A/N: So, in real life, scent and music are both known to have an impact on memory – evoking memory, more specifically (patting myself on the back here for having seen Coco), so I'm leaning into that quite a bit here as far as Sybil's memories go.

Also, because it crops up here, I know that from a technical standpoint, Sybil would have had to learn a whole new language upon reaching Middle-earth – including reading and writing, in addition to speaking, but this story is already going to be an absolute beast as things stand, and if I venture down that path and explaining it all in hindsight, it'll add a whole load of words with little to no real pay-off, so my thinking is that like, you know in Doctor Who when they travel, the Tardis works its magic and the characters can understand other people regardless of where (or when) they're from? Similar sort of forces at play in Sybil's transplantation. It doesn't extend to the likes of Sindarin and others, but she can speak the Common Speech, and in her mind it's just English. But that also plays a role in others not understanding certain words she uses that have no basis in Middle-earth (like 'sedative' – because when in doubt, I'm researching etymology of certain words and nixing the ones that are just a bit too modern…usually if it comes after the Elizabethan era).

I'm sorry if this disappoints people! I just think it would really weigh this particular story down if I insisted on including it, and it's not exactly a crazy leap from 'being transported to a whole new universe' to 'can understand the language', although she would need to adjust to the way of speaking and how she uses the language, because Middle-earth folk aren't exactly the 'wow lmao big mood fml' type.

"My apologies, miss, for not meeting with you sooner. Imladris has seen much activity, as of late, and there has been much to attend to. I am, however, glad to see you much improved this last day."

Sybil's life might've changed drastically over the last week or so, but hardly so much that she'd begrudge the likes of Lord Elrond for not making her a priority. She had been called to his library before dinner, and found to her relief that Strider had been called there, too. Although that relief was tempered by the presence of yet another stranger – an old man garbed in grey with long hair and a beard just a few shades lighter than his robes. All of them had kindly faces, though, so she swallowed her nerves over anything she might be asked.

Rangers and Elves had a much sturdier tolerance for the strange and unusual. Hopefully this thus-far unintroduced stranger would share in that. Judging by the curiosity with which he regarded her, he already knew something.

"Not at all," she said. "I'm very grateful – for your hospitality, and for your healers. Thank you."

As she spoke, she had to make a real effort not to let her eyes stray to the intricately carved shelves all about them, every single one positively brimming with books. They would likely not be in the Common Speech, she knew…and even if they were, she would not be so bold as to ask to borrow any. More than enough had been done for her here.

Lord Elrond bowed his head in acknowledgement. Garbed in robes of red and gold, a silver circlet sat atop his long, dark head of hair, and his eyes were the only thing that reflected his great age - wise and knowing. It wasn't that he looked young, not exactly, but nor did he look even a quarter so old as she suspected he truly was. Like a statue, almost, still and stoic, showing no trace or sign of when it was carved.

"Aragorn has asked to be here for this meeting, in hopes that you might feel more comfortable speaking in the presence of one you've met previously. I believe you know him as Strider."

Sybil nodded, and the elf lord's grey eyes watched her keenly.

"This does not surprise you."

It wasn't a question, but she felt the need to respond all the same. "It seems…fitting."

Evidently the bare bones of who she was and where she had come here from was not all Aragorn had shared with them. But she spoke truthfully – the name seemed fitting. Natural. Her mind adopted it readily, without so much as a fleeting grasp towards the temptation to continue calling him by his 'former' name.

"If it would ease your mind, we could call on your travelling companion to be present here, also," Lord Elrond offered.

"I'm well," she shook her head.

Boromir had protected her from much as of late. Awkward conversations and basic pleasantries didn't need to be added to that list. Unsure she may have been – a child, she was most certainly not.

"And I am Gandalf," said the old man, not waiting for Lord Elrond to introduce him. "Aragorn tells us you have the gift of foresight, I've been rather curious to meet you, my dear."

For a long moment, all Sybil could do was stare at him. Then at Aragorn. Finally, she laughed. Well, it was more of a horrified yelp than a laugh, like a kicked dog, but all the same. None of the others joined in.

"You disagree with this assessment?" Lord Elrond asked carefully. "Boromir told me of your reasons in coming here. Of your dreams."

"It wasn't a dream," she said quietly – it wasn't as though Lord Elrond would rush to tell Boromir everything that had been discussed here. "I said it was so then, but only because men do not take kindly to the truth. It was…I don't know what it was, in truth. When I thought of Rivendell, I could see it. Just as when you think of…of a friend, you can picture their face quite clearly, so on. But foresight? That's…I cannot say what the weather will be next week, nor when men are destined to meet their fate."

Lord Elrond offered an amused smile, a tired one that didn't really hold much true mirth, but it wasn't unkind.

"Few who have such a gift can," Gandalf explained gently.

Sybil shifted in her chair. She knew what she could do was hardly normal, she'd lived with that fact for ten years. Perhaps longer, even, for who was to say it didn't play a role in how she'd come to be lost and alone in the wilderness? Could she have been turned out from wherever she'd been before because of it? But 'the gift of foresight'? That sounded very grand. Very deliberate.

