A problem was arising, Maude noticed, following her mishap with the sword. It seemed that the wound was deeper than she had previously believed, to a point where it ached to dance. An attempted port de bras ended in disaster when she felt the skin tear further along the cut, sending an intense pain skittering across the nerves of her neck and down to her elbow. She gave an audible yelp and headed toward the mirror on the opposite side of the room. However, before she could pull back the fabric of her tunic to inspect the cut, someone called to her from the doorway.
Lord Elrond stood in the corridor, properly dressed and wearing an expression which betrayed absolutely nothing about his inner thoughts. As if that were not perturbing enough, he wordlessly began guiding her through the many structures of Rivendell, until they arrived at an outdoor area where some of the other guests were breaking fast. Assured the Gandalf was nearby, he turned to speak to her.
"In an hour, I would like you to report to Calaeron for another lesson," he said quietly. When her shoulders slumped, a fire of humour danced within his eyes. "You must forgive Calaeron, Maude. He is a scholar, and every scholar is enthusiastic about their work."
What little empathy she could muster was desolated as she left Elrond's side and found herself sandwiched between a haughty group of Elves and a cantankerous party of Dwarves. She wished that she could speak to them, even if it were just to say a condescending "settle down, children"; though as tempting as Maude found the notion, there was no doubt in her mind that such words would not be well-received by either party, and so in lieu of a sharp comment in any language available to her, she sat, stewing in their enmity and tapping her fingers nervously on the table.
The feast before her, modestly labelled as a breakfast, was another temptation she had to resist. She may not have needed the sustenance, but couldn't cast aside the twitch of protest from her stomach as she ignored the delightful array of salads and pastries on their silver platters. The sweet smells that called to her were ruled only by the fear of eating what she could not digest, and so it was half-heartedly that she declined every offer that Samwise made upon noticing that she had not touched a single thing.
Merry and Pippin, it seemed, were enjoying themselves immensely. The amount of food that they consumed rivalled all Maude had ever seen from animals great and small, and she was genuinely curious as to where on earth they managed to put it all. They could not be more than four feet in height, and yet they continued to eat, scarcely stopping between each slice of bread or rounded plum, and until long after most everyone else had finished. It was then that Maude decided there would be nothing more pleasing to her than having them round for tea, even if they did eat her out of house and home.
Just as she was growing ever more fond of the young Meriadoc Brandybuck and Peregrin Took, they began conversing about her dancing none too quietly, piquing the interest of at least several individuals around the table.
"A dancer?" asked a red-haired elf from opposite her. "How intriguing!"
"Though still not enough to impress an elf, I bet," came the gruff voice of a dwarf on her right.
"On the contrary, Master Dwarf," the elf replied sternly, "we hold every form of dance in the highest esteem!"
Not every, I'd imagine, thought Maude, before she could stop herself. Her unanticipated moment in the proverbial gutter caused a rather painful cough to erupt in the place of what would have been a laugh, and she quickly covered her mouth as though she had just uttered the words aloud. Inappropriate, she chided. Very inappropriate.
When Elrond's hour had passed, she silently excused herself and made her way to the library. Each familiar face that she encountered along the way was pleasantly smiling, and many offered words of greeting. She could not name them all, but there were a few whom she had come to know during her stay, such as Ingiel, who regularly brought her fresh clothing, Malgelir, who took it upon herself to prepare Maude a bath every other evening, and Edendir, a younger elf who had given Maude a tour of Rivendell on an earlier day. It was strange for Maude, to have established friendships with naught but physical expression and kind gestures, yet there was something in the honesty of the relationships that warmed her heart.
By the time she had arrived at the library, Maude was in a considerably brighter mood, as well as being more willing to indulge Calaeron's scholarly ardour for the English language. She spoke to him on each occasion that the opportunity arose, and translated for him her own words in light of being provided with the Sindarin equivalent. Through this, she began writing down various English words and allow him to inspect them, which seemed to fascinate him as much as the verbalisation.
Others would wander in every so often, taking an almost equal interest as that of Calaeron in the language, and it was not until Elrond had grown suspicious of his disappearing kin and sojourned the library that their attentions were forced back to the matter at hand.
Maude had been working with Calaeron for three and a half hours when his Elven perception caught on to the fact that she was not entirely well. As she had returned one of the tomes to its shelf, she gave an audible hiss, and had dropped her arm back down to her side in an instant.
"Mani naa ta? Lle anta amin tu?"
She waved her hand at him, trying to dismiss his concern. "Quel."
