By Dawn's Early Light by Grundy

---

When In Rome, Learn What The Romans Do

---

They had been nearly to the Old Ford when Buffy realized why it was that she could feel her older sister so clearly. She turned to her brothers.

“Did the plan change? Is Arwen coming home with us?” she asked.

The twins blinked, as surprised as she was to notice their other sister was nearby.

“Oh dear,” Elladan murmured.

She shot him a suspicious look.

“What does ‘oh dear’ mean?” she demanded.

“It means,” Elrohir answered with a sigh, “that Arwen would hardly ride up the Vale of Anduin alone, even if she kept to the Hithaeglir side of the river. Grandfather must be with her.”

“Why is that ‘oh dear’?” she asked, puzzled. “We like Grandfather!”

She hoped this wasn’t a sign that she should be worried about her grandfather’s reaction. Her brothers had reassured her several times that their father would not be angry so much as resigned and worried after the fact at her having fought at Erebor. If anything, her grandmother seemed faintly amused – although that might be because by the time Galadriel had known, the battle had already been over and she was clearly still alive and well. It might have been different had she realized at the time.

Buffy was aware just how many family members her grandparents have lost over the years, and she can imagine that doesn’t make it any easier to have a grandchild like her. Or her brothers, really. She’s pretty sure they can match her crazy idea for crazy idea. Well, crazy idea by other people’s standards. And this time hadn’t been her fault, really - Erebor had been an accident, not a plan.

It had all worked out anyway…

“It is ‘oh dear’ because it means Grandfather did not consider Haldir sufficient, and has come to see for himself,” Elladan explained.

He glanced at her, and sighed.

“Had we known, we would have made more of an effort when we broke camp this morning.”

“We don’t look that bad,” Buffy replied, nettled as she considered her own appearance as well as her brothers. “Do we?”

“We would have put on better clothes,” Elrohir explained. “And Elladan probably would have tried to make his injury look less serious, not that Grandfather would be fooled.”

Buffy shrugged.

She couldn’t see where Grandfather would care about the clothes. She knew he led patrols himself often enough. He knew even elves got dusty when travelling, and that good robes weren’t for riding the way she and her brothers tended to do. She loved her pretty outfits as much as the next elleth, but not when she’s out in the wild.

When they finally caught sight of Celeborn, they found he, Arwen and Xander were waiting for them, a camp already prepared for even though there were still a few hours of daylight.

She was the one her grandfather greeted first, pulling her into a hug that is as much to reassure himself that she is still there, alive and healthy, as it is to welcome her.

“You, Anariel, were supposed to be visiting Thranduil to keep out of the way, not march to battle,” he said quietly, not letting go of her.

“The best laid plans of mice and men,” she shrugged.

At Xander’s smothered cough, she looked up to discover everyone but him looked utterly bemused.

She sighed and leaned ever so slightly into her grandfather to hide her irritation.

She’d been getting much better with Sindarin – she had to with no other family but her brothers around to buffer her, and Thranduil’s less than subtle campaign to make a proper Sindarin princess of her – but she’s so used to tossing off references to everything from contemporary pop culture to Shakespeare that having to adapt to a culture that doesn’t recognize any of them is incredibly frustrating. Even biblical and mythological allusions, which are practically built into English, don’t register.

“It means sometimes things go wrong,” she explained. “It’s from…”

She trailed off, because she wasn’t actually sure where it’s from originally. She had a vague notion the book wasn’t the ultimate source.

“A poem,” Xander broke in. “We read it in English after we did the novel. Remember?”

Actually, Buffy remembered that Willow was the only one who had (mostly) understood the original version. Now that she thought about it, reading the Scots version was a bit like everyone here listening to her and the Scoobies talk to each other. If they repeated it to themselves and played with the pronunciation, they could get the gist, but usually wound up puzzled about specific words.

“The best laid schemes of mice and men oft go awry,” Xander quoted.

Buffy was relieved he didn’t bother giving the whole verse, as she did remember it now, and it mentioned foresight – something that elves did recognize, and a subject she tried to avoid since so far none of the foresight she’d encountered had been rainbows and puppies.

“Indeed,” Mithrandir replied. “The same may be said of elves and wizards!”

She was grateful to him for the save, and when Celeborn turned to see to her brothers – who were absolutely right in thinking he was not fooled by Elladan’s attempt to appear one hundred percent healthy – she mouthed a quiet ‘thanks!’ at him.

When Celeborn finally let go – mostly so he could examine her brother’s arm – she hugged Xander before Arwen claimed her, first holding her tightly for several minutes before giving her a more intense once-over than even her mother would have done.

