"Gimli you must calm yourself," Aragorn grips my upper arms, and it is painful and tight but I cannot listen to him. I cannot… I simply cannot. I am pacing, angry, agitated and mad, and I bat his hands away and push him aside. "You do not know for certain that anything is wrong!" he says, and I whirl on him. I hiss, curl my lip in anger, and I am acting more like the elfling than myself but I do not care.

"You have no idea what you say," I snap. "You have not asked, and we have not said, but Aragorn… if I tell you that something is wrong with him then something is wrong."

"Gimli you must calm so that we may speak!" Arwen interjects, and there is something in her tone… something desperate and frightened and urgent that makes me realise I am not alone in my fear. I stop, I look out of the window at the bruised blue sky. All day… we have looked all day. The oil merchants recall him, two out of four of them. They remember seeing him, remember telling him that they would send their sales ledgers to the Rookery, but he never made it as far as the third or fourth seller. There is no mark of his passage after that, no sign of where he went or what happened. He is simply gone.

"Do you feel anything?" she asks, her tone on the edge of fright.

"No," I snap back at her, raking my hand across my hair, "but that means nothing… nothing at all. It is inconsistent now, it is not how it was. You!" I whirl at Larke where he guards the door, and his eyes widen. "What news do you have?! You have snakes and ferrets in every corner and tavern in this city."

"Well master Gimli," he bows deeply, "neither our snakes nor our ferrets have anything to report."

"Do not be so glib," I snarl. "What of the boy?"

"He is being questioned," Hob tells me from where he sits, looking at me as though I have gone mad. He seems calm – far too calm – and a part of me knows that he is simply reacting to my insanity, but that part of me is not being very rational at the moment. The rest of me is angry that he can seem so unruffled. "Take me to him."

"I do not think I will do that, master Gimli," he shakes his head, and has the audacity to look neither contrite nor apologetic.

"You will take me to him," I say, "or I will find him by myself."

"Gimli," Aragorn snaps, and I think he has finally lost his patience with me. His voice cuts through the panic, the blind fear, as though it is a blade – reason and steadiness, and I grab onto it like a drowning man. I let it ground me… take a deep breath, then two. "Absolutely nothing will come of you terrifying the wits out of a child. He is being questioned, half of the city is out looking for Legolas. You can either join them – I will come with you – or you can sit down and rest for a while. It is your choice. We will find him Gimli," his voice softens, gentles, and suddenly I can hear all of the fear and worry and exhaustion he must be feeling right now. "We will find him."

And just like that, everything drains from me.

I sink into a chair, hide my head in my hands, and I hear the rustling and silent retreat of Hob and his men but I do not look up. I feel Arwen rest her hand upon my hair, feel her kiss my head gently, and then she is gone too. I know not where, but I do not think she will be resting. I think she will be involving herself in the search somehow, because how can she not? Why am I not doing the same?

"Drink," I hear, and I look up to see a cup offered in my direction. I take it through reflex, and it is almost uncomfortably hot. The ache of the heat in my hands grounds me further and I clutch it, taking respite in the sensation. I focus on it with everything I have, but still I cannot quiet my heart. I feel as though I am about to fly away upon the wind, a thousand tattered shreds.

"What if…?" I begin, but I cannot finish. I cannot think of the words. I cannot think of anything that would adequately put voice to how afraid I am, because what if we have come through everything – fought and lost and battled and endured – only for me to lose him now? Legolas and I have shared a heart, shared a mind. We have experienced the world through one another's eyes. The bond that we have… if something has happened to him, I do not know how to be on my own any longer.

"Legolas is strong," Aragorn says, settling into a chair opposite me. He falls deeply into it, a boneless slouch of exhaustion, and he closes his eyes, pinches the bridge of his nose. "He has always been strong. We always underestimate him."

I snort a laugh, because I cannot help myself, and there is a silence that goes on for a long time. I feel every beat of my heart dragging me further into weariness, and I sit back. I sip at the tea but I do not taste it.

"This winter past," I say, my words slow as I find them. Aragorn opens his eyes and listens, but he does not move other than that. "This winter I saw him fight thirty orcs, all alone, and he was unarmed with both hands tied. I have never seen such a thing before. I think he is a fool, an utter fool, but he is a brave one and I do not underestimate him; I simply know him too well. That is why I worry."

