A/N: This is not drill! I repeat, this is not a drill! This is indeed an update! Shocking I know. To say the past year (and the past seven or eight months in particular) has been awful for me would be a gross understatement. But you can read all about that in the notes at the end of this chapter. I know what you're really here for...Plot! So much plot! Things are finally happening! And is that a familiar OC I spy?!

Also, I apologize in advance for the disjointness of this chapter. I wrote much of it while high on a combination of pain meds and anti-nausea meds. So if anything feels kind of wonky in this chapter just blame it on that. I certainly do. That's also why this one is sort of short. Couldn't figure out where to end it so I just kind of gave up at the end. Sorry.

History Will Be Kind To Me

From Lands Beyond

One of these things is not like the other

One of these things just doesn't belong,

Can you tell which thing is not like the others

By the time I finish my song?

- Sesame Street

10. One of These Things Is Not Like The Other

The Northern Bank of Sîr Ninglor, 2999 of the Third Age

"You are very quiet."

Celírion glanced up from the flickering fire to catch Lagorwen's concerned gaze. "Pardon?"

She gave him a look. "I have not heard a single word from you since we left Lothlórien. It is very unlike you."

He cringed inwardly, realizing that she was right. He hadn't spoken at all since Galadriel had sent them along on a special quest to Imladris. But what could he say without sounding positively mad? In truth, he was not entirely sure that he was not. Alice's story was...fantastic, to say the least, and he would be mad to believe her. And yet...it was impossible not to. She had never been anything but sincere with him and to disbelieve her now would be to turn his back on their friendship. Still...

"I apologize. I have had much to think on."

Lagorwen's brows raised but she wisely let the matter lie and instead said, "I will always be here should you need a sympathetic ear."

He smiled. "Thank you, my friend."

Nothing else was said then and the two lapsed into companionable silence and stared into the flickering flames until dawn.

Little was said on their trip through Hithaeglir. Too many enemies lurked in the shadows and caves of the mountains and thus the three elves were eager to move through the area as quickly and as silently as possible. Not that Celírion was all that eager to speak with either of his companions anyway. Especially Brandir. They had exactly one thing in common between them and Celírion was not yet ready to discuss the other ellon's fosterling. Alice's story still plagued his mind and the last thing he needed was to discuss such things with the one who cared for her as a daughter. That did bring up the question though...who else had she shared her story with? Did Brandir even know of her extraordinary origins? Did Tinuthel? Did the Lord and Lady?

These were the thoughts that haunted Celírion's journey through the mountains and down the other side. So distracted was he, in fact, that he hardly noticed their descent into the green valley below until they were greeted by a familiar group of faces.

"Lo!" came a call from the treetops. A nimble figure dropped to the forest floor with an amiable smile and mussed braids. "Welcome my friends!"

"Naurvir," Brandir said warmly. "It is good to see you my friend."

Several more march-wardens appeared then, falling from the trees like leaves to greet their brethren on the ground. "And you! What news from Lothlórien?"

"Things are well," Brandir replied good-naturedly. "However, I am afraid it is duty that calls us here, not pleasure. The Lady has sent us in search of Mithrandir."

"Ah." There were murmurs throughout the group before another ellon answered, "He went west last I heard. To visit with the halflings for the summer."

Celírion heard Lagorwen mutter something that sounded an awful lot like 'of course' under her breath. Mithrandir's fondness for the halflings of Eriador was no secret, though it was a quirk many had a difficult time comprehending. Celírion, however, was not one of them.

Halflings! He had never seen a halfling before, though of course he had heard stories from his kin in Imladris and the Dúnedain who visited from time to time.

"I see," Brandir said, thoughtful. "We must speak with Lord Elrond then."

There was much nodding and murmurs of agreement from the group and before long everyone was moving westward, towards Imladris.

Imladris was...Imladris. Same as it had always been. Peaceful and soothing and almost like home and Celírion breathed in the sweetness of it like a long lost lover as they wandered into the hall.

Brandir broke off from the group to speak with Lord Elrond's seneschal when Celírion heard a familiar cry ring throughout the hall.

