Riesha grinned as Elaírha entered the dining hall for breakfast, looking still half-asleep. Her hair was still the mussed mess it always was of a morning, and Ellie yawned, glaring at her younger sister through blurry eyes as she sat down at the table. They'd been in Rivendell for a over week now, and Elaírha had spent most of her time, taking care of the young boy, who'd be introduced to them as Arahad, while his father remained in the care of the Elves; his wounds had been far deeper and more infected than any that Riesha had received. Therefore, Elaírha liked her sleep a lot…
Arahad was sitting on Elaírha's other side. He looked up to her and asked, "What are you going to do today?"
Ellie glanced down at the boy, rather fond of him, despite the number of questions she seemed required to answer. "Think up ways of getting even with my delightfully irritating little sister." Ellie replied.
Arahad giggled. "I wanted to learn some sword fighting today," he said, then gestured for her to lean down closer. "But I need to ask Elladan if he can teach me. I don't know which one Elladan is. Can you point him out to me?"
Elaírha raised an eyebrow. "You're assuming I know. Sorry, my little friend, but I can't guess any better than you can. I don't know very many people around here, let alone who is who."
Arahad pointed to the two grey-eyed dark-haired Elves appearing exactly like mirror images sitting next to Master Elrond's Lady, Celebrían. They looked at her with amusement evident on their faces, a twinkle of what seemed to be mischief in their eyes.
"Don't suppose you'd care to tell him yourselves, would you?" Elaírha asked hopefully.
"If he had simply asked us, we would have; but we are keen to see if you can guess correctly." The one nearest Arwen, furthest away from Celebrían commented.
Ellie sighed and squinted a bit, shrugged. "Give me a few minutes…then I'll draw straws and see what comes up."
The twins inclined their heads, consenting to her decision. They looked down at their breakfasts, simultaneously take a bite.
"Hey, Charlie!" Ellie called.
The one next to Celebrían looked up first, just moments before his brother.
Elaírha pointed to the one next to Celebrían. "That's the one you want. Elladan."
"Charlie?" the other twin's amusement was evident.
"A boy's name." Ellie explained. "Our grandfather used the same technique for our twin uncles- called "hey Charlie" and whichever one turned around, that was usually the one he wanted." Elaírha smiled at the memory.
"Well, you are correct. And I am?" the twin that had first spoken teased.
"Annoying me," Ellie replied bluntly, unable to keep from smiling. "As I said to Arahad- I don't know who's who. I didn't know Elladan either until he mentioned it."
"Elladan, might you teach me more swordplay today?" Arahad queried. "Lady Riesha wants to as well."
Ellie looked incredulously at her sister. "Are you telling me, I had to guess which twin was Elladan, when it's beneficial to you?"
Riesha grinned. "Ah…I can see my darling older sister is slowly becoming more awake."
"Remind me to throttle you later."
"Don't worry, I won't."
Ellie quickly got to her feet, sparking Riesha's reaction to jump from her chair by the other side and stay out of her sister's reach.
The two of them grinned at each other. Elaírha sat back down. "This is going to be interesting. You either miss out on the rest of breakfast, or you can suffer being put in a head lock."
"Cow."
"Moo."
"Always knew you were."
"Knew I was what? Nicer than you are?"
Riesha stuck her tongue and warily sat back down.
Elaírha smiled broadly. "I've got you paranoid now. If I move in the slightest you'll be up and across the other side of the room."
"Whatever." Riesha retorted, reaching for a slice of toast.
Elaírha made a sharp movement, resulting in Riesha falling off her chair.
Arahad giggled. Ellie turned back to him. "Make sure you eat everything on your plate. I don't like talking to skeletons- rather creepy, don't you think?"
Arahad nodded, shovelling more food into his mouth, still smiling.
Elaírha looked around the Elves eating at the table. Most had turned their attention back to their food. All except Elladan's twin who seemed to watch the humans just a moment longer, an expression of somewhat subdued disappointment on his face.
Elaírha reached out to take some fruit from a large platter. "Arahad…can you do me a favour?"
"Mmmm," Arahad agreed.
"Can you give me the name of my teasing twin-friend? He seems rather disappointed I did not include him in the game of guessing."
Elladan nudged his twin.
Arahad swallowed his food before answering, "That's Elrohir. He's the younger one."
"I know what it's like being second in line." Elaírha commented, glancing at Elrohir who was blushing sheepishly under the attention of the young woman and his fellow Elves.
"I thought you were the eldest?" Elrohir confessed.
"No. I have an elder sister. She's just…" Elaírha fell silent, unable to lie to these good people, yet unwilling to tell them a truth that was insanely wild.
