Part Four: Rivendell

Going down the Misty Mountains was both easier and harder, and soon enough we came to flat lands covered in grass and trees. There were bushes and flowers, all fully alive on the first of May as we made our way down into the valley of the Last Homely House. It was evening as we rode down the path, and in the distance I could hear the river running and the elves singing. Eventually Bilbo could hear them too, and we listened to their little 'Tra-la-la-lally' about the dragon being defeated, Thorin dying, and how much better nature was compared to metals and gems taken from the earth. I kind of agreed with them there, having lived for a century in a dragon's hoard, but I thought the song a bit silly and a bit – well, arrogant. It implied that Elves knew better, that the things they valued were truly worth treasuring compared to the lesser things mortals thought rich.

Still, I did not resent them for it. Bilbo had warned me that the elves of Rivendell were silly creatures prone to making fun of others – but, he said, it was all in good fun and they didn't mean any harm by it. So when they added a few verses about a queer princess being rescued, I was not surprised or insulted. I just supposed that I was queer to them, and that was that.

The elves seemed to burst out of the trees when their song was finished, and they greeted us three travellers and led us over the river and into the valley. None disguised their interest in the tale of Bilbo and Gandalf's journey, or in my own adventure. They brought us into the house of Elrond, where the Lord of Rivendell greeted the two males as friends and me as some sort of dignitary – or princess, I suppose, as he used the title in his welcome.

We sat down to sup, and after that we were led into the Hall of Fire where many elves listened to Gandalf weave his tale. He spoke long about Bilbo's journey, and about his own travels – he had, along with the White Council, driven the Necromancer out of Dol Guldur in Mirkwood, a tale I was most interested in hearing as it did not appear anywhere in The Hobbit except in passing mention. Then, when the wizard was finished with that, and after Bilbo had fallen asleep and was taken to bed like a child, Gandalf turned to my own tale. Without my permission he shared that I had come from another world, and that I had not always been an elf or a princess, though I'd been transformed into both, one by some strange circumstance and the other by the power of Smaug.

"I'm really not a princess," I tried to object. "I've got no kingdom of my own, and in no way desire it. I – if you'll let me, Lord Elrond – would like nothing more than to live a quiet life in Rivendell as a gardener."

There was laughter at this, and Gandalf gave me an 'I-told-you-so' look when the elves thought my plan hilarious.

"A gardener?" Lord Elrond wondered with eyes twinkling like stars.

"Yes," I insisted. "I don't know much about it, but then again I don't know much about anything here. I'd like to work with the earth and with plants, and nothing you can say will deter me from this. If you do not have need for a gardener, then I will just have to look elsewhere. I have no desire to get into politics or the like as you might expect of me: a simple life is the life I choose."

Then the lord's amusement left him and he looked at me with complete seriousness, judging me and my request with solemnity. "It is most unusual," he admitted at last, "but I see that you believe this will make you happy. It shall be so, though I advise you to spend the rest of your time learning our language, history, and customs."

"I find that agreeable," I accepted.

He nodded, and that was that. I was quite pleased to have my request accepted so easily, and pleased that Lord Elrond insisted on my learning the language, history, and customs of my new people. It was exactly what I wanted: a simple life and the knowledge needed to live peaceably in my new home.

Bilbo rested in Rivendell for a week only, and I spent much of that time at his side. I would miss my friend when he left, but I promised that in a few years, after I settled down and learned enough to acclimatize myself to the place, I would take a vacation and head to the Shire for a visit – and I would stop by at four for tea. The hobbit wandered around the gardens, and the two of us tried to determine which one Elrond would let me work in. It was great fun, and Bilbo even offered a few gardening tips.

The rest of his week, when he was not wandering around the Last Homely House, was spent in the library looking at maps and reading a few books. He began bettering his Elvish in earnest, and he helped me out as I began to learn Sindarin. He and the elves laughed at my first attempts, and especially at my need to slowly pronounce each new word repeatedly to get it right, but it was all done amicably so I did not begrudge them their fun.

At last, as the end of the week drew nigh, Bilbo gifted Elrond with a small amount of silver and gold, all that the lord would accept, and bade him farewell.

"I'll miss you," I said as I hugged my friend goodbye and tried not to cry.

"You'll visit," Bilbo returned.

"In a few years," I agreed. "By then I might be entirely changed!"

"You will know how to properly speak Elvish," he teased lightly, "and then you may help me with my own Sindarin."

