"Love is the net where hearts are caught like fish." - Muhammad Ali

"Hala! I have brought a treat for us," Estel calls upon appearing in your door on the wings of a summer storm blowing in from the west, his eyes lit with anticipation of his surprise.

He's been doing that off and on all summer, disappearing in the middle of the night without warning and then popping back into your life. You'd wake up and the hut would be empty and his things gone. You never caught him at it. You suppose he had a point. You couldn't inadvertently give him away if you had no idea when he planned on leaving or where he went. At least he prepared you ahead of time that it would be like this.

Well, he prepared you ahead of time when he saw your face when he returned after he had ditched you that second time.

Well, okay, maybe he saw more of your door than your face after you slammed it closed and latched it.

It might have been the swearing, too. You did cuss him out something fierce.

All right, all right. Okay, yeah, it was probably more the fact that you started tearing up half-way through your diatribe. Damn it. After that, he swore that if he needed to leave with no plan of coming back soon, he would ensure you had the chance to say your goodbyes. Until then, however, his efforts required him to come and go without warning, or so he claimed.

Each time after that when he returned you did what you could to hide your delight at his reappearance. You're not terribly successful at it, if the smile that springs on Estel's face at your welcome is any indication.

Yeah, all the clandestine sneaking around is, well, a bit suspicious. Okay, yeah, it's, like, a lot suspicious, but you are having a hard time 1) taking it to heart when you don't have any hard evidence and he's like the only bright spot in your life right now, and 2) jiving it with what you do know of Estel.

Look, your life pretty much sucks and so even mediocre company would be a relief. But, well, Estel is something else. You want to talk history, he can talk history. Are you bored out of your mind, he'll teach you games of chance or strategy with nothing more than a stick, pebbles, and a bare patch of ground. Speaks you don't know how many different languages, has a grasp on the meaning and letter of law and issues of equity and justice, can calculate the distance from where you're standing to a point on the horizon using some kind of math you do not understand, devoured everything you could tell him about your senior thesis on systems theory and user-centered design processes and asked more probing and thought-provoking questions than your committee.

Carpentry? Philosophy? Husbandry? All in his wheel-house. He's a walking jack of all trades, renaissance man, polymath, his first album hit platinum in a week and his comeback tour is rocking the house kind of frighteningly competent at everything he puts his hands to. You burned yourself on the edge of your iron pot. He's spreading a poultice he himself prepared with a gentle touch on the burn, and when he presses a compress to it and glances up at you with those grey eyes of his to reassure you that 'you are sure to feel no pain upon the morrow,' you kinda want him to put his hands to it, if you know what I mean.

If he's a villain and a rogue, well, he's the most well-educated and trained villain and rogue out there.

He is so out of your league.

And so here he is, ducking his head beneath your doorway with the wind at his back as if the storm had blown him in and, well, fuck yeah your heart is going to leap in your chest. The day just got a whole hell of a lot better.

"I come to you bearing bread from Master Appledore's stoves," he proclaims, holding out one hand from which dangles a bag of roughspun linen. "And," he says, a pleased smile growing on his face, "somewhat else." With the other hand, he lifts a small sealed earthenware crock out from where he had been hiding it behind his back.

Wait. Is that…

"Is that butter?" You drop the hose you had been darning onto the cot and launch yourself at him.

"Aye, though I fear of an age we must -" he says, lifting his hand holding the crock and that's when you clock that you've completely misread why he's spreading his arms wide. Gah! Abort! Abort! He doesn't get anything else out because you have thrown your arms about him and are giving him a big old squeeze.

Well, fuck. Might as well go for broke.

So that's why you find yourself lifting him off the floor by dint of your arms wrapped around his ribs. After you've released him back down - who are you kidding it's not very far, he's a brick shithouse of a man and you only managed to lift him up to the balls of his feet - you find that he kinda looks like he crashed the coat room at a party and caught an eyeful of something he did not want to see but is being too polite to say anything. You would feel bad, but his grin has gone all lopsided and he's producing a few huffs and low sounds that don't quite approximate words as he's attempting to reboot.

