The seneschal had just finished buckling on his sword, when the frantic knock came. His warrior's instinct went into immediate alert at the sound and he quickly crossed his room to open the door.
" My Lord!." The still shaken guard exclaimed. " Someone rendered me unconscious as I stood watch. Lord Elrond found me and has taken my sword and gone to Lord Erestor's chamber. He bids you join him!."
" He took what?!."
Glorfindel nearly knocked the guard down again as he took off, heart pounding, towards the advisor's room.
{ He is the Lord of Imladris! He should know better than to rush in foolheartedly without me to watch his back! Damm him! }
The seneschal's thoughts were frantic as he ran down the hall, worry for his friend pressing like a cold fist in his gut. He drew his own weapon as he approached the open doorway, fearing the worst as he rushed inside.
A moment later, another clatter was heard as his sword joined Elrond's on the floor...
Melpomaen had verily floated back to his own quarters. The young assistant felt as if he had strayed into his fondest dream and he never wanted to wake up again. Glorfindel loved him! Loved! Him!!.
When his Naneth had first sent him to be fostered by Lord Elrond, after his Ada had been killed in a skirmish with an orc band, the traumatized elfling could do naught but tremble and cry as he stood in the study of the Lord of Imladris. His young mind could not comprehend that his Ada had fallen and that his Naneth had sailed away for the Undying Lands in her grief. All he knew was that they had left him, alone.
The mighty Lord had scooped him up and had sat, cradling his small body in comforting arms, while he explained matters in a simple way that the elfling could understand. Then the Lord had rocked him to sleep with a sweet lullaby that promised better times to come.
And better times did come. Melpomaen thrived under the doting attention bestowed upon him, for almost everyone in the Last Homely House adopted the sweet and timid elven fosterling as their own.
Only two seemed relatively unaffected by his gentle charm. One was Lord Erestor, his tutor in all matters of scholarly pursuit. The elfling had, at first, been terrified of his austere black-clad teacher. But as the years progressed, he had found himself eagerly spending more and more time immersed in the world of history, diplomacy and languages. He began to live for the infrequent words of praise from his instructor, knowing that they were never given lightly and discovered, much to his delight, that his aptitude matched his love for the scholastic life.
Not so with the subject taught by his other tutor.
Melpomaen found he had no aptitude for the warrior arts. Unlike most other elves, he proved to be a gangly tangle of uncoordination when it came to weapons-handling. He could not hit a target with his bow if his life depended on it and more than once, he had seen other elves diving for the grass as his arrows went far astray.
He proved to be even worse with the knives and sword.
After nearly decapitating Glorfindel when the seneschal approached from behind one morning, startling him, the Lord had summarily dismissed him from further instruction. Although the Balrog Slayer had been kind with his words of dismissal, Melpomaen had been devastated. For he had wanted, more than anything, to impress the formidable Lord, for whom his secret heart harbored intense and confused feelings of attraction.
As his majority approached, Melpomaen found himself fantasizing often about the seneschal as he pleasured his newly-awakened needs. But his release always came with the bitter knowledge that he was beneath the Lord's notice. And as the centuries wore on, he had resigned himself to the fact that it would always be so.
Until last night.
Melpomaen hummed a merry little tune as he dressed...
A short time later, Melpomaen's steps softly echoed through the library. Those steps headed straight for the section that held a collection of obscure tomes from some of the farthest reaches of Arda. As he perused the shelves, his eyes alighted almost inmediately on the distinctive binding of the book that had stirred his memory. Taking it down, he began to flip through the pages until, at last, he found what he was looking for. After quickly reading through the text below the large illustration, Melpomaen tucked the book under his arm and left the library at a run.
As he neared Glorfindel's chambers, he met a guard stoically making his way down the hall.
" Have you seen Lord Glorfindel?." He asked, breathlessly
" Aye, he has gone to Lord Erestor's..."
The young assistant took off at a run once again.
" ...rooms."
Melpomaen rushed through the open doorway, his gaze fixed only on the two Lords standing within the chamber, forgetting all else in his excitement.
" I found it!." He cried, not noticing the dumbfounded looks in the other elves' eyes.
He opened the tome in his hands to the spot he had bookmarked.
" The creature. It hails from the savannahs deep within the land of Harad. The Haradrim call it a ' Lyon'." The assistant said, holding the book out so the Lords could see the illustration, before he continued in a rush of words.
" But there are some major discrepancies. For one, the creature is far larger than the proportions given for it's kind in this book. For another, its coloring differs from the overall light brown described. And lastly, the thick mane is all wrong for our creature is..."
It was at that moment that a movement flickered in the corner of his eyes and he turned his gaze, instincively, towards the source.
He saw the advisor, still deep in slumber. Beside him, a nude body lay languorously streched out, chin propped up on folded arms as eyes that twinkled with amusement looked back at him. Contouring a shapely backside and draping over one firm thigh a long, smooth tail trailed down, the tuffed end tapping soflty on the bedcovers.
The book fell from the assistant's suddently nerveless hands to land on the floor with a dull thud, joining the two swords already there.
"...Female." Melpomaen finished.
Then he fainted.
TBC...