#orelion

(Bonus: Legolas’ POV)

It was a trick.

That was all Legolas could think as he flew back up the stairs from the dungeons, taking the steps two, sometimes three at a time.

It had to be a trick. A cruel, heartless, faithless trick.

And yet…

The memory of what had just occurred down in the cell blocks lanced through him like molten metal poured into his blood. He hadn’t even thought about the fact that he’d been wearing gloves when he’d pushed back her hair in the forest, but the second the bare skin of his palm had touched her wrist just now…

Warm pins and needles still prickled up his arm from his right hand.

He tried to ignore it, shove the feeling down beneath his panic. But it still felt as if the limb had been frozen all this time, and only now was it coming almost painfully back to life after being dunked in a warm stream.

Only it wasn’t water that had sparked that reaction.

It had been her.

The next few minutes passed as a blur for Legolas. He couldn’t honestly remember specific details when he thought about them. Only that after escaping the dungeon stair cases, he’d gone straight back up to the feast — which was still in full swing — and downed an entire bottle of the king’s top shelf wine.

No glass. No breaths.

He just drank straight out of the bottle in a few long gulps.

He vaguely remembered Tauriel and several other guards gaping at him like he’d lost his mind. To their credit, perhaps he had. Orelion, however, had taken one look at him, set down his own glass, pulled the empty bottle out of his hands, and yanked him out of the hall into an antechamber.

“What has happened?” he asked, shutting the door behind them.

“She…” He started, but damn everything, words and speech itself had all but abandoned him. “Her… she’s… she’s my…”

Orelion’s dark brows furrowed over inquisitive brown eyes that had barely changed since they were elflings.

“Who?” he asked. Legolas gestured somewhat clumsily in the direction of the dungeons. Orelion’s brows furrowed even more. “You mean that tiny elleth travelling with those Dwarves? What about her?”

“She’s… s-she’s mine, Orelion.”

His longest childhood friend just looked confused for an agonisingly long moment. Then slowly, his eyes widened to saucers as comprehension finally dawned.

“Oh… shit.”

Something of an understatement, in Legolas’ opinion.

He might have been a fumbling mess on the outside, but on the inside his mind was racing. How could this even be possible? He’d always been given to believe when an elf discovered their Intended, it was something incredible, beautiful, wondrous to behold. It had certainly been that way for Rȋnwen and Celemir, their dominant senses showing them clearly who their best match truly was. He’d almost been envious to the point of depression of his two close friends in their mutual joy, back when they’d first discovered that unique bond Iluvatar had crafted for them before they’d even been born.

But he wouldn’t envy anyone this feeling.

She wasn’t anything like what he had let himself hope for in those few weak moments of loneliness; when he was constantly surrounded by younger, joyously paired friends and acquaintances, and he past the “typical age of bonding” as Himeleth liked to say.

But this elleth… she wasn’t graceful, poised, patient, kind spoken, or any of the other things he’d once believed his match would be. As far as he could tell, she was a barb tongued she-wolf wrapped in a young woman’s skin.

And now that he thought of it, from what he’d seen of her reaction, did she even understand what had just happened between them…?

Without a word, Orelion stood, and walked from the room. A minute later he returned with another full bottle of red, and two extra large glasses. He filled one to the brim and pushed it towards his friend.

“Here,” he insisted, pouring one for himself too. “Drink, and tell me everything.”

So he did just that.

The next morning, Legolas woke face down on the dining table in that same antechamber, with a snoring Orelion slumped in the chair opposite him, a table littered with empty bottles, and a raging hangover.

Despite his modest age by elf standards, he’d always been rather proud that drinking to the point where his body rebelled had only ever happened thrice before. The first had been after his first official hunt when he’d been a but a hundred and seventeen, barely an adult at all, and not half as wise as he believed himself to be. He’d woken slumped in a broom cupboard to the sight of his father just shaking his head, and closing the door quietly on him.

The other two times had all been joint efforts between Orelion, Elladan, and Elrohir — Lord Elrond’s twin sons, who’d seemed intent on corrupting his innocence in increasingly inventive ways since he was an elfling.

However, none of those times compared to this.

