Iphegeneia

Iphegeneia 3

Author's note: Cheers ever so much for sticking with me so far. The chapters I have uploaded so far were more or less ready before I went to the hospital - they merely needed the paragraphs that describe Malou's physical discomfort. For obvious rns Ins I thought it better to have some personal experience to draw on in that respect.
Now, however, I need to come up with brand new chapters, and that's kinda hard when one is still recuperating from an operation. Therefore, please bear with me as the next chapters might take some time to complete. You probably wouldn't believe it, but just writing this tires me. :(
I am getting better by the day, though, so stay tuned! :-)

HyperHenry
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The Baggins' tone of amazement immediately opted the mage to look up. His eyes widened. There she was, the weak patient, moving her hand vigorously in the air, pretending to hold something waving and with the other hand ostensibly holding something immobile directly beneath her moving left hand. The two spectators stood gaping for a while. Then suddenly Frodo exclaimed.
"WRITING! She needs a pad and writing tool."
He was gone as swiftly as his short Hobbit legs could carry him before Gandalf could disagree with him.
"Understood?" Malou said in a satisfied tone, "good!…. He's much faster than you are, isn't he, Oldie?"

Luckily Gandalf didn't understand a word of what she said, which included the not-so-implied insult. Frodo came back quickly, bearing a pad and a pen, and laid it all in front of her. The ink he held in his own hand, decapping it to make it ready for use.

"Oh, great," she murmured, turning the elegant white and grey feather with the oblique cut at the end in her bony hand, "they *have* to be centuries behind in writing tools."

Come to think of it, it wasn't that surprising, she thought. The whole scenario was looking slightly off-millennium, to be honest. Her host's clothing was that of a shirt with wide sleeves, an artfully embroidered vest and dark green trousers of a very old-fashioned cut. The considerably older Gandalf was wearing a whiter than white cloak and a pointed hat to match as if the old dude was trying very hard to look like a magician from medieval times. The room entailed nothing that would indicate the slightest hint of technology. No radio. No loudspeakers, no calculators, no alarm clock, no nothing of the kind. Though the room was neat and clean, its interior decoration might as well have been part of an exhibit of a museum with its old-fashioned furniture, its knick knacks of common clay, its curtains of coarse fabric and its illumination source: Copper oil lamps.
The bed she was in had a very unhealthioft oft mattress that most of all felt like it had been weaved from willow branches and was just hanging between four poles, and the old oak frame itself was richly carved and decorated in a style that was obviously pre-Christian.

Malou winced. The pain was back in full, probably partly compliments to the afore-mentioned mattress, and she still couldn't sit without help. Once again they supported her, reading her mute request. Huffing desperately as her lungs strained to deal with the pain, the donor began to work the pad.

She couldn't write in their language, obviously. But she could draw. Boy, she could draw.
So she drew a picture of the important drainage bag. Eight little pictures that showed her host how to empty the bag and carefully clean the tap. A regular comic strip in which the scenes were numbered with groups of lines instead of Arabic numbers to avoid cultural and linguistic miscomprehension: I, II, III, IIII, IIIII, IIIIII, IIIIIII and IIIIIIII. It looked almost Runic. Like the signs she had seen in the richly decorated ceiling. The realisation suddenly merged with her earlier observation of the pre-Christian style.
*Runes! That is it! These people write and read Runes!*

She bit her lip. Now, all she had to do was to learn Runes and…. Norse?
Norse. Runes. Her own ancient culture past. The wake-up call made her nauseous and faint. The feeling of arms and hands that suddenly strengthened their grip hauled her back to the present. They had felt her sudden swaying.

Frodo and Gandalf laid down the woman again. For a second there it had felt as if she was going to faint, but her body had regained its rigid pose, and she was still conscious when they helped her back to rest on the pillow. Frodo studied the drawing and gasped for several reasons.
"Gandalf… she's a marvellous artist!"
The old mage's eyebrows wriggled. The lad was right. The sketches were precise and professionally done.
"…. and… it appears she wants us to empty the bag of blood that is attached to her skin near the wound."
Gandalf swung his head to look at the bloody pouch, light starting to play in his grey eyes. It was becoming clear. The bag was for…
"Collecting blood and fluid from the injury," a melodious voice finished his thought for him from the door frame.
"We will assist you," the male counterpart toned in.

The Queen Galadriel and the Lord Elrond had arrived.

