Building Ithilien

Author's note:
There is much in The Lord of the Rings that deals with death. You could write an extravagantly long essay on it to be sure. Even more important is how those characters in LOTR react to the deaths of people they love. Grief plays an integral role throughout the trilogy: the fellowship's mourning the loss of Gandalf, the fall of Boromir and Denethor's subsequent demise, Theoden's burial of his son Theodred, the ents' rage over the destruction of their fellow trees by Saruman, the death of Theoden and Eowyn's time in the House of Healing, Frodo's inability to recover his life after the destruction of the ring, Aragorn's eventual death and Arwen's quiet retreat to forgotten Lorien. These are just a few examples that jumped out at me. Grief: the mourning of loss and death, intense anguish and sorrow.

Tolkien alludes to the fact that grief can be a destructive force for elf kind, but he never clearly states this. There are reasons to believe, however, that this is true. For example, Elrond's wife has to sail to Valinor after a horrible orc attack. Arwen 'fades away' in the woods of Lorien after Aragorn dies. There's nothing really clear cut. In Building Ithilien, I have taken the creative stance that grief is fatal for elves. I have fashioned it into a disease, a cancer, of sorts.

Of course, I explain all of this in this chapter, but I just wanted everyone to know that I'm straying (gasp!) from true cannon and using a healthy dose of imagination for what grief might be like for the elves of Middle Earth.

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Light played across the room in quiet angles. She could hear the gentle drop of rain through leaves and tree branches, from the eaves of the flet. She found no succor in the firm weight of the blankets across her bed, no warmth. They were oppressive, bearing down, confining, and despite the many layers upon her, she still shivered as grief's icy fingers squeezed her heart and set upon her flesh, feeling 'cold' as mortals say. The pain was immense; the sensation, unbearable. So this was mortality—an absence of warmth.

All felt dull. All felt heavy- her head, arms, legs, not even her fingers could she suffer to lift, and the walls seemed to press around her. The days ran into nights, but the restful dreams of her kind had forsaken her. Neither peace, nor comfort did she find in sleep. Time ticked by, and each second seemed an agony, an eternity as her spirit dwindled to naught, for the light in her eyes had nigh extinguished.

Nearly a fortnight had passed since the news of Annariel's death. Eledhel stayed by her side, from the very moment she had fallen in hearing the reports of the dead. No tears had she cried that day. Still none had been shed. It seemed to him that her soul had fallen asleep, and none of his pleading or prayers could wake her. He had begged leave from his position within the Guard, so that he might stay with her.

On the tenth day, he sat with her as he had before, holding her cold hand and talking to her with the hope that she still might hear him.

"Miredhel?" he asked softly, rubbing her hand to warm it. "Will you eat some of this broth? Lady Limaer brought it for you earlier."

Her eyes strayed from staring at the ceiling to meet with his.

Eledhel firmly squeezed her hand, and then let go to pick up a steaming bowl resting upon a side table. "Miredhel. Come now, you must eat," he said, dipping a spoon into the soup. Her gaze drifted back to the ceiling, and he sighed. He was running out of options. Many friends and neighbors had already urged him to depart with her for the havens. He had not.

Eledhel eyed the soup and then dipped the spoon into the bowl to taste it for himself.

"Blech!" He gagged and spit it back into the bowl. "That's horrible. You were right not to want it, Miredhel!" he said, and his exclamations were met with soft laughter from the door. He turned at the sound, and his heart gladdened at the visage. A lady in white leaned through the doorframe. Her laugh was like a child's, all innocence and light. She had survived the last age, and now in her final days in Middle Earth, would bring hope to those who had none.

"Ah, look who's come. A visitor," Eledhel said lightly and rose to meet the figure at the door. It was the Lady of the Golden Wood, Galadriel. "Thank you for coming," he murmured and nervously wiped his soupy fingers on the hem of his tunic. He guided her to his sister's side, only then to hang back, biting his lower lip, waiting.

"Miredhel, Miredhel," she called, and the whole of the forest seemed to hang on the breath of her words. Hope and the waking sounds of the wood resonated in her voice, an echo of wind rushing, the rustle of green leaves among many trees, or the whispered melody of the Nimrodel. She leaned over the maiden and touched her cheek. Lady Galadriel's eyes held the wisdom of ages past and the dream of things to come.

