Ok so this is like my third chapter in four days! I'm working hard! (My first story too) SOOO let me know if something's wacky or really working or needs explaining. This one is longer.

And Midwinter, I'm sorry. My telepathy gets out of hand.

DGMSilverAirHead03 – Yeah she's meant to be hated. But I might have a reason for why she's awful too ;)

Thanks to 20JenWinchester12, reading lover222, She Elf of Hidden Lore, littleleahlooneytunes, and Cat-Stat-Ave (your reviews make me laugh)

This took forever because I kept rewriting it so I hope you guys appreciate it!

"Ahh. I'm guessing that to be him new home?" Strider pointed to the dark, mysterious cottage that stood on the outskirts. In the distance lay her town, the palace towers piercing into the sky. Merith loved the scenery there. The vines climbed along the brick and the stone had turned into an ancient beauty. She remembered visiting once when she was little, for her father was one of the 7 elders in the council. She sat on day upon a wooden swing that jumped over a creek each time it swung. Her feet smiled at the world as she flew into the clouds. Legolas must have been there too only not in sight. The palace also held a garden that looked as if it had been dipped in the sunset. Every soft shade imaginable was painted on the petals. She didn't know why anybody would ever leave such a place. Especially to this small, musty cottage. The trees bent in shame around it, the light unwelcome. The two followed a stone path up to the door.

Aragorn knocked the rusting brass knocker against the crippling wood of the door. After a near minute of knocking, he gave up and shouted through the cracks.

"It's Strider, my friend. Open the door." Merith picked up the sound of a slight movement towards them. She respectfully backed away. The moment built up in front of her like a stone wall; she could see it rise with every passing second. She did not know why she was so nervous. The matter didn't even concern her. Suddenly the wall was broken as a boot stepped through the frame of the door. Merith caught her breath. The elf looked straight into Aragorn. Mixed feelings played upon his face as if he did not know how to react to the encounter.

"Aragorn." This was the only word he spoke. Merith saw the great pain that settled in his face as he came into realization of who stood in front of him. His clothes hung tightly to him but looked tired and worn. His hair had grown long and restless. He looked as if he wanted to say more but the words were lost. Aragorn stood silent. The elf stared even longer, as if he were trying to pull some feeling out of Strider. Then he winced and turned away, leaving the doorway vulnerable and exposed. When he responded for the second time, his voice cut deep, emotionless and sharp. It came back from the shadows of his house.

"I was not expecting visitors." The words snaked out in a venomous fashion, biting Aragorn in the face.

Aragorn turned from patient to angry. "That's all I get Legolas? We journeyed for five years. We were with each other every daybreak, every moment, every fight! Back to back. And now what? Am I nothing to you? I've been trying to reach you for four years now! And all I get is a polite response from your FATHER saying that you are unavailable for contacting! Even Gandalf won't go near you. And now, I journey to your house and you turn away from me? You are a coward to your feelings!"

"I CAN'T FEEL ANYTHING ARAGORN. Don't you understand?" Legolas had returned and fired at Strider. "I can't feel a single thing. The world around me moves as I lay frozen in my mind. I can feel my body moving but I cannot hear my heart. Too many have died in front of me. Too many have become lost in my own arms as I tried to keep them safe. I have seen the light disappear from their eyes. And I couldn't do anything. I can't do anything." He tilted his head slightly as if he had to overthink his own words to actually understand them. "I couldn't do anything."

"We won, Brother. We won the war. It is over now." Strider laid his hand on Legolas' shoulder, pulling him back. Legolas looked straight into his eyes and spoke gently, so soft that the words hardly made it from his mouth.

"Yet those who died, what did they win? What did their families win? What did our friend Frodo win?" The emotion cast from those statements swept over all three of them like a storm. No words could release them from the silence that had been placed. Merith had not been noticed yet but she could not leave. Her feet had melted into the ground, her mind separated from her body. She watched as a tear slipped from Legolas' eye, rolling bitterly down his face. His chest heaved, wanting to release what had built up behind it but he would not let out. Then she saw as his piercing blue eyes, filled with storm, met her own of green.

"Who is she?" He spat bitterly. "Who is this maiden, that stands here as if she knows me. Who is this maiden than is feeling sorrow when she knows nothing of pain? WHO ARE YOU?" The last was directed towards her and she jumped at the sheer impact of the words as their hate filled rage struck her.

"I…I…" she stumbled upon the words, still lost in her own mind.

