My apologies for taking so long for this update. Apart from the usual RL-stuff, I fought with this chapter for a good long time. I'm still not happy with it, but at least I stopped being unhappy, mostly thanks to my wonderful Beta Ruiniel. Thanks for making this look good!

The moment in the tent where Anne makes her ambiguous request to Legolas is dedicated to the delightful and talented Tobiramamara for being patiently impatient. (Even though I know it's not the scene you are waiting for…)

Thanks to everyone who is reading, and for the amazing feedback last time – it's what sustains me! I'm also sorry for the delay in replying, I'm (belatedly) getting to it.

I'll try my best to update again before the new year.

By Devious Route

:::

III III III

When roughly an hour later Anne returned to the tent, she was convinced that she would never be able to raise her arms again. After she had forced herself to thank Legolas for the gruelling two hours, he told her that things would get easier once she developed some upper body strength. Yet, even though this had been the first encouraging thing she heard from him all evening, Anne failed to find much comfort in it. The sky had clouded over during the last hour or so, and it started to drizzle. Anne was almost thankful for the soft rain, as she had started to fear Legolas might be tempted to torment her a while longer, even after dusk had fallen. The darkness did not bother him that much, after all.

Stiff, shivering, and aching all over, she now ducked underneath the tent flap to find her tent-mate waiting inside, sitting on top of her folded-up bedroll, with a steaming flask on the ground next to her – everything bathed in the restless, flickering light of the lantern that had been placed in one corner.

"Finally," Maeren greeted Anne with a grin, as the latter, sniffling and wincing, lowered herself onto her own bedroll. "Did you hit the mark?"

"No," Anne grumbled.

Maeren laughed and leaned forward, undeterred. "Be patient. You cannot expect to be any good right from the start. These things don't happen overnight."

"I was afraid that it might actually turn night before he'd let me go," Anne muttered, causing the other woman to snort with undisguised mirth. Coughing, she pulled her cloak from her pack and wrapped it around herself with shaking hands.

Maeren eyed her critically. "You look terrible by the way. Pale as a sheet, and your eyes are all glassy."

Anne shrugged, and then winced when the abused muscles in her shoulders protested. "My head hurts, and my throat… and pretty much everything else as well."

"It is a good thing then, that you have me around." Maeren picked up the steaming flask and offered it to Anne, who took it warily.

"What is that?" She attempted to sniff at the content, but since she could barely smell anything, all she could discern was that it was hot and somewhat sharp, as it made her eyes water.

"Medicine," Maeren told her, while reaching for her own cloak. "Mostly wine, herbs, onion, and some spices. That stuff is marvellous though, old family recipe. You will be right as rain come tomorrow morning."

Anne sniffled again and then took a cautious sip; she could only taste very dulled hints of the spices – something like clove, and perhaps cinnamon, but the alcohol from the wine made the inside of her mouth burn. Coughing again, she looked up at Maeren. "You did not exactly water this down, did you?"

Maeren furrowed her brow in plain incomprehension. "What on earth would I water it down for?"

"Well, it's pretty… oh, never mind. Thank you." Telling herself that beggars could hardly be choosers, Anne took another, larger sip, before nodding at Maeren's rolled-up bed. "Why did you pack?"

"I'm sleeping on the cart tonight, under the awning."

Anne stared at her. "You're not serious."

"I am, I assure you. I'm meeting with traders and customers in Tharbad, so I cannot afford to contract whatever nasty chill you seem to be coming down with. Also, your coughing is rather noisy."

"Yes, you have told me already," Anne mumbled morosely in-between sips. "But now I feel like I'm chasing you out of your own tent." Aside from this, she also did not relish the idea of sleeping in the tent on her own; somehow, having walls –however thin– around herself made her feel much more isolated and alone, even if she very well knew that the others were merely a stone's throw away.

"Don't worry about it," Maeren said brusquely, while shrugging into her cloak. "I have a sneaking suspicion that the awning might turn out to be more weatherproof than this tent, to be quite honest. Let's both enjoy the space – not even Legolas should willingly spend the night outside in this weather, so the men's tent might be rather crowded tonight." Her voice took on a gleeful tone when she then added, "Think of that, when your sore muscles plague you. Hal snores something awful."