"Miredhel, Miredhel," she softly called again. "Do not linger here. You still have much to do…"

Legolas' eyes picked through the cover of mist rolling in from the river. Past the piled dead and smoke, he went with one purpose guiding his steps—to find Miredhel. There was so much he needed to tell her, wanted to tell her, and yet the matter of her grief weighed heavily upon his mind as he pushed through the haze.

Obviously, he must first enlighten her to his sister's true identity. But what then? Legolas knew what he wanted to do, and that was to show her within all his ability and faculties exactly how he felt for her, so she would never need to doubt him again. He figured that had been his mistake in Mirkwood. There, he had her all to himself in his tent, in his bed even, and he had not been plain enough with his feelings to let her know what she had done to him, with her mysterious power to heat his blood and speed his heart, the way one look could crush the air from his lungs so that he could scarcely breathe. He loved Miredhel; of this, he was now certain. He had fancied himself in love before, but none of these affairs had dominated his every fiber in the way he now felt. He was elated. He was frightened. He knew what love could drive an elf to do.

He was an elf consumed. Indeed, no comparison existed. From his first taste of her when she had then denied him a second, Legolas had known with the utmost certainty that she meant trouble. In all his youth and long years, seldom had he been denied any favor or courtesy, and yet she had done so. She was infuriating. She was sweet. She had refused and resisted him, and to a wood elf, a hunter at heart, the call of pursuit had been intoxicating, delicious, and all together enticing—and all in the name of a second kiss, to prove to both parties that he was indeed worthy of such a chance. Legolas had never wanted anyone so badly as he wanted her, if only to be near her once more and hear her voice or touch her skin. So now the dilemma was not in discerning his own emotions, but in how he must present those feelings to his lady.

Legolas did not find Miredhel at the point where Eledhel had said he left her. Instead, she had wandered a while, away from the scene of battle, away from the low melodies of her people, into the blank wilderness of the so-named Brown Lands. Finally she rested beneath the wide dome of stars on a peculiar flat rock, born of ancient ice and the slow rift of time; there, her old wounds re-opened, deepened by Legolas' rejection. There, she wept. She had loved and lost again, and this time, she welcomed the oblivion her affliction would bring.

It is always slow at first- the way grief spreads through an elf's body. The pain of loss rends the heart like a swift cut from a lethal blade; that is the quick part, and most elves, truth be told, could summon strength enough to endure it. But it never ends there. Torturously slow, grief seeps from heart to veins, crawls agonizingly across the skin, leaving all in its path bitterly cold.

The emotional and the physical, inexorably knitted together, interlocked, and as one fails, so shall the other. Once strong hands begin to tremble, the heart stutters, the light in the eyes fades. The chill spreads and each laboring breath becomes a struggle. Every waking thought turns toward the aching loneliness of a life now empty. Days and nights lengthen into ages of silent oppression, a cage, and Immortality, their jailer. Few break free to regain their lives, and live in strength again, and even fewer leave their grief behind them; it hides in shadows, waiting for another hurt to feed on, another chance to dominate. No herbal remedies can fight it; no healing words can break sorrow's spell. Such is the way with elves. For them, only one force can truly reckon with grief, to challenge its ravaging appetite, and just as grief can freeze and torment, the other lies in places unlooked for, subtle and unexpected—love—to fire the blood and even burn in its fiercest intensity. Love and grief, both powerful, consuming—one with the might to revive and the other to rape—make no mistake, both are dangerous, ravens of desire and possession, and of the two, love is the grander.

The elven camp watched the night and the lonesome plains with a certain sense of grim satisfaction. For the first time they had fought as one, as Ithilien, and they had also won that battle, sweeping the field and tasting victory together. They had struck a common purpose, but had also splintered again, choosing old loyalties over new when Legolas and Eledhel had nearly fought. Now the very same argument pulled the two sides together again as all heard Legolas' declaration of love for a certain irrepressible Lorien maiden. The elves of the Golden Wood, who knew and loved Miredhel as dearly as their own sister, smiled secretly for her with the singular wish in their hearts that she might now only know joy, and grief, nevermore. The Mirkwood elves hoped very much the same sort of thing for their prince, though perhaps tinged with the satisfying notion that finally he might settle down.

The elves who knew and loved Legolas and Miredhel best openly grinned at one another, triumphantly giving voice to old suspicions:

"I knew it!" Belegil crowed. "I knew it for sure when Legolas snapped that orcs' neck. I saw the full wrath of the legendary Thranduil when he did that!"

