Disclaimer: This is a work of fanfiction. I do not own any of the character, places, names, or anything associated with the works of J.R.R Tolkien or the Lord of the Rings (books or movie, whatever). My characters are Anita, Leila, and Arlandria and that is all.
Author's Note: I'm sure you guys are eager so just bear with me, our favorite Elf prince will be showing up in a few chapters.
Chapter 3: Alice
Ani sat on that giant fluffy bed in silence for a long time, staring at the note in her hand from her mother assuring her that what she saw around her was real. The words she had heard earlier bounced around in her head, Middle Earth her father had called it, and Gandalf had said there was no way back to Tucson from here. That really raised more questions than it answered, like where the hell is this place? And how the hell did they end up here? Better questions yet, if this is where her mother and father were from, how did she grow up in Tucson?
Anita didn't know how long someone had been knocking at the door for, but she had only just tuned into it. Laying the letter on the night stand next to her bed, Ani slid off the raised mattress and shuffled over to the door. She had expected to see her twin when she opened it, standing there looking just and confused and lost as Ani felt, but it wasn't Leila. A young girl in a flowing sage green dress was there instead.
"Milady," the girl said and gave a small curtsey, "dinner is served and the lords await you in the dining hall."
The two stared at each other for a long pregnant moment before Anita finally addressed her, "What the hell did you just say?" The girl was clearly startled by the question and took a step back in shock before recovering her composure.
"Please follow me," and she turned and starting walking away before Anita could protest. Closing her bedroom door behind her, Anita jogged to catch up to the young girl who was already several paces ahead of her. Anita couldn't help but notice that this girl had the same natural grace in the way she walked just like Arwen had, and footsteps just as quiet. Was everyone here trained as a ballerina or something?
Following the girl through different hallways, Anita had tried to pay attention and get used to where she was going and acclimate herself to the new surroundings, but after about two minutes and as many hallways, Anita was confused and lost and glad someone was showing her the way. The artistry that had gone into designing the architecture was truly amazing. Someone had taken the time to carve vines and leaves into the moldings and crowning of every single doorway, a feat that must have taken years to complete. With her head turned upward to marvel at the work, Anita nearly bumped into the girl who had come to a stop in front of an open archway. She didn't say anything, she simply gestured through the door bowed her head and walked away. Ani just shook her head at the peculiarity of the encounter, people here sure were weird.
Ducking through the doorway, Anita was let into a large open room complete with a balcony and pillars. Nearly the entire left side of the room was an open window that let out onto the balcony. Centered in the middle of the room was a table where Leila was already seated and involved in a lively conversation with Gandalf…and her family. Ani stopped and marveled at the way Lei was so comfortable with this group of people, as if she hadn't lived the first eighteen years of her life without them. Elladan saw her lurking in the doorway and stood up to welcome her to the table.
"Anita, "God he sounded too cheery, "please some join us." And he gestured to an open seat directly across from Lei. As she slowly shuffled to her chair, Ani dared a look out the giant window and took in the landscape. Based on the limited view, she could see they were in a valley or maybe a ravine, with a large gushing waterfall, and beyond that there was lush green forest.
"It is very different than your home, is it not?" Elrond's, her grandfather she corrected herself, his question drew her attention away from the window and back to the group that was waiting or her.
"It's very green…and wet," The words stupidly tumbled out of her mouth before she could stop herself. Not that she really wants to impress these people with her wit and humor but no one wants to sounds like a dodo bird. She sat at the large heavy table across from her twin and looked down at the plate full of snap peas, potatoes, and squash. With a sigh she looked across at her twin, hoping to find a reflection of her own confusion and general befuddlement in her sister. No such luck.
"Ani it is so amazing!" Leila's excitement only deflated Anita more. "I have been picking at Gandalf's brain about where we are and you won't' even believe this! Based on what he has told me, we are in a temporal paradox… a parallel universe!" She clarified when she got blank look from her sister. "There is a bridge that connects the universe we grew up in with his one and only wizards here like Gandalf can find it, that's why mom had him come get us to bring us here. So this is just another world whose existence runs parallel to ours!"
