I can feel his proximity. I do not know how this is done, but I suspect it is some kind of Elven magic he has devised to enslave me. To make every fibre of my being, every breath I take, his. To put me at his mercy.

Shame should be eating at me, for even with Gandalf's so recent loss and my grief for the others, who are shattered by it, I can think of nothing but getting to him. He is near, mere hours away. We are almost close enough to see the woods of Lothlorien now.

I lead them like a man possessed. And that is what I am. I know they do not understand, and I am not about to explain. We may die on this quest, all of us. This may be the last time I will see him. The very last time I will touch him, be enveloped in all the glory that he is.

Throughout our journey, I have continued to compare Legolas to him. Legolas who is beautiful, graceful, kind... and a fighter and a friend better than any man could wish for. And he is falling for me. But I cannot even begin to think of Legolas when he is waiting for me.

Is he still waiting? He said he would, although he smirked when he did so as to leave me with a sense of urgency to return and in desperation while we are apart. He tortures me with such things, and I let him, because I enjoy that need, even as it burns me from the inside out and licks white hot scars into my skin.

"Can we not rest, Aragorn? Just for a little while?" Boromir asks, holding Pippin's and Merry's hands as they stumble after him. He is a better, gentler man than I, and he appears to become more so now that we get closer to Lothlorien.

Or perhaps I become worse. He worries for his little ones, and I worry for mine - for Frodo and Sam - but I need to keep going. Not just for our safety, but because I am burning like a tree on fire with a cold stream mere feet away, just out of reach.

"We do not have time, Boromir!" I call back over my shoulder, and I run further ahead, skipping across stones in the stream, increasing the distance between myself and my companions. I know that is not sensible, but if I can only get to the edge of that cliff...

There it is. Lothlorien. The very name holds mystery and beauty. Like a sparkling treasure trove it beckons me... emerald trees with golden leaves, a river of liquid sapphire, its surface reflecting silver when the moon kisses it at night. And I can hear it. Oh, I can hear it!

I can hear him.

'A-ra-gorn.' Bewitching as the ring, but far more precious. Far more desirable. 'I am waiting.'

I feel my face light up, and the breeze is suddenly cooler and fresher, the sun brighter, and sorrow seems meaningless. I smile for the first time since early on in our quest.

'A-ra-gorn...'

I turn to ensure my companions are close behind me. I see questions on their faces. Uncertainty.

"We are almost there," I call to them, and I keep running, and they follow me down one more hill and across a grassy plane, and we are there.

Not even Rivendell can compare to this. I do not know what the West is like, but to me, Lothlorien is Valinor. I touch a hand to one of the first trees as we enter the wood, and I feel its vibration under my skin. It welcomes me back like an old friend. With luck, it will send word of our arrival to him. My companions, too, are enchanted by the beauty of the wood. I am still smiling, for I know what awaits us, even as they do not. Even Legolas has not been here. The Lothlorien elves keep to themselves and do not welcome visitors, not even those of their own kind.

I was very lucky to have found myself here once upon a time, after being wounded by a wild animal. And even luckier to have been found by the guardian of Lothlorien...

As I am about to drift away on sweet rememberances, I hear Gimli hissing words of warning to Frodo and Sam, and I chuckle to myself. Yes, there lives an elf witch here. Yes, she is very powerful. And beautiful. But it is not her spell I am under. I feel that we are surrounded moments before it happens, because I can feel his presence as though he was a divine being. The very air about me changes and is filled with the sweetness of eternity.

And then, he stands before me, his inner light blinding me as it does each time I catch my first glimpse of him. But I do not shield my eyes, for if he is to be the last vision I should ever see, I will gladly relinquish the gift of sight in payment for it.

Slowly, the brightness disperses into a light glow around his entire being, and I can focus on his heavenly features, his sea-dark eyes and soft lips. I gasp as if I had never seen him before, as one does at a miracle. "Haldir of Lorien..." I cannot keep my voice from expressing all my awe and my longing. I plead with him in his own language to offer us protection, and I wish to say more, but not for the other elf guardians to hear. Those words must wait until we are alone.

He watches me with a hidden amusement only I can sense. But I also see the longing in his eyes, for it is like a mirror of my own. I drown in his gaze, willingly. My heart speaks to him through my eyes and his answers in kind. On the surface, and to everyone else's eyes, he listens to my hushed pleas with his usual superiority. And I can barely meet his eyes, for the smoldering fires within them would set me aflame in an instant. He is so bright - a miracle made flesh.

