Avaleinas head was laid on his shoulders, her head facing so that her warm breath tickled his neck and made goosebumps rise across his body. She was humming nothing in particular, her finger tracing senseless patterns on the part of his back she could reach to go along with the tune. Her other hand rested at the base of his throat.

The weight of her in his arms was more comforting than almost anything else had been thus far since his return. It seemed like everything had changed. Every single thing. But at least not this, not him carrying her home to bed.

The habit had formed when she still used to dance. When he used to go meet her at the end of practice or rehearsal, only to find her with bleeding feet. Sitting cross-legged on the ground and holding her arms out to him, waiting to be picked up.

He carried her home from parties and celebrations, never leaving until she was ready to go. Even if he just sat silently on the sidelines and waited patiently for her to tire out.

He carried her home from every patrol that he was physically able to do so, even if his arms were practically shaking with the exertion of the act. And if his arms could not do it, than he carried her on his back. Anything to make her life just a little bit easier, anything.

Everything had changed with just a blink, but not his ability to do this small thing for her. Not that. Not yet.

She kissed the side of his neck, "I love you."

Gently he took the hand that had been resting at the base of his throat and brought it up to his lips to give it a soft, lingering kiss, "I love you, too."

"Thank you for carrying me."

"I would carry you to the ends of the world and back without a second thought."

He could hear the tired smile in her voice when she replied, "I don't think that'll be necessary. Just to your bed, please."

"My bed?" He gasped with mock shock.

"You can't expect me to sleep alone," She pouted.

"I can't?"

She shook her head as enthusiastically as her tired drunk mind would let her, "Nooooo, you can't."

"Why not?"

"Because I love you," she snuggled her face closer to his neck so that he felt her eyelashes flutter with every slight eye movement and kissed his neck again.

Part of him wanted to keep playfully arguing with her, but his heart was left defenseless at her tone, "Fair enough."

The hallways were deserted so thankfully they were not stopped on the way to his rooms. Everybody else had either gone to bed or was still outside enjoying the celebration.

As they approached his doorway, Legolas shifted Ava so that she could hook her ankles around his waist while her arms remained encircled around his neck, so that he could wrestle the door open with one hand.

Legolas carried her through the sitting room, through his bedroom, and into the bathroom where a metal pot filled with hot water had already been prepared and left for him to clean up with. A half dozen candles lit the echoing space.

Carefully, he set her on the countertop next to the basen.

He practically had to pry Avaleina's legs from around his waist so that he could go and fetch a towel from the cabinet on the other side of the room.

"Nooooo," She complained softly, looking at him with an exaggerated sad expression. Legolas laughed at her and shook his head a little bit in amusement, but he still quickly returned to her with towels in hand to kiss the sadness from her face.

Fabricated or otherwise.

Her legs came around his waist again, and his hands came to hold either side of her face as if he was afraid she might disappear. She kissed him back like her lips held the same fear that his own did.

After they parted Avaleina used gentle fingers to pull the hem of his shirt up and over his head, carelessly tossing it onto the floor somewhere. He didn't back away as her eyes roamed his chest, their gentle gaze warming him more than the candles did.

Her gentle fingers reached out for him again, spreading out across his stomach until her palms lay flat against him. Directly overtop two of the wounds he had gotten while on the Fellowship.

Avaleina's palms lifted so that each pointer finger could trace the pattern of the scar, pausing over each stitch mark that had been made to sew it securely together. Obviously the handiwork of Aragorn.

She pushed him back slightly so that she could lean forward and place a kiss over the center of each wound. Legolas just watched her, mesmerized.

She pulled him closer again, and her fingertips returned to his skin. Settling on one of the scars she had just kissed and trailing it upwards, to find the arrow wound on the left side of his chest. Leaning forward, she placed several kisses around it, and then two directly onto it.

After that, her lips trailed from one new scratch or scar to the next.

Her lips covering his chest. Arms. Back. Hands.

Legolas wasn't aware he had closed his eyes and tipped his head slightly back until he felt her lips against his openly displayed throat. The sensation almost made him gasp, or perhaps it did, because he felt her smile against the hollow of his throat.

