"I choose love!" I sat bolt upright in bed, heart pounding and blinking
against the strong sunlight that shone threw the windows that surrounded me
on nearly all sides.
Wait a minute. All sides?
I looked around, and found that I was most definitely not in Mirkwood anymore. This was my bedroom in Rivendell, with the big windows and airy room. I looked at the figure who stood by the window.
"Ada?" I asked incredulously. He smiled at me in that slow way he does when he's extremely satisfied by something, like when he proves himself right after a long argument with either myself or Aragorn. I glanced out of the window again, shielding my eyes with my hand, and noticed the claw- like scratches along both my wrists. Outside the trees were just beginning to turn gold. Now I was really confused.
"Jané. I'm glad to see you awake." He said.
"Glad to be awake. Although I'm very confused." I scratched my neck, but jerked my hand away when it stung. "What's going on? Last time I checked it was winter and I hadn't scratched myself."
"It is the third of September 3015, and you are, as you had guessed, back at Rivendell."
"September?" I asked incredulously. "What in Elbereth is going on?" I don't think I've ever been this confused in my entire life, and that's saying something.
"You fell ill in Mirkwood on the twenty seventh of February, this year. You soon began raving, and were completely unmanageable. Prince Legolas, Lady Kera and Captain Calren brought you here several months ago."
"I've been insane for six months?" I asked, employing a bit of effort to keep my jaw from falling open.
"Lady Kera explained about the love-curse."
"Oh joy." I said sarcastically, running my fingers through my loose black curling hair.
"Indeed." Elrond said with a smile. "Though I am glad to hear you made the right choice, judging by your statement when you woke up."
"I chose love." I said slowly, remembering. "Even though it meant that the whole world could crumble and I'd be insane, I chose love. It was very selfish of me." I said.
"Quite. But you still have your sanity."
"None of the queens ever chose love." I recalled. "Because of the fear they'd go insane. Perhaps it was unwarranted, although if I'd done the sensible thing, I would have chosen sanity also. Sanity was so...good. Peace reigned and people were happy. It was light while love meant the world would fall into dark."
"Let us be glad you chose as you did. It can be better to have one love than to have thousands of people who are dear to you." Elrond said.
The door opened, and Kera walked in. "Oh!" she said, looking at me. "Oh. Oh." Each word had a different tone, and conveyed different meanings. "I'm glad you're well. We heard you from the hall, but we were scared you were raving again."
"No." I answered with a grin. "I'm well. Where's Legolas?" Kera turned to look over her shoulder, as if she had expected him to be there.
"He was there a minute...oh." I grasped her meaning completely and leapt out of bed, grabbing a robe from a chair as I ran past her, out the door, ignoring the calls of Elrond and Kera.
I reached the stables breathless, only to have the grooms tell me Legolas had ridden out not five minutes ago. I pulled Enya out of the stall and had one of the grooms give me a leg-up, barefoot and clad only in a robe and a night-dress as I was. He stared after me amazed as I galloped out of the stables.
Legolas had ridden half out of the valley before Enya caught up with him on his beautiful bay horse. She turned so she blocked the path, and the bay reared, and I flinched back as its hooves kicked inches from my face. When Legolas had it under control again, he glared at me.
"Well?" he snarled.
"Thank you, Legolas, I'm quite well." I said snippily, as if he had asked after my welfare. "And strangely enough, I haven't forgotten you or the fact that I've been in love with you since I was ten, and still am." I glared at him.
"But...you're sane! You chose sanity...so you should've forgotten me."
"Well, if that's what you want." I snapped. "And anyway, for your information, I chose love, not sanity, just as I have said I would, repeatedly. Now, if you want to run along home in a childlike tantrum, go right ahead. I wont stop you." I kicked Enya so she turned to face Rivendell, and was about to kick her on when I lost my balance and fainted. The last thing I remember was seeing the ground rush towards me.
When I woke up again, I was back in my bed, Arwen sitting and reading by my side. When I groaned and rolled over, she set her book down.
"Welcome back to the land of the living." She said with a smile. I opened my eyes a little.
"My head hurts." I complained.
"I'm not surprised. Legolas says you fell off head first, which was fairly ridiculous of you."
"Thank you for stating the obvious, Arwen." I said, pushing myself into a sitting position, and leaning back against the headboard. I gingerly touched the lump above my right eyebrow. "Look impressive?" I asked.
"Nah. Barely a mark. Just a lump. Now those others..."
"Can you explain how I got them? Ada didn't say."
"Well," she began. "I heard the ones around your wrists were from when your hands were tied together, to stop you hitting people - apparently," she informed me, "and you kept scraping at the ropes with your fingernails, which did nothing but tear up your wrists and give you bloody fingernails. The ones around your neck...I don't know."
"She tried to kill Kera with my knife. I put my arm around her neck to stop her moving and she scraped at it and her own neck to make me let go." Legolas said from the doorway.
"So he hit her with a rock." Calren added. Legolas shot him a dirty look, and Calren grinned at me. I raised an eyebrow and Legolas shrugged. Arwen looked incredulous.
"You hit her with a rock?" she demanded.
"Well, yes. At that point it was a 'her or my arm' kind of situation. And that's my bow arm."
"Without which you couldn't live." Arwen said, rolling her eyes at me and rising. "I'm leaving. Don't stay too long, Ada says she needs sleep." She passed Legolas in the doorway and whacked him on the arm.
