3 Chapter= 3 Deception (3)

Maybe the silvery high-heeled sandals were difficult for them to take too? Quite frankly, she cared not.

There was a soft knock on her door, and Valerie assumed that Arwen was coming to visit her again.

But instead of sitting on a chair near the bed like she usually did, Arwen invited her to follow her to her father's study.

Arwen even asked if she would finally change her dress, but seeing Valerie's smirk, she did not insist, only sighing in disappointment.

Valerie was learning their language quickly, and could now have simple conversations with Arwen.

She had not shown any interest in speaking with anyone else, especially not with Arwen's father and the old man who had participated in her kidnapping.

The servants were not addressing her, scared of her temper since she had half-destroyed the healing rooms.

Arwen led her to the study through a few hallways with numerous paintings of elves, all dazzling and serious looking.

When Valerie was introduced, there were a few men she had seen before, Arwen's father and two of his counselors, and the old man wearing clothes that had seen better days.

To her surprise, there were three new additions she was seeing for the first time. Arwen introduced her twin brothers, who were inelegantly gaping at her, marring their otherwise incredible comeliness.

She knew her appearance was very different. First, even if everyone here had long hair, even the males, no one seemed to have soft curls like hers.

Furthermore, auburn hair shining like fire under the light seemed to be an absolute rarity, if she were to trust everyone's gaze.

But that was when they first saw her. Then, they analyzed her face, her piercing emerald eyes, the curves of her body and... her long, naked legs barely covered by her modern dress.

The eyes of Arwen's brothers had followed the same path than everyone else's had done before. But not the third man, the one she guessed was the captain of Imladris.

His blue eyes were set on her face, and she could not read his thoughts at all. His expression was neutral, as if he was indifferent about her, about her fate.

He was even more impressive from up close. One could feel that he was important just by the way the others looked at him with deference.

She knew Arwen's father was the lord of this strange city, but his captain was obviously his second-in-command, even more so than the other two men called Erestor and Lindir.

The captain's eyes were the most attractive part of his face. They were serious and seemed to contain so much wisdom, which was very strange in such a young face.

She didn't know how or why, but she knew instinctively that this man had greatly suffered, that he was still very tormented even if he seemed indifferent to what was happening around him.

"Valerie, may I present you Lord Glorfindel, the captain of our guard."

Valerie didn't quite catch his name in the sentence, but nodded when he nodded haughtily.

She turned to the old man who spoke a bit of English. She knew his name was Mithrandir.

"Mithrandir, I still have no idea why I was brought here, and I was wondering when you were planning to send me back home. May I remind you that you are holding me against my will? You had no right to take me. I demand that you take me back home immediately!"

Everyone looked at the wizard, wondering what she had said to him in her language, but he seemed not to have understood what she had said.

She had spoken too quickly, but despite this, her tone and expression indicated that she was making a demand and that she was still not happy with the situation.

Sensing that the old man didn't understand her, she looked around the room for help, but everyone looked puzzled but the captain, who still had a neutral if not bored expression.

A cold breeze made her shiver. She heard papers slide off a desk further away.

She looked around again and saw that there was some painting material in a corner of the study, with a half completed portrait of a woman she had never seen yet.

"Can I use this?" she asked in her tentative Sindarin to Lord Elrond, the presumed rightful owner of the material she wanted to use.

He nodded, wondering what she would do with the paint. He prayed that she would not go anywhere near the painting of Celebrian he had started a few weeks back.

But thankfully, she remained far from the painting of his beloved, and just took some blue and white colors and painted something on a parchment before coming back to them.

She showed them a representation of the portal that Mithrandir had created, while repeating the same words to the wizard.

"She wants to go home. She wants me to reopen the portal," he told them in Sindarin. "Sorry, I cannot," he replied to Valerie in English.

"Am I your prisoner?" she asked, but once again, it was a word he didn't understand. She went to the table once more, and this time, used some black, red and beige paint.

Very quickly, she painted an image that was very telling. Arwen's heart broke when she saw what Valerie had painted.

It definitely was a shape with long, red hair, behind the black bars of a prison.

"Am I your prisoner?" she asked Mithrandir again.

