Author's Note: Update!

Thank you to all who reviewed, truly. And everyone who inquired about the fate of the story.

Thank you so much to Lisa, the greatest beta reader on the face of Canada.

Chapter 7

"Family isn't about whose blood you have. It's about who you care about."
-Trey Parker and Matt Stone (South Park)

The dim light of the morning sun, the sweet breeze blowing through the curtains, the soft sensation of her body against the mattress, the sound of Searien buzzing about the room...all these things were becoming quite familiar to Melina.

Also familiar, and less enjoyable, was the sweat covering her body, her entangled hair, her blanket half fallen on the ground and the memories of her new nightmares rushing back to her as she awoke.

The Devil. He had been the major visage this night. Though he had never himself laid hand on her during any torture session, she somehow dreaded him more than any other. It was his eyes. His cold, ruthless and mocking blue eyes. Strange how he and Gandalf could bear almost identical eye colour and yet have such strikingly different eyes.

The thought of the man in Grey quickly created a painful knot in her throat and she turned her mind to the more bearable nightmares. It was difficult to tell if the nightmares were getting worse or not. But one thing was certain, they certainly were not getting any better.

As she slowly rose from her bed, heading to the bath chamber after a mumbled greeting to Searien, she thought about how easily this was becoming her routine. Not that it was a bad routine in any possible way, indeed she loved it very much; which, she thought, is the answer to your question right there. Everything this nice and simple was bound to be easily accepted.

Except for the nightmares, she heard a small voice in her head whisper. But she quickly quieted the voice, she did not want to think about nightmares anymore.

A bath, a dress, the braiding of her hair, the adornment of accessories, and finally a scribble in her journal.

The journal was a simple one, with almost nothing written inside of it so far. Bilbo had given it to her on their third lesson, along with a quill and ink. Melina had ripped out the first few pages, having blotted most of them black by her inexperience with quills.

It was only after an evening of trying that she had finally been able to write anything legible. Unfortunately for her, this first legible page of the journal had also been ripped out, but not by her.

Bilbo, having taken a look at her journal the day after its delivery, had noticed she had written in English. Melina had then learned that she was expected to use the journal as a learning tool.

So, this morning, having had much practice since her first blotch, she scribbled a somewhat neat line at the top of a fresh page. It was a date. Not written in English either, but in Sindarin, the language of these people.

October 9th, 3018

A week had now passed since her first lesson, she noted.

Every morning she now wrote a few lines in the strange new language. It was not much...in fact they said almost nothing at all.

"My dress is blue. Glorfindel's shoes are silver. My night is good."

But, Melina had to admit, it was helping. The symbols were becoming easier to write. Having to re-learn how to speak and write was not something easy for a woman of her age. Even though she might have the physique of a youngster, her mind, and mostly pride, were having a hard time accepting that she was but a child in this world. She sometimes missed looking old.

Being an elderly had its downfalls, but it also changed the way people reacted around you. When she looked at Bilbo, in all his wrinkled glory, she saw that he commanded respect, of a sort, from all those around him. Even Lord Elrond gave Bilbo his due respect, and Melina could only conclude that it was because the little man was older than all of them.

She now looked like a mere child to these people, which would not be so bad if she could at least speak their language and show the wisdom and knowledge she had accumulated in all her years; but the most complicated sentence in her vocabulary at the moment was: 'Can you pass me the water, milk, etc...

The annoying voice in her head began to argue the point of her assumed wisdom and knowledge, but Melina refused to listen to it. The voice reminded her of evil times, times in the Dark Tower when she had only herself to converse with. Not, now that she thought of it, that she could converse with anyone here either...Melina grunted.

She had not been able to tell a soul about herself. She was not certain she would if she had the chance, but Melina detested being forced into a decision. Maybe it would have helped her to speak about what had happened, to let someone else in this world know where she had come from. Of course she was aware that Gandalf knew quite a bit, but he was not here...and she still missed him.

No, no...think about something else!

