After the last argument, Erestor had not expected Glorfindel back in his library anytime soon. His blood pressure was raised all the more when he heard the resolute steps of Lord Elrond's general outside, before he had recovered from that visit in the houses of healing. Drawing his shoulders up, he stuck his nose deep into the book on his knees, demonstratively crossing his legs with his feet on his desk. But he never left Glorfindel out of his sight.
"Am I interrupting something?" Glorfindel at least didn't seem in a mood to fight, acting agreeable for a change.
Instead of an answer, Erestor held up his reading material and concentrated on the current page again.
"Seldom diseases of wild animals? You try too hard." Without even asking, Glorfindel helped himself to the hillside herb tea still brewing in the pot, and sat down on the side of the desk. At least he made sure this time that nothing important was stacked there. "The Lord will find out what ails the wolves."
"Because he's been doing this kind of work longer than me, you mean? In all his millennia of healing, he never witnessed a sickness that eats up a body and mind so badly without killing. It also happens to poison the organism so badly that one bite, in a minimum of time can be deadly to Hobbits, Men and even Elves, in case that little detail escaped you."
Irritated, Erestor closed the book. "If you have no interest in preventing an epidemic that threatens all of the west, at least stop bothering me."
Glorfindel absently rubbed a small cut on his forehead that the latest adventure had left. Erestor had seldom seen him so tired. Maybe he should stop terrorizing his soldiers in the worst of heat.
"I heard the lie often enough that you do not need anybody. Let us pretend for a moment, that is true. Can you protect her? From yourself? You never opened your heart to anyone, so I cannot tell. Or will you give her a bow to shoot your ghosts again, and immerse yourself in battle to feel that you are still alive?"
It took all of Erestor's self-control to let every of these venomous sentences bounce off him. His hands gripped the book so tightly that they were leaving marks. All had asked Glorfindel back then was helping him with his rusted fighting abilities. If he would have suspected the kind of entitlements his friend would derive from that, he'd have asked somebody else.
"There won't be many chances for that. You're the warrior here, and I'm the advisor, remember? Besides, there's seldom wolf attacks in my library."
"The world is bigger than your library." Glorfindel elegantly, smoothly jumped from the desk, moving out of reach before Erestor could follow the temptation of kicking a quite sensitive body site. "If you fathomed that, you would not face an abyss now. Maybe it takes this fall for you to wake up."
"Go train your soldiers. As a poet you fail miserably, as well as an advisor. You will forgive that I'm not willing to hear comments about my private life from someone who can't stand being in the same room as his family unless drunk or in armor." That was mean, admittedly, but also necessary and most of all, effective. Glorfindel had seldom ran from a conversation so quickly. Erestor only looked up again when the door closed behind him. Blood from tiny fingernail wounds dripped from his palm, marring the draft for another song for Tarisilya of all things.
Fortunately, he had long stopped believing in bad omens.
Only a few days had passed since Tarisilya had last entered the library at night. Yet in this short time, everything seemed to have changed. The silence, only broken by very few natural noises of life, didn't scare her anymore; it was a pleasant change after the turmoil in the halls of healing.
This time, she didn't come because the guesthouse was too empty, but because on the contrary, Tegiend would be waiting there to take her right back to the healers although she had long recovered.
And this time, she knew immediately that Erestor was present.
Maybe he had even been waiting for her, considering how fast he got up from his sofa before she had even really entered. "What are you doing here?" He tried in vain to look strict.
What indeed? She hadn't thought about that much. She was being drawn to him, that was all.
Why not stick to the truth? "I've been having some bad dreams, and I don't want to be alone if it happens again."
"Don't you have your brother for that kind of assistance?" He stopped a few feet from her, probably waiting for her to come to him. In spite of the darkness, she knew he was smiling, she heard it, felt it. If she wanted to believe the whispers of other Imladris elves, he hadn't been smiling so much in millennia.
