"Annon en-gwaith nîn, edro ammen!"
At the sound of the words, whispered soft in the gloom, the great arched gates swung silently open. A tall, lithe form, the deep green of his garments making him almost invisible, stepped forward and the doors clanged shut behind him.
Walking swiftly through the passages, lit with glowing torchlight, he came at last to the delicately carved door of his own chamber. It opened at a touch, and he entered, surprised by the lighted lamps in the room.
"Legolas!" He spun around, and found himself looking into the laughing face of Glînwë, who at the sight of Legolas' startled face cried out exultantly, "Ah! I have done it at last! How many years is it, Legolas, that I have attempted to startle you out of your composure?" Smiling a little, Legolas shook his head. "I could not tell you," he replied, unclasping the beryl that fastened his cloak on his shoulder and swinging the worn garment onto a settle.
"But I thought you were desperately wounded," he added teasingly. "Up from your couch so soon?" Glînwë's eyes sparkled with mischief. "Lothiel's craft must be more effective than we knew," he answered.
"Or perhaps the thought of missing the feast spurred you into a miraculous recovery?" Legolas returned, raising one eyebrow.
"Oh, enough of my concerns!" the other exclaimed. "What ails you, that you did not realise I was here? You must have been deeply sunk in thought indeed!"
"Yes," Legolas said, his features resettling into the meditative expression they had been wearing when he entered.
"Annúmír, Thalion and I were in the Forest today...something strange is there, something the birds do not recognise and the trees have forgotten. Where is my father?" Glînwë, whose mirth was not abated by his friend's ominous words, exclaimed, "Why, he is preparing for the feast! Everyone is...and I count it very generous of me to spend so much of my valuable time in searching for you!"
Legolas sighed. "I do not feel like merry-making tonight," he confessed, "but I suppose that I should go."
"Of course you should!" Glînwë looked aghast at the mere thought of Legolas remaining in the palace. "How could we have the Firith feastings without Legolas, prince of Mirkwood?"
"In your case, very well, I should imagine," the older Elf replied dryly.
"But Legolas!" Glînwë protested. "I cannot bear to let you sit here like a sulky Dwarf-you must come!"
"I shall consider it," he answered, but a corner of his mouth quirked upwards, and it was evident that his words were at least in part only in jest.
"Oh, you shall come," Glînwë said airily, having convinced himself of the sheer impossibility of Legolas acting otherwise. "I know that you would not miss seeing the stars of Elbereth for any consideration!"
"And could not I walk beneath the stars elsewhere? They shine out more brightly far from our fires and torches," Legolas teased. "Now be off with you! I must change my clothes if I am to go to the feast." Laughing, Glînwë quitted the room, returning a moment later to inquire if Annúmír was to be found in his chamber.
"Yes, to the best of my knowledge: I stopped to speak with one of the guards so he should have returned before I did."
The younger Elf nodded his thanks and the door slammed to behind him. Left alone, Legolas walked to the chest of silvery wood that stood in the corner of the room and opening it pulled out the first tunic that came to hand, along with a silver belt set with diamonds and emeralds.

Glînwë could make one feel very ancient, he reflected, very ancient and responsible in comparison with his carefree self. Of course, on days when Legolas was less inclined to fill his mind with concerns and duties to be fulfilled, the other Elf's companionship was able to bring back an illusion of youth and the memory of days spent running free under the trees and across the plains: days when there was no Shadow, no threat of imminent war, none of the obligations that belonged to the son of the last Elven-king East of the Sea. One of these responsibilities, as he knew all too well, was to tell his father of any reports he received from the scouts of new dangers in the Forest. Though not openly hostile, Legolas believed that the time had come to refer the matter of the unknown creatures to Thranduil, and to consult with him on what was to be done. If the choice had truly been his, Legolas would have preferred to track them down and follow their progress, but he knew that the king, ever wary, might rather urge an open attack.
Running a hand over his hair, he sighed. Although he was Captain of the Elven soldiers and had the authority to order his men as he liked, Thranduil was very much the King and kept a careful watch over all that his commanders directed.
The discussion would have to wait until after the feast, however...the feast! Casting off his musings with a start, Legolas realised that he would have to make haste if he were not to be late. He poured water from a silver ewer and washed before hurriedly dressing himself in the tunic of mossy green and wrapping his cloak about his shoulders once more.

As he walked swiftly towards the entrance hall, he could hear the sound of many voices lifted up in song-the festivities had already begun. The great gates were being flung open as he arrived and the palace beginning to empty: first the cooks and attendants carrying baskets and platters laden with delicacies, then the rest of the serving folk, the court of the king and finally Thranduil himself, a crown of burnished leaves upon his head and beside him his wife and sons: one of them still slightly tousled. The guards fell into step behind them, and the gates closed with an resonating clash.

The procession wended its way some distance westward into the Forest, taking care not to follow paths that led too close to the haunts of the giant spiders, for their business tonight was enjoyment, not battle. Many of the Elves who lived among the trees round about joined with them, and the sound of their song echoed through the branches.
After a time they came to the glade commonly used for feastings of this kind and for this reason known to the Elves as Dor Mereth, where fires were kindled and torches hung, and Galion the butler began to organise the cooking and serving of the feast. Some pulled forward rings of wood, sawn from fallen logs, while others helped to turn the great spits. Still more Elves were tuning instruments, and almost all were singing.

