Aiër Chapter 33 Part 1
Shëanon's hair was still wet as she scrambled about her room. She felt like she was running around in circles, setting things down and not remembering a moment later where she'd left them, until she had to stop and brace her hands on her knees in the middle of the chamber, squeezing closed her eyes and forcing a few deep breaths.
When the ranger had told them that the Elvenking had come, she had felt an onslaught of both powerful relief and tremendous dread. Relief because it meant that Legolas's father was alive and unhurt, and dread because she feared what was to come. After he'd closed the door—and shielded her from the young man's gaze—Legolas had returned to her and grasped her hands, but she had been so astonished by the unexpected turn of events that for a moment she'd been speechless.
"Are you alright?" he'd asked quietly.
She had nodded dizzily, searching his face.
"Are you?" she'd whispered.
Legolas had nodded back.
"I must go and meet him," he'd said. In his eyes she'd seen regret and anticipation. He'd gently caressed her hands and looked into her eyes. "Will you come with me?"
When she'd agreed, he'd very solemnly kissed her once more, and then Shëanon had rushed back into the bathing chamber still clutching the blanket around herself, peeled herself out of her wet shift and pulled on her dress with nothing underneath, and then she'd hurried to her own room to dress properly and attempt to make herself presentable.
Now she stood and looked at the mess of clothing she'd pulled from the trunk at the foot of her bed. Though she'd been given some clothes in the Houses of Healing to replace the bloodied and torn tunics and leggings from her long journey, the dresses she'd been provided were very plain and scarcely fit her. If only she had kept the gowns she had been given in Lothlórien, or the one that she'd worn in Edoras… But perhaps those would no longer fit her, either. If Shëanon were honest with herself, she had to acknowledge that she hadn't gained back much of the weight she'd evidently lost on the plains of Gorgoroth. She recalled what Éowyn had said, about how she'd looked ill, and how she'd been missing from the hall, and she cringed to think of all those missed meals. It was suddenly clear to her why Legolas had been so adamantly piling food on her plate—why he'd become so frustrated in the stables when she'd made an excuse not to go to lunch—why he'd left the basket of food in her room. Valar, had she been wasting away on the outside, as she had been on the inside?
There was a sick feeling roiling around inside her. An image of lying before him moments before, in her soaked clothes, appeared as though before her eyes… Had she—did she still look so unwell? Had he thought it, bracing himself above her? And now she would—what? Go meet his father looking like—looking like—
Like a drowned, starving rat plucked from a sewer?
She flinched and seized what she deemed was the finest and most flattering of the dresses and pulled it on, and then cast about anxiously for her comb while her cold hair dripped against the back of her neck, icy still from the bathwater.
I think we must stop, aiër, unless it is your wish to be wed here and now.
A shiver coursed all the way down her back, and she blushed furiously and stopped dead in her tracks beside the bed to cover her scalding cheeks with her hands, remembering how Legolas had pressed his lips to her sternum and how she'd arched against the coverlet to urge him even lower.
Eru, she thought, shaking her head to banish the memory that suddenly touched every one of her senses. They must surely have lost their minds. She must have lost her mind. Who had that elleth been, who had been so brazen and unrestrained? And what had those feelings been? That spreading heat that had burned through every inch of her? That insistent ache? That dizzying haze that had scrubbed away all rational thought?
She could have died from shame, and yet just the mere thought of it seemed to beckon it all back—the heat, the ache, the haze of desire. Even as she stood there, she could feel the warmth rising beneath her skin as she recalled Legolas on top of her, Legolas caressing her, Legolas looking at her like he—like he wanted to—protect her, claim her, devour her—worship her—
"Stop, stop, stop," she hissed desperately to herself. She shoved aside one of the discarded dresses and finally found her comb cast haphazardly onto the bed. There was nothing for it; there was no time to dry her bedraggled hair properly, and she'd already wrung out as much water as she could. Hastily she combed out some of the worst tangles and pulled a few damp pieces back from her temples to plait.
If the Dúnedain rangers had been searching the Citadel for them, then that meant they had surely been sent by Aragorn. Someone must have been to their rooms upon Thranduil's arrival, and perhaps the hall, or the library, until it had become clear that she and Legolas were nowhere to be found. Hours, they had been missing, until Aragorn had sent—not the guards, but his own kinsmen to go door-to-door. Her blush worsened. Had he guessed what they might have been up to? Had he sent his own people, on whom he could count to be discreet? She winced to think of the one who had found them.
Suddenly, she realized that Aragorn was surely with Thranduil at that very moment, and would have been the whole time, and that her brothers were almost undoubtedly with them, too, for if the Elvenking had come, then indeed the sons of Elrond and the soon-to-be king of Gondor would have met him and kept his company until his own son could be summoned. What if the ranger had gone to report to Aragorn and had informed him, in front of the newly arrived retinue of Elves, that he had finally located Legolas entangled with Shëanon in bed?
A knock sounded upon her door, and Shëanon jumped and hastened to open it. Legolas stood in the hallway, dressed now in dry clothes, but his hair was still as wet as hers. She watched his gaze sweep over the scene before him: the dresses strewn about the bed, her soaking wet shift left in a puddle in the corner, her flushed face, her hands frantically plaiting her hair.
"I'm almost ready," she promised quickly, but her heart was pounding. She realized she was still barefoot and couldn't see where she'd left her shoes. She began pacing furiously across the cold flagstones underfoot with her fingers trembling in her tangled, wet hair as she braided.
Legolas strode into the room behind her, lifted her abandoned towel from the floor to reveal her slippers beneath, and then he caught her by the shoulders.
In her hair, her winding fingers froze.
For a moment she stood with her eyes trained upon the fasteners of his tunic.
His thumbs brushed gently along the bare skin at her collar.
Hesitantly, she lifted her gaze. With the gust of scandalous memories and thoughts blowing through her mind and the shock of want and worries so fresh about her, she was a bit nervous to do so. But when she at last looked up at him, his regard was calm and assuring, and she was unspeakably relieved to find that their interlude in and after the bath seemed to have strengthened rather than shaken the trust between them.
"Peace," Legolas said firmly. He gave her shoulders a gentle squeeze. "My father can wait a few more moments."
"I'm sure you are anxious to see him," she answered in a strained voice. How could he not have been, after so many long months of worry?
