#also includes:

“What do you have there, Art?” 

“Oh just some tasty morsels for tonight’s stew! Caught them scrambling about the edge of the moor, I did.”

“That one’s got a good bit of fat on him.” The second troll said, poking Deirdre with a thick grimy finger. 

Art yanked her back, sending Deirdre screeching anew. “Hands to yourself, Wildo. I found them. I’m cooking them up.”

“There’s plenty to share! With that one at least.”

“This one’s mine. You can have the skinny one.” He tossed Neil to Wildo, who fumbled the catch, much to Neil’s increasing distress.

Of course, Neil and Deirdre Brady couldn’t speak this language, and so they were left in a fright, with monstrous creatures tossing them about and speaking utter nonsense. Perhaps it was for the best. No one, of course, wants to know that they are about to be roasted alive for lunch.

-

Trolls were nothing to sniff at.

They raised such a horrid stink.

Glorfindel had been waiting just at the edge of the cave this lot was living in, having been drawn by the orange glow this side of the hill. A glow that bright in the middle of the night in the Trollshaws only meant one thing. And these trolls were too close to the main road not to be a nuisance to travelers. 

He’d been waiting because he had only counted one troll at the fire and they generally never lived alone if they could help it. It would be better to bag them both at once.

He was handsomely rewarded when the troll’s companion returned with dinner. 

A very loud dinner.

The screeching was warranted, but hard to listen to. Glorfindel winced. No time to waste!

He left Asfaloth where he was –there was no sense risking him with the trolls– and strode into the ring of light, Aurë flashing in his hands, and called out jovially:

“Ho, my friends! What a nice catch you have!” 

Both trolls froze and turned to look at the intruder. 

Glorfindel gave Aurë a whirl and then gripped the hilt with both hands. “Mind if I join you for dinner?” 

Before either Art or Wildo could decide how to react (trolls were, of course, rather slow creatures), Glorfindel raised his voice in a battle Song which forced both to drop their prizes and clutch their ears in horror. He sprinted toward them, Singing, and cut Art down with one long slice to his belly. Wildo recovered quicker, and grabbed the wicked-looking knife from his belt– which was about the size of Aurë– and waved it wildly in Glorfindel’s direction with a terrified shout.

Glorfindel neatly sidestepped each cut, parried, and then stabbed Wildo straight in the knee.

The troll howled in pain and sank to his knees. Glorfindel took the opportunity to plunge Aurë straight into the beast’s eye, right up to the hilt.

It took a bit of a yank to get the sword out again, which was tiresome. He had to put a boot to the creature’s skull to get enough leverage.

Panting, he cleaned Aurë and sheathed it, then turned and held out a gloved hand, glowing with golden light, to the woman first. 

“Right. I hope you are not terribly hurt. Nasty things, trolls.” 

-

(and later, the twins find the two boys in the forest and, after discovering that they speak no recognizable language, bring them to Rivendell to see if Elrond can figure out how to communicate with them)

The twins led the boys up to the house. It was buzzing with activity this time of day, elves going to-and-from the healing halls or the kitchen, some Dunedain guests milling about. They passed a group of hunters heading out for the diurnal prey that would be out soon. 

Elrohir would have liked to get the boys another meal before doing anything else, but it was best to figure out what language they were speaking first. They climbed the stairs to the second floor, then went out to the garden and passed Lindir, who greeted them with a bow.

“Ada’s in his study?” Elladan asked.

Lindir nodded. “I have just come from there.” His eyes fell to the boys with curiosity, and then flicked back up to the twins. 

“Uh…we’ll explain later. We really have to talk to him,” Elladan said again, and said goodbye and continued on past the courtyard to knock on the door to his father’s study and then went inside.

Elrond was indeed there, bent over some letters with Erestor at his side. Both of them looked over and Elrond straightened. He probably meant inquire after the hunt, but paused at once when he saw the boys.

Before the inevitable could be asked, Elrohir cut in: “We found them at the edge of the trollshaws alone and lost. No sign of any adults. Um– and I have no idea what language they’re speaking.”

