Of course, thanks to those who reviewed… it's nice to see some people are getting interested in this one. I've found writing from one person's view/thoughts is a bit more challenging, but interesting… and since this is Wind/Alyeni/Tyran's story, it will all be from her point of view. Sorry. Calnore… perhaps this chapter will explain just how bad the revelation could be… And yes, I'm much better now, I actually have ENERGY!!! WOW!!! Of course, that's not going to last too terribly long. Finals week is NEXT WEEK! AGGGGH! Okay, I'm good now. Yeah, right. Anyway, there will likely be one more update to this story and Not a Word before break, and a couple for The Worry Stone.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
It's true what they say—there is a fine line between genius and insanity. Right now I was teetering on the edge, thinking up thousands of ways to torture Taradriel for this without being caught.
Once again she had dressed me up like she would a child… which in a way, I must admit I am. The pendant I had crafted—the only thing that seemed somewhat closer to normal to me—was once again shining on my chest. At least my feet were bare, and I could handle having my hair loose around my face, using it to hide my face when needed.
What I couldn't handle was seeing the gleaming looks of speculation in the male eyes from the receiving end. I couldn't handle seeing several heading towards me as the music continued, probably to ask for or insist on a dance.
Before they made it to me, an arm slid around my waist from behind and drew me into the dance. I was never much of a dancer, but it was one thing the nine of us had done in the woods so we would be prepared for the adult world—taking turns being the unlucky she-elves. So I knew how to dance just well enough we only stumbled to a halt when the music shifted into another song, and I was able to look up at the elf who had pulled me from the line.
At a slight advantage to my own height, I immediately recognized his golden looks. "Leaf!"
"Alyeni," he bowed, his eyes sparkling. "Not much for dancing, are you?"
"I prefer to spend my time at other things… and how did you find that name?"
"Beautiful, enchanting…" he paused, tilting his head to the side, "fitting."
"Leaf," I sighed, trying to fight the growing urge I had to rub my temples.
He half smiled. "Tara told me."
"Ah. She just stopped you on the street and said her name is Alyeni?"
"No," he admitted, the quirky smile returning. "I asked."
"Why in all of Middle-Earth would you do that?" I asked while weaving through the dancers to the room's edge.
Long fingers lightly brushed my palm. I crossed my arms over my middle and lifted a brow at him, mostly hidden by a bit of hair. Before I could move to escape him, he reached up and gently brushed my hair back, dropping it behind my ear—thankfully without going so far as to touch the tip. "Because I find you utterly fascinating and intensely intriguing."
I shook my head and looked around for the nearest escape. The garden loomed ahead, so of course I headed for it. And of course, was followed. "Persistent, aren't you?"
"I know when I'm not wanted," he answered quietly, "and I don't see that in your eyes."
Well of all the… "What do you see in my eyes, then?" I snapped, whirling on him.
He took his time in answering, studying my eyes so intently for such a time I was ready to tell him to forget it, afraid for a moment of what he would see in my eyes… or recognize, for that matter. Before I could get my mouth open, he spoke. "I see strength, great will, and that you hide something from everyone—possibly even yourself. As for what is more confined to me… exasperation, confusion, some fear which I don't pretend to entirely understand, yet also warmth… and awareness."
I looked away from his thoughtful expression, tightening my crossed arms. "Perhaps I know what is hidden, and fear you finding out," I whispered, choosing to avoid touching the rest if possible.
"Oh," he murmured airily, still studying me, "I've no doubt that's part of it. But there's something more… something less definable… I rather doubt you're entirely aware of it."
I frowned, glaring at a flower as I considered everything. While I didn't know about what he claimed I hid from myself—and how could I?—the rest was a bit too close for comfort.
"And now you wish distance again," he murmured with a sigh. "Let us take a turn round the garden, then."
"Why not just allow me the distance?" I asked, with not nearly as much vinegar as I had intended.
A soft touch on my chin startled me into snapping my eyes to his, even as I attempted to pull free. His fingers cupped my chin with a certain iron hint that refused to be swayed to release me without more force than would be appropriate from me. Some of the customary brightness in his eyes had faded, but there were equal parts knowledge and stubbornness to hold me still. One long finger stroked down my chin to my throat and back again. "Because," he murmured so softly in a way which was almost a sigh, "because I am also aware of you—and I know a great desire to root out the key to the mystery you present."
"I don't want to be found out," I protested, rather weakly, since I found myself getting lost in the spell of brilliant blue eyes.
The faintest smile touched his lips before his thumb caressed my lips lightly. "Don't you? Even in some small, hidden recess of your soul?"
"No," I whispered, and for a moment, everything was distinctly off. I knew I had come under protest, but I was no longer protesting, trapped as surely as I was standing there, uncertain for a moment if I had spoken the truth.
The only thing I was certain of was his palm was warm against my cheek, something unconsciously drawing me to notice the slight curl of his lips before a solemn light in his eyes drove it away. "Liar," he breathed, the tone soft and compelling.
As he leaned closer, his fingers slipping into my hair, his thumb at my ear, I woke from the spell he had cast, hearing him say the same over centuries past with the same hint of amusement and affection. I turned my head away and drew slightly back. "No," I repeated, sure of my answer this time.
