Hi everyone! big reveal in this chapter, and i'm so excited to get to it! and more legomance *squeeeeeee* leggy is so sweet in this chapter. i hope you guys enjoy and thanks so much for all your wonderful reviews and advice! i 3 all of you!

We lay down on the plains, breathing heavily. We rushed off after Boromir's death to track the urukhai who had taken Merry and Pippin, and have only just settled down for the night. I have been pondering over a possible realization the entire afternoon, and asked Legolas to wait until nightfall before I explained things to him. I do not know why, but I am not quite ready for the others to know what I just riddled out.

"Legolas?" I whisper, looking down at the silent form next to me. "Are you awake?"

He sits up, his eyes a more beautiful blue than ever in the dying light. "Elves do not sleep, Saerinil. You should know that."

"I'm only half Elven," I correct him, looking down as my hair began to shimmer in the moonlight. It is so pale at times that it will glow in the light of the new moon.

"But you must sleep less than most humans."

"Yes," I murmur, "yes I do."

"What did you want to tell me, meleth nin?" he whispers through the expanding darkness. "You said you had possibly figured out who your father is. I believed I was perhaps a Ranger descended from a bloodline who possessed some degree of Elven magic that was passed on to you for unknown reasons."

"No," I say. "No, Elves do not possess the type of magic that channeled throug my blood. But Legolas, I have a theory. Perhaps you can answer it for me."

Legolas shakes his head. "I doubt it. The Elves of Mirkwood are rather cut off from outside events. I wish Gandalf were here. He knows the truth."

"Was he around?" I ask nonchalantly, "during the first War of the Ring?"

Legolas nods. "I have heard my father tell stories of his skill during that war. He was younger, though, much younger. He was not old and gray, but strong and just as courageous. He was not unlike Aragorn, though perhaps without prophecies hanging over his head."

"Legolas, tell me if I am correct. Is Gandalf a ringbearer?"

"Yes, Saerinil. He bears Narya, the ring of fire. You heard his words on the bridge of Khazad-dum."

I am silent. Puzzle pieces are clicking together perfectly.

"What do they say about the power of those rings?"

Legolas seems a bit confused as to why I am asking him about the magic rings, but he answers anyway. "It is said that they bind themselves to their bearers. Gandalf not only possesses the power of a wizard, but now the power of a ring of fire."

I grin cheekily at him, my moonlit hair falling about my shoulders. "You said you did not know a great deal of history."

Legolas smiles back at me, giving me a chaste kiss. "There is a great difference between lore and history, meleth nin."

I wrap my arms around his neck, very easily sidetracked from the quest of my heritage, and kiss my Elf soundly. He is extraordinarily strong, for being so lean. When we part for air, I force myself to pull away and regain my senses. I was in the middle of riddling out a mystery, when my love for this Elf so rudely interrupted my train of thought.

I look up into his glowing blue orbs. "How long as Gandalf possessed Narya?"

"Since the first War of the Ring. Why are you asking me these questions? They seem rather irrelevant."

"The riddle on my sword said, to the defender of all peoples and the union of fire and ice. Clearly I am expected to use my power to defend Middle Earth from Saruon, so my parents knew I would have such gifts. But I wondered a lot.. the daughter of fire and ice? Tell me more about the power of the Elven rings."

"It is told that they give the will to govern their race, but because leaders change, and ringbearers are bound to their rings, that legend was dismissed. But sometimes the power of a ring could pass to the leader's descendants." His eyes grow wide with realization. "Do you truly think that…"

I nod. "I believe that Gandalf the Grey is my father. I am told that I was born in the first war with Sauron, when Gandalf was young and strong. I am the daughter of fire and ice, and Gandalf wields Narya, the ring of fire."

"Your parents were of different races; they never married."

"I know that. Did Gandalf ever marry?"

"No."

"He called me Maethrian. He was the one to fetch me from my home, and he has watched over me on this quest and kept me safe."

Legolas lay a hand on his forehead. "Your logic has my head spinning. The daughter of Gandalf Greyhame? Even now that he has passed, your power must be extraordinary. Not to mention that you possess Elven magic as well."

Then he stopped. "But there is no ring of ice."

The realization hits me, and my heart sinks. Not that I was pleased that I could be the daughter of a wizard who has died- although it would be admittedly wonderful to know who my father is and to know I was fond of him- but I was so close to figuring it out. My hopes are dashed.

"You're right," I say, "but it made so much sense."

"Perhaps the ice refers to something besides a ring. Perhaps it refers to your mother's demeanor."

I look Legolas straight in the eye. "Most Elves are icy when you first meet them, Legolas."

He appears rather taken aback. "Even me?" he jokes, his clear blue eyes glowing warmly as he teases me.

"You were rather blank when I first met you. And you seemed a bit shocked when I awoke."

"I knew you were powerful from the very beginning."

"Sure you did," I say with a laugh and kiss him again.

"Maybe you should do what you did last time you hit a dead end. Put this out of your mind for the time being, and come back to it later. You could have another epiphany."

"But my last epiphany was wrong."