It wasn’t so much that he’d woken with a screeching headache that made it so bad, the slightest sound of a passing maid or a closing door all but breaking open his skull. Nor was it the fact that when he tried to peel his cheek of the solid oak table his head spun and the floor tilted.

No.

It was because despite the table littered with empty bottles, and the company of his passed-out friend, he still had that Valar damned tingle in his right hand from where he’d touched her.

A soft knock came at the door, and it was the loudest thing Legolas had ever heard. He tried not to wince as he sat up, a half conscious Orelion groaning in pain opposite him.

“Yes?” Legolas grunted, trying to sooth the throbbing in his head. “What is it?”

The door swung open with a clamouring screech that probably wasn’t much louder than a whisper, and a distinctly nervous looking guardsman peered in; one of the newer, recently promoted trainees.

“My prince? Are you well?”

“I will be once you’ve stopped talking so loudly,” Legolas growled, unable to feel as bad as he normally would about being so rude to one of his juniors. He was simply in too much pain. “Again, what is it?”

The young guardsman shifted uneasily, peering back down the hall as if contemplating his chances of fleeing.

“It’s the Dwarves, my prince. They’re… gone.”

“What?!” Orelion’s head was instantly up off the table, and in a split second they were both barrelling out of the room and down the hall, straight for the dungeon staircase. When they reached the bottom, they were greeted with the sight of every single cell door wide open, and a pack of frantic looking guardsmen trying to establish how in holy Aman this had happened.

“Where is the keeper of the keys?!” Tauriel was bellowing, a couple of the greener guardsmen actually flinching back at her flaring temper. Head still pounding, especially at the noise, Legolas just stared in disbelief at the baffled expressions on his guardsmen’s faces. Even Rȋnwen — by far their best trapper and tracker — looked utterly stunned by the sight of the entirely empty jail cells.

“This is the securest cellblock in the Woodland Realm! How in Nienna’s mercy did they just break out?” Orelion had the sense to demand.

“One of them must have lifted the keys. The cells weren’t forced. They were all unlocked from the outside,” Celemir answered from where he was examining one of the locks.

“Well they cannot have gone far. Half of you sweep the upper floors, the other half come with me and sweep the cellars,” a still fuming Tauriel ordered before storming down the stairs towards the basements with half the guard in tow.

“Ur… my prince,” one of the younger guardsmen said slowly, and Legolas turned to find him peering into the cell at the very end of the ledge, and peculiar expression on his face. “I think you should see this…”

The second Legolas saw which — or rather who’s — cell the young guard was standing before, he knew what he was going to find…

She’d jammed a small throwing knife into a crack in the mortar, right at the back where no one could miss it. An exact twin to the one he’d managed to take from her the previous evening. The one he still had tucked away in his tunic now.

For a long moment he could do nothing but stare at it, head throbbing, eyes narrowed.

How in the abyss did she even…

“I took a blade off her last night, exactly like that one,” he heard himself muttering.

“She must have had a second one,” Orelion groaned, giving him what might have been a consolatory pat on the shoulder. And damn everything, he was right. The one he’s managed to take when he grabbed her hadn’t been the only one she’d stashed. Just the one she’d intended him to see.

Because right below the embedded knife were a few jagged words she’d left carved into the smooth stone of the cell…

Get over yourself and tell her, Prince Charming.

E. x

Orelion squinted for a long moment at the words, then slowly turned to look at him, both brows raised in incredulity.

“Prince Charming?”

Legolas decided then and there that — Intended or not — if he ever saw that infuriating tornado of a she-elf again, he was going to cheerfully dump her off a cliff. And yet, even as he thought the words…

He couldn’t help but find himself grinning ever so slightly at the idea of seeing that wicked smile of hers again, and getting his own back.

Part 1 | Part 2 | Bonus

A/N: Well that was fun. :) Hope you guys enjoyed reading that half as much as I enjoyed writing it. I still stand by the decision to set RB during the LotR timeline, but I can’t deny setting it during the Hobbit would have been a blast too.

“Point that thing somewhere else!”

