30 DAYS TO LEAVE YOUR LOVER
Genre: LOTR, slash, het
Rating: yellow (PG-13)
Pairings: Erestor/Glorfindel, Ecthelion/OFC, Orophin/Elladan, OMC/OFC and others.
Warnings: AU - and how! Mary-Sue! Nonsense! This is a parody, don't complain later that you haven't been warned.
Special comment by ye fantastic beta, Miss Enismirdal: "Run for the hills! Heterosexual Ecthelion is coming to get yoooooooooou!" *sounds of screaming as the internet erupts in chaos, people running through the streets as a giant het Ecthelion looms above the skyscrapers*
Summary: Ecthelion returns from the Halls of Waiting, and thanks to Gandalf's curiosity, the celebrations take a most unexpected turn.
CHAPTER 2/?
Wisdom left the advisor.
Halfway through the picture he had been drawing, Eldanar had forgotten about Orophin's serious words about staying inside the Last Homely House and that, under no circumstances, was he allowed to get anywhere close to the Southern border.
Unfortunately, the most beautiful flowers grew just where the Southern border was, and Eldanar decided to pick some of the sweet-smelling blooms to cheer up grand-ada Elrond, who had looked very sorrowful all day.
So it came to pass that young Eldanar went to pick flowers. He met friendly rabbits, joyful deer, a very amicable wood mouse, as well as representatives of the British Army and The Sun, a group of tourists and about every TV team in existence.
When the first information had leaked about the country that had appeared out of nowhere and was now connecting the British Isles with the isle of Ireland, army, police, governments and TV channels had thought it to be a joke. But very soon, the first pictures of the new strip of land had emerged, and the world sat in awe and feverish expectation in front of TV sets and big screens to learn what had happened.
"ATLANTIS EMERGES FROM THE ASHES! ARE THE FRENCH BEHIND IT?" the special edition of The Sun heralded, conveniently disregarding the lack of ashes in the middle of the sea.
Police and army were sent out to secure the area, but the interest of the public and the press was so overwhelming that the British government had to give up its plan to shield "New Ireland", as it had been hastily christened, from curious eyes.
The curious masses were disappointed, though. An invisible barrier made it impossible for anybody to enter the new land. The camera teams in the helicopters swarming over Imladris like angry bees sent pictures of something which seemed to be a castle with a village, but they could not get close enough to give more accurate details. It was as if the helicopters were pushed back slowly but insistently by an invisible hand.
What triggered everybody's curiosity the most was, of course, to learn who was living in this unknown country. Oil-drilling companies already began to inquire about the legal status of the strip of land. Would it belong Great Britain? Or would it be the property of those who claimed it first? This option sounded very promising.
As usual, the third option was not even considered, which would have been "the country already belongs to someone else, thank you very much". That "someone else" was walking the floors of the Last Homely House, closely followed by Erestor, Glorfindel and Gandalf. The wizard felt miserable, guilty and out of the Valar's grace.
"I have seen them in the palantír," Elrond groaned. "Thousands and thousands of them! In vehicles, armed! Men and women! I can only hope that Vilya can keep them out of our home. We have neither the strength nor the knowledge to fight them back."
"Has the number of mortals trying to intrude increased since this morning?" Erestor asked worriedly. Elrond gave a bitter laugh.
"Increased? I dare say that every mortal out there is currently trying to get into Imladris!"
He gave Gandalf once again The Eyebrow, just to make sure the wizard would not forget whose mistake this debacle was.
"Let us go and have a look in the palantír," Gandalf said hastily. "I wish to know what the current situation is. I hope I can come up with a quick solution."
"I hope so, too, Gandalf. In our interest and your own," Elrond replied icily, then he led the way to his study, where the palantír was placed.
* * *
"Oh, what a cute little boy you are!" the reporter of tabloid The Sun ("We know they are doing it before they even think about doing it!") cooed upon seeing the Elfling.
"Drop your weapons and put your hands behind your head!" a captain of the British Army barked. He felt a little silly when he realised he was yelling at a little boy holding flowers, so he quickly dropped his gun.
"Gee, look, those are pretty flowers," Avanna del Castillo said to her friend. She gave Eldanar a smile, and the boy immediately liked the woman with the warm, honey hued eyes. Lush full lips and caramel hued skin, she had been the object of admiration of the male part of the tourist party as well as the annoyance of the ladies, who had dropped more than one acid-tongued comment about their husbands' sudden interest in Central America.
Long raven-coloured hair boarding on indigo when the light struck it at the right angle completed the beautiful sight. This hardly ever happened, though, as the right angle would have demanded her to stand on her head. And while Avanna was known among her friends for her fiery temper, she did not have a reputation for being a contortionist.
Eldanar returned the smile.
"These are my favouritestest flowers!" he said, jumping impatiently from one leg to the other. "I have picked them for my grand-ada who is very worried. I don't like my grand-ada being worried, because he is the best grand-ada in the world and never tells me off if I set the carpet on fire or something."
"Grand-ada – is this something like a grandfather?" Avanna asked, whose talent for understanding and picking up languages helped her a great deal at making sense of Eldanar's word flood.
