AN: Hi everyone! This is my semi-sort of sequel to "Il Fiore Bianco." I don't think you really need to read my other story to understand this one, though. Read it if you so desire and if you want the small amount of back story it contains. Please, be kind and don't flame me for the concepts involved in this story. They're just products of idle time between classes at school (maybe some of my Chemistry Classes or something). I do this just for fun and to pass time. Please review, though, as I always appreciate them, whether they are good, bad, or indifferent.

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.

It was evening, or what the Niphredil perceived as evening, in the Golden Woods of Lothlorien. Through the tall golden colored trees the young girl walked, glancing here and there as she tried to take everything in. The girl, long inky colored hair pulled into a braid and was clothed in a simple, cloudy grey colored dress. Her feet were bare and dark eyes moved around the areas she moved through.

Though she'd been in Lothlorien for several days, at least that was what she thought since time seemed to move oddly through the ancient forest, this place was still very new and foreign to the young elven maiden.

Very different, too, from the home she left in Gondor. Where every there seemed to be made of white stone and other forms of brick work, Lothlorien seemed to posses its own special brand of architecture. Something about the ways the homes were built into the giant, golden glowing trees reminded the young girl of either the tree house the Robinson family lived in, from the pages of the book "Swiss Family Robinson," or from the Ewoks' homes in Return of the Jedi.

Of course, Niphredil knew that if she were to bring up either of those references, all she would get were odd looks from those around her.

"Not if Emma was here," the elven maiden though, as she followed her feet on some path her mind had created for her, "she'd understand them and, hopefully, get a good laugh too."

Though they were of different ages, from different areas in Middle Earth, and lived in different circumstances, Emma and Niphredil had one major thing in common. Both of them were born in Middle Earth but did a good chunk of their growing up in a realm outside their home. It was by no fault of their own, of course, and things turned out right in the end.

Mostly right, anyway, as Emma wasn't the most popular person with her biological father and Niphredil had been taken to these strange woods to learn to use a gift she'd only just become aware of.

A shock to the system to say the least.

Niphredil's feet took her to a grassy knoll, a few feet away from the main part of Lothlorien. There she flopped down on the springy grass, trying her best not to crush the small flowers that dotted the ground around her. She'd been told she was named after a type of flower found in these woods but she had yet to be able to identify them on her own. Everything was still too new, too confusing to her.

"And I know why," Niphredil decided, allowing her mind to drift back to what she perceived as a few days earlier.

Flashback

Using one of those Portkeys that the wizard Patrick had introduced to a select few in Middle Earth, Niphredil appeared just on the borders of the strangest woods she'd ever seen. She'd been a Girl Scout in the other world, after all, and had figured that all woods were alike. Just full of trees and grass and small animals that made the younger Girl Scouts and first time campers jump whenever they tried to sleep.

These woods weren't properly green, like all the others she'd seen before. If anything, these were golden in color and seemed to exude some ancient feeling. A feeling Niphredil had never had a chance to sense before, not even in her time among her friend Hope's mutant friends and family. There was a sense of peace, too, and a sense of quiet calm that danced through the air hand in hand with the ancient feeling.

That peace and quiet was shattered though by the mere presence of another figure standing on the wooded borders. That being the Elven Ranger known as Fire.

"Why in the world, my dear sister, did you have to bring her here? There has to be one place in Middle Earth that she cannot visit," Fire protested.

Though Ice was of a higher rank and older than her sister, Fire was by and large the louder of the two. To Niphredil, it appeared that the young girl felt it was her right to give everyone and anyone her opinion. For a variety of reasons, the largest of them being her besting the Elven Ranger in armed combat, she and Fire did not get along.

"She has a point, Ice," Mac, one of Fire and Ice's friends, commented, "It seems odd that Captain would ask for her. She has not done anything to merit joining our band."

"Besides, she is too young," Goose added, in a honking voice, "she's just newly arrived here!"

"If the order had come from Captain, my friends, I would be inclined to agree with you. My orders, though, did not come down from Captain," Ice retorted, as she gestured for Niphredil and the others to follow her down a narrow path.

The group walked silently, as Niphredil tried to take in everything around her. Her initial suspicions had been correct. This wooded area was not like any other she'd ever been in.

As they got deeper within its tree lined confines, Niphredil began to note the faint music in the air. It was a bit disconcerting at first but, as they continued walking, the elven maiden grew use to it. It was like the ambient music plated in stores or on elevators in the other world. It was just there, or so she figured.

