They took only enough time to tell Glamren and Treebeard of their plans before setting off.  They traveled without speaking, and Nori was grateful for the silence.  She needed time to organize her thoughts.  She may have acted angry at her friend's prodding, but she had really felt like weeping, and that frightened her.  Since her father's death she had cried only once, when she had fallen from a horse and dislocated her shoulder.  That pain had been nothing compared to what she now felt.  She suspected Legolas already knew much of what she was feeling, but the very thought of crying in front of him shamed her.

The fact was that Legolas had come very close to a truth Nori was not ready to reveal.  He had long known of her dreams, and had rightly guessed that her last few nights had been completely restless.  It was true, she had slept a little, but she had also dreamed.  Each night the same dream: a large grey ship, surrounded by Sea, and on it a Dwarf and an Elf, eagerly looking to the West.

'Gimli and Legolas, sailing into the West.  To Tol Eressea,' she thought.  'It must be nonsense, for I never heard of a Dwarf being welcomed in the Undying Lands.  But it does not feel like nonsense.'

When darkness came they stopped to rest, but Nori didn't even try to sleep.  She lay on her back, watching the stars and thinking.  The dream made little sense, but to Nori it felt true, like a vision of some distant future.  She went over each detail of it again and again, but she always returned to the same thing: the look on Legolas' face as he gazed West.  That look was one of desire.  Each time Nori thought of it she did not know whether to laugh or cry.

'I will not tell him.  If I tried I would only become confused and weepy, and what would he think of me then?  How can I explain how it makes me feel when I don't understand myself?"


They reached the lake early the following afternoon.  They still had not spoken.  Legolas supposed Nori was busy with her own thoughts; he had certainly had much to think over.  He replayed the events of the previous day in his mind, when she had gotten so angry.

'I think she was afraid, but of what?  Me?  Confiding in me?  It would not have been the first time!  She must know I would not hurt her.'

He glanced at her a moment, then shook his head.

'Even the bravest and noblest of Elves are sometimes afraid – this I have known for many years.  Aragorn was often unsure of himself before he reclaimed the throne, and Nori is much younger now than he was then.  It is sometimes easy to forget that.'

As they came upon the lake, Legolas turned his thoughts to his surroundings.  He saw that the place was indeed very much like the one in Ithilien that he enjoyed so much.  Actually, he thought he liked this place better.  There were more trees and a greater variety of flowers.  The lake and the stream that formed it were similar in size to their Ithilien counterparts, but here the formation was more abrupt, the result of a small waterfall.  He easily understood why Nori loved it so much.

"Well, here we are," he said after they had sat down.  "Is it as you remember?"

"Yes!  All of Fangorn is exactly as I remembered it to be, which is remarkable after so many years.  Painfully so," Nori said.

She gazed around at the trees and water, almost as if seeing them for the first time.

"The dreams that I have, they began here.  I remember, when my father first brought me here, the trees frightened me.  I could hear them speaking to each other.  Once Treebeard helped me to understand them I was no longer afraid, but that first night was terrible!"

She looked at Legolas, frowning slightly.

"Being here always seemed to make my dreams more powerful – more real, somehow.  I had forgotten that!"

"Now I see, and can only wonder that I did not see before!," Legolas exclaimed.  "Of course, I knew that being here would bring back many memories for you, but I never realized how forcefully they would come upon you.  'Tis no wonder you have been unhappy!"

"I have been unhappy, but you cannot blame yourself for not anticipating that.  I never expected it would be so."

"I am sorry all the same.  I feel I failed you, but I will not do so now.  You said you wanted to speak to me about what's been troubling you."

"I think you have already guessed a great part of it."

"Memories of your father that have followed you into sleep?"

Nori nodded but said nothing.

"This does not surprise me, since it was he who introduced you to Fangorn.  But is there something else that I have not guessed?"

Some of the color went out of Nori's face, and she quickly dropped her gaze and bit her lip.

"Yes, I see that there is," Legolas said.  "But you do not wish to speak of it."

"It is not a matter of wishing," answered Nori, the tears suddenly very close. "I… I just cannot speak of it to you."

Her words hit Legolas like a blow.  Looking up, Nori saw a pained expression cross his features, and sob escaped her.  Physically and emotionally exhausted, she found the realization that she had hurt her best friend too much to bear.  Unable to speak, she threw her arms around his neck as hot tears spilled down her cheeks.

For a moment, Legolas' pain changed to bewilderment.  Then he put his arms around her waist and hugged her tightly.  They sat that way for a long while, until Nori had cried herself into a deep, dreamless sleep.