Aiër Chapter 24
When Shëanon returned to her room she had meant to sleep, for in truth she felt drained and depleted from the emotion she had endured, and was ready at last to rest as Legolas and Aragorn had bid her. She remembered how she had felt to awaken in the morning, as though she had been stripped of some armor, only now despite still feeling the terrifying loss of it, she felt also the relief to be so unburdened, as though she had not realized how heavy it had been until she was rid of it. Before she could climb into bed however there was a knock upon the door, and though for an instant Shëanon worried that it would be Legolas returning, when she opened it she found not her companion but several women waiting in the hall with the large tub she had bathed in when first the company had come to Edoras. The women said they had been sent by Éowyn, and that there was to be a feast in the great hall at dusk, and they brought also a scarlet gown for her to wear.
Shëanon sat in the bath for a very long time, listening to the sounds of the city. Indeed there must have been a feast to come; she could hear the footsteps hurrying to and fro in the corridor beyond her door, and the din of people outside her window.
She sank down in the water and closed her eyes. She had had her day of solitude, but she knew that she would see Legolas if she donned the scarlet dress and went into the golden hall for the banquet. Beneath the water she ran her fingers over the burn marks on her legs, her stomach fluttering nervously. The memory of his tenderness and fierce resolve the night before was an ache inside of her, the way he had held her more inflammatory than anything he had yet done. When he had lain behind her, their bodies touching from head to toe? The way he had brushed away her tears, listened to her deepest secrets? Shëanon had never known such intimacy with another person. She wanted it as much as she feared it. She felt as though Legolas held her heart in his hand to see all the most tender parts up close, as though the night before she had shown him every crack, every fault line, every fissure and old, scabbed-over laceration, the parts that were the softest and the parts that were the most brittle, drawing for him a map of all the easiest places he might break it.
Shëanon thought of him holding her down as Aragorn healed her in the keep, and of the things she had said to him the night before, and she blushed furiously, cringing; but then she thought of standing with him in the glade not three days earlier, of the look upon his face when he had asked if his feelings were so unclear to her—the sound of his voice as he had asked her to trust him—and she blushed all the harder. As her bath water grew cold Shëanon felt heat in her, as though Legolas had kindled a fire beneath her skin.
'Elbereth,' she thought. 'How will I face him?'
The light that came in through the window was fading, dusk drawing near, and the water in the tub was chilled. Shëanon looked at the red dress, where she had laid it upon the bed.
Had she not faced orcs and Uruk-hai and Saruman himself? How could she have faced such evil and yet find herself so terrified to face him?
Drawing a deep breath, Shëanon rose from the tub. She wrung out her hair and combed it before the warmth of the fireplace, letting it dry, and instead of a braid she left most of it loose, pulling only two small pieces of hair back from her temples to plait. Next she picked up the red gown. It was of very fine make, different in style to anything she had ever worn before, and lovely enough that she was sure it too must have come from Éowyn. She put on fresh bandages as best she could without Aragorn's help, and then she donned the dress and slipped quietly from her room.
Never before had she seen so many people crowded into the great hall. It seemed to her that half the city had been admitted. Many more long tables had been brought inside, and even more wooden benches. Great banners had been hung from the walls and ceiling. There was much that Shëanon did not know about the Rohirrim or their culture, but she guessed that the dark flags emblazoned with the shapes of rearing horses were meant to pay respect to those who had fallen at Helm's Deep. Dozens of torches sat in sconces beneath the tall windows, and great fires had been lit in the corners of the room. The doors around the hall stood open to the evening air so that she could see even more people waiting outside in the hopes of hearing the king speak.
At the first table nearest to the front of the hall sat her companions; Pippin stood and waved to catch her attention when she entered, but he needn't have—Shëanon had seen Legolas at once. He wore once more the shining silver tunic she remembered from their time in Lothlórien, and sat straight backed and calm beside Gandalf at the far side of the table. He had seen her, too—she had watched him turn when she had come in, but Shëanon did not meet his gaze.
Drawing a trembling breath she crossed the room to the company, hesitating only for a moment before taking a seat at the bench between Aragorn and Merry. Legolas, Gandalf, and Gimli sat on the other side, but as they all awaited the king and the speech he would surely give, everyone on the closer side of the long tables to the dais and to Théoden's throne was seated backwards on the benches, facing the head of the hall instead of the tabletops and the flagons of drink upon them. Shëanon was privately glad, for Legolas sat directly behind her, and would be directly across from her if she turned back towards the table to eat, but she was not quite ready to speak with him yet. Not surrounded by all of their companions, not after what had transpired between them in her bed during the night.
"Milady," Merry grinned, lifting his drink in greeting as she arrived.
"My lady," Pippin said dramatically, with a low bow and flourish in her direction.
"Master hobbits," she smiled.
"Are you feeling better?" Pippin asked, and Shëanon grimaced to think about the day before, how she had worn her distress so clearly upon her face before her companions.
"Much better, thank you."
Aragorn handed her a tankard of mead and shook his head at her.
"I would say you look well-rested" he leaned in and murmured near her ear, sounding stern. "But I know that you saw fit to embark on a journey that lasted all the morning and afternoon."
Shëanon looked at him and frowned. The journey she had taken, she knew, was nothing of the sort he seemed to be imagining.
"Next time I will heed the orders of my healer," she promised.
Aragorn raised his eyebrows skeptically but could say no more, for suddenly a single horn sounded, clear and deep, and the hum of voices was at once hushed beneath the vaulted ceiling. A guardsman at the back of the room called out to herald the arrival of the king, and the men and women throughout the vast chamber leapt to their feet to hail their lord as he entered. Shëanon craned her head to see—Éomer had come in first, and then Éowyn, and then at last Théoden walked the long length of the hall and came to stand upon the dais. She remembered the first time she had seen them, their family divided and desolate: Éomer banished, Théoden withered upon his throne, and Éowyn stricken by grief and despair. Now as they stood all three in raiments of shining gold and silver beneath the bright torches, after the horror and triumph of Helm's Deep, they appeared to her as changed as a forest at the end of a long winter—renewed and crowned by the vitality of awakened spring, and yet weathered still by the marks of ice and snow upon bare branches.
Éowyn procured a gleaming chalice and bowed before her uncle, and before the crowd the king accepted the goblet and held it aloft. For a moment Shëanon was not sure what would come next; a feast, she knew, but of mourning or celebration? But then Théoden spoke in a loud, ringing voice so that she was certain he was heard even at the back of the hall and beyond, and his words were somber, and the faces of Éowyn and Éomer were grave.
"Tonight," Théoden called, "we remember those who gave their blood to defend this country. Our loss is great, but theirs is not, for they walk with their fathers in honor, their enemies defeated, their families made safe." He raised the chalice. "Hail the victorious dead!"
As one, the Rohirrim raised their tankards high, their answer like thunder.
