An arranged marriage could solve everything: Legolas' post-war melancholy, Lasriel's dream of freedom and a family, her mother's exile, King Thranduil's dark secret. But turning childhood friendship into love is not as easy as they thought - and nei...
~Legolas and Lasriel explore how much fun being married can be, while Thranduil does his best to hide his secret relationship from Glóin on the journey south.~
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~♕~
He's with me, ain't he? And I'll learn him all I know.
– Baloo, The Jungle Book
~♕~
28. Kisses
The shock of finding his goathouse replaced by a huge, white villa was slowly diminishing and Legolas felt better about the whole thing, deception and all. The quite lovely kisses Lasriel was teaching him helped a great deal; it was hard to be angry with someone who fell around his neck whenever he entered the house, slipping her arms around his waist and pulling his head down for another sensual, toe-curling moment of passion.
Somehow he had started to find many excuses to go home often.
When he wasn't practicing kissing with Lasriel, Legolas spent the following days planting the many new saplings, some in a mellyrn avenue along the road to Osgiliath, others replacing the dead oaks by the river. For the first time he felt certain his work would be fruitful and the young trees becoming rooted, for thanks to the dwarves' hard labor the ground already showed much improvement and the marsh was almost gone.
What still remained on Legolas' to-do list, now that the draining was nearing its completion, was to dig the lake he had planned between the colony and Faramir's summer residence at Emyn Arnen. But for such a big project he believed it would be helpful if both dwarf teams could work together.
When he had explained his plan, the two foremen exchanged frosty looks.
"Work together?" huffed Gimli. "The quality of your lake would suffer for it."
"Indeed, it would," said Cheery Glodson. "Therefore you should only employ my workforce."
"Very funny. I will be dwarf enough to admit your drainage ditches were not a complete disaster, considering your youth and lesser experience, but I don't think our styles would mesh well together."
Glodson smirked under his beard. "If they don't, it must be because my style is so much more effective and better. Like how my well was finished in one day while yours took two, or how every other day you couldn't get your people to work at all because they were hungover."
"Hmpf! A hard-working dwarf needs a cheerful evening once in a while."
"Well, and I am dwarf enough to admit that when your people do work, the result is none too bad," said Glodson generously.
"So, then you will help me with this?" Legolas cut in.
Glodson glanced at Gimli. "I might. For such an old dwarf, you certainly know how to drink, Master Glóinson. Your after work parties seem fun."
