The sun was shining. It was shining very brightly, and Luthien wished very much that she had curtains to shield this brightness from her precious eyes.

'Mrgghmmm…' she mumbled grumpily, hiding her head under the blankets crossly.

She heard a loud knock on the door, and chose to ignore it. It was, after all, far too early for people to be knocking in the first place.

They knocked again, this time even louder and when she did not answer, the door cricked open and the knocker peered around the door.

Luthien mumbled something indistinguishable and stuck her head out from under the covers, her hair a mess, though quite a nice, elfish sort of mess. One must look their best at all times, after all.

She blinked several times until the knocker came into focus, and then she felt rather like crawling back under the covers again. Most likely he would have felt like crawling under there with her.

'Good morning, fair Luthien, I hope I have not disturbed your rest.'

'Oh…no…of course not,' she muttered, wishing he was Legolas with all her heart. 'I…er, often practice awaking early and hiding my face from the sun light, it is a most effective natural remedy for a healthy glowing complexion.'

Elrond nodded interestedly, though he wasn't actually listening to a word she said.

'Master Elrond, what brings you to call upon me at such an hour?' she asked him, darkly coming up with an answer for him in her head.

'I come to tell you, Luthien, whose skin glows as the sun, and whose hair cascades elegantly down the fine curves of your back and ends in a way much like the river flows into the sea' ('what the hell is he on about?' She thought to herself, but kept smiling politely) 'and whose eyes are as blue as a summer sky, with the green of the stems of Elanor flowers…your elbows, so precise and sharply pointed, and your nose arched beautifully like a-'

'Master Elrond, why have you come?' she interjected, half frightened, half pissed off.

'I came to ask you once more if you are to attend the council I have called this morning. It begins in an hour and I thought you might enjoy breakfast before a long and dark council.'

'Breakfast would be delightful,' she said, the thought of pancakes momentarily making her forget that Paedophile Elf was there in her bedroom before what could possibly be thought of as a reasonable hour. She was of course not food obsessed like her best friend, but breakfast is a wonderful thing for anyone.

'I shall have a tray be brought to us then, and together we can eat and enjoy one another's company.'

No! Luthien thought desperately. That wasn't meant to be what happened!

'Uh- I much prefer eating alone, Master Elrond,' she said politely, unable to think of a reason as to why this was.

'Surely you would not want to dine alone at such an hour, when the sun is at its most beautiful.'

The sun is barely at its anything at all, Luthien thought darkly. A few hours ago it wasn't up at all. We should not be up at all either.

'Actually, I was going to eat with my dear friend, Elanor,' she said hurriedly.

'Of course, the halfling, no doubt you wish to spend time with her.'

'No doubt.' Luthien said, nodding agreeably.

'Perhaps I should join thee and thy friend, as I am interested in learning the ways of hobbits.'

'No,' Luthien choked out. 'We- must- catch up and talk to one another privately, for there is also much we…must…talk about,' she said hesitatingly.

Elrond nodded his wise old head understandingly.

Luthien decided that now was the time to rush off and find Elanor before Elrond could come up with another reason to stay with her.

She did not bother with dressing, as her nightie was rather lovely and white and altogether pretty, and also she did not want to spend a moment more with the Paedophile.

Rushing quietly down the halls, searching for Elanor's room, Luthien was suddenly stricken sad by the thought that she would not ever be able to get out of the book again. How ever was she to get into the next two?!

When she had found her little hobbit she cried out in desperation that she would never get to make sweet passionfruit with her love by the moonlight in Gondor. Elanor didn't have the faintest idea of what she was talking about.

Then Luthien told her her troubles and Elanor nodded wisely and said, ''what on earth possessed you to ask Legolas if he wanted to make sweet passion fruit with you? How exactly DOES a person make passion fruit? But no matter,' she said, waving this aside. 'You can make passion fruit with him later, Luthien, now it is time for breakfast.' Elanor started to push her friend out of the door, very business like.

'But- but-'

'Come, come, there is food to be had.'

'But-'

'Yes, I know you're upset, my pet…it will be alright…you can have pancakes, if you wish.'

