AN: I know, I know, I hate myself too. So it's been a while since I've uploaded, I'm terribly sorry, but life you know XD. In other news, its Canada day, and I live in Ottawa, and I had time to finish up this chapter because of the sheer amount tourists that blocked literally every major road in downtown. Like I know I'm supposed to be all polite as a mystical, magical Canadian, but goddamn some of them can be idiots. I watched a pack literally flock to a random shiny black car thinking it was Justin Trudeau (the most magical Canadian of them all, he's gorgeous don't deny it). Well, rant over. I'm sorry for taking so long, I promise to try and do better, love you all, enjoy the chapter.
Chapter 4:
The fellowship was miserable. The chill of the mountains clung to their bones, weighing down each step they took, wearing down both their bodies and their souls. The wind swirled around their feet, ripping their cloaks this way and that, tangling in their ankles, biting at any exposed skin. Legolas tugged his scarf up higher on his face, covering his mouth and nose against the cold, the flesh around his eyes stung in the cold. The chatter was at a minimum, no one joked or played fighting games, all their energy went to walking through the terrors of the mountain. Gandalf's magic allowed them the luxury of hot meals, but it seemed even that was reaching its end as energy it took maintaining as fire in the howling winds was draining the poor old wizard. Cooking itself was an arduous task, as the poor hobbits fingers froze as they cooked their sausages, despite even the hottest flames that Gandalf could conjure.
Legolas and Ariael were better off that the others, although Legolas was definitely the most fortunate of the pair. As elves, they were inherently lighter than the dwarves, hobbits, men and wizard, and did not sink up to their waists, or chests for the poor little halflings. Aragorn and Boromir tried to trudge a path through the deep snow, clearing it as much as the could for the poor hobbits behind them. The little halflings were truly suffering with the cold piercing their little bodies, and Gandalf's old body was not handling it any better. Gimli was putting on a good show, but it was clear that he was not fairly the best in the deep snow either. It seemed that Ariael was not quite as light as Legolas, for she sank into the snow to the middle of her calves, and she grumbled about snow in her boots just like the rest of the fellowship.
As they traveled, their path had turned more and more treacherous. The road quickly narrowed, twisting higher up into the mountains with every step, the steepness of their climb taking just as much of a toll of the fellowship as the snow. With each gust of howling wind threatening to throw them off the edge, they stuck close to the wall of the mountainside. The fall from their height would mean death, to plummet down far below, so faraway that even his elvish eyes could not see, although that could have been the fault of the thick snow that clouded his vision. The vast whiteness extended as far as Legolas could see.
Ariael swore ahead of him, stopping to reach a hand down into her boot where she most certainly found a wad of snow, yanking it out and throwing it against a wall with such contempt he couldn't help but chuckle. As her home islands were much warmer than even the shire, she was not prepared for such cold weather, and as such she wore a strange, mismatched set of oversized clothing borrowed from the fellowship. She had grumbled at first, loathing to part with her own clothing in exchange for strange foreign clothing. But as the weather turned colder, she had turned from complaining about the thick and itchy materials to being rather grateful for the thicker clothing. She wore one of his thicker green tunics, which hung down to her knees, with an even larger dark brown jerkin from Boromir. Her pants poofed out before meeting her own black leather boots, with a thick brown cloak from Aragorn that dragged in the snow behind her, swirling around her feet in the wind with its deep hood shadowing her face beneath it. Every once in a while, Legolas could swear he could see her twin silver eyes glinting from beneath her hood, lights in the darkness shrouding her appearance.
