By Dawn's Early Light by Grundy

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No Rings

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When Xander bounced into the library hangout, he was unsurprised to see he was the last one to arrive. The surprise was finding Buffy looking disgruntled, with Willow soothing her.

“Hey, party people, you will all be happy to hear that while we can’t have a white board, the glass dude said that making large panes of glass that we can mount on the walls is totally a thing that we can do,” he announced cheerfully. “Tara seemed pretty confident that they can work out some plant-based dyes that will wipe away clean, although we might need to settle for wet erase instead of dry erase. She’s working with Ivranil now to draw up a test plan for several different formulas that might suit.”

Willow smiled at the confidence placed in her betrothed. They’d decided to settle matters elven style, with a year-long engagement followed by a formal ceremony. The only real question was when Anya and Xander would follow suit.

“So,” Xander concluded, “In a week or so, we should have glass erase boards. And I think I’ve figured out a way we can mount maps and papers underneath so we can write over them- without having to take the glass down every time.”

The Scoobies had slowly been making the hangout room a working research room. Working by their standards, that was, meaning erasable writing surfaces among other things.

Besides the comfortable chairs, sofa, and cushions strewn around the room – which, with the exception of the fairly constant grouping around the fireplace, were frequently rearranged to meet the demands of whoever happened to be in the room at the time – they had a table large enough for all of them, plus Buffy’s brothers and sisters, to sit around comfortably. The cork board Xander made to pin things up on had come with a caution from both Lindir and Erestor about not pinning up old maps, new copies only.

Without copy machines, and none of them having developed the incredibly accurate hand copying skills the archivists of Imladris seemed to possess, Willow had rigged up a light box that would let them trace copies of maps and diagrams. She had occasionally remarked wistfully that she should have brought a printer to go with her laptop, but in general they were coping fairly well with the lack of technology.

Xander had taken charge of project Dry Erase when no one liked the idea of a chalk board, Middle Earth's current cutting edge in erasable writing surfaces. (“I miss chalk dust… said nobody ever,” had been Anya’s comment, which had pretty much closed that discussion.) Whiteboards were not a feature of Middle Earth, but they were willing to settle for something reasonably close.

“Why the less than cheerful Buff?” Xander asked.

Buffy’s look of frustration increased, and Willow shot him a reproving look.

“Glorfindel asked me what I’ve been trying to work up to researching, and when I told him, he dragged me off to Ada, and I am not allowed to do anything about it,” she told him morosely.

“Did they at least leave you any loopholes?” Xander asked wisely.

Buffy shook her head glumly.

“I’m not allowed to touch the ring,” she muttered.

Before Xander could suggest anything, she started ticking off restrictions.

“I’m not allowed to ask Bilbo about the ring, I’m not allowed to borrow the ring, I’m not allowed to take the ring anywhere, I’m not allowed to accompany the ring anywhere, I’m not allowed to get any of you to do any of that for me, and I’m not even allowed to talk about rings outside of Imladris or Lorien, or even those places if there are outsiders other than Mithrandir or Cirdan around, because we don’t want anyone else thinking about rings. In fact, the word ‘ring’ officially does not exist in my vocabulary in any language, even ‘California’.”

Xander let out an impressed whistle.

“Really covered all the bases, didn’t they?”

Willow nodded.

“It’s almost like the twins have tried the ‘loophole’ angle before,” she said with a barely suppressed giggle.

“Oh, I’m sure they have,” Buffy grumbled. “I didn’t recognize the advantages of being the oldest while I still had them! I always thought Dawn got away with everything, but I didn’t realize that when you’re the younger one, someone else has already demonstrated how to work the angles.”

In fact, it had been made explicit by her father that the twins had done just that on quite a few occasions, which was why he’d also added an all-encompassing ‘or any other way you think you’ve found to get around what we just discussed’ rider. She was well and truly stuck for it. She and Bilbo’s ring were pretty much banned from being in the same zip code. Or would be if elves had zip codes.

“Didn’t you explain how important you thought it was?” Willow asked sympathetically, judging that between her previous listening ear and Xander, Buffy had gotten the ranty part out of her system.

“I tried,” Buffy replied dejectedly. “Ada nodded, and said I raised some good points, and that he’d send word to Mithrandir that he should come to Imladris, but the way wizards are, who knows how long it’ll be before he gets the message, let alone gets here. And he’ll probably agree with Ada.”