After Maeren had retreated to her cart, Anne huddled down on her bedroll, underneath several blankets as well as her cloak, and slowly sipped from Maeren's cold medicine. The strong concoction – as horrible as it tasted – helped insofar as it dulled the aches from her muscles, head and throat to a tolerable degree. Unsurprisingly, it also made her feel rather light-headed and sluggish, and even though her whole frame was shaken by fits of shivers, her head glowed like a furnace.

Once Anne had almost finished the spiced wine, it seemed like a remarkably good idea to stick her head out of the tent and cool her burning skin in the soft rain. So she sat, eyes closed and face tilted up towards the dark sky and the gentle drizzle. The respite was short-lived, however.

"What on earth are you doing?"

Anne blinked rain out of her eyes and blearily looked up to where Legolas was standing a few feet away, wrapped in his cloak and staring at her. She suppressed a groan and wrecked her mind for some innocuous response that might preempt any further discussion. Sadly, her mind was not at its best.

"I am… getting some fresh air?"

"Air," he echoed.

"Yes, it's out here," Anne supplied. "The air, I mean."

Before she had time to deploy any sort of defence strategy – which admittedly would have turned out rather sluggish – he had stepped closer, bent down, and none too gently pressed the palm of one hand against her heated brow.

"Ow!" She tried, unsuccessfully, to squirm backwards. "I wish you would stop doing that."

"You said you had no fever," Legolas said as he straightened up again, ignoring her protest.

He sounded a bit too accusing for Anne's liking. Defensively, she wrapped her arms about herself and scowled up at him. "Yes, because I didn't."

"You do now. Get back inside."

"You are quite overbearing sometimes, if I may say so," Anne grumbled while getting clumsily to her feet and ducking back into the tent. "Has anyone ever told you that?"

Instead of replying, he followed her inside and looked around with a frown. "Where is Maeren?"

"She has made herself a new tent in her cart," Anne snickered, finding the mental image amusing all of a sudden. When Legolas looked at her as though she had lost her mind, she thought to elaborate, "She said she didn't want to contract my nasty chill."

"I see," he sighed, then eyed her critically, while crouching down in the corner where their skins and furs were lying. "You should take off that tunic."

Anne spluttered out a gasp that turned into another snicker — feeling perhaps a bit more giggly than the situation warranted. "As handsome as you are, I'm not sure I feel comfortable with the… with—"

"I did not mean for you to do it in front of me," the Elf interrupted Anne, before casting her a stern glance. "The top of it is soaked through. Why sit in the rain when you are already ill? How you are still alive is a mystery to me at times."

"Oh," Anne said shiftlessly. Feeling rather drained all of a sudden, she watched as he picked up her skins and unrolled them. "I can do that myself," she protested meekly, shivering again.

"It would appear that you cannot," he retorted with another glance at her trembling, huddled-up form.

Anne shifted uncomfortably where she stood, feeling useless. She was also beginning to regret her bold words from before now, and decided to attempt some damage control.

"When I said handsome, I meant that as a neutral… impartial sort of assessment," she said as casually as possible, trying to ignore the odd look Legolas was giving her while straightening up. "Personally, I don't… I don't have—"

Anne trailed off when he stepped closer towards her and bent down, peering closely into her face. She drew back slightly, furrowing her brow in befuddled alarm. "What— what are you doing?"

"You are drunk," Legolas stated, a note of both disbelief and faint amusement in his voice as he studied her face.

"What? No, I'm not!"

"You smell of wine," he informed her.

"That was medicine!" Anne shrank further back from him – and his nose – only to stumble when she bumped into the tent wall.

The Elf grabbed both her arms to steady her. "Sit down before you fall down," he ordered.

Anne admitted defeat and let him steer her towards her skins, where she sank to the ground. Legolas released her arms and then bent to pick up Maeren's empty wine flask from where it stood on the ground next to her bedroll.

He sniffed at it and grimaced. "Your medicine, I assume?"

"Maeren said it works wonders," said Anne defensively as she pulled her blanket around herself.

"Yes, I can certainly see that," Legolas said drily. Then he suddenly perked up and turned towards the tent's entrance, eyebrows raised. "And as chance would have it…"

A second later, Maeren's head appeared between the folds of canvas, looking drowsy and dishevelled. She glanced from Anne to Legolas and back again, before ducking inside with a frown. "What, pray tell, are the two of you doing in here?" she demanded grumpily. "There are those of us who are trying to get some rest, you know."

