AN: Hi all! Sorry for the delay but here's the next chapter. I really appreciate the fact all of you are sticking around even if I'm being a bit slow with this story. You all are the best! Your reviews are very much appreciated and valued, especially since I'm taking Creative Wiring next year in school. They're so very helpful in pointing out things that are good and bad. Please keep them coming...you guys rock like a box of socks.
PixiePea000: See, sometimes I don't write cliffhangers! Though you know I am very fond of them (for both this and the dynamic duo's story ...but isn't that whole thing based on small cliffhangers?) I'm sure Sparks or whoever you're calling will pick up when you call him. Watch out for the Squiddies! They're not very nice! Anywho, Gollum and watch out for Agent Elrond Smith (the dynamic duo and friends lost track of him so he's on the loose)!
LadyJadePerendhil: I'm going to twist around cannon a bit and have Elrond show up, eventually. Let's just say Arwen has to tie up that loose end and explain Niphredil to him. Plus, I like Elrond...even though, on occasion, he reminds me of Agent Smith from the Matrix. You'll see if Emma and Niphredil actually become friends and I like your suggestion for a song. I've been trying to find one.
sunni07: My sister watches the Real World. I'm not sure I'd want to be on that show. It always seems like there are problems in their house. No matter how short, I appreciate reviews!
hobbitgirl11: I had dress rehearsal last Sunday. Out of the five dances I'm in, only two of them (jazz and my private) went off well. The two tap dances and ballet dance I'm in turned out to be a disaster on wheels. The ballet got ruined because one group totally messed up on placement and we all had to trying to figure out what to do about it. Thankfully, our show is at the end of the month. I hope you like point! It's a good time!
Elainor: You'll see if the two of them become friends or not, eventually. I'm glad you liked the chapter!
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.
Two figures on horseback rode around the fields encircling the city. They ride without haste and, seemingly, without purpose. It was just an enjoyable ride shared by two people.
One rode on a horse completely free of saddle and other pieces of riding equipment. Hither and thither she led her horse with quietly spoken words in a very melodic sounding language.
The other figure, however, was a sharp contrast. Her horse was fully outfitted, bearing a saddle and other pieces of ridding equipment. Two large saddlebags, rested on either side of the chocolate colored horse. The rider seemed a bit hesitant on her mount, trying her best to keep the creature in control. For the moment she was succeeding, though, earlier on, she was having more than her fair share of issues.
The saddleless rider halted her horse, a gray creature, and stared at their surroundings.
"Would you like to stop for lunch? I am sure you are quite tired after this young day's events," she asked, looking over her shoulder at the other rider.
The other rider considered the offer. Breakfast, such as it was that day, seemed like an age and a half ago. Her stomach, until that moment quiet silent, growled loudly. Apparently she was hungry.
"I think that would be a very wise idea," the other rider said, trying to get off the back of her mount.
The rider on the horse without a saddle smiled at the efforts and climbed off her mount. She offered her hands to the other rider who, sheepishly, took them. Accepting help had never been a strong suit of the other rider.
"Thanks," she mumbled her voice small.
"There is no need to thank me, Niphredil," Arwen, the rider on the saddleless horse, countered.
Niphredil gave her mother a half hearted shrug, starting to pull items out of one of the saddlebags.
Working together, the pair managed to set out a simple picnic lunch, complete with a homespun blanket to sit on. The picnic had been Aragorn's idea. A way to get mother and daughter some away time from the citadel and all its ears. He was well aware of the fact, from speaking with both mother and daughter; there were things that needed to be discussed and worked out alone.
They ate, keeping the conversation on the day to day workings of the citadel. Niphredil had never imagined the sheer volume of people it took to keep the building in one piece, from maids to guards and back again. Arwen was glad to indulge the child's questions, even if they were about the most obvious of things at times.
Meal finished, an uncomfortable silence filled the space between the two females. There were questions there, things that had to be asked and answered but neither knew how to start that process.
"You know," Niphredil commented, lying on her stomach, head propped up by her hands, "doing this does not seem like something a queen should be doing."
Niphredil could recall the short day's events very clearly. She recalled being woken up from her usual light sleep and ordered to get dressed. Her mind still incased in a sleep addled fog, the half-elven maiden found that she and her mother were on a raiding mission. As they quickly ate, Niphredil aided her mother in packing enough supplies for a simple picnic lunch. From the citadel's vast kitchen, the pair stole into the stables where she found two horses waiting.
