A/N: A sad chapter. A weird chapter. A long chapter.
Chapter 22- The Fate of Ghosts
( "Do you think elves are the only creatures that can die of a broken heart?" )
Many years ago, he had known an elf-maiden whose mate had died in battle with the spiders of Mirkwood. Her name had been Lhundoliel and her father, a court advisor, had been a friend of his father. He remembered her as a bright and sweet-hearted creature, soft and gentle in her ways, full of the radiance of the elves.
When the group that her mate had accompanied in the forest returned to the kingdom, she learned of the tragic fate that had befallen her beloved.
Legolas remembered that day as clearly as if it had taken place but a few hours before.
The smile that had so often wreathed Lhundoliel's face disappeared like a gust of smoke in the wind. After she had been told the news, Lhundoliel had walked out of the king's quarters, to the room that her and her beloved had shared in the palace. Legolas had seen the life slip out of her eyes as she lowered her head in silent grief. He remembered watching her from the end of the hallway as she slipped inside of her room like wraith, the joy that had once graced her body fading away with each step.
It was the last time he had seen her alive.
Because he was still young at the time, Legolas could not understand what had happened to the kind elf that had once indulged him in sweets and stories. He could not understand why she had chosen to lock herself in her room and refused to take all the meals that the servants had taken to her. His father had tried to explain it him then- that elves could die of grief but Legolas still could not grasp the concept. That something as simple as a broken heart could render one lifeless?
Impossible.
He had only believed it when, months after she had walked into her room, the palace guards were carrying her body out.
Heartache was not a thing to be taken lightly for elves.
And now he was learning that it was true for other creatures as well.
Sometimes, the pain of loss was simply too great for one heart to bear.
"You must eat." he said, pressing the spoonful of soup to her mouth.
Alicia turned away, listless and wan as Legolas waited patiently for her to open her mouth.
"Alicia."
"I'm not hungry."
"It has been two days since you have last eaten." Legolas said firmly but in a soft manner. "Surely you wish to partake of the wonderful food that has been prepared for you."
"No."
Legolas lowered his spoon and stared at the girl.
It had been late in the afternoon when he had carried Alicia back to her quarters from the meeting with Galadriel and she had slept for all of the night and most of the next morning. Legolas had stayed by her bedside, ever-alert and watchful over his fragile charge. She had not slept well- the night had been punctuated by whimpers and tears and struggling in her bed. He had tried to sing to her, to stroke her hair and soothe her but she had pushed him away in her fitful sleep. Early in the morning did she finally settle on her pillow and even then her face had been twisted into an expression of agony.
The next day when Alicia had woken up, Legolas had sent Nefernil to gather food for her. He had hoped that she would be willing to talk after eating but now it seemed that she did not even want to eat. She had stayed in bed, silent and glassy-eyed and unresponsive to his ministrations or soft words.
And because of this, he was frightened.
Lhundoliel had also stopped eating.
"This soup is like the one that Kythe prepared for you at the palace." Legolas said, tilting the bowl slightly so that Alicia could see. "You delighted in its taste, did you not? Even a few swallows, dear one, would be enough to give you strength. Please, a few spoonfuls. You did not even touch your breakfast. You must be hungry."
Alicia blinked and stared at the small openings in the wall across from her bed. Small windows to let the sun in during the day and starlight in the night. She gazed out at the silver leaves that waved slowly, back and forth, past her room. Soft sunlight illuminated the yellow blossoms that swayed along with the leaves and it was a peaceful, beautiful sight.
But Alicia was staring at it all with flat, dull eyes. Distant eyes. Eyes that looked to somewhere faraway, somewhere that Legolas could not go.
To the land of her memories, perhaps.
Legolas hesitated for only a moment before he reached out with one hand and touched her cheek.
"It is beautiful, is it not?" he whispered.
Her eyes moved back to him and she stared at him.
Or rather, she looked through him, as if he was not even there.
