We walk away from the Shod Cob, and both of us are in utter silence until I think we are far enough away. Then I turn and I punch Legolas quite squarely in the arm.

"Stars above, Gimli!" he cries with a thunderous look. "What could I possibly have done this time?"

"That is to remind you of Faelwen," I snap back.

"And why would you need to remind me of Faelwen?"

"Oh, you know why," I hiss scornfully, narrowing my eyes. "She was all but undressing you, and you were quite happy to let her."

"She is a fine and powerful woman," he shrugs, with all the guile of a woodheap. "Despite that she is no elf she is quite magnificent, but Gimli… there is no equal to Faelwen. None at all. And in any case, I have been told that I am fair. Do you not think me beautiful? The Lady Briar does."

I shove him nearly completely into a spindly bush, and when he fights me I continue to shove until he is tripping through snapping branches. He is laughing – bright and clear – and when he dances out of reach he snatches the journal out of my hand, tilts it toward the moonlight so that he might read it.

"Oh this is barely decipherable," he frowns in disgust. "I can barely read their language as it is, the least they could do is have a consistent hand."

"Not even your own people can read your penmanship," I point out, taking the book back and trying to read it as well. "I can perhaps make it out, but I will need more light."

We make quick time through the city – back up through streets and tunnels that I am becoming quite familiar with by now – and Legolas is quite captured by this whole thing. He shines like the stars, and it is not just that same moon-pale nimbus; there is something else that lends brightness to him when he is this way. I smile.

Captain Hob is leaning against the wall of the gate to the fifth circle, his arms folded as he waits for us. Legolas tosses him the journal as he moves past, and the captain catches it with a questioning look.

"Come with us," Legolas says, and it is not a request or even particularly polite. "We go to the King; I have no desire to go through this twice."

I shrug helplessly at Hob as we pass, and to give him the respect he is due the man looks curious rather than angry. I can see him consider – just for a moment – ignoring the elfling and doing as he wishes rather than what he is bid, but despite that he is a proud man, he is also fairly sensible.

"Is he always this way?" he asks me with an exasperated huff.

"Sometimes he sleeps," I offer, and I do not stop to make sure he is following us because I know that he will. His curiosity will only get us so far though; Captain Hob does not seem a man particularly accustomed to being brushed off or disrespected. I also think that perhaps he is not the sort of man to allow such things for very long. I jog quickly until I am abreast of the elfling.

"He is going to hit you in the nose," I tell Legolas quite certainly, "and I shall only laugh."

"He will try," is the flat reply, and I sigh.

"Whether he manages it is not the point, Legolas, and you know that. You are being rude, and you know that as well."

Legolas' bearing tightens, I can see a muscle dancing and jumping in his jaw, but if he wants me to treat him the same as I always have then he cannot argue with me when I do. He knows, and his silence is his assent. He will try a little harder.

We continue our journey in silence, through the sixth and across the endless courtyards until we reach the King's House. It has become very cold, and it is always very windy up here, but the pace that Legolas sets keeps me from getting too chilled. Hob trails behind but only because he is reading the journal; he glances up on occasion but otherwise I have no idea at all how he is navigating. He does not trip or bump into anything, but when we reach the corridor outside Aragorn's rooms he looks surprised, peering around with poorly hidden interest. I do not think he has ever been here before.

Legolas raps smartly upon the door but does not wait to be summed, instead he strides in as though the rooms are his, and I feel a flicker of panic. I hope that Aragorn is dressed.

The King's rooms are large – large enough that I would hesitate to call them rooms but rather a wing in its own right. I have only seen his bed chambers once but they are just as one might expect: big, everything on far too large a scale, full of tapestries and things of comfort. They are set far back, and in between there is a study and a small room just for books, a dressing room, a dining room – of all things – and this one, his personal receiving room. He does not use it very often; the King's House is a fair walk from the main part of the upper circle and he tends to do most of his receiving there. Legolas and I have been here a few times though, and I start to wonder how appropriate it is that we bring Hob with us.

