Disclaimer: I don’t own the LoTR concept, that belongs to JRR Tolkien and now the Saul Zaentz company. I’m just mucking around with a few of the characters and their universe, and have added a few new additions of my own.

Chapter One-“The Future As Prologue”

Somewhere in Germany-1885 AD, approximately year 880 of the 33rd AA (Ardan Age)

The shuttle touched down lightly upon the grass of the mansion’s lawn, the heat of it’s re-entry into the atmosphere causing a fog around it’s landing site in the early morning dew. As the doors opened, it was just possible to see two people gathering several carts worth of luggage onto anti-gravity platforms and rolling them out the larger cargo door. As the two figures descended, one a tall dark-haired male, and the other an equally tall blonde female, they conversed in hushed tones, or at least semi-hushed tones, as the female seemed not to notice the extreme quiet of their particular locale, and carried on at quite average decibels.
“Moriquen, what time of the morning is it here?” the blonde asked.
“It is just 6:30 in the morning, my lady, and I beg you to keep your voice at an indoor level until we reach a more appropriate location for conversation,” the dark-haired male replied.
“For goodness’ sakes Mori, we just landed a 23rd-century piece of future-tech on the front lawn of a castle controlled by the Informed Communities and you’re worried about contamination? That seems an unlikely event given the circumstances.”
“All I know, your majesty, is that you have always taught subtlety over forthrightness, and I, for one, would prefer to retain a veil of secrecy until we are indoors, and your security of anonymity can be confirmed.”
“Ah,” the blonde female replied.
“Ah, my Lady?”
“Ah. As in, I will therefore restrain my responses until we are indoors since you are obviously concerned with the competency of this castle’s grounds people to keep the Uninformed from the premises.”
“My Lady, that was not what I meant…” said the male, attempting to correct any diplomatic faux pas he had just made, while knowing full well the conversational game they were playing.
“I know, Moriquen” she said as she gave him a sly teasing smile from the corner of her mouth. “I know.”
And with that, they continued up the gravel path to the castle on the hill, each pushing a rather large anti-gravity cart loaded with sapphire-blue luggage, crates, and chests.

~~~~~

Later, after the Lady’s quarters had been rearranged to her liking, and her pertinent crates unpacked, she and her long-time servant stood by the 17th century windows in the fourth floor hallway.
“I suppose it is time I was returning, before the shuttle can be tracked and your identity compromised,” the male said.
Nodding softly in agreeance, she replied, “Yes, I suppose it is at that, Moriquen.”
“Lady, I sincerely doubt that we will have the chance to meet again, given my responsibilities, and this new….life…of yours.”
“We are both immortal Moriquen. There are no time constraints on us,” the lady replied.
“I know that, Lady, and yet it makes this parting no easier. I would not prolong my departure if only to lessen the difficulty of the event.”
Turning towards her, and facing the tears in her eyes, he placed a chaste kiss on her hand.
“I will not keep you from your departure then, Moriquen, but know always that I’ve long considered you my closest friend and best advisor,” she said, gently touching his arm.
“I have known, my Lady, I truly have known.”
He smiled once more at her, turned, and left before she could see the mists in his eyes that clouded his vision all the way back to the shuttle.
She watched for a long time, until she could no longer see the shuttle with either her eyes or her 320x telescoping binoculars. She returned to her rooms then, collapsed onto the bed, and proceeded to cry herself to sleep during her first night in her new life.

~~~~~

Many hours later, for she had always preferred not to awake during the earliest morning hours, she returned to her living room and began idly unpacking some of the smaller sapphire-blue crates against the wall. After clearing one entire row from the wall, she found a silver metal case with the familiar multi-starred crest on it, but it was of entirely the wrong design era for her matched 19th – century luggage. As do most of her kind, she had a near-photographic memory, and did not recall ever having packed this box. She grabbed her handheld scanner off the desk and quickly checked the box for any potential dangers.
An assassination attempt at this point would seem rather…pointless. Better safe than sorry…at least for the castle staff’s sake. Confirming the safety of the case, she opened it, and found a dedicated word processing computer, and a holographic cloaking device, as well as a note on silver-edged parchment.