His fingertips trembled slightly on her cool, smooth skin. She was cold, far too cold to be comfortable- at least for a human. He put the bowl down on the bedside table and drew her blankets up tighter around her waist. He kept his hands busy, his mind preoccupied with thoughts of making her comfortable. Anything to keep from looking back into her dull gray eyes. Her expressionless, hopeless eyes. He would have given anything to bring the joy back into her features, to make her eyes sparkle and shine as they used to before...
( ...before coming to Lorien, we should have never gone here, I should have listened to Kythe... )
Legolas pushed away his thoughts. It would not help him now to think through his regrets. He reached up and gently pushed her hair back from her face, carefully studying the tangled strands and her bright pink cheeks. He decided to call upon Nuratar later and ask him if he had anything to soothe her skin. She had been burned by the wind on her face, perhaps in her fall from the precipice but everywhere else her skin was pale.
Palewhitecolorlessbloodless...
Lifeless.
Just like Lhundoliel.
She was dying.
Just like Lhundoliel.
Legolas had been preparing himself for the possibility of losing her. He had been prepared to fight for her, to show her that he truly believed in their union. He had been readying himself for the moment when others would try to claim her and bring her back to the life she had. What he had not been prepared for, however, was to fight against Alicia herself. He was not prepared to see her fade by her own hand- and it did seem as if she had given up on life.
In one swift movement, Legolas leaned forward and grabbed both of her arms, pulling her up from her pillows and closer to him. He forced himself to look into her eyes, forced her not to turn away. He could no longer bear the words that were being left unspoken in the air between them. He could no longer bear her silence.
"What can I do, my love?" he said, allowing a bit of his desperation sound in his voice. Perhaps if she could hear him, feel his emotions, she would understand. "What would you have me do, what would you have me give up in order to fix this? Happiness will be returned to you ten-fold, Alicia, as long as you allow me to give it to you. Give me the word, Alicia, and I shall follow it."
To his surprise, she stirred a little bit in his grasp. One slim hand rose up from its place on the sheets and settled gently down on top of his hand. A flicker of emotion moved across her face and Legolas saw, to his confusion, pity in the depth of her gaze.
Her dry lips parted and then she hesitated, her brow wrinkling with thought.
"What is it, Alicia?" he urged, feeling a faint stirring of hope. "What say you now? What will you have me do?"
Her hand dropped back down to the sheet and she frowned, looking faintly annoyed.
"Why do you still fight for me, Legolas?" she asked, weakly trying to twist away from his strong hands. "Why won't you just let things be... just let things happen."
"You can not mean to say that you believe this is your fate!" Legolas said. "To die like this. Like an invalid! You have been blessed with immortal life and yet you mean to starve yourself in this bed? This is not fate but your own actions!"
Alicia grew still and she stared at him with wide eyes.
"Blessed. Yes, blessed." Alicia said slowly. A bitter tone crept into her voice. "Blessed with an endless amount of years to be spent alone. How blessed I am, Legolas, that I have seen my husband die. Indeed, how wonderful it was for me to witness the death of my son and how fortunate it is that I have an eternity of time to remember their faces and know that they are dead! Yes, I am so lucky that for an eternity of time, I will forever be haunted by their voices and the ghosts of their touches. I am so blessed!"
Her eyes grew shiny with tears and she looked away from him, no longer holding herself up. She was sitting up only because Legolas still clutched at her.
"You have an eternity of time to heal." Legolas said quietly, after a moment's silence. "That is what I meant. You have forever to cherish the memory of your lost ones. That in itself is a blessing. Heed what the Lady Galadriel has said to you. Do not allow your emotions to control you. For now, the pain may seem limitless and all-consuming but time mends all wounds. It is a balm to the weariest of hearts, to the most broken of souls. The grief you feel will diminish, in time, if you only allow yourself to heal. Do not let yourself be overcome by sorrow."
"Such wise words, Legolas." Alicia said, her gray eyes hardening. "So wise, in fact, that I would not even think you were the same person who went to bed with a mindless idiot only a few days ago. That's what I was really, wasn't I? Confused. Dumb. Did you even stop to consider that if I had been in my right mind, I would stopped you from touching me in... in that way?"
Legolas froze and then his entire body felt weak. His hold on her weakened and she shoved his hands away roughly. She struggled to push herself up against her pillow on her weak, stick-like arms and then glared at him as he leaned back on the edge of her bedside.
