Spanning the Gap

The wood was too green – and the knife too small.  Taryatur restrained his urge to use what Linevendë called unnecessarily expressive language.  He had managed to cut away a quantity of smaller twigs and even sawed at one or two the thickness of his wrist – but the knife would wear down to a stub before he made any impression on the great bough that had fallen to plug the hole.  And behind that, he sighed, the girth of the trunk weighted it in place.

He had hoped, as he clambered over topsoil and leaf litter that, if he could not move the tree, he might at least be able to use the knife and some of the stronger sticks to scrape away the sides of the hole and widen it enough for him to squeeze through – but there was not a chance.  The falling branch had shattered the stone capping the chimney and the edges were solid rock.  It was, if anything, remarkable that Legolas had managed to fall through in the first place – and possibly even more remarkable that Taryatur had been able to follow.

The Noldo rested his head on the rough bark.  He should have gone for help.  Had he done that, Legolas could, even now, be recovering in Elerrina’s care. 

Of course, had he done that, the ellon might well have bled to death before help could reach him.

Whereas now, he might die from lack of expert care before being rescued.

Taryatur closed his eyes.  Please, he thought desperately, please help him.  The ellon does not deserve this.  He might not have been as accepting of the Wood elf as he could have been – but that did not mean he wished him any harm. 

Leaves brushed against his cheek mockingly as if determined to make him aware of the world beyond this dimly-lit trap.  He brushed them away, slightly surprised to find that his face was wet.  A faintly mint-like smell freshened the air as he breathed in, a fragrance that reminded him of small spikes of purple flowers… Self-heal, he thought, suddenly alert.  Self-heal – an infusion that helped clean the blood – leaves that could be chewed to a paste and applied externally to heal wounds.

One plant dangling from the broken finger of a branch – but where one grew, there were many others.  He scrambled closer to the hole, twisting to get as close as he could to the broken edge above his head.  Carefully he eased his fingers through the net of intersecting twigs, seeking the soft flower heads and pulling plants free of the light soil. 

When he could reach no more to draw back into the dark, he began a careful descent, holding the double handful of plants carefully bunched up in his tunic.  It would be better if he could heat water, he thought, to infuse them – although, if necessary the ellon could always chew the leaves himself.  The taste would be unpleasant, but the effect would be worth it – and, if he recalled correctly, the medicine did not take long to work.  Not on elves, anyway.  Men – well, they were a different breed, one that took ill easily and surrendered life without much of a fight.

He felt better, he realised.  Helplessness did not suit him – he and the Wood elf might still be trapped here, but he had found firewood and medicine and, with them, hope.  They would get out of here.  Maybe not through their own efforts – but what did that matter?  Elves worked together for the greater good – and he would accept rescue, when it came, with good grace.  For now – he must make sure that the ellon was as comfortable and well-tended as he could be.

***

Thranduil raised one hand in acceptance.  ‘I am sorry, my dear,’ he said.  ‘The fires absorbed my attention and I was of the opinion that Legolas – and your atar – were well able to care for themselves.’  He glanced at his wife.  ‘Have you any indication of a disturbance within the forest?  The trees would not rest easily if they knew Legolas to be in peril.’

‘I cannot feel him at all.’ Laerwen sounded puzzled. She bit her lower lip in frustration. ‘If I did not know better, I would assure you that he was nowhere nearby.’

Linevendë frowned, but remained silent, apparently calm, except for the fingers that were pleating and repleating the fabric of her gown.  Somehow, the absence of both her husband and her daughter’s did not seem to her to augur well.

‘He does not feel … quite himself,’ Elerrina said anxiously.  ‘I was afraid for him – and then not – and then I do not know what I felt.’  She took a couple of hasty steps towards the door, then turned back uncertainly.  ‘Find him, Adar, please!’ she implored.  ‘And Atar, too.  He is not himself when a storm is raging.  It makes him …’ She stopped and looked at her amil before continuing, ‘And he shuts us out.’

‘Please, Thranduil,’ Linevendë requested softly.  ‘He does not like to worry me and returns swiftly once Anor disperses the thunder clouds.  For him to be missing for so long a time is worrying.’

‘I will organise people to go off in different directions,’ Thranduil promised.  ‘And if the pair of them are embarrassed to be sought – then they should have thought of that.’

