Ithilwen had to be somewhere in the city still. Esther knew it; she just couldn't find her.

After making one more trip around every inch of the farmer's market, Esther paced up and down the sidewalk next to the open parking lot, lost in concentration. Whenever she had taken on a particularly difficult project to bring two people together, the primary focus of her work left an imprint of their aura for her to gauge. If they were happy and content, it would emit calm signals, whereas trouble brewing would change the signals to an erratic beat. This imprinting was temporary, in most cases, but Ithilwen wasn't normal by any means.

As per her nickname, "Project Moon Moon" had a habit of bad jokes that kept returning. In this instance, the aura of the elleth from middle-earth still lingered. It had it's usefulness in tracking Ithilwen down when Esther concentrated on the signal long enough, but it was pointless with the aura imprint resembled a giant ball of outdoor Christmas lights stretched out across the Lonestar State.

Esther stopped in her tracks, growling "Dammit Moon Moon" again as she pulled out her cell phone. Putting it to her ear, she heard the other end ring four times before someone picked up.

"Hello?"

"Where the hell are you?!"

"Esther? Is something wrong?"

"Oh nothing, I've just been all over Texas looking for your butt because Fiona said you were down here for the Scarborough Faire this weekend, and I've been hunting for you for hours with no luck," the guardian said through gritted teeth. "For an elf from another world you are damned near impossible to find!"

Her nerves were further grated when Ithilwen laughed on the other end. This wasn't funny! "I'm sorry," she said through her laughter, "I'm over here at the Hampton Inn. I'll come down and wait for you outside."


"You wanna run that by us again?"

Ithilwen had been nuking some frozen dinners in the microwave when Esther said that she had been the one to bring her aunt over from Valinor. She looked on stunned, but Celebrian was the one that took this news better, having clasped the guardian's hands in a show of gratitude.

Esther glanced nervously to her friend, feeling the multitude of questions bubbling just below the surface. "For a while now I've been practicing my magic. I thought that maybe I could open a portal similar to North's snow globes, but in order to reach another world, it would require me to make contact with someone capable of helping me sustain the energy at both ends. In my searching, I made contact with Lord Irmo in Valinor. He understood my plights and agreed to assist me, working as the anchor." Here she motioned to Celebrian. "I was told days ago that a 'live vessel' would be traveling through the portal from Valinor for personal reasons. I didn't know who it was or their purpose, and I've been so tied down with my reports to Cupid that I wasn't able to locate the traveler until today."

Celebrian leaned to the side to catch Esther's downturned gaze. "I thank you again, Guardian Esther, for bringing me to my family," she said. "The journey was quick and I arrived safely. Everything worked out as it was meant to, so do not feel regret for doing your duties first."

"That's a habit she can't break, Aunt Celebrian."

"It is not a habit!" Esther retorted indignantly.

"You still feel guilt for my breakup with Payne!" Ithilwen passed a steaming plastic tray each to the guardian and her aunt. "It's alright to let it go-"

Esther waved her free hand erratically at Ithilwen. "Don't say those words!" she hissed. "That's like saying Candyman in the mirror! Jack will hear you!"

Celebrian looked back and forth between the two blond women. "What is this Candy...man? And who is Jack?"

"Candyman is a made-up character," Ithilwen explained, "If you stand in front of a mirror and say his name five times, he'll appear and kill you. It's kind of like the story of Bloody Mary, only you say her name three times in the mirror." She jerked a thumb in Esther's direction. "Jack is Jack Frost, the guardian of fun. He can make it snow, and Esther's also got a crush on him."

"I do not!" Esther shrieked, red faced.

"Ironic that the guardian of pure love denies that she's crushing on a colleague, isn't it?" the elleth grinned. "It's not hard to see if you're looking for it," she added.

"Yeah well as of this moment we're friends!" Esther was on the defensive. "And you can't talk because of your dream-dates with Legolas!"

"They're not dates! Or they weren't, as I haven't spoken to Legolas since March!"

The guardian looked sheepish, remembering too late that the link was broken. Ithilwen had become too interested in her microwaved cheeseburger macaroni bowl to look at either of them. Celebrian continued to glance between them curiously.

