IN THE COMPANY OF ELVES
by Mahtala

Chapter 4: Water Inside And Out

My excitement at being summoned quickly faded when I realized that I was not going to learn what Thranduil had been saying at the bess-lin. In fact, he had summoned me to be presented to the people of his household and to repeat my story to his councilors. He seemed pleased when I greeted him with "Mae govannen, King Thranduil," but beyond that there was no hint of anything that might be scandalous to Varne and Melde. By the time the councilors were finished with me, it was time for lunch, and I was invited to eat with them all. The food was good, but Legolas continued his disconcerting habit of casting long, suspicious glances at me.

It wouldn't have been so bad, actually, if he hadn't kept up the same behavior for the rest of the week, as messengers were sent out and planning began. Every time I came near him, he grew silent. I could feel his eyes on my back when it was turned - and Tuilo's, too, when he was around. I quickly grew used to it; after all, I was a bit of an oddity here, as a twenty-one-year-old with the size and physical maturity of an elf of fifty or sixty years. Yet it continued to unsettle me. There was something uncomfortable about being such an object of scrutiny. I adjusted my movements, tried to mimic the elves' quiet way of walking. I tried to be introspective and withdrawn, even though I was bubbling over with questions, because it seemed like that was the general way of the elves (Varne excepted – but even she would bend over her fine stitchery and not look up for hours, wholly engrossed in the act of creating beauty).

Homesickness, fear – these things were part of my daily life, true enough. I would look at the curve of Melde's neck and see my roommate in her, watch her fingers deftly braiding her hair and see my grandmother, and begin to cry. Strange as it may seem, though, apart from these moments I carried on as I always had. The King had made it clear that there was no way he could send me back home, though I asked him on several occasions. There seemed to be no point in acting like a spoiled child and throwing tantrums about it.

By the end of the week, it was clear that Tuilo and some of the older elves didn't believe the prophecy, in spite of what King Thranduil said. In fact, most of the denizens of Mirkwood were indifferent to talk of the prophecy. Only a few of them maintained an interest in me, perhaps to judge the truth of the rumors. Many of them had not traveled far in all their long lifetimes, and had either decided to go to what they called the "Grey Havens" anyway or figured that if they didn't like Ithilien, they could always return. One or two of them claimed that they had been sent dreams telling them to leave, and each one who said this made Thranduil's words stronger – although I overheard Melde and Varne discussing how those who have never exhibited foresight before show the talent now – at such an opportune moment! That still left Legolas's regard a mystery, though; the only solution I could imagine was that he was fascinated by my role in the prophecy, but it didn't ring true with what I knew of his character.

I was so busy helping Varne pack for Sérener and her father (Melde had her own family to tend to; as she constantly complained, just one husband is as bad as two young children), learning how to identify some simple herbs and learning to speak a little Sindarin that I didn't get a chance to talk to Legolas again until the day we set off. He certainly wasn't making any attempt to speak with me. So rather than confronting him about his odd behavior on my own terms, I ended up staring blankly at him as he held the reins of a magnificent chestnut horse out to me. It was extremely tall, looked extremely fiery and powerful, and I had no idea how to handle it.

"Um," I said, eloquent as ever.

"Well, take your steed," he said, almost snapping. "My - our people are unused to riding, and I must away to help those less able pack themselves upon their horses. We rarely have need for haste, but my father is impatient.

"Well, you see, I'm rather in the same problem," I replied, taking the reins. "I've never ridden before in my life."

It was the truth, too. You know the horse phase most girls go through? Nope. Nada. I didn't even crack Black Beauty until seventh grade, and then only for a book report. Up to now, I had mostly skirted around the horses that had been gathered for the journey, hoping I would be offered a seat in a wagon or some such. I don't know why Legolas was surprised, after what he'd said about his own people, but he was. He looked at me like I was a bug or something else not exactly distasteful, but certainly not welcome in his company.

"I should have guessed. Give this horse to Varne, Sérener's sister - I know that she can ride, for I taught her myself. At least for the first few days you will ride with me; you will not slow us down so, and Arod is strong enough to carry a light girl like you as well as I." Nobody had ever called me light before (I wasn't fat, but my height made me weigh more than a good quarter of the men I knew), but it was clearly not the time to quibble or blather on with false modesty. I nodded and went about my business.

