Nallina's eyes widened in shock and pleasure. "Lord Legolas!" she cried, "And Gimli," she laughed, wading out to meet the small craft. "It's about time," she informed them. "Your parents will wish to see you at once."

"Of course," Legolas agreed. He was slightly revived, the sweetness of the air and the dizzying green around him combining to force some light back into the empty shell he had become. "Do you wish to come with me, Gimli, or seek out the lady?"

"I think you'll be all right from here, and family reunions should be merely that."

Legolas almost smiled and followed Nallina. Gimli was waved off down a separate path before long, but the two elves continued on. With every step life tried to flow into him, but he was not ready to allow it.

Above and around them elven dwellings boasted colorful happiness, songs on the air. Felts, talans, and open aired homes like those of Imladris were scattered along the road. Many stopped them and welcomed Legolas back home, but there were many he had never seen, who certainly were not wood-elves. Were these elves that had never stopped in Middle-Earth? Gone west ages before? He had never considered there could be so many elves.

"It is beautiful, isn't it?" Nallina asked softly.

Legolas nodded in awe and turned his head as he heard something. A small river flowed nearby. Without asking he diverted his path to find it. A gentle brook greeted him, and accepted his weary feet after he removed his boots.

Soft musical laughter flowed around him, and he felt peace stir within him for the first time since the sun had set on Lunian's life. He looked down at her worry stone, followed the silver lines with his finger.

A small child ran into the clearing, laughing joyously, her blond hair shimmering on the slight breeze. "I win!" she called back to someone a ways behind, seeming oblivious of the tears in her leggings or the mud on her bare feet. Then she turned to him, and tilted her head in inquisitive study. He took in her slightly square jaw, her green flecked silvery blue eyes, and blinked. She grinned at him. "Hi. My name's Lunian."

He couldn't breathe. "Lunian?" he rasped.

"Yep," she agreed, walking over to him. She looked at his hand. "Whatcha got?"

He numbly opened his fist.

She picked up the stone before he could think to stop her, sure someone was playing a dangerously cruel joke. Her squeal of delight stopped him from reacting. "My worry stone!" she exclaimed. "Do you remember, Father?" she asked over her shoulder without looking away from the stone she turned in her small fist. Tiny fingers brushed her light blond hair behind a delicately pointed ear. "You were trying to teach me how to swim, and told me you had dropped it at the bottom of the pool so I would go down and get it." She laughed delightedly. "When I figured out you had tricked me, I stormed off and spent the day pouting in my room. Then Arwen came in," her eyes darkened slightly in sadness unbefitting a child so young, "and told me it was a good worry stone." She brightened as if the sun had come out from behind a cloud. "She was right."

Looking over her shoulder, Legolas blinked to see Elrohir leaning against one of the white trees with his arms crossed over his chest, watching the child with amused affection. "I remember, little one," he agreed softly.

The little Lunian before him turned back, smiling with blinding happiness. "Thanks for keeping it for me," she chirped. Then she moved forward, taking his face between her small hands. She inched up on her tiptoes and turned his head down, touching her lips to his in a little girl kiss that anyone watching would view with tenderness and a bit of humor, since though the action was seen as somewhat inappropriate since it was such an intimate touch, it was seen as perfectly innocent because of her youth.

He knew better. For an instant, a flicker of the Lunian he had known was in her eyes, in the small, secretive smile she gave him as her fingers slid slightly closer to his ears before she dropped her tiny hands and turned, running to Elrohir, showing him the stone.

"I see, little one. Your mother will be anxious," he murmured, sending her off.

"Okay," she heaved an exaggerated sigh and ran off, her blond hair streaming behind her. "Bye, Egola!" she called just before he lost complete track of her running steps.

With a blink he fell from his perched position to the ground.

Elrohir laughed and sat beside him, grinning still when Legolas buried his face in his hands with a groan. "It's about time you came, Egola," he teased. "Lenaith and I were beginning to worry you had forgotten Lunian was blameless in her mortality."

"Lenaith?" Legolas breathed.

Elrohir chuckled delightedly. "She was here when I passed, my friend. Not many years went by before her father agreed that with her memories of her previous life she was old enough for us to wed. It was not long before the elves of Fangorn traveled here."

"And. Lunian?" he asked, his voice still scratchy, remembering all too well that he and Gimli had laid her lifeless body in a dark hole next to the bones of another female.

"Was born a few years later. You stayed in indecisiveness for a long while."

"Only to mortals." Legolas shook the comment aside.

Elrohir shrugged, accepting the inevitable argument that elves could always make when it came to matters of time. Then he grew pensive, slowly turning to face his friend. "She is an elf now, Legolas. While she does have many memories of her past life even as we speak, she may never recall them all, since she was human then."

Legolas truly smiled for the first time since she had died. "Elrohir, I am in no hurry." He could let her have her elven childhood. The time would seem extremely short compared to the torturous existence he had been enduring.

With a nod, Elrohir smiled faintly. "That's good. Her mother was entirely denied watching her grow, and I had under thirty years. We are in no hurry to give her to you just yet."

A slow smile built in his eyes before turning his lips. "Elrohir, she is already mine. While I will let her have her childhood, that will not change. You cannot keep me from visiting."

"I would not. She has looked to the east since she was old enough to do so on her own." For him.

Legolas closed his eyes and tilted his head back, welcoming the warmth of the sun. He rested against the rock and let the life and joy around him seep back into his being, strengthening his will now that he had more than hope. He had certainty.

If she had been reborn without her memories, he would have had to wait for her to turn to him in love all over again, hoping she did so, not put off by his age. With her memories of her life before, with him, he merely had to wait for her to feel she was ready to leave her mother and true father's house.

He wouldn't need a worry stone for that, and he knew Elrohir and Lenaith would make sure she didn't need one, either.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~