'Argh, does everything revolve around food in this world?' Luthien said, exasperated, and feeling miserable, as Elanor wasn't listening to her at all. 'We have far bigger troubles and you are worried about whether there will be any maple syrup left.'

Elanor turned to face her, eyes wide. 'What could possibly be more important than pancakes?' She asked, her voice trembling.

'The fact that we are in ONE book- how do we get into the other two?'

'We…find a copy of the two towers?' She guessed hopefully.

'Oh!' Luthien cried despairingly, 'Oh dearedy deary dear. What ever shall we do? This is so typical.' She muttered darkly to herself, 'now that I've finally got him under the deep spell of my beauty, I shall not ever get past Frodo and Sam floating off to Mordor and get to that beautiful line of the second book, "Aragorn sped on up the hill."' She sighed.

'But- but- but- won't Aragorn speed on up the hill anyway? Surely he doesn't care about a thing like what book he's in…and anyway, there are some copies of the book that are all printed together, so- so maybe it doesn't matter, and we'll just follow them along anyway. I say we don't worry about it until we get there, and now we should go and ease our troubled minds. For example, we could eat pancakes,' she said brightly.

'You're right. We'll jump that hurdle when we come to it. But for now, let us eat the cakes of pan.'

'Aye.'

Luthien chose to ignore that comment and continued to walk happily down to the food hall. She did hope that Mr. Half-eleven did not happen to be in there also…

-------

The two friends met up with Frodo and Pippin and Merry and Sam later that day (though not particularly late, as Elrond didn't like to have his councils after lunch, arguing that doing so gave him indigestion.) and it was decided that Frodo and Sam would go to the council together, along with Luthien.

Actually it wasn't decided at all, but Luthien whispered to Elanor that she would be going, and they already knew Sam and Frodo were going, so it was a sort of decision.

Elanor decided not to go to the council, because she thought that A) it would be really boring and anyway, she already knew what was going to happen, and B) Pippin was not going.

When the bell announcing the Council rang, the elf and two hobbits waved goodbye to their friends, and trotted off, Frodo genuinely interested in what was going to happen, Sam going so as to protect his master, which is just the sweet sort of thing he would do, and Luthien was looking forward to being in the same area as Legolas for a number of hours…she suddenly realised that she must hurry or else the best seats would taken- she planned on sitting in a position where he was side on to her, but not too side on, so that she could see his face front on if he turned slightly. Sitting next to him would be a wonderful thing, but then she would not be able to gaze at him without being somewhat obvious.

-------

Elanor, Merry and Pippin lay on the grass staring at the sky. Both Merry and Pippin were wondering what was happening at the Council, and Elanor snoozed lazily in the warm sun, relishing the fact that she was so close to Pippin.

'D'you think we'll be able to go home soon?' Pippin asked, and Elanor smiled because he was so innocent.

'Well, I should think so,' Merry answered. 'Frodo's done what he was asked to do, hasn't he?'

'Yes,' Pippin said, his voice cheerful.

Elanor wondered hopefully if they would maybe start hugging again.

-----

The council was quite boring; the only thing that really amused Luthien and held her interest was the retelling of Gollum's escape by Legolas. Ah, how she loved him… sitting next to Gimli she could watch him quite happily and he didn't really seem to notice anyway as he was just learning for the first time about everything.

After the council had yakked on about everything and appointed Frodo as ring-bearer express to Mordor, Luthien piped up, 'If I may now speak Lord,' she said hesitantly, 'I wish to go to the great city, Minas Tirith, for I have urgent business there.'

'What urgent business is this that you speak of, Luthien the veiled?' Elrond asked interestedly, looking at her with piercing eyes.

Legolas too, looked now at her, a look of great interest on his fair and flawless beautiful handsome perfect face.

'Er, I…I wish to speak with an old friend of mine.'

'What friend is this, Luthien?' Gandalf said, also piercing her with his wizardy eyes.

Crap! She thought desperately, what the hell do I say? What the hell do I say! Oh God. I have no idea. My mind has gone blank. I have a mental blank. Blank is my mind.

'I am sure you do not know her, for she does not speak to any, save myself, who walk on land.' She said mysteriously. Well, mysteriously to them, but lamely to her.

