Meeting in the Woods
Chapter Eight
The winterflowers
Author's note: Midterms are, unfortunately, fast approaching. And though I still think I can update this story fairly frequently, when there are unexpected gaps of time in between the chapters, it's not because I don't love updating and I've lost interest in the story! It's probably because I've locked myself in a computer-less room with a pencil and my science notebook.
In response to your reviews:
Bobo: I'm glad my story helped…And I'm totally sorry about your necklace…*hopeful little smile* I'll make you a new one if you want!
Kaimelieamin: Well, I suppose that your (ABSOLUTELY BEAUTIFUL) poems aren't particularly action filled…Just by reading them again and again-I still have to review, but I will =^^=-I sort of got a sense of your style…I bet your action sequences, if they're anything like your poems, are probably breathtaking. Hope you like the update J
LegalanGreenleaf: *blushes* I'm not THAT mean am I? Sorry! I really do feel bad about the whole N.D/Suicidal Legolas thing I have happening…Aheh…As for protective older brothers-I don't know about having one. I have a brother in law, but he's sort of shy. I think it'd be fun to have one! You could be all… "Shove off, my older brother loves me." As for the wood points…I knew they wouldn't be particularly SHARP, but I couldn't exactly get Legolas in touch with metal…I thought since the tree gave Legolas her blessing and since he's our all-talented (godlike) elf man maybe he could sharpen them lots? LOL Thanks for the correction =^^= Hope you enjoy this chapter.
Ithildin: ^-^ Hopefully you think this is a quick post too…that'd make me happy! *giggles tipsily*
Shauna: Thanks for your review! Though I don't agree there isn't anything to criticize-LOL-your review was very considerate…I'm smiling so much now! LOL
SharonToggle: LOL Thanks so much for your review! Want to give Legly a bearhug? *does a sexy eyebrow thing at her poster* Enjoy this chapter-or try to LOL
Legolassie Kyo(na) Leonhart: Hope this answers that question! Enjoy! =^^= Thanks for your review!
the crazy/lovely bchan: ROFL! I'm glad I have another mad Canadian in my acquaintance. Do you speak French? Or d'you just have the blood? As for the movie…OMG! That's freaky…because the first time I saw FoTR, I had this crazy dream that basically involved the same scene…Legolas like hitched a leg on the tree and started blatantly abusing it's
sapling innocence… As for Canadian laughter-I love being able to laugh loudly and getting such few stares which…I do all the time. Mmm…Chocolate covered Legolas…I MEAN!!!
Fairylady: Glad this fic. Is as captivating to the readers as it apparently is to me…I've gone comatose while writing it…Too bad it's not as good as I'd like it LOL! Thanks for your review!
Crys Ritter: I've been thinking about this for quite a while. I knew I wanted Legolas to have a fairly dirty past with this man, but I didn't want him DEAD, because the fic would be rather uneventful. I've tried to explain why our (godlike) elf isn't dead and such in this chapter, hope it helps =^^=
Baby: LOL My art teacher had a spasm because my portfolio this term was Legolas looking all sexy in the rain at Helm's Deep…She gave me this really weird look…Anyway, he's too sexy NOT to draw, correct? LOL! Hope you enjoy the plethora of flashback scenes upcoming!
Mouse: Am I THAT predictable? LOL! Thanks for your review-Enjoy!
Evil Spapple Pie: Snapple is an evil drink, but it's not worthy of being compared to a spapple, I'm sure. Enjoy this chapter, and all the Legolas mental anguish! *clicks heels*
The Greenleafed One: Mmm…hopeless and adorable abused hot-elfness…LOL I don't think that phrase is overused…too many syllables for the random drooling fangirls. LOL! Enjoy! =^^=
For your second review: The Aragorn talking in his sleep was supposed to be funny…It was sort of stolen from a film I've seen, but I don't think money people share my sense of humor XD His birthday's thirteen days before mine, how cool is that? LOL!
For your THIRD review (LOL!): Mmm…invisible wind elf…*is found comatose choking on own drool* Glad you liked the pathetic little prose I had Legolas singing…Poetry really isn't my strong suit. Oh! *begin shameless advert.* But if you would like to view MORE Of my poetry just click on my name at the top of the fic! Go to KayteUnfading's PROFILE site! Check out all of FOUR Poem's she's got lingering there! *end shameless ad* As for the italics in a fic…If tried using HTML, but it made the waka's () all wonky, and they kept on showing up instead of being embedded in the page…Now I just save my .docs as websites. Quite un-talented, no? Mmm…lemonade…Thanks so much for your hilarious reviews! They brightened my day!
