I apologize profusely for how long it took me to put up this…the real first chapter of this fic. A note to all fanfic authors, never have two fanfics going and start a third right at the beginning of a new semester in college.
Disclaimer: None of it is mine cept the concept. Oh, and if you didn't read the other blurb, I've never read the LOTR books, so I'm going on movie-verse and changing things as I see fit. This is AU. enjoy!!
people's thoughts are going to be contained in these 'fun symbols…yeah…'
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Legolas reached up and pulled himself up to a higher branch in the ancient tree. From here he could see over most of the treetops. He could feel how ancient the branch beneath him was, and for the first time in a while let the peace of nature calm him.
Ever since Sauron had been defeated and Mordor destroyed, things had changed both for better and worse. The world was saved and evil destroyed and disbanded. But the time he had spent as a member of the fellowship left him changed as well.
The harsh cry of a warg came along the breeze to the elf. Curious, and a bit worried at how close the sound was to the walls of Minas Tirith, Legolas dropped to the ground and began to follow the sounds of the struggle.
It had seemed like such a simple plan. Sauron was defeated. Aragorn would marry Arwen and they would rule Gondor. Eomer would rule over Rohan with his sister. The hobbits would return to their home. And he, the elf, would leave on a boat for the undying lands.
But he couldn't do it. He watched all the other elves, his kin, his friends, all of them took the boats and left this land. But he stayed. In secret he had hid in the forests of his homeland and made his way to Gondor. No one, save his father, knew he was here, and he intended to keep it that way.
More snarling and a ferocious hiss came from nearby, and Legolas used all his stealth and speed to reach where the sounds were coming from. He backed up against a tree, watching the shadows of the creatures nearby as they were elongated by the setting sun. Pulling out his bow he cocked the arrows in it.
As he looked up, preparing to attack whatever amount of creatures were on the other side of the tree from him, he saw the lights glinting off of the white city. Shaking his head he tried to ignore the desire to go to the city. He tried to convince himself of all the many reasons he was staying in the forests outside of Minas Tirith, and refused to accept the actual reason, although he knew what it was.
Turning around the tree, all of his senses were stunned and he stood for a moment surprised by what he saw. Which, considering he was an elf, took quite a bit to accomplish.
Four wargs were running around the trees and darting into the clear areas between them, snapping their slobbery jaws together. In the center of the pack was a creature that looked like a dragon, but much smaller. Its snout was rounded at the end, and devoid of horns. It stood on its back legs like a bird, balancing with its leathery wings. It wore no armor, and its blue-green scales were torn in places by fresh wounds.
Legolas immediately noticed that the fell beast's left wing was torn badly, and looked like one of the warg's must have grabbed onto it and snapped one of the thin bones.
With his arrow cocked and leveled at his eye, the elf found himself debating whom he should shoot. The fell beast had noticed him as soon as he stepped out from the tree, and now the wargs had caught on as well. The largest of the four, and obviously the alpha of his small pack, began advancing towards him, his hackles raised and shaking along his spine.
The arrow flew from Legolas' bow so fast that the warg didn't have a chance to blink before it was buried to the feathers in his skull. His body slumped to the ground, and the other wargs paused before retreating slowly into the forest, snarling at the elf who had dared kill their leader with so little effort.
With one problem taken care of, Legolas turned to the injured fell beast.
As quickly as if the creature was attacking him, and not simply standing there, Legolas drew his bow and aimed for the wide brow between the beast's eyes.
But the fell beast just watched him. It could fly away with its wing so badly injured, and on foot it could never escape fast enough. It just watched Legolas with mild interest, before turning to look at its wounds.
Watching the creature tentatively lick at the cuts along the crushed part of its wing, he found that he couldn't shoot it. Even if this fell beast had fought against him, that was because its owner had commanded that.
'Right?'
Stepping over the corpse of the warg, Legolas felt a twinge of guilt. He had killed these animals, both species, so readily when they were at war.
'I suppose in war all creatures are free game. How many of our horses were killed simply because they had the unfortunate destiny of being owned by warriors?'
At his movement, the beast snapped its head up and watched him with its small black eyes. Opening its mouth, Legolas got a good view of all its yellowed, jagged teeth as it hissed at him. It was warning him away, even though it couldn't do much to back up its claim.
"Don't worry. I'm not going to hurt you," he said quietly, in a tone he had always used when around skittish horses. It seemed to have the same effect on skittish fell beasts, as this one stopped hissing and continued to watch him, as if it were trying to figure him out.
"I have to say, I'm amazed to see one of you kind alive. I thought you all died when we defeated Sauron."
The fell beast was calm and uninterested in him again, turning back to cleaning its wounds. As Legolas came closer, he smelled the beast, a choking smell of sulfur and rotting flesh. He couldn't be sure how much came from the wounds and how much was just natural for the creature.
When he was within a few feet of its head, the fell beast snapped to look at him, the fleshy spines along its back rising in fear.