"I'm finished," Arahad interrupted. "Ellie, can you come with me paddling in the boats before I do sword stuff with Elladan?"
"And you wonder why I try to sleep through breakfast…I rarely get any anyway." Ellie replied to Riesha, getting out of her seat and following Arahad out the door.
Elrohir watched her leave.
"Lady Riesha, I would be honoured to teach you to wield a sword," Elladan interrupted his brother's reverie.
Riesha blushed. "Thank you."
Celebrían strolled gracefully up to her husband and the man known to Bree as 'Ranger', standing next to them on the balcony overlooking the wide grassy flat next to the river where Elladan and Riesha stood waiting patiently for Arahad, as Elrohir and Elaírha pulled the small boat onto the grass so Arahad wouldn't get wet.
"Arahad seems to have accepted his mother's death by taking Ellie into his heart." Ranger remarked quietly. "And she has become to him as close as any blood relation. Like an aunt or sister, almost." He looked to Elrond with some carefully hidden agenda in mind. "But the twins…they seem to enjoy the company of women they are not familiar with."
Elrond glanced at him. "That is what I am afraid of. I do not want to lose them, as I lost Elros."
"Love would come to claim them, we knew that," Celebrían reminded gently. "Those girls may yet be young, but they have good hearts, and there is much more to them than anyone can see. I know it, because every time I near them, I sense something different about them that I do not feel around other Mortals. There is no elf-blood in their veins, and yet they hold within them some kind of power."
"Yes," Elrond agreed. "They know far more than what they say."
Elrohir lifted Arahad from the boat and set him on dry ground. He and Elaírha watched as the boy ran up to his awaiting companions were ready to start wielding the sword for the day.
After a moment, Ellie broke the silence. "Do they know how long it will be before the Road is clear of orcs?"
Elrohir's heart lifted at the sound of her voice speaking to him, but dampened as he realised that as soon as the Road was clear, she would leave. "I do not know. My father has sent scouting parties out to make sure they leave the area, though no doubt they will return eventually."
Ellie nodded, pushing the boat back into the water, jumping in and beginning the paddle upstream.
Elrohir sighed longingly before strolling over to his brother and their latest students.
It was late in the night, when the Elves had begun their nightly singing that Riesha looked up from her book borrowed from Rivendell's expansive library. Ranger and his son, Arahad were arguing loudly in the Hall of Flame.
"Papa! I don't want them to go! Don't let them! Please?! Tell them to stay!" Arahad pleaded.
Riesha exchanged glances with Elaírha who was sitting nearby, her head also emersed in a book.
"I am not saying they will leave- though inevitably they must; their home is in the Shire and they only left to explore Middle Earth wherever they will go, is their decision. I cannot stop them if that is their choice. Peace, little one!" Ranger held up his hand. "It is long past the time you should have been in bed."
Before Ranger could take his son away, Arahad ran over to Ellie, tugging on her arm. "Not yet, Ellie- please tell me a story first, before I go to bed."
Ellie bit her lip. "I don't know any stories…" She put the book aside, allowing Arahad to climb into her lap.
"Then a song- sing me a song, please?"
"I am not much of a singer, Arahad. And I do not know many songs. Besides, I would not want to disturb the Elves' beautiful songs with my own harsh voice."
"Tell me of your home. Tell me of you." Arahad persisted.
"Home?" Elaírha's voice caught in her throat. She swallowed. "Home…what is there that you could possibly want to know."
"Is not the Shire your home?"
"The Shire is the place we live, the people we laugh and meet with. And though in the Shire there lies many who are dear to me, it is not my true home. I have not lived there all my life. I was taken in, by the kindness of a hobbit-woman by the name of Peony Took. She's a kind soul…it saddens me to know that her years are dwindling. I cannot imagine the Shire without her." Elaírha said softly, unaware that Ranger, Elrond, Elladan and Elrohir listened intently.
"Are hobbits really so small?"
"They are," Riesha interrupted. "The tallest is no taller than you. But they are a happy people. Always merry and laughing. They like eating- 6 main meals a day! You can imagine, it was too much for us at times. And they like to drink."
"But I thought they don't like other peoples in the Shire?"
"Admittedly, hobbits are a shy people; but some of them keep friends with dwarves such that visit every now and then. They seem to hold a special kind of reverence for Elves. Never an Elf that went through the Shire that the hobbits saw, went without joining in a celebration of some kind, or so Peony told us." Riesha grinned. "The Hobbits don't like humans much, but there are some who are willing to see that not all humans are bad people."
"Would they like me, do you think?" Arahad asked.
"Definitely. You're a right-royal little troubler maker, just like the other hobbit children. You'd fit right in. Besides, if you're with us, and prove you can do work just as well as any, they don't seem to mind all that much that humans live among them. I mean- they put up with a somebody twice their height already."