"My mentor always said I was touched in the head, and nothing more," she breathed a laugh – unsure as to whether she wanted those gathered here to agree or disagree with the assessment.

So you knew Butterbur's name. What of it, girl? Not much of a power, is it? An introduction will serve you just as well, and raise no eyebrows.

Aragorn's eyes cast downwards, and he clasped his hands in his lap.

"What?" Sybil caught it immediately.

When he did look at her, with was with sorrow.

"Perhaps she made such assertions to you, but her opinion differed greatly when your back was turned."

"It couldn't have," she denied immediately.

Aragorn's lips thinned, betraying his discomfort. Whatever he was about to say, it was clear it brought him little joy.

"She asked that I, as a personal favour, might make enquiries during my travels that could solve the mystery surrounding your origins. I accepted, but I was never able to find anything."

"Anything of note, or anything at all?" Lord Elrond asked, dark eyebrows rising slightly.

"Anything at all," Aragorn said. "Admittedly, it was hardly my primary goal these last ten years, but whatever efforts I could spare proved fruitless."

Sybil didn't know if she was disappointed or relieved.

"Your origins were a great mystery. Still, they remain so. Your skin was marred by neither hard labour nor sickness. Indeed, the only callus your hands bore was here."

Aragorn lifted one of his hands and traced the side of the topmost knuckle of his middle finger.

"The mark of a scholar," Gandalf murmured.

"Just so. Your clothes were strange – and inadequate – but of fine quality, and not roughspun. You had your name, or at least a name, in silver about your neck, the sort of trinket few have the excess wealth to seek out skilled silversmiths for. And your ears."

"My ears?"

"Pierced, it seemed. Each lobe. Bera suspected it a mark of cruelty, but there are some lands where it's done for adornment – for jewellery to be placed therein. It is popular among dwarrowdams, I have since heard. But you are no Dwarf. To have the wealth for gold and gemstones is one thing - rings, necklaces and such, but so much so that you can hang them upon your ears? It's hardly commonplace. In addition to that, you knew your letters and your numbers both. Not to mention a queer knowledge of anatomy – from a technical standpoint, at least. You spoke strangely, yes, but all the same. You were well educated, while being ignorant to the mundanities of keeping a house."

Much to Bera's frustration, in the early days. It was growing tiresome, dancing around the point he was so clearly making. Especially when it was so utterly absurd.

"You cannot be suggesting what I think you are," she said quietly, her fingertips toying with the hems of her sleeves.

"I suggest nothing," Aragorn denied, albeit gently and without bite. "I fear it is somewhat overdue, but when I could find nothing, Bera wished that I should remain silent, and I did not think it my place to add to your woes when I had no information to give. I only seek to supply you with my observations."

A decade or so after he'd made them. That, though, she kept to herself. Shifting in his chair, he leaned forward, resting his elbows atop long legs so he could meet her gaze with heartfelt sincerity.

"I doubt you're of nobility," he said frankly. "For all the signs that point to it, there is no proof of it, either. Daughters of powerful families do not vanish without any to come looking for them. Without there being word of it somewhere. Even if you were the sole survivor of a whole family, set upon and slain on the Road, there would have been word of it. Evidence of it. And there was none."

Sybil was silent, ceasing her fidgeting through sheer force of willpower alone. In the wake of his explanation, she'd gained nothing, but she'd also lost nothing. It was difficult to know what to feel – nor why her heart, in absence of her mind's judgement, had settled on a strange, aching pang. Perhaps because she'd been reminded of it. The matter of her identity, or lack thereof, was seldom too far from her mind, but it was never laid out so clearly and concisely before her. Even when she explained it to Boromir, she'd been quick to wave it off and force a laugh as though it were a small matter. Here, under the gazes of all gathered, she could not do so.

"Strange matters with few answers hold little novelty to me, given my…occupation," Aragorn said slowly, "but this? It proved to be a great mystery, indeed. I am sorry I cannot offer answers."

"I'm no worse off than I was before," she offered a tight smile. "It's not your fault. You've nothing to apologise for."

"These senses," Lord Elrond seized the conversation and turned it back to the matter at hand. "These strange feelings, however you wish to describe them. Have you had more, since coming here?"

"I…Lord Boromir tells me that I knew Lord Glorfindel's name when I was half-conscious," she blushed as she said it, horrified that she'd apparently addressed such a mighty elf-lord with such familiarity.

None in the room seemed surprised by this, and her cheeks blazed all the hotter for having realised they already knew.

"Just now, too, when you informed me of your true name," she turned to Aragorn. "It didn't seem strange to me, it seemed…correct. Somehow. I cannot explain it, it's just a feeling. Like a piece of a mechanism that makes it run smoothly…a key going into a lock. And today – I met a group of hobbits. They were three in number, which seemed odd to me, but when I heard them mention a fourth, a wounded kinsman, it seemed right."

