Clouded Senses

Legolas' words sent small sparks through my body. None that felt bad, and not comparable to the feeling that astral travel had triggered in me. Quite the opposite. Still: I had a feeling of déjà vu. What if this ended up just like the last time I had acknowledged my feelings for him?

Carefully, I placed a hand on his chest and pushed him a few inches away. I could feel his heartbeat under my fingertips. "Is this true?"

He gently trailed the hand of his healthy arm over mine. "Yes, I… yes."

Part of me was all too eager to believe him, another remembered far too vividly how dismissive he had been in the tavern, and also the conversation he had had with Gimli. "What has changed?" I therefore asked quietly. "Why now?"

I felt him exhale. "I wanted you to leave, but you stayed. Even when that meant you were not only putting yourself in danger, but were on the verge of dying. Why did you do that?"

Another spark twitched through my body, for he had put his finger right inside the wound. Was this the day of truth? It almost appeared that way. "It's not a nice way to answer a question with a counter question."

His chest vibrated under a brief smirk. "Sometimes I think I've got you figured out, and then you're just as secretive as the day we first met. Even when I've just revealed my heart to you."

"I... what?" I didn't understand what he was getting at, and something inside me felt offended by what he had implied. Therefore, I took a step back and withdrew my hand from him. "What do you mean?"

"I mean," he said calmly, "that I can't read you. I find it easy with everyone else, it's just with you… I don't know what you're going to do next."

With a little snort, I shook my head. "Don't you think it's kind of ironic that you, of all people, would say that to me?" When he opened his mouth to retort, I cut him off, "First you said you're an elf, that's why you don't want to be with me. Then you said you're a prince, that's why you can't. And finally, you were repelled by the fact that I will grow old. You brought up every reason possible to keep me at an arm's length, and yet here you are, telling me you love me? I'm sorry, but if anybody of us is ambivalent, it's you."

He held my gaze for a moment, then looked to the side and toward the fire. His jaw was clenched. "So you heard our conversation."

"There was no way missing it." I hesitated briefly because I wasn't sure if what was on the tip of my tongue should really be voiced, but I decided in favor of it, "And I don't think there's anything that will change that fact. Someday, in a few decades, all of this," I pointed towards my body, "will have passed. Are you sure you really want me and not just the version of me you wish you had?"

An idealized Aspen, as she could be. If I weren't a goddamn human. But there was nothing I could do about my nature and I didn't want to. He either embraced me as I was or accepted that we weren't right for each other.

"You wanted to go home. That's why we left in the first place."

"What does that have to do with anything?"

"You never intended to stay in Arda. So how do you think I should have behaved? There was never much of a future for us."

The last sentence drilled into my chest like an arrow. Painful and all too true. Why was everything so complicated whenever we talked about our feelings? "I told you I wasn't sure anymore. You were the one accusing me of not being me if I changed my goals. So… I kept pursuing them. I can't help it that we are where we are now."

"No, you can't."

"But?"

"You needed me, still do." He grabbed the back of his neck and closed his eyes briefly. "I never knew if you were with me because you wouldn't be able to complete your task without me, or because... because you wanted to be with me."

"That's..." I broke off. I hadn't looked at it from this, his perspective, and I was overcome with the hunch that I should have done it much sooner.

"I wasn't sure what it was that was keeping you with me, so I looked for reasons not to keep me with you," he continued.

For a heartbeat, I stared at him. Then I said, "What if it was a little of both?" He lowered his eyes, but I saw the disappointment in them before he could hide it, and I knew I had said the wrong thing. "Legolas…"

"We should discuss what to do next with Maglor," he tried to change the subject. "Still, we need to keep a watchful eye on him. I don't trust him."

I looked at him intently, but without answering. Even though this place was different and so much had happened in the meantime, the situation reminded me way too much of one we had been in before. It happened in Minas Tirith. We had been dancing around each other for quite some time, neither of us wanting to reveal too much of ourselves to the other, until Legolas had finally decided to let his guard down. "Are you telling me the reason you want the scroll back?", I had asked. And he had replied, "Aye, somebody's got to start it."