Elerrina looked at him doubtfully.  ‘If Legolas would prefer to be left…’

‘I am joking, my dear,’ Thranduil assured her.  ‘He would not stay away on purpose – he would know that you would be worrying about him.  And so,’ he added, glancing at Linevendë, ‘would your atar.  They are not elflings.’

‘Legolas offered to take Súrion and Galenthil off to camp in the woods,’ Camentur said.  ‘You know he will be back in time to do that – do not look so worried, little sister!’  He shook his head at her.  ‘Any one of a dozen things could have delayed them both.  Doubtless they took shelter from the rain – or found themselves on the far side of a flooded stream – or stopped to help in suppressing the fires – or merely to clear fallen debris.  They probably have no idea that we are worried about them.’

Thranduil admired the Noldo’s skill.  He managed to be calm, amused and reassuring all in one go.  Not bad going at all, considering he had sought the Woodland King out only an hour ago to tell him how concerned he was – and suggest that the time had come for an all-out search.  Perhaps years of working at Finarfin’s court were worth something, after all.

‘The forest is disrupted by the storm,’ Laerwen said, raising her chin as if scenting the mood of the wood.  ‘It will take a while to settle back into its usual calm.  Legolas and Taryatur may well be seeking the cause of some part of the chaos – Taryatur would not be willing to let Súrion wander in a forest that he did not believe to be safe and Legolas would humour him in this.’

The eyes of the two ellyn met and Camentur raised an ironic eyebrow, but remained silent.

‘I will see who is available to search,’ Thranduil surrendered.  ‘There will be few – most of the foresters are busy on tasks that cannot be delayed – but there are some guards who can be detailed to make a start.  If they fail to turn up anything … well, come dawn, then we will seek them in earnest.’

***

‘Vile,’ mumbled Legolas.  ‘It tastes vile.’

‘You said that last time,’ Taryatur reminded him.  ‘And the time before that. But it seems to be having some effect – and that is more important.’

Even the small amount of light provided by the embers could not conceal the loathing in the glance that his son-in-law threw at him.

Taryatur forced down the bubble of laughter that, quite unexpectedly, rose up in him.  The last time he had been the victim of such a scathing look had been when he had held a similarly repulsive concoction in front of his son and insisted that he drink it.  He continued to use the edge of a small rock to pound some of the remaining leaves into a paste thinned with a trickle of water, making sure to soak up every drop in the fine lawn that had once been his undershirt before applying it to a wound that was – finally – beginning to draw together now that the swelling was diminishing. 

‘It is looking better.’

‘It is feeling better.’ 

Taryatur tied the pad in place and noted that Legolas seemed to find the coolness a relief, even if he did not want to admit it. 

‘I just wish we had some clean cloth to use – it cannot be good to continue using the same one.’

Legolas took a swallow of water from the bark cup.  ‘It will have to do.’  He took another sip, swirling it round his mouth in an attempt to remove the taste of the leaves.  ‘Although – I have some vague memory of reading that elm leaves could be applied to heal wounds.’

‘Well – elm leaves we have in plenty.’  Taryatur raised his eyebrows at his son-in-law.  ‘You think they would do no harm?’

‘What harm could they do?’

‘I will fetch some.’  Taryatur sat back against the wall, while the Wood elf added a few twigs and splinters of wood to the fire.  Now he was not so worried, he thought with amusement, this had become almost homely.  He looked around the cavern – then blinked and looked again.   ‘Is it my imagination, Legolas,’ he said, ‘or is the water level rising?’

The Wood elf propped himself up on the elbow of his undamaged arm.  ‘Oh, by Elbereth’s blessed stars,’ he said.  ‘It is not rising quickly – yet – but it is definitely rising.’

‘It is probably as well you convinced me not to chance the water as a way of seeking an exit.’

‘Although the chance of our getting wet where we are has increased.’

Taryatur moved to reach a hand over the ledge where they had established themselves and then straightened.  ‘We have a span to go before we need to worry – if it continues to rise at this rate it will take a while to become a danger.  If they are not looking for us before that, I will be very disappointed in them.  They must be beginning to worry that we will be unable to tolerate each other much longer.’

Legolas hesitated.  ‘I think we have come to a better understanding,’ he said, looking intently at his wife’s adar and noting the slight inclination of his head. ‘But we could understand each other better still – if only we are prepared to speak more openly to each other.’  Taryatur stilled, but did not reject the statement.  Legolas let the pause extend between them for a moment.  ‘Why do storms upset you so?’

