A/N…I am having technical difficulties with this thing...when I upload the document… my chapter title is at the left margin.. And I click the center button, and it makes all the text center…grr…..I'm getting really frustrated….
Moonbunny77 - I'll try! But alas! I am a mere mortal, needing sleep and food on occasion…and have but two hands! lol! Thanks for reviewing
I do update pretty regularly… daily or every other day…so even tho the chaps are sumtimes short…you'll get a lot of 'em!
Reviews plz!!
Chapter 9 - The Journey Begins
"Dancing Queen"
They rode the rest of the morning in silence, in single file, until Leyna's stomach began to grumble. The sun was directly above in the sky. "Can we stop to eat?" Leyna whined.
They found a small space between the trees off to the right of the trail and stopped there. Legolas helped Leyna off her horse, and they sat in a small patch of sun that broke through the dense canopy. Legolas had brought some lembas and various dried meats for the journey. As they ate, Leyna's mind wandered about their journey ahead. She stopped eating, and asked suddenly, "Why didn't your father send guards this time?" Legolas stopped and breathed unhappily.
She noticed his hesitation and stared at him, waiting for an answer. "My father did not approve of my accompanying you, and threatened to make us go alone if I did not stay in Mirkwood."
Leyna scoffed. "Psh. We can defend ourselves. You're the Prince of Mirkwood for heaven sakes. You're only the best archer and swordsman in the whole kingdom." Leyna gloated. Legolas laughed. "I wouldn't go that far."
Leyna's face was thoughtful once more. "Why didn't he approve?" He hoped she wouldn't ask that. He didn't want to have to tell her the truth. But he had no choice. He would never lie to her.
"Well, he has never quite approved of our relationship, with you not being a royal and all. I didn't tell him of our engagement, he would surely have prohibited it. And he was none too happy when I told him the human in his forest was the Leyna of whom I spoke so much. This morning he finally outright forbade me to have anything to do with you." Leyna frowned at the ground. King Thranduil had seemed so kind her first day there when she had met him.
"But do not give much thought to him. I doubt he'd ever have approved of anyone." Leyna did as she was told. Her thoughts drifted away from the condemnation of their relationship to other things of no importance.
Her eyes suddenly widened and she asked fearfully, remembering her first day in the forest, "Will we see any more of them nasty spiders?" Legolas half-smiled impishly and did not answer. Her eyes widened further and her mouth gaped. "Legolas!?" His smile grew, and still did not answer.
"You brat!" Leyna yelled as she threw herself on him. Her legs straddled his stomach and she pretended to choke him. He made dying noises with a grin and finally grabbed her wrists from his throat. With one fluid motion, he pushed her off him and onto her back beside him, rolling on top of her, never letting go of her wrists. He held them to the ground above her head. "Ah, so the tables have turned." She said slyly.
He shook his head with a chuckle and let go, to stand and help her up. He immediately began getting his pack together. "We should get going."
And so, Legolas helped her onto her horse once again, and they started off. They stopped once more that day, as the sun began to touch the horizon. This time, their clearing was quite large, and the forest around it appeared denser. Legolas tied his horse to a tree branch and walked to help Leyna.
"No, wait. Let me do it." She held her hand out to stop him. A smile came over his face as he quirked a brow and stood, arms folded across his chest, to witness this spectacle.
Leyna concentrated and took a breath to calm herself before she leaned close to the horse's neck, and swung her left leg over the horse's backside. She slid her body down the horse's side, until her feet came in contact with the ground. She spun quickly around to Legolas, a wide grin of victory on her face. He was impressed, but quickly spoiled her mood when he said, "Now all you have to master is getting back up." She scowled as he walked away laughing, and looked back at her horse. She'd tackle that some other time, she thought, as she tied a rope loosely around its neck, and the other end the same branch as Legolas's horse.
Legolas had gathered brush from the outer edge of the clearing and piled it in the middle. He dug in his vest and procured a flint stone. With one strike, the brush lit up in a small blaze. "I'm going to get more firewood." He called to Leyna over his shoulder, as he walked into the forest. "Okay." She called after him. "Oh, and watch out for spiders!" She said, half jokingly, half seriously concerned. She heard him laugh, already surprisingly far away.
