AUTHOR NOTES: I am making a major plot change here, as well as further
developing the characters. A little humor, too...let me know what you
think. I'm also using this chapter to reveal a bit more of the sociological
differences between Men and Elves, which is what I consider to be a key
element in the plot. After all, the whole predicament between Legolas and
Eowyn is about that sad, beautiful tension.
A note on what I call the Weakling Legolas Syndrome, that plagues many stories on Fanfiction.Net and other similar sites: what the HELL? It seems to me that in every other fic I read about Legolas he is getting his ass kicked and/or raped by everyone. He's an Elf! HE kicks the ass! That doesn't mean Legolas is immune to weakness. If he was, why didn't Elrond give HIM the ring?
In my story, I wanted to build on the basic outline of the character of Legolas given to us by Tolkien. We know nothing of Legolas' past, nor his relationship with his father. We are never really inside his head. His dialogue is few, and not that revealing. I treated the books' Legolas as a template on which to expand.
I have removed the review commentary, alas. I hope everyone had a chance to read it. I wanted to not have a huge block of writing before the chapter.
And now, onto the fun stuff. Blood, guts, and a little more "action."
Chapter XV - The Battle of Helm's Deep
When Legolas had been very young, he had slipped from the branches of a twisting tree and broken his leg. It had been the prince's first hunting party, yet he was a distracted child and spent more time wandering through the boughs of Mirkwood than seeking the quarry. Wide-eyed, smiling, Legolas had clambered up above the company, following their trail by leaping from limb to limb. One branch was not as strong as it looked, and it split beneath his weight.
Thranduil remembered that afternoon more vividly than his son ever did. He remembered the sound of his child's body hitting the earth, the unmistakable crack, and the gasp that followed. And Thranduil had dropped his bow and sprinted to Legolas' side.
The little prince sat stunned into silence, tears welling up inside his fierce gray eyes. His left leg was bent at an odd angle, and a little dark stain had bloomed on his kneecap where the bone had hit a rock. But he was silent. He bit his lower lip, shuddering in pain, tears noiselessly beginning to trickle down his blanching face. Thranduil's heart shrank in fear as he knelt at Legolas' side, gently laying his palm on the mangled knee, staring into his son's eyes.
"Legolas, does it hurt here?"
The little Elf had slightly opened his mouth to respond, but then the torrent came. He doubled over and sobbed in his father's arms, crying his eyes out, digging his fingers into the pine green of Thranduil's tunic. He burrowed his face against his father, in more agony over his shame than any injury.
And the Elven-King and his son had stayed like that, frozen in their embrace, for what seemed like an impossibly long time, even when the Royal Guard gathered round trying to offer comfort, even when Fimbrethil had come running through the woods to her husband and son. The queen was a skilled healer-they said second only in healing powers to Elrond Peredhil and Galadriel of Lorien. Legolas' tears dissolved into shuddering breaths and hiccups, and his eyes were as gray and hard as the surface of a frozen pond. Anyone could see that he was ashamed to have let his pain show itself so freely. Yet none had judged him for it. He was so young. He was only twenty, not nearly full-grown, not nearly as tall as Thranduil's waist. No one could look at that little princeling and picture the over-six-foot- tall, lanky-limbed warrior that would bloom one day. When that day came, everyone had to agree: the eyes never changed.
As Fimbrethil gathered her son into her arms, Thranduil stood, his hands balled into fists, never taking his eyes off of his child. The queen lowered her hands onto Legolas' knee, and the young prince's eyes snapped wide in pain, his mouth opening and closing like a fish without water. He lifted a little hand to his father and murmured, "Ada." He let out a little sob and said, "I-I didn't look, I just-"
Thranduil had knelt a little, barely touching his fingertips to those of his child's. But something snapped. Legolas cried out.
"Stop it, Thranduil!" Fimbrethil said hoarsely, her face pale with anxiety. "Do not break his concentration. It hurts him."
Then the king stood aloft again, silent as a dead tree, hugging his arms to his sides, watching Legolas suffer again. His heart was weighed down with guilt and helplessness, and the little fingers reached up again and again. The little voice entreated, "Ada. Ada." But all Thranduil might do was stand and watch and wait. They seemed far away then, separated by a wall of mountains, by impassable miles. And now that feeling had come again into the heart of Thranduil Oropherion who paced through the halls of his kingdom, alone and afraid.
* * *
"Legolas!"
Aragorn's steady voiced, slightly tainted by anxiety, was calling to his companion in arms. "We need your sight."
He had not meant to let his mind wander. It had come as easily as a quiet rain in the gray hours of morning. Arod, warm beneath him, was steady and sure. Gimli's arms encircled his waist-the Dwarf was scared stiff of riding any horse, even one as gentle and responsive as Arod. Yet Legolas had disconnected himself from all the lives around him. His soul rose above the grasslands and feathered out into the sky, and half of him plunged through the air and made for the north, ever seeking the heart of his father. The other half...the other half was as rigid as steel, livid, fearful of the lady it sought to glimpse once again.
And a third strand was being teased from the invisible thread that wafted in the air, and this strand was drawn to the salty moisture he could barely sense in the air, something he knew was below the frequency of humans to catch. It was somehow familiar, yet somehow unsettling. It made his heart and throat ache as though he had recently stopped crying. It was like a gentle tugging on his lungs.
The Elf lightly coaxed Arod forward to stand among the horses of his companions as they stood now, smiling blankly despite their fear. He admired them at that strange little moment of uncertainty. He turned to the place where Aragorn pointed and squinted to see. But the distance was long, and the little figures quick. He lifted his hand and used it to shade his eyes against the red sun, gazing deep into the expanse. And then his heart was filled with the sorrow of a soul betrayed, and all the welling of love he had felt for his comrades fizzled away like a dying ember, and a chill ran through his veins.
"Your people confound me," Legolas whispered to no one in particular, eyes wide, staring at the tiny movements.
A murmur rose amongst the Rohirrim. Aragorn rode a little nearer to Legolas and tilted his head: his eyes hurt and confused. "What do you see?"
Legolas lifted his chin, his face a cold, unmoving mask of marble, and said, "Those are Men down there." He let the words sink in, cruel and icy. "Not orcs, Aragorn. Men." Then, in a venomous whisper, "*Your people*."
Aragorn sat dumbfounded upon his steed, staring in horror at Legolas. It seemed to the Elf that this horror was not so much directed at the appearance of human enemies as it was aimed at him. He stared back, impassive.
"Dunlendings," Eomer hissed, as though trying to change the subject.
"Then they shall suffer as any other enemy to the Free Peoples," Théoden declared a little shakily. He rode to where Aragorn and Legolas were, still and cold. His old eyes squinted at the figures drawing nearer and nearer. "Dunlendings indeed. I can see their wild faces from here. They have come for blood, and I fear for something more. Orcwork by Men, in this day! They shall suffer slowly."
Legolas turned to look at the old king, his gaze steely and fearsome. Théoden looked back, seeming suddenly very sad and frailly mortal. "Come this autumn I will have seen the leaves of this world fall 2,814 times, King Théoden, and not once in all those years have I killed a Man." No one spoke. "Tell me how I should begin."
Théoden blinked in response, his mouth slightly open, seeming to be terribly hurt and terribly afraid at the same time. Legolas tasted the bitterness of sorrow in his mouth: he liked Théoden, and wished no ill upon him. He was met with a slew of unfriendly eyes from the Rohirric soldiers, but Aragorn and Gandalf looked simply surprised. He heard the intake of Gimli's breath behind his back.