Only the Noldo’s eyes moved.  He fixed them on Legolas’s shadowed face, lit only by the flickering of the flames, then suddenly shrugged.  ‘You know,’ he said.  ‘Better than most of the elves of the Blessed Realm.  You have seen battle.  You know how the clamour resembles the madness of the storm – while the fires of Morgoth’s dragons sear the sky.’

The fair head tilted slowly to one side, and the firelight glinted in the eyes that considered him.  ‘It is different for everyone, I think.  It reminds me more of the irresistible flooding of a winter river in the spring thaw – chunks of ice pushing all before them, then catching and spinning and breaking off in different directions.’  He paused.  ‘I become cold in battle – and everything around me slows down so that I feel as if I have all the time in the world.’

Taryatur rubbed his hand over his head.  ‘That is one response,’ he conceded.  ‘It seemed like chaos to me – although I think that, as I grew more accustomed to warfare, it began to take on more of a pattern.’

‘I cannot imagine being confronted by a full-scale battle as my first experience beyond the training field.’  Legolas spoke with conviction.  ‘That is a sure way for a commander to lose far too many of his warriors.’

‘Yes,’ Taryatur said dryly.  ‘Well, we did not have a lot of choice.  It was learn quickly or – do the other thing.’

Legolas winced.  ‘I have lost more than enough friends – and warriors who looked to me for command – to know the bitterness that brings.’

‘My atar died within days of our landing.’

His son-in-law stared at him until a twig cracked and he dropped his eyes to feed a little more wood to the embers.  ‘I did not know that.’

‘And my brother, who followed Fingolfin east, did not survive to greet the Host.’  He hesitated.  ‘I have never spoken of this – but, if what I was told is true, he might have been among the heaps of bones that lay rotting in Angband’s dungeons.’

‘Oh, Taryatur!’ Legolas swallowed. ‘That knowledge is too great a burden for anyone to bear alone.’

‘And I hope he was,’ Taryatur murmured, ‘for the alternative is infinitely worse.’

***

The trees around the fallen elm seemed to shiver in a breeze that did not stir the hair of the elves who had come to assess the damage.  Aelindor looked up and narrowed his eyes.

‘There are a few broken branches,’ the young elf with him said.  ‘Should we trim them to prevent spores infecting the trees?’

‘It would be the best idea,’ Aelindor agreed absently.  ‘The elm is beyond saving.  We should leave it to offer a home to those who share the forest with us.’  He caressed the finely-ridged bark compassionately.  This tree should have stood for many years yet – but it was not within his power to control the decisions of fate.  He sighed.  It was not dead yet, and it might yet continue to put up sprouts – even grow a new trunk.  The relentless determination of life still surprised him at times, even after all these years.  He brushed his hand over the bark again and frowned.  It seemed to be trying to tell him something – something more than showing him how its roots lost their grip on the saturated soil and the wind and weight of the rain tipped it just too far for it to remain upright. 

Elves, he puzzled?  What would elves be doing here in the middle of a storm like that one?

‘The trees are restless,’ his young assistant said chattily.  ‘They do not seem to want us to leave.’  He looked around.  ‘It is odd – I cannot see anything that might be a danger to them.  What do you think?’

Aelindor frowned.  ‘It will do no harm to listen to them for a while and see if we can make sense of their song.’  He looked around.  ‘We can use the time to clear up some of the debris and see what damage has been done.’

The ellon pulled a face.  If he had wanted to tidy up, he could have stayed at home and helped his naneth – but he knew better than to sulk in front of the ancient forester.  Aelindor did not take well to being treated to sighs and complaints and he had trained far too many young elves to bother with their moods.  Pigen bent and began the process of gathering the snapped-off limbs into a heap. 

He worked silently for several minutes, feeling the sweat begin to trickle down his back as his breath shortened.  He could not help feeling rather gloomy – the thing he most hated about forestry was seeing these wrecks of good trees.

He paused suddenly.  ‘Hello,’ he said, picking something from the ruin of the tree, ‘what is this doing here?’

The ellon held up a knife.  Long for a belt knife, it was etched with a pattern of leaves, a pattern that was continued onto the bone of the handle.  It was sharply honed – and had clearly not been resting on the squashed green of the moss for very long.

