Growing Roots

A house of his own?  It was, he supposed, a good idea.  There was really no need for him to wander like a rootless vagabond.  But here?  He looked doubtfully around the wide room furnished with nothing but Anor’s rays.  Finrod had assured him that the house was in the High King’s gift – had been the home of a cousin, he had said vaguely, who would not return to dwell in Tirion.  Better, Legolas had decided at the time, to enquire no further.  He was not sure he wanted to know any more than he had to about Finrod’s cousins.

It was far too big for him.  He went from room to room, looking out the windows at the wide gardens.  Finrod had laughed when he protested and pointed out that if was about time he returned some of the hospitality he had received over the past century.  Which brought problems of its own.  And then – how in Arda’s name was he to fund living in such a style?  He had no lands, no taxes to bring him in money, no skills that could bring him wealth – no time to earn.  He was far too busy working to represent his people, spread across the face of the Blessed Realm.   Yet he could not ask those who dwelt hand to mouth in the forest to provide of the little they had so that he might live in pretentious grandeur.  And neither could he live on Noldor charity.  He grinned.  His adar would have his ears.

Elrond watched him sympathetically.  ‘It is not as bad as it seems,’ he said.  ‘There are several farms attached to the estate that provide food and raw materials.  They have, in recent years, been sending that to the king’s agents – to be stored or sold.  The funds will have been held to maintain the house and improve the land.  They will come to you along with the title.  The farmers know what they are doing – and you would have little need to manage them.  The house is unstaffed – save for a caretaker – but that is probably for the best.  I cannot imagine that you would want a house filled with Noldor servants.’

‘It is all very well for you…’  Legolas drew a deep breath.  ‘Your lady is Finarfin’s granddaughter.  You are yourself the descendant of Fingolfin.  It is more than reasonable that the High King should ensure that you have somewhere to live that befits your status in his realm.  I am no kin to him.’

Elrond acknowledged his concern.  ‘Olwë would house you, if you preferred,’ he suggested.  ‘But Tirion would be a more central situation and give you better access to the places where the Wood Elves have gathered.’

‘I would be better setting up home among them,’ Legolas murmured.

‘Debatable.’  Elrond shrugged as the Woodland Prince frowned at him.  ‘To serve them best, you need to be at the centre of power.  Valmar and Alqualondë have their strengths – and I would suggest that you establish representatives in both, as well as keeping a presence on Tol Eressëa – but this is where the decisions are made.’

Legolas sighed.  ‘I am not equipped to manage a household,’ he admitted.  ‘I am none too sure what is involved. Not in detail.’

‘You need a wife,’ Elrond teased, then held up a placating hand at Legolas’s reproachful glare.  ‘Celebrían will help – she knows the importance of setting the right people in the right place.  Once that is done, the household will run itself – more or less.’ 

‘There are those who carried out key roles in running the Stronghold,’ Legolas mused.  ‘Galion has not sailed, but his assistant lives on Tol Eressëa – and Adar’s housekeeper travelled west when her son died.’

‘Find the right people – and delegate,’ Elrond shrugged.  ‘You have too much to do to concern yourself with day to day management.’  He paused.  ‘You will accept Finarfin’s offer?’

‘In the hope that, one day, I will be able to reciprocate and offer a similar boon to those representing the Noldor.  Yes,’ Legolas said reluctantly.  ‘I will accept it.’  He shot a sharp glance at the former Lord of Imladris.  ‘I should ask who once dwelt here – in the certain knowledge that, if there is something I would rather not know, someone is bound to tell me.’

Elrond laughed.  ‘Even in the Blessed Realm, nothing lasts indefinitely, Thranduilion.  This is not the former home of Fëanor or any of his sons.  One of Eärwen’s nephews lived here for a few yeni while his atar and he were – er – on not very good terms.  He has long since returned to Alqualondë – and I believe Finarfin was hoping to bestow the estate on my adar-in-law.’  He shook his head in amusement.  ‘But he has not yet arrived – and Finarfin is less than pleased with him.’  He grinned.  ‘His displeasure with Celeborn is to your benefit, however – and the benefit of your people.’

***

The wind whipped his fair hair across his face and the salt stung his eyes, but he could not suppress the excited grin on his face.  No reason why he should, either – there was no better way to get on with the sons of Alqualondë than to relish flying across the surface of the sun-silvered sea in a small vessel cutting a wake of foaming white.

