Hello gang!
Life swallowed me whole this past month and spat me out, lol. Thanks to everyone who has been reading and especially reviewing my work. I might not get to reply immediately, but every single one is valued. Your encouragements are a salve to the occasional madness of RL :) Another source of solace comes in writing, but even that has its pitfalls. Ever tried writing three things at the same time, and you end up with 75 or so pages each but nothing is finished? So that is me at the moment hahaha. I do not even know if I should be posting this now, but I do miss posting, I miss the creative connections of the LOTR fandom community, and maybe it can jar me into better productivity, so here I am :) A bit nervous to be honest - I don't do slow burn or slash often (or well, lol), but let's give this a shot and see how it goes. I hope you enjoy the reading as much as I do the writing and as always - I would be grateful for any C&Cs you would be kind enough to share :) Without further ado:
"Your Light in the Dark"
In a dark forest, dark secrets have plenty of hiding places. While in Mirkwood on a mission to investigate the growing evil of Dol Guldur, Glorfindel works with the son of the Elvenking Thranduil. But all is not well with the war-hardened soldier, prince Legolas. Warning: Slash / Violence / Dark Themes
# # #
1: Beneath Our Eaves
Mirkwood, T.A. 2851
# # #
Well this is unexpected.
Glorfindel had conceived of plenty potential deaths. After all, when one has gone through such a thing once, one cannot help but be a bit circumspect about it all.
Not this though, he thought.
He'd previously gone to the Halls of Mandos in unimaginable violence and hellfire. There was no time to feel too much pain, much less to think. Now, there was enough time for both.
I did not expect this.
It was a useless thought, one amongst innumerable that flitted across the ancient elven lord's fleeting consciousness as he laid on the ground on his back, and his lifeblood seeped from his body.
Just as useless – said blood. Even in such copious amounts it did nothing, nothing! to soften the ground beneath him, so stubbornly hard and dry. Winter had turned the earth to unforgiving rock, but from how it looked and felt, Glorfindel suspected nothing had grown on it for a long time.
His blood couldn't even water this wretched land.
The red liquid stayed on the surface with nowhere to go and nothing to do but wait to become ice. The ground was so hard, he thought, that he couldn't even be buried here were he to expire. He would have to be burnt, or brought elsewhere.
But would they do that for a stranger's corpse? he asked himself, for that was what he was in this accursed land.
He was a stranger, maybe even an unwelcome interloper in what was once the Greenwood. The people here wouldn't know him and even if they did, why would they bother? They were more likely to leave him to the elements, he decided, with a surprisingly sanguine lack of regret, even if his last earthly form had been borne by an eagle, widely mourned (so they say) and buried in honor in a place that promptly grew golden flowers.
Good times, he thought, helplessly wryly. Because for all the luck and curse of it, the gods have seen it fit to bless Glorfindel with a decent sense of humor.
Maybe I will be left to the elements, he thought.
In Mirkwood, it was dark and the foliage thick. The forest was wide and wild, full of hungry things the bedeviled territory could no longer satisfactorily feed. Something hungry – a wolf, a spider, an orc - would seek flesh and blood and find him.
Unless I freeze first, he determined, a possibility suddenly promising.
It would kill the smell and harden the flesh, he reflected. Maybe that would be deterrent enough. What animal would want to gnaw on a rock? He had a chance of being left alone then, at least until the warmer climes, and maybe by then those who had sent him on this foolish undertaking would come and find him.
It's been worse than this.
It was literally and figuratively cold comfort, because he had burnt once, hadn't he? Gripped by a Balrog by the hair – his one vanity - he fell to an abyss, as if the gods wanted to ensure he would die, one way or another. For all the lives of him, he couldn't remember if he died first from burning or from hitting the ground.
Ever since he was brought to life again and returned to Arda for work against an increasingly strengthening, dark danger, he could not escape the musings about what his next death would be like. And if he did die again, would he be gifted / cursed with life anew again afterwards? To continue his work, and maybe to die again, and maybe to live again...?
Glorfindel looked up at the thick, impenetrable canopy of leaves over his head. He couldn't even see the heavens above. It was eternal night here.
