So again, sorry guys for the wait! I've been getting so preoccupied with getting all of the dates for this story worked out and written down that I was dipping into my writing time! But finally, here it is! Hopefully you all enjoy it!

Chapter 7:

I stirred from my sleep as the birds chirped from outside my window. I batted my eyes open only to close them again, quickly shutting out the blinding light that filtered through the curtains. A soft breeze tickled my cheek as I slowly opened my eyes once again, letting them adjust to the daylight. Yawning, I lifted my arms above my head, wincing as an uncomfortable pain in my left side prevented me from stretching. Quickly lowering my arms, I sat up slowly and folded over the sheets, carefully lifting up my nightgown to reveal a long, pink slash down my abdomen. Instantly I remembered the orc attack, and slumped back down into my pillows, closing my eyes tightly as if to push the attack from my memory. I was unaware of the footsteps as an elf entered the room, but turned suddenly at the sound of a familiar voice.

"Christa, how are you feeling?" Haldir had entered my room and was moving to sit in a chair that was positioned near my head. Slinking back under the covers, I blushed slightly, remembering that I was in my nightgown.

"I'm all right," I replied as my embarrassment faded. Could have knocked. Haldir nodded, his face hiding any emotion he felt.

"It could have been a lot worse. You've been asleep for three days, the healers thought it best to let you wake on your own."

Three days? The look of shock on my face was enough to prompt Haldir for further explanation.

"I'm actually quite surprised to see you awake. It is not unusual for a mortal to sleep for weeks after elvish healing. The magic of the elves is normally a much more painful process for a mortal, and yet you handled it well." He said thoughtfully, staring off outside of the window as he spoke. I digested his words for a moment, before another thought occurred to me.

"You saved me." It was not a question, but a statement. I stared at him intently as he turned his gaze back to me, and for the first time since he had arrived, I caught the hint of a smile.

"Yes," he nodded. The smile quickly disappeared, however. "You are fortunate that we heard your screams, and that we were able to reach you in time."

I lowered my gaze as his pierced mine, my cheeks burning in shame. I had acted rashly, there was no doubt about it, and I owed Haldir my life. "I should never have traveled so far on my own," I said quietly after a moment, fiddling with the bedsheets.

"No, you should not have. You acted foolishly," he said, his voice raised now, strained. "You have no idea what they would have done to you had we not been able to reach you in time. You have no idea…" Haldir trailed off, the anger edging out of his voice. I continued to avoid his gaze, caught off guard and slightly frightened by his sudden outburst.

"I am sorry, Haldir." I caught him nod in acceptance out of the corner of my eye. The silence hung heavy in the air, and I wondered if I should say anything else to break the tension. I didn't need to, as Haldir soon spoke up. There was something on his voice that I could not pin a name to.

"You must promise me that you will not act so carelessly again." I looked up to meet my friend's eyes and noticed something hidden within them. Fear? Pain? Desperation? I wasn't sure exactly, but it haunted me for quite some time.

"I promise," I muttered sheepishly.

As Haldir's shoulders appeared to loosen, I felt the true toll of the elvish magic for the first time. As my head began to ache slightly, I looked across the bed at Haldir, my eyes growing heavy. The corners of Haldir's mouth pulled into a smile as I yawned.

"Sleep, mellon nîn." Standing up from the chair, Haldir laid a gentle hand on my forehead, before exiting the room, tugging a thicker pair of curtains across the window to block out the bright sun.

After watching him leave the room and silently close the door behind him, I tucked myself up into a more comfortable position and closed my eyes. Though physically I could have fallen sleep that instant, my mind was wide awake trying to decode my friend's outburst. Before I could give it much thought, I was drifting off. I guess he thinks of me as a closer friend than I thought, I smiled as I fell out of consciousness again.

I spent several days in the healing wards drifting in and out of consciousness, until finally I was unable to spend another day sleeping. I was itching to escape the healing room. I could have jumped for joy when finally I was given permission by my healer to leave. The small amount of discomfort that I had experienced the first time I had woke had vanished. All that was left of the attack was the pink scar on my side, and even that had already begun to fade. The cut on my neck, which had been much less severe, had also already disappeared. Since my waking, Haldir had been acting oddly. He had sent the rest of his patrol back out to the border, and had requested special permission to stay behind for the last few days of his shift. In order to make sure that I didn't try anything else stupid, I supposed. His first few visits were strangely quiet. It seemed to me that as I recovered from the attack, it had scarred him deeper than it had myself.

