Disclaimer: None of Tolkien's character is mine :,(… *sad sniffle* Yet, I borrow them with great joy for this new fic ^___^
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THE FELLOWSHIP OF THE ELVES
Chapter Three - Cold as Stone
The sun was now completely up in the sky, even though the sky had still some pinkish colors due to the proximity of the sun with the horizon. No noise could be heard in this cold morning. Only an attentive ear would have been able to hear the song of the snow of which the crystals were melting or forming. This "song" was somehow restful for Aragorn, whose turn was for the watch. It helped him not to feel deaf in this absence of noise, and to keep his attention aware. But also, it would amplify any other sound that would reach them.
He turned again towards the entrance of the cave where they had found shelter for the day. It wasn't really a cave, more a 5 or 6 feet deep pit in the wall of the mountain. But it was better than nothing. They were going to have to travel by night for some time on, in order to avoid the spy-birds sent by Saruman. The day was their enemy, now. But to travel by night in the snowy mountain wasn't really hard, for the light of the moon, reflected on the whiteness of the snow, was giving them almost the same accurate sight than in full day. It was the third day since they had left the plain and had started climbing the mountain of Caradhras.
The thought that the lack of sun could be distressing for one of them brought Aragorn's attention back to Legolas' curled shape, laying directly on the stone floor not very far from Boromir. Aragorn frowned and walked slowly towards Legolas in order to observe him. When they had stopped earlier, the hobbits had collapsed, exhausted. They had barely opened their bag to take a little food. They had nibbled a piece of bread, and had gathered one against the others to sleep with a little heat. Gimli had quickly imitated them in his corner. Boromir had sit in other side without talking, a pensive look on his face, and many minutes had passed before he had laid down on the stone floor, using his shield as makeshifts pillow, and covering himself with his cape to shelter himself from the cold. Gandalf had sit near the entrance, and had smoke a little of his hobbit weed before letting the sleep win over him.
But Aragorn remembered it now. When they had stopped at that place, Legolas had made a quick checking walk to be sure no danger would arrive on them and that the surroundings were safe. Then after a few minutes, he had joined the group, had nodded to Aragorn that everything was fine while the latter was preparing himself for his first watch; then the elf, without another word, had laid down on his left side on the cold and hard stone, and had fallen asleep at once, without even taking the time to cover himself with something against the cold. Without even trying to find a place less exposed to the cold morning breeze.
Aragorn crouched near Legolas and observed him. In his sleep, he looked so much like Boromir, sleeping not very far from him… Not really physically, but rather in their way of sleeping. And that was where the problem was. Aragorn felt the anxiety gaining him and clenched his jaws. For Legolas wasn't actually sleeping with the light elfish sleep, but rather with a deep comatose sleep so alike the mortals'. In normal times, he would have woken up straight, just by having the ranger approaching him. And when he saw Legolas' closed eyes, Aragorn got the confirmation of what he was suspecting for many days now…
Something was wrong with the elf… For elves usually slept with their eyes opened. The only moments you could see and elf sleeping with his eyes closed was if that elf was hurt, sick, or psychologically down. Aragorn knew very well that wounds of illness were things the elves got rid quite easily. But a mental hurt, could be lethal for these creatures. Mental hurts could be of various sources, but Aragorn knew one particularly fatal for the elves: a broken heart. The expression humans had created in their own language, could find its while meaning for the elves. An elf, whose heart was suffering of a love-broken-heart or the grief of a loved one's death, was just waiting for death to come.
