Author note: Thank you everybody who has left a review lately, they are so kind and really keep me going writing this story! Honestly it makes me so happy that it's connected with people and that you're enjoying it. This chapter has been one of my favourites to write so far so I hope you like it. x

Chapter Twelve - Amon Hen

Keren had found herself a secluded spot under a tree whilst Legolas had gone to scout for food and potential danger. She was tired and hungry and hoped to stay on the peaceful hill for more than just a night. Always in the distance was the roaring of the great falls nearby, and from her spot in the glade she could just see the calm waters of the lake, Haldir a small speck at the shore checking the boats were secure for the night. She nestled into the curved trunk of the tree and shut her eyes, listening to the birdsong, the breeze in the trees, the water.

Legolas, returning from his slow, thoughtful walk through the steeply sloping woodland, was allowing painful memories to surface. It was down this path that he had sprinted with Gimli upon hearing Boromir calling for aid. His arrows were spent, and his face had been flecked with black blood. The orcs all lay dead around them and even now, well over a year later, he saw the odd carcass, bones laid bare mostly, the flesh having long decayed or gone into the mouths of hungry animals. He vowed to keep them from Keren's sight should she go wandering.

When he had neared the glade on that fated day he was fearful of what he would find, and his fears were founded, for there had lain his friends Aragorn and Boromir, one only lightly wounded, but one dead. Now, as he retraced his steps he felt his breathing grow shallow at the memory, although he knew no such grim sight awaited him.

But his breath caught in his throat when he saw that, under the very tree where Boromir had fallen, Keren now lay, eyes closed and beautiful in her stillness. His friend had lost his life where she lay sleeping. She had not any means to know this of course, but it froze his blood.

"Keren," he heard himself say loudly. "Come away from there."

She started awake, and had stood and brushed herself down before she felt fully conscious, so much did she trust his advice.

"Why?" she said, walking towards him.

"Do you see that moss?" He pointed back towards the tree. "It is of a kind that is mildly poisonous, it may cause your skin to get red and sore."

"I've never heard of such moss," she said dubiously.

"You have not lived in a forest for thousands of years," he said lightly, but he hid his shame. He had lied to her, for it was too strange for him to see her in such a place. The sooner they moved on the better.

She frowned at him, still suspicious, and turned to walk away.

"Wait…" she said quietly, turning back, realising something. "You must not think I do not know things, do not know you. Pippin told me much, Merry too. I know you camped on this hill, that last night, before you were all separated. I know the Lord Boromir was slain in a glade near the lake. This is a glade near the lake, and you look as if you've seen a ghost. So… would you like our camp to be elsewhere?"

She put her small hand on his arm.

"Am I so easy to read?" he said after a little while.

"Not usually," she replied. "Usually you are a complete mystery to me, especially lately. But I can see you are shaken now, yes."

The elf sighed.

"We will camp within sight on the greensward where Haldir is now, and all will be well, and I will lay to rest any ghosts that are here," he said. "But perhaps do not choose that tree to bed under in the meantime, for it is still grieving over the blood spilt on it, and will not give you restful dreams."

"What about further uphill, into the woods?"

"Nay," he said quickly, thinking of the old orc corpses. "The greensward is safe and practical, let us all find our rest there, close to the fire when it is alight and we have eaten."

He nodded to the food he had gathered in his arms, and together they walked down to Haldir, leaving Boromir's tree behind. Haldir thanked Legolas for the food whilst laying out cloaks and blankets on the ground. Keren watched them. She had thought elves would not encounter death much, but of course these were both warriors. They knew just what it was, probably far more than she, who had seen many deaths but no battles. And the death here, of Faramir's brother, had shaken Legolas to the core. She could not imagine how he had felt seeing a friend who had journeyed with him for so long suddenly end in front of his eyes. There was so much she did not know, could not even guess, about him, and it made her feel suddenly so incredibly distant. On impetus she walked decisively over to the elves.

"Let me help," she said, taking kindling from the pile. She crouched down next to Legolas.

"I am sorry that such a topic caused us to have the longest conversation we have had for weeks," she said to him, "but I am glad we are speaking too."

She would have gone on, but the strange emerging feelings that took her so by surprise made their presence known. Being in the place where Faramir's brother, so like him in looks, had died had brought him to her thoughts, and yet still here she was feeling as if she was walking on air.

Legolas looked at her sharply, then, and she busied herself with the fire. He had not replied, but he had not moved away.

