They moved out at a hard trot, breaking into a slow gallop when the trail opened up enough. They could not maintain that pace for long, galloping was easier to sit, and fast, but used too much wind. For long hard chases, a good trot ate up the ground best. They dropped back to a walk, fed the horses more of the Elvish waybread. Came to a small dark stream. Efa trotted to its banks, looking thirsty.
        "Whoa!" Sian shouted at her. Efa hesitated staring at Sian with big dark eyes, then up at the Elf.
        Legolas slid by, waded his filly into the stream, she put her head down and drank. Efa followed.
        "Legs, you sure this one's ok? I was told to beware of the streams here, we carried all our water."
        "This one is safe." he slid off, filled his waterskin in a shallow pool upstream of the wading horse.
        Sian dismounted, led Eos up to the water, dark and clear as night sky, a few green and brown leaves floating in an eddy. She unslung her own near-empty waterskin. "At least, safe for Elves." he added.
        Sian looked up sharply, her skin near full, hands dripping with enchanted Mirkwood water. Water rumored to drop the unwary traveler into a sleep of a hundred years. That's what the mule wranglers had told her. She caught the glint in her companion's eyes, like the distant sun on the stream.
        He broke into a smile, a flat out grin, at the look on her face. Then laughed. She stared at him for a long breath, thinking a dunk in the pool behind him might adjust his attitude. But his laugh was sweet and light and merry. Like sun on green spring grass. It warmed her in a way the rough joking of the men she traveled with never did. She grinned back, straightened, waterskin full.
        They rode on, the stray beams of sun that found their way through the tangled branches overhead, getting longer and lower and oranger. Horse and wolfhound showed less eagerness to move on, and even Sian was getting achingly tired of riding. She considered stopping, for a few hours, then moving on in the dark. Sian had fought foes in the dark, but dark under moon and stars. Dark where the glint of steel and the shadow of a body could be seen. Here, under the eaves of Mirkwood, was the darkest dark she'd ever encountered, outside a cave. They would have to ride under torchlight, and stay back far enough to not be seen, until dawn, when they would have light enough to attack.
        "Lego," She had hung back, letting the Elf drift ahead. It had sunk into her head that well traveled or not, he would know this forest better than she. He turned to face her, slowing the filly to a walk. "The orcs may be able to run forever, but the mules won't and neither can we. Or I, at least. We should rest a few hours." Sian told him.
        He nodded. "Not here. Farther down the trail it will be safer."
        The light faded to deep pine-shadow green. Here the forest was denser, older, wilder, hung with tangled vines and creepers and cobwebs. On the journey in, the torchlight had danced off jeweled eyes, in the brush, in the trees. Sian eyed the Elf, he sat straight and strong, seemingly unperturbed by the nameless rustlings on either side of the trail. Farther down it will be safer? Riiiight...
        His back, relaxed and moving, part of the horse, stiffened. Ithilin stopped. Sian rode up beside him. " Leggy," she whispered,"Greenleaf?" He peered ahead, wide-eyed into the dusk.
        "More dead orcs? I hope." she said. He shook his head, together they slipped forward, silently, on foot.
        Something large thundered off the trail ahead of them, crashing into the brush. The small rustlings on either side were silenced. "That's no orc." It had four legs, or more, whatever it was.
        He hissed a low word, in Elvish.
        "What?"
        "Aegwath...ahhh, scavengers." he moved, light, soundless, bow half drawn. Sian stayed beside him, sword in hand, long knife in the other.
        Something grunted, fifty paces away, in the undergrowth. He glanced in its direction, but Sian couldn't quite read the expression on his face. Trepidation? He pulled the bowstring a little tauter.
        They rounded a bend in the trail. In the middle lay a large pale mound, splotched with dark. As one they moved forward, circled it, Legolas paced down the trail a few strides, searching.
        Sian dropped in the middle by the mound, an all too familiar pattern of haphazard splotches and long ears. "Molly." she whispered. Sorrow and anger, at the pointless evil of the orcs, at her own lack of power to change things, boiled in her like an erupting mountain. She shoved it all back down, as she always did. The men she commanded had no time for weeping women.
