Soul of Elves
By Solara
Disclaimer: Any characters you recognize right off the bat weren't created by me; they are the property of J.R.R. Tolkien, with whom I claim no equity. Any characters you *don't* recognize right away, though, are mine.
A/N: Thanks so much, reviewers! You make me so happy...
For those who are wondering, here's a small announcement: I don't plan to make this story a romance in any way. Legolas is *mine*! (Hee, okay, no. But I wish.) In all seriousness, though, I really don't expect that this will be a romance of any kind, unless the characters truly pull me in that direction, which I don't see happening. No, no slash, no LegsyRomance, and NO Mary Sue.
This chapter is sort of angsty. Well, *I* cried, but that could be because I had Billy Joel's "Lullabye" playing on my WinAmp while I was writing the sad part... yeah, that could have something to do with it... G
Also, I take a few liberties in this story with both Legolas' and Celeborn's families... who knows if Legolas has brothers and sisters and if his mother is dead, but in my universe, all those things are true. And as I could find no record of Celeborn *not* having brothers, I made some up. Flame me if you must. :)
Asterisks (*) denote thoughts; double slashes (//) denote flashbacks.
Setting: Ten years after RotK.
*****
Chapter Four- Healing
-----
A fire was blazing yet again by the time Legolas had carried the unconscious elf into the woods; Aragorn had hurried ahead with the horses and their supplies. "Lay her down here," he told Legolas, who set the maiden down on Aragorn's cloak spread over the soft, mossy ground.
They set to work immediately, their hands moving quickly, not wanting to voice their fears that their lost elf was perhaps beyond any healing. Aragorn got out his knife and cut off what remained of her tunic, revealing a torso that looked almost otherworldly in its damage.
"Five- no- six ribs broken," Legolas said with a grimace as he removed his own cloak and covered her with it. Aragorn tore strips of her sodden shirt and began bandaging the bleeding cut on her arm.
"This looks fresh," he mentioned. "Perhaps she sustained it in the chase."
*What being could do this?* Legolas thought, his mind whirling as he wrapped a bandage around the gash on the she-elf's forehead. *How could such savagery possibly exist among men without our knowing it?*
Aragorn seemed to read his friend's mind. "I cannot even begin to imagine who the culprit could be," he said, a severe scowl on his face. "Gondor and Rohan owe their very lives to the elves, and while there are rogue tribes living in every wood, this kind of violence towards Elfkind is unthinkable."
They had bandaged every serious wound; now Legolas' eyes fell on the elf's shoulder. It was undoubtedly dislocated. "Thank the Valar she is unconscious," he said softly, reaching for her arm. "Ready?"
Aragorn, who was positioned near her head, placed both hands on her face to hold her lest she awoke and nodded. "Do it."
Legolas jerked the arm and it slid into place more smoothly than he had expected. "That will heal well," he said with relief.
Blood still trickled from the she-elf's mouth, however, and they could not ignore it for much longer. "What do you think- a lung?" Aragorn asked, wincing despite himself.
"A lung, or perhaps the stomach," Legolas replied, his eyes anxious. "Either way, the wound is too grave for us to heal."
A sudden whisper among the trees caught his attention. The moonlight seemed to intensify for a moment, brightening the small campsite and making the she-elf's odd red hair glint. He gazed around in awe as the whispers intensified.
"...Legolas?" He realized with a jolt that Aragorn had been speaking to him. The former ranger now sat back on his heels and looked sideways at Legolas. "Are you all right?"
Legolas shook his head ever-so-slightly, and the whispers diminished. "I'm fine, it was just..." He looked around, then back to Aragorn. "Nothing."
"I was wondering about her looks," Aragorn continued after a suspicious pause. "Look at her hair- have you ever seen that color on an elf?"
Legolas had to admit he had not. "But there are some elves who have a hint of red in their dark hair," he countered.
"Look how small she is," Aragorn said. "Look at her size. She is the size of a human woman."
The she-elf certainly was diminutive. She-elves were very different from women in that aspect; their height equaled that of the opposite sex. But this one was as slight and small as the Lady Eowyn. Legolas was at a loss.
"I have no explanation," he replied as he reached down to brush his fingers against the bruised skin of her face.
It happened again; the whispers whirled around him, the moonlight intensified, and this time, he felt a distinct jolt when he touched her skin. Holding his palm against her, the jolt settled into a steady hum, like a swarm of bees. *But more musical,* he thought, confused. *What is that?*
Feeling very strange, he watched his hand move down and push the cloak away from the she-elf's injured ribs. Placing his hand directly over where her lungs would be, the soft humming came back, only this time it was louder, and the whispers surrounded him, closing in. The moonlight brightened the forest into day-
Suddenly, he was thrown forward, into a jumble of images and sounds he couldn't place. He saw himself surrounded by elves on horses, a scouting party, it looked like; then he flashed to the face of the Lady Galadriel, who smiled at him and held out her arms. "Come," she whispered.
But her face was torn away as the next image pounded him, and the next, and the next; a she-elf with dark hair like Arwen's laughing and pointing at something, then a waterfall, then- to his shock- Aiwendil, sitting on a log restringing her bow, and then a cliff. Legolas gasped, unable to move, vaguely aware of the campfire, and Aragorn, and his hand resting on the injured elf's chest; time there seemed to be halted, however, while the images rushed past him at a disturbing pace.
Shock flooded him as he was jolted into a horrifying scene; six elves lay on the forest floor around a campfire, slain, their eyes watching him eerily. He recognized the dark-haired she-elf who resembled Arwen. Her glassy eyes were upon him, accusing him, and he felt a scream rip from his throat. Then he was thrown into another scene, a town; a tavern, where the awful feeling of the cold wet cloth pressed down on his senses again; then he was thrown yet again, this time into an image of fire. A dirty flask was pressed to his mouth and a liquid poured down his throat- only it wasn't liquid, it was fire, and it scorched him so that he could not cry out. A grey-skinned face blurred into view, and then he was thrown onto his stomach and he felt a whip come down on his back-
He yelled and was yanked into the forest; he was running on the path he and Aragorn had just traveled, but it was day, and he was being pursued. The image flipped infuriatingly to the same cliff he had seen before, and then, as terror bubbled up in his throat, the side of the cliff rushing past. He knew somehow that he was falling. Before he hit the bottom- the river, he realized suddenly- Lady Galadriel's face came to him again, smiling, glowing with beauty and purity.
"You'll be safe now," she said.
Legolas slammed back into the real world with a darkening rush; the fire glinted off the she-elf's red hair as he gasped for breath, blinking and shaking his head to rid himself of the horrible things he had just seen. His hand still lay on the she-elf's chest, which was suddenly warm.
He turned to Aragorn, his eyes wide, and met even wider ones.
"What- by the Name of the One- just happened?" Aragorn said, his voice low and oddly shaky.
Legolas pulled his hand up from the maiden's chest; it took some effort, as if something was holding their skin together. The hum vibrated more loudly for a split second, then diminished. He held his hand in front of his face. It looked perfectly normal, but still thrummed with some unseen energy.
"I have no idea," he responded in a whisper.
---
Aragorn was hurriedly unwrapping the food. "Here. Eat something."
Legolas felt fine, if a little winded; but by the look on his friend's face, he guessed that his own appearance did not match his the way he felt. He accepted the lembas Aragorn held out and took a small bite, chewing thoughtfully.
The she-elf lay ever still on Aragorn's cloak, but Legolas could not bear to look at the exposed side of her chest- the ribs he had touched. The sight of them had shocked him to the core mere moments ago.
The bruises were gone.
Aragorn adjusted the cloak after looking for himself, confirming his first glance with a quiet curse. The king rarely let profanity fly from his mouth, but the whole situation was just too odd- and, frankly, too frightening- to refrain.
He sat in front of Legolas, crossing his legs and staring anxiously at his friend. "Tell me what just happened. Really, or I'm going to burst."
If Legolas had wished for nothing more than to explain what had happened to Aragorn, he still couldn't have done it. "I honestly have no idea," he told the dark-haired man.
"Well, what at least did you see? You looked like you weren't even here- like you left!"
"I saw Lorien," Legolas replied after a pause. "Lorien, and elves I didn't recognize. And Aiwendil. And Galadriel. And then there was..." He tried to remember what had frightened him so, and it came to him. "Fire."
Aragorn didn't speak, opting instead to let his winded friend gather his thoughts. "There were men," Legolas continued. "Men with grey skin. They were hurting... her, I suppose," he said, gesturing at the unconscious elf- maiden. "But I felt as thought I *was* her." He shook his head. "It was the strangest thing that has ever happened to me."
After a few moments, Aragorn still hadn't spoken, and Legolas looked up. "Well? What did it look like happened?"
Aragorn frowned. "The leaves stirred up suddenly- and you gave a great jerk, like something was holding your hand against her. Your eyes were closed," he said tersely, furrowing his brow. "I've only ever seen your eyes closed twice, and both times you were unconscious with grave wounds."
*My eyes were closed,* Legolas thought with a tremor. It was true- his eyes rarely closed for more than a blink.
"You looked like you were struggling against something for a few minutes," Aragorn continued. "And I looked at the she-elf's skin, under your hand, and it was healing." He looked straight at Legolas. "Her injuries mended right under your touch."
They were silent for a good few minutes, both trying to sort through their tumbling thoughts. *I healed her with my hand,* Legolas thought. *That's impossible. It doesn't make sense.*
"One thing is clear," Aragorn said. "We're going to have to go to Bree after all, and figure this out."
Bree. Legolas had never been, and yet he knew somehow that the tavern among the images had been in Bree. Which meant that the elf-maiden had been in Bree.
He glanced back at her; she was breathing much more easily. Aragon had wrapped the cloak all the way around her, and all that was visible was her face and her strangely-colored hair.
*Who are you?*
---
Legolas arose at dawn the next morning, the gentle breeze stirring his hair lightly; he lay for a few moments after blinking his eyes awake, lost in thoughts about the mysterious maiden laying not three feet to his right. He had dreamed, again, of the images he had seen last night, but this time there was no fire or pain, only the beautiful waterfalls and glinting trees of Lorien. Again, he had seen Aiwendil, this time walking along a corridor with him and talking animatedly. The dark-haired she-elf had also been present; he had watched as she climbed at tree and beckoned down at him. Her voice had been so pleasant.
"Miliar," he murmured, startled that the name came so easily to his tongue. "Miliar."
He sat up and stretched his muscles, which ached slightly after the events of the previous night. His hand fluttered in front of his face, and he held it out again, searching for something amiss, *anything* that would provide an explanation of how he had been able to heal the she-elf's mortal injuries.
The fingers were long and pale, and his palm carried a small smudge of dirt; other than that, there was nothing odd about his hand. He shook his head. *I have never had a healing power before,* he thought, bewildered. *I do not even know how I did it.*
He noticed a small cut on his left wrist from where a branch had slashed him during his sprint through the woods last night. The wound was tiny, a mere scratch, yet it sent an annoying sting shooting up his arm. Struck by a sudden curiousness, he placed his right hand, the one he had been scrutinizing, over the wound and waited.
Nothing. No whispers, no shocking plunge into a depthless pool of foreign images; his eyes did not close. The trees were quiet, and when he finally grew exasperated and removed his hand, the cut was still there, as annoying as ever.
Apparently, the odd gift had been a one-time occurrence... or perhaps-
He glanced over at the elf-maiden, whose eyes were closed. *She is still unconscious, then,* he sighed inwardly. Her chest moved up and down at an easy pace under his cloak, though, and her face, while pale, held none of the fear that had marred her visage the previous night, so he calmed.
A flash of distress hit him suddenly as he remembered one of the images from his spell last night. *They whipped her!* he thought angrily, immediately horrified that the vile torture could be inflicted on such a fragile-looking creature. He moved quickly and quietly to her side and, with careful, smooth movements, managed to lift the side of her body gently so that he could peer at her bare back.
Sure enough, harsh red lash marks stood out against the pale, bruised skin, some still oozing blood. *Why didn't these heal, then?* he wondered, swallowing the sick feeling that came up his throat at the sight of such damage. *By the Valar, what did they do to her...*
She needed a healing ointment if she was going to be able to move at all without pain. Legolas could only imagine the strength it must have taken for her to escape through the woods in her condition. He set her gently back down, making sure she did not stir, then went to Aragorn, who lay sleeping on the other side of the now-smoldering fire.
