Did I miss a week? I can't remember anymore. It's been very busy, so it's likely I did--sorry.

If you're a fan of my writingmore than this one story, you'll be happy to know I have another one in the works. The bulk is completed, it just needs some fine-tuning and a lot of editing... and I won't begin posting until I know I'll have a chance to finish posting it. Riht now, I may not have internet access at all come January.

LJP: Am I that predictable?

Chapter 19 Just as vulnerable

After a bracing day spent renewing a good friendship and slowly readjusting with the nearly as good one they had formed upon her return, Silrinil and Elleri decided, with identical sighs, that they should probably join the others in the great hall for their evening meal.

She lifted a brow at him. "Why don't you want to go?"

"I don't mind being there, really," he murmured, a bit of a sheepish smile on his face. "But I can't let them see that I'm pained."

"Elleri," she murmured. "Anyone could see that you're in pain."

"Well, they don't want to see that I'm just as vulnerable to injuries as they are. I can't show the pain."

"Don't be an idiot," she scoffed.

"Rin…" He frowned as she buttoned his tunic for him. "Let me put this in your terms. If you're before someone you want to keep impressed, perhaps because they can do something for you, or because you'd rather they didn't do something to you, and you were injured, what would you do?"

She tilted her head in thought for a moment, and then inclined it shortly. "I would do my best not to let them see how much the wound was affecting me, so I was not thought of as weak or vulnerable." She frowned at him. "But you must?"

"Yes," he sighed. He quirked a weak smile. "Legolas and I were commiserating on the annoyances of being who we are not that long ago."

Her eyes slowly drifted down until she was studying the floor.

He gently tipped her chin up. "What?"

"I just realized something, is all."

"Oh?"

"Mm-hmm…"

Silence.

He shifted a bit uncomfortably. "Well?"

"Well what?"

With a sigh he inclined his head slightly for her to place the circlet upon his brow. "What did you realize?"

"A likely cause for Legolas's anger towards me when Uncle insisted I take my place here once more."

"Oh?"

"Yes."

Elleri let out a groan when she didn't continue. "And? Why do you think he was angry?"

"I know he was angry," she murmured, an absently amused glance in his direction making him growl.

"What about?"

"I was shirking my title, denying it, when he can't do the same."

Elleri blinked. Stared. Then nodded. "Yeah, I can see him getting a little riled at having someone else trying to get out of what he can't… especially you, Silrinil, since your expectations from the people of this wood were once nearly the same as his."

"To follow in my father's footsteps, assist in ruling the land," she mused. "I know." With a sigh she looked at the circlet Legolas had brought into Elleri's room for her a bit earlier. "Must I?"

"You're quite capable of following him, Rin. More than you were before. Take some time to get caught up in your studies, and—" he broke off at the deadly glare she was aiming at him. "Oh, you meant the topper?" he grinned. "It would make things simpler, you know."

"Oh. Simpler. Like it wasn't simpler to be Ashes."

"No doubt it was, for the most part, except having to forever watch what you said, and did, where you went, how you spoke to everyone—not just those you had known before…"

"All right," she grumbled, stopping him from continuing with a flick of her wrist. "But I was just a stranger then. Some random elf who had wandered in. They didn't know me and for the most part didn't know if there was any reason they might have known me. Now…" She sighed and stared forlornly at the circlet. "Now I'm the long-lost lady of the halls, the little orphan Thranduil took under his wing. Some will be happy, most will think me an ungrateful wretch for running away…" She sighed once more.

"Rin… do you think Ada believes you an 'ungrateful wretch'?"

She shrugged. "I don't know. We didn't speak of that."

"You haven't even told Ada why you left?"

"I've told no one, and I don't intend to," her tone had hardened noticeably.

He blinked. "Wow. Must have been something."

She sighed, and brought a hand up to rub at her temples.

"Ada wouldn't have you back as Silrinil if he didn't want you back. You know that."

"He let me remain as Ashes for over two years."

"Yes. But then it was more than thirteen centuries since you left, and you'd changed drastically since then."

