Trine: Formerly Destiny's Arrow
(Departure and Discovery)
Part Two- Discovery
Near the heart of the forest, the river Nimrodel was little more than a deep stream. The chilly waters flowed briskly, babbling merrily as they tumbled over large, sporadic stones that littered the riverbed. A warm breeze rippled through the ceiling of foliage above Arwen's head as she sat on the bank.
The afternoon was hot and sultry. Fine sweat beaded on her ageless skin—on her upper lip, in the small of her back, behind her knees, beneath her breasts, and in all the other delicate places of the female body. Though her dress fell loosely about her, where the material brushed her skin, it clung uncomfortably.
The elf worked nimbly to free her hair from its many braids and plaits. Once loose, she began to carefully comb the knots out of her long dark tresses with her fingers. She gently massaged her scalp, taking her time as she basked in the few bright rays of sunlight that found their way through the dense leaves. At last, she let all her wavy mane tumble down her back. It fell, soft, to her hips.
Slowly, she stood. Closing her eyes, immersing herself in the symphony of rustling leaves, rushing water, and chirping insects around her, Arwen gathered her skirts up about her knees and let the cool water run over her toes as it lapped the pebbly shore in its hurry to join Anduin. She waded up to her knees, stopping when goosebumps prickled her flesh. Eyes still shut, she lifted her skirts higher, and removed her gown, tossing it back on the bank before she dove into the deeper channel of the stream. Pleasantly chill, the water enveloped her. She allowed the current to carry her lazily downstream a piece.
Her mind wandered, like the current, indolently. Though the music of Lorien was pleasant enough, Arwen longed only for Thurinhên's bright, innocent laughter or even her needful cry to fill her ears. Though her eyes welcomed the emerald and golden veined translucence of mallorn leaves above her, she would have paid dearly for the pleasure of laying eyes on Legolas's inky hair and stormy eyes just once more…
Legolas left his horse when he was close enough to catch her scent on the wind, as he would have, a deer's. A hunt—he grinned to himself as he remembered their first meeting. He stalked swiftly, soundlessly along the moist, mossy ground by the river. As he neared her, his breath grew short, not from exertion, but with the memory of their first night together. Her scent was strong, now. It reminded his mouth of her taste, and his skin of her touch. The thrill of the hunt, the anticipation of the prize that awaited him drove him forward apace. Finally, he spied her, floating, white skin bare, like a fallen flower on the water.
He remained concealed behind the trunk of the great tree as he quickly undressed, leaving clothes strewn over the ground in disarray. Keeping a furtive eye on his prey, Legolas waited until she ducked beneath the water to swim back upstream.
Stealthily, he crept into the water. He kept to the shelter of the rocks in the shallows as he advanced slowly behind her. As Legolas watched, Arwen stepped out onto the bank and began to search the pockets of her rumpled dress for the lump of yellowish soap that she had brought with which to bathe.
His sharp eyes narrowed. Her form, while still graceful and beautiful in his eyes, was fuller, rounder, softer than it had been the last time he'd seen her unclothed. This was not the slender young nymph who he had wooed and bedded amongst the limbs of a Greenwood elm, but a voluptuous woman, and he rejoiced in the opportunity to learn and experience her anew.
Nimrodel's whispering was enough to mask his sound as he glided, smoothly as any serpent, through the rippling water, toward Arwen. Muscle and sinew drew taut as he neared her. Legolas's quarry went on rummaging, unaware of he, the hunter. This time, though, he would not wait to be discovered. Quick and elegant as a striking snake, he sprang forward.
Long fingers were the last thing Arwen saw before darkness replaced her vision. A light hand rested suddenly at her waist. Panic gripped her heart, but only for an instant. Pure, visceral, instinctual fear froze her flesh and blood colder than icy Nimrodel—until she recognized the rough calluses of a bowstring on the fingers of the right hand that crept like scorching flame, smearing beaded water over her skin, down from her waist to her hip.
"Le…?"
"Shhh," he whispered, his lips almost touching her ear. Still covering her eyes, Legolas twined his fingers in the dripping locks that hung lank between her shoulder blades. Carefully, he placed all her mass of hair over her shoulder, leaving her back naked.
The sun had blazed its highest fiery path twice since he had last seen her. Each of the twenty times the moon had shown all of its silver face, Legolas had wished only to hold her, to feel her presence once more. In the autumn and winter, when he had felt he would fade and pass, as summer's green turns to autumn's gold and vermillion, and, finally, gives way to stark shades of grey in winter—then, he had needed her to remind him that he lived, to reassure him that spring would find them again.