"I certainly suspected a little more than friendship, let me tell you, when I saw them dancing at that bonfire in Mirkwood—the way my sister would look at him when she thought no one was watching…" Eledhel admitted and shook his head.

Sulindal merely nodded in agreement and smiled to himself, saying nothing as he watched the misty horizon.

Belegil took a swig from a slim flask and passed it to Eledhel. "You know, Eledhel," he said carefully, "my brother and I quite consider Miredhel as our sister. The first time we saw her after…you know...her grief…" he looked hopelessly to his brother.

"She pledged to be a sister to us now that Annariel could not," Sulindal softly supplied.

"It was just a little thing," Belegil said, "but it meant much to us, and that night we decided not to leave for the Havens as we'd planned."

"I never knew this," Eledhel said and took another drink from the flask before passing it to Sulindal.

Sulindal did not heed Eledhel's gesture. The wine fell open-ended on the parched soil, staining it morosely dark red. Sulindal paid little attention to its fate, for his sharp eyes caught a flicker of movement in the distant south.

"Something draws near," he said, and the three elves stood and reached for their bows.

The fog broke, and Sulindal lowered his weapon first. Farothin swept in at a full gallop. He hastily slid off his horse and did not observe the usual pleasantries of elvish greetings, but made his point directly.

"The forward orc battalion sent riders back. The group we attacked must have gotten a scout off to warn them. We must raise the camp and leave immediately. We do not have much time. Where's Prince Legolas?"

As Legolas picked through the misty plains, his sharp eyes finally beheld a slim figure draped across a flat, smooth stone. Miredhel. He sprinted towards her, his fear escalating as she did not stir at his approach. His heart could have beaten him to her from the way it raced in his chest. For someone usually so fearless, he did not feel that way now.

She lay on her side with her cheek resting against her forearm. He could not see her face. Her hair covered it completely. As he stood over her silent form, he noted with relief the slow rise and fall of her shoulders. With an unsteady hand, he lifted the tangled curls from her marble cheek to see her eyes, open and unfocused. She dreamed yet. He whispered her name softly at first, and then more insistently when she showed no signs of waking.
"Miredhel," he said again firmly, this time shaking her shoulder.

She blinked and then turned a sleepy eye towards him.

"No," she murmured and covered her face with her arm. "No soup, Eledhel. Just let me be."

'Soup?' thought Legolas, and he reached for her open hand. Her fingers were cold to the touch, and he drew back in bewilderment. He remembered her brother's accusing words, "she is dying, Legolas," with the implication that she suffered due to him. Legolas had never really borne witness to grief's cruelties, but as he looked at Miredhel, he understood Eledhel's anger and his despair. Somehow, he had caused this. Could he then also make it right? Save her? Her brother had apparently hoped so. Legolas did not know what to do. The feelings fighting inside his own heart frightened him. There was no return from this path he had chosen. He loved Miredhel, and now his fate was bound to hers. He reached for her hand again and this time did not let go.

"Miredhel, it's Legolas," he said.

She moved her arm. "Legolas? That sounds familiar…" she mumbled, groggily shaking her head and then looking up. Her eyes darted to the landscape: the open sky and desolate earth.

"It's me, Legolas. We're in the Brown Lands, remember?"

She shook her head again and now became aware of the fact that Legolas held her hand. She looked down at their entwined fingers and then back at him. He released her hand, and she pressed it to her forehead as if trying to remember.

"I must have dreamed," she murmured. "It was so real. I was at home in Lorien. I remember feeling so cold…"

"You are," Legolas observed. "Your hands are like ice." A shiver from her punctuated his words. "Miredhel, tell me what happened in battle."

"Battle?" she repeated. She slowly pulled herself up from the rock, to sit upright, and both elves gasped to see a tell-tale crimson stain running across the front of her tunic.

"Miredhel, are you injured, bleeding?" Legolas asked, but she did not really hear his words. Her eyes lingered on the jeweled knife at her belt, and then she looked up to meet his concerned gaze. Memories flooded her mind. She remembered the orcs, the smoking forest, the cloaked rider, the one who had fallen, bloodied and torn, the girl with the bright blue eyes.

