Chapter 6 submitted 5-25-13.
Summary: The year is 2325 of the Second Age. Fifteen years after the events of The Red Hunters, all is going fairly well in the Greenwood, but the Shadow continues to grow. Just when things begin to look up for Legolas, tragedy strikes. Battling against the madness that threatens to overtake him, nothing will ever be the same for the Crown Prince. PG 13 for language, violence, and romance.
Disclaimer: I do not own Lord of the Rings, the Silmarillion, or any related characters or works. They belong to Mister J.R.R. Tolkien.
THE GOLDEN WARRIOR.
Book Four in the IAUR MIN Series.
By GundamWingFanatic90/Portrait of a Scribe.
CHAPTER 6.
"Legolas, we need to return to your father's halls." Nimellon's voice cut through the stagnant silence like a barb. The obsidian gaze of the Crown Prince of Greenwood transferred itself from the darkening trees around them to the red eyes of Abriel's adopted brother.
"And what of Abriel?" Legolas asked. His voice was rather bleak. "Are we to give up on her?" Nimellon shook his head before placing a hand on Legolas' shoulder.
"Nay, we shall never give up on my sister until we come across evidence that proves, without any doubt, that her demise has come about," he replied with conviction. "But you and I both need to rest soon and treat our wounds." He looked meaningfully into Legolas' eyes, pointedly prodding a shallow gash on the prince's upper arm. "We will find her, mellon-nin, one way or another. And I think that your parents are likely worried sick about you, just as Siros and Mithwen are doubtlessly worried for my safety. And not only that, Legolas." Nimellon lightly shook Legolas' shoulder for emphasis. "My adoptive parents deserve to get an update about their daughter… from both before and after she went missing."
Legolas raised a skeptically inquisitive eyebrow, and Nimellon rolled his eyes in exasperation.
"You need to tell them about the fact that you and Abriel were Bonded and expecting a child," he sighed. "It is your decision whether you do or do not tell your own parents." Legolas grimaced faintly, looking away from the earnest red gaze, but his shoulders slumped and he nodded in affirmation.
"Alright," he conceded. "Let's go." Nimellon cracked a small smile. He hooked his hand around the back of Legolas' neck and pulled him closer until their foreheads touched. Nimellon's eyes closed as he revealed a side to him that few ever saw.
"Abriel will be alright, tithen-gwador-nin," the albino elf murmured. "She is strong and brash, but you know how stubborn she can be. My sister will not give up her life so easily, not with so much at stake." His smile grew a little more in remembrance of the elleth he had watched grow from an infant into an adult.
"Abriel will survive, and we shall seek her until she is found, no matter what happens, however long or far it takes us. She is too dear to offer any less effort."
Legolas' lips twitched in the hollow shadow of a smile.
"Aye," he whispered. "She is too dear, indeed. To the end?" Nimellon's despairing grin widened slightly once again.
"Aye, to the end."
In the three days that they had been searching, Legolas and Nimellon had ranged quite far from home. They had found Abriel's path shortly after parting from their patrols, leading to the bank of a deep stream before vanishing in a jumble into the rushing water. Since then they had combed the banks on either side of the stream for any sign of their mutual loved one, to no avail. When they finally decided to turn back, they were a five days' walk from Thranduil's halls, having been traveling non-stop even at night. Their strength running low, they camped on the first evening of their retreat. They walked through the second day and night as well as the third day. They made camp again that night, their sleep restless. No sign of Abriel had been gained during their backtracking. They ran through the fourth day, coming upon the outermost border of Thranduil's innermost kingdom at dusk.
Legolas and Nimellon went first to the home of Abriel's parents, a talan constructed high in a sturdy oak tree. Nimellon patted the prince reassuringly on the arm when Legolas hesitated. The younger elf nodded gratefully before scaling the tree to the talan's entrance, Nimellon following close behind.
"Adar? Naneth?" the albino elf called into the talan. "I have returned from my mission."
"Nimellon?" queried a pure, youthful voice. It twisted Legolas' heartstrings. There was a good reason, after all, why Abriel had often complained about people saying that she and her mother sounded alike.
An elleth with raven hair appeared in the archway that connected the main room to the study. Her silver eyes were smiling as they landed upon the two elves in the entryway.
"Nimellon! You've returned!" Her gaze landed upon Legolas, and she smiled gently. "And Legolas! It is good to see you, ernil-nin. How do the two of you fare?" Legolas resisted the urge to shift uncomfortably, and exchanged a weary, pained glance with Nimellon in the dark hallway, the guilt heavy in their gazes.
"Mithwen? Who is that I hear?" came a voice from the study before either of the younger two could speak. The elleth, Mithwen, looked toward the study.
