First Fanfic, please be nice. Anyways…um, the setting is three months after Aragorn's coronation, and um well you'll just have to read and find out.
CHAPTER 1
Waves pounding against white sands, the faint sent of salt on the warm breeze, gulls crying their songs of the seas, he often found my thoughts drifting to the sea ever since the end of the war, some days his longing was better than others, today was one of those days,-Legolas. Legolas.
"What was that?"
"I said 'Pardon me for interrupting your daydreaming but I assume that we were assigned to patrol, not for daydreaming of fair maidens, but for on the look out for what remains of Sauron's armies." Legolas sighed.
"You are correct in all your assumptions except one, I was not dreaming of fair maidens, but in fact I was envisioning the ocean, Elladan."
"Dangerous thing to be envisioning my friend. We might wake up one day and find you gone if you continue these thoughts"
"Huh, Perhaps you are right, but I have nothing to keep me here, nothing worth staying for." Legolas said gloomily.
"You got me and my brother to keep you company" Elladan said brightly.
"Hump, just what I need, a pair of jesters" Elladan laughed at his last remark.
The pair rode on in silence with no sound except for the steady beat of hooves and the occasional rustling of leaves.
The two had been assigned to the northern border patrol of Mirkwood, to chase out any of the remaining darkness, it had been three months since Aragorn had been crowned king of Gondor. Gimli had gone to Moria with a troop of dwarves to claim back their halls, the halflings, back to the shire, Aragorn was too busy ruling his country to go on adventures with him and the twins anymore.
With these thoughts in mind Legolas began to feel the call of the sea even more so, life had become dull now that his best friend was no longer there.
There was a sharp squeal in the air and a heavy thump from behind them, both warriors jumped off of their horses, poised for an attack. On the ground there lay the dead body of an orc, with an arrow protruding from its lifeless body.
"So much for the greatest archer of Mirkwood, and a son of Elrond" came a deep, fair voice. From behind the trees, the owner of the voice appeared.
"Lord Glorfindel" bowed the two elves.
"Perhaps I should have assigned Haldir to go with Elladan and Legolas with me. Then at least one of you would have spotted, or heard the orc"
"Very sorry Lord Glorfindel, I was…er distracted, it won't happen again" said Legolas a little shamefully
"Next time, I probably won't be there to keep you from being killed, you need to start looking out for yourself young prince," he said with all seriousness.
"Perhaps we should send them to the darker parts of the forest that way they'll have to be cautious, and bring that cautiousness home with them. " came another voice, from above.
"Haldir the tree hugger" said Elladan jokingly, come out of your tree so you may get your head out of the cloud-er leaves.
"And perhaps we should force them to go to Gondor gatherings so they'll have to use manners, lest risking a war with the mortals." Haldir added as an answer to Elladan's rude jest as he jumped out of the tree.
"Force us to go to a boring, mortal gathering, you couldn't be so cruel" Elladan said mockingly.
"You're absolutely right, we can be crueler, sentence you to three months on the Lothlorien borders, without the comforts of a warm meal, or visits to civilization" threatened Glorfindel.
"After what I've been through, nothing could come even close to how uncomfortable I was just last year, in fact a border patrol is a breeze compared to our quest." said Legoals with a far distant look in his eyes, almost as if he dreaded remembering the journey, the war and the losses. One image in particular, is what haunted him of every night as he slept.
"You'll get over soon enough, war tends to do that to a person" said Glorfindel understandingly. "Now that we're done here, perhaps I should tell you some news we've just received." He pulled a folded piece of paper from a bag at his waist and unfolded it " Northern border patrol," he began, " It seems as though there has been some, magical activity in the deeper parts of the woods, it does not seem sinister, Gandalf tells me, but all the same, I would appreciate if you went and investigated this disturbance for me, and report your findings, and if possible, bring back the one, or ones that caused this outburst of magic,"
"Father wants us to investigate an outburst of magic, did he say what kind of magic?" asked Elladan not quite understanding why this was concerning his father.