That exchange took place before dawn, when elves were rushing about the edge of the forest and loading horses with packs. Several hours later, we were almost all set to leave directly, but a group of horses still stood idle, roped to trees. I caught snippets of conversation from where I stood with Varne, waiting for Legolas to help me onto his horse. "Tuilo will not leave?" he asked sharply, speaking to an elf hidden behind trees. His handsome face was set and stony. "I had not thought – Well. Very well. Leave their horses here; my father will look after selling them. We still leave at the time set."

Quickly, I turned, pretending to be talking to Varne as he mounted Arod. "Well, Macilme?" he asked imperiously, holding one hand out. Now or never, I thought, and used the stirrup and his hand to swing up into the saddle behind him.

Surprisingly enough, nobody was hurt. In fact, I was apparently quite graceful "for one of the race of Man," according to several onlookers. Once I was up, the riding was easy enough, because I only had to keep my balance. In fact, it was wonderful. When Legolas first kicked his horse into motion, raising one arm to signal to the other elves, I grabbed him tightly around his waist - his quiver, which normally never left his back, was packed away into one of the wagons. The horse's movements while walking were more soothing than anything, though, and I soon loosened my grip – but not before feeling the muscle and hard sinew beneath his tunic. Pressing my face into his long blonde hair, I smiled. I could get to like this... as long as he doesn't talk to me too much, or act superior or anything.

"Varne tells me you are learning our elf-tongue," Legolas said. I could feel the rhythm of his breathing where his back was pressed against me, and suddenly I was struck by how very intimate this situation was.

"Sérener began to teach me, but I have had very spotty instruction so far," I admitted, thanking God or anything that would care to listen that my voice didn't give out on me. "Barely even enough to call Eldecco my adar." The whole idea of talking with Legolas made me nervous, to tell the truth. It was more that I was afraid he'd decide to make the journey miserable – and I knew it would be a journey of at least two weeks – or that whatever he'd been talking with King Thranduil about would come and bite me in the ass.

"Then I will teach you more. It seems ridiculous to pass this long journey with few words between us. And in return, you must tell me of the land from which you hail."

So time on the horse passed. In the end, I spent very little of it thinking about the intimacy and pleasantness of the situation; he quizzed me on conjugation and vocabulary whenever my attention strayed. When we were apart, the memory of his oddness and the saddlesoreness that plagued my legs drove all thought of becoming closer friends with him out of my head. My life was quickly settling into a routine that was stimulating and entertaining, each dawn bringing a new journey and new things to learn, but also predictable. The day before we forded the River Running, though - according to Varne, the point of our crossing was about halfway down Eryn Lasgalen's length - Legolas brought up the topic of my own world.

"I have kept my end of the deal, gwenn," he said. "Yet you offer no thoughts on your people or your place."

I had been avoiding any discussion of my world. Homesickness lay right below the surface of my thoughts at all times, and I was worried that I would give my feelings away if I spoke of the cabin, my grandparents, my friends and college. "When I came to your world, I was at my grandparents' home in the mountains," I began. "In my world, they call me Emma, not Macilme. The woods there are very like Eryn Lasgalen, and so at first I thought I had only hurt my head while swimming and woken up disoriented. It's hot most of the year in the valley, where I go to school," I continued, warming to the subject and thinking of the most basic things I could tell him about California.

"School?"

"I study history at a university – the University of California, Davis."

"Ah - a large library, where you are tutored? I have heard of such things in Gondor, although teaching is more casual among my people."

"Something like that."

"A scholar you are, then. Perhaps I should press you harder on your study of our tongue, Macilme - and yet I find it passing strange, that women of your land spend their youths locked up in a library. Or that any person does; I once knew a lady who claimed her worst fear to be a cage such as yours, to be locked away until any hope of glory had passed beyond recall or desire.'"

"I'd rather be locked up in a library than work retail for the rest of my life," I retorted, forgetting that he didn't know what work retail' meant. "I guess it isn't the same here, but in my world, college is a good thing. I like studying, as long as it's something interesting. And there isn't much glory where I come from. It's all Watergate and no blood for oil' and the Republicans and Democrats having it out even though there's no difference between them really."

"I meant no offense," he responded. There was no denying that he was puzzled by what I'd said – whether it was the unfamiliar words or the sentiment behind them remained to be seen. I wondered, for a moment, if it was that I was a woman – if women here were kept from education. But no, that couldn't be; even though there didn't seem to be much scientific enquiry or anything like that going on among the elves, all of them seemed to be able to read and write (in an alien, unfamiliar script) and recite verse upon verse of epic poetry in Sindarin or any of a number of archaic languages.

