A/N: I managed to demolish the huge block on my desk. Ideas for the story are pouring out in return, and, hopefully, I will be able to spit out chapters faster (providing I can find enough time to get them down!). I'll alternate between Legolas' and Mel's POV for the upcoming chapters. I found a map of Middle Earth with some distances written down – and according to that one, it takes about two weeks to go from Mirkwood to Gondor on horseback, so I've estimated two months for a person on foot if going straight from one place to another. However, Mel's probably found something interesting to explore, and thus the amount of time that has passed.

Chapter 15: Preparations

The plans had been made, drawn and put into action. Legolas was proud to receive the latest report from the constructors at Ithilien, telling that enough talans had been constructed to support a tiny community and everything was set for the first group of elves to move in – aside from those first constructors, of course. The Mirkwood prince searched through the mountains of papers stacked on his desk and removed a single, long list containing the names of those who had agreed to move to this new colony, and who he had deemed to be the best suited for the first wave. Mostly consisting of carpenters and hunters, their job would be to continue the massive work on the colony and fill their supplies in preparation for the next group of arrivals.

Looking up from the list, a smile crossed the young elf's face as he took in the sight of a large chest on his floor. He would be among the first to move into the new colony, so that he would be able to oversee its completion himself. His father had proven a great help to him, giving advice and suggestions whenever it was needed, but had, slowly and steadily, left more and more to Legolas self until the point where the younger elf could handle it all on his own.

Everything had been in the works for a long time, with many elves travelling back and forth between the colony and their temporary residences within Minas Tirith during the primary construction of the colony, and, Legolas knew, the first few had taken up residence in the few fully completed talans.

A smile of remembrance crossed Legolas' face as he recalled the many long spend on discussions, more than once going on until the early morning hours, as a decision had to be made as to how to build the colony. If they should settle on underground dwellings like the Mirkwood palace, on homes on the ground, or if they should go with talans like those that had been in Lóthloríen before Galadriel and Celeborn had sailed across the sea. It had taken weeks before they had finally settled on the talans, having had too many arguments against the first and second idea. Aside from the caverns below Helm's deep, the ground was not suited for digging habitats, and homes on the ground was not considered safe so far from regular elven territory. So, talan it had been.

Pausing, holding the list of names in the air, the elf's eyes drifted to the window where the trees could be seen, their leaves slowly turning to the orange shade of autumn, and a few had already begun to shred their once dense foliage. With a little luck, the first elves would have arrived at the beginning of winter.

Unbidden, his mind turned to Minas Tirith, and his smile faltered lightly as he recalled Mel. Even though he had only known the dark elf for a month, he had found a closer friend than in even Aragorn. Some form of deep understanding, a harmony of fëa that showed whenever they had talked. Perhaps that was why Legolas had felt the way he did… That his mind had twisted a very deep friendship and a brotherly type of comradeship and dual-sided care into a feeling it recognized as love, while it was, in truth, nothing more than a very deep bond of friendship.

Frowning, it suddenly struck Legolas that the feeling, perhaps, had been one-sided. Despite their many conversations, despite all the things he had told, Mel had ever, truly, revealed anything about his family. He had told his clan had been white-haired and fair of skin, and that his father had been some form of wizard and black-skinned. But it ended there, it struck the Mirkwood elf. He had never been told if Mel had any siblings. He had heard nothing about Mel's mother, his family and friends, or even most of his travels. All he appeared to have recounted throughout the month had mostly been from the time when he crossed though Harad and onwards until the time he entered Mirkwood…

Shaking his head lightly, he turned his attention back at the paper in his hand. Nearly two seasons had passed since Mel had left Mirkwood. Or Greenwood, as they had started to call it once more, as the final spiders and orcs had been driven from the forest, and the sunlight had begun to finally shine upon every area of the forest, banishing the gloomy light that had changed Greenwood the Great's name to the, at the time when it had appeared first, more fitting Mirkwood.

That this last of the elven Kingdoms would return to its old self was one of the greater proofs that Sauron's evil had come to an end once and for all.

"Maybe new times are arriving for all of us," Legolas said to himself with a smile and turned his attention back to matters at hand.