Standard Disclaimer: I don't own them. I don't make money off of them.
Yadda yadda yadda, Yackity Smackity.
I promise that much more will be revealed in the next chapter, but I had to go into the loss of self here…
Jasta: Tag, You're it. (Knowing full well that you'll post some 20 page incredible Shakespearian quality epic that will just completely blow me away)
Elven eyes watched the fire. The dancing flames twisted and turned and played out a drama in front of Legolas. Now one side would rise up and burn more intensely, now the other. But neither gained an advantage, and all would eventually burn themselves out. It was a most uncanny and unsatisfying show, he decided.
He turned his attention back to the pitcher that he had placed on the hearth. With a furrowed brow he carefully poured the precious spices into the wine within and gently sloshed the vessel to mix them. Pulling the poker from the rack, he placed it into the heart of the fire to heat. It was with some surprise that he found that he was singing softly while he waited.
He shifted position, pulling knees up to his chest as he sat on the floor, and continued to sing. His toes peeked out from under the hem of his shift, and were bronzed in the firelight.
The door leading to the King's chamber quietly opened, and the creature emerged. It walked across the room, footsteps muffled by the thick carpets, until it stood next to the elf. Legolas sang quietly and looked up into the face of his captor. The expression was thoughtful, almost lost in remembrance. The grey eyes were half lidded, and the face painted in hues of orange and gold from the fire. The ends of the lips curled up into a slight smile.
"I remember this song." Aragorn finally spoke. "We used to sing this when I was a child."
Legolas nodded and continued to sing softly. Sometimes the smallest things would touch the soul of the man hidden within. After a moment, the King dragged a chair closer to the fire and lowered himself to sit, a deep sigh escaping his lips. His hand reached out almost of its own volition and gently fingered a lock of golden hair.
The elf let his voice falter, the song fade. He instead took the now hot poker, tapped it against the side of the fireplace to knock off the ashes, and plunged it into the pitcher. The aroma of heated wine and spices filled the air, and Aragorn breathed deeply of the scent. He accepted the goblet that Legolas had poured and passed up to him from his place on the floor, and smiled. "You are soothing to the soul, even though you do not wish to be, Legolas."
Saying nothing, Legolas instead moved the pitcher closer to the flames to keep the contents warm. He then returned the poker to the rack after momentarily considering, and then rejecting the thought that it would be exceptionally satisfying to beat the creature with it. In order to be considered harmless, one must actually seem to be harmless. Beating the creature senseless would hardly help him maintain that façade. Plus he had only been allowed the poker this week. It would be a shame to lose something that could be useful at some other time.
The king sat and drank his wine and played with the lock of hair between his fingers for several minutes. Finally he spoke. "Today I had to mediate between landowners. It appears that their families have been fighting over the same strip of land for the last three generations. I rode out there today myself to see it." He paused for another drink. "It was the most desolate piece of earth I had ever seen, this side of Mordor. And to think that people have been killing each other over that wasteland…."
"I will never understand humans." Legolas spoke quietly. "Our kind do not think to own the land as much as live with it. To think that you can own something that will go on and exist unchanged after you leave this world is unnatural." That barb was aimed at the hand that, even with all its gentleness, still proclaimed him as a possession of the king.
There was a slight chuckle from the king. He recognized the dig for what it was, and it amused him that there was still spirit in the elf. "I think I solved it for them today. I proclaimed that the eldest daughter of one family will marry the eldest son of the other, and the children that they have will inherit all the lands together."
"So you feel forcing a marriage will end this?" Legolas already knew the answer to this question, but still asked.
"There are siblings." The king drank again from his goblet. "There will be no problems now, however, because all know what will happen to the siblings if they should not resolve this."
Legolas shuddered as he realized what the king's solution involved for the siblings. He hoped their room in the dungeons was dry and clean. "I think you are a cruel man." The words fell from his lips before he could stop them.
Low laughter came from behind him. "I clearly remember you telling me before that I was kind and gentle, and that any maiden would be honored to have me as husband." He chuckled again. "Did you not say that, and more?"
"I lied." Legolas looked again at the poker. Maybe it would be worth that brief feeling of satisfaction after all. With a deep breath, he reached for the pitcher to refill the goblet that was lowered down to him. The activity kept him from having to say anything else.
