Can you write a one shot/imagine of the reader being a Silvan elf and being a child hood friend of Legolas and them falling in love, but having to keep the relationship secret? In retrospect, that sounds really complicated, but it would be great if you could do it :)
a secret kept by the stars | legolas greenleaf x reader
REVISED on August 1st, 2022.
a/n: Anon, thank you for the request! It’s perfect! Apologies for the wait, I’ve been dealing with so much mental strain these past couple of years due to my disability and such but I feel a little more confident in my writing lately. The reader is implied fem in this one (referred to as a daughter a few times) although I tried to keep it neutral. I hope this is to your liking! <3
Elvish (Sindarin) translations are provided in the footer. Gif not mine, found on pinterest with no link to source.
This is Legolas maybe a couple centuries before the events of LOTR? And he’s 2931 during the War of the Ring (LOTR), so he’s not a lovesick tween in this lmao, both are consenting adults. Also, he is SUCH a quiet character, his dialogue is sort of hard to get a tone for in the films because there's so little of it, but I hope he's in character for everyone. <3
DO NOT REPOST MY WORK!
summary: As a lowly daughter of Legolas’ former governess, your developed relationship with the Woodland King’s only son and heir is a path forged of risk and painstaking secrecy.
warnings: Thranduil being an overbearing father, a bit of angst mingled with the fluff
word count: 6.5K
music: Stars Are Singing by Hristo Hristov
Deep within the still air of Mirkwood’s dense gloom of vegetation, one might easily forget that spring was fast approaching over the vast regions of Middle-Earth. The only reminders of the changing seasons were the blossoms and colorful weeds pressed into the earth beneath your feet and layered within your foraging basket, seeking the warmth of the sun beneath trees woven with web and the never-fading colors of autumn.
You pitied them as they were, little promises of life eager to feel the hope of the world’s light, shunned beneath the shadows of a melancholy forest cursed with the bitterness of her King’s endless mourning. Something about their pale colors wilting back into the earth before they’d fully bloomed stirred a sense of dread deep within the hollows of your being.
Such delicate life trampled and suffocated without a chance to thrive.
However, there were places in Mirkwood’s vast reach that seemed like sealed capsules of its former glory—crooks and divots in the land that were frozen in time. In one such corner of the forest, toward the northwestern borders, was a glen of trees unlike any other. Their trunks were still wide and strong, yes, but their bark was free of rotted sap and teeming with green moss and furred vines. Their leaves were the only ones that changed with the seasons from within the borders of the wood.
In the center of this small circle of untouched trees was a waterfall that matched their reaching heights, pouring forth from a jagged crag and into a clear pool of water. Running directly from a thin stream branching from the Forest River, it was the only still pond on this side of the palace walls whose waters could be trusted to quench one’s thirst and not muddle the mind with dark confusions.
More importantly to you, it was also the only place in your homeland that offered itself as a safe haven for your most dire secrets; the secrets you kept well-guarded within your heart above all else.
Your feet soon left the promises of spring to their end as you scoured the rocks on the edge of the pond. You knelt by the cool entity, dipping your hands beneath its surface to quench the thirst that had accumulated from your solitary hike. The song of insects and toads accompanied the last yearning notes of the late evening songbirds, pleading for the sun’s last light to linger upon the crag’s private glen. Somewhere above you, a familiar voice added to the divine calls of nature.
“I was beginning to wonder if you’d forgotten about our evening rendezvous.”
Your gaze lifted upward into the sprawling limbs to find a pair of sapphire eyes already trained on you. The ends of white-blonde hair flicked upward on the air flowing from the little waterfall’s collision into the pond. Every time you saw the prince’s light head of hair, an image of the fresh white linens hanging from the threaded lines in the servant’s quarry was summoned in your mind.
