To the Limits of the Known World

"Hurry." Legolas put his hand between my shoulder blades and moved me past the stairway that led to my tree room. "We are no longer safe here."

"What?" I furrowed my brow. "What makes you think that?"

"Later."

Before I could say anything in reply, Gimli joined us. He had stayed with Celeborn a moment longer to ask him questions. Legolas, on the other hand, had not grown tired of stressing that I needed to rest more, and had gotten me out of sight as quickly as he could. This had seemed strange to me, but I had not inquired further. Now, however, things looked different.

The Lord of Lorien had accepted Legolas' explanation indifferently, so I wasn't understanding why he was pushing me into the shadows of the forest, his eyes as watchful as if a horde of orcs might descend upon us at any moment. "But what about my belongings?"

"Do you have anything you desperately need?"

I thought about it for a moment, then said, "No, but a cloak would certainly not be a bad idea given the temperatures…"

"You can have mine." He looked around again. "But believe me when I tell you, we have to leave, now." His tone was so urgent that I didn't ask any more questions. Instead, I allowed him to maneuver me between the trees, stumbling forward over branches and loose foliage until Legolas put his arm around my waist and lifted me up unceremoniously. I wanted to protest, but he cut me off, "Shh. You are making far too much noise."

Too much noise. I clenched my teeth, but let him carry me. Because I had to admit: He walked quieter than I did. Much quieter. He moved through the forest like a shadow, and Gimli, too, managed to remain almost as invisible despite his compact stature.

I hardly dared to take a breath, still wondering why Legolas' mood had changed so suddenly. What had he heard that I had not understood? What did he know that I was not aware of? I would have liked to ask all my questions at once, but now was not the time. Whatever he had noticed, we had been incredibly lucky to have talked to Celeborn all day long and well into the evening. If he had let us go after only a few moments, we would now have been exposed to bright daylight, and not even Legolas would have been able to go into hiding under these circumstances - as he was doing now.

Celeborn had questioned me: where I had gotten the stones, who I was, what I was up to. At some point Legolas had stepped in and steered the conversation back to the lore, but Celeborn's gaze had betrayed that he wanted to know more. About me. And a voice in my gut had advised me to tell him as little as possible. Despite his questions, however, he had never seemed threatening to me. Had I been mistaken?

An owl call resounded through the forest and we stopped as abruptly as if an arrow had struck the elf right in the chest. Gimli also stopped. By now my eyes had adjusted to the darkness enough to see the outlines of the trees and the moon, which kept shimmering between the branches and leaves.

Just as silently as he had walked, Legolas now let me slide back to the ground. At the same time he put a finger to his lips and drew his blade. Gimli gripped his axe tighter. Both stood so close to me that the beard hairs of the dwarf tickled my forearm.

What was going on here? Why had we stopped? I tried to make out something other than the dark outlines of the trees, but failed miserably. Cursed were my human eyes, which, moreover, had never been particularly sharp!

"Legolas Thranduilion, what brings you to the woods this late? Three of you at that? Surely you have been told that the foothills of Lorien are unsafe."

A figure peeled out of the shadows, I could only dimly make it out, like the rest of the scenery. But I had a hunch it was an elf, one of those who guarded the borders of Lorien.

"Haldir," Legolas said, sounding both tense and relieved. Something I didn't know how to place. "We must leave Lorien."

"Immediately?" asked the addressed one, stepping closer. He hadn't come alone; around us I noticed other shadows standing back, waiting.

"Yes," Legolas replied, "immediately."

"I was not given orders to escort you to the border of the forest." The elf did not sound suspicious, rather puzzled. "Surely Lord Celeborn would not have let you go without guard."

Legolas beside me tensed. "Celeborn knows nothing of our leaving. It was a sudden decision, we could not wait." He hesitated briefly before adding, "Let us go, we can give no explanations."

Haldir seemed to consider for a moment, but then nodded. "Very well, then. Go with our good wishes. But you should not do this without your horses," he said and I could hear the smile in his voice. "They ran after you, that's the only reason we found you so quickly."

Surprised, I looked around as two elves brought up Arod and Gimli's pony. Only Aescrof was missing. Was I surprised? If I was honest, no.

I didn't have much time to mourn the loss of my horse, because Legolas nodded to me - I was to get on Arod. I did as he asked and saw Gimli climb onto his pony as well. As soon as I pulled myself onto the horse, I heard Haldir say, "Go fast, Legolas Thranduilion. And do not look back."

Again, questions began to circle in my brain: Did Haldir know why we were fleeing? Did he allow us to leave even though he was violating a possible order? No, I could not imagine that. If only I knew what was going on here!