Gimli wants to leave. He grumbles something about the perilousness of the Lorien woods. He has no inkling! All my senses are focused on Haldir. My being shifts into his eyes. I melt into him.

And Haldir, his gaze returning to meet mine repeatedly even as he scans our party, tells us in the common tongue, "You have entered the realm of the Lady of the Wood. You cannot go back. Come. She is waiting."

I notice that he darts a glance at Frodo - he is aware of the great burden the little one carries. I hear Frodo's gasp when the deep blue of Haldir's eyes penetrates his own, and I know that he knows he has just been touched by eternity.

We follow Haldir to Galadriel. I am walking right behind him, and with every step, the silky veil of his golden hair weaves enticingly before me in the breeze. Falling leaves avoid him and drop at a seemly distance so as not to disturb his aura. My own footsteps seem clumsy and weary to me in comparison to his airy stride. Haldir walks in silence; not even the foliage beneath his booted feet dares make a sound.

When I watch him move, I forget the very existence of other beings. All the scenic beauty surrounding me seems to vanish from my field of vision as I track Haldir's graceful steps, the way his long legs move and stretch within their velvet encasing, and the way his slender hips shift beneath the simple blue-grey cloak falling down as low as his thighs.

As we ascend the hundreds of stairs to greet the Lady Galadriel, I can think of nothing but my inner conflict between wanting to worship, silently, at Haldir's feet, and the need to press him into the dewy grass beneath the mallorn trees and bury myself in him with a triumphant cry that he is mine.

Galadriel has awaited us, it seems, and I wonder who the sentinels of our arrival were. Perhaps my own thoughts have reached the guardian of her realm far in advance and Haldir has told her of our impending arrival. I do not know, and I am far too busy shielding the full depths of my innermost thoughts from her knowing gaze. She assesses us all with her unearthly eyes, resting them kindly on some, piercing through others. She can read the sad news of Gandalf in all our faces, and her own gaze falters more than I have ever known to happen. The elves may have immortal hearts, but they are far from unfeeling.

I sense my companions succumb to her bewitching presence as nature dictates. No one is strong enough to resist. I often wonder whether she knows that only on me, another pull is stronger than hers.

Just as the thought floats through my mind, her eyes once more rest on mine, and with the knowing smile upon her sweet lips, I hear her voice in my mind. 'You have longed to return, Estel, and your return has been awaited with equal longing.'

I turn my face away from her. I cannot help myself. And when my eyes come to rest on Haldir's face where he stands, a mere few feet to my right, I see that his eyes have been fixed on me instead of her as well.

'Not much longer now.' She sounds amused within my mind.

I smirk at her cognizance and nod slightly, and then her eyes leave my face to travel once more over those of my companions.

Once our audience with the Lady Galadriel is over, my friends begin the descent to the forest below with dazed trepidation; only my long years spent with the elves have cured me of it when moving up and down their airy constructs. There is little left in the elven realms to daze me now and rob my breath, but what there is appears at my side the instant my companions are out of my sight.

He stands dizzyingly close when he whispers, "Meet me by the Silver Veil, melethron." The warmth of his breath still lingers in my ear when he has already begun his soundless walk down the many steps and is out of sight, leaving me behind with a pounding heart and a longing so strong, my mortal heart can hardly bear it.

The Silver Veil... that is the place he took me to that day our paths first crossed, years ago. That is where he healed my wounds and showed me that even the magic which dwells at Imladris is nothing compared to what he is capable of with a mere touch of his slender hands.

I return to the forest floor below and assure myself that my companions are comfortable - the Elves have provided well for them in a camp set up at the foot of a giant mallorn - and I make my way through the most densely grown part of the forest to the waterfall the Lorien elves call Silver Veil.

My skin is flushed and my heart is pounding more frantically than it does before a battle, and the irony is not lost on me. Each time we meet, I feel as though I must conquer him all over again. But I do not mind, for he is a prize well worth fighting for again and again.

I traverse the mossy clearing beside the river and approach the deep-blue pool at the foot of the low but broad fall. The moon is nearly full, rewarding my patience for this encounter with a dazzling display. The strings of water falling arrow-straight down from broad rocks shimmer like threads of spun silver in the ghostly light from above, their fall hardly audible over the song of nightbirds and cicadas. And there is another voice on the wind as well, travelling towards me from the other side of the river. I stand on the bank and gaze at the half-shadowed, softly singing figure a mere ten feet away, yet separated from me by the deceptively deep, translucently blue stream. So he wishes to make me suffer, to see the longing consume me.