        She felt a touch on her shoulder, looked up into the shadowed eyes of the Elf. "They've all gone. They're far ahead." She stood, sheathed her sword. Paced off, hissing some words under her breath, her face gone hard as mithril steel.
        Legolas' eyes took in her face, the spotted mule, hewn with many cruel strokes, the broken packs and scattered goods, things his people would have treasured. He bent, ran a finger around the dead mule's rear hoof. Found the toe crack. Life was the ultimate treasure, unlike the goods carried by the caravan, it could not be replaced. Who...what were these yrch that they did not understand this?
        Sian, searching the ground in the failing light turned, saw him hunched by the mule's head, face shadowed by his hair, cloak in a dark pool around him. She could read no more in the fading trail than he. She returned, knelt by him.
        "She tried to hold them back for us..." his voice faltered and went silent.
        "Greenleaf?" Sian said.
        He looked up, even in the near dark she could read the distress on his fair face, see the tears in his eyes. He looked the way she felt. It went to her heart like an arrow. None of her men, not her most trusted guards, would have shed tears for a mule. She sat down hard, on the ground by him, put a hand on his arm. His other hand found hers, the touch of a swordmate, a companion on the road, but warmer, gentler than any of the men she knew. "I have heard of their evil. I have sat by the fires and heard the old tales. Read the stories. But this..."
        "Wherever they go there is a great trampling and rending and crushing. They seem to delight in destruction, I think they are bred for it." She passed her hand over the mule's face. "I'm sorry Molly. Sorry I slept at all, sorry I wasn't faster."
        Beside Sian soft words began to weave themselves into song, a quiet song like mouse rustle and stream trickle, like autumn sunset and mothflight and owl wings in the dark. She listened, and as in the other song, images formed like a waking dream, without her knowing the words. It was a lament, maybe written long ago for some other purpose, but woodelves, it seemed, spun words like she could spin a sword, making it up as they went along.

        They rode, forgetting to stop, forgetting to look for the spot Legolas considered safer. They rode on until black night came on them. They lit one torch, and Sian studied the trail. They could ride awhile longer, half the night perhaps, without overtaking the orcs and making their presence known, then rest until there was light enough for shooting and swordwork. They rode, in silence, burning through one torch and another, and another. Halfway to dawn Sian found herself hanging off Eos's side, and in Legolas's arms. He eased her the rest of the way down to stand on uncertain feet.
        "You fell asleep on your horse. This would be a good place to stop."
        "I can keep going."
        He gave her a stern eaglish look. "The horses need to stop. And I would that you were awake when we encounter the orcs." The look softened, Sian thought she might, in exhaustion, be imagining the gentle concern in his grey eyes.
        "I am an archer, not a swordsman." he added. I need you, as you need me.
        They made something like a camp in the middle of the trail. Legolas made the smallest fire Sian had ever seen and stocked a tiny pile of deadwood near it. It gave off no smoke and little heat, but enough light to beat back the dark. Except for the dozens of glittering eyes she saw in the trees and undergrowth. "What are those." she asked blearily. And who's going to stand watch?
        He rattled off a string of Elvish names, pointing to eyes the color of garnets or amythest or jade. "Don't worry, they will not bother us." with that he rolled up in his cloak and lay down, bow close to hand, putting Sian between him and the fire. She took note of that, rolled herself in her own cloak, glad of him at her back. The horses stood off a few yards, dozing on their feet, Efa lay down on the other side of the fire, waiting for dawn.

        It crept slow through the upper canopy, the first slanting rays of red light accompanied by a few lone twitters and trills of birdsong. Sian woke at the first note, pushed the sleepfog back a bit slower than she once had. She could hear the stamp of a hoof, a light snort, the reassuring sounds of horses waiting for breakfast. Slight crackle of fire behind her, and her arms wrapped around something large and warm and solid, breathing the slow, measured breath of sleep. Efa. No, not furry.
        She raised her head and realized with a start she was half wrapped around the Elf, a leg over his cloak-wrapped quiet form. She sat up hard and distentangled herself in embarrassment. He didn't move, maybe he was still asleep.
        His eyes were open, staring dreamily at the distant treetops.
