A/N- I felt that we needed Le's POV for the drinking incident Also, we've
been learning about this in health class and it's unfortunately embedded in
my subconscious. Here's to you, teach!
Chapter 25- What lies at the bottom of the bottle?
When Leyadriel woke the next morning her head hurt like it had never hurt her before, the excruciating pain was not lessened by Legolas berating her with a great many loud questions about why she had done what she had done. She had only heard one question and that was the only one she had answered.
"Tell me at least Leyadriel, what lies at the bottom of the bottle that was worth that humiliation?"
"Peace." She had given him one word but really so many words behind it. Peace. She had discovered this before.....discovered that a drunken sleep prevented her dreams from plaguing her, prevented her from being tormented and instead allowed her to have a peaceful night's sleep...with the terrible side effect of a hangover in the morning.
**FLASHBACK TO WHEN SHE FIRST DISCOVERED THIS**
All around her music was floating through the air and laughter wafted through so thickly you could almost smell the ale on their breaths. People were merrymaking all around and it seemed so innocent, so exciting that it was impossible for Leyadriel not to join in. She saw a corner that was lonely and in desperate need of people to habitat it. She nudged her escort and then pointed to the corner, her eyes glittering with anticipation when he nodded. As they made their way over, he grabbed two goblets and Leyadriel ignored it, thinking nothing of it, until they were settled in their corner and he offered her one.
"What is it?" She asked, looking untrustingly at the cup.
"Ale, and rather good ale." He replied downing the goblet in a gulp.
She shrugged her shoulders and took a sip, finding it a bit rougher then the wine she was used to but pleasant all the same. When she finished it she smiled, "It was rather good."
Her escort smiled menacingly and had more brought over, he kept speaking to her and laughing with her as they shared the drinks. He seemed unaffected by the drink where Leyadriel began to be dizzy after her third cup. When she inquired about this he simply replied, "It's because I'm used to it, it takes longer to affect me then it will you."
She nodded but said, "Can we leave here before I get too dizzy?"
She stood up and nearly fell over but he helped her stagger to an isolated location by a riverside, "Ta ikotane vanima." {It is so beautiful.}
"Dammit, woman, I can't speak elvish." He reminded her harshly.
"I said that it was very beautiful here, and a tad more isolated than where we were before." She said, leaning against the cold grass and trying to make one of the two moons she was seeing disappear.
He leaned over her and smiled menacingly, "Tis indeed quite isolated, my princess."
With this he swooped down to engulf her in a kiss that left her mind wheeling. Then again it was already wheeling so he shouldn't be given too much credit. She returned the motion, suddenly feeling brave and not nearly so shy or self conscious as before and she rather enjoyed the odd sensation. He pressed his body harder against her's and put a hand on her knee...a hand that began to travel north. She pushed it down when it got too close to her center, which was aching for him to continue.
"Why not?" He asked. She opened her mouth to reply but found no words waiting in her mouth to be spoken. Leyadriel began to search her mind for a legitimate reason why she should not do this but could not find one, she would reminisce later that her judgment was wanting that night.
She shook her head and he captured her lips again, just as viciously though she found an odd satisfaction in the roughness. He pushed her skirts up and even the cool night air hitting her more intimate areas did nothing to snap her out of the fog that she had slipped into. A strange feeling of detachment began to overtake her, one she wanted to shake off but found that she couldn't. Shortly after a sharp pain began in her abdomen as her escort entered her without the gentle touch that should have been applied. She wanted him to slow down, wanted him to calm down but she couldn't make her mouth speak nor her brain compose something to say. She felt liquid ooze down her legs and inwardly was concerned but her lover paid no heed to it so she just pushed it to the back of her mind. He finally gave a last great push before she had the alien sensation of hot come invade her insides. The feeling was oddly comforting but her legs ached, her abdomen ached, everything below her hips ached and suddenly she felt sick. The man got up and was lacing his leggings when Leyadriel crawled like an infant over to the river and vomited profusely. Pengwaith watched her with a repulsed face before patting the small of her back, kissing the back of her head and whispering, "Well, thank you. Good night."
