To make up for the shortness of last chapter, I made this one longer. I just want to thank all of you who reviewed, they were very helpful. And more will be talked about next chapter, cause it takes a few more days before they can get out. So her "marrying" Legolas will be discussed then. Also, I want to make clear now, all of the things she feels towards Fili right now is friendly. There is nothing romantic at this point for, later there will be but not right now. On her part, but Fili is feeling more than she is by the way of romance. But she will start feeling something either next chapter or the one after, so relatively soon. Thank you all again, and I hope you enjoy this chapter.
He hadn't been able to keep himself from calling out to her, not when he heard her make that awful gasping sound, not when he knew what it meant. She had woken him as she startled awake from a nightmare many times before, most of the nights she had been with them in fact. Many were the nights he would hold her until she would relax enough to find rest again, and never did he ask what she dreamed; she wouldn't tell him. He heard her call his name in return, imagining the complete and total relief that sounded in her voice at hearing that he was near; what he did not know was that he had actually heard it for she was truly comforted at hearing his voice.
He did not answer her, and she did not know what it was he wanted her to say; if he wanted her to say anything. And so they sat in silence, knowing the other was close by but neither knowing what should be said. Long were the hours that silence reigned, breakfast came and passed and still no words were spoken. They remained quiet until the day's second meal was brought to them.
"Fili," Eleni called.
"Hmm," was his reply and she could tell his mouth was full.
Eleni found herself at a loss for words again, and she no longer understood why. She could honestly say she had no care for what Thorin thought of her, or any of the others except possibly Gandalf. But for some reason she did not want Fili to be angry with her. And yet she could not say the words that would bring peace between them.
Fili swallowed what was in his mouth and waited for Eleni to say more, but she did not. She was sitting in her dark cell with a plate of food in her lap as she tried to think of what to say; she had been right when she told Gandalf she was not good at these things.
"What did the elf king ask you before we were brought before him?" Fili finally asked. At first he almost asked what it was she told the king, but he did not want to accuse her with his words; he could nearly see the way her eyes would have hardened and her mouth would have grown tight in irritation, refusing to answer. So he chose his words carefully, and he was given an answer.
"He did not ask me much," she admitted. "Only that I am no longer the person I used to be." She was glad to hear his voice, that he was willing to speak to her. She knew if he was Thorin, or even Kili, that they would refuse to acknowledge her; in that way Fili was different, he was kinder and more forgiving but he was just as cruel when he had been wronged. He was nothing like her, she was hard and cold.
Fili was silent for a while, thinking over her words. Eleni began to lose hope that he would speak with her any longer when she heard his voice again; "Elves are good folk," he said.
She sat in confusion trying to understand what he was saying. "Yes," she agreed.
"They give food to their prisoners, there are not many who would give the same treatment."
"No there are not," Eleni agreed.
"They are honest," Fili said at last and Eleni then knew the meaning behind his words, what he was not saying.
"Yes they are, though they often twist their words to mean something different," said she.
Fili was quiet again, and she was left to sit in the dark of her cell waiting for him to answer; should he want to. She realized that he hadn't needed to let her know he was there, that he chose to reveal his presence though he had no reason to trust her. She hardly showed him or any of the others kindness and even then she was often short with them, though it was true she did not like all of the dwarves, there were a few some she did count as friend; as much of a friend as she was able to have.
"If the elvenking had said you told him of our purpose in his woods, would that have been a lie?" Fili asked after several long moments. Before she could answer he continued; "But by saying he had spoken with you he made us believe you had betrayed us."
Fili listened for her answer but she did not give one, though he knew his words were true. What he did not know was why she didn't defend herself, to him at the moment or to the Company at the time. He found himself abhorring the elvenking, for more than abandoning his uncle in his time of need. Again they were quiet, though the silence did not weigh on them as much as it had before. It was well after supper and into the night, when the sky would have been blackened, that next they spoke.
There was little more for either of them to do but sit in the dark and sleep most of the day. They were like cats in that small rests would befall them, and then night fell and sleep would not find them.
"Are you awake?" Fili called out and waited for her to answer.
"I think I may have slept most of the day," she responded ruefully. She had been trapped within the walls of her cell, no sunlight, no wind. Not even enough space for her to pace back and forth from the length of it. She was unused to having to remain in one place for so long, especially when all around her was blackness. She was bored, incredibly so. Her legs ached to walk, even run, and her body yearned to do something other than sit in a dark cell.
"Would you tell me how you came to know the elves?" Fili asked equally as bored. He had never been one to sit back but instead he charged forward; he was as wired and fidgety as Eleni was.
