A/N: UPDATING BINGE THIS WEEKEND!!!!!!!!!

Just don't get too used to it.

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The Dream - Part 12

by Bex

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"Thank you."

Grey eyes regarded me. "For what?"

I smiled faintly. "For sitting through all that."

Temeril smiled slightly back. Evening had fallen, the delegates dispersed to their sups and their beds. We continued on down the hall in companionable silence.

That is, until we turned a corner and almost ran into the imposing figure of Radagast the Brown.

Well, imposing to me. We narrowly avoided a collision, and he shot me a sharp glance as we side-stepped each other, then continued on our way.

"I don't think he likes me," I muttered to my companion after we'd gone on a bit.

He glanced at me, startled.

"I burst his bubble," I continued vaguely. "Shot his chief off the pedestal..."

Now Temeril was staring at me. "What?" I asked, finally noticing.

He merely shook his head slightly. I sensed exasperation.

"No, what?"

He sighed. "That is much to read from one glance, from one startled."

I considered that as we walked.

"Besides, he knows you not; how could he like or dislike you?"

Easily...

Another glance came my way. "And if he does not? What will you do then?"

I shrugged inwardly. Same as I always handled that sort of situation: Stay away from him if I could; guard myself around him if I could not. "Then I'll be careful around him."

He considered that, nodding thoughtfully once.

The escort back to my quarters resumed in silence.

*****

The next day dawned over-cast, with clouds scudding nervously across the sky. But with sunlight peeking through every so often.

An hopeful omen?

I decided to take it as such, after my depressive mood of the day before. A day which hadn't even gone that badly, despite the unexpected arrival and heated 'debate' and all...

My elven friend met me for the habitual escort to breakfast and I glanced aside at him, my mind wandering as I walked, breathing the fresh morning air, hearing the morning birdsong, glimpsing the sky through flickering young leaves... ...Ah, Temeril, Temeril...if only you were human and me home and you still by my side...

And the realization of what I was thinking punched me in the gut and I faltered in my step, closing my eyes for a moment.

"Sarah? You are all right?" Concern. So right there, so available, so helpful, so damned caring...

I swallowed in a suddenly thick throat and lied. "Yes."

And he knew I was; I could tell, perhaps it was the way he cautiously craned his head to peer at me as if I were some wild animal who might strike--

I couldn't even hide, couldn't even lie to save face to the bastard; he knew; could sense it; knew me--

"No, I'm not all right. And truth tell, it's you. I wish--"

--you would go away.

And as he did so often, he heard the unspoken, and stopped, his face suddenly devoid of all expression.

And I knew that I'd again hurt him very very badly. Face still blank, he said, "As you wish." And turned to go.

And I felt that punch in the gut again.

"Temeril!"

He paused.

"Come back." When he didn't respond immediately, I added, "Please." He turned back around enough to look at me.

The tears wanted to come. But I held them back. I held them back.

I said: "I'm sorry. I felt-- I have no right. I'm sorry."

I resisted that urge to move closer to him, the one I'd indulged so often recently. In willful denial. Until now. And said, "You've been nothing but kind to me. I'm sorry for the way I've treated you. Can you forgive me?"

His expression shifted subtly and he nodded, and was opening his mouth when I added, "We'd better get going; we're going to be late for the Council." I turned and began walking briskly.

"Sarah--"

I didn't turn around, and in the end he gave up and simply caught up with me as we made our way into the Hall.

*****

My troubled heart.

The irony was that it had much less to do with the matters of weighty import being discussed at this re-convening of the Council of Elrond than one might have expected.

Figured. In the midst of those deciding the fate of the world, and I was too busy feeling selfishly sorry for myself.

I shook myself mentally and refocused.

The Ring, The Ring - ah yes; what to do with that Ring?

