We travel west, for no reason other than the fact that Legolas says it 'feels right'. He is distracted and unhappy and so none of us question him, because we must go in one direction or another and west is as good as any. We travel with the wood to our right and the Brown Lands stretching out to our left, and we are in almost complete silence until it is vaguely midday. At least I think that it is; I cannot tell completely, because the sun is nothing but a slightly brighter patch of greyness above us.

Now that the rain has cleared it has become strangely warmer, which I cannot find any reason to complain about. It is windy and grey, but the bite in the air has softened, so that for once I am not getting a stiff neck and shoulders from hunching into my cloak all of the time. Naurwen is very pleased with herself to have won her way, and is acting far too spritely for a horse who has travelled so far. I have no way of telling her that she need not prove anything any longer so I leave her to it, and instead I spend the morning trying to keep my mind free of darkness, and upon the trail ahead of us. I have varying success at it.

Legolas begins to brighten before too long has passed, because he is resilient and he is not a child separated from his father for the first time in his life. He straightens, begins to look about him again and I try to break the silence by asking him the name of his horse.

"I would imagine it is called 'red' or 'owner of legs' or something as foolish," I sigh, and when I catch Legolas' gaze out of the corner of my eye I give him the smallest of smiles. He simply sighs, gives me the sort of flat look one would give an idiot and remains silent. It is Idhren who answers, riding to our rear with Calder.

"Her name is Anariel," he tells me, "a simple and pleasant name, if a little much for a horse. She is not from Legolas' stables."

"This one is," Faelwen calls out archly, not even turning around from where she rides with Almárean ahead of us. Her mount is a mean looking black thing, with a pinched face and unfriendly temperament but with the legs and chest of a runner. "He is named Delu."

It takes me a moment to translate, and I glance back at Idhren.

"Dangerous?" I question.

"Fell, hateful, unpleasant," he nods.

"He bit me the day that he was foaled. Only hours upon his legs," Legolas shrugs. He is entirely unconcerned by our laughter, and instead turns into the wind so that his hair pennants out behind him. He tilts his face into it for a time, scenting and seeing, and he frowns.

"More snow," he mutters with a peevish look, scowling at the clouds as though this might persuade them against the idea.

"Not until tomorrow," Idhren stretches, unconcerned. "The ground is very wet, it likely will not settle."

And then he and Almárean disagree, and it sparks off a lengthy discussion between the two of them. We rearrange ourselves within our formation and we leave them both to it. Almárean and Idhren have been apart for too long, and this is not to do with weather at all but rather a reconnection of a bond. We ride in the quiet for a time – or at least as quiet as it can be with two elves arguing over snow – but then Calder asks us:

"If you could be anywhere at all right now, where might it be?"

He is met with silence for a long time – it is an odd question and quite out of nowhere – but I decide to speak first. I know that he will be waiting a long time for the elves to make a decision on such a complex matter.

"That is a question indeed," I tell him, and I warm to this subject instantly because it is distracting and pleasant. The lad is a genius, it seems. "At first I would say the Lonely Mountain, where it is always warm and merry and full of sensible folk with no elves at all, but then I am a different dwarf of late. I would like to be there, but I would also be happy about a fire with my friends, with a tale to tell and nothing to worry me at all. I would be there right now quite happily."

"A fine choice," Calder nods. "I would be back with my father – my adoptive father – when he was first teaching me to hunt. I admit I was quite useless at it at first, and we spent days together: just he and I in an endless forest and no one else. It was fine indeed."

He grins, and suddenly he looks so very young to me. I cannot help but smile back at him and then we look at Faelwen and Legolas, but I do not think that we were meant to see them. They are looking at one another, and I can read their answer as though it was screamed in my ear.

They remember when they were together, just the way that it used to be.

It is broken quickly but it is sobering. Legolas knows that he has been caught and makes certain not to let the mood settle at all; he beams at us both but it takes Faelwen a moment longer to compose herself.

"Picking strawberries at my grandfathers," he tells us quite certainly, and Faelwen groans loudly. Almárean explains her reaction, breaking off his discussions with Idhren to call out to us:

"You and Idhren took a long time to learn the difference between strawberries that were ripe, and strawberries that would upset your stomach," he says with a hint of a frown. "There was no telling you, none at all. I had to return you to your father that way – spectacularly unwell all down your front – on more than one occasion. Have you any idea the difficulties I had from Ionwë over it?"

"Only because you tell the tale so often!" Idhren scowls.

"Strawberries at my grandfathers," Legolas repeats wistfully, as though we travel with ghosts that only I can hear.