The sneaking around did not seem like something a queen should know how to do, in Niphredil's opinion anyway. She knew her opinion could be wrong, though. Her image of kings and queens, and princesses like her, stemmed from history books and fairy tales. Two very different sources to say the least.
Arwen gave a low laugh and stated, "Where I grew up, I had two very good teachers. Older brothers are like that. They would be disappointed to hear that I was not passing the skills on to my daughter."
"Older brothers? So, I have uncles?" Niphredil questioned.
Arwen averted her gaze, staring off into the distance behind her daughter's head. Niphredil, for her part, just shook her head. Every time family was brought up, her parents grew strangely quiet. It was as if they feared speaking about relative and things of that nature. It was annoying, to say the least, but they had to have their reasons for doing it...didn't they?
"May I ask you a question?" Niphredil broached, breaking the growing silence between the pair.
There were questions that she had to ask, long time ones that she had been harboring since she was just a young child living in the Muggle's world. Part of her, though, was afraid to ask the questions. Afraid of the fact she wasn't going to like the answers she was going to receive.
"You may," Arwen answered, "Do not be afraid to ask me whatever is on your mind.""Was I sent away because I was unwanted? In the other world, parents sometimes send their children away because they do not want them," she babbled.
Looking a bit ashamed for assuming something so heartless and extreme, Niphredil, hastily, added, "I am not saying that was your reason but...well, I'm not sure."
Arwen knew that this question would, eventually, come up in a conversation. In the short time Niphredil had been in Middle Earth, Arwen had tried to steer clear of this one topic. The subject was very sensitive for her and she worried her daughter would not find the reasoning acceptable.
"There are many reasons you were sent away but being unwanted was not one of them. I can assure you that, if you were unwanted, you would not be sitting her today," Arwen assured her daughter, trying not to sound too much like she was lecturing her.
Niphredil opened her mouth to say something or to ask another one of her seemingly never ending questions but a look from her mother stopped her. There was more that had to be said and explained before the child could speak. The entire reasoning had to be stated so the larger picture could be understood.
"Some of my reasons were purely selfish and form them I am ashamed. Other reasons were for your own good, to help keep you safe and sound. Those I am proud of," Arwen continued.
"What are the reasons?" Niphredil interjected, speaking quickly before her mother could silence her with a look again.
"I sent you away because there was a threat growing here. If you were to be harmed in the ensuing conflict, I would not be able to live with myself. Sending you away was the only means by which I could protect you. Even if that meant you being separated from me," Arwen began. She took a deep breath and let it out, steadying herself for the other part of her explanation.
"The other reasons, the selfish ones, I can say I am not proud of. I sent you with Patrick in order to prevent my father, your grandfather, from learning of your existence. I could not saw what he would do or say if he learned your father and I engaged in activities he had strictly forbidden," Arwen added.
Niphredil was quiet for a moment, soaking up what she had learned. Someplace in her mind the first reason, the need to provide some sort of protection, made sense. Kay always talked about wanting to protect the twins for the world. Why would her mother be any different?
The second set of reasons made her feel slightly glad her parents never spoke about the rest of their family. Any person who forbade two people from seeing each other and would do something to a child did not seem like a person she wanted to meet.
"Why were you forbidden from seeing Aragorn?" Niphredil questioned though she was unsure if it was an appropriate question for her to be asking."My father made your father promise to never to pledge his heart to anyone until he claimed his rightful destiny as High King. Part of me feels my father made your father promise that because he was sure Aragorn would not make an attempt to claim the throne. He was a reluctant king in the same way you are a reluctant princess," Arwen answered, carefully.
Niphredil smiled a bit at the idea of her father, whom she had decided fit the role of a king, being unwilling to take up the role. She had her reasons for being unwilling but that was something bread from her time in the other world.
"That does not seem very fair," the half-elven maiden commented dryly.
"As they say," Arwen countered, "Love finds a way and has consequences that are not entirely foreseen. Pleasant surprises can result."
The last part of her comment was directed towards the half-elven child resting on the blanket in front of her. She was a surprise, no doubt, but not a negative one.
"Why would they say you were not wanted? As far as I knew, there was nothing wrong with you," Arwen asked her daughter.