‘Not many of the tree-folk are prepared to risk their lives on the bottomless sea,’ Espalas remarked.  ‘They seem to feel unsafe away from anything that has roots.’

‘I used it as way to challenge the sea-longing,’ Legolas admitted.  ‘To abandon myself to the waters – and then return to the land, because I chose to do so.  The sons of Dol Amroth’s Prince were only too happy to teach me how to sail a dinghy – they would face any conditions and laugh in the face of the fiercest storms.  It was terrifying at times – but nothing I have ever done matched the exhilaration.’

The Teler grinned.  ‘I would have liked to know them,’ he said cheerfully.  ‘There are not many who are prepared to cast themselves on Ulmo’s mercy.’  He moved the tiller to keep the small vessel quartering on the wind.  ‘Did it help?’

‘Help?’

‘With the sea-longing.’

‘Oddly, yes.’  Legolas eyed the pennant at the mast-head.  ‘It soothed the ache – and made the wait easier.  Until the next time the need came, anyway.’  He glanced at Espalas.  ‘It worried those who cared about me – I think they saw me setting forth across the Sundering Seas with nothing but what I stood up in, and not realising what I had done until it was too late.’

Espalas shrugged.  ‘Those who do not care for the sea will never understand it.  They look on it as an enemy, while to us it is…’ he smiled, ‘like the water from which we emerge to be born.’

‘I am still an elf of trees, though,’ Legolas added.

‘Well – nobody is perfect.’

They laughed as Espalas brought his craft round the harbour wall to ease its way to the jetty.  ‘You will need to bathe,’ the Teler said. ‘Daeradar is more or less inured to us turning up salt-stained and sticky, but the ladies of the family disapprove very vocally.  My wife would never forgive me if I failed to give you enough time to remove the fragrance of fish and seawater.’

Alqualondë gleamed like a pearl in the afternoon light, heat radiating from the white walls to weigh heavily on the quiet streets.  Away from the sea, elves drifted indoors once Anor was at its highest, sheltering from the warmth and waiting for the shadows of evening to refresh the atmosphere. 

Legolas drew a lungful of warm air scented with the jasmine that tumbled over from the elegantly wrought balconies and found himself thinking of an elleth with hair like dawn sunlight.  They hardly spoke and did their best to avoid being in each other’s company, and yet there was something about her that...  He sighed.  Forget her, he told himself firmly.  Concentrate on making friends – there were Wood Elves here in the forests behind the sea-facing settlements of the Teleri.  They deserved his full attention – and he did not want to worry Olwë as he clearly did Finarfin. 

It was a relief to enter the shady rooms away from the purple bougainvillea and pots of scarlet flowers that adorned the steps and window sills.  The shutters were closed, admitting only a dim light and keeping out the majority of the heat.  At least, he smiled reminiscently, this city of the Teleri did not have the smell of fish and rotting seaweed that had been such an inevitable part of summer in Dol Amroth.  It would not, of course.  Alqualondë was part of the Blessed Realm and the smell of a port in summer was far too mundane to be permitted this side of the sea.

He stripped off the sea-dampened clothes that had dried in the sun only to dampen again as he sweated his way up the hill, and hoped briefly that there was someone here who would remove them to return them fresh and pressed for him to wear in the morning.  Perhaps he should start carrying more baggage as he journeyed from wood to wood.  He grinned at the thought.  A pack horse or two, maybe, laden with embroidered tunics and silk robes.  He could just see the faces of the Wood Elves as Thranduil’s son turned up prepared to primp himself up like an elleth going to her first ball.  They would never take him seriously.  On the other hand… he washed himself swiftly, enjoying the cool water on his skin… there were those who would never take him seriously if he dressed like a practical elf – those to whom the show was the substance.  Perhaps… he slowed as he turned over the thought… perhaps he did need a base here as well as in Tirion and on the Lonely Isle.  Perhaps he needed somewhere he could leave a few things – and someone who could be his voice when he was elsewhere.  He ran the comb through his damp hair and sighed: this was all getting far too complicated for a straightforward warrior like him.

Had Elu Thingol looked like his brother, Legolas wondered as he sat at the king’s table beside his gentle queen.  Olwë had the wisdom of ages in his eyes, and a patient endurance about him – like one who had been tried and found worthy.  His silver hair resembled Celeborn’s, but fell freely over his shoulders and poured down his back like water cascading from the cliffs to the sea.  No braids to keep it from his bowstring or to bind it out of his eyes while he fought.  Only the pearl-studded circlet that hinted at his authority blended in with his mane – as if, even here, he felt no need to assert himself.

