By the time Rhiannon and Athena finally made it back down from the attic/bedroom that the three girls in the family shared, Legolas was beginning to get desperate.  After he had been subjected to the Reasons Why You Should Date Rhiannon he was then forced to listen to the Reasons Why You Shouldn’t Date Rhiannon, and Our Dogs are Cute, But Be Thankful That They’re Not Here Because They’d Likely Bite You.  He understood about one word in twenty of this, and was forced to draw his own conclusions, which were that the dogs in the family were big, slobbering monsters that would kill anyone unknown who came near.
        So that was why, when Rhiannon and Athena made an appearance, he jumped up off the couch with a relieved smile.  “So, fair maidens, what shall we do today?” he asked, hoping that he didn’t sound too desperate, and that whatever they were doing, it would involve something where the boys weren’t.
        There was a chorus of giggles from the three boys, who had been half way through Why Rhiannon Won’t Let Us Watch Digimon before their elder sisters had come down from the attic.  Rhiannon’s gaze could be classified as ‘murderous’.
        “Well, I can’t go anywhere,” Athena griped, “because I’m babysitting these hooligans today.”  She indicated her little brothers.
        Rhiannon thought for a moment.  “I don’t think we should expose his Highness to the wonders of our pitiful little town until he’s prepared for them.”
        “He’ll never be prepared for them,” Athena said snarkily, if not logically.
        “Fine then.  Until he’s slightly more prepared for them than if he had just been plunked down in the middle of downtown with no warning at all,” Rhiannon conceded.
        “We don’t have a downtown.”
        Rhiannon gave her sister a flat look.  “Technically, it’s out in the North End, but you know what I mean.  Must you always nit pick?”
        “Yes.”
        Legolas had been watching the whole exchange with quite the amused expression on his face, and when Rhiannon turned back to him, he kept his smile, but inwardly, his stomach was flipping.  It was something about the way her long hair shined in the sun’s light coming in through the window behind her…  Legolas took this moment to study the young woman who had awoken in his arms.  She was beautiful, a picture of youthful maturity.  Her hair, which he had just admired, fell almost to her waist, and was hazel in colour.  The sunlight that fell upon it brought out the red and gold highlights within it, even as it fell in gentle waves about her face.  Her eyes were almost the same colour as her hair, hazel, but with a hint of green within their depths; depths that Legolas found himself staring into.  Time fell away, as it had when he had caught her earlier, and he felt that he could loose himself completely within those eyes…
        Someone behind him, most likely David, sniggered, and Rhiannon snapped her gaze around to see why.  The moment lost, Rhiannon looked somewhat unsettled, and the red was beginning to return to her cheeks once more, if indeed it had ever left.  The boys were still giggling, and Athena had a grin upon her face again.
        “Well,” said Rhiannon.  “I think, you’d better…that is, you should…”
        “Just come upstairs, you Highness,” Athena supplied before Rhiannon could try to say another thing.
        Legolas raised an eyebrow confusedly and followed the two girls.

        When they reached the top of the stairs, Legolas looked around the attic that the girls called their bedroom.  There was a full-length mirror at the top of the stairs and he caught sight of his reflection.  He looked as immaculate as ever, except for the tiny white hairs that now covered his clothes.  Puzzled, he started to brush them off.  Rhiannon turned and watched his action.
        “Dog hair,” she said as explanation.
        “Your pardon, Lady?” he asked, looking up from his brushing.
        “The dogs shed all year round.  Their hair gets all over anything they sit on.  Makes wearing black just a tad bit of a pain.  Speaking of clothes, we’re going to have to find you something else to wear.  You’ll stick out like a sore thumb if we go anywhere.”  Rhiannon stopped and looked at him closely.  “In fact,” she continued, “you stick out like a sore thumb now.”
        “What do you mean?” the Elf asked, quite puzzled.
        “This is clearly not your place,” Rhiannon explained, indicating more than just the room around them.  “You belong in forests, and delicate cities.  You contrast with this world, like someone who was cut from one image and pasted onto another without proper editing.”
        Legolas was surprised.  Was she wiser than most, or just observant?  “Am I that obvious?” He asked.
        “Yes, and I don’t think that even with clothing from our time could you fit in properly.”
        “Perhaps you are right, but until I find a way to return to the Mirkwood, indeed before I find a reason why I am here, I am just going to have to stick out like this sore thumb that you mentioned.”
