Disclaimer: Harry Potter and all the characters belong to J.K. Rowling, Bloomsbury Publishing, and Scholastic, Inc., and AOL/ Time Warner, Inc., etc. No money is being made nor permission given.

Summary: Ten years ago, just after the war had ended, everything was settling down, and the world was turning right side up again, Harry Potter disappeared. Hermione had lost all hope of seeing her friend, when who should show up uninvited to her wedding party but two beautiful strangers with an interesting tale to tell. What path did Harry take that led him so far away from the wizarding world? And now that he is back, is he here to stay?

Pairings: Harry/Legolas; Hermione/ Ron

A/N: Again, not beta'd, and fairly short. Sorry.

A/N 2: Ooh! Before I forget, this chapter, and most likely the rest of the story, is dedicated to Merlenynfor her amazingly long reviews, wonderful advice, and excellent input, which I am oh so grateful for, words can't even describe. Thank you! And I hope you enjoy this next chapter.

* The Long Road *

…

last time...

...

Last time he had tapped his wand against the surface of the map and incanted a 'Cunctum Revelio' spell, revealing all living beings within a 200-mile radius. Only Fangorn Forest and Lothlórien had been concealed from him, completely covered in a strange, magical mist. But this time, the moment his fingers touched the parchment, millions upon millions of tiny dots with names floating above them spread out to cover the entire map of Middle Earth. All along the coast of The Sundering Seas in the West to the Orocani mountains in the East, up to Angband and the Iron Mountains in the North, and back down to the Sutherlands and the Great Desert in the South lit up before his eyes. Every inch of the map was covered in names of beings and places in areas that had previously been barren and flat. Even Lórien and Fangorn were wide open to him now!

He could see Lady Galadriel, Lord Celeborn, and a myriad of elves in the surrounding area. Going southeast down the Anduin, Fangorn was dotted with endlessly long names that seemed to have no end, overlapping other dots on the map and going off the page itself. Harry had to assume they were Ents as well, given what Treebeard had told him of Entish names. As amazing as that was, though, Harry wasn't interested in Lothlórien or Fangorn at the moment. What he needed to find were the names of the Fellowship. Frodo, he thought first; he needed to find Frodo, Merry, Pippin, and Sam.

Instantly, all the names faded to a pale, light grey and four dots in particular brightened to a cheery brown, the colour of freshly turned earth, seeming to almost jump off the page to catch his attention. Frodo Baggins, Meriadoc Brandybuck, Peregrin Took, and Samwise Gamgee were clustered together just inside the borders of Fangorn, a little ways off to the northwest, under the River Entwash.

With the help of the forest, Harry could reach them by the end of the day. And that was exactly what he intended to do.

...

.

...

Frodo had not slept at all by the time Merry awoke in the early afternoon the following day to the sound of his own stomach growling. It was ironic, in Frodo's opinion, as none of his friends had stirred in the slightest when earlier that morning, the entire forest had shaken on its very foundation and the ground itself seemed to swell up around them before a huge exodus of animals, and even trees took up root and began going south! It was like the entire forest was under a kind of spell, and time itself was warped in this mad rush.

Frodo wondered if it had all been a dream, as he'd lain there half awake, watching through the shadows of the trees that had stayed put, as everything came to life around him.

Surely it had been a dream; for less than an hour later, all was calm once more. And everything was deathly quiet as it had been before. Frodo didn't know what to make of it all, let alone of the fact that only he had been awake to witness it. That singular strange phenomenon, for hobbits were well known for having very sharp ears and being fairly light sleepers, made him decide to keep the morning's activities to himself.

As such, he kept his tongue as he greeted Merry and asked how he had slept, hiding the fact that he himself had not had such luck. They shared a short breakfast of what was left of the Lembas bread, and then Frodo sent Merry out to find some water while he watched over the others. In truth, he didn't think he had much energy to even walk at this point, though the elven bread was surely fortifying, and by some elven magic imbued in its essence, provided him enough strength to truly shake himself awake by the time Merry had returned. Then again, his sudden alertness could also have something to do with Merry's exuberance and unexpected shouting upon his return.

