Disclaimer: The Lord of the Rings is MINE! MINE! MINE! J.K. I only wish. I do not own…*sobs* ARCHER ELVES ARE AWESOME! :D :D

Note from author: Hi! :D This is my first fan-fic, so please don't judge. I'm sorry if it sucks but I am young and unknowledgeable. Enjoy. :D Please review/ follow/PM. Honest, helpful advice is appreciated. Hateful criticism is not. Thanks. : ) P.S. If you happen to live in Lancaster, CA. then please do not be offended that my character dislikes that town. I was born there, so rest assured that I do not dislike it at all. I happen to have very fond memories of that ol' desert. My character, on the other hand, does not, because she apparently thinks it needs more trees. (She loves trees.) Anyhoot, sorry if chapter 1 is kinda boring. It gets better later on, I promise. :D (Middle Earth characters do not show up until chapter 2. Sorry.)

CHAPTER 1: OF MYSTERY AND MYTHOLOGY

Lancaster, California, 2015

A cloud of golden dust was reflected in her eyes, which were glazed over by painful memory as she stared through the dirty trailer window.

Aridessa did not speak, neither did she move, but only slumped limply in the old orange rocking-chair, consumed by hidden grief and shadows of her past. For at eleven years old, she walked a darker path than most girls her age.

Outside, the wind swept through the desert, causing a whirl of dirt to whip about. Coyotes howled mournfully in the distance, and the girl was struck by a sudden urge to run out into the night and howl alongside them.

Sighing, she quickly composed herself, and allowed her thoughts to drift back to that one fateful evening….

Green grass. Clear blue skies. A garden glowing with vibrantly-colored flowers. Her parents….

She could still remember those words. The last words Momma had ever spoken to her, when she was but six years of age.

"Ari," Momma's voice rung out clear as day within her memories. "Daddy and I are going on a trip. We might not return for a long while…maybe for years. But you need to promise to me that you'll be brave, okay? Be brave for Mommy, all right?"

"But where are you going?" the young Aridessa had asked.

Momma smiled. "You'll know…someday, you'll know. I can feel it. But for now, you have to trust me, all right?" She ran a hand through her daughter's long auburn curls. The red hair came from her Momma's side, whereas her Daddy's hair was a medium brown.

"Why can't I come too?" Ari pressed. She didn't understand why her mother was being so secretive. But her Momma only smiled again. And yet, there was sadness behind that smile. Ari could sense that much. After all, she was a member of the Swift family – and that meant strong intuition and senses.

"I love you honey," Momma had said before she left. "Promise me you'll be good. And….whatever you do, no matter what people offer you or threaten you by, you must do what is right. Remember that."

"What do you mean?" said Aridessa. She felt as if Momma were telling some sort of weird prophesy, which was not unusual for her, but only confused Ari all the more.

"You'll know when the time comes," Momma assured. "Goodbye now. And remember: sometimes you must do the right thing and help others at your own expense."

Then Daddy said a few quick things in sign language – for he was mute. And they were off, leaving their six-year-old daughter with her old Aunt Frannie (Momma's older sister.)

Ari lived with Aunt Frannie for three years, in an old lavender-colored Victorian house in Idaho.

Idaho. The place wherein Ari was born. She had spent nine years of her life there.

But then Aunt Frannie had died of a weak heart, and Ari had almost lost her mind at that point. However, she managed to compose herself. Now Ari lived with her uncle: Mattais Swift, or Uncle Matt (Her dad's brother.)

Uncle Mattais loved living in Lancaster. He loved that desert better than anything else – the lizards, the Joshua trees, the coyotes and sunsets, the wildflowers….But Aridessa felt depressed there. She missed green grass, tall trees, the mountains….plus it was always too windy, and either too hot or too cold in Lancaster.

"Ari?" a man's voice asked from behind her, interrupting her thoughts. The voice was deep, but gentle and soothing.

"I'm in here Uncle Matt," replied Ari.

