Note - Takes place immediately after Journal Entry 22
The air crackled as Xanderian and Xandilif stated at one another after hurriedly withdrawing to one of the back parlors at the Pony, if Xanderian dragging her fully armed and deeply annoyed sister by main force down a hallway and through a doorway can be called "withdrawing". A long, tense silence stretched out as they gauged one another. When did every meeting between the sisters become a battle?
Before either of the elven sisters could say a word, Nob came bustling in assuming there were customers to serve on an otherwise slow night. As soon as he was through the rustic doorway both elves spun to the intrusion, all the anger and tension of their meeting burning in their eyes. The poor halfling froze, beholding his worst nightmare, Xanderian doubled. With a sound much like a trout makes when you bang it against the side of your boat, the hobbit dogsbody fainted dead away and crumpled to the rug.
Xandilif snorted. "By Mordieth's scragly beard, Monk....ya killed the greasy little one! Now we are gonna have to buy that fat bartender a new one!"
Xanderian quickly picked up the hobbit with a sigh, after toeing him several times to see if he was indeed dead. "Nay, he has just swooned at your beauty and charming demeanor, Banshee. He will recover I imagine." She laid him carefully on the couch, and in a moment of sympathy even put the somewhat threadbare quilt over him before turning to her sister. The champion had now leaned SilverWand against the fireplace and dropped into a chair, putting her plated boots up on the table, into which she was casually scratching her name with the point of a curved dagger.
The huntress knocked Xandilif boots off the table roughly and sat down opposite her, her voice slow and measured but full of frustration. "First of all, why have you been shouting into the back of my head for the better part of a week like a dwarf being forcibly purged with rosewater? Secondly, what are you DOING HERE? And thirdly, do you think mother would be pleased you have stooped to vandalizing inn furnishings with the blade she gave you?"
Xandilif stabbed the blade deep into the arm of her chair and leaned forward, her blunt cut black hair falling into her eyes. "First of all, if you had bothered to ANSWER me the first dozen times I wouldn't have had to shout. Secondly I am HERE because you wouldn't answer me. Is that hard to grasp or are you THAT befuddled with late born tail that you have given up on foolish and gone straight to stupid as a box of rocks? Thirdly I doubt she cares WHAT I do with the damn blade as she is off in the west watching grass grow. Anyway, you use yours as you see fit and I'll use mine as I see fit, which in a minute is going to be carving my name into your tender, milky white backside! Oh, and fourthly? Feck off you mewling pilchard, if I want your lip I will slice it off and hang it from my belt....but funny you brought up dear emig since I am here to discuss family."
Xanderian went pale. "Family...by Elbereth, Lif, family?...Gawad, what have you done? What of emig and...adar?" It was clear that Xandarian suddenly was seized by a fear that overwhelmed her, causing her to use her sister's childhood name without thinking.
The Champion pulled the curved dagger free of the chair leg as a show of good faith and slid it under her belt. When she spoke, her voice was softer, almost affectionate. "Calm yourself Rian. Not OUR family, may Ungoliant slobber all over them. The family we choose I suppose...and their family...are those family too? Damn me the metaphor got lost somewhere, but I got to talk to you about Thorongil."
Xanderian calmed...this was territory she understood and filled her with a quiet joy. "Yes...Thorongil of the Swan Knights, father to my Fillegedhiel. His misdeeds finally caught up to him and he is dead, I have heard the herald from Dol Amroth. What's more Fille has returned, as the threat to her is no more. She rests with her Mentor here in Breetown, having been exhausted by labor in the halls of the sons of Aule."
"Yes..well..." Xandilif looked almost awkward as she rose to stare into the fire, toeing the grate gently. "I know all that...ya see...and don't get angry or nothing Monk cause it won't matter no way and no how, what has been done is done. Well...I know cause I told the Princess of his crimes...and...well...I killed him." The champion looked up to stare defiantly at her sister, looking suddenly far younger then the huntress.
Xanderian just stared in silence before whispering in a sort of disbelief. "You...you killed Fille's father."
"I told ya not to be mad, Lothiriel sent me to Tol Fennas to look into a problem with corsairs, and who should I find selling out the City of Dol Amroth for a pocketful of gold and a handjob from an Easterling cabin boy? Thorongil. Could of knocked me over with a crabain when I worked out who he was. So...I got a bit upset, remembering how you cried over that silly forgepumper, just like you did back when Adar was...well...when he came home. I know the Princess figured I would find the traitor and bring him back for her fancy justice...but I got the right of Justice same as you long as we hold commissions in the Host."
Xanderian was still just staring. Xandilif cleared her throat uncomfortably and continued.