"Our first years of training," Faelwen speaks quite certainly, nodding to herself. "Ionwë did not know what to do with us at first, not for a long time. He would put us with the adepts who were older and better and Sindarin, and they did not like us even slightly. But then we would sneak off and spend days running the forest and no one would call for us; it was just the forest and the wind and the rain, and we would run all of the day through. They were good days."

The laegrim all have the same wistful expression for a while, remembering, but Almárean breaks the moment:

"The days when I was a soldier, before Ionwë cursed me with the care of two elflings and I became naught but a nursemaid. I hope that one day they might finally grow up, or perhaps in Eldamar I will be relieved of this terrible burden."

Idhren reaches out and thwacks Almárean quite solidly in the arm, and the Sindar laughs. It is a soft sound – real and true – and I smile to myself just as Faelwen laughs out loud. Then Almárean speaks again.

"In truth, watching a sunset with two little ones who would never stop fighting, and who could come up with the most fantastical of reasons as to why they were bloody and bruised. They thought I was quite brave and fine back then."

Legolas, Idhren and Almárean share a look that the rest of us are entirely excluded from, but it is warm and speaks a lot of the bond that they share. We cannot touch what they have – not for one moment – but I find that I do not mind. I take comfort in their history and shared experiences, I find it warming on a cold day and with darkness ahead of us.

"The day before Legolas left us," Idhren says, quite unexpectedly, because we had fallen silent for a while and I had not realised. There is a strangely sombre note to his voice, and Legolas turns around to question why he would pick such a moment as one he might repeat. Idhren tells us all: "It was the last day before everything changed. It was the last day before our time here began to end."

~{O}~

The others continue to talk, and despite what Idhren has said – as much as his words repeat over and over and stick in my mind – it has not dampened the mood at all. It is Idhren mostly, chattering away as he is wont to do on occasion, and I listen in but I do not join them. Idhren is happy enough speaking for us all, and no one minds particularly because he is simply happy to be back with Almárean. The three of them – Almárean, Idhren and Legolas – are like family, but Almárean and Idhren are closest. They have missed one another terribly, and although neither one would ever tell the other, it is as obvious as the ground beneath my feet.

I am watching Legolas, whilst desperately trying to pretend that I am not.

My friend has gone very quiet, although I can tell that he is listening to us. I can tell by the quirk of his mouth, a smile, a glance of outrage here and there but he does not join in, not the way I would have imagined he might. When Idhren is in this sort of mood it is often Legolas who joins in – often the two elflings playing to Almárean's exasperation – but not today. He is listening for the Shadow. I know that he is.

After a few hours he snorts, a soft sound of frustration, and there is a shadow of a scowl upon his face; the smallest thing that he is trying to hide. His eyes are fixed tightly upon the horizon, narrow and annoyed, and Faelwen gives me a look that tells me this is more my sort of problem. I give her a flat look of disbelief, she shrugs without any guile whatsoever and I concede with a roll of my eyes and a steadying breath.

"How goes it?" I ask him, as brightly as I am able and desperate to keep things as light as I can. I am given a wide look of helplessness which is perhaps worse than if he were annoyed, because I can deal far better than an angry Legolas than an unsure one.

"It is like trying to relax a muscle I have no control over!" he sighs hugely. "I had thought this would be an easy thing; simply stop blocking out the call a small amount; enough to hear something of where it comes from… so simple. Instead I think I am making it quieter, and now I have a headache."

He pinches the bridge of his nose between thumb and forefinger, screws his eyes shut before taking a deep breath and looking up to the sky. I cannot see the stars but they are up there in any case, and it does not seem to matter whether it is the sun or the moon in the sky to elves.

"Definitely a headache," he nods.

"Stop for a time," I tell him. "You will do nothing for us at all if your brain leaks out of your ears; you have precious little of it, you should conserve what you have." Legolas opens his mouth in order to respond in kind, but I am too quick. "In any case, that angry-looking horse of yours back there is giving Naurwen strange looks. He is gelded, yes? I did not think it polite to look."

Legolas is silent for a moment, he stares at me completely without words and then he laughs hugely. It is the sort of laugh that I have not heard from him in a long time; unbridled and bright.

I feel a familiar burn in my chest, and I know what causes it: the joy that Legolas' laughter creates in all that hear it; the pleasure I feel at seeing my friend released from his darkness for just a moment; the secret, personal delight at being the one that caused his laughter. One day I will understand why I am held so in sway by this creature, but until then I will simply continue to be as befuddled as I always have been by it. We grin at one another and a lot is said without speaking.

