Disclaimer: I do not own anything except my character.

Summary: Nalin is the product of dark magic produced by Saruman, a human with mixed blood running through her veins of elves and orcs. Hating herself for what she is, but barely having any memory of exactly what happened to her. Found by Rivendell elves she finds herself trailing after the fellowship, even though most do not want her there out of fear. In an attempt to gain their trust and acceptance she may have found more than she was looking for.

Who You Are

My head was fuzzy, the kind of fuzzy you have after a being forced awake from a dead sleep. There was a definite buzzing between my ears, and my eyes had the unpleasant crusted feeling on them, making me wonder if I had been crying the night before.

When I finally managed to pry my eyes opened and croak out a response to the bright sunlight I found myself lying against a tree in the middle of a rather peaceful seeming forest. Ideal would be a better word for it, with the sun brushing against the leaves of the trees, the birds softly chirping distantly, and the breeze wafting slowly across my face.

The breeze woke me up completely, because traveling on it was the distinct smell of death and decay and rot. While bracing myself on the tree I pushed myself up to standing position and took a couple more breaths of the smell so I could gather the bearings of the source. I felt on my body, finding a sheathe but no sword and dried patches of blood on my shirt and vest.

Alarm shot through me and I tossed the vest off of me and into the dirt on the other side of my clearing. The things that I found so peaceful before I now found causing a spurt of fear shooting through my blood, the sun was too hot, drying the blood even more to my clothes, the birds were chirping too far away, as if knowing that death was here and should naturally be avoided at all costs, and the breeze continued to bring the reminder that something just out of my eye sight was rotting and dead, and it was looking like I caused it.

Gathering my wavering courage I stalked around the trees, keeping my eyes peeled for anything out of the ordinary. It didn't take me long to find the source and it took me a moment to compose myself afterwards. Scattered all over were the remains of orcs and maybe some goblins, it was hard to tell many of them were missing their heads. I wasn't quite sure that they had been unprepared in the attack, many hands still had swords in them and surrounding trees had black arrows sticking out of them. I knelt beside one and turned over the limp body to get a better look of the victims of the massacre. The orc's head had a helmet marked with a white hand on top of it. I tucked that away in my possibly important information part of my mind and continued picking my way through the bodies. Eventually I found my missing sword, which caused me to sit back down and rest, the feelings that I was responsible for these killings. I cradled my head in my hands and tried to remember the previous night. The more I tried to remember it though the quicker I realized that I actually couldn't remember that night or any night. There were bits and pieces but I couldn't get them to form together to form memories of what I needed to know.

I can see flashes of fire and screams surrounding me…

I could feel the cold bars around me and the cold steel beneath my feet, watching them drag away the latest fallen soul who couldn't take all the blood and magic. This one didn't look like she was more than fifteen years old, her frail body naked and bruised as her head lolled to the side, her eyes open in just the slightest amount. They tossed her down into the pit with all the others.

My arms tremble as I stare at the space she just took up, and I realize that I'm crying for her. Crying that she had to die, had to be tortured, had to face pain that no one her age should ever know. All because she is unlike me, I with my unique blood combination.

My mother was human my father half, but my grandfather was a full elf and because of that my senses were improved over humans and my body would never feel drastic temperatures. I would age slower than many as well, living four times longer than any other human, and because of the elf blood I could connect better to orc blood, the magic bonding my blood to the sacrificial orcs with quite a bit of ease. So now as well as feeling no temperature I feel no pain, and find myself angrier more than I used to be, as well as having a need to fight and excelling my skills in combat faster.

Lucky me…

He is standing before me now, the bastard cloaked in all white with the staff that matched his tower out in the sunshine. He sneers at me and lifts my face through the bars to meet his gaze.

He calls me the fall of men, the fall of elven grace, and the fall of dwarven pride. He turns my head and brushes the hair out of my face. I close my eyes to hide the tears that I am still crying for the girl, knowing that I must look truly pathetic at the moment but not caring in the least. I know his plans for me, I have heard him whisper of Sauron's return in the east. I know that soon he is planning to have me escorted to Mordor as a simple gift. After all, those standing against Sauron would not suspect a human female, and once again because of my lovely elvish blood I was aware that men on the outside had looked at me in that way.

He pries open the cage door and I feel myself being roughly pulled from its minor safety.

It wasn't just in my head that I was being jerked around. I found myself waking again, not remembering falling asleep, and my eyes flashed to see the three pairs of eyes staring back at me, beautiful eyes; elven eyes.

"She's woken up." The one muttered on the left. They stood up straight and quickly sheathed their weapons, clearly hoping they could do so without me noticing. I did.

"Who are you?" The three male elves were clearly suspicious of me, not that I blamed them. I would be careful if I found one lone human woman surrounded by at least ten dead orcs. Not to mention that I had their blood all over me. I was actually surprised they hadn't just shot me on sight.

The three male elves, which after a quick once over I found out that they were all males, took a step back and seemed to be surveying me intently, clearly not going to answer my question and the moment. They muttered among themselves in Elvish, leaving me merely sitting there guessing what was being said. Finally they stopped and the one in the middle, who seemed to be the leader, stepped forward.

"You are going to have to come with us." His eyes stared right into mine and I was momentarily shocked once again by the intenseness and beauty.

