The promised update.
And two chapters at once.
A/N: Thank you for your reviews, *hugs*
Namárië an Lalaith: Thank you for your offer, I will keep it in mind.
Disc.: Same as in chapter one. Unfortunately *sigh*
Enjoy!
Chapter 2
He did not know how long he stood there only looking at the barricaded door.
Shaking and shivering, while horrible images of what could have had happened swirling through his mind. He saw pictures of his father, twisted in pain, pictures of his friends fighting against an unknown enemy and failing. He saw them all die. In his imagination the worst case scenario took place. Not knowing what had led him to this place drove him nearly crazy.
Shaking his head to get rid of this disturbing pictures and feelings, Legolas took a few deep breaths and started to remove all the items which stood between him and his freedom.
After a look at the pile of items he knew he had to climb up a little to remove the boxes on top of it.
Carefully placing his feet at the prominent edges of the lower levels he managed to reach up to the box on top of it. Gripping it, at the moment forgetting his hands, he was remembered a moment later, when the pain, which had been reduced to a dull ache, returned with full force, he eased his grip and almost toppled backward, at the last moment he regained his balance again. Resting his head against the wood in front of him, he breathed deeply and forced the pain back, it was still there, but bearable. For the second time he gripped the box, and throw it down on the floor, follow shortly after by one of the barrels. The banging and shattering of the wood on the floor echoed back from the stone walls and became very loud, nearly deafening. The raising dust made his work not easier, the dirt mixed with the sweat on his face covered his features like a mask, his clothes fared not much better. The dust and dirt was everywhere; it even felt like it was crawling under his skin He suppressed the desire to scratch at his arms and his chest and continued his task.
He literally dug through the wooden hill he had constructed.
Finally he was able to open the door, and peeked carefully outside.
He saw nothing unusual. Slowly placing one foot in front of the other he left the room, which was his refuge for the last hours. Had it been hours? Maybe, he did not know.
But he wanted to know.
He needed to know.
Slowly he made his way through the cellars always on guard, his senses reaching out for uncommon sounds or smells, but there was nothing.
He walked upwards the stony stairs carved ages ago in the deep hills of his homeland, never meeting one soul.
Reaching the more upper levels, first signs of live showed up. A burning torch, on the side of the corridor, lighting the path in front of him, an open door leading to one of the storage rooms holding some barrels of wine.
A few doors down the way the saw a ray of light shining through the gap between the door and the floor, and heard voices behind it.
He knew the voices; they belonged to some of the servants of his father.
They didn't sound frightened, on the contrary, they where laughing. Maybe one told the other a joke or a funny story from the kitchens, he did not know, and he did not care.
He was more confused than ever in the last time, since he had woke up in this room three levels down from here.
At this point of his *journey* he did not want to meet other people, the only one he wanted to see was his father, he had to assure himself that his father was alive and well.
He tip toed down the corridor until he was out of the earshot of the elves in that room. Releasing a breath, he was not aware that he had hold it, he made his way further upwards until he reached the entrance to the main hall.
The whole palace was quiet, the rays of the sun gracing the whole space with the light of a new day. It was earlier than he had expected. The sun had only started her way through the sky.
Walking slowly up the stairs to the wing of the palace which holds the rooms of his father and his own, he listened to the different sounds of the forest, which he could hear clearly know, and which he had missed so, deep down in the cellars.
It eased his heart that not all had vanished since he had gone down into the depths of his home.
But the longer he walked the more puzzled he became. All seemed to be in order, there was no hint of a threat or a past fight ... there was nothing that could have told him what had happened to him.
When he reached the top of the stair, he had made the decision that he first had to think about the last day's event, before he woke up his father.
He was a warrior, no little child that would run to his father when it had imagined that there is a Balrog under its bed.
He could handle that.
It would be useless to scare his father without knowing something more.
There had to be a reason why he had ended up the way he did, and he did not think that his father would know something.
If his father had known something, he had done all within his powers to protect his son.
So, that led to the conclusion, that his father knew nothing.
He had to find out alone what had happened.
But first of all he had to know that his father was well.