And so she did. She told him of when she and her brother left Rivendell to join her father in their camp, and he sounded amazed when she told him she had been only twenty-six. The fastest way, of course, to get around the forest of Mirkwood was to go through it; many years previous before even her father had been born, Thranduil had given the Dúnedain leave to use the path she had taken Thorin and Company on. And that first time her brother and she had traveled it they were invited to feast with the elfking, who gave them a glorious feast she had never seen the likes of since.
"Have you ever seen any of the creatures off the path?" Fili asked.
She was quiet for a moment as she thought, and Fili thought maybe there was an unpleasant memory that lay in the answer to that question; but what he did not know was that Mirkwood held some of the only memories she had that had always been good, until now.
"Yes I have, but that is a different story."
"Does it not have to do with the elves?" he asked.
She smiled at the memory and Fili could almost hear it in her voice. "No, it has to do with my brother and I and our heart for adventure."
Fili had trouble imagining when she had been younger, all he could see in his mind was the strong unbending woman he had come to know. But at the memory of her fighting the goblins, of the light in her eyes as she cut through them, he thought maybe she had looked more like she did then.
They heard the sounds of voices as they echoed closer, and then their doors opened and the day's first meal was given to them; they had talked all night without realizing it. They ate quietly, their bellies very happy to have food in them, and their bodies happy to have water again. Wood-elves were very gracious to even their greatest enemies, so long as they had captured them first.
It was a long few minutes after breakfast before either one of them spoke again. "Would you tell me of you and your brother?" Eleni asked sitting with her back against the door to better hear him.
Fili thought for a few moments of what to tell her; she knew his father had died when they were young, leaving his uncle Thorin to raise them. She knew Thorin, so without him having told her she knew Thorin was strict, and yet he had told her that as well.
So he told her of the parts of the quest she had not been apart of; the arrival at Bilbo's hobbit-hole, Kili's face when he first saw Bilbo which had made her laugh quietly. He told her of the trolls and how even though all thirteen of them fought they had still been caught and put in sacks, which had smelled so foul he had thought he would never stop smelling it.
She was not surprised to hear that Bilbo was the one who had thought to waste time, nor was hearing that Gandalf had come back and used the sunrise to turn the trolls to stone. However, there was one part of the story that she was, not surprised at, but curious of.
"What were you and Kili doing to have let a troll steal your ponies?" she called.
Fili was quiet for a long while. "It was," he started in an attempt of defense, "a mundane task." The tinkling of Eleni's laughter echoed through the stone and he could not keep himself from smiling at the sound.
"So you are not one to do something that is less than worthy of your time," she teased in a serious voice.
He rolled his eyes in his dark cell, and his cheeks were warm from embarrassment; Thorin had questioned him and Kili on how they misplaced the ponies as well.
"And what happened next?" she asked to change the topic of their conversation, knowing he was uncomfortable with it from his quietness.
And so he told her of the troll caves, where Throin found Orcrist and Gandalf found Glamdring; and Bilbo was given Sting, though the hobbit had named it when he was fighting the spiders on his own. He hadn't been surprised to hear she knew of Radagast, it only made sense that after her time in the wild she had come across the strange wizard at some point in her life. Though she had not known of his Rustibelle rabbits that had drawn off the wargs that were hunting them. And Gandalf had led them to a tunnel path that led them to Rivendell, and that was when they had met her. He had already told her of what had happened between when they left the elf stronghold and when she came to the Goblin-town, so now she knew all of their journey.
He did not tell her all of their tale in one sitting, at some point one or both of them would slip into slumber – one time Fili had fallen asleep in the middle of a sentence. He did not finish telling her of their travels until well after dinner, and they slowly settled back into an uneasy sleep. Eleni woke once, feeling her shoulder wrench from its socket as Azog stepped on it, though she was looking at both she and the pale orc from behind; and she did not know who's eyes she was looking through.
"Are you alright?" Fili called, having been awake before she woke. She did not answer him for a very long time, and he thought perhaps she had fallen asleep.
"Do you think we will ever get out?" she asked, though he almost did not hear for her voice was so quiet.
"Of course we will," he said with conviction. And he truly did believe it, though she did not feel the same. And he could tell she didn't by how long it took for her speak again.
"Do you think I will ever get out?"
He was taken aback by her question, until he remembered the way in which the dwarves had parted from Eleni in. Fili found himself hating the elfking so strongly, for causing Eleni to believe they would leave her to remain here.
"I will not leave you behind," he told her, and in her cell she smiled softly at his words. "You will leave with us, and I will make sure you see Estel again."