"It's impolite to hit a lady." She admonished, and then was gone.
"But its polite to hit a gentleman?" he asked me pleadingly. I grinned. Legolas came into the room and kissed me on the forehead.
"Mind the bump." I said, moving over a little so he could sit on the bed, as Calren had already claimed Arwen's chair.
"Hard fall." Calren observed.
"She's lucky she didn't lose an eye." Legolas agreed.
"Please don't talk about me like I'm not here, both awake and sane. Now I know you came for something...what?"
"The king has recalled his son back to Mirkwood. We don't know why." Calren said. I nodded, and Legolas took my hand.
"Hopefully it wont be for too long." He said with a grin.
"I better not have given up sanity for nothing." I warned, and Calren laughed.
"No, my lady. When Legolas is around, he's not too bad to live with."
"Careful captain." Legolas warned, as I dissolved into peals of laughter. "And you," he said, turning to me. "That really wasn't funny."
"I know. I just had a giggling fit." I apologised, and I leant up and kissed him on the lips, regardless of company.
"So you did. But my father is calling us back immediately. We leave in an hour." Legolas said. I frowned.
"What is so important that he does not let you wait until tomorrow?" I asked. Legolas shrugged.
"Who knows? I came to say goodbye, and that I hope to see you soon." I nodded, and he pressed a kiss against my lips. "Farewell, my love." He whispered. I nodded.
"Farewell, and good travel." They both nodded, and left. I sank back into my pillows, and groaned. My head hurt, and now I couldn't even complain to anybody.
I spent the next four years in Rivendell, doing a lot of thinking and relaxing. Elrond began to formally teach me healing craft, since before I had been working from book knowledge and intuition. Aragorn visited once, but he and Arwen spent a lot of time in her chamber. I didn't ask.
In the late summer of 3019, Arwen rode out one morning, after Elrond told her to go along the road from Rivendell to Weathertop. She returned the following afternoon with a very sick Halfling. I recognised it as one of the Halflings from the road that time when the Nazgûl rode past the Shire. I couldn't remember his name though.
Elrond and I took turns at sitting by his bedside, trying to help him. He had a great wound in his left shoulder, where a Nazgûl blade had entered his flesh. Arwen said that Aragorn had treated it with Athelas, but Elrond and I both knew it would take more than that to heal him.
It took us a week to bring him back to the light, from where he had passed far into the Nazgûl-induced darkness. In that time, Aragorn arrived with three other Halflings, who were all greatly worried for him.
I stepped out of him room for a short while, so I could get something to eat. It was the day after my brother's arrival with the three other Halflings, and the moment I set foot out of his door I was accosted by all three.
"Will he be alright?" one asked. It was the one I had met so long ago, the youngest of the three I had met on the road. Meriadoc was his name, I believe.
"With some luck." I answered with a smile. A small hand grabbed mine and tugged.
"But will he be alright?" I looked down at the hobbit beside me. He looked up at me with big blue eyes.
"He should be. He is recovering, although the wound may never fully heal." I answered.
"Well, as long as he is recovering." A familiar voice said. I grinned.
"Gandalf! Welcome back!"
"Indeed, indeed. He will recover then, Jané?" Gandalf asked me seriously. I nodded.
"He should. He is strong, for all his stature."
"Hobbits are surprising creatures." Gandalf agreed with a smile. "But irrepressibly curious, and forever hungry." One of them nodded.
"We missed four out of seven meals on the way here." He said. "I'm starving."
"Peregrin Took, I have never known you to be full!" Gandalf said sternly.
"I shall take them to the kitchens, perhaps we can find something to eat there. It is where I was headed." I said brightly. Gandalf shook his head in despair.
"When you know more of hobbits, dear girl, you will know never to offer to take them to the kitchens!" he then disappeared into Frodo's room.
"Come then." I said with a smile. "Let's find something to eat."
Later, after I had left the three hobbits in the gardens to their own devices, I stood by the window in the library, staring out blankly. Elrond had said he would call a council, and that meant Legolas would come. Not that I didn't want him to, of course...
"You can't marry him, you know." Kera said from behind me. I nodded, but didn't turn.
"I know."
"The queens have always been unmarried, with only consorts, never kings. Legolas is a prince, Jané, he could never be a simple consort." She said sharply.
"I know, Kera. Do you think I have not thought of this?" I asked her, turning to look at her. She smiled bitterly.
"Oh, aye. I know you've thought of this. I'm just worried you'll chuck it all out the window."
"Like I did with the love-curse." I said coldly, and turned back to stare out the window at the summer trees.
"Exactly." Kera said definitely.
"You know, I think I'd give it all up for him." I said quietly.
"At least wait till you have an heir." Kera said softly. "Then you may abdicate and the steward may rule in your stead until your daughter may rule."
"You?" I asked quietly. "No."
"You doubt me?" Kera asked furiously.
"Never." I said turning to her and taking a step forwards. "Never would I doubt your loyalty to both Mordor and to me. But what if I cannot have children?" Kera's face drew on a horrified expression.
"No!"
"I don't know, Kera. Did the Endleweed make me barren, or not?" I asked, more to myself than anyone else. "Not that I have any reason to believe it did, but what if that is so?" and held up my hand to stop Kera interrupting. "And even if it didn't, I could not, will not, betray Legolas that way."