"Nimellon has returned, and he has brought Ernil Legolas along with him!" she called loudly.
"Ai! I see!" came the reply. Mithwen turned back to the pair and shrugged apologetically to Legolas.
"Siros' hearing has worsened of late," she said in explanation. "Ever since those orcs dripped poison into his ears on that mission it has gone little by little. We have been treating it, but he still has trouble upon occasion." Mithwen stopped talking as Siros, her husband, entered the room.
Siros was a tall elf with blond hair so light as to be nearly silver. He had broad, well-muscled shoulders, though he was by no means as bulky as some men became. His deep, forest-green eyes narrowed, missing little as he came to stand beside Mithwen, an arm coming to rest about her waist.
His baritone voice was quiet as he said, "Would you care to come into the study to talk?"
Siros had obviously seen that they had news. Legolas swallowed and nodded, following the pair and Nimellon into the study that he had often occupied in past days. Mithwen pulled some chairs up around the window and offered them to her adopted son and the prince.
"Please, sit," she said with a smile. Legolas and Nimellon thanked her, and soon all four of them were seated.
"Now, I can tell that you've something important to say," Siros stated. "So what is it that brings you all this way out to speak of?" Legolas swallowed with some effort and opened his mouth to speak. No sound came out. He closed his mouth and cleared his throat before trying again.
"I-I…" he stammered, glancing at his albino friend. Nimellon put a hand reassuringly on the prince's forearm.
"Just tell them what happened, Legolas," Nimellon advised, watching as his parents' faces grew more confused and alarmed as the time passed. "Start from when we were sent out." The prince took a deep breath and nodded gratefully, drawing strength from his white-haired brother figure.
"What has happened?" Mithwen's voice was quiet, and trembled slightly when she spoke. Legolas nearly lost his nerve, looking into the worried face of the woman he loved as a second mother, but he gathered courage again and began to speak.
"Not seven days ago," he started, "a messenger came to my father's halls saying that the patrols were being attacked." He saw Siros and Mithwen blanch, but plowed on before they could say something. The words tumbled from the prince in a controlled rush. "I gathered the remaining patrols and set out to warn the ranging ones." He paused. "Abriel had set out earlier that day with the members of my own patrol. I took her patrol and pursued her, but the orcs reached them before we could." Here he gritted his teeth and looked away, fighting back the moisture in his eyes at the memory of what they had come upon. Nimellon continued for him, seeing that Legolas could say no more.
"The patrol had been decimated," he said. "The orcs fled as we reached the battleground, but we were too late. Only five of the patrol still lived when we arrived. Two more had been taken by the orcs. One more died soon after we got there. Abriel was one of the four remaining." Here Mithwen released a choked gasp, and Legolas flinched as Siros pulled her to him and shushed her.
"What do you mean, 'was'?" Abriel's father inquired firmly, his green eyes penetrating and worried as he gazed upon the elves he had come to see as his sons. Nimellon's red gaze was full of sorrow as he continued his story.
"We left Abriel and Tinnuion, Legolas' lieutenant, in the care of Eldawen, our patrol's healer, and her husband, Adarion," he said. "We hunted down the orcs and slew them, regaining the last two living patrol members, and then we made our way back." Legolas was grateful that Nimellon had glossed over the event and left out the prince's brief stroke of madness. "But as we approached, the sounds of battle reached our ears. We soon discovered that a troop of orcs had doubled back around to finish off the wounded whilst we took care of the others."
"We killed the attackers with Adarion and Eldawen's help," Legolas continued quietly. He still would not look at Abriel's sobbing mother or her distraught father. His voice wavered as he struggled to remain strong. "But we learned that Abriel, though direly wounded, had fled through the forest. We tracked her to a nearby stream. It was deep. The bank showed signs of a struggle, and then her tracks vanished into the water." Here he found himself gasping around the lump in his throat, but he forced himself to conclude, "We searched for her for three days before returning. We could find nothing."
And finally he allowed himself a slight weakness, burying his face in his hands as he leaned heavily on his elbows, which were propped on his knees. Mithwen's anguish filled the study for a moment. Then Nimellon, seeing that Legolas was not about to speak, rested a hand on the prince's shoulder.
"Legolas," the albino prompted. "One of us must tell them."
"Tell us what?" Mithwen croaked from her husband's embrace. "What could be worse than hearing that our daughter has gone missing when in critical condition?" Nimellon felt Legolas' flinch, but the prince did not speak. His shoulders trembled faintly under Nimellon's palm. The white-haired elf decided that he would have to answer.
"Abriel is pregnant," he replied. Mithwen gasped in shock and Siros' jaw dropped, both staring numbly at their adopted son.
