It has been thirty years since the attack at the Havens of Sirion and Elanor muses over the strange—if slightly skewed in time—parallels between this new life where she is peredhel and her old life as a muggle-born witch.

In a very odd way, she is comforted by the knowledge that she will straddle two worlds in this life (however long it will last) as she did in her past one. Being peredhel, she has come to realize, is a strange mix of heightened senses, but growing quickly, and that does not even add in magic inherited both by the blood of Melian the Maia, Queen of Doriath, and the magic adhered to her very soul which came with her, if somewhat altered.

It had become quickly apparent, not long after Maedhros and Maglor had taken her and the twins from Sirion, that she would have to tell them of her magic and explain it all to them. Accidental magic still happened to her, child's body that she'd had once more, and so even though the outbursts were not as often as they'd been when she'd occupied a mortal's body—nor as varied, thankfully—the blood of Melian had added something to her, as well as changed her magic in some ways she still hadn't figured out.

She wondered how long it would take for her to do so.

Thankfully, she'd grown at the rate of Men in this world and her accidental magic had mellowed out soon enough. Now, at eighteen years old in body, she was once more in control of her magic, even if she still needed to train it and learn more of what she could and could not do wandless.

After the very long, very trying, and quite frankly annoying conversations—as neither Maedhros nor Maglor were inclined to believe what appeared to them the fancies of a small toddler, even if she spoke more like an adult than any child they'd ever met before—Maedhros had lamented that his nephew Celebrimbor was unreachable, as he'd probably be the only one still alive to think up and craft a suitable focus for Elanor and her magic.

She'd set to practicing wandless magic right away, and the results were not coming along as quickly as she'd hoped. Half-elven bodies, though they matured at the rate of men, did not mature in their non-mortal gifts of power at the rate of men. So Elanor was frustrated, quite reasonably so—there was war being waged all throughout the land and her magic may one day be the deciding factor of her and her twins' survival.

As she sat upon a high wall of a mountain balcony in Belegost where the Fëanorionnath had taken her and her brothers after leaving Amon Ereb, Elanor gazed upon the star which had risen twenty some years ago. The star which was a Silmaril and which her birth father in this world carried as he flew through unreachable space. She felt more than heard someone come to stand beside her, though she did not look over to him.

"You should be resting," came the voice of Maedhros. "We begin a hard journey tomorrow." The journey which was necessary and fraught with all kinds of danger as they would be flying across war-torn Beleriand towards where the commanders of the Host of Valinor were camped. Morgoth had taken over nearly every part of Beleriand, and though the Fëanorian host still alive had kept safe till now, it was time to move on before they became well and truly trapped. Even Belegost was not so safe anymore.

"I doubt I will be able to fall asleep at all if I haven't already," Elanor shrugged. "There is a large part of me that wishes we did not have to leave Belegost, though I know it is, ironically, the safest place we can go to now. Everyone is fighting. We will be left out no longer."

"It will still be a terribly dangerous journey to get there," Maedhros said as he sat beside her. "And you three may not end up staying there either, if I know your brothers as well as I think I do."

Elanor smiled wryly. "You'd best not tell them you plan for us to stay with them at all until you all leave like thieves in the night," she said, though she winced at the description. That probably hit too close to home for him.

If he was bothered, it didn't show when Elanor snuck a glance his way. He wasn't even looking at her, but at the Silmaril star. "It grieves us, Maglor even more, to send you three away," he murmured. "You have become our children in all but blood. Yes, even you Elanor, strange as your fate has been, living once and having been reborn, your years would still not put you at your majority if you were of wholly elven decent."

Elanor snorted. "You forget I was an adult before I occupied a child's body once more."

"My point still stands," Maehdros said. "We have taught you three how to defend yourselves with sword and bow, and you are all proficient, if lacking the long years of battle experience. And no, the skirmishes you have participated in are not battle."

"I am not too eager to ride into battle," Elanor remarked. "Unlike the boys, I have been to war before, though you're right. I have not seen war like this. Still, I know well enough that war is terrible. I did die, remember."

Maedhros did wince at that. "So you said. We would not have you die a second time." He paused, as if debating whether to say something or not. "Unlike Elrond and Elros, who may go to the Halls of Mandos or not, we do not know what your fate would be, where your Fëa would flee to. Would you stay in this world? Or would you fly to yet another universe as your soul fled to this one, to be reborn yet again to another race of beings?"

Elanor closed her eyes, because he was right about that musing. "I do not know. I would like to think, after everything I have learned and what I know, that Eru would listen to the wishes of my heart, and that I would either go to the Halls or pass beyond the circles of the world to Him. I had no such desires in that previous life, nor, truly, any such beliefs. I had faith in magic and magic alone. I suppose the best comparison here would be to having faith in the Song of the Music. But even that feels slightly off to me, Maiaran blood that now flows through my veins."

"Can you Hear the Song?" he asked, tone curious. "Can Elrond or Elros?"

"Sometimes," she admitted quietly, casting him a quick glance, unsure of what she should say. They had never spoken of this, not really. And then, well Maglor would have been the one to speak to, not Maedhros. But there was something about it being Maedhros instead of Maglor—who had been seeped in song of a different kind from childhood—which made Elanor think he would understand beter. "Sometimes I hear strains of what I think, what I believe is the Song." She shook her head. "But it is hard to tell in truth, my magic is so…so loud compared to it. Elrond hears it better, I believe, even if what he hears are mere strains. Elros?" Elanor shrugged. "Who can say. I think he feels it a bit, if not hears it."

"It is strange," he said, "to see such children with such gifts. Especially so far from—"

"No stranger than you or Maglor being able to use Songs of Power to grow food, or raise rivers, or call forth light," cut him off, because she was not about to let him finish that thought and get lost in memories and pain and…Elanor did not like the Fëanorionnath, but she had come to love them in her own way, even if it was different than her brothers, who had come to view them as fathers of a sort.

Elanor had never needed a father. She, unlike the twins, had memories of a father, even if it wasn't the same father who'd sailed to Valinor to plead for aid and became a star sailing the night sky. The Fëanorionnath were more like…older brothers, or uncles of a sort to her. But she called them father just the same, as the twins would have found it strange otherwise. Maedhros and Maglor understood, however, that when she said Atya she truly meant uncle.

"Indeed," Maedhros snorted. "Perhaps we are all strange to each other in that case."

"I'll take any kind of strangeness, from anyone," Elanor murmured, "if it helps keep us alive."

"Practical," he said, and the single word felt nearly like praise for a reason she could not quite fathom.