Dearest Kel,
I seem to recall a young woman to whom I once promised a great adventure in return for her writing her memoirs one day. I do not think she took me seriously at the time, as I was rather strongly promoting the adventure myself at the time and certainly, the composition of a simple set of memoirs does not seem an adequate payment considering the costs I was to incur. Nonetheless, the adventure has been at least half delivered and I do sincerely hope that the young woman in question remembers her end of the bargain. May this little gift get you started on your path to autobiography, with the little “extra” as a protection should any of the Uninformed come across the device.

Best Wishes on Earth,
Em

Damn his memory…she thought, as she crumpled the parchment. She sat the computer down on her desk and initiated the cloaking device. With that and with a sudden inspiration for an authentic German ale from what some have called the greatest era of the German brewing legacy, she set off from the room to locate one of her new staff members.

Chapter Two

Lothlorien, Middle-Earth, year 251 of the Third Age.

In a talan in the forest of Lothlorien, two Elven parents discussed in hushed tones their daughter’s condition. It seemed that she had developed the Sight, if her already accurate premonitions were any indication, and at a very young age, as she was not quite eleven human years old. The Lady Galadriel, whose own daughter was grown and living in the realm of Imladris, had offered to take Lindômiel as an apprentice of the Sight, and to train her to control her visions. Although the parents were incredibly honored by this gesture, it would mean not seeing their daughter for years at a time during her training.
Their quiet conversation was interrupted by an agonized scream and deep psychic disruption that both parents felt as their offspring awakened from yet another premonitory nightmare. Lindômiel was sitting up in bed, her silver-golden hair sweat-dampened and tears pouring down her face.
“It is Celebtinel,” she gasped, referring to her young cousin who also lived in Lothlorien. “She will fall from her talan balcony by morning if she is not warned. It may already be too late.”
Knowing by now that his child experienced quite accurate visions and even more accurate nightmares, Lindômiel’s father gave her mother a knowing look and rushed to warn his sister’s family to be careful of the balcony for his young niece’s sake.
As dawn broke over Lothlorien, Lindômiel’s parents had made their decision. It was by far more agonizing for their child to suffer the responsibility of unbidden foresight, than for themselves to be separated from her. By the end of the day, they were escorting her to the royal talan of Galadriel and Celeborn.
Before she mounted the stairs, Lindômiel’s father looked upon her, and saw the blossoming young woman who was his daughter.
“A mere Song of Dusk I think you are no more, Lindômiel, and on this I think your mother will agree with me, although it is she who named you so…” he said as he brushed his hand over her shining locks of hair. With a choking beginning in his throat he continued. “Now that you will start this grand new training I think you need a more befitting name, and so I send you on your way, my Haerontíra, my far-seeing one.”
Her parents hugged her, and a scared eleven-year-old elfling ascended the many stairs to Galadriel’s chambers, not to return to her parents until she was a very different young elf maid.

~~~~~

Lothlorien, Middle-Earth, Year 3021-The Last Year of the Third Age

In the nearly 2,800 years she had worked with Galadriel, Haerontíra’s prowess at using the Mirror for Sight had increased to perfection near Galadriel’s own. Haerontíra had forgone almost all other aspects of her life in order to continue studying with Galadriel. In the last 500 years, Galadriel had encouraged and instructed Haerontíra to Seek visions of her own future; a skill that is unconquerable by many Seers, as they are too emotionally attached to their own futures to view them accurately. Nonetheless, Haerontíra proved excellent at the skill and predicted many small events that came to pass in her own life. Two of the significant events she predicted were her future as the Royal Seer to the Queen of Gondor, and her introduction to her fiancé.
About five years before the War of the Ring, Haerontíra had met a male elf from Mirkwood, who was a scout, traveling the countryside between Mirkwood and Rohan as one of King Thranduil’s personal messengers. During his many stops through Lothlorien, he and Haerontíra had become increasingly close. Shortly before the War had started, and he had been recalled permanently to Mirkwood, he and Haerontíra had become betrothed, and were pledged to wed when the war was over. So it was that when the War was over, and Lothlorien began to empty in earnest, Haerontíra was faced with mixed feelings of joy and sorrow. She had a wonderful new husband and presumable responsibility as Royal Seer to look forward to, but in the meanwhile, all her relatives and the Lady Galadriel were sailing to the West.
The Lady Galadriel turned to speak to her then, interrupting her silent ponderings.
“I will leave it in your care then, and will hold you to your word that you will detach the mirror from the basin and bring it with you when you eventually journey to Valinor,” said the Lady Galadriel.
“I swear, my Lady, I will do exactly that, and I am honored beyond honor that you would trust me with so precious an item,” Haerontira pledged.
“Haerontíra, I have long trusted you so….” Galadriel graciously replied and then kissed the forehead of the girl, now woman, who for so long had been like a second daughter to her. “Go now, my child, and seek the destiny we have Seen for you,” she said as she mounted her steed for the ride to the Gray Havens.
“And if your family should ever need assistance, seek out my Lord Celeborn in Rivendell with our kin.”
Leaving a nodding and crying Haerontíra at Lothlorien’s borders, the Lady turned her horse and led the departing Galadhrim north.