Leyadriel felt empty and abandoned and sicker then she had ever been before, but she was beginning to love the detachment, the feeling that she was apart from everything else and nothing could touch her. Feeling more confident now, she pulled up her skirts to see what the liquid was..she found blood around the painful areas yet she didn't feel injured. She would not realize until tomorrow that the blood was a communication from her body to her, telling her that her virginity was no longer hers and that it left harshly. But she would realize something else in the morning...something that came with the blackout that followed her discovery of the blood........an unconscious sleep gave her no dreams. None at all, not even a shadow to taunt her.
That was the first time in her life she had not seen so much as a shadow as she slept and she quickly became addicted to the predicament as most people became addicted to substances. She hated how this empty dream, this safe dream, could be reached, she would later hate the aftereffects of it but even so she knew deep in her heart that this may be the first time she had experienced this, but it was certainly not the last.
***END OF FLASHBACK***
Leyadriel smiled but Legolas didn't understand why, he didn't understand her reply nor her actions. The only thing he understood was that she had come back drunk and been a humiliation, an embarrassment and a disgrace to her family, her blood, her name, him and most importantly herself.
She was near falling asleep again and Legolas was beyond frustrated with her, he led her to a basin of cold water and, taking her hair in his hand, pressed her faced gently into it. She snapped awake almost instantly but then she kept her eyes near closed and her hands were by her temples and ears, even slight sound causing them pain.
"So much for you having elvish tolerance for alcohol." He scolded before leading her to a seat, "Tell me what happened and why?"
"Legolas---" She moaned, clearing not wanted to do it but he had no mercy for her innocence ploy as of that moment.
"Sii', saes, Leyadriel." {Now, please.} He said with a tone of iron yet still managing courtesy.
She groaned and clutched her head in both hands before taking a breath and starting, "Some of the men I was sparring with decided that they wanted a drink, they said that they were all getting homesick and were also cold and wanted to numb that, they asked me if I'd like to join and I agreed."
She stopped and looked at him but he arched an elegant eyebrow, "A' mani? Im sinta ner marte." {And what? I know more happened.}
She sighed, "I took a few lovers, what is wrong with that?"
Legolas' eyes shot open and he growled, "A few? How many is a few?"
"Two and that's decent compared to the number that you've taken to bed on nights you've gone out merrymaking. I want no lecturing from you, Legolas."
He was taken aback, "How do you know about my past?"
"Ataramin." {My mother.} Leyadriel squeaked as she put her hands over her eyes to block out as much light as she could.
"Arwen told you of that? I find that hard to believe." Legolas quipped inwardly praying Leyadriel did not know that explicit details of some of those nights.
"She did whether or not you believe me, but that doesn't matter."
"And what does? Your quest to find the names of the two men?"
"I know who they are." Leyadriel defended herself, "Do you think me that fast and uncaring of my sexuality?"
"Enough so that you found a need to get drunk to find that solace." He replied but that gave him a fierce slap to his pretty face from Leyadriel.
"Don't *EVER* say that again, you make me sound too much like Elaren." She paused, "My motives were not simply to gain lovers, you overlook a more obvious answer as to why I did what I did."
"They are not so obvious, I can see no other than that I've spoken of." He said evenly, trying not to fight with her.
She blushed and looked away from him, she did not want to tell him else he forbid her from having it again. He sensed her slight panic and her fear and he softened, reaching out a hand to touch her that she moved away from. Leyadriel sat with her knees against her chest in a dark corner of his tent, finding relief from the light that had been reeking havoc on her sore eyes and hurting head.
"Leyadriel," He cooed in a tone that normally gave him anything he desired from the tarien (princess), "Please tell me, I want to understand why last night happened."
"You wouldn't understand, you're an elf."