Amy: Sorry about the length of the chapters…I've been determined to make them nice and long-the length I like-but I feel compelled to give y'all that sense of cliff-hanging! Ok, really, I just go mind-blank-dead, but still! =^^=
***
Legolas nimbly skittered around the broad riverbank, glancing with distaste down at the icy coating on the usually lush stream. He hated the way each of his steps, light as they may be, caused the frost-stiffened grass to collapse under his feet, hopelessly weak because of the cold. Only the night before he had seen the beautiful yellow flowers in all their glory, felt the warm life in one against his hands. Now, all around his lithe form, there was only death.
Aragorn, aside from the occasional, clearly suppressed shudder, didn't seem as affected by the cold. He didn't have to hear the dying whispers of every blade of grass as they struggled against their coming doom, didn't have to hear the way the fish shivered, caught under a thick blanket of ice, not yet used to their glacial environment.
"When you plan to return to Mirkwood, Legolas?" Aragorn finally broke the silence, his words pooling from his mouth in a thick cloud of vapor. He skirted around an abrupt meander in the river's path, before glancing back at his companion. Legolas shrugged, a rehearsed movement he had developed when the word of his home came up.
"Perhaps after you settle your score in Rivendell," he replied slowly. "I plan to be there when you speak to this Arwen of yours. I've been thinking about home, actually, more than usual. When I was with that man, I thought much about my future-if I still had one, and some about what was going on then, maybe how I could've stopped him from getting to me…I never thought about home. I thought, should I ever get free, I would immediately travel as far from Mirkwood as I could…But I'm free now, I see myself returning home-making amends with my father, perhaps. Apologizing to my brothers."
Aragorn frowned, looking at the elf. With each word, each memory of his home, he seemed to whither, just slightly more, hunching his shoulders, withdrawing deeper into himself. "I want you to meet Elrond-and Arwen," Aragorn said, slowly. "But I think, after that, you should return home. I think you need to let your family know you are safe-how long have you been missing?"
Legolas glanced down at his fingers, counting down on them for a minute. He looked up, and infuriatingly shrugged again. "Dunno. Couple months, maybe? I didn't want to keep track-the man that kept me…He was not the most kind of men, you see…"
Aragorn nodded. "What are you returning home to? Is there anybody special?"
Thranduil. Chyra. Ny'trandu. The thousands of she-elves I'm going to chose from. My kingdom. "Nobody in particular," Legolas replied. "My father's a mad man, unhappy….Just by definition, Thranduil is the type of man you don't cross…It's a wonder he's still king." Legolas sighed, and looked down at his toes.
"King," Aragorn replied, with numb realization. He looked over at Legolas, furrowing his brow. Though the elf was definitely gorgeous, a sort of shimmering beauty that Aragorn couldn't come to terms to, there was something in his stooped stature that didn't suggest prince, by any common means. "You are a Mirkwood Prince," Aragorn continued slowly.
Legolas nodded gently, spinning a strand of hair over his fingers. "The night draws near," he interjected silently, for no reason Aragorn could find. Legolas was looking at the far horizon, the grays of the day sky blending with dark violets and reds. "Tonight will be bitter," Legolas continued. "We should rest here." The elf stopped in his tracks, not even looking around to find a more protected place. He slumped onto the rock ledge overlooking the frozen river, nudging himself against a roughly angled boulder.
***
The man had been careful. Though he wasn't an expert on elves, not like Aragorn who had long dwelt among them, the man knew about the species' reactions to different situations. He knew that rape was a violation to the innocence that seemed to emulate from the creatures beings so extreme it could permanently traumatize them, sending them into a sleeplike shock where the real world, the world from which Legolas seemed to try and hide, blended with the dream world-and nothing was real.
He had started slow, carefully sweeping his rough fingertips over the elf's face and arms. He pampered the lad, feeding him ravenously, making sure he could bathe and rest. He listened patiently as the elf sobbed and screamed threats, waiting till Legolas' heart could bear no more and he would crumple to the floor, drawing himself away from the man into the corner, shivering.
Legolas knew it was coming. His life was a cliff, it always had been. It had begun, in the arms of his mother and father and loving older brothers, at the bottom of a hill that didn't look as steep as it was. When his mother died, it seemed he advanced slowly up the hill. As soon as he was taken by the man, Legolas was forced up the steep hill at a pace far to fast. As the man swept his fingertips over the elf's face, his chest, he willed Legolas closer and closer to the edge of the cliff.