Aragorn frowned. He knew Legolas for long, and had never felt the elf had a romance in his mind. Perhaps that the evil had another source…
Now that he had the confirmation that Legolas wasn't right, the ranger wouldn't stay there looking. Even thou he ignored the source of the wrong, he had absolutely to find out how serious it was. He raised his hand and touched the elf's cheek. He was surprised by the coldness of his skin. The elves had a lower body temperature than the humans. But *this* cold? It seemed that in this type of sleep, Legolas wasn't able to regulate his body temperature anymore. Aragorn estimate he could survive his watch turn without his cape. It wouldn't be the first time he'd find himself in the cold. But if Legolas was weakened, it was better to avoid a hypothermia that wouldn't do any good. And also, Aragorn wanted to test an experience…
He removed his cape and put it on the ground between Legolas and Boromir. Then, moving to the other side, he passed his arms under the elf, one under his shoulders and the other under his knees, in order to raise him from the ground and lower him on the makeshifts cover. That's how he noticed a disturbing detail: Legolas had absolutely no reaction to the manipulation he was undergoing. He was completely letting himself go in Aragorn's arms like a duster doll, his head tilted back and his arms falling on the cold stone. Aragorn, raising him from the floor, realized the elf was heavier than usual. He panicked, recognizing the symptoms of someone whose life had left the body, and half-lowered Legolas' body to the floor, the hand that was under his knee moving quickly to his throat to feverishly search a pulse.
For a moment, still holding Legolas against him, Aragorn found no sign of heartbeat. Even his fingers placed under the elf's nose found no trace of breathing. How long had it been since Legolas stopped breathing? How long since his heart stopped beating? Aragorn felt panic overwhelming him and forced himself to take a few deep breaths in order to calm down. He placed again his palm flat on the elf's throat and closed his eyes, trying to erase all trace of panic and focus totally on the sensation his hand could perceive.
He was feeling bad… He should have talked about it earlier. It has been days since he had realized that Legolas was sleeping with his eyes closed. He should have asked questions earlier, or even talked about it to Gandalf. It was perhaps too late for that now… Too late for a lot of things, actually…
Then he perceived it… A very weak pulse, so weak, that he had first thought of an echo of his own pulse. But after he paid attention to his own heart beats, he had realized that the rhythms were different. He focused on Legolas and realized that his pulse was perhaps weak, but regular. He let go in a relief sigh the air he had contained in his lungs without noticing it.
The worst hadn't been reached. But it didn't solve out the problem that Legolas was in bad shape. Aragorn raised his hand from the elf's throat to his eyes, and delicately, he raised one of his eyelids.
Legolas' eyes weren't showing the whites, as he had first feared, but were gazing straight before him. Yet, the pupil didn't react to the sudden exposition to the light, and again Aragorn felt the anxiety eating his heart. He had already seen this type of reaction in some humans. Even though they were still breathing, they weren't reacting to the sounds or physical manipulation, and their eyes seemed dead. Death was what always followed a few moments afterwards.
Panic was there again. And the fact that he ignored what had caused this state for Legolas, was aggravating the situation. He raised Legolas a little, and shook him slightly. "Legolas… Legolas, wake up! Wake-up, damn it!!"
Gandalf was dragged from his sleep by Aragorn's voice, and the panic he perceived in it made him open his eyes instantly. He saw the ranger, kneeling near Legolas, laying on the floor, and holding the elf against him with one arm, shaking him or slapping slightly his face, repeating his name ceaselessly. His voice wasn't too loud, not yet, or everybody would have been awake on the spot, but Boromir, being at less than a meter form them, open also his eyes and rose on his elbow. Being closer than Gandalf, he noticed instantly the elf's lack of reaction, even if he ignored the problem of closed eyes in an elfish sleep. All he could see, was that Legolas wasn't reacting at all to Isildur's heir calls; and even if he admitted he knew far less about the elves than the ranger did, the son of Gondor felt that there was a problem… A problem perhaps really serious…
The first question that came to Boromir's mind was what had happened while he'd been sleeping, and since when was he sleeping? A fast glance to the outside glow told him that a very short time had passed since he had curled inside his cape to get some well-earned sleep; so, when he saw Legolas with no reaction, he couldn't understand…
Aragorn couldn't understand either. Legolas had come back from his inspection, had nodded to him with a slight smile to ensure him that there were no danger; at that very moment, there were no trace of fatigue or illness in the elf. Then he had laid down on the floor, and by the time Aragorn had taken his sword and cape, he was already asleep…
And now, he had all the look of the one dying in his arms. Gandalf moved quickly closer and placed himself in front of Aragorn, Legolas' inert body between them. The istari frowned: with such a treatment, the elf should have woken up long go. Aragorn breathed deeply. "LEGOLAS, WAKE-UP, PLEASE!!!"