"Hail!"
Shëanon lifted her cup to her lips and drank in kind. She did not call to mind the faces of the men and elves she had seen cut down; she did not ever want to think of it—thought perhaps she could not bear it if she did—but she said a prayer to Mandos for their spirits in sorrow.
Théoden watched for a moment his people honor their fallen kinsman, and he allowed for a long pause before he spoke again.
"These days have been dark," he said, "and we have faced many evils. Our crops have been burned. Our homes have been pillaged. We have seen our children orphaned, our sisters widowed, and our sons slain."
He paused again as before him his subjects joined hands, clasped the shoulders of their neighbors, and bowed their heads. Shëanon heard his last words with grief, thinking again of the simbelmynë beyond the city gates, and the agony upon his face when she had seen him learn of his son's death.
He continued.
"A shadow has been long upon us," he nodded, "but we have endured through the long hours of night. We have outlasted the plundering hoards of Isengard. We have weathered the black spells of the white wizard. We have done battle against an army of ten thousand foes, and we have prevailed. And so I say this to our enemies, those who are vanquished, and those who yet stand to set their wills against us: by our blood and valor, by the might of our spears and by the strength of our bonds, Rohan will not so easily fall."
Again the Rohirrim let out a mighty cry, but the king it seemed was not yet done.
"And I say this unto you, my people, and my kin: the battle of Helm's Deep will be remembered through the ages, and our children's children will sing of our great deeds, but it will not be the last song they sing, nor the last battle we must fight. This victory marks not the end, and I cannot say what will follow."
The Rohirrim had fallen silent. Beside her on the bench Shëanon was aware that Aragorn had gone utterly still, even while throughout the hall the crowd seemed to shift uneasily.
Théoden's gaze roved visibly over the room, and the silence became absolute.
"But I promise you this," he vowed. He no longer spoke loudly, but he did not need to, for in the quiet his every word carried. "Upon the grave of my father, and of his father, and of all my forebears ere the beginning of days: if the kingdom of Rohan should crumble, then my own body shall lie beneath the ruins, for only by my death will this country be defeated, and I will perish sooner than see our blood spent, our valor failed, our spears bent, or our bonds broken."
No one moved or spoke, and even Shëanon felt a chill prick her spine as the words hung in the air.
"But let us know no evil this night," Théoden said at length. "Find joy where joy can still be found."
At that, he turned and sat upon his throne so wearily that Shëanon felt weary herself just to behold it. The silence lingered for a moment later, the people of Edoras perhaps bewildered, and then at last the spell seemed to be lifted. Food was brought out and set upon the long tables, and those facing the king stood and turned to face the table and the victory feast being laid before them.
"What meaning did you take from that?" Shëanon whispered to Aragorn as they turned on the bench.
Aragorn met her gaze grimly.
"That the mind of the king is greatly troubled," he murmured in return. To Shëanon it had seemed more than troubled—while some she knew might have thought it the king's promise never to let Rohan fall, to her ears Théoden had seemed to suggest their doom was near at hand.
"Not a speech to rouse the appetite," Gimli rumbled on the other side of the table.
"My appetite doesn't need rousing," Merry shrugged, piling his plate high with potatoes.
"It was no speech," Gandalf said, "but an oath of great significance."
Shëanon dared to look at him, not forgetting his words from the day before: that he planned to speak to her about Isengard.
"Or a forewarning," she said.
Gandalf looked at her gravely, and for a long time.
"So it may be."
"Well I heard what last he said," Gimli huffed. "And I'll take more joy in this pork with less talk of warning and ruin."
The dwarf then set an entire platter of chicken down before Legolas.
"Give the lassie the drumsticks—have you no idea how to woo a lady?"
Shëanon put down her mead and turned to Gimli in wide-eyed astonishment, but the dwarf paid no mind to her shock.
Legolas looked at him and raised his eyebrows.
"Woo a lady? I think perhaps the ways of our people differ in this," he said with good humor. "For we do not win the hearts of elven maidens with roast chicken."
"Any heart can be moved by good food!" Gimli protested stubbornly. "But you might be right about the chicken—the lass lost blood on the field of battle. It'll be red meat she needs."
"My heart can be wooed by the chicken," Pippin called from down the table, reaching for the platter. "So if you'll just pass that back—"
Shëanon handed it to him in a daze, watching incredulously as Gimli got another tray of meat, and tolerantly Legolas put a few cuts of beef on her plate.
"Hannon le," she managed, strained.
"You will have to tell us if it moves your heart," Legolas said with a glance in Gimli's direction, and beside him the dwarf began sputtering that Legolas would not know good advice if it cut him with an axe.
"He is right that you should eat it," Aragorn murmured, looking at their companions in exasperation as Legolas, grinning, began to insinuate that dwarves were unskilled in the ways of courtship.
Shëanon averted her gaze and ate in silence—in part because she was indeed very hungry, having forgone supper the night before and breakfast in the morning; in part because she was so taken aback by the exchange she had just witnessed; and in part because being so near to Legolas made her as nervous now as it had at the very beginning of their journey—perhaps more so, for leaving Rivendell he had been a stranger to her, but now she had been all but laid bare before him, and meant to be so again.
After eating, Gandalf rose to have words with Théoden, and Aragorn was engaged in conversation by Gamling, and Gimli and Legolas left the table together. Privately Shëanon was glad when they left; every time she looked at Legolas she felt herself grow tenser and tenser, thinking about what she had to say to him later. It was a welcome reprieve to sit instead with Merry and Pippin in laughter and high spirits, thoughts of scars and secrets and visions fleeting. The two hobbits had learned of all that had come to pass since the breaking of the fellowship at Amon Hen from the others while Shëanon had been absent, but she had still not heard what had happened to the two of them after their parting beyond what little they had hinted at Isengard. She asked them about it as they took seconds and thirds of all the food before them, refilling their tankards with ale. The tale they wove for her was at times terrifying and at times incredible, both of them skilled storytellers, and at the end she had to keep from laughing, her ribs hurting from the force of it.
"You're lying," she gasped, shaking her head.
The hall had grown loud and warm as the night had lengthened, the Rohirrim raucous in their merriment. Men and women alike were red-faced with drink—even Shëanon was having more mead than she was taken to—and somewhere a fiddler had begun playing music, one of the great tables pushed aside to make room for dancing.
"Can't you tell?" Pippin demanded.
"No," she smiled, stifling more laughter.
With a determined look he leapt to his feet before her.
"I grew three inches!" he insisted, drawing himself to his full height. Shëanon smiled again, sure he and Merry were greatly embellishing their story, but then she looked more closely and her laughter faded, for indeed the hobbit did perhaps look a bit taller...
"An Ent-draught?" she asked warily. "Are you certain—?"
"You're looking at the tallest hobbit in the history of the Shire," Pippin beamed.