With a sigh he drove the back of his hand over his face, and continued his way down the hallway leading to his fathers rooms.
Stopping in front of the massive doors that led to the king's bedroom he pressed his ear against it, and listened to any sound that would come from the inside.
All he could hear was deep breaths sometimes interrupted by light snores. The sound of the snores brought a broad grin on his face; his father always denied that he was snoring. But he had always known that he did not imagine the strange sounds that emerged from his father's room, especially when he had a little too much wine at one of his many feasts.
It seemed that all was perfectly normal, except that one particular point that he could not remember how he had get down in the cellars this morning. The familiar sounds lifted his spirit and much more light-hearted than before he pushed himself of the door and turned left to reach his own rooms.
By passing one of the windows near the door of his fathers bedroom, he looked out into the courtyard and saw a patrol preparing for one of there daily tasks. There was no rush, no urgent calls; everything looked like it always had.
From the corner of his eyes he saw his own reflection in the window.
He took a closer look at his image.
He was a mess.
His hair disarranged, covered with dust and spider webs, in a way that it looked grey, His face the same colour, only interrupted by some smears of blood that could have only came from his hands when he had tried to wipe away the sweat.
His tunic dirty and torn, bloody bandages wrapped around his hand.
He chuckled lightly when he a thought crossed his mind. A thought of his best friend Estel, he always teased the young human with the words 'filthy human'
If Estel could see him right now, the young man would laugh until he had no breath left and probably would never live out to point it at him.
He was so glad that at this moment Estel was back at home in Imladris and never had the chance to see him like this in his own house.
Taking the last steps he finally reached his rooms. Looking around he saw that his bed was used, the blankets disarranged, so it was obvious that he had started the night in his own bed. His bow, the quiver and his knifes were lying at the same points he had dropped them yesterday.
He went to the bath, removed his clothes and washed away the dirt and grime.
Afterwards he sat on his bed and tried to remove the splinters which were still embedded in his palms. It was a tiresome and painful task, but at the end he managed to remove the most of them. When he had finished bandaging his hands again, he changed in a new light blue tunic, and brushed his still wet hair.
While brushing his hair, the whole tension fell of him and he felt a little tired.
Leaning back into the soft cushions, he relaxed and let his mind flow back to the events that took place the last evening.
~Flashback~
Leaving his father's study, he more stumbled than walked the familiar way down to his own rooms. It was pure luck that he did reach the door without mishap, like running into a servant or tripping over the edge of a carpet.
Tired and lost in thoughts about what he just had heard, he walked in and collapsed on his bed.
Oh...how he wanted to sleep.
He could not recall a lot of times in his life when he had been so tired.
Knowing that he would not be able to wake up for the next days when he allowed himself to the alluring depths of sleep, Legolas unwillingly left the soft, inviting embrace of his bed. The servants had prepared a bath for him and with a sigh of relief he lowered himself into the warm waters of the bath tube.
The warmth invaded his tense and exhausted muscles and he finally relaxed. After half an hour he felt his eyelids drop and he forced himself upright. It was time to leave, before he drowned himself while sleeping.
Leaving the bath he changed in one of his formal court robes he had to wear on official occasions.
He hated these stiff and long tunics, the high collar felt like it wants to strangle him. He would much prefer his favourites but he knew it would upset his fathers, if he should show up in his usual green tunic and the darker leggings.
Smoothing the silver tunic with his hands, he took a deep breath and left his room towards the dining hall.
Arriving at the entrance of the great hall he could hear that the most guests had already arrived, soft murmurs of the people gathered at the long tables and the sweet sounds of the music performed by the minstrels to entertain the guests, greeted his ear.
Squaring his shoulders and holding his head high Legolas entered and made his way down to the king's table in the centre of the hall.
Slowly passing the other guests he took his time to look for the foreign humans.
He found them at his fathers table; there were four of them, deep in conversation with each other.
They seemed not to notice their surroundings.
They looked not so much different to other humans he had met before.
Dark unruly hair went down to their shoulders; thick beards covered most of their faces. They seemed not to be very tall, but sturdy; if they would have been shorter they would have looked like dwarfs.
