Another outtake from the recently finished "Even the Birds are Chained to the Sky" I put this here because it follows closely on from Elrohir's conversation with Legolas in the previous chapter. It happens right after the epilogue in "Even the Birds"

There are references here to the Finfinfin1 story "Light of a Thousand Stars" as well. Legolas' mothers story can be found there.

Maewen

My boy—who I have been apart from for too long—is in bed. He even sleeps; I know, I have checked. Slow even breaths, he is angelic as he lies there, his small sister beside him. They have missed each other. I run a hand across his hair, gently, softly. I do not want to wake him but cannot resist a touch . . . just one. My sweet boy.

When I emerge from his room I am alone. Legolas is not there.

He has not gone far though, I can hear him and he sings. It fills my heart with joy to hear his lilting voice drift up from the ground below. It has been too long since I have heard him sing, far too long.

And so I am eager to join him.

He sits on the grass beneath our tree, head tilted to the stars and when I drop to sit beside him his melody stops.

"Do not stop," I say. "It is beautiful."

"Average at best." He shrugs his shoulders. Legolas has never been good at seeing his talents, apart from the bow. He knows he is good at that.

"Not so." I correct him. "The most beautiful song in the world to my ears."

I watch quietly, with apprehension as he reaches out and plucks a blade of grass from beside him, spinning it between his fingers, flicking it back and forth. This is not a good sign. Something bothers him.

"Estel is sleeping." I say. "Your travels have worn him out!"

"He has missed his home." Legolas does not meet my eyes, instead he watches the grass he spins, back and forth, back and forth.

"Of course, but he has had such adventures too." Elrohir has worked miracles, far more than I ever anticipated for our boy. Our precious boy, who terrifies Legolas with his very existence. Around every corner he sees a danger lurking to take his child from him. He fights so hard to keep him safe and Estel fights just as hard to be free.

Now he has returned with wild tales of sleeping under the stars with Elladan—not his father, adventuring with Elrohir and most astonishing of all, learning the sword.

I would never have dreamed Legolas would allow Estel to do that.

"I let you down," Legolas says in reply and it is so far from the truth he could not be more wrong. "I failed to keep him safe for you. I am so sorry, Maewen."

He speaks, of course, of Estel's tumble down the cliff. Oh my heart was in my mouth when I first read the jumbled, fearful letter Legolas sent me after that. At first for Estel—but then mainly for my love, for I could imagine his terror—and tucked inside his letter was a calm reassurance from Elladan that my son was safe. Bruised and battered, but safe.

It worried me it was Legolas and not Elrohir who wrote to me then for usually Elrohir will take over with his quiet, calm control and write long careful letters when wild emotions mean Legolas struggles. He has always done that . . . Right from the beginning. Why not now? Where was he?

Still all must be well between them, for Legolas sings to the stars, and he arrived back with Laerion in tow, laughing and joking as they used to in the Greenwood. Something I never thought I would see again. But I still wonder why Elrohir did not write me that letter . . . Yet I cannot ask. It is not for me to know what happens between them unless Legolas chooses to tell me. I have long ago learnt my lesson from prying where I should not.

"You did not let me down." I am firm in my reply. "If anyone let us down it was Estel in his disobedience and he has paid a high price." I will not let him blame himself for that.

"How is Elrohir?" I ask to divert him from our unruly son, but also because it is as far as I dare go to satisfy my curiosity, this casual question.

I do not get the answer I expect.

"He wishes me to ask you something."

"He does?" I am surprised. As open as I am, as much as I encourage Elrohir to be a part of our lives here, as often as I invite him in, he stubbornly refuses. He keeps himself seperate and insists that is how things must be. Sending me a message through Legolas is not how he is.

"Indeed." The speed with which Legolas twirls that piece of grass intensifies. "And he has informed me he will write to you telling all if I do not."

I begin to feel uneasy. What is this?

"Telling all? What could there be to tell, Legolas?"

