Getting started on their short journey took longer than expected.  First they had to teach a certain Elf about Why It Is Important To Wear Your Seatbelt, and from there they had to explain that Jane Is A Good Driver, But Sometimes Others On The Road Can Be Bloody Stupid, And Their Stupidity Could Possibly Kill You.  To his credit, Legolas did not display any fear, but then he hadn’t been displaying much in the way of emotion since Rhiannon discovered that Elves too had skin underneath their clothes.  Except for that perfect moment out on the sidewalk when time slowed…
        But that was past now.  Legolas was in full learning mode, and was practically ignoring, or doing his best to ignore, the fact that the young woman in the seat beside him was actually in the seat next to him.  And dangerously close, in this Elf’s opinion.
        Remember her father, Legolas, he thought to himself.  Don’t forget her father.  And don’t forget Fred, either.  With his resolve strengthened, Legolas tried to make himself comfortable in the back seat of the car.
        After teaching Legolas about seatbelts, they drove around a bit to get him used to the motion of the car.  The faint feeling of doubt returned to Rhiannon, but she clamped her will down upon it, telling herself that it was nothing, just worry about her classes nothing more, even as she knew it to be something else.  And if the smell of the Elf got any stronger, she’d have to spend the entire ride with her head out the window, dog style.  She should have sat in the front, not that that would have made much of a difference in the long run, but she was supposed to be saving her sanity here, not losing it.
        Their quick journey about the neighborhood over, they pulled out onto a main road, and began the hour-long journey that would take them to Rhiannon’s school, and take Rhiannon away from Legolas for a week.
        How the hell was she going to survive without him?
        That’s just it, she answered herself, you don’t need him around to live.  Especially at school, where you’ve got classes to worry about.  Get over this, Rhiannon, or you’ll just end up depressed.
        Lincoln, in the front seat, was putting a CD into the player.  Rhiannon tensed, but relaxed when she realized that the CD was Watermark by Enya, most likely suggested by Jane, and that Legolas would probably like this a lot better than Tom Jones.  And if he didn’t, he’d have to put up with it, since he was restrained in the back seat by a seatbelt, and didn’t have a club with which to beat the stereo.  But thankfully, the Elf liked the music, and seemed to relax also.
        Soon they were speeding own the onramp and onto the highway.  The music had also done much for Rhiannon’s frayed nerves, and she felt that she could resist the urge to throw herself at Legolas and beg him not to return back home with Jane and Lincoln after they had dropped her off.
        Legolas spent much of the trip with his face practically plastered to the window, staring at the rushing scenery as though he had never seen it before.  The fact that he hadn’t actually ever seen it before was not lost on Rhiannon, who spent most of the trip watching the Elf with a smile upon her face.  He reminded her so much of Clayton, sometimes, always excited about one thing or another.
        At the thought of Clayton, that slight sting of sadness that came whenever she thought of the young man returned.  She turned to her own window and sighed, staring out at the whizzing scenery herself.  Until Legolas spoke, anyway.
        “What is the matter, Rhiannon?” he asked in a low voice.  He’d sensed the sadness within her sigh and wondered at the cause.  Jane and Lincoln were discussing various types of music so the two in the back were ignored for the time being.
        “I was just-I was just thinking, Legolas,” Rhiannon replied and for an instant she sounded weary, as though bogged down by something.
        “Thinking of what?”  He was curious, but knew better than to push her.  Thankfully she seemed only a little reluctant to speak.
        “Clayton,” she answered somewhat shyly.
        “What is it about him that makes you sad, Lady?”
        They were now facing each other, leaning towards the middle seat so that their faces were inches apart, speaking in an almost whisper.  Rhiannon wondered for a moment how they had managed to get that way without moving, but she figured that the moving aspect had come into play while her mind was otherwise occupied.  She rested her head against the back of the seat.  How had he known it had been sadness?
        “There was a time,” she began, “not too long ago, when I could have sworn that Clayton…that Clayton was-interested-in me.  And I was interested in him.”
        “But that is no more?” the Elf finished her sentence for her.
        She nodded.
        “Why should that sadden you?” he asked, still somewhat confused although he could see one possible outcome from this line of questioning.
        She didn’t answer for a moment, but studied his face in the dim light from the oncoming cars.  “I’ll let you in on a little secret,” she eventually whispered.  “I have never, in my life, had a boyfriend.  Clayton was the closest I ever came to having one.  He even kissed me once.”  She paused and looked down at the seat, lost for a brief instant in memory.  “I held out hope for the longest while that something would…but…” she stopped and looked back up at Legolas.  “So much for that,” she concluded.
        “I find it hard to believe,” he whispered, “that some one as fair as you could not find yourself someone to…someone to…”
        “It’s what you get when you go to school surrounded by people who think you jail-bait, who’ve known you since you’ve been twelve years old, who don’t understand why you don’t speak.”  Rhiannon seemed bitter, but at what, Legolas could not determine.  Was she bitter at herself?  At her raising?
        A myriad of expressions crossed Legolas’ face.  Sympathy, pity, slight anger quickly smothered.  In the end he said nothing and simply reached out and took her hand.  Squeezing it gently, they sat like that for the rest of the trip.
 