        Erp. She flushed scarlet and wondered what kind of apology to make, if any. He didn't move. She leaned over him, eyebrows knitted. Waved a hand in front of his eyes. No reaction. He was asleep. Like a horse sleeping on its feet, or a bird who could fall asleep on a branch without falling off. Or dolphins drifting gently through the night, the breathing part of their minds still awake.
        She let out a relieved sigh, stood. Wandered down the trail a few yards, studying the tracks left by their prey. They were not far ahead. She unslung her waterskin, took a long swig. Eyed the brush on either side of the trail. Denser here, but not impenetrable. She shoved her way into it in exactly the way the Elf hadn't, muttering about briars and wondering if the three-leaf pattern she was looking at was the same as the itch-weed farther east. Just to be safe, she would chose something else to finish her toilet with.
        She was in a most inconvenient position from which to launch a defense when the brush six yards away exploded into fury. Some nameless dark blob fronted by glittering eyes mowed down a medium sized sapling on its way to Sian's carefully chosen briarfree space. She scrambled back into the brambles behind her, the long knife moving with more surity and speed in the tangle than her sword.
        The beast dropped three yards away and moved no more. The forest resounded with the rustlings of squirrels and the twitter of birds. And one especially clear mockingbird trill. She untangled and arranged herself, hacked her way to the fallen beast. It lay, a great, grey lump, clawed and tusked and otherwise unknown to her...with a green-feathered arrow neatly through its throat. She yanked it out, glared up into the trees above her. If he was there, she couldn't see him. She hoped he had seen even less. She whistled back the ok signal. Stepped back out onto the trail.
        He was kneeling by the fire, carefully damping it out.
        She handed him back his arrow, cleaned of the beast's green slime. "Nice shot."
        He glanced up, nodded in acknowledgement, but said no more.
        Her own men would have made such an incident the butt of their jokes for days. She wondered briefly what she was going to do when it was his turn. If he had one. Did Elves do it in the woods? She shook her head, he still seemed a bit too ethereal for such...earthly concerns.
        He gave it no thought. When it was necesary, he simply melted into the trees. He could feel the presence of the forest creatures, good or ill, hungry or afraid. He'd known the thaur-aegwaeth was there a moment after Sian had left the trail. He'd had eyes only for its corrupt form and had protected his companion in arms well enough, although Celinte would have told him his shot was far too slow.
        He could feel her curious eyes on him, as well. At first she had looked at him the way the women of the court did, as little more than a boy; young, naive, more in need of protection than of use. That had shifted somehow on this trail, he was not sure why. He had not changed, had not done anything worthy of notice. They rode on, and Sian asked him about the life of the trees and the language of birds and whether snow could make it to the ground in winter here. He had been taught it was polite to encourage a guest to talk about themselves, and it seemed a good idea to know more about someone on whom his life might depend. Besides, he was curious. And there was one question that was buzzing around his head like a deerfly. Why was there no man attached to this woman? Perhaps she was like the Dwarf women, who often chose to spend their lives without the company of a male. The question blorted out, then it occured to him that it might not be considered a polite question. "A closed mouth gathers no foot" one of his teachers had told him. He winced.
        Sian looked at him in surprise, then snorted out a laugh, "What man would ride this trail with me, eh? From the sea to the mountains, to the deserts, to...well, here."
        "Your guards have."
        "That's different. That's their life. None of them are...ah...interested. Nor I in them."
        Silence. It stretched for a hundred hoofbeats.
        "And, all the best ones are taken, or dead, or prefer the company of men, or inhabit the songs of yore." Sian snorted again. "The more I know of Men, the more I appreciate my dogs." She looked up at him, as if suddenly realizing who she was talking to, an apologetic look on her face, "Present company excluded, of course."
        "I am not a Man." he said.
        She gave him a long look, as if expecting him to reveal that he was actually a girl in disguise (something Sian had done herself a few times). Then she understood. Elf, not Man. Was there really any difference? She wondered. And began wishing that this trail they were riding together were longer.
        It was not long until the mule droppings were very fresh. And Efa's ears twitched into the alert position.
        "Daro." Legolas said quietly. When Sian gave him a strange look, he added in the common speech, "Halt. I think they are close." His eyes traveled up the grey trunks around them, and fixed on a tall liriodendron. "I can get a good look from there."