But they were obvious human.
One of the men looked up and his gaze met the prince.
The man's eyes went wide and by jumping on his feet he nudged the one companion who was sitting beside him.
Turning his head, the second also saw Legolas approaching. Jumping up like his comrade, they both managed to topple their chairs, which crashed down on the floor with a loud bang.
The two on the other side followed a split second later.
Silence felt over the room, when all talk and a little later the minstrels stopped.
The humans rushed towards him in a manner that could have been interpreted as an attack. Not few elves rose to their feet either, hand gripping the tilts of daggers, ready to defend their prince.
A few steps away from Legolas the humans stooped dead in track and all four of them dropped down on their knees bowing their heads so low that their foreheads touched the floor.
Legolas like the other elves stood frozen and speechless. None of them had ever in his whole life witnessed such submissiveness from humans. Murmurs rose from the gathered elves, whispers made their way through the whole hall. Nobody knew what they should think of the spectacle. Legolas cleared his throat and addressed the crouching humans.
'Would you please rise, there is no need for such behaviour.'
'You are the Golden One!' came the barely audible answer. 'That is all what we need'
Flabbergasted Legolas had no idea what he should do now.
Doing the only thing that was appropriate at the moment he knelt in front of the men.
Touching the first one lightly on the shoulder he tried to make a little joke to ease the tension.
'If you don't want to rise we have to eat our dinner on the floor.'
This was rewarded by four heads rising up from the floor.
'So if you don't mind I would prefer a seat at the table.' Legolas said smiling at them. The man nodded, waved his comrades to follow and rose to his feet.
'I'm sorry Golden One. We did not mean to insult you. This is the way of our people to greet higher beings.'
'There is no need to apologize, why don't we start anew without formalities. Please call me by my name, I'm Legolas.' A few second later he added 'would you be so kind and give me your name?'
'I'm sorry Gold....Lord Legolas... I forgot my manners. My name is Roac; the one on my right side is Kazm.' Waving to the men behind him Roac introduced them as Aibon and Giall.
Leading them back to the table Legolas glanced towards his father who greeted him with a smile and a barely visible nod. Legolas smiled back while he invited the humans to take their seats again.
He took his seat beside his father, bending towards Thranduil he whispered only audible for elven ears. 'Why did you not tell me how they would greet me? 'I wanted to see your face when they greet you. And I have to tell you, the sight was worth waiting.' Thranduil whispered back, hiding a wide grin behind his hand.
Legolas turned his attention back to the humans who had watched the exchange with wide eyes.
'Where do you come from, my father told me that you were very exhausted when you arrived in our lands.'
'We are from the Forodwaith beyond the Grey Mountains; we live in a little village near the ocean.' Roac answered, not able to meet Legolas eyes. Looking down on his plate he continued. 'We barely leave our confined realms. It is a hard and dangerous live up there in the north, you know. The constant cold, the wild hunters, like the great white bears who often wander down from the northern waste when winter arrives. We have only limited time in year to sow and harvest the crop. We are mostly hunters, we trade with other villages and sometimes we have dealings With dwarfs, should they come near our hunting camps.
We would not have come here, because we had to leave behind our families alone with the approaching winter, but our shaman called me one day and ordered me to leave to bring you the message. He said the time had come.'
'What message could your shaman have for me, he does not know me, and I do not know him either. I never had been up this far north.'
Kazm spoke up for the first time.
'We do not know either. We are only the messengers; we do not know what the shaman had seen in his visions.'
'A vision?' Thranduil rose one of his eyebrows.
'Yes, he told us that he had a vision concerning the Golden One and some other things we do not understand.'
'So, and what says this message?' Legolas curiosity got the best of him.
Roac cleared his throat, and looked in the faces of his fellows, the three of them glanced back and all of them gave their approval with a slight nod of their heads.
'Well your shaman said:
*Tell him...tell the Golden One: Gold and green, silver and black and the two that are one, you all have to save and protect the power of the air! The power is tainted and it will not withstand much longer than it already had.*'
TBC
And two chapters at once.
