It's nice to see people are warming up to this story. Truly, I think it's one of my favorites I've ever written, though some of the really short ones in 'A Moment in Immortal Time' come closest of what I have posted. Thank you for the reviews… and I'm sorry I don't have more for you. I had papers to write over break, and the power cord on my computer broke, so I spent most of the time waiting for hp to send me the correct cord. Third time's the charm, but I spent most of my computer time on those darned papers. Anyway…

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I was heartily cursing King Thranduil's old idea of turning the normal winter celebration into a month long one at the end—or beginning, as you like—of a new century. It was the only reason most elves ever really marked the passing of the years. This year, instead of glancing through the crowds from a booth set up with displays of my work from the periphery, I was in a dress, doing my best to flitter unnoticed through the hoards of merry wood-elves as they bantered and bartered, feasted and drank, danced and sang loudly in their enjoyment of their holiday.

When would the bloody border be open? As Wind I had asked Leaf whenever I saw him, for all the good that did. I didn't see him often—as Wind, anyway. Tara had managed to arrange things so I was almost constantly with him, but as Alyeni.

It was getting bad. Really bad. I missed my leggings, but not only for the freedom of movement they allowed, or the joyous sense of familiarity. I missed the pockets more. If I only had pockets in my dress to put my hands in, I wouldn't have to constantly be on guard against Leaf. He showed an odd persistence in attempting to touch me.

"What's put the frown on your face this time?" Tara asked with a sigh.

I sent her a small, wicked smile. She was beginning to wear down, growing weary of arguing with me every day about whether I would appear as Alyeni or Tyran. "Leaf."

"What about him?"

"He keeps trying to touch me."

She rolled her eyes. "And that's a bad thing?"

"Tara!"

She sighed and shook her head at me. "He's quite a fine specimen of elf, you know. I rather expect you noticed." She smiled at my attempt to look nonchalant. "Yes, I thought so. And he's interested in you as well, or he wouldn't be coming around as often as he does. What's the problem?"

"Tara, if he finds out—"

"He'll no doubt be stunned, and angry, at least at first. But after that, you could have a chance—"

"Be realistic, Tara. At best he'll avoid me for a few centuries."

She glared at me for a while, then frowned and looked away. "Well, the border will be open soon enough—your father will come back, and then, of course, you won't have to worry. He'll never allow even a hint of you anymore."

With a sigh I ran a hand through my hair. "Tara."

"But until then, you may as well make the best of it."

"The best of it? And do what?" Fall in love with my best friend? Hardly a good idea, when I would have to go from being his partner in dances and walks to his old friend without a breath.

"Let him touch you. Enjoy it. Store up memories for the centuries approaching when you will be forced to remain your father's son."

My jaw clenched, first at her suggestion, then a surprising sense of loss when I thought of never being Alyeni again. Oh, Valar. I was starting to enjoy Leaf as a she-elf, the small part of me that had always been female, no matter how buried, not wanting to let him go so simply. But I shook my head and the sense came rushing back. "If he touches me, Tara, he'll know something's odd."

"What on Middle-Earth do you mean?"

I sighed and shook my head. "You knew enough to keep me fitted with long-sleeved dresses. Why?"

"Because you've scarred your arms at work. They haven't all faded, and I thought they would cause some questions."

"And what of my hands, then? Unlike my arms, they are only rarely protected." My hands were probably rougher than any guard's, especially considering that in addition to my work—which required a certain deftness with weapons, I also did all of my cleaning, hunted for meat, and cooked when I had the supplies and time. I had never been very gentle with my hands. Mother used to laugh when I pouted about not being able to copy her stitch work, saying the patience and care would come in time.

"No she-elf who keeps a flet has the smooth hands of a lady. He would not expect it of you."

"Nor would he expect the scars and burns."

"Cleaning—especially of meat—can cause scars through clumsiness or misstep. Burns from the cooking fires."

"Calluses?"

"Scrubbing. Mending. Gathering, planting. Take your pick."

"Rough palms?"

"Stop nitpicking. Even if he notices, he won't ask."

My frown was pointless… because I knew she was right. Leaf wouldn't ask, though he would certainly notice. Just as I had noticed the rough places on his hands from handling weapons, the calluses on his first two fingers on his right hand from hours upon hours with his favorite of all—his bow. Still, how could I let him any closer?

"Alyeni? Tara?"

I closed my eyes and bowed my head, uncertainty battling a bit longer than I had hoped it would as Leaf entered.

"Alye?" he asked softly, coming around me, one hand sliding under my chin to lift it. "What's wrong?"

I blinked at him. "What'd you call me?"

He frowned for an instant before it hit him. "Oh. Alye."

"Where did you hear that?" I asked, turning to glare at Tara, one brow lifting as she pretended not to notice, going about washing her dishes without looking up.

He tilted his head, following my gaze. "Do you not like the nickname?"

"Don't change the subject."

He smiled and shook his head, one finger running down to my throat and back. "I was not gossiping about you… to Tara."