The wizard seized the awkward moment and burnt it away. "I must leave you now for another errand calls me. Look for the White Rider, Lord Théoden. I shall return to you."
Legolas watched the gleam of Gandalf disappear, wishing he could go with him, knowing that he would have a lot of explaining to do.
* * *
"Something is troubling you."
Legolas laughed. "We are about to have a battle. Are you not troubled as well?"
"No." Aragorn was deathly seriously, his gray eyes steely lances boring into Legolas' face in a way that made the Elf extremely uncomfortable. He was impossibly afraid that Aragorn might peel away the layers of his mind and see a little portrait of Eowyn smiling back at him. "No, it is something else. There is something more."
"I don't know what you're talking about," Legolas replied, almost in a whisper.
"Gimli and I have discussed it," Aragorn went on. "You have been in this state since we came to Rohan. You seem to be drifting, Legolas. Do you feel the call of your home?"
"I always feel the call of home," Legolas answered darkly.
Aragorn stopped, realizing he was treading on very thin ice. Home was obviously a sensitive subject. Legolas' fingers twisted around the shimmering string of his bow, up and down, spiraling, dangerous, ready to snap.
"Perhaps it is nothing then," Aragorn sighed, and turned his gaze over the wall. "Perhaps we are wrong." He wondered in his heart if he felt the call of something else, for he too remembered the words of Galadriel to Legolas. Did his friend hear the call of Death? Was he destined to die at this battle, after they had come so far together? Aragorn's heart seized up with sorrow, and a sudden blaze of love for his Elven companion.
"You ask because of my callous words to you before."
Aragorn kept staring out into the night. After a moment he said, "I am not asking you for an apology."
"I regret what I said, Aragorn. I have spent too much time amongst your people to judge them so harshly, especially now. Men stand to fight the greatest of evils since the Sunless Years, and my people flee to the Havens." Aragorn found himself startled by Legolas' words. His voice was gratingly bitter. "There is still so much to fight for. And many of them know this, they do. Many of us shall fight, though perhaps you shall not see them." A sigh came forth. "I cannot help but wonder what has befallen my kindred, my father, all my friends at home," then, more bitterly, "At least those who are left. When I went from my father's hall, darkness was closing in all around us. Without our fighting it off bit by bit, wave by wave, it would have already swallowed all my kith and kin, and starlight would be banished from Mirkwood forever."
"Do not fear for them, my friend. It may blind you. Your father is strong. Your people are brave and they have been tested before. Do not fear."
"That is all I harbor, now. Fear, and shame, for those who do not stand with us but flee on their gray swan ships."
"You need not. This is not your battle." He sniffed the wind, smelling smoke. He thought of a dark-haired maiden, all alone in Rivendell. Grief constricted his throat. "Your destiny lies far beyond the Sea, in light and happiness, away from this fate. You are free."
A hand came to rest upon Aragorn's shoulder, its light weight suddenly something of great significance. He turned to look Legolas in the eye and found himself lost in the shadowy grays and greens therein, though dimmed by the onslaught of evening. Legolas had never seemed old among the Elves. Galadriel was old, and Elrond, his foster father, was impossibly old as well. Age was in Celeborn's eyes. He had seen it in Thranduil during their brief meetings. He saw it in the many eyes of the Fair Race, but there were four pairs of Elven eyes that always seemed young: Arwen, Elrohir, Elladan, and Legolas.
All that was washed away in this briefest of moments, and Aragorn realized for the second time in his life, that these seemingly youthful eyes were indeed *impossibly* old. They were the windows into the soul of an ancient child of ancient forces that no mortal mind could ever comprehend. There was power there, and great sorrow. It was like the moment he had looked into Arwen's face when they first met, and he had realized how old she was as well, how more akin to Legolas than to him.
Despite the wonderful silence of the moment, Legolas spoke, and his words stayed in the Man's heart for the rest of his life.
"Aragorn, we have not forgotten." The smile, though terribly sad, was genuine and pure. "We will never forget the goodness of your people to our kind. We do not forget it now." There was a flutter in the breeze. "It is you who have forgotten us."
For a brief moment, Aragorn had been stunned into silence, but he found his tongue and almost stammered as he said, "None shall ever-"
"It will happen." Legolas' voice was steady, his eyes sure, compliant and kind. "We knew this day would come. It hurts to disappear without a marker of your passing, but we accept that. We will be the keepers of *your* days. Long after your passing, we will remember you as you really were. Forever you shall be known by the fondest of companions-for we *are* companions, the Elves and the Mortals. We have been placed together on this earth for a greater purpose that we shall perhaps never know save in the furthest parts of our hearts."
"Unless all falls to Darkness," Aragorn realized aloud, his voice so dark and defeated that for a moment Legolas thought he had seen tears in the warrior's eyes. He looked away swiftly.
"Unless."
Aragorn gazed out into the dark, then back at Legolas. "Have you ever thought of what would happen, should...should *He* win?"
Legolas thought in silence, then said, "Often. It is natural for me. Terrible images haunt my dreams as of late without my bidding." He let out a little, cynical laugh, realizing he had kept this inside for some time and was now making a sort of confession. "Sometimes it is as though all my dreams are premonitions, these horrible visions."
"Visions?"
"Yes."
"How long have you been having these visions?"
"In all honesty, they began after-" he stopped for the shortest of moments "-I knew we had lost Baran and Silindë to the Shadow. Then they slackened. Now they have returned."
Aragorn stared at the young Elf, horrified and intrigued. "What have you seen?"
Legolas eyes glazed over, smooth as polished glass, and it seemed that another spoke through him. "I see the air thick with flumes of smoke, sparks wafting through the leafless branches of seared trees-bodies of Men and Elves, and even Halflings, litter the barren ground. The only color to be seen is in the swirling oily patterns on stagnant pools of dark water and blackened blood. Yet countless others are kept alive, despite all this death, this deadness that I can smell crisp and sure in the air, even in dreams. They are-" he stopped, then went on, "They are twisted into hideous things, as the orcs were made. Yet my heart tells me they are not of orc- make. They are something more like Nazgûl. Their eyes are lightless hollows. I can see straight through them in my dreams. They are tortured and worked away. There is no sun during the day, no stars at night. The Havens are destroyed. The Seas are slick with oil. Dust is laced in the wind and burns your eyes."
Aragorn felt his heart shrink in fear. He glanced down, and saw Legolas hand resting lightly upon the stone of the battlements. He knew that if he were to touch the skin of that hand, it would feel as icy as frost.
"I see the fates of all Free Peoples," Legolas went on. He was beginning to sound a bit more like himself. His voice was no longer a haunting song. There were strains of genuine sorrow and fear bubbling to the surface. "The Dwarves are set as slaves within the sweltering forges of the Dark Lord. They will find no comfort within the earth anymore. The Hobbits-" his voice cracked "-are mostly killed off. They prove to be too feeble for His demands. Men are slaves and food for the orc armies that grow and grow each day. The victims are the lucky ones. They are herded like cattle into caverns like stables where they are forced to multiply. Then the orcs are set upon them three times a day."
Aragorn's fist around Anduril's hilt was white-knuckled, his jaw set in a hard line.
"And the Elves-" Legolas let out a sigh that was more defeated than tired. "The Elves are lost to the world. He shall divide us. Then He shall punish us for never succumbing to His strength long ago. He will break us and torment us simply for the pleasure of watching it. Some He will forge into orcs as did the Dark One before him, others He will keep as they are, shadows of themselves, and these He shall use in cruel ways. Some shall be slaves, others-others shall be gifts to His officers who have pleased their master." He looked down. "That is our doom, I think. Objectified and mutilated, a ruined race." He sighed. "A ruined world." Then Legolas turned to Aragorn with a wild look in his eyes as though he were making a plea. "Yet it is the tale of Men that saddens me most. I had the dreams in Rohan more than in any other place on our journey. I saw the Golden Hall burning, and the people slain, streaks of blood dried dark in the bright strands of their hair. I saw the children of Edoras spitted on the hillside, and the plains ablaze with fiery ruin. We shall all be bound into His endless circle and nothing shall break it. Not even the Valar themselves."