He will rest for a time, and he thanks me, and we slow for a beat until we are all riding together again. Naturally it is Idhren that breaks the peace.

"Calder!" he calls out. "Did you know that Faelwen keeps a rose garden?"

And then Faelwen promises violence if he speaks another word, and Idhren ignores her, and of course she is duty bound to stick to her convictions and all goes badly. It is not quite the morning I had expected, and I thank Eru endlessly for this reprieve. Laughter feels so strange after such sadness and darkness; it is like a day of spring, suddenly and surprisingly upon us in the heart of the winter. It is starlight in the darkness.

~{O}~

We quieten as the day passes – because there is only so much that we can do to keep our own dark thoughts away – but the morning has given us something that we sorely needed. We feel united; refreshed in a small way by the laughter of the morning.

Legolas returns to his attempts at listening for the call of the Shadow, and although I do not believe that he is getting any closer as to how such a thing can even be accomplished, I feel a small worry of doubt start to grow. He should not be finding this so difficult. There must be a reason why his own mind and heart are protecting him so thoroughly, but there is not a single thing to be done about it. In the silence and privacy of my own mind I can admit it; it is the only thing that we have, the only thing we can use to locate the Shadow. I have to let him do this, but it is down to me to work out what we must do when we finally find it.

I watch Legolas for a while; surreptitious glances, because he knows when he is being watched. I am not the only one by any stretch of the imagination, and we each know the same helplessness. All that we can do is watch him struggle, watch him frustrated and fearful, but there is nothing we can do to help him in this.

Except perhaps there is.

I begin to tease at the knot of darkness at the back of my mind, back where the Shadow has hidden something, because if Legolas can fight like this – alone and unaided in an impossible task – then by Eru so can I. There might be something, there could be some knowledge or some secret that we can use, and it is right there buried at the back of my mind. I must simply unlock it.

I begin to understand what Legolas does, because for a long time I cannot even imagine how to tease away at this knot. It is not a physical thing, it not something that I can touch or fight, it is merely a void in my own mind that I cannot access. How do I even begin to unravel it? Whenever I try there is a pain that shoots across my forehead, across my jaw and down my neck; sudden and all encompassing – all I can see and think of – and then gone again. I decide that the pain is an indicator that I am on the right path, but the thought gives me no comfort.

I am not an idiot, and so I do not barrel into things without thought at all, but I try to touch upon it gently and occasionally. I probe, I simply spend a long time holding the void at the forefront of my mind without doing anything. I do all that I can to try and do something, anything that might make a difference but it is to naught; all that I do is give myself a nosebleed.

I realise it and mop at my face with my sleeve, and I am surprised when a hand grabs at my wrist. I look up and see Idhren there and the look he is giving me is in complete understanding – absolute support – but there is also a shadow of pity there as well, and it annoys me.

"There is no need for two of us to torture ourselves today," he murmurs softly, and I feel my annoyance melt away as though it was never there. Idhren can act the fool, he is older than Legolas but acts younger the majority of the time, but the sadness in his voice right now is ancient. I understand it; he is watching two of his friends tear themselves into pieces over this, and it is breaking his heart. That he thinks so much of me is touching, but I shake my head.

"I cannot let him fight alone," I say, and my voice is thick. I spit blood upon the passing ground. "Perhaps I can help."

"I understand that better than most Gimli, I truly do, but when your face starts bleeding it is a sign to stop for a while. Perhaps rest for a few hours… please."

It is the same that I have said to Legolas, and I would be a hypocrite indeed if I refused, so I simply nod and he looks relieved.

I look about myself for the first time in what feels as only minutes, but in reality seems to have been hours. There is little changed about our whereabouts – the wood is still there and so is the vast moor – but it has become stony and craggy. Huge rock formations rise from the ground and small, stunted trees cling by their roots. We are far from the mountains, but in a day or so I will be able to see them and I can feel the wildness in the stone beneath me. This is not settled ground, pondering and undisturbed, but rather bucked and fractured – open to the sky and singing. My breath catches in my throat. How have I missed this? Perhaps the Shadow silences even my own Song.

I call out to Legolas, because there is no time for keeping secrets that might be useful.

"I did not notice this," I tell him, gesturing out at the jagged and wonderful formations around us. There is not a single person in our group that did not hear my words, but Legolas is the only one that understands them. He knows what I have been doing – of course he does – and our eyes lock whilst I see from the corner of my eye that Faelwen and Almárean share a confused look.

