Chapter Text
Keren woke with a start at the sound of a man's shout. How she had managed to nod off on horseback she did not know.
She had possessed a total inability to control Léofric now she rode alone, and she had soon started irritating those around her, for she either stopped dead in front of them or tutted and sighed and groaned more and more frequently. After a few hours of this Legolas had lifted her onto his horse, Arod, with no time for her to argue. Gimli had silently slipped off Arod's back and mounted Léofric, with nothing but a raised eyebrow towards Gandalf as a comment. Gandalf had kept silent, a look of blank amusement on his face.
Legolas had grabbed her hands and wrapped them around his waist, laughing at her awkwardly waving arms.
“Hold on to me,” the elf had said, “and I’ll keep you safe from falling."
And indeed so safe had she felt that she must have fallen asleep, for now she had awoken with her head lolling forward onto his shoulders. She quickly snapped it back.
“Sorry,” she said, even quicker. “I don’t know how I managed to fall asleep."
"We slowed the horses to a walk a couple of hours past, if you remember," he replied. “You fell asleep almost immediately. I imagine it was the King’s cry that woke you. Helm’s Deep is within sight.”
"My back’s sore,” Keren said, yawning.
Without thinking she let go of the elf's waist and stretched her arms out, arching her back. Immediately she yelped as the rolling movement of Arod below her sent her slipping off the side of the saddle.
"Ai!" Legolas cried as he turned quickly to grab her and set her upright. "You and horses are a disaster together. You must learn to listen to them."
"But they don't speak!" Keren cried.
Legolas looked at her as if he did not understand her, and indeed he did not. He had little hope for Keren liking horses unless she was given many dedicated days of training.
Perhaps one day I could teach her, he thought fondly, but quickly stopped himself from going down that path. They were a long way from that future yet.
She did not, and could not, know. Not yet, perhaps not ever. She was still in pain over Faramir, her infatuation so strong it had almost made her lose her reason. But he would not laugh at her, nor chide her for her obsession, for was he now not able to understand? Her heartbreak over her unrequited love - his mind reeled that he now knew such a thing himself. His heart and his soul were no longer fully his own, and after thousands of years it was an unsettling shock. Never had he thought anyone could hold so much power over him. And he did not know if it was better or worse that she was - had to be - oblivious.
The wizard watched the pair. If he was right, and everything he suspected came to pass, then the world would not have seen the like before. But the path they were most likely to set out on together was full of peril, for both of them, and he pitied them, was fearful for them. He knew the elf would do well not to underestimate what had almost happened, what indeed could still happen, between the girl and Faramir, for it had its reasons and, he suspected, its history. But if only he could have some confirmation… The crystal, that he imagined now sat in the pouch at her waist, called to him, but he knew it was not his place to answer. Not this time.
Helm's Deep, Legolas told Keren, was a naturally defensive gorge set into the sides of the mountains that rose ahead of them, that had long been a place of refuge for the people of Rohan. At its heart was the Hornburg, a great keep with high walls and towers. Behind the huge Deeping Wall, never breached until a few months past, lay a great hall, kitchens, stables, and miles of caves and passageways for shelter.
Keren craned her head around Legolas's shoulder as they passed through the earthen fence of Helm's Dike, on into Deeping-Comb, and the fortress came into view.
"It was not built for beauty," Legolas said bluntly. “Glad of its strength I was the night we fought, but it is a grim place, and I will not say I wish to tarry here.”
"Ah, but you will hold to your promise, Princeling?" Gimli's voice shouted from beside them. "The caves, do not forget, the caves!"
He rode off ahead.
"What does he mean?" Keren wondered, confused by the dwarf’s unusual show of mirth.
"He claims that the caves behind the Hornburg are a hidden wonder of the earth. I have promised to at least venture briefly to see them with him, despite my misgivings."
"Misgivings?"
"Unless it is within the caverns of light in my home, I am… not fond of being underground.”
"Oh," was all Keren could think to say. To learn that an elf was afraid of something oddly filled her with confidence.
The party rested that night within the great hall of the Hornburg, a strange group. Keren felt very ordinary, comfortingly so, as she bedded down to sleep surrounded by kings, princes, people out of legend. She looked over at the elves with interest. Many of them lay still, eyes open, but not exactly what she would call awake. She suppressed a shudder, and found herself not wishing to look at Legolas in case he was in the same unnerving state. She drifted off to sleep eventually, her dreams filled with crystals, caverns and grey eyes. And horses.
