Chapter Five

Legolas

Insatiable. That's the first word that comes to my mind when I think of this moment. After that kiss, nothing can stop us. Laire clings to me like I would expect: like it is our last moment together. And it is. I do not care about anything else or anyone else anymore. Just her. My tongue tastes her, my skin feels her, my mind draws her. She is all that I have and all that I am.

My hands run across her cheeks, down her throat, through her hair, across her back. She shivers and draws me closer. I undress her with trembling insistency, not caring who comes. Let the entire world watch. Nothing on earth can take her from me now.

Her face is wet with tears. Something in me tells me to stay here forever, never leave her. Part of me almost selfishly thinks she will not survive without me. But she is strong. She will wait for me.

I cradle her in my arms as she cries. The willows sing their mournful songs, the few birds left in Mirkwood adding feeble voices to the sorrowful chorus. There is no light anymore. No color. Just darkness. Darkness and love.

And then, suddenly, a gust of wind blows the branches aside, and we sit there, cradled in shadows, watching the world outside as though we are separate from it. I blink to adjust my eyes to the darkness, and everything becomes clear. No one can see us, but we can see everything. Suddenly Laire gasps. I follow her gaze. Out of the fog rises something white, whiter than snow, whiter than anything I have ever seen before. I squint, tracing its shape with my eyes. It is a bird, lovely in its luminous brightness. Its flaps wings that draw every once of light from the air around it. Laire sighs and tightens her grip on my hand.

"What is it, Legolas?" She whispers, her voice no louder than the sound of a leaf blowing in the wind.

"I cannot be sure, but...I think it is a dove," I murmur, my voice no louder.

Legend tells of the doves, heavenly creatures which were servants to the sun, spreading light in places fair and good. When Mirkwood became as it is now, the doves fled and were never seen in Middle-Earth again. Yet here one flies--it is a sign that the dark times will indeed come to pass? The dove stops flying and flutters to the ground, right where the branches of the willow part. And then, so suddenly I can barely comprehend it, the dove falls over, an arrow embedded in its side. Laire puts her hands over her face and stifles a cry. The branches fall together again, shielding the bird.

Laire listens for a moment. Nothing moves. All is well. The arrow seems to have come from nowhere. Perhaps the elves are cleaning up the dead orcs, and accidentally shot one of their arrows? She decides that nothing is coming, so she moves out of my grasp and crawls forward, catlike. She picks up the wounded creature.

It is merely stunned, not dead. Its liquid black eyes stare up at her, dark as her hair, sad as her face. It coos. She coos back, and removes the arrow with nimble fingers. It has not sunk deep. She murmurs, softly, "Whatever grace has been given to me, I pass unto you." The bird stirs, and flaps its wings and flies away, but not before leaving a gift for Laire. Five feathers, so bright they cast a subtle glow on Laire's face. She turns her head to me and smiles.

"Five feathers." With her long fingers, she picks one up and twirls it around. "One for love." Then the next. "Courage." The next. "Honor." The next. "Hope." And the last. "Wisdom."

Then she crawls back over to me, and takes a thread from her dress. She ties the feathers together and takes my hand. She places the feathers in my palm and curls my fingers around them.

"For you, so that you remember the purpose of your quest and those virtues you have always kept so perfectly. Keep them close to your heart, Legolas, and you won't go astray." Then she pushes my hand to my heart. I nod solemnly and then lean in to kiss her again.

Our last kiss.