CHAPTER 37 - Where my shadows lie
"Êl síla erin lû e-govadad- ...," Kal frowned, repeating the too soft, all too melodius words.
She heard a barely contained wisp of laughter, and glared upwards with narrowed eyes.
Legolas knelt before her, a roguish smile on his face. "Êl síla erin lû e-govaded 'wîn. But this was better. Much better dare I say, than your first attempts," his smile persisted at her visible pique.
Kal was sat on a boulder near the shore, facing the sea. A finely woven manuscript was presently in her lap, though most she could do was marvel at the elegant swirls neatly etched therein, running her fingers over brightly hued illuminations. The colors were of immeasurable beauty and like nothing she had ever seen before, with reds, yellows and greens coming alive on the well preserved pages. Still, she could not discern the foreign symbols, her reading skills being limited to the stunted, straight signary of the Black Speech. And so Legolas would speak and convey meaning, and she would practice the sounds, for now.
Kal groaned, torn between taking his face in her hands to smother him with her lips and pulling at his hair as restitution for the teasing she saw dancing in his eyes. "I should like to see you attempt to learn Black Speech," she closed the tome.
Legolas made an appalled face and a clicking noise with his tongue. "Only if you wish me to bleed out my ears. Profusely."
"Either way," now she could not rein her own smile, "your lot are a strange folk indeed. Why would stars be shining of all things, when meeting someone for the first time? I have never even seen them."
The elf reached to tuck strands rebelling with the wind behind her ear. "Merely a convention of speech and recognition. I can imagine this may be foreign to you, considering the level of manners practiced in the Black Land," Legolas followed evenly as he sat down by her side. "I wish you could see the stars. Maybe someday."
His wistful tone was not lost on her. She pushed against him lightly, and his smile grew wider. Shoulder to shoulder they sat, staring outward to the dark mass of endless music. For that was what the sea meant to them. "Do you hear it now?" Kal asked, her language lesson long forgotten.
"It is ever there," the elf admitted, and felt her hand come placed over his. The notes gained a more torturous, wailing resonance with each wave. Legolas allowed his thoughts to stray as he watched the horizon, to forgotten days of yore. At this time a sunset would be in full bloom, streaking the skies in vivid nuances of scarlet gold and amber, bathing all in its brilliant light.
"Your brother seems to loathe me less, I think," Kal said into the silence, her thought drifting back to the unusually pleasant meal shared with the brothers the other night.
"His trust is hard-earned nowadays, his affection fearful and scarred."
Kal regarded him with understanding. "I am glad for the change, I am. He is your kin."
She felt a stir of sadness emanating from him then, and wished she could somehow offer aid. As it was, there was not much she could do against what plagued him. Memories of the ranger fallen in Ithilien and the boy flitted across her mind, and dampened her mood.
"Do you think they await you, across the sea? The rest of your family, and your people?" Kal asked, setting the tome down and bringing her knees up to her chest.
"Maybe. I do not know. My only hope is they are well, wherever they are," came the wistful answer as the elf reached for an iridescent seashell buried in the sand, following its pearly shine.
The grief lacing his words was heavy lead upon their mood, and neither spoke for a while, content with listening to the remnants of the First Music hailing from the sea. And then, as Kal allowed her thoughts to flee and gently mesh with the falling eve, a dissonance was heard. Her blood curdled and she froze, unsure whether it was her alone who heard it. She regarded Legolas in a brief sidelong glance. Slowly, imperceptibly Kal turned her head, her eyes focusing to the side, her hearing attuning to the familiar vibration rising behind them.
Downward...
...You must.
It hissed its usual demand and she did her utmost to bar it from her mind, hoping the elf would not sense her unrest. The command may have been a mere whisper on the wind, but it cast a heavy shroud over her spirit.
"Do you remember anyone?" Legolas asked late into the silence, startling her. It did not escape the elf, but he said nothing. "Anything at all to give you a notion of your origins? Of who your parents were?"
"Parents..." Kal trailed away.
The elf felt a pang of compassion for his intended, yet so young, having led a life deprived of that which he had always taken as a given.