"You are being incredibly selfish, you know." Kera said softly. I smiled wryly.
"I know. But perhaps it will be well. I do not doubt you, or your abilities, Kera. Do not doubt me. I do not think, if it comes down to it, that I will sacrifice Mordor for mine own sake."
"What about his sake? That's what you did in the love-curse. I shared your dream, Jané. I know your choice. And the only thing that stopped you choosing sanity was Legolas fading."
"Can you not trust me? Have I ever made a choice so wrong that it has haunted us both?" I demanded, suddenly angry.
"No, you have not. I am simply trying to prevent you making such a choice."
"You believe Legolas is such a choice?" I asked sadly, sitting tiredly in a chair.
"No. Legolas is not such a choice. But perhaps marrying him is."
"Kera, I shall not marry Legolas. Not yet anyway. Not until I am established as queen and I know how it is that my people think, and how they would feel to such a marriage. Children are not discouraged from knowing their fathers in Mordor, only from forsaking their mothers in the doing so."
"I know. Just think wisely." Kera kissed my forehead and patted my shoulder before she left the library. I closed my eyes and sighed.
"I'm trying."
In the next few weeks, guests began arriving at Rivendell for the council. But soon my thoughts were taken up by an elf called Rayma. She was over a thousand years old, and felt that it made her very wise. I hated her almost from the moment I met her.
She was beautiful. She had long wavy auburn hair that fell to her middle back. She was tall, and pale skinned. Her eyes were a golden brown that put bronze to shame. She was fair in all things she did, and she did a great many things. She played music, she sang, she sewed, and did the best embroidery in almost all of Rivendell, second only to Arwen herself. She was also amazingly big headed. She had a loud voice, and an even louder laugh. She was the epitome of the elvish lady, and sometimes I was very glad I was human.
Then she started talking about her upcoming marriage, and I was extremely tempted to dress up as a Nazgûl and stab her in her bed.
The wedding that she insisted on talking about, was with a certain prince of Mirkwood. I didn't actually believe her, because last time one of her clique started talking about her upcoming marriage, she had claimed the groom was Elladan, which was so ridiculous Kera and I nearly split ourselves laughing. Rayma and her group, needless to say, did not see why we thought it was so amusing.
So when Legolas arrived early one autumn morning, I put all rumours aside and ran to greet him. He shocked me by being rather forward, kissing me long and hard in front of all. Not that we had ever kept it a secret, but we had always tried to be rather more subtle. Then I turned my head to hug him, and saw Rayma looking like she was going to kill me. So I kissed him again. Judging by his reaction, it seemed that Rayma's little wedding might not be going forward after all.
Legolas pulled away and looked me up and down, as he always did, as if he expected me to starve myself in his absence.
"Your necklace." He said after a moment. I looked down. I was wearing a silver star with a rather nice blue diamond set in it. It was a locket, much like the sun pendant was, and contained the three seeds from the red tree. "Where's the sun pendant gone? Not that I don't like the star." He said hurriedly. I smiled.
"Lady Rayma got angry at me and broke it," I answered. "she said she was tired of my silly pretences and that I was and always would be a human pretending to be an elf. Now, I cant remembering ever trying to be an elf, but she has been alive longer than me, and has got a longer memory..." I trailed off. Legolas kissed my forehead.
"Love, you have never tried to be an elf. You have never been anything else but what you are." He whispered. I rose on my tiptoes again.
"I've missed you. Come on, I think Elrond wants to talk to you." We walked out of the courtyard, but just before we went through the arch, I turned back. Rayma was gone, but the man in the courtyard dismounting from his horse looked terribly familiar. He looked up and our eyes met, and my heart sank.
"What is it?" Legolas asked. I shook my head.
"Someone I knew once. Come on." But even as we walked, the look in Boromir's eyes when he saw me hand in hand with Legolas would not leave me.
Several days later, Legolas manipulated me into a picnic with him. I went gladly, since the weather was still warm, and Rivendell was growing oppressive with Boromir's baleful glance following me like a shadow.
We rode out, deeper into the valley, following the Loudwater river upstream. Then we branched off onto one of its tributaries, and found ourselves in a small field with a wood to one side, and a beautiful idyllic stream running through.
I laughed as I spun around in circles, arms outstretched and head tossed back, staring at the blue sky. When I fell, I laughed harder.
"How is it you knew of this place and I didn't?" I demanded. Legolas helped me stand.
"Aragorn showed it to me long ago, we used to hunt here. That was sixty...seventy years ago."
"And why did you always exclude me?" I asked with mock indignation.
"Because the stream that runs through here is deadly poisonous." Legolas answered. I halted.
"But...how?" Legolas pulled me forward, and I started walking again.
"A little way upstream, the river bed is choked with Alldead." Legolas said. I frowned, trying to remember it. "You might know it better as Ilyaba." I nodded.
"I remember. And it cant be cleared because-"
"Any contact results in poison." Legolas finished. "You were only young at the time, nine, ten years old. Aragorn didn't want to risk you drinking the water while he wasn't looking, so we didn't show this place to you." I nodded.
A warm wind blew around us, and the tall grasses waved in the fields. They were turning brown now, sun-dried and dead for autumn. The last of the summer flowers dipped their bright heads in the breeze, and the whole place smelt of summer.
