Author's Note:
I'm sorry that it took so long to post this chapter. The world has gone mad.
When Russia attacked Ukraine, I was in shock for a long time and couldn't do anything for weeks. I just cried for the Ukrainians. I'm appalled by this unjustified war and I absolutely condemn the horrendous war crimes that the Russian Army is currently doing there.
My heart goes out to Ukraine. Stay strong!
Chapter 44, Coming Home
On a hill of past sorrows, she stood.
Far on her right was Legolas. He looked strange, and it took a while for her to understand why. He was young. Too young to stand in front of the enormous army of elves who waited for his command.
His eyes darkened, and his forefinger pointed at the cliff edge of the mountain they stood upon. Diligently, all elves bowed and began marching straight ahead. One by one, everyone stepped off the cliff, plunging to their death.
Legolas kneeled at the edge just in time to see the last of the falling elves hit the bottom of the valley.
In the other direction, Sulrochil saw an endless sea of dead bodies. A flock of vultures were already soaring in the sky, circling above their prey.
She knew this place. For decades she had visited it every night. Everyone was dead. Daedhrogon, Rochirion, Celeblasson, Derenil, Rhossolasseth. All her comrades were gone, except Heledirchon. Where was he? Everywhere she looked there were only scattered weapons, broken dreams. Why was she the only one alive?
As she ran to Heledirchon, all straight seams on her coat marking her rank disappeared. When she finally found him, she was clad in Archer's clothing.
"Heledirchon?" Sulrochil grimaced when she saw the black arrow buried deep in his chest. She clutched his hand. "I will get you to the healer."
"I had a vision about you." His voice was slurred. "Earlier… Before…"
Heledirchon's soul was already fading away, but Sulrochil could not admit it to herself. "Tell me about the vision."
"You stood on a hill, and I could not believe my eyes because of what you were wearing. You need to live. I had to do it. I did the right thing. You must live."
His eyes, always so full of life, lost all their shine. "Farewell, Heledirchon."
Sulrochil woke up when Legolas abruptly tore himself away from her. The sky was full of swirling snow. "When does this end?" she said and wiped the snow off her face. "Will this ever end?"
"The snow will stop soon." Legolas stood in the middle of the spring blizzard and turned his head to evaluate the situation in the forest. His voice was as cold as the weather. "And all of it will melt as soon as the sun rises."
"I did not mean that," Sulrochil said and tilted her head to see him better.
"Get up." Legolas buckled his quiver. "We need to go."
"The dream," Sulrochil said, "It was-"
"It was nothing but a dream," Legolas snapped and crouched to grab his bow. "We are leaving now."
"Why the rush?" Sulrochil stood up and looked at their surroundings. Everything was coated in white.
"I want to get back today." Legolas wiped his bow and spun it around to see if it was intact.
"If we do that, we have to run all day," Sulrochil said and scowled at the discarded pile of weapons she had thrown into the bush yesterday, trying to decide if she would take them with her.
"Stop complaining."
"I only stated the truth," she said, and decided to leave the weapons as they were. She was not going to use them.
"If you are not up to it -"
"I can do it." Sulrochil interrupted, eyeing Legolas grimly.
"We might get horses along the way," he said.
"I already said I can do it! But why the haste?"
"I am not going to spend another night in the woods."
"Where are you going to spend this next night, then?" Sulrochil asked, pursing her lips.
"At the castle." Legolas decided his bow was alright and put it on his back. "And you are coming with me, even if I have to listen to your constant whining."
"The castle?" Sulrochil brushed snow off her clothes and cast a sideways glance at Legolas. "Is that what you call it?"
"Stop being so annoying." Legolas turned to look at the forest.
"So, what do you call it?" she sneered at him.
He looked over his shoulder. "You promised to be on my side, not against me. So much for your promises."
"And so much for your gentleness. I can still feel the kisses you gave me last night on my lips."
"Forget last night!" Legolas turned around to face her, glaring at her. "Forget everything! "
"What has gotten into you?" Sulrochil jabbed her finger at his chest.
"Leave me alone!" Legolas thrust her hand away. "I have to tolerate your every whim, and now you want me to explain my feelings in detail."
"Can you forgive me?" Sulrochil bent her head slightly. "I do not want to hurt you, but these ruins of my soul make me hurt. The ruins of your soul make us-"
Legolas looked at her darkly, but did not say a word.
"We need to get back," Sulrochil continued calmly, remembering her promise from last night. "We shall get back as of right now." She spoke in a silent voice until she suddenly lifted her head up and exclaimed, "But what will Father say?"
"What about him?" he shrugged. "We need to live together, and since you do not have a place to live, it is the only option."
"But he will have to see us every day. Will it be too much for him?"
"Of course," he said. "To listen to our unending fight."
"You know what I meant," she insisted.
"Whatever he might feel inside his soul, he still would not let us live anywhere else. He wants you inside the safety of the castle, surrounded by dozens of guards."
"Perhaps he wants that," she said. "But what do you want?"
