b2mem | B2MEM2012, O65, Smells card - Soap: Clearer than the Water (Reply)

Challenge: O65, Smells card - Soap
Author: Azalais
Title: Clearer than the Water
Characters: Legolas
Rating: G
Warnings: Elven nakedness. (Yes, I realise that may be an inducement rather than a warning...)
Format: Triple-drabble
Summary: Sometimes more than dirt needs washing away.

Clearer than the Water

He slips through the trees in the direction Haldir indicated, knowing when he is drawing close by the burgeoning scent of damp and growing things. He is glad to find the place deserted; he wants no more company than the stars.

Carefully placing the borrowed linens atop his pack, he sits cross-legged, listening to the faint gurgle of the little spring feeding the pool and the whisper of the breeze; asking blessing of the water. For Ulmo knows I am in need of it!

Eventually he stands, pulls off his clothes and sinks, at last, into the pool. Somehow, he had known it would not be cold…

He soaks slowly, gazing up at the starlit sky. Then reaches for the soaproot and wild mint he found along the way, crushes them roughly – relishing the clean, sharp smell that fills his nostrils – and begins to wash.

The sweat of a day’s hard running, bow at the ready, looking ever over his shoulder. Orc-blood, black and sticky, caked where it splashed across his cheek and into his hair; and his own, where he barked his knuckles in the haste to get the Halflings through Moria’s narrow passageways. The dust of that foul dark place, rock and ash and – he shudders – bone, grained into his skin. Sam’s tears … and his. Days and weeks of tensions, flashes of anger, unspoken fears, guilt – and now, grief. He is not sure he will ever be clean again.

Yet the pool works a slow magic; perhaps, here in the Lady’s domain, there is more than the caress of pure water and the refreshing smell of the herbs. Perhaps not. But by the time he has dried off and dressed and rebraided his hair, bowed his head in thanks and turns to go, he feels far better.

~~~