Picking Up The Pieces by Grundy  

Real Me

Tindomiel traced an idle spiral on Maeglin’s chest as she wound up her explanation of why he should be cautious about making rings for several years. She’d accidentally done the explanation backwards, starting with the recent bits, and compressed the Third Age parts as much as possible so he wouldn’t have time to fret much about her sister or brothers. (And also so she didn’t have to talk about Arwen and Estel. They could get to that later.)

He’d taken the Second Age parts better than she’d expected, to her surprise. He had to remind her that he had never actually met Celebrimbor.

“I met his father only the once, just before the battle…” he trailed off, waiting for her to fill in the name that had been given to it.

“The Nirnaeth Anoediad,” she prompted.

“Yes,” he nodded. “We just called it ‘the battle’. I met Ammë’s cousins the evening before. My uncle Findekano hosted a dinner for his kin. It was the only time I met him.”

His mood turned somber, so she hastened to assure him that while Findekano had not returned yet, that was only because he was being stubborn.

“He’s not coming back without Grandpa Maitimo,” she explained. “Otherwise he could have been wandering around Tirion an Age ago. Maybe even longer.”

Maeglin frowned.

“I do not understand. How can Uncle Maedhros be your grandfather when Uncle Findekano is only ‘uncle’?”

She knew he was turning over the puzzle in his mind, and trying valiantly to make it fit. He was aware Maedhros and Fingon had been wed but childless at the Nirnaeth – at least, childless so far as anyone had mentioned in his hearing – and it wasn’t as if they could have had children after…

“Grandpa Maitimo and Grandfather Makalaurë raised my dad,” she explained.  

He didn’t need to be told that made them grandfathers in the Sindarin sense, and that some Noldor would dispute the term.

She decided to explain later that in this case it was actually the other way around, with Thingol the one who did his best to ignore the relationship entirely and even Grandfather not entirely pleased about having to acknowledge it. None of the Tirion relatives were about to make the argument that Nerdanel didn’t have peredhil grandchildren.

“But what became of your grandparents?” he asked. “Did something happen to Queen Elwing?”

Tindomiel sighed, wondering how much to tell him. She’d been hoping to avoid the Third Kinslaying a little longer. He’d been fairly upset after hearing about the Second.

“Gramma had Lúthien’s Silmaril,” she explained.

Maeglin paled.

“They killed her?” he asked worriedly.

Tindomiel shook her head.

“No, she jumped off a cliff with it so they couldn’t have it,” she told him with a smirk. “But then the Valar said she couldn’t return to Ennor. And my grandfathers weren’t going to leave Ada and Uncle Elros to fend for themselves, they were only six.”

Maeglin’s scowl reminded her a lot of Anariel’s when she’d first heard that it was the Valar’s idea that Elwing and Eärendil couldn’t go back.

“Yeah, they have odd ideas,” she said before he could get too worked up. “We should go visit Gramma Elwing once we’re okay to go out without scandalizing the Noldor.”

That got both a smile and a slight snicker.

“She could come here,” he suggested.

“Maybe,” Tindomiel said dubiously. She could tell him later she’d never known Elwing to go anywhere Noldorin.  She also decided now wasn’t the time to point out that they had enough family to deal with right here in the city.

“Not today,” Maeglin assured her, with a quick peck on the tip of her nose as he rolled out of bed.

Now it was her turn to frown.

“Where are you going?”

“Anardil did remind us to eat,” he replied. “I cannot see him bringing anything in here, but I would be surprised indeed if there weren’t something in the outer room…”

Tindomiel reflected that he must be fairly sure Enerdhil wasn’t out there right now if he hadn’t bothered putting on anything.

“We did eat,” she protested. “Not that long ago.”

Maeglin reappeared, bearing a laden tray, and grinning.

“I believe ‘not that long ago’ may have been yesterday,” he told her. “And if that tray was put together with me in mind, this one must be for you – I don’t recognize half of it.”

Tindomiel sat up with a sigh, though now that there was food, her stomach was grumbling. Any reluctance was quickly burned off in the face of chocolate fondue.

“I take back any complaints, Enerdhil is a genius,” she informed her surprised mate.