The elf was the only one who didn't wake up.
He was again standing on the green hill in front of the big human city, the High-Trees city as he called it. His dream had again this implacable familiarity that wasn't leaving him for more than two months. Without really understanding the real nature of the thread that seems to hover everything, Legolas felt his heartbeat accelerate under the effect of a panic-fear that was extending inside of him. Yet, what could he fear in the middle of human kids playing on the playground, and whose laughs seemed to fill the atmosphere? The sun had risen and the day looked like being glorious… And parents as children seemed to enjoy this serene day.
Legolas turned on his right and saw the little red haired girl, sitting away from the others one of one those constructions of bright colors and strange material, and gazing towards the sky with her clear and so adult eyes – even if Legolas estimated she didn't look past 5 or 6 year old.. He felt like he had to talk to her, to try to turn her away from the automatic gesture she was doing every night in his dream: showing the sky.
Gandalf examined Legolas' eyes, measured his pulse and his reaction- or rather his *lack* of reaction. All of them were now awake and alarmed at the sight of Legolas. Each asking his neighbor if he knew something about what had happened. Even Gimli, who had never hid his animosity against the elf, looked worried. None of the hobbits had also ever seen Aragorn in such a state in the past. Apparently, during their sleep, something had happened, something that even he couldn't understand, for they had heard the vague explanations that the ranger had given to Gandalf. The magician had lowered Legolas on Aragorn's cape and had placed the palm of his hand on the elf's face, his fingers apart, whispering something that sounded like an incantation, his eyes closed.
Frodo felt guilt flowing into his heart. He had no idea what had provoke this state in Legolas, but suspected somehow that the ring he was bearing was responsible, directly or indirectly. He was staring at Aragorn with his big blue eyes. On the ranger's face feature, he could read that Legolas was a long-time friend, and that he feared the worst. Frodo himself didn't know Legolas too well, had barely spoke to him before, but never would he have wished ill to this creature. And for the first time also, Frodo was observing Aragorn on the verge to loose control. He could guess what the ranger was feeling: in the middle of a fight, you know that the risk to loose one of your friends exists; but here, Legolas' death would be brutal and unexplained… For Legolas had apparently no wounds.
Aragorn was staring at Gandalf with an anxious look, trying to guess what the istari was discovering into the elf's mind. After a moment, Gandalf opened his eyes and frowned, laying Legolas gently on the floor. Aragorn had his eyes eating his face. Gandalf raised one last time Legolas' eyelids before closing them, and raised a little.
"It is so strange", he started with a pensive tone; all the other members of the fellowship were literally hanging to his lips. Aragorn had placed his hand of Legolas' cold brow and raised his eyes towards the magician. "What's wrong with him?". He was trying to remain calm, but Frodo suspected him to be about to explode.
"It seems…", Gandalf interrupted himself, still thinking about it before going on, "it seems that he's in a trance…"
Legolas had difficulties to move, as if his feet were glued on the ground. It seemed, now that he wanted to do something else than being just a spectator as he had always been in the previous dreams, that his muscles were fused with lead. After a gigantic effort, he managed to make one step… Only one step towards the strange little girl…
And the little girl raised her hand towards the sky, an expression of immense sadness and fatality in her eyes. Fear took grip on Legolas and he felt himself dragged away by a flow of screaming lava. Instinctively, he knew he was about to assist the most terrific spectacle of the world. He turned to face the city…
"He is in a trance? ", Aragorn asked in a voice not very reassured. He was ignoring if what the old magician had said meant good of bad for Legolas. Due to the state the elf was in, it wasn't probably a lovely experience. Gandalf raised his eyes towards the ranger and what he said next increased the feeling of guilt that was inside Aragorn for a long moment already.