One might think it silly, comparing the hairs on the head of royalty to the cotton fabric drying in the mountain’s underground breeze, but it wasn’t just the pristine flow of it that reminded you so. The linens in the quarry always smelled sweet and their scent even drifted into the halls beyond—in that regard, the prince’s hair was also very much alike, always smelling of a sweetness you could never quite pin.
“Legolas!” You smiled through the syllables of his name. Standing from your crouched perch over the lily pads and minnows thriving in the water, you gaped up at him. Your shock at seeing him having arrived before you was evident in your pleasant stupor. “You’re here early!”
He grinned down at you. “That is precisely what one who is late would say to those who are punctual.”
Feigning a perturbed huff, you bent down and splashed at the surface of the water in his direction. Of course you knew the short reach of your mischievous deed would not reach up into the extending limbs of the trees, but it was something about the action itself that got your point across. Leaned against the wide center trunk with all the nonchalant elegance of an elven prince, he was very obviously unintimidated by your efforts.
A brief moment of admiration settled between the two of you.
Finally, at the end of the week, after endless strict schedules and hours of painstaking work between the two of you, there was this moment of calmness shared in the presence of the boy you loved, under the shelter of a small corner of the forest that seemed to grow just for the two of you, just so you might have a place to meet and not fear prying eyes or hasty rumors.
“You were able to slip past your father earlier today?”
He shrugged. His brief glance toward the leftover autumn leaves littered around your feet told you it had not been a day of pleasant exchanges between the two of them. The smile on your lips wilted when you sensed the tension in his features, the look of recollecting something unpleasant. Had it been another argument about their obvious differences? Another barrage of patronizing lessons and expectations?
You decided to ward off the subject. These precious few hours were meant for more pleasant memories. “Have you been waiting long?”
He shook his head softly down at you, quietly admiring the fading tint of warm light offering a crown of golden warmth on your hair. He thought you the most idyllic being amongst all the beauty on the edge of the forest—with more melody to your voice than the drowsy birdsong, more calming than the lull of the sweet waters at your feet, and even more heavenly than the waking stars.
“Won’t you join me?”
Without hesitation, you approached the wide base of the tree with eagerness. You rooted the heel of your boot into the knots of the bark, flourishing your way up to him with all the ease of a woodland elf more accustomed to the gracious embrace of the branches than paths hewn of crumbling stone. When you were near enough to be reached, he offered his hand to hoist you upwards one last stretch. Of course, he knew you didn’t need any aid in your skillful climbing, but any chance to exchange the affection of touch was gratefully taken.
“Another minute longer and you might have missed the sunset altogether,” he teased.
“It’s the moonlight I prefer, anyway.” You retorted.
His tone was lightly apologetic as he said, “I believe we are without one tonight, melda.”
“But not without the stars,” you countered, redirecting his gaze to the western heavens. At this height, you were well above the drooping waterfall and given a clear vantage point beyond the crag’s corroded surface. There was a break through the line of trees there—a rarity in itself in Mirkwood, to look up and be able to see the sky above you—where the horizon was visible.
On the edge of the forest, life was still seeping in from beyond the dying border. Just upstream beyond the waterfall was the great roaring of the Forest River’s wider curves and beyond that the distant formations of the Grey Mountains. The outside world, thriving and alive, like a painting you might find on display in the village markets.
So close you could reach out and touch it, take hold of a lowly drifting cloud or taste the fresh air of a growing world. Mirkwood, your home, the forest you’d grown up in, was a beautiful forest beyond compare, even with such sadness that fed through her roots. But out there, beyond the forest, was a place you wondered might feel less constricting.
Not because the trees were tangled too tight or the thickets too full of bramble—but because the love you shared with Legolas was a secret shut into an even more confined space. Square feet of the forest that let you take refuge. Because nowhere else in the king’s domain would the daughter of his son’s modest silvan governess be allowed to embrace such unrelenting freedom. It was here, and only here, that those sapphire eyes could remain trained with your (e/c) ones with unflinching steadiness.
