Chapter 37 – The Other Side of Eternity
She stood before his tent, the crickets sounding at the junctions of her breaths, the night cold. The clouds passed over a cruel moon. Eroth shifted her feet. The grass was wet, laden with dew and darkness, shadowed blue under the low sky.
Legolas' tent crouched slanted and indistinct mere paces away. She had a duty to tell him, and he had the right to know. A night of restlessness had taught her that, until the truth weighed too heavily to be brought into slumber, and Eroth could wait no longer.
Fear crawled to her throat. But he would be sleeping now, in these small hours, his chest untroubled. She would wreck the little freedom he had left.
A light took flight in the tent. Eroth drew back into the shadows. Soon the flicker of a lifted candle moved through the shadows within, leapt up beside the opening in the cloth, and shone brightly into the night.
"Who is there?" its wielder murmured.
He stepped out of the tent, casting a long shadow upon the blue grass, the flame dusting his sleepshirt with flecks of gold. Something in the set of his shoulders loosened.
"Dree," he said. His words breathed clouds of white into the blackness. "Come inside."
"Don't let me in."
Legolas tilted his head, lips curling into a sleep-slanted smile, warm with candlelight. "What if I insist?"
The inside of the tent was cold. Eroth wrapped the cloak tighter around her neck, shivered through its velvet folds and the thin creases of her nightgown. She leaned against the flimsy give of the tent's material, frowning into candlelight.
"When I speak, promise me this."
She had never believed in promises – yet here she was, demanding flimsy offerings to clothe the jagged truth. Eroth was here to break all that they had. Legolas looked up at her from the mattress. His hair was loose about his neck, rivulets of silver, and long lashes chased shadows onto his cheek.
She cast her eyes away, and continued. "I want you to do your best not to hate me, Legolas."
"When you talk like that I know 'tis something better left unsaid. Yet I'd rather you tell me." His voice was softer now, troubled. The crease between his brows spoke of many things, and Eroth grasped at each in vain.
But the dark of his eyes told the most stories, and she was so fluent in them it frightened her.
"Will we be friends, Legolas, after our betrothal?"
The words crawled from her mouth, cold and cruel. She could not look at him.
In the hush that followed his gaze was searing. "The King – "
"By Elbereth, Legolas, it is done."
There lay a new meaning in his eyes that she could not decipher. But the pale fingers, clenched tight upon the white sheets – this she knew, and from his father's trait she read his sorrow. It pained him to be bound to her, Eroth supposed; her lip twisted.
Legolas had looked away, the line of his jaw tight. Finally he said softly, "goheno nin. I never meant to take this from you." (I am sorry)
The lantern flickered at his feet. There was a silver-gold tuft of hair behind the curve of his ear, which hung shorter than the rest, shorn accidentally by her dagger one midsummer night. And by the hem of his sleepshirt a faint scar was scrawled upon the pale canvas of his neck, a token from the forest. She thought of how only she knew it was there.
Despite every last fragment of her heart she'd clung onto, each step of the way, perhaps Eroth had already little left to give.
She arranged those sentiments, sifted through them and choked them away, so that her voice could be masked, cold and hard and safe. "You owe me nothing," she told him. She was weary of his searching glance, weary of the raw meaning of it flitting like shadows behind his eyes.
Legolas drew back the sheets and came towards her. His eyes cut like blades. She half expected his touch too to chill, but the tips of his fingers were light and lingering against her skin, warm upon her cheek and brow. She flinched back in surprise, met the confines of the tent, then sunk her hands into the hem of his sleepshirt, and pulled him closer.
Startled blue eyes crashed into her vision. Legolas drew back, his hands upon her jaw, swift shadows tracing paths across his features.
He held her as if she was something precious, held her like river-water in cupped palms.
"You asked of me," he spoke, "whether we shall be friends."
But Eroth was not like the river; his touch bound her, washed her ashore, felt like home and freedom and all things in between.
"Well, Dree, here is your answer."
Eroth could not remember when he had kissed her.