Soon, however, he was pretty much back to his normal self. Thankfully, through my conversations with Haldir, I was able to find out that Faenelin had found her way back to the stables safe and sound. Hérion had run out from the stables at the sound of hooves, and had begun to panic when he saw the riderless Faenelin, spooked and dripping with sweat. Though he had been unable to visit me in the healing ward since he was so busy, Haldir had passed on to him how badly I felt. Hérion had in turn assured me through Haldir that Faenelin had seen much worse, and that he was simply glad to find out that I was doing well.

Haldir had been present when the healer had told me that I was free to leave, unless I had any concerns. Having none, I was eager to escape the confines of the bed. After having a fresh set of my clothes brought to me and the room emptied, I carefully slid into my breeches and tunic, and eagerly swung my legs over the side of the bed. After giving Haldir the all clear, he re-entered the room and offered me his hand, helping me to my feet. For a moment I wobbled slightly, but once I had caught my balance I playfully shooed away his hand and walked out on my own.

After walking a little ways, my body had remembered how to place my feet so that I would not trip, and I was back to my normal ways. We were walking up the stairs when Haldir broke the silence.

"Christa, I think that you should learn some self-defence," he said bluntly. I turned to stare at him quizzically, before realising that I probably should learn how to protect myself. "Nothing terribly complicated, just some simple evasive techniques. Though I trust you will not go off looking for any more trouble, I would feel better knowing you at least knew how to buy yourself some time should the need arise."

"Yes, I think that it would help me feel better as well," I nodded and shuttered at the thought of ever having to deal with orcs again. Or any threat, for that matter.

"Good. We will start tomorrow, if you are up for it?"

I nodded eagerly, smiling in determination, and was happy to see Haldir offer me a smile back.

"Oof!"

I stumbled backwards and landed with a soft thud on the grass as Haldir attempted to grab my wrists. Whatever I had gained from shying backwards out of his reach was short lived, for the Marchwarden was quick to take advantage of my less than ideal technique. Before I could bat an eyelash, he had me pinned face down in the grass with both of my arms behind my back. Though we had been practicing for the better part of the morning, I was definitely not proving to be a quick learner. Over the past couple of days, I had been able to master some of the easier techniques, and could escape most simple wrist and ankle holds if I was quick enough. But now that Haldir was attempting to teach me how to avoid being caught in the first place, I was struggling.

I groaned in frustration as I spat the grass out of my mouth. Haldir quickly released my wrists and offered me a hand up. Annoyed with myself and getting awfully grumpy, I didn't take him up on his offer and pulled myself up. Chuckling at my bad mood, Haldir had quickly placed himself back in front of me, ready for another go. I shook my head, too pissed off to continue.

"You are not going to improve without practice, mellon," Haldir said, leaning down slightly with a smile on his face. "Let's just see if we can work on evading my first attack, and then we can be done for today."

I looked up at him without lifting my chin, my face set in a subtle scowl, but after a slight hesitation, I nodded my head and straightened. Haldir was right, after all. I wasn't going to get any better unless I could shove my frustrations out the door. Haldir grinned back at me.

"Good. Remember, never watch your attacker's eyes. Always pay attention to their body. The eyes will lie, and that is where you are running into trouble. If you watch me closely, you will not be so alarmed when I try to grab your wrists."

Nodding curtly, I focused on my friend, my eyes trailing on his chest. Watching closely, I was aware of his every movement, a slight tremble in his right thumb, a twitch in his jaw… For a moment, I was perplexed by this. Never had I given anything this much attention. Unfortunately, I had allowed my thoughts to wander, and Haldir has noticed this. His right arm was up quickly and I flinched, pulling my arms out of his reach. Meanwhile, his left arm flew towards my hands, and I quickly found myself ensnared once again. Clenching my teeth, I braced for the impact with the ground, but thankfully Haldir chose not to take me down this time.

"I know, I know, I screwed up again," I hissed, mad at myself as Haldir opened his mouth. Releasing my wrists, he raised an eyebrow but said nothing as I growled at myself in the common tongue. Though I had been a good student lately, I found that Sindarin just didn't allow me to be angry enough when I needed to be. After a moment, I took a deep breath, and attempted to calm myself down.

"Okay, let's try that again," I said with as much confidence as I could muster. Haldir was clearly pleased that I had agreed to go again as he positioned himself. This time, I did not let my mind wander. Instead, I embraced this newfound skill and was able to tell a distraction from an attack.

Shifting his weight to one side, Haldir attempted to throw me off, but after initially reaction on instinct to the sudden motion, I was able to recover before he jumped the other way, reaching for my wrists. Stepping quickly to the side and out of his reach, I couldn't help but grin. The two of us froze again, and I waited for Haldir to make the next move.

