Chapter 5
Thranduil rode up to the castle. Two guards stood tall and quietly at the gates. The courtyard gardens had been left untended to and the flowerbeds had begun to grow weeds. The grass wilted and the leaves on the trees fell from their holds as though fall had come early. Thranduil was taken aback by the sorrowful look of the place. He knew something hadn't executed right when he had left. He knew something was terribly, dreadfully wrong.
He stepped into the entrance hall. Neenuvar stood before him; tears welled up in her eyes. Her face had gone pale from long hours of weeping and her hands had wrinkled from catching tears. He felt her anguish strike his hear the moment her bright blue irises met his.
'What has happened?' he asked quietly as he approached. The only sound he could hear was his own footsteps against the marble floor and Neenuvar's minute breaths. His mouth went dry as an unexplained horror filled his heart. Neenuvar slowly opened her mouth to deliver the message.
'He is dead.' her voice was high and cracked. Thranduil stopped and stared at her. She looked away as tears began to cascade down her cheeks.
'Who?' he asked. He already knew the answer, although it was too heartbreaking, too sorrowful, too impossible.
'Legolas!' she cried, throwing herself onto the king. Thranduil stood there, motionless. He was hit by so many emotions at once that he thought he would keel over. Anger, fear, hatred, loss, and pain. The pain overcame him and he yelled out from it. Neenuvar pulled away, sobbing into her hands. Thranduil collapsed on his knees and wept over her feet. Behind her hands, Neenuvar smiled.
Thranduil locked himself up in Legolas's old room. He didn't eat or sleep. They brought food to him, but it only ended up cold and stale. He would either stand on the balcony and stare at the courtyard, or sit by the old fountain and stare at the figures. His face grew colorless and his body began to waste away. He remained there for weeks, not talking, eating and hardly moving. Neenuvar would watch him some of the time. There were moments when she would feel like a normal elf. She wasn't impassably beautiful or dangerously powerful. Thranduil would not gaze at her or even take notice that he was there. She would speak to him, but he would not speak back. She didn't know how to react to this feeling and was at a loss for words to describe how the neglect felt.
One morning, the time came. Neenuvar had told all the personnel in the castle not to come there that day. She slowly opened the door to Legolas's chamber to see the Thranduil sitting, staring at the fountain. She leaned against the wall, watching him.
'He's gone.' she said for the umpteenth time. Thranduil replied with nothing but still eyes. It was the first time he had looked at her in days. She felt relieved by it as though her confidence was renewed. She took several steps forward towards him and kneeled down beside him. 'These were his.' she held out her hand to reveal several locks of Legolas's golden hair. Thranduil stared down at them. He wasn't sure whether he felt happy, or whether he'd want to sob forever. He touched them gingerly as though he was afraid he'd break them.
'I loved him.' he whispered. 'I really did.' he turned away, leaving the hairs in her palm. Neenuvar smiled.
'I know you did.' she replied. 'It's too bad he didn't.' Thranduil ignored her once more, staring out towards the balcony. Neenuvar strode over to the cabinet where the bows and arrows were kept, still untouched by the king. She opened the cabinet with gentle fingers and pulled a single arrow from the quiver. She twisted the point against the tip of her index and looked over her shoulder towards Legolas.
'Their could be a happy ending in all this.' Thranduil turned and stared at her.
'How?' he asked. 'How could I be happy when I've lost everything?' he lower lip trembled and his voice grew broken. 'I have no family: my heart is shattered: I have nothing left to live for. Nothing will bring him back to me.' Neenuvar sighed and faced him.
'Something will.' she said quietly. Thranduil stared at her, eyes wider then ever.
'What?' he asked loudly. 'Tell me! What will bring my son back and rid me of this pain that tortures me day by day!' Neenuvar smiled. Thranduil's eyes bulged as a tingle flowed through him, leaving behind a trail of unending burn. He collapsed onto the ground, immobilized in a frenzy of hurting. Neenuvar knelt down beside him, staring at him in the eye. She set aside the arrow for a moment and lifted out Legolas's hairs once more. She pointed her index finger up at it. A burst of flame singed the hairs and the smoked until both ends of each had disappeared. Thranduil gasped.
'You killed him...' he grunted through the pain. It suddenly ceased as Neenuvar lifted the arrow once again. She held it to his chest with both hands.
