Disclaimer: Refer to Chapter 1

Chapter 12: Light of the Mariner

Legolas did not feel the arm slung across his chest or Moraelin's eyes upon him. His mind spun with fevered thoughts, flitting from memory to memory, like a butterfly drifting from flower to flower through the expansive green fields of his long life. It landed on one final flower, and lingered there.

Legolas, just a small child, hopped along the passages of Mirkwood's palace. It was raining outside and he was make-believing he was a rabbit. A few more hops along the gleaming marble hallway, then he stopped to sit up on his knees and peer around, his small nose twitching as he sniffed the air, as he had seen rabbits do in his mother's gardens. But, instead of a smell, it was a sound that caught his attention.

Little Legolas could hear his father's voice from the Council chamber, the king's strained frustration clear even to a child. His game forgotten, Legolas snuck to the doorway and peeked in.

"You're sure?" Thranduil asked, running a hand through his deep golden hair.

"Yes," Eregos replied, standing on the other side of the long wooden table, "Myallore confirmed it this morning."

Thranduil squeezed his eyes shut. "Eregos, how could you?"

"How can you say that to me-"

"I allowed you to bring her here, against my better judgment. You have served me well through trying times, and when I saw the happiness she brings you, I could not say no. But, a child? Eregos, don't you see the complications involved?"

"All I see, Thranduil, is the joy that Legolas has brought to you and Myallore these last few years. Why should we not be allowed that too?"

"Because she is a dwarf," Thranduil growled, "Because the child will be a dwarf."

The king drew in a deep breath. He leaned forward, bracing his arms on the tabletop and regarding his oldest friend with fierce blue eyes, "I am just now establishing tentative alliances with Imladris and Lorien. For years, they have looked down on us, as barbarous and backwards. I have finally begun to convince Elrond and Galadriel that we are serious about creating better relations with them. What will happen if word reaches them that half-dwarf children are being born here? And to Mirkwood's high captain, no less!"

"It is already done Thranduil. It cannot be undone, not even by you." Eregos replied evenly.

"You're right," Thranduil whispered, his face softening, "Please, just understand why I am upset."

Eregos lowered his eyes, quietly confessing, "I had hoped you would be happy for us. I had hoped our children could play together as we once did."

Thranduil looked away, ashamed, "I'm sorry, my friend. I am happy that you are to be a father."

But, as for the relationship his Legolas would have with this unborn child, Thranduil decided at that moment that Legolas would be kept well away from it. No child of such bizarre parentage could be normal, or be a good influence on the heir to Mirkwood's throne. Thranduil glanced up, and spotted Legolas watching them from the doorway. The boy was growing very fast, he would be tall and proud, with his mother's bright blue eyes and Thranduil's own strong chin. No, he would not allow his perfect prince to be tainted by such a creature.

Thranduil's sharp gaze faded away and again the butterfly took flight. Hesitating at a hazy image here, a half-remembered conversation there, it alighted at last on a memory that remained so vivid, Legolas fought it, not wanting to go back to that night. But, his fevered dreams were beyond his control, and like a sight so horrid he could not look away, he lived it again against his will.

A hooting owl was the only sound in the Mirkwood night, besides the gentle noise of horse's hooves over the leaf-littered path. Three weeks of patrol and Legolas was finally coming home. Their mission had stretched from days into weeks as they stumbled upon several nests of spiders and a marauding band of orcs from the hills.

As the city neared, his stomach turned, and he gripped a fistful of his mount's mane in anxiety. The horse sensed his nervousness and danced a little beneath him. Legolas took a deep steadying breath and glanced around, hoping the lieutenant beside him had not noticed. All eyes seemed trained on the bridge ahead, a last sign that home was close.

All Legolas wished to do at that moment was wrench the reins around and fly back into the darkened woods. Three weeks ago he had promised Moraelin after the Swan Feather Dance that they would speak. But, what he had to say to her both elated and terrified him. He couldn't do it, there was just no way. He squeezed his eyes closed, hearing the clattering of hooves over the stone bridge.

He opened his eyes slowly, decisively. He turned to the lieutenant, quietly ordering, "Lead them on, Berel. I have something I must attend to. Tell my father I will be there to see him shortly."