Glînwë, who had, as Legolas had observed, made an amazing recovery considering the state of health in which he had claimed to be the previous evening, sat on a moss covered tree-trunk, playing upon a silver harp and singing to his own accompaniment. A number of the younger Elves sprang up and began to dance, weaving gracefully in and out, laughing and swaying and tossing their heads. Legolas and Anúmír sat a little way off, watching Glînwë in amusement. Glancing about in search of Thalion, Legolas was surprised to discover his friend standing at the very edge of the circle of fires, his head bent in earnest conversation with another: an Elf-maid by the shadow of her hair and gown. She shifted her position slightly, so that the light of one of the lanterns fell full on her face, illuminating her beautiful features with an ethereal glow.
"Lothiel!" he exclaimed softly. Her smile was lit from within as well as without, and there was no mistaking the expression on her face. Hints, signs, chance phrases and half-caught glances suddenly pieced themselves together into a tapestry that showed the love between these two Elves.
Thalion and Lothiel... It was a situation almost wholly new to Legolas, for although he was fast approaching the age at which his father had wed, the thought of marriage had never seriously occurred to him. Perhaps there was simply no maiden among those of Mirkwood whom he could come to love, but something else had always seemed to prevent him from taking a wife: some sense of foreboding, of a task to be accomplished, something to be done that could not be achieved if he was bound by love and responsibility for a family.
He had somehow assumed, therefore, that his friends felt the same way and as centuries passed with no sign from the others, this supposition had seemed to hold true. Now, however, it seemed that Thalion was to desert their fellowship in favour of a closer bond. Legolas had known both Thalion and Lothiel as infants and it was sometimes difficult for him to remember that they were no longer children, and well past the age at which the Eldar of old had been accustomed to wed.
He wondered suddenly if Glînwë knew of this situation, and what his opinion of it was-he guessed that although his friend would probably bemoan the loss of his sister's undivided love and attention, at least a part of his lamentings would be only in jest and that Glînwë would in fact be pleased by Lothiel's marriage to his friend.

Legolas' reverie was interrupted suddenly by Glînwë himself, who was calling his name in increasingly impatient tones. With an understanding smile Annúmír propelled his foster-brother across the glade, where he discovered that his young friend had a wish to join the dance, but required someone else to take his place with the harp.
"Come!" Glînwë cried, thrusting the instrument into Legolas' reluctant hands. "Let us see if your fingers are as skilled upon the harpstring as they are upon the bowstring!"
Laughing, he stepped among the dancers, leaving Legolas to gaze ruefully at the harp. Awkwardly at first, then with increasing confidence as his old ability returned, he began to pluck at the fine strings, picking out the tune of an ancient song of the Nandor that had been sung beneath these trees ere the fall of Nargothrond or Gondolin or the tumults of the distant Western world.

The music finally came to its end when Legolas' fingers grew weary of the monotonous motion and the dancers fell laughing upon the grass. Someone handed him a cup of wine and another offered a skewer filled with choice meats, delicately roasted and dipped in delicious sauces, upon which he fell to with a hunger born of a long day spent on the move and hours without food. Seating himself by Eluial he was greeted by Erdil, the Elf who had spoken to him of the movement of the spiders.
"Ah, no talk of duty in times of mirth!" Glînwë cried, appearing suddenly behind them.
"Very well, since we are commanded by so important a person it would seem that we must leave our discussion for the present," Legolas remarked to Erdil with a miscievous glint in his eye. The younger Elf was barely listening for he was already casting his glance about, seeking for some new source of amusement.
"Look!" he exclaimed. "We cannot allow Annúmír to eat cakes all alone!" Catching the other two by the sleeve, he half dragged them across the grass to where Annúmír stood, a tray of pastries balancing on his fingertips.
"Carefully!" he cried, as an impetuous movement from Glînwë almost sent it crashing to disaster. Hastily choosing a cake before the other consumed them all, Legolas became suddenly aware of the same feeling that had grasped at his consciousness throguhout the day. He gazed around the glade-musicians, feasters, his father and mother smiling from their woodland thrones-all seemed well, nothing out of the ordinary was visible, but all the same he knew that something was drawing near. Turning swiftly, therefore, he caught Annúmír by the shoulder.

"Nad no ennas!" Legolas whispered, eyes flickering from side to side. His companion looked at him in concern, staring out among the trees in his turn.
"What do you see?" he asked softly.
Small shapes, creeping and stumbling among the trees. Thickset forms moving towards the glade, the noise of their approach almost entirely concealed by the laughter and song of many Elven voices. There was no time to answer Annúmír's question, however, for in that instant many of the patches of deeper shadow reached the edge of the clearing, revealing themselves to be short, bearded folk. Legolas' shout of warning was unnecessary: the lanterns were suddenly extinguished and Annúmír kicked at the fire, sending a shower of sparks into the air. At once the strangers were thrown into confusion, or so it appeared from their calls and curses as they blundered about in what must have seemed to them almost unpenetrable darkness, for clouds had drifted over the stars.
The keener-eyed Elves, on the other hand, could still discern one another in the dimness- uncertainty was visible on many faces and Glînwë was staring around in blank astonishment. In the first moment of the commotion, a few moved as though to catch the intruders, but Thranduil sprang up from his seat with hands upraised.
"Edhil!" he cried. "Na Haudh en Edra!"
Immediately the feast was gathered up and they began to move swiftly through the trees to the place Thranduil had named. Legolas edged his way through the groups of Elves as they approached the hill and eventually he managed to catch sight of his father once more. He reached him within a moment and said hastily, "Father, I must speak with you." The king turned at the urgency in his son's voice and nodded.
"Did you not see them? I know now what they are, for I recognised them from the days when we had dealings in Dale and sometimes would see the Naugrim." He took a breath and finished quietly. "Father, they are Dwarves."