Her legs moved automatically, as fast as her still healing injury allowed, bringing her closer to the elf whom she had come to appreciate so much in the last weeks. Whom she now wanted by her side to chase away those unsettling dreams.
"There's some things, a brother isn't any good for." Though she could hardly see Erestor, she found his hand immediately and only let go of it after he'd led her to the sofa and taken her in his arms. The furniture was too narrow to lay down together, and Tarisilya wasn't sure she wanted that anyway. Relieved that Erestor didn't try to make her, only wrapping his arms around her legs when she rested them on his, she buried her head no his shoulder. The missing light was soothing, for the first time in half an eternity, because now she wasn't alone anymore. She was with someone who would take care of her if the night offered less beautiful and glistening wonders than the moon in the sky.
"Did you mean that? You would come to Lórien with me?"
"Why not? At least for a while, other people can handle things here. And the way isn't that far. I can travel, whenever the Lord really needs me." Erestor's hand was soon busy with tenderly caressing her neck, which was sending those comfortable shivers down her back again. His head was close enough to hers to feel his breath against her ear which had the same effect, only much stronger.
Why not?
So this was how easy things were when you didn't have to fight prejudice against other elven realms or stubborn, overly worried fathers.
You always said that is your strength.
Confused, Tarisilya opened her eyes, staring down at the greyish contours of their bodies so closely huddled up to each other. Where did that sentence in her head come from? From Tegiend? Was the memory of Tegiend of all people trying to remind her of something that she wanted to think about the least right now? Quickly, she pushed it away. She had had enough doubts.
Suppression became far easier when suddenly slender fingers – artist fingers – were stroking her cheek. Raising her head, she let her lips tentatively trace the sharp line of Erestor's chin, not ready to let some inner voice ruin this moment.
Her heart was beating so loudly in her chest that she nearly missed his question, if she was being sure this time.
"I don't want to hurt you again. Are you here now? Are you really with me, Ilya?"
Her Yes, offended sounding because he actually still had to ask, never made it past her lips.
Are you really with me?
Was she?
Why did he have to ask so badly?
No one knew better than a child of the moon, how easy it was to hide in the dark. Was it only possible for her to be so close to someone because deep in her heart, she was pretending him to be somebody else? Somebody whom she maybe could never have by her side? She didn't think so but … If there was only the smallest possibility, she was about to make a very big mistake.
Before her confused emotions could make her do something, she would regret later, she quickly got up. "I'm sorry. I just don't know."
"Ilya …" Though he had caused that pullback himself, it was easy to hear that Erestor slowly but certainly started to lose patience.
She had gone way too far. Of course he was hurt. She would be too if she was in his place. "Erestor …"
He didn't let her speak. Getting up to stand right in front of her, he grabbed her wrist. "No, please, listen to me for a moment. I told you I would be fighting for you, but how am I supposed to fight someone who isn't even around? You are only giving me whatever that other elf left. That's not enough for me. I want to make the best out of you."
Roughly, rude nearly, she broke loose whereas her injured leg protested; she nearly stumbled. The pain finally brought back the reality of a stuffy, cold room, so large that it was easy enough to get lost when you were in the dark. By all stars, what had gotten into her? What had nearly made her kiss him, on her own accord, much too early? "Don't push me, that doesn't make it better."
"Maybe that's what you need to finally unchain your heart." He had never spoken to her like that.
It hurt especially that he was now talking just as disparagingly as Tegiend about her first love, that she had always kept like a luxurious treasure in her soul. Throwing mud at it, tearing it to shreds as if Tarisilya had done something wrong.
And why? Because she wasn't ready to promise him eternity after a few meetings? Anger flared up in her soul. "I don't belong to you! I do not always function the way you want me to! Go look up the word sensitivity in one of your books." As quickly as her battered condition allowed, she hurried to the door.