Those had been my first words to the elven man who’d just saved my life. I’d meant them to come out with at least some dignity, maybe even a glimmer of polite gratitude. He had, after all, just rescued me from an economy sized arachnid trying to sink toxic fangs the size of kitchen knives into my neck.

But no.

Instead, they’d sprung from me in a full blown, slightly hysterical shout right into his startlingly handsome face. Not the best response to being saved by a tall, handsome blond stranger armed with a bow and a small battalion of lethal looking wood elves. But considering that he was now pointing a nocked arrow directly at my face, I felt just a little bit justified in my rudeness.

The impossibly good looking elf just stared at me as if I’d just slapped him across his pronounced cheekbones.

“What?” he whispered, a dangerous look leaking into his eyes.

Adrenaline wasn’t my friend in this situation. I was still weak at the knees, my hunting knife clenched so tight in my hand I could feel my arms shaking like leaves. I had to take a deep steadying breath before I was sure my voice would shake to.

“I said, point that thing somewhere else, please,” I repeated, adding the belated touch of politeness, but still refusing to break eye contact with him. He had the iciest pair of grey-blue eyes I’d ever seen, sharper even than Aragorn’s. Though I guessed—at barely sixteen—Aragorn hadn’t yet seen enough of life’s cruel beauty outside Imladris to develop that frozen expression.

This elf—whoever he was—had.

Mildly stunned as he was by my verbal slap in the face, there was still a cold intensity to those eyes that left me with the feeling that I’d just poked an angry wolf with a stick.

“Lass!” Balin’s panicked voice suddenly boomed through the trees, breaking my unsettlingly intense staring contest with the blond man. I barely resisted a sigh of relief.

“I’m fine! I’m not hurt,” I called back over my shoulder, not taking my eyes off my saviour-come-captor and the arrow still only a hand span from my nose. “Not yet anyway,” I added in a whisper.

The blond elf obviously heard me, because I saw his shoulders tense. I flinched on instinct, my eyes instantly going to the arrow, but the second he saw my alarm he quickly lowered his bow. I was about to let out a breath of relief, but that reflex was immediately arrested in favour of alarm when he reached out to me with a gloved hand.

I froze.

From the dark expression on his face (and maybe the residual adrenaline) I honestly thought he was going to wrap his long fingers about my neck. But instead, he reached past my face, and brusquely pushed back my tangled brown hair in a gesture that—while not exactly gentlemanly—was surprisingly gentle.

His hard expression went slack. I wasn’t sure anyone else, Elves or Dwarves would have noticed the minute change in expression, even if they were in eyeshot. But I was close enough to see my captor’s intense blue eyes widen slightly, and his lips part in surprise.

It took me an embarrassingly long moment to realise what he was looking at.

My ears. My pointed ears.

Ears that marked me very clearly as a she-elf. An unusually short she-elf who was apparently allied with a troupe of dwarves, and had also just openly insulted a member of her own race who had saved her life from giant spiders.

Oh, boy. Thorin and this guy were going to get along like a goblin nest on fire.

“She’s one of us?” One of the dark-haired male archers blurted in Sindarin, sounding just as startled as my blond captor still looked.

The sound of his subordinate seemed to shake him out of his daze though, and a second later he’d fixed his hardened expression back into place. His gloved hand dropped from the side of my head to my shoulder, and pushed me rather roughly towards the trees.

“Put her with the others,” he ordered, still looking at me as if I’d just insulted his mother. Suppressing the urge to glare back, I reluctantly complied, and a couple of the elven archers began nudging me back through the trees towards the clearing where I’d been chased from my allies.

The Dwarven company of Thorin Oakenshield looked surprisingly well, considering they’d just been assaulted by a horde of giant arachnid, and then subsequently a horde of  elven supermodels wielding bows. Dwalin looked pissed off, or at least more so than usual. Balin was attempting to look placating, and poor Ori still looked a little shaken and white around the eyes, but he and a few of the others graced me with smiles of relief at the sight of me in one piece. All of them were in the same position I’d just been in; an array of arrows aimed carefully at them by the surrounding Elves.

“Ellie!” Fili gave me a wicked grin around the sneering elf who was guarding him. “We thought you’d got done in for a minute there.”