        She nodded. He rode Ithilin under the tree and leapt straight up to a branch Sian would not have wanted to reach assisted by a goodly length of rope. He vanished into the greenery.
        From the thinner foliage near the top, he could see the great sea of trees rolling in green waves down to the river that flowed into Anduin. He could see the high wispy mares' tails, the small crescent that was not the moon, but another, more distant, wanderer of the sky, he could see hawks circling far to the west. Not even an Elf could see through the leaves to the trail or anything that was on it. What he could see was the wave of disturbance in the orcs' wake; an owl frightened from its day roost, the first curious, wary ravens following the orc pack, and ignoring the owl, the swaying of high branches as tree dwellers fled. They were close enough it did not take an Elf to see these things.
        At the bottom of the tree he told Sian, "They are close, very close." He smoothed a place in the trail and drew how the trail bent through the trees. "We are here, they are here. This is a hundred paces..." His mind whirled with the lessons he'd been taught on planning such attacks. "We could..." He looked up at Sian giving him a hard hawk look. He hesitated. It was not wise to tell your elders what to do, even if they were younger. He closed his mouth on his thoughts.
        "I think", she said, "you in a tree would be a good thing. If there was some way to get ahead of them, we could ambush them."
        "I can do that."
        He could parallel the trail, easily and silently outdistancing the orcs. He and Sian would close on them like a hawk's talons. She worked out the details, he threw in a few things he'd only heard in theory, some things Sian knew from experience, and some things that were new to her. Together they forged a Plan.
        Like all Great Plans, it did not go as planned.
        Sian blew her small store of arrows in the first moments of milling confusion. Mules and horses plunging this way and that, orcs screaming and roaring, running back and forth till it seemed like there were three times as many of them. They were dropping like hailstones, a greenfeathered arrow in each throat, except for the occasional one Sian managed to hit herself. It wasn't easy, she was a marginal archer at best, and the tangled melee made it near impossible to pick out a target and send an arrow there before something else, like a mule, or a tree got in the way. Legolas at least, was above the action, out of reach, able to take calm, clean shots. Sian finally threw the bow down and drew her sword. It sang through the remainder of the confused orc horde like a hawk through a flock of fat doves. They were faster and more agile than some of the men she'd fought, but their swordsmanship was of the hack and slash variety, it was easy to outmaneuver them.
        Almost all of them. She didn't see where the big one came from, he was just suddenly there, taller, wartier and angrier than the others, wielding a sword that looked like a refugee from some barrow down. Something light and swift that had been made for an ancient king of men. She spun and ducked and blocked, and caught sight of one of the little dark ones out of the side of her eye. She lashed out with a kick, spun, punched and slashed in the same heartbeat, kicked again. The last four were on her. What had happened to her archer? These guys were supposed to be dropping with arrows in their throats.
        He was there, wailing into the big one with a heavy orc-sword grabbed from a fallen foe, longbow missing, quiver empty.
        Whomp!
        Slash-pow-block-kick. Sian wove silver circles around her and the Elf. He flailed and whacked with all the grace of a bounding warthog, nearly as dangerous as the abominable orcs, Sian wasn't sure if he was wielding the sword, or it was wielding him. He wasn't even trying to block, he was just ducking, dodging, and swinging wildly back at the orcs. If he lives, she thought, I'm going to have to teach him something other than archery. And hadn't he heard of gleaning arrows from the field?
        An orc went down. Then another, this time to the Elf's borrowed orc-sword. He let out a yell, in Elvish. It sounded rude.
        Sian spun again, punching the sword out like a stooping hawk's talons. The last orc went down before her. She drew her sword up into a guard position, stepped lightly in a full circle, making sure nothing was still moving. She broke into a grin. "Not bad Legland! Not bad at all!"
        No answer.
        "Legs...Legolas?"
        He was sprawled across a big orc, in that graceless pose that only the dead or unconcious can achieve, winter grass hair stained with a growing pool of very red blood. Sian stared for two long breaths. He could not do this. Elves were above mud and blood and death.
        She dropped to her knees, caught him up in her arms, warm, and still breathing. She laid him out gently, carefully on clean ground. Found where an orc had connected with his head. A nasty gash, but possibly no worse than anything she'd ever suffered. Head wounds tended to look like exploding volcanoes anyway. She let out a breath, fished in her belt pouch for the cloth she kept for such emergencies, and pressed it to his head.
