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You awoke to the sounds of shouting and trumpets, and you shot up, breathing hard. The heavy green blanket that was draped around your shoulders fell off as you uprighted yourself, and you realised with a jolt that it was Legolas' shawl. The events of last night returned to you. He had called you a strange word… an elvish word… 'mela'?

Another loud trumpet blasted through the air and you jumped, reaching to your belt, your hand grabbing a small dagger. A reassuring hand rested firmly on your shoulder as you glanced around yourself, looking for the source of the noise.

"Shh…" whispered Legolas, and you glanced at him out of the side of your eye. He looked tired, and you wagered that he had not slept, again. He must have stayed there the whole night, next to you. The thought caused a flush of blood to rise to your cheeks, and you struggled to maintain your composure at the mental image of him watching over you. He noticed your sudden blush, and his eyebrow quirked inwards, but you waved off his confusion with your hand. There was no need to embarrass yourself any further.

"What's going on?" you whispered, and he removed his hand from your shoulder, its absence making cool air rush over your skin, pulling your arm hair into goose bumps.

He placed a long finger to his lips, and you shut up, getting the message. There was a slight breeze in the air, and his straight blonde hair blew gently in the breeze, tickling your cheek. His face was so close to yours that you could feel his breath in your ear.

"There's an elf brigade outside," He whispered, his voice low to avoid being heard, "By the looks of it, my father has given them the task of retrieving his diamonds from Erebor."

Your eyebrows raised in surprise at his statement, Thranduil didn't seem like the sort to send troops anywhere other than his own back yard, but the grim look on Legolas' face told you that he was not mistaken.

"If… if you go and apologise…" you began, and he snorted, and smirked a laugh that didn't reach his tired blue eyes.

"If I go and apologise, my father would escort me back home like a young elf of barely thirty, with my tail between my legs. And you,"

He winced slightly at his train of thought.

"You would be dead before you could even say a word in your favour. You escaped from his dungeons, and betrayed his wishes. He doesn't take kindly to traitors."

You took a deep breath and sighed, understanding his words. The shrill, cool voice of Thranduil echoed through the air being answered by the rough and duller tones of Bard. You were sitting in a small stone archway, hidden from the main square by a thick wall, and you noticed the corner of Legolas' shoulder tense in response to the sound of his father's voice. You smiled at him and placed your hand on his shoulder, and saw him visibly relax, looking at you with a soft smile.

"We're going to have to sneak out of here…" He muttered to you, glancing up at the sky, where a thick dark raincloud was beginning to form. It didn't look promising, especially considering that all you were wearing were a think pair of muddy green leggings and a short-sleeved tunic that came roughly to just above your navel, after you forgoed a thick strip to bind the young Lake-town boy's leg.

If Legolas had noticed your lack of clothing, he hadn't mentioned it. He was probably too much of a gentleman.

You nodded at him once. He was right.

"Our best chance would be to get me to Thorin," you explained to Legolas, and you could see his usually smooth face begin to frown at your suggestion.

"I don't think that is wise-"

"If he's not listening to anyone else, maybe he will listen to me," you reasoned, cutting Legolas short. It was your last hope. If Thorin had truly locked himself up in the mountain, struck with the dragon sickness, you feared for all of his companions. You had seen what greed had done to men, turning them suspicious and paranoid, you could only imagine what it would do to a dwarf.

Legolas frowned, and you rolled your eyes at him, and lifted your hand to his forehead, smoothing out the wrinkles forming there with the pad of your thumb.

"Stop being so grumpy. I'll be fine."

He closed his eyes at your touch, but said nothing, still looking decidedly unhappy.

"If anything happens to you-"

You sighed melodramatically.

"Then you'll go on with your immortal life just like you did before, Legolas."

His eyes snapped open at the mention of his name, shocking you. You had forgotten for a moment just how blue they were. The same colour as the sky just after a rainfall. Your train of thought surprised you, and you coughed quietly, embarrassed with yourself.