"Quel," he repeated, sounding sceptical.
In order to prove her point, she raised the book to its shelf once more, only for the skin to pull and sting like a thin instrument pressed under the epidermis. Her eyes watered at the sensation, yet she continued to reach upward until Calaeron descended upon her and removed the book from her grasp. He frowned at her, then, at her expression and the way she began to clutch at her shoulder.
A long string of Elvish phrases that she could never hope to understand followed, before he took her arm and removed her from the library.
"I thank you for joining me, Mithrandir."
Lord Elrond was stood beneath an archway wreathed with leaves and their pale blooms, wearing the grim expression he reserved only for his service as harbinger of ill news. He looked out across the vale with Gandalf at his side, and watched as the winds blew down from the cliffs to stir the trees and the falls; but its whisper was callous and bore the evils of the east, a breeze deceptively gentle in its caress of the land. Soon, a darkness would follow, grasping the weak will of Men and stalking the Dwarves through their underground havens, whilst the Elves sailed west to Valinor. Perhaps it was an injustice, the punishment of mortal kind.
"Your charge is injured."
"My charge?"
"To whom else should I hold her responsible?" Elrond looked at his old friend knowingly. "Estel may have discovered her, but it was you, Mithrandir, who insisted she journey with you to Lothlórien."
"My Lord Elrond, what else would you have had me do?" asked Gandalf, watching as a goshawk dove down into the pit of the valley. When Elrond did not reply, he continued, "It was a foolish mistake, I admit. For her to be so reckless with a blade—"
"She cannot heal, Mithrandir," Elrond interrupted. "The wound is not dangerous, and there may be a temporary solution, but should this happen again and while she is away from a healer it could prove fatal."
"If it does, I shall heal her myself."
"And if she is beyond saving? If her wounds are so deep, and her blood has been shed across the earth, are you willing to be responsible for her then?"
Gandalf was silent. He stood, calculating, wondering the cause for familiarity in the edge of Elrond's voice, and the tension in his jaw. The deep frown he wore, Gandalf had seen before.
"She will perish."
For a while, Elrond did not reply. He allowed Gandalf's words to linger in the air with the call of the crows, and the rush of the falls. When he did speak, he did so with sympathy.
"Yes," he said. "The mortal woman will perish. I have seen it."
"You have seen many things, Lord Elrond, and not all have come to pass." Gandalf considered Maude for several moments, the young dancer in a foreign world. "Will it hinder our quest?"
"Perhaps not."
"Then there is still much to be hopeful for."
The wizard turned and began to walk away, his staff resonating against stone as he did. The sound echoed between ground and pillar alike, drowning the noise of the winds.
"This world will be the death of her," said Elrond, and Gandalf halted at his voice. "She will perish here, and those who hold her dear will never know."
With a heavy sigh, Gandalf continued on; and in that moment, he was unsure as to whether Elrond had spoken of the mortal woman, or his beloved daughter.
Mani naa ta? Lle anta amin tu? - What is it? Do you need help?
Quel - Good/Well
A/N: *Is casually frightened that this was entirely out of character (A small part of me thinks, yes, of course Elrond would be able to empathise, but another is sounding the alarm bells and screeching "ELROND WOULD NOT SAY THAT IMPLICITLY OR OTHERWISE"*
OokamiRei-chan: Thank you for the review! Yes, Maude is having little luck at the moment, and it's looking rather bleak. And thank you for what you've said about pairings! I think I'm just overly anxious about what the readers will like, so much so that sometimes I forget that it's my own story.
sammythe2nd: Thank you very much! I'm glad to hear it :)
Antheila: Thanks, deary! Yes, if I do decide to go with any sort or degree of romance in this story, I'd like to keep it realistic. Even if it ends up becoming an unrequited love. And thank you again for sticking around; the story isn't abandoned, but life just caught up with me and sent me into a stressed out frenzy. I'm glad that Gandalf is proving interesting thus far!
Kai-Aala: Ah, yes. It can be a bit of a quandary getting into a career as competitive as dance. I'm sorry about that missed opportunity, but I'm sure that it was the right decision for you at the time. You shall get you chance to shine! "Anyways" will always be a word, whether spell-checker allows for it or not. Thank you for you wonderful review!
Graciek: I'm glad to hear that! And Glorfindel is a wonderful choice, I certainly agree. As well as him being a splendid character, the idea of a romance with a non-Fellowship character has always been more appealing to me, because you don't need to worry quite so much about destroying canon!