Elwin – An Elf's Love

Note: Right... I know I take ages, but my computer went spaccy so I had to wait to replace it. God, I'm just full of excuses, aren't I? Sorry! And I hope this story isn't turning cliché, or Elwin isn't a Mary-Sue – to be honest I think she's too hopeless to be a Mary-Sue! And there's some Elvish in this chapter – I think it's easily recognisable, but if not message me so I can change it! Enjoy chapter 7 – finally!

Chapter 7

Aragorn roared a fierce cry of despair and frustration, the terrible sound echoing over the plains. He kicked one of the Orcs' helmets down the hill and fell to his knees. I flinched away from his anger. Legolas muttered something barely audible in Elvish, but I managed to perceive it as, "Hiro îth… ab 'wanath," or in the common tongue, "May they find peace in death."

I nodded along with his words, though he was oblivious that I had heard him. I hadn't known the two hobbits, but nevertheless I added onto them, once again in Elvish, "Ais olia ai caern o tia kos shyr shi kaeraes." "If only I knew you my grief would be greater."

"We have failed them," muttered Gimli sadly.

I walked over to Aragorn, hoping to comfort him in his time of need. Placing a hand on his the worn black leather covering his back, I knelt down beside him, speaking softly in my own language, which I knew he was fluent in.

"I am sorry, master. I imagined things would turn out better for us. I never thought that..." I trailed off sadly, flicking my gaze back to the smoking pile of bodies.

Aragorn took a deep breath, then replied back in Elvish as well. "Don't be sorry, Elwin. I should have known they would not survive. It seems we can never win in this world."

I didn't like to agree to this negative comment, but I nodded, agreeing with him, all the same. I scoured the ground and picked up a nearby ragged piece of rope which had been roughly cut, studying it. "There's no chance they could have escaped, could they?"

He looked at me queerly, as if I was speaking gibberish, then stared at the rope. Taking it from me, he ran his gaze across the flattened yellow grass until he had found once again where I had picked it up from. Then he jumped up, startling me.

"Elwin, you're a genius!" he yelled happily, in the common language. All three of us stared at him and I swear I heard Legolas's mouth drop open.

"Wait, she's a what?" he asked, mouth agape.

"Well, don't sound so surprised!" I shot back at him, annoyed at him for his astonishment (although, frankly, I was surprised too), "It was bound to happen sometime!"

We turned to Aragorn again and saw he was crouched down against the ground again, running the tips of his fingers against a light dent in the ground.

"A hobbit lay here," he said with an air of glee, but I wasn't sure if he was talking to us. He began to follow the newly-found tracks, and we ran after him, eager and curious to know what exactly he had figured out. He held up the rope I had found again, and another just like it. Close by where he had found the second one, there was an already rusted, but still fairly sharp, knife. "Their hands were bound. They ran over here, but they were followed." He jogged quickly down the hill, and we were fighting to keep up to pace with him, especially Legolas as he was still fairly hurt.

There was another thick, dark forest at the bottom of the hill, and the tall shadows from the trees stretched up the hill, where they lay close to our feet. That was just what we needed... another damn forest. And unfortunately Aragorn seemed to be leading us straight into it.

"Aragorn! Where exactly are you taking us?" I called to him, but he didn't answer exactly how I would have liked him to.

"The tracks lead away from the battle!" he shouted back happily.

"That still doesn't answer my question, master..."

He broke into a run, and therefore we also had to. When we finally reached the bottom, he stopped abruptly. I stared up at the menacing mass of trees. We were all thinking exactly the same thing, but it was only Gimli who had the courage to voice them.

"Fangorn... what madness drove them in there?"

~xXx~

We pushed through the dense leaves, the dew coming off on our hands. God, this place was worse than Firien (and Firien was pretty bad). I mean, literally, you could barely see, the leaves were so damn thick! I had heard rumours about Fangorn – it was pretty famous around Firien – but I had never have guessed that they were true to such an extreme extent

Gimli stopped and fingered a dark stain on a leaf, bringing it to his mouth. "Ugh!" he growled, spitting it back to the forest floor in disgust. "Orc blood!"

Aragorn knelt to the floor, as he had been doing at regular intervals, and scowled, furrowing his brow. "These are strange tracks," he muttered. "I don't know what they belong to... but, whatever it is, this is where Merry and Pippin's trail goes, so we must follow it, wherever it may lead."

I smiled. Merry and Pippin. What cute names! I still had no idea what hobbits even were, but if they were anywhere as cute as their names were then I was sure to love them! This was the first time I had heard their names, although I had sometimes heard them speak of two more hobbits named Frodo and Sam. From what I had overheard from my masters speaking was that they had been entrusted with something great and powerful and constantly wished them luck and prayed for their safety.