‘My grandson says that you clearly have Teleri blood in you,’ the queen smiled.  ‘Espalas has little time for those who are not at home on the water – I fear you have passed the test and he has taken you as a friend.’

‘Well – my naneth was Silvan,’ Legolas grinned, ‘but my adar’s kin came out of Doriath to become Sindar princes of the Great Forest.  Since Elu and Olwë were brothers, that must make me kin of some degree.’

She shook her head.  ‘It takes more than a kinship of blood to make my grandson accept an elf as worthy – he is far more impressed by a reckless disregard for safety in a small boat.’ She touched a warning hand to his knuckles.  ‘I promised my granddaughter that you would come to no harm in Alqualondë,’ she said.  ‘Take no foolish risks, child.  You are your adar’s only son – and your people’s hope.’

Legolas’s eyes softened.  He could never have had a better or wiser upbringing than that his adar had given him, but he sometimes wondered what it would have been like to grow up with a naneth’s love.  ‘I will take care, my lady,’ he promised.

‘You are not alone,’ she told him.  ‘And there are many here who will offer you all the aid they can.’

Legolas glanced towards her husband.

‘He cannot say so, of course,’ she said serenely.  ‘It would be undiplomatic.  But rest assured that I would not suggest anything with which I did not know he would agree.’  She patted his hand.  ‘And I am told to keep an eye on those hunting you as well.’  Her eyes were shrewd.  ‘I give you fair warning – I think my granddaughter has plans for you.  You might want to start running now.’

***

He hated to admit, but Legolas actually found that he rather liked Tirion.  They would probably be deeply insulted if he told them, but it reminded him a little of Minas Tirith.  Alqualondë had little of the vivacity he remembered from Dol Amroth and was a bit too tuned to the song of the sea – and Valmar was just – he frowned – it was just too contemplative.  Nobody seemed to say anything that was not laced with layers of meaning.  Tirion, however, was full of busy people all concerned with their own business and to whom the fascinations of the court meant little.  Except, he grinned, when they could profit from them.

Legolas stepped back into the shadow of a striped awning and watched a stallholder allow himself to be bartered down from a ridiculous figure on the first strawberries to one that was only extortionate.  The ellon negotiating for them snapped his fingers authoritatively and two lesser servants came forward to shoulder the boxes and carry them up to Finarfin’s house.  The stallholder bowed and offered baby carrots and early peas at a rather more reasonable rate. 

Filigon should feel proud of himself, Legolas mused.  If he regularly made that much on the crops he sold, it was no wonder that Maenas was able to display account books with such satisfactory figures.  The estate here not only paid for itself, it also provided enough money for him to filter small amounts into supporting Wood Elf projects across a range of areas.  Many themselves, he was told, now earning their own profits.

Not that he could take that much credit.  He had been astonished when Celebrían had taken him to one side and patiently instructed him on how to exploit the weaknesses of the Noldor to establish his position in the city, but everything she had said had proved to be right.  He was not, he occasionally thought, sure how Thranduil would feel about it – his son had, after all, spent his years in Lasgalen serving in the patrols that attempted to keep the forest safe – but he suspected that his adar might, at least, be impressed by his ability to balance the books.

The freshness of the early morning breeze flapped the awnings and made him turn his head to keep the hair from his eyes.  A glimpse of copper among the dark heads of the Noldor drew his attention.  Legolas raised his eyebrows.  What was she doing out in the town so early in the morning?  It was not as if either of her parents would want her to do the marketing – and Nisimalotë would definitely send her housekeeper to seek out goods from this early produce market, however much she might like to shop later in the day at the small exclusive craft stalls set up in the shade of the sheltering trees.

Almost without noticing, he began to trail her as she wove her way through the busy market.  She had a purpose, he realised and wondered what it might be, slowing suddenly as he thought that she might be going to meet someone – a friend she wished to keep hidden from her family.  His jaw tightened.  He hoped not – he did not think she would … would look at him when they met, not if she was interested in someone else.  But then, he brooded, why should she not seek to find someone whose fëa called to her?  It was not as if he had made any attempt to treat her as more than the sister of a friend.  One who was sometimes inconveniently in the way when he visited, but whose presence or absence meant nothing to him.