        When the reached their destination, Rhiannon and Legolas started apart suddenly, as if awaking from a dream.  They did not know that both Jane and Lincoln had noticed them holding hands in the back seat, or that both had watched with knowing glances and grins.  Jane was afraid for her daughter.  How was she going to take Legolas returning to the Mirkwood?  Not very well, by the looks of things.   Damn that Fred, whoever the hell he was.
        By the time they got most of Rhiannon’s things out of the car, Rhiannon was feeling rather reminiscent of a pack animal.  She did her best to refuse Legolas’ numerous attempts to carry her baggage for her, but he eventually ended up carrying most of it anyway.
        Rhiannon’s other housemates had arrived some time before so Rhiannon thankfully had somewhere to put all her stuff before she went in search of her don to retrieve her keys.  Coming back, she enthusiastically greeted her housemates, Halley, Katherine, and Nav, who were all quite interested in Legolas.  Eventually she managed to lead the way up to her room and opened the door.
        “Blech!  Unused room smell!” she exclaimed as she crossed the small bedroom and opened the window.  Legolas agreed with her as to the smell by wrinkling that nice Elvish nose of his ever so slightly.  “Hey!” Rhiannon suddenly exclaimed angrily.  For upon her bed lay a photograph of her.  More specifically, of her face when she had walked in on Legolas in the bath.  Damn that omnipotent pest!  Legolas came over to see what the matter was, and couldn’t hide the slight snort of laughter that escaped before he could stop himself.  Rhiannon turned a glare on him and then back on the picture, but soon she too was giggling.
        “You’ve got to admit,” she said, “that was pretty funny.”
        As Rhiannon put away her possessions, Legolas took the opportunity to look around her room.  The wall above her bed and dresser was covered with pictures, of friends and family members, and sceneries and sunsets.  And, not surprisingly it seemed, male models.  On another wall there was a large poster of a place called Stonehenge, with a full moon hanging above it in a dark sky that blended into a sunset.   Below a mirror and on the door to her closet were more pictures of male models, including, and Legolas was not at all surprised, the same picture that graced her Windows 98 background back home.  Legolas gave a snort as he recognized it, and Rhiannon blushed anew when she realized that he had noticed it.
        On the side of her closet was a piece of paper, with the gothic letters spelling “If All Else Fails, Write Trashy Romance Novels” upon it.  Legolas smiled and turned to the poem printed out and posted on the door of the closet itself.

        There was more, he noticed, a poem about life, and very accurate.  The title was printed at the top of the page:  Laughter, by Robert Service.  Rhiannon noticed him reading it and stopped what she was doing to explain.
        “We had to study it for English class in my last year of high school,” she said.  “It stuck with me because it’s one of the few poems that meant something to me, and still uses rhyming couplets through out the entire thing.  I haven’t found another one like it.”
        “For he who can himself despise,” Legolas began to read, “be surgeon to the bone, may win to worth in other’s eyes, to wisdom in his own.  I admit, it is very…apt.”  He turned back to the multitude of photographs that were stuck upon her walls.
        “Did you take all if these?” he asked.
        “Most,” Rhiannon answered.  “Except for the ones with me in them, as well as a couple of others.”
        “They are beautiful, Lady.”
        Rhiannon smiled.  “Thank you, your Highness.  I’m glad you like them.”
        Legolas smiled back, and was about to say something else when Jane stuck her head into the room.
        “Legolas?  It’s time to go now.  The roads are getting pretty nasty.”  Rhiannon felt her heart thump weirdly and when she caught her reflection she noticed that all the blood had drained from her face.  It was the moment that she had been dreading.  Legolas too seemed disappointed, and did his best to conceal it.
        “If it is as you say, Lady, then so shall it must be,” he replied.  Jane nodded and went back down stairs, leaving the Elf and her daughter alone for the moment.
        On a sudden impulse, Legolas bent over Rhiannon’s face and planted a quick kiss on her forehead.  In the stunned silence that followed he bowed slightly and somehow managed to speak.
        “I look forward to our next meeting, Rhiannon,” he said as he backed out of the room.
        “As do I,” Rhiannon somehow managed to squeak pass her shock at the feeling of his lips upon her forehead.  She resisted the almost unimaginable urge to rush forward into his arms and keep him in her room forever.  Instead she just followed him out of the room and down the stairs to say good-bye to her mum and brother.
        After hugging her mother and brother, and even embracing Legolas slightly, which almost blew out her remaining brainpower, Rhiannon found herself waving weakly to the three as they walked back down the court to the car, hoping that Legolas would look back, just once.  Her heart nearly stopped when she got that wish too, even outlined as the Elf was by the overhead lights.
        When they finally disappeared from view, Rhiannon felt a wave of indefinable sadness threaten to engulf her.  She only just made it up to her room before the first tear fell.
 