The whistling wind seemed suddenly a mournful sigh. Aragorn blinked at his companion, rooted in fear and marveling at the powerfulness of the words. It was like standing in the presence of Galadriel. Legolas was a gateway offering a terrifyingly truthful and frank glimpse at what would happen. At what seemed likely to happen, now that their original quest had foundered and they were helplessly trying to divert Sauron's eye.
Legolas was staring at the ground, his fingernail coursing up and down the bowstring, making a soft singing sound. Then the shadow flitted away and he looked up, his gaze melting into the black. "That is all." He dared not speak of the other vision-of the White Lady of the Rohirrim slain, her body upon the burnt grass, ringed in blood, her golden hair like the rays of a sun all around her head, her gray-blue eyes frozen open for eternity. It was this vision, he was sure, that had made him sharpen all his arrowheads and blade edges one more time before this day.
As though the night had heard the tale, it blotted the stars from the sky.
* * *
He had been in true battle before. Once. Twice. Three times. Once for the Battle of Five Armies. Once for the protection of his home, when the Spiders converged at once as they had not since the days of Ungoliant the Black. Once to ward off an army of orcs that had plunged into Mirkwood, that had miraculously sent him here to face their masses again-that had taken his friends from him, sealing them apart for too long a stretch of time. He had fought Wargs with the Fellowship and upon the outskirts of his father's kingdom. He had slain mountain goblins when he had journeyed West. But nothing had prepared him-not the stories of the Great Wars, not the scars upon the elder soldier's arms and torsos-for this.
Orc blood flew from his hands, and he could taste it in his mouth, sickeningly sweet, thick as mucus, clinging to his insides. Orc hands tore at him as he twisted their weapons from their grasps, and they fell to using their nails and teeth, horrible blurs that scraped and ripped into flesh, cloth and even chain mail. Orc sweat mixed with the blood and made his limbs slick, his garments clinging to his limbs beneath the light metal links. And every now and then, an Orc eye caught his own. Before he sent an arrow spiraling into the yellow iris, he glimpsed something that he found to be eerily familiar.
But they saw nothing common in him. They saw lightness and a strange color: the color of goodness, of things they could never touch, nor taste, things they did not know how to even yearn for. He maddened them, more then the horrible flaxen-haired warriors massing all around him. They wanted to latch onto his limbs, to rend him apart, or to rip their jagged blades through his chest. His blood was not easy to shed, but a scimitar had indeed met the dense muscle of his right bicep. The Orcs gazed hungrily at the bright liquid seeping down their quarry's arm, and they opened their mouths as he spun by. Sometimes a crimson drop, like a spiraling ruby, would fly off the Elf and land on their tongues, and for a moment they would taste, like a memory, what it was like to be divine. And then they wanted to kill him even more.
An Uruk gave a deafening bellow near his right ear and brought down its weapon near his head. He met the blade with his own and disarmed his enemy by cutting off the hand near the wrist. But the Uruk grabbed his arm with its undamaged hand to break or disarm him. Cold claws dug into his wound, but he twisted free and delivered his blade into the attacker's jaw. The arrows had been spent long ago, years ago it seemed. More came at him, roaring with bloodlust and madness, yet he danced away, and those who came too near had their faces carved to pieces.
Gimli was strong as a mighty, little mountain, and Legolas loved to hear the ringing of his companion's blade as it careened against the plate-armor of their enemies. He loved the sound and the spark of the axe blade colliding with the stones of the Deep. He loved the rumblings of Gimli's voice as he let out his raspy battle cries.
He loved glimpsing the flash of Anduril in the dead blackness of night, Aragorn's face as stony as an Elven warrior's, his gray eyes flashing with a deadly light.
He loved the song of his knife in his hand, his forest-forged knife, his knife that had been given to him by his father, his knife that had tasted Orc blood long ago when the Last Alliance raged and Thranduil had been a wide-eyed prince thrust into the thick of battle, suddenly weighed down by sorrow and a crown. The pulse of this beautiful knife-it carried through his fingers and formed a barrier around his heart.
There was madness all around him. He was surrounded on all sides, or so it seemed. He could not pick out one human face in the crowd that had massed, closing in, bellowing in deafening tongues, trying to make his movements falter with select phrases in Blackspeech. The fearful memories from the Battle of Esgaroth swam in his mind, but he forced them down and focused on the moon-bright edge of his white knife. The Uruk-Hai tried to hit him from behind, but just before an arm could come around or a weapon could be pressed home, he would spiral to face them and blind them in a single, perfect slash.
Legolas smiled amid the gore, forgetting his pain and weariness, immune to the vertigo of this endless fighting. This was-what was that word? The Elves did not have a word for it-it was a human word, a Westron word. Ah, yes. *Revenge.* This tasted like that word rolling off the tongue. Revenge. And in every drop of blood that fell on him or from him, he remembered Silindë's gray eyes in their last look, a look of frightened betrayal. And Legolas took that guilt and sorrow and forged it into a spike of steel that he drove into Orcish innards. All around him was the dance of death, but he felt like laughing and crying, uncontrollable madness, as his knife flew through flesh and sinew. He let out a war cry his father taught him when he gave him his first bow and plunged his knife into an eye.
And again, another presence: how cunning that they all would attack from behind! He smiled again and narrowed his eyes. There was breath on his neck. There was a life behind him, an arm raised high. He tightened his grips on the hilts and spun around, arm raised to plunge the point into the wretched Orc's vitals-
What was this? No Orc here. At last the buzzing swiftness of combat slowed down and the face that came to view froze Legolas with wonder and genuine fear that shocked him out of his demonic state. For there-half-hidden under the night sky-navy of her hood, distorted by the light reflecting off the links of her chain mail-there was Eowyn. Her face, her beautiful face: there was a small cut under her right eye. Bloodlust of a different nature was boiling up inside him.
The icy rain steamed where it hit their skin. There she was, her blue eyes piercing his soul, so beautiful and grave, strong as the steel they grasped in their bloody hands, so many unspoken words in her gaze.
Without thought, Legolas grabbed her arm and in one gesture he swung her away from the clashing blades and storms of arrows. He felt the abrasion of chain mail on her arm. She tensed her muscles, resisting a little, but knew better than to put up a fight against an Elf in his most combative state. There was a small niche in the stone wall, and there he brought her (not gently), standing in front to guard her just in case of the unthinkable. At last words formed, but barely legible in his emotions. The spiraling world began to slow more purposefully. It was like falling into a dream.
"No. You-you were supposed to be safe." He glanced down at her garb, saw her chest bound flat as a boy's, her long hair half-hidden under her gleaming helm, this covered by the navy cloak, like a cape of a starry night to shield her from the eyes of her kin.
Eowyn did not reply, but her pale hand crept up his arm and moved toward his face. At last she said, "You are not my lord in this matter. No man is."
"Not here," he gasped. "You can't be here. If you get hurt-"
The creeping hand seized the back of his neck, it worshipped the heat radiating off of the spot, and each of them reacted. The Elf suddenly embraced the girl fiercely, winding his arms around her. They kissed each other hard. Desperation and hunger passed between them and was bound into the kiss. He ran his hand up her scalp and his long fingers were in her hair. Her arms were wrapped about him firmly, and her own hands drew forbidden pictures over the warm muscles of his back. Each was content to feel the life in the other, the thundering at their pulse points, the sweet smell of perspiration and rain.