And I found I really didn't have much to contribute to the discussion, after all. The delegates would all have their various says, and in a rather predictable pattern, the major difference being that Faramir could weigh the pros and cons of the issue in a manner his brother had seemed unable to - he could compare 'Destroy it!' versus 'Use it to help Gondor battle the Dark Lord!' in a much less heated manner. He at least had a rudimentary knowledge of the Ring's history, and was more inclined to believe in its sinister influence.

Even so, he'd briefly suggested a scheme: That without using it, they hold the Ring hostage in Minas Tirith to force Sauron to withdraw from Mordor, but Elrond had shaken his head.

"It would turn you, Steward and sons," Imladris's Lord had said baldly, then sighed at the brief but unmistakable hurt that had flashed over Faramir's face.

"I do not offer your family insult, Faramir - truly I do not." He'd paused, perhaps considering a more tactful choice of wording. "The Ring is beyond the control of any save its maker. Heed the tale of Isildur - the time when he might have discarded it was so brief...a flicker, and it was gone. I was there; I saw. He was thereafter ruled by it...and destroyed by it. As you all heard here yesterday."

And Faramir had finally nodded his understanding.

He'd also seemed a bit less put out by the revelation that the relatively scruffy Ranger was the Heir to Isildur, which was revealed along the way almost as an afterthought. He was of course concerned by the ramifications...but he didn't start Alpha-Maleing at Aragorn.

The relative merits of hiding versus unmaking continued to be debated and I suppressed a yawn.

"Lady Sarah?" I looked up guiltily. Glorfindal was looking at me, and of course the rest followed suite. "Did you want to say something?"

Actually, no, but since he'd just put me on the spot-- "Did you think to use the eagles?"

Looks of bemusment appeared on the faces around me, except for Bilbo, who himself had been nodding as if on the edge of sleep and now seemed awake again, a speculative look on his round face. And Gandalf, who of course saw immediately what I was getting at.

"You know: Gwahir the Windlord...to take the Ring to Mount Doom."

Radagast looked both faintly amused and scandalized at the same time. "One does not 'use' the giant eagles - they are a sovereign people, sacred to Manwe..."

I slotted him a Look. "I stand corrected. Ask. Request. Would they really refuse to help destroy the One Ring?"

I had of course skipped a whole segment of discussion - the bit about exactly how to destroy it. I glanced around. "Unless I missed an alternate method? Is there another way to do it?"

Gandalf sighed. "Barring dragonfire, none that the Wise know of."

And of the unWise we'd best not speak, apparently.

"No other fire mountains?

Heads around me shook in negation.

I sighed loudly in frustration as the hammering out of the details continued.

*****

"There has got to be a better way. For heaven's sake, I could take it back to my realm and drop it in a volcano there."

I paused, sheepish.

"When we figure how to send me back."

That one earned me several bemused looks, including a sidelong one from Frodo.

"Well, Frodo could, I mean," I amended quickly. "I'd just be the tour guide." Yes, he had already volunteered, during an especially heated exchange. Another familiar element reproduced.

"And how would we know it had been destroyed?" an elf asked common-sensically. Cirden the Shipwright, I learned later. "Can we be certain that the Dark Lord would not pursue you, seek it there as well?"

"We can't be certain of anything!" I shot back.

"Except that destroying it in Oroduin worked. Once. By your own admission." That was Anatuil.

And there I was... hoist again by my own 'knowledge'. Anatuil had a really Annoying tendency to do that to me.

To make matters even more Creepy, I could tell that Galadriel was back again, co-seeing out of her envoy's eyes. Not that I could really complain. When one developed various abilities instead of technology...and had magic rings...this was apparently how one managed a conference call.

But yes, it was Creepy, and no, I didn't make a point of mentioning it. If I'd noticed, surely Gandalf and Elrond had; I assumed it was an acceptable state of affairs.

"It seems that this is the way it must be done." Elrond was regarding Frodo gravely.

Frodo looked as gravely back.

It seemed to be a turning point, an official declaration. Soon would come the choosing of companions for this terrifically dangerous venture.

I resisted the urge to put my head in my hands.

~End Part 12~