Morning brought food that tasted like memory.
Legolas sat with the Fellowship on a platform overlooking the forest, eating bread that seemed to carry the warmth of every hearth he'd never sat beside, drinking water that tasted of springs he'd never found. Lothlórien's hospitality was legend, and the legend proved true—even grief-stricken, even exhausted, the Fellowship found comfort in the simple acts of eating and drinking.
But comfort couldn't quiet the tension beneath.
Frodo sat apart from the others, his hand pressed against his chest where the Ring hung hidden. The hobbit's face had grown thinner since Rivendell, his eyes carrying a distance that hadn't been there before. The Ring was working on him—slowly, patiently, the way water wore away stone.
I should help him, Legolas thought. Should find some way to ease his burden.
But what help could he offer? The Ring's corruption couldn't be countered by good intentions or kind words. Frodo had to carry it, had to resist it, had to walk into Mordor and throw it into fire that would consume everything it touched. Nothing Legolas did could change that fundamental truth.
Sam noticed his gaze and moved closer to Frodo, the gardener's protective instincts never quite resting. The loyalty between them was something precious—something that would save the world, though neither of them knew it yet.
Gimli was speaking with Haldir, their conversation carrying across the platform in fragments that suggested grudging respect rather than open hostility. The Dwarf had been impressed by the Galadhrim's craft, though he'd never admit it directly. The silver-barked trees were living architecture, each one shaped by generations of Elvish attention into something that exceeded anything stone could achieve.
"You walk these woods differently than other Elves."
Haldir's voice made Legolas turn. The marchwarden had approached silently, his grey eyes assessing.
"What do you mean?"
"Most Wood-elves are overwhelmed by Lothlórien. The light, the power, the age—it diminishes them. Makes them feel young and small." Haldir's head tilted. "But you walk as if you've seen equal wonders. As if this is magnificent but not unique."
The Inheritance Space, Legolas thought. Memories of the First Age, of realms that made Lothlórien look like a garden.
"I've studied old accounts," he said carefully. "Descriptions of Gondolin, of Doriath. This realm is beautiful, but it carries shadows of things that came before."
"You speak as if you've seen them yourself."
"Only in imagination." The lie came easily, smoothed by decades of practice. "But imagination can be vivid."
Haldir studied him for a long moment, then nodded slowly. "The Lady will wish to speak with you. She has... questions. About many things."
I know, Legolas wanted to say. She's been waiting to ask them since before I arrived.
But he kept his expression neutral. "I'll answer what I can."
"See that you do." Haldir's voice carried warning beneath its formality. "The Lady sees much. Concealment rarely serves those who attempt it."
He walked away, leaving Legolas alone with the weight of impending examination.
The day passed in a blur of rest and recovery. The Fellowship slept, ate, tended to wounds both physical and spiritual. Aragorn spent hours with Boromir, the two Men speaking in low voices about Gondor, about duty, about the road ahead. Legolas caught fragments—Boromir's growing desperation, Aragorn's careful counsel—and felt the timeline pressing forward toward its inevitable conclusion.
He'll fall, Legolas thought, watching the captain of Gondor. The Ring will break him, and he'll try to take it from Frodo. And there's nothing I can do to stop it without destroying everything that follows.
The mathematics of sacrifice. The cold equations that transmigrators learned to accept or went mad resisting.
Evening came, and with it, a change in the air.
Legolas felt Galadriel's attention sharpen, her distant observation becoming something more immediate. She was preparing. Whatever examination she'd planned, whatever questions she'd been waiting to ask—the moment was approaching.
He walked the platforms alone, watching stars emerge through gaps in the canopy. The forest below was silver and shadow, its beauty unmarred by the darkness pressing against Lothlórien's borders. Nenya's power held the world at bay, preserving this pocket of the Elder Days against the entropy that had claimed everything else.
How does it feel, Legolas wondered, to maintain a sanctuary you know will eventually fall? To fight a battle against time itself, knowing time always wins?
Perhaps Galadriel would tell him. Perhaps that was what her questions were really about—one impossibility examining another, two beings who existed outside the normal patterns of the world.
A soft knock echoed through his quarters.
Legolas turned to find an Elf standing at his door—young-seeming, though that meant nothing among the Firstborn. Her silver hair caught the starlight streaming through the windows, and her eyes held the distant beauty of someone who'd seen too much to be surprised by anything.
"The Lady requests your presence," she said. "In her garden. Alone."
The summons. Finally.
Legolas felt his stomach tighten, but he nodded without hesitation. "Lead the way."
They descended through the great mallorn, past platforms where the Fellowship slept or rested, past Elvish musicians whose songs drifted through the night like dreams given voice. The path wound through smaller trees, their silver bark gleaming, until it opened onto a glade that seemed to exist outside of time.
Galadriel's garden.
The Lady stood beside a basin carved from silver-white stone, her golden hair cascading down her back like captured sunlight. She didn't turn as Legolas approached, her gaze fixed on the water that filled the basin—still as glass, dark as the void between stars.
The Mirror of Galadriel. The artifact that showed what was, what might be, what should be feared.
"I have waited for you, Unsung One."
Her voice was gentle. Gentle as death, gentle as the tide that wears away mountains. Gentle as the patience of someone who'd lived since the world was lit by the light of the Trees.
"My Lady." Legolas stopped at the garden's edge, maintaining distance that suddenly seemed both necessary and futile. "You summoned me."
"I have been summoning you since before you arrived." Galadriel turned, and her eyes—
Her eyes saw everything.
Not just his form, his features, his carefully maintained composure. She saw through them, past them, into the spaces where truth lived and deception died. Her perception cut through his defenses like light through shadow, illuminating corners he'd kept hidden for sixty years.
"You are a soul from beyond the circles of this world."
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