Killing Beauty

Author's goof-up. You are so right, Han did say that. I think he and Haldir have similar personalities. But I must certainly watch for those errors.

Oh, and if you can listen to Enya while you read this, it'll help.
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The world north of Wolf's Lair contained some of the wildest most beautiful lands that Ashva had ever seen. The Grey Mountains touched heaven with snow covered peaks that never melted. Wild things lived here in its shadow; wild things that men in the south had driven out of their lands. Snow wolves, huge and white, cried out to eternity at night, and in the fall the bull elks bugled into the mountain mists, while wild sheep stood watch on the crags. Once she was convinced that she heard a fox barking near a glacier fed stream that was so cold that it ran clear like glass. Just to convince Haldir that it was so, she made him stop and have a taste. He admitted that it was the finest water that he had ever drunk to her delight.

Sometimes he watched her face as she rode easily beside him staring up at a hawk gliding high over head or craning her head around to catch the call of wild cranes. He could see a passion in her eyes that he had not noticed before, a passion that he had not felt in a long time. When the wind ruffled her hair with its cold breath, she lifted her face to it and drank it in like a lover. He had never seen that look in the eyes of an ellyth, a look that spoke of a spirit that he would never really touch. Ashva belonged to wild places where elves did not travel. The problem was she was also in his blood.

Reaching the bottoms of the Kirksten Pass, they made camp in a grove of trees that she called Lindels, they smelled strong and pungent but not unpleasant. And in the dark hours after making love, so slow and sweet that it surprised him, she lay in his arms and pointed out stars in a sky so clear and dark that she said you could see forever. Then while she slept, Haldir listened to the wild wolves sing songs so lonesome that they pricked his heart. He knew he would die if he had to live here. But he had never seen Ashva happier.

Sleep was elusive as he tried to make sense out of what was happening. He knew why he loved his ellyths in Lothlorien, but how did he wind up with a creature so free that he knew he would not be able to keep her? And there was the pain; he had never known anyone he could not keep.

In the morning they saddled up and hit the slopes of Kirksten Pass. Haldir's melancholy fled as Ashva's paradise turned dangerous. Where the footing was bad or the trails narrowed, they dismounted and led the horses. He found it hard to believe that the Os came this way, but Ashva assured him that this was their route. Only the bravest or most foolhardy men ever came this way.

"I guess I'm a brave fool," Haldir opined to his horse as he led it down a dangerous drop off and then up the other side. Ashva had told him that this was the way she had come when she made her escape all those years ago. Suddenly finding herself free after fleeing a fight between them and some very determined rangers, she joined a band of hunters who hadn't minded that she was just a little different from them. It was while horse hunting in the East with her friend from Wolf's Lair that she had captured the young stallion that she eventually named Glider.

"Are we going to run into any old lovers in Lascana?" he asked curiously, thinking it was something he needed to know.

"Perhaps," she answered. "When I lived with Mother, she insisted I make her favorite Salan my lover." Although they were on the side of a mountain, she stopped her horse and stared at his back. "It was not my choice."

"Do you think he is still alive?" Halder asked curiously.

"It is possible. Like all Os he has elfen blood."

Halder stopped his horse and looked back at her. "That puzzles me. If the Os hate us so much, why do they ....mate with us?"

"For the immortality," she answered. "The goddess of the dark sea has told them that one day the light will be gone from this land, that the dark light will rule in its place. If the elves are gone, that time will hasten." Held by his face, unable to take her eyes off him, she said, "My mother is evil. She'd try destroy you just because she hates me."

"I've handled irate females before," he reassured her and turned back around. "Just get us there, and don;t worry about me."

"But I love you," she shouted at his back. He turned and smiled.

"If anything happens. If I am captured, do what you have to to stay free," he told her. "That's the only way we may be able to get out of this."

She frowned and shook her head. "I'll kill her," she vowed. "I ran away the first time. This time I'll kill her."

"Do what you have to do to stay free," he repeated more firmly, "no matter what happens."

Ashva wasn't certain she could obey him, but she kept still to avoid an argument. They still had to get through the mountains.