AN: And probably the last chapter until after easter since tomorrow i shall be going to camp in a castle (yes, a real life 800/900 year old castle, Framlingham castle to be precise) until easter monday when i shall be coming home in the evening probably quite late. We shall be re-enacting King John's Seige of Framlingham and I have my new pretty bell sleeved dress! Not that I'm excited or anything, even if it will piss it down all weekend.

Chapter 34

It was in 2460 that Thranduil's spies brought him back unwelcome news. Upon see the reports, he immediately sent a mind message to Riona that he needed all of the elfin rulers present in dreams that night.

Thranduil stood with an arm round Erywen, looking solemn as the assorted lords, ladies and maia gathered. Ingwë, when he arrived, immediately came over to Thranduil and put a hand on his shoulder. The younger blond looked up.

"You know?" The high king nodded.

"The perks of being friendly with deities." Thranduil nodded before rising to address the collected elves, seeing everyone there. Every single elf, maia and mixture stared at him solemnly.

"The watchful peace has been broken, Dol Guldur is once more occupied." Celeborn and Galadriel looked particularly grim at the news and Riona, watching on from the corner, could see him gathering up his pride.

"My thanks for the warning, King Thranduil." He took a deep breath. "Shall we arrange a method of collating information?" Oropher, from his place between Riona and his wife smiled. He had learnt to get over his utter dislike of the other doriathin elf in Mandos's halls but Celeborn had never had that opportunity and it clearly took a lot of effort on his part to get over himself enough, even with Oropher's son.

XXX

It was a few decades later that Riona was summoned to the palace of the Lord of the Valar. Riona looked at the summons debating whether to go - she doubted she'd ever receive a summons like that without responding with a heavy dose of suspicion. The messenger looked at her and bit his lip before speaking.

"I don't think this is the time to try and be annoying, My Lord looked rather shell shocked when he sent this request so I do not think whatever it is about is part of his plans but something he cannot control but has to abide by." Riona raised an eyebrow at the messenger, who shrugged. "I cannot say more for I do not know more, the previous was pure speculation. I do know he would not just order you for you are a maia of Eru and no-one is foolish enough to order those aligned with the one only." Eyebrow still raised, Riona nodded.

XXX

When she reached the palace she was informed that it was not a Valar waiting for her but the One himself.

Once in the room, Riona sank into a deep curtsey in front of Eru. Not even she was going to be anything but utterly respectful to that deity.

Eru had 'borrowed' Manwë's sitting room for the meeting and what, for lack of a better description, was a solidification of His presence was somehow achieving being sprawled across one of the chairs languidly. Considering he had manifested as a mostly featureless and vaguely humanoid shaped light source, Riona was somewhat impressed by his ability to sprawl. Obviously, she didn't say this out loud. She suspected Eru knew anyway but manners are manners.

"Well met, Riona, take a seat." Still more than baffled by actually being summoned by Eru of all people, she did what she was told and waited. After several moments of Eru 'staring' at her, the deity got round to the point – as much as that could describe the conversation which was more of a lecture with no introduction.

"When Morgoth pulled you and your nephew across worlds he was not very neat about it. If some one stood at the area at which you two either started or ended up at with enough belief, amongst other conditions, then they can come across the divide to the other world." He paused as a thought occurred to Riona on that point. Eru clearly read her mind. "The nature of the portal is not overly precise, while you have to start at one end of the original portal created when Morgoth ripped reality itself, once you are in it you do not necessarily come out in the same space. You and Daffyd were taken from different areas but arrived in the same space. As such, it is entirely possible to arrive in an entirely different place. If he had not taken you from two different areas this would not have been the case.

Eru paused, seeing she didn't entirely get what he was saying.

"A simple if not entirely accurate description would be that to take the both of you from different areas he had to open the portal wide so that you would both arrive at the same time and place adding a sideways component. That sideways component applies to both ends of the portal for arrival and without someone guiding the transfer then a person coming through could be flung wide." Riona blinked, still only sort of getting it. "Think of a wall. You are trying to grab something on the other side. There is a small hole you can reach through. Put your arm through it to grab the thing. You only have a small range to reach for but it is very easy to predict, when it comes through where it will come through. Now widen that hole to give yourself a wider range. If you are reaching through and guiding the object it is still easy to tell where it will come through but swap that for throwing something through instead. With the small hole it is harder to get something through when thrown but you can predict where it will come through and land very easily but this is not so for the large hole, especially since, once through there are a number of different angles to object can go through."

