AUTHOR'S NOTE: This is a fic based on a song (by the same name) sung by Heather Alexander, a wonderful Celtic singer. I am elaborating and expanding upon the basic storyline of that song and placing it in Middle Earth. . . when I heard her singing about an elf I knew it was inevitable! I hope you like it!

Grief and Healing:

Jane squeezed her eyes shut, willing the tears that had seemed to have been falling nonstop for the past two days to cease. Ever since the death of the woman who had been the only mother she had ever known, she could not seem to stem the tears, and now, as she was attending Wynn's funeral, was no exception.

Even before Jane's mother had died in childbirth with her youngest sister, Wynn had always been more of a mother than a servant. Of course, to her sisters, a servant was all she was. They had never understood the bond between Jane and the woman who had been their mother's servant before her death. Even after her death, they had wondered at her grief.

"Really, Jane. It is so distasteful to go to the burial of a maid," Blythe, the youngest sister at sixteen, had said, wrinkling her delicate nose prettily as Jane had prepared to leave.

"Yes Jane, what will people think?" Hilda, eighteen, had agreed.

"They will think that I have lost someone who was close to me," Jane had replied quietly before slipping out the door.

Jane flushed at the memory as some indifferent hired men dug the grave, slinging dirt dangerously close to her. Her sisters had never understood, never would. They, being beautiful and graceful, trained perfectly as duke's daughters should be, had no end of friends and acquaintances, while Wynn had been all Jane had growing up. Jane did not begrudge her sisters for any of what they had, though. It was not their fault that they had turned out as perfectly as could be hoped for, while she had been plain and somewhat clumsy from childhood.

As Wynn's plain pine casket was lowered into the ground, a flood of memories came to Jane; memories of being rocked to sleep, of being taught songs in a beautiful language that no one else she knew could speak, of being comforted when the strains of life became too much. As the memories flowed through her mind, Jane unconsciously gripped the stem of the white rose, which had been Wynn's favorite flower in life, not realizing what she was doing until a thorn pierced her skin.

With a cry, Jane flung the flower away from her, the pure white rose landing on top of the casket just before the first shovel full of dirt could be dumped on top of it. The men who had dug the grave stopped in their work to send pity filled glances her way as her face crumpled and she ran away in the direction of the nearby woods, clutching her bleeding hand.

She soon found her way to 'her' tree, with its wide, welcoming branches, which she climbed into without hesitation, taking care to not use her hurt hand in the process. She looked down at her clenched fist. Blood was beginning to show between her fingers; she must have hurt herself worse than she realized. She slowly opened her fist, wincing at the searing pain that shot all the way up to her wrist. Aware of the fact that she was using her physical pain as a distraction from her emotional turmoil, Jane carefully touched her hand, using the tail of her dress to wipe away the blood. She clenched her jaw in pain as she examined her hand, finding that it had been three thorns that had pierced her hand, not just one. She was silently cursing herself for her stupidity when she caught a movement out of the corner of her eye.

"Who is there?" she called out fearfully. She had never encountered anyone in this part of the woods in all her years of coming here; besides, it was on her father's land. Her eyes widened as a man stepped out from behind a tree.

"My apologies, my lady," he said. Jane could do nothing but stare. His voice was smooth as honey, deep and melodic. It somehow did not seem to fit him. He was tall and lean, with long, straight blond hair that reached halfway down his back. The thought struck her that such beautiful hair should make him look feminine, but it somehow managed to only enhance his masculinity.

The fact that she had noticed his looks at all was a bit unsettling; Jane was not one to be distracted by a man. She raised her eyes to his – eyes a shade of green whose depths seemed to hold secrets of times she could not fathom - and was immediately overtaken by an overwhelming calm. She was no longer nervous or frightened.

"No apologies needed, sir. It is due to my own neglect to paying attention to my surrounding that I was startled," she said, shifting slightly to hide her bleeding hand behind the tree she was still sitting in. The man smiled, almost indulgently, before holding out his hand.

"May I?" Jane eyed him suspiciously, not understanding what he meant. "Your hand, my lady. It is injured, is it not?" Jane lifted her chin stubbornly.

"It is fine, sir. A small cut is all." The man raised his eyebrows a bit and continued to hold his hand out with such an expectant air that Jane finally sighed and presented her hand to him. He held her hand firmly in his, and glanced up to meet her eyes for a moment before turning his attention back to her hand, over which he began to murmur strange words; beautiful words of a language that seemed comforting and familiar, yet exotically foreign to Jane at the same time. She started in shock as warmth began to spread throughout her hand, but he held her hand so firmly that even her jerk of surprise did not dislodge her hand from his grip.

After the initial moment of shock, Jane found herself relaxing and spent the time he held her hand in his watching his face in fascination; his eyes were closed in concentration and yet his countenance was completely relaxed. After what seemed like several minutes, but had actually been only a few seconds, he released her hand and stepped back. He remained silent as Jane clenched and unclenched her fist several times. There was still a mark from the scratch on her hand, but it was much smaller and she felt no pain whatsoever from it.

"How did you do that?" she asked in amazement. "What language was that you were speaking? What were you saying? What is your name?" The questions tumbled from her, causing the man's lips to quirk slightly.

"My name is Gandelon, my lady, and regretfully I must take my leave." Before Jane could utter a word of protest, he had turned to walk away and seemed to melt into the trees.

She stood there a moment more, trying to figure out what about the man had to captured her interest, even before he had performed his feat of healing her hand. He seemed to exude. . . something. Something she could not quite put her finger on, something that she would almost call magic except that it seemed too strong of a word for so subtle a presence. Realizing that her father was expecting her home and would be worried for her, Jane soon left her tree to hurry home.

Jane did not realize that as she stood by the tree, she was being observed by a pair of bright green eyes. Gandelon watched the maiden with interest, seeming to detect something different about her; something that set her apart from the other mortals he had encountered. He did not know why he had offered to help her – what trouble was it of his if a mortal maid had sustained a minor injury? – but for some reason he had felt drawn to help her, and had not bothered to resist the pull. As he watched her retreat into the trees, he felt an odd pang of regret when he realized that he had not asked her name.