Well hello folks! I haven't updated this in a while….life is INSANE! I got a jump drive, then I broke it and lost all my typing, then came finals season…but it's summer now, so I should have more time to type. Anyway, here we have Eldarion again, stepping out of the door into who knows what…well, I know what as I just finished the outline for this story, if anyone cares, it's going to be fifteen chapters long total…ah, just read. Oh, and Eldarion's history teacher is based on (heck, IS) my 11th grade APA teacher, because he's quite a character in his own right. Yael3000: this is what's in store for you in a few years. The man actually does say "maturation wagon."

Oh, by the way, none of this is mine.

Chapter Four: Who Knows, Part One

Why do you look so familiar/I could swear that I have seen your face before/I think I like that you seem sincere/I think I'd like to get to know you a little bit more/Who knows what could happen/Do what you do, just keep on laughing/One thing's true, there's always a brand-new day/I'm gonna live today like it's my last day…-Avril Lavigne

Eldarion's problems began with that very first step out the door: he had no clue where to go. Determined to make it through the day on the sheer force of observation and logical deduction, he walked down the pathway that led to the road, noting that it too was made of a material foreign to him. Last night's experiences alone had been enough to show him that these people had substances available for their ready use which were lacking in Middle-earth. Unfamiliar textures were just something he would have to accept and hopefully (being a naturally curious person, for all his apprehensions) learn more about later, provided he was stuck here for a good while. That prospect seemed very likely.

Looking down the road, he spied several children about his age or older beginning to congregate around a post mounted a red octagon brilliantly emblazoned with the word "STOP." Eldarion headed towards them, seeing they all too carried "bookbags" like his—of which, he realized, he did not know the contents. Books, he assumed; it was certainly heavy enough.

He smiled at the other children as he reached them, but they only looked at him with bleary, tired eyes. "Freshies," one of them mumbled under his breath. Eldarion, not certain if he'd heard correctly, considered saying "I beg your pardon?" but decided against it. These people were not in talkative moods, so he would blend in and also remain silent.

A dull roar preceded the advent of a large yellow car-like object with "Endorville S.D" painted on the sides. The vehicle stopped, and a small door near the front opened. The teenagers fell zombie-like into line and boarded; Eldarion did the same, puzzled by the presence of the word "Endor": Middle-earth.

Upon entering the transport, Eldarion found himself with another problem: there was nowhere for him to sit. He walked down the long aisle, but every narrow green seat had at least one or two children already occupying it. Finally he found a vacant booth and sat. Sitting back, he put his bookbag on his lap. The yellow vehicle started moving again, and it was a much bumpier ride than riding in Faramir's car. Every groove in the road seemed magnified, but it didn't really bother Eldarion. He was used to horses, where the rider moved up and down with every step.

There were windows by the seats, just like in the car, so Eldarion amused himself by looking out the window as the contraption made two more stops and picked up several more teens, who all sat with their friends. At the final step, the vehicle was just pulling away when he spotted a lone figure dashing up the street, clutching a bookbag. "Someone's coming!" he yelled to the vehicle's driver. "Don't go yet!"

The transport stopped; the figure slipped and fell in a mud puddle, then picked itself up again and boarded. "My friend's coming too," the mud-spattered boy said, climbing on. "Don't go."

The driver shrugged. "Tough, kid. I got a schedule to keep." The doors snapped shut.

"But—" the boy protested as the vehicle lurched forward. Resigning himself, he stumbled down the aisle of the moving object, looking around.

"Here," Eldarion called, "you can sit with me." The boy stared for a moment, then sat. "Thanks," he said. "You're new, right?"

"Yes," replied Eldarion, looking the boy up and down. Despite the mud, he still was rather good-looking, with solemn yet bright grey eyes and dark hair that fell in spidery bangs about his face. His skin was pale; his garb much like Eldarion's, only his shirt was dark grey and his trousers made of a darker blue fabric. He looked about Eldarion's age, yet something about him—the veiled grief in his eyes?—made him seem older. "How old are you?" Eldarion asked.

" 'm fourteen," the boy responded, wiping mud off his face. "My name's Turin."

