Eternity Alone
Disclaimer: I do not own Tolkien, his cat, his dog, his
writings and certainly not his son.
Archives: Please, just ask.
Warnings: Dark, miserable…
Rating: PG13
Reviews: Constructive criticism? PLEASE.
A/N: Legolas thinks on eternity, and the life he chose… alone. His nature has been corrupted, his life mutilated beyond recognition… Will be expanded if people like… so review! Please!
I've decided this is an AU, fitting with canon, but using some OOC events to make up the fabric of the story. The end will be very OOC, and involve some AU themes. Please, don't take this story seriously and just enjoy it.
Iarlóm. I hold it up now, and watch as the mottled silver sends darts of light across the room. She gave it to me, my love, on the morning it was used for the first time, several years before, one summer, one long passionate summer.
Her name was… I have almost forgotten it, but how can I, when the trees whisper her name, and the brook babbles it to passing strangers? When I hear it in the voices of my father and my brothers and in my friends' strangely stilted whispers? I whisper it over and over again. Mordurien, the one with hair like mahogany and eyes so blue they reflected the sea in them, and that the sky blushed and tried to make it's own paltry colours more alike to her iris. Mordurien, Mordurien… her name haunts my ears, my thoughts, my mind. When people whisper her name as I pass by, I'm once more at the Battle of the Five Armies, fighting with Arthon, poor Arthon.
Yet, this story never started at the Battle, a few weeks before, when I saw Mordurien for the first time.
She was beautiful. I don't deny this fact, she was beautiful. To me she was my Luthien, I'd have died for her and I thought she would have done so for me. I was in love, almost at first sight, but then again at first sight I didn't notice her.
Arthon did.
It was a summer's day, one of those endlessly dull days that wear people down, drive them mad. I was with Arthon in a quiet, underground room, where the gentle rush of the water flowed underneath, telling each other ghost stories. Arthon told one that had been going around for some time in the palace, one about a dwarf with the face and figure of a man, running through the corridors, rather fat. His feet made no noise, and yet you could hear him chiding himself as he ran along, before vanishing into the mist.
"Some people say it's a man charmed by Gandalf's power. Some people. I believe that is his natural state though, for he does not seem distressed at his height or body, but more at some peril that is about to befall him."
"I see no reason for him to be wandering around Mirkwood's palaces now, and yet he came with the dwarves, did he not?"
"Some murdered soul, I wager," Arthon said, and we dropped the matter, and continued telling stories.
"Did you ever hear of the maiden that haunts this place?" I asked, "I have seen her, and in truth she is fair, horribly murdered one day when she was walking in the forest alone. The Orcs left her tortured body for the nearest to find, and the horrible thing was that from her body appeared a ragged imp, with the Orkish features but with the elvish personality. A terrible thing, yet far back when Oropher was a boy, and he knew the maiden well. Avaraduialiel, her name was, one of the most lovely creatures ever to set foot upon this earth."
"What happened to the Orc spawn?" Arthon wondered.
"He was spurned by all that saw him, and in true misery took his own life. Avaraduialiel's lover would not take him, and hated him."
"Poor soul."
"We are all that stand in the way of Fate."
The room suddenly seemed to be very cold and Arthon shivered, "Let's return into the sunlight, Legolas. "The ghosts cloud the sphere of my consciousness and freeze my spine."
I stood up and walked through numerous silent, eerie corridors, for all elves were out in the sun, Arthon watching the shadows in a strange terror. Suddenly, he grasped my arm with a sharp intake of breath, "Legolas! Legolas!"
"What is it?" I asked, looking at the much younger elf, who had only recently left childhood, but not yet his foolish ideals "What is it, Arthon? Speak!"
"I fancied I saw in the shadows the miserable spirit of Avaraduialiel… How frightened she appears! Quick, let's follow."
He grasped my arm and pulled me through the corridors, further into the cellars below Mirkwood's home, deeper and deeper down into the dark, where I could not see, and worried Arthon had lost his wit.
"Come!" my friend hissed at me, pulling me faster into the maze beyond the earth, "Come! I hear her voice, she sings a song…"
We came into a wide chamber, deep below the earth, where the walls curved up to form a dome, and water trickled from somewhere deep down. A spiral staircase, cut of wood, circled up to a hole in the wall, and this was where Arthon's ghost had gone.
Arthon did not stop, though he panted out, "'tis marvelous, is it not, Legolas? But not as fair as she…"
He began to ascend the stairs, and I, fearful of him doing some mishap, could only follow.
"Arthon, this is lunacy! This is the oldest cellar in Mirkwood, once used for storing wine… then the river dried up here and we came no more! This is not a fairy chamber, where ghosts of fair maidens sing their laments! Turn back and stop with this stupidity!"