Berel nodded and Legolas wheeled his horse down a faint trail through the woods. The small home Eregos had built was at the very edge of the city, tucked in among a spattering of huge oaks.

*"Moraelin, I've known for a long time, but I was never brave enough. . ." No, too whiny.*

*"Moraelin, if I must spend another day without you as my own. . ." No, too melodramatic.*

He had had three weeks to plan out what he would say, and now that her home came into view, he had nothing! Legolas could see it now, the tall arched roof and the round window of the attic partially obscured by a screen of apple trees Kirali had planted many years past. Wisteria hung thick from an arbor over the door. The sweetness of apple blossoms had turned the air into perfume, and Legolas sucked in a breath, his nostrils flaring.

The prince dismounted, draping his reins over the porch rail. It was after midnight, she was surely asleep, but he could not wait until morning. He felt he had waited an eternity already.

Legolas studied the empty house and saw that Moraelin's window was open a crack. Legolas tucked a foot into the old trellis, climbing up to her window as he had when he was a child. He had made it halfway up the trellis when one of the slats snapped under his weight. He nearly lost his footing, but clung to the rickety wood tenaciously. He looked down at his feet, a nervous chuckle bubbling up from his chest. This had been a lot easier when he was a boy.

As he pushed open the window and leapt lightly into Moraelin's bedroom, the giddy excitement he had felt disappeared like a wisp of smoke caught up in a chill winter wind. He turned slowly, studying the room with an expression of cold foreboding. The bed was empty, still made. The only thing missing was Moraelin's cloak. Everything else was just where it should have been, and yet. . .wrong.

Legolas felt as if he was walking underwater as he approached Moraelin's nightstand. He carefully picked up her bottle of lilac oil, a dark frown filling his face. He brushed his thumb over the stopper, seeing a thin film of dust pushed aside. Looking down at the stand, a small circle of darker wood showed where the bottle had sat.

Moraelin put this perfume on every day, without fail. But, the bottle had not been touched for days. Squeezing his hand around the cool glass he called out, "Moraelin?"

The silence that followed his cry pressed in about him. He yelled her name again, but the response he received was not the one he wanted.

"Legolas?" Thranduil's deep voice echoed up the stairs. Legolas slowly set the bottle back where it belonged, sure to place it exactly within the dust ring where he had found it. He spun then, facing Thranduil as he entered the doorway.

"What has happened?" his voice shook ever so slightly.

"Moraelin is gone, Legolas."

Legolas's face twisted, "What do you mean she is gone?"

"She left here more than two weeks ago." Thranduil's voice was even, but the faintest hint of sympathy shone in his eyes.

"Why? Where did she go?"

"You should speak to Talendil about this, son. He can explain."

Legolas marched from the room without looking back. With purposeful strides, he left Moraelin's home and leapt onto his mount. Kicking the animal's sides harshly, he galloped into the city.

A grand home sat beside the palace on a slight rise from the rest of the city. The magnificence of its turrets and balconies meant nothing to Legolas as he thundered into the courtyard. He jumped from his horse, glancing up at the palace gates. His mother was there, running down the hill with her gauzy robes trailing behind her. She called his name, but Legolas ignored her, bursting into the house in blind fury.

Talendil had thought the home he was raised in too plain, too quaint for he and his mother now that he was a high-ranking commander. Legolas looked around for a moment in disgust at the ornate furniture and huge fireplace. It was all so artificial, hollow, just as Talendil had turned into a prideful creature, a shell of the kind boy Legolas had grown up with. Legolas bounded up the stairs two at a time and threw open the doors to Talendil's chamber.

"Where is she? What did you do?" Legolas bellowed.

Talendil sat up quickly, staring at Legolas for a dazed instant, "Legolas, wha-"

"Moraelin," Legolas ground out, "What has happened to her?"

"I told her to leave," Talendil replied, a chill in his voice that Legolas had never heard before.

"You what?" Legolas asked, his face a mask of pained denial.

"She does not belong here, surely you see that. She should go out and find her own people, make a new life, not keep up this charade."

