Oh my God, Elrond looks like the guy from The Matrix.

'Mister Anderson,' I muttered to myself, biting back a giggle as Elrond led me down a hallway. Honestly, every place in Rivendell was decorated so finely, even the hallway I had then walked down. Plus, there were zero windows, meaning you had this constant view from the open walls.

Elrond looked back briefly. 'Did you say something, Lady Millie?'

I shook my head, drowning my smile. 'Oh, no,' I replied politely. 'Er, if you don't mind me asking, what is it that you wanted to talk to me about, Lord Elrond?' Remembered to say Lord, well done Millie.

He paused and waved me into a room to the left of the hallway. I hesitated, then entered, soon followed by the dark haired Elf. It looked like an office of some kind, I guess. The room had a large, glass-less window, many books and a large, oak desk, topped with quills, ink and paper 'Please,' he said, gesturing to an armchair on one side of the desk. 'Sit. I insist'. He waited until I placed myself carefully onto the chair, before seating himself and continuing, quite bluntly.

'Gandalf the Grey has told me of your story, and I wish to discuss the matter with you,' he said. I sat up straight, hands balling into fists within my lap. 'Do not be alarmed, Lady Millie, I only wish to talk to you myself about your story. Gandalf seems to think that I will be able to decipher as to why you are here in the first place'.

I shrugged. 'Gandalf seems to think it's something to do with these Vular guys,' I replied.

Elrond smiled. 'Valar,' he corrected, and I blushed lightly. 'Please, tell me your story in full. I would like to know the events that transpired before your 'trip' to Middle Earth, shall we call it'. He then leaned back in his own chair, hands clasped, and waited.

'Oh, right,' I started, sitting up. 'Well, I guess it all started when I woke up quite late that morning, I suppose-'

And so I told him my story. I told him of how I hit my head, of how everything seemed to lead to that moment of me walking in front of that car. I told him of finding myself in Middle Earth, of the fact that I vaguely knew of it because it was the 'history' of my world. I told him that I was once human, that races such as theirs did not exist where I was from, and of how I had met Gandalf, Bilbo and the Dwarves.

By the end of my story, Elrond considered my words, then said, 'It appears you have had quite a few tiring weeks behind you'.

I snorted softly. 'You bet I have. So, what do you think? Why do you think I came here at all?'

Elrond leaned forward slightly, his long hair falling over his shoulder. 'I cannot be entirely sure, Lady Millie. From what I have gathered, you injured yourself before your journey here...' he trailed off, eyes boring into mine, hard. 'I do not wish to alarm with what I mean about to say, but you may have simply...passed on in your other life'.

I paused, sputtered, and practically tripped over while sitting down. 'I- nah,' I denied. 'Dead?'

Elrond put on a sympathetic look that only made me mad, for some reason. 'It...seems a likely cause for such events,' he explained. 'Perhaps you were brought here for a reason, and perhaps for that to happen, you must become nonexistent before you started that reason'.

I shook my head, stubborn. 'That's impossible, I mean...that would mean never going back'.

Do you even want to go back anymore?

Elrond switched subjects, sensing my oncoming fierce woman-tears. 'I find it most interesting that in the process of coming to Middle Earth, you yourself became another race of being, so foreign to your old self. After speaking with Gandalf, he also believes that this is, maybe, the body that you would have been born into, had Middle Earth been you home'. Yeah, he's already told me that one. Get some new material, Gandizzle. 'From what I have seen, it is obvious that a fondness has grown between you and your Dwarven companions, as well as the Hobbit'.

'But what am I supposed to do to help these guys?' I practically exploded, beyond frustrated and tired and upset. 'All I've done so far is make the odd, unhelpful comment, eat, sleep and make buddy's with them. How's that going to help anyone?'

Elrond looked at me kindly, considering my words.

'Maybe it is your friendship that will help them in the end, Lady Millie. Have you ever considered that?'

Elrond had offered to escort me to the balcony, but I requested to walk alone, saying that I could probably find my way back. As well as that, he had insisted upon giving me my own room, but I had declined that as well. I hadn't fancied being too far from my Dwarves friends. The Lord had given a bow, I had thanked him, and we separated. I hadn't seen him for years after that, though at the time I had been quite sure that I would never see him again.

The Dwarves were smoking their pipes and chatting in twos and threes when I quietly stepped onto the balcony, my head hung in a mad attempt to hide myself from them. Millie Fournier: Master of Disguise. I plopped myself down onto one of the chairs, reaching for my boots and yanking them off. At the sudden, there was a penetrating silence. I glanced up.