"Anyway. I've got friends there. They're probably frantic by now. Probably think I've drowned." I felt a lump begin to build in my throat. "My family won't be worried, though. I don't have any, anymore. My grandparents died in an accident a few weeks before I came here. They were driving in from the ocean, and, well..." He wouldn't understand any of it even if I explained, I knew, and I would start to cry if I did. The emotions had been packed away for so long that they were coming back tenfold now that they'd been stirred.

Legolas half-turned in the saddle, glancing over his shoulder at me. "From the ocean, you say? Have you been to the sea? If I hadn't wanted to get away from the topic of my grandparents so much, I probably would have thought this insensitive; as it was, though, it suited me just fine.

"Yes - it's wide and very grey," I replied, surprised at his sudden interest. "From the bridge at San Francisco - wind blows in over it and makes waves. Sometimes when it's foggy you can't tell the sea from the land from the air. My grandparents took me there every year in the spring, and it would always rain. I miss it. I have since I went to college."

I almost couldn't hear Legolas's response over the horses' clopping hooves; they were all around us, loud and happy to be running freely. Even the elves who had barely ridden before seemed to have a way with them. But Legolas paid no attention to the crowds around him. Staring straight ahead between Arod's ears, he whispered, " ...the cry of the gulls on the shore, your heart will rest in the forest no more."

Something in his tone of voice pushed that little, teary part of me over the edge, and I laid my head on his shoulder and cried: cried for my grandparents, already dead, and my friends who thought I was gone; cried for the world I had left; cried for the people who had picked up and left their homes simply because of me.

"Why do you cry, Macilme?" he asked me, almost tenderly, when he felt the tears soak through his collar – I would have called it a Mandarin collar, if I had seen it at home.

"Many reasons, but mostly because I miss my home."

Legolas was silent for a moment, and I was afraid I had said something wrong - the tenuous friendship we had was not something I wanted to destroy. Then he bowed his head and replied, "I miss my home as well, gwenn."

The next day, he judged that I had spent enough time on the back of a horse to at least not fall off. "Urui is a good mare, and trained to follow Arod's lead," I was told. "She is not good for fast riding, but we are not hurried. Until now, she has carried Moiron, but now he will ride with his mother." Moiron was an elf-child older than me by several years, but he appeared perhaps thirteen or fourteen years old to human eyes. The party was going slower now, having reached somewhat treacherous ground, so I followed him and his mother on my dappled mare at a sedate pace, wondering about how he was the only child I'd seen thus far.

Disaster struck that day, and in the end, it was good that I had changed horses. At about noon we began to ford the River Running. Legolas waited along with two of his kinsmen on the near bank until the rest of the party was safely across; I waited with him, as neither he nor I trusted my riding skills to get me safely across the ford without help. Finally we began to cross. It was wide but shallow where we forded, and one could not escape the pervasive sound of water rushing over flattened stones. We were halfway across, and I was quite proud of myself for guiding Urui so well, when the first black arrow whizzed past.

"Cotumo!" The danger cry ran through the great train of horses in front of us. There was little panic. Those with bows to hand readied themselves to fire, and several drew swords; Arod wheeled to allow his master to search the horizon for where they came - near the border of Mirkwood. I pressed my face into my horse's mane and prayed.

"There," Legolas called in Sindarin. " To the west!" More arrows flew as he spoke, and suddenly I felt hot blood on my legs. Thinking I had been hit, I looked down to where Urui stood beneath me. She was swaying forward: the arrow had taken her in the neck.

I screamed instinctively, shutting my mouth as soon as I realized how foolish that was. Then I tried to swing down as my horse fell to its knees. I ended up sprawling in the shallow, ice-cold water, pressed against Urui's body by the current, and the only thing I could think of was it will be over soon - please, let it be over. Trying to stand, I realized I would be trampled by the other horses, which were shying away from arrow after arrow. So I hunkered down next to Urui, continuing my mantra. Let it be over. Let it be over.

"That's the last of them, " one of Legolas's kinsmen called. "Why, though, would they wish to stop our passing?" I caught a few of his words, enough to understand the meaning.

"I know not, gwador," he replied. " We camp here tonight. Go search the bodies." Then, as though it had only just occurred to him: "Where is Macilme?"

