Elrond is also surprised by how much of her soul Alicia puts into her osanwe, and also by how much more mature than her apparent age she's sounding.  He nods and smiles at her, the same respectful smile he used to smile at young Aragorn.

<Fragmentary pieces?  Even those would be helpful, I am sure.  Though if you do not consider them urgent, I would be happy to wait till you can speak to more people at once... less comfortable if we share no language, but still possible...>

He takes a moment to mentally inventory the languages he knows.  No, he decides, Mithrandir speaks everything he speaks except maybe Adûnaic...  "I trust you do not know this tongue?" he says in Adûnaic.

<... and yes, help with Frodo is more urgent.  Do you know what is causing the Darkness pulling him into the spirit-world?>

She shakes her head at the language.  <I don't know that one either.  As far as I know, if I still had access to the relevant resources I'd only count on finding a Sindarin dictionary.  Not that I know more than a single word of it, and some names besides.>

<...I don't know what could be doing that, no, besides the obvious guesses - which is to say, Sauron, and-or Ringwraith exposure - ...I'm assuming you do know about them - but if that's our problem then I might have something workable regardless - I would need to take a closer look at how to have a better idea of what might be worth trying - and then the question of magical translation - but...  I do actually expect I might have tools fit for this task, depending on what I can feel out of the nature of the problem.  Wards, or banishments, or...  A variety of things.>  

<Those were the obvious guesses, yes.> Gandalf interjects.  <Or the Ring itself.  And he has held up better than I expected under that - or better than I would have expected, were it not for his uncle Bilbo.>

(note that "Bilbo", like "Frodo," is not translation-convention.)

<But there is something more lingering than the Ringwraiths, and more active than the Ring.  Still - if you think you might be able to help, please, come.>

He indicates the door with his free hand, if Alicia is willing to follow.

Yes, she will absolutely follow.  She has Probably An Exorcism to perform!

Every room in the House has been lovingly decorated over more than two thousand years, in various forms of decor, from Doriathic Sindarin to various attempts at Valinorian, blending at the doorways.

Almost everyone they see as they pass quickly through various rooms and up one spiraling staircase is an Elf, though there're a few Dunedain Rangers there as well.  Most of them will nod to Elrond as they pass, with some of them greeting him in Sindarin.

And then, Elrond opens the closed door of a simpler room.  There's one bed there, and two stuffed chairs.

Frodo is there in bed - looking, to a glance, much the same as when Elrond left him.  He's wearing a white shirt, and a thin golden chain around his neck goes to a cloth package which (Elrond knows) holds the Ring.

In the chair is Sam, who looks up with some confusion at seeing Alicia.

"She's a new visitor," Elrond says, "who does not speak the Common Speech, and thinks she may be able to help."

(He repeats in osanwe, adding, <He is Sam, Frodo's servant - he has scarcely left Frodo's side since they came.>)

Elrond stands back, but watches carefully, including if she'll make any moves toward the Ring.

She is not touching the fucking One Ring, thanks, she knows what that does to people - even though she does kind of need to get closer to get a better look, given everything.

<I do wonder - the Ring, when Bilbo wore it, was a ring of invisibility in practice.  It was hiding.  Now, though...  It is most certainly not.  I wonder if that is part of our problem.  ...then, there is also the precedent of Gollum/Smeagol...>, she directs to Elrond, clearly intending this for the clinician only, as was.

"...Hello, Sam," she says, because it would just be rude to not say anything even if she speaks not a word of Westron.  "My name is Alicia."

<I don't know if you're able to hear this, but - I know you two bear a great burden, and I will do all I can to lighten it, for all that I know it is not one I could be trusted to carry myself.>  She knows her own heart well enough to know that she is far too petty, and brittle-willed besides.

Oh, but since she's already so close, is she sure she's not touching it?  When it could help her do so, so much?

She wants to heal Frodo?  She could heal him and everyone else too!  She doesn't like being on rails of Fate?  She could wrench the whole world off those rails, irrevocably!  And shut down all the oppressors and put them where they can't hurt anyone else!  And give everyone their ideal immortal bodies!  And so much more... just reach out her hand to the Ring...

