Aiër Chapter 32
Shëanon went to her own room first. She laid Andórë reverently upon her dressing table, where the faithful blade gleamed in the pale light that came in through the window. She stood looking at it for a long moment, reflecting on its name and on all that had happened. Then her eye caught on the two scraps of parchment lying beside it, and she swallowed.
Go to Legolas, Aragorn had said.
Her stomach twisted, but Shëanon had already resolved to do it. She had to do it. Determinedly, she strode to the basin in the corner of her chamber and tried to wash some of the tear tracks from her face, but she could see in the mirror above that her eyes were rimmed red, and she knew that Legolas would be able to tell at once that she had been crying. A bolt of nerves coursed through her at the thought. She tried to tame down her wild hair with her fingers; it was longer now than it had been leaving Rivendell, and it was a mess from pushing it out of her face all morning as she'd wept. Her dress, too, was wrinkled from sitting for so long on the floor, and she fretted as she tried to smooth out the fabric. Then it occurred to her that it likely didn't matter much what she looked like. She recalled her bruised, swollen face when she had awoken in the Houses of Healing. He had seen her like that. He had seen her unconscious and undressed after the battle of Helm's Deep—
Flinching away from the mirror and tearing her gaze from her reflection, she grimaced and laid her head in her hands.
For a long moment, she stood in the middle of her room, feeling nervous and uncertain. Her heart was beginning to race again, but she didn't think it could be helped. A measure of dread now seemed inevitable.
Then Shëanon lifted her head. She remembered the words she had whispered aloud in Aragorn's study and clenched her hands into fists. She wasn't a coward.
She took one last glance at her reflection, then at the pieces of parchment on her dressing table, and then Shëanon crossed the room and slipped quietly back into the hall.
Again, she strode down the corridor. Again, she passed her brothers' rooms until she stood before his door. Again, she hesitated. She lifted her hand to knock, her heart pounding mercilessly, but she drew up short before she had rapped upon the door. Instead, she found herself before his chambers with her fist in the air, frozen.
Shëanon bit her lip. Her stomach was twisting with nerves.
How had this happened? She recalled once again the night in her tent at Dunharrow, and the intimacy and closeness between them. She remembered all the nights she had slept at his side, and their conversation on the Anduin about his meeting with her father. How could everything have become so tremendously wrong, that now she was so daunted by the prospect of simply knocking on his door? Beneath her breast, her heart ached with dismay.
Despite the hour, the corridor was utterly silent. A shaft of serene sunlight passed through the high window at the end of the hall and fell at her feet. She could see motes of dust swirling in the soft sunshine, and she stood staring at them for a long moment with her pulse rushing in her ears. Her breath was trembling in and out of her, and she looked uneasily up and down the passage, recalling how before she had lost her courage and fled. Perhaps he was not even in there, she thought anxiously. After all, it was now midday…
But in truth, Shëanon was somehow certain that Legolas was indeed just on the other side of the door, and she knew that she was stalling because she was afraid. She still could not help but to imagine that if she went in and told him all that she had told to Aragorn, everything she feared would come to pass.
She shook her head and ran her hands through her hair.
Legolas had never failed her. Not once. Not ever. It was she who was failing him. Aragorn's voice echoed in her ears then: You would let fear keep you from him?
No, she thought defiantly, but she had still not moved. She suddenly recalled, with a sick onslaught of horror, the moment she had stood at the guard post in Barad-dûr, too frightened to dare passing through the door and escaping the tower. The dread she felt now was almost as debilitating as that had been, and the realization of it infuriated her. She had found the strength to pass through that door, had she not? She had found the courage then. She had crossed the plains of Gorgoroth. She had blown up a Nazgûl.
Surely, she could do this, too.
Shëanon lifted her trembling hand again before her courage abandoned her and knocked softly three times upon the door.
She didn't know why she had supposed that it would open at once, but when there came instead a drawn out beat of silence, her anxiety notched higher. She waited tensely for several seconds that seemed to span an age. Her stomach felt like it was doing somersaults in the vicinity of her throat, and her breath was coming so quickly that she was lightheaded.
Just when she thought that perhaps she'd been wrong and that he hadn't been in his room after all, the door at last swung open, and Legolas appeared before her.
At the sight of her, he seemed to go still. It was clear to her at once by his expression that she was the last person he had been expecting to see, and for some reason this realization made her eyes begin to sting before she had spoken even a single word. He was wearing his silver tunic and leggings and boots, so she could not have woken him up, and yet he appeared wearier than she had ever seen him before. Though his face was as clear and unmarked as ever, there was a weight to his gaze that seemed to speak of exhaustion and grief so obvious that she understood at once why Aragorn had so frankly commanded her to come speak with him.
Shëanon felt a pain like another bolt in her chest.
They stood before one another for a long moment in charged silence. Legolas seemed to be studying her as closely as she was appraising him, for she saw his gaze sweep sharply over her.
His grip upon the doorframe seemed to tighten.
Shëanon opened her mouth to speak, faltered, and closed it again. Had her voice forsaken her? She could not ever remember such tension between them. Not since the first days of their journey had she found herself so uncertain to stand before him.
The silence lengthened.
"What has happened?" he asked at last.
For the barest moment she had no idea why he would ask her that and looked uncertainly into his face. But then she saw the look upon it—the way his intelligent gaze was trained so fixedly upon her—and she remembered her bloodshot eyes and tear-marked cheeks.
She swallowed.
"I—can I come in?" she whispered. Her voice was trembling.
Legolas gave no answer, though at once he stepped aside and held open the door to let her pass. Shëanon strode nervously past him and over the threshold.
His room was a bit bigger than hers—like Elladan's room, his had a divan before the fireplace and desk under the window upon which she could see a stack of parchment and an inkwell. The familiar slant of his handwriting on the topmost sheaf was visible even at a distance, the ink gleaming in the light of the sun, still wet.
Shëanon paused. It was obvious now what he had been doing when she'd knocked.
"Forgive me," she stammered, turning to face him. "Have I disturbed you?"
But Legolas merely closed the door behind her and looked at her solemnly for another long, tense moment.
"Nay, meleth nín," he said at last. "You could not."
To Shëanon the sound of his voice speaking that endearment was like the sound of a summer rain after a long season of drought, but she could not tell if it worsened or lessened her dread, and before she could decide, Legolas ushered her wordlessly over to the divan. He did not, however, touch her, and it was not hard for her to understand why, and the stinging in her eyes got worse.
They both sat and faced each other. Shëanon had the sense that Legolas knew exactly why she was there—or at least, that he had guessed she meant to speak with him about Mordor, or about the preceding weeks, or maybe about what had happened in the stables. He was watching her so closely that for a moment she almost wanted to stand back up and leave, to apologize for bothering him and retreat to her room, but she knew it was too late.
For good or for ill, there was one thing, at least, that she felt she could no longer delay telling him.
The silence endured for another tortuously long moment. He was obviously waiting for her to speak first—and she couldn't blame him, could she, for she was the one who had sought him out—and the longer that she didn't, the more concerned he seemed to appear. Shëanon balled her hands into fists to keep from wringing them in her lap. Her heart was beating so fast now that it was almost as bad as her panic attacks, and she thought again of hiding from him on the floor of the washroom that day and winced.