Each Dwarf was staring at me, and I'd jumped, startled. 'Christ, guys,' I muttered, kicking off the second boot. 'Round of a applause for the oh-so subtle ways of Dwarves'.

'Well,' muttered Dwalin. 'Go on then, what'd the Lord want?'

I chewed the side of my mouth nonchalantly, shrugged and tucked my feet onto the chair beneath me. 'Nothin' much. You know, a...chat'. I'd cringed lightly at the words, cursing my complete inability to lie.

The other Dwarves gave me dry looks, cocking their brows at me.

'The Lord of Rivendell,' said Thorin, turning away from the edge of the balcony to face me. 'Asked specifically for the company of a female Dwarf he has never met, simply to chat with her. Forgive me if I do not believe you'.

I sent him an icy glare. 'You're forgiven'.

Dori snorted.

I prayed for the help of Gandalf to suddenly appear, but I knew that he would not. There I was, being bullied by Dwarves and a Hobbit into telling them something. 'Quit bully-circling me,' I muttered. 'Look, he only wanted to talk to me about my, you know, home or whatever'.

Thorin's sharp eyes were on my face, making me squirm. 'Do you always talk so vaguely?'

Purposely, I bit back a laugh and said, 'I dunno'.

Kili's hand moved quickly to his face, hiding his smile for his Uncle's benefit.

'Seriously,' I told Thorin. 'That's all we talked about. He was just all curious because I'm a girl and all that,' I said the sentence with heavy sarcasm. 'Seriously, am I going to get this every time I meet someone new?'

'Probably,' said Bofur.

'Joy,' I chirped.

The spell of questioning and stares was broken then, and the Dwarves all slunk back into their conversation of home, the journey ahead and anything else that they could muster up. Thorin considered me with a small glance, and, trying to be nice, I offered him a small smile, trying to show that I was not being purposely difficult.

He replied to this act with a simple nod.

'Are we sleeping here tonight?' I'd asked Kili, hardly surprised to find him by my side all of a sudden. He stood there, his long, leather coat quite absent. He wore a blue cotton shirt, having not been able to strip down for comfort when we slept in the wilderness.

He nodded, his eyes following the retreating Thorin. 'For a short time, you should be able to grab a few hours sleep. We've discussed it, and we will leave early in the morning. Thorin is not happy with Gandalf leading us here, into the aid of the Elves'. Kili, although he did not commonly voice his disgust for the Elves, seemed to agree with his Uncle. I wondered if it was his opinion though.

I looked up at him. 'Will we leave without Gandalf?' I'd asked, quietly.

He turned to face me, dark eyes looking upon my slightly worried face. 'If you wish to stay here, in Rivendell with him...'

My face immediately turned from troubled, to a large frown. 'Kili, please,' I said, holding up a finger. 'Of course I'm coming with you guys. You'd never survive without my quick wit and feminine charm'.

Fili, from somewhere in the mass of Dwarves, let out a bark of laughter. Many of them were sitting against the wall of the balcony, idly smoking pipes. Others, such as Ori and Nori, were already fast asleep. Thorin spoke in low voices with Dwalin and Balin, while Bilbo stared over the wall and out into the houses of Rivendell. It was pretty obvious that the Hobbit had fallen in love with the place.

It just felt too perfect for my liking, despite it's beauty.

Kili smiled at me. 'You need sleep, Millie. Here, I've already set out a blanket- given to us by the Elves,' he repaired, glancing away from me and over to the blue sleeping bag in the corner, away from the table. I stared at the side of his head, grinning teasingly.

'You asked for one for me while I was gone, didn't you?'

He looked stubbornly away from me. 'I already received enough teasing for it from Fili and Gloin, please do not add to the load,' he asked, his cheeks dusted a light shade of pink.

I held a hand to my mouth. 'You're blushing,' I said quietly, though excitedly. I wasn't so mean that I would alert the whole camp. 'Oh my, the sarcastic, dark and charming Kili is blushing'.

He opened his mouth, looking even more uncomfortable, but then a lazy, toothy grin plastered itself onto his face. 'You think I'm dark and charming?' he said, waggling his eyebrows down at me. My own smile disappeared and I stood, pushing his arrogant self out of the way.

'No, I think you're a doofus'.

'So you've said,' he replied, following me over to the blankets. Without so much as glancing at him, I fell into the soft, silky covers, burrowing my head into them and smiling sleepily. 'Comfortable?' inquired Kili, and I nodded happily, twisting my legs into the blanket.