From what Frodo could make out of his friend's raving, there was some sort of clear stream Merry had found that had absolutely delicious water that was just as filling as it was tasty, even for a growing hobbit lad. Soon enough, all three hobbits had been roused and intrigued enough to follow Merry quite willingly back to the water source.

While walking, Frodo noted that they were going in the same direction the inhabitants of the forest had taken hours earlier that morning, but as none of his friends even gave a hint that their sleep had been disturbed in the slightest, Frodo continued to keep his own counsel and made a mental reminder to ask Harry when they finally met up with the young wizard again.

The water, or whatever this clear elixir that gave off the appearance of such and ran merrily down between roots and rocky paths, was all Merry had praised and more.

"This is delightful!" Pippin cried, dunking his whole face in the stream as he drank as much as he could, putting even his stomach to rest. Sam was quick to hum loudly in agreement, his mouth as full as Pippin's and his own stomach, which had been growling earlier before, being put to rest as well. Merry, who had claimed to have drank his fill earlier, was silent as he placed his head next to Pippin's and slurped in enough to satisfy his second breakfast and elevenses.

Frodo, for his part, felt much more awake as he cupped his hands for the seventh time and plunged his fingers back under the current, bringing them full and dripping back up to his mouth. He felt the life burst back into his limbs as he inhaled another long draught of the magical water. Then, sitting back on his haunches with a genuine smile on his face, the first since before Harry had gone off, he watched over as his friends acted so much more carefree and happy than they had in a long time.

He couldn't quite explain it; just the night before the forest had seemed so dark, foreboding, and dangerous. Yet this morning he felt safer somehow. The forest, though it looked no different than the day before, seemed brighter, as though a dark shadow had been lifted, allowing sunlight to permeate through the leaves and illuminate the ground once more. While he knew they should all still be on their guard and he couldn't completely forget the feeling of being watched the night before, he felt safer all the same.

"So, Mr Frodo," Sam came to sit by his side, settling himself against a towering moss covered rock just out of reach of the bubbling stream. "What should we do now? I think it's safe to say we lost the orcs, but we're still a bit lost ourselves."

Frodo frowned silently in agreement, his eyes following the path of the stream from where Merry and Pippin were still playing, kicking up water and splashing one another with childish glee. The injuries they had sustained from their time captive had been soothed or completely disappeared under the gentle touch of the water, and Frodo couldn't blame their exuberance after endless days of torture under the cruel hands of the orcs, goblins, and Uruk-Hai.

"We need to find Strider," Sam pushed, drawing Frodo's attention away from their friends. "Strider and the others; they must have gotten away, and surely they've been trying to follow our trail, what with Pippin dropping his elven pin and all..." he trailed off uncertainly.

Frodo had no words of comfort to give him, though. He didn't know if Strider and the others had been able to follow them. He didn't even know what had become of the others in the course of the battle. Hopefully they all had survived and were able to follow Frodo and his friends, but who knew? What he really wished for was to find Harry. Perhaps he had gone in this direction? Perhaps he had passed through these very woods?

There was also the possibility that he had gone in a totally opposite direction and that they would not see him again for a very, very long time to come. Frodo sighed, his mind warring with itself; at one end, he felt the Ring weighing on his heart and obscuring his mind, while on the other, he felt an intuitive pull to move in the direction he had seen the forest move towards less than 12 hours ago.

"Mr Frodo," Sam urged, silent worry darkening his visage as he peered up at his friend.

"I think we should keep moving," Frodo declared, nodding his head downstream to where he knew something was awaiting them. What that was exactly, he didn't yet know. But his gut was telling him to follow the path the forest had laid out for him, and right now, it was the only plan they had. "We'll follow the brook for now and see how far it takes us. Keep your eyes open, though, Sam. We are a long way from the Shire, and I don't think we'll have anyone like Tom here to save us again."

