Beta by wendwriter - thanks.

Alyan shot to his feet like lightning. Swallowing, Faelwen hurriedly backed away. At the same instant, Haldir crossed to her side and rested his hand on her shoulder, his eyes dark with anger. From the corner of his eye, he saw both twins clench their fists; expressions taut with rage.

"I…I am not going to hurt you," said Alyan in a strangled voice; blue eyes clouded.

"Try it and it would be the last thing you did!" growled Haldir, scowling as he watched Alyan's flicker nervously from him back to Faelwen, whose face was cold and frozen.

"How can you expect me to believe that?" she asked, emotion thickening her voice. "When the only memories you gave me were of pain?" All five of her brother's exchanged haunted looks.

"For that, we have no excuses. We never will have," Aradan said slowly, unable to meet the eyes of anyone in the room. "But please try to believe that it surpasses all our fervent wishes and prayers to find you alive!"

"What?" Faelwen gave a slightly-hysterical snort of disbelieving laughter. She could not believe her ears. She hung onto Haldir's arms for dear life; fearing she would hit the ground otherwise.

"We were very young, and it was a difficult time for us…" began Alyan, before Estel, completely ignoring Elrohir's warning glance, furiously cut him off.

"It was difficult for you?" he demanded scornfully. "How do you think it was for my sister, the way you abused her? She was just a baby!"

"My lord, I am not trying to justify what we did; please believe me," said Alyan to Elrond raising his hands as if in defeat. "But please, at least let me explain what drove us to behave like that." Estel glared daggers at him and opened his mouth to retort.

"Estel, you will hold your tongue or you will leave the room!" said Elrond sternly. The young human looked ready to erupt.

"Ada, you cannot possibly expect me to be civil after what they did to her!" He all but shouted. "They…" That was all he managed before Elrohir clapped a hand across his mouth. Elrond's gaze remained iron-stern as he turned it towards the five sons of Calanon.

"Explain then," he instructed. "Faelwen, my child, do you think you can bear to hear this?"

"I think so," said Faelwen tensely, sitting down on the edge of her seat; Haldir holding her hand tightly where it rested on her lap.

The brothers exchanged a few meaningful looks; electing Alyan as spokesman, and he began his tale.

"We had all yet to reach our majorities back then, and we were certainly immature. I believe that one of the reasons we were so set against you from the start was simply because you were female. We had convinced ourselves that we would be welcoming two more little brothers, despite Nana being so certain that she carried a girl, and we did not want a little sister suddenly ruining our family dynamic. The five of us did everything together – we always have done and we always will; but how were we supposed to teach a little sister to hunt and shoot? It would change everything…a very unwelcome change. So you could say that we were against you even before you were born.

When Nana was bitten…it was as if some dark nightmare had suddenly come to pass. We were powerless to help her, and I do not believe that the frustration, or the anger, at that helplessness has ever gone. It was certainly constantly boiling over in the first few years after she died.

We were waiting in the other room when she passed to Mandos's care. We never got to say goodbye. It was Tamuril who broke the news to us. (You probably do not remember her but she was one of the healers who delivered you and Feredir). She let it slip that, had Naneth taken some kind of herbs after Feredir arrived, the second twin would likely have been lost but she would ultimately survived. But she had chosen to refuse the herbs, and her body had been unable to cope with the second birth. She had died.

It was the worst pain I have ever felt in my life; and I know the others will agree. Yet at the same time, I was half-mad with rage and incomprehension. Naneth had chosen not to take those herbs! She had chosen to leave us! How could she have done that? How could we be deprived of the mother we all needed so badly and stuck instead with a little sister that we none of us wanted in the first place? Our world had suddenly snapped and, to our angry, immature minds…you were the cause."

Tears were slowly running down Faelwen's face, but she managed to keep from sobbing outright. Haldir shifted his position so that he could wrap both his arms around her and she laid her head despairingly on his chest.

"To make it worse, it soon became clear that Ada favoured you the most," continued Alyan, old memories darkening his eyes. "This only made us angrier. You had already taken our mother, why should you get our father also? Had we stopped to truly think about it, we would have realised that you got all the attention because the two of you were just newborns and had to be tended properly; it was no slight to us. We should have realised that Ada would not have been the father we loved so dearly if he had not acted that way. He must have been under such a burden; caring for all seven of us while still mourning his wife. As it was, I do not think the five of us ever properly grieved. Instead, we looked for an outlet to expend our hurt and anger. We chose you.

Hearing you scream and cry seemed to satisfy us. After all, it was only right that you should be hurting too, considering the pain that we were having to deal with. Stupidly, we never talked to Ada of our feelings. We never gave him the slightest hint that something might be wrong, and we always told him we were just fine whenever we asked. We knew that he wanted you close because your eyes reminded him of Nana so much, but that just added insult to injury. We couldn't see that it was our unwillingness to talk that put the distance between us; it was far easier and took a lot less courage just to blame you. We used to tell Feredir that Ada would send you away if he ever told Ada about the way we hurt you. But it got to the stage that hurting you was simply not enough to satisfy our anger anymore. Something had to be done.

Selling you to the human man was my idea. We had always travelled a lot between Greenwood and Laketown, carrying various errands or such and, as a result, we had a fair number of dealings with men. In one of the less reputable taverns, I became acquainted with Faelurinc, a trader who was not known for his kindness. Rumour had it that he was unstable and had a passionate dislike of Elves. I offered him a servant and he readily agreed. It seemed the perfect answer – we would finally get our Ada back. We arranged a price for you and agreed on the date you would be handed over.

It was not difficult to get you out into the woods with us; we spun Ada some ridiculous lie about the fresh air helping you sleep better – hardly likely, when we were the ones giving you nightmares. I did not have the slightest worry when I handed you over. We had already planned the convincing story of your death and we knew we could make it realistic. With you out of the way, our household could perhaps begin to resemble what it had been before we lost our Naneth.