"I remember none," Kal said, and fell silent. Memories kindled then, each blacker than the last; a need to speak brimmed, to open herself to him, to share the burden of them. His presence tended to do that, she had noticed. "But, during my years in the service of the Tower, there was someone," Kal let her head fall against his shoulder, her gaze lost in the nethers of her past. "He wore the garb of alchemists, though his face was never revealed to me. Always he walked hooded, and his voice was ash. He would offer many teachings, then resort to torture to ensure I remembered them. Or so he said. He would always maintain it was for my own good. He reveled in having a toy to mold and torment, I think. As many others festering in the bowels of that place." Hatred spread, dispersing the remnants of peace from moments ago. Nights spent in dim lit cells shackled to cold walls came to the fore, and her fists clenched involuntarily. Kal felt his arm wrap around her, and looking up met grey lights of sympathy. For some time now, she could no longer find it in her to resent it. It was honesty. It was him.
"I did not mean to grieve you," said Legolas, drawing her closer into him.
"It is nothing," Kal offered, huddling into his side. His scent was dewy and fresh. "It happened long ago. It is over," she said absently, fingers interlacing with his. Then, finding her courage she sought to speak of that which Kal knew was ever on his mind. "You are thinking of going again."
The grip on her fingers tightened. He kept his gaze trained on the sea. Kal felt a heavy wave of guilt and restlessness come crashing against the inner walls of her being. "He lives, I know he does, Kal. I must."
Kal pressed her eyes tightly shut. "When?"
Legolas turned to her then, and again Kal saw guilt, and remorse, all lined with a wretched sort of longing. "Once my leg is fully healed. But I... that is, do you recall your vision? Remember the last-"
"I do," Kal cut in. "You have seen the Tower. You think the one you seek may yet be held there. The maid Arwen spoke to me of him," her gaze reverted to the darkening sea. "I know her mate is the one you seek."
Legolas smiled sadly. "Her mate, my sworn brother. And so much more." And with wavering words he began a tale spanning from the First Age of Arda, when a half-elven king had chosen mortality. He spoke of Men, of their legacy, and the meaning of Estel. He told her of Aragorn, and all that he encompassed. All that he meant to the world, and to him.
And as the elf spoke his eyes lit with joy and then drowned in sorrow, his words conveying his struggle, and Kal felt all the more dismal knowing she could not ask him to stay. In the end, silence fell between them again.
The weather was warm despite the looming night, and Kal suddenly rose, turning to face him. He appeared so bereaved and ridden with remorse, that she understood. There was another war waging within him now, and it had everything to do with her.
Kal took both his hands in hers, pressing lightly. Then she graced him with another smile, and in one swift motion turned from him, removing her grey longshirt, then her leggings. She looked over her shoulder, smiling at the faint red tips of his ears. "Join me?"
When Legolas regained his voice he smiled, shaking his head. "I will wait for you."
Without looking back Kal ran and dove into the foaming water, allowing herself to sway with the strength of its song. She saw Eron in the distance, running along the strip of shore with seemingly much to explore, his front paws digging deeply here and there. Not for one instant did the wolf seem idle. By the time Kal emerged from the sea twilight had given way to blackness.
As she retraced her steps to where the elf yet sat in thoughtful musing, Kal could not help but grin at the change waylaying his features.
The night still revealed her to him as she neared, wearing nothing but herself. His gaze followed the way her shapes peaked from beneath long flowing midnight strands, and all else dimmed around her.
And her mischievous smile Legolas could not begrudge, raw proof of how much she relished seeing him this way, lost in the sway of her hips. He remained still and enraptured, not daring to move, as though she were an apparition easily lost in the fray.
Kal felt herself go taut inside at the glint in his gaze, and a burning warmth soared within her. And then she stood before him, unable to look elsewhere, trapped in the light of his eyes. Kal nearly fell forward when his palms gently burned along her thighs, reaching ever upward, resting at the small of her back. She smiled, tilting her head to the side with a sigh, eyes closing with the shivers his touch seared through her skin.
