It's finally here, the moment you've all been waiting for! Yes, boys and girls, grab your flags and make your bets, because Thranduil is one ticked off Elf tonight! Of course, so as not to disappoint there's a...bit of angst and "aw" factor before then, don't worry my little elf-torture-fans! ;)

Chapter Ten: Anger and Fear

Chill spirits brightened as the elflings looked up at the dark sky. Although there was no visible sign, they could both sense that dawn was swelling in the distance ahead of them. Their steps quickened with relief and sharp eyes began to search for the best spot to rest for the day.

As a faint light slowly brushed the red-brown edged green leaves, the two children settled themselves gratefully with a whispered thanks among the sturdy branches of a large oak.

Legolas winced as the bark scraped at his tender back and rubbed the thin silk of his tunic against still-healing wounds. He gingerly laid on his side, tucking a small hand under his cheek. The growing sunlight caught the fan of pale hair and danced golden in its tresses as the elfling gently stroked the warm wood beneath him.

Fuiniel removed the overlong sword from its scabbard on her back and laid it next to her. She edged herself into the deep hollow between two thick branches and leaned to the side, careful not to crush her quiver. She rested her head against the cool bark of the tree and brushed a few strands of dark hair from her eyes. She tucked the strays back into her loosening plaits. Drawing her cloak about her although it was not yet cold, the girl sank back further into the lee of shadows. Her gray eyes glinted as she closely surveyed the treetops about them. One hand rested lightly on the sword at her side.

They were silent for a long space, and Legolas was just dropping off to sleep when Fuiniel spoke, almost too quietly for him to hear. "I am sorry I was short with you," she whispered from the shadows. "You did not merit such a response."

"Nay," said Legolas, blinking back into wakefulness. "I should not have asked. It was impolite. It is I who should apologize."

Fuiniel smiled humorlessly. "You are very diplomatic for being very young."

"You aren't that much older than me," he pointed out quickly.

The girl turned haunted, haunting eyes on him. "Yes I am," she whispered. She did not refer to years.

Legolas was quiet, knowing no words to speak to her. He did not know that his eyes spoke volumes of his sorrow for her loss, his curiosity, and his wish to ease her pain.

"How do you do it?" she asked more to herself than him.

"Do what?" Legolas was confused. He did nothing special. He had failed, and been captured. He had wept when they beat him, giving in to his weakness. She was not afraid. She struck back against the yrch. It was she who carried the weapons that had been steeped in black blood. It was she who had saved them both from the yrch and led them away from pursuit through the trees. He merely followed, trying as best he could not to slow them down.

Fuiniel was silent, sinking lower into her shrouding cloak. "You are still…happy. You speak to the trees with joy in your voice. You smile. You laugh." She glanced over at him from the depths of her hood, gray eyes glinting dimly with puzzlement and perhaps a little bit of awe. "How?" she asked again.

Legolas blinked, trying to divine her meaning. "Why would I not?"

"The yrch," she said with a chill colder than winter's depths in her voice. "Now that you have seen—have felt—the yrch, how can you still do so?"

"I…I just do." She sighed and looked away. The prince struggled for a better explanation. "I mean, I always have. Nothing has changed. Just because the yrch are evil does not mean that everything else is. They have not changed the forest, they have not changed me."

"They have me," she murmured. "They have me…" Tears shone for a moment but she dashed them from her eyes. She had sworn to never cry again, and she would keep her vow.

Legolas watched the girl, hidden in her cloak and the shadows cast by the tree branches, with concern in his blue eyes. She did not want comfort—she had shown that—but he did not want to see her sad. Legolas was not used to seeing people in torment, and he was even less used to seeing sadness and pain go uncomforted. Knowing that she might well rebuff him again, he crept forward cautiously.

Fuiniel started when she felt a hand on the arm wrapped around her knees. She looked into Legolas's determined, sorrowing face. "I am sorry," the young elfling whispered. "I wish I could fix it," he said wistfully. "I am sorry."

She grasped his hand with her own and summoned a weak smile. It died somewhere before reaching her eyes, but it was a start. "Thank you."

The elflings sat, resting against the strong oak, and watched the sun rise slowly into the pale morning sky. Hours passed, but they neither slept nor spoke. At last, as the warmth of the sun started to filter down to them through the chill autumn air, Legolas broke the silence tentatively.

"Would it help to talk about it?"

Fuiniel looked away and did not answer.

"Ada says that when something hurts, telling someone else often makes it less painful," he pointed out with the confidence of one who has perfect faith in a father's wisdom.

