Hey guys, sorry about that! I thought I had to wait until my computer ended up in the same half of the country I'm in... but I'd apparently left a chapter uploaded from the last update... (ducks)

I probably wouldn't have noticed if I didn't plan to upload a little one-shot that bit me earlier this week, and won't sit still until it's bagered me into throwing it up for general consumption... It'll be up by the time anyone reads this, most likely.

Review Response: There may not be many people reading this, but at least they review nicely! Thanks, guys. This is another experiment that has apparently failed... I like it, though.

Iluvenis: From the stand-point of a writer who's trying to keep the audience guessing, I'm happy to report that you're not entirely correct... though you're rather close, sadly enough ;-)

The Luckiest: Sorry, I was hoping to update sooner... clearly if my head was attached I would have. I'll have to find it someday, maybe then I'd spell better...

Swasti: I thought so, too...

LJP: I love the thought of 'rubbing out' his girlfriend. Sounds very mobish. (Cue cheesy narrator) And the mob of fangirl's is closing in, surrounding the little tart who dared attempt to capture their 'Leggie' before the main character had a chance to flip her hair that one final time to capture his heart-- oh! Ladies! Retract those claws! And someone, return the poor thing's wig! Really, pulling her ear-tips off is a bit much!(clears throat). Ahem. Well... I'm clearly in a goofy mood. And I very clearly wrote the below in a very different mood. Glad to be online.

Chapter 13 Somewhat macabre

The sun passed overhead, beginning to sink into the west. The trees welcomed it, banished it, only the weakest, indirect rays managing to struggle down to the cleft in the rock. From that cleft, reflected from sheets of carefully designed metals artfully and strategically placed, it bled into the little garden, as it had done for countless years.

Other gardens captured the last rays of the sun more cheerfully, and certainly without the crimson tinge that reminded those who had been in battle of the times their skills had been for naught, and dearly loved friends had never returned.

Very few knew of the garden at all, and those who had seen it viewed it as somewhat macabre, with the dirty, almost brown light that managed to filter down even at high noon, the far from lush and thriving plants that were so adored in other gardens, and that bleeding terror of sunset.

It had its own beauty, he supposed. In the darkness grew plants unseen in other gardens, in other lands. A few flowers bloomed here that could not survive elsewhere—she had once tried to grow one, thinking the dark colors a nice contrast to the bright white. Her reasoning was it would make the white seem brighter.

For the few days it lived, it had.

But then it shriveled up, and she had given up on it, not caring much for the plain, near-black bloom, anyway.

She had enjoyed that moment of crimson, as well, it having been one of her preferred colors to wear. She would bask in the glow, not knowing how garishly it painted her. He hadn't either, at the time.

Legolas no doubt had, which would explain why he had usually put them off if he was asked to join them. That, or he simply hadn't cared to spend time with his little brother and his best friend.

Looking back, he thought her young, perhaps a bit foolish and childish. After a moment, he always remembered it was right for her to have been so. She was a child. Well, practically. She hadn't even been twelve hundred when she disappeared. Though elves were considered adult at a thousand, her life had been sheltered enough since she was just a hundred years old that she, like him, had failed to mature at the same rate as those elves who grew up in harder circumstances.

It worried him, really, when he thought about it. She had been so young, so innocent. And one day he had awakened, her pendant clutched in his hand, the chain tied about his wrist. It wasn't really a goodbye, but it had sent the blood pounding through him, made him run from his room without bothering to pull on any more clothing than he had fallen asleep wearing.

Since her room had been the one beside Verine's, which was across from Legolas's, he had raced through his elder brother's room, only vaguely aware that Legolas had been sitting in something of a huddle on the edge of his bed.

He could faintly recall Legolas calling after him, and he knew he had been followed, because when he tried to open her door, shaking as he withdrew the key she'd had made for him years past, sliding it into the lock which gave way to reveal a room empty of its occupant, a set of arms wrapped his shoulders.

He had broken away, gone to the wardrobe, found most of her things were there. "Legolas…"

But his brother wouldn't let him hold onto that sliver of hope. "She's taken her leggings, El. And her father's sword."

He had turned, seeing only then that the ancient sword that had hung over her door since the day it had passed to her was gone from its place of honor, no longer guarding over her sleep.

"She's gone."

He had probably cried, but he didn't remember it. He had probably argued with Legolas's heart-crushing statement, but he didn't remember that, either. He remembered the pain, the confusion, the wish to deny it all… but she loved that sword. She had left it there to keep her father close to her. She would have taken it down only if she wasn't planning to come back.

His only real friend who wasn't also a sibling wasn't coming back.

Even after more than thirteen hundred years, that truth hurt. Just as much as her lack of goodbye.

He closed his eyes on a sigh and tried not to think of her. Morsallien was quite right—as soon as you tried not to think of something, you thought only of it. Her case in point was to tell him not to think of Legolas in a dress.

Eventually, though, the memories were left well behind. After all, he'd spent more time without her than he had with her. Those years had been adult ones, as losing her had forced him to grow up rather more quickly than he might otherwise have done.