I reach out then and capture those fidgeting fingers between my hands, holding them still.

"There is nothing Elrohir could tell me that would bother me." I hope this is true. "What is it my love?"

He sighs, and slowly curls his fingers softly around my hands until they are entwined together.

"Do you miss who I was?" He asks, "Does it disappoint you? That the Legolas you fell in love with is no longer? That you are stuck with me?"

I am confused. Is this Elrohir's question or some strange thought from his heart? Why would Elrohir ask this?

"Do you doubt my love?" I cry. "Does Elrohir? Has he been suggesting I wish for something other than you? Why would he do that?"

"No!" Legolas tosses his head in frustration, his hands tighten around mine. "I cannot find the words. I say it all wrong as I always do. Surely you get sick of this. Surely you wish for the boy I was. The Legolas who could speak a sentence and say what he wanted. The one who did not fall apart into chaos at the slightest problem? How can you not regret?"

This place is not good for Legolas; Valinor . . . It poisons him. In Arda it was better. There he accepted his damage with a shrug and a smile. Oh he raged against it at times, it frustrated him, but mostly he did not mind it. For Arda was marred as well. It was full of imperfections. His friends there were mortals, imperfect themselves. Arda fit him like a glove.

But here . . . Outside our woods there lies a perfect world. Not so much as a blade of grass out of place. Everything as it should be. A world full of elegant Noldor and Vanya who glide through life smug in their perfection. Outside our wood, where our people accept him utterly, lies a world where Legolas is glaringly obvious in his imperfectness, an oddity, a damaged elf . . . Strange . . . And he is miserable in it. Every iota of damage he feels as an agony here. I hate it. It was the sealonging which drove us here, the sealonging and his grief for Elessar. Now the sealonging is vanquished I would gather him up and whisk him back to imperfect Arda if only I could.

"Has Elrohir taken you to Tirion?" I ask softly, for it is there he feels it most. It's pristineness only serves to magnify what he is in his mind. Tirion . . . I despise it, and those Noldor who live there and pour their onerous demands upon him.

"No. Estel's attempts at flying left us no time for that. This is not about Tirion." He hangs his head. "Elrohir tells me I should fight no longer. He tells me I am what I am. He says I should enjoy that, not rail against it. I say I fight to be what I was for you. Because you deserve the man you fell in love with . . . Not the one you are left with. He told me to ask you if that was true."

I do not know what has begun them speaking on this but I am horrified.

"Elrohir is right!" I gasp. "I wish for nothing but the love I have. I regret nothing."

"You cannot regret nothing."

"I do. It is you I love, Legolas. You. As you are now, not what you were. I love every part of you and I would not go back. Not for a second." He is disbelieving as he looks at me and so I try taking a different path.

"Tell me . . ." His hair falls across his face and I brush it back so I can see his eyes, those beautiful eyes. I will not let him hide. "Do you remember the girl I was? The sulky, selfish girlchild who hid from your friends, who argued when you left on the quest that might well have claimed your life, who resented every change in her world and blamed it on you? Do you remember her? Do you wish for her return or do you love the woman you have now?"

Finally he smiles.

"I do remember her. She had her good points too but I prefer you."

"And I prefer you. The Leader of our people, the father of my children, the man I love. Not the foolish, flighty, but endlessly amusing boy I fell for . . . But the courageous man I have. Elrohir is right. Please listen to him. You do not have to fight against who you are now for me."

"I do not want to accept what I have been left with," he sighs.

"But the rest of us love him . . . who you are. You are better, Legolas. Your trials have made you a better man."

I will not let this rest, now I know he has been battling for my sake, but I think I will get no further tonight. He is a most stubborn creature and always has been. That has not changed. Over time I have learned the key to Legolas is to stop talking and give him the space to think on things . . . To find his own way there. We will revisit this later but for now there is just one more thing that worries me.