When she awoke it was full day, and the hall had emptied a little. The hobbits still slept, but the rest of their fellowship had risen and gone elsewhere. The elves had effortlessly arranged themselves into artful clumps, and she looked enviously at their flowing robes and shining hair. She sighed and got up, breaking her fast quickly with some cured meat and now slightly stale bread. The water pouches were still full and plentiful, for they had a long journey ahead.
But where will my journey end, Keren wondered.
The day passed slowly – they were to rest in the Hornburg another night. Keren spoke with the hobbits, and wandered the stone passages of the keep, not straying too far alone. As the afternoon passed she began to miss Legolas's company – he had been gone hours, exploring the caves with Gimli. When they returned in time for the evening meal the dwarf was beaming from ear to ear, with no small amount of gloating. The elf looked thoughtful as he sat beside her.
“So what were they like?" she asked him, but he seemed to struggle for words.
"The Princeling is struck dumb with awe!” Gimli said. "He did not expect to be so moved by rocks.” He nudged the elf with his elbow.
Legolas came back to life a little.
"Indeed," he said softly. "There are no words I have to speak of them. Gimli alone has words fit for the purpose."
He was uncommunicative for the rest of the meal, and went and sat alone as soon as it was over. Keren, not having seen him behave in such a way before, went over to him and sat down gently beside him.
"Are you alright?"
He looked at her a little while before speaking.
“It seems there is much I still have to learn,” he said, then smiled at her in a strange way. “Of the world, of its wonders. Never have I seen such caverns, such colours, such light in a dark place.”
“Well, I certainly wish to see them now, if they’re that wonderful." She tried to keep her voice light.
The elf looked at her sharply.
"You would not find them alone."
"Then I’ll ask Gimli…"
"I can take you, if you wish.”
She tried to place the emotion on his face, but failed.
"Alright," was all she said.
“Come, then." He stood abruptly and left the room hastily, almost as if he was afraid to be seen leaving with her.
Grabbing a flaming torch from the wall, he led the way through passages which became slowly less well crafted, until eventually they were walking on a floor of rough stone. The moon was high as they emerged outside, behind the great defensive wall. He had not turned or spoken to her once.
"Legolas!" Keren eventually had to speak, but didn’t really know what to say. He knew what she meant, however.
"I am sorry," he said. "I know I am not myself. This place has unnerved me, though not in the way I thought it would."
He brought her to a narrow entrance, almost hidden, and she could see why these caves had been chosen as a retreat. Legolas held his torch aloft.
"Stay close to me," he said quietly.
They passed through a dark, narrow passage for a time, and Keren reached for Legolas's hand for guidance, not having elf eyes. She felt his fingers pull back a little at the touch, but then they wrapped around hers as if nothing was amiss. They stayed like that until the darkness was less heavy, when he spoke again.
”We are drawing near."
“How is there light?" Her voice echoed.
"Look up," he said reverently. "And stop walking for a time. Just look."
A thick shaft of moonlight falling through a large hole in the roof lit the cavern with a silvery light, whilst the golden flame from Legolas's torch sent strange flickering shadows bouncing off the walls. Walls which were glowing, glittering with sparks of light. All around, everywhere she looked, near and far, were gemstones set into the rock, sparkling gold and silver, or shining green, blue, pink, purple, red. There were great stems of them hanging from the roof and rising from the floor, or running like rivers of light through the walls. And in the centre, amidst smooth black rock, was a shallow, silent pool, with no ripple of movement, reflecting the moonlight like a mirror.
Keren did not wish to speak, for fear of the sound destroying the vision before her, as if it were not real. She instead looked at Legolas with understanding. A shock it must have been to him indeed, to see that such wonders could be found beneath the ground.
Legolas let her stand in wonder, gazing around for many minutes, rooted to the spot, watching her with some amusement. Was this how he had looked to Gimli?
Keren slowly moved eventually, drawing a little closer to him.
“There’s more,” he said softly.
