Chapter 6
Laicaliel skipped across the three slick, wet rocks that spanned the meager creek and landed with a giggle on the other side. She was now in the lightly forested area that surrounded most of the Rivendell valley. It was late spring, and the air was thickened with the perfume of wild herbs and flowers. Thyme and parsley sprouted up in random, bedraggled patches about her dainty elven feet, and everything around her seemed to glow a minty green color. She leaned over to sample the scent of a luscious yellow- blossomed vine that wrapped around a nearby tree, then eagerly skipped off into the tame afternoon wilderness.
Of course Legolas wasn't about to let her roam the forest alone, at least not after the sordid events of their chance meeting. But he didn't know that Laicaliel ever left Rivendell last night. After she was fully healed and the infirmary was no longer necessary, Laicaliel had been moved to a room near the Mirkwood Prince's royal quarters, and sneaking past his room last night around midnight was like tiptoeing across extremely thin ice. She had packed a light meal very late in the evening, and once the moon was high in the sky she escaped. She expected that now Legolas was probably going out of his mind looking for her, and maybe was starting to suspect that she had been kidnapped. She glanced at the sky- judging by the sun's position, it was probably about four hours past noon.
Although she did not want to admit it to herself, deep inside she felt a little afraid. Her somewhat recent attack was still painfully fresh on her mind, and a small part of her mind wished Legolas was there to protect her. He was so tall, so noble, so powerful...she felt wonderfully small and safe when she was with him. However, she was raised as a very strong-willed, independent person, and she needed to be alone once in a while. Laicaliel stopped at the edge of a thin pool veiled with flowered vines and overhanging willow branches. The surface of the pool was like a grey, glassy metal. She could easily make out the reflection of a fair, pale face with shocking green eyes and dark brown hair that reached the center of her back. She smiled timidly at herself, and then kicked a stone into the pool with the end of her toe. The reflection was shattered and her lovely image broke into thousands of gruesome, distorted fragments.
"I think I heard something over here."
"Her father will be outraged when we return her to him. I almost feel sorry for the lass."
"It serves her justly, treacherously stealing away from her village that night! She ought to be severely punished. Put into confinement with the rats until she learns where her place is in our society."
"I have heard how it is in other places, Luiduin. Outside of our small village in Mirkwood, they let maidens do whatever they want. It is no matter to wonder why Laicaliel tried to run to Lothlorien. They have a Queen."
Laicaliel sprinted out of her small shelter and dashed into the forest before she could hear any more of the Elves' conversation. She recognized two of the voices as Luiduin and Corogir, her father's close friends. The third voice wasn't as clear and musical as the other voices; it must have belonged to a Man. She knew that they wouldn't harm her if they captured her, but she had no desire to return home to her father and the Elf who wished to marry her. As she leapt gracefully over rocks and thorny knolls, she prayed that somebody from Rivendell would find her and explain her dilemma to her pursuers.
"Oi!" The voice of Corogir was now very audible, as if he was only a few yards behind her. "There she is!" The rapid footfalls of heavy males crashed through the dry underbrush. Laicaliel, now fully panicked, yelped and scrambled up a sheer stone wall. She kicked off the groping hands that were trying to drag her off the low cliff and pulled herself atop the flat level stone.
"There is no need for you to bring me home! I have found a new suitor in Rivendell, and I will happily wed him!" As she was saying this to the three people below her, her mind was furiously debating whether to stay atop the cliff and try to reason with the elves and the man or attempt to flee to Elrond's house in the valley.
"Your father's quarrel with you is not whether or not you marry somebody; it is whether or not you marry Beldan. He is quite a rich, important noble! You are extremely lucky he finds interest in you- if you wed him, you may even meet the royal family of Thranduil." Corogir was the most patient, sensible one of the party of three, and so he was chosen to reason with Laicaliel thus.
"But I HAVE met the royal family! Did I not mention that my suitor was the valiant and most honorable Prince Legolas?"
The three men stared up at her for several quiet moments before bursting into raucous laughter. "You? A peasant girl has won the heart of the fair Prince?" cried Luiduin. He and the strange Man doubled over in laughter while Corogir fought to maintain his composure.
