Author note: Ready for more revelations?

Thank you as always everyone who reviewed, and to all new followers and favs.

Rachetg, Katia0203, Goddessofwarriorcats, Hawaiichick and WickedGreene13 the secrets keep coming in the next couple of chapters!

Failisse2001 thank you for a really informative review. I am of course kicking myself that I missed that particular story, but if I clunked the ill-fated A+A into my story's world now it will not work, so I'm going to tap this one up to experience and say that each author creates their own version of a familiar world - and in my Arda... those guys didn't exist. Argh, that sounds awful after all my hard work researching! HOWEVER ok so Legs got that wrong (through no fault of his own, his mouth being controlled by my keyboard), BUT my human-elf friendship/romance/thing still has a new twist that I'm positive has not been in the legendarium. But that's a whole book away yet... I knew about the Arwen-Luthien thing, but I just felt I'd been rambling too long about B+L by then ha.

Everything and everyone in this story that ain't JRR's is mine. x

Chapter Four - Orwen

"You know my mother's name," was all Keren could manage to say.

"I know her name, for I knew her. To us," – Haldir gestured to his brothers – "she was family. We were much grieved to learn of her death."

"Yes. Well. It was a long time ago now." Keren was not sure she wanted to discuss the death of her beloved mother with these strangers, but then she supposed that nine years were but mere blinks of time to an elf. And she was hungry for information, information that they clearly had.

"Please," she began. "I want to know everything, but to speak of her overmuch causes me pain."

Haldir nodded in sympathy.

"You will not have much need to talk, but you will wish to listen. Walk with us."

Rumil and Orophin cast her slightly anxious looks once more, as Haldir led the way into the forest.

"You have come to us at the end of summer," he said, his voice raised to reach Keren who was trotting to keep up behind him. "The trees will be changing soon."

She looked up at the boughs overhead. From her viewpoint all was silver – the trunks of the great tall trees, taller than any she had seen before, were silver-grey, the underside of the leaves a radiant shining silver. When the light breeze blew through them she could see the topside of the leaf was a rich dark green.

"In autumn the undersides turn gold," Haldir explained.

Keren stared upwards as she walked, open-mouthed. She could not imagine looking up into a field of golden leaves, and part of her, strange as all this was, wished she could stay a whole year to witness all the changes of the seasons.

"How much do you know of Lothlòrien?" Haldir asked, bringing her out of her reverie. They were still maintaining a fast pace as they followed a smooth path through the trees.

"Nothing," Keren said, slightly breathlessly. "Nothing at all. Please, can we slow down a little?"

Haldir stopped and looked back to see Keren catching her breath.

"My apologies," he said. "Not since your mother was here have I had to wait for anybody. We are swift of foot by nature."

Keren frowned a little, for she had always thought herself physically fit.

"Were you planning on telling me anything of her?" she said, a little grumpily.

"I was," he said seriously. "But first I must tell you of your grandmother. And it is fitting that I tell you as we walk, for this is the very path I ran down with her in my arms."

Keren felt a little flicker of panic again as she recalled the scene from her dream. Her grandmother – for that was who she knew the girl in the dream must have been – had spoken of her family. Their family.

"You mentioned a dream," Haldir said, as if reading her mind. His two brothers drew a little closer, silent figures which Keren had to admit to herself unnerved her a little. Few elves had she met, but at least all of them so far could speak her language. Had these two never left this land?

"Yes," Keren began, dragging her mind back to Haldir. "On the mountain pass, I dreamt I was pregnant, that the people I was travelling with – my… my family – were killed by orcs, and that you took me away and wanted to save me. My name was Keren in the dream too, but my family were strangers to me, I'd never seen them before in my life. You were running, and carrying me – I was going to give birth. I said my name and then I – no, she – no, I, woke up."

Once the translating was done, Haldir was silent for a time, and Keren did not miss the glance that passed between the three brothers. His walk slowed to a normal pace.

"You have just described the moment we met your grandmother," he said simply.

Keren nodded, expecting this. She did not want to think about it too hard, but she had a strong suspicion that it had something to do with her crystal.

"Messages come to us in dreams," Haldir explained. "Do not be fearful. And of course, you have Tinunil, which will no doubt help clearer – "

"I have who?" Keren interrupted.

"The crystal," Haldir said, not even looking at her, as if this was the most straight-forward conversation in the world. "Given to your mother by the Lady Galadriel, then to you. So, yes, the dream you had was no doubt a message sent by the…"

But his voice disappeared, taken over by the rushing in Keren's ears. Her crystal had a name, Haldir knew it had been her mother's, had known she now had it.

Her mind was reeling at this turn of events, but when she forced herself to concentrate on what was happening he was still talking as if nothing was amiss.

