Alright, I've got the last chapters fixed (I hope) by the time this is up. So, you can either skip to the division, or look at the review responses for the last two chapters, since I was rushed last update. This chapter is a few weeks to months after the previous. How ever long elven healing takes.
LadyJadePerendhil: My fingers always trip typing that. Who her father is will come in eventually, but will last a bit longer than that, I'd guess. I've never read Ane McCaffrey… I think a friend of mine has, so I could ask her what it's about, but she'd take a year and then bug me to read them, which I don't have time for. So to make it short, what's it like/about? I think someone else asked me once if I had read her stuff, so now I'm really getting curious.
TigressBeam: Thank you, hope you enjoy the updates. I try to get one a week, but I've got extra and hard classes this term, so things have been delayed, and it's coming to another round of papers and exams.
Lindaleriel: Well, there was the whole Leherim and Elrohir thing… but you're right. Lots more to come!
Iluvien: Your 'she lives!' exclamation made me think of Frankenstein movies for some odd reason. Maybe I'm just in a goofy mood. Post-exam stress relief. That sounds like a syndrome of some sort, doesn't it. Now that she's spoken, you can bet no one's going to let her stay quiet.
Andunewen: I agree that she needs to have lived.
Maren L P: I think I've filled my quota of killing off female love interests for a while. She has a lot more to go through before we can even consider a romance.
Midnight-Insomniac1532: Welcome to the review response section, and thanks for reading.
Galorin: A fairly long, but labored speech. Ahn. It was needed to save her friend. I go by a rule with my stories: If I can't think up a title for it that seems to fit, then there's something missing, and so it's unworthy of a title. The ones that I think up the title for within a chapter or two are usually the ones that get finished and show up on the net for reader enjoyment.
Farflung: Chapter 21: I think I responded to at least part of your review last time… right? Well, let's see if I left out anything I shouldn't have. I still love the 'they just look better while they do it' part. I smile every time I come across it. I think I said something for the rest last chapter. Chapter 22: Yeah, even male elves can be dense. I'm gonna play around with that aspect later, no doubt.
Elainor: Her father's identity will come to light eventually, and now that she can speak, there more or less has to be more to her, right?
Tara6: Sorry it's confusing. When I write I know exactly what I'm thinking… but it doesn't always come through. When I notice jumps I try to mention it at either the beginning or end of the author's note, if you read/skim those. She is only speaking in their minds at the moment because it's painful for her to do otherwise, and she doesn't feel comfortable with Elrohir in the room, since she doesn't know him.
Alina11: Well… um… yeah. Don't bet on nothing else happening to her. Did I cross this in angst? I don't remember anymore, but if I didn't, it belongs there.
To everyone else who reviewed: Thank you, and I hope you enjoy!
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Although a good portion of the Wood would come to hear the sentencing announcement, the trial itself was going to be a very quiet affair. Lady Eiectorm was brought into Thranduil's study, and the case was presented.
She was accused of endangering the prince's life, for the administering of drugs with which she was not familiar enough to ensure the safe use of, and merely for drugging him in the first place.
"But, my lords, I never gave him the drug!" she protested.
"Did you know of it?" Thranduil demanded.
She hung her head. "Yes."
"And did you obtain the drug for Urgan to put in the Prince's wine?"
"Yes," she agreed meekly.
"Where did you get it?"
"From the healing rooms," she admitted.
"Then you stole supplies from elves who would have used them to save lives, had an emergency occurred. Did you ever think about that? That the herbs you took would have been missed at such a time a life could have been needlessly lost?"
"I left plenty there—" she cut off at a stern glare, and fell silent. "No, my lord."
"I see," Thranduil stated quietly.
One of his advisors began the questioning then. "And you did willingly and maliciously set out to entrap the Prince?"
"I nev—" she stopped as the entire group of elders stared at her with sensor in their gazes. She was well and truly stuck, and she seemed to realize it at last then. "Yes," she sighed.
"You deliberately conceived a child with the plan to pass that child off as the next in the royal line, intending to use that child as leverage to secure for yourself a title and the wealth that goes along with it?"
