Adult-FanFiction.org : Lord of the Rings

Love’s Healing Flame	By : Argleena Category: -Fourth Age to Modern times and beyond > AU - Alternate Universe Views: 947 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: The following work is based on the fantasy world and characters created by J.R.R. Tolkien and I do not own them or profit from this piece of work.

Chapter List
- 2
- 3
- 4
Erestor had been working himself to the bone since the founding of Imladris, sometimes staying up days and nights in a row to complete everything that needed completion and he didn’t plan on stopping anytime in the near future. He didn't plan on stopping, that is, until he lived through the last few weeks of Mordor bo Arda. Yes, it was the busy, late harvest time of the year. That always meant more work for Erestor, but he could handle that. Yes, they had an influx of guests, more than ever before. He could handle that and delegate those responsibilities as well. Something breaks or a miscommunication in paperwork happens? Expected, things such as this happen once in a while, even elves weren’t perfect. What Erestor did not expect was that over the course of the past six weeks, everything and anything that could possibly go wrong, would. He didn’t expect that his fellow elves and underlings would suddenly seemingly possess the intelligence of a dwarf that had some orc blood sprinkled in their ancestry. Every staff member seemed to have to ask questions or for clarification on every smallest matter and for every simple task assigned to them. He also did expect there to be pranks that the spawn of Elrond and their friends played (they were at least 1/8th Maiar, who were known to be very mischievous creatures after all, and these “pranks” were now a common occurrence in the Homely House), but not to the extreme they had been carried out as of late. He almost felt at times that there was some malicious intent behind their foolery. The thing that really tipped Erestor over the edge, however, was when his “friends” and colleagues began prying into his personal business more than usual and were joining in on the mischievousness directed at Erestor. He already had enough on his plate, dealing with all the work related disasters, now with others meddling into his personal life and what little free time he had, he was just about ready to walk completely away from the chaos for a good long time.
In an attempt to drown the memory of the horrendous past six weeks, Erestor slipped completely under the water he was soaking in and allowed himself to float suspended in a muted reality for a few moments, trying to clear his mind. Eventually, however, the need to breathe was pressing and an instinct to survive took over. Breaking through to the surface with a gasp for precious air, Erestor glided back to the edge of the bathing pool, perching himself on the raised ledge inside the tub as he leaned back. Wiping the water and his wet clinging hair out of his face, he lay back against the headrest and continued to replay the disaster that was the past six weeks in his mind. The worst was only yet to come.
His decline began six weeks ago, when lower councilor Fuirdir called four extra council meetings over the course of a week's time, all on insignificant matters that had already been discussed and put to rest by the council weeks ago. Fuirdir seemed to want to argue over every little detail and whenever Erestor provided input, Fuirdir argued against him. It wasn’t the fact that Fuirdir was disagreeing with Erestor that aggravated Erestor so. It was the fact that he was wasting Erestor’s time with trivial matters that had previously been resolved, and time was a valuable commodity in Erestor’s world. It also seemed he wanted to argue with Erestor just for the sake of arguing and intentionally conspired to waste the Chief Councillor’s time. Erestor hypothesized that Fuirdir was frustrated that he was stuck in the position of lower councilor, especially as the ion of a previous (but now passed) High Councilor. Erestor had a feeling that Fuirdir felt he should have Erestor’s position and privileges instead of Erestor himself and was trying to usurp his position. Never mind the fact that Fuirdir had no negotiation skills whatsoever and put minimal effort into his work, often showing up late and never working past his assigned office hours, no matter how busy things were or what was going on, he felt entitled to more authority. He often caused more questions than answers during meetings and more problems than solutions with his proposals. Erestor really did not have time to engage in his petty power games when he had much more important issues to worry about.
Already falling behind due to the shenanigans of the lower councilor, Erestor then began running into issues regarding the guests present in their visitor wing. A party of dwarves that were lodging with them for a week of trade and negotiations had cleared the main pantry far faster than estimated. They were also loud and acted crudely towards other guests. They were obstinate and stubborn during negotiations and left a huge mess in their wake of everywhere they went. Then the group of diplomats from the Golden Wood and those from Greenwood kept getting into arguments and scuffles, both during the diplomatic meetings they were present to attend, but also during their down time whenever they happened to cross paths with each other in passing. Arrangements had to be made to move each group twice during their stay in an attempt to keep the peace. One evening not too much later, a traveler that was of the race of men broke several valuable statues and pieces of furniture in the main house after stumbling back to his best quarters at half past three in the morning after playing drinking games with a group of dwarves in the local tavern. Another merchant of men complained nonstop about the food provided for meals (which were complimentary mind you), stating there was not enough meat provided at dinner. His rude remarks infuriated the already hassled cook to the point that she threatened to quit her position no less than four times during that week. It seemed that groups, guests and travelers passing through were all lacking in manners and an ornery bunch this season, constantly arguing and haggling over negotiations and trade, fighting with each other, breaking things, making unreasonable demands and driving the staff and general elven population to distraction. Despite Erestor having assistants and elves whose jobs it was to handle such matters and despite trying to encourage his staff to handle things on their own, with their best judgement, Erestor was still constantly being hassled and summoned to help with some issue or other, because he always, “does it best.” He was the Chief Councilor for a reason, because he was the best at resolving conflict and solving problems, but it was getting to the point where he felt like nobody was trying or willing to solve problems on their own without consulting him regarding every little detail.
The next several weeks followed in a similar manner. If it could go wrong, it would. If you never imagined it going wrong, too bad, it was still going to happen. Melpomaen, poor timid creature that he was, got spooked and accidentally spilled an entire inkpot of black ink on a work that had taken three scribes over two months of full time work to transcribe. Saelbeth sent the correspondence that was supposed to go to the Havens to Thranduil’s realm, while Thranduil’s correspondence worked its way to Círdan. Círdan was gracious about the mistake, however, Erestor received ten pages of correspondence from Thraduil bemoaning the incompetence of the Imladrian elves. Honestly he was surprised (and grateful) it was not longer. Part of his job entailed responding to every single one of Thraduil’s points, in order to maintain realm relations and all. Next, one of the house's main water lines broke and the kitchen suffered a fire that put it out of commission for the next three days. Despite elves rarely getting sick, his main assistant got severely ill with some kind of stomach illness and spent a full week in the healing rooms and another week in bed, recuperating. One of the new stable boys, Eredhion, kept mysteriously losing goats from the herd. A new recruit almost cut his own arm off on the first day of using real swords in training. These were just the tip of the iceberg of what had been happening the past few weeks.The disasters and distractions seemed never ending and Erestor was the one that everyone came to to manage them.
Translations:
Mordor bo Arda- “Mordor on Arda,” equitable to saying, “Hell on Earth”
Ion- son
- 2
- 3
- 4
You need to be logged in to leave a review for this story.You need to be logged in to leave a review for this story.
Report Story

Love’s Healing Flame