With home behind them, Legolas forged ahead with tireless strokes, riding the eastward flow of the Forest River.  It was not a great distance to Esgaroth; indeed at this rate they could be there by nightfall if they made no delay.  He knew these waters like the back of his hand, though Gimli seemed to doubt that.  The Dwarf was obviously ill at ease as they navigated the rushing rapids, though with little incident.

“Was it only concern for Arod that convinced you to take to boating?” Gimli demanded testily after riding a swift stomach-fluttering dip in the current.

“Not only,” Legolas assured him over the muted roar of the river, guiding their boat with deft hands.  “You may not believe it, but even an Elf may grow horse-sore with time.  And in any case, this was the swifter route.  Nor would I have the gall to make you ride double unto the very threshold of the Mountain.  Honestly, my friend, what do you take me for?”

It was a swift but rather monotonous trip downriver.  With an occasional glance behind, Legolas assured himself the others were still following admirably, Faenon and Nibenon, Beriorchan and Dorthaer.  That last one he would need to consider carefully; appointed by Thranduil, he would not be keen to stay behind in Dale when Legolas would wish him to.  He had been the commander of the royal guard since the days of Oropher, and would not be dismissed easily.  Their eyes met now, and Legolas knew very well that Dorthaer already suspected him.

As planned, the luminous contours of Esgaroth glowed before them in the dark of evening twilight, the city lights reflecting off the shimmering water below.  There they spent a restful night at the hospitality of the Master and his household, who were always willing to accept the Elves when they came.  Those people would be ever grateful to Thranduil and his kin for their succor after the ruin wrought by the dragon, if indeed they did not fairly idolize them.  Legolas did not forget his father’s errands, and saw that his message was dutifully delivered ere they left the city behind.

The clear dawn sun found them on their way again, but this time pushing north to Dale against the current.  It was a more strenuous test of strength and stamina than the day before had been, the river itself against them, but it was nothing five of Thranduil’s Elves were unequal to.  Legolas maintained an almost grueling pace, the silver highlights flashing on his sleeves, driven by an impatience he could not explain adequately even to himself.  He rightly should be dreading the encounter looming ahead, but procrastination had never gained him anything. 

The wind from the north had assumed a definite chill as autumn came on.  It would not be long before the mountaintops saw snow again.  Gimli was dozing contentedly against their packs in front at Legolas’ feet, for they had woken him rather early.  Legolas slowed for a time, his arms burning with fatigue after several hours of incessant rowing.  He could hear the others follow suit behind, gratefully accepting the chance to relax their headlong plunge, for everything of flesh and blood tires eventually.  Erebor could be seen on the horizon, plain as day though it was far yet.  Fixing his eyes upon it, Legolas could only wonder what awaited him beneath that craggy mass of ancient grey stone.  A den of wolves, Thranduil had called it.  A den of Dwarves, certainly, but which was more perilous seemed difficult to say. 

Resolutely they pressed on, hour after hour, three sharp bows cutting through their flowing path as the river guided them north until it turned within sight of Ravenhill, the southern spur of Erebor itself.  That place Legolas remembered well.  Now they passed through the valley that seemed the lap, as it were, of the Mountain.  At long last they sighted the riverside piers and boathouses of the Dale men, a mere league from Erebor’s Gate.

“Legolas!” exclaimed King Bard II, forgetting himself for a moment as he rose from his throne to greet his guest.  The court was all but empty except for them, something Legolas was admittedly rather glad to see, for he had already been spectacle enough.  “Well met, and welcome!  I understand you spent the war in the South.”

“I did, my lord,” Legolas affirmed, accepting the glad comradely embrace as between princes.  He had had little time to do much else besides thrust a silver circlet onto his brow.  His father had been adamant on that point.  “We have returned now, my companion Gimli and I.”