"… but that is for the Lady to tell. We must start at the beginning."

They were deep into the forest now, but despite the trees growing closer together, there was still light from above from the silver leaves.

"As your dream showed you," Haldir went on, "we came across your grandmother and her family on the pass of Caradhras, past the worst of the snow, very close to its end, near to Nanduhirion – Mirrormere in your tongue. How they had made it so far unaided, and that with three women and a young boy travelling… They were foolish to set out. But it appeared your great-grandfather was driven by gold, which brought only death to him, his wife and their children. Your grandmother was not with us long enough to tell us how much in favour she and the rest were of undertaking the journey."

"Not with you?" Keren latched onto the little detail. "She left?"

"She died," Haldir said.

Keren blinked at the bluntness of the words, for all they were said with sorrow.

"What – what happened to her? Did you find somewhere, did she…?" Keren tailed off.

"We ran for a full day, taking it in turns to carry her," Haldir explained. "Once across our borders we took this path. We got her all the way to Caras Galadhon, in the heart of the golden wood, and left her with some of our healers, for greatly wearied we were after covering such a great distance in so little time, with no horses for aid. She was far into childbirth by then – from where we lay resting we could hear her cries as she laboured. An hour passed, and still her cries echoed through the trees, and she was calling for somebody – I think her mind had begun to wander by then. We felt revived enough to go to her side, but the healers sent us away. So we went back to our talan, and from there we heard one great scream, then all was silent."

Keren found she was holding her breath as she took in the last moments of her grandmother, a woman neither she nor her mother had known.

"We knew then that she had died," Haldir went on, "and much grief we felt, having travelled far with her to save her. We went to the talan where she lay, expecting to see both her and the child dead. But, whilst Keren lay still on the bed, the child was wriggling, quiet but alive, in the arms of Cileth, one of the healers, who was hard pressed to control the babe."

Rumil and Orophin, silently walking along in their wake, had understood none of what their brother had said, but the name Cileth must have prompted something, for they both smiled as if remembering something.

"I know not why, but a fierce protection for the child stirred in my heart, and I speak for my brothers in saying that this was something we all grew to feel. But then, in that moment, seeing a child – for a child Keren was, to my eyes, as are you – seeing her dead in Lòrien, her newborn babe helpless, defenceless, with no family, then was when it began for me. I remember taking the child from Cileth, and cradling it close, and vowing to protect it. Cileth whispered that it was a girl. I did not know if the Lord and Lady yet knew of her presence, but I longed to present her to them as a gift of sorts, as a brave survivor of a horrific birth. And all this from me, an elf who had never encountered a human child before."

His eyes had grown far away, and Keren found a new feeling in her heart for this elf, who had been perfectly polite and formal until now, but had appeared not to have the warmth of her good friend from Mirkwood. Hearing his story she respected him, and felt a kinship rising within her.

"And do you know how the babe repaid me for my kind thoughts?" he said, a slight smile on his face.

Keren shook her head, returning the smile, for his face greatly changed when he recalled happy memories it seemed.

"She screamed in my face," he said wryly. "The adorable wriggling child had become a wailing, red creature as soon as she was in my arms. And so I called her Borneth – fiery girl."

At once Keren was pulled up short, and she felt something in her stomach drop.

"Then – then there has been a mistake," she said, "for my mother's name is Orwen. You know this, you said it. I don't understand."

"For the first twenty-one years of her life she was named Borneth," Haldir explained. "But she of course outgrew being a red and screaming babe, and so she outgrew her name, so when the time arrived in which she came of age by the reckoning of man, the Lady granted her another. A name is a gift we may give to friends of elves, and by then your mother was almost one of us, so it was a gift the Lady was happy to bestow. She was then named Orwen, for she loved the light of the sun. Since she was a tiny child she wished to climb to the tops of the trees to feel the warmth of it on her face."

Keren was stunned. This did not match the image of her mother sat in a dark, cold room, quietly living out the last of her days, even turning her face from the window, as if the sight of the outside world was too painful.

"My mother… My mother was here for over twenty years?"

Keren belatedly realised she had stopped walking. The forest was silent except for the breeze lifting the leaves on the silver trees. A young girl, with long red hair and freckled skin, ran through her mind's eye, and began climbing the nearest tree. She was laughing, carefree. How had she become the still, sad, broken woman who had left her daughters for death? Nothing seemed to fit.

"From her birth until she came of age." Haldir answered the question she had forgotten she had asked. "Then the Lady said it was time she experienced the world of her people. I went with her on the long road to Minas Tirith, and there we parted, I thought forever, and it was a sorrowful journey home. But three years later she returned to us, much changed. She had married, and had a child – "

"Palen?" Keren asked eagerly.

