DISCLAIMER: Anything recognizable belongs to Tolkien; the rest is mine. I am getting ready to travel overseas in a few days, where internet connection is spotty. So bear with me as I upload the new chapters. Reviews gladly welcome, and as always, enjoy!

Despair and Failure

Amorith awoke to find that she was lying on a soft bed of white. The light filtering through the window was blinding her, and she lifted her hand to shield her eyes. There was a wooden divider separating her from the remainder of the room. Slowly she placed her feet on the ground, raising herself until she was standing. Feet shaking at first, Amorith steadied herself enough to take a few steps forward. She was clad in soft orange, her shoulder dressed with fresh bandages. The pale grayish hue of her skin was lessened, and the cold she had felt was gone. She knew she was safe, that they had reached the palace. Her last memory was that of Innas sitting beside her astride Gwaihir, holding her hands to his lips as he beseeched the Valar to save her. Amorith knew she had lost consciousness after that, but not for how long. Her hand stretched out to the divider, and the sound of whispering voices reached her ears. Hurriedly she pulled it back. The scene that lay before her was appalling. Míriel, her beloved Míriel, lay on a bed behind the divider. Her fair face was riddled with cruel scars. A maid stood at the foot of the bed, covering her head with her hands. Innas lay next to the head of the bed, as the healer attending the maiden finished her sentence to Innas, who responded with a loud wail. Amorith dismissed the healer and the maid with a wave of her hand. No one else was present in the large room, which she recognized as reserved only for those of the royal assembly. Amorith found herself wondering, briefly, how Thranduil had allowed her to be placed here. But this thought was instantaneous, as she sought to comfort the distraught Innas, who lay now on the floor in a wretched heap.

"It was an ambush at the dinner. She was taken…"

Innas' voice, broken with torment, quacked as he told her what befell Míriel.

"He found her…she wanted to end her life…they had defiled her…she was the only one who had been treated such, degraded so very cruelly…"

Amorith closed her gray eyes even as her tears spilled down her face.

Innas shook his head. "They dined outside, amongst the beech trees."

"The beech grove? Even knowing the danger that posed?"

"He did not believe there was any danger. He dismissed it as treacherous lies of your doing. He wanted to prove it, and so he ordered a dinner to be had."

Innas was shaking, visibly unable to control himself. The usual stern demeanor was replaced with a countenance of woefulness and suffering. Amorith felt herself humbled.

"Innas, tell me all that you know," she beseeched him gently, her hand upon his arm.

"We arrived at the palace several hours before dawn. The palace was in uproar, people were roaming the halls, dispirited, distraught. Those wounded gravely were being tended in the corridors, families who lost loved ones sought solace in each other's arms. I do not know how you and I were able to pass through the gates, since we have both been banished, for you know better than me that the gates, magically endowed, admit only those whom the King deems to bear him no ill will. I was able to learn what befell the dinner party from one of the guards who had been present. Thranduil had announced a dinner in honor of his lifting the ban on pleasurably travel within the realm. This occurred after my father willingly left for Imladris, following the King's blatant refusal to listen to his words: that Dol Guldur would attack, and that you had no part in it. He was called a traitor and humiliated in the court. At any rate, Thranduil announced the dinner, and managed to convince the people of its appeal. They went, thinking him correct, overjoyed that their King had awoken from his slumber. And then they were attacked, and all the glory of the King came crashing down around him. The guards informed me after inspecting the Orcs they slew, that they were indeed from Dol Guldur and were lightly armed. They believe the Orcs were a scouting excursion. One of the accursed creatures, when forced, told of a large army approaching, and not far behind them. It is believed by noon tomorrow they will be here.

"Thranduil had disappeared looking for Míriel. His personal guards searched for him but to no avail. Fearing the worst had happened, they returned to the palace with even more heavy news to report. The people, refusing to accept this, kept watch all through the night and into dawn. When he did come at last, it was with Míriel in his arms, and the most broken look on his face. He spoke not one word and has since been absent from court. The people await him, so they may properly mourn the loss of their beloved ones."

The Noldo Princess was silent. She saw Innas hesitate.

"She was with my child…What suffering she endured in my absence I know not, we had only bonded but not announced our union, which I would have done in the tradition of the Silvan way, the following morning, had I not been forced to leave. I have shamed and cursed her. And now she pays, and the child—our child was lost…How can I ever repent of such a calamity?"

