Yes, I am using the song from the Second Hobbit Movie. I love that song and its my Bestie and I's favorite to sing.
They camped in a hollow between the hills that night and Legolas drew Adessa away from the camp a short ways to give them some privacy. He gathered her to him holding her just resting her head against his chest while he stroked her hair. The late hour did nothing to ease Adessa and her ever growing fears of what was going to befall them in Lothlorien. When they stopped for the night and Legolas took her aside so they could be alone for a while, all she could think about was how conflicted Legolas really was on the inside. He hide everything well, even from her, but now she wondered if he was just as troubled by all this as she was. She wanted everything to return to the way it was... when it was just them traveling Middle Earth and when they stayed in Rivendell for a time, it was perfect. Nothing to worry about at all...
"No memories but still so many questions..." She muttered softly, turning her face inward against Legolas's strong frame and looking at her hand as it was rested on his chest, over where his heart was. "Happiness, but always curious..."
She let out a long sigh and nuzzled her lips against the soft flesh of his neck. "Is it really so bad?"
It was a question that she had wrestled with until they stopped and made camp. Her wings fluttered in irritation and ever since she and Legolas met up with Artemis and Gandalf she wanted nothing more than to fly and take Legolas with her, wanting to just leave everything behind and live in peace with him by her side forever. Strengthening her hold on the front of his shirt, Adessa couldn't help but let her shoulders slump in defeat, exhausted from her inner debates. He cupped her cheek and made her look up at him. His eyes were troubled and worried but they still held all the feeling he had for her in their crystalline depths. "I refuse to believe that the woman I fell in love with, that I Bonded with is so very different from the woman Artemis knows. Whatever else you may or may not be you are my Bonded mate, come what may that will not change even if I have to follow you to the ends of time."
He pressed his lips to hers and she could feel the anxiety, the need and the love in him as he kissed her. Adessa bit back a few tears that she felt rising to her eyes and kissed Legolas's sensual lips with a fiery passion. This is what she wanted to hold on to forever, this moment in time was most precious to her. She wrapped her arms around him and held him tightly to her, needing to have him close enough to feel his heart beat in unison with her's.
"Perhaps she is just the other side of the same coin?" She asked, breathing softly and trying to sound hopeful, but wondering if her attempts were halfhearted. "Come what may, I will never stop looking for you. Even should time claim my body and I die, I know my soul will search for you still until we are united for always and forever."
He kissed her fiercely his hands running up her sides tracing across her breasts and she could feel the hunger quicken in her as he backed them further into the shadows. They were quiet and the lovemaking was shorter than they would have prefered but when they returned to camp they both felt calmer. Gandalf was smoking his pipe and reading a book while Artemis amused herself making curious shapes in the fire with her power. She was shaping the flames into a bird with outspread wings when Adessa sat down. Legolas prepared himself and Adessa's blankets close together so when they were ready for sleep, he would be able to watch over her. Adessa watched Artemis play with the fire for a time and gazed at the flames, their shape becoming clearer to her and she sat up straighter and pointed at them before tapping her chin as if she was trying to recall something and then the cold metal on her forehead sparked the name she wanted to remember. Her wings fluttered several times when she remembered and then fanned out a few more times, never really keeping still for any amount of time thereafter.
"Nargis." She said simply, looking at Artemis and touched the diadem at her forehead. "Who was Nargis?"
Artemis looked over at her and smiled. "He was your pet bird for a while. He was a black bird with blue markings. Hang on, I can show you."
She got up and rummaged in her saddlebags coming out with what Adessa could only assume was a shirt. It didn't look like any shirt she'd ever seen, the sleeves were too short, it was baggy and on the front was an image that didn't look sewn on but was somehow imprinted on the fabric of a black bird with its wings spread in flight with blue markings on the wings and breast. "You loved that bird, you could actually communicate with him and he saved our bacon a few times."
"If I loved him that much, why did he not come with me to Middle Earth?" Adessa asked, fingering the bird on the shirt and then touching her diadem again. "I would think as companions we would have been here together."