We laughed and released each other, and I waved to the hobbit and the wizard as they left the valley. I saw Bilbo turn back once more ere he disappeared beyond the river, and he waved back at me before he was gone.

The rest of that day I spent in a little garden near the library, where Bilbo had often taken books to read while I lounged in the open air. Lord Elrond found me there before supper, and he sat beside me on the bench. Silently we watched as birds and bees flittered about, and even a squirrel came to visit. The garden was fairly small, but it was well-tended and little-visited despite being so near the library.

"Now that your friend has gone," Lord Elrond began, "I deem it time to begin your lessons."

"And gardening?" I questioned hopefully.

He smiled and nodded, "I have found someone willing to teach you to care for plants, and you will join her in tending the gardens in the morning. She will teach you more than just the proper way to maintain a garden, however: you will learn to identify the plants found in Arda, and the purposes for which they may be used."

"Like which ones to avoid, which ones can be eaten, and which ones make a great tea?"

"That and which plants may be used to heal," he elaborated. "Most of us know such things, as they are important. You need not become a healer if you do not wish it, but knowing how to tend to injuries and illnesses would be an asset if you do indeed wish to visit Bilbo in the Shire."

"Alright," I accepted. It sounded fair enough.

"You will also, of course, continue learning Sindarin. In time you may learn Quenya as well, though it is a language few bother learning in this Age. History and culture lessons will be held after the midday meal, and Lord Erestor has agreed to tutor you in that. As for the evening: Lord Glorfindel will teach you archery and swordplay."

"Wait," I said, narrowing my eyes. "Why should your chief councillor and the head of your guard bother teaching me? And why need I learn to fight? Are you expecting some sort of attack? I thought Rivendell was safe."

"It is," he answered. "However, ellith are taught to fight alongside ellyn in their youth – it is tradition that they learn to protect themselves, though not many choose to pursue a military career."

"And the reason you have two very important ellyn teaching me?" I pressed, having noticed that he avoided answering that part of the question. When the elf tried to avoid responding once more, I crossed my arms and theorized, "You do not trust me. I suppose that Lords Erestor and Glorfindel have either offered to keep an eye on me or have been ordered by you to do so."

Lord Elrond did not say anything to that, and merely continued to look at me.

"What better elves to watch me than two you know you can trust implicitly to make correct decisions? I do not doubt that they are accustomed to observing foreigners for ill intentions – and hidden behind their roles as councillor and seneschal, likely none fully realize that they both carry weapons with them at all times and are prepared to use them should you or anyone in your home be threatened. They are the perfect teachers for one you do not yet trust but do not wish to insult by placing under guard," I concluded.

Lord Elrond gave a brief nod, and his face was entirely expressionless. The fact that I had pointed this out could be argued to both add to my trustworthiness and detract from it – I might be trying to lull him into a sense of false security, or I might be honest by letting him know that I was aware of the main purpose of having Lords Erestor and Glorfindel assigned to me.

"I understand it," I volunteered warily, "but that doesn't mean I like it. Yet I will not hold it against you as you are merely doing what you must to ensure the safety of all those who live here."

He accepted the information for what it was: an olive branch and a warning. I offered peace by telling him that I accepted what he had ordered, but I also cautioned him that I would be observing his citizens while they examined me. Just because his valley was a peaceful realm did not mean that I trusted him implicitly. Lord Elrond seemed to be a good leader, and I trusted him in that I knew his intentions – I would trust Lords Erestor and Glorfindel in the same manner, and likely the gardener – but the others, whose intentions I could not know without speaking to, I would not let down my guard around.

Thus began my lessons and life as a citizen of Rivendell.

Over the next few months I was watched like a hawk, though I noticed that the elves were very kind about the whole thing. Lord Erestor was friendly and apparently enjoyed teaching someone so young again – he said he hadn't done so since Lady Arwen was an elfling – and Lord Glorfindel, I think, enjoyed seeing my incompetence. Many elves came to watch when he taught me, and most of them laughed and teased me as I failed time and time again. Try though I might to remember Bilbo's wise words about childish elves, it didn't stop me from being highly offended and feeling criticized and angry.

Lord Erestor was the first to see it.

"You hide it well, but I see that the others' teasing angers you," he brought up one afternoon.

"Yes," I sighed, not bothering to hide it since he was aware. "I am not used to it."

"Did not Smaug taunt you?" he wondered. "I would think the teasing of elves much kinder than the taunting of a dragon."

"It is much kinder," I allowed.

"Yet it angers you – more than Smaug angered you, I believe."