Eldarion blinked, his ears obviously playing tricks on him today. "What?" he asked.

"I said I'm Turin. What's your name."

"Eldarion. Um…is Turin a, uh, common name?"

"Huh? I'm the only one I know. The only one Beleg knows too."

"Did you just say Beleg? As in Beleg Cuthalion?" Eldarion's mind was forming a hypothesis about the parallel structure of this world that his common sense was rather reluctant to accept. There was absolutely no way he was sitting next to a version of the Turin Turambar from legend, even if—he regarded the other boy's soiled clothing—this Turin did seem to have the characteristic bad luck. Other people have been named Turin, he told himself. Stop making up all this nonsense. Of course he's not Turambar.

"You know Beleg? I live with his family. He never told me about you. He's the one who missed the bus." Turin began to take more of an interest in his seatmate. "How'd you meet him?"

"I've only heard of him. I'm really sorry he missed the…ah, um…bus. Yes. Bus. You don't live with his family because Easterlings have overrun your homeland, do you?" Eldarion blurted the last sentence on impulse, then regretted it. Whatever Turin's answer was, his reason for asking would be hard to explain.

The dark-haired boy looked at him blankly. "What?"

"Nothing. Just me being a fool. Disregard it. How's your sister?" Aaugh, I did it again! Eldarion groaned inwardly. You just can't keep your big mouth shut, can you? I was stupid to think I could make it through a day. I can't even make it to wherever we're going.

"How did you know I have a sister?" Turin looked at him suspiciously. "Do you know Nienor? You obviously know somebody."

"Oh, er…sure. Real cute kid. Blonde, I think. Yes. Did you know it's bad luck to marry somebody with the same hair color as your sister?" Eldarion's mind had shut down completely; he was acting on instinct alone and babbling, lying to a stranger and cautioning him against something he wasn't even sure would happen. He hated himself. So this is what sleep deprivation does to me, huh? I am never staying up late again.

"Uh…no. I didn't. And I only see her on Christmas and Easter break. But why would you care? It's none of your business." Turin's tone was blunt, his bright eyes kindled into sudden anger.

"You're right," Eldarion apologized. "I'm sorry. I guess I'm just really nervous today, that's all. It's all still so new to me."

Turin looked away. "Ahh, don't worry about it." He didn't speak for a few more minutes, so Eldarion used the time to look at the contents of the mystery "bookbag." It contained, along with several weighty tomes of glossy paper full of nonsensical numbers and terms and pictures that looked almost real, a map of some building with several rooms colored in and a list with "Eldarion Telcontar-Grade 9, HR 210, Locker 175, 42-6-28" at the top. The list consisted of a number, a phrase, and another number, then what sounded like a name. Each entry was also colored.

The first item on the list was highlighted in green and said "1. American History. 9. 210. McOlbrich." Looking at the map, Eldarion saw that the room marked "210" was also colored in green. I get it. Each line has a corresponding room…history is a subject, so it's a list of classes. McOlbrich must be the tutor.

So what does "Grade 9, Locker 175, 42-6-28" mean?

The "bus" stopped in front of a large brick building teeming with teens and discharged its human cargo, Eldarion leaving last because he was busy watching everything that was going on with a sense of amazement. There must be at least a thousand children here, and I bet every one of them but me knows where to go.

Actually, this was not quite true. He noticed many of the younger-looking children—the one about his age—also seemed less than completely sure of themselves. Stepping inside and wandering the bustling hallways, he noticed many children were opening small doors in the walls and placing their belongings within. Intrigued, he walked up to one to get a better look.

"Bug off, freshie!" snapped the user of the tiny closet. "You never seen a kid at his locker before!"

"I apologize," said Eldarion, bowing as he backed away and nearly colliding with a gaggle of girls, who all giggled at him. Looking down at his paperwork, then back up again, he began looking for a little door with a "175" on it. Even if his source had been rather rude to him, at least he'd figured out what a locker was.

He found his locker eventually and tried to open it, but not surprisingly it was true to its name: locked. Inspecting it, he rotated the numbered dial in the center.

"42…6…28." Nothing. Huh. I was sure that would work. He turned it in the opposite direction. "42…6…28." Still nothing.

