A/N: Oh this week has not been friendly to me. I've been doing house repairs and been out in the hot sun all week. I need to go spend some time in my woods. Maybe go swimming. But I am so glad I had this chapter posting written before because my mind has been fried when it came to Middle Earth. I guess I need to go watch some elves and dwarves in action and read some books too. If I can sleep tonight I'll do just that. On the plus side, I got two chapters written for New Directions, a Fast and the Furious story. It's a more aggressive writing style than Second Time and Lightning Glass. But I'm not planning on posting it currently because two fanfictions and two original stories are really my limits for concurrent writing and posting. Currently, anyway, I just have too much to do otherwise in life.

So New Directions will be posted with my unnamed M*A*S*H* fanfiction I think. But picture Dom with someone that won't just roll over for him. Sorry but I don't view Letty as a partner who balances him, and balance is huge for me. I see her as lighter fluid to his match. A dangerous combination, not a stabilizing influence. And I think the same basic storylines as the movies could be accomplished with someone who was steadier. And they'd be so much more interesting. Nothing more fascinating to me than seeing someone unflappable so around the twist to keep their family safe. What would a sane, stable, and kind person do to protect their loved ones? The answer is anything. But you would never see it coming because they are sane, stable, and kind. It's one of the reasons I love the Loki-type characters.

Now as I hope I have made obvious I write fanfiction for practice in the craft of writing. And if you like my writing style, my original works are much the same style, although varying subjects and genres. I just need to get over my own nerves and publish them. Can I get a supportive hug, please?

Also because my Ao3 readers have caught up with my readers you are now on the regular update schedule so you get parts of insanely long chapters. Cause 25+ pages in my writing program is a bit of an eye strain for me to write and edit each week. So love you all but I love not being sick all week from migraines and pain more.

Well on with the show and here we go! (I'm a poet and I didn't know it. Bad poet, but hey.)

Like, Subscribe, Favorite, Follow, Kudos and Review, (and consider following or supporting on P-atreon and Ko-fi. Cause you know adulting.)

Much Love

JR

P.s. P-atreon and Ko-fi update: Why aren't there tiers and goals yet on either? Mainly because I'm trying to get used to writing regularly on them. I don't want to promise my patrons something and not be able to deliver. So I'm working on building slowly and getting my routine down, then I will be doing some patron-only content like polls for story design and personalized thank-yous and inspiration videos or packages that contain some of the things that inspire each story and other various things. Maybe even some world-building polls. I dunno. I'm winging it. So hang in there with me, I'm still learning, and sign up to follow me so that when the tiers and goals go live you'd be the first to know. (Edit: There is a poll up on my P-atreon page now! You can help me choose my 2021 NaNoWriMo project!)

Pps. I've caught up on posting on my older stories to Ao3. I am now free to post any deleted "scenes" and extras in conjunction with the older stories and the ones I am currently working on. They will only appear after a story is completed. And after Patrons get the first crack at them. Sorry. What do I delete? Mainly anything that needs to be edited out to meet the rating rules on this site. But also little interesting snippets that just slowed down the pacing. I will not be posting them here on this site. Apologies. But it has more "interesting" rules.

Chapter 2

While the city was still waking, Glorfindel led her through the maze of workshops to the alley of the armorers. The city she found was laid out quite simply between the two branches of the Bruinen that forked around it before disappearing into the mountains behind them. It was a good place, she decided, well situated for defense although it certainly wasn't built for it. She guessed it hadn't ever had a siege laid against it. And honestly, she prayed it never would. Or if it did that the guard and whatever else Elrond had going would be able to protect it long enough.

Either way, the alleys of the armorers and weaponsmiths were already awake and ringing near the barracks and training grounds for the guards. Glorfindel led her down to the one furthest from the main shops.

Narrowing her eyes at his back, while Caelann raced back and forth like a child in a candy shop, Sherilynn had to admit, she was drooling over some of the craftsmanship she saw. Not as good as what she had back home, but still it was beautiful.

All at once, Caelann raced ahead of them towards a beautiful sound. Clear and bright like the sound of tinkling bells out of the darkness of the alley. Then, grinning from ear to ear, she raced back almost bouncing with joy. "You're taking her to Daugleriadhwen?" She asked, jumping up and down happily in front of Glorfindel as he tried to walk. "When did she take up smithing?"