Legolas smiles at me, and it is the most beautiful smile I have ever seen. "We don't know that. The notion that Gandalf is your father makes a great deal of sense. But we can never know the full answer until understand the riddle as a whole."

"I guess you're right," I say with a yawn. "I'm exhausted."

"Sleep," he instructs me. "I will keep you safe."

"I'm an elf. I don't sleep."

"Half Elf, actually," Legolas corrects. "Sleep," he whispers into my ear, and I find myself drifting off…

I awake in a world I can only assume is my dream. I am standing atop a cliff, overlooking a churning battleground. Mount Doom rises in the background, spitting fire, and Sauron walks across the battlefield, taking out hoards of armies in the process.

I look at the edge of the cliffside. Two figures stand upon the edge, arms wrapped tightly around each other. I find that despite the distance, I can see them quite well, and I can hear what they are saying. Apparently my newfound Elvish senses work in dreams as well.

I look closely at the man's face. It is familiar to me, and in a moment, I realize it is Gandalf. But he is young, his hair not much different from that of Aragorn. His long beard is short and brown, but his eyes bear the same sparkle.

I cannot see the face of the other figure, but I know it is a woman, and I see the tips of Elvish ears peeking out from her hood. They are speaking urgently.

"You must go back!" Gandalf insists, looking over at the battle, then back to the woman's face. "You must protect yourself!"

"I am not incapable, Mithrandir!" comes the adamant reply. I know that name is the Elvish name for Gandalf. All the Elves call him such. "I am powerful as well! Who will protect you when your magic fails? Who will protect you from Sauron."

"Even you, my love, cannot contend with the will of Sauron."

Even from here I can tell a humorless smile graces her lips. "I cannot contend with his will. But I can defy it."

"He wants us. He wants us dead; I don't know why. Only now do I feel his hatred upon us. There is some power he wants with us."

I gasp, from where I am standing, because I can understand what they do not. The power that they want is me. I was conceived the night before a final battle, and it was said that I had power beyond anything Middle Earth had seen born into a single babe.

So it is true. Gandalf is my father. But who? Who is my mother? I cannot see the face, but her voice rings familiarly in my head. I feel as if I have heard it before. Her grey cloak flaps in the wind and I want to beg her not to fight, even though I know she will. I know she will survive, and I know that I will too. But even if this is a dream, it feels too real.

"Go back," he pleads, with a hand on her shoulder. I can see the Ring of Fire wrapped around his finger as he embraces my mother. "Please go back. I could not bear to watch you die."

"I could not bear to live if you died and I knew there was nothing I could do. We always fight with the risk of death, but why should that stop us?" Her words were hard and encouraging. "We have burdens on our shoulders and power to live up to. But why should that hinder our decisions and our courage? Fight with me, Mithrandir. Fight beside me until the very end."

"As long as we are living," he says in the same gruff voice that I know, but it is more youthful, with more energy and stronger emotion. Great pain and love are thick in his words. "We fight beside each other."

She waves her hand, and I catch something in the corner of my eye. A glint of white and silver. Then a great eagle cries out and swoops below them, and with one final, lingering kiss, they leap onto its back and disappear into the night.

I wake with a start, the dawn light seeping over the plains. Beside me, Legolas is still sitting quietly, and, catching my panicked expression, lays a hand on my shoulder.

"I know something," I whisper urgently. "Something new."

He grins. "See? Each time you put the matter to rest and get some rest yourself, good things come of it."

"No, it wasn't rest. I had a dream. I saw my parents, and Legolas you were right. Gandalf is my father. The daughter of fire and ice refers to Narya."

"Then who is your mother, Saerinil?" His voice is genuinely curious. "We know that there is no ring of ice."

"It wasn't ice," I answer him. "It was never ice; that was just… well I don't know what it was for. It was either for poetic value or to throw people off. Fire and ice are opposites, and so it only makes sense that I am the daughter of two people of different races. It was just a diversion, the referrence of ice. It was never ice at all."

"So what-"

I grit my teeth. "She lied to me."

"Saerinil, what-"

"Well she didn't lie, exactly, so much as stretch the truth beyond recognition. She's good with words after all. That's where I inherit it from. But I saw it- that ring. I saw it in my dream."

"Saerinil, what are you talking about?" Legolas's voice takes on an exasperated tone. "What lie?"

"My mother- she threw me off the tracks. She offered me a riddle disguised as an explanation. She lied to me. There is no ring of ice, but ice is another form of something else. Of water."

"What are you saying, Saerinil?" His eyes grow wide.

I hiss again. "She lied to me."

"I thought you said-"

"My own mother couldn't bear the strength to tell me the truth." I can feel tears of anger begin to sting my eyes, and Legolas wraps his arms around me as the tears come spilling out. He rocks me softly in his arms, caressing my long, golden-silver hair that I now know so strongly resembles my mother's. I tremble a bit, biting my tongue as the information keeps pouring in.

"Who lied to you, Meleth nin?" Legolas whispers into my ear.

"Galadriel."

ooh twist! bet you didn't see that coming :D:D i've been waiting to reveal that for so long! it's been in my vault of favorite fanfic secrets! review please, with anything ;););) plz