A/N: Wow. WOW. I mean this is insane, almost 50 reviews? You guys are sure putting pressure on me. Now if this doesn't turn out good I'll definitely look ridiculous.
Nevermind that. THANK YOU! I never thought I'd get so many cool reactions and positive reviews, so this just made my entire winter holiday! I hope you all had a lovely Christmas too!
I have A LOT of anons to thank so here I go: DD - yep, he is a huge ass, even if his motives aren't wrong. Don't expect any huge changes this chapter either, this one's a slow burn ;), OUAT - I'd like to quote Thor saying "he's adopted" but I guess that doesn't cut it. Safe to say, Thranduil's a pretty cold, calculating bastard sometimes, Guest - thanks! glad you like it, Guest - yep, I heard you :), Guest - thanks, I'm glad you think so, Sigrid's new fan - awww, your name is awesome, fyi. And I'm pretty happy you're liking Sigrid so much. Hope you remain just as fond of her this chapter. Same goes for Thranduil, Rin - haha, I know what you mean by "FIREY GUUURL", I've encountered her in many fics too, I'm happy you think Sigrid strays from that stereotype. I hope your opinion doesn't change in the future, I'm trying to make her as genuine as possible, even though she does have a certain, ahem, uniqueness about her. As for your question, it's a Sigrid/Thranduil romance between each other :), Jordan - thanks!, U - thanks a lot!, anon - the wait is over and thanks!, Lola - happy you think so :), Julie - I'm glad it has piqued your interest, Guest - ah yes, that ending was a bit abrupt :) I'm glad you're hooked!, Guest - thank you, I'm glad you're excited :)
Again, I can't believe so many of you are fond of this story and bothered to leave reviews, I'm extremely humbled.
This chapter is a bit um, weird, if that's the word for it. There are some twists and turns that might take some getting used to. Some info is taken from The Silmarillion and the Index from The Return of the King. Some is invented by me and may play with canon in various ways. Here's to me not butchering the original story too much!
I hope you'll enjoy it anyway. Don't forget to share your thoughts!
Dying felt oddly familiar to Sigrid.
Her sister, Tilda, had been only four years old when she had fallen into one of the murky canals of Lake-town. It had been a mundane accident. One spring morning, she and Bain were playing on the banks with other children, throwing small rocks at each other, then passing them back into the water. Sigrid was lucky she had been watching them from the balcony as she was setting the clothes to dry. Tilda had jumped after one of the rocks. Sigrid had caught a glimmer of something from the corner of her eye. It was her sister's golden medallion. The one their mother had given Tilda as a baby. She had seen, in a flash, her lithe body stumble and fall into the green folds.
Sigrid had not shouted after her father, nor had she yelled at Bain. She had been so blinded with panic that she had climbed up the steep rail and had jumped straight into the canal after her.
The fall had nearly broken her bones and pushed all the air out of her lungs, but she had barely felt it at all.
Eleven-year olds usually turned mere minutes into hours, but Sigrid had done the opposite. She had spent hours on the bottom of the lake, searching for her sister in a dreamlike state, swimming through a sea of glittering medallions, but in her mind, the journey had only lasted moments.
When she had been dragged out on the banks once more, it was nearing noon and her father was kneeling beside her. He was shouting and crying fiercely into her face and big, fat tears were falling from his nose onto her eyelashes. She had opened her mouth to speak, but only water had come out. She had meant to ask about her sister.
Tilda was safe. She had been rescued by their father. Sigrid had never found her because she had swum too far from home. Afterwards, it was never made clear how she had lived through it, but no one had called it a miracle, because children who were thought to be dead turned up alive all the time. Younglings had a will to live that the people never questioned.
The accident was soon forgotten, the way strange, miraculous things usually are.
Only now, when she had fallen over the brink of death, did she remember the tightening sensation in her chest. Sigrid remembered dying and realized she had died before.
She opened her eyes and saw a grey light blinking in the distance.
