Important Author's Note regarding chapter 31!
Today (6th Nov 2020), I've changed in chapter 31 the part where Sulrochil explains her reasons for gathering her group & going north with them.
After publishing the chapter, my beta-reader Wind and Sky22 gave me great feedback, and it made me see I have to change the ending of the story and everything about the final battles. This story has evolved a lot since I wrote the previous version, so it's quite understandable the ending has to be different too. I didn't realize this before hearing her insight, so all hail amazing Wind and Sky22!
Before I began this story, I hadn't written anything, not even short stories, not to mention anything this long, and it's not easy. I'm learning more every day, and I hope this story will now get the ending it needs. That's why I had to change something I already had published. I hope you'll understand.
So, if you have read how Sulrochil feels Lokowid is approaching, and that's why she is going north with her elves, you're good to go. If not, you might want to read the ending of the previous chapter again. The changed part begins with this sentence, "Is there a problem with your hearing, Mithrandir."
I'm sorry for all the inconvenience!
The world was divided into two parts by a high stone wall.
Nothing else existed except the harsh wall - and two elves standing on opposite sides. Frantically, Sulrochil searched for a lock, but could not find any. There were no windows, nor doors, not even a small crack for the light to pass through.
Legolas had built the wall and shut her out.
The night had fallen upon the wall - and the hearts of the elves. The world that should be one was now severed in two. Sulrochil tried to send small rays of her love over the wall, but her attempts were to no avail.
The land was bare, nothing could grow on the sand. A few leafless trees jutted out of the sand, casting eerie shadows over the ground when a bolt of occasional lightning flashed. The wall disconnected her from him, and even though Sulrochil knew Legolas indeed was in the same room with her - the room with the bearskin rug - it was impossible to feel his soul now.
Behind the wall, she stood stock-still, trying to reach out her love to him, but he did not welcome her at all. The grey wall loomed over her, and it would be impossible to climb over it. Finally, she whispered, "Can you forgive me?"
"No," was his terse answer. Thunder and lightning struck above the wall, splitting the sky in two. "Talk."
Pure rage radiated from him; the denial stabbed at Sulrochil's heart. The foreboding wall loomed sharply between their souls, making it impossible to breathe. How does one ever break a fortification like this?
"I thought-," she began.
"So, now you begin to think!" Legolas shouted - and another thunderbolt struck in the dark sky. "If you indeed possess the ability, why did you not use it? Why did you deliberately deceive me? Plot against me with my Father?"
"Not your Father," she yelled. "But the King! My King, whom I have to obey!"
"You? Obey? You never obey anyone, but of course, now you had to begin grovelling before him!" he thundered. "Did you ever think what this would do to me?!"
"You also lied to me! I am not the only one who has done wrong! I did not know what you would be going through when I was gone, because you did not tell me."
"That has nothing to do with this."
"I believe it does."
"You believe! You think! You feel!" Legolas shouted, making a few grains of sand drop off the wall, "It is always you! Now listen to me, I have feelings too, I have needs too, and you have to learn to respect that."
"I do respect-" Sulrochil was taken aback by the extent of his fury.
"No, you don't! If you truly valued my needs, you never would have broken your promises. Do you really realize what I have been going through?"
"I feel the stone wall now that you have built between us," she said. "I feel the menacing wall, I see all the spiders crawling up and down, I hear the bats chasing their prey in the dark sky, but when I left for my mission I did not know what you would have to endure, because you did not tell me!"
"You should have figured it out yourself!"
"But I didn't, because I haven't been picturing what love would be like for all of my life and therefore always memorizing the details of how the bond works and pining for someone like you have apparently been doing!"
"I have waited all my life for you."
"No, you haven't," she snapped. "You wanted her."
"I did not!"
"You did."
"No! It is quite different to want someone than to wish for something to happen with someone. Nothing happened, and you know it! How can you even consider the possibility?"
"I-"
"How can you accuse me of acting so savagely!? Why do you always have to be so cruel to me!?" Legolas burst out. "Besides, why are we even talking about this!? You are only trying to change the topic to avoid the point, which is that you are the one who has made a mistake, and you begin blaming me for something that never happened! How low can you get?"