"That was the name she shared with us, yes," Haldir replied. "But for all she should be happy, she seemed faded, drained from within. She herself had felt this, and had told us she could not sleep at night for thinking about home – she meant here.

She ran away from her house in the city of men one night, travelling entirely alone, when there were many dangers on the road – she was always fearless, then. When she arrived here we chided her at first, fearful of what she may have encountered. But it appeared there was no harm done, and that night the four of us gathered together, and she shared what had happened since she left us."

He halted, and looked awkwardly at Keren, who was quietly dealing with the fact that her mother had run away from her father and, more importantly, Palen.

"I know not how to say such things as I must," Haldir went on. "Her child, your sister, was not even a year old, and yet your mother abandoned her babe, for what she perceived to be her homeland. But she knew that she could find no true home here, not now she had made the choice to marry and start a family. She was welcomed back warmly, but all knew she had done a grave wrong in leaving her child, and must return to Minas Tirith before Palen grew old enough to be aware that her mother was absent. And yet her heart cried for this place, and it seemed when she was away that she could not find life bearable."

Keren knew not what to say. She remembered Faramir speaking of his mother, of how once she had had to move away from the seashore she dwindled and died. Had the same happened to her mother?

"All of this," Keren began, "it is like you are talking of a stranger, not my mother."

But Haldir did not need to speak for Keren to know her answer. Her mother had indeed been a stranger to her, and had kept this tale hidden, taken it to her death.

Why? Keren wondered.

"I do not know the details of the next part of the tale," Haldir said. "You must ask the Lady Galadriel for the whole of it. But I do know that on her return to Minas Tirith, the Lady gave Orwen that crystal you are now clutching in your hand."

Keren looked down, and realised that she had got the shining, white stone out of its pouch, and was indeed holding it tightly in her fist.

"What the Lady's motives were, I knew not, and still do not know," the elf said. "But after your mother left for a second time, she did not return. News reached us that another child had been born, another girl. She had been named for the brave girl who had died here, the mother of my Orwen…"

With these words, Haldir held out his hand as if to touch her face, but drew it back quickly as Keren flinched.

"She wasn't your Orwen," she said sharply. "My mother belonged to no-one."

Haldir drew back in surprise.

"Keren, you misunderstand me, I – "

"She loved my father, and he loved her. That is why he does not love us, because we remind him of her, and he does not forgive her for dying, for… for leaving him."

Understanding flooded Keren. All these years, not only did her father grieve her mother's death, but he was hiding the pain, the shame, that the wife he loved had been so unhappy with him that she had run away, facing the untold danger of the wild rather than stay with him, and then she had died pining for her true home. He was fearful of the elves that her mother had loved, and angry, jealous of her love for them. All was made clear now – Keren and Palen growing up being read tales of the Eldest and their deeds, falling in love with the idea of the mysterious elven folk – all reminders of the people who had stolen their mother from them. For Orwen had only been truly happy when she was telling her daughters stories of elves. Of her adopted people.

And now she, his youngest daughter, had followed in her mother's footsteps, had gone in search of them herself. Her insides twisted at the thought of how much pain that must have brought him, and what it must have cost him to relive his fear.

You'll not be going north? No child of mine is going beyond the Entwash, nor do I even want you in sight of it.

And yet he had not stopped her. And now he would not know where she was, or when she would return.

"My father… he could not keep her," she said. "But you… she was not yours either!"

"That's as may be, but – " the elf had clearly not expected Keren to react this way.

"And now you are telling me that she didn't love us at all, that she ran away, that she left all her family behind to go and… and get lost in a wood with some elves, all because she wasn't happy with how her life had turned out!"

All went silent, as she realised the irony of her words.

Haldir looked grudgingly amused.

"Like mother, like daughter?" he said.

"What did you say?" Keren retorted quickly.

Haldir tried a different approach.

"Do you love your sister, Keren?" he asked softly.

"Of course."

"Do you love your father?"

She took a lot longer to answer, for she knew her answer would be different now.

"…Yes. Somewhere deep inside me."

"And you have left them to come here, as she did, on no more than a word given to you by a stranger," Haldir said. "Your mother ran away through despair, from a situation she felt she could no longer cope with. Like you."

"How did you know I – "

"And then she went back," Haldir did not even blink at her interruption, "and faced it. Like you will."

"But then she died, going back killed her." Keren could not seem to be able to get her point across. "Palen, father, me, we made her so unhappy we killed her."

"No, Keren, no," Haldir said as he drew closer, for he was not sure she was yet aware of the tears streaming down her cheeks. "You were all the happiness she had, in the world of Men. It was you who were keeping her alive."