"Did he have a strange behavior lately?", the old magician asked in a tone of voice that the ranger found strangely calm. How could one remain calm while one of your friends was probably dying in front of you?
Aragorn nodded, remembering the detail he had noticed way earlier, and about which he had always delayed the discussion. Why? Passing the whole situation in his mind, Aragorn could find no possible answer…
"He was sleeping with his eyes closed… For quite a long time now…". He took a deep breath, trying to gather all the details that he would forget about. "When he was waking up, he was behaving a little strangely…"
"Strangely, how?", this time, Gandalf's voice was more pressing. He was probably in haste to determine the nature of this "trance" in the elf. Aragorn looked at Legolas' expressionless face and his eyes so strangely closed. "He just looked a little worried, or puzzled…". He remembered how the elf – once so jovial when he was waking up (and the first one to wake up, by the way) – had lately become the waking-up-red-lantern, and was unnaturally silent. Damn it! Everybody should have noticed this detail and wondered about it! He felt guilty not to have reacted earlier. The fact that he had to watch over the hobbits wasn't an excuse.
Probably guessing the kind of internal torments happening inside Aragorn's mind, Gandalf contented himself on grunting while nodding. "It's possible he had been in this kind of state already in the past and that no one realized it…" He was trying to remove the feeling of guilt he could feel inside Aragorn. He himself should have seen that something was wrong in the elf.
Braving the forbidding - that he had himself sep up – to make a fire, for fear of the Saruman's spy-birds, at least while they would be on this side of the mountain, Gandalf walked towards the freight borne by Billy the poney – skillfully hidden behind some rocks at the entrance of the cavern – and took an armful of twigs that he arranged on the floor, not very far from Legolas. His affiliation with the fire elementals made quickly appear a reddish flame that started to lick avidly the dry branches.
"Under the effect of a trance, he's perhaps having a vision", Gandalf started. "Perhaps something that's repeating night after night. Or a revelation of something happening somewhere on Middle-earth…" Hearing those words, Boromir got an unintentional crispation of the muscles of his face and cast towards the elf a scrutinizing look. The elf might as well be in contact with one of these occult powers and revealing their positions to their enemies day after day – perhaps even without realizing it… Unconsciously, Boromir passed again in his memory his animosity against the elf after the "incident" at the Council of Rivendell.
"Whatever it is", Gandalf went on, "if he's really in a trance, he is defendless towards the external world. And in an environment such as this", he glanced towards the snow and the north wind outside the cave, "cold could have unfortunate consequences on him".
The flames were growing, diffusing a vague glow in this morning light. The column of heat rising from the fire was altering the vision one had of the objects on the other side. Gandalf lifted Legolas' inert body and placed him closer to the fire, still on Aragorn's cape. "Go sleep, you all", he said for the hobbits, Boromir and Gimli. "All we can do now is waiting for his awakening".
The old magician turned towards Aragorn who was watching Legolas' lifeless face with certain unease. "We have absolutely to present his body temperature to drop even more", he said in a low voice, "He already went relatively low", he added, glancing at the elf on the floor, then turned again towards Aragorn. "Keep him close to the fire, and stay with him so that the heat remains. Talk to him, also… He must wake up… He's perhaps an elf… But if he remains too long in this trance, and even with the meager heat you can provide, this cold might be lethal…". Around them, all the members of the fellowship had reached their sleeping place, but all of them were throwing anxious glances towards the elf.