An hour had passed in silence.
The black waters had grown calm and still once more, as if nothing had happened. The surface was as smooth as a mirror. Thranduil did not find his reflection there. Nor did he find hers.
He sighed, throwing back his robes.
Pity. They perish in the blink of an eye. Such a waste.
Mortals were bound to die, sooner or later, but he had hoped this one would prove different.
It seemed Sigrid of Lake-town would be sent to an early grave. Perhaps this was Eru's will. Traitors of any race, after all, were most despicable to Him.
But the King felt uneasy. He had hoped for a powerful weapon and had received a corpse instead. Was Darkness entrapping his own mind, beguiling him with fanciful notions of power? Was the same weakness he saw in others preying upon him too?
Perhaps this was the right path. His children would be spared the knowledge.
At length, he made up his mind to retrieve her body from the pool. The elves would prepare a burial for her passage to Valinor and afterwards, a warning would be issued to Lake-town, so that any other trespassers would be firmly discouraged from crossing him again. If she could have no other use, she would, at least, serve as an example.
She was my rightful prisoner, after all. And she has brought this death upon herself, he thought, motioning for the guards to enter the cellar.
The elves climbed down the slabs of stone, one by one, and sank into the pool. Their armour shone through the darkness and lit them a clear path across the body of water. But wherever they looked, they found nothing, except the walls of earth and stone and the opening through which the river water spilled inside the pool.
The guard known as Feren climbed back up with a dismayed look upon his face.
"Sire. The girl is nowhere to be found."
Thranduil's eyes darkened with astonishment. "She is gone?"
"There is no trace of her. She – she must have escaped us somehow," the elf spoke meekly. Feren knew it was beyond any Man's power to do so, but he saw no other way. He shielded his eyes so that his King may not see the fear within them.
"What is your command, Sire?"
Thranduil felt a quiver in his chest, a secret tugging that he suspected was the beginning of hope. Or the foreshadowing of doom.
"Seal all the gates, shut every entrance. No one enters or leaves these Halls unless I say so."
Sigrid moved her hands and feet through the water, following the blinking grey light in front of her. She realized soon enough she was nearing an opening inside the wall. It was a tunnel that carried with it the river water into the pool. She grasped the edge with her fingers and pushed herself inside.
She was too afraid to wonder whether this was a dream, or whether she was dead. She only knew she had to swim further, just like she had swum after Tilda.
The grey light was growing bigger now. The tunnel too was widening. And the water was receding. After a while, she could stand and walk. The water only reached her waist.
She breathed in the earthly air hungrily and touched her wet cheeks, feeling the skin there as cold as ice. She rubbed her face to warm herself up.
Am I dead or alive?
Suddenly, the grey light disappeared. She was cast into darkness once more.
Sigrid blinked. Where had it gone? She had not looked away from it for a moment, but it had simply vanished.
Wading further inside the tunnel, she realized she could hear other sounds besides the rush of water and her own shaky breath. Strange voices were whispering inside her ear in a tongue she had trouble understanding.
"Is – Is anyone there?" she asked, her own voice coming out hoarse and frightened.
She walked on, without hope of knowing where she was going, but determined not to go back.
Just when she thought she could no longer bear the entrenching darkness around her, the grey light returned. It was once more in front of her, but it was coming from somewhere above.
Sigrid lifted her skirts in her hands and rushed towards it, heart in her throat.
I'll reach it this time!
To her left, the light revealed a crack in the wall and a stone step inside the tunnel. In the space that remained, she saw a winding staircase that led up into the Halls.
Sigrid almost broke into tears of relief. She jumped up the step and started climbing the wooden stairs. The further she went up, the more hopeful she felt about finding an escape.
The stairs ended at a trap door. She pushed it three times with her elbow and it parted easily, making a loud, creaking noise as it hit the ground. She wheezed from the clouds of dust. She was inside a storeroom. She could see shelves of bottles lining the walls and crates filled with straw on the floor.