“So did I. Next time I’ll run faster,” I tried to grin, but it felt brittle on my face. I was uncomfortably aware of the fact that a lot of eyes, both Dwarven and elven had locked onto me in particular. The archer behind me gave me a non-too gentle shove into the group, just as a slightly dazed looking Kili was being pushed towards the others by a female elf with gorgeous hip length red hair.

He looked a bit like he’d been hit over the head with a mallet and dropped off a cliff, and even after he’d been pushed into the midst next to a stone-faced Thorin, he couldn’t seem to tear his eyes away from the retreating form of the fire-haired she elf.

Double damn.

Thorin was really going to love this now.

He’d been pissed enough about being coerced (read: blackmailed) by a wizard into taking on an elven healers apprentice as the company’s resident surgeon (read: myself). He hadn’t noticed yet, being too busy exchanging death glared with our captors. But if he cottoned on to the fact that his Dwarven company’s integrity had been further corrupted by his nephew apparently developing an insta-crush on a tall, pretty elf woman; I think his head might actually explode.

Which was when another sinking realisation struck me: a Dwarven companions only.

Thirteen Dwarves, and no Hobbits in sight…

Where in hell was Bilbo?

I glanced around as subtly as I could manage but couldn't see any trace of our burglar anywhere. I didn’t dare ask any of the others if they’d seen him in the fight. There was no guarantee if I let slip we had a missing party member aloud, our captors wouldn’t immediately send a very attractive lynch mob into the woods after him.

“Search them,” my blond Disney assailant commanded as he strode back into the clearing, handing his bow off to another archer. The same one who had spoken when he’d displayed my ears looked uneasily between us.

“But, my prince, she is—” He said quietly, and was met with a hard look.

“I know what she is, Orelion. Search her as well.”

My eyes widened at him.

Prince? Prince?! This was the prince of the Woodland Realm? King Thranduil’s son?

I almost sputtered, but just about managed to hold in my shock and indignation when said prince strode straight over to me, stopping barely half a step from our toes touching. I had to tilt my head up to meet his stony glare with my own.

“Your weapons, now.”

I felt my hand tighten unconsciously around the hilt of my hunting knife that I was still gripping, and his gaze sharped as he noticed. Forcing myself to relax, I stubbornly told myself that it was only temporary, and one way or another, I’d get it back.

“Fine,” I hissed finally, making a show of sheathing it and removing it from my belt. “But only since you asked so politely.”

Illogical as it was, the more I was exposed to this guy, the more he seemed to rile me up. I may or may not have slapped the hilt a little harder than necessary into his palm when he held a hand out to take it; and wavered a little as his eyes flickered over the names engraved on the hilt then up to me again.

My eight most important words.

I looked deliberately away as he took my throwing knives, and the needles from my medical satchel; some of which were so huge they could have easily doubles as weapons, or even lock picks. Instead I tried to focus on what was going on around us, trying to pick up as much information on who our apparent captors were, and how in hell we were going to get away.

Just looking round at them I couldn’t really tell much beyond the fact that they must be members of King Thranduil’s guard, and that none of them seemed particularly fond of Dwarves.

Another thing I noted was that none of them seemed to be making any particular effort to keep their voices down as they divested Thorin’s crew of their weapons too. Most of them were conversing in rapid but clearly insulting Sindarin with little to no concern for the fact that they might be understood, and it took me a long moment to realise why. It was obvious none of the dwarves were versed in the language, but so far the only words I’d spoken had been in the Common Tongue too. It seemed that they had taken that as evidence that—along with my apparently un-elf like appearance—I could neither speak nor understand their particular dialect either.

They were in fact wrong in that assumption.

“Goodness! She’s so tiny!” One of the lovelier female archers with rich brown curls tittered.

“Are you sure she is one of the Eldar?”

“More like an oversized halfling than a true elleth,” another added with a pitying, almost mocking little smile at me.

I sighed. Languages had never really been my forte, but Lord Elrond had found my early efforts at Sindarin so offensive he’d made damned sure that I learned to speak it to within an inch of perfection in the past two years. It probably would have been the smarter thing to keep pretending I couldn’t understand every word they were saying in the hopes that they’d let something slip, but I’d already used up patients quota for the day.