It was pretty scary in here, I wasn't going to lie. Every shadow that sped across our path or every sound that echoed in the distance made me jump. The air was tense, strained, in here, and besides Aragorn's directions and an occasional comment, we kept quiet. It was like we were afraid of disturbing the peace. Like we were afraid of disturbing what monsters might lay beneath our feet, or in the trees. We didn't want to wake anything.

As we walked the crunch of leaves beneath our feet was amplified, and frankly that wasn't helping. I kept hearing whispers bouncing back and forth between the trees... as if they were talking.

Every so often, if I listened close enough, I could pick out a word or two of what the trees were saying. It was hard, as the sound of our footsteps interrupted with their words, and they spoke so quietly they were almost inaudible. Almost.

"The White Wizard... The White Wizard... he approaches... they destroy... our friends... they are gone... burned... burned! They will pay... Saaa...ruu...maann..."

"Saruman..." I repeated the name, almost absentmindly. The word seemed to stick in my mind, though it was white hot when I thought about it.

Aragorn stopped and stared at me. "What did you say?" he asked me, his voice cold and full of hatred.

I was suddenly scared again, though this time it was not the forest which injected me with so much fear. Though, still, I complied with his orders. "I- I- I said Saruman."

He turned his body around fully and grabbed my shoulders, shaking my slightly. His gaze was hard and spiteful, though now his voice was pleading. "Why? Why did you say that?"

I placed my hand on his arm, to stop him from shaking me. "I- I don't know! It- it was the trees!"

This caused him to relax his grip, and he stared at me curiously, as if he was trying to detect whether I was lying or not. After seeing me clean of any deception, he asked, "The trees?"

"It is the trees of Fangorn who speak of Saruman, not Elwin," said Legolas, and I'd never been so glad to hear his voice interrupt me. "She was merely repeating what she had heard. She does not know what power that name holds."

Now the conversation thankfully switched from Aragorn and me to him and Legolas, though it annoyed me greatly how Legolas referred to me as she, as if I wasn't important enough to him for him to use my name more than once or twice in a sentence. I was just as good as him and I was determined to prove that.

"Why would the trees speak of Saruman?"

Legolas shrugged. "I don't know. I'm not a tree. I don't know what they've been through, or why they speak of the evil wizard."

Aragorn smiled weakly after a moment of silent thought, and took a deep breath. "Okay," he said simply. "I'm sorry, Elwin. Just... please. Don't say that name again. Names have power, and that name holds the second darkest power of them all. We must limit its usage."

I nodded and bit my lip.

This forest was worse than I originally thought.

We carried on through the forest, a little faster than before. Gimli went ahead, obviously disliking Fangorn far more than we did, having been brought up in halls of stone. Me and Legolas had grown up in forests, and Aragorn spent so much time in them he might as well be an Elf. But Gimli hadn't, and he was obviously more distressed about it.

Soon, his yearning to leave Fangorn had gotten the better of him, and he became far out of view.

"Come quickly!" I heard Gimli suddenly shout. Deep groans reverberated throughout the forest as his voice shook through the trees. We immediately ran over to him, to see what he had found.

And what he had found was... strange. I wasn't quite sure what it was when I first set my gaze on it, but after a couple more intense seconds of trying to fit my brain around it, I realised it was a body.

A crushed, squashed (whatever word you wanted to use) body.

Ew.

Gimli bent down and prodded he body with his axe. "It's an orc," he growled disgustedly, poking the limbs again with the handle.

"It must be one of the orcs from the band that stole Merry and Pippin!" Aragorn decided stonily, crossing his arms. He knelt down beside Gimli, studying the crushed carcass. "He must have escaped Éomer and his riders, when they ambushed them."

"But why is he all the way out here?" Legolas queried, and Aragorn made an unsure sounding noise.

"I'm not sure. Maybe it was following Merry and Pippin? But we won't know until we find them." With that, he stood up again, scowling at the orc's body. "Come on," he said with one last despising glare. "Leave the wretched thing. I wouldn't have helped him if he were alive, anyway." Aragorn spat on the body and scowled. "Come on," he said in an unmeaningly cold voice. He kept sending the crushed carcass dirty looks. "We better find a place to rest. Night is drawing near."

I tilted my head backwards, my hair tickling the back of my neck as it toppled from my shoulders, and looked up to the many dark green hues of the leafy canopies above us. I couldn't see much, but the few gaps of dim light breaking through were dimming fast. I was already scared enough, I'd hate to be in this forest at night.

"And where exactly do you propose we sleep?" Legolas asked, skimming his piercing blue gaze across the ivy-entwined trees and cramped, mossy ground. Something had changed in his eyes from his usual cold, serious look. They seemed softer, as if this forest had a just as great effect on him as it had on me. A smile curved the corners of my mouth. That was... sweet.