He placed a hand on his friend's shoulder; the king's eyes immediately flew open. "Peace," Legolas said quietly. "It's only me. I am going to go look for Athelas; her back needs ointment badly. I will be back soon."
Aragorn nodded and stole a glance at the elf-maiden himself. Legolas went back to his bedroll and strapped on his bow and quiver before leaving the campsite and venturing deeper into the woods.
His eyes darted around, searching for the familiar bushy weed that was the Athelas plant, but his mind could not stop spinning with thoughts. *Who is she? Where did she come from? She must be from Lorien, but I know of no other elves with hair that color...*
The image of the six slain elves came into his mind again, and he flinched. *What she must have gone through... and I wonder where those elves are right now.* Elven bodies did not decay in death, and animals would not harm the bodies of elves; so somewhere in the woods, probably nearby, lay a horrifying, untouched scene.
His thoughts had taken him far from the campsite; annoyed with himself, he focused on his search. Spying a bush of Athelas growing furtively between two other bushes, he pulled out his knife and leaned down to cut.
A familiar tingle crawled up his spine. His bow was in his hand and an arrow notched in the blink of an eye.
*Someone is here...* But it could not be the elf-maiden's horse, as the red stallion still lay protectively next to his mistress at the campsite. Legolas' keen eyes whipped through the trees, watching intently, his ears perked and listening for any sound that might betray the being that he felt sure was watching him-
All at once, without warning, the smothering, invisible cloth, wet and cold, fell over his senses. He gasped and choked. *Fight it, fight it...* his mind urged, but he could not. The swirling fog pushed into his nose and mouth; he could see nothing but grey, and he could not breathe...
He saw, as if in a wisp of memory, his own father; King Thranduil's face was a mask of grief as he stood, shoulders shaking, before a tomb. Legolas recognized it immediately as the white grave of his mother, Elistel. Grief choked him, and then, before he could cry out, the scene blurred. Arwen's Evenstar necklace was clasped in his hand, and he stared down at a sheer drop into a swirling river, knowing somehow that Aragorn was dead and would not be coming back this time... and then the image faded into one of his younger sister Lindomith screaming with grief as her dead child, killed by a spider in the darkness of Mirkwood, was carried back to the palace in the arms of a weeping Arafail. The image blurred again and again, each into a different, more heightened plane of sorrow, memories of events that he wanted to forget forever.
Legolas could not breathe, could not move, and the grief was smothering him. He slumped over. A man stepped out from behind a tree in front of him and advanced- *His skin is grey,* Legolas realized with a start before falling more deeply into his ocean of pain.
---
Aragorn had been sitting next to the elf-maiden for less than a minute when her eyes flew open.
He would have jumped in his surprise if she had not jerked away first; her eyes, which he could now see were an odd pale green, widened and a short cry ripped from her ragged throat.
"Ava caure, ava caure! Mellonye," Aragorn attempted to soothe, and unlike her horse, the she-elf calmed. "I will not hurt you. You are safe."
"You are not an elf," she said. Her voice was throaty and held an air of supreme dignity; Aragorn wondered if she was royalty after all.
He spread his hands. "No, but I am a friend to elves."
Her silver-green eyes were flickering around the trees nervously. "I am still in the forest?" she asked.
"Yes. We pulled you out of the river. Do you remember anything?" Aragorn made sure to keep his voice gentle, but could not help pressing the maiden.
She swallowed. "I jumped off the cliff." *Jumped?!* Aragorn thought, startled. "I woke up and managed to make it to the riverbank..." Aragorn could see her hands moving over her body underneath Legolas' cloak. She frowned. "Either I am misremembering, or I am somehow not as injured as I was in the river."
"Alas, I have no explanation for your sudden health," he told her. "My companion had something to do with it, yet I do not understand how you healed so quickly, nor does he."
She seemed not to care, and her eyes fell on his face. "Who are you?" she asked warily.
He debated for a moment whether or not to give her the name Strider; after all, she was a stranger, and he wanted as few people as possible to know that the King of Gondor was out on his own. Still, Legolas had mentioned that he thought she was from Lorien, and Aragorn wanted to put her as much at ease as possible. "I am Aragorn, son of Arathorn, of Gondor," he said, hoping that would be enough for her. By the slight narrowing of her eyes, he could tell that she recognized the name as belonging to King Elessar and was attempting to discern if he was lying to her. "And you are?" he asked, trying to take her mind off his identity.
She shifted slightly and winced before answering. "Caranna of Lorien."
*Caranna. Gift of Red. Fitting,* thought Aragorn, glancing at her red-gold hair, bright even though it was matted with dirt and blood. "And your family?"
"I am the niece of Lord Celeborn," she said shortly, as if she objected to his inquiry. He accepted her answer with a nod. An odd look crossed her face, and she scowled anew, looking at him with suspicion and a glint of fear in her eyes. "Where is my shirt?" she asked, her voice hard as metal.
He stifled a laugh. "Bandaging your many wounds, my lady. I am sure my elf companion will allow you to borrow one of his."
She sat up, moaning a little at the pain in her head; he set a hand on her arm to steady her, careful not to touch her shoulder. Clutching the cloak across her chest, she looked around. "You have an elf with you?"
"Yes, he went to get some Athelas for your back-" as he spoke, he leaned and peered at her back himself, drawing a quick breath through his teeth when he saw the angry red welts. *What kind of man could do this to an elf? And a lady, at that!*
"You must find him!" The alarm in her voice whipped his eyes to her face. "He is not safe!"
"I assure you, my lady, he is quite capable of caring for himself-"
"No, you don't understand!" Her eyes were wide with fear, and there was desperation in her voice. "The man who I was running from has a weapon, a weapon different from any other... your friend is in danger by himself! You must find him, and quickly!"
Aragorn's heart leapt into his throat. *Of course,* he thought. *That odd spell he had, when he fell off Arod-*
He jumped to his feet and grabbed his sword. "Stay with the horses," he told her, leaving her sitting by the smoking bivouac, Legolas' cloak held against her chest tightly.
His feet pounded through the forest, matching the thunderous beating of his heart. *Why did we think the danger had passed? How could I be so stupid?* he berated himself as he searched wildly for any sign of his friend. *We find an elf beaten nearly to death, and Legolas is attacked by some invisible force...*
Legolas had left no tracks for him to follow; the elf never did. Still, Aragorn ran on a straight path, knowing somehow that his friend lay very close ahead-
A glint of gold caught his eye, spread out across the ground. He heard a faint moan.
*No, no no-* he cried inwardly as he rounded a thicket of trees and saw Legolas on the ground, clutching his head. A man stood before the ailing elf, dressed all in black, his eyes and hair dark. In his hand was a short knife that glowed black, if such a thing were possible; inky darkness seemed to radiate from the blade. The man's arm was swinging down in a deadly arc toward Legolas' heart.
A terrifying battle cry ripped from Aragorn's throat as he sprang towards the man and knocked the knife out of his hand with a severe kick. Startled, the man jumped back, then snarled at Aragorn. His skin was all grey, as if he were made from stone; Aragorn stared at him in awe and malice, breathing hard.
"Leave off," the man hissed, his voice deep and tainted by an odd accent. "This is not your fight."
"That is my friend you were trying to kill," Aragorn replied, his voice deathly cold, keeping his sword aimed at the man's throat. "And I usually do not take kindly to strange men killing my friends."
The man hesitated, glancing at the knife on the ground, which now looked like a normal blade. "Don't even think about it," Aragorn barked.
But the grey man lunged for the weapon with a cry; Aragorn rushed forward and brought his sword hilt down on the man's back. The grey man stopped for a moment, then spun out, his leg delivering a vicious kick at Aragorn's knees, dropping him and sending Anduril flying out of his hand. Throwing himself on Aragorn, they grappled, rolling around on the ground; Aragorn managed to land a punch on the man's jaw, throwing him off. Scrambling for his sword, Aragorn was attacked again from behind; the man's clasped fists struck the back of his neck with enough force to send stars shooting past his eyes. He collapsed.
Just as he turned over and saw the grey man's foot sailing towards his head, the foot was no longer there. Neither was the man. Aragorn rolled over and saw the man pinned against a tree by two arrows lodged solidly in his gut.
Legolas' hand closed on his arm and pulled him up. "Are you all right?" the elf asked as Aragorn shook the swimming stars out of his eyes.
A quick nod confirmed his uninjured status, and they both moved to the dying man against the tree. His eyes were trained on them as they neared, his breath coming in short, bloody gasps.
"Who are you?" Legolas shouted, obviously angry that he had been so easily incapacitated and attacked.
The man did not answer, but a slow, quiet chuckle escaped his bloodstained lips. "Do you think this is funny?" Aragorn seethed, his voice like ice.
"You... will not be able to escape..." the man choked. "My master- will see that every- elf- in Middle Earth- is his!"
Legolas' mouth was a very tight, straight white line. The man, with one last cackle, gave a sickening cough and slumped over, held up by the arrows, the flow of blood from his stomach slowing to a trickle. Aragorn used the flat edge of his sword to nudge the man to the ground; the grey- skinned monstrosity fell with a thump and did not move.
"He is dead," Aragorn said, for lack of anything better. He watched as the fine bones in Legolas' jaw clenched tightly, then released.
"Are you sure you are all right?" his friend asked him, his gray eyes searching those of Aragorn, who nodded.
"I'm fine. You?"
Legolas, who in Aragorn's experience was quite a good liar, gave the most unconvincing smile the Gondor king had ever seen. "Fine," he said with a short nod. Aragorn did not believe him for a second.
---
After Aragorn son of Arathorn's hasty departure, Caranna had risen slowly, getting used to what pained her and what parts of her body could support her weight. Her shoulder was no longer dislocated, but it ached dully; her head, too, was leaden and pounded with the same old hammers. Her chest, however, was fine.
*How is this possible?* she thought, bewildered, as she removed the cloak covering her, staring down at her skin, which was smoother and whiter than it had been for nearly two weeks. *They beat me nearly to a pulp, and I surely tore a hole in my lung getting out of the river! Yet now I am healed.*
She remembered Aragorn saying something about his elf companion, and how he had something to do with it... *Nay, I do not remember,* she thought, frustrated. Her mind was clouded and blank, with not a scrap of the previous night's events besides what had happened in the river.
The campfire had dwindled to a small, smoldering pile of smoking bits during the night, but even for the earliness of the morn, the sun was now high enough in the sky for her to see clearly. Two bedrolls lay neatly packed on the ground, along with two traveling packs and what looked like a bow and a quiver of arrows. *The elf's?* she wondered, then threw out the possibility. *No, not unless he has had no wilderness training at all would he leave them. They must belong to the man.* She remembered that the man had drawn a sword before running out of the camp. *Ai, would that I still had my sword!*
A formidable archeress she was, no question; Aiwendil had been a fine tutor. But Caranna's real talent lay with her sword, which had always brought startled whispers from her fellow warriors. Elves did train with swords, but only briefly, and they nearly always favored the neat, precise art of aiming a bow and arrow. Caranna's swift skill and powerful instinct- and preference- for her sword were a distinct oddity.
*A bow is a handy weapon when attacking or defending from afar,* thought Caranna, *but there is nothing like the familiar song the sword rings with when wielded just right. Oh, Rilma, Rilma, would that I had you with me!* Her sword was dear to her; named "glittering light", it had been given to her by her father, Celeborn's brother, who had died many centuries ago. It was the most valuable thing she possessed.
Something nudged her back, and she winced slightly before turning to find Airuin lying on the ground behind her. "Airuin!" she gasped, turning and laying a grateful arm on his red coat. "I did not notice you!" Her faithful horse nipped her fingers lovingly as she stroked his velvety nose. Warmth flooded her heart; Airuin was all right.
The image flew into her mind of her six dead companions, Miliar's face the clearest of all. "No, don't think of it..." she whispered aloud, tamping the memory back down into the recesses of her mind. She had to stay clear- headed; she could not face her grief quite yet.
