I stare at Legolas' receding back as he departs with Elessar. I am worried for him. He is not as well as I thought and it is more than the poison that weighs him down.
"Estel will look after him." Arwen says as if she can read my thoughts...perhaps she can?
"He does not know-" I say before I stop myself. Legolas would not want me to spill his secrets. But Arwen knows more than I thought and in truth I am not really that surprised.
"He does not know the extent of Legolas' grief for Taenor? You are right, but still he knows he has lost him. He loves Legolas, he will not hurt him."
I hope she is right.
I realise I have no idea how to get to my rooms and I hesitate. I could walk the corridors in pretence and hope I stumble across them but that seems foolish in the extreme. To my eternal gratitude Arwen saves me before I must confess to my ignorance as she stands and smiles.
"I must get to know you! Let me give you a tour of the palace and we can talk."
I think I might like her. She is certainly not what I expected at all.
I do not like the palace. It feels claustrophobic and cold but I do not tell Arwen that so I am surprised then when she takes me down a narrow walkway that opens out into a garden, a wild tangle of shrubs, flowers and trees. It is not cultivated and perfectly laid as I expected gardens in this place to be. It is as if the woods themselves have come inside the city.
"Oh!" I cannot conceal my excitement. It is a breath of fresh air for my soul.
She smiles with genuine delight,
"I knew you would like this. It is Legolas' favourite place when he is here!"
I can imagine it is. An oasis within the stone, this place will soothe him and remind him of home. Legolas is always happiest amongst his trees-at least he used to be- before the sea longing. Now I am not sure he is truly happy anywhere.
As I wander among the wilderness Arwen heads for an almost buried grapevine I had not even seen and delftly picks two bunches of ripe, lucious, grapes.
"Estel loves these," she smiles, "Shall we take the men some refreshment? They will benefit from a break from the tedium of political planning."
"They will benefit from a break from each other," It slips out as I think about the tension that flowed between them at breakfast.
Arwen turns and she is suddenly all seriousness,
"Legolas can be difficult, He will not accept help when he needs it and it is frustrating, Estel only tries to care for him, and he is hurt by the secrets Legolas keeps," she says and I wonder if she feels I am criticising her husband, perhaps I am.
I know she is right. I know Legolas is his own worst enemy at times but it stings. I can say that but not her, so I reply in kind.
"Legolas says Elessar's care is suffocating. He says he does not need it."
"But he does need it." Arwen says softly and I know she is right again.
"They are not as I imagined," I admit.
"Legolas calls Elessar his brother but all they do is bicker."
"Is that not what brothers do?" Arwen asks, "My brothers are at each other's throats constantly unless someone else attacks them."
My thoughts drift to Laerion. Did he and Legolas argue like this? I do not know. Laerion was so much older and the Crown Prince. I worshiped him from afar as we all did but I did not know him and Legolas and I were not together then as we are now. I do remember Legolas arriving at training muttering under his breath about his brothers interference in his life-so perhaps they did.
I look up to see Arwen watching me closely.
"I was thinking of Laerion," I say to explain my inattention.
"Ah," Arwen says as if that explains everything, "Laerion, Legolas talks far too seldom about him."
"Legolas talks not at all about him." I reply,
"Not even to you?" Her features crease up in concern.
"Not even to me."
She thinks on that, her face solemn but then she smiles and gathers another handful of the grapes.
"You are right today I think," she says with conviction, " Legolas is full of grief and Estel is frustrated and hurting. They do need the benefit of a break from each other." She turns to me then and holds out her hand.
"Will you come?"
And so, of course, I do.
We are too late.
The shouting can be heard as we walk down the corridor. Arwen sighs loudly when it reaches our ears,
"Estel," she says quietly to herself, "Could you not have simply ignored this, just this once?"
There is a guard outside the door to Elessar's study and he looks terrified.
"My Lady!" He says with alarm as Arwen smiles at him and reaches to open the door,
"I do not think you should go in there...they have been throwing things."
"They will not throw things at me." She replies, chin in the air, she sails through the door and I am left to follow reluctantly behind.