A/N: Thank you for your reviews, *hugs*
Namárië an Lalaith: Thank you for your offer, I will keep it in mind.
Disc.: Same as in chapter one. Unfortunately *sigh*
Enjoy!
Chapter 2
He did not know how long he stood there only looking at the barricaded door.
Shaking and shivering, while horrible images of what could have had happened swirling through his mind. He saw pictures of his father, twisted in pain, pictures of his friends fighting against an unknown enemy and failing. He saw them all die. In his imagination the worst case scenario took place. Not knowing what had led him to this place drove him nearly crazy.
Shaking his head to get rid of this disturbing pictures and feelings, Legolas took a few deep breaths and started to remove all the items which stood between him and his freedom.
After a look at the pile of items he knew he had to climb up a little to remove the boxes on top of it.
Carefully placing his feet at the prominent edges of the lower levels he managed to reach up to the box on top of it. Gripping it, at the moment forgetting his hands, he was remembered a moment later, when the pain, which had been reduced to a dull ache, returned with full force, he eased his grip and almost toppled backward, at the last moment he regained his balance again. Resting his head against the wood in front of him, he breathed deeply and forced the pain back, it was still there, but bearable. For the second time he gripped the box, and throw it down on the floor, follow shortly after by one of the barrels. The banging and shattering of the wood on the floor echoed back from the stone walls and became very loud, nearly deafening. The raising dust made his work not easier, the dirt mixed with the sweat on his face covered his features like a mask, his clothes fared not much better. The dust and dirt was everywhere; it even felt like it was crawling under his skin He suppressed the desire to scratch at his arms and his chest and continued his task.
He literally dug through the wooden hill he had constructed.
Finally he was able to open the door, and peeked carefully outside.
He saw nothing unusual. Slowly placing one foot in front of the other he left the room, which was his refuge for the last hours. Had it been hours? Maybe, he did not know.
But he wanted to know.
He needed to know.
Slowly he made his way through the cellars always on guard, his senses reaching out for uncommon sounds or smells, but there was nothing.
He walked upwards the stony stairs carved ages ago in the deep hills of his homeland, never meeting one soul.
Reaching the more upper levels, first signs of live showed up. A burning torch, on the side of the corridor, lighting the path in front of him, an open door leading to one of the storage rooms holding some barrels of wine.
A few doors down the way the saw a ray of light shining through the gap between the door and the floor, and heard voices behind it.
He knew the voices; they belonged to some of the servants of his father.
They didn't sound frightened, on the contrary, they where laughing. Maybe one told the other a joke or a funny story from the kitchens, he did not know, and he did not care.
He was more confused than ever in the last time, since he had woke up in this room three levels down from here.
At this point of his *journey* he did not want to meet other people, the only one he wanted to see was his father, he had to assure himself that his father was alive and well.
He tip toed down the corridor until he was out of the earshot of the elves in that room. Releasing a breath, he was not aware that he had hold it, he made his way further upwards until he reached the entrance to the main hall.
The whole palace was quiet, the rays of the sun gracing the whole space with the light of a new day. It was earlier than he had expected. The sun had only started her way through the sky.
Walking slowly up the stairs to the wing of the palace which holds the rooms of his father and his own, he listened to the different sounds of the forest, which he could hear clearly know, and which he had missed so, deep down in the cellars.
It eased his heart that not all had vanished since he had gone down into the depths of his home.
But the longer he walked the more puzzled he became. All seemed to be in order, there was no hint of a threat or a past fight ... there was nothing that could have told him what had happened to him.
When he reached the top of the stair, he had made the decision that he first had to think about the last day's event, before he woke up his father.
He was a warrior, no little child that would run to his father when it had imagined that there is a Balrog under its bed.
He could handle that.
It would be useless to scare his father without knowing something more.
There had to be a reason why he had ended up the way he did, and he did not think that his father would know something.
If his father had known something, he had done all within his powers to protect his son.
So, that led to the conclusion, that his father knew nothing.
He had to find out alone what had happened.
But first of all he had to know that his father was well.