Silence was around them once more as Keren tried to take in the words.

"Then we failed, didn't we?" she said eventually, bitterly. "For she is dead, and my father is dead inside. And I am… I am just lost, so lost."

And then before she knew what was happening she was crying openly, and Haldir had taken her in his arms. She was not at all surprised to feel his lips on her forehead, and there it was, that feeling again, the kinship. Not since Beregond hugged her goodbye had she felt it, the presence of a father.

"Forgive me if I have crossed the bounds of propriety. I loved your mother, very much," Haldir said softly, while Rumil and Orophin stood to one side, watching in shock, "and I see her spirit, before it was broken, in you." He pulled away and held her shoulders, looking her straight in the eye. "I will not let that spirit break again."

"It was nearly broken," was all Keren could think of to say, after a long pause.

"And now?" Haldir asked.

"Now I am healing, after many months."

"Do you wish to share with me, with us," he added belatedly, "any of your tale?"

"I can," she said, pulling herself together, "but on one condition."

She looked pointedly at Rumil and Orophin, who had been watching the exchange back and forth with confused faces.

"If it is within my power to do," Haldir said.

"It is," Keren nodded. "If we are to be companions here, I wish for you to teach me how to speak your language."

Haldir gave his brothers a pleased look as he shared her request.

"And why," he asked, turning back to her, "do you wish to learn the tongue of our folk?"

Keren allowed her lips to purse as she casually shrugged one shoulder.

"That is part of my tale," she said.

A leisurely walk of a few hours brought them close to their destination. Keren walked slowly and silently, her mind busy processing all she had been told. She knew there was so much more to learn of her mother, but for now she was drinking in all the details she had, and trying to form a picture in her mind of her mother perhaps at her own age – long curling red hair, freckled face, a smile. And yet Keren felt distant from this new, happy version of Orwen, and she had not yet found the peace she had thought she would encounter once she had discovered the truth.

She could hear the elven city high in the trees before she saw it, for voices were raised in song – the most beautiful, unearthly sounds filled the silver roof above them, and she could no longer tell if it was night or day beyond the tops of the trees. Haldir brought them out onto a ridge of land, overlooking a valley of closely-packed trees, and she saw that it was night, and a strange silvery-white light lit the trees on the hill from within.

"There lies Caras Galadhon," he said, pointing to the hill in the middle of the valley, where the trees seemed even taller, and was the source of the music she could hear. "Our home, and yours, for as long as you need it to be."

Keren allowed herself a moment to stand and stare.

She had made it. Since she was a child, she had harboured a secret desire to run away and find the elves. Only now was it becoming plain to her why this may have been, and only now had she realised she had achieved her wish.

The way she had got there had not been without its trials – every morning she still woke with a memory of Faramir whispering through her mind, of what might have, should have, been. But they were disappearing faster now. Once she would have been sad about this, at the thought of him leaving her, even as a memory. But now she felt as if she was slowly being released from something that had held her prisoner since she was a child.

"You will be free there," Haldir said, a little uncannily for Keren's liking, "to come and go as you wish. Although I know the Lady will wish to speak with you once you have settled. There is much for you to learn, of which we do not have the means to tell you."

"Where will I stay?" Keren wondered.

"With us," Haldir replied, "until the lady chooses."

"Oh." She had thought she would be placed with the female elves.

"Your mother always lived within calling distance of us, and that shall be where you stay. For we are to protect you."

"Protect me from what?" Keren asked warily, for with Sauron all but dust surely there was nothing to fear in the heart of the Elvish kingdom.

"Prying eyes mostly, coming to spy before you are ready to be seen," he said warily. "Our people, those of us who did not journey south with the Lord and Lady, will be most desirous to see you, and all will wish to hear your story. You have naught to fear from any elf, but we can be pressing to humans in our desire for knowledge. We do not sleep."

"I know," Keren said through slightly gritted teeth. She was not relishing the thought of being surrounded for miles in every direction by figures staring blankly out from dead eyes – the only form of rest they occasionally needed.

"You will be on the talan below us, but with all privacy, for the leaves shall shield you from where we shall pass your quarters."

Haldir sounded reassuring, but Keren was feeling uncomfortable at being in such close proximity to three males. Memories of first meeting Legolas and literally fleeing from his closeness made her blush.

"Keren?" Haldir had noticed.

She looked up, trying to read his expression. She knew what men were like, and she did not trust leaves overmuch, particularly when the wind blew.

"You have nothing to fear from us," he said, sensing her discomfort.

Her crystal reminded her of its presence, still clutched in her hand.

True, a voice said within her. Trust them. They are family.

Haldir, nor the others, had noticed anything amiss. But she knew she had found a home, for now.