Chapter 2

The bright light of the sunrise shown through the open window of the home in Minas Tirith, right onto the face of the occupant of the only bed in the room. Thorin Oakenshield rose from his bed and began to get ready for another long day in the forge.

After eating a quick breakfast, he left the house and headed towards the blacksmith shop he was currently working at. Upon entering the back door into the forge, he got the feeling that something was not right. He looked around the room and everything seemed to be where he left had it the day before. Shrugging his shoulders, he decided to get to work on the day's orders. He went over to the small table in the corner where he would sit to eat lunch and moved to set his lunch on top of it. Just as he was about to put his bag down he noticed a note in the middle of the table.

'Please take care of her. She means the world to many who will miss her dearly. Annelise has been left in your care, Thorin Oakenshield,' was all that it said. Then he noticed a basket sitting on his work bench. He leaned down and moved around the blankets on top of the bundle within the basket. He was not entirely surprised after reading the note when he found that a young child was in the basket.

Hesitantly, Thorin lifted the small child from her basket and cradled her in his arms. The baby girl quickly turned into his chest, drawn to his warmth, before waking. Thorin was surprised to see eyes as blue as the sky looking back at him. With her dark brown hair and slightly tanned skin, he would have expected them to be brown or green. She could not have been more than two or three years old, but she was very small.

'What am I supposed to do with a child? Who left her here and how did they know my name?' Thorin thought to himself.

"Uncle! The master says he has two new orders that need to be completed by the end of this week," Fili said, bursting through the wooden door Thorin had just entered minutes ago. His brother, Kili, was only a few steps behind him.

"What is that?" asked Kili, looking around his brother's shoulder.

"It is a young child. She was left in here with nothing but a note," Thorin replied, pointing to the note.

Fili and Kili quickly went and read over the note before turning to Thorin again.

"So what are we going to do with her?" Kili asked, curiously. He reached around his uncle toward the little girl and she grabbed onto his finger tightly with her hand.

"I suppose we will have to look after her until we find who she belongs to," said Thorin.

"Her name is Annelise. Do you have any idea who she might belong to, Uncle?" Fili asked.

"I have no idea," Thorin replied to his oldest nephew, looking back down at the young girl in his arms who was looking intently at Kili and smiling widely.

'Why would someone want to abandon such a small, sweet girl?,' Thorin wondered to himself.

It seemed like only yesterday that Thorin Oakenshield had found the small girl wrapped up in a basket in his workshop. He could not believe that it had nearly been 22 years since that day. Fili and Kili had worked tirelessly trying to find out where she had come from, but no one had any knowledge of her sudden appearance. The dwarves soon realised that no one was going to step forward to claim the child and Thorin soon adopted her as his own daughter.

Fili and Kili enjoyed having the toddler around, as she would laugh at everything they did. She soon became as a sister to them and they were fiercely protective of her. Both loved to hold her as she got ready for her afternoon nap, and would rock her to sleep against their chests before laying her in her bed. Kili was extremely proud that she had the same colour hair as him, and enjoyed teasing his brother about it.

As Annelise grew older, Thorin and his nephews took it upon themselves to teach her to fight and defend herself. Kili enjoyed taking her out into fields near where ever they were and showing her how to use a bow, while Thorin and Fili taught her hand-to-hand combat and sword fighting. She was a surprisingly quick learner and enjoyed every opportunity to learn something new.

Growing up she learned to speak the language of the Dwarves, as well as the tongue of Men. When she turned ten, she began to teach herself the language of the Elves as her father and cousins had no interest in teaching her. She learned to speak fluent Elvish rather quickly and was surprised that it seemed completely natural for her to speak it.

As she grew older, her desire to train with weapons grew as well. For her thirteenth birthday, Fili and Kili gifted her with an Elvish sword that they bought on one of their many travels. On her sixteenth birthday, Thorin gifted Annelise with a set of twin blades and began teaching her to use them, after she had mastered using the long sword.

Although she was never able to beat Thorin at sparing, Annelise could last almost twenty minutes before he was able to find an opening and end the fight. She was able to rival Kili with the bow and she and Fili were evenly matched when it came to sparing and hand-to-hand combat.

Annelise loved her small family very much and could not imagine life without them. Not only did she have a father and two 'brothers', she had many friends among the dwarves that she had met in her life. Although she wished that she and her father did not have to continuously move around and that Fili and Kili would stay around longer, she was fairly happy with the life she had.

There were moments when she would wonder about where she came from and who her parents were, but she did not like to dwell on those thoughts. She had a father who loved her very much and she was content with that.

When she was ten, Thorin told her of the day he found her and showed her the note that was left with her. She always knew that she was different from the dwarves but she did not realise just how big of a difference it was. She did not like that she soon towered over her brothers and her father or that she was not really one of them. Although she had come to accept that, there were still moments when Annelise could not help but be upset about those differences. She knew that she would not live as long as her family and that thought upset her sometimes.

She knew that Thorin and Fili and Kili loved her as if she was really one of them, but as Annelise drew closer to her twenty-fifth year, the thoughts of her past and her parents began to plague her mind once again. She began to notice that not only was she different from the dwarves, she was also different from the Men that she met. She healed quicker and even though she was almost twenty-five, she still looked as if she was eighteen. Even though she was raised by dwarves, she still walked quieter than Men and her senses were slightly sharper.

The pendant that she wore around her neck was a constant reminder that there might be someone somewhere that knew who she really was and who loved her dearly. For who would give such a priceless jewel to someone they despised. It had been around her neck the day Thorin found her with no other clue as to who she was.

The necklace was obviously Elven-made but from where and by whom was a mystery to her Father and cousins. Annelise refused to take it off and would absentmindedly play with the chain whenever she was upset or thinking intently about something.

After Thorin found Annelise, she had nightmares when she slept at night and would murmur things with her little voice. Thorin soon discovered that she was speaking in elvish and realised she must have been raised around elves, though where her family was now he did not know. He never told Annelise of this when she grew up, fearing she would run off to the elves to try to find out where she came from.

Thorin feared that one day she would leave, but he could not bring himself to approach the topic with the young girl who had become a daughter to him. Fili and Kili knew that Annelise sometimes wondered about her parents but they were able to keep that knowledge from ever reaching Thorin. They knew that he feared losing her. They worried as well that one day she might leave, but they were able to subtly change the subject whenever the topic came up.

Annelise had no strong desire yet to leave her family to go find out about her past, but she knew in her heart that one day soon she would find the need for that knowledge to be too great to resist anymore. She could only hope that when that time came, she would be ready for whatever she might uncover.