Legolas pulled up behind me on Arod and nodded to Haldir. "I thank you," he said, just loud enough for Haldir to hear. Then he spurred Arod on, and we left Lorien behind as quickly as we had come.

Arod's hooves drummed on the ground. That and the wind passing my ears were the only things I had heard for about two hours. Legolas and I had bent low over the horse's mane to put as much distance between us and Lorien as at all possible. After the first ten minutes, I had remembered that we had barged into Celeborn's realm in exactly the same way, and also what had caused us to do so. I had tried to bring this to Legolas' attention, for I could not imagine that the danger which had brought us to the Woodland Realm had already been banished. But he had put me off until later. Again. And it wasn't until the first rays of sunlight felt their way over the horizon and the forests of Lorien were far behind us that he reined in Arod. "Look, over there."

Through the rising sun, I could finally make out more than passing shadows. With narrowed eyes, I stared toward the horizon. "Is that another forest?"

"Yes." Legolas' voice sounded unmoved, but I knew him well enough by now to tell that he wasn't. "The Greenwood!" When he didn't reply, I turned to see a smirk playing around his lips. "Your home."

The smirk died and I almost regretted adding it when Gimli said, "We shouldn't rest, Legolas. Dol Guldur is still a place of evil, and it is not far from here."

"You are right, my friend." He spurred Arod on again. "We'll follow the foothills to the Men-i-Naugrim."

"The Old Forest Road?" asked Gimli, who had steered his pony beside us. "It runs close to-"

"Aye," Legolas interrupted him. "But it is the quickest way to Esgaroth."

I had been listening to the two of them, and I couldn't shake the feeling that there was so much that was hanging unspoken in the air that I could have nearly reached for it. "Esgaroth? Do we really still want to go there?" I asked.

"More than before," the elf replied, closer to my ear than I would have liked. "We'll find answers there."

"Couldn't Celeborn have given us those? When will you tell me why we fled the forest in a cloak-and-dagger operation like thieves with something to hide? Were we not safe there? What about our pursuers who..." Gimli chuckled, and I paused. Looked at him. "What's so funny?"

"For not talking at all for six days, lass, there are a lot of words coming out of your mouth now."

"I..." I broke off. He was right, after all. Still, I wanted to know what was happening to me. What was happening to us. Why we had left a supposedly safe place in the middle of the night. That seemed to make sense to Legolas as well, for he said, "She has a right to answers, Gimli, and I will give them to you," he continued, addressing me.

"Now?", I echoed, to be on the safe side.

"Yes," he replied, another smirk in his voice. "Now."

He collected himself for a moment while I waited, then continued, "You may not know this, but the Silmarils are a treasure of my people."

"Celeborn has already said that."

"No," Legolas sounded pressed, "he left out what I am about to tell you. I suspect on purpose."

"And that would be?"

"The Silmarils are both a blessing and a curse, they..." He faltered again, clearly having a hard time finding the right words. This worried me, for Legolas had never struck me as someone who was easily unsettled. Gimli came to his rescue, "The stones have never brought any good to the elves, on the contrary, they have brought war and death, not only to their creator Fëanor, but also to his sons, the Noldor, and also to the humans."

"The Noldor?", I asked. Again it struck me that I knew little about Middle Earth and its society beyond the people of Gondor. The simple folk of Minas Tirith was not interested in such topics. For them, what mattered was whether the money was enough for the next meal on the table and the monthly rent. And even if I had theoretically had the opportunity to learn more about the peoples of Middle Earth in the library, my focus had been on other things.

"There are three elven kindreds," Legolas explained as we followed the foothills of the Greenwood. Not at a stretched gallop as before, but fast enough to cover part of the distance by sunset. I estimated that it was a four-day ride to the Old Forest Road. The road ran straight through the Greenwood and was marked on every map - one of the reasons I knew it. "The Vanyar, the Noldor, and the Teleri. They are all descended from the Eldar."

"And you are what kind of elf?", I asked with my head slightly cocked to the side. It still irritated me that Legolas was sitting behind me.

"My kindred, the Sindar, are descended from the Teleri," he replied.

"So the three original elven clans have split further?"

"Correct."

"And Fëanor was a Noldor elf?", I concluded.

"He wasn't just an elf, he was a king. The first king of the Noldor. And he led them to their doom. Many battles were fought for the Silmarils, and many elves lost their lives for them. Had Fëanor not believed the lies of Morgoth, many things would surely have turned out differently."

My head was buzzing from all the new information, but I wasn't ready to give up yet. The journey ahead was long, and I hadn't begun to understand why Legolas believed we had no longer been safe in Lorien. "Who is Morgoth?", I therefore asked.