"But why did you not tell me what you would be going through while I was gone?"
"You would not have made your assignment if you had known. I wanted you to go."
"You wanted to. Why is it always what you want? What about what I want? I want to be taken seriously and for you to trust my talent."
"So that was it!? You wanted to show it to me? Convince me you are something? Perhaps prove to me you are better than her?"
"No!" Sulrochil screamed.
"Whatever she is, she would never betray me like this!"
"If she is that much better than me, why did you not take her?" Sulrochil yelled. "Because she did not want you! You must be so unspeakably repulsive that the only one who gets interested in you happens to be the absolute most loathsome elf in the whole world. The most unimaginably empty-headed bungler who has ever walked the plains of Middle-earth! I am sorry you are stuck with me!"
"Me too!" he huffed, "but I would not want anyone instead of you. I have had enough of this! I would be better off alone since you do nothing but push me over the edge!"
"There is the door!" she shouted and pointed towards the entrance of the room. "Go and get rid of me once and for all! Good riddance!" Sulrochil paused for a moment, put her hands on her hips, and continued," Or wait a moment, it is me who must leave because it is your Father who pays for this room!" She threw her arms in the air and began marching towards the door.
"Go! Make yourself scarce!" Legolas took a step closer to her, but not enough to actually reach her. "Disappear for a week! Sulk for a month and leave me here with the wall! Is that what you want?! Torture me even more?"
"It is your Father who pays for this room," she snapped, stopped walking and turned to look at him furiously, "because you own nothing, you are nothing, and you would be nothing without his inheritance!"
"I may be nothing," Legolas said slowly, watching cockroaches scurry back and forth beside the stone wall, "but you are indeed something. A betrayer. Are you proud to be a betrayer now? A liar? How do you feel now that you have lied to me? Broke your promises? Does it feel good?"
"No, but I did not do this so I would feel good. If there had been any other choice, I would have done it! I feel bad, and you know it. I could easily hide in a stinking pile of dung. The feeling of being a mere orc's heap would not be hard to find, because you make me feel like I am exactly that!"
"I make you feel that?!" he exploded, "I have done nothing! You have done this all by yourself, and we are going to get to the bottom of this today. You broke my trust. Why? What was so important to you that you chose to deceive me? To attack the whole of Shadowland?"
"It was not the whole of Shadowland, and you know it!"
"You went there alone! That is forbidden both by the rules of the army and of the Marchwardens! And you swore not to go!"
"I was there alone the whole time!"
"Your mission was only to gather information! To watch and listen!"
"No, it was not. I had different orders from the King."
"When did he give those orders? You were not alone with him at any moment."
"It was when he promoted me."
"How?"
"It was strange, but I understood his intent. It was something in his eyes, you did not see his eyes. And it was the tone in which he said I need to bring to us anything to get the needed advantage. Anything. I understood he wanted me to do the same as I had done before. To kill their leaders."
"I know he can do that," Legolas shouted. "And I should have known he would try something like this but whatever he ordered you to do you should have shared with me! You betrayed me!"
"For my whole mission, I hoped I would not have to kill anyone! I listened and observed, I watched and scouted, but their headcount is horrendous! When I found out about the rebelling orcs, I weighed whether or not I should come back with that information, but that would have been fruitless! I had to do something! Can you not see it?"
"No."
"There will be a war tomorrow. If I had not done this, there would have been no chance for us to win. I wanted us to finally be able to destroy all the evil in this world. Even you have to admit our diminished army, combined with those dullards called dwarves and men, cannot win the war against tens of thousands of enemies."
"I do not care about winning the war if your life is at stake."
"I care about winning the war and about you. You would have gone to war tomorrow nevertheless, and without my actions, we would not have had any chance. You could have been killed, and I would have been forced to watch you go marching off to a war you cannot win. I did not wish to see you walk to your certain defeat. You see, your death would not have been even the key issue, but your defeat! We are tied together forever, I would meet you again in the afterlife, should you die, but what kind of an afterlife would it be if you are beaten? You are meant to win. I want you to win," Sulrochil whispered, her eyes full of tears. "In my visions, I saw your defeat in your eyes - and never I wish to see it for real. I need you to succeed."