"It's beautiful." I said with a happy sigh. Legolas sat down against a rock by the stream, for it was beautiful despite its deadly nature. He watched as I gathered small flat pebbles and began skimming them along the slow moving water.
"You look as though winter would kill you." Legolas said suddenly. I paused in my rock-skipping, and turned to him, puzzled. "You look like you were made for summer, and winter cold would ruin you." I looked down at myself. I was wearing one of the gowns I only wore in high summer, a pastel coloured gauzy thing that made me look like I had a skirt and sleeves made of flower petals, although the bodice was made of white satin. My hair was up in two interlocking coils around the back of my head, although the wind that blew across the field was teasing the carefully arranged curls out of their places..
"Perhaps I shall adapt to winter." I said presently, fingering the delicate sun pendant at my throat. My sun-locket still hadn't been fixed, and I had returned to wearing sun pendants, as the star was more of Aragorn's people, the Dunédain, than it was of mine. This necklace wasn't a locket, and the three seeds were locked away in my room back at Rivendell. Legolas cocked his head to the side.
"Perhaps. Although winter would change you." He said. I sank to my knees beside him, my skirts billowing and fluttering as I did so.
"What is it, Legolas?" I asked. He smiled.
"I did not mean to worry you." He said softly. I frowned.
"Is there something for me to be worried about?" I asked. Legolas shook his head and changed the subject, but I knew there was something still on his mind.
The sun reached its peak then began to fall through the sky to the west, but Legolas and I paid it no heed. After that small awkward moment, Legolas and I had spent the rest of the day talking and laughing. I was content to lean up against him even as he leaned on the stone, and he seemed content to sit there, arms around my waist.
"Jané?" Legolas said suddenly, after a small period of peaceful silence. I looked over my shoulder up at him.
"Yes?"
"Will you marry me?" all at once I remembered Boromir asking the same question underneath the White Tree of Gondor.
"Oh, Legolas." I said softly, shaking my head. Legolas sighed, as though he had known what the answer would be, but had asked anyway.
"You know I cannot." I answered quietly. I rested my head on his shoulder, and he rested his chin on the top of my head.
"Boromir?"
"No!" I exclaimed, torn between the desire to laugh or to slap him. "No. I turned him down because I loved him as I would a son, not a lover nor a husband. The same holds true even now." Legolas said nothing. "The reason I say no now is because my Queenship may come soon, and-"
"The queens never married." Legolas concluded. "but if you are to be queen, can you not change the laws?"
"I can," I said slowly, "but I would prefer first to become queen, and let my people become used to me, and me to them. I want them to see my worth before I change anything. I need their trust."
"They have been waiting for you for a long time." Legolas said quietly. His fingers twined with mine, and I held tight. The last time I had refused a marriage I had lost a dear friend and a boy who had near enough been my own son. I did not want to suffer such loss again.
"I would marry you today if I could." I said quietly. Legolas turned his head to meet my eyes.
"You mean that?" he asked me.
"Of course." I answered. "I have always meant it." Legolas took my left hand in his, and on my middle finger slipped on a silver and emerald ring. It was made in the form of entwining ivy leaves and vines, the vines being silver and the leaves tiny, expertly crafted, emeralds.
"As close to marriage as you may yet come." He whispered. I smiled. He kissed me softly, and I freed my hands from his and unclasped the sun necklace at my throat. It was nothing grand, a single smoky topaz set in a small gold sun on a delicate gold chain, but I twisted in his arms and fastened it around his neck, kissing him as I did so. I straightened the necklace with my fingertips.
"A ring would hinder your archery." I whispered, and Legolas laughed. Soon he had me laughing too, and if anyone heard us, I do not know how they could escape from wondering what it was that made two people so happy, if it was not love and close friendship.
We returned to Rivendell as evening was drawing on, and I tightened the blue wool shawl around my shoulders. My dress was beautiful, but not made for evenings, no matter how hot the day had been. As we rode back, Legolas suddenly grinned and chuckled. I turned to face him from the saddle, even as I encouraged Enya to walk on.
"What?" I asked suspiciously.
"You have grass stains on the back of your dress."
"And it's all your fault!" I accused with a smile. It was true. We had both had a sudden burst of energy after lunch, and had chased each other round like we were children, shouting and laughing the entire time. He had managed to catch me, but in doing so, had tripped me up, causing me to land and skid on a small patch of green grass. Hence the grass stains.
"Forgive me?" he asked, sticking out his lower lips and widening his eyes. Anything, as long as you wear that necklace, I though idly.
"I'll consider it." I said breezily, sticking my nose up in the air.
"Oh really?" Legolas kicked his horse into a trot to catch up with me, and I urged Enya into a canter, until we were both galloping towards Rivendell, calling and laughing.
I beat him to the stables by a matter of feet, and I swung down and began to run for the door, but he caught me up and spun me in circles.
"Ahem!" Someone cleared their throat rather loudly, and we both stopped and looked towards the door. Rayna, perfect elf lady she was, stood in the doorway. There was a high flush on her cheeks, like she had either been running, or she was angry. Since she was the kind of elf that never ran, and since I was acting close to Legolas, I thought it was safe to assume she was angry.
"Lady Eldira, I believe Master Elrond would speak with you." She said. I nodded, and started past her. Even as I walked away, I could hear her still talking.
