The Beast
Glorfindel, who had just arrived for breakfast, was eating bread with honey for his early morning breakfast with most of Elrond's family. The others were trying not to laugh as the Elladan spread butter on EVERYTHING on Legolas and Estel's plates (even dropping a few slivers into their tea.) The two friends were trying to wake Elrohir who, after a long, side-track riddled journey from Lothlorien, had, and still was, been sleeping in.
Lord Elrond, Elladan, and even Erestor had tried to wake him but they had not been able to. So, about ten minutes ago, not following basic logic and going against every instinct that told him NOT to do it: Elrond sent Legolas and Estel.
They had not returned.
Small chatter was circling the table as the other occupants nibbled the food in wait of the three; when the doors slowly opened and a feather covered Estel entered the room with his hair a complete mess. He sat down, took one look at his plate, glared at his snickering brother, looked at Legolas' plate, and again glared at his snickering brother before he smiled sweetly and picked up a piece of toast smothered in butter. He took a large bite out of it and watched with silent smugness as his brother's laughter stopped to be replaced with looks of horror and disgust.
"Estel, ion nin, please don't finish your brother's latest work…for my sake and for the sake of your health, grab a fresh plate." He knew his youngest probably would've finished the whole plate just to ruin the joke for his older brother but it was best that all the butter was just left on the plate. "Where is Legolas by the way?"
"Who?" Estel looked about the others at the table in confusion, "I don't know anyone by that name." everyone stopped and stared: Glorfindel with his honey-bread halfway to his mouth, Erestor's knife squeaked against the plate, and Elrond and Elladan were on the verge of getting up to check his health. "At least, I don't know anyone by that name anymore." He shuddered with horror and sat down, with fresh food, next to his father.
"What happened to him then?" Erestor bravely questioned slowly before sipping his tea.
"He was taken." The elves glanced at each other,
"By whom?" Elrond asked with an elegant eyebrow raised,
"Not 'whom'. What." Estel emphasized and Glorfindel and Elladan chuckled softly, Estel rose to his feet, taking his tea with him, "I propose a toast to the memory of our dear friend Prince Legolas Greenleaf, who was snatched by the terrifying and unbeatable beast that lives in this house, may he rest in peace." He bowed his head solemnly as if in great grieving before sitting again.
"Tell us!" Elladan scooted closer to the table and leaned in,
"It is not a story to be told those faint of heart…" he looked at the eager faces of Elladan, Glorfindel, Elrond, Valar, even Erestor looked interested, though he tried harder to hide it.
"Very well. I shall horrify you all with the story of the last moments of Legolas Greenleaf:
"It was a bright morning and the trek up the stairs was quiet, when Legolas and I reached the hallway we paused to plan our attack. We had settled on an idea and crept forward, cautious to keep completely silent and always on our guard. We had heard the stories about the monster which stays in the darkest room in the hall: horrifying stories about many innocent beings that had gone in and never returned!" Estel dramatically gestured with his arms and widened his eyes in mock horror; Elladan gasped before chuckling quietly,
"We thought that it would be an easy job to bring the beast out of its lair and attempt to appease to its evil ways…how wrong we were." He shook his dark head "solemnly",
"We neared the door with no problem and Legolas insisted that he stand in front and enter first, so he gripped the handle cautiously and tested to see if it was locked, it was not. He turned to me,
'Here we go mellon nin.' However, before we were able to move, the door flew open and a horrendous shrieking banshee, with eyes aflame and hair aflutter, leapt at me with a most terrifying weapon. It seemed soft, but truly was as hard as a dwarf's axe in the creature's hands. When I tried to take it away from him he used it in a different way; repeatedly attacking my face he was able to create a flurry of feathers to act as a blinding agent before attempting to smother my breathing with it.
I know it was Legolas who pulled the creature off of me, because when I looked up I saw Legolas gripping the outside of the doorframe: trying to keep from being pulled into the beast's domain. We heard the beast screech in its horrific speech about torture and pain to be inflicted upon our beloved prince for trying to waken him.
'Estel! Help me!' he cried, risking pulling one of his hands away from the doorframe to reach for me, the fear evident in his eyes. I gripped his hand in a feeble attempt to save my dear friend from the clutches of the beast, but alas, it was too strong for me. Our grips slipped from each other as did his hold on the doorframe, the last thing keeping him from becoming its newest meal. His hands clawed desperately at the wooden floor, but they gained no purchase and the door slammed shut after he was fully inside."
Xxx
With the story done Estel yet again bowed his head in "sadness",
"May the poor prince's sacrifice be forever remembered."
"SACRIFICE?!" all the heads at the table turned to see a very disgruntled looking Legolas: his always neat hair was now free of all its braids and fell all around him, some if in literal knots as if tied, he was covered in feathers, above all else: the prince was enraged. "HOW DARE YOU CALL WHAT HAPPENED A SACRIFICE HUMAN!" Estel stood and held his hands up,
"W-why Legolas, I d-d-didn't expect you back so soon!" The prince stalked forward with dark promises filling his chilly gaze and with every step he took Estel took a backwards step to keep the table between them. Everyone else looked on silently with amusement,
"O-ho-ho, I'm sure you didn't." his tone was the dark quiet one he normally reserved for orcs and the others at the table now looked back and forth between the two, all of them asking the question with their gaze.
"Why don't you tell them how you flung the door open whilst yelling at your brother to get his lazy orc-face out of bed, took two pillows to the face before shoving me in, and holding the door closed until you were able to find something to keep it closed so you could get away?" Estel had started laughing as soon as the actual story was explained along with Elladan.
"I made you seem much more heroic mellon nin." Estel got out before being taken by laughter again, Legolas lunged forward,
"I'll show you heroic human!" Glorfindel just picked up another piece of bread and spread some honey on it, before sighing: now he had to try to get Elrohir up but from the sound of it it would be better to just let him sleep.
A.U. – reviews are appreciated. X3
