Legolas's breath made the hair on the back of her neck prickle. "Come with me."

"Where?"

"I'll show you. Come with me."

"I'm busy."

"I thought you wanted to learn to ride."

She sighed. "I'm coming."

Miri followed him to the stables. He put bridles on Hith and on one of the school's horses, and helped her mount. He pulled himself onto his own horse and set off at a light trot.

Miri, still very new at this, was unsure of her balance, but soon she found the rhythm. They came to a field and he asked, "Would you like to go faster?"

"I'd like to try."

Legolas nodded towards the open space. "You have room. That grass is so thick that even if you fall you won't be hurt. I'll ride beside you."

Her belly turning backflips, she began to trot the mare, then, kicking its side, urged it into a canter. It was like flying for the first fifteen yards or so, but she felt herself slipping on her horse's bare back and, clinging to the mare's neck, managed to fall off without a shred of dignity. Legolas slowed his gelding and dismounted, laughing. "Are you alright?"

"Fine," she said breathlessly. "I could tell when I was about to fall, but I couldn't fix it…"

"You'll learn." He was still grinning.

"What?"

He shook his head. "You looked funny when you fell off, that's all."

"I'm glad one of us is pleased," she muttered, still embarrassed.

"Want me to fix that?" His grin had turned wicked.

"No… No!" she shrieked as he began to tickle her. "Stop it!" she giggled. She sat down and curled up into a fetal position, but he followed her and attacked her neck and her bare feet with his talented fingers, making her twitch. "Quit it!" She tried to tickle him, but he writhed out of her reach and again assaulted her from behind, reaching around to assail her stomach.

"I give up," she said, collapsing onto him, trying to catch her breath.

He gently lifted her body and, sliding out from beneath her, lay her back down on the soft grass. "How did you get so good at that?" she panted.

He shrugged. "Not with practice, I assure you. No siblings to try it on. By the time I stopped being a snot and actually made friends-"

"You were a snot?" she asked disbelievingly.

"Yeah." He began to pull up fistfuls of grass with his fingertips. "I was a royal pain in the butt. Full of it, that sort of thing, thought the world lived to serve me. Silver was kind of intrigued and decided to bring my head back out of the exosphere and grind it into the dirt where it belongs. You can guess how thorough he was. So I shaped up and now I can't even recognize who I was then. I like myself better now. But the point I was trying to make was, by the time I actually made friends, they were too good at wrestling for me to have any chance of tickling them."

Miri stretched out on the grass, completely relaxed. "Do you want to talk about the kissing thing now?"

"What, you want some practice?"

She swatted him. "You're bad."

"Because," he continued, pretending not to have heard her, "even though I enjoyed it, I could tell that an audience wouldn't have. When you kiss onstage you have to move with me and make it a visual experience, because they aren't kissing, they're watching the kiss, and they need to enjoy it too."

"Oh," Miri said in a small voice.

"So do you want to practice?"

She looked at him directly. "Do you consider this 'practice' purely working on the play?"

Legolas grinned cheekily. "Miri, as an adolescent male I find it impossible to wrap my head around the concept of a pure kiss."

"You are bad."

"Do you want to practice or not?" he insisted.

"Yes."

"Then - well," he said, looking around, "Anyone can see us here. Do you want to cross the stream and go where we won't be seen?"

"Yes," she said, relieved. She'd been worried about the same thing.

He whistled for the two horses to return. They came, and he said, "The horses are going to want to jump the stream, and you aren't ready for that, so we'll just wade through. At this time of year, it's at most a foot deep, so you won't get that wet."

"Why can't the horses just walk through the stream, if that's the case?" she asked.

"Horses have no depth perception, so they can't tell how deep it is. For all they know, they'll drown. They typically won't want to risk it. So just stand in the middle and then ask the horse to jump. When he jumps, let go of the bridle so neither of you gets jerked around on accident and gets hurt. Then you can follow him out."

Miri did as he said, and they were soon walking through the forest, having left the horses to their devices by the stream without their bridles on. They knew the horses wouldn't go too far. They went in comfortable silence.

Suddenly he turned and kissed her. This time he wasn't gentle. He demanded entry, and Miri, too shocked (again) to respond at all, let his tongue into her mouth. To her surprise, it felt good. She tentatively kissed him back, pushing his tongue out in order to taste his lower lip. She refused from then on to involve his tongue or hers, deciding that for now that they weren't needed. She learned quickly and improvised quicker, surprising him. Finally, when he felt his control beginning to slip, he pulled away. She was out of breath, but he wasn't even breathing hard. He smiled lazily. "That was much better."

"More histrionic this time?"

"You use the most unusual words," he said, eyes twinkling.

"I'm a scholarship student, remember?" she said, slightly upset that she had to remind him.

"No, I didn't remember," he said quietly.

Angry, she said, "You know what ticks me off?" He shook his head warily. "It's that you actually meant that as a compliment."

He quickly realized two things: One, that he had meant it as a compliment, and two, that she would not quickly forgive him for it.

"Miri-"

"Forget it."

"I didn't mean it that way."

She turned and faced him. Her face was an unattractive shade of red. "Yes, you did. You think the same things they all do: She's a stupid commoner, she's not worthy, she's lucky to be here, those are the nice things they say about me, and yeah, so you think I'm worthy of being a noble, so what? You'd make a pretty sucky commoner yourself." She marched away, head held high. Just before she was out of sight, she turned and called, "You never changed, Legolas! You're still a snot after all!"

It was a low blow, and it stung. He retrieved the horses quietly and walked instead of riding back to the campus, wanting to be alone with his thoughts.