In the great hall of the Hornburg some of the elves grew curious and wished to see the sight that had left one of their own speechless. A move was made for Gimli to escort them, but Galadriel counselled against it, sliding her eyes over to the wizard, catching his gaze, then moving them over to the now empty corner which Keren and Legolas had vacated. He followed her swift look, and chuckled under his breath. Yes, the caves of Aglarond were best left deserted tonight.
"There are many more caverns," Legolas said, "though none so large as this. But some are more beautiful."
"More beautiful?" Keren wondered.
"One where all is gold, and the light from a torch makes it seem as if the place is flickering with flames. One where there is no surface beneath your feet but a deep, clear pool lapping at the silver rocks, and if you venture to the edge of them you can see your reflection as if in a mirror, and behind and above you are all the stars in the sky, but then you see they are in fact tiny crystals in the rock. One where – "
"Show me!" Keren cried. "Please," she added belatedly.
Legolas's laugh rang out, echoing round the empty space. They stood and listened to the echoes until they disappeared, Keren sensing that he could hear them long after her.
"We cannot see all," he said eventually, “for we are dependent on this flame lasting, but we have perhaps an hour or two."
She smiled with glee, and ran off towards the pool, shouting into the space, now feeling more assured that it was indeed real and not some vision they had stumbled into.
“I never even imagined such a place! I could never have thought - ”
She stopped dead as she reached the water’s edge, Legolas appearing swiftly beside her.
"But I wish…" she began.
Legolas waited for her to find the words.
"I wish…”
But Keren knew she would never have come here if things had indeed turned out as she had wanted. She would never have got to see the caves, nor any of Rohan, nor even Ithilien all those months ago.
She felt as if Legolas knew what she had wanted to say, for he placed an arm around her shoulders, and seemed to return to his usual self.
"Come," he said. “There are more wonders to show you, and stories to tell."
Twenty caverns they explored, and in all of them the flame from the torch illuminated the strange, glittering walls.
"Gimli has plans for this place," Legolas began. "To fill it with light again, to show its full glory, to start a dwarf colony here. The Rohirrim were not the first to find it, nor shall they be the last to use it, if he gets his way."
As he spoke they emerged into one of the chambers he had mentioned before, that of the walls and ceilings with tiny crystals like stars, and a floor of water-glass. It was small, but high, so very high. Looking up Keren could see a domed roof with large openings to the sky, the moonlight filtering through in sharp beams.
Carefully Legolas guided her to the edge of the narrow rock at the edge of the pool and together they sat, legs dangling over the edge.
"This is, I think, my favourite," the elf said. "We are deep inside the mountain, and yet I feel I look on the night sky."
Keren lay back and looked up and around, as if she were stargazing. The high, black walls were so smooth as to almost shine, and dotted all around were the lights of hundreds of thousands of tiny silver stones, much smaller than her own, and sparkling rather than clear. So many, and yet she felt nothing from them, not like hers, despite its more humble appearance. It sat now at her waist as always, hidden in its pouch.
“It’s so beautiful,” she whispered.
“It is. But there is another reason I have brought you here," Legolas said quietly, and she felt a strangeness within her, a disquieting and unexpected thought, which she pushed away.
“What reason?"
“There are so many precious stones, here beneath the ground,” he began. "I can… feel their presence, as well as see them. Many of my people have such a skill. Not a power as such, but… a gentle nudging, as if they wish me to know they are there.”
Keren was silent, and knew what was to come next.
"I feel that…around you," he went on. "At our very first meeting, your fëa – your spirit – called to me. This I think you know, for it was this I think you ran from. And I was drawn to your spirit because, I think, it had that… feeling, around it and through it, that… shadow of the precious gems of the earth. So not only were you strange to me because I recognised you as an elf-friend, but also because it felt like you had - have - an affinity with stones of knowledge or power. And as time passes you feel more familiar and yet grow more strange with every meeting.”
Stop now, Legolas thought. No more.
Keren remained looking up at the crystal stars, quietly panicking. Someone knew. Incredibly, someone knew. She had kept it so hidden all these years, even from Palen, only showing it to Faramir because he felt a part of it all. And now this elf, this strange friend of hers, knew without even seeing it. She did not want to, could not, talk about it, for the grief was still too near, thinking about where her prophecy had led her. Or perhaps, she was beginning to realise now, where she had chosen to allow herself to be led.
