Years had passed since Enelya had come to Imladris in the arms of Belladonna Took. She had grown, slowly as all elves do, learning to be a lady; training to fight with sword, bow, and knives; and living a second life with her family—pranks with her uncles, girly days with her aunt, learning of the lore of Middle Earth with her dâd.

(The pranks had to be limited after she nearly blew up Imladris.)

Enelya was very happy indeed with her life. She would shortly be forty, the Elvish year for coming of age. Then she would be able to go off on adventures and maybe look for her cuil melethril.

All Elves had a cuil melethril, their other half, to be found once they were both adults, but some never found them because so few Elves were left in Middle Earth. Oftentimes an Elf could look for their entire lives, wishing for their One to appear. The fortunate few who did find their cuil melethril would be hard-pressed to leave their partner for more than a short time for the rest of their immortal lives.

Elrond was still looking for hiscuil melethril, after thousands of years.

Elrond had not known Celebrian had not been his true other half—he was young, foolish, and thought that his first love was the last. She had left to go to the Undying Lands after an orc attack, and never once did she look back upon her family or wish to stay with them. This had nearly destroyed her dâd and his four children.

In fact, until Enelya came, her twin uncles, Elladen and Elrohir, had almost never been at Imladris, but instead went out hunting down every orc they could find and killing them, furious at the creatures that had given their flighty mother a chance to leave them with hardly a goodbye. Enelya had given them a reason to move on.

And so move on they did.

20-years-old:

"Oh Enelya!" Elladen sing-songed as he made his way down the hallway.

Enelya silently giggled at the foolish picture he made, walking down the hallway with his arms outstretched, a habit they had all developed when looking for her. Her belongings had all been stored in a small silver locket which she had enchanted with an Undetectable Extension Charm before she came to Middle Earth, so she was hidden under her father's invisibility cloak. On a rafter above Elladen's head.

He was so not going to find her.

Which was a good thing, too. She and Elrohir had booby-trapped his favorite boots, filling them with Elladen's chief horror.

Cockroaches.

Yes, cockroaches. The great Elfin warrior Elladen was afraid of cockroaches. His (girly) scream when he felt them in his shoes had nearly burst some unfortunate Elves' pointy ears.

With a barely audible giggle, she waved her wand and his hair turned bright pink, just in time for Arwen to enter the hall. She stopped in her tracks and began to giggle at the hilarious scene in front of her. It took a minute for the still-shell-shocked Elladen to realize she was laughing at him.

"What?" he said, a little defensively.

Arwen couldn't speak through her giggles, so she merely pointed at his head.

Elladen slowly reached up and grabbed a strand of his hair, holding it near his eyes to inspect it.

A look of horror came upon his face as he realized what Enelya had done.

And what could the fierce warrior do? This was magic, after all.

He screamed.

Many Elves would complain of sore ears for the next several days.

25-year-old Enelya was perched lightly up in a tree, waiting for the perfect chance.

It came too easily when Glorfindel started walking along the path that meandered under the tree.

With a practiced flip she was on his shoulders, hands over his eyes.

She was forced to wrap her arms and legs tightly around him when he immediately began to panic and nearly flipped off his back.

"Gotcha Glorfie!" she snickered.

The proud Elf, Lord of the House of the Golden Flower, hated that name. Which was why she used it, of course.

He stilled upon hearing the irritating nickname.

"Enelya." He sighed.

"Right in one." She smiled, though he couldn't see it.

Glorfindel gave a (admittedly fake) sigh of annoyance and began running with her to the Hall for dinner.

At least she hadn't hexed him.

So time passed, and Enelya began to think of her adventures—for the first things an Elf must do when they come of age are to have a celebration in their honor and to go on an adventure, coming back wiser.

The only problem?

Enelya's uncles and dâd were more than a little overprotective. As was young Estel, the Dunedain child who had been adopted into their small family. He had immediately become rather taken with Enelya, often climbing in her lap and demanding stories of the pranks she had pulled (she had to make him swear not to tell she orchestrated the Great Prank War when she was 29—it had culminated in a fierce food fight that left grandmother Galadriel covered in salad. Her uncles took the heat for that particular escapade.) But even Estel was protective of her, glaring at every unrelated male who looked at her for more than a second. Arwen apparently thought he had a crush on Enelya. Dear Valar, she hoped hot. That would be entirely awkward.

Enelya would just have to take what she could get on the adventures.

Bloody overprotective Elves.

Speaking of which…

"Enelya? Where are you? You need to get ready for the feast!" Arwen called.

Enelya sighed and jumped lightly down from the tree she was perched in, surprising Arwen.

"By the Valar, don't do that, Enelya!" she exclaimed, lightly swatting her arm.

Enelya blushed.

"Díhenom…" she muttered.

Arwen smiled fondly at her niece.

"It's all right. Come on though, we have only a few hours."

Enelya stifled a groan as her aunt led her first to the bath house, then to her rooms to dress for the feast.

At least there was no makeup. She had hated that stuff when Lavender Brown tried to force it on her, claiming that she 'might be pretty naturally, but real girls wear makeup.'

One hex later and she never heard another peep about the crap.

That was the only positive thing she could think of when it came to letting Arwen dress her up.

Enelya winced as Arwen pushed a hairpin into the mass of red hair on top of her head.

"Almost done now…there!" she exclaimed, twirling Enelya to face the mirror.

Enelya's jaw dropped.

She was stunning.

Usually she just brushed her long red curls and threw on a (urgh) dress when it came to feasts. However, this was her coming of age feast, so her aunt had taken it upon herself to make her look 'ravishing'.

And she had.

She had forced Enelya into an ornate dress of dark, forest green trimmed with silvery gray; clasped the Evenstar around her neck, much to her protests; and pinned half of her crimson hair into an elegant braid at the back of her head, the rest falling gently down her back in curls with tiny braids woven throughout.

Arwen herself was in rich, winey red, setting off her loose, dark hair and shining gray eyes flawlessly.

Enelya hugged her aunt tightly.

"Thank you thank you thank you!" she chanted. Arwen laughed breathlessly.

"Air! I need air!" she gasped dramatically. The two shared a laugh before heading to the Hall to the feast.

The feast was like no other—the Hall was decorated in beautiful lilies; the food was done to perfection; and Lindir had outdone himself with a wild, haunting melody, like something of the fae, swirling through the room. Enelya cursed the pallor of the elves when her grandfather made a speech about her, because she just knew she was the color of a strawberry—the little smirk playing on Arwen's lips told her that.

At least she got to dance.

And dance she did—with her uncles, her grandfather, Glorfindel, and Erestor, round and round in wild, ancient dances. The rest of Middle Earth had the strange assumption that Elves only danced in slow, stately, stuffy dances—ha! That was what they wanted everyone to think. Not even Mithrandir had seen the Elves dance.

It was whirling, twisting, free dancing, where you were with one partner one moment, and with a skip and a twirl, another partner took their place the next. It was heady, liberating stuff, and Enelya loved it. She whirled and leaped and dipped and spun, each partner's face blurring with the next—Glorfindel, Erestor, Elrohir, Elladen, even Elrond—in never-ending, dizzying circles.

The Elves' festivities carried on seemingly endlessly, even as the first signs of dawn began to appear as rosy tendrils streaking the lightening sky. It would soon have to be the last dance of the night, for the Elves would not show their festivities to anyone.

So it was with light feet that Enelya whirled through the final steps of the last dance, before she turned to face her partner, grasping his hand easily. And froze.

And something inside of her clicked into place. She felt complete.

Evidently he felt it too.

"Cuil melethril." Legolas of the Greenwood breathed.