Guilty in love (Legolas x reader)

Chapter 8

They had now been walking for over an hour and were beginning to look for somewhere to make camp for the night when the fellowship came across a small cave in the mountainside.

The steady beat of beads of water hitting the cool stone floor echoed throughout the chamber as the fellowship slowly filed in.

Too tired to cook or even light a fire, everyone quietly placed down their sleeping mats in a circle and shared out small chunks of lembas bread before drifting off to sleep.

As everyone shut their eyes y/n was left staring at the blackness above her, anxious thoughts swirling in her mind and chasing away all hopes of sleep.

Still she lay awake, the stillness of night doing nothing to help ease her troubled mind, and so she stood, walking to the mouth of the cave and looking up at the stars above her. Not knowing what to do with herself, she began to climb upwards, scaling the rock face with tremendous ease until even her elf stamina no longer hid her aching legs and burning throat.

Sitting atop a rocky outcrop she allowed herself to delve into the parts of her mind she'd been shutting off before, the parts of her mind that screamed at her this was a bad idea, yelled that she should go home. She heard them and allowed herself to listen, to question whether this would all be worth it? Would it really work? Would they even make it? Alive? All of them? Really?

This was a bad idea. She decided, pain was inevitable on a quest such as this. She'd seen it before when she'd watch other elves return from various missions; always with their heads hung low and usually with one horse bearing no rider. But should she go so far as to leaving? That was another matter entirely.

On the one hand, she would be sacrificing her blood, sweat and tears for a seemingly impossible feat, someone would get hurt, and even if it wasn't her it would still be hard to cope with. Especially if it wasn't her. But in the other hand, she'd be leaving her new comrades to fend for themselves. She'd grown to love them over the time of their travels, even Boromir and his stupid face, and it was on that rocky outcrop that she realised this was her family now, like it or not, and she would do anything to protect them.

With her back turned, and her mind occupied, Y/n failed to sense a presence slinking its way towards her, inching closer and closer until...

"Y/n?"

Y/n jumped with a start. Her heart beat rapidly increasing as she stumbled away from the unidentified person. 

But she was too close to the edge and tripped over a loose stone. Flailing backwards she felt herself flood with an overwhelming sense of panic. This confused her for a second as there was something misplaced and yet familiar with the emotion, which she now realised must not be hers. So who's emotion was this and why was it so powerful all of a sudden.

In the time it took for her to process all of this, the person who had called out to her had managed to sprint the remaining distance between them and grab her wrist, making her collide with a firm chest.

With her ear pressed so close to their racing heart, y/n realised that this was whoever that emotion had been from, and so she looked up... only to find the concerned blue eyes of a certain elf staring back at her.

Y/n could have easily gotten lost in those eyes, and she did, for a moment, before she realised just how close their faces were to each other and how they seemed to be getting closer. With rose-tinted cheeks, both elves pulled away quickly, hoping the other didn't see them fluster.

Legolas cleared his throat awkwardly before speaking,

"Are... are you alright?"

Y/n was not infact, alright. She was far from it, her head was still reeling from almost plummeting to her death and having to deal with twice the amount of panic, and even worse (or better) being pressed up against Legolas's chest. The fact that he was running his compassionate eyes over her wasn't helping either. But all of that would be better kept to herself, she decided.