Aragorn lowered his eyes on Legolas, laying unconsciously on his left side, on his cape near the tiny fire wood, and understood what the old magician meant. The elf's clothes were perhaps made of a variation of leather, the outside cold could reach him like anyone elf. And the fire alone would not be enough to provide him enough heat. Suddenly, the situation seemed like a déjà-vu for the ranger. He smiled weekly to the memory that was coming back to his mind. Slowly, he laid down on his cape, right behind Legolas, his own body making a shield against the cold north wind that was insinuating itself into the cave. Carefully, as if he feared to wake the elf up – even thou this would be the best thing every happening to him – Aragorn passed his right arm under Legolas' arm, hugging his waist, and the other arm under the elf's lithe body, his hand moving up to his chest. He tightened his hold under Legolas' body was resting comfortably against his.
For a moment, Aragorn got the unpleasing sensation that he was manipulating a corpse, for Legolas' complete inertia had this morbid side, and again he wondered how he would react if his friend was dying right now in his arms. He tried to chase that thought away from his mind, and placed his head on the side of the elf's throat, in order to be able to blow warm air to this point between the ear and the jaw. He knew from experience that this point was particularly efficient when you had to warm someone. It was Legolas himself who had taught him this, almost forty years ago.
Aragorn closed his eyes as a moment from the past flashed in his mind. In a blink, he saw himself, five years old, laying on his left side near a small fire, his hair still drenched from his recent fall into the river. Behind him, arms passed around his waist to maintain the boy against him, was Legolas, his look of an eternal teenager unchanged. The elf's thin features face was leaning on the side of the boy's head, his nose buried behind Aragorn's ear, and his lips softly blowing warm air between his ear and his haw.
It was the very first time Aragorn met Legolas of Mirkwood…
And now, almost forty years later, in a situation so similar, it was Aragorn's turn to protect Legolas. If the elf hadn't changed at all during all those years; and while he felt his frail look, hiding a strength and speed unusual and unsuspected, Aragorn had gained in stature, strength and power. He wasn't anymore this five years old child who had almost drowned after he fell into a Rivendell river. He had gained in self-assurance, but had lost the carefree attitude of his childhood.
Aragorn was regretting, and rather often these latest moments, the time where his most important preoccupation were to escape the elves' watching if he wanted to accomplish one of his pranks. Sometimes, he wanted to return to that time of his life, and never leave it…
"Legolas… Wake-up…", he whispered softly to his ear, holding the elf even more tightly against him, as if he wanted to hold this escaping life, "Open your eyes… Come back to me, Legolas…". Suddenly he realized that had he not have this incident when he was a child, he'd have never learned from Legolas the technique that would perhaps save him today…
Sometimes, fate had a playful mind…
Legolas looked at the sky. He wanted to open his mouth to protect, to scream. Never had he gone so far in this dream, suddenly he wanted to be out, at any price. But no sound came out of his throat. It was too late.
The sky became bright white as a second sun rose from the horizon, magnificent and terrific. Then everything exploded, under the effect of a shockwave wiping everything on its way, and with an intense heat withering everything around it. Legolas saw a fire wave rolling from the horizon, blackening everything on its way, turning trees, houses, towers and roads into a pile smoking slags. Then the wave reached the playground…
Legolas opened his eyes suddenly and the only thing he first saw was the flames so closed to him. His breathing accelerated under the effect of the panic. Aragorn's hands, placed against his torso and his abdomen, felt at once the elf's agitation, and Aragorn opened his eyes, realizing he had almost fell asleep. Judging from the light inside the cave, he estimate that almost two hours had been since he had laid down near Legolas to try to heat him up and to take him out of his trance.
Two hours fighting death
He rose his head to see if Legolas was really awake, or if this jerky breathing he was feeling under his hands wasn't a crisis announcing greater evil. The humans he had seen in coma had lost their capacity to breathe normally few moments before their death. Without placing the origin of it, a dark thought hit the ranger's mind like a cold and oppressing certitude: Legolas would die soon… As if Death had just withdrawn a little to better catch him later. Unconsciously, in a protective gesture, or as if he wanted to stop the flow of time, Aragorn tightened his embrace.