Legolas pointed at her weapons as if he had not heard her question. "I assume you are not taking those?" he said, his eyes darting from side to side. "Why, just leave the excellent and very serviceable weapons rotting here, and we shall finally go. And I will lead today because we will enter the castle through a hidden passageway."
"Is there really a hidden door?"
"Of course there is," Legolas said. "Have you not heard about it before?"
Sulrochil's eyes widened. "Was I supposed to know?"
"Definitely not," he said. "It is called a hidden entrance for a reason. We should keep it that way."
"Noruinivel," Legolas suddenly said in a louder voice, "gather your group and come here."
Soon seven elves came visible, and Noruinivel bowed. "My Lord Legolas."
"We will get today back," Legolas said tersely, "you may escort us till we reach the northern outpost, but after that, we will separate, and I will take a different route with Sulrochil."
"My Lord," Noruinivel bowed again. "The King specifically ordered us to guard you all the way back home."
"And you shall do that," Sulrochil said for her and turned to look at Legolas holding up a hand, but he ignored her gesture.
"No, they shall not," Legolas said.
"Surely, the secret passageway will be the smallest secret for them to hide."
"We should not be discussing this now." Legolas glanced at Noruinivel.
"No, but we are," Sulrochil said, "because you called them here before we discussed this."
"I thought this was obvious."
"If you have not learnt by now I have opinions, which might - just might - differ from your opinions, then here is your lesson: I disagree with you. Last night our guards heard things they should not have heard," Sulrochil said.
"They will not reveal what they heard," Legolas said.
"Of course not," Sulrochil said, "But there is a difference between keeping a secret and being able to keep it secret that she has heard things she should not have heard."
"What in the world are you talking about?" Legolas asked.
"If I had been here yesterday as a guard and heard what they heard, it would be impossible for me to keep it from showing on my face when someone asked about my mission. I could abstain from not saying the things, but I never could stop it from shining on my face like a golden star."
"I know that," Legolas said, "but what does this all have to do with revealing even more secrets to them?"
Sulrochil turned to address Noruinivel. "If anyone in your group is like me, all the secrets will be plain to see on their faces when someone asks them about this mission."
Noruinivel nodded, and Sulrochil continued confronting Legolas, "That is why it will be perfect if they all see the hidden entrance. If someone tries to pry about what they saw or heard during this mission, they can hint about the secret entrance and make it look like that is the only thing for them to hide."
Legolas looked at each elf in Noruinivel's group. "This is absolute nonsense," he said. "Knowing the location of the hidden entrance will give them even more secrets to hide. How does that help?"
"They can concentrate on the memory of the hidden door and force that memory to the surface of their mind if someone asks about the mission," Sulrochil said.
"This is incomprehensible," Legolas said and closed his eyes, putting his palm over his forehead. "This is way beyond my understanding. This is utter rubbish!"
"I feel this is the only way."
"You feel. Here we go again," Legolas said, "Fine! It would be futile to argue because you have already made up your mind. So, let us just go and let the whole world see the hidden entrance. We could just sing all the way and let every passerby join us."
Legolas shook his head and began leading the way. "Why do we not put a signpost pointing at the door saying, 'Attention all adversaries of the castle - the hidden entrance is here!'?"
During their decades as Marchwardens, they had been in these woods many times, walked past these peaks, been shrouded in these bushes, but not once had Sulrochil suspected that there was a hidden entrance here. An unassuming gap in the side of the mountain and there it was - a route into the castle.
In they went, after a long and uneventful run.
Outwardly uneventful, that is. Running through the beauty of huge northern forests should have been pleasant, but the flaming anger radiating from Legolas made Sulrochil distressed. Every time she tried to talk to him, he only ran faster, ignoring her. Aye, she had irritated him in the morning, but he was never angry for this long.
The tunnel inside the mountain seemed to lead them into darkness; the only light came from torches on the walls. Sulrochil tried to concentrate on Legolas' feet. Each time she had her eyes fixed on one of the heels, it disappeared into the darkness when he moved forward. She could not get a grasp on anything, each thought vanished into nothingness.
Would he continue to slip out of her reach forever?
Past a line of guards, they proceeded. At some point, Sulrochil saw Noruinivel and her group taking a different route. Legolas did not slow his pace, not even for a moment. He marched through the corridors; he knew exactly where to go at each intersection. Sulrochil had no other option but to follow him.
The unending stony walls seeped into her heart and stiffened her core. With the last grain of strength in her soul, she asked for comfort from Legolas, but he ignored it and only continued to stride forward. All she felt from him was anger and sheer determination to proceed, his heart filled with an earnest resolution to continue without stopping to whatever end.
She would never fit in. She never would even find her way through these grim tunnels. "Why are you like this?" she said in a quiet voice and took a couple of faster steps to walk beside him.
"Like what?" Legolas asked, not even glancing in her direction.
"Like you do not notice, I am afraid."
"There is nothing to fear," he replied, "I just want to go in and lock the rest of the world out."
"You are shutting me out," Sulrochil said, tilting her head to the left. "I had thought about the moment we would get back here, but this is not what I had in mind."
"What did you expect? Roses and sparkling wine?"
