DISCLAIMER: All right, this applies to the WHOLE STORY because I don't want to keep writing this on every chapter. I ONLY OWN LINDAN, LINDRIEL, ALDAYA, THE TWO ELF-CHILDREN FEATURED IN THIS CHAPTER, AND TINDÓMË. **pause** So that's ninety-five percent of the character-cast…so what? :-b Only kidding. Anyway, yes. Unless I specifically mention otherwise, EVERYONE and EVERYWHERE belongs to the great and majorly cool J.R.R. Tolkien.
Prologue
"Uncle?" a small and sleepy Tindómë said to Glorfindel, sitting in the older elf's lap with his eyes half-closed and his pointy ears still looking slightly too big for his head. Two other younger elves, an older girl and a boy somewhere between Tindómë and the girl's age sat together playing marbles at Glorfindel's feet. None were full grown as yet. He and Aldaya had offered to do baby-sitting that evening.
"Hmm?" Glorfindel looked down at the small elf child curled in his arms, his bright gray eyes watching Glorfindel with an expression of insatiable curiosity. Aldaya stood near to them both, painting on an easel. Outside, the sunset painted Tol Eressëa blood red, and the sky began to deepen into dusk.
"Will you tell me a story?"
"What would you like to hear?" Glorfindel returned.
The girl looked up, excited. "Something sad!" she exclaimed. "And romantic!"
"No!" the other boy said. "Something exciting and action-filled!"
"Something with a good ending," Tindómë said.
Aldaya and Glorfindel exchanged glances; something seemed to pass between them. "I will tell you the story of Lindriel and Lindan," he said at last.
"Lindan?" The girl's ears perked up at once. "Ellórmë's father?"
"That's right." Glorfindel smiled and shifted a now wide-awake Tindómë to lean against his other arm. "But can you three stay quiet long enough to hear the whole story?"
Three young elves nodded quickly.
"Very well." Glorfindel cleared his throat as Aldaya left her easel, took Tindómë in her arms and settled down on the floor next to the two children. "Once, a very long time ago…"
"How long?" interrupted the boy.
"You said you'd be quiet," Glorfindel reminded him. The girl punched the boy.
"Be quiet!" she scolded, and then turned her attention back to Glorfindel. "Please go on, Uncle."
"As I was saying, a very long time ago there lived an elf-girl. Her name we did not know. We called her Lindriel…"