With a secret mission to marry an elf, Wynne must join Legolas' and Elvenking Thranduil's new quest as a horsekeeper. She begins an adventurous journey, encountering orcs and monsters, friendly uruk-hai, a lady dwarf and many Fellowship heroes - but...
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~ Wynne dreams about a future she can't have. ~
18. Daydreaming in Emyn Muil
The hills of Emyn Muil were nicer than Wynne had thought. She enjoyed the view from the hilltops, and the new environment fascinated her. On the ridges grew funnily shaped trees, twisted and crooked by the wind, and the ground was indeed covered with creepers and brambles like Thranduil had said. But on the brambles grew sweet blackberries and raspberries that became a welcome change in their diet.
Nothing much happened on the first day, but the next day Bronedir discovered a footprint in a muddy creek they passed.
"It is a lot bigger than an orc foot would be," Thranduil mused.
"Could it be human?" Wynne suggested. It looked like the prints her father's boots had made in the muddy stableyard back home.
"Maybe. We should follow it to make sure, though. It could be an uruk-hai." He explained that the uruk-hai were a taller kind of orc that Saruman had bred during the war, who were said to be human-orc hybrids though nobody knew for sure. "Unlike their smaller cousins they are not afraid of daylight and they are a lot stronger. And more intelligent as well. We need to be very careful now."
The mention of human-orc hybrids made Wynne feel uncomfortable. She remembered how Lug had tried to molest her. Would the resulting offspring have been an uruk-hai? The thought of giving birth to something even vaguely like an orc made her stomach heave.
She turned her thoughts to other hybrids, wondering what a human-elf child might look like. That sent her into a pleasant daydream, one that she had returned to often lately.
In her daydream Wynne and Legolas had eloped and escaped into the wilderness with Vatna and Stelpa. Their country was a bit like the Brown Lands, but more fertile, and with a sparkling clear stream running through it. They had built a pretty wooden cottage there, not unlike Wynne's house back home, with a thatch roof where their goat grazed. Outside they had a kitchen garden that they managed together and where they grew vegetables. They had an orchard too, with cherry and apple trees, and a flock of chickens.
In the evenings they talked; long hours of pleasant conversation where they shared memories of their past lives. Legolas often made silly jokes and Wynne laughed at them.
At night they would sleep in a four poster bed like Grandmama's and Grandpapa's, not in separate beds like Wynne's parents. Her grandparents had always seemed more fond of each other.
The bed would be made of wood with carvings of leaves and branches to make Legolas feel at home whenever he missed his forest. It would be covered with a fluffy comforter.
They would cuddle up together under that comforter every night.
And they would sleep naked.
At first she had imagined they would keep their shifts on at least but then she had decided naked was better, even though she didn't know what a male looked like between his legs. Probably not exactly like a stallion or a bull, but she was sure there was a dangling part involved somehow.
