A/N: *Warning! Here there be spoilers!*

Well, not really spoilers, but a lot of cryptic clues regarding Ellie's past, and future. What happens when you throw an elf lord and a wizard into the same room and get them talking? Then talk in riddles of course. :)

Since we're getting into some dangerous grown here regarding clues, I have only one request for you all — if you manage to figure out who Ellie really is, please don't give the game away! There are some readers who don't want to be spoiled in the reviews or comments! If you want to let me know you've figured it out, drop me a PM!

Hope you enjoy. :)

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"You know, when you said there was another small issue to discuss besides the Ring, I had no idea you meant small in the poetic sense," Gandalf said in a carefully controlled tone that belied the torrent of emotion he felt.

Lord Elrond closed the door to his study firmly behind them both and turned to look at the Wizard with an uncharacteristically bitter look beneath the usual calm.

"Or the literal sense either, I expect," he said dryly, moving smoothly past him toward the sideboard beneath the window to pour himself a glass from the decanter. After what had just been witnessed in the Council hall, Gandalf suspected they both needed a rather stiff drink — though likely for two very different reasons.

"Poetic or literal, this is most definitely no small issue you have living under your roof, Elrond," Gandalf continued as he walked over to stand beside the Elf lord. The Lord of Rivendell's scowl deepened, darkening his otherwise serene features as he poured a rather large helping of deep amber liquid into a crystal glass for himself, then a second for the wizard.

"Would you have preferred I announce exactly who she is to the entire hall?" he asked nonchalantly, turning to look Gandalf fully in the face with an arched eyebrow. "It would have certainly been enough to curb some of their looser tongues."

Gandalf took the offered glass, but didn't drink from it, his expression almost a wince.

"Or enough to bite them off entirely. Though words would have hardly made a clearer impression than the ones given following the uttering of the Black Speech," he said mildly, though he couldn't help but eye his friend's guarded expression and evasive response to what had just happened. To what he now knew they were really facing.

When Elrond didn't reply, Gandalf let loose a heavy exhale, shaking his head and gesturing with his free hand back towards the door.

"Suns and stars, Elrond, had I only known ahead of time exactly what — who — you were truly harbouring here, I would have—"

"You would have what, Gandalf?" Elrond interrupted, his normally calm voice turning unnaturally sharp and biting for a second, his dark blue eyes filling with repressed frustration as he stared at the old man.

Gandalf stared back at him, feeling his shock creep unbidden into the lines of his face. The Elf lord seemed to take a moment to reign himself back in, pulling in a deep breath and pinching the bridge of his nose. He downed a large gulp of the amber wine, and stared down into the glass for a long moment with vaguely sunken eyes before speaking again.

"I am sorry, old friend. You need not fear offending me, but I cannot imagine there is any opinion you can offer to this dilemma that I have not already considered a hundred times by now," he spoke quietly, turning and dropping somewhat heavily into one of the high-backed chairs facing the open balcony window. He gestured in offering at the seat next to him, and Gandalf took it, setting his untouched glass on the desk as he watched his friend in concern.

"Ask what you would," Elrond said tiredly once the old Wizard was seated beside him. "I have little idea where to begin, and better you know and understand the entire situation now rather than later."

Gandalf paused for a moment to regard the man before him who had been his friend for so many years. He was still regal and elegant as you would expect any Elf lord to be — in his deep purple robes, effortlessly graceful and proud, his long hair pulled back into a flawless tail. But in the throes of his current and obvious distress and hidden pain, Gandalf saw the other half of his heritage beneath had begun to show through.

Shadows and worry lines had come in to mar his usually timeless features, casting his expression into one that looked more haunted by his many years than wise from them. He was immortal, one of the Eldar — and yet in that moment, the old Wizard had never seen his old companion look more ravaged by the merciless, unending nature of time than this.

Leaning forward on his elbows, Gandalf steepled his fingers before him, and considered his thoughts carefully before speaking. Elrond was correct, he did indeed need to understand the situation in its entirety; especially now that their party had more members than originally expected. But that did not mean he wanted to trample over his friend's emotions at such a vulnerable moment.