"You don't understand, mela," he whispered, his voice strangely urgent. And there was that elvish word again, 'mela'.

"What does that mean, Legolas?" You asked him, but he stayed quiet, appearing to be wrestling with himself over whether to continue his sentence. He eventually decided against it, leaving you wondering what it was that he had been going to say.

He let out a soft sigh, and from the other side of the large stone wall, you heard the metallic clanging of a synchronised march. The elves were leaving. Legolas placed his hand on your bare shoulder again, a signal for you to stay where you were, and for once, you obeyed him. You didn't like the idea of Thranduil chopping your head off the next time he saw you. Legolas stood up on silent feet and walked to the wall, his footsteps and even his breathing silent. He glanced around the corner stealthily, and then his body visibly relaxed, and he walked back over to where you were sat.

"They're heading off." He said simply, "The Bow-man is with them. They appear to be travelling towards Erebor."

Your heart sank. You knew exactly what Throin would have to say to an Elvish King who came knocking on his door, asking for jewels, and it certainly wasn't very polite.

You nodded simply, and stood up, brushing the dry leaves and mud off your leggings and trying to comb the knots out of your greasy hair. It had been far too long since you last had a wash. Legolas, as always, was looking infuriatingly presentable. His long blonde hair had barely a smidgen of mud in it, and his tunic, as opposed to yours, was actually its original colour, not so deeply stained by blood and mud that you couldn't see it.

"I need to get there." You said simply, rolling Legolas' cloak, which you had used as a blanket the night before, up into a tight roll and squashing it down so it would fit in your already-full satchel.

"You must wait," he pleaded, "At least until the party returns and you can go without being spotted."

You let out a resigned sigh. He was right, you knew he was. It would be better for you to sneak up to Erebor under the cover of darkness, where you were in no danger of being spotted by a particularly hawk-eyed elvish guard.

"Alright. I'll wait until tonight." You said begrudgingly, and the tension on Legolas' face disappeared slightly, "So what do we do until then?"

Legolas sighed and perched on a large boulder, fingering the tip of his double-edged sword with his thumb, testing its sharpness.

"Now," he said, looking up at you with an intensity that almost frightened you, "We have to bide our time. And keep you out of sight." His eyes ran over your form, focusing on the bedraggled clothing and blood-stained garments, "Which may be more difficult than I'd planned."

You huffed and walked over to him, "I'll have you know that I can be incredibly inconspicuous when needs be…" you muttered, choosing that moment to slightly trip over a small rock in your path, losing your footing for a second and waving your arms in a circular motion to balance yourself.

Legolas let out a snort of laughter, and you looked up at him, giving him the death stare. Your annoyance just made him laugh harder, his eyes crinkling.

"(Your name)," he said, wiping a tear from his eye, "You are many things, but 'inconspicuous' isn't one of them."

You rolled your eyes at his admission. You could be very inconspicuous, thank you very much. You made your way over to him and sat down beside him on the boulder, so close that the tops of your thighs touched, his much warmer ones heating yours.

"You know, if you weren't so cute, I mightn't have stuck around for as long…" you muttered to yourself.

"Pardon?" Asked Legolas, missing what you had said.

A flush of heat rushed to your cheeks, you hadn't meant for him to hear that.

"Um… nothing," you lied quickly, glancing at him out of the side of your eye. Hs mouth had quirked upwards into a smug smile, and you had the feeling that he had just heard exactly what you had said. Damned elvish hearing.

The courtyard was empty in the cold light of morning, and the sun was just beginning to creep above the horizon, casting long shadows from pillars and archways that had been built many years before. You had heard the stories about what havoc the dragon had raged on Dale, but you always believed them to be exaggerations. Now after having seen the wrath of the dragon firsthand, and the destruction of this once proud stone city, you had to admit that you were wrong. It comforted you to know that now, the dragon would never return to these lands.

