AN: This is a single volume sequel to my series The Silvan Elf and focuses on the story of Tauriel's daughter Meleth sixty years after the events of The Silvan Elf and takes place parallel along the events of The Lord of the Rings. I would recommend reading The Silvan Elf first to get full context of what took place before, but it's not completely needed in order to understand what's going on in the story. Hope you guys like it and please leave feedback!
The Wood-Elves ran out into the woods in a line, ready to face whatever was coming. A full moon was out tonight, painting the woods in a milky blue. Winds tossed up leaves and hugged the Elves that stood waiting. Simultaneously, the Elves drew their swords, eyeing the moonlight reflecting off the silver blades.
Coming out to join them, King Thranduil of the Woodland Realm rode behind the Elves on his elk. He was a handsome, soft-faced Elf with magic hiding the terrible scars and open cheek on his face from being burned by dragon fire. He wore a crown of autumn leaves and twigs, which he had decided to wear into battle this time.
Everyone waited, deathly still as they listened for any noises of incoming enemies. They were coming. Thranduil knew they were.
Finally, Thranduil's ear pricked up when the sound of howling could be heard through his enhanced sense of sound. The others began to pick up on it too, and one of them, named Elros, stiffened in response.
"They are coming," he said.
"Do not be so hasty Elros. There are only a few," Thranduil replied, keeping still on his elk.
"Shall we go to engage them first?" Elros asked.
"No. Stay here."
Everyone held their breath, and for a moment, there were no noises. Nothing could be heard.
Then an Orc leaped out from on top of a tree with a black blade.
Elros met the Orc's blade with his own, grabbing the Orc's wrist and slicing his blade across its throat. The Orc fell with black blood spurting from the gaping wound. It howled and squirmed in pain, seeming to refuse to die. Elros stomped on the cut in the Orc's throat hard and the Orc stopped moving.
Several other Orcs had already come out of hiding however, and were advancing on the Elves.
The Elves twirled their blades and engaged, cutting them down. For a minute, the sounds of shrieking and grunting echoed across the woods, with the occasional disgusting sound of Orc blood spilling all over the ground. Finally, one Orc was left, which Elros and his warriors left for Thranduil to deal with.
In a last-ditch effort to kill the king, the Orc flung himself forward to grab onto the elk and take Thranduil off. The elk shook its head back and forth to try and shake the miserable creature off but it was holding on hard with a dagger in its hand. It managed to plunge its dagger into the elk's head and the animal fell, tossing Thranduil onto the ground.
With a gore-spattered grin, the Orc went after Thranduil again, this time with the intent to kill him, but Thranduil pulled out a short dagger and sank it into the Orc's side, not deep enough to make him bleed out though. The Orc screamed in pain and tried to pull away, but Thranduil wasn't letting go.
"Squirm and I will start cutting up your side," the king warned.
The Orc stopped struggling and sighed. A sick twinkle flitted across its eyes and it started to laugh, causing Thranduil's spine to rattle.
"This one goes back with us for questioning," Thranduil said.**
*Before the king's throne back in the Woodland Realm, Thranduil had the Orc on its knees with Elros keeping a dagger close to its throat. The air in the kingdom was quieter than usual. There was no music and no feasting. The Feast of Starlight had been cancelled because of the growing Orc presence in Mirkwood.
"More and more of your kind have found your way into my borders. I would like to know where you come from," Thranduil said.
The Orc spat at Thranduil and started beating his side where he had been stabbed. Black blood started to fountain out, staining the ground.
Elros tightened his grip on the Orc and pressed the dagger closer to its neck. "You're not allowed to die yet."
"You are testing my patience," Thranduil declared. From his robe, he took out an object covered in a dark cloth.
"Inside this cloth is an object of light that can blind you if you do not cooperate. Where are your kind coming from?" Thranduil asked, his voice rising as his patience waned.
The Orc shivered and finally answered.
"We're coming from Dol Guldur, the abandoned fortress."
"That's not possible. Your Master was banished from the fortress by the Lady Galadriel a little over sixty years ago," Thranduil said.
"We still have our numbers, and our orders. The One is covering all of Middle-Earth, one kingdom at a time. Your kingdom is one of the next to fall," the Orc declared with a wild grin.