Awesome.

Operation C.U.E. (Cheer Up Estel) is a rousing success.

And so that's why you plunk a cherry on top of all that awkward sauce and lean in and give him a sloppy kiss on the cheek while his hands were still otherwise occupied, before then catching up the handle of the crock and swinging it out of his grip.

He's looking a little dazed under all that stern Ranger visage. He clears his throat.

"'Twould be good were we to eat it all tonight ere it sours," he finally gets out after he's done with his impression of an overboiling teapot.

"I think we might be able to manage that," you say brightly, dropping the crock on the bench and taking the bag with the bread in it from him. He's kinda forgotten about it and it dangles loosely from his grip.

He stands there with his hands on his hips as you squeeze past him and go for the firewood basket. Fuck yeah! Let's see, if you cut it up, you bet the whole loaf will fit in your iron pot with the lid.

"I am afraid 'twas all I could wheedle from Mistress Appledore for the grouse I brought her in exchange," he says, shrugging. "They were but small ones and ill fed, but I had not the time to spend trapping more."

If he'd let you, you'd kiss him on the other cheek for how adorable that uncertain smile he's got on his face is, as if he's embarrassed at how little he's offering.

"Are you kidding? Fresh bread and butter? It's awesome, Estel. Thank you." You wave a stick of wood in his general direction and about the hut. "Now! Make yourself comfy and then make yourself useful and get a good handful of garlic and some parsley from the garden before the storm sets in."

Which he does, dropping his pack by the door, unbuckling the leather belt from which hangs his sword and knife, and tugging the lacing loose and slipping out of his vest to hang them by the door.

"This," you proclaim later, waving your slice of bread about carefully so you don't drip butter on your pants, "is the good stuff. Let Blackthorn and Barliman and the rest of Bree's council eat their loaves made of finely milled and sifted flours." You make a rude noise. "I mean," you say and hold it aloft, "look at it! Look at all that fiber and dense nutrition it's got going on."

"Aye, there is some truth to that," Estel says. "But neither Master Thomas Blackthorn, nor his family, nor even Master Butterbur and his clients have the need to rely on it."

"Yeah, yeah," you say, "they can stuff themselves with meat and soft bread and suffer all the constipation they want."

He laughs thickly, having taken a very large bite out of the middle of his slice of bread. You may have introduced him to garlic bread. He's taken to it quite nicely.

"Aye, well," he says and sucks in his lower lip to scrape it with his teeth and capture the butter on it before licking at his lips, "it has enough of butter and garlic it could taste of naught and still be pleasing to eat."

"Yep, it's not bread, it's a garlic-butter delivery system."

He laughs and then grunts. "Ah!" He leans against the bench and drops his head back. "I cannot think when last my belly was so full. Should I put more in it I think it might burst." He sits back up and pops his forefinger and then thumb into his mouth.

"Had I only gone back and gotten more of the grouse -" he says and pours a palmful of water from his cup into his hand. He sets down his cup, carefully holding the water in his palm before scrubbing his hands together. You reach over and rummage about in the basket and toss him a rag and he wipes his hands dry in it. "- we could then have somewhat of ale as well."

"I told you, if you want some of Barliman's whiskey I could always lift some of the cheap stuff and no one would ever know," you say, but he shakes his head.

"Nay, do not do so on my account. I need it not. I would think it a poor risk on your own behalf, besides.

"Now," he goes on with a glimmer of light in his eyes, "were you to say you had a way to his beer without him knowing it, I might then conspire with you and commit the theft myself."

You pretty much agree with him, but Barliman's beer is his biggest draw to The Pony and he is very aware of that fact. He hovers over his kegs like a mother dragon over her eggs that are sure to hatch any day now, so you shrug and let yourself savor that tender bite of bread soaked in garlic butter you had saved for the last.

