Lori was not tired. She wasn't. Right after the mention of this new name 'Mel-doo-een Par-e-dine', her curiosity only sparked up a type of energy in her body as surely as eating too much sugar would.

Yet, it was Lord Elrond who sighed before speaking, "I will speak plainly to you, children: since it is apparent that you are quite unfamiliar with our history, this is a question that would likely take at least the entire night to answer before you can fully understand, and it has already grown quite late already for Miss Lori especially…"

"But I'm not tired!" protested Lori, practically bouncing in Maia's lap. "I wanna know more!"

"There's no way I can sleep now!" Kyle shook his head, aggressively. "You're just telling us we could possibly live up to, what, close to a thousand years or so, and you expect us to just put it aside now? How the hell do you know this? Who is this guy you mentioned and what does he have to do with…whatever it is you sense in us?"

"Can't you just give us the short version?" pleaded Maia, who was also impatient for an answer. "Just tell us who this Melduin Peredain and why you believe this person is connected to us. Please. If you believe we're Dùnedain, then tell us why."

They had spent over a month in a foreign realm with little to no clue of how they got here, and even less so with its people and history and culture. While grateful for the assistance of Bilbo, Gandalf, the Dwarves, and now the Elves, learning new things all around that were connected their culture, they still didn't provide the answers to the questions that mattered: how was this world connected to young ordinary Americans like them, and why was it so similar to the imagination their father (if it was even imagined at all)?

Well, now after hearing about what they really were, with such surety that the White Council could show little doubt, then if not to know the answer in finding their way home, they can at least know about why they think the Dainson siblings are not who they grew up believing they are.

Lori hoped it was her pleading pout that made an impact, because after Galadriel and Gandalf chuckled at the little girl's face, Elrond had hold back a smile before sighing again. "Very well."

He seemed to mentally exchange words with the Lady Galdriel, who merely gave him a calm side-glance around the table, and his brow furrowed. Lori wondered if the strange sensation she felt between them was magic, like a magnetic flow channeling unseen.

"I will keep it short and simple, for we have another question to ask you, children of Arthur and Laura," continued Elrond, as he came closer to them. "As the Lady had mentioned before, the Dùnedain were descendants of Numenor, an island made entirely of a kingdom ruled by they who during the Second Age called themselves Numenorean. It was a small, but luxurious realm, separated from both the shores of Middle-earth and the Blessed Realm of the West, yet flourished under both, to begin a new life for mortals who were gifted three centuries more the normal lifespan. Its Kings and Queens ruled the island for three thousand years before the end…the first ever, and with the longest lifespan ever recorded amongst the line of Kings…" Elrond paused for a moment, swallowing, his eyes suddenly glittering with emotion, before continuing, "…was my twin brother. Elros Tar-Minyataur."

"What?" The kids once again said in surprised unison, before Maia continued, "You had a brother?"

"You had a twin?" Lori exclaimed. "Really?" She suddenly pictured two of the Elven Lords in front of her instead of one, and was torn between giggling or flinching from the weirdness of the thought. She actually had twin classmates back in her preschool, and everyone enjoyed the game from trying to tell who was who…but she had never seen adult twins together yet, except in movies.

"Wait, hold on!" Kyle held up his hands for pause, frowning. "Your brother? But…I thought you just said this kingdom was ruled by mortals. You know, humans. Was your brother an exception or something?"

"No, Master Kyle," Gandalf said quickly, when Elrond didn't seem to want to continue. "Elros and Elrond were Peredhel. Half-elven. When they were young, during a time when the future of two races was held in account, the brothers had the Choice laid before them."

"The Choice?"

"To choose to be counted among the Eldar or among the Edain," said Galadriel solemnly. "To live in life eternal, re-embodied in the Blessed Realm even after death, or to live and die as a mortal, their spirit passing beyond the Circles of Arda and into eternity, until the beginning of the Second Music." She looked at them. "Elros chose to be Mortal."

"And I Immortal," whispered Elrond, his tone thick with emotion. "It was—is still—a pain that never fully went away."

"Oh." Kyle seemed to already feel guilty for his careless outburst. "I'm sorry." His sisters echoed his sentiment. Neither of them could imagine losing even one of each other, but to lose a twin? The other half of one's self?