"It is not wise to fabricate lies, my lady- especially those as preposterous as that. Please be sensible and come back home with us." Corogir smiled weakly and held out a peaceful hand, but Laicaliel spat upon him and sprinted away from them along the edge of the cliff. It led westward for some meters before it dropped off into a river and a clearing, and Laicaliel intended to follow it for as long as it would take her.
"Foolish girl!"
"What are you waiting for? Follow her!"
Laicaliel ran as fast as her slender legs would carry her. She finally came to the desperate edge of the stone- indeed it dropped off into a river, but a thin pillar of the same stone stood at the edge of the meadow on the other side of the thin river that separated it from its kindred. It was a lonely, miserable spurt of dark rock, but it was the last place that the Elf maiden could find refuge from her pursuers. She easily leapt across the stretch of river, and then meadow, which separated the two bodies of stone. There was only enough room atop the level rock for one person, so she was quite sure that Corogir, Luiduin, and the Man had no way to reach her. The only problem was how to get safely off the rock and back to Rivendell without being caught.
Finally three male figures reached the place where the rock dropped off into the river, and stared wantonly at the girl who was perched defiantly atop the tall, thin pillar of grey stone.
The Man was the first to speak. "Please, give yourself up and come home with us. There's no way that you can escape that rock, and there's no way that we can take you from it by force. You've gotta come to us of your own accord."
Next Luiduin spoke up. "There is no one here to save you, Laica. Your imaginary suitor will not hew us down and carry you off into the sunset. If you stay on that rock like a stubborn hobbit-pony, you will die of thirst or hunger. That platform is so diminutive that you cannot even sit down. Do you intend to stand there until your legs give out and you fall to your death?"
"I beg you, milady." This was Corogir, her father's closet friend. He was generous and kind, and had seen thousands of crimson autumns under the Mirkwood sun. His daughter, Galaina, was Laicaliel's best friend, though she had not seen her since the escape from her village. "Will you not ease your father's anxiety, and return home to marry Beldan?"
Laicaliel sighed heavily through her nostrils, and tightened her hands into stubborn fists. "No."
Luiduin groaned in exasperation, and the strange Man fell lazily on his bottom. "Great," snapped Luiduin, "We shall be here for days." He joined the man on the stone shelf and pulled a flask out of his pocket. "You best sit with us, Corogir. This girl will resist us as long as she remains conscious."
Corogir shifted his weight uncertainly, and gazed pleadingly at his dear friend's daughter. "We will not harm you, little one. We only wish to help you, I promise. It is in your best wishes to return home. Please, heed us."
Laicaliel almost felt sorry for the honorable Elf, and sorely wished that Legolas would somehow find her so that he could prove her story true. She knew that whatever she would say to the three males would not be believed, so it was no use trying to convince them of anything without solid proof. "I am sorry. It does not matter what you say to me, I will not go with you."
Corogir stared at her mournfully for several seconds, thinking that she must have gone insane since she left Mirkwood, and resignedly plunked down on the cliff edge next to Luiduin. Indeed, they would be sitting there for nearly a week watching the poor girl pout upon the stone pillar.
***
It was three days since Laicaliel had disappeared and, as she had predicted, Legolas was driving himself mad searching for her. He had turned the entire valley of Rivendell upside down in his anxiety, and was starting to annoy some of its inhabitants. They all had their separate opinions, and each Elf was more eager than the last to share theirs with the Prince.
"Maybe she left you. Is that so hard to believe?" "Perhaps she simply went out for a stroll." "I think I saw her at supper last night." "Last night? Last night I think I saw her sitting near the fountain." "No, she left three days ago." "Legolas, you need to leave her alone. She probably just got sick of you hounding her." "This Laicaliel was a shifty character anyway. She is best forgotten." "Who is Laicaliel?"
Soon he grew weary of waiting for her to appear in the Valley, so on the morning of the fifth day he set out to look for her in the forest. He packed lembas, plenty of fresh water, his cloak, a blanket, and of course: a length of rope. If there was anything that he learned from Samwise the hobbit during their travels together, it was to always carry plenty of rope. "You never know when you might need it, even ask my old Gaffer," Sam used to say. He missed Sam. He missed everybody. They were his first non- Elven friends, and they shared so many exciting memories together...but it had been many years since the breaking of the Fellowship and the destruction of the One Ring, and all his companions were dead. It was times like these that Legolas scorned his immortality; it was so painful to watch beautiful things fade and disappear.
