Author note: On a roll again haha, here is the next chapter! The reviews for the last one were particular lovely, thank you. :) daughterofthechief thank you for your comments on Haldir - yes it's a weird old love he had for Orwen. I'm not sure it was entirely romantic on his part, he loved her in his heart as much as his elf-brain could love a human he hadn't bonded with. I needed that guilt on his part for sending her away, for perhaps not loving her enough, but also that realisation that if he hadn't done that, Keren wouldn't have been born for Legolas to bond with. Deep!

I think this has been my favourite chapter to write so far - I love Keren and Palen together, like K + Leg together they seem to write themselves. There's a great quote from Tolkien about Faramir's surprise (to him) appearance at the end of Two Towers: "I am sure I did not invent him. I did not even want him, though I like him." Like Faramir kinda popped into his head fully formed as a character, waving, demanding to be in the story. 'You like Boromir, Professor T? Well I'm the upgraded version, WRITE ME IN'. Faramir went on to be Tolkien's favourite character :) That's how I feel about most of my character's dialogue haha - I don't plan any of it, they just speak, and they're often the best bits ;) ...I promise I'm sane...

Chapter 14 - Daughters of Maleron

"There's no need to knock." Keren heard a voice behind her, a familiar voice, a loved, loving voice, a voice she had missed so much. She turned and saw her sister standing in the street, next to her slack-jawed neighbour.

"Pal, Pal, oh Pal!" She ran forward into her sister's arms, and the two clung to each other.

"Where have you been?" she heard Palen whisper, happy, angry. "I thought you were dead. Oh, I thought you were dead." Palen burst into tears on her shoulder, still hugging her tight. Keren held onto her until the sobs began to subside, staring out the woman who was still standing there, mouth open, until she sheepishly retreated back into her house with a final quick glance towards Legolas. The woman hanging out of an upstairs window quietly disappeared too, and Keren walked Palen across the street and into the little house, away from any more prying eyes.

Legolas gently touched her arm as she passed.

"I will go on to see Aragorn," he said quietly. "I will send word here when all is settled."

Keren whispered a thank you, pleased that she could talk to her sister alone. She shut the door behind them, sitting Palen down at the little wooden table by the window. Immediately she put a pot of water over the fire to boil, and prepared some herbs from the cupboard. They both needed a warm, calming drink.

Palen watched in surprise as her little sister marched around, taking care of her. She had always been a hard-worker and an excellent healer, but was often slow to take charge, far better at following instructions to the letter in what to do and when to do it than use her initiative. What had Keren been up to, to make her so resourceful?

She was in shock, she could feel the symptoms within herself, scanning her body. Suddenly Keren was here, back in her world, the sister she had started to mourn, so long had she been gone. It had been a year and three months since she had left. She raised a shaky hand to her head, tried to speak, but felt sick. She needed to go back upstairs. She shouldn't even be out of bed yet, her healer's brain chided her.

"Here, drink this." Keren plopped a cup of sweet herbs in hot water down on the table. They sat in silence whilst the drink cooled enough to raise to her cold, trembling lips. Keren looked concerned. What her sister said next worried her even more.

"It has been… hard here, without you," Palen said. "I needed you, there's - "

She was interrupted by a thin wailing sound from the floor above them. Keren met Palen's eyes in shock and happy disbelief.

"Is that…?"

"That's what I was about to say. You're an aunt, Keren," said Palen. "Come up with me and meet him? I need to be abed - I only left him asleep for a moment when I heard there was a strange girl walking the streets with an elf." A flash of humour came from her eyes as she gave a little knowing smile at Keren. "Something in me hoped it would be you, and I was right."

She stood, wobbled a little, and took slow steps towards the steep wooden stairs that led to her and Dannor's bedchamber. Keren took her arm, not knowing what to say. Elunis had been right. How had she known?

When they reached the top she saw a tiny crib at the foot of the bed, where a tiny fist was flailing about in the air. Palen, still shivering, began to remove her outer clothes, and Keren saw how ill she really was. She helped her sister undress and bundled her into bed quickly, tucking the sheets up to her chin, before even thinking about the baby.