She wrapped a sheet around herself as she joined him at the table – whoever had designed Maeglin’s rooms had known him well enough to know if there wasn’t a table for him to write on, at some point he’d end up spilling ink on the bed.

“Modesty?” he teased.

“Keeping warm!” she shot back.

The nights were still cool, and while the sun was shining in the window, the light suggested it was still early enough in the morning that they’d have needed more than just the sun to warm the room. He might be used to a chilly northern climate, but she wasn’t. Even in winter, the rooms in Imladris had been warm.

“I could do that,” he offered.

“You’re the one who said we should be eating,” she reminded him, but did not protest when he pulled her onto his lap.

“We will eat. Then we will find other ways to keep you warm,” he replied.

She could sense more of his attention was on the tray right now than on further sexytimes fun, so she took one of the skewers and dipped a slice of mango into the chocolate.

“You said this tray was for you?” Maeglin prompted, copying her actions cautiously, substituting an apple for the mango.

“Unless Grandfather neglected to mention something awfully important, they didn’t have chocolate in Beleriand,” she said.

“Chocolate?” Maeglin asked, eying his chocolate coated apple slice curiously.

“Try it, it’s good,” she urged him, turning her head so she’d not just feel but see his reaction.

Judging by the surprised smile, he found chocolate as delicious as she could hope.

“More than just good,” he replied blissfully.

She grinned, and dunked a chunk of orange for him.

“Where does this chocolate come from that we didn’t have it?”

“California,” Tindomiel said. “Tasariel and Califiriel’s mother Tara brought it to Arda, and sent it West when she realized Imladris wasn’t a good place for it to grow. Auntie Yavanna loved the plant. Everyone else loved the end result.”

She knew he would ask before he said the words. She could feel the curiosity – and also the concern. But it wasn’t as if this was something she could hide from him, or wanted to. He already knew about the Key, or at least the good part of it.

“Where is California? And why do you speak as if it is not part of Arda?”

Tindomiel took a deep breath and tried not to feel guilty that she was dumping this on someone barely out of the Halls. Then again, Uncle Moryo had heard it and been just fine. Maeglin had been in no way as out of it as Uncle Aiko when he first returned...

“California isn’t part of Arda,” she said firmly. “It’s another world, with Powers of its own looking after it, and its own history and problems.”

“But…”

“Hold the questions until I’ve given you the short version, it really will make sense. Well, some sense. Parts of it are still pretty stupid.”

Maeglin nodded, and she tried not to grin at his expression as he cautiously dipped a pretzel into the chocolate.

“So it’s all a bit hazy how Nana and Anariel got there – Nana was being hunted by orcs crossing the mountains, and she had baby Anariel with her, that part’s clear, but it’s not clear who or what ripped a hole between dimensions so when Nana took what she thought was an escape aided by the Valar she landed in a whole ‘nother world.”

“If she is Galadriel’s daughter and wed to a grandson of Lúthien, it does not seem very unclear who would wish your mother or her children harm,” Maeglin pointed out quietly.

“Well, yeah, there’s that,” Tindomiel agreed. “Pretty sure Anariel’s leading theory is Morgoth and Sauron, but it’s not like anyone can prove it, because Sauron wasn’t dumb enough to say something like ‘oh hey, shame you made it back after I dumped you and your mom in another world’ when Anariel was pounding on his gates to make chicken noises at him with an army behind her.”

Further discussion of California had to wait, as that sentence ended up requiring a lengthy explanation, not to mention reassurance that Anariel had definitely survived the experience, Sauron not so much, and as far as anyone else could tell, her sister’s main regret about that particular battle was not having gotten to physically hit him at any point. Tindomiel decided to leave ‘she’s probably planning for Morgoth even now because she wants to hit him even more’ for another day.

Then she had to spend time covering major differences between California and Arda before she could get to explaining what she’d really meant to get to.

“But I do not understand how they thought the air and water being poisoned was a good trade for getting places faster,” Maeglin protested some time later, around the time Tindomiel discovered to her disappointment that the mango was all gone. (The chocolate, happily was not. She wasn’t sure whether to thank Enerdhil or the kitchens, but this chocolate pot was definitely bigger than what one would normally serve for two.)