“He tried everything,” Elladan added. “They don’t speak common. Elrohir even tried Khuzdul and Haradi but they recognized nothing.” 

Elrond held up a hand to still them both and slowly came over. The boys had dark hair and light eyes. If he didn’t know any better, he would think they were Elros’ kin. But if what Elladan and Elrohir said was true, then he couldn’t imagine how that could be. 

“The trollshaws?” From behind him, Erestor was incredulous. “What were they doing in the trollshaws? That is a long way from any Mannish settlement in the area.” 

“I imagine we shall find out if we talk to them,” Elrond said evenly. He wished to hear them speak, if only to take a stab at a language root. He sank down to their level (his height was hard to handle for some grown men, let alone two children), and then put a hand to his chest and introduced, “Elrond.” And gestured to the eldest. 

Torin kept his feet firmly planted on the floor, despite the way this man’s presence made him want to cower. He was tall - taller than any man Torin had ever met. His grey eyes looked old beyond his years and when he knelt to Finley’s level with those careful, gentle motions and that disarming tone, a profound sense of unease and acute distrust churned in Torin’s gut.

“Torin. We’re just looking for a phone.” He held his hand to his ear, fingers extended to pantomime it, and searched the man’s face for any sign of understanding. “Phone? Cell? Ring ring?”

Finley shrunk behind his brother. 

Elrond cocked his head. The gesture was completely unfamiliar. The language…he supposed he didn’t have enough information to discern a root, though if he had to guess it might be Rohirric in nature. 

The three questions in quick succession were clearly an attempt at some sort of clarification. Synonyms. But unfortunately he hadn’t the faintest idea of what any of it meant.

He glanced up at the twins, who looked baffled, and then sat back on his haunches and decided on: “Well met, Torin. I am afraid I don’t know how to help you,” because regardless of whether or not they understood each other, he was still going to give him the respect of speaking to him. “But I promise I will do my best to find how.” 

“You don’t know what they’re speaking?” Elladan was astounded.

“Unfortunately I do not. It is a puzzle,” Elrond replied back. 

The only thing Torin understood out of all that was his name. It was swiftly become clear they either had no idea what a phone was, or simply didn’t have any here and were trying to explain that. 

“Fuck,” he said, guessing that was as gibberish to them as anything else in English. If he hadn’t left his damn phone charging in his room they wouldn’t be in this mess.

“Okay, uh, Plan B,” he said, not even bothering to whisper. They couldn’t understand what he was saying to his brother anyway. “We’re gonna get some more food and figure out where the hell we are, and then figure out the real Plan B.”

Finley nodded mutely.

Torin took out the little wrapped bread from earlier and held it up, pointing to it. “Food?” 

At that, Elrond lit up into a warm smile. It was an easily understood question.

“That was going to be my next suggestion, in fact. Food,” he repeated the unfamiliar word. “Yes.” 

The letters were entirely forgotten with his attention entirely diverted onto this new puzzle. Erestor let out a long-suffering sigh and gathered them up into a neat stack. Elrond stood and started for the door beckoning. 

“I’ll go get them something,” Elladan said, heading down to the kitchen. “Terrace?”

Elrond hummed in assent, and started up the walkway to the third floor, Elrohir following behind. 

-

Elrond led them back downstairs, all the way to the first floor of the library. He waved to Iûldis as they passed her desk on their way in. She paid him a polite nod of her head. Elrond led them through the rows of books until they came to the selection of maps. He took one down and rolled it out on the nearest table large enough to accommodate it, took a moment to orient himself, and then pointed to Rivendell.

“We’re here. Rivendell.” He then traced over the mountains to: “Dale,” then downward, “Rohan,” further south. “Gondor. Minas Tirith.” And finally, back over the mountains, being sure to trace slowly all the way west. “Bree.” Then, “Ered Luin.” 

Torin may not have been a geography whiz, but he knew a map of world and knew this sure as hell wasn’t it. 

“Are you fucking joking?” Torin shook his head. “You don’t even have a real map. That’s grand. Fantastic. Fuck!” He grabbed the map and threw it off the table like the useless piece of garbage it was.