"Could I have a word, Prince Legolas?"
Wait a minute. All sides?
I looked around, and found that I was most definitely not in Mirkwood anymore. This was my bedroom in Rivendell, with the big windows and airy room. I looked at the figure who stood by the window.
"Ada?" I asked incredulously. He smiled at me in that slow way he does when he's extremely satisfied by something, like when he proves himself right after a long argument with either myself or Aragorn. I glanced out of the window again, shielding my eyes with my hand, and noticed the claw- like scratches along both my wrists. Outside the trees were just beginning to turn gold. Now I was really confused.
"Jané. I'm glad to see you awake." He said.
"Glad to be awake. Although I'm very confused." I scratched my neck, but jerked my hand away when it stung. "What's going on? Last time I checked it was winter and I hadn't scratched myself."
"It is the third of September 3015, and you are, as you had guessed, back at Rivendell."
"September?" I asked incredulously. "What in Elbereth is going on?" I don't think I've ever been this confused in my entire life, and that's saying something.
"You fell ill in Mirkwood on the twenty seventh of February, this year. You soon began raving, and were completely unmanageable. Prince Legolas, Lady Kera and Captain Calren brought you here several months ago."
"I've been insane for six months?" I asked, employing a bit of effort to keep my jaw from falling open.
"Lady Kera explained about the love-curse."
"Oh joy." I said sarcastically, running my fingers through my loose black curling hair.
"Indeed." Elrond said with a smile. "Though I am glad to hear you made the right choice, judging by your statement when you woke up."
"I chose love." I said slowly, remembering. "Even though it meant that the whole world could crumble and I'd be insane, I chose love. It was very selfish of me." I said.
"Quite. But you still have your sanity."
"None of the queens ever chose love." I recalled. "Because of the fear they'd go insane. Perhaps it was unwarranted, although if I'd done the sensible thing, I would have chosen sanity also. Sanity was so...good. Peace reigned and people were happy. It was light while love meant the world would fall into dark."
"Let us be glad you chose as you did. It can be better to have one love than to have thousands of people who are dear to you." Elrond said.
The door opened, and Kera walked in. "Oh!" she said, looking at me. "Oh. Oh." Each word had a different tone, and conveyed different meanings. "I'm glad you're well. We heard you from the hall, but we were scared you were raving again."
"No." I answered with a grin. "I'm well. Where's Legolas?" Kera turned to look over her shoulder, as if she had expected him to be there.
"He was there a minute...oh." I grasped her meaning completely and leapt out of bed, grabbing a robe from a chair as I ran past her, out the door, ignoring the calls of Elrond and Kera.
I reached the stables breathless, only to have the grooms tell me Legolas had ridden out not five minutes ago. I pulled Enya out of the stall and had one of the grooms give me a leg-up, barefoot and clad only in a robe and a night-dress as I was. He stared after me amazed as I galloped out of the stables.
Legolas had ridden half out of the valley before Enya caught up with him on his beautiful bay horse. She turned so she blocked the path, and the bay reared, and I flinched back as its hooves kicked inches from my face. When Legolas had it under control again, he glared at me.
"Well?" he snarled.
"Thank you, Legolas, I'm quite well." I said snippily, as if he had asked after my welfare. "And strangely enough, I haven't forgotten you or the fact that I've been in love with you since I was ten, and still am." I glared at him.
"But...you're sane! You chose sanity...so you should've forgotten me."
"Well, if that's what you want." I snapped. "And anyway, for your information, I chose love, not sanity, just as I have said I would, repeatedly. Now, if you want to run along home in a childlike tantrum, go right ahead. I wont stop you." I kicked Enya so she turned to face Rivendell, and was about to kick her on when I lost my balance and fainted. The last thing I remember was seeing the ground rush towards me.
When I woke up again, I was back in my bed, Arwen sitting and reading by my side. When I groaned and rolled over, she set her book down.
"Welcome back to the land of the living." She said with a smile. I opened my eyes a little.
"My head hurts." I complained.
"I'm not surprised. Legolas says you fell off head first, which was fairly ridiculous of you."
"Thank you for stating the obvious, Arwen." I said, pushing myself into a sitting position, and leaning back against the headboard. I gingerly touched the lump above my right eyebrow. "Look impressive?" I asked.
"Nah. Barely a mark. Just a lump. Now those others..."
"Can you explain how I got them? Ada didn't say."
"Well," she began. "I heard the ones around your wrists were from when your hands were tied together, to stop you hitting people - apparently," she informed me, "and you kept scraping at the ropes with your fingernails, which did nothing but tear up your wrists and give you bloody fingernails. The ones around your neck...I don't know."
"She tried to kill Kera with my knife. I put my arm around her neck to stop her moving and she scraped at it and her own neck to make me let go." Legolas said from the doorway.
"So he hit her with a rock." Calren added. Legolas shot him a dirty look, and Calren grinned at me. I raised an eyebrow and Legolas shrugged. Arwen looked incredulous.
"You hit her with a rock?" she demanded.
"Well, yes. At that point it was a 'her or my arm' kind of situation. And that's my bow arm."
"Without which you couldn't live." Arwen said, rolling her eyes at me and rising. "I'm leaving. Don't stay too long, Ada says she needs sleep." She passed Legolas in the doorway and whacked him on the arm.