‘That is Lord Legolas’s,’ Aelindor observed, taking it from the ellon and running a finger over the flat of the blade.  ‘It has been here a day or two,’ he said, inspecting the wet moss.  ‘During the storm, I would say.  I am surprised he has not come back for it.’  He turned slightly to frown at the tree.  ‘Unless he was distracted by … But no-one reported the elm as having fallen.’

His young helper had lost interest and returned to ferreting among the waving branches of the fallen tree.  Birds had already adjusted to the new state of affairs, he thought more cheerfully.  Unlike trees, they did not take seasons to change their understanding of the way the forest grew.  Things happened, they flew off – but within hours they were welcoming the new way of things.  That one, for instance, was already pulling at the blue thread to seek material for a nest.

‘Aelindor?’ he said.

‘What is it?’

‘Is there any reason why there would be a length of blue cloth round the elm?’

The forester looked up and stared intently at the object that had attracted the ellon’s attention.  ‘Blue dyes are too valuable to waste on cord,’ he said.  ‘You are old enough to know that.  And that is good wool.  Not cloth made here in the forest.’  The torn end of the rag flapped at him as if it were waving to attract his attention.  There were not many here in the forest who wore blue.  In fact, he could think of only a couple who might … He made up his mind suddenly.  ‘Go back to the Great Hall,’ he commanded.  ‘See if Lord Legolas is to be found – and, if he is not, then speak to one of the guard – Amondil, might be best – or seek out Tineithil.  Or,’ he determined, suddenly feeling more worried than he had any reason to be, ‘if you cannot see them, seek out my lord.  He will be in council at this time of day.  Say what we have discovered here and bring back enough people to help us move the tree.’

The young elf swallowed and gazed at the elm with an expression of horror.  ‘Do you think…?’

‘If the tree fell on him,’ Aelindor said roughly, ‘there would have been no need for the other to go after him.  The blue cloth is a rope – and a rope suggests a rescue.  Go now – and bring back as much help as you can muster.’

***

‘How long have we been here?’  Legolas asked suddenly.

‘Two nights, I think.  Maybe a little longer.’

‘It is taking the water a good long time to soak through the stone.  The forest was awash when we – er – took shelter here, yet the increase in the level of the pool …’

‘Is speeding up,’ Taryatur pronounced.  ‘Rapidly.  It must have risen two inches in the last few hours – and it shows no signs of stopping.’

‘It has a long way to go before it inhibits our breathing.’

‘But it will not be long before it gets our feet wet – and it is cold.’  He looked at the Wood elf assessingly.  ‘Can you put any weight on that leg?’

‘If I have to.’  Legolas smiled.  ‘You can do many things when your life depends on your determination.’

Taryatur reached up to run his fingertips over the stone roof of their refuge.  ‘I would say that this is water-worn – but that it has been a long time since there was enough flowing through here to wear at the sides of the chute that sent us down here.  Your leg can attest to the roughness of that rock.’

‘I hope that this time will not prove to be an exception.’

Legolas picked at the knot that held his arm in the rough sling, pulling it free and folding the blue wool to tuck it into his belt.  He shrugged carefully at Taryatur’s frown.  ‘Better to have the use of them both,’ he said.

‘Keep the leg bound,’ Taryatur recommended.  ‘It might be healing, but you do not want to get any more dirt in it than you can help.’

‘As you say, Atar.’

Taryatur tensed, but the Wood elf’s grin showed his words were clearly intended to be inoffensive.  ‘So you have enough sense to think of that for yourself,’ he retorted.  ‘And just for that, you can chew the last of the self-heal.’

The face his son-by-marriage pulled indicated his feelings about the suggestion, but he took the leaves and put them in his mouth.  After all, it made sense – especially if they were about to end up clinging to the sides of the chimney above rising water.

‘You go first.’ Taryatur’s tone accepted no argument.

The water spilled quietly over the edge of the rock and sent a finger towards the remnants of their fire, causing it to hiss and spit and send up a plume of smoke as it died.

‘Well, I suppose we have run out of time.’  Legolas took a deep breath and rose cautiously, keeping his weight on his good leg.

‘Lean on me,’ Taryatur said gruffly taking a firm grip of his son-in-law’s arm.

Legolas paused.  ‘Is that not what comrades-in-arms do?’ he asked.

