-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.
-5: Searching-
"Blood."
"Alcohol."
"Blood!"
"Brandy!"
"Blood!"
"Wine!"
"Does it matter?" Ecthelion asked with a sigh.
"Well, no." I admitted.
"Not really." Elrohir confirmed, and with that, we stopped debating over the source of the mysterious brownish-red stain we'd discovered on the floor of our new apartment. Instead, we returned to looking around, and discovered that, considering we were in a neighborhood were you were more likely to get mugged than not if you took a walk, it was actually fairly decent. Which was just as well, as Elrohir had been unable to scrounge up any other place that could hold seven people.
It was still rather small for seven people, though, being just a simple two-bedroom place, with one bathroom, and a kitchen crammed into the corner of the living/dining room, where everyone was currently standing. The nondescript brown floors, walls and ceiling hid most of the damage to the apartment, but the appliances showed the wear, as they were now rusted so badly that you could barely tell they were once white - and we won't even mention the mud that we found in both kitchen and bathroom sinks. Elrohir and I hadn't summoned up enough courage yet to check on the status of the toilet or bathtub.
And anyways, the bathroom, and one of the bedrooms, were missing their doors - and the other bedroom, which Elrohir and I had peeked into before shutting the door and refusing anyone else entrance, had a large mirror on the ceiling, and a bed with tattered, bright pink covers and rusty handcuffs locked around one of the metal bed frame's support posts. It didn't take much imagination to realize who used to live in this place. On the plus side, however, there were solid iron bars over the windows and the main door to the apartment was sturdy, with six different locks on it, which Elrohir and I both now had the keys for - and, thanks to some sleight of hand, the land lord only had keys for five of the locks. The place did seem solid enough, if a little dirty and lacking in furnishings - besides the necessary stuff for the kitchen and bathroom, the only furnishings in the apartment were two rusty beds and a couch. There weren't even any lights - there was a socket for a bare bulb in each room, but the light bulbs themselves were long gone.
"So, what shall we do now that we have a base of operations?" I asked as I flopped down onto the very old and ratty couch, which sat on the far side of the apartment, facing the kitchen. A disturbing creak came from the couch, as well as a suspiciously mouse-sounding squeak. Glorfindel eyed the couch and fingered one of his knives, obviously debating whether it was worth the effort to go mouse-hunting, while everyone else took it as a sign to continue their boycott of the furniture. And boycott of the floor, in Calenda's case, who was rather amusing in the way she minced around the apartment, watching the floor warily. I had a running bet going with Glorfindel as to how long before Calenda decided to use her husband in her endeavor to spend as little time as possible in contact with the floor.
"Well, I was going to go out tonight and contact a few people I know. Figured I'd take Jack and/or Glory along as 'hired muscle'." Elrohir said with a wry smile.
"Awwww, can't I come?" I asked with a pout.
"Not unless you want a night with you to be part of the price for the information." Elrohir said dryly. I pretended to ponder that for a moment, and everyone else looked at me in surprise, except Glorfindel, who knew that I would never even consider it.
"No, I guess I'll stay here, then." I said.
"Actually, I have a better idea than you staying here." Elrohir said, and tossed a credit card my way. Glancing at it, I was slightly disconcerted to find that it bore my name. "Go shopping, buy some furniture and food. I, personally, would rather burn the two beds than sleep on them, and I don't know how you can stand sitting on that couch."
"Second-hand stores for the furniture, I'm guessing?" I said with a chuckle, and Elrohir nodded. "But don't you need the truck?" Elrohir shook his head.
"No, the people I need to see are within walking distance. The truck would probably get stolen where I'm going, anyways." Elrohir said with a chuckle.
"And it won't here?" I asked, arching an eyebrow.
"No, this neighborhood knows better than to mess with me." Elrohir said with a smirk. "So as long as either Elladan or I stay around here, they won't touch my stuff." I eyed Elrohir for a moment.
"Alright, who did you kill?" I demanded.
"No one!" Elrohir protested, looking extremely offended. Then he looked at me with the most innocent expression he could muster and added, "I may have caused several hired 'muscle men' to gain nicknames like 'lefty', 'one-eye' or 'peg leg', however." I chuckled.