"Palen, you are so unwell, what happened?"

Palen huffed in amusement, not having much energy for anything else.

"He did," and she nodded to the foot of the bed. "Pick him up if you'd like, hold him. He's awake, and probably angry that I can't give him much attention."

Keren turned and looked at the tiny thing that lay wrapped in blankets, crying half-heartedly. He was a small baby, but his limbs looked all in proportion and strong. His eyes were large and that peculiar dark blue of newborns, and he had a little tuft of brown hair on top of his head. She felt a rush of love, and of guilt that she had not been here to welcome him to the world, to help her sister in her labour. She bent and picked him up, cradling him easily, having helped many a child be born in the Houses.

"Oh, Pal," she whispered. "He's so beautiful. What's his name?"

"Dannis," Palen said from the bed, smiling. "We call him Little Dan. Dannor is besotted with him - he wanted to take him up to the barracks on Seven and show him off the day he was born." The sisters shared a chuckle. "The other guards will have to wait to meet him though."

Keren looked confused.

"Oh, Dan has been promoted to a guard of the citadel," Palen explained. "It feels like he is up on the seventh level all the time. I've been lonely with him so far above me, especially when I was the size of a house and couldn't go anywhere."

Keren digested the complaint - if she had been here she could have kept Palen company. Guilt gnawed at her again.

"And everything is alright?" Keren asked, looking down at the baby.

"Oh, he's fine," Palen replied. "He's small - he came almost a month early, if I reckoned right - but healthy and strong. Knocked the stuffing out of me though, but I'll be alright, I just need to rest. That jaunt across the street just now was foolish of me. Today is only the second day I've dressed and got out of bed. I've had Ioreth down to help me quite a bit."

"Would it not have been safer to have given birth up at the Houses?" Keren asked. "If you thought he was come before his time?"

"There was no time. He came so quickly once my pains had started, I could not send word to Dannor or the Houses, or get myself there. I delivered him here myself. And I thank the Powers I already knew what to do." She stuck her chin out a little in pride and defiance with this statement, and Keren felt the anger radiate out from Palen. Her life had been in danger, and Keren, another healer, had not been there. "Dan got home to find me in a pool of blood, half-asleep, but with that little one having a nice feed as if nothing was wrong." She looked fondly at Dannis in Keren's arms. "That was… I think a week ago now."

Keren could tell that Palen was underplaying how serious it had been. She was pale, thin and shaking. She had lost a lot of blood, was clearly off her food, and would not be back to full strength for weeks. Keren felt ashamed at her absence, and vowed to look after her older sister until she was well. She would not report back to work at the Houses until Palen was back to her old self, and until then she would cook the meals, clean the house and watch Little Dan whilst Palen rested.

She sat down on the edge of the bed, keeping the baby in her arms. With his eyes shut, his little lips pursed and his head stretched back, instinctively searching for his mother's breast.

"I think he's hungry, Pal," Keren said. "Do you feel up to it? I could go in search of a wet-nurse?"

"No, give him to me," Palen replied. "I'm fine, really, my body just seems to prefer lying down at the moment."

She handed Little Dan over, and the sisters sat peacefully next to each other, listening to the little suckles and occasional hiccups of the baby feeding.

"When did you know?" Keren asked eventually.

"The end of March," Palen replied. "I had missed a monthly bleed, but thought little of it. But then I missed another one, and I didn't want to eat, and I was sick a little. So… I realised. It was the middle of the night, in our room in the Houses. I lay there in the darkness and the silence, and knew I had a secret, if only for a few hours until I saw Dannor the next evening. And of course I told him as soon as I saw him. But that night when I was alone, that was when I wished you were there. For I was frightened, and excited, and happy. And it made me so unbearably sad that you were not there to tell, that you were gone and may never come back. I remember laying a hand on your bed, as if I would find you there in the darkness."

Both Keren and Palen's eyes were filled with tears.

"I'm sorry, Palen. I'm so sorry."