“The life in the forest is fading more with each passing season,” Legolas said, suddenly crestfallen. “And life beyond our borders thrives beyond us. It is as though we are stagnant while the other people of this realm change and flourish, while their customs adjust to generations.”
You looked up at him again, turning to find his expression solemn and stern. That same sense of dread you sensed when looking down at the wilting blossoms of spring fell over you. Somehow, in this moment, it felt as though Legolas were a wilting blossom seeking the light and air beyond his father’s borders.
“We are now as we have been for over two thousand years. Every day is unchanged from the one before.”
You took hold of his hand, entwining his fingers with yours gently. He peered down at the touch and rose to trace your knuckles with his free hand.
“Legolas, what happened today? Did your father say something?”
“The same speeches of detached arrogance as always, concealing himself beneath his robes and jewels, never saying what he truly means—what he feels…what his reasoning is for allowing our home to become so void of the very breath of life.”
“Why does he not share these things with you? You are his son, if there is anyone who could help him better understand himself, it is you.”
“To know why my father does not confide in me would be to know why he has no expression of compassion, even with our kin. When I press him on such matters, he only recedes further within himself…Sometimes, when I’m with him in those meetings, I no longer see the Elvenking of our great forest, but a stubborn turtle. He is hidden well within his shell, not wanting anything beyond what is already here…and if I try to help, to be a good son, the son my mother would want me to be—I—…I am met with such contempt.”
“Oh, melamin,” you murmured, winding your arms around his firm waist. Without hesitance, his arms nestled around you with an ethereal warmth you thought rivaled the heavens themselves. As he let his cheek rest against the top of your head, the linen wisps of his hair mingled with yours. That sweet, indecipherable scent filled your senses, inviting you to draw in a slow, deep breath. “One day, King Thranduil will be able to open his heart to you again, perhaps when he is not so afraid of his own heartbreak.”
“And in the meantime, I must try my best to understand him, to see my father for who I remember he was once, and not the cold-hearted king he has become.”
You leaned back enough to look into Legolas’ eyes. “It is not your duty to diminish your own pain in light of his own. You simply have to be you, Legolas. That is enough. You, his only son and heir, are enough. Ceri cin heni?”
Upon seeing the moisture gathering in his eyes, you cupped the soft skin of his cheeks. Under your tender touch, the tightness in his jaw relaxed. You felt the warm breath escape his parted lips slowly. He was cherishing every moment of this meeting, just as you were, savoring every shared sensation and vowel as if it were the last.
“Come, let us sit and enjoy the veil of night.” You offered, guiding him to sit comfortably on the widest reach of the strong limb beneath your boots.
When his legs draped over either side of the branch, you squatted before him and tucked the wayward tendrils that had fallen free from his braids behind his pointed ears. He leaned into your touch, his smile returning. The silkiness of his hair reminded you of the frail blossoms you’d plucked on your trek. “Oh!”
His eyebrows drew together upon your exclamation. He watched patiently as you unwound the leather wide strap of your basket from around your shoulders. You unbuckled the latch and tipped the basket toward him to show him what you’d collected this time (it was an unspoken tradition by now that at every meeting you offered your fair prince a gift from the forest).
“I gathered these on the way here for you. They won’t grow much more than this, so I thought I might make better use of them,” you gingerly twirled a strand of his blonde hair around your finger. “May I?”
“Be my guest, dearest melda. I shall be proud to wear a crown of weeds, as long as yours are the hands that fasten it.”
You playfully bumped him with the little basket as you stepped around him. “They’re not weeds!”
From behind, you straddled the branch in the same fashion as he but allowing yourself room enough to adjust your legs in order to reach the crown of his hair (he was, of course, a little—if not quite a bit—taller than you). You reached around and tucked the basket onto his lap. He cradled it obediently, opening the hatch to inspect the flora for himself. As your fingers began to unbind his braids with the swiftness of familiarity, he spun one of the bigger blossoms between his fingers.