"It's impolite to hit a lady." She admonished, and then was gone.
"But its polite to hit a gentleman?" he asked me pleadingly. I grinned. Legolas came into the room and kissed me on the forehead.
"Mind the bump." I said, moving over a little so he could sit on the bed, as Calren had already claimed Arwen's chair.
"Hard fall." Calren observed.
"She's lucky she didn't lose an eye." Legolas agreed.
"Please don't talk about me like I'm not here, both awake and sane. Now I know you came for something...what?"
"The king has recalled his son back to Mirkwood. We don't know why." Calren said. I nodded, and Legolas took my hand.
"Hopefully it wont be for too long." He said with a grin.
"I better not have given up sanity for nothing." I warned, and Calren laughed.
"No, my lady. When Legolas is around, he's not too bad to live with."
"Careful captain." Legolas warned, as I dissolved into peals of laughter. "And you," he said, turning to me. "That really wasn't funny."
"I know. I just had a giggling fit." I apologised, and I leant up and kissed him on the lips, regardless of company.
"So you did. But my father is calling us back immediately. We leave in an hour." Legolas said. I frowned.
"What is so important that he does not let you wait until tomorrow?" I asked. Legolas shrugged.
"Who knows? I came to say goodbye, and that I hope to see you soon." I nodded, and he pressed a kiss against my lips. "Farewell, my love." He whispered. I nodded.
"Farewell, and good travel." They both nodded, and left. I sank back into my pillows, and groaned. My head hurt, and now I couldn't even complain to anybody.
I spent the next four years in Rivendell, doing a lot of thinking and relaxing. Elrond began to formally teach me healing craft, since before I had been working from book knowledge and intuition. Aragorn visited once, but he and Arwen spent a lot of time in her chamber. I didn't ask.
In the late summer of 3019, Arwen rode out one morning, after Elrond told her to go along the road from Rivendell to Weathertop. She returned the following afternoon with a very sick Halfling. I recognised it as one of the Halflings from the road that time when the Nazgûl rode past the Shire. I couldn't remember his name though.
Elrond and I took turns at sitting by his bedside, trying to help him. He had a great wound in his left shoulder, where a Nazgûl blade had entered his flesh. Arwen said that Aragorn had treated it with Athelas, but Elrond and I both knew it would take more than that to heal him.
It took us a week to bring him back to the light, from where he had passed far into the Nazgûl-induced darkness. In that time, Aragorn arrived with three other Halflings, who were all greatly worried for him.
I stepped out of him room for a short while, so I could get something to eat. It was the day after my brother's arrival with the three other Halflings, and the moment I set foot out of his door I was accosted by all three.
"Will he be alright?" one asked. It was the one I had met so long ago, the youngest of the three I had met on the road. Meriadoc was his name, I believe.
"With some luck." I answered with a smile. A small hand grabbed mine and tugged.
"But will he be alright?" I looked down at the hobbit beside me. He looked up at me with big blue eyes.
"He should be. He is recovering, although the wound may never fully heal." I answered.
"Well, as long as he is recovering." A familiar voice said. I grinned.
"Gandalf! Welcome back!"
"Indeed, indeed. He will recover then, Jané?" Gandalf asked me seriously. I nodded.
"He should. He is strong, for all his stature."
"Hobbits are surprising creatures." Gandalf agreed with a smile. "But irrepressibly curious, and forever hungry." One of them nodded.
"We missed four out of seven meals on the way here." He said. "I'm starving."
"Peregrin Took, I have never known you to be full!" Gandalf said sternly.
"I shall take them to the kitchens, perhaps we can find something to eat there. It is where I was headed." I said brightly. Gandalf shook his head in despair.
"When you know more of hobbits, dear girl, you will know never to offer to take them to the kitchens!" he then disappeared into Frodo's room.
"Come then." I said with a smile. "Let's find something to eat."
Later, after I had left the three hobbits in the gardens to their own devices, I stood by the window in the library, staring out blankly. Elrond had said he would call a council, and that meant Legolas would come. Not that I didn't want him to, of course...
"You can't marry him, you know." Kera said from behind me. I nodded, but didn't turn.
"I know."
"The queens have always been unmarried, with only consorts, never kings. Legolas is a prince, Jané, he could never be a simple consort." She said sharply.
"I know, Kera. Do you think I have not thought of this?" I asked her, turning to look at her. She smiled bitterly.
"Oh, aye. I know you've thought of this. I'm just worried you'll chuck it all out the window."
"Like I did with the love-curse." I said coldly, and turned back to stare out the window at the summer trees.
"Exactly." Kera said definitely.
"You know, I think I'd give it all up for him." I said quietly.
"At least wait till you have an heir." Kera said softly. "Then you may abdicate and the steward may rule in your stead until your daughter may rule."
"You?" I asked quietly. "No."
"You doubt me?" Kera asked furiously.
"Never." I said turning to her and taking a step forwards. "Never would I doubt your loyalty to both Mordor and to me. But what if I cannot have children?" Kera's face drew on a horrified expression.
"No!"
"I don't know, Kera. Did the Endleweed make me barren, or not?" I asked, more to myself than anyone else. "Not that I have any reason to believe it did, but what if that is so?" and held up my hand to stop Kera interrupting. "And even if it didn't, I could not, will not, betray Legolas that way."