"As are you." He replied, a bit confused.
"Nay, I'm not. I'm only part elven; I am part human as well."
"So?"
"Humans and elves experience some things differently. I experience drunkenness like a human would and you have only ever experienced it as an elf would."
"I can try to understand, pen miramin." {My little jewel}
Leyadriel smiled softly at the name, "I miss that pet name when I don't hear it."
He took the opportunity to move closer to her so that he was kneeling in front of her and they were face to face, "Saes, pen miramin, yassen nin." {Please, my little jewel, speak to me.}
"The slumber that follows is like death, so much like it that not even the dead dare enter it." She told him before looking directly into his eyes with a shameful look in her sapphire eyes, "I crave so much to not be tortured, most nights I simply do not sleep but then the fatigue of doing so wears on me so heavily that it is just as painful as sleeping would have been. I discovered much by accident that drunken sleep prevents my terrors from finding me, and I fell in love with that condition in an instant.....but I so hate the misery that comes before and after that sleep that I seldom find my relief there. But sometimes I must have it..." She looked into her eyes as an addict does when they are facing withdrawal, the look of necessity that will one day kill the needy, "I hate it yet that hate gives me more then any amount of love ever has. I am weak to give in, I know it well, but I can't help it. I want a cure so badly...that sometimes I just concoct my own."
Legolas suddenly understood and all the anger and rage he had felt slipped away and he saw her, such a beauty, such an elegant wonder but so plagued with the most unjust of torments that she would do anything to stop them, even for just a few brief hours of rest. He held her to him and cooed, "I understand well, Leyadriel...Im hiraetha, Im ikotane hiraetha." {I'm sorry. I'm so sorry.}
She pulled away from him slightly before burying her head in the crook of his neck and muttering, "If we are ever going to reach Ithilien in time to help, we should go. Your people await do they not my Lord?"
Legolas felt the weight of that title, he felt the pressure of his people who were waiting with baited breath for the arrival of their soldiers, their saving grace and he was about to agree to that statement; but then he looked into her eyes, so endlessly blue yet torn with fatigue and pain and hunger and in no fit state to ride on. He knew that she was in a better state then a good many of the men but right then he didn't care about them.
"You amaze me, Leyadriel. You are raped and beaten and shredded to pieces in your dreams and then in the waking world put yourself through so much and still you ask for more?"
"I never said I wanted it, I said it should be done." She countered, trying to massage the pain out of her temples. He need not bring up her rape from her dream captures, she still remembered it painfully well. She had been surprised that she had not died from it as rape kills an elf but then she realized that it was not rape as there was not a physical being present raping her, thankful though she was for her life she still hated that she had lived through it and did not wish for that particular memory just then.
He smiled and kissed her brow, "Then it shall be as you want, we shall wait another day. The others need rest and you do as well."
"Favoritism is bad Legolas." She said as he cradled her in his arms and laid her back in bed.
"It's not favoritism, it's rational. The men, most of them, will be in a worse state then you are now and we are close to Ithilien, a day will not hurt our timing and it will greatly help your health and theirs."
"Rest hurts me." She countered.
He frowned and pulled a soft blanket around her, "I know, pen mir, I know." {Little jewel}
He kissed her cheek and was set for that to be all but she turned her head so that he met her lips, the contact was brief but sweet and Leyadriel eyed him devilishly as he met that gaze with one that said 'behave', "I only wanted a sleep well kiss."
He smiled in spite of himself at the look of innocence she gave him just then before sailing his thumb over the same lips he had just tasted, "Kaima quel, pen miramin." {Sleep well, my little jewel.}
And at that she closed her eyes and fell asleep, a sleep that he watched vigilantly so that he would be there when she woke bloodied from it.
A/N- I don't drink and DO NOT PROMOTE IT, DON"T DRINK AND DRIVE PEOPLE AND DON"T DRINK AT ALL UNLESS YOUR OVER 21!!!! Also, I don't know if any of that drunk stuff I described was real, I just based it on Health Class.