He comically remembered the last words she had said to him, before all this had erupted around them. *Then let us part as friends, Legolas Greenleaf. Grant me that?* The rain mixed with her saliva was like tea flowing over his tongue. His fingers reached up and tangled into her wet hair again, pulling almost painfully. He felt the impossible heat of the living body beneath him, the madness matching the terror of the battle all around them. The rawness of the moment mixed with the stinging of the sleet pelting the open wounds on his arms and back was agonizingly perfect.
Yet he tore his mouth away and spoke, strangely calmed by the experience. "You will go. You were not meant to come here."
"I will not."
"Why did you come, Eowyn? There is nothing for you here."
And she reached out and rested her fingertips upon his breastbone, right above his beating heart. They could not be that different. Their hearts had found a common rhythm.
"I came to see you. I have been watching you. You are a warrior like none I have ever seen." His eyes were cold, disbelieving and unconvinced. She frowned, but had to admit, "I came for a friend. I sought a friend who saw me as I really am. You saw, Legolas. I will never forget that."
"Friends are loyal to each other, and protect each other."
"Then we are not friends," she laughed, and her hand leapt to the back of his neck once more, demanding. He stayed back, feral as a cornered beast, but she brought her mouth to his. Her hunger was fearful and startling, and he felt himself growing more desperate to touch the skin beneath the metal. His eyes were open when they kissed for the third time. He was lost in wonder. He did not know himself. He was lost in the rain and in her mouth, and he never wanted to go home.
Then she pulled back, leaving him gasping for more, and whispered, "No man shall rule me, even in friendship, no matter how steadfast or pure. Know that, if you will know naught else." For Eowyn was proud. She knew a little of the power she now possessed.
He held himself away from her, searching her glittering eyes, and somewhat thrilled by the formality of her words. "Very well." But he did not allow her to savor the victory long. Legolas was a prince. Legolas was an Elf. Above all, Legolas had an ironic sense of humor.
"Yet no mortal Man am I."
With that, he flipped his knife in his hand and slammed the hilt into her torso.
Eowyn gasped once, looking more perturbed than betrayed, and slumped romantically into his arms, limp as a rag doll: a rag doll clad in shining chain mail, smeared with orc-gore. It was the most damsel-like he ever found her to be. Thereafter, she remembered little of the incident, save his words. They came to serve her well.
He lifted her head to check: yes, her eyes had closed and her breath was calm. Legolas had simply stunned her, and he knew that on one such as Eowyn, the effect would not be long-lasting. He had to get her out of the midst of battle and into the caves to rest-and to be in safe hands. Men were dying like flies. He drew some of her hair over her face, disguising it though it needed little help under the sweat and orc-blood, and lifted her into his arms. She was light, he could tell, but the armor was cumbersome and heavy. Waiting for a break in the skirmish, Legolas leapt from the niche and made his way toward the cave mouths.
Eomer called to him from above to his left. "What is it, Legolas?"
"This boy has been knocked out," the Elf replied, yelling over the din of the screams and clashing metal, praying he would not wake her. "The Uruks are being cruel to the bodies of our fallen. I am taking him inside, out of harm's way."
No one, *no one* ever knew.
* * *
Eowyn felt something warm upon her brow, and she twitched, annoyed, and instinctively swung her arms up to seize whatever was touching her. Opening her eyes, she saw the face of a weary but visibly amused Elf. Her hands were clamped around his slender wrist, just above her forehead.
"Did you sleep well?" he asked innocently.
She twisted his arm the wrong way and seethed, "What's going on? How long have I been asleep?"
He was stronger, and pulled away, cracking her fingers in the process. "Long enough. The battle is not over, though. We were forced to retreat."
Her eyes went wild, and she glared around the cavern, seeming not to see the injured men slumped about the place in groups, bloodied, sweaty and some mortally wounded. "The Rohirrim do not retreat. It is not our way." She began to rise, but Legolas place a palm firmly upon her bound chest and gently shoved her back against the wall. "What are you doing?" she demanded through grit teeth.
"The wise warrior knows when to step back from the reckless brawl. You are not going back out there."
Elvish proverbs at a time like this! Was he mad? "You cannot tell me what to do."
"Why not?" He was serious, but he smirked a little. "Would you not listen to a prince?"
"You are not *my* prince."
He did not smile anymore. "Would you listen to King Théoden?"
"Of course. Now let me-"
"I am not finished. You know Théoden would forbid Eowyn-the woman-to fight. You have just said that you would listen to him."
"Are you trying to threaten me?"
He looked into her eyes with a sudden ferocity that made her pause. "I *am* threatening you, Eowyn. You will stay here. If you try to rejoin the battle, I shall see to it that Théoden, Aragorn and your brother all become very much aware of your true identity. Do you understand?"
She was furious. A soft color was rising in her cheeks: it was lovely, but the look in her eyes was anything but. "This is orc-work, Legolas Greenleaf. I would never betray you thus."
"I am not betraying you-"
"You are no different than the rest of them!" she exclaimed. Her voice rose an octave in almost childish frustration. Legolas glanced around quickly, checking to see if any warrior's head had turned at the sound of a woman's lilt. All was safe, but Eowyn herself still looked dangerous. More softly, but as venomously, she went on: "All of my life I have been told what I can and cannot do. It is not fair, Legolas. You are supposed to be different! How can an Elf be as blind as a mortal?"
"Stop it," he entreated. She was being so difficult.
"You still seek to order me?"
"No. Now I am asking you, Eowyn. If I am blind, then you are stubborn and ignorant. I am going to protect you at all costs, even if it means sacrificing your trust of me."
"I do not need your protection."
"It is not worth the risk."
"Risk! What risk is there?"
"You have never been in a battle before, you stupid girl!" he snapped.
She stared at him in horror, and he fiercely stared back. In his face was anger, fear and sadness: a desperate expression, profoundly sorrowful simply because of the Elven shape of his face. Yet Eowyn was infuriated into silence. He had crossed a line that no one had ever traversed once before in her life: he had insulted her to her face. Even her own brother had known better than to do that. The one time in childhood that Eomer called her a name, she had chased him down, thrown him to the floor, and pummeled him with her fists so hard that he received two black eyes and a loose tooth. Yet despite her indignation now, she realized how alike she was to Legolas. They were proud and relentless, headstrong and obstinate. And terrifyingly different. They might as well have existed on two different plains of existence. But the similarities-they were shocking. Quite suddenly, she wanted to laugh. Ah, but she would never give him that satisfaction. They sat seething for a long moment before she finally came to the only conclusion she could think of.
"Leave me," she hissed, looking away.
Legolas seemed to shudder at her voice. "What?"
"Go!" she replied, wheeling on him.
He rose clumsily, as though unsure of his own footing: very unlike an Elf, if legend spoke the truth. Yet before he turned from her he said, "Do you swear to stay?"
"If your threat holds true."
"It does."
"Then I will stay. You leave me with no other choice."
Without another word, Legolas turned. She watched him go, disappearing into the crowd of Men that parted as he walked by. None of the Rohirrim felt truly comfortable in elvish presence. As he passed now, the sorrow in his eyes made them more afraid. It was a shadow of the agony within. She saw the backs of his hands coated with blood-the black blood of Orcs, his own vibrant red life essence. She saw the weariness in his gait. Elves did not become weary in body. They became weary in spirit.