Magical outbursts weren't unusual, occasionally someone strange would appear right after a magic outburst, usually there would be another outburst and that person would disappear.
Legolas remembered one of those outbursts, a man named Tolkien had appeared during the finding of the ring, Tolkien had disappeared right after Aragorn's coronation.
"It is probably just another person appearing" suggested Legolas.
"Lord Elrond mentioned that it was alarmingly large and could have been conjured by a dark force, in either incident we still need to investigate" said Haldir
"Off to the scary, dark woods to get eaten by spiders, or perhaps a horrifying Barlow" said Elladan cheerfully.
Glorfindel visibly shivered at Elladan's remark. "Let us hope that it is something more agreeable" said Legolas.
Elladan and Legolas mounted their horses and waited for Glorfindel and Haldir to come back with their horses.
"You think Tolkien's come back?" asked Legolas.
"Nobody's ever come back to Middle Earth after they have left." Elladan replied sadly. "It doesn't work like that, you have to make a choice, to stay here forever or go back to where you've come from, never to return to keep your promise."
"But Tolkien came back though, I recall seeing Bilbo and Tolkien together Bilbo said 't is good to see you again my friend, sixty years is a long time.
"Sixty years" asked Tolkien. "It has only been a year since I last saw you." Legolas informed Elladan.
"Really, I didn't know that, perhaps…" Elladan trailed on, with a far away look in his eyes.
"You two ready?" shouted Glorfindel. Elladan kicked his horse into a gallop and was lost from sight in seconds.
Legolas wondered what had gotten into Elladan. Never before had he seen him that way, emotions mixed as he talked about promises, angry, sad, pained. Almost as if he knew someone who came and went, Legolas decided that he'd talk to him about it later.
"What is the matter with him?" asked Haldir as they cantered after Elladan
"I wish I knew, he was talking about promises and making a choice to stay here forever or go back to where you're from." answered Legolas. "Do you have any idea about what he meant?" Alarm showed on Glorfindel face, but he said nothing.
The trio cantered on until they came upon a clearing where they found Elladan's horse munching on the tall green grasses that grew there.
"Elladan!" called Legolas. Looking around he saw a stone circle with ashes and charred wood, and near a large tree there was two blankets and a small bag. It looked somewhat like a messenger back, except it was blue and white patterned with a buckle on the front, next to it was a pile of books.
"Whoever was here last, obviously was not from here" sighed Haldir. "I suppose they don't know the dangers of this world either. Lets go find them."
"Glorfindel, Haldir, Legolas! There are four total, I only found one though, he was about a head shorter than I, and had the temper of a warg, I never saw his face, but he's dangerous" shouted Elladan. He was a mess, his face was streaked with mud, and his tunic was sliced in several places and he was missing a braid, Legolas assumed that it had been cut off, for Elladan now had bangs.
This amused Legolas, he doubted Elladan noticed at the moment, but when he did, it wouldn't be good.
"There are twelve orc bodies twenty paces away from here, all of them are missing a garment, shoes or weapons. I take it they weren't properly dressed and then ambushed by orcs looking for a meal, or entertainment, and got more than they bargained for." at this he snickered
" I checked that bag and found three tube-like things filled with cotton and a string coming out of one end, most peculiar things, a few copper coins, a piece of paper with strange writing on it, and the three books contain the same strange writing, it looks similar to what the hobbits use, but the words make little sense to me."
"And the person?" inquired Haldir.
"Got away, he was wearing orcish clothing, and they smelled like something that had died."
"Something did" Legolas said gravely.
"And there was also the sent of herbs and honey" he added as an after thought.
"Was he actually a she perhaps?" Haldir teased. At this Elladan paled and stuttered a bit.
"Well, it, it could have been, but, that, would mean she is, as good as Glorfindel, she might even be a match for Haldir." He said slowly. "But she might actually turn out to be a he, no good in making assumptions when we know nothing"
"Sure we do" said Legolas "We know that you've been beaten into the mud" he gestured to Elladan's face " and that the person likes to dress in orcs clothing and smell of honey." teased Legolas.
