"You're going tonight? Right now?" It wasn't a huge distance to the mountains, but it was also no short walk.
His father spoke before Ava could, "Unfortunately, they've heard that we have already been in contact with two other tribes. You know well how they like to feel important."
"We are practically halfway there already, no sense coming all the way back again tomorrow. I'll borrow a horse from a human village and be back before you know it." Ava placed a hand softly on his chest, over top of his wildly beating heart.
Legolas looked at her, and then to the forest behind. This land was safe, theoretically. She would be in no danger. Theoretically.
It felt a bit selfish to admit, but he didn't want her to leave him. He knew it was to help his father, he knew the task was important. But he also really, really, didn't want her to leave. For hundreds of years he had seen her daily, and when the war began to be too much for them at least they could still interact with each other. Leaving notes in either others rooms, tokens tied to trees, midnight dances on the days they both happened to be home.
"I will come with you, then."
He finally got her back.
"Legolas," There was something about her voice that had always calmed him. Settling into his veins like honey over the cracks from the war had left. "I love you. But you know as well as I that historically speaking, the Erlariens usually do not."
Legolas found the Erlarien chieftain to be difficult at best, and absolutely infuriating all the other times. He was fairly certain the chieftain felt the same way about him.
He sighed and she smiled, Valar he had missed that smile. "I know they don't."
"So I will be back before you know it."
"Before I know it? I doubt that, very much." And she smiled at him again, not just any smile. His smile. The one she gave nobody else. Somehow, his heart managed to melt just a tad more.
"I trust you won't mind if I borrow this?" Ava pulled his circlet from the leather bag she carried.
Truth be told, he hated wearing it. But then, she knew that. "It always looked better on you anyway."
The Erlariens were also a cripplingly proud tribe, and their chieftain would not meet with any messenger that did not demonstrate that Greenwood valued them as much as they valued themselves.
He took it from her hand and placed it gently on her head.
Ava got up from where she had been pressed against his side in the bed, even in the summer, he missed her body heat. She picked his circlet off the dresser and placed it atop her head, "How do I look?"
He propped himself up on an elbow to take a better look. The sunrise was casting a golden light through the windows but still did not shine as bright as her. Barefoot in lose plain sleeping clothes, hair a bit tangled and mussed. "Nothing has ever looked better, when you get one of your own never take it off."
If his chest didn't have a painful, poisoned hole in it he would have gotten up to join her long ago. To touch her waist and pull her against him, feel her breath on his neck when he tickled her side.
"When I have one?"
Only members of the royal family wore such crowns. He laid back down on the bed, "When."
Somehow her smile glowed all the brighter, and he held an arm out, the one that hurt least to move, "Come back."
"How do I look?"
"Nothing has ever looked better."
He could feel Gimli staring at him, and everyone else trying hard not to look.
Nearby, Farlen cleared his throat noticeably. "And while you're gone, Ava, we're going to tell Legolas all of the embarrassing things you did while he was gone."
She groaned and leaned her head into his shoulder, he put an arm around her in comfort but still asked, "What sort of embarrassing things?"
"After the battle was over, and everyone had reasonably recovered from it she drank so much at the celebration she fell asleep in the woods somewhere. King Thranduil had to go looking for her after half a day."
Legolas heard the highly amused tone in his father's voice, "I was becoming slightly concerned she had drowned. Either in her own sick or a shallow stream."
"And she was sick. On the king."
She groaned in horror and embarrassment and Legolas tried valiantly to swallow his laugh. It sort of worked, but he knew either way she felt him struggle with it. "At least he came looking for me! He left you out in the field for the birds and the rain."
Thranduil just raised an eyebrow at them all, "And it was only my shoes. You've done, far, far worse to me, greenleaf."
Ava pulled away, "I should go. I'll find you as soon as I return." She kissed Legolas cheek and then turned to her friends with a scowl, "As long as Farlen hasn't shamed me into exile by then."
Reluctantly he made his arms release her, "For every story he tells of you, I'll tell three of him. He will not have the chance to shame you into living alone in a cave somewhere."
Farlen laughed mockingly, "You don't scare me princling. I am openly embarrassing and shameful. Do your worst."
Legolas narrowed his eyes and let a smirk pull at his lips, "Is that so?"
"Yes."
"Once, we were in the library and-"
"No!" Farlen shrieked, "You win, I resign. No stories."
Ava's delighted laugh was swept back to him as she walked down another path, stopping briefly for one last word from his father.
0o0o0o0o0o
It was already nearing sunset when Ava arrived at their meeting place. She was an hour early, but wasn't surprised to find Jah'har already leaning against a tree and waiting for her.
In the fashion of his people, either side of his head was shaved and with marks delicately weaving across his skin. His hair was braided and adorned with many gems and beautiful rocks. The newest one came from the wall of Dul Guldur.
