hello friends and happy new year to all!

RL swept me off my feet over the holiday season and my timeliness has been meh, but please know I am trying my best to put up reasonably spaced updates on this fic and that I mean very much for it to be concluded - I haven't left a fic unfinished over more than a decade of posting, and I don't mean to start now :) please keep the reviews coming if you can. comments and constructive criticism are akways welcome to me.. I haven't been able to respond lately but I read and value each and every one. they help writers improve in grammar, style and perspective, on top of being a real "income" here: community and connection with other fans :) I appreciate your time reading my work whether or not you can post a review though - god knows it's been hard for me to find much these days hahaha. At any rate... without further ado, here's the next chapter. I hope you enjoy the reading as much as I enjoy the writing!

# # #

12: An Old Chestnut

Eryn Galen, T.A. 2851

# # #

Armed, well-supplied and ready, the traveling party stood eagerly at the exit of Thranduil's halls, awaiting send-off from the Elvenking.

Glorfindel was wearing the cloak Legolas had given, but as the elven prince surveyed his traveling companions, he found some cause to stand before Glorfindel and fiddle with it. His long, white, adroit archer's fingers fussed at the hood with singular focus. His generous lips were pursed in concentration at his task. He pulled at the top to cover more of the ancient warlord's forehead. He tucked in stray strands of the older elf's golden tresses, pushing them behind his neck and shoulder. The tips of his fingers ghosted over Glorfindel's skin, at the hollow of his collarbone. His skin felt suddenly paper-thin, as if the Woodland Prince's fingers could touch the insides of him.

Glorfindel, amused, stood still and let Legolas do whatever he wanted. His blood had cooled since the debate of the previous night, and he had even managed to get some sleep before the early excursion.

Some, he thought dryly. Not much.

His heated exchange with Legolas had roiled him, as few things managed to lately. When he calmed, he was bothered with an altogether different thought from the same conversation.

"I've come to care for you – greatly - in the time you've been here," the prince had said. "I cannot suffer such a fate for anyone whom I lo - value."

Lo-value?

Glorfindel had been too angry to contemplate it at the time it was said, but later he could not help but wonder - What in all of Arda was that?

Glorfindel played around with the slip in his head, and then sleeplessly pondered what it meant not just to Legolas but also himself. His heart lurched and he wondered now, with the cloak-fussing and the fleeting touches, if the princeling was toying with him a bit. He also wondered if he enjoyed it.

How much you enjoy it that is, he corrected himself, for he already knew that he did.

Then again, back in the healing halls when he was in the throes of pain and fever, this same prince had fussed with his blankets to keep him warm and comfortable too. Maybe it meant nothing. Who the heck knew what was going on in that lovely, beleaguered, princely head.

"Not up to muster, am I?" Glorfindel murmured at him.

That blink-and-you'll-miss-it smile. It was almost imaginary, almost a wishful thought you were supposed to doubt had ever been real.

"I will have to report you to the commanding officer," Legolas murmured back, and they both glanced at Tauriel, who looked singularly formidable and very much in charge in her warrior's best. She gave the pair a brief, suspicious look before turning to her own inspections. She was focused on her task and ready to go.

"I think she believes we are troublemakers," Legolas said.

"She might be right," Glorfindel said.

Thranduil arrived and saw them off with some ceremony. It was a formal affair with father and son bowing at each other, just as the rest of the party bowed before the Elvenking. If Thranduil and Legolas had any more private goodbye's prior to that, Glorfindel did not know.

They set off out of the bounds of the stronghold on foot – Legolas and his second Silon, Glorfindel and his second Istor, Tauriel to command them, Renior as additional muscle, Rossenith as healer. and Garavon with his apprentices and his chattering birds. The group exited the massive double doors of the cavernous fortification, and crossed a bridge that took them to the edge of the thick woods.

Tauriel had the lead and Renior the rear. They walked quietly and leisurely in the dewy early morning.