"Hey princess," her Uncle said, running a hand through his slick, coal-black hair (Which was quite different than Ari's long auburn curls.) "I uh…I've noticed you've been down in the dumps lately. Is there anything you want to talk about? I mean, its okay if you don't want to, but, umm… you know."

Aridessa smiled. "Thanks Uncle Matt," she said, "But I'm okay, really. I've just had a lot of things to think about lately."

Her Uncle nodded. "Alright princess, just tell me if there's anything you need 'kay?"

Ari nodded, and he turned to leave.

"Wait, Uncle Matt?" asked Ari.

"Yeah?" he replied.

"I – I actually, well, I haven't visited Idaho in about two years now," she began, "and, um, I would kinda like to pay my respects to Aunt Frannie and…my parents."

Here Ari paused, recalling that terrifying headline in the newspapers: A Well-Known Scientist/Engineer and His Wife Are Killed …Aridessa shuddered and choked, trying to contain her tears…In Sabotaged Private Jet. "I really need to do this, Uncle Matt. Do you think…?"

Uncle Matt's brows furrowed with concern above his deep brown eyes. "Well….maybe we will. We'll talk about it in the morning okay?" And with that he left the room.

XOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXO

The next morning was cold and windy. Aridessa awoke to the pale light of dawn gleaming through the small, rounded window above her cot.

She dressed quickly and hurriedly helped her uncle cook breakfast, wisely waiting until he had a satisfyingly full stomach before bringing up the trip to Idaho.

That moment finally came, and to her surprise, Uncle Matt agreed with hardly any persuasion. And so it was settled. They would leave in the next week. Of course, they still had to work out the details, but Ari was unconcerned about that. She was finally going to see Idaho again!

XOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXO

I believe it would be rather dull to describe the long road trip that Aridessa and her Uncle took, (although it was really rather exciting in Ari's point of view.) So I will only add one detail about it: they stopped once at Uncle Matt's sister's house to spend the night (Her name was Abby.)

There Ari met her cousin Leslie for the first time: a dark-haired girl with pale skin and twilight blue eyes, who was very pretty in a fragile, doll-like sort of way.

Anyway, Uncle Matt offered to take Leslie along, (and poor Abby just couldn't say 'no' to her daughter's large, doll-like blue eyes. Especially when her husband/Leslie's father, was buried in the same cemetery that Ari was planning to visit.) And so the three of them set out.

When they arrived, after checking into a hotel and visiting the cemetery, they walked around the parks a bit before stopping for dinner at an old-fashioned, Italian pizza place.

Finally, they made their way to Aridessa's dad's laboratory. The lab was cluttered with old papers and inventions. Blueprints and tools sat in scattered heaps upon the tables, and the white-washed walls were lined with computers and control panels. A medal ladder led up to an advanced star observatory.

Ari was wonderstruck. She had inherited a love for science (especially astronomy,) and inventions from her father.

But a still greater passion, was the deep love of the hidden mysteries of time: history, in other words, and literature. (Which she had inherited from her mother,) But mythology most of all. So when she stumbled upon a small room (obviously her Momma's private office,) she was even more wonderstruck to find it full of old books and legends, with maps, drawings, and old poetry lining the faded, hieroglyphic-covered wallpaper.

Ari looked about the room. Suddenly she saw the corner of a brown leather shoulder bag sticking out from behind a cluttered bookshelf.

"If there's one good trait in this world that my parents did not possess," thought Aridessa, "it's a sense of organization."

She walked over to the bookshelf and pulled out the bag, and turning it over and over in her hands, she examined it closely. There were pictures woven into it. Strange runes and writings which she had never seen before.

There were also pictures of rather funny-looking people. Some were a bit short and had long, long beards. Some were even shorter, so that they looked like four-year-olds with adult faces. These wore no shoes, but had excessively hairy feet. There were some who looked like men and women only with pointed ears. These wore long, flowing garments and had the most beautiful faces.