"It is more than that," he murmurs, and I nod. Damn him, because he always understands far better than anyone else ever has. He can read me as though my mind and heart are written upon a page.

"Aye," I breathe. "It is more than that. After everything that we have done laddie, after all of it, he is too precious to me to lose. Over and over again I thought him gone. It has made me nervous about him."

Aragorn smiles, a pale thing, but it is an effort and I appreciate it.

"Tell me," he urges, and I know exactly what he means. I could change the subject right now and he would allow it. I could refuse and he would say nothing, nothing at all, but as the fear and worry start to give way to exhaustion I feel the fight in me drain away into something empty and painful.

I feel alone, alone as I never do with Legolas here; his stray thoughts and ragged emotions flitting across my heart all of the time, and I had never realised how much I might miss it. When we were parted these last months it was different – I knew where he was, I knew that he was safe – but now… Eru I would give anything to feel it again.

Aragorn is watching me, careful and unobtrusive, and I need to feel something like that again. I need to feel close, to know that I am with someone who understands me, and by Mahal the lad deserves it. He has been patient and careful and kind, and we have done nothing but shut him out.

And so I tell him.

From the moment we left here in the early winter, I tell him everything that has happened to us, and at first he listens quietly and allows me my silence, but after a while it changes. I fall into it, I warm to the tale, and Aragorn is entirely captured – his eyes wide as I describe the more exciting parts of our adventure.

Legolas has always told me that I tell a good tale. He says that I have a skill, and that if I ever tire of him I can make a living as a Storymaster, but he is often poking fun at me and I usually hit him when he says such things. Even so, I enjoy the telling of a story – the weaving of words and the build of atmosphere, the way my audience reacts when I have told it well.

I employ none of these things. I simply tell him how it was.

Grey eyes sparkle with excitement as I describe the storm in which we saved a family: a cart tipped over the edge of a ravine with a child aboard, rain hammering down upon us – a flood that seemed as though it would never stop – and Legolas climbing over the beleaguered cart without any sense of his own safety. All to rescue a child he did not know.

He is on the edge of his seat as I tell him of our battle with a pack of wargs: the race to find somewhere that we might fight them, the ensuing battle, and how Legolas' mercy ultimately saved us later. I tell him of Legolas' madness when Faelwen was hurt by Callen, of a huge black cat that nearly killed the Woodland King, and of an orc pinned to a tree and left to die.

He is enraged when I tell him of the betrayal at Bray, where the villagers took us captive and handed Legolas over to the darkness like tribute, and he grins in pride and delight when I tell him exactly how that ended. His anger turns to grief though, when I tell him of the price that village paid, and he listens in interest when I describe to him the hidden valley where they now live. Rowan's valley – safe and secure, and where Calder now is.

I tell him of how Legolas and I first formed our bond, and how it grew and flourished and how many arguments we had over it. He tells me that we are idiots for ever having done such a thing in the first place, but I wave it away; he was not there to come up with any better ideas.

I tell him of the crossing to Burned Sycamore Standing, and how I will probably never travel by boat again if I can help it, and I tell him of the massacre there. But then it becomes harder…

I have told Aragorn what it was like to feel the Shadow forcing her memories upon me, there to grow and form so that her story could be told. I have told him what it was like, all of those months, to watch Legolas in pain… so much pain, as the Shadow twisted and turned in response to Callen. I have described how awful it was once it was finally torn free of him, although it granted him a short reprieve, and I have spent a while trying to describe exactly what it is like to share a mind with an elf, although it is difficult indeed. It is like trying to describe a feeling, or a smell. It is ephemeral and visceral and does not translate, but I try, and Aragorn listens, and I think I get across a small glimmer of it.

Now though, I must tell him of Legolas' death, and what I did to him. I must speak of my selfishness, and the price he paid for what I did. I broke him… I broke him utterly, and I do not know that he will ever recover. I tell him what happened, and I tell him how I made the decision – finally – to end his suffering myself, because I caused it. Eru, I caused him so much pain.

I take him into the deepness of the Hithaeglir, upon a midnight river with no ripple or breeze to mar its surface, and I describe how it came to be that the nightmare of the Shadow finally ended. I describe it all to him in great detail. How I was ready to kill the elfling – my brother in blood, my greatest friend – and how I was ready to die there myself. How we were saved by her, in a way.