Niphredil thought for a moment, biting her lip as she did so. There were so many reasons she had been told she was unwanted, from her looks to the way she acted. To discuss them all, she felt, would take a life time.
"A lot of reasons. Mostly because I looked different from the others my age to the fact I had a tendency to speak in my own language sometimes and claim the trees spoke to me," Niphredil answered with a slight shrug, off looking considering her position.
"Different for a child of man but not for what you truly are. You fit that role quite well," Arwen stated.
"What am I anyway? Emma tried explaining it but she said she did not understand it all that well either," Niphredil brought up, eager to have that idea explained and the conversation turned from her perceived oddities.
"I will try to explain that in a moment. I would like to hear more about why these humans said you were unwanted. What language did you speak what was strange? Do you remember any of it?" Arwen questioned, sounding as eager as her daughter.
Thinking back, her mind wandering though her time with the Jones family, Niphredil searched for the strange language she use to speak. The one that appeared so effect in luring birds over to her.
She fought the urge to laugh at just how ridiculous she sounded as she blurted out a few fragments of the strange language she use to speak.
Much to her surprise, Arwen seemed pleased with the display.
"The language you speak, and those Muggles so rudely called strange, is a form of elvish. I started teaching it to you when you were just a very young child. It is a pleasant surprise that you can recall portions of it. The rest you will learn, given time," she stated with a smile."As for your other reason behind your so-called strangeness, the idea that trees could speak to you is part of an age old story here. There are trees that speak and move just as you do. It is in your blood to be able to speak with living things. The part of you that is elven allows for it," she added.
"How is only part of me elven? That doesn't seem to make sense," Niphredil blurted.
She knew it was possible, in the other world, to be part one nationality and part another. That only mattered, though, if illnesses were involved. She could not see how it would give her strange abilities.
"I am not the lore master my father is and I do not want to confuse you any further but I will try to explain this to you as best I can. Your father is of mortal descent, a child of man. I was elven- half-elven as you are- and, as such, I had to make a choice. I chose to be mortal," she attempted to explain.
"But if you are mortal and he is mortal, how am I half-elven?" Niphredil asked.
"You were born before I gave up my immortality, earning you the standing of the half-elven. I will say nothing more for your father and I have sent for a proper lore master to help you understand," Arwen answered.
A thoughtful silence, such as silence was outdoors, filled the space between the two females. The discomfort that had existed between the pair had broken to a certain degree. The bond between them being built back up, brick by slow brick.
"Did Aragorn want me here" Niphredil asked, quietly, "or was he forced into having me brought back?"
For a moment, Arwen was taken aback by the question. She could not understand why her daughter would want to know such a thing.
It hit her, suddenly, that Niphredil was still very much jaded by her life in the other world. Trust was something not given quickly and lightly. It had to be earned. This was her way of trying to increase her father's earning of her trust.
"Of course he wanted you here. It was his ideas that created the mission to retrieve you and bring you back where you truly belong. Believe me when I say that to you," Arwen replied. She looked up, gauging the sun's position in the sky.
"We're going to have to get going, right?" Niphredil mused, catching her mother's motion.
Arwen nodded standing and brushing herself off. Niphredil did like wise, stepping off the blanket.
Watching her mother begin to clean up, she offered, "Allow me to help you with that, nana."
Niphredil blinked as if she was unsure of what she just said. She had meant to call her mother or something very like that word. The word that she had said, however, was not what she wanted to say.
For her part, Arwen also stopped. There was something odd about the way Niphredil had addressed her. When they spoke, she was usually just "Arwen."
The difference hit her like a bolt from the blue. Niphredil had addressed her as "nana," the elven word for "mother" or, more aptly, "mommy." It was what she called her when she was but a child living in Lothlorien all those long years ago.
"I could use your help, Niphredil," Arwen, slightly stunned, stated.
Picnic cleaned up, the half-elven child allowed her mother to aid her in mounting her horse.
"How about a race to the gates?" Arwen brought up, needing to get back into the city before a certain party arrived later on in the day.
"Yes, let's race," Niphredil commented, though she was pretty sure she was going to lose.
A shrill whistle split the air and the queen and princess- mother and daughter- made their way back to the city. There was still much to be done in preparation for a certain part's arrival.