Farflung: Yeah, the coziness is the closest I can come to romance, as long as they're both clueless. It's unthinking, but if they stopped to realize it, they would know something was up. I don't know that she or her siblings knew about Mandos. Glad the scene worked.

Iluvien & Galorin: the first two paragraphs here should answer things.

LJP: Yes, a bit of it, and mostly.

Mystress Deidra: it will take a while, sorry. Get her healed first, then go for the conscious romance.

To everyone who read/reviewed, thank you very much, but there's the option of getting this up before my (annoyingly short) break, or not until next week with more in depth review responses. I think I answered the questions (sorry, LJP, for them being so succinct. If you don't want to check back, ask again & I'll reply better for the next chapter). Hope you all enjoy this chapter… and I've got to get to class!

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It was only when Legolas and the elves who had gone with him to Fangorn were well settled into their new homes, and their new routines, that he realized how much he had missed Leherim every day while he remained in Greenwood. Here there were no memories popping in on him wherever he went, no visions of the past clouding his eyes.

Though he loved his sister dearly, missing her so much was not a wise thing for any elf who was not planning on crossing the sea any time too soon.

So it was with a greatly lightened, though still somewhat heavy heart that he spent his days with the other elves, or with Gimli when the dwarf came to visit. He was also often drawn to visits with Aragorn, and saw Merry, Pippen and Sam from time to time, when they visited Minas Tirith.

If only Mirimir were here, instead of so far away, he would have been truly happier than he had been since Leherim was still in Greenwood, during the first happy days of her marriage. But Greenwood had become Mirimir's comfort zone in his stead, and she remained there, refusing to come even to visit, no matter how often he asked. As the sole ruler of Fangorn, his short excursions to visit Aragorn and Gimli were as long away from the elves, now of Fangorn, that he was allowed in good conscience.

He could still feel her, sometimes awakened at night with his heart pounding, his breathing too rapid, sweat dripping from his hair. She would say little about the cause, when she bothered answering his inquiries at all. For the most part she would brush him off, and spoke of more general things.

Though it bothered him a great deal, feeling he was losing another elf to distance, he could think of no cure for it, as he wanted her to have the space she claimed to need. From her point of view, he could see how she would get the idea he was rather overprotective, and perhaps even stifling, but that didn't mean he didn't miss her, and the closeness the link had previously afforded them.

"What's eating you, lad?"

Legolas blinked and smiled faintly, his attention drawn back to the present world. "Nothing, Master Dwarf."

"Don't nothing me, Elf! You were off somewhere, but not speaking with that lady of yours."

"My lady? Gimli, she is my friend."

"Harumph."

Legolas frowned at him. "Gimli?"

Gimli shook his head in disgust. "You don't use those eyes you were given, wood-elf! You two are quite a pair."

He laughed at that, leaning back to properly see his friend. "You think so, Gimli? And why is that? Because she would take your side to tease me?"

"Because she would tease you! Because she treated you as a person, not as a Prince. I have yet to see any one of these elves you brought along not bow their heads and lower their eyes to you, much less speak properly—as any trusted friend should. Perhaps they know you better than I—after all, they've had a few thousand years on me—but I don't think that's what you really want. You were irritated when Queen Evenstar let your title slip, and you never made it known during the quest, despite our friendship. If it were not for a few little overheard tidbits from time to time, I would not have known!"

"And my loathing of my title makes you think Mirimir and I are well suited? Gimli, you are quite humorous."

"Laugh if you will, Elf. But she could read your eyes."

Legolas tilted his head, taking in Gimli's earnest and solemn face with a shake of his head. "Gimli, she read my emotions, just as I read hers."

"That 'link' they spoke of?"

"Yes."

"That 'link' you only shared with your sister before?"

"Yes," Legolas agreed, lifting a brow. He could almost hear the wheels in Gimli's head turning, and felt as if he was being backed into a trap.

"That 'link' she only shared with you, until she found herself also 'linked' to her husband?"

"Yes," he stated cautiously, sure of his mistaken maneuver when Gimli's eyes lit up.

"Then why do you assume your 'link' with her was meant to be as it was with your sister, when your sister's only other 'link' was to her love?"

With a sigh he shook his head. "Gimli, I believe you have been in the sun too long wearing that bulky old helmet."

"Think about it," Gimli coaxed. "I think it makes sense."

"Of course you do," Legolas agreed, silently adding 'you're a dwarf' to his statement. "And you are not really sure the 'link' exists. If you were," he added, overriding protests he could see building in his friend's eyes, "you would not constantly place emphasis on the word link."

"Harumph."

Legolas laughed lightly, before leaning back against one of the large old trees at the edge of the forest. After a long silence, during which he could hear Gimli eating heartily at whatever food he had bought along for their wandering walk, he considered Gimli's words. "I don't know why she and I are linked, Gimli. Perhaps it was so we would each have someone else. She needed a friend who would always be there, even when she would have pushed everyone away, and I needed someone to be there when Leherim left. Else I would have joined her many years ago."

"You give her a lot of credit to your happiness."

