AN: Hi all! How was everyone's week? I have about six long days of school left. Of course that means finals and term papers and stuff. I just finished writing a paper on The Science of Science Fiction which I thought was a great topic until everyone in my class called me immature for doing it. Mind you, this is college! Anywho, I promise more frequent updates as soon as I'm free from school! Thanks for putting up with me this semester! You guys are the best!
LalaithoftheBruinen: I'm glad you like that update! Here's the next chapter, fresh from the presses!
A Monkey's Harp: What's your term paper on and how's it going for you? You shall soon see what Niphredil does when confronted with Gandalf's choice.
Elleiadrieal: Here's my update as soon as humanly possible. I promise they'll get more frequent as soon as school's over for me and I don't have my insane Biochemistry professor giving me three to five assignments a week.
hobbitgirl11: As usual, I appreciate your review! Middle Earth is coming up very, very soon and you'll get to see everyone in their new roles. How are your dance classes going? Did you have your recital yet? Mine isn't until the end of June...
sunni07: Well, she is slightly paranoid but she also doesn't like her "family" so it makes for a difficult decision. Her choice is revealed soon. I hope your chicken is doing well! I do agree Gandalf or Dumbledore or, even, Obi-Wan Kenobi would make an excellent grandfather.
PixiePea000: You can't bring him back. He's long gone. If you try, I'll send the dynamic duo after you (you know which duo I'm talking about, the one that doesn't involve a certain dress wearing dude.) She'll get to Middle Earth soon and meet up with the rest of her watch party. As for your operator, call Sparks, Link, Jax, or AK. They should give you a better exit. Anywho, GOLLUM and watch out for Agent Elrond Smith and Mr. Anderson.
LJP: I promise there's going to be more chapters as soon as I'm free from school. The whole thing with the dreams stems from the idea that you sometimes have dreams that feel so real but how do you tell the difference between the real world and the dream world. The X-Men will have a tiny role, especially one of them. I actually wrote about Beast in my term paper for Biochemistry. Not sure what my Biochem professor is going to make of it though.
Midnight-Insomniac1532: LOL! I'm glad you were able to find some time to read it! I hope you liked it.
Lindiel Eryn: I'm sorry to hear about the lack of internet. That must not have been fun at all! You'll find out what her name means, eventually, and how it ties in with a few other things (including the sword she's walking around with). Good catch on the exclusive school but it's not a wizarding school. What Hope is and isn't will be revealed soon, too.
Disclaimer: I own nothing except for a handful of made up characters. Tolkien thought up the concept and, as such, it belongs to him. I'm just playing in his world. I'm broke and in college. All I own are Pointe Shoes.
Someplace, someone was blaring the Aerosmith song "Jaded."
Niphredil blinked a handful of times, taken aback by the old man's request. She figured her ears were deceiving her but that couldn't be so. There was no way for this man to know about both her parents and her dreams. Unless, of course, he came from Hope's school but that didn't seem likely. Save for the bald principal she had met with Jay and Kay requested enrollment for the twins, everyone else seemed younger.
The part of her that was still strongly elven was telling her to go with the old man, to trust his words and follow in his booted foot steps. To that part of here, there was something vaguely familiar about him. A sense she got off of him, perhaps. A man like him had never entered her dreams but there was still a familiar air about him. She recalled, possibly, being told about people like him when she was younger but it was not a sure thing.The other part of her, the part reared to be human by Jay and Kay, was screaming not to go with this man, despite the fact she could take care of herself. He was old, she was not. He appeared to be frail, she was far from it. It had been drilled into her never to talk to strangers but here she was talking to one.
Niphredil was torn, both sides of her mind warring against one another.
She wanted to go looking for her parents but she had heard the stories of young girls who had gone off with strange men, never to be heard from again.
"But they didn't know how to take care of themselves," Niphredil, mentally, mused.
Doc had seen to it that all "his girls" knew how to take care of themselves out on the street. He had said they were targets just because they were female, some more so than others. He had shown them enough to allow them all to feel confident enough when walking around on the streets alone.