She rose to her feet slowly, breathing hard against the clanging in her head, and wrapped the cloak tightly around herself. It was made of a very soft, dark green cloth, and smelled of woodsmoke. *Mirkwood colors,* she realized. *Aragorn's friend must be from Mirkwood.*
A pang hit her heart, unbidden; she did not know why, but she felt a distinct sense of worry for the elf. She did not want any other to go through what she had been through, and if Aragorn was too late-
Or what if Aragorn died? She shuddered. Then she would be alone, with three horses and no sword, and barely any clothing, at the mercy of that... beast. *NO!*
"Clothes. Got to find some clothes," she murmured to herself as she opened the pack nearest to her. To her delight, she found a white tunic, relatively clean, and a brown shirt with long sleeves that tied in the front. In no time, she had discarded the cloak and donned the garments. Her leggings were in very good shape, and her soft leather boots, laced up around her calves, looked no worse for the wear. *Almost perfect.*
She picked up the quiver and strapped it on over the other elf's clothing; her back screamed again with fire, but she gritted her teeth and let the quiver fall into place. The sleeves of the brown shirt slid up her arms, too large, as she reached behind her to adjust the quiver over the bagginess of the garments; the white tunic fell past her waist, so she tucked the front and back ends into the waistband of her leggings, annoyed.
*Curse my size,* she thought to herself angrily. The clothing would have easily fit any other she-elf, but then again, she had always been smaller than the others.
Dressed and armed, she walked over to the white and brown horses watching her with seeming interest. They were magnificent animals, as large and powerful as her own Airuin; the brown horse was saddled, so she supposed it belonged to the man. Her eyes widened as she peered at the ornate embroidery in the finely wrought leather of the horse's reins. *He wasn't lying about being King of Gondor,* she thought with some surprise. *What by the Valar is he doing out here, dressed in Elven clothing and with no other companion than the Mirkwood elf?*
Before she had time to ponder the ramifications of Aragorn's identity, a rustle in the trees made her raise the bow and notch an arrow within a single breath.
Aragorn came walking out of the woods into the clearing, followed by a slender, blond-haired elf with gray eyes, dressed in more Mirkwood colors. With a sigh of relief, she lowered the bow.
"Well, I see you have found yourself something to wear," Aragorn said with a slight smile, his arms crossed over his chest. "And you are looking quite well indeed." His eyes fell pointedly to the baggy mess around her waist, and to her horror, she felt her cheeks burn.
She raised her chin. "I couldn't stay under that cloak forever, could I? And who knows whether or not you would come back wounded- or even at all?" she retorted, her voice as haughty as she could make it, pleased by the way his eyebrows lifted.
The elf to Aragorn's right looked much graver, and vaguely tired; he stepped forward, however, and moved into the camp, followed by Aragorn. "I am glad to see you awake and about," he told her, his voice smooth and well- controlled. "And you are welcome to my clothing, of course; we did make a mess of yours, after all." With those words, he sent a reproachful look to Aragorn.
She looked at the elf more closely; he was dressed well, in fine clothing, and the bow he grasped in his hand was beautifully ornate. She suspected that it came from Lorien.
Lorien... that was who he reminded her of! Manwe, but he did look like Aiwendil; his face held the same fine structure and high cheekbones, and his eyes were an identical silvery-gray color. But he was not of Lorien. She searched her memory for what she knew about Aragorn son of Arathorn's dealings with Mirkwood elves, and with a jolt it came to her. *I can't believe it took me this long,* she thought, chastising herself for not jumping to the conclusion earlier.
"You'd be Prince Legolas of Mirkwood, wouldn't you?" she said.
He smiled; obviously he was not surprised by her powers of deduction. "Well- reasoned. And you are?"
"Caranna of Lorien, niece to Lord Celeborn," Aragorn replied for her, brushing past her and picking up his pack. "And she does not remember anything past when she-" he made sure to emphasize the word- "*jumped* off the cliff."
She glowered. "That's right. I jumped," she countered, her voice hot. "I had been held captive for nearly a week, and I would rather have died than fail in my escape. You saw what they did to me."
Aragorn's eyebrows knitted together, and his eyes roved over her bruised cheek and the gash on her forehead. "Indeed, I did, and I still do. Had I been in your position I may have made the same choice."
Legolas had looked odd during this last exchange, and she turned to him. "You should not go off by yourself anymore," she told him softly. "That man who held me captive, who chased me... he is more savage than orcs, and he delights in the pain of elves."
"He is dead." The three words, as pleasing as Legolas' voice was, were enough to send shockwaves of relief and annoyance running through her body. "He attacked me in the forest just now, and he would have killed Aragorn. I sent two arrows into his stomach." He noticed the look on her face. "You are upset?"
She shrugged, turning away. "I wanted to kill him myself."
Aragorn's light chuckle distracted her from the pain she still saw present in Legolas' eyes, and she whirled, exasperated, hiding her grimace at the pain that shot through her head when she did so. "What?" she demanded. His blue eyes looked back at her, filled with mirth and... something else. Recognition?
"You remind me of someone," he replied cryptically, then continued packing up the camp. Legolas came up next to her and held out an odd-looking knife; the wood of its handle was so dark that it looked as though it had been burned.
"Do you know what this is?" he asked. She shook her head.
"I've never seen it before," she told him. "The man you killed carried it?"
Legolas nodded. "It has a strange power," he said, his voice quiet, and the pain in his eyes grew stronger. "I felt it last night, before we found the trail you had left through the woods, and then I felt it again before he attacked me just now. It felt like-"
"A blanket," Caranna said hurriedly, nodding. "Something wet and cold, covering your sight and hearing?"
"Yes, exactly. You felt it?"
"It is how they captured me in Bree," she replied bitterly. "How they killed-"
She stopped, biting her lip, forcing back the grief that was growing ever stronger in her mind. Miliar's face leapt before her eyes, and it was all she could do not to sob; her heart wrenched painfully.
"Nothing," she said. "It doesn't matter now."
---
They rode quickly back through the forest, their horses having been rested thoroughly the night before; Caranna of Lorien's horse matched Arod and Roheryn in speed and agility, and his red coat gleamed in the sun.
Legolas stole a quick glance at Caranna as they rode. She moved easily on a horse, that was to be sure; she had commandeered Aragorn's bow and quiver eagerly, so it was obvious she possessed some skill in archery. He had not been exaggerating when he had told her he was glad to see her up and relatively active. Even now, as she rode, he could see how tightly her lips were drawn and the thin crinkle of pain between her brows, but she was handling the understandable discomfort admirably. Legolas knew she would heal.
*And heal on her own,* he thought, still shaken by the way his hand had somehow mended the torn bones and organs within her body. She had not mentioned anything to him about the experience the previous night, so he assumed she did not remember it; but he could not help but wonder at the images, images he now believed to be her own memories, that he had seen.
Aragorn rode just ahead of them, and Caranna was on his right, so it was not difficult for him to speak quietly to her. "Being from Lorien, are you acquainted with Lady Aiwendil?"
She looked at him, one red eyebrow raised, and nodded. "We are more than acquaintances; she is- was, really- my archery instructor while I was in combat training," she replied. "Do you know her?"
Legolas was struck at her words by the sudden memory of Aiwendil standing in front of a line of students, demonstrating a complicated body-twist shot. He concentrated on the faces of the students, and sure enough, there in his memory was a maiden with golden-red hair, pulled back and bound so that it was not so conspicuous among the light blonds and dark browns of her peers. He had visited Lorien for Aiwendil's brother's marriage nearly four centuries ago, and had stood and watched, amused, while she gave instruction to the young elves in training.
"Now I remember you," he said to Caranna with a smile. "Your hair is not easily forgotten."
As if on cue, a fiery curl drifted in front of her face, and she pushed it aside with an annoyed swat. "Indeed, I never understood where the color came from," she retorted, her voice holding an edge. Obviously, it was a sensitive subject for her.
*She certainly is odd-looking,* Legolas thought. Her hair had the typical wave common to Lorien females, but the color was unlike anything he had ever seen in an elf. Her eyes, too, were strange, a pale, silvery-green color, like the sun glinting off a pool in the forest. Her face held not the beauty of Arwen and Aiwendil, but her piercing eyes and hair and her slightly darker skin- rosy and tanned instead of translucent, blue-toned white like Arwen's- made her interesting-looking, if not necessarily pretty.
"Your mother and father do not share your looks?" Legolas pressed, trying to discern her parentage. Celeborn had had three brothers, to his knowledge, and the last living one had died over seven hundred years ago, when Legolas was still a youth in the house of King Thranduil.
"My father looked like his brother, my uncle, the lord Celeborn," Caranna replied quietly. "As for my mother, she died shortly after I was born. I do not remember her, and it pains my uncle to speak of her."
She gave no name. Hearing the pain in her voice, Legolas did not press for it; it was inconsequential, and his compassion ruled out. "Are you related to Aiwendil at all?" he heard Caranna ask him, not at all timidly. *She resembles her uncle in manner, that much is clear,* he thought with amusement.
"Our mothers were of the same line, but very distantly related." Caranna seemed to be satisfied with this answer. "We trained together in Lorien, actually," Legolas continued with a light voice. "We were close friends. In fact, we once convinced a judge at an archery competition that we were twins. He was most disgruntled when he discovered our prank."
So strong was the memory that he could practically hear the disapproval in his father's voice when he had, albeit with a glint of stifled merriment in his eye, scolded his young son. He looked over at Caranna, who suddenly looked grieved.
"Did my words somehow hurt you, my lady?" he asked, startled. She blinked hard, and he was almost certain he saw a tear fall.
"I was just remembering a similar trick my friend-" her voice cracked, but she continued- "my friend Miliar and I executed at our first training session. We switched identities, and it took our archer master Vorondil two full weeks to realize what we had done."
*Miliar*, Legolas thought, and the shards of the dream he had had the previous night after healing Caranna came back to him. He remembered the dark-haired elf laughing and pointing, and climbing the tree, and riding in the scouting party; then he remembered her glassy, blank, accusing stare, her body laying slain and covered in blood by a campfire. A sick feeling settled in his stomach.
"Caranna," he said softly, "what happened to you? Why were you all the way in the Shire by yourself?"
Her could see her facial muscles twitching mightily, and he knew she was trying desperately to hold her composure. She swallowed and answered, "We were on a scouting party from Lorien; we had been gone for a little over a year. Two weeks ago we made camp in the Old Forest outside Bree, and when the fire died down I went to gather more firewood, and-"
But her breaking voice would not let her continue. Legolas tried to understand what she was feeling and found that he had no such comparable experience; death had always come to those he loved one at a time. He thought back to the many scouting parties he had taken part in when he was younger; he tried to imagine what it would feel like to stumble upon all of his companions dead, and found that he could not fathom it. All he had was Caranna's memory, which was grievous enough in itself.
"They were all dead," she whispered. "I didn't even hear anything. The grey men killed them without a single sound."
"It wasn't your fault," he said softly, trying to soothe her, but the words sounded hollow even to him. "You must open yourself to your grief."
She shook her head. "I cannot. They are in this wood not far from here, and I will find them and put them at rest, but I will not let the sorrow I feel cloud my senses fully until I have had revenge on the men that murdered them." Her voice was hardened.
He frowned. "Beware of the thirst for revenge, my lady. It may drive you mad."
Her eyes, such an odd pale green, stared back at him from behind a curtain of carefully contained tears. Her face was like stone. *She pays my words no heed,* Legolas realized. *Her heart has been made black by what was done to her.* He sighed.
By the straight line of his back, Legolas could tell that Aragorn had been listening. "Aragorn," he called. "We will need to take a slower ride through the Old Forest when we get there. The Lady Caranna has some business to attend to." Aragorn looked over his shoulder and nodded.
"Thank you," Caranna said softly. She shot him a grateful look. "And how is it that the Prince of Mirkwood and the King of Gondor are allowed this far into the north without some contingent of guards?" she asked more loudly, aiming her voice to the front.
Aragorn chuckled ahead of them and Legolas couldn't help a grin. "Truly, I am not sure my wife Arwen was in her right mind when she let us go," the dark-haired king replied over his shoulder. "If we are not in Rivendell exactly five days from now, I am sure she will never let me out of her sight again."
This prompted a grin from Caranna. "I met the Lady Arwen once, when I went to Imladris years ago," she said. "I have often thought of her since then. Is she well?"
"She looks all right to me," Aragorn responded with a wink before turning in his saddle and facing front again.
It was several more hours before they reached a stream and dismounted to let the horses drink. Caranna slipped from her horse's back with more than just a wince; a small cry escaped her lips before she bit down on them.