"Where was your mind?" he asks.

"Nowhere far enough," I say, and again he understands. There is nowhere far enough for my mind to go that would silence this; the Song that I can hear so clearly now. It is enormous, like a horn sounding in the deepness of the world; constantly in my heart as a glorious offering to the maker of the world. Deep and hot, constant: a celebration… exposed to the sky the way that it never is.

Legolas thinks for a moment and then nods, although he has no answer. It is another mystery but perhaps one day we will make sense of it… perhaps one day we will look back upon this moment and shake our heads at our own foolishness. How did we not see? We might ask. How, when it was so obvious?

I hope very much for that day.

Legolas and I are thinking very much the same thing; he does not have an answer for me, but the look that we share is the same: dark and secret, shared and completely in understanding. He looks up at the sky, sees that we are almost out of daylight and calls us to a stop. We are done for the day.

There is an odd little culvert that we find, sheltered and gorse strewn with a dried out river bed. All around it is the strangest of land; sudden drops where the ground has simply fallen away, inexplicable rises of stone, hawthorn and heather choking the land so that there is no guessing at what lies beneath. We find that we ride upon bare stone just as often as we sink into unexpected marshland and I dislike it, despite the beauty of it, because it is treacherous. We cannot run upon such ground should we need to, and Almárean and Legolas discuss it as we descend into our comfortable culvert.

"We should travel in the wood," he says, ducking beneath the under-hang of a twisted and low tree. "At least there we know our bearings. This is land we do not know."

"I am being pulled away from it," Legolas replies lowly, and his tone is regretful. "I would travel in the wood in a heartbeat, but it does not feel right."

"You say that you cannot hear the direction of the Shadow," Calder argues gently. Saw grass pulls at his pants leg and his horse has become agitated; a fine thing of cream and gold but woefully less placid than his last mount. "You say that you are being pulled, but how are you certain? We cannot travel upon this ground; not if there is any risk that we might need to run at any time."

"I do not know!" Legolas snaps, but softens it with a sigh. "You must trust me in this."

Calder says nothing, does nothing, but the lack of response is his answer. He does trust Legolas, we all do.

"The road ahead is even worse than this," Faelwen tells us unhelpfully, "but it will be better by this time tomorrow. The forest turns north, we will come upon the Anduin again by the morning after. We need a direction by then."

"I know that full well, Faelwen," Legolas snaps. She is unimpressed by his ire, if a little surprised by it, but he is unapologetic. "If anyone would like to take over from me they are welcome to do so!"

Almárean reaches out and grabs at his wrist – perhaps a little harder than necessary – and the look that he gives means nothing to me, but it is intense and brief. Legolas shakes himself free of his grasp but says nothing else.

When we finally reach our camp for the night and dismount, Faelwen goes to him and I hear a muttered: "Goston angin," but he hisses and waves her away. She might well be worried for him, but Legolas is not the most receptive to that sort of thing. Instead he sends her out of the culvert again to stand guard, and for a long time they stand there glaring at one another. Her scowl is heavy and angry, his face is studiously devoid of any emotion at all, and in the end she spits something that I do not understand and climbs up the side of the culvert with the sort of elven ease that I have always been a bit envious of. It is steep – almost sheer – and made of crumbling sandstone, but she makes no sound.

"None of this is Faelwen's fault," I murmur as I unsaddle Naurwen, softly but I know that he can hear. He looks at me, but it is empty and blank and he turns away again. He walks away as though I have said nothing at all.

I was wrong earlier; I would rather deal with an unsure Legolas than this one. I look to the heavens and take a deep breath, and I grab at him as he passes. I hold his sleeve in my hand and he stops and looks at me, empty and flat, then his eyes flicker to the hand I have on him in a strong suggestion that I remove it.

"Stop it," I mutter at him. I do everything I can to keep any emotion from my voice at all – nothing that he can react to – but no matter how difficult I find it to meet his gaze, I manage it nonetheless. "Stop."

For a long time he does not react at all. We are frozen in time – with Legolas trapped in my grasp and with me caught in a glare that feels like the cold of winter itself – but after a time he deflates and nods. He snatches his sleeve away from me, but I know that he will – at the very least – stop snapping at people. It does not take long for him to escape our culvert and follow Faelwen. I hope that he is apologising, but knowing the two of them there is a strong possibility that he is not.