With a faint sigh he removed his hand from my hair and let it drop. After watching me steel my resolve for a few minutes, he tilted his head at the path and offered his hand. Accepting the first and ignoring the last, I fell into step beside him. As we drew closer to the archway leading into the great hall, music drifted to interrupt the quiet simplicity of listening to things all mortals miss—each other's footfalls, respiration. Heartbeats. "Dance with me?" It was half request, half order, so I warily regarded his hand.
"I thought we established—"
"There's no one else here," he interrupted quietly. "No one to see, to hear, no one to care." He held his hand out again. "Dance with me," he insisted. "What can it hurt?"
It could hurt what resolve against him I'd been able to regain, that I'd built against Alyeni. The words were left silent and unsaid in the still garden. With great reluctance I slowly put my hand in his.
No doubt seeing my hesitation, he allowed more space between us than was strictly normal, and retained only the lightest of holds. "Relax," he coaxed. "Let the music take you."
I couldn't, of course, and so it was with no small amount of panic that I observed I began to do just that, the music flooding through me, blurring the lines of what could and couldn't be done. I fought with it, tried to keep track of everything, closing my eyes as I tried to block myself from hearing the unending yet ever changing music.
"Easy, I won't hurt you."
His voice was low, right in my ear. Startled skitters shivered over my skin and down my spine, snapping my eyes wide open. When had he gotten so close? It took me a moment to recover enough to consider what he said, but the shock had done me good—the music was receding, and I could think again. I drew as far away as he allowed. "Yes you will," I protested, scooting back even farther as my words surprised him into loosening his hold almost entirely before his grip tightened again.
"I won't," he protested with a frown.
"How could you not?" I asked bitterly. If I told him everything, at best he would be shocked, feel betrayed and avoid me for a few centuries. At worst… I'd rather not consider. "The only way you couldn't would be if you let me go entirely, and never pried."
His touch lightened to almost nothing, but then—when I began to hope he would release me—he shook his head and pulled me closer. "I can't."
I closed my eyes, seeing my hope of escaping this horrid charade vanishing as so much smoke, pain threatening in the dark corners when I thought of the future more strongly than it normally did when I thought of such. "Then your curiosity shall destroy us."
"If I let go, there is no us."
"Not as we are at the moment," I agreed with a weary sigh, seeing the stubborn light in his eyes.
"And there is no other way."
Looking up for a moment, I wondered if maybe he was right. I could never see him as I had once before, as a simple but dear friend. My way of looking, at least at him, had been altered too drastically. Could I hide that from him and all the world for the rest of the ages? It was a daunting thought, but what option did I have? "Perhaps not," I slowly agreed, "but I cannot see this way—the path is unknown and perilous."
His head tilted slightly to the side, reminding me of so many times in our youth when the move had made me liken him to an inquisitive bird. Age had lessened it greatly, but I had seen that change, watched it as it happened. Ever I would recall the first, and see the transition. "I shall assist you," he murmured quietly, "where I can. The path is not over known to me, either."
"I find that hard to believe."
A small bitter smile twisted his lips. "Funny," he mused, not sounding at all like it really was, "but that's what Wind said."
"Sounds like a smart elf," I murmured tightly, a bit upset with myself for slipping up like that.
He shrugged slightly, crossing his arms over his chest while beginning to walk. After a few steps he looked back at me, before an inclination of his head asked me along. "Wind has a gift for working with metal… as you may have noticed," he added, looking down at the pendant for an instant as I drew up to his side. "He is one of the swiftest elves I have ever raced, and he puts on a biting, grouchy front to the world few know him well enough to see past… Which is of course how he likes it." We turned down a path which led into a more secluded part of the garden as a few laughing elves left the great hall for our preferred haunt. "He is also delightful company…"
"But?"
He glanced at me and smiled somewhat ruefully. "Very shrewd. There is a 'but'. But his mother died when he was very young."
"You say that as if it's some sort of character flaw! Is it not true the Prince of these woods suffered the same?" That you did? Oh, how I wanted to utter the last phrase, barely biting my tongue in time. Death was too common in our wood, especially compared to the other realms. It was something which had personally touched every elf there, claiming someone known and loved from each, often much too young.
"Before adulthood, yes. But not when so young not even a decade of memories had been made."
He was looking towards the top of a small fruit tree as he spoke, while I was glaring crossly at the ground. "Hardly his fault!" I insisted hotly.
"No!" he agreed at once, with a vehemence I hadn't expected. He shook his head, sending blond hair and braids scattering over his shoulders. "No," he repeated more softly. "It wasn't his fault. How could an orc attack be a child's fault?"
I shivered, hating the plain truth—that though I had grown, could hunt orcs myself and had caused many to be numbered among the dead, I could still see the gape-toothed, evil, grinning faces of those orcs that had as good as killed Alyeni with her mother and brother, right in front of the tender-aged elf I had once been. Father had come soon enough to save me, but not the others.
Leaf sighed. "No, the loss of half his family wasn't his fault. None of it is, really. But his father seems to demand his brother's worth from him as well as his own, and Wind seems unable to break free."
"Then you cannot blame him for what comes of it."
"I don't—not that there's much of anything, besides an absurd belief that should he ever marry and have children of his own he may end up like his father."
While Leaf walked on, unperturbed, I moved automatically, blinking in shock. That was what he thought of me? I was afraid of being my father? Not bloody likely, considering. Still, best he think that than worry over the truth.
After that, the conversation—when there was any at all—was restricted to much more general things. As the music began to wind up, Leaf wound his steps with mine back to Tara's flet.
"I shall find you tomorrow," he promised, before bowing his head and heading back down the path.