"You are being incredibly selfish, you know." Kera said softly. I smiled wryly.
"I know. But perhaps it will be well. I do not doubt you, or your abilities, Kera. Do not doubt me. I do not think, if it comes down to it, that I will sacrifice Mordor for mine own sake."
"What about his sake? That's what you did in the love-curse. I shared your dream, Jané. I know your choice. And the only thing that stopped you choosing sanity was Legolas fading."
"Can you not trust me? Have I ever made a choice so wrong that it has haunted us both?" I demanded, suddenly angry.
"No, you have not. I am simply trying to prevent you making such a choice."
"You believe Legolas is such a choice?" I asked sadly, sitting tiredly in a chair.
"No. Legolas is not such a choice. But perhaps marrying him is."
"Kera, I shall not marry Legolas. Not yet anyway. Not until I am established as queen and I know how it is that my people think, and how they would feel to such a marriage. Children are not discouraged from knowing their fathers in Mordor, only from forsaking their mothers in the doing so."
"I know. Just think wisely." Kera kissed my forehead and patted my shoulder before she left the library. I closed my eyes and sighed.
"I'm trying."
In the next few weeks, guests began arriving at Rivendell for the council. But soon my thoughts were taken up by an elf called Rayma. She was over a thousand years old, and felt that it made her very wise. I hated her almost from the moment I met her.
She was beautiful. She had long wavy auburn hair that fell to her middle back. She was tall, and pale skinned. Her eyes were a golden brown that put bronze to shame. She was fair in all things she did, and she did a great many things. She played music, she sang, she sewed, and did the best embroidery in almost all of Rivendell, second only to Arwen herself. She was also amazingly big headed. She had a loud voice, and an even louder laugh. She was the epitome of the elvish lady, and sometimes I was very glad I was human.
Then she started talking about her upcoming marriage, and I was extremely tempted to dress up as a Nazgûl and stab her in her bed.
The wedding that she insisted on talking about, was with a certain prince of Mirkwood. I didn't actually believe her, because last time one of her clique started talking about her upcoming marriage, she had claimed the groom was Elladan, which was so ridiculous Kera and I nearly split ourselves laughing. Rayma and her group, needless to say, did not see why we thought it was so amusing.
So when Legolas arrived early one autumn morning, I put all rumours aside and ran to greet him. He shocked me by being rather forward, kissing me long and hard in front of all. Not that we had ever kept it a secret, but we had always tried to be rather more subtle. Then I turned my head to hug him, and saw Rayma looking like she was going to kill me. So I kissed him again. Judging by his reaction, it seemed that Rayma's little wedding might not be going forward after all.
Legolas pulled away and looked me up and down, as he always did, as if he expected me to starve myself in his absence.
"Your necklace." He said after a moment. I looked down. I was wearing a silver star with a rather nice blue diamond set in it. It was a locket, much like the sun pendant was, and contained the three seeds from the red tree. "Where's the sun pendant gone? Not that I don't like the star." He said hurriedly. I smiled.
"Lady Rayma got angry at me and broke it," I answered. "she said she was tired of my silly pretences and that I was and always would be a human pretending to be an elf. Now, I cant remembering ever trying to be an elf, but she has been alive longer than me, and has got a longer memory..." I trailed off. Legolas kissed my forehead.
"Love, you have never tried to be an elf. You have never been anything else but what you are." He whispered. I rose on my tiptoes again.
"I've missed you. Come on, I think Elrond wants to talk to you." We walked out of the courtyard, but just before we went through the arch, I turned back. Rayma was gone, but the man in the courtyard dismounting from his horse looked terribly familiar. He looked up and our eyes met, and my heart sank.
"What is it?" Legolas asked. I shook my head.
"Someone I knew once. Come on." But even as we walked, the look in Boromir's eyes when he saw me hand in hand with Legolas would not leave me.
Several days later, Legolas manipulated me into a picnic with him. I went gladly, since the weather was still warm, and Rivendell was growing oppressive with Boromir's baleful glance following me like a shadow.
We rode out, deeper into the valley, following the Loudwater river upstream. Then we branched off onto one of its tributaries, and found ourselves in a small field with a wood to one side, and a beautiful idyllic stream running through.
I laughed as I spun around in circles, arms outstretched and head tossed back, staring at the blue sky. When I fell, I laughed harder.
"How is it you knew of this place and I didn't?" I demanded. Legolas helped me stand.
"Aragorn showed it to me long ago, we used to hunt here. That was sixty...seventy years ago."
"And why did you always exclude me?" I asked with mock indignation.
"Because the stream that runs through here is deadly poisonous." Legolas answered. I halted.
"But...how?" Legolas pulled me forward, and I started walking again.
"A little way upstream, the river bed is choked with Alldead." Legolas said. I frowned, trying to remember it. "You might know it better as Ilyaba." I nodded.
"I remember. And it cant be cleared because-"
"Any contact results in poison." Legolas finished. "You were only young at the time, nine, ten years old. Aragorn didn't want to risk you drinking the water while he wasn't looking, so we didn't show this place to you." I nodded.
A warm wind blew around us, and the tall grasses waved in the fields. They were turning brown now, sun-dried and dead for autumn. The last of the summer flowers dipped their bright heads in the breeze, and the whole place smelt of summer.