She finished her braid and hastily stepped into her shoes, but her gaze caught on the mirror and she felt that the weight of dread in her stomach was renewed—this was indeed certainly not how she would have chosen to make her first impression before Thranduil, looking like she had just been fished out of a river.
"Anxious," Legolas murmured. He ran his hands up and down her arms, and she watched his gaze rove over her. "It is you who looks anxious, meleth nín."
Shëanon grimaced and grasped one of his hands.
"I am relieved for you," she said softly and honestly. She tried to set her fear aside. "And relieved for your father's safety. I would not forestall your reunion with him."
But Legolas was looking at her as though he knew every thought in her head.
"You have nothing to fear from my father," he said at length, his bright eyes fixed upon hers. "Worry not."
But though she tried to heed him and take heart, she felt practically ill by the time they drew near to the Hall of Kings. Legolas had held fast to her hand all the way from her room, and she hoped that it was to take comfort from her rather than give it—or at least to do both—for she did not at all like the thought of dampening the joy of his father's arrival.
They crossed the courtyard. She suddenly recalled the look on Legolas's face when he had so pointedly touched her hair—when he had said that he'd guessed her heritage at their first meeting. Her legs felt like lead. Her stomach was in knots. It was true that red hair was rare among the Eldar, but she had always simply assumed that it must have come from her mortal parent. Now she felt foolish—anyone who didn't know she was half-elven wouldn't know that she had a mortal parent, either, and so the wet, tangled auburn mass dampening her dress would surely be a cause for—at the least—surprise.
But she didn't think surprise would be what Thranduil would feel. Had he not looked upon her father and uncles with his own two eyes? Legolas guided her up the steps that led into the hall, and the guards drew open the enormous doors, and she worried, as she crossed the threshold, that she might as well have had the heraldry of Fëanor emblazoned upon her breast and the star of that house bound to her brow, and she tried to take her hand from Legolas's.
But he looked down at her and frowned, and rather than releasing her, he clasped her fingers still tighter and offered her a knowing look, and then together, hand-in-hand, they passed through the doors.
XXX
Shëanon had never before set foot in the Hall of Kings—never since her awakening in the Houses of Healing had she had occasion or reason to do so. But she knew the chamber at once, for she had seen it vividly in her vision at Barad-dûr. If anything, the gleaming white stone seemed all the brighter, the ceiling even higher, and as she glimpsed the crowd of people awaiting them near to the looming throne at the far end, the hall seemed longer than she could have imagined.
Her legs trembled.
Shëanon was certain that even without any warning or clue, she would have known the Elvenking on sight, for Legolas bore a pronounced resemblance to his father so obvious that she could see it even at a distance and looking upon Thranduil only in profile. He stood before a throng of some twenty-five Elves, and like them, he wore fine armor and a sword at his waist, as though coming so directly from battle that they had scarcely felled the last foe before readying to ride, or perhaps as though they had expected yet more battle awaiting them on the road. The soldiers gathered behind him bore bows and quivers where the king had instead a regal cape, but neither this nor the simple, gleaming circlet at his brow was what set him apart from the others.
The knots in Shëanon's stomach twisted tighter.
The first word that came to her mind to describe Thranduil was 'imposing.' Like Celeborn and Galadriel, there was a light in his eyes so old that it sent a shiver down her back, and though they were the exact color and shape as his son's, they held none of the same warmth. Indeed, his gaze was cutting. While she knew that he could not—as Galadriel could—hear her thoughts, she had the distinct and immediate impression that he did not need to.
It seemed quite clear that he could discern just as much at a mere glance.
The instant they had set foot in the hall, everyone had turned to look. She could tell by the cold chill about her shoulders that her wet hair had surely made damp spots on her dress, and the weight in her stomach grew again. For the barest moment, she caught sight of Aragorn's face ahead and saw his eyebrows shoot up toward his hairline. Her brothers were beside him, and Elladan looked up at the vaulted ceiling as though in exasperation, but Elrohir's face was stony.
The soldiers of the Woodland Realm, however, did not move a muscle, except for one directly beside the king who grinned so broadly at Legolas that even Shëanon, for a moment, was heartened, and then at last she set her eyes upon the last person in the hall, who stood alone between the warriors and her family across from them.
Gandalf offered an untroubled smile.
"Ah," he said very calmly, as though thirty ellyn had not stood awaiting them for two hours, and indeed as though the strands of their hair were not still incriminatingly damp from their bath. "Here they are."
Utter silence resounded as she and Legolas approached, and she could not help but to worry what message their joined hands were sending to the onlookers, but he easily caressed her knuckles with his thumb, and he walked tall and straight, and seemed entirely free from worry.
Only when they drew even with Aragorn and her brothers did he finally let go, and that was when she mustered the courage to risk a more direct glance at the Elvenking. She found that he had not at all reacted to their appearance. His face was wholly impassive and stern, and it seemed he had not even looked at her; his gaze was fixed unwaveringly upon his son.
Then he spoke.
"How nice of you to join us," he said in a voice that, though he had not shouted, would surely have been heard even at the very back of the great hall. "I trust we have not interrupted anything more… pressing."
Shëanon halted beside Aragorn and her cheeks burned, but Legolas gave no response to what his father had said and instead crossed the remaining distance between them and grasped him in a fierce embrace that she was surprised to see the king returned at once.
She suddenly felt her eyes sting.
Legolas stepped back after a moment and he and Thranduil stood gripping each other's shoulders.
"Adar," he said. "Why have you come?"
Shëanon could not help but to stare at them. For a split second, the weight of her nerves was forgotten, for the sight of the two ellyn face-to-face was nothing short of remarkable. It was impossible to say which of the two stood taller than the other, and at some moments they looked almost as alike as Elladan and Elrohir… but then Legolas would move or speak, and whatever parts of his face had come instead from his mother became apparent, and their visages more disparate, as a reflection seen upon the surface of a puddle is interrupted by the ripples of falling rain.
And unlike his son's, Thranduil's hair was of such a pale silver that it was more platinum than blond.
"I have come," he said pointedly, "because I sent my only heir to deliver a message, and he never returned thence."
Legolas frowned, and watching from beside her family, her heart was thundering in her chest. Surely Thranduil was not angry? She suddenly remembered standing upon the battlements of Helm's Deep right before Legolas had kissed her for the first time, when seeing his haughty, authoritative expression, she had imagined he must have looked like his father. She had undoubtedly been right. The Elvenking's gaze seemed sharp enough to whet a blade.
