EHAB here. I'm sorry that this took so long. I have no excuse. Well, no
more dilly-dallying around; here is the chapter that you have probably been
anticipating for the last ten to fifteen chapters, "The Battlefield of
Mordor."
"Andrea, get on the horse! Now!" Sivi commanded desperately.
Andrea made a wild scramble up onto her horse's back, clinging tenaciously to its mane.
"Now what?" she hollered at Sivi.
Sivi was not listening. Her eyes were riveted to the base of the Mountain of Doom. The hissing, screeching hordes of orcs began of a sudden to part. Out of the corner of her eye, Andrea saw Elrond look up from the carcass of the goblin he had felled and freeze. Gil-galad sat proud and tall on his white mount, impassive and immovable, quiet and strong. Sivi felt that if she could reach through all the leagues of time and space, still she could not touch him. yet he was as he had always been.
The ground shook once, twice, and NOT with the deadly vomit of the Fire Mountain. A gargantuan shadow loomed forward between the separated masses of monsters, having come from the Sammath Naur. Andrea looked questioningly at Sivi and saw in the quiet girl's eyes a passionate hatred, a fiery fury, a loathing too powerful for human words.
"The Enemy is come," said Sivi, her voice nearly as dark as the shadow. Andrea was frightened. of the enemy, certainly, but almost as frightened was she of Sivi.
"Now what?" she called again, tremulously.
"Andrea," said Sivi in a low voice, reigning her mount in closer to her friend's, "when I say 'now,' I want you to take your spear and bury it - BURY it, do you hear me? - in the flank of Gil-galad's horse. Not until I say."
"But the pretty horsie!" protested Andrea.
"What will you save, the horse or the rider?" Sivi snapped. "The wounds of a horse can be mended."
"Okay," agreed Andrea pitifully.
"Then, when you see me lead the thing away, follow me. No matter where I go, you MUST follow me, or you WILL DIE."
"Okay, but what 'thing' are you leading away?"
"Gil-galad's horse."
"With Gil-galad still on it, right?"
"YES! Got it?"
"Okay."
Sivi turned her horse around and went back to her place by Gil-galad's right hand. The Shadow lumbered closer. As it did so, it became clearly visible to the soldiers of The Last Alliance.
"Hey! That's the baka ring dude!" Andrea shouted in surprise. Several elves, including Gil-galad, shot her looks of confused disdain. Sivi pulled her horse back to be beside Andrea's again
"Well, who did you think 'The Enemy' was?" she asked incredulously.
"I didn't know. You talked about him like he was someone scary."
Sivi gave her friend a withering look and rode up beside Gil-galad. The "baka ring dude" approached slowly, raising higher with each step the terrible Black Mace.
Legolas and Thranduil stood together on the front lines to Gil-galad's left. Thranduil had discovered during their days of marching that there was something different about his young companion, a sobriety that did not manifest itself in most adolescent Sindarin. Though Thranduil was sure that he must be at least slightly older than Legolas, he felt himself in the presence of one ten times more regal and tragically beautiful. Legolas seemed to have seen too much.
Side by side they faced the Enemy of all Freedom, Love, Respect, Order, and Right. Thranduil was proud to stand beside such an obviously high-born and courageous elf. Legolas murmured something, but Thranduil did not hear.
"What, Legolas?" he asked humbly.
"I hate it," Legolas uttered forth in a guttural snarl. He seemed to forget to whom he spoke. "Because of IT, Boromir is dead. Because of IT, Frodo suffered. Because of IT, Denethor burned and Théoden fell. I hate it."
"Legolas," said Thranduil almost shyly, "this may be the last time I ever see you."
He could not understand the look of tortured irony Legolas then gave him.
"Go. on," Legolas said slowly.
"I want you to know that you are the noblest elf I've ever known. If I survive this to have a son, I will name him after you."
He broke off, thinking he might have offended his companion. Legolas' expression was disturbed, to say the least.
"May it please you," Thranduil added.
"It pleases me greatly, " Legolas whispered.
