After dinner the dwarves went off to our room, or 'quarters', intent on finding more food, (which I certainly agreed with) but I wanted to explore first. That bright idea got me undeniably lost.

Stupid! Stupid! Stupid! I scolded myself in a corridor which, to my dismay, I found led nowhere. You know you have a terrible sense of direction Zai, why, why, why go off on your own?

I was so busy reminding myself that if I should have learnt one thing from my journey so far, it should have been not to go off on my own, that I didn't hear the footsteps of another in my corridor.

"What'cha doin'?"

You'd think, after spending so much time with Fili and Kili I would be used to people popping up out of nowhere. As it turned out, I was not. Just as I did every other time, I jumped about a foot in the air, shrieking. "JESUS CHRIST!"

At this point the elf that had appeared next to me, doubled over in ear-splitting laughter. A kind of joyous laughter I hadn't heard in a while and it caught me by surprise, although I wasn't at first sure why. As I held onto my chest trying to settle my rapidly beating heart, I realised, it wasn't the kind of laughter I expected from an elf and that's what was so shocking.

I thought everything about them was stiff and well-mannered and composed constantly.

I tilted my head to the side and considered the elf for a minute. He looked youthful. It's a confusing word to use because, as anyone who has ever seen an elf will know, they all look youthful, but this elf radiated it. He had a shock of coal black hair which was mussed over his eyes and I realised with a start short something I'd yet to see on anyone except Bilbo. He also had deep forest green eyes which were currently shining with mirth. As he regained control and managed to stand up to his full height I realised I barely reached his stomach.

"Done laughing at me now?" I chirped cheekily.

He grinned, "Perhaps not quite, let me consider everything else odd about you for a second."

"Oh touché my friend, touché."

At this response he flashed a set of pearly whites and held out his hand. "I am Thandir, it's a pleasure to meet you."

"And I am Zalia." I announced mocking his slightly haughty tone, "Likewise."

"What is a little dwarf, such as yourself, doing wondering the corridors of Rivendell all alone?"

"Mate." I stated putting my hand up in a defensive manner. "If you're trying to intimidate me, it just aint gonna fly."

He chuckled. "Must you ruin all my fun?"

"Afraid so." I smirked. "They call me buzzkill bob yanno."

The two of us fell silent for a second. If anyone had happened upon us they would have thought we looked a very strange pair indeed, we were about as opposite in looks as opposite gets.

"So… what were you doing?" He asked.

"Wellllllll….." I drew the word out in a slightly high-pitched tone to indicate something rather ridiculous sounding was probably going to come up. "I was exploring….and then I got lost and now I'm standing here talking to you, having seen no more of Rivendell than this corridor and what I'd already seen before." I finished with my hands on my hips looking, I thought quite pissed off.

He held back another chuckle as his body shook in silent laughter. I narrowed my eyes at him.

"Go on elf boy, laugh it up!"

At my acknowledgement of his obvious reaction to the situation, he began to laugh once more, it took roughly another five minutes, but eventually he calmed down enough to talk. "I'm sorry…" He said through chuckles, "It's just…you look so adorable, really rather cute actually, when you do that."

My eyes widened and my mouth dropped open. "Hey! I take offense to that! I do not look 'cute'," Making use of air-quotes I continued. "I look menacing and threatening and….WHY are you laughing?!" I sounded about as exasperated as I felt, throwing my arms up in annoyance.

"I'm…I just… You're so tiny, and…." He struggled to catch his breath to reply. "you think you look menacing."

"This coming from stretch here." I muttered to the empty corridor.

Thandir stopped laughing immediately. "I don't know what it means but I feel your touché word would be appropriate."

Despite myself I grinned at him. "It is yes….." We stood in silence for another few seconds, Just ask Zai, I argued with my pride. "So you gonna help me out here or what?" I asked awkwardly.

He pursed his lips and cocked his head at me. "Sure. Why not?"

"Ahh," I sighed "A man after my own heart."

Thandir flashed me another award winning smile.

When I asked Thandir for his help, all-be-it slightly begrudgingly, I expected him to return me to somewhere I could find my way from and then disappear to laugh with the other elves about my foolhardiness. This however, was not the case.

"So," He began as we made our way into the court-yard area again. "You wanted to explore?"