"Glorfindel," Tauriel called out to the ancient warlord, who was behind her. She had shifted at once to his name rather than honorary title, he noted. She waited for him to match her steps and they paced each other. "I have for you, what we call around here, an 'old chestnut.'"

Glorfindel frowned. "Do you mean to eat?"

Silon, somewhere behind them, laughed.

Glorfindel turned to face him. Legolas' second-in-command was farther down the line near the rear, and from Glorfindel's view he could see everyone... except for Legolas. The prince was inexplicably, suddenly nowhere in sight.

"It means a common joke," Silon explained. "Forgive the country parlance, hir-nin."

"A common joke," Tauriel affirmed, beaming. Her fiery eyes danced.

Glorfindel smiled at her indulgently. "I would like that very much."

"Have you ever seen a wood-elf prince climb a tree?" she asked, faux demurely.

"No..." Glorfindel replied.

Tauriel grinned. "Well neither have we!"

Glorfindel chuckled, understanding it meant Legolas was particularly stealthy at it.

"There is a second part to the joke," Renior called out from the rear. "My lord – have you ever seen a wood-elf prince climb down from a tree?"

"I suppose not, if he is just as sneaky about it," Glorfindel guessed.

Renior guffawed. "A good guess hir-nin, but no. The real answer is: of course not! Because once they are up there, they never leave – ow!"

A literal old chestnut went sailing its way to the top of his head from the trees above.

"Legolas for the love of the gods!" Renior exclaimed.

Another chestnut from above went sailing in Tauriel's direction, but she shifted aside, dodging it nonchalantly. Glorfindel was impressed; she must have eyes in the back of her head!

He grinned and looked up at the canopy of trees, not knowing where Legolas was because the branches and the leaves – less dense though they were in the winter – bunched thickly and weren't even stirring. They seemed to stare studiously blankly back at him; they weren't going to give away their prince.

Another old chestnut this time went sailing straight towards Glorfindel's forehead. He caught the nut, grinned, and pocketed it.

# # #

In the company of wood-elves, in a place still within their undisputed stewardship in the northern parts of the forest, Glorfindel saw just how enchanting Eryn Galen could be.

The morning sun danced between the multi-hued leaves somehow still clinging on in the winter, even as their compatriots had already created beds of flora on the ground. They looked like mirror images in a way, tree canopies soaring skyward above and scattered on the ground below, connected by thick, mighty trunks.

Where the more contested territories of the Woodland had jutting roots, impossibly twisted branches and malevolent fog, here the arms of the trees wound around each other where they touched, as if they were just holding hands. The ways were winding rather than labyrinthine, and everything was imbued with gentle light.

The smell was different too – earthy, inevitable mulch, but also fragrant leaves and woods. Sound and movement were different as well – where in the south there was a kind of still, forbidding hollow, here there was a bustle of life. If Glorfindel's eyes did not deceive him, the branches were moving beyond the caprices of a gentle wind.

There was sound in most of the forest, he corrected himself. The Woodland Prince who finally abandoned the treetops for Glorfindel's company had landed beside him only with the barest whisper.

"The forest is fascinated by you," he told the ancient warlord with a small, thoughtful frown. It looked like mild, childlike jealousy to Glorfindel. He suppressed a smile.

"Am I so exotic?"

Legolas lip quirked. "That is one word for it, I suppose."

"What word would you or your trees use?" Glorfindel asked.

"We speak beyond words," Legolas said, abstractly. "It is not a conversation. It is just, connection."

Legolas, Glorfindel found, was different out in these wilds. Garbed in the humble archer's camouflaged uniform of his truest skin, he looked surer of himself, more powerful, more at home, more fey.

It is with this casual power and conviction that he took Glorfindel's arm and ushered him toward the nearest mighty trunk, and his archer's strong fingers wound about the older elf's wrist and lifted it, to press against the body of the tree. He put his palm over Glorfindel's hand.