"You have become quite adept at that," I hear, and turn around in surprise. I had not realised that Almárean was so close. He has an arm full of kindling that he has found from somewhere, and deposits it just as carefully as he does everything before crouching to clear an area for our fire. He does not look at me, he puts his full attention in to what he does, but I know that I have his attention. "There are elves who have known him his full life and still do not know how to handle him when he is being difficult."

"What he is doing," I murmur, before coming to help him. "What he is struggling with – perhaps I understand it better than most."

It is not quite what he meant and we both know it. Perhaps I have grown accustomed to Legolas' odd and swiftly changing moods, and perhaps I have learned very quickly how to manage them. He is a very difficult elf, but then he is still so young.

I set aside stones for our fire just as Almárean does, clearing away wood and brambles so that we might spend the night in some sort of comfort rather than picking rocks out of our spines. Almárean starts the fire just as Idhren returns with water, and Calder sees to the horses. It is practised, silent; we are well used to our routines now.

We do not cook upon a pot tonight because we are hungry, and cooking in a pot takes time. I have no wish to eat food that is mostly raw nor do I wish to be waiting until dawn for our food, but Legolas has caught us birds today. They hang from his packs still, and so I prepare them whilst Idhren sorts through the plucked feathers. He rescues those in good condition and packs them away for fletching whilst Almárean takes those birds that I am done with, binding them with herbs. It is a comforting routine, I find myself calming breath by breath and for a short time I do not think of anything at all. My mind ambles along quite happily thinking of nothing whatsoever: not of the cold or how much I ache, not of Shadows or murderous young adan lads, and certainly not of huffy elflings.

When Faelwen returns she settles herself down and tells us that Legolas has changed his mind, and will take first watch. I can see that he has apologised, or they have spoken at least. She seems calm and has no hint of annoyance about her, and I nod in satisfaction.

She pulls her hair free, loosens her clothing and hisses in annoyance once she sees that Idhren has been at the feathers, but it is light hearted and he grins at her. They are like siblings at times.

"Do you think he will do it?" Calder asks quietly, casting his eye to the top of the incline. He inspects the blade of his sword and pulls out a whetstone, and of course we all know what he refers to.

"Aye," I nod. "He will do it, I just do not know how long it might take. He is becoming very frustrated."

"Truly?" Faelwen snorts, raising her eyebrows and giving me a wry look, but there is no heat to it. She understands. "If it takes any longer we might have to start riding a distance away from him, or perhaps confiscate his weapons."

"I hope that is you volunteering," Idhren chuckles darkly. "I once tried to take his blades from him, my left shoulder has never been the same since."

"It was a very foolish thing to try," comes a voice, and I jump. I am annoyed instantly, because I have become very proud of the fact that I no longer startle out of my skin at every unexpected voice from the air.

"Mahal's hammers, Legolas!" I cry out, turning to see him silhouetted against the starlight. He stands above us, naught but blackness cut against the sky, but even so I can tell that he finds this amusing. "I am going to sew some bells into your clothing the first chance I get, I swear it upon my very beard!"

"You should see this," he tells us, his smile fading, and then he waits patiently whilst those of us who are not elves scramble and slip up the incline. We follow him across the difficult ground, and I would have fallen more than once had there not been a ready hand to grab me and haul me back upright again. This is terrible land to be travelling in the dark – it was not much better in the daylight – but we do not go so far that I cannot find my way back, or at least I hope.

Legolas brings us to a halt, but it is a long time before I realise… before I understand what he has brought us here to see. It is too dark, it takes longer for dwarven eyes to penetrate the night, and I hear Idhren's curse, Almárean's sharp intake of breath long before I can see the cause. When I can finally make out what we are here for, I cannot help but take a step back.

"Eru…" I whisper.

It is even longer before Calder can see, but I can tell when he does. The lad chokes a gasp and all but falls backward trying to get away.

"It is dead," Legolas mutters, but that is fairly obvious to us all once the shock has worn off. There is no way that it could be alive.

There is a short tree upon a small rise, alone and isolated without a single thing growing near it for a good distance. It has found a way to force its roots through the stone, somehow survived. We are high and there is no break from the wind which whistles about our ears and masks any other sound. It is a bad place for us to be; exposed and dangerous.

There is a dead orc pinned to the tree, its arms stretched out, crucified.

Idhren has recovered from his shock and has gone close – far too close to the body. I take a breath, I swallow deeply and I join him, although Calder makes a small sound at the back of his throat as though he had considered stopping me. I wonder how many orcs he has truly seen this close up.

"It has been a long time since we saw one last," I comment as I approach. It absolutely reeks, although I cannot tell if it is decomposition or just because all orcs reek. I lean in, which I think is terribly brave of me as I would do anything at all to have simply watched from afar. This is too odd, too strange a thing to have found.