The more Lei spoke, the less hungry and sicker Ani became. Wizards? Parallel universes? A temporal what? Had it not been for that letter from her mother, Anita probably would have just thrown herself off the balcony in an attempt to get out of this nightmare.
"There is much that you still do not even know." Elladan took over when Leila's excited jibber jabber came to a halt. "You grew up in a world that was completely human, in a world where only humans existed. But neither of you is human. We, "He gestured to himself, Gandalf, and Elrond "believe that since your world was entirely human and that is where you began life that you have grown up these first eighteen years as a human. Now that you have returned to Middle Earth and the rightful home of your people, you should start to develop the traits of our people that are your birth right."
"Our people?" Leila asked a little too eagerly, honestly Anita was glad her twin had asked because there was a growing lump in her throat that would have made it impossible for her to talk.
"Elves." Elrohir said plainly as if it were the obviously fact on the planet.
"Elves? What does that mean elves?"
"You are children of the Eldar." The twins were quickly learning that Elrohir was a man of few words.
"Yeah that clears that right up," Anita snarled sarcastically. But even as she said it, she took notice of a small detail she had never noticed about the man claiming to be her father. His ears. They all had pointed ears, save for Anita and Leila and Gandalf. Leila seemed to notice this detail at the same time and the twins locked eyes over the table.
"Birth defect." They said in unison. Leila of course was generous enough clarify the point with the others sitting at the table. "Our mother's ears were pointed just like yours, but when we were younger and had asked about them, our mom said her ears were pointed because she had a birth defect. She always tried to cover them with her hair."
"I can assure you child it is no 'birth defect', it a distinctive marker of our people. Along with long life and naturally heightened senses, these should begin to develop now that you are here."
"Long life?" Anita finally spoke up. "What do you mean long life? How old are you?"
Elladan considered her question before turning to his brother Elrohir for consensus, "Well we must be nearing our 3,000th winter."
Anita immediately burst into hysterical and uncontrollable nervous fits of laughter. Leila looked embarrassed for her sister's sake and Ani continued to have shaking fits of laughter. "No fucking way dude." She finally spit out before chuckles.
"My estimate may be a few years different but not by much," The serious look on Elladan's face seem to deflate her nervous laughter almost instantly.
"How long is a year here?" Ani looked to Gandalf for the answer.
"Three hundred and sixty-five days child."
"Elves age at a far slower progression than a human does, it is only because you were born in a human world that you have aged as you have. Were you born here, you would still be a small child at your eighteenth birthday." Elrond's explanation didn't do much to make the information easier to swallow.
"Gosh, how old is mom?" Leila hadn't seemed to be asking that question at any one person in particular, but Elladan answered her anyway.
"Arlandria? She was nearly 2,000 and five hundred when last we met." He was rewarded with two blank looks from his children.
"Arlandria?"
"Yes that…that is your mother's name." There was long moment of silence that followed his statement.
"Andrea." Leila finally whispered very quietly. "In our world she called herself Andrea. Andrea Rodriguez." By the tone in her twin's voice, Ani knew that Leila was at least feeling the same level of confusion about this that she was. So their mother was an Elf named Arlandria who had lived in a parallel universe called Middle Earth but gave birth to her daughters in Tucson? Anita now realized she literally knew nothing about the woman who gave birth to and raised her, except the life of lies she had built.
"So everything was a lie." Really she was talking to the squash that lay untouched on her plate but Elladan took it as a statement directed at him.
"Do you now understand why it was impossible for me to be a part of your life in your world?" Anita could see Leila nod is response to Elladan's questions, so forgiving like always. But Anita would be damned to let him off the hook so easily.
"No, no I don't." And she turned her angry glare from the squash to her father. "I can understand why mom lied, her at least as trying to protect and give us a normal life. But you? You could have come to see us at any time and tell us the truth about who you were. You chose to wait, and let me tell you this would have been a lot easier to live with if you had told me when I was like seven instead of waiting until I had reached adulthood to tell me my life was a lie!"