"Legolas, let me... let me travel there with you," Kal tried then, seeing him so very amenable in this lost state. She felt a measure of dishonesty in doing so, but she wanted to aid in keeping him safe. She wanted nothing else but for him to live. He could not trudge through Mordor alone, no matter that she shuddered at the very thought of setting foot in the fell and poisonous land of her past.
His gaze was reverent as the tips of his splayed fingers met over her lower middle. "No..." Legolas whispered, "...too perilous..." he said absently as he pressed the side of his face to her bare skin, keeping her there. It earned him another sigh. "I have never seen one so fair," the elf spoke softly into her, his arms come wrapped around her waist.
Her hips were playful in a sideway tilt, against his smile. "You have seen me before," Kal said as she reached to slowly undo the main braid in his hair.
Legolas bit back a low purr when she ran her fingers through now loosened silvery strands. "But never like this," the elf replied hazily, his eyes closing, his head falling back in complete surrender. "I did not allow myself... to..." he trailed away at the feel of her reaching under his tunic.
"Since when?..." curiosity won. "When did you know?" Kal asked, her own senses afire with his soft skin beneath her fingers.
"The river..." the elf whispered in a daze, "...when the currents took you."
"Ever since?..." Kal wondered, remembering the confusing manner of his actions and words during those times. She reached behind his neck, running her fingers down his back.
"Ever since..." Legolas slurred, "...I have known little to no peace," his smile faded, recalling how difficult a task it had been to forget, to bury the memory of her against him, trembling as she was when the elf retrieved her from the waters.
Kal descended to her knees and dragged him down with her, and then they were facing each other, her searching hands finding purchase at the seams of his garb. She watched him, so youthful and ethereal and blissfully defeated, her silver-gold one, smoldering in the night.
"Are you cold?" Legolas asked with a frown, feeling her light shiver before being tackled to the ground, her lips pressed to his in passionate need as Kal straddled him. Do not go, it meant. Please, do not leave again.
"Let me come with you," she tried again, biting on his lower lip.
"No..." his hand went to her nape and he deepened the kiss.
"Please, elf, I can impart with you all that I know, but you... you cannot fare on your own there-" her entreaty was swiftly smothered by his mouth, and she softened against him with wanton abandon.
The way he touched her was telling, but knowing what she did now of elves, it surprised her little that he remained clothed. Kal knew he wanted to be with her, she felt it. But she would wait, even with her heart thrashing in her chest every time they were so entwined, even with the torturous way he kept her pinned to him in that vice grip.
And then, despite doing her utmost to find joy in him and his closeness, the voiceless urge was ever there, as a great storm disturbing a waveless sea. It intruded even on this most cherished of moments, and it was become unbearable. Ever downward, seek, seek...
"I wish to see more of this land," Kal spoke suddenly, panting lightly as she broke their kiss.
Legolas opened his eyes, lovingly tracing a finger along her straight nose. He regarded her questioningly.
"I have never been there," she pointed behind them, to the north, towards the mountains. "Let us go together, and sleep under the open skies, and I can speak to you of the ... of the Tower. I can share all that I know." Guilt beckoned and twisted her insides, but she waved it away fretfully before he could sense it.
His eyes cast a different light, but the elf appeared no less lost in her than before. "Why not," Legolas conceded after some time. "We could head out... on a brief incursion. There are some areas you have yet to see indeed, and it would do well for you to know them."
Kal nearly sighed in her relief, and resumed her eager pursuit of his lips. The urge was set to rest and for that she was thankful, despite the growing unease at her duplicity. There may very well be nothing there. But she would seek and find the source, and once she knew for certain, there would be peace again. Her head rested on his chest, and Kal drifted away on the soothing tenderness of his touch.
A/N:
"Êl síla erin lû e-govaded 'wîn" = "A star shines on the hour of our meeting" (Sindarin)
PS: all the Elvish words/sentences you see in this fiction are by no means original inventions. They are drawn from realelvish dot net, a great and comprehensive source for this kind of information (they also accept donations). I try to limit the Elvish used in fics I write, and the above phrase may be familiar to many Tolkien nerds such as myself, hence its use here. Anyway it's greetings and swear words first, when learning a new language isn't it?