"I think you mean second tallest, Pip, because as we established, I'm now the tallest hobbit in the history of the Shire—"
"How could you be the tallest hobbit when I'm taller than you are, then—?"
Shëanon watched them argue with a smile, but seeing their antics she felt a sudden lump in her throat, thinking first of the awful instant she had feared them both dead and burned in the pile of Uruk-hai carcasses, and then of that last moment she had seen them carried off by the Uruk-hai, knowing she couldn't save them. She suddenly pictured Frodo and Sam alone somewhere dark and cold, away from the great feast and bright fires of Meduseld. Who was to say what dangers they had faced since last they'd seen them? So much had happened to her and to the rest of the company since that fateful day at Amon Hen—had Frodo and Sam's path been so trying? It felt strange to celebrate when they had no idea what had happened to them, and stranger still to think about their quest. Before, even though they had known Frodo and Sam were going on without them, they had been occupied by their own trials: the desperate pursuit of Merry and Pippin, the battle of Helm's Deep, and the ride to Isengard... Now, in this lull, during this feast, doubt and worry seized her—
"Will the lady honor me with a dance?"
Shëanon looked over her shoulder, startled.
Tall and golden-haired, Éomer stood before her with his hand outstretched. He seemed to have shed whatever grief he had been carrying at the start of the feast, for he no longer appeared the brooding and formidable nephew of the king, but kindhearted and fair, and he looked down at her expectantly. Shëanon was so bewildered that for a moment she didn't know what to say. Then her eyes cut behind him to the lines of people dancing. She could see at once that it was no dance she had ever learned in Rivendell.
"I do not know the steps," she apologized, offering Éomer a small, contrite smile.
He raised his eyebrows at her.
"You must be fleet of foot," he pointed out, "to fight as well in battle as I have heard tell. Surely you cannot be bested by a dance such as this."
Now Shëanon raised her eyebrows.
"My healer would not like it," she told him plainly, and at last the man grinned, and the change it had upon his face was such that she hardly recognized him for the same hard horseman who had once so bitterly told her that hope had forsaken Rohan. He nodded toward the back of the hall, where Shëanon could see Aragorn standing, his back turned toward them.
"We will not tell him," he smiled, holding out his hand again. "And the dance is slow; I think he could not begrudge you it."
For one moment longer Shëanon hesitated. She wasn't of a mind for dancing, worrying still over Frodo and Sam and the Ring, and indeed perhaps more still over Legolas, and she was unsure if her injuries would permit it, but she considered what Éomer had said... she had ridden all the way from Isengard with her wounds, had she not? And she also knew it would be very rude to refuse any man of Rohan, and the king's nephew especially so. Then suddenly Merry and Pippin leapt up from the table and hurried toward Aragorn and the others, exclaiming in outrage about some contest being held without them, and she found herself left alone at the table with no excuse to decline Éomer's request. Shëanon blinked and watched them go, disconcerted.
"They speak of your companions," Éomer explained, seeing it seemed how her eyes tracked Merry and Pippin to the back of the hall. He turned back to Shëanon with a wry tilt of his lips. "A contest between Elf and Dwarf to prove which race is of mightier fortitude."
"Fortitude?" Her brow furrowed.
Éomer cast her a meaningful look.
"In the face of the king's ale."
Shëanon's mouth fell open, and she twisted around again to look, but she could not see Aragorn or the others any longer. She looked back at Éomer, stunned.
"Legolas and Gimli are having a drinking contest?" she asked incredulously.
"In truth I think the contest is over," he told her plainly. Shëanon stared at him, waiting for him to share what had happened, and the man's eyes sparkled as though he could see that she was hanging on his every word.
When it became clear he would not elaborate Shëanon pressed.
"Who was the winner?"
Looking down at her, his face showed outright surprise.
"Who do you think?" he asked.
Again she looked over her shoulder to seek her companions in the crowd, but all that could be seen were the throngs of merrymaking Rohirrim. She bit her lip. In truth, she wasn't sure who would have won. She knew Elves had a much greater tolerance for alcohol than did Men, and the drinks of the Rohirrim were not as strong as the liquors of her people, but she had no notion of how much Gimli could imbibe nor indeed what was usual for a Dwarf in general. Over the course of their time together she had gleaned that he was much like the hobbits in their habits of eating and drinking—taken to hardy food and stout beers and ales, and enjoying much of it... If it was his custom to take many drinks with his kin at night...? Her guess would still be that Legolas had bested him, but would Gimli have kept pace long enough for Legolas to feel the effects of their game? The thought of him partaking in such a thing at all surprised her—she turned back to Éomer in fascination.
"The good Master Dwarf could not keep his feet," he said at last, smiling.
Could not keep his feet! Shëanon gaped at him.
"Is Legolas drunk as well?"
Éomer seemed to consider.
"I'm not sure if I would know it if he was," he said diplomatically at length. "If you wish to take your leave to find out—"
Flushing, Shëanon rose at once, shaking her head, aghast at her poor manners. She had completely forgotten that the man had been asking her to dance, so taken aback was she by what he had said.
"I would be honored to dance with you, my lord," she said. She gave him her hand and allowed him to lead her towards the dancing, though still her mind was racing with the implications of Legolas in a drinking contest. "But you will have to teach me."
"The steps are simple," he promised, and indeed as he showed her she saw that he was right. Still he held her hand in his, leading her through the dance, and it struck her abruptly as incredible that he had asked to dance with her after having accused her of spying for the enemy just a few days before.
"I would never have guessed," she said evenly as he drew her into the line and into the rhythm of the music, "when first we met that we would share a dance together so soon after."
Éomer grinned.
"I thought you would say you would not have guessed I could dance."
"I wouldn't have," she conceded, blushing; indeed she was surprised that Éomer would dance at all.
"You are right, for I cannot," he smirked, "leastways not like an Elf. But seldom do we have such guests in our halls."
He turned her to the tune of the fiddle, and she laughed as he mused to her that she danced as a mare running swift in a meadow and he like a foal not yet mastered in walking. As the dance progressed the partners changed, and Shëanon found herself joining hands with one horseman after another, and the face of each man was merrier than the last, the joy and exultation they all took in the celebration apparent and contagious. She smiled as the steps carried her back and forth, grinning as the dancers whooped and the onlookers clapped to the tune, until at last she was before Éomer once more. Then Shëanon faltered, for as she danced she thought of moving with these same people in battle, of employing their bodies to the effort of barring the doors of the keep against the battering ram of the Uruk-hai just as now they joined and moved together to dance. She realized that, having fought alongside them and having endured that bleak fate together... she felt an affinity for the people of Rohan that she would not have thought possible when first she had arrived. Well she remembered her unease when they had come to Edoras, and she frowned. There had been a time when Shëanon had thought of the Edain with distrust and fear—when she had been ashamed of her mortal blood. Now, having seen the valor of Théoden and the loyalty of Éomer, the tenacity and grief and joy of their countrymen...