'When I enter this room to check on you this evening, you will have committed suicide; your son's arrow will be thrust through your heart and you will cease to exist.' Throughout his anguish and sorrow, Thranduil smiled.
'And I will see my son again.' his eyes suddenly grew far away. Neenuvar felt all caught up in the moment that would make her life a rousing success.
'You see?' she asked. 'Some stories have happy endings. She tightened her grip on the arrow and began to thrust it through Thranduil's skin.
'STOP!' Neenuvar felt a harsh pain in her side. She catapulted away, rolling towards the balcony. She moaned and turned over, shocked at what she saw.
The two guards stood at the door, swords drawn and held at ready. Their faces overrun with anger and hatred aimed towards her. Before them... stood Legolas.
The prince looked hardly well. There was an bloody gap in his stomach and his skin was pale and his expression weak. However, his eyes glowed with a light she had never seen ever before in any being. They seemed so full of rage that they were blinded. The prince approached, limping slightly. His mouth was a frown desperate for the cry of successful revenge. Thranduil gazed at him. All the pain seemed to have left his body. He felt nothing except the instinct to watch his son as he stopped in front of Neenuvar. He brought the blade to her throat.
'Do you have any idea how much I hate you?' he croaked. Neenuvar laughed.
'A little bit, yes.' Legolas slowly drew the blade across her throat. Blood began to flow down the front of her dress from the three inch slit. She continued to smile. 'I was successful for a while you know.' she said. 'I cause you grief like no other. I made you think that life was not a gift.' Legolas pierced her chest. She gasped, but her smile didn't fade. Blood began to fall from her lips. She stared up at him. 'I made you hurt. You felt empty. Nothing will change the agony you went through.' Legolas smiled back.
'You are Amarth,' he responded. 'You have nearly destroyed us.' he looked towards Thranduil. 'It's a good thing. We know now that nothing can hurt us more then what we have been through.' Neenuvar glared up at him. 'What nearly broke us can only make us stronger.' Neenuvar cackled, her voice broken and awful to hear.
'You are so beautiful.' she said. 'I want to see you burn, one last time'
Legolas started to feel that old pain fall upon him heavily. He cried out as he dropped the blade. 'No!' he cried as Neenuvar picked it up and stood quickly. The pain gently subsided, replaced with a throbbing hole in his abdomen that shook every vein in his body. He hugged it tightly but refused to double over.
'I enjoyed every moment of seeing you suffer.' cackled Neenuvar as she touched the tip of the sword to Legolas's throat. The elf stiffened. 'When I came, I knew the throne would be mine someday. It's too bad that I'll be found weeping and injured, running down the steps to tell the palace and the city that you were all brutally murdered.
'Not going to work.' replied Legolas with half a grin. 'I've already told the entire guard I've returned and what you've tried to do to me. I wished to see my father before any of my wounds were treated.' Legolas let his eyes flicker to his wounded father on the floor. He gasped to see the arrow still protruding out of his torso. He made as if he was going to kneel down beside him but the agonizing burn returned and he stopped.
'I'll just say that there was an intruder and finished you both off. They'll believe me.' Legolas shut his eyes and began to pant as the burn entered his mind. He found no breath to scream as he collapsed to the floor. His head burned like parchment over fire. 'They'll find arrows in all your bodies!' The guards tried to approach but were thrown back into the door by some unseen power of Neenuvar's. 'You'll all be dead!' Legolas felt madness in his chamber. It bounced off the walls and pelted the bodies of him, his father, and the two guards. It shook their bones and singed their minds.
'You almost killed me once!' cried Legolas through the burning in his skull. 'You won't to it again!' Rolling over he gripped the fletching of the arrow still in his father and ripped it out. The king muffled a yelp of pain as the blood began to flow. Legolas reached up and jabbed the tip of the arrow in Neenuvar's direction. The stepped back and the arrow didn't reach its target.
'Legolas!' something hard tapped against Legolas's back. He reached behind him and nocked the arrow to the string of the bow. He pulled back and cried:
'Amarth!'
The arrow struck her and Neenuvar faded into wisps of smoke. The arrow fell to the ground in a pile of ashes. Legolas sighed and went limp on the ground.
*
The prince and the king were separated to be treated for their wounds. Legolas's were much more severe and his survival was questionable.
'He may not make it through the night.' the healer told Thranduil when he was fit to walk again. Thranduil spent the night in his chamber, but did not sleep. He stepped out onto his balcony and stared out at the trees all night long.