"You should be easier on yourself," Aragorn told her. "You are still far from healed."
The three sat on the ground, and Aragorn brought out the food supplies. "Speaking of that," Caranna said, looking pointedly at Legolas, "perhaps someone will explain to me how a crushed ribcage and a torn lung healed in a single night?"
Legolas was instantly uncomfortable, but he knew that she deserved the truth about her miraculous recovery. "I'm afraid that I can do no better than describe it to you, my lady," he began. "Aragorn and I had bandaged the rest of your wounds and set your injured shoulder, and I was just beginning to realize that the damage to your body was too great for us to heal."
"Then how did you-"
"Patience," Aragorn said, motioning to Legolas, who, avoiding Caranna's silver-green stare, continued.
"I heard something in the trees. A whisper, almost- or many whispers, many voices. I could not hear what they were saying, yet somehow my hand put itself right over your wounded chest, and-" He caught both his companions' wide eyes, and hurried through the rest of the explanation, not understanding his discomfort. "I do not know what exactly happened. All I know is that I was somehow seeing things I had never seen before in my life, through- well, what seemed like, anyway- your eyes," he finished, nodding at Caranna.
Her brow crinkled. "I don't understand- you saw... what? My memories?" Her voice sounded tight.
Legolas shrugged. "I do not know for certain, my lady. I saw Lorien, and I saw Aiwendil and Galadriel, and then I saw..." He paused, not wanting to cause her pain.
But she understood. "You saw the scouting party," she finished in a half- whisper.
Still uncomfortable, Legolas nodded. "Then I came back into the world and Aragorn was looking at me like I had suddenly grown a second head. And you were healed. That is all I know."
Caranna seemed shell-shocked. Aragorn rested his elbows on his knees and tapped his fingers together thoughtfully. "Yet the only wound you healed was the mortal one," he said. "Why weren't the rest of her injuries helped?"
"I wish I knew," Legolas replied truthfully. "I tried this morning to do the same thing on a small scratch of my own. Nothing happened."
Caranna's face was still blank. "Caranna?" Aragorn said gently.
Her lips were pursed as she looked at Legolas. "I was remembering something, something Lady Galadriel once told me..." She shook her head. "It is nothing. I cannot remember. Perhaps I will ask her when I finally return home."
She got to her feet and swayed for a moment, scowling at the two males who were immediately standing next to her holding her arms to support her. "I am not made of glass," she said hotly, then turned and picked up her borrowed bow and quiver. "I need to bathe. I will not go far. I will take Airuin with me, so if he comes crashing back in here, you can be sure that I have been attacked," she told them with a slightly sarcastic grin.
"Airuin?" Aragorn asked.
"The horse," she said haughtily, narrowing her eyes. "Whom did you think I meant?"
Before Aragorn could come back with a response, she turned and shouted "Tulin!" at the red stallion before walking off down the bank of the river.
"She certainly displays the manner of royalty," Aragon said bitingly when she was out of earshot.
Legolas took his seat once more and bit off a piece of lembas. *Airuin,* he thought. *'Red flame'. Red hair. A red horse. Everything about her is red. And odd.*
Aragorn pulled out the black-handled knife from his pack and held it up to the light, trying to discern from where it drew its power. "You say that this thing can smother all of your senses?" he asked absently, intrigued by the way the light bounced black off the dark grey blade.
"I believe so, yes, if that is indeed what the man was using."
"It was glowing black when he wielded it," Aragorn told Legolas. "As if it was radiating darkness. He was about to plunge it into your heart."
Legolas shivered; he had been drowning so deeply in sorrowful memories that he had had no idea what the man was doing. "I am grateful, then, for your timely entrance."
"I do not think this is a normal blade," Aragorn murmured pensively, pulling it down to his lap and turning it over in his hands. "I do not think it would have cut you. I think it would have done to you what was done to those elves found near Bree; turned you grey, killed you without inflicting a wound." Casual as his words were, Aragorn could not hide his shudder at the thought. "I wonder..." he said, then with a sudden, sharp movement, flicked the blade against his thumb roughly.
Legolas started. "What are you-" He was cut off by awe as Aragorn held up his thumb with a strange look on his face. There was no cut. A black smear was all that remained on his friend's finger, and even that was fading rapidly until it was no more than a shadow of grey.
"It was not painful at all," Aragorn said, examining his thumb, which should have been sliced deeply by his motion. "It merely felt hot to the touch."
Shaking his head, Legolas stared at the knife. "How is that possible? And why is it not affecting me the way it did before? I feel nothing."
"It was glowing black when you were affected by it," his friend replied. "Perhaps it can only be wielded properly by those grey men."
"Perhaps," Legolas replied, but he was still uneasy. "Either way, I think it would be wise to keep it with you, and hidden well."
Aragorn nodded his affirmation and placed the black knife into his pack. Caranna came walking back up at that moment, leading Airuin with a hand on his back, her hair wet and falling around her face. "That was fast," Aragorn remarked.
"Are you suggesting that I might not have fully conquered my filth?" Caranna's sharp tongue replied.
Aragorn laughed this time, full and deep, and patted the ground as an indication that she should sit. "Nay, my lady, you look cleaner than the water itself," he told her, still chuckling.
She certainly did look much better, Legolas had to admit. The residual blood had been rinsed from her skin and her cleaned hair, though wet, shone much brighter. He watched as her hands, now clear white instead of streaked with dirt, reached for a piece of the lembas bread.
"Do you plan to take me to Imladris?" she asked, to neither of them in particular, as she took an eager bite. The ends of the too-long sleeves of Legolas' brown shirt fell over her hand and she pushed them back absently.
"We do not plan to take you anywhere," Aragorn said half-facetiously. "But we would certainly endure- I mean, enjoy- your company were you to join us on our journey."
She shot him a withering look. "It doesn't seem like I have much of an option, does it, King Elessar?" Her hands disappeared in the sleeves again and with an annoyed huff she wriggled them out.
Aragorn bit back his amusement. "No, it does not, especially since I would definitely not want you captured again."
"Wouldn't you, I wonder?" she retorted, pushing back the sleeves yet again, blowing a strand of hair out of her face.
Legolas watched her struggle with the flopping arms of his shirt, a grin spreading across his face; she set down the lembas and made a sound of supreme annoyance in the back of her throat as her hands vanished once again.
"Allow me," he said, tying the sleeve strings that dangled from her wrists and solving the problem. She looked at him with a small scowl and mumbled her thanks.
*Yes,* he thought, *there's no doubt she grew up treated as a princess of Lorien.*
---
"Where are they, my lady?"
Legolas' smooth voice broke through her senses as she slid off Airuin's back; they had reached the place from where she had fled in grief and fear two weeks ago, and Caranna knew her face must have paled considerably. "I think they're... through here," she answered, her own voice sounding lifeless and very far away.
She was barely aware of Legolas and Aragorn dismounting and following close behind her as she stepped carefully through the woods. The trees shimmered and shivered all around her; she could feel the death surrounding the place as if it were a choking fog. In a pile not five feet away lay the branches and sticks she had been collecting for the fire. Leading away from the pile were her tracks, visible even now, as if the woods had made an effort to conserve the place and trap it in time until she returned.
//Six pairs of eyes stared at her, six lifeless gazes; the skin on her friends' faces looked somehow odd...//
She took a few more steps forward, and the air grew colder. The bodies of her friends lay but ten more steps through the trees.
"You do not have to come," she said, turning suddenly to the man and elf who trailed her.
Legolas' eyes glittered strangely, and Aragorn's jaw was clenched tight, but they shook their heads. "You will need help," Aragorn told her. "And I would not leave anyone to do this task alone."
With a small nod of thanks, she resumed her course through the trees, her breath coming more and more quickly, her mind spinning with the sound of Miliar's laughter and her own voice screaming her friend's name- *MiliarMiliarmiliarmiliarmiliar...*
Just as she had done on that terrible night, she stumbled into the clearing and stopped still.
There they lay, exactly as they did in her mind, exactly as she had left them. *When I ran away,* she shouted inwardly. *You coward! You ran for your own life when you should have died with them! Oh, Miliar...*
She moved forward, closing in, and it was at that moment when she noticed something odd.
"Their skin!" Legolas gasped behind her, and she thought for a moment that she was going to collapse as she stared in horror at Miliar's frozen face. Her friend's skin was grey, exactly like the skin of the man who had tortured her; looking around wildly at the other dead faces, she saw that they exhibited the same oddity. "Manwe," she cried. "What has been done to them? They are changed!"
Aragorn knelt beside Miliar's body, examining the bloodstains. "These are not mortal wounds," he said quietly. "I believe that her life was taken in the same way as the elves near Bree. It was no sword that killed her."
Caranna walked slowly around the circle, checking each face, finding the disturbing shade of grey present in every single one. "They are all the same," she said, sickened.
Legolas moved to her side. "What shall we do with them?" he asked softly, his voice betraying how much the scene disturbed him.
Gazing down at Miliar's face, Caranna heard her friend laughing once more, saw her climbing up through the branches of the tree outside Caranna's bedroom in her mind's eye. Miliar's face blurred.
"We'll put them where they belong," Caranna replied, her voice thick with tears.
An hour later, they had managed to carefully place each body high in the branches of six different trees in the grove. With a rock, Caranna had carved the first letter of each of her friends' names on their respective tree; as she scratched out the last of the 'M' on Miliar's tree, she dared to look up.
Her friend was suspended, utterly frozen with death, among the branches as if she was sitting of her own accord; her dark hair hung down and fluttered in the breeze. She was nothing more than an eerie black silhouette against the sun and sky.
//"Come on, 'Ranna! Come up with me!" Miliar called, her light voice sparkling through the chilly winter air as she climbed ever higher. "The trees won't drop you!"
"I like my feet on the ground, thank you," Caranna replied and was rewarded by her friend's laughter.
"Don't be silly!" Miliar paused in her movements and flung her arms out to either side, throwing her head back and closing her eyes. "I feel like I could fly!"//
The single carved letter suddenly burned into Caranna's brain with the intensity of fire. The rock slipped from her hand. She leaned against the tree, shaking, as the memory of her friend grew to a deafening roar in her ears-
*ComewithmecomewithmecomewithmecomecomecomeCARANNA-*
A moan slid from her throat as she fell to her knees, intensifying to a shrill wail of stabbing, blinding grief. She clenched her fists against her eyes as tears spilled down her cheeks, scalding her skin; her throat grew ragged as she screamed out her pain. *Miliar, Miliar, why didn't you fight? Why couldn't I have taken you with me to gather the wood? Why did I run away?* Sorrow pumped through her veins like a cold stream; grief choked her, bubbled up in her stomach, spun around in her head. *There was never a time when I did not know you! Miliar, WAKE UP! I NEED YOU!*
She felt a hand on her shoulder, but did not turn as Legolas kneeled next to her. His soft voice began singing the prayer for the dead. Aragorn stood behind them, a hand over his eyes.
Dirt trickled through her fingers. She stared at her hands, still bruised and mottled from her ordeal, now being splashed with the tears that dripped off her face like rainwater. Whatever happened, she did not think she could bear to stand up, to walk away and leave Miliar in the tree...
*I never did climb up after you,* she thought bitterly. *I never saw the point.*
Miliar would never ask her again.
She sobbed openly, leaning down so that her forehead touched the mossy ground, her fists pounding lightly against the soft earth as Legolas finished his lament. The forest grew quiet; the air was still and the trees did not whisper, and the only sounds were her soft sobs.
Aragorn's hand touched her back lightly after what felt like forever. "My lady, we cannot linger any more," he said softly, as if he regretted it.
Caranna sat back on her heels and looked up at Miliar, cradled gently by the branches of a mourning tree that would never let her drop.
"Fly away, Miliar," she whispered.
With Legolas' aid, she got to her feet, then walked to Airuin and mounted his strong back. "Where is the bow?" she asked, her voice hoarse. Aragorn, seated upon his own horse, handed it to her silently, and she clutched it, a dangerous glint in her eye.
"Let us go to Bree," she said. "These grey men will not be able to hide from me for long."
---
End of chapter! What did you think? Did you like it? Hate it? Does Caranna annoy the crap out of you? Because she sure bothers me... *slap* Ow! She hit me! Okay, okay, I was kidding, I like you.
PLEASE don't forget to review! It only takes a second and I could really use input!