"Another errand was laid upon me—" Legolas began.
"Another errand you laid upon yourself, as I understand it," Thranduil interrupted.
Legolas was the one now who raised his eyebrows.
"Have you journeyed all this way to pass some judgment for it?" he asked.
But at this, the Elvenking shook his head, and something about him seemed at last to soften.
"I have journeyed all this way to see with my own eyes if my son yet lives," he said.
There came then a silence, and Shëanon suddenly had to avert her gaze—she remembered, at Dunharrow, when she had leapt weeping into her father's arms, and realized by the look on Legolas's face that they were surely all intruding on an equally private moment.
"Then you have fulfilled your purpose," he said at last, in a voice that was solemn but composed. She glanced up to see him looking at his father in question. "We have heard no word out of the north."
"Indeed, you have not," Thranduil agreed imperiously. "Even were we not entrenched and surrounded by our enemy, we could not have spared a single ellon even to call for aid, much less send tidings."
"And yet it would seem we at last prevailed."
"The victory was hard-won," said Thranduil, "but won nonetheless, and indeed, greater than you yet know. After defeating our enemy in the north, we marched south and joined the Galadhrim in besieging Dol Guldur. The fortress lies now in ruins. The shadow that for so long festered there is vanquished, and the forest is cleansed. Henceforth it shall be called Eryn Lasgalen—until there are none left east of the sea who remember that name, or the tongue in which it is spoken."
Shëanon's eyes went wide, and she glanced hastily at her brothers, but they did not seem to react. She guessed that Thranduil must have told them already, while they were waiting. Still, if the Galadhrim had gone off to battle, and Dol Guldur was sacked…
Shëanon shuddered to imagine such a battle.
Legolas, however, did not seem to share in her amazement. Instead, he looked silently back at his father for a very long moment, unmoving, and when at last he spoke, the sound of his voice was terrible.
"How many?" he asked lowly. The utter lack of emotion in his words somehow only conveyed what he had wished to hide all the more, and Shëanon's heart gave a plaintive lurch of allegiance and grief.
She watched the change come over the king—the mask she had so often seen upon Legolas's own face suddenly apparent, and the effect was somehow even more pronounced on the face of his father, whose cool gaze became even more closed, his expression entirely unreadable.
"Later," he said shortly, with just the barest shake of his head.
Shëanon glanced again at Aragorn and her brothers, her worry climbing ever higher. If Thranduil was so reluctant to report the casualties to his son, she could only imagine what the number must have been…
The Woodland Realm is red with blood and fire, Saruman had said.
Shëanon was sure he had spoken the truth.
Then suddenly, and, it seemed to her, intentionally, as though he had intended to do it the whole time but was waiting to speak with his son first, Thranduil turned his head to look directly at her. His icy gaze seemed to trace her from head to toe.
Shëanon went still.
To her utter horror, Legolas followed his father's gaze at once and turned to look back at her, and then he immediately held out his hand and entreated her with his eyes to step forth and stand beside him.
Her eyes widened, and she was rooted to the spot for a single instant with dread. She had not imagined, somehow, that she would be so formally and immediately introduced to Thranduil like this. Surely after so many days of travel and after having endured weeks or perhaps months of battle, the last thing the king would care about would be meeting her. She had anticipated that she would stand there beside her brothers, hoping her sopping hair would go unnoticed, until Thranduil and his people were escorted to rooms for rest and food, and that she would have perhaps been passingly and less conspicuously presented to him at some later time: This is Gimli, this is Pippin, this is Shëanon—
But Aragorn suddenly grasped and squeezed her shoulder, and Legolas's gaze was steady and beseeching, and there was nothing else for it. Nervously she stepped forward and set her hand in his, and he drew her gallantly closer to stand before his father.
"Adar," he murmured. "Her brothers behind me you know well already, but here is one you have yet to meet. Honored am I beyond the measure of words to bring before you Lady Shëanon of Imladris, daughter of Lord Elrond and granddaughter to the Lord and Lady of Lórien. At the hour of the forging of our fellowship, she alone of the Eldar stepped forth alongside me to walk the perilous path that has led us here, and she alone of our company contended with the Enemy himself, and prevailed. It gladdens my heart that here you should find us at the end of so long and dark a night, for only now, looking upon you both, can I take comfort in the rising sun and judge that the darkness is at last behind me."
If she hadn't been so paralyzed with nerves that she couldn't move, Shëanon was sure her jaw would have dropped. She was so taken aback that for a moment she forgot herself entirely, and looked up at Legolas in utter astonishment, and it seemed to her that everyone else did, too, for a stunned hush fell upon the hall, and she could feel the gazes of the soldiers boring into them.
But Legolas merely set his hand upon the small of her back, and remembering herself with a start, she set her own hand over her heart and bowed her head before the king, her pulse hammering within her.
If she had been worried what impact it would have for Legolas to hold her hand when they had entered the hall, that was entirely blown out of the water, now. Shëanon didn't know what to think or feel, for no one—not her brothers, not his kinsmen, and certainly not his father—could have mistaken the meaning behind what Legolas had said. Her face was burning—she felt like she was a pillar of climbing flame hotter and brighter even than the beacons of Minas Tirith. When he had said not to worry about meeting his father, she had not guessed that practically the first words out of his mouth would be an announcement of his intent to marry her.
For that was exactly what he had done, to introduce her in such a way.
Thranduil did not speak for a long moment. She could hardly have blamed him, and her palms were sweating, and the silence wore on.
Her eyes were still trained upon the floor. She was not supposed to look up until Thranduil addressed her, and with each passing moment, she felt her trepidation notch higher.
But then at last, in that same clear, strong voice, he spoke.
"Celeborn spoke to me of this child," was all that he said.
Shëanon finally glanced up and found him staring at her so unabashedly that she blushed—impossibly—harder, and looked nervously again at Legolas.
"What did he say?" he asked curiously. His hand upon her back was the only thing anchoring her in place.
"Very many things," said Thranduil slowly, still staring at her. His expression was entirely inscrutable. "Among them, that she saved the life of the Marchwarden of Lórien, passed unscathed out of the dungeons of Barad-dûr, and slew one of the Nine with a single arrow."
Shëanon was so startled to hear these words pass his lips that for a moment she could only gape at him, speechless.
"Tell me," he commanded, speaking to her for the first time. "Do I stand in your debt, Shëanon of Imladris?"
Her eyes widened.