Artemis reached over and took the diadem off and held it up. "Well in a way he did. He wasn't with us in the last world we were in either until you found this shirt with him on it. I think his physical form as a real live bird can't transition between the worlds but because he was so important to you his image appears in some form in each subsequent world we go to. A Shirt and now a diadem." She settled the diadem back on Adessas brow and started putting the shirt away.
Adessa shook her head and sighed, pushing hair out of her face and looking up at the stars. "It's far too strange a thing." She mumbled and wrapped her arms around her legs, tucking them close to her chest.
Artemis smiled slightly and sat down by the fire again. She started shaping the fire again and spoke while she did, the images in the fire shifted and changed following her narrative. "Once upon a time two women worked together making things and selling them at the market, they were very good at it. Then one day as they returned from a poor day at market the ground shook and thunder pealed and the women were ripped out of their time and into the distant past. They met two heroes, one of such strength he was said to be part God, and the other a hunter of great renown." The fire showed two men one very tall and muscular, the other shorter and lithe.
"The women journeyed with the heroes to speak to a great prophet, one who could tell them how to return home. The prophet told them they would have to defeat a great Evil in order to return home. They journeyed far and wide and saw many things until finally a dream of the Evil drew them to its lair and with the strength of their friendship and the love they held for each other they defeated the Evil with fire and power." The fire showed one of the women wreathed in flames then a separate male figure separated from the flaming female figure and was engulfed in flames finally exploding in a pop of sparks, by now Gandalf and Legolas were watching in rapt fascination.
"They all returned to the half gods home where they believed they would remain but the God who brought them to the distant past appeared and said they must go home to their time. They entered the portal he summoned and thought they were going home but another God decided they would be useful and sent them to another world."
The fire showed enormous buildings and four shapes like men but with huge shells on their back greeting the two women. "They met four brothers who had the countenance of turtles and the skills of the finest warriors. The girls had been sent to help the brothers put a stop to a dangerous gang of bandits. But in the process the brothers were transformed into humans against their will and one fell very ill. One woman stayed to aid him while the other gave solace to the other three and they all reached moments of clarity, of affirmation of their life's goals." The flames showed the male figures dancing with one woman, having a date with the other and a whirling image of the four brothers and the two women walking the streets of that strangest of cities.
Then there came a time when the gang was at its weakest and the women and the brothers came up with a plan. They infiltrated the gangs hideout and destroyed their weapons. They brought the brothers back to their original forms and left them stronger and happier than they had met them. But then the God called them again and the women were separated." The fire showed the two women being pulled apart then the images faded.
"In stories things would have a happy ending, the guy would get the girl, the bad guy would be vanquished and the world would go back to normal. But this is no story, and there is no such thing as normal." Artemis stared into the fire and rubbed a spot on her thumb.
Adessa's listened to the story with undivided attention and had watched the flames flicker and grow with the words Artemis had spoken. She made no noise herself, but was intrigued again, much like she had been when she and Legolas had first gotten to Rivendell and was allowed to wander in Lord Elrond's private library and gardens. It was almost like a wonder she had known before, but now couldn't place it. She looked at Legolas and took his hand again. "That ending holds no truth for us my love." She said softly in the Elvish tongue, not caring if Gandalf understood them. "We will remain strong though we may be divided for a time."
She looked over at Artemis from across the fire and shook her head. "Is it really true then...? Are we the two women you spoke about in your tale?" Adessa asked, hazel eyes bright in the fire light. "It must be for a few of my scattered memories coincide with your tale."
Artemis cleared her throat. "We are the women from my story. We've been friends for years, you helped me through the heartbreak of the love of my life leaving to pursue his own dreams. I helped you through the same heartbreak when your fiance left because you didn't want children. We've held each other up, covered each other's backs, we started a business together, lived together, laughed, cried, sung, argued. And if you never get your memories back I'll still be your friend. Because if this is the new you then I want to get to know you all over again."