"I feel the same about you, seeming both strange and familiar," she admitted. "But I don't know what you mean about the crystals. This is the first time I’ve seen any, and I don’t feel anything, other than wonder at how beautiful they are. You must be mistaken."
He knows I’m lying, she thought.
And he did, but decided she must have her reasons, so he did not press the subject, frustrated as it made him. He wished to know everything about her, but realised she did not know everything about herself.
"Who did first discover this place?" she asked, changing the subject back to Gimli's plans, and sitting up. “It's so well hidden."
Legolas, accepting the former subject was closed, told her a brief history of the great men of Númenór, of which she said she already knew a little, for Faramir was descended from –
Stop it, Keren chided herself, and stopped talking abruptly. You don’t have to link every little thing back to him.
Legolas smiled gently with understanding at her sudden silence, and he continued with his tale of how, in the Second Age, before the land they were travelling through was known as the kingdom of Rohan, before the men of the Mark had built their mead halls or bred their horses, men of Númenórean blood had explored the caves, but found no real use for them other than to gaze in awe at what they had found. The Rohirrim, much later, had discovered they were highly useful in times of war. “And now the lands are safe once more, along will come Gimli with his miners and masons, and forge a new Kingdom under the mountains.”
"The Númenóreans – the real ones, not their descendants – did you… know them?" Keren wondered.
Legolas gave her a knowing look.
"You are curious as to how old I am," he said. "I was wondering when you would give in and ask."
"No that's not what I… Well, it would be interesting to…" Keren tailed off.
He chuckled.
"I was born soon after the dawn of the Third Age," he said.
Keren froze.
“So, no," he went on, "I never saw a true Númenórean. King Elendil and his sons survived the battle that claimed my grandfather's life, but not for long. They fought alongside my father. That was before he was afraid to leave our lands. But all that was hundreds of years before I was born."
"You… you're thousands… thousands of years old?" was all she could say to that.
"I am an elf!" he replied, smiling and giving a small shrug of his shoulders. "And I am young by my people's reckoning, yet I do not feel it."
Wanting to get off the topic as quickly as possible, Keren picked up on something else.
“Your father’s afraid to travel?"
"His fear began in the South all those years ago," Legolas said. "I have not set foot inside the gates of Mordor, Keren, though I got close enough. But he was inside the mountainous walls of that poisonous land for seven long years, after burying his father just outside it. He does not trust that the lands outside our realm are free from the taint of it, the evil he saw there. It is almost a sickness in his mind. I understand it, but I also long for him to see that now things will be different, that the darkness in the world has been quashed, at least for a very long time. But he has gone from afraid to uncaring, and it saddens me."
“I'm sorry," Keren said softly. "My father, I think, is also afraid of the world beyond his home, and when my sister and I tried to help he pushed us away. The rift has never healed. So now he doesn’t care, for that’s easier. And we… we also have learnt how not to care."
"Your mother, you never speak of her." Legolas said gently.
“She's dead."
Legolas nodded.
"Mine too," was all he said, and Keren did not press for more, but put her hand over his, kneeling next to where he had leant to look into the water.
Slowly she peered over and studied their reflections. It was the first time either of them had seen themselves together, and she noticed Legolas was looking down into the mirror-like surface too, the water so still their eyes met in it, each studying the other. The moonlight cast a strange glow on their faces, and the golden halo of reflected light from the torch sat still in the dark water like an orb of fire, as if the sun was shining at night. Stars shone around their heads, or so it seemed. Both felt strange. Neither spoke.
Their hands remained touching, and they drew closer together as they looked down at themselves in the depths. The stars in the rocks grew quiet and watchful.
"Is it unusual?" came Keren's whisper. “Us?”
Keren watched the water-Legolas turn his head sharply towards her.
"Us?" he said, as if checking he had heard correctly.
“You have to admit we look unusual," she said, looking at their watery selves, total opposites. “My mother had a book of stories she would read to us, of elves, and kings, and dragons. Of long ago people and faraway places. Nowhere in it was there a friendship like ours.”
She took a breath, and didn’t know what she was going to say next. It took her by surprise. “A mortal woman and…”
Her voice suddenly sounded too young and foolish to be saying such things, so she stopped, and quietly lay beside him, both of them with their forearms folded beneath them, leaning over the edge, watching their own conversation.