In his distraction he had lost sight of her.  He stopped and frowned at the people who had dared to block her from his line of vision.

‘Were you looking for someone?’  There was a sharpness to her light voice that suggested she was less than pleased.  ‘What gives you the right to follow me, my lord?’

Legolas opened his mouth, then closed it abruptly as a sudden flush coloured his cheeks.  ‘My apologies, my lady,’ he said meekly.  ‘I did not think through what I was doing – or consider how my actions might seem.’

Elerrina held his eyes for a moment, chin in the air so that she could look down her nose at him.  ‘What makes you so inquisitive about my actions, my lord?’

‘Can you not bring yourself to call me Legolas, my lady?’ He smiled winningly.  ‘I find myself drowning in formality, here in Tirion – and I would appreciate it.’

‘I could,’ she granted, ‘if, that is, I wanted to become the topic of gossip throughout the Blessed Realm.  What has she done, they would ask, to earn her a favour denied to all the other ellyth in Tirion?  I dread to think what else might be said about me.  I doubt my atar would be very happy!’

The only thing that he could do that would make Taryatur happy, Legolas suspected, was to remove himself permanently from his daughter’s vicinity – and that was something he was not prepared to do.  ‘Will you permit me to escort you wherever you are going, Lady Elerrina?’ he asked.

‘I do not require an escort.’  The snub was definite.  Her green-tinted eyes held his as he hesitated, then bowed in acceptance.  ‘However,’ she said, mollified, ‘if you wish to walk with me, you may.’

‘Thank you,’ he said meekly.   She looked at him suspiciously, but he concealed any amusement and gravely offered his arm.  ‘Where may I walk with you?’

She paused.  ‘The gardens are beautiful at this time of day,’ she suggested.

‘But you were not going to the gardens.’  He raised an eyebrow.  ‘I would not want my presence to prevent you from completing whatever task was driving you.’  He drew her back as a handcart laden with produce bullied its way between the stalls.  ‘But we had best not remain here too long – or we will be the topic of petty gossip anyway.’

She sighed in clear frustration.  ‘Very well,’ she agreed.  She frowned at him, making him smile in return.  ‘But I do not want you spreading this around!’

‘You have my word,’ Legolas said promptly. ‘Your secrets are mine!’

Her frown deepened.  ‘That is just foolish,’ she informed him. ‘You have no idea what you have committed yourself to keeping secret.’

He grinned.  ‘If you wish something kept in confidence, my lady, that is enough for me.’

‘And that is patronising.’  She shook her head.  ‘That is assuming that any secrets I might have are insignificant – that merely because I am an elleth, I can have no part in greater matters.’  She glanced sideways at him.  ‘It would serve you right to discover that, in your arrogance, you have now committed yourself to a plot against the High King.’

‘Have I?’ he asked, the warmth of his smile reflecting in his eyes.

She sighed.  ‘No.  Unfortunately my business today is just that – my business.’

‘Your glass?’ he asked.

She stopped, so that he turned to face her.

‘Your brother is very proud of you,’ he said.  ‘And the pieces I have seen are very special.  I do not know why you are so keen to keep your skill quiet.’

‘Because I am an elleth, of course.’  She started walking again.  ‘And so I am supposed to be skilled in areas that are appropriate for my gender.’  She smiled wryly.  ‘It is said that people can work in whatever role suits them and that no-one is restricted from learning because of being ellon or elleth – but it is not strictly true.  Weaving and spinning, stitchery, healing and educating children – those are considered roles very suitable for a maiden.  Working in a forge, or making glass – those are things that ellyn do.  And politics – well, just look at who fills the councils of the powerful.   Not an elleth to be seen.  Except, on occasion, the Lady Galadriel – and she is the High King’s daughter.’

‘The Lady Nerdanel is famed throughout Arda as an artist in the forge,’ Legolas protested.

‘Another reason for me to keep my skills quiet.’

This time Legolas stopped and looked her full in the face.  ‘I disagree, Elerrina,’ he said intensely.  ‘You have no reason to feel anything other than proud of yourself and what you do.  None at all.’  Involuntarily he raised a hand to touch her cheek, but stopped himself a few inches away, leaving his fingers caressing the air. 

Elerrina closed her eyes briefly and shook her head slightly from side to side as if she did not know how to stop.  ‘Thank you, Lord Legolas,’ she said, stepping back.  ‘I will not take you further out of your way.’   Her eyes met his briefly, and, before he could recover the power of movement, she was gone.

