AN: This is my first Twilight fanfiction (though the most fanfictions I read is Twilight). It's basically the way I wish Twilight was written, though there is NOTHING wrong with the original book. I have started writing this because I let some of my close friends read it and they love it, so I'm putting it up here. This is not a Harry Potter and/or Lord of the Rings crossover, though some of the characters do appear because of the witch in the story. I hope you enjoy it and I'll update as much as possible but I can't (and won't) make any promises. If I don't get some alerts, reviews, and/or favorites, then I'll stop writing it and possibly delete the story.

P.S: For those of you who are reading my Maximum Ride fictions, the reason I haven't updated them lately is because: 1) My computer broke down and I had to get some one to fix it, and 2) I have no clue on what to put on any of them. So if ya'll have any ideas, I'm more than willing to try them out. Just tell me the story name and your idea. Thanks!

DISCLAIMER: I own nothing except Zerlinda and her family who are all of my own creation.

Chapter 1: Fresh Start

My mother hugged me good-bye before I boarded the plane. She hugged me, but I could tell she was just giving me a guilt trip. Once Renee released me, I nodded to Phil, who nodded back. I hated him and everyone in the family knew it. But they weren't sure why, except me and him. Though I told Renee about him, she didn't believe me. I'll explain that later. (An: though ya'll probably already know from the summary) I turned my back on my mother and my stepfather and handed the lady my boarding pass. She scanned it and I past through.

My plane landed in the Seattle airport a couple hours later. I was the last one to leave the once crowded plane. As i waked into the airport, I spotted my dad, Charlie, waiting for me in his police uniform. He was over joyed to see me and vice versa. We walked out to the parking lot and I was thankful when he didn't lead me to his police cruiser, but, instead, an old, rusty, chevy truck. Charlie turne to face me slamming his hand on the hood.

"What do you think?" he asked. i threw my luggage into the bed of the truck.

"It's nice." I complimented.

"It's yours." Charlie informed me. I felt my eyes grow into orbs as he motioned for me to get in on the passenger side. I complied and he climbed in behind the wheel.

"Mine?" I squeaked in disbelief. I had been saving up what little money I had earned in Arizona to buy a car.

"Yep." Charlie replied with a pop in his p. "got it off Billy. You remember Billy Black, right?" I nodded Billy Black was one of Charlie's best friends. I ran my hand across the dashboard.

"Thanks, Ch- Dad. This is great. How much do I owe you?" I looked over to my left to see Charlie shaking his head.

"Nothing." He told me. "This is your homecoming present."

"But this must've cost you a lot of money." I protested. "Let me pay you back."

He sighed.

"Truthfulle, it didn't cost me a penney." He informed me to my greatest surprise. Billy gave it to me for free." I raised my eyebrows in surprise as I turned my bead to look out the window.

We spent the rest of the ride in silence. Charlie made a few attempt to satrt a conversation again, but didn't suceed. Silence was fine by me, though. Neither of us were big talkers.

The weather outside was gloomy and raindrops started to fall from the gray clouds above. The moss-coveredd tees past up by and i rested my head against the cool glass of the window. Time passed and I'm unsure as to how long it was before Charlie pulled the truck into a driveway.

When I looked up, I saw Charlie's house. I unbuckled my seatbelt and opened the car door. As i stepped out into the chilled Forks, Washington air, I shivered slightly. I retrieved my thins from the truck's bed and walked up the stars of the house to my old room.

I threw my things down and examined the setting around me. It hadn't really changed since I'd last been up here ten years ago. (AN: The way her room looks is different from the way it looks in the book, so you might want to read this, just so you know) The walls were still the same shad of forest green. The carpet was still dark brown and the curtains were still dark blue. My bed was still made of mahogany wood, alon with all my other wood furnishings, with a bedspread the same color of my curtains and sheet of a silver-like color. A cusioned chair, with a mixture of the colors of my curtains, sheets, and carpet, was till sitting in the corner to the right o my bed and close to my bookshelf.

My dest sat next to he window, and, above the desk, was a shelf of CDs that i had downloaded to my ipod. I placed my silver classic (I so want that. My nano's running out of space) in the black ihome that was sitting on an end table beside my bed. A black and silver laptop rested on top of my desk infron of a wooden chair with a green cushion.

I began to get settled, unpacking my luggage and putting things in their proper place. Doing occasional dance steps (AN: Bella has much more balance in this fic) across the wide space at the end of my bed. I would miss my dance classes, but sometimes you had to sacrifice somethings for a better life. It was sunset when I finally finished getting settled.

