Yay! Computer, meet internet, internet, meet computer! (In other words, sorry, but my internet connection has been shot since evening Saturday. Just got back up! And hopefully will stay up long enough to post this).
Chapter 12: Less than perfectly pleasant
Kirilan frowned at the intimate table he was led to by Elrohir. There were only settings for seven elves, at a table that could only comfortably hold eight.
"We always welcome Legolas," Elrohir answered the frown. "We often eat here, apart, actually, as many families do."
"Families?"
"Mm-hmm. Father's the only other one here right now, Arwen is in Lothlorien. Glorfindel always joins us, of course, as he's no family here and we annoy him just like any good nephews aught."
Kirilan shook his head, trying to clear it. "You don't use titles, here?"
"Not generally. Most call father 'Lord', and the same for Glorfindel, but they're the main ones. On occasion, especially when ceremony is called for, titles are brought out." Elrohir stretched, then yawned. He pointed absently at the places, naming them off. "And the other three however you plan to sit. Legolas usually sits at the place by the far end, next to Elladan, across from me."
"Then I suppose I should sit closest to Lord Elrond," Kirilan admitted, exhaling slowly.
Elrohir looked at him sharply. "So he has brought another stray, but chosen to keep this one?"
Kirilan grimaced. "Eh," he rubbed the back of his neck. "It's… complicated."
"No, I don't think they're amusing!"
"But Elladan, really if you train them properly—"
"I am never visiting Mirkwood! Crazy wood-elves," Elladan stomped in grumbling, face twisted in comic fury. He scowled as soon as he saw the room's occupants. "You didn't steer Anumi here?" he asked his brother, his theatrical display quickly lost in light of his missing audience.
"She wasn't in the dining hall," Elrohir shrugged.
"Odd. I told her what time dinner was."
"She's probably lost."
Elladan's scowl returned. "I made sure she could find her way."
"Perhaps she's still resting?" Kirilan asked.
The twins started to respond, when they realized he was looking at Legolas for his response.
Legolas blinked, then lifted a hand to his chest. "I… don't… know." The words were spoken in a soft, sort of shocked tone that again silenced the two who had opened their mouths to make inquiries—quickly, and loudly, if possible.
"How can you not?" Kirilan asked, voice dropping as his eyes narrowed at the odd look on his brother's face. It was a face he didn't much care for—it had hints of confusion and guilt, along with a very faint panic.
"I don't feel her," Legolas breathed, the panic now starting to make his eyes lighten oddly. He took a shaky breath, then closed his eyes, pressing the hand more tightly. "Nothing," he whispered. "Just…" he turned quickly, darting between the twins, racing down the corridor beyond.
"Legolas, what—"
Not even Kirilan bothered to reply to the nearly knocked over Lord Elrond's question, instead racing after his brother with the twins.
Legolas let out a growl when he came to a wall.
"Through the library's the shortest—" Elladan sighed as Legolas took off halfway through his statement. "Not that I know how he knows where she is, anyway," he grumbled, panting a bit as they followed Legolas again. "Blasted wood-elves," he called loudly.
When the normal reply—blasted slow half-elves!—didn't come back, Elladan and Elrohir spared a quick look at each other, before their curiosity turned to certainty. Something was seriously wrong.
Grumbles and groans silenced, they hastened their feet just as Legolas found the proper door, actually running into it when it didn't open for him.
"She probably locked it," Elladan explained.
Legolas swore softly. Kirilan, as usual, couldn't make any of it out, but the twins both flinched. "Anumi!" he yelled, hitting the door with his fists hard enough to rattle it. It was a very solid door—Kirilan almost felt the bones in his arms ache at the very thought of the strength needed to shake it… and the pain that would no doubt result.
Legolas, of course, was indifferent to it.
"Is there another way in?" Kirilan asked swiftly when Legolas seemed stunned to panicky silence after the lack of response from within. He'd gotten inured to seeing this side of his brother as Anumi lay unresponsive. His shoulders were tense, yet not straight—slightly hunched, as if preparing for or recovering from a blow, his breathing not quite calm or steady.
"Yes. The next room shares a dressing chamber. It's unoccupied, so unless she locked that door as well—"
Elladan had taken off well before Elrohir explained. A moment later, Kirilan strained his ears. A muffled 'Valar!' sounded, before the door was wrenched open. "What's wrong with her?" he snarled, blocking the door solidly…
For about half a second, before Legolas went through him, kneeling an instant later before Anumi.
Kirilan swallowed hard upon seeing her. "Eru," he whispered, "not again," he pleaded.
"Again?" Elrohir asked, studying her objectively, as the other three could not. "She's nearly faded before?"
"Yes… not too long ago."
"I'll get Father," he said, leaving quickly.
Elladan was asking questions of the princes, but neither replied.
Legolas touched her cheek gently, frowning when there was no response.
"Legolas, I'll—"
"You can do nothing, Lord Elrond," Legolas said quietly, not bothering to turn to face the lord. "She is not fading."
"But you didn't feel her."
"I still don't," he admitted to Kirilan's sharp statement. "But she is not fading."
"I'd like to look at her."
Legolas tensed for a moment, before moving slightly aside, allowing Elrond a chance to look at her.