Of course, not all of the members of the Fellowship died around the same time. It took Aragorn many, many years to finally cease existing, as did it take the hobbits. Gimli the Dwarf was the last survivor (aside from Legolas), but his was the only death that was unnatural. Legolas quickly shook the first inklings of Gimli out of his troubled mind and focused on the expedition for his lady. He hated to think about Gimli's death, because it was during their travels together whence it occurred. They were deep in the Fangorn forest when Gimli decided he was hungry for meat, and he asked Legolas to snipe a creature with one of his arrows. Of course Legolas did not eat meat, and loathed killing innocent creatures for it, but he would do anything that his friend asked of him and so obliged.
He was skillfully balanced on the very tip of a high tree branch, and with his keen Elven eyesight spotted a fat squirrel chattering about the underbrush about 50 yards away. He poised his arrow, slowly drew back his arm, but just as he released the arrow Gimli spotted the same squirrel and attempted to pounce upon it. Legolas cried out in warning, but the arrow flew swiftly and hit its mark well. He vividly remembered Gimli moaning in pain and rolling on to his back, and he remembered himself rushing to his friend's aid. Gimli whispered one word, and then seemed to fall asleep. Then he was very cold, and all Legolas could hear was the sound of his own rapidly beating heart as he watched the color drain from the dwarf's hairy face. The last thing he remembered was seeing a Mirkwood arrow sticking out of a red stain in Gimli's shirt.
"Legolas!" The voice snapped him out of his private thoughts, and Legolas looked around curiously for the source of the voice. He was standing next to a dark, glassy pool of water that was veiled with foliage and a thin stream that was circumnavigated by three slick stones.
"Le-go-las! You have got to be around somewhere!" For some reason he was having trouble connecting that voice to a face. Was it Creladriel? No, her voice is much deeper than the one he just heard. The voice actually sounded a bit like his mother's, distinctly feminine yet very commanding.
"If you are not searching for me by now, then you are a terrible boyfriend!" Laicaliel! That was something that only she would dare to insinuate to royalty. Of course he didn't take offense to it; on the contrary, he thought her courage was rather endearing. He quickly set off to the direction that he heard her voice come from.
Laicaliel skipped across the three slick, wet rocks that spanned the meager creek and landed with a giggle on the other side. She was now in the lightly forested area that surrounded most of the Rivendell valley. It was late spring, and the air was thickened with the perfume of wild herbs and flowers. Thyme and parsley sprouted up in random, bedraggled patches about her dainty elven feet, and everything around her seemed to glow a minty green color. She leaned over to sample the scent of a luscious yellow- blossomed vine that wrapped around a nearby tree, then eagerly skipped off into the tame afternoon wilderness.
Of course Legolas wasn't about to let her roam the forest alone, at least not after the sordid events of their chance meeting. But he didn't know that Laicaliel ever left Rivendell last night. After she was fully healed and the infirmary was no longer necessary, Laicaliel had been moved to a room near the Mirkwood Prince's royal quarters, and sneaking past his room last night around midnight was like tiptoeing across extremely thin ice. She had packed a light meal very late in the evening, and once the moon was high in the sky she escaped. She expected that now Legolas was probably going out of his mind looking for her, and maybe was starting to suspect that she had been kidnapped. She glanced at the sky- judging by the sun's position, it was probably about four hours past noon.
Although she did not want to admit it to herself, deep inside she felt a little afraid. Her somewhat recent attack was still painfully fresh on her mind, and a small part of her mind wished Legolas was there to protect her. He was so tall, so noble, so powerful...she felt wonderfully small and safe when she was with him. However, she was raised as a very strong-willed, independent person, and she needed to be alone once in a while. Laicaliel stopped at the edge of a thin pool veiled with flowered vines and overhanging willow branches. The surface of the pool was like a grey, glassy metal. She could easily make out the reflection of a fair, pale face with shocking green eyes and dark brown hair that reached the center of her back. She smiled timidly at herself, and then kicked a stone into the pool with the end of her toe. The reflection was shattered and her lovely image broke into thousands of gruesome, distorted fragments.
"I think I heard something over here."
"Her father will be outraged when we return her to him. I almost feel sorry for the lass."
"It serves her justly, treacherously stealing away from her village that night! She ought to be severely punished. Put into confinement with the rats until she learns where her place is in our society."
