Chapter 12

***** Bold text ~ Elvish*****


The words the elf Lord spoke caused Annelise to look up in surprise.

"Once Gandalf came to us with news of their deaths, I organised for memorials to be made for them in your mother's favourite garden. There is one there for you as well," he added. "When the lady Gilraen was dying she requested that we buried her next to your stone so that she could be with you and your mother after death."

Annelise was quiet, thinking over all of the new information, before saying, "I remember the garden. Estel and I would play there while our mothers walked together. It's where I met Gandalf."

The more time Annelise spent in Rivendell, the more her memories seemed to be returning of the place, though many of them were too blurry for her to make sense of. She blamed that on the fact that she was only two at the time that she left Rivendell.

Annelise gasped quietly as they followed a curve in the path that led them into a clearing that she couldn't believe she'd ever forgotten about.

The path had rose bushes on each side and to her right the rose bushes broke off early leading into a small clearing surrounded by trees. In the middle of it was a large fountain with a gazebo behind it. Annelise smiled as she remembered splashing the water into Estel's face so many times as a child.

As she looked around the clearing she noticed three statues to her right that were new. She looked up at Lord Elrond and he sadly nodded.

Annelise took her hand from his arm and slowly moved toward the stones.

The largest one on the right had a statue of a man and a woman on the top. The man stood tall with his right hand resting on the hilt of his sword at his side. His left arm was wrapped around the waist of the woman, who was leaning into his side with her head rested on his shoulder and her hand laying on his chest above his heart. Annelise smiled at how happy and right the two looked together.

She could picture the dark hair of the man and his brown eyes looking out at the world in front of him. She moved her eyes to the woman's face and saw her mother in her memories. Her golden hair and tanned skin, the blue eyes that Annelise saw whenever she looked into the mirror.

She smiled at the thought that she knew now where her looks came from. Although her hair and skin held the qualities of her father, her eyes were a trait of her mother's.

Her eyes then moved to the smaller one in the middle. She gasped when she saw herself at the age of three. The small statue showed a small girl in a little dress with her right hand outstretched, the palm facing up. In the child's hand, rested a butterfly. The small girl's face was frozen in wonder and happiness and Annelise found herself smiling once more.

Lastly she looked to the statue on the left. She knew this was the grave of Estel's mother, Gilraen. Annelise reached out and touched the woman's face. She was kneeling, her head bowed and hair covered by a cloth. She looked as though she was praying.

Annelise couldn't stop the tear that escaped her eye at the thought of this woman. She had lost her husband, only to lose her dearest friends as well. She found herself crying for poor Estel who had lost everyone. She cried for her parents that she would never see again.

She felt Elrond pull her into his arms and start rubbing her back, speaking soothing words in Elvish to the weeping girl.

After a moment, her sobs stopped and she turned to the statues again. She gasped when she saw a single rose lying at the foot of her stone and looked up to Lord Elrond and asked him what it was.

"Estel was here seven days ago. He came to tell us that he was going to be away for quite some time in the North. He comes to visit his mother's grave every time he is here and likes to sit in front of yours and talk to you. Every visit, the morning he leaves he comes back and sets a single rose here. You were his best friend and he was your protector. He never has forgiven himself for not being there to protect you that night."

"He was only a child. He would not have made it either," Annelise protested even though there was not point.

"He knows that. He just had a hard time accepting that you were never coming back."

Annelise looked down at the rose thoughtfully before bending to pick it up. She wanted to take it to her room and dry it next to the figurine from Gandalf.

She looked at Lord Elrond before saying, "Thank you for bringing me here and telling me everything."

"Of course, little one. The joy it brings me to have you home again is more than I can express."

Annelise smiled to him and took his offered arm as they began making their way back indoors.

"If you don't mind, Uncle, I am rather exhausted by the events of today and everything I've learned. Would it be incredibly rude of me to ask to be excused from dinner so that I can rest and process everything I've learned?"

"Of course you can rest, my dear. I know this day has probably taken a lot out of you. I will escort you back to your room and inform Gandalf and Thorin that you are resting."

"Thank you, Uncle," Annelise said, as they had made it back to her room.

"Rest well, little flame," he said, bending to press a kiss to the top of her forehead before she went into her room.

Annelise moved into her room and saw that a night dress had been laid across her bed. She moved to pick it up when there was a knock on the door.

She set the rose in her hand down by the crystal sculpture gently before moving to open the door and saw a beautiful Elf maid with long dark hair standing at the door. She recognised her almost immediately from her memories.

"Arwen?" she asked uncertainly, hoping that her memory was not wrong.