The great sadness in Sulrochil's soul pierced right through Legolas' heart, and his outrage began dissipating. He had not given a single thought for what Sulrochil must have been through during her mission, but everything she said made sense. Her forlorn demeanour was like a spike in his flesh, making him recall who she was - and where she was. She was behind the highest of barricades around his soul, but she could not break the wall if he did not help her.
"I begin to see your side now," Legolas said in a quiet voice trying to shake down his fury. The awareness of Sulrochil's position in Shadowland whacked his soul with the club of truth - and he took a rock from the ground and flung it towards the wall. "But do you truly know mine?" The stone hit the wall, forming a thin crack.
"Please, tell me," she whispered, releasing a flock of bright white doves to the sky, hoping they would bring peace.
"I have been under the most excruciating pain for the last three days," Legolas began. "I have listened to your screams, I have seen you burn in flames, and I have watched you die, but I have been able to survive all that because I knew it was not true. Suddenly it was real, though, because you broke your promise."
"I am sorry," she whispered, and her soul was filled with shrieking images of his agony. Nevertheless, the wall between them began to crumble. Her soul wailed for him, and the faint echoes of their love began hammering the wall down.
"But I am beginning to see where you are coming from," he said. Huge blocks of the wall fell, making the earth shatter under their feet. "What exactly happened when I felt your fear of death?"
"I…" she began, but her voice faltered. "May I hug you before I tell you?"
"No." Legolas crossed his arms over his chest.
"Why?" Sulrochil lifted her hand towards him, but his eyes were still full of anger, and she could not touch him.
"Because then I cannot be angry at you anymore." He took one step backwards.
"Do you want to be angry?" She stared at the depressive descent of her fingers as she was forced to lower her arm.
"I do not wish it, but I am."
"Alright," Sulrochil said, craving for his closeness, but suppressing her every feeling and tried to calmly describe what had taken place, "I feared for my life while I had stolen the sword and the arrows and was crawling back to the forest with the weapons. I had to stop and only lie there because the agony I felt was too heavy. I must have yelped because two guards noticed something and came closer. I really thought I would die that night, and it was a close call, but after you stopped fighting, I could resume my hiding, and the orcs did not see me although they were almost standing on my head."
"And then?"
"They left, and I could crawl into the forest. Then I grasped what you must have been through. I was almost strangled within those few moments, and you had it for three days. Three days! I cannot comprehend how you endured it, but I am forever grateful for you. I could not have accomplished my mission without you. You were being tortured, and my heart crumbled. Yet, I had to proceed with my plan, because, without it, all would have been in vain - and I had business to finish with those wastrels who had made you suffer."
"How many guards did Gworf have?"
"Ten."
"And you shot them all while hiding in the forest?"
"All of the guards, yes. I waited until I was sure no one had seen it and only then went into their campsite. Then I shot Gworf in his tent because he was sleeping. I planned my mission so that I could flee at any moment, should someone mark my involvement. I planned every move so that if I had to withdraw, they would believe other orcs had attacked them. I left badly aimed arrows in some guards' bodies and pulled arrows out of the others. Then I slashed the arrow wounds so badly no one could even suspect there had been any arrows in those bodies. I dragged them around and tried to make it look like it had been done by the orcs. I did not act on a whim. I planned my every move beforehand, and everything I did was within my capabilities. I repeat: all the time I listened carefully to the surroundings and would have aborted my mission immediately if anyone noticed me."
"Do you think they will buy it?"
"You would not have bought it, but I really hope that ugly head on a spear will do the trick."
"If it had been anyone but you, I would be proud. Now I am only furious."
"I did it for you. For us. I wanted us to finally achieve our shared wish, to demolish evil, so the men can live in peace. I did my part. Tomorrow is yours."
"I am still angry at you," Legolas sighed - and both felt he did not mean it anymore.
"Good," Sulrochil replied, tilting her head to the left and seeing the light coming through the holes in the wall.