“Didn’t they learn their lesson on giving the bad guy time to plan at Dol Guldur?” Xander wondered.

“Sort of,” Buffy said doubtfully.

“Sort of in the ‘not really’ way?” Willow clarified.

“Something like that,” Buffy sighed. “I mean, I get that elves aren’t mortal, so no rush on most things, but the Big Bad isn’t mortal either, so time’s not on anybody’s side here.”

“Actually, wouldn’t time be on the Big Bad’s side?” Anya asked, abruptly poking her head up from the couch by the fireplace, where she had been reading a volume of poetry. “Elves are leaving Middle Earth, while Men are scattered across several kingdoms and not exactly noted for acting together. So, forces of elvedom dwindling, forces of men dispersed, forces of darkness gathering and consolidating.”

“Which should make investigating Bilbo’s ring more urgent, not less,” Buffy agreed. “You’d think that, but I’ve been told that I’m still thinking like a mortal. Although, I did manage to winkle out of them that rings have bad mojo, and maybe even a will of their own. So not just anyone can carry them around.”

Anya frowned.

“Did they forbid you from keeping a watch to make sure Bilbo doesn’t suddenly run away to parts unknown?” she asked shrewdly. “That’s technically nothing to do with the ring, or investigating the ring. And if the ring really does have power, Hobbiton doesn’t sound like someplace it’s going to want to stay. Happy little farmers and local shopkeepers don’t offer much for it to work with.”

Buffy considered it. Anya had a point. It wasn’t exactly trying to get around what her father and cousin had discussed. And Bilbo had brought several chests of treasure back from his adventure besides the ring, so she could reasonably argue concern for his welfare, making sure that he wasn’t being robbed… especially since that excuse had already worked for her once.

She nodded.

“I think that might fly,” she said slowly. “The only question would be how to set the watch without it being us doing it. The Shire is too far for me to go until Mom decides I’m ungrounded.”

“I would think the Dunedain might be useful,” came a new voice, speaking Westron.

Buffy blinked. Up until now, her brothers had shown only polite interest in the alteration to the library workroom. Yet here they were.

“May we come in, little sister?” Elrohir asked, half mischief and half serious.

Buffy shrugged.

“Sure, why not? It’s not a top-secret clubhouse.”

“We overheard a certain former Lord of Gondolin explaining to our mother what crazy ideas her middle daughter gets, and it occurred to us that you might need some help,” Elladan continued, looking around curiously.

“Yes, and our help comes with the benefit that getting us to help you was not on adar’s list of ‘you may not’,” Elrohir pointed out with an impish grin. “I think he is not yet used to making those restrictions for anyone but us.”

“Do I owe you a favor or something?” Buffy asked cautiously.

Elrohir mimed being struck in the chest by an arrow, while Elladan shook his head in mock disappointment.

“Such suspicion in one so young, brother,” he sighed. “These are dark times indeed. Yes, you will owe us a favor. Though not a very large one. The Dunedain will soon be coming and going more often, and we share your concern about Master Baggins.”

Elrohir nodded.

“If you wish to repay us, we would like to be there for the meeting with Mithrandir. Though we do not doubt you would relay the proceedings to us afterward, it would be nice to hear things first hand.”

Buffy nodded. That should be doable. And if her brothers were on her side for this, they might be allies when she argued her case to the wizard. At the very least, they’d be good observers, and might catch details she missed.

“Fair enough.”

Her brothers grinned.

“We will just mention the little matter of the Shire needing eyes kept on it on our next trip,” Elladan said. “Which will be in a fortnight.”

With a cheerful wave and one last curious glance around the recently altered room, the twins departed.

Buffy glanced at the other three to find Anya smirking appreciatively, though it was a toss-up whether she was appreciating the exploitation of loopholes or the twins’ butts.

“As the other resident bad influence,” Xander spoke up, “I should just point out that you’re also not forbidden from researching. Somehow your dad overlooked that.”

Buffy rolled her eyes.

“Of course he did. Because as long as I want to research, I have to work on reading.”

She tossed another book Dawn had helpfully pointed out as being good for beginners at him – a Sindarin one with no Quenya words to trip them up– and picked up her own copy.

“Let’s go, study buddy o’ mine.”

The rest of the women laughed at Xander’s heartfelt groan.