A/N. Again, I would like to thank IthilNaur for her reviews and endless encouragement.

Disclaimer- Of course, I'm not Tolkien, just a fangirl determined to tell the tale of her avatar ;)

Chapter 3

Elrond, leaning back in his chair at the head of the table in the family's private dining hall, smiled bemusedly at his twin sons as they tried to reason with Glorfindel about the archery competition that afternoon. They had recently put their pranking skills to use, and on no other than the Balrog-Slayer, who, as it turned out, was not entirely amused to find his sword solidly glued into its sheath just as he was about to compete against Haldir of Lothlorien.

Needless to say, where Haldir found the entire thing immensely funny, Glorfindel was extremely angry. After he had gotten over his fury, he had promised the twins that they would regret ever participating in the archery competition.

So Elladan and Elrohir were anxiously trying to pacify the Captain of the Imladris Warriors.

"But Glorfy," Elrohir whined, giving Glorfindel the sad, baby-eyes look that melted the hearts of even the frigid, unfriendly maidens. "But, Glorfy, it was just for fun..."

Elladan nodded. "We didn't know it would get *that* stuck!"

"We didn't know it would hurt anything." Elrohir's eyes now somehow looked similar to a doe's- big, sad, soft, brown, innocent, and Elrond struggled not to laugh at his younger son's convincing act. He crammed a large piece of cinnamon-sugar muffin into his mouth to conceal his amusement.

"We only wanted to have a little fun!" Elladan added, using a different tactic as he refilled Glorfindel's goblet with his favorite wine.

"We're sorry, Glorfy," came Elrohir's quiet, heart-broken voice.

By this time, Elrond was practically choking on the muffin. Laughter was trying to squeeze it's way up his throat as the muffin was trying to go down, and it was becoming exceedingly difficult to breathe. And the harder he tried to swallow the muffin, the harder breathing became.

Elladan, distracted by the odd wheezing noises coming from his father's end of the table, turned to investigate, and came face to face with a rather purple-faced Elrond.

"Ada!" He jumped up and hurried to pat his father on the back, drawing Elrohir and Glorfindel's immediate attention.

Elrond, however, found that the hard pounding on his back only made it harder to concentrate on swallowing. The muffin, by this time, had become very dry and glued itself to the inside of his mouth. Finally, his will to breathe overwhelmed his will to swallow, and bits of muffin spewed all over the table.

Startled serving maids hurried to clean up the mess as another quickly poured her lord a glass of water, which was gladly received.

Glorfindel watched these entire proceedings with interest. It wasn't that his lord had made a mess; it was more of a question why he had so much in his mouth at one time in the first place. The Lord of Imladris usually carried himself with the most perfect manners, more than likely the fault of his mother-in-law, but that was beside the point. This just wasn't like Elrond.

Before he got a chance to ask, however, the door to the private dining hall opened and a warrior stepped in, nodding his head in respect towards Elrond.

"My lords," he began, "I apologize for the intrusion, but a matter of great urgency concerning Princess Aërlinwë brings me to you."

Glorfindel deftly gestured for the maids to leave, and closed the door. Elrond sighed and set his empty glass down. Arya. Who else would be causing trouble? "Alright, what has she done now?"

The warrior shifted uncomfortably and hesitated.

"Well, come on! Out with it!"

The warrior jumped, startled. "It's not what she's done, my lord." His gaze quickly reverted to the floor. "It's more like, what happened to her."

Elrond frowned. "What do you mean? What happened?"

"Her horse showed up at the stables not 10 minutes ago... riderless."

OoOoOo

Elladan grinned impishly at his twin brother as they shouldered their way through the large crowd gathered at the archery fields. Things were going great today.

To start, their youngest sister, Arya, probably one of their greatest rivals at the competitions, had snuck away from Rivendell early that morning(without permission, of course), and lost her horse. To put it plainly, she would now have to walk home and the archery tournament would already be over upon her arrival.

Second of all, Glorfindel had been sent out to find her and bring her home before she disrupted some peaceful Edain village that still held good thoughts about the elves. So the Balrog-Slayer would have no chance to repay the Peredhel twins for their sabotage of his precious sword.

The result was a happy pair of identical elves as they lined up for the first round of the tournament.

OoOoOo

Elrond stared thoughtfully out one of the windows in his study, slightly bothered. He knew Arya would never miss any tournament, much less a perfect chance to defeat her brothers in archery, with an audience to boot. She seemed to have this knack of finding and getting into trouble, and oftentimes he had wondered if she took pleasure in causing him anxiety, or if she was trying to give him grey hair. She would avoid court and balls at all costs, and at all costs she would be present at every competition and tournament and joust within a hundred-mile radius. Only two things would prevent her from going- her being restrained or physically unable. That's what worried him. Because wherever his precious little girl was, he was not there to restrain her, to prevent her from participating in unladylike activities. That left him anxiously pacing his study... again.

She was hurt.

Somewhere, in the wide wilderness surrounding, was his younger daughter... injured... and at the mercy of any creature- orc, warg, wolf, troll or bear- that happened to go her way...

~*~

TBC...

Thanks for reading! All reviews and constructive criticism are greatly appreciated! :)

I will be on vacation next week... where there's no service... so my next chapter will be posted the week after.