"Greetings, it is good to see you well." He said in her language. The Sindarin language was hard for most of the Avari tribes to pronounce correctly, the movements required of their tongues and lips were very foreign compared to almost any of the tribe's combined languages. But still, he usually tried to say their greetings before fleeing back to his own tongue.
"The stars continue to smile upon you with my wishes." She said, in his.
The scar on his forehead was more noticeable in this light, obviously showing a few breaks in his tattoo. The one that marked him the chieftains son, the one that would be added too should something ever happen to his father to make him chieftain.
Noticing her eyes, he ran his fingers across it simply, "It ended well, things considered."
The 'thing' being an ax embedded in his skull, one that certainly should have hit her instead. She twirled the simple wooden ring on her finger out of habit, the one Legolas had carved for her."Yes. You were lucky."
"To know that an injury to myself would cause you enough grief to scream as such? There are worse pains in this world."
And she had screamed, desperately. Even as Thranduil lifted her easily from the scene and away from the danger. Kept her from meeting the same fate, probably.
She hadn't even known he lived until weeks after. Jah'har took a step closer, and Ava took a small one back.
He stopped in his tracks, "You move like a skittish woodland creature; afraid of me."
She crossed her arms, "There are very few things left in this world that scare me, and you certainly are not one of them."
Thranduil had suggested she come alone. He had suggested, that after she not very subtly refused his offer of courtship that it might significantly complicate their once easy relationship.
Ava had not listened to his warning, and was a bit concerned she was about to wish she had.
"Good. That would have been unfortunate, to say the least. My father would be furious if that were so, for King Thranduil would not hesitate to cut ties with us I fear, for anything deemed a worthy reason."
Ava raised an eyebrow, "And one of his captains being slightly uncomfortable with you is reason enough? You must think very little of him."
Jah'har took another small step closer and Ava eyed him warily. Sometimes his idea of a joke, and her idea of a joke were very different things. "The contrary. I think very highly of his loyalty to those he cares for, and he cares deeply for all of his kingdom. Some more than others."
The Avari people were taller than the Silvans. And he was tall for his people, and she was short for hers.
The forest bristled behind her and she knew that if it had not yet attracted Thranduil's attention it would soon. He would feel exactly where the woods were upset, now that they were once again so calm otherwise. He would know it was in response to her own emotions.
The gaze of the trees intensified, "Ah." Jah'har said easily, like he had won something, "There is the king."
Ava made to walk right past him, "Thank you for your time, Jah'har; of the Norgationa, but I no longer require nor want your companionship on this day."
But he stepped into her path, twice, when she tried once more to walk past him. "Still you will not tell me what you need all these translations for?"
She glared up at him, she was not deterred by height. She had spent her entire life looking up to others - physically. "No. I will not."
"You have come alone, why?"
"Because you were supposed to come with me."
"No. You have not come with any of your people. I have never seen a wood elf alone before, I did not think you were physically able. I have never seen one of you alone, not until yesterday when you came to us. And again today, here."
Avaleina held his gaze unwaveringly and stepped around him once more. He made as if to grab her and out of reflex alone, she grabbed one of her knives. "Do not," she twirled it threateningly, "Touch me."
He was not visibly deterred, but he did not reach out again. "So angry today, Avaliena. Like a mother bear. Where is your cub? What is your secret?"
"The Wood has many secrets."
"Not from each other."
They had come to an impasse, she knew. For some reason, Jah'har had decided the information was crucial. And he would not stop until he found out what it was. "Do you not trust me?"
"I trust you with every part of me, beautiful creature, but I do not trust many else. The ruins you are translating are from a time very long ago, before your people took the outsiders as rulers. Some things should remain hidden in the past and the dark where they were left."
Ava was absently aware of a command from Thranduil to return home, when she did not react the trees whispered it again a second time. For a second time, she ignored it "I need it for a spell. A summoning spell."
"What spell?"
"I don't know, I can't read it. That's why we're here."
"Where did you find it?"
"Where I looked."
He tilted his head to the side as a small breeze blew and she wondered if he was listening to instructions of his own. "This is important to you."
Thranduil gave another, stronger tug. She ignored it. "Yes."
Jah'har seemed to contemplate this for several moments, searching her eyes so deeply he might as well have been trying to read her thoughts. Maybe he was, she had heard stories of the Avari magic, how strong and different it was from their own. And then, with a small smile, he said, "I trust you. Let us go."
Again, she eyed him warily. Looking for a sign of insincerity to his words but didn't see any, "I am in no mood for jokes."
"That is good, because I have not made any."
She felt a flash of anger that wasn't her own and knew that the trees had informed Thranduil that she still had absolutely no intention of turning back. "When we are in there, there can be no arguing amongst us. We must be a united force."
"If I feel the need to argue with you, I will do it afterward." His tone had returned to its usual lightness, and Ava returned the smile.
"I can accept that."
Together, the two of them ventured forward.
0o0o0o0o0o0o0o
. Can't wait to hear from your thoughts!