Summary: Mylla, daughter of Hereward, niece of King Théoden, encounters the four strangers that saved her uncle and came to warn the King of Rohan of the rising threat from the east. One stranger in particular captures her attention as she starts to realize that the world as she knows it, is coming to an end. Mankind must fight for it's existence and in order to defeat themselves, the people of Rohan flee to Helms Deep. But she doesn't only fight for her life but as well to be with the man she has come to love. Also taking care of orphaned baby boy Connyn she becomes the biggest reason for Legolas to fight and shield and it gives him the power to go beyond all he had ever thought himself capable of.
This story follows the movies from the 'exorcism' of King Théoden all the way to the last fight for freedom, the return of the King and beyond.
It's strictly canon with the pairing Legolas/Mylla and mention of Aragorn/Arwen/Éowyn.
Disclaimer: I do not own Lord Of The Rings and my knowledge of the matter is solely based on the movies and google research, so mind that I will probably mess a bit with the original facts of the trilogy..but bare with me here, okay? ;)
I am also just finding my way around with the more elaborate language and it could happen that bits sound weird, please do not hesitate to point out, if that happens.
Poster: i141. / albums / r 6 7 / seeedylittlelady / seposter .jpg
Mylla: i141. / albums / r 6 7 / seeedylittlelady / mylla2 .jpg (remove all spaces)
If the Links don't work, they're also to be found on my profile!
"Starry Eyed" is a song by Ellie Goulding which didn't inspire this story, nor is it a songfic, I just liked it for the title. Do not own that song either.
Note: Edited to coincide with the movie.
Starry Eyed
Chapter One
Strangers
Suddenly he was like before again. I stood behind my cousin, watching my uncle, King Théoden, King of Rohan, my mothers brother, throwing Gríma Wormtongue down the stone stairs to the Golden Hall.
His hair had gotten back to a rich blond again, his eyes were clear blue and they were piercing through the filthy creature, coiling before him, in a defensive posture as if he was begging for mercy, which I personally wouldn't have granted my uncles adviser.
"I've only ever served you, my lord",he tried to win an already lost battle.
"Your witchcraft would have had me crawling on all four like a beast", my uncle retorted and I think I had never seen him as furious.
"Send me not from your side", the pitiful continued, this worm, this snake.
I'd always suspected him – if not solely responsible for my uncles sever change in nature, to at least have deeper – and perhaps dangerous – knowledge of what was causing this change.
My uncle had become old, but not in a natural way, not because he was actually ageing in years and decades time, following the natural order, no, he had aged at impossible and concerning speed to a senile, bitter and ill mantle of a tortured spirit, not much of a man and less of a king.
I could see that he was in pain, that something – or someone – was dulling his senses and filling him with fright and weakness right behind that white foggy mist shadowing his eyes, that I had learned to despise, but neither me nor my cousins Éowyn or Éomer could break through the spell that had seemed to be cast on him.
Not even when his son died, did he show any sort of recognition. Éowyn, who had devoted the time of her days to benefit the Kings betterment, which never occurred, suffered the hardest of us, trying to get through to him but Gríma was never far away and he sickened her with his dark affection, following her around, watching her with the greedy eyes he had usually cast on my uncles thrown.
I despised him, and now, seeing that my uncle had raised his sword to let it crash him, I couldn't get my heart to feel sorry for the broken man. The creature that he was, the snake...he deserved to be smitten to the ground for what he'd done to my uncle and our whole kingdom as I began to realize.
I'd felt all along that Éomer had been right with his accusations towards Wormtongue...but it had gotten him banned from the land of his father, of course by Gríma's orders.
Another thing that nearly broke Éowyn, maybe more than it hurt me, because she was his sister and they had a strong bond of minds and devotion for the king, him having raised them as one of their own. I had only been with them for two years, after my parents had died under mysterious and yet to be known circumstances. Still, I despised it thoroughly to see my cousin hounded from his land even if I hadn't been with them for so long, but that the king, our uncle, would not stop this ridiculous deed crushed us all.
I gasped as the expected hit of blade against skin was hindered by one of the strangers that had come to us, it was the dark-haired one, that always looked so haunted, so sad. He was keeping my uncle from punishing his aggressor and I couldn't understand it for a moment. Especially since them, as Éowyn had told me briefly, standing next to me breathlessly, just minutes before released my uncle from the dark magic that had kept him prisoner of his own mind.
"No my lord, let him go, enough blood has been spilled on his account", the stranger said soothingly and my uncle listened.
