We have time then, because there are things that have been set in motion and must happen in their own time.
A night and a day, that is what we have agreed, and so we have a night and a day to wait. I thought that I might be anxious or irritated with the slowness of the hours, and I thought that Legolas would be unbearable whilst we wait, but it is not so.
That night we dine with the King and Queen again, and we talk deep into the night. We speak of things we have done together and places we have been, and Aragorn tells us a tale of his youth involving Legolas and the sons of Elrond. It is not particularly flattering for any of them, but Legolas laughs until he cannot stop. He loses himself quite thoroughly to the memory, choking upon nothing until Aragorn must clap him on the back, and I have not seen him laugh that way in… Eru, it has been longer than I can recall.
I sleep well, I dream of nothing – or at least, nothing bad – and I wake at a reasonable hour to another beautiful day. The sun streams through my window, clear and sharp, and I find my way to Legolas' balcony although he is not in his room. He is not far away though, I can feel him nearby, and I sit upon cool flagstone with my back to the mountain, closing my eyes against the sunlight. It is warm and silent, and I am almost asleep again by the time the elfling returns. I do not hear him, of course, but I know when he is there. I always know.
I crack one eye open as he folds himself, cross legged upon the stone before me. He has brought breakfast, bless his pointy ears, and he lays it out between us.
"I am going to live here from now on," I inform him.
"Minas Tirith?" he enquires politely, rummaging until he finds some kind of seeded bread and a jar of honey. The bread is still warm, I can smell it, and my stomach betrays me with a mighty roar that has the elfling eyeing it with alarm.
"No, this balcony. Although it could do well with some chairs, perhaps."
Legolas grins, bites and chews, and his gaze drifts outward to the clear sky, un-marred by any flaw at all. I see a slight touch of a frown dance across his brow for a second, sigh, and reach for the basket he has brought. There had better be honey cakes in there.
"Bad weather?" I ask, because I do not always need our connection to be able to read him.
"A storm," he confirms. "A bad one, and unfortunately timed. It will be here by tonight."
"You could not have mentioned it when we were making plans for tonight?"
He frowns at me. His hair blows across his face, he frees it from his mouth with a hooked finger and complains softly:
"I cannot tell the weather days in advance. It does not come to me by some form of magic."
I make a noise, a grunt or a snort, but my focus is still mostly upon the basket so I am not certain. I find them, finally, and settle back with my prize but then remember myself. I gesture and he sighs, holds his arms out so that I can check his wrists. They are well healed, the wounds look a week old at least, and I tilt his face with my thumb so that I can see the worst of the bruising. It is all but gone, and so I settle again once I am satisfied. I need not check any further; if his visible wounds do well, then so do those beneath his clothing. I grow weary of seeing his growing collection of scars.
"I assume you have been checking on things this morning?" I ask, and he nods.
"Young Teg has been blathering our business throughout the kitchen staff since he was released," he confirms. "I am told they are a gossipy bunch, his tale has probably spread to Rohan by now. I must say… I am concerned how this will make Aragorn seem."
He frowns, his gaze fixed on the far distance, and despite the crease on his forehead he holds himself relaxed and easy. He is correct, perhaps; the story that young Teg is spreading around the palace right now does not paint their King as the benevolent and merciful ruler he has been trying for. So far as anyone is concerned, the prisoners taken in the rout in the kelp tunnels are to be hanged tonight. We are hoping to draw their fellows out of hiding, even if it is not to rescue them. The Steward of the Second is also to be hanged, because the attempted poisoning has been assumed as an attempt upon the King's life, and we think perhaps our mysterious attackers will make a showing for her, if not for their men.
It is meant to be secret, meant to be done in quiet… it is bait to catch a larger fish, and by Eru it is a flimsy plan. The flimsiest I have ever been a part of.
"It was Aragorn's idea to begin with," I point out, "we have always trusted him before. And in any case, I would like to see them try to take his crown away; it was his from the moment he was born and he is handy with a sword. He would tie it to his head."
Legolas grins again, but he is distracted – his attention upon the sky.
"If it makes you feel any better at all, this is the correct punishment for attempted treason – and also for an attempt upon the life of a visiting royal… he will be forgiven."