"Hey, runaway!" called a familiar voice behind him. Eldarion turned around. "Hello, Ruki. How are you? Did I get you in trouble? If I did, I am very sorry."

The violet-haired girl shrugged. "I'm grounded. Big deal. I never go anyplace anyway. So…what are you doing here? I mean, you ran away from home! Are you just kind of ignoring that? You're not gonna milk it?"

Not certain why Ruki had randomly brought up cows, Eldarion changed the subject. "I can't get my locker open." She smiled and shook her head. "Freshies. What's your combination?" He handed over the paper; she scanned it, then started turning the knob. "See, you twiddle it clockwise a coupla times, then stop at 42, then go counterclockwise once, stop at 6, then clockwise at 28, and--!" The locker opened. "There you go." Looking down his list as Eldarion placed his bookbag within and took out the book marked "History," she commented, "Hey, cool. You've got history with Carey. Idiot got held back in history. He sucks at it. Don't tell him I told you that."

"I won't." Eldarion took back his papers and closed his locker. "What's a freshie? You're the third person to call me that."

"You don't know…oh, that's right, you're from another country. 'Freshie' means 'freshman.' Ninth grader. I'm a soph. Sophomore. Tenth grader. So's Carey. What country are you from, anyway? I can't place your accent."

"You wouldn't have heard of it." Eldarion looked at his map to try and figure out where room 210 was in relation to where he now stood. "It's called Gondor."

"You're right. No clue. Is that in Europe? You don't look Asian." A beeping noise rang over everything, causing Eldarion to jump and various clusters of people to disperse. Ruki looked up at a plaque on the wall with numbers on it; Eldarion thought, Everything here is numbers.

"I gotta go," said Ruki. "That's the warning bell. See ya." She walked away. "Good-bye," Eldarion called after her. "Thank you for your help with the locker." Warning bell? That didn't sound like any bell I've ever heard. Warning of what? Are we in danger?

Adults began sticking their heads out of doors and yelling at the rushing masses of youth "Hurry up; you're gonna be late!" Eldarion made his way bemusedly to room 210 and entered, then stopped in his tracks.

He'd never seen a room quite like this before. What looked like paper tapestries covered almost every square inch of the wall space. Things were suspended from the ceiling; over Eldarion's head was a piece of thin metal with "COW antenna" written on it. A string of signs hanging near him asked the reader, "What cognizant decisions have you made that have limited your success?" The front part of the room was dominated by a large, cluttered table; smaller tables with chairs attached filled the rest of the floor space in neat rows. Eldarion sat in a vacant seat and looked around, awestruck. Around him, other children filed in and sat, most looking like they were half-asleep and all nonplussed by the busyness adorning the walls.

The "bell" rang again; a tall, graying man with worried eyebrows and spectacles swept into the room, clanging the door shut behind him. "Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Please turn your attention to the back board and note your responsibilities. By the end of the week, you are to own Chapter One of your text. When I call your name, say 'Here.' Silver, Daniel."

"Here." Eldarion wondered why the students were required to purchase individual chapters of the book when they all seemed bound together.

"Benmir, Caranthir."

Eldarion's head jerked up as a bored-looking boy in completely black clothes sitting across the room from him replied "Here." Benmir…Caranthir? Carey stands for Caranthir! "Benmir": jewelless. Dispossessed. He's dressed entirely in black…"Dark Caranthir"…"Seven kids in that house, and they're all nuts…"

"Oh, Elbereth," Eldarion near-swore in disbelief. "It's not possible." As the man (Mr. McOlbrich?) continued calling the roll, Eldarion studied Caranthir more closely. The dark-clothed boy seemed to be permanently sulking; his black glossy hair hung in a tapered fringe on either side of his face and was tied off in the back in a rather flippant-looking ponytail. While not exactly friendly-looking, he didn't look like he was the kinslaying, crazy, oathbound type either, but one never could tell. Oh, Elbereth, he repeated. Ruki's in love with a son of Feanor.