She realized what he was getting at, and rolled her eyes. "The others are right. You Mirkwood elves are paranoid."

"Paranoid, but rarely caught unawares." He lectured sternly.

She snorted, making him grin, finally settling the circlet into its proper place. Which was, unfortunately, her head, and not the table of her room where it had been resting, happily neglected, for many long years. "Well, let's go, then."

Elleri half-smiled and offered her his arm…

She chuckled and shook her head. "Don't think you can make it that far without support?"

"No. I know I can't. I can't even fully dress myself."

"Buttons," she protested.

"Still."

With an unladylike snort she helped him into the corridor, and down the halls. He didn't comment when she paused at the end of the royal hall at the shocked look of the guards, but as she hesitated a little more with every step she took he finally drew her aside, tugging her into one of the empty guest rooms. "It was hard for you to decide to come back, wasn't it?"

"Almost as hard as doing it," she agreed roughly. She stopped, lifting a hand, pressing it to her brow. "Elleri, I…"

He leaned carefully against the wall and drew her forward, glad he had thought to brace himself when she slumped against him. He thought about all the things he could say—how she could do it, that everything would be fine… and if it were anyone else trying to borrow his strength, he would have. But the words were nothing for her, because they were nothing to him. It was fine and good to say those things, but he didn't really know what would happen when they entered the room. He didn't know how the Kingdom would react, how the Captains and the soldiers would respond… Not that he really thought they would become an issue, but how the 'ladies' of the court would deal with her return… How any and all would deal with her 'transformation'.

So, he said nothing, and simply held her. He wondered, for a time, what her secrets were, but he wasn't inclined to ask that, either. For a thousand year they had been the best of friends, had grown up very much together. Their time apart had not wedged them apart on many things. She would speak if she wanted to, and if she did not, he would not force it. When she lifted her head he brushed her hair back as well as he could, and slowly straightened as she took his arm once more, allowing him to lean on her.

They shifted their positions when they came to the point in the corridor that was tinted by the light of the hall. She took a deep breath and accommodated his shift, making it look as if they weren't supporting each other—more as if they had simply been coming along and had met on the way, and he, as prince, as a courteous lord, had offered her his arm.

Before they had taken three steps into the room, they had been noticed, and speculation was clearly—and audibly—rampant. At Elleri's request, she hadn't combed her hair to straighten it, so her identity would be easier to determine… and Ashes had only been noted in passing, identified by the fact that she was a black-haired female who wore weapons, which were, of course, currently absent. After hearing several wild tales about just why they were walking together, they reached the head table. Legolas and Thranduil rose, as was their old custom, and greeted her.

"Please, Uncle," she murmured softly as she kissed his cheek, "don't fuss."

He looked at her for a long moment, and then blew out a breath, nothing in his face or eyes declaring what he had decided.

With that uncertainty piled on top of everything else, she was moved along to Legolas, who inclined his head courteously and kissed the hand she had brought up to his cheek. He lifted a brow slightly—enough she noticed, but not that anyone farther would. "They are not going to roast you alive, Linir," he murmured faintly.

"Do you promise?" she asked, offering him a hesitant, shaky smile.

He frowned swiftly, but since their time had already been long enough to cause a few curious gazes, released her hand with a soft squeeze. Elleri seated her at his right, as she always used to be.

"Why was my chair left empty?" she asked quietly, over the low murmur of gossip.

"So that it would be here for you," Elleri replied.

"So asking Ada not to fuss was rather…"

"Unnecessary," she sighed, finishing Legolas's statement. "So I've gathered."

"You didn't think this through, did you?"

"Not before putting on the blasted circlet and stepping into the hall," she muttered, resisting the urge to bring her fingers to rub at her temples.

"Ah, well. I've arranged something for you," Legolas murmured.

"What? Why?"

He smiled faintly at her mildly panicked tones, and then inclined his head to someone behind her. "Simply someone besides Elleri and myself to converse with."