Dannis had fallen asleep again in Palen's arms, and Keren looked at them both with wonder. Here was a whole new person, a tiny person that Elunis had told her she would meet. She shuddered, remembering the night in Lórien when she had awoken reaching out for Palen's hand, the same night she had met the strange elf. She had never seen her again, not at the farewell feast, never in the glade, not when she left.

"Where were you?" Palen asked, drawing Keren out of her wondering. But as Keren looked over at her sister she saw her eyes had already closed.

"It is a long tale, and you are tired. Sleep now, and I will tell you everything tomorrow, I promise."

But Palen was already asleep. Keren smiled fondly, worriedly, and took Little Dan, laying him gently back down in his rocking crib. It was full dark outside now, and the one lit candle and the small fire bathed the little room in a gentle glow. Keren felt her own eyes droop. She had been journeying for almost a month - food had been scarce, sleep had been hard to achieve. Now she was warm, she had the prospect of a decent breakfast tomorrow - she might even fry some bacon and eggs - and she was with family. Smiling, she flopped down next to Palen, and a restful sleep took her.

Two weeks passed, and Palen was much better, having been well cared for, and was able to cook for herself and go for short walks to get fresh air. Dannis was noticeably bigger.

Ioreth had popped in a few times to check on Palen, and when Keren had answered the door to her for the first time she had made a sound in her throat like an old door-hinge creaking, before gathering her in a fierce hug, not asking for any explanations. Keren knew the time would come, however, when Ioreth would interrogate her as to her whereabouts. In the meantime she had told Palen everything. At times it was painful for them both, speaking about their mother, all the secrets she had kept from them. Palen had cried when she learnt about Haldir, about the truth behind Orwen's pain.

Keren also told her about the crystal, finally. She was unsure whether the older, rational Palen actually believed her, but all Keren could do was relate the story as she had been told it by Galadriel. Finally Palen conceded that, despite the pain it had caused, if she had had the opportunity to go and stay with the elves, she would have done as Keren did, and stayed long, and learnt, and grown.

"But, alas, real life is my lot," she said, a little sadly, but then kissed her son on the head. "You have an elf, I have a soldier."

"I don't have an elf," Keren said awkwardly. "He has been my companion, and protected me. That is all. Anything more would be… impossible."

Palen studied her sister's face as she spoke. Prior to the Steward breaking her heart, the word 'impossible' was not really part of Keren's vocabulary. She had certainly wasted her time on an entirely impossible love for him - who, Palen noticed, Keren had not mentioned once. She had seen love in Keren's face many times then, and it was written all over it now, but this time she was cautious, careful. Afraid of it. It made Palen all the more grateful for her own life choices.

All the nights when Dannor was on night-duty Keren slept in the bed with her sister. The times when he was home she went back to her little room in the Houses. It had stood empty for some time, Palen having had her confinement far more comfortably at home. There was a chill in the air when Keren had walked back in there for the first time. She lit a fire in the tiny hearth, and shook out the slightly damp covers of her bed. Her bed. Her room. Home. It all felt so very small.

The Warden had welcomed her back with open arms, despite being a little put out by the length of time she had been away.

"And how was Dol Amroth?" he had asked her in a friendly manner, to which she had muttered a non-committal - "Oh, fine" - and smiled blandly.

"I hope we have you back for good now?" Never had it occurred to him that one day she might actually want to leave for ever. Once someone had chosen the life of a healer in most cases that was it - very few of the older healers, male or female, had married. Palen had broken the mould, surely it would be most unusual for her sister to follow suit? Luckily for the Warden, Keren had decided she was not the marrying sort. If love caused so much heartbreak - she thought of Haldir, her mother, her father, herself - then she was best off avoiding it. She had pushed all feelings for Legolas down into a little hidden place within her, and was ready to throw herself back into her work. But every morning her mind strayed to him, wondering when she would see him again, and often he would creep into her mind, even on the busiest of days.

But I'm sure that's normal, she would tell herself. He is just a very dear friend who I spent much time with. Of course I will miss his face. His smile. His voice. His eyes. His touch. His - stop, Keren!

She did not love the elf.