"Charade?" Legolas whispered, "This is the only life she has ever known. How can you call it a charade?"

"She has no place here. This is better for everyone involved, especially her."

Legolas scowled, "This has nothing to do with what is best for her or anyone else. It is about what is best for you! It's always about you."

Talendil made to stand, a smirk crossing his lips, "It will be good for you, Legolas. It will help you get over this foolish infatuation you have with her. Honestly, Legolas, did you really think-"

Talendil's words were cut off and Legolas dove at him, rage bringing a feral glow into his eyes.

With the speed borne of years on the battlefield, Talendil pulled a dagger from beneath his pillow and held it before him.

"Get back, Legolas. You cannot beat me."

A flash of metal in the flickering lantern light and one of the knives on his back appeared in Legolas's hands.

"How dare you mock what I feel for Moraelin," he growled.

Talendil stood, his lip curling as he watched Legolas, "You really think you're in love with her, don't you? I thought you would both grow out of this, I really did."

Myallore dashed to the doorway, still holding handfuls of her skirts. Ilianel stood just inside the room, looking ready to swoon with fear at the sight of the two elf warriors staring each other down, knives drawn. Myallore shouldered past the useless she-elf with an annoyed pursing of her lips.

Legolas's chest was heaving, his eyes wild. He lunged for Talendil, but was brought up short.

Myallore stepped in front of her son, her voice breaking into the chamber, "What is wrong with you, Legolas?"

She placed her hands in the middle of his chest and shoved hard. He staggered back, shocked by her strength. He had never seen her in such a rage.

"You never draw a blade against one of your own kind. Never. This won't bring her back, Legolas."

Legolas looked down at the knife, as if seeing it for the first time. It fell from his limp hand and clattered on the floor. In the heavy quiet that followed, Legolas turned and left the chamber, his steps slow, uncertain. Thranduil was at the bottom of the stairs.

Legolas faced him, determination obvious in the firm set of his lips, his clenched jaw.
"I'm going after her," he declared.

His father was equally determined, "You will not. You have duties here."

"I'm going."

"I forbid it."

"I don't care." Legolas brushed past Thranduil and out into the night. He glanced around. It felt so cold and endlessly dark, like the entire world had dimmed around him into a great, dull void. Moraelin was somewhere in that night, alone, with nowhere to turn for help. Legolas rushed down the front steps to his horse. He was gripping the saddlehorn, ready to jump into the saddle when a voice made him pause.

"I'm sorry, Legolas," Myallore said, approaching him carefully, "If I had known, I would have stopped her. It all happened so fast, she took her father's sword from Talendil's house and just left, before anyone knew what was going on. She didn't even say good-bye to me."

Legolas stared forward with hard eyes, looking at the saddle but not really seeing it. The only reaction she saw was a tightening of his fist on the saddlehorn.

"I was going to tell her tonight," he confessed in a shockingly neutral voice, "I was going to tell her that I loved her."

Legolas swung into the saddle and galloped from the city.

Myallore dropped down onto the bottom step and wept, her face buried in her hands. Moraelin was gone, and now her only child. She feared she might never see either of them again.

Legolas rode blindly through the silent streets of his father's city to the bridge over the river. The bridge, that had only minutes earlier marked a happy homecoming, now signaled the passage into the unforgiving wilds and a hopeless quest. In two weeks, she could have gone anywhere; she could be in the Misty Mountains or south to the edges of the forest . . . or lying dead in some clearing, unburied and unmourned. As Legolas's heart twisted in his chest, he finally understood the pain of those hapless lovers immortalized in song, despair he had repeated for all his life without comprehension. Amroth, Luthien, Melian, all had experienced pain that had long baffled Legolas. How could something so wonderful as love be so destructive, bring strong beings to such depths of misery? Now, with stark, merciless clarity, he understood. Oh Eru, how he understood.

* * *

When Moraelin awoke, she looked down at herself in surprise. She was covered in sweat, and yet the night was chilly. She quickly realized the sweat was not her own. A brief moment of disgust, and then she knew: Legolas's fever had broken. She sat up slightly to find him studying her with tired blue eyes. He seemed perplexed, surely at finding Moraelin curled so close against his side, but also he seemed sad. It was an old sadness, one he seemed to have grown very comfortable with.

