LOTR || ⤜𝙨𝙝𝙤𝙤𝙩 → [Legolas x OC]

⤜ 16 → loth and the windstorm

"You look like you've seen a ghost, lass."

Rosa stiffened from where she sat across the breakfast table. Her eyes flicked up in time to see the dwarf earning a swift nudge from Aragorn beside him. The impact was enough to knock Gimli's hand and the slice of bread he was buttering. It flew from his grasp, the buttered side now lying flat against the table.

Gimli threw a glare at the ranger, who coughed subduedly, attempting to dampen the dwarf's blatantness. "What Gimli means to ask is if you slept well?"

Rosa had not slept well.

In fact, she had not slept at all. Dark shadows were blossomed under her eyes, and her face had taken on an unusually pale complexion. What the Mirror showed her last night was something she could not shake off no matter how hard she tried.

Despite fleeing back to the Pavilion and diving beneath the covers of her bedroll, no sleep found her that night. The sun outside did little to warm her mood this morning, too. Now, Rosa sat in the company of the man and dwarf, aimlessly picking bits of breakfast from her tray.

"I slept fine," she replied, though her skin still crawled with the feeling of the fiery serpentine eye watching her. She shuddered again.

"You don't look--"

Rosa inhaled noisily.

Gimli shut his mouth, a moment later opening it again to speak but this time he was interrupted by the rustle of fabric to his right. His head turned to see the tent screen draw apart and Legolas walk through the entrance.

The elf stopped short upon feeling three pairs of eyes on him.

"And where have you been all morning?" Gimli asked, reaching across Aragorn to pile more eggs onto his plate. "Talking to the trees, perhaps?"

Paused at the entrance still, Legolas rolled his eyes. "Do not think I haven't heard you mutter in your sleep to your axe before." The dwarf gaped at this - wide enough that Rosa was certain the half-chewed eggs in his mouth were going to tumble back onto his plate. But Legolas continued, not giving Gimli the chance to respond. "I left seeking Haldir but my paths crossed with his brothers' instead. They said Haldir had been called to the borders and would return soon. But that is not what I came here to say." Legolas's eyes fell upon Aragorn who seemed to sit straighter in apprehension of the elf's next words. "Lord Celeborn sent word. We must see him now."

Aragorn stood up, followed by Gimli who hurriedly stuffed the last of the buttered bread into his mouth. There was a beat of silence as their heads turned towards Rosa.

She remained seated at the table, the barest hint of a scowl forming on her face. The last thing she needed was to be reminded of the Mirror again. Rosa was convinced that a single glance at Galadriel would cause all those visions she desperately tried to forget to come flooding back, wave upon wave like a storm.

But if truth be told, she did not want to see the lady because something else had frightened her that night. It was there, in the depths of Galadriel's eyes - a grief so heavy and ancient it was almost impossible to grasp. But she felt it - or rather a fraction of it, when their eyes met. The look in her eyes was one Rosa had seen numerous times before on her father. And it usually meant there was something her father knew that she did not.

So Rosa came to the conclusion that Galadriel was aware of something which she was seemingly oblivious to. The mere concept had planted a seed of worry inside her. And that seed only grew the more she remained unknowing of the problem.

"Rosa," Aragorn's voice broke her trance. He offered her a kind smile. "Will you come with us?"

She did not wish to go, but it was time she found answers to her list of ever-growing questions. And so, with an internal grumble and sigh Rosa stood up to follow the others outside.