A blotch appeared on the page of her journal where the quill had laid for too long. Melina cursed under her breath and then let out a deep sigh to try and calm herself. Breakfast was probably already underway, she would need to leave soon if she wanted to partake in it

Melina concentrated on the journal again, quill in hand. She scribbled down the numbers from 1-20, she knew them by heart but practiced them almost every morning nonetheless. She then wrote the names of Glorfindel, Bilbo and Searien, as well as her own name, in the new alphabet. Following this she made up sentences. Simple ones with one one pronoun, a verb and an adjective. Noticing she still had half a page to fill out, Melina decided to conjugate the verbs to have and to be.

With her morning writing done, she got up and made her way to the dinning hall. She now always sat with Searien and her group of friends. Their party seldom change, though Glorfindel had joined them for breakfast a few times. Her meal also did not change much. It consisted of the same fruits nuts and fresh juice of some sort.

Never meat, not for breakfast nor any other meals. She wondered about this for a few days, but since she was unable to ask the question, she had simply filed it away as an unimportant fact of these people's lives. The lack of meat did not bother her much in the end. At the nursing home she had rarely been allowed a meal as heavy as meat.

Melina enjoyed sitting down with people and listening to their conversation. She was aware that it was highly impolite, but it also allowed her to learn so much more of the language. Every word she learned with Bilbo, she tried to understand in normal conversations.

It was one thing to hear one word repeated slowly and clearly for learning purposes, it was something else entirely to be able to understand that word in a sentence. Accents changed, the tone of voice changed and the speed of speech was always different from one person to the next.

It was a frustrating process, but she was getting better. She could now detect names and numbers and sometimes colours. It was not enough to understand a conversation, but it allowed her to guess more accurately about what they might be talking about.

Though she had hoped that he would, Glorfindel did not show up in the hall for breakfast. She forced herself to remember that he was probably a busy man, and he had not even spent most of the mornings with them, only two or three. Still, she enjoyed his presence immensely. Though she was not quite sure why that was.

Melina felt unnaturally close to the angel. She used the word unnaturally as she had rarely been close to anyone in her previous life and had worked hard to become a person who would not be easily enamoured with anyone, let alone a beautiful man.

She HAD pondered about her feelings for hours by now. Sometimes she felt sick with herself, thinking she might be suffering from puppy love, and she cursed her new body as it was, of course, the only thing to blame.

But other times, on rare occasions when Melina allowed her mind to open up, she realized that her "attraction" to Glorfindel had nothing to do with physical attraction, even though he was undeniably gorgeous. Everyone in this house was as beautiful as he; in rare cases even moreso.

It was extremely difficult, for a woman like Melina who had harboured so few personal relationship throughout her long life, to analyze her feelings. She could only compare her feelings for Glorfindel to the ones she had inexplicably felt for Gandalf. And the latter were even more confusing to the poor woman.

Of course, there was Searien. This relationship was easier to understand for Melina as she had had a maid for a very long time. That bitch had been the one to send her to the nursing home after all. But before the last few years with her, Melina had, if not enjoyed, at least tolerated the presence of her maid.

Searien was similar, yet different. Melina did not merely "tolerate" Searien, she had depended on the woman for the first few days, and still did for many reasons. It gnawed at Melina's pride that she had to rely on anyone, but she would truly be lost without her...and Bilbo.

Now there was a character who she could really open up to. Not in the sense that she would tell him her secrets, but she was less guarded, more relaxed in front of him. He was, as she realized painfully, exactly how she should have been when she was his age. Merry, full of humour, overflowing with energy and stories and simply adorable.

That, she had thought one day, is how I want to be this time around.

After breakfast, most of which Melina had spent in her own thoughts, she left Searien and headed for the hall of fire. It had become their unofficial lesson room. Cozy, huge and practical, she now spent hours in the room with Bilbo; breaking only for eating and naps.

The short man often had to take naps in-between their lessons, but Melina took the time to do whatever homework Bilbo had prepared for her, or she stole away to the kitchens for an apple or other snack.