"Estel," Legolas calls out, "we are here," and he settles himself quite comfortably. I can hear the King moving about elsewhere, and his voice rings out as I shut the door behind me.

"Oh, good," he calls, "you live, that is quite the relief. Does Gimli live?"

"Aye," I call out, and then decide that I should probably let him know. "We bring a visitor."

I find my usual seat – beside Legolas and before a huge fire, opposite where Aragorn normally situates himself. There is wine set out and so I help myself, because this has been a very long day. Hob, however, looks extremely uncomfortable. He stands in the centre of the room as though he is itching to be gone already, and I think he might be a little bit awed by where he is but he hides it with a huge scowl. The journal is tucked under his arm, he scratches at his leg and looks around him as though the tapestries are about to attack him.

Captain Hob is the sort of fellow who has lead from the front, and has had very little dealing when it comes to those who have sent him there. He is comfortable with soldiers, with sleeping in the lines in nothing but his own cloak. He likely drinks ale out of wooden cups and I know that he swears a lot. He has probably never met his King before now.

I wonder how we seem to him, and I glance at Legolas… try to see him how Hob must.

Even I have trouble reading the elfling. He is too different in each moment: sometimes quiet and mysterious, sometimes cold, sometimes insufferably elven and always far too used to having his orders followed. Hob has not seen the other side of my friend, and on the face of it the elf really is quite difficult to like… especially by a man like the captain.

I have no idea how I seem at all, none whatsoever, but I find myself amused by my thoughts. Legolas catches a hint of them and narrows his eyes at me suspiciously, but I wave him away with a gesture that says I will speak of it later.

Aragorn joins us, and despite the late hour he is thankfully still dressed to receive. He has changed into something more comfortable – more fitting for the man that he is, as opposed to the man he is seen to be – and he seems far more relaxed. He does not look like a King, he looks perhaps like one of the household staff who has become lost in the building, but of course he is Aragorn. It is the man who is the King, not how he presents himself, and as soon as he is in the room it feels both smaller and greater. I envy that of him, but at the same time I am glad that I am no more than Gimli. Greatness is for men like him, and to be honest it all seems quite exhausting.

He passes Legolas with a fond look, I receive a hand upon the shoulder as he moves beyond me, and then he stops before Captain Hob. He sees him, reads him, takes his measure all in one look, and the scowling captain reacts just as most men do when they finally meet my friend.

He drops to his knee, bows his head, and becomes rather emotional. Aragorn grimaces, although he hides it swiftly. Legolas rolls his eyes, gives me a sly grin, and I cannot help but stifle my own smile.

Men.

"You must be Captain Hob," Aragorn says warmly, extending one hand so that he rises back to his feet. "My friends speak well of you, it is good that we meet."

"My King, my Lord" Hob mumbles, and Eru he is flushing! He is embarrassed, he does not know how to act, and my smile fades away. It is unfair of me to mock him. "I am honoured," he says, "honoured far beyond my imagining."

"That is nice," Aragorn laughs, and somehow he manages to make it sound warm and humble and grateful. Somehow he makes Hob relax, and I honestly do not know how he does it; I certainly could not. "Please, captain, sit. I came from far less than this and I have not been King for very long; if you stand then I shall stand as well, and we will both be very uncomfortable. Tell me why you are here?"

"I am here because the elven prince instructed me to come here," he says sourly, and then adds quickly: "my King."

Aragorn laughs again, and that is it… Hob is himself again. My friend comes across to the fire, bats Legolas' feet away from where they are propped on the arm of his chair and sits. Hob takes the only empty seat but he does not make himself comfortable; he perches on the edge, his eyes still roving over everything as though committing it to memory.

"You will have to excuse my friend," Aragorn tells him, glancing sourly at Legolas. "We are all old soldiers, and he is older than most. We are all the same, in our hearts."

Hob looks doubtful, glances briefly at the elfling who is staring into the fire and chewing a nail as though he is not being spoken about at all. I think that his mind has gone elsewhere for a moment, and I take the briefest glimpse, pluck faintly at the cobweb fine link between us so that I might see that he is well – that his mind is present, sane.