Glorfindel felt / heard / saw/ smelled / tasted the song of the earth, pulsing and ascendant. A rousing chorus of energy, mounting heavenward and overflowing. For a long moment Glorfindel felt blinded and deafened, and he could not tell up from down. The old tree had a lot of stories to tell the re-embodied godly emissary, and the trees with whom its branches and roots were entwined wanted their voices heard too. Stories and voices, but no words. Excited chatter that felt like prayers, praises and pleas but again – no words he could decipher. Glorfindel swayed until Legolas pulled their hands away.

The Woodland Prince held him steady by the arm, until he settled. When he returned to himself, he found Legolas muttering at the branch in native Silvan. It sounded like a mild rebuke, softened by the prince's hand stroking the trunk.

Feeling Glorfindel's gaze, Legolas turned to him and explained, "I do not think they've ever met anyone like you, in all the timeless ageless life of this earth. They are too excited."

Istor appeared beside them. "Are you all right, my lord?!"

Glorfindel patted the shoulder of his second-in-command reassuringly. He recovered quickly and he felt more alive than ever, but he still did not quite have words for his experience. He looked around him at the glorious bounty of this forest and marveled anew.

He shook his head in stunned amazement, and when his gaze met Legolas', he had a sudden understanding of him. He had a glimpse of why the Woodland Prince was so willing to die for it all, all the light and life of his home.

# # #

They moved at a leisurely pace; with noncombatants and the homing birds, it was not a lean outfit. But Glorfindel was grateful for it allowed him to appreciate their surroundings. They came upon a stray spider or two, but these threats were met and eliminated with calm efficiency. No one aside from Tauriel and Silon had even needed to go to arms.

For most of the walk, Glorfindel reveled in the life of the forest. He touched branches and trunks and stretched his fea out, connecting happily with this strange and vibrant world.

He caught Legolas watching him a few times, with glacial gaze turned sea blue in warmth, and his fine features lined in amusement. The corners of his eyes crinkled.

They halted for a meal and a few hours' rest at a place beside a stream that was a well-known pitstop to the soldiers. A canopy of autumn-warmed leaves of yellow, gold, amber and roan sheltered them, and Glorfindel could swear it almost curved over their heads accommodatingly.

As their traveling party settled about camp, Legolas touched the thick trunk of an obliging tree and tilted his head at Glorfindel.

"Would you come up with me?" he asked quietly, with a shyness that did not match the defiance in his eyes, as if he was daring rejection but also fearing it.
Glorfindel pondered the invitation. From the corner of his eye, he could sense the other elves half-listening to them, even as they went about their tasks. Tauriel watched them from the corner of her eye. Silon, however, stared openly and warily.

"You can climb, can't you?" Legolas asked, his impatience for an answer, whatever it may be, turning him petulant.

Or was it flirtatious?

Or both?

Glorfindel bought himself some time, by walking slowly toward Legolas and laying his own hand upon the trunk. It was a heady sensation connecting with the tree that was also connected to Legolas, and he took a deep breath at the rushing greetings. He opened his eyes, not knowing he had even closed them.

"And what would I find up there?" he asked the prince, quietly.

Meaningfully. Glorfindel moved slowly and deliberately, but he realized his pulse was racing and there was warmth coursing through his body.

Glorfindel had been to many courts and even in this kingdom's relative isolation and danger, he had a feeling this extraordinary princely son of Thranduil's must have at least some experience himself - of dalliances and romance and playful little interactions or perhaps more. The fact that the other soldiers had given them some berth made it clear to Glorfindel he was not the only one sensing games were afoot here. For his part though, he had long been done playing them. War and death tended to have that sobering effect. Besides, he had a sneaking suspicion he was out of his depth with Legolas. One of them was vastly older than the other but neither of them were children.

He did not know where the prince wanted to take this or why.

Legolas did not answer him. He turned his back on Glorfindel and said dismissively, "I suppose you will follow if you follow. Do what you want."

Soundlessly, he vanished up the damn tree. Glorfindel looked up at the branches overhead, surprised he could lose sight of Legolas so quickly. He sighed.

You were young once, weren't you? he asked himself. When you climbed trees and jumped off of cliffs, and dove untold depths and sailed boundless seas, when things could mean either nothing but also possibly, everything?