I talk and I talk, and it takes forever… just the two of us, lit by candle and firelight, in a warm room in the mountain. It is a spell made with words, drawing the two of us closely, and it is my voice that weaves it. I remember every moment vividly, painfully, and something happens – something I had not expected, not in all these months gone.

By Eru… it starts to hurt less.

It is like a lanced wound, a river of poison and hurt and loss pouring out and leaving me empty but clean. I tell him all of it – sometimes I go back and re-tell a thing or two, describing it more clearly or simply because I need to say it again – and all of the way through Aragorn listens. He asks no questions, although I can see that he burns with them, and I am thankful to him for his silence. I need this, I need it so badly, and this man is a friend I do not deserve.

When I am done, when I am finally empty and drained and exhausted, Aragorn smiles at me. It is gentle and I know that he loves me – this brother of mine – but I have never seen it so plainly across his face before. He allows a long silence, because my tale warrants it, and then all he says is:

"I would have done the same thing, Gimli."

And I start to weep like a child.

~{O}~

I fall asleep in my chair, because I simply have nothing left in me. I am wrung out like a rag, both in body and heart, and when I hear the first birds of dawn it is faint and far away. I drift into sleep, and I fall into a dream as though it has been waiting for me. And perhaps it has.

A number of times I have been here, and it has been different each one of them.

I am on the edge of a wood, and I have been here before with Legolas – the real Legolas, and the real wood – but we seem to keep finding our way back. This clearing: wild, tangled, deep in the heart of the forest… I think perhaps it is where we meet.

It is where Legolas' fëa, and whatever similar thing I have touch against one another. A true meeting place.

I can hear birds calling, far deep in the forest behind, and it is dark and frightening but I face the rising of the sun. Here is it open and bright, and it is spring where it was winter when last I saw it. Legolas was dying, almost gone, and he was nothing but the silhouette of an archer in the distance. Fading. Leaving.

This time he is waiting.

He looks different, and I have learned that here – in this place – what I see is the Legolas that he hides from the world. This is the truest version of him, and I am dismayed by it, because I do not think that he is recovering as well as he has said. The Legolas before me is barefoot, grass stained and soil smudged. His hair is loose – no warrior braids at all – and it is tangled and unkempt. He wears simple clothing, although I think it was once quite nicely made, but it has been much abused and torn by bramble and briar.

This Legolas is young, far younger than I had ever pictured him being. He looks naught but a grown lad, and there the resemblance to an elf ends because this thing is wild. He is no more similar to me than a fox is, or a hare or a bird. He was born in this wood, he sleeps beneath trees and in the rain, and he runs through the forest trails when the wind is high. His eyes burn like stars, darts of summer blue, and this is Legolas as he was… this is the laegrim elf that was never truly tamed: the one who came out of the woods, who left behind joy and a freedom that I will never know. Who was followed by his friends out of the forest, picked up a bow, and built a wall in his heart so that he could shut off that part of him… left it all behind in defence of his home. Out of the trees and into war.

This is the Legolas that I have made of him, because I took those walls away.

I walk, and he falls into step beside me, and it is just the way it ever is between us. We walk through tangles of winter-wilted grasses, brown and thatched solid, but with spikes of pale green poking through. Blades of bluebells pierce the ground, some with tight clusters of white buds that will soon be flowers of blue and purple and pink. Gorse flowers of bright yellow splash colour into the nude undergrowth, catkins hang heavy in the branches and everywhere there is sign of new life. It is a land returning, growing strong again, and the sun is weak and thin but it is warm.

"Where are you, Legolas?" I ask him, because I still do not know for certain whether this is him or if this is a dream. I have experienced both – when it has been him, and when it has not. My voice sounds small, childish and lost, but I do not care. Seeing him here awakens an ache in my chest, and I do not miss him this way when he is absent, but he is not absent, he is lost.

"I do not know, Gimli," he says softly. "I think that I have hurt my head; I cannot recall much. I cannot wake, and I do not know how long I can stay here. My mind drifts."

He huffs, a frustrated thing, and rakes tangled hair back away from his face. It is heartbreakingly familiar. "It is like mist," he murmurs, distracted and distant. "Like seeing through a fog."

"Try," I push. "You must try, my friend."

He looks agonised, his face twisting as he tries to remember, tries to recall what happened to him, and it is painful to see on this face of his. Young… too young to look so pained. He is looking toward the horizon, his gaze captured as though I am no longer with him, and I know what lies beyond this clearing. I know what he looks toward, because I have seen him there before.