When done, and he's poured water into your cupped hands, Estel downs the last of his water and sighs.

"Ah, Hala. I am pleased to find you well." He sets down his cup on the bench with a click. "I have missed our conversations."

He looks at you with such warmth that you cut off your smart-ass comment.

"Yeah," is all you can think to say in its place and hope it conveys something of how dull the time is between his visits and how much you've grown to enjoy his company, too.

Okay, yeah, when have you ever given up an opportunity as broad as this one.

"So what you're saying is that I'm a better conversationalist than the trees you usually run with, then, huh?"

"Aye," he says and then shrugs, "most of them."

He grins and that's when you realize you're making a very peculiar face, caught staring at him with your cup frozen in mid-air.

"You're shitting me," you say, squinting at him. No way, there is no such thing as talking trees.

Is there?

He rises from the floor, still grinning broadly.

"Estel, c'mon. You're shitting me, right?"

He chuckles as he kicks the scraps of wood in the fire to the middle of the hearth where they lay on the coals and will soon catch fire.

Fucker. He's not going to tell you, is he.

It's after you've washed out the cups and iron pot and hung it up from the rafters to dry that the storm finally breaks. It's been threatening to all evening, with thunder rumbling in the distance and the air growing heavy, but the wind picks up suddenly and next thing you know the clouds open up and rain beats down upon the walls of your hut and rustles in the thatch overhead.

The evening is a hell of lot less whistley and the flames of the fire are a lot steadier now that Estel showed you where to look for clay and how to dig it up, helped you haul it back, showed you how to mix it with dry grasses from the meadows, and patched the daub in the walls of your hut with you.

"Is there fencing?" you ask, settling beneath your blanket on your cot and hugging your pillow to you. You've given up on your darning. Fuck it. Mistress Blackthorn can wait.

Acting all offended that you did not take him at his word about the whole talking tree thing, Estel promised to enlighten you with a classic tale of his forefathers. What with the rain pounding the path at your door and your garden into a muddy soup, it's not like either of you are going anywhere anytime soon. You hear there are such things as umbrellas in the Shire, but apparently they've not made their way east of the Brandywine River, with or without the fabled spoons nestled away in their folds.

When Estel stares at you, unable to translate 'fencing' into anything that makes sense to him, you pull a sword made of air and imagination from your side, and wave it about thrusting and parrying, probably pretty poorly given the look on his face.

"Aye, there is somewhat of sword play."

"How about torture and revenge?"

"Aye, there is somewhat of that, too."

"Monsters? Chases? Escapes? True love? Miracles?"

"Aye, Hala, and should you quit with your questions I might begin -"

"Is this a tale with kissing? Please tell me there's kissing," you say, leaning over the edge of your cot to where he is sitting with his back against the bench. Yep, you are going to make sure he gets all kinds of good quality conversation to miss when he goes away. So far so good.

He stares at you for a moment, the gears turning in his head as the rain pounds on the wet earth outside your door. "Aye, Hala," he says, "indeed there is a kiss nigh the end of the tale upon which the fortunes of the world turns."

"Oh, good," you say, settling back, "That doesn't sound so bad, then. I'll try to stay awake for it."

"I am pleased you will give it such effort."

Oh look, sarcasm. From Estel. Excellent.

He stares at you with his hands outspread as if begging for explanation. "What need have you for kissing in your tales? Would you not listen to it otherwise?"

"Kissing's nice. Don't you think so?"

He makes an inarticulate noise that seems to be a combination of enthusiastic agreement and utter befuddlement. "Aye. I would think so, aye."

"What do you mean you 'would think so?'" you ask, air quotes and everything.

"Aye, so it is commonly said. I have no reason not to believe it true," says he with an air of someone who is caught in the middle of a corn maze and is not quite sure how he got there.

"Are you seriously saying you've never kissed someone?" Okay, this is even better than the talking trees thing. He's starting to turn a delightful shade of pink on his cheeks and neck.

