What can I say? I'm just a very slow writer. However, I should start to speed up now that my exams are over, so the next chapter should up within a month or so.

Once again, please point out any grammar or spelling mistakes I have made and will try to correct them. Read and Review!

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Pale Darkness

Legolas took the knife from Emelia's hand, flinching slightly as his warm fingertips brushed her icy ones. The life of the eldar had all but deserted Emelia, only some forgiving immortality preserving her darkened soul.

His eyes rose to her face; a slither of light visible across her eyes. They were blue-grey, and as harsh and terrible as the sea their colour so closely resembled.

There was nothing there anymore, he determined. An empty shell; a mere shadow of a favourite childhood friend. Her eyes narrowed momentarily as she watched him, knowing that he was trying to read her. She smirked slightly, before deciding to make it easier for him, raising her slender hands and pushing back the hood of her cloak.

Pippin gaped as hood fell backwards, allowing pale golden hair to spill down her back. Her eyes were a bluish-grey and shaped like perfect almonds, framed by long, fair eyelashes and delicate, arching eyebrows. Her face was oval-shaped, with high cheekbones and pale, pink lips that were entirely too soft and sweet looking to be ignored.

Emelia's entire appearance contradicted her character, but, Pippin reminded himself appearances were often deceiving and in a world of deceit nothing was what it seemed.

What struck him most, however, was that although Emelia had the same defining features as her Grandmother, he was not reminded of the Lady Galadriel when he looked at her, but of Eowyn, White Lady of Rohan and Princess of Ithilien. Their proud faces and veiled strength were mirror images.

They were one of a kind, he realised; as opposite and parallel as that implied. Black and White, like the chequered surface of a chess board, the same but different. Perhaps they had taken different paths and chosen different lives but Emelia and Eowyn had been born equal. Fierce, royal and fearless.

Legolas's eyes were frozen upon her face and Pippin remembered his earlier discomfort at the subject of Emelia. As the children of two important and powerful elves, Emelia and Legolas must have met before her exile.

"I believe you came here for a reason?" She already knew what they wanted, that much was clear, but she didn't seem remotely inclined to help them out. Her amusement was plain in the vague curve to her mouth and her eyes were glittering with sadistic humour.

They were dead eyes, Pippin had thought at first. Now he could see more, he realised there was only laughter and no happiness in them. They had an empty void where other elves held a glowing vitality.

Their desperation did not please Emelia as Pippin had expected. Their presence here was about as significant to her as the falling of autumn leaves for she was wrapped in a shroud of black and no-one could seem to penetrate it. Instead of brightening the room the way Galadriel did, Emelia seemed to darken it, filling every corner with a forbidding shadow.

Not all elves are good. That was what Gandalf had said, and Pippin finally understood what he had meant.

"You know why we are here." Aragorn evidently did not feel inclined to play her little game of cat and mouse.

"Yes… but I want to hear you beg." Her voice was as light and musical as ever but a dangerous lilt told Pippin she expected her own way.

Emelia did not like Aragorn; that much was plainly shown in the distaste written across her face. Galadriel had previously mentioned a bond between Emelia and Arwen, stronger than that of mere sisters, and she had said that Emelia was protective of Arwen. Perhaps she blamed Aragorn for Arwen's choice to live life as a mortal.

Pippin could not imagine the Lady of the White Marsh dying for love, or even being willing to.

You should not judge on first impressions Master Took. Has life not taught you that?

Emelia's laughing voice cut straight through Pippin's thoughts and he remembered instantly Galadriel's gift.

But the Lord Elrond spoke through his mind to Galadriel sometimes, Pippin thought. Did he never contact his eldest daughter?

A new light stole into Emelia's eyes and Pippin knew she had heard his thoughts. There was a pang of sadness on her face, a moment's hesitation, gone almost before it arrived.

"Well? Are you going to ask what you came here to ask or shall my guards escort you out? I could have them leave you in the middle of the marsh. That would be fun." There was a malicious pleasure in her voice, and a thin smile playing around her lips at the prospect of leaving them in that deadly labyrinth of mist.

It appeared that Gandalf was going to be the only person able to put aside his pride.

"We need your help my Lady. I cannot believe that you are not aware of Sauron's presence. Has he not…" He trailed off, apparently unsure how to ask whose side she was on.

Emelia looked disgusted.

"Has he not called on me, you mean? Sauron knows better than to insinuate that he is my Master. He begged, the last time we spoke. It is an action I am becoming rather accustomed to. You, it seems, are both proud and desperate. Indeed you must be if the Lord Elrond agreed to ask my help."

No-one said a word and Emelia's eyebrows rose as comprehension dawned on her.

"He didn't agree, did he?"

"We had to overrule his opinion. He didn't relent but he allowed us to go on our way."

Emelia laughed.

"Oh how I wish I could have seen his face. It must have been a picture."

Eomer coughed quietly behind Gandalf.

"I really don't see how this is getting us anywhere. Could we address the more important things?"

Emelia's head turned towards him and her brow creased as though she had only just realised he was there.

"I don't know your face.But I can work out who you are. Eomer, King of Rohan, I have heard much of you and of your sister Eowyn. She did not wish to join this quest?"

Eomer looked confused.

"No, she has taken over the ruling of Rohan with Lothiriel whilst we are away. We are to return there once we leave here."

"You will be going to Rohan? Even if I decide to help you?"

Pippin finally understood. Emelia had heard of the slaying of the Witch King of Agmar by the White lady of Rohan and recognised a spirit similar to her own. She wished to go Rohan to meet the only woman on Middle-Earth that wouldn't fear her in the slightest.

"Yes, my Lady."

Emelia paused for several seconds, eyes darting to all the faces that were looking at her, before seeming to come to a decision.

"I will travel to Rohan with you and hear more. Then I will make my decision."

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Thanks to my four :( reviewers MBDTA, Superelfie, ovoriel and WorldTraveler06.

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Ice Duchess