Authors Note: Sorry...but it had to happen.
"So, tell me about the girl." The dwarf says and I freeze. All my good intentions to leave and cease my eavesdropping vanish.
"Aragorn has already told you." Legolas sounds resigned and defeated.
"He has, but I prefer to hear from you. Why do I not know this Legolas? Do you not trust me?"
"I trust you with my life, and with the lives of those I love." Legolas replies and I know that is true.
"If you wished it kept quiet I would have. " the dwarf says firmly.
"I cannot pretend it does not hurt that I did not know this."
Legolas is silent. I can see him in my minds eye, he will be fiddling with his tunic, looking at the ground, uncomfortable at having been put on the spot.
At last he speaks.
"I have wanted to tell you." His voice is low and soft.
"I have wanted to be able to travel with her...to share my life as it is now. To take her to Minas Tirith so she can enjoy the friendships I have there, to the Glittering Caves. I have wanted to, Gimli, for it is lonely without her."
I am horrified. What have I done to him? Why has he not told me this? He has never pushed me to accompany him. Never.
"So why have you not? This makes no sense to me at the moment Legolas."
Once again he is quiet. He is finding this difficult. Normally he has no problem thinking of what to say. I am finding it hard to listen to as well. Of course I should not be here, I tell myself, and yet I cannot leave.
"It has been hard..." Legolas says eventually, he sounds reluctant to be sharing.
"...hard for Maewen. She has left her home to be here with me. She did not wish to come here but did it for my sake. She did not ask for contact with mortals and she does not want it. She asked me to keep her out of my new life. I had to respect her wishes."
"That does not sound healthy Legolas." the dwarf says,
"I cannot see how that can work."
And he is right of course. It is not healthy. But I am only just realising this now.
"You must understand Gimli," Legolas says intensely,
"In the Greenwood we are isolated. We do not have much contact with mortals, apart from the Lakemen. The Men are suspicious of us. They think us magic and do not trust us. There are times, on the edges of the forest, when single elves have been taken and harmed because of fear and ignorance. Maewen has seen this. Being with mortals is difficult for her and it is my choice to live so closely with them not hers."
"I understand that Legolas but how will you be able to maintain this?"
"Do you?" Legolas cries, "Do you understand it? I do not want you to think ill of her. This is why I did not tell Aragorn, why he did not know of Maewen. I will not hold her up for criticism to protect myself. I love her."
I lean back against the wall for I am shaking. He is protecting me from their displeasure for they will be displeased with me because I cause him this hurt. He has taken Elessar's anger upon himself for my sake.
I did not ask him to, a part of me cries, I did not want him to do this but the truth remains. I have created this tension between him and the ones he loves. It is my fault. Until now I have not tried at all to share his life. In fact I have run from it.
"If you love her Legolas, Aragorn will respect that. As he will respect your decisions though he may think, as I do, they will not work well."
There is a long pause then. Does Legolas think on his words? A part of me wants to burst in, to tell him the dwarf is right, that I will change. But I cannot. I have no right to be here anyway.
"Gimli." Legolas speaks quietly now and it is difficult to hear him. "I am afraid."
A chill passes over me for Legolas is never afraid—no that is not strictly true— he has been often afraid but he never admits it. Even to me. I strain to hear what he says next.
"Maewen has told me she thinks of returning to the Greenwood. She has never settled here. Not truly...if she goes... I cannot follow, it is too hard for me there, the sea longing makes it too painful. I will lose her."
"If she knows this and she loves you she will not go Legolas. You should not fear it. You should speak with her."
Surely he is not worrying about those words I spoke in Minas Tirith when we argued. Surely he is not!
But then I think of the way he clung to me then—pleading with me not to leave him. I remember his cutting words on the way back, 'Sometimes I wish you would just go and be done with it.'
He is. Whether I like it or not, it is obvious he is.
"Things are difficult between us Gimli." He interrupts my thoughts and drags me back into the mess I have created. "We are often at odds and lately... It seems I can do nothing right. Every time we talk, we argue. I cannot bring myself to speak of this, and sometimes, I fear I will wake up in the morning and find her gone."
I can listen to no more of this. It is too painful hearing him describe us thus. I do not want to hear it. I do not want to know how badly he is feeling about the two of us together. Although I have thought these very things—I can do nothing right, that we argue more than we show kindness, that he may leave me—hearing him speak of it chills my heart.
Somehow knowing it is as bad for him as it is for me makes it so much worse.
Finally, quietly, softly, I leave.
It is late and I go to bed, as I should have done in the first place. But my mind is in turmoil. The rational part of me tells me Legolas is unwell. His thoughts are not the most accurate. He vacillates and sways in the breeze. Things he is feeling may not be as bad as they really are and it is not about me—it is not. This is about Taenor, and Aragorn, and most of all Laerion.
But deep inside me is a voice which whispers endlessly. 'He cannot even talk to you. How can anything between you survive the hurt you have caused?' And I feel sick with worry. No wonder he says he wants to sail without me.