        Athena was watching from her side of the room.  “He still needs other clothes.  At least then he’d just look like some really hot guy with pointed ears.”
        Legolas looked up, surprised again at Athena’s boldness.  He had a sneaking suspicion that he would never be used to such manner of speech.  He wasn’t sure if he wanted to be used to her manner.  In a way, it was quite refreshing, and yet still shocking.
        “True,” Rhiannon was saying.  She paused as she considered this and Legolas realized that she was agreeing with Athena’s assessment of him just as she spoke again.  “Clayton,” she said suddenly.  “He’s about your size.  I’ll try and contact him and see if he’s willing to lend clothes to an Elf prince.”
        “How fast are your messengers?” Legolas asked, distracted from his previous thoughts for a moment by wondering whom this Clayton was and how they would contact him.
        “Practically instantaneous,” Rhiannon replied with a grin.  “You can come with me to watch how it’s done, if you want.”
        Legolas wondered just what sort of abilities that these Men had.  Instantaneous messengers?  Had they learned magic?  Times had greatly changed, by the looks of things.  How far away was this Clayton anyway? A knot of doubt began to push its way into his head.  How would these Men, even ones so advanced, react to an Elf, much less one of Royal blood?
        Legolas considered this as he walked behind Rhiannon back down the stairs to the Romper Room.  The three boys were sitting on the couch and staring at what the Elf had thought before was just a strangely shaped black box, only now there were colourful pictures moving over it.  Rhiannon walked right past it, heading for another set of stairs, but Legolas paused and stared.
        “What manner of thing is this?” he asked.  Rhiannon came back into the room.
        “It’s called a television,” she explained.  “Err…you’ve heard of Scrying?”
        “Of course,” he answered.  What Elf hadn’t?
        “Well, a television is technically like that, except there’s no magic involved.  Just visual and auditory waves, and electricity.”
        “Your pardon, Lady?”
        “I’ll explain later.  Come on.”
        They continued downstairs.  It was at about that time that Legolas met the dogs.

        He hadn’t even noticed them until they started barking.  He noticed one thing about them, however, before they all crowded around him and tried have a barking contest.  They weren’t the great, slobbering, hairy brutes that he was expecting, but rather small, white, and probably more than a little insane.
        “Bika!  Loki!  Gates!  NO!” Rhiannon yelled above the noise.  The three dogs had cornered Legolas on the stairs, ignoring Rhiannon’s attempts to control them by continuing to bark as loud as was possible.
        “Loki!  Outside!”  Rhiannon shouted and started to walk towards the other end of the house.  Loki followed, recognizing that he was going outside, barking and dancing about and the other dogs chased the one named Loki, still barking madly.  She had made it about halfway into the next room, the dining room, with the dogs following before both she and the Elf got a rather nasty surprise.
        “What’s all this barking?” a man asked, coming out of yet another room.  “Does a certain little dog want his head bashed in?”  Loki continued to bark, knowing in his little canine mind that ‘dad’ was only joking.  Rhiannon froze.  Legolas watched as the man disappeared back into the room from whence he came with the dogs before Rhiannon turned back to him.
        “Hide!” she hissed.
        The Elf paused, puzzled.  He opened his mouth to say something but Rhiannon cut him off.
        “That’s my dad!  Hide!”  She rushed towards him, trying to push him back towards the stairs and the closet under them.  She had just hidden the Elf in the closet when her father reappeared.
        “Who was that?” The question stopped Rhiannon, who was forcing the door closed.  She turned around slowly, trying desperately to think of something that wouldn’t make her father go ape.
        “You’re home early,” Rhiannon began nervously, avoiding the question while her mind worked furiously.
        “Yes, they let me off.  Someone else took my shift.  Who was that?”
        “Who was who?” Rhiannon asked as innocently as she could, given the fact that she was practically plastered to the closet door.
        “That blonde man who was just here.”
        “What blonde man? Dad, you’re delusional,” she replied, hoping that her father would go upstairs or somewhere other that where she was at that moment.
        “No, I’m not,” her father replied.
        “Well you’ve got to be, if you’re seeing blonde guys in the dining room that aren’t actually there.”