"It has not been dead for long," Almárean mutters, revulsion that I can understand quite easily thick in his voice.

It is not very big, perhaps the height of a man but slender and wiry. It is very heavily scarred, but orcs practise self-mutilation and I cannot recall having seen an orc that is not heavily scarred. Its face is streaked with them, heavy jaw to hairless head, and it has only one eye that would have been functional. I see a mouth crammed with ill-fitting jagged teeth. Its clothing is stinking and bloodied, and not all of it is its own or particularly recent. About its waist there is a pelt of something that I suspect might be human hair, all of its weapons are still present and it is pinned to the tree by its own throwing knives. They are at wrist, elbow and shoulder. I cannot see any wounds other than this. I think that perhaps it has been left here in this way… I think it was alive when this happened.

"There would have been others," Faelwen thinks aloud, coming close enough to the body to investigate its wounds before screwing her face and spitting in revulsion, tripping away from the body. She does not walk far away, but I wonder what this must be like to creatures with such heightened senses. It is making my stomach roil. "They never travel alone."

"I wonder where the rest of them went…" Almárean muses, looking out to the darkness around us.

"Perhaps they are the ones that did this?" Calder offers. "Perhaps it was the other orcs."

"None of it has been eaten," Legolas shakes his head, and Calder gags. Every now and then he reminds me of his age. "They would have not left the weapons behind either."

He leans forward, pale hair caught in the wind and takes a tentative sniff – every sense employed in seeking out any clue as to what has happened here. He examines it closely, then grimaces and puts his hands upon its clothing, gingerly searching.

When the orc takes a heaving breath we are an explosion of cried alarm and backward movement. Even Legolas scrambles back in fright; his blades in his hands in an instant, his eyes wild in shock.

All of us have leapt away, every single one of us breathless with surprise at this monster returning to life when we thought it quite dead. The orc screams, a ragged and awful sound that rings out into the darkness, but my friend is not stunned for long.

Whilst I am trying to claw my heart back out of my nostrils Legolas sheathes one blade, the other remaining in his hand, and he strides up to the orc with a grim look. He wraps one hand in his cloak to protect it from those horrible teeth and fastens it across the creature's mouth, silencing it, and hisses into its ear.

"If you do not quieten down I will keep you alive, but I will make it so that you cannot ever make a sound again," he hisses, and this is a side of Legolas that has always chilled me. This hatred, this cold violence in him… it is not my elfling.

The orc eyes him with its one eye, yellow and glowing in the darkness. It makes an awful noise; a rasp of breath that rattles in its chest but without voice it still communicates the hatred that it feels, the sheer and utter loathing for the elf at its side. When Legolas releases it, it grinds its teeth and snarls but it does not scream again. Legolas can do just as he says; can mutilate it so that it is voiceless and keep it alive all the while. I know that he can just as the orc does.

"Release me," it says, and it is a sound like rocks grating upon one another. Their vocal chords are not well suited for anything but the foul language that they speak, and so the Common Tongue does not sit well with them; it drips and chokes from their throats as though the words taste foul.

"No," Legolas shakes his head. "The best you will get from me is a swift death. We will leave you here as you were, or you can tell me what happened and I will kill you cleanly."

It spits at him, only missing because Legolas is expecting it, and it snarls something in their foul tongue. It is like broken glass in my ears; madness and hatred given voice, but my elf simply snarls right back. He fastens his hand back across its mouth, reaches out to grab at the blade in its shoulder and he twists savagely.

The orc reacts just as I imagine that I might react to such a thing; it bucks and screams – the sounds muffled and choked – and Legolas leans in close to hiss something in its ear. I cannot make it out, but when he releases it this time the foul thing glares at him with raw and seething hatred, but it does not spit at him again.

It eyes him closely, its jaw working angrily and its claws bunching and flexing where they are pinned to the tree. I know that it wishes nothing more than to rip out my friend's throat.

"I have a message… a message for the elven filth that it said would come," it bites out eventually. "It has taken the others, those that I ran with. Stole their minds and left me here. Says it will meet you in Bray."

I take a breath – stuttered and aghast – and Legolas tries to hide the same reaction, but the orc sees it in any case. It sees our horror and it begins to laugh; a wet sound, ragged and hateful, and Legolas can contain himself no longer. He slits the orc's throat in a single, fluid movement and walks away without a care. The orc dies choking upon its own blood but none of us feels even a moment of remorse for it.