“How about we come back to that later?” she suggested gently. “We haven’t even gotten to the important parts yet.”

“Turning everything into something like the environs of Angband seems important,” Maeglin protested.

When she thought about it in that light, it did seem less like ‘just humans’ and more ‘maybe I need to have a conversation with Anariel about how long she thinks Morgoth was in California-Earth.’ But this was still not the time.

“We can talk about it more later?” she suggested gently. “But I want to tell you the rest about California now, before we get…sidetracked. And there are some bits slightly more important to you and me.”

He nodded reluctantly, only slightly mollified.

“California didn’t have orcs, but it did have vampires,” she told him.

Morgoth had vampires also.

Maeglin had spoken mentally as his mouth was full – and also because he wasn’t trying to interrupt, just to make sure she knew.

“I think they were different? You’d have to ask Anariel, she’d know if anyone would.”

She had his full attention now.

“The Men in this other world weren’t strong enough to fight vampires directly, so thousands of years before the time my mother and sister were drawn there, a group of them did a ritual to give enough power and strength to one person to fight them – the Vampire Slayer.”

Maeglin was so quietly horrified it made her wonder if maybe Beleriand had a few cautionary tales she hadn’t heard.

“The Slayer is always female, and usually young – they’re called when they’re teenagers. Most don’t see twenty.”

“What has this to do with your mother and sister?” Maeglin asked, and while she could hear the worry in his tone, it was nothing to what she could feel in his fëa. He knew she wouldn’t be telling him about this if it didn’t relate to her family.

“Somehow Anariel ended up as the Slayer, even though we’re peredhil,” Tindomiel said quietly. “Not that she knew about the peredhil thing at that point. So she started fighting vampires, demons, and all that because she didn’t really have a choice.”

Being able to feel someone else’s stomach drop with dread was if anything even more off-putting than your own doing it.

“But she lives,” Maeglin said, sounding slightly faint. “You have mentioned her several times. So she lives?”

“Yeah, don’t worry,” she reassured him. “Anariel’s not very good at doing the expected. She did actually die once, but between saying no to mortality and Xander knowing CPR, she got better.”

She mentally filled in CPR, and was curious to note that while the word was new to him, the concept was not.

Maeglin was still very disturbed, though his mind was roiled enough that she couldn’t pick out exactly why.

“You have mentioned your mother and sister in California,” he said suddenly. “But where do you come into it? Your father remained in Arda, but you speak of California as a place you knew.”

Tindomiel would have smiled had he not sounded so unnerved.

“That’s the part I’ve been trying to get to,” she sighed. “So, Nana and Anariel in California, Anariel the Slayer, and in addition to Xander, she had a good friend Willow. Willow’s mate was Tara, and Xander’s mate was Anya – remember that part, kinda important but not the point right now. Anyway, there was something like Morgoth in California, but definitely not actually Morgoth, called Glory. She was from another world, one like Angband but that’s all there was, and she was so terrible she got booted. She wanted to get back, and to do that, she needed something called the Key.”

“But that’s you,” Maeglin protested, his worry level skyrocketing.

“Yes, but it wasn’t then,” she explained. “The Key was…I don’t know, pure energy or something at that point. The group protecting it realized Glory was coming for them, so they decided to give it to the Slayer to guard. But they wanted to know she’d really protect it, with her life if need be. For some reason they thought ‘this hellgoddess will end the world if you don’t keep it safe’ wasn’t motivation enough, even though that really would do it for most people. So they made her a kid sister and channeled the Key into me. And didn’t actually tell anybody they’d done it. They made Nana and Anariel think I’d always been there.”

She left out ‘and really mind-twisty for me, because I didn’t know either’, because Maeglin had more or less shut down. He was quiet long enough to worry her. Maybe she’d made a mistake, and put too much on him too soon. But it felt dishonest not to explain, given how her California origins and being the Key had made her who she was.

Just when she was about to demand Maeglin say something – anything, really – he spoke.

“How did they find out? And how did they explain all this to your father?”