Chapter 2 Between Two Worlds

"Yet from that hour on he loved Arwen Undomiel, daughter of Elrond."

--JRR Tolkien, Appendix A, Return of the King

A/N Thank you to the best beta ever, Nieriel Raina. Any mistakes are my own and not hers.

The Fellowship left Imladris on a cold winter's night. It was a solemn and quiet group that filed out of the Last Homely House. The weather was foul, cold, foggy and wet. They left with the blessing and admonition that Elrond had given them. None of them, save the ring bearer, was tied to go any farther on the quest than their own will required. All of them - the two men, the wizard, the four hobbits, the dwarf and the elf - knew they would not abandon the quest, and in truth, they had pledged their very lives to see it succeed.

They traveled by night and slept during the day in order to avoid the eye of the enemy, and their journey had been unnaturally without incident. The weather remained harsh, the mist seemed unnatural and they had not seen the sun yet during their journey. They were following the route that Gandalf had set for them, keeping west of the Misty Mountains.

Finally, after many days of traveling, the sun had deigned to shed its light on them. The landscape surrounding them brightened, and the air seemed fresher and their spirits lifted in response. Legolas explained they had entered the land of Hollin, and although it was uninhabited now, elves once lived there. Any land that once housed elves remembered the grace they brought to it. The further they traveled into this fair land, the lighter their hearts were. They were now traveling during the day and resting at night and that seemed more natural to all of them. They started that morning with high spirits; the sun was shinning and the weather was cool and brisk - invigorating, rather than dampening their spirits. Breakfast had been hearty (that made the hobbits happy) and the evil they were marching toward seemed far away.

As the traversed the rise of a hill, the elf raised his head, senses suddenly alert. He stood still for a moment, and then bounded ahead of the group searching for what caught his attention. He had run some distance ahead before coming to stand stock still at the edge of a rise of land. When the rest of the group came closer to him, they also heard what had caught his attention. A voice was on the air, and it was accompanied by strange music. It was a pleasant voice, although the music and words were unlike any they had ever heard before. Sam whispered to Frodo that perhaps all the elves hadn't left this land, maybe that's what they were hearing.

When they all came to stand next to Legolas, they realized that the explanation was far more complicated. The group stood at the top of a natural rock wall, and there was a short drop down to a grassy expanse that rolled down and away. Sitting on some boulders towards the bottom of the slope were two men playing strange instruments. Behind the men stood a woman, the source of the voice they had heard. A shimmering veil of light separated the two groups.

After their first observation, they begin to notice discrepancies that occurred on the other side of the veil. The landscapes did not match up. The sky looked different on the other side. The placement of the sun was wrong. It became obvious that what they were seeing was not in the same location as they were. Legolas seemed transfixed by the scene.

Aragorn stepped closer to Gandalf and whispered, "What is this? Is it a trap of the enemy?"

"I sense no evil," the wizard replied. "I believe it is a rift between times. I have seen brief instances of such phenomenon before in my travels. They seldom last long. It is best if we wait quietly and the fissure will repair its self."

The rest of the group settled in to make themselves comfortable while they waited. They had walked a good ways that morning, and it was no hardship to rest and listen to the music and voice that came from below them.

It was apparent that the two men were twins, for they were exact replicas of each other, and all three of the strangers were dressed in very peculiar clothing, different from anything the members of the Fellowship had ever seen. When the woman's face was turned to a more favorable angle it was obvious that the three were closely related

The fellowship gazed in wonderment at the three on the other side of the wavering veil, each of the wondering where and when the scene before them was taking place.

Gimli, Aragorn and Gandalf made themselves comfortable and were puffing on their pipes; Boromir was seated close to them, and they were talking softly. Legolas still stood exactly where they had found him, his focus on the group below intense. Aragorn, noticing this, stood and walked to the elf, and what he saw in his face shocked and surprised him. The expression on the elf's face, the glow in his eyes, was very much what Aragorn imagined his face had looked like when he first beheld Arwen walking among the white birches in Imladris. Looking closer, he saw Legolas' gaze was fixed on the young female below them.

Standing close, Aragorn said softly, "She is from a different place and time my friend, and she is mortal. She is not meant for you."

Legolas finally broke his stare and turned to the Ranger. "Then why does her soul call so strongly to mine? I am an anomaly among my kin. Most have wed by the time they reach my age; I had resigned myself to walking the path of life alone and was content to do so, yet in one moment that resignation and contentment has been shattered."

"Gandalf says the cleft will soon mend itself, and you will never see her again," Aragorn replied. "It is best to put her out of your mind."

Turning back to watch the vista below, the elf murmured, "As you would have done with Arwen in the same situation?"

Aragorn had no answer to that, so he simply returned to his seat and watched his friend sadly. He knew the ways of elves, he had been raised among them. His friend had found the one whose soul matched his, and she was lost to him before he had a chance to know her. He would spend the rest of his immortal life alone, not even with the hope of finding a mate. It would have been better if the elf had never known that Ilúvatar had created the one meant for him, only to separate them cruelly by space, time and race.

It looked as though the trio was finished; they were packing up their strange instruments, and they all three walked together and disappeared into the tree line that existed in the strange world on the other side of the shimmering barrier between them. Legolas still had not moved; he stood tensed and waiting as though unable to believe that she had disappeared forever. Aragorn glanced at Gandalf who shook his head. They would wait a bit longer.

Finally, the elf sighed and started to turn away, sorrow filling his eyes. Then, a soft sound caught his ear, and he wheeled back around. The girl was reentering the clearing. She was laughing and calling over her shoulder in a strange language.

They watched as she walked to the boulder she had stood on and looked carefully at its surface. She spoke again as she lifted a small bag in her hand. At that moment, the shimmering veil wavered, and a brilliant flash blinded all their eyes; with an audible pop, the curtain was gone. When the group's eyes readjusted, they could see that although the landscape below had returned to normal, the continuity undisturbed, one thing from that other time and place had remained. The woman was rubbing her eyes and looking around in bewilderment.

A/N - Tolkien indicated that elves love differently than humans, that their connection is one of souls; and he has instances in his stories of souls recognizing the one created for them at their first meeting.