        Legolas belted himself into the backseat where he had sat before.  Leaning his head back on the headrest, he closed his eyes and sought the dream-paths, mostly for understanding of his feelings.  That had to be one of the hardest leave-takings he had participated in since…since ever.
        He reached the paths and began to walk along them, hoping this quiet would last long enough for him to reach understanding.  Either Jane of Lincoln had turned on the music again, and it filtered into his dream, providing a restful background sound.  He had just started to relax and allow himself to consider the implications of his emotions when he rounded a bend in the path and ran smack dab into Fred.
        “What are you doing here?” he asked, not bothering to hide his hostility towards the wish granter.
        “Just going for a stroll,” Fred replied, ignoring the Elf’s mood.  “Thought I’d join you.”
        “What is your purpose here?” Legolas insisted.
        “Ah well.  You looked like you needed someone to talk to, and since Jane is driving, and Lincoln is engrossed in his music, and Rhiannon isn’t here…” he left the sentence dangling off and studied Legolas’ face at the mention of Rhiannon.  “Ah yes; Rhiannon.  The source of all you troubles.”
        “The source of all my troubles is you,” the Elf bit back.  “Were it not for you messing in the lives of mortals-“
        “You wouldn’t have met her!”
        Legolas stopped mid sentence.
        “Come now!  She wished it!”  Fred was rather indignant.
        “She wished she could find the appeasement to her inexplicable loneliness, not that some being would shove its nose in and bring me into the picture just because it happened to be bored with its immortal existence!”  Legolas was ridged with anger, using all his restraint to not rip the head off the immortal in front of him.  He was hard pressed.
        Fred remained calm in the face of an overwhelming emotional build up.
        “Whether it was this mortal or another, I would have still granted the wish to the best of my ability.  In this case, you were that answer.”
        “What do you mean?”
        Fred paused, for dramatic reasons.  “You mean you don’t know?” he asked, a grin toying at the corners of his mouth.
        “No, I do not,” Legolas replied.
        “Are you sure?”
        “Quite.”
        “Well, if you haven’t figured it out, I don’t think I should tell you,” Fred said quite smugly.  He was having fun toying with the Elf.
        “Tell me,” Legolas said, anger present in his voice.
        “Are you sure?”  Arrogance couldn’t describe the tone in the omnipotent being’s voice.
        “I am,” Legolas replied tightly.
        “Well, I still don’t think I’m going to tell you,” Fred said with a grin.  “Not yet anyway.  Might as well create some suspense!  That’ll be fun!  I shall be watching you.  Ta!”  He vanished with a little wave.
        Legolas stood and stared at the spot where Fred had just been standing, and then slowly began to walk again.  That-!  He wanted to shout in frustration, not only because Fred was what Rhiannon had termed, among other dirty names in her long list, an insufferable bastard, but also because he could not find words polite enough for the gentleman within to allow him to utter, even alone here on the dream path.
        Taking a deep breath and reciting the marriage ceremony of his people in Quenya backwards, Legolas began to let his anger dissipate.  After all, he had come to the paths to relax, not to work himself up into a frenzy of anger and frustration due to a non-corporeal omnipotent being who insisted upon being called Fred.  He refused to let his anger get the best of him, absolutely refused.  He would not give in to the urge to rip Fred’s head off.  He would not allow Fred to toy with him, and lose his dignity!  Taking another deep breath, he climbed a tree and sat upon its lowest bough, knowing that there were no dangers in the dream paths of the Mirkwood.
        And there he stayed, watching the moon between the trees, listening to the wind breathing gently through the leaves above and around him, relaxing, and trying very hard to forget his anger.