She kissed his jawline, then where an arrow from and Orc had just barely missed his eye.

She kissed his left ear, where a rock had struck it after the explosion at Helms Deep.

She kissed the side of his nose, where a skull had struck him in the city of the dead.

She kissed both of his closed eyes, where everything he had seen still lived behind his lids.

When she pulled back again that time, his lips met hers again. Desperate. Even more desperate than before.

Every return to her lips felt like she was kissing the smallest part of his scarred and ruptured soul back together.

"Marry me?" Legolas managed to ask with practically gasped breaths.

"Of," She began, kissing him again and again while a smile spread wider on her face, "Course."

..

Jah'har stretched his hands out towards the fire, not really because they were cold but more so that he could have something to do with them. It felt weird to be here, he had never had much to do with the Omrangway people.

The only times he had ever really interacted with them much were at enchanters summits, but only if one of them approached while he was in Avaleina's company.

He sighed inwardly and cursed himself once more for his inability to say no to her.

Jah'har rolled his eyes at himself, and looked around the space again at all the paintings on the walls around him. His eyes jumped and skipped over words that were written underneath, he could not read them but could guess the nature of the story judging by what was depicted in the picture overtop of them.

Finally footsteps echoed down the hallway that Jahar's stoic guide had vanished behind nearly a half hour ago, and a familiar dark face appeared from behind the curtain.

A smile too bright and wide for the elfs face appeared quickly, "I am glad to see the stars have guided you here safely."

"The stars were absent this night," Jah'har answered, and lifted up a crudely drawn map that Avaleina had drawn for him, "Avaleina was the light to guide me this night."

The elf tilted his head to the side and the smile dimmed, "Ah ha, I should have known the rumble from the forest would come from her."

"I have not felt such a rumble." Jah'har answered.

"It has not happened yet," The other answered and Jah'har held in his reaction. His people had never held much stock in future seeing, there were always too many variables for it to remain static.

"It is a good rumble?"

"That has yet to be foreseen."

"Convenient."

If the other elf was aware of the undercurrent of meaning, he didn't react, "Yes, the future does tend to be so. For somebody."

"What brings the rumble?"

The elf ignored Jah'har's question, "What brings you here, Jah'har of the Norgationa?"

Wordlessly, he held out Ava's letter to the elf who Jah'har knew he had met many times but could still not remember the name of. If his father were here, Jah'har would have had to listen to an endless lecture about manners and pleasantries.

The other elf took the scroll and read it through quickly. He looked up to Jah'har with a puzzled expression before reading it through another two times, "What is she doing to need such an item?"

"I do not know."

The other elf snorted, "I do not find you honest, Jah'har. Why would you do something without knowing every reason behind it? That does not sound like you're people's ways. You least of all."

Jah'har knew that honestly would be his only option here, "Because Avaleina asked for my help."

"Naturally, you could not say no."

"Can you?" Jah'har countered.

"What if I do not prepare the item for her?"

Jah'har shrugged, "I do not know. Perhaps she will find another way, perhaps she will forge on ahead without it."

"Find another way to do what?"

"I do not know." Jah'har answered, which was true. He had some suspicions of what she was up to, but no real answers. The only thing he was certain of was that nobody knew was she was really doing, not even her king.

They both fell into silence again, and Jah'har returned his attention back to the painting on the wall to distract him from his ever growing frustrations against Avaleina and her uncharacteristic secrecy.

He hoped when he agreed to deliver four messages for her that all of the other tribes would not collapse to her wishes, but that hope had not held out for the first three and he did not suspect it would hold out for the last one.

Avaleine had been very careful of who she asked for favors, Jah'har had recognized that at once.

"Very well," The other elf agreed, "I will prepare it for her. Because it was her to ask."

"I'll tell her the news."

As he began to retreat back the way he had come, the other elfs voice drifted after him, "Do you think she will convince them?"

"If anybody can, it will be her." Jah'har called back.

...

Helllooo!

I'm sorry its been so long! Finishing my degree online during a pandemic is exhausting.

I'm excited to hear your thoughts!