"Life here will not be so different or difficult after a time." Elrond was trying to soothe her, using a voice like she was a hurt dog, and that only pissed her off more.
"Fuck this place. I'm staying for the summer and then I am going back to Tucson to live out my normal human life and pretend like none of this happened."
"What will you do though?" Anita's impatience to forget the information just fed to her seemed to shock Elladan slightly.
"Ani is an artist; she is going to UA's fine art college." Leila pounced on the opportunity to change the subject away from the heaviness of their paternal heritage.
"An artist? What is your medium?" Elrond's enthusiasm at this news made is obvious that Anita's natural love of art had in fact been a genetic thing.
"The blood of small children." She snapped angrily. The sound of Leila's foot colliding solidly with Anita's shin under the table resonated as a dull *thump* followed by Ani grimacing in pain.
"She is amazing with paint but her charcoal sketches are unparalleled."
"Leila is going to be a doctor." Ani was quick to change the attention from herself back over to her twin, and if she thought that her art got a big to-do, Leila's natural smarts and inclination towards healing practically earned her a parade. Apparently their grandfather was some kind of world-renowned healer, and that turned the conversation is a direction Ani knew nothing about and couldn't have cared less. Lei was the smart one, medicine and science was her thing, Ani just didn't have desire to learn about it. Instead she pushed the food around her dinner plate and her twin and her new found grandfather engaged in a lively conversation about natural healing methods. She wasn't hungry, not even a little bit, but Ani knew herself well enough that if she didn't eat now she would be hungry at like two a.m., so she forced a few bites of potato down and nibbled at the sugar snap peas. She was at the dinner table with her father, uncle, aunt, and grandfather listening to her twin jabber on about medicinal uses of mold. She really had fallen down the rabbit hole. Unlike Alice in the Disney movie though, Anita knew she wasn't going to wake up at this point from a strange dream and continue on with life.
The meal wound down; with Leila and the family conversing and Anita sitting there silently praying this was going to end soon. She hadn't realized the sun had gone down and how dark it was out until Arwen finally suggested that the girls be allowed to go to sleep since they had a long day.
"Oh but I still have so many questions," Leila was actually disappointed the meal had come to an end, Anita was halfway out of her seat and trying to remember which door led her the hell out of this room.
"We will have time to answer them all. Until then I do believe that Arwen is right and you require some sleep." As soon as Leila stood up she reached over and gave their father a hug.
"Good night dad." Elladan hugged his daughter back and then glanced over her shoulder to look at Ani, an expression of mild expectation on his face.
"Yeah not gonna happen." Ani's simple reply to his look changed his facial features into one of almost hurt. Turning to leave, Ani let out a yelp of surprise when she nearly ran into the young girl who had led her here in the first place. The girl's quiet footsteps had allowed her to sneak into the room undetected by Anita, much like the twins' mother had during their early years. As Leila finished hugging the family and wishing everyone a good night the young girl turned to lead the duo back to their rooms. The walk back was filled with Leila's excited chatter about this or that, Ani wasn't really paying attention, not having the energy to partake in Lei's excitement.
As soon as they had reached a hallway Anita recognized, she bee lined it for her bedroom door. She didn't wait for the young girl to bow and leave, she didn't even wish her sister a good night. She knew without looking that Lei would be wearing that same expression of hurt that Elladan had been wearing not five minutes ago when Anita refused to hug him. It had been the twins little ritual for several years now, that right before bed they would sit together in one or the other's room and talk about the day. But Anita didn't have the strength in her for that tonight, besides what could they talk about? Hey can you believe our entire lives have been a series of lies? Nope, Anita would pass on that.
Closing the heavy door behind her and pushing the sliding wooden locking mechanism into place, Anita didn't even bother to undress before sliding into bed. She merely kicked off her skater sneakers and slid under the heavy down comforter, pulling it entirely over her head and snuggling into the heat. And even as the silent tears slowly slipped down her pale cheeks, she was thankful for the stifling heat the comforter offered, giving her something to remind her of home.
Alice- Avril Lavigne