Chapter 25- What lies at the bottom of the bottle?
When Leyadriel woke the next morning her head hurt like it had never hurt her before, the excruciating pain was not lessened by Legolas berating her with a great many loud questions about why she had done what she had done. She had only heard one question and that was the only one she had answered.
"Tell me at least Leyadriel, what lies at the bottom of the bottle that was worth that humiliation?"
"Peace." She had given him one word but really so many words behind it. Peace. She had discovered this before.....discovered that a drunken sleep prevented her dreams from plaguing her, prevented her from being tormented and instead allowed her to have a peaceful night's sleep...with the terrible side effect of a hangover in the morning.
**FLASHBACK TO WHEN SHE FIRST DISCOVERED THIS**
All around her music was floating through the air and laughter wafted through so thickly you could almost smell the ale on their breaths. People were merrymaking all around and it seemed so innocent, so exciting that it was impossible for Leyadriel not to join in. She saw a corner that was lonely and in desperate need of people to habitat it. She nudged her escort and then pointed to the corner, her eyes glittering with anticipation when he nodded. As they made their way over, he grabbed two goblets and Leyadriel ignored it, thinking nothing of it, until they were settled in their corner and he offered her one.
"What is it?" She asked, looking untrustingly at the cup.
"Ale, and rather good ale." He replied downing the goblet in a gulp.
She shrugged her shoulders and took a sip, finding it a bit rougher then the wine she was used to but pleasant all the same. When she finished it she smiled, "It was rather good."
Her escort smiled menacingly and had more brought over, he kept speaking to her and laughing with her as they shared the drinks. He seemed unaffected by the drink where Leyadriel began to be dizzy after her third cup. When she inquired about this he simply replied, "It's because I'm used to it, it takes longer to affect me then it will you."
She nodded but said, "Can we leave here before I get too dizzy?"
She stood up and nearly fell over but he helped her stagger to an isolated location by a riverside, "Ta ikotane vanima." {It is so beautiful.}
"Dammit, woman, I can't speak elvish." He reminded her harshly.
"I said that it was very beautiful here, and a tad more isolated than where we were before." She said, leaning against the cold grass and trying to make one of the two moons she was seeing disappear.
He leaned over her and smiled menacingly, "Tis indeed quite isolated, my princess."
With this he swooped down to engulf her in a kiss that left her mind wheeling. Then again it was already wheeling so he shouldn't be given too much credit. She returned the motion, suddenly feeling brave and not nearly so shy or self conscious as before and she rather enjoyed the odd sensation. He pressed his body harder against her's and put a hand on her knee...a hand that began to travel north. She pushed it down when it got too close to her center, which was aching for him to continue.
"Why not?" He asked. She opened her mouth to reply but found no words waiting in her mouth to be spoken. Leyadriel began to search her mind for a legitimate reason why she should not do this but could not find one, she would reminisce later that her judgment was wanting that night.
She shook her head and he captured her lips again, just as viciously though she found an odd satisfaction in the roughness. He pushed her skirts up and even the cool night air hitting her more intimate areas did nothing to snap her out of the fog that she had slipped into. A strange feeling of detachment began to overtake her, one she wanted to shake off but found that she couldn't. Shortly after a sharp pain began in her abdomen as her escort entered her without the gentle touch that should have been applied. She wanted him to slow down, wanted him to calm down but she couldn't make her mouth speak nor her brain compose something to say. She felt liquid ooze down her legs and inwardly was concerned but her lover paid no heed to it so she just pushed it to the back of her mind. He finally gave a last great push before she had the alien sensation of hot come invade her insides. The feeling was oddly comforting but her legs ached, her abdomen ached, everything below her hips ached and suddenly she felt sick. The man got up and was lacing his leggings when Leyadriel crawled like an infant over to the river and vomited profusely. Pengwaith watched her with a repulsed face before patting the small of her back, kissing the back of her head and whispering, "Well, thank you. Good night."
