You opened your eyes, yet your mind was still embedded deep within a sleep. You blanched with how much darkness you find yourself in-just like you were in your dream.
The War of The Ring ended almost 20 years ago, yet your war from your dark past still rages, especially when your husband Legolas was not around. You didn't know how, but every time Legolas was around, you were always safe from yourself. Unfortunately he wasn't here now, so you had to do everything you can to keep your sanity about you.
As terror filled you, you thought that you were still within the captivity of the enemies that had been long gone for decades now. Suffocating, you struggled to differentiate which was real life and which was the dream, until you managed to open the door to the balcony and took in the healing, wintry air of Rivendell.
You found yourself hunching by the foot of the railings of your balcony, holding for dear life as you catch your breath, trembling with terror all the while convincing yourself that the beautiful snow that fell outside and its cold was reality; not that deep, dark hole in your haunted dreams in which they shackled and torture you every single day for information which you held back from Sauron.
Bleary-eyed, yet now with better clarity in your mind, you managed to sober up and broke free from your night terror. You wished Legolas was here; if he was, you knew your gentle elf husband would chase away all your fear away just in time. But at the same time, you were glad he wasn't. If he knew how bad the night terrors get when he's not around, he would never want to leave your side, ever, and making your husband a crutch was the last thing you want for him.
Uncomfortable cold covered your human skin, penetrating your filmsy sleeping gown. You didn't like the cold, but this time you welcomed and reveled in it. The cold made you feel alive, unconstricted, convincing you that no one was going to come and put you in shackles in a deep dark hole and inflicted various torment just to get you to rat out your friends who were betting their lives to save the world.
Hating your room and how dark and how enclosed it was, you braved yourself to get in just to get the outer of your silk sleeping robe, put it on and went outside to the gardens.
As you looked up to the open night sky, watching flurries of snow falling beautifully, you let out a shaky breath of relief, feeling safe at last despite the cold that still seeped into your bones.
Snowy garden of Rivendell at night was truly an enchanting sight. For a while, you revel in that fact, willing the beauty around you to chase away your past memories and the lingering fear that came with it. You sat on a stone bench in the garden, feeling the frozen surface on your bottom, but you ignored it. You looked up to the sky, relishing the icy feeling of snow on your skin.
You began to shiver with cold. Unwilling to get back to your room, trapped inside the walls, you were willing to embrace the cold outside. Exhausted from the lack of sleep, you decided that closing your eyes for a bit won't hurt. You lifted your feet from the ground and pulled your legs to your chest, resting your weight on the cold bench beneath you.
You dreamed of your beautiful husband, under the moonlight on bright a snowy night. For a moment you thought it was a snowy Christmas night. Legolas was radiant in those silver tunic, but his brilliant blue eyes were heavy with much distress and fear. He shouted something, but oh he sounded like he was underwater, you could not understand him. You wanted to comfort him, asked him what was wrong, yet you were mute and so very sleepy, and soon you were drowned in a blackness that felt ancient.
It was so easy to give in to nothingness. There was a sense of peace that came with the perfect darkness, and you expected to never woke from that deep slumber.
***
You knew those arms clinging around your body protectively. You knew the warmth of his shapely bare chest that pressed so intimately against yours cheek. You recognized his faint scent of leather and forest that you love on his skin. His hand brushed the length of your back under the blanket where your naked bodies tangled with each other. Laying like that with your husband felt right and natural, except the urgency in the way he stroke your back with his hands.
You called his name, yet what came out of your mouth were incoherent mumbles. Legolas pulled away a bit to look at you, his crystal blue rimmed with red and misty with grief that your brain didn't quite register.
"You're awake!" cried Legolas, "Thank Eru. I thought I was too late!"
You looked at him closely, watching the light from the fireplace reflected in his eyes. You couldn't understand the state you were in. You were shivering, teeth chattering and naked with him under several layer of blanket, on the floor next to the fireplace in your room.
Legolas said something to you. You strained your brain to focus, to understand his words, but your body felt like jelly, and sleep and fatigue pulled you under again and he was lost in the darkness once more.
***
The moment you open your eyes again, only a couple hours had passed. Again you found yourself being wrapped in Legolas' arms, but this time, it was warm, almost sleep inducing, yet your mind and sight was clearer.
A butterfly kiss on your cheek, then your husband shifted behind you, gently turned you to look at him. Again, you saw amber from the fireplace danced in his blue eyes. In this light, the sculpted features of his face softened romantically; yet his expression you wished to decipher.
He cupped your face, then locked your lips with a kiss, tainted with a hint of urgency in it. You gave in to his kiss, feeling his hand pressed on the back of your neck, deepening the kiss. Your head happily swam by the beautiful movement of his lips, of the desperation behind his feverish kisses.