"That girl…she said she loved you," Miredhel remembered aloud, and a great pain seared through her flesh, and she did not understand why she hurt so, nor why she felt so cold. The world and heavens spun wildly around her, and her discomfort must have shown, for that elf Legolas reached out to steady her. She leaned against him, and the history of her days past reeled in reverse, a blur of images against her mind—Legolas leaning over her in the pink morning rays, the glint of sun on his ring as he held it out to her, the darkness and light battling in his eyes when he spoke of the flowers in her hair, prince's love, purple blossoms swimming in a sea of white awning and candles' glow. She felt his arms against her body when they danced at the bonfire. She saw moonlight reflecting in his tears the night she spoke of Annariel, when all walls crumbled between them; all the images whirled furiously to one instant. She wore white in a garden of star-flowers and mallorn trees, and he was there with dangerous eyes. She turned and kissed him. Everything changed.

Miredhel looked at Legolas again, and bit her lip, remembering the taste of pain, to love and lose. "Please leave," she said at last, dropping her eyes. This was no dream; the pain, the cold—her grief was real, and she remembered why and felt ashamed before him.

Legolas sat down before her. His eyes were bright, shining even. "Miredhel, that girl, the one you rescued—she is my sister," he stated simply, taking both her hands in his, pulling them to his lips to kiss her palms, to blow warm breath on them, like a spell calling her to wake. His sister.

She tried to speak, but the words turned into a sob that caught in her throat. Whatever she might have lost, perhaps she could still preserve her dignity. She slid her fingers from his and turned away, tucking her hands into the folds of her arms and shivering despite herself. "Please just leave, Legolas," she whispered, and her voice was tight.

"Miredhel, do you honestly think I am just going to leave you here? You're not well!"

"Do you think I want you to see me like this, trembling like some great fool in the dark?"

Legolas moved to the other side of the rock to face her. "You never looked more beautiful to me," he said, and he meant it. Merely to see her again was enough to take his breath away.

Her eyes were darker than usual. Her face had paled to deathly white, but her mouth was set and resolute, and only an occasional tremble or the curved shimmer of a blue vein running across her wrist or neck belied her calm.

When she said nothing, Legolas knelt beside her. His breath came quickly now and hung in the dark like airy feathers only to vanish seconds later. He was nervous, nervous about what he must say to her and how she might respond, worried for her grief, a condition that he did not fully understand; but for this future lord of Ithilien, one thing was certain. He could not deny his feelings. He would not.

Legolas took a deep breath and shyly reached out to cup her cheek with his hand. "There's no one else, Miredhel," he said. "Only you. I cannot leave you now, even though you ask it of me."

"Please don't say that," she begged him. "It makes it harder for me to tell you this—that I am weak, Legolas…and I fear that I've deceived you, and..."

He cut in between her words to reassure her, saying, "I already know about your grief, Miredhel. Eledhel told me."

"He did?" Miredhel asked. 'What did he say?"

"He blamed me…for making you suffer," Legolas said quietly. "I never wanted to cause you pain, I—"

Miredhel interrupted him. "No, Legolas. I saw you with your sister and drew my own idiotic conclusions. But it matters not. Even if what I had seen had been true, I knew well the risks of becoming involved with another."

Legolas tilted his head, his eyes worried. "I'm not sure I understand your meaning," he said.

She nodded and continued to explain, reliving memories of her darkest days and unfolding them in quiet tones, "Galadriel came to my brother's flet where I rested. She had been summoned, I suppose. I heard her voice. She pulled me out of my grief, but the effects, the chill, the pain, lingered on.

"An aged healer came at Eledhel's request. He had seen much in his lifetime and told me how it would be. My brother was there, and the old healer mostly talked to him, in front of me, like I was some elfling, that I wouldn't understand his words. The grief had weakened my heart, he said. I was fortunate not to have completely faded away." She squeezed her eyes shut. "Then he warned me against getting involved, not to open myself up to possible rejection…to guard my heart, he said. It was just too risky and the chances of relapse were too great with the highs and lows of emotions."

"To not fall in love," Legolas concluded glumly. He had a miserable feeling sinking deep inside him.

"I did not speak after he left. I just lay there, thinking. When I got stronger, Eledhel would walk me to that garden…the one we both like," Miredhel stopped and looked in his eyes.

"How could I forget?" Legolas said, amused, and he smiled at her in return, and the faintest of blushes bloomed on her cheeks.

She took his hand, the first time that evening that she had made a move to touch him of her own accord, and her simple action doubled the prince's hopes.