"It's beautiful." I said with a happy sigh. Legolas sat down against a rock by the stream, for it was beautiful despite its deadly nature. He watched as I gathered small flat pebbles and began skimming them along the slow moving water.
"You look as though winter would kill you." Legolas said suddenly. I paused in my rock-skipping, and turned to him, puzzled. "You look like you were made for summer, and winter cold would ruin you." I looked down at myself. I was wearing one of the gowns I only wore in high summer, a pastel coloured gauzy thing that made me look like I had a skirt and sleeves made of flower petals, although the bodice was made of white satin. My hair was up in two interlocking coils around the back of my head, although the wind that blew across the field was teasing the carefully arranged curls out of their places..
"Perhaps I shall adapt to winter." I said presently, fingering the delicate sun pendant at my throat. My sun-locket still hadn't been fixed, and I had returned to wearing sun pendants, as the star was more of Aragorn's people, the Dunédain, than it was of mine. This necklace wasn't a locket, and the three seeds were locked away in my room back at Rivendell. Legolas cocked his head to the side.
"Perhaps. Although winter would change you." He said. I sank to my knees beside him, my skirts billowing and fluttering as I did so.
"What is it, Legolas?" I asked. He smiled.
"I did not mean to worry you." He said softly. I frowned.
"Is there something for me to be worried about?" I asked. Legolas shook his head and changed the subject, but I knew there was something still on his mind.
The sun reached its peak then began to fall through the sky to the west, but Legolas and I paid it no heed. After that small awkward moment, Legolas and I had spent the rest of the day talking and laughing. I was content to lean up against him even as he leaned on the stone, and he seemed content to sit there, arms around my waist.
"Jané?" Legolas said suddenly, after a small period of peaceful silence. I looked over my shoulder up at him.
"Yes?"
"Will you marry me?" all at once I remembered Boromir asking the same question underneath the White Tree of Gondor.
"Oh, Legolas." I said softly, shaking my head. Legolas sighed, as though he had known what the answer would be, but had asked anyway.
"You know I cannot." I answered quietly. I rested my head on his shoulder, and he rested his chin on the top of my head.
"Boromir?"
"No!" I exclaimed, torn between the desire to laugh or to slap him. "No. I turned him down because I loved him as I would a son, not a lover nor a husband. The same holds true even now." Legolas said nothing. "The reason I say no now is because my Queenship may come soon, and-"
"The queens never married." Legolas concluded. "but if you are to be queen, can you not change the laws?"
"I can," I said slowly, "but I would prefer first to become queen, and let my people become used to me, and me to them. I want them to see my worth before I change anything. I need their trust."
"They have been waiting for you for a long time." Legolas said quietly. His fingers twined with mine, and I held tight. The last time I had refused a marriage I had lost a dear friend and a boy who had near enough been my own son. I did not want to suffer such loss again.
"I would marry you today if I could." I said quietly. Legolas turned his head to meet my eyes.
"You mean that?" he asked me.
"Of course." I answered. "I have always meant it." Legolas took my left hand in his, and on my middle finger slipped on a silver and emerald ring. It was made in the form of entwining ivy leaves and vines, the vines being silver and the leaves tiny, expertly crafted, emeralds.
"As close to marriage as you may yet come." He whispered. I smiled. He kissed me softly, and I freed my hands from his and unclasped the sun necklace at my throat. It was nothing grand, a single smoky topaz set in a small gold sun on a delicate gold chain, but I twisted in his arms and fastened it around his neck, kissing him as I did so. I straightened the necklace with my fingertips.
"A ring would hinder your archery." I whispered, and Legolas laughed. Soon he had me laughing too, and if anyone heard us, I do not know how they could escape from wondering what it was that made two people so happy, if it was not love and close friendship.
We returned to Rivendell as evening was drawing on, and I tightened the blue wool shawl around my shoulders. My dress was beautiful, but not made for evenings, no matter how hot the day had been. As we rode back, Legolas suddenly grinned and chuckled. I turned to face him from the saddle, even as I encouraged Enya to walk on.
"What?" I asked suspiciously.
"You have grass stains on the back of your dress."
"And it's all your fault!" I accused with a smile. It was true. We had both had a sudden burst of energy after lunch, and had chased each other round like we were children, shouting and laughing the entire time. He had managed to catch me, but in doing so, had tripped me up, causing me to land and skid on a small patch of green grass. Hence the grass stains.
"Forgive me?" he asked, sticking out his lower lips and widening his eyes. Anything, as long as you wear that necklace, I though idly.
"I'll consider it." I said breezily, sticking my nose up in the air.
"Oh really?" Legolas kicked his horse into a trot to catch up with me, and I urged Enya into a canter, until we were both galloping towards Rivendell, calling and laughing.
I beat him to the stables by a matter of feet, and I swung down and began to run for the door, but he caught me up and spun me in circles.
"Ahem!" Someone cleared their throat rather loudly, and we both stopped and looked towards the door. Rayna, perfect elf lady she was, stood in the doorway. There was a high flush on her cheeks, like she had either been running, or she was angry. Since she was the kind of elf that never ran, and since I was acting close to Legolas, I thought it was safe to assume she was angry.
"Lady Eldira, I believe Master Elrond would speak with you." She said. I nodded, and started past her. Even as I walked away, I could hear her still talking.
"Could I have a word, Prince Legolas?"