"You know," Esther swallowed, "With what I've learned to do with Irmo might work on a broader scale. Legolas might not even be aware the link was broken-"

"It's okay," Ithilwen said in between bites. "I'm pretty sure he knows. And he's in middle-earth, just like Ada. You said that Lord Irmo was able to help you get Aunt Celebrian here. Maybe when they sail West one day I'll get to see them that way."

Esther frowned, wanting desperately to tell her friend to not think so negatively. As things were at the present, while she couldn't bring them over through the link she could produce in Valinor, it didn't mean that Esther wouldn't try. Irmo wouldn't be able to help her with this task, so it would take more time and a lot of practice, but it would be worth it.


"Did that sign say 'Greenwood'?" Celebrian asked. Since her arrival, Ithilwen had been steadily teaching her aunt to read English by any means available - road signs, menus, whatever was available at that moment. The older elleth had picked up on it quicker than Ithilwen thought she would, and was now able to read almost any text aloud by sounding it out as she studied it.

"Yup, Greenwood, Louisiana." Ithilwen answered, glancing over at her aunt. "Why's that funny?"

"It is more amusing than very funny," she said, yet Celebrian couldn't help but smile. "The kingdom of Mirkwood was once known as Greenwood. But when the darkness began to seep into the forests long ago, it was dubbed its new name. Your friend Legolas calls it home, if you will recall." Her smile faltered as she paused in thought. "There are not giant spiders that reside in this Greenwood as well, are there?"

Ithilwen visibly shuddered in the driver's seat. "God I hope not. I never liked spiders; the biggest I had ever come across was called a bird-eating spider...or something. Anyway, it was damn near the size of this steering wheel!"

"The spiders of Mirkwood are much larger than that," Celebrian said. "The infants can start out the size of this car, or so I've been told by the messengers that came to Imladris."

With a glance down at the gas meter, Ithilwen shuddered again and made a mental note to stop at the next gas station they came across. There here aunt commented on how terrible the smell of the gasoline was, and she couldn't agree more. Still, when Ithilwen was asked, she demonstrated how to pump gas in the car. Celebrian just continued to wrinkle her nose and noted how travel by horses was less putrid than this amber liquid.

Inside the convenience store, the two women selected what Ithilwen called 'essential roadtrip munchies', as well as some interesting looking postcards from the Pelican state before leaving. Celebrian held her bag of snacks to her chest as she surreptitiously glanced back at the cashier that had rung up their purchases. The man was of a dark complexion, wearing a strange scarf about his head, eye makeup, and a denim skirt with boots. He had a masculine air about him, but he was not above swinging his hips when he walked. And he had called her and her niece "Honey". 'This must have been what Ithilwen told me about back at the festival the other day. I didn't expect to see a sight so soon in the journey.'

Regardless of how strange she found his appearance and mannerisms, she found him to be quite charming, if not confusing.

Bossier City was their next pit stop on the trip. Celebrian looked at the massive sign as they sat in the parking lot, confused. "We are stopping at a place with two golden arches?"

Ithilwen grinned. "Of course! This place has got some of the best fast food you can find. And their fried potatoes are unbelievably good!" She tugged on her aunt's hand and led her into the doors of McDonald's.

The trip inside McDonald's made it worth the detour for food. Standing back and looking at each of the menu items, Celebrian was silently mouthing the words to herself. Ithilwen had been about to tell the cashier that her aunt hadn't been in a fast food place for a long time when she was asked-

"Ithilwen, what's in the combo?"

It had been such an innocent question, but Celebrian could only stand by in more confusion and slight alarm as her niece had doubled over in laughter to the point of tears. It had taken her some time, but Ithilwen managed to recover herself long enough to order. Once they sat down, she made it a point to explain why that question had been so funny.

"Just know," she said, about to eat a french fry, "that you are probably the only person in this state that can genuinely ask that question, Aunt Celebrian."

Celebrian still wasn't sure about Ithilwen's sense of humor.


In their hotel room, Ithilwen had set up her camera and laptop on the desktop that had been provided in the suite she had booked. Celebrian had opted to take a bath, giving her niece the opportunity to record her message.