"Here, Legolas!" I stood, dripping water. It was not like the movies. I was cold and smeared with blood, even though the river had washed some of it away, and I didn't dare to look back at Urui's corpse for fear of being sick at the sight; it was bad enough that I had crouched by it so long, and the metallic taste of blood and river water in my mouth was turning my stomach. "The arrow took Urui, and I stayed low."

"You did well," he replied. "Even were Urui alive, you could not have ridden out such a time, when our horses were panicked and near to bolting. They are unused to fighting such as this, save Arod, who was bred in Rohan and is familiar with all the ways of men and elves. But you are cold and frightened. Come; we will find more clothes for you, and spiced wine and bast, for the daymeal is ahead of us."

When I had wiped the blood from my face and washed it out of my hair, I felt a little better, but not by much. The hot spiced wine they gave me was very sweet, and it went to my head very quickly, but I felt no warmer. "I'm fine, Melde," I protested. "Only a little shaken."

"Very well," the elf-woman replied. "Mortals are not like to elves, and perhaps I will doctor you wrongly, if I try." She went away shaking her head as I clawed the tangles from my hair and rubbed my arms in an attempt to rouse myself.

That evening, though, the cold did not go away, even though I spent my time by the fire trying to warm. Legolas had left me in Melde's hands as he and his men tried to track our attackers, and she mostly left me alone, except to bring me a portion of venison from the deer Eldecco had shot. It was tasty, but I had little appetite for it.

Finally, after most of the elves had finished eating, Legolas returned. He spoke in hushed voices with Melde, then said angrily: "She is not so different!" There was more, but that was the only part of the conversation I truly understood, and I think he had forgotten that I even knew that little bit of their language. Otherwise, he would surely not have allowed me to hear.

"I have spent much time with the race of Men," he told me casually, sitting next to me before the fire. "And I know when you are lying about how you feel, Macilme. You were chilled in the stream, and you never dried, because you wanted to wash the blood away; you were unused to blood, and you had never seen a horse die, and you were frightened by falling from her."

"Yes," I admitted. "I have been cold - even though it's a warm night. I've never been this cold in the summer."

He reached out and touched my face, his eyes dark and deep in the firelight when they looked at me. "That is because it is a cold in your spirit as well as in your flesh. Your heart longs for your home, and your mind - which is used to study - does not like to think about death. My people do not understand this well, for we live for many human lifetimes, and know that we will always have time to revisit any place we miss." I nodded. "But you - you are displaced, alone, and hurt, and that is not an easy burden to bear."

Once more I began to cry, feeling very young, but this time Legolas was there, rocking me back and forth in his embrace. "Shh, mell gwenn. Shh." Just the physical act of being near him helped me grow calmer: the many hours we had spent on horseback together had accustomed me to his embrace. He was a constant in this world. However little I knew him, Legolas was the first person I saw upon arriving, and he had never done me harm.

After I had cried myself out, I sat up, embarrassed. "The time for me was nothing," he assured me. "Otherwise, I would have only been doing inconsequential things – and you are better now. If you drink this, it will help. You are not used to much rich wine, I realize now." He poured me a cupful of something from a pan that hung over our fire; when I drank it, I realized it was a thick juice, like apples and peaches in one. I did feel warmer this time, and not false warmth like alcohol normally gives: this was something real.

"Better?" He sat beside me once more.

"Better." I glanced into the shadows at the edge of the fire, saw Varne slip under her blankets in the area Eldecco had set aside for his family. "I should sleep. It's late, and we've had a big day."

"As you wish - Emma."

Hearing my name in the odd half-light of the campfire almost started me crying again, but not because I missed my home. "Thank you, Legolas," I said by way of a goodbye. "Thank you for everything." Impulsively, I stood on my tiptoes and kissed his cheek. Then I ran from the circle of firelight. I didn't look back until after I was safely under the blankets next to Varne. Then I ventured a glance. Legolas stood at the fire still, staring at the embers as though they held the secret of life.

-----End Chapter 4-----

Author's Notes: Sindarin words used in this chapter are: gwenn (maiden, girl), gwador (sworn brother, associate), bast (bread), mell (dear, so mell gwenn dear girl).

Thanks to Andy for a quick n' dirty beta reading; also thanks to everyone who's given me such great reviews. The latter bring a smile to my face, though the former didn't always – but that's a good thing, as without his frown-inducing notes this story would be much poorer.