"D-debt?" she stammered.
"Have you saved my son's life?" he asked frankly.
"I—"
She clamped shut her mouth, unsure what to say. She recalled the night that she and Legolas had fetched water together in Fangorn Forest, when he had adamantly insisted that she was not indebted to him for rescuing her from the Uruk-hai. She suddenly understood why he had objected.
The thought of what might have happened if she had not stepped in front of the bolt at Helm's Deep made her feel ill. She would step in front of a hundred more without hesitation. Besides, had Legolas not found her lifeless body on the black slopes of Mordor?
Thranduil was watching her expectantly, and she could practically feel his gaze boring into her. She cleared her throat.
"He has saved mine, also," she managed at last. "And indeed, he saved mine first. If—if ever there was a debt, it was rightfully mine… but I think there could not now stand any debt between us."
Legolas's thumb ran gently back and forth near to her waist.
"I see," the Elvenking said after a moment. His voice remained as cool and dispassionate as ever, but still his gaze was so piercing that she could scarcely maintain eye contact with him.
He turned then back to Legolas.
"Come, my son," he said, and she blinked to be so abruptly dismissed. "We have much to discuss."
"We thank you for your… hospitality," he added as though in afterthought, looking past Shëanon to where Aragorn still stood, and at his nod, Thranduil cast her one last glance, and then turned to lead his company from the hall.
Legolas again grasped her hand, and lifting it between them, he bent and pressed his lips to the backs of her fingers.
"Lady," he murmured chivalrously, but his gaze as he rose again before her seemed to catch on hers like a flame touching a wick, and though Shëanon was certain that this display of his affection and intention was deliberately done before his father and his people, she could see at once that it was no less genuine—indeed, perhaps it was all the more, for the light in his eyes was fierce.
He gave her hand one last gentle squeeze as though in reassurance, and then he strode from the hall with his kinsmen. Shëanon watched them go—Legolas's blond head beside his father's silver hair, his broad shoulders and gait and bearing such an echo of the ellon who preceded him that her stomach twisted.
Then Gandalf passed before her, still with the same calm look upon his wizened face. He nodded first at her and then at Aragorn, and then he followed after the Silvan Elves and left the hall.
Shëanon stood for a moment wringing her hands until the great doors were closed in his wake with a groan and creak of the hinges and a dull thud that sounded terribly loud beneath the high, vaulted ceiling.
Then she released her breath and turned to her family.
"What did you do?" Elrohir demanded the moment she met his gaze. "Fall into a water trough?"
Shëanon flushed and lifted a hand to touch her cold hair. She had almost forgotten it was still wet.
"Maybe no one noticed," she whispered, looking from her brothers to Aragorn in dismay.
They all seemed to trade a glance.
"They noticed," said Elladan flatly.
Shëanon winced. She was sure he was right. She scrubbed her hands over her burning face and looked down at the floor, mortified, but as she attempted to regain her composure, she realized that the silence about her was tense. When she lifted her head again, she saw that Elrohir's jaw and fists were clenched, and Elladan beside him was unsmiling, and even Aragorn, who stood with his arms crossed over his chest, appeared grim.
She swallowed.
"What is it?" she asked anxiously. Her immediate thought was that something must have happened before she and Legolas had arrived.
But they all stared at her.
"Shëanon," Elladan said at last. "The King of the Woodland Realm stood here in this hall for two hours before his advisors and captains and a company of soldiers while we failed to find his son. Have you no understanding of what you have done this day?"
Her heart began to beat faster and faster.
"How were we to know that Thranduil had come—?"
"You would have known if you had not been sequestered away alone—in secret—with Legolas for so long a time," Elrohir said, as though with regret.
Oh.
Heat burst in her face, and for perhaps the first time in her life, she was too humiliated to look her brothers or Aragorn in the eye.
"We—but we've been alone together many times before," she argued. "And it did not matter—"
"Indeed, while you were away at war, far from your homelands and your people, sleeping on the ground in the dirt, with few to notice and fewer to care," said Elrohir. "But now this indiscretion has been marked by Thranduil's entire court. Do you not see?"
She felt ill.
"It was not—It isn't what it seems—" she stammered, but she couldn't even get the words out, because… perhaps it was what it seemed.
"It matters little whether it is or it isn't," Elladan murmured quietly.
"This is folly," Shëanon said hotly. "We didn't—we did nothing wrong—"
"Sister, you were discovered together in bed," Elladan said in an undertone. "Thranduil and his house do not yet know it, but I assure you, they have certainly guessed it."
"What does it matter?" she demanded. "We have clearly not—wedded—and it's not as though—we are not like—" she gestured vaguely toward the doors, and the world of Men that lay beyond them. "Our people do not—lightly—"
She broke off, tongue-tied and mortified, but it was true, was it not? Unlike mortal men and women, Elves did not and indeed, could not lie together outside the bonds of marriage, for the act itself was marriage, and not only did it—when willingly done—bind the souls of the Elves in question, this bond also showed plainly in their eyes and banished any chance of secrecy or clandestine union.
"Everyone knows perfectly well that Legolas and I are in love, and that we intend—otherwise Aragorn would already have tried to kill him—"
"Shea," Aragorn grasped her shoulder again. "No one doubts his intentions."
"Then why—?"
"Because you are not betrothed," Elrohir said. "And indeed, you may not be. Thranduil may yet refuse your union."
"Do you understand now?" Elladan asked. "You have forced our hands."
"What do you mean?"
"He means that if the Elvenking will not have you for his son, then we shall now have to—protest," Elrohir said grimly. "In defense of your honor."
Shëanon gaped at him. "Are you mad?"
"I, mad? Nay, it is Legolas who has been seized by madness, and you along with him!"
"Elrohir! That's not—You are being ridiculous!"
"Am I?" he asked. "You think it not so? Go then and speak with Legolas—he has understood it the same as I. Why do you think he all but named you his bride just now for all to hear? And you should be glad that he did so, for his words were as a shield set before you, and indeed if he had not spoken them, Estel and Elladan and I would at this very moment be demanding he declare his intention to wed you, whether his father willed it or not."
"Think of what you are saying," Shëanon hissed. "Legolas would sooner swear before all of Elvendom that he held me hostage against my will than allow my honor to be held in doubt."
"Sister, we know what you have been through—"
"No, you don't!" she suddenly snapped. "You haven't any idea what I've been through!"