"She is a good friend, Gimli."

"Is she? Or do you view her as your charge? Your responsibility?"

"Well, she—" he broke off, opening his eyes with a frown. He tilted his head at a cloud formation, thinking quickly. "I suppose she isn't really, is she?"

"I think not. She can stand on her own two feet."

"That's about what she said when she pushed me out of her life."

"She what?" Gimli spluttered, shooting to his feet. "Are you sure?"

"Of course I'm sure," Legolas murmured dryly, a thin smile touching his lips. "She said she didn't need me to always be around, that she needed her own space, room to become who she was meant to be."

"And this just happened to happen just before you decided to come here?"

"No," Legolas shrugged slightly. "I decided to come here because… because she didn't…"

"Spit it out!" Gimli blustered impatiently.

Legolas, for his part, was thinking too quickly for his tongue to bother trying to form anything else for a long moment. "Gimli," he breathed at last. "I think I've been duped."

Gimli blinked at the tall elf before him in utter shock. "Huh?" Such a thing was not to be imagined of the warrior prince.

Legolas slumped back against the tree trunk with a soft laugh. "Valar," he laughed, "she pushed me away to get me out of Greenwood—not because she needed me to be gone, but because I needed to be gone."

"What's the difference?"

"Gimli," Legolas groaned, wondering again at the dullness of dwarfish intellect when it came to quick thinking. With wondrous capacities for the obtaining and care of jewels, they had severe and thus far nearly insurmountable problems in the interpersonal and all such related departments… at least as far as dealing with elves. "She sent me away for my own good, because I was having a hard time staying in Greenwood without Leherim. I didn't even realize how hard it was until I got here and things became so much better. She set it all up so I would be the one to suggest the move, for her sake, of course."

Gimli blinked a few times, a bit slow on the uptake. "So she got you to do exactly what she wanted you to do, and at the same time made you think it was your idea, and that it was for her own good?"

"I am beginning to believe so," Legolas agreed, shaking his head with a faint smile.

Suddenly Gimli let out a hearty laugh that startled several birds into flight. "Still think she is no more suited to you than any other she-elf in these woods?"

Legolas lifted a brow at him. "I never said that, Gimli. Not once."

Gimli gaped at him for a long moment. "But…"

Letting out a light laugh, Legolas rested himself against the base of the tree, putting himself at more of an eye-level with the dwarf as he reached for a wafer of way bread for his own appetite. "But what, friend Gimli?"

"But you keep insisting she is only a friend."

"And so she is."

"But… Then why does it seem you would agree you and she are more suited to each other than you and any she-elf here now?"

"Because I would. As you said, she is the only one who sees me as just another elf, instead of one with a title and the power that goes with it. But being more suited does not mean we are well suited."

"Harumph." Gimli snorted and took a long draught from his water skin. "And what do you look for then? And how long shall you look for it?"

"This from the dwarf who has been dubbed the uncle to every young dwarf around, but hasn't found a bearded wife for himself?"

"There are few unattached dwarf women any more, and those left stay at their family home. I've no chance to meet them, and their male family members are quite protective of them. But you, unlike me, are eternally young, with innumerable options in your future. So what of a bride for you?"

Legolas smiled faintly and closed his eyes. "What of one?"

"Well…" Gimli frowned. "What do you wish? When you close your eyes, do you have a vision of her?"

With a shake of his head, Legolas reopened his eyes and laughed at Gimli. "A vision? You have been dreaming of the Lady again?"

Gimli growled and looked away, a faint flush darkening his weathered skin. "Have you never seen such a vision?"

"Once," Legolas agreed, surprising himself by recalling it. And by admitting it.

"And what of her?"

With a quirk of his lips Legolas lowered his lids and found the image floating before his eyes. "She had long black hair half pulled back, entwined with silver flowers. Her eyes had captured all the stars of the sky until there was nothing but their light left, clinging to her in loving joy, tipping her lashes silver. Skin pale…" he trailed off softly, recalling the faint smile that had tilted her lips as her fine lashes swept down to grace her cheeks.

"Now, if you could only find her again, maybe you would do something about it?"

Legolas shook his head slightly, a faint smile coming forth. "Gimli, I dreamed her up."

"But… I thought elves didn't dream in the manner of mortals."

"Our dreams are of memories melded with the present, but songs need not be. I was still recalling and hearing music. It is quite possible she was nothing more than air and desire."

"And it is possible she really exists, is it not?"

"I suppose," he agreed, frowning. "But I would have seen her, met her. All the nobles of Greenwood were quite interested in assuring I had ample time to meet their daughters, and that Leherim met their sons."

"Perhaps you have met her, but didn't connect her up with this vision you saw. If you caught her in a rare moment of intense beauty—"

"Rare moments don't happen for elves, Gimli."

Gimli huffed and turned away, the reaction Legolas had hoped for, not wanting to speak about her with Gimli any longer. With a faint smile he leaned back against the tree, closing his eyes as he pulled up the 'vision' once again in his memory, finding her so familiar after so many years of telling himself he didn't remember ever having dreamed or desired her.