Samwise nodded in agreement, shaking his head at the memory of Tom Bombadil in the Old Forest. Shaking himself from reminiscence, Sam stood with a determined look on his face, and began to round up Merry and Pippin. Before long, the four hobbits were moving once more, deeper in Fangorn, with only Frodo's instinct as guide. Hopefully it would not lead them astray.

...

Harry walked swiftly over the damp, spongy forest floor, with a feeling of fire in his blood and a bounce in his step. He was no longer frightened or wary of the quietude and stillness that still permeated the forest, as it felt like the May Queen had bustled through the trees and undergrowth to bring a spring cleaning to the entire woodland. There was much more green than before, which was a huge improvement from the dank, dark brown that had pervaded Fangorn previously.

The forest seemed more... alive!

Harry couldn't decide what that entirely meant just yet. Had he unintentionally unleashed something that had been asleep for centuries for good reason? Harry shook that worry from his thoughts; he was confident in the fact that he was in no danger as he was now recognised as a lord of the forest, if what Treebeard said was to be believed. All of Fangorn had answered his call in time of need, which meant the forest was under his domain, whatever that meant exactly. At least he knew there would be no more incidents of accidental strangling by ancient, senile trees who might see him as a threat. And wasn't that a relief!

Despite himself, Harry quickly looked left and right at the trees around him to see if he detected any movement in his direction. Any quivering of branches or slinking roots as thick as a python, snaking their way towards him.

Nothing. Good. He was safe then.

As it was, he knew he didn't own the forest, per se, but it sure felt a lot safer walking through by himself now than it had several days ago. And what was even better was that upon looking at the map, still open in his hands, he discovered that the hobbits were moving right towards him. Well, his general way, at least. It was almost as though the forest was helping to direct them, helping them to make their way towards Harry, and Harry to them. And really, there were odder things that had happened before. Nonetheless, he was grateful and more than a little relieved to know they were doing well enough to be travelling and trying to find him.

Harry felt his spirits rise even further when less than a league away, he saw three more welcome names; Aragorn, Gimli, and Legolas! All three groups were travelling from three different directions, but all coming towards the same point! The Fellowship, or most of it, would be reunited once again!

Harry felt his heart begin to speed up at the thought of meeting Legolas face to face. After sharing one's head with the elf, it seemed odd to be scared of meeting his eyes, but Harry found himself fearing just that. What would Legolas say? What would Harry say? He knew he had gone over all this in his head before, plenty of times, it seemed. And he was still anxious to hear everything Legolas knew about the odd connection they shared, but Harry still couldn't stop himself from worrying over what their meeting would bring. Not to mention the peculiar attraction he had come to acknowledge. That in itself was still a little weird considering he had firmly been in the camp of liking girls, exclusively, before now. Cho and Ginny could attest to that. He had even fancied Fleur for a bit, though he had not felt the strong pull of her allure as his fellow classmates had. Still, he had never previously felt any sort of interest or chemistry between himself and another male.

So why Legolas?

He didn't feel the same towards Aragorn or Boromir, or –he shuddered even thinking about it – Gimli. Of course the elf was better looking than all three combined, which wasn't much of a stretch. Aragorn and Boromir, at least, didn't look all that different from men he knew back in his own world. Gimli, of course, was rather in a class of his own, so he decided to stop using the dwarf for comparison altogether. But Legolas...

Legolas, as an elf, was of course like no one he had ever met before, male or female. He was perfect, physically, in most every sense of the word. Harry couldn't deny him that. Even if Harry wasn't so inclined, he could still see that, even if he would never admit it. He wasn't blind.

But there was more to it than that. Looks, as he knew very well, weren't everything. Legolas was the perfect example of that. Who had rebuffed him from the very first day of their meeting? Who had refused to talk to him and barely acknowledged him the first week or so of Harry joining the Fellowship? Who had given him the cold shoulder and been all but silently belligerent at Harry's mere presence? And then who was the same person who had suddenly offered him the hand of friendship hours before his departure to Isengard, followed shortly by said person's unexpected help from hundreds of miles away during his fight with Saruman?