"It was the wrong place for me to go, Legolas," she said. "How many times had I sat on that garden bench, dreaming of nights when I might meet my own lover there?" She blushed again. "But I still went there every day. The leaves turned from gold to green, flowers began to bloom anew, and Eledhel happily rejoined the Forest Guard, convinced of my recovery.

"I had watched the world pass me by," she said. "I had lost practically everything dear to me, but I decided that I was just so tired of being sad. I was angry too. About everything and everybody. I've told you this before."

"The night before we came to my forest, I remember," he said.

"But I left out the part about my grief—on purpose. I didn't want you to know, Legolas, and I'm sorry for that."

"I wish you would have," the prince said. "It would have saved us both some trouble," he concluded bitterly with a sigh, his eyes darting away to the unforgiving landscape. "You should have told me."

She grabbed his wrist, and he slowly turned his head to stare at her blankly. She knew her actions had hurt him, and that was precisely what she had been trying to avoid. For all her talk about him being more open with her, she had completely failed to do that very thing with him.

"Eledhel should have kept his mouth shut," she said.

"What?" Legolas exclaimed. "You never planned on saying a word about this to me, did you? And that's why you didn't want him to know about us, because he would bring up the subject of your grief with me!"

"Legolas, no," Miredhel protested and then drew her hands together. "Well, yes. He wouldn't have allowed it—us being together. He's very protective."

"Oh, I can vouch for that," Legolas sarcastically interjected.

Miredhel glared at him, and then her expression softened. "I cannot change what has happened," she said. "Please listen, Legolas."

She reached for his hand, and her eyes were still dark and vulnerable. He could never refuse Miredhel anything when she looked at him like that.

'Such power could definitely prove a threat to Ithilien security,' the prince mused and turned back toward her.

Miredhel took a deep breath. "I avoided telling you because I wanted to feel normal again, and not be treated like some fragile thing—I felt so cheated by life, by grief. And then I'm given this second chance, only the healers tell me if I want to survive, I must guard my heart? Not get involved?" "I watched spring turn to summer, felt the days grow long and warm. I made a decision, Legolas." She paused and bit her lip.

"If the healers' idea of my new life was to sit idly while the whole of Middle Earth passes me by, not to know friendship, not to know what it is to love…then I did not want to live."

"Miredhel, you can not mean that," Legolas objected and frowned. "You are not one to give up so easily."

"Do you think any of this is easy?" she replied in a strained voice. "I promised myself this, Legolas. Before I met you, even. I made that decision a fortnight before you arrived. In the solitude and shade of that garden. I vowed to live life to the fullest. For me, there is no other way. Not sitting idly on a bench gathering moss."

She smiled tiredly and added in an elvish whisper, "Only recklessly forward, and if that brings my death, then at least I shall perish having truly lived. I would welcome such a death."

"So this is what you've chosen for yourself?" Legolas said, angrily gesturing to her prone figure and pressing his hand to her cold forearm. "Look at you! You're so weak you can hardly move. Pain and a slow death hardly sound like living life to the fullest, Miredhel."

He clenched his fists until his knuckles whitened and then straightened his fingers out before pushing them through his hair. He looked away. He had to. He could not bring himself to look at her. Legolas did not know whether to smash something or cry. How like his fortune! He hoped that somewhere, Fate or the Valar themselves were enjoying his predicament, for he certainly wasn't! Legolas had never been more miserable. To realize love and its impossibility all within one startling night would be enough to defeat any elf, even the most gallant hero.

Legolas decided that he should leave, and then immediately decided against it. He simply would not accept losing her. He would have sparred the worst orcs and beasts, even a balrog, to save her; certainly he could overcome her grief as well. With brave eyes, he faced her and said, "Forgive me, Miredhel, if I don't agree with your 'choice!'"

Legolas had failed to understand that his battle had been won all along.

Miredhel touched his sleeve and smiled.

"You don't understand. I chose you," she said timidly. "I chose love."

That was all Legolas needed to hear. His fingertips glided up to her temple to behind her ear, and he kissed her forehead and her cheek before brushing his lips against hers.

"You shall not regret it," he whispered against her mouth. The chill of the night still clung to her skin and hair, and he deepened their kiss. His arms protectively wrapped around her, pulling her toward him. So much of his time with her had seemed like some tempting illusion that Legolas wanted to know this moment was real. She was safe. She could be his, and he knew that she was the one he wanted and none other.