Elrond looked at him for a long, sharp moment, and then at her, studying her eyes, but he soon nodded with a slight frown. "She isn't fading."
"Then what's wrong with her?" Elladan asked.
"She's put herself into a sort of healing sleep."
"Why?"
"The reason doesn't much matter," Legolas said softly. "Not to the lot of you, at any rate. Leave us."
"Now hold on, Legolas, I—"
"Elladan. Go."
Elladan looked at his father. "But—"
"He is best able to tend to her, Elladan."
"Why should he be any better than you or I?" he asked, looking at the pale tracks on her cheeks bitterly.
"Because neither you nor I are bound to her."
"What?" the twins exclaimed together. They looked at the two at the bed in shock. "But… neither said anything."
"It is new," Elrond explained quietly. "Either right before or during the trip here, I'd guess."
"Yes," Kirilan said softly, trying to control the faint bitterness in his voice even as he stepped out of the room, arms crossed tightly over his chest.
"But… how'd you know?"
"It's a Mirkwood tradition to…" the rest went unheard as the door closed behind the last of the Imladris Lords, leaving Legolas to again stroke her cheek.
He exhaled slowly, then rose and stepped out of his boots, laying aside his belt and sword as well. He slid behind her, and then stretched out, pulling her along until she lay beside him. He moved backwards, and stripped off his tunic, loosening the ties on his undershirt before rolling her closer, so she was now facing him. He pulled her hair back from her face, lifted it while tucking a pillow under her head, splaying it out to his satisfaction when that simple task was done.
He brushed at the tracks her tears had made in the light covering of dust from their travels on her cheeks, tracing from her eyes to lips and chin. They'd long dried.
He swallowed tightly, but couldn't bring himself to apologize. Someday he'd resign himself to being bound to her. He'd thought he'd done it before he bound them, but she was right—he hadn't. But even then, he wouldn't apologize.
It was enough that he felt so damned guilty.
Guilty—then, and now.
He closed his eyes and moved them so they were flush, and shifted her left hand under his shirt so it was on the skin of his side—her gown had long sleeves, so the only way he could touch her skin would be fairly indecent or might indicate he'd fallen asleep while trying to choke her, neither of which would be wise thoughts to allow her…
When she finally tried to leave her self-created cocoon.
Until then, all he could do was what he was doing—remain close enough to reassure her, amplifying that reassurance by every bit of skin contact he could manage.
Which right at that moment, was merely her hand on his side.
He hoped it would be enough, even as he bent his head slightly, nose against her crown, and allowed his eyes to close. He of all often did sleep with his eyes open—but he was not sleeping alone, and he despised being awakened by getting something in his eyes… especially hair.
He stirred from less than perfectly pleasant memories when the body against his shuddered violently. He opened his eyes and found the room in darkness, the light glimmering on eyes he could barely see, and tears he wished he couldn't.
"I'm sorry."
He found himself tightening his hold on her. "Why are you sorry?"
"I… I never even considered… that you were giving up so much. So I'm sorry. Sorry I wasn't able to see, sorry you gave up so very, very much… and sorry that I'm too selfish to tell you not to."
"Self-preservation is rarely under 'too selfish'."
"But it is still selfish."
"Perhaps," he half-shrugged. "In light of this oddly complete yet lacking conversation… I will not lie and say I'm sorry for whatever you felt this afternoon."
"I wouldn't expect you to be sorry for it, and I'd rather you didn't lie," she whispered, her breath warm against his throat. She'd withdrawn her hand from his side upon waking, leaving the skin feeling too cool. Her hands were now tucked up beneath her chin.
He sighed, knowing the withdrawal for what it was. "And I'd rather you didn't pull away because of it," he said softly, reaching up to cover her hands, drawing one back down to his side, though he didn't put it back under his shirt. "Friends, mates—what I had, is now gone."
"You cannot say you do not—"
"Can't I? I cared, yes… not as much as perhaps I should have."
"You… cared plenty. Else it would not have felt as if my heart were being squeezed." She sighed softly, and pulled her hand back, moving to lie on her other side.
She didn't move away when he moved up to lie against her back, nor did she protest the arm he slipped around her waist. They both needed the contact. The bond had been stressed, troubled, and only this could soothe it so it stopped disturbing them both.
"I did not care enough. Else I would have done something long ago. This will fade."
"Will it?"
"It always does," he agreed softly. "Between every message. If it hadn't faded, even once, I'd have done something."
"You knew it was bound to end, yet let it go on long enough to be of importance merely for the time it lasted?"
With a sigh, he moved so his nose was in her hair, his lips at her nape. "It was better than anything I was offered in the Wood," he countered softly. "No title, no mask…"
"No chance to survive the change, had you wished it."
"No," he admitted after a long pause. "Which is perhaps why I never considered it, nor encouraged such thoughts."
"Perhaps," she allowed. "Or maybe that's why it appealed to you."
He was searching for a reply to that—but not successfully—when he felt her… disappear. All of her emotions faded out from the back of his mind, just as they had sometime earlier, though he hadn't noticed in his own upheaval until Kirilan asked after her. "What are you doing?" he asked, voice low.
"Preparing to have some rest," she answered, her voice blank.
Uneasily, he said nothing, and merely thought about things as objectively as he could while she slept.
