Zac's footsteps fall silently on the stone path as he follows Gandalf towards Elrond's house, but his mind is awash with questions. The image of Elrenniel is etched deeply into his thoughts, her face an uncanny mirror of Arwen's and yet so distinctly her own. Something about her has unsettled him beyond mere aesthetic appreciation or curiosity. Her name repeats in his mind: Elrenniel, both familiar and foreign, like a melody played in a key he does not recognize.
He frowns, searching his memory, consulting that mental encyclopedia of Middle-earth he painstakingly assembled in his former life. The details are there, sharp as engravings on mithril: Elrond Peredhel, the Half-Elven Lord of Imladris, had three children, Arwen and the twins Elladan and Elrohir. No trace of an Elrenniel. Not even a passing mention in Tolkien's appendices or notes.
"Is something troubling you, my friend?" Gandalf asks, his perceptive gaze catching the cloud of worry darkening Zac's face.
"A confusion, nothing more," Zac replies, perhaps too quickly. "The names… the faces. It's much to take in after so much solitude."
The wizard nods, but doesn't seem convinced. There is a wisdom in his eyes that suggests he sees much more than he lets on.
They continue their climb toward the main house, but Zac's mind lingers in the garden where Arwen and Elrenniel played with a child destined to be king. The Lady of Twilight had an older sister? The Evenstar was not the only daughter of Elrond? How could that be possible?
A chilling, sharp explanation presents itself: he has changed something. His presence, his actions, have altered the course of time. A shiver runs down his spine at the thought. The depths of Mordor had not merely been a prison; they were a knot in the weave of fate, a point where the strands of reality could be rearranged.
He remembers feeling responsible for the fall of Gondolin, for awakening the Balrogs who destroyed the hidden city. Perhaps those were not hallucinations but a far more complex truth. And what if his actions had effects far beyond what he imagined? Ripples spreading through the ages, altering subtle but crucial details?
"Elrond's daughter…" he murmurs, half to himself, "the one with Arwen and the child. Her name is Elrenniel?"
"Ah, you noticed the Eldest of Imladris," Gandalf answers, the hint of a smile curling his lips. "Elrenniel, yes. The Lady of Twilight, some call her. A complex soul, even by elvish standards."
The Eldest of Imladris. The words toll in Zac's mind like a bell. In the canon he knows, there is no such title. Arwen is the only daughter, the jewel of Rivendell, the Evenstar of her people.
"I thought Arwen was…" he begins, stopping short, too aware of the danger in revealing too much of his strange knowledge.
"The most famous, yes," Gandalf replies, interpreting Zac's hesitation differently. "Elrenniel prefers shadow to the glare of attention. She is more… academic than her sister. Some would say darker, though not in any malevolent sense."
Zac nods, trying to mask the turmoil within. How had he never heard of her? What role would she play in the days ahead? And doesn't her mere presence already change everything?
A more troubling thought arises: what if it wasn't he who changed the course of time? What if the reality he'd learned from the books was only a simplified version, a story where some figures were omitted for narrative clarity? Perhaps Elrenniel had always existed, silent in the margins of great chronicles, her influence too subtle for historians who focused only on great upheavals.
No, impossible. A sister of Arwen would have been mentioned, at least in passing. Unless…
An even grimmer possibility creeps in: what if he arrived too late? What if the changes he feared to cause had already happened, set in motion by other forces, other wills? He thinks of Sauron, already active in Middle-earth though his power has not yet peaked. Of the Istari, the Nazgûl, the countless agents shaping this world unseen.
"And the child?" he asks, grasping for something solid. "Estel, that's what they called him?"
"Ah, young Estel," Gandalf says, his smile softening. "The hope of Men, though he doesn't know it yet. Elrond raises him as a son, ever since his father's death. Destiny awaits him, if the stars prove kind."
At least that has not changed, Zac thinks. Aragorn is still here, still innocent, unaware of the burden he will one day bear. A constant in a world that suddenly feels more fluid and undefined than ever.
But his thoughts return to Elrenniel, drawn like a moth to a flame. The connection he felt at seeing her was more than mere curiosity. It was recognition, profound and visceral, as though something within him had found its echo in that ancient, melancholy soul. The Music of the Ainur that flows through his veins seemed to resonate with a new harmony in her presence.
Is that yet another shift in the tapestry of fate? Or something older, deeper, a note in the Great Music forever destined to be played, whether he knew it or not?
At last, they reach the steps leading to Elrond's main house. Elves approach to greet Gandalf with the warmth owed a lifelong friend. Zac, too, is welcomed with polite curiosity, his Tree-lit eyes attracting intrigued but respectful glances.
As he prepares to cross the threshold of the Last Homely House, Zac casts a final glance at the garden where he saw Elrenniel. The twilight now bathes the valley, transforming the Bruinen's waters into a ribbon of liquid gold.
He does not know what awaits him in this altered, or perhaps merely more complex, reality. Yet for the first time since emerging from the depths, he feels something other than that detached serenity which had been his shelter. A new tension, blended of apprehension and anticipation, pulses in his chest.
The mystery of Elrenniel is like a door left ajar on an unwritten chapter of the story he thought he knew by heart. And despite the dangers in turning those yet unread pages, some part of him burns already to discover what lies beyond.