He feels it, looks askance with the faintest flicker of summer blue, and in it I see no accusation or annoyance; I see reassurance. I think perhaps he is merely tired as well.

I take up the narrative, as is my lot in life, and I tell Aragorn and Hob everything that happened after we left them. I leave out nothing, including the outrageous flirtation, and although Legolas gives me a soft hiss of annoyance I continue without any concern until I am done.

"What of Faelwen?" Aragorn scowls at Legolas, almost entirely ignoring the far more pertinent points of my story.

"By the stars, Estel!" Legolas exclaims with a rise of his hands and an upward glance for strength.

"What did the journal say?" I ask Hob, interrupting. "Legolas can barely speak the common tongue consistently, and I could not make it out."

The captain pulls it open, flicks through the pages but it is more for something to do with his hands. He sets it aside, rubs one hand across his close cropped hair so that it makes a rasping sound, and I recognise this… the elfling does it all of the time: fidgeting, fiddling with things; unsettled actions. He has something to say, but he is unsure on how to broach it.

"Firstly," he says, "I will admit that the penmanship is terrible, but that is all we need to know that the journal was planted upon Wynn's body."

I blink in confusion, and I glance at Aragorn only to be reassured that he is also blinking in confusion.

"He was being trained as a scholar," Legolas murmurs. "For a boy to be elevated, to have come from such a poor beginning and granted such a future… he could not have such shocking grasp of his letters."

Hob nods and I feel instantly stupid.

"The Steward of the Second is quite correct," Hob continues. "It is a journal, and it describes investigations over a period of months into the dealings in the second circle. It speaks of a meeting with a city official, of the evidence he would provide so that arrests could be made. To be found on his body… it is incriminating indeed."

"You have doubts," Legolas tilts his head, a birdlike movement, and I think that Hob is starting to become accustomed to him… he nods and Legolas continues, and again it is a statement rather than a question. "You are from the second circle."

Hob avoids our gaze for just a moment, but then he braces himself, meets our gaze proudly as though we might judge him poorly for it. He sees no such thing.

"How did you know?"

"When she spoke of you, she spoke as though she knew you," Legolas says, as though it is quite obvious. "You were unsurprised when we told you the steward is a woman, you are comfortable there upon the second… many things. It does not matter. Tell us your take on this; I would hear it."

Sometimes the elfling surprises me, sometimes he is far more astute than he pretends to be, and I am proud of him right now. Not because he knew these things, not because he has been clever – because I know that Legolas is clever – but rather that he is clever despite everything that is going on in his head right now.

"I think," Hob starts, pauses, considers his words. "I think that people do not carry their journals around with them. My men have spoken to Wynn's colleagues on the third and they have nothing but praise for him, nothing but grief in his passing. I think that it was not Wynn's journal at all, and I think it was his brother that was meant to be in the alley that night. I think that the journal was placed upon his body, and I think that we need to find the brother."

"The Steward of the Second seems fairly capable," I say. "If she cannot find him with all of her resources, I do not know how we will. Do you think that it is Edgar's journal, or do you think that it is entirely fabricated?"

"It could be either," Hob admits. "It tells of very bad things, very bad indeed. Lady Briar would not have given it to us if these things were true, but perhaps in the giving she thinks that we will assume it all false. I would lean toward it being a fabrication. The Lady Briar is brazen but she is not stupid, and she does nothing that will not serve the second. Why give it to us if it is all truth?"

"Then who was the writer?" I ask, but not because I expect any answer. It is what we are all thinking. "We must not act entirely on suspicion; we will waste time if we are wrong."

"I will have someone speak to the Clerk of Records," Hob says. "If Edgar was to meet with a city official, then there will be record of it. Writing things on paper is certainly something that we excel at here. And we must find Edgar! There is much that he could answer for us."

"I have a thought on that," Legolas says.

"Lady Briar could not find him," Hob frowns doubtfully, as though any suggestion that she has been lacking in some way is an affront to him. "You do not know this city as she does."

