Hi, guys! I would be suffering major computer withdrawel if I didn't still have my computer--as it is I spend less than an hour on the internet a week! sniffle

Thanks for reading, and sorry that it's apparently become quite confusing.

Iluvenis: You're usually so good at rooting out exactly where the story's headed that I'm irrationally pleased to tell you you're wrong this time-- at least about her family. I don't know enough about the Dark Elves to write about them, and I haven't had time to read anything recently.

LJP: Intermission: Ashes, born as Silrinil, left the Kingdom of Mirkwood many centuries past for reasons she will not discuss with anyone, though some have guessed the general cause. Silrinil's mother died when she was quite young, and her father when she was not that much older. Thranduil, who had befriended her father and had him as one of his best advisors, accepted her into his care, being a replacement for her parents, and called 'Uncle', though no blood lies between them. End Intermission. Does that help? ;-) I have a better background chapter planned eventually, but I don't remember where it is right now-- I'm in the midst of being eaten alive by another story inspiration-- I'm at 145 pages and still going strong, save for sleep, work, class, and cooking so I can eat.

I have to go-- they're timing us to a half-hour in the lab today. Grr...

Chapter 18 Far from calm

Legolas and Glorfindel looked at each other as they approached the wing with their rooms. Two golden brows lifted before they continued on, a bit more cautiously.

Legolas rolled his eyes when he saw which door was open. "Silrinil?" he called, jumping back as a rather soft blanket went flying past him. The noise paused. "Linir?" he asked, a dark head soon peering out of the door.

"I'd forgotten that," she admitted softly.

He tilted his head with a frown, then realized what she meant. "Oh," he murmured, before rubbing at the back of his neck.

"I prefer it to Silrinil," she murmured, before slipping back into her room.

Though they hadn't actually been invited, the elves entered behind her.

"Linir?" Legolas asked, shocked at the mass destruction in her room. The beautiful, soft tapestries had all been pulled down, and were stacked in haphazard piles and lumpy rolls beside the door. "What are you doing?"

"Making it livable in here," she grumbled, reaching for the end of the last remaining tapestry on that wall.

He had never particularly cared for that one, either, and had gone through a similar process in his room when he was about fifteen hundred, and again a few centuries previously. So, he reached up and helped her get it down, but set to rolling it properly, moving it to the small stack Glorfindel had started of properly rolled cylinders. "Are you keeping any of them?"

"Just that one," she murmured, nodding her head at the one which had usually been hidden by the door. "I'm going to move it to that wall," she tilted her head, indicating the large, free space of the wall that had once held a very large, bright garden scene.

Without comment Legolas and Glorfindel reached for it, moving it carefully, realigning it as per her directions. "What else?" the elder asked, gazing around the room.

She looked around, seeing that most of the overly soft and floral things had been removed. "A different mattress, or I shall never manage to rest upon the bed."

Legolas sat down on the bed's edge, and nearly fell back. It was so soft it was trying, really, to engulf him. "I can see why."

She smiled faintly and waited for him to get off before she stripped the bed, hauling the mattress up and working it off of the canopied bed.

"Can you sleep with the curtains?" Legolas asked.

"I shan't close them, if that's what you mean."

"Not entirely."

"As long as the path to the door is clear, I can rest."

He nodded and left the room for a few moments, catching one of the wing's servants quickly. When he returned, he noted one thing that had changed in his absence. Her father's sword rested over the door once more. It was quite reassuring, to his surprise.

Elleri tottered by on his way to his room, having seen familiar sheets and covers lining the hall. "What's all this? Moving out, Ashes?"

"No," she murmured softly, ducking under his arm to assist him in remaining upright down the hall. "Moving in."

Legolas and Glorfindel looked at each other, understanding passing between them. Legolas called a few servants using her bell system, while Glorfindel watched the door.

Elleri grimaced slightly when he was finally back in his own bed. "Stay?" he asked softly.

Silrinil agreed with a soft sigh, looking around the room. "You haven't changed much in here."

"I suppose not. The books are mostly different, though."

She smiled, moving to glance through the titles. "As they should be."

"Have you read much?"

"No. Not much."

"No chance to, I suppose?"

She shook her head. "Only on rare occasions, and there were usually other things to do."

He nodded slightly, watching her. "Why did you really leave?"

"I had to."

"But why?"

"Because it would have been too painful to stay here."

With a sigh, he shook his head. "You won't answer plainly, will you?"

She glanced at him over her shoulder, and smiled faintly. "No."

He eased up onto his uninjured arm, shifting the pillows so he could see her and yet be comfortable. "You could start reading, now."

"Yes," she agreed.

He half-chuckled, then winced and stopped. "When you calm down a bit."

"Calm down? I think I'm quite calm."

He grinned, but refrained from laughing… but only because of the pain it would cause him. "Never."

"No?"