"How would he know?" she asked bitterly before she thought. Then she remembered who Legolas's father was, and gasped. She turned back to him, gray eyes wide. "I'm sorry," she gasped, "I'm so sorry. I didn't mean it. Legolas—please, I'm so sorry…"

The elfling swallowed hard but nodded and grasped her arm reassuringly. "It's all right. Sometimes, when people are upset, they say things before they think that they don't mean."

Fuiniel relaxed, relieved that no harm had been done by her words. "You are very wise for one so young, Legolas."

He shook his head. "Nay, it is ada who is wise. I merely remember what he tells me. He told me that you have to always be calm when you negotiate, because otherwise you could forget and say something you shouldn't. But I think it applies to regular life as well."

"I think so too," she agreed. For a time, neither spoke. "How fares your back?" Fuiniel asked, searching for another topic and grasping at the first thing that came to mind.

"Much better," Legolas replied smiling gratefully at her. "Hannon le."

She pulled her lips into the strange expression. "That is good." They lapsed back into silence, but Fuiniel could not quiet her thoughts. Over and over, she repeated the elfling's words to herself. King Thranduil, of all people, ought to know how to deal with pain and sorrow, after what had happened to his family. Could he be right? Might it help to stop keeping everything inside, to share it with another? But how could she burden the happy prince with her darkness?

How could she let go enough to speak, when she might never be able to get her fragile control back into place once she loosened it?

The sun climbed high in the sky as the girl sat within her shadows. Legolas slipped into sleep, a contented expression on his fair face, but Fuiniel could not join him. Her thoughts writhed like stormclouds in her gray eyes. She gnawed on her lip in concentration and lightly stroked the smooth handle of the sword at her side. Noon came and went before she spoke, hesitantly, not really meaning to talk to her companion—just thinking that perhaps to say the words out loud would help. She could not risk pulling Legolas into her darkness, but he was right: the trees had not changed. They were still there, and they offered comfort to the small Elf that they could sense in pain within their branches.

"I have been—frightened, since I met you," she said quietly. Legolas stirred, his sleep light enough that her whisper woke him. She did not notice, and continued speaking, eyes distant. "I had thought that I had nothing to fear from the yrch, for all that they could do to me would be send me to join my family again. I would go now, but I cannot leave the foul creatures here to darken the woods as they have darkened me. I would have vengeance on them for the deaths they have caused. To me the yrch offered no fear, only anger and hate. But now…" she sighed, and drew her arm tighter about her thin knees. When she spoke, her soft words had faded to less than a whisper and Legolas had to listen closely to make them out.

"Now," she breathed, "I begin to fear them again. I wonder if there are perhaps worse things than dying that one could do at their hands. I see what they have done to you, and wonder what more they would have, given a chance.

"I wonder what they would do to me.

"And I am ashamed, for I did not think myself a coward. I have lost everything, how can I fear to lose more? I have so much pain within me, how can there be room for more? I should not be afraid; I should not have room for fear. I thought that within me there was only darkness and wrath, but now I find something else. Now I find I am afraid. And…I do not know what to do." She swallowed, her hand tightening around the hilt of the sword. "Now I think of the yrch, and I fear them."

She started when she heard Legolas stir next to her. He had watched silently, but when her voice faded he reached out and hugged her. "I think you are very brave," he said sincerely. "If you were really a coward, you would have run away without me."

She looked at him askance, but he continued speaking before she could do so. "The yrch are not chasing you, they are chasing me. I am the one who escaped; they do not even know of you. If you left me," his voice caught in a slight tremble, but he forged ahead determinedly. "You would be safe again. They would not come after you. But you did not." He turned large eyes towards her. "Being afraid does not make you a coward; giving in to your fear does."

Fuiniel stared at her knees, not willing to look up at the elfling next to her. When she spoke, her voice was hoarse. "More words of wisdom from your ada?" she asked softly, wondering what her adar would say to her right now.

"Yes," he replied simply. "He says that warriors are often afraid, but they do not let their fear control them. As long as you do not give into it, fear does not make you a coward."

"And yet, I am still afraid."

Legolas laid a head on her shoulder and half-closed his eyes. "Don't worry," he said confidently. "You don't have to be. Everything will be all right now. Soon my ada will find us, and his warriors will kill the yrch, and you can come back and live with ada and me and we will make you happy again. I promise."

By the time Fuiniel could think of something to say, Legolas was asleep. She sighed and looked at the small blond head with sad eyes. "I wish it were that easy," the girl whispered softly. The trees rustled around them, offering what comfort they could. Fuiniel leaned back against the oak, but shook her head.

"I wish it were that easy."

………….

Swords flashed silver and black in the fading light of dusk. Normally the Elves would never have attack the band of yrch this close to nightfall, preferring instead to trail them silently through the woods and come down upon their camp with the dawn's light. But Thranduil was not about to waste any time. His Greenleaf was still out there somewhere, and he would not be stayed.

