The sky was dark, stars like pricks of light in a sea of black wheeled quickly over head, but for Legolas it seemed only a moment. A moment in which he saw a lifetime of hurt, pain, love, jealously, adventure. A lifetime of Elessiel. He knew no words could ever tell the story he had seen, no song or riddle could capture the enormity of the event - an immortal seeing an entire life of men in little more than a moment. For that is what he had seen when Elessiel had touched his hand so tenderly and told him to close his eyes to the forest around him. He had imagined her face for only a moment before the image if Arwen had come before his eyes. And then the birth of Elessiel, a sight which Legolas found all the more perplexing for having never seen the birth of a child, let alone a human child.

He had seen her grow from a babe in arms to the woman she now was, Altariel. He saw the story behind her obvious change. He saw the confusion in the teary eyes of the daughter of Aragorn when her immortal grandfather had come to her in a dream. Every detail, every moment she felt or thought he felt or thought it with her. And finally, his vision had slowed, and the procession of a man and woman walking hand in hand down the stone path of a great church had blended with the black of his eyes, and he saw only the forest again. The forest, and the woman from the vision.

She was sitting in a great throne, carved into the design of a great tree with golden birds and silver animals. The throne of Galadriel. Altariel sat with her head bowed, staring intently at something in her hands. Legolas stood slowly and walked towards her. He saw now the seven stones she tossed from hand to hand. They sparkled like gold and silver, transparent and opaque, all at once filled with colour and void of matter.

" You are married, Elessiel." He said as he came to sit on the stair below Elessiel's feet.

She started at the sound of his voice, dropping one her stones. She frowned mournfully at it as it tumbled down the folds of her skirt to be caught by Legolas.

He held the warm stone in his hand for a moment, stunned into silence, as it grew cool and colourless, sparkling no longer in his hand. He looked up and met Elessiel's eyes; the question in his eyes communicated to her the question of his heart. She slid from the throne, and coming to sit beside him on the step she threw the stones aside and gripped his hands in sudden urgency.

" I am not married." She said quickly, shaking her beautiful head.

Legolas frowned in confusion. " But with my own eyes I have seen you wed-"

She pressed a finger against his lips. " No. You saw the wedding of Altariel. And believe me, we are more separate to each other than the sun and the moon." Her words were fast, fluent, the hurry in her voice evident, as though she knew that did she not say these words now, she would never say them.

" I do not understand what you are saying." Legolas replied slowly.

Elessiel gave a stifled cry. " You must! I've laid bare my soul with this folly!" She said softly, almost to herself.

Legolas yearned to help her in some way, though he could see no manner in which he could remove the urgency from her voice, nor the racing pulse from her sweet, cold wrist that pressed against his own. His mind flew hither and tither, trying to grasp an idea, a word to say that might appease her, and like a beacon in the dark he discovered what words he might say that would comfort her. The truth. His movement towards her was so small and yet so integral to what he would say. He held her hand tightly, feeling the strange, cold presence of a sharp ring dig into his palm.

He began, " I know little of the woman before me, but little have I always known about her, no matter the name she goes by. It pains me to say, for I would not cause her pain for all the stars in the sky, but I do think I love her, who ever she may be." Elessiel's face turned sharply towards Legolas', and though he desired it, he had already said too much to not continue. He sighed heavily, and ran his hand lightly from the crown of Elessiel's hair to her neck. " You have bared your soul to me, Lady, but I would not call it folly, and I would beg you never to address it so, for I have loved you, I fear, since first our eyes met atop battlements in your fair city, it seems so long ago, my love grows all the more for having known you now all the short years of your life." And there, in the gathering darkness of the forest, he meant it.

Elessiel was made silent with Legolas' words, unable to find any to reply she simply shook her head and place her palm against Legolas' hot skin.

Legolas smiled, leaning into Elessiel's touch, as he had done so many night ago in Rivendell, on the forest path. He had spent the nights between then and now dreaming about that moment, when he was gripped by fear and anticipation at the idea that the next words spoken from Elessiel's sweet mouth could be those that bound her to him for the rest of her life.

" Please tell me so, to whom I plead my love so forthwith - the Lady Elessiel Tindomerel, or Queen Altariel of Rohan?" He laughed, though Elessiel's watery smile was little more than a brief shadow of Legolas' joy. " For I care not, so long as she to whom I speak does know my love, and so return it."

Elessiel bit her lip; her fingers still ran along Legolas' face, from the bright height of his cheek to the softness of his lips. She took a deep breath in futile preparation for the words she would next speak. Her eyes watered, her lips quivered surely the only sign of the inner turmoil she endured as she braced herself by gripping Legolas' hand. The ring on her finger dug deeper into both her own and Legolas' flesh.

" Lady?" Legolas breathed softly, anticipation lifting his voice and the corners of his lips. " What say you Elessiel?"

She nodded slowly and spoke finally, " Elessiel, I know it is to her you plead your love, immortal as it is. But I am not she, and my life is not immortal," She paused, allowing the full meaning of her words to gather under Legolas' frown. " And the Lady Elessiel is lost. Somewhere between the land of Rivendell and love for an elf she disappeared, and from her ashes came Altariel, Queen of Gondor, wife of Eomer."