"There is something I must tell you," she ground out at last. Her voice was quavering far worse than she had expected it to, and that made her heart beat even faster. She looked down at her hands in dismay. Though she had not yet even started, already she feared she was making a mess of it. She had planned to be calm and composed and methodically explain everything to Legolas, and apologize to him for avoiding him… and tell him that she understood—if he no longer—felt—
She bit her lip hard to keep it from trembling.
Suddenly, so softly that at first it was only the barest touch, she felt the brush of his hand against her cheek.
Shëanon froze.
With what seemed to be deliberate care, he very slowly and gently lifted her chin and turned her face toward his.
Shëanon couldn't say why this almost made her cry—perhaps it was because she had been so missing his touch. Perhaps it was because he was being so gentle, and she was stricken to feel such tenderness after so many weeks of showing herself only anger and blame.
Perhaps it was because she worried it could be the last time he touched her like that.
She hesitantly met his gaze.
"You have been weeping," he said lowly.
It was not a question. Shëanon didn't deny it.
"I have been dreading this conversation," she confessed instead.
Legolas's brow creased. Then, as she watched, he leaned closer and grasped both of her hands in his. He ran his thumbs gently over her knuckles, and abruptly she felt that the wall she'd imagined between them was crumbled, and she squeezed his hands desperately and bowed her head.
"I have been lying to you," she spoke into the quiet room, unable to hold his gaze. Her hands were shaking so badly that Legolas renewed his grip upon them as though to grasp them more securely.
"I remember everything that happened in Mordor," she admitted. Her vision was swimming with tears she was trying desperately to quell. When she had spoken to Aragorn, everything had come pouring out of her as though against her will, but now her speech was stilted and halting, and she felt that she had to wrench out every word with great effort, and she was so nervous that she worried her trembling was going to shake the entire bench beneath her.
"I know you do, meleth nín."
Even though she'd already known he hadn't believed her in the Houses of Healing, she still felt a measure of defeat to hear him confirm it out loud. All her efforts really had been for nothing.
"You have said nothing," she whispered.
Legolas squeezed her hands.
"I hoped you would speak when you were ready," he said very quietly, and finally Shëanon felt compelled to look back into his face, for there was a note of emotion in his voice that made it clear to her at once that indeed, her elusive silence for so many days had been paining him.
Her tears leaked over her eyelashes and rolled at last slowly down her cheeks.
"I'm not ready," she admitted tearfully. She wanted to wipe away the tears, but she felt that his hands were the only thing keeping her from falling apart, and she was loathe to let them go. "I would never speak if I thought I could keep my silence, but I think I must tell you… I feel I have been deceiving you."
Before her eyes, something in his seemed to darken.
"I doubt that," he said with a frown.
But Shëanon shook her head.
"When I awoke in Barad-dûr," she told him, "I was… I was brought before Sauron."
The effect of these words was immediate. His entire body seemed to go rigid. She saw him clench his jaw, and there was a look upon his face that made it clear to her at once that he was the one now who was struggling to keep his composure.
"What did he do to you?" he asked at last. The tone of his voice sent a chill down her spine.
Shëanon hesitated. She had never seen him look the way he looked then. She could tell that he felt his duty was to comfort and support her, but there was palpable fury and anguish that seemed to be rolling off him in waves, as though there were some tumult trapped inside him.
"That's—not—"
Not what? Not important? Legolas would certainly disagree. Not what she had come to tell him?
"Is it not?" he asked meaningfully, as though he could tell exactly what she was thinking.
"Legolas," she whispered. "Sauron told me why he needed my blood. He said that—he said that my sire—"
But her voice failed her, and she broke off, terrified to say it. She had to tell him—she couldn't bear to let this go on any longer without telling him the truth, but the words wouldn't come.
Beside her, Legolas was utterly still. She could feel him searching her face, but she couldn't bring herself to look at him.
Tremulously, Shëanon finally drew her hands from his. It seemed wrong to accept his comfort considering what she was about say. More tears spilled down her cheeks, and now she swiped them despairingly away.
She was still trying to dry her eyes when Legolas pointedly reached for her hands again, and taking them in his he drew them close to him, so that the backs of her fingers almost touched his chest. He held her hands—wet with her tears—for a long moment, tenderly caressing them, and gazed solemnly into her face.
"Did he say that your sire is Maglor Fëanorion?" he asked her very quietly.
Shëanon froze. For a moment she was so dumbfounded that she thought she must have misheard him, but she looked into his face and saw the expression upon it, and she knew that she had not.
"How did you…?"
Legolas looked at her as though with apology.
"I can think of few other names he might have spoken that would cause in you this grief," he said lowly.
For a long, bewildered moment, she could do nothing but stare at him. He stared soberly back, saying nothing, and then Shëanon regained her senses, nodded tearfully, and rose to her feet.
"I see," she whispered, heartbroken. Then she turned to make for the door.
She had barely made it two paces, however, before he caught her hand.
"Where are you going?" he demanded. He sounded as bewildered as she had been a few moments before.
But Shëanon had begun crying in earnest.
"I'm leaving," she choked, refusing to look at him.
"Leaving?"
"Do you not wish me to?" she wept.
Legolas still held fast to her hand and began drawing her gently back toward him.
"Why would I wish you to go?" he asked as though in astonishment.
Shëanon turned away again and sobbed. She heard again his voice—Did he say that your sire is Maglor Fëanorion? The way he had asked it had been so sure and so knowing—and so expectant… She could not doubt it: Legolas had not guessed it on the spot. How he had known before she had mentioned it, Shëanon could not have guessed, but she knew it with a certainty: Legolas had already known the truth before she had knocked on his door. And it made sense, didn't it? The distance between them? Her sense that he was tormented. Her feeling that he was caring for her out of some constraint of duty. The way they had barely spoken, and he had seldom sought her out…
"You have barely been able to meet my gaze for weeks," she wept.
Legolas released her hand and stepped closer, gently grasping her arms. Shëanon wished he wouldn't—she wanted to leave so that she could cry without him seeing—but the care with which he touched her was so obvious that she could not bring herself to step away.
"And you have not met mine either," he whispered near to her temple. "Why?"
"What do you mean, why?" she whimpered. "Did you not hear the words you just spoke?"
Legolas moved closer still.
"Because you have learned the name of your father, now you cannot meet my eye or endure my company?" he asked.
"I'm not a fool!" she wept, although she felt like one. She was a fool for ever believing they would be together, for ever daring to hope…
"You may yet be," he said darkly, searching her face, "if your thoughts are what I think they are."
Shëanon shook her head.
"You just told me you couldn't look at me because of who my father is—because of who I am—"
A look like thunder seemed to cross his face.
"That is not what I said—"
"You knew before I told you—" she bit out in a rush, her voice climbing higher and higher, the words coming quicker and quicker. Shëanon wasn't blind—she could tell by the look upon his face that he adamantly objected to what she was suggesting, but that only seemed to make the panic worse. Suddenly she thought it would be agony beyond her bounds to hear him argue with her. It would hurt less if he would just—admit it, and— "And you did not deny that you have been avoiding me—it is not difficult to understand that this is the reason—"
Legolas had narrowed his eyes.
"You understand nothing."
"Yes, I do—"
"You do not," he said in a terrible, ringing voice that momentarily silenced her. "Do you think it is only these last weeks that I have known about your father? From the first moment I set eyes on you, I thought it, Shëanon. I guessed the truth long ago, as I suspect did you. Tell me then, why would I now cast you aside when all along I knew it?"
These words at last seemed to penetrate the frantic haze of her hysteria, and she blinked back at him in astonishment. His grip upon her was unrelenting, his gaze furious and desperate.