There was an amused snort behind him, but nothing further as the king drank deeply of his wine. Valda had been correct in her theory that the mulled wine would please the man, and make him more talkative. What Legolas had gleaned from their conversations of late had been interesting, but of little substance.
After a few more minutes the empty goblet was handed back down, and the king lowered himself to the floor, legs stretched to surround the elf who sat there. Arms circled a narrow waist and pulled the small body close, in a confining embrace.
Legolas stiffened at the touch of the other body, as he did every night. It took all his will not to struggle free of the arms that had wrapped themselves so tightly around him.
The king nuzzled the pale neck, and then whispered quietly into a pointed ear, "So taut, so stiff, every muscle ready to fight or run. Can you not relax into my arms and enjoy what I offer you?"
"No, I cannot. That would require me to trust you, Aragorn. You see what happened to me the last time I dared trust you." The flat voice that the elf spoke in made the words even more painful to the man.
"And what would I have to do to earn back your trust, beautiful one?" the king asked, his whisper barely audible to elven ears.
"Free me." The flatness of the tone did little to obscure the sound of vain hope in the musical voice. "Let me leave this place as I was when I arrived."
"No, I cannot do that", the king replied. "You are too valuable to me and to my people now to just let walk away." He paused. "Surely there is something else."
Legolas closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and quietly answered. "Send away your mage. Send him from your court, and never allow him back."
"No." There was a sigh. "Try again. Ask for something that I can give you, this time."
"Then let me go outside and ride. I do not do well in buildings and cities, and need the touch and feel of green growing things around me. I will surely sicken and die if you do not let me do this. It has been so long since I've seen the sky."
There was a pause as Aragorn considered this. "I will not allow you near a horse. I know all too well how you are with animals. It would be too easy for you to convince one to bear you away." He was silent again for a moment. "But I can allow you the queen's gardens. They are small, but private. And secure. I can allow this to you, IF you behave."
Head bowed, Legolas watched the fire from beneath his eyelashes. Perhaps tonight would be a night to get concessions and guilt seemed to work well enough with the creature when he was in one of his more generous moods. "What have I been doing, if not behaving? I do not fight you anymore. I let you lay your hands upon me and do with me as you see fit."
"You let me do with you as I see fit because you know that you are not strong enough to fight me off. I give you no choices in that matter." The man paused. "But as you say, you have been most well mannered. This only causes me to wonder all the more about what mischief you're concocting behind those pretty eyes."
Legolas closed those same eyes and suppressed the urge to lunge for the poker. "Oh, yes. I'm certainly able to wreak havoc whilst locked up in two small rooms, and no way out. Fear me." The last was spoken with such sarcasm that the man snorted his amusement again.
"Davyn says that you will lose most of your rebelliousness when you are pregnant." The arms squeezed incrementally tighter around the waist. "I hope you do not. I like the challenge."
"And what else does Davyn say?" Aragorn did not catch the sudden stillness of the body he held, or the silky tone of the words.
"He says many things, many of which I must confess to not understanding." The man shook his head slowly, and then continued, "He speaks of the future, but in a strange way, almost as if it is his to arrange what will be."
::In his mind, I'm sure that is what he feels. He is making his future right now, building it on our bodies.:: thought Legolas to himself. He was unable to speak the words, and because of this, knew that it was true. He took a breath and decided to test the bonds on his tongue. "Where does he come from? I have never heard or seen of such as he."
Aragorn shifted slightly. "He does not like to tell of his life before he came to us. He says that it is too painful to speak of. I do know that he comes from the East, from the lands where Sauron's shadow had fallen, and that most of his people were killed in the war. He never speaks of a family."
::From the East…. There are many places and peoples to the East, beyond Mordor, that I have heard of only in legend, and many more, I am sure, that I have never heard of at all.:: "Did he tell you how he learned his…" The word "magic" died in his throat. "…craft?"
A hand had busied itself caressing a shoulder, making it bare from the covering of long hair and cloth. There was a pause, as if in thought. "He told Gilby once that his craft was one that only his people knew and that when he died it would be lost." The hand started its quest again, and the king continued. "I've been in his workshop. He has some of the most confusing and confounding things I've ever seen. Trinkets and toys, mostly, but also things of great power. His books are in some arcane language, and he has other things that he brought with him from his home. But enough of such things."