"She is a friend of mine, therefore a friend of yours. She is accompanying me through Mirkwood." Aragorn replied for her.

"She is to leave. I do not need her here, trying to feel the emotions drifting in the air that are mere strangers to her."

"She is staying." The steadiness in Aragorn's voice cut through Legolas' blind rage. He slumped defeated and went back inside. Aragorn turned and grabbed Merith's hand. The heat of his rough palm unfroze her as he led her inside. "We should follow him."

A lit candle scratched through the darkness and it was joined others. Inside the house were a single table, a bed, and a kitchen. Legolas sat motionless in an old wooden chair, the heaviness of thoughts causing him to bend over. Aragorn pulled out a chair from the other side of the barren surface and motioned to Merith that she does the same. The chair was cold as if it had been unoccupied, and had sat idly its whole life. Oh wait, it probably had. It probably likes its solitude. Merith mentally giggled at her own joke but then felt guilty for making light of the situation.

"Why have you come Aragorn? You know what I wish of." His voice was as if somebody has dipped into a great sorrow and mixed it into his tone. Strider sighed deeply, his armored chest falling slowly.

"I have come to put sense in you. To bring you back into this world."

"I want nothing of it." Merith notices that Legolas kept his eyes planted at the wearing floor; he paid no attention to her presence. She did not know why she was here anymore but did not feel as if she should leave.

"Legolas. I am to marry Arwen on the full moon. And I would wish for you to be there. For you to try to feel joy as I am. Nobody blames you. Look at me, dammit." Legolas finally lifted his eyes with a flash of anger. "Nobody blames you. Everybody wishes for you to return. They want the kind spirited elf that was their friend. The animals yearn for the man they once knew. The trees whisper their hunger for your return." At this point, Strider stood over him. "I'm going to get married, for god's sake! I know we fought a war. I know our people died. I know how much we lost. I know that because I was alongside you! But I'm getting my life back. I'm not sitting stubbornly in the past stuck on the sorrows I have caused. I am living. I am getting married!" Legolas still mirrored statue form. Aragorn spun and slammed his fist against the wall, an avoidance of hitting the target at which it would have been aimed. Merith heard a sob escape. He turned back to face them and his amour of strength had fallen. Merith could see him clearly now, for he was not so fixed as she had thought. All the hidden scars shone brightly upon his skin. She felt uncomfortable to be the one to witness as he fell apart.

"Frodo lays in his thoughts for he has been confined by the rings powers! It is of nothing he chooses to do. But at this moment, at this time, you are brining dishonor to him. You are choosing the life he has been forced into!" Aragorn's speech bounced off the walls, going straight through the elf. Nothing seemed to penetrate his fair skin. He stared, letting the moments pass until he could wait no longer.

"We must be off now, dear Merith," Strider spoke softly, collecting himself. Then he turned towards the door, making no further connection with Legolas as he left him behind. Merith rose and turned to the man she had seen come through but he was gone. She strode out the door after Strider. Then, a wisp of a voice fell into the air.

"I will be there, Brother." The words were said so softly that they clung to his lips, hardly reaching who they were intended for. Strider turned one last time back towards him, pausing on the sentence, and then continued out the door. Merith wandered out in confusion. Was he really that broken beyond repair? For some reason, she felt angry at him. Strider was right. He could live a different life. He could bring honor to those who died. But instead, he chooses not to. All those people battled to give them better days and he wastes every one of them!

"My lady, I see the confusion and anger painted on the easel of your expressions. I am guessing you are wondering if he actually will attend?" Aragorn had refined back into his past form, hiding his emotions behind his playful demeanor.

"Yes. It's just that you didn't seem to be getting though at all…"

"Legolas may seem to be standing behind the barricades of his minds but his old ways are still there. He will be respectful and attend, for his fate would be much worse if he didn't with his status. Although, that will probably be the extent of his actions. So yes, he will be there in body."

"Do you think he processed anything else though?"

"Processed? No. But I think he felt some recognition. And even though he sits idly in solitude again, that recognition has not been lost. I have seen it myself, the need for time. His wounds were just cut open and now they need to heal. I believe, contrary to what he said, that he does feel only he has shut down out of fear of feeling them. But they are open and he must now find a way to close them." Strider smiled at this. Merith did not know how to find joy out of the situation but then again, she hardly knew these men.

"Ahh. And on a much happier note, I do believe I owe you an invitation?" He handed her a scroll of paper and she thanked him. "But alas, I must return home to my people and my affairs of kingship. So I shall see you then, I hope. It was a pleasure to journey with you, lady Merith."