***

The shelter of trees was soothing – and they sang with similar voices to those with which he grew up.

‘You waste too much time in Tirion,’ Haldir sniffed.

‘Perhaps.’  Legolas relaxed in the talan high above the forest floor.  ‘Although some would say what I do is necessary.’

‘Perhaps.’  Haldir smiled wryly.  ‘I would not want to do it.’

‘You did not feel that your duty was to stay with Lady Galadriel?’  Legolas asked.  He had long wondered why this one of the Galadhrim had settled in a dense forest in the foothills of the Pelori rather than remaining close to his lord’s wife.

‘She asked me why I should wait in misery for Lord Celeborn – when she would be quite safe in the care of her family.’  He shrugged.  ‘She said she would send me word if she required our service.’

‘And has she?’  Legolas flicked an amused glance at the march warden of the Golden Wood.

He sniffed again.

Legolas understood the resentment under the reaction.  ‘She is her adar’s daughter as well as Lord Celeborn’s wife,’ he said mildly.  ‘And she has been parted from her family for a long time.’

‘But what will our lord do when he lands?’  Haldir looked around him contemptuously.  ‘This is no home for the Lord of Lothlórien – for Elu’s kin.’

‘There will be a home for him.’  Legolas spoke with certainty.  He paused.   ‘His lady gives him the right to demand the High King’s support.  Finarfin will grant his son by marriage much that he would not give to any other.’

Haldir ran his fingers over the wood grain absently.  ‘He seems to favour you,’ he observed.  ‘And you like playing the Noldor prince.’

‘You are old enough to understand politics.’  Legolas stared at him, his eyes hard.  ‘Even if you do not wish to play them.  The power here is in the High King’s hands – if we wish to have our needs taken seriously, we need a voice at court.’

‘I wish my lord would come.’  Haldir sounded hollow.  ‘We are wasting time here twiddling our thumbs and scratching around for things to do – while the Noldor farmers look at us as if we are a threat to their safety.’

Legolas drew a breath.  ‘A threat?’

Haldir’s smile twisted.  ‘Do they not think we notice that they keep their daughters behind walls and plough their fields in parties – some of them armed with stout sticks or carrying scythes?’

‘Do they have any reason to fear those of the wood?’ 

‘What do you take us for?’ Haldir stiffened.

‘It is not what I think.’  Legolas glanced towards the broad plain beyond the trees.  ‘If they are afraid…  There must be some reason behind it – even if it is in their own heads.’

‘There are some who gather in the villages – whipping up their feeling against anything that has not been in place for more than an age.  A few of our younger elves are enraged by what they see as prejudice and like to swagger into the inns – just to annoy the farmers.  They are the veterans of the battles for the Golden Wood – they are not used to being looked on as orcs.’

‘Come, Haldir!’  Legolas slapped his hand down on the wooden platform.  ‘You know better than to tolerate such stupidity!  We cannot afford to make enemies.’

‘You would bear their insults?’ the march warden hissed. 

‘Yes!’ Legolas declared.  ‘It is only for now.  A little pain will produce so much more gain.  If we turn the Noldor against us we will get nowhere.’

‘You would lick their boots?  And let them treat you as their lap-dog?’

Legolas tightened his jaw until his teeth ached.  ‘I would have you behave as befits a leader,’ he said.  ‘That means keeping your people under control.  And if you cannot do that…’ He left his threat unfinished.  After all, what could he do?  Haldir was answerable not to him, but to Celeborn – who lingered east of the sea.  Perhaps Galadriel…  But then again, perhaps Galadriel kept her distance deliberately rather than be defied by those who still looked on her as a foreign exile.

Haldir’s mist-grey eyes met his.  Whatever his faults, the elf did not lack courage.  ‘I have no authority, lord prince,’ he snapped.  ‘I am simply one of the Galadhrim, answerable to my lord.’

Legolas bent his head and ran his tense fingers through his hair.  ‘Then take the authority,’ he said.  ‘A power vacuum creates chaos – Lord Celeborn will not thank you for allowing his people to lose their way.’  He rolled his shoulders and stared intently at the other.  ‘Do what you know your lord would have you do.’  He sighed. ‘If I had known to what straits the sea-longing would have brought me,’ he murmured to himself, ‘I would have fought even harder not to sail.’ He shook his head with resignation.  ‘Do I need to find someone to invest you with the power, Haldir?  The Lady, perhaps?  Or Lady Celebrían?  Or do you have the strength of will to take charge and do what needs to be done, merely because it needs to be done?’