"Get out of my way!", Gríma yelled after he'd processed that he was going to live and jumped, pushing people out of his way.
"Hail, Théoden, king!", someone called and the mass of villagers that had come together repeated the cheer.
I tried to get Éowyn's attention but she only had eyes for the stranger, there was no room for relief inside her at this moment, I could tell, it was filled with infatuation for the imposing figure that my uncle had called Aragorn.
The stranger that had just made King Théoden have mercy on this pitiless figure.
The other strangers also didn't seem to be opposing this act of mercy, the white wizard who I concluded to have ultimately lifted the spell from Théoden, looked content, the blonde elf showed no movement of his even features, though his piercing blue eyes stared past the spectators at Gríma, as if he was trying to predict his next move. Only the wild looking dwarf seemed to have liked to see a different outcome of the scene.
My uncle now turned around to face us, I found him acknowledging both Éowyn and me in the crowd but soon after the flicker in his eyes gave away that he had noticed what we'd all wanted him to notice just hours before but that I wanted to keep him from realizing in that moment; the absence of his son.
"Where is Théodred, where is my son?", he asked the question that needed no answer.
For a while no one spoke and it was long enough for him to understand and maybe even recall from his ragged memories of his time in the dark. He stormed off, the white wizard following closely behind him, he walked towards the end of the village, towards the hills where the graves of our family were, where my parents lay.
I felt for him and a new wave of sadness filled my chest, Théodred, his son, my cousin, had been a great man with an even greater heart. We all missed him painfully.
Éowyn sighed heavily beside me, she as I, was still grieving and now it was bitter-sweet that what we'd desired the most, for our uncle to wake up, was causing us worries as well. He now shared our grief.
"I wish I could take that burden off his shoulders", Éowyn said quietly looking at his striding silhouette.
"He is a strong man", I said and took her hand into mine, she was older than me, though lately I had found myself often in the position to console her, to support her, rather than the other way around, "not many would have sustained for an infiltration of the mind such as he endured for so long, he will live through this tragedy"
"I fear, Myllawyn, that tragedy is still upon us", she squeezed my hand and her grave expression hit me when I looked up, "If it's true what Gandalf the White tells us and it seems to be, it coincides with what Éomer suspected"
Her voice broke when she said her brother's name but it lasted only so long, her face lit up again, it was not so much of a smile that crossed her features, she just looked...a lit less troubled and then I felt her pull on my hand.
"Come on, cousin, let us hear for ourselves from the strangers", she said as she followed Aragorn inside, whose eyes she'd appeared to have caught before.
The guards fell behind, resuming their posts outside the Golden Hall and left us with the dwarf, the elf and the man who seemed a bit uneasy.
"Thank you", Éowyn said resolutely, once again taking matters into her own hands, I admired her for that, she was strong, everything she did, she did with poise and integrity, she had the air of her mother, that of a queen, "you must be exhausted from your journey, if you two would follow me"
She gestured towards Aragorn and the dwarf, "we would be glad to arrange for means of rest and spruceness"
"Mylla, would you take our guest to Théodred's room, please?", she nodded to me and then to the blond man, the elf who stood across the way from me.
I nodded and smiled politely at him. He was extraordinary handsome but of a kind of fragile beauty that I had never encountered before in human men. I had never seen an elf before in person but it had only taken me a glance to know that this one wasn't like anything I'd known. His skin resembled the fine porcelain of the villages of Gondor, his eyes were of an intense oceanic blue that seemed to take hold of entire rooms, his golden hair framed his face perfectly, falling softly, like a quiet river onto his broad shoulders. He was dressed in green and brown, he would have blended in perfectly into any wood if it wasn't for those unusual blue eyes and pale skin.
I had to swallow hard before I could ask him to follow me, I had really never seen anything so flawless in my twenty years on Middle Earth.
He followed close behind me to Théodred's former chamber, I knew that with three other visitors, we were running out of space. It pained me to enter my cousins room, memories of him burning up my throat and forcing bitter tears into my eyes, I led the stranger inside.
Before I saw him, I wasn't sure any more that he was even there, his feet barely made a sound on the wooden floor, almost like he was soaring above the ground.
"Feel free to use the washing room or rest, if you need to", I said, more to myself than to him, I gazed into the room, seeing my cousin reflected everywhere, "but excuse the personal items, this was my cousins room"
"Of course", his voice was low and smooth like velvet, "I feel for you, my greatest regret for your loss"
I felt his eyes on me and imagined their blue but couldn't which made me face him again, I had to know their colour, as misplaced and strange that urge felt.