She saw him adjust the quiver on his back, and then he was gone.
-Fin-
Please review, my lovelies.
Continued in Chapter XVI - Eowyn vanimelda, namarië!
A note on what I call the Weakling Legolas Syndrome, that plagues many stories on Fanfiction.Net and other similar sites: what the HELL? It seems to me that in every other fic I read about Legolas he is getting his ass kicked and/or raped by everyone. He's an Elf! HE kicks the ass! That doesn't mean Legolas is immune to weakness. If he was, why didn't Elrond give HIM the ring?
In my story, I wanted to build on the basic outline of the character of Legolas given to us by Tolkien. We know nothing of Legolas' past, nor his relationship with his father. We are never really inside his head. His dialogue is few, and not that revealing. I treated the books' Legolas as a template on which to expand.
I have removed the review commentary, alas. I hope everyone had a chance to read it. I wanted to not have a huge block of writing before the chapter.
And now, onto the fun stuff. Blood, guts, and a little more "action."
Chapter XV - The Battle of Helm's Deep
When Legolas had been very young, he had slipped from the branches of a twisting tree and broken his leg. It had been the prince's first hunting party, yet he was a distracted child and spent more time wandering through the boughs of Mirkwood than seeking the quarry. Wide-eyed, smiling, Legolas had clambered up above the company, following their trail by leaping from limb to limb. One branch was not as strong as it looked, and it split beneath his weight.
Thranduil remembered that afternoon more vividly than his son ever did. He remembered the sound of his child's body hitting the earth, the unmistakable crack, and the gasp that followed. And Thranduil had dropped his bow and sprinted to Legolas' side.
The little prince sat stunned into silence, tears welling up inside his fierce gray eyes. His left leg was bent at an odd angle, and a little dark stain had bloomed on his kneecap where the bone had hit a rock. But he was silent. He bit his lower lip, shuddering in pain, tears noiselessly beginning to trickle down his blanching face. Thranduil's heart shrank in fear as he knelt at Legolas' side, gently laying his palm on the mangled knee, staring into his son's eyes.
"Legolas, does it hurt here?"
The little Elf had slightly opened his mouth to respond, but then the torrent came. He doubled over and sobbed in his father's arms, crying his eyes out, digging his fingers into the pine green of Thranduil's tunic. He burrowed his face against his father, in more agony over his shame than any injury.
And the Elven-King and his son had stayed like that, frozen in their embrace, for what seemed like an impossibly long time, even when the Royal Guard gathered round trying to offer comfort, even when Fimbrethil had come running through the woods to her husband and son. The queen was a skilled healer-they said second only in healing powers to Elrond Peredhil and Galadriel of Lorien. Legolas' tears dissolved into shuddering breaths and hiccups, and his eyes were as gray and hard as the surface of a frozen pond. Anyone could see that he was ashamed to have let his pain show itself so freely. Yet none had judged him for it. He was so young. He was only twenty, not nearly full-grown, not nearly as tall as Thranduil's waist. No one could look at that little princeling and picture the over-six-foot- tall, lanky-limbed warrior that would bloom one day. When that day came, everyone had to agree: the eyes never changed.
As Fimbrethil gathered her son into her arms, Thranduil stood, his hands balled into fists, never taking his eyes off of his child. The queen lowered her hands onto Legolas' knee, and the young prince's eyes snapped wide in pain, his mouth opening and closing like a fish without water. He lifted a little hand to his father and murmured, "Ada." He let out a little sob and said, "I-I didn't look, I just-"
Thranduil had knelt a little, barely touching his fingertips to those of his child's. But something snapped. Legolas cried out.
"Stop it, Thranduil!" Fimbrethil said hoarsely, her face pale with anxiety. "Do not break his concentration. It hurts him."
Then the king stood aloft again, silent as a dead tree, hugging his arms to his sides, watching Legolas suffer again. His heart was weighed down with guilt and helplessness, and the little fingers reached up again and again. The little voice entreated, "Ada. Ada." But all Thranduil might do was stand and watch and wait. They seemed far away then, separated by a wall of mountains, by impassable miles. And now that feeling had come again into the heart of Thranduil Oropherion who paced through the halls of his kingdom, alone and afraid.
* * *
"Legolas!"
Aragorn's steady voiced, slightly tainted by anxiety, was calling to his companion in arms. "We need your sight."
He had not meant to let his mind wander. It had come as easily as a quiet rain in the gray hours of morning. Arod, warm beneath him, was steady and sure. Gimli's arms encircled his waist-the Dwarf was scared stiff of riding any horse, even one as gentle and responsive as Arod. Yet Legolas had disconnected himself from all the lives around him. His soul rose above the grasslands and feathered out into the sky, and half of him plunged through the air and made for the north, ever seeking the heart of his father. The other half...the other half was as rigid as steel, livid, fearful of the lady it sought to glimpse once again.
And a third strand was being teased from the invisible thread that wafted in the air, and this strand was drawn to the salty moisture he could barely sense in the air, something he knew was below the frequency of humans to catch. It was somehow familiar, yet somehow unsettling. It made his heart and throat ache as though he had recently stopped crying. It was like a gentle tugging on his lungs.
The Elf lightly coaxed Arod forward to stand among the horses of his companions as they stood now, smiling blankly despite their fear. He admired them at that strange little moment of uncertainty. He turned to the place where Aragorn pointed and squinted to see. But the distance was long, and the little figures quick. He lifted his hand and used it to shade his eyes against the red sun, gazing deep into the expanse. And then his heart was filled with the sorrow of a soul betrayed, and all the welling of love he had felt for his comrades fizzled away like a dying ember, and a chill ran through his veins.
"Your people confound me," Legolas whispered to no one in particular, eyes wide, staring at the tiny movements.
A murmur rose amongst the Rohirrim. Aragorn rode a little nearer to Legolas and tilted his head: his eyes hurt and confused. "What do you see?"
Legolas lifted his chin, his face a cold, unmoving mask of marble, and said, "Those are Men down there." He let the words sink in, cruel and icy. "Not orcs, Aragorn. Men." Then, in a venomous whisper, "*Your people*."
Aragorn sat dumbfounded upon his steed, staring in horror at Legolas. It seemed to the Elf that this horror was not so much directed at the appearance of human enemies as it was aimed at him. He stared back, impassive.
"Dunlendings," Eomer hissed, as though trying to change the subject.
"Then they shall suffer as any other enemy to the Free Peoples," Théoden declared a little shakily. He rode to where Aragorn and Legolas were, still and cold. His old eyes squinted at the figures drawing nearer and nearer. "Dunlendings indeed. I can see their wild faces from here. They have come for blood, and I fear for something more. Orcwork by Men, in this day! They shall suffer slowly."
Legolas turned to look at the old king, his gaze steely and fearsome. Théoden looked back, seeming suddenly very sad and frailly mortal. "Come this autumn I will have seen the leaves of this world fall 2,814 times, King Théoden, and not once in all those years have I killed a Man." No one spoke. "Tell me how I should begin."
Théoden blinked in response, his mouth slightly open, seeming to be terribly hurt and terribly afraid at the same time. Legolas tasted the bitterness of sorrow in his mouth: he liked Théoden, and wished no ill upon him. He was met with a slew of unfriendly eyes from the Rohirric soldiers, but Aragorn and Gandalf looked simply surprised. He heard the intake of Gimli's breath behind his back.
The wizard seized the awkward moment and burnt it away. "I must leave you now for another errand calls me. Look for the White Rider, Lord Théoden. I shall return to you."
Legolas watched the gleam of Gandalf disappear, wishing he could go with him, knowing that he would have a lot of explaining to do.