"What—what do you mean, you knew before?" she managed. Her mind was racing. Her ears were ringing.
Legolas said nothing, but gently ran the tips of his fingers over her hair, offering her a meaningful look.
Shëanon stared at him.
"That could have come—from my mother—" she stammered.
"Yet it did not, I think," he said quietly. "You look like them, fair one."
Shëanon felt like the room was swaying around her. Never in the time since she had awoken in the Houses of Healing had she imagined that Legolas might already know the truth, but she would certainly never have guessed that he could have known it even before that.
A single chord of betrayal thrummed inside her, and she looked into his eyes with her own brimming.
"If you knew this whole time, then why did you let me—why did you let this happen?" she whispered.
Legolas seemed to falter.
"What?"
"Why did you—why did you take my heart if you knew all along you would break it?" she asked tremulously.
Indeed—how could he have done it to her?
"Break it?" he echoed hotly.
"Yes!"
"Never would I break your heart," he swore, his lip curling as though with disgust at just the thought. "What folly is this? Did I not swear never to hurt you?"
Shëanon stepped out of his grasp, her pulse racing.
"You never should have made such a promise, because you cannot keep it!" she wept.
His eyes flashed.
"I have told you already," he said fiercely. "I knew before and it does not matter, Shëanon! Morgoth himself could have sired you and it would not matter to me!"
"Legolas, you are a prince!" she cried. "You have a duty to your people and a king to command you! You cannot possibly believe that your father would allow you to be wed to me now!"
Legolas stepped forward and, to her surprise, held her face in both his hands and began tenderly brushing away her tears with his thumbs.
"Indeed, you are a fool, if you think there is a being in Arda who could keep me from you," he said in frustration, despite his gentle touch. "I would bind myself to you this very moment, whether my father willed it or not."
Shëanon sobbed.
"And what?" she asked. "Betray your people? Be banished from your home?"
She watched him shake his head.
"The betrayal would be theirs, not mine, Shëanon," he said.
"I could not ask you to make such a choice—"
"There is no choice!"
She almost wanted to clap her hands over her ears so she could drown him out. This was utter folly. Indeed, the notion of the giant mess it would all cause him—all because of her—was agonizing.
"Do not deny that you love your father! You love your people—you love the Woodland Realm—"
"I love you!" he barked.
Shëanon went still.
"I love you. I want you. I choose you in all things," he said adamantly. "Do you not know it?"
She looked up at him, speechless, and he gazed so fiercely back that a tremor ran through her. The silence about them was absolute, and Legolas continued to glare back at her so defiantly and so resolutely that the most suspicious being in all Arda would have believed him.
Her heart was skipping and twisting within her.
Shëanon swallowed, trying to speak—to say anything—though, indeed, he was looking at her as though just waiting for her to dare to argue any more, as though readying himself to convince her—
But there was only one thing she could say.
"I love you, too," she whimpered.
They looked at each other for a single moment more, frozen in the tremendous, trembling silence, and then in an instant they were locked together so fiercely that she could feel his heart beating against her own. She flung her arms about his neck and felt his come about her in a grip like iron, and they stood in the soft light in the middle of his room holding one another in a desperate, unyielding embrace, as though fearing that at any moment they might be wrenched apart, or indeed, as though finally realizing they would not be.
"I love you—I love you," she cried against his shoulder, again and again—confession, apology, promise—she could not stop saying it. Legolas held her more tightly still, and she clutched him even closer, sobbing. In between her pleading, desperate I love you's he was kissing her everywhere he could reach, his lips pressing desperately against her temple, her neck, her cheeks, and though he didn't say it, it was obvious what he meant to convey—the words, though long overdue, hadn't mattered. He had already known.
Shëanon sobbed harder.
"How could you think I would turn my back on you?" he begged with his lips against her hair. She felt his grip tighten around her as though he could not bear the thought. "Do you think me so untrue?"
She bit her lip hard, too overcome by this question even to weep, and squeezed closed her eyes in agony. Untrue? She shook her head and pressed her face against him, her fingers fisting into the back of his shirt, for his pain was unendurable. She felt it in her whole body, and for a moment, as her tears wet his skin and clothes, she could scarcely breathe.
She thought him the truest—the most honorable—the most noble ellon in Arda.
"Sometimes," she confessed through her tears, struggling even to find the breath to speak, "it is as though… what I know or think—has little power—over my worry…"
At these words, Legolas seemed to hold her impossibly closer, his hand cradling the back of her head.
"Stop listening to your worry," he commanded her lowly, solemn and practically ferocious. "Listen to me: Even after the ending of days, I will never forsake you."
Shëanon could only cry harder.
"Legolas," she choked against his collar, "he killed people—"
"Those deeds are his," he said forcefully, pressing her against him. "Not yours. You think you deserve the blame for them?"
"I don't know," she wept. "Maybe I am—like him—"
"Indeed?" he asked in a tone of voice that made it clear just how preposterous he thought it. "Have you somehow massacred a number of Elves in the days since you were released from the Houses of Healing?"
Her whole body shook.
"I have killed someone," she cried.
Legolas seemed to tense and drew away to look at her.
"What?" he asked blankly, searching her face.
"In Mordor," Shëanon confessed. "I killed a man."
He seemed to grit his teeth.
"Shëanon—"
"It was not—on the battlefield," she wept. "I did not—have to kill him. But I d-did. I thought that—if I left him alive, I might not have—been able to escape—from the Tower. I—cut—his—throat."
He held her face between both his hands and waited for her to look into his eyes.
"Aiër, he served the Enemy," he said forcefully.
Shëanon suddenly remembered wiping the man's blood off her knife and sobbed again.
"Shëanon."
She tried to draw away, but Legolas wouldn't let her. He kept insistently brushing away her tears.
"You think any of us would have acted differently in your place?" he whispered. "Do you think I would not have cut down any in my path?"
Even though she knew he was right, she could not so easily cast it aside—the horror, the shame, the shock and guilt at the—the ease with which she had done it—
Legolas seemed to see some of this play across her face.
"If it were my life in peril, would you think me a murderer for killing someone who would have harmed me?" he asked.
Much pleasure will it bring me to put you in your place. Then we shall see who is above whom—and indeed, who is beneath whom.
She heard the words again as clearly as when they had been spoken, and for a single moment she was back in her chains, and the guard's biting grip was a vice about her, and she flinched in Legolas's arms.
He very clearly noticed and understood the reason at once.
"Did he harm you?" he demanded.
"No," she whimpered, shaking her head. "No… But he—he wanted to—"
An expression showed on his face that she had never seen before, and her entire body went cold, for the look in his eyes was one of such fury that she understood at once what had come into his heart—that if he had been there, he would have done far worse than cut the man's throat—
The sight of his rage renewed her tears to such a degree that even she was startled by it.
"I'm—so—sorry—" she suddenly cried, covering her face with her hands.
Her fault. His grief, his fury—all her fault—
"What?"
"I'm sorry," she wept. "I'm so sorry. It's—my fault—"
"Your fault?"
"If I had not been captured—" she cried, "—it is my fault that you—have been—"
Legolas seemed to grit his teeth.
"You think it's your fault?"
"It is my fault—" she sobbed.
"Nay—"
"You—warned me—" she wept. "I'm—so sorry—"
"Daro," he hissed. "Are you mad? You have done nothing—"
"It was my fault—" she said again.