Legolas, to all of the above.

The elf was a mystery to him in every way. Was that what appealed to Harry? The mystery and adventure he had come to thrive on somehow from all his years at Hogwarts? But that didn't make any sense. Did it?

So lost in thought was he, eyes glued to the map looking at the slowly moving dot of his current preoccupation, Harry failed to look at where he was going and ended up tripping face first over something smooth and round that rolled from under his feet and off to his left. Falling to the ground, map crumpling beneath him, and legs twisting in odd directions from stumbling over the unknown object, Harry ended up summarily sprawled out on the forest floor seconds later. Blinking up confusedly at the scant sunlight above, he wondered what the heck had just happened. Sitting up gingerly, checking for any twisted ankles or damaged ribs, Harry looked over and glared at the offending little ball.

A garden ornament? It looked like one of Aunt Petunia's gazing globes he had been forced to polish numerous times over the years. Surely not something to be found in the middle of an ancient forest.

Laying innocently mere feet away, it was a deep black, almost purple in colour, and gleamed brightly as though a ray of sun was shining down directly upon it. Only; the sun was still very much hidden by the thick branches and leaves above, so there really was no explanation for the white sheen and hypnotic colours that flickered across its surface in constant movement.

Wait. Harry crouched down and looked at it a bit closer. He had seen something like this before, in his vision of Saruman! The very same vision that had prompted him to separate from the Company and go after the late White Wizard. At the time when he had first seen it, it had been standing polished and revered atop a stone pillar within a black marble room. Saruman had been using it to communicate with Sauron, which had in turn sucked Harry in as well. That had been the first time Harry had come mind to mind with Sauron, and he still flinched inside at the reminder.

But now, the almost Quaffle sized ball, though still glimmering, appeared rather dirty and looked like it had taken quite the beaten through the course of being washed up from the flood. For how else could it have come to be sitting in the middle of the forest? It looked like one good rainstorm would cause it to be swallowed up into the ground as it was.

Notwithstanding, Harry knew it still likely held the same dangers as he had seen in his vision. It still glowed within, swirling with the same thunderous reds, greens, and blues that were slightly less hypnotic than before, now that he knew what power lay behind them. Yet they were dangerous and captivating all the same.

Harry scooted back a bit, afraid to even touch it, stumbling slightly on his own heels as he lost his balance in the process. Falling sideways, he caught himself with one hand and gazed at the orb with a tilted view, wondering if he should look away, but finding himself unable to do so. Surprisingly, the orb remained silent even as he continued to look at it. Sauron's voice didn't come to whisper teasingly, painfully in his mind. In fact, his Occlumency wards were still up strong with no sign of weakening in the slightest.

And yet he still felt the unmistakable urge to reach out and touch it.

Sitting down fully and crossing his legs in front of him, Harry leant back to regard the object warily. His hunt for the hobbits and Legolas and company was temporarily put on hold as he ruminated on what to do. He couldn't just leave it here for some unsuspecting creature to find, or worse, one of the hobbits, or any member of the Fellowship. None in the Company were magical, at least not to the degree to be able to withstand an attack from Sauron. Harry wasn't sure whether he was powerful enough either, though the Valar, for some odd reason, seemed to have that faith in him. They had given him the power of the Istari, which he had come to understand meant an order of powerful wizards the Valar had sent to Middle Earth to keep the peace, basically. All that transfer of information was messing with his head, but he took it to be a pretty big deal overall.

He certainly felt more powerful since his battle with Saruman, but did that necessarily mean he was ready to take on the big evil that was Sauron? Somehow he doubted it.

Tapping his foot to an irregular beat, Harry speculated on whether there were any spells he knew that would negate the effects of the orb enough to let him hold it and not succumb to its power.