It was selfish, it was childish and it was utterly naïve. Of course it did not make things better. Feredir was hysterical and would not let anyone comfort him. He was adamant that you were not dead and was heartbroken that you were suddenly apart. It was more than a fortnight before we could get him to eat and he cried himself to sleep for many months after that.

Losing you so soon after Naneth almost broke Ada. His eyes became dulled, we never saw him laugh or smile. He was still always there for us, always ready to help, but it seemed like he would now forever be cursed with eternal grief. And we had caused it...intentionally.

Then, one night, a month after we'd sold you, we were sitting by the fire and his grief came pouring out. He told us of how helpless he'd felt when Naneth had died, how he'd sworn to keep us all safe and well for her, how he had failed so drastically in that duty and let his youngest child be killed, how he had failed us all, how his heart and soul ached because of it. It was the most heartbreaking and destroying thing we have ever had to witness for, whatever else you may think of us, we love our father dearly. I suddenly hated myself more than words could tell for causing him this extra grief. We had got rid of you to satisfy our own selfishness, but all we had done was break Ada's heart a little more. Regardless of what I told you before the humans took you away Alassë, he did love you. With all his heart.

"Please do not call me Alassë!" begged Faelwen, in tears. "That name will forever be cursed for me. My name is Faelwen."

"Faelwen," repeated Alyan gravely, watching as Haldir stroked her hair, tears in his eyes too. It was clear how much the Marchwarden loved her. He wondered if she was too distressed to hear the rest of his explanation and looked over to Elrond for guidance. The elf-lord gestured for him to continue.

"We were only just beginning to realise what we had done," he said, sadly. "We had blamed our sister for causing our family such grief, yet had we not intentionally just done the same thing? She had not been responsible for her actions, but we were for ours. Suddenly, we had to grow up.

Later that week, I found that my sleep was disturbed and that I wandered in a strange dream. I was standing in the shade of the trees in a clearing, watching as Faelurinc beat our sister into unconsciousness. Her screams were echoing right through my head and I wanted to weep. She was just an elfling…such a beating would be hard to bear for a fully-grown man. Her back was soaked with blood, yet no one was stepping in to defend her. It was fast going past abuse…this was sheer mutilation.

When she collapsed on the ground unconscious, they all turned away with vindictive laughs and made themselves busy with what I took to be their usual chores. No one paid attention to the bleeding heap lying at the edge of the campsite. I tried to move towards her, but my feet were stuck fast to the ground.

Suddenly, a pale figure emerged from the other side of the clearing and walked towards where Ala…Faelwen was lying. It was our mother, glowing and ethereal like a ghost, but she looked to be whole and real. She knelt beside the child and gently stroked the bleeding forehead. Then she raised her head, eyes streaming with tears, and met my gaze.

My mother's eyes pierced me to my very soul. I will never forget that look. It was so full of sadness, disappointment and reproach; it will haunt me forever. It was only in that moment that I realised the true severity of what we had done. We had given the youngest member of our family – the one that we were supposed to spoil and dote upon – away to be viciously abused, perhaps to the death. We were no better than kinslayers.

I found that my brothers had all experienced that same dream that night and, instead of being filled with our previous triumph at our scheme, we were instead filled with sheer disgust at our actions when we realised how selfish and childishly cruel we had been; how despicably we had been acting from the day our mother had died. She would have been horrified and grieved to see what we had become.

We tried at once to find you. We searched Laketown and all the surrounding human dwellings from top to bottom, but we could find no trace of Faelurinc. No one knew where he and his men had departed for, and they were certainly never seen in Laketown again. All our efforts to find you were in vain, but a man spoke of having heard Faelurinc brag about his new pretty little elven slave and how he would make 'a proper little earner' out of her, as soon as she had grown up enough.

We eventually gave up hope of finding you, supposing you dead and hoping that you had been called to Mandos before you could be violated in the manner they had talked about. We have had to live with the guilt of our actions ever since, though we were still too cowardly to confess them. As a measure of reparation, we all swore to protect Feredir at all costs, even if it meant injury to ourselves, so that Ada might never have to go through the pain of losing another member of our family. And if it had not been for your healing skills, we would have failed in that too. We owe you so much more than you could ever know."

Thus ended Alyan's story. The room was tense and silent after his last words, broken only by the stifled sobs emitted by Faelwen, her face still buried in Haldir's chest. It had been difficult for her to hear and all the more difficult to remain composed. Haldir remained as gentle as ever, softly brushing away her tears and holding her close in a strong hug. The twins and Estel, though ashen-faced, were still glaring at the five Mirkwood elves; hardly able to believe that anyone could have acted so callously, while Elrond remained composed and solemn. "There is much we have yet to discuss. Your tale still does not excuse the way you behaved," he said, in a grim tone, directing his gaze towards Faelwen's brothers. "It is still very much up to Faelwen how she deals with the matter. She is the one who had to suffer after all. But I think she should be given time to digest what she has just heard. It is hard enough for her as it is."

"I agree, my lord," said Alyan respectfully. "I did not expect to be excused. We now understand the magnitude of our offence and are punished by living with the guilt when we see the sadness in our father's eyes. But for now, there is something I must do."

He rose and crossed the room, sinking down to kneel in front of his long-lost sister. Half expecting the Marchwarden to punch him, Alyan held out his hand to Faelwen. For a moment, her reddened eyes looked at him in shock before, tentatively – as though she feared to be bitten, she placed a shaking hand in his. Alyan raised it to his forehead and bowed his head low in the ultimate gesture of respect and submission.

"My lady," he whispered.

Faelwen burst into hysterical tears.