He shook his head. "You're never calm, Rin. You're… dynamic, I suppose. You might appear calm, for a moment, but then you move, and it's so…"

She quirked a brow when he trailed off. "Oh, don't stop now," she murmured sarcastically.

He scowled at her, but his eyes were laughing. He'd merely been looking for an adequate way to describe her, after all. "You're too alive to be calm. You're always watchful, always ready… you are far from calm."

With a sigh she shook her head. "Perhaps not." She smiled ruefully. "But I don't agree about being too alive. Too paranoid, maybe. Too well trained against incautious behavior. But not alive."

"Isn't the constant guard because you wish to remain alive?" he asked quietly.

"Of course it is," she inclined her head.

"Then isn't it, therefore, saying that you are too alive to be incautious?"

She cocked her head to the side, staring at him for a long moment. Slowly, an affectionate smile turned her lips. "I have battled with blades far too long. My tongue wants sharpening. Along with my… intellect?"

"I'd say you're highly intelligent."

"Mmm," she agreed absently, turning back to his shelf. "But I am largely ignorant. All of this," she waved a hand over the titles, "is a blank to me. I may know more about what can and can't be eaten, about the caves and hills, the woods and plants of many a place than any of these authors, but beyond the knowledge of an observer, I know little."

"History has its own place, Rin, and it need not be in the broader world."

"Yes, it does. I'm not saying I wish to become a scholar of history, but there are many things we could have learned from the past… things I could have learned from the past that I was unable to, because I was too foolish to see the value of study—beyond languages," she rolled her eyes… then paused as her thoughts derailed. "Perhaps I was wrong," she mused. "Perhaps studying the tongues of other races was my first wise decision. It has certainly held me in good stead, through the years. Many people will not hesitate to kill those they are ignorant of."

"And you've learned more."

"Yes," she murmured absently, sliding a book slowly from the shelf. "Of course."

Elleri watched her turn the book, her fingers lightly tracing the gilt on the cover, reverently brushing away the grime of time until the letters shown with their original luster. "You didn't read much then. Any more than I did, of course."

"That has changed, for you, at least," she glanced up briefly from the book before glancing back down, opening it slowly, tracing the letters with a tender touch.

"You were gone. Legolas was hesitant to take your place."

She laughed. "I can imagine," she mused, still smiling as she closed the book.

Elleri smiled ruefully. "Looking back, I'd say he was very good to me. I needed the time to find my own way…"

"To find yourself," she agreed. She looked at him for a long moment, and then sighed. "I had no choice, Elleri. I honestly believe that. But I wished so desperately that it wasn't so. I loved it here. Though there were times before Mirkwood, I do not remember them. This was home. You were home."

He nodded slightly. "As were you." His eyes darkened a little, but still were brighter than the majority of his surviving family. "It… it may have been good…"

"That we had time apart." She nodded. Then smiled a little. "Yes, I think so. Neither of us would be who we are if we hadn't."

After a little while he frowned slightly. "I think…"

"That it's better we are who we are than who we were," she murmured, her dark eyes laughing at him.

"We couldn't have remained who we were, anyway, Rin," he mused.

"No. But I far prefer who I have become, having left, than who I would have been, had I stayed."

"And yet, had you stayed, and could somehow see who you've become, you would think yourself all the wiser for having stayed."

She shook her head vehemently. "I couldn't have stayed."

He sighed. "I wasn't arguing that."

She paused for a moment, and then grimaced. "I suppose you're right," she conceded after a little contemplation. "I would have thought it wiser, had the need to leave never arisen."

He smiled, and eased fully back once more. He nodded at the book. "Found something to read?" he asked.

She shook her head and stepped up onto the bed, stepping over him before crouching beside him. "Something for you to read."

He grinned crookedly and accepted the book, waiting expectantly.

With a slightly shy glance at him, she finally gave in to the nostalgia that had been rampant in the room, and stretched out beside him, her head propped on her elbow.

"There aren't any pictures," he teased.

With an overdone pout she shifted, carefully avoiding his wounds as she rested her head on his abdomen, slowly snuggling in.

Elleri smiled a bit, closing his eyes as his injured hand shifted enough to tangle in her hair. It had been a long time. He took a moment to get situated before he began reading, pausing now and then for her questions. She really was far behind in her studies of several things, her knowledge of their history nearly nonexistent. Still, he didn't press, and she didn't ask more than would allow her to understand the story, shifting every now and then.

It wasn't until she turned her back to his door and was angled away from the one that led to the bathing and dressing room he shared with Legolas that he knew his old friend was beginning to join them once more. Ashes wouldn't have trusted anyone that far. Not even a friend.

He was watching the ceiling—not that it was doing anything, of course, other than flickering with the faint light of a fire—when Legolas entered.

Legolas held a finger to his lips and looked at Silrinil, then up at Elleri. 'Asleep?' he mouthed.

When Elleri nodded, Legolas grinned.

'Keep her here until morning.'

'Why?' he mouthed back.

Legolas just smiled and winked before leaving the room.