As I stodd on my tip-toes and puashed my suitcases onto the shelf above the rack of clothes in my closet, I heard voices coming from outsied. Sliding my closetdoors together, I decided to see sho was here. I began to pray that Charlie hadn't planned a surprise party for me, because I honestly didn't want one.

Opening the door, I released a sight of relief slowly so no one would know I was holding it. That way, no one could draw wrong conclusions, or right conclusions.

It was only Billy and his son, Jacob Black. Charlie was running around in the street and Billy was chasing after him, pushing the wheels of his wheelchair as fast and hard as he could. Jacob, who had been watching them from the front porch, turned around as I closed the door shut behind me. He smiled.

"Hi." He said.

"Hello."I replied, walkking over to stand next to him.

"Remeber me?" He asked. "We use to make mudpies."

I nodded.

"I remember." I assured him. I glanced at our fathers and looked back at him. "Are they always like this?"

Jacob nodded.

"It's getting worse with old age." He told me. "So what do you think of my dad's old truck?"

"I love it!" I told him enthiastically.

"That's good. I workd on the engine some."

My eyes grew wide.

"Really?" I asked.

"Really." He comfirmed. A smill grew on my face.

"That's awesome." I told him and he smiled back.

"Do you need a ride home?" I offered.

"I have to drive my dad back." he told me. I mentally smacked myself.

"Well maybe for school." I ammended.

"I go to school on the rez." Again, I mentally smacked myself.

"Oh, that's too bad. It would've been nice to know atleast one person."

The Bloack stayed until dark. We talked, made jokes, laughed, and got caught up on each other's lives. The left soon after we finished dinner.

"Im going to take a walk in the woods, Dad." I said after cleanign up dishes. I knew she probably wouldn't be there, but shut incase she was, I didn't want to miss a chance to see my old friend again. Charlie frowned and i could tell her really want to say no.

"Be extemely carefull." He told me. "And take this flachlight and pepper spray with you." I nodded and took the object from him. I knew he wanted to say no because he's concerned about my safety, but I knew that he also knew that I was growing up. I'll be eighteen soon and I wasn't a child. I stepped outside after putting on my coat. I walked around to the back of the house and headed for the woods.

Leaves crunched under my feet and I could see my breath coming out in small clouds infront of me. Teh flashlight was on, shining light on the area before me, and the pepper spray was in my pocket. Soon, I found what I was looking for and I felt my heart leap with joy. There was a small cottage and a flichering light from inside. I walked u the steps and, before I could raise my hand to knock, the door was open and a burst of warm air surrounded me.

"Come in." said a quiet musical voice. I walked into the warmth and the door closed behind me. I turned around and it was not until then that I realised that no one had opened nor closed the door, but it seemed to be doing it by itself. Looking around, I spotted Zerlinda coming out of the bedroom in a long, flanel, red and gold nightgown.

"Good evening, Bella. How are you?" She asked smiling. Her waist long, curled, sunshine-gold hair hung freeling down her back and her sapphire blue eyes sparkled in the flickering light of the fireplace.

"Happ to see you." I replied, causing her to laugh like music from a angel's harp.

"The feeling is neutral." She said. "So, how have you been?"

"Fine, same as usual." I said, lookking her over again before frowning. "You haven't changed... at all." When I last saw her, ten years ago, she was seventeen. Now, she didn't look a day over seventeen. Zerlinda sighed.

"Yes, I think I should explain that." She sat on the couch infront of the fire and motioned for me to sit with her. I complied to her unspoken request.

"I'm 30 percent elf." She told me. "Threfore I have better eyesight, hearing, balance, and more weather resistance. It also means that I stop aging at seventeen or eighteen. for me, it was seventee." I felt my eyes widen as she pushed her sunshine-gold hair behind to the other side of her neck, revealing a slightly pointed ear.

"Also," She continued. "You remember how no one opened the door right?" I nodded. "I'm 60 percent witch. I can do magic." As if to proove her statement, she lifted her hand and I could feel my eyes grow wider. In her hand, she appeared to be holding a glowing star. She closed her hand, then opened it again and the star was gone.

"I'm only 10 percent muggle. But you can't tell anyone about this. Not without my 'okay'. Do you understand?"

"What are muggles?" I asked instead.

"Non-magic people." She explained. "People like you. They can't know magical creatures exist. And sense I told you, if you tole someone without my 'okay', I would be in worse trouble than others would be."