They sometimes received visitors in their lessons as well. Glorfindel and Searien were amongst the ones she had seen most often. In fact Glorfindel had only missed the first two lessons which had taken place in the hall, and had attended each of the following ones.

The golden "Eldar", as Bilbo called the angels of the house, was a great help to the lessons. And good company when Bilbo suddenly fell asleep while teaching.

Others had also joined the lessons on random occasions, most she did not know, but Elrond she had recognized easily. He had stood at the doorway a few times, looking into the group for a few moments before disappearing again.

Melina popped into the kitchen quickly before going to the hall. She had noticed that Bilbo had chosen the hall of fire as his writing/teaching room because of its position so close to the kitchen. The "Hobbit", which she figured was some strange name for old and short men, had a hole in his stomach, Melina was certain of it. He could eat, and drink, like no other.

She had noticed that one of the cooks brought the old man breakfast not long after everyone in the main hall had finished eating, she had figured that since she was going to meet Bilbo every morning she might as well save the busy kitchen staff a trip of ten meters and take the food herself.

She also brought the Hobbit lunch, teas and food for his after naps snacks, and even once his dinner. This last one had happened the night prior and had been a clever ploy in order to get away from the dancing for the evening.

Every night, after dinners, these merry angels simply loved to dance and sing. Nothing was wrong with such display of happiness, but Melina had drawn a big thick line between watching the merriness and joining it.

Unfortunately, Glorfindel seemed impervious to big thick lines.

Three nights ago, seeing that Melina was still only a clapping spectator to the party, he had decided to pull her onto the dance floor. Now, Melina was certain she had a strong will, this certainty was enhance by the knowledge that she had in fact endured an extended period of severe torture and had come out passably sane. But there was no measure of will when it came to resisting the charm of these angel/Eldars.

They simply were. And by being, they could easily convince you to throw yourself down a cliff with one look.

Melina, thinking that jumping off a cliff would have been a lot less humiliating than dancing, had been unable to stop Glorfindel from pulling her up, taking her into his arms, and twirling her around the floor.

She had not been able to ignore the fact that everyone else seemed that have stopped their dancing in order to watch her first dance. She had also been aware of how red her cheeks were, how clumsily her feet hit the floor and how amazing her partner was at not making her look like a complete idiot.

He was, in fact, leading her like a pro. As if, all his life, he had dealt with nothing but clumsy partners and had developed a talent for making them do things they would never have been able to do themselves.

Melina twirled, hopped and actually danced, all thanks to the masterful, and warm, hands of Glorfindel.

When it had ended, Melina had sworn to herself that it would never happen again. Which of course, it did, the evening following. At least, that time, most of the other participants had kept dancing instead of scrutinizing her.

Intent on not letting Glorfindel subdue her into another dance, and knowing she would utterly fail without a plan, Melina had decided to make up an excuse in order to leave early. Bilbo had immediately come to her mind.

Last night, after she had finished her meal and the singing had begun, Melina had politely excused herself, in Sindarin with a heavy accent, and mentioned Bilbo. There were a few curious glances and she had felt their stares as she headed for the kitchen, but ignored them all.

Once behind the kitchen doors, she had again made her intentions clear by naming the short man and pointing to the plate one of the staff was preparing for the Hobbit. Knowing that she took almost all his other meals to him, the cook had happily offered the plate, bid her a good night and returned to his work cleaning up the dishes.

The plan had worked perfectly.

Now, as Melina opened the door to the hall of fire, holding a plate in one hand and a cup of tea in the other, she found herself in a very happy mood.

Bilbo was sitting in his usual place, next to the fireplace which was lit with a small cozy fire, and was writing in his journal. She had noticed that the man was slightly deaf, only enough for her to be able to walk up right next to him without his noticing. She had unknowingly surprised him a few times, and personally knowing how horrid it was to be surprised at his age, she now made sure he saw her as she approached.

