Prescient

Chapter Seventeen: Recovery

Rithrien came to with a groan, hating the way her body decided how it would be a perfect time to remind her of all of misadventures. The ceiling was white above her, the familiar architecture telling her she was safe back inside the valley. Imladris. Home. The two words were synonymous by that point in time, and for that she was glad.

A throat cleared beside her then, and Rithrien turned as best she could, silvery eyebrow arched in question as she stared up at Glorfindel. "Fancy seeing you here?" she offered, blinking as she took in the room which wasn't the Halls of Healing. "Wherever here is..." she mumbled, glancing around at the tapestries.

The celandine motif was rather telling once she thought on it.

"Why is it," Glorfindel said, folding his arms across his chest, "whenever I leave you to your own devices for more than five minutes, you immediately find yourself embroiled in some sort of trouble?" he enquired, voice soft and lilting.

She laughed then, wincing as pain wracked her chest – her healing still in progress. "You would know the answer to that better than me," she said, sighing softly as she turned her gaze back onto the ceiling, desperately trying to think around the fact that she was situated in his quarters. On his bed. Her cheeks reddened at the thought, though she was grateful to have escaped the Halls of Healing. She had visited them far too much.

A sigh rent the air. "Your luck is absurd," he murmured. "Not to mention I heard from Elrohir that someone here decided it would be a good idea to go off by themselves..."

Rithrien winced. She had known it was coming, but still... "Not one of my finest moments, I will admit."

"Do you not understand how terrifying it was to find you in the river, bleeding and barely conscious?" he asked, a frown marring his brow then. "I had only just found you once again..."

She shifted, feeling somewhat guilty. She shouldn't have separated from her group. It was exceedingly obvious in hindsight. No sane elf would have left the safety of numbers behind. Though whenever had she claimed to be perfectly sane? "I will try not to let that happen again."

The mattress shifted then as he sat down beside her. "A thousand years," he intoned softly, and Rithrien frowned.

"What?"

"I will not be letting you out of my sight for the next thousand years if that is what it takes," he said, and Rithrien pushed herself to a seated position, ignoring the twinge in her ribs as she did so.

"Wouldn't that be... a little excessive?" she enquired, ignoring the glint in those grey eyes which told her she would be better off lying down – what with how badly her body was protesting at each motion she made.

"Given your propensity for chaos, I would say it is just right," he remarked, reaching over to brush her hair out of her eyes from where it hung limply.

Rithrien pressed her fingers together. "Does that mean we'll be going out on patrol together then?" she asked, smiling faintly as she remembered older times.

"Not for awhile yet, I would presume," he said, glancing pointedly at her injuries.

Chuckling weakly at the indication, she eyed up his shoulder, silently debating whether it would be too forward of her to lean against him. But she had kissed him before. Shrugging, she slumped against him then, sighing in relief at the slight lessening of pain. "Did it bother you... what I did before...?" she queried, stomach knotting ever so slightly at the thought that it had bothered him.

"I am afraid you will have to specify," Glorfindel spoke, and something in those grey eyes told Rithrien he knew exactly what she was asking about.

She scowled then. "When I kissed you—"

"Before running off to confront certain death," he finished, closing his eyes in what became a rather long blink. "I have to admit it... was an inopportune moment to act on your feelings, but I cannot fault you for that."

"Would you be opposed to it if I acted on my feelings again?" she asked, shifting slightly as she pulled her head away from its perch on his shoulder.

"Is this a roundabout way of you asking to kiss me again?"

Rithrien only smiled impishly.

END

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This needs editing, and it's going on slowly. So very slowly. So this is pending major edits and a reconstruction, because this is just a first draft.