With a sigh he drove the back of his hand over his face, and continued his way down the hallway leading to his fathers rooms.
Stopping in front of the massive doors that led to the king's bedroom he pressed his ear against it, and listened to any sound that would come from the inside.
All he could hear was deep breaths sometimes interrupted by light snores. The sound of the snores brought a broad grin on his face; his father always denied that he was snoring. But he had always known that he did not imagine the strange sounds that emerged from his father's room, especially when he had a little too much wine at one of his many feasts.
It seemed that all was perfectly normal, except that one particular point that he could not remember how he had get down in the cellars this morning. The familiar sounds lifted his spirit and much more light-hearted than before he pushed himself of the door and turned left to reach his own rooms.
By passing one of the windows near the door of his fathers bedroom, he looked out into the courtyard and saw a patrol preparing for one of there daily tasks. There was no rush, no urgent calls; everything looked like it always had.
From the corner of his eyes he saw his own reflection in the window.
He took a closer look at his image.
He was a mess.
His hair disarranged, covered with dust and spider webs, in a way that it looked grey, His face the same colour, only interrupted by some smears of blood that could have only came from his hands when he had tried to wipe away the sweat.
His tunic dirty and torn, bloody bandages wrapped around his hand.
He chuckled lightly when he a thought crossed his mind. A thought of his best friend Estel, he always teased the young human with the words 'filthy human'
If Estel could see him right now, the young man would laugh until he had no breath left and probably would never live out to point it at him.
He was so glad that at this moment Estel was back at home in Imladris and never had the chance to see him like this in his own house.
Taking the last steps he finally reached his rooms. Looking around he saw that his bed was used, the blankets disarranged, so it was obvious that he had started the night in his own bed. His bow, the quiver and his knifes were lying at the same points he had dropped them yesterday.
He went to the bath, removed his clothes and washed away the dirt and grime.
Afterwards he sat on his bed and tried to remove the splinters which were still embedded in his palms. It was a tiresome and painful task, but at the end he managed to remove the most of them. When he had finished bandaging his hands again, he changed in a new light blue tunic, and brushed his still wet hair.
While brushing his hair, the whole tension fell of him and he felt a little tired.
Leaning back into the soft cushions, he relaxed and let his mind flow back to the events that took place the last evening.
~Flashback~
Leaving his father's study, he more stumbled than walked the familiar way down to his own rooms. It was pure luck that he did reach the door without mishap, like running into a servant or tripping over the edge of a carpet.
Tired and lost in thoughts about what he just had heard, he walked in and collapsed on his bed.
Oh...how he wanted to sleep.
He could not recall a lot of times in his life when he had been so tired.
Knowing that he would not be able to wake up for the next days when he allowed himself to the alluring depths of sleep, Legolas unwillingly left the soft, inviting embrace of his bed. The servants had prepared a bath for him and with a sigh of relief he lowered himself into the warm waters of the bath tube.
The warmth invaded his tense and exhausted muscles and he finally relaxed. After half an hour he felt his eyelids drop and he forced himself upright. It was time to leave, before he drowned himself while sleeping.
Leaving the bath he changed in one of his formal court robes he had to wear on official occasions.
He hated these stiff and long tunics, the high collar felt like it wants to strangle him. He would much prefer his favourites but he knew it would upset his fathers, if he should show up in his usual green tunic and the darker leggings.
Smoothing the silver tunic with his hands, he took a deep breath and left his room towards the dining hall.
Arriving at the entrance of the great hall he could hear that the most guests had already arrived, soft murmurs of the people gathered at the long tables and the sweet sounds of the music performed by the minstrels to entertain the guests, greeted his ear.
Squaring his shoulders and holding his head high Legolas entered and made his way down to the king's table in the centre of the hall.
Slowly passing the other guests he took his time to look for the foreign humans.
He found them at his fathers table; there were four of them, deep in conversation with each other.
They seemed not to notice their surroundings.
They looked not so much different to other humans he had met before.
Dark unruly hair went down to their shoulders; thick beards covered most of their faces. They seemed not to be very tall, but sturdy; if they would have been shorter they would have looked like dwarfs.