“They’re wood sorrels,” you explained, “We use them in the kitchens to make those supplements you’re always forgetting to take in the mornings.”
He turned his head to the side. “How do you know when I forget them?”
You pushed the tip of your index finger into his cheek, slowly nudging him to face forward again. “Servants know more about their masters than the masters know about themselves—or at least, that is what the head healer claims. It is our job to know.”
There was a long pause that was difficult for you to discern. Was it a quiet moment of calm as he mindlessly toyed with the pink and yellow sorrels? Or had the mention of your work in the palace perturbed him? Instead of probing him again, you kept running your fingers through his hair to untangle what the day’s affairs had knotted with the wind.
When the braids were fully unwound, you pulled a wooden comb from your side pouch to reach the tangles that slipped through your fingers. Though there were hardly any to be found on his pristine head of hair, you knew he liked the rhythm of the comb’s tongs massaging his scalp. It had been this way since you were children—since long before the secret rendezvous in his father’s forests became entwined with your requited expressions of romance. For as long as you could remember, you’d been spending an hour or so most evenings combing through Legolas’ pale golden hair.
The only thing that had changed was how often you were permitted to be this close to him. As you both grew into your duties as prince and pauper, the nightly routine turned to weekly, and on the busier occasions, monthly. It hadn’t been easy to adjust to the gradual distance over the years—in fact, it wasn’t any easier now than when the lines were first being drawn between you as teenagers.
Instead of being the harmless playmate King Thranduil indulged as his son studied and grew up under your mother’s role as his appointed governess, you were now an irrelevant memory in the back of the King’s mind—some frivolous friend of his child that had grown up to become a servant herself, dissolved into the walls of his cavern palace. As far as either of you knew, Legolas’ father was oblivious to your presence still in his son’s intimate livelihood. That was how it was supposed to be—how it needed to be.
“You are not a servant to me,” Legolas finally said, “I do not fashion myself as your master.”
The comb halted in his hair abruptly. Valar above, you were glad your face was hidden from his inquisitive eyes. If it hadn’t been for the interrupted movement of the comb, he never would have known how much those words pierced and comforted all in one breath.
“But Legolas, melamin, I am a servant in your father’s halls. I am the daughter of your former governess. I am Silvan and you are—you are your father’s son. Your blood carries the grace of the Sindar…”
“But I am more than just my father’s son,” he corrected quietly, “And I—I do not want to be exalted above you, or any of our people…but especially you.”
“I did not mean it that way—”
The grip of his palm reaching back to rest on your knee comforted your rising anxieties. Just one touch told you he understood you; he understood that what he wanted or how he thought did not alter the way things were. Yearning for change did not alter what presently was.
“I know.”
Your eyes drifted down to the comb in your hands. Your thumb ran over the messy engravings you had etched into it as a child, chasing a prince through murky creek beds and once-flourishing gardens that had since turned to bare stone. A sudden stinging sensation in your eyes warned you that your heart, though loved so well, was cracking at its more fragile seams. Though you tried to swallow the rising lump in your throat, your quick sniffle was more than enough to alert Legolas of your overwhelming emotions.
“Lean on me, melda.”
His tender words brought a smile to your dampening features, tugging a faint sob from your lips. Brushing his hair over his shoulder, you leaned forward and let your forehead rest against the cool nape of his neck. The soft fabric of his tunic caught your silent tears.
You closed your eyes, focusing on the sounds of the forest’s edge and the steadiness of his breathing. For just a moment, you let yourself imagine that you and he were somewhere beyond the grasp of the Woodland Realm, as beautiful as it were. Somewhere that his father could not extend his power and make him feel so trapped—somewhere where kings did not rank status above love. And for an ever briefer moment, you could almost believe it.
You could believe that the smell of a late snow blowing in from the Grey Mountains might be the chill of a Rohirrim winter. You could believe that the sound of the fresh water was not a mere puddle of sacred reflections in the dying forest, but the living waters of the river Bruinen. You could even believe, just for that second, that you and Legolas were already vowed to each other.