"No," he cried, the sound similar in Sindarin and English. "Oh Valar, she thinks she is a prisoner!"

Valerie lifted her first painting, showing the portal once more. "Home?" she said, having caught the word in the elvish language.

"No."

"Prisoner?" she asked again in Sindarin. She was learning very quickly. She only had to hear a word once in order to retain it for good, thanks to the wizard.

"No."

"This doesn't make sense!" she cried in English. "Either I am your prisoner or you send me back home!"

She shivered again when another chilly breeze entered the office.

What would it be once it was winter in this manor without windows?

She would eventually have to accept warmer clothes if she didn't want to be found frozen to death in her bed one morning.

Valerie heard the voice of the captain for the first time, as he was talking to Arwen. A deep, melodious voice that inexplicably made her heart beat faster.

"You are cold?" Arwen asked Valerie with surprise, as if it was inconceivable. "Can you really feel the cold?"

When Valerie didn't answer, the unfamiliar word having no meaning yet for her, Arwen stood and touched her hands and face.

She immediately called a servant and spoke a few words to her before trying to engulf Valerie into a warm hug.

Valerie moved away to avoid the embrace, and Arwen went back to her seat, obviously hurt by Valerie's reaction.

Valerie wondered if they were aware that she had children to go back to.

After all, she had not been with them when they had taken her.

She pulled the picture of her children from her sleeve and put it in front of the lord of Imladris.

"I have two children," she told him in English. "I need to go home. They need me!"

The lord looked fascinated by the picture itself at first, before he got her meaning.

She could read in his eyes that he understood perfectly well what she was saying. He sadly shook his head and gave her back the picture.

A servant entered and put a warm cloak on her shoulders, and it gave her a little distraction in the state of distress she was in.

But despite her best efforts, she couldn't stop the tears. She was trapped. She was a prisoner even if they claimed she was not, and they would never return her home.

She had nothing left to do here today. She wanted to go back to her deluxe prison cell and be alone to cry herself to sleep.

She needed time to think. Maybe she could find another way to escape? She furiously wiped her tears and asked Arwen to bring her back to her room.

The elleth looked at her father, who granted permission for her to leave.

Arwen took Valerie's arm and pulled her out of the study. Once they were gone, everyone turned to Glorfindel to get his first impression.

"She is definitely a sight for the sore eye," Elrohir told everyone. "That hair! Those legs!"

"Elrohir! Please refrain from talking if you have nothing wiser to say," his adar chided while Elladan almost choked with laughter.

"What do you think?" Erestor asked Glorfindel, who simply stood to look at them all.

In reality, his emotions were all over the place. It had been a while since an elleth had raised his interest in such a way.

Her looks had not been what he had expected. She was very different than an elleth, in a most pleasing way.

Everything about her was attracting him, even if he had spent most of the audience just looking at her eyes.

He had been touched by her struggle to communicate with them, by her pleas to send her back to her children.

He had not even known that she had elflings, but leaving them behind had definitely been a mistake.

She would never remain peacefully in Imladris unless her children were with her.

"Give her more freedom," he replied with false detachment. He left the study without a look back, eager to be alone in his apartment.

They had put Valerie in a room close to his, as if it would help create a connection between them.

They did not even realize that the last thing she would want was to start a relationship with anyone.

He stopped before her door and heard Arwen's voice quietly talking to the half-elven elleth.

He listened to the conversation until her heard that Arwen was about to take her leave.

"I am sorry," she was telling Valerie in Sindarin. "You are a good elleth. I swear that you will be happy here. I want to be your friend. I will take care of you, this I promise solemnly."

It was not the first time that Arwen was pronouncing the word mellon in her language. Valerie knew by now that Arwen was asking her to be her friend.

She seemed like a nice woman, although she was a little on the naive side. Could she use this naivete for her own purpose? Her priority was, and would always remain, to escape as soon as possible.

If she acted like she had accepted her fate for a few weeks, they would lessen their vigilance, and maybe she would find a way to leave.

She wondered in which country she currently was. Was there a major city close by? Could she reach it on foot, or did she need to steal a horse?

All good questions that Arwen would answer without realizing what Valerie was doing.

"Yes, want friends," she said in her basic Sindarin.

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