Chapter Nine: Not Quite a Reunion

Glorfindel sat in his room doing nothing useful. At least he felt as such, he stared out his window and mused wildly. Crazy situations and outcomes flowing through his mind as sand did through ones fingers. The elf could grasp hold of none of these various scenarios and they flooded past his eyes in a dizzying parade.

A sharp knock on his door siphoned all his thoughts away and he rose swiftly to answer the rasping knuckles. He met the worn face of Aragorn. A quick glance over his tall form revealed new tears and mud stains on the Ranger's clothing. Glorfindel had last seen Aragorn six months ago but it was but a very short while to his elvish sense of time.

The elf smiled warmly, "Welcome back."

Aragorn gave a small smile and appeared to try and peer behind Glorfindel's slender form. Puzzled, Glorfindel glanced over his shoulder. "Is something wrong?"

"No, not at all. I was hoping to speak to you for a bit?" Aragorn said leaving the trace of question in his voice so Glorfindel could decline the request if he so wished.

Glorfindel stepped away from the doorway to allow Aragorn entrance. The Man briefly looked around again, and Glorfindel fought the tug of his lips.

"I have not redecorated."

"What?" Aragorn queried looking truly startled.

The smile stole across Glorfindel's face. "You keep looking about, nothing has changed since last you were in my chamber."

A sheepish, half embarrassed smile fluttered across his weathered face. "I apologize Glorfindel. My guise for coming to see you isn't quite an honorable one."

"Oh?"

"I wished to ask you about the elf that Gandalf brought…"

Glorfindel held up a staying hand. "Would you like to sit?"

Aragorn sat. "Do you know who he is?"

"We are not certain," Glorfindel said in an even tone, sitting across from Aragorn at a table facing the open window. "But Gandalf believes him to be the Lost Prince. We have taken to calling him Legolas."

The Man started and shook his head slowly. "Surely he is mistaken."

"He is quite certain, Elrond dispatched a messenger to King Thranduil, we are expecting a response in the coming days."

"But…"

Glorfindel smiled knowingly. "He may not be the Prince at all."

Aragorn blinked a few times, then realization set upon him. "He does not recall who he is?"

"Nay."

"And what of his whereabouts? I went see him, but he is not in his room."

Glorfindel's fair brow drew together. "That is odd indeed. You are sure?"

At the nod from the Man, Glorfindel stood. "Mayhap we should see to finding him."

~*~*~

The wind tossed at his hair. A single strand clung to his parted lips and itched at his nose, but he did not notice—or did not care. Thin legs were drawn up to his chest as he sat watching the trees whisper from a perch on one of Imladris's beautifully carved stone fences. It blocked off an immaculate balcony from a freefall.

The balcony overlooked nothing but the trees, which were what Legolas had come to see. They blew softly under the nights caress and their voices were like music. Legolas closed his eyes and let the wind kiss his face and the trees sing to him.

~*~*~

Aragorn was making a futile search through Elrond's halls. He said hello to many of those as he knew and wandered from various room to various hall.

Nothing.

With a soft sigh, he walked outside of the warm embrace of halls into the cool touch of the night's breeze. He watched the trees sway slightly and wondered if Glorfindel had faired any better in his goose chase.

Light steps drove him to one of his favorite places in Rivendell. A carved stone balcony that over looked a grouping of tall and fair trees whose leaves never fell from their boughs unlike the other trees in Lord Elrond's realm.

They had been a gift, he was told when Elrond had found his nine year old fostered son leaning over the stone railing to get a better look at the perfect trees, from the Golden Wood. A gesture of goodwill between the different realms of the elves.

As Aragorn strayed to this place now, he found a beautiful creature, back facing him. This wonderful being seemed too perfect to even be found in Rivendell, which was home to creatures fey and beautiful beyond the reckoning of any mortal.

Hair that was surely spun of silk floated lightly atop the breeze, the flash of neck-skin was pale and unblemished. The shoulders were slender but had obvious power; the rest of the body was thin but somehow…

The being turned suddenly and wide silver eyes pierced into Aragorn's, a shiver fluttered down his spine. They stayed locked this way, beautiful silver piercing into worn but warm eyes. Aragorn stepped closer to do what he didn't know, but the creature fled with a surprising burst of speed past Aragorn and back into the warmth of halls.

Aragorn just stared after him mouth slightly open and breath coming oddly in his chest.

~*~*~

Legolas flung open the door to his room and threw it shut, odd feelings bubbling inside of him. He looked at the door for a moment and then his open window.

Something was so familiar about that Man. But something so very frightening as well.

The elf's mind raced.

He was not one of his captors.

Not an elf.

No foe…

Then it dawned upon him. He had just gazed again at Hope.

But what was so frightening about Hope?

~*~*~

Glorfindel racked his brain and finally decided on checking Legolas's room again, since all his other ideas had turned up naught.

He knocked softly on the door and soon a silver eye was gazing at him.

"Glorfindel," Legolas said a note of…fear in his voice.

"Are you alright?" Glorfindel asked, very concerned as he stepped into the room.

Legolas looked at his elder for a long while, eyes down. "Hope has come."

"Aragorn?" Glorfindel said putting two and two together and coming up with four.

The other looked confused. "His name is Estel…"

"Aye, among Men he is called Aragorn."

"I saw him…There is something about him that scares me," Legolas confided, glancing toward his still open window.

"You have nothing to fear from him, Greenleaf," Glorfindel said touching Legolas's shoulder.

"I fear to hope," Legolas said cryptically, not shying from the touch.

Glorfindel watched him oddly. As his eyes fell to the ground and he once more looked to the window.

"Every time I hoped things only ended up worse when they did not happen. Hope was like a poison…" He trailed off, eyes clouding.

"Legolas, Aragorn is Hope not hope. He will not hurt you." Or Glorfindel would very seriously injury a certain aforementioned Ranger.

"He is both."

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