Hours later, a messenger entered the room.
'Legolas will live!' he cried. Thranduil wept as he hurried up to Legolas's chamber where he was resting. The healers had left him alone and he was conscious. His face had regained much of its color and strength it held before he was nearly killed. There was also something there that he hadn't seen since Neenuvar had arrived.
'I thought you were dead.' Thranduil voiced in awe. He touched Legolas's hair. He touched his skin. He felt his blood: all real, and there with him.
'I'm here.' he said, taking his father's hands from his face. Legolas felt tired and weak, but stronger compared to how he felt before. His heart had lightened as though a great weight had disappeared from it. 'We're here.' Thranduil nodded.
'We will always be here.' Legolas smiled. He had been set down on his own bed and treated for his wounds. He rested and ate a small bit, as well did the king. 'I wonder, though, how in Middle-Earth could you have escaped?' Legolas looked beyond the balcony.
'When I was being ignored before, I spent my time in the woods. I grew to know the trees like they were people. I listened to their stories and their feelings. We are friends now, I and the forest. The branches of the willows and oaks pulled me from the waters and offered me strength to give revenge to myself. I rested there with them for some time before I finally pulled myself up from between the roots.' he sighed. Thranduil nodded.
'You're mother had such touches with nature.' he said. Legolas's grin widened. 'She also shared your beauty.' Legolas gently rested his hand on his stomach.
'She was with me in the water.' he said. 'She told me to hold on and she helped pull me out. I could feel her with me. ' Thranduil smiled and looked out the balcony. The sun was rising over the railing, giving the room a beautiful glow. 'Shall we call her memory Amarth?' he asked quietly. Thranduil sighed.
'Let us try and forget her memory, Legolas.' he said. 'With luck, we shall forget her face forever.' Legolas stared out at the sunrise.
'I meant what I said when I stated what doesn't kill us makes us stronger. It happens in more ways then one.' The king looked out at the son as well. 'I will call her Amarth.' Thranduil nodded.
'As will I.'
After all, she did almost bring Amarth to the kingdom of Mirkwood.
.
.
Well... did u get enough cliffies? hee hee. I just wrote this because I had nothing better to do. Hope u liked it!
Thranduil rode up to the castle. Two guards stood tall and quietly at the gates. The courtyard gardens had been left untended to and the flowerbeds had begun to grow weeds. The grass wilted and the leaves on the trees fell from their holds as though fall had come early. Thranduil was taken aback by the sorrowful look of the place. He knew something hadn't executed right when he had left. He knew something was terribly, dreadfully wrong.
He stepped into the entrance hall. Neenuvar stood before him; tears welled up in her eyes. Her face had gone pale from long hours of weeping and her hands had wrinkled from catching tears. He felt her anguish strike his hear the moment her bright blue irises met his.
'What has happened?' he asked quietly as he approached. The only sound he could hear was his own footsteps against the marble floor and Neenuvar's minute breaths. His mouth went dry as an unexplained horror filled his heart. Neenuvar slowly opened her mouth to deliver the message.
'He is dead.' her voice was high and cracked. Thranduil stopped and stared at her. She looked away as tears began to cascade down her cheeks.
'Who?' he asked. He already knew the answer, although it was too heartbreaking, too sorrowful, too impossible.
'Legolas!' she cried, throwing herself onto the king. Thranduil stood there, motionless. He was hit by so many emotions at once that he thought he would keel over. Anger, fear, hatred, loss, and pain. The pain overcame him and he yelled out from it. Neenuvar pulled away, sobbing into her hands. Thranduil collapsed on his knees and wept over her feet. Behind her hands, Neenuvar smiled.
Thranduil locked himself up in Legolas's old room. He didn't eat or sleep. They brought food to him, but it only ended up cold and stale. He would either stand on the balcony and stare at the courtyard, or sit by the old fountain and stare at the figures. His face grew colorless and his body began to waste away. He remained there for weeks, not talking, eating and hardly moving. Neenuvar would watch him some of the time. There were moments when she would feel like a normal elf. She wasn't impassably beautiful or dangerously powerful. Thranduil would not gaze at her or even take notice that he was there. She would speak to him, but he would not speak back. She didn't know how to react to this feeling and was at a loss for words to describe how the neglect felt.