"How long has she been here?" Gandalf asked very softly after a long moment, looking sideways at Elrond with a gentle gaze.

"Two winters," Elrond answered, still staring blankly down into his glass.

"And how many know of her?"

Elrond paused at that question, taking a moment to nurse another gulp of wine, though a smaller one than before, the Wizard was relieved to see.

"Only three who still live," Elrond answered more strongly, abandoning his half-full glass on a side table and meeting Gandalf's steady look with his own. "Myself, Lady Galadriel, and now yourself."

Gandalf didn't try to mask his surprise, his eyebrows rising. True, he had suspected the number of people left in the world who knew the truth would be few and far between, but still... just three. And three who happened to be the current keepers of the Elven Rings of Power.

Gandalf honestly couldn't decide whether that was fitting, ironic, or deeply unsettling. He looked at his friend with a gaze of equal parts curiosity and worry.

"Then it is true? All knowledge of her, everything that happened back then, it was all erased?"

"Yes," Elrond answered him simply, his tone deliberately void of any feeling.

Gandalf let himself lean back heavily in the chair, digesting that piece of information almost as long as he had the previous.

"She has been gone a long time... She truly remembers nothing?" he murmured, the question originally more of a rhetorical one, but as the words escaped him he realised he genuinely wanted to know.

The young woman he had met in the Sanatorium, and then that day in the Council Hall, had been almost childlike in her innocence; so full of life and light, totally void of the despair that came with life and ages. Did she really not know?

"No," Elrond cut through the old man's musings, seeming to see the train of thought in his eyes and they looked at each other. Then the moment broke, and the Elf lord's hardened gaze faltered, sinking back into one of exhaustion, and what looked almost painfully like grief. "There is nothing left of her life before. She and the Lady Galadriel saw to that."

"I... see," Gandalf said in barely a whisper.

Unusually unsure of what to say in the face of that, the Wizard and Elf both drew their eyes to the open balcony window and its view of the gardens, healing houses, and sprawling mountain forests. Though they could not see down into the courtyard below from their seats, the distant sound of light laughter still made its way up to them both.

Though Gandalf did not know the young woman in question well, there was no one else resident in the halls of Rivendell he could imagine who's laughter could have been so bright and unrestrained.

Except perhaps the four Hobbits, he thought with a fond smile.

The laughter was followed by the sound of companionable chatter, and Gandalf heard the voice of Bilbo join the fray. But while the sound brought an effortless, slightly sad smile to the Wizards face, the Elf lord beside him seemed to go boneless with silent pain at the sounds, closing his eyes and almost curling into himself in his chair.

"I should have stopped her," Elrond whispered, and his voice all but brimmed with long repressed guilt and grief.

Gandalf regarded the Elf lord seriously.

"When?" he asked pointedly, but also curious. "Back when she did this to herself? Or just now during the Council, when she decided to cast herself headfirst into this perilous journey?"

"Both," Elrond answered tightly, his hands clutching on the armrest of the chair until the wood began to creak. "I should have been there to stop her before, to find another way, any other way..."

"You did all you could with the knowledge you had, old friend," the elderly Wizard said very gently, placing his strong but time-worn hand over the Elf lord's considerably younger looking one. "There is no changing what she chose to do."

Elrond seemed to force himself to relax some, but the faraway look did not leave his eyes when he opened them again. When he didn't respond for almost a minute, Gandalf went on, wishing he didn't have to say aloud what he knew they were both thinking...

"She cannot stay here, Elrond. I do not know if her motivations for joining the Fellowship are truly her own, or some remaining subconscious need to distance herself from you all, but she cannot remain for much longer. Especially now that—"

Elrond stood suddenly, his stony expression unchanging, though there was furious fire burning in his dark blue eyes now as he turned away towards the balcony.

"And what will become of us all if she does leave with you?" he demanded in a cold, but carefully controlled voice, going and leaning his hands on the carved edges of the balcony as he looked out. "What if she is mortally wounded, or killed near a settlement, Gandalf? A town? A city? Could you stomach the reality of knowing her blood and the return of the Hravarim are both on your hands?"