And life is too short to put up with simpering, aesthetically perfect immortals with more pompous pride than manners.

I gave the three twittering archers a withering look.

“You do know I can hear everything you’re saying, right? I’m small, not deaf,” I said in a deliberately loud voice so everyone heard.

To my satisfaction, the she-elves each had the grace to look embarrassed as well as shocked, and I actually saw a couple of the male archers—and surprisingly, Kili’s red haired saviour—fighting to hold back grins.

But out of the corner of my eye, I could see the blond elf who’d taken my weapons away continuing to stare hard at me. If I was honest, frustratingly handsome as he was, the surly expression and death staring was starting to really border on irritating now. It was like being stared at by a pissed off Disney prince who’s been spurned one too many times by his would-be princess.

I stared back, not bothering to hide my disdain, and I was mildly surprised when his expression shifted very slightly from annoyed to… curious?

But I blinked, and it was gone, and less than a minute later we were being frogmarched through the forest towards the gates of the Halls of the Woodland realm.

We weren’t exactly told to stay silent during the walk, but every time one of us opened our mouthes to speak we were glared down until we stopped whispering. I didn’t even bother trying to whisper. I was too busy focusing on what was going on around me, and inside me.

Tink had gone unnervingly silent since we’d entered the wood, and whenever she had spoken, it had been in a voice that had sounded strained, almost painful; like someone trying to force down memories. I knew all too well what that was like, so I hadn’t pushed her for answers or advice. She deserved a break from saving my ass.

And anyway, what was the worst a gaggle of prissy wood elves could do to us anyway?

Turns out the answer to that question was: lock us all up in a dungeon.

The second we passed through the massive gates to the (ironically) underground Hall of the Woodland realm, Thorin was ushered up towards the king’s hall for questioning, and we were marched down a series of coiling, winding stairs to a series of ledges lined with elaborate jail doors that overlooked an underground stream.

Rather pretty for a jail house.

“You would truly lock up one of your own?” Balin asked my tall, blond, Prince Charming with a raised eyebrow as I was pushed past him towards a separate cell at the end of the row. Legolas turned his cold stare to me and came perilously close to scowling.

“She is not one of my own,” he answered flatly in common speech, so they could all understand. I smiled angelically up at him, and made point of stepping on his foot as I passed.

“Whoops! So sorry, your highness,” I said sweetly. His scowl turned dark, and my smirk turned vulpine as I was shoved inside.

Petty? Maybe a little. But I’d be damned if I was going to let this arrogant, simpering ass of a prince get the last word in before he locked me in a cage like a damned hunting dog.

The cell door slammed behind me, and the sound of the retreating wood elves boots and chatter was met with catcalls and jeers from almost all my Dwarves friends.

I didn’t join them, fun as it might have been.

The second I was sure Mr. Blond & Broody was out of sight I let my shoulders slump, the exhaustion and adrenaline I’d been holding in for hours finally catching up with me. I stalked over to the oddly smooth prison wall and slid down onto my butt on the cool stone floor, sighing.

“Hells bells, Eleanor,” I muttered, just quiet enough so no one outside my cell could hear, especially over the sound of Fili, Bofur and Nori swearing up a storm in fluent Khuzdul. “What kind of mess have you landed yourself in now?”

We were down there for what felt like days before Thorin finally returned, informing us unashamedly that he’d insulted the king of the Woodland Realm into imprisoning us for probably the next hundred years.

I didn’t have the energy to be mad.

Or scared.

Or react at all really. Even when the occasional annoyed guard came to check up on us and peered curiously at me through the bars..

I was truly exhausted, and must have fallen asleep at some point, because the next thing I knew I’d woken up suddenly hours later, chilly, and curled on my side on the smooth stone of my cell.

How long had I been out?

It must have been a while. The rest of the company were all finally quiet again after hours of hurling dwarves abuse. And there was the sound of something going on up on the floors above. Sounds of laughter, and music, and the unmistakable clamours of happy, drunken merriment.

