It's 8:30am. I've just arrived at school. I'm on my own at the minute; Lee's at her locker. One of the boys comes up to me. He attempts some Elvish to try to impress me. "Anim le sila tiri," he says. 'Your beauty shines bright'. I get this a lot. Boys trying to get with a Princess.
It's the first day of school. The boy's walked back over to his mates. I text Evander: "Hey. I won the bet. 5 minutes and one of the boys have already tried to say some Elvish. What about you?"
I put my phone in my pocket. Lee comes over to me and we pull a face at each other- how we greet each other. "Hey, Leah! Tell Nessa she's looking pretty fit!" The boy that tried the Elvish shouts. Lee tells him where to go and told him that he knew I was taken. We walked towards our classroom.
It's 9 am. Registration has just finished. First lesson is history. We're doing the War of the One Ring. I'm amazing at this topic, seeing as I read about it every night, hear stories from my family and most of my family (aka all of my family) were involved.
We sit in our seats. My other best friend sits next to me in this lesson. "Hey Evenstar," He says.
"Hey, Evenstar," I reply. My other best friend is also my cousin.
"Hey, Ness," he whispers.
"Hey, Fin." His full name is Finwë and he is one of my mother's brother's children. My uncle, Elrohir, has 3 children- Finwë who's 3 weeks older than me, Thindor who's 10 years older than me and Fëanor who's 8 years older than me. My mum's other brother Elladan has 2 children who are twins and both 9 years older than me- Fingon and Númenor
. My brother, Evander, is 3 years older than me. My family like they're unusual names.
My phone buzzed. It was Evander: "Haha whatever. One of the girls has tried some Elvish. She muddled up you're fit with something else. I doubt even you would be able to work out what she said. See you later Ness."
I sent one back saying: "Haha she was probably trying to tell you how annoying you are and how much she hates you ;) See you later."
Me and my cousin Finwë are so close a lot of people generally think we're twins. We see each other most nights after school, he stays around a lot and every weekend we see each other. I looked at Fin. We look similar too-black hair blue eyes. All Elrond's grandchildren and children do. You can tell who the half elves are just by their hair colour and eye colour.
"There is a lot of 'myths' if you like surrounding the War of the Ring. Can anyone name one?" My teacher asked. Several hands went up.
"Dakota?"
"That King Aragorn attacked Frodo Baggins and the hobbits and gave them a decoy ring which they destroyed. He still has the real ring hidden somewhere."
My hands clenched into fists under the table. Fin held my hand and whispered: "It's okay, Ness. Everyone knows that's not true. Your dad would never do that." Everyone was looking at me. I hate it when someone says something like that especially when it's about my dad.
The teacher looked at me quickly. "That one we know is not true thank you, Dakota."
"But, sir, how do we know? I mean if he's hidden it then no-one's found it." I knew what was coming. This always happens. Always from her.
"Unless, Nessa, did you find a ring when you were little or perhaps recently?" Some people laughed. They don't know how much it hurts.
"Shut up, Dakota. You know the king wouldn't have done that," Fin defended my dad. My cousin's got into proper fights before because he defended me, my mum or my dad. No-one messes with Evander. No-one's that stupid.
The teacher quickly changed the topic. "Has anyone ever heard of the 'myth' if you like about Sauron giving his secrets to one of his higher orc generals so that one day they could finish his work?" he asked. I raised my hand.
"Ooh, Nessa would know, wouldn't she? Being the daughter of King Aragorn. Maybe that was who Sauron told his secrets to…" Dakota sneered.
"Leave Ness and her dad alone."
Dakota laughed as Fin just got more defensive. "Or what?" I looked at Fin. What are you going to do, Fin? Please don't do anything stupid.
He smiled triumphantly. "Or I'll tell Evander you were saying stuff about his dad and his sister."
That shut her up. Everyone knows how close my family is. Everyone knows what happens if Evander finds out that someone was saying stuff about me, my mum or my dad. Everyone knows that they will probably be in hospital.
I added on "Auta miqula orqu". Fin started laughing. The teacher just looked at us. That's a bonus of speaking fluent Elvish- you can tell people to go kiss an orc and they don't have a clue what you're saying. The teacher told us all to settle down. He then asked me what I was going to say. I replied: "Yeah, I've heard of it. Legolas sometimes talks about it." Legolas is one of my godparents. He sometimes teaches me archery. I've lost count of the amount of times he's told me "Lle naa curucar" or "You're a skillful bowman". I've also lost count of how many times I've laughed because I thought he was telling an extremely funny joke.
For the rest of the lesson, we looked through who Sauron could have given the secrets to and how they could finish his work. History finally finished. Fin and I walked out of the room together.
"Hey, Ness? It's okay."
"No it's not, Fin."
"Why isn't it? She's just being stupid."
"It's about my dad. It's not true and I know it's not which makes it worse."
"How?"
"Because people might start believing it."
"They won't. Everyone knows your dad. They know he wouldn't do that. And if they do, Evander, me and my brothers will beat them up." He smiled. He is amazing at cheering me up.
"Ness?"
"Yeah?"
"Smile." I couldn't stop myself. I smiled at him.
"Much better. Keep smiling."
"Why?"
"Because. Lle naa vanima."
Sometimes, just sometimes, when he says I'm beautiful in Elvish, I believe him for a second, maybe a minute, maybe an hour. Fin can make anyone feel beautiful. I gave him a hug.
"Amin mela lle." I tell him. And I do, I do love him. He's the twin I never had.
He smiled and whispered back, leaning in close, "I love you too."