He jumped forward suddenly, straight towards me. Though it still startled me as it had the first time, I had been somewhat expecting it. Again taking a simple step to my right, Haldir darted past me, quickly turning on his heel. My eyes popped open as he sank low and reached for my ankle this time, and I momentarily didn't know how to react. Simply jumping to my left proved a mistake, for I was quickly yanked off balance and hit the grass pretty hard. Thankfully, the grass was thick, but still I felt my head begin to throb slightly as I stared up at the trees.

"I'm okay," I moaned as I slowly sat up, reaching up with one hand to hold my head as the trees slowly stopped spinning around me.

"Are you certain?" I looked up at Haldir, who was looking skeptically at me. I smiled and nodded insistently. No way was I going back to the healers so soon after leaving. Though I could tell that he didn't fully believe me, Haldir let it go. "That was much better," he smiled.

I felt like sticking my tongue out at him, but held back. "You went for my ankle," I said, knowing that my excuse was a pretty lame one. After all, it wasn't like a real attacker would tell me where they were going to try and grab me. Haldir knew based on the look on my face that he didn't need to explain why my reasoning sucked.

"Yes," he simple nodded as he offered me his hand. Though my pride had still suffered a pretty bad bruise, I accepted it and was pulled to my feet. After brushing the grass and dirt from my clothes, I looked across at Haldir. I didn't even need to say anything, as he had guessed what was going through my mind. "That is all for today, you have improved greatly, Christa, whether you see it or not," he said with a chuckle.

Rolling my eyes, I grinned. Despite the tough time I was having, I did feel better about myself already. Though I ached all over, and became agitated easily, I knew in the back of my mind that these lessons were going to help me out big time if I ever did run into any trouble again.

As we started back towards the heart of the city, my stomach decided that it would be a good time to voice its opinion, letting out a rather loud grumble. A few weeks ago, I would have been mortified, but now that I had grown so close to the Marchwarden, I simply grinned as Haldir raised an eyebrow, the corners of his lips tugged up into a small smile.

"I guess it goes without saying that I could use a bite to eat," I chuckled.

Glancing up through the trees, Haldir nodded. "Lunch will be served soon. We can head right over, if you would like."

Glancing down at my grass stained breeches, I contemplated heading back up to my flet to get changed quickly, but the thought of climbing all of those stairs only to come back down again a minute later was too unappealing. Glancing over at Haldir, I gestured to my clothes.

"This isn't… unacceptable or anything, right?" I half-laughed. I was just starting to blend in, with the talk of the strange girl in the woods finally dying down, and I didn't want to raise any eyebrows with my disheveled apparel. Haldir merely shook his head. Good.

It didn't take us long to reach the dining hall. We grabbed our plates and filled them quickly. I had recently learned that the elvish season of Lavas, which was equivalent to the early part of autumn, had ended, and with the arrival of late autumn, referred to as fading, the elves had gathered the very best of their harvest stores and were serving them today. Once we had piled out plates high with the sweet smelling fruits and vegetables, we found seats at a table off to the side of the room.

"So, what's with the party atmosphere?" I asked in the common tongue. Since I had been greatly improving with my Sindarin lately, Haldir had become less adamant on me speaking it all the time. Surprisingly, I had grown used to speaking the new language since I didn't have too many opportunities to speak English anymore, and only slipped back when I wasn't paying attention to my tongue. Haldir cocked an eyebrow at my interesting choice of words.

"Between the seasons of Lavas and Firith, the elves celebrate a short period called Enderi, or 'Middle days". On the third and final day, Lord Celeborn and Lady Galadriel host a great feast," Haldir explained passionately. At the word 'feast' I had to refrain from making a face. It wasn't that I didn't love a good party, but knowing the elves, I would have to be on my most ladylike behaviour, and by now I had learned that acting like a lady was next to no fun. Haldir caught my slight change in expression and smirked. "As a guest of Galadriel, you will be expected to attend, of course."

Pouting, I turned my attention back to my lunch and continued to eat, finding another topic to get my mind off of the idea of attending the feast.

"Elves don't exactly keep track of the dates the same way as men, do they? Like, back home we number each day." A thought had popped into my mind, one that I was surprised hadn't occurred to me sooner. With the coming of late autumn, I supposed that it must be around the beginning of October.

"Not the elves, no. We have six seasons, each a certain number of ré, or days. The other folk in Middle Earth do. They have many months, twice as many as the elves."

"It's the same back home. 12 months," I said quickly, hoping that he would be able to tell me what the date was.