Whatever it was going on up there, it sounded like a miles better party than anything I’d ever seen thrown in Rivendell. I was almost sorry I hadn’t tried to blag my way out by cunning use of my elf status.

Almost.

As I sat up something metallic clattered to the stone beside me. I jumped a little at the echoing sound piercing the quiet, but relaxed when I saw it was only one of my little throwing knives — one of the few I’d managed to hide before we’d been forced to give up all out weapons by the supermodel brigade. The sight of it was oddly welcoming in the dim light of my cell, and a comforting weight in my hand when I picked it up, twirling it between my fingers like a pen.

“Where did you get that?”

This time, I did jump. The male voice had come from right outside my cell, and I jerked my head up to see the blond Disney prince glaring down at me from right outside the bars.

What the hell? How had he got so close without me hearing him?

His icy grey-blue eyes were fixed on the little throwing blade in my hand, his expression stuck somewhere between and confused and annoyed.

I smiled up at him, hiding my nerves behind the practiced wall of bravado I’d been perfecting over the past few weeks walking and talking with Fili and Kili. This prissy git didn’t need to know that I’d accidentally sliced through half the laces on the front of my breastband in my haste to hide the little blade up there. Or that I’d had to bite the inside of my mouth to keep from wincing every time the hilt poked into my boob as we’d been walked inside the halls.

“What? This little thing?” I asked, twirling the blade between my fingers like it was a playing card or a poker chip. “It’s barely a toothpick. I have surgical needles that could do more damage.”

The handsome elf didn’t look in the least bit impressed. He just stuck a bare upturned hand through the bars, and I noticed he’d changed out of his previous leather armour and gloves into so a simple green tunic — the nearest equivalent to casual wear elves generally got.

If it wasn’t for the death glare, he’d have almost looked at ease. At home.

“Hand it over,” he ordered. I eyed him, still smirking.

“Afraid I’ll pick my way out?”

He glared harder.

“Even if you did, there is nowhere in these halls where you could run.”

“You haven’t seen me run,” I countered, standing up to face him very carefully so I was exactly two paces from the door.

I’d worked out earlier that my cell was just big enough that if I stood in the absolute centre, I’d be just out of reach of anyone’s fingers were they to try and grab me through the bars. The dark expression that crept into his eyes said he knew it too, and I held up the little knife pretending to inspect it for dents.

“You know, highness,” I said feigning confidence I didn’t quite feel, and got a twinge of satisfaction at seeing his eye begin to twitch. “Just because you’re a prince doesn’t actually mean that everything you say goes. As you so eloquently pointed out earlier, you’re not my sovereign. So, if you want this back, you’re going to have to unlock that door to get to it.”

Judging by the look on his face moments before I was pretty sure my baiting words would have condensed his quiet annoyance into outright anger. Instead, his face shifted from a deep frown to a quietly puzzled expression, looking at me through the bars as if trying to solve a riddle in his head. Then his eyes flicked to the knife still held loosely in my grip, closed his eyes, shook his head, and walked away towards the stairs.

He’d barely gone a few steps when a nagging question flew out of me.

“How are the others?” I heard myself call before I could think better of it.

I knew he’d heard me when his footsteps halted. I really expected him to just ignore me and continue back to the party upstairs. So it was a bit of a surprise when he answered.

“They’re sleeping…” he said quietly, paused, then added; “And snoring.”

The air escaped my lungs in a rush of relief.

“Good,” I whispered, closing my eyes for a second, letting a little of the anxiety leave me. “It’s been a long journey, they’re all exhausted. Might not be high class accommodation but at least they’re getting time to rest properly.”

Maybe the wine he’d had at the feast upstairs had loosened his rigid grasp of protocol because when I opened my eyes he was at the bars of my cells again. Only this time he didn’t look angry, annoyed, or judgment. He just looked confused.

“You care about their wellbeing so much?” He asked softly. He actually had a nice voice now that it wasn’t laced with distain. Low, smooth, and surprisingly gentle.

I met his eyes through the bars and refused to flinch away from them.

“I’m their healer. It’s my job.”

“And what does a Dwarven company require of an Elven healer?” He asked, that curious gleam never leaving his eyes.

I shrugged nonchalantly.