"Twas a long time ago," Elrond shook his head, his voice becoming stronger. "I made peace with his Choice when I met his children, and his children's children, and so on. He was given the longest life of the Kings of Numenor, of five hundred years, and passed on peacefully with his family around him."

"He was truly the most fortunate," agreed Gandalf. "I still wish I had the chance to meet him."

"Indeed," said Saruman, his black eyes placed in thought.

"However," said Elrond, refocusing on the reason for their topic, "it was not my brother who had the longest lifespan among the race of Men. Other than my sire's father, the only Edain believed ever to have been counted among the Elves, that honor, to this day and known to so very few, belongs to Melduin Paredain, Patriarch and Lord of Laurenàrë in Numenor, otherwise known as the House of Golden Flames.

"His mother-name meant 'beloved river', for he was born and raised near a river with his mother, yet had a strange and powerful kinship with fire and earth.

"Back at the beginning of the Second Age, right before Elros and his people sailed to Numenor, my brother and I had known him personally: briefly during the War of Wrath and then on better terms on the shores of old Beleriand. He was the chosen leader of a people originated from a village called Epel Brandir, a former settlement in Brethil, which was long destroyed during the war before they were forced to fight or flee, along with his younger half-siblings, Halmir and Haradeth, children of Halataur, son of Hunthor. If not for their father's—Melduin's step-father's—illegitimate birth, those children would have been recognized by the Edain as the last rightful heirs to the diminished House of Haleth and, from their mother's line, the House of Hador and the House of Bëor, by which should both have been Melduin's right as the firstborn of his mother, Sîrlindë Amarthiel.

"Alas, the remaining people of Brethil remained too proud and inflexible in their reclusive ways, and so the House of the Haladin, by law of legitimacy, was counted no more. Nor was the House of Hador and the House of Bëor, save that through the Elvish lines of Beren from the House of Bëor and Tuor from the House of Hador. Bloodlines that my brother and I have also inherited from through the marriage of our birth parents.

"It was Elros who dubbed Melduin the name 'Peredain', while I took on the name 'Peredhel.' While my name means 'Half-elven,' his name meant 'Half-Man.'"

"'Half-man?'" Kyle wrinkled his nose at that. Lori was also confused.

"Half-man, half-what?" It was Maia who asked what the little girl was thinking.

After a moment's pause, as though mentally weighing the consequences of his answer, Elrond looked at her and said, "Half-Maia."

That…only left Kyle even more confused than ever.

"Half-Maia?" he echoed, and then looked at his startled big sister, who shared the same name.

The name "Peredain" sounded pretty cool when saying it aloud, but now after learning about the English translation, the meaning behind the name sounded pretty lame. Almost like an insult. It sounded close to what they called hobbits, but at least for them, the name fit the category!

But then after hearing the other half to the name…Pressing his lips together, he had to struggle not to laugh, but it was hard to fight a smile. Next to him, Lori giggled softly.

"Uh…" Maia blinked, giving Elrond a baffled look. "Okay, I don't understand. What's a Maia?"

"You are," piped up Lori, and Kyle couldn't take it anymore. He burst out laughing for the second time tonight, to the point where he had trouble breathing. Lori joined him with childish glee.

It only took him a moment to realize Galdriel laughed aloud as well, which was a surprisingly pleasing sound. Gandalf chuckled, and Elrond had to cover his mouth to hide a smile, despite himself. Saruman just groaned, rubbing fingers against his temple. It was surprisingly how quick the Dainsons can make a funny joke out of something that should be serious.

Maia's face turned red. "Okay, ha-ha-ha! Joke's on me!" she said aloud, rolling her eyes, though it was clear she was trying not to crack herself. Instead, she had the grace to clear her throat. "Seriously, though, what is it? I feel like I've heard it before...somewhere...but I can't remember when, or where..."

When everyone calmed down, it was Gandalf who answered, "Well, my dear girl, for starters, it was I am. And Saruman."

The younger siblings stopped laughing, taken by total surprise like Maia. "A wizard?!" gaped Kyle, feeling his heart give a leap of hope.

What did that mean? That they could perform magic after all?

"We're wizards?" squeaked Lori, excitedly, but Gandalf quickly shook his head, holding up a hand to slow down.

"No, no, not exactly, no," he said.

"Oh," Kyle and Lori's faces fell, before the boy said, "Then what?"