Niphredil felt the need to be strangely quiet but the others she was traveling with seemed to feel otherwise.

"If your orders did not come down from Captain, who did they come from?" Mac asked, obviously curious.

"More important than that," Fire cut in, "how come you did not ask us to come along?"

Ice sighed, a sound just audible over the music seeming to come from the surrounding area, and answered, "My orders came down from the Lady Galadriel. She requested the presence of the young one and ordered me to travel with as much speed as one could muster. I would have brought you along, my dear sister, but I needed to leave right away."

Fire said something under her breath that her sister chose to ignore. Whatever she said, however, seemed to amuse Mac and Goose.

The announcement Ice made, however, gave Niphredil a reason to pause. She'd heard about Galadriel, Lady of the Golden Woods, from both her parents. From what she knew, and could recall in her stunned state, she was one of the most ancient elves in Middle Earth. Galadriel also happened to be Niphredil maternal great-grandmother.

Maybe this visit was to be expected, then, since her parents had said she would, one day, be able to visit her great-grandmother's home. Why this visit had become so urgent was beyond her, though.

The rest of the trip was taken in silence, a silence that was only broken when the reached the heart of the Golden Woods.

"This is where we leave you," Ice informed Niphredil in her no nonsense voice, "I wish you good luck."

There wasn't a moment to dwell on what the Elven Ranger could, possibly, be referring to as Niphredil's attention was drawn elsewhere. Without a sound, a tall elven woman clad in white and with an almost radiant air about her appeared before her. This woman seemed to taken in everything about Niphredil in an almost quite study.

Niphredil tried to stand perfectly still and draw upon her karate training. It wouldn't do anyone any good if she flinched but she felt very small and very insignificant under the woman's gaze. Not a good feeling to say the least.

"It is good to see you again, my child," the woman said in an almost friendly voice, "it does me well to see that you have grown and are in good health. It has been many years since I have seen you last. I am afraid I almost did not recognize you."

"I do not want to be rude, ma'am, but I'm not sure who you are. Perhaps I should but I'm still very new to this world," Niphredil admitted with a sheepish grin.

The woman laughed, a strange sound considering her imposing stature.

"I would not expect you to, Niphredil, since you were but a child when I last saw you. I am your great-grandmother Galadriel," the woman, elf actually, replied, "and I have called for you at a time when your skills will be needed most."

"Skills?" Niphredil asked, obviously confused, "I don't have any skills. I mean, I can use a sword and I know how to fight hand to hand but that's about it."

Another laugh bubbled out of the fair haired elven woman. She hadn't expected Niphredil to know, unless her mother had told her. Thankfully, though Arwen had thought better of it and waited for someone else. Someone who understood just what Niphredil was able to do and how this skill could be put to good use.

"Come, we will sit and eat. There will we discuss what skill I speak off," Galadriel stated, leading Niphredil out of the heart of the Golden Woods.

End Flashback

Niphredil shook herself free from her memory, coming back to the present time. What had taken place at that meal was imprinted on the elven maiden's mind as indelibly as anything else.

It was there she discovered she was no ordinary elf. She had the power to go into something- Someplace? - called the Halls of Mandos to speak with the dead. There were even some cases; she recalled being told, that she could return to dead to life. Those cases were rare, though, and required the circumstances to be extremely extenuating.

For the better part of her time within the confines of the woods, Niphredil learned how to go too and from the gray space that was the Halls of Mandos. Well, she perceived it as being gray but the space might have been a different color entirely.

If she was not "training-" for lack of a better world- Niphredil was allowed to wander the woods or visit with her great-grandparents. Both were interesting ideas but she found another distraction. That being the training of the gray clad guards of the Golden Woods. Guards that seemed to include Fire and Ice- by other names she did not recognize, though.

"My lady, I have a message for you," came a voice from behind Niphredil.

"Message away, my friend," Niphredil commented, with a wiry smile.

"The Lady Galadriel requests your presence near her mirror. She said it is time," the owner of the voice, an elven male clad in the grays of the Guards of the Golden Woods.

"Time for what?" Niphredil broached, unsure what was going on.

"She would not say, my lady. She only said that it was very urgent and that she would explain it to you once you arrived," the guard said, bowing his way away from Niphredil.

Confused and a bit lost, Niphredil stood up and headed off in the direction of her great-grandmother's mirror. Whatever was going to happen would happen once she arrived there and not a moment sooner.

"Plus," she mused aloud, "it would be most rude to keep her waiting."