For the next week I see little of my friend. He is upon the practise fields from dawn, and some nights he does not return at all. I know well the endurance of elves and so I let him be, instead I spend my time at the forges where the weapons masters have given me my own space.

I make them some tools; good dwarven hand axes, and I help with the design of a new set of rooms freshly carven into the mountains. I am welcomed here, and the masons and smiths are pleased to have me. Here are some good sensible elves, and when I am left to my own I find great comfort in the familiarity of a forge and hammer. I feel my muscles burn and flex in a way they have not whilst I have been indulged here, and so whilst Legolas regains what he has lost these last weeks of convalescence, I remind my own body what is expected of it.

On the sixth day I take a walk and find him quite by accident. He is in the stable yard grooming a huge, fine boned black mare with a look of peace upon him that speaks nothing of the weariness that even he must feel by now. There is a look of happiness about him that does my heart well.

"This is a fine animal," I tell him grudgingly. I have had to learn a thing or two about horses… I have not been able to avoid it. I run my hand across a coat of sable velvet appreciatively and she allows it with a deep grunt of satisfaction.

"Her great, many times great daeradar was the first horse I was ever given," he tells me. He does not pause in what he does. He is enjoying this moment of peace. "Roch was a fine creature, and his progeny fill our stables even after so many lifetimes."

I am silent for a moment.

"Your first horse was called 'horse'?" I ask carefully.

"I was very young."

He finishes what he is about whilst I stand leaning against a paddock fence, looking out at the fields where fine, tall elvish horses graze serenely. My eyes squint in the low evening sun and there is a gentle breeze that brings to me the smells of hay and horse. It is a scent that has become familiar to me of recent times, and I find it strangely comforting. Legolas leads the mare away and returns after a time to join me. He smells of horse also, and of grass and of wood.

"You must be ready to lose your mind with boredom here Gimli," he speaks, elbows resting on sun warmed wood. "I am sorry you have had to stay for so long."

I respect him enough not to deny it instantly. It has been many weeks indeed and it has been a strange time for me, but he has needed this rest to recover himself and I have needed it too. My head no longer hurts, my skull is healed but still I find myself forgetful. I am not as I was.

"It is a strange place, your Greenwood, and entirely too full of elves," I tell him. "I will tell you truly though that I have been perplexed but never bored. It is not as I expected, and I have been treated with honour and given friendship but you are different here; I wonder if it is right that I pull you away. You are happier than I have seen you before my friend."

I look at him expectantly. I do not know what I will say if he agrees but I will leave without him if he wishes it; I am afraid that this is the path that he should not walk and I could not endure it if I am the one to lead him to it. I feel an odd pain in my chest when I think of it but I am selfish, I realise. He is so ready to leave when this is his home: he is tied to this forest and its people by his very heart, and I never before realised what it was to say 'laegrim'. Now I know that it is more than a word.

"You do not pull me, Gimli. I go." He meets my gaze, and he understands what I do. I cannot hide a thing from the dratted elf. His eyes read me as though my thoughts are but words upon a page. "I go with joy my friend. Greenwood has been my heart for a very long time but I cannot remain here beneath these trees as I once did, and never will Greenwood be my home again, never before I sail. I have little time left but a long time to live: I would like other memories than the forest to watch in the stars one day, and I would have my greatest friend by my side… if you wish it."

He smiles, and it is sad but he means every word so I nod tersely. If I clear my throat it is not because emotion chokes me, not at all. He grips my shoulder and I shove at him gently.

"Someone must keep your attention in one place," I reply. "Besides, we will be a while in Greenwood yet. You have promised me a spider and I intend to hold you to your word. Have you thought much on when we are to leave?"

"Ithil sits full in the sky not five days from now; I thought that an auspicious time for travel. The spiders will come out more readily as it wanes but I do not wish to be in the south when she is in full darkness, we have then two weeks to travel and hunt. Can you endure the wait?"

"I can endure it if this is long enough for you to be enough healed," I counter his fun with seriousness. He sighs greatly.

"All are a fuss about it! I am grown enough to manage my own healing. I accept that I am not yet up to myself but I will be: I am weeks out of my sick bed, and yet I am still watched as though I am built of glass! I know not why every person I know has suddenly become my naneth."

I am dumbfounded. This is the same elf that admitted just weeks ago his fear that he would never recover at all. This is the elf that we all feared would never hold a bow again, let alone shoot one. I recall the fear I have felt, the dread. I recall the nights I have sat awake with him to keep him from his melancholy, the hours I have argued and sparred with words to keep his mind occupied: hour after tiring hour. He is improved so that many would never tell the difference in him any longer but some do… I do. I see it, and suddenly his words anger me enough to reach and grab at his wrist. My hands are hard and tight with anger, and I pull his arm up before me, fingers wrapped about wrists delicate enough to snap like tinder. He hisses in pain and tries to pull away but cannot; I am stronger than him in this, and I pull his shirt sleeves back to show hands and forearms torn and traced with ugly scarring.

"This, elfling! This is why we worry! You were not the only one to fear that you might fade from this."

He pulls his hand away and steps back from me. His face burns in shame but his eyes are angry; I have hurt him, and not just in his flesh but I am angry too. Sometimes he shows the youth in his heart; he thinks little on how his injury has affected the rest of us. My anger is irrational: it outweighs his act of thoughtlessness and I feel shame that I have hurt him – that I have turned a pleasant afternoon into this but it is done now. It does not quell my anger, and now he is angered with me too.