He clasped inadequately over the gaping wound on his stomach, the worst of the hurts that peppered his broken body. Around him were the Noldorin soldiers he had traveled from Imladris with, in varying degrees of similarity to his own state. No one dead yet, though; he could feel them all, somehow holding on.
He was the last one standing among them, not that it meant much; he fought until rescue came in the form of brown and green-clad elven soldiers, whom he somehow did not even sense coming.
Suddenly there were these Silvans just falling from the sky –
The image was too fanciful.
They'd come down from the trees, of course, sliding from branches, vines and spider strings but as graceful as birds of prey descending with hungry purpose. Glorfindel promptly lost his legs then, and he hit the ground with a dull thud.
He barely had it in him to put his hands over the worst of his wounds in an attempt to staunch blood. It was tempting not to try, truth be told. But that was a choice he did not want to account for before the gods when he met them again. He would want to say he tried everything.
The sounds of fighting around him soon diminished, and he could tell it was a triumph for the elves. But he wasn't sure it was a victory he would see to the end. Strength was rapidly leaving his cold-numbed, bloodless, freezing fingers. His eyelids became heavier while his breathing became faster and shallower. His heart felt strange, fluttery and feathery in his chest. His grip loosened, and his hands began to slide from his stomach to his sides –
Two hands - warm, steady, powerful hands – settled over his, insistently. They tightened his fading grip.
Surprised, Glorfindel jolted and settled his weary gaze upon his savior.
It was an inexplicably familiar face, and he felt he'd seen some semblance of the pale-gold-haloed countenance several times before. The proud brow, the square jaws, the long, deep-set blue eyes of sharp, almost feline intellect and purpose...
This elf belonged in the line of Oropher, Glorfindel realized, but in a permutation that had a leaner form over smaller bones and finer features. It wasn't Thranduil Oropherion, whom Glorfindel had met in another age.
This was almost certainly Thranduil's son.
Glorfindel's fading fea bucked and unintentionally reached for the younger elf's. It was a desperate grasp at something even vaguely familiar and beautiful in a blighted land where he was a dying stranger. It was an attempt to grasp at the slippery strings of life.
The younger elf's soul, a reserved one especially skittish at the invasion of a stranger, realized Glorfindel's need and hesitantly reached back. But once it had a hold of Glorfindel, it was firm and uncompromising.
"You will stay with me, my lord Glorfindel," he said with urgency, but also with an earnest certainty.
Glorfindel was surprised that the other elf knew him, but perhaps that was a mystery for another day – if he should live to see one. In the meantime, he eased into the other one's presence and shared light, such as it was. For the other's fea was...
Interesting.
Glorfindel had lived and died and lived for countless years before that. His time with the gods and other powers have given him experience in sensing souls in every way, and at the plane where they connected, they can be seen, heard, smelled, tasted and touched. Each one was unique in nuance, degree, gradient, texture, temperature, intensity. Each one was an intriguing blip in a wide, eternal spectrum.
But some souls were more intriguing than others, and the Elvenking Thranduil's son was practically exotic.
He smelled like wet spring leaves on thorny branches that have already kissed blood. His song was high hopeful notes wind soaring, but the timbre was deep and the edges dulled, softened, earth-tied. He had the burning light of youthful energy and purpose, but unlike the sweetness of most young elves Glorfindel had ever met, his few years were seasoned by weight and depth, bitterness and salt. And whether by life's scarring or his own deliberate design, his light was veiled. It was golden brilliance tarnished, like a weather-worn, overused sacred chalice.
He was strange and intoxicating, and Glorfindel drank him in. he even found strength enough to open his mouth and say, in recognition –
"Thranduilio-"
Glorfindel's savior leaned in close and put a blood-slick hand gently over his mouth.
"That is a death sentence here, my lord," he said. "And at any rate, I will need you to save your breath."
Glofindel nodded, but he saw something he simply had to remark upon: there was an arrow protruding from Thranduilion's back. He swallowed and gathered strength again to speak.
"Arrow," he managed in a rasp.