'A creature that does not dwell on land?' Legolas piped up, 'what creature is this Luthien?'

Her stomach gave a happy flutter when his perfect lips spoke her name. 'She is a sea sprite, and I call her, Aquaphilos, which means water friend in their ancient tongue.' She replied, feeling very intelligent. Mwahaha, she thought evilly, I can speak Latin! Go me!

'This is great news, Luthien, for until now I was aware that the sprites of the sea only existed in the great lore books of old.' Said Elrond, amazed, and now Luthien felt like she wanted to hide because everyone was staring at her with a sudden new interest. She blushed embarrassedly, which made her feel even more embarrassed, and looked down at her forget-me-not blue dress and waited patiently for them all to stop staring at her. She felt so small and unimportant amongst all these great important men, elves and dwarves.

'Yes, and they wish for it to stay that way, I think. A secret.' She said quietly.

'You must tell us more of the sprites of the sea,' Elrond said. Luthien wondered to herself why every answer she gave lead to more tricky questions.

Bilbo's stomach made a murmur of disagreement, and Sam began to rub his stomach absent-mindedly. Frodo looked forlorn.

'Perhaps another time the mysterious Luthien may tell us her story of the sea sprites,' Gandalf said.

'I would be pleased to tell you all, when I am called upon to tell my tale.' Luthien said, relieved. In the days to come, she thought to herself, I must think up a cool story about the sea sprites and me. I shall chuck in some Little Mermaid stuff too. Perhaps a little rendezvous between a really hot merguy and me…

'Now, you shall be refreshed, little master,' Elrond said, smiling to Bilbo, who hurriedly got up and went off with Frodo and Sam into the dining hall.

The rest of the council followed.

____

Elanor was bored. She had suddenly realised (while waiting for the others to return from the very long and drawn out council) that she had no purpose here in Middle Earth. Well, she had to make Pippin fall in love with her, and she looked forward to each delicious elfish meal, but even meals that are yummy and elfish can become somewhat tiring when there is nothing at all in between the meals, except for following Pippin around and laughing at all the funny things he said.

'Sigh,' she said, sighfully.

'What are you sighing about?' Pippin asked her concernedly.

'I am useless and will be no help on this mission questy thingamabob…'

'What quest are you going on?' he asked interestedly.

Her spirits lightened. Pippin cared about her. He was interested in what she had to say. The world was bright again. The rain has moved on, and invites a new day…she sung happily to herself. Though I am not Peter Rabbit. Then she remembered her Scotty-short-thing was still waiting for an answer. 'Oh, never mind.' Was all she came up with.

Just then, Luthien and the gang (ie: Bilbo, Frodo and Sam) came into the food hall where she was sitting with Pippin and Merry. They told them they'd have a little meeting of their own in Bilbo's room later that day, as Bilbo, Frodo and Sam had missed elevensies and would be too busy eating at the moment.

Luthien and Elanor passed on this and decided to spend the day coming up with evil plots to snag their lovely elf and hobbit.

At dinnertime they all sat together and Luthien's elf friends joined them. Elanor was quite happy in a conversation with Pippin when Lila came over to them. They made a space for her and she began almost immediately talking with Frodo about …hobbity-talky-things Luthien watched the young lovers contently. Aww… cute little hobbits, she thought, it's so obvious that Frodo is into Lila. And do I detect a budding romance between Mr. Took and Miss. Bramblerose?

Then her thoughts changed. I don't think my elf loves me yet, I think he definitely likes me, but he's not falling desperately and hopelessly in love with me yet. I must change all that. The question is: how long will it take?

Her thoughts stopped abruptly when she saw Pippin try to dab the wine he'd clumsily (and quite drunkenly spilt) down Elanor's front. She blinked. He looked rather embarrassed and everybody at the long table was staring at them in a bemused sort of way. Elanor was most pleased. He just shyly apologised a few times to her before dragging Merry off with him into the Hall of Fire.

Elanor hardly seemed to notice that she had a rather big stain on her much-loved hobbit dress. She just grinned joyfully at Luthien and continued to stare after Pippin.