"He was gutted by the corsair captain anyway, so it was just a matter of time...plus he was prattling on about doing for his hag of a wife, and how he should have killed your little Fille at the same time..and I may have mentioned that she had been seen in Bree while he wasted his time searching for her in Gondor like an unusually stupid cave troll, so he started on about sending his bully boys after her...and I saw red."
Xanderian nodded softly. "And you killed him?"
"All lawful like, I spoke the sentence and everything." The Banshee turned back to her. "But yeah, his head bounced three times and I carried it back to Dol Amroth by the neck bone. I just...you ARE still my little sister even if you barely know when to come out of the rain. I can't let some late born shite-stirrer like that think he can threaten somebody you are protecting...that you...y'know...like...a lot. You are my sister, so even if I think you are a moron for giving two damns about any of em that way...I can't allow that kind of feckless asshattery."
Xanderian moved forward at speed, as the Champion braced herself to be hit...but instead the huntress threw her arms around her tightly, pressing her face against the cold steel of her armor, openly sobbing..."Oh Gawad....thank you....thank you..."
And for a moment, they were both back in Imladris as a forceful memory overtook Xandilif. She felt herself before the imposing presense of Elrond as he spoke above them to the shipmasters. "And so, after the grievous errors he has made in the field of battle due to his trauma and...confusion, Anerial's will and sense have been irrevocable broken, and he neither sees friend nor foe any longer. He is beyond my arts I fear, and I think it best that he go West forthwith so that his wounded spirit may be mended. In the company of his wife of course, as he has accepted and she has begged of us. As for the children of their union, he...he has indicated through his delirium he has no desire for his children to accompany him and his lady wife has not disputed the wisdom of that, and therefore they will remain to serve as best they can. The eldest is noted to be able at martial matters and has already been assigned duties in the guard. I will speak no more of this matter." and with that he had swept out of the chamber, leaving the shipmaster to depart to prepare for departure.
All alone in the now deserted chamber stood Xandilif and her young sister, but recently dubbed Xanderian.
The younger girl stared up at the sister she idolized, already garbed in the armor of a Sentry of Imladris. "Emig and Adar are...dying?"
Xandilif shook her head. "No Lethril, not dying, but like dying..they are being sent to the West because Adar is...broken. He is broken and because of that people in Mirkwood died. I don't know exactly what happened...but it was bad and they blame Adar."
The younger girl began to cry. "Who will take care of me? I don't want to go West, I heard my tutors speaking of it. It scares me....I don't want to go there and be dead but still alive forever. I don't want to go there...."
Her sister shook her head. "You don't have to Lethr...I mean Xanderian. You are staying here, with me and the baby. I'll take care of you both...but especially you. I will always take care of you, Lethril, till the West burns."
Xanderian threw herself against her sister, weeping into the livery of the House of Elrond. "Gawad...thank you...thank you....I don't want to go."
Xandilif blinked..and she was in the Pony again, holding her sister in her arms as she sobbed.
Xanderian's voice was small as she whispered, still weeping. "I felt so worried about Fille, so empty and helpless knowing I could not block her doom...but you did Gawad...you saved her, and by saving her, saved me..and Cyndwin as well. Gawad....thank you."
The Champion cleared her throat...trying to hide the roughness in her voice as a tear, then another rolled silently down her cheeks as well, desperate to steer the subject away from this moment. "Anyway...I have a token to give your Fille...a last gift from her daddy I guess. Also, I met a few more of your pets when I got here, a little bastard Gondorian and his girlfriend. She was sweet enough but he was like a hamster, chewing on my boot trying to pick a fight. Your new pastimes, those two? They both stank of you, like you'd been licking them. You bedding one of em, or both? Maybe both together?"
Xanderian shook her head, also trying to rein her emotions in, suddenly lit by anger at Xandilif's words. "You are INCORIGABLE. If your own bed mattered to you half as much as mine apparently did, you would not be of such a foul disposition. They are my friends and I love them both dearly...Hawke and Audea, and if you go near them I will let Heartbreaker pin you to a windmill to let you spin until you vomit out the horrors of your blackened soul."
Xandilif smirked. "They looked fit enough...who knows. Maybe I should take on a few pets myself since you go through them like silky underthings, hmmm Monk? Maybe I will see the appeal that you always claim...until of course one of them leaves or stabs you in the back, or just up and dies without a by-your-leave? Where's the appeal then, Rian?
With a final snarl of hurt and frustration Xanderian stepped through the doorway. "Just when I begin to feel like you are my flesh and blood again, you have to...you are impossible. I will tell Fille you wish to speak to her, Banshee, but if you harm her..." and with that she slammed the door behind her and stalked out, the resounding crack making her point quite ably.
Xandilif stared at the quivering door for a long moment, then retrieved SilverWand, swinging the greatsword onto her back, her voice little more than a whisper as she too departed, leaving Nob to sleep off the bad dream he was having.
"I will always take care of you, Lethril, till the West burns."