For many years she had thought Aragorn and the Dúnedain the exception, the few Men of virtue and honor, and all others she had held in doubt. Standing in the Golden Hall, while the Rohirrim laughed and danced around her, she felt deeply ashamed.
The dance ended. Éomer smiled crookedly and asked if she would care to dance another, but Shëanon could not continue. Her ribs were hurting from the exertion and her panting, and her head was swimming dizzily. Gallantly he took her arm and escorted her back to her table.
"My lady," he bowed, releasing her hand.
Shëanon inclined her head.
"Thank you for the dance," she said, earnest.
Éomer did not smile anymore, however, appearing suddenly very thoughtful—more thoughtful even than his uncle had looked standing before his throne.
"I am glad that you found your halfling companions," he said finally. "It troubled me greatly to think we had done harm to them."
Shëanon blinked, surprised and touched.
"I am glad, too," she said.
With that he was gone, and Shëanon was left deep in thought. She stood for a moment looking after him, and then she turned back to the table.
Merry and Pippin were still gone, and no one else was anywhere to be found either, and the noise in the hall had only grown louder. Shëanon bit her lip and went in search of her companions—trying to find Aragorn or the hobbits. She wove through the enlivened crowd, wondering if they were still near to the back where evidently Legolas and Gimli had had their contest, but instead of finding them, she came upon Éowyn.
Shëanon drew up short.
At the edge of the hall, clutching the bejeweled chalice she had offered the king at the start of the feast, Éowyn sat alone in a shining dress of silver embellished with gold, and in the light of the torches her hair reminded Shëanon of sunlight and yellow flowers, but there was a frown upon her lips and a shadow about her. Before Shëanon had often considered the niece of Théoden imposing; proud and stern. Well she remembered their first meeting, when Éowyn had been as cold as a bitter night. Now, to her astonishment, the lady appeared uncertain, and deeply pensive.
Shëanon hesitated. She could not tell if the woman was alone of her own choice or if she would want company, and it was true that Shëanon hardly knew her, but she had yet to thank her for sending the bath and the lovely dress.
Then as she wavered in the middle of the hall, Shëanon beheld a change come over Éowyn's face. She looked down into the cup, and it seemed suddenly evident that she felt deeply lonely. Shëanon felt a twinge in her chest, wondering how one so beloved by her kin and her people could feel alone surrounded by the party, and yet hadn't she herself felt so alone leaving Isengard and returning to the city despite the presence of Aragorn and Legolas and Gandalf and Gimli, who she knew cared for her? And how many times over the years had she felt alone in Imladris, surrounded by the family that loved her?
Cautiously, she crossed the room to sit at Éowyn's side.
"Lady Shëanon," Éowyn said as Shëanon sat beside her, and at once whatever sorrowful expression had been upon the woman's face was banished. She smiled softly.
"You look much recovered," she said.
Shëanon nodded and offered her a tentative smile in return.
"I have come to thank you," she murmured, brushing her hands over the cloth of her gown. "It is a long time now since I have worn something so fine as this," she said honestly. Indeed, not since Lothlórien had she worn anything other than her battle-torn and bloodstained leggings and tunics.
Éowyn smiled tersely back but looked abruptly away from her, and to Shëanon it seemed that some shutters fell into place behind her eyes, the warmth of her regard diminished.
"It is I who must thank you," Éowyn said quietly. Her gaze was trained straight ahead. "I am told you fought very bravely in battle... the men spoke of it in the days after."
Shëanon thought it a miracle that the men had not instead spoken of how she had evidently screamed out as though tortured in the battle's aftermath, but she placed her hand upon her heart and bowed her head.
"The people of Rohan fought more bravely than I," she told Éowyn, and meant it. She felt a sudden pit in her stomach—the faces of the soldiers she had tried so hard not to see during Théoden's speech flashed before her eyes, the memory of the ones who were slain mere feet away from her—
Éowyn looked down at the floor.
"Are you well-tested in battle?" she asked.
Shëanon hesitated. She remembered the words of the king: How many times have you seen such things, Lady Elf? Many battles and many outcomes?
She peered at Éowyn's downturned face.
"In truth, before I left Rivendell, I had never seen battle before," she confessed. She thought back on her frustration, kept from patrolling by her father, how she used to beg him to let her ride out with her brothers... and then of her awful nightmares after Moria. She swallowed. "I have seen enough of it already."
Éowyn looked back at her sharply, and she looked younger than Shëanon had yet thought her, more like a girl than a woman. She leaned forward in her seat and spoke.
"I asked Lord Aragorn to allow me to fight alongside him at Helm's Deep," she said.
Shëanon felt her surprise showing on her face—she had certainly not known that, and indeed was not sure what to make of it.
"What was his answer?" she asked carefully.
Before her eyes Éowyn seemed to wilt.
"He told me he could not," she said with an odd strain in her voice. She looked away again, only now Shëanon finally realized what it was she was looking at: across the hall, near the back corner in the shadow of one of the great carven pillars that rose to the high ceiling, Aragorn stood with Legolas. His face was at an angle to them and so they saw only his strong profile. Shëanon could see that Legolas was speaking, and Aragorn was laughing at whatever it was he said.
She glanced back at Éowyn.
"Aragorn does always what he thinks is right," she said firmly. "If he did not allow you to fight, he must have had good reason."
Éowyn's expression took on a scornful twist.
"My uncle would not allow it either," she conceded, and now Shëanon could say nothing. She looked back across the chamber at Legolas and remembered his furious words at Helm's Deep, how she had screamed at him in her anger because he had forbidden her from staying to do battle. She remembered the thought of it—of leaving his and Aragorn's and Gimli's sides while they faced such utter peril, how it had made her feel sick just to consider it. Within her burst a sudden and unexpected feeling of kinship with Éowyn—was that how she too had felt, to be told by all the Men at the keep that she was not to fight alongside them? To be sent into those caves—
"Do you love him?"
Shëanon looked back at her, startled.
"Love—?" she stammered.
Éowyn was watching her closely.
"Lord Aragorn," she said pointedly.
Shëanon stared, bewildered. "Aragorn?" she asked in confusion.
All at once the troubled look that she had first seen upon Éowyn's face returned. Shëanon watched the way her eyes seemed to be measuring her up.
"When first we arrived at Helm's Deep," she said quietly. "When you rode into the garrison after the Warg attack... It was by the look upon your face that I knew he must have fallen in battle... and would not return."
Shëanon realized at once what Éowyn was insinuating, and for a moment she could only look upon the woman in astonishment, but Éowyn held her gaze and did not look away.
Shëanon shook her head.
"Aragorn has cared for me since I was a child," she said cautiously. "I do love him. He is as a brother to me."