Her smile grew, she had not known it but it was what she needed to hear. She sat with her back against the cold stone feeling more at ease than she had before, though her spirits were still rather low. And as the days continued to pass they grew even lower; as did Fili's, he did not have as much conviction of them getting out of their prisons as he had before. They continued to speak with each other, and slowly they began to learn more about the other and the reason they were like they were. Fili told Eleni of the pressures Thorin placed on him as the next in line, and how he could not behave in the way his brother did. It was because Kili was not as weighed down by the burden of being the prince of Durin that he could be as reckless as he acted. Which, as his older brother, Fili was left with the responsibility to follow after Kili on whatever his little brother decided to do.
Eleni could hear how much Fili loved his brother just from the way he spoke, as though there was a smile in the sound of his voice. She understood what he meant of the pressures weighing and wearing out the urge to act carelessly, she had seen it in her brother; and she told him so.
"What were you like, when you were younger?" Fili asked sitting with his back against the door.
"I was like any youthful person in that I wanted to see the world and everything it had to offer. Even the unpleasant things."
Fili smiled and closed his eyes trying to picture her face, though he could not see her how he wanted. Her eyes were not as severe, her face not as sharp. And so he listened to her voice as she told him of how she and brother had left the path hoping to come across something behind the trees; and they certainly did, though they had been prepared from what the elves had told them lay in the woods. They traveled together, they fought together, they loved the thrill of imminent danger together; he was reminded strongly of he and Kili, and he was saddened when he clearly pictured the pain in her eyes when she had spoken of her brother's death. He wanted to hold her again, if not to comfort her than to comfort him and the thoughts of losing his own brother. He knew then that it was her brother's death that had changed her, that she could no longer be herself when her brother was not with her.
Over a week had passed since they had been imprisoned, though to them it felt as though it had been an eternity. They were still given food and drink, and they were very fine to taste , but the darkness was suffocating them both.
Eleni was slowly coming out of a troubled sleep when she heard the door to her cell open and the painful glow of a torch blinded her; it had been the first light she had seen since being locked in the cell. The glow of the flames flashed on long golden hair. "I did not know it was a prince's duty to visit his father's prisoners."
"It is my duty when they are my friend," answered Legolas before kneeling beside where she sat.
Eleni stared at his face, slowly becoming used to the light. "What are you doing here?"
"I came to ask the same of you." Eleni looked away from him but he pulled her chin so she would look at him again. "You must have known we never would have forgiven you for joining them."
"It is not for them that I agreed to their quest, and nor did they ask for me to."
"Then why did you agree?" Legolas asked, remembering a day when he found her and her brother sleeping a far way off the path in the trees with hardly a scratch on either of them.
"Gandalf asked it of me," she finally admitted.
"Why did you not tell my father that, surely you knew he would understand and have offered you pardon?"
"I do not want his pardon nor did I want it when I first agreed to this quest. Losing the friendships of you and your kin is great tragedy to me, but that did not hinder me before and it will not now."
Legolas was quiet as he knelt before her holding her chin, many times she had visited with her brother, and many times did he go to visit them. He could have loved her, for the rest of her short life knowing losing her would have destroyed him. But he still could have, because the life in her was so viable he had never been able to resist her. Though that was not the woman before him, and even the woman she used to be never returned those feelings. He sighed before standing, staring down at her upturned face a long while before moving to the door.
"Legolas," she said stilling his feet. He turned back to her to see her standing behind him, her eyes wide with pleading. "You know of my brother's wife?" He nodded and waited for her to continue. "You know," she stopped uncertain of whether to continue.
"Of their son," he finished for her. Legolas knew of Aragorn, but his father did not; at least not at that moment.
"Should you come across him at some point in his life," she whispered stepping closer to him, her wide eyes alight with worry and fear, "would you care for him in my stead?" He was taken aback by her request, as though she knew she would not live to see her nephew grow. "Would you," she stopped releasing a breath. "Please," she begged.
Legolas stared hard into her eyes, seeing how much she loved the child, the boy who held all she had left of her brother. "Should I recognize him I will treat him with the same care I have for you," he said giving her his word. He saw the relief flood through her as she released the breath she had been holding. Legolas stared at her a moment longer, wondering what it was about the dwarf in the cell near hers that had captured her interest so fully.
He closed the door and began walking back towards his father's throne room; never would he have imagined how similar in appearance Aragorn would be to his aunt, for in the years to come when Legolas would meet the boy he would recognize him immediately.
Fili had sat silently listening to the elf speak with Eleni, hearing the familiarity in both of their voices. But all jealous rage left him when he heard Eleni ask for Legolas to care for Estel, when he heard the despair in her voice.
They were both startled greatly at hearing a familiar voice outside of their doors, and then hope flooded through them both. It was their hobbit; he had followed the elf prince through the caves and had finally found them.