It was indescribable, how intensely he looked at me, I felt like he was staring right into my soul, though it wasn't uncomfortable, I only felt strangely exposed to him. It took my breath for a while.
He seemed to sense my tension and briefly looked away, only to turn back to smile at me politely but he wasn't looking at me like before, where he had seemed to peel from the layers of my innermost self before, he seemed to now just look at my exterior, blankly and without further interest, like I was just a figure.
That indistinct notion hurt me more than I was able to justify and to explain to myself. It didn't seem rational.
"How did he do it?", I said out of uneasiness and the wish to escape the uncomfortable silence that had laid down upon us, "How did the wizard heal the King?"
"He coursed the evil spirit that inhibited Théoden out", he answered lightly, "As it was a mighty spirit it took a mighty wizard to chase it away"
"Was it really Saruman?", I had to ask, I had to know if Éomer had been right all along, "Will we have to find him?"
"I don't want to trouble you", and there it was again, his glare but different yet again from the one before, now it spoke of urgency, underlining his words, he didn't want to answer me.
"And I need to know", I insisted and tried to throw his look right back at him, I tried to make my eyes seem like stone, unmovable, undistractable, which was hard in the face of his beauty.
He seemed to be deliberating, arguing with himself. When he caught my eye I tried to look as resolved as possible. He then sighed barely audible.
"Gandalf thinks a battle is inevitable", he finally said and then a jolt of pain slashed through his face and he reached for his arm.
I jumped, startled, it had looked like something had hit him but then I realized that he was holding his arm, like it was in pain.
"You're hurt", I said and then hurried to the bath and brought back water and linen to him, who had sat down on the bed.
"It's nothing", he protested, when he saw me with all the things for aid, but the twitch of his mouth didn't fool me.
"Could you please take of your coat?", I asked him, sitting down, too and ignoring his protest but it took another insistent look of mine to make him obey to me.
He reluctantly took of one side of his jacket, revealing an olive under-shirt, then the other side, before he removed the last layer of fabric from his porcelain skin and the sight of his marvellous body rendered me speechless for a second. I got a hold of my wandering mind quickly though, when I saw the deep, dirty cut on his upper arm.
"Nazgûl-blade", he said explanatory and I nodded.
"Hold still, please", I said with wet linen in hand, "this might burn a bit"
When I started to clean out the wound, he flinched only so slightly and didn't make a sound, I felt almost hesitant to touch his skin, it was so fair and delicate, I almost worried I would hurt him, but as smooth as it was to my touch, it was also firm and strong and it took me a while to remove the soil from the wound, it appeared to have gone without cleaning since it had been inflicted, a clear indicator that they'd had a long, troublesome and restless way to Rohan, troublesome indeed, if they'd encountered a Nazgûl.
"Ah", he whispered and pain pulled at his features, I immediately removed my hand.
"Forgive me", I hurried to utter.
"It's alright", he said and smiled again, "I didn't mean to startle you"
And then he took my hand and brought it back up to the cut.
"I was done with cleaning", I informed him and put my hand back down, my skin itched and sizzled where his had touched it and I was trying to stop it from shaking when I took the linen to cover the wound.
Slowly I swathed his arm and tied the dressing so it stayed in place, he stirred a little but it was done. I regarded my work and was content with it, I didn't think the wound would get infected.
"Thank you", he said and drew my attention back to the fact that I was sitting next to an incredibly handsome almost naked elf and the shiver that rocked my body wasn't sure to have gone undetected.
But if he noticed, he was considerate enough not to show it, because he'd resumed to displaying his usual polite smile.
"Would it be blunt to ask for your name?", I almost hadn't caught what he was asking me, as I'd been drawn to the movement of his lips and how it affected his features, so when I did I stared up at him, wondering if I had heard right.
"Myllawyn, daughter of Hereward", I said, "but I'm mostly called Mylla"
"It's nice to make your acquaintance, Mylla", he said and I felt a strange sensation hearing him say my name, "I am Legolas, son of Thandruil"
"It's nice to make your acquaintance, too, Legolas", I responded, feeling his name cross my lips.
Legolas. The name that would haunt my dreams for evermore.
Note: Updates make come slow on this one, maybe I won't continue at all, if I don't feel like enough people care to read it, as I have two other stories that need updates but...well, I couldn't help but throw this out there...if you guys like it and I get at least five reviews, I'll work to update.
So tell me what you think, do you like Mylla?
Thank you :)