Éowyn studied her as though unconvinced.
"I see," she said slowly. "I thought... Well, when you lay wounded after the battle..." Her brow furrowed. "He stayed by your side for many long hours," she said quietly.
Shëanon shifted uncomfortably as she recalled the journey from Edoras, how Éowyn had seemed to try to be near to Aragorn, always riding up alongside him, and the day when the two had walked together leading their horses...
She bit her lip.
"Aragorn pledged himself to another long ago," she said plainly. "One whom he has loved for many long years."
"I am sorry about your sister," Éowyn murmured at once. "Too well do I know such grief."
"It is true that she is now gone," Shëanon acknowledged, tamping down the lingering feelings of anger she still felt to think of how Aragorn had told the king's niece about Arwen's fate before telling her. She paused, wondering how much she should say—if it was wrong of her to involve herself, but she was certain of what she saw in Éowyn's face. "Aragorn sent her away, and I fear that his heart has gone with her," she said pointedly.
Éowyn's expression did not change for many long moments.
"Why do you tell me this?" she asked at last.
Shëanon looked back down at the fine garment she had been given, and thought about her room, and the blessed bath, and the look upon Éowyn's face at her cousin's burial. The note in her voice as she had said her uncle had forbidden her from fighting.
"Because you have been kind to me," she said honestly.
"Perhaps you do not know his heart as well as you might think," Éowyn said, and not begrudgingly, though Shëanon thought it might have been easy to interpret it that way. She looked back into Éowyn's eyes, and saw the determined gleam within them.
'You know my heart, do you not? And do I not know yours?' Shëanon could still feel Aragorn's heartbeat and hear the surety in his voice. She thought about sitting beside him in Imladris in their glade beneath their tree, and of passing with him beneath the black and doom of Moria. Of sleeping in his cot in Lothlórien, of all the days of their journey, sensing within him his doubt, his conflict—the immeasurable task that had lain before him of leading the company in Gandalf's stead. His dread that me might know the temptation of his ancestors. The heavy weight of the throne of Gondor.
His longing for Arwen.
Shëanon knew Aragorn's heart.
Éowyn looked at her expectantly.
"Perhaps," Shëanon murmured finally, though she knew in her heart that it was not true.
Éowyn turned to gaze across the room once more. Aragorn stood now speaking with some of the Rohirrim, and seeing her yearning Shëanon thought it best she take her leave.
"Thank you again," she said, and rose.
Suddenly Éowyn touched her arm.
"Lady Shëanon," she said, and Shëanon looked back down at her.
Éowyn smiled gently.
"Lord Aragorn is not the only one who did not leave your side when you lay wounded," she said meaningfully.
Shëanon blinked.
"Take from that what meaning you will," Éowyn said.
Shëanon nodded, seeing the earnestness in Éowyn's face, and strode away into the crowd.
xxx
"You should not have been dancing," Aragorn said the moment she reached his side. He was alone now beside the wooden column, drinking from a tankard of what she assumed must be ale—Legolas was nowhere in sight.
She grimaced at him.
"I should not have ridden to Isengard either," she reminded him. "The dance was nothing compared to those days of riding."
Aragorn sighed.
"So much for heeding your healer," he said, though there was light in his eyes, and she could see that he was in fair spirits.
"Maybe you should dance," Shëanon told him, deadpan. "Nothing would heal me so fast as that sight."
Aragorn smirked.
"Your ribs would crack again in your laughter," he agreed.
He held out his tankard to her.
"You will like this."
Shëanon raised her eyebrows and took the cup from him, raising it to her lips. She looked at him in surprise.
"It is wine," she said.
"Not quite miruvor," Aragorn grinned.
Shëanon shook her head.
"It is good," she smiled, taking another sip. "Where are the others?"
Aragorn looked at her in surprise and then nodded ahead of them. Beyond the crowd of rowdy horsemen, upon one of the long tables, Merry and Pippin stood. While the men all laughed and clapped, Merry plucked grapes from a wooden bowl and tossed them into the air for Pippin to catch in his mouth. The two stood several feet apart and kept stepping backwards, lengthening the distance between them, and the men around them were shouting wagers. Shëanon's eyes widened.
"And to think a fortnight ago we feared their deaths at the hands of the Uruk-hai," she huffed, as Pippin caught two grapes in quick succession and the gathered onlookers cheered.
Aragorn chuckled and leaned against the pillar, crossing his arms over his chest.
"You can go next," he told her, "sing a song."
Shëanon choked on her wine.
"Sooner would you dance for the king," she laughed, "than would I sing upon that table."
Aragorn smirked, and together they watched as Merry turned around and tossed a grape blindly over his shoulder. Pippin caught it easily, and the people watching raised their cups high and roared. It wasn't until the hobbits began dancing themselves that Shëanon realized they were drunk, too.
"It amazes me," she said quietly to Aragorn, studying the hobbits and their merry performance. "After all that they have endured, they are still so light of heart."
Aragorn glanced down at her.
"I said once that Sam was stout of heart," he said. "Merry and Pippin are, too."
The two hobbits were drawing a greater audience as they danced their jig, the Rohirrim laughing and clapping along.
"And Frodo?" she asked softly.
Aragorn put his hand on her shoulder.
"And Frodo," he assured her, but as they both fell silent she could tell that Aragorn felt the weight of uncertainty as heavily as she did.
"My lady."
Shëanon looked up. Standing beside them in the hall was a young man, as blond as Éomer and Éowyn, and with him was a young woman. Shëanon knew the man at once: it was the soldier who had shouted at her before the battle, angered by her failure to answer his questions about how the Deeping Wall would fall, and Legolas had intervened on her behalf.
'My wife and daughter are in the caves and they will meet cruel ends if what this sorceress claims is not true.'
She remembered him from after, too, when they stood barring the door during the bleakest moment of the siege when all hope had seemed lost. He had sobbed.
Now Shëanon looked at the man cautiously. Without his armor and away from the pervasive dread of Helm's Deep, he appeared neither grim nor spiteful.
He inclined his blond head briefly to Aragorn, before looking back at her and speaking.
"Lady Shëanon," he bowed. "I am Aedren, son of Aeduin. Do you remember our last meeting?"
Shëanon looked to Aragorn in hesitation, wondering if she should be wary, but he appeared untroubled.
"Yes," she murmured, looking back into the man's face. "I remember."
To her astonishment, he dropped at once to kneel before her on the floor, unsheathing his sword and holding it before him with both hands upon the pommel, the end of the blade resting on the floor. Shëanon stared at him in shock.
"I am shamed," the man said, "by the evil words I spoke when last we met. I cursed you even as you stood ready to defend my family, and it is only by your warning that I yet live to hold my wife and child. I owe you my life and theirs. I beg you forgive me this moment of weakness."