* * *
"Something is troubling you."
Legolas laughed. "We are about to have a battle. Are you not troubled as well?"
"No." Aragorn was deathly seriously, his gray eyes steely lances boring into Legolas' face in a way that made the Elf extremely uncomfortable. He was impossibly afraid that Aragorn might peel away the layers of his mind and see a little portrait of Eowyn smiling back at him. "No, it is something else. There is something more."
"I don't know what you're talking about," Legolas replied, almost in a whisper.
"Gimli and I have discussed it," Aragorn went on. "You have been in this state since we came to Rohan. You seem to be drifting, Legolas. Do you feel the call of your home?"
"I always feel the call of home," Legolas answered darkly.
Aragorn stopped, realizing he was treading on very thin ice. Home was obviously a sensitive subject. Legolas' fingers twisted around the shimmering string of his bow, up and down, spiraling, dangerous, ready to snap.
"Perhaps it is nothing then," Aragorn sighed, and turned his gaze over the wall. "Perhaps we are wrong." He wondered in his heart if he felt the call of something else, for he too remembered the words of Galadriel to Legolas. Did his friend hear the call of Death? Was he destined to die at this battle, after they had come so far together? Aragorn's heart seized up with sorrow, and a sudden blaze of love for his Elven companion.
"You ask because of my callous words to you before."
Aragorn kept staring out into the night. After a moment he said, "I am not asking you for an apology."
"I regret what I said, Aragorn. I have spent too much time amongst your people to judge them so harshly, especially now. Men stand to fight the greatest of evils since the Sunless Years, and my people flee to the Havens." Aragorn found himself startled by Legolas' words. His voice was gratingly bitter. "There is still so much to fight for. And many of them know this, they do. Many of us shall fight, though perhaps you shall not see them." A sigh came forth. "I cannot help but wonder what has befallen my kindred, my father, all my friends at home," then, more bitterly, "At least those who are left. When I went from my father's hall, darkness was closing in all around us. Without our fighting it off bit by bit, wave by wave, it would have already swallowed all my kith and kin, and starlight would be banished from Mirkwood forever."
"Do not fear for them, my friend. It may blind you. Your father is strong. Your people are brave and they have been tested before. Do not fear."
"That is all I harbor, now. Fear, and shame, for those who do not stand with us but flee on their gray swan ships."
"You need not. This is not your battle." He sniffed the wind, smelling smoke. He thought of a dark-haired maiden, all alone in Rivendell. Grief constricted his throat. "Your destiny lies far beyond the Sea, in light and happiness, away from this fate. You are free."
A hand came to rest upon Aragorn's shoulder, its light weight suddenly something of great significance. He turned to look Legolas in the eye and found himself lost in the shadowy grays and greens therein, though dimmed by the onslaught of evening. Legolas had never seemed old among the Elves. Galadriel was old, and Elrond, his foster father, was impossibly old as well. Age was in Celeborn's eyes. He had seen it in Thranduil during their brief meetings. He saw it in the many eyes of the Fair Race, but there were four pairs of Elven eyes that always seemed young: Arwen, Elrohir, Elladan, and Legolas.
All that was washed away in this briefest of moments, and Aragorn realized for the second time in his life, that these seemingly youthful eyes were indeed *impossibly* old. They were the windows into the soul of an ancient child of ancient forces that no mortal mind could ever comprehend. There was power there, and great sorrow. It was like the moment he had looked into Arwen's face when they first met, and he had realized how old she was as well, how more akin to Legolas than to him.
Despite the wonderful silence of the moment, Legolas spoke, and his words stayed in the Man's heart for the rest of his life.
"Aragorn, we have not forgotten." The smile, though terribly sad, was genuine and pure. "We will never forget the goodness of your people to our kind. We do not forget it now." There was a flutter in the breeze. "It is you who have forgotten us."
For a brief moment, Aragorn had been stunned into silence, but he found his tongue and almost stammered as he said, "None shall ever-"
"It will happen." Legolas' voice was steady, his eyes sure, compliant and kind. "We knew this day would come. It hurts to disappear without a marker of your passing, but we accept that. We will be the keepers of *your* days. Long after your passing, we will remember you as you really were. Forever you shall be known by the fondest of companions-for we *are* companions, the Elves and the Mortals. We have been placed together on this earth for a greater purpose that we shall perhaps never know save in the furthest parts of our hearts."
"Unless all falls to Darkness," Aragorn realized aloud, his voice so dark and defeated that for a moment Legolas thought he had seen tears in the warrior's eyes. He looked away swiftly.
"Unless."
Aragorn gazed out into the dark, then back at Legolas. "Have you ever thought of what would happen, should...should *He* win?"
Legolas thought in silence, then said, "Often. It is natural for me. Terrible images haunt my dreams as of late without my bidding." He let out a little, cynical laugh, realizing he had kept this inside for some time and was now making a sort of confession. "Sometimes it is as though all my dreams are premonitions, these horrible visions."
"Visions?"
"Yes."
"How long have you been having these visions?"
"In all honesty, they began after-" he stopped for the shortest of moments "-I knew we had lost Baran and Silindë to the Shadow. Then they slackened. Now they have returned."
Aragorn stared at the young Elf, horrified and intrigued. "What have you seen?"
Legolas eyes glazed over, smooth as polished glass, and it seemed that another spoke through him. "I see the air thick with flumes of smoke, sparks wafting through the leafless branches of seared trees-bodies of Men and Elves, and even Halflings, litter the barren ground. The only color to be seen is in the swirling oily patterns on stagnant pools of dark water and blackened blood. Yet countless others are kept alive, despite all this death, this deadness that I can smell crisp and sure in the air, even in dreams. They are-" he stopped, then went on, "They are twisted into hideous things, as the orcs were made. Yet my heart tells me they are not of orc- make. They are something more like Nazgûl. Their eyes are lightless hollows. I can see straight through them in my dreams. They are tortured and worked away. There is no sun during the day, no stars at night. The Havens are destroyed. The Seas are slick with oil. Dust is laced in the wind and burns your eyes."
Aragorn felt his heart shrink in fear. He glanced down, and saw Legolas hand resting lightly upon the stone of the battlements. He knew that if he were to touch the skin of that hand, it would feel as icy as frost.
"I see the fates of all Free Peoples," Legolas went on. He was beginning to sound a bit more like himself. His voice was no longer a haunting song. There were strains of genuine sorrow and fear bubbling to the surface. "The Dwarves are set as slaves within the sweltering forges of the Dark Lord. They will find no comfort within the earth anymore. The Hobbits-" his voice cracked "-are mostly killed off. They prove to be too feeble for His demands. Men are slaves and food for the orc armies that grow and grow each day. The victims are the lucky ones. They are herded like cattle into caverns like stables where they are forced to multiply. Then the orcs are set upon them three times a day."
Aragorn's fist around Anduril's hilt was white-knuckled, his jaw set in a hard line.
"And the Elves-" Legolas let out a sigh that was more defeated than tired. "The Elves are lost to the world. He shall divide us. Then He shall punish us for never succumbing to His strength long ago. He will break us and torment us simply for the pleasure of watching it. Some He will forge into orcs as did the Dark One before him, others He will keep as they are, shadows of themselves, and these He shall use in cruel ways. Some shall be slaves, others-others shall be gifts to His officers who have pleased their master." He looked down. "That is our doom, I think. Objectified and mutilated, a ruined race." He sighed. "A ruined world." Then Legolas turned to Aragorn with a wild look in his eyes as though he were making a plea. "Yet it is the tale of Men that saddens me most. I had the dreams in Rohan more than in any other place on our journey. I saw the Golden Hall burning, and the people slain, streaks of blood dried dark in the bright strands of their hair. I saw the children of Edoras spitted on the hillside, and the plains ablaze with fiery ruin. We shall all be bound into His endless circle and nothing shall break it. Not even the Valar themselves."