"She's back!" Anne beamed at Maeren, feeling a lot more friendly towards the other woman than she had earlier.

"So she is," Maeren said drily as she started rummaging in her large pack. "She forgot her tinder box." The merchant glanced at Anne, her eyebrows raised. "I am gone for an hour, and already you invite men into the tent?"

"I didn't invite him," Anne protested, drawing the blanket closer around herself. The damp cold of her tunic was seeping into her shoulders and back, causing her to shiver more violently than ever. "He just came in."

Maeren turned to the Elf with a look of feigned outrage on her face. "How unseemly!"

Legolas raised the wine flask. "Wine? On top of a fever?"

Maeren shrugged. "If it comes to stave off a chill, that drink is one of the best things there are. And what would you know about it anyway? Not to mention that you aren't without blame, after that number you did on her."

"He did not do anything on me, I am not as indecent as all that," Anne chipped in, her voice slightly muffled, as she was in in the middle of pulling her wet tunic over her head; she had decided that, since she wasn't naked underneath, it was probably all right.

Both Maeren and Legolas glanced at her, then back at each other. Legolas raised an eyebrow.

"Oh, all right!" Maeren threw up her hands in surrender. "Possibly, it was a little too much. But I could hardly have known that before."

"No?" The Elf pursed his lips. "Have you taken a look at her?"

"I am sitting right here," Anne grumbled, shivering in her sleeveless shift while unfolding a thick, woollen shirt.

Legolas sighed, casting her another appraising glance. "I will fetch another blanket."

"In any case," Maeren went on while turning back to her pack, "there is no point in arguing over it now. She will be fine by tomorrow, and probably sleep much better for it. And speaking of sleep – I am in dire need of some rest as well."

The Elf ducked out of the tent, his expression suggesting that he was biting back a rather scathing remark. Anne shuffled around on her bedroll to look at Maeren, who was just pulling the cylindrical tin box, containing flint, firesteel and charcloth, from her pack.

"Are you sure that you want to sleep outside?" Anne asked her, trying to sound casual and unconcerned. "I just thought— well, it is very dark out there."

"Thus, my tinderbox," Maeren said easily, holding it up in mock triumph.

"Yes, but are you not…" Anne shrugged jerkily, glancing towards the entrance. "I mean, don't you find it a bit eerie, being by yourself?"

Maeren huffed a soft snort of laughter while stuffing her tinderbox into her cloak. "Of course not, I usually am by myself." She cast Anne a shrewd grin as she straightened up. "Why, you are not afraid of the dark, are you?"

"No, of course not," Anne said, perhaps a little too quickly, just as Legolas reappeared in the tent's opening, shouldering a woollen blanket and another sheepskin.

"Well, all right then." Maeren gave Legolas a curious look as he motioned for Anne to get up, so he could place the sheepskin on top of the others. "You surprise me, Master Elf – kind and caring all of a sudden, who would have thought," she said, nodding approvingly.

"I call it damage control," Legolas deadpanned.

Anne slumped back down onto her skins and then scowled up at him. "That sounds a bit unkind to me."

"I would never claim that it was not meant to sound a bit unkind," the Elf told her pleasantly.

While Anne was frowning and puzzling over his string of negations, Maeren bade them goodnight and left the tent, snickering quietly to herself.

Anne looked after her before glancing up at Legolas, who was now unfolding the blanket he had brought with him.

"I think she is overreacting a little," she told him in a hushed voice as she settled down on her pile of skins and drew her blanket up to her nose. "I mean, if there was any danger of her to… contract anything, then surely it would have happened already?"

"I am afraid my knowledge wanes if it concerns mortal illnesses such as these," the Elf said dismissively; he finished unrolling the blanket and then dropped it unceremoniously on top of her.

Anne shoved it away from her face, too distracted to be peeved by his tone. "You can't though, can you?"

Legolas, who had been in the midst of getting to his feet, paused and looked down at her. "I cannot what?"

"You know… catch human illnesses?"

"No."

"Well then," she hedged, biting her lip, "perhaps, you could…"

"Yes?"

The low, hooting call of an owl disturbed the silence of the night outside, an eerie, wavering cadence, sounding very close.

"You could… sleep with me tonight?" Anne blurted out, giving up on pretences. So what, if he thought her a wimp? Presumably, that ship had sailed quite a while ago anyway — or, perhaps not, because something in the Elf's face seemed to twitch after her rushed plea, as if trying very hard to hide an expression.

