Chapter Sixteen: Fireside Confession

Under a thick canopy of black leaves and twisting boughs, their little campfire burned merrily, the wood snapping and sizzling on the damp, mossy ground. The forest was so dense here in the northwestern reaches – the trees marched up so close, as though they were peering down at the circle of Elves sitting around the flames – that Celeborn had allowed his party the warmth and cheer of a fire tonight. For no light escaped the knotted branches around and above them, and they had heard no suspicious noises that evening – not the guttural speech of goblins, nor (to Cadhríen's infinite relief) the skitter of any spiders' legs.

It was their second night out from the Elvenking's Halls. The first had been spent in the pleasant oak groves that circled Thranduil's realm, but as they'd travelled onward, away from the river, the trees had begun to vary and their limbs and trunks had grown bent and gnarled. The faint path they had been following had narrowed and eventually disappeared, and now they made their way west as best they could guess, over root-stumps and thorny bushes, behind which bright green and yellow eyes blinked in the endless gloom.

The forest was black as pitch around them now, save where the golden light of the flames leapt and danced on the tree-bark. Cadhríen, who had been a little way distant in the trees, washing with a wet rag and changing her clothes, now stepped into the circle of firelight and saw Haldir sitting on his own with his back to a large beech tree. He was tending to his arrow fletchings; and, for once, was not paying attention to where Cadhríen was so that he could make sure he did not end up alone with her.

Quickly and nimbly, she stepped around the fire, deposited her belongings with the others' bags near the packhorses, and dropped down beside him as he reached for another arrow. As he sensed her he hesitated, one arm extended, and he flashed her a look like a hound that had been caught raiding the larder.

"Cadhríen," he muttered, and shifted as though he might get up. But she immediately caught his wrist and held it in a vice-like grip.

"No," she said in an undertone, so that the other Elves would not hear. "You're not leaving my presence until you've explained what's going on. Why do you keep looking at me as though I've grown an extra head? And why, in the last few days, have you been so keen to be wherever I am not?" She gazed at him in the dimness and knew her eyes were as hard as granite. At his bewildered expression, she felt her features soften, and she relaxed her hold on his wrist a fraction – though not enough to allow him to escape.

"I… don't know what you –" he began to say, but Cadhríen cut him off, her voice a whisper now.

"I saw you," she said quickly, darting a glance at the Elves nearby, but they were oblivious, tucking in to a supper of waybread and fragrant cordial. "I saw you with the prince, in the parlour. I was just coming in, but seeing you were already occupied, I hesitated and watched you exchange a few words with him."

Haldir frowned, and it looked a little like a warning, but she pressed on regardless. "That was when you started acting oddly. So, for Eru's sake, tell me what he said to you – or you to him, I suppose – that's caused you to treat me like you hardly know me. Or don't want to know me." She looked searchingly into his face, which was pinched and drawn in the firelight.

Gradually, her friend's expression turned from denial to unhappiness, and thence to a sort of weariness. He leaned back against the greyish bark of the beech and tipped his head to regard her for a moment. Eventually, he gave a shallow sigh. "All right," he said quietly. And then again, "All right."

He shifted where he sat, moving the arrows that had been piled in his lap to one side. For a few seconds he was silent, and then he rubbed the bridge of his nose and closed his eyes. "The prince was already in the parlour when I arrived, but it was not long before he came up to address me. He started off by commenting on something innocuous – I cannot remember, now, what it was – but at some point I mentioned you, in passing, and he said… he said he had noticed that we were very close."

Cadhríen cocked a dark eyebrow. She had been crouching next to him, but her legs were beginning to burn, so she folded her feet and knees underneath her and settled, cross-legged, on the soft, damp earth.

"And?"

Haldir lifted a shoulder lightly. "And I said yes, we were – the closest of friends, in fact."

Cadhríen studied his face in the dancing firelight, her brow and her mouth both twisted slightly in confusion – and amusement.

"I don't see –"

"He said he had assumed we were lovers," Haldir said under his breath, darting a guarded glance at her. "From our familiarity with each other, and from – well –"

"From what?" Cadhríen pressed, a flicker of irritation curling suddenly in her stomach at the thought of Legolas arriving at such a presumption.

"Well," Haldir said, reluctantly meeting her eyes again, and she could tell that this was the part he really hadn't wanted to delve into with her, "from the way you looked at me." He paused; she had never seen him so uncomfortable. "He said."