"It was my fault," he snapped.
Shëanon faltered.
"What?" she stuttered.
A terrible light came into his eyes.
"Did I not swear it to you?" he demanded, grasping her shoulders. "Did I not swear that Sauron would never touch you? Did I not vow to keep you safe?"
The realization that fell immediately upon her was like an icy sheet. You understand nothing, he had said, and he had indeed been right. How had she not seen it? How had she not known it at once? His torment, his silence, his distance… Her whole body began shaking, and she clutched his shirt and frantically shook her head, feeling sick to her stomach, for Legolas had been blaming himself all along.
"Legolas—" she breathed, horrified.
She felt like the room was spinning. Had she been so blind in her own suffering that she had not seen the truth of his?
"I left your side on the battlefield," he said furiously. "The fault is mine, Shëanon."
"No—"
"How dare you apologize to me? For what? For my grief? For my worry? Shëanon, you were tortured by the Enemy because I failed you!"
"Legolas, you rescued me from Mordor," she cried. "If it were not for you, I would not even be here—"
"You should never have been there," he snarled.
"I left your side on the battlefield," she argued.
"I should never have let you stray from my sight," he said dangerously. "I should have been there to defend you—to protect you—"
"You were in the midst of battle!"
"It does not matter."
"Yes, it does!" she said shrilly. "Legolas, your duty was to Aragorn—your task was to make safe the city—"
"My duty is to you," he barked, his entire face livid with his anger.
The words reverberated around the chamber, and for a moment she could only look back at him, wide-eyed.
"My duty is to you, Shëanon," he whispered once more into her stunned silence.
Suddenly, as he beheld her, he seemed to hesitate, and looking into his eyes she could see uncertainty in them that she had never seen before. He seemed to search her face, and she realized with a jolt that he appeared profoundly and unprecedentedly vulnerable.
"We may not yet be wed," he said lowly, his expression and his voice more solemn than perhaps she had ever known them to be. He squeezed her hands. "But you are my wife."
Shëanon closed her eyes at once, overwhelmed. For a single instant she felt as though she'd had the wind knocked out of her, for nothing had ever affected her more powerfully in her entire life than what he had said and the way he had said it—as Mandos pronouncing some prophecy—as a declaration of truth so absolute that she could not have doubted him for a moment, and indeed, the instant the words had left his lips, she had understood his meaning at once, and knew without question that it was so.
She recalled the moment they had first met. She recalled her feeling at the council in Imladris that her entire life had led her to that moment, and she recalled their conversation in Edoras, about fate and about being meant to join the Fellowship. In Barad-dûr she had felt that it was her doom, and yet if indeed her fate had been to stand that day before the blow of the ashen wind to loose her arrow even as the Nazgûl had borne down upon her, then did that not also make it true that her fate had lead her directly to him?
She suddenly felt it in her bones—that she had been made for him, and he for her, and felt that before they had ever met—perhaps before they had even been born, perhaps even in the music that had shaped the course of Arda—that this destiny had been written.
Her heart had always belonged to him.
She couldn't speak. Instead she stepped back into his embrace, holding him desperately, and wept once more in his arms. He held her so fiercely that she was certain that nothing could have parted them.
"I would not have you bear this guilt," she wept against his shoulder when she could finally again summon speech. Even with her eyes closed, she could still see the look upon his face as he'd said he'd failed her. "Please. I cannot stand it."
It was torture.
Their grip upon one another was so tight that her arms were shaking, but then Legolas stroked her hair, and his touch was gentle.
"And I cannot stand for you to bear it," he whispered beside her ear. "What then shall we do?"
Another tremor wracked her body.
"If I were to beg you," she choked, "to cast aside this blame—would you? Please."
Legolas squeezed her more tightly still.
"Would you? If I begged the same?"
She bit her lip against another sob that rose up from deep in her chest, and neither of them spoke, and just stood for another long time in the quiet of his bedchamber, she crying, he tense and rigid against her.
Finally, when the worst of her sobs had been reduced to sniffles, he drew away to look down into her face. The sight of his eyes so dark with anguish struck her like a physical blow.
"What happened to you?" he asked her very quietly. "What did he do?"
Shëanon shook her head.
"I cannot tell you," she said at once.
His gaze pierced her.
"Can you not? Or will you not?"
"Do you think I have not seen the look in your eyes at night when you wake me from my nightmares?" she asked him tremulously, sick to her stomach just to think of it, and indeed, sicker still to imagine how much worse it would be if he heard instead what had befallen her—thinking himself to blame. "Do you think I have not seen your torment? Do not ask me to add to it. I could not bear to lay any more upon you."
"Meleth nín," Legolas said very seriously, "it is upon me already, whether you wish it or not."
His words stilled the protest on her lips.
"Shall we endure it alone?" he whispered, "or weather it together?"
Shëanon hesitated.
"I have been trying to—spare you—"
"Valar help me," he swore, and for a moment he turned his gaze to the ceiling as if indeed he were entreating Eru himself. But then he looked back at her and gently cupped her face again between both his hands. "My lady is mad. Aiër, you are as a soldier pierced by many arrows staggering to defend a hale and unhurt companion. Can you not see that it is you in need of dire aid? Would you not let me step between you and the coming fire even as your legs are giving out beneath you?"
Shëanon opened her mouth to protest, but then she remembered how she had felt sitting on the floor in Aragorn's study: falling apart at the seams.
It pains him to watch you drown and yet ignore every line he has thrown you.
She squeezed closed her eyes, her heart full of doubt. Indeed, Aragorn had been right, but she knew she had spurned Legolas's attempts to help her because she was terrified that if she were to—to take hold of the rope, he would be pulled into the raging, tempestuous sea to drown alongside her. As he held her face and brushed away her tears, however, and as she beheld the resolve that steeled his noble features, she realized that this was once again about trust. If he was indeed determined to draw her from the water to safety… could she not trust him to do so?
Had she not herself so furiously told him that he had never failed her?
Overwhelmed, she reached up to grasp his wrists and tremulously nodded.
"Okay," she relented. "Okay."
She had no idea how long it took. Perhaps they remained in his room for hours. They sat on the divan, clutching each other, and she spoke only against his shoulder—whispered the truth against his neck, into his fair hair—for she could not endure the sight of his face while she revealed such gruesome details to him. Throughout it all, Legolas was utterly silent and unbelievably still—she did not know if it was sheer fury that froze him to the spot or a display of immense control for her benefit, but he did not speak, and he did not move except to stroke her hair when she began to tremble.
Only when—in what was perhaps the most terrifyingly honest moment of her whole life—she confessed to him that upon his search through her deepest fears, Sauron had shown her a vision of Legolas sneering at her in disgust, and that she had been having nightmares about it, did he at last react.
"Shëanon," he said beside her ear, and in her name she heard his agony, his disbelief, his refusal and realization. She felt the shake of his head, the press of his hands, and barreled on through the rest of her account as quickly as she could just so that they would not linger there on that awful truth. Finally, she confessed to him that she had spent the weeks since the destruction of the Ring seized by terror and dread, and haltingly told him the truth about the panic attacks, and at last, when she had nothing left to reveal, they sat in exhausted silence, holding one another with the same desperation as before.
Legolas was still rigid, and for many long moments he said nothing, and though he was still, she could feel his pulse was pounding.
"I didn't—want you to know," she breathed wretchedly against his skin.
But Legolas shook his head again and caressed her very gently, his hands tracing up and down her back.