Leyadriel felt empty and abandoned and sicker then she had ever been before, but she was beginning to love the detachment, the feeling that she was apart from everything else and nothing could touch her. Feeling more confident now, she pulled up her skirts to see what the liquid was..she found blood around the painful areas yet she didn't feel injured. She would not realize until tomorrow that the blood was a communication from her body to her, telling her that her virginity was no longer hers and that it left harshly. But she would realize something else in the morning...something that came with the blackout that followed her discovery of the blood........an unconscious sleep gave her no dreams. None at all, not even a shadow to taunt her.
That was the first time in her life she had not seen so much as a shadow as she slept and she quickly became addicted to the predicament as most people became addicted to substances. She hated how this empty dream, this safe dream, could be reached, she would later hate the aftereffects of it but even so she knew deep in her heart that this may be the first time she had experienced this, but it was certainly not the last.
***END OF FLASHBACK***
Leyadriel smiled but Legolas didn't understand why, he didn't understand her reply nor her actions. The only thing he understood was that she had come back drunk and been a humiliation, an embarrassment and a disgrace to her family, her blood, her name, him and most importantly herself.
She was near falling asleep again and Legolas was beyond frustrated with her, he led her to a basin of cold water and, taking her hair in his hand, pressed her faced gently into it. She snapped awake almost instantly but then she kept her eyes near closed and her hands were by her temples and ears, even slight sound causing them pain.
"So much for you having elvish tolerance for alcohol." He scolded before leading her to a seat, "Tell me what happened and why?"
"Legolas---" She moaned, clearing not wanted to do it but he had no mercy for her innocence ploy as of that moment.
"Sii', saes, Leyadriel." {Now, please.} He said with a tone of iron yet still managing courtesy.
She groaned and clutched her head in both hands before taking a breath and starting, "Some of the men I was sparring with decided that they wanted a drink, they said that they were all getting homesick and were also cold and wanted to numb that, they asked me if I'd like to join and I agreed."
She stopped and looked at him but he arched an elegant eyebrow, "A' mani? Im sinta ner marte." {And what? I know more happened.}
She sighed, "I took a few lovers, what is wrong with that?"
Legolas' eyes shot open and he growled, "A few? How many is a few?"
"Two and that's decent compared to the number that you've taken to bed on nights you've gone out merrymaking. I want no lecturing from you, Legolas."
He was taken aback, "How do you know about my past?"
"Ataramin." {My mother.} Leyadriel squeaked as she put her hands over her eyes to block out as much light as she could.
"Arwen told you of that? I find that hard to believe." Legolas quipped inwardly praying Leyadriel did not know that explicit details of some of those nights.
"She did whether or not you believe me, but that doesn't matter."
"And what does? Your quest to find the names of the two men?"
"I know who they are." Leyadriel defended herself, "Do you think me that fast and uncaring of my sexuality?"
"Enough so that you found a need to get drunk to find that solace." He replied but that gave him a fierce slap to his pretty face from Leyadriel.
"Don't *EVER* say that again, you make me sound too much like Elaren." She paused, "My motives were not simply to gain lovers, you overlook a more obvious answer as to why I did what I did."
"They are not so obvious, I can see no other than that I've spoken of." He said evenly, trying not to fight with her.
She blushed and looked away from him, she did not want to tell him else he forbid her from having it again. He sensed her slight panic and her fear and he softened, reaching out a hand to touch her that she moved away from. Leyadriel sat with her knees against her chest in a dark corner of his tent, finding relief from the light that had been reeking havoc on her sore eyes and hurting head.
"Leyadriel," He cooed in a tone that normally gave him anything he desired from the tarien (princess), "Please tell me, I want to understand why last night happened."
"You wouldn't understand, you're an elf."
"As are you." He replied, a bit confused.
"Nay, I'm not. I'm only part elven; I am part human as well."