I nodded to the spot beside me. 'Sit,' I said. 'You know the drill. Say something to make me fall asleep. Do Dwarves have their own language or anything?' I'd asked around yawn. I knew that they did, and to this day I do not know why I'd asked the question. The others were still murmuring to themselves, and it seemed that both Kili and I were glad for the privacy. Kili nodded, sitting beside me and leaning against the wall. 'Care to talk me to sleep?'

Kili half smiled down at me. 'The language is called Khuzdul,' he said, and then began saying something quietly in a rough, sharp tongue that sounded vaguely German. I'd sleepily told this to Kili, who shushed me, with a hand travelling to my chin, my cheek and then to my hair.

'Dn't tell'me t' sh,' I'd muttered sleepily, gathering the quilt into my arms and hugging it, falling asleep to Kili's low, sharp voice, the feel of his rough fingers stroking the top of my head, and the soft material of the quilt wrapped around my feet.

The next morning, we awoke early. Nothing of great interest happened as we gathered our belongings and took any leftover food from the table. Gandalf was still not back, and I silently assumed that we really were leaving without him as I tied my boots back onto my bare feet.

I'd felt infinitely better compared to how I had been upon arriving in Rivendell, as we set out the way we had entered. I was clean, rested and full of food (though most of it was healthy, ugh).

'I feel kinda bad - not saying thank you or goodbye, and all,' I said, as we walked along the side of a mountain path, glancing back to Rivendell behind us. The place practically glowed in the morning light, standing out from it's woodland, grassy, mountainous surroundings. Bilbo paused to take one last look at the Elvish House.

'I am sad to see it go,' he said quietly.

I glanced at him and nodded, understanding that he had become quite fond of Rivendell.

'Master Baggins, Miss Fournier, I suggest that you keep up,' called Thorin's deep voice, as he stopped to look at the pair of us. I'd jumped into action, popping into the line of wandering Dwarves. Bilbo simply looked at Thorin, and gave a little huff before following too.

I looked back once, only wondering what the journey ahead held.

'This is amazing,' I said, stopping carefully to stare out at the scenery. The Dwarves, Bilbo and I walked in a steady line along a mountain, high above any ground, and high above any of the mountains around us. The top of the mountain was slim, and would have been easy to fall down, had I not had the Dwarves surrounding me and the equally (but slightly less) inexperienced Bilbo.

'I've never seen anything like this,' I murmured, awed. The tops of the mountains below us were covered in snow, which we had already waded through hours before. We had climbed hills, sneaked under waterfalls, and in the past two days, we had made it far.

I had hardly spoken to Kili in that time, too mortified with my feelings for him. In case you haven't noticed, the last thing that I needed was a crush on a Dwarf, on top of everything else that had been chucked my way. I mean, I hadn't ignored him or anything. I had just been slightly less talkative and a whole lot more awkward.

'Don't think it's such a good idea for you to be so close to the edge, lass,' said Bofur, quickly grabbing my forearm as I stumbled. 'We don't want you fallin' over the edge of the mountain now'.

I hastily stood away from the edge, thanking him.

'God,' I grumbled some time later, pulling my cloak tighter around myself with numb fingers. 'It's freezing up here-'

Fili, who I hadn't noticed retreat to my side, pulled me in front of him. 'I don't know how many times we have to tell you to not walk so near the edge,' he admonished tiredly and quietly. 'Now, try and not be so loud from here on out'.

I cast him a startled look over my shoulder. 'What? Why? I thought you were walking with Kili. How are you so quiet, man, you just appear out of nowhere and manhandle me'.

The other Dwarves were hardly interested in our conversation, too fixated on climbing up the side of the yellow grassed mountainside that we had stumbled onto. Honestly, it was a hard climb, and I hand't fancied having a telling off from Fili while I was struggling to keep my breath, and look relatively fit at the same time. Shouldn't I have gotten used to walking by now, you ask? Well, I was a special kind of unfit.

'Kili is who I want to talk to you about-'

'Oh, bloody hell, this again-?'

'Shush,' he said. 'In the name Durin, you're louder than a wailing Goblin sometimes'. I merely grinned up at him sweetly. 'Now, is there any particular reason why you've been so distant with my brother?'

I clambered up the hillside, reaching level ground and sighing. The others were ahead of us, and I spied out Kili among the oddly dotted Dwarves. Blandly, I looked at Fili. 'I didn't realize that I was being distant'.

Fili's look was unimpressed. 'Kili is my little brother,' he said. 'I have looked out for him since he was a babe, and although he does not like to admit it, he is under my protection. It has always been unsaid, but common knowledge that Kili would be the to carry on the line of Durin if Thorin never had children himself. If the time were to come when Thorin died childless - and if we took back Erebor - then I would become King, as the eldest Heir. Though I find it unlikely that I would ever marry or bare children'.