"Telcontar, EldariON!" Mr. McOlbrich overpronounced the last syllable, causing Eldarion to jump in his seat and tearing his attention away from Caranthir/"Carey". "Here!" he cried nervously, causing several of his peers to snicker quietly. Carey rolled his eyes and sank deeper into his seat, muttering the inevitable semi-complaint "Freshies."

Eldarion had only been a ninth-grader at Endorville High School for forty-five minutes or so, counting the bus ride, and already he hated that that term.

Mr. McOlbrich finished the roll call and adjusted the strip of fabric tied ridiculously tightly around his neck. "Today, ladies and gentlemen, we will be concluding our discussion of native indigenous peoples and begin discussing the Europeans' initial interactions with the North American continent. What have your previous teachers extrapolated about this to you?...Mr. TelconTAR?"

Eldarion blinked, flustered: he had no clue what to say. Finally he said the only thing floating through his head. He knew it was about the stupidest possible sentence to utter, and he knew he would sorely rue it later, but under the circumstances he had no choice. He needed one piece of crucial information.

"Uh, sir…what country are we studying?"

The class erupted into disbelieving laughter; Carey cracked a smile for the first time. Mr. McOlbrich, however, did not smile. "Well. It seems Mr. Telcontar has fallen off the maturation wagon after only three days of high school. You better catch up to that wagon, or it'll leave you in the dust. Now, while he's running after it, who can augment his obviously abysmal knowledge? Mr. BenMIR?"

"America," Carey stated plainly. "That would be why the course is called American History." Eldarion blushed, feeling (rightly so) like an idiot.

"Thank you, sir. Now—" Mr. McOlbrich was interrupted as a droning, nasal female voice began speaking crackily and loudly out of seemingly nowhere.

"ELDARION TELCONTAR, PLEASE REPORT TO THE COUNSELING CENTER." There was a click, and then silence. Everyone looked at Eldarion, who shrugged, picked up his books, and left. He didn't know who was summoning him, or how, or where he was supposed to go, but he was certainly glad to leave 'Room 210, American History' and try to get as far away as possible. How much more am I not going to know? I need help. Badly…what's a "Counseling Center?"

Checking his map, he set off down the hall, through a door, down a flight of stairs, through another door, around a bend and up to a heavy wooden door with a plaque next to it marked "Counseling." He opened it and stared, jaw literally dropping for a second.

Legolas Greenleaf stood leaning on a table, arms crossed nonchalantly, waiting for another blonde boy to finish speaking to a middle-sized, middle-aged woman.

"It's like I keep telling you, Mrs. Thomen, I only hit him cos his friend hit me first! You want to give someone detention, give it to just Gimli, he started it." A redhaired, shorter teen stepped forwards; he was obviously attempting to grow his first real beard. This boy sputtered, "Just give it!...You were threatening him!"

The other guy shot him a look that, even to Eldarion, had "you are such a fool" enscripted upon it. "With a blunt arrow. During archery team practice. It didn't mean anything. I was joking around."

"Didn't mean…!"

"Can we not yell, please?" Legolas uncrossed his arms, revealing the slogan 'Skate 4 Life' written brightly across his tunic. "We've already had that fight, remember? And Celegorm said he was sorry."

The other boy whirled around. "Sorry I didn't punch you in your girlie face the minute I first saw it!" Legolas drew himself up, obviously affronted. Eldarion cleared his throat loudly in an attempt to get the lady's attention. "Um, I was called down, my lady…"

She glanced over. "Oh. You're Eldarion? Mr. Stewart wants to see you."

"Lord…?" Eldarion broke off as Faramir appeared in a doorway. "Hello again, Eldarion. Please come in." Passing Legolas, Gimli, and the other blonde—Carey's brother Celegorm, Eldarion realized, who being also a good-looking hunter and the competitive type would naturally consider the Wood-elf a rival—he entered the room where Faramir stood. As he walked by, he noticed something about Legolas that made him do a bit of a double take: Legolas's ears were rounded. Apparently there were no Elves in this world. He couldn't remember from the previous night if his mother's ears had been pointed or not.

