Hello! I hope you all had a wonderful winter break but these things take time! Enjoy this brief chapter!

X

I am drowning. I cannot breathe. This is the great darkness that ever encroaches upon my mind.

No…

Please why will you not let me pass?

I cannot breathe. I am drowning.

A dry voice rudely interrupted her dying thoughts behind closed eyelids. 'You are not drowning, Arthoniel. In fact, it is quite the opposite. You are up in the air, safe in my flet.'

What she thought had been the waves engulfing her form suddenly felt more like strong and steady arms. Warm arms, that quickly squeezed her a little too tight to reinforce their point. She struggled, and they released back. Arthoniel opened her eyes to a large, circular, darkened room lit by elven lamps.

This is not my flet.

'There you are.'

Lifting her head back from where it was resting on a broad shoulder, Arthoniel met Haldir's intent gaze. Alarmed at their sudden intimacy, she made to scrabble backwards off his lap but his arms locked about her as solid as diamond.

'Let me go.'

'Not so fast.'

Heart thudding and tears threatening again at her embarrassment of the whole situation, Arthoniel tried for an angry glare. 'Haldir.' She gritted her teeth. 'Please..'

Those storm grey eyes just held her challenge silently, before Haldir shifted so that he could bring one of her hands in between their close chests. The fight went out of Arthoniel when she saw her bloodied fingernails; she let Haldir reach for her other hand and inspect them carefully in the private bubble their two forms created.

'I need to remove the splinters and clean the wounds.'

Arthoniel tried to pull her hands back. 'There is no need, I can get Verya to help me.'

Haldir gently but firmly, tugged them back. 'Verya is not here. I am your protector and I will care for you.' The Marchwarden looked up and the small distance between their gazes unnerved Arthoniel. Their foreheads were inches apart. She looked away, her heart giving an irregular beat.

I wish I was in my own flet. Being this close to Haldir is becoming….discomfiting

Keeping her eyes firmly on the tree trunk she could see out of the open window on the other side of the room, Arthoniel disentangled herself and settled further along on the same reclining seat, whilst Haldir got up to fetch a bowl of water, cloth, salve and tweezers. Once he was seated again and started to tend to her sore hands, Arthoniel let her mind wander the night sky, soothed by her distant memories of being in a land close to the Queen of Stars.

Let me walk amongst your beauty once more.

'It is done.'

Arthoniel blinked to come back to the present. Haldir's touch had been so unexpectedly gentle that she had not even felt the splinters be removed.

She looked back at Haldir and then down at her hands, which once again had smooth and unblemished nails. She did not notice Haldir widen his eyes slightly at her gaze.

'Hannon le.' Standing up, Arthoniel realised she must be in Haldir's flet, which appeared larger than her own guest flet.

'Why did you not take me back to my flet? It is technically closer after all.'

Putting the healing supplies to one side, the silver elf stood and with a touch of his fingers, removed his familiar cloak. Out of habit, Arthoniel had reached out to accept the offering before consciously realising what she was doing. A flame of irritation sparked in her heart at the quick, smug look she caught on the Marchwarden's face.

'Come, there is something I wanted to show you.'

Hoping that the darkness hid the blush rising to the tips of her ears, Arthoniel shakily followed Haldir out to his attached garden. The courtyard was larger than her own, with neat clumps of moonflowers growing here and there amongst the lush grass. but what made her breath catch in her throat was that at this greater height and at this angle, Haldir's flet had an unaltered view of the clear night sky, where hundreds, no thousands of radiant stars shone down upon him.

By the Valar.

All thoughts left her mind, and Arthoniel gazed up in wonder and in joy at the greatest treasures of the universe, shining so brightly as to overfill her fëa.

X

Haldir, standing quietly next to the enraptured Arthoniel, gazed steadily upon her and felt something like peace. It was a sense of knowing that she was here in his little territory, she was safe in his cloak, and that something he had shown her was giving her joy.

Then he narrowed his eyes. Careful. You are the Marchwarden.

Haldir was not sure how long they both stood there, he, watching her long dark hair sway softly in the gentle breeze, that made her skin and upturned face look like she was glowing with silver light.

No wait, she is actually glowing!

'Arthoniel, your skin is glowing.' Amazed, Hadir took a step towards her and then lifted a hand as if to touch her radiant cheek, before letting it drop back to his side quickly as she turned her gaze back from the heavens.

'Hmm?' The dreamy reply came back to him from her rosebud mouth.

'Ai! And your eyes, they have stars in them. It was as I saw them before, for a moment, in the flet.'

It was true, that green gaze that looked up into his eyes was now mirrored with the stars shining above them. It was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen.

'The lights of Aman.' The Sindarin elf whispered in awe.

As if only now properly hearing his words, Arthoniel blinked and they were once more back to solid green.

'I am Noldo. Crafting from starlight is in my blood.' She said drily, picking at a non existent thread on her sleeve to avoid properly explaining.

Rising to her acerbic tone, Haldir stepped forwards into her personal space, enough that if they both inhaled at the same time, their robes touched. Haldir made sure that they did.

He had to stifle in his inner excitement that she did not step back or turn away as others always did. Instead she frowned up at him and held his gaze.

'What is it that you wish to say to me Marchwarden?'

X

Arthoniel had the feeling that this Marchwarden was leading her through some sort of game that she did not know the rules to and that she was losing. She did not like to lose.

He is arrogant and he seeks to test me.

She saw something pass behind those unreadable grey eyes and she knew that he had changed what he was going to say.

'Would you like to stay here in the garden and watch the stars? You are welcome to.'

Yes. More than anything right now.

'No.'

Haldir smirked at her blatant lie and settled down onto the grass facing away from her.

He patted the grass. 'Sit.'

Arthoniel cross her arms in defiance. 'You, Marchwarden, do not command me.'

But Haldir was an elf, he was patient, and knew that Arthoniel's desire to watch the stars would win out.

'Arthoniel.' He drew her name out in his own way.

Insufferable ellon.

She sat.

She glanced sideways at his carefully schooled expression. 'Why do you not just ask me? I can tell you want to hear the full story of how I came to be trapped on this side of the sundering seas.'

Haldir reclined on his elbows and looked openly over at where she was sitting cross legged beside him. She thought he looked…almost kind, it was the most relaxed she had ever seen him. It made her guard rise.

Haldir looked up to the stars above them and a rare small, real smile touch his lips. 'You are not ready to tell me…yet. I am patient enough to wait for the unaltered version. I know that, besides the Lady, you will tell me first out of all others. For now, that knowledge is enough'

Arthoniel resisted the urge to throw something at his noble head.

'How could you possibly know that?'

'I am the Marchwarden.'

Determined to ignore him for the rest of the night, Arthoniel gazed up and let her mind wander the depths of heaven. At some point in the late hours, she gave a small sigh of defeat and lay flat out on the grass, as Haldir had done much earlier.

She swore she could almost hear his smile of triumph.