She hung her head a bit lower, her eyes focused on the mound of her stomach. "Yes," she whispered.
"Do you hold any opinion as to the matter of the child?"
She rested her hand over her stomach, but mutely shook her head. "No."
"Still, bring Urgan forth. Calline, if you would?"
Calline, a midwife of sorts, stepped forward and placed her hand on Eiectorm's distended abdomen. She spoke to the child, and then nodded to Urgan, who was shoved forward and forced to rest his bound hands over the bulge. "It is so," Calline stated, stepping back.
Thranduil nodded. "You have been busy in your treachery, Lady Eiectorm. But that which has been stated, though by far enough, is not all you have done. You also devised a way to communicate with Urgan, and gave him the name of the one who spoiled your plans. You even managed to provide him with the knife he used to attack the she-elf who stepped forward to spare the Prince of your plots and lies."
"I did no—"
"Silence! I will hear no more of these lies, for lies I know them to be. That dagger was given to your father by a smith who also makes the weapons of the guard. He placed his mark, and that of your house, on the dagger's haft, where we found them on the weapon covered with her blood. Your father had the dagger in his possession not more than a day before, and had commented on its sudden disappearance just prior to the final day of evidence. Why you chose that day to remove it, we may never know, but you took it, and it was used with deadly intent—you are, if not responsible for commanding the attack, responsible for its facilitation." Thranduil leaned back in his seat, and shook his head briefly at the elves before him. "For these crimes, you are hereby banished from Greenwood indefinitely, and stripped of the only title you ever had claim to. If you return at a time not so appointed for pleas, you will be summarily executed." He sighed softly. "Do you understand me?"
"Yes, sire," she agreed, a few tears running down her cheek.
"Have you anything to say?"
She swallowed and slowly shook her head. "No," she squeaked.
"Your Highness?" Her father stepped forward. "If I may be so bold, could she not remain—even in the dungeons, if you so desire—until the child is born? The child is innocent, no matter the," he sighed heavily, "crimes of his parents."
Thranduil nodded gravely. "You are correct. Until the child is born, Eiectorm shall remain in the care of the healers, under constant watch of the guard. At the time of the child's birth, it is up to her to decide if she wishes her child to accompany her in her exile from Greenwood, or if she would rather leave it with her parents, assuming they are amenable to raising her child."
"We are, of course," her father insisted at once. "Thank you, my lord." He stepped back, a small bit of his worry lifted from his slumped shoulders.
Thranduil nodded at him, sympathetic to the undeniable pain and devastation this betrayal had undoubtedly caused the elf. But there were other matters to attend to. "As for you, Urgan," he stated harshly, "you would have gladly been the cause of an elf's death, and it is only through an incredible skill of healing that your victim is not wandering the Halls of Mandos. Had she died, you well know what your punishment would have been. As it is, you are also exiled, but not only from Greenwood, but every other elven realm as well, to be broken only upon the instant forfeiture of your own life." Grimly Thranduil watched the cold eyes which watched him. They were still defiant, though somewhat frightened. "Have you anything to say?"
"Nothing," Urgan declared, his eyes slightly wider as he was led out by a few guards, who he knew were under orders not to stop until they were beyond the border of Greenwood, where they would release him. At the same time a rider would be sent to Imladris and one to Lord Celeborn, informing the elven lords of his release and his crimes, assuring he would not be any more welcome there than he was in Greenwood. As he was led out, his eyes narrowed on the she-elf who stood silently beside the Prince, watching him leave.
When he was gone, Legolas rested his hand on her shoulder. He will not be back. Ever.
Good. I don't think I would ever like to see his face again.
Legolas smiled ruefully, still feeling like he should stop the guards and engage Urgan in a duel. He had paced for hours after Mirimir was finally sleeping without pain, trying to convince himself to just let the wretched elf go. Mirimir, even if we exclude your past history—during which you never spoke—you are the mistress of understatement.
She smiled faintly, looking over her shoulder at him, her dark hair slashing over her face to hide her pale grey eyes.