The stars were veiled.
Something stirred in the east.
And he had pushed her out of his mind until now. Now, he remembered. And the pain was still as sharp as it had been the say he had left her. Legolas pulled his cloak tighter around him.
He didn't know where the memories had even come from. Perhaps it had been the absence of the stars. Or perhaps it had been from the drinking game, addling his brain. Or seeing the way Eowyn looked at Aragorn, reminding him too much of his own self. But, like her, he could not command his own heart. Legolas knew full well that Aragorn loved another, and he had some inkling that Eowyn did too. But she couldn't help herself. And neither could he.
Tauriel. He wouldn't whisper her name to the darkness. Not when she had spoken so beautifully of the starlight. Even if it hadn't been to him. And still, he could not forget her.
He wondered what had become of the fiery haired elf. He wished she could have been with him on this quest. After being by her side for so long defending the paths of Mirkwood, it had been difficult to forget her at first. And still, he occasionally found himself looking around for her.
Back then, he could never fathom why she was sympathetic to the dwarfs, much less fall in love with that black haired archer. What was his name? He had heard her cry it in the tunnels beneath Ravenhill. Kili. The nephew of Thorin. That was it.
Legolas shifted his weight. Maybe she hadn't been in love with him, he mused. Maybe she had been falling out of love with everyone and everything else, and he was the first sympathetic face. Still, he had not missed the way her guard had slipped and she had told him he was tall for a dwarf, nor her embarrassment once she had realized what she had said. Kili had watched her go, grinning, and undeterred by Legolas's presence. He had seen them together, Tauriel neglecting her guard duties and sitting by the cell of a prisoner, whisperings of starlight and fire moons reaching his ears. When they had caught them making their ludicrous escape in the barrels, Tauriel wasted no time rushing out to the gate, an air of urgency and an almost frantic look in her eye. As she had fought, it had bordered on desperation. She had killed without mercy, only restraining herself at his orders. Legolas recalled the tortured look on her face as the orc had spoken of the fatality dwelt to the dwarf who had heard things that, until then, she had only told Legolas. Her face had taken on a tense, tortured look as she left the halls of his father, hunting thirty orcs and one certain dwarf on her own. He had followed her, as she knew he would. She had said it was their duty, that she would not forgive herself. It was their fight, too. She had told him they could not evil become stronger than them. He wondered if she had meant that, or that she could not let one who had sympathized with her die.
She had almost come with him, to defeat the evil she waxed so passionately about, once they had caught up with the orcs in Lake-town. Her will had been tested by Kili's anguished cries from the morgal shaft. She had almost followed her. But he knew she would not. He had spoken her name, as a goodbye of sorts, and he had left before she could tell him to leave without her. He hadn't wanted to hear tell him she could not. That she loved another.
Footsteps to his left jerked him from his reverie. He turned to see Aragorn. His friend was quiet, his fingers tracing the outline of the Evenstar on his neck.
"Have you ever known love, mellon?" Aragorn said softly.
Legolas hesitated to answer. What was love? Was it the raw anger that had overwhelmed him as he had left her behind? Was it fear? The pure terror he had experienced to see the desolation of the dragon Smaug upon Lake-town and to know she was still there? The burning jealousy to see her speaking to Kili on the shores of Long Lake? He had told her he was not afraid, that she made him feel alive. Was that love?
To see her weeping over the body of her fallen lover, and to know that she would never look at him as more than a friend had hurt. Was love pain? Was it trust? Enough trust to confide in his past to her as they waited for nightfall in Gundabad? To know that he would have died at the hands of his own father if it meant that she wouldn't be harmed? Was that love?
"Once…" He answered. "But she is far away."
He stared up at the veiled stars. If only he could see them, and know that they were still there. For if they were not, she would not be either. Could she see them from Mirkwood? Was she even still in Mirkwood? Was she even still alive? Her words came back to him. They had not been meant for his ears, but Kili's. Yet, he had heard them. I have walked there sometimes…beyond the forest and up into the night. I have seen the world fall away, and the white light forever fill the air…
"She walks in starlight…in another world."
A tremor ran through him, and he felt fear. Terror, not like watching the devastation of Lake-town and knowing she was within, but fear like the fear he had felt in the mines of Moria.
Are we not part of this world?
The words of the orc he and Tauriel had brought back after the dwarves of Erebor had made their escape entered his mind. Your world will burn…our time has come again…my master serves the one…death is upon you. The flames of war are upon you.
His words had come true. Legolas thought back to that day. His father had known it then, and had ignored it. He thought back to what his father's words. Such is the nature of evil…A shadow that grows in the dark. A sleepless malice as black as the oncoming wall of night. So it ever was. So will it always be. In time all foul things come forth
"The stars are veiled. Something stirs in the East. A sleepless malice. The eye of the enemy is moving."
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