Year 103

Unede stood in the shadow of the tree's on the edge of the road and shifted her weight back and forth on her feet. An uneasy feeling washed over her and she gripped the trunk of a tree to steady herself. Her legs were weary and her shoulders ached from her pack, the wreak of nearly two hundred miles of sweat wafted from her cotton clothes.

It had been more than a century since she had last looked upon the marble gates that were carved into the stone arches. A hundred years since she had seen that smooth stone bridge lifted from the forest floor and cascaded into the walls to meet ancient pillars that soared into the mountainside like twisted stone trees.

She wrung her hands and looked up that the lofty towers of the mountain halls that lay in the peaks far beyond. Behind the gaits she knew the wide markets sprawled in the fields, and past this, cottages dotted the forest floor until the city spiraled upwards, deep into the mountain side. She recalled racing through the city to the highest tower in her youth and smiled, her father had always let her win.

Across the bridge a half dozen guards leaned on their lances. They chattered and tittered quietly between themselves and passed around half loaf of bread. The soldiers watched her casually but saw no threat in the unkempt travel weary elleth who had walked alone through the greenwood.

Unede wondered if she would be captured and thrown in the dungeons, but surely if they hadn't imprisoned her yet, it was unlikely they would do so when she approached. Tentatively, she took a step forward onto the bridge, already feeling exposed without the protection of the trees. Her stomach turned sour with another step, and she desperately wished to be high in the branches of an oak again.

The guards haphazardly readied themselves as she came closer, and took their places in front of the stone doors.

"That'll be close enough, state your business." A dark haired ellon held up a hand and blocked her way forward with his lance.

"I uh…" her tongue stilled in her mouth and she shifted uneasily again.

"What's a Noldo like you doing in these parts." Another said briskly as he set his hand on the blade that sat at his hips.

"I'm Silvan." She stumbled over her words. "I..I live here."

"Not with that hair you aren't." The guard laughed.

"Oh aye, there's Vanyar blood in this one." Another said.

"I've never seen her here. Her home isn't in these halls." The first one spat

"What's your name child." Another said from behind the pillar. He looked up from the dagger he was sharpening and met her blue eyes with his hard brown ones.

"Oh, Celduin send her away, that's a Lothlorien knife on her belt. Call for some bread from the kitchens, and put her back on the road to where she belongs."

"Hush Daeron. Speak your name child or I shall do as this one says." Celduin said to her.

Unede bit her lip and shook off her fear. She hadn't come all this way just to be sent back southward.

"Gelmiriel." She said quickly. "My father called me Itarilde. He-"

"There are a dozen Gelmir's in these hall's and none of them have a daughter called Itarilde." Daeron snapped. "I'll send for the bread."

"Hush, horseman, this is why we keep you in the stables." Celduin waved him off and approached Unede slowly. He looked her up and down and offered a gentle smile. "Open the gates. I'll take her to the King, and we will see what he has to say about this business."

The other's gave little protest but rolled their eyes and did as the captain had ordered. The gate's opened slowly, and the grinding of stone against stone edchoed through the mountains and tree's shudder. Unede stood motionless and watched as the Captain waved his men back into position, and then guided her gently forward through the dark arch towards the King's halls.

They walked silently through gates and down a slick stone path carved with a thousand thousand leaves, and Unede gulped at the memory of her father galloping his horse down these same stones for the last time. A shudder of sadness ran through her, and she wiped a tear from her cheek.

"No need to cry little one, they aren't as bad as they seem." Celduin offered her a handkerchief. She smiled meekly at him and dried her face. They had stopped near the end of road before a second set of gates, and Unede knew soon it would open wide to reveal a meadow that bustled with elves under the summer sun. She didn't want to be remembered as the crying child, and she appreciated the Captain sparing her of that mark.

"The last time I saw my father he rode down this hall towards his doom." She said quietly and handed the cloth back to Celduin.

"So many of us did." He was quiet for a moment, and then ordered the second gates to be open in a series of nocks. They rumbled apart, and hot sunlight poured onto their faces.

A few hopeful elves gazed upon the doors, their eyes searched eagerly for their family to come home from scouting, or a hunt. But soon Unede, and Celduin were forgotten, and they disappeared onto the streets, and wound their way down the grassy field past the markets, and over the thin valley rivers. Unede watched the ladies play with the foals, and the smiled at the children who laughed as they rolled in the sun. She remembered when her own father had taught her to ride in this field, and how her mother anointed her with a crown of summer flowers.

"I knew Gelmir." Captain Celduin spoke and broke her train of thought. "I trained with him. Those guards at the gate are too young to remember. Half our army is as green as the spring." He cursed and led her up the streets towards high marble halls of the wood elves.