He was coming up blank. And the longer he sat there just thinking, the antsier he felt; this was Hermione's forte, not his. He still needed to find the hobbits and the rest of the Fellowship, and this blasted ball was preventing him from doing so.

Finally, getting completely fed up of just sitting around and not doing anything, Harry acted instinctively, as he was wont to do, ignoring as he did so the admonishing voice in his head that never failed to sound like Hermione. Reaching out a hand while mentally checking the strength of his Occlumency shields, Harry palmed the ball and rolled it between his fingers, staring more closely into its shadowy depths, ready to take on whatever challenges it held and be done with it once and for all.

Immediately his mind's eye was drawn into a dark tunnel, leading inevitably to the great red eye of Sauron that glowed menacingly in the distance. Instead of being scared this time, though, Harry felt the same heady power he had used in his battle with Saruman rise up within him, filling him with confidence and certainty. He was a fighter! An appointed warrior, in fact; he was a warrior of the acclaimed Aratar, and –

He stopped short, halting his progress forward, as he suddenly remembered the title and duties he had accepted less than 24 hours ago; Lone Warrior of the Aratar. It was a responsibility he had taken on in the heat of the moment upon seeing the lands laid bare by Saruman's destructive forces and being goaded into an unimaginable anger as a result. He had not given a second thought to the power it had afforded him at the time, as his main task had been to defeat Saruman. Everything had happened so quickly after that, and before he knew it, he was out like a light, regaining all the energy he had lost in battle in the form of a very long nap.

But now it was all coming back; he remembered fully and completely all the details of the job he had agreed to undertake, and he silently wondered how he ever could have forgotten, even for a moment, such a life-changing decision. By adopting said role had he just unintentionally vowed to stay the rest of his life in Middle Earth?

By Merlin he hoped not.

Pushing that daunting thought aside for now, Harry levelled a disgusted, almighty glare at the eye of the dark lord and used the full force of his mastery over the mind arts to successfully occlude Sauron from any and all mental intrusions. Turning away from Sauron with much more ease of will than he had previously possessed, Harry was quickly drawn down another avenue, into another scene that the orb presented. Thankfully this one seemed much less sinister, calming even.

Rolling green mountains spread out before his eyes, leading down to an endlessly blue sea that sparkled beneath the sun's rays. To his right were great, rocky mountains covered in a low, dense fog reaching up from the waters. Even closer, to his immediate left and right, were two tall white towers that reminded him a bit of rook pieces in chess, sitting regally atop two of the aforementioned hills. From his vantage point, he was high above it all, looking straight out at the shore and beyond.

He did not know how long he was staring in awe and wonderment when the sound of music reached his ears. It reminded him faintly of Treebeard's speech, like a symphony of many string instruments accompanied with the cheerful splashing of the waves below. Was this place even real? Where was he? He saw nary a soul around him, though there were several roadways he could spot below.

It was a bit like being in a Pensieve memory, but this was no memory, of that much he was certain. But like a Pensieve memory, he knew he was waiting for something to happen. He had to have been pulled here for a reason, after all.

As he sat there, listening, trying to discern the different sounds and see if he could spot where the music was coming from, Harry suddenly experienced the unwelcome sensation of being pulled forward from his roost above to travel over hundreds and hundreds of miles of ocean waves in one quick jump, followed by another several hundred miles of land that passed too rapidly for him to even get a good look at. As it was, it didn't really matter due to the fact that he was trying his best not to be sick; this form of travel was turning out to be worse than any Floo or Portkey.

Then, as suddenly as it began, Harry stopped just as he had reached the shores of yet another ocean, these waters darker and choppier than the ones he had been gazing out on less than a minute ago. But Harry paid it little mind as he closed his eyes, feeling incredibly grateful to have finally ceased moving. Taking in a deep, appreciative breath, even as he knew on some level that his body was still sitting in Fangorn Forest and only his mind had travelled this distance, he opened his eyes to see someone standing upon the rocky shores only a few feet away, smiling at him in greeting.