“Besides a regular cure for hangovers?” I asked, folding my arms and smiling at him. He didn’t look impressed, rolling his eyes and starting to turn away again. The odd thing was, for some reason, the very idea of him going and leaving me here on my own in the quiet again made me feel cold. So, again, I spoke without thinking. “Your Guard Captain was down here earlier. She seems to have grown quite fond of our second youngest and his tall tales.”

Again, he stopped. Well froze really, only turning back to face me after he’d schooled his handsome face into a deliberately neutral expression.

It looked a little like he’s just bitten into a lemon.

“What?”

I shrugged again. “Your Guard Captain. You know: hazel eyes, wicked with daggers, long red hair past her hips. She was down here listening to Kili telling stories just a little while ago.”

Now it looked as if he’d bitten into a rotten lemon.

“What? You disapprove?” I asked amused, eyeing him closely. When he didn’t react, I leaned forward, squinting at him. Then my eyes widened as I realised what he was trying to hide. “Oh my God, you’re jealous!”

That spurned Disney prince analogy was starting to look rather accurate.

“I am certainly not,” Legolas’s sharp cheekbones coloured very slightly as he scowled at me. I snorted.

“Please, with a pokerface like that you have no secrets.”

His annoyed expression turned even more pink around the ears, and I almost regretted the jibe. Trying to soften my amused expression, I inclined my head to him.

“Have you thought about just telling her?”

I don’t think I could have gotten a most flustered reaction from if I’d started stripping right there in the cell.

“That is not—” he all but sputtered, unable to hide the reddening of his cheeks, neck and ears, even when he dragged a hand down the centre if his face. He half sighed half growled at me. “Even if I were, I hardly think it is any concern of yours.”

I just raised an eyebrow at him. He glared down at me for a long moment, then finally made a disgusted noise, all but throwing his hands up in defeat.

“You truly expect me to take romantic advice from a prisoner being held in my own cells?”

“They aren’t your cells, Prince Charming, they’re the King’s. Anyway, it’s not like I have anything better to do in here than hand out unsolicited advice.” I waved a hand as if sweeping away the idea, leaning towards him a little more in question. “So?”

He looked away down the hall at the other cells, rubbing the back of his neck in aggravation, as if afraid another guard might appear on the stairs and overhear him. But he didn’t leave.

“I… have considered it,” he admitted reluctantly. I nodded in understanding, refusing to let the amused smile onto my face.

“She seems fond of you.”

“Not in that way.”

“I noticed that too,” I said gently. “I’m sorry.”

His handsome face twisted at the edges, a dark look slipping down over his eyes as he stared hard at me through the gloom.

“I do not require your pity.”

I rolled my eyes at him, not even trying to hide my annoyance.

“It’s not pity, you knob. Its empathy,” I snapped, sinking down to sit crosslegged on the floor of my cell, leaning my elbows on my knees. “I know what its like to not feel good enough for someone.”

Silence hung in the air like fog for a long while. I didn’t bother to look up, and was half sure he’d vanished back upstairs again. But then he asked me something I hadn’t been asked in almost three years.

“What is your name?”

I looked up from the stone floor of my prison to meet his eyes. His pokerface was back in place, but his eyes were no longer chips of ice boring into mine. They were the soft grey-blue of a winter sky at dawn, when the sunlight is a gentle warmth on your skin, but the frost in the air is crisp enough to show each of your breaths as steam…

“Eleanor,” I answered softly, hearing myself as if far away, then without thinking added; “my friends call me Ellie.”

Now why the hell had I told him that?

“And why are you travelling with thirteen Dwarves, Eleanor?” He asked, nodding his head towards the other cells where I could hear Dwalin and Bomber snoring. I rolled my shoulders in a tired shrug.

“Does it matter? It won’t change the fact that I have a set of bars between me a freedom now.”

“Maybe not,” he admitted, stepping a little closer to said bars. “But I would still like to know.”

I’d never been very good a lying, and I’d never liked doing it even when I had to. I’d barely known this pointy-eared guy for a few hours, if that. I didn’t like him, and I didn’t trust him. But for some reason the very idea of being even vaguely dishonest with him made my stomach twist in discomfort. I couldn’t explain why, but it felt like he’d know I was deceiving him by just hearing my voice.