"She told me as I held her on the battlefield." Legolas' voice was the quietest of whispers, but even Siros' damaged ears could hear the heartbroken agony in it. Slowly Legolas lowered his hands from his face and rose to his feet.
"We Bonded four months ago," he confessed quietly. "She became pregnant a month and a half past, and discovered it for herself two weeks ago. She told me of it as she lay bleeding in my arms." A candle sputtered to life in a corner at a thought from the prince, exposing out of the gloom the crimson and black blood upon his face and clothes. Slowly, he took a breath.
"I am sorry that we did not tell you sooner or follow custom," he said. "But never shall I recant the time Abriel and I had. I only hope that you can forgive me for failing to save her." Bowing, he said, "Please excuse me." Then he was gone.
Nimellon's sad crimson gaze was the only one that watched the prince go.
The palace was silent in the midnight dimness, as were Legolas' footsteps as he padded through the halls. A shaft of moonlight fell across his path. The silvery aura briefly highlighted his blood-crusted features, and then he became invisible again.
A shadow moved in the darkness: a sentry, making his rounds. He stopped for an instant, and then he stepped forward toward Legolas' dead-eyed form.
"Ernil-nin?" the sentry inquired cautiously. "Is that you?" Legolas swallowed.
"Aye," he rasped. "Is my father the king in his study?" The elf nodded.
"Indeed he is, ernil-nin," he replied. "Her highness the queen is with him." Legolas nodded.
"And my brother, Ecthelion? What of him?" The sentry tilted his head thoughtfully.
"Sleeping, I believe." He blinked at Legolas. "Why?" Legolas did not reply, simply thanking the guard and heading toward his father's study.
The halls of the palace seemed long and empty to the prince, whose obsidian gaze took note of very little as he passed, wraithlike, through their well-used passages. A flickering lamp briefly cast his features into sharp relief, marking the turn that would take Legolas to his destination. He paused and then took a right, his feet carrying him without noise over the stone.
Legolas stopped again outside the door of his father's study, feeling cold and sick. He could hear his mother's worried soprano, and his father's answering baritone through the wood. His name ghosted across his ears, and he closed his eyes. Gathering his little remaining strength, Legolas sluggishly raised his nigh-unresponsive arm and knocked quietly upon the study door.
All talk inside immediately ceased, and silence stretched for what seemed an eternity. Then the call to enter reached into his conscious mind. His hand drifted to the door latch.
With a faint creak, he slowly shouldered the old wooden slab open, his body feeling like lead. Had it really only been eight days ago that he had laughed with his brother and father as they went over reports in this very room? It seemed an age had passed.
Andiach's shocked gasp entered Legolas' ears as he wordlessly shut the door behind him, the sound of the latch seeming very final to the prince.
"Legolas!" she exclaimed, and then Legolas found himself engulfed in her arms, shortly followed by Thranduil's. For a moment, he allowed them to hug him, Andiach relaying her worry to him. Then, realizing that Legolas had not reacted to them, the king and queen pulled back.
Legolas did not meet their eyes, gazing emptily over their shoulders and into space. A pregnant pause spread between the three of them, and Legolas felt his mother pull a strand of blood-caked hair behind his ear.
"Ion-nin," Andiach ventured after a moment of stunned silence. "You are wounded."
"No." It was Thranduil, this time. His forest-green eyes scrutinized his son, keenly spotting the blankness of his eyes, the emotionless cast to his expression. "Legolas is unharmed. However," He tilted Legolas' face up so that he could meet his gaze, "I suspect that his wounds are of the heart, and not of the body."
Andiach and Thranduil exchanged glances, and then Thranduil led Legolas over to the couch that sat near the window. Andiach, in the meanwhile, retrieved a mug of tea from the kettle that hung over the fire, as well as a wash rag and basin of water from the adjoining room. That done, she gave the tea to Legolas, and sat down before him on the floor.
"What happened, ion-nin?" asked Thranduil, his hand strong and reassuring upon his son's shoulder. A moment passed with bated breath, and then Legolas' quiet voice rippled through the room.
When the tale of the past five days had been retold once more, Legolas hesitated. Seeing this, Andiach dipped the rag in the basin and lifted it to her son's face, gently scrubbing the dried blood from his skin.
"And?" she whispered softly. "You hesitate, Legolas. There is something that you are not telling us." Brushing the cloth across his brow, Andiach's silver eyes met Legolas' obsidian ones, willing and desiring to share and understand. "Your emotions are a tumultuous tangle of searing pain and crushing grief, and of guilt and fear that threaten to drag you down into an abyss of despair."
Concerned, Thranduil glanced at his wife before turning again to his eldest son.
