Author's Note: This is the second version I have written for chapter one. The first version had all the dialogue in elvish (with translations) and didn't cover as much as I wanted it to. Also, it made Lorwen seem slightly Mary Sue-ish. I think that she probably still seems like that, but to a lesser degree. If you have complaints about this, please direct them to Nyx Nox Night, my commissioner, because everything that makes Lorwen seem that way is unfortunately a requirement. Also, I have altered the ages of the twins and Legolas (who won't show up for many chapters) so that the twins are two years older than Arwen and Lorwen, and Legolas is older than the girls by one year. Other than that, I don't have very much to say except, please review (if you don't review, I don't write) and enjoy the story.

Mornië Alantuva - Chapter One:

(250 TA, Imladris)

It was a spring morning in Imladris and the sun shone gloriously on the sparkling waterfalls and through the emerald leaves of the forest's trees. This particular spring morning found Elernil, the eldest of Lord Elrond's four children, ambling along his favorite path through the forests of Rivendell with his young daughter at his side. Like all of Elrond's house, they had dark hair and blue eyes. The child's eyes were royal blue, just like her aunt's and her hair was midnight black. Elernil himself also had midnight black hair and blue eyes, but his eyes were so dark a shade of blue that they appeared black. With the exception of his eyes, Elernil was the spitting image of is father, and his daughter bore remarkable resemblance to his sister Arwen, who though she was the girl's aunt, had been born on the same day at precisely the same time as his daughter.

"Ada," his daughter asked, after they had walked in peaceful silence for some time, "Who was my naneth?" The elven prince stopped walking abruptly as he tuned to face his daughter, taken completely by surprise by her question. Lorwen had never met her mother, though her mother still lived. Elernil's wife had not died giving birth to Lorwen, as he had always told the child she had. The poor girl did not even know what her mother looked like. She at least deserved to know her mother's name, but not her real one, only her elven name, the name Elernil had given her when he introduced her to his father. That name could not possibly hurt, especially when Lorwen believed her mother had been of the Edain.

"Her name was Narvanariel," he replied after a moment, remembering the amusement his wife had taken from the meaning of her new name, 'fair fire maiden', which was a reference both to her temper and to her strange ability to control the element of fire. The fondness with which he was regarding the memory quickly faded as his daughter once more called his attention to herself. Somehow, the child sensed his hesitance and knew at once that he was not quite telling the truth.

"Naneth was of the Edain. Narvanariel is not the name of an Adan. That wasn't her name." The tone of her voice was almost accusatory. He looked down at her in bewilderment. He would never have expected her to be so quick to catch that fact or be astute enough to realize that he had not told her the unaltered truth. He sighed, hoping that his next statement would not spark too much curiosity in the elfling who was currently looking up at him expectantly, awaiting his response.

"Her real name, the one I did not give her was Tenshi," he admitted. 'Please let that be enough to satisfy her,' he begged the Valar. Apparently the Valar did not hear him. For his daughter promptly caught another discrepancy in what she had been told of her mother.

"What language is that name in?" It is not in any language of the Elves. It is not in any language of Men." Again the question was unspoken, but very demanding. From the look in her eyes, he knew she was curious enough to find out something sooner or later. Better later than sooner, in his opinion. To stall her, unfortunately, he would have to lie. Again. Not just a half truth. But a lie. Elernil hated lying to his daughter, but he had done it before and he would do it again, as many times as needed if it would keep her away from the place the truth would lead her, a place that was, at the moment, quite dangerous, a place he himself did not like the idea of returning to any time soon. And so he lied.

"I don't know what language it is in. I know only that in Quenya and Sindarin, it means 'Vala'." This time, he had schooled his features into his best expression of honesty and made his voice as sincere and confident as possible. Those two things along with the added truth at the end, combined with the simplicity of the lie were enough to convince his daughter that he was actually answering her question in complete truth. For a moment, Lorwen stared off into space, thinking very hard. Then her royal blue eyes went back to his almost onyx ones and she asked another question, but this time it was one that he found harmless.

"If her name was Vala, does that mean she was one of the Valar?" At his confused daughter's question, he chuckled, relieved that she was thinking and acting like a child again. The question seemed so harmless that the words slipped out of his mouth before he could realize what he was saying.

"No, she wasn't a Vala, not in Arda anyway." Immediately after the words left his tongue however, he realized his grave mistake. In that one sentence, he had told her volumes more than her other questions could possibly have persuaded him to reveal. He would have added some comment to the effect of him not knowing of any place other than Arda however and thus, the girl's mother couldn't possibly be a Vala, she abruptly cut him off with yet another question.

