DISCLAIMER: I do not own any piece of the wonderful world that Tolkien named Middle-Earth, none of the characters, places or names. Anything you recognize is not mine. All elvish (mainly sindarin) is from the site The council of Elrond. Don't steal my original characters, if you want to use them, ask first. This and the following chapters have been slightly edited, but the plot is unchanged.

Wild Horse

Chapter II: The borrowing of books.

She heard the swish of his robes as he ran up behind her. What he heard was the 'skvulp skvulp' sound her flooded boots made for each step she took. The horse was not behaving one bit. He was trying to pull his head down to eat and it annoyed her. After just one lesson with her training, this horse would at least behave. But no...

She was so busy with the horse that she never saw it coming. But when her right foot came in contact with something soft and warm, she knew she had managed to step into the middle of the fresh horse manure.

"Bloody…" She groaned as the prince let out a small chuckle. She kept on walking.

"My prince, I am sure you can just go back now. There is really no need."

"I will see to that he is properly locked away."

End of discussion.

Now they were on the large lawn, leading to the road. Gladholion started to throw his head up and down; he wanted to run like he always did here. She held him firmly with only the scarf around the horse's neck.

"Why is he behaving like this?" she heard the prince ask.

"He is always," she tightened her grip on the scarf, "behaving like this, my prince."

"Not when I am riding him."

"He behaves like an angle whenever anyone is riding him," she replied quickly. "The only problem is that he has no respect for either me," she pushed the horse aside, "nor my toes, when I am on the ground."

"Let me hold him then."

"Fine by me, but not until we are safe behind the closed gate, my prince. I do not wish to run after him again." Did the prince actually think he was better with horses than her?

When Legolas closed the gate, the horse was safe inside, with no ways to escape.

"Hand me the rope," Legolas ordered.

"Now be careful," she said as she gave him the scarf. She went over to the half closed stable door she had run out of less than 15 minutes ago and pushed them wide open.

"Lead him in then."

Legolas clicked his tongue and the horse started moving forward. Then a horse inside neighed, and Gladholion jumped forward.

Legolas lost the scarf in the sudden move, for he had expected this to be easy, so he had not held onto the scarf very hard. Gladholion was now standing, hummering and whining with another horse. The girl was already at the horse's side and yanked the horny stallion away from the mare by his mane. She quickly led Gladholion away and to his own box. As she came to Gladholion's box, she rushed him inside, took the scarf of him and smacked the door shut behind her.

"Do you see why I want to train him now my prince?"

Legolas could only nod.

"He is the most beautiful horse I have ever seen," she said dreamy she looked at the now eating horse. "It would be a shame if he was not the best trained."

"Yes, it would."

"Will you allow me to train him?" the stable girl asked. Legolas did not reply, he merely continued to watch the beautiful animal.

Its coat was a dark grey, but it turned whiter and whiter after each year that passed. The big black eyes showed intelligence and the well-shaped muscles underneath showed strength. Strength he loved to feel as the proud animal galloped underneath him. Legolas was not too sure about letting other people handling the stallion. What if the horse only replied to them and not to him? What it they trained him wrong and Gladholion was to him useless afterwards? No, he would not start leaving responsibility to other people now, he had managed fine in the nearly three thousand years he had behind him. He had after all been able to ride Arod, the horse he was given of Eomer, without a saddle and a bridle, after only knowing the horse for less than five minutes.

"No, I will train him myself."

"Have you ever trained a horse before, my prince?"

"No, but it can not be too hard."

"What do you intend to do?"

"First I will teach him to respect me, and then to respect others."

"How do you intend to do that then, my prince?" Legolas was starting to feel that it might be a hint of mirth in her voice.

"Err…the normal way?"

"You have no idea, have you?"

"Well, he is not too ill mannered. With a few minutes each day I am sure he will be superb in no time." Now she actually laughed.

"Come here and let me show you something." He followed her some boxes down till they stopped outside a box that held a red horse.

"This is Carnil," she said as she opened the door. As she approached the horse that had now lifted its head, she continued to tell Legolas about it.

"He is a stallion and five years old, just as Gladholion is. But that is the only thing they have in common," she said as she stroked Carnil lovingly over his neck to greet him.

Then she positioned herself just ahead of the horse. When she walked out of the box the horse followed, no rope, no nothing. The horse kept at her right side, its head slightly behind her. As she suddenly stopped, the horse did at the exact same moment, its head did not move in front of her. The mare that had greeted Gladholion started to neigh again, but this stallion took no notice. They now stood in the middle of the stable and she made the stallion back up, follow her in every direction, and go in circle as it only moved its hind legs, before she lead the horse back in to its food.

"Do you know how to train a horse that way?" she asked as she secured the door.

"No. But that horse was very well trained, you can not expect every horse to do that."

"Every horse in these stables can do the exact same thing, just not Gladholion." This made Legolas rethink his planned answer.

"I really want to be one with that horse, if you know what I mean," said Legolas after that they had walked back to Gladholion. "I want him to see me as his master, not just his rider."