"So?"
"Humans and elves experience some things differently. I experience drunkenness like a human would and you have only ever experienced it as an elf would."
"I can try to understand, pen miramin." {My little jewel}
Leyadriel smiled softly at the name, "I miss that pet name when I don't hear it."
He took the opportunity to move closer to her so that he was kneeling in front of her and they were face to face, "Saes, pen miramin, yassen nin." {Please, my little jewel, speak to me.}
"The slumber that follows is like death, so much like it that not even the dead dare enter it." She told him before looking directly into his eyes with a shameful look in her sapphire eyes, "I crave so much to not be tortured, most nights I simply do not sleep but then the fatigue of doing so wears on me so heavily that it is just as painful as sleeping would have been. I discovered much by accident that drunken sleep prevents my terrors from finding me, and I fell in love with that condition in an instant.....but I so hate the misery that comes before and after that sleep that I seldom find my relief there. But sometimes I must have it..." She looked into her eyes as an addict does when they are facing withdrawal, the look of necessity that will one day kill the needy, "I hate it yet that hate gives me more then any amount of love ever has. I am weak to give in, I know it well, but I can't help it. I want a cure so badly...that sometimes I just concoct my own."
Legolas suddenly understood and all the anger and rage he had felt slipped away and he saw her, such a beauty, such an elegant wonder but so plagued with the most unjust of torments that she would do anything to stop them, even for just a few brief hours of rest. He held her to him and cooed, "I understand well, Leyadriel...Im hiraetha, Im ikotane hiraetha." {I'm sorry. I'm so sorry.}
She pulled away from him slightly before burying her head in the crook of his neck and muttering, "If we are ever going to reach Ithilien in time to help, we should go. Your people await do they not my Lord?"
Legolas felt the weight of that title, he felt the pressure of his people who were waiting with baited breath for the arrival of their soldiers, their saving grace and he was about to agree to that statement; but then he looked into her eyes, so endlessly blue yet torn with fatigue and pain and hunger and in no fit state to ride on. He knew that she was in a better state then a good many of the men but right then he didn't care about them.
"You amaze me, Leyadriel. You are raped and beaten and shredded to pieces in your dreams and then in the waking world put yourself through so much and still you ask for more?"
"I never said I wanted it, I said it should be done." She countered, trying to massage the pain out of her temples. He need not bring up her rape from her dream captures, she still remembered it painfully well. She had been surprised that she had not died from it as rape kills an elf but then she realized that it was not rape as there was not a physical being present raping her, thankful though she was for her life she still hated that she had lived through it and did not wish for that particular memory just then.
He smiled and kissed her brow, "Then it shall be as you want, we shall wait another day. The others need rest and you do as well."
"Favoritism is bad Legolas." She said as he cradled her in his arms and laid her back in bed.
"It's not favoritism, it's rational. The men, most of them, will be in a worse state then you are now and we are close to Ithilien, a day will not hurt our timing and it will greatly help your health and theirs."
"Rest hurts me." She countered.
He frowned and pulled a soft blanket around her, "I know, pen mir, I know." {Little jewel}
He kissed her cheek and was set for that to be all but she turned her head so that he met her lips, the contact was brief but sweet and Leyadriel eyed him devilishly as he met that gaze with one that said 'behave', "I only wanted a sleep well kiss."
He smiled in spite of himself at the look of innocence she gave him just then before sailing his thumb over the same lips he had just tasted, "Kaima quel, pen miramin." {Sleep well, my little jewel.}
And at that she closed her eyes and fell asleep, a sleep that he watched vigilantly so that he would be there when she woke bloodied from it.
A/N- I don't drink and DO NOT PROMOTE IT, DON"T DRINK AND DRIVE PEOPLE AND DON"T DRINK AT ALL UNLESS YOUR OVER 21!!!! Also, I don't know if any of that drunk stuff I described was real, I just based it on Health Class.