Moraelin shook off these musings and smiled down at him. "Thank the Valar," she whispered.

Legolas smiled back, and it brought a glow back to him, his faint blue-white light shining softly on the rough stone all around them. *Even when just stepping back from the clutches of death, he is beautiful.* Moraelin pressed her hand to the side of his clammy face, brushing her thumb along his cheek.

The smile dropped from Legolas's face as he watched her normally guarded eyes. There was a warmth in them now, a smoldering light there just for him. He wanted to kiss her, to tell her what he had tried all those years ago to say. But, he was too weak to do either. He tried to force all that emotion into his eyes, condensing it there so she could clearly see it, it would sear into her, inescapable. But, to his immense frustration, Moraelin had risen, and was busying herself with changing his bandages. The moment was broken. Afterward, she clumsily ripped two long strips from what was left of a blanket using a rather clever collaboration of right arm, knees and her teeth. When Legolas finally found the strength to speak, all that came out was, "What happened to you?"

Moraelin looked down at the warg and horse blood on her clothes and suddenly understood his alarm. "Oh, the blood? It's not mine. . . well not much of it anyway." She quieted as she knotted a sling around her neck using her teeth and hand. She then struggled to wrap another strip around the arm and across her back to keep her injured arm securely tucked against her body.

"Let me," Legolas rasped, trying to sit up.

"Did I say you could get up? Rest, highness." She ordered.

"You know I hate it when you call me that. Now, get over here."

Reluctantly, Moraelin turned her back to him and he knotted the cloth at her back. His gentle hands came to rest on her sides and he urged her to turn and face him. "Now, tell me, what in the blazes happened to you?"

"I'm so sorry Legolas," she said, sitting cross-legged beside him, "Your horse is dead. A warg attacked the horses and Embryn was killed."

"Did it come after you? How were you injured?" Legolas asked, his eyes darkened by the loss of such a loyal animal, but also with concern for Moraelin.

"No, I jumped on its back and killed it. But, I was too late to save your horse, I am sorry." She could not meet his eyes, the shame of failure bringing a slump to her shoulders.

"So, if I am understanding you correctly, you took on a warg single- handedly to try and save my *horse*? And the utter madness of jumping on the back of a hungry warg was not a consideration? At any time?"

"No," she replied meekly.

"I think it best if I remain conscious for the rest of this journey, if only to keep you from any more foolish acts of bravery." Legolas could not resist a long-suffering grin.

Moraelin's brows lifted over her dark eyes, "'Foolish acts of bravery?' I heard a rumor that you brought down a mumak all by yourself during the war. Don't talk to me about biting off more than I can chew!"

"Well, that was one of my finer moments, if I may be so bold." Legolas still lay weakly on the dusty floor, but a spark was back in his glance that Moraelin had feared she might never see again. She rolled her eyes at his pompous comment.

"But, Moraelin, I escaped with nary a scratch, and you look like half the Riders of the Mark ran over you at a full gallop."

"Thank you." Moraelin said with a sour smile. She sighed and pulled the blanket over his chest. "Sleep. I'll wake you at first light."

Legolas wished to stay up and speak with her, but was falling into a peaceful sleep before she even finished the sentence.

Moraelin dropped back, sitting a few feet away. She pressed the fist of her good hand against her lips and watched Legolas sleep. Glancing up, she could see the star Eärendil peeking through a crack between the stones. She smiled, glad to have the light of one of the greatest of the elves shining down on their humble camp, this island of safety in a cruel land that seemed determined to destroy them. For the first time in decades innumerable, Eärendil reminded her of what she was, instead of what she had failed to be. She knew the story, Eärendil was a half-elf, just like her. She felt a kinship to him now, instead of contempt. If not for Legolas's elvish blood and her own elvish healing, Legolas would be dead. The tiniest glimmer of pride at being an elf took root in her heart again, pushing back the bitterness of the past years. "Thank you," she whispered to the Mariner as his light washed over her, chasing the shadows away.