This story came to me one night while I was eating popcorn and watching an extended scene of ROTK. The one where Eowyn is lying in the sick room and Aragorn and Eomer are by her side as she wakes up? Well the song the wasn't on the soundtrack or the theatrical version of the movie, but it really moved me. More so than any of the others I've heard. The song was sung very, very well (what song isn't sung nicely in the LOTR's?) and it had me think, well, since Legolas is my favorite character (has been even before the movie, and it doesn't have to do with Orlando Bloom, even though I can't deny he is a stud) wouldn't it be nice to write a fic where he meets some elven chic who wasn't a mary-sue beyond all reason? What if the elf he met was a musician? A mature, content she-elf who doesn't kill orcs, steal lines from the characters out of the movie (I am loath to say I used to be one of those authors who wrote like that), and doesn't kill Balrogs and solve everyone's problems.
And hence, I give you this fanfiction, so here me be…
Disclaimer: I can never be as great as the man, Mr. Tolkien. He is the true man-man…uh, man.
Prologue
Anemiel awoke from her terrible dream with a start, breathing heavily and troubled. She had seen her husband, Gil-Galad, High King of the Western Elves, killed before her dreaming eyes.
Nay, not merely killed, slaughtered brutally. She knew it in her heart it was not only a dream of the stressful months past. No, it was- in fact- a reality. A harsh, horrible reality.
She knew it. By every fiber of her being she knew that her husband lay dead on a battle field below the cracks of Mount Doom.
Anémiel rose from her bed, ready to grieve her way to death, so she could find her husband on long white shores, and hold him close to her equally passed spirit.
But she knew better. She had a young girl-child to care for, and she could not allow herself to pass and leave her daughter alone in the world.
With a sigh, Anemiel pressed her pale trembling hands to her eyes, and tried to press them hard enough so she would become blinded. Maybe they would burst behind her closed lids? She needed something bad to happen to her, to make her feel more miserable than she was with another cold, cruel reality. She could not a allow the grief to take her, at least not yet.
When she knew her daughter was safe and not alone, then she would pass on to the warm, welcome arms of death.
Suddenly a wave of nausea threw her from her morbid thoughts and she flew to the water basin and emptied her stomach without control. When the nausea passed she looked up from the bowl into the mirror before her.
Her long dark hair was in tangles and it framed her snow white face pitifully. Her ghostly blue eyes peered into the mirror ones, and she cried out in anguish at the obvious, and she began to think.
Her moon cycles were supposed to have come weeks before, and she then she had just brushed off the occurrence with the thought that the stress of the war and the worry she was faced with was delaying her cycle. But she had been a fool…
Her breath hitched in her throat and she was struck with yet another realization: she was pregnant.
"No," she heard herself say, like a soft wind whispering the word into her ear. "I can't be…"
She was struck with another wave of nausea, which had not been brought on by the sickness of being pregnant. She was carrying her dead husband's child in her weak womb. She began to worry with fierce intensity.
She would not survive the birth. She wouldn't be able to raise the baby and her first child because of her now weak womb, which was due to her having much trouble bringing her daughter into the world, and it had scarred her so that she wouldn't be able to survive another birth. She hadn't told her husband, and she told the midwife not to speak of it to him, for then what would she do?
Would she have told him he had to stay his desire for her merely because of a weak womb? She knew he had loved her with all his soul and that he would not put her in jeopardy if he had known about the danger of her becoming pregnant again, but she didn't want him to have to suffer for her.
She suddenly had the foolish thought that it would have healed, and maybe she really would survive the birth? But she could feel how weak she was, and how it would only get worse.
Ané miel began to cry. For her husband, for how angry she was at him for leaving herself and their daughter and their unborn child, for her own stupidity, and most of all for herself.
All the stress and worry she had been holding bottled up inside began to pour out as she heard her chamber door creak open. She turned to see her daughter holding a blanket and rubbing an eye with her fist. "Mamil?" the little girl mumbled, and yawned.
"Ai, Anariel!" her mother sighed. "Tul simen." come here she said. The child obeyed and followed her mother to the large, plush bed. "Why are you awake, my Tindó më ?" She cradled her daughter in her arms and covered them both with a blanket.
"When is Ada coming home?"
Her mother nearly choked, but recovered. "That is not what I asked." she said, with a sad look in her eyes.
"I heard a noise coming from your room. It sounded like when I broke the glass bowl that Elanwë put the peaches in for us to eat. Did you break a bowl too?"