My friend laughed and waved me on, as he stepped through the ceiling into glorious sunshine, and I soon after, and for a while, my protests were silenced.
We were in a clearing, where the deep blue of the sky glimmering through the silver birches reflected off the crystal of the water and sent many, dancing fragments of light-glass around the silent place.
But, that was not the most beautiful thing about it. I heard Arthon give a sigh like a wounded deer and his clear voice rang out, "Avaraduialiel! Avaraduialiel!"
And somehow, I heard a voice singing in the clearing, but no elf or men could ever sing like that. It was the song of a Valar, a fair song that I had heard too often before not to recognize, yet it was only a verse… and then all was silent.
Again she fled, but swift he came.
Tinuviel! Tinuviel!
He called her by her elvish name;
And there she halted listening.
One moment stood she and a spell
His voice laid on her: Beren came,
And doom fell on Tinuviel
That in his arms lay glistening.
I soon saw why Arthon had cried out, for lying sleeping at the banks of the pool was a maiden, and she was so fair that I believed, like the foolish do, in love at second sight, and longed for her to be my wife.
She wore a gown of star spun cloth, a white knife was in her belt and white slippers upon her feet. Her throat was long and white and perfect, her face as solemn as an old woman's, but brimming with a curious joy.
And, yet a second later, Arthon had cried out and woken her.
"Idiot!" I hissed at him, "Why did you have to wake her?"
Arthon sighed, "I had not the power to keep my tongue still, Legolas. Is she not beautiful? I would long to marry her, and this from someone who though I would never marry…"
"You are too young to know what love is, Arthon, and foolish enough to imagine you do."
"And I suppose you do not love her, Legolas," Arthon snapped.
"When I love, my love is the love of mature years, yours is a young infatuation. Heed it not, Arthon."
Arthon sulked, but I was no longer prepared to listen to my friend's complaints and walked over to her, and took her hand.
"Lady Avaraduialiel!" I whispered in her ear, and she stirred, her lips moving and eyes widening as she saw who it was.
"Prince Legolas Greenleaf!" she cried, her cheeks blushing crimson. "My lord!"
Arthon turned and left, as silently as he had come, knowing himself to have lost, knowing that whatever I desired, the prince, I would get and he would sacrifice.
"My lady," I said, not caring a bit for Arthon, he was still a child, and as such, would have many loves, "My lady, I worried for your safety, sleeping in such a quiet glade, out of sight and supervision."
"I was more exhausted than I thought," she whispered. I thought her shallow and brittle ways truly charming, what a fool I was, "But tell me, good lord, why did you give me the name of Avaraduialiel?"
"It seemed to me," I said, taking her hand and helping her to her dainty feet, "I saw the ghost of the fairest maiden Mirkwood had ever seen, alive and sleeping in the glade, and in my surprise and sudden love for her beauty, I did call out her name. But, please, maiden, tell me yours."
She looked up at me with those ethereal blue eyes, "Mordurien," she whispered, "Mordurien."
"Mordurien." I said, "Mordurien," repeating her own childish voice. "Fairest maiden since Avaraduialiel."
She laughed. Ai Eru! Her laugh! It sent gold sparkling into the air, eyes attracted, blissful prospects, holding herself away from me enticingly.
"My lord!" she cried, giggling, in her empty way, but I saw it as a shy, virtuous giggle.
"Nay, Legolas!" I said, pressing the name upon her.
"Legolas, then!" she said, "I am not fair, nor do I pretend to be Avarduialiel, desist in the name."
"But you are, maiden."
"Mordurien," she corrected.
"In my heart you are forever Avarduialiel."
"Legolas! My lord!" she cried, kneeling at my feet, "I beg you, do not shower me with fond names.
I was infatuated. Eagerly, I pressed a necklace into my palm, one belonging to my grandmother, and most delicate and fine. I looked into her eyes, shocked by the unexpected present and kissed her gently upon the cheek.
"Wear it, as a sign of my favour, Mordurien,"
She looked at it incredulously, "I shall do so, lord."
"Legolas. Call me Legolas. I have said so before."
She giggled, "But what am I to give you, Legolas?" and she felt at her belt, "I have only my dagger, my Iarlóm. It is such a humble present, Legolas, but perhaps you would consent to have it?"
My love handed the little white knife to me, and I took it gratefully. She was a fool to give a knife to a murderer, but as yet, I had not been convicted, and I had not committed the crime…
"I shall wear it always." I told her, and I have kept to that promise. I held it out, "Arathôn, I rename it, for Iarlóm is the name given by a maiden."
Arathôn, named by a prince.