"To Tara?" I asked, extremely uncomfortable with the thought of him speaking about me with anyone who wasn't… me.

"I've told Wind a bit about you, of course."

"Only Wind?"

"Well, my father wished to know where—and with whom—I was spending so much of the festival."

"And I suppose you plan to drag me to meet him?"

"No," he shook his head slightly. "He enjoys the festival enough without enduring my presence—we manage that enough through the year."

"I didn't realize you didn't get along with your father," I murmured quietly, frowning. Were my troubles with my own father so great I hadn't noticed his?

"Oh, we get along fine," he murmured with a small smile. "But we both sort of joke about it—it seems we're the only ones who can stand each other… though I have Wind and Joy… and you," he finished quietly, his hand sliding down my arm to take my hand in his.

"No one else?" I asked quietly, finding it hard to believe I could play such a role for such an elf. With a frown, I admitted—at least to myself—that he was much the same for me… though I had more of a problem with it than he did… and that only because I was trying not to mix two people up. At least with Joy I didn't have to worry about it. Already he had covered one slip up of mine, and so beautifully Leaf hadn't noticed.

He shook his head with a slight shrug and a faint smile. "All I need," he offered quietly, misinterpreting my lowered eyes. He took my other hand and tugged lightly, walking backwards, drawing me along. "Good bye, Tara."

"Night, Leaf." Tara looked up just long enough to send me a knowing look before she went back to her chores.

I rolled my eyes to the stars but followed Leaf down the ladder to the ground. "And what's tonight to be?"

He laughed softly, looking up at the canopy of leaves above us, his hands clasped lightly behind his back. Though he played the part with boyish earnestness, he was no innocent. The devilish smile he sent my way was enough proof of that. "Whatever we make of it?" he asked softly, the tone indicating he knew I would reject the suggestion.

"Leaf," I sighed.

His soft chuckle echoed the nearest trees, his hands sliding apart, one slipping over to attempt to take mine. He glanced at me in surprise when I neither dodged him nor pulled away. A small smile tilted his lips, pleasure in his gentle gaze as he threaded his fingers through mine, his thumb arching under the material of my sleeve, pausing over the pulse in my wrist for a moment before moving again. "The garden is always open," he offered quietly, "or we could dance for a while… or even wander the halls." Some sound caught his ear, turning his head sharply to the wood. His eyes narrowed for a fraction of an instant, before he offered me a slight smile even as he shifted me to his other side so smoothly I wouldn't have thought about it… except that it was closer to the halls, the village, and farther from the sound. It also made it easier for him to reach the dagger at his waist, if needed. "Or there is the library, or even the music room, if the others no longer hold your interest."

"Smooth," I murmured, "but what did you hear?" I had heard only the faintest of noises… and it didn't register as something to fear.

"Probably nothing," he murmured after glancing at me in surprise, a faint smile tilting his lips. "But all the same, would you protest walking in silence until we are closer?"

"Not at all," I answered, thinking less talk would be a good thing… for a few steps. Then my ears sharpened to hear the slight hint of ground crushed beneath our feet, the swish of my skirts, the slight sound of his dagger's sheath rubbing his leather belt, and everything. Every one of his breaths, every heartbeat. "Leaf?" I whispered softly, somehow unable to completely break the spell.

"Hmm?" he murmured back.

I closed my eyes, hearing his heart had sped up when I spoke. "Perhaps we should hurry to the halls?"

"Hurry?" he asked indolently. "Why would we wish to do that?"

"Because I would rather not worry," I retorted a bit more sharply than was necessary. "And as you seem determined to put on a carefree front when you've clearly been put on alert, you may as well follow and continue being absurdly overprotective—but I'm not staying here for no good reason!" With that I took off, racing with all speed from the forest… from the elf doing his best to keep up with me. Feeling him come closer, I gave another burst of speed, making up for the slowing affect of layered skirts.

When I had to slow or risk running into someone entering or exiting the gates, a pair of arms wrapped me from behind, drawing me to the shadowed side. "Alye," Leaf breathed heavily into my ear, collapsing against the mountain, "you could at least have the decency to appear winded."

I turned in his arms and studied him, watched as his breathing slowed. "We didn't run that far," I protested when he was almost back to normal.

He laughed for an instant, before his need for air cut it off. "Dear elf," he murmured, "I have only known two elves before you who could begin that run without breathing hard." His grin was lopsided, full of warmth as one hand lifted from my waist to settle in my hair. "But if you want the truth," he murmured, "I'm not surprised." He pulled me closer, settling me between his thighs as he leaned against the cool stone. "You're so different in every other way, what's one more?"

"How about several more?"

His hand slipped from my hair down my back. "I like surprises," he insisted quietly, drawing me even closer.

"Not all of them, no doubt."

He thought about that for a moment. "True enough," he agreed, "but I like all good ones… and even those that aren't so nice help keep life interesting."

"You find life uninteresting?" I asked dryly.

He smiled crookedly. "Not recently."

"Before?"