The hand reached beneath the cloth and rough calluses rubbed against sensitive skin. The creature leaned in and whispered quietly into a pointed ear. "I know that hate my touch. I can feel it in the way you stiffen and pull away from me."
Legolas stared into the fire, the dying flames receding into sullen coals. "Your touch is unnatural. I am not female, even if the body you have forced me into is. Everything that you do to me is foreign and aberrant, and I do not take pleasure in it."
"Perhaps if you accepted what you are now, things would go better for you." The voice was smooth in its cruelty. "But you will not, I know. It falls to me to show you your place."
The hand crept up to caress a pale throat and then to push the head back onto the man's broad shoulder. The elf hissed in pain at the proximity of the torc. He could still feel the chill of it even though the layers of Aragorn's clothing. The king smiled icily at this response and then he lowered his other hand to the juncture of the pale thighs. With a delicate touch he explored what he found there, and then whispered again. "I feel nothing of a man here."
With another twitch of his fingers he found a sensitive area that made Legolas try to squirm away with a wordless gasp. The king tightened his grip and continued his manipulation. "Enjoy what I give you, Legolas. Your body doesn't know that you hate my touch."
"No. This is not right." The elf gasped for air as the fingers delved deeper. The sensation was completely unlike anything he had ever felt before. Where before one could say the feeling would be restrained to just one area, this was more widespread, more powerful in its intensity. And therefore much more frightening. He writhed against the hands that held him, and then suddenly tensed up, fighting the wave of pleasurable tightness that took hold of his muscles and held him there, suspended for a long moment before releasing him.
He gasped for breath, and found Aragorn's hot mouth over his own, and then down onto his neck. "You see, you are a woman. Nothing more." The voice was even crueler for its gentle tone, as a hand pushed his now limp body to lie on the floor and a heavy body moved to roll on top of him.
::No. I must put a stop to this, and I must do it soon before I lose what I have left of my self:: Legolas' thoughts became more unclear as sensation reared up and took him again.
I promise that much more will be revealed in the next chapter, but I had to go into the loss of self here…
Jasta: Tag, You're it. (Knowing full well that you'll post some 20 page incredible Shakespearian quality epic that will just completely blow me away)
Elven eyes watched the fire. The dancing flames twisted and turned and played out a drama in front of Legolas. Now one side would rise up and burn more intensely, now the other. But neither gained an advantage, and all would eventually burn themselves out. It was a most uncanny and unsatisfying show, he decided.
He turned his attention back to the pitcher that he had placed on the hearth. With a furrowed brow he carefully poured the precious spices into the wine within and gently sloshed the vessel to mix them. Pulling the poker from the rack, he placed it into the heart of the fire to heat. It was with some surprise that he found that he was singing softly while he waited.
He shifted position, pulling knees up to his chest as he sat on the floor, and continued to sing. His toes peeked out from under the hem of his shift, and were bronzed in the firelight.
The door leading to the King's chamber quietly opened, and the creature emerged. It walked across the room, footsteps muffled by the thick carpets, until it stood next to the elf. Legolas sang quietly and looked up into the face of his captor. The expression was thoughtful, almost lost in remembrance. The grey eyes were half lidded, and the face painted in hues of orange and gold from the fire. The ends of the lips curled up into a slight smile.
"I remember this song." Aragorn finally spoke. "We used to sing this when I was a child."
Legolas nodded and continued to sing softly. Sometimes the smallest things would touch the soul of the man hidden within. After a moment, the King dragged a chair closer to the fire and lowered himself to sit, a deep sigh escaping his lips. His hand reached out almost of its own volition and gently fingered a lock of golden hair.
The elf let his voice falter, the song fade. He instead took the now hot poker, tapped it against the side of the fireplace to knock off the ashes, and plunged it into the pitcher. The aroma of heated wine and spices filled the air, and Aragorn breathed deeply of the scent. He accepted the goblet that Legolas had poured and passed up to him from his place on the floor, and smiled. "You are soothing to the soul, even though you do not wish to be, Legolas."