“I don’t…" was his reply.
Then, a little later:
“Once there was,” he said very softly. “But that was different. That was… They were lovers. Andreth, a mortal maid and a seer of great renown, and Aegnor, a high prince of the Noldor, brother of the Lady Galadriel. They were equals in wisdom if not in fate. They met beside a pool of starlight, her reflection the first thing he saw of her, though it was enough to tell him where his heart lay. But alas, it was ill-fated. He was at war, and by the laws of our people that meant he could not wed. And even if he could… he would never have stood the pain…” He stopped for a little while, staring into the waters as if the tale played out within them. “The pain of seeing her grow old and die, whilst he remained forever young. For all their lives they never knew another love, though their own could not be. But in the end they died the same year, she of old-age, he in battle. And death - when it comes between elf and mortal - is the final separation, that cannot be undone.”
Keren shivered a little as she looked into the clear waters below them, seeing their solemn reflections staring back.
Within the waters the lights like stars glimmered above them. The silvery hue cast their faces into unfamiliar shadows, and they appeared at once themselves and yet not themselves, an elf prince with golden hair beside a mortal maid with solemn dark eyes. Keren felt uneasy, and flicked a finger down into the water, making the light from the torch catch in the ripples of their shifting faces.
She came to her senses.
“That’s not wholly true. Death always coming between elf and mortal, I mean. My book says Beren, a mortal, was sent back to Middle-earth to be with Lúthien again after they both died. And in their next life she was made mortal too, so that when their time to die came again their spirits passed out of the world together. I think. It’s very confusing.”
He smiled a little, in the water.
“No, you have it right. But Beren was a special case.”
“Well only because he had to be, only because Lúthien’s father ordered him to be.”
His smile grew broader.
“Who else is in your book?”
She grinned in return, for her heart sang, to be talking of elves with, well, an elf. The sad tale of Andreth and Aegnor was almost forgotten.
“Well, I know the tale of Eärendil, Queen Arwen's grandfather, how he was born of an elf-maid and a mortal man. And - ”
But then she stopped, and found herself looking at him strangely, her mind suddenly filled with a question she hadn’t realised she had been longing to ask.
"Have you ever been… sent back, do you think?”
He looked up at her, at her real self, not her reflection, and she realised how close their faces were to each other. But she was too intrigued to know the answer to move.
"I know not," Legolas replied. “Certainly I have no memories of lives that have gone before, which some of my people have. Glorfindel of Rivendell - you would have seen him at Aragorn’s wedding - remembers one of his clearly, and regales it with only the smallest amount of encouragement.”
Keren giggled.
“Although it does make a good tale,” he conceded. “But perhaps for many of us they are memories carried in the fëa, not in the mind.”
She frowned a little.
“I wonder who you were, if you were. I wonder how many different versions of you there might have been.”
But he simply chuckled, and both decided it was too large a topic for the small amount of torchlight they had left. They sat for a time in companionable silence, until the torch burned very low, and Legolas said they should leave. Keren reluctantly agreed. Together they stood and turned from the cavern of stars.
Unseen by them, the crystals winked and blinked behind them, as if in excited discussion. Once the chamber was empty of their voices the moonlight was swiftly hidden by clouds, as if the scene had ended and the light the crystals had so helpfully provided for them could now be extinguished.
Through the rocky halls the couple that had so excited the star spirits went, Keren saying a silent goodbye to each cavern they crossed, for she highly doubted she would see them again. Faster than she would have wished, they emerged into the fresh air of a summer night, and began a slow walk back to the Great Hall, where all seemed quiet.
"Goodnight," Legolas whispered, before they drew too near to the others to be overheard.
"Goodnight. Thank you for showing me."
"Tomorrow we leave for Isengard," Legolas found himself saying. "It is a journey of only two days."
Keren was puzzled for a moment, then realised what the elf was saying. Once they reached Isengard, they were to part. Two days.
“I'll miss you," was all she could say.
"And I you. But we shall part with no sadness, for your life must be full of joy now. That is the path you have chosen."
"You will say goodbye, you won’t just leave?" Keren was gripped by a sudden, inexplicable fear.
"I promise thee," Legolas said, quickly brushing her cheek with his thumb. "Sleep well."
Then they parted, and went to their beds.