Nothing is Forever

Chapter 14

I opened my eyes to the sunshine peeking up from behind the trees. Birds chirped and the wind blew, I must have slept all night on the grass in the garden. I rolled over to face my sleeping prince. He still slept peacefully with a silly grin on his lips.

I stood and moved to grab my clothes from the dew-covered grass when Legolas’ arm reached out to take my ankle.

“Leaving so soon?” He asked.

I pulled my dress over my head and bent down next to him to place a chaste kiss on his lips. “I thought you were asleep,” I confessed.

He sat up and smiled at me. “I barely slept all night.”

I touched his cheek with the pads of my fingers and smiled at him, feeling the warm glow of contentment rush from him. “It makes me glad that you are so happy.”

He shook his head and furrowed his brow, “I don’t understand something about you, Merewen. How do you know, always, what I feel? How do you just listen to me or touch me or even look at me, and you can see my heart?”

I focused my thoughts for a moment, and then turned my face to him. “I don’t know. I feel it inside. It feels like your emotions, your energy is passed on into me.”

Legolas was trying to understand, “Does this not seem strange to you? Is it not odd that you can feel what I feel?”

I shook my head. “I do not find it strange. Perhaps I have grown with this ability, and so have become accustomed to it. I cannot imagine that it has not always been a part of me.”

Legolas leaned forward without warning and kissed me gently. “I love that about you, Merewen. You are unlike anyone else. You are accepting, understanding, loving, and you know everything that is in my heart.”

We stood, and he put on his clothes before we walked away from the garden.

*****

“Wherever she has gone, she will not remain far from me. They cannot keep her there without her will. They will not deny me my bride,” he announced.

“Bride! My son, you are mistaken, she is not—”

“You will not keep her from me. I will go to her!”

“You are not well!”

“You cannot stop me!”

*****

I spent the day with Legolas, singing, dancing and sampling stolen fruit from the kitchens. I had never seen a being who smiled so much nor so widely as he. His mirth filled me to the brim, and his love stunned me, at times, into silence. The day was relaxed and full of light and airy games, childish pranks, and kisses. I thought my lips might wear themselves down if I kept pressing them so often to his skin, his lips, his face.

Legolas told me stories of our childhood. He told me of the times he felt he would burst if he saw me once more, the times he was so sad that he could not be with me that he wept, alone, the times that he was so angry with me he threw a fit and fell into a sulk no one could relieve him from. I could not remember these things, but I laughed as he laughed and felt sad when he felt sad. My heart seemed one with his, and it was all I could do not to force myself into his arms and beg him to take me away.

The day seemed short before night came, that morning we’d slept well into the day, but we could not force ourselves to part. We remained awake well into the night and counted the stars as they appeared in the sky.

A horn sounded, suddenly. Someone was arriving at the gates. Legolas, with a curious expression, led me by the hand to the cause of the commotion. We remained at the back of the crowd, not wishing to push our way through hordes of people, and watched as a troupe of beings on horses halted inside the gates.

My eyes widened as I watched, for I’d never seen so many people interested in an arrival before, well, not that I remembered. The being on the tallest horse at the front of the group turned to survey the crowd and a feeling of dread and pain suddenly filled me.

I took a step back and Legolas looked at me in concern.

“Merewen… are you well?”

I felt something, a strange feeling rush through my body. It felt like heartache, love, pain, and dread and it all collided with my heart and my mind at the same time. I could not move, I could not breathe. I could only stare at the eyes of the tall elf on the horse several feet away and he stared back at me. Barely audible, I whispered, “Elladan.”

I turned and my gaze fell on Legolas, those eyes, full of love, concern, and fear, they shook me. I could not take it.

I turned and ran.