Lost for words for a moment, Cadhríen felt her lips part. She stared at her friend for a few long, drawn-out seconds, and then she laughed – a bubble of mirth that made a few of the nearby Elves look over and caused Haldir to start slightly where he sat, his grey eyes wary.

"And what did you say to that?" she asked, having checked, over her shoulder, that their neighbours had gone back to their meals.

Haldir shrugged again, noticeably unhappy. "I confess I did not know what to say. I think I simply repeated myself – that we were the closest of friends – but he did not look convinced. He apologised, then, for his mistake, and left. And that's when you turned up."

Her initial amusement had burned away, leaving only that smouldering irritation in her midriff. "That nosy –" She shook her dark head. "But that doesn't explain why you've been avoiding me. Why you've been acting so oddly. You said it yourself – we're close friends."

"Well, I…" Haldir met her gaze, and she felt a cold prickle of apprehension. When he next spoke, she did too, and they stopped abruptly as they interrupted each other.

"I worried that –"

"You don't –?"

Haldir paused, but Cadhríen dipped her chin; a silent signal for him to continue.

He sighed and leaned back against the tree. "When I saw you, I couldn't stop thinking about what he'd said, and I worried that… I worried that he had perceived something I had not."

Her friend looked miserable; his gaze dropped from her face to her hands, which were curled uneasily around each other in her lap. "I worried that he was right, and that you… you were hoping for something more from our relationship than I was – than I am – able to give." There was pain in his eyes when he looked back up at her. "I didn't know what to do. I thought that if I brought this up – if I asked you – and he turned out to be right, our friendship would end. And I couldn't stand that thought."

His voice was barely above a murmur now, though the Elves around the fire had started to sing, their attention, thankfully, on each other and on the leaping flames rather than the awkward conversation carrying on behind them.

"Was he?" Haldir asked, and he looked as though he was holding his breath; steeling himself for the grim let-down he had been trying to avoid by disappearing whenever she came near. "Right, I mean?"

Cadhríen stared at him for one long, uncomfortable moment. Then she leaned forward and gripped his upper arms, and said, in a steely whisper that she hoped wouldn't carry far, "Haldir, you addle-brained… You are my oldest and dearest companion. I look at you with love because I do love you – as you love me. But not as a partner. As a true friend." Her gaze was searching; her grip on him tight. "I can't stand the thought of losing that, either. And I'm sure Legolas did see something, but he clearly misinterpreted it. Perhaps… perhaps there is no one in his life that he feels that way about."

It took Haldir a good ten seconds to take this in, and then he let out a breath and grinned widely in relief. "Eru," he said, rubbing a hand over his eyes and up through his golden hair. "I can't tell you how grateful I am to hear you say that."

But Cadhríen's thoughts were already elsewhere; distracted. I'm sure Legolas did see something, but he clearly misinterpreted it…

At first, as her friend had related his fears, she'd felt nothing but anger; a searing desire to see the prince's face at the pointed end of an arrow drawn and nocked to her bow. But now, she realised she could hardly berate Legolas for misjudging appearances and forming false beliefs. With a warm flush to her cheeks, she recalled her own – even worse – mistake on the dais in the Elvenking's Halls, and what followed.

"Cadhríen," Haldir prompted, and she was brought abruptly back to herself as her friend waved his hand in front of her face.

"What?"

"I was saying," he said, smirking, "that there must have been a reason why the prince asked me what he asked."

Cadhríen shot him a quick warning glance, but knew full well that that had never deterred him before.

"I think," Haldir said, with slightly narrowed eyes, "that you might just have acquired an admirer."

Cadhríen was already standing and brushing herself off, and as she stepped nearer the fire to try to warm her hands, which had grown cold and a little stiff as they'd been talking, she forced out a low, dismissive laugh.

"I very much doubt that," she said, crouching next to the crackling firewood and determinedly not thinking about the way that same light had looked reflected on Legolas's collarbone in the bath-hall. "And anyway," she added, massaging her fingers and shifting to make room for Haldir, who had now crouched down beside her, "we won't be going back, will we?"

Her friend held his own hands out towards the flames and stared intently into the centre of the fire. "I suppose not," he answered at last; and they both lapsed into a comfortable silence.