I bobbed my head as I ran my eyes over the bits of Rivendell I could see.

"Well then, I will be your tour guide. I promise I am entirely qualified and respectable." He winked at me in a way which suggested we were conspiring to rob a bank. "Plus I give the best tours."

It turned out, he most likely did, although you wouldn't find me admitting that. First he took me and showed me around the different buildings pointing out interesting bits of architecture, and then we walked around the gardens and let me tell you, elves know how to garden. Their flowers were like nothing I'd ever seen before in my life. Some towered over me; some even towered over Thandir whilst others were so small they were hard to see. The gardens were all vivid colours and the fragrances which wafted around smelled much like I thought Rivendell looked, heavenly. It certainly explained why all the elves seemed to smell of flowers at the very least. After the architecture and garden tour he took me inside and showed me the library, which, let me tell you, was amazing.

I don't think I could do a good enough job of describing the library if I tried. There were old books and new books all mixed in together, ones which looked as if they were falling apart and ones still looking tough as nails. The covers were a bright verity of colours, desks of a dark oak wood with the most wonderful filigree carvings were situated around the room for working at, and they also had comfy armchairs by the fires for a simpler more enjoyable time. The books reached the up to a ceiling which looked as high and as detailed as that of Westminster Abbey and was somehow even more beautiful. They had the slide along ladders to access the different books from and platforms running on each level with more desks and armchairs. Honestly, it was awe inspiring.

"I think I could spend every moment of the rest of my life in here and not read everything I want to." I murmured.

Thandir nodded. "It's something isn't it?" He looked proud that he could say this was an elvish library and I couldn't blame him. If I was him I would be proud too.

"We need to leave before I get lost in here forever."

Smiling kindly at me he placed a hand on my shoulder and guided me out. "I felt like that the first time too. I spent three-weeks in here once."

"How many of the books have you read?" I questioned.

"Not nearly enough." He sounded wistful.

"In your entire glorious elf years so far and you haven't read hardly anything?" I asked.

Smirking he replied, "Hey, I'm only twenty you know… well in elf years."

"Huh!" I exclaimed, "Me too. What are the chances?" I thought about it for a second. "Not in elf years." I clarified.

"Dwarf years then?" He asked.

"You would think wouldn't you?" I replied sneakily.

After another twenty minutes of varied degrees of pleading and begging he managed to get me to explain my statement.

"Well, that is most certainly something." He hummed under his breath as he thought. "Another world, how brilliant."

I smiled at him. "Actually, this one's a lot better; at least you know it's the creepy looking guys who are going to be dangerous. Although….my world does have football."

A frown marred his face. "Football?" He asked.

As we walked back to the guest quarters (and while I explained football) I couldn't help but look and I mean really look at Thandir. He was beautiful, in a manly way that is… if being beautiful can be manly. I knew the polite male term should be handsome but that wasn't right. It was definitely beautiful, which was fine, if you liked that sort of thing. I could appreciate the fact that he was a good-looking elf but, I liked my men to look like…well…men.

Like Fili. The little voice in my head was loud and sudden and I stopped in the corridor considering it for a moment. It was right.

"Zalia are you quite well?" Thandir asked me a look of concern gracing his soft features.

What do I say? I can't tell him I was deciding a dwarf is a hell of a lot more handsome and manly he is. That would be rude.

"Yes… I…" I cast around in my head for any old excuse as we turned into the corridor which held the entrance to the guest quarters. "I realised I haven't trained today is all."

"Oh." He thought about this for a minute. "Well why don't you train with me tomorrow? We have a competition between all the elves our age at the end of the week. You could join in! Uphold dwarven honour and all that."

"Well… I don't know about the upholding honour bit…"

"It'll be fu-uuu-nnn." He drew the word out suggestively. "Well… unless you're chicken."

"I'm not scared!" I replied affronted.

"Then prove it." He challenged eyes glinting.

"Fine."

I was so busy in my little stare-down I didn't notice the door swing open behind me.

"It's a date then my lady." He bowed and kissed my hand.

I rolled my eyes, showing him just what I thought of that action.

"Sure."

I watched Thandir walk off down the corridor and grinned shaking my head. Now there's an elf I could be friends with. Turning around to enter the rooms I was faced with an open door.