The talan moved slightly in the breeze that stirred the canopy, rocking them gently as a naneth’s arms comforted her fretful children.  ‘I will see to it,’ Haldir agreed grudgingly.  ‘The Galadhrim will not let my lord down.’

Well, Legolas sighed.  That was probably the most he could achieve – and more than he had any right to expect.  Once committed, Haldir would work loyally for their cause – and he was an elf worth having by your side.  ‘Then let us make plans, my friend,’ he said.

***

‘It is beautiful, my daughter,’ Taryatur said with affectionate pride as he held Elerrina’s latest design to catch the light.  ‘Like flowers preserved in crystal.’

She smiled. ‘It is only glass, Atar,’ she pointed out. 

‘It is more than that,’ he insisted.  ‘You have taken something remarkably simple and turned into an art form – the elves of Tirion flaunt your pieces, yet ignore the jewels crafted by others.’

‘It is fashion, no more than that.’

‘Perhaps that has something to do with it,’ he admitted, ‘but there is not a Noldo in existence who would prize fashion over beauty.  These are both elegant and stylish – and they are different.’  Taryatur smiled at his daughter.  ‘Your talent grows with your experience, my child – you have outstripped my skill by far.’

‘Only in this!’ she protested. ‘I do not have anywhere near your talent for colouring glass or for making vessels.’  She slipped her hands round his arm and held him affectionately.  ‘You see my work through the eyes of love, Atar.’

He rested his cheek briefly against her braided hair.  ‘I see nothing that is not there, my star-child.’ 

She leaned back and looked at him before planting a swift kiss on his cheek.  ‘Do we have to return to Tirion so soon?’ she asked.  ‘It is so much more comfortable here.’

He tapped her gently on the nose with his forefinger.  ‘Your amil is happiest there,’ he said.  ‘She would not want to dwell so far from your brother.  And there is little point our making all these items if we cannot make them available to others – we already have enough to fill every shelf we own.’

Elerrina sighed.  ‘Spending so much time at court is tiresome,’ she said.  ‘I would rather be away from all those watching eyes – and doing something more meaningful.’

‘Has he been bothering you again?’  Taryatur sounded resentful.

‘He does not bother me, Atar.’  Elerrina took the glass globe from his hands and wrapped it in the soft cloth.  ‘I do not understand why you dislike him so much.  He is always very courteous.’

‘It is bad enough that your brother must spend so much time in his company!’  Taryatur heard the edge in his voice and closed his eyes, taking a couple of deep breaths to steady himself.  ‘He is … scarred,’ he said after a moment.  ‘He has seen and done things that you cannot understand.  I do not want you to set your heart on him, my daughter.  He will only do you harm.’

His words hung between them as she continued to pack away the latest products of her craft.  ‘I will not do anything you would not like, Atar,’ she said softly.

A tall figure, broader in the shoulder than was common among elves blocked the light coming through the doorway.  ‘There you are,’ Taryatur’s atar-in-law said.  ‘Mahtan has a visitor sent from Lord Aulë’s court to whom he wishes to introduce his kin.’  He moved forward into the rectangle of bright sun from the window. 

Behind him a slighter figure entered.  A pair of blue-grey eyes met Taryatur’s somewhat deprecatingly.

Did that Endórë-spawned elf get everywhere?   Even as his precious daughter stood quietly, half in his shadow, he could feel the shift in her balance, as something in her yearned to move towards the Wood Elf.  A surge of resentment tightened his throat. Would he leave her nowhere to hold as a sanctuary from him?  Everywhere she went, there he was, his eyes devouring her without his even realising it.  At least here she had been able to get away from thoughts of him – but no longer.

Linevendë’s atar looked at him with amusement, a challenge in his glance that seemed to demand how his son-in-law liked having an unsuitable suitor sniffing around his only daughter. ‘Andatar wished to see you, Taryatur,’ he said with a certain relish.  ‘I am sure we can leave Elerrina to show Legolas around.’  He smiled at her benevolently.  ‘Join us for dinner, Legolas,’ he added amiably.  ‘There is no need to hurry your tour – there is plenty to see here, and Elerrina knows the area well.’