"Now it gets interesting," Gimli said, and I could see the mischievous gleam in his eye. I had a bad feeling about this. This was turning more and more into a history lesson - something Legolas seemed to love, recalling our conversation on the rock. The only problem was: it wasn't my history, and the sheer amount of names was making me all giddy.

Legolas continued, "Morgoth was originally one of the Ainur, beings that arose from the thoughts of Eru Ilúvatar, the One, at the beginning of all days. Some of them descended to Arda, the Valar for example, and the Maia. But also dark beings, like Melkor, whom Fëanor later named Morgoth. He poisoned the minds of the elves and drew Fëanor to his side."

Gimli nodded in agreement. "He stirred up a rebellion, which many elves joined. Fëanor was banished as a result."

"So was Galadriel," Legolas added, and I perked up. Even if I couldn't quite grasp it yet, I guessed what he was getting at. Why we had left Lorien in such a hurry. "They were forbidden to return to Valinor - one of the reasons Galadriel stayed so long in Middle Earth." He paused briefly to look around. I, too, glanced over my shoulder, but the morning was so bright and clear that we would have seen our enemies coming from afar. They still remained in hiding - or perhaps they still suspected us in Lorien. Either way, I wanted to know more, "What does this have to do with the Silmarils?"

"Well," Legolas replied, "Melkor, or Morgoth, or whatever we may call him, desired the Silmarils. Just as the elves did, and the Valar. He destroyed the two trees Laurelin and Telperion, so that their light died. Only the Silmarils still contained some of it, so the Valar wanted to take possession of them to make the trees shine again. But Morgoth also wanted to possess the Silmarils, and so he killed Fëanor's father Finwe, with whom the Silmarils had been stored, and took the stones. Fëanor then cursed him and swore war on anyone who would try to deprive him of the Silmarils."

"And so he did."

"Yes."

I ran my hand over my face. "Sounds like the stones would bring bad luck to anyone who has them in their grasp."

"I suppose you could assume that," Legolas replied.

"What happened to them after Morgoth took them? Does he still possess them?"

Gimli shook his head. "Two of them have disappeared, into sea and into earth - another sad tale for which there is not enough time to tell."

"Only one Silmaril was returned to the Valar. You can see it in the sky every night. A mortal, Beren, of all people, dared to break the Silmaril from Morgoth's iron crown out of love for Lúthien, an elf. As a result, he was allowed to take her as his wife." He had said the last sentence very quietly, sorrowfully almost. I frowned. "How did their story end?"

"They found each other." Legolas' voice still sounded occupied, and I sensed he didn't want to talk about it any further. "But at a high price. Love between Elves and Men is an impossibility that demands much of both."

Involuntarily, I had to swallow. I was more aware of his proximity than ever before, and I couldn't say what I should respond to that. Why did I have the feeling that he had meant more than just Beren and Lúthien with his last words?

With a clearing of my throat, I steered the conversation back to Lorien: "And that's why we had to flee Lorien? Because Galadriel was on Fëanor's side?"

"Oh no," Legolas said, "she was not on his side. She hated him for tempting her to rebel against the Valar. But she was too proud to ask forgiveness, and so she stayed in Middle Earth."

"But?"

"Nevertheless, she is a Noldor Elf. She is descended in a straight line from Finwe, who was Fëanor's father. And her husband, Celeborn, is on her side and will act on her behalf, even if she is no longer in Middle Earth."

"So she still desires, the elves still desire, the Silmarils?"

To this he didn't reply, but he didn't have to. Like Celeborn's silence before, Legolas' silence told me enough. The Silmarils didn't just seem dangerous, they were the ultimate temptation. Elves were among the wisest and most powerful beings I had ever known. If even more powerful beings were after the Silmarils, what could I do to stop them? Was I even supposed to?

And something else flashed through my mind like a warning signal: the elves desired the Silmarils. Legolas was an elf. I bit my lower lip, "What about you?"

Again he took his time answering and I stiffened, feeling his body behind me. I didn't want to doubt him, not again. After all, I had just learned to trust him. "You're afraid I'm going to take the stones away from you," he said bluntly.

"So?", I asked. "Will you?"

"The Silmarils have led to no good in the hands of my people," he replied, "I think they are better off with you. But..."

"But?"

"Now that I know what this is all about, I will protect you. I will not let the Silmarils destroy again what we have fought for. And if that means taking you to the limits of the known world and beyond, I will do so."

I felt my heart beating so hard in my throat as if it was about to jump out. "What if I don't want to go back?", I whispered.