Something in Elrohir's eyes seemed to flash.
"Because you will not tell us!" he barked. "But we can guess well enough. Do you think Legolas alone has heard you screaming out in your sleep? He may have delivered you from the Shadow, but it was not he who tended your wounds while you lay in sleep and strayed nigh unto the threshold of Mandos. He was not the only one holding vigil at your bedside, and he is not the only one who has had to watch the light of your spirit grow dimmer with each passing day. You think we cannot imagine the reason?"
Shëanon looked back at her brothers in astonishment.
"We are on your side, Shëanon. Do you think we would stand between you and even a single moment of respite? We wish only your happiness. You could pass each day with Legolas and arrive to dinner each evening with dripping hair, and those who love you would be glad," said Elladan. "But Thranduil has no love for you yet, and though in times of war two Elves may be wed without word or witness, the war is now won and the time for such allowance has passed. Be wedded to Legolas tonight if you will it, and then you may do as you please and pass your time with him as you wish, but be forewarned that to be bound to him in secret without blessing or celebration would be marked by many as an insult beyond compare to his kin and to yours, and you will win no favor from Thranduil in doing so. Or, if you would forego the ire of the Elvenking and, indeed, the displeasure of our own father, then you must await their agreement and abide by the customs of our kind. Until such a time—"
"You cannot think to forbid me from seeing Legolas," she said shrilly.
Elladan shook his head.
"Forbid? We offer no command, sister, only counsel, and our counsel is this: if you cannot suffer to long be parted from Legolas, it would be wise indeed to make yourselves discreet."
Shëanon looked between him and Elrohir and back, and then she glanced at Aragorn, whose face was as serious as the twins'.
She opened her mouth to speak, but the words that came out weren't what she'd meant to say, and her indignation was suddenly dispelled.
"Do you truly think Thranduil will not have me for Legolas?" she whispered.
She watched her brothers trade a startled glance, as though they had not anticipated that this would be the meaning she would take from what they'd said. Elladan's brow creased, but Elrohir appeared suddenly fierce.
He stepped closer and touched her face.
"Why should he not?" he demanded, as though he himself had not been the one to suggest it. He grasped her shoulders. "He could not find your match if he combed Arda a hundred times over. A king he may be, but a crowned fool he would become to deny such a union."
Shëanon must have betrayed, by the look on her face, that she remained doubtful, for her brother doubled down.
"Sister," he said emphatically, until she looked into his eyes. He shook his head. "You are kind-hearted, fierce-minded, and beautiful. Your deeds of valor are worthy of song such as our kind have not had cause to sing in an age, you are the daughter of a noble house, and his son loves you. Thranduil is severe, it is true, but he is not blind."
Her stomach gave a kind of twist.
"What if he did not think me the daughter of so noble a house, after all?" she asked.
Elrohir frowned.
"The Elvenking holds our father in high esteem. Do you doubt it?"
He appeared sincere in his confusion, but a sudden suspicion came over her, and she could not help but think of Legolas's guess. She turned to Aragorn, who was watching her with a patient expression, and then back to her brothers.
"Do you know?" she asked plainly.
Elladan and Elrohir were silent.
"Do we know what?" Elladan murmured.
Shëanon drew a deep breath.
"Do you know that I am the daughter of Maglor, the second son of Fëanor?"
The two ellyn stared at her, and the great hall was remarkably silent.
"Who told you that?" Elladan asked after several long beats.
"The Enemy," Aragorn murmured from her side.
Her brothers looked at each other, their identical faces still.
"You did know," she accused.
Elladan shook his head and crossed his arms.
"Nay," he murmured. "We didn't."
"The looks on your faces suggest otherwise."
"We did not know it, Shëanon," Elladan promised. "But…"
"But what?"
"But we have these last years become aware of… strange happenings in Eriador."
"What?"
"When we have gone abroad among the Dúnedain," Elrohir said, "into the wilderness, we have discovered more than once evidence that we were not the only ones hunting orcs. At first, we thought simply that they were warring amongst themselves, but the bodies are always burned, which the yrch do not suffer to do, and slain too cleanly and efficiently to be the work of their kind."
"No tracks left," Elladan added. "And always just beyond the bounds of the rangers' patrols."
Elrohir shifted.
"It can only be the work of an Elf," he told her pointedly.
Shëanon stared at them in amazement. Flashes of what she'd seen in the lady's mirror—in the vision—came to her at once.
"You think it's him," she whispered.
"By all accounts, the Singer has passed into song, himself," Elladan said. "He has not been seen by Man or Elf in thousands of years. Our own father believed he must have faded long ago. We did not before suspect him. But if indeed he is your sire…"
A silence fell again, and Shëanon didn't know what to say.
"Oh," she whispered. Her mind was racing. She glanced up and realized that Elladan and Elrohir were staring at her.
"Does Legolas know?" Elladan asked at length.
"I was telling him—I told him just now…"
She self-consciously attempted to smooth her damp hair. She had never before felt so transparent, and her brothers were watching her closely.
"All will be well," Elrohir suddenly said. His voice was adamant. "Worry for nothing, sister."
Shëanon said nothing in reply, for she felt that there were many reasons to worry.
But as she passed the rest of the day with Aragorn and her brothers, she couldn't deny that their presence calmed her in ways that had seemed out of reach since her arrival to Minas Tirith. Where before she had been tense and guilty to be around them, she now felt as at ease at their sides as she had ever felt in Rivendell. Whether this was thanks to the water of Nimrodel or her honesty about her heritage, she could not say, but nevertheless, it was a relief simply to be in their company. It was almost like being home.
Hours later, however, when the light beyond the tall windows was waning and it was time for dinner in the hall, her nerves began to creep back. She had been hoping Legolas might seek her out before suppertime, but he had not come. As she walked alongside Aragorn down the white path to Merethrond, she almost hoped that maybe, if the Elvenking had kept Legolas away all day, he would keep him from dinner, too—so that she might not have to face Thranduil again so soon. Elladan and Elrohir however flanked her across the courtyard like some kind of guard and seemed to be making a collaborative effort to jest lightheartedly, but their smiles did not reach their eyes, and she knew that, indeed, they would be joined by both father and son.
The hobbits and Gimli found them as they ascended the steps with the dinner crowd. Shëanon was so distracted, however, that it took her several moments to realize that her companions were speaking to her.
"Is it true?" Pippin called gleefully from beside her elbow.