For one instant she gazed down upon his face, which was uplifted and beseeching, and then she let out the breath she'd been holding and shook her head.
"Rise, son of Aeduin," she implored him, embarrassed and blushing to the roots of her hair. "You owe me nothing. Your family is delivered by your bravery in battle."
Aedren rose again to his feet but appeared only slightly mollified.
"My anger upon the battlements was misplaced," he said.
"All thoughts were darkened by fear that night," Shëanon managed, still reeling.
Then beside her she realized that Aragorn was grinning at the woman who stood watching, and the woman was smiling happily back.
"She looks well," Aragorn said, stepping closer. "Hale, and stubborn," he grinned.
"Aye, my lord," the woman agreed fondly. "She is spirited already."
Shëanon's brow furrowed in confusion, until she realized, with a start—
In the woman's arms, bundled into a sheltering blanket, was what could only have been a newborn baby.
At once she remembered the night before they had left Edoras and journeyed to Helm's Deep, when Legolas had told her that Aragorn had been summoned to help with a difficult birth. She was certain, now, that this was the child who had been born, for Aragorn laid his hand upon the baby's brow and commented that she had grown much in so short a time.
"My wife, Roeling" Aedren said, seeming to follow Shëanon's gaze. "And our daughter."
She swallowed. She was still staring at the infant, the first she had ever seen. She could see only the tiniest sliver of the child's face from where she stood—her head was so small compared to the breadth of Aragorn's hand that Shëanon gaped. Indeed, the whole bundle of her body—
The woman must have noticed her staring, for she was watching Shëanon closely.
"Forgive me," she blushed, hoping the woman had not thought her appraisal rude. "I have never seen a baby up close before. My people do not have children during times of war."
The woman—Roeling—blinked in evident surprise, but then with a warm smile she tilted the swaddled child in her arms so that Shëanon could look more easily upon her, and Shëanon did, her attention rapt. She had never imagined any person could be so little, not even a hobbit child, and she beheld the baby's peaceful, sweet face with wonder. Indeed, there was a jut to her chin that did seem to be stubborn. She was sleeping soundly despite the noise in the hall, her golden eyelashes brushing pink cheeks, and her lips were pursed as she slept.
Shëanon remembered feeling shock when Legolas had told her there was a woman in labor, astounded to think of a baby making the journey to Helm's Deep. She realized that the infant must have been in the caves during the terrible battle, and yet now here she was returned to Edoras, her tiny face beatific, entirely unharmed and as unmarked by war as it was possible for anything to be.
"She is beautiful," she told her parents. "What is her name?"
"Daewyn," said Aedren.
"Daewyn," Shëanon echoed. "What does it mean?"
"Beautiful dawn."
Shëanon started and looked back down at the baby, a lump suddenly in her throat, thinking of the moment, when she had been so certain of their demise, that the sun had broken over the hills and kindled hope in the hearts of the Rohirrim and the Galadhrim.
'Look to my coming. At first light on the fifth day, at dawn, look to the East.'
"Her name is lovely," she said softly. "My people say, 'Le-sílathar aen annan elin.'"
"Is it a blessing?" Roeling asked hopefully.
Shëanon nodded.
"It means, 'May the stars shine long upon you.'"
When the couple bowed and departed Aragorn raised his eyebrows and smiled crookedly, clearly anticipating her wonderment over the baby, but Shëanon was distracted, thinking instead about how such joy and purity could be born amid such peril and grief.
Some of what she was thinking must have shown on her face, for Aragorn touched her arm and looked questioningly at her.
"Are you well?"
Shëanon glanced up at him, his gaze discerning before the flickering light of the torches, and drew a deep breath.
"Aragorn," she asked quietly. "Where is Legolas?"
His expression did not change as he looked steadily back at her, until, finally, he inclined his head toward the open doors at the end of the hall.
She smiled nervously, handed back his wine, and left him in the crowd.
xxx
It did not take long to find Legolas, gazing out at the glimmering stars and dark lands beyond the city. Beneath the moonless sky his pale hair shone like silver upon his broad shoulders, his strong form tall and straight against the inky veil of night. For one stunned moment she lingered in the doorway and looked at him, breathless. Many times had she admired him, but never had she been so taken by the sight of him as she was then, to see him so illuminated by the light of the gleaming constellations above.
There was a single instant during which she feared she had lost her nerve, and wanted to go back into the hall to Aragorn, more than intimidated by the conversation she meant to have with him, but she grit her teeth. In the day, sitting by the stream, she had not been able to entirely banish all of the doubts and worries she held in her heart—perhaps maybe she never would, or perhaps it would take a long, long time. If it was to be a long journey, she knew she had to take the first step.
Nervously, she walked into the cool evening and went to stand beside him at the wall. As she reached his side she remembered with a pang when last they had stood in that spot together, when he had told her she was beautiful, and she blushed just to think of it. Legolas turned to her as she approached. His eyes were dark and expectant—he had known she was watching him, she could tell, and they gazed at one another for a moment without speaking. An uneasy thrill coursed through her. Everything she had thought over in the morning and into the afternoon seemed to rush back at once, leaving her jittery and anxious.
She drew in a breath.
"I have been looking for you," she told him as steadily as she could manage.
Legolas raised his eyebrows.
"I was escorting Gimli to his bed," he murmured. The corner of his mouth drew up in a grin. "He has had twice his share of Théoden's ale."
Shëanon smiled tremulously back at him.
"I heard about your contest," she acknowledged. "Merry and Pippin are affronted they were not asked to partake."
"They would have won, I am sure."
"You don't seem drunk," she noted with relief, and Legolas grinned more broadly.
"No," he agreed, shaking his head. "I don't think there is a drink here strong enough for that."
Silence fell between them again, and she swallowed. Legolas was being kind and talking with her pleasantly enough, but she could feel that there was uncertainty between them and could see the question in his gaze. His clear eyes roved over her searchingly, waiting, and the reason why was a pit in her stomach, the memory of the night before still so awful for her. In the wake of such utter exposure, the coming conversation was all the more daunting, but it had been she who had shied away from him again and again; it was clear to her that he had resolved to let her approach him when she was ready.
Legolas was still watching her, his steady appraisal nerve-racking.
"Will you come for a walk with me?" she asked at last, despite her trepidation. He had given her no cause to worry, and yet she could not help the rampant pace of her heart.
For one more moment he did not move, his face impassive, and she quailed, until finally, wordlessly, he held out his hand.
Shëanon took it.
Together they walked slowly down the long path that led away from the golden hall, the noise of the celebration fading, the silence between them companionable except that she knew that at the end of it she would have to address what was spoken between them the night before. Legolas led her around a sharp bend, away from where Edoras sprawled down the rolling hill and out instead toward the steep rock face where the earth fell away into crags and jagged boulders. In the night beneath the array of starry heaven overhead the dark stone of the mountainside looked almost like a shining waterfall, and indeed the sound of the wind in the expansive plains beyond could almost have been the rush of great water.