Amorith was still, trying to absorb the shock of this most unexpected news. None of it could be true, it was all a nightmare, a twisted dream come to haunt her now that she was awake and healing from being poisoned. Her breathing became quite erratic and spontaneous as she felt herself descend into a state of hysterics. Innas backed away as she approached, crawling on her stomach, to where Míriel's silver head lay still upon the pillow. The Noldo Princess' hands found the face of her dear maiden, and she wept bitterly, feeling the scars beneath her fingertips. Míriel was not dead, only resting, undoubtedly due to a draught the healers gave her. Her body needed time to convalesce from the assault, resulting in the loss from her womb. How long, if at all, till she would wake, Amorith did not know. She turned her face to Innas, who looked quite frightened, unsure of the direction of her anger.

"I did not mean for her to carry her child without me, if only I had known, I would have returned. I love her immensely, I would have never abandoned her." he said quickly, tears of remorse streaming down his face. "You must believe me!"

Amorith smiled weakly, nodding, saying, "I believe you Innas. I am not angry at you, but rather at myself. I know why she did this. It is all my own doing."

Innas lifted his head, bewilderment on his face. "The child, because of you?"

"I do not doubt she loves you. She would not have consented to that if she did not believe in it herself. Fear not, Innas, for she does love you. Her current state is my doing because Míriel began to lose her hope in me, her love I may have now lost. She was always with me when I was here in Mirkwood, and I had told her that she would always stay by my side, that I would look after her always. When I left Mirkwood, I told her to look after her King, made her promise she would do this, not for herself, but for me. I made her believe she thought it her own desire to do this. I wanted a distraction for her, so she would not remember the promise I had made to her, of my looking after her always. Of course, in the beginning, with her hatred of Thranduil so fresh, she focused her energies on loathing him and quelling my turmoil. How often were her letters to me then! Yet as the days passed into years, then into centuries, her hate began to cool, and her hope of me returning waned. The letters lessened of course, as did the sentiments of longing. She wrote of her duty as court minstrel, of what I thought of the Golden Wood as my new abode. Then for awhile I heard nothing from her, until the day you rescued me. She had sent me that letter of warning with Maeglin."

Innas now was the one who held the silence. He did not know what to make of this; Míriel would never have felt this way. He would not believe what Amorith just said.

Melancholy the Noldo Princess, replied, and he knew she had read his thoughts, "I do not blame her at all. You do not know what it is like to be an elleth bidden to do as commanded, having no will of your own, always repeating the thoughts placed into your mind. If not repeating them, then at the very least forced to live under their constraint. I was very selfish to have expected Míriel to carry out such a burden: to care for the one who inadvertently caused her much pain. Not directly, as he exiled only me, but this one act of his sundered her from me forever—and that is what she will not forgive me for, that I did not have the courage to bring her with me, ordering her to watch him in my stead just as I would have. That is her pain. Since I did not return to her, nor send for her, her love and attention turned to the one who was now a constant in her life, Thranduil. Starved of affection, she turned towards the one who bestowed it upon her so lavishly. Perhaps this solitary occurrence proves Thranduil's accusations regarding me—I bear evil."

But Innas refused this, shaking his head, "You are not evil, Amorith. You may have descended from a troubled house, but you are not evil. And do not blame yourself for all of this, though it could be that there is some truth to what you say. Míriel had made her own choice, and no one made her go to the dinner, even if as you say she had some reason or motivation. I will not allow you to take blame wholly, if any at all. When she wakens then we shall know."

"If you refuse to accept this, then I too shall refuse that this is your doing."

Innas managed a small smile, and Amorith responded in kind. Reaching a hand to both the younger Elves, Amorith whispered quietly, "I am back, for ill or better." Then she rose, wiping her face hastily, controlling herself. Outside in the hallway, she felt the presence of Thranduil, and knew he was approaching. Hurriedly she threw on her cloak, opened the door quietly, and vanished after checking the vicinity. Innas called after her, but she was already gone. There was no one left to comfort him, and so he remained with Míriel, remorse his only companion now. Several minutes later, the King stood on the threshold, staring at Míriel. He nodded at Innas.

"Where is she?" Thranduil asked, noticing the empty bed beyond.

"She left, to I know not where." Innas answered.

"Has Míriel wakened?"

The shake of Innas' head confirmed his fear. Turning to leave, he said, "I am truly sorry," before vanishing himself as Amorith had done only moments before.