She sighed, and spread her cloak on the ground near the fire. There she lay, resting her head on her pack, her hands behind her head. And there, she thought. Which she found herself doing a lot lately. She tried to stop herself; she got sick of thinking. But she couldn't. It seemed she was the kind of person who thought a lot. Amidst her thinking, a song popped into her head. What brought it on, she didn't know. It was just there. She ran through the words in her head, and seemed to know all of them. She heard the music loud and clear.
The tune was catchy, and she sat up, listening to it play through her mind. Her head bobbed side to side, and her shoulders moved with the beat. Soon, her whole body was moving, and she closed her eyes and smiled. She got to her feet, to allow her body full range of motion, and shook her hips to the music. Her arms extended over her head, she yelled:
1, 2, 3 UH!
My baby don't mess around because she loves me so and this I know fo sho
Don't try to fight the feelin cuz the thought alone is killin me right now
Hey ya, hey ya (clap, clap, clap)
You think you got it, oh you think you got it, but got it just don't get it when there's nothing at all
If what they say is nothing lasts forever then what makes love the exception?
Okay now ladies, lend me sum suga. I am yo neighbor Ah! Hear we go
Shake it sh-shake it shake it sh-shake it shake it sh-shake it shake it shake it sh-shake it shake it
Hey ya, hey ya (clap clap clap)
Leyna shook her shoulders and did what she called the 'Harlem Shake' laughing and singing all the while. She thought how crazy she must look. But she didn't care. It felt good to get her mind off her troubles and dance.
Boy, she did love to dance, too. At least she knew that about herself.
With a roguish smile on her lips, the song in her head ended, and she giggled. She saw Legolas out of the corner of her eye, stepping out of the woods. At the same time, she heard him speak, "I must say, never in all my centuries have I seen anything quite like that." Leyna blushed and sat back down on her cloak as he laid some more logs on the fire and placed the rest nearby.
"What in Middle Earth possessed you to do that?" He asked, sitting beside her. "I don't know. I just heard it in my head and it got the best of me. I had to get up and dance." He nodded, though she knew he did not understand.
Legolas did not understand a lot about Leyna of late. It was like he was getting to know her all over again. He did not understand what made her to do some of the things she did, or say some of the things she said. He chalked it up to getting a good knock on the head from something and being under so much stress and frustration.
The sun had now sunk well below the horizon, and the stars were twinkling brightly. The moon cast its hauntingly silver light into the clearing. Leyna shivered. Legolas took a blanket from his pack and spread it on the ground for her. He shook off her cloak and laid it over her, and another blanket over that. "Thank you." She whispered. He did not answer. She was already half asleep.
He fed the horses some dry meat and sat across the fire from Leyna, staring into the orange yellow flames. He heard her mumble something. She twitched under the blankets, and mumbled still, gradually louder. To Legolas it sounded like this, "urgh.. momma... goodbye...uhhh...broken...no!...ahhh!" She finally screamed out and jerked to an upright position. Legolas bolted beside her.
"Leyna it's okay." He rubbed her back, and she stared off in front of her, with a horrified look on her face. Then, she looked to Legolas, and heaved a great sigh of relief. She leaned her forehead against his firm chest and wrapped her arms around his waist. 'Thank God he's here.' Leyna thought. She didn't know how she'd have held her sanity without him.
"I had a nightmare." Leyna whispered into his tunic. "It's okay now. I'm here." He whispered back, reassuringly. After a moment, she lay back down, and he kissed her forehead and stood up. "Legolas!" She whispered urgently. He stopped in mid-turn. She looked at him with pleading eyes. Without words he read them, and lay down beside her. She tossed some blankets over him and snuggled into his warm chest, wrapping an arm around his waist. He draped his strong arms around her body.
Leyna loved it there. It was like nothing else mattered. It didn't matter that she knew nothing of her life. There, she knew exactly who she was. She was a woman who was loved. That was all that counted. The scent of the forest enveloped her, from the trees around, and from the warm body so close to her. The last thought that crossed her mind before she fell into a deep, peaceful, dreamless sleep was one of contentment.
A/N this chapter contained "Hey Ya" by Outkast.
