A/N: Hi there! Welcome to my very first fan-fic. Reviews would be greatly appreciated, and any constructive criticism, as long as it's friendly, will be welcome.

Please keep reading to the end of the chapter – it may be a bit heavy to begin with, but it gets much better towards the end. I really hope you enjoy it – let me know if you have any suggestions.

I El Edhellen

"To be, or not to be?"

That was the question.

"Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,"

Some great big arrows they were firing at her head.

"Or to take arms against a sea of troubles, and by opposing end them."

Would it really be the answer, and take all of her problems away?

"To die; to sleep; no more; and by a sleep to say we end the heart-ache, and the thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to."

We are heir to them? Did everyone have to go through this?

"'Tis a consummation, devoutly to be wish'd. To die; to sleep. To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub! For in that sleep of death what dreams may come when we have shuffled off this mortal coil, must give us pause."

That was all she could remember. She had never cared much for Shakespeare, but that bit had always stuck in her mind, as fresh as if she had learnt it yesterday. Year 8, English lessons.

And now to think that she should be pondering the same dilemma as Hamlet! She couldn't remember what happened at the end, so she could not base her decision on his.

She glanced at the clock. It was two o'clock in the morning. An hour now she had lain here, weeping, about her life, and that of a character in a book. If the heroine in a novel could not be with the man she loved, how could she ever hope to? She had no-one controlling her life, able to ensure her happiness. She was alone. It was up to her.

And what a great job you've made of it so far, girl.

Oh, how alone she felt! There was no-one who knew her properly; who really understood her. Sure, she had friends, and a caring family, but she felt she had to keep them locked out. Amongst her friends, and even her dear sister Katie, whom she loved more than anyone else in the world, they all said she was difficult to talk to. Her parents felt the same, and she had few conversations, proper conversations, with them.

She had always felt like an outsider, like she didn't fit in. From an early age, for reasons she could never understand, she had been bullied by her classmates; acts of sheer malice that were etched in her mind, and which had crushed her self-esteem to this very day. She had been outcast, ridiculed and humiliated, and still, the feelings of inadequacy haunted her. Even now, when she had friends and felt happy at school, she kept herself to herself, unnoticed at times, and only speaking to her friends whom she felt comfortable around, so that others must have thought her cold and unfriendly.

Yet that was not the case. She loved to be around people; loved to listen to them and discover how their minds worked; what they felt.

What she hated and feared most was to be alone.

And now she had exams looming over her, occupying every moment of her thought, and every second of her being. She was expected to do well. Very well. In fact, she was considering a career in medicine. Except, at the moment, she did not care how many electrons were in a calcium atom, or what the momentum of a dropped stone was. She did not care about any of it, although she usually had a love of numbers and logic. She could not face learning one single fact more. Except music. Music was her one passion in life; in fact her one reason for living. When she played the piano, all her problems evaporated away, and she became part of the music; existed solely in the music. Her fingers drifted across the keyboard, darted from note to note nimbly and sprightly as the music flowed from her. The piano became part of her; an extension of her body, like an extra limb, over which she had just as much control as the rest of her.

Yet even with her music, she was not entirely happy. She could not compose, not yet anyway, and express her own, individual feelings through the music. She felt that there must be something more to be discovered; music that could go deeper into the soul, and move you far more powerfully. She wanted to go there; to discover that music, but she didn't know how. It was there, but she could not reach it. Oh, it was all so hopeless! What more did this world have to offer her? Love! Ha! Fat chance!

Like anyone would want to go out with her! The outsider, the geek, the ugly one! She had never had a boyfriend; never even been kissed. But that was all she wanted; to be accepted, understood, and to be loved.

Nothing lasted these days, anyway. People got bored, cheated, split up. What chance did she have?

She rolled over on to her front, and silently sobbed even harder into her already damp pillow, pulling wretchedly at the corners with her clenched fists.

No-one could ever love her. She was far too ugly and fat.

She looked at the clock again through her tears. Half past two.

Never in her life had she felt this utterly miserable. Now was her chance. It was now or never. She had thought about it before now, certainly; more than a few times, but she had always chickened out at the last moment. Pain? It couldn't be much worse than the horror she was going through now. She was nearly numb anyway.

She would take the chance.

Slowly, silently, she slipped out of bed, stifling the sobs that wracked her body, and without looking back, left the room and padded down the stairs. The kitchen was cold, but not as cold as the blade of the knife as it lay in her sweating palms.

This was it. This was the end.

It'd better be worth it.

Eyes closed, and smiling grimly to herself, she gripped the handle tightly and plunged the blade into her heart.

The pain was unimaginable. Her whole body shrieked with agony, and it seemed to her as if she was being brutally attacked everywhere with cruel, icy daggers. An electric shock careered up her spine, as a scream echoed around in her head.

Her mouth was open. It was her scream!

Panicking blindly, she fell stumbling to the floor, and looked at the wound.

Blood was everywhere. It seeped into the thin cotton of her pyjamas, spreading quickly. It flowed into her cupped hands around the knife.

She screamed again desperately and lashed out with her arms, leaving sticky red handprints on the walls around her.

"Help!" she gasped faintly, the metallic taste of blood in her foaming mouth. She closed her eyes, and darkness enveloped her.

***

White

Bright light everywhere.

Where was she? Was this heaven?

Not that she had ever believed in any of that stuff. She hadn't known what she expected, but she had never imagined this. She seemed to be floating. Just floating in light.

Then she realised that she did not seem to exist anymore. Not her body anyway. She had no shape or form. She just was. She wasn't even sure if she could actually see, as there seemed to be nothing to see. Just light. She seemed to be sensing it; feeling its presence rather than seeing it. She was seeing, or feeling, everything around her, with no boundaries of sight.