"Is this what the strawberries were for? That you doubt my love? You do not need to prove anything to me, Legolas." It was such a strange gesture, so unlike him. I loved it, it made my heart sing, but now I wonder why.

He shakes his head.

"That was for Estel."

"Estel?" A strange answer.

"I need to show him how much I love you. He needs to see it." He talks in riddles now.

"You do show me! Every day you do." And he does. A smile here, a gentle touch there, I do not doubt how much he loves me.

"Estel does not see it. He asked me if I still loved you. He asked if I even wished to be here with you. He does not see the small things. He only hears the harshness of our words."

It takes my breath away.

"He said that?"

"So I will show him." Legolas pats my hand softly to reassure. "It is no trouble to care for you it is a joy, but I need to make sure he sees."

My poor small boy. I did not know these were the thoughts that churned through his mind. It brings tears to my eyes.

"We both will," I manage to say in the end. "He has two parents. We both have bitter words. We both can stop to think before we use them. I am so sorry, Legolas,"

It tears my heart apart to think my child has worried on this. We have been so careless. Legolas has an excuse for his fea is damaged. I have none.

The tears spill down to wet my cheeks. I cannot stop them.

But he does.

He wraps his arms around me. He kisses them away as they fall.

"I know it hurts." He mummers, "I know. We will fix it."

As always he mends me.

So we sit, in the starlight, bathed in its beauty, and it turns my mind to the way things were, in the Greenwood, years ago when we were young.

"It is good to see you with Laerion."

And his smile widens.

"It is good to be with him, I cannot tell you how much. I have missed him, and now I discover he has been here all along. I told him I needed him and he was there . . . As he always was."

How long have I pleaded with him to open himself up to his brother. It is a weight off my shoulders that he finally has. But his next sentance leaves me speechless. Legolas is endlessly surprising.

"I have been speaking to my mother."

"Your mother?"

Am I hearing him correctly?

"My mother." He gives me his lopsided grin and his eyes dance. He enjoys my astonishment. "I discovered we have more in common than I realised. She has hurt me, I have hurt her. There is much to forgive between us and some of it lays at my feet. I have missed her too."

"Oh Legolas!"

A rush of joy overtakes me for this will help him beyond measure. I have wished for this since we arrived on these forsaken shores.

"I know it took me a while," he laughs . . . He laughs at me and my surprise. "I am glad I can still surprise you! There is much more talking for Mother and I to do. I need to understand her, for I must say I still do not."

"Wait here!" I know just what he needs. I have been waiting . . Waiting so long for this, keeping it close, hoping one day . . One day he would be ready.

"Maewen!" He cries after me, as I am on my feet and scrambling up our tree.

"I will be back!"

I go straight to it, hidden in our room, tucked away in my secret place. I have carried this with me for many years, always hoping. It is with care I lift it out for it is fragile now, and my heart thuds. I never really allowed myself to believe this day would come, even as I hoped.

He looks at me in confusion when I drop back down next to him and place the envelope in his lap.

"What is this?"

"Read it, Legolas."

Gently he opens it, cautiously, as if it will bite him. Slowly he pulls out the pieces that lie within.

"They are all there." I tell him. "A bit of a puzzle but it is readable."

He lays them out in order, piece by piece and lifts his head to stare at me.

"My mothers letter." His eyes are wide. He is not the only one who can still have surprises! "How long have you had this?"

"Since she left. Since you tore it into pieces and threw it away. I went down the next morning and found every piece. I knew one day you would need it . . At least I hoped . . . I have not read it, Legolas but there may be answers here. Things you can ask her, a glimpse into her mind."

"You have kept it all this time."

"All this time."

"I do not deserve you ." He whispers.

And I lean myself against him, I soak up his warmth, I bathe him in my love.

"You deserve everything I can give and more, Legolas."

And in that moment our love seems as perfect as this land we find ourselves in.

Together . . . Amongst the trees, beneath the stars, our children asleep above us . . .

Together always . . .

Perfect.