“Yes, I really am in one piece,” she said amusedly, as Xander snickered.

“You cannot fault me for checking,” Arwen sniffed. “Especially since we are told you are worse than the boys for saying you are fine when you are not.”

“Who tattled?” Buffy sighed resignedly, expecting to hear that Will or Tara had let something slip in concern.

“Naneth,” Arwen replied.

“Oh, I am in so much trouble,” Buffy groaned. “Watch, I’m going to be grounded until the end of Arda.”

“Well, maybe not quite that long,” Xander suggested. “Just the next thousand years or so.”

“Not helping,” she grumbled, as Arwen finished her inspection and dragged her sister over to the farthest tent to wash and change.

Buffy finished well before Celeborn was done checking the twins’ injuries and – much to her bemusement – giving them a thorough scolding for ‘getting your sister into such trouble’.

She had been torn whether to go with it or fess up that she’d gotten into trouble all by herself, thank you very much, until Xander shook his head.

“He knows,” Xander told her quietly. “He just thinks they should have stopped you.”

“Yeah, that would have worked,” Buffy snorted.

“That’s what I said,” Xander smirked. “But what can you do?”

“Sit back and watch,” Arwen suggested, patting the spot next to hers on a blanket covered log. She left her little sister any choice – Buffy found herself pulled down to sit next to her sister and that was that.

Buffy was startled to discover that while Arwen might play the princess to the hilt at times, she knew how to start a campfire as well as their brothers.

“Since I’m in trouble, does that mean I’m the one who gets to cook?” Buffy asked warily.

Cooking had been the task for the loser of any contest she had while traveling with the twins – fortunately, she hadn’t lost often, because the twins didn’t think much of her cooking ability. (Protesting that she was used to cooking in kitchens hadn’t helped.)

Arwen snickered.

“You are not the one in trouble – at least, not tonight – so I think it is safe to say that you are not cooking. I do not know if the boys will, or if Grandfather will prefer to do it himself. Either way, I think they will use the other fire for that. Grandfather and Mithrandir will likely talk all night, so I thought we should have our own fire. Master Baggins may join us or remain with them as he wishes. How bad is Elladan’s injury?”

“Not that bad,” Buffy shrugged. “Thranduil and Mithrandir both said it’s healing nicely, and they would know. He’s more annoyed about it than anything now.”

Both her brothers stalked over to settle themselves on the other side of the fire with identical scowls.

“Thank you for your help, littlest sister,” Elladan groused.

“Littlest?” Buffy asked. “Did you pick up a head injury, too? Tindomiel’s at home.”

“She is our youngest sister,” Elrohir pointed out, his eyes sparking with mischief. “You, on the other hand, are our littlest sister. And as she is still growing and you are not, it seems likely you will remain our littlest sister.”

Buffy stuck out her tongue.

“I may be short, but my arm’s better,” she pointed out smugly.

“Yours wasn’t broken,” Elladan protested.

Buffy laughed.

“It’d be healed by now even if it was.”

“Just wait, short one, just wait,” Elrohir promised. “Remember, there are two of us.”

Xander snickered.

“Don’t forget, once you get home, she’s got more backup,” he told them. “So, how was the battle? Saving the world any different in Middle Earth?”

Buffy sobered immediately.

“Bigger and uglier,” she replied. “Think ten times the size of graduation. The word ‘horde’ was used seriously to describe the orcs. Real weapons on both sides and casualties to match.”

“Messy,” Xander whistled. “And you only ended up with scratches?”

She nodded.

“One decent one, but mostly just small stuff,” she confirmed, looking to her brothers to back her up.

Elladan raised an eyebrow at her description, but chose not to argue – he’d probably had enough of that with Celeborn, albeit in the opposite direction.

“She forgets to mention she is also a dwarf-friend now,” Elrohir observed. “Bravely saving King Kili before the bodyguard of Bolg could remove his head from his shoulders.”

“How was I supposed to know he was a prince?” Buffy grumbled. “There was a battle on. It was noble of him to try to stand over the dead king-“

“Dying king, as the dwarves tell it,” Elladan corrected.

“Whatever they say,” Buffy said, rolling her eyes.

If Thorin had still been breathing when she got there, he hadn’t been long for the world. The younger dwarf who turned out to be Kili had been on the verge of getting overwhelmed trying to protect him. She’d knocked him down when he hadn’t had the sense to duck, and proceeded to slay the large, well-armed orcs around him with extreme prejudice.

By the time a dazed Kili had gotten back on his feet, the situation was a little more stable, and she’d been able to form a wedge with him and three other dwarves to move Thorin to more defensible ground. If they told the story with him still alive until later, she wouldn’t argue. She’d think they were wrong, but she wouldn’t argue. Dwarves got upset if you questioned their word.