Then he sat back and rested his arms on his bent knee, forearms crossed loosely. "Leaving aside all matters of decency — as well as your current condition, which might prove hindering — I feel certain that you would regret such a rash deed on the morrow."

For a moment, Anne tried to make sense of his words, but quickly gave up when the throbbing in her head intensified. "What?"

The Elf shook his head, and Anne thought there was the hint of laughter in his voice, even though his face was blank. "Never mind. And no, I cannot spend the night in here with you."

"Because Maeren said you coming in here was unseemly?" Anne guessed. "I don't think she was serious. Besides, I have been sleeping next to you for weeks before we came to Bree. The only difference is that now there is a tent around us."

Legolas twisted one hand in a 'there you go' gesture. "Exactly."

Anne frowned at him, raising herself up on one elbow. "You really don't like tents, do you? Is that the problem?"

The Elf reached for her shoulder and unceremoniously pushed her back down onto her bed. "Yes, that is the problem. Now, rest."

"But you will get wet if you spend the night outside," Anne stubbornly tried to reason.

"The rain has lessened already, and also there is a tent for the men. Go to sleep." Legolas rose and bundled his cloak about himself.

"Yes, but there is more room in here, and Maeren said that Hal snores something awful," Anne pointed out, pushing herself up again.

Legolas paused at the tent's entrance and looked back down at her. "I know of several methods to induce a swoon, even though I have never had cause to make use of them with a small person, one such as you." He regarded her, his expression pensive. "I am willing to attempt them, however, if needs be."

Anne shut her mouth so quickly she nearly bit her tongue.

:::

Over the next few days, the weather turned chilly again, with the stifling humidity thankfully letting up, and they made good speed. Whether it had been Maeren's cold concoction or a night of surprisingly good sleep, Anne was feeling better, and her new lessons continued in very much the same fashion as they had started. Sadly, the best thing that could be said about them was that they were drier, with the rain having ceased for now – apart from a few showers during the nights.

As much as Anne appreciated Legolas' time and effort, she became increasingly disheartened with the complete lack of improvement. Her attempts felt clumsy even to herself and her arrows kept straying too far to the right, for some reason. When Anne confided some of her frustration to Legolas, he merely told her the same thing Maeren had done: that she was too impatient.

"You still weaken quickly and are easily distracted," he had said to her after yet another hour of crisp orders on his part, and fruitless endeavours on hers. "And with no prior training, I would not expect you to make any more progress."

Anne had nearly pointed out to him that there did not seem to be any progress whatsoever, but then thought better of it; the Elf had actually been less gloomy and sharp-tongued for the last few days, and while she didn't understand the reason for his improved temper, she was not ready to risk changing it for the worse.

On the tenth day after they had set out from Bree, there was an air of anticipation and mild excitement about the small group. The evening before, Hal had told Anne that they would reach Tharbad the following afternoon, and throughout the day there had been growing signs of approaching civilization as the untamed moors and hilly heathland of Eriador gradually changed to meadows and pastures. Farmhouses with smoking chimneys were visible in the distance, men and women could be seen in the fields on either side of the Greenway, tending to their autumn sowing, and several groups of travellers passed them by.

They stopped for an early midday rest, so Maeren and the Hobbits could tidy up their carts and organise some cargo that had been shuffled around during their journey. To Anne's surprise, Legolas told to fetch her bow.

"This shall be the last opportunity for a few days at least, so we might as well make use of it," he said. "Once we are in town, there will be no place for you to practise."

They left the others by the side of the road and crossed several small beech groves until they reached a grassy, more open plain. The sky was overcast now and the air smelled heavily of rain. The wind had picked up, whipping Anne's cloak around her legs, and tugging at Legolas' hair that streamed down his back like a dark banner. Dry leaves rustled and whispered as they were blown across the short, yellow grass. An old cart had been left abandoned in the middle of the field, most of its wheels missing, the drop tongue broken and splintered.

Legolas walked up to the derelict vehicle and trailed one hand against the sideboards. "You can aim at the rail. The wood is rotten and soft, with some luck, it should not even damage the arrow," he told Anne.

She nodded glumly and glanced around them. About a hundred yards to their left, another farmstead was just visible beyond the trunks of a cluster of pines, and a slender column of smoke was curling up above the treetops and towards the cloudy sky. A flock of crows had gathered on the pines' higher branches, and their guttural calls were echoing over the field.

