The Silvan (Lord of the Rings-Legolas)[Wattys2016]

Chapter 61: Royal Blood

He watched her from afar as she peeled carrots and turnip. Her movements were slow and methodical, loving almost, and Legolas rather thought her mind was elsewhere.

She had tucked her chestnut locks into a bun high upon her head, loose strands of it floating freely about her face, something that would have bothered Legolas to no end. She, however, did not even seem aware.

"Amareth," he called quietly as he walked into the tent. He had tried not to startle her, but she had physically jumped as he called her name - far away indeed.

She looked at him, her eyes straying once more to his hair and then back to his eyes, as if she were still unable to reconcile this version of her son with the one that had left her not so long ago in Lland Galadh.

He could read her like a book, he realised, every emotion - her uncertainty, her doubts, her worry, her consternation, her love...

Walking slowly to where she sat, he sunk down to the ground and crossed his legs, looking into the mid-day hearth for a moment before meeting her eyes.

"Mother," he began softly, quietly, and her head rose to meet him. Her eyes, he realised, were so heavy, so full of the things she had lived and for one moment he faltered.

"I know that I will understand what happened, one day soon perhaps, for I wish to travel into the deep forest, find the tree where I know I was born..."

Amareth's brow furrowed. "How could you know that, Legolas?" she whispered.

His sparkling green eyes held her own, honey irises for a while before he spoke. "I have seen it, in my dreams..."

"You have a gift?" she asked warily.

"I was given a gift - I am not a listener, mother. I am a protege..."

With a harsh intake of breath, a low moan escaped her and her eyes filled with rebellious tears. Legolas startled for a moment for he had not expected that reaction at all, but then, as he watched more closely, he saw Amareth's mind as it seemed to search the paths of her long memory and Legolas was momentarily fascinated; honey irises searched blindly, as if there was something before her eyes and yet there was nothing, save for what her mind showed her in private.

"I could never understand it," she whispered as the first tears fell and her bottom lip quivered uncontrollably. "I could never understand your fascination with the tree. Lassiel would leave you there, alone sometimes, and I would scorn her for it, yet she simply smiled and shook her head at me...."

"You think she knew something?" asked Legolas, wide-eyed at what his aunt was saying.

"Perhaps, she whispered. But what I could never conceive, was how he did not find us - how Bandorion never saw us..."