"Hey guys! The next video in this trip is coming along, and I should have it uploaded shortly. Right now though, I'm going to do something different. So I've been getting loads of questions lately, and with me driving so much, I don't get to answer them as I'd like. To make it up to y'all, I'm going to be holding a live stream in the near future from my hotel room! Are you excite? Okay, so the thing is that we won't be in Georgia very long, so it won't be here. However - my next stops are Myrtle Beach and Raleigh, and I'll be at those places a little longer to fit it in the schedule. That should give you guys about two weeks to decide on what you want to know, and when I get ready to leave Georgia I'll make an announcement about the date of the live stream. So keep your eyes peeled, and you can comment on any of these videos with your question, or you can hit me up on one of the sites linked in the description!"

The Georgia Renaissance festival was not unlike the one in Texas, but both Ithilwen and Celebrian enjoyed it nonetheless, and it had been fairly easy to get footage for the next video. The jousting tournament was entertaining, as usual. For Ithilwen, the "Hey Nunnie, Nunnie" show was unbelievably twisted and funny. Celebrian discovered she liked the "Tortuga Twins" show – even when one of the men on stage selected her from the audience to play the part of Maid Marian! When she returned to her seat, she was told by Ithilwen that pictures had been taken, much to her embarrassment.

That Sunday evening, after they had left with more wares than they expected to find in the shops, Celebrian was reclining on the bed in their hotel room. She had picked up the small box that Ithilwen had called a remote and was browsing the channels that the picture box provided.

Her niece was in the shower scrubbing the last remnants of glitter from a wandering jester that surprised her when she stopped on a screen that featured these cars on an enclosed road. Celebrian watched it curiously, trying to understand why they were going in a repeated loop to the left when it happened. One of the cars had been bumped by another, and the bumped car turned over in the air! She watched in horror as the car then crashed into the top of the car directly behind it, which swerved and clipped another car. "Ithilwen!" she called out, watching terrified as more of the cars swerved to avoid the scene, some not so lucky.

Ithilwen was wrapping herself in the hotel towel when she heard her aunt scream for her. She nearly skidded on the tile flooring and to the bed, still dripping wet in nothing but the scratchy towel. "What's wrong, Aunt Celebrian?" She looked from the elleth to the television, seeing just what it was that she was watching. "You're watching Nascar?"

"Is that what this is?" Celebrian nearly shrieked. "A disaster just occurred!" She meant to go on in details when the slower replay came up as the remaining unscathed cars went into a caution lap.

Ithilwen watched the replay and whistled. "Not the worst wreck I've seen in one of these races, though. Hopefully no one got hurt."

"This happens often?!"

"Oh yeah," Forgetting she was still wringing wet, Ithilwen perched on the edge of the bed. "These cars are going a lot faster than the ones we drive by. Crashes are bound to happen, especially when they are stacked three or four to a row with naught but inches between them. One little bump can send them scattered across the track, and sometimes it's not even careless driving; it can be a change in the wind that forces the car to shift. Some people make fun of the sport, but it's pretty intense."

"And mortals watch this for entertainment?"

"Yeah, not sure why all the time, to be honest. But being here in the South, it's sort of a staple sport, and some people treat the Sunday races like a religious experience."

"That is strange." After Ithilwen returned to the bathroom to finish drying off and dress, Celebrian looked down at the remote in her hands and then back at the TV. Shaking her head, she pointed the remote at its mate and continued to scroll through the channels. As open as she was to new experiences in this world, watching that sort of race was not appealing at all.


Legolas shot up from his meditation in a panic, breathing heavily. Once again, he managed to successfully make everyone near him jump in alarm. Later on he would take great pleasure out of it, since everyone from family member to friend had been hovering around him, waiting for him to come out of his trance and give them good news.

"What is it? What did you see?" Aragorn asked.

The elf took some time to collect his thoughts before answering. "There were these metal carriages. It looked like it might have been some sort of race, I can't be sure. There were so many grouped together...and then one...flipped."

"Flipped?" Glorfindel asked. "As in flipped in the air?"

Legolas nodded. "For such a large carriage, it took flight like a bird, only... it landed on a carriage behind it..."