"Anything but your fury. Why are you angry?"
"I just want to get this over with."
"Get what over with?"
"Being anywhere but the only place I want you to be." A hint of softness in his voice almost brushed Sulrochil's soul.
"And what is that place called?" she asked.
"Come on." His voice was as hard as a rock again.
At a steady pace, Legolas strode ahead until he reached and opened a massive wooden door.
This was it.
The room beyond seemed empty. The first thing Sulrochil noticed was only a coat rack and two doors to the right. Cautiously, she proceeded forward and saw that the room was oddly shaped, and the actual living space was around the corner to the left.
There was everything you needed for living, but something seemed to be missing. Aye, there was furniture, beautiful wooden pieces, in fact. There were fascinating paintings on the wall, a lot of memorabilia on the shelves, a short knife in a glass cabinet. On a beautifully carved drawer, there was a collection of miscellaneous rocks that looked all too familiar. Inwardly, she smiled. When she was a child, she had collected stones too, but had Legolas truly saved all his treasures? Clearly, the room was lovely and filled with carefully chosen items, so Sulrochil could not pinpoint what seemed to be wrong.
It was dark outside, but the lamps were lit, and through the window, she saw the shape of a balcony. The room was comfortable, but what captured Sulrochil's eyes next was the wall on the left, which was not a wall at all, but part of a mountain with a giant fireplace set in the middle. There was no fire, which struck her as odd - why were the lamps burning, but not the fire? She wanted to ask about it, but when she focused on Legolas, she felt his reluctance to accept her in this room.
"You do not want me in here," Sulrochil turned away. When she hid her face from him, she saw an adorable yellow rose in a vase. It did not fit the scene.
"The last person with me here was my father when I was a child," Legolas said, taking a few steps and stopping in the middle of the room, scowling at the flower. "For almost three millennia, I have been alone here. No one is ever allowed in this room except me, and now you."
Sulrochil stepped forward and smelled the rose. "How are the lamps lit, then?"
"The servants come and go, but never when I am here."
The single rose radiated his loneliness. A forgotten lullaby lingered in the air. She let her eyes wander the room, and every nook and corner was whispering thousands of sorrowful stories to her. Your childhood was robbed from you; all you've got left are the rocks on a shelf.
An army of tin soldiers marches across the floor. A little boy commands them through the Rug and Blanket Mountains. The terrain is tricky; on the left are Sharp Mug and Bowl Labyrinths - snitched from the Mad Cook of the Kitchen. The foe could ambush them from behind every pot or pan.
In daylight, the boy is victorious, but he hides under the blanket at night. His mother does not appear anymore to insist that he clean his room.
"We are here now," Legolas said, and walked to the window, even if it was too dark to see outside.
"What is 'here'?" In the shimmering oil lamp light, his reflection in the window rippled and blended with the starry night.
Legolas crossed his arms over his chest.
"I understand your anger," Sulrochil said, walking to stand beside him. "And your frustration, but please, do not shut me out."
"If you want to change anything in this room, feel free to do so." Legolas turned his back to Sulrochil and stared into the darkness. "I don't care."
Sulrochil nodded. He needed a moment alone. "I would like to wash." She would give him time.
"You can wash."
"And I would like to wash these clothes," she said, "But I do not have any clean ones."
"You are wrong," Legolas said, relieved she had understood his mixed feelings. There was a hint of a smile in his voice. "If I had to guess, there are more clothes you have ever seen."
Sulrochil lifted her head, smiled for him and was joyful to see his first smile today. "Where?" Her joy bubbled around them like a thousand hilarious frogs in the greenness of a lake surrounded by reeds.
"Look over there." He pointed at the wall with two doors. "Behind the door on the right is a dressing room, and behind that is a bathroom. I suppose you will find more clothes than you could ever wear."
Sulrochil glanced briefly at the door.
"Whatever you do, do not wash your clothes by yourself. Just leave them there." Legolas took his coat off, and when he did, a tiny piece of paper also fell out of his pocket and slowly floated to the floor.
Sulrochil saw the paper first and took it. There was only one word on it: "Sultithen".
"Why do you have this?" she asked.
The reeds caught fire, the whole lake became surrounded by flames, and the frogs were suffocated by disgusting fumes.
"Give it back!" he snapped and tried to snatch it from her.
Warily, Sulrochil handed him the paper, not understanding why Legolas had been so agitated about this. When Legolas retook the paper, he tore it to shreds.
The sky turned black, all the stars disappeared, and every beam of light left this world. It was pitch dark in their world as they fell off a cliff into a bottomless abyss. The flames vanished, leaving only soot and ash on the ground. The surface of the lake was rippling with dead green-spotted frogs.
Legolas turned away from Sulrochil. She put her hand on his shoulder.
"Don't touch me!" Legolas forced her hand away. "I do not need your pity."
"I am not pitying you," she whispered, hovering her hand behind his rigid back, but not daring to touch. "Please, tell me about it."
"There is no point in wallowing in this, and I do not want to pour this on you. You have suffered enough."