"Annelise!" Arwen said moving to embrace the young woman. "I couldn't believe it when Father told me you were still alive and in Rivendell no less. He sent me to arrange a bath for you and to help you prepare for bed.

Annalise pulled back and smiled at the woman who had been like a big sister to her when she was born. "A bath would be absolutely amazing. I cannot imagine how awful I must smell right now," she said chuckling at the woman in front of her.

"It's a good thing I already assumed you would say yes," Arwen said smiling before moving back to the door. "Please bring the water into the bathing room," she said to an elf standing just outside the door. The elf poured the warm water into the tub before grabbing his empty buckets and bowing to the ladies in the room and exiting.

"Come," Arwen said. "I'll take your clothes and have them mended and I can look at the wound on your shoulder while you clean up."

Annelise was a bit unsure about taking her clothes off in front of Arwen but the elf maid had already turned to give her some privacy. She quickly stripped of her weapons and handed her clothes to Arwen before moving to get in the tub.

She found herself sighing at the warmth of the water as it washed over her tired muscles. She had left her wound bandaged and once she had cleared her skin of the dirt and filth that covered her, she moved to unwrap it.

"Here, let me do that," Arwen said as she came back into the bathing room.

She knelt behind Annelise and began to take off the bandage. Once it was off, Annelise moved to cover herself as Arwen cleaned off her wound.

After applying some kind of healing ointment to the wound, Arwen grabbed a piece of athelas from the supplies she'd brought back with her and began crushing it in a bowl. The plant soon became like a paste and Arwen gently rubbed it on her wound, before grabbing clean bandages to wrap around the wound once more.

Arwen then moved behind Annelise and began washing her hair as she had many times when the woman was a child. Annelise found herself relaxing as the elf's hands massaged her head and her eyes slowly drifted closed. Arwen soon rinsed the soap from her hair.

The elf maid then moved to grab a large soft towel from near a mirror that had a small bowl filled with water for her to clean off her face. She held the towel up for Annelise as she stood from the bath and then wrapped it around herself. Arwen went back to return the medical supplies as Annelise moved to wash off her face and change into clean undergarments and her night gown.

Annelise found that the night gown went down to just above her ankles and flowed in the slight breeze that was coming in through the doors that led out to her balcony. She couldn't remember wearing anything so soft. She found a thin robe that she could wear if she got cold and she put it on with some slippers that she found before moving out to her balcony.

She stared out at the valley before her as she thought about everything she had learned that day. Not only had she learned about her past but she had found people who knew her and her parents. She still couldn't believe that her mother had been a princess in Rohan. She knew soon she would need to go to see her Uncle, King Thengel to let him know that she was alive.

She thought of the Elvenking that her father had spoken of so often in hate, and tried to reconcile that man with the one that lived in her memories. She hated to think that even now, he and his son were grieving for her. She well remembered the time spent with 'Ego as she'd called the Prince in the struggle to say his full name. Thranduil had been even more of a challenge and she could still remember the look on his face the first time she had called him 'Dil. Legolas had stood laughing with her for a few minutes after his father left them in her room.

She smiled at the happy memories going through her head, before she caught herself. She hadn't seen her father since he had stormed out of Lord Elrond's study. She began to worry that he might be upset about learning her past.

Before she could think any further on what she should do, Arwen returned and began turning the sheets on her bed down for her. Annelise sighed before pushing off the railing she was leaning on and moving back into her room. She took off her robe and slippers, leaving them on the chair next to her bed before climbing in.

Arwen pulled her sheets back up before brushing some of her damp hair off her forehead and bending to kiss her on top of her head. "I'm so happy you're home again. I missed you so much. Sleep well, little one," she said before moving to close the curtains out to her balcony and blowing out the one candle in the room that was lit. She then moved to the door, stopping to look back at Annelise only to see that the young girl was already fast asleep.

She smiled to herself before turning and shutting the door.

'I wish there was some way for us to tell Estel that she is alive,' she thought sadly as she moved to her own room in silence.

When Gilraen died, Arwen had taken it upon herself to raise the little boy Estel. She had to watch as he grieved for his mother and his best friend. As he got older, the grief was still there and Arwen did everything she could when he came back to visit to keep him happy. When she and her father told him the truth of his lineage two years before, Arwen was sure she would not be seeing him again for a long time. But on the anniversary of his mother's death the next year, he was there sitting across from the statue of the small girl, speaking to her as if she was still there.

Arwen could only hope that her adoptive son would be in contact soon so that she could tell him the wonderful news.