"What isn't in Arda? What other places are there? Everything is in Arda. Arda is everything." The last two statements summed up the little girl's understanding of the universe as of that moment at age nine. And they had been said with such conviction, and with a tinge of something that resembled outrage, as if she was accusing him of a crime for daring to suggest that more than Arda, the realm of her valar existed, that more than the valar she knew of existed, that the mythology, the religion upon which she had founded her perception of the world, was not complete as it was, that there was something more. And from that little tinge of outrage Elernil knew there was no way, in that realm, or in any other, that she could be soothed by a statement like the one he had been prepared to use. He had done with a mere slip of the tongue, precisely what he had been trying to prevent his daughter from eventually doing: discovering a secret that was so well guarded that only three people, that he knew of, had knowledge of it. Regardless, he could not take it back or cover it up. He had, as was commonly said in that other place which he was so reluctant to name, opened up the proverbial Pandora's Box, whoever Pandora was. And there was no way to close it, therefore he resigned himself to telling her the truth.

"Everything is not in Arda. iel-nín, Eä, the whole creation of Eru is everything. Arda is only one part of that creation. Think to what 'arda' means. It means 'region'. Arda is only one region of Eä, and there are other realms, other regions contained within the great creation. The realm your mother came from was given the name Anarrond (1), and her home in Arnarrond was in a place given the name Firnarondor in Haedor(2)."

"Firnarondor? The land of the dead?" This name frightened Lorwen and she meekly asked, "Is that like Mandos?"

"No," her father replied, "It is not like the halls of Mandos, for Firnarondor is the dwelling place of one of Arnarrond's three Valar, Morwen Firnatári, and this very same Morwen is the mother of your naneth. Tenshi was not merely a vala of darkness, she was a vala of death." He finally summoned up the courage to glance down at his daughter.

"Was naneth like Sauron then?" Her voice trembled as she asked this. Seeing the confusion and fear in his nine-year-old daughter's eyes, he immediately picked her up and hugged her tightly.

"Your naneth was not evil. She had a good soul, full of fire and because of that fire, light." These words made her quite relieved. Elernil knew Lorwen would be fine when he saw the sparkle in her eyes as she finally reached a certain conclusion and so he put her down again.

"That makes me half-vala!" With this, she smiled brilliantly. "Ada, let's go! Let's go home so that I can tell Arwen!" Tugging at her father's sleeve as she spoke, Lorwen all but dragged Elernil back to the palace. When they at last reached the stairs that led up to the entrance, Elernil held his daughter back. He didn't want to ruin his daughter's mood, but it was simply impossible for her to tell Arwen without Elrond finding our. And if his father did find out how large and how dangerous a secret his eldest son had been keeping from him- Elernil did not even want to think about it. "Lorwen, my child, you can't tell Arwen. You cannot tell a single soul."

"Ada! Arwen won't tell, I-"

"You shall not! Lorwen Elenarnariel Elernilian of the house of Elrond, give me your word that you will not speak a single word of this to any one, ever." Startled by the seriousness and near desperation in her father's voice, Lorwen nodded meekly in acquiescence.

"Antanyël vandanyá, Atar," (I give you my vow.) She promised in formal and perfect Quenya, as if in ceremony, to prove that she meant it.

"All is well then. Now, go and find your friend," he urged and sighed in relief as she ran to the gardens to find her best friend. He listened until he heard her great his little sister, and trusting his daughter, he decided to retire to his rooms, suddenly feeling very weary. At least he would be able to sleep peacefully, he thought, knowing that Lorwen's secret would remain a secret.

"Arwen," Lorwen called as she wandered through the gardens that covered one of the terraces of the palace. "Arwen, are you here?" There was no answer for a moment and then a clear but aloof call came from a short distance.

"I am by the water pool!" Following the beautifully designed tile pathway, Lorwen came at last to the courtyard which contained the water pool. The courtyard was tiled in turquoise, as was the pool, which was not a natural one, but one architecturally designed. The tiles sides and bottom of the pool gave the water an ethereal blue color, the color Lorwen imagined the waters in Valinor must be. Arwen was kneeling at the edge of the pool on the blue tile floor that surrounded it. Her pristine white dress was carefully gathered to one side so that it would not get wet as she drew her hand back and forth through the sapphire blue water. Her waist length, wavy brown hair was unbound and hung down like a curtain around her small pale face. Her blue eyes which had taken on the color of the water, were focused intently on the ripples her hand had made. Without looking away from the glistening surface of the pool, she asked mock-innocently and with an undertone of accusation, "Did you get lost in the woods?"

For several seconds, this question made little sense to Lorwen, but then she remembered that she had promised the other girl the previous night that she would go to the stables with Arwen and Arwen's mother to practice riding. "Ai, Arwen, I'm so sorry! I didn't forget my promise. My ada and I were walking in the forest and we lost track of the time." The girl by the water sighed and looked at her niece/ best friend. Their identical blue eyes met for a moment and then Arwen spoke.

"It's alright. Come sit by the pool with me." Glad of the easy change in mood, Lorwen joined the other girl by the side of the pool. For a while, they chattered about various things such as the upcoming arrival of Belthilion, Elernil's uncle. The two girls were in the middle of discussing whether or not Belthilion's former teacher, Mithrandir would be arriving with him, when suddenly, without any warning whatsoever, they were shoved forcefully from the side. Both of them of course fell into the pool and emerged a moment later soaking-wet and infuriated.