The yrch had been sleeping within a small, sheltering cave away from the harsh eye of the sun. The sudden attack of the Elves had caught them off-guard, and the creatures had been dismayed at the fearsome wrath of their assailants. Such anger had not been seen since the days directly following the Last Alliance, and the yrch were frightened by it. One Elf in particular seemed to conjure up the slaughter of the War. A vision of barely-contained rage, the golden-haired Elf Lord struck violent and reckless against his foe. The yrch quailed before his palpable anger, and whispered among themselves that it was Thranduil himself.

Greenwood's king had become a figure inspiring fear to the yrch hordes—fear and anger. Gold-head-slaughter-son they called him in their tongue, for Oropher had earned the yrch's enmity before they finally cut him down, and his son had been no better. Striking out in rage felt at both ally and enemy for his father's fall, the freshly orphaned new king had been a terrifying vision of death in black, red, and gold on the killing fields. Their hatred had not abated over the years, for orkish memory of grudges is deep and the king continued to harry the yrch from his forest kingdom.

But he had not been seen like this since Sauron's fall. Met with the full fury of an Elven Lord, the yrch fell back, only to find themselves caught by the other Elves with almost as much anger as the king in their fair, grim faces. But not quite. Thranduil's eyes literally glowed with rage. Black blood coated his thin form and long golden hair swung loose like gleaming whips echoing the silver flash of his sword. His face was set, but there was a brittleness to his control and the fierceness of his eyes was almost wild. He walked on a thin edge of restraint that barely kept him in check, and even the yrch could see that it was ready to break at any moment.

But Thranduil had been fighting yrch for years beyond measure. He was not old, as Elves go, but he had seen many mortal lifetimes pass without notice—and he had fought the yrch, it seemed, for his entire life. Greenwood was not kept safe by some unseen power, but by the will and strength of her defenders, and Thranduil had been one of them for hundreds of years. He did not need to think to fight the yrch; he did not need to be calm to utilize instincts formed over eons.

Singling out the largest orch still standing, Thranduil fought his way over to it, easily cutting down the black creatures that stood in his way without truly taking note of them. The largest orch was often the leader of the band, and while this group's leader had likely been felled in the first seconds of the engagement size often related to rank among the yrch. Disarming the orch without thinking about it, Thranduil easily turned aside the blows from its companions. Two of his warriors moved gracefully to flank him, swords flashing black and wet in the dusk.

Thranduil did not bother to press his sword to the orch's throat. Grabbing its rough jerkin, Thranduil speared it with his gaze. The orch, fëa-less eyes wide with fear, trembled in his grasp.

"Where is my son?" he hissed, his words sharper than the finest steel. When the creature did not answer him right away, he shook it roughly, black-dripping blade whipping in to rest lightly alongside its jugular. "Where is my child?"

Reviewer Responses:

Well, I hope everyone enjoyed their first taste of Thranduil's vengeance. I know we've all been waiting quite a bit for that, and hopefully it didn't disappoint. Yes, you're right, I did have a lot of fun writing that bit. Heh heh.

Alma – Don'tworry about it; I eagerly—but patiently—await whenever it appears. And thanks, I'm glad you're liking them! It's an interesting balance keeping the action intense while still taking the time for characterization, and I'm glad you like it so far. Thank you! If I can survive Drawing II, I'll be fine!

Aranna – Danger? Danger? Nah…why would they be in danger? Oh. Well, if your crystal ball reports it, I suppose I'll have to give in and provide some—but I blame you entirely. And just so you know, I am never threatening anyone's nose again, certainly not my little elfling. Wow. You, um, you enjoy that weird mood, yah? But tell your mum, there is absolutely nothing wrong with happy dances! I love happy dances! Happy dances for all! Aww…don't act normal, that's no fun! Please? Be weird for me? Lol

Deana – hey, you know I posted that just for you, D, 'cause you asked!

menoknow – I'm glad you like it! And no, no romance, nu-uh no way not here. Dude they're, like, what, not even ten years old! Give the kids a break. ;) Sheesh. Besides, I'm not exactly the…uh…"romantic" type, shall we say… Heh heh…how do you like Thranduil now?

steph305 – thanks, and okay! Welcome to the story. And welcome to menoknow, as well. Glad you two're enjoying it!

Hopefully this update's timing was better than previously; I was thinking about holding off a bit more, but Thranduil turned one of his patented GLARES on me and…well, have you ever tried to stand up to one of those? Yow! I swear, Melkor ran for cover! …not that there's a Dark Lord hanging around and whispering in my ear trying to convince me to do evil things or anything like that…

I'll be back in a few days! Until then, enjoy your thoughts of bloody revenge. Mmmm…fuuun…