She couldn't tell how long she spent in that place, just being, with a gentle feeling of calm and peacefulness. It could have been a few mere seconds, or a life age of the Earth, but it did matter. Time could not be measured there, as it had no meaning.

Then she became able to sense another presence with her, and another, until she felt surrounded by beings. She couldn't explain it; she couldn't see or hear them; she was just aware of them, a constant bubbling of pulsing energies.

A voice spoke; well, it wasn't really a voice, more like thought-patterns she could visualise and make sense of in her head.

"Jessica Felicity Robertson" it said, sounding very authoritative; firm, and yet kind.

There was a flash of multicoloured lights, and her mind seemed to boil, as if the beings entered into her soul, rifling through her thoughts, trying to piece together her life. It felt as if she was being emptied, the life sucked out of her as the spirits dissected her. Then, as swiftly as it had begun, they had finished. Another voice spoke in her head, a booming voice, swelling with self-importance:

"You have summoned me here to this council merely to discuss the future of an insignificant mortal so spineless that she had to resort to suicide to solve her problems! If they were all like that, where then would we stand?"

His words were cold, derogatory, and brought images of blue-green into her head, swirling and bubbling in her mind.

A third voice spoke, gentle and soothing, like a grey blanket, saying:

"You are swift to judge, Lord of the Waters, and quick to speak. If you had looked a little deeper, you would have seen that, although there are faults, as with any mortal, this girl has many strengths; resilience, love, and a purity of the soul.

"And yet not enough perseverance to endure the simple life that was given to her?" argued the blue-green voice scornfully.

"Maybe it was not hers to own," said a new, earthy voice, "Perhaps it was a mistake that she was there, in which case she would never have fitted in."

"Are you suggesting that we should give her another chance? Another life for her to ruin?" retorted the blue-green voice.

"She could be great," said yet another voice, this one clear and bright, "She could be the One; the One we have been waiting for."

"It is far too dangerous, and we cannot know for certain. Surely we cannot rest the fate of Arda on the shoulders of this child of Man," said a strong, metallic voice.

"We have no choice put to put our faith into her hands, and to help to guide her, wherever she is bound to go," said the first voice, resounding with authority and hope.

There were signals of assent form the rest of the beings, and only a few had misgivings.

"Then it is decided."

***

Sunlight streamed down in beams between the tall trees that seemed to go on forever above her head. She gazed up at them in awe as the world stopped spinning, and then in astonishment.

Trees.

She had expected never to see them, or anything else for that matter, again.

As her vision grew clearer, she became aware of the fresh, alive smell of the forest, and of the uneven texture of the cool grass beneath her body.

She was alive. Where, she did not know, but she had her body back.

She moved her fingers, and they responded to her command, tugging gently at the smooth green stems, brimming with life.

She was lying, naked, flat out on the ground with her limbs stretched out around her. She tried to sit up, too fast, and her head reeled as her vision clouded over again, and a sharp pain shot up her spine. When it had passed, she slowly levered herself upright, her body crying out in pain with every muscle aching intolerably. Trying not to pass out, she clumsily crawled over to a tree on her right and settled herself into a hollow between the roots. She pulled her bare knees up to her chin in order to try to hide herself, lest any passer-by should happen to see her.

A deep-grey boot, embellished with a delicate silver swirling pattern, was silently planted down on the ground beside her. She stared at it in horror, her heart pounding furiously in her chest.

"Man eneth lín? Hiril nîn?" said a voice; a gentle, soft, yet manly voice.

Slowly and fearfully, she looked upwards until her eyes met with those of the stranger, clear and blue. But then she gasped, for this was surely no man, his hair was long, and very fair. He was looking at her quizzically, clearly expecting an answer to whatever he had asked her, but she could give him none.

"Man eneth lín?" he repeated.

"Huh?" she mumbled.

Sensing her fear and confusion, he knelt down beside her, and as he did so, he whipped off his long grey cloak and gently wrapped it around her shoulders, fastening it at the neck. She pulled it gratefully about her.

"What is your name?" he asked, mystified.

She looked up at him quickly again.

"Jess."

He smiled briefly, his face lighting up, relieved that they could understand each other. Then his joy clouded over, and he frowned.

"But that is no Elven name. It is not a name I have ever heard before. And you do not speak the Elven tongue," pondered, more to himself than to her.

His head tilted as he studied her face. The light bouncing off his pale, smooth skin.

"Where are you from?" he asked, his handsome face full of kindness.

She sighed despairingly, not even sure of the answer herself.

"I don't know."

"Then you shall come with me," he said, "Do not fear. You will be safe."

He stood up, looked around himself at the glade they were in, and whistled; a long, high-pitched, piercing sound. Within a few seconds, a beautiful white horse came forth out of the shadow of the trees. It stopped when it reached the stranger, and whinnied at its master, as he stroked the velvet muzzle of the beast.

Jess stared at the horse in amazement. He was a strong, lithe creature, with a thick, glistening coat of snow, the like of which she had never seen before.

The stranger returned to her, and carefully lifted her up in his powerful arms as if she weighed no more than a leaf, settling her onto the back of the horse.

"His name is Celegdail, Lightfoot. Do not be afraid," he said, and sprang up nimbly behind her on his steed.

She did not have the strength to resist. Even if she had wanted to. She quickly lost her fear in the safety of his protecting arms, and was lulled to sleep by the gentle rocking of the horse as they made their way through the forest.

***

A/N: Are you still with me? I hope so. Please, don't forget to leave a review. Be nice ;-) Chapter 2 should be up soon.

The Shakespeare at the beginning was from Hamlet.

Disclaimer: All characters belong to JRR Tolkien, except Jess, and some more Original Characters coming later.