"I reckon that the tenth month of the year of men is nearly upon us, I believe in the common tongue they refer to it as October," Haldir said thoughtfully. My brows raised slowly, hoping for a date, but Haldir was unable to give me one. Turning to me, it was his turn to question me. "Was there a particular reason for your question?"

I nodded slowly, disappointed that I wasn't able to be sure of the date. "My birthday is on the 7th day of October."

"Your birthday?" Haldir asked, looking slightly confused, though I couldn't figure out how the concept could be confusing to him.

"Yes, marking the day I was born. We celebrate it annually, normally with a party, though I never did much for mine, personally," I explained, finding it hard to believe that elves didn't celebrate birthdays. I suppose it could get a little hard to keep track of, after a few thousand years… As I finished explaining, however, it was like something clicked in my friend's mind, and he chuckled.

"I see now. We do not celebrate the date of birth. Instead, we celebrate the date of conception, as that is when a life truly begins. Furthermore, you must understand that for the elves, what you would call a year passes by in the blink of an eye, and so we celebrate our conception every 144 years. We call that a yén, for it is far easier to count the years of our lives in yén.

I nodded my head thoughtfully, hoping that he would continue. I was beyond curious to know exactly how old my friend was. I hadn't thought about it very much back home, since Haldir hadn't been a major character in the story. To be honest, I had never really paid much attention to his character at all until meeting him. Now that I had gotten to know him so well, I was dying to know. I think that Haldir knew what I was hoping to hear, because he smiled a small smile but said nothing on the subject of his age.

"If you don't mind me asking, what age will you be?" He asked me now, turning his eyes to me as he raised his fork to his mouth.

"Um… 20," I said after a slight hesitation, feeling every inch like a child at the mention of my young age. I was surrounded by elves, immortal beings who were probably all at least several hundred years old. Hell, a lot of the elf "children" were probably around the same age as me, if not several years older. "It's not a huge birthday back home, but it's not an insignificant one either," I explained. "I'll finally be an adult." At this I looked up at Haldir as he laughed lightly, his mouth full of salad. I suppressed a smile of my own and laid down my fork to look at him pointedly. "Is something funny?"

Haldir swallowed his food and looked across the table at me. "No, I suppose not. It is just so strange to hear someone say that. You are so young to me, yet you do not act like it… Most of the time, anyways," he said with a smile. Despite the setting, I could not help but stick my tongue out at him.

We continued to eat the rest of our lunch, content to enjoy our meals in silence. Stuffing the last mouthful of salad into my mouth, I thought about how much I didn't miss the food back home. Surprisingly, I had not yearned for any of the foods that I had been so accustomed to eating. Though I had missed it at first, the healthy lifestyle of the elves had grown on me over the past month. I hadn't been that big of a meat lover anyways, so the vegetarian lifestyle wasn't too big of a change. I do miss chicken though, it will probably take a long time to get over that.

As I placed my utensils neatly on top of my plate and prepared to excuse myself from the table, another thought popped into my head. I know what month it is now… but what year is it? Why didn't this pop into my head earlier? At this new thought my mind began to race. If Lothlórien was still habited, then it must be before the War of the Ring. Swallowing hard, I debated whether or not it would be good for my state of mind to ask what year it was. Orcs attacked me last week… That can't be a good sign. I took a deep breath before looking up at Haldir, who was preparing to leave the table with his own dishes.

"Haldir, what year is it?" I asked, trying not to give anything away with my tone of voice. My guise failed, quite miserably, and Haldir furrowed his brows at my clear display of uneasiness.

"It is late in the year 3018 of the Third Age," Haldir replied, his brow still creased. "Why?"

I shook my head and plastered a smile on my face. "I was just curious." Well crap. That's the year the Fellowship left Rivendell, there's no way I could forget that. I could tell that Haldir was not convinced, but there was no way I was going to tell him that I knew what was going to happen over the course of the next few years. No way. "Are you finished?" I asked him, trying to sidestep the uncomfortable topic. Haldir nodded silently and we both rose from our seats to drop off our plates.

For the rest of the afternoon I studied in my room with Haldir, though my mind was fixed on other matters. If I didn't find a way to get home really quickly, I was going to find myself in Middle Earth during a war. And for someone who wouldn't even ride a roller coaster if it went upside down, that was definitely not something that I was going to experience if I had any choice in the matter.

There you have it! Hope you all enjoyed reading it. It was a little bit faster paced than the previous chapters, but as we go along I'm getting eager to get to the Fellowship's arrival! Please remember to leave me a review, thanks to everyone who has already done so! Remember, I will always get back to you, so if you have any questions or comments, I would love to hear them! I will update soon!

-Eru