Legolas makes a noise – something wan and without any commitment – but his eyes are still very far away, his brow still furrowed. I reach out my foot and nudge at his knee, give him a questioning look and he sighs, rakes his hand through his hair but it becomes tangled in the thatched mess that the wind has twisted it into. He tilts his head to one side and begins to tease it apart.
"We have made friends here, I think," he sighs, and it is one of his more world-weary sighs. One of those sad and woeful efforts that elves are so accomplished at.
"Making friends is not such a terrible thing, Legolas," I chide, but I cannot help the amusement in my voice. "For someone with so few, you should be happy to make the numbers up a little."
I cringe as soon as I have said it, because the only reason Legolas has so few friends is because most of them are dead. I can always be counted on to handle such things with my usual ham-fistedness, and I berate myself, closing my eyes. Legolas feels a measure of my internal squirming; the look he gives me is soft and fond… tells me there has been no offense; that he knows me better than that.
"They are men," he says flatly.
I see-saw my hand and screw my face up, indicating that in one case I am uncertain, and he laughs.
"Shutter is not so awful," he tells me through his grin, and this time when he looks out to the sky it is nothing more than to tilt his face into the wind. If I had a coin for every time I have seen a laegrim elf turn their face to the wind, I would have many coins indeed. "You are much alike."
"Oh, not you too," I scowl in disgust, and his grin widens even further, but he says nothing else and continues unpicking his hair. I understand what he has said though. "You cannot be afraid to befriend men, Legolas. They are no more faulted than elves, they are simply younger, and you were brave enough to ally yourself with a dwarf."
"Foolish," he corrects me. "Foolish enough, and I have regretted it every day since then."
This time I do not nudge his knee; I kick it quite solidly with a satisfying crack, and he yelps in pain. I continue as he rubs his knee furiously, completely justified in my violence. "And in any case, they are quite handy – most of them. There are some grand adventures to be had with these friends, especially the Lady Briar. She is quite magnificent. You know that she would bed you in a heartbeat should you flutter your lashes at her."
I have chosen my moment perfectly. Legolas had just taken another bite of his breakfast, and now he is choking – great wracking coughs, his face reddening as he hacks and splutters. I laugh hugely, my voice bouncing from the stone walls and out into the wind, because it is rare that an elf loses their composure. Rare, and perfectly entertaining. I laugh until my stomach hurts, until I can barely breathe, and once Legolas has dislodged his breakfast from his windpipe he looks at me as though I am something he has wiped from his boot. He scrubs tears from his face, the redness receding, but I can see a ghost of a smile dancing across his face. I think perhaps he likes to hear me laugh too.
I calm, only the occasional chuckle, and the elfling does not dignify me with a response. I am happy to let the quiet fall across our balcony, settling warm and soft as sunshine, because my friend has always been happy in silence. I might feel the need to fill every quiet moment with noise – or so he says – but it is not always necessary.
"You are prepared?" I ask eventually, and although my voice is moth-soft he can hear it. I do not explain what I mean; he understands perfectly.
"I am," he replies, and I think I hear a hint of trepidation in his tone although I am not certain. It is there and then gone. "I am rested, I have been fed almost incessantly since I have been here. If I am to fight Oren again then he will find me a different elf."
He looks at me, our eyes lock, and a lot passes between us… I am worried, but there is no point in discussing it. Nothing can be changed. Instead I say:
"Just because they have fed you, you did not have to eat. You are going to have to find sturdier trees to climb."
He snorts a laugh and takes another bite of his honeyed bread. He is unconcerned.
"Have you ever seen a portly elf?" he asks. "I have not, and I am certain I have seen more elves than you have."
"Even so…" I raise my eyebrows pointedly. He laughs again, and I cannot help but smile because his laugh is a wonderful thing; it is one of the first things that endeared him to me, way back in Lothlorien. I made him laugh back then, and ever since I have wanted nothing more than to hear it.
We eat our breakfast in the sun, and for a moment I feel a twinge of worry about what this evening will bring, but I banish it. I can worry later – I am quite certain that I will in any case – and so for now I simply enjoy the company that I have chosen. I feel Legolas' contentment brush across my mind like a warm breeze, and I eat my honey cakes in peace.