I know the words of his song well, for he sang it to me that first night we spent here. I had asked him then whether it was a lullaby, and he had laughed with his crystalline voice and told me that it was a song of longing and desire. And then he had kissed me and spoiled me for any other living creature on this Earth.

The song ends, and he falls silent. He stands very still, his hand playing with the leaves of a low-hanging branch at his side.

"Will you keep me at a distance after all this time?" I call across the river, and my voice trembles with longing.

Stepping from the darkness which has shaded half his beautiful face, he smiles and counters, "Will you not travel a little further to be with me, melethron?"

I sigh. "If I had your elven grace and agility, I would. Alas, if you should make me come to you, I shall be a wet and shivering bundle before I reach you."

He laughs softly, sending pleasant shivers down my spine, and then stretches out his hands towards me and tilts his head.

Divining his meaning, I reach out my own arms towards him, and with a single, graceful leap, he flies across the water and into my arms, only to wind himself out of them before I can truly register his presence. Yet even that brief contact leaves me dizzy.

He skips a few steps away and motions for me to follow him, and of course I do, even as I curse his teasing ways. I would follow him to the ends of the Earth. Into the West even, if only he was to ask it of me.

When he turns, my knees buckle under the weight of his gaze. His deep sapphire eyes have always had the power to drug me like a magic potion, but trained on me like this, glinting in the moonlight, I feel they might kill me with their intensity. "You have missed me," he says with fake nonchalance, his lips pursing sensually.

My heart has endured too much longing to bear such light-hearted teasing, and I fall before him, my knees sinking soundlessly into the softness of the mossy ground as I kneel before him in worship. "Would the stars miss the moon at night, if it did not show itself?" I ask huskily, unable and unwilling to disguise the need in my voice.

He steps closer, reaching out one hand to me, and I grasp it eagerly. I clutch it like a treasure and press the palm to my lips with my eyes closed reverently.

He gazes down upon me with an expression that can only be called tenderness, though he himself would call it indulgence, and I do not miss the catch in his breath when I press the tip of my tongue to the hollow of his hand and lick a trail towards his slender wrist.

How the taste of his skin can undo me. Not even the fact that he is an elf can explain this, or, for that matter, the magnitude of my desire for him. There is something inevitable about this longing, perhaps akin to how his kind wait for the call of the Sea, or how the One Ring beckons those who desire power above all. Perhaps it is even more than that, for it seems to affect the very beat of my heart, and I feel it attune to his pulse beneath my tongue and the rhythm of his breath.

"I have felt you close," he whispers. "For days now. Almost close enough to touch and yet only close enough to murmur in your mind."

"I have sensed you, Haldir." My eyes look up at him as I move my lips up his arm. I push a velvet sleeve upwards, and my mouth follows the trail of a vein where it pulses beneath the golden skin. I draw him closer with my fingers entwined with his.

He allows my lips on his skin unti I reach the soft, sensitive spot on the inside of his elbow, then he suddenly withdraws his arm and retreats into the shadows of the trees.

I stumble to my feet and follow him, his very scent leading my way in the manner of a blind man being led home by the scent of the roses beside his door. I catch up with him on the outskirts of the woods, close enough to hear the whispering of the soft waterfall but dark enough to barely make out his features. I know them well enough to imagine them in my dreams as one remembers a favourite poem.

He waits for me behind a thick tree trunk, drawing me around it and into his arms as I pass.

I pin him against the night cool wood, and he gasps at the press of my body into his. We are of the same height and, moving against him as I do, I feel the pulsing of his arousal as strongly as he must surely feel mine.

My lips whisper kisses over his long neck and he sighs, "Estel..."

I bite the tender flesh at the juncture of his neck and shoulder, then move upwards once more until I reach his delicate ear. "How I have longed for this. For you."

He shivers against me. "Will you not kiss my lips?" he asks breathily.

I hesitate, remembering only too well how his kisses undo me. I cup his face and gaze into the abyss of his eyes. "You devour me, Haldir."

"Aye. You know you are mine to devour as I please," he teases. And yet he speaks the truth, and we both know it. He raises his chin toward my mouth and parts the most luscious lips I have ever tasted.

I close my mouth over them and we moan in complete unison. I move my fingers into his hair, combing back the bright silver tresses and cupping the back of his head as I kiss him more urgently. I suddenly cannot taste enough of him; it has been far too long. My tongue finds his, and they curl around each other like a pair of serpents inflicting sweet poison upon one another. I lick the roof of his mouth, and the inside of his lips, before biting down on the bottom one in unrestrained hunger.

He cries out in pain, then sighs as I lick away the droplet of blood on his lower lip. "I am sorry," I whisper, leaning my forehead against his.