        He opened his eyes. The world swam into focus, more or less, through a nasty yellow fog. He couldn't quite hear through the din in his head, like a hundred dwarves bringing down a mountain. So this was what it was to die? He had heard the old tales, of the heroes of the past, heroes who gave up their immortal lives for some great cause. He had hoped his would come later rather than sooner, but...He managed to focus on the face before him; Sian, dark eyes wide with concern. "Are they..." he managed to croak out.
        "Yeah, they're all dead. Most of them to your arrows, I think." She searched his sea-grey eyes for the signs of fading she'd often seen in Men, of spirit loosening its hold on the physical. His eyes had a strong clear light in them, like starlight, like dawn.
        He sighed. Said something low and indecipherable in his own tongue. He touched Sian's face, "I...go now...to the halls of Mandos...to sit...beside my ancestors..." The Dwarves had tunneled their way into his stomach as well, it felt as if he'd been drinking Dwarven beer.
        "Bullpockey." Sian said, with perhaps more vehemence than necessary. She was not entirely sure anyway. This would not kill a Man, but then, he was an Elf. She put a hand on his chest, felt his steady breath, his even heartbeat. "And if you do, I'm going to pirate a ship, sail straight off the edge of the world, storm the...whatever spirit world your people go to...and drag you back here, if I have to fight off the whole pantheon of Elven Gods." She had even less idea who they were, and if she was offending them, she didn't care. She had offended nearly everyone else's gods at one time or another. "Can you feel your feet?"
        "Yes." he looked bewildered, why did she want to know about his feet?
        "Wiggle your toes." she ordered. It worked for Men at least.
        He did, the expression on his face changing to bemusement.
        Sian inspected the rest of him, which mostly seemed to be in one piece, under the orc-blood and dirt. She gently lifted his shoulders, leaning him against her, one hand firmly on his head dressing. "Looks like you might have a couple thousand years to go before that Halls of ...whatever...thingie."
        "My head feels like a Dwarf mine."
        "Yeah, I know." she stroked his back, comforting him, and realigning the energies as she'd been taught long ago by her grandmothers, and hoping it worked the same for Elves. "You're supposed to use that sword to block too, you know."
        "Uhhh." he leaned against her for awhile, focused on his breathing, trying to calm the Dwarf party in his stomach. Sian's hand, moving over his back felt good, the brush of a bird's wing, straightening and calming his scrambled thule'. It surprised him that she would know how to do this. But then, she had surprised him in so many ways.
        Sian dug further into her pack and found herbs and dressings, then remembered what the young wrangler had said about the Sindarin healers. "Unless you have something better?" she asked him.
        He shook his head, and realized that was an awful idea. Sian eased him back down on the cool ground, resting against Arda, the earth-mother. Sian lit a fire, far bigger than necessary, he could hear her muttering something about "...how'd that Elf get that little fire going..." In the space of a few breaths, it seemed, she was back, gently cleaning his wound, applying herbs and a final dressing. Straightening his hair, cleaning the orc blood, as well as his own, from the rest of him. Lifting him again, so he could take a long drink of some steaming herb tea she held under his nose. It smelled unusually good for a concoction of the Edain. Like morning in the forest. He sipped it slowly and the dwarvish din receded from his head. He rested again, watching the small birds high in the canopy, and the wheeling shapes of the vultures coming in, beyond human sight. The orcs would not stay long to blight this part of the trail.
        Sian knelt beside him again, laid a gentle hand along his face, "I'm going to go collect the mules. If you're ok? Efa will stay beside you."
        "I'm fine." The vultures had been joined by ravens, low enough now for even Sian to see. "Clean-up crew's here." he pointed at the sky.
        Sian looked up, her men would have been quailing at the sight, remembering stories of dark raven gods. They would not have remembered that Raven was a wise teacher, that the vulture goddess was a nurturing mother as well as one who took death and started the cycle anew. She wondered what the woodelves' stories would tell. Her hand stayed on his face for a long moment, wishing he would ride with her farther than Thranduil's halls. Would he? She stood, and went to round up the mules.