"I am aware," came the nonchalant reply. The Woodland Prince was preoccupied with other things.
His hand returned to Glorfindel's belly and for the love of the gods he pushed down, and it hurt like fire raging outward from his core and across his battered, oversensitive nerves. He bucked and cried out, and his mind whited to nothingness.
# # #
The relief or unconsciousness lasted, miserably, only for a moment.
When Glorfindel returned to himself, he was still on the ground and the Woodland Prince's hands were still keeping his blood and his guts in his body. But Thranduilion was no longer alone. He was flanked by Woodland soldiers listening to his commands, save for one who was hovering restlessly behind him and pleading his case in between Thranduilion's clipped instructions.
"Secure the perimeter – "
"Damn it all, Legolas, what is that on your back?!" exclaimed the soldier, who was pointedly ignored.
"Prepare litters only for those who cannot survive horseback. Triage who goes first but no one can linger here- "
"Let someone else look after him, you're hurt!"
"Secure a salvageable uruk for interrogation, but not at risk to yourselves. Expedite the passing of all the rest – "
"Seriously, Legolas. Stand down now and take care of that arrow!"
The Prince – "Legolas," Glorfindel deduced – let out an impatient, long-suffering sigh. He finally addressed his agitated minder. "A flesh wound, Silon. Nothing more."
The soldier Silon would not be appeased. "It could be poisoned. It is, at the very least, as filthy as the orc that held it."
"Well if I take my hands off of him he will be dead," Legolas snapped. "Where is that healer?"
"Got the wind knocked out of him, hir-nin," someone else reported, "But he's coming around."
"See?" Silon pointed out, "It won't be long now. You need to properly get that thing off of you, Legolas."
"If it bothers you so much then pull at it, why don't you?"
Glorfindel quickly realized this Legolas had not meant it in barbed jest. The soldier Silon – roan-haired and head bloodied himself – knelt beside his prince. He tore at the cloths around the injury and contemplated it briefly. It was protruding at the flesh of Legolas' upper back near his left arm, and Silon examined it while Legolas was pressing at the injury to Glorfindel's stomach.
It was tragically comical, for the three of them were like a nesting doll of hurts.
Another soldier, the biggest elf Glorfindel had ever set eyes on, knelt by Legolas too and shoved a water skin roughly in the direction of the prince's lips. It smelled like particularly potent wine, Glorfindel could scent it even in his dimming awareness.
The prince partook of the drink halfheartedly, before jerking his head away. The rest of the contents were then tossed over the site of his arrow injury and over a clean, gleaming knife. The blade was then used to widen the entry wound on Legolas' back. The head and shaft were pulled out efficiently, and intact.
Legolas simply tensed and hissed but Glorfindel, his spirit wound around the other's fea, felt the prince's psyche jolt and his axis shift. And from how closely Legolas hovered over him, Glorfindel could see his face sheen in a fine sweat.
Glorfindel couldn't help it. Maybe by virtue of some time spent with the Weeper, he felt sorry for this stoic young creature. Or maybe by virtue of some time spent with Elrond and the healing halls of his Rivendell sanctuary, he wanted to offer comfort.
Either way, at unthinking detriment to himself, Glorfindel found reserves he did not know he had and shared what little warmth and light he'd kept, flooding into the connection between his soul and that of Legolas.
Thranduilion's pale lips parted in wonder, before he shook his head and shook free of Glorfindel's connection.
"None of that now," Legolas snapped, displeased, impervious, and completely without gratitude. "You need it more than I do."
His face softened though, at the sight of a new arrival from somewhere behind Glorfindel. By the relief in Legolas' glacial eyes, Glorfindel could tell the healer had finally come.
"You are sufficiently recovered, Naston?" Legolas asked.
"Aye, hir-nin."
"He will need you at your best."
"He shall have it, Captain," the healer promised. But he swallowed at the sight of Glorfindel's injury. Nevertheless, he knelt beside Legolas and prepared his wares. In the meantime, another one of the wood-elves called for their prince's urgent attention.
"Captain!" he called out, "There's something you must see."