He did, and smiled, putting his large book away and clapping his hands happily at the sight of his food.

"Good morning, Bilbo." she said, the strange language rolling clumsily off her inexperienced tongue.

"Good morning Melina, thank you very much." he said, taking the food away from her and diving in like a starved dog.

Melina smiled and waited patiently for the man to finish. Aside from the greeting, there was little else she could say to him and he never talked while he ate. She busied herself with preparing her quill and papers, looking over some of the notes she had written the previous sessions.

They were still covering the rudimentary basics, and probably would be for another two weeks. The alphabet, the numbers, the core verbs and a few simple greetings and polite responses. It helped that Bilbo could not speak English.

He spoke Sindarin slowly, each word spoke with precision, which allowed her to at least file the words away in their memory and notice when they were repeated, though she often did not know their exact meaning. That would come later, and with time.

The books with pictures helped the most. Bilbo used them every session, pointing at various aspects of the drawings and naming them. She never remembered all the words, but when repeated often enough, she could recall at least a third.

Today's lesson was spent in much of the same manner as the others, with one exception: no one came. It was disappointing enough that Glorfindel did not come to breakfast and her lesson, but for the first time since their first lesson in the woods, Bilbo and Melina were completely alone the entire time. No Searien, no curious strangers, and no Elrond.

By the time Melina left for lunch, she was strangely nervous. There was little reason for her to be, after all she was not so important that people would want to watch her recurrently, perhaps they had gotten bored of the "new attraction" in the house...but somehow this sounded wrong even as she said it to herself.

It was paranoia. She knew it, and had been dealing with it daily now since her arrival here. Every once in a while, especially at night, she would get fits of delusions. They were, of course, worse when she was alone. Having somebody next to ground grounded her to reality and often prevented her from going completely crazy. Searien had gotten quite skilled at spotting the onset of such episodes and had helped her out of them on two occasions.

The first had happened two days after she had first awakened in the house.

Searien had been showing her the house, which contained more corridors than rooms it seemed, but was beautiful nonetheless. One of the rooms she had fallen in love with as soon as she had walked into it was the library. It was huge, and filled with as much art as it was with books. Statues, murals, paintings, even the bookcases were elaborately carved. Melina had wanted this to be the end of the tour, she started walking along the walls slowly, inspecting the beautiful details on a huge mural.

It depicted, quite graphically, the scene of a battle. It was hard to make out because it was so large, but after taking a few step back she could distinctively see two different armies battling each other. One of the armies was wearing a very elaborate style of armour, and she slowly realized the soldiers were all angels. It was the fairness of the skin, the brilliance of their hair, and even in painting there was an unmistakable aura around them. To see them in battle, some obviously injured and others dead, felt very wrong.

Quickly, Melina turned to the other army and walked closer in order to examine the smaller soldiers. It was a mistake.

All at once the painting was alive. The demons jumped our of their pigment prison and assailed her. Their foul stench, their glowing eyes, and their ability to simply drain any happy thought or warm light. Melina was about to scream, flail and attempt to run away, when a searing bright light stepped in front of her and shook her lightly.

"Searien...?" Melina whimpered as she peaked over the angel's shoulder to look at the now still painting. "Damn it..." she groaned to herself.

Melina had not returned to the Library since, though she refused to admit it was because of the hallucination. She was planning to return, in order to examine the rest of the room, every morning she told herself she would visit it again, but always failed. Perhaps later today...after she got rid of this odd feeling.

It was in the dinner hall that her uneasy feelings were confirmed. The entire hall seemed uneasy. It was palpable. For one, it was almost devoid of guests, usually there were tons of people eating lunch, but today she counted 30 at most. Searien was missing, and so was everyone else at their usual table. The hall was also quieter, everyone present seemed distracted, and mostly seemed to shove their food around instead of eating hungrily as they usually did.

Suddenly not feeling hungry at all, Melina exited the hall quickly and decided to find Searien. The house was very big, bigger than any she had visited before, but she had learned how to navigate her way through most of it, thanks to Searien.

