Short but ~powerful~ chapter. Please review haha! I'm so annoying I know, but I have no idea what anyone is thinking of this story or if I should even continue writing. I hope you like all the development you will see in this chapter, it made me sad to write it. As always, thanks for being here and happy reading:)
Adelaide swept from the room once she had made her decision, unable to control her emotions anymore. She felt exhausted, and yet the anger and sadness that tore at her body she knew would prevent her from finding rest. How could they have thought she would endanger the mission? Why did Legolas not tell me he was chosen? Adelaide felt another upwelling of grief and she let out a sob, pressing her hand to her mouth to stifle the sound as she ran down the corridors.
The image of Mairon still flashed before her eyes and she shuddered. The vision had been so lifelike, as real as it had been many ages ago when his ring attempted to rip her about in submission. Will you hinder the mission in order to protect the one who is undeserving of your love she heard Elrond's voice ask again and again in her head. Undeserving of your love. Did she still love Mairon? He is no longer there to love Adelaide thought, taking another corner at breakneck speed and almost losing her footing on the smooth, stone floor.
Without thinking, her feet had been carrying her towards hers and Legolas's bed chambers, but upon realizing where she was going, Adelaide abruptly turned around and sped the other way. She could not go there, not face Legolas yet. He had lied to her, and when he was called, he had not even looked back.
An image flashed before her eyes of Legolas standing before the Black Gates of the Morannan, and Adelaide felt bile surface in her throat. She would have to convince him not to go, she would not allow it. How could Legolas be better suited for this cause over Glorfindel or Elladan or Elrohir? Elrond's decision made no sense.
She would have to calm herself, and meandering into one of the gardens in the center of Imladris, she took a seat on the cold, stone pathway. She opened her ears and listened as the sounds of rustling leaves and distant song played around her. Roses and lilies were in full bloom, and their fragrant scents wafted under her nose, helping to calm her racing heart. Thoughts of Legolas's cold and emaciated body hinted in the darker corner of her brain, but she forced these thoughts away. I will talk with him.
But behind her fears for Legolas, she could feel memories – memories she had long pushed aside, threatening to break forth. Please she heard Mairon's voice plead inside her head. Please… please… PLEASE he screamed at her, and then suddenly Adelaide was screaming herself."
"Please," she wailed, feeling fresh tears spring from her eyes. "Please…"
And then a strong pair of arms was around her and lifted her, pulling her limp body close.
"Please…" Adelaide moaned, recognizing the familiar shape of Legolas under her fingertips.
"Be still, Adelaide, I have you," Legolas whispered, and he placed a hand behind her head, cradling it. Adelaide sighed, wanted nothing more than to melt into his grasp, but she remembered what she must do, and pulled away sharply.
He stood before her, his hands spread wide before him as if in defense, and his face was drawn and cautious. I must look horrible Adelaide realized, and it made her want to laugh.
"You cannot," Adelaide breathed. "You cannot go; it will be the death of you."
"I must, nin mel," he replied. Adelaide shook her head, her curls flailing about her.
"You cannot, must not."
"I have already said I would go, would you have me shame myself? My father? The Woodland Realm?" Legolas asked, stepping closer. "You know that I must continue."
"You bring no shame to your people if you do not go. To be a member of this Fellowship is not why Thranduil sent you to Imladris. You were to gather information and nothing more," Adelaide said, feeling a touch of desperation beginning to color her voice.
"My father would be proud, if he were here. Too long has it been since the Woodland Realm worked hand in hand with the other peoples of Middle Earth," Legolas replied, standing straighter and staring down at Adelaide, pride filling his voice so that it echoed across the gardens.
"Why not let one of the elf lords, Glorfindel or Elladan, take your place? They have lived long lives, each of them." You are still young she wanted to scream. Adelaide felt the urge to rip out her hair; she could not loose him.
"I am not so young as you see me," he replied, and there was a hint at an affronted tone. My dear, Legolas Adelaide thought, her heart shuddering. Your innocence betrays you.
"And it is not I, but you, who should not be going," Legolas said suddenly, turning the tide of the conversation.
"What? Who better to go than myself?" Adelaide hissed, feeling some of the anger she had lost return.
"You have been running from this fate since the day Mairon left you. You knew Bilbo had the Ring, and yet you have done nothing until now to attempt to destroy him," Legolas shouted, his eyes glowing with pity.
"What would have had me do? Take the Ring by force, destroying Bilbo? And then what, march to Mordor alone against all the forces of the black army and cast the Ring into the fire, thus destroying Mairon? It would have been a fool's hope, Legolas!" She shouted in reply, feeling her cheeks burn. "I have not been running! There has never been an opportunity until now."
"You have been running," Legolas retorted. His body was shaking, and he began to pace. "I remember seeing you when you arrived in the Woodland Realm after the Battle of Five Armies. Gaunt, starved, eyes clouded. But you survived, and as life came back to you, I knew that I loved you more than all of the elves in Middle Earth could love the woods or the creatures of this world. I swore to myself your happiness would be my happiness, that I would give you everything, and to that pledge I have held myself." He was crying now, his voice ragged as he moved back and forth. Adelaide felt like her feet had been glued to the ground. Nin mel she wanted to say, and to rush to him, but she did not speak, nor did she move. Legolas seemed to be a dam breaking before her; one wrong move would cause him to crumble under his own weight.