By Solara
Disclaimer: Any characters you recognize right off the bat weren't created by me; they are the property of J.R.R. Tolkien, with whom I claim no equity. Any characters you *don't* recognize right away, though, are mine.
A/N: Thanks so much, reviewers! You make me so happy...
For those who are wondering, here's a small announcement: I don't plan to make this story a romance in any way. Legolas is *mine*! (Hee, okay, no. But I wish.) In all seriousness, though, I really don't expect that this will be a romance of any kind, unless the characters truly pull me in that direction, which I don't see happening. No, no slash, no LegsyRomance, and NO Mary Sue.
This chapter is sort of angsty. Well, *I* cried, but that could be because I had Billy Joel's "Lullabye" playing on my WinAmp while I was writing the sad part... yeah, that could have something to do with it... G
Also, I take a few liberties in this story with both Legolas' and Celeborn's families... who knows if Legolas has brothers and sisters and if his mother is dead, but in my universe, all those things are true. And as I could find no record of Celeborn *not* having brothers, I made some up. Flame me if you must. :)
Asterisks (*) denote thoughts; double slashes (//) denote flashbacks.
Setting: Ten years after RotK.
*****
Chapter Four- Healing
-----
A fire was blazing yet again by the time Legolas had carried the unconscious elf into the woods; Aragorn had hurried ahead with the horses and their supplies. "Lay her down here," he told Legolas, who set the maiden down on Aragorn's cloak spread over the soft, mossy ground.
They set to work immediately, their hands moving quickly, not wanting to voice their fears that their lost elf was perhaps beyond any healing. Aragorn got out his knife and cut off what remained of her tunic, revealing a torso that looked almost otherworldly in its damage.
"Five- no- six ribs broken," Legolas said with a grimace as he removed his own cloak and covered her with it. Aragorn tore strips of her sodden shirt and began bandaging the bleeding cut on her arm.
"This looks fresh," he mentioned. "Perhaps she sustained it in the chase."
*What being could do this?* Legolas thought, his mind whirling as he wrapped a bandage around the gash on the she-elf's forehead. *How could such savagery possibly exist among men without our knowing it?*
Aragorn seemed to read his friend's mind. "I cannot even begin to imagine who the culprit could be," he said, a severe scowl on his face. "Gondor and Rohan owe their very lives to the elves, and while there are rogue tribes living in every wood, this kind of violence towards Elfkind is unthinkable."
They had bandaged every serious wound; now Legolas' eyes fell on the elf's shoulder. It was undoubtedly dislocated. "Thank the Valar she is unconscious," he said softly, reaching for her arm. "Ready?"
Aragorn, who was positioned near her head, placed both hands on her face to hold her lest she awoke and nodded. "Do it."
Legolas jerked the arm and it slid into place more smoothly than he had expected. "That will heal well," he said with relief.
Blood still trickled from the she-elf's mouth, however, and they could not ignore it for much longer. "What do you think- a lung?" Aragorn asked, wincing despite himself.
"A lung, or perhaps the stomach," Legolas replied, his eyes anxious. "Either way, the wound is too grave for us to heal."
A sudden whisper among the trees caught his attention. The moonlight seemed to intensify for a moment, brightening the small campsite and making the she-elf's odd red hair glint. He gazed around in awe as the whispers intensified.
"...Legolas?" He realized with a jolt that Aragorn had been speaking to him. The former ranger now sat back on his heels and looked sideways at Legolas. "Are you all right?"
Legolas shook his head ever-so-slightly, and the whispers diminished. "I'm fine, it was just..." He looked around, then back to Aragorn. "Nothing."
"I was wondering about her looks," Aragorn continued after a suspicious pause. "Look at her hair- have you ever seen that color on an elf?"
Legolas had to admit he had not. "But there are some elves who have a hint of red in their dark hair," he countered.
"Look how small she is," Aragorn said. "Look at her size. She is the size of a human woman."
The she-elf certainly was diminutive. She-elves were very different from women in that aspect; their height equaled that of the opposite sex. But this one was as slight and small as the Lady Eowyn. Legolas was at a loss.
"I have no explanation," he replied as he reached down to brush his fingers against the bruised skin of her face.
It happened again; the whispers whirled around him, the moonlight intensified, and this time, he felt a distinct jolt when he touched her skin. Holding his palm against her, the jolt settled into a steady hum, like a swarm of bees. *But more musical,* he thought, confused. *What is that?*
Feeling very strange, he watched his hand move down and push the cloak away from the she-elf's injured ribs. Placing his hand directly over where her lungs would be, the soft humming came back, only this time it was louder, and the whispers surrounded him, closing in. The moonlight brightened the forest into day-
Suddenly, he was thrown forward, into a jumble of images and sounds he couldn't place. He saw himself surrounded by elves on horses, a scouting party, it looked like; then he flashed to the face of the Lady Galadriel, who smiled at him and held out her arms. "Come," she whispered.
But her face was torn away as the next image pounded him, and the next, and the next; a she-elf with dark hair like Arwen's laughing and pointing at something, then a waterfall, then- to his shock- Aiwendil, sitting on a log restringing her bow, and then a cliff. Legolas gasped, unable to move, vaguely aware of the campfire, and Aragorn, and his hand resting on the injured elf's chest; time there seemed to be halted, however, while the images rushed past him at a disturbing pace.
Shock flooded him as he was jolted into a horrifying scene; six elves lay on the forest floor around a campfire, slain, their eyes watching him eerily. He recognized the dark-haired she-elf who resembled Arwen. Her glassy eyes were upon him, accusing him, and he felt a scream rip from his throat. Then he was thrown into another scene, a town; a tavern, where the awful feeling of the cold wet cloth pressed down on his senses again; then he was thrown yet again, this time into an image of fire. A dirty flask was pressed to his mouth and a liquid poured down his throat- only it wasn't liquid, it was fire, and it scorched him so that he could not cry out. A grey-skinned face blurred into view, and then he was thrown onto his stomach and he felt a whip come down on his back-
He yelled and was yanked into the forest; he was running on the path he and Aragorn had just traveled, but it was day, and he was being pursued. The image flipped infuriatingly to the same cliff he had seen before, and then, as terror bubbled up in his throat, the side of the cliff rushing past. He knew somehow that he was falling. Before he hit the bottom- the river, he realized suddenly- Lady Galadriel's face came to him again, smiling, glowing with beauty and purity.
"You'll be safe now," she said.
Legolas slammed back into the real world with a darkening rush; the fire glinted off the she-elf's red hair as he gasped for breath, blinking and shaking his head to rid himself of the horrible things he had just seen. His hand still lay on the she-elf's chest, which was suddenly warm.
He turned to Aragorn, his eyes wide, and met even wider ones.
"What- by the Name of the One- just happened?" Aragorn said, his voice low and oddly shaky.
Legolas pulled his hand up from the maiden's chest; it took some effort, as if something was holding their skin together. The hum vibrated more loudly for a split second, then diminished. He held his hand in front of his face. It looked perfectly normal, but still thrummed with some unseen energy.
"I have no idea," he responded in a whisper.
---
Aragorn was hurriedly unwrapping the food. "Here. Eat something."
Legolas felt fine, if a little winded; but by the look on his friend's face, he guessed that his own appearance did not match his the way he felt. He accepted the lembas Aragorn held out and took a small bite, chewing thoughtfully.
The she-elf lay ever still on Aragorn's cloak, but Legolas could not bear to look at the exposed side of her chest- the ribs he had touched. The sight of them had shocked him to the core mere moments ago.
The bruises were gone.
Aragorn adjusted the cloak after looking for himself, confirming his first glance with a quiet curse. The king rarely let profanity fly from his mouth, but the whole situation was just too odd- and, frankly, too frightening- to refrain.
He sat in front of Legolas, crossing his legs and staring anxiously at his friend. "Tell me what just happened. Really, or I'm going to burst."
If Legolas had wished for nothing more than to explain what had happened to Aragorn, he still couldn't have done it. "I honestly have no idea," he told the dark-haired man.
"Well, what at least did you see? You looked like you weren't even here- like you left!"
"I saw Lorien," Legolas replied after a pause. "Lorien, and elves I didn't recognize. And Aiwendil. And Galadriel. And then there was..." He tried to remember what had frightened him so, and it came to him. "Fire."
Aragorn didn't speak, opting instead to let his winded friend gather his thoughts. "There were men," Legolas continued. "Men with grey skin. They were hurting... her, I suppose," he said, gesturing at the unconscious elf- maiden. "But I felt as thought I *was* her." He shook his head. "It was the strangest thing that has ever happened to me."
After a few moments, Aragorn still hadn't spoken, and Legolas looked up. "Well? What did it look like happened?"
Aragorn frowned. "The leaves stirred up suddenly- and you gave a great jerk, like something was holding your hand against her. Your eyes were closed," he said tersely, furrowing his brow. "I've only ever seen your eyes closed twice, and both times you were unconscious with grave wounds."
*My eyes were closed,* Legolas thought with a tremor. It was true- his eyes rarely closed for more than a blink.
"You looked like you were struggling against something for a few minutes," Aragorn continued. "And I looked at the she-elf's skin, under your hand, and it was healing." He looked straight at Legolas. "Her injuries mended right under your touch."
They were silent for a good few minutes, both trying to sort through their tumbling thoughts. *I healed her with my hand,* Legolas thought. *That's impossible. It doesn't make sense.*
"One thing is clear," Aragorn said. "We're going to have to go to Bree after all, and figure this out."
Bree. Legolas had never been, and yet he knew somehow that the tavern among the images had been in Bree. Which meant that the elf-maiden had been in Bree.
He glanced back at her; she was breathing much more easily. Aragon had wrapped the cloak all the way around her, and all that was visible was her face and her strangely-colored hair.
*Who are you?*
---
Legolas arose at dawn the next morning, the gentle breeze stirring his hair lightly; he lay for a few moments after blinking his eyes awake, lost in thoughts about the mysterious maiden laying not three feet to his right. He had dreamed, again, of the images he had seen last night, but this time there was no fire or pain, only the beautiful waterfalls and glinting trees of Lorien. Again, he had seen Aiwendil, this time walking along a corridor with him and talking animatedly. The dark-haired she-elf had also been present; he had watched as she climbed at tree and beckoned down at him. Her voice had been so pleasant.
"Miliar," he murmured, startled that the name came so easily to his tongue. "Miliar."
He sat up and stretched his muscles, which ached slightly after the events of the previous night. His hand fluttered in front of his face, and he held it out again, searching for something amiss, *anything* that would provide an explanation of how he had been able to heal the she-elf's mortal injuries.
The fingers were long and pale, and his palm carried a small smudge of dirt; other than that, there was nothing odd about his hand. He shook his head. *I have never had a healing power before,* he thought, bewildered. *I do not even know how I did it.*
He noticed a small cut on his left wrist from where a branch had slashed him during his sprint through the woods last night. The wound was tiny, a mere scratch, yet it sent an annoying sting shooting up his arm. Struck by a sudden curiousness, he placed his right hand, the one he had been scrutinizing, over the wound and waited.
Nothing. No whispers, no shocking plunge into a depthless pool of foreign images; his eyes did not close. The trees were quiet, and when he finally grew exasperated and removed his hand, the cut was still there, as annoying as ever.
Apparently, the odd gift had been a one-time occurrence... or perhaps-
He glanced over at the elf-maiden, whose eyes were closed. *She is still unconscious, then,* he sighed inwardly. Her chest moved up and down at an easy pace under his cloak, though, and her face, while pale, held none of the fear that had marred her visage the previous night, so he calmed.
A flash of distress hit him suddenly as he remembered one of the images from his spell last night. *They whipped her!* he thought angrily, immediately horrified that the vile torture could be inflicted on such a fragile-looking creature. He moved quickly and quietly to her side and, with careful, smooth movements, managed to lift the side of her body gently so that he could peer at her bare back.
Sure enough, harsh red lash marks stood out against the pale, bruised skin, some still oozing blood. *Why didn't these heal, then?* he wondered, swallowing the sick feeling that came up his throat at the sight of such damage. *By the Valar, what did they do to her...*
She needed a healing ointment if she was going to be able to move at all without pain. Legolas could only imagine the strength it must have taken for her to escape through the woods in her condition. He set her gently back down, making sure she did not stir, then went to Aragorn, who lay sleeping on the other side of the now-smoldering fire.