"Hala!" Estel exclaims.

"Wait," you say leaning over the edge of the cot and whispering, "do you not like kissing? It's okay, there are people who don't."

"I did not say that."

"So you've wanted to kiss someone."

"Hala," Estel rubs at his neck, looking decidedly uncomfortable.

"Oh," you say, drawing the word out, "you wanted to kiss a particular someone. Like really wanted to."

"Hala!"

"All right. Spill!" you say, turning on your stomach and resting your chin in your hands, all attentive. "Who are they? Did you ever get the chance to try to kiss them? What happened?"

Estel scrubs at his face with his hands. "The Lay of Leithian has been passed down from the First Age of the world ere it was bent and the seas flooded Beleriand. It is the highest of its form and would take days to tell in full! I can but tell you it in small part. How would you not wish to attend to it?"

"I think I'd rather hear a tale about tall, dark, and hypercompetent Strider and how flustered he gets when the topic of kissing comes up."

"Hala!" he exclaims, stretching his hand toward you, motioning it about to take in the world in which you find yourself, and then letting it drop to his thigh. "Who would I have kissed?"

"I dunno," you say and shrug, "some princess or something." Because of course Estel, with his highly trained mind and body and appreciation of all things political, was all up in some lord's business.

"What is a princess?" he asks, frowning at you and bringing the conversation to a complete and utter halt.

You prop your arms on the edge of the cot, peering at him.

No. No way. He's got to be putting you on.

"What do you mean, 'what is a princess?'" You squint at him. He's got to have a tell, right? Everybody has a tell.

"I know of no such thing," he says with a surprising amount of certainty and no tell that you can discern.

"What the…" You stare at him, agog. "You have talking trees but no princesses? You have to have princesses."

"It seems not."

"So, wait." You point at Estel. "Are you seriously telling me that your kings have sons but no daughters?"

"Oh, aye," he says and relaxes against the bench, certain that he is back on solid footing, "we have many such, but we do not call them princesses."

"Okay, what do you call them, then?"

"We call them daughters of kings," he says as if that is that and the discussion is over.

"Oh, I see," you say and roll onto your back on your cot. You wave your hand in time with your recitation of titles. "So you have lords, and princes, and kings who have their own title, but a woman is only titled in relation to the men in her family. Yep, I get it now."

"Nay, Hala," he says, his tone decidedly patient, "we have queens."

"As you should, so you can record their names along with their titles, instead of 'wife of King Rolf who shall forever remain nameless in the history of our peoples until everybody forgets her.'"

Yep. That's some good quality silence that greets that statement. You got him there.

"You may make a good argument," he says finally after a long pause in which you ponder the rafters and the rain that rustles in the thatch over your head. He must take your silence as being done with this particular topic, because he goes on. "To begin this tale, Hala, you must first know of the coming of the Vala Morgoth and the Ainur under his sway to -"

"So it was a princess, then, huh?"

He sighs wearily, dropping his head back and muttering something under his breath in a language you cannot catch. It seems to have a lot of vowels in it and requires a few gusts of air to go with them.

"Aye, Hala," he says with an air of defeat as he squeezes his eyes closed, "as you understand it, yes. Now you have satisfied your curiosity about my private affairs, may we -"

"Oh. Is she awaiting your return? Did her father send you on a quest to be granted her hand? You know, 'Slay the Dragon!'" you say, gesturing broadly at the rafters with your imaginary sword, "or pop a silmaril out of an iron crown, or something like that. Isn't that a thing here?"

You may have already heard fragments of the story of Beren and Luthien. Don't tell Estel. You're actually looking forward to his recitation. Doesn't mean you're not going to troll him as absolutely hard as you can before he gets to it. Fucking fucker and his talking trees.

The silence goes on longer than you expected and you lift up your head to find him looking directly at you. He's got that patented Keen Gaze(tm) thing going on.