"I have heard how it is in other places, Luiduin. Outside of our small village in Mirkwood, they let maidens do whatever they want. It is no matter to wonder why Laicaliel tried to run to Lothlorien. They have a Queen."
Laicaliel sprinted out of her small shelter and dashed into the forest before she could hear any more of the Elves' conversation. She recognized two of the voices as Luiduin and Corogir, her father's close friends. The third voice wasn't as clear and musical as the other voices; it must have belonged to a Man. She knew that they wouldn't harm her if they captured her, but she had no desire to return home to her father and the Elf who wished to marry her. As she leapt gracefully over rocks and thorny knolls, she prayed that somebody from Rivendell would find her and explain her dilemma to her pursuers.
"Oi!" The voice of Corogir was now very audible, as if he was only a few yards behind her. "There she is!" The rapid footfalls of heavy males crashed through the dry underbrush. Laicaliel, now fully panicked, yelped and scrambled up a sheer stone wall. She kicked off the groping hands that were trying to drag her off the low cliff and pulled herself atop the flat level stone.
"There is no need for you to bring me home! I have found a new suitor in Rivendell, and I will happily wed him!" As she was saying this to the three people below her, her mind was furiously debating whether to stay atop the cliff and try to reason with the elves and the man or attempt to flee to Elrond's house in the valley.
"Your father's quarrel with you is not whether or not you marry somebody; it is whether or not you marry Beldan. He is quite a rich, important noble! You are extremely lucky he finds interest in you- if you wed him, you may even meet the royal family of Thranduil." Corogir was the most patient, sensible one of the party of three, and so he was chosen to reason with Laicaliel thus.
"But I HAVE met the royal family! Did I not mention that my suitor was the valiant and most honorable Prince Legolas?"
The three men stared up at her for several quiet moments before bursting into raucous laughter. "You? A peasant girl has won the heart of the fair Prince?" cried Luiduin. He and the strange Man doubled over in laughter while Corogir fought to maintain his composure.
"It is not wise to fabricate lies, my lady- especially those as preposterous as that. Please be sensible and come back home with us." Corogir smiled weakly and held out a peaceful hand, but Laicaliel spat upon him and sprinted away from them along the edge of the cliff. It led westward for some meters before it dropped off into a river and a clearing, and Laicaliel intended to follow it for as long as it would take her.
"Foolish girl!"
"What are you waiting for? Follow her!"
Laicaliel ran as fast as her slender legs would carry her. She finally came to the desperate edge of the stone- indeed it dropped off into a river, but a thin pillar of the same stone stood at the edge of the meadow on the other side of the thin river that separated it from its kindred. It was a lonely, miserable spurt of dark rock, but it was the last place that the Elf maiden could find refuge from her pursuers. She easily leapt across the stretch of river, and then meadow, which separated the two bodies of stone. There was only enough room atop the level rock for one person, so she was quite sure that Corogir, Luiduin, and the Man had no way to reach her. The only problem was how to get safely off the rock and back to Rivendell without being caught.
Finally three male figures reached the place where the rock dropped off into the river, and stared wantonly at the girl who was perched defiantly atop the tall, thin pillar of grey stone.
The Man was the first to speak. "Please, give yourself up and come home with us. There's no way that you can escape that rock, and there's no way that we can take you from it by force. You've gotta come to us of your own accord."
Next Luiduin spoke up. "There is no one here to save you, Laica. Your imaginary suitor will not hew us down and carry you off into the sunset. If you stay on that rock like a stubborn hobbit-pony, you will die of thirst or hunger. That platform is so diminutive that you cannot even sit down. Do you intend to stand there until your legs give out and you fall to your death?"
"I beg you, milady." This was Corogir, her father's closet friend. He was generous and kind, and had seen thousands of crimson autumns under the Mirkwood sun. His daughter, Galaina, was Laicaliel's best friend, though she had not seen her since the escape from her village. "Will you not ease your father's anxiety, and return home to marry Beldan?"
Laicaliel sighed heavily through her nostrils, and tightened her hands into stubborn fists. "No."
Luiduin groaned in exasperation, and the strange Man fell lazily on his bottom. "Great," snapped Luiduin, "We shall be here for days." He joined the man on the stone shelf and pulled a flask out of his pocket. "You best sit with us, Corogir. This girl will resist us as long as she remains conscious."
