Celeborn's Nine - Riders of the Night

Gimli entered the main hall and found Haldir drapped across the huge table, but this time he had both legs dangling over the side and wasn't scarring up the wood with his spurs. Even stranger after so many weeks of lucidity was the fact he was letting Tiger Blossom rub her face against his.

"I don't mean to question your pleasures, laddie, but that cat tried to seperate you from your liver last night," Gimli reminded the elf.

Haldir sat up and smiled as the tiger mauled him with all the affection of an oversized housecat. Tiger Blossom was making no attempt to hurt him and even acted like she was sorry for what she had done.

"She's a good girl as long as you don't feed her any meat," Haldir replied and shoved the cat away.

"Have you thought you might be the meat she wants?" Gimli asked, not at all certain he could be as forgiving of Tiger Blossom as Haldir. But then Haldir didn't remember the attack according to Longma. He only remembered the tiger as a seductive, beautiful woman. Pity he hadn't seen what they had seen, the snarling tiger lapping his blood while the dragon charged her. Fairly made the dwarf nervous just thinking about it.

Tiger Blossom wrapped her paws around Haldir and gently held him. He stroked one bronze colored paw and then removed it. "No," he said gently. The tiger jumped off the table and stretched out on the floor at his feet, her throat quivering as she started to purr.

"Well I'll be," Gimli commented. "Now if you could be as forgiving of the people who care for you."

Haldir gazed at the dwarf and then looked away. He knew he was talking about Aragorn. Standing up, he said, "When you see the King of Gondor, tell him to meet me by the dragon pond." He started for the outer arch with Tiger Blossom rising to her feet and following.
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Aragorn wandered down the path until he came to the clearing. Celestial was sitting in the water, a magnificent beast enjoying the late morning sun. Haldir had told Gimli that he would be here, but Aragorn didn't see him. A sudden thought that maybe Tiger Blossom had completed her attack flitted across his mind, but the dragon didn't seem to be agitated and no one was running around in a panic.

"Haldir?" he called out curiously and looked around. His eyes landed on the elf sitting under a pine tree watching him with the tiger beside him.

Haldir stood up and approached. He was wearing a scarlet tunic and leggings embroidered with gold and jade dragons given to him by Longma that only made his fair skin seem fairer and his white gold hair even paler. He was ungodly beautiful and knew it. Aragorn didn't know what he was up to, but he had to take whatever chance there was if there was to be peace between them.

"Gimli said you wanted to see me," Aragorn said and tried to hide his sudden discomfort.

Haldir's brow went up in amusement. Aragorn was afraid of him. "Why are you afraid of me?" he asked softly. "You have seen me at my worst. Doesn't that make men equal?"

"But you are no man," Aragorn replied.

"True," Haldir agreed. "I am going to live forever with my memories."

"And for that I am sorry," Aragorn replied honestly. "I did not wish any of this on you."

Haldir looked back at the dragon and said, "I have been eat up with guilt, wondering why I lived when so many of men didn't. And then that week I lay filth and blood and pain....and I could do nothing to alleviate it. I thought that was my punishment for betraying my men."

"I did not know you were still alive," Aragorn apologized for the hundreth time. "I would not have left if I had."

Haldir hesitated a moment and then asked, "Aragorn, can you heal my mind? CAn you make sure I do not slip into the darkness again?"

"I don't know," the King of Gondor answered. "But I can look and see if there is something."

"I would appreciate that," haldir said and turned back. "Let there be peace between us. I am tired if anger."

Aragorn smiled. "As am I."
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Haldir returned to his room with Tiger Blossom following. Once away from prying eyes, she closed the door. "Make love to me," she whispered against his lips, her hands running down his body to cup him.

"No," he answered with a cold gleam in his eyes. "The last time we made love, you tried to eat me. I don't trust you that much."

"But you said you forgave me," she moaned and rubbed her naked breasts against him.

"And I do forgive you, but I do not know if I want to make love to you again."

"I could use magic," she purred seductively against his mouth.

"Then you would lose me," he assured the beautiful jinn woman, who bit at his chest through the silken tunic. "It was your sorrow that you drank my blood, not mine," he reminded her.

"I am sorry," she moaned and knelt before him. She caressed him, but he removed her hand.

"I need to think on this," he said and sat in the great leather chair before the cold hearth. "Does anyone else know you can now assume a woman's shape?"

"Maybe Longma, but that is all," she said and crawled to him. Licking the boot that dangled over one knee, she continued up his leg and Shamelessly spread his thighs apart and caressed the swollen front of his leggings. "You want me," she said passionately. "I can see it."

"That doesn't mean I am going to make love to you," he said. "Wanting and having are two different things."

"Want me, have me," she pleaded. Her hunger for sex was enormous as it was with most cats.

"I can not satisfy you," he stated dispassionately, although he was certain he could. He forgave the tiger who had acted as a tiger, but he was not certain he forgave the woman who betrayed him. "besides, you do not know how to make love, and I get tired of ...... just fucking," he explained indifferently.

She crawled up into his lap and kissed his mouth, although he did not return her kiss. "TEach me, then," she pleaded. "Teach me to love you."

And Haldir smiled.