Chapter 23 The real stumbling block
With an impatient exhalation Legolas shook his head and strode from the halls, letting the dark wood embrace him quickly.
Ferien hadn't come, as he had said he would.
Well, he couldn't really be blamed…
Most elves didn't like venturing into the forest in a group of warriors, much less all but alone.
Of course, he wasn't most elves…
And he needed the time alone. Or, nearly alone, as in deference to Thranduil's long standing wishes as regarded his sons he had been dragging someone else along with him on these little 'trips.'
He took a deep breath and stopped walking, lifting a hand to his brow, covering his eyes as he tried to fight off the reasons behind his solitary behavior.
He had not felt this desperate need to get away from the halls since his mother had died, and it had been more than two thousand years since then. His father had been furious that day he came in after a near-disastrous encounter with a spider, and had spoken the words that Legolas was only now willfully disobeying.
There were times, of course, that he had to be a small ways from the other elves—his role as Captain demanded it. Demanded that he be at ease within the wood, despite the danger, even when alone.
Whether born of that need or something else entirely, Legolas did feel at ease here, as if he was meant to wander the paths beneath the boughs.
With a sigh he kept walking, ears listening for anything out of place, eyes less alert as he lazed into thoughts as he wandered.
If any of his siblings noticed his sudden return to his old habits to deal with something beyond his current abilities, they had not yet spoken of it, though Elleri had frowned at him this morning when he left so armed… as they had only just gotten in from a spider patrol.
His father wouldn't have noticed unless told by someone that he was spending his time beyond the safety of stone.
It was foolish, perhaps, to wander so much for so long, but he could think of nothing else he could do. He was drawn to her, constantly, and had to forever distance himself. Though, really, if she wanted to find him, she would surely be able to… as she alone seemed as at ease in the wood as he felt.
Which was, essentially, the problem. She…
She fit.
She simply fit.
There was no part of his life he couldn't find her in, nothing about him that wasn't her as well. They viewed the world and their place in it with the same disgruntled acceptance, cynicism and, at times, spite. Their titles were of no value to them except as fancy chains, binding them to a place they would sometimes rather leave behind…
There were too many such things that lay between them for him to consider them all. They would simply depress him.
For so many years he had been hoping to find one who could fit into his life with such ease. He hadn't really thought on love… because having never found it, he hadn't been all that sure it was real. As she had once so aptly said—how do I know true love exists? Love, certainly, but what if true love is simply a fable from stories? A fragment of romantic folly magnified into something the majority of us believe in?
Now he knew, or at least thought he knew, that there really was love in that fashion—eternal companionship, not merely desire… and his stupid unruly heart had chosen her…
Well. He had to admit she was the only real choice he had ever been presented. No other had held his attention a fraction of the time she had, and he showed no signs of becoming bored with her as he had with others.
Still, it was impossible to get around her binding. He simply could not try and become more than a brother, a captain, perhaps a friend, because she couldn't accept anyone other than her mate as anything more than a friend.
He—whoever he was—hadn't wanted to be bound to her. She hadn't planned on being bound to him. In such a situation it was logical to believe that they were simply meant to be. That, given time together, they would simply fall into place.
It was a sobering thought, but he seemed unable to stop himself from wishing he were the one she was bound to. No matter what he told himself, no matter how often he caught that faint sadness in her eyes, he just couldn't stop.
He'd forced himself out of pursuing or even liking she-elves before, because a friend or fellow captain had liked them as well… and admittedly, was more likely to settle down than he had ever been.
Before Silrinil returned, and stepped into her father's place…
Sort of. Admittedly she wasn't Thranduil's advisor, nor his best friend, but she had somehow become Legolas's…
Which was another thing that worried him, though he couldn't bring himself to consider it as much as he did the larger problem. She and Elleri had been the greatest of friends before, and now Elleri, with his own patrol to deal with, had little time to spend with her… and usually what time she had free was either with Legolas or a book, any more.
Elleri had looked between them, seeming in the same moment baffled and all-knowing—as if he was on the edge of a major discovery that would change the known world, but couldn't quite grab onto it.
