Work Text:
The library was arguably Y/N’s favorite place in the entire palace.
It couldn’t really be called a single library- it was housed in a good, prodigious wing of its own, filled with the enormous collection of volumes the kingdom had amassed throughout its lifetime, in halls and rooms dedicated to specific subjects and genres. There had to be thousands upon thousands of volumes, in every subject one could think of. But not all of them, she thought wistfully, as she remembered her own bookshelf back home, the titles she missed reading and perhaps would never read again.
She ran her fingers across the spines of the books housed in this particular shelf of the main hall library— the one with a fireplace big enough to stable the King’s elk, satiny couches and armchairs before it and scattered throughout the wing, and lamps enough to light a path from here to Forlindon. The comfort that she usually felt from being surrounded by lives of wisdom was hollowed out for the feelings of nostalgia and homesickness, and she tried to dispel it by picking a random book from the ornate wood, recalling the promise she made to Legolas to be back quickly. He warned her against wandering too far, for fear of becoming lost. Truthfully, she was pretty wary of getting lost as well; these halls seemed to be endless.
The book she held in her palms was equally as recherché; bound in dark, rich leather, with the title in the common tongue beneath the Sindarin runes. The Art of Wine, volume 3. She opened the cover to reveal slightly aged but smooth pages, and the introductory explaining the halved Sindarin-Westron layout. It was hard to believe the way she’d been inelegantly and unceremoniously chucked into one of these damn books. Or, someplace she’d thought was only a book.
Funny… Y/N wondered how many books here held the same… thing that got her here. If it were even possible to replicate. It had been three years already with naught a sign from or of home.
Sighing, she decided she may as well pick this one, and turned on the ball of her foot to return to the couch before the fireplace.
There were new logs on the fire, fueling it back into a roaring beast that warmed the entire room and threw its arms of light as far as it could. It was light out still, and day’s beams streamed through the windows, but winter had taken hold of the land as tight as the fire’s heat gripped the air now, and there was a dusting of snow on the ground beyond, belying the blanket atop the thick Mirkwood canopy.
The elf prince who had accompanied her looked up briefly from his own book as she sat down across from him. He granted her a mirror of her small smile of greeting, and Y/N settled herself comfortably in the plush cushions. The fire danced, popping and hissing a song to itself, celebrating its existence with showers of sparks. Y/N’s book was all but abandoned in the magic of the fire, and she let its light explore her face as she studied its dance.
Her mind drifted from any coherent thought, as she tried to shake the wisps of unpleasant feelings that lingered in her chest and threatened to moisten her eyes.
“What is on your face?” Legolas asked abruptly. Y/N looked up from the flames, brow furrowed. She brushed her face self-consciously.
“What do you mean?”
He leaned a little closer, crossing his legs to cross the space further, looking intently at her features. “You are spotted.” He observed.
Now she was confused. “What?”
Legolas pointed to her neck and exposed arms, and gestured to the bridge of her nose and her cheeks. “You have little spots.”
“Ooooh.” That’s what he meant. “Those are freckles.”
The prince’s head tilted. “Freckles?” he repeated, the word strange on his tongue, as if he’d never heard it before.
Y/N nodded. “My mom and I used to call them sun kisses when I was little.”
Legolas was silent for a moment, gazing intently at her face. His voice was quiet, mellifluous as always, when he spoke next.
“The sun has kissed you and left pieces behind,” he mused, sounding almost as if he were starstruck. “You have the light of the stars on your skin.” he brushed her cheek with his fingertips. “You are sacred.”
Y/N chuckled, nervous and blushing. “I’m not special, Legs, they’re just freckles.”
“Star lit,” he said, a smile growing across his lips. “Tindome.”
And even if she denied being so, her smile certainly could have lit the night sky.
“Yeah, um, okay,” she stuttered. “I have to, uh, I gotta go do a thing. S-see you later.” she shut her book and gathered it in her arms before rushing off.
~
“Oh sweet lord,” she murmured as she stepped into her quarters. She placed the book atop the vanity and fell onto the bed, a smile creeping across her face as she mused over the new word quietly to herself.
“Tindome.”