Chapter 9: Oh, We're All Mad Here

When I awoke the next morning, I felt fuzzy, disoriented, but extremely well-rested. Yawning, I slipped my feet out of the covers and onto the floor, realizing with sudden repulsion that I had slept in my swimsuit. And that tunic of Glorfindel's that I had been so sure I'd given back to him. Hmmm, there had to be a change of clothes around here somewhere…

I looked around, brow furrowed. Nothing. Well, I should have expected it, considering I wasn't in my room. I made a face.

I was in the Houses of Healing again. Why? Oh yeah, I'd cut my forehead.

"What the do you mean I can't 'see' her? There's not even anything wrong with her!"

"I'm sorry, Lady Tiriel, but I'm afraid Ilmarë is indisposed."

"What the hell does that mean?"

I stepped towards the door, my head tilted to the side in curiosity.

"It…it means she's sleeping, Lady Tiriel. Lord Elrond said she did lose a lot of blood and asked that I ensure she got a generous amount of sleep."

I'm not sleeping. What the hell, Glorfindel?

"Oh. Why didn't you just say so? Anyway, tell her I'll see her at dinner, okay? I have lessons today with Lord Elladan."

Hey, wait a second-

"I shall. I hope you fare well at your lessons."

"Thanks."

The door wouldn't open! It was locked, from the outside, apparently. I jiggled it in annoyance, so much so that I wouldn't have been surprised if the handle plopped off.

"Hey! Let me out!" I shouted, jiggling the bloody handle even more. Pissed at the lack of response and the idea of being stuck in my room all day, I aimed a kick at the door.

Of course, it being just my luck, it chose that moment to open.

"Il-"

Glorfindel yelped as my foot made contact with his shin. (It was definitely too late to recall my kick, which is legendary among my peers back home). I blanched.

"Sorry!"

He grunted, shutting the door behind him and herding me away from it. I pouted.

"Glorfindel, someone locked my door! I couldn't get out!"

He dropped a bundle of clothes into my hands, which I squealed over, and watched me hug them delightedly to my chest with a rather cheeky grin spreading across his face.

"So I'm Glorfindel again? I thought I was…what was it again? Ah, yes. Glorfy."

I stared at him in abject horror. Glorfy? I swear, I have not said that aloud in the entirety of my time here. I swear.

My facial expression must have been hilarious, because he snorted and started laughing.

"Get dressed. I swore your 'pink-ee promise' oath that we would have a tea party this morning. Erestor should be along shortly, and you wouldn't want him to catch you dressed like that."

Glancing down at myself, I realized that if I wasn't presentably attired the second Erestor walked through that door, I was in for the lecture of a lifetime.

"Right, right. I'm going. Which means you should too." I 'suggested' sagely, motioning for the door. "Unless you want to stay and watch, but you'd have to be a total-"

"I'll take my leave, then," Glorfindel assured me hurriedly, his face red.

He was out the door in record time.

As Glorfindel made his way towards Erestor's chambers, he was consumed with thought of the previous night's discussion. Ilmarë, it had seemed, was not yet aware of the fact that her cut had disappeared, or that she was now, for lack of a better word, radiant with some strange inner light. The latter was unsurprising, as all reflective surfaces had been removed from her room by Lord Elrond's order, and she was to be kept away from the sight of others until more could be discerned from the sudden change.

Their discussion had not been brief.

"Erestor, are you decent?" Glorfindel asked rather cheekily, knocking on his friend's door.

"Of course I'm decent," came the rather irritated drawl of the dark-haired elf as he swung open the door, his expression sardonic and clearly speaking volumes of what, precisely, he thought of this morning tea party business.

Glorfindel grinned.

"You'll want to let Ilmarë know that before you walk into her room. The poor girl has had nightmares of you in all your glory all night. She's terrified."

Flushing rather blotchily, Erestor all but shoved past the ridiculously tall blonde, closing his door behind him abruptly, huffing. Glorfindel's grin spread like a contagious illness.

"It was so unfortunate, that you were closest to the ladies when they appeared. I imagine they must have been traumatized."

Erestor glanced shrewdly at Glorfindel.

"I would imagine it so, but I would rather have a woman unable to sleep due to thoughts of my so-called 'glory' as you so aptly put it, than be forever remembered by her for falling flat on my face in the mud with my breeches round my ankles, my bum bare to the moon."

The fabled balrog-slayer quit his teasing then, and attempted to salvage what little scraps of his dignity that were left in silence for the rest of the walk.

"Ilmarë…you're cross with me again."

With an acidity to my tone that was generally uncharacteristic, I answered him.

