[Lostgaeriel]

Lord of the Rings by Baroness Emmuska Orczy (author of The Scarlet Pimpernel)

An alternate version of Many Meetings (transposed from the 12th chapter - The Scrap of Paper)

Arwen suffered intensely. Though she laughed and chatted, though she was more admired, more surrounded, more feted than any woman there, she felt like one condemned to death, living her last day upon Middle-Earth.

Her nerves were in a state of painful tension, which had increased a hundredfold during that brief hour which she had spent in Aragorn’s company, between the banquet and the ballads. The short ray of hope--that she might find in this good-natured, lazy individual a valuable friend and adviser--had vanished as quickly as it had come, the moment she found herself alone with him. The same feeling of good-humoured contempt which one feels for an animal or a faithful servant, made her turn away with a smile from the man who should have been her moral support in this heart-rending crisis through which she was passing: who should have been her cool-headed adviser, when feminine sympathy and sentiment tossed her hither and thither, between her love for her brothers, who were far away and in mortal peril, and horror of the awful service which Sauron had exacted from her, in exchange for Frodo’s safety.

There he stood, the moral support, the cool-headed adviser, surrounded by a crowd of brainless, empty-headed young Elves, who were even now repeating from mouth to mouth, and with every sign of the keenest enjoyment, a doggerel quatrain which he had just given forth. Everywhere the absurd, silly words met her: people seemed to have little else to speak about, even Bilbo had asked her, with a little laugh, whether she appreciated her betrothed’s latest poetic efforts.

"All done in the re-forging of a sword," Lord Aragorn had declared to his clique of admirers.

"They seek him here, they seek him there, Those Nazgûl seek him everywhere. Is he in Riven? --- Is he in Dell? That demned, elusive Underhill." *

Aragorn’s bon mot had gone the round of the brilliant halls. Bilbo was enchanted. He vowed that life without Strider would be but a dreary desert. Then, taking him by the arm, had led him to the Hall of Fire, and engaged him in a long bout of pipe-smoking.

Lord Aragorn, whose chief interest in most social gatherings seemed to centre round the ale-barrel, usually allowed his fiancée to flirt, dance, to amuse or bore herself as much as she liked. And to-night, having delivered himself of his bon mot, he had left Arwen surrounded by a crowd of admirers of all Ages, all anxious and willing to help her to forget that somewhere in the spacious halls, there was a long, lazy being who had been fool enough to suppose that the cleverest Elf-woman in Middle-Earth would settle down to the prosaic bonds of Númenorean matrimony.

Her still overwrought nerves, her excitement and agitation, lent beautiful Arwen Evenstar much additional charm: escorted by a veritable bevy of Men, Hobbits and Elves of all Ages she called forth many exclamations of admiration from everyone as she passed.

She would not allow herself any more time to think. Her early, somewhat Valinorean training had made her something of a fatalist. She felt that events would shape themselves, that the directing of them was not in her hands. From Sauron she knew that she could expect no mercy. He had set a price on Frodo’s head, and left it to her to pay or not, as she chose.

*Editor's note: Aragorn's "poetry" is particularly bad here - not as painful as Vogon poetry but worse than Sir Percy's in the original novel - and much worse than Bombadil's [img]smilies/smile.gif[/img] - and absolutely horrible compared to Viggo Mortensen's! (I rather like VM's stuff.)

[ February 02, 2002: Message edited by: Lostgaeriel ]