"Oh, now I get it," Sulrochil said, prodding her forefinger on his back. "We have my burdens, which may become our shared burdens. And then we have your burdens, which are always yours alone!"
"That's it!" Legolas turned around. His mouth was a hard line. "Now you have officially gone too far!"
"It was the truth and you know it!"
"What have I done to deserve you?" Legolas glared at her. Shapeless, horrifying fear shadowed him. Fear? Rage and fury were straightforward; those Sulrochil could understand but not fear. Was he afraid he might hurt her?
"You do not have any intention of ever sharing your secrets with me, do you?" Sulrochil said snarkily because she was sure he would never hurt her and wanted to get to the bottom of this.
Legolas shook his head. "Why do you always want to deliberately wound me? I am tired of your cruelty!"
"Are you afraid of facing those things?"
"I am not going to tell you anything if you continue with this vicious hostility!"
"I feel the significance of that paper which held only my name in your handwriting," Sulrochil whispered. "Why did that tiny piece of paper cause you so much agony?"
"The bathroom is over there," he said and pointed at the door.
She dipped her toes into the water and understood nothing.
The wardrobe had been full of clothes for her, and she had even found a lovely bottle of bath oil with her favourite scent. This was supposed to be home, but everything was wrecked. Sharing a life - how does one do it?
She sank into the bath and let the water cover her for a while. Walls and roses, papers and stones twirled all around. Warmth surrounded her completely, and she wanted to yield to the magic of water.
Odd noises from another room alarmed her. She lifted her head to hear better to find that it was the sound of wood being chopped. Why would he chop the firewood himself when there were myriads of other people who could do that?
In the woodshed, he took a log, placed it onto the chopping block and with a quick hit, the log was split in half. The wood was perfectly dry; halved logs tinged like diamonds when he threw them to the floor. With each strike, the pile of firewood grew until he carried all of them to the fireplace.
A rasping sound marked the damper being opened. Calmly, Sulrochil let the water float her; something unlocked in her soul, as well.
Neatly, she heard him place the wood into the fireplace, log after log, and then whittle chips for kindling the fire. A tiny spark flew through the air, and the fire was lit. This was his world.
Smoke and all distress disappeared slowly through the chimney.
Home is not a place, but freedom of mind, space to be your true self. I am the only one who can give him that.
Hastily, she dried herself off and dressed herself in the second set of similar apparel she usually wore. When everything else was confusing, this brought her at least some familiarity. Sulrochil took her comb and stood for a small while in the dressing room behind the door before going in.
She sighed and opened the door.
The room was dark, as only the fire gave out light. Legolas sat on a rug in front of the fireplace, but did not turn to look at Sulrochil when she entered the room. With uncertainty, she paced through the room and sat cautiously on the opposite side of the rug.
"Do you make fires often?" she asked, rotating the comb in her hands.
"Quite often," Legolas said, "but that was not what you wanted to ask."
"No."
"Well?"
Sulrochil offered him the comb. "Would you?"
"You are overestimating the reach of my arm if you believe I can comb your hair while you sit over there," he said. "Come here."
Sulrochil crawled closer and sat in front of him. Legolas wrapped himself around her and buried his nose in her hair. For a long time, they sat still listening to the logs crackling in the fire.
"You are not combing," Sulrochil whispered.
"Finally, we are here," Legolas replied, inhaling her scent.
Sulrochil snuggled closer to him. "Tomorrow, you will not have to look at my back when I walk away from you."
Legolas gave a small kiss to her ear. "You smell good."
"It is the bath oil," Sulrochil said, turning her head a bit to enjoy his lips on her earlobe better. "Water lily scented oil."
"Really?" He breathed her scent again to relish her charm.
"There was also a wardrobe for me." Sulrochil tilted her head, basking in his touches. "It was decorated with painted spruce branches, and it was so full of clothes I had no time to even look at every one of them."
"I knew it."
"Why all this fuss over me?"
"Because…" Legolas' voice faded, and he hid his eyes in her hair. That was all that was needed to make Sulrochil's eyes well with tears, and she shifted slightly to feel his nose on her temple.
"Please, do not cry," Legolas said, pressing his nose closer to her, "I am so helpless when you cry."
"I am a river of tears," she said. "There is nothing you can do to stop them. Just be with me."
"I was horribly rude to you today," he said, nuzzling his nose against her ear. "Please, forgive me."
"I was not the epitome of pleasant today either," Sulrochil smiled, "Of course I forgive you. We are here now."
The comb had fallen on the rug, Legolas took it and began combing. "Making fire is something I enjoy a lot," Legolas began while he sorted through the dark strands in front of him, "It has been my only companion here, during the lonesome years…" His voice faded out.
Softly, Sulrochil caressed his arm.
Legolas took her hand and kissed the back of her fingers before continuing to comb.
"My mother loved combing my hair," Sulrochil began, but froze. "I am sorry, I should not talk about this now."
"Please, do go on," he said. "My mother is not coming back even if you refuse to tell me about yours."
"The last time she combed my hair was when I came home after the war. She was almost withering away but wanted to comfort me. I still feel the guilt of being the only one to survive."