Sigrid looked around her desperately, trying to find a weapon she could wield, something to protect her against the elves. But she was in their home. These were all elvish belongings. What could she possibly use against them?
She was about to give up and leave, when she saw something lying at her feet. It was a small wooden flute. She picked it up gingerly.
That's strange. Why would the elves leave this lying around?
Sigrid felt a strange pull towards the object. Its weight comforted her on some unknown level. She slipped it inside the pocket of her dress and turned the knob on the door.
Outside, she found herself in one of the Palace's many corridors. She recognized the Wood-elves' design on the tall columns adorned with flowers and leaves. The carvings on the walls reminded her of the beautiful map of Mirkwood she had gazed at in her room.
What was unfamiliar were the glowing figures in front of her.
So this is where the grey light was coming from.
They looked like ghosts, translucent and wispy, but they were too solid to be only spirits. Their features resembled that of elves, but it was only a likeness, nothing more. They seemed to belong to a different world.
Whatever they were, she did not want to linger and find out. Sigrid turned in the opposite direction and ran. She did not look back, for fear they might be following her.
What she wanted to find was a gate or a door that led her back to Mirkwood. The forest did not scare her as much as the prospect of being found again. Anything was better than being returned to the King who had tried to kill her.
When she stopped to catch her breath, she realized the cave walls had disappeared and she was standing in the middle of a stone bridge. The columns had turned into rock towers and the ceiling was made of stalactites. In front of her, she could see where the bridge ended and a winding path ascended towards a large temple, awash in the light of thousands of candles. Sigrid stood there, dumbfounded. She looked back whence she had come, but the corridor was not there anymore. The only things behind her were more rocks and stalactites.
Where am I? What is this place?
Sigrid drew near the bridge's edge. Down below, a silent procession of cloaked figures was making its way towards the temple. They all wore their hoods over their heads and did not look up or take notice of her.
Sigrid felt a surge of panic in her chest. The cloaked figures, the temple, this strange place...
Had she died and gone to Valinor? Was this her Great Passage? Was she supposed to walk with these hooded strangers? What was she supposed to do?
"YOU! YOU DO NOT BELONG HERE!"
The voice boomed with the force of a million thunders and almost knocked her off her feet. She stood back as it hollered again:
"YOU DO NOT BELONG HERE!"
It was coming from the temple. The cloaked figures suddenly halted. They all looked up at her at the same time. Thousands of pairs of beady little eyes stared at her with reproach. They raised their hands and pointed at her, as if she were a criminal, waiting to be tried.
Sigrid started trembling. A cold wind was blowing in her back, setting her teeth on edge. She felt it like a giant hand, pushing her towards the temple, pushing her towards that horrid voice. Then the cloaked figures grabbed her by the arms and before she knew what was happening, she was standing in front of the temple.
She gaped at the gigantic marble statue that guarded its entrance. She recognized that strange, forbidding face, those pale blue robes and the brilliant sapphire sceptre. She had seen its likeness in many tomes in the town library. Who could forget Manwë, King of the Valar, the greatest of the Ainur? The light of so many candles falling on his marble face made him look almost alive. Her knees gave in. This was the Great Passage.
"Mortal girl, the blood of Men runs through your veins, yet you are not dead."
Sigrid jumped. The same dreadful voice was coming from behind the statue. She could not see the face of its speaker. The candles threw his figure in the shadows.
"How is it that you are here? How can you stand amongst your brethren and still breathe the air of the living?"
Sigrid tried to step back, but the cloaked figures pushed her forward again.
"I – I'm sorry, Milord, I don't know where I am," she spoke nervously, her words disappearing without echo in the great silence of the temple. She felt so alone, so frightened and so miserable that she feared she'd soon break into tears.
"Yet you suspect."
Sigrid looked at the cloaked figures and nodded.
"It must be my Passage," she said, choking up.