“How was the party?” Xander asked, brushing aside the whole dwarf thing – he’d already heard enough in Lothlorien to know that an elf saving a dwarf could be a sore subject.

Buffy grinned.

“Pretty good actually!” she said. “Thranduil’s people know how to throw a soiree. It was a little livelier than Lorien…”

“Oh, surely you’re not going to leave it at that, little sister,” Elladan cut in with a truly wicked smirk.

They wouldn’t. They so totally wouldn’t…

“Yes,” Elrohir agreed. “You forget to mention the best part. How you almost ended up married to Legolas Thranduilion!”

Both twins nearly fell over laughing at the look on Xander’s face as he realized that they were not joking.

“Buff? How much alcohol was involved?” he asked cautiously.

“Less than you’d think,” Buffy said, with a sour look at her brothers’ matching smirks. “I only had one glass of wine.”

“How strong was it?” Xander demanded.

“Not that strong,” she replied, somewhat insulted. She wasn’t that much of a lightweight! “Alcohol had nothing to do with it.”

“It is not funny!” Arwen hissed, fixing her older brothers with a truly intimidating glare. “How could you?”

“Ha – got yourselves in trouble again!” Buffy crowed. “Serves you right.”

“It is not our fault you did not know!” Elrohir shot back.

“Yes, and it gives us such a wonderful story to tell,” Elladan grinned. “We might tire of telling it sometime around your twentieth yen. Maybe.”

“If you are married. To someone other than Legolas.”

“And we like your husband.”

“Otherwise, we may delight in this one forever.”

Buffy rolled her eyes.

“Yes, me not knowing what the Sindar consider sex ed 101 is totally hilarious.”

“What does the number have to do with it?” Elrohir asked curiously.

“Brothers,” Arwen said pointedly. “What exactly do you mean when you say ‘almost married’?”

The thunderous look on her face settled the twins’ mirth somewhat – Arwen looked uncannily like their father when angry.

“Rest easy, little sister,” Elladan replied. “It is funny because they are not married. Legolas explained matters to her in time.”

“Good!” Arwen snapped. “He should not have had to, however. You are her brothers-“

“Hi, sitting right here and actual adult!” Buffy interrupted, because her sister looked utterly scandalized. “Also, learned my lesson. No taking the name in vain during sex.”

“Wait, what?” Xander spluttered.

“You actually joined with him?” Arwen’s expression had only gotten worse.

Buffy looked from one to the other, and then at the twins.

“Ok, brothers, fun and games are over – time to make with the explanations,” Buffy announced. “Why does Arwen look like I’ve just killed someone?”

The twins sighed.

“Arwen takes a more Noldorin view,” Elrohir said slowly.

“Well that cleared that up, I know exactly what’s going on now,” Xander said after a pause in which none of the three older children of Elrond explained.

“Short version of the part I get,” Buffy said. “For High Elves, sex equals marriage. Period. But the Sindar aren’t High Elves – there’s actually a lot of history there, try not to mix up who’s who, because pretty much everyone is touchy about it – and they think sex is fine between unmarried adults as long as everyone’s willing. By their definition it’s only marriage if you invoke the name of the One during the act. Legolas explained that part.”

Xander blinked.

“So… you’re telling me Ahn and I are already married,” he said slowly.

Buffy snickered. She hadn’t even thought about that.

“Now that you mention it, I’d have to go with ‘yeah, probably’,” she said. “We definitely heard her yell ‘god’ a time or two on the way to Lothlorien.”

“It is ‘Eru’ you must invoke,” Arwen corrected primly.

“Oh, good,” Xander said in relief. “Not that I’m not planning on marrying her – I have the ring and everything, just waiting for the right moment to ask – but I think she’d be a little upset to find out she’d gotten married without knowing it!”

“Yeah, let’s stick with only the actual name counts,” Buffy agreed. “Cause otherwise not only am I a bigamist, my husbands are back in California. And one of them is a total douchecanoe.”

“That would be awkward,” Xander laughed.

“Anariel, you had relations there? At such a young age?”

Just when she’d thought Arwen couldn’t sound any more horrified…

“That is why we did not realize she did not know,” Elladan said calmly. “We knew that she had joined before, yet she is clearly unmarried, so why would it occur to us that it was because marriage is completely different there?”

“Fortunately, it did occur to Legolas,” Buffy said drily. “He knew that I had lived among mortals and was unsure if mortal marriage customs were the same, so he asked before things got too far. Not that marrying him would have been the worst thing in the world, but it would have made for an interesting conversation with Thranduil in the morning.”