"I don't have to do anything." I flicked the sword out of the sheathe and my hand rested on the handle. "I'm merely passing through, and I plan on continuing on." The leader moved his hand to his sword and before I could blink, our weapons had clashed against each other and the other two had their bows pointed at my head.

"I'm going to take that as a no then?"

"You are in the realm of Rivendell, under the eyes of Lord Elron. You have killed in this land and in doing so have created a problem for the elves. The focus of Saruman," the elf pushed the helmet of the closest orc to the side, and pointed to the white hand mark, "will now turn to our land. You have brought unnecessary troubles and because of this you must face the consequences."

There was no way I was getting out of this, unless I wanted two arrows sticking out of my head and a possible beheading with a sword, these three looked like they didn't take any chances that their enemy could survive. Slowly, while never breaking eye contact, I lowered my sword to the ground before their feet and stood back up, holding my hands in front of me. The elf on my right came over quickly, and wrapped rope around my wrists, tight enough that I couldn't escape but without making my hands go numb. The leader picked up my sword and handed it to the one on the left before placing a stern hand on my shoulder and beginning to guide me through the forest.

If I wasn't once again prisoner I would have taken more time to admire the landscape as well as my captors, but being that I really wanted to be going in the opposite direction, away from the actual city, I was in a mood to be sour. I tripped every time I could and would attempt to fall on one of the three, so much so that the leader created a lead out of the remainder of the rope, and they all walked in front of me briskly. If I fell again, I found out quickly that they would just drag me along, clearly strong enough to not bother slowing down with the extra weight. Eventually my stubbornness wore down and I trotted along quietly behind them.

Some time passed and I started to see structures, built into the trees. All were fragile yet intricate, and beautiful. Just like the people. There was also an almost coldness, or distance in them, no matter how beautiful they were there were no elves in most of them. It gave them a lonely feeling. Just like the people.

Eventually we crossed the gate into the main part of Rivendell, filled with more elves then I had ever seen in one place before, and they were all staring at me. The three steered me two a side entrance to one of the buildings and up a narrow stairway before walking down a brightly lit corridor and stopping at a large wooden door.

"Stand here, don't move. I must inform Lord Elrond that we have brought you here." The leader once again sneered in my direction and I returned the expression right back. He slipped through the door and disappeared inside. With my lead dropped I leaned against the far wall and slid down into a sitting position.

"Arattil said not to move." The left one looked down at me. I shook my tied hands at him.

"Shoot me then, but I'm not cleaning up the mess I make." Right one smirked, at that. It disappeared as quickly as it came as the leader, Arattil, came back out and shot me a look.

"Were my order's unclear when I said not to let her move." He shot looks at both of his subordinates, but I looked away before he got to me. I was too tired to handle him right now. He grabbed my lead and pulled me back on my feet, before waving the other two away and pulling me into the brightly lit room.

The room itself was lovely, with carved windows against the long sides and the sunlight casting just the right amount of shadows throughout it. I found it a little odd that aside from a couple nicely carved chairs there was no other furniture in the room. Sitting in one of the chairs was an elderly man with long grey hair and a matching beard, with dark grey robes covering him. Across from him staring out the window was an elf, with long brown hair and lovely robes. His eyes met mine and I was taken aback from how old they looked. I had never seen an elf like him, and while his physical appearance was no older that a few decades, I knew this elf had seen more than any mortal could ever imagine.

It took me a second to realize that Arattil had not come in with me, and so I stood with my hands bound and my clothes bloody, in a situation that I had no thoughts on how to escape from.

"You must be the human causing all the trouble in my forest." The elf spoke quietly, with dignity, but every word captured my attention.

"That's what I have been told. You must be Elrond then." I spoke quietly and found myself staring down at the floor. The old man in the corner coughed twice.

"Indeed, so may I ask how you came to kill those orcs in my forest."

"I…-" I looked at his face again and found myself unable to turn away this time, " I don't remember. I just woke up there."

"Is that so?" Elrond quirked an eyebrow and glanced at the old man. "Do you remember where you came from before you woke up?"

I have been trying to figure this out in my head. I knew it had been years since the White City could have been called my home, but those years between then and now were like a puzzle where none of the pieces seemed to fit together at all.

"I was originally from Gondor…sir." I added the last part quickly out of respect. The old man added a "mhmm…" quietly.

"Gondor you say?" Elrond's eyebrow quirked again. "We have people coming from Gondor shortly to join us for a meeting."

"Us?"

"Gandalf and I." Elrond motioned to the old man. So this was Gandalf, I felt my eyes grow wide in surprise. I had heard stories of Gandalf before, never thought I would meet the source of the stories.

"What is the meeting about, if I may ask?" I inclined my head once again showing the two men respect. Elrond sighed and suddenly looked much older. Gandalf coughed again. "I'm sorry I have no mean to intrude, if you would just let me go I can find my way back to the border." I motioned with my tied hands toward the door behind me.

"It's no use, you've been pulled into this now, at least until we know we can trust you out of our sights." Gandalf sighed and stood, letting me see how tall he actually was, even with the stoop. So let me ask you then…" his sentence faded but his hand motion indicated to me that he wanted to know my name.

"Nalin."

He smiled at me, but it was a bitter smile. "Then let me ask you Nalin, how much do you know about the one ring?"