Disclaimer: don't own any of it. Not making any money.

A/N: And now, a note from my dear friend Abby, upon whom the charater 'Xiaoli' was based.

Dearest Gentle Readers:

I have been informed that Xiaoli is a character that some of you "love to hate," as it were. But judge not to harshly friends, for this character was inspired by myself Certainly, she is rather misunderstood. I will not disagree with the fact that she occasionally does kill and maim. But do try to overlook these small and insignificant facts and open your heart to her good qualities.

For example, she has a zest for her job that one would be hard pressed to match. In addition, she has a "can-do" attitude. Certainly, she may often seem cold and distant, but one must admire her for not turning her anger in on herself. Instead, she finds a productive outlet for her unpleasant emotions.

Are these not qualities that we could all learn something from?

If this is not enough to persuade you from persecuting Xiaoli, then there is little else I can say. I must remind you though that it is harsh beyond measure to judge an entire being based on a single personality quirk, even if said quirk is a bit....extreme.

Also, her fighting style is based upon my own. Some would refer to this as "dirty fighting." But I can assure you that personal hygiene is of the utmost importance.

Judge not, my friends. For though you know me not, I know all of you. *Evil Look* I've been a member of this list for well over two years, silently watching every move from the cover of lurkwood. I know your habits, I know your writing styles, and I know what color the underwear are that you're wearing RIGHT NOW!! I'll leave it to your imagination why Xiaoli was based on me in the first place. *snarl*

A-Hem....

Many apologies friends. I know not what came over me....