The first place Melina decided to look was her own room. When she found it quiet and empty, she headed for Searien's room, which was located not far from her own as she had learned a few days prior. Again, empty.

The corridors were also emptier than usual, and the whole house just seemed, wrong. Melina had harboured strange thoughts about the house since her arrival, to her it seemed almost alive. It was probably all the vegetation, but also the many statues which seemed to change expression depending on how you looked at them. The house usually seemed as merry as any angel it sheltered, with the leaves dancing to the wind accompanied by the sweet sound of music...

Melina stopped dead in track and strained her ear. No music. For perhaps the first time since her arrival in the house, no Eldars were singing.

Fighting to remain calm, and slowly loosing the battle, Melina began to walk back down to the lower levels...quickly now. There was no one. Not one soul.

As she rushed down to the Luthien garden she had adopted as her own, Melina felt the day begin to darken. When she glimpsed up at the sky, she saw dark clouds blowing quickly over the sun. Rain.

As soon as the thought crossed her mind, the first drops began to fall. Soon it was a torrential downpour. A thought of hope flashed in her mind: perhaps the Eldars were all inside, away from the rain they might have known was coming!?

Unfortunately, as she finally arrived to the garden, completely drenched, she was proven wrong. From her position, the equivalent of about a story above ground level, Melina saw a large crowd gathered down at the stables.

It looked like it was everyone inhabitant of the house. Lanterns were being lit and cloaks were being tightened as the rain fell harder and harder. In front of the crowd, which was assembled in a large semi-circle, horses were being readied.

Melina had been to the stables a few times, and she had seen many people arrive and leave while sitting in the garden, but there had never been such a crowd. Something important was going on. And then, when she had been about to walk down and try to figure out what was happening, she saw Asfaloth.

It was unmistakably Glorfindel's horse. White, shining with the same aura as its master, she would have recognised the horse anywhere. It was only yesterday that Glorfindel had taken her to the stables to visit the amazing animal again.

Her already racing heart began to beat faster in her chest. She felt weak and deflated. As she began to feel her mind slip into the all to familiar darkness, something else took over. A drive, a stubbornness and strength she had rarely felt before. She felt herself clench her small fist, flex her leg muscles and before she knew it she had spun around and started on a mad dash for the stables...

Only to crash, hard, against something soft and warm.

She started to apologize, her broken Sindarin coming out of her dry mouth when she noticed something. It was something so imperceptible, a mix between the man's smell and the invisible yet blinding aura. Whatever the exact reason, even before Melina looked up into his face, she knew it was Glorfindel.

He was covered with a long, thick silver cloak, the hood of which was raised, but left his face visible. His hair had been braided back and he did not adorn any of his usual accessories. Melina, standing close enough that her waist was still touching his body, felt something hard under his cloak. She glanced down and saw the hilt of a sword, barely visible.

She turned her face towards his again, confused.

His grey eyes seemed to search her own for a while, his face bearing an unreadable expression. It was impossible to guess what he was thinking. Melina wondered what he was even doing here, why had he come up again, why in the garden...had he been looking for her?

She was still unable to move, entranced by his presence, his scent and the warmth of his body standing so close to hers. She felt him move, but could not react. His head bent down down and, amidst the rain, she felt his warm lips place a kiss on top of her head.

A violent shiver ran down her spine, replaced quickly by an unbelievable warmth. Though the rain never stopped, Melina did not feel it anymore. She was neither cold, nor wet; not afraid, nor pained.

As she closed her eyes to better enjoy the moment, she felt tears begin to fall. There could never have been more beautiful moment in her life. She felt it. She felt Glorfindel's feelings pour into her heart, his love for her. An unadulterated love; the love of a brother to a sister, a father to a daughter...a friend to another.

The knowledge that such a creature as this Eldar could possibly have a place in his wonderful heart for her, nearly broke Melina's own. It was more than anything she could have ever wished for from another living being, and he was giving it to her.