"My soul is desolate, and it is your doing," Legolas said, walking closer to her through the largest opening in the wall and stopping one foot away from her, "You are an explosion, ripping my heart apart."
"I understand your outrage," she said, and when she finally felt his soul softly searching for hers, she dared to use his true name, the name which had made a nest in her soul, "but, Mellegolasdaer, if you still accept me and my love for you, if you still recognize our love, we can get through this. Together. Can you forgive me what I have done?"
"Not yet," he said. The anger was gone, leaving only the shattered ruins of the wall, degrading their union.
"I feel the darkness lingering in your soul," she said and lifted her hand and touched his cheek with the back of her hand. "You need light. Will you allow my love to shine to your soul?" He did not open his heart yet, and Sulrochil's tears began to fall down her cheeks. "You are wounded and need rest. Will you welcome me again into your heart?"
"Perhaps soon," he replied, inhaling deeply. "I need a few moments to gather my thoughts."
"Can you forgive me?" she pleaded again. "The wall is destroyed, but the ruins are spread all over, and the dust is making the air heavy. Will you let me near you again? I will go away if that is what you wish. I will do whatever it takes to regain your trust. What do you want me to do?"
The shadows of his pain were dimming the air, the echoes of his grief pierced Sulrochil's soul.
"Your soul is smashed," she said, "and it is my doing. I shot those eleven arrows, single-handedly, and the target was you. I should not have done it, and I regret it. Will you forgive me? What do you need me to do?"
Legolas did not answer. Grey ghosts were hovering above an infinite desert of remnants of the wall.
Tears were falling all over Sulrochil's face. "I would go back in time and undo everything if I could. Yet, here I stand with all my regret. You are my guardian, my hero. Boldly, you stood sentinel and held all our shared pain so that I could accomplish what I had to do. Yet, I continued my mission even though I knew you would disagree, but I felt that was what I had to do. When I saw how much you were suffering, I realized I should not have done it, but it was too late. The avalanche was already falling. I cannot go back in time. All I can do is to stand here and beg your forgiveness. I have hurt you so much - perhaps too much? - and I have no right to ask forgiveness, but please have mercy on me."
Between smothering dust clouds, balmy sun rays began purifying their souls. "I did not ask for an easy life," Legolas finally said. "I have ambitious dreams burning in my heart, and those cannot be achieved without sacrifice, but never I expected you would be my ultimate challenge. You do not fit into any mould I had beforehand crafted in my heart. You smash all of the set moulds and shape your form yourself."
"You do not behave like I want," he continued, "but that is exactly what I want you to be. If I had searched for a meek and mild companion, that would not be you. Anything but mellow, I wished for - and I got you. I did not ask for an easy life, but a full one, and you came. Right into my heart, you flounced; and made it your castle."
He slid his hand slowly down her cheek, she bent her head to relish his touch better, and a faint smile tried to find its way onto Legolas' lips when two flooding rivers of love tried to become one again.
"Please never change," Legolas said. "Do what you feel is right. Should you behave obediently, you would not be the person I want you to be. Do what you want. I may not always agree with you, but I will always agree with your right to make your own decisions. I need you to be you, even if it is a slap in my face. But I always choose a good fight - if the alternative is dreariness."
Small willow shoots began sprouting here and there between the rubble of the ruined wall.
"Sultithen nin," Legolas whispered, pulling her into his arms, pressing his lips on her temple and holding her as if he was not sure how to do it, as if his body had forgotten how she felt. "You do not bow to anyone - especially not to me - and I need you to always be like that. Do whatever it takes to fulfil your dreams - because that is what I want you to be."
"Can you forgive me?" she cried against his chest, not daring to look at his eyes.
"Soon," he replied with a strained voice and pulled her closer in the hug so that their cheeks squeezed against each other. Into her ear, he whispered, "For now, can we simply be here? Together, you and I, and let the peace seep into us again." His voice and whole demeanour was full of need. It made more tears well out of her eyes, and she knew she was crying because he would not.
She was crying his tears.
Sulrochil nodded, and Legolas nuzzled his nose on her face, relishing the softness of her skin, inhaling her scent and moving his face, so their lips almost touched, but he still did not kiss her, and she did not push him.