Elessar and Legolas stand face to face. I can tell, instantly, Legolas is furious. His anger hits me like a brick wall as I enter. It is all I can feel.
He spins to look at me.
"We are leaving." he snaps, his voice as sharp as a knife edge, and he moves towards me.
"Legolas!" Elessar grabs his arm and holds him back, "Do not be ridiculous!"
"Oh so now I am ridiculous as well as faithless?" Legolas spits back, he is breathing fire today.
"I did not say that!"
"Legolas-" Arwen touches him on the arm, as she begins to speak, to plead with him, I imagine, to see sense, but he throws her off and snatches his arm from Elessar's grasp.
"Do not play your mind games with me!" he snarls at her, "I have told you before. Stay out of my head!"
And he storms past her, towards me, grabbing my hand as he passes and I am forced to follow him out of the room.
"Legolas," I cry as I stumble after him. It is a struggle to keep up.
"What are you doing?"
"I told you. We are leaving." His voice drips off me like ice and it is all he will say as he strides through the corridors.
He heads for his rooms and when we reach them he is like a dervish, clothes are torn out of the closet, his belongings scattered across the bed as he packs in the most haphazard manner ever. I am forced to stand and watch until I can stand it no longer and I step forward grasping his hands in mine to keep him still.
"What has happened? Please tell me Legolas, why are you so angry?" I ease the shirt he is holding out of his fingers and place it gently on the bed.
For a moment he simply stares and his eyes are filled with a grief I do not understand.
"Legolas?"
He takes a shuddering breath then in an attempt to calm himself.
"He questions my friendship." In the end he says it so quietly I have to strain to hear.
"What do you mean?" I ask for the words make no sense to me.
"He is angry, he tells me I am no real friend for I have kept things from him. He asks why he did not know of Taenor, or of my injury, why he did not know of you. He says if we were truly the friends he thought we were, I would have told him."
And I realise this is all my fault.
If I had let Erynion call for Elessar as he wished when Legolas was ill this would not be happening. If I had not resisted all Legolas' efforts to mix with his mortal friends, if I had not refused to allow him to speak of me, all would be well now.
"Did you not tell him I asked you not to speak of me? Did you not explain it was my fault he did not know?"
"No!" Legolas snatches his hands from mine and walks away from me, turning when he reaches the window.
"No. What do you take me for? What kind of Prince would hold one of his people up for ridicule and scorn to save his own skin?"
"I am not simply one of your people, and you are not only my Prince. You are my lover. I do not need you to protect me when I have done wrong Legolas. Not when you bring pain upon yourself by doing so."
"I am your Prince and I will not use a woman's paranoia as an excuse to protect myself. It was my decision not to tell Aragorn of us and mine alone." And with that he turns his back to me.
I am so angry with him. How dare he condescend me so badly. How dare he lord himself over me. We have always been equals when we are together, not on the field, not in the council chamber, but alone together as we are here- he has never spoken to me like this. I want to scream and yell and rage at him but where will that get me?
Instead I swallow it all down.
"So be it then Legolas, if you want it that way." I say quietly and I turn and walk away from him.
"Pack your things." He snaps harshly without even turning to see me. "We will leave as soon as you are ready."
"And if I do not wish to go?"
"That is an order Maewen. I am leaving and you will come with me."
He never gives me orders. Not like that. If I did not know that he was hurting so badly I would walk out of here and never come back, I think. But I do know it. I know that Elessar has hurt him and I know that he is not himself. I cannot free myself from the image of that passive, silent Legolas I bought back to Ithilien after Taenor's death.
I will not be letting him ride all the way to Ithilien alone. He is my lover first and foremost but he is my Prince also and it is my duty to protect him.
"As you wish Legolas," I say in the end, for what else is there for me to say.
I will go with him, I will watch his back and get his stubborn, willful self back to our people. But I will not do it because he orders me. I will not do it because he demands it. I do it because I want to, because despite it all I love him, because he may not want to admit it but I know I am the one at fault here. I have come between his friendship with Elessar and caused him this pain.
But I will not forget how he has spoken to me here. Hurt or no hurt, we will be speaking again about this.
And so I leave and I close the door silently behind me as I go.