"Last night," Legolas said, brushing her neck with the back of his fingers. "When we had the dream about Helediron's death, I saw the dream for the first time through your eyes. Aye, you have told me about it several times, but now that I saw it myself, I believe I know what happened. It was not by luck or chance you survived."
"What do you mean?"
"I think Helediron rescued you."
"How?"
"You have always thought that in his vision he saw you in your Marchwarden apparel, but he must have seen you clad in an army coat similar to the one I wear. Our coat. I suppose that is why he knocked you out before the siege."
Sulrochil watched the dancing flames in the fireplace. "This is only guessing."
"If he truly saw you wearing our coat, he knew you needed to live to be in that position someday."
"We cannot know what his intentions were, or if he saved me in the first place."
"No," Legolas said. "But he said in the vision, 'I had to do it.' I believe he saved you."
"You may be right," Sulrochil said. "But this is confusing; I do not want to think about it now. Everything seems so strange. The beginning of the dream was different, as well. Would you tell me what it meant? You were so young."
The fire warmed their souls as Legolas combed through Sulrochil's hair. The monotonous movements soothed him, and as the tangles in the hair were loosened, something also unravelled in his soul. "Whenever I had to command our people into war, it felt like I was chasing them over the edge. I have made wrong decisions many times."
"You were so young," she whispered. "And you were alone."
"Those are no excuses." Legolas put the comb down and began braiding her hair as he went on. "It was I who had to keep up and know what to do. When you are a leader, you must always take responsibility and stick to your choices even if you know it will lead to some people dying."
He finished the first braid and began the second.
"I had to justify those decisions even when situations changed," he continued. "The rules changed, and the enemy developed new ways to demolish us. I did not know much more than them, yet it was I who took the blame." Legolas lowered his head and buried his eyes in Sulrochil's hair, "I do not want to relive those times."
"Please, keep going," Sulrochil whispered. "Can you feel that you are braiding not only my hair but also our souls together?"
"It is one thing to kill, another to send others to kill, but the worst part of being the leader is always sending others to die," he went on with his story and the braiding. "Because of me, they died."
Abruptly, Legolas crouched to put more logs into the fire.
"Did you have anyone to talk to?" Sulrochil asked, even though she already knew the answer.
Legolas sat behind her again, let his fingers entwine the soft threads of her hair, and began speaking about different matters. "When you were in Shadowland, and I was here, Father arranged things so that I was not alone for even a moment. It was four days of unimaginable pain."
Sulrochil shifted slightly to give him a better position for braiding.
"I recall spending a lot of time with Bereneth in her workshop," he continued. "She sewed an endless stream of seams emerging from nowhere and going to places I did not recognise. She sewed, and I stood by the window listening to her neverending story about bygone times, about people and places far before my time. Her story was like a rope for me to cling to on a mountain slope."
"Sometimes, you fell off the cliff, and your hand slipped out of my grip. I listened to your scream all the way down. Sometimes you drowned. Your scream faded when your mouth went under the water, leaving only bubbles. Your hand waved above the surface for a short while, trying to reach me, but all I could do was watch the hand disappear too. With the last stream of bubbles, you sank deeper. Then the lake was still," Legolas pulled Sulrochil's back tightly against his chest. "You feel so frail in my arms. It is as if my body has forgotten how you feel."
Suddenly the fireplace vanished, and they were wading through wetlands. By a small lake, enormous reed beds grew. All of the reeds beside the small lake were aflame. Sulrochil felt a lump in her throat when she realised why Legolas had written her name on the paper.
"Did you forget my name?" she asked, swallowing. "Is that why you wrote it on paper?"
Legolas nodded but did not say anything more. This was the time of the unmasking of the truth.
Sulrochil turned her head slightly to snuggle her nose against his neck.
"I forgot your name," Legolas said in a thick voice, "it was like losing you. Like you did not exist anymore, like you never existed. It is hard to explain as I, of course, all the time felt that you were alive, but still my heart convinced me you were not there."
The elves left the wetlands behind and took refuge in the backwoods of their souls. The trees hummed for them, the tranquillity of the old forest filling their souls.
"I have lost you too many times, in too many different ways. Even though I know I have not lost you for real, I still feel it all. It was four days of a nightmare. Then there was Chief's funeral, and all the grief-" He halted and buried his head in her hair.
Sulrochil tried to glance at him over her shoulder but saw only a shadow of a motherless boy bolting around a corner to avoid her gaze. The boy did not wish to be detected, and she let him be. He may hide in the dusk until he is ready to meet the present.
They had been forced onto the trail they did not choose, but the way to the sacred land shall be revealed to them. "Lay down," she said and softly pushed his chest. "Please."
Legolas did as she asked and lay down on his back, Sulrochil sat on her knees beside him and brushed his hair off his face.
"Close your eyes," she whispered, "and let our forest sing us a song that is ours alone." When he shut his eyes, she traced his face with both of her hands. With her thumbs, she caressed his eyebrows. "Your soul is a battlefield after the war. There is only death, misery, and grimness all over the place. And then there is the boy who just fled. Is he coming back?"
