Bart sat next to her on a wooden bench whilst many soldiers, nurses and healers bustled around them. He handed her a cloth in a bowl of herbal water, Lily suddenly realised just how much she took antiseptic and painkillers for granted. She washed her wounds and put the bowl next to her. All she wanted was to sit on a sofa, with a bag of popcorn and watch a film or something. But no, she was too busy living the film, barely living actually.

"Go and find your daughter Bart." Lily smiled warmly. Bart was about to protest, "I'm honestly fine." She gave him a wide, cheesy smile to prove her point. He laughed and got to his feet. "Are you alright Bart?" Lily added, he was unscathed but emotionally he must be pretty beat.

"Yes, yes I think so." He replied, kissing her forehead again and moving into the crowd. Lily knew her companions were alive but there were others she was concerned for, she decided to go and find them. After finally finding a healer who wasn't too busy, she asked if they knew what had happened to the king's guard, Igmund. She replied that as far as she knew he was well and had ridden out with the King, Lord Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli. Lily then proceeded to find an elf who had come to assist them in the battle, she asked after Thalion who she had only met briefly but she truly cared about his fate.

"Thalion...I am afraid we lost many of our people today, including Thalion." He lamented. Lily knew she could not expect everyone to survive but she had hoped for it, she felt a surge of sadness over this elf she barely knew.

"Do you know where I could find his body?" Lily asked solemnly. The elf kindly directed her to the appropriated hall. She did go where she was directed though, instead Lily moved through the fortress towards the mountains.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

She climbed for a short while, until she found what she was looking for. She knelt on the cold grass and plucked a lily from the ground, all she knew of Thalion was that he liked them and she realised she would never know anything else about him. She knew they would collect flowers for the fallen when the time came for the burial, however this lily was just for Thalion.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

She walked back to the fortress and found the hall where the elvish dead were laid. As she came across Thalion she felt her heart plummet to the most miserable depths, she was not remotely prepared for this. Lily knelt beside him and laid the white lily across his armoured chest. She touched his cold hand for a moment until a voice interrupted her.

"Who was he?" He asked softly, as he knelt beside her.

"His name was Thalion." Lily replied, her hand was now encased by Legolas'. She looked up at his face, there was such unrelenting sadness in his eyes as he looked upon his fallen kin, many of which he knew. Lily felt her sadness ebb at the fact that Legolas was still here with her. "Should we...say a prayer for them or something?", Her voiced cracked as she began to cry. Legolas wrapped his arms around her.

"Aa' menle nauva calen ar' ta hwesta e' ale'quenle, Aa' i'sul nora lanne'lle, Aa' menealle nauva calen ar' malta, Quel esta." Legolas whispered, Lily asked what it meant. It meant 'May thy paths be green and the breeze on thy back, May the wind fill your sails, May your ways be green and golden, Rest well'. "Would you like to say a prayer for the fallen, in Westron...in English?" He held her tighter to him. Lily tried to remember the speech given at funerals.

"We give the soul of our brothers here departed, umm earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust; in hope of the resurrection to eternal life through the Lord.", Lily knew she'd missed loads out but it was all she could remember and she couldn't come up with anything to say herself right now. Legolas kissed her forehead and got them to their feet.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

"You're hurt." Legolas noted as they got out into the corridor.

"You should see the other guy." Lily laughed. Legolas put his hand gently on her chin and made her look up at him, Lily couldn't help but smile at his worrying.

"You never came to find me, I assume you were being your usual stubborn self?" Legolas grinned, Lily pretended to give a shocked gasp, as if she would ever be stubborn!

"Actually I did come to find you." She told him, he looked at her as if waiting for her to say she was joking. "I'm being serious".

"You came to find me...and I wasn't there?", He looked like a four year old who has just been told Santa didn't exist. Lily held his hands.

"It wasn't important." She smiled, wanting to make him feel better. "I was just...in a bit of a bind," Lily finished lamely. "You had just ridden out with Theoden and Aragorn and then Gandalf came." She trailed off, smiling brightly to reassure him that she was fine.

"I thought because you hadn't come to me in all those hours that you were either excelling or stubbornly refusing my help." He muttered, berating himself for leaving her at all. Lily wondered why she didn't just keep her mouth shut.

"I was really fine, I was just looking for you." Lily decided to go down the blatant lying route instead.

"You're lying to make me feel better." Legolas rolled his eyes, seeing right through her.

"I admit there was a slight issue but you were busy, and you didn't know so you have no reason to feel bad." Lily reassured him, he nodded in response but she could see he wasn't over it.

"What was the issue?" He asked, as they continued to walk.