"And how did you do this?" I asked.
"With a dull, rusty butter knife!" Elrohir declared, then, after a pause, amended, "Or a machete I stole from one of the men now bearing one of those nicknames. Take your pick."
"Dull, rusty butter knife it is!" I said cheerfully, and then shuddered. "As long as you didn't scoop anyone's eyeballs out with rusty spoons or forks." Elrohir snickered.
"You have very gruesome imaginations." Gil-galad put in at this point, and Ecthelion and Calenda, looking slightly green, quickly agreed. Ecthelion, at least, had seen wars, of course, but that was usually a little more clean-cut than using rusty flatware to mutilate people.
"Actually, they're talking about something Kari wrote." Glorfindel said with a mixture of horror and surprise, 'hearing' the memory in my head.
"Say what?" Elladan asked, looking curious.
"Nothing, nothing. I'll explain - or show - you later." I said, dismissing it with a wave of my hand. "First off, we need to decide how to furniturize this place."
"You mean furnish?" Elrohir asked.
"Whatever." I said dismissively, and then added after a pause, "We also need to find some fresh peas when we go out shopping."
"Peas?" Elrohir asked in confusion.
"Yeah, did you know that there are no peas in Valinor?" I asked with a frown. I had been quite shocked to discover that a few centuries after arriving in Valinor. "I tell ya, you never really notice something until it's gone. And I've been craving fresh, garden peas for...well, ever since I was pregnant with Calenda." Elrohir chuckled.
"We'll have to buy some packages of pea seeds for our return voyage." he said.
"Indeed we shall. Now, furniture? What do we have that's usable?" I asked. And the couch chose that moment to collapse underneath me, sending three mice scurrying for cover, squeaking furiously. Calenda let out a slight yelp and jumped onto Gil-galad's back, causing him to sputter out an 'oof!'. "Right, nothing it is." I said, eyeing the direction the mice had gone in. "What do we need, then? And what's the credit limit on this card?"
"Limit is 20k." Elrohir said. "As for what we need..." Elrohir pondered for a moment.
"Two double beds." I said with a frown. "And a hideaway - you and Elrohir can have that. And another couch for Ecthelion."
"How about just three separate couches?" Elladan asked with a wary look at his brother. He obviously didn't know what a hideaway was, but the thought of he and Elrohir sharing anything at the moment apparently brought up memories of my description of incest.
"Because we'll be lucky to find one long enough to fit an Elf-Lord, let alone three. If you insist, however, we'll try looking for cots long enough." I said.
"We'll need the extra sitting space of having two couches, though." Elrohir put in. "Unless all of us here fancy sitting on the floors?" Calenda, still clinging to her husbands back, shuddered.
"No thank you." she said.
"Alright. We'll probably still want an extra chair or two, and we'll need a decent coffee table. Lights, obviously." Elrohir said, then did a circle around the main room, eyeing everything critically. "A new fridge wouldn't hurt."
"That's electronics; we'll deal with those tomorrow." I interrupted. "Tonight, we'll just focus on basic furniture and some quick food. Did Mr. Landlord say whether or not the stove worked?"
"'Off and on', I believe his words were." Elrohir said with a wry smile.
"Alright, take out it is." I said, and then suddenly grinned. "Valar, I'm dieing for some authentic, greasy, unhealthy American pizza." Elrohir chuckled.
"Please, we really don't want to find out if an Elf can have a heart attack." he said.
"Once can't hurt!" I quipped in reply. "Now, who's going to go where? Obviously I'm going shopping, Elladan's staying here, and you're going to look for your contacts, but what about everybody else?"
"Hmm, Jack can come with me," Elrohir said, completely ignoring Ecthelion's annoyed 'I have a name, you know!'. "And I vote Glorfindel stays here, so that between him and Elladan, we'll know if either you or I get in trouble. Plus they can use the time to clear the remaining furnishings out. That means Gil-galad and Calenda can go with you."
"I get two and you're only taking one?" I asked, cocking my head to the side.
