A.N.: Hello, dearest readers, I have no excuses. Sorry. Thank you again for your patience!
Mizz Alec Volturi, hope this finds you well! Thank you bearing with me.
Mustard Lady, they will, as much as they're allowed to. Thank you for cheering them up!
Yehuda Dream, thank you for joining!
=^.^=
Change of Tide
"Faith." Her eyes searched for some light or signal in the dark tree canopy, and found none. "I lost it. I can't find it anymore."
Kili took in her words, and bowed his head. There was no reasoning, no possible discussion to have, Tilda was right and he knew it. They were going to die, and Legolas too, to allow the Enemy to achieve whatever dark plans had been set. They were pawns with no choice in what would happen. Their futile attempts to escape were no more than that, futile attempts.
Legolas heard Tilda's words and swallowed them along with the bile that insisted to reach his mouth, despite his efforts. His mind was fuzzy, as it always got some days after a spider sting, and he felt miserable. If it were only his own miserable condition, sparing his fellow fleers from that pain, the elf considered it could almost be tolerable. He knew the Second children of Erú and His adopted ones were different from the Firstborn, and it was his duty, as one of the Firstborn, to teach and guide and protect them. But he hadn't been able to protect himself, to guide his own steps through safe paths, to learn his own contrarieties with his father and king shouldn't be enough to make him blind and sloppy about his own safety, because it could mean the safety of his people, and of his friends…
Then it happened.
It could be a leaf stirred by a subtle breeze. It could be a wispy cloud, blown away by a high wind, but no cloud could be seen from under the dark mantle of eaves. It could be light, but the wicked nature of Mirkwood's trees prevented it. But there was something, and something the orcs couldn't fathom.
"What?"
Tilda wondered if it was herself who was questioning what was happening, but she knew no word traversed her lips after her desolated statement. She supposed Legolas heard it too, the same words she heard, in a sweet contralto voice she remembered from a decade before.
"Did you hear it? Is it…?"
"No. She's not here, no." The elf struggled with explaining everything living in two worlds at once meant, and what it meant to races that were different. Namely, mortal beings.
It was not a coherent answer to Tilda's unfinished question, but with Legolas ridiculous abstention of spider venom of all things, it was probably all she would get. At least she knew now it was not hallucination, and, if it was, it was of the collective kind. Not a great comfort, but hallucinating with your friends should be better than hallucinating alone, right? Leastwise in her dehydrated and exhausted brain.
But the elf's last words had another effect on Kíli, causing him to raise his head and look at the other two captives with suspicion.
"If she's talking to you too, we may all be closer to the realm of the dead than to that of the living."
"Nay." Legolas whispered, even quieter than before. "She is closer to us. Someone higher than her allowed it."
"Who is she?" Tilda needed to confirm her inkling. "What is happening?"
"The voice you heard…" Kíli swallowed dry, and tried to sound reasonable. He could live with his own delusions without compelling his friends to dive into them. "If I remember it right… It was like Tauriel's."
"Help is coming."
The elf's words brought back the feeling she had lost. Not because Legolas said it, but because Kíli corroborate it. Because the name she heard from his lips matched the face she recalled in her memory as belonging to that name, and to that voice. So Tilda found it again, against all odds.
Faith.
=^.^=
"No trace of them! Let's search for tracks!"
Fíli led the endeavour, so anxious one could believe it was his own son, not his brother, the missing person. Which would be a poor belief, as anyone acquainted to dwarven sense of family could attest.
"I had no idea Fíli was such a good ranger." Bilbo mentioned to Dís, who was beside him, eyes on the ground, searching for any sign that could help find her younger son. "I always deemed Kíli to be the one with eyes outside the mountains. No offense intended, obviously!"
"No offense taken, dear Bilbo. I know my sons are as different as oil and vinegar, and not just in looks."
"Oh."
"Just like me and my brother, and yet, so alike…" The dwarrowdam bent down and brought up between her fingers a piece of rope, crudely severed. Her eyes all but burned the fibers in her hand as she whispered, loud enough only to Bilbo to hear. "And when you become a really experienced tracker, you instinctively hide any clue when you don't want to be found… and drop the ones you know will be useful to anyone trying to help you."
"Is this…" The hobbit feared to hope without cause. The youngest heir of Durin was dear to his heart. Least of all, because he always accompanied Dís when the dwarrowdam visited the Shire, officially to have tea, buttered scones and cinnamon rolls, yet he had evidence that it was for more than that. "Is this a useful trace?"
Dís humpfed, unimpressed by Bilbo's ignorance.
"Kíli is a recordist in the Traditional Track the Tracker Tournament. It should be information enough for you to judge by yourself." She weaved one hand and shout to the general audience. "Here! They escaped this way!"
Bilbo wondered (not for the first time) if said Tournament was really a figment after all…
=^.^=
Haste.
That was the feeling more pressing in his mind.
Regret.
The feeling more pressing in his heart.
Because few knew it, but Thranduil had a heart. At least, for his son. His only son. The last seed of his love. His passion. His obsession. The last trace of the one who almost cost him his undying life, countless times. And for whom he would do it again. And again. If he only had a chance…
But that chance he had not. The shadow of her voice, of her care, of her love, if he dared to call it so; it was always there, just a shadow, just a sound beyond the reach of understanding, just the memory of a laughter to embitter his unshed tears a little more each night, each season, each Mordor damned year, to remind him he failed, he utterly failed his father, his wife, his people, and now, his son.
His bitterness didn't allow him to remember how many years he couldn't recall the sound of her voice, even if he knew, Powers above, he knew! her spirit was so close to him, to them. As if in her physical absence she allowed herself to be parted from them, from him, and leave him in lonely misery while she traipsed in the Undying Lands until the Dagor Dagorath.
"My king, the horses are tired."
Thranduil uplifted a hand without looking at the guard. The whole troop halted as one, dismounting and proceeding whatever they used to do when stopping for a respite. The elves didn't need it, they could walk or ride in a quasi-trance state and so rest, but their steeds couldn't do that. They proceeded to feed the horses, but the king was too lost in thought to dismount. A soldier provided a pouch of fodder to his giant elk, avoiding eye contact with his ruler. Maybe, if he did, he would have seen the shadow of his anguish, and maybe, just maybe, be able to prevent what was to happen soon.
The mount had its fill, and moved to a brook that crossed their path, where the horses sought water too. Thranduil's silence worried (yet didn't surprise) Galion, the butler, who brought a parcel of travelling bread to his monarch. It wasn't what he would offer if it were his choice, but the king made sure his rations were no different from those who rode with him, be it in times of peace or war. And, unsurprisingly, his appetite seemed to have vanished since the news of Legolas' reputed capture. Galion worried the king would fade if the prince couldn't be found, as he almost did when the queen died.
Unlike the soldier, Galion had no qualms about looking at his king, and noticed something was odd.
Not fast enough, though.
At a body command of its rider, the giant elk lifted its head from the brook and in the same movement set off, galloping as if its life depended on speed, leaving horses and elves stunned and abruptly running to mount and follow their gone-mad king.