"You dance very well, aiër," Legolas murmured.
Shëanon glanced up at him in surprise; she had not realized he had watched her. It occurred to her suddenly how much had changed in such a short time; she recalled the day they had first met Éomer and Legolas's powerful reaction when the man had looked at her. At the time she had blushed furiously, wondering what to make of it. Now she and Legolas walked hand and hand in the night, and he had watched her dance in the hall with the very man he had before threatened and said nothing but 'you dance very well.'
She suddenly wondered what it would be like to dance with him instead.
Legolas offered her an encouraging smile.
"Not as well as I might like," she answered honestly, "but... the dancing was a welcome reprieve after so many days of grief."
"This night of revelry was badly needed, I think," he agreed. "By the people of Rohan and by us."
It wasn't until he squeezed her hand that she realized it was shaking. Shëanon squeezed his back.
They walked together toward the ledge, straying from the road into the soft grass, until they came to stop overlooking the pastures and dark mountains in the distance. The wind stirred their hair, and Shëanon's stomach was in knots, feeling that Legolas was looking at her, wondering what he expected her to say, and worrying that she had not the courage to say it. For her part she knew that her courage was waning with each passing moment, her nerves further fraying, and that if she did not soon give voice to her thoughts they would go unspoken.
"You are still troubled," Legolas prompted finally, and she closed her eyes, her heart pounding.
Shëanon drew in another deep breath and made herself look up at him. All of Rohan stretched before their feet, lit by the night sky as a great sea that broke upon a distant shore, but bathed in starlight Shëanon thought Legolas the fairer sight, his eyes as fathomless as the firmament above.
"I hoped to speak to you about—last night," she admitted, searching his face.
Legolas frowned.
"You are trembling," he said with concern, reaching for her other hand so that he held them both in his and lifting them between them so that they were clasped before their chests. Indeed she was trembling as she had been upon the pass of Caradhras. Shëanon looked down at their hands nervously, at the sight of hers held by his, his strong fingers... She thought of the first time he had ever held them, and of that night in the mines of Moria when he had held his hand over hers, palm to palm, how much bigger his was than her own...
She dared to look back up at him.
"It is difficult for me to speak of such things," she confessed, her voice suddenly strained. "In truth I have been gathering my courage all day."
Legolas ran his thumbs over the backs of her knuckles.
"Is that where you went today?" he asked with a small smile that did not reach his eyes. "To gather your courage?"
In the distance far below she could see the shining stream where she had sat and wept, overcome. She bit her lip.
"I had—much to consider," she told him. "I—So much that has been revealed these last days—"
Shëanon faltered. Indeed, so much had been revealed. In a matter of days she had gone from quarreling with Legolas to being kissed by him, enduring battle and being pierced by the bolt, suffering from poison, and confessing her feelings to him only then to be baited with all the wicked words of Saruman. And at the last, learning from him that he had seen the marks of whip and flame upon her...
It was so much she felt dizzy with it.
She watched his gaze move over her as she struggled for composure, looking back down at their hands. She could not delay it any longer. She felt then that she stood upon a high precipice, poised to jump, uncertain where she might land after the long fall, and she realized that it was so. A leap of faith. The night before he had bid her have faith in herself; it was time for her now to have faith in him.
"It is clear to me now that the scars that you saw," she began quietly, feeling sick to say the words aloud but knowing she had to continue, "are not the only ones upon me, and that the others mark places deeper than just flesh."
At once Legolas drew her closer, her hands held against him, though he did not interrupt.
"I have thought on all that you said—about—how I have acted and what I must do," she whispered tremulously. "I know that much still lies before me, and that I cannot cast out all evil thoughts in a single day... but I can see that I have treated you unfairly. I think you are right that I have been afraid of—hurting. Please, forgive me."
Legolas looked down upon her for a long moment, his brow creased, and Shëanon felt that she could not breathe as she bore his scrutiny and awaited his judgment.
"There is nothing to forgive, Shëanon," he said.
She opened her mouth to disagree, but Legolas drew her closer still, releasing her hands to take her into his arms.
"What shall I forgive?" he asked fiercely, grasping her shoulders. "That you have known terrible suffering?"
He shook his head.
"How could I fault you for that?"
Shëanon felt her throat constrict.
"I have been blinded—"
"Aiër."
She winced and looked away from him, ashamed, trying to blink away the tears that were gathering. How could he not be frustrated with her, when she was so angered at herself? To say there was nothing to forgive...
Legolas's hands ran gently over her arms.
"I know your grief better than you think," he murmured meaningfully. For an instant his expression betrayed deep sorrow, and she ached, thinking again about his mother and all he had told her about that dark story. If he meant that he too had once been afraid of hurting—
He looked at her thoughtfully.
"Neither of us has walked this path before, aiër," he murmured. "And I think neither of us was prepared to. We both have taken missteps. I have treated you unfairly also, have I not?"
She closed her eyes. In her mind his protectiveness before the battle was nothing compared to her inability to trust.
"I think I—have dragged my feet down the entire path so far," she whispered weakly, grimacing.
To her astonishment Legolas grinned.
"I think more than once you have turned and fled back whence you came," he said.
She bowed her head, blushing furiously. She had quite literally run from him in Fangorn, and at Helm's Deep...
"Shëanon," he said lowly, by her ear. The closeness of his voice sent a hot tremor over every inch of her.
She lifted her head.
"Thank you for staying with me last night," she whispered, her voice trembling with her emotion.
Legolas's hand pressed against the small of her back, and with his other he brushed a strand of her hair away from her face, his expression fervent.
"I wish only that I could have been a greater comfort to you," he said.
At these words she drew back, astonished. A greater comfort to her? She let out a shuddering breath of disbelief.
"You have been a comfort to me since we left Imladris," she told him adamantly. She felt a stab of sharp dismay—did he not know it? Had it not been Legolas, from the very beginning? Keeping watch with her during the night, giving her sleep in the mines and driving away her nightmares in Lórien? Had it not been Legolas who had been there when she had wept about Arwen, who had been the one to at last alleviate her fears about her own immortality? She thought about how they had held each other in the storeroom when they had thought Aragorn dead, how it had been his touch that had anchored her when she had been so consumed by her anguish. And was it not upon his face she had looked in those dire moments of battle, before dawn, when the sun was not yet risen and they had stood barring the doors against the throng of Isengard?
Had he not held her all the night, even in her sleep, through all her dark thoughts and despite all the awful things she had told him?
Suddenly Legolas lifted her hand from his shoulder and raised it to his mouth. As she watched in a spellbound daze he kissed her knuckles, and then her open palm, the touch of his lips branding her skin like fire.
He looked into her eyes.