Sincerely,

Abby L. Vermillion

***Thanks to the lovely and talented Bill the Pony (who is, in fact, a female) for beta'ing***

~~~*~~~*~~~*~~~*~~~*~~~*~~~*~~~*~~~*~~~*~~~

So breathe in me

I need you now

I've never felt so dead within

So breathe in me

Maybe somehow

You can breathe new life

In me again

'Breathe in Me' by Micheal W. Smith

~*~

The ride to New York was long, and rather boring, once the elves got used to riding in Logan's Jeep. Elladan rode in the front, Legolas and Elrohir occupied the back seat with Cell-hu constantly jumping over them to stick his head out the windows.

At first, they were fascinated by the various gadgets and mirrors in the vehicle, and Logan patiently explained the use of each to Elladan, who in turn translated for his brother and Legolas. Logan really deserved a lot of credit for his patience, Elladan thought. Even though he still doubted the truth of Elladan's explanation, he had nonetheless agreed to help them. He truly was a good man, and Elladan found himself thanking Eru for guiding them to him.

After several hours of travel, the sun set and Legolas and Elrohir were lulled to sleep in the back seat, with Cell-hu draped over them. Elladan and Logan struck up a soft conversation, beginning with Elladan telling his mortal companion of his family back in Valinor, and his worries for them.

"I hope they're safe, wherever they are. My children are only fifteen years of age, to you they would seem about seven or eight, I suppose. My daughter, Thelrin, is just beginning to learn archery, and Thorongil is studying swordplay, that's my son. They are twins." Elladan had to choke back an involuntary sob at the thought of his children in any sort of pain or fear. If Melkor hurt them in any way, he would rip the former Valar to shreds with his bare hands, if need be.

His thoughts must have been painted across his face because Logan placed a comforting hand on the Elf's shoulder. "I'm sure their mother will keep them safe, 'Dan."

Elladan nodded and steered the conversation away from himself, not wanting to confront the emotions brought up by the thoughts of his family. "What about you, do you have any family?"

"I did." Logan did not take his gaze off the darkened highway, "They died, about twenty years ago, in an accident. Drunk driver."

"I'm sorry," Elladan was at a loss for words, he had experienced his fair share of heartache and lost loved ones, but he did not know if he could survive losing his wife and children. They were the most important things in the world to him, and though he did not understand what Logan meant by 'drunk driver', he got the basic idea.

"Yeah. My son, Mike, he was about the same age as your boy, and my daughters were six and eight; their names were Amy and Corinne." Logan smiled wistfully, as memories known only to him echoed through his mind. "My wife, Ellen, was driving; the other driver ran his truck off the road and plowed right into their car. She died instantly, along with Mike."

It was Elladan's turn to comfort Logan, and he did so, placing a hand on the human's shoulder. "You do not have to speak of it, if you wish."

"No, it's alright. I want you to know, don't ask me why. Maybe I'm hoping you'll have a little hope for your own family. Anyway, they took my girls to the hospital; Corinne, she never woke up, but she still looked like a little angel lying in that hospital bed, all hooked up to tubes and machines.

"Amy, she was awake the whole time though. Saw her mom's and brother's bodies hauled away. She was thrown clear of the wreck upon impact; I guess she had a head injury. They could have saved her if they'd caught it, but they didn't. I brought her home with me that night, and she died in her bed. Corinne died the next morning."

Logan's face was expressionless as he spoke of his family's deaths. Elladan knew that his impassive exterior hid twenty years worth of heartache. He was horrified to learn that Amy's death could have been prevented, but as a healer himself, knew that head injuries could be sneaky and sometimes difficult to catch. Particularly when there were many other lives at stake.

Elladan did not know what else to say to the human, so he squeezed his shoulder once, then dropped his hand back into his lap. Logan, for his part, continued staring at the road and they rode the rest of the night in silence.

Sometime in the night, as he contemplated this new insight into his friends life, Elladan drifted off to sleep. So when Logan awakened him the next morning, he was stunned by the sight that greeted him when he opened his bleary eyes.

There were buildings rising as high as the clouds, the sun gleamed off the glass and metal, giving the shining towers the look of diamonds and mithril. He blinked several times, trying to adjust his eyes to the glare.

In his nearly eleven thousand years of life, Elladan had seen Orthanc, the Tower of Echthelion in Minas Tirith, and even Barad Dur; none of them compared with the smallest of buildings before him. They rose up, higher and higher, as though they were competing with each other, each trying to touch the clouds first.

Finally, he tore his eyes away from the brilliant architecture and studied the people. It was easily done, they were everywhere! Crowds of them, milling about, crossing roads clogged with all shapes and types of the motorized vehicles similar to the one he was riding in. Even inside the Jeep, the din was overwhelming. His sensitive ears ached from the constant racket produced by the mass of humanity around him.

Elladan had to resist the urge to cover his nose when his delicate olfactory sense was nearly overwhelmed by the odor produced by the poisonous fume the vehicles emitted, not to mention the stench of sweat, sewage and offal.

In the back seat, Elrohir and Legolas were having a similar reaction, the look of sheer disgust on their faces was almost humorous. Logan patted the Elf on the shoulder and grinned, "Welcome to New York."

~*~