"Before it was rather mundane. Get up, bathe, get dressed, see what father wishes me to do, do it, dine with the stuffy aristocrats, dance with the hall ladies, be reasonably courteous to them, and then escape to bed once more. Forever the same loop, with very few moments of relief."

"Except for Wind?"

He shook his head. "Until Wind. Since we ran across each other I've had someone I could talk to…"

"Do you?"

He shrugged.

"Uh-huh."

"What?"

"Meaning you're a guy, and guys don't talk about things."

He smiled, somewhat sheepishly, and half shrugged. "I suppose we don't, really. But there's no real need to. Just knowing that if I need him, he'll be there is more than enough."

"What of when he goes west? Will you go along?"

Leaf frowned, then tilted his head down in thought.

As anyone walking past would see us already rather… close… the position was a bit too intimate for me, as it appeared to anyone who didn't know he was deep in thought that he was gazing down my bodice in fascination. "Come on," I murmured, brushing some hair back from his brow, garnering the surprised glance I'd expected. "We're outside a century festival, a winter festival, and I've gotten you thinking of the painful future. Let us forget it in the music."

His eyes were faintly shadowed and entirely unguarded. His gaze dropped to my lips, and a quiver shot through my stomach as a battle took place within me, knowing what was almost definitely coming. Part of me wanted to draw back—and started to do so—while another part wanted to stay where I was. He caught me before I was free and pulled me forward, his lips pressing against mine as his arms held me solidly.

The battle fell to a stuttering halt, the arguments stilled in the shocked instant in which I was too stunned to know anything other than I was being kissed. Then I found that though thoughts had apparently failed me, feeling existed… and I was rather enjoying this, the quiver turning into a curling frisson of pleasure low in my belly. All the reasons I shouldn't—couldn't—came back as he ended the kiss. He tucked me against him, tilting my head under his chin, urging my head to his shoulder with a gentle strength.

He spoke while I was still trying to figure out how to get away gracefully, without merely running screaming from his arms as a large part of me wished… while a much smaller part enjoyed being held, and wanted to burrow into his arms forever, knowing I wasn't imagining there being so much more in an instant of his kiss than in Joy's entire touch from two weeks before. "Alye," he whispered intently, the hand not at my waist stroking through my hair. "Alye, please don't regret this."

"How can I not?" I asked, still trying to convince my limbs to move away.

"You can remind yourself it was bound to happen," he offered, his tone quietly helpful.

"If it was, I should have avoided you to avoid it."

He groaned softly. "Why? Why are you so against this? Against me?"

It was my turn to groan. "I'm not against you," I protested, finally drawing back enough I saw his shadowed eyes. "I just… I can't do this. With anyone. Ever."

With a dull thud his head rested against the side of the mountain. "What is it with elves I know believing they could never find love?"

"Love?" I asked a bit sharply, pulling entirely away. "I know little of such, and nothing that would assist me through this world. Once the borders are open, Leaf, you will never see me again."

For a long moment he gazed at me, as if testing if I really meant what I said. "You mean it," he stated at last, shifting into a more lazed position against the cliff face, the bright wary watchfulness of his eyes anything but relaxed. "And yet you do care about me—don't wish me hurt. Why then, would you leave?" he asked softly, as if asking the stars instead of someone who could answer.

"So that you aren't hurt," I sighed, shaking my head. "Leaf, should you find out why I pull back, you would understand… even as anything you ever felt towards me turned to hate."

"I could never hate you," he protested, pushing away from the mountain. When he began to reach for me, I backed up.

"I'm leaving when the borders open," I insisted, warning us both to guard ourselves against the other.

"Then I shall have to see that they are never opened," he declared at last, a lightning move I didn't see coming folding me in his embrace once again. "Because I shan't lose you."

"I don't want to lose you," I sighed softly. "So I must go."

Confusion filled his face and darkened his eyes. "Alyeni, that doesn't make any sense."

"It does from where I'm standing, I'm afraid." I pulled away, holding out a shaking hand when he moved forward again. "Please don't."

"How can I not?" he asked, his voice a deep, tortured rumble. "How can you expect me to just let you walk away?"

"I don't expect that," I countered, already turning. "I intend to run."

I did.

I don't know if he followed me, or if he knew it a hopeless endeavor, but I knew as I slowed to a trot near Tara's flet that he wasn't close. I changed quickly, avoiding her eyes and her questions about why I was back early, and then ran to my flet, up the ladder and just stopped, wondering what I could do now… anything to avoid thinking for a while.

A quick glance around my flet provided nothing but some water to slack my sudden thirst—and a hiding place for the pendant I'd forgotten to leave behind. I ripped it from my neck and let it sink to the bottom of the barrel. Then I nodded my head quickly.  There was nothing else to do now, but run.

So I went down the ladder after adding a sword, bow and a quiver to my dagger. I took off, letting the wind rushing past my ears numb the thoughts that surrounded me, concentrating only on the beat of my heart and the blessed silence of the wood.

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