He placed a hand on his friend's shoulder; the king's eyes immediately flew open. "Peace," Legolas said quietly. "It's only me. I am going to go look for Athelas; her back needs ointment badly. I will be back soon."
Aragorn nodded and stole a glance at the elf-maiden himself. Legolas went back to his bedroll and strapped on his bow and quiver before leaving the campsite and venturing deeper into the woods.
His eyes darted around, searching for the familiar bushy weed that was the Athelas plant, but his mind could not stop spinning with thoughts. *Who is she? Where did she come from? She must be from Lorien, but I know of no other elves with hair that color...*
The image of the six slain elves came into his mind again, and he flinched. *What she must have gone through... and I wonder where those elves are right now.* Elven bodies did not decay in death, and animals would not harm the bodies of elves; so somewhere in the woods, probably nearby, lay a horrifying, untouched scene.
His thoughts had taken him far from the campsite; annoyed with himself, he focused on his search. Spying a bush of Athelas growing furtively between two other bushes, he pulled out his knife and leaned down to cut.
A familiar tingle crawled up his spine. His bow was in his hand and an arrow notched in the blink of an eye.
*Someone is here...* But it could not be the elf-maiden's horse, as the red stallion still lay protectively next to his mistress at the campsite. Legolas' keen eyes whipped through the trees, watching intently, his ears perked and listening for any sound that might betray the being that he felt sure was watching him-
All at once, without warning, the smothering, invisible cloth, wet and cold, fell over his senses. He gasped and choked. *Fight it, fight it...* his mind urged, but he could not. The swirling fog pushed into his nose and mouth; he could see nothing but grey, and he could not breathe...
He saw, as if in a wisp of memory, his own father; King Thranduil's face was a mask of grief as he stood, shoulders shaking, before a tomb. Legolas recognized it immediately as the white grave of his mother, Elistel. Grief choked him, and then, before he could cry out, the scene blurred. Arwen's Evenstar necklace was clasped in his hand, and he stared down at a sheer drop into a swirling river, knowing somehow that Aragorn was dead and would not be coming back this time... and then the image faded into one of his younger sister Lindomith screaming with grief as her dead child, killed by a spider in the darkness of Mirkwood, was carried back to the palace in the arms of a weeping Arafail. The image blurred again and again, each into a different, more heightened plane of sorrow, memories of events that he wanted to forget forever.
Legolas could not breathe, could not move, and the grief was smothering him. He slumped over. A man stepped out from behind a tree in front of him and advanced- *His skin is grey,* Legolas realized with a start before falling more deeply into his ocean of pain.
---
Aragorn had been sitting next to the elf-maiden for less than a minute when her eyes flew open.
He would have jumped in his surprise if she had not jerked away first; her eyes, which he could now see were an odd pale green, widened and a short cry ripped from her ragged throat.
"Ava caure, ava caure! Mellonye," Aragorn attempted to soothe, and unlike her horse, the she-elf calmed. "I will not hurt you. You are safe."
"You are not an elf," she said. Her voice was throaty and held an air of supreme dignity; Aragorn wondered if she was royalty after all.
He spread his hands. "No, but I am a friend to elves."
Her silver-green eyes were flickering around the trees nervously. "I am still in the forest?" she asked.
"Yes. We pulled you out of the river. Do you remember anything?" Aragorn made sure to keep his voice gentle, but could not help pressing the maiden.
She swallowed. "I jumped off the cliff." *Jumped?!* Aragorn thought, startled. "I woke up and managed to make it to the riverbank..." Aragorn could see her hands moving over her body underneath Legolas' cloak. She frowned. "Either I am misremembering, or I am somehow not as injured as I was in the river."
"Alas, I have no explanation for your sudden health," he told her. "My companion had something to do with it, yet I do not understand how you healed so quickly, nor does he."
She seemed not to care, and her eyes fell on his face. "Who are you?" she asked warily.
He debated for a moment whether or not to give her the name Strider; after all, she was a stranger, and he wanted as few people as possible to know that the King of Gondor was out on his own. Still, Legolas had mentioned that he thought she was from Lorien, and Aragorn wanted to put her as much at ease as possible. "I am Aragorn, son of Arathorn, of Gondor," he said, hoping that would be enough for her. By the slight narrowing of her eyes, he could tell that she recognized the name as belonging to King Elessar and was attempting to discern if he was lying to her. "And you are?" he asked, trying to take her mind off his identity.
She shifted slightly and winced before answering. "Caranna of Lorien."
*Caranna. Gift of Red. Fitting,* thought Aragorn, glancing at her red-gold hair, bright even though it was matted with dirt and blood. "And your family?"
"I am the niece of Lord Celeborn," she said shortly, as if she objected to his inquiry. He accepted her answer with a nod. An odd look crossed her face, and she scowled anew, looking at him with suspicion and a glint of fear in her eyes. "Where is my shirt?" she asked, her voice hard as metal.
He stifled a laugh. "Bandaging your many wounds, my lady. I am sure my elf companion will allow you to borrow one of his."
She sat up, moaning a little at the pain in her head; he set a hand on her arm to steady her, careful not to touch her shoulder. Clutching the cloak across her chest, she looked around. "You have an elf with you?"
"Yes, he went to get some Athelas for your back-" as he spoke, he leaned and peered at her back himself, drawing a quick breath through his teeth when he saw the angry red welts. *What kind of man could do this to an elf? And a lady, at that!*
"You must find him!" The alarm in her voice whipped his eyes to her face. "He is not safe!"
"I assure you, my lady, he is quite capable of caring for himself-"
"No, you don't understand!" Her eyes were wide with fear, and there was desperation in her voice. "The man who I was running from has a weapon, a weapon different from any other... your friend is in danger by himself! You must find him, and quickly!"
Aragorn's heart leapt into his throat. *Of course,* he thought. *That odd spell he had, when he fell off Arod-*
He jumped to his feet and grabbed his sword. "Stay with the horses," he told her, leaving her sitting by the smoking bivouac, Legolas' cloak held against her chest tightly.
His feet pounded through the forest, matching the thunderous beating of his heart. *Why did we think the danger had passed? How could I be so stupid?* he berated himself as he searched wildly for any sign of his friend. *We find an elf beaten nearly to death, and Legolas is attacked by some invisible force...*
Legolas had left no tracks for him to follow; the elf never did. Still, Aragorn ran on a straight path, knowing somehow that his friend lay very close ahead-
A glint of gold caught his eye, spread out across the ground. He heard a faint moan.
*No, no no-* he cried inwardly as he rounded a thicket of trees and saw Legolas on the ground, clutching his head. A man stood before the ailing elf, dressed all in black, his eyes and hair dark. In his hand was a short knife that glowed black, if such a thing were possible; inky darkness seemed to radiate from the blade. The man's arm was swinging down in a deadly arc toward Legolas' heart.
A terrifying battle cry ripped from Aragorn's throat as he sprang towards the man and knocked the knife out of his hand with a severe kick. Startled, the man jumped back, then snarled at Aragorn. His skin was all grey, as if he were made from stone; Aragorn stared at him in awe and malice, breathing hard.
"Leave off," the man hissed, his voice deep and tainted by an odd accent. "This is not your fight."
"That is my friend you were trying to kill," Aragorn replied, his voice deathly cold, keeping his sword aimed at the man's throat. "And I usually do not take kindly to strange men killing my friends."
The man hesitated, glancing at the knife on the ground, which now looked like a normal blade. "Don't even think about it," Aragorn barked.
But the grey man lunged for the weapon with a cry; Aragorn rushed forward and brought his sword hilt down on the man's back. The grey man stopped for a moment, then spun out, his leg delivering a vicious kick at Aragorn's knees, dropping him and sending Anduril flying out of his hand. Throwing himself on Aragorn, they grappled, rolling around on the ground; Aragorn managed to land a punch on the man's jaw, throwing him off. Scrambling for his sword, Aragorn was attacked again from behind; the man's clasped fists struck the back of his neck with enough force to send stars shooting past his eyes. He collapsed.
Just as he turned over and saw the grey man's foot sailing towards his head, the foot was no longer there. Neither was the man. Aragorn rolled over and saw the man pinned against a tree by two arrows lodged solidly in his gut.
Legolas' hand closed on his arm and pulled him up. "Are you all right?" the elf asked as Aragorn shook the swimming stars out of his eyes.
A quick nod confirmed his uninjured status, and they both moved to the dying man against the tree. His eyes were trained on them as they neared, his breath coming in short, bloody gasps.
"Who are you?" Legolas shouted, obviously angry that he had been so easily incapacitated and attacked.
The man did not answer, but a slow, quiet chuckle escaped his bloodstained lips. "Do you think this is funny?" Aragorn seethed, his voice like ice.
"You... will not be able to escape..." the man choked. "My master- will see that every- elf- in Middle Earth- is his!"
Legolas' mouth was a very tight, straight white line. The man, with one last cackle, gave a sickening cough and slumped over, held up by the arrows, the flow of blood from his stomach slowing to a trickle. Aragorn used the flat edge of his sword to nudge the man to the ground; the grey- skinned monstrosity fell with a thump and did not move.
"He is dead," Aragorn said, for lack of anything better. He watched as the fine bones in Legolas' jaw clenched tightly, then released.
"Are you sure you are all right?" his friend asked him, his gray eyes searching those of Aragorn, who nodded.
"I'm fine. You?"
Legolas, who in Aragorn's experience was quite a good liar, gave the most unconvincing smile the Gondor king had ever seen. "Fine," he said with a short nod. Aragorn did not believe him for a second.
---
After Aragorn son of Arathorn's hasty departure, Caranna had risen slowly, getting used to what pained her and what parts of her body could support her weight. Her shoulder was no longer dislocated, but it ached dully; her head, too, was leaden and pounded with the same old hammers. Her chest, however, was fine.
*How is this possible?* she thought, bewildered, as she removed the cloak covering her, staring down at her skin, which was smoother and whiter than it had been for nearly two weeks. *They beat me nearly to a pulp, and I surely tore a hole in my lung getting out of the river! Yet now I am healed.*
She remembered Aragorn saying something about his elf companion, and how he had something to do with it... *Nay, I do not remember,* she thought, frustrated. Her mind was clouded and blank, with not a scrap of the previous night's events besides what had happened in the river.
The campfire had dwindled to a small, smoldering pile of smoking bits during the night, but even for the earliness of the morn, the sun was now high enough in the sky for her to see clearly. Two bedrolls lay neatly packed on the ground, along with two traveling packs and what looked like a bow and a quiver of arrows. *The elf's?* she wondered, then threw out the possibility. *No, not unless he has had no wilderness training at all would he leave them. They must belong to the man.* She remembered that the man had drawn a sword before running out of the camp. *Ai, would that I still had my sword!*
A formidable archeress she was, no question; Aiwendil had been a fine tutor. But Caranna's real talent lay with her sword, which had always brought startled whispers from her fellow warriors. Elves did train with swords, but only briefly, and they nearly always favored the neat, precise art of aiming a bow and arrow. Caranna's swift skill and powerful instinct- and preference- for her sword were a distinct oddity.
*A bow is a handy weapon when attacking or defending from afar,* thought Caranna, *but there is nothing like the familiar song the sword rings with when wielded just right. Oh, Rilma, Rilma, would that I had you with me!* Her sword was dear to her; named "glittering light", it had been given to her by her father, Celeborn's brother, who had died many centuries ago. It was the most valuable thing she possessed.
Something nudged her back, and she winced slightly before turning to find Airuin lying on the ground behind her. "Airuin!" she gasped, turning and laying a grateful arm on his red coat. "I did not notice you!" Her faithful horse nipped her fingers lovingly as she stroked his velvety nose. Warmth flooded her heart; Airuin was all right.
The image flew into her mind of her six dead companions, Miliar's face the clearest of all. "No, don't think of it..." she whispered aloud, tamping the memory back down into the recesses of her mind. She had to stay clear- headed; she could not face her grief quite yet.