A quiet peace stirred within Miredhel that her grief had long ago lulled to sleep, and she kissed him back meekly at first but then more boldly. She found strength in her arms again and hugged him to her, glorying in his warmth. She slipped one hand into his hair to rest at his nape while the other ran the length of his back. Finally both her hands rested on either side of his smooth sculpted face as he hungrily kissed her. All his emotions poured freely from him into that kiss, and Miredhel felt and knew his heart: his private insecurities, his worry and relief, his desire…his love.

Miredhel broke the kiss. Legolas' eyes shot open, and although they spoke of confusion as to why she had pulled away, they held no secrets. Hazel eyes stared undaunted into blue, and both brightened as a slow smile crept across her face.

She hesitated and then reached for him, and he leaned into her on one arm while his lips found hers to tell her of all he knew and felt, of all he had hoped and dreamed. Certainly it was ravenous, a demanding kiss, and both Legolas and Miredhel lost themselves to each other. Legolas lowered Miredhel gently down to rest against the smooth, gray stone all the while tasting her lips, her neck until finally she rested beside him. Their legs tangled together, and when he pulled her closer, Legolas could feel her heart thrumming against his chest.

Moonlight streamed off her hair, her cheeks. Her eyes mirrored the starry night; her eyes brought forth memories long forgotten—of songs sung in the Great Hall or by firelight in the woods of his sires, haunting songs fit for trysts in the dims of dusk. These lyrics of faith and love eternal echoed in the prince's mind, words that for so long he had been at a lost to comprehend their passion, the commitment of only one and forever. He understood now. With one glance into her eyes, he understood.

He whispered and kissed into her ear, longingly tracing the line of her body as she held onto him. Legolas knew that Miredhel's grief had weakened her, that she was vulnerable…that they were on a rock in the Brown Lands, on their way to stop a large number of orcs from wreaking havoc in Gondor. Now was not the time, nor the place, but oh, how he wished it was. To be so close to her, to touch her skin and feel her body next to his and not act on his emotions was nearly more than the prince's courtly sensibilities could handle.

"But when we get to Minas Tirith…" he murmured, smoothing his hand down her arm, down her side again.

"What'd you say?" she mumbled, and then shivered again as he touched her.

Legolas yanked his hand back as though he had burned her somehow. He sat up. "You're still feeling cold, Miredhel?"

"It's not you," she said, propping up on her elbow. "It's from earlier."

"But I thought we had worked all of that out," Legolas said. "Why would you still—"

"Legolas, this is not a negotiation in your father's hall or a battle to be won on the field. It's my body. It's grief."

"I know that," he insisted.

"Do you? This is not going to go away just because the Prince of Mirkwood wants it to go away."

"What about if the Lord of Ithilien wants it to?" Legolas joked.

"Legolas," Miredhel reproached him, "I was being serious. I feel like this is beyond both of us now. It's not something we can control. I hope that my grief will leave me…but it might not."

Legolas put his arm around her shoulders, and she leaned her head against him. "So whatever happens, happens?"

"Yes," she agreed quietly.

"Does that frighten you?" he asked, running his hand over her hair.

"No…a little…yes," she admitted.

"We're together," he said and laced his fingers through hers. "Of this you should have no fear, only joy," he assured her. "Fold your cares away in velvet, Miredhel. You will not need them again. I promise you." He touched his forehead to hers and then lifted her chin to kiss her softly, only pulling away when he heard the sound of approaching footsteps.

"If this is Sulindal interrupting again when I'm trying to kiss you, I swear I'll cut both his legs off," the prince grumbled. He stood up, pulling his knife from his belt, and started toward the noise of intruding footfalls.

Miredhel frowned and whispered after him, "If it was Sulindal coming, we wouldn't have heard any footsteps, Legolas. Be careful!"

He stopped in mid-stride. "You are right. Lend me your bow, Miredhel."

"I'm out of arrows."

Legolas muttered a low curse.

"What did you just say? Was that dwarvish?" she asked.

Legolas did not answer but pulled her to her feet. "Do you have enough strength to follow?"

She nodded, and he smiled grimly. "Good. Then stay close behind me," he said. Together they crept toward the vague horizon. A night wind stirred behind them, and Miredhel turned to feel it blow across the tips of her ears, whispering echoes of dreams and hazy memories.

"Miredhel, Miredhel," she softly called again. "Do not linger here. You still have much to do…"