Indulgently, Glorfindel smiled, sidestepping the queen. "She was injured badly in a battle some time ago and it prevented her from going back into the field." He explained. "She turned her knowledge of battle to making very effective armor. But she is very particular about who wears it. I had hoped that because she is a friend of yours that she will make armor for the Lady Sherilynn."

"She will," Caelann said, absolute faith filling her words.

Glorfindel stopped once he reached the leather covering that blocked out any sun that would dare to pierce the darkness within.

"Whoever you are," called a voice from within. "I am busy. Go to one of the other smiths." Glorfinel only looked heavenward and waved Sherilynn forward. Before she made it a single step past the curtain the voice came again. "You are letting in the light. In or out, pick one but drop the curtain!"

Caelann skipped in, gasping at what she saw, and out of curiosity, Sherilynn followed. She understood as soon as her eyes adjusted to the darkness. It wasn't the deep scar that bisected the elith's face, from forehead to chin and very nearly ruining her clear grey eye. It was what she held in her hands on the small almost delicate anvil. But it wasn't a dainty trinket that she was working on. Nothing that would grace the delicate throat of a female who would never see battle. No.

This was a sword. It wasn't like Narsil or Anduril, the broken sword or the one remade that Argorn carried. This was clearly for a female's hand. But it was a thing of beauty nonetheless. And Sherilynn tended not to like western swords. This was curved, almost like a cutlass, but the basket hilt was like a tree had sprouted from the blade and would just dance around the hand.

Daugleriadhwen was doing the final fit and finish on the piece and as she turned it in the crackling firelight, Sherilynn saw the waving pattern that mirrored wood grain.

"It's beautiful." She whispered, her fingers itching to pick up the blade and test its balance. It would be perfect, she could just tell.

Grey eyes cut to her. "You are not an elf." There was no question in the words. Only cool certainty. "Not human. Most assuredly not dwarf." Almost carelessly, Daugleriadhwen turned and set the blade aside out of reach of possibly incompetent hands. The first blood that blade tasted would not be of an innocent.

"A singer." Glorfindel supplied from where he rested against one of the worn stone posts that supported the roof of the shop.

Head tilting to the side, Daugleriadhwen narrowed her eyes at the newcomer, her scar pulling and puckering with the effort. "Like Caelann?"

"Exactly like." The captain confirmed as he slid onto an overturned barrel with a groaning sigh. "And a friend of. Who needs armor and weapons. Who better to supply the metal work than the one whose work Caelann praised even while she was a guard? The queen refused to let anyone else work on her armor while she was here. And I hear that she didn't even like the armorers in Greenwood so well as your work."

Daugleriadhwen snorted in a most unladylike fashion. Of course, Sherilynn had to admit that the smith was nothing like she would have expected from an elleth. While she was still slender and tall, her fiery red hair was pulled back in a tight braid, instead of the flowing styles that the elves seemed to favor, then twisted into a bun to keep it away from the flames she worked with. Her arms, bare to the shoulders because of the heat, were spotted with burns but obviously strong and capable.

While Sherilynn was studying Daugleriadhwen, Daugleriadhwen had been studying Sherilynn. She wasn't sure what exactly she had expected of a singer, other than someone like Caelann, but it wasn't this. This almost shell of a person. There was obvious strength there, but a bitterness too, lurking in the depths of her eyes. She traced the blades of the hanging weapons like a woman selecting which clothes to wear to entice her lover, turning away from some with barely more than a glance.

The girl, for she was no more than one, finally picked up one while she watched and slid her fingers around the grip before slowly rotating her wrist testing the weight and feel of it in her hand. Frowning, she set it back and chose another. Again she twisted it. This one she spun around herself, at first slow then faster and faster until it was a blur. When she was done, she set it back almost reverently.

Being who she was, Daugleriadhwen was not going to make it easy for her. She narrowed her eyes at the younger female as if she had been a piece of armor that she had been repairing. "You have an injury on your shoulder that affects your range of motion."

"An old one," Sherilynn admitted. "And not enough to matter."

"It does in battle." The former guard countered with her words the same way she would have with a sword, sharply and to the point. "After hours of fighting with hours left to go."

Seeing the storm brewing in the singer's eyes, Glorfindel broke in. "The queen says she is a dual wielder. Perhaps two blades at half the size would not be so wearying."