        She had cried herself to sleep, heart wrenched with having to say good-bye to the Elf.  She had only known him for two days!  How could she become so dependant on someone so quickly, that her heart would break every time she had to say good-bye?  Was her resolve that weak or simply inefficient?  Damn Fred and his stupid pranks!  Why couldn’t he find someone else to play with?  Why did he have to pick an Elf, from a different time and place, to fulfill her wish for appeasement?  If she could barely stand not seeing him for a week, what was she going to do about the rest of forever, when he returned to the Mirkwood, and she stayed here in modern times?
        When the dreams finally came, she had fallen gratefully into them so that she could escape the tedium of the world.  Her housemates had been puzzled, first as to who Legolas was, and then as to why Rhiannon had suddenly secluded herself in her room and refused to come out, and all Rhiannon could do was promise that she would explain later.
        But her dreams were not as comforting as she hoped them to be.  In almost all of them, she would be searching desperately for Legolas, knowing that he was in danger, only to find him, either dead or in the arms of another woman who’s face she could never make out, but knew that she was laughing, laughing at Rhiannon’s failure…
        Those dreams seemed to last forever until she found herself in a dark forest, with moonlight streaming though the trees, standing on a barely obvious path that she wouldn’t have seen but for a source-less silver light that seemed to be everywhere around her at once.  Her long hazel hair hung about her shoulders, lifting lightly in the gentle breeze that flittered through the trees.  She looked down at herself and realized that she was wearing a long white dress with long sleeves and a low, but not too revealing neckline.  Wherever that had come from, she didn’t know, nor did she know why she was standing barefoot on the smooth ground, but at the moment, she didn’t care.
        She began to walk, not knowing where she was going and not caring, hoping only that this dream would be different from all the last, that this time she wouldn’t have to see the faceless, laughing woman or the body of the Elf Prince again.  The trees around her were of uncountable age, with massive trunks that she would not be able to reach around without several others to help her.  A part of her wondered if there were dangerous animals about, but she felt completely safe, and so did not worry, but rather revelled in the absence of people.
        The forest about her began to remind her of something, but she didn’t know of what, at least until she stood in a moonlit glade, staring up at the stars above her, stars that were, like the forest familiar and yet not.  Suddenly, she remembered.  This was the glade from the dream in which she had laid in Legolas’ arms!  She walked out into it and twirled in the moonlight, arms spread like wings, eyes closed.  Her heart felt lighter than it had for sometime as she flopped down into the long grass and stared up at the beautiful sky above her.  She felt like she could stay here forever.
        But what she didn’t know was that a figure watched her from the trees, standing in a shadow, chuckling low at the plans that were about to come into play.  This was going to be fun!
        Lots of fun.
 

PS: Chapter Nine is coming along, but I have almost no time this weekend to work on it, so I don’t’ think it’ll be finished in time.

PPS:  I would like to include Robert Service’s beautiful and rather apt poem, Laughter, in a more full version, so here it is.  Just pretend that all the lines are closer together.

I laugh at Life: its antics make for me a giddy game,
Where only foolish fellows take themselves with solemn aim.
I laugh at pomp and vanity, at riches, rank and pride;
At social inanity, at swagger swank and side.
At poets, pasty-cooks and kings, at fold sublime and small,
Who fuss about a thousand things that matter not at all;
At those who dream of name and fame, at those who scheme for
            Pelf…
But best of all the laughing game – is laughing at myself.

Some poet chap has labelled man the noblest work of God:
I see myself a charlatan, a humbug and a fraud.
Yea, ‘spite of show and shallow wit, and sentimental drool,
I know myself a hypocrite, a coward and a fool.
And though I kick myself with glee profoundly on the pants,
I’m little worse, it seems to me, than other human ants.
For if you probe your private mind, impervious to shame,
Oh, Gentle Reader, you may find, you’re much about the same.

Then let us mock with ancient mirth this comic, cosmic plan;
The stars are laughing at the earth; God’s greatest joke is man.
For laughter is a buckler bright, and scorn a shining spear;
So let us laugh with all our might at folly, fraud and fear.
Yet on our sorry selves be spent our most sardonic glee,
Oh don’t pay life the compliment to take it seriously.
For he who can himself despise, be surgeon to the bone,
May win to worth in others’ eyes, to wisdom in his own.