(A/N: tasha? Constructive criticism is SPIFFY!! *claps* I've already fixed that chapter. I just need to re-upload it. Two, no freaky shape-shiftnig. I thought it would fit and it didn't. Go fig. In case you're wondering, the lyrics at the beginning of this chapter are from "All By Myself." Why? The stupid song was stuck in my head. And no way was I gonna title this chapter All By Myself. This is sort of song-ficcy, so yeah, grit your teeth and bear with me. Part of this was inspired by Christina Aguilera's "Beautiful." Guess where and... you get a cookie. Maybe you get a cameo in the Weasley's go to America! If I ever get around to writing it. "Regretlessly" IS a word. I make it so. So THBT!)
Chapter Thirty-Three: Limitations
When I was young, I never needed anyone. And making love was just for fun. Those days are gone...
Elorelei shut her eyes tightly as the ice cold irons clamped around her wrists. Legolas had left very early that morning. He wrote her a letter, telling her everything he knew about where he would be going, the destinations and goals and everything important he could think of. It still seemed unimportant, even as he read it to himself. She was not going to visit the dwarves, or the giants. She would be in another dimension, through a hidden portal, in another form. Trying not to remind herself of this, Elorelei allowed herself to be led slowly down the hall, her feet moving lightly, while her heart sunk like a ship in the greatest part of the tempest. She kept swallowing to keep her throat open while it closed up on her.
The room, the unnecessarily large room (Elorelei thought), was filled with the guests. Vandelar was sweating. Niqueran smirked triumphantly at her from the sidelines. Reminding her of everything that had gone wrong in her life. Everything that could go wrong. Despair was on her and she felt it's dead, rotted fingers closing in on. To kill whatever bravery she had left. The sight of her family watching as she walked into the arena lifted her spirits a little, but not enough.
In her youth, needing love was a joke. What could it possibly be good for? The irony. The poetic justice. The whatever it was called that was making her life living hell. She didn't need love then, but she needed it now. More than she could've anticipated.
Hard to be sure. Sometimes I feel so insecure. And love, so distant and obscure, remains the cure.
They clamped her ankles and her arms and her waist. Chained her to a sturdy wall. Elorelei didn't want to be afraid. As the the sorcerors approached her, pity in their eyes, she didn't want to be afraid. They started working, muttering incantations and covering her with a bitter type of salve. She had been ordered to keep her mind focused on something very strong inside her, very present. Something that could comfort her. She wasn't very concerned with it, until a glowing green wall appeared between her and the crowd in the room. Between her and her family, leaving her alone. She bit her lip and held in her panic... with a very weak will. She was going to break. No, not break... explode. Inside, her body was crackling lightning and dynamite. She couldn't do it. She cried out to make it stop, but her voice had gone. She looked for her family, but the glow was too bright.
A voice that sounded like an echo said, "She's not taking to it!"
"Keep going."
All by myself. Don't wanna be all by myself... anymore.
The crackling was all over. Explosions bursted beneath her skin, and they wanted to keep going? "No! Don't let them! Make it stop!" Her voice was gone. Her focus was gone. Her hope was gone. She attempted again, the focusing. Something had to make it stop. Legolas. Legolas made it fade, but it didn't stop. Her skin was like molten rocks. Not just skin, everywhere! Bubbling, burning, smoldering, stinging fire!! Every breath she took scalded her lungs. The fire flared and charred, turning her skin to ashes. She was going to die. Yes. She was going to die. She wept embers and hoped they would bury her body before Legolas found out. He couldn't see her like this.
The fire raged on and Elorelei lay limp, screaming into nothingness, but she was dying. It was fading, little by little. Her death would be slow and horrific, but she WOULD die. Her only comfort lay in that. She would die alone. In the presence of two dozen elves, she would die alon- Then she had a horrible thought. Legolas. He would be alone also. He'd come back and she would be dead. This revalation made her ill. She couldn't allow that. Let Legolas live a half life, because she could not hold on. The fire had been dying, but now it was coming back, she had to start thinking before it got too bad and she'd back to where she started.
The eagle. The old woman had said it would have an effect. Now it was time to see. Death was still hovering near like an insect, so her transformation was slow and difficult... and the shrinking was missing... The fire was nothing now. She just had to control her beast... Control.
*~*~*~*
The eagle was huge, it's wings spread the length of the entire room. It shrieked and tried in vain to get up in the air, but the room was too cramped for it.
"She knows she can't move, why is she trying to fly?" Filior shouted as wind from her wings sent elves blowing backwards. The eagle snapped at one of those trying to flee, it's eyes intent on it's prey...
"Filior!! I'm talking to you!! What's happened to her?! Can you hear me?!" Felair found his son unreachable, as the Prince watched his sister, his face screwed up in horror and frustration. Then realization dawned.
"It's too big for her!! GET OUT!! She doesn't have control of it!!" He resorted to shoving his father, but Felair wasn't leaving.
"That's my daughter!" He screamed, but Filior had surpassed him strength-wise, and inevitably, he would be out the door, whether he liked it or not.
Many were getting out quivers of arrows, they were going to shoot it down... Felair opened his mouth to order them to cease, but a voice rang out moments before his.
"NO!!! Leave it!!" The elf moved swiftly through the chaos, snatching weapons as he went. "Eli, now!"
"Immobulus!!" cried Elihar, and the very fabric of time seemed to slow down. The other elf was still moving, and Felair could only watched as the Legolas (because that's who it was) tossed something into the mouth of the great raptor, it's beak open in a cry, but stopped by Eli's spell.
A split second later, Elorelei lay, barely breathing, on the floor. She wasn't moving and Legolas looked worried as he sat beside her, lifting her body into his lap.