"Are you sure that was wise?" Almárean frowns as Legolas wipes his blade, stalking past.

"It had nothing to tell us," my friend bites out. "Take that wretched thing down, I will not have that tree burdened with such foulness when it wakes in the spring. We must rest tonight, tomorrow we ride hard."

~{O}~

No matter what Legolas has said, I find it difficult to sleep.

We cannot ride in the darkness, not upon ground so treacherous. We will not get far with broken legged horses but still, it does not feel right to be sleeping right now. The same thoughts circle endlessly, annoyingly, over and over again in my mind.

Bray. Finulfin and the little girl. It cannot go there! We first met this Shadow because of them, because we came to their aid. All of our efforts, right from the start will be to nothing if Finulfin and his sister die anyway.

I give up, I wrestle from my bedroll and I find Legolas where he sits at the fireside with Faelwen. They are both silent, lit red and black by the firelight, and they look up as I join them. I feel a momentary twinge of guilt to be disturbing their peace because they are so at ease in one another's company – so comfortable it being just the two of them – but the guilt is gone just as soon as it is there. Legolas is watching the fire, Faelwen is watching the stars, but it is not an uncomfortable silence. After a while I cannot help but ask:

"Do you think she remembers us?"

I keep my voice low and soft, and Faelwen knows well enough that this is not a conversation that she can be a part of. She gets up and goes to take a walk, granting me a small smile that says she is not annoyed by my interruption. Once we are alone again, Legolas replies.

"If it were you, do you imagine that you would remember?"

"I hope that I would not."

Legolas nods, and I know that I am not the only one who has spent the night thinking such things. I had hoped to never meet her again, that little girl from Bray who was stolen away by the first Shadow – the complete Shadow. She is a reminder of where we have come from, everything that we have suffered since the spring, everything that we lost that day when we met her brother in the woods. The little girl whose name I never even learned.

"Do you think that it is Callen calling us to Bray, or do you think it is the Shadow remembering?" I ask. I am simply voicing my thoughts, because they are bouncing around in my head and it is driving me to distraction. It has always helped to hear Legolas' take on things, even when he has no more answers than I do.

"I think it is a part of each of them," Legolas sighs. "It is not the same Shadow, but she is desperate to find herself – to become complete – and of course Callen would do anything to get his way. Finding a band of orcs would have been quite wonderful for him, I imagine. How he evens knows of Bray…"

"She?" I frown, because this is the only thing that I have heard. He looks at me blankly, not understanding. "You have never called the Shadow 'she' before."

Legolas opens his mouth as though to reply, but he has nothing. Nothing at all. He is surprised, and then dismayed, and then he clams up entirely and looks away. I do not know what to say or do, I do not know what reaction I should be showing right now and so I do the next best thing. I pretend it has not happened.

The silence between us is suddenly tense and heavy, thick with unsaid words, and I rub my face tiredly. The morning cannot come soon enough.

~{O}~

When the day finally comes it is bright and clear, but I have not forgotten what the elves have said, and I do not doubt for a moment that we will have snow before the end of it.

I am gritty eyed and bad tempered but I am not the only one, and we breakfast on the move; eating in the dark as we pack away. By the time the sun is risen we are already heading back toward the wood where it rises dark and shadowy upon the horizon, a ridge of darkness against a lightening sky. It feels odd to be returning so soon.

Bray lies to the north, Legolas tells us… the far western edge of the wood, a good day's ride if we can get beyond this cursed terrain. Something is wrong though; Legolas was leading us away from the forest and it seems that he does not feel right to be heading this way. Even with the words of the orc ringing in our ears and a destination firmly in mind, he seems uncomfortable with the direction we are riding. He keeps turning, keeps looking behind us, but there is nothing we can do. We cannot ignore this.

By early morning we have finally passed this awful, craggy ground and we push our mounts into a canter. We ride to spare the horses, walking them in spells, and by midday the elves have caught the scent of orcs which makes things even worse. They are fidgety and tense, the horses have picked up their mood and there is no conversation, no lightness to our travel at all. We have a place to be and a reason to be there, and I spend all day with a knot in my stomach. I have never been to Bray, I do not know its people or how it is situated, but I do not doubt for a second that they are ill prepared for what comes their way.

The most south-westerly edge of Mirkwood swells outward, a curve that lies in our path, but the decision is made not to cut through. The forest here is thick and tangled, and although the day draws onward and although it might be the most direct route, it would take us longer to ride through the trees. I know this, all of the elves agree, but it feels as though we are taking the longer road and I am getting very tired of this tense and knotted feeling in my chest. I do not know how to stop this rising anxiety that is restricting my breathing, screaming in my mind that we are late… that we are too late to stop something awful.