"Go," I tell him, and I turn to leave. "Run about your trees until the moon is full and I will be ready, but think on your words Legolas. Think well, and we will have no more of it."

I walk and he does not speak nor stop me, and when I turn to see what he does he is gone.

~{O}~

The next week is an unhappy one. I resolve right away never to part on angry words with any person I have any care for but I still feel a flicker of irritation when I think on his words. To make light of our concern, to believe us worrying hens only after he has decided all will be well? It discards us and it is cruel. I know he does not mean it; Legolas is the most loyal creature I have ever known once his loyalty is earned. I know well enough that it was careless words spoken without thought but if he is to walk amongst mortals he must understand us better than this.

I know that our paths cross. Our rooms are close, and although I neither hear nor see him, I know he has been and gone just as I know the clouds pass by their shadows but he does not come to me. I do not know if this is because he is angry that I hurt him when he trusted me, or whether it is my anger that he avoids but I make arrangements for our travel nonetheless. I spend time at the forges, I spend time with the friends I have made here and I spend a short while in a vast library in which I get completely lost, and come out dusty and sneezing.

We are to ride south with Idhren and Almárean who will leave us once we finish our hunt to return with the horses, and so I am forced to pick a mount. I am surprised that the elves wish to ride at all; from what I have learned of them they prefer the tree tops to the saddle but I feel that this is a sociable event, and not some mission of any kind. I spend a long time selecting from a number of smaller beasts that I am presented with – all of which still seem as giants to me – and feel regret. I remember our travels upon Arod. I recall long days safe behind the elf who speaks with the beasts as though they are joined at the mind. Bouncing and jolting about as I do, alone on a horse of my own is not the same but there is no need now for us to share. It is nostalgia only that makes me think of this, and so I choose a small – and ultimately bad tempered – mare of deep red chestnut that makes her acquaintance by biting me. She and I will get along fine. She is named Naurwen and 'fire' is a good name for her indeed.

The night before we are to leave I barely sleep a wink. I lie in my bed, my pack ready for the dawn and my mind says: 'is this the wrong path? Do we leave to walk the wrong path?' over and over. I cannot know! Our path cannot be chosen nor altered, how then am I to know when I lead us wrong? I do not think ill of the lady Galadriel, but right now it is the closest I have or ever will come to feeling ill used by her.

The full moon is low in the sky when I know I am not alone. I rise and walk to the open balcony where I know Legolas sits, perched like a bird upon the balcony wall and unwilling to enter my room this time. His pale glow is masked by a cloak of deep forest green, the hood pulled over him so that I cannot see his face but I know that he looks up to the stars. It is a clear night tonight, and my breath plumes in the chill air.

"I spoke unfairly," he tells me. His voice is low and unhappy; it has been a week but it is as though we spoke only hours ago to him. The days have blunted my emotion but it has done no such thing for him. "I am sorry Gimli."

"Did I hurt you?" I grunt, folding my arms about me. It is the chill, nothing more. He shakes his head and turns to me so that I can see the light of the moon full upon his face; there is the faintest play of a smile there. He raises his hands from the balcony to look at them critically, and now there is nothing but his balance keeping him from falling from the edge. I fight the urge to move forward to catch him. I have never seen him fall off a single thing but we are very high, and I feel a curl of fright nonetheless.

"They ache," he tells me. "They ache fiercely and I know not why. They should be healed now; weakened aye, and in need of practise to build back what I had but there is little stiffness any longer, and if I think hard on it I can bear my weapons almost as I did. So why do they ache still?"

I feel coldness but this time it is not his precarious seating, nor the chill of the night air. I remember then a flash from that day. She struck my hand – the Shadow struck me and it was as though my bones themselves were groaning with the protest of it. I recall the aching, deep pain again and I wonder if this is what he feels. It was no natural reaction to being struck but the furrows across my ribs – mere marks now – have not bothered me for a good while... but then I was not cut so deeply.

"What say the healers?"

"That the scars the darkness leaves upon us run deeper than flesh, and time alone cannot heal them. It seems I must endure, for now at least."

I am silent. I can read into his meaning; if he sails he will heal, but he will not sail. Not yet. Not for a while yet. "You should sleep," I tell him.

"As should you," he counters.

We stare at one another: the un-swaying stubbornness of an elf met with unyielding stone. He relents as he rarely does and looks away, he still feels guilty so the victory feels cheapened.

"Well then," I concede. "If neither of us plan on sleeping tonight then come down off that railing before you plummet to your death, and let us drink some wine together. Neither of us will do any good standing out here in the cold when there is a good fire inside."

The smile I am granted makes it worth giving in and he nods, and follows me inside.

TBC

Hi all and thanks for returning. Thought I'd do a bit more of a note this time since I ran off so quickly after the first chapter!

Some of you already know, but this story is already mostly written and therefore will not be abandoned. This also means that I have a lot of chapters ready to post, and subsequently updates will be every four or five days. I try to respond to all my reviewers but for those of you who post anonymously, thank you very much. I appreciate any review, even a short line just to say you're there and enjoying it (or not, but hopefully you are!)

Thanks again, and see you again soon. I'd really appreciate hearing your thoughts.

MyselfOnly