There is a strange constant about this place of ours, and it is that no matter how far we walk, we never go anywhere. The trees behind us are exactly where they were, the sun does not move… we walk but we are frozen in place. Legolas has found his way free once – just once – when he lay dying upon the shores of the Anduin, and I had to break him to bring him back. It is not something I can do again. Even if I could, I would not.

"Do not look to the distance," I warn him, and he tears his gaze away, meets mine. He knows what lies beyond this horizon just as I do, and after a while his eyes clear. He shakes free of this fog of his, cuts through it, and for a moment I see my Legolas there. He smiles, gentle and fond and true, and he goes as if to rest his hand upon my shoulder but he does not.

"Do not fear, my friend," he reassures me. "We have horizons of our own to reach, many indeed before I mean to explore this one."

I make a noise, although I am not sure that I had meant to, and it is many things: relief, a warning that he be certain to keep to his word, an assent… I do not know.

"The sea," he says finally, and I blink in confusion. "I remember. It smells like the sea."

I frown, confused, because we are rather far from the sea.

I open my mouth, I have a thousand questions, but the forest is fading and the image of Legolas is slipping away like mist. I battle against it, I fight and I struggle endlessly to hold onto this dream or hallucination or whatever this might be, because how can this help?! I could have found out where he is and instead I am left with a thousand more questions, but it is of no use. The images splinter and fade, I return to myself, and where before I knew the scent of a spring breeze with wet soil underfoot, I am increasingly aware of how uncomfortable this chair is, and that I have a terrible crick in my neck.

I am back in Minas Tirith, back in Aragorn's rooms, and I am sat in the midst of an argument.

I rub my eyes, I scowl deeply – how infuriating! Even in my dreams he speaks nothing but riddles – but I do not move. I take a moment to orient myself again, and I think perhaps if I stir I will interrupt the argument that is happening in the next room. I stay as I am and I listen.

"I do not care, captain," Aragorn is saying, and he is in full ire. Aragorn does not shout very often, and if this were any other person but him then I would not call it shouting at all, but my ranger friend can convey much with very little variance in his tone or volume. It is elevated, certainly, but he is nothing but ice and fire. It is granite hard, oak solid, and he sounds exactly the way an angry King should sound. I am not even in the same room and I am cowed by it.

"The elf that you seek is not simply my friend, he is a visiting royal. My relations with King Thranduil matter far more to this Kingdom than the feelings of thieves and assassins. If he finds out that I have allowed his son to be killed in my city he will seek his own justice, and what he brings down upon our walls will be far worse than anything I mete out. If the Steward will not speak with me, then I will cut out the rot and ruin in Minas Tirith and build it anew."

There is a mumble, hushed voices that I strain to hear, and then Aragorn again. Iron cold, angry.

"I say it again, Captain Hob: take the Whitecloaks and the City Guard, mounted and armed, and descend upon the second circle. Destroy the card houses and the brothels if you must, bring them to ruin, and I expect every gaol to be full by the end of the day. Bring it all down, and if you will not do it then I will find someone who will."

There is silence then, thick and heavy, and I hear the scuff of a turned heel – the sharp click of boot upon stone as someone leaves. The doors slam a bit more heavily than is probably warranted, and then there is a sigh.

"Was that really necessary?" I ask, and I do not need to raise my voice. He can hear me well enough. Aragorn appears in the room and slumps right back into the chair he was sat in when I saw him last. He fidgets, twitches, gets up and flings the curtains wide. I blink in cold white sunlight. It is morning, but only just.

Aragorn does not fidget, he certainly does not twitch, but even so he continues doing it. He paces the room and I watch him carefully, stretching until my joints pop and crack.

"You realise he is going straight to Lady Briar to tell her what you plan to do."

"That is what I want him to do, Gimli," he sighs. "He would not go unless I gave him sufficient cause, but I fear I have just ruined all chances of a favourable relationship with her."

"She is loyal to you," I shrug, "and to be frank, my friend, I think this might be the cleverest thing you have done in a while. She is afraid of this exact situation, and she values people of strength. You have started off in a position of great power, right from the outset, and she will come to you."

"No negotiation should be carried out with such an imbalance of power," he shakes his head. "It breeds distrust, and the weaker party will always be looking for a way to level things. She is powerful enough to cause much damage."

"You are the King," I disagree. "You will always start in a position of greater power. You know this; you have never done anything without thinking it through. Have you slept at all?"