"But I was not enough. I could feel you leave our bed at night to wander the halls. You scanned the skies at night, waiting for something. The songs you sang were dreary marches, and you sparred not for enjoyment, but to release the nervous energies you held within you during the day," he cried, balling his hands into fists. "You did not eat. You did not sleep. At night when I held you, I felt as if I held a ghost. 'Her existence is lonely,' my father warned me, 'and if by chance she chooses to stay somewhere, or with someone, she leaves in eventuality,' he said. But I knew then, even as I know now, that if you left I would be destroyed."
"Legolas," Adelaide whispered, her voice falling flat against his grief. But the princeling did not hear her, and continued to pace.
"And then you received your summons from Elrond, and I thought the time in which you were to abandon me had come, and so I begged my father to let me journey with you. 'Let me say goodbye on my own terms,' I begged him. He agreed reluctantly, and I told you he was sending me to ask wise Master Elrond for information and advice in these trying times. You were already so distant then, looking ahead to some future I could not see, you could never have noticed how distraught I was during our journey." Here Legolas, paused to take several deep, rasping breaths. His blue eyes swam with tears, and his braids had fallen loose.
"When we arrived in Imladris, you seemed more yourself and I thought that perhaps you were returning to me. But then you recounted your tale, and I knew finally what you had been searching for: an end to your guilt, and to escape the love that you could not seem to step away from. You asked me if I was angry? How could I be? I knew now that you could never love me as greatly as you did Mairon, and I felt pity for your own foolish cause, and grief for myself, for who could I ever love after you?"
Adelaide shuddered. She wanted him to stop talking, but his sadness seemed to be uncontrollable. His words sent arrows through her skin, and tears poured from her eyes.
"There was only one recourse then. It would be my last great act, and one morning when you were wandering the valley, I came to Elrond. 'Let me be apart of the Fellowship. Let me destroy Adelaide's greatest misery,' I begged him, because I had pledged myself to your happiness, and whatever sorrow held you down also weighed upon me. I would go, and do what I could to destroy this evil and bring you closing happiness, and then I would pass into the West, for without Mairon's presence on this Middle Earth, you will return to your home world."
Here he finally stopped, and Adelaide watched as his chest rose and fell rapidly with the conclusion of his confession. In all her years of knowing him, she had never seen him so unkempt, so sorrowful.
"You must not bear my burdens as if they were your own," Adelaide whispered, reaching her arm out as if to touch his cheek, but Legolas pulled away quickly.
"And what else can I do? For it is clear to me that you do not love me. Your heart has only ever had room for Sauron, and I have been a passing pleasure perhaps." He could not keep the stinging jealously out of his voice.
"Mairon and I –" she began, but Legolas cut her off.
"See? You still call him Mairon! That being is long dead, only Sauron remains. Yet against all hope, you must believe that the creature you knew is still in there?" Legolas said, his voice filling with cruel laughter. Adelaide felt her anger begin to bubble over.
"You speak of things you do not comprehend, Legolas," Adelaide warned, feeling the movement return to her legs and heat to her limbs.
"I understand only that I have been a poor substitute for your first love, but he is dead, Adelaide, and you must see that," Legolas pleaded with her.
"Mairon cannot be completely gone, for otherwise he would have struck me down at the Battle of the Last Alliance. But he did not, which gives me hope to think that the being I loved is still trapped somewhere within, much as Smeagol is trapped in the confines of the creature Gollum," Adelaide shouted. He knows nothing of what I have suffered, what I have lost. "And even if he is gone, can you imagine the agony of what I have suffered? To watch the person you love waste away into darkness? Loosing the thing you held dearest to madness? It is a cruel fate, and one that has dogged my footsteps for over three ages, and one you cannot begin to comprehend."
"I do comprehend," Legolas said stiffly. "I am watching it happen right now, before my eyes… to you."
Adelaide stumbled back, feeling a fury she had not felt for many centuries build within her. Around them, the wind began to hum and leaves and petals were torn from branches. The air warmed as above them thunder crackled. Voices could be heard shouting in dismay, and elves gathered around the garden, staring down upon the pair in fear as Adelaide felt a raw surge of power soar through her. Before her, Legolas stepped back, his face filling with fear.
"How dare you," she hissed. She was going on a journey to destroy darkness, not join it. Legolas was knocked to the ground as the wind around them grew in strength, sending him skittering back away from where Adelaide stood. Slowly, she took measured steps towards him, feeling the tension in her shoulders and her vision blurring red with anger. When at last she stood above Legolas, she noticed a trickle of blood running from his temple where his head had hit the stone.
"Are you going to kill me," he asked, and in his eyes Adelaide saw an emotion she had never seen before: disgust.
And as suddenly as her anger and power had awoken, it was gone and she crumpled to the ground. They lay in silence next to each other, both gasping for breath.
"I will go on this journey, Adelaide, but you should reconsider. I will free you from your burden, but if you try to hinder me, I will do everything within myself to stop you," Legolas grunted, and with that he got to his feet and walked away.