Another frown distorted Aragorn's mouth. It was evident that he had as much of an idea as the rest of us. "We'll have to find a place. Not here. We barely have enough room to stand, let alone sleep."

"Not to mention the fact we still have a squished orc in our company," I added, sticking out my tongue. "Charming, isn't he? Really brightens the place up, don't you think?"

Aragorn chuckled dryly. "I think we get the concept, Elwin," he told me, smiling.

"Just trying to brighten the mood," I replied, whistling nonchalantly.

We carried on moving forward until eventually, after scouring the forest for a while, we found a suitable enough space for us to stay in.

We immediately set down our things and I pulled some of the lembas out from one of the bags and passed it around. Everyone took a small bite – not one of us was particularly hungry, I don't think – before I rewrapped it and placed it back inside the bag.

Soon the little light we had used before to see our way had gone and we were left in almost complete darkness. I could see a few streams of thin silver coming down from the moon, but apart from that I had to rely on my heightened sense of sight to see my way around.

The only thing that shattered the restless, highly-strung silence was Aragorn singing quietly to himself as he pulled another blanket from his bag to protect him from the cold while he slept.

I had to strain my ears to hear the words to his song. It was so quiet, barely audible, but if I listened hard enough I could just make out the words, and even then I could only pick out a few. Something about love and beauty, from what I could hear. That was funny; I never pictured Aragorn as the lovey-dovey type, to be honest.

I strolled lightly over to him and leant over his shoulder. "Who are you singing about?" I asked in a sweet voice, so close to his ears that I made him jump.

His cheeks flushed a pale pink under the dark, coarse hair of his beard. "Why do you ask?" he replied coolly.

I shrugged, letting my eyes drift casually to the treetops and concealed a smile. "No reason. Just... curious." I decided on.

Before Aragorn could answer, Gimli and Legolas laughed behind us. "What about Elrond's daughter? Arwen?" Gimli suggested humorously (though I'm not sure Aragorn was as amused as the rest of us).

Now Aragorn was even redder, his usually pale skin blushing brightly. I raised an eyebrow at him, standing up straight again purely so I could look down upon him. "She's called Arwen, now, is she?" I smirked. "Is she your girlfriend? Where's she from? Is Elrond that Elf from Rivendell? Is she like a princess or something? Is she pretty?" I was just pelting questions at him. Poor Aragorn was trying to answer them all at the same time, and began stuttering hopeless and inaudible invectives.

Unable to contain themselves, Legolas and Gimli began laughing irrepressibly at their human friend. Aragorn scowled at us huffing in annoyance and petulantly tossing his head. "You three can think what you wish, but I'm going to sleep," he grunted and brushed away the twigs and stones from where he was going to lay his head. I looked to Legolas, who was still fairly pink from laughing so hard.

"You'll tell me all about this later, I assume?"

He grinned slyly and nodded. "Definitely."

~xXx~

Dawn had barely begun to break when Aragorn woke us the next morning. He wanted us to get moving quickly, and when I pulled down the crude blanket from my face the bitter, strained air slammed into my face like a stone wall. It tingled on my skin and sent Goosebumps running up and down the exposed skin on my arms, neck and face.

I pulled my cloak further over my shoulders, shielding my body from the cold. Damn, I hated this place. So much.

There was silence as we packed our things – this morning seemed different than the many previous hours we had spent here the day before. I could sense something powerful mingling in the sharp air, and it sent my teeth on edge. This forest already gave me the creeps, but this was something else. This wasn't the freezing air, or fear of what was within the darkness that lay around us – this was actual power rippling through the air, and sending shivers across my body. Legolas stopped and frowned. He obviously felt it too.

"Stop," he said, pressing a hand in front of me. I was already slowing down anyway, but I stopped as his hand touch my stomach. He leant down close to me. "There's something out there," he muttered. "Do you feel it?"

I nodded, my breath leaving my lungs. I was already daring to breath in Fangorn, but with him being so close to me I think I was starting to suffocate from lack of air. I was holding my breath until he drew away again.

"Good," he replied quietly. "I was just making sure. This forest seems to be playing tricks on me."

"On both of us," I agreed.

Legolas turned to Aragorn, still frowning. "Aragorn... something approaches."

"What is it?" Aragorn replied tensely. I could hear the concern in his voice, though I knew he wasn't afraid. "What do you see?"

There was an edgy pause before he answered, which didn't help the already strained atmosphere. I didn't know what it was exactly that he felt, but I knew that I felt something too. It was powerful, that was all I knew. Very, very powerful.

"It is the White Wizard... he is coming."

I gulped. That sounded bad. Very bad.