"What's that?" asked Leslie, coming up behind her cousin.

"It's a shoulder bag," Ari replied, "look at the design…it shows some different mythological races. See, I think those must be dwarves, and those have got to be elves…"

"Aren't elves supposed to be short?" asked Leslie.

"No…" said Ari. She frowned. "I don't think so. Some myths say so, but I think others say that their supposed to be like, average height – well, average for us, that is. Or tall, I guess."

"Oh yeah, like on The Lord of the Rings," Leslie said.

"Yeah, only that's not a myth, that's a trilogy that Tolkien wrote," said Ari. "But you know, sometimes I wonder if there really are such things as elves and dwarves and-"

-"Now don't be silly! There are no such things," laughed Leslie, "But I think that bag is just a Lord of the Rings…fan bag, or something, because those guys on it look an awful lot like hobbits."

"Oh yeah," Aridessa laughed, "They are, aren't they? Okaayyy, how dumb of me not to realize that."

"How could you not recognize a hobbit? Uncle Mattais said that The Hobbit was your favorite book when you were younger!" said Leslie.

"Well it was. But then…my parents and Aunt Fannie, um…. Yeah, passed away. And I kinda forgot about hobbits and mythology and stuff after that. I wasn't really in the mood for it anymore," Ari explained, "I mean, whenever I study mythology, it gets me thinking about my mom. Momma loved that kind of stuff. And I get so depressed for some reason. It just isn't any fun doing it without her." Ari's face fell. "It just doesn't excite me anymore."

She dropped the bag down on the ground. "Sorry, don't mean to be all depressing around you, Leslie."

Just then Uncle Matt entered, his eyes scanning the room for his young nieces.

"Hey Aridessa," he said, spotting them beside the old bookshelf, which stood near the back wall. "I found something for you."

Ari looked at her uncle curiously, and strained her neck to see what was hidden behind his back.

Suddenly Uncle Matt tossed a duffel bag through the air and into Ari's arms. "Catch," he said, "I think you'll like this stuff. It looked pretty interesting."

Ari unzipped the duffel bag and peeked inside. The contents of the bag were spilled all over the floor in a matter of seconds. This was one of those times when Ari was just too curious to be depressed by her mother's absence. Just look at that stuff!

There was a large green stone, engraved with what Ari recognized as Greek letters. It appeared to be in a sort of balled form, but she couldn't quite decipher it.

There was also an old-leather-bound book, written in a different language than the stone. Ari was sure she had seen this language before, but she just couldn't place it.

Then there was a gold medallion. Ari held it up to the light, watching it gleam with admiration. It bore the same sort of marking as the book did.

And there was one more thing. This one was written in plain English. Ari looked at it for a moment, then she hugged it tightly to her chest, tears rolling down her face. It was a journal. Her father's journal. For a moment, Ari wondered if it would be wrong to read it. After all, it didn't belong to her. But this was her father's, and he was dead. It was the only thing of his that she had – it was the only thing she had left to remember him by. And technically, it did belong to her, because she was his child, which meant she was to inherit his belongings. It was a long time before Ari finally wiped her eyes and actually opened the journal.

She knew that this journal would be something very valuable to her. But what she did not know, was that the moment she opened that journal, her life would be completely changed. And whether it was for the better or for worse, well, she had no idea about that either.

*Hey! :D How did you like it? Remember, it's my first, so please be nice. Anyway, please review! Comments, suggestions, grammar tips, etc….? Or PM me and tell me about yourselves. I like hearing from people. Don't forget to follow! And tell me if you like/dislike my characterssss. Sorry that there is no LotR characters yet, but chapter 2 will have 'em, so don't worry. Anyways, au revoir. : ) (P.S. please PM me and tell me what you think is going to happen. I'm just curious. And if I see a really good idea I may use it – I will give you the credit, of course. I already have the whole thing planned out, but I may change a few things here and there.)