"I am sorry." he whispered, feeling his chest tighten and his fingertips grow cold. "It was without your consent, my lady, and for that I will be forever ashamed. I did not... I had assumed that... that my... that my.... "
"Who has no control over their emotions now?" Alicia asked coldly.
Legolas could not speak. It was a strange sensation really, and at any other time he would have been able to detach himself from them and study his reactions to her words objectively. But he had never felt this way before- the anguish of heartbreak was new. It was as if a sharp knife had been plunged into his chest and twisted so that his flesh was marred beyond healing. He felt the hot sting of tears on the surface of his eyes.
"Leave me be, Legolas." Alicia said, not taking her eyes away from him. For a moment, the coldness in her face broke and Legolas was suddenly faced with the once-innocent girl she had been. Except now she looked broken and lost. "I'm damaged, don't you see that? I will never be the same person I was. If I lived for a million years, I would still be scarred. It would be better for you if you just... if you just go now and not look back."
"I cannot." Legolas said, finding at last his voice. His hand slowly crept towards her hand on the bed but stopped when their fingers were only a short distance apart. "Do you think that I would abandon you now, when you are at your weakest? I love you. The love of an elf is stronger that that."
"Don't speak of love." Alicia said. Her face was now an open mask of pain; simple, concentrated pain. "And don't let yourself be tied to me because of pity or duty."
"That is not..." Legolas began but she shook her head and held up one hand to stop him.
"Legolas, you spoke of fate." she said. "Understand this- I did not choose to be born. I did not choose to be who I am. I did not choose to be alone or shunned or lonely. I did not choose to love and then to lose. But this... I can choose. A way out. Will you take away the only choice I can make? Will you deny me the right to rest? If you do indeed love me, then let me finish what I started. I am a ghost here- something that does not belong in the normal scheme of things. Let me go. Let me finish my fall."
He could no longer hold back the tears that threatened to overflow; a single tear slid down his cheek and then another. And then another.
What she was asking of him... he could not do it and yet he could not let her be in pain. He was helpless now- something that he had not been since he was a child. He understood that her earlier cruelty had been her defense. Bitterness, lashing out... she had not meant it though her words had stung and inflicted pain. But now Legolas would have preferred her bitterness, her cruelty to this- her hopelessness. To keep her alive, to force her to remain so would be selfish.
( "Love is a word that signifies the willingness to sacrifice, Legolas. To choose another's happiness over your own. When the time comes, will you be able to do so? To follow her wishes instead of yours?" )
Is this what the Lady Galadriel had meant when she had first spoken in his mind? But death... how could Alicia be happy in death? How could she be anything in death? All she would be was gone.
And perhaps, Legolas realized, that was exactly what she wanted. To feel nothing. To endure nothing. To be nothing.
How could he allow her death?
But.... how could he take away her right to death?
( "Legolas, the hardest decisions to make are the ones that go against what we want." )
Did the Lady Galadriel foresee this? And if she did, did she also know what choice Legolas would make?
Because he did not know.
"Did you ever love me?" he asked. His voice broke and faltered slightly."Was I ever in your heart?"
Alicia leaned forward, a bit unsteady, and pressed her fingertips against his cheek. She touched his tears, stopping their flow momentarily and he leaned into her hand. He wanted to feel her when she answered him, to know the truth as she said them.
"You have protected me from the day you first came across me in the woods." she said. "For that I will always love you."
Legolas looked at her, his eyes asking the next question for him.
"But no, Legolas, I cannot love you as I love my husband."
It was then that breathing became painful.
Without a word, Legolas stood up and Alicia's hand fell back onto her lap. She looked at him sadly, almost apologetically, and he bowed his head out of respect to her words.
He turned around and walked out of her room.
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( "Look at the freak with the weird eyes!" )
Alicia clasped her hands over her ears in an effort to shut out the voices.
( "Oh, don't mind her, no one talks to her anyway." )
But it was no good.
( "Hi, I'm Matthew but everyone calls me Matt..." )
They were all in her head.