(It's a voice in her mind, one that can easily resonate with her own thoughts if she lets it, or be mistaken for her own thoughts if she's not thinking about it... but it's not actually anything more right now.)

Fuck off Sauron.

Oh, it'll still be there when she wants it...

(And then the voice falls silent.)

Meanwhile, Sam is looking around in surprise.

He actually heard in his head - not the words, not the full meaning - but a strong sense of sympathy, in a way he hasn't felt someone else's emotions before except the one time Gildor and the Elves were singing.

He doesn't mind at all - he was rather expecting things like this in the Elves' house.

"Was this more Elf-magic?" he says in Westron.

Elrond gives a cautious nod, but keeps watching Alicia as she's glaring at the Ring...

Yeah how about 'she will never want you, especially after you tried to tempt her with that'.  (Not that she's going to let it know.)

See, the thing is, she's already thought about this.  And in absolutely no circumstances does her path to doing any of those things route through the fucking One Ring.  (Or authoritarianism, for that matter.)  She knows better.  Even study of its secrets is likely to be kin to the danger of researching Chaos in fucking Warhammer.

So now she is treating the Ring to her best death-glare, the power behind her eyes flaring up as the hand that is hovering over, and mark the distinction, Frodo, clenches into a tight fist and a wall spins into being around her soul, or rather her soul and her spirit both - for Sauron is not welcome there.

...This is going to cause communication problems, isn't it.

She turns to Elrond, shields up, and starts making illusions, frustratedly.

Elrond and Alicia, wibbly graphics and speech bubbles.  (She uses "Don't touch/put on the One Ring" as the example, because 1) she's a bit cheeky like that, 2) it's not that hard to render in pictographic format, and 3) she wants to make it clear that she very much knows how bad of an idea that is.)

The One Ring, emitting wibblygraphics indiscriminately.

The One Ring emitting its telepathy from 'behind' a surprised-ish Alicia, sneaking in a voice that 'sounds' like hers and promises - well, fire and death, really, but she supposes she can make it make a shiny promise that turns into fire and death from what's evident in what the One Ring is thinking about it.  (...How do you make an inanimate object do the evil-genius cackle...)  Alicia rejecting that out of hand, knowing it's the One Ring, because she knows that the One Ring will turn her to fire and death if she tries it, complete with eye-roll.

The One Ring going...quiescent.  Wibbles much smaller but still kind of there.

Then (image) Alicia does a thing that turns her purple, and now the One Ring's hypothetical insinuations bounce, but she's not sure about what will happen if Elrond tries to say something.  Or whether she can send out - she demonstrates her own wibbles bouncing off the interior of purple-Alicia.

(The funny thing is...

Phenomenal cosmic power is the absolute worst thing Sauron could have picked to try tempting her with, because she's had some and she doesn't want any.  Phenomenal cosmic power comes with phenomenal cosmic responsibility, you know?  And she is not perfect enough for that.)

If the Ring could've read her mind right then, it would have been unable to comprehend it.

Responsibility?  Separate from what you want, or what other people are telling you to do?  What's that?

Oh, of course, she's closed herself off to all osanwe.

Well, if that's what it takes for her to be confident she won't give in to the Ring's temptations, it's much better than the alternative.

... especially given -- what is she doing with this magic already; she's human, isn't she?  He has questions for Mithrandir now!

Unfortunately he can't say any of this to Alicia anymore, but he smiles and nods approvingly, and gestures to Frodo with a questioning look.

She nods, and starts, well, looking.  The information she was given was that something was trying to draw Frodo into the spirit world.  That leaves a few possible suspects, and several different therapeutic approaches depending on which one and whather it's internalized...

There is a shadow creeping over Frodo, as if his body is not entirely in this plane of the world.  It's centered around his left shoulder, reaching down his arm with the blood-flow, and also in toward his heart - but it's retreated lately on his arm, and it has not quite reached his heart yet.

There're also signs that he's recently had a quite ordinary fever from an infected wound, but that's much better now.  Right now, it's the shadow keeping him unconscious.