"Geez, guys, pipe down for a second and let them explain!" Maia told them, giving both a gentle shake. Kyle scrunched his nose at her, but complied.

"Thank you, Maia," said Gandalf with a nod, before saying, "A Maiar is of the race of the Ainur, but lesser."

"We are of a race of godly being that have entered the cosmos of Eä since before the beginning," said Saruman. "We are the kin and followers of the Valar, who are our masters and our rulers of all that has come to be from the thought of the great Creator. Before reduced in power within our mortal form, our power was greater within the association of our masters' creations."

Maiar…Ainur…Eä…Valar…what?! Kyle rubbed his forehead. "My head hurts," he groaned, still struggling to follow along with the names. He wondered if he should ask either of the wizards to repeat that more slowly.

"So," Maia fumbled with her fingers, as she pondered the words, trying to make sense of what they were saying, "you're like…gods?"

"No," said Gandalf, before Saruman could continue. "Not us."

"Though it is common belief among many of the Eldar, passed on to mortal races, that the Valar are deemed their gods for their divine power and control of the elements of creation," said the Lady of Light. "They are held in great reference as such, even today, and the lives of those who worshipped them were often made the better for it. However…" Her voice lowered, her eyes darkening slightly as she looked away, "There are also many of those who do not hold such reverence. Reject it, even. Through pride, and hate." Though she wasn't looking at him, it seemed pretty clear somehow that she was directing such words to Elrond, whose expression hardened into a placid coolness.

"And yet it has also been proven that they no longer hold themselves accountable for the affairs and doings of the peoples of Middle-earth," the Lord of Rivendell said, a bitter tone grating his words, "caring only for those they deem worthy or favorable, not of those who have truly suffered."

The energy in the room seem to vertebrate, growing more intense. More angry.

Kyle felt the magic, the anger, the stubborn pride, stirring in the air like a growing buzz of an electrical conductor with a life of its own. The dark mood felt close to the power stir of magic Gandalf once displayed back in Bag End.

Like sheers to a power line, however, Gandalf cut them off sharply, and scolded them as though they were children, "Alright, that's enough, the both of you! This is not the time to stir up age-old arguments. Remember the peace!"

Galadriel and Elrond, the only Elves at present, glared at once another a moment longer, before looking away at the same time. The thrumming in the air had abruptly ceased. Once Kyle and his sisters could finally breathe, he wondered what the hell that had been about.

"Prideful Noldor," Gandalf grumbled almost soundlessly under his breath, before turning back to the children.

"Anyhow…The Valar and the Maiar are together called the Ainur," the Grey Wizard continued, more calmly. "Whether they be revered as gods or not, they are beings who play great roles in the nature that surrounds you. From the fires and plants of the earth, the waters of the seas and rivers, to the stars in the sky, the visions of dream, and the shadows of death. The Valar came to be from the thought of Eru the Almighty, and therefore the Maiar came to be through the nature conjured from the hands of the Valar. The Maia are, in other words, are spirits of lesser divinity, but with great power and more free will.

"Depending on the master and the nature of our begetting, our powers vary," said Saruman, "but together, as one, the Maia share the natural power of enchantment, illusion, transformation, speech, and song."

"And you are both Maia?" asked Maia, starting to finally understand. "But then, are all Maia wizards?"

"No, we were merely sent by the Valar in these forms in exchange for our passage and participation in these lands," Saruman answered. "Only five of us were selected for…the task that was required. While bound in these mortal forms, our strengths have become limited. Our previous knowledge harder to grasp."

"And the more we break such rules, the lesser our power and the memories of our previous life," added Gandalf.

"Wait!" protested Lori. "That's not fair!"

"However strict, it is necessary, little one," Gandalf said, smiling sadly. "There have been…far too many others who have abused such power in the past, and the world was almost destroyed because of it." The siblings' eyes widened. "But it does not make us weak, I can assure you."

"So, how many of these Maiar are out there right now?" Kyle asked, glancing beyond the pavilion's walls overlooking the valley.

"That is a good question," stated Gandalf, thoughtfully. "I couldn't answer that, Master Kyle, for not even I have the power to overlook the entirety of Middle-earth's domain. But I reckon there are not nearly as many left as there had been since the First Age."

"And when was that?"

"We're nearly three thousand years into Third Age now. So, that would be a little more than seven thousand years ago."