The man stood tall and proud with a short greying beard that had once been blond, deep ocean blue eyes, and striking, aristocratic features with what appeared to be bits of bright blue and green scales speckling his cheeks and the sides of his forehead. He was clothed in a short, off-white fisherman's tunic with black fishing net draped over his shoulders and tied around his waist.

Harry wasn't entirely sure what to make of the man, but he could tell right away that he was someone to be respected. This man, whoever he was, was powerful and important, and Harry felt like he should somehow know him, as odd as that was, all things considered.

"Welcome to the Valinor. Well, the edge of the Outer Seas, at least. Close enough," the man said in a cheerful, deep baritone, opening his arms wide in welcome. "I am Ulmo, Lord of Waters, King of the Sea. It is not often that I get visitors from Elostirion."

The man, Ulmo, then looked at him expectantly, no doubt waiting for Harry to reply, probably with his own name and title. But all Harry could think to say was, "Where?"

Ulmo's smile dropped a bit at Harry's blank and rather shocked countenance. Tilting his head to the side, with a slightly perplexed expression, he elaborated slowly, "Through the Elendil Stone at Emyn Beraid, of course."

When Harry didn't respond or give any indication of recognition, Ulmo lost the welcoming smile on his face altogether and began to look concernedly at Harry as though he had lost his mind. And to be honest, Harry wasn't all that inclined to disagree with him at the moment.

Lowering his tone and letting his shoulders slump downwards, the Lord Ulmo, asked a bit worriedly, "You are using one of the palantíri, aren't you lad?"

"Oh," Harry cried, stepping back as he abruptly realised that he did indeed have a form here, even if his presence was only spiritual at the moment. "You mean this orb thing? Is that what's it called?" He figured such a powerful magical object had to have had a name, but unfortunately that was one piece of information the Valar had not provided him in his crash course to Middle Earth. "Yeah, then. I am using one."

"Ah," the Lord of Waters nodded, his expression one of bewilderment and dismay. "Ah, well," he repeated. "You wouldn't happen to be the new warrior everyone around here is talking about, would you?" he asked hesitantly, his cheerful demeanour gone as he sized Harry up and down, crossing his arms before him.

"The Lone Warrior," Harry clarified cautiously, "Yeah, that would be me. I think," he added softly. "As far as I know, I mean. It's all kind of still new to me, you know?" Harry crossed his own arms uncomfortably and scuffed his sneaker along the shale-covered ground, absently wondering how his foot wasn't moving through it like a ghost considering how he wasn't physically here in the strictest sense.

Ulmo nodded pensively, still regarding Harry with a guarded, slightly suspicious look. "You're Harry James Potter, are you?"

Harry looked up, surprised the man knew his name when he had yet to introduce himself, which he would admit was a bit rude of him. Then again, he wasn't normally in the habit of travelling to new, foreign lands by way of shimmering garden globes, and the shock of it all had not completely worn off.

Nodding hesitantly, he confirmed the man's assumptions, "Yes. Yes, I am. How– how do you know me?" This was getting weirder by the second, Harry thought. He didn't feel the inherent danger as he had with Saruman and Sauron, despite this lord's power, but he didn't feel entirely safe and comfortable here either. Where was here anyway? The Valinor, had he said? That was where those crazy Valar lived, right? And what were the Outer Seas?

Harry kept his questions to himself, of course, eying the man before him as Ulmo continued to do the same to Harry.

Eventually, Ulmo must have come to some sort of verdict, for he nodded musingly a second time, and declared, "In that case, I have a...ah, message for you, of sorts."

"A message," Harry blurted out in surprise. "From who?"

Ulmo pursed his lips in response and narrowed his eyes in distaste at Harry's outburst.

Understanding that he had overstepped his boundaries, Harry took another step back and bowed his head. "Er, sorry. Go on." He waited, somewhat impatiently, for the lord's displeasure to die down, his gaze scanning the different coloured shale around them as he did so.