"I do not know the second as she does," Legolas counters. "There is a whole city above and below the second circle."

"If anyone can find him, it is a laegrim elf," Aragorn says, and his tone invites no discussion. I wonder if this means that I am to be dragged into the search as well so I keep my mouth shut in the hope that I am not.

"We should also find Sig," I say, draining the last of my wine. "He may have handed us over to an assassin, but I believe that he saw Edgar this afternoon before his house was burned. There may be answers there."

"I know where to find him," Hob nods. "There is a brothel where he is looked after – they might speak to me there."

"I must say," Aragorn says with a slight frown. "I am unsure how happy I am that there is so much organised crime in my city."

"That organised crime paid for all of your taverns to be rebuilt, my King," Hob shrugs. "It is something to think on."

~{O}~

There is little more to speak of, in truth, and so after that we leave. I should not have had any wine; it has made me sleepy, and it is getting very late. We make plans to meet with Aragorn for lunch tomorrow and take our leave, and the walk back across the courtyard is cold and dark and windy. It smells of ice with the faintest hint of awakening green, and it stings my face as we fight our way through the darkness.

Legolas has grown quiet, which is his way, and I speak with Hob as we walk.

"He is different than I imagined," he says, a slight frown at his brow. "I was at the coronation – everyone was there – but I caught a glimpse of him and I thought myself lucky. He seemed far more…" he searches for the word, and I wait for a while before offering:

"Kingly?" I suggest, but he looks horrified.

"Not at all!" he exclaims. "He is the first King that I have met, indeed he is the first King I have ever had. I mean rather that he is the sort of King that a man like me could only hope to have. He is like me, but he is better and finer, and I would follow him. I would follow him anywhere at all."

It is rather an emotional outburst for a soldier like Hob, and I grant him silence because the moment feels as though I should. I look up and I see him outlined in faint starlight: scarred and worn and rough, hard eyed and utterly overcome by meeting my friend. He glances down at me, a hint of challenge in his jaw, but I simply nod.

"He has that way about him," I say simply. "He was born for this throne, and his deeds have made him worthy of it. Perhaps Legolas should tell you a few tales of him as a boy; from what I hear he was an awful child. It might help."

Hob glances back at Legolas with a distrustful air, and Legolas simply arches one eyebrow in response, but Hob tries… he tries to offer a hand in peace.

"It is true then," he asks the elfling. "You knew him before the Quest?"

I wait, and I cringe with every silent moment that passes. Legolas is stubborn, and for some reason he has decided that he does not wish to be friends with this man, but for Hob to make an effort is unexpected. He is not the type – indeed they are far more similar than they are ever likely to accept. If the elfling is rude or difficult now then the opportunity will not present itself again, and although I do not care whether they like one another or not, I would prefer they did. This is terribly awkward.

I see the moment that the elfling relents, softens, sighs imperceptibly. His gaze drifts back toward the horizon, and it is far easier to breathe now that he is not staring.

"Aye," he nods, and this is my elfling rather than the one that Hob has known so far. He is softer, kinder, younger. "My father and Lord Elrond would go to war in a generation if their children were not friends, and so I met him whilst I visited the twins not too long ago."

"Eighty years ago," I correct. He waves me away negligently.

"He was an utter nightmare," he continues with a sigh. "He fell into a river every day that I was there, and every time that I met him after that he had found some other way of falling." He holds his hand out and ticks his fingers off: "Out of trees, down stairs, off horses, over his own feet… you are lucky you have a King at all."

Hob is still for a while, considering this, and when he laughs I see Legolas relax even further. Hob has a good laugh – deep and soft and real – and he continues our walk in silence but he is smiling. The elfling gives me an exasperated look, but I do not respond to it. I can hear his words as though he has spoken them aloud.

Another one. He has befriended another of the edain when he was so set on avoiding such a thing.

Men betray, men leave, men die, but Legolas left the Greenwood to travel and experience the world. I know it is difficult for him, but since this winter he needs things to keep him grounded – to keep him connected – and he needs this, he simply does not see it.