I did not reply to that because we both knew it was true. Smaug had taunted me and laughed at me, and most of the time it was not by singing silly songs about my failures or giggling as I yet again missed the mark on the target. Circumstances were different though: here I was honestly trying to improve myself, to learn things best I could, whereas in Erebor I'd only been trying to survive. It was hard to convince myself I could do better when there were so many people laughing at me.

"You doubt yourself," Lord Erestor finally deduced. "You do not believe that you can improve, and see their laughter as mocking."

"I know they do not mean to mock me," I weakly protested.

"Knowing something to be true does not mean your heart believes it."

I lowered my head and fiddled with my long hair, which had not been shortened despite the many times it was suggested I do so for convenience's sake. I knew that Lord Erestor was correct: I might mentally be aware that the elves were jesting in good fun and meant nothing bad by it, but their words and laughter still managed to hurt me. I took it too personally, I guess. It was just so hard not to liken their kidding around to bullying. Bullies always meant to make their victims feel bad though, and the elves did not. They always seemed to expect me to laugh along with them, to joke about my own incompetence. I was not nearly confident enough in my abilities to do so. Maybe they, who had lived longer than I and had had time to grow comfortable with themselves and their skills, could easily laugh when they did not succeed at something, but I could not. Despite being over a hundred and twenty-three years old, I still thought like a human. To elves, if at first you don't succeed, well, you've got an eternity to get better so it's no big deal. To me, if I could not succeed at something right away, I wanted to give up and find something else to do that I was actually good at.

Like gardening, which I loved. Learning to take care of plants and learning to identify them and what uses they had was great fun for me. I enjoyed digging around in the dirt and pruning flowers and bushes and trees. I adored wandering the garden paths as I watered and rid plants of dead petals and leaves and branches. I liked helping to heal whichever plant was sick.

When I gardened, I could forget about everything else. There were no Elves, no Dwarves, no Wizards, no Dragons or Goblins – not even Hobbits. When I gardened it was almost like being back in San Francisco. It was like the whole world fell away until the only thing left was nature, something familiar and soothing. Plants might be able to sing and speak to me now if I listened for it, but I fancied that their words had always been there – I just hadn't always been listening for them.

"You will get better," Lord Erestor assured me. "It will take time, but that is something we all have in abundance. Do not allow yourself to become discouraged."

I looked up at the elf, at the ellon who had been teaching me manners and greetings and the history of Middle-earth for the past few months, and, for the first time since Bilbo left, I saw a friend. Here was an elf who was mature and thoughtful, who did not laugh at me, and who encouraged me when I was down. Here was an elf I would gladly call friend.

I surprised Erestor by hugging him, and I ignored the way he stiffened at the sudden embrace. "Thank you," I said, pulling away to wipe the dampness from my eyes. "You are a wonderful person, and I would gladly call you friend."

"You may," he offered, blinking to get rid of his befuddlement.

"That makes it two friends I've made here," I murmured happily to myself.

I ignored the flash of pity I saw in his eyes, and then we returned to the events of the Second Age.

A few weeks later I pulled back on my bow and watched with a satisfied smile as my arrow hit the second ring near the centre. My aim was getting better, to the point where my arrows always struck between the third, second, and centre rings on the target. I was no expert by any means, but I was slowly improving and the elves who came to watch no longer laughed at my failures. Once I stopped being completely terrible (after my talk with Erestor I gained a second wind and resolved to do my best), the laughter and teasing stopped. No longer was there an audience during my lessons; now only a few stopped by to see my improvement and to comment on it.

It was as though the elves had taken joy in seeing someone begin something new, and now that I was getting used to it they no longer felt the need to pay so much attention to me. Kind of like how adults watch children begin to learn: laughing at the start when the child is unable to correctly copy his or her teacher. It's just not as interesting when the child starts improving.

I'd done similar things, I realized. Listening to someone first learn to speak English, failing to pronounce the words or getting the grammar wrong could be really entertaining, but I'd never meant anything bad by it, since the person learning it would eventually get rid of their accent and fix their grammar. It was like that with the elves, and it took me some time to see it. Of course it'd be funny to see someone who'd never wielded a weapon in her life learn to fight. I'd probably looked quite silly to them, but they hadn't been judging me: they knew I would learn from my errors and get better eventually.

My relationship with Lord Glorfindel could only improve after that.

"I am pleased that you have finally let go of your frustration," he told me one day.

"Did everyone know?" I winced.

"Erestor told me that you found it difficult to learn under scrutiny," he explained.