She had only just left the library behind when a loud noise from inside had her startle violently. She suddenly had a pretty good idea where those bruises on Erestor's body came from. From the sound of it, he had just knocked a whole shelf over.
In Lórien, usually there was always someone making use of the night to dwell in lonely places. Taking a walk in Imladris at this time of the day, Tarisilya had seldom met people so far. Therefore, she had the valid hope that after the dispute in the library, she would be able to retire somewhere, and think about what had gone so wrong.
How much she had neglected to seek out her oldest and most reliable advisor in the last years, she only realized when she sank down into the grass of the paddock near the palace, enjoying the shine of the full moon with her eyes closed. Sighing, she laid back to stare at the unclouded sky. Why couldn't things be as easy as when she had first entered the library? Innocent levity, the joy of something new and mysterious taking hold of her …
Instead, she was right back to the start, unable to get an elf out of her head, she had wanted to forget about. What had she been doing other than frantically searching for downsides to this relationship, just to avoid the pain of parting? Than suppressing the memories of the beautiful moments? The earnest nearness existing between Legolas and her from the start? Or being attracted to someone so badly that you forgot everything standing between him and you? How her heart had been racing every time, he had just touched her hand to say good-bye? How it was racing whenever she called his mere image to her mind?
Especially his knowing eyes, how he had been able to read in her so easily. Still, Legolas had never acted like felt superior to her, or tried to influence her with the millennia of life experience he had on her, unlike Erestor sometimes seemed to …
Frustrated, she turned onto her stomach and pressed her face into the cool grass, deeply inhaling the pleasant heavy scent of something as untouchable as nature, trying to pretend that the moisture on her cheeks was condensation water.
A horse's nose gently nudged her. Her current favorite patient was worrying about her.
With a deep sigh, Tarisilya sat up, absently caressing the animal's forehead. While staying here all night was tempting, that would only equal more running.
If she could see it right from a distance, the only person who could tell her something to help with her conflict, was lingering in the palace dooryard.
"I expected you sooner." Glorfindel greeted Tarisilya with a reserved but at least friendly smile. "Sit."
Defiance and anger filled her immediately. So she had suspected right; Glorfindel had known what was happening between Erestor and her from the start. Why hadn't he said anything then? He'd had no problem, spending time with Tegiend for his stupid training!
She crossed her arms without a word, sulkily thrusting her jaw forward. If the other elf had indeed been waiting for her, he surely had something to tell her, right?
Quiet laughter brightened the night, so melodic, appealing and contagious that she just had to join. While Tarisilya wasn't into hero worship as much as Tegiend, it really was true what people said about Glorfindel. While he was just as experienced as Erestor, unlike the librarian, he managed to keep a lightness and cheerfulness that Tarisilya hadn't exactly expected from someone who had been dead before.
Soon enough though, he turned serious. "The recent trouble in Imladris kept me from interfering with something out of my domain and reach. Only Erestor can answer your questions anyway. And the most important answer you find in your heart."
Just what she wanted to hear, great. Crossing her legs, Tarisilya started to tug on her seam that was frayed from that treatment already. Her father would probably never let her visit Imladris again, once he realized how much this stay had compromised her arduously acquired attitude. "As an elfling, people told me there is no greater bliss in an elf's life but having a family. How can something as wonderful as love hurt then?"
"This riddle still occupies the Valar." Tarisilya was surprised to suddenly hear deep sadness in Glorfindel's voice. Had she touched a sore spot? Unless the books were wrong, Glorfindel had never had a family. Maybe she was about to find out why.
"I didn't mean to …" Anxiously, she bit her lip. On the one hand, she would love to hear his thoughts. Who could tell her more about fate and love than someone who probably knew one or two Valar in person? But her curiosity once more hurting someone was definitely too high a price.
"You did not," he quickly calmed her. "A full moon brings out suppressed memories. We share that. There is a partner for every elf. But love is not always mutual. Sometimes, it turns out to be a mistake. It even confuses the Valar. Some of them say, it is due to the shadow we were born under. I think love has a will often not recognized. At the end of pain though, there is always the right way."