Kyle's jaw dropped. "Dang!"

"I remember you mentioning before, when we arrived here," said Maia, to Elrond, "that I was named after the 'spirits of the Valar.' I didn't understand what you meant as the time, but…I think I do now." Elrond acknowledged her with a nod. "So, this person we're descended from…you said he was half-Maiar? And he lived with the Dùnedain?"

"He did," confirmed Elrond, smiling gently. "He eventually married a noblewoman of Numenor, and had three lovely daughters with her. From his eldest daughter, Lindissë Vanimòrie*, her line lives on through you."

"And you know that we're his descendants because…you sense it in our blood?"

"As surely as you have sensed from Gandalf, yes?" When they nodded, he continued, "The Eldar can also sense kinship from one another through their fëa, or the spirit, in your tongue. For you, among the race of Men, save from my foster-son Estel alone, there is no other with the inheritance you share."

"If that were the case, then there can only be one other question that concerns this new discovery." Saruman approached them yet again, his staff gleaming more sharply in the contrast of the moonbeam's shining light. "If the line of Melduin Peredain indeed still lives on, against all odds and without our current knowledge of its existence, then who, may I ask, is responsible for passing down such a legacy?" His black eyes narrowed on the Dainsons. "Unless they were fostered, which I highly doubt given their relation to one another with such large age gaps between them, and therefore they have explained their mother's origins already in the land of their birth, but what of the father? Arthur Dainson, was it not?"

"That's right," said Maia slowly, uneasily.

"You had much to talk about the family and homeland of your mother's, but barely anything about your father's," said the White Wizard. "Tell us more about this man. Where did he come from?"

"A land called New Zealand. We told you—"

"And you said he was an artist? Was there anything else?"

"H-He worked as a bartender for a while," continued Maia, trying to keep her voice steady. "Before that, I think he helped with house construction, and—I don't know what else."

"You don't know?" An eyebrow was raised. "What of his parents, then? His childhood? Can you describe his appearance to us?"

"I—"

"Hold on, Maia!" Kyle interrupted, before glaring up at Saruman with clenched fists in his lap. His gray-blue eyes had turned like silver ice. "That's a bit too many questions for someone who won't answer ours first!"

"The child is right," said Galadriel before Saruman could say anything. "Our search for answers will have little significance if we do not share our own connections." She looked the siblings in the eye. "Before we continue, I ask for your trust and permission to share my thoughts. The memories of events which I have long ago gathered from the witnesses of the past."

Maia tensed up. "You want to speak to us in our minds again?"

"The power you have witnessed we call osanwè, the linking of minds and hearts. If you wish me to speak, I shall speak thus, but I will keep the memories as clouded as possible, for the tale is not a happy one for all who were there."

Maia was the only one to look uneasy, and was about to say no, but then…

Kyle beat her to it. "Let's do it."

Maia looked at her brother in surprise. She would have thought Kyle would agree with her, that it felt too strange and too invasive to have someone enter their minds like before. Kyle was normally nothing if not defensive. "Seriously?" she mouthed.

Kyle nodded, completely serious. "Just this once. It'll be quicker."

"I'll do it, too," said Lori. She tugged on Maia's hair. "C'mon, Maia."

Unbelievable. She was already outvoted by her brother and sister, who were clearly more fascinated by the power of osanwè, or the linking of minds! Not willing to be the only one left out, Maia breathed out slowly and reluctantly agreed. "Okay. Shoot."

Thus, Galadriel began, using osanwè, linking her mind with those around her and visions (memories) to go with them...once they agreed to let her in, as was proper.

Sucked in—

Reality fell away—

Images formed life in moving motions, not quite the present—now the past—

And then there was her voice.

.

.

.

It was long ago, two hundred years ago, when the Rangers of the North guarded the wild terrains spreading from the borders of the Shire to the Valley of Imladris. They were, and still to this day, the Dunedain of Eriador.

Since the prime of the Second Age, the Dunedain had been split into two kingdoms: Gondor in the South and Anor in the North.

It was year 2740 0f the Third Age when the lands were overrun with orcs and goblins from the Misty Mountains, led by their king, Golfimbul. A group of Rangers were assigned to guard the borders of the Shire and formed a garrison to fight back this attack.

