Disclaimer:
I own only the characters I make up and the fanfic plot; the rest belongs to Tolkien!
(Break To Deliverance © Silver Thorne)
Rating:
R – to be safe.
Note: all takes place before the Fellowship of the Ring.
A/N: I don't think there are words enough to apologise for how late this update is…I won't even waste more time with reasons or excuses as to its horrid delay. I shall just get on with the story!!!!
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Whispers.
They passed across his mind in taunting fragments, barely coherent. A voice he knew, soft and lilted with worry, penetrated the delirious fog.
"Tis' unbecoming of you to ignore me, Gwanur. Come now, I have missed your wit. Speak to me. Saes."
Elrohir.
Elladan managed a weak groan, his head lolling against his brother's shoulder as Elrohir turned his steed down a narrow path of the forest.
"The world is spinning." Elladan frowned, his warm brow darkening.
He felt Elrohir tense.
"I will ease our path."
"It is not the path, Elrohir." Elladan lurched forward, fighting back the urge to heave.
Elrohir's hand pressed him back and an arm banded around his shaking form.
"Be still."
"I am trying." Elladan croaked, blinking to clear his vision, "Where are we? How did you find me? How long as has it been?"
"Which question do you wish for me to answer first?" his twin asked gently, though not without a soft chuckle.
He could sense Elrohir's desperation. He was valiant trying to stay calm.
"You should not have left Thranduil's Halls, Elrohir…"
"Now there is the chiding brother that I know! I should have expected you to say such a thing, even after your rescue!"
"Rescue…"
"Yes."
Elladan frowned, his mind racing to recall what had happened. He vaguely remembered a procession of events; screaming, blood, threats…
He pressed his cheek into Elrohir's shoulder, tilting his head to gaze up at his brother's tense face.
Valar…
His heart dropped. His words were weighted with sorrow.
"You killed that boy…"
He felt the horse draw to a steady halt, felt Elrohir's arms tighten around him. Tension blackened the air.
"Of course."
Elladan's eyes widened. Elrohir caught his expression with barely repressed irritation and confusion.
"Elbereth…" Elladan glanced away.
Elrohir's face was a picture of fury. He did not understand, could not understand Elladan's twisted, misplaced pity! Sensing his turmoil, Elladan met his gaze again.
"Why do you look at me thus?" Elrohir snapped, "That boy was about to slit your throat, or leave you to die! Pray tell, Elladan, what you would have had me do!?"
Elladan gripped his brother's hand, shaking his dark head.
What could he say to those words? Would he not have done the same? Would he not have done exactly the same, if not worse?
Sensing Elrohir's pained eyes upon him and his desperate need to be absolved, Elladan opened his mouth to speak.
The words never came.
Pain ripped a scream from his lips that shattered Elrohir to the very core. The last thing Elladan saw was Elrohir's broken expression. Then he saw nothing.
Nothing could have prepared Legolas for the onslaught.
In some fleeting moment between panic and rage, he found himself arrested by intense despair. Despair at his failing senses. How had he not known they were being tracked? What part of him had grown so deaf to the warnings of the forest? What black magic had stolen from him that which he had once prided himself upon?
These questions assailed him in a flurry, leaving him briefly incapacitated and vulnerable to a well-aimed strike.
"Legolas!" Glorfindel's warning was in vain.
Legolas tumbled from the horse in a graceless flailing of limbs - winded. A heavy, ugly club swung toward his head. He rolled just in time, snatching up his quiver and reaching for his bow with a speed that defied his brief weakness. But Aragorn decapitated the creature before Legolas could face it and the elf prince shot the man an indignant glare.
Aragorn flashed a grin, gazing down from atop his horse.
"Try to stay on your feet! And Valar, watch your back!" he teased, enjoying the vicious glint in Legolas' eyes.
The elf loosed an arrow that whizzed past the ranger's head, felling a spider rearing up behind him. Aragorn gaped over his shoulder, barely catching Legolas' smirk.
"That shall be a task whilst I have to watch yours!" the elf returned, releasing consecutive shots into the massing fray.