"I wish I was there already." The explanations changed nothing about Tarisilya's confusion. "Tegiend stopped saying it, for my sake, but I know exactly what he's thinking. He doesn't believe that someone who causes me so much pain can ever make me happy."
"Your brother is not the one supposed to marry that elf," Glorfindel returned, surprisingly sharp. "This decision is yours. I never doubted my feelings, yet I was forced to let go. I wonder every day, if I was alone, had I chosen another path. Now it is too late."
When Tarisilya could bring herself to look up from her fidgeting hands, she realized that Glorfindel was staring into the distance, at a sideway of the garden. For a moment, she thought to see a shape there, not more than a shadow that was gone when she looked again. Probably just an illusion. Sometimes moonlight wrapped things in a veil instead of making them clearer.
When she turned her head back, Glorfindel's eyes were on her again, the short melancholy was gone. Whatever direction she had guided his thoughts in for a few seconds, he was back to the present.
"Waiting for a while makes a heart stronger. Waiting forever drowns it in darkness."
"I see." And for the first time since arriving in Imladris, maybe for the first time since the beginning of this millennium when this whole mess had started, Tarisilya really felt like understing something. "I know now what to do."
Glorfindel already seemed to suspect what she meant, and he didn't sound surprised. "Remember that no elf chooses whom to fall in love with."
Now it was her turn to smile sympathetically. At that dinner, had she really thought that Glorfindel was being hostile to her? She might have spared herself a lot, talking to him immediately instead of running away like a scared animal. Now all that was left was to learn from these mistakes and never make them again. "You care for him very much, don't you?"
"He blocks it out, but I always did."
So much frustration and subtle anger suddenly filled the air that Tarisilya quickly got up. That definitely was none of her business. Glorfindel would have to talk to Erestor himself, once she was gone … which would be soon. "I'll try to not hurt him."
Glorfindel looked at her sadly from below and shook his head, with exactly the unbearably lecturing expression that he'd spared her so far.
"I know. I can't change it now. Thank you for your time." She quickly curtsied and then left to get her things.
The discussion with Tegiend was so ridiculously predictable that Tarisilya could have written it down beforehand and read it out loud. When she finally made him understand that for personal reasons, she indeed wanted to return to Lórien, he set his mind on escorting her, of course. By the time she could convince him that one of the Imladris guards would surely take care of her just as well, she was finished packing.
Helping him ease his bad conscience about wanting to spend the rest of the holidays with his friends here instead of going home already, and convincing him that in no way, she was angry about that, took until the sun was rising.
To avoid further debates, she let him carry her bags outside then, though she was perfectly able to do that herself. Brothers. A punishment from the Valar, seriously.
Before Tegiend could start over, she pressed a big kiss to his cheek and used her position as his healer to send him back to bed, to continue his recovery. "I'll write to you." By force of habit alone, she tugged the collar of his bright green robe into shape. Probably another gift of the house of Elrond. He seemed to start to get used to wearing these things. "This looks good on you, by the way. Say hello to the twins and Arwen for me, please."
"I'm sorry that it has to end like that, Ilya." Tegiend unfortunately wasn't half as ignorant as she'd hoped. "I've wished you happiness so badly."
"I am happy. Please try to finally understand that." She hugged him tightly. "I'll see you in autumn."
He didn't look convinced, he probably would never be, but at least he didn't try to talk her out of something anymore. That was progress.
When Tarisilya led her horse to the main road, she was relieved to see Lord Elrond come towards her, understandably confused that she left his stables with bag and baggage. It would have felt awkward, asking for him in the palace. She explained again, in fewer words this time, that an urgent matter was calling her home, that she didn't want to burden Tegiend with that though.
As expected, the Lord immediately sent for a guard to accompany Tarisilya.