Memories, furious and hurtful, were flooding her senses. Indeed, true to Galadriel's words, she was reliving every single moment that had been rejected or pushed away by the spell. The door in her mind had suddenly burst open and painfully bright images now filled her head.
People, things and places taunted her with their intense vividness and she felt as if she were being thrust into the events of her life all over again.
But it hurt.
Each separate event pounded itself over and over in her mind, as if fighting for her undivided attention. She saw herself at six, at seven, at ten, thirteen, eighteen....
( ...Birthday candles burning bright... )
So alone, so very, very alone for so many years. And then....
( "...everyone calls me Matt. What's your name?" )
The pain of loneliness was nothing compared to the pain of loss.
( "It's a boy! We're having a boy!" )
Gone. All gone. They were all gone.
Dead.
( "... I love you, Alicia... keep your eyes open..." )
"Shhh!" she hissed, closing her eyes. Her fingernails dug into the fragile skin of her head, breaking the skin around her ears. "Stop it! Go away! Stop stop s-s-stop..."
Her legs kicked at the sheets and twisted them around into loosely coiled, white snakes. She clawed at her ears and squeezed her eyes shut until they ached with the effort.
So much pain.
She had been able to keep from flinching when Legolas was in the room. Controlled herself long enough for him to leave. For two days she had been in a state of shock, cold and mighty. She had dulled her senses by repeating old stories over and over again in her thoughts. Fairytales. Folktales. Myths and legends.
Alice in Wonderland.
Her namesake.
She said the words in her mind like a mantra, as if by the mere thought of them she could protect herself against the pain of remembering. But now it was no longer working. Legolas was gone and she no longer had the motivation to pretend as if there were nothing wrong with her physically. She was being eaten alive by her past, feeling the emotions that she had once felt as a little girl... as a teenager... as a young mother and wife...
A soft breeze swept into the room, embracing her in its surprising warmth and gentleness. It was a gesture of comfort, that much she could recognize. The pain lessened and Alicia opened her eyes, blinking away the tears that had formed there without her consent. The trees seemed to whisper a song for her, moving in the air like graceful dancers. She stared at them for a moment and then lowered her hands from her ears.
Trembling, she struggled to get up from the bed.
The floor underneath her feet felt like water, unstable and unable to support her weight. She stumbled towards a window, feeling her legs move shakily underneath her.
( ...you must go back to bed! you must rest!... )
Ah, wind. Out of all the elements, only wind truly had a voice. It spoke for the others. Water laughed, earth grumbled and fire crackled... but wind had words. Wind alone could speak. They were her friends and sometimes they acted like her parents, watching over her every move. They were strong but compassionate and she was sorry for hurting them before. However, she did not need to say the words outloud- they felt her apology and accepted it without comment. Of all the elements, wind was closest to her. It had been her source of comfort on the loneliest of nights and had whispered words of solace in her ear when she needed to hear a friendly voice.
It spoke to her now.
( ...you can not die! we will not allow it! we can not allow it! you need rest! you must... )
"Who obeys who?" Alicia said with gritted teeth. She reached the far wall and looked outside to the waving branches. Legolas was right, it was a beautiful sight.
She wanted this to be the last sight she took with her when she left this place.
( ...we obey you but we are also your guardians...)
( ...you must not die, you can not die!... )
Alicia ignored the feverish pitch that the wind's voice had grown to and stared at the silver leaves flashing in the sun. Such pretty leaves, strange and unfamiliar. Why hadn't she noticed them when she was first entering this city? They were a wonder to behold.
"Why this place?" she asked suddenly. "Why did you bring me here? So far away from my home, from all I knew?"
( ...you were not happy there. we knew you would find your joy here... )
"You meant for him to find me then." Alicia said softly. She sighed and closed her eyes briefly, knowing what the answer would be.
( ...yes, we placed you in his path. we looked into his heart and saw that he would not allow a helpless one to be left alone in the forest... )
"Do you know what you have done by doing this?" she asked, shaking her head. "Foolish elements. Do you know what events you had set in motion when you put me across his way?"
