Playing with Fire [Legolas/Tauriel]

Sneak Peek at "Her Starlit Path"

Author's Note: Here's a little peek at what the first chapter of the sequel looks like....

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1: Grief and Cofessions

Everything hurt, on Legolas Thraduillion's betrothal day.

He should have felt happy, or jovial even, but instead, his heart felt as though it had been turned to stone. His smile was numb and hollow as he accepted the many congratulations said to him, and his hand remained on Eyela's.

It was his duty, and he was prepared to fulfill it.

However, he could not delete or dispose of the image in his mind: Tauriel running away from the chamber he and Eyela had been in half an hour before; her auburn hair disappearing in the writhing cloud of Wood Elves.

Just thinking about it caused his heart to pang. He felt as though a thousand knives had been stabbed into his chest. Nothing could ever describe the pain he had endured, upon seeing the very elleth he loved in that condition.

He wanted to be betrothed to her, he wanted to kiss her, he wanted the hand in his to be callused and hard instead of soft and delicate. Just for a moment, the façade fell, and his smile faltered the tiniest bit.

"Legolas?" The gentle voice he thought he would never hear again startled him from his reverie.

"Mother."

Anona looked anything but congratulatory. Legolas had rather hoped she would; he had hoped his show would have been convincing enough to fool his mother.

Her frown deepened when their eyes met, and his theory that she could still read him, even after centuries in the infirmary, were confirmed. He bit his lip and looked away, to spare him the questioning. He did not want to discuss Tauriel in front of Eyela.

Eyela. Just then, he remembered her, his bride-to-be as of one year, his betrothed. His eyes were drawn to the ring on his right index finger, the silver studded with moonstones that he had picked out just seven days earlier.

He looked at her instead of at Anona, trying to burn the image of the one he was supposed to love into his brain. He would need to remember it, in times of confusion. He squeezed her hand to draw her attention.

She gazed at him with nothing but pure love in her eyes, and he felt another knife in his interior twist.

"Yes?" Her voice had a sweet lilt to it, and her azure eyes were reflected in her pure silver circlet.

"Nothing," he stammered. "You...you look beautiful. Perfect, actually."

It wasn't a lie. Eyela was considered, next to Arwen, the most fair and lovely elleth in all of Rivendell. Her porcelain skin seemed even more flawless up close. She truly was stunning, a complete angel in the eyes of all who knew the Lady of Rivendell.

He was a fool not to love her.

Her face lit up at the compliment, causing her to appear even grander still. He thought her bright smile might blind him, one of these days.

"You're so sweet. I knew you had a soft side."

Is that what she took out of that? He almost grimaced at the thought of having a soft side, for anyone other than his parents, but the thought of Tauriel came into his head and he fell silent.

[Flashback]

"Tauriel! Wait!"

She laughed. Even if they had been running for days, she wouldn't have gotten tired. She ran at a constant, blinding speed like a gazelle, hopping over every branch, every pile of leaves. The beams of sunlight turned her hair to flames.