"As with you."

And with that, he strode back into the woods.

Merith blinding walked back, overwhelmed with what the day had brought. The memories flashed in front of her, giving her an overbearing need to sit down. It had all happened to fast. The elf, the man, the talk. She did not know what to think, what to feel. Though darkness began to push against her shoulders and the sun rode off with her new friend. Merith knew her parents would be worrying. Her clarity could be retained later in the night.

Merith cringed as she neared her home. The lights were still open to the house, meaning her parents would be waiting. A small feeling of guilt played around her, taunting as she entered through the door.

"Merith. Do you know of the time of day? I would figure you'd have been hit by the moon considering the fact that you just entered that door." Her mother's tone kept even as she paced through the lecture. Disappointment was reflected in her father's eyes as he laid his hand on his wife's shoulder. It was the first time she had seen him in days for he only returned from work at night.

"I can explain. I was-"

"I don't care where you were, or what you were doing. You have been showing a complete and udder disrespect for us. Your outbursts, your misguided ideas. You making us worry like this! You are not to leave this house, you hear me? You can take all your lessons inside. And you are to rid of that filthy bow I see laying upon your shoulder! You are grounded!" Merith opened her mouth in disbelief. She glanced up at her father but a stone shows no emotion.

"No mother, I don't think I will stay inside. In fact, I think I'm going to leave." Merith kept her tone with her mothers, not wavering from monotone.

"You do you think you are, young lady? This is not proper elven behavior. I am not to be spoken to like that. How dare you disrespect the two people who have raised you by threatening us?"

"The two people who raised me? How about the two people who have never been there? The two people who are more consumed with work than their own daughter? How about the person who almost let me die?" Suddenly, her mother's hand slapped across her face, the tips of her fingers leaving lines across Merith's cheeks. Merith shakily touched the spot where the bitterness lingered and stung. She could not process. She looked up at the cold hard stare of her mother one last time and saw emptiness. No remorse, no anger. And at that moment she knew that it was not her mother's fault. Something had broken her long ago. Her mother was frozen, as with her father; the moment too heavy for them to comprehend. So she went up and placed a kiss upon each of her parent's cheek for this was the end. And she would fake the strength that none of them had to offer.

"Goodbye Mother. Goodbye Father."

There were no more words to be exchanged. Nobody called after her. No apologies followed her feet. She gathered her clothes, her bow, and her dignity. She gathered all her feelings, not feeling them at all. Then she swaddled them in a bag and carried the weight across her back. Climbing out the window, she ran to the stable, awaking her horse, Adalie. She would not be followed. This she knew. Adalie nudged her and Merith wrapped her arms around the horse's strong neck. Then she climbed upon her.

She did not know where to go. Merith knew that leaving like this would make her unwelcome upon return. They would not want an elfing to disturb their peace with her defiance. But her parent's behavior would be evaluated too. Elves of Mirkwood were not supposed to act like this. Parents were never supposed to do what had happened. The officials would look upon it as a mental distress and she would likely be admitted for a short time so healer could relieve her of her grievances in the pools of milkweed. They would sooth out the stress that caused her reaction and pull her out of the darkness. Powerful magic would reverse whatever caused her to be troubled for so long. And Merith would be forgotten.

But Merith did not know who to turn to now. There was nothing left for her here. There was no love for her. There was no care. So she looked into the eyes of her horse instead.

"Rima" (run)

FLASHBACK from her mother's POV

"I can't do this. I cannot love child that I did not wish to create. This is a mistake. She shares his features, his personality. She has his ways racing though her blood. My love, when I look at her, I only see him and the hurt that he has struck within me."

"Shh. Merith shall hear you. She does not know of this and it shall never be told. I am your husband, I shall be her father. And in time, you shall learn to forgive the burden she carries as she will to you."

End of another chapter! Don't worry; happy times will come for poor Merith, I swear! And that flashback will be explained later, its not what you all think because what you're thinking is actually not able to be commited upon an elf (I do my research) Well, we'll see if Merith finds out. Who knows! Follow if you liked it, and I always love the reviews!

Ok my lovely readers! I am actually starting to read all of Tolkien's novels and did some more research so I edited the first couple of chapters! I like my work to be well researched so it doesn't "offend" someone or whatever. And I sort of fell in love with all this mythology…

I just wanted to let you all know. I had to take time to truly fix the other ones. But I'll update for real by Monday, I promise! The story line hasn't changed or anything, fear not! Just needed to be a perfectionist.