And suddenly I saw it. More clear than ever before. He had let me get close to him then, to show me that I could trust him. He had revealed a piece of himself to me so I wouldn't be afraid to do the same. And he had done just that again a moment ago, building a golden bridge for me through his confession, a bridge that all I really had to do was cross. But I had been too stubborn to realize that at that minute. After all, we both wanted the same thing, didn't we? So why couldn't I bring myself to let him know what I had felt the second I had laid my head on his chest on the grassy plain?

"Aspen?"

With a quick blink, I looked down at the ground. My palms felt all sweaty. I hesitated for an instant before asking, "Do all the reasons you gave me really no longer matter?"

"Let's not talk about it anymore, you've made your point." He was not willing to give me any more ground. His tone left no doubt about that.

"No."

"No?" He raised an eyebrow.

"You want to know why I stayed with you, out there?"

He looked at me with a waiting expression, his face almost blank. And I understood that he was just as unsure as I was. So I gave in, "When I told you about my origins, back in the city, I was hiding something. I didn't tell you that the real reason I wanted to go back home was because I... felt like I was on one side of an abyss, while everyone else was on the other side. I couldn't cross that abyss because I was too different. I lived in Minas Tirith, but I was no part of it."

Legolas said nothing, only listened. I was grateful for that, because I still found it incredibly difficult to say what was about to follow: "You were the only one who showed me that although the abyss will always be there, there are bridges that can help me get to the other side." I bit my lip. Damn it, that was way too cryptic and complicated. I barely understood what I was saying myself. "What… what I really want to say… is that you have shown me that Middle Earth can be a home. You've become my home, and I can't imagine a world without you in it."

I sensed the heat in my cheeks and the violent beating of my heart. All at once I felt naked and exposed, like that one time on the balustrade when I had confessed to Legolas who I really was. I didn't dare lift my gaze, because that would have meant seeing what he was thinking.

But the feeling didn't last long, because the elf closed the distance between us almost immediately. Cautiously, he reached out for me, as if afraid that I would run away again. But not this time. Not ever again.

With a quick inhale, I bridged the last few inches and wrapped my arms around his neck. Pressed my face to his chest. He embraced me and ran his fingers through my hair. And for the very first time, I allowed the butterflies in my stomach to fly free.

"Why didn't you tell me before?" he asked after a long while.

Well. Why hadn't I? "I was scared. So were you." Pause. "Besides, your father threatened me with the cells of the Woodland Realm if I even thought of taking this further, don't you remember?"

"He can be a real charmer," Legolas replied dryly. "You have nothing to fear from him; he has no say in how I live my life."

"What about all the other things?" Even though I never wanted to let go of the sensation that had taken hold of me, part of me knew it wasn't going to be that easy. For Legolas' reasons for distancing himself from me were still valid. More than that, "I will die, Legolas, sooner rather than later, even more so now that I finally know what my purpose is here in Middle Earth. You will lose me. And... and I don't want to wake up tomorrow just to find out that you can no longer live with that truth." The fact that I said that nestled against his neck made it all the more grim.

He pulled me even tighter into his embrace. "Do not cast all hope away."

"Well, as far as that part went, neither Maglor nor Morgoth sounded particularly cheerful...", I muttered.

"Tomorrow is unkown. If I've learned anything in all the years I've spent on Arda, it's that no one, not even the most powerful and wise, can foresee all intentions."

I sighed because he was right. Still, I couldn't help thinking why he had changed his mind now, of all times. So I asked, "What has made the difference for you?" It was the question that mattered most, at least to me.

Legolas' fingers played with the ends of my hair as he sought the right words. Finally, he said, "We cannot change who we are. But I can choose to no longer see our dissimilarities as an obstacle, but as an opportunity. Something has brought us together and I... can no longer fight it. Nor do I want to," he added.

"Even if that means you have to let me go?"

He stroked my hair again. "Aye, even then," he said softly. And while he was saying it, I knew it was true. This realization made me feel calmer. All the weeks I had spent pushing aside what was between us seemed wasted in that moment. Our time together was limited, why had we spent so much of it in denial?