Elladan made a sour face but said nothing for several moments "You should see what that person did to those orcs, then you would understand why I'm lucky to be alive." He said seriously. It was very rarely that Elladan was serious, when he was the matter was nothing to be joked about.
Elladan turned and walked towards the direction of the dead orcs, or at least that is what they assumed. In ten paces, they smelled dead meat, and in five more they saw the cause of the stench.
There were dead bodies all around, one had lost its head, another had been gutted, a few had slit throats, one had a cracked skull, three had lost a limb, and two had their necks at odd angles. Then there was one pinned against a tree with a sword in its belly. There were several long scratches on its face, missing hands, three knives in its chest and then a slit throat.
Judging by the size of him, he was the leader, but why had the person done all this to him? Was he trying to get information? Or was it cruelty.
Elladan was crouching in the center of it all when he stood up he was holding a long black strand of…braided hair?
"Uh oh" thought Legolas "He found his missing braid"
"I thought he had cut off a braid, but I wasn't sure because he threw mud in my face." He said unhappily.
"This is where you met him?" asked Haldir.
"No this is where we fought, we met by the river and he ran up here and picked a few weapons off the orcs, mainly the good weapons, which was two combat knives, one elvish and the other mortal. He slashed and kicked like an angry animal, he was quick and evasive. I suppose he mainly fought out of fear, for he never aimed for my chest or neck, but merely cut skin deep, and kicked me into things, the last thing he did was cut off my braid before running off. I ran after him, but when you called, he used that distraction and disappeared into the trees."
Something shined into Legolas' eyes as he walked towards the dead leader. It was in an orc's hand. Curious he walked over to examine what caused the shine.
Bending down he picked whatever it was out of its hand and held it towards the sunlight. It was a necklace, a crystal wrapped in braided silver and an emerald embedded into the center.
"What do you have there Legolas?" asked Haldir.
" A necklace, perhaps it was a woman that did this to the orcs" said Glorfindel. "Perhaps that's why she didn't try to kill Elladan, she must have thought him to handsome to kill, ha, for once, your looks saved your life Elladan" he teased.
"Or perhaps she is too afraid to kill." Suggested Legolas. At that all three looked at him. "What?" he asked
"Look at what she did to these orcs, she's not afraid to kill" Haldir said accusingly.
"Maybe the necklace belongs to one of the other three, remember Elladan said that there were four?" Legolas said in defense. "It could have been that one of the others did this and Elladan had happened to run into the one that didn't like to kill?"
"It could be" Glorfindel mused, "but we know nothing until we find one of them and they explain." Glorfindel looked up and sighed. "there is nothing more that we can do today, we need to set up camp before dark, we'll continue the search tomorrow. "
All four were relieved, none of them were too keen about searching in the dark, and all were tiered from the day's activities.
The elves had a quiet meal were the previous camp had been and all picked a tree to lay under until the morning. One by one they fell asleep, except the assigned guard, which happened to be Legolas.
The fire crackled and sent up sparks, flickers of light casting across clearing, creating shapes and shadows, the night air was cool and chilly to Legoals' skin. He pulled the necklace from around his neck and looked at it, in the light of the fire it seemed to be made of ice, but it was warm from being close to his skin.
"Whom do you belong too?" he asked it. "Surely they must be careless to have not gone back to search for you." A thought struck him, perhaps that was why Elladan had met the person by the river, perhaps she had gone back to look for it, that was why she was by herself. Maybe she had placed her belongings at her old camp and gone looking for it, the books did have a strap of leather holding them together. If this was her stuff, then she surely would comeback looking for them.
Legolas came up with a plan and placed the necklace on top of the books and placed the books right next to him. Leaning his back against his chosen tree he closed his eyes and pretended to be asleep, hopefully she wouldn't know that Elves slept with their eyes open.
First chapter done, don't know when the second will be done, please be patient. I'll post as soon as it's done...if I have internet access.
-Silverdragontrainer.