"How can I come to your aid," he asked her quietly, "when you bar me from the battle?"
Shëanon's heart lurched, and she abruptly thought of Helm's Deep, and how he had tried to forbid her from fighting—to force her to leave him to fend for himself—and Legolas clearly knew it, for he drew gently back at last, and tenderly touched his forehead to hers, so that they were nose-to-nose, and practically lips-to-lips.
"We cannot keep doing it to each other," he whispered, and Shëanon felt more tears seep even from her closed eyes, and she nodded softly and touched his cheek, penitent and overcome.
They stayed like that for several more moments, and though she felt emotionally battered, the realization that everything was in the open now, and that she had told him everything, and that she wasn't going to lose him… Her lip trembled again, and she let out one last shuddering sob that was simple, utter relief.
Legolas sat back then at last to look at her, and Shëanon opened her eyes. Though he had not been weeping, he appeared as drained and as tired as she felt, as though they had together undergone a long trial. Again, he caressed her wet cheeks with the pads of his thumbs.
"Meleth nín," he murmured. The tone of his voice made her nervous, for it seemed to her that he intended to say something very important, and she was wary once more of what it might be. His gaze was pointed and beseeching. "I think it is time now for you to use your final gift from Lothlórien."
Her breath caught in her throat, and she felt herself tense in his arms.
She had all but forgotten the crystal vial from Galadriel. Her pack had been left—by Aragorn, she surmised—in her room for her when she had been released from the Houses of Healing, but she had given it a wide berth, for she'd found that even simply the sight of her own clothes from the quest had inexplicably troubled her. Only once had she rummaged through her rucksack—to retrieve the note from Legolas. The water of Nimrodel was still surely tucked away at the bottom, unthought of and unlooked for.
She could feel that Legolas was watching her closely, and for a moment she didn't know what to say.
Bathing in this water heals wounds not of the body but of the spirit, and washes away the stains of grief and the weariness of travel. Use it wisely.
A thread of uncertainty coursed through her. Part of her was loathe to use the water, for what if some other time, long in the future, she or someone dear to her needed it far more? Would she not regret forever using it upon herself now?
You will endure much before the fate of this world is decided.
But the fate of the world had been decided, had it not? And there she was as the dust settled, struggling to draw breath.
She felt in her heart that Legolas was right, and that this was the grief the Lady had foreseen.
He brushed a strand of hair behind one of her ears.
Shëanon drew a deep breath then, studying him as he watched her, and thought on all that they had said and confided to one another since she had entered his chambers.
She gripped his shoulders and looked into his clear eyes.
"Will you come with me?" she asked, her voice barely more than a whisper.
Legolas seemed to go still, and she could sense at once that he was wary.
"You wish me to accompany you?" he asked uncertainly, his gaze roving over her face. It was not hard to guess the reason for his reluctance, and she felt herself blushing against the warmth of his palm, her stomach fluttering nervously as she considered the implications of what she was suggesting. Indeed, if they were to bathe together...
Shëanon laid her hand over his where it cupped her face, her heart pounding.
"I am not the only one who is hurting," she said tremulously. She bit her lip. "Would you—would you not share this gift with me?"
Legolas looked back at her in silence, his fair face solemn, and though she had not meant to, she could not help but feel that she had laid some profound decision at his feet, and she was suddenly afraid of what he would say.
But then he rose and stood tall and straight before her, and wordlessly he held out his hand.
Her breath rushing from her, she took it and allowed him to draw her to her feet.
In heavy silence they walked together back down the corridor to her room, and from within she retrieved the crystal bottle from her pack, gleaming as it had all those long weeks ago in Lothlórien. For one moment she stood in the warm sunlight that poured in the open window, a lump in her throat.
Legolas clasped her hand again as they left her chamber, but to her surprise it was not back to his room that he led her. As they turned down another hallway she cast him a nervous glance, feeling more and more uncertain as the moments passed, but he met her gaze and gently squeezed her hand in his.
Finally, they came to an ornate door through which she had never before passed, and he opened it soundlessly and led her inside. The chamber within was lavishly furnished, with a large, curtained bed and an ornate chest of drawers, and a tall window with stained glass panes.
"This is meant to be the queen's bedchamber," Legolas murmured quietly, clearly seeing her confusion. He laced his fingers through hers, guiding her across the room.
Shëanon blinked, feeling a moment of terrible worry and trepidation, to think of Arwen, but Legolas squeezed her hand again.
"Would not the queen's room be the king's, also?" she asked, frowning.
"The customs of Men are strange," he muttered. "And their unions are not always made for love."
Shëanon's brow furrowed, her thoughts whirling uneasily, and when she looked up, she found that Legolas was watching her. Suddenly her stomach flipped. Something in his keen gaze seemed to see right through her, and she was certain that he knew exactly where her thoughts had wandered, to hear him speak of unions made for love. Blushingly she looked away, feeling breathless.
"Arwen would have no need for such a chamber," she whispered.
He ran his thumb lightly over the back of her hand.
"Indeed, I think not," he agreed quietly.
Then he gently drew her closer and guided her through another door at the far side of the room. Over the threshold, Shëanon froze.
Before her was a vast bathing chamber made of white stone. Bright light filtered in through the high windows to one side, and in the center was a large pool sunken into the floor.
She felt her fingers curl more tightly around the crystal bottle clasped in her fist. She could feel Legolas's gaze upon the side of her heated face, and she glanced at him with her heart in her throat. She had no idea what it was he saw in her eyes, but he stepped closer and grasped both her shoulders, and then he bent and pressed his lips to her forehead. Shëanon watched as he released her and turned to the furnace in the corner, where he kindled a fire that she distantly understood was designed heat the bath. He rose gracefully then and bent next beside the tap, turning the golden faucets until water began to splash against the smoothly polished stone of the pool.
It was only then, as Legolas crouched beside the bath, that she realized she was staring—that she had not moved since he had shut the door behind them. In the bright light before the window, his hair shone like silvery gold, and his fair skin was luminous. He ran his hand beneath the flow of the water as though to test the heat, and Shëanon was enraptured as she studied his broad shoulders, his tall, powerful body—his strong hands attending to her bath. Finally, when the pool was full, Legolas stopped the water and stood, his eyes a piercing blue in the bright room.
Shëanon found that she was breathing shallowly. It seemed that only now that the time had come did she realize that she had invited him to bathe with her. She felt utterly paralyzed, watching the steam that rose from the water, the light that danced on its surface and bounced across the walls. She did not regret her decision—she would lift the burden of grief and despair from Legolas in any way that she could—but she was terribly daunted by the prospect of joining him in the water—of disrobing so that she might do so. She thought of the dreams they had shared, of the way she had reveled in his touch, his bare skin against hers, the trust and bliss, but she thought also of her panic to learn he had helped heal her at Helm's Deep, and of the terror she had felt to have been so exposed before him.
With a start she realized that Legolas had returned to her, that he had taken off his boots already, and that he stood at her side with his fingers working over the fastenings at the front of his tunic, until each one lay opened and revealed the flesh beneath. He cast the garment easily aside, onto a low bench against the wall, and heat burst in Shëanon all over—in her face and neck, for she found herself blushing furiously, but in her chest, too. She stared at his broad chest, his narrow waist, his skin smooth and taut over the hard muscles of his arms, shoulders, abdomen—his body so obviously shaped by centuries of archery, of swordplay, of warfare and training and defense of his people. For a long moment she could not look away from him, stunned by the beauty and vitality of his body and overwhelmed by the feelings they stirred in her, until at last she realized she was gaping at him, and she wrenched her gaze away, back to the pool.