The stillness you shared instilled such a calmness as you both grounded yourselves in each other’s presence. It was inexplicably peaceful. So peaceful, in fact, that when he spoke again, the urgency in his tone nearly startled you.
“I would go with you, now, and make haste back to my father’s halls. I would have every soul, within and beyond our borders, know exactly who holds my heart. I am not ashamed. If you would but utter the words, I would make my petition known to my father that our engagement be acknowledged by his own decree.”
Instinctively, you wove your arms under his and clutched onto his shoulders from behind, hugging him to you. His free hand that did not still hold the violet sorrel rose to cover one of your hands. The beating of your heart pressed to his back gave him a measure to time his thoughts to.
“I know,” you murmured sullenly, “You would keep the moon full in the sky for me…and heal the forest of its plague. And I—I would give you a thousand nights just like this one. I would spend my life combing through your hair and fixing you crowns hewn of Mirkwood’s most delicate offerings…”
“We are both well of age, (Y/n), and I would not accept his dismissal in this matter. Even if he were to threaten to shorn me from succession—”
“He wouldn’t do that to you,”
“Or if he threatened your banishment, or your mother’s—I would take leave of this realm and make a life for us in lands more forgiving to us. Whatever it is you fear, I have vowed that nothing will alter the future we have promised to each other, and I would vow so again if there is need for you to hear it.”
He felt your grip on him tighten and the warmth of your breath grow nearer to his ear. You had nestled your chin in the crook of his neck, on the divot of his shoulder.
“He would despise me,” you stated bluntly, remorsed, “He would despise me and my mother, despite her dedication to this realm, to you—despite what she did for him by returning to her work as a governess. I cannot strip her of her reputation and take the honor of her life’s work from her. Not in that way.”
It’s all we have that’s keeping us within the palace and not out in the woodland villages, you thought. And you almost said it out loud. But Legolas knew. Without your words or whispers or suggestions, he knew.
“And as much as you detest the prideful customs of your father’s reign, you are still responsible for this realm when your era dawns upon us. It would be inexplicably selfish of me to agree to flee with you when your influence here could foster so much change—you can open our doors wide to the world, connect us again with our kin.”
In time, we can be together. In an era where there will be no repercussions for our love.
It felt like treason to speak so freely about the passing reign of elven kings when one so poignant sat with such vitality still upon his throne. Of course, there were dozens of things that Legolas’ father had done right by his people through the years—and hundreds more before your time to witness them. There were rarely ever attacks or intrusions from neighboring lands, save for the occasional drunken troop of foolish bandits.
Mirkwood didn’t receive many travelers—no one with enough sense dared tempt the risk of straying from the Old Forest Road, despite it being a shortcut to River Running and the lands beyond. The trade with Laketown was efficient and prosperous for both parties. There was not one family or person within his halls and villages without a home and bountiful pantries. There was no malice bred between elves here, no crimes or evils done to each other.
As Legolas had once said many moons back and many times since, his father was a protector of his people, loyal and devoted. However, in such fierce protection against the horrors of the world, there is also suffocation and stagnance. Exclusion and ignorance.
“King Thranduil’s reign is far from its conclusion, melda.”
Another lingerment of silence.
Your tears had dried, though you felt the clammy residue still clinging to your cheeks and neck. Hesitantly, you withdrew your grip on him slowly, ruefully. Looking out through the framed clearing in the trees, the deep blue of the night had long stretched beyond the Grey Mountains, chasing the pale pink light of the sun to another world.
The stars were brighter here in the forest’s unperturbed dark without the firelight of the Elvenking’s halls. Unchallenged in their glimmering spectacle, it felt as if they themselves were taking careful caution regarding your secret as you took shelter beneath their blanket of light. Somehow, if at all possible, you sensed in their divinity the distinct sparkle of approval among their radiance. And although you couldn’t see where Legolas’ gaze was trained, you felt for sure he was looking at them too.