The meal was simple but plentiful, and the air beyond the fire was cool. Keren decided to walk along the shore of the lake a little to clear her head before sleep. She was missing the hobbits, knowing that they were once in this place. It led her to wonder at all those she had left behind for the sake of her travelling - Palen, Beregond, Galadriel. Beregond in particular seemed as if he belonged to a different life.

And in a way he does, she thought as she stared into the slow-moving waters.

"How does it feel to be nearing home?" came Haldir's voice from just along the shore, and she turned quickly.

"Sorry," he said smiling and holding up his hands. "I thought you knew I was behind you."

"I'm not as observant as an elf," she said, smiling back. "I've just been wandering and thinking. I'm glad to be going home, but I do feel that all this will feel like a dream, perhaps like it never happened at all."

"'All this', as you call it, will be whatever you allow it to be," Haldir replied. "If you wish to remember it, or to live by it, or to forget it, it is your choice."

"I have the strangest feeling in me," she said. "Now I've travelled so far, I just want to go further north. Or east, or west. But I know I won't, and I know I need to go home, now. I do want to go home. It's all mixed up."

"It is just change you are feeling - change in the world, and change in yourself. That is a hard thing to navigate. Things will settle in time."

"How long did it take for things to settle for you, after my mother left?" Keren wondered.

"Time is different to elves," was all Haldir said, and she wondered if that meant he was still missing Orwen very much.

"I am sorry if this journey is casting a shadow over you," she said. "It is strange for me too, knowing that I am following in her footsteps all the way home. I went to the glade where her memorial is, the day before we left, to say goodbye, but I didn't feel she was there. The woman who loved Lórien - I never knew her. I felt closer to my grandmother who was buried there. "

Haldir was silent, looking out to the lake, and Keren feared she had upset him greatly. But after a time he spoke softly, and she had to move closer to hear.

"The second time, the time she had no choice but to return home, she did not speak the whole way. I would hold her at night, and I would watch as tears made her face shine as she shut her eyes for sleep, every night. I was so helpless, Keren, for I knew death was coming for her. Whether fast or slow, it was coming. She had lost her home, she was married to a man she did not understand or love, and she was frightened of her child. And we were losing each other. I was sending her into the arms of another man, one I knew would not bring her happiness. When she had run from Minas Tirith she was brave enough to undertake the long journey to Lórien alone, something she should never have considered. Travelling back with me, she was a shell, empty, shattered."

He turned to face her.

"There was a time when I feared you would have the same fate, that perhaps you would never escape your heartache, but now I see you are as brave, if not braver than she once was."

Keren could not bring herself to smile.

"I am not in competition with her," she said. "And there are many things I am still much afraid of. I would not do as she had done and journey alone, not in the wild."

"Well one who is not accustomed to defending themselves, and foraging, and rough terrain, should never choose to do that, for it is foolhardy and reckless," he replied. "So there I would say you are wise, not cowardly."

A cold wind blew from the west, and she shivered.

"I'm cold, I think I'll go back to the fire. Thank you, Haldir."

"For what?"

She smiled. "I don't know. Everything."

"I shall stay here for a while," he replied. "I have a mind to watch the banks rather than the hill. We are quite safe, but I feel tonight, somehow, this is where I need to be."

He looked steadily at the shore line, away from her, but he had a slight smile on his face. She did her best to misunderstand him as she turned back towards the long sweeping lawn of Parth Galen. A quarter of a mile away from Haldir she found the fire, and Legolas.

"Haldir is keeping watch on the shore," she said as she sat down, pulling her cloak around her. "I don't know what he expects to see, but if he feels he is useful…" She tailed off.

"I hope it is not too painful for you, being here," she started again, seeing his face look drawn. "I knew where we were headed and I was unsure you were entirely happy about it. But then you did not speak to me for days, so I - "

"Yes, I am sorry," he interrupted. "For that. For my silence."

She felt there was more to come, so did not speak, letting the crackle of the fire fill the silence until he began again.

"You were right, that other night," he went on quietly. "There was, is, something wrong. Well, not wrong as such. That is…"

"Never have I known an elf to falter over words," she said gently, as the cold wind blew off the lake again. She shivered.

"It must be later in the year than I thought," she said, to cover the strange atmosphere that had suddenly developed.

"It is early autumn," Legolas said. "The days are mostly warm, but the nights are cold and growing longer. You will be home just as the leaves are falling."

"But not Lórien leaves," she smiled wistfully.

"Nay, that blessed realm follows its own course."

They sat in silence for a short while, each lost in memories.

"Ugh, this wind," Keren said impatiently. "I miss the climate of the Golden Wood more than anything."