For years, the Rangers led by Ragnòr, son of Egnòr, the last ruling lord of the Laurenàrë, defended the regions of Eriador with will and determination, driving back each invasion that threatened to enter those peaceful lands...until after seven years of struggle, Golfimbul brought the full might of his army to overrun the Rangers in the middle of the night.

Several parts of Eriador were invaded, each battalion of the Dùnedain holding back their forces, until one party managed to evade the Siege protecting the borders of the Shire and entered Northfarthing. This would lead then to the notorious Battle of the Greenfields, where for the first time in history, a unlikely band of halfings led by Bandobras Took of Long Cleave, then known to his people as "Bullroarer," crossed the river Norbourne to the Greenfields to join the remaining Ranger garrison being driven back across the Brandywine River.

While defending the women and children camped near the river, including his wife and only child, Ragnòr Egnòrion had fallen prey to many orc blades, taking many more down with him in his final stand, until Golfimbul delivered the final blow, leaving the band of Rangers leaderless.

When Ragnòr fell, Bullroarer Took charged through the army of orcs and goblins on a horse and beheaded the Goblin King then and there.

With the head of the snake cut off, the dark forces were driven out and fled back to the Misty Mountains. The Shire won its first battle ever as warriors that day, never having to be repeated after...but at a heavy cost, for not all would come out alive and victorious.

With very few of the Ranger garrison surviving the attack, some of the orcs had snuck past the main defenses and chased down the women and children alongside the Brandywine. Some had drowned in the attempt to swim across, mothers had fallen defending their young, and few of the Rangers' sons, young boys no older than their adolescence, had fallen taking up sword and bow in the last line of defense alongside the halflings who had fought under the command of Bandobras Took.

One of those boys, younger than most and no less skilled than his elders, a prodigy of the sword for one not yet in his ninth year, was Ragnòr's only child and heir of the Laurenàrë, the last descendant of Melduin Peredain.

Aravìr Ragòrion.

Named after one of the past kings of Gondor, it has been told that young Aravìr fought with the skill and speed of a grown man. When his father fell, he and his mother, Eryn, tried to lead the people up the river to cross when they were overrun.

.

.

.

"Withywindel! Tatharlhê!*" the little boy Aravìr cried, tears running down his cheeks. His voice, drowned by the battle cries, echoed emptily across the roaring river. " Where are you, Tatharlhê? I am heir to Melduin! Help my family! Please, Tatharlhê!"

But there was no reply to his beseeching. His pleading went unheard, but by the river whose mistress had long forsaken.

.

.

.

Eryn was felled by an arrow defending her son, with little else there could be done.

Young Aravìr was steps away from the raft that would have taken him and the more defenseless mothers and infants down the other side of the river to safety...but the child, wrought full of rage and grief, turned away from his only escape and charged instead at the horde that killed his mother.

It was said from the surviving witnesses on the raft that day, that when the little Dùnedain warrior charged alone at the group of orcs with a scream of rage, chaos was bred.

His scream had suddenly shifted into that of a beastly roar to mortal ears, the sound of which resounded over the earth into the running waters of the river.

The sound manifested into a gravitational shift of all things surrounding them within a field-range...

...the turrets of the Brandywine lifted the rafts of refugees and pushed them far away from the shores like the heavy waves of a sea brushed by a heated blast…

...the trees of the forest were pressed back as though blown away by the winds of a hurricane...

...the earth beneath their feet exploded from the roots which reacted to grip the ankles of the enemy...

...and blacker the night did shift from the sudden darkness forming like a cloud of gloom from Aravìr's form, who shimmered and glowed like a ring of fire from his flesh to the blade of his sword.

His eyes––(briefly described by one small child before he charged)––had changed from their mortal gray to red-golden wreaths of flame.

The power of Melduin Peredain, long thought dormant from time lost to the ages, had awoken within the will of Aravìr Ragòrion that day…

.

.

.

"A bloodline that has ended with him, a child among a dwindling race from a kingdom passed into legend," Galadriel now said aloud. After, looking carefully at the Dainson siblings seated before her, she then whispered, "Or so it had seemed, until now."

Maia, Kyle, and Lori (who was Maia's lap and surrounding arms) remained seated together on a bench across from the Lady of Light, eyes wide and mouth agape. The siblings all looked pale and lost from the mental link they had experienced, the images coming into their thought, more real than a dream and less solid than a movie.