"Just an orc." She waved her hand, seeing as they had been battling 10,000 orcs, it was a pretty ambiguous comment. "I couldn't get my sword and he threw me against a wall, and I'd cut my head open earlier in the night and yeah it was all getting a bit blah." She finished.

"Blah?" Legolas repeated incredulously.

"Yeah, blah." Lily smiled back, blah was a sufficient adjective right?

"I knew we should have stayed together." Legolas remarked.

"And let you have all the fun? No way." She grinned, Legolas stopped walking and stood in front of her.

"Being thrown against a wall is 'fun' then?" He looked her intensely. Lily rolled her eyes.

"You know I didn't mean that". Clearly Legolas wasn't in a bantering mood. "I just mean I can do things for myself." Lily bit back starting to feel her temper flare. "And don't try and make it seem as if I'm a stubborn idiot, I came to find you and you weren't there." She snapped, a few passing people looked at them cautiously. Legolas look abashed.

"I know you're not an idiot and you are right, when you needed me, I wasn't there for you." Legolas replied calmly, Lily suddenly felt like a real bitch.

"Why are we even arguing over this?" Lily began to laugh, I mean they had both managed to come out that alive.

"I suppose when you love someone, the little things start to matter more." He shrugged. Back the truck up, did he just say love? Did he love her? Lily looked at him wide eyed. "Why are you looking at me like that?" Legolas asked, looking pretty creeped out.

"You love me!?" Lily gaped at him.

"Oh, well yes, I suppose I do actually." He looked a little embarrassed. Lily jumped onto him and luckily he had pretty quick reflexes, placing his hands around her thighs. Lily was praying he didn't realise just how chubby they were. As she held her arms round his neck, their faces were an inch apart, so naturally they ended up snogging. However, they were shortly interrupted by a throaty cough.

"There's a meeting in the hall, although a meeting seems to be happening right now." Gimli chuckled, giving Legolas a shake of the fist which Lily interpreted as 'get in there'. She ungracefully detached herself from Legolas and went to hug Gimli, he was like a block of ice at first but then he defrosted and hugged her back.

"Well done lassie." Gimli laughed, good old Gimli. "I'll show you two how dwarves celebrate when we get the chance." He promised. Lily wondered whether that involved more or less alcohol that a typical student 'celebration'.

"Is that something we should be excited about?" Legolas raised an eyebrow as he wrapped his arm around Lily's waist.

"Yes laddie, yes!" He replied and went off down the corridor, humming to himself.

"Partying with Gimli." Lily laughed as she turned towards Legolas. Their bodies were pressed together...not in a sexual way, well, kind of in a sexual way. "I can think of much better ways to spend the night." Lily blurted, Legolas raised his eyebrows at her and laughed.

"Sitting discussing battle strategy?" Legolas guessed playfully, Lily shook her head. "Practising archery?" He whispered, as he interwove their hands.

"I'm thinking of something a little more...active." Lily grinned.

"More active than archery?" Legolas pretended to think deeply. It dawned on Lily that she was talking about sex with Legolas from Lord of the Rings, does it get much more surreal than that?

"Seems we think about very different things." Lily shrugged and began walking down the corridor, Legolas blocked her path.

"You do think about those things then?" Legolas asked, a little shyly. Lily nodded. "I would never dishonour you like that, before marrying you." Legolas shook his head. Lily had forgotten about all that honour and chivalry stuff, she knew he had good intentions but it was still sexist.

"Legolas you see me as your equal, yes?" Lily asked.

"Of course." Legolas replied, looking at her, clearly a little confused.

"And you said before you did not care if I was impure?" She added, Legolas nodded his agreement. "So if I am your equal then I should be allowed the dignity and validity of my choice, virginity has no bearing on who I am." Lily reasoned. "And you didn't care if I had sex with my previous partners or not, so surely you would not see it as dishonouring me if you were the one I had sex with anyway." She knew her case was watertight. Although it may show just how desperate she was to get into his pants.

"I agree, wholeheartedly." Legolas replied, impressed at her case. "So are you saying that you want to be together, before we marry?" He asked hesitantly.

"I'm saying I want you to bed me, whenever the mood strikes you." Lily almost laughed at how sex-crazed she sounded, maybe he just had that effect on her.

"The mood always strikes me." Legolas chuckled, huh...interesting information.

"I love you and I trust you and it's yours if you want it." Lily smiled, looking into his dilated pupils, clearly he did want it.

"Believe me I want it but I want to make it special for you." Legolas kissed her temple. "And doing it in the armoury whilst Gimli gets the next round of drinks is not my idea of special." He laughed, Lily hit him playfully on the arm and laughed with him. So her and Legolas were gonna do it before they were married, things were getting wild in Middle Earth.