Everyone inside was silent. As far as I could figure, the only two missing were Thorin and Gandalf and poor Bilbo was stood at the door looking considerably awkward.

"I…I'm sorry I didn't realise I was interrupting." He stuttered.

I patted him on the shoulder as I walked inside, "Don't worry about it mate. No harm done, didn't even realise you were there."

Bilbo nodded at me quickly before hurrying out, closing the door firmly behind him. No one moved, no one even spoke, and I was so caught up in the strange silence I didn't notice everyone's eyes flicking between Fili and I.

I flashed my eyes around the room once. Everyone stared back silently. "Oookaay…." Moving to the couch and flopping down on it next to Kili I quickly got comfortable. The silence stretched on and it was beginning to become quite unnerving.

I wonder if they found any meat, I am pretty hungry. Perhaps we're not eating it until later. I don't know. I wonder if Thandir understood the rules of football. Wonder what training with elves will be like. Not sure I should have agreed, not sure Thorin would have. Nah, it's not a problem he totally would have if an elf had challenged him like that… oh well, maybe he'll be annoyed. What he doesn't know can't hurt him. As long as I don't enter this competition it won't matter. From what Bilbo was telling me as we left from dinner it sounds as if we're stuck here a week anyways until Lord Elrond can read those moon runes. Whatever the hell they are.

"He was pretty." Kili finally broke the silence in a low, quiet voice. Everyone else listened in, staring over at us.

"Who Bilbo?" I asked puzzled, having gotten quite caught up in my thoughts.

Kili rolled his eyes at me. "No, the elf."

"He was kinda beautiful wasn't he?" I replied. "Or is it handsome? Should I say handsome, even though beautiful seems to fit better? I can't quite decide." I looked to Kili expecting him to answer when Fili butted in.

"Say whatever the hell you want!" And with that he stormed across the room, flung open the door and strode out, muttering something about finding Thorin, slamming it closed again behind him.

"What's up with him?" I quizzed the others looking around the room slightly bewildered for an answer. "I've never seen Fili so… so… angry." I finally decided on the right word, and, it definitely was the right word because he had almost exuded rage and tension.

"I didn't realise tall, dark and elvish was your type Zai." Kili responded throwing my own words back at me.

My eyes swiftly widened in realisation at the dwarves odd silence. "OH!" I comically exclaimed shooting up and putting my hands over my mouth "OH you all think?! Oh God no! Me and Thandir?!" I hooted. "No, no, no!" It took me a while to regain my breath after laughing so hard and Kili and the others were looking quite startled.

Finally, after what seemed like an age, I managed to calm down and fall back into the sofa. "What do you all think I am?!" I asked. "As if I'm going to go…" I struggled to find the right word or phrase, somehow 'on the pull' didn't sound right. "'wooing' random elvish men."

"Well…well what were you doing then?" Asked Nori who was the first to find his voice after my outburst.

"Well I totally got lost right, so I was just hanging around in this random corridor, lamenting all my bad luck when suddenly he pops up beside me and I'm all like 'AHHH' and he's all like 'hahaahha' and anyways we got into a bit of a pissing contest about our heights, menacing looks and other such nonsense and then I'm like, 'Dude think you could help me out here?' Cause yanno I was totally lost." I paused a second and took a deep breath. "SO… then he's all like 'sure why not?' and so I'm telling him how I got lost and he's telling me 'oh I'll totally give you a tour' all stuck up his own arse about how good his tours are…" I took another large gulp of air. "So I'm all like 'fine we'll see' and let me tell you it was freaking awesome although I wasn't about to tell him that and then he's all like talking to me about football 'cause I mentioned it so I'm explaining and stuff and then he's all like asking me something and I say about not training today" Another deep gulp. "and then he's all like 'we train better than you, you're scared you can't keep up blah, blah, blah. So I'm all like 'no way man' and then he's all 'fine prove it' and I'm all like 'fine' and then he's like 'it's a date' all kissing my hand and shit which by the way is totally girly." I took a few seconds to pause before saying. "AND, he is totally not my type. I like my men to look like men thank you very much!" When I finished my tone was quite haughty and I crossed my arms.

"He was friendly though…" I added. "I liked him."

It took the guys a few seconds, and to be honest I couldn't blame them, before they began to take in what I had said.