Pursing her lips, Daugleriadhwen turned away, glaring at her former captain as she did. Knowing her all too well, he only chuckled at the look as he saw her pick up a measuring line. Daugleriadhwen didn't like many people, and only respected a few more than she liked. But Caelann had earned her respect and grudging admiration when she had been a very young elleth, craving adventure, and excitement, who had stowed away on the queen's ship and found both.

She had begun her training under Caelann's guards and crewmates for a time after they had found her and wasn't impressed by anyone, thinking that she had more skill and talent. That had changed with time though. Because one by one, each and every single person on the boat set her on her backside, painfully. Except for Caelann. She was training with the crew as well. One day, Daugleriadhwen had expressed her disbelief that the singer would be of any use to Arda. And she had done it in a most disrespectful way.

In her frustration and anger, she had attacked Caelann. In her defense, she had been very young and foolhardy at the time. Caelann had rolled with the attack and flipped her several feet away where she landed against the mast in a heap. By the time she was back on her feet, so was Caelann. And no matter how many times she put Caelann down, Caelann got back up again. When fatigue finally set in, and it had taken time, she had seen the singer shake with it and still she kept going. Over and over again until Daugleriadhwen finally gave up.

That was what had impressed her. That the stubborn female just wouldn't give up.

"Try these." She had finally grunted, turning back to the pair with a set of blades in her outstretched hands.

Narrowing her eyes on the smith, Sherilynn slid her hands around the handles, and in smooth slow circles she twisted them in a routine that she had long ago perfected. The long, gently curved knives were almost as light as a feather as she nearly danced with them.

She was reluctant to set them down. They moved as if they were an extension of her hands, slicing through the air like a hot knife through butter. Oh if these blades were men, she thought as she trailed her fingers over the pommel.

Daugleriadhwen grunted. "Now for armor."

After more discussion and outright arguing on the part of the young singer, the design of the armor was agreed on and Glorfindel chuckled as he ordered Caelann's set to be remade as well. By the end of the "conversation," Daugleriadhwen had demanded to see Sherilynn in motion in order to assess her needs better.

That had led them all to the lists where the guard trained. Glorfindel had attempted to get one of the smaller guards to test the singer, she was tiny in comparison to most of the guards and he wanted to be fair, but no one wanted to risk hurting her. So it was left to Daugleriadhwen, who had followed them, and himself to try her.

After the first flip and spin move that she did, that would have swept his legs out from under him if he had been even a moment slower and as it was he had felt the air of her move swish past his ankles, Daugleriadhwen admitted that she needed armor with more flexibility. And when he improvised with a thunderous kick that he was afraid would break her ribs, but somehow she caught and used it to almost throw him.

Whatever she had studied, he very much wanted to learn it and teach it to the guards he trained. It was a bit showier than he normally would have liked, but she used her energy efficiently, turning his strengths into weaknesses if he let her. He doubted she would have that much time in a battle but he still had to admit it was quite pretty.

They had been trading blows for more than ten minutes by the time that Daugleriadhwen stopped them the first time. "Stop playing with him." She growled. "Like a cat playing with a mouse. You don't have time or the energy to waste in a skirmish like this. Try to make every hit a kill."

Then things got interesting. What had been almost like play turned decidedly edged. Thank the Valar that they were only using practice weapons. He still won the bout, but it had been closer than he would have liked to admit. The only reason it ended in his favor was due to the fact that she had limited energy and leverage in comparison. But she had used the fact that he, as an elf, was much lighter than she to her advantage. She took him to the ground over and over again until he finally lay her flat and she stayed down panting for air.

When she finally stood, she looked at the waiting smith for a verdict. Long moments passed before Daugleriadhwen nodded. "I will speak to the cloth armorers and make sure the under layers are thick enough but allow you to move."

"A gambeson?" Sherilynn asked.

Unfamiliar with the term, both elves frowned at her.

"A thick quilted jacket," she began describing. "It can either stop at the hips or be almost floor length. Sometimes it's just a vest. If it's floor-length it generally is split front and back for riding horses. With or without long sleeves. And sometimes has a high collar to protect the neck. Great at stopping arrows."

Daugleriadhwen's eyes widened with the description and a slow smile crept across her lips. Taking the smaller female by the arm, she began leading her from the field with a wave over her shoulder to her former captive. "I think you and I need to have a long conversation."

And that was how the smith and the new singer became friends.

Females, Glorfindel snorted, and their clothes. But, he thought after a moment, if it can stop arrows and had the flexibility of cloth it might be worth looking into.