I shifted in my sitting position, suddenly uncomfortable there on the cold stone floor.

“I’m… looking for something. Or someone, I guess,” I admitted, avoiding his eyes and instead fixing my gaze on his tunic’s embroidered collar. “… My brother.”

“Would I know him by name?” He asked. I pulled a face and shook my head in an uncertain motion.

“I don’t know. I’m having some… issues with my memory. I can only remember a nickname, a voice, and a face… Var. His name is Var. Curly brown hair, green eyes like mine.” I explained, curling my arms around myself, the words tumbling out of me without me really thinking about them, or who I was offering them up to. “I know it’s not much to go on.”

He inclined his head in agreement, that gentle look in his cool eyes softening just a little more than before.

“Indeed not. Though if I happen to hear of him, I will inform you.”

I blinked up at him in surprise. But I wasn’t about to look a gift horse in the mouth.

“Thanks,” I murmured, a bit dazed by the sudden civilness. He just nodded at me in acceptance of the gratitude, and before he could move to either speak again or walk away, and shifted forward to interrupt him. “By the way there is something I wanted to ask of you actually.”

Now it was his turn to raise a dark gold eyebrow at me.

“Oh?”

“My knife, the one you took back in the forest…”

Maybe it was my imagination, but I could have sworn I saw a flicker of remorse cross his features before it was smoothed away.

“I cannot return it to you while you are still a prisoner,” he told me gently.

“Obviously not,” I said impatiently, sighing and giving him what I hoped was a sincere look. “Just… look after it for me, please? It’s very important to me.”

To my surprise, he didn’t turn his nose up at me or sneer. He looked me dead in the face and inclined his head, placing his head over his heart in promise as he did.

“No harm will come to it. You have my word.”

I don’t know why, but I believed him completely, and the relief that came with it forced the breath from me in a rush.

“Thank you,” I smiled, genuinely this time.

Again, maybe it was my imagination, but I could have sworn for a second that he almost returned it, the corner of his lip twitching ever so slightly upwards…

“Though, on that subject of blades, there is just one more problem that requires my attention.”

“And what is—?”

Before I knew what was happening, his arm had shot through the bars like a striking snake, seizing me by the wrist. I was pulled off the floor as he yanked me towards him, falling hard against the door at an awkward angle. My knife — which I’d almost entirely forgotten I was holding — fell from my fingers, and went clattering through the bars and across the floor outside.

Bloody hell, he was strong.

I could almost feel the future ring of finger-shaped bruises encircling my wrist. I was almost too shocked to react at first, the sudden pain rushing up my side from where I’d hit the doorway. Pulling myself out of my daze I noticed absently that he was still holding my arm in his hand, though not nearly as firmly as before. I automatically opened my mouth to give him an ear full and…

And the words died instantly on my tongue.

I hadn’t realised how close we’d got when he pulled me to the door, and the shock had forced me to suck in a startled breath. And with it, the unmistakable scent of freshly cut grass, pine needles, the aroma of a forest after a rainstorm, all lightly tinged with the rich notes of red elvish wine…

His scent, my subconscious purred, the thought sending an uncomfortably warm sensation pulsing through me.

But that made no sense. How could one person smell like all those things at once?

My nose had become ludicrously good as an elf. I could identify most toxins and herbs just by their scent alone, but this was…

Whatever had just happened to me, something similar have obviously happened with him too. The blond elf prince just stared at me incredulously, still gripping my bare wrist, though his hold had gone slack. I could feel the warmth of his paralysed fingers on my skin, his blue-grey eyes wide with shock, lips slightly parted…

And barely inches away from my own.

I jerked away from the bars on instinct, falling onto my butt and trying to put as much distance as I could between our faces. He made no attempt to hold me there. He just stared slack-jawed and wide-eyed at me, like I’d just whispered a terrible secret in his ear.

“Wha…what just…?”

But I didn’t get a chance to finish asking what in hell had just happened before he stood, winter sky eyes still wide, and fled back up the stairs on eerily soundless feet.