With closed eyes, he nodded. The rigid line of his lips made her see what she already felt - the turmoil in his soul was profound, and it would take a long time before he would truly be able to trust life again.
"Please, tell him he may hide as long as he must." She began giving him small kisses all over his face. "An echo of his questions linger all around this room. 'Do I have to be alone forever?' I hear him asking."
"It never stops," he whispered.
The boy was alone by the river to do what he enjoyed most - climb trees and hunt treasures. Those days, they let him trek freely in the woods. There were always guards around him - just recently, he had figured out they were there. The boy was not sure if they already knew he had spotted them, but he still made them believe he did not notice their presence.
It was a fine day, and he decided to carve a willow flute. His father had shown him last week how to do it, but this one would be his first.
Legolas drew Sulrochil closer and whispered into her ear, "I lost my mother. She was not here when I needed her."
The boy threw a few stones into the river before cutting a willow branch and making a flute. He played it merrily under the willow tree but froze when he heard a swallow.
The boy hurled the flute into the river and dashed away.
"I would like to show you to my mother, but I don't know who she is. Whenever I think about her, I see her through a child's eyes. She remembers me as a little child; she doesn't know who I am. Who am I?"
"You are still him," Sulrochil whispered. "You're still the six-year-old boy who misses his mother, and you hate it."
A lively boy burst through a field of daisies. The sky was full of robins, and their glee made him bounce with joy.
His mother stood on the other side of the field. The boy bolted to show her the golden rock he had found. It would be a great addition to his rock collection. Across the field, he ran. He ran and ran, but the mother could not be reached. The landscape stretched as he ran, and the mother slipped away.
Darkness took Nana. All the boy had left was the cold stone in his palm. It was the heart of his Father.
Sulrochil leaned her face gently over his and cupped his face. Her hair fell to both sides, and thick walls emerged around them. "It is alright to be him." Sulrochil felt warm tears on her face, and this time they were not her own.
The tears were falling all over. It did not matter who was crying anymore because they all were their tears. "Each rock on my shelf holds a memory," he whispered. "A memory of me showing it to Mother."
"I would love to hear every story," she said and kissed him.
Each teardrop held both his agony and the happiness which had begun to overcome all the gloom. "You will," he breathed against her lips, letting her love caress his soul.
Suddenly, Legolas squeezed Sulrochil tightly against himself. "I need you here," he sighed and pressed his nose to her cheek to revel in her warmth. "For my whole life, something has been missing."
Sulrochil let him do it his way and leaned her head against his chest. His heartbeat drummed in her ears.
"I have always been alone," he whispered. "I never had a true friendship, and that is why it has been difficult for me to recognise it. Now afterwards, it is easy to see how badly I failed at everything, but-," he paused and swallowed. Tears welled again out of his eyes. "Please, forgive me."
Sulrochil kissed him softly and slowly stroked his shoulders. "Everything is fine now." For a long time, they lay still, watching the burning fireplace. His heart was like a dry ground waiting for the rain to bring it to life again. Legolas tightened his grip. Be the rain for me.
"Whatever is crushing you," she whispered. "Is crushing me, and only by letting ourselves feel it, can we overcome it. But it will take time. Tonight is only the beginning. Will you stick with this?"
"I have never backed down from a challenge."
"This is not a challenge," she whispered. "This is rest. We need to learn to rest in each other. When all obstacles between us fall, we will find peace."
As she spoke the words aloud, the truth of it struck her - she had been wrong all along. "You are not afraid of showing your feelings or telling me about your past terrors," Sulrochil said and lifted her head to see him better. "When I have felt you fight against your inner pain, I thought it was because of your fear to face it, but that is not it."
Legolas furrowed his brow. "What is it then?"
"I have been so wrong." Sulrochil put her palm on his heart. "You have to fight against it because I fight against you! If I fight you, you have to keep your feelings inside."
Sulrochil began sliding her hand over his chest. "In a battle, you are at your best when you have a tough opponent, but not in this. I have believed you need the challenge to get those things said, to get the pain out, but the more I aggravate you, the more you hide in your shell."
Legolas closed his eyes and shifted himself to revel in her touches. "And tonight, it changed."
An empty void in Sulrochil's core filled. Legolas spread his arms to invite her to touch him more. She watched him lay on the rug, ultimately succumbing to her will. The last teardrop glimmered in his eyelashes, and she wiped it away.
Sulrochil watched his chest move up and down with his breathing. Idly, she traced the muscles of his chest. She was unsure what to do for a few heartbeats, but soon her soul understood his plea. A sigh of pleasure escaped deep from his throat when she finally dared to use more force. She rubbed his chest and marvelled at his unconditional surrender. "Tonight, I have truly understood what the problem has been. It was never you, but me. You need my love to feel secure, and only then you can open up."
"I do not want to hide anything." Legolas pulled her closer. "But I need you to be on my side, not against me."
Sulrochil closed her eyes and hugged him tightly. "I am sorry."