"The former version with the large hole is what Morgoth did with you and Daffyd, he made a hole and widened it to take the pair of you and then left a large hole there. This analogy doesn't cover a number of the conditions of course and doesn't explain why you have to start at the same point on either side but does explain how the arrival point is so varied. This is important since someone has come through the divide. That is to say from your world to this one. It would be impossible to go the other way any more since the entrance point from this side is many miles below the sea. Thankfully, due to the portal being so wide the person coming across did not end up in the middle of the sea but instead in the human lands of Arda."

Riona paused as she took this in then looked hard at the deity before answering.

"This is why you wanted to talk to me, isn't it? The person that has come across from my world. I'm the only one who knows enough about it, since Daffyd was but a small child when he came across." Riona got the sense of a wry smile being directed her way.

"I want you to find them. For reasons that will become clear when you do find them, I have granted them the status of Maia as well. This you will need to explain to them, as well as the fact their presence is partly to compensate for failures in the plans of the Valar to help keep Sauron at bay, as your family is generally there to adjust the way things would have gone. No particular event has happened but a little word here, an adjustment of events there, the character changes that resulted have all had their effects. Though it was accidental that this new person came across and yours and your nephew's arrivals were not part of the original music I have taken you as new themes which counter the disharmony caused by Morgoth and Sauron and this new theme added by a new person will assist in improving this movements grand finale and lessen the darkness within."

Riona blinked. She had heard the elfin creation story involving singing the world into existence but hearing the one who had done so use that metaphor was slightly different. She did rather like the concept of being a new theme in the celestial song. She was about to ask for more information on how to find this new person when Eru smiled at her and answered the question – sort of.

"You will have to physically visit Arda rather than just search through dreams. You will know the person when you see them, it should be rather obvious. You may, if you wish, take Daffyd with you but I do not believe it will be very helpful to you, do not bring any maia created by the Valar, they will be counter productive. You may call on any born maia or any of your rather extended family but only you will be able to tell this person is the one you want." Unable to help herself, Riona raised an eyebrow at him, asking for something a bit more helpful than that. Eru gave her a beatific smile that told her he had no intention of being any more help than that.

XXX

"So let me get this right, on Eru's orders, you are just going to pootle round the human parts of Arda until you accidentally bump into someone who, when you do, you'll recognise?" Daffyd asked incredulously. Knowing it would irritate Daffyd. Riona just nodded.

"Yup." Daffyd sighed, rolling his eyes expressively.

"Why you?"

"Because I'm apparently the only one who would recognise them, which means someone from our world and presumably one I've met before. You can't because you were only a child when we left and most likely won't remember them even if you had met them before." The maia raised a hand to his head and kneaded his brow.

He wasn't the only one who looked unhappy. Riona had trained to fight as much as the rest of them but the last time she had spent more than a few hours in Arda in one go had been during the war of Wrath. The other thing worrying them was the term 'human' – that is to say she would be in the human part of Arda. Even the assorted parts of the Court of Insanity who spent time outside the elfin realms pretty much stuck to the dunedain. Not one of them liked the idea of their matriarch going into the proverbial Terra Incognita. Riona wasn't nearly as worried as the rest of them and was beginning to get a little frustrated.

"Look, this isn't some god arranged suicide mission, it's a little road trip round the human lands. You all know I can fight, I can cook as well and, just encase you forgot, I grew up with humans as a human. I understand the species better than any of you ever could – I know what it is like to be one and I most definitely have not forgotten. Stop trying to wrap me in cotton wool. If it makes you feel better you can use the watching spell to keep an eye on me but leave me alone to do as Eru has ordered for goodness sake!" They reared back in surprise. In all the many thousands of years Riona had been in Arda or Valinor, no-one has ever see her lose her temper. Get vindictive, cry, any other range of emotions but not actually lose her temper. It shocked them enough to shut them up.