Desperate not out of lust as the way his kisses would after a prolonged time of separation, but more of sorrow. But oh, what a bittersweet feeling.
Even after Legolas ceased his kisses, your eyes remained close as you relish the moment his soft lips claimed your lips just now. Only after you felt one more quick nudge of his lips, then you reluctantly opened your eyes to see the hurt etched across his face.
"You almost killed me," he stated eerily calm, and you knew he was angry with you.
Very angry.
Through the fog in your brain, you panicked. You were scared, for your husband had never looked that angry to you. Sure, you both had your fights, but those fights were rare and were always expressive. You would yell at him, he would raise his voice at best. Both of you were never afraid to show your piece of mind to each other, and Legolas was never one to have a calm angry episodes. His face would never be that stoic, but his eyes-god, his eyes-they scared you.
And you didn't know what you did to him.
Instead of confronting him, finding out what his problem was, you uncharacteristically shut down. Instead of being angry of his confusing accusation, the reservoir in your eyes collect until it spilled to your cheek on onto his arm that pillowed your head.
Legolas made no move to comfort you. "Why do you weep?"
"I don't know."
"You know," he said with convinction.
"No."
"You are guilty and I am right," Legolas argued softly. "Imagine me coming home, ready to surprise my wife, expecting her sleeping in her bed. Instead, she was out in the garden, in the snow, wearing nothing but her thin sleeping robe-" he began to raise his voice, and I began to sob as I put two and two together "-by the time I got here I had to race to save you from death, doing everything and anything to restore warmth to you," he took your chin, forcing you to look at him, "You didn't know what I've been through. You were as cold as ice. Finding you any minute later might just kill you. Do you understand what you did?"
Bitter sob escaped you. "I didn't know."
"How could you be so reckless?" he gritted his teeth in anger, but anguish now filled his eyes, his voice cracked with unspilled tears as he wiped your tears from your cheek, "I told you to be careful. You are not an elf, (Y/N). You are human."
Offended, you turned your face away from his touch and angrily wiped your own tears. A bitter laugh escaped you. "Huh, so that's what you think of me all this time? That I'm weak?"
Legolas frowned and shook his head. "What?No. You are far from it. You misunderstood me," he defended, and you refused to hear that. "Look at me, meleth."
His hand was placed gently on your bare shoulder, but you shied away from his touch. Instead you pulled the blanket tight to your chest as you stubbornly fix your gaze to the ceiling.
You heard a soft sigh escaped him. You were hoping that he would get up and leave your side by the floor, next to the fireplace. But instead, he (kinda had to) yank the blanket from your tight grasp, then shifted under the blanket and moved on top of you before you could even stop him. You felt his warm, lean but muscular body pressed against your naked torso. It was honestly the best feeling in the world, and you hated that you secretly enjoyed feeling him on top of you now despite still being annoyed at him.
His arms were by either side of your head, supporting some of his weight. You were his captive now. He gazed into your eyes with his annoyingly beautiful lover's eyes, which you refused to look at, then he tried kiss you several times, but you turned your head away from the inviting lips of his, still gazing at the ceiling.
"Are you mad at me now?" His voice was low and sultry, traces of anger now gone. "I am sorry. Please forgive me. I admit that came out wrong."
You would of course forgive him. But you didn't want him to get away with it too easily, so you still kept up your stubbornness with you. At least for a while.
Another sigh escaped him at your silence. He still also stubbornly try to meet your eyes and kiss you. Unable to find your lips, he resorted to kissing your jaw ever so lovingly. You couldn't help but close your eyes at the touch and have your anger melted inside. He saw it, and a hint of amused smile upturned on his lips.
Dammit. He knows.
"There are only two things that can kill me as an elf. One is fatal injuries from battle," your heart sank at that, and your eyes began to mist again, "I train everyday to keep myself and the people around me safe. I am confident to say that I am the best at it. The other only thing that can surely kill me is heart break. You, meleth, is the only one that can break my heart. You are the only weakness that I can't control."
Another tear spilled from your eyes at the thought of your Legolas dying. He gently pressed his lips on the skin of your cheek, his lips lingered there, sending butterflies fluttering in your stomach. He continued.
"You are far from weak. In fact, you are one of the strongest person I've ever met during my thousands of years walking Arda," he clarified, before adding, "But as a human, I can easily lost you to countless unfortunate events despite your immortality. Injuries, diseases, accidents. Cold." He emphasized on the last bit. "Meleth nin, you have to be careful, because I cannot bear losing you. My heart is not as strong; in this, I am weak. Please," he ended his speech with a plead, his eyes anguished.
You couldn't pretend to be angry anymore. You had to hold him. So you wrapped your arms around his neck and back, embracing him tightly. He melted into you, feeling his warm breath on your shoulder. When you pulled away, he kissed you, this time you didn't shy away from him and returned his kisses with as much fervor as he.