"Celírion!" The ellon in question barely had time to turn to meet it before the breath was knocked from his lungs in a flurry of dark hair and skirts.

"Gwalothiel!" Celírion exclaimed, delighted. "My dear sister!"

"It has been far too long since your last visit," accused his sister happily, uncaring of the week's worth of travel grime he was currently tracking all over the front of her dress.

"Yes, what a terrible brother I am," Celírion teased. "Defending our mother from orcs and goblins."

"Well," Gwalothiel said, pulling back only for Celírion to pluck away a stray leaf that had made its way into her dark hair. "I suppose you are here now." She suddenly seemed to notice the motley group accompanying him then and her smile faltered. "But you are not here just for me are you?"

Her brother at least had the decency to sound disappointed. "Unfortunately not."

She nodded, understanding. "Well we shall just have to make the most of it. Túrgil has painted a new mural in the east wing. You must see it! I think it is truly one of his best works! And I know how fond you are of the tales of Tuor…"

Celírion lit up. "Tuor?!" he asked, unable to keep the excitement from his voice.

Gwalothiel laughed. "Oh yes. Come brother. Let us get you washed up first. You look like you trekked across half of Middle Earth to get here." This earned her a playful shove.

"Very funny."

As it turned out, the march-wardens had been correct and Mithrandir had indeed gone west which of course meant that there was nothing for it but to wait for him to come back.

Gwalothiel was more than overjoyed by this fact and proceeded to welcome her younger brother back into her life and home as if they'd never been apart. Her husband, though pleasant enough, took about as much notice of his intrusion into their lives as he ever did. Which was to say he spent all of his time painting and only ever seemed to notice anyone around him at meal times. But that was artists for you. Celírion didn't hold it against him. Gwalothiel adored him and he adored her and that was all that really mattered.

So Celírion took to treating the time as something of an unexpected holiday and when he wasn't trailing after his sister he was catching up with old friends. Which is exactly how he ended up in the courtyard one crisp early autumn day, sparring with the twins.

"You are getting slow," Elrohir teased as he sidestepped the thrust of Celírion's spear.

"Spears are not my weapon," Celírion called back, almost petulantly. He had thought to get in some practice with a weapon he was less, well, practiced with, but he had clearly overestimated himself when he had asked for Elrohir to be his sparring partner. He thrust again but Elrond's son just knocked his weapon aside like the angry blow of a kitten.

"That is because your feet are too close together," said an unfamiliar voice.

Celírion looked up...only to get smacked in shoulder with the flat of Elrohir's sword.

"That was for letting yourself get distracted." Celírion gave him a dirty look before turning to the ellon who has spoken. He was blonde and tall, taller than he or the twins, but most strange of all, a woman walked beside him.

A human woman.

"Not everyone is going to be as skilled with a spear as you are Ilva," the woman said wryly. She was...different than the other Dúnedain women who came to Imladris from time to time, though she seemed perfectly ordinary. Especially next to her tall, blonde companion, she seemed almost to blend into the background with her plain features and dark braid. And yet...there was still...something...off about her.

"You are an archer, are you not?" the blonde ellon asked, pulling Celírion's attention away from his companion.

"That I am."

"That explains your stance," the ellon said, unhelpfully.

"Now Ilva, be nice," the woman teased. Her eyes flickered to Celírion's and he couldn't help but feel a sense of familiarity there, though he had no idea why. The woman, seeing disquiet, decided then to introduce herself.

"The rude one is Ilvanandil."

"And this fair lady is Lewsë," offered Elrohir.

"Lucy," she corrected and Celírion couldn't help but recall his first meeting with Alice. Al-iss, she had corrected him then too, hissing the sound through her teeth like a snake.

"Lucy," he said, almost to himself, and the lady in question glanced up at him then, smiling.

"Indeed," she said.

And then he saw it.

In her eyes. In both their eyes. The same light that could be seen in Lord Glorfindel's or the Lady Galadriel's.

The light of the Two Trees of Valinor.

