Chapter 1

Edinua

People die all the time. Sometimes in a peaceful way, sometimes not.

The Valar watches every world, they're known by different names in every last one of them, not one is the same. They're all different. Some only house Humans, some only Mermaids, some house multiple. The Valar, or the Creators, watch them all.

Once a being dies, their soul leaves their shell and return to the Creators. There they rest before being sent back to the same or another world. The resting depends on how they die, what they were before. Because every creature is different, and dying leaves a mark on the soul. The mark heals during the early days of a new life, of a new shell. But sometimes it dont. Those souls are kept as a reserve, an army of sorts. They're called the Edinua. The Creators care about their worlds, they care, so whenever they feel like it's needed they'll send an Edinua to help, to assist, to guard. But they only ever send one, because there are countless of worlds, and there is only a few Edinua, because its rare for a soul to no heal, it only happens once in a worlds lifetime. Once it happens the world starts to die, no-one knows why, except the Creators, they probably know why.

Earth is dying, because I exist, I didn't heal. I woke up with long pointed ears, I jumped of a building as a human and woke up as a Edinua.

Sorry Earth.

It was quite early in their journey that the fellowship found her.

They'd just started setting up camp and sent two of the halflings to gather wood for the fire. Legolas leaned back against a tree and observed the others. Gandalf was sitting by the firepit, pipe in hand and lazy smoke-rings floating around him. The dwarf and the halflings still at camp were sitting by the wizard's side, one of them unpacking spices and the like from his bag. The dwarf seemed to be telling them a story, judging from the avid and quite dramatic gestures he made made with his arms. He didn't bother trying to listen, in fact he consciously attempted to block the dwarfs gruff voice. No such luck, he could still hear the dwarf re-telling stories he'd heard from his cousin about the "Great Dwarven Kingdom" known as Moira.

Legolas scoffed, as if a underground kingdom could ever measure up to the beauty of elven settlements. He'd even bet his best arrow that a small elven village would be grander than their underground kingdom. His old friend Estel, Aragorn, Strider, whatever he wished to be called, was sharpening his sword. The other human, Boromir if memory serves him right, was quietly staring at something, eyes unfocused. Everything was still, and Legolas soon caught himself spinning one of his knifes in boredom.

"Say Sam, do you think they got lost?" the ring bearer asked his fellow hobbit, successfully interrupting the dwarf and temporarily curing Legolas from his boredom. "Who ?" Sam answered with a question of his own, brows furrowed. "Merry and Pippin of course, they'd been gone for a while now." The dwarf chuckled, "Calm yerself lad, they're only gathering wood," he said dismissively "Ask the elf if yer so worried."

And that Frodo did, prompting Legolas to use listen to the forest, telling him that yes, the two halflings were safe, and yes they were currently sprinting back to camp ("Probably racing" followed by a low chuckle from the wizard). "Don't worry halfling, they'll be back soon," Legolas assured with a small smile tugging at his lips, and the hobbit went back to the dwarf and his fellow hobbit. Leaving Legolas to his boredom once more.

When the two hobbits finally burst through the trees it was without any wood for the fire, but with both of them sprouting excited grins. It put Legolas on edge, he'd only traveled with them for a couple of days but he already knew to be vary of hobbits (his mind flashed to the hobbit who stole 12 dwarfs from Mirkwood some odd 70 years ago). Once they both started talking at the same time, starting at different points of the story, he was the only one to understand. Maybe Gandalf understood, you never knew with wizards. But no-one else did, as was apparent when the dwarf told them to slow down and not to talk at the same time, and for Mahals sake agree on a timeline! Legolas would be lying if he didn't say that he felt smug.

"We went into the forest-" Merry started "to find wood for the fire-" Pippin continued, "just like you asked." "But we somehow ended up in a clearing-" "and you'll never guess what we found!" They paused for effect and received only raised eyebrows, and a slightly peeved look from their resident ranger. "We found a-" "girl, a sleeping girl". That produced a reaction, eyes widened, a pipe was removed from a wizard's mouth and three men furrowed their eyebrows

"You found a sleeping girl in a forest," Aragorn stated, surprise and confusion coloring his voice. "Yepp, she was wearing weird clothes too," Merry said and Pippin turned to him, "Don't forget her ears, her ears were weird," he said. Gandalf straightened and his eyes narrowed, "Her ears," he said "What about her ears?". "Well," Pippin began "They were pointed, but not like an elf". Legolas frowned in confusion, pointed but not like an elf? What does that even mean? He looked up and met Aragorn's equally confused stare. After a while

he looked away and turned his focus towards the two hobbits, "Explain".

And explain they did. The sleeping girl (or she-elf) had pointed ears, like an elf, but instead of them being almost humanlike in shape with an extended pointed end, they were angled outwards away from her head at a 90⁰ angle. Their explanation didn't make much sense to anyone but themself, so Merry brought his hands to his ears and out one finger in each before straightening them until they were at a rough 90⁰ angle pointing outwards from his ears. "Like this!" he said, gaining everyone's attention. Most stared at him blankly, but Gandalf stood up. "Are you sure of this?" he asked seriously. The hobbits nodded, Merry still with his hands pointing out of his ears. Gandalf heaved a heavy sigh, but there was some excitement shining through and Legolas put the knife he'd been idley spinning away. He doubted he'd be bored for much longer.

"I'm afraid dinner will have to wait," Gandalf said and recieved 5 answering groans.

They walked for around two hours, they were grumpy and hungry so Legolas tried to be patient with the dwarf's and hobbit's whining. But even his patience had an end. Their voices hurt his ears, they disturbed the forest, and they just wouldn't stop. It didn't matter how many times they were told to stop, didn't matter by who. They. Continued. Whining. Some louder than others, but still whining.

"I'll shoot one of them soon, preferably the dwarf, but I find myself not caring anymore," Legolas muttered in his native language, only to have his old friend chuckle and eye him with subtle amusement. Legolas huffed, "I might just shoot you Estel, since you find this so amusing." That got a low laugh out of him, by now they'd drawn the attention of most of the company, and Legolas felt the need to preen under their attention. He'd been told again and again how soothing and beautiful Sindarin sounded to others. Indeed, the hobbits were smiling, but the dwarf was scowling. "What did that tree-hugger say?!" Legolas glared, and just as Aragorn was about to answer the dwarf with a no doubt pacifying version, Legolas did instead. "Nothing a simple dwarf like you could possibly understand," he said, looking down on the bristleing dwarf. A fight of insults began after that and up ahead, in a clearing a girl shifted in her sleep.

Sorry about that rly confusing explanation about her ears, I tried. Just search for Manga Anime Elf Ears and you'll hopefully get the idea.