Gandalf was seated close by, cleaning his pipe, but listening intently. Lord Elrond leaned once again against a nearby pillar with his arms cross, brow furrowed in thought to show that he listened. Saruman was seated a little farther away, his staff in hand as he watched the conversation taken place with seemingly sharp scrutiny, but with keen interest in his black eyes.

What seemed like hours ago (when in fact it had only been less than thirty minutes), in order to help the young mortals understand more about the story she was about to tell (given how little they knew about the world and its people) the Lady Galadriel had this time asked for their permission to open their minds to her and allow themselves to see the events of the past as she told them, which was only a portion of what she had gathered from the memories of others who had been there to see them happen.

With words and images forming into one, she showed them flashes of a past that took place nearly two centuries ago, flashes of history extended even further behind the past two Ages of the world, leading up to one small family of Dunèdain that descended from members who radiated the same type of power these three young siblings shared.

The blood of a Maiar.

"So...uh..." Maia blinked rapidly, trying to get her thoughts back together to form words. "Wow...That was...Wow!"

The mental images were still very real in her mind, much like Galadriel's voice; the faces of the people, the battle, the bloodshed...it was hard to gather all once, like waking up from a dream and coming back to the present. She still remembered the cities and kingdoms, however brief they were shown. She remembered the Rangers, the hobbits, Bilbo's great-great-uncle Bullroarer Took (the largest hobbit she had ever seen by far, riding a horse without trouble, about as tall as she was, holding a club in one hand, his portrait in Bilbo's study not doing him any justice), Ragnòr Egnòrion, his wife Eryn, and little Aravìr...

He looked a lot like Kyle. Once the thought finally caught up with her, as the images finally cleared enough and begun to sink into her memory, Maia choked with sudden emotion.

The boy, Aravìr, couldn't have been more than nine years old, much younger than Kyle was now, when he fought those orcs, but the resemblance to when he was that same age was very uncanny.

He had the same dark color hair (though shoulder-length), had the same jaw and cheekbones (though had a straighter nose), and had the same set of sharp blue-gray eyes and the same grim set in his mouth that her brother gets when he gets angry, stubborn, or just plain skeptical. It was very uncanny.

She also couldn't help but recall his stance when he held his sword when getting ready to fight. The focused look he had during the battle, icy and calculating, also looked so very familiar...

Except when he cried, only once, when crying out for someone called Withwyndel, or Tatharlhê, in vain.

Who's Withywindel––and Tatharlhê? Were they the same person?

Swallowing, and exhaling, trying to avoid looking at Kyle, just when Maia finally found her words, Kyle already beat her to the question, "S-So, what happened? To Aravìr, I mean. Did he make it?"

Lori whimpered a little, and Maia tightened her hold on the little girl against her chest, feeling a sudden burst of anger at the elven woman.

She didn't care how powerful this Galadriel was! If the Elleth added any of the scary details for the five year-old and ended up traumatizing her, then she was going to be sorry once Maia was finished dealing with her!

Seeming to read her thoughts, Galadriel only blinked slowly at Maia calmly, gave Lori a gentle smile, then turned to Kyle. "The remaining witnesses of Aravìr's fight were already far down the river long before it was finished. Beyond that, my sight was blocked from him ever since."

"When the battle was over," Gandalf suddenly spoke, and everyone's attention turned back to him, "before reuniting with those who had escaped, the surviving Rangers had time to gather the fallen for their families to grieve and bury. When it was done, both the Rangers and their Elven friends carried back the bodies of Lord Ragnòr and Lady Eryn...but there had been no sign of Aravìr."

"Wait a minute," Maia said, staring at the wizard, "you never said that you were there when it happened!"

"I wasn't fighting in one of the regions of Eregion when it happened," Gandalf said, solemnly, "and it wasn't until the end of the fight that I could tear away to reach Northfarthing. I have met Bandabras Took, from the moment I first saw him, in person, bash the Goblin King head right off his shoulders in one mighty blow while charging forth on his horse. The head when flew high in the sky like a ball from cricket, and was found a week later in the rabbit hole of a poor old farmer's garden. Gave him and the rabbits quite a fright, and a legend to tell centuries after! Named a new sport after that defeat."

"A game of golf, you say?" Saruman scoffed. "Rumors addled by time and halflings drunk on pride and ale!"