"What do you know of his wound?"

"That-" she stopped herself, paused, and then answered quietly. "That it's bad."

"Sybil," Aragorn urged quietly.

She had to close her eyes in order to force herself to say the words she'd kept back from Boromir.

"A wound that will never fully heal," she said quietly. "That's all I know. And I know not how."

The three all shared a heavy sort of foreboding look – one that bordered on alarm, save for Gandalf, who clambered to his feet, leaning on a gnarled staff as he walked, rounding Lord Elrond's desk to look at her properly. Not a man, then, but a wizard. Sybil felt her face pale further, her fingers curling around the fine wooden arms of the chair on which she sat.

"You're in no danger from me, I assure you," he said kindly, stopping and holding onto his staff with both hands as he made an open consideration of her. "I have just come here, to Imladris, after a meeting with the head of my Order. Saruman the White. Have you heard of him?"

Neither Lord Elrond nor Aragorn reacted at all, and so she suspected her reaction was the one under examination now.

"No," she said, but was unable to ignore the heavy, foreboding feeling at the mention of the name. "He…he has a deep voice. Deeper than yours, even. I think."

She could hear him, saying Gandalf's name if she focused hard enough – although a headache began to ebb at her temples when she did so.

"And…" she hesitated again.

"Nothing you say here will be held as a blade to your throat," Aragorn reassured quietly.

"I like him not," she said finally.

"Saruman is both wise and powerful. Greatly respected, the whole of Middle-earth over," Gandalf challenged softly.

"Even so," she murmured. "I like him not. I feel…I feel a sense of alarm when he is mentioned. I'm sorry. Perhaps I'm wrong."

She didn't think she was, but nor did she want to march in here and start decrying mighty and powerful Wizards. And minimising these suspicions of hers had long since become second nature.

"You are not," Gandalf said finally, after a long moment. "Saruman has been unmasked as a traitor – although none beyond this room yet know it. I would ask that you keep it that way."

This time, when words sprang to her mind, she voiced them – albeit softly. She felt like she had something to prove here. Something monumental. That whatever this thing was that she could do, it was real and it was fruitful and it was worth their interest. And they had not yet judged her for anything she'd told her, which bolstered her nerve.

"The way of pain."

If there was any doubt that her words – well, not so much her words as the words – held weight, it would've been dashed at how Gandalf's eyes widened, before he regarded her with even more curiosity than ever before.

She pushed on, speaking words that truly were hers now.

"Sporadically, it would happen before now. In Bree, when I met you, Aragorn, for the first time…when random scraps of news would reach my ears. As of late, however, it's…it's snowballing. Ever since my home burned down. The urge to come here, my meeting with Bo- Lord Boromir, the strange shadows we saw in the woods, and- well, by now you have heard it all. It seems that the more I follow it, the more it happens…and the more meaningful it feels."

"You say you've little control over it," Lord Elrond steepled his fingers, before adding at her wary expression, "fear not, for I believe you. But as you profess, you have already noted patterns, and I wonder if there may be more. If there is anything that induces this knowledge of yours? A certain action. A food, a drink, so forth."

Sybil considered his words carefully, and the elf-lord was content to allow her the time it took to do so – evidently deciding that a good answer was worth waiting for. It didn't take long for something to snag in her mind.

"Lavender," she said. "And rosemary. The scent, especially when combined. I could not handle them in my work, for they would induce blinding migraines and…and a flashing whirlwind of images that I could make little sense of. After the third instance, Bera finally put stock in my words and agreed to use alternatives instead – or otherwise handle them herself, once I was out foraging or fishing for our stores."

"Images? What images?"

"I can scarcely remember. It was so long ago."

And few of them had been good.

"However…" she said slowly, "I think – no, I'm certain – that if I'm exposed to it again, I shall be able to recreate it. Every time, it happens. Without exception. And with the way it's already been these last few days? I think…I think it would be worse- louder than ever, were I to try it now."

Aragorn did not seem warmed by the prospect, concern clear on his face as he regarded her, but Lord Elrond smirked a little, and even Gandalf's smile had something that looked oddly akin to pride hidden within it.

"I must confess that I was going to recommend that very course of action…although some of the distaste has been drained from it, given that you have now suggested it yourself," the wizard rumbled.

Sybil nodded, a touch too eagerly for her own tastes. "I want to help. Whatever it is that's going on here…I want to help."

Not only because it would give her a purpose, something to do - somewhere to go from here, even if only in a metaphorical sense - but because part of her hoped against hope that if it could finally be of real use, if it could finally mean something, all the times when it tripped her over or tied her up would prove worth it, in the end. Hope soared within her at such a prospect. She only hoped that she would be able to help.

A/N: This chapter has been the most challenging one yet – Elrond in particular is so tricky to write, which isn't surprising, but it's not something I gave much thought to before the time came, either. Boromir reappears in the next chapter for the feast in Frodo's honour, and then we finally have the Council. It was originally going to all be one chapter, but this part ended up being much longer than I anticipated.

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