Legolas might have read my thoughts, for he asked, "And what about you, Aspen?"

I raised my head. At that, our gazes intertwined as impossibly as they had at our very first encounter. "What do you mean?"

"Are you going to keep fighting back?"

Something in his voice sent a shivering sensation to the pit of my stomach, and I instinctively held my breath. I had a hard time concentrating on his question because the blue of his eyes was so intense that I just couldn't look away. "No," I finally whispered. "I think I've done that long enough."

"I think so, too," he said, taking my face in both hands despite the fact that his injured arm was still supported by the cloth loop Maglor had put on Legolas earlier. His breath brushed my lips in the process, followed by his thumb. I nestled my cheek in his palm and closed my eyes. My whole body was tense like a bowstring just before its release. Filled with something like pure adrenaline rushing through my veins, pulling me with it into its depths, only to catapult me back to the surface thereafter.

When he kissed me this time, he was not as gentle. As if he wanted to test whether I kept my word. And even though I was good at lying, I didn't break a promise once given. So I leaned into the kiss, returning the pressure of his lips, feeling him tense. But it wasn't until I sucked playfully on his lower lip that I understood it was not caution holding him back, but self-control trying to guide his want.

His barely maintained distance was now crumbling bit by bit. He demanded more, faster, which only intensified the feverish sensation in my body. His right, injured hand slid from my cheek to the back of my head and down my neck, his left one following the curve of my shoulder until it found my waist. As he did so, his thumb ran along the outside of my breast.

My body responded instinctively to his touch, something I hadn't expected. As I noticed my back arching to get closer to him, to feel his chest against mine, a sigh escaped my mouth. The sound brought us back to reality, or at least far enough away from the feverish dream state that Legolas parted his lips from mine.

I took a shaky breath, feeling the heat throbbing not only in my cheeks, but in between us. And I knew that I clearly wanted more than just the kiss we just shared. His gaze betrayed that he was no better off than I, and when he spoke, his voice sounded husky: "This... is the wrong place and the wrong time…"

I wasn't ready to give up on the idea completely yet, and neither was he. I could tell by the way his eyes kept returning to my lips. "Is that so?", I asked, and had to smirk when I noticed the tips of his ears reddening. Oh no, even though he was trying to be the voice of reason, he wasn't very convincing in that. "Is it the time and place, or perhaps more the fact that we are still stained with orc blood?"

"It certainly adds to it," he admitted. He, too, was still breathless, but the longer our lips stopped finding each other, the more I sensed Legolas's restraint reemerging. And I suspected that there might be more to it than just the fact that Maglor could be standing in the cave at any moment with Gimli and Beleg in tow. But eliciting that reason from Legolas would probably require some patience.

"Well," I said therefore, brushing a strand of hair behind his ear, "I guess that's not the worst reason to wait."

A small smile played around the corners of his mouth and for the first time in a long while I saw the mischief flash in his eyes again. He leaned forward and whispered right next to my ear, "Seems to me that's something you only offer under protest, Meleth nîn**."

A shiver ran down my spine at his words and I felt myself blush. Was he really teasing me with the attraction I felt for him right now? When I looked up, I saw that it was exactly what he had intended. And more than that. All right, though, if he wanted to play this game... I pursed my lips, "And to me it seems that you, Milord, have slightly underestimated your own principles."

"Possibly," he replied, amused.

I took a step back, which he observed closely. But he did not stop me. "In order to avoid straining our noses any longer, especially my own, I'm going to go clean myself," I said. "Since I'm sure you don't want to tempt your newfound faithfulness, I suggest you wait back there." My hand gestured toward the cave entrance.

"Your wish is my command, Lirimaer**," he replied with a laugh before turning and walking in the indicated direction. Part of me wanted to call him back, but my pride was simply too strong. So, shaking my head, I turned to the tub Maglor had prepared as the feathery footsteps of Legolas moved away.

I had no idea what just happened. But perhaps the cold water would revive my clouded senses.

** my love

** beautiful