In short, she looked absolutely ridiculous. As if sensing his thoughts about her attire, she turned to give him what he assumed was a scathing look, although he could not see it under her low hood. He started to laugh, a feeling of cheer that seemed to warm his body, driving the cold from his bones. She seemed to pause for a moment, as if not quite knowing what to do about the laughing elf before her, but then her shoulders began to shake with laughter to match his own. The wind spun around them with a new force, blowing the hood from her head. Her black scarf was tied tight around her mouth and nose, covering her ears leaving only her eyes exposed. Her hair whipped around her face, many braids winding and twisting into a single thick plait that blew behind her with smaller strands looping around the frame of her face. He couldn't see the smile on her face, but the laughter and joy was clear in her eyes, and he was happy to have brought joy to her where there was so little before. But the moment lasted but a second.
The cold thickened suddenly, pushing down upon the fellowship with such an intensity that Legolas could swear he sunk an inch or too deeper into the snow. He bent to his knees, resting his hands on the snow to balance himself under the pressure from above. The fellowship looked up to the sky, fear plain on their faces, as the wind itself seemed to shout at them, cursing them in a strange old tongue that Legolas could not recognize.
"Saruman!" Gandalf shouted over the gale-force winds that spun his beard around his face, "he is trying to bring down the mountain!"
Gandalf swung his arms out, his staff in front of him as he added his own chant to the squalls, his voice howling in competition with that of the white wizard's. The rest of the fellowship huddled close to the mountainside, clinging to the frozen rocks as they tried to avoid being blown off the mountain. Gandalf seemed to be holding the wind back from the fellowship as best he could, it buffeted against an invisible wall, ripping at it, intent on shattering its fragile hold.
What happened next happened so suddenly, that Legolas hardly realized it until it was all over. With a sharp crack the ice above their heads was ripped from the mountainside, falling with an incredible force upon their heads. He saw Ariael throw herself at Gandalf, forcing him towards the mountainside and to safety before dropping to her stomach on the ice, covering her head and the back of her neck with her arms as she braced for the impact. The snow landed on his head with such an intensity that Legolas blacked out for a second, catching a final glimpse of the young elleth curled on the ground before his vision went to black.
Legolas came to but a moment later. He could see only black until his eyes adjusted to the lack of light. It took him a second to realize where he was, stuck below the snow, not really knowing which way was up. He quickly cleared the snow from in front of his face, before spitting into his hand, watching as the saliva tracked itself up his palm and fingers. He sighed, before setting to work turning himself around in the snow, climbing up to where his feet were while trying to prevent the snow from collapsing further on top of him.
He broke the surface to the blinding sun, blinking a few times to see Aragorn and Boromir doing the same, each of the men trying to adjust their vision to the sudden brightness. Beside Aragorn a small hand shot up through the snow, grasping at the empty air desperately. Quickly, the two men and the elf set to finding and digging up the hobbits, while Gimli sprung from the white stuff with a roar, dragging Gandalf to the surface next to him. Soon, all four hobbits were gasping on the surface, frightened stiff from the brush of death that had tried to squeeze the very air from their lungs. Frodo was leaning against Sam, while Pippin and Merry stared off into the distance, the shock clear on their faces as their eyes were glazed over and unfocused.
"Where's Ariael?" Legolas asked, feeling something akin to a fist grip his heart as his eyes flitted across the snow, searching for the young elleth, but she was no one to be found.
"Why, she was standing over there!" Pippin said, his voice shaking as he pointed to where she had stood…which was now simply open air, as the downfall of snow had caused the overhang to collapse. The spot where Ariael had been curled up but a moment earlier was now a sharp edge, a fall leading no where but down into the white nothingness below them.
"No!" Legolas shouted, lurching towards the edge. He couldn't believe Ariael was gone, a simple fall seemed wrong to be the end of the Elleth considering what she had been through. An elleth from a lost race, tortured for days, only to die a lonely death falling off a mountain. Legolas didn't believe it, there was no way it could be true, and yet fear and hopelessness blanketed his heart.
"Over here!" Boromir shouted, standing a few feet to Legolas's left, above a dark brown robe that blew violently in the wind, clinging to the rough rock below his feet. The wind buffeted her violently, and Legolas swore he saw her slender fingers slide farther off the rock, her knuckles white beneath her torn gloves.
