Look at me, getting these done so fast. Granted, I copied most of this over from my rough draft. Sometimes things turn out perfect the first time.

"Eithryn?"

"Hey, prince," Sky said sleepily. She and her brother had been lying in the shade under a tree, but she opened her eyes when she heard Thranduil's voice.

"I thought I would find you causing trouble somewhere," he teased.

"It's too hot." She sat up, suddenly interested—he looked nervous. "What is it?"

He shifted back slightly. "I... thought you might like to be filled in on recent events."

"Has something happened?" She looked at Storm, who shrugged—and then he, too, caught sight of Thranduil's face, and he sat up with an alarming grin.

"You were gone for several years."

She sensed an excuse. "True. All right, go ahead."

Sure enough, he hesitated and then said, "I thought we might take a walk."

"Good idea," Storm said, getting up.

"Coryn..." Thranduil began.

Storm waited.

"Could we...?" the prince almost begged.

Storm's eyes went wide. "Oh! Of course. Sky, I can't come because... I have to, um, feed the squirrels." He winked—very obviously—at Thranduil. Sky twitched uncomfortably. The Silvan elves had a saying, which went something like this: "If Storm finds out what's going on between you two, I'll help you kill him." It was typically uttered by those who had, at some time, been the target of Storm's teasing, justified or not.

She'd told Storm there was nothing happening with them... she didn't care if it wasn't entirely true; she was his sister. His sister who was his equal in a fight, and more than that when she was angry.

On a happier note, she had never seen the prince's face so red. Annoying brother or not, this was quite interesting. "Shall we, then?"

"Yes..." Thranduil gave Storm a threatening look—hadn't he realized by now that that didn't work on them?—and led her into the forest.

They walked for a long time in silence, and Sky showed the prince tremendous respect by actually walking beside him in a straight line throughout that time, and not entirely because of how hot it was. He was more relaxed now, whereas she was working hard to hide her impatience. She suspected she knew what was going on...

Just when she thought she'd burst from the suspense, he looked over and said, "I was beginning to believe you would never come back."

"I was only gone for four years." She'd planned to stay away longer, until she made a certain important decision, but... well, she'd missed her friends—one more than the others. Thus had her feelings made the decision for her. She was a little annoyed at them for that.

"Yes..." He smiled. "I never said my fears were reasonable."

Sky remembered his reaction when she had gotten back the day before—how his face had instantly lit up, his smile wider than she'd ever seen it, and how he'd come over immediately, breaking off his conversation with his father mid-word. Oropher, on the other hand, had given her a dirty look—he probably would have been happy enough if she'd stayed away forever. Storm, when he'd seen Thranduil's reaction, had gotten an expression that made Sky pull him into a closet and threaten to hurt him if he did anything. He'd taken, it seemed, to terrorizing Thranduil even more lately; the prince, for his part, did not seem to have grown any closer to Storm while she was gone. Some things would never change. "Surely you don't mean to say you missed me."

He chuckled. "Surely not. You are the bane of my existence; I want nothing more than to be free of you."

"Right. I'm clearly hallucinating. I blame that troll that bashed me in the head the other day."

He stopped. "What?"

"I didn't duck in time and its club clipped me. It's all right, I only passed out once. Um, what are you doing?" He was examining her head as if he thought there might still be a bump. "That was a while ago..." Was it her imagination, or was he leaning in closer than he needed to? "Prince!"

He stepped back, looking amused. "Why does it bother you when someone is concerned for your welfare?"

"In this case, it's because it's unnecessary. If I'd been hurt that badly, I would have died, and that would have been that, but I didn't, and, thus, either I'm fine or I will be soon. And I have felt fine for a while now."

Thranduil decided they would have to have a talk about her apparent disregard for her own safety, but not now. "Eithryn?" he asked hesitantly.

"If I'm not, that troll must have hit me harder than I thought."

He rolled his eyes. "Hold out your hand."

Sky did so. He took it and pressed something into it—something small and hard, but—uh-oh. She looked down, and sure enough, it was a gem. An emerald, about an inch wide. She looked at Thranduil.

"Do you like it?" he asked uncertainly.

She held it up to the light. "The color's nice." She didn't know much about emeralds, but she did know that a green with so much yellow in it was rare.

"It matches your eyes."

Now she was the one blushing. "It's a rock. A shiny rock, but still a rock."

He saw right through her. "You like it." He sounded relieved.

She shrugged. "It's all right." She hadn't expected this... although, it was pretty.

He laughed. "Always so difficult."

"I'm difficult, you're obsessed with shiny rocks. Which is worse?" All right, so she did like it. That didn't mean it wasn't silly, though.

. . . . . .

Storm was waiting for her when she returned to the tree. "What happened?"

She shoved him over into the grass. "Like I'm going to tell you."

He laughed. "What's that in your hand?"

She hid it behind her back.

Storm's head tilted to the side. "Did he...?" Well, he knew she wasn't about to show him voluntarily. He lunged. Sky thrashed and kicked, but he was stronger, and he eventually pinned her down and forced her hand open. He whistled softly. "Look at that. My sister's going to be a—" He ended with an "Oof!" as Sky's foot slammed into his stomach.

"Don't say it," she snarled. "Don't say the word."

"...princess. Ouch!" He collapsed into the grass, felled by a second blow. "Thanks for the bruises, sis."

"You deserved worse. Just because he's clearly interested in me doesn't mean I'm going to marry him."

His snickering was only slightly diminished by the two aching spots on his stomach. "Oh, it's only a matter of time. Our friends are going to be very interested to hear about this, aren't they?"

Sky made a growling sound in the back of her throat.

Get used to it, Sky. The worst is yet to come.