Having heard enough, Thranduil moved around Elros and the Orc and started his way down the walkway, slipping the object back into his robe. After waving his hand, Elros slit the Orc's throat in a wet cut and sheathed his dagger.
"What are your orders, King Thranduil?" Elros asked.
"Prepare our people for war."**
*Meleth was woken up by the neighing of horses. Her eyes opened up, recognizing the sunlight through the cracks in the walls. The Elf maid sat up on the bale of hay she slept on. She didn't mind it. She liked the idea of sleeping in a barn with the animals. Was it the most ideal resting place for an Elf? No, but it certainly made her unique that way.
She wore a gray female farmer's smock with a belt tied around it and a sheath containing a dagger clipped on. She also used a round of Elvish rope to lead her own horse out that she uses to ride to Linhir, Lebennin's smallest city, for supplies. Her personal horse was Noro, a brown mare with black hair and a busted eye from ramming into the wall of the barn once.
Meleth led Noro out to give him special treatment like she did every morning. After that, it would be time to ride to Linhir, then come back and tend to the other animals. It was the same routine every day, and has been for almost sixty years. The farmer couple that took her in allowed her to live in the barn and take care of the animals, and so far she had been doing a tremendous job of it. The family would give Meleth enough money to go to Linhir or even the larger city Pelargir on rare occasions.
Once Noro was fed, Meleth whispered a song to him that she heard when she was just a child. Her father used to sing the song to her when she was young. She missed him.
I go walking
Beyond the forest
Where the world falls away
And the white light
Of forever fills the air
For a moment, Meleth forgot that she was singing to her horse, and her thoughts drifted off. She remembered the fields that stretched on for miles with no end in sight. She remembered how the Mallos flowers felt against her hands. She hadn't actually revisited those fields in years. She was used to the sight of grain fields now and the constant sight of corn stalks bending under the breeze.
"Don't go anywhere," Meleth said, stroking her hand down the horse's forehead. Noro snorted in reply.
"Good."
On the upper level of the barn, Meleth filled a large round wooden bucket big enough for her to sit in with clean water from the well outside and stepped in naked, intending to clean herself off before leaving for the city. While allowing the water to rinse the dirt, sweat, and marks from horse droppings off, she traced two fingers across a scar in her shoulder from a deep cut she got from several years ago in an accident when a smaller bucket filled with chopped wood fell from the upper level of the barn and landed on Meleth's shoulder, cutting the skin deep.
There was never another time like that one when Meleth yearned to see her father again more.
The family that gave Meleth the barn to work in knew she was an Elf. They were scared of her because of what she might potentially be able to do, but were kind enough to let her stay in the barn and work to help them. The only other Elf she had ever met in her life was her father. He disappeared a long time ago and never explained where he went. To be honest, Meleth wished that she was just a mere mortal. The thought of working on a farm for eternity made her shudder. Could she just live a limited, wholesome life and then one day pass on?
Aside from the scar on her shoulder, her skin was perfect, as was the case for most Elves, but her fingers had grown rough from years of tending to animals and harvesting. Work lasted from sunrise to sundown.
Because of this endless routine with very little interaction with other people, Meleth had grown into the habit of talking to herself.
"You're just getting thinner and thinner every day aren't you my love?" Meleth asked aloud. She scooped up water with her hands to rinse her top half until the water she was sitting in was filled with muck.
After changing into a silky green outfit given to her by her father when she was old enough to fit into it, along with a black hood, she got on Noro and started her way towards Linhir with enough money to buy herself food.
Linhir was never typically a city that was bustling with people, but as the years went by, the streets were becoming filled more and more. Some say it's because of the growing presence of 'the darkness' taking over Middle-Earth. What was Meleth supposed to do about that though? She was simply an Elven farm girl.
"Elven farm girl. Now that is something most people have probably never heard of before," Meleth said to herself as she rode through the city.
Click clack click clack.
Noro's hooves moved across the cobblestone ground as Meleth made her way with him to the market, where the usual marketeer would be waiting for her at the usual time.
"Morning Patsy," Meleth said after dismounting.