Entering the small room, Eldarion sat in a chair Faramir gestured at. The room was mostly taken up by rows of metal cabinets and a large wooden desk where Faramir seated himself after closing the door. There were two small portraits in a frame on the desk; Eldarion looked at them curiously. A boy with a mop of red-gold hair and a girl with sharp blue eyes stared back. The boy he recognized instantly; the girl took him a minute, as her hair in the portrait was light brown and shoulder-length. "Andre and Ruki," he said aloud, pointing.

Faramir smiled. "You recognized her. Not many people do without her dye job. She got it done on the last day of her freshman year, and these were taken last Christmas. But we aren't here to talk about my kids. No, I want to talk about you."

"Me, sir?" Eldarion shifted nervously in the plush chair, sitting up a little straighter. He didn't know what sort of things Faramir would want to know, but he knew the answers would be more than likely unbelievable.

"Yes. As you know, your normal counselor is Mr. Siepen, but since you…ah…appeared at my house last night, I thought maybe it would be better if you talked to me instead."

From that statement Eldarion glommed that Faramir worked here, at this school, with someone named Mr. Siepen, who Eldarion was supposed to know. "Ah," he replied, having nothing else to say.

Faramir seemed to sense his nervousness and smiled again, but this time it was softer. "Don't worry. I'm not going to grill you on why you ran away or lecture you on the dangers of such behavior. You're going through a difficult time and I just wanted to know if you need to talk about anything to anybody, I'm here to help. You can go back to class if you want, but if you need an ear, I'm here. I promise I won't give you any advice unless you ask," he added, holding up his hands palms outward.

Not wanting to return to the insane décor and embarrassment of American History, at least until he'd read some of the accompanying tome, Eldarion decided to trust Faramir. To a degree. After all, in Middle-earth he was a good and caring Steward. Everyone loved him. If there was one person who would honestly want to help Eldarion, it would be Faramir. "Yes. Well…I just want to forget I ever ran away. It was a huge mistake. I just got so frustrated, having to leave my home against my will and surrounded by people I barely know. Now I've left all my friends, an entire way of life. I just want everything to go back to the way it was. Here it's all so confusing, and I've made such a fool of myself. There's nothing you can do to help, I don't think, but that's just because I don't know what exactly I need. My apologies if that's hard to understand, but it's the truth." Or a rather creative version of it, anyway.

"I understand." Faramir nodded. "Well, these things just take time. You'll get used to it here, and you'll make friends quickly. The only advice I can give you is—do you want advice?" Eldarion nodded, and the Steward/counselor resumed speaking. "All I can advise you is to find someone to talk to. Not me; I'm an outsider in your life; but a parent, or a special friend. Someone you can trust with your secrets and frustrations. A shoulder to cry on. A person to confide in. Do you think there's someone like that in your life?"

Eldarion looked down, away from Faramir's eyes, and his own gaze rested on an oval portrait displayed on the desk. Staring back at him was someone who'd taken him in on nothing but a statement and trust, who even after he got her in trouble went out of her way to greet and help him. With a sudden sense of surety—perhaps it was a half-elven sort of foresight—he knew he could trust her absolutely in return.

"Yes, sir," Eldarion replied finally as he stared at the picture of Faramir's daughter, "I believe there is."

A/n: I have reviews now! I'm surprised no one has flamed me yet for not updating for months.

Mirowood: I think I already explained this…Eowyn had purple hair in the dream because Eldarion was shocked by Ruki's spiky violet 'do. I'm dreading the day he discovers anime; he'll probably be traumatized and I'll have to get him counseling. I know a Support Group he could join…but it might not adequately meet his needs.

Dalamar Nightson: Thank you for your compliments about my characterization of Eldarion! I can do pretty much whatever I want with him, as Tolkien only mentioned him in passing, so I'm trying really hard to make him a real, likeable albeit flawed kid. He's gotta work on that tactless streak before become King. And to answer your question, no one has heard of LOTR or Silm. They also think nothing of weird names, being parallel-universe people, so in that regard Eldarion is actually quite lucky. In fact, the most out-of-place-sounding names in good ol' Endorville USA are "Andre" and "Ruki" and most of the adults at Eldarion's school (also named for Blind Guardian members…I need a life, I need a life, I need a life…)