Sam turned to glare at him.
"Don't go asking her that!" he sputtered.
Shëanon blinked down at them in bewilderment.
"Is what true?" she asked hesitantly.
"Is it true that you and Legolas got caught skinny—"
Merry elbowed him sharply in the ribs.
"Oof—er—swimming in the fountain by his father today?"
Shëanon stopped so abruptly in her tracks that Gimli walked into her.
"What?" she demanded.
The look upon her face must have been one of horror, for some of Pippin's jubilation left him.
"Well—that's what everyone's—we just heard it said—"
Her cheeks flared so hot they could have melted glass.
"Who's saying it?" she asked, aghast.
Pippin and Merry traded a glance.
"Hardly anyone," Pippin said hastily.
"No one, really—" Merry agreed.
"In fact, we might have misheard—mightn't we have, Merry—?"
"Did they say 'fountain'? Could easily have been 'mountain'—"
"Nipping into the mountain, it must've been," Pippin nodded.
"Or—'mount AND'—so then—he must've found them—in the stables with—a skinny horse—"
Shëanon felt herself beginning to sweat. Surely rumor had not been spreading that she and Legolas had been caught together in the fountain of Ecthelion?
She would die of shame.
A hand grasped her elbow, and she looked down into Gimli's stern face.
"Bah," he shook his russet head. "Never mind about that, lassie. Let them talk."
"We were not swimming in the fountain," she ground out.
"And what if you were?" Gimli huffed. "You could bathe in tonight's stew, and I'd have a word or two to say to any who begrudged it," he growled. "You deserve your happiness."
Shëanon felt her eyes well, immeasurably touched.
"We really weren't…" she began.
"Shame," Merry sighed easily. "Beautiful day for it."
"I told you they didn't," Pippin said cheerfully. "They would have invited us—"
Frodo cast him a skeptical glance.
"They would not have," he laughed, as together they processed to the front of the hall.
Shëanon passed numbly with them through the crowd, wondering how many of the other people milling about might have heard that she and Legolas had shed their clothes to swim together.
Aragorn and Elladan and Elrohir took seats at the head table, and Shëanon, reeling, hurried to their sides, but Aragorn caught her arm and shook his head.
"There, Shea," he said in an undertone beside her ear, and nodded to a seat across from Elrohir at the other side of the table. "But do not sit yet."
Shëanon turned to him in consternation.
"Why?" she whispered.
"Because Thranduil will sit at the head," her brother advised at her other side. "And Legolas at his right hand. You should sit beside him."
She looked into each of their faces and saw that they were quite serious, and so nervously she rounded back to the other side of the table to stand before the place that Aragorn had indicated.
Just when the butterflies in her gut were so pronounced that she felt decidedly ill, the chair to her right scraped back over the floor, and she looked down to see Gimli sit on it.
"Don't worry, lass," he muttered from behind his beard, clapping her on the arm. "We can take him."
Just then there came the blast of a single trumpet, and the crowd in the hall fell hushed. The door near to the head table was opened, and with far less ado than she might have anticipated, Thranduil, Legolas, and their company appeared. Legolas was dressed as he had been before, but Thranduil's armor was gone and replaced instead with silver robes that shimmered before the golden twilight that slanted in through the high windows. To her surprise, his circlet was gone.
Shëanon could feel the men and women behind her observing the new arrivals with fascination—the addition of some thirty more Elves, all silver-haired and silent, must indeed have been an astonishing sight, but she guessed that the Dúnedain rangers and the Rohirrim who had survived Helm's Deep might have been less bewildered than some of the others.
As Elrohir had predicted, Thranduil moved to sit at the head of the table, which had remained unoccupied in the weeks since she had left her room in the Houses of Healing. For an instant, Shëanon thought the seat must rightly have belonged to Aragorn, but glancing at him standing at the Elvenking's left side, she realized that she was mistaken, for though the thrones of Gondor and Arnor were his by right, he had not yet been coronated nor officially named regent of the city, and it occurred to her that Faramir, standing solemnly at the far end of the table with Éowyn and Éomer, remained Steward and Lord of Minas Tirith.
"Let the Ringbearers be seated first," said Thranduil meaningfully when Legolas had taken his place at his side and when all of the soldiers had found benches in the hall. "For we owe them a debt, I think, that is impossible to repay."
At the far end of the table, the hobbits appeared taken aback. Sam seemed to glance hesitantly at Frodo, as though to see what they were supposed to do. They clambered awkwardly onto their chairs—Shëanon knew their feet did not reach the floor beneath the table. Thranduil followed suit with much more grace, and then there came the sound of the many benches behind her scraping over the flagstones as those in the rest of the hall sat to take their meals.
Legolas pushed in her chair for her before taking his own seat and flashed her a knowing look, as though to convey that he regretted his extended absence.
Their meal was served, and Shëanon listened to him and his father converse with Aragorn and Elladan and Elrohir in jittery silence. She kept finding that she didn't know where to look—it seemed rude not to look at the Elvenking when he was speaking, and yet too conspicuous to look at him, too. She found instead that she was watching her plate with perhaps too much concentration.
"If I'd known we were having family reunions, I'd have invited mine," Gimli grumbled beside her. "And you can bet it would be more lively than this.
Shëanon grimaced—in that moment, she thought she would have much preferred a rowdy bunch of Dwarves who would not care who her sire was nor if she was fit for their prince.
"Lady Shëanon," said a voice. "I cannot deny that of this number of strange and unlikely companions, I deem you the strangest and the least likely of all."
Shëanon paused with her goblet raised halfway to her mouth. Thranduil was leaning back in his chair and had fixed his cool gaze upon her at last.
Her stomach turned. She had not expected him to address her over their meal, and indeed, she saw both her brothers set down their forks and knives. But she cut a cautious glance at Legolas beside her, and his expression was calm and unbothered.
She took a deep breath.
"Why is that, my lord?" she asked in trepidation. She thought nervously again of the color of her hair, and of being half-mortal, and so young, and everything she had once feared would bar her from Legolas's esteem.
But Thranduil did not condemn her as a descendent of Fëanor there at the dinner table.
"Because you are an elleth," he said baldly.
Shëanon blinked, taken aback. It was the last thing she had expected.
"Surely you have seen one before," she heard herself reply without thinking. The effect around her was immediate—she could feel more than she could see the expressions on the faces of Aragorn and her brothers, for she did not dare to look away from Thranduil, but she knew that they had turned to her in astonishment. She felt her mouth go dry.