Saying nothing, Legolas instead moved the pitcher closer to the flames to keep the contents warm. He then returned the poker to the rack after momentarily considering, and then rejecting the thought that it would be exceptionally satisfying to beat the creature with it. In order to be considered harmless, one must actually seem to be harmless. Beating the creature senseless would hardly help him maintain that façade. Plus he had only been allowed the poker this week. It would be a shame to lose something that could be useful at some other time.
The king sat and drank his wine and played with the lock of hair between his fingers for several minutes. Finally he spoke. "Today I had to mediate between landowners. It appears that their families have been fighting over the same strip of land for the last three generations. I rode out there today myself to see it." He paused for another drink. "It was the most desolate piece of earth I had ever seen, this side of Mordor. And to think that people have been killing each other over that wasteland…."
"I will never understand humans." Legolas spoke quietly. "Our kind do not think to own the land as much as live with it. To think that you can own something that will go on and exist unchanged after you leave this world is unnatural." That barb was aimed at the hand that, even with all its gentleness, still proclaimed him as a possession of the king.
There was a slight chuckle from the king. He recognized the dig for what it was, and it amused him that there was still spirit in the elf. "I think I solved it for them today. I proclaimed that the eldest daughter of one family will marry the eldest son of the other, and the children that they have will inherit all the lands together."
"So you feel forcing a marriage will end this?" Legolas already knew the answer to this question, but still asked.
"There are siblings." The king drank again from his goblet. "There will be no problems now, however, because all know what will happen to the siblings if they should not resolve this."
Legolas shuddered as he realized what the king's solution involved for the siblings. He hoped their room in the dungeons was dry and clean. "I think you are a cruel man." The words fell from his lips before he could stop them.
Low laughter came from behind him. "I clearly remember you telling me before that I was kind and gentle, and that any maiden would be honored to have me as husband." He chuckled again. "Did you not say that, and more?"
"I lied." Legolas looked again at the poker. Maybe it would be worth that brief feeling of satisfaction after all. With a deep breath, he reached for the pitcher to refill the goblet that was lowered down to him. The activity kept him from having to say anything else.
There was an amused snort behind him, but nothing further as the king drank deeply of his wine. Valda had been correct in her theory that the mulled wine would please the man, and make him more talkative. What Legolas had gleaned from their conversations of late had been interesting, but of little substance.
After a few more minutes the empty goblet was handed back down, and the king lowered himself to the floor, legs stretched to surround the elf who sat there. Arms circled a narrow waist and pulled the small body close, in a confining embrace.
Legolas stiffened at the touch of the other body, as he did every night. It took all his will not to struggle free of the arms that had wrapped themselves so tightly around him.
The king nuzzled the pale neck, and then whispered quietly into a pointed ear, "So taut, so stiff, every muscle ready to fight or run. Can you not relax into my arms and enjoy what I offer you?"
"No, I cannot. That would require me to trust you, Aragorn. You see what happened to me the last time I dared trust you." The flat voice that the elf spoke in made the words even more painful to the man.
"And what would I have to do to earn back your trust, beautiful one?" the king asked, his whisper barely audible to elven ears.
"Free me." The flatness of the tone did little to obscure the sound of vain hope in the musical voice. "Let me leave this place as I was when I arrived."
"No, I cannot do that", the king replied. "You are too valuable to me and to my people now to just let walk away." He paused. "Surely there is something else."
Legolas closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and quietly answered. "Send away your mage. Send him from your court, and never allow him back."
"No." There was a sigh. "Try again. Ask for something that I can give you, this time."
"Then let me go outside and ride. I do not do well in buildings and cities, and need the touch and feel of green growing things around me. I will surely sicken and die if you do not let me do this. It has been so long since I've seen the sky."
There was a pause as Aragorn considered this. "I will not allow you near a horse. I know all too well how you are with animals. It would be too easy for you to convince one to bear you away." He was silent again for a moment. "But I can allow you the queen's gardens. They are small, but private. And secure. I can allow this to you, IF you behave."
Head bowed, Legolas watched the fire from beneath his eyelashes. Perhaps tonight would be a night to get concessions and guilt seemed to work well enough with the creature when he was in one of his more generous moods. "What have I been doing, if not behaving? I do not fight you anymore. I let you lay your hands upon me and do with me as you see fit."