( ...why do you not love him as you did the other? they share so much! we wanted to bring you happiness, why do you turn away from it... )
"Foolish but kind." she muttered. She lifted her head and stared into the air. "It was the color of his eyes, wasn't it? They remind me so much of... you chose Legolas for the color of his eyes. Such simple reasoning and yet what pain it has caused. Do not lie to me. He is kind and good and true.... but he was chosen for the color of his eyes. You brought me to another world, to another place, because you thought that could bring me joy."
Silence.
Alicia smiled faintly.
"So you hide now?" she said. "You can still hear me, this I know. Listen well to my words now. The moment I draw my last breath in this place, you will return me to my home."
The wind whipped the branches into a fury of motion.
( ...NO NO NO... )
"You will set me beside my husband and child." Alicia said, ignoring the impassioned pleas. "And earth shall cradle me as it does them. I want you to tell my parents, if they still live, that..."
Alicia winced and doubled over in pain, clutching her head.
( "Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death." )
No, not this memory... please, anything but this memory.
"N-not n-now." Alicia whimpered. She stepped to the side and fell heavily against the wall, no longer able to keep upright on her own strength. "G-go away. S-s-stop."
( "I will fear no evil: for thou art with me." )
"'Alice was beginning to get very tired of sitting by her sister on the bank, and of having nothing to do.'" Alicia spat out the lines, trying to stop herself from blacking out. She could not deal with this memory right now. She was not strong enough yet. She knew that eventually, this memory would resurface with all the vengeance of the others but she could not handle it now. She was not ready.
And yet, it was coming.
"'Once or twice she had peeped into the book her sister was reading, but it had no pictures or conversations in it, `and what is the use of a book,' thought Alice `without pictures or conversation?'" Alicia recited in a low murmur.
The throbbing was getting stronger.
( "Thy rod and thy staff they comfort me. Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies." )
( A flash of brilliant summer sunlight on the glossy surface of the coffin. So small- this coffin, and yet so like the larger one that lay across the ground beside it. The preacher's words were monotonous and soft and yet each word pierced her mind like a scream. She closed her eyes and... )
Alicia fell to her knees as the cruelest memory of her life threatened to burst through the muddle in her mind. Dimly, she felt warm liquid slide down her ears and down her neck and when she opened her mouth, a bitter, copper taste sped up past her tongue and past her lips. She pitched forward then, falling into the hard surface of the floor. It was coming now, before she was ready and she could not allow it to gain control of her thoughts. She knew, absolutely knew that once the memory finally burst open she would be forever trapped in that one moment.
She would not allow it.
She did not have control over the body- it was not within her powers to wield control over the heart or blood or limbs.
( ...do not do this do not do this DO NOT DO THIS!... )
But she could control her mind.
She had done so once.
"In this hour of grief and sorrow
I call on Heaven with all its power
And Earth below in all its glory
And the heat of the fire and the shade of the dark,
And the powers of wind and air and storm
Rain and snow and waters weeping,
Powers now, I have in keeping-
Hear me now...."
The wind howled in protest but Alicia only heard it dimly through the blood in her ears. She whispered the rest of the spell... the forgetting spell. The one she had uttered so long ago. The one that had threatened her life.
She would die anyway, would she not? She only wanted to die in peace. In blissful, unknowing peace.
"Send a veil to cover eyes
Send forth shadows to heal this mind,
Threaten vision with darkness great
All the elements- I implore.
Send them away this very hour
Place yourselves between thought and eye-
I command it..."
She closed her eyes as the darkness took over.
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The Lady Galadriel lifted her head, blinking slowly at the thoughts that were filling her mind.
After a moment she rose up from her throne, majestic and regal, and walked towards the doors of the great chamber. The girl had broken sooner than she had expected but Galadriel was not surprised. She was only sorry that the golden prince and the girl had passed but a few words between them. So much misunderstanding and hard feelings would be left. He would never truly get to know the girl's character- her wit or impulsive nature and all the other qualities the elements had whispered about in Galadriel's ear. He would not be able to say good-bye to her properly for Galadriel knew that the girl's mind was now broken beyond repair. So many questions would be left unanswered now.
But it could not be helped.
It was time for Legolas to make his decision.