Her mind wandered to that night in the garden, nearly a week ago, when she had stumbled here, broken and terrified. There had been someone there for her, someone who had helped her.

And in the morning, Melina had been certain this person had been Glorfindel. She could not have explained to anyone why she thought so, she had simply assumed.

But now, standing here, she knew it had not been Glorfindel.

Again, she would never be able to explain how she knew...she simply did. These people...these Eldars, it was impossible to mistake one for another, even with your eyes closed. They felt different, they filled your very soul with a different kind of warmth, each unique to their being. Searien, for example, made Melina feel peaceful and calm.

And though she had never been as close as this to any of the other angels, she always felt their strange auras tingle at the edge of her mind.

That night in the garden...it was not comparable to how she felt now.

Melina opened her eyes after what seemed like an hour. She opened them slowly, her body still under the strange spell Glorfindel had cast on her. She turned her head up, expecting to see him...but he was gone.

All at once she felt cold, frozen, darkened and alone. She took in a shaking breath, and another, then a third before she began to run.

Flying down corridors, leaping over stair ways, pushing through the growing darkness, Melina headed for the stables. She had no scruples in pushing, shoving and screaming at the people in the dense crowd, which now stood between her and the departing riders.

She could see their heads, standing high above all, slowly trotting away. She saw Glorfindel too, and for a moment she was certain he stared right into her eyes as she jumped and pushed in order to try and get to him. But he turned around and began to move away with the others.

Finally Melina broke through, but by then Glorfindel and Asfaloth were already far away.

Stunned and confused, Melina could only stand there, dumbstruck. The rain pelted her from every direction, and she could see the darkness slowly creeping closer, advancing faster as Glorfindel's bright aura slowly disappeared.

She was alone again. Abandoned. The words Gandalf had spoken to her before his departure echoed in her ears like a bad joke. It was not Gandalf's voice which now whispered the beautiful words, it was the Devil. He mocked her, mocked her misery and reminded her that no matter how far she ran, how carefree she felt, he would always find a way to break her soul and ruin her life.

One shadow crept closer than all the others. She saw his hand move to her abdomen, but was too slow to stop it, a sharp blade dug into her soft flesh, piercing through her dress easily. She screamed.

The golden light, which was only a speck in her vision now, stopped and she saw silver eyes turn to her, full of sorrow...Gandalf, she thought, but another blow,caused her to tumble backwards, blurring her vision with rain.

She fell. Fell into the thick mud; but before she could struggle up again, a figure overtook her from behind. Though she instinctively knew it was not a demon, Melina shied away from the warmth. It was not Glorfindel...it was not Gandalf...and it was certainly not Searien.

A strong arm suddenly encircled her waist, where she was certain was now a gashing wound, and another hand press against her forehead. She had no struggle left in her, no reason to fight the soft touch. She breathed in and out a few times, her nostrils filling with the smell of flowers and water, and surprisingly not with mud and muck. It was altogether too familiar and again Melina was reminded of the night in the garden.

This was him. The person who had helped her, who she still felt sometimes in the midst of her nightmares, offering her a hand to safety.

She felt lips approach her frozen ear, and soft words were whispered into it. Though she did not want to, Melina listened to the voice and felt herself calm down. Slowly, she became limp, and soon she felt like a rag-doll, unable to move a muscle.

She felt her body being picked up, and a warm cloak draped over her. There were many voices now, she recognized none of them. She wondered if Searien was nearby, but her throat was too dry to speak.

They were carrying her away. Melina was concentrating hard on staying awake, though she felt so tired. She watched, over the arm securely holding her neck, the corridors and stairs pass by under her. They were taking her to her room.

It somehow did not occur to her to look up and see in who's arms she was in until she felt a warm bed meet her wet back.

Then, as he lowered her down gently and carefully, sitting down on the bed after he did so; reaching out and picking up a cloth soaked in hot water and refreshing her cold face...

Melina recognized Lord Elrond.

Thanks again to coming!