Thranduil's expression, however, did not change.
"Very few, I think, alike to you," he said.
She swallowed. His gaze was penetrating.
"I do not understand your meaning," she managed after a moment.
Thranduil reached for his wine and lifted a silver eyebrow.
"Do you not? While we must suffer our sons to go forth at need into danger, it has ever been true among our kind that few fathers indeed would risk harm to their daughters, and though Elrond has taken to collecting children as a sparrow gathers twigs, he has proven to be no exception."
It seemed to her that everyone at the table had fallen silent, save for Merry and Pippin, who had carried on eating jubilantly several seats away.
"I cannot speak for my father," she said at last, feeling suddenly very hot. "But is he not counted among the wisest in Middle-earth, and the greatest master of lore? I would guess that he knows better than most that through the long ages since the awakening of our people at Cuiviénen, the efforts of fathers to forestall the fates of their children, and indeed, to master the wills of their daughters, have often been in vain."
Indeed, she thought, thinking fretfully of Arwen. Elrond had certainly not prevailed with regard to her.
The Elvenking scarcely blinked.
"And do you think yourself willful, Shëanon of Imladris?" he asked coolly.
Beneath the table, she felt Legolas touch her knee.
"I may be," she murmured at length, blushing. She steeled herself. "But in this matter, I am here with the blessing of my father, and yet Legolas is here, as you said, against your command. So perhaps I am not the most willful of our company, even if I am not the least."
Thranduil set his gaze upon his son.
"What would you say to this?" he asked.
"That Shëanon is more willful than I by far," Legolas grinned. He sat easily back in his seat and reached for her hand upon the table. "And no less clever."
Shëanon weakly met his smile.
"Bah, you've both got heads harder than stone," Gimli suddenly cut in from beside her.
"And yours is surely as hard as mithril, my friend," smirked Legolas.
"And I'll not deny it," Gimli shrugged. "You know what they say—better the hardest head than the hardest helm."
"We have no such saying."
"Hmmph, of course you don't. And just what do you say? 'Better the leafiest tree than all else?'"
Legolas laughed lightly at her side and reminded Gimli that he'd liked the forest very much by the time they'd left Lothlórien. To Shëanon's great relief, his father had turned his attention from her and seemed instead to be considering the laughter between his son and the Dwarf at her side, though across the table, her brothers were still looking at her like they didn't know what to make of her.
"You may remember my father," she heard Gimli say through the fog of her racing thoughts. "You once imprisoned him and his companions."
"And Bilbo was there!" Pippin cried from the end of the table, and Shëanon slumped back in her seat, eager to let the conversation continue without her.
It wasn't until much later that she and Legolas finally departed the hall, but Shëanon half-feared that Thranduil might somehow still be watching them as Legolas escorted her down the long corridor that led to her chambers. It was late; the flames at the sconces along the hallway had burned low, and they stood in the shadows when they finally reached her door.
As if no time had passed—as if they were once more back in Edoras, Legolas paused and turned to her.
"Shall I stay with you?" he asked.
She realized she had not spent a night at his side since before the Battle of the Pelennor Fields.
It was obvious to her what he hoped she would say, but Shëanon hesitated and cast a wary glance down the hall.
"Do you think that you should?" she asked him, uncertain. It was no fear of nightmares now that stilled her; the words of her brothers had returned to her instead. "Maybe it would not be—wise."
Legolas frowned.
"Wise?" he echoed.
She felt her cheeks heat as he looked down at her.
"A rumor has spread," she confessed in an undertone, "that you and I were caught… bathing in the Fountain of Ecthelion today."
For some reason, she felt almost as embarrassed telling him as she would have had it been true—perhaps because of the image it would surely call to his mind—and perhaps because the truth was not so terribly different, and indeed, perhaps what they had done after the bath was even more scandalous than swimming in the fountain would have been.
He raised his eyebrows.
"Who told you that?" he asked.
"Merry and Pippin," she whispered.
To her amazement, Legolas grinned.
"Did they think it the truth? I can think of no one less likely to swim in that fountain than you," he smirked.
Shëanon looked back at him in doubtful silence, and seeing the look on her face, he seemed to realize that she did not find it so amusing, and he frowned again and stepped closer to her.
"Does it trouble you?" he asked, searching her face. "None who know us would believe it to be true."
"Perhaps not," she whispered. "But my brothers think we have blundered. They said that our arrival into the hall was… conspicuous. Surely your people will think…"
She recalled once again what they had done after the bath, and blushed to the roots of her hair.
"I fear we have made a terrible mess of this—"
"I have explained our lateness," he assured her. "Worry not."
Shëanon's eyes must have gone wide, for Legolas shook his head.
"I explained about the water of Nimrodel," he said quietly. "And I think no one could think ill of it."
She wanted very much to ask what exactly his father had thought of it, but could not bring herself to bring him up.
Legolas glanced again at her door, and though it may have been reckless, Shëanon suddenly didn't care if they were discreet or not. How many long weeks had she spent foregoing sleep, avoiding Legolas, and suffering all the more for it? She longed for the comfort of his arms and the peace of his closeness… And she felt they had much to discuss.
As though sensing her decision, Legolas opened the door. They crossed the threshold of her room together, and she heard the click of the latch behind them.
Shëanon looked up into his face.
Their uncertainty from the hall was dispelled, and as though they had been awaiting it, they reached for one another at once. Shëanon stepped almost desperately into his embrace. She could scarcely recall so long a day. It seemed that an age had passed since she'd stood with Éowyn before Théoden's casket. Now she closed her eyes and leaned unabashedly against Legolas's chest; he was holding her closely, and his heartbeat against her own was quick, and they stood holding one another in the quiet of her chamber for a long moment, breathing slowly and deeply in each other's arms, and waiting for their hammering hearts to quiet. Shëanon felt as though she were a bowstring that had been drawn taut for hours and was finally released; Legolas rested his hand on the back of her head, and his body was solid and warm, his arms sheltering, and she felt her every muscle relax.
When Legolas drew away and began drawing her toward her bed, it was all she could do to kick her shoes off before she climbed wearily onto the mattress. He settled beside her, and she curled against him in relief. She had missed him so terribly that she ached just to remember it, and Legolas seemed perhaps to feel the same, for he drew her even closer and set a kiss upon her temple.