“I should finish your crown, my prince,” you whispered. “It won’t be long before you’re discovered sneaking beyond the gates after curfew.”
Leaning back and drying your skin with the hem of your sleeve, you gently ran the comb through his hair one final time. “And what of you? Surely your mother must question where you go so often.”
“If she does suspect something, I trust her to keep her curiosities between us.”
“Do you think she suspects us?”
You pondered the possibility of your mother having put two and two together as your fingers parted and wove sections of golden hair with accustomed skill. Of course she had no way of knowing anymore when Legolas took leave of the palace halls or when he returned—but your schedule she knew very well. The only time you had to spare for excursions into the forest was for foraging herbs and other materials that were needed in the healer’s wing. But even then, you were accompanied by a group of other apprentices doing just the same.
In the brief hours you were free from any routine or task, you were sure it was questionable that you fled into the far reaches of the Mirkwood border for unforeseen amounts of time. It seemed only slightly foolish to assume that she, the one person who’d spent nearly every waking hour with you and Legolas from your earliest years until her gracious dismissal, would not have detected the attachment you had both developed.
“She does tease me about you sometimes when the other healers drone on about their suitors and prospects. I think some part of her senses that our connection as children was never really severed, despite your not needing a governess for many centuries now.” You managed to laugh at the idea of being found out by your mother before even the great Elvenking suspected anything was amiss—and not to mention the prospect of a very grown Legolas still being reared and tutored by your mother.
You truly felt no threat from her doting suspicions. If anyone were to ever discover this forbidden extravagance, you wanted it to be her.
But who knew for certain? Maybe your mother thought you were off seeing some human merchant too afraid to step beyond the forest’s edge and into Mirkwood’s gloom—or even bathing naked somewhere along the river, wary of prying eyes.
“Perhaps we should consider telling her,” Legolas mused, smiling to himself. A memory from his youth was stirred silently within him—an image of your mother soothing his cries as he called out for a mother he did not remember.
“You think so?”
“She has always been good at keeping secrets.”
“Oh? What kind of secrets would those be? Anything I should know?”
His laugh—which was more akin to a giggle when you thought about it—made your belly flutter with warmth. “Do you remember a time when we were only half the height we are now, when my father would still spend afternoons in the gardens with us?”
You hummed a confirmation, lips pursed as you balanced four strands of his silken hair between your fingers.
“Do you also remember that on one particular afternoon in the late summer, he wore one of his more extravagant robes? It had genuine gold thread embroidered with those tiny beryl beads. The pockets in it were deep enough to sheath one’s collection of daggers—”
“Oh, yes! I remember that robe! I told my mother the beadwork looked like blueberries; they were so pretty I wanted to eat them.”
He chuckled. “Might you also recall one particularly heinous, (h/c)-haired elleth who stuffed half of the muddied pies she’d made into those silk-lined pockets? Including the oozing ends of worms yanked up from beneath the pathway stones?”
You chortled, slapping a hand over your gaping mouth. “Valar’s grace! I forgot about that!”
“Forgot about it! How in our lifetime could you have possibly forgotten the day you single-handedly managed a squeamish yelp from the ever-poised Elvenking?”
“We were only a few centuries old! It’s been two thousand years since then, melamin.”
“Well, it should please you to know that I’ve not seen that robe outside of his chambers since that afternoon. I’m quite sure my father had it stripped and sewn with a new lining. It doesn’t smell of roots and musk anymore.”
“See, I was right in assuming he would despise me. Now all the more for my act of wrath against his wardrobe.” You reached around Legolas’ arm and plucked a handful of the sorrels from the basket. With his two side braids done, you could now poke the still stems of the small blossoms between their pleats. “I hardly see what that has to do with my mother’s secret-keeping, however.”
“Didn’t you ever wonder why you never got in trouble over that sordid ordeal?”