*

"Who the hell are they?" Malou moaned through a haze of recurring pain. The tall couple stood before her like the WTC twin towers. Couldn't be, though. They had been obliterated the year before.
The tall woman, clad in an oddly cobweb-like steel-creme coloured robe with her long golden Rapunzel hair flowing freely round her narrow shoulders, appeared to rise in front of the sick lady, closing her impossibly light grey eyes, then opening them again, staring very intently at the patient.
*"We do not share common language,"* Galadriel mused inwardly *"yet, I trust you can hear me."*

But Malou just blinked, unable to hear anything mind to mind. Galadriel narrowed her eyes, a detail that did not go unnoticed by any of the others.
Elrond stooped and removed the cover from the woman's wound. An intake of hiss and a protective hand shot up to shield the incision and its stitches. The healing Elf's brow furrowed.
"She has been operated on," he stated.
*Well, … DUH!* Frodo couldn't help thinking.

Gandalf nodded. "By healers and instruments that arknowknown to our world."
Elrond straightened, narrowing his eyes in the exact same way Galadriel had done.
For a second the World appeared to stop as upon the request of a hush.
And then it moved again, the hush stilled.
The mage wriggled his bushy eyebrows. Elves narrowing eyes were never a good sign.

Frodo was beginning to grow impatient and annoyed. Despite his immense respect for the Elven people, he found that they did not meet his expectations in this matter at all. Why were they not already busy healing the woman? She was obviously in great pain.
Feeling about to burst, Frodo stepped forward and addressed Lord Elrond, lean and dark with his elongated face and almost demonic eyebrows intensely focused on the sick woman.

"Noble Lord. Can you not do anything to alleviate this human female's pain?" was was said in all respect and courtesy, but still… it was said. Galadriel and Elrond locked eyes. Then, on an almost invisible command from the Queen, Elrond put his hand softly on the patient's cruel wound.

Malou immediately felt a calm sweeping through her entire body. It seemed to relax her to the extent that she almost drifted to blessed sleep. The pain was still there, but now in a manageable state. The healing hand's owner murmured some words that sounded like ancient Beowulf English, and then slowly removed the hand.

And then there was a hush.

It was then that Malou…. no, it had to be her imagination. Perhaps the recent events were now taking their toll on her and she had begun hallucinating. Still…. it was as if…
… as if she heard something… something. Something. Something cruel calling out for her.

And then she drifted to sleep in troubled dreams.

*

She woke up several hours later, feeling extremely hungry and very thirsty. Her dog was licking her face almost to shreds in her eagerness to awaken her master. Malou inadvertently lifted her head from the pillow, momentarily stiffening as she expected an excruciating pain to wave through her.

To her immense surprise, however, the pain was within a tolerable level. She even dared looking down at herself.

The first thing she noticed was the drainage bag. It had been emptied! Well, hallelujah. Her spurt of relief was quickly replaced by a deep surge of concern as to the procedure. She would have preferred being awake and conscious while they did that. It was very, very important that both the bag and the tube were kept immaculately clean if infections were to be avoided. She had tried to illustrate exactly that when she had drawn that series of instructional pictures; she only prayed that her 'nurses' had got the idea.

As if on a cue, the massive oak door slowly and creakingly opened to reveal a wary head full of brown curls. The curls were soon followed by a pair of blinking eyes, brown as coffee beans, just like the curls. She heard the words before she saw the mouth.
"Malou, are you awake? Can I come in?"
… Only she didn't understand oord ord of it save for her own name, naturally.

There was, however, a very obvious questionmark at the end of his line, and so she could guess the rest. She beckoned him to enter with a slight trust of her head.
Frodo went straight to her head and made movements to illustrate eating.
"Hungry?"
Malou nodded and repeated the word for learning: "Hungry!"
He flashed a radiant smile at her.
"You are already learning. Two words: water and hungry."
"Water and hungry," she repeated dutifully.
"I'll be right back," he said breathlessly and whistled at her dog to follow him. Sif did so willingly, being the fantastic interpreter of any signal and language that had to do with food.

When he had left the room, the Danish donor suddenly realised that she really, really needed to go! Oh, swell – great timing. With a hasty and nervous glance at her surroundings she deduced that the restroom facilities probably had a lot left to be desired. She shivered inadvertently at the thought of her balancing over a so-called 'French hole' in the ground. Such constructions were allegedly the most hygienic kind of toilet, but in her current state of being semi-disabled, she very much doubted that her visit there would be a success.
Still… her first object was to find the damn place.
Which meant getting up.
OhMyGod.

Malou took a deep breath. Well,… she had done it on the lawn of Riget in Copenhagen. She could do it again. Of course, she tried not to recall that she had had a numbing epidural stuck in her spine, but other than that what was different?
She winced. Better not think of the differences just yet.
So.
Get going.

