Chapter 2 - The Midnight Watches

"You are awake?" Sam crept over to the window alcove when he saw the elf sitting there. These alcoves were where Legolas preferred to sit when he must be within the castle of Gondor, for he did not like its enclosing walls, and they troubled his spirit. Arwen he knew shared his discomfort, although she never spoke of it to Aragorn.

Instead, before every window, she had the craftsmen of the elves that Legolas had brought to Ithilien build a simple bench and carve it with the mellyrn leaves and those of beech and oak and rowan and all the trees that the elves love. On each was a cushion of greyed green silk embroidered by hers and her maidens’ hands with the same leaves of the trees that were carved below.  And Arwen made sure that each window would open fully to the air, and that each stayed open at all times unless driving rain or the fiercest cold prevented.  She did this although all her women servents of Gondor told her that it was unhealthy to let in even the smallest breath of the night air of summer. She told Aragorn that it was all for Legolas’ comfort, and Legolas let her do this, for neither wished to let the King of Gondor know how his lady missed her home.

Most often though, Legolas would perch himself on the wide sills of the castle windows above the benches that his artisans had wrought.  There, he would lean his back against the stone of the window’s side, for he then would be as near to the air as he could, and the sills gave ample room for his slender form.

Sam saw him sitting there now with the green robe over his night tunic for warmth. He was too thin, too thin even for an elf. Sam’s eyes saw this, and his kind heart ached.

Legolas’ back was against the window side and his knees were drawn up, his feet flat upon the sill. Until Sam entered, his chin had rested on his knees. He turned his face to the hobbit and smiled in the moonlight. Then, as ever, Sam thought his thin face looked somehow like magic must be to those who could see it, with the pale hair of Legolas spilling over his shoulders and reflecting back Ithil’s light in reverence.

It struck Sam that he had never seen Legolas’ hair unbound before. During their journey, it was ever braided.  If Sam had thought about it before, he would have known that Legolas must redo those braids. Still, he, and he thought none of the company, had ever witnessed such a thing. The elf slept so little. Sam supposed he did it always while they themselves slept, and he wondered why. Perhaps Gimli was the cause. He delighted ever in laughing that elves ne’er looked unkempt like the earthy dwarves. Ever then would Legolas laugh and still say nothing.

Sam wanted to touch the unbound golden hair so much it almost hurt. Somehow he just knew it was magic, but that wouldn’t be respectful and he kept his hands at his sides. Sam had always been a little afraid of the elf. While kind and gentle, Legolas had kept himself so very private from the hobbits.

"I didn’t mean to wake you, Mr. Legolas, sir!" The elf smiled, and motioned Sam to be seated.

"You have not, for as you see Haldir knows that I am awake.  I wished to watch Ithil's face in the sky for but a little.  Before he slept, Haldir and gave his permission. His terms are hard though. For, to receive this boon, I had to promise him that I would eat fruit and bread and honey that he would bring to me and drink wine steeped with his medicinal herbs. Legolas gestured to the still full tray on the sill beside him, which to Sam looked untouched except for a small piece of bread with perhaps two bites gone from it. "I have little appetite, and it hurts at times to eat, but he has trusted to my honor, and I am trying, Samwise Gamgee." Legolas took at most three of the beautiful berries from the bowl and put them slowly, one by one into his mouth. "These are not so difficult, for they taste of the forest. Orophin and his princess picked them for me during their morning’s work in the garden. The bread is not what I am used to though. It is heavy somehow, and has no life in it." He picked up the piece from the plate, and then a fleeting revulsion crossed his face, and he placed it down again.

"I cannot swallow it, and yet I have promised Haldir."

"Why, Mr. Legolas, I’ve an idea. I have a bit of bread as my Rosie’s made, quite as much as Mr. Haldir left on your plate. My Rosie’s bread is the best in the Shire and, with a bit of that honey. I’m sure it’d go down much easier for you than that stuff that’s so heavy and dry. I’ll eat that for you, and it will be the same, won’t it? Mr. Haldir’s not put any of his healing herbs in the bread, has he?"

Legolas smiled. After their long journey together, he did not even wonder that a hobbit abroad after midnight in the castle of Gondor would be carrying bread of his own. It seemed something they would do.

"No, he said he feared that there was no healing in this bread, but he could procure no better for me here in Gondor without shaming Arwen before her husband. My stomach could not tolerate much else here, so we have settled on bread and fruit and honey. The food here is so very difficult to eat for us. We eat it as best we can for we know it troubles Arwen if we turn from it."

Sam thought of the good hearty fare that all the hobbits had eaten here with so much enjoyment and suddenly realized that it didn’t seem at all like the food that they had been given in Imladris or Lórien. He remembered how Mr. Haldir and his brothers would pass the platters of red and greasy meat to the hobbits with their eyes slightly averted from those platters and take none of the flesh for themselves.

Sam concentrated on remembering, and now it seemed to him that the elves were living on the fruit that the mortals shunned at the table and any vegetable that had not been cooked in the too heavy fat that seemed the custom in this land. That alone had he seen them eat, together with whatever cheese and bread they could get. He had been so very stupid not to notice, and Mr. Legolas sick and all."

Sam poured out a little of the honey, not near as much as he would have taken for himself, but probably more than Legolas would have ever used, onto a piece of Rosie’s bread. The elf took it politely and wondered how he would eat it, for he did not wish to hurt Sam, but he was wary of all food made by mortals. He took a very small bite and chewed it. Then he stopped and looked down at Sam and smiled.

"It tastes like sunshine and clean sky and goodness, and my body tells me that it wants more of it." He took another bite, still small by hobbit standards, but a definite improvement over the last in Sam’s opinion. Sam laughed, and the elf smiled back at him, still chewing the bread delicately.

"Did I not say my Rosie makes wonderful bread?" The elf nodded and gratefully took the second piece that Sam handed him. "Now, you just finish this up and those berries, so Mr. Haldir will be pleased, and I’ll finish up this bread of Gondor, for it doesn’t seem as bad to a simple hobbit as to an elf lord I’m sure." Sam took a piece of the despised bread and chewed it hungrily.

Surprised, he felt Legolas’ thin hand cover his own and clasp his fingers strongly. "Samwise Gamgee, to you must I never be an elf lord. To you, I am Legolas. Please?" And the elf raised Sam's hand and placed it on his moonlit hair and smiled at the hobbit.

Sam nodded silently as those endless eyes held his. Sam, who had so shortly before ne’er dreamed of setting even one of his sturdy feet beyond the Shire’s boundary, knew then that his whole world had changed forever. He had met the elves.