Eventually I sleep but it is no respite. My dreams are nightmares of arguments and insults thrown between us.
I am woken, I am not sure how much later, and at first I am not sure why. What has roused me from my sleep?
But when I sit up I see Legolas.
He is bent over his desk in the corner of our room and he is writing. The lamp shines a soft golden glow across the room and he is bathed in it.
He is beautiful.
"Legolas?" I wonder what he is doing so late at night.
He turns around startled at the sound of my voice.
"Maewen! Sorry I did not mean to wake you."
"My dreams were not pleasant ones." I smile, "I would rather be awake with you." It is true, the reality of this gentle Legolas is so much better than the angry, raging one of my dreams.
He frowns then.
"What do you dream about that is unpleasant?"
I am not about to tell him that.
"It was nothing... What are you doing?" I seek to deflect his mind away from me.
His shoulders slump then as he turns back to whatever it is he is writing.
"I write to Aragorn. Gimli says I must speak to him. I have found he is usually right... Unfortunately."
He is writing to Elessar! Finally he answers his letters. I feel such relief it is almost overwhelming.
"You will go to Minas Tirith?" I cannot believe he has listened to the dwarf when he has spurned our advice for so long.
"No." Legolas shakes his head, his mouth a thin tight line. He is determined. "I do not wish to go there. I think I will ask him to come to me."
I laugh. It bursts out of me before I can stop it, for he is so stubborn and strong willed—even when he is supposed to be apologising. He looks at me in surprise but then he mellows.
"I do not want him to think I am a push over," he says, smiling ruefully as he shrugs his shoulders.
I watch him then, writing in the lamplight. The soft light falls across his face, enhancing the golden glow of his hair and at the same time it illuminates the dark shadows under his eyes. He is tired.
"Come to bed, Legolas. You look exhausted."
"I want to get this done. It is not easy and If I leave it until morning I may change my mind."
As I sit there on the bed, arms around my knees, watching him I am filled with a rush of love. My heart will surely explode for it cannot contain this. I do not deserve him. I love everything about him. His light, his energy, his flightiness. I love it all. His words of fear and apprehension that I will leave him return to me and I cannot let him think that for a single minute longer. I do not stop to think. I do not allow myself time for common-sense to overrule me.
Instead I open my mouth and destroy it all.
"I will not return to the Greenwood Legolas. When I said that it was only because I thought it might make things easier for you. I could never leave you."
He turns and stares. A long, hard, analysing stare. If I thought I would recieve happiness and relief at my announcement I was wrong...so very wrong.
"You were listening to us." All trace of lightness and love is gone from his voice. There is no smile, no look of adoration.
And suddenly I realise how foolish I have been.
"I walked past...the door was ajar, I heard my name, Legolas." It is not quite the truth—it is not even close to the truth.
"And so you listened. Why did you not walk on by? Why did you not knock and enter? Why did you choose to hide in dark corridors and eavesdrop on me, Maewen?"
I cannot answer that because I have no answers. Instead I stare dumbly at him. What can I say?
"Why do you keep on doing this?" He asks. "Why do you insist on betraying my trust? Reading my letter was bad enough—now you spy on me when I am with my friends?"
"I do not know...I was trying to help..." It sounds lame even to my ears.
I wait for the explosion of righteous anger which surely will come. After all he is well within his rights to be angry with me now. Instead it is a sad and lonely look he gives me. One of resignation.
"I cannot do this, Maewen."
And I am filled with ice.
"What do you mean?"
"It is too hard, all this... Us. I cannot do it, not now. There is too much... else. I do not understand why you do this to me but I cannot cope with it any longer. Always you do this, just when I think things are well between us, you hurt me."
I open my mouth to fight back as I usually do. To throw out my accusations about how he has dragged me here and then abandoned me for mortals—except now I know he did not abandon me, he wished me to go too.
Why did he not ask simply me?
So instead, at the last minute I choke down my protests and say the only thing I can say.
"You have hurt me too, Legolas. Your words can be cutting and when you are angry you treat me as if I am less than you, when I know you do not believe it."
"Then you know what I mean." He sighs. I wish he would shout at me now. Anything but this cold resignation. "There is no joy left in this, Maewen. I am feel I am broken into pieces inside, I cannot cope while I am like that... And I cannot hope to repair myself while you do this...while we do this."
He turns back then to his letter and picks up his pen. I sit and wait for more but he continues his writing and does not look back at me. He no longer acknowledges my existance. This cannot be happening.
"What can I do?" I ask in the end unable to bear the silence. "How can I fix this?"
"I do not know." Is the reply, cold and emotionless, and the message he is sending begins to seep through.
"Do you want me to leave?" I am afraid to ask it but ask it I must. This detached numbness from him is so much more frightening than his anger.
"Yes."
It takes my breath away. It breaks my heart. Never before has he asked me to go from him. He does not even look at me when he asks it. He does not look as I dress, as I collect a few things, as I go to the door.
Does he look when I leave?
I do not know.