And after ten minutes she was still lying in the bed, deeply imbedded in the clean sheets and the soft mattress. Yet her bladder was slowly getting more and more tense.
*Well*, she thought in stark irony, *at least this shows that my remaining kidney is working impeccably.*
1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10….

And she was actually sitting up. Malou shook her head gingerly, feeling awfully light-headed. Breathing was hard and came out in small huffs as if her stomach was folded, impairing the pulminary function. Her vision swam for a while, so wisely she took her time before next stage: swinging her legs over the edge of the bed.
The swinging was performed at measly 1.2 for technique and even less for art. At least it was performed, she smirked.

As the donor was straining to push herself and her stiff body from the bed and into the air standing, she felt how really badly she needed to do No. one. It stung a bit too. Compliments to the catheter that they had kept in her the first two days. She got a good grip in one of the bed poles, which turned out to be a wise decision. As Malou was finally standing, the world beneath her began to turn and disappear. Her body was angrily objecting to this 'outrageous' physical exercise. Ridiculous! But the doctors had warned her.

*For heaven's sake, how difficult can it be? I'm just going to the loo, for crying out loud*, she thought, highly annoyed with herself. Gritting her teeth, remembering how she had managed right after the storm when she had found herself thrown into another… country, time, dimension... whatever, Malou started to walk.

After the first couple of steps, it became easier for her. After another five or six steps, she badly wanted to return to her bed, already scant of breath and needing to rest, her legs shaking violently.
Just as she made it out of the room, her small host met her in the hallway and nearly dropped her breakfast in surprise and concern.

The following conversation was comical. He was trying to goad her back into bed, and she was trying to explain to him her need to go. Sif sat watching the two of them bickering with her head slanted as if she was seeing a particularly absurd film. Then finally Malou threw modesty and dignity over board for good, grabbed her own groin, bent over and attained a pained expression while gingerly crossing her legs. Realisation dawned on Frodo.
"I'm so sorry," he fretted, "please… come this way."

And at last he led her across the hallway to a nearby room that accommodated… a wooden version of a toilet.
*Full of bacteria*, she winced, despite the place's obvious cleanliness. She rustled her hands illustratively. "Paper?" The Hobbit pointed at some sheets of… paper that lay on a shelf in the john. So. How did one explain 'disinfectant'?

With shaking legs, some soap, lots of wrinkled paper and a good deal of gritted teeth, Malou finally managed to pee and get away from there almost alive. *I am going to laugh at this incident years from now*, she promised herself as she huffing and puffing made her way back to the soft and warm bed.

Frodo was already there with her breakfaand and no one had ever been more considerate and helpful when she settled in again and turned her attention to the grub and hot tea. All in all, this little man was the perfect host and nurse if she did have to relocate herself away from a proper hospital.
Yet.
Yet.
There was this feeling…
… of…
of
fey.

*

Shadows.
Long, dark shadows and shades. Can only exist by the favour of light. The axiom of antonyms.

This was essentially what described the room in which Gandalf and the Queen Galadriel were present. Long, sleek shadows and light grey shades in syncopes with stripes and blotches of subtle light. White light, tan light, mauve light, incandescent light. And as it is with these things, the only reason one would notice the light was because of the presence of darkness. The coherent whole so basic for the birth of life and existence. Without one of them persisted merely emptiness. The holistic essence.

The tall mage shook this contemplation of him as he approached Galadriel's mirror. The Myth. It didn't quite look the way it had when it was situated in Middle Earth. Back then it had been placed in the enchanted golden forest where the leaves were gold and the silver air scented with flowers, and so its appearances were vastly influenced by its surroundings, making its base as golden as the forest, as green as the ground and as silver as the sky. Now, however, it was as shady as the cave, as light as the rays that protruded through the deep roots of the willow above ground and as incandescent as the Queen's mind. Gandalf's thoughts drifted to Galadriel, who stood close by, waiting for him to gather his mind.

"What is the Mirror telling you?" he asked silently, his voice a trifle hoarse.
The fair woman blinked with her light, light grey eyes, shooting an occasional green arrow at her visitor. "It shows me nothing… and despair."

No preamble there. Gandalf felt a jolt of shock run through his body.

"Nothing and despair? But.. nothing must mean she comes from..., and despair must mean…"
"The destruction of our own world," Galadriel deduced for him, "that is certainly one interpretation. But consider, old friend, that the Mirror not always shows us what is to come, not always the truth."

The magician nodded. The Mirror was capricious at best. It might show the viewer the past, the present, the future, the possible future, the possible present, the alternative past. No one, not even Galadriel, would know for sure. But it did offer a hint. And in this instance a hint that took away the mage's breath.uld uld it be? Might it actually?
He would have to study the phenomenon further.

*

TBC