He climbed.

Quickly.

Maybe too quickly.

Glorfindel had some skill in climbing and the natural balance of an exceptional member of his kin, but a wood-elf he was not. To say he slipped was embarrassing, but he had perhaps what one may call an inadequate grip upon a particularly slippery, misshapen branch.

He fell, but not far at all.

He was caught at the wrist by the powerful hand of a gifted archer, and good gods, were there slim branches and vines twined about it?

Glorfindel's gaze crawled up the elegant digits of Legolas' hand, and followed the flora that wound around the slim wrist up to the strong, firm forearm. The sentient branches started crawling down to his own hand too, and for a long moment, he and Legolas were knotted together by the forest.

Legolas pulled him to his feet and steadied him. The prince let the warlord's wrist go, but the branches stayed where they were a bit longer, binding the two golden elves together.

The Woodland Prince hissed at the tree in disapproving Silvan, and its branches slithered away. He softened his tone by laying his freed hand over the trunk gently.

"We will go higher," he said to Glorfindel. "But you will go first. I will not let you fall."

Glorfindel looked down, and then up. They were already so high, and the tree was so mighty they were still ways away from the top. Over his head was a tangle of leaves and branches and he was skeptical anyone but a wood-elf could navigate them without peril. But even as he thought so, the branches moved, the leaves shifted, and unfolded before him they looked almost like a laddered tunnel up to the multihued twilight sky. Suddenly the path seemed clearly laid out before him.

He could not help it - he smiled, broadly. The sight of the setting day and emerging night sharing one boundless heaven speckled with stars delighted him to no end, as it did most of their kin. He turned his eyes to Legolas and laughed, eager to share his mirth.

A smile trembled upon Legolas' lips too, but he was not looking up at the heavens. He was looking at the ancient warlord's face, with a soft expression of such strangely forlorn fondness. So forlorn his eyes watered and sparkled, starlit too.

He walked to Glorfindel and reached for the edges of the cloak that covered the ancient warlord's golden head. He lowered it to the other's shoulders, and shook out the hair to fall freely about. The tips of his fingers danced on Glorfindel's skin here and there again – his neck, the hollow near his collarbone. Again, Glorfindel felt paper thin and breathless. He was breakable, at a precipice, as if he stood on the edge of a cliff or in the quiet eye of an otherwise raging storm. Even the vibrant forest hushed.

"There is not much hiding it," Legolas said quietly. "The light always seems to find you, my lord."

He looked up at Glorfindel, and his eyes were liquid. The ancient warlord could not look away and he could not voice his retort – You're one to speak. For even in the nearing night and by dim starlight, Legolas was the dawn. His elegant, sculpted face was open and clear and bright.

You are exquisite, Glorfindel thought, and I am only an old fool.

"I see now," the prince went on, "why the gods saw it fit to send you back over all else. You are unsullied, even after everything you have seen and done. Darkness and shadow cannot touch you or mar you. You are life and joy. If all the voices of the world were an orchestra, you are the soaring instruments of wind, the playful, whistling breath that dances lightly above the earth strings. Your feet – they do not touch the ground."

He made his bold proclamation and stepped away seemingly without expectation, as if saying things just as they were. The sky was blue and you are one whom I lo-value...

And it was just as well because Glorfindel had no words to say, barely even any coherent thought to give voice to.

What he did know though, was that the step Legolas had taken away from him felt like an affront – a single step away, was a step too far. With that one movement, a spell was broken. It felt as if the air cackled and snapped, and things returned again to what they were, leaving one to wonder if what one thought happened had even happened at all.

"We will go higher," Legolas said to Glorfindel again. "But you will go first. I will not let you fall."

"What will I find up there?" Glorfindel asked, also again.

Legolas closed his eyes and pressed at the bridge of his nose. He opened his mouth and promptly shut it, saying instead – "The stars and the skies, and other than that I do not know."

Glorfindel looked at him for a long moment. What answer did he want? And what did he himself actually want, for these were two different things?

