Okay, early updates all around because I'm sick of distracting myself in other ways from my reading assignments. At least this way I get positive feedback rather than wondering if the chipmonks are going to attack...

Ahem.

Animir: Can't say that I have. Headaches, once in a while, but that's it...

LilAznElfLuver: Now, hold your horses! But you're right... : )

sarah: Oh, wow. I really needed that laugh... I can't picture the commercial exactly, but the image was just too funny anyway. Got me several discreetly amused looks from others wondering what was so funny. It's probably a good thing no one asked.

Lady Anck-su-namun: I think I know what you were meaning... and from one point of view, it's cool that we're out there... but it gets lonely in the void, and people give you strange looks.

LJP: nope, he's not mad, and just glad to have her with him again.

freakishworm: Well, welcome to the story. Glad you like the ironic twists.

Feanin: Well, thank you for the incredible review... just one thing. Is it a good or bad thing you didn't link me with Not A Word?

Chapter 43

"Legolas, where are we going?"

"I told you I wasn't going to say—so stop asking!"

I smiled. His scold was gentle and good natured—I could hear his smile in the tones, though I couldn't see it, thanks to the cloth covering my eyes. "Blinding me has become your hobby."

"One I enjoy," he teased, pressing a swift kiss to the back of one of the hands he was using to pull me along. "Lost yet?"

"Two lefts and then a right to the cavern?" The particular cavern I meant being the bathing and swimming room I had often used during my first stay in the halls.

A sigh confirmed what had been mostly a guess, though I was getting much better at keeping myself found… or rather, not getting lost. "This goal of yours to always know where you are makes it much harder for me to surprise you."

I laughed softly. "You having free time is surprise enough."

"Hmm. Though I still haven't gotten you back for not telling me Father moved you into the halls."

I rolled my eyes, for all the good it did. Legolas chuckled anyway, perhaps guessing from my expression. "I hadn't accepted the rooms at the time, and there were other things on my mind."

"Like smitten humans?"

"Smitten?" I sighed in exasperation. "Legolas, really! Eomer and I were friends learning from each other about the unknown kind."

The blindfold was drawn down, showing he was shaking his head. "He was fascinated by your race—"

"My race?"

"—but," he pointedly continued, "he was enthralled by you."

"Considering my background, don't you think I would have noticed that?"

"He is human."

"And my friend. Did you never consider he might have been trying to make you jealous?"

"I'd wondered if you'd noticed that." He closed my mouth by hooking a knuckle under my jaw. He smiled crookedly, his eyes brighter than usual. "I knew he was, but I also knew the looks he focused on you weren't solely for my benefit. Were you human, he would have courted you in earnest."

"If I were human?"

He smiled gently. "His awe notwithstanding, he is a fairly intelligent being. Aragorn—raised by elves as one of them and with some measure of elven blood is one thing, but an average human cannot hope to hold an elf, especially in these days. We are too different."

"They are children."

"Yes," he agreed wryly, "he no doubt found reminders of your age rather off-putting." I started to speak, but he pressed two long fingers against my lips. "We're here."

I blinked. I was looking at a bare cave wall. Well, alright. There was a torch. With a sigh and a roll of his eyes—a very unprincely thing to do—I'd been a good influence—he turned me around.

I swallowed hard when I saw what it was, but couldn't trust my eyes. "Legolas?"

"You always seemed to love it so much," he murmured quietly beside my ear.

I blinked a few times, moving hesitantly from item to item, picking up some familiar things. "Tara—"

"Supplied me with what you had left with her… much of the rest was lost."

I nodded. My flet had been one of many destroyed by the fires. Had it not been, someone else could likely have claimed it, since it had been empty for a few years. I hadn't known until we finally got back from Gondor.

As we rode into the forest, Legolas had grown silent, seeing the damage. I looked up at the carcass of the tree that had held my humble home, and then rode on, wanting to get back to the part of the forest that still sung with gentle life.

It was still my home, this forest, even if I now lived in the mountain. "How did you know where everything goes?"

"I consulted a few smiths." He shrugged it off as if it was no big deal, when in truth he could no longer go almost anywhere without being known unless his features were masked, unlike before the quest when he had at least chance of going unnoticed, nearly any time as long as he wasn't dressed or decorated to match his title.

I smiled, shaking my head as my fingers found the sketchbook with many of my old designs. "All of this," I murmured, "but no customers."

"Don't be so sure. You're well known, now. 'The female smith who saved the King'. They'll come to see you, and the guards will recognize you. Many things were lost, or destroyed, and still need replacing." He smiled softly. "And you can make anything you want—even jewelry."

I managed a smile at the tease.