With an almost audible grinding of teeth, Taryatur followed the older elf out of the workshop, pausing only to threaten Legolas with a glare fierce enough to be almost physical, leaving behind him an atmosphere heavy with suspicion.

‘Well,’ Legolas smiled, ‘I am at your command, my lady.’

***

Elerrina walked at a discreet distance, keeping her eyes averted, even as she chatted pleasantly about the trees she had known since her earliest years, and he was careful not to say anything in response that might make her retreat even further. 

‘What brings you here, Lord Legolas?’ she asked finally.

He smiled wryly.  ‘Nothing of which you would disapprove,’ he assured her and fell silent for a few moments as he followed her up the steep slope behind the workshops. Finally he sighed.  ‘My … my friend and brother entrusted me with a duty before he died.’

She looked at him wide-eyed.

‘You have doubtless heard of Gimli,’ he said.  ‘I am sure the gossip about the pair of us spread far beyond the shores of Tol Eressëa.’ He noted the incline of her head.  ‘He spent much of the later years of his life in the lands of his birth accumulating as much as he could of the history of his people – he believed that his race was unlikely to survive the current age and wished me to place the knowledge in the hands of Mahal, where it would remain preserved until the world is remade.’  He sighed.  ‘I have been putting it off,’ he admitted.  ‘I did not wish to part with what I had left of him – I felt that handing his legacy to Lord Aulë would be bidding him a final farewell and accepting that my life would move on in his absence.’

He felt her sympathy even in her silence and turned his head to see her green-grey eyes fixed on him.  They stared at each other like a pair of cats, before the colour rose in Elerrina’s cheeks and she looked down, breathing as if she had been running.  Legolas swallowed.

‘It is impossible,’ he said.

‘Totally impossible,’ she agreed.  ‘It must not be – and therefore it cannot mean what it seems to mean.’

He attempted to untangle her words.  ‘I am not sure that you are right,’ he frowned.

‘I must be,’ she told him firmly.  ‘Otherwise I must tell you to keep your distance – and that it would be better if we never saw each other again.’

‘I cannot keep away from Tirion.’  Legolas looked at his hands and then up again.  ‘It is my duty to my adar – to my people – to support them wherever I can.’

‘I cannot keep away from Tirion,’ she declared.  ‘It is the home of my kin – and my brother lives there.’

‘Then we must determine that we will merely be friends.’  He remained motionless.  ‘I am not sure that I can do it.’

‘You must.’  Elerrina lifted her chin.  ‘I must.’  She looked up from the forest floor and forced a smile.  ‘Lord Aulë received you well?’

‘With great courtesy,’ Legolas inclined his head.  ‘He questioned me at length about those of his people I had come to know – and we talked of Gimli.’   He started to walk. 

‘You must miss him.’

He stopped and turned towards her.  ‘He was … he was my friend,’ he said.  ‘I always knew – intellectually – that our days together were numbered, but I loved him.  He tried to endure – he lived longer than any dwarf since the days of Durin – but he was not immortal, and in the end remaining became a burden I could not ask him to bear.’

‘Sometimes,’ she said, ‘you have to accept that love lies in letting go.’

‘You have lost many to the circles beyond the world?’ He kept his voice non-committal, but she heard his resentment at the words he felt to be meaningless.

‘None,’ she admitted.  ‘My knowledge comes merely from books, my lord – and from listening to those with more experience than I will ever gain.’

His eyes softened.  ‘No-one would wish you to learn the pain of losing those you love, my lady.’

‘Even the air of the Blessed Realm cannot protect one from pain,’ she said, her eyes flicking up to meet his.  Briefly, so briefly that he almost doubted it had happened, he felt her fëa brush his, before she broke the link and turned away from him.   Stunned, he tilted his head back and stared accusingly as the apparently innocuous expanse of sky.  Fate and the Valar could not take pleasure in offering him a glimpse of the one whose soul matched his, only to place her beyond his reach, kept from him by ancient enmities and more recent resentments.  Could they?

‘We had best return to Andatar’s house.’  Her voice was subdued, as if she too had received a sight of something that had shaken her.  ‘He will wish to continue teasing my atar, but…’ she glanced doubtfully at the fair-haired elf, ‘please…’  She fell silent as if she did not know how to explain what she wanted to say.

‘I will be good,’ he promised.  ‘There may be no dragons for me to slay, but I will appear oblivious to Taryatur’s disapproval – since you ask it of me, my lady.’