"Who's that?"
"Ellie."
Ellie glared at her Cheshire-cat-grinning younger sister.
"Does your mother and father live there with you?" Arahad wanted to know.
"No," Riesha said, fighting back tears at that thought.
"We have not seen our families in many years. By that I mean, Riesha and I are sisters, but we have not seen our family, and our three friends, who are also sisters though no blood relation of ours, they too live without their parents." Ellie explained.
"How come?"
Riesha couldn't take it anymore, she stood up, moving to where she could watch the fire, hopefully without anyone noticing the tears falling from her face. She listened to Elaírha choked response.
"We were separated, by a fate that we have no power over. It was not our decision to leave them. And if we could have gone back we would've- but now? We have spent too long away, and it was would be near impossible to give any logical or reasonable account of where we have been all these years. I don't know…I just don't know anymore. In my heart, I will love them always, but I wonder if the chance should come that we might return from whence we came- would we take it?"
"I don't understand. Were you kidnapped? Or did you run away?"
"Neither and yet both. The tongue of Men does not yet have the words to describe what happened, nor would any believe me if I did manage to convey my meaning to them."
Arahad wrinkled his nose in puzzlement. "I still don't get it."
"Never mind, Arahad. Put your mind at rest; these things are not for you to answer. Bedtime, I think." She stood up, lifting Arahad into her arms and resting him on her hip. "Ophf! You're going to be too big for this before long."
Arahad giggled and lay his head against her shoulder, his arms around her neck tightly as they left the Hall of Flame.
Riesha sniffed, wishing she had a tissue or a handkerchief as was more common in this world/time, whichever it was in relation to their real home. The flames burned and twisted silently in the echoing of the Elves' singing that resounded around the hall.
A hand touched her shoulder lightly. Riesha spun around, swallowing. It was Elladan. She didn't know how she knew it was him and not Elrohir, but by the same kind of intuition Elaírha possessed at times, made her certain that it was the elder twin son of Elrond.
"Your pain is not without need, if fate has ordained it to be this way." Elladan said softly. "For in the overcoming of grief and tragedy, we become wiser than before."
An unknown feeling came over Riesha, and she looked into his eyes, seeing the Past Time of his life in reflected in their stormy depths. And yet tragedy lay in his path also, unknown to him or anyone save Riesha.
Disregarding all proper etiquette or dignity, she flung her arms around him and held him close. "There is so much more to come, Elladan. I fear that it will be too late, and yet too soon."
Elladan breathed out, unaware that he had held his breath, and pulled her close to him, promising himself never to let her leave without him being there to protect her.
Elaírha returned to the Hall of Flame after putting a very sleepy Arahad to bed, intending to pick up her book and take it off to the bedroom she had been assigned for her stay in Rivendell, however long it may be. But seeing Riesha and Elladan- it was definitely Elladan, Elaírha was sure of that, despite not being able to see the differences in the features of the two twins- taking comfort in each others' embrace, she decided to retrieve the book early tomorrow morning.
It was then she noticed Ranger watching her, though Elrohir and Elrond were staring at the Elf and human woman cuddling.
"Thank you, Lady," Ranger murmured softly. "As soon as the last scouting party arrives back at Rivendell, it will be safe for you to leave on your wandering journey, if that is what you desire. They should not be more than a few days away at most. If your intentions are to return to the Shire, then I will accompany you as far as Bree."
"And I thank you, sir," Elaírha said softly. "It was my intention to go back to the Shire…but I do not know now. Arahad seems very against it."
"Do not let him stop you, if your heart desires the home you have made amongst the Little People. Arahad will understand." Ranger assured her.
"I will not make a firm decision without Riesha's counsel. For wherever she goes, so too will I."
After a moment's silence, Ranger added artfully, "I must thank you for alerting me to the ambush of orcs. My son would be dead if not for you and your sister."
"I only wish we had been able to save your wife also."
"You wished you could have seen further into the future so as to prevent that as well?" Ranger asked slyly.
"I don't see the future, Araglas," Ellie replied cunningly, a knowing grin appearing on her face.
"Then how did you know that the orcs would attack my wife and son when the Elves spoke to the hobbits who had reported no such sightings as the ones you told me about?" His question aroused the interest of Elrohir and Elrond.
"That is between me, Riesha and Fate."
"And how is it that you know my name when no one has given it to you?" Araglas pressed.
"The winds whispers, my friend. It tells me many things." Elaírha smiled deviously. "Good Night, Gentlemen."
She turned and walked away, leaving Araglas and Elrond wondering how much she knew, and Elrohir wishing he could be in Elladan's position but holding Elaírha.