"Come this side of the fire, it is far more sheltered," Legolas offered, moving to stand up.

"Don't move on my account, please," Keren said, then chuckled.

"What amuses you?" Legolas frowned.

"We are so formal is all, worse than when we first met," she said. "Let us sit beside each other as we have done so many times before." Without waiting for him to answer she quickly sat beside him on the ground. "Remember, in the caves, all those hours, all those different caverns? We were not afraid to be close then."

Her voice faded to a whisper as she heard herself talking.

"You are afraid? To be close to me?" Legolas asked her.

"Never," she said simply.

"You were at the start," he replied.

Keren did not answer for a while.

"The start of what?" she dared to ask.

"The start of us," the elf said.

"Legolas, I - " she switched to Westron in the flurry of feelings that hit her. But she did not know what to say next. "I'm still cold."

Liar, she thought to herself. But whether he believed her or not, she felt him wrap his cloak around them both, so they were sat, hip to hip, closer than they had ever been. His arm went around her, and she fitted perfectly into his side. She felt his warmth spread into her, and she was happy - happy and confused. Why was she feeling disloyal to Faramir, the man who had broken her heart? After all she had learnt and been through?

"The steward is on your mind tonight," Legolas said quietly.

"A little," she confessed. "This is where his brother fell, and it has made me feel sad and strange. It's like two threads are being tied together, as if everything and everyone is connected, I suppose. I remember the first time I met them both, they were together, practising their swordplay. Never did I think that one day I would be sat where one of them met his death, so far from home. Lord Boromir was brave and chivalrous, and always Faramir was quieter and less self-assured, loath to use rash words and actions, whereas Boromir would always rush in, and whether to defend or attack it did not matter, just so long as he was seen to be doing something. In time the people learnt that Faramir had greatness of a different kind. Or at least, there was a time when I thought so. Perhaps I shall come to think so again. I am sure he is a great and just leader of men, and he is very wise, and brave. But in the end, with me, he was… Well, never mind, it is over."

"You loved him deeply," was all Legolas said.

"I did, and he loved me too, but could not bring himself to allow fate to lead him where it would, as I would have done. Perhaps he used his great capacity for thought and reason overmuch. He was tested, I suppose, in a way he had never expected, and in time his resolve wavered. And it broke my heart. I called him a coward, but I wonder now if perhaps I was the cowardly one, bowing to what I had been told to do, asking for no explanation."

"And now?"

"My heart is healing, though not fully healed I think. The true test will come if our paths cross again, which is unlikely now. But my time in Lórien has taught me much. I suppose…"

And here she halted, deliberating. Tinúnil, the crystal that had started it all, was sitting heavily in its pouch.

"Yes, I suppose it's time I showed you," she said simply. "You remember in the caves, you said you had had a sense of crystals around me from the beginning? Well, you were right, but I could not bring myself to tell the tale at the time, and I'm sorry for hiding it from you then. But see, here it is." And she reached into the pouch and opened her palm. The small, clear stone lay glittering in the firelight.

"This is Tinúnil. Made by Fëanor, in the West, when the world was young. Somehow it is mine now."

Legolas stared in wonder.

"I love it," Keren went on, "and I owe it much, and yet somehow I blame it for everything at the same time," she said.

The elf was silent, and she thanked him silently that she could tell the tale in her own way and at her own pace.

"The only living people I have spoken of it to are Faramir and the Lady Galadriel. Not even my sister knew, who I shared a room with every night. And since my time in Lórien I know far more about it than what I told Faramir. My mother gave it to me, with no real explanation, but I now know it was a gift to her from Galadriel. It is my guide, my helpmeet, whenever I need it."

And with those words she realised something. Not once had she called on it, not once had she needed it, not since Lórien.

"It brought me to Faramir, through a prophecy it gave. A voice in my head, or perhaps my heart, spoke to me." She did not wish to say whose voice it was, not yet, but instead allowed thoughts that had only just become apparent to her to be spoken. "But now of course I see it brought me to him not to marry him and be the wife of a rich and important man. What I received was far more important than that. Through meeting him, and through his subsequent betrayal, I came north, and learnt who I really am, I learnt that I had power within me. I learnt that, perhaps, I do have a choice in some things."

"What was the prophecy?" Legolas asked quietly. "You do not have to share it if you do not wish."

"Do you know, I can't fully remember," she said, although this was not true, but she could not bring herself to recite the thing, not after coming out the other side of it. "Something about a green gown, a white tree, a man who would change everything. Now I come to think of it, it never actually said that our love would last." She sighed. "How foolish I was."