Anne warily inspected the arrow Legolas had given her; this one had a head made of flint attached to it, which looked very sharp. "Are you sure?" she nervously asked Legolas, who had stepped back beside her. When he raised a questioning eyebrow, she held up the arrow. "That you trust me with this, I mean?"

Legolas folded his arms and regarded her as if reassessing the matter himself, one side of his mouth rising in a thin, crooked smile. "There is no one around, otherwise I would not."

Not sure if she wanted to scowl or grin at him like a fool, Anne opted for neither and instead concentrated on nocking the arrow and placing her feet properly. Overly conscious of him watching her, she raised the bow and carefully drew it, determined —for the hundredth time, it felt— to finally get it right. A sudden, strong breeze nipped at her face and cooled her cheeks, carrying the smell of woodsmoke.

"Where exactly did you say I should aim?" she asked while peering at the cart through narrowed eyes.

Legolas did not reply. When Anne glanced at him over her shoulder, she saw that he wasn't looking at her, but towards the farmhouse behind the pine trees, his brow furrowed.

Uncertainly, she let her weapon sink, unbending it slowly. "Legolas?"

Still, the Elf did not react, mutely staring into the distance — but then he made Anne jump by quickly unshouldering his own bow. He strung it with rapid, practised movements, never taking his eyes off the house in the distance.

"Stay behind me," he said in a strange, clipped voice, and then started walking towards the pine copse at a brisk pace, without stopping to see if she followed or not.

Anne hastily unnocked the arrow and hurried after him, a cold trickle of fear pooling into the pit of her stomach. The bitter smell of burned wood got stronger as they neared the farmhouse and passed the first row of trees. Then Legolas stopped so abruptly that Anne ran headlong into him. Rubbing her nose, she took a step back and looked past his shoulder — and froze in her tracks.

The smoke was much thicker than it had appeared from afar, and it wasn't coming from a chimney. Open-mouthed, Anne stared at the gaping hole in the thatched roof of the low, bedraggled-looking building. Beneath the still smouldering remnants of reeds and straw, parts of the rafter were visible, blackened and ruined like a broken skeleton. The front part of the house seemed to be largely left unscathed by the fire, but looked merely run-down and neglected. The entrance was right in front of them, a yawning hole leading into darkness. There was no door, and the remaining frame was so twisted and warped that gaps had formed between the wooden posts and the stones of the wall.

"Wait here," Legolas said without turning around.

Anne looked up at him, unnerved by the tenseness in his voice. "What? What are you—"

But the Elf was already walking swiftly towards the ruined doorway, and a second later he had ducked underneath the low door frame and disappeared inside.

In the pines above, the crows were making quite a ruckus now; their cries sounded harsher and somewhat shriller than before, but apart from them, there was no sound. Even the wind seemed to have died down.

Anne tried to swallow through the sudden dryness in her throat and looked around nervously. The ground was overgrown with coarse-looking, brown grass and clumps of thistles. There was an old shed to the right of the house, only half of it still standing, and nearly obscured by thick tendrils of ivy. Behind the building, remnants of a fence were still visible between tall-growing weeds and brambles. It was clear that nobody had been here in a long time. Where, then had the fire come from?

Anne flinched when a sudden rushing and rustling noise sounded from inside the house — the rapid fluttering and flapping of frantically beating wings — then a motion caught from the corner of her eye made her eyes snap up, towards the roof. Several small, dark shapes appeared from below the frayed edge of the hole. The birds seemed to hover above the roof for a moment, cawing angrily and wings flailing wildly, then they sluggishly rose higher and disappeared within the canopy of the pines.

"Legolas?" Barely aware that she had moved, Anne found herself standing by the rickety door frame, peering into the gloom. The smell of burnt wood and cold, damp ash was near overpowering, but she took a tentative step, crossing the threshold.

The windows were shuttered, but in the faint light that shone in through the entrance, Anne could see that the floor was covered with rubble and old leaves that had been blown in over the years. Apart from the smoke, there was also another faint but noxious smell, more pungent and raw, as if animals had used the abandoned house as a shelter. There must have been a wall at some point, dividing the back of the house into another room, but most of it had collapsed, covering the ground with yet more broken stones and dirt. There was a heap of rotting wood in one corner that might have been a table once.