~{O}~
Legolas spends a portion of the afternoon checking his arrows… every single blasted one of them in painstaking detail, and I put up with it only long enough to recall that I am in a city, and can leave and do what I want. If we were in the woods I might entertain myself by throwing pinecones at him, but my shoulder twinges in remembrance at what happened last time I did that and so I do not. I leave to take a walk, because Legolas might be able to quell his anxiety with fletching, but I cannot. But then I pause in the doorway.
We are only hours away from sunset, only hours from sending the Whitecloaks out into the darkness – cloaked and hidden and dressed as condemned men. Only hours before we take the longest walk, from the prisons and down through the city, out the Great Gates and then around the city wall… far around to the western side where the gallows lie.
A forgotten place, where the base of the city meets the mountain. Shameful and dark, away from the eyes of good folk and where the condemned are buried almost where they fell. A place Aragorn has never used, not since he has been King, and it is badly damaged by the war – slides of rock from the mountain crumbled and smashed, tumbling until it is barely navigable.
This is where Legolas and Shutter will be hidden, tucked away with those archers he has chosen, waiting. They will leave first, a woodland ghost and an invisible thief, and with any luck the next time I will see him is when our trap is sprung. When the assassins come for their men, perhaps for Briar, or even do not come at all. When Legolas fights Oren again.
The elfling pauses in what he is doing, looks up at me, and I know he is thinking the same thing as I am. He blinks as though he is unsure what to say… he knows he should say something, I can see him squirming with uncertainty, but I smile broadly at him.
"Breakfast tomorrow, as we did today?" I ask, and he is still for a moment before he smiles as well. He will be fine. We will both be fine. I hate it when we are separated like this.
"Aye, Gimli," he nods. "Just as we did today."
And it is a promise.
~{O}~
I take a slow wander to the Rookery, simply because I have walked there so many times recently that my legs simply take me there by reflex. It is still mid-afternoon, but the brightness of the day has already faded, the sky grey and threatening. A wind has picked up – jagged and angry – and it tugs my cloak in agitation, smelling thickly of rain and wind. I have long since stopped doubting Legolas' ability to predict the weather.
The Rookery is empty, and I am directed by a young apprentice to where I might find Hob and his men. The directions are lengthy and nearly incomprehensible, but after a number of failed attempts I locate them in a dusty old room in the Lowers. After a long walk in the cool silence, it is like walking into a tavern; loud and hot, raucous, and I take a position by the wall. I try to meld into the stone but I am spotted fairly quickly by the captain, who looks glad to find me here.
"Friend Gimli," he breathes in relief, clapping me on the shoulder and leaning against the stone beside me. We are an island of stillness in the melee, and for a moment we simply watch together. The men are being fitted by the seamstresses – their clothing for the night's activities nothing but matching colours in rough fabric – but these are Arwen's personal seamstresses. They must be perfectly imperfect. Prisoners and ruffians, men taken from the second circle.
I see threadbare holes made larger, mis-matched patches sewn on, well-fitting tunics made larger or smaller, perfect stitching un-picked and made uneven. The lads chatter and laugh, their voices loud, and the women scold and lecture them for their inability to stand still.
When Eostre arrives – her arms laden with packages wrapped in brown paper, two young girls trail behind her with their arms similarly laden – the noise dies down for a moment, all eyes falling upon her curiously. She throws a parcel to each of them – hitting them in chest and face and head, and they catch them with laughter.
"A token from the Lady Briar," Eostre announces, quick and serious, and there is a deafening rustle of paper as the men unwrap their gifts.
White cloaks. She has commissioned white cloaks for them all.
They are fine, I can see that from where the lads hold them up in admiration. They are stunned, overwhelmed – so very happy to finally have a symbol of their station that they might wear proudly. I see raw emotion there, roughly wiped away, and the noise builds again until it is a wave of voices: friends calling to friends, poking fun at one another and posing in their new cloaks. It is fine wool, heavy and warm but tightly spun, with braiding and a black version of the White Tree of Gondor stitched upon the back – a standard in negative.