"So much for flight," the balrog slayer remarked.

"The carriage beneath it lost control from the extra weight, and many other carriages were struggling to avoid the collision. It was madness," he finished.

Elrond, who had been reading a book before the prince's outburst, looked to the wizard across the room. "Well Mithrandir? What do you make of Legolas' newest vision?"

"Haven't the foggiest."

It had been with great restraint that Legolas failed to follow that response with "Why doesn't that surprise me?". He excused himself to retire to his rooms, where he could avoid the scrutiny of everyone wondering why it was taking himself so long to find Ithilwen. 'Am I trying too hard?' His thoughts had begun to fill his days with doubt as to whether he would find her again, even going so far as to question her existence at all. 'I know for a fact that she is very much alive,' he reassured himself, 'I have a piece of her underthings to prove that! Wait-'

Was it that easy? Why had he not thought of it sooner? Legolas broke out into a run down the hall to his rooms, thoughts spinning in a new direction filled with hope. It was the only thing he had of Ithilwen's, and having it near him could help concentrate on finding her sooner.


"How do we know that Mithrandir's idea will work?" Thranduil challenged the other elven rulers that evening. "As it stands, my son appears to be nowhere near finding this elleth than he was a week ago!"

Miraear sent an apologetic look to the lord and lady of Lothlorien. "I believe there is hope," she countered in a much calmer tone. "Legolas is nothing if not persistent in his goals. He will find your granddaughter."

Celeborn still continued to throw dark looks at Thranduil even as Miraear spoke. This had not been an easy trip to Gondor, and now that the plan had been set into motion, it seemed like he couldn't get away from the Greenwood king. Each scathing remark about a lack of evidence on further agitated him as the days passed. If the king continued to keep this pattern up, he wouldn't be held accountable for his actions.

Galadriel, for once, had remained silent on the matter. She knew any attempts to diffuse the situation between her mate and the king would be met with more resistance, and thus she sat back to let them sort it out. "I believe it is Haldir that needs the reassurances," she confided in Miraear. "While I can see within your son's eyes that there is progress, I fear that my son-in-law is beginning to lose hope."

"This entire matter does make me curious as to the connection between your granddaughter and our son," the redheaded elleth mused. "Having talked to Legolas about his letters home, it almost sounds like a fëa bond, but that would be impossible! Surely!"

"The description of these instances and the effects each has felt seem to be the best answer," Galadriel agreed, "and yet, they are within separate worlds, and could very well be impossible."

Miraear sighed. "I suppose it is up to the Valar to decide for us. Until we see them together in person we can only speculate."


Esther was dreaming again.

They were happier memories this time, back when she was a mortal in the colonies. She was the oldest of the female children that was unwed for the time, and the majority of her duties involved tending to the youngest children in the village. It was a glorified babysitting job back before it was dubbed as such, but she enjoyed it. On the other hand, some of the oldest youth in the village were still young at heart.

Jack was always up to no good, whether he was active or passive. Esther always wondered if his mind ever stopped coming up with schemes. Hot or cold, rain or shine, he was either plotting or following through on some idea. She would chastise him for slacking off; being a young man of the times called for more muscle around the village than it did a fair hand like hers. Jack would always tease her back, which led to additional entertainment for the other villagers for days. Jack may have been immature at times, but Esther was just as stubborn. Arguments and teasing between them could go on for weeks if there was enough to argue over.

And yet, perhaps the best moment of these dreams was something that she held dear to her heart. It had been winter, roughly in time for the solstice. Preparations for the festivities had been underway for much of the week, with the newest additions being sprigs of little plants hung from any open doorway. If there was an open space to hang the little plants, one of the adults would find it. Esther had learned that it was a tradition for two people to exchange a kiss if they were caught underneath the plant. Not that it mattered to her; the men of the village were either too old or too young to be concerned over. Still, the afternoon that she had found the one missing in the doorway of her kitchen, she had gone to investigate.

The snow had recently stopped, covering the tracks of those that had gone out to tend to outdoor errands earlier. Except for one pair, and given the size of the foot and the accompanying smaller hole at their side, she had a good suspicion of who had been in her house. Esther followed the tracks all the way to the barn, where the horses had been put away and sheltered from the cold that night. As she had predicted, Jack was standing in the open space of the barn.

