To all those who've followed the story this far: we're getting there! To the romance, that is ;)
The next chapters are bound to contain quite a bit of fluff, though dark times still lie ahead as well. And to answer the dear Guest who left a review without logging in: I might as well say it now: there will definitely be a happy ending to the story. My romantic little heart harbors a special fondness for those, no matter how convoluted the paths the characters take to get there.
Oh, and thank you so much for reviewing!
Chapter 26
July 7th, TA 3020
"…Injury…aftermath…most satisfactory."
The words cut through the fluffy haze of Mehreen's slumber. She squeezed her eyes shut and grimaced, unwilling to let go of her dream. Lord Elladan was holding her close; she was warm and safe, a sense of belonging unlike anything she'd ever felt settled around her heart like a small, fluffy kitten. Snuggling closer to his strong chest, Mehreen let out a contented sigh. The face that peered down at her looked nothing like it usually did, perhaps because Lord Elladan was watching her with tenderness rather than irritation. He opened his mouth, and said…
"…Limpid, and yellow in color."
What?
Frowning, Mehreen pulled on the edges of his jerkin. It was yielding and rough, unlike what she'd expected from leather, until she realized that the fabric she was crumpling between her fingers was but a linen sheet, and what she'd thought to be Lord Elladan's chest nothing else than a lumpy pillow. The kitten inside her yowled and darted away, much like Pumpkin ofttimes did, but not before sinking the claws of realization into her muddled brain.
Oh no.
Mehreen hadn't lied when she'd confessed to feeling silly. Now she added mortification to the list when she realized she'd been sighing longingly in her sleep for everyone to hear. Why must she dream of Lord Elladan, of all people? And then: had she moaned out his name?
Saehild's influence was to be blamed, for certain, and an excess of silly children's tales.
"She is awake."
The voice was unmistakably his, a note of amusement creeping into the seriousness of his tone as Mehreen understood he knew that she knew he was listening, and yet pretended to still be asleep. No longer able to escape the consequences of her actions, Mehreen cracked open one bleary eye, wincing as a sting shot through the skin of her forehead.
"Careful. Your injury is healing, but you should avoid all sudden movements in the near future."
Lord Elladan was watching her with narrowed eyes, hazy against the brightness of the windows in his back, visible through an opening in the curtains that had been drawn around the bed. Beside him stood Redhriel, holding the familiar shape of a copper basin with both hands, her upturned nose held as far as possible from what it contained.
Oh no. No, no, no.
Fighting the urge to bury her burning face into the pillow, Mehreen slowly propped herself up. The pain worsened, turning from a sharp but occasional stab into a steady ache that pressed against her temples with the force of a tightening fist.
"Annon len, Redhriel," Lord Elladan nodded, dismissing the Steward who cast a last, doubtful look at Mehreen before turning on her heels with a swish of her garnet-colored dress.
For an instant, Mehreen thought he would leave as well, but he reached to pour something from a vial that stood upon the nightstand into a cup, topping the contents with water from a pitcher before handing it to her.
"What is it?"
Her voice sounded both muffled and way too loud, ringing between her ears like the bells that accompanied the calls to prayer on Al-Siyaam.
"Something to dull the pain." The wry twist of his pale lips told Mehreen she may not deserve such a mercy, but she accepted the proffered cup all the same. The potion smelled of mint – an engaging scent – yet as soon as Mehreen took it into her mouth, she understood she'd been deceived. "I would not advise you to spit it out," Lord Elladan chided dryly as her face crinkled with disgust, "not unless you wish the pain to worsen and, trust me, it shall do so before nightfall."
Swallowing the bitter concoction with many a grimace, Mehreen set the glass back onto the nightstand, pushing it away as far as she could with the tips of her fingers before letting herself sink back onto the pillow.
"How is the boy?" she rasped as bits and pieces from the previous night came back to her. The fear and the enduring guilt – first for having caused the boy's flight, and then for forcing his desperate mother into a seemingly useless game of hide and seek. Mehreen refused to think of what would've happened, if they hadn't managed to find him, in time or at all.
"Déordred? He is well, as is Dúnwen. Better than what they would have both been without your intervention." He clasped his hands in his back in a manner that reminded her of Lord Legolas' preferred stance. As always, his movements were measured. Precise.
Well, almost always.
Only once had Mehreen had seen Lord Elladan lose control; a moment she wasn't about to forget, had she even wanted to.
"Whatever gave you the idea?"
"Oh, it's just something I remembered from home."