One moment she was shattering under the glass-sharp of his eyes, warm fingers upon her skin, the space between them the length of breaths – and the next moment there were none. As such space crumbled so did the kingdoms of wariness, of doubt in small hours, of false hope concealed.
She would have him as the tangle of kindred words, as sweet grass under swift feet and turning pages in late nights. But she wanted more, needed more, and he would give it to her, as she had given all.
So when she tangled hands into Legolas' hair, as she had longed to do, and bit down on his lip until he gasped into her mouth, Eroth was glad for this new part of him – of them, that they had left to give.
"You answer, Thranduilion," she said, "proves very articulate."
She broke away just in time to see the wilderness in his eyes, passing dark as the sea after a storm. It was as if the clouds had left, and in their place lay a blistered sky of emotion. Legolas had learnt the art of masking, too.
"Manka tanya tuula?" he murmured, "what does this mean?"
"Do you love me, Legolas?"
The dark blue of his eyes was open and raw, revealed for her alone. "The same bond binds us both."
"What if I cannot say?"
"Don't you see?" he smiled in the dimness, and there was a strand of silver tangling upon his cheek. "It does not matter."
They loved, and had loved for long, already and always. And though it was not the love of books, or songs, or silly sonnets, she would not change this love for the very wings of the swallows. This love set her free, gave her flight beyond all the lands of the earth. This love was hers, and Eroth knew that nothing of hers was silly, or pure, or proved anything short of complex and furious and entangling.
Eroth kissed him again, and sighed against his lips, and although she still sought for her answer she could tell that there were many things that mattered, and many that did not, and she would know only in the times to come.
They left at the edge of summer. The season was coming where cold winds of the later months swept the land, and the leaves began to join their shadows upon the ground. And it was the season that the Elves unmoored their boats from the sand, folded their tents from the empty ground, and passed finally into the folklore of Esgaroth.
At the banks of the river a man stood, shrouded in his heavy fishing-coat, crinkling his eyes against the sharp morning sky.
Weeks ago the rum of an inn had brought to him a sight he could not forget. Perhaps he wanted to see in soberness whether the maiden of his hazy impressions was still a beauty; or perhaps he entertained only the humble wish of viewing the new stock of fish. Either way, his feet had carried him down to the grey paved banks of the River Running, and now he stood among the scattered crowd of the curious and the admiring, bidding them their silent farewell.
The boats were long and sharp, like the beaks of hummingbirds, and bore their company solemnly across the dappled water. The man craned his neck, stamping the dust from his boots. That was when he saw her.
Her hair was no longer crinkled velvet, but blew loose in the wind, scattering flashes of copper into the morning air. In her hand she held the silken cap that had so captivated the man upon their first meeting. He could not understand his intoxicated wonder.
She was standing at the helm of a boat, watching the receding streets, her eyes narrowed against the light. He laughed at the foolish notion of this elleth in heavy gowns and rich jewels. She was beautiful, beautiful beyond mortality, but it was a strange, faraway beauty, intangible as the wintry light upon the river.
There was nothing striking in the tilt of her nose and the curve of her lips, no becoming roseate tint to the pale cheek or elegant arch to the brow. Hers was the beauty of long grass, the grace of reckless rivers.
She belonged to the forest, and would carry on belonging until the rivers ran dry and the old trees died. And yet she stood straight and tall, her grey eyes bright; as if she was eager, and unafraid to greet the other side of eternity.
Author's Note:
Aralinn: *blushes* thank you! You're right about Eroth - she's keen to be in control, and that is part of the reason why the idea of love scares her so much. Its a sacrifice she cannot afford (or so she thought). As for Legolas, I hope you've found your answer in this chapter :p
legolasgreenleaf15: here it is mellon nin! Everything has led up to this moment, but there is more to come, and its very sweet and kind of unexpected, and incredibly overdue. Your feedback always makes me happy, because you understand the characters so well and I'm always worried about being vague. I enjoyed writing about Thranduil too! He's complex and uneven and I'm glad you liked it :p
As for life after this story, I'm thinking about dabbling in some poetry!