She, sorry they, will be back

Eleanor's POV

Not too long after that, the Valar finally tell us what they were grooming us for.

They call us into a large ornate room and we all sit round a large table. I can't help noticing that it looks remarkably like board rooms everywhere.

All it needs is a projector screen or some equivalent like a flip chart or something.

Then the entirety of the Valar proceeds in and sits on the other side of the table.

That is a little strange as Tulkas, Oromë, and Ulmö are rare visitors to Valinor and we do not know those three so well. I have no idea what they are usually doing, but they are not near us very often.

Once they are sure everyone (including our cats) is there, Manwë stands up and starts to talk.

"You may have noticed that we have been grooming all of you for some task that involves the world from which Ginny came from and Eleanor grew up in." He pauses to glare at me as I snort, talk about understatements.

"You have also almost certainly noticed the fact that certain elves are missing and have failed to come to Valinor. I have got just a little bored of waiting for them, for I am beginning to think they will not come without a bit of pushing. It has been a long time by elfin standard in Valinor and time flows much faster in that world.

The world Eleanor and Ginny grew up in is not a separate world, but the same world far into the future, and this is where the elves in question are. We want you to go fetch." For some reason that turn of phrase is slightly offensive. Woof, woof, yes master!

They all stare at the King of the Valar in amazement until finally Ginny finds her voice,

"You mean our world is Middle Earth, only goodness knows how far into the future?" I answer that one.

"I would have thought it a bit obvious Ginny, I spend enough time telling you about how Tolkien was not original, I wrote an entire essay on how he was influenced by other things in my first year. I got a first for it if you remember that far back.

The most obvious left over is the story of Atlantis, or Atalantë in elvish. That was Númenor if you remember your history correctly; Plato and all those others to come up with sunken land myths had to have a starting point, but the myths got edited over the years. Remember all those late night conversations we had at uni when you got me to explain how myths change over time and the number of people who told them?" I then have an idea and turn back to the Valar to ask them about it, "You know all those flood myths we learnt about from 'early' human civilisation, did those actually happen?"

Ulmö answers me. He has a soft lilting voice which reminds me of the sea,

"Yes, those great floods did happen, they are what wiped out the Hobbits and most of the Dwarves, though some of both survived and interbred with the humans. Only the humans and the elves we want you to retrieve could manage any movement to ships that could survive the floods on a serious scale."

The set of his face tells me not to ask about why these floods happened though I have a suspicion that the reasons given in the myths was about right. It also means that Ulmö was probably the god named as responsible for the floods.

That rearranges the theology I was brought up with.

Manwë takes over again.

"As Eleanor said, there are hangovers, but most of Middle Earth was destroyed in those floods just mentioned and the human race had to start again mostly. This world is totally different from the one you left and even much of the geography is different."

I start to try and compute how long ago we must have left Middle Earth by taking approximate dates for the floods and things like that. Whoa, that is extremely scary; my age might have reached six figures! That is not a thought I even want to think about.

Manwë spends most of the rest of the day giving us details.

We each get a necklace that makes it so people only notice what we want them to notice. This necklace will only be fully effective on those without elfin blood and the more present the less effective. It will be one of the ways we can identify those with elfin blood.

Our cats also get collars that do a similar job, though those will be controlled by those who own the cat in question.

Over the next few weeks we will practice our brief and Ginny and I will help prepare us a ship to sail back to England.

Yes, you heard right, England.

Our brief is that we are rich people with old titles (Manwë and co have somehow arranged it so that actually is the case, you've got to love having gods as your employer) and we have the money, influence, and general eccentricity required to go round the world for no apparent reason.

I guess that also explains the strange names; rich people have this thing for strange names I have noticed.

Legolas will become Llordan, Gil-galad will become Gerard, Turgon will be Theodore, Elladan – Aeron, Elrohir – Alexander (he like being called 'leader of men') and Erestor will be Michael.

If you are wondering where those names came from, one of the things the Valar got was a little laptop and they let the males go surfing through a baby names website to pick new human names. Those were what came out.

I have a suspicion that a certain High King, who shall remain unnamed (though not unknown), got a little sidetracked by a Phantom of the Opera related website because after he has got his new name, he acquires this habit of breaking out into ridiculously overdone song.

We would have to take them to see the original.