"You mean he told you that the laughing and joking hurt my pride," I corrected a bit sourly.

"Self-confidence," he corrected. "And yes, if that is how you wish to phrase it. You should not have expected to excel the moment you lifted a weapon."

"I didn't," I denied.

"You did," he countered. "Otherwise you would not have been angered by being teased for not doing well."

"I just... didn't think I'd be so horrible," I muttered.

He gave me a dry look and stated, "You expected to be decent, or at least to pick up a complex skill with ease. You are still young and have much to learn, thus it is good you learn this lesson now. All talents require time and practice, even those you may find you are naturally gifted in – like your gardening, for example. So long as you apply yourself, you will learn and improve. That is how I am skilled in more than weaponry and battle strategy: I can garden, heal, manage a household, weave my own cloth, and make my own clothes, among other things. Each took many seasons or years to learn, and not once did I succeed on my first attempts, or even my hundredth in some cases. You are not mortal, Princess Carmen. You have time to learn whatsoever you please, and it does not matter how long it takes you."

"I know," I mumbled, feeling awfully childish.

I had felt very adult in the presence of the dwarves, some of whom were near in age to me, and old in the presence of Men, who were all younger than I. Here among elves, however, I was young – and it showed. The longer I stayed with them, the more obvious it became that while I was fully grown, I was still young. The elves around me, and most especially Erestor but now Lord Glorfindel as well, tended to treat me a bit like a child. They offered me guidance and advice, all of which was wise and did nothing but help me grow as a person so long as I listened and followed it. It was insulting, and yet... and yet they did know better than I.

Lord Glorfindel placed a hand on my shoulder and concluded, "All that matters is that you learn. I am glad to see you doing so."

Not long after that I started getting better at swordplay, too. Connecting with Lord Glorfindel made it so that I could finally accept him as a mentor-figure. I stopped seeing him as someone who'd agreed to teach me just to keep an eye on me and started viewing him as someone who wanted to see me succeed in what he taught me. Erestor was a friend and I always listened to his advice with care, but Lord Glorfindel was a mentor only (for the most part) when it came to the practice of self-defence. I did not feel as close to Lord Glorfindel as I felt to Erestor, but that was fine with me. It was enough that he taught me and that he smiled when he saw me improve. They both watched me, yes, but they cared for me as well.

In time I became less weary of those around me, and by the time a year had gone by, I was starting to put my century with Smaug behind me. I'd never forget it, true, but that did not mean that I had to relive it all the time – I did not have to be suspicious and calculating; I did not have to watch my words and look for hidden messages in the speech of others. I slowly stopped watching the people around me like they might suddenly be taken by fury and strike out at me.

As I relaxed my guard, tension began to leave me. I never realized how difficult and strenuous it was to be so suspicious of people, to watch my back at all times, but when I finally stopped I was struck by how much more energy I had, by how much clearer my mind was and how much quicker my thoughts were.

I stopped mistrusting the elves of Rivendell when I finally realized that I would not be intentionally harmed while I lived in the Hidden Vale. Life would go on, and so too would I.

FIN

Alright, so some of you may feel that this ending was a bit anti-climatic, and you're absolutely right. It is, but it's also supposed to signify the beginning of something new, like all endings do. Carmen has been through a lot, and it's taken her a long time to even begin to let go of what's happened to her and to accept her new surroundings. Despite what has happened to her, however, she's survived - and survival means that you can either move on or linger perpetually in the past. She's decided to move on (even though it's taken over a year), which means the world is open to her and she can finally experience it.

Does that mean there will be more? I'm not sure, to be honest. I've thought of a few things, such as having her visit Bilbo and having her meet (but not participate in) the Fellowship - and, of course, there's the matter of romance. Yet I think of writing this and it seems... a bit forced, I suppose. Carmen is finally beginning to have a healthy frame of mind, she's likely to make some acquaintances and friends outside of Erestor, and she's about ready to just... live. So what I'm saying is: I like where I ended the story, in this vague sense of wellness where Carmen can go on any number of adventures or stay comfortably in Rivendell, where Carmen can remain single or meet someone she connects with... She's Schrodinger's cat at this point, and that means any and everything can happen to her in the future.

I started writing this because I loved the idea of Smaug in the classic fairy-story where the dragon imprisons the princess. From there it became a story about acceptance and moving on as I wondered what would happen to the princess in the aftermath of Smaug's death. I've accomplished that, and thus the tale ends.

Thank you for reading!