he muttered, crossing his arms across his chest and mock-sulking.
:I'll see if I can manage to keep the whip.: I said, grinning evilly. Glorfindel's eyes widened - after Kari's blithe remark in Lothlorien oh-so-long ago, Glorfindel had kept me well away from whips of any type. Fortunately for Glorfindel, that was purely Kari teasing, and I just tossed the whip away when I unwound it from Elladan's ankles. I didn't know how to use it, anyways. At any rate, Elrohir immediately protested when I freed his twin, but I gave him a stern look.
"You've woken up everyone, and I'm sure you've gotten your point across by now. Elladan will never do it again, right?" I turned to Elladan.
"Right." he said meekly. I returned my gaze to Elrohir.
"Right now, you have more important things to do than ream out your brother. Like eat. And say 'hi' to your parents. And sleep." I said.
"But Kari -" Elrohir started irritably, but I cut him off.
"Will have to hold out a little while longer. The USA is supposed one of the more civilized, advanced countries. I doubt they will resort to any extreme measures unless they've tried everything else first. And they're going to take awhile trying everything else, especially if Kari warns them, as she likely knows it is best to, that she'll go and fade away on them if they cause her unbearable grief or pain." I said. "Furthermore, we can't get ready within a day. It would be harmful to the entire venture to try. Now come get something to eat while we send someone to get your mother and father." Elrohir meekly allowed me to grab his wrist and lead him down to the dining hall. Elladan followed a safe distance away.
The morning calmed down after that, and all was calm until Celebrían and Elrond showed up in the afternoon. Elrond, most surprisingly, took serious umbrage at one of his daughters-in-law being kidnapped, and tried his damnedest to get us to take him with us. He seemed ready to tear through the entire US army with his bare hands if he had to - which, Glorfindel conceded, he could probably have done if Vilya had still worked. In one of my rare exercises of my power as mother-in-law to the High King, however, I had Gil-galad order him to remain in Valinor.
"I don't get why you're so vehement about Elrond remaining in Valinor." Glorfindel admitted to me later, as we took a walk in the gardens after the evening meal, which had been tense all around. Glorfindel's confusion was clear on his face, and I smiled wryly - sometimes my reasons were so obtuse that not even someone who could literally read my mind could understand them.
"Celebrían." I said by way of an explanation. "Though both she and Elrond have said they understood why I couldn't warn them of Celebrían's capture by orcs way back when, I still feel guilty about it. This rescue mission might be long, and is definitely dangerous - I just don't feel right taking Elrond from Celebrían again, even if he does want to come. Plus Rondy is angry enough that he might just assume the FBI is violating Kari the same way Celebrían once was, which I'm fairly confident they're not actually stupid enough to do."
"So there's some concerted thought behind this." Glorfindel said with a nod.
"Yep." I replied. "Amazingly enough." There was a moment of silence.
"It's just as well. I think for all that he was born half-elven, his brother chose to be counted as a Man, and how Elrond succored the line of Gondorian Kings, he has come to dislike Men." Glorfindel said softly. "The only reason he may have ever actually liked them was because some of them carried Elros' blood. I think Aragorn stealing his only daughter away cancelled any of his remaining sense of duty to Elros' descendants."
"Welcome to Valinor, Mr. Anderson." I quoted absently to myself, somewhat amused. "Remind me to bring back sunglasses for Rondy. And a script for The Matrix. It would be way too amusing to make a play of it with Elrond as Agent Smith." Glorfindel eyed me.
"You're going to bring back entirely too much stuff, I can tell." he said.
"Only if we have time." I said with a shrug. "With you coming with us, I won't have to bring back any clothing, and sunglasses are a small thing." I grinned up at Glorfindel.
"Well, in that case..." he said with an overly-dramatic relieved sigh.
"I'll just leave the Ferrari, desktop computer, and home theatre system for you to carry back." I said innocently, knowing completely that Glorfindel might have managed the desktop, but neither of the other two, and definitely not at the same time, carefully blocking what those objects were from my mind so Glorfindel wouldn't know. I cackled at the confusing look Glorfindel gave me. "I am going to have such FUN!" I exclaimed.
"Remember, we're going to rescue Kari." Glorfindel said sternly.
"If we do it right, we'll have time to enjoy ourselves once we do rescue her." I retorted. "And oh, the fun we'll have. Hm, I need to see if the 'elves drunk off Pepsi' supposition is correct. I wonder if Elrohir knows." I darted for the house, and heard Glorfindel give an exasperated sigh before following.
:I AM glad you're feeling better.: Glorfindel did say mentally as I headed for Elrohir's rooms.
:Better? I was worse: I sent back in innocent cheerfulness, as usual, denying grief unless I was outright faced with it. Glorfindel just sent back a mental caress, and then I had reached Elrohir, and had to explain to him why I wanted to know if Pepsi got elves drunk before he informed me that no, it didn't - but it did make them hyper. Truly, scarily hyper. Which led to tales of what Elrohir and Kari had done while hyper from Pepsi and coca-cola - Elrohir was of the opinion that, if Rome HAD been built in a day, two hyper elves could have accomplished it.
At any rate, after that day followed a hurried move to the coast where a month of frantic planning and packing commenced. Most, if not all, of the MMC showed up during that time to either help or offer words of encouragement, which was nice, and they all promised to hold down the fort and keep the craziness in Valinor alive. Even Tulkas and Orome stopped by - though they were more somber than the other MMC members, as they came as official representatives of the Valar. They also had some nifty daggers for everyone, as well as a funky necklace for me. Only no one but me and the Valar knew about that necklace, as Tulkas gave it to me one night when I was alone, watching the sea and thinking.
"It will allow you to contact us once." he explained. "It will also mask the glow of you and your companions."
"Aw, and I was looking forward to seeing a Glowing Glory again." I said with mock sadness as I took the necklace. It was a simple chain, with an eight-pointed star for a pendant, and seemed to be made of a silvery-blue metal. "Mithril?" I asked when I noticed its unusual colour, and Tulkas nodded.
"Should you lose it, or a human wear it, it will lose all it's powers and be transformed into a simple silver necklace." he said gravely.
"Right, so, no losing the pretty, useful necklace." I said with an emphatic nod. Tulkas smiled slightly, and then said goodnight and headed off, leaving me to stand, staring thoughtfully at the necklace with the sudden feeling that I was making one of the biggest mistakes of my long, long life in going.
----To Be Continued...with the brave ship Enterprise!----
-Authors Note-
Sorry
for the short chapter, I'll try and post a longer one on Sunday...If
I'm not incredibly hung over from my 19th birthday celebrations. Horray
for becoming legal drinking age? Ah well.
So, thank you muchly to all those who review - especially those who signed in to review! This new 'reply to review' thing has going is actually one of the better things they've done in a looooong time. Well, the strange 'forum' feature seems worthy of more investigation, too.
Now, I believe, I shall leave you, with the wise advice that you should Review! -nods sagely-
-Crimson Starlight