She glanced at her right, and found there was a seat there. Usually there was not—if there were any visiting powers, Thranduil usually received them in the family dining hall—both an honor and more convenient, as that way more than one could be entertained at once without having their back to the majority of the hall. Besides, it was not all that conducive to meetings of any sort to talk over two princesses and in full view of all who ate within the hall. The seat now beside her was at a rather awkward angle. Rather than put it actually at the end of the table, whoever was to eat there would be doing so with the table's edge in his abdomen.

Even as she was contemplating the uncomfortable position, a hand reached out and drew the chair back. Familiar robes draped down to just beyond the wrists of even more familiar hands. She'd spent quite a bit of time watching those hands, when they held and wielded a weapon against her.

"Good evening, my lady," his deep voice murmured.

"Welcome, my lord," she countered, smiling with the familiarity of the tease.

He chuckled softly and seated himself, a little closer to her than perhaps was polite, but she could hardly blame him. "Finally admitting the truth of our game, I see."

"It wasn't entirely up to me."

He quirked a brow. "You could have left, if you were really against it."

"No," she mused faintly. "This is home now, Glorfindel."

"No," he murmured, shaking his head. "Not now, Silrinil. It was always yours, at least in the back of your mind."

She considered that for a moment, with her eyes upon her goblet. "Perhaps," she agreed at last. "And for now I must remain here."

"I don't like the sound of 'I must'," Elleri muttered. "We do not force you to remain."

"With invisible chains and weightless bonds," she mused, "you surely do."

"You cast them off once," Legolas murmured, not turning to face them, still looking out over the eating elves.

"Yes," she agreed quietly.

"And?" Elleri asked.

"You're too impatient," two voices chimed. Elleri looked between them in shock, even as they glanced at each other.

"Valar," Elleri muttered. "From either side!" he grumbled. "Well?"

She sighed, looking away from the elder prince and out over the crowded hall. "I cast them off as much as I could because they would have brought me below the earth had I let them remain. I've grown stronger in my freedom, I think, and can better bear their weight and constraint."

"And if you can't, it will be nigh on impossible to be freed of them once more."

"I don't think it is possible, not fully. You know what I have done in the interim, the name I chose. No matter where I might wander you would still know."

"And be able to find you, should we so desire," Legolas murmured in clarification when Elleri shook his head slightly.

"Yes. Though I don't imagine I would be followed."

"Why not?" Elleri asked, frowning. "Of course we would—"

"Not necessarily, Elleri," Legolas cut in. "She can take care of herself, and enjoyed being a wanderer. We cannot deny her return to that life on the basis of danger or fear. If she chose to return, what could we do to stop her?"

"Ask her not to go?"

He shook his head. "Should she decide to go, she will be steeled beyond all pleas."

Elleri frowned at him, after that. "Thought about this?"

"Yes… fought with the same desire within myself," he admitted quietly.

Silrinil's gaze dropped down once more.

Elleri looked between the two and sighed.

Once the majority of the feasting had been completed, many couples approached the open space between the head table and the long rows of other tables to dance. After a few songs had played out, a few hesitant young lords began approaching the head table. Legolas rose quickly, knowing Silrinil—when still Ashes—had always escaped the hall before this time.

He moved to her chair and bowed slightly, extending his hand.

She, having seen the same thing he had, accepted without the customary pause of acknowledgement. As it was, technically, his duty and his right to dance with a 'visiting' lady, no one approached them until the third dance. He led her off the floor before the others could arrive, and moved to the head table once more. "Elleri?" he asked softly. "Care to join us in an early return to the wing? I've got a bit of captain-work to do early, which demands an early night from those accompanying me, as well."

"I don't know that I would be that much of an assistant, tomorrow, but I can certainly stand around and tell you what you're doing wrong." Elleri murmured jovially, and got to his feet, paling just slightly, managing to reach the door before they did.

They caught him carefully as he began to slump against the wall.

"You are an idiot," Silrinil muttered.

Legolas lifted a brow and nudged her out of the way, supporting Elleri much more firmly than she had, giving no thought to saving Elleri's pride. Together they got him into bed fairly quickly, but Legolas caught her arm when she would have walked out. "I ordered a few things changed in your room," he murmured.