But so much she had borne. So much had changed for Arwen. In dreams, this moment had appeared, to her, little more than a hazy improbability. Many an afternoon had she passed, wandering solitary along the paths below Caras Galadhon, wondering how she would ever face him again. Secretly, selfishly, she had desired this meeting; but also, she had dreaded it. As the shape of the body at her back told Arwen that it was Legolas behind her, she knew that familiarity with the feel of her shape would betray to him the change in her own body—seeing a thunderhead in the distance lends time to seek shelter, but not power to still the storm. Arwen had kept Galadriel's Harbinger, but she had not worn it since its true purpose had been revealed to her. Now, she cursed her weakness as the words to stop his advances were silenced before they could be spoken by the sparks that flew wildly, low in her belly, tinder beneath his flinty touch. Slowly, Legolas maneuvered her, blind, back into the stream, keeping his back to the current. Weightless in the water, he pulled her back onto his lap.
"Nimrodel runs cold these days," Arwen observed pointedly. His erection felt rather smaller than usual as it pressed, low, against her back, "Would you not agree, beloved?" She vainly hoped that the jesting, feeble insult would be enough to put him off. Legolas only chuckled. He pulled her tightly to his chest to show that his, still considerable, size was quickly becoming less diminished as his passionate blood rushed with desire.
Letting one hand fall from her eyes and the other creep up from her hip, Legolas brushed his fingertips lightly over the rigid nubs of her nipples. She smiled. It was this, this tenderness that she had missed so sorely. The creamy skin of her shoulder twitched when his warm lips touched it in an airy kiss. Lightly, he rested his chin on her shoulder.
"I would," he purred, his voice a silken whisper. Then, he began to massage the cold-blanched areolae more firmly, teasing and caressing with his clever fingers until she moaned softly, a mix of pleasure in his touches and pain from the tension of her delicate flesh.
Then, his hands slipped below the turbulent surface of the water and settled on her thighs. With a long, deep sigh he settled against her. He eagerly breathed in the earthy smell of her as his cheek rested on the damp skin of her back. For a long time he remained that way, rubbing his palms up and down the length of her long, smooth thighs. She allowed it, but did not encourage him.
"Let us not bathe yet," he whispered hoarsely. Arwen solemnly nodded. Slowly, the bank passed on either side as Legolas relaxed and let the current carry them downstream, only touching his feet to the rocky bottom enough to keep them afloat.
Cresting a bend in the river, Legolas's horse came into view. The magnificent, silver dappled animal grazed contentedly on the tender shoots and white flowers of late blooming neprhidil, slack reins dragging the ground.
"Wait here," Legolas whispered once more. He let her slip from his lap and bounded up the bank. Arwen smiled sadly in admiration of the man she was forced to forsake. Water streamed from his saturated hair, down his back in a twisting rivulet. Beads of moisture glistened on his clear skin like diamonds on olive tinted linen. Her prince was just as she remembered him. The midday sun that streamed into the clearing cast sharp shadows that accentuated the muscular lines of his body as he moved. He was unchanged. And she? She was so different and could hide it no longer.
From his saddle bag, Legolas retrieved his bedroll. He spread the soft, but utilitarian blanket on the ground in the clearing. Feline movements carried him back to the water's edge. He beckoned her to come to him. Arwen, though, could not move.
"No, Legolas. I cannot," she muttered irresolutely. Her eyes fell to the water's surface.
"Let me hold you as I once did, beloved. We have been apart only for a breath of our lives, but it has been too long. Come to me," he coaxed, advancing into the rippling current, holding his arms wide.
"I cannot, prince," murmured Arwen again. Her rebuff unnerved him. It was certainly not the greeting he had expected. And a nagging fear settled like ice in the pit of his stomach as he advanced further into the stream.
"Prince? Why do you address me so formal? I stand before you naked as I came into this world, offering you all that I have, and you would refuse me? I do not understand you. Come and lie with me a while," he said, more commandingly than before.
"I cannot. I desire none of your offerings," she answered. Her tone was haughty and imperious, her gaze firm.
"Cannot?" he questioned, suspicion in his voice. "Cannot? Or will not?" The prince's voice was sharp, almost accusing. Glorfindel's voice rang in his ears—Always at arm's length. If, truly, she stayed to avoid him, he would know it now. "Will you not lie in my arms once more, my lady? Do you deny the embrace of your lover and husband by our traditions?"
"Will you trust me in this? Trust my love for you, and let me keep my confidence?"
"Cannot, or will not?" Legolas repeated, the phrase turning cold. Arwen only returned his chilling stare. "Is there another?" Silence. "Glorfindel, perhaps?" On his trip, Legolas had had much time to formulate many conclusions based on his confrontation with Glorfindel. Now confronted with an unwilling Arwen, this was the one he leaped to.