A/N: Okay, so you may have noticed that I've been M.I.A. for a while and you can rest well knowing it's not because I've abandoned this fic or gone on permanent hiatus or anything like that. I've actually had a bit of a rough year to be honest. Earlier this year I started having severe pain in my abdomen but no doctor seemed to know what was wrong with me. I was in and out of ERs and various doctor's offices for months. Eventually I found a doctor who agreed to do surgery and open me up (I'd already had numerous blood tests, x-rays, ultrasounds and CT scans come up negative for anything so this was the next step) and lo and behold we finally discovered the cause of my pain. The bad news is, it's an incurable disease with few treatment options (it's basically like having cancer, but instead of killing you, it just makes you miserable enough to want to die...and also occasionally causes kidney failure...which does kill you...so there's that) and I haven't had any health insurance all year which means I've had no access to said treatments (you have no idea how much I hate the American healthcare system right now). Thus, I spent all year in daily agony which, as you can imagine, has left me little drive to want to write when all I really want to do is curl up and die. To give you a better idea of what I've been experiencing, you want to know what I was doing on Christmas morning? Lying in a hospital bed in so much agony that I was vomiting uncontrollably (and when you're in so much pain that you vomit, then you know it's really bad). Even after four doses of zofran (an anti-nausea med) intravenously, they still couldn't get me to stop vomiting all over myself. They finally had to dose me with morphine (which, oh my God, morphine is fucking magical by the way). You know when nurses ask you how bad your pain is on a scale of 1-10? Before they gave me morphine, mine was an 11. And this is coming from someone who already deals with chronic pain on a regular basis. Don't get sick kids. It sucks.

Now I have been working on this story, but it's been very slow going due to all of the above. On my good days (i.e. the days where my pain just makes me uncomfortable instead of leaves me screaming) I try to write a paragraph or two, here and there, but even I've been frustrated at how slow my progress has been. I promise I'm not giving up on this story, it just might be a lot longer in between chapters (which is saying something since my update schedule was already lengthy and sporadic at best) until my health becomes more stable. I appreciate your patience.

But in happier news, I have two new adorable kittens! They're so soft and cute! Seeing as how I haven't had a kitten since my last cat was a kitten (over 15 years ago), it's all very exciting. If you haven't had kitten snuggles yet I highly recommend them.

Chapter Timeframe: August 17, 2999 T.A. - October 1, 2999 T.A.

Today in "Middle Earthean History, Culture, and Geography Notes AKA Stuff I Feel Like Talking About":

- Sîr Ninglor is a river just north of Lothlórien and south of the Caradhras pass which originates in the Misty Mountains and later merges with the Anduin further east.

- Tuor was the grandfather of Elrond (on his father's side). He was also one of the great human men featured in the Silmarillion. He was raised by elves, lived as a slave, then escaped slavery only to be called to action by Ulmo (the vala of the sea) to be his champion and send a warning to Turgon. Tuor then traveled to Gondolin (an elven city, hidden in the mountains) to warn Turgon (now High King) to leave his city and come west. Turgon didn't listen though and Tuor was instead trapped in Gondolin (city law dictated that you could come in but you couldn't leave for fear of word ever reaching Morgoth and their secret hiding place getting discovered), but then met Turgon's daughter, Idril, and they fell in love and married and had a son named Ëarendil (Elrond's father). Unfortunately Morgoth later discovered the location of Gondolin anyway and the city fell and Tuor and Idril fled with their son and the remaining survivors of the city to Sirion. At the end of his life, Tuor (who had been fighting sea-longing for years) finally built a boat and sailed away to Valinor with Idril. Supposedly they made it to Valinor and Tuor, of all of mankind, was the only man to ever be counted amongst the eldar (i.e. given the gift of immortality) and so got to live happily ever after with his wife in elven paradise. However it's implied that this might be a polite fiction made up by all of the elves and men of Middle Earth to cover up that they may have just died on the way there. But fuck it. Celírion and I both ship Idril x Tuor x happily-ever-after so in my story it's all true. I like happy endings. Sue me.

- Yes, that's Lucy from The Road Goes Ever On.

Sindarin Names and Their Meanings/Pronunciations

Lagorwen - Swift Maiden (la-gore-when)

Naurvir - Flame Jewel (now-er-veer)

Túrgil - Master Star (toor-geel)