Legolas jerked to the side and glanced at the tree with a incendiary glare that was entirely self-directed. He was by far too distracted by her if he nearly walked into a tree. For Eru's sake, he could walk a safe path when asleep most days.
Not that he did, of course…
He shook his head and began walking again, vaguely aware he had wandered farther than usual when accompanied by another, nervous elf.
At the very least, he cared deeply for Silrinil, and wanted to see her happy. That wish would seem to dictate reuniting her with her mate.
Problem.
He didn't want to reunite them, for many reasons, several of which were admittedly selfish.
But he could get beyond those.
The real stumbling block that had kept him from trying to press for details about her mate so he could find the lucky idiot and lock them in a room together until they were properly bound was the very horrendous way she had described him—not wanting their binding.
For any elf to deny a natural binding like that was not only against all common sense and the values of all elves, it was unnatural. And he really didn't want to send her off to be with some elf who didn't know how good a thing he had in an unprompted binding.
The binding could be helped along for a married couple, but their binding could never be as strong as it was in two souls who simply knew and met, whether the minds attached understood or anticipated it or not.
And so she was bound to that unnamed fool, and always would be. The natural bond was—by her description—a bit stronger than any newly wedded couple's would be. It would grow stronger with repeated touch, with time. With intent. With expectation.
He could never compete with that, which he damned well knew…
Yet he still couldn't give her up. Not to someone who didn't appreciate her…
He snorted. "Not that you appreciated her before she left," he muttered, arms crossed tightly over his chest. She was just Elleri's friend then. Just Lady Silrinil. Elleri's Rin.
But now she had truly become his Linir, at least in his mind.
"Admit it," he grumbled. In his heart.
Unbeknownst to him, his steps had become rougher with his anger, his pain, and he was now making far more noise than any elf would, connecting to the earth with more strength than was common.
Unknown, at least, until he stepped through the ground, and began falling.
The delayed moment of reaction as he was jerked from his thoughts so rudely was his undoing—he had no time to catch the ground before it was gone, and he was bumping along the sheer wall formed of rock and dirt, carved out by ages of water and wind to be nearly solidly smooth. The few rocks he could reach were too smooth to grab hold of, too close to the rest of the wall, so he continued to fall, occasionally dislodging a rock or bit of dirt as he went.
He landed in a pile of debris at the bottom, and took a moment to take stock of himself and his surroundings, as he should have been doing all along. He was much farther south than he would have anticipated, and the day was much farther along than he would have liked. He was now face down in what had at one time been a riverbed, flat stones mixed with the dust he was coated in from the fall.
As for injuries…
Minor bruises most everywhere, except his head—he'd long ago learned to fall to protect that. His right wrist hurt badly enough he knew the healers would be binding it tightly when he returned. His breath came in all right, so at least he hadn't broken any ribs this time—if he had the choice, he much preferred breaking limbs to ribs.
He shifted slightly, and sighed carefully. Apparently, the Valar had taken him up on that thought. At least his right leg was broken… in at least one spot. He tried to get up, braced for the pain… but nothing happened. Besides the searing pain, that is.
He looked back and began swearing steadily, perversely glad for the moment that none of his patrol were present so he was free to do so with impunity.
The annoying realization that he wouldn't be pinned to the ancient riverbed with broken bones and a leg without any feeling if he had had any of them along made him swear succinctly once more.
He took a few moments to compose himself, to think, then turned as much as he could to look at that boulder. After hesitating, he managed to almost get into a kneeling position so he could try to lift the rock.
It was behind him, though, and it put too much pressure on his right leg… and his wrist. He was incapable of moving it while pinned beneath it, it was as simple as that.
His bow and quiver were lost somewhere along the way—maybe even at the top of the hill. He hadn't been wearing his daggers. As for his sword…
He looked ruefully at the tiny bit of the sheath he could see beneath the rock.
So, he thought, the problem ends here, as soon as those spiders decide that one pinned elf might make something of a more pleasant treat than orcs.