"Are you that bad?" I asked, joking. I knew she could be a trouble-maker if she wanted and/or needed to be one. She smiled a little at my joke and shrugged.

"Maybe. But my being the best trouble-maker around isn't the reason. The reason is because I'm also the Princess of witches and wizards. I would loose trust with my people and I can't let that happen."

I felt my jaw drop to the ground. She looked at me with questioning eyes that asked me, 'Do you understand? Will you promise me you won't tell anyone?'. To answer her unspoken questions, I spoke.

"I swear I won't tell anyone without your approval." Joy lit up in her blue, sapphire gems as she hugged me.

"Thank you so much, Bella. Most people don't like this, it makes them feel like they're a child who has to ask his/her parents if it's okay if they have some milk. But it's for the protection of my kind. Thank you for keeping this secret, I really didn't want to keep it from you."

"Is this why I never see you when I come visit. Your aging, or rather not aging?" She nodded sadly. I understood better now, though it wasn't like I came up here often in the past ten years. Renee always let me come on weekends, not vacations, and booked my flight to land at like eleven at night, then I would have to leave around five the next morning. And that was only once a year. I gave up the fifth time this happened and just stopped coming, so it wasn't like I even really had the time to try and visit her. But when I did, she was never at her cottage.

"I wanted to tell you before, I really did, but I wasn't sure if I could trust you. Like I said, I'm the princess, if I tell someone and that someone tells, I'm in hunormous trouble. I have to be extremely cautios about who I tell, but now I know you would never tell anyone without my okay."

"Of course not." I assured her. she smiled at me kindly. She was like and older sister figure to me. One of those older sisters you see in movies where the parents die and they end up becoming the mother. She suddenly sat up straight.

"I almost forgot." She said, fumbling with something around her neck, taking it off her neck and handing it to me. I opened my hand to look at it and gasped.

It was a gold necklace with a golden, lion's head as the pendant. The lion had rubies for the eyes and, when I flipped it over, I saw a hunting bow engraved into into the back of the lion's head with vines and leaves decorating it in the most simple and gorgeous way possible. The bow took up the entire space of the back of the lion's head and between the bow and the bowstring, I could see that the word Love was engraved in a very neat and elegant script.

She had also place another necklace in my hand. This one was silver and had a red-painted silver rose as the pendant. There was a flat space behind the pendant where all the petals came together (since the flower had no stem) and there, in the same neat and elegant script, was the word Love.

I looked up from the gifts to see Zerlinda watching me closely.

"Wow. They're gorgeous." I said. "But they must have cost you a fortune."

To my surprise, Zerlinda threw back her head and laughed.

"They didn't cost me a thing!" Zerlinda told me at my questioning look. "My mother made them."

"Your mother made these?" I asked with disbelief. Zerlinda nodded her head, still chuckling.

"Wow," I breathed, looking back at the presents.

"This," Zerlinda explained, pointing at the lion-head pendant. "Isn't exactly our family crest, but it was the best she could do. Our last name is Lionbow, it means courageous victory (AN: I looked it up and the lion stands for courage or bravery and the bow stands for victory, so I just put two and two together) and this is the best she could come up with for a pendant for our family crest."

"She couldn't just engrave it on a circle or something?" I asked before realizing how rude the comment was. But Zerlinda just chuckled some more.

"Nah, my mother, Herminia, was too creative for something that simple. And this one," She pointed to the silver necklace."She told me and my sisters that when when we find our true love, to give this to him so he will always remember us."

"You have sisters?" I asked, surprised. A sad, grim look overcame Zerlinda's face.

"Yes. I had 8. I was the middle child, the fifth one. This necklace use to belong to the youngest of my sisters, Adabelle."

"Used to?" I asked, completely schocked. "You had?" I layed stress on the past tense she had used. "What happened to them." Zerlinda smiled sadly.

"That," She said, standing up and I stood up too, "is a long, long story that should, and will, be saved for another time. It is late. Your father will be wondering where you are and you have school tomorrow." I nodded and slipped the gifts over my neck and tucked them under my clothing as Zerlinda walked me to the door.

"Goodnight, Zerinda, and thank you!"

"Your welcome, Bella. Goodnight."

I walked off back to my house. Charlie was alread passed out on the couch with the television still on football. I turned the tv off, took my shower and went to bed. Tomorrow, I will be the freak from the big city and I was just SO excited about that. How much fun it will be...

Not.

So ... what did you think? Edward comes in on the next chapter so yay! Alerts are encouraging, Favorites are better, but the best you can do for me is Review! Hope you enjoyed it!

-From Destiny