The sun moved above the morning sky when the love of the two elves was floating in the air.
He withdrew a bit from their embrace, so he saw her face and wiped her tears with his thumbs. "You still fear I might not forgive you."
She nodded. "What do you need me to do?"
"Whatever you do, will not make anything undone," he began. "But now I see why you did what you did. You saw the masses of enemies, and you had to choose whether to do something without my approval or make us lose our dream. The future without your deeds would be a failure for us. You felt it, and I understand. Forever, I shall understand your need to follow your heart. You did what you had to do because you are you, and that is why I forgive you."
Sulrochil closed her eyes, inhaled deeply and slowly nodded.
Out of the sandy ground, the first willows grew and began pushing small leaves of the faintest green. The ruins of the ominous wall began shattering when the wild willows grew mightier all the time. Brave raspberries sprouted everywhere, accompanied by daring dandelions - soon the view was filled with vivid greenness. A blessing came in the form of a refreshing drizzle, and the forest sighed with relief.
A white wagtail hopped on the ground looking for food. Sulrochil's favourite bird, Legolas thought, and as chipper as she was in her best moments. Not all moments with her were merry, though, but he wanted it all.
"The wall between us was so overwhelming," she whispered.
"It is gone now."
"The wall is gone," she said, "but the pain in your soul remains.
"I know," he whispered, tracing with his hands every feature of her face, soaking up her spirit. "Can you forgive me for saying those awful things to you earlier?"
"We both said things we should not have. Perhaps those things needed to get out."
"I have never said anything like that to you," he said. "I was way out of line, I am sorry."
"I deserved every word of it and more. I am glad you said those things."
"Why?"
"When we argue," she said, "you always hold something back, you try to protect me from your words, and now you could pour out your heart to me. Thank you for opening your heart."
"I say the most horrible things to you, and you thank me for doing that?"
"Aye, and I also thank you for protecting me while I was out there. It was you who made it all possible," Sulrochil said
"It was hard. I was almost consumed by the darkness."
"Did you hear the word 'almost'?" she asked, caressing his back slowly with long strokes. "It means you did not break under it. You won."
"For you. Sultithen, I did it for you," he said moving his lips on her cheek wishing it would make him forget the pain still lingering in his soul like smoke in a cave making everything grey and vague. "Nothing can ever destroy my love for you, but please, could you consider making it easier for me to love you?"
"Alright," she said, feeling his need to forget his pain at least for a brief moment. She lifted her hands to his neck and tucked them under his hair, "I will make it a bit easier for you to love me." She pulled his face closer to hers and whispered, "But not much." She grinned, pressing their noses together - and making him smile properly for the first time that day.
"You are a whirlwind, but you are my whirlwind," he said and lowered his face gently to meet her lips with his own. All his pain flooded into the kiss. There was an urgent need to feel her, to know she is back to him, to be in tune with her again.
His heart was a forest after an extensive blizzard, every branch of every tree covered with freezing snow so heavy it made the thinnest branches crack, and the sounds of it told Sulrochil it would need a long time to heal all the injuries. All she could do was let her love overflow into the kiss, holding both her hands on his neck, letting her love begin melting his soul.
Legolas paused the kiss for a while to look at Sulrochil, and finally, the pain in his eyes began evanescing. He blinked and when their lips met again the beauty of their secret forest was shimmering in the distance, the faint sound of waves rippling on the lake, the white meadowsweets all around them, and their enticing smell…
Until abruptly Legolas grimaced and pulled himself out of the kiss. In the darkness, they were again - coated with black tar. He shook his head, and his eyes flooded with gruesome pain. The boiling tar flowed over their skin, almost choking the faint hope in their souls.
"You are not supposed to see this!" he hissed, through his clenched teeth.
"But I am!" she exclaimed. Warily, she touched his cheek and whispered, "What is yours, is mine. Please, do not try to block it from me."
"I wish to save you from it," he said, turning his face away.
"Stop that nonsense! Trying to suppress your feelings to shield me from them is never going to succeed. It is wrong to even try that because we are supposed to share everything, even the most disturbing things."