The elf said nothing in return, but squeezed her shoulder where his hand still rested.

"And can it lay claim to bringing you to this pass, to this very moment?" he asked a little later.

"Oh, probably," she said sarcastically. "Why not, I suppose?" She shrugged.

"Well, if that is the case, then I have it to thank for bringing you to me," Legolas said, and Keren froze again.

"What were you going to say earlier?" she dared to ask. "That something was wrong…"

"No, nothing is wrong," he said. "In fact, I now think perhaps everything is as it should be, and I was wrong to doubt."

She sighed and looked up at him.

"You always speak in riddles."

"Only where you are concerned," he replied, and so close was he she felt his breath on her lips. She could have kissed him then, but something gave her pause. It was not a fear that he would not kiss her back, for she felt then, in that moment, that he would have. It was instead a fear of what starting that kiss would mean. An age ago now, it seemed, she had stood in a candle-lit room with Faramir, and felt the same.

"Keren…" He pulled back so he could look into her eyes. "If I said to you that - "

"No, don't say anything," she said quickly. "Please. I don't know what you're about to say, but don't say it."

She shuffled down until her head was resting against his chest.

"I'm tired. Goodnight."

He felt her small warm body settle against his, and suddenly he knew without doubt that their bonding had truly begun. She had felt it. She was frightened. Well could he understand that, for he had his own fears. But for tonight he was content to let her sleep within his arms.

To Keren's regret they did leave Amon Hen the following day, soon after sunrise. She woke with a clear head and only mild embarrassment over the conversation by the fire, despite waking in a position which would have made old Ioreth finally speechless at the impropriety. Legolas had barely moved all night, but she had slipped down in her sleep, the elf allowing her to lie flat as one would in a bed, except her pillow was his leg - she had awoken with her soft cheek resting on the hard muscle above his knee. When her eyes were open and she became aware of the situation she did not jump up and apologise, but rather shut her eyes quickly and pretended to doze until Haldir began making a lot of noise down by the boats. He had stayed away all night.

Now they were floating down the river once more, Keren and Legolas sharing a boat for the first time since they had left Lórien. Neither of them were especially aware that anything had changed until they noticed Haldir looking at the packs in front of him with interest. Both must have gone to be near to the other without thinking about it. Keren was not sure if she was elated or afraid.

Before their boats had reached the water the day had begun by navigating the steep, ancient steps that stretched down beside the huge waterfalls of Rauros. Climbing to the summit of Amon Hen they had found the start of the stairs, just past the ancient throne of old, where Kings had sat to see things far beyond their natural sight.

They adopted the same tactic as before, with Legolas and Haldir managing a boat each, whilst Keren took the packs. However the going was far harder than the small cliff-path above Sarn Gebir had been. That had been in poor repair, but this could hardly lay claim to the names 'path' or 'stair'. The ancient stone steps were far below a layer of tangled weeds and briar. Keren was extremely grateful for her boots or else her feet and ankles would have been ripped to shreds. The difficulty came from the lack of footholds - sometimes the thorny vines were so sturdy it held her weight, and for a few paces she could walk steadily downhill, but then her foot would fall through, and that's when her calves would get scratched or her ankle twisted. There was nothing within arms reach to support her, so often she found herself almost sliding down on her side. Rauros was of a great height, so the climb down seemed interminable given the circumstances. Towards the end the carpet of thorns thinned, and Keren breathed a sigh of relief, only to realise that the steps now bared to the elements were so worn and smooth they were perilous. Her feet slipped on almost every step, and it was still a long way down, so she feared several times she would slide all the way to the bottom. Often she thought that would be easier.

When the descent finally ended the path opened out onto a wide, green space, the ground spongy with squelching grass and moss.

"The start of the Nindalf," Haldir said. "These marshes stretch all the way from the Entwash almost to the Black Land. The going in the boats will be difficult, for the water courses change every time I make this journey, but I would still rather this than going by foot, wading over the Entwash delta for many more weeks."

They had tentatively pushed the boats out, looking for a channel that was deep enough, and Keren knew she had a dull few days ahead of her with nothing but marshland to look at. Food would be scarce too. But when she turned to look behind her those thoughts seemed more manageable, for there was Rauros in all its glory, thundering down from an unimaginable height, rainbows forming through the spray it created, the water white and foamy. She committed the site to memory, for never would she see the like again.

They pushed on into the marshes. It was hoped they would reach the isle of Cair Andros in three days. They planned to have a final night camp on the banks of Ithilien, and from there just one short day would bring Keren home.