I sputtered, looking wildly at him. 'Fili, dude-'

He shook his head and held up his hand, and I suddenly got a glimpse of the Heir of Durin. 'I just thought that you should know of the load that has been put on my brother. While I do not want to marry, I have therefore given my little brother the responsibility of creating more Heirs. This is all, of course, if Thorin does not have any children'.

I looked dryly up the grumpily trudging man ahead of us. I could hardly imagine Thorin playing with a young Kili and Fili, let alone his own kids.

'If you do pursue my brother, Millie, then keep in my that Dwarves only love once in their lifetime, and that my brother has a responsibility to create Heirs, just as our mother did before us'.

My face was probably beat red by that point. 'Away from the subject of Kili and I creating little Dwarven babies-'

'Yes,' agreed Fili, cutting me off. 'I just thought you should know. What I really wanted to talk to you about is your intentions toward my brother. I have already told you that he is a complete dolt, and he only ever wants to impress Thorin. Falling for an odd looking and sounding Dwarven woman on a journey to reclaim our home is not exactly the greatest way to earn Thorin's respect'.

I sputtered loudly, whacking Fili sharply on the arm. 'I beg your pardon? Odd looking? Who's the one who braids his freakin' facial hair? If that doesn't scream g-'

'You are odd though. Some may think that your oddness would be hereditary, actually'.

I threw my hands into the air, shocked and baffled at the turn of subject. 'Seriously? Do you want me to start naming our kids now?! I've barely even admitted to liking-'

Almost all of the company turned sharply at my loud voice and blearily blinked at the sunlight to peer at Fili and I. I blushed even deeper, waving away their curious, amused stares. I pointedly avoided the eye of Kili.

'I hate you,' I muttered to Fili.

'So you do have feelings for my brother?' he said triumphantly. 'I knew it,' he grinned. 'The lad had preposterous ideas about you thinking him far too hairless and scrawny. Dwarven women usually look for the stouter, hairier males, you see. They also choose their own mates-' he stopped himself, shutting his mouth and looking sideways at me. 'It's up to you to get the dolt to realize, Millie. He is an idiot, but you'll be lucky to have him. He deserves a little attention after being in my shadow for so many years,' he smiled cockily at me.

I ignored him, far too shocked at the new information. 'What, so it's all up to me? Do you want me to bloody seduce him or something?' I whispered madly. Fili bellowed out a laugh. 'You can't tell him anything that I've said,' I ordered, suddenly panicked at realizing that this was Kili's brother. 'I haven't once said that I even fancy him, so don't you go twisting anything I have said-'

Jesus, how had a quest to kill a dragon turned into a bloody soap-opera?

'I will say nothing to my brother. I do not want to worry him,' said Fili cheekily. 'Honestly, you must have realized that the lad felt something for you. The other Dwarves and I have been making small bets on how long it will take the two of you to stop tip-toeing around one another'.

I tripped heavily over a large rock, caught just before hitting the ground by Fili. 'You're joking, you little bugger. Bets? What is up with you guys and making bets? Wait, that's why you're doing this, isn't it? To make sure that you win-'I cut myself off, only to shake my head angrily and breath in deeply. 'What did you bet on?' I asked, mildly interested and dimly annoyed. Fili purposely said nothing, and I growled. 'Fine. And, in reply to you earlier question...'

I trailed off, unsure of whether I would sound like a fang-girl teenager if I went on. 'Well, he said he cared about me, and that he would...' I cringed at the words, realizing how bloody corny they were. I couldn't tell Fili about the whole 'I would die for you' conversation. That was too personal, that moment was mine and Kili's. 'That's it, actually,' I lied.

Fili snorted. 'I never realized that my brother was such a romantic'. He put an arm around my shoulders. 'Don't you worry, Millie. I'll give my brother a swift kick in the right direction'.

I opened my mouth, about to tell him that I would give him a swift kick if he didn't let go of me.

'Fili, Millie!' called Dwalin from the front of the Dwarves. 'Hurry up, there is a storm coming, and we will need to find shelter along the mountain pass'. I looked ahead, to where Dwalin was pointing, and saw the approaching shape of a rocky mountain side.

'Fantastic,' I muttered.

Next chapter will be longer, but woo, protective brother Fili! I hoped you liked it, and thank you so much for the reviews! I can't believe we're over halfway toward 300.

Review, enjoy, follow my tumblr kiliyousosilly.

Thank you!