XXX

The chieftain of the Dunadain examined the newly appeared lady in front of him. The group of young elves the occasionally ran with his people had informed him that another of their number was coming to Arda for a quest given to her by Eru himself and requesting assistance where possible for the lady.

The first bit of assistance was in the form of somewhere to port into. Though it was usual for people coming to stay in Arda to go via ship, everyone agreed the Riona's return should be kept quiet and thus to the human realms as much as possible. Thus it was decided that Riona would magically travel in to the Angle and start her search there. A small, trusted group of Dunadain would help secure the location she arrived at.

The group had all been told exactly who would be arriving they had been more than curious. The legend of the red haired beauty who had haunted Elendil's dreams after the fall of Numenor had stayed with the nobility of both Gondor and Arnor, reinforced by her equally beautiful daughter arriving, in full plate armour, with aid for the newly displaced race and then her later involvement in the muster in Imladris. The fight with her father, the husband of this lady was also a long surviving legend. To say the least, they were a combination of star struck and very curious.

When she arrived they weren't sure if she fulfilled their image of the legend or not. She was indeed beautiful beyond anything they had ever seen before – they could not believe that she had spent the first twenty or so years of her life as a human. All in leather, she seemed to very much the warrior image that the little information they had on her husband and daughter would suggest but the style was like none they had seen before. The leather jerkin she wore fitted to her figure well and had a sort of skirt to it, a few inches above knee length at front and mid calf length at back with a wide swing to it that would make it billow out behind her as she walked or rest elegantly behind her if she were to ride a horse. On her legs were mid brown, soft leather hose which tucked into over the knee boots that had a number of strap ties, though the leather was stiffened.

Round her waist were a sword and a lang seax (an odd weapon, they thought, most people generally used daggers nowadays). Over her back was a large leather quiver and a recurve bow clearly designed to usable from horseback as well as foot. No-one thought those were her only weaponry, and that was not counting the fact she'd brought two horses with her, one loaded with supplies and the other clearly to be ridden, complete with another sword of the variety only used by heavy horse cavalry, blade nearly as long as its owner was tall and with a huge two handed grip. The lady must be far stronger than she looked to wield a weapon such as that.

She rode with them for several weeks (in the process proving that she could indeed wield the huge, vicious blade attached to her saddle in a skirmish against orcs where she had more than once split the creatures from head to abdomen with the blade) before crossing the mountain southwards to travel through Gondor.

XXX

Riona smiled as she watched the sunset, for the first time on her own in Arda.

It had been nice spending time with the Dunadain. They were very little like the humans she had grown up around but still a personable lot. All the same it was also nice to alone.

She was pretty sure she had shocked them more than once, especially with her two handed blade. It was a weapon she had picked up from her husband, who favoured huge blades and didn't see why her being female meant she shouldn't be using a sword of a similar height to herself. Of course, for Eönwë, the blade was more than a foot shorter than him but he was around seven foot tall, Riona barely scratched six foot after being made a maia. The blade was five foot long with another half a foot for the grip.

Riona shook herself out of her musings and grinned as she realised that she probably looked like the subject of a painting. Nothing like sitting elegantly on a horse, long red hair blowing behind her in the wind in a vaguely inspiring way with some beautiful scenery involving mountains and rolling hills.

Well, if she was going to spend goodness knows how long running round Arda she might as well do it looking cool. Absently she resisted the temptation to get her horse to rear for the awesome factor.

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AN2: And an nice long chapter with some suitably godlike stuff in it. Hopefully the Eru stuff wasn't too complicated - as for any musical references, if you didn't get why they are there go look up the story of the creation of Arda. In simple terms, according to Tolkien, Eru sung Arda into existence, morgoth added discords to the tune and thus brought in evil etc. and yes it is all one big music metaphor that i decided to expropriate since hey, its canon, and i like my philosophy and metaphor - goodness I did do a part philosophy degree at Uni and thus am inclined toward slightly windy metaphysical explanations.

On the other hand, you are about to get some really interesting stuff where i (finally) fill in some back story.