"Glor…?"
"Did he come crawling to your bedside? Groveling? Begging like a starved hound? Is that what you hide?" he spat.
"Legolas, n…"
"Or did you let him catch you—coy face belying willing body—as you ensnared me? Was it you who bore his bastard child?"
"ENOUGH!" Arwen shouted. Then, before she could stop herself, the words she had so longed to speak came pouring from her lips in a torrent. "When you arrived in Rivendell, I carried your child inside me, and I thanked my good fortune. When I left, I did so out of necessity, and I mourned our parting. Each day, as I felt the child—our child—growing in my womb, my soul wept that it must be secret from you.
But you come too late. She is gone, and every day that I am apart from her—every day that I have been apart from you—has rent my heart. I love you. And I would have spared you the burden, the pain of knowing. I bore your child. Yours, Legolas. In silence, I have suffered while you dwelt in ignorance, in peace. And now you hurl simple minded accusations of faithlessness at me, but it is you who is faithless, Legolas. It is you who has betrayed our bond, sullied our love with your mistrust. You shame yourself and me."
Arwen's final pronouncement was met with silence. Legolas stood stunned, waist deep in the cool water.
"My child?" he asked, shocked and unbelieving.
"Yes, Legolas—yours," answered she, still angry, still furious with him. "Only you, beloved. It has always been only you. I love Glorfindel. I love him as a father, a brother, and a friend, but he has never…loved me as you have."
"You have borne me a child?" Legolas was enchanted with the idea. He was a father. This woman who he loved had nurtured the seed he had planted within her womb into a life. He advanced, slowly at first. Arwen refused to meet his eyes. She stared fiercely at the roiling surface of Nimrodel as Legolas tangled his long fingers in her hair. Gently, he tilted her head back. As he did so, she closed her eyes, unwilling to see the pride of fatherhood in his expression. But though she did not look into his face, she felt him drawing nearer, felt his breath—warm, moist, sweet on her lips.
Legolas let his eyes flutter closed as his body settled against hers. He felt himself falling, soul-first, into this kiss that he had anticipated and yearned for since Arwen had left him two years before. But then, he felt her fingertips against his lips, keeping him away, denying the chance to breathe her sweet breath. Her soft voice met his ears, pleading.
"No, Legolas, I cannot," she whispered, opening her eyes at last. "Please do not ask this of me. Anything but this," her voice, her look implored him. The black haired prince released her abruptly, almost roughly and she stumbled a little before finding her footing.
"If you truly loved me, you would not deny me the right of a husband," Legolas muttered darkly. Her eyes blazed.
"If you loved me, you would let it be. You would respect and honor my wishes," snapped Arwen in reply. Glaring, the other elf did not answer her. Silently, he agreed. He knew that he had no right to demand anything from her. "But know, beloved, that I do love you. I wish that I could give you all that you desire and all that you deserve, for I do not doubt that your love for me has never faltered. Neither has mine for you."
"You have borne me a child..."
"A daughter," she interrupted, "Thurinhên." Legolas scowled a little at the name.
"And together, we have made a daughter. She is the fruit of my love for you and yours for me—our love has brought new life into the world. Should we not nurture it together as mother and father—husband and wife. For half a millennium, I have worshipped at your feet. I stand prostrate, naked before you now. As I am your lover—your husband; so be my wife. Come with me and live as my wife—Prince and Princess of Greenwood. We will leave tomorrow with our daughter and in two weeks time, we will celebrate our homecoming in my father's halls."
"No, Legolas, we will not. Thurinhên is gone. She was the child Glorfindel brought home to Rivendell—the child who went with my mother to the West. Thurinhên—my secret from you. You were not meant to know of her birth…and I cannot go with you. I will not be your wife nor your princess." She looked away. "Go home to your father, Legolas. Find another, for I am dead to you. I release you from our bond."
"Shall I never see you more?" his voice faltered a little.
"I cannot promise that our paths will never cross again, but if we should meet—I fear it can only pain you," her eyes were full of sorrow as she spoke, but no tears fell. All her tears for him had been shed. Her destiny's road forked before her and she found herself climbing the steep and rocky path that she had so vehemently protested. It was the right way, she knew, now that she was faced with the decision. She had made her choice, and now the din of questions, contradictions and doubts that had plagued her was, at last, silenced.
For a moment, only Nimrodel spoke as it babbled along its merry way. Then, again she spoke—in a whisper now. "I shall miss you…"
Legolas nodded once, then turned his back on her. He said nothing as he slowly widened the distance between them, returning to his mount.