        The incorporeal and thusly invisible wish granter was hanging around, finding this all quite to its liking.  It wasn’t sure which was more amusing, the fact that Rhiannon’s father was about to go completely postal or the image of Rhiannon leaning as nonchalantly as possible against the closet door with a nervous grin on her face.  Or even the image of Legolas, who for his part, was having a hard time folding himself to fit amongst the coats and boxes of what appeared to be footwear that Rhiannon had shoved him into.  It was at that point that Vicky came home.
        Rhiannon’s father decided, much to his daughter’s relief, that he wasn’t going to make a scene just then and Rhiannon hoped that he would save the fit for when her mum was there to help out, or at least to calm him down.  With a last warning look at his eldest daughter, he went up stairs.
        “I’m going to sleep for a while,” he said in a flat voice, but Rhiannon could tell that he was quite annoyed. “I’ve got an early shift tomorrow.”
        Rhiannon heaved a sigh of relief and stepped away from the closet door as soon as she heard her parent’s bedroom door close.
        Vicky was looking back and forth from Rhiannon to the top of the stairs.  Shrugging, she opened the closet, intent on putting her coat away and looked up with surprise at Rhiannon, who was lunging for the door with a desperate look upon her face.  Looking in she saw why.
        “Hel-lo,” Vicky said, her face a picture surprise.  Legolas, unknowing what to do at this sudden discovery, tried charm.
        “Hail, fair maiden.  Might you be the Lady Vicky of whom I have heard so much?”
        Vicky, on her part, was beginning to blush.  She couldn’t find the voice to respond – there was a super-babe in the closet and he was talking to her! – so she simply nodded.  Rhiannon put her head in her hands and groaned.
        “Rhiannon,” Vicky asked, finding her voice at last, “why is there an incredibly gorgeous guy in the closet?”
        “Because I put him there,” Rhiannon responded, trying, and failing, to sound as though there was nothing the matter.
        “Oh.”
        “I’ll explain later,” she whispered to her youngest sister, feeling the red returning to her cheeks.  She continued to say that perhaps it would be better if Athena explained, and then went on to say, in no uncertain terms, that if Vicky told anyone than there would be dire consequences all around.  “Especially don’t tell dad.  I just had a very near miss with him.  He almost found Legolas here.”
        “Legolamb?  What sort of a name is-“
        “It’s Legolas.  Just ask Athena.  I’ve got to send a message to Clayton, and I need to sneak him out of the closet and into the computer room.  So just pretend that nothing’s amiss, okay?”
        “Okay.  Keep your shirt on.”  She glanced down at the crouching Elf in the closet.  “Or don’t,” Vicky added with a smirk and a barely smothered giggle.  Legolas managed to keep his face straight and devoid of excess colour but Rhiannon’s cheeks flamed red again.  She seemed to be blushing a lot lately.
        Vicky went back up the stairs, leaving behind an embarrassed human, a somewhat shocked Elf, and a hysterical, omnipotent being who had nothing better to do then hang around the house of a family of Homo sapiens and grant the wishes of the second-eldest female.
        Rhiannon, face still red, reached her hand into the closet, to help the Elf Prince up.  When he had grasped it, the young woman found herself thinking that he had really nice skin.  Little did she know that Legolas was thinking exactly the same thing.  Rhiannon inhaled deeply and once again the scents of forests and a slight wisp of musk assaulted her senses.  She felt slightly dizzy, and a little overwhelmed by the fragrance so that as soon as Legolas was standing, and much to both of their chagrin, for Legolas had found that he liked holding Rhiannon’s hand, she let go.
        “Well,” Rhiannon began.  “Let’s, err…let’s go…” her voice trailed off as she stared into the Elf’s eyes.
        “Contact Clayton?” Legolas asked, his voice low as he stepped closer.  What are you doing? His mind screamed for his attention.  You barely know her!   He seemed to stand less than an inch away, now, and his soft breath was loud within Rhiannon’s ears as her heart skipped wildly.  Her breath caught in her throat as she resisted the urge to lay her head upon his chest and stand in the circle of his arms.
        “Yeah,” she whispered, closing her eyes.  When she opened them again, an instant later, Legolas was standing further away, and his scent, that scent that spoke of glades and hidden streams and ancient trees, was not as overwhelming as before.  “Yeah,” she repeated, more loudly.  “We need to…contact Clayton.”  Forcing herself to turn, she walked into the living room and through the door to the den/computer room.  Oh, Ye Gods!  How was she ever going to get through this with her sanity?