She sighed another breath of relief. Considering the current dangers in the area around Imladris, she wouldn't want to go on that ride alone.
The encounter also offered her a chance to do something that she had not found the courage for so far. "Please forgive what I said to you after the wolf attack, milord. It is not my place to criticize you. You're always treating my brother and me with so much kindness … I don't know what I was thinking."
"Is that why you are running away?" That Elrond didn't accept her apology right away but regarded her with one of his famous glares, revealed that she had indeed hurt him.
"You don't need to, not because of me. There is no conflict between your father and me. Should he ever find his way to Imladris again, he would be as welcome as you two. That we see some things differently doesn't mean, we have opposing views about the life of elves on principal. Or, for that matter, about the distribution of roles and its reasons. He won't tell you anything different than what I said, child of the moon. If you feel safer in times of crisis, go and learn how to defend yourself. I would never keep anyone from that, not even my own daughter, and I am certain, Vandrin agrees. To answer your question though: In all of my millennia, there were two times when I have ended a life. Both times, I have been in a war. Ever since then, my ability to soothe troubled minds is heavily limited. And all of my sons' battle training as well, focuses on learning how to avoid using a weapon for a deadly strike. As of yet they succeeded. Someday you will understand why the protection of healing abilities is more important than desperately trying to prove your value in fights and danger."
"Maybe, milord." Tarisilya was not ready to clarify the misunderstanding. The Lord thinking that this was her reason to leave, was fine with her. That other thing was none of his business anyway.
"I hope, the problems in your valley will soon be solved." She meant it, with all of her heart. This was not a final farewell. Tarisilya did plan to come back here, once she could look back on what had happened with some distance. She would probably follow Arwen's example from now on though, and let Tegiend bring her all her books from the library.
"So hope we all." Elrond quickly put a hand on her shoulder. "Your escort will meet you at the gate."
"Thank you, milord. Please say hello to your wife for me, and tell your daughter that I'm sorry. Tell her, I will be back soon."
That had been easier than expected. Maybe in his solitude down there, Erestor had not learned about her plan yet … It would save them both some trouble. And until she reached her home, Tarisilya's thoughts would be back to some order. Then she could write to him …
The hope lasted exactly until she reached the gate. Unfortunately, that was no soldier sitting on the waist-high wall. Erestor's face didn't only seem pale but snow-white this morning. His messy hair and the ill-fitting robe looked like he'd just crawled from his sofa. He stared right at Tarisilya until she stopped next to him. "Are you dead set on proving that you're not half as mature as I thought?"
"This is better for both of us." She would love nothing better than to just stay on her horse. Why were there no books on how to do this as quickly as possible?
She all but crept closer, pressed to the wall as if she could somehow vanish inside. "We were caught in a dream. My woke reality is long promised."
"Is that so?" Tarisilya didn't have the strength to back away when Erestor came to stand right before her. "Then tell me why I can see the feelings you have for me in your eyes, even now."
The amount of anger and the hint of despair she was confronted with, made Tarisilya speechless. No matter what she said, it would only make things worse. And it was her fault alone.
Was it though? Hadn't she warned Erestor? He was a lot older than her. If one of them should have too rational to start this whole thing, it was him.
"I was fascinated for a while. And I appreciate that you're being my friend without trying to make me something I am not. Under different stars, that would suffice to bind us in love, but I realized now that I belong with someone else."
"You don't belong with him, you belong to him! The one thing you hate the most!" Erestor's voice was a hateful hiss, hate on someone he didn't even know. A dangerous, much too big feeling that he didn't have an outlet for. Just like last night when his rage had turned against a shelf that had surely not only left bruises and ugly scrapes on his jaw and neck.
"This will break you, Ilya. He doesn't even care about you."
"Someday he will."
Erestor badmouthing someone who wasn't here to defend himself, was the necessary impulse to escape his nearness. Insistently, Tarisilya pushed Erestor away from her. "Stop that, please. Let us not behave like elflings."