"Legolas, wait," called Arwen after him, wading toward the bank where he stood. Turning to face her, his gaze was empty, indifferent. When she reached him, she opened her mouth as though she would speak, but changed her mind and closed it again. The pause lengthened for what seemed, to her, like minutes. At last, she spoke, lifting her eyes to meet his. "If you wish it…if, truly, you do…," she came closer, intimately so, pausing again. Then, quietly, solemnly, she finished her thought, "…I will lie with you again—once more before you leave. If you wish it…truly." Lightly, she ran the tip of her index finger along the crest of his hip and down his thigh. His lower abdomen twitched involuntarily as her finger strayed near his groin. Almost quicker than seeing, he caught her hand and held it away from him, not angrily, but mechanically, automatically as though his mind was elsewhere and his body acted on its own.
When he released her wrist, she let her hand fall slack at her side. "Of course," she nodded. "I have deceived you, and I am sorry for it. I understand if you can find no forgiveness in your heart. I cannot fault you for it," she muttered miserably. Legolas made no answer. "So it is to be this way? Go then and farewell, Legolas Greenleaf." Arwen turned her back to him and cut gracefully though the water—upstream, against the current. From behind, then, she heard his voice, soft, but commanding,
"Yes," he said.
"Yes? What would you have of me?" she asked.
"Yes. I wish it, truly. I would have nothing of you—none of your pity, and none of your submission. But I would have you—only you—forever. I would spend eternity with you. I would worship you until the sky falls into the sea," tears welled in his eyes. His confession overwhelmed him. Though they had been in his heart since they had first met, he had never spoken these words aloud to her before. And though he knew the futility of his words, he spoke them nonetheless. "If you cannot offer me that, then you offer me nothing."
"It cannot be. I offer you my love, my friendship, and my body—if you desire it—but I cannot offer you eternity," whispered Arwen, painfully, achingly close—but separated by the breadth of a simple choice. "I will love you always, Legolas…" He advanced quickly this time, almost menacingly. His deceptively delicate, slender hands clasped her jaw. A small cry of surprise escaped her as he crushed his lips against hers with bruising force. His kiss was demanding, rude, and she stiffened in his arms, trying to tear free. At last, he released her. She staggered backward and fell into the water.
Though his eyes remained blank and empty, hers blazed with anger when she spluttered to the surface. Before she could say anything, he spoke. His voice was soft—barely more than a whisper—but his tone was icy, steely cold.
"Then you offer me nothing, and you are nothing to me. You do not love me," he hissed. "You have betrayed my trust, my love. You are traitor to my very blood, Arwen. Tell me not that you love me," he laughed mirthlessly. "I will trouble you no longer."
"Farewell, then," she sighed. He said nothing more. He turned, wordlessly, and left the water. Arwen watched helplessly as he ascended the bank. Once astride his mount, he looked back at her unfeelingly. He turned his back to her and rode north through the forest, toward his home, leaving her to wonder if she would ever see him again…
~~~~~~~~~~~
And there he sat in her bedchamber—hurting because of her choice. And her choice was looming in the doorway, still awaiting an answer to his query.
Aragorn felt himself growing uneasy and impatient. "Your what? What about your what?" he repeated. Another moment passed and still neither elf spoke. "Arwen! Answer me!" commanded the king, taking her hand and squeezing it a little. It seemed to him as though she was startled from a daydream then. She seemed to see him for the first time since he'd entered the room.
He looked back to Legolas who had gotten to his feet and masked his guilty expression. "What about your what?" he asked them very slowly and very suspiciously. Arwen turned to Legolas as well. "Legolas?" Aragorn questioned his friend. The prince only shook his head blankly and began to laugh.
"Aragorn, my friend, you have startled it completely from my mind. It was not important," he smiled as genuinely, charmingly as he could manage, but it felt forced and unnatural.
Aragorn gave the pair a last incredulous look. "Very well," he said thoughtfully. "Beloved, will you walk with me?" Arwen nodded. "Legolas, we shall see you tomorrow evening?" Legolas nodded silently as well. "Come then, Arwen, we will ride to Osgiliath."
Together the three of them descended the long staircase. They went out into the brilliant morning sunlight. Just before they parted ways, Legolas whispered almost inaudibly. Only Arwen heard him. "There is something I must tell you before you go," he said. She shook her head reproachfully and departed on the arm of her soon-to-be husband.
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AN: I'm so sorry this has been so long. Honestly, I know that I am a horrible person for keeping you all waiting so long, but I have had a crazy semester. My classes are hard, my roommate tried to run away with the circus (you think I'm kidding), I got a BOYFRIEND (not that anyone cares) who I have been paying lots and lots of attention to. Writing sort of took a back seat, but I promise that I WILL finish this. Just stick with me, please. Thank you all so much for all your support. ~DR