Gandalf, slightly stung as he was by the implication, refrained from pointing out that a journey of this secrecy would mean they'd need to avoid cities or settlements at all costs. The danger of her falling close enough to another vessel was slim, and yet...

He sighed, feeling his moment of frustration vanish as he stared down at his own creased and sun-worn hands, his eyes turning sad.

"No, I do not believe I could," he answered honestly, looking up again and standing up to join his friend on the balcony. He came and stood close beside him looking out at the view, almost shoulder to shoulder, despite the torrent of emotions he could feel emanating from the Elf lord in a silent storm. "Yet even if she does stay here, the same will still happen. You must have noticed, it has already begun."

Elrond's quiet discord faltered very slightly as he looked sideways at Gandalf with searching eyes and an almost croaky voice.

"So, you saw—"

"Her eyes, yes," Gandalf interrupted this time, and when he turned to look at Elrond again, his gaze held genuine despair. "I am truly sorry."

For a moment Elrond looked as if he might actually snarl. But his regal Elven features were untuned to the primal expression, so the expression instead turned into a raw looking glare.

"I will not keep her prisoner here," Elrond whispered, low and dangerous in its calm. "But neither will I force her to leave the shelter of Imladris if she changes her mind, Gandalf."

Gandalf regarded him with a somber gaze, not liking himself for what he knew needed saying next.

"Not even at the risk of that power accidentally passing to another? To one of your own house? To Arwen?" he asked softly, without malice or accusation as he saw the look on Elrond's face twist in pain at the very thought of his daughter falling prey to what they knew was coming. "If your apprentice stays here, it will eventually happen, one way or another. You know this."

Elrond's frozen expression went through a bizarre series of emotions all in the space of a few moments — fury, outrage, defiance, agony, denial, guilt, and grief. But most of all of them, and the one he was left with when all the others had burned away, was sorrow.

The slow, bone-deep, soul eroding sorrow that Gandalf knew could only come with a lifetime's worth of loss and longing.

He still held himself tall as always, but the tiniest hunch in his shoulders gave light to his true emotions as he turned and looked down into the courtyard and gardens.

Below them on the grass stood the distinctive forms of both Bilbo and the apprentice in question. They were still talking animatedly as they walked companionably side-by-side through the grounds, but paused when Boromir suddenly approached and introduced himself to the elderly Hobbit with a formal bow. Beside them both, Elrond's ward smiled fondly at the both of them, that bright little spark Gandalf had seen in her face earlier growing until it completely eclipsed her former coldness in the Council hall.

At the sight, Elrond's shoulder's seemed to sag, as if pulled down by an enormous weight.

"I am sending her to her death, Gandalf," he breathed out, his voice a barely audible rasp as he stared down at them beginning to walk away. "Or as good as."

Gandalf's face fell in genuine empathy, reaching up and resting a hand lightly on the other man's shoulder.

"I am so sorry, old friend. I truly would not wish this position upon any, least of all you," he said quietly, unable to offer any other kind of comfort, as much as he wished he could. But the old Wizard knew all too well that this was not the kind of pain that could be cured with words and good intentions.

Elrond continued to stare down into the gardens where his ward and her two companions had stood with a blank expression. The tension and anger had dissipated almost entirely from him now, leaving the Lord of Rivendell apparently his poised and regal self once again...

If you didn't look too closely at what was going on in his hollowed, dark blue eyes.

"She looks so much like Nazrîn. Except when she smiles, and when she laughs, then she looks exactly like—" he murmured softly, then seemed to realise what he was saying and broke off. He swallowed, took a long, deep breath, and raised his head to look up from the ground and out at the mountains. "She's reckless and more cunning than is good for her, but her instincts have always been sound. She will know what to do when the time comes. I will only ask that you watch over her until then. And to... intervene, if it should come to that."

Elrond's voice didn't exactly crack over those last few words, but to anyone who knew him, it was near enough to matter.

"I pray it never will, old friend," Gandalf said gently, his thoughts darkening and carrying him away for a moment at the thought, before another question occurred to him. "Will you tell her any of this, before she leaves?"

Elrond shook his head, and sighed deeply, once again closing his eyes.

"I cannot. She would know immediately, and take steps to ensure her continued survival. We cannot risk that."