"OH!" Gloin finally exclaimed. "I understand lassie!"

The others all followed soon after.

"So." I huffed later on, it was getting late and I'd been biding my time waiting for Thorin, Bilbo and Fili to come back but when they didn't well… "I was waiting for the others but I think we've waited long enough, I'll just have to relay the message later. It's time we had our talk about sexism." I was forgetting something important I could feel it. "Oh and someone translate for Bifur."

The dwarves all looked up at me a bit startled and Ori quickly opened his journal and got poised ready to write.

"What you did back there…what Fili did back there was entirely out of line." They all blinked at me, sighing at their obvious blank looks I continued. "Right, so I take it no one knows why?" Still blank.

"Listen." I used my hands to hoist myself up onto the table and sat up there as if it was my podium. "Where I come from, women have fought hard, died, in the fight for equal rights. Where I come from women can be in armies on the front line with men, they get equal pay and sure it's nice to be looked after once in a while but we're largely independent." I stressed this point. "If I wanted to live on my own I could, if I wanted to go around shagging random strangers, which," I pointed out at the dwarves look of disgust. "I didn't" They all collectively breathed out. "I could have. And yes it might not be the best thing but actually it was only women who seemed to really look down on other women for it. If I wanted to get married and divorced a hundred times I could have. You have to understand where I'm coming from here! I'm used to making the important decisions for myself and I don't appreciate them being taken away from me!"

"And you have to appreciate where we're coming from." Bofur took up the dwarves mantel. "There are a lot less dwarf women than there are men. That makes them precious. But they are strong and sturdy and able…"

I glared at them crossing my arms over my chest.

"We're not saying you're not lassie," Balin continued in a kind grand-fatherly tone. "But you're small and petite and so much more, fragile looking and we care for you. You're a woman something already considered precious and now you're small and sweet and you've won part of the heart of every single dwarf in this company,"

Kili mumbled something and I thought I caught the words 'whole' and 'one' but I couldn't be sure.

"What was that?" I asked.

"Nothing!" He looked alarmed.

I brushed it off and turned back to Balin who continued. "and it's just not in our nature to not look after you."

I surveyed them all for a minute. "I don't like it at all. But" I raised my voice as they all went to cut across me. "If you promise to keep my ideals in mind and be respectful of them, I'll do the same for you."

It seemed we had reached an agreement at their answering grins. Shaky and unstable perhaps, liable to break but an agreement nonetheless.

"So… what's with these braids?" I asked. "Why'd you go so weird when I asked someone to put up my hair?"

Fili it seemed had returned. "Braiding is a very intimate act for dwarfs."

I nearly fell off the table in my hurry to turn and look at him. "We have different braids for different reasons. For example, my moustache concerns my skill in battle and the one on each side of my head concerns my place in the royal line." He told me catching me and holding me securely. "The beads represent, not only the dwarf but the significance of the braid and tell a story all of their own, what it's for. There's other ways of doing this of course and most dwarves will work out the braids meanings almost instantly but for important purposes such as marriage beads will be added at the end of the braid."

I listened as carefully as I possibly could, wanting to remember every single word.

"To braid another's hair is to enter into a courtship and that is an enormous decision to make." Fili finished before making sure I was securely on my feet and walking out onto the deck.

"So… who's gonna tell me more?"

From the response I got; I gathered no-one. It seemed I would be waiting for more information until Fili decided to give me it. Kili and Fili whispered for a long time as I stood in the room dithering. Am I welcome out there after this conversation? Did I offend them? Compared to earlier it seems like we've reached whole new levels of seriousness I wasn't sure we were capable of!

Whatever Kili was saying to Fili it seemed to have got through to him because he suddenly set his chin and nodded. Just as I reached the door to my room, having decided it was perhaps best for me just to go to bed, sturdy, tough arms wrapped around my waist.

"Come on Mimur," Fili murmured breath gusting against my ear. "You can't miss all the fun."

So did you like it?

First I want to say thanks to all the people who have reviewed, fav'd and followed. Now. I've had a few questions concerning the word 'MIMUR'... I know you want me to tell you what it means but I'm not going to. I promise if you look hard enough you'll find it; took me ages to find the word I wanted, but Fili will tell her eventually and I don't want to ruin that moment in the story. Sorry guys.

Thanks for reading,

Rue