" You are married, though I care not. For tell me, Elessiel, what mortal bindings can separate such love as I know you have for me, and I for you?" Legolas said in haste.

" Elessiel, it is to her you speak again! But I am not she, elf. And though her memory will wither within my own mind, I see it shall burn eternal within your own. But alas, I am mortal, and being so am bound by hand and foot of mortal bindings, such ropes as love that tie me not to you, my master immortal, but to my husband, King Eomer."

Legolas shook his head in protest, not willing to accept the connotation of the words which Altariel - as Altariel she insisted on being - spoke, but finding his own meaning within them. But he was rebuked, and being so, desired not to continue their conversation. He released Altariel's hands, and stood back from her, regretting both the loss of her touch against his cheek, her fingers on his lips, but more so the truthful words he had spoken. But what fear should I have? Words spoken to a mortal die with the ears that heard them, and I will continue, he thought pointedly. But there was great bitterness and hurt in that thought.

" Legolas, you have taken some meaning, some offence from my words I did not intend. For I do love you dearly, and would bind you to my heart-"

He turned and faced her, bating rage brimming at the edge of his voice as he said " But what love have you for 'master immortal'? What shape does your love twist to, like a snake? Like a serpent biting at your soul, and my mind?"

Altariel stood and moved towards him, holding his hands tenderly she brought them against her warm cheek, and kissed the palm of his hand, she stared into his eyes. " Like the twist of a rope, binding the dear friend of my father to me."

" Though nothing more." Legolas said thickly.

" I am married-"

Legolas rolled his eyes and stepped away, half astounded at his childish behaviour, but too consumed by his building rage to speak rationally. " I care not! As I have said. You may call yourself by a different name, Altariel," He spat her name out like it a rotten fruit " but you are still the daughter of my dear friend, as you have said. I know there is something within your heart, some piece of you that belongs solely to me. Do you deny it?"

" I do not. But it is folly to love the elves. And I am changed, married and unwilling to waste my life lusting after an elf for the sacrifice of a King's love. I not sacrifice your friendship though, knowing what it meant to my father." Her words were harsh and straight; the first logical argument she had made not twisted by the desire not save Legolas from pain.

Legolas stood for a moment; it is folly to loves the elves? He had little neither time nor energy to consider such words... Arms crossed over his chest, his foot tapping out his frustration. " What would you ask of me then? For the love of an elf is not given easily, and denied, it is not easily covered over by a hasty friendship. So what do you ask?"

Altariel waited in silence for both her own and Legolas' temper to cool before she answered. " A friendship I offer neither hasty nor a tool of cover. Where Elessiel may be found I know not, but the gift of your love shall pass to her, and being accepted by her she does belong to you, though in shadows she does exist." She laughed lightly, pressing her fingers against her lips as though she wished to trap that laugh within her. " Do I speak in riddles?" Legolas shook his head. " Then I will leave such topics to the shadows, and speak instead of what I would ask of you. With the dawn I will leave for home, to Rohan, and returning to my kingdom and my King I would ask you to join me, for I know Eomer's heart, he would much desire the meeting with you, if you could bear it. Could you bear it?"

Legolas nodded once and remained in silence.

" Then in Rohan shall our friendship begin, and hopefully prosper quickly, for I know it has not much time left on these shores."

Legolas cocked an eyebrow at her last comment. " How would you know such things?"

She laughed lightly. " My eyes see far and wide, and I hear much news from the land." She said with a prophetic wave of her hand. " Other than which I speak often with Master Gimli of the Glittering Caves, who now resides in Ithilien and awaits your arrival."

Legolas smiled, but did not say anything in response - it was somewhat unnerving to know Gimli spoke frequently with Altariel, and obviously about him.

" In return is there anything you would ask of me?" She said quietly, coming to stand beside the elf.

He looked up, and Altariel's heart wrenched in her chest at the sight of his eyes - burning deep and impossibly blue in the starlight which leaked through the roof of leaves, he seemed to slowly be turning her inside out with that gaze. " There are shadows tonight in the city of Caras Galadhon." Altariel nodded for him to continue surprised as Legolas took her hand in his own. " And all I would ask is to lay beside the Lady Elessiel, who you say does live in shadows, and for a night - a mere moment in my lifetime - know the love that dare not speak it's name until the sun does rise, and Rohan calls again."

Altariel bit her lip and frowned deeply, knowing not what words she could say that would convey her thoughts to the elf. She stared down at her hands in helplessness, and noticed suddenly a trickle of blood coming not only from her own hand, but also from Legolas'. She raised his hand towards her eyes, finding a small nick in the flesh at the base of one of his fingers. Her own hand held the same mark, and though it was small and hurt not, she knew with strange satisfaction that it would scar.

She raised her eyes to meet Legolas' questioning stare, and sighed sadly. " Until Rohan calls again, Elessiel is yours."

***