The Enemy advanced with deadly malice. Thranduil shivered at the cold, mechanical determination. He put his mouth by Legolas' ear.
"Who out of all of us will stand to face him?" he murmured.
Several things happened at once, or very nearly at once, in this moment. First, something in Legolas was released that he himself had never known. Hatred pouring from his eyes in a mixture of light and tears, he replied to Thranduil his father,
"I WILL."
**Sivi shouted to Andrea, "NOW!"
**A bay horse thundered through the ranks of Elven soldiers carrying Sarah and Christina. Christina's hand was clenched in the air above her head, yet something within her palm glowed so red-like light shining through wine or blood - that her fist appeared translucent as frosted glass.
In Sarah's hands was a rusty chainsaw. On Sarah's face was a giant grin.
**Andrea swallowed so hard, she nearly choked. She took her spear and, with tightly shut eyes, thrust it into the flank of Gil-galad's white horse.
**The horse reared.
**Gil-galad kept his seat, as Sivi had known he would.
**Sivi clutched the horse's silver bridle and began forcing the beast after her into the western shadows of Orodruin.
**Legolas ripped his blade from his sheath and his helmet from his brow, then rushed the Enemy. Thranduil stood with his jaw askew.
**Andrea looked back at the carnage as Legolas cast his helmet aside. She screamed.
**The Black Mace began its downward swing.
**The Elven sword went up to meet it.
**Sarah and Christina reached the Enemy's feet. Sarah revved the chainsaw.
**Andrea turned and rode back, despite Sivi's protests.
**The Mace connected with Legolas' breastplate. In the same instant, Legolas' sword pierced the Black Armour.
**For Sivi, time froze. She drew the Elven Ring out and hurriedly took it off of its chain, trying to remember all that Galadriel had had time to teach her during their brief meeting. If she put the ring on while the Enemy still possessed his Ring of Power, she would be overwhelmed and destroyed by the strength of the One. If she put it on too late, she and her friends would be burned to death at the Enemy's fall. Pressure, anyone?
**Sarah half-swung, half-hurled the chainsaw.
**Andrea and Thranduil reached Legolas' fallen body together.
**The One and its master were severed.
**Sivi slipped Vilya onto her long finger and bent all her strength and will to wielding it.
**Christina took what now flamed and flared like a red star from her fist and put it on her finger.
**The Enemy fell with a heat like the fires of a thousand dragons' ire.
**Sivi stretched forth her hand and concentrated on everything cold that she had ever known or seen. Dr. McCross' stethoscope somehow came to mind. The effort nearly broke her. She had not the skill to use the ring to save the entire Elven army, but she had to rescue Andrea. With a ferocity and a tenacity reminiscent of a maelstrom of the Shadowy Seas, Sivi spent nearly everything of herself to save her friends... and a frost spread across the battlefield.
**The Enemy fell and was robbed even of the last small victory of taking another with him. He was defeated.
Gil-galad turned without a word and rode up to where Andrea and Thranduil knelt beside Legolas. He dismounted and dropped to his knees, pulling off Legolas' breastplate. Andrea was sobbing.
"He'll be alright, won't he?" Thranduil asked urgently. "After all, he was wearing..." Thranduil stopped as he saw Legolas' chest come into view from beneath the crumpled piece of armour. "... mithril..." he finished in a voice no more than a breath.
Gil-galad lifted the limp body and removed the prince's mithril mail, holding it at arm's length. The Elven mail that was harder than diamonds was reduced to red-stained rags. I will not describe Legolas' chest. Suffice it to say that Andrea turned and began to vomit in the opposite direction.
Numbly, Gil-galad wrapped Legolas' body with the High King's own cloak, tightly to prevent the younger elf's bleeding to death. He then allowed Thranduil to put Legolas on Andrea's horse and take him back to their encampment. Andrea followed doggedly on foot, leaving Gil-galad and Sivi alone at the center of the battlefield - alone, thought thousands of Elves wandered around them, gazing forlornly at the dead.