"I could lie if you wish?" he makes a vague sort of gesture with his hand, distracted and elegant, and it is a very elven thing to do.

"Where is Arwen?" I ask, finally standing and stretching out the last few kinks in my spine. I am still trying to sort out my own thoughts, still considering my encounter with Legolas in my dream, and I have found that speaking of Arwen distracts Aragorn. It should give me time to decide how I should tell him about our conversation, but instead he snorts and scowls. He plonks himself down in a chair quite gracelessly.

"Now there is a hypocrite, if ever I knew one! She is my moon and stars, the sun in my very sky, but she has been terribly ruined by her brothers. She spent half of the night lecturing me because I was not resting, and the other half closeted away with Ren and Larke trying to solve this murder of ours. She says that it is keeping her busy – if I will not let her search the city with everyone else then she will continue what you and Legolas began."

I blink, surprised, and I admit that my mind is slow this morning. I am tired, worn out by worry, and the words sink in slowly. I cannot help but feel a flicker of interest.

"Has she got very far?" I ask, and am given a filthy look. I think perhaps I was meant to throw my hands up in outrage, but instead I shrug. "It is not the worst way for her to spend her time; she is very clever."

"Aye," he bites, "and it has gone so well for you and Legolas, after all; I will not have a target on my wife's back as well, but there is no speaking to her."

"I do not imagine Arwen has had to ask permission for anything before in her life," I am done stretching, and now I am starting to feel anxious and edgy again. "I do not think she is going to start now. Elves are woefully stubborn."

He snorts again, but I can feel that he is watching me carefully. He has picked up on my mood; I am starting to feel the faintest flickers of panic creep upon the edge of my mind again. I am stood like a dolt in a room with nowhere to go and nothing to do, I am useless!

The elfling… where is the elfling?

"Come," Aragorn says abruptly, standing and tugging my elbow. "We are the only ones not gathered – we might as well see if they have made any progress."

And he leads me out of the room, through into corridors and hallways, but I do not speak because my mind is elsewhere. I keep seeing him, over and over again… images in my mind that I cannot control. Sunlight gold hair and blue eyes that can change from fey madness to soft kindness in an instant. The way he stands, walks, the grace of him. The soft timbre of his voice, thickly accented because he has not had cause or chance to soften it. I image all of the terrible things that could be happening right now, and I feel sick.

Aragorn leads me through his halls, and I follow him like a child because I am completely lost. I do not know what to do.

~{O}~

The room that we find ourselves in is quite certainly one of Arwen's.

It is large and light and airy, the windows flung wide open despite that there is quite a breeze coming through them. There are potted plants everywhere, large and leafy, so that some of the corners look like wooded glens. There is barely any window space at all.

Arwen is Noldorin though, and although all elves favour the green places she has inherited her father's love of the written word. There are bookcases upon bookcases, heaving with scrolls and bound books of all sizes and shapes and colours. This is a well-loved library, and these books are not particularly well organised – shelved haphazardly. I know that should I ask her the location of any one of them, she could lead me straight to it. It is a library for reading, not for showing people.

The Queen sits curled in a chair, her feet tucked carefully beneath her, and she looks tired and vulnerable. Her hair is braided messily, her face even paler than usual, and I can see the same worry and care in the gaze that settles upon her husband as we walk in. She smiles, he goes to her and plants a gentle kiss upon her brow, but all I can see is that Sig is asleep in her lap.

"Why is he here?" I ask, mostly to myself, but it is far louder than I had intended.

"He was afraid," comes a voice, stern and disapproving. I turn to see Larke and Ren bent over a table spilling with maps and books. Larke is frowning at me. "He is not a prisoner, and when children are afraid it is usually right to comfort them."

I feel my face flush and I look away, abashed. I am shamed, and I must look contrite enough for the young guard, because he nods and returns to what he was doing. I take another moment to finish examining my surroundings. There is Moss asleep on the hearth, and it would be comical if I were in a mood to find anything amusing. He is a huge dog, and he is splayed on his back with his legs in the air like a pup. He stirs only briefly as I enter; trustful eyes opening, seeing someone he recognises, and then he is asleep again.

"How is he?" I ask quietly, meaning the boy, and it is Arwen that answers.

"He was terribly upset last night," she tells me, her voice velvet soft so as not to disturb him. "We showed him Edgar's drawings of the men and he cried until he fell asleep. I think they are accurate."