The polite evasiveness of her reply had been offered as a chance to leave without offending. As a man, and the head of the Houses, Lord Elladan certainly had no interest in hearing her stories. His role in the incident was, after all, complete; the women and children under his care were safe and sound and even now, as she lay inside one of the beds she'd made, Mehreen knew that many a patient still awaited his help.
Yet Lord Elladan lingered, watching her with bottomless grey eyes, so startling in their imperfection.
"A similar thing has happened in the harem a few years back," Mehreen shrugged, suddenly conscious of his gaze upon the bare skin of her throat. And it wasn't the first time he looked at her like this, either. She, too, remembered the chiseled muscles rippling under alabaster skin, taut with cold, and the intensity of his stare before he'd realized he wasn't alone.
Propriety demanded Mehreen hid from his sight, lest she wished to inspire the very desires that were at the root of all evil; that she quelled what yearning she could feel to watch him in return. Custom demanded she spurned the memory of a body so different from the men of her homeland, as lacking in color as they were bright.
Yet Mehreen couldn't bring herself to forget, nor did her fingers move when she willed them to cover her collarbones.
"One of the boys, Marwan, had hid inside the palace," she continued in a troubled voice, "deeming it a mere game while his mother was going mad with worry."
"Did she sing for him as well?"
The mattress sagged under his weight. Mehreen's blush deepened as Lord Elladan sat on the opposite side of her bed, well out of reach and yet too close for comfort. If he had wanted to ravish her, he could have done so countless times last night, Mehreen reminded herself. He hadn't, which could only mean one thing.
"Not exactly. You see, Marwan was – is – a very sweet-toothed child, and so the best way to lure him out was to make enough pastries to fill the palace with their scent."
"I wish I had thought of that!"
She liked his laughter, Mehreen decided upon hearing Lord Elladan chuckle in earnest at her story. A rich, comforting sound, no doubt too scarce in times such as these. Just like for Lord Legolas, she wondered who, of the women of Bar-Lasbelin, was entitled to hearing it, since Saineth wasn't one of them. Redhriel, perhaps? Mehreen glanced to where she thought the ward entrance to be, struggling to imagine the stern-faced Steward smiling, less even laughing in Lord Elladan's company; but then again, she knew nothing of elven customs, nor of the laws dictating their behavior behind closed doors.
In any case, Lord Elladan was yet another man she could inscribe upon the list of those uninterested in claiming her, after King Aragorn and Lord Legolas.
The thought stung almost as much as the pain in her forehead, now relieved into a dull ache. For as long as Mehreen could remember, men and women alike had praised her beauty, promising the pleasures of heaven to anyone lucky enough to one day possess her; Mehreen had thrived on such reassurances, certain she had at least something to offer in exchange for her inadequacy.
Now her certitudes crumbled. The irresistible beauty was, it seemed, not that hard to resist; had Lord Elladan wanted her, he wouldn't have waited until now to quench his hunger. He wouldn't have treated her so lightly, nor stayed alone with her at the risk of being forced to repair the very reputation he'd tarnished by doing so in the first place.
The intimacy of the present was likely to be the only kind Mehreen would ever know.
"Why did you leave?"
The question surprised her, so that Lord Elladan felt the need to clarify: "In the aftermath. You could – no, should – have stayed. To wander off alone in the midst of a storm was imprudent to say the least." Though his tone had grown serious once more, the reproach was softened by the slight crinkling of his eyes. "Dúnwen may have wanted to thank you for saving her son."
"I didn't want her to. It would've felt…unfair, somehow." Turning her eyes towards the gently billowing drapes, Mehreen watched their swaying upon the tiles, so alike to the foaming tides of the sea. "As you've said, she's lost her husband already. It seems only fair that I helped her keep her son. It's her unhappiness that caused the boy to run, I think. He only wanted for his mother to love him." In the silence that ensued, Mehreen became aware that her opinion wasn't what Lord Elladan had asked for. Would he be cross with her for speaking her mind?
She lowered her eyes. "I wish no-one here any ill."
"Then what is it that you wish?"
Oh, so many things.
Her heart pounding in her chest, Mehreen fought the urge to wring her hands, as nervous as though he'd started to undress her. Was it a game? Or did he really want to know of a woman's dreams? "I wish for the same things any sane woman does, my Lord. The fulfillment of her husband's desires."
She'd stammered out the first thing that had sprang to her mind, straight from one of Lalla Nafiyah's lectures regarding her future duties. There'd been many more, upon that list, which Mehreen felt beyond inappropriate to burden him with. Reproachlessly enduring a husband's decision to take another wife, for instance, or the submission to whatever request he made of her, inside the bedchamber and out.
