The Realm of the Stars

Chapter Two - Solitude of Spirits

"I'm afraid I cannot. Your father ordered me to come," she replied looking at him from the corner of her eye.

"I see," Legolas commented with a sigh. "Well, in that case I will leave you to it." He turned to leave when he heard her call out to him.

"Legolas!"

He turned to look at her his jaw clenched.

"Why are you leaving?"

He stared at her hard for several minutes before answering, "I have to give a report to my father. Besides, I figure he will want me to venture to the south borders once I give him news of the coyotes that have entered the area."

"I see," she bit her lip as she looked down at the girl who it seemed sensed the change in the atmosphere and was looking above her with wary eyes. She forced herself to calm before she replied, "I thought it was because you are still attempting to avoid me." She looked up after she said this.

Legolas gave her the same hard look that she recalled his father often did when he was either disappointed or upset about something, and depending on the situation, wanted either silence or answers. "And why, do you think, would I want to avoid you? Do you suppose I have any reason to?"

She merely nodded in understanding. She chanced to speak again as he was beginning to turn away once more, "If we are both to live in this place, we cannot always do without seeing the other. Can you not try to let things be as they once were – even remotely?"

He let out a disbelieving chuckle at that. "Seriously? You're really asking that of me? You knew how I felt about you. How I still do. Yet you turned away from it and chose to pursue the first male who made a pass at you. Tell me, have you forgotten Kili?" She looked away at that, her cheeks flushing with either anger or embarrassment, he wasn't sure.

"You know I have not." She whispered.

"Then how can you ask the same of me? I defied my father at a crucial moment for you. I protected you from his anger not only at the battle of Erebor, but many times after when Gollum escaped. I committed treason for you. I was lucky he welcomed me back with open arms after that. As I said, you had to be aware how much I..." his voice which had been growing steadily louder softened as he practically choked on the words, "love you. I would have died for you Tauriel. I still would. Trust me, I tried to stop caring for you as much as I did – and still do, but I cannot. I tried becoming enthralled with other elves, even at one time the daughters of men just to get dismiss you from my heart. But it will not have it. It only made it worse. The only way I have learned to deal with this is by not seeing you. You of all people should understand that."

"I knew you cared for me. I just didn't understand how deeply until Erebor. By then it was too late. I know I had never pledged myself to him... but I did love him."

"I do not wish to hear about your broken heart at this time. You could have pledged yourself to me afterwards... Our union would have healed the wound he left you to some degree. You had, or at least I thought you had, cared for me to, even if it was not with the same passion as you felt for that dwarf." Legolas angrily stated.

"I could not!" Tauriel shouted at him.

"What? How come? Explain to me why if you think it will matter."

"Do you not believe I thought of that? Do you not think I originally was going to let myself fall as much in love with you as you were with me had it not been for the warning in my mind that had been affirmed by your father only shortly before I truly met Kili?" Tauriel said with passionate pleas.

"If you are referring to my father denying you permission before the Battle of the Five Armies, then I already know of it, and his real reasons why. None of them had to do with you being, what did you refer to yourself as? 'A lowly Silvan elf'," Legolas shot back at her with an expression on his face that she had rarely seen before, a look of that bordered on hatred and disgust. But she was also taken aback by his words.