"I do not think that he will help us much," Ren tells me. "He meant no harm, master Gimli, he is nothing but a child. He is a victim in this as well, I think."

Both Larke and Ren seem tired as well – I think I am the only one to have had any form of rest tonight – but they seem to have been quite busy. I nod at what Ren has said, because I am not truly angry with the boy, not really, and I go to join them. I scan the maps of the city, lift one only to have it taken from me and put back down again, and my gaze lingers briefly on a table where stale looking refreshments are sat. My stomach squirms and I look away again. I cannot even think of food right now.

Instead I pick up the journal – not Edgar's, but the original. I leaf through it simply for something to do, something to occupy me, something that is not pacing the floor or smashing things apart.

This journal is much different, I realise: it is naught but a list of events, of facts and statements. These men gave Edgar nothing but the bones of a lie, nothing more than the plans from which the tale was to be wrought. It seems that there is more to Edgar's artistry than in capturing the likeness of men.

"The search continues," Larke tells me, and this time he seems kinder. His tone is careful and guarded, but he looks at me squarely and I can see nothing but compassion. He waves at the maps of the city, and of another series of curled parchment with spidery handwriting all over it. I place the journal down carefully, turn instead to the parchment, and this time when I pick it up it is not taken from me. I puzzle over it before I realise what it is.

"The oil sellers," I mutter, and Ren nods. His red hair stands up in licks and whorls as though he has been running his hands through it all night, and his eyes are red rimmed.

"The reports arrived last night," he tells me. "The two that Prince Legolas requested, and also the other two that we approached. It is of little help. The captain might have had an idea, but he has left on some errand… the prince might have worked something out; this was his idea after all. We are naught but soldiers!"

"You are Whitecloaks," I shake my head. "You were chosen by Hob, you two specifically and a few others, I know that you were. I am sure that there was reason for it."

"Apparently not," Ren sighs, and I cast my eye over the list again. It is nothing but names, dates and a detailed report of everything that was purchased. There is a running tally of cost and how it was paid, and I think perhaps that Ren became bored at one point in the night because there is also a very poor drawing of a cat in the corner.

"I spoke with him last night," I say, and I have been a bit afraid to say anything. I am glad that I have finally explained things to Aragorn, because although Ren gives me a curious look and Larke seems hesitant, their King perks up instantly.

"What did he say?" he asks quickly, striding over to us. "Where is he? Why did you not say so before?"

"He does not know," I sigh. "He was making even less sense than usual… he is hurt, he does not know where he is. But he lives, or at least he did. The sea…"

I trail off and do not continue, and Aragorn makes a sound similar to a growl.

"Gimli," he urges, and I clear my throat.

"He says that he smelled the sea."

There is silence then, silence for a long time, and I feel terribly awkward and useless. I toss the paper back onto the table in disgust but Larke snatches it up and returns to his studies, something urgent and agitated in his movements. I pay closer attention to him, but Aragorn continues to press for details.

"The sea?" he snorts. "What does that mean? Even if he had been taken from the city there is no possibility that he could be anywhere near the sea so quickly. Is it calling to him? Is that why he smells it?"

"I do not know, Aragorn!" I snap, and Arwen makes a soft sound of annoyance as Sig stirs. She glares daggers at me and I soften my voice, but only slightly. "I do not know. How could I possibly know?"

"You are tied to him, are you not?"

"It is not the way that you think it is," I scowl at him. I am starting to get annoyed, because I am tired and frightened and irritable, but Aragorn is starting to lose his composure and we are moments away from an argument. My friend might be a great leader, a noble and fine man, but he is still a man. Legolas is his friend too, he has known him his whole life, but at this moment in time I am too frayed and exposed to care. "Were you paying attention at all last night?"

His face tightens, his eyes narrow, and I might as well have slapped him in the face. I can see Arwen start to gather herself, ready to come between us, but Larke interrupts and diffuses the situation instantly.

"Here!" he says urgently, dragging the list of names across a map of the third circle. He jabs at the parchment, and I can see excitement start to light in his face. He burns suddenly, all exhaustion forgotten, and we join him. "This name here – I do not recognise it but I recognise this address; I had a friend who lived in this part of the city. There are deep vaults in this section of the fourth circle – terribly damp, not useful for anything except storing kelp."

He looks up, eyes glittering, and he is slightly crestfallen to see us blinking in confusion.