"Well, you're dealing with the heavy stuff." Elrohir said with a shrug, and then turned to Ecthelion. "How many knives and weapons can you conceal on your person?" Ecthelion blinked in surprise, and then frowned.
"42." Glorfindel answered for him.
"Really?" Elrohir asked in surprise, and Glorfindel nodded.
"We, um, had a little contest one night in Gondolin." Glorfindel said, suddenly looking uncomfortable. Curious, I mentally 'pushed' at Glorfindel, trying to get him to explain the whole story. He shot me an exasperated look, but then, when he noticed that the rest of the group - except for Ecthelion, who was trying his best to be swallowed by the floor - were giving him similar curious looks, he caved. "We got drunk. Very drunk. And we decided to test Turgon's guards, as they're supposed to see to the removal of all weapons on someone's being when entering the King's private rooms. So we hid as many knives, daggers, swords, and other sharp objects on ourselves as we could. I managed around 39, Ecthelion got 42."
"And we only know that because of the nice, long lecture we got from Turgon the next morning about trying to sneak so many weapons into his quarters." Ecthelion said, sounding miserable. "The only comfort was that Turgon's personal body guards got reamed out, as well, because they missed two knives on me and three on Glorfindel."
"You tried to sneak 81 various weapons into Turgon's chambers?" Gil-galad asked in surprise, and Ecthelion and Glorfindel nodded glumly.
"I can still remember the vibrant, pulsing pink of the sword and knife handles that he forced us to carry with us for the next two years." Ecthelion said with a grimace. Elrohir and Elladan shook their head and chuckled.
"Well, now you get to see if you can do it again." Elrohir said. "Since the more weapons you can have on you during my little foray, the better. You probably won't have to use even one, but if you have a few visible, and a few suspicious bulges, my contacts will realize you're not to be trifled with."
"Just who are these contacts, anyways? The mob?" I asked.
"Um..." Elrohir glanced around, and I gaped at him.
"You're kidding me. What the hell are you doing involved with the mob!" I demanded.
"Well, we needed to change identities every twenty years!" Elrohir said defensively. "And that's not exactly as easy in the twentieth century as it was back in Minas Tirith for you."
"Hm, I suppose not. Still, it strikes me as risky." I said.
"It would be, if they didn't know that Kari and I could beat the crap out of anyone and everyone in their organization." Elrohir said with a sigh, looking out the window mournfully. Realizing he was thinking about Kari again, I grabbed Ecthelion, Gil-galad and Glorfindel and ordered them to go get our stuff from the truck. We didn't have much, just some clothes and weapons, but the weapons in particular took up about six bags. We WERE dealing with five Elf-Lords, each at least over ten thousand years old, who had been collecting weapons all their lives, after all. Elladan I sent to his brother, and they were soon standing in a corner of the main room talking quietly, while Calenda was drafted to help me take stock of what was in the kitchen - essentially, cockroaches - and to arrange the baggage that the other three Elf-lords brought in.
When all the baggage was in the apartment, Ecthelion started equipping himself, needing only a little help from the rest of us - he and Glorfindel wincing and demanding we get a weapons rack while we were out after Calenda and I unceremoniously dumped their weapons on the floor - and soon, Ecthelion and Elrohir were heading out to meet Elrohir's mob contact, and I gave Glorfindel a kiss before taking Calenda and Gil-galad with me as I headed out to buy furniture.
Several hours later, a very aggravated Gil-galad dragged Calenda and I back to our apartment. We had gotten all of the furniture we needed, and gotten the pizza needed for supper...but I'd used the opportunity to introduce Calenda to the joys of driving your significant other mad by shopping. It was actually a stretch for me, since I didn't like shopping all that much, but I figured it was something Calenda needed to know.
"Your wife took lessons from Morgoth, Glorfindel." Gil-galad growled as we walked into the apartment.
