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
- 8
- 9
- 10
Just when Erestor thought things couldn’t get any worse for him and his luck was scraping at the bottom of the barrel, then came the final blow that would break him. Who would have thought that it would come in the form of foolery from the twin sons of Elrond. Elladan, the oldest twin, was full of mischief and energy. His brother, Elrohir, tended to be more level headed and thoughtful, but was also easily swayed into participating in impetuous deeds by his brother. The pranks they played started off small. A piece of parchment cut out to look like a spider sitting on Erestor’s desk. His favorite robe moved three spots to the left in his meticulously organized closet. A barrage of snowballs after the first snow of the year when he was making his way to the barracks to collect training reports. As the boys grew bolder, however, so did their pranks. Erestor had recently become responsible for parts of their education and tutoring. After this, the pranks seemed to scale up in size. At times they almost felt malicious in a sense that Erestor wondered if they were trying to get back at him for when he assigned studies that they did not want to put the effort into completing or for requiring them to re-write sloppy work. He only wanted the best for the twins, hoping to mold them into the future leaders their realm would one day need. The boys, however, were too young yet to understand the gravity of their positions and often took his encouragement as pushing and they seemed to think Erestor enjoyed acting as a harsh taskmaster with them, even though this was not the case at all. Elrohir generally tried to keep the peace and actually took a great deal of interest in learning. Elladan, however, would much rather be out training with Glorfindel and learning to be a great warrior. He could care less about his studies and seemed to find it pertinent to fight Erestor every step of the way. Pranks were his way at letting Erestor know loud and clear he didn’t want to be there.
     There was one prank in particular that truly sent Erestor over the edge, and not just with the twins, but with the accumulation of everything from the past several weeks. Erestor had already been stressed out and pulled in a million different directions, pushed to the maximum of his limits for six weeks now. On top of that, his personal life had fallen to shambles and he lost his closest friendship. The only thing that was keeping him sane was the light at the end of the tunnel for the end of the busy season and Erestor finally having caught up on his work so that he could take a half day off and get some well needed rest. Erestor had previously pulled two overnighters in his office and had been awake for over three days straight with little to no sleep and several missed meals in order to finish the piles of correspondence, reports and paperwork that were backlogged and in need of completion as quickly as possible. He had finally completed every last task and laid everything out on his desk for his assistants to deliver to the appropriate recipients or venues. Erestor decided to stretch his legs and take a short break to gather some breakfast and tea from the dining hall to bring back to his office. He had a couple more short tasks to complete and then he could end his day early for once and return to his chambers to catch up on some much needed sleep. Not only did Erestor have all his recently completed work laid out neatly on his desk, but he also had some important translations just completed by his scribes, and several tomes needing to be returned to the library on his desk along with various other records and reports waiting for final approval. His assistants and understaff were certain to have a busy day today! Because he was caught up, Erestor made a couple stops along his way for breakfast to visit with Elrond and his good friend and part time assistant Lindir to chat for a few minutes. He took a minute to read young Arwen, who was playing quietly in Elrond’s office, a story at her request. Finally, almost an hour later Erestor was on his way back to his office, tray in hand.
     When Erestor pushed open his door with his foot and entered inside his office, he froze, not believing his eyes. There, in the middle of his floor stood a pair of goats, surrounded by piles of paperwork scattered all over the floor, much of it half chewed up if not completely devoured. Two of the tomes from his desk were knocked onto the ground and severely damaged plus chewed upon as well. Erestor could not believe what he was seeing. Six weeks of urgent paperwork and correspondence and reports, as well as these one of a kind tomes and translations that his staff had worked so hard on for months were all ruined. Chewed up by a pair of goats standing in their piles of absolute destruction and decimation. This was thousands upon thousands of hours of work, wasted in the blink of an eye. To make matters just that much worse, Erestor’s presence had spooked the skittish pair of goats and the closest came charging towards him, head butting him in the stomach and knocking him over, causing his lunch tray to go flying in the air, a majority of the mess spilling on either Erestor himself or over the piles of chewed up paperwork.
     Time seemed to stop at that moment. What had even just happened. For one bright second something looked like it was going to go right for Erestor and then it just went worse. Weeks of work lay destroyed on the floor of Erestor’s office. Weeks of Erestor barely holding onto the worn threads of his sanity began to snap. The continual sound of the ‘plink’ ‘plink’ of one thread after another breaking echoed in his head. After a full minute of being frozen in place, eyes blown wide with disbelief, Erestor collapsed in on himself. Tears began streaming down his face. The remaining goat made a mad dash out of the rooms, practically diving over Erestor to make its getaway. Usually at this point, Erestor would have forced himself back together again and went chasing after the goats running loose in the house, before they could cause further damage and mayhem, but he just didn’t have anything left inside of him anymore. Undoubtedly this was a prank gone wrong from one or both of the twins, but this was also his breaking point. All Erestor could do was lay splayed out on the floor, covered in his breakfast and his tears with his life’s work shredded all around him. He let out a wail of despair that soon turned to a mixture of sobs and hyperventilation. His chest felt tight and he couldn’t release his breaths. All he could hear was piercing sounds of his cries creating a discordant harmony in his head. His vision was slowly blackening in the peripherals. Was he dying? Air, he needed air! He couldn’t breathe. Even elves needed oxygen to survive. After what felt like a lifetime of living in a world of sensory deprivation and panic and fear, everything faded into a cool, black, nothingness. It was actually a nice calming black. Cold and quiet, with no expectations and no memories of his failings. This place was pretty nice, he wanted to rest here for a while.
     Unbeknownst to the now unconscious elf, the commotion of the goat charging Erestor and subsequent cries of despair from the advisor, had drawn a crowd of elves to the normally quiet advisors office. What they saw shocked each and every individual. Elrond, who had also come at the cries (and narrowly avoided being barreled over by a goat in the process), froze in disbelief at what he was seeing. Erestors office looks like a battalion of orcs went to battle against a company of dwarves inside. Papers and books were shredded and spread all across the room. Food was splattered everywhere. Most concerning, Erestor was just laying on the floor crying. CRYING! And having what appeared to be a full blown panic attack. This sight alone was enough to make Elrond himself feel a sense of terror wash over his body. In the long years of his life, Elrond had only seen Erestor shed a tear once, and that had been at the deathbed of Elros. Even then it was only two silent tears that had run down Erestor’s cheeks. Elrond quickly gathered himself and had Glorfindel, who was now also looking in at the scene with wide and frightened eyes, help him carry Erestor’s now limp and unconscious body to the Healing rooms.
     A couple dozen elves stood stunned and speechless at the scene they had just witnessed. Honestly it had been a truly frightening scene. To see an elf like Erestor, who had always been a pillar of strength and fortitude and forbearance snap and break down like that made them all truly worried, not just for the fate of Imladris if he didn’t recover, but for Erestor’s well being in general. Despite being a keep to himself type of elf that was a little bit different than others, and despite some of the more nosy elves gossiping and poking into his business, he was very respected and well liked by most of his staff and those that worked or lived in the Homely House and Imladris. They were well aware that without Erestor everything would fall apart. Even when he was being particular and cranky and running his staff “to Gondor and back” some days, most everyone appreciated and respected him and wanted to reflect his work ethic. Everyone was worried for the safety and sanity of their colleague and friend.
- 8
- 9
- 10
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