"Kelp?" I ask flatly.

"Seaweed," he nods, warming to the subject. He drags more papers over. "It is shipped in by the barrel. The soil here erodes too easily; it is sandy, and there is too much wind and rain. We mix it with the soil in the kitchen gardens otherwise nothing would grow, and it is stored here." He points at a section of the fourth circle, although it is nothing more than a place on a map to me. I start to feel the itching of excitement.

"I do not recognise this name," Ren mutters, skimming over the customer list. "My sister lives in the fourth, I know most business owners in this section. He paid in gold."

"Gold?" I frown, pulling the page toward me. I skim down the tallies and see that most of the oil is paid for in city coinage or traded for. The Chandler pays in candles, there is a rope seller than makes wicks for the oil burners to sell on… one woman even pays in pies, although it is an oddity. To pay in gold is not that unusual – not enough for Ren or Larke to have noticed before – but it is not entirely usual either. I hand the list back. "Well it is in the right area, and kelp would certainly smell of the sea. We should go quickly!"

I feel a burn of excitement, of urgency, and it burns through my gut like fire. I am suddenly awake, entirely alert, and both of the lads seem the same. They are thrilled at having discovered this thread – no matter how tenuous – because we might have just found Legolas!

"Gimli," Aragorn says, and his tone stops me dead. There is excitement as well, and hope, but there is also a warning. "Remember that there are things in motion."

"I know," I nod, our previous tension forgotten. "I know, Aragorn, but you do not need me immediately. We have time."

"And you have a wife," Arwen points out quietly, tilts her head expectantly when Aragorn goes to argue, but he is sensible enough to give up before he has begun. He nods, smiles, and I do not think that my friend is entirely used to this yet – to being one of a pair, to always have someone there to support him. They share a look, brief and fond and secret, and then she turns her attention to me.

Arwen is quiet – she watches more than she speaks – but she is far more clever than I am and far more experienced. She looks at me and nods, and I read in her heather-blue gaze all that I need. She tells me to go: to find him, to bring him back, to keep him safe. She promises to keep our Kingly edain out of any real trouble, despite that he is trying to start a war with his own city, and I feel the most powerful surge of affection for this elleth… who is perhaps my sister-in-law, if I truly see Aragorn as my brother. What a thing to think of at a time like this!

I feel my face twist into a smile, broadening then into a grin, because finally… finally I have something to do! We have a purpose and a goal, and I do not think for even a second that this might be a false lead. I can only focus on the possibility that we might have found him, and I do not think of anything else.

Larke and Ren seem fairly intent upon coming with me, and in truth I cannot find it in myself to argue with them. They start to gather themselves together, pulling their cloaks on and gathering their things, and before we leave Aragorn grabs at my elbow again and pulls me to him.

Our eyes meet and there is a lot there: apology, understanding, hope and fear… it is a lot of things, all at once, and I pat at his arm awkwardly. I do not say anything, because there is nothing to say.

Aragorn knows that I will bring him home if I find him, he knows that I am possibly the only person upon Arda who cares for the cursed elfling the way that he does. We say a lot without saying anything at all, and when he draws me in for a quick and tight embrace I allow it, because I think that he needs it.

We leave, and by Mahal I hope that I find something. I hope that I find him, I hope that I can bring the elfling back, because I am going to kill him for this.

TBC

So, my hiatus lasted a LOT longer than I originally intended. Would you like to know how much I wrote in that time?
Nothing. Not a thing. However, I really did need that time off - it's given me a bit of much needed space to get a few things sorted out in my personal life, and the writing bug has started to bite and itch again (finally! I was a bit worried it wouldn't come back)

I am posting this despite the fact that I am no longer happy with the next chapter, so although I am posting again - because if I didn't then I don't think I ever would - I'm not sure whether I'll be sticking to the fortnightly posting as strictly as I was before. There won't be particularly huge gaps, not like there was in Silence, but I might need a bit longer to tinker with the chapters. I've changed something closer toward the end, so I need to subtly slide the changes into the rest of the fic.

Anyway! I'm back now, and I really want to hear your thoughts on this chapter. It's a bit more character driven and not a huge amount happens other than some Minas Tirith style sleuthing, but it would have been a bit of a let down if they'd found him straight away. Especially since I've left you all hanging for ages!

Speak to you all in the PMs, and have a great weekend :)

MyselfOnly