Finally, Ulmo took a deep breath and announced with a rhythmic cadence,

"Harry James Potter, once burdened, now free

Peace thou shalt bring,

Guard well treasures three;

A ring once hidden,

Power of Istari four,

With Companion, your heart rests in Arda forevermore."

...

Legolas walked through the shadows of Fangorn, only a few paces ahead of Aragorn and Gimli, pointedly ignoring the grumbled warnings Gimli was giving to no one in particular. Despite the dark forewarnings Lord Celeborn had counselled to the Fellowship, Legolas did not feel the least bit threatened here. He felt welcomed and excited to be traversing beneath such ancient woods, walking among elms, oaks, pines, and yews, perhaps even tree-shepherds! that had been alive in Arda since the Years of the Trees.

There was an anxious jump to his step as he revelled in being so close to a forest that his people had literally given voice to. Coupled with his excitement, as well as mounting worry, of meeting up with the one wizard who had not left his thoughts since their first meeting near the borders of Lórien, Legolas was, suffice it to say, a veritable bundle of nerves at the moment.

Legolas scanned the surrounding area with both his eyes and ears for any sound or sight of either hobbit or wizard, all the while breathing in the deep, musky scent of the old forest that set his mind wild. He could sense that Harry was near, relatively so, but could not yet deduce how close or where exactly the mysterious wizard was. Was he still resting outside of Isengard, or had he woken and started to retrace his steps back to the Company? Was that too much to hope for?

They had been walking for several hours with the forest getting steadily darker and darker the deeper they ventured in, when Legolas suddenly caught sound of a cheerfully babbling brook in the distance. He had heard tell through many elven stories of the magical properties and pleasant taste of the Entwash when drunk within the forest's borders and was eager to try some of its waters for himself. What incredible luck had he to be traversing through these acclaimed woods, and then to be afforded the opportunity to drink of its miraculous rivulet as well!

Just as he was turning his head to alert his companions and share with them the wonders that they would soon have the privilege to taste, his ears twitched slightly upon registering yet another sound hidden beneath the rushing of the stream.

Someone was singing. No, he corrected, four voices were singing!

"Upon the hearth the fire is red,

Beneath the roof there is a bed;

But not yet weary are our feet,

Still round the corner we may meet

A sudden tree or standing stone

That none have seen but we alone.

Tree and flower and leaf and grass,

Let them pass! Let them pass!

Hill and water under sky,

Pass them by! Pass them by!

Still round the corner there may wait

A new road or a secret gate,

And though we pass them by today,

Tomorrow we may come this way

And take the hidden paths that run

Towards the Moon or to the Sun.

Apple, thorn, and nut and sloe,

Let them go! Let them go!

Sand and stone and pool and dell,

Fare you well! Fare you well!

Legolas allowed a wide, enthusiastic smile to stretch across his face as he recognised the over-exuberant voices trying to outdo the tinkling music of the brook. This time as he turned his head to regard his friends once more, he felt overjoyed that he had even better news to share with them.

They had found the hobbits.

...

...

A/N: Oh my, what will happen next!?

Alright, I am honestly surprised at how many people asked if I was serious with that last little outtake. My reply: Heck NO! That was pure folly and idiocy, I promise you, inspired by a hilarious American comedic skit called, "Can I Have Your Number" from MadTV. I know it's silly and stupid, but I never seem to be able to keep from laughing each time I watch it. –shrugs–We all have our stupid vices.

Anyway, no more of that silliness.

Confession here. I'll admit, I had put this story on hold for a bit as I tried to finish the third and final instalment of The Pull of Heart and Tide trilogy. I am almost done, but then I caught a snag there as well and figured I should get a move on with everyone demanding me to update this story, including the rather blatant, 'I want more' and 'UPDATE NOW', without even a 'please'! Can you believe it? How scandalous!

Kidding, kidding. ;)

Anyway, I decided that I would comply and get another chapter out to you lovely people. So once again, I hope you all liked the chapter enough to keep reading.

Take care, everyone!