Finley flinched and shrunk back, worrying at his sleeves, stiff with shoulder hunched up to his ears. 

Torin pointed an angry finger at Elrond. “Tell us where the hell we are!”

“Riv–” Finley tried to say Rivendell. He’d picked up that much. Not that he knew where or what Rivendell was, but it was where they were. The word couldn’t form. It tangled up in his mouth. “Ri–”  Rivendell. Rivendell. Rivendell. It was right there caught in his throat behind a lump of anxiety.

Elrond took the outburst in stride. He watched the map drift to the floor, and then returned his attention to Torin.  Iûldis had crept over at the commotion and was leaning around to glare at them all disapprovingly from around the bookcase. He shot her an apologetic smile and bent to retrieve the map. Thankfully, it was not damaged.

He rolled it up and reshelved it.

“Rivendell,” he repeated, because the question was clear and Torin’s little brother’s answer was also predictable. “That is where you are. And if you dislike the map we can look at others, but I am not sure if they will be of any use to you.”

He had begun to radiate a gentle flow of calm through the floor, if only because he could feel how fast the little one’s heartbeat was. It also may help keep the surrounding books intact. 

Torin couldn’t pinpoint how, but he got the sense Elrond was trying to calm him down and that only put him further on edge. “ Ireland. Europe. British Isles. Dublin. Any of that mean anything to you?!” 

He couldn’t tell if this was an elaborate act of if they really were that disconnected from society. For concerning recent events, the cosmic phenomenon they experienced yesterday had nothing on the presence of these pointy-eared bastards.

-

Elladan and Elrohir decided to go upstairs and get some sleep. They had slept little on their hunt, especially the night before, and it was beginning to catch up with them. On their way in, though, they stopped to check on the boys. 

“Torin screamed at Ada,” Elladan muttered with a laugh. “Everyone’s talking about it.”

Elrohir’s eyes grew wide. “He’s lucky Erestor wasn’t there. He would have put him over his knee. Ai, I can still remember the first and last time I ever did that.” 

Erestor had never done anything of the sort, of course, but the scathing disapproval had hurt just as much. He’d been in the room at the time. Ada had simply taken it in stride, asked him if he was finished, and then sent him to study a corner of the nursery for three hours. The boredom had been another kind of pain.

-

(Glorfindel arrives with Neil and Deidre, and they go to "reunite" with the boys but uhhhhh it does not go well... partially due to the language barrier but also due to the shitty family dynamic which the elves have no way of knowing about)

Celebrían led the boys upstairs. Elrond and Glorfindel came in before they could make it all the way to the terrace, meeting them in the hall. They had to sorely bedraggled adults with them who, Celebrían guessed, looked quite a lot like both boys. 

“Glorfindel! It’s good to see you back!” she shot him a bright smile.

Glorfindel’s smile that he gave her in return was radiant as ever. “It’s good to be back.” 

Torin froze. His body went stiff and he planted his feet. No. No, no no.

There were their parents, tired, with muddy clothes and tired eyes. Relief washed over their faces at the sight of him, but Torin didn’t share the sentiment. He knew it was a lie.

“Torin!” His mum went to hug him and he shrugged her off. His dad placed a hand on his shoulder and he stiffened. 

“We’ve been looking for you for over a day. We were worried sick.” 

“Yeah I’ll bet you were,” Torin grumbled. 

“Where’s your brother?” The concern carried a nearly imperceptible edge.

Torin looked to his side. Finley was gone. Fuck. His eyes turned to his dad’s with a sharp glare. “What do you care?”

Neil sighed, like dealing with a petulant child, and tried to ask after Finley. “The smaller one? Finley?” He indicated the height, hoping one of the strangers (and they truly were strange) could help.

No one knew what to make of the strange encounter. This was not how they had expected it to go. Torin did not look glad to see his parents. Elrond began to wonder if it had not been an accident that they had been separated. 

So focused were they all on the conversation that it came as a terrible surprise when Torin’s father (whom Glorfindel had introduced as Neil) asked about Finley. Before Elrond could register what he meant, Celebrían frowned, looking around. 