Well. Smaug wouldn't at least. There was another dragon that you were worried about now, a dragon that had nestled its way into the heart of Thorin Oakenshield.

"Mummy!" The young voice jolted you out of your daydreaming, and you glanced upwards to see a small boy, hobbling towards you from the other side of the courtyard on a small walking-stick, a plump, middle-aged woman following behind him, looking tired.

"Ewan, please, we need to get inside. Your leg is never going to heal if you keep walking on it…"

Ewan?

You knew that name, didn't you?

"But mummy, look! It's the angel!"

The who? You turned your head from side to side, but could see no angel to speak of. You could just see a very confused elf next to you, shrugging at your expression. What angel? It wasn't until Ewan said, "The angel who pulled me out of the building!" that you realised that he was talking about you.

Of course, the young boy whose leg had been trapped under a burning ember in Laketown, the boy that you had managed to free. His name was Ewan.

"What's he talking about?" Legolas whispered in your ear, unsure at the sudden turn of events.

You stood up, almost in shock, and walked towards the young boy and his mother slowly. You reached them, and bent down, looking into the eyes of Ewan. Yes. It was definitely the same boy.

"I'm glad to see your leg's getting better, Ewan," you smiled at him, tucking a dark curl of hair behind his ear.

An ear-piercing wail came from his mother, and she bent down and scooped you up into the tightest hug that you had ever been in. Her warm, soft arms enveloped you, and you could swear that you could feel her body shaking as she cried.

"It was you!" She sobbed into your ear, "You saved my little boy!"

She finally let go, and held you at arm's length, her watery brown eyes showing so much emotion that you were having difficulty looking at them directly.

"He said that an angel pulled him out of the building, and I thought that he was just imagining things, but it was you!"

You couldn't help it. Your heart swelled and you were smiling so hard that you thought your cheeks would burst. The boy was alright, you had saved someone. You were far too used to taking lives, from orcs or goblins or the occasional squirrel when you were hungry, but it was an entirely new experience for you to have saved somebody's life.

"Please, I'm sure anyone would have done the same thing in my position," you told Ewan's mother, who burst into tears again at your words.

"You saved my little boy!"

A small pressure pulled at your left leg, and you looked down in confusion to see Ewan, holding onto your knee for support.

"See mummy, I told you she was real!"

He looked at you conspiratorially.

"Grown-ups never believe anything that I say…"

"Well grown-ups are right about some things…" you said to him, raising an eyebrow, "You should be resting that leg."

He sighed in annoyance and rolled his eyes, and his mother chuckled, and gave you a smile.

"The lady's right, Ewan. You need your rest."

Ewan stuck his bottom lip out in a pout, and his mother placed her hand on his shoulders and led him away, back to where they had appeared from. Before she turned to go, she gave you one last lingering look, and mouthed, "Thank you," You smiled and nodded your head, and watched the pair walk away.

The sound of breathing by your left hand side surprised you, and you jumped slightly, before feeling the reassuring presence of a warm hand on your shoulder. You weren't sure what it was about elves, but they always seemed to run hot.

When you turned to face him, Legolas was closer to you than expected, his face almost touching yours, and your heart went to your throat at the proximity. He stayed like that for a while, eyes boring deep into yours, making you forget how to breathe. Your mouth was dry when he finally stepped back, and you found yourself missing the familiar warmth that he gave you. A small smile lingered at the corner of his mouth, and he still stared at you, a look of admiration on his face.

"What… what is it?" you asked, you hand coming to your mouth, "Have I got food on my face…"

"You always find a new way to surprise me, (Your name), he admitted, and turned his back from you, perching back on the large bolder that he had been sitting on before.

"I guess we just have to wait until night-time, then…" you said, walking back and sitting next to him, surveying the empty square as the sun rose higher in the sky. You couldn't make your move to Erebor until you were sure that you wouldn't be spotted, and that meant under cover of darkness.

"I guess we will," replied Legolas, shuffling ever so slightly closer to you, and looking incredibly happy with his situation.

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