Now that Palen was better Keren had agreed a date to start back at work. She had three days - three days to talk to her father, a conversation she was both dreading and thrilled about, and three days to find Legolas. He had not come to Palen and Dannor's house. Had he forgotten about her? She knew in her heart that could not be the reason. Maybe he was waiting for her to send word to him, but how would she know where to send it? She was not permitted to just walk up and enter the seventh level, but perhaps he did not know this. What had he meant by when all is settled? Settled with her? Settled with him? What was there to settle? She fretted, growing impatient to see him again.

But she did not love the elf.

"Elves?" His father glared at her, shaking, not able to look her in the eye. "I told you - "

"Not to go beyond the Entwash," she said quickly. "I know father."

Maleron looked as if he was holding back tears, and Keren, not allowing fears or thoughts to take over, reached out and put her small hand over his rough, work-worn one. It was the first time they had touched in five years, had either of them been keeping track of such things.

"But I did, and I do not regret it. Will you let me tell you why?"

Keren tried to control her breathing. She had told her father everything of her journey up until arriving at Lórien, and at first he had listened in wonder as she spoke of her time in Edoras, at the glittering caves of Helm's Deep, of walking talking trees and wizards and hobbits. She had skimmed over her closeness with Legolas, but made it clear that once she had parted from all her other strange friends she had spent the rest of her time away - a whole year - with the elven-folk. She would never mention any of them by name, in case it triggered unhappy memories - she did not know how much her mother had ever told him. But the time was come to let him know she knew the truth. She was not even angry with him for hiding it, for all he had been doing was protecting his daughters from the knowledge that, at one point, their mother had wanted to abandon them.

"Father?"

He looked up at her, and saw in his daughter's eyes a new light - new in her face, but not new to him. He had seen it in her mother's eyes, his beautiful, broken Orwen's eyes. Keren had been amongst them, he could see it now, the filth that had killed his beloved. The creatures that had forced her to flee her home, forced her into his path, binding her to him though it killed her in the end.

He had offered to leave her, to provide for her but to live apart, but by then there were the girls and she would not leave them, would not break up their little family. He had once, in a fit of anger, begged her to leave him, to run away to them and to never come back, but she had told him they had forbidden her from entering their lands again. They knew she was ill. They knew she was irrational. They were murderers, all of them. So wrapped up in their eternal lives they did not think of the minutiae of human thought and feeling. And now his youngest child was sat before him telling him she had willingly gone and lived with them, surely the very same ones that had handed Orwen a death sentence.

"No, daughter, I do not want to hear of your time in that place," he said quietly. "Now you are back let us pretend you never went, and we shall not speak of it ever again."

"To what end?" she said, a little angrily. "So we can endure a lifetime of silence, of fear, of regret? No, father. I want to heal us, it is not too late. We lost mother, we cannot lose each other. Palen has Dannor, and now little Dannis. Who do we have, truly, what family do we have? Only each other. And it is only the memory, the pain, the secrecy around mother's death that is keeping us apart. Well now I know the truth, maybe even more than you, and I am saying I do not blame you for what happened to her, I do not blame you for how you treated me and Palen after she died, I do not blame you for anything. And I am sorry I was so cold towards you for so many years, when I did not know the suffering in your heart."

She let out a sob now all that had been released.

Maleron was silent for a while.

"You should blame me Keren," he said eventually. "You and Palen, you both should hate me. I deserve your derision and hatred. What kind of father pushes his own children away because they remind him of his dead wife? Because their heads were filled with foolish stories of the very people that had brought about her death?"

Keren did not answer.

"You see? Whatever the truth is, I am still to blame for much of your sadness," Maleron admitted.

"It may be so, but father, now I know the cause. I know how much you loved her, I know she felt her home was in Lórien - "

He raised a hand quickly and lowered his head.

"Please. Please don't say that name. It has haunted me. I knew all about the elf there, the one she truly loved. I know - I know all about it."

Keren felt her body tense in shock. He knew about Haldir?

"How - how did you…?"

"She talked in her sleep, especially when she was ill. Not much, but enough for me to guess. At one point I even thought you - that you were… But then, as you grew I saw you were as human as I." He gestured half-heartedly to the nose that they shared. "So you know of him, then? I was right." His hands began to shake.

