There was a great trail of footprints from one end of the hall to the other, and Elrond was certain as he stepped out of his office that they were fresh, for as his foot had squished down into the one nearest the door. Fuming as he lifted his foot, wondering what had possessed him to not have put his boots back on when he had left the room, he carefully stepped over the mess and banged his fist on the door across the hall from his.

"Oh, my!"

"Yes, I thought you might say that," growled the master of the house as he scraped his foot against the panel of the door, leaving a smeary brown trail.

Lindir cringed as he gave thought to who would have to clean such a mess. "I should say the twins have been into it, whatever it is," he added, noting two sets of identical prints and one set that did not match.

"You did not hear anything?" pressed Elrond.

Shaking his head, Lindir pointed down the hall. "Perhaps they made more noise when they passed Glorfindel's office," he suggested, not wishing to be the only one in trouble for not catching whatever mischief had occurred.

Walking down the hall and looking quite annoyed, Elrond let himself into his seneschal's office without knocking. Glorfindel looked up when the pair entered, though Erestor, who had been looking over Glorfindel's shoulder at the ledgers, did not acknowledge the intruders.

"I do not suppose either of you heard any commotion in the hall?" he asked from the doorway. Glorfindel shook his head and looked behind himself at Erestor, who looked up now.

"Lindir," questioned Erestor as he straightened, "did the twins finish the remedial music session they were to have with you today?"

"Remedial music session?" Lindir laughed, but did so uneasily. "Uhm, Erestor, they told me you needed them for a lesson in the gardens."

"A lesson in the gardens," repeated Erestor, moving from the desk and in the direction of the door.

"That is what they told me," shrugged Lindir.

Elrond heaved a sigh as thunder crashed in the skies above. Glorfindel made quite a show of going to the window and pulling back the curtain to be sure it was still raining. Erestor had made his way into the hallway, and was cursing in some form of elvish foreign to the ears of the other three, though angry as it was, it could have passed for the black speech of Mordor.

"What did they do?" wondered Glorfindel as he stood up and pushed in his chair, following the others out. "Aiya!" he exclaimed upon seeing the floors. "I've never seen it this muddy. I shall call for the maids," he began, but Elrond stopped him.

"If they are the ones who have done this, they will see to cleaning the mess," Elrond informed those councilors which stood with him in the hall. "Let us find them first."

Finding the twins proved to be easy, as the trail led the quartet right into the kitchens, where two rather large elflings and one rather small elfling were now giggling in a room covered nearly floor to ceiling in globs of brown and dustings of white.

"Halt!"

Elladan stopped in mid throw, and his face, covered in white powder, now turned white as well. From his raised hand, a glob of something lumpy and brown fell and splatted onto the very messy elfling beside him. She shrieked in delight and clapped her hands, sending a spray of brown across the cabinets they had been standing behind. Across the room, Elrohir froze in horror, the grin falling from his face.

Elrond swept his gaze from side to side. "Let us pretend that I already know everything you are about to tell me," he suggested as the mouths of his children began to open. "Arwen, you shall come with me and we shall find your mother, and then to bed after you have been cleaned up."

The little elleth pouted, for though it was raining, the sun had still not left the sky.

"As for the two of you, I do not care how long it takes, you will not eat, you will not sleep, you will do nothing until the entire house is devoid of mud. Is that clear?"

"But Ada-"

"Silence!" Elrond's fist hit the wall, and luckily a part that was not a mess. The twins jumped and Arwen fell down on her posterior. "I will not relent in this! You were to be at your lessons, and you lied to not one, but two of your instructors. You are wasting my time, you are wasting their time. You have brought filth about this house and I will not tolerate such things! I should tan both of your hides, but quite honestly, I am so unspeakably upset I do not trust myself not to wring your necks!" Both Elladan and Elrohir were cowering appropriately, and Elrond pointed to Arwen. "You have a punishment of your own, as stated. Come, little one. Let us find your mother."

Arwen approached, huffing and puffing, with arms crossed over her chest as she stepped forward. She reluctantly thrust her arms forward so that her father could pick her up, but he took a step backwards.

"Erestor, would you kindly-"

"I am not paid nearly enough to," answered Erestor, who had not even stepped into the kitchen, and was delicately holding his robes up so that they would not drag on the floor.

"Glorfindel-"

"Glorfindel is in no condition to, my Lord," spoke Lindir, for Glorfindel was leaned against the hallway wall, chuckling to himself. Lindir bit his lip as Elrond pointed to Arwen and looked at him with a look of great annoyance. "Allow me, my Lord," he said, and frowning, said to Arwen as he bent down, "Careful with your hands, do not put them in my hair."

Arwen looked at her messy fingers and raised one hand to her mouth. "No, Arwen!" shouted Elrond, but it was too late, for she had already licked off the palm of her right hand, and moved to clean her left. Elrond swooped in, pulling her hands out of reach of her tongue, and now, as he found himself a bit of a mess, grumbled as he picked up Arwen. "Don't stand around!" he barked, "Start cleaning!"

The twins slowly began to gather up towels and draw water into a bucket as the procession left the room. As soon as the door was closed behind them, Elrohir smirked, Elladan snickered, and they broke into a fit of laughter.

"Do we tell him, or do we clean it up regardless?"

"He said the house just had to be devoid of mud. Do you see any mud, El?"

Elrohir made a production of looking around. "I don't see mud anywhere. What about you, El?"

"No, no mud that I can find." He swiped his finger over the glop on Elrohir's nose and stuck it into his mouth. "Needs more powered sugar," he said, and licked a patch of white on his arm. "That about does it."

The twins would have continued their banter had the door not opened again. Erestor was at the door, still holding his robes carefully above the ground. "I regret to inform you that their is an addendum to your sentence," he told them. "The word 'mud' in the aforementioned ruling has been changed to 'chocolate pudding'." Erestor closed the door and heard a collective sigh as he walked back to the offices.