"The snow is still falling!" Legolas exclaimed, peering out through the window for the fourth time in as many hours. "After so many years in this warmer land, I had begun to believe I would never see the like of it again."

Eowyn smiled and looked up from her embroidery. She sat near the fireplace, for the sudden onslaught of winter had reminded her of how old her bones had become and this frigid cold attacked them without thought to age or health.

"I confess that I have missed winters such as this," she said, completing a stitch. "But, alas, I cannot enjoy them as I once did." She set down the needle and rubbed at her hands, the knuckles swollen and inflamed. Swallowing a small groan of pain, she flexed her fingers and picked up her needle once more. Through the pain, she was still able to smile as she remembered wintry days long ago.

"Eomer was such a brute," she began. "We would find drifts created by the winds that swept through the valley and leap into them. Sometimes he would throw me into one if he was feeling particularly vile. Once I got stuck and he would not help me free myself. All the threats I made had no effect on him. He was intent to let me freeze."

Legolas laughed as he continued to look out through the window. "So who rescued you?"

"I did, naturally," she stated with some pride. "Sisters cannot rely on brothers to act honorably."

Legolas turned and smiled at her warmly. "In many ways elven and human children are so alike, no matter the season. Tossing one another into snow drifts, rivers, or mud puddles." He was about to sit down in the chair opposite her, but paused before he was seated. "Where is Gimli?"

Eowyn laughed. "Do you not remember? The snow must indeed have entranced you! He said he was crafting something and would be preoccupied for several hours."

"It was kind of Faramir to allow Gimli the use of the smith's forge," Legolas said. "Perhaps too kind."

Eowyn shrugged. "We did not want him to fall to grumpy spirits whenever he came to visit us. The incessant hammering is not bothersome."

"More understanding hosts I have never known," he said, rising. He took her hand and brought it to his lips. "Your leave, my lady. Though I would stay by your side rather than venture out on such a cold day, I must see what that dwarf is up to."

"Legolas, Legolas," she said, and clucked her tongue in reproach. "Your manner would have me thinking I am a fair and spry maiden again if I knew no better that the cold affects you not at all." She withdrew her hand from his fingers. "See to Gimli. If he has worked overly much, drag him in by the beard if you have to! He is not the young lad he once was." She smiled mischieviously.

Legolas tried to allow her infectious, youthful humor to invade him as it always had, but now it seemed the wrinkles on her brow and around her lips were deeper, more numerous. When he had kissed her hand, the knuckles had exuded the heat of inflammation, the skin stretched tight and thin over the five individual afflictions, an illness duplicated on the gnarled hand that lay in her lap. Her hair, which he remembered vividly on the Pelennor Fields as golden and shimmering as the sun, had become coarse and silver. It was a no less dazzling hue, but every strand, however pure, was marked by the passage of years that had left him unmarred.

But for a brief, painful moment he felt those years weigh upon him, as though he had lived them himself and been marked by them the same as she. He felt them as she had felt them. As she still did.

He saw her eyes, the same brilliant and sharp blue gaze that had defied a wraith, settle on his pained expression and shrewdly discern what troubled his mind so. She returned her hand to his and clasped both of them with the other. "None of us are as young as we once were. Would it cheer you if I said that you have aged?" Again, the warm smile that had soothed the hurts, fears and sorrows of a husband and children now was unleashed upon him and he felt as he knew Faramir had felt when the fair maid from Rohan had first assured him of her love. All was peace, tranquility and as it should be.

"Go see to Gimli," Eowyn said, patting his hand. She told herself she did not notice the only slightly-roughened skin of this centuries-old warrior. She relinquished her hold after savoring its eternal vigor and strength. "Be well, my friend."

Legolas bowed his head, turned, and left the room.

THE END