The fire blazed, and its warmth led them to the right path. Legolas gazed into her eyes and pulled her into a kiss. Sulrochil blinked when her lips were suddenly pressed against his. "Welcome home, Sultithen," Legolas whispered between kisses and rolled her under him.
The kiss deepened and made the rest of the world cease to exist.
"This is home," she whispered against his lips. "I understand this now. I mean, I truly get it. You thrive on the challenge. You always pursue the strongest opponent, and I guess I believed I should be your greatest opponent to make you talk, to make you show your feelings to me, but it does not go like that."
"No," he said and stared at the fireplace. "We have entered times we do not understand." Dark clouds began to disappear from his eyes - the sky would soon be clear again.
Joy began to bubble in Sulrochil's heart. The surrounding walls were not mere walls anymore - but their walls. "Everything is wobbly," she said. "It is understandable if we fail occasionally."
"More than occasionally." Legolas rose up and put the last logs into the fire. He crouched by the fireplace and poked it with a stick for a while. "I have no idea how to be with you, and neither do you."
Sulrochil lay on her back and threw her arms onto the rug. "We have to learn new skills, and we are so unimaginably untrained!"
"If there is something we both hate, it is being inexperienced. We just have to make everything up as we go," he smiled and let his eyes move all over her body. "And do a lot of training."
Healing would take time. Eventually, something would happen to trigger it again, but Sulrochil clearly felt his strong urge to stop worrying about it now and forget everything for the rest of the night. The best consolation was to let him do this at his own pace. If she tried to pressure him even the slightest, he would shut all the gates again.
A lovely smile spread over Legolas' face, and he came closer to Sulrochil. "I want…"
"Want what?" Sulrochil whispered, even though she clearly saw what he wanted.
Legolas tucked his hands under Sulrochil's hair. "I want to…" he left his sentence unfinished and grinned.
Sulrochil grinned back and fiddled with one of Legolas' braids. He wanted to drop all the painful matters, find love again and - most of all - take her to bed, but she would make him say it himself. All the help she would provide him was going along with his desire and stopping the digging of the ponds of agony.
They had time. Suddenly, the yellow rose on the table was not out of place anymore. Its vase was decorated with green leaves swirling in the wind. Sulrochil wondered whose clever idea it was.
"Alright," Legolas said, tugging the braid out of her grip and gazing into her eyes, "I want to stop talking and kiss you all night."
"And you would not be you if something was missing." Sulrochil beamed with delight.
"I mean all night," Legolas kissed her eyebrows, and when Sulrochil closed her eyes in sheer enjoyment, he moved on to kissing her eyelids, "and do not even try to pretend to be reluctant."
"But if we spend the whole night kissing," Sulrochil opened her eyes, making him stop his kissing, "we miss the sweet shared sleep of ours, and I, for one, feel we should not skip it because-"
Legolas shook his head and interrupted Sulrochil's chatter by capturing her mouth in a kiss, "The whole night until we fall asleep, I mean."
"Then why did you not say it properly in the first place?" she said, tilting her head and staring at his eyes questioningly.
"You", Legolas gaped at her with his mouth open. "You are... I do not even have a word for you."
"Perhaps you should make up a word, then," she grinned. "But you know what? I sometimes tease you because I like seeing the quick flash in your eyes when you cannot be quite sure if I am serious or not."
"Perhaps I should finally silence you." Legolas pulled her closer again and tried to kiss her, but Sulrochil burst into words again.
"I do not need to abandon my weapons!" she exclaimed.
"Can we discuss this tomorrow?"
"It is only fighting against you that I must stop! If we fight alongside each other, we can conquer everyone - including our inner demons. My weapons or killing is not the problem, but the constant fight against you! I shall stop forcing you to confront your pain because you interpret that as me fighting against you. I must be on your side, not against you!"
"Should I say 'I told you so'?" Legolas asked. "But you have changed your mind so many times lately I am not even sure what your last standpoint is."
"I shall not ditch my weapons," she stated.
"Alright," Legolas said, and pulled her into a kiss. "Whatever. Anything goes if you promise to stop thinking about it now." He squeezed her closer and muttered against her lips, "Tomorrow, you may change your mind again and again, as many times as you wish."
"Tomorrow is far away," Sulrochil said. "Can you feel how this place is filling up with our shared memories?"
"This place?" Legolas asked. "It is called home."
"The loneliness is still lingering in the corners," she whispered. "This place will truly feel like home when wherever we look here, we remember us. When we see this rug and remember sitting on it on our first day here. We will feel at home when you look at the table and see my scattered stuff on it."
"And every time I make a fire in the fireplace, you will remember our first kiss at home by the fire I made for us the first time."
"Not so fast," Sulrochil said and pulled further from his attempt to kiss her, "I will always remember the fireplace in front of you as the place where, the very first time, you were begging for the kiss."
"I see," Legolas smiled, "so do tell me, my Lady, what place would you like to remember as our next kiss in here?"
"Let me see," she looked around the room, pursing her lips when she seemed to be contemplating the question. She knew what he wanted her to say, but never in this world would she say the word 'bed' before he did. Finally, she looked back at him, "well, we were talking about every corner… about the table… there is the woodshed, as well. And you did not even mention the window…"
"The window is far away," Legolas interrupted her babbling by pulling her into his lap and beginning to walk towards the bed. "And the corners, out of reach."
