Disclaimer: Not mine. Pf-f-f.
Author's note: "Thanks" to all the readers and thousands of "thanks" to my most responsible reviewers. I don't know what I would do without you, really.
Deana: I do my best. :o) Have you checked your fanfiction mail recently? I sent you something. Plee-ease, check it…
Inwe Tasartir: Gracias por el cumplido, querida amiga (right?). I'm very flattered. :o) Actually, I'm Russian. (just don't ask me about snow and bears – I haven't seen any for ages) As for the plot bunnies – they are just flowers. Berries are soon to come. I hope… :o)
Blackrosemystic: Wow! I'm out of words. It was much unexpected and very pleasant. Thank you. :o)
Anxioustritip: :o)
Chapter six.
Denial.
I DO not love thee!—no! I do not love thee!
And yet when thou art absent I am sad;
And envy even the bright blue sky above thee,
Whose quiet stars may see thee and be glad.
"I do not love Thee"
- Caroline Elizabeth Sarah Norton
When the door behind her closed, Legolas clenched his teeth and hid his face in his hands, letting all the excruciating feelings overwhelm him. He hated his weakness. He hated his inability to conceal it from her. He hated her for what she was doing to him. Though – and he knew it very well – if he lost those painfully precious hours spent listening to her cruel cutting remarks … melting under her careful touch… - he would not be able to continue his life the way he had done all the years, when he hadn't even known she existed. When she hadn't existed at all.
There were moments, when she discarded her rough mask. She smiled – he heard it in her voice, when its hoarse note became softer, and unsuccessfully tried to imagine her face. She laughed – her laughter was a dark melody, always sneer-tinted, and still bewitching. She called him by his name – and although in most cases she meant to mock at him this way, although she almost invariably added "the Prince of Mirkwood", ruining the intimacy created by the informal address, he was eagerly waiting for the next time to hear it escape her lips.
He grew dependable upon her, not having seen her face, not knowing anything about her. It was no more a question of restoring his vision. The girl was bound to him till he got rid of the blindness. After that he would probably be forced to let her go, since she didn't show any signs of caring for him. She would be glad to set herself free from the burden of healing him.
The elf settled back in his chair and unintentionally touched the burnt on his hand, left from that injudicious attempt to cure her. She resisted his intervention in her private space too much. He realized to what extent her consent to let him get closer was dictated by his foolish blunder and even more foolish demonstration of his dismay. She pitied him. He was tearing between rejoicing over it and taking umbrage at this alms.
Still for an instance he almost believed that he had managed to break the wall around her. That his touch was not unwelcome…
You are hurting me… His nails scratched the injured hand, but even the physical pain couldn't compare with that caused by her words. Why did she repel him? Was her repugnance for him so strong that it drove her to shiver? He couldn't believe it, did not want to believe it.
Why didn't he held in his infuriation? She could have thought that he was turning her out of the house, and curse him, she would have been right.
It was his fault. With his own hands he shattered that fragile balance of reluctant trust between them, which he had been creating for two weeks. Eru knows what he will have to do to renew it, when she returns. If she returns…
That night Rexia was not graced with much sleep. She was sitting on a windowsill, staring blankly into the inky sky, and for the first time in her life had a crazy desire to talk to the full moon.
From the very beginning she knew it was a bad idea... Her self-preservation was wiser than she, it had given her countless warnings, but she ignored them. She thought the only danger for her was to spend too much of her vital strength to heal him… How could she possibly imagine that something of the kind would happen? How could she possibly let it happen? Poor stupid girl… She mocked at herself and tried to smile, but her lips betrayed her, making a sardonic grin.
Her friends – female friends - always amused her with their rapt glances, languishing sighs and dull chirping at the sight of any male elf, passing by. Yes, they were beautiful pictures, but what a mortal human girl could have to do with an immortal creature? She thought she was sage…rational… She prudently avoided such connections. Not that it was especially hard – she was brought up self-sufficient enough not to search for a man suitable to hang herself on. She had been industriously exterminating all the romantic fits from her mind – loneliness, yearning, twinges of anguish she had, when the spring stars rose over the forest and the nightingale cried out its heart in the trees near her window…
As it was doing now…
Unearthly…Alight…Elven… Was she going mad?
…shining hair, streaming in the wind, a tender touch of his hand and a ghost of a smile in the eyes,
glimmering with the purest azure…
She had to take herself in hand…
Why are you shivering?
That's enough!
Calm down, she ordered to herself. It couldn't have gone so far. To focus such keen attention on it was to dance on the blade of becoming ludicrous. It was already too much for her to be a laughing stock in her own eyes. She wouldn't bear further humiliation.
"Nothing will come of your singing," whispered Rexia to the invisible weeper, which was hiding in the thick foliage silvered by the rays of moon, "And of your shining," added she to the pallid disk in the skies, "Tomorrow I'll go there and do my job – nothing else. He is no better than the others. Neither am I."
One could say that she was practically tranquil, following the road to the house of Legolas. As she had expected, in the morning the torments of the previous night seemed almost funny. Almost…
Her heart skipped a bit when the tiled roof glimpsed between the branches, and she instantly chastised herself with a rather perceptible pinch. Hasn't she seen roofs in her life?
The pinched place gave her sensations so unpleasant, that the sight of the house itself, of the front door and even of the stairs to the first floor didn't impress her as much as the roof.
She was already going to come into the room, when she realized that the elf was not alone. She caught sounds of several voices – the one, belonging to Legolas (at which she deserved another pinch) and two of three others. Rexia was never too curious; she always held the opinion that knowing much of what she shouldn't demanded proper actions on her part – and it was something she desired less. But this time some unaccountable premonition froze her still and left unable to do anything but overhear pieces of conversation.
They spoke Sindarin – Rexia understood the most part, though she hardly ever used it herself. Thanks to Ralon, who once refused to speak any other language except the Elvish, she learnt a lot of it. Besides, the interlocutors were unusually slow in their enunciation. Their tone was that of a pent-up threat and enmity.
"…failed again?" the voice of Legolas was acid. The one, speaking to him, just poignantly chuckled. "Guilty. But…since you are unable to join us, where else can we find a warrior apt to such a task?"
Rexia was convulsed with this hit below the belt. She must have made a careless move, because the voices behind the door suddenly became quiet. Unconsciously feeling the danger, the girl stepped back and uttered a shriek of fright at her running against somebody's tall figure. Before she could do anything, iron hands grabbed her by the scruff of her neck and pushed into the room, a sharp edge of a dagger against her throat.