"Would that it were, Sigrid of Lake-town."
"It's – it's not?"
"Did I not tell you, you are not dead?"
Sigrid's eyes widened with surprise.
"I'm not dead," she whispered to herself, the truth of those words becoming all too obvious. She felt she had known ever since she had followed that grey light out of the pool.
"So I ask again, how is it that you stand before me at the Halls of Mandos when your soul is still attached to your frail body?"
Sigrid reeled back from the shock.
"The Halls of Mandos?"
The name was known to her. Her father had told them stories when they were children about the Doomsman of the Valar, the keeper of souls, to coax them into being good.
"Otherwise, Mandos will come and take you away, to live in his prison until the end of time."
"You seem to understand," he spoke, a tinge of slyness in his voice.
"I do," she said, swallowing back the tight knot in her throat. She hoped it was only a bad dream, a childhood dream about the monster under her bed. She hoped she would wake up in her bed at home and hear Bain's laughter fill up the room again.
"Been dreamin' bout that scary Mandos again, haven't you?"
"I do," she repeated, "but I don't know how I came to be here. I can't be here. I'm not dead. I must return home. Will you please, Milord, have the kindness to send me back home?"
"I don't answer to requests, girl. And even if I did, I could not send you home, for I did not beckon you here. Many Men and Elves have passed through the House of the Dead, but never have Man or Elf come to me alive."
Sigrid suddenly remembered the last words she had heard before she had been swallowed by the black river. Thranduil's cruel voice still rang in her ears.
Now we shall see if you really are neither living nor dead.
"Then – if I am here, I must not be alive, either."
Whatever possessed you to say that? she berated herself.
The voice chuckled darkly. "Neither living, nor dead. What a peculiar thing to be. I am sure I have never heard of Men who can be both."
Sigrid shuddered at the sound of his laughter. She buried her hands in her pockets and felt the cool, reassuring grip of the wooden flute in her hand. She was at the gates of death, but she had at least one reminder of the world she had left behind.
"Ah! You seem to possess the flute of Lúthien, Elf Maiden of Doriath. After all these years, I still remember for I forget nothing, you see."
Sigrid dropped the flute as if she'd been scalded with hot water.
"Well then, have you come to me, like her, to sing and lament for your lover?"
"My – my lover?"
"She sang for the death of a Mortal Man she dearly loved. Her tears moved me. Will your tears move me too? I doubt it. I do not make allowances more than once," he said sternly.
"I do not have a lover –"
"No, yours would not be a Man. It must be the other way around, then. You are the Mortal, and he is the Elf. Have I guessed it?"
Sigrid shook her head. "I only found the flute by mistake."
"You found it by mistake," he repeated with malice. "How quaint. Then you must give it to me."
Sigrid was about to take it out of her pocket, but the voice stopped her.
"No. Keep it. You might need it someday, Sigrid of Lake-town."
In the blink of an eye, all the candles were suddenly extinguished and she was plunged into darkness once more.
Sigrid screamed as the light went out of her eyes. She bumped into the cloaked figures around her, but this time, they did not push back. In fact, they drew away. She could feel their searching eyes on her, could sense their watchful gaze, could hear the rustle of their cloaks and the shrugging of their feet, but they did not touch her. They did not block her path. They were letting her pass. She did not wait to see what they would do next. She broke into a run. She desperately wanted to put as much distance between them and her. She did not want to be one of them.
Just as before, she ran until she lost her breath. She only stopped when darkness gave way to light and she saw the familiar cave walls once more and the ornate columns. The corridors were full of life, light and warmth.
Sigrid never thought she would feel relieved to be back in Thranduil's Palace. She did not even know if she had left it to begin with. She wasn't sure of anything anymore.
Lake-town and her entire life as a girl in her father's home had been turned upside down. It had only been two days, but it had felt like years. Everything she knew had been changed irrevocably. And it had all started with a company of dwarves.
She heard footsteps behind her and loud voices.