Gandalf nodded, idly stroking his beard in contemplation. He could understand that, both the logical reasoning and the merciful want of a loving master to shelter his student as long as he could. It couldn't last forever, this fragile peace she had now — but the longer she did remain ignorant to who and what she truly was, the longer she would be able to keep that brightness in her smile and in her laugh. Untarnished and unshadowed by the weight of the knowledge that was still hidden deep within the vaults of her mind.

The longer she remained ignorant, the longer she would be safe from what was to come.

"You know she will discover the truth eventually. They both will. It is only a matter of time," Gandalf murmured idly, watching as a pair of the Hobbits — Merry and Pippin this time — made their way back into the garden on the far side of the view, their pipes already producing familiar, white puffs of smoke.

"I know," Elrond exhaled heavily again.

But as he did, an unexpected expression crept onto his face — a smile.

It was small, and fragile looking, but also alive with a quietly fierce, bright spark of warmth that, just for a moment, burned through the darkness and hurt. Gandalf had only seen that look appear one other person — on Elrond's ward and apprentice, when she stood up before the Council, and offered her aid to them.

"She lived, you know, before she returned and awoke again," the Lord of Rivendell spoke with a quiet but deeply warm tone, almost proud. "She told me of it the first day she awoke here."

Gandalf looked at him, grey eyebrows raised in genuine surprise.

"Lived?" he repeated, turning the word over until the true meaning of it struck him, and his eyes widened. "It happened, then? She... truly did wander to another world?"

Elrond nodded, and the smile on his face was two parts warm amusement to one part aching sadness.

"She called it 'Earth'," he told the Wizard with a lighter tone to his voice that he hadn't used in a long time. "She said she lived in a city of glass, steel and lights. She had parents, a brother, friends, a life. She started anew, Gandalf, as a mortal. It was quite the tale she told of the world she left behind there. She even attempted to lie about it when first we talked, right to my face. She's more like him that I ever expected."

Again, Elrond's voice didn't falter, but his expression seemed to drift momentarily into deep memories — ones that he either struggled or was reluctant to pull himself from — before continuing.

"She spoke of that world with such joy and longing. Even now, I can see she is still desperate to return to them. If she is anything like she was once, I doubt there is anything she would not do to find a way back."

"If there is, indeed, a way back," Gandalf finished for him with a sad little smile that nonetheless did not mask his wonder and curiosity. He glanced out at where Merry and Pippin were now clearly in the throes of telling inappropriate tales and laughing heartily. "I wonder, will she wish to return so much once all her memories are returned to her?"

"Were I in her position, I would likely only wish to return all the more," Elrond answered, following the Wizard's gaze, and shaking his head ruefully. "Nienna's mercy, I would spare her the pain that is to come if only I could. I would take it upon myself a hundred times..."

"Were that only possible, my friend, but you can watch and trust in her until that time comes," Gandalf said in somber reply, then he paused and thought for a moment, another niggling little question rising to the top of his thoughts. "She calls herself by a different name now, does she not?"

A smile split the Lord of Rivendell's features again. A real, bright smile this time, and as he did, for just a moment, he looked not like one of the Eldar, but more akin to a Man. Mortal, transient, and yet unfalteringly hopeful in the face of the unknown — just as he might have been, once upon a time, had he only Chosen differently all those years ago.

Just as Elros once had.

"She does. The name she wore as a mortal woman of a mere twenty-two years," he confirmed, that little spark of defiant light that he shared with his apprentice coming back into his eyes.

"Eleanor Lucy Dace."

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A/N: Troll? Me? Surely not. XD

Don't say I didn't want you about the cryptic riddles. For those of you conspiracy theorists out there, this should give you a good chunk of material to work with — and maybe even add to some of the theories you've been telling me! (Keep them coming btw, I live and breath mysteries and theories.)

Really hope you enjoyed the peek at the situation from Gandalf and Elrond's perspective. And remember: if you've managed to figure out who they are, please don't give the game away! There are some readers who don't want to be spoiled in the reviews or comments! If you want to let me know you've figured it out, drop me a PM!

Much love,

Rella x