One morning, the time came. Neenuvar had told all the personnel in the castle not to come there that day. She slowly opened the door to Legolas's chamber to see the Thranduil sitting, staring at the fountain. She leaned against the wall, watching him.
'He's gone.' she said for the umpteenth time. Thranduil replied with nothing but still eyes. It was the first time he had looked at her in days. She felt relieved by it as though her confidence was renewed. She took several steps forward towards him and kneeled down beside him. 'These were his.' she held out her hand to reveal several locks of Legolas's golden hair. Thranduil stared down at them. He wasn't sure whether he felt happy, or whether he'd want to sob forever. He touched them gingerly as though he was afraid he'd break them.
'I loved him.' he whispered. 'I really did.' he turned away, leaving the hairs in her palm. Neenuvar smiled.
'I know you did.' she replied. 'It's too bad he didn't.' Thranduil ignored her once more, staring out towards the balcony. Neenuvar strode over to the cabinet where the bows and arrows were kept, still untouched by the king. She opened the cabinet with gentle fingers and pulled a single arrow from the quiver. She twisted the point against the tip of her index and looked over her shoulder towards Legolas.
'Their could be a happy ending in all this.' Thranduil turned and stared at her.
'How?' he asked. 'How could I be happy when I've lost everything?' he lower lip trembled and his voice grew broken. 'I have no family: my heart is shattered: I have nothing left to live for. Nothing will bring him back to me.' Neenuvar sighed and faced him.
'Something will.' she said quietly. Thranduil stared at her, eyes wider then ever.
'What?' he asked loudly. 'Tell me! What will bring my son back and rid me of this pain that tortures me day by day!' Neenuvar smiled. Thranduil's eyes bulged as a tingle flowed through him, leaving behind a trail of unending burn. He collapsed onto the ground, immobilized in a frenzy of hurting. Neenuvar knelt down beside him, staring at him in the eye. She set aside the arrow for a moment and lifted out Legolas's hairs once more. She pointed her index finger up at it. A burst of flame singed the hairs and the smoked until both ends of each had disappeared. Thranduil gasped.
'You killed him...' he grunted through the pain. It suddenly ceased as Neenuvar lifted the arrow once again. She held it to his chest with both hands.
'When I enter this room to check on you this evening, you will have committed suicide; your son's arrow will be thrust through your heart and you will cease to exist.' Throughout his anguish and sorrow, Thranduil smiled.
'And I will see my son again.' his eyes suddenly grew far away. Neenuvar felt all caught up in the moment that would make her life a rousing success.
'You see?' she asked. 'Some stories have happy endings. She tightened her grip on the arrow and began to thrust it through Thranduil's skin.
'STOP!' Neenuvar felt a harsh pain in her side. She catapulted away, rolling towards the balcony. She moaned and turned over, shocked at what she saw.
The two guards stood at the door, swords drawn and held at ready. Their faces overrun with anger and hatred aimed towards her. Before them... stood Legolas.
The prince looked hardly well. There was an bloody gap in his stomach and his skin was pale and his expression weak. However, his eyes glowed with a light she had never seen ever before in any being. They seemed so full of rage that they were blinded. The prince approached, limping slightly. His mouth was a frown desperate for the cry of successful revenge. Thranduil gazed at him. All the pain seemed to have left his body. He felt nothing except the instinct to watch his son as he stopped in front of Neenuvar. He brought the blade to her throat.
'Do you have any idea how much I hate you?' he croaked. Neenuvar laughed.
'A little bit, yes.' Legolas slowly drew the blade across her throat. Blood began to flow down the front of her dress from the three inch slit. She continued to smile. 'I was successful for a while you know.' she said. 'I cause you grief like no other. I made you think that life was not a gift.' Legolas pierced her chest. She gasped, but her smile didn't fade. Blood began to fall from her lips. She stared up at him. 'I made you hurt. You felt empty. Nothing will change the agony you went through.' Legolas smiled back.
'You are Amarth,' he responded. 'You have nearly destroyed us.' he looked towards Thranduil. 'It's a good thing. We know now that nothing can hurt us more then what we have been through.' Neenuvar glared up at him. 'What nearly broke us can only make us stronger.' Neenuvar cackled, her voice broken and awful to hear.
'You are so beautiful.' she said. 'I want to see you burn, one last time'
Legolas started to feel that old pain fall upon him heavily. He cried out as he dropped the blade. 'No!' he cried as Neenuvar picked it up and stood quickly. The pain gently subsided, replaced with a throbbing hole in his abdomen that shook every vein in his body. He hugged it tightly but refused to double over.