Lord Elladan frowned, studying her from beneath knitted dark brows. "You have no husband…yet. Until then, surely you have desires of your own?"
He ran a hand through the length of his inky hair, undoing the tangles beneath the loose knot at the back of his head. In Harad, long hair was exclusively worn by women, yet there was nothing feminine about Lord Elladan.
How could he make such a purposeful movement appear so languid at the same time? Mehreen's mouth went dry and she reached for the cup, longing for a sip of cold water.
"Here." Lord Elladan was faster, filling the goblet from the pitcher before she'd even touched it. "If you ever met a genie, as you once mentioned, what is it that you would ask of him?"
The doors creaked in the distance, sparing Mehreen the need to reply and heralding a newcomer into the Women's Ward. If Lord Elladan was disappointed, he hid it well; perhaps had he only meant to be polite. As she sipped on her water, reflecting on his intentions, Mehreen wished the visitor to be Ahlam or Saehild, who must've been released just before her own admission, so that it was Mehreen who now found herself with the dubious privilege of having the ward all for herself.
"May I come in?"
Instead, it was Lord Legolas who parted the curtains on a gesture from Lord Elladan, bowing slightly in greeting as he came to stand by the foot of the bed, and prompting his Chief Healer to rise as well.
"A good day to you, Mehreen. Elladan." Though his face showed naught but a distant affability, Mehreen noticed a rise in the tautness of Lord Elladan's shoulders, as though something unfinished had been going on beyond her knowledge. "I trust you are feeling better?"
The latter had been addressed to Mehreen, who nodded, a feebleness washing over her. Beyond what etiquette required, there was but one reason for Lord Legolas to come here. The time had come for him to announce their sentence and, judging from the way Lord Elladan's expression shifted from carefree to guarded, he dreaded it as much as she did.
Mehreen clutched her cup, torn between sinking deeper into the reassuring softness of the pillow and sitting to attention.
"It is as well that I find you both here today," Lord Legolas looked at them in turn, "and I trust you both know why I have come."
Crossing his arms upon his chest, Lord Elladan nodded, avoiding her gaze. Was he remembering what had happened in the courtyard? Mehreen could've sworn he regretted his outburst, just as she could've wagered he was too proud to ever admit it.
"I shall begin by reminding you that this place has been built by people of different races. Elves, men. Dwarves, even, though our people have long counted each other as enemies." Lord Legolas opened his arms, as if to embrace such a diversity. "Its very purpose is to forego the past of those who come here seeking our help…and such help comes in many a shape and form."
"Come on, Legolas, out with it," Lord Elladan grumbled. "Spare us the pomp, and get to the point."
Mehreen stifled a gasp at his impertinence, almost spilling her water and pulling the covers up to her chin with her other hand to shield herself against Lord Legolas' inevitable anger. Yet he merely quirked an eyebrow in Lord Elladan's direction. "A pity. I was enjoying myself, you know."
"A little too much for my taste."
"But you do deserve it, do you not?" Much to Mehreen's astonishment, Lord Legolas' eyes twinkled with amusement as he clasped his hands together. "Now, where was I?"
"The help that comes in many a shape and form," Lord Elladan supplied.
"Ah, yes. And so, collaboration is at the heart of what we are trying to achieve, here in Bar-Lasbelin, regardless of gender, of race…."
"Have you practiced beforehand?" Tilting his head sideways, Lord Elladan narrowed his eyes. "You sound like Mithrandir. Perhaps have you spent too much time in his company, during this quest of yours."
"A quest that your own father sent me on, in case you have forgotten." Throwing his hands into the air in mock outrage, Lord Legolas sighed. "Very well, I shall be brief. Since you both have expressed regrets, albeit separately, I shall forgo the more dramatic measures at my disposal. You," he jerked his chin towards Lord Elladan, "and you, Mehreen, shall have to collaborate in order to put your past aside. And you –" another sharp nod towards Lord Elladan – "shall finally take an apprentice, though you remain free to decide which."
This time, Lord Elladan made no protest. "This…collaboration," he asked, "you must have decided what it shall be."
"I have. Since you both seem to enjoy the outside, you may as well put such a disposition to good use for the benefit of all." Lord Legolas rested a hand upon the footboard of Mehreen's bed, drumming his fingers in anticipation. "When it comes to old, decrepit things, Déordred's treehouse is not the sole relic that needs attention. There is an old pavilion, up in the hills North of here, falling into ruins. You two shall strive to restore it to its former glory."