Riding With the Elves // Legolas x OC

24. It Always Rains on Camping Trips

His bed was wonderfully soft, covered with a thin, white sheet of some flimsy material, silk perhaps. She buried her nose in his equally silky pillow and inhaled deeply. It smelled of soap and elvish hair oil, but something else as well, some undefined musky aroma that was just him.

Closing her eyes, she could easier than ever picture herself in that cottage four poster bed with Legolas beside her.

Sometimes she wondered why she kept torturing herself like that, thinking about someone she could never have and imagining something that could never be. But there was a bittersweetness to it. An equal blend of pain and pleasure that was addictive.

In hardly any time the best part of her daydream gently lulled her to sleep.

oOo

When Wynne woke again she was a lot less tired. The patter of rain against canvas had almost ceased but the air was still damp, with droplets of moisture forming under the canopy. She heard voices from the outside, indicating the others were up, but she felt so warm and cozy in the nest of silky sheets that she just couldn't bring herself to rise. She wished she could stay there all day, wallowing in the softness and Legolas' bewitching scent.

When at last she mustered the energy to get dressed and leave the tent she found everybody gathered around a cooking fire, where exotic, spicy smells wafted from a kettle. Sidra was ladling thick soup into bowls and distributing them among the elves.

When Wynne appeared the woman startled her by giving her a quick hug. "I didn't know you gave us your tent. That was really decent of you. Now I feel bad forcing you to sleep in the rain."

"Don't. You couldn't have known it would rain – and I slept really well in the morning." She gave Legolas a grateful look and was warmed by his pleased smile.

His father looked the opposite of pleased and Wynne wickedly hoped he regretted taking an extra, needless watch in the rain and deprive himself of sleep. If he was tired it suited him just right.

Sidra's soup tasted different but very good. Lentils and wheat kernels had been boiled together with dried vegetables and herbs, mostly carrots, parsley and peppermint, and seasoned with an unknown spice that Sidra only had a Haradrim word for, kammun.

She had also made a dark tea, a lot more bitter than the mint tea Wynne liked, but somehow she felt invigorated after having a mug.

"How did you come by Haradrim spices and tea leaves this far north?" Bronedir asked her.

Wynne recalled that his mother had come from the south. Perhaps he had tasted this kind of food before.

"We made a journey to my home a couple of years ago. I brought back a large supply, seeing as I'm not likely to return." Sidra looked sad.

"We should trade more with Harad." Bronedir sipped his tea appreciatively.

"Maybe when King Elessar has rebuilt Gondor and Ithilien, we can," said Thranduil.

When it was time to break camp, the rain had increased again, making everything damp or outright wet. It was the worst kind of traveling weather. Down in the Brown Lands the air had been dry and Wynne could count the rainy days they had experienced on the fingers of one hand. Here in the highland the climate was more humid.

As usual their packs were loaded onto the horses with speedy efficiency. Wynne saw how Legolas briefly held his pillow to his face before stuffing it in the rolled up blanket. He must have tried to pick out her scent just like she had done with his. It both warmed her heart and saddened it.

When they rode, she conversed pleasantly with Sidra, mostly about Rohan and her life there. "They are very different and I have often wondered what brought them together." Wynne had been telling the history of the Örn House and had now come to her mother and father. "I suspect maybe Mother's relatives arranged it with my father's parents. She didn't grow up with her own parents, you see."