When he opened his eyes, the garden's lighting had changed very subtly, the softest silver sheen painting the dark leaves. It gave the entire place a rather unreal feel, as if he was wandering through forgotten realms that had managed to converge with his own for a moment.

In the silvery light he found he wasn't alone in the garden, which was quite unusual. In the centuries he had been coming here alone to remember Rin, he had only seven times before encountered someone else. Once it had been a servant sent for him, and told to check the garden. Five times it had been one of his siblings, seeking to draw him from his thoughts when he had spent too much time lost within them. The other two times it was Ashes who had appeared unnoticed.

She was leaning against one of the trees which had managed to grow up to be fairly sturdy, once upon a time, but it had long since given up the fight for light and nutrients, reduced to a crumbled shell, its broad leaves nearly forgotten by its spindly and broken branches. The light washed her hair, giving it streaks of pale distinction, casting indistinguishable shadows where it was hindered by the braids that gathered her hair from her face. Her features were cut harshly, the shadows being cruel to her, making her a stone figure of solemn strength borne with too heavy a price, caught for a moment of weakness in repose.

Only she wasn't asleep. Her eyes were closed, her head tilted just slightly back to bask in the light, as if it were true starlight instead of a mangled, adulterated version forced deep within the mountain.

"What happened to you in Imladris?" he asked.

Her eyes snapped sharply open, her body tensing, drawn fully upright so any moment's weakness was covered at once. She blinked at him, slowly getting over the shock of his presence to realize not only that he had asked a question, but what it was. She released a breath and leaned back against the tree, her bowed head casting her face in utter darkness, making it impossible to tell her feelings, as her voice was completely void of emotion. "I finally broke down to weep for one I lost long ago," she finally admitted.

"You haven't laughed, haven't smiled, since you and Legolas returned."

"No," she agreed faintly.

"Why?"

She tossed her head back, the light cutting her face into defined planes of silver and darkness. There—a smile. A faint, bitter twist of the lips that shouldn't really be counted as a smile at all. "Because I know, now, that what I tried to convince myself for countless seasons was false is really true." She tilted her head to the side, resting it against the smooth wood, her hair trickling down over her shoulders. "I have no hope for happiness. Not true happiness, at any rate. Being here makes it all too clear that I never did have such hope, though I deluded myself into believing it was possible."

"There is always hope," he murmured.

She smiled again, and he found himself wondering how she could pack so much scorn into such a muted gesture. "There is not," she countered. "Unless, of course, you count the hope of peace while in the halls of Mandos." She closed her eyes, returning for a moment to a tragic figure carved of marble. "I don't, because I know there is no peace even there, for me."

"Why should you be so different from everyone else?"

She shook her head and stood up straight, pushing away from the trees. "Because I was a fool, and even the Valar themselves cannot undo the past."

"What, you were embarrassed once?"

A soft snort, a disdainful look, and she was walking, deep into the garden with sure, unwavering steps. "Embarrassment is nothing more than a part of every life. Achingly familiar to most, shameful to some. I've been embarrassed many times, especially when thinking on the one I left behind."

"You left a lover?"

She glanced sharply at him, then reached out to touch a small plant clinging tenaciously to the rocks in the silver darkness. The bloom was opened beneath her touch, the petals such a dark violet they appeared black until the center was struck by light, glowing silver, arching out in pale lavender veins. "Yes," she admitted at last. "A lover. Friends. The closest I had to family, and can ever hope to have."

"You're embarrassed that you left? So why did it take you so long to come back?"

"I left because I had no other choice. I could not remain here, not as things were. Even now, when I alone know the truth, I find it hard to remain." She lightly traced the petals as she spoke, before moving abruptly away.

"But you will stay," he murmured, and though in truth a question, it came out more as a command… to his surprise.

She lifted a brow and gazed about the garden. "Why do you come here? It is a garden quite fitting to me—thriving in the dark, withering in the light. I tried too hard to become part of the bright light of day, I who wasaccustomed for centuries to traveling at night."

"My only true friend used to love this garden."

"The one who left you?" she asked softly. "I suggest you forget her. It is unlikely she is coming back."

"You came back."

Her smile again contained more bitterness than he could account for. "No. I came. I am not who I was… and I never can be her again, even if I wished to." She shook her head and began walking once more, surveying the plants, the blooms, the black shadows slicing into the silver path. "I wouldn't want to be."

"Why not?"

"The one I was could not survive here a day longer than she did. To return to that would surely be to die… and though I longed for it, I will not go seeking death."

"Well, thank Valar for that much, at least."

"Why?"

He shifted a bit uncomfortably as she stared at him. With the shadows gouging out her eyes she looked either like a giant bug or a partially rotted skull. Either way, the eerie light in here was clearly getting to him. "Because I think you a friend, though you keep me from becoming too close."

She smiled faintly. "Yes," she agreed. She looked around them for a moment longer, then motioned lightly at the door. "Go. Escape the darkness. Return to the light."

He took a step, hesitating to glance back. "Aren't you coming?"

"I have lived in darkness for too long. I rather find it suits me."

He hesitated a moment longer before stepping into the fire-lit corridor.