We tell Hob that we will see him again in the morning, and Legolas calls him 'Faengolen' again which receives nothing but a puzzled scowl. I think he imagines he is being insulted, but before he has a chance to question it we are gone. We return to our rooms, we bid our goodnights, and I am finally, blissfully, alone.

~{O}~

I am sure that there are some people who question my sanity, considering the life that I have chosen to lead. I know for certain that my family question it – they tell me so at every opportunity – but I cannot imagine any other.

I have nightmares. Almost every night I have them, and they are blood soaked and terrible things. My hands shake sometimes, and I find myself swallowed by bad memories of dark places without any warning at all. I panic in crowds and I am not very close to my family, because they are strangers to me now when they never were before. My body is a map of scars; I ache… Eru do I ache, and I do not think that I will live to be a particularly old dwarf.

But the things that I have seen and done…

I count kings and queens and lords and ladies amongst my friends, warriors of legend and great renown. My name will live on long after I am gone, and my deeds have contributed toward the safety and prosperity of every person alive today or born tomorrow. I know a friendship that I had never expected to know, not ever, and it is more than the knowing of someone but more like blood. He is my brother in every way – there for my silences and sadness as well as the joy, and by Mahal's very own nostril hairs I have been awake mere moments and he is already annoying me.

Rain drums and patters at my window, fitful and wind driven, but I am warm and comfortable here in my bed. It is still dark, I lie in the dimness of a rain soaked morning and I run my fingers across the fabric. I stare at the ceiling, I concentrate on nothing and I try very hard to block him out – I try with every part of me – but it is like trying to ignore an itch. His madness is a moth in my mind, it bumps against everything in clumsy panic, and I feel it scrape and twitch until I can take it no more.

I find him in his chambers, just as I knew I would, and I throw open the door far harder than I had meant to so that it bangs against the wall. I stand there – me in my bedclothes – and I glare at him but he barely even notices that I am there.

"Legolas," I snap. "Legolas!"

He jumps, blinks, stares at me for a long time, and I wonder whether he has forgotten who I am or simply how he is meant to greet people. It could be anything. His hair is tangled, as though he has spent the night running his hands through it, and his clothes are rumpled and creased. I would accuse him of sleeping in them if I thought he had slept at all, and his eyes burn fever bright against skin of palest white.

His room is full of parchment – large sheets of it, scrolls and scrolls – and for just a moment my curiosity wanders before I stop myself. There is time to find out what he has been doing all of the night through, and this is not it.

He does not move, he does not respond at all. His eyes are fixed and unblinking and awful, and for a moment it feels as though I am in the room with an animal. The forest is in him, tangled up in his head and turning him wild.

"We are leaving the city," I announce, spinning on my heel and returning to my chamber so that I might dress. "Get ready. Or do not, it does not matter – we are going either way."

"Gimli, no," he chokes, finally remembering. "I have found something."

"It can wait," I shout through the muffling of my shirt. The tailors in Minas Tirith make neck holes for people with beards far smaller than mine, and I panic for a moment before I wrestle my head free. "I am quite serious Legolas; I will hit you over the head with my bedpan and carry you if I must."

I hear him grumbling and swearing, but despite his petulance he does as he is told. In no time at all I am dressed and dragging a sulking and twitchy elfling through the city, and then we have horses, and then we are gone.

~{O}~

I have said often that I dislike rain, but I do not think that anyone truly appreciates the extent of my dislike. I am perfectly fine if I am indoors – in fact it is rather soothing to be warm and dry when it is cold and wet without – but when it is falling directly upon me it is different. Running a horse through a torrential downpour before the sun is even fully risen… words fail me. It is simply too awful.

Legolas awakened the moment that we left the city, brought back to himself by the scent of endless plains and wind and furious rain. There are no trees here, nothing worth noting except scrubby and lonely things, but the elfling does not need trees all of the time; this is sufficient for him and he will have to make do.