Valar, she thought, her skin suddenly clammy, her palm sweating around the crystal vial. Perhaps she had not thought this through.
"Shëanon," Legolas said quietly.
Swallowing, she glanced down at the little bottle, the water within sparkling. With shaking fingers, she removed the stopper and poured the contents into the bath.
Then she stood at the edge of the pool, biting her lip. Her heart was pounding.
Legolas remained at her side; she could feel him watching her with what she could only guess was concern and expectation.
You're the one who suggested this, she reminded herself, but she was trembling with nerves.
"Aiër."
The sound of his voice jolted her. It occurred to her then that if she tarried much longer, Legolas was probably going to leave—that he would deduce she was not ready for this, and re-dress, and leave her in privacy, for she could not imagine that he would cajole her into taking her clothes off in front of him instead, and she desperately did not want to show how much she was worrying. The pressure of the situation—though it did not come from him, and indeed though it was of her own making—seemed to trap her, and she turned away from him so that he would not be able to see her trepidation in her face. She attempted to set the empty vial down on the bench, but there was an audible clatter of glass against stone that was caused by her shaking hand, and she grimaced to know that he surely heard it—that he was watching her lose her nerve.
Shëanon kicked off her shoes. She lifted her hands to the ties of her dress and began to unfasten the laces while her pulse rushed in her ears. The silence within the chamber was such that she worried Legolas could hear her every unsteady breath and anxious heartbeat. When her dress was loose about her, she shrugged the sleeves over her shoulders and let the fabric pool at her feet as though she were not the one controlling her own body, and then she stepped out of it and stood barefoot in her shift on the cold floor. Though the sun was pouring in through the window and though she could feel the warm steam coming off the bath, goosebumps erupted all over her body to feel the air upon her bare skin.
Biting her lip hard, she bent and retrieved her dress and folded it up as neatly as she could just so that she might put off what would come next for a moment longer. She was sure she had never felt so awkward or foolish in her entire life, standing there in her underclothes in mortifying silence. She set the dress upon the bench and then realized she was out of ways to stall.
She was blushing so furiously now that she wondered if Legolas could somehow feel it even where he stood. It suddenly occurred to her that he might be naked when she turned around. Something within her seemed to twist—as though her stomach could not decide whether to leap or plummet. Then she realized that if she didn't turn around before she got naked, all he would see would be the scars all over the back of her. Shëanon winced and turned instead to face the bath again, seized by uncertainty and nerves.
She remembered telling Legolas that she did not dread what they had done in their dreams and bit her lip in dismay. He would never believe her if she carried on like this for much longer.
But still, she couldn't move a muscle.
She gazed down into the pool, frozen.
Don't be a coward, she chastised herself fretfully.
She lifted her trembling fingers to the straps of her shift and began to push them over her shoulders, hot and cold shivers running all over her and knots coiling in her stomach, but before she could draw the fabric any further, she suddenly felt the warmth of him beside her. Broad hands settled upon her own, stilling them in their course.
"Shëanon."
His breath touched the back of her neck and raised another shiver, and for an instant she stood stock-still, trembling before the bath and beneath the brush of his fingertips against her collarbones. Then, hesitantly, she dared to turn and look back at him.
He was not undressed after all, and meeting her gaze with one so pointed and tender that it stole her breath, he meaningfully shook his head and gently eased the straps of her shift back up over the slopes of her shoulders, trailing heat over her skin as he went. Though he spoke nothing else, he looked into her eyes and slowly caressed her bare arms, and the realization that he had—that he saw her, that he knew her—knew her fears and uncertainties, and that he should seek to deliver her from them with such care brought a lump to her throat and an ache to her chest so fierce that she could have staggered. She heard his voice from before, so vehemently declaring his love for her, and she stepped closer and laid her hands upon his bare chest, thrilling to feel his body once more, and thrumming with love and gratitude and poignant emotion through every vein of her own.
Legolas set his hands once more over hers where they rested above the steady beating of his heart, and then lifting them both from his chest he drew each in turn to his lips, softly kissing her knuckles. She thought that the light in his eyes as he beheld her over their joined hands must surely have been more affecting and more assuring than the first rising of Anor over Arda, and she felt that a deep and binding trust passed between them as meaningful as any vow.
Legolas squeezed her fingers, pressed one final kiss to one of her palms, and then strode—in his leggings—around her to lower himself gracefully and easily into the steaming bathwater.
Shëanon didn't hesitate for once. She crept forward to sit on the edge of the pool in his wake and dipped her feet carefully into the hot water. The moment she touched it, she could sense the power of Galadriel's gift. It was as though the water touched more than simply her flesh. Legolas set his hands upon her waist, his thumbs brushing her ribs, his abdomen against her knees, his long, strong torso and arms gleaming in the light that came in the window and bounced off the surface of the water. At once, she leaned forward to grasp his shoulders, and he gently lifted her off the ledge and into the bath.
The heat enveloped her. His arms drew her to him. Her shift billowed around her legs, and the magic in the water hit her like a galloping horse.
She gasped.
Legolas was watching her closely. She could tell that he felt it, too. Without speaking—and still holding each other—they sank together deeper into the bath, kneeling in the pool until only their faces remained above the surface, and then, with one last look into his eyes, she closed her own and drew a deep breath, and together they submerged themselves beneath the water.
She had no words to describe the way it felt. It was somehow both soothing and agonizing—as though there were some gaping wound upon her soul that the water was touching, and it stung and ached, but stopped the bleeding. For a moment it was as though Shëanon could feel every hurt she'd ever felt in her life—like many splinters being pulled out, some tiny and inconsequential, others awful, terrible shards lodged deep… and then gone.
Pain she hadn't even realized she still suffered was abruptly ended. It was as though every grief she'd ever felt were a heavy weight piled upon her, one by one, gradually increasing until she'd become accustomed to the great mountain of it—until she'd forgotten what it was like to breathe a full breath without struggling, or move without the crushing weight of it all upon her shoulders, and now the water had washed it all away, and she was unhindered and unencumbered for the first time in her life.
After only a moment beneath the surface, she felt Legolas urge her back up. Her wet hair was a heavy weight behind her as she emerged from beneath the water, and she opened her eyes to see Legolas looking back at her. His silvery-gold hair was darkened by the water that wetted it and ran in rivulets off him back into the bath—down his neck, over his strong shoulders and chest, trailing along the hard, smooth planes of his body. At first she thought she could feel water running off her, too, but she realized with a start that there were tears streaming down her face, though she knew not when she had begun again to cry.
A sob escaped her so suddenly that she was startled, and then she and Legolas were embracing so closely that she scarcely knew where she ended and he began, and still the water of Nimrodel seemed to work on them, soothing pain and sorrow.
She realized that Legolas was trembling as much as she was, and drawing the barest distance away from him, she could see that his jaw was clenched and his eyes were screwed shut, and she held him more closely still.
Her abuse as a child. Thinking herself abandoned. Worrying that her family did not love her. The traumas of Moria and Helm's Deep, of Amon Hen and the Pelennor Fields. The torment and terror of Mordor. The truth about her parents. Her insecurities. Her insistent dread.
The water seemed to ease it all, and she hid her face against Legolas's shoulder and cried.
