The Turning Point

By Finnov

Prologue

The Fellowship lay around a campfire eating their dinner, and talking about a little problem that Pippin was having.

"I don't understand what's going on. i feel, odd. Not like I did. Like my happiness is gone." Pippin said, evidently confused. Merry nodded, he felt the same.

"Ah," Gandalf said from where he was smoking his pipe. "I think I know what is going on here."

"What?"

"Well, Pippin, there is a time when we all reach a turning point. And at the turning point, we each make a decision. This decision will set our paths, and many of our choices. There is a time where we each change from the child we were, to the adult we are, and will continue to be."

"Oh. Is this my turning point? Is this what it feels like?"

"What do you feel like, Pippin?" Aragorn asked.

"Like I've lost all the innocence of my mischief. Like I've seen the evil I didn't know existed. I feel, changed." Pippin tried to describe the feeling he had.

"Yes, Pippin. That is a changing point." Boromir said from where he was practicing swordplay.

"Did you all have a changing point?" Merry asked. "Other than Gandalf, I mean?"

"Yes, Merry." Gimli replied gruffly. "I remember my own like it was yesterday. I had left the mines for battle the first time, and I saw the cruelty that I had only heard of. It was terrible. I saw so many die, and I chose then to forever protect my people."

"Mine was the day I found out who I really was." Aragorn said. "I ran away from Rivendell in the middle of the night, without telling anyone who lived there where I was headed. I wasn't going to go far, only a short trip out to clear my mind, but I ended up going everywhere, and becoming a ranger. My family in Rivendell didn't see me for nearly twenty-five years."

"I grew up the day Cousin Bilbo took me in." Frodo said. "I saw first hand compassion, and I was happy."

"I met the point when I saw the cruelty of my father to my little brother." Boromir said, sitting down. "I had my eyes opened to all the things one could grow up being, and I became a protector to my brother."

"I grew up when I first got drunk. I got in a lot of trouble for it, for I wasn't old enough to drink, then. The disappointment in my Gaffer's eyes did it."

The all glanced towards Legolas now, who was the only one who hadn't spoken yet.

"What about you, Legolas?" Asked Merry.

"How old were you guys when you met the almighty point?" Legolas asked.

"Twenty." Aragorn said.

"Twenty-one." Said Boromir.

"Twenty-Five." Gimli said.

"Sixteen." Frodo replied.

"Eighteen." Sam told him.

"You know my age." Merry said.

Legolas was silent for a moment. "I was younger than you all when I met the Turning Point. I was fourteen, in mortal reckoning." The rest of the Fellowship sat anxiously waiting for a tale.

Legolas noted this, and began his tale...

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Legolas sighed and leaned up against a bolder him. The rain dripped onto his face, and tears leaked unnoticed out of the corners of his eyes, as they always did. He looked down to the apple he held in his hand and took a bite.

The tart apple taste filled his mouth and assured him that tonight, at least, he would not go hungry as he sometimes did. His clothes were mud caked and ragged. His face and hair was covered with dirt, cuts, and bruises. He looked terrible, like a street urchin that barely ever ate, and stole everything he had anyway. Actually that was what he was.

The Prince of Mirkwood had once been a happy elfling with an important position and a lot of hope. But then his mother was killed in an orc raid. His father had stopped caring about anything and everything. No one seemed to see him and care. So the prince made a tragic decision. He was going to run away and live with the other citizens. So that's what Legolas did. he found a hooded cloak without the royal insigma, and the door out. He had built himself a small home in the trees, and made his life stealing his food and once in a while more inexpensive clothes, or a blanket, for young elves do feel the cold more than adults.

But now the guards were after him, for after six years of thieving many people wanted to settle some little matters with him. They had attacked his tree house and Legolas had barely escaped. He didn't want to face his father after so long, and his father would know him even through the dirt, grime, thinness, and disguise, he would look him in the eye and say 'My child has returned.' No! He would never face his father like that! he would spare his father the shame of a son who was a petty thief.

Legolas stood up and began to walk down the path to the new Elven village he was striking. For the first time Legolas didn't curse his teachers and their accursed maps that he had copied and memorized. he could make his escape clean now.

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TBC...

Please review. I shall write more and more of this will be explained.