Sure enough Anemiel looked over to the table where she had emptied her stomach in the basin, and saw, below it, a broken bottle that had been filled with liquid incense, broken with the contents spilled out on the cold floor. So that was why her room smelled so like her lovely white roses…
"I was clumsy." she replied, thankful that the incense had covered the smell of her vomit. "Now, I want you to sleep, my Tindomë." she said, and her daughter leaned against her.
"Mamil? Is Ada coming back to us?" Anariel asked. She was having trouble keeping her eyelids from closing, but wasn't succeeding.
Anemiel closed her eyes, blocking tear-fall, and she shook her head. "He is not." And even then her daughter was asleep.
She struggled through the birth, as she knew she would, screaming for help that couldn't come. "Come on, milady!" the midwife encouraged. "Just a bit more, I can see a dear, little head, thick with dark hair like your daughter's and yours. Push, now."
Anemiel shook her head, viciously. "I can't!" she cried, as another contraction hit.
A timid, young handmaiden was holding the laboring she-Elf's hand, or rather her hand was being crushed by the Elf-woman's strong, desperate grip. The girl ignored her aching hand, and dabbed a cold cloth on her mistress's forehead to wipe up the sweat beading there. "Milady, you must."
"Elanwë," Ané miel hissed, "don't not tell me I must try when I am doing my best to deliver a life into this world!"
"Stop that." the midwife snapped, suddenly. "Now, push!" The laboring she-Elf nodded, shaken; even in her time of terrible birthing pains she cowered against the tone in her late nanny's voice. She pushed as hard as she could and was rewarded with immediate relief as the child was free.
"Another beautiful girl, milady." the midwife said, very much pleased with her work. She mopped up the blood from the child and carefully handed the baby to her weak mother. Ané miel looked down at the infant in her arms and sighed in relief.
"…born at the twelfth hour," Elanwë mumbled to herself, as she stepped forward with parchment and a quill. "And what will you name her, milady?" she asked, still as shy and timid as ever, but she held a radiant smile at the good news.
She may have been a very quiet handmaiden, but she was loyal and wise, and she loved her mistress with the intensity of an adoring little sister. She looked up at the lady and her eyes widened at the sudden exhaustion the Elf-woman was showing.
"Milady?" she asked quietly, unsure if she should speak. Her mistress smiled, a secret one that kept those who had seen it to wonder if she were sane or not.
"Anarion."
The silence in the room after that simple word was deafening. Even the midwife had stopped cleaning the mess and looked up. The household had known for months that their mistress's husband had been killed, and to have her speak of the Elf's dearest friend at such a time, was a shock.
"Milady?" Elanwë took a step back, then another forward, unsure of what to do.
"I said her name is Anä rion. And yes, I understand how shocking it is. Naming her after Gil-Galad's dear friend. But now it is my second daughter's name. My husband would be proud." she said, almost dreamily, and she continued. "Her public name is Tindomerel, Elanwë. Remember to use only her public name when not around family or friends. Do you understand?"
The poor handmaiden shook her head, a frightened look marred her innocent eyes. "N-no I do not, lady. For you will raise your daughter."
Anemiel sighed, it being the only action she had the energy for. "Don't be a fool, Elanwë. You know that I am dying. I have accepted this; even embraced it." She looked towards the midwife and said, "Elanwë will write down all I have to say in my will as of this point," the young handmaiden took that as her cue and began writing down her mistress's words with practiced speed, "and you are witness to what I say."
The midwife looked shocked as she watched the scene play by, and her head began to works again. She merely nodded, too stunned for words, and kept a sane mind and ear open.
"Now," Anemiel said, "listen well. Elanwë will care for my daughters for a century. When that time comes, she will them to my dear friend in Rivendell. He will raise them there until they are old enough to take care of themselves. Then they may go where they will."
The dying she-Elf's time was running short, so she began to hurry. "Elanwë, I know you will do well, so fear not." she added, when she saw the look of uncertainty cloud over the young handmaiden's face, "This house shall belong to my daughters when they are old enough, but as soon as all written on this will is in it's place, all the servants and guards of this house are free to go."
"As for my daughters, tell my friend, Elrond of Rivendell, that their second names are Tindomë Anariel, and Tindomerel Anarion. The last will and testament of Anemiel, once High Queen of the…Elves of…" She never finished the sentence, but the two she-Elves knew what she was going to say.
Anemiel took a long, deep breath then, as if realizing a large weight was off her shoulders. Her death was welcomed, as she had finished what she had promised herself months before she would do before she allowed herself to die. Her daughters weren't going to be alone, for they had each other.
And, with that comforting thought, she passed away peacefully.
Well, review and tell me what you think so far. I have never read anything about Gil-Galad having a wife, or any children, so I made them up. He is a character from Tolkien's books that admire, even though there isn't all that much about him in them.
Thanks