"You let me do with you as I see fit because you know that you are not strong enough to fight me off. I give you no choices in that matter." The man paused. "But as you say, you have been most well mannered. This only causes me to wonder all the more about what mischief you're concocting behind those pretty eyes."
Legolas closed those same eyes and suppressed the urge to lunge for the poker. "Oh, yes. I'm certainly able to wreak havoc whilst locked up in two small rooms, and no way out. Fear me." The last was spoken with such sarcasm that the man snorted his amusement again.
"Davyn says that you will lose most of your rebelliousness when you are pregnant." The arms squeezed incrementally tighter around the waist. "I hope you do not. I like the challenge."
"And what else does Davyn say?" Aragorn did not catch the sudden stillness of the body he held, or the silky tone of the words.
"He says many things, many of which I must confess to not understanding." The man shook his head slowly, and then continued, "He speaks of the future, but in a strange way, almost as if it is his to arrange what will be."
::In his mind, I'm sure that is what he feels. He is making his future right now, building it on our bodies.:: thought Legolas to himself. He was unable to speak the words, and because of this, knew that it was true. He took a breath and decided to test the bonds on his tongue. "Where does he come from? I have never heard or seen of such as he."
Aragorn shifted slightly. "He does not like to tell of his life before he came to us. He says that it is too painful to speak of. I do know that he comes from the East, from the lands where Sauron's shadow had fallen, and that most of his people were killed in the war. He never speaks of a family."
::From the East…. There are many places and peoples to the East, beyond Mordor, that I have heard of only in legend, and many more, I am sure, that I have never heard of at all.:: "Did he tell you how he learned his…" The word "magic" died in his throat. "…craft?"
A hand had busied itself caressing a shoulder, making it bare from the covering of long hair and cloth. There was a pause, as if in thought. "He told Gilby once that his craft was one that only his people knew and that when he died it would be lost." The hand started its quest again, and the king continued. "I've been in his workshop. He has some of the most confusing and confounding things I've ever seen. Trinkets and toys, mostly, but also things of great power. His books are in some arcane language, and he has other things that he brought with him from his home. But enough of such things."
The hand reached beneath the cloth and rough calluses rubbed against sensitive skin. The creature leaned in and whispered quietly into a pointed ear. "I know that hate my touch. I can feel it in the way you stiffen and pull away from me."
Legolas stared into the fire, the dying flames receding into sullen coals. "Your touch is unnatural. I am not female, even if the body you have forced me into is. Everything that you do to me is foreign and aberrant, and I do not take pleasure in it."
"Perhaps if you accepted what you are now, things would go better for you." The voice was smooth in its cruelty. "But you will not, I know. It falls to me to show you your place."
The hand crept up to caress a pale throat and then to push the head back onto the man's broad shoulder. The elf hissed in pain at the proximity of the torc. He could still feel the chill of it even though the layers of Aragorn's clothing. The king smiled icily at this response and then he lowered his other hand to the juncture of the pale thighs. With a delicate touch he explored what he found there, and then whispered again. "I feel nothing of a man here."
With another twitch of his fingers he found a sensitive area that made Legolas try to squirm away with a wordless gasp. The king tightened his grip and continued his manipulation. "Enjoy what I give you, Legolas. Your body doesn't know that you hate my touch."
"No. This is not right." The elf gasped for air as the fingers delved deeper. The sensation was completely unlike anything he had ever felt before. Where before one could say the feeling would be restrained to just one area, this was more widespread, more powerful in its intensity. And therefore much more frightening. He writhed against the hands that held him, and then suddenly tensed up, fighting the wave of pleasurable tightness that took hold of his muscles and held him there, suspended for a long moment before releasing him.
He gasped for breath, and found Aragorn's hot mouth over his own, and then down onto his neck. "You see, you are a woman. Nothing more." The voice was even crueler for its gentle tone, as a hand pushed his now limp body to lie on the floor and a heavy body moved to roll on top of him.
::No. I must put a stop to this, and I must do it soon before I lose what I have left of my self:: Legolas' thoughts became more unclear as sensation reared up and took him again.