She rose to her feet slowly, breathing hard against the clanging in her head, and wrapped the cloak tightly around herself. It was made of a very soft, dark green cloth, and smelled of woodsmoke. *Mirkwood colors,* she realized. *Aragorn's friend must be from Mirkwood.*
A pang hit her heart, unbidden; she did not know why, but she felt a distinct sense of worry for the elf. She did not want any other to go through what she had been through, and if Aragorn was too late-
Or what if Aragorn died? She shuddered. Then she would be alone, with three horses and no sword, and barely any clothing, at the mercy of that... beast. *NO!*
"Clothes. Got to find some clothes," she murmured to herself as she opened the pack nearest to her. To her delight, she found a white tunic, relatively clean, and a brown shirt with long sleeves that tied in the front. In no time, she had discarded the cloak and donned the garments. Her leggings were in very good shape, and her soft leather boots, laced up around her calves, looked no worse for the wear. *Almost perfect.*
She picked up the quiver and strapped it on over the other elf's clothing; her back screamed again with fire, but she gritted her teeth and let the quiver fall into place. The sleeves of the brown shirt slid up her arms, too large, as she reached behind her to adjust the quiver over the bagginess of the garments; the white tunic fell past her waist, so she tucked the front and back ends into the waistband of her leggings, annoyed.
*Curse my size,* she thought to herself angrily. The clothing would have easily fit any other she-elf, but then again, she had always been smaller than the others.
Dressed and armed, she walked over to the white and brown horses watching her with seeming interest. They were magnificent animals, as large and powerful as her own Airuin; the brown horse was saddled, so she supposed it belonged to the man. Her eyes widened as she peered at the ornate embroidery in the finely wrought leather of the horse's reins. *He wasn't lying about being King of Gondor,* she thought with some surprise. *What by the Valar is he doing out here, dressed in Elven clothing and with no other companion than the Mirkwood elf?*
Before she had time to ponder the ramifications of Aragorn's identity, a rustle in the trees made her raise the bow and notch an arrow within a single breath.
Aragorn came walking out of the woods into the clearing, followed by a slender, blond-haired elf with gray eyes, dressed in more Mirkwood colors. With a sigh of relief, she lowered the bow.
"Well, I see you have found yourself something to wear," Aragorn said with a slight smile, his arms crossed over his chest. "And you are looking quite well indeed." His eyes fell pointedly to the baggy mess around her waist, and to her horror, she felt her cheeks burn.
She raised her chin. "I couldn't stay under that cloak forever, could I? And who knows whether or not you would come back wounded- or even at all?" she retorted, her voice as haughty as she could make it, pleased by the way his eyebrows lifted.
The elf to Aragorn's right looked much graver, and vaguely tired; he stepped forward, however, and moved into the camp, followed by Aragorn. "I am glad to see you awake and about," he told her, his voice smooth and well- controlled. "And you are welcome to my clothing, of course; we did make a mess of yours, after all." With those words, he sent a reproachful look to Aragorn.
She looked at the elf more closely; he was dressed well, in fine clothing, and the bow he grasped in his hand was beautifully ornate. She suspected that it came from Lorien.
Lorien... that was who he reminded her of! Manwe, but he did look like Aiwendil; his face held the same fine structure and high cheekbones, and his eyes were an identical silvery-gray color. But he was not of Lorien. She searched her memory for what she knew about Aragorn son of Arathorn's dealings with Mirkwood elves, and with a jolt it came to her. *I can't believe it took me this long,* she thought, chastising herself for not jumping to the conclusion earlier.
"You'd be Prince Legolas of Mirkwood, wouldn't you?" she said.
He smiled; obviously he was not surprised by her powers of deduction. "Well- reasoned. And you are?"
"Caranna of Lorien, niece to Lord Celeborn," Aragorn replied for her, brushing past her and picking up his pack. "And she does not remember anything past when she-" he made sure to emphasize the word- "*jumped* off the cliff."
She glowered. "That's right. I jumped," she countered, her voice hot. "I had been held captive for nearly a week, and I would rather have died than fail in my escape. You saw what they did to me."
Aragorn's eyebrows knitted together, and his eyes roved over her bruised cheek and the gash on her forehead. "Indeed, I did, and I still do. Had I been in your position I may have made the same choice."
Legolas had looked odd during this last exchange, and she turned to him. "You should not go off by yourself anymore," she told him softly. "That man who held me captive, who chased me... he is more savage than orcs, and he delights in the pain of elves."
"He is dead." The three words, as pleasing as Legolas' voice was, were enough to send shockwaves of relief and annoyance running through her body. "He attacked me in the forest just now, and he would have killed Aragorn. I sent two arrows into his stomach." He noticed the look on her face. "You are upset?"
She shrugged, turning away. "I wanted to kill him myself."
Aragorn's light chuckle distracted her from the pain she still saw present in Legolas' eyes, and she whirled, exasperated, hiding her grimace at the pain that shot through her head when she did so. "What?" she demanded. His blue eyes looked back at her, filled with mirth and... something else. Recognition?
"You remind me of someone," he replied cryptically, then continued packing up the camp. Legolas came up next to her and held out an odd-looking knife; the wood of its handle was so dark that it looked as though it had been burned.
"Do you know what this is?" he asked. She shook her head.
"I've never seen it before," she told him. "The man you killed carried it?"
Legolas nodded. "It has a strange power," he said, his voice quiet, and the pain in his eyes grew stronger. "I felt it last night, before we found the trail you had left through the woods, and then I felt it again before he attacked me just now. It felt like-"
"A blanket," Caranna said hurriedly, nodding. "Something wet and cold, covering your sight and hearing?"
"Yes, exactly. You felt it?"
"It is how they captured me in Bree," she replied bitterly. "How they killed-"
She stopped, biting her lip, forcing back the grief that was growing ever stronger in her mind. Miliar's face leapt before her eyes, and it was all she could do not to sob; her heart wrenched painfully.
"Nothing," she said. "It doesn't matter now."
---
They rode quickly back through the forest, their horses having been rested thoroughly the night before; Caranna of Lorien's horse matched Arod and Roheryn in speed and agility, and his red coat gleamed in the sun.
Legolas stole a quick glance at Caranna as they rode. She moved easily on a horse, that was to be sure; she had commandeered Aragorn's bow and quiver eagerly, so it was obvious she possessed some skill in archery. He had not been exaggerating when he had told her he was glad to see her up and relatively active. Even now, as she rode, he could see how tightly her lips were drawn and the thin crinkle of pain between her brows, but she was handling the understandable discomfort admirably. Legolas knew she would heal.
*And heal on her own,* he thought, still shaken by the way his hand had somehow mended the torn bones and organs within her body. She had not mentioned anything to him about the experience the previous night, so he assumed she did not remember it; but he could not help but wonder at the images, images he now believed to be her own memories, that he had seen.
Aragorn rode just ahead of them, and Caranna was on his right, so it was not difficult for him to speak quietly to her. "Being from Lorien, are you acquainted with Lady Aiwendil?"
She looked at him, one red eyebrow raised, and nodded. "We are more than acquaintances; she is- was, really- my archery instructor while I was in combat training," she replied. "Do you know her?"
Legolas was struck at her words by the sudden memory of Aiwendil standing in front of a line of students, demonstrating a complicated body-twist shot. He concentrated on the faces of the students, and sure enough, there in his memory was a maiden with golden-red hair, pulled back and bound so that it was not so conspicuous among the light blonds and dark browns of her peers. He had visited Lorien for Aiwendil's brother's marriage nearly four centuries ago, and had stood and watched, amused, while she gave instruction to the young elves in training.
"Now I remember you," he said to Caranna with a smile. "Your hair is not easily forgotten."
As if on cue, a fiery curl drifted in front of her face, and she pushed it aside with an annoyed swat. "Indeed, I never understood where the color came from," she retorted, her voice holding an edge. Obviously, it was a sensitive subject for her.
*She certainly is odd-looking,* Legolas thought. Her hair had the typical wave common to Lorien females, but the color was unlike anything he had ever seen in an elf. Her eyes, too, were strange, a pale, silvery-green color, like the sun glinting off a pool in the forest. Her face held not the beauty of Arwen and Aiwendil, but her piercing eyes and hair and her slightly darker skin- rosy and tanned instead of translucent, blue-toned white like Arwen's- made her interesting-looking, if not necessarily pretty.
"Your mother and father do not share your looks?" Legolas pressed, trying to discern her parentage. Celeborn had had three brothers, to his knowledge, and the last living one had died over seven hundred years ago, when Legolas was still a youth in the house of King Thranduil.
"My father looked like his brother, my uncle, the lord Celeborn," Caranna replied quietly. "As for my mother, she died shortly after I was born. I do not remember her, and it pains my uncle to speak of her."
She gave no name. Hearing the pain in her voice, Legolas did not press for it; it was inconsequential, and his compassion ruled out. "Are you related to Aiwendil at all?" he heard Caranna ask him, not at all timidly. *She resembles her uncle in manner, that much is clear,* he thought with amusement.
"Our mothers were of the same line, but very distantly related." Caranna seemed to be satisfied with this answer. "We trained together in Lorien, actually," Legolas continued with a light voice. "We were close friends. In fact, we once convinced a judge at an archery competition that we were twins. He was most disgruntled when he discovered our prank."
So strong was the memory that he could practically hear the disapproval in his father's voice when he had, albeit with a glint of stifled merriment in his eye, scolded his young son. He looked over at Caranna, who suddenly looked grieved.
"Did my words somehow hurt you, my lady?" he asked, startled. She blinked hard, and he was almost certain he saw a tear fall.
"I was just remembering a similar trick my friend-" her voice cracked, but she continued- "my friend Miliar and I executed at our first training session. We switched identities, and it took our archer master Vorondil two full weeks to realize what we had done."
*Miliar*, Legolas thought, and the shards of the dream he had had the previous night after healing Caranna came back to him. He remembered the dark-haired elf laughing and pointing, and climbing the tree, and riding in the scouting party; then he remembered her glassy, blank, accusing stare, her body laying slain and covered in blood by a campfire. A sick feeling settled in his stomach.
"Caranna," he said softly, "what happened to you? Why were you all the way in the Shire by yourself?"
Her could see her facial muscles twitching mightily, and he knew she was trying desperately to hold her composure. She swallowed and answered, "We were on a scouting party from Lorien; we had been gone for a little over a year. Two weeks ago we made camp in the Old Forest outside Bree, and when the fire died down I went to gather more firewood, and-"
But her breaking voice would not let her continue. Legolas tried to understand what she was feeling and found that he had no such comparable experience; death had always come to those he loved one at a time. He thought back to the many scouting parties he had taken part in when he was younger; he tried to imagine what it would feel like to stumble upon all of his companions dead, and found that he could not fathom it. All he had was Caranna's memory, which was grievous enough in itself.
"They were all dead," she whispered. "I didn't even hear anything. The grey men killed them without a single sound."
"It wasn't your fault," he said softly, trying to soothe her, but the words sounded hollow even to him. "You must open yourself to your grief."
She shook her head. "I cannot. They are in this wood not far from here, and I will find them and put them at rest, but I will not let the sorrow I feel cloud my senses fully until I have had revenge on the men that murdered them." Her voice was hardened.
He frowned. "Beware of the thirst for revenge, my lady. It may drive you mad."
Her eyes, such an odd pale green, stared back at him from behind a curtain of carefully contained tears. Her face was like stone. *She pays my words no heed,* Legolas realized. *Her heart has been made black by what was done to her.* He sighed.
By the straight line of his back, Legolas could tell that Aragorn had been listening. "Aragorn," he called. "We will need to take a slower ride through the Old Forest when we get there. The Lady Caranna has some business to attend to." Aragorn looked over his shoulder and nodded.
"Thank you," Caranna said softly. She shot him a grateful look. "And how is it that the Prince of Mirkwood and the King of Gondor are allowed this far into the north without some contingent of guards?" she asked more loudly, aiming her voice to the front.
Aragorn chuckled ahead of them and Legolas couldn't help a grin. "Truly, I am not sure my wife Arwen was in her right mind when she let us go," the dark-haired king replied over his shoulder. "If we are not in Rivendell exactly five days from now, I am sure she will never let me out of her sight again."
This prompted a grin from Caranna. "I met the Lady Arwen once, when I went to Imladris years ago," she said. "I have often thought of her since then. Is she well?"
"She looks all right to me," Aragorn responded with a wink before turning in his saddle and facing front again.
It was several more hours before they reached a stream and dismounted to let the horses drink. Caranna slipped from her horse's back with more than just a wince; a small cry escaped her lips before she bit down on them.