I am grinning, and I try to compose my face as Hob receives his own – finer, nicer, with far more detail upon it. He pulls it on and grins at me, turns with his arms out so that I might see how magnificent he looks, and I am not the only one to laugh. Some of his men call out to him, saying he almost looks as a real captain for once, and although he rebukes them I can see real pleasure in his eyes.
The Lady Briar certainly knows how to make people love her.
~{O}~
Captain Hob pulls me aside, grips my sleeve and guides me out of the door where the noise is bearable. Despite the lack of privacy, once we are alone his face turns serious.
"She is missing," he tells me, and stares at me intently until my mind catches up. I blink.
"Who is missing?"
How has it been long enough for anyone to become missing?
"The Lady Briar," he tells me as though I am stupid in some way. "We walk out of here in a matter of hours, and she is essential to this plan; you must find her and bring her here. I might not be a real captain, but I know when my men are growing concerned."
"I came here because the elfling was annoying me, what might you have done had I not?" I frown, curious more than anything, but when Hob opens his mouth I wave it away. "Is she truly missing, or have you simply not seen her in a while? Where was she last?"
"She went to find Edgar," he tells me. "The last I saw him, he was with Ren and Lirra in the rooms."
He means Queen Arwen's library room, the one that we have taken over as our main area for plotting and scheming. She has not seemed to mind our invasion, and we have not minded claiming it. I nod, and I see the gratitude and the immediate bolstering of his mood that my acceptance grants him.
"Stay here with your men," I tell him. "Keep their mind on what they do tonight; there is nothing for them to worry about."
He grips my arm again in thanks as I turn to leave, but I pause.
"Oh, and Hob?" I call him back as he turns to leave. He raises his eyebrows in question, his face open and questioning. "If you ever suggest to me again that you are not a real captain, I shall punch you in the nose."
Our gazes lock for a long time. I think he is simply surprised more than anything, but after a heartbeat I see the briefest flash of something honest, grateful, but then it is gone. He nods, short and sharp, and then it is chased by a rare grin. He looks better when he smiles; his eyes crease and the terrible history in his gaze melts away, and for a moment he is simply a man. He says nothing else though, because there is nothing else that would be sincere or easy between the two of us, and he ducks back into the loud room full of soldiers.
I take a breath, and I turn on my heel.
~{O}~
I am starting to learn my way around the lowers, because I must only retrace my steps three times before I find myself where I mean to be. I decide that I will be having words with Aragorn about his inability to decorate his home – not so that these corridors have anything to distinguish one from the other – but I shelve it until there is time. I find the door to the library open, I shove my way in, but I find it empty apart from Sig. Why is no one where they are meant to be today?
The boy is sat at a table with Master Gowry – who I am rather surprised to see, and whose eyes narrow and flicker for a moment in search of the elfling. The old man looks bored and irritable, the boy looks mutinous, and I have enough time to see that this is a lesson of some kind before Sig sends his chair clattering upon the floor.
"Lord Gimli sir!" he barrels into me and muffles into my beard, plaintive and heartbroken. "They say I must learn numbers as well as letters! It is dreadful, my head can only hold so much… I shall forget more important things!"
"If you will live on the sixth then you will be educated," Gowry scowls at the lad, his face wrinkling even more than I thought possible. He stands with his hands upon his hips like a spectre of death, a skeleton clad in man's clothes. "And there is an infinite amount of space in your head, I have never heard anything so foolish."
"A warrior does not need to learn numbers!" Sig shouts back, and this little wolf cub is nothing but teeth. I sigh; I need to know where Edgar has gone, and I will not get anywhere with them right now.
"That is incorrect, lad," I shake my head just as Gowry opens his mouth to shout back. Both the old man and the boy look at me as though I have just squawked like a chicken. "I learned my letters, and my numbers, and also history and language. Legolas learned as well, although he pretends to have forgotten the most of it. If you wish to be strong then your head must be strong, and you must do it now whilst your body is small. There will be time enough to learn bow and blade."
