Chapter 25

Legolas obligingly kissed her again, tightening his hold when she turned away to hide in his shoulder the despair he'd already seen. She clung to him as if for support and he grieved pain she endured from all the teachings she had to deny in order to accept him.

She fit perfectly inside his arms, his missing half. He barred the world from harming her, or barred her from leaving him and plotted to steal some more of her sage while he relished their soothing scent in her hair. Then another scent reached him.

"Come, we better start back, I can smell the bread from here."

She laughed slightly. "Men."

He gave her another reassuring hug and they started back towards the flet. She was a lot more comfortable with him when he had to carry her up to the flet thankfully so he didn't have to resort to calming her again. It was well past dark by the time they made it back though, and when he entered there were many mischievous smiles greeting him.

He managed to get stew and bread for both of them and they sat back against one of the low walls to eat. Almost immediately Iiten plopped down next to her. "Ah good, you're back. And smiling! What a pleasant surprise Lilluil you weren't trying to seduce him out there were you?"

She almost dropped her bowl in surprise. "What? No, no! Nothing of the sort." She stammered unable to control a flush from spreading. Legolas grinned at her reaction.

"Ah, must have been the opposite way around then. Legolas, how could you do such a thing? Here we all were waiting for something to flavor the stew with and you keep us all waiting how heartless can you be? Plus distracting this poor innocent elven maiden from trying to dutifully collect herbs for us. You never cease to amaze me!"

Legolas merely arced an eyebrow. "But can you blame me?"

The flet which had gone silent as soon as Iiten began talking erupted in whoops and cheers. Lilluil was having a very difficult time eating.

Fathiel having come up beside Iiten pulled him up and sat down in his place. "Go away Iiten, hogging the Lilluil's company like this it's no wonder Legolas has to seclude her just to keep people like you away." Legolas smiled in appreciation.

"I'm Fathiel, and you must be the legendary Lilluil."

"Pleased to meet you, legendary?"

"Well for the amount of time we first saw you it was as if you were a dream. You were there, then gone. Questionably believable, to all of us except Legolas over there who went near wild with worry."

"Really?"

"Yep, he had us searching dawn to dusk for three days until a messenger arrived from King Aragorn you know. With orcs wandering the woods as you've no doubt seen we all really expected the worst."

"Oh, I'm sorry to have troubled you."

"It is already forgiven, it was his fault anyway for leaving your side. Off that subject, how do you like the north?"

"It's different. A lot sharper… and colder. It never gets this cold down in the south, ever."

"That's okay, I'm sure Legolas here will be more than happy to warm you up." He laughed at her blush. "Yes I suppose we're a lot more open in the north too."

Lilluil was now hiding in her cloak and he felt sympathy enough to defend her. "So what's happening tomorrow, have they decided which route to take?"

"The quick one, straight through. Time over safety but we don't know what's happened so far in concern to the southern elves yet." He sighed. "It wasn't really a decision."

Legolas nodded understandingly. Doing a sprint through the denser woods and having the possibility of confronting spiders wasn't nearly as threatening as not reaching the caves fast enough to prevent a possible war. That was of course the worst case scenario, but they didn't know how high in status Lilluil, or rather, her father was. Actually he could probably ask her that…

"Lilluil?" She was asleep, in the short period of time he had talked to Fathiel. Her head was bent slightly hanging forward in a position that would result in neck aches in the morning. Leaning over he shifted the bowl out of her hands and pulled her onto his lap, wrapping his cloak around both of them. She shifted a little and then settled down to sleep again. Fathiel smiled and straightened his back against the railing to sleep.