"Oh. You noticed."

Erestor glanced between Glorfindel and I, and snorted at the "hey, give me a hand here" look the Captain of the Guard gave him. Frustrated, the blonde ellon strode over to me, where I couldn't possibly avoid the sight of him.

"Of course I did. And it would be please me very much to know why."

I had half an urge to kick him in the shin. Again.

"I don't know…perhaps it has something to do with the fact that you locked me in my room."

He winced.

"Now, Ilmarë, I didn't-"

His tunic hit him in the face. Erestor laughed. I was mildly mollified by my aim. And then he tossed the tunic to the side and I remembered my wrath.

"I'm afraid I don't understand, Lord Glorfindel. You didn't what? Mean to? Want to? Weak explanations such as those do nothing to lessen my anger. You locked me in here, as though I were some prisoner, and you had the gall to pretend it wasn't you when I asked about it!"

"Well-"

"Pretending you haven't the slightest idea how I came to be locked in here is the same as outright lying to my face, Lord Glorfindel, and I shan't abide by it."

"Ilmarë. I didn't lock you in on a whim. Lord Elrond-"

He seemed to be struggling with something and Erestor stepped in, diverting my rage with a deftly placed sweet. And when I say deftly placed, I mean he took a raspberry topped raspberry jam flaky pastry triangle and popped it in my mouth before I could interrupt.

I chewed (rather appeased by the offering) and swallowed. I would have proceeded to tear right into Glorfindel-who locked me in the bloody room-but was too distracted by the audacity of Erestor's solution and instead turned to him inquisitively.

"I didn't think you as bold as that, Lord Erestor." I pointed out, watching for his reaction.

He gave Glorfindel a look that said volumes and then turned back to me, embarrassed.

"I did not mean anything by it, and I apologize for any offense I might have-"

"No offense was taken, Lord Erestor. It was, I believe, one of the more agreeable methods I have yet encountered of forcibly shutting my trap."

I grinned as he looked a little faint and then decided that there was nothing else for it, so I might as well enjoy my bloody tea party and forgive Glorfy. It was hard for me to do, because he had locked me in my room, like I was a prisoner or something!

Briefly, looking about to the not inconsiderable luxury of my room, I amended that statement a little but was no less annoyed. Perhaps I wasn't your typical prisoner, but he locked me in. I don't know what sort of way that sort of thing could be misconstrued.

I was raging when I found out it was him.

"Pass me one of those raspberry triangles, Glorfindel?"

He did. And then, hesitantly, as if I would bite his head off for asking me (perhaps not too off the mark?), he started, "Ilmarë?"

I took the offered pastry with a raised eyebrow.

"Yes?"

He paused for a minute. Then:

"Are you…that is, are you…"

I bit into my sweet with what might have been considered a vengeance. And chewed.

"You aren't…mad?"

Unblinking, with a very fixed look in my eye as I watched him, I swallowed. It's funny how even the simplest action can become somehow threatening and reduce a grown man to a nervous wreck. Because that's exactly what happened.

"I-Ilmarë, you aren't-"

"I'm not mad at you. At the moment. Rather, I shall give you an opportunity to explain why on earth Lord Elrond would tell you to lock me in, why am I having a tea party…? And why are all the mirrors in my room gone? You and Erestor each had a strange look on your face when you came in this morning."

He winced.

"Ilmarë, Lord Elrond asked for their removal because, well…"

I listened with an almost strange feeling forming in the pit of my stomach as he explained that I had awoken last night, though I didn't seem to remember it, and that my supposed injury had been healed.

"And you spoke of a black door-Ilmarë?"

I stared in surprise at the broken tea cup in my hand.

"I-yes."

He exchanged looks with Erestor across the table and stood up, glancing and eventually tearing a bit of the table cloth off with his brutish strength and quickly pressing it to my hand, a grimace on his face. I was numb to it, though, my mind in another place.

A black door, a world of stars, and fleeing fleet-footed over hills 'til I came to the dwelling place of beauty. A presence outside of time, a gentle whisper, the mingling of light.

"Lady Ilmarë."

I jumped.

"Yes? I-Lord Erestor."

Turning his head to the door in an irritated manner, as if already planning to reprimand Glorfindel for taking so long, Erestor nodded his head, glancing briefly at my hand before resuming his frowning.

"He'll be back with Lord Elrond shortly."

Distracted, I mumbled an assent. A black gate. A world of stars. A gentle whisper. The mingling of light. There was something else…something…something coming. Something coming!

That's what it was!

I was interrupted by Lord Elrond's entrance, with Glorfindel in tow. Or, perhaps, the other way around. Erestor acknowledged them with an incline of his head, and I waved.

