Lapsus Memoriae [Rávamë's Bane: Book 1]

Part III : Chapter 18 ~ Mirror Mirror

My stomach sank at the word she used.

"Some of them?"

She didn't answer me immediately. Instead, her hand trailed from my hair to hover a few inches over my chest, right over where my heart was, the faint, sorrowful expression not leaving her eyes.

"The mind can be made to forget, but the heart always remembers. Joy and pain. Some scars run too deep to ever truly be covered."

Well, that was delightfully vague, and more than a little perplexing.

Despite the fact that Lady Galadriel had been kind enough to offer me her assistance, and answers, all these mystic, talking-in-riddles shenanigans were really starting to grate on my nerves. I'd begun to feel as if I was talking to a particularly uncooperative psychic rather than a noble elf lady. All we were really missing now were a crystal ball, a tarot deck, and some strong smelling candles.

I glanced down at where she still had a loose grip on my hand, though she'd gone back to watching my face again. I had the distinct feeling she was carefully gauging every one of my reactions with every question I asked. I swallowed, reining in my growing impatience, and met her gaze again.

"If you know about that, then you must know who I really was, how I got here, and why I can't remember anything?"

She answered me simply, her expression never changing, though her voice did dip into something more serious, taking on an almost warning tone.

"I do."

I felt a jolt of excitement surge through me, my heartbeat racing. Finally, I finally had a tangible answer within my grasp...

"Can you tell me?" I asked almost inaudibly. Galadriel tilted her head minutely, unblinking in her penetrating stare.

"No."

I blinked, stunned. Perhaps I'd misheard her?

I shook my head a bit, and repeated the word in my head half a dozen times to make sure I'd heard her correctly. I had. Shock stole my voice for a long moment, and when I finally managed to speak again, the sound came out strangled and hoarse.

"What?!"

"I may not give you that answer," she told me plainly, her voice and face suddenly completely neutral.

Confused and angry, a desperate frustration threatened to choke all the air from my lungs as I tried to speak. My jaw and fists clenched so tight they ached, my head shook slowly, and my mouth hung ajar, trying fruitlessly to form something resembling words. Only one made it past my frazzled brain.

"Why?!" I demanded, my voice going up a several octaves with the typhoon of emotions all clamouring for first place within me. I was starting to loose it.

Galadriel didn't so much as bat an eyelid at my appalled reaction. It seemed as though she'd been expecting me to respond just this way, and her pokerface was lightyears better than Aragorn's. She just sat there, regal, neutral, and totally unaffected, her expression giving away absolutely nothing.

"I promised to answer as many of your questions as is within my power to answer. This one, I cannot."

I just stared at her, speechless. Well, almost.

"Let me get this straight. You offered to help me by answering my questions, but only the ones you feel like answering?"

"No," she replied flatly, as unaffected by my rudeness as a lioness is by a termite crawling over its paw. "I wish to help you in any way that I can, Élanor, but the question of how you came to be in Arda is one I cannot answer for you."