"Really? I thought it was rather amusing." Glorfindel replied with a grin - he had been watching occasionally through my eyes, since he and Elladan were rather bored in the apartment, all by themselves, and we'd wanted his opinion on the weapons racks. Gil-galad muttered something, then made a dive for the bags of weapons on the other side of the room, only to be stopped by Calenda grabbing onto the back of his shirt and asking him sweetly if he'd like to supervise Elladan and Glorfindel as they unloaded the furniture. Since the only true cure for the misery of being taken shopping is to pass that misery on to others, Gil-galad gleefully agreed. Of course, this arrangement eventually resulted in a wrestling match in the hallway, and soon Gil-galad was helping as well as 'supervising'.
We had all the furniture in the apartment and arranged by the time Elrohir and Ecthelion returned. Glorfindel and Gil-galad were just finishing arranging the weapons on the weapons racks, in fact, while Calenda, Elladan and I were sitting on our new(ish) couches, snacking on pizza while I explained things that they'd seen since they came to this world. Glorfindel and Gil-galad were, naturally, eavesdropping on that particular conversation, but we all stopped short when Elrohir and Ecthelion walked in the door.
"Well?" I demanded after a moment of silence.
"Nothing on Kari precisely." Ecthelion answered for Elrohir, glancing at the elf warily. Elrohir himself was looking extremely tired and worn-out, and just collapsed onto one of the couches, his feet landing in Elladan's lap.
"There's a few new bodies hidden in alleys, though." Elrohir muttered.
"We did find out that all but one of the government agents who kidnapped Kari, and tried to kidnap Elrohir, were not from LA." Ecthelion added.
"So we need to track down the one that was from LA." I said.
"Except his identity's been changed." Elrohir growled.
"Well, we'll track him down, one way or another. Can you at least get a picture of him?" I asked.
"Probably." Elrohir said with a sigh, heaving himself somewhat upright and snagging a slice of pizza. He took a bite, and then made a face. "Fruit does not belong on pizza." he said, and went about picking the pineapple off his pizza.
"Hey! If you don't like the pineapple, have a slice of the pepperoni!" I said indignantly.
"Too much effort." Elrohir said through a mouthful of pineapple-free pizza.
"And it's not too much effort to pick all the pineapple off your current slice?" I asked, arching an eyebrow. Elrohir grunted and tossed a piece of pineapple at me. "HEY!" I yelped, "This is a new-ish couch! Don't throw food at it! Or people sitting on it!" Elrohir just threw another piece of pineapple at me. I muttered, crossed my arms, and sulked. Glorfindel, of course, chose that moment to come over to the couch and sit on me. A brief wrestling match later, I was half-sitting on Glorfindel while he tried to catch pieces of pineapple that Elrohir threw our way in his mouth. Once Elrohir actually started aiming, they did fairly good. I only had to chuck one out of every six or eight pieces back at Elrohir.
"Y'know, if we keep on like this, we're going to need to get a broom and a mop." I observed as yet another piece of pineapple bounced off Elrohir to land on the floor - my aim hadn't improved much in the past several millennia.
"Wood floors." Elrohir said. "No mop." I snorted.
"Fine then. We'll get a vacuum and be done with it." I said grumpily.
"What's a vacuum?" Elladan asked with a puzzled look on his face, and I launched into an explanation. Which got only minorly sidetracked by Elrohir and I discussing the punniness of vacuums sucking. The explanation inevitably brought about more questions, and the evening soon turned into night as Elladan and I answering everyone else's questions about the world today. We had tried to explain some things to them before we came over - like cars and telephones - but the majority of things they really needed to see first before we could explain them adequately.
----To Be Continued...with Glorfindel in leather pants! (which is, of course, the only truely important part of the next chapter)----
-Authors Note-
Well, for those of you that may
not have noticed, the summary for the story has changed...went from
advertising as a sequel, to actually summarizing what's happening in
the story. Go me! Though I had to shorten the summary severely, due to
and their stupid summary-length rules. -sniffle-
Anyways. I hope everyone enjoyed this chapter, and thank you to all of you who reviewed the last chapter, especially those two who didn't(Duke Storm)/can't(Ohana) sign in, and so I didn't reply to their reviews. -poke Duke Storm- Sign in next time, ye font of armament information.
And now...cyber-popcorn for everyone! Enjoy, and I'll see you all next chapter! Or when I reply to your reviews, if you submit a signed review. peer
Namarie,
-Crimson Starlight