The whistling wind seemed suddenly a mournful sigh. Aragorn blinked at his companion, rooted in fear and marveling at the powerfulness of the words. It was like standing in the presence of Galadriel. Legolas was a gateway offering a terrifyingly truthful and frank glimpse at what would happen. At what seemed likely to happen, now that their original quest had foundered and they were helplessly trying to divert Sauron's eye.
Legolas was staring at the ground, his fingernail coursing up and down the bowstring, making a soft singing sound. Then the shadow flitted away and he looked up, his gaze melting into the black. "That is all." He dared not speak of the other vision-of the White Lady of the Rohirrim slain, her body upon the burnt grass, ringed in blood, her golden hair like the rays of a sun all around her head, her gray-blue eyes frozen open for eternity. It was this vision, he was sure, that had made him sharpen all his arrowheads and blade edges one more time before this day.
As though the night had heard the tale, it blotted the stars from the sky.
* * *
He had been in true battle before. Once. Twice. Three times. Once for the Battle of Five Armies. Once for the protection of his home, when the Spiders converged at once as they had not since the days of Ungoliant the Black. Once to ward off an army of orcs that had plunged into Mirkwood, that had miraculously sent him here to face their masses again-that had taken his friends from him, sealing them apart for too long a stretch of time. He had fought Wargs with the Fellowship and upon the outskirts of his father's kingdom. He had slain mountain goblins when he had journeyed West. But nothing had prepared him-not the stories of the Great Wars, not the scars upon the elder soldier's arms and torsos-for this.
Orc blood flew from his hands, and he could taste it in his mouth, sickeningly sweet, thick as mucus, clinging to his insides. Orc hands tore at him as he twisted their weapons from their grasps, and they fell to using their nails and teeth, horrible blurs that scraped and ripped into flesh, cloth and even chain mail. Orc sweat mixed with the blood and made his limbs slick, his garments clinging to his limbs beneath the light metal links. And every now and then, an Orc eye caught his own. Before he sent an arrow spiraling into the yellow iris, he glimpsed something that he found to be eerily familiar.
But they saw nothing common in him. They saw lightness and a strange color: the color of goodness, of things they could never touch, nor taste, things they did not know how to even yearn for. He maddened them, more then the horrible flaxen-haired warriors massing all around him. They wanted to latch onto his limbs, to rend him apart, or to rip their jagged blades through his chest. His blood was not easy to shed, but a scimitar had indeed met the dense muscle of his right bicep. The Orcs gazed hungrily at the bright liquid seeping down their quarry's arm, and they opened their mouths as he spun by. Sometimes a crimson drop, like a spiraling ruby, would fly off the Elf and land on their tongues, and for a moment they would taste, like a memory, what it was like to be divine. And then they wanted to kill him even more.
An Uruk gave a deafening bellow near his right ear and brought down its weapon near his head. He met the blade with his own and disarmed his enemy by cutting off the hand near the wrist. But the Uruk grabbed his arm with its undamaged hand to break or disarm him. Cold claws dug into his wound, but he twisted free and delivered his blade into the attacker's jaw. The arrows had been spent long ago, years ago it seemed. More came at him, roaring with bloodlust and madness, yet he danced away, and those who came too near had their faces carved to pieces.
Gimli was strong as a mighty, little mountain, and Legolas loved to hear the ringing of his companion's blade as it careened against the plate-armor of their enemies. He loved the sound and the spark of the axe blade colliding with the stones of the Deep. He loved the rumblings of Gimli's voice as he let out his raspy battle cries.
He loved glimpsing the flash of Anduril in the dead blackness of night, Aragorn's face as stony as an Elven warrior's, his gray eyes flashing with a deadly light.
He loved the song of his knife in his hand, his forest-forged knife, his knife that had been given to him by his father, his knife that had tasted Orc blood long ago when the Last Alliance raged and Thranduil had been a wide-eyed prince thrust into the thick of battle, suddenly weighed down by sorrow and a crown. The pulse of this beautiful knife-it carried through his fingers and formed a barrier around his heart.
There was madness all around him. He was surrounded on all sides, or so it seemed. He could not pick out one human face in the crowd that had massed, closing in, bellowing in deafening tongues, trying to make his movements falter with select phrases in Blackspeech. The fearful memories from the Battle of Esgaroth swam in his mind, but he forced them down and focused on the moon-bright edge of his white knife. The Uruk-Hai tried to hit him from behind, but just before an arm could come around or a weapon could be pressed home, he would spiral to face them and blind them in a single, perfect slash.
Legolas smiled amid the gore, forgetting his pain and weariness, immune to the vertigo of this endless fighting. This was-what was that word? The Elves did not have a word for it-it was a human word, a Westron word. Ah, yes. *Revenge.* This tasted like that word rolling off the tongue. Revenge. And in every drop of blood that fell on him or from him, he remembered Silindë's gray eyes in their last look, a look of frightened betrayal. And Legolas took that guilt and sorrow and forged it into a spike of steel that he drove into Orcish innards. All around him was the dance of death, but he felt like laughing and crying, uncontrollable madness, as his knife flew through flesh and sinew. He let out a war cry his father taught him when he gave him his first bow and plunged his knife into an eye.
And again, another presence: how cunning that they all would attack from behind! He smiled again and narrowed his eyes. There was breath on his neck. There was a life behind him, an arm raised high. He tightened his grips on the hilts and spun around, arm raised to plunge the point into the wretched Orc's vitals-
What was this? No Orc here. At last the buzzing swiftness of combat slowed down and the face that came to view froze Legolas with wonder and genuine fear that shocked him out of his demonic state. For there-half-hidden under the night sky-navy of her hood, distorted by the light reflecting off the links of her chain mail-there was Eowyn. Her face, her beautiful face: there was a small cut under her right eye. Bloodlust of a different nature was boiling up inside him.
The icy rain steamed where it hit their skin. There she was, her blue eyes piercing his soul, so beautiful and grave, strong as the steel they grasped in their bloody hands, so many unspoken words in her gaze.
Without thought, Legolas grabbed her arm and in one gesture he swung her away from the clashing blades and storms of arrows. He felt the abrasion of chain mail on her arm. She tensed her muscles, resisting a little, but knew better than to put up a fight against an Elf in his most combative state. There was a small niche in the stone wall, and there he brought her (not gently), standing in front to guard her just in case of the unthinkable. At last words formed, but barely legible in his emotions. The spiraling world began to slow more purposefully. It was like falling into a dream.
"No. You-you were supposed to be safe." He glanced down at her garb, saw her chest bound flat as a boy's, her long hair half-hidden under her gleaming helm, this covered by the navy cloak, like a cape of a starry night to shield her from the eyes of her kin.
Eowyn did not reply, but her pale hand crept up his arm and moved toward his face. At last she said, "You are not my lord in this matter. No man is."
"Not here," he gasped. "You can't be here. If you get hurt-"
The creeping hand seized the back of his neck, it worshipped the heat radiating off of the spot, and each of them reacted. The Elf suddenly embraced the girl fiercely, winding his arms around her. They kissed each other hard. Desperation and hunger passed between them and was bound into the kiss. He ran his hand up her scalp and his long fingers were in her hair. Her arms were wrapped about him firmly, and her own hands drew forbidden pictures over the warm muscles of his back. Each was content to feel the life in the other, the thundering at their pulse points, the sweet smell of perspiration and rain.