But he was careful. He never let Legolas fall, only let him tether on the hairsbreadth in between the cliff of his life and the long, sharp drop into the void of death. The man held to his wrist, his breath snaking into Legolas' neck, his hands slowly sweeping down to the elf's belt, relishing the feel of the supple figure underneath his fingers. But when Legolas tried to jerk away, tried to throw himself from the sturdy ground, the man would yank him back, leave him wounded, breaking, clinging to the edges of the cliff, but still alive.
As the man pressed on, urging the elf where he didn't want to go, but knew he would be forced to, realizations began to infiltrate the barrier of his mind. He didn't want to go home, no matter ho much he struggled against his bonds, he was ultimately better off here. Sure, there was torture, there was pain and the shock of breaking, but what he had left behind had been his fault. Here, there was no sense of self-infliction. This was the man's doing.
And Legolas realized that, though the pains of rape and the feel of the awful man crushing his personal barriers were intense, Legolas wouldn't allow himself to succumb to them. He wouldn't let himself die away from the man's actions-then the man would win. Besides, though Legolas had tried to kill himself by his own hand, it was not the same, not the same as what the man was doing. To die because of this would be cowardly.
The man discovered the thrill of the elf's blood, the sheer exotic thrills that overcame his sick, hated form as the crimson life of the elf seeped onto his hands. He discovered that he couldn't kill the elf, not by any means that would normally have killed a creature of his race long before they even began to effect the stolid elf. And though the elf grew to hate him, to want him destroyed, more and more as each day passed, he also came to accept.
***
Legolas and Aragorn awoke at the same instant, aroused by the bitter howl of the November wind come early. Snow fell from the sky, weightlessly whipped about by the sharp hands of the wind, slapping into the squinted eyes of both travelers.
"We must move on!" Aragorn cried out, his voice nearly blown away by the vicious gales, muffled by the vicious snow. Legolas nodded, still spry as he bound to his feet, protectively held his bow to his chest. Even in the vicious storm, Legolas' motions were still graceful, sweeping so carefully through the field it seemed he was dodging the pelting snow.
Aragorn faired less well. He found himself hopelessly lost in the snow many times, white in every direction, ears frozen, deaf to the world. But every time, he would feel something gripping his arm, pulling him back into the world, away from the vortex of snow to a place where he could see. Legolas seemed to know where he was going.
The snow continued to flood over the world, as if a mammoth snowcloud had burst, spilling its contents over the two, and only the two. Year of snow, bottled inside, straining against the cloud until it could stand it no more. "LEGOLAS!" Aragorn shouted into the snow, feeling the sharp cold of ice and sleet sweep into his throat, causing him to choke. "WE MUST FIND SHELTER! THIS STORM'LL BE THE DEATH OF ME!"
Legolas nodded breathlessly, wincing against the snow, squinting into the distance, wordlessly seeking comfort among the white world. Snow piled at their feet, threatening to enclose the two in white walls, as tough as cement. The two would be as good as dead if they didn't find shelter soon.
"THERE!" Legolas shouted, angrily running a hand over his eyes as the snow caught in his eyelashes. He gestured wildly, but only earned a confused grunt from the human alongside, blinded by the snow. Legolas nudged Aragorn urgently with his shoulder, wordlessly guiding him in the direction he had pointed.
"A cave!" Aragorn said, breathlessly. The grassy terrain had shifted into a rough dirt riddled in snow-swept rocks. Jutting from the center of all the pebbles was a collection of rocks so out of place it seemed the Valar had thrown the rocks in the air, and left them wherever they might fall. In between the threateningly upswept stones there was a tiny crevice, leading into a tight, sheltered burrow.
Aragorn leapt inside first, curling tightly into an angle of the stone, shuddering. Legolas hesitated outside, furrowing his brow, trying to catch something he thought he saw. The elf bent to his knees, feeling the familiar hum of life at the back of his brain, the same feeling he felt in a spring meadow after the new grass had grown, the new birds were born.
He placed his palm onto the ground, and felt the warmth of life seep into his fingers. Despite the desperate situation, he smiled, stroking the ground with shivering fingertips. "The winterflowers," he whispered to himself, staring at the silver blossoms adorning the frosty soil. "They blossom only when the ground freezes." He let his eyes fall shut, savouring the feel of their life. "There is hope yet."