And then it all began to ebb.
Finally, she caught her breath. The intensity of the water's magic had dissipated, and the bathing chamber was quiet, but she and Legolas did not move for a very long time, their arms about one another, her head resting upon his shoulder, their hands in each other's hair and stroking the other's back. Shëanon felt weightless—floating. Though Legolas must have been knelt touching the bottom of the pool, she was only touching him. At some point she seemed to have wrapped her legs around him, for she was sat in his lap with her legs parted, her knees on either side of his hips and her shift rucked up so that she might sit astride him, but unlike the evening in the practice yard, she felt no trace nor barest inkling of unease or shock, for as Legolas rocked her gently in the warm water, with all the horror of her life siphoned away, she had never felt such utter peace.
Shëanon closed her eyes and drew a deep breath that smelled like his wet skin, and she felt him press a kiss upon the side of her neck that seemed to penetrate her as deeply as the water had. She breathed against him, feeling the rise and fall of his chest against her own, listening to his heart, running her fingertips over his bare shoulder blades. His fëa now felt stronger than the water, like it was what was now touching the barest parts of her soul, and despite the tremendous rawness she felt in the wake of such harrowing and sustained emotion, she was wholly at ease, more content than she had ever felt in her life. She might have even fallen asleep in his arms if they had stayed there much longer, but eventually the fire in the furnace had gone out, and the water was growing cold, and when her shivering was caused no longer by the power of the Lady's gift but by the mounting chill, and she was huddling into the heat of his body, Legolas at last lifted his head.
"Are you cold?" he asked.
Shëanon stilled.
Where before everything had been overshadowed by the magic of the water, now with the bathwater tepid and the spiritual scourging over, the sight of his face so close to her own seemed to jolt her back to reality. She was suddenly very aware that she was straddling him, that they were pressed together so intimately, that his hands were stroking her bare skin, and his lips were scant inches from her own, that their tender souls were so closely entwined and that he had called her his wife.
She couldn't bring herself to speak. Shëanon lifted a trembling hand to touch his jaw and ran her thumb softly over his lip.
To her astonishment, Legolas did not caress her in return but clenched his jaw and closed his eyes, and his hands touched the small of her back and seemed to urge her whole body closer to him, settling her higher upon his lap in the water, and she readily allowed herself to be drawn closer; she wanted to be as close to him as possible.
Their foreheads touched again, and their breath mingled between them. Shëanon's eyes had fallen closed, too. She felt him grasp her hips, and suddenly everything felt different. It did not seem to her that they were pressed close, anymore, for comfort and safety, and their hands upon each other no longer seemed sheltering and chaste. Now, as she arched closer to him, as she slid her bare thighs against his waist and as he gripped her against him, she knew that this was something else entirely. She felt his thumbs trace over her hipbones, and the cold bathwater again felt hot, and she sensed that now they were touching one another because they wanted to feel each other, and her breath rushed out of her.
Abruptly, however, the hands upon her waist lifted her firmly away from him, and she opened her eyes, dazed, to find Legolas standing and setting her on her own feet in the pool before him. At once she felt twice as cold to stand from the water, but she hardly noticed, for she was so bewildered by what had happened.
He set his hands instead upon her shoulders and leaned forward to kiss her brow.
"Come, meleth nín," he whispered as he drew away. She had never seen his eyes so dark, and she shivered again, her mind racing. "You are shivering."
Then he hoisted himself out of the water and offered her his hand.
Shëanon took it without hesitation, though her heart was pounding as he carefully lifted her up out of the pool. The soaked fabric of her shift clung to her legs as she gained her feet, and for a moment as she stood before Legolas the only sound in the room was that of the droplets of water running off their hair and clothes dripping onto the floor at their feet. His hands had settled again upon her arms, and though she felt even colder to stand in her sodden clothes in the cool air, she could not bring herself to move away from him.
For a moment it seemed that he felt the same, for he was gazing into her eyes and brushing the wet strands of her hair away from her face. She leaned into the sweep of his fingers upon her cheek, but she trembled again as much from his touch as from the cold, and seeing her shiver, Legolas frowned and turned at once toward the pile of linens behind them. She bit her lip and watched him take one of the soft towels—just the grace of his stride and the play of muscles in his back and arms as he moved to retrieve it made her ache, and the look in his eyes when he returned to her and drew the towel around her shoulders…
Shëanon remembered when he had called her a fool for thinking it would matter who her parents were, and she could see now that he'd been right. The look upon his face was so fierce with care and devotion and protection that it stopped her breath.
Legolas seemed to be looking pointedly into her eyes as he bundled the soft towel around her, as though he were making a deliberate choice to gaze into her face and only her face, and she realized with a start that she was surely tremendously indecent, standing before him in her soaked underclothes, and she blushed to the roots of her hair, but—
"I will leave you here to dress," he murmured, and with one more look of what seemed to her to be almost tortured longing, he left her side again to take another towel for himself, gather his own clothes, and disappear into the main chamber.
Shëanon watched him go, and yet even after he had closed the door softly behind him, she found she was rooted to the spot. She could feel the cold water running down the back of her neck to wet the towel, and her shift was still dripping about her ankles, but Shëanon felt suddenly hot again—her heart was beating terribly fast, but this time it was not caused by her anxiety. She shivered once more and closed her eyes, thinking of the way Legolas had looked at her, thinking of his hands upon her—of his hips between her legs.
The water in the pool behind her was still throwing prisms of light about the bright room when she opened her eyes once more, and then Shëanon cast the now-damp towel back onto the bench and nervously strode to the door. Her arms and hands were shaking when she pushed it slowly open.
She thought that maybe she should have knocked, but such few scant moments had passed since Legolas had left her, and when she stepped into the threshold of the bedchamber, she found him standing before the bed with his back to her, clad still only in his wet leggings and toweling off his golden hair. She knew he'd heard her—she saw him go still, and her heart was pounding as she watched him turn.
The passing seconds seemed to tremble. Neither of them moved, and she could not bring herself to speak. They stood before one another for a moment of utter silence that seemed to shake Shëanon to her core, for Legolas's gaze was scalding—there was no question, no worry or surprise. He seemed to know exactly why she was there, and Shëanon's chest was heaving. Indeed, the only thing that broke the silence between them were her uneven breaths as she watched him standing before her, his leggings riding low about his lean hips, his bare chest, the blue of his eyes shaded the color of a midnight sky as he swept his solemn, wanting gaze over her—
The instant she moved, he dropped the towel and caught her In his arms—it was as though it had been a terrible effort not to go to each other, and as soon as she surrendered, they seized one another in desperation. She flung her arms about his neck, and Legolas drew her to him in a passionate embrace, and Shëanon's hand tangled in his hair as their lips met in a fierce, branding kiss that made her gasp against his mouth.
They had never kissed like this before—hungrily and without reservation, as though the touch of their lips against the other's were the only thing sustaining them. Shëanon pressed as closely as she could to him, against his hard body—the heat of him through her wet clothes was scorching, and Legolas hauled her impossibly closer. For a moment she swayed up on her toes, her face uplifted, trembling against the broad hands that braced her back and urged her insistently closer still, until abruptly the room about her seemed to spin, and Legolas caught her under her knees, and she found herself lifted in his arms and set so gently upon the immense bed that her eyes stung.