Eldanar nodded enthusiastically.
"Yes, he is the ada of my ada, so he is my grand-ada. He is also the ada of uncle Elrohir. Uncle Elrohir is also very nice. And then I have two other uncles, uncle Rúmil and uncle Haldir. I like uncle Haldir also very much, and also Rabbit, but Rabbit bites sometimes and so I am a little worried. I mean, I want to marry Miss Bramble one day, but if Rabbit does not like that, then I might not do it after all. Do you think Rabbit would bite me if I married Miss Bramble?"
"This is not a child," one of the policemen said to the other. "This is a secret weapon."
Kelly, Avanna's friend, rolled her eyes at the two men, and threw back her long red hair.
"Yeepers, what's so difficult to get there? Rabbit must be the wife of his uncle Haldir, so the Miss Bramble mentioned is the daughter of the two. Why her mother would want to bite the little boy is a mystery, but then he's a child, and a lot of stuff little children talk doesn't make much sense."
Avanna had to grin. This was so typical for Kelly – always logical, always atop the situation. They had been best friends since high-school, and though their differences had initially seemed to be a reason for not allowing the friendship to work, they were now the special glue that stuck them together. Kelly had a reputation for being an intellectual snob of sorts, but it was only that her passion for science, especially for anthropology and archaeology, carried her away at times. For her, talking to a child from an unknown country was probably like winning the lottery.
"Out of the way! Out of the way!" an angry voice could be heard. "Send this woman away and let me through already! I have to speak to this alien person!"
A man, escorted by 12 men in black, sunglasses and ear sets was pushing through the crowd. Immediately, the police blocked his way.
"This is an outrage!" he protested. "You allow tourists to handle such a delicate situation? Let me do the talking! I am the ambassador of the United States of America, and we could be dealing with a serious security risk here!"
"American, eh? Then we have two aliens here already," the first policeman said to his colleague, and both snickered.
The captain in charge did not move.
"Sir, the girl seems to get along fine with the lad, so unless my superiors order me to do something different, she can talk to the boy."
"I would say that I'm superior enough!" the ambassador huffed.
"You don't say," the first policeman whispered. "Doesn't look like the queen to me, now does he!"
"Naw," his colleague whispered back, "more like her daughter in law, without the make-up."
By now, half the police was cackling. The ambassador did not like this one bit, but as he felt the lenses of a gazillion cameras focused on his face, he decided not to push the issue further for the moment. The British media were only too willing to bash Americans.
The only thing they had more fun with was bashing German football players.
Eldanar had followed the discussion with only mild interest. He was fascinated by the two beautiful strange ladies. They looked so different from all the people he had seen in his short life! But he remembered what his grand-ada had taught him: always be friendly and courteous with ladies. Well, he would be both and make his grand-ada proud of him, Eldanar decided.
"Would you like to meet my grand-ada? He lives over there," Eldanar said, and pointed vaguely in the direction of the Last Homely House. "Maybe Miss Mauburz will bake some cookies, and you can meet Miss Bramble as well!"
Avanna and Kelly looked at each other, then they laughed.
"Yeah, I'd love to meet your grampa," Avanna said.
"Wonderfully!" Eldanar cried. "Please follow me!"
Avanna reached out, and Eldanar took her hand. One moment later, she stood on the ground of Imladris.
* * *
"Eldanar!" Elrond yelled, but it was too late.
"Is anything amiss, ada?" Elladan asked, who had entered the study in search of his father.
"Amiss? Amiss? Why sure, yes, your son has invited the strangers in!"
The Elves and the wizard gathered around the palantír stared in horror at Eldanar, who walked between two beautiful ladies towards the Last Homely House. People tried to follow them, pushing through the small gap in the protective barrier that Vilya had created around Imladris.
Luckily, Gandalf quickly gathered his wits again, and murmured a spell, re-sealing the barrier. However, Avanna, Kelly, the ambassador, a reporter and a photographer from The Sun as well as a camera team from MTV had managed to enter Imladris.
Glorfindel stared at the small group heading for the Last Homely House, and scratched his head.
"My lord, what are your orders? Shall we lock them up?"
Erestor cleared his throat.
"Lord Elrond – so far, the people who have entered Imladris do not seem to be hostile, merely curious. They were friendly with Eldanar. Maybe we should just welcome them as we would welcome any other guests, and then send them on their way again? There is not much damage they can do, really."
Elrond considered the matter for a while, then he nodded.
"Agreed, Erestor. Please go and welcome them in my name, while we stay here and discuss further actions. Elladan, please accompany Erestor and make sure there are enough guards. And keep your son away from the strangers!"
Erestor and Elladan nodded and left the study. Gandalf looked after them, shaking his head.
"I do wonder if this was such a wise decision, my lord," he said.
"I have always fared best when I listened to Erestor," Elrond snapped.
"Erestor was the one who thought the One Ring should not be destroyed," Gandalf insisted, and seeing how Glorfindel opened his mouth to defend his beloved, he added: "And you were the one who agreed with him, Glorfindel."
Glorfindel shrugged.
"What can I say," he replied. "Partners who agree can be found in the best of families."
TBC