Ariael lifted her head, her scarf had ripped clean from her face and was wrapped around her neck. Her olive skin was bright with red as the freezing winds irritated her face, her eyes squinted against their ferocity. For some reason, he noted how pink the tops of her ears were, they were healing nicely, the ragged edges smoothed over and he swore he could see the beginning of the typical elvish tips. She gave the briefest of smiles as she struggled to hold onto the rocks. Legolas's heart soared once more, ripping free from fear and despair, only lasting for a moment when he realized the predicament the poor elleth was in.
"It's been a pleasure, Legolas, prince of the woodland realm, but I fear my time travelling with you is at its end," she said, her voice scarcely over a whisper, barely audible over the howling of the winds.
"No!" Legolas shouted, dropping to his knees in front of her, shoving Boromir out of his way. He reached an arm down in desperation, somehow knowing he was never going to be able to reach her, "We will save you! I promise it on my honour as an Elf of Mirkwood!"
Ariael laughed, her airy voice piercing the winds, despite how calm and quiet she was, "I don't doubt your honour, my prince, but I do doubt the reach of your arm. Besides, this ground is unstable, I do not wish you to fall with me"
She shifted her grip on the rocks, gasping slightly when the rocks beneath her fingers cracked and crumbled, she looked up at him wildly, her hair blowing around her face, her eyes bright with fear. Legolas turned back to the rest of the fellowship in a panic, looking for help on each of their faces, but it seems that each of them had given up hope just like the elleth beneath him.
He opened his mouth to shout at them, to plea for their aid in saving Ariael, but the sound that greeted him was foul and heavy. The voice of Saruman once again howled in the winds, this time a horrible laugh that grated upon his ears and drove him to cover them with his hands, but the voice was in his head as much as it was in his ears. He was just questioning what Saruman hoped to gain from this when Gandalf's panicked voice shouted into the wind.
"Run Legolas! Leave her and save yourself!" The wizard was clear through the snow, terror clear on his old and wizened face.
A sharp snap pierced the air, and he felt the ground beneath his feet quake and tremble, before falling away from the mountain. A rift appeared in the snow as the rock beneath him separated from the rest of the
Time moved in slow motion, he saw Aragorn and Boromir lurch toward him with outstretched arms, knowing they would never make it to him in time. He saw each of the hobbits eyes flare with fear, saw Gimli hoist his axe and yell at the sky, and Gandalf throw his arms to the side in a last attempt to stop the magic of the white wizard.
But Legolas stood calmly, lifting his hand to Aragorn in an Elvish farewell, before turning to face the vast whiteness beneath him that was to be his end. He met the rolling eyes of Ariael as she thrashed in the air, reaching for a hold that was no longer there. With a calmness, he hadn't known he was capable of, bent his legs and pushed off the falling rock beneath him with all the strength he possessed, throwing himself towards her. With a strong sureness, he gripping onto one of her flailing arms, holding her cold hand tight as he met her gaze, his green eyes meeting her silver as the pair of them fell into the air.
Ariael smiled slowly, her movements relaxing as she reached out and held his other hand in hers, pulling him close as the winds screamed into their ears. They danced in the air, a strange and dangerous waltz in the sky as her hair pulling loose from its coils to join his flying around their heads. Their only music was the whistling flutes of the wind and the thundering drums of their robes whipping around them.
Despite the overwhelming loudness of the mountains music, he could hear her clear as day when she pulled him close and whispered into his ear.
"You daft one, my Prince. I fear this be end of us both, and yet somehow, I think I really should fear being annoyed by your idiocy for while longer.
Legolas smiled, clutching the Lafean elleth close to him, drawing comfort from her warmth as they plummeted into the cold white unknown.
AN: Aaaaaaaannnnnnnndddddd, with that I leave you with a cliff hanger, I'd say I'll try and upload quickly, but I might just take another month to upload (whoops, still terribly sorry¯\_(ツ)_/¯ ).