Arwen glared scathingly at the two perpetrators, who were sitting on the roots of a nearby tree and laughing as if this were the funniest thing since the legendary tale of Prince Legolas of Mirkwood and the Misfired Arrow. "You two!" The infuriated nine-year-old shouted at her brothers. "I should have known!" The second exclamation only served to make them laugh harder.

Without saying a word in complaint, Lorwen stared very intently at her twin uncles with an expression of outrage and fury, or rather, she stared at the bottom of their robes. After several seconds of intense concentration, much to her surprise, Lorwen managed to accomplish her method of revenge. The bottoms of the twins' robes lit up in fire. This unexpected occurrence caused both the boys to scramble hurriedly toward the pool with identical screams, and seeing no other way to put out the fire, they jumped in. Now it was the girls' turn to laugh hysterically. Arwen was laughing both at the hilarity of the twins' antics and in wonder of her niece's ability. She really wished that she could retaliate against her brothers that easily. What she didn't know was that it wasn't all that easy to do and in fact Lorwen hadn't even really thought it would work. And so the black-haired girl took the opportunity to laugh in glee at her unexpected success. When the two black-haired, blue-eyed boys climbed, sputtering, out of the pool, not only were they drenched in water, but their robes were burnt off all the way up to the knee, where the fabric was comically singed. Before they could launch a second attack on the girls, a musical voice asked in utter confusion, "What in Elbereth's name is going on here? Elladan, Elrohir, why are your robes burnt nearly half off? And why are all of you soaking wet?" Celebrian glanced down at her three children and her step-granddaughter with an eyebrow raised ever so slightly in curiosity, waiting for an answer.

"Those two," Arwen began to explain, gesturing to the twins, "tried to drown us!" She would have said more, but Elladan interrupted.

"And she set our cloaks of fire," he said, pointing to Lorwen.

"And we had to jump in the pool to put the flames out," Elrohir added, explaining the second half of his mother's question. She shook her head and sighed. These four certainly were trouble makers.

"You father will deal with you three," she said to her own children, "and," now addressing Lorwen, "seeing as your father is sleeping, I suppose he shall deal with you as well." A little in dread of the Elven Lord's wrath, the four children reluctantly followed the fair-haired Lady Celebrían up to the palace where Elrond would give out their penalties.

Meanwhile, Elernil, who had, as Celebrían stated, fallen asleep, fell into a very realistic, but impossible dream. He was standing in a dark throne room, with a high vaulted ceiling and many almost monolithic pillars. In the center of the room was a dais and on the dais, there was a throne. There were only two people in the room besides Elernil himself. There was a woman sitting on the throne and a woman standing next to it. They were deep in conversation, but Elernil heard not a single thing they were saying, because he was too busy staring at one of the women. Not the one in the throne, he knew well who she was, but at the moment cared little. He was staring at the one beside the queen. This other woman was tall and beautiful and her eyes danced with flickering flames. She had long, dark hair and dark eyes and was surrounded by a faint red aura. It was the aura that confirmed what he saw beyond a shadow of a doubt, but he would have known her anywhere, for it was Narvanariel, Tenshi, his Tenshi, whom he had not seen since the day she vanished into a terrifying black vortex, three days after the birth of their child. He crept closer to the pair, but for some reason remained in the deep shadows. It was then he started paying attention to what they were saying, and realized that they were speaking in Ancient Quenya, not in English, that harsh language which he had been forced to learn in Haedor. "Manna útúlierë, Amil? Ar mana cárrë sinomë?" (Where did she come from, Mother? And what is she doing here?) Tenshi sounded highly vexed, almost angry, but the Queen brushed it off and answered in a surprisingly calm manner.

"Runya sellerlya narë. Narë yeldenya ar meran sana narë sinomë, ar ve nas." (Runya is your sister. She is my daughter and I wish for her to be here, and so it is.)

"Mal manna útúlierë?" (But where did she come from?) Tenshi demanded once more.

"Ardallo," was the only word Morwen Firnitári would say after that, and so, fuming Tenshi stalked out of the room, incinerating the doorway instead of just opening it. The last thing Elernil heard before everything went blank, was his wife muttering, in English, "First Culfin, then Belthilion- thank the other valar he went back to Middle-earth- and Marien, who isn't even one of Mother's children and yet, she favors her over us, now Runya, my most precious, more powerful, more beloved half sister. How many more of these goddess-forsaken Maiar is she going to bring to Earth!"

Somewhere not far from Imladris, a tall old man dressed in grey and leaning on a staff as a walking stick looked down at his hand to see the ruby jewel set into his golden ring glow almost imperceptibly for a moment and then abruptly stop. And then he knew she had gone.

(1)Arnarrond- Quenya, from arnar 'sun' and rond 'dome' 'Sundome'; Arnarrond is our universe

(2)Haedor- Quenya, from hae 'far' and dor 'earth' "Far-earth" aka Earth.

Feel free to ask any questions you're pondering or even guess at answering them in your reviews. I can't answer your questions within the post, but I would like to know what it is that gets you thinking and which way you think the story will go. Also I need atleast six reviews if I'm going to post the next chapter. Six real reviews (As in, not flames, and not one or two liners). Thanks!

-Morianna Phoenix