Corogir shifted his weight uncertainly, and gazed pleadingly at his dear friend's daughter. "We will not harm you, little one. We only wish to help you, I promise. It is in your best wishes to return home. Please, heed us."
Laicaliel almost felt sorry for the honorable Elf, and sorely wished that Legolas would somehow find her so that he could prove her story true. She knew that whatever she would say to the three males would not be believed, so it was no use trying to convince them of anything without solid proof. "I am sorry. It does not matter what you say to me, I will not go with you."
Corogir stared at her mournfully for several seconds, thinking that she must have gone insane since she left Mirkwood, and resignedly plunked down on the cliff edge next to Luiduin. Indeed, they would be sitting there for nearly a week watching the poor girl pout upon the stone pillar.
***
It was three days since Laicaliel had disappeared and, as she had predicted, Legolas was driving himself mad searching for her. He had turned the entire valley of Rivendell upside down in his anxiety, and was starting to annoy some of its inhabitants. They all had their separate opinions, and each Elf was more eager than the last to share theirs with the Prince.
"Maybe she left you. Is that so hard to believe?" "Perhaps she simply went out for a stroll." "I think I saw her at supper last night." "Last night? Last night I think I saw her sitting near the fountain." "No, she left three days ago." "Legolas, you need to leave her alone. She probably just got sick of you hounding her." "This Laicaliel was a shifty character anyway. She is best forgotten." "Who is Laicaliel?"
Soon he grew weary of waiting for her to appear in the Valley, so on the morning of the fifth day he set out to look for her in the forest. He packed lembas, plenty of fresh water, his cloak, a blanket, and of course: a length of rope. If there was anything that he learned from Samwise the hobbit during their travels together, it was to always carry plenty of rope. "You never know when you might need it, even ask my old Gaffer," Sam used to say. He missed Sam. He missed everybody. They were his first non- Elven friends, and they shared so many exciting memories together...but it had been many years since the breaking of the Fellowship and the destruction of the One Ring, and all his companions were dead. It was times like these that Legolas scorned his immortality; it was so painful to watch beautiful things fade and disappear.
Of course, not all of the members of the Fellowship died around the same time. It took Aragorn many, many years to finally cease existing, as did it take the hobbits. Gimli the Dwarf was the last survivor (aside from Legolas), but his was the only death that was unnatural. Legolas quickly shook the first inklings of Gimli out of his troubled mind and focused on the expedition for his lady. He hated to think about Gimli's death, because it was during their travels together whence it occurred. They were deep in the Fangorn forest when Gimli decided he was hungry for meat, and he asked Legolas to snipe a creature with one of his arrows. Of course Legolas did not eat meat, and loathed killing innocent creatures for it, but he would do anything that his friend asked of him and so obliged.
He was skillfully balanced on the very tip of a high tree branch, and with his keen Elven eyesight spotted a fat squirrel chattering about the underbrush about 50 yards away. He poised his arrow, slowly drew back his arm, but just as he released the arrow Gimli spotted the same squirrel and attempted to pounce upon it. Legolas cried out in warning, but the arrow flew swiftly and hit its mark well. He vividly remembered Gimli moaning in pain and rolling on to his back, and he remembered himself rushing to his friend's aid. Gimli whispered one word, and then seemed to fall asleep. Then he was very cold, and all Legolas could hear was the sound of his own rapidly beating heart as he watched the color drain from the dwarf's hairy face. The last thing he remembered was seeing a Mirkwood arrow sticking out of a red stain in Gimli's shirt.
"Legolas!" The voice snapped him out of his private thoughts, and Legolas looked around curiously for the source of the voice. He was standing next to a dark, glassy pool of water that was veiled with foliage and a thin stream that was circumnavigated by three slick stones.
"Le-go-las! You have got to be around somewhere!" For some reason he was having trouble connecting that voice to a face. Was it Creladriel? No, her voice is much deeper than the one he just heard. The voice actually sounded a bit like his mother's, distinctly feminine yet very commanding.
"If you are not searching for me by now, then you are a terrible boyfriend!" Laicaliel! That was something that only she would dare to insinuate to royalty. Of course he didn't take offense to it; on the contrary, he thought her courage was rather endearing. He quickly set off to the direction that he heard her voice come from.