“I don’t know…I just assumed even your father was above imprisoning children.”
He laughed again. “I might prefer that it had been that simple. You see, you were never chastised by either of our parents not because of my father’s tolerance of children, but for one very important secret kept between myself and your mother.”
As he continued his explanation of how you’d been spared the rod of his father’s sore vanity, you began to part a larger section for the third and final half-up braid that would be centered from his brow. Though there was no moonlight to turn the lovingly woven pleats of gold to streams of silver, you hardly noticed the absence of the moon in his presence.
“Somehow amidst your zealous stupor to feed my father’s garments with rank soil, you hadn’t noticed that his attention had never wavered from me while I practiced my diction. And with your mother focused on her vocal tutoring, there hadn’t been an eye on you between the two of them. My father never even knew you had been within a foot of him that day.”
“After he’d retreated to undress and salvage the mess, I informed your mother I had slipped him some of our attempts at ‘Greenwood cobblers’, which consisted of a healthy balance of nutsedge, mud, and insect larvae. I hadn’t known then that you had added dismantled worms as a garnish. She promised not to tell my father that you had helped me in making them, hoping you would both be spared any scrutiny, seeing as cooking wasn’t one of the subjects I was being taught.”
“Your father thinks you’re the one who ruined his blueberry silks?”
“To this day. Although I hardly think he reminisces on such frivolities anymore.”
After tying the end of his braid off, you leaned forward enough to turn his cheek toward you with your hand and peck your lips to his skin gently. Teasingly, you added, “I had no idea I was so indebted to you.”
His smile was almost mischievous, a glimmer of what it had been as children. “I couldn’t very well have my father thinking my governess ill-fitted for allowing me the opportunity to experience my childhood along with my duties, or run the risk of your not being allowed to accompany her.”
“Are there any other secrets?”
“None you need be privy to as of yet,” he said.
Knowing you wouldn’t pull any such knowledge from him—only because Legolas was a hopeless tease when it came to such details, hoping to make the suspense between recollections and stories linger for your other meetings. Although he was a quiet soul, sparing with his input throughout the week, it was here when alone with you that you relished in whatever he felt compelled to say. And unknown to you, part of him knew very well that the promises and musings shared in private with your mother pertained to his attachment to you, his devotion to her daughter from an early age.
There had been so many inquiries about your wellbeing after the two of you had been forced to spend less time together as you began your studies as a healer. In fact, when your absence was felt most in the days he spent with her alone, many of their conversations had drifted back to you. As a daughter, as a friend…as a companion to the prince who he missed sorely. Words and fond curiosities were exchanged that you had never heard.
“I quite like the sourgrass,” he only half-jested, patting the limp sprigs of flora in his hair.
“Sorrels,” you corrected with a taunt, “Call them by their prettier name. I refuse to admit I’ve crowned the very Prince of Mirkwood with sourgrass.”
It wasn’t long before the toads croaking from the water below had begun to harmonize their songs of ritual and the movement of creatures within the forest stilled peacefully. It was always the late silence of the forest, apart from the sparse chirp of insects, that reminded you both that your rendezvous must come to an end. You were sure it was past midnight now. Your boots echoed a low thump as they planted firmly in the grass, followed by the more graceful landing of your fair prince.
Side by side, you both walked together far off the beaten path along the Forest River in the direction of home. Legolas only managed a few steps into your journey without the comfort of your touch. In an act so natural and tender, he reached out and wove his fingers together with yours. Those conversations carried on as you followed the sounds of the water. Beneath your boots were the same sorrels that now decorated his hair—although you were much more careful to avoid trampling them this time, taking slow steps along the forest floor.
It was hard to force yourselves to quicken your pace, to punctually reach the point of parting before the late night became an early morning. The air was now laden with a thin mist, dotting your hair and skin with its chilled kiss. With no moon to illuminate your path the fog drifting through the region was hardly visible.