If she looks broadly, she'll see a thread reaching out from the shadow as if it's calling to, or responding to, something else.

Oh that's not good.  But it's something that seems like it will respond well to a precisely-targeted Death Grip.

She displays a hobbitish body-doll, showing the blood system and the dark infection, and that dark infection sort of strung out of his body off into the distance.

Then she shows herself doing a casting animation and pulling the darkness out - including the darkness that's trailing off, is the... problem?  It looks kind of violent, too, honestly.

She turns to Sam, and animates something striking at the wound with a big bunch of questionmarks.

...Shit, how is he going to communicate back?

...Actually, hold on, scratch that last - she shows 'Alicia pulling the spell/darkness out' and 'Ringwraith being dragged over Generic Fantasy Plains Background while flailing by a magic tether or Ringwraith being pulled out of thin air' to Elrond.  It's his hospital.

Sam isn't exactly surprised, but he's not exactly at ease with dragging out... a tiny Ringwraith or something like it?  He looks helplessly at Elrond.

Yes, that's sort of what Elrond has been trying to do - though he can only push, not pull.

Now how to communicate this...

... actually, maybe there's a simpler method.  Maybe Alicia will be fine opening osanwe when she's not in the same room with the Ring?  He steps toward the door, inviting her to follow with a questioning air.

She nods, and follows, and - no, it would do no good to bring Sam and he cannot truly understand besides.

She does, however, summon a shield around them, a flaring purple, before she speaks.

<I do not trust that my own thoughts are secure from that thing, without a shield.  It is a clever mimic, and it knows more than it should in its temptations, if not as much as it would want to - as it has offered me the one thing that I would revolt from taking.>

<As far as medical care - I can pull out what I am assuming is part of a Ringwraith from Frodo, but it is very likely - or at least, not so unlikely as to dismiss - that this will also produce the rest of the Ringwraith.  I could set up wards, but they would be relatively untested.  And for another matter, I would be calling on ->

<If you will permit a small digression into my homeworld's metaphysics - or, indeed, physics - as I do believe it relevant to this matter...>

<I know for a fact that my world, and my magic, was not sung into existence by Eru Illuvatar and sundry, and I would ask that you not inquire further thereupon, as it is not something of which I wish to speak.>

<There are six fundamental forces, primordial concepts, however you may call them, in three equal and opposite pairs, at the core of it - and none of them good nor evil.  They simply are.  The force behind the spell that would draw out the Ringwraith fragment(speculative)...>

<Well.  It is surprisingly apt that the Ringwraiths are all but ghosts.  And I do not wish to introduce that here, where you have built something strong in the opposite direction, without your leave.>

Elrond nods seriously at what she's saying about the Ring.  <Ah, the Ring is certainly clever enough.  Shielding your own mind - like you were doing in there - is enough; more than enough I would normally say if you trust yourself to selectively open osanwe to one person.  But if you think it safer to close your mind off entirely, I cannot protest.  I have shielded this whole valley, and I could shield a room - but it would take time, much more time it seems than your shields.>

<What happened to Frodo, I am told, is that the Ringwraiths stabbed him with a Morgul-Knife, which has been known to turn its victim into a wraith.  The knife vanished afterwards - or most of it; Aragorn said there was a chip missing.  I have been pushing back the darkness in him, but so far without success.  If you can use another force... that might help.>

<I do not think the knife had a fragment of a Ringwraith specifically, but what it might have -> He shakes his head. <I do not know.  But I think my shields around my valley will keep out what you might summon by pulling out this darkness, if it is being summoned from outside.>

<I do not trust that the Ring is not capable of listening in, right now.>

<...Did you...remove the chipped-off bit of knife...from the wound.  Because it's absolutely still in there to be causing this sort of problem.  ...I mean, I haven't really done the right sort of diagnostics to be truly sure of that, but knowing how...inventive...Sauron is...  If it isn't something like that - I am reminded of volcano-glass, which is exceedingly sharp and yet equally brittle, and of the strength of bones.  And obsidian is thematically appropriate for him, with the volcano lair.  ...Well.  Not a lair per se, but still, close enough.>