“Ah, yes, the son of Glóin,” Bard said, recognizing him.  Dorthaer and his following had remained at the door, but still well within sight of their charge, at strict and silent attention even as they made an effort not to crowd Bard’s own guard.  “Hail, Gimli Elf-friend!  You have greater courage than many, for not all wars are waged on the battlefield.”  At that Bard turned back to face Legolas, a smile younger than his years lighting his face.  “Now all realms reclaim their heirs,” he said.  “The Greenwood would have been bleaker without you, my friend, though Thranduil has not seen fit to relinquish his reign yet, and may the Valar bless him for it.  Here am I now in the throne of my father.”  He shrugged in gesture of self-evident truth.  “Somehow I did not think the day would never come.”

“I did,” Legolas said.  “Even when I knew you as a boy, I knew the day would come in its own time.  All too soon to my eyes, when I remember the face of your father’s grandfather and the rebuilding we wrought together.”

“Yes,” Bard said, turning to invite his guests up to the dais where the thrones stood in stately array.  “The first Bard is gone now many years, but here is the second.  And Dale rebuilds again.”

There came a rush of restrained footsteps in the side corridor, a clear echo in these halls of whitened stone.  “Mae govannen, Ernil Thranduilion!” began Brand, Bard’s eldest and heir.  “Too long has it been since last I saw you!”

“Three years,” Legolas concurred.  “And it was enough to make a man of you, I see.”  Brand beamed at the compliment.  He was become a strapping young prince, a worthy scion of Bard the Bowman’s line.  “As it was also enough to make a woman of the fair little sprite I remember,” he said, turning to Bard’s daughter Emeldir, sending her into unspoken transports.  “A tree may take on raiment of blossoms in a matter of days, my lady, and the passing years have done you no disservice.” 

“Neither have they to you, my lord,” she returned with a graceful dip that pooled her pale gown on the floor, her eyes aglow like stars. 

Behind them, their mother the Queen had entered, and walking with her was the youngest addition to their burgeoning family, a winsome child with autumn flowers plaited into her auburn hair.  Legolas felt a new smile spread unbidden across his face, for children were a fascination for him.  There were too few among his own people.  Wide eyes of summer blue met his own, bright with innocence and also the endearing but often terrible precocity of youth. 

“Ríel,” her father said,  “show Prince Legolas and Lord Gimli that you know how to greet them properly.”

Regaining an affected poise, the regal manner of the adults reflected almost in jest by this diminutive figure of a princess, Ríel dropped her gaze and offered to them a pair of the most adorable little curtsies Legolas had seen in far too long, her small shoes tapping on the polished stone. 

“You have been blessed in your family, my lord,” Legolas said, offering Bard a bright smile.  “But I am quite sure you have no need for me to tell you so.”

“That I have not,” Bard assured him.  “But if they will excuse us, we may speak more freely on the porch.”

When the pleasantries were concluded they parted ways, Legolas and Gimli following Bard while the Queen resumed charge of the rest of the family.  Except one.  “No, no!” Ríel protested vehemently, not at all pleased with this turn of events, pulling back on her mother’s arm.  “Negonas, Negonas!” 

“Ríel, for shame!” the Queen scolded the recalcitrant child, but Legolas turned and beckoned agreeably, making it difficult for the good Lady to refuse.  Ríel scampered after them eagerly despite the shade of disapproval that passed her father’s face, delighted to at last go where she liked.  Legolas knew he was undermining parental authority, but he could not help himself, almost as much enamored with the child as she was with him. 

“Sit where it pleases you, my lord,” Bard said, indicating the chairs arrayed on the porch.  The sunlit view of Erebor was magnificent.  Legolas did not see his guard for he did not bother to look, but he knew they shadowed him.  He seated himself across from Bard, and Ríel clambered uninvited into his lap.

“Legolas, you will spoil the child before the sun rises on the morrow!” Gimli reproached him.

“I spoil her?” he returned innocently as little fingers wound themselves in his hair.  “Nay, Gimli, I believe it is she who indulges me.”

