Araréiel remembered back many years, first learning to dance. How she despised Legolas, the arrogant young prince! Oh, he was nice enough to everyone else, and even to her at affairs, but alone he loved to torment her. She couldn't wait to be grown to put him in his place! But the instructor, deciding to attempt to end the rivalry, had made them dance partners! The rotten young Elf had teased her mercilessly that he would dance better than she, yet it was he who couldn't keep up with her. The instructor admonished him for mis-stepping many times and praised her graceful movements. Crimson-faced, Legolas never teased her so ruthelessly again.
She smiled now with satisfaction at the memory at the joy she felt at showing him he wasn't always the best at everything and that no harm would come to him if someone else was better. This is how she justified his shyness at the feast for Eryndil had barely hinted at any reason. He seemed almost anxious to tell her more, and so she was disapponted that he had not. But she would not press for more. Not just yet. If he chose to tell her more soon, that would be his choise. For now, she did not wish to seem so intrigued, and the self-control she exerted in holding her tongue from questioning further pained her.
Looking now at Eryndil, she asked him, "Would you walk with me? I'm getting a bit restless."
He smiled back at her, and followed her out the door.
The stars shone down, gleaming bright in the clear, late evening sky. Araréiel spied a star....
"That star is for you," Legolas had told her, pointing to the middle star in the constellation of Wilwarin.* To this star Araréiel now pointed.
"Do you see that star there?" she asked. Without waiting for a response from her new friend, she continued, "Legolas once told me in passing that that star was for me. Over the years he alluded to me being like a butterfly, free in spirit, refusing to completely reform to the expectations placed on me. The conformity of those of my station were expected to behave as a noble, always be so predictible and follow etiquette to a fault. He never expected it of me as much. He even seemed to goad me on.
"Part of me loved him for it. The other part rebelled, though I now wonder if that was just juvenile immaturity."
Eryndil watched her silently and smiled at her. He noticed her biting her lip, knowing she was debating what to say next.
The blonde Elf kicked at the ground, suddenly seeming angry at something. "In retrospect, I do believe I just wanted to go against my parents, be free, and it is because of that that I fell in love with another-to not marry off of their list. That lost made me feel as if I were a prize. Yet if I had opened my eyes, set aside my stubborn ways, I would have seen that the one I had already loved was right in front of me all the time, and my parents were giving me their blessing...albeit in an indirect manner." Staring up at the star again, she traced the whole constellation, the five stars, with her finger, doubling back, stopping on the center star, holding her finger over it. Softly she said, more to herself, "I often find myself wondering what he's doing, if he even remembers me...." A slight breeze caressed her face as she thought of what she had lost because she had been so hard-headed.
Eryndil took a couple of steps, snapping Araréiel out of her memories. He plucked a small yellow flower from the grass and twisted the stem between his fingers, watching the petals flare out as he spun it, first one direction, then the other, before looking back to her, smiling. He opened his mouth as if to speak, but Araréiel spoke before him, suddenly self-conscious of the bits of twig and leaves in her hair, nearly ashamed that she now was so shabby when once she had been dressed so fine.
If Legolas, or indeed any of her acquantences, or even Caranturion, could see her now....
Picking out of her hair bits of debris, she delicately ventured to ask him. "You told me,
In Fangorn did the young elf lie,
beside his mother who had died.
and
His Father dead, alone and scared
the shepards of the forest cared.
Do you know from where you came before this? I'm sorry if it upsets or offends you, and you do not have to speak of it if you wish to keep it unspoken. I am just curious as to your history."
(*Wilwarin is Butterfly, also known as Cassiopeia. Or so I once read Tolkien named that constellation.)