‘Usually after too much wine,’ the Noldo reminded him.  ‘And a long night spent reminiscing.’ He boosted the younger elf up the smooth wall that began the climb up to the forest above, ignoring the gasped protest.  ‘If you fall and open that wound again, I will not be pleased.’

‘I will do my best not to bleed on you.’  Legolas pulled himself to the back of the slope to free enough space for his atar-in-law to join him.

The green-tinted glimmer of light that pushed past the fallen tree made the ellon look ghastly.  Taryatur glanced behind him to the shadows.  They were several feet higher here – maybe it would be wise to wait until necessity pushed them into climbing further.  ‘Perhaps you should take a rest,’ he said.  ‘I would not want to tire you.’

Legolas opened his eyes.  ‘I can do it,’ he said.

‘I am sure you can.’ Taryatur spoke almost approvingly.  ‘But why risk it?  It is safe enough here for now.’

‘But not above the flood.’  Legolas’s hand pushed aside the sharp-edged debris as if to exhibit the even surface beneath. 

‘High enough for the moment.  Water is relentless and swift – when it wants to be – but it shapes itself to the boundaries it is set.  It will take a while for it to fill the space below us.’

Legolas continued to brush at the fine fragments of rock beneath his fingers.  ‘Were you among those who watched Beleriand drown?’ he asked, looking up at the Noldo.  ‘I cannot begin to imagine what that must have been like.’

In the silence that followed, even the trickle of disturbed stone fragments falling to the cavern below sounded unnaturally loud.

Taryatur sighed.  ‘Life in the Blessed Realm,’ he said, ‘my life, had been … about learning to create, to develop – to make better.  Watching the destruction of Beleriand seemed … wrong … perverted … and yet it was as the Valar said it had to be.  Acceptance – obedience – told us that we should do as the Powers commanded and prepare the fleet to return home.’  He paused.  ‘Yet I could see why others might not think the same.  Your daeradar…’

‘You knew Oropher?’ Legolas was astonished.  He could not, with the best will in the world, see how his free-spirited, headstrong daeradar could have dealt comfortably with this rather strait-laced, sanctimonious, obstinate elf – even if Taryatur was turning out to be somewhat more than he had suspected.

‘We were acquainted,’ Taryatur said dryly.  ‘To the pleasure of neither of us.’

‘What was he like?’ Legolas sounded eager to learn more of this elf he barely knew.

The Noldo opened his mouth, then hesitated and gave a mental shrug.  There was no need for the elf’s grandson to know just how obnoxious his daeradar had been.  ‘Angry,’ he said.  ‘Resentful.  Provocative.’  He gave the infuriating fair-haired elf a little more thought.  ‘He was, I think, at the point of taking on the whole of the Valar’s host on his own and driving us into the sea – just to be rid of us all.’

Legolas grinned.  ‘I can imagine that,’ he said.

‘I have no memory of your adar,’ Taryatur added.  ‘Was he there?’

‘He was.’  Legolas thought back to the tales Thranduil had shared with him.  ‘I think – according to his stories, anyway – that he was kept from much of the fighting – he said that the younger ellyn were, on the whole, tasked with protecting those who remained behind the lines.  Although, I daresay, they still saw far more than they should have done.’

‘You could not live through those days and not see more than you should.’

‘That,’ Legolas said softly, ‘is the way of war.  And yet we survive.  Determined to do better by our own children.’

Taryatur rested a hand on the Wood elf’s shoulder gently.  It would appear that, for all their differences, they were cut from rather similar cloth.  ‘You do what you can,’ he said. ‘But, in the end, you have to let them go.’

***

Work had begun to cut away the branches that were most in the way of the rescuers.  Always assuming, Thranduil thought gloomily, that they were not clawing at shadows.  There was remarkably little to suggest – a knife, a ripped scrap of blue fabric – that his son and the Noldo had been beneath the tree when it fell.  It could well be that the pair of them were leagues from here and sniping at each other in perfect safety.  Although the longer they remained absent, the less likely, in all honesty, that was to be true.

‘Careful,’ Aelindor warned as a sharp crack was followed by a splintering sound.  ‘Keep the cuts clean – there is still some sap running and I do not want to introduce any infection into the heartwood.’

‘We can always neaten up our work later, Aelindor,’ Calion told the forester.  ‘At the moment, it seems more important to find out what is beneath this mess of foliage – and to make enough space to do something.’

‘Rushing will only make matters worse,’ the Silvan elf snapped.  ‘The tree cannot help us if we are putting it under too much stress.’