~~~~~

Royal House of Telcontar, Minas Tirith, Gondor, Middle-Earth, Year 84 of the Fourth Age

Haerontíra walked slowly down the hill to the clearing in the Gondorian Royal gardens where she kept the Mirror of Galadriel secluded. She had not felt the need to use the Mirror in sometime for a personal seeking, but with the birth of her first child a mere month away she was feeling…impelled…to See. After predicting, and being unable to prevent, her betrothed’s death during a scouting trip to the Eastlands, Haerontíra had sworn never again to Seek the future for herself or family, only in her capacity as the Lady Arwen’s royal advisor. And naught since then had she sought a vision, despite temptations to do so. Not during her grieving for her fiancé, not during her long betrothal to Crown Prince Eldarion, and not up till now in her pregnancy with their first child. But now she had sensed that the child was a girl, and if the future of Gondor’s next Queen was not enough reason, she was still feeling strangely….well really the only way to describe was impelled, to seek this vision. She had worked long enough as a Seer to know when to listen to her inner senses, and not on her child’s life was she going to deny the coming vision.
She crossed the clearing and kicked off her slippers, preferring to go barefoot as she had so many times in the grasses of Lothlorien. She lifted the silver vessel to the waters of the fountain and filled it, then turned and filled the Mirror. Repeating the ritual steps, she cleared her mind, and began focusing her Inner Eye, so that she might better interpret her vision. Sweeping her hair over her shoulder, she bent over the mirror as best she could with her bulging belly, and closed her eyes. She composed her senses and then opened her eyes to the vision of her daughter’s future.
Images moved almost faster than Haerontíra could interpret. There was her daughter, tall and blonde and statuesque on her coronation day in Gondor. Then the girl was a child running through the fields of Rivendell with one of her dark-haired uncles and in the next instant she was a woman running through a field near some unrecognizable location with a male elf who must have been her partner. She was standing in the throne room of Gondor, a sad look on her face listening to a man who appeared human but had to Haerontíra an otherworldly presence, such as Haerontíra always imagined the Valar to have. And then her daughter was passing her crown and scepter to a much older human man with gray-white hair and crowning him king, and Haerontíra felt a pang of grief for this man although she knew not who he was. She watched as her grown daughter trudged off through that same mysterious field with the mysterious man and with the male elf following, pushing a cart full of some kind of boxes. The three entered a shiny, slope- fronted structure unlike anything Haerontíra had ever seen and after they were fully inside, a door like a drawbridge gate closed against one end of it. Then, to Haerontíra’s great shock, the entire structure lifted suddenly into the air, so that one might see clearly beneath it. It rose and rose into the air and then disappeared into the blue of the sky.
Gasping for breath now from this stunning image, Haerontíra thought the vision over, until she felt the next wave of slight queasiness that indicated a continuation of the vision. She gripped the sides of the Mirror and bent back over it, forcing her eyes open.
She felt as though she were actually inside the marvelous flying structure then, and could see her daughter and the male elf, as well as the strange man…There were windows straight ahead, and looking out them she saw a great black expanse with bright stripes passing by at seemingly random intervals. At first she wondered if this were the result of some Middle-Earth bound catastrophe and then a wondrous sight began to come into view through the windows. So wondrous in fact, that all three passengers leaned forward in their seats to better see out the windows. Haerontíra almost moved aside to let them see better until she remembered that she was merely in a vision-state. There looming ahead of them were two gigantic fiery planets. They looked much like the heavenly objects that the Elven cartographers had charted through their telescopes these last millennia. Suns, Haerontíra had thought they were called. But there were two of these suns here, Haerontíra realized, one yellow in color and one, the larger one, so blinding a blue-white that it could not be long looked at. Although it had never been her best subject, Haerontíra remembered the illustrations that Galadriels’ advisors had provided showing the likely assembly of the stars and other heavenly bodies within Arda’s direct influence. Never had there been two such brilliant objects so close. Unbidden, the idea came to Haerontíra that perhaps this was not the heavens surrounding Arda she was viewing but some other heavenly realm altogether.