The next bit of fun was fitting out clothes for everyone.

Ginny and I immediately started thinking of new evening dresses when new clothes were mentioned. We are terribly predictable.

Since I had the opportunity I insisted on a kilt in my family tartan, properly done. I have always wanted one of them. If you are wondering, that would be my adopted family tartan, that of the Wallace clan!

While the Valar are not around, Ginny and I make travel plans to go to the place we either couldn't go to on our last world tour or wanted to go back to.

I wanted to have meals in the posh restaurant in the Villa D'este in Italy and at the top of the Eiffel Tower, which we hadn't got up because the queues were so long. Ginny wanted to go scuba diving in the Great Barrier Reef, bungee jumping over Victoria Falls, and have 'fabulous fun' as she called it at Alton Towers. In case you hadn't guessed, my best friend is a bit of an adrenaline junkie.

Mind you, it would be quite something to see Turgon and Erestor's, not to mention Myrwen's, reaction to rides like Oblivion.

We also wanted to go back to Brittany, the most north westerly part of France that I had fallen in love with when I was little and when I took Ginny there, she also fell in love with the place.

One thing the Valar arranged was for our degrees, which we had already both got firsts in, got transferred to being Oxford degrees and they used magic to ensure we had all the relevant knowledge for that.

There are times I absolutely love the Valar.

The others also got degrees like that and the magically inserted knowledge to go with them.

Less than a month before we were due to sail for England, a little crisis comes up.

Assuming there would be no danger that he could help with, Glorfindel had gone to another part of Valinor to live with his family.

He had heard that several of his charges from over the millennia were going back to the place where we could get hurt, including Turgon – the elf he had originally left Valinor for, and the princess he had come back for when he came to Middle Earth the second time.

My lovely knight was not planning on letting us go without him.

I love Glorfindel dearly, but now was not the time.

Had he not learnt that I listen to no one when it comes to running off on potentially fatal little missions?

Us wonderful, kind people that were going on the trip let the Valar deal with my knight. Aren't we so generous?

I don't think anyone, but those that were deities got why Ginny and I were constantly humming 'Mission Impossible' and 'London Calling' in those days leading up to us leaving.

Needless to say aforementioned deities did not find that half as funny as we do.

I am pretty sure the musical jokes are our way of hiding that we are nervous about going back to the world in which we grew up.

Wouldn't you be nervous?

Excited but nervous.

Ginny's POV

I don't know whether it was because I had practically outed the Valar and their plan or whether they were going to tell us soon anyway, but after that conversation, it isn't at all long before Ellie, Miriel, and I along with all the Blessed Ones are called in front of the entire Valar to be given a detailed account of what they want us to do.

I think everyone's rather intimidated at the sight of all 14 Valar sat in state in front of us (I know I certainly am). I've never been in the presence of so many gods before; some like Manwë I'm fine with because I know them, but others, like the rather reclusive Ulmö, I've never seen before.

Manwë and Varda are sat in the middle; the six other female gods are sat on Varda's right, the six males on Manwë's left.

Scanning across the line of male Valar, I notice a significant space next to Tulkas, who's sat at the very end. There's no chair next to him, but I think I can guess as to who would have sat in it.

The floor beneath the table is filled with the 15 cats, all lying in varying states of spread-eagledness. It did make for a rather entertaining meeting as you'd occasionally catch glimpses of twitching paws or tails or, when one of the Valar was speaking, a furry head would suddenly pop up next to its owner causing a few minutes of general gushing before the meeting was called to order again.

I'm rather stunned by the end of the meeting – I mean I was never in the least bit religious so I never took all those flood myths seriously. I was always in favour of the more scientific reasons behind Creation, so it's a big shock to find out that not only did all these floods actually happen, but the god that caused them is sitting only a few feet away.

It's certainly changed my outlook.

The next few weeks are spent in planning and fine tuning all the little details.

I initially spend quite a lot of time trying out different illusions when I'm wearing my necklace. I eventually decide on darkening my hair and bringing out the red in it as well as shortening it slightly and making it wavier.

I do alter my other features as well, but not so much as I don't think I need all that much change seeing as my transformation into an elf significantly changed how I look anyway.