Bard smiled at their banter.  “You are to both go on to the Mountain?” he inquired.  “Unprecedented, I must say.  I marvel that your good father sent with you no more than four guardsmen.”

“It was the very least he would allow me,” Legolas confided, though the persons in question were well within earshot.  “They have preformed admirably thus far, but we shall see.”

“You have naught to fear from Thorin, I am certain,” the king went on, glancing toward the looming majesty of the mountain as an autumn breeze swept through his raven hair.  “A fine son of Dáin is he, and a finer figure of King Under the Mountain than his namesake, if I dare to say.  Already he has proven himself a worthy neighbor, so that I have little to fear whilst we live in the shadow of his realm.  To be thrice allied with Thranduil in the Greenwood would only strengthen our defense when the ill will of years past is spent, feuds and quarrels forgotten.  The Easterlings would think twice ere they challenged the three kindreds again.”

“So we may hope,” Legolas said, speaking around the shifting form of Ríel in his lap.  “I go to lay the final foundations of that aspiration at Erebor’s roots.  Our – ”  Here he had to pause, as Ríel boldly pulled his circlet from his brow to give the gleaming bauble closer inspection; he paid her no mind, though her father was mortified.  “Our horizons have broadened far already from where they stood but last year, now that there at last is a King in Gondor.”

But Bard had momentarily forgotten their conversation, his face lit with a strange but pleasant expression.  “You were meant to be a father, my lord,” he said at last.  “I may not live to see them, but I know you will sire some wonderful children someday.”

It was a bittersweet thought, for Legolas could still remember a time when there was nothing he had wanted more.  He had often dreamt of his own offspring, a new generation to raise amid the imagined joys of fatherhood.  But that a lifetime ago, before Mirkwood.

“Perhaps,” he said at last.  “It seems I was not promised that happiness in this world, but perhaps in another.”

The moonlight streamed in bright beams through the open window, bathing him in an ethereal glow.  Erebor was softly transfigured as well, constant and unchanging in a shifting world.  It had stood before the Dwarves, and it would stand when the Dwarves were no more.  Tomorrow it would accept an Elf.

“My lord?” Dorthaer inquired from behind him, still veiled in shadow.  He had answered his summons only to be met with pensive silence, but had still waited a few patient moments ere he prompted him.  “You asked for me?”

“I did,” Legolas said, turning at last to face him, a firm air about him.  “It is my wish that you and the others do not follow when I go on to Erebor.”

“Alone?” Dorthaer demanded, incredulous but not entirely surprised.  He was a canny Elf, that one.

“Certainly not,” Legolas assured him, careful to let no trace of a smile touch his face as he turned back to the window.  “I shall not be without Gimli’s company.”

Dorthaer was by no means satisfied with that answer, and Legolas could feel his festering unrest as he was caught between two masters.  “With all due respect, my lord,” he persisted, “I must ask if you know what it is you are attempting.”

“If you mean, do I know what I shall meet within those walls of stone,” Legolas said, “no, I do not.  But I do know how I shall go to meet it, and that is without any more armed escort than Gimli had to protect him in our own realm – which is to say, none.” 

“That is hardly the same!”

“Why so?”  Legolas turned again, feeling that vibrant strain of his father within him coming to the fore, a part of him he must learn to stir more often.  “There is indeed honor among Nogothrim.  They shall not kill me outright any more than you would dare lay a blade to Gimli.  The danger here is not of life and limb, but rather of impressions and appearances.”

Dorthaer was silent a moment in obvious indecision.  “Very well, my lord,” he said at last.  “But ere you force me to neglect the charge I have been given, you might do well give thought to what fate you send us at the hands of your father the King.”

“The King need not know.”  Legolas felt his daring grow now as he deliberately countermanded his father’s command.  “Stay here and await my return.  We shall return to Greenwood together, and none shall be the wiser.  Understand me, Dorthaer,” he said.  “My hands are no freer than your own.  This is what I must do.”