"Suddenly you don't want to?" Not a hint of gentleness, humor, self-irony left in his tone. It was like Erestor had worn a mask the whole time. Bewildered, he shook his head. "So this is what I made a complete fool of myself for?"
"This is how you see it then." Tarisilya felt like someone had shoved her into the Celebrant in the middle of winter.
Erestor had really acted like he was somebody else the whole time. And surely, he thought that alright. She didn't doubt his feelings. But someone pretending for her – that would never have worked out.
Legolas had never feigned anything. How blind had Tarisilya really been? "You should be happy then to be rid of that burden, shouldn't you?"
Erestor seemed to notice his mistake and tried to stop wreaking his anger upon her, that he felt for someone else. "That's not what I meant."
Yesterday Tarisilya had learned to see through that facade of understanding and friendliness though. "But you did. You're trying to be something you are not. I don't want that. And I don't want to be untrue to myself either. When we were together, I could not shut off my feelings for an elf who only exists in my head right now, for even a second. That alone should have told me, I'm connected to him way too deeply to try and give myself over to somebody else. Please, Erestor, stop it. We're only hurting each other."
Now she had gotten through to him. Now he understood, there were no words that would make a difference. Again, he sank onto that wall. This time, because the energy that Tarisilya had lent him in the last weeks, left him. "One day, I will have to pick you up from the ground, Ilya."
"Possibly." That too was a possibility she had to be prepared for. Not even Lady Galadriel probably could say what the future held for her. But no matter what happened, at least she wouldn't have to blame herself for not doing everything to find happiness. "Then at least I had the right to choose that you're trying to take from me."
That hit him deeply. Furious, he gasped for air. "Did I ever try to keep you from anything?"
"You're doing it now, questioning the only decision I ever made for myself in my life, that no one will ever change." The longer they were fighting, the more resolute Tarisilya felt. Actually, she should thank Erestor. Without this conversation, she would have kept on doubting if she was doing the right thing.
Now she knew for certain. She had deluded herself with the active help from a certain librarian. It almost felt like waking up from one of the many nightmares she'd lately had.
Finally, an armor-clad rider approached her with some baggage. Relieved, Tarisilya mounted her horse again.
She had an unfriendly remark on her lips when Erestor joined her and grabbed the reins, but then she felt the cold smoothness of metal on her skin. "What are you doing?" Confused, she stared at his family ring that he tried to give her.
"I want you to wear this, to know that I'll be waiting for you. Until you can free yourself from the curse of that other elf." Either Erestor really didn't realize how much it hurt Tarisilya that he stirred up hatred against his rival or he didn't care. Probably both.
"No." She gave back the ring, firmly squeezing his hand for a last time. "You actually think I could do that? Choose an eternity of waiting and suffering and then condemn someone else to go through the same? I believe in him, that's all you need to know. Don't wait for something that will never happen."
"Didn't we discover together that the future is always in motion?" Terrifying emptiness and even more distance than in the very beginning was the last that Tarisilya saw on Erestor's face before he left her alone. Her well-meaning plea had done nothing. He couldn't get over being rejected. Maybe he never would. Erestor had perfected the art of waiting that Tarisilya found so difficult.
As much as she wanted to help him, she couldn't. He would have to live with this, and so would she.
"Thank you for your help." She greeted the soldier with a short bow, slightly confused that he didn't even take off his dark hood for an introduction, so she could have seen his face.
"Lord Glorfindel personally asked me to protect you on your way home." The voice though, she found to be very appealing and likeable, warm and melodic just like Glorfindel's. "Let's get started, so we can leave the wolf area behind as quickly as possible."
Tarisilya soon noticed that the elf kept on watching her from the side; he surely had many curious questions. Probably he would ask at the latest when they finished the first stretch of galloping. After the gloomiest departure from Imladris she had ever experienced, she wasn't in any mood for that.