"You should be easier on yourself," Aragorn told her. "You are still far from healed."
The three sat on the ground, and Aragorn brought out the food supplies. "Speaking of that," Caranna said, looking pointedly at Legolas, "perhaps someone will explain to me how a crushed ribcage and a torn lung healed in a single night?"
Legolas was instantly uncomfortable, but he knew that she deserved the truth about her miraculous recovery. "I'm afraid that I can do no better than describe it to you, my lady," he began. "Aragorn and I had bandaged the rest of your wounds and set your injured shoulder, and I was just beginning to realize that the damage to your body was too great for us to heal."
"Then how did you-"
"Patience," Aragorn said, motioning to Legolas, who, avoiding Caranna's silver-green stare, continued.
"I heard something in the trees. A whisper, almost- or many whispers, many voices. I could not hear what they were saying, yet somehow my hand put itself right over your wounded chest, and-" He caught both his companions' wide eyes, and hurried through the rest of the explanation, not understanding his discomfort. "I do not know what exactly happened. All I know is that I was somehow seeing things I had never seen before in my life, through- well, what seemed like, anyway- your eyes," he finished, nodding at Caranna.
Her brow crinkled. "I don't understand- you saw... what? My memories?" Her voice sounded tight.
Legolas shrugged. "I do not know for certain, my lady. I saw Lorien, and I saw Aiwendil and Galadriel, and then I saw..." He paused, not wanting to cause her pain.
But she understood. "You saw the scouting party," she finished in a half- whisper.
Still uncomfortable, Legolas nodded. "Then I came back into the world and Aragorn was looking at me like I had suddenly grown a second head. And you were healed. That is all I know."
Caranna seemed shell-shocked. Aragorn rested his elbows on his knees and tapped his fingers together thoughtfully. "Yet the only wound you healed was the mortal one," he said. "Why weren't the rest of her injuries helped?"
"I wish I knew," Legolas replied truthfully. "I tried this morning to do the same thing on a small scratch of my own. Nothing happened."
Caranna's face was still blank. "Caranna?" Aragorn said gently.
Her lips were pursed as she looked at Legolas. "I was remembering something, something Lady Galadriel once told me..." She shook her head. "It is nothing. I cannot remember. Perhaps I will ask her when I finally return home."
She got to her feet and swayed for a moment, scowling at the two males who were immediately standing next to her holding her arms to support her. "I am not made of glass," she said hotly, then turned and picked up her borrowed bow and quiver. "I need to bathe. I will not go far. I will take Airuin with me, so if he comes crashing back in here, you can be sure that I have been attacked," she told them with a slightly sarcastic grin.
"Airuin?" Aragorn asked.
"The horse," she said haughtily, narrowing her eyes. "Whom did you think I meant?"
Before Aragorn could come back with a response, she turned and shouted "Tulin!" at the red stallion before walking off down the bank of the river.
"She certainly displays the manner of royalty," Aragon said bitingly when she was out of earshot.
Legolas took his seat once more and bit off a piece of lembas. *Airuin,* he thought. *'Red flame'. Red hair. A red horse. Everything about her is red. And odd.*
Aragorn pulled out the black-handled knife from his pack and held it up to the light, trying to discern from where it drew its power. "You say that this thing can smother all of your senses?" he asked absently, intrigued by the way the light bounced black off the dark grey blade.
"I believe so, yes, if that is indeed what the man was using."
"It was glowing black when he wielded it," Aragorn told Legolas. "As if it was radiating darkness. He was about to plunge it into your heart."
Legolas shivered; he had been drowning so deeply in sorrowful memories that he had had no idea what the man was doing. "I am grateful, then, for your timely entrance."
"I do not think this is a normal blade," Aragorn murmured pensively, pulling it down to his lap and turning it over in his hands. "I do not think it would have cut you. I think it would have done to you what was done to those elves found near Bree; turned you grey, killed you without inflicting a wound." Casual as his words were, Aragorn could not hide his shudder at the thought. "I wonder..." he said, then with a sudden, sharp movement, flicked the blade against his thumb roughly.
Legolas started. "What are you-" He was cut off by awe as Aragorn held up his thumb with a strange look on his face. There was no cut. A black smear was all that remained on his friend's finger, and even that was fading rapidly until it was no more than a shadow of grey.
"It was not painful at all," Aragorn said, examining his thumb, which should have been sliced deeply by his motion. "It merely felt hot to the touch."
Shaking his head, Legolas stared at the knife. "How is that possible? And why is it not affecting me the way it did before? I feel nothing."
"It was glowing black when you were affected by it," his friend replied. "Perhaps it can only be wielded properly by those grey men."
"Perhaps," Legolas replied, but he was still uneasy. "Either way, I think it would be wise to keep it with you, and hidden well."
Aragorn nodded his affirmation and placed the black knife into his pack. Caranna came walking back up at that moment, leading Airuin with a hand on his back, her hair wet and falling around her face. "That was fast," Aragorn remarked.
"Are you suggesting that I might not have fully conquered my filth?" Caranna's sharp tongue replied.
Aragorn laughed this time, full and deep, and patted the ground as an indication that she should sit. "Nay, my lady, you look cleaner than the water itself," he told her, still chuckling.
She certainly did look much better, Legolas had to admit. The residual blood had been rinsed from her skin and her cleaned hair, though wet, shone much brighter. He watched as her hands, now clear white instead of streaked with dirt, reached for a piece of the lembas bread.
"Do you plan to take me to Imladris?" she asked, to neither of them in particular, as she took an eager bite. The ends of the too-long sleeves of Legolas' brown shirt fell over her hand and she pushed them back absently.
"We do not plan to take you anywhere," Aragorn said half-facetiously. "But we would certainly endure- I mean, enjoy- your company were you to join us on our journey."
She shot him a withering look. "It doesn't seem like I have much of an option, does it, King Elessar?" Her hands disappeared in the sleeves again and with an annoyed huff she wriggled them out.
Aragorn bit back his amusement. "No, it does not, especially since I would definitely not want you captured again."
"Wouldn't you, I wonder?" she retorted, pushing back the sleeves yet again, blowing a strand of hair out of her face.
Legolas watched her struggle with the flopping arms of his shirt, a grin spreading across his face; she set down the lembas and made a sound of supreme annoyance in the back of her throat as her hands vanished once again.
"Allow me," he said, tying the sleeve strings that dangled from her wrists and solving the problem. She looked at him with a small scowl and mumbled her thanks.
*Yes,* he thought, *there's no doubt she grew up treated as a princess of Lorien.*
---
"Where are they, my lady?"
Legolas' smooth voice broke through her senses as she slid off Airuin's back; they had reached the place from where she had fled in grief and fear two weeks ago, and Caranna knew her face must have paled considerably. "I think they're... through here," she answered, her own voice sounding lifeless and very far away.
She was barely aware of Legolas and Aragorn dismounting and following close behind her as she stepped carefully through the woods. The trees shimmered and shivered all around her; she could feel the death surrounding the place as if it were a choking fog. In a pile not five feet away lay the branches and sticks she had been collecting for the fire. Leading away from the pile were her tracks, visible even now, as if the woods had made an effort to conserve the place and trap it in time until she returned.
//Six pairs of eyes stared at her, six lifeless gazes; the skin on her friends' faces looked somehow odd...//
She took a few more steps forward, and the air grew colder. The bodies of her friends lay but ten more steps through the trees.
"You do not have to come," she said, turning suddenly to the man and elf who trailed her.
Legolas' eyes glittered strangely, and Aragorn's jaw was clenched tight, but they shook their heads. "You will need help," Aragorn told her. "And I would not leave anyone to do this task alone."
With a small nod of thanks, she resumed her course through the trees, her breath coming more and more quickly, her mind spinning with the sound of Miliar's laughter and her own voice screaming her friend's name- *MiliarMiliarmiliarmiliarmiliar...*
Just as she had done on that terrible night, she stumbled into the clearing and stopped still.
There they lay, exactly as they did in her mind, exactly as she had left them. *When I ran away,* she shouted inwardly. *You coward! You ran for your own life when you should have died with them! Oh, Miliar...*
She moved forward, closing in, and it was at that moment when she noticed something odd.
"Their skin!" Legolas gasped behind her, and she thought for a moment that she was going to collapse as she stared in horror at Miliar's frozen face. Her friend's skin was grey, exactly like the skin of the man who had tortured her; looking around wildly at the other dead faces, she saw that they exhibited the same oddity. "Manwe," she cried. "What has been done to them? They are changed!"
Aragorn knelt beside Miliar's body, examining the bloodstains. "These are not mortal wounds," he said quietly. "I believe that her life was taken in the same way as the elves near Bree. It was no sword that killed her."
Caranna walked slowly around the circle, checking each face, finding the disturbing shade of grey present in every single one. "They are all the same," she said, sickened.
Legolas moved to her side. "What shall we do with them?" he asked softly, his voice betraying how much the scene disturbed him.
Gazing down at Miliar's face, Caranna heard her friend laughing once more, saw her climbing up through the branches of the tree outside Caranna's bedroom in her mind's eye. Miliar's face blurred.
"We'll put them where they belong," Caranna replied, her voice thick with tears.
An hour later, they had managed to carefully place each body high in the branches of six different trees in the grove. With a rock, Caranna had carved the first letter of each of her friends' names on their respective tree; as she scratched out the last of the 'M' on Miliar's tree, she dared to look up.
Her friend was suspended, utterly frozen with death, among the branches as if she was sitting of her own accord; her dark hair hung down and fluttered in the breeze. She was nothing more than an eerie black silhouette against the sun and sky.
//"Come on, 'Ranna! Come up with me!" Miliar called, her light voice sparkling through the chilly winter air as she climbed ever higher. "The trees won't drop you!"
"I like my feet on the ground, thank you," Caranna replied and was rewarded by her friend's laughter.
"Don't be silly!" Miliar paused in her movements and flung her arms out to either side, throwing her head back and closing her eyes. "I feel like I could fly!"//
The single carved letter suddenly burned into Caranna's brain with the intensity of fire. The rock slipped from her hand. She leaned against the tree, shaking, as the memory of her friend grew to a deafening roar in her ears-
*ComewithmecomewithmecomewithmecomecomecomeCARANNA-*
A moan slid from her throat as she fell to her knees, intensifying to a shrill wail of stabbing, blinding grief. She clenched her fists against her eyes as tears spilled down her cheeks, scalding her skin; her throat grew ragged as she screamed out her pain. *Miliar, Miliar, why didn't you fight? Why couldn't I have taken you with me to gather the wood? Why did I run away?* Sorrow pumped through her veins like a cold stream; grief choked her, bubbled up in her stomach, spun around in her head. *There was never a time when I did not know you! Miliar, WAKE UP! I NEED YOU!*
She felt a hand on her shoulder, but did not turn as Legolas kneeled next to her. His soft voice began singing the prayer for the dead. Aragorn stood behind them, a hand over his eyes.
Dirt trickled through her fingers. She stared at her hands, still bruised and mottled from her ordeal, now being splashed with the tears that dripped off her face like rainwater. Whatever happened, she did not think she could bear to stand up, to walk away and leave Miliar in the tree...
*I never did climb up after you,* she thought bitterly. *I never saw the point.*
Miliar would never ask her again.
She sobbed openly, leaning down so that her forehead touched the mossy ground, her fists pounding lightly against the soft earth as Legolas finished his lament. The forest grew quiet; the air was still and the trees did not whisper, and the only sounds were her soft sobs.
Aragorn's hand touched her back lightly after what felt like forever. "My lady, we cannot linger any more," he said softly, as if he regretted it.
Caranna sat back on her heels and looked up at Miliar, cradled gently by the branches of a mourning tree that would never let her drop.
"Fly away, Miliar," she whispered.
With Legolas' aid, she got to her feet, then walked to Airuin and mounted his strong back. "Where is the bow?" she asked, her voice hoarse. Aragorn, seated upon his own horse, handed it to her silently, and she clutched it, a dangerous glint in her eye.
"Let us go to Bree," she said. "These grey men will not be able to hide from me for long."
---
End of chapter! What did you think? Did you like it? Hate it? Does Caranna annoy the crap out of you? Because she sure bothers me... *slap* Ow! She hit me! Okay, okay, I was kidding, I like you.
PLEASE don't forget to review! It only takes a second and I could really use input!