"I can't promise you that the King will let you in though. Do you have any family here I can call on to vouch for you?"

"My Uncle Olwe, and his wife my Aunt Indis."

"Hum" Celduin grunted. "I sent him on southern patrol a month ago. I will call him back though." He was quiet for a moment. They turned and walked out of the sunlight and into an open hall that twisted its way into the mountain. "The bow master, I think he knew Gelmir, he can vouch for you too. I shall call him up as well."

"Vouch, what do you mean vouch. Is there a test of loyalty to come home."

"There is when you are the grandchild of Galadriel. The Noldor are not our allies any longer child."

"But I know Thranduil." Gelmir raised an eyebrow at her casual address of the King.

"You knew him, but our King isn't the same anymore. Not after the battle."

Unede nodded and silently they entered the doors of the castle. She looked up at the sun filled entrance hall. Green vines climbed the marble pillars, and flowers bloomed along the windows. She remembered the gardens to her left and right and heard the laughter of children and whispering of happy trees. But she was soon rushed up the stairs to the higher halls, deeper into the bowels of the mountain. Together they walked through the twisting corridors, until she lost her sense of direction, but, finally, they came to stand before the study of the King. She looked at herself and wondered if she should have asked to change into the dress she had brought. But Celduin had already called for them to be announced, and before she could gather herself the wooden doors cracked open and she was pushed into the study of King Thranduil.

It was the first time she had ever seen him as the King. He stood at his desk in robes of crimson velvet and wore the branching crown of Oropher as if it were a burden upon his brow. She saw too though, the flowers from the entry hall dotted his hair, and smiled, he had continued the tradition. Perhaps his heart was softer than the Captain let on.

"Hum, Gelmiriel. Little Itarilde, my you have grown." He whispered as he looked her over, and set down his quill. "What message do you carry to me little one. What does my cousin, King Amroth, trust to a child."

"I carry no message." She said. "I came to serve you, as my father served your father. I came home."

The King looked at her and shook his head "You have come home hmm. You have had most of your year's in Rivendell if I count correctly. We don't trust your kind here. Go back to the Galadriel, I do not let children in our army."

"That's not what I saw at the gates." Unede spoke without thinking. The King looked at her harshly but did not respond to her cutting words.

"Her Uncle Olwe, one of my wardens can vouch for her. As can the bow master." Celduin stepped forward to meet the King. "We both knew Gelmir-"

"We knew him, but we owe his memory no favors, save for courtesy." The King replied solemnly. "Send her to a guest chamber, feed her and bath her, and set a guard on her. When I have spoken with those who support her entry into my Kingdom, then we will decide if she will stay or go."

Celduin reached for Unede's arm but she ripped it away from his grasp and cast her harsh eyes on the King.

"You knew me too!" She said desperately. "And you knew a child who loves this forest, and you let my mother rip me away from it. I returned when I was allowed with my second cycle. I am not a child anymore, and I mean to serve you be it in the dungeons or the trees."

The King observed her carefully, and saw the desperation that filled her eyes. The forest had sung for her when she entered his Kingdom, the leaves of the trees around her shook with excitement and the waters glittered when she crossed them. He had felt her arrival before she had made it a league down the old road. The forest loved its young friend, but he would not trust her for the tree's. Not when Rivendell had become silent to their letters. Not when an heir of Finarfin had shown up unannounced in the hall of the King.

The elleth interrupted the King's thoughts again as she pulled her muddy bag from her shoulders and dug through the scant contents. "I need not anyone to vouch for me to prove my devotion to this Kingdom." She sent the King an angry look. The Captain glanced desperately to Thranduil for guidance, but the King only tipped his head and watched her with curiosity.

"Behold," Itarilde pulled from the bag an oiled cloth. She approached the Kings desk hotly and placed the bundle before him then lifted her chin. "A mighty gift from Yavanna, mine by rights, to bring glory to your Kingdom Your Majesty."

The King took the parcel delicately and knew already what its contents held, and he felt his limbs grow nervous. He knew three things then as he unwrapped the emerald stone that was bound on the breast of a silver eagle. The first was that Galadriel had been given this stone upon the return of Mithrandir to middle earth, for her to bare and give to whom she chose. The second was that it was rumored that she would no longer give to the stone to her eldest daughter Laurebrian, and instead would gift it to her younger child when she wed the Lord Elrond. And lastly he saw before him a child who was willing to sacrifice everything for the success of his Kingdom and the safety of its people, and that in her he would have an ally worth more than any sunlit stone.