"Don't be." His hand has somehow escaped my notice and suddenly, I feel it closing over my arousal where it strains against the fabric of my clothing.

I push into the grasp, urging Haldir on, and he kneads me, then rubs me hard, alternating between pain and pleasure and utter frustration when he simply stills his talented hand.

I cover his hand with my own and lead it to the waistband of my trousers, and we both work our way inside.

I hear myself gasp. My knees buckle, and I withdraw so that I may use both of my hands to support myself against the tree trunk on either side of Haldir.

His eyes hold mine prisoner. His gaze is intent as he strokes me. Slowly. Steadily. I want to close my eyes and lose control, but I cannot. I am forced to let him see what he does to me - each flicker of emotion, each jolt of desire. When I nearly forget myself, and my arousal begins to jerk in his hot grasp, my eyes flutter closed involuntarily, and he hisses, "Look at me!"

I do, and the triumph in his eyes make my release all that much sweeter. Crying out, I feel the tension ebb from my body and, clutching Haldir's waist, I sink to my knees once more, leaning against him, breathing his scent through his garments.

He strokes my hair with both hands, tenderly. And I want to feel his hands tighten on my head, as I take him deep into my throat. Frantically, I begin to undo the lacings keeping me from his arousal, but his hands move and he swats mine away with a chuckle.

"So many years spent around elves, and still so impatient, Estel," he teases. "One might think you are running out of time."

I look up at him pleadingly. "I am only mortal, Haldir. And when I am with you, I feel as though I might die at any moment." He attempts to pout, but fails for lack of practice, and I laugh shakily.

"Should I feel offended?" he asks, but a smile is already plucking at his lips.

"No," I assure him in all seriousness. "Complimented."

He takes me by the shoulders and, with the smile now fully upon his lips, moves me away from him until I am resting back on my haunches. Then he begins to undo his lacings very slowly, and I know why he has stopped me before. He wants to see my eyes as he reveals himself to me. He wants to see how the fire consumes me as he offers himself to my undeserving mortal's touch.

And I let him. I follow his every move, taking no pains to disguise my hunger as I watch his slender fingers graze his arousal through his clothing, as he unfastens and slides aside layer after layer, until he stands before me like a work of art, sheathed in rich fabric, with only glimpses of its beauty revealed to the eye. I lick my lips, and I notice him smiling down at me.

"Taste me, Estel. Make certain you have remembered me correctly," he urges me, and from the breathlessless of his voice, I can tell he is not unaffected by my adoring eyes. What small triumphs he gives me!

"I could not forget your taste if a thousand years passed," I assure him, disturbed by the quivering of my own voice, but soothed when I see his gaze mellowing to a point where I almost... almost expect him to tell me that he loves me.

I will hear those words from him one day; it has become my life's goal. A foolish need, for I see his love in his eyes when he looks at me, feel it in my thoughts when he lingers at the edge of my consciousness while we are apart. Yet to hear them spoken in his honey voice...

"Estel," he pleads, and I reach to steady his hips, before I move forwards to kiss, taste and worship him.

He sighs, his lithe Elven body moulding against the tree behind him as though becoming a part of it. I envy him this - his unity with nature and the eternal life she gives him. How I wish I could be part of that. Part of him, forever.

"Oh Estel." He moans, and I caress and fondle him encouragingly while my tongue soothes his burning length and my throat encloses him. He quivers inside me, giving me drop after drop of his sweetness, and finally, his wonderful hands are in my hair again, not petting it as he did before, but twisting in it almost forcefully, allowing me no escape. As though I would wish it!

He groans deeply, and the base sound is beautiful when it emerges from his pale throat, like a lone cello playing on a summer night. And then I feel him trembling, his hands against my scalp losing their grip and growing uncoordinated as he gasps wordlessly and fills my throat with his essence.

The taste of him, the way I can make him surrender in this act, make me weak, and I very nearly lose myself in another release of my own. I fight it, instead drawing him down into my arms and laying him on the cool forest floor, where his silver hair trickles into the earth and his own musky scent mingles with that of wildflowers and damp leaves.

He gazes up at me with unfocused eyes, and I know that when I let him come inside me like that, an important part of him becomes lost within me, and I wonder if he knows this too. As though having read my thoughts - and after all, he very possibly can - he smiles. "A little less Elven, a little more mortal. A little at a time," he says wistfully, and I cannot keep the hope from my eyes as I gaze down at him.

My lips close over his and he responds, our kiss more tender than hungry now. And I am almost ashamed for the joy I feel when I taste his tears.

The End