Their lips had scarcely parted the whole time, and something about what he had done—the possessive way he had lifted her—the ease of it, his obvious strength—being carried in his strong arms—being deposited on the bed—Shëanon felt it like a burst of heat all over her, from her face down to her toes, and she grasped his shoulders and drew him down to her at once as he braced himself over her upon the mattress. She had never felt such desire in her life—not in the practice yard, not in the tent, not even in the face of their shared dreams, and at the feel of his body settling upon her she heard herself whimper into his kiss and felt herself arch beneath him.
It was almost too much. It was as though her flesh had become twice—no, three times as sensitive. Just the lightest touch made her quake. The brush of his tongue against hers, the sweep of his hands over her skin, the feel of him against her—she hadn't imagined it was possible to feel such affliction or such pleasure—for indeed the pleasure was like an affliction; it was so sweet it was practically agony, and the more they kissed and touched, the worse it became, and yet she wanted it to continue. She wanted it to get worse and worse and worse, or, indeed, better and better…
It wasn't until he drew the barest distance away from her lips and she could see, through some haze, the tormented set of his face that she realized how boldly she was touching him. Her palms and fingertips raking over him—his bare back, his ribs, his abdomen. She might have been embarrassed if he hadn't been touching her with the same fervor in return. He had never touched her like this before—not even at Dunharrow. His hands were moving over her as though he couldn't help himself—as though he were desperate to feel her everywhere that he could.
She couldn't have said how long they lay embracing. She had lost all sense of time or reason. Indeed, she could focus on nothing but him and the things he was doing to her.
As he had that night in her tent, he brought his mouth to her neck—kissing her, drawing at her flesh, gently using his teeth—Shëanon bit her lip against a gasp. It felt so good. She felt that her whole body was tingling all over, and her stomach was fluttering, and she tilted her head and shook, silently entreating him not to stop.
He didn't seem to intend to. Legolas kissed lower and lower, down her neck and along her collarbone and shoulder. She felt his palm caress the length of her arm, then grasp her hip, then trail down her thigh before gliding back to her waist. The stark difference between the heat of his hand and the cold of her shift was enflaming, his touch all the hotter for the cold she felt everywhere else, and she heard herself whimper. As he laved at her neck his hand settled against her ribcage, so unbearably warm over her wet clothes, and Shëanon was shifting restlessly beneath him.
Only when Legolas was pressing a kiss directly above her heart, his lips at the very edge of her shift, and when his hand was so high upon her ribs that his thumb brushed beneath her breast did she realize how badly she wanted him to touch her there. Her head spun at the thought. She felt dizzy, like she was careening out of control. Her chest was heaving, and her hands in his hair were practically clutching him to her breasts, and she realized with a start that their aching peaks were stiff beneath her damp, icy shift, abraded by the cold friction and brushed by the heat of his body, and suddenly an image came to her mind from one of their shared dreams, only it was changed, and she imagined how his lips would feel if he pressed them to her through her clothes, his warm breath and hot mouth over the wet fabric, or indeed, how it would feel if he drew her shift down out of the way and sucked at her wanting flesh as he had upon her neck—as he had in the dream—
Her entire body trembled.
In an instant, Legolas seemed to lurch off of her. Shëanon opened her eyes, panting and bewildered. First, she saw only the high canopy above the bed, and then she blinked and turned to find Legolas sitting on the edge of the mattress beside her, his entire body turned away, his hands grasping the bedcovers so tightly that she could see the whites of his knuckles.
Still reeling from their kissing and from the lust that had coursed through her, it took a moment for her to parse what had happened, but the moment that the haze of her desire cleared enough for her wits to return, Shëanon felt herself go rigid.
Valar. She felt frozen for a moment in shock. Had she really been—rubbing herself so brazenly against him—whimpering—in her underclothes—in what was meant to be Arwen's bed—practically entreating him to—to—?
She looked down the length of herself and saw that her entire body was visible through her shift, and remembered how she had lain there while he'd raked his gaze over her, and she sat up and drew her knees to her chest, blushing so hard that even her ears and neck felt hot.
Then she looked at Legolas, who still had his back to her, and felt suddenly ashamed of herself, and terribly uncertain. She didn't know what had come over her—she had just felt so close to him, and she loved him so much, and she had missed him so terribly for weeks, and it had felt so good to be in his arms, and in the bath, she had just—wanted—more—
But after only the briefest moment had passed, Legolas was turning back to face her, and seeing her trembling and huddled in her soaked clothes, he rose at once and seized a thick blanket folded across the foot of the bed, returning quickly to her side to cover her with it. The mattress dipped as he sat back down beside her, but Shëanon felt suddenly too shy to look at him, though indeed she was desperate to see his face and try to discern what he was thinking.
"I'm sorry," she breathed nervously, clutching the blanket over herself. Her voice was high and trembling. She somehow felt like she must surely have done something wrong. "I don't know what I…"
"Sorry?" he asked as though in bewilderment, and hesitantly she glanced up at him.
His gaze was piercing. None of the heat had left it.
He shook his head and reached for her hand.
"Nay," he murmured, pressing his lips to the inside of her wrist. "Nay."
He drew her back into his arms, and she realized that he looked flushed, and his damp hair was tangled from her hands in it, and she blushed again. Then Legolas leaned forward and kissed her so thoroughly that her embarrassment was forgotten, and she shivered in his arms even despite the blanket.
"Forgive me," he said fiercely. "It was not my wish to leave you… but I think we must stop, aiër," he said meaningfully. "Unless it is your wish to be wed here and now."
Shëanon felt her mouth fall softly open, for Legolas was looking at her in question, his gaze serious and expectant, and she realized suddenly that he was giving her the choice.
At once her thoughts returned to the tent at Dunharrow, and his gentle insistence that they sleep, but he was not insisting anything now. It seemed indeed that he was truly asking her if that was what she wanted, and for an instant she was entirely speechless. Heat had crept back up her neck and into her face, suddenly faced with the prospect of—of what? Of resuming, of not stopping, of—of binding herself to him—
But then Shëanon thought of Elrond, and Maglor, and Thranduil, and indeed—of her brothers and Aragorn.
She looked at Legolas and opened her mouth to answer, her face still terribly hot, clutching still at the blanket, when suddenly a sharp knock sounded upon the door, and it swung open, and Shëanon jumped about a foot off the bed and turned, in astonishment, to see a very shocked Man standing in the threshold of the room. He was one of the Dúnedain rangers that had come with her brothers to the city, though Shëanon did not know his name. He was very young, perhaps only as old as she was, and at the sight before him—which she realized with a blaze of horror was outrageously scandalous, for Legolas was bare-chested and she was obviously not dressed beneath the blanket—he turned violently red and quickly spun to face away from them.
"Forgive me," he said in Sindarin.
Legolas instantly bounded forth around the bed to stand between her and the ranger, and Shëanon watched anxiously as she tried to pull the blanket more fully over herself, horrified.
"We've been searching for you both for a few hours—you're needed in the hall with all haste," the young man said, speaking now to his booted feet.
"Get out," Legolas hissed at the same time that Shëanon, startled, said "Why?"
The Dúnadan glanced towards her and then seemed at once to realize that this was a mistake, for even from behind she could see that Legolas was furious, and the man retreated back through the doorway and into the hall.
"Your father is here," he said, looking now at the ceiling.
Shëanon's eyes widened.
"My father?" she asked, her heart leaping.
But the ranger shook his head.
"Nay, Lady," he said. He looked then at Legolas.
"The Elvenking awaits you, my lord."
A/N:
Merry Christmas ;)