All day I ride with it: all day with Legolas constantly twitching and looking behind him, with the other elves anxious and waspish with the scent of orcs. It is enough to drive a dwarf into madness, but this is not the first time that I have journeyed this way. It is not the first time that I have become angry and frustrated that horses cannot run endlessly without being rested, or perhaps that I might somehow close my eyes in one place and then open them in another. It is not the first time that I have raced to be somewhere, and it does not ever get any more bearable.

The sun is only starting to set when we reach our destination, and the clouds have finally started to draw in. Over the forest there is nothing but clear skies; lit opal blue by the setting sun with the faintest glimmer of starlight here and there. To the west there is a wall of thunderous looking clouds, high and dark and coming straight for us. I look for only a moment, because we are here for a reason and there is more than enough to capture my attention.

Bray is not very deep into the wood. We are upon the outward edge where the forest is less wild, less alive with whispers and watchful eyes. The light falls easily upon thatched buildings and dirt roads, muddy and bare in the winter but I imagine that it is pleasant and bright here in the summer.

The wood has been maintained carefully and so we arrive in trees that are airy and meant for shade. There are cows and sheep in pastures, chickens making a noisy fuss as they are scattered by dogs running alongside children.

Visitors! They call. Strangers come upon the village!

They race away from us calling out the alarm, and I feel almost sick with relief that we have found them this way. Part of me imagined that we might come here too late; that we would find this place blood soaked and silent, that we would be digging graves tonight, but it is not so. We stop the horses and we tether them carefully, we move slowly and give no one any cause for alarm, and then we walk into the village.

Faelwen and Idhren walk to the side, because as much as they pretend not to be they are watching and seeing everything about us. They are Legolas' guards, and it gives the rest of us a moment to take in our surroundings. We are safer beneath their watch than we are beneath our own.

There is a village hall, weather worn and in need of paint but sturdy and strong. The homes are modest but well maintained, the streets wide and clear, if a little muddy. Bray is a village that has done well enough for itself: those who live here are strong and healthy, their tools seem fairly new, their livestock well fed and there are plenty of children all with good winter boots and cloaks. It has been protected by the elves for a long time, despite that it is sat in the middle of a dark and haunted wood, and although the people gather and line the roads with suspicious eyes and guarded faces, they eye the elves with curiosity rather than fear. They know the Firstborn better than most.

We walk toward the Hall, because it is always the best place to present one's self when arriving someplace new, but our journey is interrupted.

There is a cry, shrill and cutting. Legolas freezes as though the Necromancer himself has made an appearance, and it takes me a while to understand what happens… just a moment to gather my wits before I feel wetness at my eyes, completely unbidden. I make a sound that I do not recognise and suddenly it is very difficult to breathe.

There is a line of men stood watching us, and they are shoved aside with a grumble and complaint just as Legolas drops to one knee. A small girl flies out, a thin keening cutting the silence as she runs wildly toward my elf. She is sobbing – a wail without any words or any meaning – and when she slams into Legolas he envelops her tightly in his arms.

She is weeping brokenly. He closes his eyes, cradles her small, knotted blonde head and I have nothing to say.

It is the little girl from the burning house, and I have nothing to say at all.

TBC

So this was meant to go up HOURS ago. It is very hot and I fell asleep, and I'm actually not as sorry as I should be because it was a marvellous nap! :D

Anyone else in the south of the UK, hope you haven't been struck by lightning or anything. Also, I got sunburned feet today. Feel sorry for me pls :(

Back to the story! So I appreciate that was a bit of a filler chapter, but by Eru I cannot wait to post the next one! The FEELS, you guys! Filler or not I hope you enjoyed it in any case, and as ever I'd love to hear any ideas you might have on where things might be going.

I also realise that I said I'd have my oneshot posted before I posted this chapter, which very clearly hasn't happened. Unfortunately the oneshot has hit a bit of a stumbling block that I cannot seem to move past. My brain kinda goes 'pfffft' every time I try. It's these bloody action scenes - they get me every time! I'll keep trying at it, it will get posted, just maybe not as quickly as I'd initially thought.

Anyway, it's just started to rain and the sky is all flashy again, so I'm going to go outside and stand in it like a crazy person. I'd love to hear from you. Hope you are all well, that you enjoyed the chapter and that you have a great weekend.

MyselfOnly