The news of the dinner and ambush, especially of Míriel's plight, pained Amorith beyond all words. She could not find tears enough to shed. Grievous it was that the King had dared such a venture with the presence of Dol Guldur's great evil. One question that haunted her most was why Míriel had been the only maiden to be assaulted? Why had the Orcs singled her out? They must have come upon the dinner, and no doubt had spied on the unsuspecting Elves; Míriel would have been with the King. What quality made her particularly desirable to them? Thranduil, refuting Dol Guldur's threat, led his people unknowingly into a massacre. Amorith was certain he did not know—or his refusing to believe—that an army had been prepared to lay siege to his palace. He would never have been this careless with his peoples' lives otherwise. She recalled Innas telling her of the King's absence from court, of the rights not being honored at all to the deceased. It was as if the King had surrendered all hope, relinquished his duties to his people. Rage filled Amorith, rage at the Orcs, rage at the needless death—rage at the King who now cowered. He had abandoned his throne, left the plight of his people alone. He did not care for anything anymore. He had been shamed and humiliated; after most triumphantly proclaiming that Dol Guldur was a lie, his people paid for this act with their lives. And Míriel, she had paid most dearly, perhaps. Amorith could not help but feel she had a hand in this. Ruefully she wished having never come to Mirkwood at all. In this manner her mind raged on, until she felt the heat of her wrath emanating from her. She did not realize where she was headed until she saw the palace gates swing open before her, and an all too familiar woodland path beckoned her.

Amorith let her feet tread the path while her mind turned over the past events that had led her to this moment: her exile from Mirkwood into the Golden Wood, where she had withdrawn into herself; her appointed task of requesting Thranduil's assistance; Innas rescuing her, and the eventual riding of the great Eagles; and then coming into Mirkwood at last, only to find Míriel assaulted and the King absent from his duties. Amorith remembered her feeling of elation, of possible salvation, when Gwaihir came, but now she could only feel despair. What she had thought was her redemption felt now like retribution of her past. She had been borne out of one disaster into another, never finding true peace, disturbing those around her with her tales of woe and pity. Perhaps this was her curse, her own end she had to accept: that she would never rest while she remained alive, that she brought only destruction and death to those she truly loved. It would be better if she died just the same as her kin. She knew then that her task had failed. Thranduil would not send help to her Lord and Lady. His own kingdom was under attack, yet he was doing nothing to defend it, least of all send assistance to a Noldor. He would perish than see his army defend Galadriel's realm. In her anguish, not knowing she was being watched, Amorith sank to the ground, next to the very stone bench from where Thranduil so long ago had exiled her. Thinking herself alone, she let her heart pour out all its misery, weeping her despair aloud.

Thranduil remained silent following her, observing Amorith as she walked, noticing how little she had changed, except for the hardness in her eyes, and the pain she tried to hide in her face. Her beauty was blinding to him, brought out more now because of her grief. It was torment for her to have returned, as it was torment for him. He had imagined, so many times over, going back on his word and returning her to Mirkwood, reliving those sweet memories. Yet always was fresh the painful past, of his fair Doriath having fallen at the hands of her kin, and his vow to never acquaint himself with the Noldor. The outrage, the horror, when she had professed to him that night, in the very spot she now wept in despair, that she was the very person he vowed to hate forever. That it was her kin and blood that had laid waste to his home. How could he forget? He had sworn to take revenge on those who had so mercilessly brought his world to an end. Yet here she was, standing before him, and he could not bring himself to harm her. Thranduil loved her still—that was his weakness. Amorith would always rule his heart. But it did not mean he would allow his heart to rule him. He was still master of his own command.

He watched for awhile longer as Amorith wept continuously, and when he grew weary, he made his way back to the palace, careful to be as swift and silent as he could. He looked back over his shoulder a few times, but Amorith did not seem to have noticed him. Unsure of exactly the reason why, Thranduil felt better knowing that he had not been caught by Amorith in the glade. One reason he knew to be that if she looked at him with her display of grief, he would not have been able to control himself. He could not ignore the fact that seeing her raised his spirits slightly, and he was afraid of his own betrayal, but seeing her torn in such a cruel manner rendered him helpless. There were enough troubles of his own he had to deal with, he did not want the complication of Amorith added. He wondered what had made her weep so much. There was no mistaking the fact that she knew of Míriel's plight. They were treated by the healers in the same chamber together. Upon awakening, she must have seen the maiden. But in her grief he witnessed her bare her deepest anguish, and he wondered what else she was letting spill in her tears. Perhaps she had assumed that when she returned with Innas to the palace, his people would welcome her back, and rally to her call. But his people had their own anguish, troubles of their own. And they would never trust her. Her return at this hour would seem suspicious to them.

He stopped suddenly in his tracks, realizing that he had not allowed for the proper mourning of the dead. The mourners' anguish was increased; their anxieties had heightened, as their beloved ones lay beneath the ground, unblessed, unrecalled. But that was the duty of the King, and Thranduil had made his decision when he carried Míriel's body back to the palace—he had failed as the King of Mirkwood.

Outside, as the trees swayed, Amorith lifted her tear-soaked face. She had come to a decision; she had to let Lady Galadriel know of her failure. Using the language sweetest to her tongue, she cried, in despair, "Forgive me, for I have doomed you."