Elrond groaned and dragged himself to his feet. His body ached in more places than he knew possible, but some inner force drove him onward, the same stubborn streak that had helped him survive battles to numerous to count.

Glorfindel rose beside him, the Gondolin Elf was also sore, but he had not been abused as badly as the other three. The only marks on his body were under his chin and on his sternum; four neat puncture wounds cruelly jabbed into his pale skin.

At their feet Thranduil lay unmoving; it did not look as though he would ever move again, truth be told. His golden hair was matted with blood that trickled into a pool around his body. From the looks of his chest, he obviously had some broken ribs, and his right arm and leg were twisted at odd angles from his body. All in all, the former Elven King had the look of a bird after being caught by a particularly vicious cat, broken and bedraggled. Though his chest still rose and fell, his breaths were weak and ragged; Elrond had little hope anyone short of the Valar could save Thranduil now.

He knelt beside the fair-haired elf, and rested a hand on his chest, "Hannon le, mellon nin. You reminded me that Hope does not die unless we let it."

Celeborn watched as Glorfindel helped Elrond to his feet once again, "I cannot move, Elrond."

There was a note of panic in his voice, indiscernable to anyone who did not know him well, but Elrond did. "Stay with your kinsman, Adar. Glorfindel and I will see what can be done, worry not, we will find the twins, as well as Celebrian and Galadriel." Elrond spoke with confidence he did not feel, but he wished to reassure his father-in-law nonetheless.

Celeborn nodded, and dragged his crushed and useless legs across the floor to stretch out beside his dying cousin. "I will not leave him, Elrond. Do what you can."

Elrond nodded and, leaning heavily on each other, the pair made their way to the door.

~*~

The foursome spent the day wandering around the city. The Elves found themselves entirely overwhelmed by the sheer size of the city. Elrohir summed it up nicely when he exclaimed 'it's as big as the entire land of Rohan!' when they arrived in Manhattan that morning.

As the day wore on, they searched all the places where Logan thought itinerant singers might work, and, of course, found nothing of any use. Though many knew of the person Elladan described; a tall, thin man with long red hair and a beautiful singing voice, no one could say exactly where he most often performed.

That night found them on the banks of the Hudson River, wandering among the dark warehouses and sheds that lined the docks. There was a terrible stench of dead fish, human sweat and bile, and something else undefinable. Something poisonous.

The buildings were all somewhat ramshackle, the glass broken in the windows, some of the doors broken open. Inside there were the remnants of factory equipment, large decrepit hunks of metal covered in bird and rat feces. They found themselves loathe to explore these reminders of a time when child labor all but ran the city, and no one thought twice about it.

"Do you honestly think he lives around here, Logan?" Elladan voiced the question he'd been arguing with his brother and friend for the past ten minutes.

Logan had opted to remain with them upon arriving in the city, he was afraid of what they would do all alone there and had come to care for the strange threesome despite himself. "I don't know, but lots of homeless people come here. Cops don't bother checking these old warehouses, so they can sleep here with very little disturbance, plus they're out of the elements."

Elladan nodded, "Well, we may as well check."

Elrohir took the lead, guiding them between two squat buildings toward a short pier. Elladan and Legolas followed a short distance behind, with Logan bringing up the rear a good ten feet back.

It was at the moment Elladan and Legolas emerged from between the two buildings, stepping out of the shadows, the attack came; Xiaoli came from above, legs tucked neatly beneath her, daggers drawn and at ready.

As her feet touched lightly down on the pavement, she swung a leg around and cracked Legolas across the face before he could react. The Elf staggered back under the force of the blow. Pressing her advantage, Xiaoli spun around and drove a knife into Elladan's trunk before he could even raise an arm to deflect the blow.

As the knife struck home with a soft crunching noise, Logan cried out in warning. Elrohir spun around in time to see his brother fall back, a stunned look on the elder twin's face. Without a second thought, Elrohir drew the katana blade Xiaoli had left behind at Logan's house and attacked.

Leading with a powerful forehand blow, he struck hard enough to split his much smaller adversary nearly in two. She evaded with surprising speed for a mortal, and in a single fluid gesture flung a pencil thin throwing knife at Legolas, who was just recovering from receiving her foot in his jaw.

He attempted to dodge the blade as it spun through the air on a deadly course. It was lucky for him he did, for though it did not strike a killing blow, the tiny knife laid open his face diagonally, from his nostril to his eyebrow, ruining one of his blue eyes permanently.

Elrohir did not wait to see if Legolas was all right, but followed his forehand with a backhand slash that Xiaoli parried with surprising penache. "Who are you!" He growled, and they circled each other, each sizing up their opponent.

"My name is Xiaoli, I am here to kill you. That's all you need to know." Xiaoli figured it was only polite to tell the guy he was about to die, after all, he was kind of cute. If he wasn't about to die, she would probably be finding other activities to do with him, things almost as fun as fighting a duel to the death.

She bit back a chuckle at that last thought.

Elrohir had no idea why the girl was smiling, but he fully intended to wipe that vicious grin off her face. Without waiting for an opening, he attacked forcefully, but she evaded with grace and waited for his next blow.