"It is too much for you."
"No. It is too much for you, and I am here to share it with you," Sulrochil whispered. But it was still hard for Legolas to even think of what he had been through, not to mention letting those feelings return. Never could she push him to open up. Only the warmth of her love could someday free his soul to reveal it to her. She leaned her forehead onto his chest and sighed, "You shall have all the time you need."
Legolas nodded, but could not talk because the anguish was again aflame in his soul.
"We should go to bed now," Sulrochil said and walked him over beside the bed, where he sat down onto it. Promptly, she removed his coat and crouched by his feet to remove his boots one by one, throwing them on the floor. Then she gently pushed him onto the bed. He closed his eyes. Her heart ached when she recognised the reason - he could not watch her undress. With swift movements, she got rid of the outer layers of her clothing and slipped into his arms.
"I lost all colours, the world was grey," he whispered when he had draped his arms around her and held her face tightly against his chest, "Everything was hazy. I do not have a good memory of the Chief's funeral."
"I had no idea," Sulrochil said, and felt the turmoil again in his soul.
All sorts of emotions were roaring in his soul - it involved his Mother, Father and someone Sulrochil could not recognize. Glanets's grave tree swayed in the wind as the young Legolas stood on a hill with his bow. The wind caught his hair as he ran away. Without words, Sulrochil tried to convince him to talk about these things, but he refused.
In the darkness, two spears stuck out of the soil. The higher cast a menacing shadow across the bare land, the other was so tiny that it was almost invisible.
Sulrochil feared the grey wall would emerge from its remains if she pushed him to talk. She dropped the matter and let the willow shoots on the ground grow and begin consuming the remnants of the wall.
"I am fine," he said and lifted his hand to caress her face.
Sulrochil stopped the movement of his hand and kissed his knuckles. "You are not fine. Could you please, just rest? Alright?"
"Please, let me do this." He reached his thumb on her cheek to continue the caress.
"But it is you who need to be taken care of, you have suffered so much. Will you let me take care of you for a while?"
"Aye, I have suffered, I do not deny it, but Sultithen, please let me do this. What I want is to ensure you are safe and make you feel good."
She agreed because there was a lump forming somewhere in her throat, making it impossible to speak, and she began to understand how deep his need to assure her well-being was. Always, he would put her comfort above his own needs.
"You always think of me first," she said, eyes wide open. "That means if there is someone in this world who always thinks of you first, I want that person to be me."
"You already are," Legolas said and looked at the ceiling. "And if I truly think of you first, I must learn to open my soul completely to you. It is wrong for me to keep things hidden from you, but I have always been alone. I am not used to opening up my heart to anyone."
"It will take time. Little by little, we can share everything."
"The more familiar your shape is against my body," he whispered, pulling her closer, "the more I feel like I can share my inner side with you."
"What do you mean?" Sulrochil wondered. "It is the other way around - the more we talk, the more I dare to enjoy your touch."
Legolas fell silent. Could it be that simple? Aye, they were different, but never had he considered the possibility of her being the total opposite in this matter. It made sense, though, now that their past began circling through his head.
All of his thoughts spiralled in his mind, and just before Legolas began to speak, Sulrochil searched his lips. With small movements, she invited him into a languid kiss. Softly, she touched his forehead and persuaded him to pause his spinning mind. Ever so softly, she let her hand slide down his face all the way to his neck - and all his thoughts vanished.
A colourful flock of butterflies fluttered in the air, as Sulrochil coaxed Legolas to open his lips. With closed eyes, he yielded to her call.
Mellegolasdaer, you are my stronghold, you are my bastion, and I wish to give you a gift. Will you take it? I have no emeralds nor rubies. My gift to you, my love, my sentinel, is the song of chaffinches in the most breathtaking moment of the morning, just after the dawn, when all of nature is awakening, all the flowers opening their petals to the rising sun.
Sulrochil searched every hidden corner of his mouth, and the taste of Legolas' lips hinted of war - all the fights of the past and of the future, as well - but Sulrochil's only wish was to give him a moment without battles. Her heart ablaze, she traced his eyebrows all the while deepening the kiss, urging him to surrender to her love.