"But not in Imladris, I think," he said pointedly, still holding her hand, and Shëanon's eyes widened, taken aback.
Legolas smiled knowingly and pressed a kiss to her other hand, as he had at their first meeting, when she had been speechless and stammering—how she had avoided him for days after—
"No," she confessed, sheepish. Overwhelmed, she rose onto her toes and wrapped her arms about his neck. Legolas held her closer at once, and Shëanon felt heat blooming everywhere that he touched her. He ran his fingers over her hair as she clung to him, reveling in the solidity of his body, the thrill and comfort of his closeness. She could feel his fëa—she felt as enveloped by the presence of it as she was by his strong arms.
"Are you still afraid of hurting?" he asked quietly after a long moment passed.
With her face resting upon his shoulder, she closed her eyes and thought of lying in his arms in the grasses of the Westfold, on the journey to Helm's Deep.
She looked up at him, her heart pounding, and shook her head.
"You promised me you wouldn't hurt me," she whispered.
"I swear it to you," he said at once, lifting his hand to touch her cheek.
She leaned into his palm, speechless, as he ran his thumb over her skin. Gently he leaned forward and touched his forehead to hers, and they stood together in each other's embrace, unmoving but for their breath and Legolas's fingertips, which traced her jaw and her collarbone in turn. His hand came to rest against the side of her neck, and she knew he could feel her pulse racing—and wondered if he could also feel from within her the storm of affliction and pleasure he incited in her at his simplest touch. The longing that coursed through her to stand there with him in sheltering harmony, feeling his hands caressing her was staggering.
She gripped the back of his shirt, steeling herself.
"Three nights ago..." she breathed. "On the way to Isengard... why did you not kiss me?"
Legolas drew away as though in surprise, and Shëanon watched him desperately. Then his gaze sharpened. Her stomach fluttered with nerves as she beheld the intensity with which he looked at her. He ran his hand up the length of her spine, the sweep of it scorching even through her dress, his expression so ardent that she felt weak in her knees.
"The last time I kissed you," he said lowly, searchingly, "you fled."
Against his Shëanon felt the rapid rise and fall of her chest, the tremble of her body against him, every part of her lit by nervousness and yearning. She looked at his lips, so close to her own. Indeed it had plagued her after, when he had held her in the moonlit glade, speaking of his feelings for her...
Seeing him now in the clear night, his strong features thrown into relief in the starlight, his eyes shaded with question and want...
She had fled at Helm's Deep, it was true, for she had been stunned and angry and confused and frightened. But now Shëanon knew where his heart stood, and she knew her own heart better, and she knew, with utter certainly, what it was she wanted.
"I will not flee again," she promised breathlessly.
Legolas looked at her for an instant as though he hardly dared believe what she had said, and Shëanon stood waiting with bated breath, quivering with desire and anticipation and nerves. He must have seen her resolve and plea in her face, however, for all at once his brow furrowed as though with agony, and he closed his eyes as though in profound and encompassing relief. Something within Shëanon ignited—she realized with a jolt that the deliverance she witnessed before her very eyes was her, that with her words she had offered release from some unspeakable torment or burden, as though Legolas had been ravaged by thirst and she had bid him at last to drink. For the first time she fully understood that he was as powerfully affected by her as she had been by him all those long months since their meeting.
When Legolas opened his eyes his intent was plain to see, and she felt the heat of it pool within her. He looked at her for one moment longer, and she shivered, her heart in her throat, her stomach fluttering wildly, and then with his knuckle he gently tipped her chin up and leaned down toward her.
The barest distance away from her lips he paused, their breath mingling, their noses touching, and then at last she felt the touch of his lips against hers.
It was nothing like their first kiss. At Helm's Deep he had drawn her to him with urgency, his mouth upon her aggressive and desperate. Now Legolas's kiss was chaste, his touch tender, but still it raised a blazing fire within her, like some kind of hot chill. She felt like the earth had shifted beneath her feet, like she was falling, like something within her had plummeted, and yet like she was soaring up among the clouds.
He drew softly away, their lips parting slowly, and Shëanon opened her eyes to look at him. The sight of him looking back at her with such obvious devotion and longing was an unprecedented exhilaration... she felt suddenly desperate to convey to him her own. She didn't know if she pressed closer or if he had pulled her more tightly against him, but their lips met once more. Legolas cupped her face with both his hands, and Shëanon was warmed in every part of herself. She felt as though as he brushed his lips against hers he must have brushed her fëa too, for never had she felt his so strongly, and she shuddered in his arms.
When at last they parted again Shëanon was dizzy, clutching his shoulders, breathless. He grinned broadly, and though she blushed hotly she couldn't help but to smile shyly back, still wracked by the pleasure of his kiss. With his fingertips Legolas traced the line of her hair, and Shëanon couldn't help but to close her eyes again at the heat and contentment he incited in her. She leaned into his embrace, resting against his chest, and his arms encircled her once again. They stood together for a long moment in the night, swayed by the breeze, their hearts beating against each other. Where before she had been tense and nervous now Shëanon was utterly relaxed, as at ease as she was to lie with him to fall asleep, and she closed her eyes and held him closer as she felt herself at last at peace after so many days of worry.
She felt him rest his head against hers and she was stricken abruptly by her own feelings, thinking of his patience, his understanding, his compassion and honor and bravery. Never, when she had stood up at the council in Imladris to be counted as a member of the fellowship, would she have imagined coming to love him as she did.
"Tell me something, aiër," he murmured near her ear, his voice low and close.
Shëanon leaned back to look up at him.
"The night before we found Gandalf in Fangorn," he said, watching her closely, "when we stood beside the stream... did you think to kiss me?"
Heat rushed to her face as she stared at him, taken aback. For one instant she couldn't answer, thinking of that night when they had listened to the voices of the trees and in the dark she had fixed her gaze upon his lips—but now Legolas looked back at her knowingly, barely containing his smile, his eyes bright, and she could tell he already knew the answer.
Flustered, Shëanon bit her lip.
"What would you have done if I had?" she dared ask, and though it was clear that he was at least in part teasing, his expression warmed by what she could see was fondness and mirth, she truly did wish to know: what indeed would have happened if she had closed the distance between them that night, beneath the groaning boughs of the trees, and made her desire known?
Legolas's answering grin was more mischievous than she had ever seen, and as the spring wind at her back urged her ever closer, he bent to kiss her once more.
A/N: Happy Easter, everyone. I pray you are all well, safe, and healthy. I was overwhelmed by the responses I got to the last chapter-thank you so much to those of you who reached out! I really didn't know what to expect when I finally updated, and I couldn't believe the outpouring of love this story received. This latest chapter has been a long time coming, I think-Legolas and Shëanon FINALLY get another kiss :) I hope it was worth the wait. xoxo Erin
PS: A reader of this story is sick with covid-19. Please say prayers for her quick recovery!