Tol-in-Gaurhoth LXIII: The Cottage of Lost Play

[Feanor of the Peredhil]

"Hard to get involved," I return with a mop and jug of bleach, "when nobody's got anything to go on."

After making sure plenty of crime scene photos are taken, I liberally pour the bleach over the blood and start scrubbing at it, hands gloved, taking care not to step in the sticky evidence.

"But it's an old argument. I'd make a terrible criminal investigator. Too many gut reactions, too little listening. All that stuff Nog said? I somehow managed to retain none of it."

I scrub away, a macabre Cinderella cleaning up the house, trying not to whistle or hum as I work. It's a built in mechanism: I tend to hum during tedious work, like cutting hair or organizing things. The rhythm of the mop, push, pull, scrub smush, slap into the water bucket, slosh push pull push simply demands that I whistle a happy working song.

I quash the idea, feeling that it's far too twisted to play Disney princess just now: I shan't hum, I tell myself. I will not!

Yet I find myself humming as I mop, morbidly fascinated with the parts of our moddess that leaked when they dismembered her for better storage.

"There's no proof," I repeat, squishing reddish water out of the mop and into the soapy bucket. I need a new bucket, I realize, since the mop is now just spreading around dirty water instead of cleaning. I pour the rest of the jug of bleach onto the stained and sopping floor, just to be sure, and set up a bright yellow sign cautioning 'Cuidado!' before heading back in search of refreshed supplies.