When he suddenly stopped to scan the line of towering trees ahead, your heart sank in your chest. Afar off, several dozen yards away, was the flickering glimmer of the first lookout post. If you dared to test your luck beyond your current position, you’d be announcing your courtship to the guards on duty there (who undoubtedly had fixed orders to report all movement or suspicion to the captain).
“I will cross over here and head back the way I came. The guards at the front gates will be waiting for me to return before the palace doors are bolted for the night.” Legolas said. His sapphire eyes were still trained ahead, taking note of the pattern of the lookout guards’ paces. Your grip on his hand tightened subconsciously.
A remorseful smile tugged at your lips as you looked up at him. “I’ll head further east to the village path, then. It’ll take me right up to the servant’s entrance. If anyone asks where I’ve been—” you reached up to pluck a sorrel from his hair, “I have an alibi.”
“I wish we did not have to part like this, melda,” he sympathized. Your gaze fell to your basket of leftover sourgrass, where you began fiddling with the latch. That nagging burning in your eyes returned as you prepared to say goodbye for another tentative bout of time.
It was only made worse when you looked up to see Legolas in the same fragile state. His tears fell first this time under the weight of the oncoming loneliness and distance. You began to undo the crown of sorrels, dropping each drooping blossom back into your basket. He toyed with a tendril of your (h/c) hair as he let you dismantle his crown.
It was better this way, to leave no evidence that you had ever been together. With no flowers in his hair, there would be no suspicion or question of how they came to be or who they were given by. The intricate braids, however, would stay until he could no longer avoid washing his hair. It was a subtle display of his love for every pair of eyes in his kingdom to see. No one would suspect that his hair had been woven by the hands of his secret beloved.
You looped the metal latch of your basket for the last time. The prince was now free of the weeds in his hair and of any evidence that a doting exchange had ever taken place.
Finally, you had the courage to look him in the eyes once more. Your vision blurred, forcing you to blink the moisture from your eyes. You sighed curtly, brushing your tears away hastily with the back of your hand. “I promise I’m not always such a blubbering mess! I do have some semblance of control when we’re apart.”
His sudden proximity siphoned the air from your lungs momentarily as his arms found their place around you. You returned his gesture, wrapping your arms around him, desperate to be as close to each other as possible. Your grip on his tunic was steeled as he pressed his palm to the back of your head with such gentleness.
“I feel as if I weigh down upon you so heavily, my prince. I hadn’t meant for our evening to have been one of such melancholy. I’m so sorry—”
“(Y/n),” he leaned away, garnering your attention, “When we share our sorrows, we grow ever closer. Do not apologize for the tears we shed in the hours we spend together.”
The last few minutes you had together were spent clinging to one another in the darkness of Mirkwood. The time you were able to siphon from your lives to spend together rushed by with such finality of a river pouring across the land in an endless cycle. A kiss to your forehead told you it was time to finally part ways. You had already spent much longer together than before, pushing the limit of freedom either of you had.
“What will we do if someone questions where we’ve been—if my sorrels aren’t enough to satisfy their curiosity? What if your father inquires about your vacant hours?”
“The stars have kept our secret thus far. I believe they will continue to do so.” Legolas cupped your cheeks before drawing near to press his lips to yours. You lingered for one last moment together, tasting the sweet bitterness of your forbidden love affair. The saltiness of your tears mingled briefly before he took a breath.
One last kiss to your hair and the woodland prince was gone into the fog. He moved stealthily across a fallen beam of oak with such swiftness; it was as if there wasn’t a raging body of water rushing beneath him to fret about.
When he reached the other side, he looked back long enough to offer his most indulgent smile. It was a sense of instinctual affection that helped you smile back, despite your sorrows. With a palm to his chest that then extended outward, he offered one last gesture of devotion before turning to disappear into the shadows of the forest.
melda = beloved, dear, sweet
melamin = my love
ceri cin heni = do you understand [very rough translation]
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