"Well," Gil-galad murmured, smiling wryly at her as his golden hair flickered half-heartedly in a breeze's considerate funeral dirge, "here I am though here I should not be, had Melui's prophecies come to pass."
"Your Melui could not accept the weight of her own words, and so she has done her best to change them," Sivi replied softly. Her eyes were the colour of a tattered storm-cloud, with crystalline rain-drops that she refused to allow to fall forming obstinately in their corners.
His expression, at this point, was rather fun, and would have been even more so if not for the day's previous events.
"You saved my life," Gil-galad managed. "I know that you did. Melui," he hesitated, "I love you."
"Yeah?" said Sivi with a proud insolence. "Well, guess what?"
"What?" he murmured, bracing himself for pain. Perhaps she would be easy with him on today of all days.
"I love you, too," she smiled radiantly.
Gil-galad's long ears actually pricked up, and Sivi giggled. She hadn't known elves' ears could do that.
"I do," she whispered.
"Melui," Gil-galad said in a tone of voice that sounded like it physically hurt to achieve.
He embraced her, rejoicing when she did not pull away. She leaned her forehead on his neck, closed her eyes, and was simply elated because he was HOLDING her... she didn't need to kissed; she didn't need him to say a word; she only needed him to hold her, and the feelings of safety and worth that normally fled so far from her were hers to keep forever. Nobody in her life had ever before been willing to simply HOLD her - well, except for Jesus, but she placed that experience in a totally different category.
Then she began to laugh again.
"D'you know, this would be a lot more romantic if we weren't both wearing armour."
Gil-galad laughed as well, releasing in a laugh all the pain that he had known for so long, all the burden of being the king of a Free People. Then Sivi became somber once more, and she was a Keeper, and he was a king, as should have been.
"I'm tired. So tired. And I feel guilty," she said softly. "Will Legolas be alright?"
"I do not know," he replied evasively, but the intensity of those rain- shower eyes told him he could not hide such things from his Ever-love. He sighed and added honestly, "It is not likely, Melui. It is not likely."
For the record, baka means stupid/idiot. It's Japanese.
"Andrea, get on the horse! Now!" Sivi commanded desperately.
Andrea made a wild scramble up onto her horse's back, clinging tenaciously to its mane.
"Now what?" she hollered at Sivi.
Sivi was not listening. Her eyes were riveted to the base of the Mountain of Doom. The hissing, screeching hordes of orcs began of a sudden to part. Out of the corner of her eye, Andrea saw Elrond look up from the carcass of the goblin he had felled and freeze. Gil-galad sat proud and tall on his white mount, impassive and immovable, quiet and strong. Sivi felt that if she could reach through all the leagues of time and space, still she could not touch him. yet he was as he had always been.
The ground shook once, twice, and NOT with the deadly vomit of the Fire Mountain. A gargantuan shadow loomed forward between the separated masses of monsters, having come from the Sammath Naur. Andrea looked questioningly at Sivi and saw in the quiet girl's eyes a passionate hatred, a fiery fury, a loathing too powerful for human words.
"The Enemy is come," said Sivi, her voice nearly as dark as the shadow. Andrea was frightened. of the enemy, certainly, but almost as frightened was she of Sivi.
"Now what?" she called again, tremulously.
"Andrea," said Sivi in a low voice, reigning her mount in closer to her friend's, "when I say 'now,' I want you to take your spear and bury it - BURY it, do you hear me? - in the flank of Gil-galad's horse. Not until I say."
"But the pretty horsie!" protested Andrea.
"What will you save, the horse or the rider?" Sivi snapped. "The wounds of a horse can be mended."
"Okay," agreed Andrea pitifully.
"Then, when you see me lead the thing away, follow me. No matter where I go, you MUST follow me, or you WILL DIE."
"Okay, but what 'thing' are you leading away?"
"Gil-galad's horse."
"With Gil-galad still on it, right?"
"YES! Got it?"
"Okay."