"Good morning little Meleth," Patsy replied. He was a kindly old man with a mess of gray hair that had no intention of looking remotely presentable. Despite that Meleth was taller than Patsy, he still called her 'little' Meleth. He said it was because her voice still sounded so young, like his daughter sounded when she was just thirteen years of age. He says that she resides in Minas Tirith now.
"Here for the usual I presume?" He asked.
"You know me well," Meleth replied.
In her sack, she collected six apples, several different kinds of cheeses, and enough bread for toast. Patsy threw Meleth an extra apple for free which she caught perfectly in her hand.
"You better begin leaving now," Patsy said, "I'm afraid that—."
"Mr. Patsy!" A cheerful voice called out. Both Meleth and Patsy cringed at the sound of the young man coming for them. He was tall and thin, about the same height as Meleth. He constantly reached up to adjust his hat and would run his hands down his overalls to smooth them out. Both Patsy and Meleth knew why the boy did all those things.
"It's wonderful to see you today again, Mr. Patsy," the man turned to Meleth, "hello Meleth."
"Hello Zachariah," Meleth replied, trying to keep her eyes away from making contact with him.
"You look—you look beautiful this morning," Zachariah said.
"Thank you Zach. Now I must be continuing my way," Meleth replied.
"But—wait a minute Meleth, I—."
"You heard her Zach, let her go," Patsy cut in, quickly winking at Meleth.
Meleth decided to say something to get Zach off her back. She had been trying to come up with different strategies, none of which were very pleasant, so she had to come up with something else that she felt she would eventually regret.
"Perhaps next time I'm in town, I can stay a little longer and have a cup of tea," she said. Her mind hurt from saying those words.
Zach's face predictably brightened. "Really? I'm mean of course, it wouldn't be too much trouble at all."
"Good. Goodbye, Zach," Meleth said as she mounted Noro. As she continued, she let loose a big sigh and took a large bite into her apple, allowing the juice to drip off her chin, wishing that she could take back every single word. Patsy probably wished that too. Zachariah was not a bad man. In fact, he wouldn't hurt a fly. The problem was that he had no idea what he would be getting himself into by making her his mate. Besides, she's almost forty years older than him. She wondered what his parents would think about that.**
*Meleth came back home to find a letter stamped on the door of the barn. She already knew what it was. The farmers were requesting that she slaughter one of the pigs that she had been keeping alive for so long.
This was the hardest part of her job.
Using a round of her Elven rope, she led the pig along into the slaughterhouse, barring the door behind her.
"I'm so sorry about this," Meleth said as she pushed the pig over to the side and held it there. She removed the dagger from her sheath and waited a few seconds. Sure it wasn't one of the horses, but it still pained her to have to kill any animal.
Raising the dagger in her hand, she curled her fingers around the hilt several times before stabbing the blade into the pig's flesh. The pig screamed but was too weak and hurt to struggle. Meleth twisted the blade around until the pig stopped moving.
It was always when she killed another animal that her whole demeanor would change. It was as if she could hear someone laughing from a great distance. She slumped to the floor in a sitting position, taking her canteen full of water and dumping it down her throat. Once it was empty, she threw it aside.
In the back of her mind, something was tugging at her. Something was calling to her, and it was far away from here.
Whatever it was, its call was growing stronger. When she was younger, at first it was just the faintest of yearning, but now it was like a bug in her throat that wouldn't go away.
What it was though wasn't evil. It had light, but Meleth didn't know why it was pestering her. She knew that she had to find out what it was, but she didn't even know where to get started. Where would she start looking?
She couldn't leave this place. This was the only home she knew, and leaving would mean venturing out into a world that she knew next to nothing about. She had heard stories over the years of course, but not enough to make her feel comfortable about stepping out.
But whether she liked it or not, she was going to have to leave Lebennin, and she was afraid that she will never come back.
She spent half of the following night practicing combat with her dagger. She had an instinct in her to fight, which she assumed she got from her parents. For sixty years she's never had to fight someone before and she didn't like the idea of having to, but she trained herself anyway.
Just in case.
AN: Listen to 'Obstacles' by Syd Matters for this week's chapter. It's somewhat of a glimpse into Meleth's memories of her with her father (which you'll get glimpses of in future chapters) and glimpses her hopes to see her father again and really rounds out this whole story that I hope you guys will really like to the end. Thanks for reading!