He kicks his horse into a run as soon as it is sensible to do so, and we race across the Pelennor as thunder rolls heavily across the swollen sky. Ice cold rain drives into my face, my eyes, soaking me utterly to the bone, and Legolas and I run off his madness before most people are even up and about.

Ai, the things I do for this creature… I curse him constantly the whole time that I am out here, but I admit that there is some part of me that finds it thrilling. It is not the first time that we have done this – it is not even the tenth time – and after a while the novelty grows old, but I would have to be made of stone or wood not to feel it. This is freedom and wildness, and I have spent too long tangled up in the head of a laegrim elf not to appreciate it in some way.

We run as long as we can: breathless, wind tattered and battered by the storm, but horses are not made for running this way, not for too long. We circle back, we slow, and by the time we are coming back toward the city we walk. The horses steam in the cold air, but I think they have enjoyed themselves; they are alert and bright, and I clap mine heartily on the neck in thanks for her service. She is not Naurwen, but she is a good horse.

"Do you feel better?" I ask the elfling as we clatter back through the gates. The guards look at us as though we are insane – we are mud streaked and dripping wet, and there is no obvious reason for what we have done – but I know that it has been worthwhile when Legolas looks back at me with gratitude.

He nods, says nothing, but I can see it in him – the madness calmed, sated, his mind focussed again. He does not need to say anything at all.

~{O}~

We spend time looking after the horses, because it does not seem right that we leave it to the stable-hands. It is our fault that they are soaked, and so we spend a long time ministering to them. I find it soothing: scrubbing hay across sodden flanks, running a brush across her solid bulk, because it is something I have become used to. It speaks of the quiet moments in my life, the calm hours between running and fighting: the smell of damp horse and hay, the warmth of the stable, Legolas' silent presence keeping me company. It calms me.

My beard is a nightmare of windswept frizz, I am starting to smell unpleasantly damp and I have a chill running through my bones. I am hungry and far too tired for someone who has only just climbed from his bed.

"So," I speak eventually, and when I do not continue Legolas makes a noise to confirm he is listening. "What had you up until the dawn?"

"It was one of my… difficult nights," he admits. "I needed something to occupy my mind, and so I went to the library."

"You should wake me when that happens, Legolas," I huff softly, but he waves it away. He stops, folds his arms across the stall that divides us and rests his chin upon them. I can feel his gaze heavy upon me but I do not look up from what I am doing.

"Would you have thanked me for it?" he asks with a wry smile. "I do not think you would have. And I am not an invalid."

I snort, but I do not comment. He has managed to bring himself – mostly – back into his own mind without me, but he does not have to do it alone. Not all of the time.

"And what did you find in the library?" I ask. I hope that I will not have to drag this out of him one fact at a time; we are due to meet with Hob this morning, and I mean to dress in something dry first. I also have every intention of there being a large breakfast in my immediate future.

"I did not stay there," he curls his nose up, returns to running a brush heavily across his horse's flank. It is a steady and practised motion, and he clucks something in his own tongue as the beast butts him with a curious nose. "Estel's library is a terrible place Gimli; there are men in there that I am certain have never seen the sky before."

"There is an eventual point to be reached here, I am certain of it…"

"I remember this city being built," he says. He is done, pulls a blanket across his horse and he claps it in farewell but does not go far. He pulls himself up onto a crate, hunches over and kicks his legs like a boy. "Or at least, I remember my grandfather telling me about it; I never travelled far from the forest, as you know. I recall him describing the city as it crept up Mindolluin, like ivy up a tree, growing like lichen until it became as you see it now. He said that there were caverns, but have you seen caverns?"

I stop, I think, and I suddenly find myself quite curious.

"You found the old city plans," I conclude, and he nods. "What did you find?"

"Caverns," he replies flatly, as though I am an idiot. I roll my eyes hugely and he laughs. "It was not easy; those old plans are falling apart and the newer maps do not overlay particularly well with the old ones, but I have somewhere to start. Edgar's home is close to where the drainage system has collapsed, and I think those old tunnels lead into the caverns."

My mind is racing, dancing with intrigue, and I give him an odd look.