"Naston?" Legolas prompted the healer, who told his prince he was ready to take over.
"Well then it seems you are in capable hands, my lord," Legolas announced to Glorfindel. He lifted his hands from the ancient lord's belly, and the healer quickly took over and pressed –
The pain was indescribable. Glorfindel spiraled away...
# # #
... he did not go far.
Damn it all!
When Glorfindel regained awareness, he was still in that benighted battle site. At least this time he was on a litter and swaddled in blankets, and he'd been given what felt like appropriate field treatment even if the packed wound felt overfull and alien, beneath bandages set around his middle so tight he could hardly breathe. But what was one more discomfort amongst a litany; blood loss and pain made him cold and lightheaded on top of everything, and the dimming world swayed sickeningly.
"Do you know who this is, Naston?" he heard that now familiar voice – Legolas' - ask.
"Hard not to know him, hir-nin."
"He is not permitted to die beneath our eaves, do you understand?"
"He was almost disemboweled, my lord," replied the healer nervously. "We need to contend not only with the severity of the injury itself and the damages placed upon his functions, but secondary effects as well – extreme blood loss and infection from the contents of his innards contaminating all the rest of him. Let us just say – on every imaginable level, he does not have the best chances of survival."
"But the Elvenking will not countenance the embarrassment of losing the precious, twice-born Balrog Slayer on our watch here," Legolas said.
Was that a joke? Glorfindel suspected so, but he did not know the prince enough to tell, for the delivery had been perfectly deadpan.
"The gods might weep," added one of the soldiers, and by the Vala, these woodland elves really were joking.
"The Noldor will certainly weep," snickered another.
"Why, even the Captain might weep," someone suggested wryly.
"Hir-nin never weeps," laughed another. "He blinks though – sometimes!"
"Oh we cannot have that, can we?" agreed the healer Naston, mock-gravely.
Their prince received the jests with quiet confidence and a straight face, but there was a gleam in his eye.
"Is everything ready?" he asked the field healer. "Lord Glorfindel goes to the King's Halls now, and kindly ensure he is accommodated in the royal suites at the healing ward, in deference to his noble standing."
"You are hurting too, hir-nin," Naston pointed out. "It would be wise to leave with us."
"You know I am not done here and he cannot wait," replied the other. "Move out."
Glorfindel's litter was lifted gently, but even the most minute of movements was agony. Oblivion descended as he was raised, and the world stopped beneath his closed eyes when he was moved.
# # #
Every waking moment, however brief, was agony.
Glorfindel would wake to an assault of snatches of light and sound and misery, only for his beleaguered mind and body to retreat away from said misery. Every eye blink was eons away from the one that came before it and the one after, each a curtain show unveiling different places and unknown faces.
"He looks dead," he'd woken up to once or twice, with fingers prying at his eyes and scrambling at the pulse on his neck.
He'd woken to rustling leaves overhead, and the clatter of horse hooves beneath his body as he was moved through the uneven terrain of the forest. He woke to a sudden stop, and the too-loud declaration of the arrivals upon the gates of the Elvenking's stronghold, demanding to immediately be let in. He slipped away at the jolt of sudden movement forward when they were allowed inside.
He woke to another stop, and lingered halfheartedly when he was lifted from his horse-drawn litter and rushed by jarring footfalls to the interiors of Thranduil's labyrinthine halls.
Rays of warm firelight flew by his drifting gaze, woven through the textured surfaces of the petrified wood and stone walls and ceilings. He felt sick to his stomach, unable to focus, and a thick, warm liquid bubbled up from his mouth, and the horror of choking on it, of being unable to breathe and being too weak to rise or turn and rid himself of it, was second only to the searing pain on his belly.
When will it end, he wondered, and the answer came when a barrage of urgently chattering healers came into view. Someone opened at his bandages and –
# # #
Sudden silence.
Glorfindel woke alone to a dimly lit room with a miscellany of healing effects ordered neatly on one side. It had a high vaulted ceiling and was wide, and though there was another bed across his own, he was the suite's only occupant.