But they were obvious human.
One of the men looked up and his gaze met the prince.
The man's eyes went wide and by jumping on his feet he nudged the one companion who was sitting beside him.
Turning his head, the second also saw Legolas approaching. Jumping up like his comrade, they both managed to topple their chairs, which crashed down on the floor with a loud bang.
The two on the other side followed a split second later.
Silence felt over the room, when all talk and a little later the minstrels stopped.
The humans rushed towards him in a manner that could have been interpreted as an attack. Not few elves rose to their feet either, hand gripping the tilts of daggers, ready to defend their prince.
A few steps away from Legolas the humans stooped dead in track and all four of them dropped down on their knees bowing their heads so low that their foreheads touched the floor.
Legolas like the other elves stood frozen and speechless. None of them had ever in his whole life witnessed such submissiveness from humans. Murmurs rose from the gathered elves, whispers made their way through the whole hall. Nobody knew what they should think of the spectacle. Legolas cleared his throat and addressed the crouching humans.
'Would you please rise, there is no need for such behaviour.'
'You are the Golden One!' came the barely audible answer. 'That is all what we need'
Flabbergasted Legolas had no idea what he should do now.
Doing the only thing that was appropriate at the moment he knelt in front of the men.
Touching the first one lightly on the shoulder he tried to make a little joke to ease the tension.
'If you don't want to rise we have to eat our dinner on the floor.'
This was rewarded by four heads rising up from the floor.
'So if you don't mind I would prefer a seat at the table.' Legolas said smiling at them. The man nodded, waved his comrades to follow and rose to his feet.
'I'm sorry Golden One. We did not mean to insult you. This is the way of our people to greet higher beings.'
'There is no need to apologize, why don't we start anew without formalities. Please call me by my name, I'm Legolas.' A few second later he added 'would you be so kind and give me your name?'
'I'm sorry Gold....Lord Legolas... I forgot my manners. My name is Roac; the one on my right side is Kazm.' Waving to the men behind him Roac introduced them as Aibon and Giall.
Leading them back to the table Legolas glanced towards his father who greeted him with a smile and a barely visible nod. Legolas smiled back while he invited the humans to take their seats again.
He took his seat beside his father, bending towards Thranduil he whispered only audible for elven ears. 'Why did you not tell me how they would greet me? 'I wanted to see your face when they greet you. And I have to tell you, the sight was worth waiting.' Thranduil whispered back, hiding a wide grin behind his hand.
Legolas turned his attention back to the humans who had watched the exchange with wide eyes.
'Where do you come from, my father told me that you were very exhausted when you arrived in our lands.'
'We are from the Forodwaith beyond the Grey Mountains; we live in a little village near the ocean.' Roac answered, not able to meet Legolas eyes. Looking down on his plate he continued. 'We barely leave our confined realms. It is a hard and dangerous live up there in the north, you know. The constant cold, the wild hunters, like the great white bears who often wander down from the northern waste when winter arrives. We have only limited time in year to sow and harvest the crop. We are mostly hunters, we trade with other villages and sometimes we have dealings With dwarfs, should they come near our hunting camps.
We would not have come here, because we had to leave behind our families alone with the approaching winter, but our shaman called me one day and ordered me to leave to bring you the message. He said the time had come.'
'What message could your shaman have for me, he does not know me, and I do not know him either. I never had been up this far north.'
Kazm spoke up for the first time.
'We do not know either. We are only the messengers; we do not know what the shaman had seen in his visions.'
'A vision?' Thranduil rose one of his eyebrows.
'Yes, he told us that he had a vision concerning the Golden One and some other things we do not understand.'
'So, and what says this message?' Legolas curiosity got the best of him.
Roac cleared his throat, and looked in the faces of his fellows, the three of them glanced back and all of them gave their approval with a slight nod of their heads.
'Well your shaman said:
*Tell him...tell the Golden One: Gold and green, silver and black and the two that are one, you all have to save and protect the power of the air! The power is tainted and it will not withstand much longer than it already had.*'
TBC