Aragorn blocked a strike to his thigh, plunging his sword into the neck of a screaming orc. He tossed his hair from his face, turning toward Legolas.
"And yet I am the one still saddled!" he snapped back, dipping his wrist to deflect another screaming blade, "Fancy that!"
Legolas leapt back from the hairy legs of a spider, ducking low and coming up to plunge his knife into its swollen belly. The beast reared back, falling in a tangle of twitching limbs. The elf glanced over at Aragorn.
"I credit your horse, more than your balance!" he seethed, eyes flashing sarcastically.
"Of which you have precious little!" Aragorn laughed, swallowing further chuckles as he cleaved to either side of his steed, hewing and hacking at orc and spider alike.
Legolas flushed with anger, but used it to drive his blade through two throats in a feral spin and swipe. The orcs dropped around him and the spiders retreated in nervous scuttles, only to cower further from the brilliant wrath of Glorfindel, who came upon them in a tide of gold and light.
Aragorn twisted in his saddle, catching a glimpse of the Elf Lord as he moved like a passing vision between his attackers, Asfaloth rearing and bucking in his defence. It was quite a sight. Aragorn's lips curled appreciatively.
His distraction cost him.
He was pitched from his saddle with a yelp. His cry drew the attention of a still-fuming Legolas, who whipped around just in time to put an arrow between the eyes of the orc looming over the fallen ranger.
Legolas glided over, firing another two arrows to keep the spiders back. He came to stand above Aragorn, his face haughty.
"You are one to speak of staying on your feet!" he mocked, his blue eyes bright with menace, "At least I had grace enough to rise in an instant!"
Aragorn would have replied, but agony fired along his neck when he made to lift his head. Legolas caught his wince and looked down. The elf's eyes lost their condescending edge and immediately widened in concern. Aragorn observed this with pleasant surprise and he felt his heart constrict at the obvious worry in the elf's gaze.
"Fool!" Legolas snarled, but it was a weak attempt. His voice betrayed his concern.
He dropped to a knee, assured that Glorfindel, who currently swept across the clearing felling all manner of foe, would afford him time enough to help Aragorn.
"Lie still."
"With pleasure." Aragorn groaned, staring at the fletching of an arrow imbedded in his upper shoulder, precariously close to his neck.
Legolas' fingers gently inspected the shaft and he was oblivious to Aragorn's gaze. It was only when he began to relay his thoughts that the ranger shifted his attention.
"I must extract it," he informed, casting Aragorn a fleeting glance, "I do not think it is barbed."
"We'll find out," Aragorn muttered, turning his head away as the elf wrapped his slender fingers around the shaft.
Legolas drew a breath.
"Do you wish for me to count?"
"I'm not a child!"
Legolas rolled his eyes, "That is contestable."
"Oh just-" the rest was a pained cry as the elf ripped the arrow free and Aragorn cursed lowly, his face paling.
The elf pressed his hand to the wound, his eyes grim. He offered a bleak smile.
"Hold still."
Aragorn muttered something unintelligible beneath his breath and turned his head in time to see Glorfindel striding toward them. The Elf Lord crouched down, his piercing eyes searching for further injury.
"Estel?"
"I will be fine." Aragorn brushed off the Eldar's touch.
Glorfindel reached for Asfaloth, who came to hover at his side, and took a pack secured at the ornate saddle – something he would rather have forgone, had he not required it to carry such necessities.
"You are insufferable." Glorfindel breathed out, obviously relieved, despite his anger, "When will you learn to listen to me?"
Aragorn offered a pathetic grin.
"Possibly when it's too late." Legolas answered, his eyes narrowed.
The smile dropped from the ranger's features and his brow clouded with disdain at the elf's scorn – he was growing weary of it. It hurt more to catch glimpses of Legolas' former concern and regard, only to have it snatched away.
Aragorn didn't realise he was staring and Legolas found himself having to glance away. Glorfindel did not miss their exchange.
"If you would have focused such attention on your enemy, you would not have suffered this strike." Glorfindel admonished, cleaning the wound with effortless care, "You two are behaving like children, tis' unbecoming and dangerous."
Legolas shot Glorfindel a dark look, stabbing a finger at the ranger.