And with that idea and a feeling of certainty that Haerontíra had never previously experienced during the vision-state, her vision sharply ended, leaving her grasping the edge of the Mirror for support and kneeling in the grass with her forehead against the cool silver edge of the bowl.
Haerontíra knelt catching her breath for several minutes and realized that she was sitting in a puddle. At first she thought she had tipped over the basin, and then realizing that that was impossible since the bowl was firmly affixed to the base, it occurred to her that her waters had broken, and that her labors had come early. She beckoned to her handmaiden, Brelin, who had all this time been waiting at the edge of the clearing merely watching, and had her help her back to her chambers to prepare for the birth of her daughter.

~~~~~

Late in the next day, Prince Eldarion and his wife admired their new daughter, who despite having arrived early, seemed no worse for her age. The Prince had already decided that this daughter would have to suffice as a ruler for the next generation of Gondor, whether or not they were accustomed to female rulers. It was not the way of the Elves to procreate until a desired sex was reached, and he would not require Haerontíra ever to take on that particular human custom. He knew, however, that the child’s journey as ruler would not be an easy one.
For a long time the royal couple had been virtually silent, merely admiring their child, when Eldarion spoke.
“I have decided on a name for her, as is my right as her father” Eldarion whispered to Haerontíra.
“Mmm” Haerontíra replied noncommittally, as this was likely to be at least the 37th such suggestion of a completely unsuitable name for the girl that he had developed that afternoon.
“She shall be named Aulani, “unfailing”, as she will need strength to be a female ruler here in Gondor.”
Haerontíra paused, about to deny the name, and thought better of it.
“Indeed, it is a good name for her,” then suddenly remembering her vision she said sadly “but it will not do.”
“May I inquire why not?”
Staring off onto some far distant point for a moment Haerontíra replied “Because her name must also be Elminyakel, for that is her destiny.”
Eldarion stared incredulously at his wife for a moment, rechecking his translation of the Sindarin mentally before speaking.
“Are you mad? What do you mean she will be the ‘first to go to the stars’? How can that name be her destiny?”
And so Haerontíra recounted her vision in detail, and through the slight psychic bond she shared with her part-Elven husband she expressed her feelings and especially her feelings of knowing.
At the end, Eldarion sat back against the bed, stunned, and completely without anything to say. Eventually he turned back to his wife, putting his arms around her and the child. He stared at the child, unable to meet his wife’s gaze.
“I do believe you on this. I have seen too many of your visions come true to not sensibly believe it, no matter how it’s content reels against my senses. Nonetheless, I do not think we should mention this to anyone, ever. Not even to Elminyakel herself. If this is indeed her destiny, than we can train her no better than as she will already be trained, for the life of a queen. To burden her with what may not ever come to pass would be cruel indeed, and would certainly not proclaim our mental stability to her.” And with that he bit his bottom lip nervously, and met the gaze of his wife, expecting to find disappointment in her eyes.
Haerontíra, though, was wise in the repercussions of failed visions and gazed back at him with complete acceptance of his plan in her eyes. Smiling softly at him, and with a mischievous twinkle in her eye, she said quietly “Well, I never suggested that we shout her destiny from the top of the White Tower, my love.”