If only to keep the man from asking further questions and to silence the elven part of her mind, Nipredil answered with, "I'll come."
Her decision seemed to please the old man as he gave her a warm smile. In his eyes, thought, there was great relief.
"Thank goodness," Gandalf mused, "I did not want to enter a contest of wills with this one. She has the will of her father in her."
"If you please, my lady, follow me," he stated, aloud, beckoning for her to follow after him.
Throwing a quizzical look at the old man's back, Niphredil started to follow.
She gauged her steps, moving with practiced stealth. If Doc had given her one consistent complement during her training with him, it was that she moved with an almost silent speed. Her feet never seemed to make a sound when they hit the ground and she moved with a strange sort of grace. That compliment seemed to bother Angie the most, as she felt she was the most skilled out of the trio of females in the class.
Niphredil knew she could out run or subdue the old man, if it was necessary but, for some odd reason, she knew it was not going to be. He wasn't going to hurt her but she could not say why she knew that. It was almost instinctual.
Judging that his threat to her was nil, that he wasn't going to do anything ill or harmful to her, Niphredil drew up along side the old man.
He gave her an appraising look, as if checking to see something about her she, herself, could not place. Then an old smile, a grandfatherly one, appeared on his face. He seemed to be glad to see her, though Niphredil could not understand why.
"Where are we headed?" she questioned, noticing that they were heading toward the building where the twins had attended grade school.
Across the street from the building was a huge park, rivaling only the grounds of the local boarding school in both size and beauty. In her opinion, the boarding school had nicer grounds.
One of the main features of the park was a massive baseball diamond. They seemed to be angling toward that specific location.
"Home, child, your real home," he answered, cryptically.
"My real home? Where's that? The place in my dreams?" Niphredil asked, in rapid succession.
Niphredil gave the old man a sheepish smile, feeling foolish for asking questions like that. She felt she knew better.
Gandalf, merely, sighed. He had survived hobbits, Peregrin Took standing out in his mind at the moment, and their questioning. The questions of one lost half-elven child seemed easy enough to handle when compared to that.
"You real home could be said to be several places. I will not get into the details of that right now. I will be taking you to your parents home, where they now dwell," Gandalf replied.
"Is it far? Will I get to meet them right away? I think I'd like that," she babbled.
Gandalf gave a small laugh, noting the change in Niphredil's manner. She had gone from being intensely suspicious of both him and his motives. Now she was questioning him like an eager child. He had to stop and remind himself that she was, indeed, a very young child. Here she was nearly grown, soon able to live on her own and have a family of her own. Where she was headed, however, she was going to be looked up as a child.
"Not far, young one," he answered, "you may have to wait to see your parents. They hold very important positions where we are going. I do not know if they will be able to see you."
"Oh," Niphredil breathed.
She had been imagining her parents meeting her with open arms. The idea that her parents were too busy to even see the child they were looking for frightened her a bit. The image of a nice family, where she was wanted vanished. It was replaced by the image of the Joneses, the family she was leaving.
"That is not to say they do not want to meet you. They are quite eager to. I am sure once they learn of your arrival, they will forgo their duties to meet you," Gandalf assured the half-elven child.
Niphredil perked up a bit, the image of another family like the Joneses being banished from her mind again. Perhaps, things would be as she wanted them...
"If I may ask, sir, what is your name? You seem to known an awful lot about me and I know nothing about you," she requested.
"You may call me Gandalf or Mithrandir, as is the want of your people. May I call you Niphredil?" the old man replied.
She was not sure how he knew her name-she had never told him-but Niphredil gave a slight shrug. The second part of his statement was far more intriguing than the reasoning behind how he knew her name.
"I guess you can. What do you mean when you say 'my people?' I'm human like everyone else," she stated.
"Well, almost everyone else," she added in an undertone.
Gandalf ignored her questioned. He was walking around the baseball field, mumbling to himself in a strange language.
"We are here," he intoned.
All of a sudden, Niphredil felt herself fall into darkness.