“He was just here–”

Ah. Finley was the little one. And he had gone missing in a matter of seconds. Elrond’s heart jumped. He craned his neck. Sure enough, Finley was nowhere in sight.

He shot Neil an apologetic smile and said, “I will look for him. Celebrían, could you have Lindir make up a room?” 

A little shaken, Celebrían nodded. She couldn’t imagine how Finley had been so quiet, nor so quick, that no one had noticed him disappear. 

Elrond set off. Glorfindel took it upon himself to introduce: “Lady Celebrían, this is Neil, and his fucking cunt Deidre.” He said it cheerily, gesturing between the two of them, looking very proud of himself for picking up on the word for spouse from all of their bickering. 

Celebrían shot them a smile and touched her hand to her chest and inclined her head. “Well met. Celebrían,” she introduced herself. 

Deirdre, however, squawked in offense and, before Neil could stop her, slapped Glorfindel. “How dare you!” 

“Deirdre!” He reached her a moment too late. 

“You heard what he called me!” 

“You really think he knows what that means?”

“Well– Well then it’s your fault! He must have picked it up from you!”

Meanwhile, Torin burst into laughter the moment Glorfindel said it. “No, no.” He gave a thumbs up to Glorfindel and pointed to his mum, still laughing. “His fucking cunt.”

“WIFE! I’m his wife!” Deirdre screeched. 

“Torin.” Neil shot him a warning glare, but then those eyes flicked around their company. 

Torin, knowing his dad couldn’t do shit in public, just shrugged and gave him a shit-eating grin. “You said it first.”

Glorfindel was so surprised by this entire thing that he froze. Celebrían’s eyebrows rose. She put her hands on her hips, ready to lash out at Deidre despite her being a guest because they most certainly did not allow anyone to strike anyone in her house– but at Torin’s reaction and Deidre’s apparently correction, the situation became clear.

“Glorfindel– I think that doesn’t mean what you think it means,” she said slowly.

Glorfindel looked between Torin, Celebrían, Neil, and Deidre. “He called her that the whole time!” 

“Maybe they don’t get along as well as you thought,”  Celebrían said with a thin, albeit amused, smile. 

Glorfindel blushed and ducked his head in Deidre’s direction. “I misunderstood. My deepest apologies.” 

Deirdre huffed, but accepted what she hoped was an apology. “Does anyone here speak English?” she demanded. 

“Nope,” Torin said. “No English. No phones. No maps. We’re fucking stranded with these weirdos in this godforsaken larping compound.”

-

(one last little snippet here, after Finley bolts to get away from his parents, Elrond goes off to find him).

Elrond set off from the group. When he turned the corner in the hall, he stopped, shut his eyes, took a deep breath, and blocked everything out to attune to the floor beneath his feet. 

Sure enough, it was faint, but there was a tiny heartbeat some distance away, racing at breakneck speed. 

He followed it down to the second floor, past the rows and rows of guest rooms, hardly saying hello to anyone as he passed them. It grew stronger and stronger until he came to his study. The corners of his mouth twitched. Silently, he slipped in and padded over. The source of the heartbeat came from behind his desk. 

If Finley’s first reaction upon seeing his parents was to hide, that was a bad sign. Torin had, really, reacted no better. Elrond was in no hurry to return Finley to them at present. More than likely it was only out of anxiety that they would be angry with him for running off, or getting lost, or any number of things. But this was such a strong reaction that Elrond worried it might be something more than that.

He sank down to the floor to sit on the other side of his desk, resting his back against it and reclining. 

“Finley, is it?” 

He was glad that he finally knew the little one’s name. He kept his voice soft, hardly above a whisper, and began to radiate a gentle pool of calm, hoping that Finley might come out on his own. 

Finley wasn’t sure how he got here, or where here even was. His arms wrapped around his knees, squeezing so, so tight; he felt he might crumble into a million little pieces if he let go. He couldn’t stop shaking, his head was spinning, his chest wound tight, and he could barely breathe. 

I shouldn’t have run. I shouldn’t have run. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry I’m sorry. 