There was a curtained and guarded exit, and he could hear a bustle of activity from beyond. From the smells of herbs and cleaning aids, he could tell he was in a healing hall, albeit in an area set apart. By the trappings of this particular space, he deduced he was occupying a royal bed.
He was being treated as nobly as Thranduilion had commanded, he remembered now.
He shifted uncomfortably. The bandages itched and were too tight, and he could tell he was drugged, heavily, by the absence of sharp pain. But his belly felt stuffed and sickeningly overfull, and he was nauseatingly ill. He swallowed thickly, closed his eyes and remained still, and dreamed of heavenly places away from mortal weaknesses.
# # #
Glorfindel jolted awake at the sound of new arrivals, and by warrior's instinct - reacquired now that he was a few steps farther from death than before - he feigned sleep to orient himself before letting others know he was awake. He opened his eyes only to slits.
It was the Woodland Prince, bedraggled, dragged along by that singularly large Silvan soldier of his. The Silvan was so massive that with Legolas' arm slung over his shoulders, the tall prince's feet still barely brushed the ground. It wad just as well too, for Legolas kept scrambling for some purchase as they walked but his knees kept knocking and his legs were liquid - uncoordinated, strength-less limbs that could not hold weight or follow direction.
The prince was deposited gray-faced and breathless on the bed across from Glorfindel's, and he belatedly recalled Legolas had taken an arrow suspected of poison - hours? days? a lifetime ago?
As Legolas' companions and healers divested him of his armor and clothes and set them aside, he spoke with a rasping voice at them. "And how does the Lord Glorfindel fare, Renior?"
The giant Silvan glanced in Glorfindel's direction and replied, "He looks better than you."
"No one looks better th-," Legolas started with a sick grin, before he threw off his handlers and scrambled to lean over the side of the bed, where he promptly urged out the contents of his stomach to the ground.
"He always misses my feet," Renior boasted.
Glorfindel, reminded if his own delicate stomach and nausea, winced in sympathy and closed his eyes, fighting against the same impulse.
# # #
Glorfidel didn't think he would fall asleep, but when he woke next he realized that was what had happened.
He oriented himself and realized it felt like the deep, late night. It was hard to tell time indoors here, but there was a hushed quiet, and muted activities about the healing halls.
He had woken to the sound of a low, miserable moan followed by painful-sounding retching, all courtesy of only other elf in the royal suite: Legolas, the Woodland Prince.
Glorfindel opened his eyes and found the younger elf sitting up but slumped heavily to one side of his bed, with the arm near his injury immobilized in a sling strapped to his chest while his free hand held a sick bowl near his chin.
Legolas retched and burped and gulped in air and started again, then again, with each miserable spell of sickness broken by careful swallows and closed eyes as he fought for control. If he knew he was being watched, he gave no appearance of awareness or care for it.
Glorfindel ached to help him or at least, call out for it. He blinked himself to greater awareness and shifted to move. It was still surprisingly painful, more than what he expected. He bit back a soft, hoarse cry, and Legolas turned to look at him then, squarely eye to eye, betraying no sign that he had been caught unawares. Their weary, bleary gazes met, equally miserable.
Glorfindel was not certain, but he also sensed in the other elf, a dark, delirious humor about it all.
Legolas smothered it and swallowed thickly. "Do you need me to call-," he swallowed again, "let me call someone for you, my lord."
Glorfindel grit his teeth and shook his head. "No," he growled. "You."
"No-" Legolas managed to spit out, before he became ill again.
All that came of it were strings of saliva and bile, but he curled miserably over his apparently merciless stomach. When his eyes met Glorfindel's again though, they were pained but present, and there was a sober clarity to him beyond the cloud of pain and misery.
"Please do not bother yourself," Legolas said softly. " It will pass. It always passes."
Glorfindel nodded and looked away, giving the other elf what little privacy they had in the large, royal space that was suddenly rendered too intimate by their vulnerabilities.
The ancient warrior pondered the unfortunate implications of those quiet words though - It always passes.
That this pain was familiar and frequent and survived many times before.
TO BE CONTINUED...