Anne took a few more cautious steps; dry leaves and small twigs crunched underneath her feet and when she had nearly reached the ruined wall, something small and dust-coloured darted out from its shadow and scurried away. Gasping, Anne stumbled to the side and nearly lost her footing, before her outstretched hands found the rough, scraggy surface of the wall, scraping her palms. She straightened up with her hands burning, her heart beating wildly, and was just about to call out for the Elf again, slightly panicking — when she saw him.

Through the destroyed roof, a pool of cold, grey daylight fell inside, harshly illuminating charred, broken wood and debris, covered in soot. Legolas was standing almost right beneath the hole, set between light and dark, and still as a statue. He seemed to be staring at something on the ground.

"Legolas?" Anne's call came out hoarse and muted, her voice dying on the last syllable.

There was no reply. She felt the hair rise at the back of her neck as she took a few cautious steps towards the Elf. Tiny specks of ash were swirling in the pale light around him, and crowning his dark head like snowflakes.

Anne walked faster, hastily scrambling over the crumbled wall, with a sudden desperate need to reach him; her feet tripped slightly on the uneven ground, sending small rocks clattering away. She was almost at his side, could see part of his face now, ghostly white and rigid, and there was something else — an expression she could not place, one she had never seen on him. Her own gaze fell to the ground, following his stare. Wooden beams, splintered and scorched, piles of rubble, and more wood — logs and branches — remnants of a campfire? And amongst the debris, half-buried, something that looked like the pale branch of a birch, but discoloured and mottled, with dark-purple blotches…

Legolas moved so fast that Anne saw nothing but a blur, his hand flung out to push her back. His palm came to lie a little too low against her chest, but he did not seem to notice.

His arm was shaking.

Unnerved, Anne took a step back and stared at the Elf, cold dread seeping into her stomach. She heard him exhale on a quiet gasp as though he had been holding his breath; then he finally turned around. His face was cast into shadow now, but Anne saw the faint shimmer of his eyes as they strayed over her, oddly unsteady, and for a moment he looked confused that she was there. Then his gaze seemed to focus on her face and he moved towards her.

"Get back," he said flatly.

Confused and shaken, Anne took another step backwards. "But… what—"

"Get back," he repeated, more urgently now, gripping her shoulders and turning her around.

Anne staggered, nearly dropping her bow, as he all but shoved her along with him, back towards the entrance. After staring at the patch of daylight, she was near blind in the gloom now.

"What is wrong?"

His hand tightened on her arm. Only when they reached the doorway and Legolas pushed her outside before him did he reply, his voice strangely hollow.

"Someone has died in here."

"What?!" Anne felt like something cold was squeezing around her chest; she probably would have faltered in her step had it not been for the Elf's hold on her arm. Again, she saw the patch of light beneath the hole in the roof... the white thing that had looked like an old tree branch, ashen, with reddish staining…

"They died from… from the fire?" she finally managed to ask, her voice slightly shriller than before.

Legolas said nothing for several moments as he briskly strode back across the field, staring straight ahead. His hand slid from Anne's upper arm to her wrist but did not release her. At last, he lightly shook his head, not looking at her. "From breathing in the smoke, I think."

"So it wasn't—" Anne swallowed, trying hard to ignore a faint wave of nausea that rolled through her. "It wasn't people, who did this?"

"No, it was not," said Legolas after another moment.

He sounded distant and was still not looking at Anne. Neither did he let go of her arm. It briefly crossed her mind that this was odd, as there seemed to be no imminent danger.

"Should we… should we not do something?" Anne panted, slowly getting short of breath, while struggling to match the Elf's long strides.

Legolas slowed down but did not stop. "There is little we can do. I will fetch something to cover the remains at least, until the people from Tharbad can deal with them."

Anne thought of the crows and felt her stomach lurch again. "Perhaps it's someone from the town? We are close to it, aren't we?"

"We shall inform them, but I doubt it." Legolas paused, before adding quietly, "She was clad in nothing but rags."

Aghast, Anne looked up at him. "It was a woman?"

There was a moment of silence, and Anne suddenly became conscious of Legolas' grip on her arm; it had gotten so tight that her fingers were growing numb. Then he spoke, strangely toneless.

"No."

Anne frowned and tore her gaze up from their hands. "What? But you just…" Then she trailed off when the horrible truth dawned on her. A child?