Shit. What's he up to?

"Should you wish your answer I would think it only proper you offer somewhat in exchange, do you not think?" he says, giving you a very pointed look. Which, okay, fair.

"Like what?"

"You answer a question of mine."

"Does it involve kissing?" you ask and grin, attempting to lighten the mood again.

It's not terribly successful. Estel doesn't even bother shaking his head.

Well. Fuck.

You plop back to the cot and consider the rafters again. There's not much up there other than swirling smoke from the fire in the hearth.

You started this whole mess and now he's trapped you in a corner.

You suppose you could make a joke of it all, but that would hardly work, would it. Cuz, this thing? This thing you and Estel have going on? It's not going to last forever. Bree pretty much clears out when the weather gets cold. He's going to come to you one day and announce he's leaving and you won't see him again. You kinda hoped you could spin this out further. Get as much time with him as you could before either he disappears back to wherever he came from or he learns just a little too much that he can't believe and it all goes to shit.

Go with it or shut him down, either way is a shit proposition.

Well. Fuck it. It's not like he'd be able to make much sense of what you'd tell him, anyway, even if you were to tell him the truth.

"Okay," you say and roll back to your side, where you find Estel watching you with this attentive stillness that should probably make you a little more nervous than you are if you weren't so busy stuffing all that in a box somewhere deep in your mind and slapping a lid down tight on it.

He considers you for a moment and then nods. He rubs at the tops of his thighs with his hands and stares off, as if the only way he can talk about this is to pretend no one is there.

"Aye, a daughter's welfare is the responsibility of her father, and to that end he may set what terms he wishes for his approval should you wish her hand," he says and then pauses before going on in a soft, grim voice. "But even should you achieve the tasks set to you, it still requires that the lady return your affections."

He takes up a branch from the fire and stirs the coals. It doesn't really need it.

Oh, he loved her. Like, really loved her. And it hurts.

Well. Shit. Now you feel bad. Which may have been what he was intending. You were poking a little far into his tragic backstory.

"Oh," you say, "I'm sorry, Estel. That sucks."

"It was rather a long time ago," he says when he is done jabbing at the fire and tosses the stick atop the wood in the hearth.

"Yeah, but still, whoever she is, she's an idiot," you say and he lets loose a wry, sad huff of laughter. He settles back into leaning against the bench.

You wave your hand in his general direction. "Listen, seriously man, you're a catch. I mean, look at you."

"Nay, Hala, there is no need -"

"No, c'mon, just being real, here, if she can't see it, she's one bus short of a fleet."

"Ai, Hala!" he exclaims and then sighs. "I do not know what that means, but, even so, I will not countenance an insult to her. She does not deserve it."

You grunt your disagreement but he raises his voice and speaks in no uncertain terms.

"The lady is free to give her affections where she will without the abuse of her good name."

Okay, yeah. That's true. He's got a good point, there. Unfortunately, the fact that he's the jilted lover and yet is the one making it makes it all the more baffling as to why anyone would have rejected him.

"I still have to question her judgment, though," you say.

He doesn't protest this. He raises his arm to the side and does that slight, courteous bow of his. "I will take that kindness in the spirit with which you offer it, then."

When you look over, he's got his arm stretched out over the bench. He doesn't look so grim, but he's not recovered the ease and that bright spark that lights his eyes when you give him a challenge that he can chew on. If he fights like he flirts, no one has a chance in either venue.

"I could tell you about my own failed attempts at romance, if it will make you feel better." You have quite a few of them. It could take the whole night.

"Nay, I have no need to hear of them," he says, lifting his hand to halt you and then bending forward to lean over his legs to pin you with a very pointed look.

Oh, yeah. You are supposed to answer one of his questions now.

"All right," you say, "hit me," but when he frowns suddenly, you go on, "Not really hit me, Estel. Jeez. It's a metaphor." You flick your fingers in a 'c'mere' gesture. "Hit me with your best shot of a question."