At least I'm able to live up to my Quenya name at last. I tell Gil-galad this when we're in our next training session – I've never really forgotten his comment about my hair when we first arrived, granted he probably only said it to annoy Manwë, but my female pride won't allow for such conceptions.

"I prefer its original colour, it suits you." Was all he said on the subject before he manages to wrestle me to the ground.

This makes all the males crow in delight as they don't manage to beat all us girls very often.

"You had an unfair advantage, I was distracted." I say through gritted teeth, while still on my back.

Gil-galad chuckles and pulls me to my feet.

"You shouldn't have been talking about your hair then, should you?"

I insist on a red velvet collar for Murrlin because red is what my original cat wore and he always did suit red best. I love it that I can change how she looks now – it means I'm able to actually pick her up at last and have her properly on my lap. It also means Murrlin can sleep on my bed at night as opposed to her pile of cushions on the floor – I always wake up in the mornings now with her lying stretched out against my stomach.

I did quite enjoy finding out that my Medical Degree would now come from Oxford, but not as much as planning my whole new wardrobe with Ellie, which naturally includes many evening dresses.

I'm also planning on getting myself a set of purple biker leathers. Ellie and I have been given full driving licences and I was over the moon to find out mine also included a full motorbike licence as well.

I've always had dreams of riding motorbikes you see – all part of my adrenaline junkie nature I suppose – you've got to love being friends with all-powerful gods.

As the time before we leave gets shorter and shorter, I find myself becoming more and more nervous. I don't know why, I've spent most of my life in Valinor and before that, way more time in Middle Earth than I ever would have in England.

Maybe it has something to do with the simplicity of life here; even in Middle Earth, life seemed simple when compared to how I was living before.

OK, fighting in a war that the fate of everything in Middle Earth depended on was not the most relaxing of ways to spend one's life, even when you know the outcome. But that's the point, Ellie and I knew what would happen and so we could control how we acted.

Back in England, I didn't know what was around the corner and it'll be the same this time. Oh, we have a mission, but we don't know how it's going to be accomplished and whether the elves we are to 'fetch' will even want to come back.

There is the alternative explanation for my nerves of course, but I don't even want to think about that one.

Consequently, I spend many night time hours in the training hall doing bungee ballet.

It's one of the best ways to unwind – better than yoga (not that I've tried much yoga). You can let your mind wander as you sweep through the air, especially if you have a Valar-powered MP3 packed full of relaxing tunes.

One night, I suddenly sense another elf in the hall; opening my eyes I see Galadriel standing in the doorway, her long white cloak almost fluorescent in the dim light.

I'm quite surprised actually, we don't see Galadriel as often as we'd like as she lives a little way off from our cluster of houses.

She enters as I slow myself down before unhooking the ropes and walking over to meet her.

"So this is what you do to relax? Do you mind if I have a go?"

Galadriel removes her cloak, revealing a graceful set of silver leggings and white tunic.

I wonder how many nights she's been watching me.

She begins like a pro, not that I should be too surprised as she is one of the most graceful and powerful elves I know and you don't really need to know much more than the basic principles of bungee ballet to be able to do it.

"I can see why you're so fond of it," says Galadriel as she slows and stops. "It's certainly relaxing and mesmerising. Is that why you come here so often – to relax? Manwë tells me you're not all that keen about going back to your old world."

I gape at her – I don't even bother asking how he would know that, if elves can read minds, then the Valar definitely can.

"I suppose he's also told you why?"

Galadriel doesn't say anything – well that's a yes then; she waits, in spite of myself, I can't help opening up to her,

"Oh, I don't know – it is memories I suppose. Memories of many things – some I want to forget, others I... others I'm just confused about..." I trail off.

Silence... I speak before I can stop myself,

"Don't you ever get lonely? Without Celeborn, I mean."

Galadriel considers,

"It comes and it goes."

"I don't suppose anyone would want to go through eternity without someone to love." I say almost to myself.

As we reach the double front doors of the hall, Galadriel stops and turns the full force of her gaze on me,

"I won't lie to you, Ginny, I want my husband back and I don't believe any elleth wants to go through life alone."

Was there some significance in that? I don't have time to consider as Galadriel is already on her horse – why do elves always do that?

I'm not sure if my conversation with Galadriel has really soothed me about this trip; if anything, it's given me more to think about, but it was good to be able to talk to someone.