"I saw the tracks," she said, closing the door to the cold air. "Why were you in my house? Or, perhaps I should ask why you took the plant from the kitchen?"

Jack actually looked sheepish as he leaned on the old walking stick he had found. "Was it that obvious?"

"If you return the plant before dinner, no one will be the wiser."

"I will," he insisted, "Once I get what I want from taking it."

Esther rolled her eyes. "What could I possibly offer you, Jack? You know that I have nothing of value!"

"Yes you do!" He blurted it out so fast that he began to blush and fidget once he caught himself. "I just wanted...a kiss...that's all." Now he was looking anywhere but at her. "I wanted to be the first to kiss you under the mistletoe, Esther. That was why I took it."

It had been their first kiss, but it was not their last. That afternoon had been the first clue that Esther had of the dark-haired teen even showing any interest in her other than a opponent to argue with. It was also the last thing that she recalled before she had woken from the dream.

Esther sat up slowly in the bed and wiped the tears from her cheeks. 'It's getting far too normal to wake up crying,' she thought with a laugh. The upside was that these were happy tears. Of course she still missed the Jack that she grew up with as a mortal, but he was here with her. Now knowing that he hadn't rejected her impromptu kiss at all was also a reason to rejoice. There was still hope.


"What in the world was that?!"

Jack had just woken from his own nap, coincidentally dreaming about the kiss. Unfortunately for him, he didn't know anything about the girl that he had kissed in a barn. The details were quickly fading, but he could recall that she had dark hair and eyes. She was dressed in clothes similar to what his little sister had worn, so it must have been when he was human. Jack thought he had said her name once, but he couldn't even remember the first letter of it, adding to his frustrations.

It was the first significant thing he had seen from his past life since he had gotten his baby teeth back from Pitch, and already he was forgetting again. Thinking about the baby teeth made him wonder if Toothiana could help him. Surely she had been collecting the teeth then, so was it possible that she would know who the girl was?


"You called just at the right time. I just got Jack out of here."

Bernard could hear laughter on the other end of the line. "Oh, you know he's not that bad."

"Mom, he nearly kissed me on his last visit!" More laughter. "It's not funny! You know I'm straight!"

"Then why haven't you found a girl yet?" Morwen asked in a motherly tone. She had only been teasing him, and Bernard knew this. It was just too easy to ruffle his feathers, as Ithilwen had quickly found out years ago.

"Because none have caught my interest," came the standard response, and it was truth. The elf had simply not been taken with any girl he had come across, and he found his work to be more practical than any fleeting romance. "Anyway, he was explaining to me that Esther had kissed him, and just ten minutes ago he jumped through my window to tell me that he had dreamt he had kissed another girl."

"Did he like it?"

"I don't know; he didn't say- Oh come on, Mom! Please don't start quoting Katy Perry lyrics!"

"I'm sorry I heard it on the radio earlier tonight," she said, sounding anything but apologetic. "Have you talked to your sisters any lately?"

Bernard leaned back on his bed to stretch out, kicking his boots off to land elsewhere in the room. "The last time I talked to Fi was when she was on her way to Kentucky. I haven't heard from Ithilwen since the morning after her meltdown, but then I've been busy lately," he said with some guilt. "I think I'll have some free time soon; I'll get down there to Burgess to visit her."

"You might want to rethink that," Morwen said. "Ithilwen's been on a roadtrip since April. She needed to get out and do something." The sound of paper was heard being shuffled, and then she spoke again. "Right now she's down in Georgia for a renaissance festival, and next up is one of those anime conventions in Myrtle Beach. You might want to think about catching her there, mind you, the traffic is going to be nuts this time of year."

He nodded, already thinking of a plan as they continued to talk into the night. It had been too long since he had spoken to his other sister, in his opinion, and this needed to be fixed. He had prided himself on being a good older brother figure to her and Fiona when they were younger, but it seemed that he had been slacking in his duties. Bernard knew that Ithilwen was still hurting; otherwise she wouldn't have taken off on her own.