Mellegolasdaer, my gift to you, my love, my treasure, is the awakening of my soul to you, awakening of my body to you. All creatures are waiting for the heat of the midday. But do you see the vigilant doe behind the trees? Do you see that gingerly she is waiting for her mate? They shall become one soon. It is the wish of the forest for them to be one, but, to receive the gift, they must surrender to the will of the woods. Let them welcome the southern winds.
Not letting the kiss end, she let the refreshing winds blow to her body and revive everything that was still hibernating deep in her core. Softly, she explored his moist lips. From the well of miracles, she drank and begged him to drop his shields.
Sulrochil's free-flowing love wiped out Legolas' last resistance. She had captured his heart in her fingers, and he was awash with the overflowing currents of her devotion for him. "My sister," he breathed, against her lips. "It is my unborn sister."
"Sister?" Sulrochil pushed her nose against his cheek as she felt his shoulders stiffening. "But you do not have-" She inhaled sharply and closed her eyes.
Legolas pulled her closer and, with his hand, cradled softly her head. "Father is convinced she would have been a girl."
"Then she is," Sulrochil stated and put her palm over his rapidly beating heart, wishing to suck all his pain away. She did not see his face, but the final locks opened in his heart, and she was being carried away by the torrent of all his deepest fears. "But the spear?" she asked, even though she already felt the answer.
"It happened," Legolas said. Suddenly, a massive cauldron of giant bats attacked them. The dark sky was full of black beasts. Their sharp, diabolical teeth glistened in the moonlight, and soon the elves were surrounded by their assault. "For Mother."
Tears welled out of Sulrochil's eyes, and she hid her face tightly against Legolas' chest. "How can Father live with this?"
"You know how he is," Legolas said in a cold voice, trying to chase the wicked bats away. "A piece of ice in the place of his heart, a cold river rushing through his veins, sending freezing breaths as he walks by."
Sulrochil lifted her head and furrowed her brow. "I said 'Father'." Abruptly, the sky was clear again. The heinous creatures disappeared, and the first sun rays of early morning lightened their hearts.
"Of course," he smiled, and brushed her cheek with his knuckles. "You are allowed to call him that."
"I know," she said. "But I have never before even thought about the possibility of beginning to call him Father."
"You are his spring."
"I barely know him."
"He has included you in his family, and you feel it," Legolas said. "Besides, you know him now more deeply than anyone. Never before, has he revealed these matters even to me until now. You have brought tender breezes into his heart, so he wished finally to confide this to me - to us."
Sulrochil nodded and snuggled closer to Legolas, opening her ears to his steady heartbeat. "The bats came from the north," she mused, "they are Lokowid. I have never seen anything like that before, but I can feel his evil in my spirit. Deep inside my heart, it stabs me so forcefully that I fear it maims me for good."
"Your affection for Father banished the bats. That is the key - love. Therefore, they cannot harm you. Where the lock is, we shall find out," he said. "Together."
Legolas closed his eyes and could finally succumb to the pull of the forest of their dreams. The storm was over as he softly searched for the softest spot on Sulrochil's temple and inhaled her scent. It soothed Sulrochil, and a familiar lullaby from her childhood began circling in her soul.
I sing to you, my little one,
To you, I always sing,
For you are my dearest one,
You are my everything.
Sleep well in your little swing,
Sweet dreams for you.
Hear the aspens' humming,
Hear and feel it too.
Climb the highest tree,
I'll set you free,
Climb with your loved one,
To see the setting sun.
When there's a nightingale singing,
For you, there's no fight, nor fright,
But a peaceful night softly swinging.
Fly, my little one, above twilight.
I sing to you, my little one,
To you, I always sing,
For you are my dearest one,
You are my everything.
Soon, Sulrochil felt Legolas silently singing the same tune with her, and gently, they could let all past happenings flow between them. All their feelings, thoughts and fears twirled between the elves, smoothing all the tangles in their souls.
The air of the forest smelled of spring. It smelled of strength. Slowly, all their horrors withered away.
The sky was clear again.
Author's Note: Comments are love!