The words filled his thoughts to the brim like swelling pressure against a frail dam. The door opened. His whimpers silenced and he pressed against the corner of the wood. 

I’m sorry. I’m sorry. Go away. Please go away. Please don’t–

The footsteps stopped on the other side of the wood. A pause, then a voice. That wasn’t his dad. He felt like he should know who it was, but couldn’t remember through the screaming mess in his head. Whoever it was, he had a gentle voice. Finley felt the air come back into his lungs. Tears sprung from his eyes. 

He opened his mouth, but not words would come out. They all tangled up in his clenching chest.

It was quiet for a long time, save only for the sound of Finley’s still-racing heart, his sniffling, and the little sounds of distress he was making every so often. Panic. Elrond’s chest twisted. He briefly considered going to fetch Torin, but that might mean alerting Finley’s parents that he had been found. He had no intention of doing so until Finley was calm and they had a chance to…

…what, talk? They couldn’t. Elrond bit the inside of his cheek, frustrated. He squashed the feeling as soon as it rose before it could bleed out of him.

Finley neither spoke nor came out from under the desk, though his heart did slow somewhat. Elrond fished out a handkerchief from his pocket and carefully reached behind him to set it at the corner of the desk, within reach without forcing Finley to come out before he was ready.

After another long stretch, an idea occurred to him. It was risky– especially in the state Finley was in– but there was a chance they might be able to communicate.

Tentatively, with the upmost care to be gentle, Elrond reached out and brushed Finley’s whirring, anxious mind with his own. 

‘I am not here to make you come out,’ he told him, hoping that at least something would be intelligible, ‘don’t fret.’

The voice, or… impression of a voice, was warm. It felt the same as the calming presence that had begun to ease his fear. Not banish it, but lessen it at least. What he imagining things? He figured he must be. His dad said his grandma used to hear things that weren’t there. 

Whatever he was, a real or not, Finley’s thoughts tumbled back to him.

‘I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have run away. I just got really scared. I don’t know where I am or if Torin’s okay. He was probably so mad and it’s my fault. It’s all my fault. I shouldn’t have run away. I’m sorry.’

The response was remarkably clear, for all its rushing current of fear which choked the words. Elrond let out a relieved breath.

‘Torin is well. He is safe,’ he told him at once. ‘And to my knowledge no one is angry with you. Only worried.’ 

Finley buried his face in his knees and pulled them closer to his chest, biting his lip so hard he tasted blood. ‘No. No he’s angry. He’s really really angry and it’s my fault. It’s my fault because I ran away and now he’s gonna hurt Torin and it’s my fault. I shouldn’t have run away or hid the rings or taken the rings or anything. I’m sorry. I’m sorry!’ 

“I’m– I– I– I’m s–” the words stumbled weakly out of his mouth. “‘m sorry. I’m sorry.”

Elrond shifted, rounding the desk to settle down once more a fair distance away, within Finley’s line of sight, but neither blocking his exits nor forcing either of them to look directly at each other. 

‘No one will hurt Torin in my house. I will not let them,’ he replied back, firm and steadfast, but still gentle and warm. ‘is it your father that scares you so much, tithen pen?’ 

Finley didn’t look up when he moved around the desk. He kept his face buried in his knees, but nodded, just a little. 

‘He was really angry, ‘cause I took something I wasn’t supposed to and now we’re here and it’s my fault.’

Elrond tilted his head, still radiating that flow of calm and relieved beyond words that this was working. 

‘predicaments so unfortunate and tangled as this are hardly ever any one person’s fault, let alone someone so small as you. And in any case I am certain you did not intend to cause harm. And a second I promise: I will not let anyone hurt your brother. Neither will I let anyone hurt you. No matter how angry they might be.’ 

Finley couldn’t say why he believed him, but he did. He was just one of those people who made you feel safe. Finley was scared to look up, because he wanted so badly for him to be real, but was so scared he wasn’t. 

It took a few minutes to muster up the courage to lift his head and open his eyes. 

There, sitting on the floor, was Elrond.

He was warm like summer and had a presence so much bigger than Finley’s dad, but so much kinder. 

--