The sorcerer's looked at each other, slightly embarrassed they hadn't thought of the freezing spell to begin with.
"Elorelei, can you hear me?" Legolas was still holding her, waiting for Eli to think of something that would wake her.
"Sleeping beauty," said Lumaeus, approaching slowly.
The Western Prince looked confused. "What?"
"Kiss her," He ordered. "She'll wake."
Legolas was more than happy to oblige.
Seconds after their lips parted, Elorelei's eyes flew open. She took slow, deliberate breaths and clutched Legolas's arm, looking nothing short of terrified.
"It's okay, Lori, I'm right here."
She didn't hear him; she was swallowing deep breaths of air and touching her skin in wonder.
"It worked," she said finally.
"What wor-" He paused and looked more closely at her, holding her still as she started trembling. "Oh, no..."
"It worked. I can feel it... dying. It's dying."
"What's dying?"
"IT." She repeated with unheard tones of horror and disgust. "This... this-this body! It's dying and I can feel it! ... every second passes like waves receding on the sand... It's dying..."
She spent all afternoon in her room, muttering about how it was dying. "Its skin ages now... From the outside in, it withers. Slowly, so slowly. Death comes to it with deliberate steps, but it does not hearken. It cannot."
Legolas stayed by her, even into the evening. No one asked how he had come to be there after he had ridden so hard from the dawn. Her whispers carried in the dark, and sometimes she would fumble, shut her eyes, and fight the tears. Not once did she say "I am dying." Always "It is dying. It is dying and nothing can be done."
*~*~*~*
It was midnight and Legolas was still awake, watching her in her new form. He noticed the changes happening in her with a resentful eye. The beautiful black of her hair was fading to a strange brown, it's length shortened as time passed. Her skin was rougher to the touch, and had ceased its natural glow. Feature by feature, the magic robbed her of her elfhood. Legolas was almost furious by the time she woke up.
"Legolas?"
He sprang immediately to her, comforted by the fact that her voice was the same.
"Yes? Elorelei, are you alright?"
She shook her head. "No, of course not. But I'm not in any present danger, if that's what you're asking."
He nodded, wondering when would be the right time to show her what the magic had done.
"You didn't meet the Northern riders." She stood up and squeezed his hand, thanking him and scolding him at the same time.
"I met them halfway. They were on their way down here to come for me. My parents... made some misjudgments."
"Indeed," said Elorelei bitterly. She was as silent as a grave for the next couple of minutes. Legolas peered at her face in the pale moonlight and saw tears.
"No, don't cry-"
Elorelei started. "Don't cry? Don't CRY? Look at me!! As plain and as mortal as if I had been born this way! My magic resting deep inside me where I cannot reach it. My being walking towards it's doom. Frail, vulnerable, unprotected. Do you know what it's like?! DO YOU?!"
Legolas reached out to stop her, gripping her by shoulders. He felt the absence of magic, and was sympathetic, but she could not go on that way. "No, I don't know, because I didn't put my strength and my life on the line to make a journey to a world unknown to me. I didn't survive the Light that killed as regretlessly as the ocean. You despair, Elorelei, but think of what you have achieved. You know our universes are connected, that we need balance. As firstborn, it's our duty to watch over them, but we are worlds apart. This is important. This is worth it. You're grandfather did it."
"My grandfather is powerful and wise beyond any of us."
"And you think he began that way?"
Elorelei sighed and sunk onto the soft heather mattress. "Legolas, you are of a scrupulous mind and an honest heart... but you cannot possibly understand the... the emptiness."
Legolas kneeled before her, brushing her unfamiliar face, feeling his heart weighing down. He looked in her eyes, seeing his reflection... in pools of melted gold. Her eyes had changed, too.
"Don't look at me," She said, tearing herself away from his touch. She knew she was different now, and from the look she saw in his face, she knew just how different. The pain of the change had made her insecure, and she was never more ashamed of it. Even as Legolas wrapped his arms around her, hands in her hair.
"Elorelei, listen to me. The way you feel is passing or preparing to. Consumed in your despair, you can't even see... How it feels like the day you left me."
She was trying not to listen, trying to convince herself is words and his touch didn't help. But they did.
"I love you, Elorelei, I feel your emotions, your pain. The emptiness you feel... sometimes I think it's you who doesn't understand. Things won't always be perfect, and they won't always be miserable either. Just don't close the ones who love you out of your life. Don't close me out. Not again."
She closed her eyes. "I can't do it."
"Elorelei... Le vanya, tulka. Si raumo tuluva ar le náva ikolinda, melmenya. Er saira ta le láer." (You are beautiful, strong. This storm will come and you will be the bearer of it, my love. But know that you are not alone.)
Legolas couldn't say anything more to comfort her, so he brought her to the bed and lay beside her. Watched her fall into a deep sleep, holding her as close as he could, the Prince spent the night that way.... because tomorrow would be one of the hardest days of his life, for all the wrong reasons.
(A/N: I love my dog. I've said that before, but I really do. I write better with him there... okay, until someone can explain to my why melamin means "my love" I refuse to use it. NO BANDWAGON HOPPING THERE, MY FRIENDS! One more chapter to go. Sorry folks, all aboard the fanfiction train, it's headed back to reality in this case. See ya'll next chapter. There was a lot of stuff I wanted to put in. (Hey, I'm no Superman... heh, Scrubs joke. Ya get it? Ya get it? No? Fine...) You'll have to wait a while to get it explained, but I trust most have you put two and two together and know who Elorelei's mom is. That way I don't have to overwork on that. See ya'll in the next, and final, chapter.)