"Good morning, Lord Elrond."

He raised an eyebrow at me (in his ridiculously exaggerated way) and picked up my hand, pulling off the ruined piece of tablecloth I was going to make sure Glorfindel paid for, if necessary, and inspected the mass of red.

"Good? With a start to it such as you have enjoyed, I should think there are other, more colorful words you might apply to its description."

I cracked a grin.

"Perhaps. But any words I might have used in that instance to describe more accurately the morning would have been of colors you'd have never seen or even imagined. Like fluorescent glitter rainbow. Or black light violet."

Glorfindel's expression became one of a rather inquisitive and yet disapproving nature as he regarded me.

"Is that so?"

My smile dimmed a little and I looked upon him with less amiability than I had Elrond. And then I realized, Lord Elrond was the one who had ordered him to lock me up in the first place! My fury blazed again to life, and I turned in my seat.

"Lord Elrond, I do hope that you will explain to me why it is you ordered Lord Glorfindel to lock me in my room this morning?"

The sovereign lord of Imladris looked like he was about to laugh.

"I'm afraid, Lady Ilmarë, that I did no such thing."

Oh, Glorfy was in trouble.

"Is that so?"

The blonde looked at his liege lord in irritation.

"Lord Elrond, you asked that I ensure that Lady Ilmarë rested undisturbed-and that I was to, in pursuit of that aim, keep her out of the sight of others and keep the knowledge of her changed face from her for as long as I could."

Talk about foot-in-mouth disease. I stood up abruptly, both hands on the table as I pointed a very sharp and lingering stare at Glorfindel's face.

"What do you mean, 'changed face?' That, I'm afraid to say, doesn't sound much like 'healed injury.' It sounds rather dangerously more like 'changed face.'"

I don't know what it was that I felt when I was told that my face was doing something akin to glowing, but it wasn't joy, reverence, or anything like that. It wasn't, though, unadulterated rage either. I simply stared, for the longest time, into my reflection.

And thought that I was too rapidly becoming someone else.

"How long will I have to stay in my room?" I asked, sitting quietly with my hands folded in my lap, not looking up at Glorfindel or Erestor, my dear, dear (and in Glorfy's case, recently fully pardoned) friends. Lord Elrond looked at me gravely.

"I have not the authority to make such a decision, Lady Ilmarë. I had hoped you might consent to staying out of sight until it becomes clear what has happened, but it is your choice, and no one," he said, looking rather critically and amused all at once at Glorfy, "can make that decision for you. You are not a prisoner here."

I groaned.

"So I'm going to be shut in for a while, huh? Can Tiriel visit me?"

Elrond inclined his head in mild confirmation.

"She may, yes. I take it, then, that you are agreeing to keep out of sight until this change is better understood?"

Wearily, more wearily than any person my age should ever nod, I did.

"Yes. I presume you'll be working with Gal-Lady Galadriel and perhaps, if he is available, Gandalf? How long do you think it will be, anyway?"

He looked at me disapprovingly and didn't answer my first question.

"It could be a few weeks. It could be months. I would not ask you, were our investigation to drag on for so long, to remain isolated for as long as that. I do not know, precisely."

Drumming my fingers on the desk, I assented.

"I can live with that. Will…will I have to cancel my lessons?"

He laughed and Glorfindel muttered something about me being the only living creature who could possibly be insane enough to want to attend Erestor's lessons. I repudiated his ignorance with my left shoe and then let Erestor, who was barely containing his righteous fury at the thought of cancelled lessons, tear right into him.

"Of course! Lady Ilmarë is a woman of learning, Glorfindel, not a barbarian such as yourself."

He ended that statement with a snooty sniff that would have done even Mr. Darcy's evil bitch of an aunt from Pride and Prejudice proud. Ah, it's so fun to watch those two insult each other. It's all in good fun and whatnot, and they really have great respect for each other, but, you know. It is how it is, and the two of them are both very competitive.

Glorfindel averted narrowed eyes.

"At least I'm a barbarian who managed to beat a scholar at his own game."

Erestor turned scarlet.

"You only beat me because the last question was about Gondolin!"

A catty grin spread its way across Glorfindel's sculpted features as he practically purred, "You didn't expect me to get all the other ones right though, did you?"

Erestor scowled seemingly muttering something very rude and inappropriate.

"Says the brute who expected me to be useless with a sword in my hand. I'm sorry, it seems to have escaped my mind…who was it that won that duel, again?"

It was Glorfindel's turn to flush and scowl.

Oh, We're All Mad Here/End.