A gust of wind blew outside her window. Legolas reached for the blanket at the foot of her bed and drew it over them both.
"How was your meeting with your father?" she asked softly, reaching for one of his hands.
He went tense in her arms, and to her surprise, he did not answer for a long moment.
She leaned back to look at him, concerned.
"Though my people were victorious against the Enemy," he said at last, "our losses were great. Much of the forest was burned, and many fell in the last defense. I cannot help but to feel…"
She understood what he was insinuating at once.
"Sauron would have the Ring even now if it were not for our errand," Shëanon whispered. "And we would not have prevailed without you, and your people would be still at war without end or hope."
He did not answer, but in his eyes, she could still see the shadow of his guilt.
"Your father was not truly unhappy that you joined the company, was he?"
Legolas shook his head.
"Nay," he said. "And indeed, even if he had been, my conscience is clear… It is only that it grieves me that I was not there, though I know in my heart that my place was elsewhere."
"I can't imagine how I would feel if it had been Imladris under siege," she breathed, sick just to think of it.
"My father and Lord Celeborn divided the forest," Legolas said. "Everything south of the Narrows shall now be known as East Lórien and shall be under Celeborn's rule."
Shëanon reared back in utter astonishment.
"What?" she asked, stunned.
Legolas watched her with an indiscernible look in his eyes.
"Why would they do such a thing?" she asked.
"Can you not guess?"
The answer came to her, but she did not want to believe it.
"Are the Galadhrim… leaving?" she asked.
He nodded.
"Galadriel herself means to go," he said. "And many of their people will follow. Celeborn will remain long enough to see to the settlement of those who wish yet to remain, but he will not long suffer to be parted from his wife. He, too, will go West."
"I suppose it is wise that they should be closer to your people," she whispered. "Once Lord Celeborn leaves…"
"They will likely look to my father."
"Will none stay in Lothlórien?"
"Fair one," Legolas said very quietly, "soon none of our kind will be found beyond the borders of the Woodland Realm, and I cannot say for how long even my own people will linger. Those who do will find they are as living ruins—the earth will change about them, passing them by, until the long ages that they lived are utterly forgotten by the world. As a river that runs dry is remembered only by the rocks it shaped and the trees it watered, so shall they be, until even the trees themselves no longer recall the Elder Days, and the splendor and glory of our people shall be known only in legend… if at all."
"Don't say that."
"It is the truth," he said quietly, "as has long been foretold."
A silence fell about them, and Shëanon could not describe the pit that had formed in her stomach. For so much of her youth, she had worried whether she would share in the fate of the Eldar… but seldom had she truly considered what that fate would entail. Imladris had seemed an eternal haven. It grieved her to imagine it abandoned to time—its winding paths overgrown, its dwellings emptied, its splendor forgotten. And though she knew that Legolas had felt called westward, she was loathe to leave the world she felt she had only just come to know.
"Foretold it may be," Shëanon whispered against his sternum, "but I am not yet ready to go."
Legolas drew her closer and leaned his head gently against hers.
"We have much still to do here before our time shall come," he murmured against her hair. She let out a breath. "And friends we shall not yet bid farewell."
For a moment, the only sound was the crackling fire in the hearth, and she closed her eyes, and he trailed the backs of his fingers up and down her arm.
"My father seems to like you," he said suddenly.
Shëanon drew back to look at him again.
"Was that your impression?" she asked, bewildered. "It was not mine."
Indeed, the Elvenking's stony appraisal all night had seemed bemused at best.
But Legolas offered her a grin.
"I think you surprise him," he said.
"What you said earlier—about—our first meeting… Do you think your father will know?"
"I think there are few elves who would see your hair and not be reminded of your house," Legolas said at length. "But fewer still who think it more than that. Maglor has not been seen by any among our people for thousands of years…"
"What will he say when we tell him?"
Legolas looked at her for a long moment.
"If we tell him," he corrected her.
Shëanon furrowed her brow.
"You would think to hide the truth?" she asked warily.
"I would think to protect you from all hurt or harm," Legolas said.
"I don't want to lie."
He frowned.
"What lie? To say that Lord Elrond is your father? I see no lie in that. And indeed, it is no concern of my own father nor of any other who sired you, nor how you came to Imladris. You have only just learned it yourself, and I think you have not yet dispelled the doubt and disquiet it has brought upon you. Do you think it not your right to face it in your own time, after all that you have endured these last months? You owe nothing to my father, Shëanon. Think only of what you owe to yourself."
"So then you do think that he would forbid us to be wed if he knew the truth," she reasoned.
"I think my father would sooner seek the light ahead than cleave to a dark day that has passed, but I also think it matters little, in the end."
"I think it does matter," Shëanon said with dread. "Your father sees much, I think. What if he should learn the truth after we are wed? You think he would not deem it a deceit and a betrayal?"
Legolas seemed to consider.
"If it will weigh so heavily upon you, then we shall reveal the truth," he conceded. "It is your decision to make, aiër, not mine. But it would be wise, I think, to wait until Lord Elrond is come."
With that Shëanon wholeheartedly agreed.
They spoke no more, and her exhaustion caught up with her at last. Whether because of the emotional trials of the long day, or because of the water of Nimrodel, or because of the warmth and safety of Legolas's arms, her sleep that night was deep and undisturbed by any dream.
xxx
A/N: Merriest of Christmases and Happiest of Holidays to you, my dear readers! I hope your year has been full of joy and that more joy lies ahead in 2025.
I know I have been absent. My trip to New Zealand was life-changing. During the months that I was there, I visited many of the filming locations for the movie trilogy, including Rivendell, Hobbiton, Lothlórien, Isengard, the Misty Mountains, Edoras, and many more. I cannot overstate the profound impact that trip had on me. I learned so much about myself, and fell even more in love with Middle-earth than I thought possible.
Shortly after I returned from New Zealand, I met someone. He is everything I have ever dreamed of and so much more that I would have never expected. I hope you will excuse me for taking a break in writing Shea's love story. I have been a bit busy living mine! He and I are moving together soon with our dog to Washington DC, I am going back to school to get a master's degree, and pursuing my dream job. We are hoping to get married soon. Life has a funny way of sneaking up on us; I hope it has been treating you all just as well.
Thank you to everyone who has offered me so much love and support even during this hiatus. I cannot express how very much it means to me. I hope this chapter is worth the wait, and I will see you soon for the next update.
Merry Christmas!
xoxo Erin