Sighing, Elrohir recognized her tactic; she was trying to size him up, letting him attack until he turned blue in the face, all the while parrying and evading his blows and searching for a weakness.

Well that wasn't going to work tonight. He would just have to force her to fight back. Having decided upon a strategy, he pressed his attack, the lightweight katana in his hand making soft swishing sounds in the air as the blade cut deadly arcs through the air.

But no matter how he attacked, no matter what angle he came from, she still managed to avoid the slow and painful death he had intended for her. As a result, Elrohir was becoming uncharacteristically frustrated, and his temper was fraying dangerously.

Xiaoli noted this gleefully, and continued studying his style. He was good, she had to give him that; his strikes were precise, and packed quite a punch. It took all her strength to parry them, even though she did her damnedest to make it look easy.

There, right there. That was his weakness. She had been watching with a careful eye, cunningly avoiding his strongest blows, so as not to be crushed, when it occurred to her; everytime he struck with a forehand, he followed up with a backhand slash. It took only a split second for him to turn his wrist three quarters to make that strike, but she would have to make it work.

Her eyes gleamed as she waited patiently, egging him on with a big grin and chuckle everytime she avoided another of his blows. Soon enough, he soon lost his temper, and came at her with his most powerful blow, a forehand strike.

Legolas was watching the battle unfold through his left eye, as his right was currently pouring blood all over his face and chest. He saw her prepare to attack, noting the change in her stance, and the wicked gleam in her eye. She had found a weakness, and, blinded by his rare show of temper, Elrohir would follow his forefathers into the Halls of Mandos if he was not warned.

There was no time to call out a warning, so Legolas simply acted; he dove forward, catching the girl about the waist and propelling them both forward in a tackle that would make any linebacker for the Green Bay Packers proud.

Xiaoli watched as Elrohir completed the forehand strike, the blade arcing gracefully through the air. As he prepared to follow up with a backhand, she raised her blade, ready to drive it right into his unprotected heart. Just as she was about to strike, a sudden weight struck her around the waist and drove her into the waters of the Hudson.

Elrohir was startled when his backhand met with thin air and, following the sound of the splash, he could see Xiaoli and Legolas scuffling on the surface of the murky river, then they disappeared under for several long moments.

Waiting with bated breath, Elrohir prayed silently to Eru and all the Valar that Legolas was all right. The seconds passed, the only disturbance on the surface now was bubbles floating to the surface. Elrohir scanned the river in panic, terrified that his longtime friend was not going to reappear. Just when it seemed that no one could survive underwater that long, a body floated to the surface, blonde hair spread around his head like a halo.

He was facedown in the water and not moving. Elrohir dropped the katana and dove in after his friend. He reached Legolas quickly, his strong arms propelling him through the water reminded him of all the times Elrond had told the twins they were more like fish than elflings.

As he wrapped his arms around his unconscious friend, he wondered why on earth these bizarre things popped into his head at such critical moments. Elrohir dragged the former Prince of Mirkwood back to the pier, and hauled him up on the dock. The golden haired Elf was bleeding from several wounds, the worst of them was on his head, though. It looked as though his right eye was completely ruined.

As he quickly made note of Legolas' injuries, a soft sobbing noise caught his attention. Looking up, Elrohir easily located the source of the sound.

It was Logan, and he was cradling what appeared to be a body in his arms.

"Oh Valar, no! Elladan!"

Elrohir forgot about Legolas entirely as he ran to his brother's inert form. Time seemed to slow, as he ran those few yards. His heart was pounding in his ears like a drum, drowning out all other sounds.

As he dropped to his knees beside his beloved brother, Elrohir knew instinctively that the wound was mortal. Elladan's breaths were shallow, and he wore a vaguely pained expression on his face. Rising up from his chest in a macabre fashion was the hilt of Xiaoli's knife, almost identical to the one she had tried to kill Legolas with several nights before.

"Nooo!" Elrohir's voice was choked, as grief and shock wrapped themselves around his windpipe. He took his brother in his arms, and cradled him with the care one would take with a newborn infant. "Elladan...."

As Elrohir held his brother's dying form, a hundred thousand memories assailed him; from his very earliest memories to his last image of Elladan, slinging an arm around Legolas' shoulders in a companionable manner and grinning impishly at Elrohir as he took the lead to explore the dock.

"Elrohir..?" Elladan's voice was faint, Elrohir had to lean his head down to catch it.

"I'm here, brother." He tried to make his voice reassuring, but it was impossible. His very best friend in the world, the one who knew all his secrets, who understood him relentlessly, was dying in his arms.

"The sky...it's different."

"What?" Elrohir's brow furrowed as he tried to divine what his brother was talking about.

"Earendil no longer shines."

Startled at those words Elrohir looked up, and sure enough, Earendil was not there. He looked back down at his brother, to ask what made him think of that, but Elladan's silver eyes were forever closed.

The firstborn son of Elrond Peredhil was dead.

~*~

*backs slowly away* Um, no killing now! I can't fix it if I'm dead, you know? *looks nervously at Pennsuleien and Saber*

*turns and runs*