"Where are you taking me?"
"Estimate the direction and desired destination," he stated. "And, please, could we skip the meadowsweets in our dream tonight?"
"Don't you like them?"
"They are pretty, and the smell is fine, but I do not want to walk in the sea of meadowsweets."
"Why?"
"You know very well they grow in wet, muddy and rugged places."
"But it was a dream! It was easy to stroll between them in our dream."
Shaking his head, Legolas threw Sulrochil onto the bed. "It still would be nice to dream about something with a hint of a similarity to the real world, but I guess that is impossible where you are concerned."
Sulrochil took his hand and pulled him onto the bed beside her. "Well, it was you who dreamed about the linden and the spruce growing side by side!"
"Those were also one of your whims." Legolas tugged Sulrochil closer and watched the reflection of the flames waving in her eyes.
In the yellow firelight, they slipped comfortably into each other's arms. The easiness of it made them smile. It was like their bodies knew how to yield to the other so close.
Gently, Legolas turned Sulrochil's head to see her, to truly see all of her. For a few heartbeats, they simply gazed into each other's eyes. Sulrochil hovered her nose close to his cheek and let their breaths mingle.
He slid his palm on her neck, making her bend her neck to revel in his touch. Finally, the anticipation became too much, and Legolas lowered his head slightly to capture her lips. I will always light a fire for us, and little by little, all our sorrows can be exposed.
Her lips parted slightly to welcome him into her world. I will stop all my games and drop all pretence. I lay here and offer myself to you.
The fire flaming in the fireplace made Sulrochil's body hot. She felt Legolas' hand moving down her body, causing the warmth to flush inside her. You are being drawn on my skin. Not letting their lips part for the slightest of moments, she pulled herself closer to him. Home is not a place, but you and me together. Sulrochil ached for him, heat gathered deep in her core. I need to feel you want me, show me I am yours.
Through her eyes, Sulrochil only saw Legolas blink, but she felt the rapids of his clashing emotions flowing in her heart, and she could almost hear the blood rushing in his veins. She put her hands on his chest and slowly let her hands begin to explore his body. I need you to kiss me, to claim me. Make me feel that I belong to you.
Legolas slid his hands on Sulrochil's body and pulled her closer into a kiss. Are you really asking me that? He searched the hidden places of her mouth with his tongue, which he knew gave the most pleasure. He cupped her face with his hands and, with his thumbs, stroked her cheekbones, making her sigh. I want you to feel good, and I want you to know you feel good because of me.
It was not the warmth of his hands, nor the softness of his touch, or the feeling of being surrounded by him, but it was the simmering feeling in his soul that gifted them a home.
The sizzling summer days would soon arrive. Those blistering days of sweet surrender when the red roses are in full bloom. I want you to want my touch. We have a year ahead to learn what it means to be connected. I want to search every nook of your body. Do you know one day I will undress you?
Legolas searched for the hem of Sulrochil's shirt and slid his finger along the edge for a while. Of course you know it, but do you feel it? Swiftly, he whizzed his hand under the shirt to find the soft skin of her back and made tomorrow disappear. Do you dare to let yourself feel what it will be like when we reach that moment?
Sulrochil froze when she felt his palm on her bare skin. On our wedding night, you will lay bare before my eyes, and you will want it. His fingertips wrote messages of love on her skin. All the time, his lips moved across hers slowly, as if trying not to lose a part of her. It will be a long path until we reach it, but I am anxiously waiting to explore the fullness of life with you. Soon, his message was received by her flesh and blood, and nothing could prevent them from finding the right path. Her body screamed to unbind every obstacle between them.
Love rushed in their veins. Soon, a stream inside Legolas' heart flooded. Everything poured out, and he had to tear himself a shade away from his love. His breath was deeper than ever, and he needed a moment to adjust himself to this new era.
The shift in the air was immense. Legolas hid his forehead in her hair for a while and let the shattering earth settle.
There was a strange quiet veiling them both. Home is the air around us. It is not a place, it is the connection. The freedom. It is this moment with you.
If you want a home, be the home. There was no need to go anywhere anymore, only needing to lie in each other's arms and let the feeling of home lull them to sleep.
Under the arcs of scarlet rose trees, the elves meandered hand in hand, the foliage giving them shelter from the hot sunlight. The branches were hanging low, waiting for the rain to provide them with refreshment. The scenery was decked in the deepest green shades only found in July. Thick blossoming flowers filled their garden; the luscious rose scent lingered in the air. The petals were opening enticingly and swaying slightly in the soft breeze.
Soon soft drizzles made all of the forest wet. The water flowed down the tree trunks, dripped onto the leaves, and made all of them ripple. The rain got heavier, and soon, it drummed all over the garden. The forest was filled with hot, humid air, the elves were immersed in the teeming downpour. Their clothes dampened and got too weighty, and the urge to take everything off was battering in their souls.
The unlacing of all ties awaited them.