"An orphaned vagabond perhaps… or a young beggar," Legolas said, still in that empty, distant voice that did not quite sound like him.

Despite their slower pace, Anne found it hard to breathe. A vague sense of terror — that something was wrong, aside from their gruesome discovery, was growing stronger with every one of their hurried steps. They were nearing the beech grove beyond which the road lay, and the crows' raspy calls had grown fainter, but Anne could still hear them.

"How– how did you know that there was someone in there?" she asked shakily, more to distract herself than out of actual curiosity. "I noticed the air smelled of smoke, but—" She interrupted herself with a sharp gasp of pain.

The Elf's hold on her wrist had become crushing — it felt like he was seconds away from snapping her bone, his controlled strength turned feral, an untempered power that was terrible and deadly.

At her wordless exclamation, Legolas finally came to a halt and slowly turned around. Grimacing and trying to free her hand, Anne opened her mouth to protest, or perhaps plead, but the words died on her lips when she looked up at him. He wore the same expression as before — only now she recognised what it was.

Anguish.

The emotion was so plain and raw on his face, the pain in his eyes so utter, that it seemed to suck the air from her own lungs. The next moment, something shifted in his features and they became shuttered; his brows unknitted, his lips closed into a thin line. His gaze dropped to their hands and he blinked — long, dark lashes fluttering like bird's wings, and a brief flash of dismay darted across his face — then he let go of her, hastily drawing back his hand as though she had been the one hurting him.

Alarmed, Anne watched him backing away from her a couple of steps; his eyes were following her movements as she absently cradled her throbbing hand to her chest.

"Legolas?" Anne said timidly, her voice thin with tension and fear.

He did not respond but kept staring at her wrist, where the pale, red-rimmed imprints that his fingers had left were slowly fading. The silence stretched, became disquieting, the only sound that of dry leaves rustling above them, and the faint cawing in the distance.

"Legolas!" A muddled, indistinct panic, which Anne could make no sense of, yanked her into motion. Without thought she stepped closer to him, only barely resisting the urge to grab his arm.

His brows lowered in a brief twitch, and she saw his throat work as he swallowed – then his eyes rose and met hers. "I am sorry…"

Even as he spoke, he flinched very slightly, as if startled by his own voice. Yet, the deep, mellow tone was his, and Anne almost sobbed in relief.

The Elf's glance darted to her bruised wrist again. "I did not mean to hurt you," he murmured, his voice still tinged by a shadow of distress.

Anne found herself gripped by a sudden, and overwhelming yearning to touch him; to feel the reassuring warmth of his skin, and to give that reassurance in turn… whether it was needed or not. She did not dare to though, so she crossed her arms in front of her stomach, clutching her bow with a trembling hand.

"It's fine, you didn't," she muttered — then trailed off and swallowed. Somehow she couldn't bring herself to tell him how much he had scared her. "I was worried," she eventually finished, her voice slightly choked.

Legolas' gaze, guarded once more, fastened on her face, his brow furrowed in another faint echo of regret. He raised one hand as if to reach for her — but then stopped mid-motion, inches from her shoulder. His fingertips grazed down her arm as his hand fell back to his side, somehow leaving her feeling colder than before.

"There was no need to worry," he said calmly. "The girl's death was caused by the fire. You were in no danger."

Anne nodded mechanically, not knowing whether his misunderstanding of her words was deliberate or not. "Right," she said quietly.

His gaze slid away from hers like water from a cupped hand. Then he indicated the direction of the road with a slight nudge of his head. "Come. I have to return to the house and cover the body, and the others must be wondering what has become of us."

Anne took a deep, shaky breath, and somehow managed another nod. "Right," she repeated, barely above a whisper. Legolas' eyes found hers again, and lingered for a moment – perhaps hesitating, deliberating – then he turned away.

She wanted to ask him what had happened just now, but she was scared of what his response might be if she did. She also wanted to ask him if he was all right, but the time for that seemed to have passed somehow. She desperately wanted to ask him not to go back to the farmhouse and to that dead child, but she couldn't have explained why, even to herself, and she realised that it wasn't her place to do so anyway.

So Anne said nothing and swallowed down anything that might have escaped. She tried to ignore both the persistent pounding in her chest and the dull throbbing in her wrist as she slowly followed the Elf on his path beneath the whispering trees.

:::

III III III