Sig looks revolted, but he does not argue with me and Gowry gives me an assessing look before ushering the child back to the table. He is muttering under his breath… how he has served this House for decades, served loyally and worked hard, and now he is reduced to nothing but a tutor for a feral child. He wonders aloud how he could possibly have offended his King so badly.
I say nothing on how important Sig has become to us all, and how this is quite an honour. He would not listen in any case.
"Where is Edgar?" I ask, because this is why I am here. "And where is the Lady Briar?"
"Oh, they were here," Sig informs me with a resigned sigh. He sits on his chair with his skinny little legs dangling, ink staining his sleeves, and peers at me with sky bright eyes that seem to believe me the grandest thing in the world. I feel quite inadequate around this boy. "I think that they had a quarrel," Sig frowns. "They were talking in the corner so I could not hear – adults do that all the time, it is rude. Edgar was showing her the drawing he has been doing of the bad men, the Lady became quite angry and left, and Edgar ran after her. I was not allowed to follow, because I must learn numbers."
He wrinkles his nose in revulsion, then slips to the floor and scampers across the room. He retrieves the sketch and hands it to me, shrugs and returns. This is the likeness of the man who leads this rout, the one who seeks to topple the Steward and take over the second circle. I had imagined him to look frightening or sinister in some way, but it is a sketch of a man, nothing more. There is something familiar in his eyes, something that tugs at me, but I do not recognise him, and I certainly cannot see why it would cause the Steward to fly into a rage.
I am still scowling at the picture when Shutter strides in, and when I look up at him I do not lessen the scowl even slightly. He forms one of his own.
"Were you waiting outside?" I ask sharply.
"I am looking for Lady Briar," he sniffs. He is making no effort to be clever or charming, and I think perhaps I prefer it this way.
"It seems everyone is looking for her," Sig observes, and Gowry raps the table to return his focus. Shutter sees the drawing in my hand and snatches it away before I can dodge him, which is lucky because that would have looked extremely childish. He casts his eye over it and his eyes widen, his face pales… he actually staggers.
That is interesting.
"Did she see this?" he demands, shaking the page at me. I fold my arms and narrow my eyes, but he simply leans forward and hisses at me. "Gimli this is important, there is no time for gaming with one another – did she see this?"
I drop my arms to my sides, because although his tone is hard and sharp, it is also afraid and completely unlike any version of him that I have seen so far. I sigh.
"Aye," I nod. "She saw it, and she ran from here."
He pales further, although I had not thought it possible, and he turns to leave although he gestures for me to follow. It is not a summons but rather a request, and although I really do not like Shutter, I do not think that this is the moment for our feud.
"Shutter, the men march in a matter of hours and we have nothing with which to spring our trap. If Briar is not there then we do not know what we walk into. Who is that man?"
"Sig, stay here with Master Gowry!" Shutter shouts, striding through the door to the sound of a loud groan of annoyance, and I follow him out into the corridor. Shutter is striding along, all but sprinting, but I grow used to this sort of thing. He waves the picture in the air with an angry rustle.
"This… this man who leads the assassins, the ones who came to kill Briar and take over the second circle. This man is her brother!"
I am silent for a moment.
"The dead one," I clarify, just in case she has more than one.
"Yes, the dead one," he snaps back.
Oh.
TBC
So I wasn't actually going to post tonight, but Thirsty for More made me feel guilty XD
In all honesty, I should probably give you guys an update on why this fic has slowed down with the updates, and it is simply that I've hit a bit of a stumbling block with it. I'm very short on free time, and there's just something not quite right with it at the moment - I have no intention of forcing it, and so the updates have gone a bit slack.
From here onward we are now in the final arc of the story, and from here it gets far more action heavy. I really don't want to leave you guys hanging a month at a time between updates when it all kicks off, so if I go a bit quiet guys please trust me that it's necessary for the story. I will not abandon this fic, it just won't happen, but some of you guys have followed me for a while now and know that sometimes I just need a bit of catchup time. Feel free to send me prompts or requests, because if one tickles my fancy it could clear my mind and get things moving again :)
Anyway - egg me on guys! Pop in, PM me, call me names (not too mean; I'm fragile) and of course the all important reviews, because they feed me.
Hope you all have a great weekend :)
MyselfOnly