There are advantages to being married to someone who cannot see you.

I do not mean that in a sinister way.

I mean that in the most grateful, thoroughly besotted Hobbit way possible.

She walks ahead of me along the forest path, steady and measured as ever. Her boots make almost no sound. The faint shift of her cloak is more rhythm than movement. Every step is intentional. Controlled.

I slow mine.

Just slightly.

No one notices at first.

The Fellowship moves loosely around us — Gimli grumbling about terrain, Boromir and Merry debating something ridiculous, Sam keeping a careful eye on provisions.

And I drift.

Half a step behind her.

Then a full one.

Perfect alignment.

This — I decide — is the optimal admiration angle.

She cannot see me.

Which means I am entirely unobserved in my appreciation.

It is not improper.

It is not indecent.

It is reverent.

The way her shoulders sit beneath the fall of her cloak. The subtle strength in the line of her back. The way she adjusts her stride when the ground shifts, reading it through vibration alone.

Magnificent.

Legolas clears his throat.

Sharp. Deliberate.

I straighten instantly.

“What?” I ask, attempting innocence.

“She is still my sister,” he says without turning.

“I am aware,” I reply.

“You are staring.”

“I am walking.”

There is a difference.

Gimli lets out a low rumble of laughter behind us. “The poor lad is worse than a young dwarf.”

“I am not!” I protest.

Boromir chuckles. “You are trailing her like a buck in rut.”

“I am absolutely not!”

Merry snickers audibly.

I speed up indignantly to walk beside her — for perhaps three steps — before instinct drags me back half a pace again.

I cannot help it.

She moves like something carved from winter and discipline, and she chose me.

I grin to myself.

“She cannot see you,” Legolas adds dryly.

“That,” I say carefully, “is precisely why I am not bothering her.”

There is silence behind me.

Then Gimli coughs suspiciously.

I pretend not to hear it.

We continue along the path, leaves crunching under heavier boots, air shifting gently between trees.

She adjusts her head slightly as the wind changes direction.

I am completely distracted by the way the light catches in her hair.

This is a gift.

No one else in the history of Middle-earth has had this vantage point.

Optimal.

Perfect.

Uninterrupted.

Until she stops.

She stops so cleanly and without warning that I do not register it in time.

I take one more confident step forward—

—and collide directly into her backside.

Full impact.

There is a very undignified oof from my mouth as I bounce backward.

The entire Fellowship goes silent.

Dead silent.

I stare up.

She has not moved.

Not an inch.

She stands firm as stone.

Slowly — very slowly — her head tilts downward toward the source of the collision.

Toward me.

She does not need sight to know exactly what happened.

Behind us, Merry wheezes.

Gimli bursts into open laughter.

Boromir loses all composure.

Legolas closes his eyes.

Just briefly.

I scramble to regain dignity, brushing imaginary dust from my waistcoat.

“That,” I say firmly, “was tactical proximity.”

No one believes me.

Gimli wipes at his beard. “Aye. Tactical.”

Boromir is still laughing. “Careful, Took. She fights better blind than you walk with sight.”

“I was observing terrain!” I insist.

“From directly behind her?” Merry manages between laughs.

“I was maintaining formation.”

“By running into your wife?”

“It was intentional,” I lie.

She remains silent.

Still.

Head slightly angled in my direction.

The expression on her face is unreadable. There is only one interpretation of that stillness.

Are we truly doing this?

I clear my throat.

“Minor miscalculation.”

Gimli chuckles again. “The lad cannot help himself.”

“I can help myself,” I protest weakly.

Legolas finally opens his eyes and looks at me.

“You cannot.”

I straighten, dignity in tatters. For a moment, I consider walking beside her properly, but then I resume back to my admiring right behind my wife.

"I'm living the Hobbit Dream."