"You can be fairly clever when you wish to be," I tell him. I mean to be serious, but I cannot help but smile broadly and he gives me a look of disgust.

"Oh, Gimli, try not to strain yourself. One mention of secret buried caves and you are all but dancing!"

"Dwarves are surprisingly agile dancers," I reply archly, "and of course I will be coming with you."

"I have no intention of going into those tunnels," he says quite certainly. "You think that a good idea right now?"

He gestures a hand at himself, up and down from crown to boot, and I take his meaning. He has almost fallen apart in one night, in a garden open to the sky and with a thousand ways of escaping to the air. Sending him underground is a ridiculous idea, and I feel a stab of disappointment.

"Do not look so sad, my friend," he laughs. "Of course you must go; only a fool would embark upon such a thing without a dwarf, and you are the only one we have."

I am finished, I grab my cloak and Legolas pushes himself off his crate. We leave the stables to a morning that is fresh and rain washed. The storm has passed and the sky is fresh blue, with dances of pale clouds that wisp and eddy in the wind. It will be a fine day, but I am still damp and the wind sets a chill deep in my bones.

Legolas steps out into the brisk air, tilts his head to the sun and closes his eyes for a moment, but when he returns his gaze earthward there is a touch of a frown at his brow. He wants to say something, I can feel it humming between us, and I wait patiently. Sometimes he must come to it by himself.

"Do you still hate it?" he asks me, and there is curiosity in his tone but also a whisper of caution.

He speaks of our link, of our connection, and I understand his carefulness if not the reason for asking such a thing. When it was new – the first time I felt the touch of his mind, the days afterward – I will admit that I hated it… I hated it completely. I did not want him rummaging around in my mind, I considered it an intrusion, and I would have given anything to be rid of it.

Since then, things have changed. Since then I have not only become accustomed to it, but I rely upon it – it is a sense just as my hearing or my sight. To reach out and touch Legolas' heart, to feel his presence against my own like the warmth of the sun in the sky and know exactly where he is… I cannot truly recall what it was like before I had this connection.

I have been silent too long, and he is still raw and exposed. He clears his throat.

"I would understand," he says lightly, but it is forced, and I reach out to place my hand against his arm. He tenses, rigid and prepared for a rejection – because that is how he has always seen it – and when he looks at me it breaks my heart to see such a tiny glimmer of hope in those careful blue eyes.

"I did, at first," I tell him. "Now? Now I hate only the thought of losing it."

And he is still for just a moment, and when he smiles at me it is broad and happy – as open as the sky. I feel it melt across me, his fondness and the regard he holds me in, and I feel my throat tighten for just a second. I growl through my beard, scowl and walk a little faster, and his quiet laugh is carried upon the wind into the blue.

I grin to myself as well when he cannot see my face any longer.

Elves.

~{O}~

By the time I emerge from my rooms again – finally warm, clean and dressed in soft and dry clothes – Hob is already poring over Legolas' maps with the enthusiasm of a boy who has found the greatest treasure in the lands. His eyes are bright and focussed, and he barely glances up at me as I join them. I struggle my hair into a braid and look to where Legolas is slouched in a chair. He looks tired.

"Rose petals," I grumble as I make my way toward where our breakfast is laid out. "Why must they put rose petals in everything?"

"I am thankful for it," the elfling mumbles through a mouthful of bread. He is about to make some comment about how I smell, and I change the subject before he can get started.

"You think there is some credence to this madness?" I ask the captain, and Legolas makes a disgusted noise. I gesture in his direction. "He has odd ideas sometimes."

"I would be exploring whether there was credence or not," the captain tells me.

He straightens, helps himself to our breakfast and settles in one of Legolas' chairs, far more comfortable than he seemed last night. Finally he seems to remember that the elfling is sat with us.

"One of the lads speaks Sindarin," he informs him. "I asked him what you keep calling me. Our cloaks might be green, you realise."

"They should be white," Legolas dismisses. "Did you hear from the Clerk of Records?"

"Aye," Hob mumbles through a mouth of food, his eyebrows rising. "I was surprised; there was a meeting to be held with a provost. Edgar never arrived."