Such sweet words brought tears to Adessa's eyes and her wings fluttered so heavily that she was lifted from her seat and flew around the campfire to embrace Artemis. She didn't know why, but she felt that they too shared a bond of friendship that was strong enough to pass through time and space.
"Thank you for telling me all this before we arrived in Lothlorien." Adessa said softly, pulling back and looking at Artemis's soft brown eyes. "The decision before us will be a hard one to make, but we will make it when the time is right."
Standing up again, Adessa walked back over to her spot beside Legolas and sat down, resting her head on his shoulder and beginning to hum a song that she couldn't remember the words to. It started softly and then steadily grew in tone. Artemis started singing her voice rising through the air as though the fire lifted it. "Oh Misty eye of the mountain below/ keep careful watch of my brothers soul/ and should the sky be filled with fire and smoke/ keep watching over Durin son."
Adessa suddenly found that she knew the words after all and joined the singing. "If this is to end in fire/ Then we should all burn together/ Watch the flames climb high into the night/ Calling out father, oh, stand by and we will/ Watch the flames burn auburn on/ The mountain side."
Legolas and Gandalf watched the two women and for a few minutes they could see the relationship Artemis talked about. "And if we should die tonight/ Then we should all die together/ Raise a glass of wine for the last time/ Calling out father, oh / Prepare as we will/ Watch the flames burn auburn over /The mountain side/ Desolation comes upon the sky/ Now I see fire/
Inside the mountain/ I see fire/ Burning the trees/ And I see fire/ Hollowing souls."
Legolas felt something in his heart lurch listening to the song. A sense that everything he thought he knew was about to change and he glanced at Gandalf wondering if the old man felt the same. "I see fire/ Blood in the breeze/ And I hope that you remember me/ Oh, should my people fall in/ Surely I'll do the same/ Confined in mountain halls/ We got too close to the flame/ Calling out father/ Hold fast and we will/ Watch the flames burn auburn on/ The mountain side."
Gandalf had watched Artemis for weeks, knowing she spoke the truth about how she'd come to Middle Earth and knowing there were things she hadn't told him because she didn't want to change the flow of their world but in that moment he felt as though she were centuries older than him. Even with the elves he'd never felt ignorant. He wondered if it were possible to somehow follow her out of Middle Earth and to wherever her world was. "Desolation comes upon the sky / Now I see fire/ Inside the mountain/ I see fire/ Burning the trees/ And I see fire/ Hollowing souls / And I see fire/ / Blood in the breeze/ And I hope that you remember me/ And if the night is burning/ I will cover my eyes/ For if the dark returns then/ My brothers will die/ And as the sky is falling down/ It crashed into this lonely town."
Adessa couldn't understand how she knew this song, or where she'd learned but she knew it and it filled her to the brim. She wove the melody with Artemis and it felt right. "And with that shadow upon the ground/ I hear my people screaming out/ Now I see fire/ Inside the mountain/ I see fire/ Burning the trees/ And I see fire/ Hollowing souls/ And I see fire/ Blood in the breeze."
Artemis poured her anxiety, her sadness, her worry and her regrets into the song and let them fly away on the wings of music and decided that no matter what happened, whether Tracey chose to remain Adess or if she came back to herself she would accept it. She would not stand in the way of fate, no matter what fate chose. "I see fire/ (Oh you know I saw a city burning)/ And I see fire (Feel the heat upon my skin, yeah)/ And I see fire/ And I see fire burn auburn on the mountain side."
The last notes died away and Artemis stood and walked away from the fire into the dark her back straight, shoulders set. Gandalf motioned for Legolas and Adessa to stay put. "She'll be fine." He murmured and knocked ash out of his pipe before refilling it. "We should get some sleep. Tomorrow always seems to come earlier and earlier."
Adessa nodded and settled down on her pallet alongside Legolas and curled up with him, her back to the fire and her head resting on her arm. She blinked at him through sleepy eyes and yawned into the back of her hand.
"I love you Legolas, may your dreams be pleasant ones." She said, leaning up to kiss his tender, petal soft lips and folding her wings against her back.