"Twas' Estel who defied you, not I. This is my homeland and I wager I know its lands well enough to-"
"- fail to acknowledge you were being tracked." The Eldar finished, and not without a pointed glare, "Let alone lead your quandary straight to me, which, lucky for both of you, was perchance a stroke of blinding luck. Be grateful, Thranduilion, that I am not having to nurse you too…though I can safely say you trouble me as much as young Estel."
Aragorn managed to hold his tongue. Instead, he passed anxious glances between the two elves, waiting for Legolas to erupt and for Glorfindel to put him rather bluntly in his place. Neither calamity came to pass.
Legolas withdrew, his eyes shadowed, his gait more of a stalk as he moved to retrieve his arrows. Glorfindel watched him closely, his hands moving unconsciously to dress Aragorn's wound.
"Lord Glor-"
"As for you," Glorfindel turned his eyes upon Aragorn and the human shrank back, "There is no word in the Elven tongue firm enough to provide an apt admonishment. By Elbereth, what were you thinking?"
Aragorn dropped his eyes, "I was thinking of my brothers, Glorfindel."
Glorfindel's hard face softened at that. He sighed bleakly, studying Aragorn with obvious frustration. The ranger kept his gaze averted, unwilling to provoke further wrath. The Eldar's fingers touched his good shoulder.
"Estel, I told you I would find your brothers."
"You will not have to."
Legolas' voice drifted from across the clearing. Aragorn and Glorfindel glanced toward him, both disconcerted at the dreamy air to his voice.
The elf prince was standing deadly still, his blue eyes glazed as they stared up at the singing canopies.
"I think they have found us," he supplied, turning just as a horse staggered into the clearing.
Glorfindel shot to his feet and Aragorn lurched forward with breathless relief catching in his throat.
The relief died in an instant.
Upon the steed's back sat a distressed and bedraggled Elrohir and in his arms, a pale and unmoving Elladan.
"Elladan…"
Arwen's voice, melodic and lilted with sorrow, settled over Elrond's mind like a calming touch and he turned toward his daughter.
She stood beside the tall, arched portal leading onto the intricate balcony where Elrond had paced endlessly until she and Erestor had managed to draw him into the quiet sanctuary of the chamber. It had done little to still his racing heart, or banish the images of his eldest child from his mind.
Arwen could sense it too. Although to her it was muted, less intense. Either way, the pull of Elrohir's distress tugged at the edges of her mind and ripped at her quailing heart. She turned large, doe eyes upon her father, her timeless face an exquisite picture of sadness.
"Ada...?"
Elrond had to look away. Erestor's voice turned both their heads.
"My Lord Elrond," the dark elf glanced between them, "the council awaits you."
Arwen marked the alien scowl that came upon her father's face and she moved to stand beside him, the gentle swish of her skirts the only sound that filled the empty silence.
"I will go to Elladan," she murmured, taking his hand in hers, "I will bring them home."
"Law." Elrond shook his head, "Glorfindel is with them...and I will not suffer fate to be so kind as to deliver you into Mirkwood without some ill-fate -"
"I will not be unaided," she cut in, her voice strong yet soft, "Duty stays you but further still is your belief that Elrohir is with Elladan. That will afford him much strength in the absence of your healing. But he need not be without mine. Let me go to them."
"I forbid it."
Silence.
Erestor remained detached from the exchange, his dark eyes shifting between Elrond and his daughter. He could sense the tension along Arwen's long and graceful neck and see the barest tightening around her jaw. The glint never left her eyes and she studied her father with admirable patience. Elrond had none left, too wrought with fear and choked with panic at the dread surrounding his son.
If Arwen had sought another means of persuading him, she spoke not soon enough; for her father turned in swirl of robes, striding from the room to compose whatever manner of decorum he could to face the waiting council.
Arwen watched him go, her regal face masked with an air of calm and grace that had Erestor smiling slightly in memory of her younger years – where the childish glimmer of mischief, nurtured by her brothers, would hover in the corners of her mouth, or dance across her eyes. The rebellious play of a child. She had been quite a handful.
"What if it was me, Erestor?"