        Sian tried to keep the pace slow and easy, but Legolas seemed steady enough on his filly, and the mules picked up the pace, wanting to get out of the dimness of Mirkwood, and the nameless rustlings off the side of the trail. He sang, soft and low, then louder and stronger, and the songs wove themselves into a story of the forest, its people, and the long struggle against the dark, of which he only had this one experience. They passed the place where Molly fell and there was nothing there, no bones, no orcs, only a few bits of rough orc armour, a broken sword, and harness hardware. The clean-up crew had been and gone.
        They rested one long night, not far from the Elvenking's halls, mules lined up and down the trail, Efa dozing by the same small fire, Legolas sandwiched between Sian and the fire, his broken bow long since discarded, his quiver containing half his original arrows. It felt good to have her at his back.
        At midday they crossed the Forest River and passed through the great gates, with most of the supply train intact. Woodelves and mule wranglers and her own guards milled around in greeting, the mules, horses and supplies were whisked off to wherever the Elves kept such things, and Sian was whisked off to a bath and clean clothes. She did not see what happened to her one good archer.
        He came to collect her in the evening, finding her in a long hall full of scrolls and paintings and sculpture, thinking that perhaps she should learn to read Elvish. There was a feast, and they were waiting for her; her men, and Thranduil's folk, who were glad of the things she'd salvaged from the caravan. She looked down at her borrowed green tunic, the edges trimmed in tree-viney knotwork. She guessed it had originally been made for some Elven noble. It was not quite long enough for a gown (her tall boots covered the space between floor and hem), but none of the Elf-women's gowns would fit her short, solid figure.
        Her archer bowed low and graciously, "The lady Sian DuCudyll is the fairest of her land that we have had the honor of hosting."
        "I am the only one of my land you've had the honor of hosting." she said wryly.
        He smiled, wide and a little lopsided. And said something incomprehensible in Elvish. Whatever it was, it sounded like poetry, she didn't ask for a translation.

        The woodelves knew how to party, that's all she could think. Sian was escorted into a whirl of light and song and movement and scent of flowers and food and forest. Her guards, the wranglers, swirled around her asking about her rescue of the mule train, telling their own tales of the return through Mirkwood and of the Elvenking's halls. It flowed over her like ocean surf, she had eyes only for her archer. He carried himself as he always had, with the lithe grace of a hunting cat, but with something else as well. Some veil seemed to have come over his face, hiding much of the spirit she'd seen on the forest trail. He made her think of a young falcon, sitting on the glove for the first time, trying to look strong, when he didn't feel that way at all.
        He finally led her across the room, to the high table at the far side. Seated in the center were two people who had the look of kings and queens everywhere, no matter the culture. He bowed low before them, exchanged some words in his native tongue. Sian followed his lead, thinking of the things she'd said about Thranduil (an age ago, it seemed), and hoping he couldn't read minds. She raised her head, met his sea-grey eyes, and the paler eyes of his Lady. Calm and noble they were, and deep. It was like looking into the sea itself, or the mists of time. Like seeing those far mountains on the horizon, the ones you rode towards for weeks as they rolled up over the edge of the world.
        There was something familiar about them. Both of them, the eyes, the high cheekbones, the chiseled jawline, the golden hair flowing like a mane around a long clean neck. Sian shook it off. Like any people she was unfamiliar with, they all looked alike.
        "...I have not heard the tale of how you got my caravan back..." the King was saying.
        Sian blinked, bowed briefly and sat in the seat he indicated. She told the tale, glancing at Legolas often, impressing on the King the intelligence, wisdom and skill of her companion. Maybe it would get him a promotion or something.
        Something strange was happening in the Elvenking's face. He looked like a wolf whose tail is being pulled by a raven. He politely heard out the whole tale, his face showing subtle signs of growing agitation. Then, when he was sure Sian's tale was done, he turned to Legolas and said something long and low in Elvish. Sian looked from one to the other, and suddenly it struck her how similar they were, not just the similarity of race, something closer. Something in the body language too, her archer looked exactly like a kid being quietly chewed out by....
        "Legs," she said, and poked him in the arm.
        He looked up sharply, startled, saw her questioning look, composed his face. Let out a sigh. "It's a long story."
        "Uh HUH."