Keren took a deep breath, and made a decision that would either bring them closer together, or drive them apart forever.

"I know him, father. I have stood with him by my grandmother's grave, by a statue of mother that stands in a glade deep in the woods. She is remembered with love there - love and sadness. Everything they did, he did, was done for love of her. Father, don't you understand, he sent her away because he could not give her the love she wanted. He sent her to you to find happiness. He was not to know it would go so wrong, he thought he was doing the right thing. And I do not hate him for it."

Maleron appeared to be struck dumb, so Keren went on while she still dared.

"He accompanied me here, all the way to the Rammas Echor, where he left me - where he always left her. He refuses to enter the City father, out of respect for you."

He was still silent, eyes fixed on the flames in the little fire at their feet.

"There is nothing I can say or do to heal the hurt of knowing that her heart was with the elves," she said. "It hurt me too, when I learnt just how willing she was to leave you and Palen behind, as if you both had never been. Her own child… Believe me father, I hated her for a little while, I think. But I have learnt much in my time away - I have learnt that we cannot change other people, or things that have happened, we can only change ourselves and how we think and feel about the things that happened. I thought I hated you once, but I didn't - I didn't. I loved you and was just desperately sad because I felt you did not love me. And I - "

She could not finish, as her father suddenly pitched forward across the table, catching her in an awkward half-hug, silently sobbing into her shoulder. All she could do was hold his shaking shoulders.

He did not need to say he loved her. He did not need to say sorry. She knew.

"So," she said gently. "Please can we start again?"

He drew slowly away from her, and looked into her eyes - mirror images of his own eyes staring back at him.

"I would like to try," he said.

Keren was still reeling from the conversation with her father and the effect it had had on him. She could not decide if talking about Haldir was a mistake, but he had brought him up. It was certainly much sooner than she had expected to be sharing tales with her father of the elf that her mother had been in love with. After their meeting was done she had run straight to Palen's house and sobbed for an hour. The relief was almost painful.

And now she was a week into her work at the Houses, and Lórien truly felt like another world. She could almost trick herself into thinking that none of it, even her meetings with Faramir in this very building, had ever happened. Surely her life was just too ordinary. But then she would catch sight of her elven cloak hanging from the wooden pen on the back of her door, and smile. Oh, it had been real alright. But she no longer carried the crystal with her at all times, not feeling the need. It lived beneath her pillow, a silent (for now), hidden talisman of all she had learnt. She found herself hoping she would not hear from it for many years.

On a break from her work she trod the well-worn path to the gardens within the Houses, testing herself. Here her heart had been totally broken. She took a deep breath and walked through the archway. Her feet crunched on the gravel as she took slow steps into the main garden - there was the battlement wall, there was the stone bench, there was the willow tree. But rather than thoughts of Faramir, a vision of Legolas strolled quietly from under the drooping branches and came to pause by the bench, where she saw herself sat crying. Their first meeting.

Even then, she thought, even then he had fascinated you, whilst your head was full of the Steward and the prophecy.

She bowed beneath the long arms of the tree, and touched the gnarled trunk fondly in greeting, silently thanking it for providing her with two pivotal moments in her life - the meeting of her best friend, and the time when her heart split in two, and she had chosen to see if there was more to life than waiting for someone to love her.

She walked over to the walls to see the view over the Pelennor and across to Ithilien, even to the Mountains of Shadow. Now they looked far smaller, at a much greater distance, and she was sure she must have misremembered their proximity to the city. She looked down on the Pelennor, no longer filled with battle or soldiers, but with fields of tilled earth, cottages, farms and green grass. Only in one place did the grass not grow, where the fell beast of the Witch King was rotting under the earth.

The three main roads from the gate of Minas Tirith spurred out in a fan, north, north-east and south-east. The north-east road led to Osgiliath and the river. Keren squinted her eyes as they found what she thought was a familiar figure galloping down it, away from the city. Surely she must be mistaken. But no, there was the streaming silver-gold hair, the green-grey cloak of Lórien, even the quiver of arrows upon his back. The horse was unmistakably Arod.

No word to her for three weeks, and now Legolas was riding away from her.