His face clears, but he's still got that sober, intent look that's putting you on edge.

"Hala," he says and sighs, "I will not sit in judgment of you, but there are things that would be better should I know of them now, than should they be revealed later when I can do little about them."

Something twists in your stomach. Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck. Here it comes.

"Just ask, already, okay?" you command and he lifts his palm to you again, but this time as if he were trying to soothe some small animal that's freaking out because he's getting just a little too close.

"Who did you know in Bree ere you traveled hither?"

Well. Shit. That wasn't what you were expecting at all. You thought he'd go straight for the, "Where are you from?" line of questioning. You're all broken out in a light sweat for nothing.

Your surprise and relief must show on your face because the intent look is still there, but now he's gone all grim again, like he'd asked if you'd kicked his puppy and you replied, "I didn't kick your puppy." Which, of course, would have been true, but wouldn't have been terribly reassuring as it left a lot of kicked puppies to the imagination.

"Nobody, really," you say and shrug when he tilts his head, considering you more closely. "I only knew about Barliman and the fact he needed an extra hand for seasonal work, to be honest."

"No one else?" he probes, and when you shake your head he frowns and leans back against the bench, not like he's upset at your answer, more like he's not sure what to make of it.

It's quiet for a little while after that, Estel frowning at the fire and rubbing his thumb back and forth over the side of his fist where he's resting his arm on the bench and dangling his hand over the edge.

Damn it. He's weighing the pros and cons of potential follow-up questions, isn't he. You opened the door, joking around about his past, nobody to blame but yourself. You're only going to be able to put him off for so long before it becomes an issue, but, god damn it, everything will change once you finally confess to the whole messy truth, but, you know, not tonight. Just, not tonight. Okay?

"Can I ask you a question?"

His thumb stills.

"You don't have to answer," you rush to say when he frowns at you, "I'll understand."

"Ask," he commands softly as he clasps his hands in his lap. "We shall see."

You squirm about a bit until you can see him without straining your neck. He said it was some time ago, but his whole mood changed talking about it, so you do your best to tread carefully.

"I guess I'm not sure I understand. I mean, I know enough about Beren and Luthien's story to know it's all about a love for the ages that changes the world."

"Aye," he says and then does nothing but to continue to wait, leaving you with the awkward silence to clean up after that pronouncement.

"And, listen, I can't pretend to know how you feel about the whole thing, but I've had my own heart trampled a time or two. Each was a painful lesson in it's own way. So, I'm not sure I understand why you would seek out something that…" you say but falter.

What is this story to him? Telling it has got to be like opening a wound.

"Why the tale is still dear to me?" he asks when it becomes apparent that you've kind of run out of words.

"Yeah," you say.

"I am unsure, atimes." He returns to staring at the fire. "But, aye, it does give me comfort, though mayhap for different reasons than once it did."

For a long moment he's silent and still. There's not really anything in particular on his face, as if he's done his own job of packing things away and locking lids down tight on them when that's the only way to keep on going.

"I think, mayhap," he says softly, his voice uncertain. "Aye, mayhap I need to believe that love remains the force that most moves the world."

And that's when he looks at you. The pain on his face makes your chest hurt.

"Else, what other hope is there?"

Yeah, okay. That... Okay… fuck. Ow.

Fucking Romantic.

Estel has a nice voice for reciting poetry. It's low and rumbles in his chest. Once you've made yourself comfortable, he speaks quietly, in tones that are deeply felt, of the longing, and joy, and loss that make up the world, while all else about him is hushed. The rain patters in the leaves of the hedge of alder trees that line the garden and drip from your roof to the mud below in a slow tick, keeping time. Even the flames in the hearth flicker low, throwing soft light and shadow upon Estel as he closes his eyes and his hands flex with the words he recites.

There is something so beautiful about his face in the firelight stark against the night behind him, as if he were a beacon and you are far from home. You can't take your eyes off of him.

You are so fucked.