Sivi turned her horse around and went back to her place by Gil-galad's right hand. The Shadow lumbered closer. As it did so, it became clearly visible to the soldiers of The Last Alliance.
"Hey! That's the baka ring dude!" Andrea shouted in surprise. Several elves, including Gil-galad, shot her looks of confused disdain. Sivi pulled her horse back to be beside Andrea's again
"Well, who did you think 'The Enemy' was?" she asked incredulously.
"I didn't know. You talked about him like he was someone scary."
Sivi gave her friend a withering look and rode up beside Gil-galad. The "baka ring dude" approached slowly, raising higher with each step the terrible Black Mace.
Legolas and Thranduil stood together on the front lines to Gil-galad's left. Thranduil had discovered during their days of marching that there was something different about his young companion, a sobriety that did not manifest itself in most adolescent Sindarin. Though Thranduil was sure that he must be at least slightly older than Legolas, he felt himself in the presence of one ten times more regal and tragically beautiful. Legolas seemed to have seen too much.
Side by side they faced the Enemy of all Freedom, Love, Respect, Order, and Right. Thranduil was proud to stand beside such an obviously high-born and courageous elf. Legolas murmured something, but Thranduil did not hear.
"What, Legolas?" he asked humbly.
"I hate it," Legolas uttered forth in a guttural snarl. He seemed to forget to whom he spoke. "Because of IT, Boromir is dead. Because of IT, Frodo suffered. Because of IT, Denethor burned and Théoden fell. I hate it."
"Legolas," said Thranduil almost shyly, "this may be the last time I ever see you."
He could not understand the look of tortured irony Legolas then gave him.
"Go. on," Legolas said slowly.
"I want you to know that you are the noblest elf I've ever known. If I survive this to have a son, I will name him after you."
He broke off, thinking he might have offended his companion. Legolas' expression was disturbed, to say the least.
"May it please you," Thranduil added.
"It pleases me greatly, " Legolas whispered.
The Enemy advanced with deadly malice. Thranduil shivered at the cold, mechanical determination. He put his mouth by Legolas' ear.
"Who out of all of us will stand to face him?" he murmured.
Several things happened at once, or very nearly at once, in this moment. First, something in Legolas was released that he himself had never known. Hatred pouring from his eyes in a mixture of light and tears, he replied to Thranduil his father,
"I WILL."
**Sivi shouted to Andrea, "NOW!"
**A bay horse thundered through the ranks of Elven soldiers carrying Sarah and Christina. Christina's hand was clenched in the air above her head, yet something within her palm glowed so red-like light shining through wine or blood - that her fist appeared translucent as frosted glass.
In Sarah's hands was a rusty chainsaw. On Sarah's face was a giant grin.
**Andrea swallowed so hard, she nearly choked. She took her spear and, with tightly shut eyes, thrust it into the flank of Gil-galad's white horse.
**The horse reared.
**Gil-galad kept his seat, as Sivi had known he would.
**Sivi clutched the horse's silver bridle and began forcing the beast after her into the western shadows of Orodruin.
**Legolas ripped his blade from his sheath and his helmet from his brow, then rushed the Enemy. Thranduil stood with his jaw askew.
**Andrea looked back at the carnage as Legolas cast his helmet aside. She screamed.
**The Black Mace began its downward swing.
**The Elven sword went up to meet it.
**Sarah and Christina reached the Enemy's feet. Sarah revved the chainsaw.
**Andrea turned and rode back, despite Sivi's protests.
**The Mace connected with Legolas' breastplate. In the same instant, Legolas' sword pierced the Black Armour.
**For Sivi, time froze. She drew the Elven Ring out and hurriedly took it off of its chain, trying to remember all that Galadriel had had time to teach her during their brief meeting. If she put the ring on while the Enemy still possessed his Ring of Power, she would be overwhelmed and destroyed by the strength of the One. If she put it on too late, she and her friends would be burned to death at the Enemy's fall. Pressure, anyone?