"Now you are talking sense. Do you know how to reach that goal then?"

"No." Now came the moment of embarrassing silence. Legolas cleared his throat and crossed his arm as he waited for her to say something.

"I can borrow you some books for a start," she said.

"That would be nice." He smiled politely at her.

"You can come home with me now and get them if you like, my prince."

"Tonight? Is that really necessary?"

"If we, sorry, you, do not start training him tomorrow, he will run of tomorrow too, and I do not feel like having this night repeated," she gestured towards her wet self and her dirty boot, "do you?"

"I will follow you home then. Is it a long walk?"

"About 20 minutes. Do you agree that he is safely put away?" she was referring to Gladholion.

"Yes. Shall we go?"

They walked out and closed the stable doors. Legolas followed her without a word as she rounded the corner of the stable and climbed over the fence. He had to gather his royal dark green robes in his hands to climb over the fence. She was waiting for him at the edge of the forest, at what looked to be the beginning of a trail into the forest.

"Do you need any help, my prince?" she asked as she saw how he had a problem keeping balanced in his sandals as he was trying to swing his foot over the fence.

"No, I will manage," he jumped down, "see?"

"Should we continue, my prince?"

"Lead the way."

The path was narrow so Legolas walked behind her. They walked in silence as the darkness started to gather under the old trees. Evening was turning into night and when Legolas looked up through the branches he could see dark clouds gathering.

"Rain is coming," he thought. He hoped he was well back in the palace by that time.

"Here we are," she said as they could start to make out the small cottage among the trees. Many of the wood elves had moved out of the caves after the forest of Mirkwood had been rid of its evil after the fall of Sauron. Mirkwood had been renamed Eryn Lasgalen, Greenwood, but no one used that name. Mirkwood would always remain Mirkwood. Not in a negative way, but darkness is not always evil.

The cottage was built in between two trees; it had a small window in the front, together with the door. It was in usual elven style, the paved roof, and the elegant walls with pillars on the corners and in the doorframe. Legolas guessed it to be as large as half of his chambers.

She opened the unlocked door and stepped aside so that he could enter. He walked in and when she closed the door behind them both, it left the room darkness. She lit a candle and it lightened the room so little that he could only see outlines of a table, some chairs and a fireplace. The room was as cold as the evening outside.

"Oh no," she said as she ran over and closed a window that was not visible form the front. "I sometimes forget to close it. Shall I light a fire, my prince, your robes does not look to warm."

"If you just will find me the books, I will be on my way."

"Of course." She took the candle she had placed on the table and walked over to a small shelf. He could see the backs of many books.

"...The training of the new born foal...food for all horses... the races of Middle-Earth...of Oromë and Nahar...ah, here is one you will need, Natural Horsemanship." She gave him a heavy, well-used book. "And this, Problem Solving. And this," another book, "and this, and this." She looked through the rest of the books, murmuring the titles as she did.

"That is all I think," she said as she got up, "for now. Read first Natural Horsemanship, the first one I gave you, or else you will understand little of the others."

"Thank you, they will be returned as soon as I am done with them."

"There is no hurry; I know them almost by word. And if there is anything you do not understand you can always come down to the stable to ask, my prince."

"I will. Now I will be on my way." His arms were filled with books so she opened the door for him. They found it to be raining heavily outside.

"Do you have a raincoat I can borrow?" Legolas asked. A look of horror crossed her features.

"I am so sorry, my prince, but I don't. I wore it on my way to the stables this morning and I forgot it there."

"I will just have to manage," he said as he stepped out in the rain. He walked a couple of steps, before he heard her offer to stay for the night.

"I will be fine," he called out over his shoulder.

"You will ruin your robes and your shoes, "she paused, "and my books." He stopped, feeling the mud through his sandals. He walked up back to the entrance, where she was waiting.

"By second thought, I will accept your offer." She stepped aside and let him in.

OOO

A/N: Another chapter. Hope you liked it. The next chapter will be up tomorrow, I think, I am on summer holidays so I have lots of time to write. Please review, I would love to know what people think.

First thank you so much too my reviewers.

Mehagles: Thank you so much, my first reviewer! I will send you the first two chapters. Glad you liked it. Hope you come back to read more.

Lil girl lost: Thank you so much for your review. I had hoofprints in my handwritten version, must have forgotten it when I printed in on the computer. Thanks for letting me know.

Almost funny: First of all, thank you for your review. I hope it turn out to be a good story, I have most of the main story line in my sketch book... I will finish the story. Hope you come back to read more.

Archer777: Thank you for your review. I want it to be cute, but not Mary- sueish (if that is a word). Hope you come back to read more.

Now I thought I might let you in on what some of the names means. They are both from the sindarin name finder at the site "The council of Elrond".

Gladholion: he laughs (I found that rather fitting).

Rísithil (Legolas´ mother): queen of the moon.

And yes there is a reason we don't know the stable girl's name yet. I thought it would be natural that the royal family doesn't know the names of the servants. But don't worry; the name comes in the next chapter…