"A provost?" I frown, because that makes little sense at all. Hob nods.

"I thought the same thing. A strange choice, if the journal is to be believed."

"This is a strange profession that you have chosen," Legolas sighs, rubbing his forehead tiredly. "This is mysteries upon mysteries, one after the other."

"It is something to do," Hob shrugs one shoulder carelessly. "There are no wars left to fight, and it was either this or quartermaster. In any case, it is far better than weaving flowers into my hair and attending feasts."

"Indeed," Legolas replies flatly, frowning. "You have very strange ideas about how I have spent the last age."

But Legolas is not offended, and Hob has the hint of a smile on his face. Something has shifted between them.

"Legolas will not be coming with us," I wave toward the maps that still flow and fold over every available surface. "Have you men available?"

"Enough," Hob nods. If he is curious as to why we are not bringing an elf on a hunt when we have all been so certain that we need him, then he does not say anything on it. "I sent word for them to ready themselves whilst you were perfuming your beard, or however you spent your time in there."

"You are too comfortable with us, too quickly," I scowl, just as Legolas stifles a snort. I pat at my beard and sniff at it as subtly as I can, and it does smell like flowers. Curse it. I glare at the elfling. "How do you intend to spend your day?"

"There is something that I would like to check," he tells me, barely even noticing the glare. "The house – it burned too quickly. If those poor souls in the library are to be believed, there are four places in the city where oils are distilled finely enough for such a thing. Perhaps one might recall an unusual customer."

"The oil merchants should be open for trade by now," Hob tells him, nodding, approving. "I have a request of you, if you would hear it. The novices train at bow this afternoon, and I have heard that you are of some skill. An hour of your tutelage would be worth a week of lessons."

Legolas snorts again – I have never been able to break him of that habit – and I can hear very clearly that a week is an underestimate, in his opinion, but he seems pleased. I am unsure whether it is because Hob has asked, or perhaps because the cursed elf simply cannot pass by an opportunity to play at bow, but either way I know that he will not refuse.

"Then we will come and find you there," I tell the elfling. "Once we are done, one way or the other."

"Marvellous," Hob stands, showering Legolas' nice clean floor with crumbs. He starts to gather the maps together briskly, and I take this to mean that we are on the move. I glance at Legolas and I pause, because it has been a while since we have done anything separately. Not since we met again.

I am not worried for him, not for his safety, because despite that he is in trouble more often than most, he is also extremely capable. Elves are like ferrets sometimes; difficult to snare and terribly cunning. It is something different… something difficult to put word to, and impossible whilst we have such company. It is his mind that I worry over: his focus, his ability to function without me there as a buffer. I feel a flush of guilt that I am so doubtful of him when I never have been before.

Legolas knows, because I am not hiding it from him, and he meets my eyes. It is not the tattered remains of the Shadow that links us this time, because Legolas and I could speak without words before we encountered her. He tells me:

I will be well

And I must believe him, and although it feels immeasurably strange, we go our separate ways.

TBC

Little bit light on action and heavy on stuff this week, but we'll get some action going soon, I promise!

Just as a warning, I will be posting one more chapter in a fortnight's time, and then I will be taking a short break. Things have been a bit hectic recently and so I've had to slow down on writing, and I will also not get much of a chance to write anything in the next few weeks either. I've got a healthy number of chapters written, but it's difficult to keep up with getting these chapters in a condition where I'm happy to post them, as well as writing at least one new chapter every two weeks. I'll probably only be skipping one scheduled chapter, possibly only jumping a week and leaving three weeks between instead of two, but there will be a break. And BOY do I plan on leaving it on a cliffhanger lol :D

Apologies to anyone who reviewed the last chapter, because I did not respond to your reviews. It really has been hectic, I am very sorry, but please rest assured that I am extremely thankful and I will resume my usual responses this week. I love you all, each of your reviews means a huge amount to me so please don't be put off. I love to hear from you!

Have a great weekend :)

MyselfOnly xx