Erestor blinked from his thoughts, his sharp, intelligent gaze locking with her blue, probing stare.
"If it were I…do you believe for a moment that my father would have stayed my brothers from finding me?"
The stubborn defiance in her gaze concerned him, but not nearly as much as the smile that began to touch her lips. He knew that look. He remembered it with painful accuracy.
"My Lady…" he began.
She took a step toward him, her hands folded before her in perfect innocence – though her intentions were clear in the sway of her movement, the calculating look in her gentle eyes.
"Just as you once saved me from the stern reproach of my father in my childhood, daring to keep certain misadventures under oaths of silence in return for my good conduct-"
"You are no longer a child, my Lady Arwen."
"Formalities, Erestor?" Arwen drew up short, gazing up into the counsellor's stern and frowning face, "Between you and your old spawn-of-Mordor elfling?"
Erestor almost blushed.
"Was that what your brother's called you? I forget."
Arwen's brilliant smile almost melted his resolve, but he held fast, remembering her antics as a child – the Evenstar could win even the most untouchable hearts with a smile.
"It was not my brother's who dubbed me so. I do believe it was you."
Erestor snorted, turning toward the door with a shy smile.
"Yes, well…you were a feisty child."
"Then know my temper now." Arwen rounded on him, her hands reaching for his, "You who were once such a willing accomplice –"
"Willing?" the adviser smirked, but it was a bleak riposte, for he knew what she was asking. Her heart was in her eyes.
Arwen grasped his hands tighter, gazing at him through stubborn tears.
"Erestor, saes." She held his gaze, "They are my brothers."
Conflict warred inside him and Erestor sighed heavily, turning his head away. His mind raced.
Elrond walked a thin line as it was. He did not need a further distress to try his patience. He had it in all measure of things, bar his family. The Lord of Rivendell would not easily forgive such betrayal on his counsellor - nay, his friend's - part.
Erestor shook his head. Arwen's fingers tightened around his. He could see her pleading face in the corner of his eye – so painfully honest, so plainly distressed.
Ai Elbereth...Forgive me.
When he spoke, his voice was low.
"What you ask, is no trifling thing."
Her smile lifted his heart, though he managed a weak scowl.
"I know."
"Your father will be livid."
"Let that rest on me."
"You shall not be here to suffer his wrath!" Erestor returned, but this time his eyes were soft – relieved, perhaps.
He was torn between staying and going with her. He loved the children of Elrond as his own. To be pit between his Lord and the young elves he had mentored and loved was no easy thing. Such was his lot. He shook his head again. His voice taut with worry.
"Valar. Be safe, Arwen."
Before he could say more, her arms folded around him. She pressed her cheek to his chest, squeezing her eyes shut and releasing a grateful sigh.
Erestor patted her back lightly, recalling once again the child she had been. It seemed so long ago...and yet...
"Hannon le!" Arwen gasped, pulling back to touch his high cheek, "Díheno nin sen delu cardh?"
At the obvious apology in her gaze Erestor smiled slightly. He bowed his head to plant a rare, yet tender kiss to her brow before stepping back and away.
He turned so she could not see the grief in his eyes.
"Do not make me regret it."
There are not enough words to detail my apology. Instead, I wish to extend my most sincere and deeply deeply grateful THANKS to all of you who have been so wonderfully patient with me – again, I have managed to leave it remarkably…wait…REEMMAARRKKABBLLY LONG before updating. Please know that there have been reasons for this – I shall not bore any of you with the details.
Thank you so much for sticking with me in this reviewers and readers. You guys are fantastic. Truly. You make my day every single bloody time – amazing. Thank You. HANNON LE!!!
Seeing as I have left it sooo long and there are so many of you to respond to, despite having said I would do individual responses, I shall have to put up a COLLECTIVE THANKS to all of you and in the next chapter, resume individual responses – apologies. Please know I am grateful for each any every one of your reviews.
Bless you all.
Love, Love, Love!
© Silver Thorne
Sindarin Elvish Translations
Díheno nin sen delu cardh? – Forgive me this dangerous task?
gwanûn - twins
saes – please
law – no