        "My father is not pleased. I....I ...it was supposed to be another one who rode out to aid you. Celinte. I took his place. I did not tell anyone."
        "Your father..." she looked up at the Elvenking. He still looked like an annoyed wolf. His lady was whispering something to him, probably trying, as was the case with women everywhere, to talk sense into her man. "Oh boy..." She looked back at her one excellent archer of Mirkwood, her companion on the road, purveyor of Elvish waybread, singer of tales, guardian of relief stations, who had risked his immortal life to pull her bum out of the orcish fire. "...the bloomin' prince of Mirkwood!" She dropped her face in her hands, shook her head.
        Finally she looked up at him. He looked like the young grey wolf she'd seen once across a moonlit clearing, poised to melt back into the forest. Young and old, strong and vulnerable, wise and innocent all at once. She did not ask why he hadn't told her. She thought she knew. She had done it herself, long ago; ridden out against the wishes of everyone, to prove something. She smiled the slight smile of shared experience.
        He nodded in understanding.
        His father fired off a quick burst of Elvish, tense, polite, understated. It probably meant, "Wait till the party's over..."
        They bowed. The King and his Lady said some more genteel words to her, promising supplies (and a few Elvish guards) for the journey out. They said nothing about her archer being the wrong one. They already knew what she thought of him.

        They escaped through the party throng, like grey wood-hawks fleeing through the branches. Through the caverns of the King, by the stables, then riding out bareback under the spearshafts of moonlight that found their way to the leaf-littered forest floor. Out by the river, on the old road, they went in silence, galloping now, wind in their hair, no need for the slow measured trot of long journeys. Finally they burst out into starlight, and open sky. Ahead lay the open lands to the east, the Lonely Mountain, Laketown, and Sian's own lands far, far away. They had not said a word since the feasting hall, there was no need, sometimes, for words. Sian let Eos's reins loose, he dropped his head to graze. She leaned back, head on his rump, staring up at the stars. "Tell me your people's star stories." she said.
        He lay stretched out along Ithilin's back, looking up, "That would take many nights."
        The understatement of the Age, Sian was sure. "Tell me one, then?"
        He sang a star story, and another. Then faltered into silence. She would ride out tomorrow and there were so many more stories to tell. And to hear. And places to see and... "Greenleaf," she said, "Glasdalen", translating his name into her own tongue, "Come with me." She added quickly,"With us." He was silent so long she began to think he'd had too much Elvish wine and had fallen asleep.
        When his voice finally came out of the dark, it was soft as nightwind. "I can't." Then he was standing by her horse, looking up with wide eyes.
        Sian slid off, faced him, earth brown eyes meeting sea-grey. There was no need to say anything else, she understood. Family, clan, kingdom, responsibilities. Then it came on her; the Knowing that it would not always be thus for him. He'd make that journey some day, back along the road she'd come and alone over the mountains, then through the mountains in the deep dangerous dark and beyond, far beyond anything he'd ever guessed. But it would be long after her time.
        He saw something in her eyes, some passing shadow of what she'd seen.
        She saw his eyebrows knot, questioning. "You'll have your journey, someday." was all she said.
        He closed his eyes and circled her with his arms.
        For a moment she stiffened in surprise, then wrapped her arms around him. She pressed her face against his chest, hearing the distant drum of his heart, feeling the lean power that would someday shoot from the sky the dark, winged shape of her vision. They stood for a heartbeat, for forever. Time had as much meaning as it had for Elves. It stretched and circled back on itself, and finally broke in a dawn full of warm light and birdsong.

        The caravan came out of the dark fastness of Mirkwood into the midday sun of the western lands, to the west lay the Misty Mountains, the River Langflood, and further south, the Anduin leading down to the sea. Sian turned in her saddle, behind her, twenty-two mules lifted their huge ears, happy to see grass and sunlight. The wranglers from Caer-Gaint broke into laughter and raucous joking. Efa perked her ears and sniffed at a rabbit trail. From the front of the line, one of the Elvish guards called "Daro!" Sian raised her hand in the signal for her men to stop as well. The Elves swirled quietly around her on their horses, their leader, hair in a long dark braid down his back, stepped forward, bowed from his place on a small blue roan mare. "You are safely through the forest. Here, we turn back, Lady. Safe journey."