**Sarah half-swung, half-hurled the chainsaw.
**Andrea and Thranduil reached Legolas' fallen body together.
**The One and its master were severed.
**Sivi slipped Vilya onto her long finger and bent all her strength and will to wielding it.
**Christina took what now flamed and flared like a red star from her fist and put it on her finger.
**The Enemy fell with a heat like the fires of a thousand dragons' ire.
**Sivi stretched forth her hand and concentrated on everything cold that she had ever known or seen. Dr. McCross' stethoscope somehow came to mind. The effort nearly broke her. She had not the skill to use the ring to save the entire Elven army, but she had to rescue Andrea. With a ferocity and a tenacity reminiscent of a maelstrom of the Shadowy Seas, Sivi spent nearly everything of herself to save her friends... and a frost spread across the battlefield.
**The Enemy fell and was robbed even of the last small victory of taking another with him. He was defeated.
Gil-galad turned without a word and rode up to where Andrea and Thranduil knelt beside Legolas. He dismounted and dropped to his knees, pulling off Legolas' breastplate. Andrea was sobbing.
"He'll be alright, won't he?" Thranduil asked urgently. "After all, he was wearing..." Thranduil stopped as he saw Legolas' chest come into view from beneath the crumpled piece of armour. "... mithril..." he finished in a voice no more than a breath.
Gil-galad lifted the limp body and removed the prince's mithril mail, holding it at arm's length. The Elven mail that was harder than diamonds was reduced to red-stained rags. I will not describe Legolas' chest. Suffice it to say that Andrea turned and began to vomit in the opposite direction.
Numbly, Gil-galad wrapped Legolas' body with the High King's own cloak, tightly to prevent the younger elf's bleeding to death. He then allowed Thranduil to put Legolas on Andrea's horse and take him back to their encampment. Andrea followed doggedly on foot, leaving Gil-galad and Sivi alone at the center of the battlefield - alone, thought thousands of Elves wandered around them, gazing forlornly at the dead.
"Well," Gil-galad murmured, smiling wryly at her as his golden hair flickered half-heartedly in a breeze's considerate funeral dirge, "here I am though here I should not be, had Melui's prophecies come to pass."
"Your Melui could not accept the weight of her own words, and so she has done her best to change them," Sivi replied softly. Her eyes were the colour of a tattered storm-cloud, with crystalline rain-drops that she refused to allow to fall forming obstinately in their corners.
His expression, at this point, was rather fun, and would have been even more so if not for the day's previous events.
"You saved my life," Gil-galad managed. "I know that you did. Melui," he hesitated, "I love you."
"Yeah?" said Sivi with a proud insolence. "Well, guess what?"
"What?" he murmured, bracing himself for pain. Perhaps she would be easy with him on today of all days.
"I love you, too," she smiled radiantly.
Gil-galad's long ears actually pricked up, and Sivi giggled. She hadn't known elves' ears could do that.
"I do," she whispered.
"Melui," Gil-galad said in a tone of voice that sounded like it physically hurt to achieve.
He embraced her, rejoicing when she did not pull away. She leaned her forehead on his neck, closed her eyes, and was simply elated because he was HOLDING her... she didn't need to kissed; she didn't need him to say a word; she only needed him to hold her, and the feelings of safety and worth that normally fled so far from her were hers to keep forever. Nobody in her life had ever before been willing to simply HOLD her - well, except for Jesus, but she placed that experience in a totally different category.
Then she began to laugh again.
"D'you know, this would be a lot more romantic if we weren't both wearing armour."
Gil-galad laughed as well, releasing in a laugh all the pain that he had known for so long, all the burden of being the king of a Free People. Then Sivi became somber once more, and she was a Keeper, and he was a king, as should have been.
"I'm tired. So tired. And I feel guilty," she said softly. "Will Legolas be alright?"
"I do not know," he replied evasively, but the intensity of those rain- shower eyes told him he could not hide such things from his Ever-love. He sighed and added honestly, "It is not likely, Melui. It is not likely."
For the record, baka means stupid/idiot. It's Japanese.