"What do you mean?"

Legolas shrugged, and I reached out to run my fingers over the writing. It did not change under my touch.

Finally, I pushed some leaves off the steps and settled down in front of the mausoleum. The elf sat down next to me. With my foot, I pushed a stone back and forth on the floor. "Now what?"

"Don't you have any ideas?"

I rolled my eyes. "I've already discovered the mausoleum. Now it's your turn."

"Ah, so that' s how it is."

I still felt uncomfortable in his presence. Especially that my inner life seemed to be an open book to him made me feel powerless. I didn't want him to see through me like that; after all, I didn't have any success with him either.

"Why are you here, anyway?", I asked into the silence - mainly to distract myself. Apart from that, I felt that he could finally tell me.

"I've already told you that," he said.

"I'd like to know in more detail, though."

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw him smile and wondered what had been so funny about what I had said.

"I am here to preserve your presence."

I frowned. "Excuse me?"

"Do you remember what I said about the downfall of man?"

I nodded. "Yes, and it was irrational."

He chuckled and I gave him a dirty look. Did he also have to emphasize the inadequacy I apparently represented in his eyes by laughing at me?

His smile died. "I wasn't lying. It's just that everything still seems unbelievable to me even now. Excuse my mirth."

I picked up one of the leaves that had not yet become part of the indefinable mass and tore it into small pieces. "Do I really have to ask again?"

He shook his head. "No." Then he too grabbed a leaf, but didn't destroy it, just looked at it. "I come from your past, Ina. If you will, I am one of the relics you are examining in your studies."

Before my mind's eye appeared one of the stone jars I had cataloged in an internship at the museum. Mentally placing Legolas next to the jar was odd, to say the least. "If you were a relic, I don't think I'd be talking to you."
"No, you would not in ordinary circumstances. But the circumstances are not ordinary."

"So?"

"I was sent to your timeline."

I frowned. "Into my timeline? Are there others?"

"Yes."

This was getting crazier and crazier. Next he was telling me that aliens were after him and he was on a quest to Shangri-La. If I hadn't already had an escape attempt under my belt, I would have run away by now at the latest. But so I just swallowed the new impossibility and remembered that I had sworn to help him and myself. That was the only option, to maybe get back home.

"I was sent to your timeline to prevent what I witnessed in its beginning," he continued.

I twirled one of my strands of hair back and forth between my fingers, thinking about what Legolas meant. "You mean the decline of the human race?"

"Yes."

"But then how can you have come into my future? After all, if humanity was already falling apart at that point, that future would have been long gone."

The elf nodded in agreement. "You are right, but I will cut it short: it was made possible, and I am here to..."

"To save us."

"You could put it that way."

I let go of my hair. "Why?"

"Why what?"

"Why are you doing this?"

He dropped the leaf in his fingers and I felt I had hit a sore spot. "I'm the one who is guilty of it. The future is always a mirror of the past. I will not allow that we have made all these sacrifices to..."

He broke off abruptly, as if he had already said too much, and I wondered what had almost slipped out. Was he referring to the War of the Ring? To Aragorn and the companions?

"You are wise," he said instead, looking at me.

"For someone my age."

"No. You are perceptive, perhaps not necessarily level-headed, but certainly very intelligent. It has nothing to do with age."

I felt my cheeks burn and hated myself for it. "Pack up your charm, or I'll get red ears, too."

"You already have them."

I rolled my eyes. Oh great. I'd forgotten that elves had much sharper vision than humans - even at dusk. "I'm sure you've met smarter people than me."

"Everyone is smart, in their own way."

That was probably the diplomatic version of: Yes, I've known far more intelligent people than you.

I sighed. "Do you remember everyone you've ever met?"

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw him brush his fingers over the stone of the stairs. "I only remember the special people. You shouldn't feel any different."

"There's no comparison."

"Why not?"

"Because...because I'm only twenty-five and you're... older."

He grinned. "When you walk in the shadows of the night, sometimes you wish for the morning to return again."

"That means you wish you were young again?"

"I am young."

"I mean mentally."

I couldn't take my eyes off the dimples that dug into his cheeks. When he laughed, he actually looked much more carefree.

"Do I give the impression of an old man to you?" he asked then, too, with an amused undertone in his voice.

"Well," I hesitated, "you don't seem thoughtless or even careless to me."

"I don't jump around the meadow like a young foal, that's true. But don't be under the delusion that I'm infallible. Some things even an almost endless life can't teach you."

"I don't think so."

He turned to me. "Let me put it another way: Some things you don't want to learn even after many years."

"So you retain some of your... childlikeness?"

"The vestigial remnant that remains of it, yes."

At his age, the carefree part of him couldn't be very big. Still, it reassured me in a way. It made him approachable. Human. I wonder if that was what he intended.

I sighed again. "I wish I had as much time as you do."

"You don't wish that."

"Why?"

"Just take my word for it. The future isn't always what you dreamed it would be."

I was about to rise to protest when something in my subconscious slid into place. Alarmed, I looked up. "What did you just say?"

"I said that the future..."

"No, not that. You earlier spoke of the... night and that you would walk in its shadows."

Legolas nodded and I clasped my hands together excitedly. Why hadn't I thought of this before? It had been so obvious. Right under my nose, as I had thought on the way back from the kebab store.

"What do you think?"

My heart was pounding up to my throat. "Maybe... I may have solved the riddle. You said that at the end of the day, the future is often not what you thought it would be. That means in the morning you're still full of confidence. And in the evening?"

"Is the wish of the beginning of the day already in the past," he murmured, catching my gaze.

"What's the elvish word for past?"

Before I could blink, Legolas had jumped up and was standing at the door. The characters sparkled under the last rays of sunlight that fell through the canopy of the graveyard. I scrambled to my feet and stepped up beside him.

He took a deep breath and called out, "Gobennas!"

At first nothing happened. But then a crack was heard, as if from many branches, and the door slowly opened.