"Don't be mad please." She spoke up before the horses had even really stopped for their first break. "I don't feel like telling much of a story right now. Forgive me if this ride will proceed in silence."
"Don't worry. I'm not exactly known as the most talkative soldier in Lord Elrond's troops." The elf gifted her with a captivating smile from under his hood and motioned her to dismount. "Get some rest. I'll keep an eye on the area."
"Thank you ..." The other elf was exceptionally polite and considerate, and she? About high time to remember things like manners and decency. "I'm thoughtless. What is your name?"
"Thoughtless is the one who doesn't introduce himself." He gave a short bow. "Forgive me, milady. The shadow over Imladris ruffles even accomplished fighters with millennia of serenity. I am Thondrar."
"Tarisilya Vandriniel." She returned the gesture, not half as fleeting and sloppy as with Lord Elrond earlier. "Let's start over, what do you say?"
"On some days, that is the only way to not let the burden of eternity crush you, milady." That short guidance, revealing that the elf was perfectly informed about the reason for her farewell, except for a few short arrangements and instructions was the last thing she would hear from him on their journey.
Their farewell at the borders of Lórien was just as short.
First, it surprised Tarisilya that Thondrar didn't want to bring her to Caras Galadhon, after he had made pedantically sure to not leave her out of his sight for even a second on the way. Minutes later though, she noticed that she was far from being unwatched. Some things you just learned when your brother was a marchwarden. "That trick has long stopped working, captain."
"Someday, I will get you again." Haldir left his hideout between two thick bushes. In combination with the grey cloak of a guard they created a nearly perfect disguise. At least if you weren't familiar with such games for centuries, after being scared again and again as an elfling. "Where did you lose your brother?"
You had to know the tendentially rather ill-humored captain well to read this stoic tone right. Even after such a short time, Haldir already missed Tegiend in the basic group builing his loyal entourage for many decades now. And the two of them were probably still the only ones without an idea why.
Tarisilya wasn't interested in pointing it out to them. She had had her fill of complicated love stories.
The two elves were old enough to manage things on their own. Not to mention that Haldir would probably rather dump her on a ship going west before admitting that the pure embodiment of sense of duty had a private life too.
"Cut the nonsense already," she grunted instead, with a weak grin. "How did you know? Did the Lady send you?"
"Your father," he admitted and cleared his throat, embarrassed. Haldir was one of the few persons understanding Tarisilya's urge to break free from too much protection and care. Occasionally, he even helped her with it. "Lord Elrond wrote to him. Do you want to ride alone?"
"No, that's alright." After all that silence in the last days, talking about all that had happened in her absence would be good for her.
First she wanted to know though, how quickly certain rumors made their rounds in elven realms. "So, what are they saying about me?"
"You mean, except that you broke yet another heart?" Tarisilya's scathing look only made Haldir grin. Such banter had always been part of their daily routine.
"Don't worry too much. This time, it was someone at least who shifts for himself quite well. Admittedly, I do wonder though if the elf hasn't been born yet who can make you forget your crazy childhood ideas."
"Don't you start with that, too, or I'll reconsider letting you escort me." Disgruntled, Tarisilya set a fast speed.
Haldir wouldn't have a problem, keeping pace with her by foot. But he would hopefully be too much out of breath to talk.
"Don't worry. I don't meddle in other people's lives on principal." Haldir's comparatively unhurried jog for a trained marchwarden was hardly more than morning training. "I can only tell you what I learned in my time guarding these borders. Some things don't change, Ilya. Not in elven realms. Don't let this hope destroy your life."
"If I want unwanted advice, I'll go to my family. Besides …" Her eyes sought out the dark forest in the distance, so close … and yet untouchable. Not forever, she would make sure of that. The first step was leaving her youth behind for good, so she could decide alone which way to go. "Some things do change. Someday."