He comically remembered the last words she had said to him, before all this had erupted around them. *Then let us part as friends, Legolas Greenleaf. Grant me that?* The rain mixed with her saliva was like tea flowing over his tongue. His fingers reached up and tangled into her wet hair again, pulling almost painfully. He felt the impossible heat of the living body beneath him, the madness matching the terror of the battle all around them. The rawness of the moment mixed with the stinging of the sleet pelting the open wounds on his arms and back was agonizingly perfect.
Yet he tore his mouth away and spoke, strangely calmed by the experience. "You will go. You were not meant to come here."
"I will not."
"Why did you come, Eowyn? There is nothing for you here."
And she reached out and rested her fingertips upon his breastbone, right above his beating heart. They could not be that different. Their hearts had found a common rhythm.
"I came to see you. I have been watching you. You are a warrior like none I have ever seen." His eyes were cold, disbelieving and unconvinced. She frowned, but had to admit, "I came for a friend. I sought a friend who saw me as I really am. You saw, Legolas. I will never forget that."
"Friends are loyal to each other, and protect each other."
"Then we are not friends," she laughed, and her hand leapt to the back of his neck once more, demanding. He stayed back, feral as a cornered beast, but she brought her mouth to his. Her hunger was fearful and startling, and he felt himself growing more desperate to touch the skin beneath the metal. His eyes were open when they kissed for the third time. He was lost in wonder. He did not know himself. He was lost in the rain and in her mouth, and he never wanted to go home.
Then she pulled back, leaving him gasping for more, and whispered, "No man shall rule me, even in friendship, no matter how steadfast or pure. Know that, if you will know naught else." For Eowyn was proud. She knew a little of the power she now possessed.
He held himself away from her, searching her glittering eyes, and somewhat thrilled by the formality of her words. "Very well." But he did not allow her to savor the victory long. Legolas was a prince. Legolas was an Elf. Above all, Legolas had an ironic sense of humor.
"Yet no mortal Man am I."
With that, he flipped his knife in his hand and slammed the hilt into her torso.
Eowyn gasped once, looking more perturbed than betrayed, and slumped romantically into his arms, limp as a rag doll: a rag doll clad in shining chain mail, smeared with orc-gore. It was the most damsel-like he ever found her to be. Thereafter, she remembered little of the incident, save his words. They came to serve her well.
He lifted her head to check: yes, her eyes had closed and her breath was calm. Legolas had simply stunned her, and he knew that on one such as Eowyn, the effect would not be long-lasting. He had to get her out of the midst of battle and into the caves to rest-and to be in safe hands. Men were dying like flies. He drew some of her hair over her face, disguising it though it needed little help under the sweat and orc-blood, and lifted her into his arms. She was light, he could tell, but the armor was cumbersome and heavy. Waiting for a break in the skirmish, Legolas leapt from the niche and made his way toward the cave mouths.
Eomer called to him from above to his left. "What is it, Legolas?"
"This boy has been knocked out," the Elf replied, yelling over the din of the screams and clashing metal, praying he would not wake her. "The Uruks are being cruel to the bodies of our fallen. I am taking him inside, out of harm's way."
No one, *no one* ever knew.
* * *
Eowyn felt something warm upon her brow, and she twitched, annoyed, and instinctively swung her arms up to seize whatever was touching her. Opening her eyes, she saw the face of a weary but visibly amused Elf. Her hands were clamped around his slender wrist, just above her forehead.
"Did you sleep well?" he asked innocently.
She twisted his arm the wrong way and seethed, "What's going on? How long have I been asleep?"
He was stronger, and pulled away, cracking her fingers in the process. "Long enough. The battle is not over, though. We were forced to retreat."
Her eyes went wild, and she glared around the cavern, seeming not to see the injured men slumped about the place in groups, bloodied, sweaty and some mortally wounded. "The Rohirrim do not retreat. It is not our way." She began to rise, but Legolas place a palm firmly upon her bound chest and gently shoved her back against the wall. "What are you doing?" she demanded through grit teeth.
"The wise warrior knows when to step back from the reckless brawl. You are not going back out there."
Elvish proverbs at a time like this! Was he mad? "You cannot tell me what to do."
"Why not?" He was serious, but he smirked a little. "Would you not listen to a prince?"
"You are not *my* prince."
He did not smile anymore. "Would you listen to King Théoden?"
"Of course. Now let me-"
"I am not finished. You know Théoden would forbid Eowyn-the woman-to fight. You have just said that you would listen to him."
"Are you trying to threaten me?"
He looked into her eyes with a sudden ferocity that made her pause. "I *am* threatening you, Eowyn. You will stay here. If you try to rejoin the battle, I shall see to it that Théoden, Aragorn and your brother all become very much aware of your true identity. Do you understand?"
She was furious. A soft color was rising in her cheeks: it was lovely, but the look in her eyes was anything but. "This is orc-work, Legolas Greenleaf. I would never betray you thus."
"I am not betraying you-"
"You are no different than the rest of them!" she exclaimed. Her voice rose an octave in almost childish frustration. Legolas glanced around quickly, checking to see if any warrior's head had turned at the sound of a woman's lilt. All was safe, but Eowyn herself still looked dangerous. More softly, but as venomously, she went on: "All of my life I have been told what I can and cannot do. It is not fair, Legolas. You are supposed to be different! How can an Elf be as blind as a mortal?"
"Stop it," he entreated. She was being so difficult.
"You still seek to order me?"
"No. Now I am asking you, Eowyn. If I am blind, then you are stubborn and ignorant. I am going to protect you at all costs, even if it means sacrificing your trust of me."
"I do not need your protection."
"It is not worth the risk."
"Risk! What risk is there?"
"You have never been in a battle before, you stupid girl!" he snapped.
She stared at him in horror, and he fiercely stared back. In his face was anger, fear and sadness: a desperate expression, profoundly sorrowful simply because of the Elven shape of his face. Yet Eowyn was infuriated into silence. He had crossed a line that no one had ever traversed once before in her life: he had insulted her to her face. Even her own brother had known better than to do that. The one time in childhood that Eomer called her a name, she had chased him down, thrown him to the floor, and pummeled him with her fists so hard that he received two black eyes and a loose tooth. Yet despite her indignation now, she realized how alike she was to Legolas. They were proud and relentless, headstrong and obstinate. And terrifyingly different. They might as well have existed on two different plains of existence. But the similarities-they were shocking. Quite suddenly, she wanted to laugh. Ah, but she would never give him that satisfaction. They sat seething for a long moment before she finally came to the only conclusion she could think of.
"Leave me," she hissed, looking away.
Legolas seemed to shudder at her voice. "What?"
"Go!" she replied, wheeling on him.
He rose clumsily, as though unsure of his own footing: very unlike an Elf, if legend spoke the truth. Yet before he turned from her he said, "Do you swear to stay?"
"If your threat holds true."
"It does."
"Then I will stay. You leave me with no other choice."
Without another word, Legolas turned. She watched him go, disappearing into the crowd of Men that parted as he walked by. None of the Rohirrim felt truly comfortable in elvish presence. As he passed now, the sorrow in his eyes made them more afraid. It was a shadow of the agony within. She saw the backs of his hands coated with blood-the black blood of Orcs, his own vibrant red life essence. She saw the weariness in his gait. Elves did not become weary in body. They became weary in spirit.
She saw him adjust the quiver on his back, and then he was gone.
-Fin-
Please review, my lovelies.
Continued in Chapter XVI - Eowyn vanimelda, namarië!