"Oh?" she asked, lifting a brow, a spark of anger lighting in her dark eyes.

"Yes," he agreed, and pulled her through to his room. He picked up four keys on a silver thread. "These are the only keys to your new lock, for one thing."

She gazed at them for a long moment, then closed her fingers tightly around them. "Thank you," she murmured, eyes closed.

He nodded. "Just so you remember to include yourself in that 'paranoid Mirkwood elves' line you so love."

She rolled her eyes, but had to smile. "At least I admit it."

He chuckled softly and walked her out of his room and then down the hall to her own. He shrugged at her lifted brow. "I want to see if you like it or not," he murmured.

She mentally winced—that really didn't sound good. "There wasn't anything wrong with it before…" she trailed off as she entered, gazing around in awe. She turned to him, her shock apparent. She tried to figure it out, able to speak only one word, which was enough. "But…"

"Elleri kept you away long enough," he answered softly, having watched her face a bit nervously.

The room had been painted—three sides were outdoor scenes so realistic they weren't beautiful. Majestic, yes, but not beautiful. The forth wall was covered in a city she had only seen in her dreams, and then only as fragments of someone else's memory. She glanced sharply at Legolas.

He shrugged. "Glorfindel's main contribution."

She stared at him for a long moment, then caught his hand before he could move away. She lifted the captured appendage, studying it in the light. In the creases, in the grooves worn rough through centuries of bow and sword work, she found traces of the colors upon her walls. "You did this?"

He glanced around the rooms, and shrugged slightly. "We had the same thought… well, basically. I didn't think to add the city."

"No," she murmured softly. "You wouldn't have."

He lifted a brow, but she just smiled enigmatically and kept looking around the room. He smiled when she looked sharply at him, dropping his hand to approach the bed, pressing lightly down on the mattress. He chuckled when she rooted through several thick layers of dark cloth to the mattress below. "Well?"

She ignored the question and crawled into the bundle of dark covers, snuggling down into the little nest. She sighed contentedly, sitting up when he began laughing. "What?"

"You look like a little black fox, all curled up," he teased playfully.

She glared, snapping her hand out, yanking him forward as she twisted to the side.

He landed on his stomach with an 'oof', and turned to face her, propping his head on his hand. "Well?" he asked when the bed stopped moving.

She fell back with a sigh, and one of the first true smiles he'd seemed aimed towards himself. "Thank you."

"Think you can survive here, now?"

She studied his smile for a moment, her own slowly fading. "Perhaps," she agreed, a faint smile touching her lips again. "How did you get this done so quickly?"

He chuckled and sat up, glancing around the room. "We blocked in the shapes, chose the colors… and then recruited help. Glorfindel was very picky, though. Everything had to be just right." He tilted his head and moved a bit of her hair so he could get up without pulling it. "Is there anything else you want changed?"

She considered her rather over-large room, and recalled the bathing room. It had always been more or less bare stone—rather an understated beauty, which she appreciated now as she hadn't before. "No." She smiled faintly and released the hair that had been holding the circlet in place, tossing it absently at the table.

It rang cheerfully as it bounced against the wall, but the notes were more grating as it crashed to the floor.

Legolas bit his lip to keep from chuckling at her expression, and moved over to pick up her circlet, moving the table over a foot before releasing the simple band of metal to rest upon it. "Good night, Linir," he murmured softly. He inclined his head at the new lock that shown below the worn handle. "Don't forget to lock the door."

"Mmm," she murmured, eyes closing on a contented smile. "What time and where?"

"What?"

"The group stuff we're doing in the morning that allowed you to get Elleri and I out of the hall without too much fuss?"

"Ah. Before the sun rises meet us on the training field."

"You aren't going to disturb Elleri."

"No," he agreed. "Enough. Rest. It has been a trying few days for you."

She smiled ruefully as she got to her feet, lifting the silver thread with its keys. "Indeed," she agreed softly, locking the door once he had released it.