"I already told you, I'm here to help you. Otherwise I would have just shot you," Legolas said with a bit of a smirk. If he didn't know better, he would have sworn that the creature was taken back by his expression. Whether that was true or not, it lowered its spines and reached its serpentine neck out, moving painstakingly forward.
Legolas stood still with his hands outstretched, showing that he had no weapons. The beast sniffed his hands, and seemed convinced that he wasn't a threat. At least for now.
Feeling a bit more daring, Legolas reached out one hand, trying to pat the creature on its cheek, as he would a horse. Instead the creature snarled and raised its lips, moving its head just far enough out of reach of the elf.
"Fine. Be that way. I should just leave you here for more wargs to find," as he said this, he cast his eyes to the warg body. "It won't take them long with the smell of a fresh corpse and all your wounds."
As he contemplated what to do with the warg body, he felt something nudge the back of his head. He turned slowly, not wanting to cause the creature to lose its nerve, and saw that the beast was once again looking at him curiously. He merely looked back, evenly with his clear blue eyes.
The beast nudged his chest and he took a step back from the force.
"Alright then. I suppose that's as close to a handshake as I'm going to get, huh?"
Feeling confident now, Legolas walked over to the left wing of the fell beast. It watched him with hawk eyes the whole time, but permitted him to approach its wound. The elf couldn't help but flinch at the crushed bone, and the shards that had cut their way out of the tough reptile skin. Most of the other wounds from the wargs were deep gashes, and small cuts. Nothing he couldn't deal with.
"I must say, I've never had to bandage a wing before. What I wouldn't give for Aragorn's hands…"
Suddenly realizing what that sentence sounded like, after saying it, Legolas sighed to himself. No matter what his thoughts returned to the king. A king who already had an elf for a wife. Not some human that Legolas could easily overshadow with his kind's charms.
Focusing back on the task at hand, he gently ran his hands along the creature's smooth skin. He had expected it to feel a bit more slimy, but instead found it soft as silk. His sharp eyes caught the twitch of pain in the creature's muscles.
"Sorry. Like I said, I've not been raised as a healer. I can only keep myself and my horse healthy, and sometimes I can barely do that."
Legolas didn't even think about the oddity of having a conversation with the fell beast until he looked up at it. It almost seemed to understand him. It reminded him much of Brego. He never understood how it was that Aragorn could understand his horse so much, when no one else could. As if they spoke each other's language. Even as an elf he never had such a rapport with his occasional steed.
His concentration was broken when he felt some sort of dark power nearby. He leapt up and cocked an arrow. Immediately all his senses were at their max, scanning the nearby woods for the flash of dark energy he had felt. But now it was gone, and nothing seemed to be here except himself and the beast.
'What could have caused that? I haven't felt something as dark as that in a while…'
Again he felt a gently nudge at the back of his head.
"I know I know, I'm being parano-"
Turning around, Legolas found himself looking into fiery red eyes set into a velvety muzzle. The dark horse looked at him closely before sniffing at his clothes, gently nibbling at his cloak.
"That was you…" Legolas could barely understand what was going on. But as he looked, he could see that the horse's front left leg was broken, and he stood with it off the ground.
"Interesting trick you have there," he gently reached up and patted the horse on the cheek, this time being permitted to. Then the fell beast pushed against his arm and snorted again, limping back as if impatient.
"Right then. I think I can help you with that leg of yours. At least better than a wing."
Sitting down on the leaves, Legolas grabbed some moss from nearby that he knew would keep away infection and began to wrap it up on the horses leg, using large leaves that had fallen from the old tree. Once he was convinced that the bone was set back to where it was, and wouldn't be infected, he tore a piece of cloth from his cloak and tied the leaves and moss in place.
"There you go. Should be good as new soon enough friend."
He patted the beast on its head before turning to leave. He heard the dry leaves behind him being crunched and turned back to see the horse following him.
"And what do you think you're doing?" he crossed his arms and looked at the horse, half expecting the strange creature to answer him. But instead it limped forward, careful about how much weight it put on its front leg, and nudged him in the chest with its black muzzle.
"Alright, I suppose that's a good enough answer. Well I suppose there's no harm in letting you come with me. It'd be a waste of my cloak to have you eaten by wargs anyway."
Deciding that it might be a good plan to leave the corpse behind, before it started attracting other scavengers, Legolas began to walk through the woods, slow enough that the fell beast could follow him.
'If a Nazgul could tame one, I suppose it can't be too hard. And some one to talk to other than the trees will be nice. Not that he seems any better at holding a conversation…'
Legolas smiled and pet the soft neck of the beast as they walked deeper into the forest, hidden in the shadows as night chased at their heels.
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There ya go! The actual first chapter of this fic. I should have called the other one a prologue. Ah well. And hopefully you all know what the title means now. So yeah, little bit of the shonen-ai hinting in there. And I have no idea whether or not the horses and fell beasts are the same creature, cause those horsese the nazgul ride sure aren't normal. I saw on a site that someone said they're different, but I coulda sworn a friend of mine who read the books said that fell beasts can turn into the dark horses so that the ring wraiths can travel less suspiciously. Ah well. I already said the fic is AU so I'm good.