Xander cracked up. If Arwen hadn’t been there, he would have asked ‘before or after you were naked’, but Buffy’s older sister looked ready to strangle all three of her siblings as it was.

“It would at least have settled his concern about whether you are more Sindar or Noldor,” Elrohir suggested brightly.

“Pretty sure if the battle didn’t do that, the party did” Buffy replied. “He still thinks I’m slightly nuts, but at least it’s a Sindarin kinda nuts.”

She paused.

“Wait, you said I’m clearly unmarried. How do you know? I mean, just because I’m not wearing a ring, or-“

Arwen glared at her brothers again.

“It would have been nice had you bothered to make sure of what she did and didn’t know,” she said frostily. “She might have propositioned a married ellon!”

Now it was Buffy’s turn to splutter.

“There was no propositioning!”

“Then how did you end up joining with Legolas?” Arwen asked archly.

Buffy was not about to admit the whole story on how exactly Legolas had finally understood that she wasn’t kidding about definitely not being an elfling to her sister – her brothers seemed to think it had come about as a dare or a series of escalating dares between the two of them, and she was happy to leave it at that.

It turned out that sex was an acceptable enough part of life for the Sindar that there were areas of the halls that those so inclined were known to retreat to after a certain point whenever there was a major party. At least, it was known to people other than her.

Legolas had seen the route she was taking back to her room, realized she didn’t know, and followed her, expecting to have to explain the facts of life to an embarrassed elfling. That wasn’t how it had worked out. And since it was clear she did know what was going on and had done it before… Legolas was an adventurous soul. And, as it turned out, a skilled one.

“It just happened,” she told Arwen with a shrug. “Propositioning makes it sound scandalous.”

Elladan sighed.

“Arwen really does not mean it that way,” he said slowly, giving her a meaningful glare.

“No, but…” Arwen looked very unhappy. “Anariel, do you not see how much more special it would be to wait?”

Elladan traded a look with Elrohir, but seeing his twin was leaving it entirely to him, he sighed again.

“You know we are both Noldor and Sindar- decended from both High Elves and what the Exiles termed ‘moriquendi’.”

Buffy nodded.

“Moriquendi meaning Dark Elves,” she explained quietly to Xander. “Basically, the amanyar who came back acted like the umanyar were uncivilized barbarians.”

“I bet that made for good feelings all around,” Xander whistled.

“Indeed,” Elrohir said drily. “And as you can imagine, that the ‘moriquendi’ indulged in pleasures of the body instead of saving themselves only for their mate was taken by the ‘caliquendi’ as proof of their ignorance and fallen ways.”

“Adar has never said anything one way or the other on the subject,” Elladan continued, “So we honestly do not know, but we suspect he was raised with the Noldorin view. Makalaurë and Maedhros were both amanyar, and Gil-Galad’s court was dominated by amanyar and their descendants.”

“Adar may be of the amanyar view,” Elrohir said, “But Naneth was raised Sindarin, and so we assumed she would have taught you as we were taught. The decision whether or not to indulge has been left to each of us. Unlike what you have told us of California, no elf would judge another for not doing so.”

“Though the Noldor certainly judge those who do,” Elladan sniffed, “Arwen has taken the Noldorin approach – to wait and join only with the one she will bind herself to for all time – though thankfully not the judgmental attitude.”

He didn’t need to explain that the twins took the same view as Buffy herself – she knew perfectly well they’d ‘indulged’ same as she had. She suspected they were actually sought-after partners among the wood elves.

“That still doesn’t explain how you know I’m not married,” Buffy pointed out.

Elladan laughed.

“Whether or not they are bound shows in an elf’s eyes,” he said. “And it's certainly clear enough to your own brothers!”

“I can’t go around staring into everybody’s eyes to try to figure out the difference!” Buffy protested.

“Do not worry,” Elrohir said reassuringly. “We will find a way for you to see that does not involve staring. I am certain you will recognize it quickly enough – all other elves do.”

“Dumb question,” Xander piped up. “What about… wait, I don’t even know the word in Sindarin. Contraception?”

It took some lengthy explanation on Buffy and Xander’s part before any of her older siblings even understood what was being asked. Once they did, Xander and Buffy were astonished to learn that elves didn’t actually need any such thing – and that even the twins, who had trained as healers, were unaware that mortals usually did.

“I wouldn’t mention that to Anya,” Xander muttered, after the two of them had gotten over their surprise at the idea that reproduction was a voluntary thing for the eldar. “She’s already jealous enough that you get the immortal lifespan and eternal youth.”