‘The elm is in no position to offer us much aid in any case.’  Calion sighed, but made no further protest. He was not entirely sure that he would ever fully understand Wood elves.  Anyone would think that they indulged in coherent conversations with the forest – but, as far as he could understand, the process was far more intangible than that, consisting of little more than of responding to, or, at best, interpreting,  the song of the trees.  He had challenged Hithien on her calm statements of what the forest required more than once – but had never been particularly surprised when she had merely smiled at him tolerantly and carried on to do exactly as she chose.  Being a Noldo among the Silvan could be … a little lonely at times – like being at a party where everyone else was speaking a different language and behaving according to a different set of rules.

‘The elm would account for why the rest of the glade seems not to have been aware of any accident,’ Thranduil said suddenly.

‘It would.’  Aelindor agreed inattentively, almost as if he was listening to something else.  ‘Between the storm and the loss of one of their number, they would find it hard to recall anything that happened so swiftly.’

‘And the birds and creatures of the forest would have been taking shelter.’

‘Before you know where we are, we will be feeling grateful to Pigen here.’ Aelindor jerked a finger at his bashful assistant.  ‘Who finds it so much easier to notice things other than those he is supposed to be watching.’

Thranduil held back his grin and said seriously.  ‘Good observation skills are always useful – and if his prove to have brought my son home, I will indeed be grateful to him.’

The young elf blushed and dropped his head.  Somehow, positive attention from those is authority over him proved more embarrassing – because, probably, it was far more unexpected – than disapproval.  He frowned suddenly.  There was something … odd about the shape of the elm.  Where did that big branch go?  It had not shattered on impact with the ground – and the rock was too close to the surface here for it to have buried itself, yet …

‘Aelindor?’ he puzzled.

The forester knew his trees.  His eyes followed the bough and he paused briefly before moving in a cautious loop to look where the solid branch pointed.  A small stone, disturbed by the toe of his boot, shifted and slid toward the narrow strip of darkness beneath the elm, dropping out of sight.

‘Someone has been here, my lord,’ he said, his voice as composed as if he were announcing the presence of boar at the acorn harvest.  ‘I see the marks of fingers – as if someone has been trying to get out.’

‘Get out of what?’ Thranduil was not calm, for all his apparent serenity.

‘That, my lord, remains to be seen.’

The elf looked up – and, just for a moment, Thranduil thought he saw sympathy in the lichen-grey eyes before their expression was again veiled.  Aelindor hesitated, and then, stretching himself out to reach as far beneath the tree as he could manage, he leaned over the dark opening and shouted, ‘Hello!’

***

‘I am sure I would know if there was something seriously wrong.’  Laerwen frowned at the wide windows through which the soft forest breezes wafted.  ‘The forest is settling down again after the storm – the song has changed where the fires have burnt out and there are old friends missing here and there, but …’

Linevendë pressed her fingers flat on her lap.  ‘You cannot simply assume that the forest realises everything you need to know,’ she said, keeping her tone mild.  ‘Trees do not have the same priorities as elves.  The birds – the creatures – they see things but they do not understand their significance.’

‘Do you think there is a problem?’ 

The Noldo met Laerwen’s eyes unflinchingly.  ‘I do.  Not because I wish to contradict you, but because I know my daughter.  Elerrina might not realise quite why she has been so distracted, but I know enough to know that her husband’s physical state is affecting her.  My daughter does not swoon!’

Laerwen sighed.  ‘I hoped for a moment …’

‘Is it not a little soon to hope for another grandchild?’  Linevendë blinked. ‘Eleniel and Galenthil are barely out of childhood – they will not be of age for another couple of decades!  Is Celumíl not enough for you?’

‘I would like her to have elflings her own age with whom she can grow up,’ Laerwen said guiltily.  ‘I left Legolas to spend far too many centuries alone.’

‘Not deliberately.’

‘The effect was the same, whether I left him on purpose or not.’

‘Thranduil raised him well – he is a credit to you both.’

Tears shone in his naneth’s eyes, but Laerwen sniffed and refused to lapse into sentimentalism. 

‘But it is not the same,’ Linevendë hazarded softly, ‘to have a child come to you full-grown – and with elflings of his own.’

‘I love him dearly,’ Laerwen said defensively.

‘But you do not know him.’

