DON'T DWELL

Amara sighed and listened to the clock tick, the time going down the drain. Her Saturday high had melted away. It was Sunday now and Sunday only reminded Amara of the days to come, the days she dreaded...school. She had planted herself in the small study of her home with all of Tolkien's writings in front of her, searching for any possible mention of a portal that could transport people to another dimension. With her hair pulled back and a hot cup of cappuccino, she mulled over the books with Legolas to help.

Amara had woken up early for this particular task and regretted it.

"You find anything?" Amara asked. Legolas looked up from the book Amara had given him titled The Similarion.

"No, but I find it quite strange that in your world there is the precise history of the elves yet you say there are no elves."

Amara yarned and took a sip of her caffeine. "Yeah, like I said, here in this world Middle Earth is only a story." Amara looked through the Lord of the Rings trilogy personally. She did not know whether Legolas had experienced the war of the ring yet and did not want to change his history when he went back home. She didn't have the courage either to ask.

Legolas took a minute to look at Amara. As she flicked through pages she absentmindedly twirled her dark frizzy strands of hair around her finger. 'This is a very unusual world I am in,' he thought but found himself wanting to know more about Amara than her name.

"Tell me Amara."

Amara looked up from the pages and looked at Legolas. "Yes."

"About yourself. I would like to know more about the young lady who took it upon herself to help me."

Amara closed the book and sat up a bit straighter. "What would you like to know?"

Despite his predicament Legolas perked up, his blue eyes shinning. "Start with your life my lady. What is it like?"

Amara flinched at my lady and sighed. "There isn't much to tell, I mean I'm just like the next loser, but I'll tell you anyway. Let's see." She tapped her chin with a finger and looked at the ceiling. "I'm seventeen, have no talent and my only friend is Brittany."

Legolas sighed, "There must be more to you than that."

"Alright alright. I was born while my parents where on business in Italy, it's another place on Earth. I like to read a lot because books are the only thing I have really. My parents...they're always away and when they're around I wish they would go away again."

'At times my own father can push me to the edge but if he was gone all the time I would never wish him away.' Legolas watched as Amara went back to flipping through her book.

"Why is it Amara that you wish your parents away? Do you not get along with them?"

'Why does he care? He should be more on getting back home than questioning me.' Amara answered the question, though not wanting to talk about her parents. "Let's say I'm still trying to work out how I came to receive parents like the ones I have." She smiled at the elf who wanted her to continue.

"They don't want to have anything to do with me. They want a daughter who likes to gab on the phone to her thirty plus friends. A daughter who checks how she looks in the mirror a hundred times before going off to school, someone who spends most of her time shopping. They want a daughter who is popular and I am the complete opposite of that and to them I am a complete failure."

Amara read a passage quickly not noticing Legolas' stare of sympathy.

"Though I have yet to know you for the young lady that you are I do not believe you are a failure."

Amara looked up from the text and into the sincere eyes of the elf. A small smile played across her face. Legolas smiled back feeling that the girl needed to hear she wasn't a failure. The ring of the phone made them both jump having not expecting it.

"It's okay it's okay." Amara said standing. Legolas looked around the room for the source of the sound.

"It's just the telephone." She picked up the cordless phone.

"Hello?"

"Hey it's me Brit. Did the hot dude leave yet?"

Amara rolled her eyes and looked back to Legolas who stared oddly at her. Amara walked out of the room leaving the elf to ponder why she was talking to herself.

"Odd girl indeed but pleasant." Legolas had spent the whole morning researching with Amara and so far acquired nothing. She spoke of Middle Earth being a story in her world. If Middle Earth was nothing but a fable, then his future must be in the books she was researching. Legolas picked up her book entitled 'The Fellowship of the Ring'.

His slender fingers itched to find out what fate awaited him and his home. What could happen to Middle Earth that could fill three books? He wondered. Legolas opened the book his eyes roaming over the first sentences. 'No!' His mind screamed. 'Your fate is for you to live out not to read about.'

With that he closed the book and stood. Though the elves were very much crafters, humans here seemed to be quite as well, their structures weren't as sturdy as the ones back home though. He walked around the room. His eyes wandered to a small mantel place, there were a few pictures but none of Amara. Walking up to the mantel place there was one picture that was down and hidden from anyone's view.

Now how these portraits came to be so vivid and accurate was one more thing the elf had to ponder about. Most certainly no paint was used in creating them.

Legolas picked up the somewhat small picture frame and dusted it off with his thumb. There was Amara as a small girl in the lap of a man, a woman stood next to them and they were all smiling.

"These must be her parents."

Though neither of them she resembled. Both parents had light brown colored hair and both had dark brown eyes. Amara had dark hair that fell in frizzy waves, dark blue eyes and slight freckles across the bridge of her nose. They looked so happy; not at all did Amara's parents look as if they were disappointed in her. Those were the happy days Amara held dear to her and she left the picture face down for no one to remember.

"Why would she hide this?"

Amara walked back in after explaining everything to her freaked out friend who yelled, "NO WAY!" for a full five minutes. She walked in to find Legolas looking at the picture she had pushed back so many years ago.

"Those were different times." Amara took the picture from the elf and put the picture back down.

Legolas could tell by the look on her face that she didn't want to explain anything. She strolled back over to the table and sat down flicking through more pages of the book she abandoned.