Legolas had blanched, and he now looked away from them, swallowing in an attempt to wet his throat. Thoughts of Abriel darted through his mind, memories of their lives together playing themselves in his head. A shudder passed through him with recollections of their Bonding, their love, her laughter, her face twisted in pain and in humor, and the blood that had saturated her clothes when last he had seen her.
"She was carrying my child," he choked out. "We Bonded four months ago." Unnoticed by him, Thranduil and Andiach paled, exchanging looks of grief and horror. "We begat a child three fortnights ago. I found out as she lay in my arms upon the battlefield."
A tremor ran through him, and then he suddenly found himself wrapped in his parents' arms once more. Then, with a strangled gasp, Legolas, Crown Prince of Greenwood, broke down.
His quiet tears lasted long into the night.
"Have you ever been to Lothlórien, Legolas?"
He shifted, turned toward her. A strong hand caressed her nude side with the utmost tenderness.
"No. Why do you ask?"
"Someday I'll have to take you there."
She snuggled closer to him with a contented sigh, tangling their legs together.
"It has such a restful peace to it, a timelessness that could allow you to forget the outside world and become lost in it."
"Hmmm…"
Half-open navy eyes fluttered, their owner hovering between consciousness and sleep.
"It's so peaceful… I think that, if we were ever separated, I would go there."
Well-shaped lips pulled back into a grimace as he struggled to hold onto the memory.
"It's the only place I know of where I could find even a fraction of the healing that I feel when I'm near you."
With a jerk, Legolas' eyes cleared and he flew into a sitting position, gasping for air. After a second, he focused properly on his surroundings and lowered his head into a hand with a weary, trembling sigh. Memories of the past few days tumbled into his thoughts.
Then the memory his subconscious had dredged up came to him. After a moment's review, he swung out of bed and entered his bath chamber. A quick wash removed the remaining blood and gore from his face and hair, and then he dressed hastily, grabbed his weapons, and headed toward his door. Then the prince paused, his eyes sweeping around his bed chamber.
A moment's deliberation gave him the decision to walk to the desk and then to the nightstand, to write a short letter to his parents. As the pen scratched across the paper to produce a hurried scrawl, Legolas' gaze caught a glint of silver near the base of the wall. He paused, the pen scribbling the closing of the letter, and laid the quill down. Legolas' fingers drifted to pick the item up.
It was a necklace that Abriel had worn for as long as he could remember. She had once told him that it had belonged to her great-grandmother, who had given it to her before leaving for the white shores. A tiny, finely-wrought mithril lily was suspended from a delicate golden chain. In the center of the flower was an emerald, and each of the six petals contained either a miniscule sapphire or an equally-sized diamond.
Feeling his throat constrict, Legolas closed his fingers over the pendant even as his eyes clenched shut, as well. A moment later, he opened his navy gaze to the world once more, and silently slipped the necklace's chain over his head, tucking it under his tunic.
"No more tears," he whispered, swallowing. "Not now. You have to find her, Legolas. There isn't time for useless tears."
And with that, he was gone, a ghost in the moonlight.
The letter on his nightstand rustled mournfully in his wake.
Disclaimer: I do not own Lord of the Rings, the Silmarillion, or the Hobbit.
Chapter 7 will be posted 5-31-13.
Thank you all for your patience, yet again. Last night was my sister's graduation; I didn't get home until about midnight, and having not slept the night before, pretty much just passed out as soon as my butt hit the chair. It was rather pathetic.
A HUGE thank you goes to Guest, and to Aranel Mereneth. Finally, someone who knows their Tolkien!
Aranel: Yes, I do remember that intimacy equals marriage. I read HoME Volume 12 (Specifically, The Shibboleth of Feanor) several years ago, and I was like, "Huh. That's pretty cool." It's one of my biggest pet-peeves about Tolkien!fic, and one of the main reasons why I simply don't read it, anymore. (It's really, REALLY annoying to see Thranduil or Elrond sleeping with someone OTHER than their wives.) As to Abriel's disappearance, when the orcs doubled back around to finish her and her lieutenant off, they ran into some unexpected resistance in the form of Eldawen and Adarion. Abriel managed to escape during the fight, but now it's a matter of finding her. She was never in the Houses of Healing; they found her out in the forest with the gristly remains of her patrol. (Trust me, it's an easy thing to miss, unfortunately... I'm thinking about rewriting that chapter again.)
If anybody wants to hear about the Wethrim, either tell me in a review or in a PM, and I'll post it at the end of the next chapter. And for anybody who is interested in what I've been up to for the past few years, check out my other profile here:
FFN Author penname: "Portrait of a Scribe"
and DeviantART penname: "ElvenWhiteMage"
Don't worry, (most) everything will make sense by the end of this fic, I swear.
-GundamWingFanatic90, a.k.a. Portrait of a Scribe