‘No,’ Legolas’s naneth said flatly.  ‘I thought I did – that I could learn to fill in the years I had missed…’ She gazed, without really seeing them, at the trees in the sunny glade.  ‘But having Celumíl …  I am not Legolas’s naneth – not as I shall be hers.’

It was undeniable.  Linevendë took the Silvan elleth’s hand.  Time spent was – gone.  There was nothing anyone could do to bring it back.  Reunion did not eradicate the pain of long ages spent apart.  She could come out with all the trite sayings about looking forward – but none of them could fill in the missing years.

‘He will be all right,’ she said.  ‘You will all be all right.’

Laerwen sighed.  ‘I do hope so,’ she said.

***

Taryatur looked up.  ‘Here!’ he called, screwing up his eyes to peer towards the opening.  ‘We cannot get out!’

The voice faded, so that he could hear nothing but an urgent-sounding buzz until, a few minutes later, Thranduil’s melodious tones replaced the first speaker.

‘Is Legolas with you?’ he asked.  ‘Are you unharmed?’

‘Adar?’  Legolas called, keeping his voice even and strong.  ‘Do you mind clearing the elm away so that we can get out of here – I could really do with a bath!’

‘Not to mention,’ Taryatur muttered, ‘the services of a healer.’

‘Where are you hurt?’  Thranduil, at least, seemed to understand his son’s peculiarities. 

‘It is nothing serious,’ Legolas said dismissively.

‘Taryatur?’

‘He is not that badly hurt,’ the Noldo agreed.  ‘Although he had me worried for a while.  He will need some attention.’

‘Traitor,’ his son-in-law muttered.

‘And you?’ Thranduil asked.

‘I am fine.  Just a little tired of being trapped down here.’

‘You might be there a little longer – I am told that it will not be easy to remove the branch that is blocking the entrance to your – er – refuge.’

Legolas sighed.  ‘Perhaps you should know,’ he said, ‘that the water level is rising.’

There was a moment of silence.  ‘Swiftly?’ Thranduil enquired calmly.

‘I would think it would be … preferable … for you to take less time rather than more.’

‘Have no worry, my son,’ Thranduil told him dryly.  ‘Your wife would not appreciate any delay.  She is concerned enough about you as it is – she would be most displeased if we let you drown at this point.’

‘I am glad that my daughter’s happiness is so important to you.’ 

Above them, Thranduil blinked.  The Noldo sounded – remarkably unflustered.  And almost amiable about a situation that could have been expected to turn him even more aggressively against his daughter’s chosen dwelling place.  A discreet cough drew Thranduil’s attention to the foresters gathering behind him and he rose to consult with the experts who would be attempting this rescue.

Now they knew there were elves above them, the silence in the stone chimney had become oppressive, even their breath inordinately loud.  A scatter of gravel fell as Legolas shifted his position and Taryatur’s fingers closed firmly on his elbow, supporting him.  ‘Sit,’ he said. ‘Nothing will happen in the next hour or so.’

His son-in-law allowed himself to be lowered to the rough stone.  ‘I would not be so certain.’

‘It will take them at least that long to talk through all the ideas that will not work.’ Taryatur shook his head.  ‘And then they will need to settle on a plan and discuss that.  We might still be here when Anor sinks below the horizon tomorrow night.’

Legolas grinned.  ‘My adar will have lost patience long before that.’

‘Better to be sure,’ his adar-in-law said philosophically.  He glanced sideways at the younger elf.  ‘I am a slow learner, but I do get there in the end.’

It was an apology – of sorts – Legolas realised.  ‘We have more in common than either of us has been prepared to admit,’ he said carefully.

‘You might be right,’ Taryatur conceded. ‘Perhaps we – I – should make more of an effort to listen.’  He relaxed into an apparently easy pose – although it did not escape his son-in-law’s notice that he had taken up a position between the injured elf and the danger of anything falling from above.  ‘You are not that bad an elf,’ he said lightly, ‘for one born east of the sea.  I have begun to grow accustomed to having you as my son-by-marriage.’

The Wood elf felt his eyebrows arch involuntarily. ‘I understand your doubts better now I have my own daughter,’ he said in response.  ‘And what you have told me…’ he opened a hand, palm upwards.  ‘We need to talk more and assume less.’

Taryatur nodded with cautious satisfaction.  Not friendship, he thought, not yet.  But negotiations had been opened.  It was a start.