'I enjoyed every moment of seeing you suffer.' cackled Neenuvar as she touched the tip of the sword to Legolas's throat. The elf stiffened. 'When I came, I knew the throne would be mine someday. It's too bad that I'll be found weeping and injured, running down the steps to tell the palace and the city that you were all brutally murdered.
'Not going to work.' replied Legolas with half a grin. 'I've already told the entire guard I've returned and what you've tried to do to me. I wished to see my father before any of my wounds were treated.' Legolas let his eyes flicker to his wounded father on the floor. He gasped to see the arrow still protruding out of his torso. He made as if he was going to kneel down beside him but the agonizing burn returned and he stopped.
'I'll just say that there was an intruder and finished you both off. They'll believe me.' Legolas shut his eyes and began to pant as the burn entered his mind. He found no breath to scream as he collapsed to the floor. His head burned like parchment over fire. 'They'll find arrows in all your bodies!' The guards tried to approach but were thrown back into the door by some unseen power of Neenuvar's. 'You'll all be dead!' Legolas felt madness in his chamber. It bounced off the walls and pelted the bodies of him, his father, and the two guards. It shook their bones and singed their minds.
'You almost killed me once!' cried Legolas through the burning in his skull. 'You won't to it again!' Rolling over he gripped the fletching of the arrow still in his father and ripped it out. The king muffled a yelp of pain as the blood began to flow. Legolas reached up and jabbed the tip of the arrow in Neenuvar's direction. The stepped back and the arrow didn't reach its target.
'Legolas!' something hard tapped against Legolas's back. He reached behind him and nocked the arrow to the string of the bow. He pulled back and cried:
'Amarth!'
The arrow struck her and Neenuvar faded into wisps of smoke. The arrow fell to the ground in a pile of ashes. Legolas sighed and went limp on the ground.
*
The prince and the king were separated to be treated for their wounds. Legolas's were much more severe and his survival was questionable.
'He may not make it through the night.' the healer told Thranduil when he was fit to walk again. Thranduil spent the night in his chamber, but did not sleep. He stepped out onto his balcony and stared out at the trees all night long.
Hours later, a messenger entered the room.
'Legolas will live!' he cried. Thranduil wept as he hurried up to Legolas's chamber where he was resting. The healers had left him alone and he was conscious. His face had regained much of its color and strength it held before he was nearly killed. There was also something there that he hadn't seen since Neenuvar had arrived.
'I thought you were dead.' Thranduil voiced in awe. He touched Legolas's hair. He touched his skin. He felt his blood: all real, and there with him.
'I'm here.' he said, taking his father's hands from his face. Legolas felt tired and weak, but stronger compared to how he felt before. His heart had lightened as though a great weight had disappeared from it. 'We're here.' Thranduil nodded.
'We will always be here.' Legolas smiled. He had been set down on his own bed and treated for his wounds. He rested and ate a small bit, as well did the king. 'I wonder, though, how in Middle-Earth could you have escaped?' Legolas looked beyond the balcony.
'When I was being ignored before, I spent my time in the woods. I grew to know the trees like they were people. I listened to their stories and their feelings. We are friends now, I and the forest. The branches of the willows and oaks pulled me from the waters and offered me strength to give revenge to myself. I rested there with them for some time before I finally pulled myself up from between the roots.' he sighed. Thranduil nodded.
'You're mother had such touches with nature.' he said. Legolas's grin widened. 'She also shared your beauty.' Legolas gently rested his hand on his stomach.
'She was with me in the water.' he said. 'She told me to hold on and she helped pull me out. I could feel her with me. ' Thranduil smiled and looked out the balcony. The sun was rising over the railing, giving the room a beautiful glow. 'Shall we call her memory Amarth?' he asked quietly. Thranduil sighed.
'Let us try and forget her memory, Legolas.' he said. 'With luck, we shall forget her face forever.' Legolas stared out at the sunrise.
'I meant what I said when I stated what doesn't kill us makes us stronger. It happens in more ways then one.' The king looked out at the son as well. 'I will call her Amarth.' Thranduil nodded.
'As will I.'
After all, she did almost bring Amarth to the kingdom of Mirkwood.
.
.
Well... did u get enough cliffies? hee hee. I just wrote this because I had nothing better to do. Hope u liked it!