But he felt relief the next moment, as Legolas' eyes were wide open; but they were staring at the flames with fear, or even terror. Then suddenly, Legolas screamed and projected himself brutally backwards, as if he wanted to make the biggest distance between himself and the fire, dragging Aragorn in his movements. Startled by this sudden display of strength after the apathy of the latest hours, Aragorn got the reflex to tighten his hold on the elf to try to calm him down. "It's all right, Legolas! It's over! It's over!!!". The elf was incredibly strong, as a nerve ball under thin muscle. Aragorn felt he'd have difficulties to contain him if the panic crisis was lasting any longer.
At that very moment, Legolas realized he wasn't anymore on the playground of his dream, but that he was laying on some stone floor and that someone was behind him, arms passed around him. He twisted in order to half-turn and saw the ranger who was looking at him with the same worries and compassion into his eyes as a parent trying to explain to the young terrorized elf that there were no giant spider hidden under his bed.
"Aragorn?", was the first word he ever pronounced. It seemed to him that his voice was raucous so much his throat was dried. The ranger, getting the confirmation that Legolas was against controlling himself, released his hold. Legolas took the opportunity to half-rise and looked around him.
For a moment, he felt disoriented, looking the cave in which he was, the members of the fellowship who had just woken up in a blink at his scream, and the fire burning not very far from him. It was on the fire that his look stopped during a long moment, making him completely unaware of the hobbits exclamations: "Hey, Legolas is awake! Look!"
His attention was diverted from the fire by the feeling of a hand on the side of his face. He turned and saw Aragorn who was staring at him with an anxious look, his eyebrows frown. The elf frowned also, his eyes asking a silent question to the ranger. Aragorn moved slowly his hand away from Legolas' face. "You are burning…". Aragorn didn't find it a good sign, especially after the cold that had invaded him recently. Even for average humans, this temperature meant fever. So for an elf… Aragorn realized that Legolas had left the icy trance, just to be soon facing the hallucinations that his fever would provoke.
Legolas blinked. He couldn't understand Aragorn's behavior, nor why he had woken up with the ranger so close to him... Nor why all the others were looking at him as if he was a miraculous one.
[to be continued ;-) ]
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That's it, now you know which point Aragorn had observed in Legolas: that the elf was sleeping with his eyes closed, which is generally a bad sign for the elves.
Sorry if it took so long to update… This chapter was really huge and I never got either the time or the courage to sit down in front of the PC, and starting the translation from the French version. Little by little, Legolas' dream is revealed to us… But the worst is yet to come ;-)
Ebony: I hope your mother changed her mind and let you access to the internet. It's always sad when you have to cut off all the relations with your friends when you don't have access anymore to the web… It sometimes reminds us that just a few years earlier, there was *no* internet at all. (and trust me… we could live! Once... yet now it would be impossible to turn backwards ;p )
Psyco101: wow! Motivated :)))) I know chapter two didn't bring a lot of thing news from the book/movie. But as I told it to you in the mails, chapter 3 would really be different ;) Of course, as the action is about a fellowship trying to reach Mordor to cast a ring into the fires of mount doom (and accessorily trying to escape a danger aiming the elf of their gang), there will be events that will remind the book/movie ;) Yet, for the translation that you wanted to do with the help of your French teacher, I think you might want to try it, for you'll gain time compared to the time it takes me to update the translation here ;-)
Elentari Manwe: hey, your French isn't bad :) So I guessed you too ran to the French version to read chapter 3 and 4, right? ;p
Aireroswen: give the girl a cigar!!!! We have a winner here ;-D
Soulsearcher: thanx for the spelling info about "istari" instead of "ystari" :-)
Thanx also to Starshadow, Madmaddie, darkfeather22, Slea, Saiyan-girl-cheetah, doggypal, lotr-junkie, Legacy, Artemisa, Oceansun and Zelf, for your reviews :)))))
Will Legolas explain his dream to Gandalf as he originally planned? Or will he built a fortress around him instead? Onto an angsty chapter 4 soon…;-)
Reviews, puleeeeeeese?
*_______*
(it's always interesting to read what you
think about the things we do ;-) )