        "Ancuio silailye!" Sian returned the salutation she'd been taught. She hoped she'd remembered it right, and wasn't actually telling him "there are eels in your dwarf's beard" or something.
        He smiled and said, "Namarie."
        "Thank you, and safe journey home." Sian added.
        The Elves turned and melted back into Mirkwood.
        Except for one.
        He rode forward, clad in green and brown, mounted on a dun the color of sand and mountain rock. His hair was the kind of blinding silver-white Sian had only seen on mountain snowfields. The braid was long enough for him to sit on and streaked with...green? Maybe he was trying for camoflage, that hair would make him a target for sure, especially in the deeps of Mirkwood. Sian's eyebrows knotted, had she fogotten some part of Elvish protocol? She tried to remember what Legolas had told her. She eyed the dun again, he was bridleless, but wearing a light saddle, firmly girthed, with stirrups, and breast band. The rider had a longbow and quiver slung on his own back, but the horse was packed with a second bow, a short horseman's bow, an extra quiver. And those un-elvish stirrups. So an archer could stand up off a galloping horse and shoot accurately, something more useful on the open plains than in the woods. There was other gear tied to the back of the dun's saddle, more than the rest of the Elvish guards had carried. Sian's eyebrows went up like a hawk taking flight, a Knowing tickled at the back of her thought.
        He nodded to her, a slight, polite bow, with a little bobble, like he wasn't quite used to doing that sort of thing, "Uh...my Lady."
        "Sian." she interrupted him.
        "My Lady Sian."
        "Just Sian." she had a feeling about this. And she was not going to be able to deal with this "my Lady" stuff long."
        "Our prince said you might have some need of one good archer of Mirkwood, beyond the eaves of the wood."
        She had noticed him before, he stood out from the other Mirkwood Elves as a pinto horse stands out in a field of somber bays and browns. She had not had much chance to talk to him, the Elves had kept to themselves, going ahead on the trail, vanishing into the trees, or falling behind to cover the rear. The others had been mostly Avari, but this one had the particular kind of high cheekbones and the chiseled jawline she'd come to recognize as Sindarin. His face had the ageless beauty of a hawk, his eyes were the changing color of the sea, twinkling with merry sunlight. His voice sounded like treewind and birdsong. His mouth looked like it wanted to quirk into a grin. His clothes seemed more practical than stylish, and more than a little inventive. He was not carrying a sword, but there were two long knives tucked between his quiver and his back.
        If Legolas had sent him, he was a good enough archer, Sian nodded at the knives, "You know how to fight without a bow?"
        He half suppressed a smile, straightened his face, trying to look serious, "Celinte taught us." he touched the hilts of the knives, "Faster than a sword." He nodded at Sian's sword, "Although, perhaps not faster than yours."
        "We'll see. What's your name?"
        "Hwesta-Pethoronrandir".
        Her eyebrows folded like a stooping hawk's wings, "West...what?"
        He made a wry face, "My mother is a bard, and thinks every name should be a story in itself. My friends have shortened it to Ran. It means 'wander'."
        Sian looked up at her guards, exchanged glances with Ieuan and Seath, it was their chance to lodge an opinion on an addition to the party, one on whom their lives would depend. Sian had been known to ignore those opinions, and she had a strong opinion this time. A feeling about this Elf with snowfield hair and sunlit eyes.
        Seath and Ieuan looked at each other, Ieuan raised a questioning eyebrow. The silver and green-haired Elf not only didn't look like any Elf they'd ever seen, but in his mottled greens and browns and greys, with edges like loose fall leaves and grass, bird feathers woven into odd places on the hems, he didn't look like any warrior they'd ever seen either. Seath shook his head slightly, shrugged; beats me. They eyed Sian, and gave her the slightest of nods.
        "Come on then." Sian said to Ran.
        He fell in alongside her singing a song, in the common tongue. His short dun cob had a longer stride than Sian had expected, because soon Ran was even with Eos's head.
        Sian reached for reins that weren't there, her eyes widened, wonder if Eos still remembers what 'whoa!' means!.
        Ran grinned back at Sian, Eos's headstall looped over one of his arms. "Our prince said you wanted to learn to ride the Elvish way..."
        It was going to be an interesting journey.