A million thoughts raced through his mind. He went on this mission out of duty, but slowly the people of the Woodland became a personal curiosity. Out of that grew compassion and respect for them collectively, and then enjoyment of the companionship of, and genuine friendship with this particular wood-elf.
The... attraction, he had to admit, was perhaps always there underlying everything. Thranduil's son was exquisite, undeniable in his beauty but especially so in honor and bearing, and the sunbursts of surprising humor. Glorfindel said it himself to Silon – there was much to admire, even before he had seen the gifted warrior fight. What made that attraction and admiration palpably uncomfortable now, he realized, was possibility.

With Legolas' gentle touches and earnest confessions of his own caring and regard, suddenly he was... possible.

And Glorfindel was unsure how he felt about that. After all, he was still much older, he was still a guest of the Elvenking, and he still had a job to do.

They both did.

So what did he want?

What will I find up there, he had asked.

The stars and the skies and other than that I do not know, Legolas had answered.

"Well," Glorfindel said finally, "the stars and the skies are almost always enough."

They climbed.

# # #

Glorfindel burst through the canopy, and he settled contentedly upon an obliging branch as he looked out at the vast expanse of heavens overhead and beneath it, a sea of lush treetops extending north, south east and west, bounded by distant mountains and a winding, mighty river. Legolas' woodland home was beautiful, and Glorfindel took a deep, indulgent breath in appreciation of it all.

Legolas emerged beside him, soundless, farther than he had been when they were talking below in the shadow of the trees. He sat on branches easily, as if he were on a rock upon a plain carpeted by autumn leaves.

He breathed in too, in much the same manner as Glorfindel had but with closed eyes and released in an exhaled sigh. Only afterwards did he look up across the darkening sky.

"Look," Glorfindel said, pointing at a majestic sight in the near distance; a burst of wispy clouds hovered around the almost completely set, haloed sun. "Isn't that beautiful?"

"It heralds a snowstorm," Legolas said quietly, and there was an edged disappointment to it that Glorfindel could not help but catch.

"You have acquired the long view of the gods I think," Legolas expounded. "From afar the storm is beautiful, but for those who live it – waters rise, temperatures drop, crops fail, sometimes people die. The same holds for war and hardship – there is some beauty in it from afar, I suppose. It builds character, it shows quality. But on the ground, blood is shed and lives are lost.

"We are so small," he continued in a contemplative murmur. "Our lives are even more distant to the gods than that 'beautiful' snowstorm is to you. How could they possibly hear us? And even if they did – why would they listen?"

He turned his blue, blue eyes to Glorfindel, who almost heard accusation in the question but mostly he saw quiet despair.

"They hear and they listen," Glorfindel promised him quietly. "But the answers... they just aren't always what we want or expect."

"Maybe silence is better."

"Some would say that..."

"Not you though," Legolas pointed out. He tilted his head at the older elf. "You have such trust of the gods and their plans and visions. Given the trajectory of you life, I suppose you have more cause for faith than most. But are you ever... ever in wanting?"

Glorfindel frowned. "What do you mean?"

"Do you ever still pray for things?" Legolas asked earnestly. "Do you still ask, or do you now only accept? I mean, tell me this - what was the last thing you prayed for?"

Glorfindel pondered the question. It was true; given the course of his life, he had unwavering belief in the ultimate goodness of those who gave them existence and their promises of salvation. But did he have so much faith that he had ceased wanting...? That he had ceased to desire beyond whatever was laid out before him? That he had ceased praying for...

You, Glorfindel suddenly remembered, achingly. The last thing I prayed for, was you.

I prayed for your light. Before that, I prayed for your relief.

I prayed for you.

"You," Glorfindel answered, tightly.

The answer surprised them both, for Glorfindel found he could accept all the circumstances of his current life save for this: the suffering of Legolas. Even in his recent near-death he did not ask for salvation or sparing from pain. But lately, he had been asking the gods to look after Legolas.

"I pray for you."

'til the next post! TO BE CONTINUED...