"Halt! Halt if you do not wish to incur the wrath of the King!"
She stopped dead in her tracks. She had no will to go on further, anyway. Her clothes were wet, she was shivering from the cold and she was exhausted.
A dozen elves had surrounded her in a tight circle. They had their swords drawn out at her in the same manner the cloaked figures had pointed their fingers at her accusingly.
Sigrid lifted her hands up in surrender, but they did not lower their swords.
"I'm not a threat," she said weakly.
Their actions spoke otherwise. Wherever she turned, a blade was on her back.
She did not feel any fear, for what could they do to her now, after she had been to death's gates and back?
"Why is there need for this? I am not going to fight. I cannot fight you," she said, taking a step forward. The elves took a step back.
Why are they afraid of me? she wondered.
"She is right, of course. Lower your swords. This is no way to treat our guest."
Sigrid's blood went cold.
Thranduil knew there was no way he could keep her a secret now. He might cut off the tongue of every single elf living under his rule, but he could not cut off the fear that coursed through each of his children's veins. He supposed he had been a fool to imagine he could have. There was nothing to be done now, except make sure Sigrid never escaped him again.
The elves lowered their swords reluctantly at his command. They stole behind him, seeking his protection. They were ready to wield their weapons again, should their King wish it.
Thranduil smiled benevolently at them.
"You may leave us now. Return to your posts and wait for me."
They exchanged wary looks, but did as they were told. They were more relieved to be gone from the girl's presence than sorry they could not remain and watch whatever punishment befell her.
Thranduil turned his attention to her as soon as they were gone.
"Lady Sigrid."
The title did not match her appearance. She looked a strange sight with her wet clothes and wild hair falling in damp curls on her back.
The mocking words must have set something off inside her.
He saw a sudden flame spark in her eyes. A flame that had not been there before. She seemed to come to life before him.
"You. You tried to kill me."
Thranduil smirked.
"I did not try. I killed you. But you did not die."
The girl took a step forward. Her eyes were glaring at him now. Her whole body quivered with rage.
"How could you?"
"How could I not? I wanted to know I was right about you and I was," he spoke calmly, merely amused by her apparent anger.
"I knew you would not die," he lied, finding it extremely easy to do so. "I believe I did you a favour."
"A favour?" Sigrid echoed, astonished.
"Yes. Now you know your worth. My children fear you because your worth far exceeds your race. Aren't you pleased that you are not just another pitiful mortal?"
Sigrid clenched her hands into fists.
"I'd rather be a pitiful mortal than a murderer."
Thranduil's smirk vanished.
"Be careful, Sigrid. It is not wise to refuse favours from me. They may never come again." As he spoke, he shrugged off his robes in one elegant motion and placed them around her shoulders, locking the clasp with his fingers and pulling the lapels across her chest.
The girl stared at him in shock.
"I do believe you were cold. And I hate to see my guests suffer."
"Now," he continued, circling her slowly, "you must honour the promise you made. Yourself in exchange for your father and Lake-town. Should you try to escape again, I will not hesitate to exact my revenge upon them."
"But you tried to –"
He was behind her before she had time to register it. A dagger's tip pressed into her nape. With a hand on her shoulder, he whispered into her ear:
"Yes. And if I were to stab you now a thousand times, you would still come back to me. You must still come back. You are mine, Sigrid of Lake-town. And you are not going anywere."
The words cut deeper than a dagger.
"Is that understood?"
He did not wait for her answer. He sheathed his dagger and walked away.
"The guards will show you back to your room. I'm sure you are very tired. You shall rest until our next meeting."
A/N: So yes, Lúthien did not have a flute and I might've pulled off the description of the Halls of Mandos from my behind, but these changes/additions and others were made for the sake of the story. Any other stuff like the story of Lúthien and her mortal lover, Beren, as well as the other Valar that appear (Mandos, Manwë) are all pretty much canon. Hope you enjoyed!