"But invented around the same time, after Golfimbul no less," Gandalf firmly insisted. Then he sighed. "Before the battle had ended, I will say that I have felt a sudden explosion of powerful magic from miles away. At first I thought it could have been Elladan or Elohir, Lord Elrond's sons..." He turned to Elrond, who looked up at the mention of his children, "or one of the wizards, by some lucky chance they were close to the Shire at the time...but no. The twins were deep in the battle themselves, none of the Istari were anywhere close by for aide, and even Tom Bombadil or Goldberry of the Old Forest."

"Tom Bom-ba-who?" Maia said, while Lori echoed, "Goldberry?"

Gandalf waved his hand. "Sprits of the Old Forest," he said. "Another story for another time."

"So this kid Aravìr was the one who caused the magic blast?" said Kyle slowly. Then he swallowed. "And he's dead?"

Elrond sighed. "There had been evidence that revealed such to be the boy's fate," he said solemnly, "but there had been no trace of his whereabouts..."

"In body or mind," murmured Galadriel sadly.

Elrond nodded. "After a long search, we had no choice but to assume the worst."

"Rarely does anyone fully return from being taken from orcs," said Saruman.

Galadriel closed her eyes. Elrond turned away, so they wouldn't see his face, but his hands clasped so tightly they turned white. Someone they both loved had been taken by orcs. And while she had been retrieved, her mind and spirit had been broken beyond repair.

"Oh, man," whispered Kyle.

God, thought Maia.

Without a word, Lori buried her face in her sister's shoulder, hair falling to cover any expression she tried to hide. When the little girl sniffled, a bit of wetness staining her shirt, Maia hugged her tighter, her throat choking up.

The fate of the little boy from the past was too sad to imagine. To think that the same monsters that had been chasing them across the country, that were hunting down Thorin and Company, that tried to attack them in their farmhouse, would be more than capable of killing children without remorse. The same creatures who possibly were responsible for their father's––

Her mind ground to a halt. Suddenly, the missing pieces started to fall into place. The boy...why he looked so familiar...dark hair, icy gray eyes like Kyle's...the Shire...the Dùnedain...the orcs...any possible connections to Middle-earth...the language of Elves...

The scars...the tattoos...his haunted looks...his stories...his silence...mentions of the Maia...his abduction...orc blood...

Arthur...Aravìr...Dainson...Dùnedain...

...live for hundreds of years...

You knew this.

Dad never talked about his childhood.

Deep down...you figured it out a long time ago...

You know who he really is.

Oh. It was becoming harder to breathe. Oh my God...

With eyes now wide, she slowly looked up to the elders, mainly to Gandalf, then Galadriel, and took a stuttering breath. "W-Why are you telling us this?" she whispered. Reality seemed like a dream, her voice automatic to her own ears. "About the boy...about a battle that happened years ago?"

"Yeah! What does this got to do with us? Any of it?" Kyle spoke up abruptly, any sadness he felt outweighed by the suspicion in his tone. And the growing dread and disbelief that reflected from Maia's own heart, but with more denial. "W-W-What's going on?" her little brother stammered, his voice cracking slightly to betray the fear he felt. "W-Who is this kid?"

Lori's dark head against her moved to show that she was listening just as intently.

From the far side, Saruman continued to watch on with a growing interest in her cold expression. Elrond head tilted a little over his shoulder, but did not reveal his expression.

Galadriel opened her eyes, the light of her bewitching gaze seeming to pierce into each of their souls as they were unable to look away, feeling strange with both fear and comfort.

"We believe, Kyle Dainson," she said, gently, "against all odds, all reason that we cannot predict or yet explain, that Aravìr Ragnòrian may have been Arthur Dainson. Your father."

Melduin = "dear, beloved river", or "friend of the river" in Sindarin

Peredain = "Half-man"

Peredel = "Half-elven"

Laurenàrë = "Golden-flame(s)" in Quenya

Lindissë = "Song-maiden" in Quenya

Vanimórie= "dark beauty" in Quenya

Withywindel = "willow-spindel" or "willow-reel" in Old Hobbitish (named from the river "Withywindle" in the Old Forest of the Shire)

Tatharlhê = "willow-reel" (Sindarin name for Withywindle)

Sîrlindë = "river-song" in Sindarin and Quenya (combined)

Amarthiel = "daughter of doom" in Quenya