Written with respect for, but no ownership in, the works of J.R.R. Tolkein, Peter Jackson, Philippa Boyens, and Fran Walsh.
The author returns from New Zealand with happy memories, countless pictures (despite the rain), and too many ideas about what to do with this story. A brief interlude, just to get the ball rolling again.
8 January, 3019. Third Age.
In the dark of night, Frodo fought a lonely battle with the demons of his sleep. The crows sent by Saruman had reminded the Hobbit that evil creatures ceaselessly stalked him and the awful thing he carried—something he had been able to forget during the relatively uneventful days of the journey so far. But tonight the crebain haunted his dreams, their screeching merged with the cries of the Nazgûl on Weathertop. He jerked awake, heart pounding and shoulder throbbing in pain. There would be no more fitful sleep this night.
He tried to calm himself by searching out those on watch. He caught sight of Aragorn first. Hunched up against an outcropping, the ranger was enjoying his pipe and surveying the southern sky. It was a familiar sight to Frodo, who often found himself awake while the others slept soundly. In the darkness, he felt he could always count on the glow of Aragorn's pipe and its reflection off the Evenstar pendant.
Frodo stared at the Elven jewel but his thoughts strayed back to the burden around his own neck. Ringbearer. The grandness of the title shamed him. Half the size of the others, barely capable of wielding a weapon, completely ignorant of the lands they traveled through and the dangers that awaited. The fears of his dreams returned, along with the nagging suspicion that this Ringbearer business was truly the twisted work of the Ring itself.
He may have had the best of intentions, but now it occurred to Frodo that his pledge had caused the Ring to end up in the hands of the council's weakest member. It could not have chosen a better tool to ensure its eventual return to Sauron. Maybe it had done exactly that.
Frodo turned his dejected gaze toward the opposite end of the camp. There the form of an Elf melted into another rocky ledge. A shift in position brought blonde hair into bright contrast with the shadows. The Hobbit recognized Legolas, who was concentrating on the surrounding terrain until something drew his attention. Frodo followed the Elf's stare to the ground several yards away and found an odd sight.
Far away from the other sleeping forms, a dark shape rolled to its side to reveal Anarwen's pale profile. Her long brunette hair and forest-colored clothes rendered her practically invisible against the nighttime landscape. If she had not moved, Frodo doubted he would have seen her at all. Now that he was looking at the girl, he could not help feeling that something was out of place.
She is sleeping? Frodo thought back on the days since the Company had left Rivendell, and he could not remember seeing either Anarwen or Legolas join the others in slumber. He knew Elves rarely felt the effects of fatigue. Still, they could not go indefinitely without resting, so this sight was rare but still inevitable. It did not explain Frodo's unsettled feelings. He glanced back at Legolas and found the elf also staring at the girl with concern.
Frodo's gaze was drawn back down to Anarwen as she shifted again. Against the pitch black night, her pale skin made her troubled expression plainly visible even at a distance. Do Elves have nightmares too? wondered Frodo. The girl's mouth moved a little and she might have mumbled something softly, but he could not hear her. She turned her head closer to the ground and her brow furrowed. Then the Hobbit realized what was wrong. Her eyes are closed!
It was a jarring sight. An Elf plagued by the same shut-eyed but restless dreaming that mocked him every night. Sympathy welled inside him, along with the vague sense that her discomfort was somehow his fault. In the midst of these thoughts, Frodo felt himself being watched. He shifted his eyes away from Anarwen and found Legolas staring at him with an unreadable expression. Frodo quickly turned away, pretending he had only awoken for a moment.
Legolas felt a pang of sadness at the Hobbit's guilty expression. At some future point, he should probably take the boy aside and explain that the Ring haunted them all to some degree. Even he felt the cursed thing's pull. In waking hours he was able to lock its temptations away into a corner of his mind, but there was nothing the Hobbit or anyone else could do to spare themselves its power during sleep. In dreams, it made all fear themselves abandoned and without hope.
Anarwen made another noise that only an elf could hear. Legolas watched her stir fitfully. That her eyes were shut alarmed him as much as it did Frodo. Elves experienced their state of reverie with their eyes open. Anarwen's half-Elven heritage had given her a few of the more colorful mannerisms of Men, however Legolas doubted that their way of sleeping was one of them. In their many years of patrolling Mirkwood together, Anarwen had rarely opted to rest while others stood guard, and of those few times he had seen her sleep, Legolas could remember none in which she had done so with her eyes closed.
The elf caste a quick look around the camp. Despite the lack of moonlight or a fire, he could easily pick out eight mostly silent shapes curled up in bedrolls. Frodo seemed to have fallen back into his own dark dreams and remained turned away from the elf's view. Another small bundle wheezed in rhythmic but noisy breathing. Only Aragorn sat fully awake. The ranger acknowledged Legolas with a nod before poking the snoring dwarf in the side.
Legolas smiled faintly and returned to watching the elleth. While contemplating her face, he reached out with his senses and checked for any approaching danger. Nothing. Then with little awareness of what he was doing, he moved soundlessly to her side and crouched down next to her.
Anarwen lay on her back with neither bedroll nor blanket to shield her from the elements. Her one concession to comfort was a makeshift pillow formed by her suede jerkin. With this outer garment removed, Legolas recognized the customary shirt of his guards, a dusky shade of brown designed to blend into Mirkwood's dark canopy of branches. It fell long to her thighs where soft gray-green hose and tall suede boots wrapped her legs.
Despite her minimal covering, Anarwen should not have been uncomfortable. Elves, even half-Elves like she, did not suffer the extremes of heat or cold, and decades spent guarding the forest realm ensured that she would be at home in any campsite. Yet, her expression betrayed some agitation. Restlessly, she rolled toward Legolas's feet and her right hand moved to clutch at something from her dreams.
He looked down on her form and his thoughts were jumbled. He was concerned for her, yet confused as to what he should do. A brief memory of that morning came back to him, his hand caressing her cheek as they lay hidden together. He let his mind follow through what might happen should he repeat those actions now. The picture of Anarwen awakening and thrusting her blade to his throat in a single movement was amusing but sufficiently realistic to leave him searching for another answer.
The day, with its threats from outside and awkward moments from within the Company, left Legolas uncertain of himself. His gaze drifted back to Anarwen's closed eyes and he wondered, What shall become of you and I? He was not naïve enough to think that a moment spent in each other's arms had made all well between them. In Rivendell he had released her from her duties and the only way to restore them was for her to offer her oath to him once again. He could not ask it of her, it had to be her choice. Yet, if she did so right now, would his acceptance be the right course to take? Would it be so simple a matter to return to that life? That past was only days ago, but it felt as far away as the time he first saw her.
Without thinking, he watched as his fingertips reached tentatively for hers. The picture blended with another from a memory barely a month old. An elleth's hand raised in dance to meet his, its back sliding along his open palm until her long fingers separated and entwined with his. It was a movement designed to mimic the bodies of lovers. Suddenly, the twisting in his gut jolted him back to the present. He snatched back his hand and quickly scanned the camp.
As soundless as he had joined her, Legolas crept away from Anarwen until he could sit with his back to the rocky hillside. Only when he reached this spot did he realize he had been holding his breath. He stared hard at the horizon, willing himself to put aside this foolishness. Had any observed the elf, they might have noticed that his expression bore more than a passing resemblance to Frodo's guilty demeanor of only minutes ago.
She is not for me. She is not for me. She is not for me…