This was always how any fights with him would end; a make up kiss, tainted heavily with relief, love and affection. When he finally broke the kiss, you saw that his lips had already turned red and slightly raw from the passionate kiss you shared. A small smile and loving gazes were shared between the two of you momentarily as he rested his forehead on yours.
No longer angry at you, but still needing explanation, he whispered to you, "Tell me exactly what happened."
"I had a nightmare."
Legolas flashed his neat eyebrows, surprised. As soon as those words came out of your mouth, then you realized how silly of an excuse it was.
He was right. You were reckless.
That realization prompted another set of tears as shame filled your chest. Legolas patiently waited for your explanation, his fingers lovingly brushed your hair back behind your ear.
"It was a memory of my time during the war- when the orcs had me."
Legolas studied your face with a deep frown on his face. "Tell me of it," he urged gently. "What did you see?"
"I was in the cave," you began, fixing your eyes far away to the ceiling, "It was dark and tight. The air was humid and reeked of... many things. Every day at the exact same time the orcs would come to either force feed me or..."
You trailed. You loved Legolas, and you would tell him everything. But upon having to delve into the memory of your dream, suddenly with every description, they were all coming back to you.
No more secrets, you tell yourself. So you continued on.
It was a blur.
The smell. The trapped feeling. The fear. You felt it on the tips of your feet and your fingers, slithering all the way into your chest like a living being. Gradually, the comforting sensation of Legolas' warmth and weight on top of you became weirdly uncomfortable.
Suffocating.
You trailed again in the midst of your tale, interrupting yourself.
"Isn't it hot here?" you questioned your husband, feeling hot and bothered-quite literally. You sighed in annoyance as you swiped away your unruly hair that stuck to your neck while Legolas watched you. His weight crushing your chest. At first you tried to ignore it, but it was getting harder to breathe normally.
Eventually, you gave up in your effort trying to spare Legolas' feelings.
"Get off me for a while. I can't breathe," you said, annoyed, pushing his shoulders and chest away from you when you started to panic with how much weight your lungs had sustained.
Maybe Legolas had gotten thick during his journey.
As soon as you let go of Legolas, you forgot all about him. All that registered to you was the need to get off of the weight lingering on your chest and find fresh air. After you slipped out of the elf's embrace, completely forgoing any blanket to cover your nakedness, you got up and made your way towards the balcony. The door towards it was closed and locked earlier in an attempt to preserve the heat. Now your fingers fumbled against the metal lock. When you finally managed to unlock it, you inhaled the icy night air into your lungs, shuddered as it gave you that instant relief that you crave.
Your head swam. You got on all fours, crawling towards the railing of the balcony then sat your back against the metal. Feeling the comforting cold, you pulled your knees to your chest. With relieve, you buried your face between your knees and hugged your legs close to your body.
***
Legolas sat up frozen in place by the fire as he watched the scene unfold before him, right after you pushed him off of you. He was baffled to see you started acting weird. He watched you unlocking the door to the balcony.
Had his wife lost her mind? He just told her to be careful with the cold. But there she was, standing naked before the open door.
The gust of biting cold air hit the chamber as you opened the door wide. He saw you curled by the railing, an off, brief relief look was on your face before you buried your head down. Then you sat there, in the cold, not moving anymore.
Tears burst out of the elf-prince's eyes at the similarity of your strange episode with the ones that his friend, Tauriel had.
Tauriel was heartbroken, and it showed. No elf could endure it for long and live, so she faded. But then he realized that you had been enduring it since the war and live with it for almost two decades long.
You had a mind sickness. An elf would surely fade because of it-the whole race wasn't built to weather such pain. But a human, you had a strong heart, but you can't die. So you endured the pain, and he didn't know. He was never there for you. He was even angry with you for getting hypothermia.
He was terrible.
Grabbing the blanket next to him, Legolas got up and made his way towards the balcony in only his dark green breeches. The cold was nothing but an annoyance to an elf. It didn't affect him at all. But he knew the same cold would kill a human so fast, especially one without a proper winter clothes such as you were right then.
He sat next to you, warily placing an arm around your naked back. Like a moth to the flame, you instantly leaned towards his warmth, even through the cold-induced-fog clouding your mind. Legolas took the signal to pull you close to his chest and wrapped your form in the blanket.
The next day, you didn't wake until later at night because of high fever. By the time you woke up, you find yourself dressed with a new sleeping gown, Legolas' arms wrapped protectively around you.
A sweet, sleepy smile from you, and suddenly all his fears melted away.
You were going to be alright. He would make sure of that.
***
[Author's Note: why camt this happen to meh? *saddo doge*]